Neither Fish nor Flesh.

   Or: So why Rant in the first place?

  I suppose that if I wanted to be really pretentious about this, I might claim that Rants are for me the real Skeleton to thought. I mean most of us think, whether that be in sudden bursts or more steady streams, because something in the world does not appear right. We are being told lies, and we know it. Out then pours our own take on this lie: the reasons why it is wrong, and what we might do about it. And so a Rant is created. However most Rants are of course utterly bounded by two factors. On the one hand we sound off, in a vacuum beyond action. We do not mean people to act upon it. Ranting is passive, or even an alternative to action: it is the opiate we take when we cannot act. On the other hand, it appears in the essence of ranting that it should be immediate. It ought not therefore to involve any real scholarship. Surely a rant (if nothing else) ought to be he domain of prejudice. This fact might all then be rather innocent save for the fact that political governments are elected on these prejudices, and also media corporations make money from it. Our ranting has become other’s big business. Our ranting has become that which decides political campaigns. Our ranting has started to matter. ‘The Pub’ is a constituency which politicians and big business bow to, with mock servitude. Our own mental wallpaper has thereby become the tussle ground of shifting political interests and groups. It has also become the hunting ground of politicians who do not care really whether a policy works or not, so long as they can sell it to a ranting population.

  The effect of such moves is that at every opportunity one is encouraged to rant. That is to mindlessly assert opinions, and expertise. All this is done in the knowledge that if everyone does it, nothing really radical can happen, but big money (and political careers) can be made. We are all Ranters now, in a merry free-for-all of opinion and half digested thought. 

  The problem is of course for any philosopher or political radical, what does one do about this turgid stream of ideas-cum-prejudices? Does one ignore it, safe in one’s theories? Does one engage in it and become a ‘people’s thinker’? Does one make money from it? Or write endless ‘why oh why’ pieces? Or does one hide.

  The Rants here investigate another alternative. Perhaps one might use the traditions of philosophy, and the position of a Rant within that tradition (and it does have one) to map out some trends or rules to ranting itself. Perhaps then there is a real texture to the endless mouthing off of minds. Here one needs care. One needs not to be a sociologist when mapping out these rules. To do that would be to retreat into an ivory tower of figures. Great fun (I love that kind of stuff), but not very effective. The point after all of Ranting (and its first and last rule) is that it must be out there spinning. Far better then to create a series of analyses which are designed to wrap up whole galaxies of prejudices; creating little eddies and flows in apparently turgid streams, and showing how and why ranting matters.

  At which point one of the oddities of philosophy comes into its own. Philosophy has oh, since Plato at least, always seen itself to be the subject just down stream from all Ranting.  It is the subject of Socrates, in the market place telling everyone they were always nearly right. They might be ranting away, but if they calmed down a bit, and saw things otherwise, then the entire matter might (or might not) be cleared up (or at least rendered utterly opaque.). 

  Philosophy however abstruse or idiotic, always claims to be just down stream of the Rant. However this is not all. Philosophy of course always uses the image of the rant to damn fellow philosophers: I think; you rant; they are bonkers, is the irregular verb of the Academy and Lyceum.

  However of course this is really rather disingenuous. Philosophers themselves are as surely Ranters as Socrates is a sophist. All a philosopher ever does is Rant, and does so even as they philosophize. Now a word of caution needs immediately to be made here. I am not saying philosophy is ranting. Far from it. The clarity of a philosophical formula is far removed from the muddy imbecility of most Rants. Rants are context dependent, while a great philosophical idea can muscle in and change a whole variety of different ideas, and thoughts. Rants and Philosophy are not the same therefore. And yet I doubt there is a single philosopher who does not also mouth off, and does not use this mouthing off as a part or ingredient to their ideas. To do the necessary work of philosophy, with its hours and hours of study, and thought, one needs a fiery (if not warped) mind; One needs the heart at least of a Ranter. Or one does if one is going to do it really well. That is if one is going to be a great (or even good) philosopher… (Although this is not to claim the obverse – that all great Ranters are great Philosophers).

  Great Philosophy, and Ranting seem to run hand in hand (think Foucault, think Kant, think Spinoza or even Hume here). Each thinker’s ‘proper’ thought is the richer for the examples which they use, for the passions which they breed into their dry world, for the issues which they really care about.  If Philosophy was ever the dry and rather technical discipline it can be made to appear, it really would never have got anywhere. It is from the fiery thoughts of some of the world’s deepest Ranters, that it gains its power.

  Ranting matters to Philosophy, and we must accept this fact. But does Philosophy really matter to Ranting?

  The aim of this essay is to show that it really ought to. Philosophy is after all the happy hunting ground of prejudice and opinion. There are more ideas and possible thoughts to be found in philosophic concepts than there are in almost any other comparable discipline. This at base is of course because philosophy has rich and complex concepts, which can be used in a variety of contexts. However, three other reasons are critical in understanding this, as well.

  The first is that it is the nature of Philosophy (and the way in which it is taught) that every great philosopher falls into the hands of the interpreters, and their ranting power is lost within the stink of the classroom, and the mechanics of passing exams. Who wants the world to be really really difficult? Who wants ideas to be creative (and unstable) when one needs answers (or topics) to examination questions? Philosophy transfigures itself into examined orthodoxy: one must have an answer that is right or at least markable, don’t you know? A refrain that carries on way past PhD level. (The true Ranter says of course God save me from the mark, it is whether the idea is useful to you that really matters, whether it allows you to think otherwise). Going back to the mainstream of the philosophers themselves, and what they actually  said, is therefore often a rather radical experience in itself. It breeds rants as its natural offspring!

  Secondly Philosophy is very often great in its errors as much as its good ideas. That is finding out exactly where and why the wheels falls off an idea, and carrying that failure into the domain of ranting, allows a mind a very great series of resources. One gets to understand error as much as fact. One understands and creates rants about who and (why oh) why we got into this mess in the first place.

  Thirdly, Philosophy has a very strange relationship with politics. On the one hand, the two run together. And yet philosophy would always distance itself from the political (even Plato), while a philosopher-king would never make a modern politician: They would never win any election, no matter how one rigged the rules. Part of the trouble here is that politics and philosophy really do meet at (and react rather differently) at the level of the Rant. That is, the Rant is for Philosophy, both the level on which concepts are melted down to their base level; the point therefore where philosophy has been melted down to bite sized opinions and momentary flickers of thought; but also it is this domain of Ranting that a Great Philosopher will then draw upon in thinking and creating themselves. Politics is likewise listening, to the Rant in its own rather different way. It listens to hear what it can use, that is what prejudice it can stitch into manifestos and promises (and not what it will change). It likewise acts, but in a little way hazarding a cajole, or a quiet piece of rhetoric, minding its P’s and Q’s but quietly ranting none the less.

  Politics and Philosophy mistrust each other’s take on the Rant. They want to be free to exercise or to treat ranting as they see fit (and so want to deny the other their own power). This of course then breeds antagonisms and mutual loathing between the two. And yet maybe the question needs to be asked, does loathing need be all that there is? Perhaps one might find other ways to link the politics (acting) and philosophy (a domain in thought)?

  The domain of Ranting, is the moment that philosophical ideas (reasons and pretexts) explode into a patchwork of problems and partial solutions, by inspiring both direct action but also by informing (and misinforming) prejudices and reactions to current affairs (and so inspiring other actions). It is at the same moment, the point that events (news stories) collide and compound with existing prejudices and thoughts. The art of the political being is to prehend (or at least to claim that one has prehended or that one could have prehended) this amalgam of elements, and react accordingly. Philosophy explodes into action (as its inspiration) just as politics would claim to have already allowed for those actions, and perhaps communication can be openned up between the dismembering of the former and the disingenuousness of the latter. Perhaps Philosophy’s evaporation into the commonplace, and politic’s claim to condense what could never have been foreseen, might be compoundable in various different ways. 

Well perhaps…

  What is certainly true is that it is high time that Philosophy attempted to manage (or at least state an opinion) on its own demise within the explosion of Ranting that engulfs us all. It has 

all the resources to make good rants. It has after all the resources of some of the best and richest concepts, and deepest errors. Resources that put it in good stead in mapping out domains which can spin onto the world of global events, and allow us new ways of understanding them. 

  It is to this thought, or perhaps this pious hope, that all these Rants are dedicated.

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