TERM: quid pro con

From: Steve Witham (sw@truesoft.com)
Date: Sat Oct 25 1997 - 18:01:43 MDT


A term/pun:

 quid pro con

The polite way people line up on prearranged "opposite sides" of a
predefined "issue". The favor that ridiculous opponents do each
other (e.g., the quid pro con between Democrats and Republicans,
Communists and Capitalists, etc.). Balance of Error.
More generally, any mutual imprisonment arrangement.

(Reading Hakim Bey's *Immediatism*:

    There are no issues. There is no such thing as sexism, fascism,
    speciesism, looksism, or any other "franchise issue" which can be
    separated out from the social complex and treated with " discourse"
    as a "problem." There exists only the totality which subsumes all
    these illusory "issues" into the complete falsity of its discourse,
    thus rendering all opinions, pro and con, into mere thought-
    commodities to be bought and sold. And this totality is itself an
    illusion, an evil nightmare from which we are trying (through art,
    or humor, or by any other means) to awaken.
  )

 --Steve



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:45:03 MST