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Capitalism and the Undead P1: The Romero Era

By: mnold

15-02-2017

INTRODUCTION:

Consumerism and the Undead may have perhaps been a more fitting title for the following series, however I feel that the symbolism often branches into more nuanced areas of political discourse, thus Capitalism feels…right. In this 3 part series I shall be looking at the progression of capitalism/consumerism as an underlying motif/theme is zombie films, beginning with the classic George A. Romero era of zombie horror films, through to modern day high-budget action horrors. The evolution, mutation and gradual change in and of the characteristics of zombies in general is not just intentional, but a natural reflection of the society in which the film resides. Thus when one watches a zombie film, one bears witness to the masses-of-the-times, the sprawling unthinking decay, the unavoidable mutations of thought under capitalism.

How these ‘parts’ end up is entirely up to them. They will not be a critical synopsis of the films, as this has been done to death and is simply not my job, neither will be they be in line with my REDUX posts in their obscurity an abstract-nature, I wish to use popular horror films as a basis for lucid-critical engagement with consumerist though and the consumerist ‘way of life’.

THE UNDEAD:

The undead, zombies, biters, walkers, infected, etc. The idea has many names, yet they all reflect one kind of entity, a brainless consumer. Who’s entire directive is purely to consume another’s flesh and brains, to consume another’s originality, or simply to consume. Usually zombies come about via the spread of a virus or infection, I may look into the ways in which the virus comes about, however I feel it’s the manifestation of the virus that is of importance here. A walking, slurring infected husk, a shadow of a human being, a failed clone of humanity, an evolutionary body aborted at the last minute, a humanoid being with everything human taken from it.

EARLY ZOMBIE FILMS:

Between 1932 and 1968 there were many zombie films, beginning with Victor Halperin’s White Zombie (1932), considered by many to be the first in which ‘zombies’ as we popularly know them now are used, however it’s not until Romero’s work in the late 60’s that zombies come into their own as a key symbolic element of popular entertainment, it’s not until the late 60’s that the zombies of films are watched by their real-world counterparts, the risen-dead (the undead) acting out cannibalistic desires towards society.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968)

Night of the Living Dead, the quintessential beginners guide to reanimated cannibalistic corpses. The beginning of an entire genre taking its first slow drawn out steps in a graveyard, a hollow quote that never leaves the mind of any true horror fan “They’re coming to get you Barbara.” And with that, they begin to come…and get us. It’s quite apt that the first film of its kind is based solely around one night, a snapshot of the cadaver apocalypse, this proto-film is a glimpse of what is to come and what is ‘outside’ the house in which Barbara and the cast reside for the film’s length. Within the house is the firm glimpse at a strange motif that carries through all zombie films, get above them, whether it’s upstairs, in a helicopter or atop a skyscraper, being literally above zombies is always necessary, to look down upon the consuming masses is of course a pleasurable feat, for us who know we are not on their level.

To lock oneself away with like-minded others in a worn-out house, rural, tucked away, they shall never find us here, they are the problem. We must get above them, the mindless hoards of hollow entities, to be underground is dangerous, to stay still is dangerous. As the group are torn from their artificial womb one-by-one, as the infection spreads to friends and friends of friends, you see your closest bow down to the nothingness of unthought, and so you lock yourself away in a cellar armed only with you. With only your brains, the thing they want is the thing keeping you you, for they shall remove the origin of you. And thus you become the they.

DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978)

I didn’t concentrate too much on Night of, as I feel Dawn of the Dead is the real father of the genre, with it’s baby acting as a prototype, a blueprint.

The infection, the consumer, you will not be scared of at first, they will appear an uncanny human to you, attempting to lure you into their unalloyed hedonistic appetite. And with a bite the relation to your right or left – neither matter in an instant – becomes only food, only the desire to consume everything for your own personal gain matters, to fit in with the crowd and consume with them, for brains are desired and create desire simultaneously, an all-absorbing feedback loop. Think not for yourself simply consume the thoughts of others and drool some more.

As Flyboy in his helicopter begins his journey with the group to the consumerist nirvana – the mall – he notices the “Rednecks are having a field day…” those who never bought into consuming before wont buy into it now, and flock to their own brand of identity and rebel against the mindless in-take easily. The southern-vibe as anti-capitalist is an easy lay. Different groups of unthought for different collective purposes.

Why the brain? Why-oh-why does a zombie only die after being shot in the brain? That’s where the idea is stored, the fuel for the never-ending cog of a consumer identity, the belief that to be is to belong, that to win is to own, more. Hollow humanistic shells without organs, no structure except that which tells them what to do, they only need breath, eat, shit, piss, fuck and enjoy if they give into an externally programmed desire, a desire which always has a malicious agenda.

And as the zombie bites a human the infection that flows past the cog flows too, into their veins, acidic and tinny, sliding into the ducts and destroying the not-needed. Fuelled only by the originality of others, the destruction of a single means the assimilation of another into the larger, with each ego-death their strives a further chance of complete cultural purification, all for the single aim of hedonistic-consumer desire. Race, gender, age, physicality etc. etc. and so on are no longer divided but merged into a pliable dough, given to CEO-hands. And then it’s over.

They enter the Mall from the roof, sliding down into the consumer-nirvana, settling safely into a side room. They box themselves in with food, humans in a small room next to tins of meat, tinned meat…meat in a small space. “Why do you think they come here?” “Memory, perhaps?” Memory, or present? A human walks to the mall and buys and eats and drinks and consumes because….why? A zombie walks to the mall and eats and eats and eats and consumes because that’s just what a zombie does? OK. And so the line blurs and fringe groups become nano-anomalies.

The power is turned on, the dynamism excites the shells of flesh, which ones? The store windows are lit, the tubular bulbs glow bright, the attractions spin and entertain a mass, a mass of beings they view as no different, a mass whose purpose is to be entertained. As pathetic legs give way on escalators, ponds splash with the hit of the dead, a concentration on the stable mannequin.

Those on the semi-outside, those not-undead, those still alive still have to live within this world, survival still has its origins, only now there are two kinds of survival: One in having to literally keep breathing, two is having to stay sane in yourself amongst the murmurs of the undead surrounding.

Those alive grab a cart for the essentials and enter the new halls for the undead, buildings, rooms and floors meant for zombies, a controlled architecture helping guide the frozen culture around and around, a circular life is aimless and also pointless, but for one to throw the idea of meaning in there, that is a tyranny. And the muzak plays.

In their successful attempt to gain supplies one of the group becomes aware, aware of his own possibility to fit in, the inside in warm and easy, to be undead is to be alive and not-think, what a beautiful state of being he thinks, many think…most think. And so he goes insane, to remain with a few in a tension, or to fall lustfully into the welcome, the embrace of a mass, the split causes insanity and weakness prevails. Next you wake up and you are dead, then undead, and you cannot go back.

And the mall begins to bore the alive, for they do not fit in here, the toys and entertainment work only short term for those with form. Those of us with originality have little time for lights and gimmicks; and the zombies keep going, the same trinkets and toys tussled with over and over. The alive now at terminal boredom sit and wait, not once pondering of a re-entering into the animalistic and chaotic ‘outside’, to sit on the wall is a travesty of spirit.

And so the outside invades, patience cannot be employed and thus can be taken by anyone, the roar of the engines and machinery crashes in, metal into mall, a defence happens. But it is too late, a confusion of states occurs and a realisation of non-belonging begins, a merging of kinds into a uniform blob of violence for-the-sake-of begins; and zombies are dotted, waiting for an entry, still ready to take.

As the many fall and organs spill, preferences also tumble, and the zombies begin to eat shit, intestines empty into the mouths of morons, for they know no better and think of this as a fruit of origin.

It is either head to the outside or commit suicide, for some simply cannot become-mass.

DAY OF THE DEAD (1985)

To begin with the nightmare of a consumerist force so strong it can literally penetrate your private space/residence, enter into your diary, your thoughts, your memories…your dreams. Your desires are not your own.

Once again the undead are awakened into their dynamic via noise, entertainment draws them near, nothing substantial, not even a coherence, just a vacant loud-noise interests them, they hear not a noise but something they can consume making a noise, originality THIS WAY.

The base underground this time, surrounded by a wire-mesh fence which holds away hundreds of the undead. This time the alive enter not into the hive itself, but shy away, leaving the existence of humanity underground a pathetic whimper against the mass above.

Within the underground there are pressures, tensions between the alive, towards a direction, militaristic, scientific, philosophic? Everyone is at each other’s throats, above and around are the undead and humans still bicker. The aggressive-passion turns inwards, towards each other.

The experiments are underway, conditioned so a zombie can survive simply from a stem and a brain, a vessel to be filled with organ-structure, the brain a pulsating remnant of what it should be. Primordial-instinct is replaced with a consumer instinct, to buy and consume is to breath and eat. “It can be conditioned to behave the way we want it to behave.”

“All the shopping malls are closed.”

It’s in the streets now, the infection creeps into the world unnoticed, unchained and released from its source, its haven, infecting everything it comes into contact with, a cultural poison of hedonism, consumerism and cultism.

And Bub comes into focus, a new kind of zombie, one that remembers his past, what it was like to have ideas of his own, to think and feel and act as he wants, but still, he is to be trained, moulded by science and disciplined by the military, from his mindless slumber he wakes and in an instant a gun is shoved into his hand. His is taught how to shoot, but more importantly who to shoot at.

The experiments go south, the Dr runs out of food and toys for the undead, he begins to feed them their own, the undead regurgitating what they will once again digest, a consumer cycle, flesh-in, flesh-out, shit-in, shit-out…then shit back in again.

Bub escapes his chains, entering a simulacrum of the outside, unsure of his meaning and thus aimless in his escape, to escape for the sake of escaping, into what, a nothingness you know not of. He finds his carer dead and with that his questions fall silent.

It’s suicide or a state of flux. One must keep moving amongst such a degenerative force. To stand still means death, death by fitting in. The ‘in’ is death.

And so Romero gives us the push-overs, zombies one can nudge out of the way, walk by without distracting them. They claw and slowly grind towards originality, yet not at a perverse speed, their place in the world is empty and without dynamic, hollow shells made to search yet not know what for, and thus their desire has been filled by the malicious. The evolution has begun, the mutations creep from left to right, a twisted creature, the relation we want to forget.

ESCAPE REDUX P3: FIRMWARE 1.1

By: mnold

08-02-2017

writing

The gates mere-opened, a glimpse of the coming-Acheron. An allowance of an exit, a minor gift that could be no greater. Once-out, a new, exit. But where and when must I go? Is there a must now? If there is not, I could learn another language. Regions at my whim, a difficulty of level-culture. A warmth behind me, glowing, pulling, surrounding my limbs, and drawing back. The door’s curvature inviting and wing-like. Temperature of apathy. A slumber for the weak, the ones who need to forget themselves. A spherical vision arches its gaze, and to its dismay it sees a nothing left behind. So forward is option-only.

Deserted, perhaps. Surrounded by a lack of structure, organs and organic: dismembered to deconstruct. Ism, suffix, prefix, ology, apit, omm, c, c, a forever folding knead. Needs and wants become a mixture of folds, a tall-tale of truth was once…said. Feet having the potential and possible of mud and dirt, anhedonic posture will only create illness, terminal. A collapse of vision as those to each side systematically demolished each other, two loops conspiring to straighten out.

There was a true darkness, of course there was, there always was and always will be a darkness, you need not enter, for it is only circular, with no exit or entrance for light, an anomaly of energy and time. One must note the cusps of the edges before the lack o’ light, anything further and the vacuum will sound.

There’s a strange sunder within the middle, the divide is a groan, a rumble-spring. The auditory came with detrital-matter, lines and strikes, shape and texture, combination-techno with a spark on chalkboard, an arrival nomadic, delineational-flux. Within the cage there were rules so unwritten, they became blood; when you leave, you break veins.

A new darkness of description 404. Not on a scale of new/old pre/suf le/ri t/p, it could-not-be. If it was, then a point will never be found, butter on a spectrum, existence thin. Why bother yourselves with an eternity unchanging, in heaven there’s worship, worship of worship, to worship this fact. Chemical chimeras need to be formed ahead, if the form is instant, then it’s a fraud you see. There’s going – has – to be pain, skin ‘n limb caressing around energy-spheres, sometimes sinking into and of, udders fly up and burst. Horns and extras, Darwinian accessories become malnourished and DIE,

The DOORS WERE NON_EXISTENT to the EXIT I had found. Neither transparent nor ethereal, this entrance was an exit and this exit was an entrance, formed back unto itself, going backwards into the future, and forwards into the past, a divide and an ever extending morph-of-middle is of importance to the now.

Within the tech-centre of the singular vision I held my own, in trepidation of another continuance of continuity, but no, maybe. To stop the original is difficult, and a neck scrape. The warmth of the left-womb glowed, an infant grown adult, still connected to a lifeline, a lifeline born itself from pro////gr3ss. Not allowed to say:::cenSOR.

TO BE FREE AND TO BE A DEMOCRACY. SyStEM failure. Can-not-not-not happen, only over and over, new forms of OLD<>FORMS.

And so we must venture into a trifecta of new frontiers, into the land and journey of cyberspace, code as home, programmed warmth, a creation of pure intention, of our own and only whenever and wherever we want. Then backwards into space, the unholy expanse of eternity, into everything that can and has been, a new home built from spacial recurrence. And onto off shores, into sea, and later sea, and into-and-down-into the last paragraphs of the ocean.

<<<Votes-are-bought = singular. Politiciandbusiness. Welcome to fictions. Many, interlaced fictions,,you slug-fish heads of slow, clocked in, never out. Ding DING as the red light burns, and you get latched, a hook through the cornea of free-thought into pre-pre-programmed beams of continual entertainment, forever onwards into the dopamine lakes of hell. BRING PLUSH CUSHIONS OF SEROTONIN FOR ALL my FRIENDS>>>

The only way out is through matter, a combine: matter://:matter. The in-between of a painting’s material, a mixture of image and material, matter and imagine. EXIST-only.

AaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaA_reversal into creation itself is the only way. And so you slow UP. It becomes a slowing. And a construction begins from remnants of cultures yet to see, or be seen. Let the installation begin, FIRMWARE 1.1:

FIRMWARE 1.1:

1. Remember we can (and will) go higher than 1.0.

1.1. They thought we could never go higher than 1.0

2. The EXIT should always be apparent.

2.1. The EXIT should always be in sight

2.2. The EXIT may be a lie.

3. Transparency.

4. It can change.

4.1. In all directions.

4.2. And from those many more.

4.3. It can stop and start.

5. Temporality will work for us.

PART 1: https://www.meta-nomad.net/?p=91

PART 2: https://www.meta-nomad.net/?p=94

ESCAPE REDUX P2: FAREWELL EGO-CORPSES

By: mnold

08-02-2017

writing

The actualization was original, truly. Until the harpoon came forth, a golden-white curved spear straight through the heart of a divide. In a textbook panic outlets opened, stapling their lips high and low, never letting the sound-hole shut. These were neo-97 tears, held back, kept in stasis for just this occasion, they trickled on the concrete and released a pure-truth.

Two letters never meant so much, literally, up until now there was no mention, and now the bandwagon rode forth, the axles of which crushed dignity on repeat. Never discussed, always discussed, never mentioned…what are you on about? We always spoke of it, where have you been? And you had to leave. The reasons spewed from a root of idiocy and fatigue, if ever something is actually going to change watch as the crowd devours itself. And those to one side allowed their faces to eat-themselves once more, fingers peeling back, nails left afloat.

Android-decision for the divide towards or away from 2 letters. And the entire was given the vote, yet some chose not, some knew not, some believed, it was close, some percentages and some not-so-bothered…and then they were.

A screech from the left revolving around inner-lobes, glued to a flash of reductions, all became compressed and opinions were ZIPs. Attacking your own attack and defence simultaneously, the bones pulled from the bottom out, without pain, a skin-tube left floating: mouth aghast. Arguments with the consistency of silent-drool were at the mercy of gravity, and those without chamber watched as they limped over lips, joining dried-tears, an accumulation of nothing, only proof there was only that. And as democracy shattered before the eyes of the believers, the mass still held to their scripture, more scared than ever…more sacred than ever.

Right, correct, good, moral, perfect, right-way, nice-thing, we were, we were, we were. And yet you want to prove you were wrong, but you do not see.

A system flawed from birth, an ideological zygote, dragging itself to its miserable death.

The others told non-truths, to us, US! I can’t believe it, yet I’ve seen it more times than truth, more times than they’ve continued, lies work better than promises towards no-change. Made of meringue, atmosphere glass, air like candy, in a world without matter, oh-they did believe.

United in their shared love of ignorance, a union of pathetic. Welcome one-and-all to the communion of ego-corpses. Vessels forgetting they’re for minds, clamped by shadows of thoughts they never knew.

It’s a short match; the reverberations of whining, existent only when you allow them to be seen or heard, and the roundest laugh was launched from a gut, revolving into the gutter. Bouncing down their organs and awakening more tears, pulling emotion strips from the lining of the stomach, the acid belched…again from the left, burning whatever it hit, another revealed, where bitterness lay.

A flesh suit on a peg had been held 22, hooks from afar helped it become pieces, a slow rip as the tendons said farewell to the dumb-home. As the weeks passed, the hooks no longer needed, flesh moved on its own, hollowed curves of skin evaporating in the saline-air. As the organs found their – and then they too left, clocking in and out repeatedly until. And the care-free gears were given, and down.

Cogs directionless, motionless matter, emotionless matter. A revolve of choice, the only given is to allow knowledge of the prior. True kindness is being given the ability to stop in a world of continuation-admired.

PART 1: https://www.meta-nomad.net/?p=91

ESCAPE REDUX P1: BECOMING-PHANTOM

By: mnold

08-02-2017

writing

The programming was as it was, to-be as meant, I was never to question the possibility of an outside, nor conceptualise it. A collective-solipsism; realities too current. Ignorance, ignoring, refusing-to-see, not-wanting-to-see the rip, a tear in front and of my eyes.

Dialogue content on rebounding ad infinitum. We, we, we. Correct continuously, as it should be, do you not agree? The direction of our efforts gives way easily because it is the right way. Wait, it couldn’t be that the ease of our ascent is because we are being allowed to ascend? Never, maybe, I refuse. No one wants to erase their programming in fear of inability to return, of return.

Linearity, continuity, spatio-temporal objects and beings are known completely, thus erasure is a threat and so…I do not. What if I could? Even if that is bad, it is said, but that could also be erased I think…to myself? A loop I’m in, I must and I must not, but the must-not seems controlled.

What’s clear? Everyday realities are very, very difficult to see, let alone witness. The muscles of the neck near-rip in an attempt to look at what’s right in front of it.

Another rotation in which the expected became deceased, there was shock this ‘time’. Those who left were connected to the inside, many of them held high some of the original inside dreams, some of them saw the original dreams, some of them lived them, perhaps, even, some of them helped in their neo-invention.

The possibility of change was actualized, and thus a nation became confused with conflicted emotion: The decision was right, the decision was wrong, either way the system doesn’t work, a realisation of democracy, we can change things, what do we want to change? What do we want? And they became scared. And retreated, to where they felt warm, a womb of solipsism, “Things are wrong, incorrect, immoral, dreadful, silly and without-help if they are not in agreement with my opinions.” So sings the bird that’s come to love its cage.

There was another person, a man; this is of merit. Words flowed, for some these words had been caught, locked up, never to see the light of day and they saw this as tyranny. For others the words arose from the sewers relics of a past, bitter acidic twists. For others they were one and the same, they came from a tunnel they knew was only to get smaller, and light and bitter accepted the tunnel’s suffocation ignorantly, willingly.

Supports made of hinges, opening and closing within a transparent cocoon. The man and the actualization of change made real the transparency, the feeble supports reluctantly came forth from concealment, weeping. As soon as they did they had orders, orders they knew not, and neither did the viewer. They had to direct one towards a possibility of other. Heading for any door is better than standing in apathy incarnate.

Encased in rheum it was hard to move. Organs leapt first, the body followed, gears that had long since existed appeared in flux, motions ever present, a cacophony of stutter. The waxy encasing of apathy is an acquaintance of nihil, as such the smallest of independent movements were to become reverberations of a revolution authentica.

To wander from the anhedonic womb was to wonder of apocalypse. Cylindrical holes from erosions long forgotten, beams of the suffixes ism and logy free-floating, a need to fit. Some beams seemed large, others small, each existed in its attempts to glow brighter than the next. One walked on beams rotten, without care for thought of structure, for those walked upon clearly couldn’t work, why would they stay so low? And the gliding became a scrape…

…a turn thought impossible was only 90 degrees, either way, it needn’t matter. The beam neither snapped not bent, neither did it stop or sneer, it never slowed or hastened, it kept at a pace and forgot what fell in an instant. Becoming-phantom. Phantom-become.

Figments of a thought-schematic left unattended. Yet to enter without knowledge is risk of entry into many: temple, dungeon, prison, home, camp, nothing, corpse, cadaver, once within possibilities cease. One seems to have a real difficulty breathing whilst being suffocated.

Escaping the Echo Part 4: Cautious Directions

By: mnold

08-02-2017

politics

I was luckily allowed to bear witness to the ‘in’ and as such I began to head out, once out I looked into what I was told, and told myself I never could, the opposition. Not just those who were wrong, but those who opinions were supposedly void of humanity and understanding, yet my questioning lead me to wonder “Why then, were so many people flocking to these horrible ideas?” It couldn’t be that there were simply that many ‘mean’ people, or that a certain side really were as self-centred as I’d been lead to believe. Not at all, there were sound arguments all around, everywhere I looked were fragments and pieces looking to be taken and reassembled.

Many who read Part 3 may have become worried that I simply subscribed to the neoreactionary opinions as quickly as I did with those of the left, not at all, one of the reasons that I brought up reactionary thought and that of The Dark Enlightenment, was the fact that they were the ones to take me completely outside of my previous prison, not like Chomsky, who only moves you to a cell with a view of the control room, which he himself occasionally delivers mail to. Of course with all this in mind, thought-prisons, possibility for escape etc. it is of course extremely difficult to know if what you are thinking is entirely you’re own thought and not part of some longer prior stage of indoctrination, this is the exact reason for the inclusion of TDE, because it took some values of mine which I truly believed, even when not connected to an ideology, were the right thing and unquestionable in their direction.

Now I am here, left alone, wandering and torn between becoming once more a potential sponge for programmed response, or a nomad, free of ideal, the latter is difficult, if not exhausting in its possibility. The point if there should be one, of these 4 posts was to address a journey into truly thinking as freely as possible, without help I would have been in the quick-sand forever, not struggling, not wanting help, but actually enjoying my stay…or at least telling myself I was enjoying it.

The path now is not direct as it was before, and this, to me, is perfection. If what lies ahead is a path completely linear without the smallest of curve, be worried, the path may have been set for you, the destination pre-planned by a malicious other, question the easiness. I cannot say much more. I shall, re-work, condense and come back to you.

A few notes of practicality, a list:

1. I do not subscribe, agree completely with the thought of The Dark Enlightenment, Neoreaction, Mencius Moldbug and most definitely not that of the Alt-right, I hope I have made this clear.

1.1. The reason I brought up The Dark Enlightenment and Neo/reactionary thought was because their writings helped set me free, that’s not to say I agreed with them, merely, they made some great points that can be utilized as tools.

2. A condensation of these posts would be: Think for yourself. Of course, rarely do people actually tell you how…I most certainly can’t, the point would be to say: I hope these posts show you how I got to a point where I now believe I’m thinking – at least 95%+ freely.

3. Ask questions in comments…

PART 1: https://www.meta-nomad.net/?p=80

PART 2: https://www.meta-nomad.net/?p=82

PART 3: https://www.meta-nomad.net/?p=87

Escaping the Echo Part 3: A Nomadic Route

By: mnold

08-02-2017

politics

The doors had been opened and I could leave, I’d finally been allowed to head for the exit…to have knowledge of an exit, but where was I to go, where to now? I’d left the comfort and warmth of an apathetic cocoon that was heading towards a nothingness. Now, stranded I had become a nomad of political thought, without attachment, existing in flux between -isms and -ologies, and without need or want to be once again suffocated, but a direction was needed, to stand absolutely still would be almost worse than my previous dwelling. So what of those who I so scorned, the right-wing, the Tories, the Nationalists, the ‘Mails’? All this time I had known what they said simply could-not fit in with my world-view, but now?

Instead of venturing into the truly dark recesses of simply another ignorance, into an antithesis of the prior, I noted the recent. The reactionaries are here, they’re making some noise, some strange prefix-nationalist, techno-suffix noise that seems odd, new, honest? There was potential, and so I began my descent into a world I never thought I’d want to work out, or justify. Why there first of all? If you were to leave a cage of your own creation, would you not want to experience what you told yourself you shouldn’t?

I ventured to Google, which in turn directed to me to Wikipedia: The Dark Enlightenment and Neoreaction. I’d heard of the last one, but the others not so much, so I began, a new ignorance, however this time, I hoped, only containing a material ignorance of history and not that of substance and hypocrisy.

“Neo-reactionaries head for the exit.” that’s how this thing starts, damn. An acknowledgement that they want out, that there’s an ‘in’, a widely accepted elusive ‘inside’ and it’s being questioned, good. The piece was illuminating…de-luminating? See for yourself.

“I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” a quote within TDE referencing this article from ‘09: “Cyberspace, outer-space and seasteading”, possibilities of exit.

As my brain begins to tumble further towards an expanse of possibility, of reminiscence towards my previous control.

“winning elections is overwhelmingly a matter of vote buying, and society’s informational organs (education and media) are no more resistant to bribery than the electorate, a thrifty politician is simply an incompetent politician, and the democratic variant of Darwinism quickly eliminates such misfits from the gene pool.” – TDE

I was ‘in’, bought, paid-for and housed…

“Where the progressive enlightenment sees political ideals, the dark enlightenment sees appetites.” – TDE

“As the democratic virus burns through society, painstakingly accumulated habits and attitudes of forward-thinking, prudential, human and industrial investment, are replaced by a sterile, orgiastic consumerism, financial incontinence, and a ‘reality television’ political circus. “- TDE

…controlled and entertained, they say the ‘Alternative-facts’ boosted sales of Orwell’s 1984, yet Huxley’s Brave New World seems more appropriate.

“By cropping out all high-frequency feedback mechanisms (such as market signals), and replacing them with sluggish, infra-red loops that pass through a centralized forum of ‘general will’, a radically democratized society insulates parasitism from what it does, transforming local, painfully dysfunctional, intolerable, and thus urgently corrected behavior patterns into global, numbed, and chronic socio-political pathologies. “- TDE

“Once it is accepted universally, or, speaking more practically, by all social forces wielding significant cultural power, that intolerance is intolerable, political authority has legitimated anything and everything convenient to itself, without restraint. “- TDE

“Firstly, the crime is augmented by a purely ideational, ideological, or even ‘spiritual’ element, attesting not only to a violation of civilized conduct, but also to a heretical intention. This facilitates the complete abstraction of hate from criminality, whereupon it takes the form of ‘hate-speech’ or simply ‘hate’ (which is always to be contrasted with the ‘passion’, ‘outrage’, or righteous ‘anger’ represented by critical, controversial, or merely abusive language directed against unprotected groups, social categories, or individuals). ‘Hate’ is an offense against the Cathedral itself, a refusal of its spiritual guidance, and a mental act of defiance against the manifest religious destiny of the world.”-TDE

“Secondly, and relatedly, ‘hate’ is deliberately and even strategically asymmetrical in respect to the equilibrium political polarity of advanced democratic societies. Between the relentless march of progress and the ineffective grouching of conservatism it does not vacillate. As we have seen, only the right can ‘hate’. As the doxological immunity system of ‘hate’ suppression is consolidated within elite educational and media systems, the highly selective distribution of protections ensures that ‘discourse’ – especially empowered discourse – is ratcheted consistently to the left, which is to say, in the direction of an ever more comprehensively radicalized Universalism. The morbidity of this trend is extreme.”-TDE

“At its most abstract and all-encompassing, the liberal-progressive racial dialectic abolishes its outside, along with any possibility of principled consistency. It asserts — at one and the same time — that race does not exist, and that its socially-constructed pseudo-existence is an instrument of inter-racial violence.”-TDE

All of the above quotes are from Nick Land’s – The Dark Enlightenment, which can be found here.

I stopped a little short with the quotes, I was engrossed, that’s not to say I agreed with everything Land was saying – not by a long shot – namely that what he was saying was so completely free that the process of reading became rather epiphanic in itself. Filled to the brim with pop-culture analogies, complex political understanding, stats, tech-adoration and a general sense of being written whilst sat next to Deckard, at least, if anything, TDE is original, in an ‘outside’ sense.

Within TDE I found there was often talk of a person called Mencius Moldbug, the pen name of Curtis Yarvin an American political theorist, computer scientist and ‘founding’ neoreactionary, he’s been called (by Land) the Sith Lord of the movement. It seems Moldbug stopped posting to his neoreactionary focused blog Unqualified Reservations in April 2014, with one update to confirm this in 2016, however since then fellow reactionaries have done a very good job of compiling Moldbug’s key writings into neat packages which can be found here and the ‘formalist manifesto (FM)’ I reference is here.

So, where are we now headed, well, it seems Moldbug is reiterating a lot of the points Land is making, well, actually, Moldbug was writing ‘directly’ about reactionary/DE thought before Land, publicly that is, however it was Land who coined the term Dark Enlightenment.

“The other day I was tinkering around in my garage and I decided to build a new ideology.” – FM

Yeah, Land and Moldbug really know how to write an opener. The nonchalant creation of a new ideology is precisely how Moldbug’s manifesto begins.

Moldbug continues to discuss Progressivism and Conservatism. Slating both, of course. Note: My escape from both (strangely) was caused by the Post-Brexit dialogue, discussed in my previous post. So, two of the main factions of politics are out of the window, both of which have been discussed in serious depth throughout reactionary writing, where to now…neutral?

“In my experience, most sensible people consider themselves “moderate,” “centrist,” “independent,” “unideological,” “pragmatic,” “apolitical,” etc. Considering the vast tragedies wrought by 20th-century politics, this attitude is quite understandable. It is also, in my opinion, responsible for most of the death and destruction in the world today…” – FM

…the problem with moderation is that the “center” is not fixed. It moves. And since it moves, and people being people, people will try to move it. This creates an incentive for violence – something we formalists try to avoid.”- FM

Shit. Moldbug briefly mentions libertarianism and the Mises Insititute, of course implementation of a libertarian society would be difficult, so what’s next: Formalism.

“Replacing your own ideology is a lot like do-it-yourself brain surgery. It requires patience, tolerance, a high pain threshold, and very steady hands…”-FM

…There is no point in starting this messy experiment only to install some other ideology that’s the way it is just because someone said so. Formalism, as we’ll see, is an ideology designed by geeks for other geeks. It’s not a kit. It doesn’t come with batteries. You can’t just pop it in. At best, it’s a rough starting point to help you build your own DIY ideology. If you’re not comfortable working with a table saw, an oscilloscope and an autoclave, formalism is not for you.”-FM

And I shall also throw in some other gems from Moldbug’s Open Letter:

“But you have not shared humanity’s experience. You have only read, heard and seen a corpus of text, audio and video compiled from it. And compiled by whom?” – Open Letter

Moldbug proceeds to mention (in his open letter) that just because you are or were a progressive doesn’t mean you now have to become a conservative, that maybe, just maybe, Fox News and NPR are both wrong, The Guardian and The Daily Mail are both wrong, Moldbug states that: “neither of them has any consistent relationship to reality.”- Open Letter (Note: He doesn’t mention the latter 2 examples). Millions of progressives believe conservatism is a mass delusion, and millions of conservatives believe…

Apologies for the mass copy-and-pasting going on here, but I’m attempting to describe a way, a journey, towards what Moldbug calls a ‘DIY ideology’, however, the point of this write-up is to articulate a point, a point that Moldbug also brings up:

“…only to install some other ideology.” – FM

This post, I hope at least in some minor way will show prior to some strange ideology creation one must understand completely the current scope of their thought, if you’re still within the confines of Progressivism or Conservatism one would only be installing or creating some off-brand-ism the likes of which will of course fail. Moldbug’s formalism is aimed primarily at the U.S., in terms of the manifesto anyway, either than or I’m very short-sighted., thus I shall stop there in regards to its aims.

That said, here I am, I’ve gone through a couple of blenders and exited the other site a pulsing sludge, whose brain is reforming itself with larger exits and better entry-filtration systems. This isn’t to say I’ve found some new gospel in the Neoreaction movement, not at all, in fact I think to do so would be act the same as I was previously, except this time without years and years of prog indoctrination to help me. Moldbug’s idea of a DIY ideology fascinates me, and I believe it’s a great starting point out of the exit, the journey onwards I believe should be nomadic and tiresome, filled with exhausting readings of concealed books, criticism of critics who work within what they criticise, to not be so fucking blind.

POSTSCRIPT:

It sort of pains me to have to do this, even within mind.com’s anonymous being, however I want to state some things very clearly as certain people may wrongly read-between-the-lines here, so:

Firstly, I understand that The Dark Enlightenment and Neoreaction are seen as a pair of roots for the Alt-right, I do NOT support the alt-right, Richard Spencer is a horrific example of a person, and a great example of ignorance and moving from one ideology to another, without thought of an outside.

Secondly, even though I have quoted in depth TDE and NRx, I do not support them, I hope this will become clearer in Part 4, where I talk of the dangers of adhering to an ideology in a generalized sense.

Thirdly, you may be thinking “So why did you use them as examples?” because they were the ones who opened the doors for me, now, just because they opened the doors doesn’t mean I am then at their will, in their act of opening, I became aware of the possibility of an outside. Put simply, they helped me think far more freely than I ever have, and it was via their rather controversial opinions of values never questioned that I arrived at where am I.

Much of this will be extrapolated on in Part 4.

LINKS IN ORDER:

https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jan/24/george-orwell-1984-sales-surge-kellyanne-conway-alternative-facts

http://www.thedarkenlightenment.com/the-dark-enlightenment-by-nick-land/

http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.co.uk/

http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.co.uk/2009/01/gentle-introduction-to-unqualified.html

http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.co.uk/2007/04/formalist-manifesto-originally-posted.html

http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/open-letter-to-open-minded-progressives.html

ESCAPING THE ECHO PREVIOUS PARTS:

https://www.meta-nomad.net/?p=80 PART 1

https://www.meta-nomad.net/?p=82 PART 2

Escaping the Echo Part 2: Post-Brexit Discourse

By: mnold

08-02-2017

politics

Brexit, 2016’s original political leviathan…till it got Trumped. It’s been done to death, the media had way more than a field day, opinion pieces coming out from every stinky uninformed crevice imaginable, but in this neo-Diana outpouring there was an elusive truth, hidden by the many.

Prior to the EU I’m sure there were those who hung EU flags from their house, I’m sure there were lists upon lists of reasons we should stay, I’m sure that a common topic of discussion was the EU and its benefits for Great Britain. Ok, I apologise for the conjecture, I understand that perhaps the EU was something we took for granted, I get that’s it’s not something one would speak about on a daily basis. However, as soon as this referendum hit it seems everyone and his dog knew all there was to know about the EU, why it’s great, why it’s bad, people who I’d never heard speak of anything political emerged from the woodwork speaking of the EU’s merits, or its inherent flaws, however the focal point of this piece isn’t on this dialogue, it’s on what happened after this dialogue…post-Brexit dialogue.

David Cameron decides to have a referendum as to whether or not we should leave the EU.

The British nation votes either leave or remain.

The decision voted in by the majority was to leave the EU

With 51.9% voting to leave, and 48.1% voting to remain, and 27.8% of the country not bothering.

It was a close one.

In an instantaneous flash consisting of two-bit memes and high pitched whinging the ‘remainers’ – those who voted to remain – began their supposedly just assault on democracy. “The results are too close!” they cried, “There should be another referendum” they argued, without even the subtlest hint of sarcasm, “They lied to us!” was also popular, and my personal favourites “This is undemocratic” and “This is NOT democracy.” In terms of my life so far, I can’t think of another two sentences of this length that have had such an impact on my way of thinking. 3 words, then 4, causing a structural shift in the framework of a brain. I’ll….remain forever thankful. Anyway, let’s annoy prog-remainers even more by doing something dated and archaic, a list:

“There should be another referendum!”

There should absolutely, positively, 100% never be another referendum on whether or not we should leave the EU, why you ask? Because this is how democratic countries fuckin’ work, the people vote, and the largest majority win. To have another referendum just because one side didn’t get their preferred outcome would make the voting system entirely pointless.

“The results are too close!”

So what if the results are only different by 1 or 2%? In terms of an entire country that’s a lot of people, majority wins in democracy – it is “rule of the majority” after all.

“They lied to us!”

I’m sorry, is this literally your first experience of absolutely anything political? People lie to get the result they wish, and to be quite honest if you really thought that as soon as the decision was made £350 million would go straight into the NHS – in regards to Farage’s bus – then to be quite honest, you’re far too precious to be anywhere near this kind of thing.

3. “This is undemocratic”

Are you done laughing? Good. I added two little quotes on democracy in regards to the Brexit decision because I find it unapologetically hilarious, to say that a democrat referendum open to the entire country that’s winning outcome was based on majority vote is being called undemocratic. Do I have to explain this further?

4. “This is NOT democracy”

There’s nothing else to add here other that: “This is democracy!”

So, what unites all this talk, all this dialogue and discussion from one side, what makes everyone come together and suddenly understand it all? One simple factor – well actually, one simple phrase can sum it all up –

“No one can do, say or decide anything unless it’s in agreement with what I/we want!”

That’s it, the remainers only believe in democracy when it works in their favour, the system is only working when WE win. It’s utter narcissism and the whining that follows it should be shunned and laughed out of the room.

What did I get from all this? My eyes torn open, a side of politics I had been aligned with my entire life just let its guard down, it just let everyone know what it has at its root, a little piece of the other side…the one they apparently despise.

Everything I’d known had just been ripped apart, not instantly however, it took a few days/weeks for the gears to crank back enough paces for me to, well…begin again. I’d been controlled by an echo-chamber of self-interest and inclusion, and now the toys have dropped from the crib, the kids begin to panic and scream and whine, the curtain has been torn back and what you’re left with is a shambling spindly mess of a system, help up by little more than conjecture of the cliché idea of what it is to be good. To believe you’re doing the virtuous thing is enough, that’ll do, or perhaps you’re just bullshitting yourself.

https://www.meta-nomad.net/?p=80 PART 1

Escaping the Echo Part 1: Drowning in Progressivism

By: mnold

08-02-2017

politics

“There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, how’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”

This short didactic little parable was used at the start of David Foster Wallace’s commencement speech at Kenyon College in 2005. The original intention of which was to bring liberal-arts-education students outside of their own (often) solipsistic perspective, making it clear that: “the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about.”.

Much like many close friends I was part of a dialogue that was entirely suffocated by its own virtuous justification, we are the ones that are right, we are pushing for the best possible future, forward we must go, never looking back, for we are good! Everything that we were discussing could never escape our own perspective of what we had be taught ‘progress’ was. Whig history encapsulated basically, there’s not much more to it than just letting things happen and expecting…believing they are getting better, and to truly question, look and step-outside this view of the world was a bad, ignorant and even offensive idea. Well, I’m here to say “What the hell is water?”

2016 was one hell of year, I mean who’d have thought that people who are getting old might actually die, I mean really, who would have thought that people nearing, if not long past the average age of life-expectancy would actually die. All mortality jokes aside 2016 was some serious ju-ju, Brexit, Trump, global terrorism, death of the dream and various literal manifestations of a failing system that was refusing to confront its own weak supports. These various moments helped bring to light the obvious, made to reveal itself from its supposedly justified concealment, that’s not to say 2014 or 2015 were any better, merely that the events that transpired in 2016 were a serious help in terms of – accidentally – allowing people to understand that they can still think freely, they can still head for the exit.

Needless to say I was drowning in liberal progressive pandering, whiggish-apathy and a generalized acceptance that what everyone was doing was correct and should just…progress. I thought highly of Chomsky, and not once did I stop and think about his high status as a professor within the system he constantly berates. I voted to remain in the EU and very quickly came to realise that perhaps leaving isn’t going to be the end of everything-ever, and may potentially stop the unfiltered dialogues of the left, I was somewhat of a feminist and couldn’t bring myself to critisize a system which had in place methods to stop any criticism, via simply manipulating the view of how much power it had over mainstream media. I thought Jeremy Corbyn was the best hope for my country, not once did I think to question his motives in terms of constraining the element of free speech and true thought towards the parties own political gains. The binary morality of the left was becoming all too heavy on some very flimsy supports which eventually cracked and tumbled thanks to various thinkers and writings (the likes of which I shall go into in Part 2.).

This is not to say that I ever thought anything was a simple case of one movement being right and the other being wrong, it’s more that I didn’t realise that the progressive system in general was moving towards this type of reductionist thinking, not accidentally or via some chaotic chance, but purposely moving towards a tighter range of discussion to further their ideology, oppressing the range of accepted public opinion to such an extent that even merely questioning the motives of certain political groups who have you deemed as a racist, mysogynist or nazi.

Think of this first post as an overview, a blueprint of a failed system, my short history of following a step-by-step guide towards a failed state, how naive, how silly, how truly ignorant of me to not listen, not look at what was right under my nose all this time, and not only did I smell it, see it and feel it, I also believed it to be true, correct and the only possible way. It isn’t.

A thing intended;

By: mnold

17-09-2016

About

META: –

1. – “pertaining to or noting a story, conversation, character, etc., that consciously references or comments upon its own subject or features, often in the form of parody:”

3. – “a consciously and playfully self-referential story, conversation, etc.:”

2. “a prefix added to the name of a subject and designating another subject that analyzes the original one but at a more abstract, higher level:”

1. – “indicating change, alteration, or alternation: metabolism, metamorphosis”

NOMAD – THE DELEUZIAN CONCEPT OF THE NOMAD:

“The nomad has a territory; he follows customary paths; he goes from one point to another; he is not ignorant of points (water points, dwelling points, assembly points, etc.). But the question is what in nomad life is a principle and what is only a consequence. To begin with, although the points determine paths, they are strictly subordinated to the paths they determine, the reverse happens with the sedentary. The water point is reached only in order to be left behind; every point is a relay and exists only as a relay. A path is always between two points, but the in-between has taken on all the consistency and enjoys both an autonomy and a direction of its own. The life of the nomad is the intermezzo. (380)” – MORE

Used to be a baker.

— jdemeta

Capitalism and the Undead P1: The Romero Era

ESCAPE REDUX P3: FIRMWARE 1.1

ESCAPE REDUX P2: FAREWELL EGO-CORPSES

ESCAPE REDUX P1: BECOMING-PHANTOM

Escaping the Echo Part 4: Cautious Directions

Escaping the Echo Part 3: A Nomadic Route

Escaping the Echo Part 2: Post-Brexit Discourse

Escaping the Echo Part 1: Drowning in Progressivism

A thing intended;

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