rattus rattus’ blog

Avoid reasoning!
If it doesn’t work you can always get back to it.

paradoxes

are

paradoxes

There are probably many aspects to the double bind illustrated in “It hurts me, too“. Here is what it boils down to for me:

Someone says: Never do I want to hurt anyone.
Someone else replies: By this you do. The way you are hurts.

Finding particular reasons is left as an exercise for my dear readers.

In his comment on Trust not truth, Michael points us to Jenny Holzer‘s Truisms, see for instance the long list of truisms or Jenny Holzer’s on-line edition Please Change Beliefs. Many truisms are wonderful examples of self-referential lies or nontrivial trivialities.

Fortunately, people living in Vienna currently can see street posters with texts of Jenny Holzer in the central districts. They are part of the exhibition Jenny Holzer XX which is still shown at the MAK until September 17, 2006.

More of Jenny Holzer:

• Jenny Holzer @ äda ‘web
• Jenny Holzer @ artsy.net
• Inflamatory Essay
• Pictures: At Flickr and at Google

A friend of mine, after we had been together for about 3 years, once wrote to me:

Why do you react like I am playing an important role in your life? I don’t know but I guess there must be a reason. Anyway, the way you are hurts me, and it puts me off.

I don’t know either, but I think we can call this some painfully sad words. I am afraid, they can make even a liar cry for the hidden double bind. If someone who we do not want to hurt tells us that we do
we are cursed.

Here is one more quote about public opinion:

Die öffentliche Meinung ist der Lärm, der entsteht, wenn die Bretter aneinanderschlagen, die die Leute vor dem Kopf haben.

— Volkmar Muthesius

Wenn wir uns als Teil der “Leute” sehen, so können wir das Zitat auch als eine grobe Variante des Lügner-Paradoxons sehen, abgesehen davon, dass Sehen mit einem Brett vor dem Kopf möglicherweise schwierig ist. Aber so sehe ich das eben.

[According to my available sources there is no English phrase or saying that literally translates German “ein Brett vor dem Kopf haben”, meaning “having a board before your head”. Can anyone help with a translation of the above quote?]