For those who recognise the vigilantism in how ICE behaves recklessly and beyond the law, I'd like to once again point to this as one of the more important things I've written. Despite being about a silly little horror movie.
blog.psychopopular.com/film/the-purge
Brainstorming novel solutions for the crisis of public confidence in government.
This means that you can only ever see fascism from its "inside" here, and never grasp its roots in a wider social historical frame. A given TV show doesn't necessarily have to cover that wider perspective, but its lack here is politically problematic. The overall effect is too kind to fascism.
Its grounded in a first-person sense of life-or-death political struggle. Its avant-garde elements have a semi-Futurist feeling of motion. There's something ecstatic in the way it presents violence. Despite seemingly intending to condemn Mussolini, this approach valorises him as a "great man."
Here's something of my impressions of the Mussolini mini-series/drama after 5 episodes: it's fun to watch and has a very clear grasp on the retributive psychology of fascism. But stylistically speaking, it kinda extends too much empathy to the emotions and aesthetics of fascism.
I wrote a short thing on One Battle After Another for those who are interested:
blog.psychopopular.com/film/one-bat...
Literally generic it is so over.
Fascinated by "Trump 2023" of all years, where is it pulling that from.
Hello Subahibi fans.
Those who trusted me not to release any new posts for awhile are in for a bit of a shock:
The Phenomenology of Nyarlathotep: An anti-philosophical “philosophical” investigation of Wonderful Everyday (Subahibi)
blog.psychopopular.com/japan-and-as...
I wrote a modestly lengthy thing on social fascism in response to the latest drama on the other site about it.
Please give it a read.
theorb.substack.com/p/on-social-...
Here's some quick thoughts on the right's continued failure to face-up to its fascist turn.
theorb.substack.com/p/im-a-polit...
I've mirrored some of the recent blog posts to Substack. I feel like Wordpress is becoming less reliable over time so I wanted people to have alternatives. Feel free to take this opportunity to check out my recent post on Subahibi if you haven't.
psychopopular.substack.com/p/subahibi
メアリ・シェリー『フランケンシュタイン』は、怪物の訴えが突き刺さる。男性学的にいえば、怪物はこの世界の根深いルッキズムの犠牲者であり、産まれてこなかったことを夢見る反出生主義者であり、異性からの「心の共感」を求めるインセルでもある。また科学技術のプロメテウス主義＝加速主義の犠牲者とも言える。
怪物には理性があり、感情や共感があり、善良な良心もあった。怪物が人間たちから怪物と呼ばれるのは、とにかく徹底的に「外見」の問題である。外見があまりに醜くおぞましいがゆえに、全人類から嫌われ、恐怖される。ただひとつの願いが「異性の怪物を作ってくれ」であるのが、あまりに悲しい。
I've added a PDF and EPUB to this essay so that people can read it in chunks. Please check it out.
This is starting in December so there's still time to join if anyone wants to. We have 8 members so far, so don't be shy.
With how abstract this got, I really want to make sure that the next thing I write will be straightforward literary criticism. That said, perhaps "straightforward" just isn't how I do things. Either way, I still want to write some more stuff about art as art next.
Hello Subahibi fans.
Those who trusted me not to release any new posts for awhile are in for a bit of a shock:
The Phenomenology of Nyarlathotep: An anti-philosophical “philosophical” investigation of Wonderful Everyday (Subahibi)
blog.psychopopular.com/japan-and-as...
This is the article which I do not recommend.
benthams.substack.com/p/how-contin...
I suppose that, even as padding for an article that has no substance, this is somehow less embarrassing than the parts where he tries to engage with authentic human-written examples. In those, he proves that he simply cannot parse fairly basic sentences.
I wish I had the confidence required to write an article that accuses others of not having "arguments," only to turn around and quite literally direct my own "arguments" at a computer-generated strawman.
You'll have to follow me back or open your DMs
I'm going to be organising a small reading group for The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt. It'll be starting over the holidays and run at a relaxed pace over the whole year for the sake of the slower readers. Leave a reply to express interest. I'll DM details later.
All of that said, don't get your hopes too high. Never place your faith in politicians, they will always let you down that's their job.
Congrats to Mamdani. He seems like an exceptionally talented politician. I hope he's able to accomplish some good, and also able to keep applying his same pragmatism and agility to actual governance. A DemSoc who knows how to play ball this well is rare. Even AoC and Bernie had clearer limits.
We should wrapping up right around the time Trump passes an Enabling Act after the midterms. Final session will be held in the internment camps.
I'm going to be organising a small reading group for The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt. It'll be starting over the holidays and run at a relaxed pace over the whole year for the sake of the slower readers. Leave a reply to express interest. I'll DM details later.
Fascism is an historical force that mobilises the latent material of middle-class resentment that one can see in memes like this. There are other, less horrific, possibilities for that latent material. But in a moment of deepening crisis, it's easy to see what kind funnels will appear to channel it.
If people who do not contribute to the "national body" are labelled as "parasitic" and "superfluous," there is actually a horrific if natural end to that designation—even if the proponents of this narrative want to think of themselves as separate from those "nasty" kinds of politics.
