Recently read "Mumbo Jumbo" by Ishmael Reed and I think he captures more than a bit of the current moment in the novel. I should expound, the story features secret societies which resemble the somewhat silly but somehow influential boys clubs trying to steer world affairs. Punctures rigidity of ideologues while not treating them wholly with contempt. The spontaneous outbreak which triggers the action being centered on anxiety about the end of Western society. You have to laugh when you remember it was written in the 70s.
Another great piece about the unreality of present times. I also liked your discussion about hysteria the other day. Me, I've been saying I feel like I'm taking crazy pills since 2015.... Your work - looking clear eyed at what's going on - is very helpful in breaking through denial... so thanks!
What's going to be really annoying is the inevitable apology, "I was misunderstood" tour where he like tries to perform "Touch the Sky" on the Wailing Wall. Farrakhan would go through phases of this in the 90s, like, saying foul anti-Semitic shit, and then playing a Mendelsohn piece at Mosque Mayram the next week.
But you know, as far as Hegel goes, I always thought that the passages on skepticism really resonated with a lot of modern conspiratorial thinking. You gloss that quite well here, already, but basically skepticism arises from a simultaneous awareness of consciousness' own freedom, but a lack of anywhere in the social world to practice it. Hegel "points out" (i.e. if you read ten glosses of the Phenomenology) that this also a cross class experience, attractive to masters and slaves alike.
This is a beautifully written piece. At times I wonder whether the past has always had a surreal quality; I'm thinking divine right of kings for instance, all the largesse and disgusting spectacle. Or just the role that religion has played throughout human history. But it does seem that for all its faults the post WW2 era, now over, did contain at least some commitment to rationality that truly seems on the way out.
I've been on a Twitter hiatus for a little while, and to your question about whether this <waves hands all around> is merely chimerical or a real political reality, from my current perch outside the Twitterverse, it definitely feels like the first. The crazy is real, but Twitter puts you right in the middle of it.
To be sure, I think you're right that it's both chimerical and real, and Twitter itself contributes one more dimension of dissonance between the two. Warped real, I suppose.
Today though, I've had two passing interactions with strangers that boiled down to both of us saying, "after you... no you go first," and I was reminded that in the real world, society is probably alright.
Not many seem to be curious as to how long Ye was into these beliefs before he said them into a microphone with Alex Jones. There seems to be a presumption that his anti-Semitism and Hitler-liking must be relatively recent phenomena.
What if all this goes back further than a couple years? What if Ye's "turn" was before he put on a red hat or met Candace Owens?
Is that too dark to contemplate? Should such things not be asked or investigated?
Perhaps the sense of dislocation results from the spectacle (using that term advisedly) of institutions' use in their own destruction, most notably liberal democracy being used to destroy liberal democracy.
(Maybe _that_'ll come to a head with Mr Trump's declaration to his Constitution-fetichising fans that the Constitution were null and void—I doubt it, as they're likely mostly to declare that the True Constitution is in _here_ and point to the left sides of their chests, a notion both silly and failing at anatomy twice at once.)
Morbid curiosity: has anyone tried acquainting Mr West with Mr Hitler's plans for the world's black people? (As I recall them, the _least_ obnoxious such was leaving them to the British Empire, which to A.H.'s eyes was masterful at handling them.)
Recently read "Mumbo Jumbo" by Ishmael Reed and I think he captures more than a bit of the current moment in the novel. I should expound, the story features secret societies which resemble the somewhat silly but somehow influential boys clubs trying to steer world affairs. Punctures rigidity of ideologues while not treating them wholly with contempt. The spontaneous outbreak which triggers the action being centered on anxiety about the end of Western society. You have to laugh when you remember it was written in the 70s.
Another great piece about the unreality of present times. I also liked your discussion about hysteria the other day. Me, I've been saying I feel like I'm taking crazy pills since 2015.... Your work - looking clear eyed at what's going on - is very helpful in breaking through denial... so thanks!
I hate the attention economy
What's going to be really annoying is the inevitable apology, "I was misunderstood" tour where he like tries to perform "Touch the Sky" on the Wailing Wall. Farrakhan would go through phases of this in the 90s, like, saying foul anti-Semitic shit, and then playing a Mendelsohn piece at Mosque Mayram the next week.
But you know, as far as Hegel goes, I always thought that the passages on skepticism really resonated with a lot of modern conspiratorial thinking. You gloss that quite well here, already, but basically skepticism arises from a simultaneous awareness of consciousness' own freedom, but a lack of anywhere in the social world to practice it. Hegel "points out" (i.e. if you read ten glosses of the Phenomenology) that this also a cross class experience, attractive to masters and slaves alike.
This is a beautifully written piece. At times I wonder whether the past has always had a surreal quality; I'm thinking divine right of kings for instance, all the largesse and disgusting spectacle. Or just the role that religion has played throughout human history. But it does seem that for all its faults the post WW2 era, now over, did contain at least some commitment to rationality that truly seems on the way out.
I've been on a Twitter hiatus for a little while, and to your question about whether this <waves hands all around> is merely chimerical or a real political reality, from my current perch outside the Twitterverse, it definitely feels like the first. The crazy is real, but Twitter puts you right in the middle of it.
To be sure, I think you're right that it's both chimerical and real, and Twitter itself contributes one more dimension of dissonance between the two. Warped real, I suppose.
Today though, I've had two passing interactions with strangers that boiled down to both of us saying, "after you... no you go first," and I was reminded that in the real world, society is probably alright.
Feels inevitable that he wore that mask to claim in a couple days that it wasn't really him.
Not many seem to be curious as to how long Ye was into these beliefs before he said them into a microphone with Alex Jones. There seems to be a presumption that his anti-Semitism and Hitler-liking must be relatively recent phenomena.
What if all this goes back further than a couple years? What if Ye's "turn" was before he put on a red hat or met Candace Owens?
Is that too dark to contemplate? Should such things not be asked or investigated?
Perhaps the sense of dislocation results from the spectacle (using that term advisedly) of institutions' use in their own destruction, most notably liberal democracy being used to destroy liberal democracy.
(Maybe _that_'ll come to a head with Mr Trump's declaration to his Constitution-fetichising fans that the Constitution were null and void—I doubt it, as they're likely mostly to declare that the True Constitution is in _here_ and point to the left sides of their chests, a notion both silly and failing at anatomy twice at once.)
Morbid curiosity: has anyone tried acquainting Mr West with Mr Hitler's plans for the world's black people? (As I recall them, the _least_ obnoxious such was leaving them to the British Empire, which to A.H.'s eyes was masterful at handling them.)