THE ANCIENT MARINER

I fear I am in grave danger of becoming that most egregious of bores, the grizzled old man who, like the Ancient Mariner, stops one in three and forces them to listen to the same old story told again and again.  After concluding my 25,000 word essay two days ago, I reflected that there was a great deal I had not managed to say [if one can believe that!], especially with regard to the objective mystification of social reality, so I thought to myself, perhaps I ought to add an Epilogue in which I say some of the things that did not make it into the body of the main essay.

I actually began this Epilogue, but then recalled a tutorial I had posted in October 2010 called "The Study of Society -- A Response to Luke's Mother."  This little footnote, a mere 16,500 words long, ran for twelve Parts, and eventually was archived on box.net, accessible from the link at the top of this blog.  I have just re-read much of it [even I cannot actually bear to read everything I write!], and sure enough, it says just exactly what I intended to put into the Epilogue, or at least enough of it so that it would be simply intolerable to write it all again.  To be sure, October 2010 is, from the Mayfly perspective of a blogger, older than ancient history.  No one, surely, remembers what a blogger said two and a half years ago!  Nevertheless, I remain enough of a philosopher to flatter myself that I view the world sub specie aeternitatis, and from that timeless perspective thirty months is as nothing.

So:  If you want to know what the next chapter would be in the book I never wrote, and for which the 25,000 word essay was, as it were, a promissory note, just follow the link to box.net, page down a bit, and locate "The Study of Society."