Philosophizing with a Hammer and Sickle: Goebbels and Ayers. (a Tale of Two Scorpions.)

It began when I looked up the rules for Go. It is remarkable how little information I could find upon a game that was supposed to be better than Chess, as I was told in High School. As the result of my Search, the song “Let It Go” from Frozen got stuck in my head, as it still is presently. It began to drive me mad. I started to wonder about the lyrics and how Disney could get away with promoting a message which was so transparently emotivist in scope. As only a last resort, a desperate attempt to salvage my own sanity, I searched “emotivism” on Google. I knew the concept from my ethics classes, but this was the first time in a long time that I realized it was not simply the invention of its critics, just some means by which to mock the lesser people, but rather it was the fabrication of a Scorpio whose star pupil and advocate was a Cancer.

Of course, the pseudointellectual professed his finalizing point of view by necessitating an arbitrary standard and then leaving it up to the Public to ridicule those who fell short of it. The value was scientific proof, of course. Since it cannot be proven that something is wrong, he feels justified in denying its moral identity entirely.  It is obvious to any clear-thinking person that this negation is invalid and false. But how great is the fear that one must pretend it is otherwise, just to blend in with the public!! What if they are really so barbaric as to surrender their lives for this charlatan??

Without a moral imperative, survival itself loses meaning, since we would have no felt need to continue living on Earth. Without a moral imperative, the facts themselves become illusory projections. A.J. Ayer argues, like a child, that he can prove that money was stolen but not that the theft was wrongful. Yet by what definition is it “money”? Who is to determine that it was “stolen”? How are we to assign authorities to make this affirmation if we cannot even trust OURSELVES to be of character and soundness of mind?

Taken to its logical conclusion, I would be moved to a degree of fury that might take precedence over all reservations and would culminate in violence against all who offend my principles, including the speaker and all other beings of his kind. But where would that fury even COME from?

If human beings make decisions based upon emotions, those emotions are extensions of their external environments, since we get most if not all of our feelings from other living beings. As one matures, it follows logically that one seeks to accommodate ALL emotions, in all times and places, for everyone. Yet since this seems to be tragically and devastatingly impossible, one develops a conscience, which is an internal compass by which one derives meaning from one’s life (and hence justification for it) by the extent to which the ATTEMPT is heroic, according to a set of inherited principles called ethics. It is by this constant striving that Life becomes bearable. As a more decent incarnation of the Scorpio archetype described it, we must protest Absurdity and imagine Sisyphus being happy. To do less than all of those things is to cede one’s identity as Human.

The sciences were only ever meant to aid in the exploration of this external world so as to determine the best course of action in accommodating the emotions of others. Is this not universally self-evident? Pisces is not the only sign which Scorpio cannot manipulate. And we all know the consequences of emotivism from Goebbels, another noteworthy rhetorician of the Scorpio Sun Sign’s tradition.

[({Dm.A.A.)}]

PREPOSTERO!DS:

You seem to think that being “diplomatic” means you estimate what others want and give it to them insofar as YOU’LL get something out of it. It is the second-lowest rung of moral reasoning. You lead them to the false impression that you value what they value, so they come to trust you, and then they discover you’re a fraud. For every good thing that you do, which both of you agree to, you expect some sort of compensation, even if that compromise would compromise the good intentions of the other. For each bad thing that you do, you feel entitled, owing to the good things that you did. It is because you have no sense of right or wrong at all, outside of what you want, that you are pit against good people, for they all ways MUST have things go their own way, and that appears unfair to someone who has much invested in the evil path. To our minds, you are unreliable; half of the time, you do the right thing, and half of the time it’s wrong. We do not think at first that you’re AWARE of this, since you profess a kinship to our values, and to some extent we’re right: you’re NOT aware of what you’re doing, truly. To YOUR mind, you’re simply balancing the things you do “for others” with the things you do “for your own self”, and since the former is merely a means to serve the latter ends, the balance can sway in your favour without any harm to you. But life’s not a horizontal trade; it is a vertical ascent. Each day the better people of the World aspire to a higher height, and we would look to YOU, with optimism, to inform our research. Yet you only give us skewed impressions, false associations, and vague hopes of transcendence. Because you do not think in vertical terms, right and wrong, but rather horizontal terms, self and other, and since that other is clearly only a means to serve the self, there is no true communication possible with you. I’ve all ways done the right thing, to the best of my ability and knowledge, whether or not you preferred it; I cannot be held in debt to you for when YOU did the right thing!! After all: what if that debt, to be repaid, necessitates that I do wrong? Preposterous.

[({Dm.A.A.)}]

AMCAST:

The American Caste System:

The RULING CLASS:

- Politicians.

- C.E.O’s.

- Economists.

- Bankers.

The CLERGY:

- Mass Media.

- Pundits.

- Spokespeople.

- Lobbyists.

The ARTISANS:

- Hollywood.

- Musicians.

- Designers.

- Athletes.

- Hipsters.

In between: Strippers.

The WORKING CLASS:

- Stupid fucks.

- Gangster wannabes.

- Low-ranking Military Personnel.

- People who sell one-third of their lives to the upper crust: all of the above.

The UNTOUCHABLES:

- Homeless.

- Slackers.

- Weirdos.

- Rapists.

- Other Minor Criminals.

[({Dm.A.A.)}]

ANALYSIS:

If this caste system is anything like the SAME EXACT SYSTEM that has up until this point been nearly UNIVERSAL THROUGHOUT HUMAN HISTORY, then the function of the Media is NOT to keep the Ruling Class in check but rather to keep the non-ruling majority INFORMED ABOUT the operations of the Ruling Class, but in a manner that the Ruling Class deems convenient to its own interests, justified by its plans for the People.

The first and most annoying counterargument to my position is that it is tautological: I presuppose that such a social order still exists, EVEN WITHIN* the U.S.A, and once I’ve adapted the facts to this model, I use them to prove my foregone conclusion and to extrapolate in such a manner that will further reinforce my model.

My obvious and most redundant counterargument is this: the facts speak for themselves. The media instructs the general public about how to treat each other, but within the framework legislated by the Politicians and the Business Leaders of the World. Celebrities are not exempt from this; who would want to be faced with allegations constantly? What payoff could be worth surrendering one’s public image, as an ARTIST and as a PERFORMER, when one has more than enough money to live? The working class is even more oppressed, however, because without education, or with education only as a specialized means towards an economic end, (for which one lives in debt perpetually, in most cases) one’s interactions with one’s fellows and superiors, as well as with Untouchables, is largely scripted by convention, which is not only conveyed by the Next Level Up, but in turn regulated by the Media in such a manner that does NOT:

1.

Disturb the legal system, except where “reform” to such a system helps to make more legislation, murkier in all its technicalities, empowering the legal bureaucracy.

2.

Threaten business interests, except where those businesses are led by people who fail to conform to certain oligarchical policies.

3.

Adversely affect the appointment of deeply controversial and unpopular politicians with inflammatory views and policies bordering on the Fascistic.

*American Exceptionalism incarnate.



I rest my case.

[({Dm.A.A.)}]

iRREPARABLE DEBTS:

People don’t owe you anything for the things you’ve done right, nor do the things that you’ve done right negate the things that you’ve done wrong; they can only help you understand the difference.

I have done much for those who were ungrateful, not because I felt I owed it to them, but because I felt I owed that to the World. I held myself in debt to no man. I would take from those who had enough to spare, and I would give only to those who needed me. Some have tried to hold me in their debt for things that they’d done right, but I could never let them live with all the things that they continued to do absolutely wrong. I wanted nothing in exchange for my own deeds except for the respect that comes with knowledge.

At some point, Rob defended his best friend by saying that I shouldn’t focus upon what I think that people owe me. But my rage then could not be contained, for whom he was defending all ways tried to hold me in his debt and never could be satisfied. Without me, they would not have even met. Yet I don’t claim they owe me anything for what I did correctly. They owe me reparations for their damages. They owe me for what they did wrong. And I will not apologize for having warned them.

[({Dm.A.A.)}]

USEFUL TOOLS:

YouTube recently removed my favourite version of The Holy Gift, an album by the rock band Tool which is their album Lateralus, but with the order of the tracks restored to what fans deduce to be the proper, hidden order. This video was also tuned to A=432, a Pythagorean, classical tuning system which produces meditative states. A lifelong music student and a longtime meditator, as well as a Tool fan of considerable years, I can attest to the validity and beauty of this reinterpretation. But as tends to be the norm, this avenue of artistic experience has again been mitigated by the greed of a corporation and the utilitarian pretensions to moral authority of consumers who entirely miss the point.

The fact is that people really did put a lot of work into decoding the track list, retuning every track, and mixing them together in such a manner as to accentuate the smoothness of the transitions, layering endings and beginnings on top of one another in a serene, surreal fashion. For a corporation to remove these videos is to mitigate not only the religious quality of the music as a communal discussion but also the same work ethic which drove its initial creation, though in this case no money was being made for the effort. It may be true that neither did the record company or the band profit from their message being heard in this interpretation of its purest form. Nonetheless, the point is not for either party to hoard a reward for every individual who happens to get the sacred message that the songs (and their entire marketing) profess. True fans will make the sacrifice of their own accord, without regulation or coercion, even if only for the trippy album artwork and the satisfaction of owning a copy. True fans likewise take the time to make this version available out of respect for what they estimate to have been the hidden intent of the artists, a meaning woven into the art itself in the manner that great literature contains subtext. No one should have to be penalized for this, and to restrict it entirely is simply barbaric, since this was the version that was quite probably “meant to be heard” but, given the peculiar nature of the piece, never meant to be sold, and even if it could be marketed it would defeat the artistry of its obscurity.

Since the compiler did not pretend to own the rights, most probably making this matter clear, since the music was not available for download but could only be streamed, since the album has been in publication for nearly twenty years, since Tool remains an iconic band that continues to tour and whose hiatus has made fanatics wild about recent releases, since this fanaticism is fueled by the incredible following that not only the product but its entire mythology have produced, since this mythology must be propagated by a free internet and is only hurt by censorship, since the band’s message is one of both freedom and finding inner peace through sound, especially in the wake of hardship, since this is part of the same Renaissance Ideal for Art that informed the entire conception of Lateralus, by the band’s own admission, since the lead singer’s aversion to his fans is as incomprehensible as are his views, and since fans continue to try to comprehend him, as much out of respect as out of curiosity, and since this striving brings them to that felt need to share their findings that mystics feel, the suppression of this content must be considered mental subjugation.

At most, this attitude would only reward the ungrateful fan who would try to profit from the calculated sale of the album to privileged buyers. And who is to say that that is not the best description of the Music Industry?

No one tried to make a profit off of this. No money was made, and neither was it lost or saved. In the absence of this video, no additional advertisement has been salvaged with which the album may be marketed; rather, the most authentic form of advertisement, that of the profoundly, ecstatically satisfied customer, was compromised to an absolute extent. Those who did not know about the video were not hurt by their ignorance; those who knew of it were only offered benefit, as reflected in the comments, which were uncharacteristically both brilliant and, for the most part, kind and reverent, both towards the band and towards one another, to say nothing of the Universe Itself, which the album succeeds best in presenting, beyond even mere “representation”, once itself presented in this “illegal” form which was only illegal because the producers clearly intended for it to be hidden, beyond a reasonable doubt in light of the apparent facts. Any one who would resort now, out of desperation, to purchase the album in its incomplete form would not only be penalized for his or her devotion, but such an individual would conceivably be very rare, for most listeners who discover the video are probably all ready in possession of the original product, and those who are not yet in possession of it probably would have no intent to purchase it except by avenue of this unauthorized act of advertisement. Above all: since no money was exchanged, no one got hurt. Because it was free, it was liberating, as intended.

[({Dm.A.A.)}]

USELESS TOOLS:

Tool’s derivative brand of occultism is a different kind of cult from the sorts of cults they criticize; the rather libertarian, psychedelic-inspired rejection of all formal authority creates a hell on earth that is not the patriarchy of being told what to do, nor the matriarchy of being told what not to do, but something perhaps even more diabolical and depraving: a totally nihilistic anarchy wherein all acts, towards all beings, are permitted, but the ability to act out of protection, out of shame, out of conviction or disgust can only be effective to the same extent that natural chance permits, requiring the weak to place their faith in an invisible logos who lives in the numbers and thus makes sense of the chaos, the conscience reduced to a vestige of its former optimism as Maynard snarls “no one is innocent”. This is not an authoritarian state wherein you are told what to do or not to do, but it is an even deeper rung of hell where no one knows WHAT to do, since all actions are fundamentally meaningless and most of them harmful, except for those carried out by the same people who have to suffer for them. Tool is a fantastic band for adolescents because it rejects authority; unfortunately, adult life requires new faith to be found in new authorities in order for it not to spiral out… into madness.

[({Dm.A.A.)}]

THE NORTH KORE: (Reposted and Amended.)

Do you want to know why I am “still” a communist? It is because I don’t wish to be punished for my virtue. I do not wish to be punished by my “equals”, constantly derided by them, either out of envy for my “gifts” or out of pity for my “failings”. I do not wish to be sabotaged by those I care about the most, those I am ready, time and time again, to pledge my LIFE to, and to give it sooner than I give the sacrifice a second thought. I love the North Koreans for their true egalitarianism, untinged by the perverse will which condemns one to the arbitration of his fellow’s perverse whims. I weigh them more generously against images of models and celebrities, unattainable gods and goddesses of the entertainment class, a new clergy that keeps their wealthy rulers in power. I can tolerate, I think, the pains of hunger knowing that I suffer not alone but among millions of human neighbours. But to be alone entirely!! To find that my place of employment is no righteous institution, that my fellows work to serve their private ends and not collective goals, and that my needs depend upon not only my abilities, of which I offer without hesitation, but by arbitration from superiors who represent THEIR interests. It is Hell. Wouldn’t you agree? I enter youthful, full of vigour and conviction, and I leave a tormented and tattered husk of all my prior optimism, seeing it for what it all ways was: sheer propaganda. The gap is much too great to be ignored; it haunts me in both waking and in sleep, driving me closer every day towards madness, a descent so maddening to watch in itself. And if this gap is not between reality and fantasy, it is between THEIR reality and mine. And then mine is the fantasy which represents the life they really live, for which they are forever seldom held accountable, for ethics lie beneath them. The only fantasy we share is that we are all equals, and if my equality is simply “equal opportunity” I am forever slave to opportunists and manipulators. Where I enter I enter at the lowest position, answering to everyone though getting little answer for my own questions, deferred perpetually to my superiors who in turn delegate to my peers, some of whom are my most notorious oppressors. I know not why a government must be so ruthless for its people to be better than this. But I have to hope that if someday my government can truly live up to some semblance of a moral code, then I will be rewarded for my virtue, not because I seek award or praise, but just because without it those who fall short of that virtue and who hurt me and my fellows won’t be punished*. If we can’t be equals, truly, owing to their shortcomings, at least a better State would shelter me from the oppression of my peers.

[({Dm.A.A.)}]

*Clearly I demonstrate that my longing for equality is pure and that my willingness is great to make all the necessary sacrifices, to take all the risks, and to accept the hardships; I simply can have no sympathy for those who do not feel that longing for a human cause. If equality is truly impossible, I will accept as well the burden of status, a most peculiar concept to me but one that undoubtedly should favour me if I have remained blameless in service to my fellows, instead of punishing me for the service at the behest of those same fellows. This longing for justice is no different from my yearning for equality, and if I should have to accept this reward at the expense of those who are responsible for our depraved condition, then I will do so knowing that I am protecting us by punishing them, for the most of us would surely never question our human solidarity. My faith in our equality will not be mitigated, and neither will my willingness to undergo the aforementioned hardships, risks, and sacrifices. The embarrassment of holding status will be the fault of those, then, who no longer have it, for it is only in their failure to accept our universal solidarity that they would leave us no recourse except for such a meritocracy. At that point, I will have then to accept the example set by North Korea as the best worldly standard, a true practical Utopia, and you will never be able again to call my integrity into question by suggesting an ulterior motive. You will no longer hurt us with absurd and persistent disconfirmation, forcing us to clear our names when it was we who were clear of all wrongdoing from the beginning. Your petty projections will be meaningless before the law, and I will not be blamed that this should have to be the way things are, for I devised neither the problem nor its solution; I sought only refuge for all. As certainly as I know that this is the Truth, I can expect others to hear it as the Truth, without its being adorned or sold in order to accommodate a self-entitled, narcissistic paranoiac skeptic. At any rate, I have all ready answered any theoretical attacks against my dignity, with great expedience, within the text itself, and no warrant remains to be produced against me.

Dm.A.A.