A.K. Schaffners bakvända resonemang.

Man söker historiska försklaringar till estetiska uttryck. Då kan det gå till som hos A.K. Svchaffner i den lilla uppsatsen om "lignuistic lunacy". Man gger förklaringen som om artisterna satt och funderade på vad de skulle göra åt en viss bestämd redan analyserad situation och kom fram till att man borde ägna svaret ett visst uttryck, så som i detta fall dadaism:

"What are artists and poets to do when they consider reality to be totally beyond the pale, when real life is far worse than the most radically exaggerated and biting satires could ever be? What are they to do when all of society – its values, its rituals, its beliefs, its codes and symbols – has become so despicable and loathsome that they no longer find it sufficient to criticise individual aspects of it,
but want to renounce the entire thing? What are artists to do if the historical circumstances require a critique which is so radical that it can accept nothing as given, a critique which renounces the most basic forms of social and cultural consensus?
This is how the Dadaists, in particular Hugo Ball and Raoul Hausmann, assessed the cultural circumstances during and immediately after the First World War in Zurich and in Berlin."

I själva verket kom uttrycket helt spontant, och förklaringen är en efterhandsrekonstruktion. Men här spänner alltså Schaffner vagnen för hästen.