latest advances in russian spirituality

[larvatus]

Во всех мировых религиях Бог создавал мир из какой-то первоматерии, “гиле”. И только в иудаизме Бог создал мир из ничего.     Отсюда и еврейское отношение к производительному труду. Отсюда и еврейская страсть к спекуляции, финансовым операциям и гуманитарным дисциплинам.     Еврей подобен своему Богу: он делает деньги из ничего, в отличие от остальных народов, которые «в поте лица своего» делают деньги из чего-то. “Золото за медь”, “золото за пшеницу”.     Доблесть же еврея — наебать, надуть, продать и перепродать полную хуйню — за полновесное золото.     ― Константин Крылов (krylov), Zoroastrian philosopher of Russian descent and convictions @ 2007-06-24 19:10:00

In all world religions, God created the world out of a primal matter, “hyle”. And only in Judaism God created the world out of nothing.     Hence the Jewish attitude towards productive work. Hence the Jewish passion for profit, financial transactions and the humanities.     Each Jew is like his God: he makes money out of nothing, as opposed to other people who “by the sweat of their brow” make money out of something. “Gold for copper”, “gold for wheat”.     And the valor of the Jew is to fuck over, to swindle, to sell and resell pure bullshit — for pure gold.     ― translated by MZ

Crossposted to larvatus and philosophy.

Comments

[secrethistoryx.livejournal.com]

Also, did you happen to read this fascinating piece about the Jewish Book Fairs in yesterday's NYT Books section? If not, here it is:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/books/review/Donadio-t.html?_r=1&ref=books&oref=slogin

how america “gets” jews

[larvatus.livejournal.com]

Kvetch Que C’est?
The Origins of Yiddish
I
A man boards a Chicago-bound train in Grand Central Station and sits down across from an old man reading a Yiddish newspaper. Half an hour after the train has left the station, the old man puts down his paper and starts to whine like a frightened child. “Oy, am I thirsty. . . . Oy, am I thirsty. . . . Oy, am I thirsty. . . .”
    The other man is at the end of his rope inside of five minutes. He makes his way to the water cooler at the far end of the car, fills a cup with water, and starts walking back to his seat. He pauses after a few steps, goes back to the cooler, fills a second cup with water and walks gingerly down the aisle, trying to keep the cups from spilling. He stops in front the old man and clears his throat. The old man looks up in midoy, his eyes beam with gratitude as he drains the first cup in a single gulp. Before he can say or do anything else, the man hands him the second cup, then sits back down and closes his eyes, hoping to catch a bit of a nap. As he sits back, the old man allows himself a sigh of thanks. He leans into his own seat, tilts his forehead toward the ceiling, and says, just as loudly as before, “Oy,was I thirsty. . . .”
II
If you can understand this joke, you’ll have no trouble learning Yiddish. It contains virtually every important element of the Yiddish-speaking mind-set in easily accessible form: the constant tension between the Jewish and the non-Jewish; the faux naivete that allows the old man to pretend that he isn’t disturbing anyone; the deflation of the other passenger’s hopes, the disappointment of all his expectations after he has watered the Jew; and most importantly of all, the underlying assumption, the fundamental idea that kvetching—complaining—is not only a pastime, not only a response to adverse or imperfect circumstance, but a way of life that has nothing to do with the fulfillment or frustration of desire. Kvetching can be applied indifferently to hunger or satiety, satisfaction or disappointment: it is a way of knowing, a means of apprehension that sees the world through cataract-colored glasses.
    The old man’s initial kvetches are a means to an end. He’s thirsty, he’s lazy, he figures that if he yells loudly enough he’s going to get what he wants. But these first few oys are only the setup; the quintessentially Yiddish aspect—what Yiddish would call dos pintele yidish, the essence of Yiddish—appears only in the joke’s last line. The old man knows what’s happening; he knows that he could have died of thirst for all that his seatmate cared, as long as he did so quietly. He knows that the water is a sign of contempt, not a gesture of mercy, and he also knows that in a world where indifference is the best that can be expected, the principle of aftselakhis (very literally, “in order to provoke anger”), the impulse to do things only because someone else doesn’t want you to, is sometimes essential to the world’s moral balance. And the old man understands how aftselakhis works: alone in the history of the world, Yiddish-speaking Jews long ago broke the satisfaction barrier and figured out how to express contentment by means of complaint: kvetching becomes a way of exercising some small measure of control over an otherwise hostile environment. If the Stones’s “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” had been written in Yiddish, it would have been called “(I Love to Keep Telling You that I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction (Because Telling You that I’m Not Satisfied Is All that Can Satisfy Me).”

—Michael Wex, Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods, HarperCollins, 2006, pp. 1-3

Re: how america “gets” jews

[secrethistoryx.livejournal.com]

Hilarious. A friend of mine knows the author. I've been thinking I need to buy the book, so thanks for reminding me that it's actually funny AND true.

how america “gets” italians

[larvatus.livejournal.com]

Full disclosure: I never finished the kvetch book. A bang-up opening, to be sure.

Here’s a bang-up bicultural joke:
    It so happened that Myron Liebowitz and Vinnie D’Onofrio came of age at the same time. From his father, Vinnie received a brand new handgun, while at Myron’s Bar Mitzvah on the other side of town, his father strapped a beautiful gold watch on his wrist. The next day after school Vinnie was full of admiration for the watch, while Myron was consumed with envy after one glance at the pistol. So the two friends decided to trade.
    That night when Vinnie checked to see whether it was dinnertime, his father asked, “Where’d you get thatta watch?” And on hearing the story, he exploded. “Whatsa matter wid’ yous? Here I am t’inkin’ you gotta some brains in your head.”
    Vinnie looked frankly confused, so his father explained that some day Vinnie would probably fall in love and then he’d probably get married and then married life would probably get kind of dull. “An’ somma day,” he went on, “yous gonna find her in bed wit’ anudda guy. An’ whatta you gonna do then—look atta you watch and say, ‘How long you gonna be?’”

[anonim-danilo.livejournal.com]

Ну, все качественно сказанно у Крылова. Один недостаток. Причем тут евреи? Этож все про философию. Когда меня спрашивют, а про, что твое философическое образование? Я как правило отвечаю, что оно про наебать, надуть, продать и перепродать полную хуйню — за полновесное золото.

indeed

[larvatus.livejournal.com]

Ever deeper into bullshit.