YouLoveMe

Darwin believed in empathy for all, Also in the savage's extinction, True. We moderns want trad folkways to fall, To love all is our mark of distinction. Zhuzi believed in attacking a text, His aggression evokes deconstruction, He and Derrida both find reading vexed, But is it?  Reading's gentle seduction. Plato believed in enthusiasm, Or did he?  What about Phaedrus's horse? 'Tween good and bad desire is a chasm, Reason holds the reins to keep it on course. I'm glad I learned something about Zhuzi, I think of him as a critic, like me. '  

Ten years ago was my disappearance, I dove down dank rabbit holes of folly, With impulse I brooked no interference, To give me sanity I had Ali. Five years ago a friend had disappeared, The twists in his brain had led him to doom, In my own mind's chamber, madness interfered, Ali was a calm presence in the room. This time, you could say Ali is gone, To a nether realm that's dire and tomby, But I believe there will be a new dawn, For my Layla, my Majnun, my Rumi. Now Ali lies quietly in his room. He's a prophet who will rise from his tomb.

Rawls and Me Shouldn't I leave off with critical theory? Shouldn't I simply be a liberal like Rawls? I respect there's reason in your query, Even if your American tilt galls. I want you to persuade you that John's like me, Both of us doubly fuse our traditions, Locke, Mill, Kant, Marx, the U.K., Germany-- We've calmed them all with peaceful seditions. In your land, liberal means two diff'rent things, John's theory's split between them, so is mine, My belief in critical theory brings      to the fore a tension.  I think that's fine. You're off to see Axel Honneth tonight? Great, say hello, I think he gets me right.                 

Synthesis, by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel The problem in Kant is the one in you, You like logic, so you dichotomize, You confuse your own bent with what is true, All turns into dualism in your eyes. He was wrong about that, and you are, too, Please consider the master and the slave, Up from their dualism, liberty grew, Without synthesis there's only the grave. Chide me if you will for imprecision, Chide me if you will for my Prussian pride, But don't sacrifice truth for concision, Don't confuse your logic with his'try's tide. There's a talk on me in New York tonight? Please help the Americans see the light.

My Way and Yours, by Friedrich Nietzsche Strangling a baby is a weak man's deed, Please feel free to challenge me to a duel, Your poems show a cuckservative's need     to submit yourself to your master's rule. Sing instead of overcoming the weak       in yourself and in your philosophy, Rejoice in your own fate, though it be bleak, Rise above Kant's guilty theosophy. For Nazis I make no apology, My Jewish problem is opposite theirs, Nietzsche-Nazi is false homology, They live in caves, I climb heavenly stairs. Ponder if you will why I am so wise, Don't stare at the ground, look up to the skies.      

Questions about Hume's Guillotine and Mine Aren't Hume, Weber, and I all conservative, With people to our left we see as wrong,  Is our guillotine a preservative, Of what is 'gainst Marx's radical song? Can critical theory emancipate? Only formally, like Kant's, I would say, Preachers should confess their normative state, But why care about labels anyway? Would I slay a preacher who won't confess? No.  Would I strangle Karl Marx in the crib? No.  But I'd say it's legit to answer yes, For Nietzsche, too.  We all come from Cain's rib. Is my guillotine ideology? Yes and no.  It's also psychology.