#moralist values

[gravitascivics]

AN ARRAY OF DISPOSITIONS

The last posting referred to certain points this blog has made through the years.  More specifically, those points describe the political/cultural landscape that the political scientist, Daniel Elazar, describes.[1]  Here is how this blog (with some editing) reported on Elazar’s contribution, back in 2011:

Daniel Elazar's study of American political dispositions identified these three subcultures. They are the individualistic, the moralistic, and the traditional. The origins of these distinctive cultural dispositions can almost be traced to the earliest colonial period. Highly affected by the economic diversity that sprang up from the colonies in the northern, New England region to the plantation-based economies of the southern colonies, the subcultures of each of the three regions [New England, Mid-Atlantic, and Southern] reflected the social realities emerging from these diverse economic conditions.

Robert Putnam found these diverse political ideas, ideals, and beliefs surviving in the nation’s more current times.[2] Elazar claims that the distinct cultural dispositions stretched westward in mostly three parallel layers of states. The trend is not perfect; for example, while the traditional subculture of the south moved westward, its expansion was limited to the former Confederate States [and ends at the western border of Texas].

Mostly stretching westward from first the mid-Atlantic colonies and then the resulting states, overall, the individualistic subculture is the most dominant today as it mirrors the marketplace perspective. [This blog has made the argument that that dominance was first exerted in the years just after World War II replacing a more moralistic bias that prevailed.]  Today, the nation’s political culture is well ensconced in the natural rights construct that is dominant in our nation's school curricula. Why? Because it best reflects the nation’s capitalist biases.[3]

This general description, as presented in this blog, was further supported by the thoughts of the Spanish-American philosopher, George Santayana.[4] He argued that American history saw a religious outlook among Americans that began with a strict Calvinist belief that evolved into a more genteel transcendental perspective. Those competing moral views helped develop or at least co-existed with the above described three distinct political subcultures.

To be clear, none of these perspectives held or hold total allegiance among the American population at any time.  That includes the thinking and feelings of Americans today.  For example, the Republican Party base today is described as holding a Christian nationalist perspective among its MAGA[5] advocates.  Readers can pass judgment as to the validity of that claim.  But to the extent it is true, one can classify such thinking as a form of parochial/traditionalist thought.

[1] Daniel J. Elazar, American Federalism:  A View from the States (New York, NY:  Thomas Y. Crowell, 1966).

[2] Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone:  The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2000).

[3] Robert Gutierrez, “Individualistic Political Subculture,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, July 18 or 19, 2011).  This posting is no longer found in the blog’s archive feature.

[4] George Santayana, “The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy,” in The Annals of America, vol. 13 (originally published in 1911) (Chicago, IL:  Encyclopaedia Britanica, 1968), The Annals of America, vol. 13, 277-288.

[5] Make America Great Again.

[tankgotstuckinthecircusgate]

"eleanor rigby" is certifed m2 song to me & i don't want to hear anything

[dykesynthezoid]

Gonna say that I really don’t think shame is actually a very effective activism tool. Which isn’t to say you have to be nice to shitty people or w/e, bc anger has a very very important role in activism and you have a right to be angry. But I don’t think shaming people itself is really “activism.” I don’t think it’s effective and I don’t think it actually helps anyone basically ever. Communicating, calling someone out, those are very important. But shame on its own is just. Not a good emotion to make use of. Shame is so self-focused. When people are ashamed they’re only going to act to alleviate their own discomfort and humiliation. And a lot of the time they just shut down instead. It doesn’t actually push anyone to make long lasting changes in themselves and their communities. It just makes people feel like shit and makes for some really shitty “activists” who don’t have like, any idea of what constructive, restorative, healing activism could look like and only know to tear other people down

[myrfing]

sign on my forehead that says i dont want varis to have a better fate and liked the anima thing as brief as it was I just think audience popularity having a very marked effect on a character’s fate and how hard the writer’s irony hammer swings back down on them makes it extra goofy. i think it is silly for a character in a narrative otherwise obsessed about humanizing people of his same belief to be treated with 0 humanity simply because he was ugly and unlikeable to the audience because the other reasons certainly dont do it for other characters

[fulgursmediaanalysisdrama]

Nihilism is a positive, life affirming philosophy. Something my christian mother couldn't, or didn't want to, understand

And Schoppenhauer is interesting but only worth anything when you conclude he is wrong

Berserk as a Nietzschean Tragedy — Art, Morality, Affirmation by Jonas Čeika

[litres-of-cocaine]

why do people on the internet have such rancid takes i hate it here.

[belial-ex-tenebrae]

"I never thought there were people like me

Just a little bit dark we like it harder

Don't mind if the sky is grey

You know we even kinda never like it that way

Never knew it could feel like this

My thoughts are twisted, wrong and wicked

Always wished that I wasn't the only one

I've found you, let's have some fun!"

[allstrangeandwonderful]

So I'm reading for an art history class, and Baudrillard is talking about the trends in colour usage from generation to generation (mostly in interior design, but there's definite spillover into fashion, architecture, etc.), and how every new colour movement is a direct rebellion against the previous one, like how the bright colours of the 60s/70s were a direct response to the austerity and seriousness of the WWII/postwar era, and how a shift back to organized, moralistic neutrals were a direct rejection of 60s/70s gaudiness, etc., and that all makes sense, people find their parent's style tacky, sure

But he goes on to observe how we've now been stuck in a lull of pasty tones and naturalistic finishes for some time, and I'm thinking yes, he's so right, but that's weird, because its been hanging around for so long, like what is it rebelling against anymore? What is it answering to? Well all I had to do was be patient because lo and behold, Baudrillard provides the following sentence, which caused me to completely wig out:

"...except of course, for the spheres of advertising and commerce, where colour's power to corrupt enjoys full rein"

And I'm like ooohhhhHHHHHH, so this colourless minimalist wasteland of a design principle:

Is maybe hanging on so stubbornly because this corporate hellscape:

is assaulting all of our eyes, inside and outside of our homes, every waking second, and is tainting the very concept of colour into something we can't relax around in our living spaces.

EDIT: The reading was The System of Objects by Jean Baudrillard, 1996 Ed., Part A, Section II, Subheading "Atmospheric Values: Colour" (p. 30-36 in my copy). Even if this was a passionate spur-of-the-moment post, omitting this was pretty silly; my bad.

EDIT 2: I was trying to be chill and leave this one alone, cuz I know most people in the notes are talking to themselves and their followers and not actually me, but 11,000 notes in it's starting to get to me - yes, I am aware that decreased homeownerhship/increased renting/landlord specials/hyperfocus on resale values, are all very direct causes of this too. I totally agree. For me, those were the obvious answers; I think we all get why the owning class is serving this to us. My epiphany moment was about understanding the flip side, the psychology of the consumers who keep accepting it, and even seem to enjoy it. That's what I couldn't understand before, but now I suddenly do. (And for those of you saying such people don't exist, no one actually wants to live without colour - check the notes, bb, they're everywhere. Not everyone has the same brain as you. We all deal with the horrors of capitalism differently.)

[regentzephyr]

people are so politically illiterate that they don’t realize that the apparently recent scourge of so-called “cancel culture” is just the ancient problem of political moralism lmao… the worst thing izzat neither the Right nor the Left (emphasis on the latter) learned anything since.

[dontbelasagne]

desperately need to do a presentation on why the Twelfth Doctors journey perfectly represents the transfem experience

their previous eleventh incarnation being suave and hypersexual (i know moffat is mostly to blame but!) is reminiscent of attempts to fit into heteronormative ideals of masculinity. whilst it is not completely insincere, there are obvious signs this does not fit you as a person, it is acted out of desperate need to being seen. as Vastra put it, eleven wore that face, and subsequently that form of masculinity, to be accepted. on becoming twelve, realising even an "idealised" masculinity does not inherently serve them, they retreated into themselves as a person for self-reflection and trying to understand why they feel so detached from who they are.

the "am i a good man" arc mirrors being closeted and having to present as something not inherently tied to your sense of self, but still wanting to be the best of your perceived gender as any failure could leave you spiralling into self-doubt about simply being like any other "man". you ignore your gender dysphoria/questioning by trying to claim a moralistic view of gendered expression. made even more clear by Twelve rejecting Clara's heroic view of them, establishing that even though they have made efforts to be a "good man", that is just a placeholder for their loss of identity.

Missy appearing as she does, who as a character serves as a parallel to The Doctor on what they could become, and her eventual arc in trying to become good is symbolic of the fear around transition regret that internalised transphobia can create when you are closeted. Missy never gives importance to their fem existence other than nonchalant jokes, rather showing a more free and expressive personality devoid of any frustration. this immediately dismisses the transphobic assumption that trans people are only focused on their gender. also, Missy representing trans femininity is inherently tied to chaos and upsetting the status quo, she is the embodiment of what society considers accepting your womanhood as someone previously labelled masculine. what many others, and The Doctor themselves, saw as a need for attention and senseless disruption is Missy not needing to serve a false version of who they are, that they can now focus on becoming whoever they want to be now without losing energy to performing a gender that society has imposed on you. Missy could never have made the decision to stand with The Doctor if she had not given importance to her own queerness.

it wasn't coincidence with meeting Bill, she was the perfect foil for The Doctor to finally let go of their anxious attachment to masculinity. i would even argue for the majority of s10, The Doctor is largely ambiguous in their gender identity and does not fit into any construction of masculinity or femininity. whilst they still present as something socially labelled as masculine, they do not internalise that gender expression. they are uncaring about and not needing the validity that comes with heteronormativity, and thus is free to finally accept the decision they have to make. as Bill says, it is so hard to let go of The Doctor, and that rings true for twelve themselves. but they begin to realise The Doctor can be anyone. yes, they are tired, it would be so easy to simply rest and not give value to who you can become. but choosing to let go of everything you once were to survive is better than oblivion. it is better to let go, to choose another lifetime where the only person that dies is your falsity, to finally get it right and choose kindness. for yourself and for those who you love. they regenerate, not just into another person, but into someone who (if only tv scripts...) can now move forward.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Disco Elysium's setting was formerly the site of a communist revolution that established the Commune of Revachol. It didn't last long. The Coalition of Nations brutally put the communists down, divided the city among themselves, and enforced a free market capitalist system. The results are depressingly apparent in Revachol's dilapidated district of Martinaise. "The literacy rate is around 45% west of the river," Joyce Messier, a negotiator sent to parley with Martinaise's striking union, tells our protagonist. "Fifty years of occupation have left these people in an *oblivion* of poverty." This state of affairs is overseen by the Moralist International, a union of centre-left and centre-right parties that professes to represent the cause of humanism, but whose primary concern is transparently the preservation of capitalist interest �� a Coalition official happily tells us that "the Coalition is only looking out for *ze price stabilitié*", arguing that inflation in Revachol must be prevented, comparing it to a heart disease that could block the "normal circulation of the economy". The people of Revachol don't matter. Their suffering and oppression is only significant as a necessary symptom of the system functioning as intended.  The most biting aspect of this critique of capitalist exploitation can be found in the cynicism of those who represent Moralism, or at least, its interests. The aforementioned Joyce Messier is its perfect embodiment. She does not believe in the facade of humanity Moralism presents to the world, and is under no illusions about what it has done to the people of Martinaise. She tells you how bad things are, freely admitting that the pieces of legislation put in place by the Moralist Coalition to govern Revachol are there to keep "the city in a [...] laissez-faire stasis to the benefit of foreign capital". This corrosion of belief via cynicism, this depiction of a system that continues to operate unimpeded despite few believing in it, feels all too familiar.  This critique of liberal capitalism's hypocrisy, cynicism, exploitation and deep-rooted connections to colonialism, is particularly powerful in recognising the precarious position it finds itself in. It has reached a stasis that seems, paradoxically, both insurmountable, and on the verge of collapse. Moralism relies on this contradiction. It's unofficial motto, "for a moment, there was hope", underlines the degree to which its dominance depends on the preclusion of the idea that a better world is possible, that there is no alternative, echoing the End of History sentiment that created the (rapidly disintegrating) political consensus of our lived reality. Despite growing dissatisfaction with the status quo in the real world, it has, indeed, proved difficult to imagine an alternative. The oft-repeated phrase attributed to literary critic and political theorist Fredric Jameson, that is is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is the end of capitalism, has almost become a cliché. However, the mistake Joyce makes, and one that we should avoid, is to assume that this means an alternative won't emerge nonetheless.

[...]

In a world where everyone is encouraged to look out for themselves, Disco Elysium suggests we should remember the value of collectivity, camaraderie and community. The Deserter has forgotten that though the communism he identified with is dead, the values that brought people to its cause in search of a better world remain as valid as ever. Bleak as it is, those values exist in Martinaise. They exist in us. Their latent power has the potential to lead us towards better horizons. 

[cavehags]

The folktale I loved most was the Passamaquoddy tale of two girls changed into water-snakes. Every Sunday, the two girls went to swim and play in their local lake together, naked, wanton. Men in their village spied on the girls and warned of sin, while, as usual of men, disregarding their own lust and hypocrisy. The girls did not listen, so the men came to snatch them away, intending to fix their purity—and discovered the girls had been transformed into water-snakes, their long hair and girl heads connected to wriggly and reptilian snake tails. The story, colored by colonialist Christian values, was meant as a warning against evil behavior on Sundays, but they didn’t see the truth of the ending. I was convinced the two girls were free, freer than I could ever be. I envied their ability to slip through those men’s grasps. I saw their evolution as a gift, so they could play in the water forever, not beholden to men’s needs or a moralist God’s schedule.

I reread the pages of the Passamaquoddy tale as my nightly bedtime story, wondering if I’d meet a girl friend someday, and if we’d intertwine into water-snakes. Where was she sleeping each night, without me? And where would we sleep each night, together, after transcendence?

Chlorine by Jade Song

[hadesoftheladies]

queer theory is actually a nightmarish frankensteinian creation of postmodernism, and post-modernists philosophers have frequently and explicitly been pro-pedophilia, because this is a logical consequence of what post-modernism says is true: there is no (epistemic) certainty or stable meaning.

when my conservative parents tell me they basically associate "lgbtq" with "maps" and pedophilia, they have reason to do so, given how "queer culture" is fundamentally a creation of post-modernist values, and post-modernist estimations of sexuality. everything is fluid, no binary exists, no meaning is fixed, so there are no defining lines, which means lines cannot actually be crossed. homosexuals can be bisexual, man and woman are interchangeable meaningless terms, and attraction to children is just one of the many ways sexual fluidity is expressed in humans, a benign and normal thing that should be released from modernist moralistic confines

that is queer philosophy, and it is actual queer culture. so not only are LGB folk being told they should celebrate the reclamation of an awful slur that explicitly others them as "perverted" and "strange", but now they are told to embrace queer culture (which means queer identity and philosophy) which not only declares their reality as abnormal and unreal (same-sex attraction is myth, since there is no such thing as sex and attraction is fluid), but also defines them explicitly with sexual perversions like pedophilia and bdsm: which IS EXACTLY WHAT HOMOPHOBES BELIEVE ABOUT THEM.

when queer culture is predicated on subjective feelings of identity needing to be validated, celebrated and "set free" from modernist (read definable, material and epistemological) structures, then the distaste for MAPs from queer folk doesn't mean anything, because even if MAPs are publicly rejected by queer culture, they are embraced and validated by queer theory and post-modernist philosophy.

what is doubly baffling to me is how the lgbtq+ community has tainted a movement for gay rights, you know, people who are being killed and ostracized for being same-sex attracted. not only nullifying their experiences and struggle in being same-sex attracted, not only associating their neutral, normal orientations with perversions and kinks, making something neutral political . . .

but they have also actively decentered a movement for homosexuals and bisexuals in order to accommodate identities that have NOTHING to do with that struggle or fight. intersex conditions, gender dysphoria, and asexuality have nothing to do with the oppression LGBs have faced for their sexual orientation and gender nonconformity, their culture of genderlessness. the idea that men and women can wear and present however they want, love and be attracted to the same sex, without it altering their material status.

EVEN MORE INFURIATINGLY, queer politics has offered almost ZERO challenges to patriarchy. by throwing out definitions, throwing out distinctions, it has relegated the essence of oppression to an individualistic, liberal fantasy that is powerless to change the system, and so can only grant us "spicy" patriarchy. dominance and submission, patriarchal inventions, are now cool kinks that every couple should try. gender is now open access (but still necessary), so men can wear heels and still call women slurs and violently harass them. transmen can go by he/him and still be refused abortion access! gay people are gender fetishists, not sinners. nothing has structurally changed, it's just we have cool names now! :)

so now LGB and women all over the fucking world are relegated to this homophobic misogynistic hell whether we turn to the left or right, and when we speak up about it, conservative homophobes and misogynists confuse us with liberal perverts, and liberal homophobes and misogynists conflate us with conservative sadists.

the structure doesn't change. there is no actual progress. like, same-sex right and women's movements all over the world have suffered for this. because white liberal westerners wanted to play around with words and have that count as activism.

i fucking hate queer theory and politics. i fucking hate how rich western whites shit on every human rights movement while capitalizing on them.

[txttletale]

I agree fundamentally that the exaltation of small business owners is a core part of the lib fantasy but like. idk where to draw the line? do you think it impossible to exist outside of abject poverty without then becoming the oppressor? because I frequently feel that way about the subject and it seems incessantly bleak

it's pretty easy. are you exploiting other people's labour to enrich yourself? & as a marxist, 'exploiting' is not a vague term, it is a very specific economic relation, where you pay someone a wage for their labour-power because you expect that their labour will provide you with more value than what you paid. and there is no moralistic angle to this, it is just a specific economic relation that naturally gives everyone involved in it diametrically opposed economic incentives and class positions. marxism is not monasticism, you do not have to take a vow of poverty. you do not have to be miserable and you do not have to avoid making money. the nobility of poverty is, in fact, a profoundly capitalistic idea, a justification for capitalist immiseration and a reason for workers to not feel entitled to the wealth they create.

[crooked-wasteland]

The Anti-Bojack: Anti-Intellectualism and the Death of Substance

In the blog essay “Staging Philosophy: the relationship between philosophy and drama”, Kristen Gjesdal opines on the home of philosophy. Many today would consider philosophy a relic of a bygone era with names such as Keikegaard, Voltaire, and Neitzsche. Many don’t know, however, of the close relationship philosophy has always held with the arts. Gjesdal mentions Ibsen in the article, discussing how many playwrights of the time were avid students of philosophy and how many philosophers regarded the arts highly. Nietzsche spoke of social leaders, specifically the religious leaders of his day in Beyond Good and Evil when he wrote, “Men, not great enough, nor hard enough, to be entitled as artists to take part in fashioning man.” Frankly denouncing the power and influence held by the religious men which he felt was more appropriately left in the hands of artists. In fact, Nietzche considered art the definition of culture and hence why he says that artists are the ones who should be responsible for shaping society and defining what it means to be “man”. As such, the expressions of art, poetry to cinema, is a definition of man and inherently a philosophy.

Bojack Horseman is an openly philosophical series that plays with existentialist schools of thought. Having liked several tweets endorsing the comparison of her work to that of Raphael Bob-Waksberg, Vivienne Medrano demands her work be valued the same way. From being favorably compared to Bojack Horseman to being praised as the “Anti-Bojack”. Which begs to question, what does that even mean? First let’s discuss the Philosophy behind Bojack Horseman, then compare the tweets Medrano liked and her series to that of Bojack directly, and then study the overlapping themes and why Medrano’s style of writing makes her storytelling a mockery to the art.

Existentialism in particular has been the darling of the theater for about the last 150 years, though generally ridiculed by “proper” society. For a philosopher to be labeled a nihilist or existentialist was often a denouncement of their school of thought, often for their general rejection of fundamental social structures like ethics. In 1942, writer Albert Camus published his essay The Myth of Sisyphus, rebranding traditional existentialist concepts as Absurd philosophy.

Camus begins his work poised with the question of suicide and whether life is worth living at all. He argues that life is inherently meaningless, an idea originating with Kierkegaard, but while the latter sided with finding purpose in constitutions like religion, Camus argues that religion itself is a philosophical suicide. In the Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy by Charles Guignon, he writes of the criticisms levied against existential and absurdist philosophies in a society awash in moralist anti-intellectualism. He opens this section by saying, “Existentialism has been criticized from a number of different angles. One line of criticism holds that the emphasis on individual freedom and the rejection of absolutes in existentialism tends to undermine ethics; by suggesting that everyday life is ‘absurd’ and by denying the existence of fixed, binding principles for evaluating our actions, existentialists promote an ‘anything-goes’ view of freedom that exacerbates the nihilism already present in contemporary life.” Which comes from this negative misreading of nihilism.

In their video Nihilism: Are We Missing the Point, youtuber Michael Burns of Wisecrack tells an anecdote of his time in grad school where he paraphrases his professor as saying, “This idea of the constant misreadings of Nietzsche’s writings on Nihilism leads to, his words, angry seventeen-year-old atheists.” Which tends to be the issue when discussing concepts such as nihilism, existentialism and absurdist philosophy. Nietzsche, the credited father of the school of thought, is often taken out of context or his views distorted by society’s sensibilities. For one, the quote given earlier extends further into a condemnation of religion by saying, “Such men, with their "equality before God," have hitherto swayed the destiny of Europe; until at last a dwarfed, almost ludicrous species has been produced, a gregarious animal, something obliging, sickly, mediocre, the European of the present day.” Which many an angry seventeen-year-old and moralist has seen as an endorsement of the might-is-right philosophy that nihilism is credited with.

To a lesser extent, Camus writes in The Myth, “I must say what counts is not the best living, but the most living”. It feels like it should be rather straightforward then, the concept of the thought. More equals better, and Camus practically says as much when he later writes “Why should it be essential to love rarely in order to love much?” However, if one follows the first quote to its natural conclusion, he continues, “The most living; in the broadest sense, that rule means nothing. It calls for definition.” His wording may come off confusing as the essay is translated and the theories involved are dense, but Camus clarifies that “most” could mean the sheer number of experiences or the depth of the experience. He is not saying one or the other is the correct answer, but that both are equally valid ways to live one’s life. The focus, then, is not on directing anyone how they should live, but in the manner they should do so. He says, “It is not up to me to wonder if this is vulgar or revolting, elegant or deplorable … Suppose that living in this way were not honorable, then true propriety would command me to be dishonorable.”

Camus, and even Nietzsche, argue that truth is the only ultimate value. It throws back the moralist dilemma by arguing that living to a code of ethics or values when one is not truly that sort of person is to live reprehensibly. Better is it to live authentically “without appeal” as Camus says, than it is to live the lie of following the rules.

Thomas Polzler from the University of Graz in Austria wrote a 2014 article titled “Absurdism as Self-Help: Resolving an Essential Inconsistency with Camus’s Early Philosophy”. Personally, I fundamentally and adamantly disagree with his assessment that there is any sort of inconsistency in Camus’s writings. Camus’s books of The Stranger, The Plague, and The Fall are not inherently inconsistent, but depict his philosophy in layers.

Like water painting, Camus starts with a thin veneer of color, a loose and almost detached protagonist in Meursault from The Stranger. He is a man aware of the absurd as an individual, the story maintaining the focus of a man living aware his life means nothing and thus seems to have an almost neurodivergent disinterested in the world beyond himself. What he feels in the moment is all that matters, so when he commits murder out of feeling uncomfortable from the heat of the sun and the painful blinding of the light, he is then juxtaposed with the ethical society he exists simultaneously within and outside of. Meursault is held up as a sociopath for not wishing to see his mother’s body the night before her funeral and smoking by her coffin. Because he does not cry at her passing, he is deemed a danger to society. Because he goes on a date to a comedy picture the day after, he is denounced as a menace. None of which has anything to do with the man he killed. The trial highlights the absurdity of ethical society and how the moralists demand the appearance of values over actually having them.

In fact, the trial of Meursault closely resembles that of Bojack and Sarah Lynn. The end of season 3, Bojack and Sarah Lynn go on a cross-country drug-fuelled bender to apologize to people Bojack has hurt in the past, stopping at the Griffith Observatory where Bojack has a profound revelation. He talks about living in the moment and how neither the past or future really matters at all. What you did and your legacy don’t matter if you cannot exist now. It is this moment that he realizes Sarah Lynn is not responding. It isn't until season 6 that it is shown that Bojack waited before calling the police and thus played a hand in Sarah Lynn's death. He is taken to civil court by Sarah Lynn's mother and step-father and made to pay them a fine for his involvement. However, is it really justice when Sarah Lynn's mother exploited her in the business and never once supported Sarah Lynn for what she wanted and what her dreams were, or even just who she was? Can one argue that it is justice when Sarah Lynn was sexually abused by her step-father throughout her childhood? Yes, Bojack does have responsibility in Sarah Lynn's death, but so do her parents. The absurdity of it all being that in no way could there ever be justice for Sarah Lynn.

Brief mental health sidebar. While I have to expressly disagree with Polzler’s reasoning, I do agree with his conclusion. Philosophy and especially Absurd existentialism are powerful tools in the journey to self improvement. It is both the line from Bojack where Diane says "That's the thing. I don't think I believe in 'deep down'. I kind of think all you are is just the things that you do." And Dr. Wong in Rick and Morty when she says, “You seem to alternate between viewing your own mind as an unstoppable force and as an inescapable curse. And I think it is because the only truly unapproachable concept for you is that it's your mind within your control … You are the master of your universe.”

It may be shocking to know that Medrano was not a fan of Dr. Wong, considering the scene all about telling and not showing Rick’s problems. However, this is after two and a half seasons of witnessing Rick’s shortcomings and Dr. Wong is not telling Rick’s problems, but rather identifying the solution. In both the words of Diane and Dr. Wong, who we are, comes down to the choices we make. There is no moral argument being made with either of these comments. Bojack asked Diane to tell him that he’s actually a good person deep down. That he means to be good, that despite his actions he doesn’t want to hurt anyone and that his bad behavior is the fault of his emotionally unavailable and narcissistic parents. So really, he isn’t a bad person. Whereas Dr. Wong calls out Rick’s behavior as a choice because Rick knows he is making these choices.

The difference between Rick and Bojack is the level of personal awareness and responsibility. Rick knows he has the power to change, but simultaneously so miserable but is so afraid of change that he turns himself into a literal pickle and risks his own death over confronting his own choice to stay the way he is. It is easier for him to justify his lack of trying by simply claiming this is just what it means to be as smart as he is. Whereas Bojack feels helpless. Bojack was not set up for success as a child, his success was never validated by his mother and thus he never valued himself, and every time he tries to change he has no internal fortitude to keep from backsliding at the first sign of defeat. Rick knows everything that is making him miserable is himself. Bojack externalizes his misery and thus also externalizes the solution to his problems, which is why he lets himself return to square one whenever things don’t go his way.

Absurdism is the recognition that life is meaningless and thus we have two choices: Live or die. But these concepts are not so straightforward when discussed. To live, in Camus’s philosophy, is to live authentically to oneself. That may sound like Rick’s situation of accepting things as they are, but that is only true in the case of the individual genuinely wanting to be that way. Authenticity is a dichotomy consisting of both how we behave and how we feel. In the case of Rick he lies, cheats, manipulates, and behaves cruelly towards his family. However, it is implied and later revealed that Rick genuinely cares about his family, but is too afraid of experiencing loss to really let them in. So he’s abusive and insulting, keeping his family at an emotional distance that keeps them around, but never too close, making Rick miserable. He really wants his family, so his feelings are at odds with his behavior. So in reality, him claiming “this is just how things are/who I am” is just as weak an excuse and removes agency over oneself as Bojack saying “It’s because my mother was never there for me.”

The actions both Rick and Bojack partake in are what Camus would call a philosophical suicide. Concisely put, to commit a philosophical suicide is to remove one’s sense of agency in their own life. How can one claim to be living when they have no effect on anything including themselves? You would exist in a void no different than a dreamless sleep. Your actions are meaningless, your thoughts are meaningless, your feelings are meaningless because you are a passenger to the act of living. Everything else has power, everyone else can influence you, so you may as well be nothing. Camus includes religion in this section of his philosophy, as living for something other than yourself is the same as not living at all. And this encompasses Ethics.

There is a massive difference between being kind because you are supposed to, and being kind because you want to. This delves further into living inauthentically and how that mere act alone results in misery. Even if one is to behave in a way deemed “right” without making the choice, they will inevitably become resentful. There is no such thing as faking it until you make it. One has to actively choose and change themselves on a fundamental level to find happiness, and that takes work. Just as Dr. Wong says, “It’s just work. And the bottom line is some people are okay going to work and some people, well some people would rather die.”

Which gets to the main point.

Medrano’s liking of a series of tweets calling Blitzo the Anti-Bojack has both infuriated and confused me. I suppose that I should be embarrassed at the latter since it's obvious both Vivienne and her fans lack basic media literacy. It’s actually rather spectacular just how badly they misrepresent the situation of the characters in the narrative. I can only break this down comment by comment.

For one, Bojack’s entire character is that he doesn’t intentionally hurt others. He has his reasons that fundamentally comes from a weak sense of self associated with a child who never had the emotional support he needed growing up. Those aren’t excuses, those are the reasons. Bojack has an unhealed inner child who wants to be a good guy, but he is so caught up in his self-loathing and resentment that he doesn’t do anything about that inner child. Instead he indulges these immature emotions through self medicating with drugs and alcohol, lashing out, promiscuity, and careless spending. These are the symptoms of the problem, the problem does lie in past trauma. The issue is Bojack doesn’t see the solution as himself, but someone or something else. In my post comparing Bojack and Todd’s relationship to Blitz and Moxxie, I pointed out how Bojack and Blitz treat their “closest friends” exactly the same by verbally abusing them and tearing down their abilities. While not always consciously intentional for Bojack, it is to keep Todd feeling codependent on Bojack and thus never leaving him which is abusive and manipulative. For Blitz, the narrative says it's because he is aware of his behaviour and is intentionally pushing Moxxie to be better, which is abusive and manipulative.

My point herein being that these are the same people. There is no Anti-Bojack happening here. If anything, Blitz is more malicious in his abuse seeing as he appears actively aware and intentional in how he mistreats Moxxie. Bojack is abusive towards Todd, but in a way that is a reflection of Bojack. And the series acknowledges how Bojack's inability to be alone actively harms his other relationships. Not just Todd.

In one way, however, Blitz absolutely is the Anti-Bojack. Blitz externalizes the source of his behavior to a character failing on Moxxie's part. And the series reaffirms and justifies Blitz's abuse as okay.

The other misconception of this post is thinking that an explanation is an excuse. Creative Screenwriting did an interview in 2019 with Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s process and philosophy of writing Bojack Horseman, quoting him for the title of the article, “Characters should be understandable in their vulnerabilities.” What Medrano’s fans fail to do, fundamentally, is understand. Their opinions and twitter orations are so barren of understanding that one must ask if they simply choose to ignore what does not serve their narrative or if they really are just incapable of comprehension.

They see Blitz’s mother’s death as a reason for his attitude more than his behavior. His behavior then necessitates that it needs to be excusable. As such, Blitz cannot actually make mistakes. Things happen by chance rather than a deliberate choice on any of the characters’ behalf. The fire in Oops wasn’t a mistake made by Blitz, if it is anyone’s mistake, it is the no-named imp who lit the candle before getting to the room. Blitz didn’t intend to bump the other performer, he just happened to turn at that moment. His mistake, then, is one that only makes sense on a metanarrative aspect. His mistake was deciding not to confess his feelings to Fizz. Which… no. As novel as the concept of the butterfly effect was in 2015, the fundamental nature of something inconsequential being attributed to a disaster negates blame. No one is going to blame the butterfly for a hurricane. Similarly, Blitz’s decision to not confess has nothing to do with the fire, in fact the fire itself is not even his accident. His contribution begins and ends with accidentally bumping the other imp; a situation that would have been entirely harmless if not for another character’s unrelated decision made off-screen.

Additionally, Blitz is a heinously insufferable individual who has been nothing but insulting and abusive to his “friend” throughout the series. He sexually abuses Moxxie in Harvest Moon by touching his penis against his will. He threatens to rape Moxxie and Millie in Murder Family. Blitz humiliates Moxxie through emasculation by masculinizing Millie over Moxxie, mocking Moxxie’s anatomy through his weight and genital size, and degrading Moxxie’s hobbies and abilities. Often without any prompting whatsoever and for Blitz’s own personal enjoyment. Blitz simply is a malicious individual, and at one point the series seemed to know that. The issue isn’t that Blitz is an awful person, it’s the lack of acknowledging that fact. The fans and Medrano conveniently ignore who this character is and what he has done to justify him instead of seeking to understand him. This is a running theme throughout the show.

I also briefly compared the scene in Oops to Herb and Bojack in this post, but I didn’t focus so much on the characters and more the metanarrative reason why Bojack worked and Helluva Boss didn’t.

Here, let’s look at why Bojack went to see Herb: Because Herb told him to. Unlike the scenario between Fizz and Blitz where they didn’t see each other for fifteen years and then conveniently run into each other and just so happen to be spotted by Crimson and Striker who, for some reason, know all about Fizz and Ozzie being a thing and they just keep Blitz around because … he’s the main character. Sure, one could argue both Crimson and Striker have a personal thing against Blitz, makes you wonder why they didn’t, you know, do anything to him? No torture or revenge of any kind, he’s just there now. Conveniently tied up and kept with Fizz instead of literally anything else they could have done with him. There is no internal logic to the characters as to why things turn out this way. As seen in the Mammon episode, it's a metanarrative compulsion to make sure Blitz is in every episode regardless of whether it makes sense or goes anywhere, or not.

Another sidebar, but the fact that so much of the series is not able to be explained within the narrative and requires an understanding of how Medrano and her team formulate a script is a huge issue. It removes the ability to properly dissect the characters as individual people and necessitates a reading of them that is how Medrano wants the audience to think about them. When it comes to the character dissections, it is effectively impossible to have a complete or coherent reading in regards to the literary philosophy of the Death of the Author. You have no story or character if you remove Medrano. The world as a whole completely falls apart unless you inject it with her metacommentary and narrative intention like one would preserve a corpse through glycerin. There is absolutely no substance here. And the longer she goes on, trying to compile the whole show into a coherent narrative of its own is like building a skeleton with a human ribcage, an ostrich spine, an elephant skull and the lower half of a barbie doll.

Bojack calls Herb after finding out he is dying from cancer, Herb tells Bojack to come visit him. He refuses to talk to Bojack any other way, and Bojack is compelled to go by his guilt, not ego. Herb calling him to his house obliterates Bojack’s ego, this is Herb’s home and he is the one being summoned. This is where Herb has the most power compared to, say, over the phone. This is not only a move of superiority on Herb’s part, but an act of submission on Bojack’s. Herb forces Bojack to come to him. Once again, this is what power dynamics look like. But, despite the resentment and awkward bitterness, he does want to see Bojack.

I don’t know how many times I can articulate this. Herb is the one in control and he is the one who wants to see Bojack and he is the one calling the shots. Not at all comparable to Fizz being kidnapped, forced to interact with Blitz and then wholly reliant on him due to the narrative in order to facilitate this forced reconciliation. Herb and Bojack are people with complex feelings and agendas. Blitz and Fizz are two dolls being smashed together and held in place by the will of a childish god.

Second, the reason Bojack calls Herb is because he feels guilty, not for abandoning Herb but because he betrayed Herb. He told Herb he would stand with him and walk off the show if they tried to fire his friend, but according to Bojack, he was a coward and didn’t keep his word. He feels guilt for that, he regrets it. But when he apologizes to Herb for it, Herb corrects him. It isn’t because Bojack didn’t keep his word, like the horse man thought, it was because he thought the betrayal was more important than their friendship.

He’s a coward, but not for staying on Horsing Around. He’s a coward because he didn’t believe in their friendship. They were together for years and Herb thought that meant something, but Bojack avoiding Herb and never reaching out to him showed how little their friendship meant to him. And it wasn’t because Bojack didn’t care, Herb knows that. And that fact is necessary to understanding the sequence. Bojack didn’t value the friendship because he thought he was valueless. He avoided Herb because he thought Herb would never forgive him, because that is how little Bojack thinks of himself. Him calling Herb is the active display of him still not forgiving himself, so he needs Herb to do it for him. And Herb knows all of this.

“You know what your problem is? You wanna think of yourself as the good guy. Well, I know you better than anyone else and I can tell you that you're not. In fact, you'd probably sleep a lot better at night if you just admitted to yourself that you're a selfish goddamn coward, who takes whatever he wants, and doesn't give a shit about who he hurts. That's you. That's BoJack Horseman."

Bojack has no value in himself, leaving him extremely fragile. So he took what he wanted, he took their relationship and defined it for both of them. He ran away, protecting himself while determining that this is what Herb would want, and left Herb alone and powerless even in his closest friendship. Which is why Herb demands Bojack come to see him, it’s Herb reclaiming his power in the relationship. And all of this only has any meaning if you clearly define the fact that Bojack apologized for the wrong thing.

There’s an alternate universe where Bojack doesn’t go back and apologize at all, and he and Herb rebuild their friendship anew in Herb’s last days and they simply, quietly agree to start over. Because that’s not off the table. Herb still values the telescope. He still values their friendship. Bojack, once again, takes it away. And Herb, a dying man, fights viciously to keep hold of it. Him not forgiving Bojack is not wanting his friend back, if anything, it’s because he desperately wants Bojack back that he won’t forgive him.

The telescope isn’t just a metaphor when it breaks. It's the symbol of their friendship the entire time, and the physical actions taking place over it are a screenshot of what happened. Bojack took their friendship and left with it. But it meant something to Herb, and you would only know that by how he fights over it now. And when it breaks it shows that, because of Bojack and his cowardly need to run away from his problems, their relationship is now, finally, beyond repair. Not because Herb didn’t forgive him. It wasn’t over when Herb didn’t forgive him. Bojack ended it, not Herb.

But just like Bojack, Medrano and her fans believe that forgiveness is the end all of the story. It’s why so many people were not invested in Fizzarolli and Blitz makeup. Because Fizz just forgiving Blitz makes everything they went through meaningless.  It strips the characters and what they went through of depth and nuance in a single moment. It also validates Bojack's general mindset in the belief that one moment can fix a systemic problem. In this case, Medrano isn't the Anti-Bojack, she just is Bojack.

The issue between Herb and Bojack wasn’t the job, or even the time. It was Bojack. And it is the failure of Bojack identifying the part of himself that resulted in this outcome, and not making the choice to do anything different that results in the end of everything. Maybe Herb would never have forgiven the Bojack who left him. But that’s why Bojack needed to be a different Bojack. And he wasn’t.

Wrapping this back around to the start of the essay and how Absurdist philosophy plays into Bojack intrinsically, Herb says exactly that truth to Bojack. That if Bojack was only honest to himself and lived authentically, maybe he would be able to sleep at night. Because being good is less important than being real.

This reminds me of Jean Baptiste Clamence from Camus’s The Fall. A Frenchman in the seedy center of Amsterdam, a city encircled by canals like the rings of hell. He spends his nights in the bar just outside of the red light district, drunk off his ass, it is uncertain if he is actually telling his story to anyone at all. Over the course of four nights, he tells his story of his fall from grace. His self exile to Hell after being unable to cope with his guilt. He tells so many stories of himself, egotistically claiming he has the lost panel of the Ghent Alterpiece in his apartment, the piece titled The Just Judges. 

Even his name is a plea for repentance. John. Baptist. Clemency. He claims to sleep with Judges looming over him. Words endlessly flow from him and he confesses his sins.

It’s when he fesses to witnessing the suicide of a young woman in Paris that he explains why he ran away to Netherlands. He says how she called for help after jumping into the water, but he quickly fled the scene, hearing the splashing below become eerily silent. One could argue that he couldn’t do anything. In the Paris winter, the freezing water of the canal could kill them both, let alone the dangers of trying to save someone who is drowning. The main concern being the victim drowning their savior in a frenzied panic of keeping themselves above the water. It could be said that he did the only thing he could. However, he knows she was aware he was there, so she called out to him specifically when she came to her senses. No one witnessed the incident or knew he was there but her, and no one could fault him for doing nothing.

But he feels the guilt in himself, and thus runs away.

Jean-Baptiste, Bojack and even Diane all have the same mentality. They fetishize their misery and trauma, making themselves important through the loops of suffering they inflict on themselves. Thinking that because the events happened to them, it must mean they are somehow special. That their damage meant something out of all the other people on this planet who suffer. That because they felt alone and responsible, they are a mythical chosen one selected from the masses to do something. They find value in the negative self-image they have, their pain being their purpose.

Because if it didn’t matter, why did it happen to them?

This is where I normally would keep just ripping apart the arguments, but frankly, there isn’t one anymore. For one, the original poster just blatantly lacks any fundamental understanding of Bojack as a series since the entire premise of the show is every season Bojack tries to change.

On a narrative basis, the lack of intentionality on Blitz’s part absolves him from needing forgiveness. Fizzarolli forgiving him holds no weight because Blitz didn’t intentionally set the fire, he didn’t see Fizz in the explosion when he ran away, he didn’t not try to see Fizz in the hospital and then Medrano puts the cherry on top about how Fizz’s life is actually better because of everything that happened. It’s equal parts boring and vile. The conflict is artificial, the resolution is repulsive and contrived. There is no depth to these characters and Medrano actively removes depth, either because she herself lacks the ability to comprehend it or because she knows her fans are incapable of doing so.

Also, let's just not comment on how this line explicitly overshadows Fizz's trauma. Everyone knows you don't end an apology with "but". That negates the whole apology. This is literally "I'm sorry you got hurt and I can never make that up to you, BUT my mom's dead so you don't even know what it's like being me and feeling responsible for that."

While the writers of Bojack sought to make their characters understandable and thus empathetic, they at no point excused or retconned the behavior. The writers on Bojack didn’t do anything to justify their characters, they were not at all focused on controlling how the audience felt about the characters. They were showing that the characters were well rounded, had reasons, why they had those reasons, what core memories made them who they are today. And the audience had the choice in how they responded to the characters. Medrano needs her audience to feel the same way about her characters as she does in order for the story to work, because she has never put forth the effort of actually telling this story.

One does not need the interviews with Bob-Waksberg to understand his cast and their story. Everything a viewer needs to know can be found in the show proper. There are not huge points of context happening just over there, off screen, between episodes and relegated to background details. Everything relevant to these characters and their stories is in the show. That has not and at this point never will be the case for Helluva Boss. So in many ways, yes. Helluva Boss is the anti-Bojack.

That's not a good thing.

[sadsongsandwaltzes]

We have some of the greatest examples of art right in the Bible. Crafting words of praise and lament. The joy and anguish of the human soul. Christians ought to value art more than the world. We ought to create art to a higher standard than the world. There’s value in being a wordsmith. There’s value in musicianship.

I fear that, in response to the free thinkin and free lovin movements, many (conservative) Christians undermine artistic endeavors. There seems to be a misunderstanding that creativity and objectivity are opposites. This is false. They work together—they’re tied together. There’s an objective standard from which the subjective flows. One who creates without a grounded footing will not create anything worthwhile. Their work will whither and die — a reflection of their own fate. And one who denies creativity for fear of being uprooted does not understand that the roots exist to grow and flourish — they will be stunted.

Art reaches the very soul. It is born from the soul and captivates the soul. One is touched by a well stated poem, a carefully constructed piece of music, or a well crafted sculpture. Nature itself is canvas of the creative work of God. Beauty informs us. We ought not diminish it. We cede artistic ground to the world and then wonder why no one is fed Truth. Remember, art captivates the soul. We dismiss this fact and leave room only for that which strokes our own ego and swap true creative work for moralistic posturing. Well done artistic work will reflect the truth. It always will, even if those creating it are unaware of this fact.

Don’t settle for bad “Christian” art. Don’t dismiss the importance of “mainstream” art. Don’t undermine the individual need for creativity. Call me a free wheelin hippie, I don’t care. I do not deny objective truth or morality. And it is for this reason I cannot deny the value of well crafted art.