Bluster

W. is ranking philosophers. The problem with X and Y, he says, is all the bluster. They don’t actually say anything. It’s just bluster. And they pretend to be experts on things they know nothing about and that they can speak all these languages they can’t speak.  Then he says, But they still write better books than us. If our books didn’t exist it would actually add something to the world.

I tell him about the new piece I’m writing. It’s confidently written, I tell him, but I had to scrap it. I didn’t know why until W. used the word bluster. That is the word, I tell him, it was too blustery. I put it down to reading too many blustery books. All this taking of positions, I said, it’s all very well, but there’s no sign any of them have really read the philosophers they talk about. I don’t mind that, I said, so long as they say something themselves.

We are planning our Dogma papers. They have to be full of pathos, says W., that’s rule 12 of Dogma. He’s sent me the first part of his paper. It is full of pathos. I’m good at that, pathos, I tell him. Lefebvre’s so boring I tell him. I’m just going to make up stuff on the everyday, I said. That’s what I’m going to write on. Reading and the everyday.