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THE ABSURD TIMES
Well, I've been asked enough times "What's a Catharsis?" lately, and this is because Hillary thinks that her followers need to have one at the convention -- it'll be good for Obama, she contends. Since those who ask me usually change the subject before I complete answering their question, I wonder why they asked it is the first place. Anyway, I am going to answer it here.
Catharsis goes as far back as Aristotle. His first use of the term was medical, referring to "katamenia" which is menstrual fluid and catharsis meant getting rid of it. Today, women use the term "having my period," as a rough translation. But don't be fooled. You will not see hundreds of Hillary supporters having their period at the convention, no sir ee bob, no way.
Aristotle used it in his Poetics to say "screw you, Plato, tragedy is good for you." It meant purging of yucky emotions, such as fear and pity.
So, where do these yucky emotions come from? From the Hamartia, of course, of the tragic hero, or heroine, in this case, Hillary. (We can be reasonably sure of this because she is not Tammy Wynette "standing by her man," (who was George Jones and after Tammy divorced him, he had a resurgence in his career, but I digress.)
Now, the term is used in the New Testament to mean "sin," or at least is translated that way. In tragedy (or "goat song" as the convention will be), it means flaw, or error, or mistake which caused a peripetia, or "shit hitting the fan". One of the main flaws, and most popular is hubris, or pride, or getting too big for yer britches.
In the best case, the shit hitting the fan causes an anagorisis, or waking up and smelling the coffee. I don't know if she did or didn't, but we are more interested here in the catharsis which takes place in the audience.
The whole idea, then, is to get rid of the bad emotions of Hillary supporters through their witnessing of her peripetia, or loosing the nomination, and then everyone will be happy and Barak will become President.
Couldn't be simpler. It's a Democratic political strategy.
I should add that these ideas were reintroduced to western civilization after Christianity tried to killed them. The first reappearance was in a translation by Hermann the German who translated Averroes' Arabic information into Latin. (Just didn't want to leave anyone out.)
So, starting on August the 25th, get ready for a catharsis.
This writer further saith naught.
