>
>"I have a philosophical secret!"
> The Lowest-Rated Jerry Springer Show Ever
> ------------------------------------------------
>
> Crowd: Jer-ry! Jer-ry! Jer-ry!
>
> Jerry: Today's guests are here because they can't agree on fundamental
> philosophical principles. I'd like to welcome Todd to the show.
>
> Todd enters from backstage.
>
> Jerry: Hello, Todd.
>
> Todd: Hi, Jerry.
>
> Jerry: (reading from card) So, Todd, you're here to tell your
>girlfriend
>something. What is it?
>
> Todd: Well, Jerry, my girlfriend Ursula and I have been going out for
> three
>years now. We did everything together. We were really inseparable. But
> then
>she discovered post-Marxist political and literary theory, and it's been
>nothing but fighting ever since.
>
> Jerry: Why is that?
>
> Todd: You see, Jerry, I'm a traditional Cartesian rationalist. I
>believe
>that the individual self, the "I" or ego is the foundation of all
> metaphysics.
> She, on the other hand, believes that the contemporary self is a
>socially
>
>constructed, multi-faceted subjectivity reflecting the political and
> economic
>realities of late capitalist consumerist discourse.
>
> Crowd: Ooooohhhh!
>
> Todd: I know! I know! Is that infantile, or what?
>
> Jerry: So what do you want to tell her today?
>
> Todd: I want to tell her that unless she ditches the post-modernism, we'
> re
>through. I just can't go on having a relationship with a woman who
>doesn't
>
>believe I exist.
>
> Jerry: Well, you're going to get your chance. Here's Ursula!
>
> Ursula storms onstage and charges up to Todd.
>
> Ursula: Patriarchal colonizer!
>
> She slaps him viciously. Todd leaps up, but the security guys pull them
>apart before things can go any further.
>
> Ursula: Don't listen to him! Logic is a male hysteria! Rationality
>equals
>
>oppression and the silencing of marginalized voices!
>
> Todd: The classical methodology of rational dialectic is our only road
>to
>
>truth! Don't try to deny it!
>
> Ursula: You and your dialectic! That's how it's been through our whole
>relationship, Jerry. Mindless repetition of the post-Enlightenment meta-
>narrative. "You have to start with radical doubt, Ursula." Post-
>structuralism is just classical sceptical thought re-cast in the
>language
> of
>semiotics, Ursula."
>
> Crowd: Booo! Booo!
>
> Jerry: Well, Ursula, come on. Don't you agree that the roots of
> contemporary
>neo-Leftism simply have to be sought in Enlightenment political
>philosophy?
>
>
> Ursula: History is the discourse of powerful centrally located voices
>marginalizing and de-scribing the sub-altern!
>
> Todd:: See what I have to put up with? Do you know what it's like
>living
>with someone who sees sex as a metaphoric demonstration of the anti-
> feminist
>violence implicit in the discourse of the dominant power structure? It's
>terrible. She just lies there and thinks of Andrea Dworkin. That's why
>we
>never do it any more.
>
> Crowd: Wooooo!
>
> Ursula: You liar! Why don't you tell them how you haven't been able to
> get
>it up for the past three months because you couldn't decide if your
>penis
>truly had essential Being, or was simply a manifestation of Mind?
>
> Todd: Wait a minute! Wait a minute!
>
> Ursula: It's true!
>
> Jerry: Well, I don't think we're going to solve this one right away.
>Our
>
>next guests are Louis and Tina. And Tina has a little confession to make!
>
> Louis and Tina come onstage. Todd and Ursula continue bickering in the
>background.
>
> Jerry: Tina, you are... (reads cards) ... an existentialist, is that
> right?
>
> Tina: That's right, Jerry. And Louis is, too.
>
> Jerry: And what did you want to tell Louis today?
>
> Tina: Jerry, today I want to tell him...
>
> Jerry: Talk to Louis. Talk to him.
>
> Crowd hushes.
>
> Tina: Louis... I've loved you for a long time...
>
> Louis: I love you, too, Tina.
>
> Tina: Louis, you know I agree with you that existence precedes essence,
> but .
>..well, I just want to tell you I've been reading Nietzsche lately, and
>I
> don'
>t think I can agree with your egalitarian politics any more.
>
> Crowd: Wooooo! Woooooo!
>
> Louis: (shocked and disbelieving) Tina, this is crazy. You know that
> Sartre
>clarified all this way back in the 40's.
>
> Tina: But he didn't take into account Nietzsche's radical critique of
>democratic morality, Louis. I'm sorry. I can't ignore the contradiction
> any
>longer!
>
> Louis: You got these ideas from Victor, didn't you? Didn't you?
>
> Tina: Don't you bring up Victor! I only turned to him when I saw you
>were
>
>seeing that dominatrix! I needed a real man! An Uber-man!
>
> Louis: (sobbing) I couldn't help it. It was my burden of freedom. It
>was
> too
>much!
>
> Jerry: We've got someone here who might have something to add. Bring
>out..
> .
>Victor!
>
> Victor enters. He walks up to Louis and sticks a finger in his face.
>
> Victor: Louis, you're a classic post-Christian intellectual. Weak to
>the
>core!
>
> Louis: (through tears) You can kiss my Marxist ass, Reactionary Boy!
>
> Victor: Herd animal!
>
> Louis: Lackey!
>
> Louis throws a chair at Victor; they lock horns and wrestle. The crowd
> goes
>wild. After a long struggle, the security guys pry them apart.
>
> Jerry: Okay, okay. It's time for questions from the audience. Go ahead,
> sir.
>
> Audience member: Okay, this is for Tina. Tina, I just wanna know how
>you
> can
>call yourself an existentialist, and still agree with Nietzsche's
>doctrine
> of
>the Ubermensch. Doesn't that imply a belief in intrinsic essences that
>is
> in
>direct contradiction with with the fundamental priniciples of
> existentialism?
>
> Tina: No! No! It doesn't. We can be equal in potential, without being
> equal
>in eventual personal quality. It's a question of Becoming, not Being.
>
> Audience member: That's just disguised essentialism! You're no
>existentialist!
>
> Tina: I am so!
>
> Audience member: You're no existentialist!
>
> Tina: I am so an existentialist, bitch!
>
> Ursula stands and interjects.
>
> Ursula: What does it [bleep] matter? Existentialism is just a cover for
> late
>capitalist anti-feminism! Look at how Sartre treated Simone de Beauvoir!
>
> Women in the crowd cheer and stomp.
>
> Tina: [Bleep] you! Fat-ass Foucaultian ho!
>
> Ursula: You only wish you were smart enough to understand Foucault,
>bitch!
>
>
> Tina: You the bitch!
>
> Ursula: No, you the bitch!
>
> Tina: Whatever! Whatever!
>
> Jerry: We'll be right back with a final thought! Stay with us!
>
> Commercial break for debt-consolidation loans, ITT Technical Institute,
> and
>Psychic Alliance Hotline.
>
> Jerry: Hi! Welcome back. I just want to thank all our guests for being
> here,
>and say that I hope you're able to work through your differences and
>find
>happiness, if indeed happiness can be extracted from the dismal miasma
>of
>warring primal hormonal impulses we call human relationship.
>
> (turns to the camera)
>
> Well, we all think philosophy is just fun and games. Semiotics,
>deconstruction, Lacanian post-Freudian psychoanalysis, it all seems like
> good,
> clean fun. But when the heart gets involved, all our painfully acquired
>metaphysical insights go right out the window, and we're reduced to
> battling
>it out like rutting chimpanzees. It's not pretty. If you're in a
> relationship,
> and differences over the fundamental principles of your respective
>subjectivities are making things difficult, maybe it's time to move on.
> Find
>someone new, someone who will accept you and the way your laughably
> limited
>human intelligence chooses to codify and rationalize the chaos of
> existence.
>After all, in the absence of a clear, unquestionable revelation from
>God,
>that's all we're all doing anyway. So remember: take care of yourselves
>--
>
>and each other.
>
> Announcer: Be sure to tune in next time, when KKK strippers battle it
>out
>
>with transvestite omnisexual porn stars! Tomorrow on Springer!
>
>
>