Aesthetic Materialism

[I wrote this essay in 2007, while a student in Katie Terezakis's philosophy class at RIT. She nominated me, and I won, the Kearse Prize for it.  If I were writing it today, I would probably reword some parts.]      When looking at Plato, I find that I am strangely struck dumb. I cannot say anything about him. The form of his writing is unspeakable; one can only speak about the image of his writing, in the interpretations of the moderns, who live under the regime of contemporary democratic power.      Post-modernism never happened; we are all still modern, whether we like it or not. The very term post-modernism is an obvious contradiction, whose only meaning is negative, demonstrating through its very form the very impossibility of one’s ever thinking one’s way out of one’s own time. Those who would oppose modernity, from Leo Strauss’s post-doctoral students to Osama bin Laden and his fellow students of Sayyid Qut’b, are all doomed to be thorough...

  Greek myths: There are a bunch of gods, but they’re all kind of jerks. Norse myths: There are a bunch of gods, and they’re really big jerks, and then they all murder each other and then they’re dead, the end. Egyptian myths: There are a bunch of gods and they’re real weirdos and along with being gods they do magic, which is just excessive, and sometimes one god turns into another god which is really weird and they’re all just turning into each other and chopping each other up into little pieces and feeding the pieces to fish and then putting them back together and no one knows what it means. Zoroastrianism: There are a bunch of gods that are jerks, but then there are other gods that are nice, I guess, but primarily their niceness is that they just fight against the jerks constantly in a big war and then they win the end. Mahabharata: Kinda the same as Zoroastrianism except now the good guys are the bad guys, our side is the nice guys, your side is the jerks...

It’s not clear what a classless society means, precisely.  As Wittgenstein might say, “I cannot picture it.”  And it stinks of utopia.  It’s difficult to avoid picturing a class society, where class is rigidly maintained, where the rule of the ruling class is undisputed and incontestable - and one aspect of this brutal rule is the absolute prohibition on acknowledging that class exists.  The prohibition of class analysis is a means by which the ruling class maintains its rule.   (And of course, in many ways, this is already how the United States, for instance, operates.)  It may be that class will always exist, but will take a very wide variety of forms - and we are bound vigilantly to oppose each and every form of class domination as it appears.  The price of liberation is eternal vigilance.  Part of that vigilance is always refusing to believe that we live in a classless society, and always working to detect class relationships, no matter how su...

[first posted to facebook... date unknown] One of my favorite-ever religions has to be Zurvanism. Zurvanism was a kind of non-standard Zoroastrianism that scholars believe arose in the 4th century BCE, and gradually grew in popularity... some of the Sassanid Emperors were Zurvanites, especially at its peak, in the 4th century CE. But then they lost power and the Zurvanites dwindled down to a tiny minority sect, which nonetheless persisted for many centuries before finally disappearing in the 13th century. Still, we have plenty of Zurvanite texts and archaeological remains to look through..... Zoroastrianism is often thought of, at least by Westerners, as a "dualistic" religion. The universe is split in half: light vs. dark, good vs. evil, the forces of the heroic god Ahura Mazda (or Ormazd; there are many spellings) and friends vs. his wicked twin, Angra Mainyu (or Ahriman) and his ilk battling eternally. But for Zurvanites, there is a third principle, which makes...

[originally posted to facebook, June 22, 2016] Voldemort: Join me, Harry! There is no good and evil. There is only power, and those too weak to seek it. Will you join me? Harry: Before I answer, tell me this: what is power? Voldemort: The ability to do whatever you want, and to have whatever you want happen. If you become a Death Eater, there will be no limits to the magic you can perform. Do What Thou Wilt shall be the whole of the law. Harry: But if I join you, I'd have to do what you say. Voldemort: Of course. I am the leader of the Death Eaters. Harry: So I would actually be losing power, if I joined you. Voldemort: Technically. Harry: Tell me about honesty and dishonesty. Voldemort: Mere illusions! This binary opposition derives from the fundamental illusion, which is morality itself! Harry: Illusions, eh?  So you mean that saying that morality does exist is... dishonest? Voldemort: I see what you did there. Harry: If there are no rules ab...

[originally posted to facebook, March 24, 2019] Okay weird request: I remember a short story, and I remember thinking this is my favorite short story. I think I read it as a kid (maybe in a textbook?), but I don't remember the title or author. I did some googling and couldn't find it. So my friend Ryder said, "Just write it." So I did. Is this familiar to anyone? He was in danger of missing his appointment, which was on the 23rd floor, and now he realized that he would have to take the stairs. Cursing silently, under his breath, he checked his watch and looked up at the gray concrete steps, the yellow tiles on the walls, the metal railings. Then he slowly inhaled, puffed it out quickly, and started running up. Even though he knew he was going to be late, it wasn’t long before his run slowed to a trot, and then to a walk. “Why don’t I go to the gym more often?” he thought, “I’m paying for it.” Then he tried to be a bit more optimistic. ...

Is there anything sadder than Beto O'Rourke?  The Democratic party is desperately trying to win over young voters through him, touting his credentials: he skateboards.  He was in a band with Cedric Bixler-Zavala who later went on to form the famous post-punk group At the Drive-In and, later, The Mars Volta- and he played bass wearing a dress, with long hair and a goatee.  He touts something called "Fugazi politics".  As a teenager, he was in the early hacker collective, The Cult of the Dead Cow, where his hacker name was "Psychedelic Warlord" and he wrote about achieving a "money-less society" and that "this is where the anti-money group and the disciples of Anarchy meet".  He also wrote a short story about a mass murderer that runs over chidren.  He was a "cyber-hacktivist" that started a digital bulletin board called TacoLand that was influenced by the zine, Maximum Rock'n'Roll.  He's a gamer.  His rea...