No Hugging, No Learning (Torpedo the Ark 10th Anniversary Post)

 

 

I. 

 

This post - post number 1977 - marks the 10th anniversary of Torpedo the Ark [1] and, fear not, there's no Elvis, Beatles or Rolling Stones putting in an appearance here [2]. Instead, I'd like to offer a few remarks on one of Larry David's guiding principles: No hugging, no learning ...

 

Over the past decade, this motto - pinned to the wall above my desk - is something I've always endeavoured to live up to whilst assembling posts for Torpedo the Ark: for if no hugging, no learning worked for Seinfeld during 180 episodes spread over nine seasons, why shouldn't it also help ensure that this blog maintains an edge ...?

 

 

II. 

 

To me, the first half of this phrase means avoiding the fall into lazy and cynical sentimentality in which one attempts to manipulate the stereotyped set of ideas and feelings which make us monstrous rather than human - or, rather, monstrously all too human [3].

 

Like D. H. Lawrence, I suspect that most expressions of emotion are counterfeit and more often than not betray our social conditioning and idealism, rather than arising spontaneously from the body:

 

"Today, many people live and die without having had any real feelings - though they have had a 'rich emotional life' apparently, having showed strong mental feeling. But it is all counterfeit." [4]

 

Today, when someone starts twittering on about their feelings or the importance of emotional growth, you should tell them to shut the fuck up. 

 

Likewise, when some idiot comes in for a hug - never a good idea, as this scene from Curb Your Enthusiasm makes clear [5] - best to push them away or, at the very least, step back and politely decline their embrace.     

 

 

III.

 

As for the second part of the Davidian phrase - no learning - I don't think this means stay stupid; rather, just as the first part of the phrase challenges the idea of emotional growth, this challenges the idea of moral progress; i.e., the belief that man is advancing as a species; becoming ever more enlightened and ever closer to reaching the Promised Land. 

 

At any rate, Torpedo the Ark has never attempted to give moral lessons, pass judgements, or improve its readership. There's plenty to think about and, hopefully, amuse on the blog - and lots of little images to look at - but, to paraphrase something Malcolm McLaren once told an infuriated tutor at art school: There's nothing to learn! [6]

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Torpedo the Ark was set up by Maria Thanassa, who has continued to oversee the technical aspects and daily management of the blog. The first post - Reflections on the Loss of UR6 - was published on 24 November 2012. 

      I am sometimes accused of being an anti-dentite on the basis of this poem, but, actually, that couldn't be further from the truth. If anything, having an attractive young female dentist veers one in the direction of odontophilia (a fetish that includes a surprisingly wide-range of passions).

      And so, whilst my tastes are not as singular as those of Sadean libertine Boniface, I cannot deny a certain frisson of excitement everytime one is in the chair, mouth wide open, and submitting to an intimate oral examination or violent surgical procedure. Hopefully, I expressed an element of this perverse eroticism in this post, based on an actual incident, but inspired by a reading of Georges Bataille.       

[2] Punk rockers will know that I'm alluding to the track '1977' by the Clash, which featured as the B-side to their first single, 'White Riot', released on CBS Records in March 1977. Click here to play.  

 

[3] Punk rockers will also know I'm thinking here of the Dead Kennedys track 'Your Emotions', found on their debut studio album, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, (Cherry Red Records, 1980). Click here to play and listen out for the marvellous line: "Your scars only show when someone talks to you."

 

[4] See D. H. Lawrence's late essay, A Propos of "Lady Chatterley's Lover", which can be found in Lady Chatterley's Lover and A Propos of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover', ed. Michael Squires, (Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 311.

 

[5] This is a scene from the second episode of season four of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Entitled 'Vehicular Fellatio', it first aired on HBO in September 2009 and was written by Larry David, dir. by Alec Berg. The irritating character of Dean Weinstock is played by Wayne Federman. There are, as one might imagine, several other scenes in Curb that concern the consequences of inappropriate hugging; see, for example, this scene in episode 8 of season 6 ('The N-Word') and this scene in episode 10 of season 11 ('The Mormon Advantage'). 

 

[6] According to fellow art student Fred Vermorel, when a tutor snapped at Malcolm: 'You think you know everything', he was left speechless when the latter replied: 'There's nothing to know!' Arguably, this is going further even than Socrates. See Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, (Constable, 2020), p. 53, where I read of this incident.