Cane the Wogs AGAIN!
Kicking Michael Totten while he’s down (your lips can’t reach Christopher Hitchens’ ass when you’re up), Josh Buermann and Kieran Healy have a go. Buermann picks up Totten’s remark that “we differ from the colonialists and imperialists of the past” and suggests that that “is why they put that ‘neo’ in front of it:”
Meanwhile Kieran Healy sets me wondering when he writes
Read the whole thing if you like. It’s full of small moments of whatever the opposite of an epiphany is.
In itself it’s delicious phrasing. But hey, what is the opposite of an epiphany? We’re looking at Definition 3 in the American Heritage: “3a. A sudden manifestation of the essence or meaning of something. b. A comprehension or perception of reality by means of a sudden intuitive realization[.]” Roget is unhelpful.
How opposite is opposite? Is it a sudden failure of comprehension; a sustained opacity in the face of opportunities for clarity; or, most grandly, an instance of thrilling, comprehensive and utter misprision, a misunderstanding that feels like understanding, like when your hands are so cold they seem to burn when you clap them? Crooked Timber commenter pm offers
de-piphany. n
1. The ironically revelatory disappearance of a divine being.
2. A sudden manifestation of the wrong idea about the essence or meaning of something.
3. Incomprehension or misperception of reality by means of what seems to be a sudden intuitive realization.
I like it. Depiphany. Use it three times and it’s yours. Maybe it is, anyway. I looked for a Creative Commons identifier on Crooked Timber and didn’t see one. You might owe dm money.
