50 First Lines – #28

The monkey had run out of power before finishing the book again.

50 First Lines by Jason Ramboz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

50 First Lines – #27

Though he would never know it, Samip was the most dangerous man ever to live.

50 First Lines by Jason Ramboz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

On Hipster Irony, -isms, and Sea Monsters

In her review of Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters, Jaymee Goh made a wonderful, precise summary of a trend that has been bothering me very much lately:

“Modern humour apparently requires some jaded, cynical worldview in which we are to say something we know is an -ism in order to show how in touch we are with the bad, horrible world. But you know what? Knowing something is racist, and saying it while knowing it’s racist doesn’t make it any less racist. Or sexist. Or ableist. It’s still an -ism, no matter how you wrap it.”

Context is an amazing tool, to be sure. It can entirely change the meaning of a word, a phrase, an entire text. But context is a funny thing: it can be easily missed, and it can be changed. And I think the ironic hipster “oh-I’m-being-offensive-but-not-really-because-I-know-I-am-and-see-how-enlightened-I’m-being-by-acknowledging-it?” is on the verge of falling afoul of both.

50 First Lines – #26

The train is full of the dead again this morning, dead eyes staring staring staring at my living flesh.

50 First Lines by Jason Ramboz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

50 First Lines – #25

“Glorp,” stated the dishwasher decisively, “glorp, glipple, glorp.”

50 First Lines by Jason Ramboz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

50 First Lines – #24

People often ask me what my biggest fear is, and I lie and tell them it’s running out of bananas before the end.

50 First Lines by Jason Ramboz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

50 First Lines – #23

On my twenty-third birthday, a dark-haired stranger walked up to me, handed me a crysanthemum, and said that if we were lucky, we’d never see each other again.

50 First Lines by Jason Ramboz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

50 First Lines – #22

I can’t look at the stars anymore.

50 First Lines by Jason Ramboz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

On the Virology of Thought

[This post started as a comment on Mur Lafferty's post for Banned Books Week. As it grew, I realized it was probably too long for a single blog comment, and probably deserved a home of its own. I look forward to hearing your thoughts!]

Ideas are dangerous. In a way, most of the last 2,500 years (and especially the last 500 or so) has been nothing but a war of one idea against, or occasionally alongside of, another. Whether that idea is a religion, a scientific principle, an economic theory, a philosphy, a system of government, or something else entirely, people in recorded history have done more harm and good in the service of ideas than for any other reason. It’s little wonder, then, that so many people feel that society needs to be protected from these dangerous, intriguing ideas.

And the best way to remove a danger is to eliminate the threat, right? So if we ban all these strange radical ideas, then they’ll go away and not bother anyone ever again, right? Right?

Well, no.

Ideas are dangerous. In a way, most of the last 2,500 years (and especially the last 500 or so) has been nothing but a war of one idea against, or occasionally alongside of, another. Whether that idea is a religion, a scientific principle, an economic theory, a philosphy, a system of government, or something else entirely, people in recorded history have done more harm and good in the service of ideas than for any other reason. It’s little wonder, then, that so many people feel that society needs to be protected from these dangerous, intriguing ideas.

And the best way to remove a danger is to eliminate the threat, right? So if we ban all these strange radical ideas, then they’ll go away and not bother anyone ever again, right? Right?

Well, no. Those who think this way profoundly misunderstand the nature of ideas. Ideas, as anyone who has spent much time on the Internet will tell you, are viral.

50 First Lines – #21

Before we go any further, you need to understand that everything I’m about to tell you is true and real, especially the parts that never happened.

50 First Lines by Jason Ramboz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.