Recently I started looking deeper into Ernst Jünger, per the writings and discussions of some IRL friends, one of whom characterized Jünger as the rare breed of author who could write without subterfuge. And from another friend’s Instragram post this summer as he visited Junger’s home in Germany: Jünger was a strong candidate for most…
Tag: society
MONDAY LINKS: Seraphim; Harmonic Interludes; and Aloneness
And Suddenly Things Change: “Everything that can break is breaking: stock markets, bond markets, the galaxy of derivatives — bets on this and that, which will never be honored. Banks are next. Gold and silver are hanging in there for dear life just now, because they’re actually worth something.” Biblically Accurate Angels — Christianity’s Undisputed…
The Passion of the Christ
I watched The Passion of the Christ for the first time ever on Good Friday this year. I think it’s worth watching and many parts are very well done but I do think Mel Gibson went too far with the blood, the gore and the violence, which apparently has been a recurring criticism of the…
▇ █ WEEKEND LINKS █ ▇: Imitative Passion; Debasement; Mob Rule; Wolves
12 Things I Learned from Rene Girard: “By desiring the same thing as our neighbor, we are drawn into inevitable conflict. Mimetic desire turns into mimetic rivalry—in everything from love to war. That’s the reason for the injunction against ‘coveting your neighbor’s wife.’ Girard claims this is emblematic of how mimetic impulses destroy a community….
WEEKEND LINKS: Breaking Points, Nightmares, Lying
Aging is No Blessing: “Twentieth-century science doubled the life expectancy of Homo sapiens, but our health still declines at nearly the same age today as it did in 300 BC. We’ve learned to keep chronically ill adults alive, and made some welcome progress in maintaining health. But in 2024, we’re about as likely to develop the diseases of aging—like cancers—if…
ẅ̴͍é̷̞̲͐e̵̺̊͜ķ̷̥́̃e̸͎̣̼͂n̴̬̄d̸̡̈́ ̴̯̲̠̈́̾ĺ̸̯͎̯̈́i̷̻̼̚n̸̰̲̽̈̍k̴̖͆̊s̴̤̓̄: Pastoral Beauty; Entropy; Overkill
Beauty Is Not Just in the Eye of the Beholder: “It exists at the intersection of biological, cultural, and individual factors. It is much more malleable than we think. And what we find beautiful is broader than what is publicly expressed.” How Nature Became the Environment: “…while [Aldo] Leopold sought for balance between the lethal…
weekend links: besieged underdogs, the city of man, something is coming
American Alchemy: “Dante placed betrayers in the lowest circle of Hell, yet ours proudly enjoy their time alongside Satan himself chastising the rest of us. ” Circe, Odysseus, and the Disclosure of Hermes: “Without a knowledge of natures – and especially, as Socrates would emphasize, the nature of man – man can be enchanted, politically and…
Mid-Week Links: Theories for the Damned, Cosmological Spiritual Wars, and Permanent Revolution
American Prometheus: “There are earth energies emanating from places across [New Mexico] that are healing and raising consciousness — Taos even has an audible hum. The official nickname of New Mexico is ‘The Land of Enchantment,’ and it enchanted the young [Oppenheimer]. The other meaning of enchantment — that of alchemy/magic/spirituality/occultism — also applies to…
weekend links: warzone conditions, spiritual cannon fodder, 2 hours in the dark
A National Divorce From Reality: “Douglas MacArthur famously stated ‘It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.’ Conservatives still have not grappled with the fact that their political will has been consistently shown to be much smaller than that of liberals. The Floyd Riots showed just how primed for derangement…
ꅏꈼꈼꀗꈼꋊꂠ ꒒ꂑꋊꀗꌚ
Control Societies with Sacrificial Characteristics: “The shifting, arbitrary standards that determine what may trigger the mob ensure that the sacrificial spectacles will continue, which in turn, helps ensure the system’s ongoing hold on our attention.” Outsider Theory Libmat /Ratpack Gossip 2: Judgment Day – Terminator vs. Robocop vs. Jesus Christ: “Aphorisms are often best left…
WEEKEND LINKS
A GUIDE to IANNIS XENAKIS’S MUSIC: “When you hear Xenakis’s music – any piece of what we recognise as his mature work, starting with 1954’s Metastasis, onwards – you’re confronted with an aesthetic that seems unprecedented according to any of the frames of reference that musical works usually relate to. You won’t hear vestiges of things…
w̴e̶e̴k̶e̵n̸d̵ ̸l̶i̴n̸k̴s̶
#1: A General Theory of Collaboration: “Anyone who reads Vaclav Havel’s Power of the Powerless will be struck by Havel’s portrait of Czechoslovakia forty years ago—with its voluntary window-slogans; its endless parade of crusades; its inexorable machinery of human cancellation. Havel had the right strategy for the subjects of the total state. First, they must…