"Marxist Philosophy of Language by Keanu Reeves," or things I find cleaning.

[ambersweet]

finch found this while cleaning last night. I'm not entirely sure what inspired this essay, beyond the likelihood I was trying to understand the Marxist philosophy of language. I fail to grasp the "universal theory of everything" school of thought, because, really, humans are more subtle than that? But, you know, whatever gets your paper written. Also, lingustics are not really my bag, and the only reason I survived the class was because the teacher was super-passionate about his topic. I prefer language all stitched together into paragraphs and essays and novels, not dissected into phonemes and so on.

So, here you are: the Marxist philosophy of language, as explained by Keanu Reeves and written by me in red felt pen.

Dude, every idea means something, right? It's, like, totally a sign. And signs are all, like, "Whoa, stop!" or "Do not enter, dude!"

Then there's stuff. And stuff, it doesn't have a meaning, right? Except some dudes could totally turn a picture of some stuff into a new sign. So, like, a picture of Redondo Beach could totally mean, "Surf's up!" But Redondo wouldn't mean that; it'd still be just a beach.

But, dude, when you make stuff up, it totally means something! But, like, stuff doesn't really come out of your head all shiny and new. It totally comes from everything around you, like new episodes of CSI and going to the mall, and chilling with the dudes. But there's not really a place in your head at all. You only think stuff once you've been hanging out with people long enough.

Some dudes think that thoughts come from this fuzzy spot in your brain, but those dudes are totally whacked. You can't think of stuff without your dudes around. If you hang around with the same dudes long enough, it's like you kinda got your own language. You can be all, "Dude!" and your bud'll be like, "Dude!" and you can be, like, "Whoa." And you totally know what he means.

But you know what's totally the shit when it comes to meaning shit? Words. Yeah, dude, words totally can mean anything you want them to. Words aren't like pictures, but you totally can't talk about things without words.

And that's way cool.

Comments

[nepenthe]

You should so submit this to McSweeney's.