And the Taylor has to TayTay...Tay?

September 2, 2015 10:06 AM

Taylor Swift: A Socratic Dialogue
posted by jacquilynne (22 comments total)

Shakespeare would point out that a poor player would strut, strut, strut and fret, fret, fret.

GRRM would point out that a player either wins, wins, wins or dies, dies, dies.
posted by nubs at 10:28 AM on September 2, 2015 [5 favorites]

Smith's translation is surely a little free. He gives "player" for ἀθλητής, which doesn't quite capture all the subtle connotations of sport and contention bound up in the original word. Back in grad school, we spent seven weeks unpacking ἀθλητής before we moved on to the second line of the dialogue.
posted by Iridic at 10:29 AM on September 2, 2015 [26 favorites]

In his epic work "A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu", Marcel Proust argues that "Depeche Mode" means "Fashion Express" or in other words, "Taylor Swift".
posted by w0mbat at 10:47 AM on September 2, 2015 [14 favorites]

a characteristically solid offering from mcsweeney’s. i LOL'ed.
posted by rude.boy at 11:05 AM on September 2, 2015

If this was a real Dialogue, it would end with Swift frustrated and Socrates perplexed.

However, they are correct that Alcibiades was a player of the first water
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:05 AM on September 2, 2015

GRRM would point out that a player either wins, wins, wins or dies, dies, dies.

Actually, so far, his record is that a player dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies, dies....
posted by eriko at 11:07 AM on September 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

good good good
posted by rebent at 11:12 AM on September 2, 2015

Well, eriko, as Ms. Swift points out, the players gonna play. Martin has just placed that concept into a perpetual motion machine (the game does not end) with a binary outcome set - win or die - and where there can be multiple simultaneous players but only one current winner. Further, since winning does not end the game, it just provides a designation for the current "best" player (for varying definitions of best) who must continue to defend that designation or suffer the second outcome. Over many iterations, given this type of simulation, I believe we should expect results similar to those being produced.
posted by nubs at 11:17 AM on September 2, 2015

SOCRATES: So your position, then, is that you knew he was Trouble when he walked in?

SWIFT: That is correct.

SOCRATES: O Taylor, I am certain that if you were to ask any Athenian whether Trouble was natural or acquired through locomotion, he would laugh in your face, and say: "Stranger, you have far too good an opinion of me, if you think that I can answer your question. For I literally do not know what Trouble is, and much less whether it is acquired by ‘walking in’ or not." And I myself, Taylor, living as I do in this region of poverty, am as poor as the rest of the world; and I confess with shame that I know literally nothing about Trouble; and when I do not know the "quid" of anything how can I know the "quale"? How, if I knew nothing at all of Taylor, could I tell if she was nightmare dressed like a daydream, or the opposite of that; the cheer captain, or on the bleachers? Do you think that I could?

SWIFT: No, Indeed. But are you in earnest, Socrates, in saying that you do not know what Trouble is when it walks in? And am I to carry back this report of you to Thessaly?

SOCRATES: Not only that, my dear girl, but you may say further that I have never known of any one else who did, in my judgment.
posted by leotrotsky at 11:37 AM on September 2, 2015 [6 favorites]

Missing TRIGGER WARNING: SHAKE IT OFF. (damnit, gonna be in my head (again) all day now. GRAR!)
posted by Ogre Lawless at 11:40 AM on September 2, 2015

The ancient Greeks did have effective central heating, including some limited use of under floor heating. So Socrates may well have been experienced with warm hard ground as well as cold, and it is not clear how this might have impacted his trouble perceiving skills.

And the Taylor has to TayTay...Tay?

In further ancient history I assume this is referencing Mel & Kim's 1987 pop classic 'Respectable'.
posted by biffa at 12:32 PM on September 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

SOCRATES: We can all agree, from our own observations, that the ram is in the ramalamadingdong. But to ask who put the ram in the ramalamadingdong... can it have been the ramalamadingdong without the ram? If the ram is a constituent part of the ramalamadingdong, as reason and the spirited element are of the human mind, then did not the ramalamadingdong always have the ram? For if it did not, it cannot have been the ramalamadingdong. Can we ask who put the trees in the forest, as there is no forest without the trees?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:42 PM on September 2, 2015 [3 favorites]

I might be completely missing the point here, but it seems to me that there's a hole in the thinking. A player might always play play play, but that doesn't necessarily follow that one who plays plays plays will always be a player. If playing playing playing is an activity that multiple categories of person might engage in without taking on the label of player, then:

But if they fake, fake, fake then they do not always play, play, play for there must be at least some stay, stay, stay for otherwise, they only play, play, play and hence, are a player and not a faker.

does not follow, because the faker can play play play without being a player. Indeed, you might go so far as to presume that the definition of a faker is a category of person who can take on the activity of one or more different categories without becoming a member of that category and without sacrificing their primary identity as a faker. The error lies in assuming a 1:1 correlation between person and category.

In conclusion, Socrates is a dog.
posted by talitha_kumi at 1:11 PM on September 2, 2015 [3 favorites]

Actually, a Taylor has to tayl, tayl, tayl.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:05 PM on September 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

Drunk J. Crew is getting so lazy.
posted by clvrmnky at 4:25 PM on September 2, 2015

So, the script for the third Bill and Ted adventure is coming along nicely then.
posted by nickzoic at 5:07 PM on September 2, 2015

SOCRATES: ... For if it did not, it cannot have been the ramalamadingdong. Can we ask who put the trees in the forest, as there is no forest without the trees?

WYDELIOS: Socrates, it is my turn to be perplexed. You speak as if a thing's name necessarily describes its nature. Much as we might wish that to be so, we know that it is not. A woman does not contain a man. "Bird" is the word, but a word cannot be a bird. Why, then, should the ram be a necessary constituent of the ramalamadingdong? Indeed, perhaps it was the discrepency between name and thing that inspired its anonymous benefactor to supply the ram. We might also observe that to this day the bopshoobopshoobop contains only one bop, and the dipdadipdadip a single dip. Yet we have proof that they exist, for it is logically necessary that my baby fell in love with me, or she would not be my baby.
posted by No-sword at 5:29 PM on September 2, 2015

that was so cratic
posted by Wolfdog at 5:35 PM on September 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

In conclusion, Socrates is a dog.

You are thinking of Diogenes....
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:57 PM on September 2, 2015 [4 favorites]

Polite golf clap, GenjiandProust.
posted by IAmBroom at 6:30 PM on September 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

Imma let you finish.
posted by swift at 8:25 PM on September 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

It's okay, having never heard of Swift before the whole Kanye West thing (I still think of her as this generation's Amy Grant) we are now in the Post-Swift world... because she's "problematic" or "racist" or whatever.
posted by Mezentian at 4:47 AM on September 3, 2015