Caveman challenges Fidel Castro for longest speech world record!

Some thoughts on Caveman.

There's really two things going on there. First, there's a history of major philosophical concepts, and second, an attempt to explain the major aspects of postmodern critical analysis. The second may or may not naturally flow from the first, but if you don't know the first, the second is pretty hard to follow. It's pretty hard to follow if you DO know the first.

Added to that, throughout, is an attempt to relate contemporary thought (at varying moments) to what is happening in the world (primarily the arts). Everything is connected, in other words, or maybe it's better to say, seeing things that are connected is helpful in understanding those things: philosophy in a vacuum is pretty dull. The breakdown of the art world in the 19th century is a good example of what I'm talking about. Mainstream French art was thought to be this one main thing, and a bunch of impressionists artists came along trying to do something else. The mainstream refused to allow the upstarts into their galleries. The upstarts started their own galleries. While this was going on, communism was invented, Tschaikovsky wrote the Pathetique, Italy unified, Freud was working on Interpretation of Dreams, etc., etc., etc. Individualism was on a roll and about to mutate into relativism. Impressionism, a last big gasp before abstraction, was just one piece of the cultural puzzle.

Getting all this across takes a lot of energy on the part of the presenter and of the listener. Caveman, in its initial presentation, was too long because it tried to do everything at once. Yet at the same time, it avoided some areas completely, especially an exploration of existentialism. I also think more art examples would be useful, and better ones can be found. The explanation of critical theory has a ways to go. And some of the earliest caveman stuff can be trimmed down.

I see the next version as a three-parter. 1 -- Broad history of philosophy and ethics from Plato to Existentialism, 2 -- History of narrative from Caveman to Semiotician, and 3 -- Modernism/Postmodernism. What I'll do first is post my notes on Pomo in the next day or two (they're home and I'm not and there is Districts going on) just so people can read the toughest part. We'll have at least one seminar at a chez. Then I'll start writing for the Hillary Duff, which should help focus things in my brain.

My guess is that by 2014, I'll have this thing knocked. Probably around April of that year, if the weather holds.