“To Dissolve Man” An Investigation into the Liquefactionist Party In the 21st century, we will have to deal both with the odious Liquefactionists and with a confused and reactionary anti-Liquefactionism, which is far more apparent and obviously horrifying. I borrow the term “Liquefactionist Party” from William S. Burroughs, who writes about the Liquefactionists in the “Parties of Interzone” section of Naked Lunch - which, as a political policy guide, is unmatched in its insight and accuracy. He writes that, “ The Liquefaction program involves the eventual merging of everyone into One Man by a process of protoplasmic absorption. ” He goes on: “It will be immediately clear that the Liquefaction Party is, except for one man, entirely composed of dupes, it not being clear until the final absorption who is whose dupe.” Paradoxically, Burroughs goes on to tell us that “Liquefactionists in general know what the score is.” If they know the score, how can they be dupes? Perhaps thi
I subscribe to the American Ontology, which can be stated as follows: An entity can be said to exist, if and only if, and to the extent that, it is, or pertains to, a celebrity. Places, material objects, and animals exist to the extent that they are the places, material objects, and animals of celebrities. Events don’t happen unless they happen to celebrities. Entire regions of the world don’t exist, because they don’t contain celebrities. The American Ontology can be seen as a logical consequence of Berkeley’s famous esse est percipi : to be is to be seen. And therefore, the more seen something is, the more it is . Everyone else can be dismantled, and used for spare parts. In turn, the American Ontology has its own logical consequences: celebrities only exist because of their relation to other celebrities. For instance: Jordyn Woods is famous (i.e. existent) because she was living with Kylie Jenner. Kylie Jenner is famous because she is the sister of Kendall Jenner.
I'm too much of a materialist to agree with people like Ricky Gervais, Bill Maher and Sam Harris. They see world problems such as war, sexual repression, the oppression of women, terrorism, and so on as being caused by religion. As a materialist, I find the notion that an idea could cause these things to happen rather dubious. Dig a little deeper, and one always finds economic forces behind all of these problems. Rather than scapegoating and blaming the existence of systemic problems on the interior beliefs and thoughts of individual human beings, I think it's a better use of our time to focus on how privilege and oppression can be embedded in structural institutions. Religion isn't the enemy. Indeed, by vilifying religion, we risk alienating ourselves from potential allies in the struggle against real material economic interests that run contrary to our own. My name is "Ian." When I was growing up, this was an extremely unusual name. No one that I
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