I'm going to earn myself a bad reputation as a Trump-deflator around here, but I have to argue that he is a kind of honey trap for intellectual passion. I appreciate that you're not cheerleading for him him, I'm just saying; his totem is well placed to attract the right sentiments, but there are a million reasons to keep clear. For me though, the one that stands out is the simple fact that he is crass. I think a worthy figure can be rude, offensive, ribald, whatever, but somehow not crass, not low. That crassness is a hook for the low, and I don't think that's just a sign of cunning pragmatism.
When I have a bit more time I'd like to get into the question of symbolism and performative acts.
He's a tricky one. I think we'll only get a good read on him after his political career is over, maybe years afterwards. He has this odd ability to signal one thing and do another, e.g. he's insanely Zionist but didnt actually give Israel and the neocons what they most wanted - war in Syria. He talks a bit game but it often seems a smokescreen to conceal his (often totally different) intentions. Maybe his crassness is also something of a ruse, perhaps he is truly a sensitive poet and weeps over Schubert at night.
That’s an image to savour. Well, strong as my intuitions are about him, of course I have to concede that that my read might be wrong. But along more objective lines, if only objective in my sight, my measurement of the lines of power precludes the possibility of anything noble or truly independent moving on that level and scale in our day. I am less than convinced of this idea of the incompetence of the current rulers, and precedent insists that hopeful things arising within the bounds of the cathedral are squashed with speed and prejudice, usually before they can develop any public reputation. This isn’t quite the black pill it sounds; I have a new thing I’m about to publish which might give a better impression.
‘….a kind of victory lap for the Cabal, to as it were announce, “we control your banks, your politics, your media, and we worship evil.” But could all these theatrics serve some practical end? Could they influence, determine, the mass imaginal landscape?’
Re- the satanic shows they like to put on: Jeff Berwick said he refuses to watch them in their entirety, or at the point of live transmission, because he thinks there is some effect arising from the mass simultaneous participation, which he has no desire to be part of.
It has occurred to me -especially this latest one, which I haven’t watched at all btw, only glimpsing from the sidelines the furore it evoked, that they are ‘taking the piss’ – or to put it another way, they are deliberately parodying themselves, in order to press the buttons of the likes of us, and then fall about laughing at the spectacle of us getting all lathered up over it.
But of course you are right – this is a deliberate, calculated, manipulative alteration of human culture and human consciousness – operating at a partly subliminal level where those engaging with it don’t even realise what’s being done to them.
‘Why is Islam seemingly unaffected, as strong as ever, even in some grim English town? Why the fervour of Islam and the almost total eradication of Christianity?’
Great question – I mean your first one. Christians like to believe they’re being persecuted: it’s even in the Bible: ‘if you see the world hates you, know that it hated me first’ - but in fact I think as the meme has it, ‘no-one cares.’ Which ties into your other question – so clearly: no-one cares about Christianity , but someone – at least in the west – evidently cares very much about muslim religiosity…….why?.........
I used to have a friend who came to England from Pakistan at the age of 13, (in the 1970’s, when some war or other broke out over there) who told me that fanatically religious – or even just devout- muslims were far more common in England than in Pakistan, where the only women to walk around veiled were the ancient old grandmothers. From what she said (she was from Karachi) religiosity had by then degenerated to the same kind of lukewarm superficiality that you describe as having happened to Christianity. (she herself, a nominal muslim, was almost totally secular)
‘The Second World War was a war not merely between competing nations, but different realities;
……why Nazi Germany features so often in Hollywood films: politics aside, it just looks kino, it has a thrilling, operatic quality, a sense of being a different, grander (and often darker) reality.’
It's also weirdly comedic – all those Monty Python sketches in the 1970’s – [one of my favourites incidentally, ‘Hilter fur ein besseres Minehead’ – Hitler has changed his name after the war and has decided to go into local politics in Minehead – watch it, it’s hilarious] - evil characteristically operates under complete cover of darkness: cloaked in lies and deceit, either presenting itself as its opposite, as something pure, innocent or good, or else operating through patsys and MK-ultras and puppets and useful idiots, but on those rare occasions when it comes out as itself it is surprisingly clownish and ridiculous.
‘reality duel’ –I suspect you probably won’t agree with me at all on this, but I don’t think it’s a fair fight at all. I think we, the people, the masses, the slaves, have our perceptions manipulated from the shadows by an evil cabal, and for them it’s basically like taking candy from a baby -they seem to be able to get people to believe, and do, whatever they want them to, and in some instances I suspect that all they want from it is shits and giggles - they are drunk on their own power and mastery of the human mind, they can’t get over how easy it is, how stupid we are, both in the kind of complete nonsense that we will fall for, and how we will stubbornly fail to see at all what is practically spitting at us in the face.
Regarding your last paragraph, I do get the feeling that Cabal take pleasure in deception, that it amuses them, they chuckle at how easy it is to get normies fawning over genuinely evil people, or to fill them with normie-rage against the good or at least neutral. But I know personally a lot of people who are largely impervious to this, it's a minority but quite a sizeable one.
I suspect you & I have different metaphysical assumptions. I'm reminded of a Pakistani schoolfriend called Shrekh, who was convinced his god would send him to hell, conversation as follows:
Shrekh: But like what if God just hates me and is going to send me to Hell because I'm like not a good Muslim like.
Me: Well, I guess being a good Muslim just means doing certain rituals, so I guess you should do those and then you don't have to worry.
Shrekh: Yeah but what if like he's just on like a power kick and he wants to send me to Hell no matter what I do!
Me: Oh okay. In that case, I mean if nothing you can do with placate him, you should just do whatever you want and try not to think about what happens after you die. If you're 100% assured of going to Hell, all you can do is enjoy this life.
Shrekh looked aggrieved at this, whimpered angrily a bit, but couldn't think of a rejoinder. The problem was, we had different metaphysical understandings - he wanted to believe that reality is utterly horrific and god is evil, and to wallow in that; while I have more of a Fantasy-infused, heroic sensibility - in which evil might well win but good still exists, and my very small victory is to choose good. I see evidence of goodness, of a good creator, everywhere - well, to be honest it's more concentrated in nature, in art, in solitude, and it kind of thins out as I approach society, politics, etc., - the human world seems much more compromised, as if it's occluded against the primal goodness of things.
'I see evidence of goodness, of a good creator, everywhere - well, to be honest it's more concentrated in nature, in art, in solitude, and it kind of thins out as I approach society, politics, etc., - the human world seems much more compromised, as if it's occluded against the primal goodness of things’.
Yes, I think that’s an excellent way of putting it - as I think you said in your recent thread with Levi of Siluria - (I’m having to quote from memory, because I can’t find it again, so probably I’ve forgotten where it was, but you were saying something on the lines of (of course you put it much more elegantly and succinctly) – if it's true that we are effectively in some hell-realm, ruled by demons, then why isn’t it actually even worse than it is? Why can we find love, joy, beauty, tranquillity here at all? Why have they not ‘gone all the way’? (actually maybe it was in a reply to me) - I think that’s a good question, and I’ve thought about it too: I think it’s a kind of mirror-image of ‘the problem of pain’ that Christians have to answer: ‘if there is a God, then how do you account for evil?’ - appearing as ‘if there is an evil demiurge, then how do you account for good?’ - the only answer I can come up with is that whichever view of the matter you take, you can not have one without the other. Hell is most exquisitely hellish precisely when you have the yardstick of love, joy, etc, to measure it by – without that its monotony and lack of contrast would numb and therefore limit the suffering that could be inflicted.
I don’t know if my ‘metaphysical assumptions’ (as you were kind enough to call them) actually do resemble those of your friend Shrekh (was that really his name?) It says in the Qu’ran ‘God guides who he will guide’ - which seems to be suggesting that God is quite capricious, and to the human mind even unfair, that he has his chosen favourites, and if you are not among them – too bad for you, whatever you do, you are just never going to make the final cut. This does not really align with my own conception of God – and if it turns out that the muslims are right, and this is what God is actually like, then I would just flip him the bird (trying not to use bad language on other people’s pages) and be happy to call myself a satanist, and suck up the consequences (actually, I probably wouldn’t when they came, would I, but no doubt you get my point) Like him, I do experience some metaphysical sense of dread, but my own conception of God is more like (I think I wrote about this ages ago on my own page) the Inquisitor character in Red Dwarf – or to put it another way, you are indicted by your own conscience. So there is no question of some capricious tyrant choosing arbitrary favourites: it’s more like, ‘you know what you’ve done, don’t you’, and the confession will be forced out of you, whether you like it or are ready for it or not, and so probably it’s best to do it voluntarily, while you still can, to face up to whatever evil has polluted your own heart and mind during your sojourn in this hell-world (or hybrid hell-world, or whatever it is…)
‘In that case, I mean if nothing you can do with placate him, you should just do whatever you want and try not to think about what happens after you die. If you're 100% assured of going to Hell, all you can do is enjoy this life’
But perhaps you are right: metaphysical dread, whether it be of a capricious tyrant who unfairly refuses to recognise your unblemished record, or a ruthlessly just inquisitor who forces you to confess to your badly blemished one, is in any case a trap that should be avoided.
I read something a couple of years ago that I wrote while in my 20’s – which at the time I read it embarrassed me by its shallowness and naivete, (‘what a dolt!’) but now in a way I think it was on the right track after all – (this is from memory, as I can’t be bothered right now to try to find the actual text that I wrote – anyway, it’s probably in the attic) I thought ‘this life’ was a kind of package tour – in which the point was to do as much sight-seeing as you possibly could, get out and soak up the sun, sample the local delicacies – and then move on, - with all your memories and stories and snapshots. The greatest sin was moaning and complaining, cherishing your sores and irritations, and your purpose should be to seek out beauty and joy and love and happiness, and it should be dynamic, you should try to do and see as much as possible, and let the past go, the good as well as the bad, and be always turned toward the future- I think I summarised it with something like, ‘the point of life is to give glory to God for the beauty of his creation.’
Well – it does seem a bit shallow I guess, in the light of the fact that we appear currently to be in hell, - and how can you go sight-seeing, while around you people are being tortured and murdered. In such a context, ‘sight-seeing’ is actually evil: it’s all hands on deck, you need to attend to this situation first– ‘nobody goes sight-seeing until everybody can go sight-seeing’
I've never really been able to imaginatively grasp how our world can contain such extremes, e.g. it didn't seem possible for Shrekh (the squalid wretch I knew from school) to exist in the same universe as the friends I met at university, let alone to be the same species. Likewise with extremes of good & evil, intellectually I understand, but I often suffer a kind of metaphysical shock, as if a nice children's story suddenly had a torture scene. The Thin Red Line film explores this duality well.
I'm going to earn myself a bad reputation as a Trump-deflator around here, but I have to argue that he is a kind of honey trap for intellectual passion. I appreciate that you're not cheerleading for him him, I'm just saying; his totem is well placed to attract the right sentiments, but there are a million reasons to keep clear. For me though, the one that stands out is the simple fact that he is crass. I think a worthy figure can be rude, offensive, ribald, whatever, but somehow not crass, not low. That crassness is a hook for the low, and I don't think that's just a sign of cunning pragmatism.
When I have a bit more time I'd like to get into the question of symbolism and performative acts.
He's a tricky one. I think we'll only get a good read on him after his political career is over, maybe years afterwards. He has this odd ability to signal one thing and do another, e.g. he's insanely Zionist but didnt actually give Israel and the neocons what they most wanted - war in Syria. He talks a bit game but it often seems a smokescreen to conceal his (often totally different) intentions. Maybe his crassness is also something of a ruse, perhaps he is truly a sensitive poet and weeps over Schubert at night.
That’s an image to savour. Well, strong as my intuitions are about him, of course I have to concede that that my read might be wrong. But along more objective lines, if only objective in my sight, my measurement of the lines of power precludes the possibility of anything noble or truly independent moving on that level and scale in our day. I am less than convinced of this idea of the incompetence of the current rulers, and precedent insists that hopeful things arising within the bounds of the cathedral are squashed with speed and prejudice, usually before they can develop any public reputation. This isn’t quite the black pill it sounds; I have a new thing I’m about to publish which might give a better impression.
‘….a kind of victory lap for the Cabal, to as it were announce, “we control your banks, your politics, your media, and we worship evil.” But could all these theatrics serve some practical end? Could they influence, determine, the mass imaginal landscape?’
Re- the satanic shows they like to put on: Jeff Berwick said he refuses to watch them in their entirety, or at the point of live transmission, because he thinks there is some effect arising from the mass simultaneous participation, which he has no desire to be part of.
It has occurred to me -especially this latest one, which I haven’t watched at all btw, only glimpsing from the sidelines the furore it evoked, that they are ‘taking the piss’ – or to put it another way, they are deliberately parodying themselves, in order to press the buttons of the likes of us, and then fall about laughing at the spectacle of us getting all lathered up over it.
But of course you are right – this is a deliberate, calculated, manipulative alteration of human culture and human consciousness – operating at a partly subliminal level where those engaging with it don’t even realise what’s being done to them.
‘Why is Islam seemingly unaffected, as strong as ever, even in some grim English town? Why the fervour of Islam and the almost total eradication of Christianity?’
Great question – I mean your first one. Christians like to believe they’re being persecuted: it’s even in the Bible: ‘if you see the world hates you, know that it hated me first’ - but in fact I think as the meme has it, ‘no-one cares.’ Which ties into your other question – so clearly: no-one cares about Christianity , but someone – at least in the west – evidently cares very much about muslim religiosity…….why?.........
I used to have a friend who came to England from Pakistan at the age of 13, (in the 1970’s, when some war or other broke out over there) who told me that fanatically religious – or even just devout- muslims were far more common in England than in Pakistan, where the only women to walk around veiled were the ancient old grandmothers. From what she said (she was from Karachi) religiosity had by then degenerated to the same kind of lukewarm superficiality that you describe as having happened to Christianity. (she herself, a nominal muslim, was almost totally secular)
‘The Second World War was a war not merely between competing nations, but different realities;
……why Nazi Germany features so often in Hollywood films: politics aside, it just looks kino, it has a thrilling, operatic quality, a sense of being a different, grander (and often darker) reality.’
It's also weirdly comedic – all those Monty Python sketches in the 1970’s – [one of my favourites incidentally, ‘Hilter fur ein besseres Minehead’ – Hitler has changed his name after the war and has decided to go into local politics in Minehead – watch it, it’s hilarious] - evil characteristically operates under complete cover of darkness: cloaked in lies and deceit, either presenting itself as its opposite, as something pure, innocent or good, or else operating through patsys and MK-ultras and puppets and useful idiots, but on those rare occasions when it comes out as itself it is surprisingly clownish and ridiculous.
‘reality duel’ –I suspect you probably won’t agree with me at all on this, but I don’t think it’s a fair fight at all. I think we, the people, the masses, the slaves, have our perceptions manipulated from the shadows by an evil cabal, and for them it’s basically like taking candy from a baby -they seem to be able to get people to believe, and do, whatever they want them to, and in some instances I suspect that all they want from it is shits and giggles - they are drunk on their own power and mastery of the human mind, they can’t get over how easy it is, how stupid we are, both in the kind of complete nonsense that we will fall for, and how we will stubbornly fail to see at all what is practically spitting at us in the face.
Regarding your last paragraph, I do get the feeling that Cabal take pleasure in deception, that it amuses them, they chuckle at how easy it is to get normies fawning over genuinely evil people, or to fill them with normie-rage against the good or at least neutral. But I know personally a lot of people who are largely impervious to this, it's a minority but quite a sizeable one.
I suspect you & I have different metaphysical assumptions. I'm reminded of a Pakistani schoolfriend called Shrekh, who was convinced his god would send him to hell, conversation as follows:
Shrekh: But like what if God just hates me and is going to send me to Hell because I'm like not a good Muslim like.
Me: Well, I guess being a good Muslim just means doing certain rituals, so I guess you should do those and then you don't have to worry.
Shrekh: Yeah but what if like he's just on like a power kick and he wants to send me to Hell no matter what I do!
Me: Oh okay. In that case, I mean if nothing you can do with placate him, you should just do whatever you want and try not to think about what happens after you die. If you're 100% assured of going to Hell, all you can do is enjoy this life.
Shrekh looked aggrieved at this, whimpered angrily a bit, but couldn't think of a rejoinder. The problem was, we had different metaphysical understandings - he wanted to believe that reality is utterly horrific and god is evil, and to wallow in that; while I have more of a Fantasy-infused, heroic sensibility - in which evil might well win but good still exists, and my very small victory is to choose good. I see evidence of goodness, of a good creator, everywhere - well, to be honest it's more concentrated in nature, in art, in solitude, and it kind of thins out as I approach society, politics, etc., - the human world seems much more compromised, as if it's occluded against the primal goodness of things.
'I see evidence of goodness, of a good creator, everywhere - well, to be honest it's more concentrated in nature, in art, in solitude, and it kind of thins out as I approach society, politics, etc., - the human world seems much more compromised, as if it's occluded against the primal goodness of things’.
Yes, I think that’s an excellent way of putting it - as I think you said in your recent thread with Levi of Siluria - (I’m having to quote from memory, because I can’t find it again, so probably I’ve forgotten where it was, but you were saying something on the lines of (of course you put it much more elegantly and succinctly) – if it's true that we are effectively in some hell-realm, ruled by demons, then why isn’t it actually even worse than it is? Why can we find love, joy, beauty, tranquillity here at all? Why have they not ‘gone all the way’? (actually maybe it was in a reply to me) - I think that’s a good question, and I’ve thought about it too: I think it’s a kind of mirror-image of ‘the problem of pain’ that Christians have to answer: ‘if there is a God, then how do you account for evil?’ - appearing as ‘if there is an evil demiurge, then how do you account for good?’ - the only answer I can come up with is that whichever view of the matter you take, you can not have one without the other. Hell is most exquisitely hellish precisely when you have the yardstick of love, joy, etc, to measure it by – without that its monotony and lack of contrast would numb and therefore limit the suffering that could be inflicted.
I don’t know if my ‘metaphysical assumptions’ (as you were kind enough to call them) actually do resemble those of your friend Shrekh (was that really his name?) It says in the Qu’ran ‘God guides who he will guide’ - which seems to be suggesting that God is quite capricious, and to the human mind even unfair, that he has his chosen favourites, and if you are not among them – too bad for you, whatever you do, you are just never going to make the final cut. This does not really align with my own conception of God – and if it turns out that the muslims are right, and this is what God is actually like, then I would just flip him the bird (trying not to use bad language on other people’s pages) and be happy to call myself a satanist, and suck up the consequences (actually, I probably wouldn’t when they came, would I, but no doubt you get my point) Like him, I do experience some metaphysical sense of dread, but my own conception of God is more like (I think I wrote about this ages ago on my own page) the Inquisitor character in Red Dwarf – or to put it another way, you are indicted by your own conscience. So there is no question of some capricious tyrant choosing arbitrary favourites: it’s more like, ‘you know what you’ve done, don’t you’, and the confession will be forced out of you, whether you like it or are ready for it or not, and so probably it’s best to do it voluntarily, while you still can, to face up to whatever evil has polluted your own heart and mind during your sojourn in this hell-world (or hybrid hell-world, or whatever it is…)
‘In that case, I mean if nothing you can do with placate him, you should just do whatever you want and try not to think about what happens after you die. If you're 100% assured of going to Hell, all you can do is enjoy this life’
But perhaps you are right: metaphysical dread, whether it be of a capricious tyrant who unfairly refuses to recognise your unblemished record, or a ruthlessly just inquisitor who forces you to confess to your badly blemished one, is in any case a trap that should be avoided.
I read something a couple of years ago that I wrote while in my 20’s – which at the time I read it embarrassed me by its shallowness and naivete, (‘what a dolt!’) but now in a way I think it was on the right track after all – (this is from memory, as I can’t be bothered right now to try to find the actual text that I wrote – anyway, it’s probably in the attic) I thought ‘this life’ was a kind of package tour – in which the point was to do as much sight-seeing as you possibly could, get out and soak up the sun, sample the local delicacies – and then move on, - with all your memories and stories and snapshots. The greatest sin was moaning and complaining, cherishing your sores and irritations, and your purpose should be to seek out beauty and joy and love and happiness, and it should be dynamic, you should try to do and see as much as possible, and let the past go, the good as well as the bad, and be always turned toward the future- I think I summarised it with something like, ‘the point of life is to give glory to God for the beauty of his creation.’
Well – it does seem a bit shallow I guess, in the light of the fact that we appear currently to be in hell, - and how can you go sight-seeing, while around you people are being tortured and murdered. In such a context, ‘sight-seeing’ is actually evil: it’s all hands on deck, you need to attend to this situation first– ‘nobody goes sight-seeing until everybody can go sight-seeing’
I've never really been able to imaginatively grasp how our world can contain such extremes, e.g. it didn't seem possible for Shrekh (the squalid wretch I knew from school) to exist in the same universe as the friends I met at university, let alone to be the same species. Likewise with extremes of good & evil, intellectually I understand, but I often suffer a kind of metaphysical shock, as if a nice children's story suddenly had a torture scene. The Thin Red Line film explores this duality well.