Tag Archives: virtue
NABOKOV & CASANOVA
***UPDATE – a slightly more polished and beautifully typeset version is part of the SYSTEMICS II book.
(made available to read online for free once-in-a-while or generally with a donation based password.)
[ a literary discussion about girls and honour ]
When I came across the book The Annotated Lolita in my local charity shop the other day, quite a few things fell into place. Having just finished Casanova’s memoirs a few weeks earlier, and always having been acutely aware that Lolita is no ordinary book at all, Alfred Appel, Jr.’s annotations (I’m pretty sure this is another tongue-in-cheek pseudonm of ‘magician’ Nabokov, it does bear all the signs and hallmarks) were a timely further eye-opener. Hearing so many tales and behind-the-scene infos about Nobokov and what he was doing with the novel, suddenly so many things tied into the cultural pastiche rendered by Casanova that I decided to contribute a few trails of thought to the cause.
A FEW MORE WORDS ON POWER
***UPDATE – a slightly more polished and beautifully type-set version is part of the SYSTEMICS II book.
(made available to read online for free once-in-a-while or generally with a donation based password.)
[ trying to say something new after seemingly everything’s already been said ]
INTRODUCTION
This was going to be a bore, I initially felt, after having gone on and on about Power for as long as I can remember. From quite a young age, I understood that pretty much everything here at ‘this place’ seemed to revolve around it. People, as soon as their original childlike innocence become wrapped-up in adult pretence and fake sincerity, were busying themselves with power games, no matter how trifle the matters of their condescending, patronising or outright coercion routines were being played-out. Was it not about who gets to sit next to the other in class or who’s fancied by whom, it was about whose mum was supposed to be prettier or hotter or whose father was richer or bigger. It was always the same, no matter where you were. Competition and Struggle. Guys against guys – who’s cooler, stronger, more capable? Girls against girls, who’s sexier, brighter, more gifted. And then, of course – on the highest and most secret and sublime level, it was a matter of Guys against Girls. Who eventually seduces whom and who really, ultimately needed the other? For what ultimate, unspeakable end(s)? To satisfy whatever unspoken-of petty desire?
ON RANK AND STATUS
***UPDATE – a slightly more polished and beautifully type-set version is part of the SYSTEMICS book.
(made available to read online for free once-in-a-while or generally with a donation based password.)
[written for FLUX magazine, issue 69: ‘ideas that could change the world’]
¶
LIKE A SALT-CRYSTAL, or a colony of ants, every framework has its structure. The structure of our human journey has been the societal network of Rank and Status. We spend our lives mainly chasing illusory promises and dreams within this structure, ultimately moulding ourselves into the Persona / Profile / Stereotype which our parental, cultural and sociological programmes compel us to become. These mechanisms are what game theory utilises. A loophole of human consciousness. We’re predictable. We’re not free at all. The Paradigm of Outside-answers, Outside-blame, runs through most of our Human Endeavours. We can ‘do whatever we want’ (capitalist piss-take freedom) as long as we’re not looking Inside, discover ‘something’ (Truth) Inside of ourselves, lest the ultimate punishment of social segregation is awaiting.
TRAGIC IMPOTENCE OF MONEY
***UPDATE – a slightly more polished and beautifully type-set version is part of the SYSTEMICS book.
(made available to read online for free once-in-a-while or generally with a donation based password.)
[ or ‘off the the other shore’ ]
CONDITIONS
We’re born naked. We die naked. As not only religion but also logic suggest, no matter how much funds we raise throughout our worldly journey, in the face of Ultimate Reality, even the most beautiful diamonds and castles merely amount to worthless chunks of mud. There is of course the argument of safeguarding relatives and loved ones, putting our kids on golden thrones and what not – but, honestly, can we really ease their various, vastly unpredictable hardships – emotional havoc, political corruption, abusive encounters, ageing, deterioration, madness – with monetary ailments? Besides, are we doing such an apparently altruistic act really unconditionally, with only their best interests in mind, or do we actually expect a return-of-investment, where we need them to do certain things in exchange, behave in certain ways, before our hard-earned juices will change bank accounts at the end of the day? As most of us haven’t been loved by our parents unconditionally, there is usually a wicked agenda behind the way how we interact with each other. Most exchanges are burdened with crooked meanings underneath and beyond the actual surface transactions. Like the sticky fingerprints we leave as soon as we touch it, Money involved in human transaction inherently corrupts any relationship through its conscious and unconscious strings attached – its Conditions.