That's right, those penis jokes were just the setup for that sweet, sweet indeterminacy of translation payoff.
The Indeterminacy of Translation is an idea by Quine, which says that direct, uniquely correct translations of a foreign language, even theoretically, are impossible. For Quine, knowledge was holistic, so in order to understand even simply sentence from a foreign culture, you would have to understand everything about the culture. For example, if you visit a tribe, and they point out a rabbit and say "tzqqa", you might assume the word refers to the rabbit. But if the tribe believes in some sort of idealism, they might be referring to merely the representation of those sensations, or if the tribe only thinks of objects as what they aren't, they might be pointing out everything in the universe but the rabbit. These kind of questions are undecidable from the language alone, no matter how much you try.
Of course, it was really a meta commentary on how art can never fully communicate the inward feelings of the artist.
Some people might find the penis jokes for Freud to be a bit reductive, since Freud wrote on an enormous amount of topics. These people are wrong. Penises are funny.
Leibniz's theory of pre-established harmony is explained (sort of) in the notes on this comic.
Marx thought that the ideal society would have no class hierarchies (i.e., there would not be a division between those who owned businesses, and those who sold their labor to the business owners), and no state. He didn't spend a lot of time describing exactly what this meant, because Marx did not believe in Utopian thinking. He thought history was a process, and we should work towards freedom from oppression in the society we live in, not attempt to imagine wholesale what a perfect society would be like from scratch.
Leibniz's theory of pre-established harmony is explained (sort of) in the notes on this comic.
Marx thought that the ideal society would have no class hierarchies (i.e., there would not be a division between those who owned businesses, and those who sold their labor to the business owners), and no state. He didn't spend a lot of time describing exactly what this meant, because Marx did not believe in Utopian thinking. He thought history was a process, and we should work towards freedom from oppression in the society we live in, not attempt to imagine wholesale what a perfect society would be like from scratch.
What's really tragic is that there are people out there leading happy, carefree lives.
On second thought, maybe I'll just use the ring real quick to put down this communist revolution. In fact, maybe I should work with Sauron to stamp out communism everywhere...
Foucault, Chomsky, and Fanon are all radical leftists in one way or another.
Foucault is best known for his analysis of the power structures in modern European societies and how they have evolved in the last several centuries. His work examining institutions such as hospitals, prisons, and schools had an enormous impact on sociology, philosophy, and leftist thinking. He rarely gave any positive accounts of what we should do, and in fact refused to give an account of what an ideal society would look like in his debate with Chomsky. Because of this, it is hard to say exactly what he thought we should do, but he was probably some kind of anarchist.
Chomsky is best known for his political criticism of Western society, the United states in particular (in the context of what's presented this comic at least, although I wouldn't be surprised if Elrond were some kind of linguistic persriptivist, so maybe he would have criticism on that front too). He explains how the powers in the United States are mostly committed to protect the wealthy property owners, and expanding their interests and assets abroad and within the Country. Some of the parts in the comic are direct parallels to things he brings up, such as a poll that was conducted where most of the world believes the United States is the number one threat to world peace.
Frantz Fanon was a radical anti-colonial philosopher and psychiatrist, who is best known for works such as The Wretched of the Earth where he makes the case that Marx did not understand how intertwined racial ideology was with capitalism. He says that it is a crucial element in allowing European powers to maintain their colonies, and expand their ownership and domination of Africa and elsewhere, while at the same time believing they are helping lift the colonies from poverty, and educating them. Without this ideology, which existed in Europe, and was exported into Africa itself, the colonies would collapse. He worked in his life to help free Algeria from French colonization, and also wrote prolifically on the psychological and phenomenological aspects of living in colonized Africa, under European rule.
Foucault is best known for his analysis of the power structures in modern European societies and how they have evolved in the last several centuries. His work examining institutions such as hospitals, prisons, and schools had an enormous impact on sociology, philosophy, and leftist thinking. He rarely gave any positive accounts of what we should do, and in fact refused to give an account of what an ideal society would look like in his debate with Chomsky. Because of this, it is hard to say exactly what he thought we should do, but he was probably some kind of anarchist.
Chomsky is best known for his political criticism of Western society, the United states in particular (in the context of what's presented this comic at least, although I wouldn't be surprised if Elrond were some kind of linguistic persriptivist, so maybe he would have criticism on that front too). He explains how the powers in the United States are mostly committed to protect the wealthy property owners, and expanding their interests and assets abroad and within the Country. Some of the parts in the comic are direct parallels to things he brings up, such as a poll that was conducted where most of the world believes the United States is the number one threat to world peace.
Frantz Fanon was a radical anti-colonial philosopher and psychiatrist, who is best known for works such as The Wretched of the Earth where he makes the case that Marx did not understand how intertwined racial ideology was with capitalism. He says that it is a crucial element in allowing European powers to maintain their colonies, and expand their ownership and domination of Africa and elsewhere, while at the same time believing they are helping lift the colonies from poverty, and educating them. Without this ideology, which existed in Europe, and was exported into Africa itself, the colonies would collapse. He worked in his life to help free Algeria from French colonization, and also wrote prolifically on the psychological and phenomenological aspects of living in colonized Africa, under European rule.