Calculus has delusions. Of course he doesn’t recognise them as such. The delusions are hardly going to announce their bogus nature: ‘Hey, we are delusions of grandeur. Pay us no heed.’ That isn’t how delusions work.
Over the years the ‘department’ in his mind containing delusions has been filling up. There isn’t much space left, even for minor ones. That is mostly due to one delusion in particular, a delusion of grandeur:
Calculus, in writing his own political tract, believes he will have a Marxian impact on systems of society.
This definitely meets the definition of a delusion of grandeur! And it comes with a working title: A Theory of Relevance.
Auld Archie, who never misses an opportunity to portray himself as a jocular jock, refers to it as A Theory of Irrelevance. Calculus will then laugh. He never takes offence, saying ‘such a title might be as relevant.’
Is he teasing or replying in all seriousness? Impossible to tell. When the mood takes him, Calculus can be as perversely cryptic as a Zen master.
His great work of political philosophy is being written in a school exercise book, vintage 1990s. Such opulence! The rest of us making do with toilet tissue. But i suppose the thoughts of Calculus merit enmeshment in a superior scribing material.
To date i have only read the introduction to A Theory of Relevance, something about unhappiness resulting from custom enforced acts of irrelevance:
– We distance ourselves, deliberately or unintentionally, from what is relevant. This may be self-evident in terms of the physical; the separation from shelter, heat and food. In the mental realm, however, we are more easily deceived by faux relevance; tricked into separation from familial love, solid friendships, and intellectual curiosity. To be distanced from such relevancies is a badness which eats into mankind’s very soul….
… i was not given the chance to read more because its irate author whisked the exercise book out of my hands. i got the feeling i should quickly leave the yurt, so i did.
Later, Calculus was more forthcoming, saying his aim is to compose 42 staggeringly well-turned phrases. Apparently that is all it will take to alter the world (for the better).
– With the right phraseology, the effects will be devastating. The words must be short. Efficiency in language matters. For it is to be the mother of all speech acts!
Calculus spoke of a sketch by Monty Python’s Flying Circus, which features a joke so funny that anyone who reads or hears it promptly dies from laughter.
– My ambition and writing is based on such a premise, using # ‘viral sentences’ to spread peace and love.
In stroking his Solzhenitsyn beard he talked of the battle to occupy idea-space; of an idea’s spreading power; its level of infectivity.
# self-replicating structures.