#we are trapped by our own lack of radical imagination

[princesssarcastia]

thinking about the tragedy of The West Wing tonight. thinking about how jed bartlet convinced josh lyman to work for him, before they ever met, by telling the truth even when it cost him political points. thinking about how bartlet massively betrayed the trust of the people working for him, and also kind of did defraud the american public!

thinking about how even when american liberals write their wet dream political fantasy they still can't get anything done. thinking about how the bartlet white house got so stymied politically the show spent more and more time writing convoluted military plotlines, because they'd hit the ceiling of their own political imagination.

let bartlet be bartlet, they said, and bartlet wanted to lie. he compromised on his agenda and his values. he promoted moderate positions and people. he sat there and watched everything he'd worked for be unwritten by a maverick republican speaker.

the most interesting moment in the back half of the show is when bartlet attains some kind of meta-level awareness of his own ineffectiveness and sends the government into a shutdown because he can't bear to play politics by the rules anymore. but it only lasts for a few episodes before it's back to business as usual.

"Filling another seat on the court may be the only lasting thing I do in this office," Bartlet says, and he's right. yes, they negotiated that deal on social security, but they couldn't take credit for it and that was it! that was their one thing!

no, don't go after the KKK and other white supremacist groups. no, don't publish that study about the necessity of sex education. don't do anything. espouse some grand ideals and watch as they're slowing crushed by the political machinery that YOU are operating.

it's best epitomized long before aaron sorkin left, in a half-overheard exchange happening in another room.

BARTLET: I couldn't disagree more, Cal. As long as these people are funding their public school districts with property taxes, neither the value of the schools nor the value of their property is going to go up. It's a vicious circle. It's terrible and it has to be stopped. CAL: So we're going to do something about it. BARTLET: I wouldn't go that far.

That's a real issue that we need a real solution for. But instead of reaching for the stars, the west wing decided to stay right here in the dirt where our current system has left us. and here we still sit, together, over twenty years later.

[deuterosapiens]

So I was thinking briefly about a SAW television series. I suppose there are all of the obvious reasons a show like this couldn't work, but I want to propose a hypothetical series that could work, if it were executed correctly.

First off, let's talk about some of the critical components of a SAW movie, and how those elements might be adapted to a longer-form series (I'm picturing like an eight-episode Season format, for obvious reasons. A network like AMC or something that would allow us to get away with on-screen depictions of gore, torture and blood).

So the three main components of most films in the series (I don't say all because SAW X actually lacks one of them): 1- The Police (most films, except X, features a plot involving detective investigating Jigsaw related cases; 2- Traps (the obvious appeal for most fans, this series is defined by the creative a ruthless traps its victims find themselves caught in); and 3- Mythology (SAW as a franchise is so hyper-saturated in its internal mythology that untangling its webs within webs produces something of a inconsistent headache, if you.dont subscribe to a Just Go with It-mentality).

So for SAW: The Desciple (which I just realized abbreviates poorly), let's think about ways we can incorporate these elements into something interesting. Just a final note on this idea: SAW canon is... weird. As a result, I'm considering this series to be a partial reboot, a partial continuation, and also, reasonably, its own thing.

As the sub-title suggests, The Desciple will follow an apprentice to John Kramer's teachings. As is the case with most of his apprentices, our Pilot will depict our main character as a Player in one of his Games. The focus of the series then is on the development and growth of a Jigsaw player-turned-Gamemaker. We will explore this main character as they observe Games and learn the principles of trap design and construction.

Through flash-backs we will witness a past history of abuse and treachery. Mistreatment and neglect. The finale of course would be our main character playing their very first Game, bringing in a cast of victims who have "wronged" our protagonist.

The integration of a detective narrative could easily be filled if our protagonist is a cop deprogramming himself from his legal teachings. Or, better yet, their love interest (spouse or otherwise) could be a detective whose investigation into recent Jigsaw Killings has begun to create a violent rift in their relationship, culminating in a finale where they learn that their partner has been involved this whole time. Granted, both of these plots have appeared in the films before, however I see no reason to not incorporate previous story-beats if they serve a different purpose.

What I would like to see is a smarter, more introspective look into the Jigsaw philosophy of self-discovery through torture. Obviously the pros and cons of this must be discussed. Perhaps this series takes place after the main films and this features a protagonist who's learning through a copy-cat of a copy-cat. Where different sects of Kramer's followers have taken his game-making ideas in radically different directions and thus we see more Amanda-esque games (which are not meant to be won) and Hoffman-esque games (where winning requires participation from all players).

Seeing familiar faces would be cool, but honestly, I think a fully original cast would be best. Yeah, yeah, it sounds a lot like I'm saying "Hey, let's make a full length series based on Spiral!" And I guess that's fair. But going forward, I cannot imagine there's much more of a story to tell with any of the pre-existing characters that wouldn't feel completely nonsensical.

Thoughts? If I'm bored I might draft something, I dunno.

[doomonfilm]

Ranking : Christopher Nolan (1970 - present)

From the moment he kicked the door down on the scene with the breathtaking Memento, the name Christopher Nolan has rung synonymous with high thinking, high level and high entertainment film.  He always finds fresh and unique ways to tell stories, be it visually, narratively, or some combination of the two, and many of his conceptual deep dives have opened real conversations in regards to different aspects of space and time.  For an artist, the impact the Christopher Nolan has had on the populous as a whole is impressive, which is why after recently seeing Tenet, I felt it necessary to take a look back at all of his films and determine where they stood in relation to one another (in my eyes). 

11. Insomnia (2002) As stated with every instance of ranking the work of a director, there’s always one film that’s got to take the bottom of the list hit, and for Nolan, it was Insomnia.  The film in itself is not a bad one, and it does offer some strong visuals in regards to the unrelenting amount of sunlight that one experiences in Alaska, but it does suffer not only from being a remake, but a remake that pales in comparison to the original.  For my money’s worth, Nolan works best with original ideas, with one specific trilogy standing as an exception to that notion.

10. Memento (2000) While not his debut film, this was the film that put Nolan on the map.  The story is unique and intriguing, and the manner in which it is told really makes it work, as a standard A to Z telling of the film would eliminate much of the dramatic tension felt.  That being said, this film suffers from a similar fate to that of films like The Sixth Sense : it’s cool the first time you see it, it really wows you the second time you see it, and then further viewings find diminishing returns in regards to the experience of the “gimmick” (for lack of a better word).  Definitely worth seeing if you’ve never seen it, or are looking for a gateway into the work of Nolan, but underwhelming when held up against his future work.

9. Batman Begins (2005) As previously stated, Nolan (in my opinion) works best as a writer/director of original ideas, so like many, I was slightly surprised when he was tapped to handle the Christian Bale edition of the Batman movie canon.  There wasn’t so much doubt about his ability to pull things off visually, but with such a beloved franchise and character in his hands, there were thoughts about whether or not his style would translate in a way that an already dedicated fanbase would appreciate.  Batman Begins was an effective table-setter for his Dark Knight trilogy, but due to the necessity of having to address an already familiar backstory, many of Nolan’s best ideas would have to wait until the sequel.

8. The Dark Knight Rises (2012) This film found itself the unfortunate victim of an all too familiar national tragedy in the form of a mass shooting during an early screening, forever putting a sort of black cloud over the film as a result.  That being said, the film was a stellar entry in the Dark Knight trilogy, anchored by an instantly iconic Tom Hardy performance.  If this film was attributed to any other director, it would possibly stand as one of their top works, but Christopher Nolan is a man of such depth and style that The Dark Knight Rises merely stands as above average output from a creator who is pulling back a bit to fit the Hollywood ideal (or his version, anyway) of a comic book film.

7. Following (1998) Quite possibly the most personal of all Nolan films, which makes sense, considering it was his first.  It was the buzz that this film generated during the 1997 festival season, along with an already completed script for Memento, that turned Nolan from an aspiring director to a household name.  Following gives us a bit of insight into Nolan’s creative process, presenting us with a highly stylized version of an observational writer, forever receptive to the stimulus around him.  The look of the film displays Nolan’s eye for location and cinematography, and the non-linear nature of the story served as a sneak preview to a format of storytelling he would soon master and manipulate beyond our ability to initially understand.  Though a bit on the short side for a feature film, it is certainly a fun ride with much indication of where its creator was headed.

6. Interstellar (2014) Throughout the 2010s, it seemed that Nolan was hell-bent on warping our brains through the entertainment medium, and after the warning blast that Inception was, Interstellar served as a sort of thematic and spiritual double-tap for our psyche.  Nolan took the basic structure for a story of familial, unconditional love and skewed it by thrusting our protagonist into the uncharted depths of space, skewing his perception of time so radically that the people he loved became old while he did not age, which in itself is enough of a heartbreaking concept to build a film off of.  Add to this the fact that we are presented with (to the best of our knowledge, anyways) the most photo-realistic depictions of a Black Hole and a tesseract, and the end result is a powerful genre-blending journey that stands in rare company, with films like Tarkovsy’s Solaris and Kubrick’s 2001 : A Space Odyssey serving as the closest points of comparison.

5. Tenet (2020) When you have a track record like that of a Christopher Nolan, it is inevitable that people are waiting on your downfall, and with 2020 changing the way we take in films, many tried to seize this opportunity and label Tenet as this moment in time.  To me, this is an absurd stance to take... not only is Tenet one of the most intriguing films I’ve seen in years, but its efficiency in storytelling trims away so much fat that we are left with archetypical characters with subtle amounts of depth shepherding us through a narrative line that folds in and overlaps on itself numerous times.  With this premise set and our characters deeply devoted to their functionality (though not at the expense of performance), we are left with the spectacle of some amazing choreography and in-camera special effects work that makes you really and truly have to stop at times just so you can try and process what it is you are seeing.  Hopefully, in repeat viewings, the “gimmick” won’t take precedence over the film itself, as I believe there is enough going on outside of the visual trickery to keep one interested time and again.

4. Dunkirk (2017) It’s no secret that Christopher Nolan has the talent to build vast, textured and deeply imaginative worlds with his films, but up until the point of Dunkirk, Nolan had not attempted a “period piece”.  Luckily for us film lovers, Nolan decided to try his hand at that style in the form of a war movie, and the result was the extremely moving and powerful experience of Allied troops in World War II caught in a situation where death seemed inevitable.  Despite the vastness of the beach and sea we are shown, the feeling of being trapped permeates through and through, and it is enhanced by stellar cinematography and practical effects.  Even with a cast full of familiar names and faces, the experience of hopelessness created soon eliminates the familiarity that comes with star power, and we are left with nothing but our investment in the story.   

3. The Dark Knight (2008) Simply put, The Dark Knight really has no business being as good as it is.  You’d think that its placement between the two trilogy bookends would give it a transitional nature, potentially only existing to move the story forward to its conclusion.  What we are given, however, is one of the most nuanced looks at heroes, villains, anti-heroes, and just how much those roles can alternate based on the perspective of those applying the title.  For all of the horror that the Scarecrow character brought, or the pure intimidation of Bane, The Dark Knight gives us a complex agent of chaos in the form of Heath Ledger’s instantly iconic (and tragically final) performance as the Joker.  All of the pacing issues that weigh down the other two films are completely absent in this middle offering, and the movie hangs around in your mind well after the final credits roll.  To many viewers, this film set the artistic benchmark for what a so-called “comic-book” movie had the potential to be.

2. Inception (2010) For many, Inception marks the culminative peak of all that Christopher Nolan brings to the table as a director and storyteller.  His ability to coherently weave together a narrative that deals with the perception of time as one goes deeper and deeper into the psyche is impressive in its own right, but the amount of breathtaking nuance, visual effects and mental gymnastics used to tell the story would bring a lesser director to their knees.  If The Revenant and 2015 served as the culmination of Leonardo DiCaprio finally receiving much-deserved recognition as an actor via an Academy Award, then Inception feels like the starting point for that final leg of his journey.  Everyone brought their A-game to this table on both sides of the camera, leaving us with a true visual and storytelling spectacle for the ages. 

1. The Prestige (2006) Irony is a funny thing... I bring that up because Christopher Nolan has literally taken on (and, in some ways, conquered) space, time and perception in his films, all of which would be incredibly lofty concepts to illustrate and visualize, let alone make entertaining.  With all of that in mind, it’s ironic that his best film would be one that does not rely on all of the aforementioned lofty aspects and visual tricks.  The Prestige, at a base level, is a story about jealousy and how it can drive you mad, but it’s the way that this story is told that makes it possibly the best film in the Nolan canon.  Christian Bale’s performance (or performances, at the risk of spoilers) is enough to put this film in a class of its own, but the balance that Hugh Jackman’s performance brings to the overall equation keeps you guessing on whom we are supposed to root for right up until the final frame.  The triangle of love triangles in this film further serve to build up the eventual scale of damage that is presented when everything falls completely apart on both sides of the narrative coin.  Most importantly, like any good magic trick, the film sets you up with expectations, only to wow you in the end.  If you had to pick one Nolan film to watch, this would be the one that I recommend, hands down and without question.

Who knows where Christopher Nolan plans to take us next.  I, for one, would not consider myself clued-in enough to hazard a guess on this, but I would almost certainly put money on the fact that wherever he chooses to take us, he will entertain us and amaze us, if not both at the same time, as he always does.

[readyaiminquire]

The Future as Vapor.

‘The semiotic phantoms, bits of deep cultural imagery that have split off and taken on a life of their own.’

              William Gibson, The Gernsback Continuum.

  I’ve been thinking a lot about time lately. Not wholly sure as to why, perhaps it’s because we’ve just moved from one year to another, and taking stock is only natural; or perhaps because of the peculiar nature of the year that has just ended, with its pandemic, lockdowns, and the many challenges and tragedies borne out of it. Perhaps my research and its focus on time and temporality makes me particularly vulnerable to this sort of introspection; perhaps I am just predisposed to it? Likely, it is a mixture of all of these, but I already digress from the main point I was making, which is, quite simply: I have been thinking a lot about time lately. I’d wager the year that has just been, and which doesn’t feel as if it has fully ended quite yet, has a lot to do with it. My soundtrack for 2020, if there was such a thing, has undoubtedly been vaporwave, dyschronous ‘trapped-in-a-loop’ music for a year where everything stood still: a semi-ironic haunting from the past with empty, tinny beats and retro-synths, just mangled enough to sound new, but not too mangled so as to lose its retro-80s soundscape. It is, as absurd as it sounds, Muzak with teeth. The ironic resurrection of a dead aesthetic, brought back with a vengeance and with a purpose.

Vaporwave gets its name from ‘vaporware’, software that never was. Vaporware is software that has been announced, sometimes even showcased, but which then disappeared into some development maelstrom and seemingly vanished from view. It is neither cancelled, proclaimed dead and left to rest in the pile of ‘what could have been’, but always kept alive – a zombified software – as a potential. Its nonexistence-with-a-side-of-potential is precisely what makes vaporware vaporware. What does vaporwave take from this? The music is a form of Muzak, seemingly generic elevator music perfect for blending into the background but never meant to be listened to. This implies a vaporware existence (existence in nonexistence; or rather nonexistence in existence), vaporwave has more to it than that. It is precisely its purposeful meaningless soundscape that gives vaporwave ability to critique. Often made up of repeating synth riffs, tinny beats, sometimes sounds or jingles reminiscent of 1980s and 1990s TV and radio commercials, it is not an accident that the genre has modelled itself on Muzak. It is an echo of a past that has long disappeared into memory, even into cultural memory; a haunting reminding its listeners of what was, through its twisted soundscape of an otherwise well-trodden cultural form. The genre is best described as music optimised for abandoned malls.

Vaporwave is the audial version of a ruin. Or rather, it is the erection of a folly among ruins, a means to highlight the absurdity of the action itself. Its soundscape exists as a reminder of a past that promised a future that has not appeared; its central thesis – if it were to have one – is that we live surrounded by the ruins of this future-that-never-was. Crucially, and this gets at the heart of the present predicament, we only live and operate among these cultural ruins strictly because we have been unable to reconfigure these cultural building blocks into something new. The ruined landscape of a future that never existed has only come to pass because it has not been replaced by the new. Instead, the orientation has shifted to focusing on the past in the present, not the future ahead of us. The emergence of vaporwave in the present is thus by no means a result of the pandemic, the lockdowns, and the perceived stalling of time as a result, but rather predates it. The pandemic has likely brought such feelings of standstill to the fore, but it by no means created it.

This essay was prompted by a post on Reddit. Paraphrasing, the posted said something to the effect of ‘I don’t want to play the video games from when I was a kid, I want to feel like I did when I played the video games from when I was a kid.’ This, again, gets at the heart of the predicament. That feeling many of us remember from the past is one we have not felt in a long time – myself included. Indeed, video games are a fantastic case study for this development. Using an example from my own experience: I remember when I first played World of Warcraft. I know, your mental image of me as the narrator just shifted substantially, but bear with me. The nature of a fluid massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) wasn’t new by the time WoW was released. Still, it had never been done quite so well: the graphics were fantastic (at the time…), the level of interaction, the fluidity and connectivity of the world, the social aspects and community building… the list goes on, but the software was an adventure, and I (and countless, millions of others) couldn’t get enough of it. It was an unrivalled experience in many ways. Nothing like it had existed before. It was a completely new cultural artefact. It invoked a sense of future-shock.

WoW is, in addition, an interesting example as its original (well almost original) game was re-released in 2019 to thunderous applause, and a community bracing itself for another nerdgasm. The re-release was undoubtedly popular, it was undoubtedly fun, but it wasn’t the same. The feeling that it evoked in the past was no longer there. The future-shock with which it had once been densely packed had melted into air. This disconnect has even been picked up by parts of the community. A debate has raged between players who wish for no changes to be made to the original, for it to be released in its ‘pure’ state (as some changes had been made around specific mechanics, bugs that were never ironed out originally had been, and so forth), and players who call not for a recreation of the original game, but a recreation of the feeling of the original game.

But this is the issue with nostalgia. The original feeling of something unique, the future-shock as it were (or what German historian Reinhard Koselleck called the Überraschung; lit. surprise) cannot by definition be re-created; it must be created anew, with something new. The tragedy faced in the present, then, is that the dominant form among popular cultural media is that of nostalgia: a harkening for past experiences not for the experiences themselves but for that feeling of wonder that came with them: the surprise when playing your first 3d video game, or when first using a smartphone, or at the choice of music on an iPod (not to mention that the songs never skipped if you bumped it!). In many ways, this sense of surprise and wonder has been lost, even if innovation has sped up. Computing is faster than ever. Technology is near-ubiquitous in some parts of the world, yet nothing new seems to come from it. It is the same experiences, but faster, or in higher fidelity – occasionally this even folds back unto itself: vaporwave being a prime example — the mockery of a past cultural form that is only made possible with new technologies and innovations. In short, for all this new potential, nothing new is created.

Much has been written on what has caused this predicament, be it Mark Fisher’s argument that the foundations for innovative cultural forms have all been eroded with the rise of neoliberal capitalism, Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi’s analysis that the future has disappeared because social imaginaries have been eroded with the rise of global techno-capitalism, or indeed Fredric Jameson’s take that capital is too effective at rehabilitating the radically new. To varying degrees, these thinkers (and others) speak to the problem of nostalgia, specifically how the marketing of nostalgia is but a logical conclusion. In the present neo-liberal configuration, innovating is a risk, especially within the realm of culture and pop-culture. It is much safer, and more in line with the underpinning profit motive, to repackage and re-sell old cultural forms as nostalgia and pastiche: think of the Star Wars universe's resurrection yet again, or indeed the example above with the re-release of WoW.

‘Fine’, you say, ‘you’re right’, you concede, ‘but what’s the problem?’ you finally ask. The issue with nostalgia becoming one of the main pop-cultural articulations is that it reorients the present away from the future and towards a past long gone. A lack of future orientation, in turn, takes out much of the hope surrounding societal and cultural development and innovation. To frame this less abstractly: it is hardly news that scientific research and literature, typically in the form of science fiction, exist in a feedback loop. They both take inspiration from one another. Scientific breakthroughs lead to authors to push the boundaries of the imaginable, which in turn inspire scientists, engineers, and inventors to make science fiction science reality. In the words of William Gibson: ‘There are bits of the literal future right here, right now, if you know how to look for them. Although I can’t tell you how; it’s a non-rational process.’ Just think of how many present innovation and inventions we have already seen on shows like Star Trek. Lacking this future orientation, in short, invariably leads to a form of social and cultural stagnation. Let me be clear here: this is not a piece lamenting the ‘fall’ of some romanticised Western culture or some such nonsense. Instead, much of our present social, political and cultural order is underpinned by a futural orientation insofar as it is a belief in a future that drives engagement, innovation, and creativity; that creates future-shock. Why bother changing anything if ‘this is it’? It is precisely this process that ‘Bifo’ Berardi described as the slow cancellation of the future, and that the late Mark Fisher referred to when he asked, “Is there no alternative?”

When I say that nostalgia has become the dominant cultural form, this is what I mean. The conventional means of artistic productions have been subsumed under an unmoving profit motive. As a result, real, shocking, surprising innovation cannot take place. But I wish not to end it with such a conclusion, as merely pointing at a problem isn’t necessarily helpful. Instead, new & radically different forms of production must be discovered. Fredric Jameson calls such an exercise cognitive mapping, the process to resituate oneself in the cultural landscape and thus gain a new perspective. To continue a metaphor: to move out of the ruins and into new vistas to regroup, reshape, and ultimately rebuild. The first step is to realise the impasse faced, the second is to do something about it. This process can already be seen in some spaces, especially among grass-roots movements like the markers’ movement, citizen scientists, and other groups – be they tech-focused or artists’ collectives. What ought not be understated, on the other hand, is the importance of ensuring such a shift takes place, lest we end up reading our own collective epitaph:

‘[…]

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.’

              Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1818.

[tinyshe]

still worth reading ... more now than ever:

The Kraken Unleashed: Are We Ready to Fight the Beast?

Father Richard Heilman  January 14, 2015

“And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads; and on its horns were ten diadems, and on its heads were blasphemous names.  And the beast that I saw was like a leopard, its feet were like a bear’s, and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth. And the dragon gave it his power and his throne and great authority.  One of its heads seemed to have received a death-blow, but its mortal wound had been healed. In amazement the whole earth followed the beast. They worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it? – Revelation 13:1-10

“In the 2010 film, Clash of the Titans, there is a scene in which Zeus, angry with the humans, is persuaded by Hades to visit vengeance upon the mortals in the form of the Kraken, a giant monster from the depths of the sea. The visual of this great evil being unleashed is something to behold:

“If this scene is evocative, perhaps it is because it’s familiar. Like a Kraken released, we have a colossal problem in our world today. There are few who are not stunned by the growing specter of evil; a darkness more profound and spreading more quickly across the globe than any civilized human being could have ever imagined. Many of those I speak with have admitted that they now abstain completely from watching the news: “It’s just too much,” they say. “It’s just so horrifying!”

“For the past two years I have been confiding to close friends my own growing sense that something is happening, that something unholy is stirring. I have spoken with others who have admitted the same suspicion. The way I have tried to describe it in the past is like the rumblings felt just before a volcano explodes.

“Now, I find myself wondering if the eruption is upon us.

“Who could ever conceive of atrocities like those we are seeing executed in the name of religion? Where once we might see coverage of a tragic conflict far away, we now face an evil that is not confined to some distant corner of the planet. With the always-on, near-instant spread of information in our digital age, your next door neighbor can be radicalized from the comfort of their living room.

“What we are facing is, first and foremost, a form of spiritual warfare. In a time where violence is rampant and the innocent are threatened, it is true that we must be ready to physically engage the malefactors. But if we deny the spiritual nature of this surge of evil we are facing, we will have no hope of victory.

“When confronted with atrocity, the immediate reaction of most people is, “What can we do to stop it?” Yes! That is the exact question we need to be asking. Summoning us to courage, St. Augustine challenges us to do battle: “Hope has two beautiful daughters: their names are anger and courage. Anger that things are the way they are. Courage to make them the way they ought to be.”

“But to begin to answer the question of what we can do, we must first properly assess where we are. What are our capabilities? How is our strength? What is the state of our conditioning? Without this kind of brutal honesty, we are likely to flounder rather than fight.

“Jesus warned, “Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life, and that day catch you by surprise like a trap. For that day will assault everyone who lives on the face of the earth” (Luke 21:34-35).

“And yet isn’t that exactly what has become of us? Consider this sobering analysis of our present condition from columnist Jeffrey Kuhner at the Washington Times:

“For the past 50 years, every major institution has been captured by the radical secular left. The media, Hollywood, TV, universities, public schools, theater, the arts, literature — they relentlessly promote the false gods of sexual hedonism and radical individualism. Conservatives have ceded the culture to the enemy. Tens of millions of unborn babies have been slaughtered; illegitimacy rates have soared; divorce has skyrocketed; pornography is rampant; drug use has exploded; sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS have killed millions; birth control is a way of life; sex outside of wedlock has become the norm; countless children have been permanently damaged — their innocence lost forever — because of the proliferation of broken homes; and sodomy and homosexuality are celebrated openly. America has become the new Babylon.

“This cultural assessment is bleak. And I believe that underlying it all is a deeper evil, a more ancient and intractable error which gives rise to all the rest. Many have pointed to “Modernism” as the heresy of our times. Modernism, while it takes many forms, is basically a break or rejection of our past in favor of all things new. And, while it seems evident that our Church is fully infected with the heresy of Modernism, I believe that it, too, is a symptom of this more fundamental threat.

“What am I referring to? Something that impacts the very nature of human existence and the opportunity for our salvation. Lacking an official name, I call this monster, “Stealth Arianism.” Students of history know that the Arian heresy – the worst crisis in the Church before our present age – was rooted in the belief that Jesus Christ was merely a created being, not equal to God the Father.  Stealth Arianism follows the same fatal error, but with a twist: while the Arians of the fourth century openly denied Christ’s divinity, today‘s Arians will profess Jesus as God, and yet through their actions deny it. In other words, they don’t even know they are heretics. Many even believe that they are doing God’s work in their attempts to elevate Christ’s humanity at the cost of His divinity.

“You see, once we diminish the identity of Christ as the Son of God, we are left to view Him as simply a historical figure that was a nice guy, a respectable teacher and a good example for how we are to live. Religion is then reduced to a nice organization that does nice things for people as we seek a kind of psychotherapy for self-actualization. And this is not only not what He came to give us, but it’s something He made sure to leave no room for.

In his Christological examination, [easyazon_link asin=”0060652926″ locale=”US” new_window=”default” nofollow=”default” tag=”onep073-20″]Mere Christianity[/easyazon_link], C.S. Lewis makes the case plain:

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

“Over the past 50 years, the Stealth Arians have done everything within their power to remove from our lived experience of Catholicism anything that would point to the divinity of Christ, and the supernatural quality of our faith. Everything has been stripped from our churches – sacred art, sacred architecture, sacred music, and the sacred elements of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass – and we are left in the barren desert of the banal. It is no wonder many Catholics think nothing of approaching the Most Holy Eucharist dressed in a t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops, and grabbing the host like they’re reaching into a bag of chips. As Flannery O’Connor said, “If it’s a symbol, to hell with it.” It’s more surprising that these individuals even bother to attend Mass at all.

“Moreover, the Stealth Arians have deliberately chosen to keep their teachings muddled, ambiguous and elusive in an effort to increase “pastoral sensitivity” as the highest of all values, which keeps people feeling good about themselves just the way they are – though never challenged to strive for sainthood! Of course, when people like the way their church makes them feel about themselves, that keeps the money flowing into the collection basket. But whether confused and uncertain, or simply spiritually blind for lack of true pastoral care, the faithful who have been abandoned by their spiritual leaders are prone to be conformed to the world and its prince, a murderer and liar from the beginning.

“St. John Chrysostom exhorts, “Let us be filled with confidence, and let us discard everything so as to be able to meet this onslaught. Christ has equipped us with weapons more splendid than gold, more resistant than steel, weapons more fiery than any flame and lighter than the slightest breeze … These are weapons of a totally new kind, for they have been forged for a previously unheard-of type of combat. I, who am a mere man, find myself called upon to deal blows to demons; I, who am clothed in flesh, find myself at war with incorporeal powers.”

“That sounds noble for St. John, but about for us? Are we really prepared to such a fight? Just when we need mighty spiritual warriors for these dangerous times, Satan has spent the past 50 years diminishing the Church’s legions to little more than a bunch of Girl Scouts. Now that we are left in our weakened state, Satan seems to be calling out to deal the last blow, “Release the Kraken!”

“Indeed, what can we do?

“St. Paul gives us the answer in his epistle to the Ephesians (6:10-18):

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness.  As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

“Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints.

Originally published on September 18, 2014.

Father Richard Heilman

Fr. Richard M. Heilman is a priest of the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin, and the Wisconsin State Chaplain for the Knights of Columbus. He is a regular guest host on Relevant Radio’s The Inner Life, and is the founder of the Knights of Divine Mercy, which is an apostolate for Catholic men’s faith formation..

He is also he founder of the Ladies of Divine Mercy, which is an apostolate for Catholic women’s faith formation. He is the author of the Church Militant Field Manual and the Roman Catholic Man website, which are both dedicated to helping Catholics understand and train for their role in the mission of combating evil and rescuing the souls of our loved ones who have lost the precious gift of faith.

[prairiedust]

Gimme Shelter livewatch under the cut.... I was on my phone when I wrote it so apologies for the typos

“Patchwork Community Center: Care Given to All” with a huge, lurid heart. Hmmm.... patchwork having two meanings here.....

Pastor (?) has 2 Timothy 2:22 tattooed on his arm! “Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.” (NIV) Are we looking at growth and found family in this episode?!?

Oh that’s the alleyway!

Hitting mythology themes— Connor is an Anglicized version of an Irish name— Conchobar mac Nessa is maybe the most famous bearer of the name, from Irish mythology— he’s the king who lusted after Deirdre and had her locked up until she came of age, which is probably neither here nor there as far as this poor Connor is concerned...

That thing has a big lurid heart on his overalls better run lol— Oh shit it’s an evil Teddy Ruxpin!!!! Thanks Davy Perez!!!!

That’s the thing animal control uses to manage aggressive animals??? Is this saying something about the Patchwork people?

And that’s it for the cold open.

——

The uh, the mcfuckin what, the Camelot Palace Casino? Is this a tour of the legends of Ireland and Britain all of a sudden? What’s with hitting this theme so hard so fast?

Uh-oh the whole Highway to Heaven reference has me side-eyeing Dean’s suggestion for Cas snd Jack to leave the bunker... Dabb even “spoiled” that line in a tweet lol... in that show the cop and the angel got their (vague) assignments from the big guy.......

Oh SHIT “we’re standing in what I call ‘the trap zone’” Perez is coming for my whole life with this episode!!!! And they’re doing highkey “season one totally-normal Winchester investigation questions script” I love it!!!!

“Slasher flick” Oh we’re revisiting Mint Condition. This is fine.

AND TOMBSTONE THIS IS NOT FINE DAVY! We’re running the good times backwards what did I say about this being the flipside of Last Holiday!

H2H again but this time it’s sus... plus I’m with Zack, I totally want the cozy murder spinoff I imagined Adam and Michael doing plz

Oh the Cas and Jack dynamic here is so sweet.

Pastor just leaving his door open like there’s no such thing as a thief bless his heart. They must be torn up about Connor but Pastor was the last one to talk to him so he’s sus I don’t make the rules.

Oh no Red’s a THIEF!!! Who ever would have guessed. Okay I did NOT expect that jumpscare because of the way Connor’s murder primed me, that was masterfully done.

That’s vaguely an Ohio Star quilt square on the sign behind her except um I forget what that tilted square in the center turns it into? It’s chiming with something... I’ll have to look that up later.

“Divide and conquer” no never split up in a slasher movie that’s how you get murders use the buddy system!

Gonna stop a sec because I just realized that Zack is two-faced. The British dandy was an act. The killer is wearing a Cinderella mask. Ok I’m gonna make a prediction that Zack is actually the killer, a la the demon in Repo Man...

Okay there was definitely a beat after Dean said “Glad soneone’s taking charge” [ofHell] and the focus shifted to Sam. Hm.

“We’ve got to set her up for her own death” so meta, these writers are gonna shred us.

I love being shown how much Castiel has changed throughe Jack not understanding the Kool-Aid reference. And the cats line lol. That’s both amazing and poignant.

That’s a log cabin pattern in the cafeteria. Home. Makes me think back on other quilts we’ve seen this season and if “weaving” is the right metaphor for writing lol. I mean, the action of “patching” is synonymous with “mending” or even healing, but patchwork is also a craft with a long, long history in America (idk if quiltmaking is called patchwork everywhere) of taking a few often mismatched fabrics and cutting and sewing into something beautiful. There are generally two kinds of quilt tops— patterns, like we’ve seen so far in this season, which are carefully planned and involve precise measurements, and “crazy quilts” which also require skill but are often more freeform and piecemeal. But both aspire to be beautiful. That’s an interesting way to conceptualize a serial text... as both creating and mending....

That prayer was sweet and not at all what I was expecting.

I get the finger-cutting for Valerie (stealing=sticky fingers) but not for Connor? Tenuous connection still betw lying and writing? It’s evocative of Se7en but the killer seems to have the same MO for all the killings (I attended CSI for a while.)

Snow White is making me uneasy. Oh she’s the preacher’s daughter... we’ve seen that in early days, too.... oh.... oh....

It’s not the AV guy despite having seen all the AV equipment around Valerie. That’s too easy.

“A saint is a sinner who keeps trying-“ no scroll back, the important part was “we all have to take care of each other.” That’s a theme in the series.

She’s all in pink....

dean and amara on the same wavelength about food lol

Ha ha inversion of “oh you’re a fan of religion? name all seven gods then.”

Castiel’s testimony just wrecked me.

“Members serve the gift of food” hmmm the signs in this episode are tip-top

Gonna just watch for a while.

Oh crap “each is a finger” oh it’s about the sins of the father— No Cas no, you’ve fallen for the misdirection!

Oh okay good, Chuck’s not done snuffing worlds. That had me REALLY WORKED UP ha ha because Amara has no reason to lie right?

That was a really good conversation.... and implying that Former Death bent the truth...

Oh fuck I’m gonna cry “I wanted younto see that your mother was just a person” YES! DISMANTLE THIS MYTHOLOGY AMARA!!! Name it!

THE MYTH THAT YOU’D HELD ON TO FOR SO LONG did they just— THEY DID

rigging the game— ftfoh with the casino metaphors already we know the house always wins except when it doesn’t

Lying, lying, lying,

Do we even know Snow White’s name yet? And why was Connor a liar? Because I think we can make a guess at this point.... ah ha ha her name is sylvia— “forest spirit” she’s Mrs Butters— and she’s after hypocrites— but the killing isn’t supernatural, just churchy?

Oh shit SHE IS A DEAN MIRROR IF SHE STABS JACK I’LL FLIP A DAMN TABLE

....

....

prairiedust.exe has encountered an error and must be restarted

....

....

Okay so “Dad” steps in and stops Sylvia’s attack on Jack...

Why is that Zack? What????

“I’ve been lying to you” oh here we go

Oh it would be death #3, remember what Dabb said about threes a long time ago, two attempts that are unsuccessful and one that satisfies the parameters— but no he’s a jack :((((

I have to stop watching for a while.

Okay I finished it. Holy cats do I have some Thoughts about this episode.

What I loved: Revisiting Dean’s anger, BUT the parental mirror here (in retrospect, at least for me) was a John mirror-- all the mothers (exc for Rowena) in this episode are dead. And Pastor Joe didn’t apparently embrace his wife’s faith until she had died, and then his vision was radically different than his wife’s was-- much like John’s reasons for becoming a hunter were vastly different from Mary’s... but much like “patching” this subtext was possibly even more “healing” than having John back in the 300th ep... This was... looking at a child’s anger when they’re in the middle of their own family mythology. Am I implying that Dean’s anger is immaturity? Eh, it’s... unripeness. I have an old meta in my drafts about the heroine’s journey and why Mary’s story conformed to it while feeling totally unfulfilling in her actual character arc and I’m so glad I sat down and examined that rather than finish it. I have a lot I want to say about Cas’ testimony too, but that has to sit a while. ALSO also, Cas has already thrown away his shot by making the Empty deal, right?....

LANGUAGE! Cas saying “I found myself lost” is a bonkers sentence, right? It’s like when people say someone “turned up missing”-- AND it does not have the same meaning as “I realized I was lost”-- you get a double whammy of the connotation “to search for.” I loved loved loved how language was such a big deal in Last Holiday and then again here, I need to rewatch while paying closer attention to Sylvia and things she says... but these two were sister episodes in so many ways, that when I said there was a “lack of narrative mirrors” in Last Holiday, that’s only because the lens for that kind of reading is Gimme Shelter. That is not the first time spn has played with a “coin” or paired structure-- I think the first time I noticed it was Fan Fiction/Ask Jeeves but I was a transfer student from another fandom at the time lol. But of course, we get a huge truth bomb at the end of the episode, and again that splashy cymbal all over lying...

What I got wrong-- Zack wasn’t the killer but he’s fishy as hell-- he stole Sylvia! Is this part of Rowena’s “people generally end up where they deserve to be” except she’s built in an express lane? “Do you need a driver” is that his actual job now? Taking unripe souls to Hell Orientation? What’s up with him being there... the other shoe did not drop. So there is a third episode out there somewhere where this might get wrapped up? The conversation between Dean and Cas can easily be something that happens offscreen, and I don’t think that it would be the first time we miss an “important” conversation, especially since we know roughly what will be said and how it will wrap up-- it’s an “open text” of a sort. Maybe a fanfiction gap lol, I can’t wait for the codas.

Also, the fingers thing being Sylvia’s father’s favorite analogy is where she got her MO, something that I definitely didn’t see, although it fits right in with her father’s slightly pithy character. I think it’s interesting again how we’re playing with threes and fours. Three fingers got cut off but it was apparent that Valerie (valorious one) wouldn’t die until finger #4.... Jack really seems to be our last hope.

[absolxguardian]

T H E   F E A R S

I mean what I said. These things, these forces, they are our fear. Deep fears. Primordial. Always looking for ways to grow and spread.

I always think it helps to imagine them like colours. The edges bleed together, and you can talk about little differences: “oh, that’s indigo, that’s more lilac”, but they’re both purple. I mean, I guess there are technically infinite colours, but you group them together into a few big ones. A lot of it’s kind of arbitrary. I mean, why are navy blue and sky blue both called blue, when pink’s an entirely different colour from red? Y’know? I don’t know, that’s just how it works.

And like colours, some of these powers, they feed into or balance each other. Some really clash, and you just can’t put them together. I mean, you could see them all as just one thing, I guess, but it would be pretty much meaningless, y’know, like… like trying to describe a… shirt by talking about the concept of colour.

Of course, with these things it’s not a simple spectrum, y’know, it’s more like -

An infinite amorphous blob of terror bleeding out in every direction at once.

Sometimes you impulse buy a kid’s rock painting set from Micheal's of all places and end up using it to make sigils for all of the Fears.

Close ups under the cut (also poetic descriptions drawing from my headcanons about the Fears).

The End. Death. Terminus.

The oldest of all the fears. All other Fears are simply layers separating the fear from it’s source- the fear of death. It was created because of fear, and fear was created because of it. It is the end, the stopping of it all, the force we fight against every day with every breath.

Primary Avatars: The Reapers/Death, The Sybil (Oliver Banks), and The Speaker (”Jane Doe”)

Ritual: It has no need of one, all threads must be cut one day.

Allies: They are all its children.

The Hunt.

The End’s firstborn. It was born in the time before sapience, when fear was simpler. But that was still enough. It is a fear for animals, of being hunted down and killed, of being prey. 

Primary Avatars: The Hunters and predators [mundane].

Ritual: The Everchase

Allies: The Flesh, The Slaughter, The Desolation, and The Eye.

Enemies: The Vast and The Buried.

The Vast. The Falling Titian.

The child of The End and the twin of The Buried. It began as an animal’s fear, of the fall that shatters your bones of the sea you cannot cross for it is not yours. But with sapience, it evolved. It is falling, heights, lighting, and the Not Yours that surrounds Yours. But also a human’s own insignificance and the true emptiness of the world. It is too much space.

Primary Avatars: The Fairchild family and The Lightning’s (Michael Crew).

Ritual: The Awful Deep

Allies: The Lonely, The Flesh, The Eye, and The Dark.

Enemies: The Buried.

The Buried. The Center. Choke. Too Close I Cannot Breathe

The child of The End and the twin of The Vast. It did not evolve as much as its despised sibling. It is suffocation, and the dirt that fills lungs. But with humans, it became more complex, more existential, as it always does. Those brains can find more in caves than suffocation or the dark. While even an animal fears a small space in case they get trapped and fall to a hunter, only humans could create constructs to bind and crush each other with. It is when there is too little space.

Primary Avatars: The Pit and The Gravedigger (Hezekiah Wakely)

Ritual: The Sunken Sky.

Allies: The Lonely, The Dark and the Web.

Enemies: The Vast, The Flesh, The Eye, and The Slaughter.

The Dark. Mister Pitch. The Forever Blind.

A direct child of The End. The fear of the dark- for it is scary because we cannot know. We cannot see the threats that may hid in its embrace. With the life-giver being a star, it has come to oppose all life and heat. It wishes for blind eyes.

Primary Avatars: The Church of the Divine Host, The Rayner, and the Black Star.

Ritual: The Extinguished Sun.

Allies: The Vast, The Buried, The Stranger, The Spiral, and The Dark.

Enemies: The Eye.

The Desolation. The Lightless Flame. The Devastation. Blackened Earth.

The End’s child. While it sure does love the destruction aspects of fire, it is not just fear of burning. It is the fear of pain and the fear of loss- of power, possessions, or loved ones. It lacks the motivation of The Hunt or the Flesh and destroys more than just lives, unlike The Slaughter.

Primary Avatars: The Church of the Lightless Flame, The Flame’s Messiah (Agnes Montague), and natural disasters [mundane]

Ritual: The Scoured Earth.

Allies: The Slaughter, The Hunt, and the Buried.

Enemies: The Flesh and The Corruption.

The Lonely. Forsaken. The One Alone.

The End’s youngest solo child and a fear for humans alone. It is the complex webs of society on top of a simple fact- you need the pack to survive. Not to mention that the simple physical brains of humans abhor isolation as well. Isolation, both emotional and physical, strip away one’s mental and physical wellbeing and often driving them to drugs. And simple physical isolation will strip away one’s connection to reality itself, so The Lonely feasts on that unraveling mind just aware enough to fear the fall.

Primary Avatars: The Luckas family.

Ritual: The Forsaken.

Allies: The Buried, The Vast, and The Spiral.

The Flesh. The Meat.

The child of The Hunt and its successor. It is a fear for animals, but those that never know freedom or a game to try to escape. Their path is set, they are the animals raised and slaughtered by humans for meat, with no risk to themselves. They are to be eaten their flesh in a form unconnected to their own appearance, consumed by those who know not how to prepare them. While humans are not raised like that, their separation from The Hunt makes them quiver at the idea of being consumed in any form. With all their knowledge in this era, humans are coming to understand that they may be no different than animals- just organic molecules animated by electricity. The Flesh also feasts on that philosophizing. 

Primary Avatars: The Eurachist [mundane] and slaughterhouse workers [mundane].

Ritual: The Last Feast.

Allies: The Hunt, The Corruption, The Desolation, The Stranger, and The Spiral.

Enemies: The Slaughter and The Buried.

The Slaughter. Violence. War

The child of The Desolation and The Hunter. It the anticipation of uncertain violence. It is violence that isn’t committed for the direct benefit of the murder and/or specifically because of the victim. It is found in both frenzied killers and in the steely, impersonal murder of armies. It rules over all the fear that comes from war, and eats heartily from all the conflicts humans keep creating all by themselves.

Primary Avatars: War Ghosts, The Piper/War, and soldiers [mundane].

Ritual: The Risen War.

Allies: The Desolation, The Hunter, and The Web.

Enemies: The Flesh and the Buried.

The Eye. The Beholding. Ceaseless Watching.

The Hunter’s least favorite child. An animal fears being watched because it means a predator may be observing, but humans have taken that fear as an end onto itself. It is watching, recording, and servailing. It feasts on the scraps of other Fears, reliving the trauma of their victims.

Primary Avatars: The Archive (The Magnus Institute), The Archivist (Jonathan Sims), and The Heart (Elias Bouchard)

Ritual: The Watcher’s Crown

Allies: The Web and The Hunt.

Enemies: The Dark, The Stranger, and The Spiral.

The Stranger. I Do Not Know You.

The child of The Dark, sapience extending the unknown to the other. It is the fear of what is not quite human. But the fear of the humans that are not quite you? Humans spend so much time creating reasons and convincing others to fear eachother. So much mundane fear of the other exists that The Stranger could survive on that alone.

Primary Avatars: The NotThem/dopplegangers, The Circus of the Other, The Deliverers, and bigots [mundane].

Ritual: The Unknowing.

Allies: The Dark and The Spiral.

Enemies: The Eye.

The Spiral. The Twisting Deceit, Esmentiaras, It Is Not What It Is.  

The Dark’s other child, for one cannot know if one cannot trust their senses. It is the fear of madness, of unreality. It induces this fear by warping reality, leading its victims to believe they are the ones at fault.

Primary Avatars: The Distortion (once Micheal, now Helen Richardson) and The Worker in Clay (”Gabriel”).

Ritual: Our Great Twisting.

Allies: The Dark, The Stranger, The Web and The Flesh.

Enemies: The Eye.

The Corruption. Filth. Crawling Rot.

The child of The Flesh (but born before The Flesh) and The End. It is a collection of things that are unrelated in reality (bugs, rotten food, poison, mold, decay, and disease), but are associated in the mind of humans lacking knowledge- death without a clear cause and corpses. 

Primary Avatars: The Hive (Jane Prentiss) and Pestilence (John Amherst).

Ritual: Unknown.

Allies: The Flesh and The Web.

Enemies: The Desolation.

The Web. The Spider. Mother of Puppets.

The child of The Corruption and The Buried. It is the fear of being restrained, but in a more metaphorical sense than The Buried. It is the fear of manipulation, being controlled, and that your will is not your own. And, from its other parent, spiders.

Primary Avatars: The Binding Table, The Spider Horde, and The Patriarch (Raymond Fielding).

Ritual: This world is almost identical to the Web’s, so why bother?

Allies: The Corruption, The Spiral, The Eye, and The Slaughter, The Lonely, The Buried, and The Dark.

Enemies: The Flesh and The Lonely (their relationship is complicated).

The Extinction. The Terrible Change. The Future-Without-Us.

The child of The Stranger and The End, this Fear is still emerging. It developing as humans confront their old hubris about the end times. It is the end of the world, but with no holy rapture. It is an end that isn’t the end of all life, just the end of them. It is the fear of being replaced by another species. It is the fear of how they will ruin themselves. It is the collapse or radical change of society. It is taking all forms of change from the dominions of the other Fears and bringing it into its own. 

Primary Avatars: The emergence of true AI [mundane], climate change [mundane], and nuclear weapons [mundane].

Ritual: Many theorize that it seeks to end the world as it is known and replace humans with another sapient species to begin the cycle again.

Allies: The Stranger and The Desolation.

Enemies: Many avatars seek to disrupt its emergence as it would shatter the balance between the powers. They also fear the possibility that The Extinction wouldn’t repopulate the world with a new sapience species right away, setting them back eons.

[buzzdixonwriter]

Bill Clinton: The Agonizing Reappraisal

Friends, Americans, countrymen!   Lend me your ears!  

I come not to merely bury William Jefferson Clinton but to drive a stake through his craven heart, chop off his diseased head, fill his lying mouth with garlic, and bury the pieces in separate crossroads.

And if you think this is coming from a traditional anti-Clinton angle, guess again, Trump chump.

I’m progressive by default, conservative by nature.  I didn’t move, the thrice-cursed GOP moved, and what they now refer to as the radical left or progressive liberalism is what used to be called “Eisenhower Republicans” back when conservatives held an iota of integrity, a shred of dignity, an ounce of compassion, a hint of civic duty.

So you fuckwits on the right can shuffle off and die for all I care.  

This message is for my friends and allies in the progressive camp, of which a number are Democrats.

Folks, the time has come to publicly, formally, and officially dump Bill Clinton on the ash heap of history.

Alas, but extension this means assigning Hillary to Coventry as well; so be it.  Lay down with pigs, get up smelling like pig shit.

Hillary Clinton is indeed blameless of the multitude of crimes, sins, and shortcomings the far right attempted to hang on her -- investigated and exonerated numerous times by her political enemies -- but if she wanted a public career she should have walked away from Bill Clinton decades ago.

She’s got the stink ingrained on her now, and not just the stink but toxic radioactive mold as well.

She can still be a help backstage, mentoring young candidates, offering valuable insight and advice but her public career is over, her time is done.

Period. Full stop.

If that pisses you off, direct your ire at the appropriate target:  William Jefferson Clinton.

This fuckwit screwed the country over by not keeping his dick in his pants when he knew his political enemies were actively gunning for him.

Consider how badly screwed up that is: Imagine driving down the highway a mile or two over the speed limit when you see a police cruiser pull up behind you.

Do you: (1) Drop down to the speed limit, or (2) go faster and start zigzagging in and out of lanes without signaling?

It’s painfully clear William Jefferson Clinton suffers from a narcissistic personality disorder on par with Deplorable Donnie; the difference is Slick Willie could hide it better.

(This is doubtlessly due to their different class backgrounds:  Clinton grew up lower middle class and hence acutely aware of his precarious social status; Donnie grew up with a silver service set shoved in his mouth and an I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude of entitlement coupled with a complete lack of empathy and introspection.)

Clinton possessed enough political savvy to know that if he wanted to benefit from public office he needed to -- in a paraphrase from Full Metal Jacket --  “afford the voters with the common courtesy of a reacharound.”

When he kept this in mind, he and Hilary managed to do some appreciable good for the country and their party.

But “:doing good” does no good if you throw away your political capital by giving opponents the opportunity to undo what you did.

Knowing his enemies were gunning for him, knowing what was at stake for himself, his family, his friends and allies, his party, his state, and eventually the country as a whole, William Jefferson Clinton recklessly engaged in conduct that exposed him and others to needless risk and opposition even if such conduct was consensual.

THIS IS THE SIGN OF A PROFOUNDLY DISTURBED PERSONALITY.

No apologies, no sweet talking, no circumlocutions, no mansplaining:  A profoundly disturbed personality.

…and one we as a nation and as progressive must walk away from forever.

Painful Truth #1: William Jefferson Clinton committed perjury and Congress would have been negligent to not impeach him.

Period. Full stop.

He should have resigned long before that.

The Democratic Party should have made him step down.

It would have ended the feverish anti-Clinton sentiment and made Al Gore the seated president in 2000 against GWBush – and doubtlessly given him the edge politically and morally in that contest.

Imagine for a moment how different the world would be on September 12, 2001 if American made a more proportional international law enforcement response to Al-Q’aeda as the criminal gang they were rather than elevate to Nazi-level quasi-statehood in order to launch the GOP’s long lusted after “war forevermore” that Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about.

Imaging achieving the same real, practical goals without destroying three nations -- Iraq, Afghanistan, and the United States -- in the process.

Imagine blocking far right efforts to deregulate banks, industry, and commerce in order to mercilessly prey on consumers, possibly preventing the housing collapse and stock market crash of 2008, or slowing the rapid out of control spiral of pollution and climate change.

We lost all that in no small part because William Jefferson Clinton, for God knows what perverse reason, refused to say he didn’t have sexual relations with Paula Jones.

Remember, what kicked off the Clinton fiasco was Jones being listed in a published article among women William Jefferson Clinton had sexual relations with, or whom he had “approached” (groped) for sexual relations.

Jones said said she went up to Clinton’s room, he dropped his trousers and asked for sex, and she fled.

In her lawsuit against those who published the article, Jones wanted Clinton to testify he had not had sex with her.

Now, a smart politician would never have gotten in such a position to begin with, but even a politician dumb enough to get caught with his pants literally down could still escape the situation by saying:  “My recollection of meeting Ms Jones is markedly different from hers, but I will confirm 100% that I did not have sexual relations with her, that anybody who says we did is a liar, and I hope she wins her lawsuit against those who defamed her.”

And boom! -- it’s over, there’s nowhere to go with that story.

But instead Clinton denied meeting her and refused to sign an affidavit much less testify.  Jones expanded her suit to include him.

The Supreme Court ruled he could be sued in a civil case while serving as president.  Again, a savvy politician would simply refuse to answer the suit, claiming legal principle.  The maximum default judgment at that time capped at $85,000 – a drop in the bucket compared to his subsequent legal bills --  and the matter would be closed.

Instead, Clinton fought.

Evidence of other affairs -- most notably Monica Lewinsky’s infamous stained dress -- came to light. He was questioned by Jones’ lawyers on this, he lied under oath, he got others to lie under oath, it was proven he did so.

Perjury:  Case closed.

(Sidebar A:  The end should have been “It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is”.  Holy shit, that’s as despicably sleazy a move as anything Deplorable Donnie has pulled, and the Democrats should have kicked Slick Willie to the curb then and there. Fortunately, they seem to have learned from this mistake.  Al Franken was a capable senator with a bright [and possibly even presidential] future ahead of him, but when he was caught inappropriately clowning around with a fellow performer, he resigned and the Democratic Party endorsed this as the appropriate response.  The result?  That avenue of inquiry has been forever blocked off, there’s nowhere for the GOP to go with it.  Franken continues to aid and advise the Democratic party behind the scenes, but he’s removed as a lightning rod.)

(Sidebar B: Further proof of Clinton’s profoundly disturbed personality is that (1) after publicly confessing in 1992 to an affair while governor and (2) promising never to do it again, and (3) knowing his enemies would go over everything he did with a fine tooth comb, he nonetheless (4) didn’t instinctively think “This is a honey trap” and press the emergency secret service button when an intern snapped her thong at him in the Oval Office.  That’s either brutal asswipe stupidity of the lowest order or a perverse thrill in dangerous behavior at the expense of others that might as well be brutal asswipe stupidity of the lowest order.)

Painful Truth #2: While the Democratic Party recognized the actual Lewinsky affair, however embarrassing, was trivial, their failure to take Clinton’s lies seriously proved fatal to their 2000-2008 goals.

“Put on our presidential kneepads” soured a lot of swing voters (and more than a few Democrats) from supporting Democratic candidates and fired up the GOP base. 

It was a minor tactical skirmish that ended in an even-draw that led to a catastrophic strategic defeat, all in defense of a man undeserving of defense, a man worthy only of shame, ridicule, approbation, and condemnation followed by lifelong banishment.

Painful Truth #3:  There is a very real possibility that William Jefferson Clinton is a child rapist.

The Epstein case will kick over a lot of rocks, exposing a lot of scummy vermin squirming underneath.

We know Epstein is a pimp who traffics in underage victims.

We know Clinton (and Deplorable Donnie as well; don’t worry, I’m not letting that turd monger off the hook) was a regular and enthusiastic habitué of Epstein’s parties.

We know Clinton to be an untrustworthy liar, a convicted perjurer stripped of his law license for his own perjury and suborning perjury in others.

We cannot believe any claims on innocence on his part.

Not only can we not believe any claims of innocence, we must presume guilt by association.

If you catch a previously convicted mobster associating with other mobsters as they commit crimes, you must assume their guilt as well.  “I was in the room but didn’t participate” just doesn’t fly (harken back to Clinton’s own “I didn’t inhale”).

And by “guilt” I’m not referring to the strict legal definition -- it may indeed prove impossible to link him to a specific crime -- but the fact he willingly and eagerly associated with a known pimp at events where underage victims were sexually assaulted and raped requires us, demands us as Democrats, as progressives, as Americans to hold him culpable for the good of the party, the good of the movement, and the good of the country.

We need a symbol end to an era of bad faith politics, a door closed on a period of win-at-any-cost politics.

That generation has to pass away, replaced by a newer, better rank of public servants.

(I’m no pie-eyed idealist; I know sooner or later they will produce members who will disappoint.  But right now they’re a breath of clean, fresh, disinfecting air and we desperately need them.)

Publicly passing final judgment on Clinton seals off that branch of the contagion.  It demonstrates a willingness to confront the mess in our own house, and in dealing with that, the moral authority to deal with the mess Donnie is making.

Like Bill Cosby -- another infamous William -- Clinton must be forever shunned from the public sphere. He inflicted enough damage on the nation and the world through his perversely selfish and reckless antics.

And should there be evidence enough to convict, then throw that lying child rapist behind bars for the rest of his blighted life.

He can share a cell with Donnie.

 © Buzz Dixon

[where-to-begin-amonologue]

loving you is comparable to a finger trap

you put one finger in, you have fun waving it around on your finger, laugh at how long your pointer is now

then, after a period, you stick your other hand's index finger in

now, we're trapped.

I can get out myself, itll be violent but itll be done

you gave me the trap though, this puzzle

it's supposed to be a game

it's supposed to be fun

so I sit there, wiggling my fingers

trying to figure out the dynamic

brows furrowing together in thought

feeling the paper tighten around my skin

frustration in how flimsy this thing is

the edges start to dig in

the ends start to hurt my fingers

i begin to realize this an inescapable vortex

a net designed to catch and not release

the panic begins to set in after a bit of not being able to move freely

being incapable of protecting myself

my eyes widen and sweat starts to bead the longer my fingers are encased

such little bits of me cause me to be completely and utterly incapacitated

I cant get out, without breaking what you've given me

without shredding the paper against my fingers

without breaking the trap in half

without absolutly escaping in the most feral, destructive way imaginable

unless

you help me

you know what to do

you know that all you have to do is gently take my encased fingers

hold the trap

help me

hold the trap

hold one side

and then the other

watch as my eyes get huge and my chubby little fingers are freed one by one

you have the knowledge to set me free

you have the wisdom to make the panic disappear

you have the power to set me free

yet you dont

I think you enjoy watching the struggle

biding your time, sitting on the joke of my freedom

the cruel intention of entrapping me with no intention of ever letting me go

with no intention of helping

with no intention of freeing just one of my fingers

and putting one of your own in place of it

with me

together

enduring the puzzle

figuring out the complications

no intent to share your knowledge of knowing the way out of the labyrinth

and no intent of joining me in figuring out how we get out, together

because you didnt want me to be free

you wanted to trap me and walk away

leaving me to break the best puzzle I've ever encountered

just to hold my hands together again

feel what I feel like again

still, I do what I can to fix the trap

give it to you again

so you can return it to me

and I'll act as if I've never seen it before

just to see if you'll share the knowledge this time

they tell me insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting something different

but I do things differently every time

you dont

so I've come to the conclusion

that being the same person over and over again and expecting different results is insanity

it is not our actions

but our being/personality

that drive us insane

because I know how to get out of the trap myself without breaking it now

but I'll keep it on until you teach me how to take it off

my insanity is reflected in the stubbornness of my love

and the pain I'm willing to embrace to give it to you

the tiny scars on my fingers tell stories of how many traps I have broken trying to escape without knowing how

the crunch of the paper is an echo of the reminder of all the times I've broken free on my own

the snapping in half of the trap is a flashback to desperation and the need to feel something again

I felt the grass, and the wind, and the trees, and all of these other beautiful things

my fingers remember what freedom feels like

my heart on the other hand

is wondering where my other half is?

I walk around with one finger in the trap

just to see if you will find me, take my hand with one humorously long pointer finger

and join me

put your finger in the other half

complete the other half of this game

this trap

this love

let us experience what freedom, together, is like

watch how freely we walk and live while still connected

nobody sitting there with nowhere to go and the other looking down on them

neither of us stuck crosslegged on the floor of a dark room trying to figure out how to get out without breaking everything near us

sometimes, I sit there with my hands caught because it feels like someone else is holding them

I'm an expert at getting out of the game all alone now

I know how to repeat this history without breaking anything now

you lack the courage and the conviction to do something radical like change who you are to me

and that

that, is what drives my insanity

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Hi. I saw a post today comparing God to an abusive father/husband. I can’t get this out of my head. Is he? I feel in my heart that he truly loves every one of his children but I can’t explain how.

cw discussion of general abuse and abusive tactics

Hey there, dear.

I’m going to start by saying that this is a really hard topic, and I’m not sure I can answer in a way that is super helpful. But above all this I can say this: in my experience God is not an abuser. God is not an abuser, because being caught in an abusive relationship brings fear and guilt and exhaustion and hopelessness, while in my relationship with God I find freedom from those feelings – I find energy and joy and hope.The huge issue is that many people do feel fearful and guilty and hopeless when trying to pursue God, because they’ve fallen into what churches have told them God is and says and expects. God is not abusive – but so many churches paint God as an abuser, and are abusive themselves. How can we rethink our language and visions of God in our pursuit of the true God, the God of love and justice, the God of the oppressed and the forgotten?

I’ve seen that post going around too, and it also hurts me. On the one hand, I get where the post is coming from – from church hurt turned into disgust, from pain into anger. And that anger is well founded. The quotes in the post are messages about God that are too often spread in our culture, the understandings of God promoted by so many of our churches, so it makes sense that the post attributes those quotes to God.

I am not going to link that post because I don’t really want to spread it around more, but I’ll address some of the quotes on it that are attributed to God.

“You’re a terrible person, and you need me to do better.”

God does not call us terrible! God calls us Good – right from the start! (Genesis 1:31)

That being said, I think it’s pretty clear from looking around us that humans are flawed creatures, capable of vast cruelty. God does long to guide us into a better way of living. 

I personally do believe that we need God, as God is the source of life itself, and that God can help us do better. However, God does not threaten us to get us into that relationship – on the contrary, God has gifted us with free will for the very purpose of allowing us to choose whether or not we will seek a relationship with God. Love is not love when it is forced – and God longs for us to love Them, a true and healthy, mutual and fruitful love.

I imagine any abuser would jump on the chance to force their victim to love and obey them. God gives us free will so that love and obedience cannot be forced on us.

“You don’t deserve me.”

I can’t think of anywhere in scripture where God claims that. Certain churches do all the time – that we don’t deserve God’s love. And honestly, I feel that way sometimes – that I’m so flawed and messed up that I am not worthy of God – but I’ve never felt like God has made me feel that way. 

Instead, God makes me feel loved, not despised: “You are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you” (Isaiah 43:4)

Still, if one believes in an all-good God, one might consider that in some ways it is true that we don’t “deserve” God. But in the words of Wonder Woman, “it’s not about deserve” – it’s about love!

We do not need to earn God’s love the way abusers force their victims to try futilely to earn their love or respect. God gives Their love and all other good things to us completely freely:

“Freely you have received; so freely give” (Matthew 10:8). 

“Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you” (John 14:27)

But if any of you lacks wisdom, let them ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to them” (James 1:5)

It’s so easy in any relationship where you feel lucky to have the person to look at all your shortcomings and think “crap. I don’t deserve this.” But it doesn’t matter – if someone really loves you, as God loves us, it’s not about “deserve.” The love is given freely and mutually. 

“If you even think about leaving me…”

This one in particular really makes my heart ache, because fear has poisoned faith for so many people I love.

Too many churches use fear as a weapon to keep people in their pews – they claim that if you leave them you’re leaving God and leaving God = automatic sentence to hell, automatic suffering. Go and God will punish you; go and you can never come back.

There’s a twitter thread by Mandy Nicole that talks about their experience leaving a church that taught them that their church was the one safe haven loved by God, that everyone outside is dangerous and bad and going to hell. Churches like that isolate their members, use fear to keep them from leaving – that is abuse. God does not desire that from us.

We see in the story of the “prodigal son” that if we leave God, we can always come back. The father in the story lets his son go with his blessing even while hoping for his return. Thus so, God welcomes us back with open arms, without any “I told you so” or anger.

Christianity should never be based in fear but in love! If someone is trying to convince you that God is just waiting for the chance to punish you, that God will shove your ass in hell if you do wrong by Them….they are not preaching the Good News. 

“Don’t listen to anyone who doesn’t understand what we have.”

Nah, friend. Engage in discussion about religion with people of diverse backgrounds! Ask God all the questions that are on your mind, and wrestle with those questions in the company of other people. God is cool with us asking questions. And exploring faith with people of diverse faiths can help us get to know God and ourselves better – see my #pluralism tag. 

“You’ll never find anyone as good as me.”

Okay, so, by my belief that is technically true. God is….God. But God does not isolate us with sayings like this – does not block us off from relationships with others, from finding joy and fulfillment with others. In fact, to form a relationship with God is to form a relationship with all the rest of humanity and even with all of Creation!

A hallmark of abuse is isolation, and God does the opposite of isolate us – we are called to break down walls and be bold and love one another and fight for the oppressed! 

God is Themself a Trinity – Their very existence is a relationship. Thus we who are in God’s image are made for relationship. God does not call us to isolate ourselves from everyone else and be in relationship only with them, but rather to go out and serve and love everyone we encounter. 

See my #community tag for more on this idea that you can’t worship God in a vacuum, that you can’t be Christian in isolation, that God calls us to radical relationship with all people and all Creation.

I also want to mention something tentatively, and I welcome correction here: I think that some language that is a major red flag when it comes from another human being makes sense when referring to God. One of the other quotes on the post is “I know best” and when it comes to God, I think that’s true. Even so, God invites our questions as I mention above, God invites our input and does not use this “knowing best” to deny our free will. 

Another one I can think of is the idea of the “inescapable God.” I have always loved Psalm 139, which describes how God is everywhere we could possibly go (“Where can I hide from your presence? Where can I flee from your face?”). It was only earlier this year when discussing it with classmates that I learned that some people are extremely uncomfortable with that idea of a God they cannot get away from. After thinking about it I completely understand why – the concept of not being able to escape someone is horrible; there should be no human being from whom we cannot get away. But God’s constant presence is simply an aspect of God’s Being – God exists as an all-present deity. But even this inescapable nature of God is different from when a human being tries to be inescapable (a mark of an abuser): God does not pressure us to acknowledge Their presence, and God is not present to catch you doing something wrong or to make you feel trapped or to monitor your interactions with others.

When the language we use for God and the ways we talk about God lead to people feeling helpless, abused, fearful, or guilty – we need to stop and reconsider that language. 

God is the Great Liberator. God calls us Good; God empowers us to do good; God respects our free will. Let us seek new ways to talk about God that speak to this truth, asking the Holy Spirit for guidance as we do so. 

I’ll close with part of a passage from Shirley Guthrie’s Christian Doctrine in which he addresses the concept of the abusive God (full quote here):

“God the great heavenly (male) Tyrant is also dead – the ‘sovereign’ god who could do anything he wanted to and proved it by arbitrarily being sometimes cruel and sometimes kind, loving some people and hating or simply ignoring others, according to the whim of the moment. The god who sneaked around spying on us, trying to catch us doing something bad so he could get us. …That god is dead. We may rejoice and be thankful that he too was never alive.

Which god is dead? All the gods that were really nothing but a projection of our own fears, wishes, insecurity, greed, or speculation. All the gods made in our own image. If talk about the death of God in our time exposes our idols and their inadequacy, we may welcome it. The quicker we bury and forget the gods we make for ourselves, the quicker we can learn who God really is.”

[cyberneticpeoplespolis]

Marxism and Privilege Theory

Privilege Theory and Marxism don’t get along. Just look at any one of the several thousand think-pieces on how identity politics is ruining the left, or driving people to the right, or alienating the white working class. Not only do these arguments frequently conflate a very broad set of both liberal and radical ideas, but they also often miss the point about what draws people to Privilege Theory in the first place.

Privilege discourse is not some liberal conspiracy to muddy the waters around class warfare, in fact the majority of people I’ve known who talked about privilege were very genuine about wanting to emancipate themselves and their friends from intersecting oppressions. The problem was that their only experience of Marxism was through some equally earnest “Anti-Identitarians” who were worried that focusing on identity would lead to movements that succumb to infighting and a lack of focus on class consciousness. What is instead needed is a constructive dialog between Marxism and Privilege Theory, without compromising on our critique of its fundamentally liberal and undialectical nature.

Is Privilege Theory Materialist? A good starting point for understanding privilege theory is to look at what makes it appealing as a means of understanding oppression. It is no coincidence that Social Privilege entered mainstream discourse in the aftermath of a crisis - the 2008 GFC. Use of the common terms of Privilege Theory skyrocketed between 2008 and the early 2010s - a time when material analysis was desired by oppressed people to explain their post-crisis situation, but the preceding two decades of socialist retreat meant a dialectical understanding of oppression was unlikely. Critics of Privilege Theory who point out its lack of focus on material reality miss the point: Privilege Theory became popular at this time precisely because oppressed people sought a material explanation of poverty and repression, and the language of liberal sociology (ie. separate categories of race, class, and gender privilege) was a much better means of understanding this reality than other areas of liberal thought. From the outset, Privilege Theory took on the appearance of a radical force - precisely because of a radical focus on material reality. We cannot afford to make the mistake of thinking racialised and feminised oppression and the ‘lived-experience’ of this is somehow outside of materiality.

Accurate but Limited

To put it in Marxist terms: Privilege Theory offered an accurate view of a select area of the superstructure. This window into the superstructure is often particularly focused on the most oppressed people in society and their intersecting identities. The interrelationship between people and forces within this window may be very accurately described - and the conclusions we can draw from these relationships may be very valuable points of introspection and critique. However problems start to build when Privilege theory is presented as a holistic understanding of oppression. It accurately describes the relationship between people in that select area of the superstructure, but how do we fundamentally change these relationships? How did these privileges arise and who granted them in the first place? This is usually where Privilege Theory has to be stretched beyond its intended scope. A snapshot of the superstructure cannot meaningfully engage with the base. The other issue is that Privilege Theory starts from oppression and works backwards. Privilege becomes an additive process, and the discourse is firmly centred on the question of who has privilege. A better way of understanding this would be a subtractive process - starting from a historical point where all humans were equally privileged, and looking at how they were then deprived of it. The question then becomes “Who took our rights away?” rather than “Who has more rights than us?”

Critics of Privilege Theory again miss the point by attacking it for unfairly victimising the white working class. The problem is not that it makes an enemy of white people or men, but that Privilege Theory has no clear enemy. We are left disconnected from the base, floating in a void where all that is left to do is introspect or examine interpersonal relationships. This is important, but without a clear historical agent that stripped free people of their rights, we are unable to effectively direct blame for oppression. Another consequence of the disconnect from the base, is that Privilege Theory presents as holistic truth a reality that is extremely specific. In striving for accuracy while attempting to create a unified theory of oppression, Privilege Theory has succeeded in missapplying lessons learnt in a specific, often US-centered context, to the whole world. There is not one universal white privilege but rather an infinite number of mutations of the superstructure that act to uphold colonial institutions, and ensure a stratified labor force. These oppressions arise in order to maintain the base - the material relations of society - and they can continue to transform and mutate into new forms of oppression as long as capitalism survives. In this sense, Privilege Theory is trapped on a stopped clock, it is unable to mutate along with the systems of oppression it critiques, as it doesn’t engage with the forces that drive that mutation.

The question becomes: are we always victims of history? Or are we agents who can transform it?

Irony and Catharsis

Since Privilege Theory has no clear enemies, this must be reconciled with the unjustness of oppression. Every adherent of Privilege Theory knows that someone is to blame but the only real conclusion they can draw is that Privileged people form a sort of oppressor class in their own right. In this way, being less oppressed by the ruling class becomes the same as directly profiteering from the misery of oppressed people. This conclusion has an aspect of material analysis to it because of the very real wage difference between a Privileged and an Oppressed person, but out of sight is the surplus value of both these people’s labor being siphoned off to the Virgin Islands. Concluding that Privileged people are an oppressor class usually comes with a degree of cognitive dissonance. Usually the adherent of Privilege Theory knows a couple of decent cishet white men and they become exceptions to the rule. This conclusion also contradicts bourgeois morality by acknowledging the existence of an oppressor class or structural inequality, and we can see the conflict between Privilege Theory and the forms of bourgeois morality that preceded it in online discourse every day (in hashtags like #notallmen). Privilege Theory alone can’t overcome bourgeois morality because it can’t transform the material relations that created it, and at the same time, the conclusions of Privilege Theory are too repugnant to bourgeois morality to be reconciled with it.

For these reasons, the conclusions of Privilege Theory often take the form of irony. It’s within irony that we can often see the most radical conclusions of ideology. A degree of distance is required between a person and their ideology in order for radical conclusions to be reconciled with morality, and Privilege Theory is no exception. It’s common in progressive spaces to hear “kill all men,” or “kill all hets,” or “kill all whites.” Generally this is an ironic joke, a cathartic bonding moment between oppressed people where they can signal to each other that they are unrestrained and free. The reason this irony is so cathartic is because it touches at the material conclusions of Privilege Theory, without suggesting that a person would actually follow through and violate bourgeois morality. Therein lies the radical potential of Privilege Theory as a whole - imagine if this cathartic, anti-hegemonic energy was directed at transformation of the conditions which enable both bourgeois morality and the structures which oppress all of us?

Since privilege theory cannot provide a class enemy (a group that creates a system of relative deprivation, rather than one that merely passively experiences privilege), it cannot transform the base, and so it cannot overcome bourgeois morality. The most radical thing it can provide us is catharsis, which is valuable to survival but not victory.

What use is Privilege Theory?

If we acknowledge that Privilege Theory is rooted in a genuine desire by oppressed people to analyse their oppression materially, it becomes clear that what we need isn’t complete rejection but a constructive dialog that can overcome limitations of Privilege Theory, while taking into account the need for intersectional understandings of oppression.

Privilege Theory is a relatively modern phenomenon built on a political adoption of the language of liberal sociology, but it is frequently conflated with the more radical tradition of intersectionality by leftists who see the limitations of the former and wrongly reject both. As Sharon Smith claims in A Marxist case for Intersectionality, there exists two types of intersectionality; a Postmodern Intersectionality founded on undialectical understandings of power, and a Black Feminist Intersectionality that arose from Marxism. Advocating for an Intersectional Marxism is not only a way to build on understandings of Privilege Theory, but it also offers analysis that is more true to the lived experiences of oppressed identities than either Privilege Theory or Class Reductionism. Constructive engagement by Marxists with focus on the Intersectionality of the Black Feminist tradition leads to something beyond Privilege Theory: a transformative rather than descriptive system.

We can’t afford to completely reject adherents of Privilege Theory as ‘Liberals’ or ‘Identitarians,’ nor can we offer imprecise criticisms of liberal ideologies that fail to see the reason behind their appeal. Complete rejection will at first appear to be a dog-whistle for reactionary values. Believers in Privilege Theory are also right to be suspicious of Marxist rejection of their thought when so much of Marxist ‘anti-identitarianism’ is genuinely reactionary, and constitutes a desire for a simpler time when there was a mythic, homogeneous white working class to organise within, dispensing with the need for understanding complex oppression.

Socialism is a redemptive process that seeks out useful aspects of bourgeois thought, and makes them transformative theories through the application of the dialectic. In the process, bourgeois ideology is both redeemed and preserved through its synthesis with the transformative qualities of Marxism.

We need constructive dialog, leading to redemption, rather than complete rejection.

[stevensavage]

The Creativity Paradox

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve's Tumblr)

There's something horribly restrictive about creativity. Ever start something and feel trapped? Ever have an imaginative project become a burden? Why?

If you think of it, creativity means that you can do anything. The human mind can imagine things that were are are, never were but could be, and are not but shall be. In a creative act, from an add campaign to a novel, you could do anything.

Modern tools make things even easier. A decent set of CGI tools or self-publishing can bring any work to life.

Yet, why are creative works and acts so often frustrating, feeling like a trap? Why do we worry over writer's block, argue about subjective artistic choices, or turn creative work into a death march? That's because the sheer opportunity of creativity and all the options leads us to make bad choices.

When you can do anything, you can find new ways to screw it up.

The Choice of Paralysis

We all know writer's and artists with too many ideas in their heads - indeed we may be one. They have all the opportunity in the world - and can't decide what or how to do it. They are paralyzed by the very power they have to create.

Soon, nothing gets done because they can do anything. One choice is swapped for another, one color for another, and nothing truly finishes. It's like constantly trying to adjust your thermostat.

(This is similar to the business term, "Paralysis through Analysis.")

We can be free, only to be lost in a maze of maybes.

The Choice Of Fear

Having many ways to create, we also can see many paths to failure. Which is the right option out of an infinity? Which will get the job done? Which will at least keep people from getting angry at us?

Lost in fear, we loose our creative edge - it's hard to imagine when you're second-guessing everything. Creativity becomes a constant dodge of imagined failure and anger. At best, we imagine ways around problems we also imagined.

Fear is one of the causes of the Choice of Paralysis as well. Because we're afraid, we're endlessly using our imaginations to come up with things we then decide aren't good enough.

Creatives are good at imagining, and often imagine worst cases.

The Choice Of Miscommunication

Communicating creative works is hard. There's often something visceral, beyond words at the core of what we do. But we must also make it accessible to others - because our audience is often not us.

Yet with so many options, do we choose the one that helps people get it? I'm not talking about over-explaining, I'm talking about using our infinite choices to create a work that is accessible to the audience. It's all well and good to have a great idea, but not if people can't enjoy it.

At times, frustrated, we may avoid addressing miscommunication, because we expect to be "misunderstood." We don't have to.

At times, aloof, we may figure that we don't have to work to be accessible, for the journey to understand our creations is part of them, right?

At times, we fear miscommunication - and the Choice of Fear catches us again.

We have infinite options, and sometimes choose the ones that lock people out or can never figure how to talk to them.

The Choice Of Restriction

When confronted with many options, some of us don't choose to wander through creative options, we instead restrict our choices. Plans and plots, review sessions and sign-offs, imagination turned into a checklist. We try to restrict and channel creativity, to avoid both too many opportunities as well as the fear of failure.

In this case we probably stomp all the fun out of it - and make ourselves less creative. It's hard to look forward to your next work when all you can see is lists and marketing data.

Worse, we often make the Choice of Restriction because it helps us deal with the other bad choices. If we build some elaborate system it'll solve all our problems! Of course we then imagine a system that destroys the fun of creativity.

We try to control creativity and thus make it harder.

The Choice Of Safety

Confronted with many fears, with marketing needs, with needs for a paycheck, many creatives opt to play it safe. Make the same thing over and over. Don't innovate too much. Recheck everything. Make it like last time.

We take all that potential and make it like te last thing we did. Some creatives are satisfied by this - and the paychecks - but not everyone. Besides "Survivor bias" paints a far rosier picture.

This is often the end result of the Choice Of Restriction. We give up on creativity entirely, and just make it into a machine. We may wonder, at times, why we're so frustrated, but may lack the imagination to know why.

We can try to stop innovating, just to be safe. It somehow doesn't feel safe.

Facing the Paradoxes

So now, facing these paradoxial choices - Paralysis, Fear, Miscommunication, Restriction, Safety, how do we creatives deal with them?

By getting ahead of them. You're a creative person - you should be able to create ways AROUND these limits. You need to face them head on. Here's a few things I found, but you'll need to find your own methods:

Paralysis - Can be addressed by making and reviewing choices, accepting imperfections, and iterative improvement.

Fear - Can be addressed by diving in, producing, facing it. In a few cases personal support or even therapy may help, but don't let fear rule you.

Miscommunication - Develop empathy with people. Learn to understand them. Also learn that you can't please everyone - don't be angry about that, accept it.

Restriction - Can be addressed by making it unnecessary as you've build in your own ways of channeling work, but giving yourself space.

Safety - Dealing with Safety requires us to regularly get out of our comfort zones. It doesn't mean some radical push, it means regularly poking your head out a bit more, trying new things.

For me, using Agile methods have been my methods. Regular reviews help me stay on track. Setting out blocks of time gives me freedom. Staying in touch with my vision gives me guidance and inspiration. It's worked for me - it may work for you.

But my methods or not, tackle these issues head on.

As a Creative, find your methods, your ways, to deal witht hese issues. They might be my ways, they may be someone elses, they may be yours. But when you address these Choices that make Creativity so paradoxial, then you can truly get amazing things done.

With less stress and less of the wrong kinds of paradoxes.

- Steve

www.StevenSavage.com

www.InformoTron.com

[evolutionsvoid]

When you travel the world for years and explore exotic environments, you are bound to get a lot of questions whenever you talk to people. You say that you are a natural historian, explain what you do and people immediately take you as a kind of explorer. Then comes the questions. I could probably rattle off about a dozen or so questions that I have heard over a million times during my travels. Be it honest inquiries or quips that have long lost their humor, they have become quite weary to hear. Out of all of them, there has been one that I have always found quite strange. "Have you seen a unicorn?" I cannot for the life of me figure out why people ask me that so much. They always want to know if I have seen a unicorn, either in a serious or joking manner. Why? What is so crazy or absurd about a unicorn? It's a horse that has a horn. True, it is quite a pretty horse, and rather elusive, but it is by no means some impossible alien being that dwells where man cannot reach. To answer that question, yes. I have seen a unicorn, several in fact. This incredibly rare, somewhat mythical, species is not all that hard to find when you know where to look. It might be a bit easier to find them if stinking poachers didn't keep shooting them and cutting off their horns. That issue aside, I have indeed seen these creatures, but not for the reasons you think. While unicorns are fascinating in their own right, my time in their territory was focused more on the creatures that walk like them. I was there for the unicons. When I write unicon, I mean it. It is not a typo or some error, I truly mean unicon. Despite the oddity of their name, unicons are totally real creatures, and quite bizarre ones at that. Their body shape is almost exactly like that of a unicorn's but everything else is radically different. While unicorns are mammalian creatures, unicons seem to be a bit more reptilian. Instead of ivory fur and flowing hair, they possess rough scales and sharp spines. Their appendages end in bladed hooves and spurs. Their tails are more like a rat's rather than a horses, and a nasty barb hides at the end of the whipping appendage. They lack the beautiful coiled horn of the unicorn and instead carry a nasty spur of bone that looks like a rotted tooth. While unicorns may be seen as symbols of purity and innocence, unicons are more like the filthy disease that floats in the scum of a putrid well. 

Not only are their appearances radically different, but their behavior and ways are as well. Unicorns are strictly herbivorous, while unicons are violently carnivorous. That is not even an exaggeration, unicons are nasty little buggers when it comes to hunting and eating. They tear into food like vultures on a carcass, making an unnecessary mess out of the whole ordeal. As meat eaters, they have quite the supply of tools for downing prey. Crushing teeth, sharp spines and powerful hooves make for deadly weapons, but the real killer is their "horn." The "horn" of a unicon acts more like the fang of a viper, as it is hollow and capable of injecting venom into prey. This venom is extremely potent and kills within minutes. It seems to target the nerves, causing victims to be wracked by seizures and spasms before suffocating as their muscles shut down. As of now, there is no antidote for this powerful venom, probably since many do not wish to approach this creature, not intentionally anyway. Some may look at this horrible beast and wonder how it is capable of taking down prey or causing havoc. Clearly everyone could see that it is some horrible abomination and that they should quickly vacate the premises. Why would any prey not detect something this vile and obvious? Well, the mechanics behind the answer are not fully known, but the short response is because unicons don't walk around looking like that. Instead, these creatures disguise themselves as unicorns, and use that species' reputation as a way to get prey to drop their guard. No one fully knows how these reptilian creatures are capable of mimicking the exact appearance of a mammal, as its disguise is too perfect to be organically based. How would you explain it suddenly being covered in pure white fur and bear an ivory mane? How could something like that put on a disguise that intricate within seconds? One moment, it looks like some warped dragon and then the next it is a pristine horned horse prancing through fields of tulips and daisies. No one knows what allows them to do this. Theories range from shapeshifting or extremely intricate camouflage to mass hypnosis or clouding of the mind. I am not one who knows much about magic, but I wouldn't be surprised if these creatures used some form of it to pull off this feat. With this stunning ability to mimic the beautiful, naive unicorns, unicons primarily get their food through ambush tactics. Other woodland creatures are accustomed to unicorns and know they are no threat, so they often let them get close without any worry. Unicons prey on this trust, waltzing up to a happy deer and then viciously mauling it before it realizes it has been duped. This method also works extremely well on cultures that fantasize unicorns and view them as beautiful, magnificent creatures. A child or even a grown adult may spot the gorgeous horse and approach it in wonder and curiosity. The unicon will play the part, until it gets in stabbing range. I can't imagine how many awe-filled victims have fallen for this trap, thinking they are approaching a mythical creature before being horribly murdered. It might explain some myths that claim that unicorns kill those who are "unworthy" or "wicked of heart." Can't say it is ridiculous to assume when a majestic horse suddenly turns into a scaly monstrous creature and bites your throat out. Especially since they find that sort of thing endlessly amusing. Bad enough that unicons are vicious beasts, but they are also intelligent. While they may not have the faculties of a human or dryad, they do have quite the brain in their skulls. Unicons can set up elaborate traps, or act to lure in prey. They seem to find amusement in tricking others and have quite a good time mauling prey. In fact, unicons enjoy hunting so much that they often change their method of execution each time they down prey. The first victim may be killed with venom, while the next will be trampled to death, followed by a third that will be shredded by their teeth. Unicons seem to enjoy these different ways of killing, and seem to grow bored with repetition. This cruelty is not functional on a simple level, which indicates some form of an intelligent mind. The wolves do not laugh about their kills, and the manticore does not "change things up" to keep itself amused. These are frivolous things that only higher minds care about, a cruelty that is beyond the simple realms of survival. This can be seen when unicons decide to prey on sapient creatures like humans. They love tricking them and acting like they are majestic innocent animals so that they can lure them into a deadly trap. Some stories tell of unicons that have gotten humans to ride their backs, only to have their rough scales shred the flesh from their legs. Others have told how unicons may allow themselves to be "captured" so that they can be taken back home and slaughter the entire family. Even those who poach unicorns have dealt with these creatures, who will act wounded in order for the shooters to come within killing range. When prey is cut down, the unicons usually let out a clattering cackle before tearing into their dead (or sometimes not dead) meal. While unicons mimic unicorns for hunting purposes, that is not their only interactions with these creatures. It turns out that unicons use them for breeding, like some sort of parasite. Unicons are capable of mating with unicorns, but what is birthed will always be a unicon. They shall put on their disguises, breed, and then let their young be raised by the oblivious creatures. It seems that unicons are born with this mimicking power, making it so that their unicorn parent does not realize the monster they are raising. In time, the young will develop enough to run away from its foster parent and start up its cruel life of slaughtering and devouring. In some cases, unicons have even acted as brood parasites, swapping their young out with a unicorn's so that they could eat the foal and let the unwitting parent do the real work. It's an insidious method, but one that sadly seems to work quite well. At the end of it all, natural historians and citizens alike are puzzled by the purpose or origin of the unicons. A species that relies solely on the existence of a quite rare species seems a bit odd to form naturally. How could unicons have a healthy population when they rely on an animal that does not have a large population itself? What would happen if unicons grew overpopulated and fully consumed their hosts? What would happen then? Would they drop the ruse or keep it up? Could we reach a time in the future where unicorns have perished without our knowing, their images only surviving in the very things that slaughtered them? How could such a system function? If these beings are not natural, then where did they come from? Are they magical experiments gone awry? Are they beings crossed over from another plane? Or could they be the response to the poaching and hunting that has devastated the unicorn species? Perhaps the supposedly magical horses have grown bitter and hateful of the masses that kill them, and have grown into horrid things that would prey upon our assumptions. Who knows! I sure don't! Chlora Myron Dryad Natural Historian

[crimethinc]

Charlottesville and the Rise of Fascism in the USA: What We Need to Do

On Friday, August 11, a wide range of far-right groups from around the US gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia for a march the night before their “Unite the Right” rally. Hundreds of them carrying lit torches paraded across the town with very little visible police presence. The streets were largely empty, thanks to a request from Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe. When the march arrived at a Confederate statue ringed by a few dozen counterprotesters, the men with torches surrounded it and attacked them.

Fascists attacking counterdemonstrators in Charlottesville. This is what they will do to you, too, unless we stop them together.

Until now, some of the participants have been coy about their politics. Now that they have all joined in explicitly fascist chants like “blood and soil” while many of them raised their arms in the Nazi salute, it is clear that all of them—the so-called Alt Right, the Proud Boys, and all the militiamen and Oathkeepers and basement-dwelling trolls who keep them company—are openly endorsing fascism. They aim to create a situation in which they can terrorize and murder with impunity in order to create an even more white supremacist, even more totalitarian state.

With this march in Charlottesville, the far right has crossed a threshold. Until now, they appeared to be a motley array of online groups, most of which lacked the courage to identify unironically with fascism. Today, they have arrived as a social movement that can pull together hundreds of people to carry out organized acts of violence while the police look on. They hope to weaponize the ignorance and insecurity of the precarious white working class to trick poor white people into serving once again as cannon fodder for their own oppressors.

But it’s not too late—not yet, anyway. The fascists are coming to prominence before they have the numbers or legitimacy in the public eye that they need to defend their new position. If we act swiftly and decisively—giving them neither legitimacy nor quarter—there is still time to stop them before they move the clock from 2017 to 1933.

Remember last November, when Donald Trump was elected and it seemed like the entire US was about to veer into a far-right dictatorship? While liberals were immobilized by shock, anarchists immediately went on the offensive in order to destabilize the Trump regime before everyone got accustomed to a new level of tyranny. We recognized that the far right had come to power too early, before they could build a broad consensus in favor of their agenda, and that this put them in a vulnerable position. By acting decisively against the inauguration and the Muslim ban, we helped to show that there could be no business or politics as usual under Trump, and this created fractures within the halls of power.

If not for these immediate, massive expressions of defiance, judges might not have dared to block the Muslim ban, or White House employees to leak information. Imagine the US right now if Trump were ruling with the full apparatus of the state united behind him! Instead, today, the US government seems more dysfunctional than ever. That may explain why Trump is threatening war to shore up his position, while fascists are no longer counting on his government to carry out their agenda under cover of normalcy.

Now we have to use the same strategy to forestall the threat of a new widespread fascist movement in the US. We have to respond immediately, cutting its oxygen supply and blocking its growth. But how do we do that?

The aspiring shock troops of a new barefaced totalitarianism.

What We Have to Do

First, we can’t accord fascists any legitimacy. One network described them as “white activists” last night. Such euphemisms are inappropriate for people giving the Nazi salute. It must be clear to everyone that they are not attempting to participate in a dialogue, but rather seeking to start a war.

By the same token, we must not look to the police or any other aspect of the state for deliverance. The complicity of the police in supporting one fascist undertaking after another is well-established by now. Besides, anything the state does against the far right, we can be sure it will do to us twice as hard. It would be a mistake to give anyone the impression that state intervention could solve this problem without creating even bigger problems. If history is any guide, whatever power the state is accorded will eventually end up in the hands of fascists.

We also can’t defer to authorities like Governor McAuliffe when they tell us to respond to the situation by hiding indoors. In effect, this means ceding the streets to the fascists, in which to do whatever they want to whomever is still out there. Recommending this strategy makes Governor McAuliffe complicit in the rise of fascism. Sticking our heads in the sand will not make this situation go away.

Likewise, it won’t help to gather in churches, as some did in Charlottesville last night, congratulating ourselves on how nonviolent we are while fascists patrol the streets. Last night, when the church locked its doors, many were trapped outside, dramatically outnumbered. This kind of behavior is also complicity.

It’s essential to build fighting formations capable of facing down far-right violence. Fascists love to portray themselves as victims in order to claim the right to do violence to others; their entire narrative is built around the contradiction that they are simultaneously master race and underdog, victorious and persecuted. They treat any resistance to their program as an affront to their dignity and a violation of their safe space. Nonetheless, we have to be able to stop them in their streets, because they are in the business of purveying revenge fantasies. Any footage they can record of successful attacks, however cowardly, will help them recruit from their base of bullies and sadists. Because of this, it is preferable not to enter into conflict with them except when fully prepared—but at all costs, we must not let them attain control of the streets.

Most of this is not a matter of physical confrontation. We need people to put up posters; we need people to hand out handbills, and form local organizations, and coordinate neighborhood response teams. We need to organize legal support for those arrested fighting fascists and institutions like the US border that are already accomplishing their stated goals. We need people to infiltrate their groups; we need to set up fake online accounts with which to monitor them or spread disinformation and strife. We need to identify the fault lines along which their alliances can be split, and open gulfs between them and the rest of the right wing. One can do a great deal to fight fascism without ever entering a gym.

Above all, we have to popularize another set of values, so that the cheap victim narratives and fantasies of authority that fascists offer can gain no traction among the general public. We have to show how fulfilling it is to treat each other as equals, rather than serving simultaneously as a peon and a petty tyrant in a chain of command. We have to distinguish true self-determination from supposed self-determination for “nations” or “peoples,” which always boils down to being bossed around by someone of your own ethnicity or religion. We have to foster a sense of self-worth that is not based in membership in invented categories, but in our personal relationships and values and accomplishments.

In the growing popularity of fascism, we can see the failure of guilt-based liberal anti-racism and anti-sexism. Mere privilege politics have failed us; we have to show what everyone stands to gain from the abolition of whiteness and patriarchy, and to present this as a positive program rather than as nothing more than the elimination of unfair advantages. However unfair an advantage is, someone is bound to want to keep it—we have to convey that there’s nothing whiteness or male domination can offer that is worth having in the first place, compared to the genuine intimacy and care that are possible when we approach each other as equals, without borders or abstract criteria of belonging.

This is the opposite of pandering to the supposed ignorance or self-interest of “the white working class,” as if that were a single entity. On the contrary, it means appealing to what is wisest and most honorable in all people.

Anarchism is one of the most thoroughgoing forms of opposition to fascism, in that it entails opposition to hierarchy itself. Virtually every framework that countenances hierarchy, be it democracy or “national liberation,” enables old power imbalances like white supremacy and patriarchy to remain in place, hidden within the legitimacy of the prevailing structures. Under democracy, white supremacy has not disappeared; it has just disguised itself. If we want to be done with fascism once and for all, we have to cut to the root of things.

In that regard, we can see the struggle ahead of us as an opportunity to challenge everything about our society and ourselves, not just the violence of a radical fringe group. As society polarizes and things escalate, we should not simply be drawn into a violent grudge match with our opposite numbers on the far right, but look for escape hatches through which all humanity might escape from this long nightmare.

[jefferyryanlong]

Fresh Listen - jakubazookas, Makiki (Bandcamp, 2019)

(Some pieces of recorded music operate more like organisms than records. They live, they breathe, they reproduce. Fresh Listen is a periodic review of recently and not-so-recently released albums that crawl among us like radioactive spiders, gifting us with superpowers from their stingers.)

Crossing over. Switching sides. Going electric. It’s a naive nostalgia in me to imagine that there was once a less cynical intent in popular music. Performers would experiment with the conventions of oppositional, and sometimes antagonistic, forms of expression. The reward for their labors was a kind of perverse artistic fulfillment, or the fulfillment of a buried, seething love; not simply to disburse their brands to a more expansive demographic.

Ray Charles, who gestated in the chrysalis of Nat King Cole’s sophistication and, once slickly emerged, satanically defiled the pure, earthy tones of the black church with his pebbled, honeyed voice pounding like tom-toms between clusters of piano keys, very respectfully recorded an album of country and western hits of his time, transfiguring his exhortations, street shuffles and come on’s to operatic pathos swelled by a string section. When the psychedelic swirl could no longer be summoned from the twelve strings of Roger McGuinn’s guitar, the Byrds made a similar change--with a blade of grass between their teeth, they switched out the Rickenbacker for a pedal steel, going whole hog for a shit-kicking sound that carried over, for the most part, to the rest of their recorded output as a band. And lest one forget the curly-headed kid who disposed of his Goodwill garments and political tongue-twisters for a black leather motorcycle jacket, and acid, visionary hipster jive popped off with supreme contempt and confidence, surfing atop the crest of an electric wave that crashed down hard on the balding, disapproving heads at the Newport Folk Festival, 1965. And shortly thereafter, he’d too abandon his visions and try out a mellow country croon, which drawled out moon, spoon, and June rhymes as effortlessly as he’d once sang “A question in your nerves is lit / yet you know there is no answer fit / to satisfy you, ensure you not to quit / to keep it in your mind and not forget / that it is not she or they or or it  / that you belong to.”

We might all agree that commercial genre distinctions in popular music are only convenient signifiers for selling product more effectively. But we might also agree that beyond the superficial textures enwrapping each genre--funky bass, mercurial fiddle, distortion, shouting, rhyming, singing through one’s nose--there is a spirit that crystallizes each music into a unique expression, which in turn defines the form. Musicians, past and present, have tried to tap into those spirits beyond their established ken with mixed results, sometimes succeeding in only a pose. (Apart from “Torn and Frayed,” the Rolling Stones, despite the quality of some of their country-tinged output, were never able to master the sound of the South without oozing their standard irony).

Consider jakubazookas’s Makiki, an arresting full-length departure (or, as the record's Bandcamp description reads, “a score to a film yet unwritten”) composed on and played through, primarily, secondhand, decades-old European synthesizers. The album’s auteur, Christopher Claxton, has involved himself in a side project that feels like a culmination, distilled from a rich musical history. It is a detour that could just as well be a radically remodeled home.

Chris’s jakubazookas music is hardly representative of his principal aesthetics. Though he has incorporated electronics into criminally off-the-grid alter egos Buford Brixton and Summatyme Playerrrz, those digital colors were primarily at the service of an often nostalgic lyric entwined with a melody that seemed to have been imprinted upon the throat of forever, indestructible and immortal. Essentially, though, Chris has been a guitar man, in the singer-songwriter mold (though a seriously effective bassist and shredder when called upon), his melancholy voice spinning short films from his never-dull lyrics. 

Makiki disposes of melody (mostly) and words. On every track Chris hammers, coaxes, sprays and blows replicant instrumental textures from his synths in a single-minded pursuit of setting a groove. In some of his greatest songs (”Happy Ending,” “Lula”), Chris has either presaged or debriefed the events of apocalypse within our little blue world. As jakubazookas, he continues to do so, though through funky, discordant, palpable, and hopelessly antiquated keyboards. 

Tension bordering on paranoia informed by sinister intent is essence of “Blowhole,” Makiki’s first track. Its discomfiting arrangement echoes the national mood, the descent into civic belligerence about the most trivial disagreements. “Blowhole” is simply an apt expression of our times, its recurring percussive motif rising and falling in the background, manifesting in the imagination as distorted chanting, or marching, as if the ancient armies of hate were being mobilized under our noses, just outside the screens of our cell phones. 

The irony of our infatuation with technology is that, in our extreme egotism, we want our technology to be more human-like, even as we despise the true humanity around us. As in our quest to usher in our own obsolescence through the creation of a legitimate artificial intelligence, we want our electric things to talk to us, to anticipate us, and to do so in comforting human speech.

The Mellotron, once of the early synthesizers, for which rolls of tape informed each of the keyboard’s back and white ivories, was built to mimic the stirring fullness of a classical orchestra. Thankfully, it was never used correctly--on songs from the Moody Blues, King Crimson, or Led Zeppelin, the notes of the Mellotron are inevitably uncanny. Despite the haunting quality of the instrument’s tape rolls (when warm, the tapes tended to stretch, giving them a human-voice fallibility), the Mellotron generates a very contemporary unease by the nature of its artificiality. 

The equivalent to the Mellotron on Makiki is a synth effect that appears first on “She Stay on Display” and recurs through the album. I think of it as a “Panophone”; it seems an ill-advised crossbreeding of Pan flute and saxophone, as well as several wind instruments in-between. Through careful overlays and ad-libbed pitch-shifts, Chris is almost able to evoke human breath through his Panophone. Dizzyingly, it chases its own tail between radiated mutants clustered together at a dystopian dance party, the DJ an algorithm spitting out rhythmic equations via a mainframe from 1980′s digital tech.

The soul of Chris Claxton can be discovered on “Coral Cavern,” where the most organic sway of these intricately programmed, wind-up birdsongs lives. Chris’s intimacy with hip-hop, though mostly absent from his guitar-based compositions, is evoked through an infectious call-and-response pattern, which plays out over a droning hurdy-gurdy of doom. 

Tipping his hand on the track “Floor Delete,” Chris at last goes all in on Prince--or at least an abstraction of Prince, projected hologram-style. The inspiration of the method behind Makiki becomes clear: a solo savant layering his electro bumps and buzzes, zapping an imitation of life from the overlapping electrical currents. “Floor Delete,” with its funky, Prince-ian bass-lessness, aspires to that ineffable spark that switches one from listening mode to dancing mode, while in our minds we picture flying cars lifting off from the dunes of deserts.

The Panophone emits some serious Lonely Shepherd feels on the meditative, New Age-style “Sloe Jam and Tonic,” while “1CH1″ and “A Death” lean into Makiki’s soundtrack nature as if the accompanying score to some horrifying onscreen discovery a la Air’s Virgin Suicides record. Though the discovery could be less cinematic than existential--both songs play as if some awful thought has just occurred, “A Death” propelled by the hateful riffing of an electric guitar just loud enough to be imposing.

Both “Grazie 001″ and “Internal Demands” are more complete compositions, as opposed to sustained vibes repeating their technological truths as mantras. While imperfect, each song has a definitive life cycle, a spectrum of modes and tones that begins and ends. “Rebirth,” with its hovering helicopter FX and unholy call to obscene prayer, seems much more terrible than its title would suggest, unless that suggestion is that we are born again in some hideous form we lack the capacity to comprehend. Rather, the song comes across as the end of a cursed life, the part where, trapped within a haunted canyon, you realize the hellhounds have at last tracked your scent and are baying in their bloodlust. 

The expression of dread--of inevitable climate disaster, of racial violence, of the erosion of protective institutions, of atavistic impulses we were sure we’d overcome through learning and a broader awareness--might as well be the lingua franca of our age. With Makiki, Chris Claxton temporarily eschews the artist he was born to be for the artist he must be, gently demanding listeners contextualize our shared predicament as filtered through the psychology of artifice, of saying (through an electronic simulacrum) one thing in an effort to convey a deeper, scarier, other thing.

[airoasis]

A rich life with less stuff | The Minimalists | TEDxWhitefish

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/a-rich-life-with-less-stuff-the-minimalists-tedxwhitefish/

A rich life with less stuff | The Minimalists | TEDxWhitefish

Translator: Bob Prottas Reviewer: Leonardo Silva My name is Ryan Nicodemus, and that is Joshua Fields Millburn. And the two of us run a internet site called: "theminimalists.Com", and at present we wish to speak to you about what it manner to be a part of a neighborhood. But first, I wish to share a narrative with you about how I became rich. Suppose your life a yr from now — 2 years from now — 5 years from now. What’s it going to appear like? Suppose a life with much less: less stuff, less muddle, less stress, and debt, and discontent.A life with fewer distractions. (telephone phone ringing) Dude, you’re joking correct now. Proper? Dude, we’re looking to provide a talk. (mobilephone mobile continues ringing) Sorry about that. Now, think a life with more: extra time, extra meaningful relationships, extra development and contribution. A lifetime of ardour unencumbered by way of the trappings of the chaotic world round you. Well, what you are imagining is an intentional lifestyles. It’s now not a ultimate life, it can be no longer even an easy lifestyles, but a simple one.What you’re imagining is a rich life, the style of rich that has nothing to do with wealth. You already know, I used to believe wealthy was once incomes $50,000 a year. Then once I began mountain climbing the corporate ladder in my twenties, I speedily begin turning fifty grand. However I did not think wealthy. So i attempted to regulate for inflation. Perhaps $75,000 a yr used to be wealthy. Possibly $90,000. Perhaps 6-figures. Or might be proudly owning a bunch of stuff, probably that was rich. Good, whatever rich used to be, I knew that once I received there i might ultimately be joyful. In order I made more money, I spent extra money, all in the pursuit of the American dream, all in the pursuit happiness. However the nearer I bought, the further away happiness was once. Five years in the past my entire lifestyles used to be exclusive from what it is today. Radically special. I had the whole thing I ever desired.I had everything I was alleged to have. I had an impressive job title with a legit enterprise, a triumphant profession managing enormous quantities of workers, I earned a six-figure revenue, I bought a flowery new automobile every couple of years, I owned a large three-bed room condo, it even had 2 dwelling rooms. I have no concept why a single man needs two residing rooms. I used to be dwelling the American dream. All people around me said I was once positive. However I was only ostensibly effective. You see, I additionally had a bunch of things that were difficult to see from the outside. Even though I earned some huge cash, I had lots of debt. However chasing the American dream rate me a lot more than money. My lifestyles used to be stuffed with stress, and anxiety, and discontent. I was once depressing. I could have regarded effective, but I certainly failed to think positive. And it received to a factor in my life the place I didn’t be aware of what was once most important anymore.But one thing was once clear: there was once this gaping void in my lifestyles. So i attempted to fill that void the equal approach many humans do: with stuff. Plenty of stuff. I was once filling the void with patron purchases. I bought new automobiles, and electronics, and closets full of highly-priced garments. I purchased furnishings, and steeply-priced residence decorations. And i consistently made definite to have the entire cutting-edge gadgets. Once I didn’t have enough money in the financial institution, I paid for highly-priced meals, rounds of drinks, and frivolous holidays with credit cards. I used to be spending cash turbo then I earned it, attempting to purchase my technique to happiness, and i notion i might get there sooner or later eventually.I mean happiness needed to be somewhere simply around the corner, correct? But the stuff didn’t fill the void, it widened it. And considering that I didn’t be aware of what used to be major I continued to fill the void with stuff, going extra into debt. Working difficult to purchase matters that weren’t making me blissful. This went on for years. A terrible cycle: Lather, rinse, repeat. By my late twenties, my lifestyles on the outside seemed satisfactory. However on the within, I used to be a spoil. I used to be several years divorced.I was unhealthy. I was stuck. I drank, quite a bit. I did drugs, quite a bit. I used as many pacifiers as I could. And that i endured to work 60, 70, often eighty hours per week, and i forsook one of the most important aspects of my existence. I barely ever proposal about my health, my relationships, my passions. And worse of all, I felt stagnant. I without doubt wasn’t contributing to others, and i wasn’t growing. My lifestyles lacked which means, reason, ardour. In the event you would have asked me what I used to be captivated with, i’d’ve appeared to you love a deer in headlights, "What am my ?" I had no concept. I was residing paycheck to paycheck, dwelling for a paycheck, residing for stuff, living for a profession that I did not love. But I wasn’t really living in any respect.I used to be depressed. Then, as I used to be approaching my thirties, i noticed anything one-of-a-kind about my nice friend of twenty-whatever years. (Laughter) Josh seemed blissful for the first time in a relatively long time — like real completely satisfied, ecstatic. However I failed to fully grasp why. We had labored side through part on the same enterprise for the period of our twenties, both mountain climbing the ranks, and he had been just as miserable as me. Anything had to have changed. In addition, he had just gone through two of probably the most complicated movements of his lifestyles. His mother simply passed away, and his marriage ended, each within the equal month. He wasn’t presupposed to be happy. He without doubt wasn’t presupposed to be happier than me. So I did what any just right quality friend would do. I took Josh out to lunch, I sat him down, and i asked him a query: "Why the hell are you so comfortable?" (Laughter) He spent the next 20 minutes telling me about some thing called minimalism. He talked about how he spent the last few months simplifying his lifestyles, getting the clutter out of tips on how to make room for what was once truly foremost. After which he introduced me to an whole community of individuals who had done the equal factor.He introduce me to a guy named Colin Wright, a 24-yr-historic entrepreneur who travels to a brand new country each 4 months, carrying with him the whole thing that he owns. Then there used to be Joshua Becker, a 36-year-ancient husband, and father of two, with a full time job, and a auto, and a condo in suburban Vermont. Then he showed me Courtney Carver, a forty-year-ancient spouse, and mother to a teenage daughter in Salt Lake city.And there was Leo Babauta, a 38-12 months-historic husband, and father of six in San Francisco. Even though all these individuals have been residing appreciably distinct lives, persons from special backgrounds, with kids, and families and one-of-a-kind work occasions, they all shared at the least two matters in usual. First, they were dwelling deliberate, significant lives. They were passionate, and reason-pushed. They seemed so much richer than any of the so-known as rich guys I labored with in the corporate world. And second, they attributed their meaningful lives to this factor called "minimalism." So, me being the main issue-solving guy that i am, I determined to become a minimalist correct there, instant. I looked up at Josh, I excitedly declared: "alright man, i’m going do it, i am in. I will be a minimalist. Now what?" i do not want to spend months paring down my gadgets like he had. That was excellent for him, however I wanted rapid outcome. So we came up with this thought of a packing get together. We decided to p.C. All my property as if I have been moving, and then i might unpack handiest the gadgets I wanted over the next three weeks.Josh actually helped me box up everything: My garments, my kitchenware, my towels, my tv’s, my electronics, my framed graphics and art work, my toiletries, even my furniture, the whole lot. After 9 hours, and a few pizza deliveries, the whole lot was packed. So there Josh and i have been, sitting in my 2nd dwelling room, feeling exhausted, watching bins stacked halfway to my 12-foot ceiling. My apartment was once empty, and everything smelled like cardboard. Everything I owned, every single factor I had worked difficult for over the last decade was sitting there in that room.Simply packing containers, stacked on top containers, stacked on top containers. Now each and every field was labeled so i’d know where to go when I needed a targeted item. Labels like "living room," "junk drawer #1," "kitchenware," "bedroom closet," "junk drawer #9," so forth and so on. I spent the next 21 days unpacking only the items I needed: My toothbrush, my bed and mattress sheets, the furnishings I definitely used, some kitchenware, a toolset, simply the things that delivered worth to my existence. After three weeks, 80% of my stuff was once nonetheless sitting in those containers, just sitting there, unaccessed. All these matters that had been alleged to make me completely happy, they weren’t doing their job.So I made up our minds to donate and sell all of it. And what? I began to believe rich for the first time. I began to feel rich when I received the whole thing out of the best way. I made room for the whole lot that remains. A month later, my entire standpoint had converted, and then I idea to myself, "maybe some people could to find value in my story — in our story." Joshua: So Ryan and i did, i assume what anybody would do, we began a blog. (Laughter) We called it "the minimalists", and that was once 3 years ago. Then some thing strong happen, fifty two people visit our internet site in the first month. Fifty two! I realize that might sound unremarkable at first, but that intended that our story was resonating with dozens of persons. And then different strong matters began going down. Fifty two readers turned into 500, 500 grew to be 5,000 and now more than 2 million men and women a year learn our phrases. It seems that, whilst you add value to people’s lives, they’re lovely eager to share the message with their friends, and their family, to add worth to their lives. Adding value is a common human intuition.Actually, that’s why we’re here at present. A few years in the past, Ryan and i moved from Ohio to Montana. And what we discovered right here used to be an entire neighborhood of men and women, folks who weren’t frequently wealthy, however who have been rich in one other manner. We discovered so many humans who were willing to make contributions beyond themselves. And that is what makes an actual group: contribution. And so we’d like to encourage every person to take a look at your everyday lives. Take a seem at whatever eats up the majority of your time. Is it checking e mail, or fb, or observing television? Is shopping on-line, or at retail shops? Is it working difficult for a paycheck to purchase stuff you don’t want, matters that is not going to make you completely happy? Now it is no longer that we suppose that there’s anything inherently improper with material possessions, or working a 9-to-five — there’s no longer. All of us want some stuff. We all must pay the expenses, proper? It’s simply that, once we put these things first, we are inclined to lose sight of our actual priorities.We lose sight of life’s motive. And so might be getting some of the excess stuff out of the best way, clearing the litter from our lives, can help us all center of attention on, good, the whole thing that remains, matters like well being, relationships, growth, contribution, neighborhood. Thanks. (Applause) .