Comment by dgb23
6 days ago
Many intellectuals have this problem. They make interesting, precise statements under specific assumptions, but they get interpreted in all kinds of directions.
When they push back against certain narratives and extrapolations they usually don’t succeed, because the same mechanism applies here as well.
The only thing they can do about it, is throwing around ashtrays.
What a great visual. I haven't heard that phrase before.
It's a fun image, but I was not my idea. I was playfully referring to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ashtray_(Or_the_Man_Who_De...
Although in this original case the image (that allegedly happened) used to criticize the philopher (Kuhn), so kind of the other side of the coin of what I said above.
Thanks for the context!
An ashtray is such a temporally rooted object, the phrase, "throwing around ashtrays," immediately conjures a bunch of peripheral concrete imagery.
I imagine there will soon be generations of young people who wonder what a tray of ashes was used for and why people used to collect them all over their homes and offices.