[FRIAM] Unrecognized Thinkers

[thompnickson2 at gmail.com]

Ahem.  Speaking as the “Dean” (oldest surviving member) of this distinguished mostly geriatric community, I think respect goes both ways, or it goes nowhere.  So, those of us who seek to command respect must be prepared to give it, particularly to such memes as OK Boomer, which I think expresses quite aptly an impatience with anybody who asserts old knowledge just because it is old.  I, of course, am Pre-boomer, a Silent.  If a meme were started, “Be silent, Silent!” I would resist it (obviously) but I sure as hell would respect it, and try to mine it for its implicit content.  

 

I quite like my status as Dean, by the way.  When FRIAM is given a collective Nobel, I expect to lead you all into the celebratory dinner, bearing our staff in my crooked hand, shuffling along in my bedroom slippers, my shirt untucked from my honorific belt,  muttering over and over again, “Metaphor all the way down, you fuckers!”

 

By the way, Jon, it’s funny to see you take so stridently a “youthist” position, you, who have perhaps more than any other, sought to support and harvest value from the fading eminences grises amongst us.  Still.  Point taken. 

 

Oh, and, Glen: thanks for collecting the products of the firehose into puddles.  Otherwise I would surely have drowned. 

 

Nick 

 

Nick Thompson

ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> 

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Jon Zingale
Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2021 2:23 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Unrecognized Thinkers

 

"Memes can spread as if they are amplified, for instance the stupid 'Let's Go, Brandon' meme or the dull 'OK Boomer' reply."

 

Well, it certainly is your thread to bend. My feeling is that corrosion and destruction can often arise as part of a creative process. Age demographics in politics in the United States, to my view, are pretty off balance. My personal plan is to help cultivate a different one. Nothing against old people, of course, but in the next elections I plan to rank choice not by party but simply by age.

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