On the Grid — How Surveillance Became a Love Language: “…true privacy requires safeguarding oblivion, not secrets.”
Rapid Onset Political Enlightenment: “The wizards of the permission structure machine had become captives of the machinery that they built. Bullying large numbers of people into faddish hyperconformity by controlling the machinery of social approval may require both money and technique, but it is not art or thought. In fact, it is something like the opposite of thought. Lost in the hypercharged mirror world that they had created, they decided that having made themselves cool also made them right, and that evidence to the contrary could be safely dismissed as a ‘right-wing talking point.’ Obama’s operatives shared the same character flaw as their master, a kind of brittle, Ivy League know-it-all-ness that demanded that they always be the smartest person in the room.”
The Calculus of Christmas: “…even if you don’t believe in Jesus, it seems fairly undeniable that he was the most impactful person to ever live. Why is another question, but the fact that the knock-on effects of his life and teaching eventually brought down the Roman Empire, started the two most popular religions, forever altered Judaism, and inspired the philosophy, politics, and policy of several continents for centuries is indisputable. Christ has entered the ranks of the deities of Hinduism, he’s influenced countless Buddhists. People have debated his historicity and his divinity, and fought great wars over same. His image has been depicted more than any other human’s, and billions of pages have been written trying to explain him. He has been invoked by Kings, Presidents, and Emperors, and he has lambasted by crooks, liars, and thieves. The world’s great musicians have dedicated odes to him, countries and cities have been named after his saints, and Buzz Aldrin, one of the Apollo astronauts, believes he ate his body on the moon. Why? Because Christmas is a haunting holiday.”
The Red Hand Files: “…amongst all the making and the doing, the energising principle around which this day revolves that speaks so eloquently of rebirth and renewal, and the end to waiting – that of a mother bearing a child in a stable, revitalising the world for all eternity.”
The Western Modernity is Antichrist: “There are two types of rule – King of the World, Jesus Christ, rule of eternity and prince of this world, Satan, rule of pure time. Modernity is the shift of power from first to second. It is democratic and demonocratic rebellion of matter against spirit.”