Comes Thermidor: “America is headed for its own Thermidorian Reaction. It’ll end up being called something else, of course, because it is a different time, place, and set of circumstances. But it feels close, doesn’t it? Everybody I know or correspond with mentions this feeling that something is going to blow in our country, and pretty soon. The air is alive with it, just as the air is alive with portents of spring. Are you waiting for it?”
Girardian Isekai Part 0: Into the New World: “According to Girard’s mimetic theory, human desires rarely come from within; instead, people copy their desires from others. This leads to a cycle of ever more people desiring the same objects, leading to a ‘mimetic crisis’. To resolve this crisis, the community chooses a scapegoat, or an innocent third party to blame for the escalating conflict. It is ‘The war of all against all that transforms communities into a war of all against one.'”
If Memes Are Illegal, All Speech Will Become Illegal: “In his 1964 book The Morality of Law, legal theorist Lon L. Fuller tells the parable of King Rex, an ambitious though naive ruler who attempts to reform his kingdom’s legal system from the ground up. First, his legal code is too narrow, then too broad, too abstruse, then too plain. His subjects’ dissatisfaction mounts, until the king realizes that by making his laws impossible to obey, he can bring his enemies to heel whenever he chooses. ‘It was made a crime, punishable by 10 years’ imprisonment, to cough, sneeze, hiccough, faint or fall down in the presence of the king,’ Fuller writes. In other words, there was no law, only the king’s discretion concerning who deserved punishment or mercy.”
Speaking Corpses: “French philosopher Georges Bataille writes about the experience of the transcendent as a heady intoxicant that, in its many forms, always approximates death. Human sacrifice fascinated the heterodox thinker, whose secret society Acéphale famously had a surfeit of volunteers for a ritualistic death, but failed to secure anyone willing to murder the victim. [Aaron] Bushnell solved this dilemma by immolating himself. But while Bataille was a perverse reader of Nietzsche, conflating ego-annihilation with the striving of the ubermensch to overcome himself, Bushnell was, in his way, a true disciple of Bataille.”
What is a Mother? “How successful has the mentality of the Machine been in displacing the mentality of the Church? What do we – in Ireland, in Europe, in the West – actually think a human is for? Soon enough, we’re going to find out.”