S.M.I.R.K. Manifesto

Society for the Maintenance of Irreverence towards Ridiculous Kowtow

v1: 10 June 2005
v2: 8 March 2008


The Jokingly Serious Meets the Seriously Jokable

There are no straight lines in real space. Linearity finds its best in gravity. It  also finds it is best not everywhere — if it looks far enough and openly. Humor (satire, parody), metaphor, wandering, and dream can befuddle the "logical" part of mind, but logic can play tricks and logic can set up great jokes. As with our grave terrain (a.k.a. earth) we see going "east" is the same as going "west" given time. I would say that notions of dialectics, Gestalt, neuro-leaping, the aha! moment, and the flood (as in the basement flood that erased the training of Pavlov's dogs) suggest that if you go inside form far enough, you create content and vice-reversa.  If you work on a joke so that it makes you think you create dangerous theory and if you work on a theory until it makes you laugh you create the unending joke.  In both cases, you meet up at revolution. That is why we form groups, and why we are not content without facilitating approach to all permutations of human flavoring.

The group bound by power always cuts short the quest — narrowing to fragmental, speculative "focus" as ultimate goal — as its necessary redundancy.

Another tool of conformity and death is normalcy. Notions of normalcy defy (as they define) creativity because they say it comes from only one source. It has a beginning and an end, just like "play" and "critique. Flatlandism is the practice of narrowing unknown views to the known view and then tightening up so that nothing changes. Its character is that of holding your breath and seeing no colors out of sequence. Beyond flatland, a single point is a multi-dimensional entity if one is willing to pursue it beyond the realm of the norm. In social context that means that just because I cannot understand someone does not mean they are not saying something useful to me — and in fact that in itself is critical to my growth, no less my existence.

Strokes — an expressed act of repressed anger — can turn one from the ultra-rational logician into the metaphorical poet. Same brain, new expression — same reality, new vision. I suggest that we learn, communicate, and organize around what diversity offers as means and ends — as unified fields of vision — and to allow the laughter of theory and the theory of laughter to join in this spacetime — and our lives that recognize no endpoints — since the two — separated — know, live, and change so very little.

Giving the joke time to ponder more effective punch lines for the unending toughness of its audience" is revolutionarily complete when bound with "giving ponder its game with which to approach the unending vastness of knowing. This leads us to conclude:

  • that this unity demands formal re-evolution and discontented immediacy;

  • that societal norms are in our way — with all their feudal, capitalist, and primitivist clutter;

  • that everything and everyone must change so that anyone can truly live everywhere;

  • that game and play have been held captive by characterological zero-sum and consecrated entropy far too long;

  • that the pre-packages of jokes that taste good and of theory with good taste are as flat as can be — useful only to their stacks;

  • that the point of the possible being impossible and the impossible becoming possible is the only game in town;

  • and that, finally — a punch line and its set-up must intend to go beyond the limits of what's so unfunny.


Contact

S.M.I.R.K.


In association with

Point of Departure