The following is an email sent from Art to the group on 2 April 2016.
Since I have some time, I'm going to explore a little more about the cult/LGAT. After giving them a lecture on the major themes of existentialism, I showed my students the Sizzler promo commercial and asked them to analyze it.
There seemed to be two major interpretations:
One was that this was a kind of heaven for übermenschen, ones who are capable of facing the full extent of their freedom. I know Sartre said that rational human beings, faced with the full extent of their freedom, rightly experience nausea and anguish. But we entertained the notion that perhaps they had somehow transcended that and were now Nietzschean “birds of prey,” triumphantly reveling in their restaurant within a restaurant, laughing fearlessly as they are confronted its dizzying array of options. There are a few characters in the video that support this interpretation. I think of these two and the dismissive way the Italian guy looks at the camera, showing a Nietzschean scorn for the timid, insipid values of the imagined viewers. Another point in favor of this view is the many vertiginous elements incorporated into the camera work (for instance, here and here), suggesting that, although the inhabitants of this world seem to relish their experience of contingency, we the plebeian viewers are nauseated.
The second and more popular interpretation was that all these people are living in bad faith, that, terrified of the full extent of their freedom, they instead accept “mediated choices” (thus, “Sizzler is the one that gives us choices”). The “restaurant within a restaurant” implies that they have buffered themselves from their freedom and subjectivity even further. The doubling, as mentioned in the previous email, suggests that this method of escaping one's subjectivity can be repeated ad infinitum, as one flees endlessly down this tunnel toward a theoretical dimensionless restaurant within an infinite series of restaurants where one would finally and definitively objectify oneself. The dizzying array of choices available in Sizzler's restaurant within a restaurant can be explained as another attempt by the herd to appropriate the values and prerogatives of the ruler caste. The paradox of fleeing one's freedom while ostensibly embracing an ever-expanding array of options is simply the inherent hypocrisy of the “lie to oneself.” Indeed, following this line of reasoning, the dimensionless restaurant at the end of this long line of nested restaurants would promise an infinite array of choices. The vertiginous camera work can be explained in that, even as they try to situate themselves within the seemingly stable environs of the restaurant within a restaurant, their efforts are doomed to failure: the anguish of repressed freedom can never be fully repressed; they are, as Sartre puts it, “condemned to be free.”
In looking at how any of this could provide inspiration for Knology, I like the idea of Farthington being an übermensch who has found a way to package and peddle the values and lifestyle of the ruler caste to the herd. I honestly think that this is exactly what people like Werner Erhard and L. Ron Hubbard did.
They did it by serving up the paradox of the restaurant within a restaurant ad infinitum.
Showing posts with label carlton farthington. Show all posts
Showing posts with label carlton farthington. Show all posts
Monday, June 27, 2016
Saturday, June 25, 2016
Sheer Vertiginous Horror
The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to the group on 1 April 2016.
What is the significance of two?
You need two mirrors to create an infinite regress, an infinite series of receding images produced by two facing mirrors.
This has been an ongoing motif in our project in terms of dialectics and dichotomies; retweet, repost, embed; the proliferation of Joe Lazarus's clones; the multiplication of y's in Rustyy Kryystyylz's name; the postscenium and proscenium with their telescoping arches; tunnels within tunnels means an infinitude of nothing; not to mention more beneficent pairings like being made in the image and likeness of God and the holy rivalry concept.
What am I missing?
Joseph Conrad's obsession with the double, the shadow self, the doppelgänger, Lord Jim's “I--you--I”
One other area that has interested me recently is that of the entrepreneur or inspirational speaker who helps people find their passion or succeed in business. I find this to be so postmodern and Baudrillardian and unacceptable. Is it acceptable that a person's passion would consist in helping other people find their passion? Is it acceptable that a person's successful business is helping people have success in business? Is it acceptable that a person successfully leverages social media to teach others how to successfully leverage social media? To me, that seems “contentless.” To me, that snaps me back to the image of the proscenium with little or no scenium.
My first experience with this was the large-group awareness training organization I joined at the end of the 90's. It was all about living an transformed life, but to do that one needed to not only take the course (and ideally, many subsequent courses), but also to “enroll” people in the fact that you had undergone said transformation.
Going along with Heidegger's “Language is the house of being,” you needed others to “get” your transformation, otherwise the transformation wouldn't have any real meaning or existence. Who you “be” is a function of who you speak yourself to be. Word = world. And for a while at least, this notion of enrollment was collapsed with the act of registering those same people to take the course. Toward the end of my time there, they endeavored to “uncollapse” these two concepts, but the notion persisted, namely, how do you know that you've fully enrolled people in your transformation? They register for the course themselves.
I've already talked about modeling Knology (Farthington's cult or LGAT) after this concept. I've also mentioned Sizzler's “restaurant within a restaurant” idea, which to me captures the sheer vertiginous horror of the 90's.
Twins, doubles, and clones have been favorites of postmodernism because they convey its notions of circularity, self-referentiality, Baudrillard's collapse of polarities and the endless reproducibility of the simulacrum.
What is the significance of two?
You need two mirrors to create an infinite regress, an infinite series of receding images produced by two facing mirrors.
This has been an ongoing motif in our project in terms of dialectics and dichotomies; retweet, repost, embed; the proliferation of Joe Lazarus's clones; the multiplication of y's in Rustyy Kryystyylz's name; the postscenium and proscenium with their telescoping arches; tunnels within tunnels means an infinitude of nothing; not to mention more beneficent pairings like being made in the image and likeness of God and the holy rivalry concept.
What am I missing?
Joseph Conrad's obsession with the double, the shadow self, the doppelgänger, Lord Jim's “I--you--I”
One other area that has interested me recently is that of the entrepreneur or inspirational speaker who helps people find their passion or succeed in business. I find this to be so postmodern and Baudrillardian and unacceptable. Is it acceptable that a person's passion would consist in helping other people find their passion? Is it acceptable that a person's successful business is helping people have success in business? Is it acceptable that a person successfully leverages social media to teach others how to successfully leverage social media? To me, that seems “contentless.” To me, that snaps me back to the image of the proscenium with little or no scenium.
My first experience with this was the large-group awareness training organization I joined at the end of the 90's. It was all about living an transformed life, but to do that one needed to not only take the course (and ideally, many subsequent courses), but also to “enroll” people in the fact that you had undergone said transformation.
Going along with Heidegger's “Language is the house of being,” you needed others to “get” your transformation, otherwise the transformation wouldn't have any real meaning or existence. Who you “be” is a function of who you speak yourself to be. Word = world. And for a while at least, this notion of enrollment was collapsed with the act of registering those same people to take the course. Toward the end of my time there, they endeavored to “uncollapse” these two concepts, but the notion persisted, namely, how do you know that you've fully enrolled people in your transformation? They register for the course themselves.
I've already talked about modeling Knology (Farthington's cult or LGAT) after this concept. I've also mentioned Sizzler's “restaurant within a restaurant” idea, which to me captures the sheer vertiginous horror of the 90's.
Twins, doubles, and clones have been favorites of postmodernism because they convey its notions of circularity, self-referentiality, Baudrillard's collapse of polarities and the endless reproducibility of the simulacrum.
Friday, June 3, 2016
The Outer Frame
The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Liza and the group on 3 December 2015.
Regarding the last traveling zine, how would we proceed?
Here's a thought that isn't full fledged, but that is based on your book: what if this is how YOU become the outer frame?
That you and the ethos you espouse—NOT the satellite—are the final curator and caresser of content. I say this not to shirk work, but because you are the one who is actually achieving this feat. And you aren't just reframing, reposting, retweeting, and embedding like Carlton does. How strange to think that your lo-fi, subterranean ethos would encompass, enliven, and make art of the satellite!
Perhaps the satellite is the sphere in which we achieve what Irigaray considered the sterile recapitulation of ourselves and our projects—parthenogenesis, cloning, eternal recurrence, auto-birth. But it is still only by driving our roots down into the earth that we can flourish and proliferate as human beings.
I don't mind contributing my "mapkins" to the cause. If you send a journal or zine my way, I'll cut and paste some stuff into it, scrawl some hieroglyphics. But I think you're the one who has the power and skill and vision to make it all cohere (even if coherence amounts to nothing more than stitching and gluing things together). In some ways, you can do some of this already. In the same way that you've cut up books, you could print and cut up things from the blog, take a screenshot of or, better yet, trace, a YouTube video or picture, use any of these materials as you gain superiority over and bring salvation to our spiraling satellite.
I don't have any more time to write, but, to me, this is the perfect expression of the insights brought up in your book. The whole question of art vs. technology, the enduring importance of "terrestrial and tangible artifacts," the "laudible refusal to accept the speed and sanitation of contemporary culture." I feel like this could be the outer frame—and a benevolent one, not one that seeks to parasitically appropriate its existence.
 |
| The Interior of a Theatre, Northern Italian School |
Regarding the last traveling zine, how would we proceed?
Here's a thought that isn't full fledged, but that is based on your book: what if this is how YOU become the outer frame?
That you and the ethos you espouse—NOT the satellite—are the final curator and caresser of content. I say this not to shirk work, but because you are the one who is actually achieving this feat. And you aren't just reframing, reposting, retweeting, and embedding like Carlton does. How strange to think that your lo-fi, subterranean ethos would encompass, enliven, and make art of the satellite!
Perhaps the satellite is the sphere in which we achieve what Irigaray considered the sterile recapitulation of ourselves and our projects—parthenogenesis, cloning, eternal recurrence, auto-birth. But it is still only by driving our roots down into the earth that we can flourish and proliferate as human beings.
I don't mind contributing my "mapkins" to the cause. If you send a journal or zine my way, I'll cut and paste some stuff into it, scrawl some hieroglyphics. But I think you're the one who has the power and skill and vision to make it all cohere (even if coherence amounts to nothing more than stitching and gluing things together). In some ways, you can do some of this already. In the same way that you've cut up books, you could print and cut up things from the blog, take a screenshot of or, better yet, trace, a YouTube video or picture, use any of these materials as you gain superiority over and bring salvation to our spiraling satellite.
I don't have any more time to write, but, to me, this is the perfect expression of the insights brought up in your book. The whole question of art vs. technology, the enduring importance of "terrestrial and tangible artifacts," the "laudible refusal to accept the speed and sanitation of contemporary culture." I feel like this could be the outer frame—and a benevolent one, not one that seeks to parasitically appropriate its existence.
Thursday, June 2, 2016
This Irradiation of Identities
The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Liza and the group on 1 December 2015.
Liza,
This is the most beautiful thing that has ever emerged from the primordial swamp of the project.
Quick take on one solitary question from your minor masterpiece: Yes, I do believe that Steffi, Victoria Woolf, Shakespeare's and Leif Erickson's Sister are "the same person." Possibly incorporating aspects of you and/or Allison (no offense: Will and I became a Nietzschean dichotomy).
I put "the same person" in quotes because what Steffi has done is achieve indefinitude, the end goal of Knology and the process catalyzed by the Lodestone.
And no, I have never considered the Benefactor part of this irradiation of identities, although the fact that Will seems to think so makes me wonder. What Steffi achieves is the ability to engulf, usurp, subsume, sublate other identities into her all-comprehending framework. Eventually, even Farthington disappears in this way.
In that sense, she is Charybdis. In another sense, she is Scylla, in that she is endowed with these multiple heads or identities.
I always thought the the Benefactor was some kind of evil avuncular character.
Okay, I need about 5 weeks to process this. Wow.
 |
| Odysseus in front of Scylla and Charybdis by Henry Fuseli |
This is the most beautiful thing that has ever emerged from the primordial swamp of the project.
Quick take on one solitary question from your minor masterpiece: Yes, I do believe that Steffi, Victoria Woolf, Shakespeare's and Leif Erickson's Sister are "the same person." Possibly incorporating aspects of you and/or Allison (no offense: Will and I became a Nietzschean dichotomy).
I put "the same person" in quotes because what Steffi has done is achieve indefinitude, the end goal of Knology and the process catalyzed by the Lodestone.
And no, I have never considered the Benefactor part of this irradiation of identities, although the fact that Will seems to think so makes me wonder. What Steffi achieves is the ability to engulf, usurp, subsume, sublate other identities into her all-comprehending framework. Eventually, even Farthington disappears in this way.
In that sense, she is Charybdis. In another sense, she is Scylla, in that she is endowed with these multiple heads or identities.
I always thought the the Benefactor was some kind of evil avuncular character.
Okay, I need about 5 weeks to process this. Wow.
Saturday, April 2, 2016
Farthington's Voicemail: chilean way of thinking about art
A treasure trove of Carlton Farthington's voicemails has been made available to the blog. At the request of researchers, enthusiasts, law enforcement agencies, and other followers of the project, voice-to-text transcriptions have been published as-is rather than edited for sense. We hope that this will better capture the texture of the spoken word, rendering it more accessible and/or flexible for the diverse purposes of our audience.11/20/15 4:49 PM 3 months ago (910-541-3466)
So I think I'm interested in this I need we away is that 10 verse engineered, and that are this is one of the maybe the main ask the trip to him first so is that you know there is no insurance day the ality and then bases in a petition off and everything chilean way of thinking about art is that the the our defense that actually comes first the and and that the reality hallows. Alright the hybrid reality falls, and you know there's been some instances the system or example what I'm doing right now. It's recording a message on to presents, and see if it's there isn't enough itself, but we've got a lot of interesting things that God be here just checking in God help me Eric night. I think next time you got that I that whole idea we got is is what the which was Justin. It's transcription was something that I said I have no idea what I said originally, but the Google voice transcription sad is is what being and so that is sent speak of them kind of the central Mantra Central slogan of knology. Is is what's being? And so that seems to be a pretty interesting idea and and I'm I'm seeing this by having to get on the phone like this is personally because I haven't had any sort of time to philly right to the extent that I thank you and of like to and I feel bad about that but that's one of the aspects of this project is that some of the more interesting things have come out of really intent based on. Reality something other than reality reality in terms of other sounds coming out of my mouth right now, but they're being misunderstood and then we'll stories are being based on those misunderstanding seems to be seems to me to be a nother. Manifestation of this not on
Friday, April 1, 2016
Farthington's Voicemail: through April 1st processed
A treasure trove of Carlton Farthington's voicemails has been made available to the blog. At the request of researchers, enthusiasts, law enforcement agencies, and other followers of the project, voice-to-text transcriptions have been published as-is rather than edited for sense. We hope that this will better capture the texture of the spoken word, rendering it more accessible and/or flexible for the diverse purposes of our audience.11/20/15 4:44 PM 3 months ago (910-541-3466)
Hey, so we say that this is one step beyond love lily it's variance. You know maybe the the the Madman the the person is Insane was the prophet of this coming arrow where we are the image of the symbol or the sign would become more real than reality It's Ralph and that the reality which day. So that's the world and let's show Lazarus junior fine since so and then it's it's I mean potentially. Even more just tripping when something. Get out that really shouldn't exist. Cakes for and I'm reminded of the whole creepypasta Slenderman Phenomenon where by you know someone kind of makes this off makes it up, and then I'll just you know it and then kind of through April 1st processed. That that Artist becomes reality and maybe even maybe even a greater kind of reality Tell you know and and I think this is I'm feeling ideal this place and I think a lot of people feel this bye. Just driving around right now and being a flag at half past seems like every single day flag fan, and you we get into wondering. What is the flag at half-mast? And ever since 9:05. I think thank you x x I have finance class started flying at half past all the time or you know fairly often where you don't even know what it is that we just point help of points does flag buying it have passed actually drive whatever the cast your teams and so the black find a half mast and knows why it was. You know lowered. But you know it creates if you pastor free. And so I think that one of the things is dramatize Bye Joe Lazarus junior Confronting his clone Joseph flat surface the 3rd.
Monday, March 28, 2016
sexy congress
A treasure trove of Carlton Farthington's voicemails has been made available to the blog. At the request of researchers, enthusiasts, law enforcement agencies, and other followers of the project, voice-to-text transcriptions have been published as-is rather than edited for sense. We hope that this will better capture the texture of the spoken word, rendering it more accessible and/or flexible for the diverse purposes of our audience.11/20/15 4:40 PM 3 months ago (910-541-3466)
So that's why I see that you will last between your has the in the water for greg. And this predict pen is that's repeated wasn't fact. Dad there are 3rd since there's that he has to deal with that is 10. It's not that is time sensitive perfect clone of his father genetic prospectus. Bye very much give me. And really has no I'll just face reality that was his father. Attack ads you don't even greater chance, Please Joseph last 15 years his primary class in Delhi center reconciliation bye bye 8 King and basically fine good bother you hungry for it's sexy congress. And finish what day does signs at the hotel project that phoning? Please press the current conditions in till back if that's okay until. It's it's very difficult to have this and connor. And serve really truly encounter something I guess what what well he's paying is the reality is very strong, but in part That's because he he's very susceptible to these pigments it is imagination and to finish to eat and Joe lazar Sooners case he actually needs up with a reality he actually confront something hyper real typer real, and that has corper alley the corporate the corporate reality. And substance and being here and and and so he has to deal with that. And so we don't need Joel's asura's junior golf in vain like Willy does in order to accomplish this meeting in this experience at the Hype B. L II actually experiencing.
Saturday, March 26, 2016
Farthington's Voicemail: Dad Mesa center
A treasure trove of Carlton Farthington's voicemails has been made available to the blog. At the request of researchers, enthusiasts, law enforcement agencies, and other followers of the project, voice-to-text transcriptions have been published as-is rather than edited for sense. We hope that this will better capture the texture of the spoken word, rendering it more accessible and/or flexible for the diverse purposes of our audience.11/20/15 4:36 PM 3 months ago (910-541-3466)
So I'm thinking about this connection with Willie and connection of lily and chill lazarus, Jr. In that able to call our haunted by the senior like rotten their father what they believed to have been there father the image of their father you know. What's the symbol or sign up their closet which is Android based on much reality and all and in Willy is further haunted by the images, Then didn't pay Pal party out in all definitely on you weren't from find small non, Envy Allen dean. That piece is done, and then just in general but until a couple of the frontier see you. And I think overall bit late. And it really has no reference his face down to Earth insight Call Raj. So I'll plan brush. And all the money that was to be made until after your e L no. L terry question the fall as hot widespread for available that dream actions and blessed people who live here hills areas. But at any rate. It's it's like for real. It's really Brielle. It's beyond real, and it is actually pretty dominate to be mandates. Lily's life and it becomes more real Dan the reality the same as she or the image of the simple as a sign which really has no you know I know or very little faces in reality earliest Dad Mesa center, Eld that is now gone becomes more real fan. Is the Allen? And more compelling Instagram. Practice play compare Fijian cleaning and light
Friday, March 25, 2016
This Dominance of the Hyperreal
The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Max and the group on 20 November 2015.
Max, I personally believe that you are Joe Lazarus Sr.'s clone—so far the only iteration. (By the way, this is all probably Farthington's handiwork, who has a degree in eugenics or something.)
I like the idea that each iteration produces an intellectual diminution, going along with the motif of echoes, radiating proscenia, repost/retweet/embed, etc. Also, going along with the motif of inarticulate, speechless, and/or mouthless characters, I like to think Joseph Lazarus III doesn't say his first word until age 15 or something. We'll need to make it a good one, whatever it was.
This played out during the press conference and concert when your answers were more or less just repeating the question.
Right now this part of the story is just a pathedy, that is to say, the pathetic, more or less innocent victims of Farthington. To make it tragic, the two need to interact. I wouldn't be surprised if our increasingly bewildered Joe Lazarus Jr. ends up killing the clone and running away to Mexico (or...India?).
Why? Well, maybe the clone—in his limited understanding of the situation—wants a relationship with his "son." With little inhibition or impulse control, the clone might encroach on Joe Jr.'s life, stalking him or even climbing into bed with him—all with nothing but the best intentions, acting on what he believes to be appropriate, paternal feelings.
All sorts of paradoxical situations arise here—kind of a disordered "the child is father to the man" type thing. But it works because it's just one more manifestation of the turbulent reversals. Joseph Lazarus III is a perfect picture of the project in that he is a contentless simulacrum, a perfect clone, but gutted of any original essence or meaning.
I know this isn't a perfect application of these theories. But it's this move by which the clone tries to supplant the original that strikes me as particularly Baudrillardian. Obviously, Joseph Lazarus III does have a clear referent: Joe Lazarus Sr. But when you look at Baudrillard's examples—like Disneyland or Chinatown—the hyperreal usually does have some referent. The hyperreal seems to be nothing more than a distortion of a referent that no longer exists, like Bavaria of old or early 20th-century Los Angeles. To the extent that Joseph Lazarus III has been unmoored from his referent and attempts to fill the void left by it, he exemplifies this dominance of the hyperreal.
Actually, take this one step further: Joe Lazarus Sr. isn't real—he's just a character we made up. Joe Lazarus Jr. is based a little bit on our Joe, but Joe Lazarus Sr. has no real referent.
So, Joe Lazarus Jr., who has a referent, confronts Joseph Lazarus III, whose only referent is a made-up character.
Joe, can you explain what I'm talking about here?
 |
| Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria served as inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle |
Max, I personally believe that you are Joe Lazarus Sr.'s clone—so far the only iteration. (By the way, this is all probably Farthington's handiwork, who has a degree in eugenics or something.)
I like the idea that each iteration produces an intellectual diminution, going along with the motif of echoes, radiating proscenia, repost/retweet/embed, etc. Also, going along with the motif of inarticulate, speechless, and/or mouthless characters, I like to think Joseph Lazarus III doesn't say his first word until age 15 or something. We'll need to make it a good one, whatever it was.
This played out during the press conference and concert when your answers were more or less just repeating the question.
Right now this part of the story is just a pathedy, that is to say, the pathetic, more or less innocent victims of Farthington. To make it tragic, the two need to interact. I wouldn't be surprised if our increasingly bewildered Joe Lazarus Jr. ends up killing the clone and running away to Mexico (or...India?).
Why? Well, maybe the clone—in his limited understanding of the situation—wants a relationship with his "son." With little inhibition or impulse control, the clone might encroach on Joe Jr.'s life, stalking him or even climbing into bed with him—all with nothing but the best intentions, acting on what he believes to be appropriate, paternal feelings.
All sorts of paradoxical situations arise here—kind of a disordered "the child is father to the man" type thing. But it works because it's just one more manifestation of the turbulent reversals. Joseph Lazarus III is a perfect picture of the project in that he is a contentless simulacrum, a perfect clone, but gutted of any original essence or meaning.
I know this isn't a perfect application of these theories. But it's this move by which the clone tries to supplant the original that strikes me as particularly Baudrillardian. Obviously, Joseph Lazarus III does have a clear referent: Joe Lazarus Sr. But when you look at Baudrillard's examples—like Disneyland or Chinatown—the hyperreal usually does have some referent. The hyperreal seems to be nothing more than a distortion of a referent that no longer exists, like Bavaria of old or early 20th-century Los Angeles. To the extent that Joseph Lazarus III has been unmoored from his referent and attempts to fill the void left by it, he exemplifies this dominance of the hyperreal.
Actually, take this one step further: Joe Lazarus Sr. isn't real—he's just a character we made up. Joe Lazarus Jr. is based a little bit on our Joe, but Joe Lazarus Sr. has no real referent.
So, Joe Lazarus Jr., who has a referent, confronts Joseph Lazarus III, whose only referent is a made-up character.
Joe, can you explain what I'm talking about here?
Thursday, February 11, 2016
De Profundis
The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 31 October 2015.
More on the saline abortion avenger.
The two best stories in the world, Exodus and the Gospel, begin with a massacre of babies.
Evil is characterized most by its banality, which means it sets itself up against creativity, procreativity, prolificity, etc. Inarticulate babies sum up that impulse perfectly; that's why Satan has always laid siege to that stronghold.
I'm not sure where our story is heading, but I think it makes sense that this would be a starting point of sorts, albeit of a later episode.
Is the fact that it's twins the reason why Farthington seeks an abortion? Or was that his idea all along? In other words, all of his followers need to be emptied; some of the stronger ones need to be broken. It's clear that Farthington is pissed and that something didn't go as planned, either with Will, Arthur, or Steffi, or any combination of these three. Steffi almost certainly would have needed to be drugged at this point; Farthington doesn't have that kind of control over her. Will may have been on his way down to save her.
The fact that some horror occurred down in the tunnels is probably enough. That's the nature of the dark substratum: irrational, inarticulate, incoherent, unfathomable, yawning, awesome. But that something is born, unleashed upon the world is also important. God knows all about Leviathan: no dual Universe. He chose to use the primeval chaos as the sign of his first sacrament, for Moses, for Jesus, and for us.
So mind blowing and beautiful this strange faith of ours!
Part of what I want to do in creative pursuits is to "reconstitute" (wrong word) chaos. Then let God do what he's always done: bring order out of it. But I can't play the role of junior god; I can only describe the abyss:
De profundis clamavi ad te Domine!
 |
| Destruction of Leviathan by Gustave Doré |
More on the saline abortion avenger.
The two best stories in the world, Exodus and the Gospel, begin with a massacre of babies.
Evil is characterized most by its banality, which means it sets itself up against creativity, procreativity, prolificity, etc. Inarticulate babies sum up that impulse perfectly; that's why Satan has always laid siege to that stronghold.
I'm not sure where our story is heading, but I think it makes sense that this would be a starting point of sorts, albeit of a later episode.
Is the fact that it's twins the reason why Farthington seeks an abortion? Or was that his idea all along? In other words, all of his followers need to be emptied; some of the stronger ones need to be broken. It's clear that Farthington is pissed and that something didn't go as planned, either with Will, Arthur, or Steffi, or any combination of these three. Steffi almost certainly would have needed to be drugged at this point; Farthington doesn't have that kind of control over her. Will may have been on his way down to save her.
The fact that some horror occurred down in the tunnels is probably enough. That's the nature of the dark substratum: irrational, inarticulate, incoherent, unfathomable, yawning, awesome. But that something is born, unleashed upon the world is also important. God knows all about Leviathan: no dual Universe. He chose to use the primeval chaos as the sign of his first sacrament, for Moses, for Jesus, and for us.
So mind blowing and beautiful this strange faith of ours!
Part of what I want to do in creative pursuits is to "reconstitute" (wrong word) chaos. Then let God do what he's always done: bring order out of it. But I can't play the role of junior god; I can only describe the abyss:
De profundis clamavi ad te Domine!
Monday, January 25, 2016
Will Will
The following is an excerpt of an October 2015 email exchange between Will and Art.
Will:
In all our messing with nomenclature and in all my years living with my own name, we've never thought of "Will" as a future helping verb.Art:
How about when Farthington can't control Will he creates a clone of him called Will Will (helping and main verb). Maybe this is what is in Steffi's womb, although I'd always imagined that one being female (perhaps male/female monozygotic twins?). Maybe this is another reason a raging Will follows Farthington into the tunnels. Modernity enthrones the enfeebled will at the center of its moral law.
Will should only be a helping verb; modernity tries to make it both helping and main verb.
One of the twins dies. Does the other become the inarticulate monster?Will:
So, I am conflicted on the saline avenger.
My pro is that terrible topics are important to cover, especially in a project that seems to be a mock grand unifying theory of postmodernisty.
My con is that for some reason, I have never lost my faith in the idea that at some point, this story will actually take some conventional narrative form and be told, and at that point, the saline avenger, if we aren't completely past the tipping point of holding an audience already, completely dumps us over. I know I've always said I want to work within the influence of a morality play, but I still like shaded, complex, mimetic characters. I worry that we keep flattening out everybody.
Who knows. But there's no reason why Will Will can't just be a girl, who I suppose leaves the cryptic message "WILL WILL" in blood on walls.Art:
Pulled in two opposite directions then...
You want our narrative to take a more conventional form (a flattening, rationalizing, dehumanizing impulse). Your original, Everyman-inspired allegorical impulses might be classed with this as well. Deus ex machina too.
But you also want nuanced, mimetic, irreducible characters (a deepening, irrationalizing, humanizing impulse).
We've defined postmodernism the synthesis of these two. One way we've conceptualized it is clear, straightforward narratives told by unreliable narrators!
Is that scaffolding robust enough?
Carrie, the Stephen King movie, is great for this. All the nuance of modernity is finally judged by a pre-modern God, who is PISSED OFF. It's one of the most dialectically satisfying moments in film. Similar to the tension in Antigone between the younger Olympian gods of Creon and the older chthonic gods of Antigone. Hilarity ensues when the older gods wake up from their slumber and get pissed off by all the silly modern antics for which they have no context, understanding, or compassion!
Although it's a piss-poor movie, the scene in Prometheus where the Weyland wakes up the engineer gives a similar pleasure: old gods waking up and KILLING EVERYONE!!!
Saturday, December 26, 2015
Antonin Scalia
The following is an email exchange that occurred between Art, Will, Allison, and the group on 14 September 2015.
Art:
 |
| Antonin Scalia |
Wow, I was actually contemplating the End of Arthur White what with the insanity of the new year and foreseeable future. So fascinating that whenever I've seriously contemplated that something like this happens. Yes, go for it, by all means. Will, I assume you can coordinate that as it develops, right?Will:
Sure thing..I'll arrange interviews when necessary. Times two on the school year! It's taking a while to get my feet on the ground! I'm sure Liza's struggles are more impressive than ours, and that Allison's potentially lead to higher pay, which makes them more attractive!
I am currently without a school-issued computer, but the recording is a high priority in my life. I'm just dreaming about it more than working on it. For an INTP, dreaming is work.
Nick is one of Joe's best friends. It's funny how the hole Joe left keeps sucking new people in, and what forms they take, like the clone of Joe Lazarus or the mystery Boston journalist.Allison:
Indeed, the potential for higher pay makes my struggles incredibly more satisfying. I am keeping up with your emails—though my thoughts are usually full of language that is beyond comprehension for our art. It seems like Farthington writes most law school texts: manifestations of mutual assent? appearance of agency? traditional notions of justice and fair play? antonin scalia?
I commend all the music making, and think that sharing the process through the blog is such a generous exposure to a process that is usually so full of self-deprecation, or at least, it would be if it be analogously paired with writing. As a person who has zero musical inclination aside from listening to and appreciating a wide variety of music, I hope my lack of contributions recently have allowed the more musical and less philosophical aspects of our art to flourish.
Balance is something foreign to me except when I'm dancing.
Law school is treating me justly. There's lots of free food to make up for the pain.Will:
Free food?! Nobody told me about the free food when I was picking careers!
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
The Saline Avenger (Part 3 of 3)
The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Will to Art on 20 September 2015.
I'm knocked out by all the brilliant stuff!
I've also been prepping for the Kairos retreat I'm directing starting tomorrow. Please forgive my gap in communication!
So, if the vengeful angel is Will's son, we end up with Will as a dark distortion of King Arthur and his bastard son, Mordred?
If we run with a character as disturbing as you've described, I think we would need a figure of a God 's love in the story who reflects the grace of God more strongly than the vengeful angel reflects Puritanical justice.
That character should probably be Arthur, which I think is a tough move for you, given your relationship with the character. I think I've written all of the miraculous stuff into his character, and you've written all of his foibles! In so many ways, you are nicer to Farthington than you are to Arthur, which I get from playing Will. I can put my shortcomings into Will, but I still don't feel like he's that much like me. I'm not entrepreneurial, brash, or patriotic. You may have a little Puritan modesty going on, which might really be self-deprecation, since anything that makes Arthur an impressive figure might be read as a reflection of you.
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| Arthur and Mordred by William Hatherell |
I'm knocked out by all the brilliant stuff!
I've also been prepping for the Kairos retreat I'm directing starting tomorrow. Please forgive my gap in communication!
So, if the vengeful angel is Will's son, we end up with Will as a dark distortion of King Arthur and his bastard son, Mordred?
If we run with a character as disturbing as you've described, I think we would need a figure of a God 's love in the story who reflects the grace of God more strongly than the vengeful angel reflects Puritanical justice.
That character should probably be Arthur, which I think is a tough move for you, given your relationship with the character. I think I've written all of the miraculous stuff into his character, and you've written all of his foibles! In so many ways, you are nicer to Farthington than you are to Arthur, which I get from playing Will. I can put my shortcomings into Will, but I still don't feel like he's that much like me. I'm not entrepreneurial, brash, or patriotic. You may have a little Puritan modesty going on, which might really be self-deprecation, since anything that makes Arthur an impressive figure might be read as a reflection of you.
Monday, December 21, 2015
The Saline Avenger (Part 2 of 3)
The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 18 September 2015.
So I've been wondering: who is the figure that will wreak vengeance on all of us? It can't be Carlton—he's too evil. Maybe suffering the fallout of colonialism would qualify him to play this role, but he's just not innocent enough. I don't think Steffi can do it either.
Then it occurred to me: I want to pattern our vengeful angel on Gianna Jessen. Watch this recent clip of her testifying before Congress.
Burned alive in the womb at 7 months, she survived and now is one of the most terrifying people I have ever heard speak. Regardless of your viewpoints on the topic of abortion, no one can say anything to Gianna Jessen. She has a carte blanche for her entire life. Truth be told, she impresses me as an extremely loving and forgiving person. But who would be more justified in killing everyone than an innocent who was burned alive for 18 hours and survived?
So who would this person be in the narrative? I think I have an idea.
It's Steffi's unborn child who Farthington, as part of his regimen of emptying his novices of all traces of identity, attempts to abort and discard in the tunnels. I'm not sure whose child it is: maybe Will's, maybe Farthington's, maybe someone else's. As we know, Will has gone down into the tunnels to kill Farthington at this point. In the chaos of that encounter, is the baby born alive and left in the tunnels? Who saves the child? I'd like to think it's Steffi, who with her now jawless, speechless mouth, raises the child in darkness.
Now, again, these ideas are all within the puerile Puritan tradition that, like the Socratic Euripides, requires a deus ex machina to resolve the entanglements of the plot. And as I've mentioned before, this kind of approach belies a latent atheism, a disbelief in the omnipotence of God. Thus, we need to help God. Like at the end of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, we have to help a rotting, moribund Grandpa kill Sally with a sledgehammer.
At some point, we should transition into the mature Catholic view, namely, that we don't need a deus ex machina when we have a Deum de Deo, one who gratuitously takes the punishment we deserve. And it is only when we refuse this grace that we implode in on ourselves and suffer the results of our sin: the collapsed reality of hell in which we become next to nothing.
So I've been wondering: who is the figure that will wreak vengeance on all of us? It can't be Carlton—he's too evil. Maybe suffering the fallout of colonialism would qualify him to play this role, but he's just not innocent enough. I don't think Steffi can do it either.
Then it occurred to me: I want to pattern our vengeful angel on Gianna Jessen. Watch this recent clip of her testifying before Congress.
Burned alive in the womb at 7 months, she survived and now is one of the most terrifying people I have ever heard speak. Regardless of your viewpoints on the topic of abortion, no one can say anything to Gianna Jessen. She has a carte blanche for her entire life. Truth be told, she impresses me as an extremely loving and forgiving person. But who would be more justified in killing everyone than an innocent who was burned alive for 18 hours and survived?
So who would this person be in the narrative? I think I have an idea.
It's Steffi's unborn child who Farthington, as part of his regimen of emptying his novices of all traces of identity, attempts to abort and discard in the tunnels. I'm not sure whose child it is: maybe Will's, maybe Farthington's, maybe someone else's. As we know, Will has gone down into the tunnels to kill Farthington at this point. In the chaos of that encounter, is the baby born alive and left in the tunnels? Who saves the child? I'd like to think it's Steffi, who with her now jawless, speechless mouth, raises the child in darkness.
Now, again, these ideas are all within the puerile Puritan tradition that, like the Socratic Euripides, requires a deus ex machina to resolve the entanglements of the plot. And as I've mentioned before, this kind of approach belies a latent atheism, a disbelief in the omnipotence of God. Thus, we need to help God. Like at the end of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, we have to help a rotting, moribund Grandpa kill Sally with a sledgehammer.
At some point, we should transition into the mature Catholic view, namely, that we don't need a deus ex machina when we have a Deum de Deo, one who gratuitously takes the punishment we deserve. And it is only when we refuse this grace that we implode in on ourselves and suffer the results of our sin: the collapsed reality of hell in which we become next to nothing.
Monday, November 9, 2015
We Go Medieval on the Seventies
The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Will to the group on 4 September 2015.
Okay, I think what you've clarified is the intuitive leap we made a while ago between the cults of the seventies and the digital age.
Both speak to the spiritual needs of a culture that has lost God. Farthington is more of a song-and-dance man, an Oz who points people to something larger than himself that isn't really God. He's also a Vernean scientist, though, leading people on wild rides toward proof of something greater than man.
Steffi Humboldt (I just mistyped it Hymboldt!) is basically the digital age. She not only "gets in front of" where Farthington chases (although he chases to get in front of great catastrophes, mainly to be the authority on them), but in our vision of the feminist totalitarian warlord she becomes one with the satellite and absorbs all data into herself, which perhaps makes her the whore of Babylon.
We also have the Benefactor, who doesn't take vacation photos even though she oversees Detroit/America's rise and fall and who ultimately recognizes she must have a showdown with Steffi and lose, kind of like Beowulf vs. The Red Dragon except the dragon doesn't die...it absorbs Beowulf's power. Here we have McLuhan's idea that the global village recalls the patterns of paganism, which I think is the lens through which he read Nietzsche. I remember some outburst of his in which it dawned on him that Nietzsche's "God is dead" refers to the Newtonian god of "everything in its proper place."
Speaking of proper place, McLuhan would agree with Baudrillard that we retreat to the comfort of bonanzaland rather than live in our own age, but I don't think that's what we're up to. The only part of our project that sentimentalizes the seventies is the music, and I am not using sentimentalizes pejoratively here. I love seventies music unabashedly and you know how much sheer joy I get out of trying to play the difference between a 1974 song and a 1975 song...I'm like a kid in a candy store.
But outside of that very necessary indulgence, we are upending everything else that is warm and fuzzy about the past. In our own way, we've gone medieval on the seventies, like a Bosch painting! Our seventies slouches toward Bethlehem and eviscerates American history and the digital age through the tale of the lodestone. The only comfy place we're offering in our upcoming efforts is the album, and it's hard to call an album of prophecies calming. In fact, the prospect of a Trump presidency is making "Hey Rome" feel especially prescient, like we are this close to the lodestone revealing America for what we are. I'm tempted to vote for him, except that I'd feel like Judas, who may have betrayed Christ to see Him manifest his power.
At any rate, I also remember McLuhan saying he has no point of view because electronic culture made being grounded impossible, which is why our project examines from all viewpoints and resists just being a book or a musical or a series or even just being written. It's why it can be an 18th-century autopsy of 20th- and 21st-century culture, and my favorite, a 14th-century morality play with a postmodern take on memento mori.
 |
| Detail of The Last Judgment by Hieronymus Bosch |
Okay, I think what you've clarified is the intuitive leap we made a while ago between the cults of the seventies and the digital age.
Both speak to the spiritual needs of a culture that has lost God. Farthington is more of a song-and-dance man, an Oz who points people to something larger than himself that isn't really God. He's also a Vernean scientist, though, leading people on wild rides toward proof of something greater than man.
Steffi Humboldt (I just mistyped it Hymboldt!) is basically the digital age. She not only "gets in front of" where Farthington chases (although he chases to get in front of great catastrophes, mainly to be the authority on them), but in our vision of the feminist totalitarian warlord she becomes one with the satellite and absorbs all data into herself, which perhaps makes her the whore of Babylon.
We also have the Benefactor, who doesn't take vacation photos even though she oversees Detroit/America's rise and fall and who ultimately recognizes she must have a showdown with Steffi and lose, kind of like Beowulf vs. The Red Dragon except the dragon doesn't die...it absorbs Beowulf's power. Here we have McLuhan's idea that the global village recalls the patterns of paganism, which I think is the lens through which he read Nietzsche. I remember some outburst of his in which it dawned on him that Nietzsche's "God is dead" refers to the Newtonian god of "everything in its proper place."
Speaking of proper place, McLuhan would agree with Baudrillard that we retreat to the comfort of bonanzaland rather than live in our own age, but I don't think that's what we're up to. The only part of our project that sentimentalizes the seventies is the music, and I am not using sentimentalizes pejoratively here. I love seventies music unabashedly and you know how much sheer joy I get out of trying to play the difference between a 1974 song and a 1975 song...I'm like a kid in a candy store.
But outside of that very necessary indulgence, we are upending everything else that is warm and fuzzy about the past. In our own way, we've gone medieval on the seventies, like a Bosch painting! Our seventies slouches toward Bethlehem and eviscerates American history and the digital age through the tale of the lodestone. The only comfy place we're offering in our upcoming efforts is the album, and it's hard to call an album of prophecies calming. In fact, the prospect of a Trump presidency is making "Hey Rome" feel especially prescient, like we are this close to the lodestone revealing America for what we are. I'm tempted to vote for him, except that I'd feel like Judas, who may have betrayed Christ to see Him manifest his power.
At any rate, I also remember McLuhan saying he has no point of view because electronic culture made being grounded impossible, which is why our project examines from all viewpoints and resists just being a book or a musical or a series or even just being written. It's why it can be an 18th-century autopsy of 20th- and 21st-century culture, and my favorite, a 14th-century morality play with a postmodern take on memento mori.
Thursday, October 8, 2015
The Fat Lady is Every One of Us (Part 4 of 7)
The following is a series of attached photos sent from Liza to the group during her electronics-limited "dispersed camping expedition" through the Keweenaw Peninsula during the month of August 2015. We will publish short excerpts of these illuminated texts over the course of the next several days along with a corresponding portion of the original photo.
Easier (as with most matters that require our patience and daily devotion) said than done. How are we of weary eye and soul to transcend sensory experience, to recognize the divine image in its lowliest form? We begin, I think with step one.
- Step 1: Acknowledge that Seymour Glass' Fat Lady is indeed Christ Himself
- Step 2: Acknowledge that there isn't anyone out there who is not Seymour's Fat Lady
- Step 3: Read aloud the following:
- Carlton Farthington is the Fat Lady.
- Don Gilber is the Fat Lady.
- That student who talks over me every single day in class and blatantly disregards all guidance and direction is the Fat Lady.
- Donald Trump is the Fat Lady.
- That person who perpetuates cruelty to our most vulnerable and oppressed is the Fat Lady.
- Hitler, ISIS, and Stalin are all Fat Ladies.
- My inner demon is the Fat Lady.
- I am the Fat Lady.
- Step 4: Repeat Step 3, but with conviction this time.
- Step 5: Acknowledge that each of the aforementioned is, indeed, Christ Himself. Acknowledge this every day.
- Step 6: For instructions on utilizing this mindfulness to combat our daily human propensity to judge our enemies (demonic as they and we may be) with love and mercy, I invoke at long last the luminous Dorothy Day (from a symposium on "Transcendence," sponsored by the Church Society for College Work, 1968):
God made men and women to be happy...yet how can we be happy today? How can we transcend this misery of ours? How can we believe in a transcendent God when the Immanent God seems so powerless within time, when demonic forces seem to be let loose? Certainly our God is a hidden God. I would say there are evidences of transcendence in the striving for community among the poor and destitute among whom we live in city and country. Men and women have persisted in their hope for happiness. They have hoped against hope though all the evidence seemed to point to the fact that human nature could not be changed. Always they have tried to recover Eden, and the history of our own country shows attempts to found communities where people could live together in that happiness which God seemed to have planned for us. (...) But how to love? That is the question.
Friday, September 18, 2015
I'm Turning Myself to a Demon
The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to the group on 12 August 2015.
But seriously, I guess it's that old Dickinson tack of "tell the truth but tell it slant."
Art needs to approach these things obliquely (and I don't mean Art Art, just art). As Oedipus says, "When the stealthy plotter moves on me, I must be quick with my counterplot." I always think that I'm closing in on the murderer, but the artist and mystic realizes that he too is possessed by this same murderous spirit. I can try to rationalize myself to higher ground, distance myself from the demon as it were.
But I can't name it until I've fully seen it in myself, that I am "the accursed defiler of this land." That may be the religious reason for identifying myself with Farthington. After the collapse of "old polar schema," to what extent does reflecting "the devil we are possessed by" necessitate identifying with that devil?
How tempting to fall back into the old polarities!
So, it's been weird because sometimes I feel like I am the demon, that I simulate and dissimulate like a demon, that I sound demonic. But then again, to what extent does this approach partake in the cunning used by Christ: "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor 5:21).
.jpg#/media/File:Emily_Dickinson_daguerreotype_(cropped).jpg) |
| Emily Dickinson |
But seriously, I guess it's that old Dickinson tack of "tell the truth but tell it slant."
Art needs to approach these things obliquely (and I don't mean Art Art, just art). As Oedipus says, "When the stealthy plotter moves on me, I must be quick with my counterplot." I always think that I'm closing in on the murderer, but the artist and mystic realizes that he too is possessed by this same murderous spirit. I can try to rationalize myself to higher ground, distance myself from the demon as it were.
But I can't name it until I've fully seen it in myself, that I am "the accursed defiler of this land." That may be the religious reason for identifying myself with Farthington. After the collapse of "old polar schema," to what extent does reflecting "the devil we are possessed by" necessitate identifying with that devil?
How tempting to fall back into the old polarities!
So, it's been weird because sometimes I feel like I am the demon, that I simulate and dissimulate like a demon, that I sound demonic. But then again, to what extent does this approach partake in the cunning used by Christ: "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor 5:21).
Tiger Mountain Peasant Song
by Fleet Foxes
Dear shadow, alive and well
How can the body die?
You tell me everything
Anything true
Jessie, I don't know what I have doneArt Art
I'm turning myself into a demon
I don't know what I have done
I'm turning myself to a demon
Friday, September 4, 2015
All Things New
The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Will to Art on 10 August 2015.
Also, I was trying to figure out in the last show why Arthur still cares about Carlton Farthington or Iceland. I was content with the idea that we don't really know the nature of Arthur's mission right now, that it is inscrutable and that hearing the beauty of his music and seeing him come back into his powers would make more sense than some logical explanation for his behavior.
But in light of "Behold, I make all things new," maybe the idea is that Arthur is part of God's plan in transforming everything Farthington set in motion, everything the lodestone set in motion. In this regard, this intuition I've had that Arthur becomes the new lodestone makes sense. It also fits the Arthurian notion, that Arthur isn't so much a heroic protagonist as the figure around whom things happen. Maybe recreating the Iceland concert heralds "all things new" when the original concert heralded "turbulent reversals."
As far as the morality play goes, here is the closest thing I see to an allegorical structure. Of course, we don't have simple allegory and shouldn't, but whatever...I'll just say what's on my mind.
A transformation in Arthur, then, would not so much be about getting his act together, but in getting a glimpse behind the curtain that God has ordained his life to be a witness. In this regard, we end up with the existentialist issue with the absurd, which is why we must engage the French (and Kierkegaard and the Russians and Nietzsche of course). We also engage Chesterton's Man Who Was Thursday and Greene's The Power and the Glory: the notion that evil is so evil that good seems to be a lie, and good is so good that evil seems to be a mistake, and the notion that even a dark, fizzling out world can be the shadow of a glorious divine plan beyond our comprehension.
This is a completely messed up thought, but we might be on the verge of making the What's Going On of our age! How crazy that this is the path that may lead us there. It absolutely fits.
Also, I was trying to figure out in the last show why Arthur still cares about Carlton Farthington or Iceland. I was content with the idea that we don't really know the nature of Arthur's mission right now, that it is inscrutable and that hearing the beauty of his music and seeing him come back into his powers would make more sense than some logical explanation for his behavior.
But in light of "Behold, I make all things new," maybe the idea is that Arthur is part of God's plan in transforming everything Farthington set in motion, everything the lodestone set in motion. In this regard, this intuition I've had that Arthur becomes the new lodestone makes sense. It also fits the Arthurian notion, that Arthur isn't so much a heroic protagonist as the figure around whom things happen. Maybe recreating the Iceland concert heralds "all things new" when the original concert heralded "turbulent reversals."
As far as the morality play goes, here is the closest thing I see to an allegorical structure. Of course, we don't have simple allegory and shouldn't, but whatever...I'll just say what's on my mind.
- Arthur: the herald of "all things new"
- Stan, Will: the rise and fall of the American Dream
- Farthington: science, psychology, and media ecology as false religions
- Steffi: digital existence and postmodern nihilism
- The Benefactor/Victoria Woolf/Leif Erikson's sister/the lodestone: the hold and resurgence of myth and paganism
A transformation in Arthur, then, would not so much be about getting his act together, but in getting a glimpse behind the curtain that God has ordained his life to be a witness. In this regard, we end up with the existentialist issue with the absurd, which is why we must engage the French (and Kierkegaard and the Russians and Nietzsche of course). We also engage Chesterton's Man Who Was Thursday and Greene's The Power and the Glory: the notion that evil is so evil that good seems to be a lie, and good is so good that evil seems to be a mistake, and the notion that even a dark, fizzling out world can be the shadow of a glorious divine plan beyond our comprehension.
This is a completely messed up thought, but we might be on the verge of making the What's Going On of our age! How crazy that this is the path that may lead us there. It absolutely fits.
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Simultaneously Villain and Savior
The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Will to Art on 6 August 2015.
I do see why we absolutely must engage the concepts of simulacra, the undead nature of language, and the secular worldview that derives from Camus and Sartre. I get why we need to engage Nietzsche, too, and any time I forget, I've got Planned Parenthood to remind me. Speaking of Derrida, I was thinking about your last major email, and the value in keeping Farthington "of indeterminant ethnicity" (I think those are DeLillo's words about Willie Mink; Jack Gladney also is frustrated by Orest Mercator for the same reason) and of having him set "indefinite longevity" as a goal.
Orwell talks about this idea that when Big Brother needs 2+2 to equal 4, it equals 4, and when he needs it to equal 5, it equals 5, but that's not exactly what Derrida is talking about.
Philosophically, we live in the age of O'Brien: the unborn child is a child when society needs her to be a child, a fetus when it needs her to be a fetus, tissue when it needs her to be tissue, a clump of cells when it needs her to be a clump of cells. But all we're really doing is doublethink: choosing temporary meanings.
Still, our increasing tendency to keep all options open approaches Derrida, where language is like a zombie--resistant to binary oppositions of words like "alive" and "dead." And for some reason, the more digital/binary our existence becomes, the more our communication becomes undead.
I think about this with that horrible Chevy commercial that borrows its plot from Sophie's choice: a mom must choose which child goes in the Chevy and which child goes in the car with inadequate airbag protection. The salesman who gives her the choice is also her savior, because he lets both kids go in the Chevy. So he is simultaneously villain and savior and neither and both...we can't sort the two out.
This undead thing works well for Farthington, who may or may not be alive, and who communicates digitally.
I do see why we absolutely must engage the concepts of simulacra, the undead nature of language, and the secular worldview that derives from Camus and Sartre. I get why we need to engage Nietzsche, too, and any time I forget, I've got Planned Parenthood to remind me. Speaking of Derrida, I was thinking about your last major email, and the value in keeping Farthington "of indeterminant ethnicity" (I think those are DeLillo's words about Willie Mink; Jack Gladney also is frustrated by Orest Mercator for the same reason) and of having him set "indefinite longevity" as a goal.
Orwell talks about this idea that when Big Brother needs 2+2 to equal 4, it equals 4, and when he needs it to equal 5, it equals 5, but that's not exactly what Derrida is talking about.
Philosophically, we live in the age of O'Brien: the unborn child is a child when society needs her to be a child, a fetus when it needs her to be a fetus, tissue when it needs her to be tissue, a clump of cells when it needs her to be a clump of cells. But all we're really doing is doublethink: choosing temporary meanings.
Still, our increasing tendency to keep all options open approaches Derrida, where language is like a zombie--resistant to binary oppositions of words like "alive" and "dead." And for some reason, the more digital/binary our existence becomes, the more our communication becomes undead.
I think about this with that horrible Chevy commercial that borrows its plot from Sophie's choice: a mom must choose which child goes in the Chevy and which child goes in the car with inadequate airbag protection. The salesman who gives her the choice is also her savior, because he lets both kids go in the Chevy. So he is simultaneously villain and savior and neither and both...we can't sort the two out.
This undead thing works well for Farthington, who may or may not be alive, and who communicates digitally.
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
Polishing the Turd of Nihilism
The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Will to Art on 6 August 2015.
One thing I have been wondering about the project is why the French matter so much to it.
In my mind, they matter because the project needs to take on the philosophies of our age and expose their limits. Graham Greene nailed this approach in The Power and the Glory: a very weak, broken, and ineffective priest fizzles out and a noble, hard-working atheist lieutenant triumphs, and yet the triumph is empty and everything the priest stood for lives on or is resurrected in others.
I've come to see Arthur as this triumph of the Church, a type of lodestone of the Church. In and of himself we see both beauty and failure. His perfection doesn't lead anybody anywhere; his brokenness does, because the brokenness is completed by Christ. On the other hand, Farthington and Steffi are obsessed with perfect systems--the ultimate manipulations or the fruition of grand ideologies.
Somewhere in between are the French, who I think are about polishing the turd of nihilism. Camus and Sartre try to give us some sort of way to be Christian without Christ. Baudrillard and Derrida delight in exposing the limits of language. There's a poetry and a beauty to what they write, but with the former, I see misplaced faith in the lack of God, and in the latter, I realize I'm not chasing shadows of truth, just shadows of shadows of shadows. Of course, I'm not well-read enough in any of them, but out of all of them, Camus is the only one who holds my attention for long. I worry about things that spark my intellect without engaging my soul; I prefer the combination of the two.
And really, I worry that our project gets mired down in confronting these philosophies and that we don't direct enough energy toward its core, which in my eyes is evangelization. We have written far more criticism about the project than we have created the project itself, or rather, somehow the criticism has become the project itself!
We have a lot about exposing the limits of the world, but not enough drawing people toward the beauty of God. Perhaps I'm blaming French philosophy for this effect because it is the effect French philosophy has on me.
 |
| Camus in Stockholm |
One thing I have been wondering about the project is why the French matter so much to it.
In my mind, they matter because the project needs to take on the philosophies of our age and expose their limits. Graham Greene nailed this approach in The Power and the Glory: a very weak, broken, and ineffective priest fizzles out and a noble, hard-working atheist lieutenant triumphs, and yet the triumph is empty and everything the priest stood for lives on or is resurrected in others.
I've come to see Arthur as this triumph of the Church, a type of lodestone of the Church. In and of himself we see both beauty and failure. His perfection doesn't lead anybody anywhere; his brokenness does, because the brokenness is completed by Christ. On the other hand, Farthington and Steffi are obsessed with perfect systems--the ultimate manipulations or the fruition of grand ideologies.
Somewhere in between are the French, who I think are about polishing the turd of nihilism. Camus and Sartre try to give us some sort of way to be Christian without Christ. Baudrillard and Derrida delight in exposing the limits of language. There's a poetry and a beauty to what they write, but with the former, I see misplaced faith in the lack of God, and in the latter, I realize I'm not chasing shadows of truth, just shadows of shadows of shadows. Of course, I'm not well-read enough in any of them, but out of all of them, Camus is the only one who holds my attention for long. I worry about things that spark my intellect without engaging my soul; I prefer the combination of the two.
And really, I worry that our project gets mired down in confronting these philosophies and that we don't direct enough energy toward its core, which in my eyes is evangelization. We have written far more criticism about the project than we have created the project itself, or rather, somehow the criticism has become the project itself!
We have a lot about exposing the limits of the world, but not enough drawing people toward the beauty of God. Perhaps I'm blaming French philosophy for this effect because it is the effect French philosophy has on me.
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