Truth
- 1 meaning
- Surface accurately reflects depth.
- Congruence between surface and depth,
words and intended meanings, actions and motivations, ostensible
meanings and inner thoughts
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Lying
- 1 (incorrect) meaning
- Uses surface to obscure depth.
- Absolute disjunction between surface
and depth, words and intentions, actions and motivations.
- A liar wants you to accept the ostensible
meaning of his words as an accurate reflection of his interior
thoughts, while in fact those thoughts are inaccessible to you.
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Irony
- multiple meanings
- Plays on difference between surface
and depth.
- A disjunction between surface and depth,
words and intentions, that is perceptible to some people but
not to others.
- Someone being ironic wants those who
are "in on the joke" to perceive the gap between what
she is literally saying and what she thinks, and to attend to
what she actually thinks. The humor comes from the fact that
other people may interpret her literally.
- Often involves word play.
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Camp
- meaning is subordinate to pleasure
& parody
- What a fabulous surface! Let's enthuse
about the surface to the point of parody.
- Camp is similar to irony, but takes
itself less seriously. Irony looks at something and implies that
"this is ridiculous to the point of being disgusting; you'd
have to be a fool to participate." Camp, on the other hand,
pushes dynamics so far that we can see that they are ridiculous,
but also has a great deal of fun in doing so.
- Irony tends to focus on what is wrong,
unjust, or inauthentic. Camp tends to denaturalize something
taken as natural and inevitable by exaggerating it.
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Madness
- no meaning, or an infinity of meanings
- Sheer surface. No discernable relation
between surface and a depth which is inscrutible or non-existant.
- No intended meaning is discernable.
There is only a play of words and statements, seemingly disconnected
from any intention or meaning whatsoever.
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