As I read your analysis of the turn from self-expression to exhibitionism, I thought about the people of my father's generation and the generations before that. The kind of folks you see in old paintings of sages on mountains.
This was the aspirational ideal of pre-moderns. Those old dudes went on long walks in their free time composing poetry, playing music, or recording observations on the nature of reality (oftentimes all three). You could do it whether you were a hermit on a mountain or the rich guy who owned the mountain. It's seen as an Eastern ideal because the East let go of it last, but it comes through in the lives of people Jung, Montaigne, and countless others who made their art as a form of self-study and personal exploration first, and a performative content piece for the masses second.
Maybe in the capitalist era, you've got to feed the beast a bit more than you used to just to stay alive, but there's nothing stopping us from treating substacking/twitch-streaming/twittering in the same way, right? What's wrong with a plumber who composes Romantic symphonies in his spare time that none of the Soundcloud kids want to listen to if, in the process of his composing those symphonies, he induces his own enlightenment?
Thomas Carlyle was writing about this specific phenomenon in 1850 in his Latter Day Pamphlets ("Stump-Orator") -- the problem has been magnified a thousand-fold by the emergence of the internet. But that great saint Martin Luther understood the general nature of this phenomenon better than anyone else. It's your free will that damns you -- the only way to be saved from the consequences of your own decisions is to be reconciled with Christ, to become Christ's slave. It's surrendering control of the past you can't erase, and the future you can't change, over to Christ -- so you have the freedom to live here in the present, which you *can* change. Otherwise, the devil is your master, and you his slave.
But this phenomenon is true not merely for the right-hand kingdom -- the matters of eternal life -- but also for the left-hand kingdom, for the matters of life here on earth.
Freedom of speech is slavery to speech. It's slavery to the exabytes of utter tripe that people spew every single day. It's asphyxiation to the words of Carlyle's stump-orator, to people who have learned to speak eloquently, but who have absolutely nothing of value to say -- so they dredge meaningless language from the void instead. It's camwhores dancing for donations on Twitch to thousands of viewers. It's Googling basic Python functions and having shit, worthless websites written by Indians crowd the top results, drowning out the actual Python docs you wanted.
Freedom of trade is slavery to trade. It's slavery to merchants and bankers and advertisers. It's the worship of the process of trade itself, and the total, utter forsaking of the people who produced the goods traded. It's rewarding the people who manage the distribution of goods, and punishing the people who actually produce the goods. It's Walmart and Amazon selling everything -- no more local stores. It's Facebook and Twitter and Instagram -- no more small independent internet forums. It's merchants selling doves and pigeons in the temple courtyard.
Freedom of religion is freedom from religion: complete and total liberation from the path Christianity illuminated for us, complete and total slavery to the processes and institutions that lead us. It matters not which path we are on, or where the path is headed -- what matters is that we are on a path, that's what's most important, and if you want off the path, well that means undoing a hundred years of *progress*, bigot. Progress, yes, this is the one true measure of righteousness.
Freedom is slavery. Slavery is freedom. 1984 was unironically correct. It is, truly, better to be a slave in heaven than to be free in hell -- so why bother attaching morality to the question of freedom versus slavery? Why indeed.
Dave Chappelle, this American comedian, did this Netflix special a few years ago that leaned toward being politically incorrect, according to the powers that be anyway. He was pretty libertarian about things, honestly pretty milquetoast all things considered -- but I was libertarian then too, so I went into this thinking it'd be pretty cool.
He goes into this bit on abortion, talking about this female friend of his and her situation with an ex. The ex had gotten her pregnant. She decided to keep the child, praise God. But then he gives his opinion. He lifts the mic to his mouth and says, "I think that it's a woman's body, so it's a woman's choice -- she should be able to abort the child if she wishes, no strings attached, the guy has no say." Much applause, many cheers from childless celebrity whores.
He waits from them to quiet down. It takes a bit. Then he adds, "But I also believe that the man has the right to terminate his fatherhood, just as the mother can terminate her motherhood."
That was the moment I stopped being libertarian. That was the moment I got it.
Freedom comes in two different flavors: freedom to marry and freedom to divorce. They're both freedom, but only one of them is good. You can either be a slave to your spouse, your family, your friends, your country -- or you can cast yourself into the void, drown yourself in the freedom it offers you, spiritually asphyxiate yourself in the dopamine it grants you. You can hold your relationships invaluable, sacred, divine -- or you can denominate them in terms that can be understood rationally, represent them with a dollar figure, with social credit. You can run your relationships with the gospel that saves, or with the law that damns.
You can spend your entire life in pursuit of true beauty, true art, true architecture -- chiseling your body into a Greek god, cultivating the garden of your mind, constructing a cathedral in your soul, authoring the story of your life, building a marriage that outshines the sun. You have that freedom -- the freedom to be permanently shackled to your beautiful creations by your undying love for them. Or you can cast it all away, away into the void, and yourself afterward, to become a wirehead, to live a life that is potentially everything and actually nothing. Death. That's also freedom.
based and pervert pilled
As I read your analysis of the turn from self-expression to exhibitionism, I thought about the people of my father's generation and the generations before that. The kind of folks you see in old paintings of sages on mountains.
This was the aspirational ideal of pre-moderns. Those old dudes went on long walks in their free time composing poetry, playing music, or recording observations on the nature of reality (oftentimes all three). You could do it whether you were a hermit on a mountain or the rich guy who owned the mountain. It's seen as an Eastern ideal because the East let go of it last, but it comes through in the lives of people Jung, Montaigne, and countless others who made their art as a form of self-study and personal exploration first, and a performative content piece for the masses second.
Maybe in the capitalist era, you've got to feed the beast a bit more than you used to just to stay alive, but there's nothing stopping us from treating substacking/twitch-streaming/twittering in the same way, right? What's wrong with a plumber who composes Romantic symphonies in his spare time that none of the Soundcloud kids want to listen to if, in the process of his composing those symphonies, he induces his own enlightenment?
Thomas Carlyle was writing about this specific phenomenon in 1850 in his Latter Day Pamphlets ("Stump-Orator") -- the problem has been magnified a thousand-fold by the emergence of the internet. But that great saint Martin Luther understood the general nature of this phenomenon better than anyone else. It's your free will that damns you -- the only way to be saved from the consequences of your own decisions is to be reconciled with Christ, to become Christ's slave. It's surrendering control of the past you can't erase, and the future you can't change, over to Christ -- so you have the freedom to live here in the present, which you *can* change. Otherwise, the devil is your master, and you his slave.
But this phenomenon is true not merely for the right-hand kingdom -- the matters of eternal life -- but also for the left-hand kingdom, for the matters of life here on earth.
Freedom of speech is slavery to speech. It's slavery to the exabytes of utter tripe that people spew every single day. It's asphyxiation to the words of Carlyle's stump-orator, to people who have learned to speak eloquently, but who have absolutely nothing of value to say -- so they dredge meaningless language from the void instead. It's camwhores dancing for donations on Twitch to thousands of viewers. It's Googling basic Python functions and having shit, worthless websites written by Indians crowd the top results, drowning out the actual Python docs you wanted.
Freedom of trade is slavery to trade. It's slavery to merchants and bankers and advertisers. It's the worship of the process of trade itself, and the total, utter forsaking of the people who produced the goods traded. It's rewarding the people who manage the distribution of goods, and punishing the people who actually produce the goods. It's Walmart and Amazon selling everything -- no more local stores. It's Facebook and Twitter and Instagram -- no more small independent internet forums. It's merchants selling doves and pigeons in the temple courtyard.
Freedom of religion is freedom from religion: complete and total liberation from the path Christianity illuminated for us, complete and total slavery to the processes and institutions that lead us. It matters not which path we are on, or where the path is headed -- what matters is that we are on a path, that's what's most important, and if you want off the path, well that means undoing a hundred years of *progress*, bigot. Progress, yes, this is the one true measure of righteousness.
Freedom is slavery. Slavery is freedom. 1984 was unironically correct. It is, truly, better to be a slave in heaven than to be free in hell -- so why bother attaching morality to the question of freedom versus slavery? Why indeed.
Dave Chappelle, this American comedian, did this Netflix special a few years ago that leaned toward being politically incorrect, according to the powers that be anyway. He was pretty libertarian about things, honestly pretty milquetoast all things considered -- but I was libertarian then too, so I went into this thinking it'd be pretty cool.
He goes into this bit on abortion, talking about this female friend of his and her situation with an ex. The ex had gotten her pregnant. She decided to keep the child, praise God. But then he gives his opinion. He lifts the mic to his mouth and says, "I think that it's a woman's body, so it's a woman's choice -- she should be able to abort the child if she wishes, no strings attached, the guy has no say." Much applause, many cheers from childless celebrity whores.
He waits from them to quiet down. It takes a bit. Then he adds, "But I also believe that the man has the right to terminate his fatherhood, just as the mother can terminate her motherhood."
That was the moment I stopped being libertarian. That was the moment I got it.
Freedom comes in two different flavors: freedom to marry and freedom to divorce. They're both freedom, but only one of them is good. You can either be a slave to your spouse, your family, your friends, your country -- or you can cast yourself into the void, drown yourself in the freedom it offers you, spiritually asphyxiate yourself in the dopamine it grants you. You can hold your relationships invaluable, sacred, divine -- or you can denominate them in terms that can be understood rationally, represent them with a dollar figure, with social credit. You can run your relationships with the gospel that saves, or with the law that damns.
You can spend your entire life in pursuit of true beauty, true art, true architecture -- chiseling your body into a Greek god, cultivating the garden of your mind, constructing a cathedral in your soul, authoring the story of your life, building a marriage that outshines the sun. You have that freedom -- the freedom to be permanently shackled to your beautiful creations by your undying love for them. Or you can cast it all away, away into the void, and yourself afterward, to become a wirehead, to live a life that is potentially everything and actually nothing. Death. That's also freedom.