tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post5071522005416611277..comments2024-03-27T01:28:28.346-07:00Comments on False Machine: Beauty and Imaginationpjamesstuarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13288777018721199748noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-33383087803592634492020-11-04T11:20:39.128-08:002020-11-04T11:20:39.128-08:00BrilliantBrilliantHer Christmas Knighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09445850026904816000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-73165416981948814042014-08-15T00:43:57.574-07:002014-08-15T00:43:57.574-07:00This is a really interesting post. It's such a...This is a really interesting post. It's such a big topic that it is hard to talk about except at great length, but here are a few thoughts:<br /><br />- the sort of dissatisfaction you describe is probably where a lot of the impulse to fascism comes from in the first place. Fascism is an enormously complex and nebulous and over-examined topic, but one of its key elements has always been a bastard Romanticism. I think point 11 on Umberto Eco's list of the traits of Ur-Fascism relates to D&D and your post quite well: http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html<br /><br />- it is quite common for people to feel that market society does not meet their needs. Here is a recent article from George Monbiot, from a rather hippy/left-wing point of view, reviewing a book on the subject: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/05/neoliberalism-mental-health-rich-poverty-economy<br /><br />- anarchists talk about creating spaces where the rules/ideals of market society and neoliberalism do not apply. This is an act of resistance, according to their ideology. By allowing the collaborative creation of an entire world, D&D can be a site of resistance regardless of the ideology of the people playing it. Perhaps? <br /><br />- you say "If you don't think our society is unusually equal then you could point out to me a period in the history of the west, or the world, when it has been more equal." But you could argue that we are currently declining back into more inequality from a high point of equality (in Western countries) after the second world war. Inequality is increasing at the moment. Historically, yes, our societies are still unusually equal, in that they are not explicitly run by a military aristocracy. But it is worth noting that our society *was more equal* in the recent past. <br /><br />- democracy vs. beauty is precisely the formulation that an advocate of fascism would want you to accept. But ancient Sparta was a highly militarised and hierarchical society (albeit with elements of collectivism) - it produced no culture beyond some pithy sayings. Ancient Athens was the most democratic society the world would see until the twentieth century (albeit for adult men). It was also a cultural power-house that produced more philosophy and great art in 100 years than most cultures do in a millennium. It was also an aggressive imperialist exporter of "democracy" to other islands in the Aegean. So the binary of unequal beauty vs rational democracy doesn't really work. In my opinion, it's ultimately just a false opposition that (ironically) works to rationalise conservatism. Lucien Reevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10083652174036325588noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-1608020857443761412014-08-14T01:53:15.622-07:002014-08-14T01:53:15.622-07:00You can't really talk about a "background...You can't really talk about a "background level of talent in society". Talent according to who? And if you want to talk about potential, the fact is I have no idea what people are capable of. I have no idea what I'm capable of! So I don't make any final claims about what people can and can't do, whether or not they are or could be talented.<br /><br />Despite this I think everyone, given the chance, is uniquely talented and interesting. It's like Rebecca West - I never meet a mediocre person. It also goes back to the claim that everything is a miracle or nothing is a miracle. I'll tend to assume that everything is a miracle firstly because it's a more pleasurable way of existing and secondly because the world tends to assume the shape you treat it as having. If I treat someone as if they're interesting, they will tend to become more interesting. You are giving them a chance to build that capacity! You're giving them a way of being they can take hold of and expand.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-21409910165329791652014-08-12T06:45:08.870-07:002014-08-12T06:45:08.870-07:00Are they though? It's true that the background...Are they though? It's true that the background level of talen in society seems to be well above that assumed by De Torqueville and other more conservative commentaters.<br /><br />But its also pretty far below the 'everyone's a star' crowd. Everyone isn't a star. Most people are pretty average really.pjamesstuarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13288777018721199748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-53751096253712965862014-08-12T05:25:48.905-07:002014-08-12T05:25:48.905-07:00zombies are mass of common lessers viewed from the...zombies are mass of common lessers viewed from the perspective of the aristocracy - fear of mass power. death is radical otherness.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-4259181113960856242014-08-12T05:24:05.349-07:002014-08-12T05:24:05.349-07:00"Antonin Artaud's novelised biography of ..."Antonin Artaud's novelised biography of the 3rd-century Roman Emperor, "Heliogabalus" is simultaneously his most accessible and his most extreme book. Written in 1933, at the time when Artaud was preparing to stage his legendary "Theatre of Cruelty", "Heliogabalus" is a powerful concoction of sexual excess, self-deification and terminal violence. Reflecting its author's preoccupations of the time with the occult, magic, Satan, and a range of esoteric religions, the book shows Artaud at his most lucid as he assembles an entire world-view from raw material of insanity, sexual obsession and anger. Artaud arranges his account of Heliogabalus's reign around the breaking of corporeal borders and the expulsion of body fluids, often inventing incidents from the Emperor's life in order to make more explicit his own passionate denunciations of modern existence."<br /><br />Don't agree on equality - good equality isn't rendering everyone equivalent, it's giving everyone the chance to flourish on their own terms. every man and every woman is a star.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4522018539311056682.post-73894372720725612072014-08-12T04:07:31.745-07:002014-08-12T04:07:31.745-07:00This makes me think of zombies (mass of equals) an...This makes me think of zombies (mass of equals) and vampires (the aristocracy).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com