“Mediocrity is contextual.”

— David Foster Wallace , book Infinite Jest

Source: Infinite Jest

Last update May 22, 2020. History

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David Foster Wallace 185

American fiction writer and essayist 1962–2008

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Context: When human beings have been fascinated by the contemplation of their own hearts, the more intricate biological pattern of the female has become a model for the artist, the mystic, and the saint. When mankind turns instead to what can be done, altered, built, invented, in the outer world, all natural properties of men, animals, or metals become handicaps to be altered rather than clues to be followed. Women want mediocre men, and men are working hard to be as mediocre as possible.

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“A good number of works owe their success to the mediocrity of their authors' ideas, which match the mediocrity of those of the general public.”

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Reflections

“Meaning… is to be regarded as a complex of contextual relations, and phonetics, grammar, lexicography, and semantics each handles its own components of the complex in its appropriate context.”

John Rupert Firth (1890–1960) English linguist

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“The world is mediocre. About that there is no mistake. Well then, has the world been mediocre since time immemorial? No. In the beginning, the world was chaos, and chaos is not mediocre. The mediocratization began when people separated the means of production from daily life.”

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“Having liberated the key to a liberatory interpretation and contextualization of the Qur'an, the issue of patriarchal and misogynic interpretations of the Qur'an becomes a societal issue rather than an issue of the religion.”

Yasser Harrak Canadian liberal writer, columnist and human rights activist

Yasser Harrak. 2016. "The Patriarchal Characterization Of Islam". UnpublishedOttawa. Accessed June 23,2016. http://unpublishedottawa.com/letter/78752/patriarchal-characterization-islam