and, i
want to be clear about something: i am not a nihilist. i am an atheist
and a secular humanist. i believe i've actually argued very strenuously against
moral relativism and very strenuously against subjectivity in art. i
believe in the objective reality of a world determined via scientific inquiry.
there is no god in this world, but there are plenty of things that are true. in
fact, i would argue that the truth value of the statement there is no god
is true. that is, itself, a truth. i am a positivist. i believe truth is
obtainable - and that one of those truths is that there is no guiding force in
the universe.
but, i haven't been through this here. not exactly. bits and pieces.
the problem is the way the discussion is framed, to assume various things for
granted. i am an anarchist; i reject hobbes. i do not believe that people need
the threat of god, or the threat of some sovereign, to fall in line and behave.
rather, i think that religion and authoritarianism are corrupting forces. we
are not evil in despite of the state but because of it. the collapse of the
state would bring us back to a "natural condition" of mutual aid and
reciprocal altruism. this is not because we have a selfless nature, it is
because altruism and rational self-interest are equivalent, when fully
understood.
what that actually means is that i think that nietzsche is just a tempest in a
teapot, because i reject the assumptions he was working under in the first
place. understanding the obvious truth that there is no god will not collapse
society, but allow it to reach it's next stage of development. nihilists should
consequently be seen as reactionaries that seek to uphold the status quo - at
best. at worst, they end up as straussian neocons like hillary clinton and want to take
us back into the dark ages.
there is a certain line of thinking that ends with nietzsche, but it was a
stupid line of reasoning that was in opposition to the real movements of
enlightened thinking, anyways. his supposed crisis was resolved by aquinas, who
was himself just quoting aristotle. what you see in his writings is a fool
coming to terms with the idiocy of his systems of thought. but, only fools
would have ever walked down that path in the first place. this is centuries
after galileo!
so, i don't think that nihilism presents us with any sort of a real problem.
but, if we want to be stuck in this foolish historical narrative? a very
obvious and completely satisfactory solution immediately presents itself in secular
humanism. and, there is consequently really no reason to take note of the man
or his writings at all. he should be forgotten. instead, we should remember the
line of thinking that takes us from aristotle, through aquinas and ends with
comte.
a cold and warm front were colliding over detroit on this evening, and it was that time of the year where the ten degree drop can mark the difference between spring and winter. while it was the proper background for this type of music, trying to figure out the timing of the collision and how to navigate it caused me havoc all day. the shifting weather forecasts did not help much; i was trying to plan within the margin of error.
--
the warm front seemed to linger a little longer than was forecast, which led me to overheat on the way to the show. i had planned to walk in single digit temperatures through a north wind and low humidity; i got double digit temperatures through a south wind and high humidity. had i worn any makeup, it would have melted off by the time i got there - so i at least made that choice correctly.
--
dark red are a two piece drums/bass combo, but i want to stress that they weren't really what you'd expect with a drums/bass combo in 2016. the bass functioned as a guitar, but it was actually a very slow-moving kind of almost doom rock sound. and, he was able to get enough harmonic complexity out of the combination of things to give it a gazey feel. the culmination was a kind of grassroots grunge sound, in the way the term was initially constructed. this is going to be quite the acquired taste - at the end of the day, it really reduces largely to a very fuzzy bass throwing layered walls of distortion at you. so, i have to caveat it by saying that the idea is a little bit stale. but, if this is something you have a taste for, it was done fairly well. it's all in the tone, really, right - it doesn't really matter what else is happening, so long as you get a thick enough tone.
the stargazer lilies seem to be touring their new record, but they haven't released it yet. i'm only familiar with the first record, so i may have been tricked - they may have played older material i don't know. but, i think that around half the set was new material. the newer material seemed to be a little grittier, and a little less focused on melody - which is a shame, because that's what drew my attention to this disc. see, it's not much of a feat nowadays to string a rack of effects together and staccato out to nowhere; rather, the abundance of acts doing this since the early 90s has kind of blurred it all together into a stale cliche. time has just made the situation worse. it's become very formulaic and really rather boring. what's been lost in the rush to total atmosphere over musical content is that the genre was initially built on overlapping harmonies. whether you want to cite the cocteau twins or mbv or the cure or whatever else, this genre shines when it is music with counterpoint and harmonization and 13th chords and other fun things of the sort - and falls apart when it's just some more boring I-IV-V folk tones, run through a flanger or not. what pulled me into the record was the greater level of musical literacy. it's not just a wall of sound, it's a very musical wall of sound. the newer material seemed to take a step back from that in favour of generic shoegazer contrivances, but i'll withhold judgement until the record comes out.
that may come off harsher than intended. see, i wouldn't go out of my way to see sounds-like-every-other-sheogaze-band on a blicky march night. but, if i happened to find myself in front of one, i wouldn't complain about it either. i recognized about half the set, and enjoyed what i recognized more than what i didn't, but the truth is that the last record set a high bar. it was an enjoyable head cave, either way.
here is a full set:
the trip home was horrific. it initially seemed like i was making excellent time (the show was done before 11:00), but i ended up getting stuck at the bus stop with a horde of drunken frat boys on their way home from a hockey game. worse, the bus missed it's route (the driver claimed it got stuck in the tunnel, and i'm suspecting it had to do with increased security from the attacks in belgium). so, it turned into having to listen to these idiots throw homophobic slurs at each other for almost two hours.
they kept calling cabs down, and the cabs kept refusing to take them because they just wouldn't shut up. it's probably a lot of repressed homosexual desires, and i get that, but it's just really annoying to listen to. one minute, they're yelling at somebody to suck their cock; the next, they're calling each other faggots.
it's not as though i'm offended by the language - i don't care, really. it's more that i'm offended by the stupidity. when i find myself in these situations, i just want to snap my finger and have them cease to exist - or perhaps click my heels and transport home.
even worse is when they want to talk to you. everything is a competition, right, so they're constantly trying to start a debate and win it. it's never about the discussion. it's always about winning and losing. this one buffoon was unable to differentiate nihilism from atheism. if i didn't believe in god, i therefore couldn't believe in anything else. and, he just wouldn't drop the strawman. he had to win. so, you have to let him, to avoid losing brain cells in the resulting discussion - and then hope he goes away. thankfully, there was a beer waiting for him down the road.
then, they expected me to get into a cab with them. right. like i'm going to risk going through customs with these idiots. you can't just explain to the border guards that you took the cab with them but don't know them; that's not how that works. when they did finally leave, though, the serenity that followed was almost overwhelming.
the drip was forming at the corner. i've just
taped it over. hopefully that's good enough. i don't know if the drip
was coming out of the corner or just rolling down towards it. my concern
is just keeping the water off the floor, so if that doesn't work then
i'll tape the connector over. but i think i have the responsibility to
inform you.
i still don't have a phone. i've lived long
enough without one that i've learned how to exist without one, and
decided it's more of a luxury than a necessity. and given that it is
essentially a government spying device, i've actually decided that i
even actively don't want one.
so, i know you're transferring ownership. let me know if there's a better email address to use.
but, yeah. it's dripping. slowly. it seems like the plastic cracked. but it may be the seal, too.
