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prettywordsyouleft · 5 years

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Worth Fighting For // AIRFORCE7

Summary: From the first moment he met you, Jaebum knew you were exactly what he and the air force needed.

Pairing: Im Jaebum x reader

Genre: pilot au / 1940s era / romance / minor mature content

Warnings: Due to the era it’s set in, this will contain minor war conflict in some of the stories. I will not be making the war-zone my main focus in this series however.

A/N: Thank you every for being patient for me to get this next part in the series up! As it states above, I’ve not labelled this as M (mature) but it’s a little spicy in one part! I’ve edited this but if there’s any mistakes, I’m sorry! I’ll re-edit in the next couple of days when I have more time.

Word count: 5701

He saw you walking across the tarmac as soon as he landed and grinned, Jaebum navigating the P51 to its designated spot outside a plane hangar. You waited for the aircraft to stop completely before you approached it, a smile residing on your face when Jaebum jumped down to greet you. “How was the sunrise?”

“I wasn’t out that early,” he admitted, grinning back at you. “But the skies are clear, Captain.”

“Oh good,” you remarked, resting against the lower part of the fuselage and foldings your arms across your chest. “What are your thoughts for today?”

“Well, we’ll have training in the afternoon with the cadets and this morning will probably be working in the plane hangar like usual.”

“What about tonight?”

Jaebum smiled, moving closer to you. “Why don’t we start that right now, as I said, the skies are clear.”

“I want to see the sunset instead,” you decided airily, pushing through him lightly. He grabbed your arm and pinned you against the wing. You smirked. “Lieutenant, are you going against my orders?”

He sized up your lips and nodded softly. “I’m willing to pay the consequences.”

You were always worth the risk to him.

“Shouldn’t you be part of the nurses checking us over, sweetheart?” one soldier crooned as Jaebum stood in line for his eye exam, his attention pulled to the neighbouring line where you stood ahead of the men. “Why, I sure would like to get physical with you.”

A chorus of sniggers followed the remark and Jaebum tilted his head as he watched you clench your hands up but didn’t respond, your focus resolute on the front of the booth.

The men behind you were getting further worked up, making vulgar gestures about your body and giggling like a bunch of horny school boys. Jaebum found it hard to stand where he was, the disrespect of their behaviour making his blood boil. But he had promised his mama that upon joining the air force he would stop using his fists for no reason.

This is a pretty good damn reason though, he thought as one of the soldiers edged closer to you, ready to grope your ass. What irked Jaebum further was seeing officials watch on without pulling the cadets up for their behaviour. And so, when the soldier finally decided to reach for you, Jaebum stepped out of his line, ready to throw the first punch.

You moved faster though. Before Jaebum could even raise his hand, you had the fellow soldier in a hold, twisting his arm behind his back until he was crying out loudly.

“Now love, there’s no need to be like this, let the man go,” one of his friends implored and Jaebum scoffed, shaking his head at him.

You glanced at Jaebum’s stance and then threw the man towards his group of lackeys. “I’m not your love; I’m a fellow cadet, just like you.”

“The air force isn’t a place for women!”

“I think there’s plenty good space for such a cadet,” Jaebum spoke up, darting his focus from you to the man who just spoke. “We’re all here for the same reason.”

“Women are meant to be there for us when we get back from fighting, not beside us. She’ll be a distraction to everyone with that body.”

Jaebum let his hand fly at a face this time around and soon there was chaos, soldiers who were merely watching on implicated by being in close proximity. Only then did the officials step in, breaking up the fight effectively.

You had merely stood there watching on, your gaze lowering when the Staff Sergeant looked in your direction. “Who let a woman into the force? It’s always like this when they think women can be equals.”

“She didn’t do a thing wrong,” Jaebum argued, pointing to the cadet who now sported a swollen eye. “He was going to touch her and you were going to let him.”

“Now son, I’ll have none of that,” the official replied hastily when your gaze snapped on his. “There was no need for things to get physical. Let’s all just line up and continue with what needs to be done, shall we? Miss L/N, would you-”

“Cadet L/N,” you corrected firmly and the Sergeant looked at his buddy for support. The other man merely shrugged.

“Cadet L/N, would you prefer to have your medical done after the men?”

“Why should I have to wait?”

He sighed exasperatedly. “Now you know very well why. I think it’s best to let the men go first.”

You chose not to argue, letting your head fall for only a second before you collected yourself up and marched right past the men who had aggravated everything without so much as batting an eyelid.

As soon as you were gone, their bravado returned. “Who let a bitch up in here?”

“Now we gotta deal with hormones when she’s having a bad day.”

Jaebum hissed and the cadets looked over at him, cowering slightly and huddling closer to continue their conversation.

“Don’t worry lads, ladies never last long around here.”

Jaebum smirked at them. “I’ve got a feeling she might outlast half of you.”

“You got a thing for her, lover boy?” one asked and Jaebum merely smiled. “Brought your girl into the force so you could show her what a tough man you are?”

“I think she was the one showing your arm before, wasn’t she?” Jaebum reminded and shrugged. “And I’m not here to show anything. I just hate when someone mouths off and can’t back up their words like you did.”

“Watch out, boy. Troublemakers leave early too, you know.”

Shrugging again, Jaebum turned back to his line, thankful when he could step forward for his eye exam. As he read from the board, he thought over the promise he made his mama just recently.

He’ll have to avoid you if he wanted to keep to it.

Yet, Jaebum found you later that evening sitting alone in the cafeteria, and he bee-lined for your table, placing down his tray before catching your gaze. “Mind if I sit here?”

“Are you trying the protection route? Unlike those boys, your plan is to protect me and make me swoon over your strong arms?” you asked dryly, tilting your head to the side. “I’m not here for anyone’s pleasure.”

“Why would you need protection when you were capable of twisting that cadet’s arm so quickly and making him squeal for mercy?” Jaebum shook his head as he sat down. “I’m not trying anything with you. I just have a bit of a temper, you see. And when I saw that they were going to be further indecent with you, I couldn’t help but step in.”

“Well, I appreciate it, this time. But don’t make it a habit. I don’t need anyone talking about me any further than they are.”

“What about for your skills?” You stared at Jaebum dubiously and he ate some of his food before continuing. “Aren’t you here because you’re a good pilot? I don’t mean to sound like everyone else around here, but they ain’t exactly letting a lot of women join the air force these days. Women who want to help are generally put in the factories, not in the field.”

A wry smile crossed your lips. “I suppose you’re expecting something then?”

“I’m hoping you’re going to wipe the smug smiles off those assholes who belittled you, in the very least.”

“What’s your name, soldier?” you asked, leaning back into your chair.

“Im Jaebum. And you?”

“Y/N,” you answered with a smile before scraping back your chair and standing up, collecting your now empty tray. You continued to smile down at him. “I’ve got a feeling you’re also going to be one to watch out for.”

Jaebum was all smiles on the morning of the first flight training. Orientation around the aircrafts had been explained the week prior, and now it was time to actually show what you all were capable of. Jaebum was excited for the chance to get up in a plane, of course, knowing this squadron was made up of trained pilots already. When his father left him and his mother behind, it was on Jaebum to keep the family business running. He was able to fly the small crop-dusting plane they owned with ease. In fact, it was one of the few things Jaebum was good at. Up in the skies, he felt free from social constraints. He could fly and be who he wanted to be. On the ground, he had been known for his fists doing too much talking after the rumours of his mother got about town. Moving away had been the best thing both of them could do and joining the air force was his new start in life.

Yet he anticipated your performance as well. You looked at ease on the tarmac, though as the Captain continued to explain the expectations of the morning, it was all too apparent that even he was ready to make a mockery of having a woman on his team.

“Well, who wants to go first?” he asked, ignoring the raised hands and smiling sweetly at you. “Ladies first, where are my manners?”

You smiled forcibly and ignored the sniggers from the cadets, stepping towards the aircraft you were all expected to get off the ground before the markers on the runway. You look ahead and then turned to the Captain. “Should I start now?”

“Of course, sweetheart. Do you need a hand up?”

Jaebum watched as you climbed effortlessly into the cockpit, taking the safety gear from the ground assistant before closing the lid to your aircraft. Checks were made to ensure you were safe to take off and all the men moved forward onto the verge of the runway, watching on avidly.

“Bet princess will just blow through those markers down the end.”

“Girls can’t handle big machines like that.”

“Give her a chance,” the Captain called out and Jaebum looked at him, wondering why he had a sudden change of heart. The older man then smirked. “When she realises it’s big and scary, she’ll go back to where she came from.”

Jaebum clenched his hands into fists but focused on you preparing for take off. Once given the signal, you didn’t hesitate, pushing the throttle and making your way down the runway. The laughter stopped as you reached a top speed quickly. And everyone lurched forward when you got the plane up into the air well before the line.

Jaebum clapped and soon others were gasping about how fast that was. When you landed safely again, the Captain was stunned.

“Is it a fluke, sir?” one cadet asked and the older man blinked a few times, holding his hand up to stop you from getting out.

“Do it again,” he instructed and your elated smile was wiped from your face. You nodded once and then repeated the same exercise, this time getting a better takeoff.

“Sir, that is no fluke,” the Lieutenant beside him admired, his mouth still ajar when he stopped talking. “We might have just found our ace.”

Despite all efforts by the other cadets, you were unbeatable up in the clouds. You were also knowledgeable about planes and you were excellent in ground combat training. Had you been a man, you would have been the most liked cadet on the air base.

Being a woman didn’t have the same effect and your vast skills didn’t make you appreciated by others any better.

“Again?” Jaebum asked as he found you cleaning the office in the afternoon, and you glanced away from your scrubbing of the windows before groaning loudly and throwing down the cloth.

“If I wanted to clean, I’d work in a Laundromat!”

“Why were you sentenced to it this time?” he wondered, placing down the files Sergeant Kim asked him to bring here.

You smiled to yourself as you picked up the cloth again. “I corrected Cap.”

“Oh, and you know how much he loves it when you show your superiority,” Jaebum teased and you shot him a grin. After leaning against the desk to watch you, he held out his hand. “Want some help?”

“Why are you always looking out for me?”

“You wanted me to be protective, right?” he mused, thinking back all those months ago when you had first scolded him for getting involved. Now, it was a rare day for Jaebum to go without being paired up with you for something. After all, if you were the ace of the team, he was the one keeping you on your game, just barely behind your tail in all areas of training too. “Isn’t it true most people say something and mean the opposite? So I’m certain you really wanted my company.”

You chuckled. “If it’s what helps you sleep at night, Jae, think as you please.”

“Oh, you even wonder about how I sleep!” he continued, revelling in the light blush that crossed your cheeks. Jaebum felt his heart thump harder with the reaction, knowing there was an underlying tension building between you both. Although you were rivals in the skies, down on the ground, he hoped you could amount to something more most days.

“If you’re helping, don’t just stand there.”

“Yes ma’am,” he saluted you before grabbing a cloth and joining your side. He smirked. “Oh, I finally realised something I’m better at than you.”

“Cleaning?” you asked incredulously, and he couldn’t help but grin at how your arm started to move more vigorously. Anything was worth a challenge to you.

He shook his head, pushing his arm up higher than yours. “I’m taller. You can’t beat me in that, no matter how much you try.”

“Is that so?”

“Well, you can’t grow taller all of a sudden,” he reminded and you nodded softly, soon scrambling up onto the windowsill to clean higher than he was. Jaebum laughed heartily, shaking his head at you. “That’s cheating.”

“I’m still higher than you are right now.”

“That’s a fair point, but you’re also on a ledge that isn’t made to hold a person.”

“I’m not heavy!” you exclaimed and Jaebum chuckled.

“I wasn’t meaning that, it’s just-”

Before he could point out how precarious your placement on the ledge was, you shifted, your foot slipping on the water residue and you toppled. Jaebum lurched forward to catch you, whining when your knee smacked him in the side as you fell on top of him and you both fell to the ground. Stunned, you stared at each other for a moment before you went to scramble away. Jaebum held you there, breathing a little heavily.

“Your heart is beating just as fast as mine, Y/N.”

“I got a fright,” you mumbled, your hands pushing on his chest. He knew you could break out if you truly wanted to but you weren’t using your force as normal. Soon, you stopped pushing altogether, your gaze getting lost in his.

“Are you still frightened?” he asked softly and you sighed, nodding slowly. And then something snapped in you, finally escaping out of his grip and righting yourself immediately.

“You know there’s no way anything can happen between us.”

“Right,” he replied simply and you focused intently on washing the window again. Jaebum smiled. “But knowing that you wanted it to for even a minute just now is enough for me.”

“Are you going to keep helping me?” you questioned curtly and Jaebum bowed lightly.

“I’ll leave you to it for today,” he stated, leaving the room and leaning against the wall soon after, a giddy smile crossing his lips.

His training was complete. If the war came to these shores, Jaebum was certain he would be one of the first pilots called upon from the base. Along with you up in the skies, you had proven to be a formidable pair. The Captain might not agree, but after the assessments were done, you had earned your ability to become a Second Lieutenant already. Although Jaebum wanted to go up in rankings himself, he was proud to see you being recognised by other officials in the air force. It was time for change to occur in how women were perceived in society and you were definitely a good example of that.

What he wasn’t certain about was your personal relationship. After the office mishap, further incidents in close proximities had occurred and you had almost kissed him last night because of it. It was driving Jaebum mad, knowing that you were attracted to him, yet holding back because of some honour code you had conjured up.

“We can’t,” you had told him sadly, stepping back as you let go of his shirt you had anchored your hands upon. You shook your head to reinforce your opinion. “If we get caught-”

“No one will be surprised, Y/N.” You looked at Jaebum then, eyes wide. He tried to smile soothingly at you. “Everyone always has teased us of-”

“And it becoming true will only be more ammunition for them!”

“It’s not like you care what they say!” he refuted and you dropped your head. Jaebum heaved a breath before stepping towards you. “I mean-”

“I do care,” you said quietly, sounding so unlike yourself. When you lifted your head back up, your eyes were brimming with tears. “Every remark about me being a woman pilot hurts. You see it as motivation to be better. Do you know how many times I was turned away from being here? Unlike the men who just need to be of age and healthy enough, I had extra credentials needed to join. I jumped through hoops to be here. And I knew it would be hard, but gosh Jaebum, why do I always have to be better?! I’m a Lieutenant now yet I still hear the vulgar comments, and I know what is said about me when I’m out of ears reach. It matters to me. Everything they think and say, I do care about, far too much!”

He didn’t answer right away; ashamed his words had led to such an outburst. And yet, it wasn’t enough to satisfy him. He nodded once. “It’s a pity though that no matter how much I’ve been on your side, that you don’t care enough about the one who does think you belong here. I always have.”

Jaebum walked away then, not listening to your calls after him.

He avoided you for most of the next morning, only being around you when he had to be. It was petty, even he knew that much. But his pride was hurt and he figured if you didn’t want to progress with the feelings you had both skirted around on multiple occasions that he needed to find a way to let them go. He knew he admired you for the fellow comrade that you were and that would never change.

Jaebum just didn’t know how else to deal with his deeper feelings other than to avoid them.

And that’s why it surprised him when you approached him next.

“What are you– oh my God!” he exclaimed, blushing deeply as he quickly tightened the towel around his waist, darting his focus rapidly around the otherwise empty shower room. You showered in here alone when the men were done at a different time of the day and he knew that you didn’t have a special pass to be in here like he did. After being in the unfortunate place when a whole bunch of grease landed on him, Jaebum had been given the opportunity to shower when nobody would be in here. It was the most relaxing shower he had taken since joining the force.

Until now.

“Y/N, you can’t be in here, oh God, I’m not even dressed, look away!”

You smiled, admittedly a little overwhelmed by the sight before you, yet you had a desire in your gaze that he knew all too well. You were determined. “I never took you for being embarrassed about me seeing you without a shirt on. After all, it’s not my first time seeing you without one. All you men forget to put them on when working away in the heat of the sun.”

“Yeah, well…” He didn’t want to admit that he felt vulnerable right now. Or the fact that your steady gaze was making him react under the towel he was holding tightly around his lower half.

“I need to correct you on something,” you told him and continued your approach closer.

Jaebum backed into the stall he was just leaving and let out a whine an octave higher than usual. “N-now?!”

You nodded. “Mm, now.”

“What is it then?” he asked hastily, looking over your shoulder and imagining Bernard the cook who normally had showers at the same time as air force personnel and all his body hair. Jaebum thought of anything that could help him lower his heart rate and the growth under the towel.

“You were wrong about me, you know.”

You were dragging it out, now standing right in front of him, practically gleaming at his discomfort. Your hand tentatively reached out for his bare chest and he turned rigid, battling with all his self-control not to take you right now up against the tiled wall. It was growing far too hot in the room and he was failing to think clearly.

“I do care about you, more than I’ve let on,” you finally told him and Jaebum managed to look at you, blinking slowly.

“You know, you’re treading on thin ice, Y/N. I could take you right-”

“Then what are you waiting for?” you intervened, crashing your lips onto his. The change in mood was instantaneous and Jaebum’s hesitancy evaporated as his tongue grazed upon your teeth, begging for access. You gasped into the embrace and soon your tongues were entangled, much like your bodies were in the cubicle.

His hands moved to your layers, hastily undoing the buttons to your shirt and cursing when he fumbled on a couple. You worked on sucking on his neck, your own hands on your slacks and unfastening them quickly. You both threw your clothes away from the cubicle to keep them away from the wet tiles before your hands roamed over his torso, yanking on the towel still around his waist.

“Time to get rid of this like you did my clothes,” you murmured as you removed the towel, Jaebum wasting no time pressing you up against the walls and hiking you up in his arms, your passion eliciting moans and gasps to echo around the shower room as you both transported into another realm of pleasure.

When your climax stopped ringing around the walls, Jaebum held you tenderly, turning on the shower above you both. It was a different kind of intimacy now, the rush was gone and you both moved slower, imprinting each other with your hands and lips. Eventually, you dressed one another before each taking careful consideration in how you exited the bathroom. You met up on the court outside the bunkers and Jaebum reached out to discreetly take your hand, kissing the back of it gently.

“Jaebum!” you hissed and he smiled, shaking his head.

“You can’t take back what we just did.”

“But in public, we need to be more careful!”

Jaebum looked around you both before shrugging. “Do you see anyone? Because all I see is you right now.”

“Who knew you would be this affectionate after what you just did to me?” you murmured, nestling into his side anyway. “We still need to be careful about this. My career as a pilot comes first.”

“One day I will change that.”

Despite the intimacy in the bathrooms, you were still decidedly prickly towards Jaebum. He had hoped that you would meet him for secret rendezvous in between tasks on the base, or spend your free time at night with him. Instead, you had distance yourself again, confusing him over your confession. Had the intimacy been bad? He, for one, had enjoyed it and with how vocal you had been, he couldn’t imagine you viewing his efforts as being inadequate. The only thing he could think of was that you were scared. And this conclusion seemed to diminish all that was said and felt within that afternoon in the bathroom.

It, in turn, made Jaebum irritable to be around.

“Son, can you come into the office?” Jaebum nodded and followed the Lieutenant Colonel, wondering if his behaviour on the base lately needed to be reprimanded. Yet, you were also inside the office and for a moment, Jaebum panicked, wondering who gave the officials a heads up about the activities you and him got up to in the bathroom together.

The Lieutenant Colonel sat down and steepled his fingers together. “I have been made aware that you are both the best pilots on the first squadron here at the base, is that correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I have orders for you both. Now, what I am about to tell you of is classified information,” he explained and instead of being concerned, Jaebum felt his heart thump harder with anticipation. He had been hopeful that his training would come in handy one day soon. “The war our allies are faced with is intensifying. They cannot get enough intelligence because they’re too busy sending their finest pilots into the face of battle. Although neighbouring countries are submitting what they can, they need someone to go into enemy territory and gather information. They have asked for us to send our best.”

The Lieutenant Colonel got out of his seat and began to pace the floor of his office. “Now, I have been in two minds of whether to send my best pilots into such a dangerous place. The war isn’t anywhere near our shores, and we have only pledged assistance so far. Sending my finest in may only bring us into the war faster.”

“Sir, with all due respect, getting eyes in there can be an advantage to us as well,” Jaebum mentioned and the older man nodded.

“That’s why I’ve decided to send you both. Another base is also prepared to send some men. You will be deployed at zero seven hundred hours. Do not try to be heroes for a war that isn’t ours to fight yet, you hear me? You come back home together.”

“Yes sir,” you replied, both saluting the man before leaving the office.

A smile played on your lips and Jaebum wondered why. You looked at him and grinned. “He didn’t see me as a woman, but as a pilot.”

Your elation was short-lived. Despite flying the new prototype Mustang P51s, what was happening back home was child’s play. Navigating through the war was arduous and out of the eleven you had started out with, only nine remained into the third day. Jaebum was grim and exhausted. It was harder to source out these hidden bases than he had anticipated and the reality of the war was cold and troubling. And he and the others weren’t even in the thick of it.

After the fourth day in the area, the team had finally gathered enough evidence to return home with when you were caught under fire by enemy fighters. The squadron managed to fight off several planes until there were only two enemies left and one was right after you.

“Y/N, on your right!” Jaebum radioed through but there was no response except for static and you didn’t seem as aware as you should have been, focusing solely on taking down the other plane instead. And just as you succeeded, you became a target. Jaebum sped towards you making a signal you had both often used when up in the skies playing chicken. You saw it right at the last moment and dived left, leaving Jaebum to take on the plane who had been on your tail. He managed to take it out, but not without being hit first.

“I’m hit! I’m hit!” he radioed through, feeling the searing pain in his right arm from where the damage had been made. Trying to focus on flying instead of the pain and loss of blood he knew to be happening around him, Jaebum managed to land his plane at the nearby allied base they were using, a hazy image of you being the last thing he saw until everything turned black.

When he came to, he found you beside him, this time without seeing three versions of you. He smiled lazily as you leapt up from the chair you had been sitting in, calling for a nurse immediately.

Jaebum whined hoarsely. “Why do you gotta do that? I was happy just looking at you.”

“Don’t give me a fright like that again!” you snapped, before darting out of the cubicle to find someone. Once the nurse had assured you that Jaebum was going to make a full recovery, you slumped down into the chair again and held onto his hand.

“Oh, what’s this?” he asked, lifting your linked hands up to gesture to it. “Is it because we’re not back at home that you’re showing me affection, Y/N?”

“I thought you were going to die.”

“So you want to hold on so I don’t? Fine by me.”

You groaned. “Falling in love with you was the worst thing I’ve ever done.”

His teasing smile faded and he watched as you huffed in annoyance. When you realised he wasn’t going to say anything back, you glanced at him, smiling weakly. Jaebum lifted your hand so he could brush his lips along the back of it. “You can’t take it back this time around.”

The day had gone just as Jaebum had predicted. The morning had been filled with working in the hangar on one of the planes on maintenance repairs, and after lunch, Jaebum joined you in the field in front of the new recruits. Unlike at your old base where there were sniggers and lewd remarks at you being a female officer, not a peep came from any of the young men before you both. Jaebum smirked, wondering if it had anything to do with the fact that after your return from the war you had both been promoted.

“Captain, will we be flying today?” one of the cadets spoke up and you looked at Jaebum before smiling.

“Are you eager to get up in the skies?”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“What will you do if you can’t get your plane up fast enough for me today?” you continued and several murmurs sounded through the recruits.

“If we can, will you answer one of our questions?” another asked and you nodded once. “Really? It doesn’t matter what it is?”

“I will answer anything as soon as you prove to me that you can get that big fat lady up in the skies before those markers,” you confirmed and the young men went to work immediately.

Moving to your side, Jaebum smiled. “What do you think they’re going to ask?”

“What did the last group ask me?” you questioned him back and Jaebum laughed loudly. You smirked and poked him in the side. “You need to watch out Lieutenant, there are some nice looking ones this time around.”

He gaped after you as you walked towards the teams, inspecting their preparations well. The incentive had worked and now the cadets were lined up, anticipating their earned question time.

Before you could initiate anything, Jaebum stepped forward. “Raise your hand if any of you planned on asking Captain L/N here if she was single.”

A few raised their hands sheepishly and you hid a smile behind your hand as Jaebum took a deep steadying breath. He then smiled forcibly. “Congratulations, you’re now on my training team exclusively.”

“Why, have you also got a thing for the Captain, Lieutenant Im?!” one cried out sullenly and Jaebum folded his arms over his chest before glancing in your direction. You shrugged.

“Professionally speaking, the Captain and I come as a team,” he announced and then moved over to sling an arm over your shoulders. He felt your sharp intake as he grinned. “And personally, we continue that very well.”

“You’re all dismissed for today!” you mentioned hastily, turning on your heel as the embarrassment continued to flood your features. Jaebum jogged to reach your side, your eyes glaring at him as soon as you snapped your head in his direction. “Now, we’ll be the talk of the base!”

“As if we haven’t been since Youngjae outed us to the other members of our squadron.”

“That’s within Airforce Seven only,” you confirmed, flailing an arm about. “Not for the men we are training!”

“What, you said there were some pretty guys this time around. I had to do something to ensure none of them would approach you when my back’s turned.”

“Remind me why I love you?” you grumbled as you stepped back into your office and Jaebum closed the door before pressing you against it. Leaning down, he hovered his mouth just above yours.

“Because I almost died for you.”

“Are you always going to hold that over my head?!” you wondered, slipping your hands up so you could drape them around his neck. “I never asked you to save me.”

“You’re glad I did,” he replied and you kissed him softly before pulling back to give him a small nod. Jaebum pressed on. “Are we still on for that sunset? I found a new spot this morning that I want to show you.”

“Last time I listened to you, I found myself held up by an old farmer with a shotgun for landing in his field. I didn’t even have enough time to get my clothes on!”

Jaebum kissed you softly and smiled. “I found a cabin this time and I rented it. Completely safe, without a farmer in sight.”

“You know, Im Jaebum, you’ve been trouble since the day I first met you.”

He laughed, letting you go and shooting you a wink before opening the door to leave. “You best keep me in line then.”

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shou7 · 6 years

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A 3.7k Word Essay About the Failures of Future Pop and the Present State of Perfume

Just something I needed to get off my chest. It took me almost a week to get this done, but here it is.

When discussing a work of art, not only does it need to be evaluated as a product in and of itself, but also as part of a larger context. In the case of Perfume, this context includes but is not limited to: their own team’s intentions, the expectations their team has set for their fans and the general public, and the sonic landscape of the rest of the music industry. How critically and commercially successful an album is depends on how these aspects interact and come together. So before I can discuss why Future Pop has failed, it’s important to set the context into which it was released, starting with the purpose of every album in their discography.

GAME was Perfume’s real introduction to the general public after finally getting a breakthrough hit with Polyrhythm. That’s why it had catchy melodies and unique but still easily digestible production. Triangle’s role was to further GAME’s legacy, pushing GAME’s sound to be as mainstream as possible while still retaining Perfume’s signature production in order to attain even more commercial success. The era’s singles did just that, but the album itself went in the complete opposite direction. Triangle was Nakata self-indulging in 80’s pop and maxing out the auto-tune to the point of concealing the natural charms of the trio, and this alienated a lot of the general public. Thus JPN’s purpose was to gain back the general public’s favor, culminating in their most commercial and mainstream album to date. While this did recapture the general public’s interest, there were long-time fans that were put off by how mainstream Perfume’s sound had become. This brings us to LEVEL3, which served to rebrand them as a global electronic act, once again making Perfume distinct from the mainstream. The album still retained the catchy melodies of JPN, but featured more experimental instrumentation under the guise of EDM for better marketability to a global audience. With the success of LEVEL3 on overseas iTunes, as well as their sold-out overseas concerts, Perfume’s team starts pushing to increase the size of their Western fanbase. And so enters COSMIC EXPLORER, their first era and album featuring explicitly foreign sounds. But perhaps in an attempt not to scare off Western audiences with Japanese lyrics, the album featured more lengthy instrumentals than ever, reducing the amount of actual singing by the trio, and alienating plenty of the fanbase and general public.

And so we finally arrive in the Future Pop era. The COSMIC EXPLORER Tour was over and Perfume needed a new goal to replace Madison Square Garden after struggling to sell-out their North American leg. With Mikiko and Daito being involved in the 2016 Olympics closing ceremony, the answer was clear as day – the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Thus began a renewed focus on Japan rather than the West, an intent reflected clearly in TOKYO GIRL. The production was as inoffensive and simple as possible to please the general public, and it worked. TOKYO GIRL became only their third track to sell 100k digitally (after Spring of Life and FLASH). So having re-established themselves as mainstream artistes after the slight backlash from COSMIC EXPLORER, they began campaigning in earnest to perform at the Olympics. And this is where If you wanna and Mugen Mirai come in, heavy in new future bass influences. Future bass, thus, in this context was less about attracting more Western audiences, but more an effort to have Perfume embody the concept of “future” in the eyes of the general public, and to make them top picks for representing Japan in the Olympics. And this was what Future Pop was being set up to do as well, via the album’s photoshoot and comments from Perfume themselves, such as during the album announcement when A~chan said Nakata was creating a “new era in music”. So with Future Pop’s placement and purpose in Perfume’s discography now laid out, we can start discussing whether it achieved what it was supposed to do. Was it a “new era in music”?

In short: no, not at all. And I think that much of its issues as an album is best encapsulated in how a “dusty floppy disc” is referred to as an “ultra future loop” in Chourairin. Rather than “pop of the future”, it is “pop that makes you think of the future”, a theme highlighted by the contrast between the old and current sounds being fused on this album, as well as its lyrics. Just like how every album has been shaped by the criticisms of its predecessor, Future Pop is no different. The older Perfume sounds and relatively increased vocal sections in the album tracks strongly indicates that its main concern was regaining the older fans that were put-off by COSMIC EXPLORER. Unfortunately, all of the older sounds were added superficially, with nothing having been done to make them fit into the current soundscape of the industry. This is especially so for Tenkuu, which sounds like Nakata had the trio re-record a long lost Complete Best era B-side (think Foundation and wonder2). It’s telling Nakata doesn’t seem to understand that it’s never been the instrumentation itself, but the innovative spark behind the production that attracted listeners to Perfume. Though the production may have been innovative a decade ago, simply rehashing it now without any deconstruction in its use is regressive. Another big issue that this album has, especially to long-time fans, is Nakata’s complete disregard for Perfume’s public image and the narrative they’ve been pushing for the past year about maturing and turning 30. Forcing them to sing cutesy idol-like songs like Tiny Baby this late into their career with their voices pitched up to oblivion so as to sound like teenagers is the most jarring thing for fans that have matured together with the trio. So no, this album doesn’t achieve what it was supposed to do, nor what it actually set out to do.

However, more pressing is that a deconstructive take on “Future Pop” was absolutely not an album that Perfume should have released, not at this point in their careers when they are trying to be recognized as a guiding light for the future of the Japanese music industry. And especially not right after COSMIC EXPLORER played the space theme straight, truly committing to what it had promised, because people expected the same straightforward approach with Future Pop, and they were in fact (mis)led to believe so. In other words, no one expected what was to come, and so no one really wanted it from them. But at this point, I think it’s worthy to note that Perfume have never actually given their fanbase what they wanted. GAME fans never got another Secret Secret, Triangle fans never got another Edge, JPN fans never got another Fushizen na Girl, LEVEL3 fans never got another 1mm, and COSMIC EXPLORER fans didn’t get another Miracle Worker. Perfume’s sound has always been jumping from one genre to another, decided solely by the whims of Nakata, and so it is inevitable that there will always be people that are alienated with each change. The only reason Perfume has managed to remain so popular after a decade in the industry is because they’ve consistently put out quality work regardless of genre, drawing in more new listeners whenever one becomes disinterested. So if we put aside the album’s (mis)direction, does Future Pop stand on its own as a quality album?

Once again, my answer is no. Future Pop clocks in at 42m 3s, their shortest album to date by far, and yet not every second is worth listening to. Start-Up doesn’t really lead into Future Pop, nor does it really set up any atmosphere, and even if it did, Future Pop sets up its own atmosphere well enough, so that’s close to a minute wasted. Future Pop’s 15s outro also has the same issue. All this time wasted could have gone to fixing Chourairin’s abrupt and generic ending. Which brings us to the next problem, the fact that many of the songs on this album have very similar structures. Future Pop, If you wanna, TOKYO GIRL, Let Me Know, Chourairin, Mugen Mirai, and Everyday. That’s more than half the album that are pretty much their first halves repeated once more, with very little progression instrumentally, if any at all. And while the two halves structure isn’t immediately a bad thing, it does mean that there are only two hook sections, making it difficult for the already short songs to leave an impression on listeners. Further aggravating the issue is the lack of an infectiously catchy sing along chorus that has become synonymous with Perfume’s music over the years. TOKYO GIRL barely counts, and even then, its chorus is only sung twice which makes it harder to catch on. It also doesn’t help that this album is lyrically weak. A lot of the lyrics are saying the same thing, and it all bleeds together. Future Pop, TOKYO GIRL, Mugen Mirai, and Tenkuu are literally all about reaching for somewhere else in time, with imageries of light. It’s true that a lot of COSMIC EXPLORER’s tracks were about travelling, but it had a wider variety of tracks, so the monotony issue wasn’t as serious as it is here. And then we have Tiny Baby and Chourairin, which are largely just a bunch of random words thrown together. There is some semblance of coherent meaning in the lyrics of these two songs, but it’s all hidden beneath layers and layers of clutter. So even if listeners pause the music to take a deeper look at what they’re saying, there’s not much to make out. With all of these issues put together, Future Pop as a whole makes for an objectively forgettable listen – everything simply passes by before you know it. So no, it’s not a quality album. But hey, every act will have a weak album every now and then, right? As long as their hearts are in the right place, things will get better! Can’t we all just move past this and keep on supporting Perfume like we always have? So it finally comes down to a question of whether Perfume’s team still cares.

The quality of Nakata’s music has been a concern for quite some time, but Future Pop is the first album where it’s so explicitly clear that he doesn’t give a damn about who Perfume are or what they’re trying to achieve. Even if we set aside the questionable production decisions, there’s just no overlooking the laziness of including every single track of the era on the album. Worse still are their stylists who have only grown more and more brazen ever since 2011. It started with recycling lazy single-color cookie cutter outfits for live performances, which while not ideal, was acceptable. Now they’re just throwing a random bunch of random fabric together and calling it “avant-garde” (because Perfume are all about being cutting-edge right?), no thought at all about whether the colors and materials mesh well, or whether the silhouette of the outfits flatter their bodies. The covers of their singles and their albums always seemed to escape those patchwork outfits, as if they understood covers were sacred ground that should not be messed with, but with Future Pop, even that distinction has disappeared. And then we have Perfume’s creative directors, who, ever since STAR TRAIN, seem to have been selecting covers and promotional images from photo shoots by throwing darts while blindfolded. Not only is there no thought behind which photos work better as posters, artiste profiles, or covers, they don’t even make sure that the photos they’re putting out are flattering for all three members. But at the very least, even if the photos chosen were less than satisfactory, the visual concepts have always been up to a certain standard. Future Pop is nowhere close to that standard. It was already a bad decision in itself to play the “future pop” concept straight instead of following Nakata’s deconstructive take, because that led to album covers and promotional material that don’t reflect the atmosphere or sound of the album at all, which is basically false advertising. But then they also had to use cheap twine straw to represent beams of light for an album called “Future Pop” when Rhizomatiks already has tons and tons of lasers ready for use in their warehouse. Another big issue with the creative direction of this album is its limited edition. Not only is the cover atrocious, the packaging does nothing to salvage it. It’s simply the same packaging Mirai no Museum had, but with a slipcase and no comic. And then there’s also the fact that the booklet for the limited and regular editions are exactly the same. There’s just no excuse for how lazy and basic the packaging is when its title is “Future Pop”, it’s their most expensive album to date, and especially not when the team has been so much more innovative with the past three albums. The direction the creative team took with the promotion of the album is also highly problematic. It was a very questionable decision to promote COSMIC EXPLORER with the version of a track that doesn’t appear on the album proper, but at least the visuals for FLASH didn’t clash so badly with the album’s. And there was justification in that choice, because FLASH was their biggest hit since Polyrhythm, so they were forced to use it in the promotional campaign for COSMIC EXPLORER. There’s none of that justification here for having Let Me Know’s visuals go in the exact opposite direction from that of Future Pop. The wistful Let Me Know had to be chosen as the promotional lead because it was the most mainstream of the album tracks, but that’s no reason to go full nostalgia and plaid for its aesthetics without even trying to incorporate any futuristic aspects into it.

So it’s pretty clear that not one person on Perfume’s entire team bothered to actually think through what’s being done with the album, and it’s really easy as fans of the trio to simply keep on blaming their team for the shoddy work. But I think it’s time we hold the ones at the center of everything culpable, because ultimately, the ones giving the final go-ahead and enabling all of this nonsense are Perfume themselves. Since the very beginning, the trio have been perpetuating this notion that they have no control over their music or image, and that they’re just promoting what all of these talented people are giving to them. Though that may have been the truth at the beginning of their careers when they were nobodies, things have changed since then. There are tons of creators that want to collaborate with them – they have leverage now. They’re the ones that are choosing what they put on, and what they put out, and this applies to their music too. The fact that three of them were the ones who got Nakata to add the Japanese lyrics into Spending all my time shows that their opinions do matter to him. So if they had wanted to, they certainly could’ve sent Nakata a memo to tell him that the vocal tuning on the album needs to be pitched down because they’re turning 30 and it doesn’t suit the whole mature image that they’re going for. If they had wanted to, they could’ve fired their stylists the moment they were presented with those awful rags to wear on stage. And yet they didn’t – because there’s never been a need to. They’ve never been faced with any direct repercussions. Perhaps because of the many years of quality output, Japanese fans tend to ignore any flaws altogether, blindly purchasing and consuming new releases, simply believing that things will get better. The Japanese public and any unconvinced fans don’t say anything either, because being negative would be considered rude, so they just turn the other way, silently losing interest in Perfume. So even when Perfume themselves aren’t convinced with what they’re putting out, like how A~chan was with Triangle, their products continue to sell decently. Even when they appear on stage in garbage, the crowd continues to cheer. In this sort of bubble environment without any form of criticism, it’s no wonder that the three of them would grow complacent. After all, no matter if they like their products or not, and no matter if the products are of high quality or not, even as sales continue to quietly drop, the response remains the same. “Nakata is a god!” “Perfume are goddesses!�� All they have to do is put on a smile and promote whatever their team gives them to sell. But even then, none of this is an excuse to have completely given up ownership of their own brand like they have. As such, if there’s anyone that’s really to blame for the current state of affairs, it’s Perfume themselves for leaving their car on autopilot even as it continues speeding towards a cliff.

With that, for one last time, my answer is no. Future Pop was not a one-off bad decision. It’s every problem that’s been plaguing Perfume these past few years finally coming to a head in one gigantic mess, and not one person in Team Perfume, not even Perfume themselves, still care enough to clean this mess up. And so we’ve ended up in the final stages of Perfume’s career. In the latest Ongaku to Hito interviews for Future Pop, the trio mention that they don’t think about how much time they have left as Perfume anymore, and that they’ll carry on as long as people want them to. Some fans may read that as a show of confidence – reassurance that Perfume still has years and years left to go. But put in the context of reality, that statement paints an entirely different picture – them turning a blind eye to the situation, opting instead to just enjoy whatever time they have left as a trio. First week sales for Future Pop are going to be over 35% less than COSMIC EXPLORER’s, and sales for their releases are only going to continue to fall from here. What this means is that if poor sales of Mugen Mirai hadn’t already, Future Pop will have thrown all talk of performing for the Olympics out the window, because there’s just no way a group that’s not even relevant enough to sell 100k copies of their album in its first week is going to represent Japan in a prestigious global event. So with the Olympics now a non-factor, how many people exactly will it take for them to continue as Perfume? That’s all up to Universal and Amuse to decide, and looking at what they’ve been doing with Perfume, the end is not that far off. The marketing for Future Pop was utterly atrocious. COSMIC EXPLORER had liner notes from celebrities and an entire montage commissioned, but all Future Pop has had are cheaply-made Instagram stories and posts. This suggests that they’ve already given up on sales from the general public, and are mainly focused on getting pre-existing fans to buy the album. Why? Because they don’t even expect the general public to be interested, not after Mugen Mirai failed to even sell anywhere close to half of what FLASH did despite having had the same exposure from the Chihayafuru movie franchise. All of the ugly outfits and questionable music directions have finally alienated too much of the general public, and no amount of technological showcases is going to win back their interest or convert anyone new into fans. The social currency of the Perfume brand is at an all-time low and it’s reflected in how magazines like ROCKIN’ON JAPAN didn’t give them the cover to promote Future Pop despite always having done so when there was a big feature about them. The end of any halfway popular thing falling into obscurity is always marked with the corporations behind it shamelessly milking hardcore fans out of as much money as they can, and that’s what’s happening to Perfume right now. Instead of having a CD-only edition of Future Pop, Universal is forcing a DVD/BD filled mostly with already online material into every copy in order to inflate prices and exploit the remaining hardcore Perfume fans. Meanwhile, Amuse is having Perfume sell insanely overpriced clothing through Perfume Closet. 60 USD for a plain black cap with Perfume’s watermark on the front, 100 USD for a plain T-shirt with a little lace in its breast pocket, 180 USD for a plain black pair of slacks – it all screams exploitation of fans. Universal and Amuse are getting maximum returns for investing as little as possible, and with this business model turning in a decent profit for them, things are only going to get worse as they try to squeeze out more and more money from less and less fans.

The Perfume fan experience since 2014 has been like watching a close relative slowly but surely losing themselves to Alzheimer’s. It’s not a steady downwards spiral. In fact, even as the symptoms grow more serious, there always seem to be better days where you can see a spark of who once was. But every time you think they’ll get better, or perhaps even recover entirely, it’s always a turn for the worse. The cycle repeats until one day, you find them in hospital, bedridden and on life support because they’ve forgotten how to eat or breathe. This is where we’re at with Perfume now. They’re not dead yet, but they’re pretty damn close, and all that’s left is for Universal and Amuse to collectively pull the plug when they aren’t turning in enough of a profit from Perfume. It’s painful to keep watch by their bedside until they finally die, denied even one last gasp for air, but the worst pain of all is continuing to pray for a miracle that I know will never come. And so I’ve finally decided to turn in my stan card. I won’t be translating anymore supplementary materials, I won’t force myself to translate lyrics to Perfume songs that I don’t like, and I’ll stop checking every other day for updates - I’ll just go back to being a normal, casual fan.

I will always, always, love Perfume, but these three thirty year-old women singing in cutesy girl voices, dancing in tacky cut-and-paste dresses, and smiling as if all is right with the world even as everything around them continues to fall apart? I don’t know them.

#prfm

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pixelgrotto · 6 years

Photo

The horrific Resident Evil playthrough, interlude three

Resident Evil’s a franchise that has almost as many spin-offs as it does main games, and when I told a friend several months ago that I was going to attempt a series playthrough, he was like, “Dude, aren’t there thirty of those?”

Thirty’s an exaggeration, but there are about eleven spin-off games, give or take a bunch of mobile quickies that only came out in Japan. I’m not counting the “big” spin-offs like Code: Veronica or the Revelations titles, because those are essentially mainline releases with pivotal, canon story elements. I’m talking about games like Resident Evil: Survivor, an early PS1 effort that tried to fulfill the series’ first person perspective fetish with clunky results, Resident Evil: Dead Aim, a light gun shooter, and Resident Evil: Outbreak, an online game that let you tag team with buddies to escape Racoon City.

I decided to pick and choose which of these spin-offs I’d sit down to play, since quite a few of ‘em are mediocre, others have components that are now difficult to get running (Outbreak’s online multiplayer) and I just didn’t have the necessary hardware, like a PS2 light gun, to fully enjoy stuff like Dead Aim. (If you want a more comprehensive study of all of these games, then check out Avalanche Reviews’ Resident Evil Retrospective, which he began at around the same time that I started this playthrough.) I finally settled on Resident Evil 1.5, Resident Evil Gaiden, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles and Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles as the ones I was most interesting in experiencing...and honestly, it was a mixed bag.

Resident Evil 1.5 - This isn’t so much a game as it’s a leaked beta release of what would eventually become Resident Evil 2, and the reason I chose to play this is because it’s famously different from the final product. Thanks to lots of behind-the-scenes development drama, Resident Evil 1.5 (still shown as 2 in my screenshot up there) is an unfinished build that was scrapped and heavily reworked before it became the RE2 that we know today. The differences between this and the final version are stark - the famous Raccoon City Police Station is a modern office building rather than a gothic hall of weird puzzles and art, the enemies include strange foes like zombie gorillas, there was no partner zapping system, and there’s a whole different character available from the get-go named Elza Walker. Elza, initially just a random motorcycle-riding civilian who crashed into the police station during the zombie outbreak, later became Claire Redfield in order to create a connection with Chris Redfield of RE1. I’m kind of fascinated with her, since it’s rare to get a glimpse of a character that was totally revamped during a game’s development, and I mostly ignored Leon to dabble through portions of the playable build with her. I say “dabble” rather than “play” because you can’t exactly finish RE1.5 - all you can do is wander around rooms and use a debug menu to teleport to different spots before giving up and watching a playthrough of someone more experienced do this on YouTube. At the end of the day, RE1.5 is more of a fascinating look behind the curtain than it is an actual game, and the final version of RE2 is definitely superior. It’s no wonder why the devs decided that a drastic revamp was needed, since RE1.5, even in its unfinished state, feels kind of samey to RE1. That said, I remain enamored with Elza Walker and her slick motorcycle suit, and I ain’t the only one, since it’s available as a skin for Claire in the upcoming Resident Evil 2 remake.

Resident Evil Gaiden - RE Gaiden is a game that got infamously bad reviews upon release, with reviewers crapping on it for not being like the PS1 games. This is kind of unfair in hindsight, because it was released for the darn Game Boy Color, of all systems, and there was no way we were going to get an accurate copy of an experience which originated on hardware that was much more powerful. If anything, it shows how bad gaming journalism was in the early 2000s (you could make the argument that it still is bad, but that’s another story altogether), because honestly...I kinda enjoyed Gaiden? It’s flawed to be sure, but it comes darn close to taking the experience of “survival,” always at the heart of this series, and distilling it down to an 8-bit formula. The setting is a huge ship, just like Resident Evil Revelations (which oddly seems like it borrowed a lot of concepts from this game), and you’ve got to do the usual schtick of running around, collecting ammo and items and dodging zombies. Combat takes place from an RPG-esque first-person perspective that I liked because it struck me as an elegant reminder of Sweet Home, and you’ve got a constantly moving slider bar for each weapon with a key point in the middle that you need to hit in order to accurately fire off a shot. It’s novel but frustrating at times, since advanced weapons have the slider moving so damn fast, and it’s totally possible to end up in a fail state by running out of ammo. You can do this in any Resident Evil game, technically, but it feels more plausible here. Case in point - I got all the way to the final boss and was unable to beat him because I had no bullets. Dang! Still, despite its rough edges, Gaiden feels like a sleeper that didn’t quite deserve the bashing that it got upon release, and for a spin-off designed by a small British studio who had previously only made Mary Kate & Ashley and Tazmanian Devil games, it’s worth a look for people who always wondered what RE would be like in 2D.

Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles/Darkside Chronicles - I’m grouping these Wii rail shooters together because I expected to enjoy ‘em the most, since they contain remixes of the plots of RE1 to Code: Veronica and also new bits of lore, like the actual story of Umbrella’s downfall. (Why Capcom never stuck this in a mainline game and relegated it to a chapter in a Wii spin-off remains one of the company’s more bizarre franchise decisions.) Unfortunately, I couldn’t finish them, because I realized while playing both that...I don’t really like rail shooters very much. I mean, I think stuff like Time Crisis is okay in the arcade, when you’ve got a partner by your side and a physical zapper in your hand. But playing these after the fact and solo via the Dolphin emulator just isn’t as fun, though they are technically well made, for what it’s worth. I think my issue is that rail shooters take nearly all movement away from the player, and to me a vital facet of this series since day one has been exploration, so to be ushered from location to location with not much to do but blast zombies in the head just isn’t very appealing to me. The camera work in both games was also too much for me to handle, particularly in Darkside Chronicles, which has near constant shaky cam and gave me a headache after ten minutes. Overall, I think the new lore is worth checking out, at least via a YouTube collection of all the cutscenes, but I couldn’t bring myself to play these to completion. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, since I found the Time Crisis-style shoot ‘em up sections of RE5 and 6 to be kinda aggravating, but I was hoping to be surprised. This wasn’t the case, and part of me also finds both of these games to be something of a depressing reminder of the Wii era, where just about every major franchise got a gimmicky spin-off designed around the motion controls of Nintendo’s white box. It happened with Soulcalibur, it happened with Dragon Quest, and it happened with Resident Evil. The Umbrella Chronicles and Darkside Chronicles are certainly on a higher tier when it comes to Wii spin-offs, but...I still think they aren’t for me.

And with that, I wrap up this so-so experience of Resident Evil side stories just in time for the big B.O.W. in the room... Resident Evil RE2make releases in two days, and you bet that I’ve got it pre-ordered and ready to load.

All screenshots taken by me.

#pixel grotto #video games #now playing #resident evil #biohazard #resident evil 1.5 #biohazard 1.5 #resident evil gaiden #biohazard gaiden #umbrella chronicles #darkside chronicles

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chiaroscuroverse · 7 years

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Where's the quote on the post you just made from, if you don't mind my asking? (The "falling in love with Rose, in his Doctor way" one)

Hi, Nonny! No problem, that’s why I mentioned in tags that anyone could ask ;)

Putting under a cut because it’s tumblr ;)

It’s this video of Moff talking about his run on DW. The whole thing is pretty interesting, I thought. But if you’re sensitive about his view of GITF (as a wistful, what-might-have-been sudden love affair) and his character interpretation of the Doctor in re: who he loves, it’s going to be pretty aggravating.

In that post I was bouncing off his characterization of the Doctor/Rose relationship “he falls in love with her in his Doctor way,” i.e., something other than, or alien to, what we all understand “falling in love” to be. Like, ok dude, but look at all these moments, if that’s not falling in love as we all understand it, then we have some irreconcilable differences about how we see this show. The post is intended to be kind of tongue-in-cheek, but ultimately sincere.

(Gonna take the opportunity to say, as far as RTD-era fandom goes, I’m on the less anti-Moff side of the bell curve overall. I’m a Whovian first, and I watch every new thing eagerly and do my best to enjoy it for what it is - even if nothing will ever, EVER, get me in the heart like RTD-Who. I think Moff is very good at a lot of things, which is why he frustrates me so entirely in very specific ways. If he was utter shite all the time, it wouldn’t be so aggravating. I have done my absolute best to take everything as it comes and not stay in that “bitch eating crackers” place with him. All that said, the things he believes about, say, Reinette, and the things he thinks are funny, like the jokes about Nancy in TEC....I cannot. And that’s what this post is about. There are some things he apparently will never grok, and the entire arc of the Doctor/Rose relationship is one of them.)

(pictured: a regeneration, not a clone, and the culmination of a three-regeneration love story arc)

keeping this under a cut, and I’m going to be careful with tagging because there are people who watch his anti tag to argue about it and signal boost things to a different side of tumblr and I definitely do not have time for that :P

#ask replies #csv meta #extra #tags #i really don't want to attract any outsiders to our corner #so #ya know #feel free to talk to me more if you're a d/r shipper #preferably on messages #because public tumblr sucks #anti that showrunner guy #Anonymous #tentoo meta

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deadcactuswalking · 5 years

Text

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 11th August 2019

Top 10

For what I believe is its fifth non-consecutive week, Shawn Mendes’ new single with Camila Cabello, “Senorita”, is the powerhouse at #1, continuing a reign that has no sign of stopping at least in the foreseeable future.

And as we have had in the past four or so weeks, we have two consecutive Ed Sheeran songs, specifically from the No. 6 Collaborations Project album, as “Beautiful People” featuring Khalid leads the pack not moving at number-two.

Also standing still to my surprise and dismay is “I Don’t Care” also by Sheeran featuring Justin Bieber because I thought this was going to drop off pretty soon and pretty easily, but this seems not to be the case, unfortunately, since this song is incredibly dull and honestly its longevity has been exhausting.

Now we have our first real shake-up here in the top 10 with our new arrival at number-four, “boyfriend” by Social House featuring Ariana Grande (or Ariana Grande with Social House), which should be noted as it’s Social House’s first ever charting song as a credited artist. They’ve appeared in charts before as producers and songwriters for the pop princess but have never lead their vocals on a track until now and considering that, a #4 debut for their career is impressive, but it’s definitely Ariana pushing this to any actual traction, racking up a 22nd UK Top 40 hit and 14th top 10. We’ll talk more about this later but honestly it’s not much to discuss.

Thanks to the Ariana Grande debut, “Ladbroke Grove” by AJ Tracey is down a spot to number-five.

“3 Nights” by Dominic Fike, on the other hand, is up two positions to number-six.

Down two spaces after the hype of the Bieber remix and such dies down is “bad guy” by Billie Eilish at number-seven.

Interestingly, after building hype with a lot of features recently, both of which have charted in the top 20, it’s no surprise what seems to be Aitch’s debut major-label single has debuted high, but I really didn’t expect it to hit number-eight on its first week. “Taste (Make it Shake)” is enough of a smash to mean it’s his third UK Top 40 hit and first ever top 10 song, and I have my theories as to why but we’ll leave that and talk about this song a bit later.

“Higher Love” by Kygo and Whitney Houston continues its eventual rise to the top up a space to number-nine.

Finally, to round off the top 10 at #10, we have “Hold Me While You Wait” moving down four spaces this week, which isn’t quick enough for me personally, the sooner this song dies the better.

Climbers

Outside of the top 10 and a couple new arrivals, this really is a pretty slow week that adds to how the charts have been stalling lately in the Summer, despite a lot of genuine quality. The most notable story here despite a climb less than five positions is probably Joel Corry and Hayley May gaining their first UK Top 20 hit with Love Island theme song “Sorry” at #18, because of course it is. I won’t complain too much though, it’s a relatively decent song. The only other big story this week is Krept & Konan’s “I Spy” featuring Headie One and K-Trap zooming up 15 spaces to #22 thanks to a remix featuring Abra Cadabra, Bugzy Malone and more, but that’s all we have for notable climbers.

Fallers

There are a LOT more of these this week, including some surprises. Starting with #40, we have JAY1’s “Mocking It” down five spaces this week, I’m confused to why it’s not already off the chart. Then we have “You Need to Calm Down” by Taylor Swift continuing its underwhelming performance down nine spaces to #37, “Vossi Bop” by Stormzy pretty much in freefall now down seven to #34, “SOS” by Avicci featuring Aloe Blacc slowly falls out of fashion down five to #30, “Crown” by Stormzy seems to have started a premature fall down seven to #27 – if this is any indication on how the album will end up doing, I’m a bit concerned. Also, “No Guidance” by Chris Brown featuring Drake is down six to #23, and that’s all we have here.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

The highest drop-out from the chart this week is at #7, as “Cross Me” by Ed Sheeran featuring Chance the Rapper and PNB Rock, which probably would have just fell this week anyway, but since it fell enough for other Ed Sheeran songs to overtake it, it dropped out entirely to be replaced with “Take Me Back to London” featuring Stormzy at #14. This type of exchange has happened before with Lewis Capaldi a few weeks back and this really won’t be the last time it occurs on the charts as long as this rule is in effect.

Other drop-outs are pretty much what you’d expect, songs that were definitely on their way out and have a chance to return in a really slow week, like “One Touch” by Jax Jones featuring Jess Glynne out from #36 without even making the top 10 which surprised me, “Summer Days” by Martin Garrix, Macklemore and Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy falling out from #38 once again without peaking as high as I thought it would, “Bounce Back” by Little Mix once again exiting from #39 and finally, “Piece of Your Heart” by MEDUZA and Goodboys, which is still a pretty decent song by the way, ending its pretty moderate-length run peacefully from #40, and honestly I’m just surprised to see a legitimate smash hit song from two nobodies actually let them burst onto the scene and have a really normal chart run, it’s seldom-seen especially in the streaming era where we have an equal amount of overly long and incredibly brief runs.

NEW ARRIVALS

I’m surprised nothing from Drake’s “new” compilation album Care Package has appeared in the top 40 but while that hasn’t, we do have four new arrivals to review, so let’s start with...

#39 – “Outnumbered” – Dermot Kennedy featuring uncredited vocals from Todd Clark

Produced by Koz – Peaked at #2

...Okay, who? I don’t even know who the producer is on this one, and I’m not going to claim much ignorance here since this seems to be Kennedy’s first crossover hit to break out outside of his home country of Ireland. After doing some research, I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s a singer-songwriter in the same lane as the English Ed Sheeran and the Scottish Lewis Capaldi, so it’s pretty expected an Irish one would pop up at some point. Let’s hope the Welsh option has a lot more talent, but we’ll see about that. Apparently Dermot Kennedy has more of a rock edge but I heard that about Capaldi as well. Regardless of his sub-par contemporaries, it’s his and Clark’s first ever UK Top 40 single, and it’s pretty okay, reminding me of Dean Blunt more than anything. I love this dude’s raspy yet still clearly immature and almost slurring voice, it sounds like drunken Irish rambling, especially with the faux-rapping in the first verse, but that’s what works about a lot of his other material, I feel, as a love song about how Kennedy’s girlfriend is just as beautiful as other women but she’s being... “outnumbered”? Yeah, I don’t think Kennedy’s delivery works that much here, but the acoustic folksy guitar is worth something until it’s drowned out by an emotionless trap beat that kicks in for the chorus and the more the song continues the more it sounds like it could be remade pretty damn quickly. The outro’s attempt at making a choir out of the distant backing vocals falls flat on its face, and while the song isn’t bad it definitely does sound like a novice’s attempt at a game that’s already flooded by incompetent hacks.

#36 – “Harder” – Jax Jones featuring Bebe Rexha

Produced by Jax Jones and Steve Mac – Peaked at #16 in Scotland

Jax Jones, house DJ, has recently re-released his Snacks EP in preparation for the Snacks (Supersize) debut album, adding a track featuring singer Bebe Rexha (Who also met headlines recently when she posted an understandably volatile response to an executive attempting to force a change upon her image due to her being “too old to be sexy” at not even 30 years old) called “Harder”, and it’s pretty bad because of course it is, it’s just derivative house-pop that Jax Jones has been doing for a while, except his brand of EDM typically has a lot more focus on bass and infectiously catchy hooks, except even that has been dwindling since his first few singles. It’s Jones’ ninth UK Top 40 hit and Bebe Rexha’s eighth, and yeah, as I said before, it’s not great. It starts with some admittedly pretty-sounding synth-strings which Bebe Rexha sings well enough against but that’s immediately undercut by Jax Jones’ obnoxious producer tag, which transitions abruptly into a minimal, bassline-lead finger-snap beat where Rexha’s vocals are manipulated to an aggravating screech for the lead melody, and I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to be the chorus? Admittedly, there is some artificial groove in the funky slap guitar but other than that, man, this is a dry waste of time, especially when the drop doesn’t consist of any notable vocaloid drops and instead just Bebe Rexha humming in an Auto-Tuned drone. It’s a Summer-ready dance-tune, but that’s not exactly a compliment.

#8 – “Taste (Make it Shake)” – Aitch

Produced by WhYJay

We know how Aitch is, by now, unfortunately. He’s a British rapper who is only any interesting because he is white in a largely black genre (And he very much sounds like a fish out of water when he’s rapping) and is otherwise completely void of personality. Hopefully his debut major-label lead single is showing of some kind of character since the three other features I’ve heard bring down the song’s quality pretty dramatically; “Kilos” by Bugzy Malone would be an incredible trap banger without his verse, and “Strike a Pose” with Young T & Bugsey would be a lot smoother than it is now with Aitch’s bluntly-delivered milquetoast verse. Aitch is just watered-down clichés of modern British trap, rolled into a shape of a human wearing a Bape hoodie, then painted white, and it’s somewhat disappointing as from his brief appearance in the “Keisha & Becky” remix I saw some potential but not nearly enough for his later efforts to be forgivable. Is this any good? No, of course it isn’t, it’s lowest common denominator gutter trash that’s more boring and forgettable than it is frustrating, and it’s really not worth my time or anyone else’s. To be fair, Aitch’s flow in the chorus isn’t awful and this beat is kind of cool, the catchy pitch-shifted vocal sample behind the 808s is kind of cool, but it otherwise sounds pretty cheap. Also, Aitch’s delivery is really unlikeable, with a smug charisma that doesn’t show any self-awareness in his annoying cadences. Oh, and it’s way too long – why is there a third verse and why is the chorus rapped eight times, with very little flow switches in the verses to differentiate themselves. The flute in the outro is putrid as well. Skip it.

#4 – “boyfriend” – Social House featuring Ariana Grande

Produced by TBHits, Mr. Franks and Edgar Barrera – Peaked at #8 in the US

While we’re skipping songs can we get rid of this one too? Usually, I’d be interested at least in a new single from Ariana but after the disappointing thank u, next album directed mainly by Social House in tandem with Victoria Monet, I am definitely not over the moon about a new collaboration between the three, especially if Social House are on board as vocalists. Now, as someone who likes a lot more of the grandiosity of older Grande records and even Sweetener more laidback synthpop-R&B with her cooing softly against trap beats would naturally turn me off, but it didn’t need to because there is something here. The hypnotic pitch-shifted vocal sample could be really interesting if it wasn’t pushed back in the mix, and to be honest I like the groove, albeit stilted. Thankfully, in a surprising move for a song with three lead singers, the song is pretty short and is mostly lead by Ariana, with the other guys from Social House being talentless hacks. Jesus Christ, the first guy is like Khalid with an earbud up his nose and the second guy is infuriating, so much so that his NAV-tinged Weeknd mock-up had to be covered up by ad-libs from Ari, which sometimes are louder than him in the mix. The chorus is pretty simple and catchy, and demonstrates the song’s story, about how the sex is so good that despite them not being in a relationship, they don’t want each other seeing anyone else, and alright, sure, but how much can you actually get out of that? Potentially, the three singers could play a love triangle, but the third guy is just kind of playing the same role as Ari, which is, “I want to be in a relationship because I can’t commit since I’m mentally a trainwreck”, which is actually an intriguing angle... but she’s tapped on it before in songs like “get well soon” and “NASA” and they are so much better than this. Sorry, guys, but this isn’t any good.

Conclusion

The Worst of the Week is definitely going to Aitch for “Taste (Make it Shake)”, and the Dishonourable Mention is a four-way tie between Jax Jones and Bebe Rexha, and Ariana Grande and Social House for “Harder” and “boyfriend” respectively, which means that the Best of the Week has to go to Dermot Kennedy for “Outnumbered” by default, and I wouldn’t even give that song a 5/10. Yeah, this week kind of sucked but at least I had anything to review this time.

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bluewatsons · 5 years

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Julia Kristeva, New Forms of Revolt, 22 J French & Francophone Phil (2014)

An Inner Experience

Popular uprisings, indignant youth, toppled dictators, oligarchic presidents dismissed, hopes dashed, liberties crushed in prisons, fixed trials, and bloodbaths. How are we to read these images? Could revolt, or what is called “riot” on the Web, be waking humanity from its dream of hyperconnectedness? Or could it just be a trick played on us so that the culture of spectacle can last longer? But what “revolt” are we talking about? Is it even possible, in these times of widespread misery, endemic debt, austerity and unemployment, when local wars can turn into global ones and when the melting of the icecaps is ready to flood us?

I wrote L’Avenir d’une révolte (1998), translated as The Future of Revolt in 2002, shortly after The Sense and Non-Sense of Revolt (1996) and Intimate Revolt (1997), about fifteen years ago.1 France remains proud of its memory and its exceptional culture, but it is also increasingly disappointed by the plans and promises of politics and it is becoming absentionist in an aging Europe. But France remains animated by an unquenchable thirst for the freedom of thought, which is expressed in the brilliance of the French language and the passion for Republican debate.

I was listening then and am still listening now to my analysands: regardless of their gender, these people are experiencing a personal crisis or a crisis plain and simple, and they are opening up — in well-worn words — their eternal return and maybe their rebirth. A new type of angry person has taken up the path of intimate revolt. They are the new realists who, as we used to say in May 1968, want the impossible. Their revolt appears to me as the visible side of a reassessment of the religious domain, which is called inner experience. This inner experience continues to assert itself timidly, secretly but yet distinctly below the surface of images, elements of language and tensions of identity. It is this revolt, which goes against the tide of the oppression and fear of unsolvable crisis as well as idealistic enchantment, that I examine in the following pages, which have been translated in numerous languages. Their meaning now comes back to me like an echo sent back by new, unsuspected readers.

I am thinking, for instance, of an American researcher who was analyzing the traps and benefits of political bipartisanship and who turned to European or so-called “Continental” philosophy in order to inquire into “values” rather than exploring data. I am thinking of a Chinese lawyer and a Chinese artist who were awarded the Simone de Beauvoir Award for women’s freedom. While partaking in the economic rise of China, they are also running the risk of rebelling and are demanding the application of “women’s rights”, at a time when human rights are still not being widely recognised. I am also thinking of the democrats who took part in the “Arab Spring,” before the return of the defeated Islamic fundamentalists. I am thinking of the Chilean student who waved a Spanish translation of my writings on revolt outside his institution, which was on strike, and who displayed a poster that read “The University in Revolt,” in response to drastic funding cuts in education. Finally, I am thinking of the Syrian psychoanalysts who are attempting an astonishing transvaluation of their tradition. They are resisting dictatorship by creating “group psychotherapies against fear”- and they are refining their translations of Freud’s writings, borrowing from the lexicon of Arab mysticism.

This new species of rebels (revoltés) are enraged, but they have not lost the decisive and specific meaning of revolt. Each and every one of them is involved in a difficult and often tiresome life and carries out a risky struggle. Yet, they do share something new, something that has perhaps been there all the while, but that can now be confessed to and even redeemed. They are discovering through their experiences that there is no answer to social, historic and political impasses without a radical inner experience; an inner experience that is demanding, unique, and able to appropriate the complexity of the past in order to approach the present and the future.

This inner experience is meant to escape the shortsightedness of the technicians of political governance, to fight against the fundamentalism that seeks to eliminate corruption but starts by repressing fundamental liberties. This inner experience is also meant to avoid the nonsensical and vengeful rejection, which is both symmetrical and powerless, that denounces one’s opponent without being able to propose a sensible alternative. It is not enough to have a plan. It is necessary to have men and women with inner experiences that are unique, inquisitive, and uncompromising. It is on this condition alone that they can be reformers. It is necessary to have men and women who know how to pass on and share a language of revolt. It is only at this price that they can be innovative.

Poetry has always been able to proclaim the desire for free will, by restoring words to memory and thereby extracting a sense of time. In those eras that are vaguely felt to be in decline or at least in a state of suspension, questioning remains the only possible thought: it is an indication of a life that is simply living. Intimacy is not the new prison. Its need for connection might, one day, initiate another politics. Today, mental life knows that it will only be saved if it gives itself the time and space of revolt: to break, to remember, to re-do. From prayer to dialogue, through art and analysis, the crucial event is always the great infinitesimal emancipation: to recommence endlessly. Without it, all that globalization would have to do is to calculate growth rates and genetic probabilities. Truths, including scientific ones, may well be illusions, but they have the future in front of them. In contrast with certainties and beliefs, permanent revolt is this questioning of the self, of everything and of nothingness, which no longer seems to have any place to occur. Be that as it may, if there is still time, let us wager on the future of revolt. As Albert Camus said, “I revolt, therefore we are.” Or rather: “I revolt, therefore we are to come.” This is an enlightening and long-lasting experience.

What Revolt Today?

For at least two centuries, the word “revolt”, with its rich and complex etymology, has had a political meaning.2 Today we understand revolt as a challenge to pre-established norms, values, and powers. Ever since the French Revolution, “political revolt” has been the secular version of the negativity that is characteristic of the life of conscience when it attempts to remain faithful to its internal logic. A synonym of dignity, revolt is our mysticism.

But we are increasingly aware that what is called the “new world order” — whose democratic advantages no longer need to be praised, despite its risks and even its dead-ends in the East — is not propitious to this revolt. Against whom does one revolt if power and values are vacant or corrupt? Or, even more seriously, who can revolt if one is increasingly reduced to a conglomerate of organs, if one is no longer a “subject” but a “patrimonial person”, endowed not only with a financial patrimony but also a genetic or physiological, free at best only to channel-surf? If I exaggerate and simplify the present state of affairs, it is only to better highlight what we all perceive. It is not only the case that political revolt has become entangled in trade-offs between parties, whose ideological differences are less and less obvious to us; an essential ingredient of European culture — a culture fashioned by doubt and critique — is losing its moral and aesthetic significance. When it exists, it is marginalized as an ornamental alibi tolerated by the society of the spectacle, when it is not simply engulfed and made impossible by “entertainment culture,” “performance culture,” and “show-business culture” (culture-show). The use of Anglicisms here conveys the dynamics at work.

At the risk of aggravating my image as someone who willingly depicts and even enjoys exaggerating the seriousness of the present state of affairs, I would like to discuss some aspects of my novel, Possessions. Against the backdrop of a detective story, the body of a beheaded woman is discovered: she was Gloria Harrison, a translator by profession and the mother of a difficult child. The reader discovers that not one but several characters are in fact responsible for the murder, before the final beheading happened. I put a lot of myself into this depiction of female and maternal suffering that sums up the difficulty of being a woman. I am the beheaded woman. I am also the female investigator in charge, alongside detective superintendant, Northrop Rilsky. Another woman, Stephanie Delacour, is a journalist from Paris. It is still possible to carry out an investigation in the virtual, Mafia-dominated world that is Santa Barbara. “You can know”: that is basically what the reader of detective novels is told. Indeed, in this popular genre the possibility to question remains alive. Could that be the reason why, though people no longer read, they still read detective novels: is the zero degree of questioning’s aptitude for judgment our only remaining safeguard against the “banality of evil”? To my mind, Possessions, among many other novels, is a humble form of revolt. But are other, higher forms of revolt, really any more effective?

Furthermore, the female world allows me to suggest an alternative to a robotizing and spectacular society that damages the culture of revolt: this alternative is, quite simply, sensible intimacy. Possessing their passions and sensibilities, some human beings nonetheless continue to ask themselves questions. I am convinced that, after all the more or less promising projects and slogans that were launched by feminist movements in the seventies, the arrival of women on the front of the moral and social stage will have the effect of revalorizing sensible experience, as an antidote to technical calculation. The immense responsibility of women for the survival of the species — how can we preserve the freedom of our bodies while at the same time ensuring that the best conditions are provided for the lives of our children? — goes hand in hand with this rehabilitation of the sensible. The novel is the privileged terrain for such an exploration and for its communication to the greatest number. Alongside and in addition to the culture of the image — its seduction, its swiftness, its brutality, and its easy accessibility — the culture of words, the narrative and the place it reserves for meditation, seems to me to be a type of minimal revolt. It may not be very much, but are you sure that we have not reached a point of no return, from which we will have to return to the little things — infinitesimal revolts — in order to preserve the life of the mind and of the species?

Revolt, then, as return/turning back/displacement/change, constitutes the internal logic of a certain culture that I would like to revive here and whose acuity seems quite threatened these days. But let us return once again to the meaning of this revolt, which seems to me to indicate what is most alive and promising about our culture.

Similarities and Differences with the “Retrospective Return”

Ever since Socrates and Plato and even more explicitly so in Christian theology, humans have been invited to “return”. Some of you may still retain a trace of this, if not the practice. This is notably the aim of Saint Augustine’s repetition, which is based on the retrospective link to the Creator’s already-there: the possibility of questioning one’s own being, searching for oneself (se quaerere: ‘quaesto mihi factus sum’), is offered by this aptitude to “re-turn”, which is also simultaneously recollection, interrogation, and thought.

Yet technological development has favored the knowledge of stable values, to the detriment of thought as return and as search (as repetition, as se quaerere, “going in search of oneself”). Besides, the secularization of Christianity, as well as its own intrinsic tendencies toward stabilization and reconciliation in the immutability of being, have depreciated — when they have not invalidated or made impossible — this “struggle” with the world and with oneself that also characterizes Christian eschatology.

Subsequently, the questioning of values turned into nihilism. By “nihilism,” I mean the rejection of old values in favour of a cult of new values that are unquestioned. What was taken as a “revolt” or a “revolution” for the past two centuries, particularly in politics and its accompanying ideologies, has most often been the abandonment of retrospective questioning in favour of an outright rejection of the old, so that new dogmas can take its place.

Generally, when the media uses the word “revolt,” what is generally meant is nothing other than this nihilistic suspension of questioning in favor of so-called new values which, precisely as “values,” have forgotten to question themselves, and as a result, have essentially betrayed the meaning of the re-volt that I am trying to make you appreciate here. The nihilist is not a man in revolt, in the sense I defined the term in Sense and Non-Sense of Revolt and Intimate Revolt. The pseudo-rebellious nihilist is, in fact, someone who is reconciled by the stability of new values. And this stability, which is illusory, turns out to be deadly and totalitarian. I cannot stress enough the fact that totalitarianism is the result of a certain fixation of revolt precisely in terms of its betrayal, namely, the suspension of retrospective return, which amounts to a suspension of thought. Hannah Arendt has brilliantly developed this elsewhere.3

I am therefore seeking experiences in which this work of revolt, which opens psychical life to infinite re-creation, continues and reoccurs, even at the price of errors and dead-ends. Indeed, we should not delude ourselves: it is not enough to revive the permanence of revolt, which technology may have inhibited, in order to secure happiness or some sort of serene stability of being. Revolt exposes the speaking subject to an unbearable conflict, and our century has assumed the daunting privilege of manifesting the necessary enjoyment (jouissance) and the morbid dead-ends associated with that conflict. But this occurs in an altogether different way from the nihilist who is focused on the celebration of an unmitigated rejection of the “old” or on the unflinching positivity inspired by the “new.”

So here we are: we can either renounce revolt by returning to “old values” or even “new” ones that do not look back on themselves and do not question themselves, or on the contrary, we can persevere and relentlessly recommence the retrospective return in order to go to the limits of the representable/the thinkable/the bearable: to the point of “possession.” These limits have been made evident by some advances of the culture of our century .

We should note that the revolt of modern man is not a mere resumption of the retrospective link that is the basis of the inner space of the Christian man, who is reassured in his quest which is completed by a return to the summum esse. While sharing the path of retroactive questioning, modern man comes to an irreconcilable conflict. Although it may have been produced in the margins of art or the mysticism of the past, this conflict never reached the scope or paroxysm experienced in modernity.

Just as the concept of “process” distinguishes modern history from that of antiquity, based on the destiny and genius of great men, the concept of “self-organization” is specific to contemporary history, which in our century moves from one crisis to the next. Similarly, I contend that the concept of man in revolt distinguishes the modern man from both the Christian man, reconciled with God (“coram Deo”), and the nihilist, who is his enraged but symmetrical opposite.

Psychoanalysis as Revolt

In what sense is revolt as we understand it — along with Freud, who points to the diabolical unconscious, and some contemporary writers who explore borderline cases of the psyche — distinguishable from the retro- spective relationship of tendere esse with the “not yet” and the “no longer”? Let us venture an initial reply: revolt is distinguished by the particular fact that the tension toward unity, being, or the authority of the law (although still at work in the modern revolt) is accompanied more than ever by centrifugal forces of dissolution and dispersion.

Furthermore, this conflict leads to enjoyment (jouissance), which is not simply a narcissistic or egoistic whim of those who are spoiled by consumer society or the society of the spectacle. The jouissance at stake here – and this is where Freud demonstrates how radical he is– is indispensible to keeping the psyche alive; it is indispensible to the faculty of representation and to the questioning that is specific to human beings. In this sense, Freud’s discovery of the unconscious was the new Archimedean point — of the psyche as always already dependent on the Other and the other — that constituted the privileged location where life could find its meaning. This is possible if and only if the psyche is capable of revolt. It is even on this ground that Freud founded psychoanalysis as an invitation to anamnesis, with the aim of a rebirth, or in other words, a psychical restructuring.

Through a narrative of free association and in the rejuvenating revolt with and against the old law (familial taboos, superego, ideals, Oedipal or narcissistic limits, etc.), one’s singular autonomy emerges, along with one’s renewed link to the other. But this other “Freudian palace of memory” that psychoanalysis revisits and transforms was not perceived by Hannah Arendt, who praised Saint Augustine’s palace of memory but dismissed psychology and psychoanalysis, which in her eyes were sciences of “the general.”

Regaining the Sense of the Negative

The modern age, which I will date from the French Revolution, for the sake of this argument, valued the negative part of this retrospective return. Personal or collective experience became an experience of conflict or of contradiction. Being itself is wrought by nothingness, philosophy essentially says, from Hegel to Heidegger and Sartre, although in different ways.

This co-presence of nothingness with being takes a dialectical form in Hegel.

Starting with his text What is Metaphysics? (1929), Heidegger makes a distinction between the negation internal to judgment and a nothingness that annihilates differently from the way thought does: it is in sensation and anxiety that the philosopher will seek the nuclear forms of what he calls a repulsion, which is a characteristic feature of the human as a reject, an outcast of being. Dasein is a repulsion; “ek-stasy” is another word for “ab- jection.” Has this similarity been given as much thought as it deserves?

In Being and Nothingness (1943), Sartre relies on this difference between the negation proper to thought and a primordial annihilation/nothingness. But rather than insisting on re-pulsion, he emphasizes freedom which ultimately makes him more Hegelian than Heideggerian, as much in his philosophy as in his political anarchism.

If I am re-reading these texts today and if I am asking you to read them again with me, it is because they bear witness to a unique moment in Western thought, the moment when the “retrospective return” – that is, the knowing subject’s questioning of himself and his truth – leads to nothing less than a familiarity with psychosis. There is an annihilating force (Kraft) behind the concept, whose disquieting movement (poussée) must be absorbed by the concept (Hegel), as well as the feeling of dissociation or repulsion in Heidegger and even Sartre’s “pre-judicative nothingness” that fuels his notion of freedom as radical violence and as a questioning of all identity, faith, and law. All these advances, when confronted with human realities to make their logic accessible, come up against a psychical reality that endangers consciousness and exposes it to the pulse of being. This fades away the borders between subject and object; it is an assault of the drives. Language becomes tonality (Stimmung), the memory of being, the music of the body and of matter. Heidegger seeks to capture this near psychosis, by respectfully visiting the work of Hölderlin. Sartre flees it by holding on to a totalizing and translucid consciousness, for whom Flaubert, “the family idiot”, and Genet, “actor and martyr” - in the neghborhood of melancholy and perversion, through style and play - offer a better hold on reason and humanism than the radical destruction performed by Artaud.

It may be surprising to maintain that the psychoanalytic movement inaugurated by Freud belongs to this interrogation into nothingness and negativity. I am not talking about American psychoanalysis which is dominated by Ego psychology, but about Freud’s radical interrogation of the psyche that leads to the borders of biology and being. We find testimony of this in a still enigmatic text of 1925, Die Verneinung (Negation). For the first time in the history of thought, even a few years before Heidegger’s What Is Metaphysics?, Freud links the fate of two types of negation: the rejection proper to the drives (Ausstossung or Verwerfung) and the negativity internal to judgment. In substance, he maintains that the symbol and/or thought are a sort of negation, which itself is nothing but a transformation under certain conditions of rejection or of a disconnection proper to the drive, which is elsewhere called the “death drive”.

We must now ask this question: under what conditions does the rejecting drive become symbolizing negation? All psychoanalytical research on the “paternal function” (Lacan) or the “good-enough mother” (Winnicott), to name just a couple of examples, seeks to answer this question. Melanie Klein bases the most original part of her work on the importance of this dissociating, rejecting drive, which occurs well before the appearance of the unity of the ego. This is what she calls the “schizoparanoid phase,” which precedes the “depressive phase” that generates symbolism and language. The work on narcissism, borderline personalities, and so on, probes deeper into this modality of the psyche, dependent on the archaic, the instinctive, the maternal, and, beyond that, the extra-psychical to the point of biology or being (depending on the school of thought).

These different currents of theoretical thought in philosophy and psychoanalysis have touched on this point: through retrospective questioning – that is, through inquiry or analysis – they have reached this border region of the speaking being that is psychosis.

Parallel to philosophy and psychoanalysis, not by theoretical means but by those proper to language itself, the practice of writing can attain non- sense too. By unfolding the meaning of sensations and drives, it can find its pulse in an order that is no longer “symbolic” but “semiotic.” I am thinking of the de-semanticization of style through ellipses in Mallarmé or through polyphony and portmanteau words in Joyce. Through language, and linguistic overcompetence, an apparent regression is obtained to an “infantile state of language.” The semiotic chora, this infra-linguistic musicality that all poetic language aims for, becomes the main objective of modern poetry, an “experimental psychosis.”4 What I mean by this, is that psychosis is the work of a subject, but a subject who is on trial. It is by returning to the archaeology of the subject’s unity, leading to the material of language and of thought itself, that the subject reaches the unsafe regions where this unity is annihilated.

The Logical Paradoxes of Revolt

Thoughts or writings in revolt attempt to find a representation (a language, a thought, a style) for this confrontation of the human with the unity or the limit of the law, being, and the self to which we accede in jouissance. As you know, jouissance is perceived by the old norms as an evil. Yet, insofar as jouissance is thought/written/represented, it is a passage through evil, and it is thereby perhaps the most profound way of avoiding the radical evil that results from the stoppage of representation and questioning. The permanence of contradiction, the temporariness of reconciliation, the bringing to the fore of everything that puts the very possibility of unified meaning to the test (such as the drives, the unnameable, the feminine, destruction, psychosis, etc.): this is what the culture of revolt explores.

That is to say that it announces a veritable transformation of the human deriving from the Christian eschatology of retrospection as the path to truth and intimacy. One can then see that the Freudian discovery is not a rejection of this tradition but a deepening of it all the way to the limits of conscious unity. From that starting point, the Freudian path announces a possible transformation of our culture, inasmuch as it initiates another relationship to meaning and the One.

As you will have gathered, it is not so much in the world of action that this revolt is realized but rather in that of psychical life and its social man- ifestations (writing, thought, art). This revolt seems to me to manifest the crises of modern man as much as its advances. Yet, as a transformation of man’s relationship to meaning, this cultural revolt intrinsically concerns the life of the city. It therefore has far-reaching political implications. In fact, it poses the question of another politics, one of permanent conflict.

I am sure you are well aware of how psychoanalysis has been attacked, denigrated and marginalized lately. While it has been the object of resistance from the outset (inevitably, insofar as it collides with the human being’s desire not to know, the human being preferring sexual mystification to confronting truths that may place him in revolt), it seems the general suspicion surrounding analysis today can be explained by other causes. The conditions of modern life – with the prevalence of technology, image, speed, and so forth, all inducing stress and depression – tend to reduce psychical space and to abolish the faculty of representation. Psychical curiosity might be considered natural but turns out to be less and less natural; it yields before the demands of so-called efficiency. The unquestionable advances of the neurosciences are then ideologically valorized and championed as antidotes to psychical afflictions. Gradually, these afflictions are denied as such and reduced to their biological substrata, a neurological deficiency.

A schematic materialism claims to do without the Freudian dualism that reserved a place for initiative, autonomy, and the desire of the subject. A diehard cognitivism subsumes within the same logic both the neuronal economy and the heteronomy of psychical representations. Ideological protests of a politically correct sort promote ethnic and sexual differences while refusing the rational approaches (psychoanalysis, among them) that allow a better grasp of their singularities. By denigrating what they call an analytical universalism, these currents shift from militancy to a sectarian logic. Finally, psychoanalytical societies themselves contribute to discrediting psychoanalysis, with their fearful politics and concern for safeguarding their clinical purity or, on the contrary, for their unduly aggressive ideological, if not spiritual, orientation. As a result, they undermine the “Copernican revolution” that Freud introduced in the twentieth century and that we increasingly perceive to be one of the only ones that does not turn away from either the afflictions or the revolts of modernity .

Perhaps it is necessary to recall some of the paradoxical logics of the analytical cure to highlight the type of intimacy that analytical experience has brought to light, as modern art has, though by entirely different means.

Recall the unprecedented timelessness (Zeit-los), which no philosophy had identified before him. It does not characterize mystical nunc stans but the temporality of the unconscious. While human existence is intrinsically linked to time, the analytical experience reconciles us with this timelessness, which is that of the drives, and more particularly, of the death drive. Unlike any other translation or deciphering of signs, analytical interpretation emerges as a secular version of “forgiveness”, in which I see not just a suspension of judgment but a giving of meaning beyond judgment, within transference and counter-transference.

Through timelessness and the revision of judgment, the analytical experience leads us to the borders of thought. Venturing into these regions is of interest to the philosopher as well as to the moralist, since the examination of thought (what is a thought, without time or without judgment?) implies an examination of judgment, of morality, and, ultimately, of the social bond.

Of particular interest are the aesthetic or literary variants of timelessness and forgiveness that the analytical experience reveals. In short, with timelessness and forgiveness we are able to revisit nothing less than our intimate depths, which appear to us as the experience of suffering. Is it not true that the various forms of “possession” of our intimacy, including the most demonic and most tragic, remain our refuge and our resistance in the face of a so-called “virtual” world where judgments are blurred or assume an archaic and barbarous form? It is precisely in imaginary experience, particularly in literature, that this intimacy is deployed, with its timelessness in its strange forgiveness.

Am I essentially pleading the case of intimate revolt as the only possible form of revolt? I am aware of the commercial dead-ends and spectacular quagmires of all the imaginary productions in which our rebellious intimacy manifests itself. There are periods when even the mystical path – this acceleration of libertarian transformations – is confined within treatments of pathology or else within spiritualist or decorative ghettos. This is one of those periods.

Faced with the invasion of the spectacle, we can still contemplate the rebellious potentialities that the imaginary can revive in our innermost depths. This is perhaps not yet a time of great works, or perhaps, for we contemporaries, they are underway but remain invisible. Nevertheless, by keeping our intimacy in revolt we can preserve the possibility of their appearance.

The Need to Believe and the Desire to Know

I have made reference to psychoanalysis above, but the revolt that seeks rebirth and constitutes the psychical life of analysands is not far removed from what every person feels when listening to his or her “inner self.” Traversed by complex logics, two of its movements are familiar to you all: the need to believe and the desire to know.5

The Oceanic Feeling....

Two psychical experiences confront the clinician with the need to believe. The first refers to what Freud, in responding to Romain Rolland, describes not without reluctance as the “oceanic feeling” in Civilization and its Discontents. This has to do with the intimate union between the Ego and the surrounding world. It is experienced as an absolute certainty of satisfaction and security as well as a loss of oneself in favor of that which surrounds and contains us, in favor of a container. This alludes to the experience of the infant that has not yet established borders between his or her Ego and the maternal body. Indisputable and indivisible, this experience is given only to “some” whose “regression can go far enough.” Yet, Freud authenticates it as an original experience of the Ego. This pre- or trans- linguistic experience, dominated by sensation, is at the heart of belief. It is belief not in the sense of a supposition but of an unshakeable certainty. It is a sensorial plenitude and ultimate truth that the subject experiences as an excessive —both sensorial and mental, and strictly speaking, ek-static — over- or super-life. Certain aesthetic works provide evidence of this, and I have recognized it quite particularly in the work of Proust. The narrator mentions dreams without imagery (“the dream of the second apartment”) interwoven with pleasures and pains that “we believe” (as he specifies) unnameable. They draw upon the extreme intensity of the five senses and only a cascade of metaphors can attempt to “translate” them. The story of these dreams may be interpreted as a triumph over the endogenous autism that resides in our unconscious depths, as the psychoanalyst Frances Tustin would see it. Is the writer, then, the one who is able to succeed where the autist fails?

The Psychoanalytic Approach to Believing and Knowing

Let us take Psalm 116:10: “He' emanti ki adaber...” “My trust does not fail even when I say, ‘I am completely wretched. In my terror I said, ‘No human being can be relied on.’” Echoing Psalm 116, Saint Paul in his Second Letter to the Corinthians 4:13 said, “Epistevsa dio elalisa” (in Greek), “Credidi, propter locutus sum” (in Latin), “I believed and therefore I have spoken” (in English). A few lines before, the psalmist evokes God’s merciful ear (“I love the Lord because he hath heard my voice and my supplications...”), the loving Other, and collects the many interpretations of the Hebrew word “ki” (“and”, “because”, “despite”).

I understand the verse as follows: “Because You speak to me and listen to me, I believe and I speak, despite the unnamable.” The context of the psalm is more explicit: it is associated with faith (“emuna” in which we hear the root “amen,” faith or belief) which fills the statement with specific, indifferent and, even, deceptive meanings. Faith holds the key to the act of speech itself, even when it expresses a complaint (“I’m unhappy,” “people lie to me,” etc.). Because I believe, I speak. I wouldn’t speak if I didn’t believe. To believe what I say and to continue to say it grows out of the capacity to believe in the Other and not from inevitably disappointing existential experience. But what is the nature of this “belief?”

The Latin credo comes from the Sanskrit “kredh/sraddhà” which denotes an act of “confidence” in a God, involving restitution in the form of a divine favor accorded to the faithful. It is from this root that the financial term “credit” was derived; I set down a good and await my pay.

The psychoanalytical experiences of the child and the adult attest to two crucial moments of development where the infans projects himself onto an outsider with whom he identifies: the loving father. On the one hand, there is the “oceanic feeling” of losing oneself in the maternal envelope, but also of infinitely likening oneself to the carrier wave of her protection. Isn’t this what the believer feels in the grace of communion with the Divine, and that Romain Rolland asked Freud to interpret? On the other hand, and closer to our questioning of the paternal role in the religious connection, let us recall what Freud calls a “primary identification.” This primary identification with the father of individual prehistory is the dawning of the symbolic outsider who replaces the fascination and the horror of the dual interdependence of the mother and child.6 This confident recognition is offered by the father- who-loves-the-mother and is loved by her, and I in turn devote myself to him. This changes my stammering into linguistic signs, whose value he determines.

Although these are signs of objects, they are mostly signs of my jubilations and my fears, of my early years of life. Spoken words transform my angst into “a believing expectation”: Gläubige Erwartung, wrote Freud7. Loving paternal listening gives meaning to what would otherwise be an inexpressible trauma, a nameless excess of pleasure and pain. But I do not construct this primary identification, nor does the loving father who imposes it on me. The primary identification is “direct and immediate,” like lightning or a hallucination. It is through the father-loving mother’s sensitivity and discourse — a mother to whom I still belong and remain inseparable — that this “unification” of myself-in-another-who-is-an- outsider is imprinted in me and structures me.

Before Laius (the Oedipal father), the imaginary father recognizes me and loves me through the mother. This lets me know that I am not her but other and makes me believe that I can “believe.” Freud uses the word “cathexis” (Besetzung). To believe and/or to cathect, not in him as the “object” of need or desire, but in his representation of me and in his words — in the representation that I make of him and in my words. “I believed and therefore I spoke.”

On this foundation alone, my need to believe is thus satisfied and offers me optimal conditions for language acquisition. This can be accompanied by

Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy | Revue de la philosophie française et de langue française

Vol XXII, No 2 (2014) | http://www.jffp.org | DOI 10.5195/jffp.2014.650

Julia Kristeva | 13

14 | New Forms of Revolt

another capacity that is both corrosive and liberating: the desire to know. Carried by this faith that lets me hear a loving/loved outsider, I burst into questions.

Who hasn’t witnessed the pleasurable trance of a child asking questions? Still straddling the border between the flesh of the world and the kingdom of language, the child knows with a hallucinatory knowledge that all identity — object, person, himself, the adult’s response — is a constructible-deconstructible chimera. Lacan thought that the motto for psychoanalysis should be “Scilicet”: “you can know.” He forgot to mention that “you can know,” if and only if you believe you can know. From knowing to believing, and vice versa, such is the eternal turnstile of speaking- being (parlêtre).

Adolescence: A Syndrome of Ideality

Whereas the child is a polymorphic pervert according to Freud who wants to know where babies come from and who Freud compares to a “laboratory researcher,” the adolescent is a believer. The adolescent is not a “researcher” in a laboratory but a believer. We are all adolescents when we are enthralled by the absolute. Freud did not preoccupy himself with adolescents because he was himself a firm non-believer, perhaps the most irreligious person who ever existed. Faith implies a passion for what psychoanalysis calls an “object relation”: faith is potentially fundamentalist, as is the adolescent. Romeo and Juliet are excellent examples of this. However, because the sadomasochistic nature of our drives and desires is inevitable, adolescent belief in the existence of the Ideal Object is constantly threatened.

I will assert, then, that the adolescent is a believer in the object relation and/or of its impossibility. Thus formulated, the question implies a parameter that is hard to take seriously: this parameter is ideality.

What is the ideality syndrome? The adolescent Oedipal complex is violent because it operates on the carrier wave of idealization. The adolescent whose psyche is rooted in the polymorphous perversity of the young child separates from the parental couple and replaces it with a new model. In so doing, the narcissism of the Ego, tied up with its ideals, overflows the object and gives way to the amorous passion specific to the drive-ideality connection.

The intensity of this new satisfaction is procured thanks to something not sufficiently brought out in Freudian theory. The inclusion of the object in narcissism happens in the guise of belief. The adolescent acquires the certainty that there is an absolute satisfaction. This is the certainty that he or she can erase the original and tragic Oedipus complex and rush towards a new love that will open the door to new paradises. Images, ideologies, different forms of knowledge, and existential models are all brought into play to shore up an idealized narcissism which unfolds over others and which surpasses all former ideals in strength. Ideality dominates the adolescent unconscious: adolescent drives and pleasure are structured not only as a language but also as an ideality.

Let me sum this up as follows. The belief that an ideal object exists (be it a partner, a profession, or a creation) is accompanied by the absolute belief that the parental couple must be surpassed and even abolished so that the adolescent subject can escape into an idealized, paradisiacal form of absolute satisfaction. The Judeo-Christian paradise is an adolescent creation. The adolescent takes pleasure in the paradise syndrome, which conversely, can also become a source of suffering if absolute ideality turns into cruel persecution. Because the adolescent believes that the other, surpassing the parental other, not only exists but provides absolute satisfaction, the adolescent believes that the Great Other — God — exists and is pleasure. The slightest disappointment of this ideality syndrome ruins paradise and leads toward delinquent conduct.

Believers and Nihilists

Insofar as adolescence is structured by idealization, we understand that it constitutes the malady of ideality. Either the adolescent lacks ideality or in a given context his or her ideality fails to adapt to the post-puberty drive and thus to the need to share with an absolutely satisfying object. Adolescent ideality is necessarily demanding and in a state of crisis, since the drive-ideality connection is constantly at risk of disintegration. Adolescent belief inexorably mixes with adolescent nihilism. Why? Because it exists (in the unconscious), yet “he” or “she” disappoints me (in reality). I have no choice but to be angry with “them” and seek revenge: vandalism is what follows. Or, because it exists (in the unconscious), yet “he” or “she” disappoints me. I have no choice but to take it out on myself: self-mutilation and self-destructive behavior follows.

Drug addiction thus abolishes consciousness but the experience of hallucinatory pleasure satisfies the belief in the absolute of orgasmic regression. Anorexic behavior breaks with the maternal line and reveals the young woman’s battle against femininity. Yet, this is to the benefit of an over-investment of the “hard-lined” body, which echoes back to the fantasy of absolute spirituality. Through this fantasy, the entire body disappears in a beyond that is laden with paternal connotations.

It is here that the analyst gets caught. For, many tend to stop at the erotic or thanatic symptom forgetting ideality, which controls the symptom from the unconscious. But, how do we take into account the fact that the unconscious of the adolescent believer is constructed as a high-risk ideality?

Civilizations commonly referred to as primitive have long used initiation rites to assert symbolic authority (divine for the invisible world, political for this world here) and to justify the acting out of what we would qualify today as perverse by condoning initiatory sexual practices. In our own Western culture, notably in medieval Christianity, mortification rituals and excessive fasting channeled the anorexic and sadomasochistic behaviors of adolescents. In so doing, they either downplayed or glorified them.

In yet another secular way, what seems to me to be an imaginary elaboration of the adolescent crisis is the birth of the European novel shaped around the adolescent character.8 The young page serving his Lady is a recurrent trope of courtly love in which a complex range of homosexual relations, more or less fully developed, are played out. Does psychoanalysis innovate, and if so, how does it avoid the pitfall of stabilizing the couple in marriage, that temporary happy ending of the bourgeois novel? Even today, popular literature continues to draw from the narrative logic developed in the Renaissance. Even hard-core sex fails to break out of this logic and is easily assimilated into it

Compared to the various ways of dealing with adolescents that have preceded us, we might wonder whether psychoanalysis, with its emphasis on attentive listening, is innovative. And if so, how? It is the analyst’s job to listen to the adolescent’s need to believe and to confirm it. If adolescents come to us, it is because they need us to recognize their ideality syndrome. We must articulate and share our understanding of it, if we are to comprehend and accurately interpret the delinquent behavior of the adolescent in crisis as a source of extreme jouissance — simili-paradis. Only later should the analyst attempt to point out the negative aspects, the Oedipus or Orestes type revolt, of this behavior.

In other words, only the analyst’s capacity to see the pleasure-seeking, idealizing course of adolescent drives will provide a credible and effective transference and thus metabolize the need to believe through the pleasure that comes with thinking, questioning, and analyzing. Sharing the ideality syndrome of the adolescent allows the analyst to weaken the patient’s resistance and guide the adolescent through an analytical process against which the adolescent generally rebels.

The religious need, which was replaced throughout the 20th century by ideological enthusiasm, served and continues to serve as a way to authenticate the ideality syndrome. It is no coincidence that, alongside the adolescent malaise which so worries modern society (to the point of spending handsome sums to establish “youth centers/homes” for teenagers with great pomp), we see religion making a come-back, often in bastardized forms (sects) or with a fundamentalist twist (encouraging the death drive to shift into high gear in the name of an ideal). In this context, adolescence can perhaps be seen in terms of its possibilities, though this outlook is contingent on our ability to accompany the teenager’s need to believe that is coextensive with the impossibility of this belief. In so doing, we would be better able to interpret the forms of our civilization’s new malaise and this renaissance of the “need to believe.” We ourselves share this need, since within us there is a perpetual adolescent.

Conclusion

To conclude, I would like to highlight the revolts we call the “suburban troubles,” which are especially felt in Marseille but elsewhere as well. Aren’t they due to a failure of the French model of secularism? In fact, the matter is more grave: we are below the level of the clash of religions. I think that the delinquency of “disadvantaged teens” reveals a more radical phase of nihilism. This delinquency concerns the deeper mechanisms of civilization and highlights the destruction of the pre-religious “need to believe” that constitutes the psychical life with and for others, on which I have sought to shed light today.

Adolescent gangster fundamentalism has suddenly revealed that the religious treatment of revolt has lost credibility. It is insufficient to ensure the paradisiacal aspirations of the paradoxical believer, the nihilist believer – who is necessarily nihilist because pathetically idealistic – the disconnected, desocialized teenager in the ruthlessness of global migration.

Psychoanalysis speaks to this deep disorganization of the self — unbound (the “I” doesn’t exist, “nothing but an unbinding drive ready to go to any extreme”) — and of the relationship to the other — to the point of de- objectification (“the other has no meaning or value”) — where the death drive alone, the malignity of evil, triumphs. And so we find ourselves facing “radical evil” in a new way.

What is radical evil? It consists of asserting – and realizing – the superfluity of human beings: their being sentenced to death (Kant, Arendt).

Is radical evil “without reason”? Mysticism and literature both say so in their own ways. We — the political pact — cannot stop there. With the psychoanalytical experience, I do not remain content to revolt, and even less so against radical evil. I seek the logic of extreme evil so as to refine its interpretation in the transference-countertransference. We discover that, after familial disintegrations and social failures, some people — especially adolescents — succumb to the disease of ideality. They literally explode and become incapable of distinguishing good from evil, inside from outside, or subject from object. Of the two drives that exist within us — of life and of death — it is the death drive that absorbs their psychical life, sinks into blind destructiveness and finally self-destruction. The need to believe collapses within the empire of unbinding and de-objectification; this is accompanied by either a mad pleasure or the emptiness of apathy.

Here, we must make an important distinction. Yes, there does exist an evil that comes from the clash of values. Values themselves are produced by divergent or competing libidinal interests and underlie our conceptions of good and evil. Religious man and moral man are constituted of these: regardless of whether they are more or less guilty and enraged, they experience them, worry about them, and hope to elucidate them so that they can listen to one another rather than kill one another.

In addition to this type of evil, however, there is an extreme evil, which sweeps away the meaning of the distinction between good and evil and thereby destroys the possibility of accessing the other’s existence, meaning, and self. These extreme states do not take refuge in hospitals or on the psychoanalyst’s couch, instead they unfold in socio-political catastrophes and in the abjection of exterminations such as the Holocaust, that horror which defies explanation and reason. But the new forms of extreme evil are spreading in a globalized world, in the wake of maladies of ideality.

And it is from this diagnosis that the audacity of psychoanalytic care springs and seeks to be more than a “comprehensive moralism.” It places the analyst at the unsustainable intersection where this disobjectalisation- objectalisation moves about threateningly, and yet can initiate a re- structuring. This is our challenge, after the discovery of the death drive and the malignant potential of the psychic apparatus that dwells within its ability to produce maladies of ideality. These diseases of the soul destroy both the need to believe and the desire to know, such that the human being is rendered incapable of investing himself and establishing relationships. Dispossessed of a “self” and lacking a sense of the other, one wanders aimlessly in the absence of a “world”, in a non-world with neither “good” nor “evil,” nor “value” of any kind.

Is it possible to push analytical listening to the borders of Homo Sapiens and to continue practicing psychoanalysis in these conditions? The French Republic is facing a historic challenge. Will it be able to confront this crisis of the need to believe and the desire to know, which is no longer contained by the lid of religion and which touches the very depths of the bond between human beings? The anguish paralyzing the country in these times of excess and against the backdrop of economic and social crisis expresses our incertitude before this colossal issue. Can we mobilize all of our resources — police and economic, not to mention those which give us knowledge of souls — to care for the harrowing malady of ideality that is engulfing us and which is expressed by adolescents from good neighborhoods and even more so in lawless areas? Can we care for them with the necessary delicacy and attentiveness, with an appropriate education and with the needed generosity? Interpreted as such, the “crisis of the youth” who call out for God and who are beset by the malignancy of evil cannot not concern us.

I have attempted to tell you how much it concerns me. Am I optimistic? Perhaps too optimistic? I would define myself rather as an energetic pessimist who appreciates only an active intelligence in thought, or the timeliness of intelligence. And so I ask: What is one to do? What are we to do? To quote Nietzsche: “Put a big question mark in the place of heavy seriousness,” that is, in God’s place. “Transvalue” (Umwertung aller werte) values, passions, needs to believe and desires to know. Do not give up in face of evil, not even in face of extreme evil. But patiently pursue the search — certainly not for who knows what utopian balance, but rather the search for a path to that fragile point described by Pascal: “Whosoever would find the secret of rejoicing in the good without troubling himself with its contrary evil would have hit the point. It is perpetual motion.” And what if the revolt we lack today is precisely this “point”, this “perpetual motion”, toward the “secret of rejoicing in the good without troubling oneself with its contrary evil”? What if it is a certain inner experience?

Footnotes

Julia Kristeva, Intimate Revolt: the Powers and Limits of Psychoanalysis (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002). Julia Kristeva, The Sense and Non-Sense of Revolt, trans. Jeanine Herman (Columbia University Press, 2001).

The ancient forms wel and welu, refer to a voluntary, artisanal act, leading to the denomination of technical objects that protect and encase. They evolve toward the sense of ‘return’, ‘uncovering/ unravelling’, ‘the circular movement of the planets’, the Italian ‘volte-face’, (‘about face’), ‘vaudeville’ in French, the ‘volume’ of a book, and the Swedish car ‘Volvo’.

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1951).

Julia Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language, trans. Margaret Waller (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984).

See Julia Kristeva, “The Big Question Mark,” in This Incredible Need to Believe, trans. Beverley Bie Brahic (New York: Columbia, 2013), vii-xvi.

See Sigmund Freud, The Ego and the Id (New York: Norton, 1923).

See Sigmund Freud, Résultats, idées, problèmes, vol. I (1890-1920) (Paris: PUF, 1998), 8.

See Julia Kristeva, “The Adolescent Novel,” in New Maladies of the Soul, trans. Ross Guberman (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 135-153.

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boyversusworldblog · 6 years

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As mentioned in a prior post about my first day in Havana Cuba, I visited the country of Cuba for the very first time. Travel to Cuba had been somewhat off-limits to Americans for some time, so that might explain the huge influx of U.S. travelers to Cuba to see what the country has to offer. The majority of my time in Cuba was spent in Havana.

We arrived in the port of Havana by cruise ship and headed out to explore the city of Havana. Let me first say that we almost didn’t make it to Cuba due to a very intense hurricane season in the Caribbean. Luckily, all three of the major hurricanes that hit Cuba died out and finally left us in the clear to travel. We had been watching our cruise line’s website by the hour in the event they canceled our cruise or would divert us to other islands. The problem was that a larger majority of the islands that the cruise line usually diverted to were also badly hit.

We were also slightly aggravated by the talk by the Trump administration of rolling back Obama era regulations regarding travel to Cuba. The main concern was whether we would be allowed to book our excursions ourselves and travel as individuals or if we have to book a group tour. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Tip: If you’re a U.S. citizen, I would highly advise that you check the US travel website for any recent changes for travel to Cuba before you book your tickets to anything. The regulation changes were actually pending after we had booked our cruise and our excursions, so needless to say we were kind of on edge. As far as tours go, we decided to not book our tour through the cruise line as it was actually more expensive than picking a local tour company on our own. If you are worried about getting back to the cruise ship on time or have a tight schedule and/or don’t feel comfortable booking tours outside of cruise line, then you may want to consider the excursions through the cruise line.

Usually, my sister and I can figure out an itinerary on our own and just make an experience in line with what we like to see. This time we decided to be a bit lazy and let someone else navigate and do all the talking as we did all the walking. You may still be okay to navigate on your own if just get a detailed map of Havana. Be aware though that you most likely will not have cell or internet service in Cuba as it’s regulated and pretty spotty in most areas, so print your maps prior to coming or buy one when you get there. There are certain spots that have Wi-Fi and there have been talks that due to increased tourism there may be changes to allow more Wi-Fi access. I will say that all of the key sites are reasonably close to each other so you won’t have to travel far. If you’re trying to get out of the city a little further, you might need a lot more than just a map.

After a bit of searching on the internet to find a credible tour company, we settled on Havana Tour Company which is a sister company to Locally Sourced Cuba Tours. We didn’t want to be in the midst of all the people rushing off the cruise ship for the earlier tours provided by the cruise ship or other tour companies. Also, it was easier to get through customs later in the day since it wasn’t packed with all the cruise ship tourist. So, we slept in a bit and eased into the day and then ventured out for the Havana Afternoon Delight Tour.

There are a lot of tours to choose from but we picked this tour since it offered a little bit of everything. It’s part walking tour, part classic car ride, and lastly an interactive authentic mojito making. The tour is noted on the website to be four hours long and for groups of two to twelve, so you might be mixed in with a group that is less than twelve. We headed off the cruise ship, exchanged our U.S. dollars (USD) into the Cuban Convertible currency (CUC) and headed our the terminal. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

TIP: Exchange your USD for another currency like Canadian Dollars, Mexican Pesos, or Euros to possibly get a better exchange when you exchange in Cuba. You are automatically charged 10% just for exchanging in USD and then an additional 3% for a financial transaction charge. So you may be able to avoid the large 10% fee if you exchange in a different currency. This is only if you get a good exchange rate to begin with on the currency you originally exchange your USD from.

We didn’t know this before we went but we weren’t worried about the 13% fees since most things are pretty cheap to purchase anyway in Cuba and you may not need a huge amount of money if you’re traveling on a budget.

Anyway, we met up with our guide at the location that was noted on our confirmation email. We found out that we were the only people on our tour, so we basically got a private tour! We also learned throughout the tour that our guide was very educated about Cuban history as well as international current events. He spoke about the degrees he received in university in teaching and in history. We also talked about how many people think that Cuba is completely cut off from the world but they aren’t completely cut off. They know quite a bit about what’s going on in the U.S and U.K and worldwide. As we crossed the Paseo de Marti toward the statue of Jose Marti, our guide was stopped by the police in military clothes. He showed them his tour guide license/identification card and answered a few questions and we kept on truckin’. He advised us that this is a regular occurrence as there are tour guides that aren’t licensed to be actual guides that solicit tourists for tours and they aren’t actually valid tours and may not charge a fair price or provide a comprehensive tour. This is why it’s important to do your research and pick a company that is official.

We walked past the restaurant bar El Floridita which was frequented by Ernest Hemingway and down the beautiful cobblestone streets of Havana. He explained the historical significance of certain structure around town and talked about the times of revolution. He also drew similarities between the history of the U.S. regarding the slave trade and the history of Cuba. It was intriguing to find out that even Cuba was built on the backs of slaves from Africa, among others. We discussed general opinions about the Obama administration and the Trump administration. He let my sister and I know that it was astounding and extremely motivating when Obama visited Cuba. He said that people were in awe of the fact that an African American, someone like themselves, was the leader of the United States and would choose to visit Cuba. He said that it was a very humbling experience and something that he would never forget. We also talked about the changes that were pending implementation from the Trump administration. It was interesting to understand the impact of actions taken by the president of the nation in which you reside and how it affects other people from the perspective of the people that actually reside in that country. The conversation wasn’t heated politically and I never got a feeling from our guide of any animosity or hatred toward one side or the other. It’s not common nowadays to just have an honest and open discussion about issues that affect the world without interjecting one’s own bias. It was a very comprehensive and eye-opening discussion.

We walked into Havana’s Old Town with it’s wonderfully laid out public squares and market areas. We stopped by a building were local artists were busy at work creating beautiful works of art and were able to chat with some of the locals about their craft. We stepped in briefly to the La Catedral and marveled at the intricacy of the ceiling and other fixtures as well as the facade of the outside of the church. La Catedral charges a small fee to walk around the inside of the church. It’s a nominal fee but just be prepared. It was around $5 CUC as of the date of this blog post. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

What I loved about this tour is that it didn’t feel rushed at all. The guide let us ask all the questions on our mind and it almost appeared that his explanations were finished just as we came upon one of the main areas of focus for the tour. I don’t know if this was strategically planned but it was really awesome to not feel rushed and really get a chance to digest the information that was being provided. There was plenty of time for photos as well. Once we made it to the Plaza San Francisco de Asis, the walking portion of the tour was over and we went to a local bar to have an adult beverage while we waited for the classic car to arrive.

When the car arrived, I chuckled a little because it looked like a short pink Cadillac. I’m not sure how much of the car was actually classic as our guide let us know that they haven’t imported any cars for several years so they have to re-use parts to keep all the classic cars running. We winded through the streets of Havana, past the El Capitolio and away from the city toward the Plaza del Revolucion.

This seemed to be a stopping point for many of the classic cars but our guide advised us not to venture too far as there is a strong military presence within the Plaza as well as by the Monument to Jose Marti.

The military personnel aren’t to be feared, but you have to just be cautious and mind your manners. So, be respectful and don’t take any photos of military personnel without permission.

After stopping at the Plaza del Revolucion we drove back into the city as the sun started to set for the mojito making. The mojito demonstration was on the rooftop of a local house which appears to be turned into a bar once the sun goes down. The friend of our guide showed us how to make two drinks, a mojito, and a caipirinha. Let’s just say, they’re not light on the liquor and after walking all day I was ready to experience the power of alcohol other than cruise ship drinks if you know what I’m sayin’. Since we were a party of two, let’s just say the drinks were….flowing. It was such a chill vibe and our conversations continued through at least two packs of cigarettes between our guide and my sister. I don’t smoke, so don’t get it twisted.

They do have non-alcoholic options if you want to take this tour so don’t let the alcohol scare you off. I asked our guide what made him most proud to be Cuban and he said that he knows that wherever he goes on the island if he’s ever in need, people will help out as a community even if they don’t know him personally. He said he enjoys the sense of community as a nation and that in a way, he is his brother’s keeper. He said this after I answered that what I like most about being American is that we can be whatever we what and have a sense of self and individualism like no other. This was another point where I really had to stop and think because one thing that I do think is missing in the U.S. is a sense of community. We all try so hard to make it on our own that we forget to stop and ask for help from time to time or don’t try to help each other toward a common goal.

Needless to say, the sun was almost completely set by the time we left the mojito making and our guide took us to a little cafe/bar as a drop off point. My sister and I had a beer as we processed our day and talked about the entire experience. I can say that this was one of the best experiences of my life! I say this not because of the tourist attractions and the key sights but more because of the conversation and the interaction with true locals. That is the experience I yearn for. This was an experience that will leave a lasting impression and give me stories to tell to start a conversation with people who may never get the chance to do the same. I’m also happy that my sister felt the same way. I’m glad that she and I were able to share the experience together as siblings because it’s something I’ll always remember. Pardon the blurry photo with a front-facing camera on an iPhone 5.

As of the date of this blog post, the fee for the tour was $75 per person. As you can tell, it was well worth it. As I mentioned in my previous post, our tour ended up being nine hours even though it was supposed to be four. Don’t let this scare you because the guides are very mindful of your time so if you need to stick to the four-hour timeline, they will make sure you meet your time goals just in case you have other excursions planned or need to get back to the cruise ship terminal or airport. We didn’t have anything planned and I’m glad we were able to make a full day of it.

On a side note, there is also a Free Walking Tour company that operates if you’re on a budget and just want to get a taste of the city to bookmark places to go back to.

If you want to read more about My 36 Hours in Havana Cuba Day One, click on the link. I had to break it up in two parts so you can read about My 36 Hours in Havana Day Two by clicking here.

Happy Travels!

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Review: Havana Tour Company – Havana Afternoon Delight Tour As mentioned in a prior post about my first day in Havana Cuba, I visited the country of Cuba for the very first time.

#caribbean #cuba #cuban #havana

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