Last week, we announced that you
could purchase your very own Idea Channel postmodernism
hat from dftba.com or enter to win one by writing a YouTube
comment about the unknowable, fully
constructed nature of hatness.
All of the entries were incredible,
but we only have a few hats to give away.
I'm going to keep this one.
That over there is Morgan's.
So we've randomly selected three comments whose authors
will receive their very own Idea Channel Pomo trucker
hat with a certificate of authenticity,
whatever that means, because authenticity is also
a construct.
So that being said, our three randomly selected winners are
Chuddley1, Braidon Schaufert-- perhaps "show-fer",
and Harry T. Dyer.
If you are one of those three people,
keep an eye on your YouTube messages.
We're going to send you a message from the Idea Channel
YouTube account about how you can claim your prize.
One of these the three hats will be going to you.
In the meantime, what follows is a dramatic reading
of the three winning comments about hats.
From Chuddley1, as society infers,
a hat is anything that is worn on the head, a head cover,
if you will.
If this is the case, then I could
wear a copy of Beethoven 3 on DVD
as a hat or an oddly shaped kohlrabi for head gear.
If there is nothing noting the clear distinction
of a hat and a non-hat, then we're
left to assume that everything can be, at some time,
indeed, a hat.
But if we assume that everything is a hat and something most
definitely is not a hat, like a shoe,
then we can negate the statement everything
can be a hat at some time.
And if we negate the very definition of a hot
by the slightest, then, and only then,
can we say without a doubt that nothing is a hat.
From Braidon Schaufert, or perhaps "show-fert",
hats do not have essences.
There is no such thing as cohesive hatness.
What is signified by the word hat is constantly in flux.
Hats exist discursively, only defined in relation
to other signifiers.
A hat is a hat because a hat is not a bucket, a bowl, a leaf,
et cetera.
However, evoking what a hat means in a specific context
means simultaneously evoking those unfulfilled hat
possibilities.
I can fill a bucket with water, but that bucket
becomes a hat if I wear it on my head
to protect myself from the sun.
I can eat cereal out of bowl, but the bowl
becomes a hat when I use it to cover my uncombed hair.
I can admire the beauty of a leaf,
but that leaf comes a hat when I wear it to identify myself
as a nature lover.
The transformation of buckets, bowls, and leaves
into hats suggests the reverse.
Hats are transformed into countless other ways of being.
There is no one postmodernism hat, only
infinite possibilities.
And last but certainly not least, from Harry T. Dyer,
Foucault would suggest that the hat itself
is never fully knowable outside of the mass of discourse that
surrounds it, a discourse that is not static but is
a fluid-- changeable, and heterogeneous.
To look at it from the Kantian perspective,
we can only ever see the hat as a phenomenon.
We never see the hat itself, the noumenon of the hat,
but only see the hat through our layers of social baggage
and attachments to the hat.
The noumenon of the hat is always just out of grasp.
It is always unknowable, as our perception and idea of hats
get in between the hat and us.
With apologies to Shakespeare, the hat is the thing,
but we will, and can never truly, know it.
What's in a name?
That which we call a hat by any other name
would look as a sweet.
The hat itself is unknowable but tangible,
singular but multiple.
It is effable, but the knowledge of it
distorts the thing itself.
To attempt to know it is to get further from it
as we attach more to it.
One hat in its time plays many parts.
And this one, well this one is the best unknowable
construct there is.
Once again, if you are Chuddley, Braidon, or Harry,
keep an eye on your YouTube messages.
We're going to reach out.
We got to get your information to figure out how
to send you one of these hats.
And if you were not a winner but you entered,
thank you for entering.
Your comments had me laughing nonstop as I was reading them.
They were super, super great.
And you can always purchase a hat, if you would like,
if you want to help support Idea Channel from dftba.com.
See ya around.