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© 10/2013. guilty collaborators: “timmy” luther;
“misanthrope” Shull; “[sic]” Thom Millary. Gringo-
Diaz-Castro; JCBLSTR //// art: Alec Soth, page 2;
gimages, 1,2,4,5,10,11,15,16; David laChapelle, cen-
terfold; John Heartfield, “oh du frohliche” //// pub-
lished and directed by “dogspeed you” e.m. knapp ////
thanks to Nietzsche, “Ayn” Randi Hagi, “Teddy”
Grimsrud, “Papa John” Fairfield, “Hans XN Ander-
son” Early, “Yo, Cephas!” Dula, “Energizer” Stutz-
man, “Watch yoself” N.H. //// also, “big” Zizek +
“Mc” Rollins; “JayCee” Caputo et al. //// open for fair
use (cite where necessary) // no price: free ////
theSineZine.blogspot.com
S ometime after Hegel infamously said that “history repeats itself,”
Marx then famously added: “first as tragedy and then as farce!” But
what is the relation between the moribund tragic and the mockingly
sarcastic? Are these two sides of the same coin? Or is it more like the
Star Wars saga — something that goes from sixty to zero in seconds
flat?
I s there something intrinsic about life in this universe — something
existentially fucked-up enough to mock itself? Are we condemned
to repeat what we have already done, ad nauseam, or is history in fact
“unbearably light” in its uni-directional flow? Is the heart of all things a
joke in bad taste?
a tough crowd tonight: consumerism / industrialism
the cesspit of capitalist christianism
the failure of a radical politic
something uplifting
the failure of the human system
T he birth of large-scale agriculture is usually a crucial starting-off point in
anthropology. Oppression, money, writing and legalism, indeed the
state itself, are founded upon large-scale agriculture. The invention of mass-
agriculture parallels the invention of walled cities, standing armies, and the
forced appropriation of anything that moves, including slave and animal labor
the rains, and biological life itself. According to Josephus, it was Cain (whose
name signifies the concept of “possession”) who invented agriculture, and it
was Cain who invented money, and it was the children of Cain who invented
slave labor and “taught men how to rob and murder.” The anthropological
and theological implication is clear: post-pastoral civilization is founded upon
human violence. Money, which was supposed to serve as a medium of ex-
change, becomes a tool of oppression; survival within the context of
“civilization” means accepting a pre-suppositional mistrust of the goodness of
human beings, and human life.
F ast-forward ten thousand years or so to the industrial era. Has civiliza-
tion changed in a fundamental sense? Has it overcome existential angst,
or the foundational oppression of other humans, the use of slave
labor? Hardly! The tragedy of civilization is only beginning to
climax! If we look closely at the apex of civilization, we are
confronted by exactly the same problems that the establish-
ment of a civilization was meant to address: namely the utter
lack of material surety that is part and parcel of the human
condition. The tragedy of industrialism — which can really
be seen as a form of hyper-civilization — is that the cure
(reliance on hierarchical authority,) is worse than the disease
(the uncertainty of nomadic life). Like a herd of buffalo bar-
reling towards a precipice, we run from fear of some-
thing bad to something much, much worse.
T he issue with trust is that it cannot ever live in
certainty: to the Heisenberg duo (both Wer-
ner Von and Walter White,) trust implies a certain
existential vagueness. And it is precisely this vague-
ness that all human authority — law, state, milita-
rism, materialism, racism — aims to eradicate. By
trying to stamp out vagueness, humans not only
refuse to trust in the inherent goodness of life, but
we get caught up in the negative causal feedback loop of
Authority, making things worse, increasing humanity's collective existential
angst.
W hen the Hebrew tribes are forced into slavery by the Egyptian state,
they are done so with guile and craft; they are told from the outset
that they are being taken care of by a magnanimous god-king who is saving
them from uncertain starvation during an economic downturn. We aren’t
forcing you into anything! You want to survive don’t you? So get to work!
T his tactic worked on the Hebrews, and has been working on the mass
of humanity ever since. Today we are fed the same bitter pill, but with
more than just a spoonful of sugar. Welcome to Con-
sumerism, kids! This is the post-industrial answer to the
pre-agricultural problem of uncertainty: work, buy, re-
peat! Get more than the other guy! When our generals
throw enough of our children at the enemy — or when
we trick the enemy into acquiescing into economic servi-
tude — we can medicate ourselves to sleep at night in
the semi-certainty that at least we won’t starve this
month. The farce of consumerism is a covering-up of the
tragedy of civilization; something best-embodied by the
Ayn Rand Industrialist idyll. The Great Depression, the
rise of communism and fascism, the Holocaust, mecha-
nized warfare — these are the tragedies which we pur-
chase away. And our disembodied facebook/
antidepressed/guilt-laden life is the punchline to the bad
joke of consumerism.
T he Hebrews escaped slavery through a miraculous
sequence of events, led on by a God of uncertainty,
offering them only day-to-day existence. Like Rick
Grimes in post-zombie Georgia, Moses tried to embody
the pastoral ideal in a harsh environment. But the people
were not ready for uncertainty: their perceptions of what
it means to live and to die were indelibly skewed by cen-
turies of brainwashing at the hands of empire. The Hebrew
story can be seen — from Abraham leaving town onwards
— as the story of post-civilization humanity. Yo! When
will we get it right and pull a Moses already? —EMK
A disabled veteran whose entire existence consisted of drinking and talking is exe-
cuted by the polis for spreading ideas against the state. A skin-and-bones ascetic
dies sitting under a tree where he sat for decades. A construction worker in Roman-
occupied Palestine is tortured to death for propounding a new epistemological, theo-
logical and political paradigm. These couple of fools have been the most influential
people in the history of recorded thought. Nobody could have been more profound;
and nobody could have been less powerful.
Y et, the mega-church leaders and the fundamentalist pundits and the televangelists
insist: Jesus is Lord. Christ is King, o you scum. And Jesus is coming again soon.
And (like John Wayne after they thaw and revive his corpse) he’s goin’ to judge you
sinners and you wont be singin’ then! The flood wasn’t pretty, and — because of the
very gravity of Being — history is bound to repeat itself again and again and again. So
repent, unbeliever! Let us save you, damn your eyes!
B ut what happens after I’m saved? Once God comes and purifies the earth into
submission, what then? Will heaven be like life, sans taxes, gub’ment and illegal
immigrants? Hard to say. When people think about God, they think things they al-
ready know, and that is problematic for God. The farce of fundamentalism is this: the
“true believers” are actually really worried that life is a meaningless exercise in a meaningless
void. Deep down, fundamentalists actually think that this piece of paper, this church
pew, this gas pump are really all there is to it. Fundamentalists are closeted materialists!
bu Ishmael Hei Seich
But isn’t our Nietzschean Christian Anarcho-Atheism also materialist?
Y es. However, fundamentalist materialism — whether the Lynchburg bible-
thumping type or the Dawkins “your God has cooties” breed — is incomplete.
Neither fundamentalist camp can lay claim to a complete science, a complete way of
knowing. Inevitably the Reverend Falwells of the world always punt to a bloodthirsty
idol-God who is unchanging and inapproachable — a clockwork God who is too stu-
pid not to kill his only Son. On the other hand, science-believers inevitably punt to
the imminent completion of human knowledge (see “the Human Project” page 14) in
an imaginary, enlightened future. Both sides punt; neither side wins. Time to burn
someone at the stake.
T here is an alternative. To the surprise of both rationalists and word-of-God–
hardliners, our non-reductionist dialectical materialism is simultaneously decon-
structionist and scriptural. The Socratic and Prophetic projects are twin offspring of
right knowing. The tradition starts when Abraham of Ur starts arguing with the old
geezer he called “God.” Abraham actually mocks God: “Shall a 100-year-old man
have a son? Don’t you know how this thing works?” and “Gee, God, maybe you’d
better rethink this killing people thing if you want people to like you. [sotto voce] Mor-
on.”
A nd this argument is actually what God wants — not unthinking obedience. (Shut
up, both of you! Go kill your only sons already!) Right relation with God is an
argument, not begging and pleading for something you really want for Christmas. God
does not fit your ego’s fantasies of rapture. God doesn’t desire blind obeisance, nor
the conversion of non-believers.
L et’s speculate for a moment. What does it mean that God wants us to argue
with God? Should we be like Job, spiritual lawyers pleading a case? Should we
be like Elijah, “just kill me now already, it’s too hot to argue!” Should we be like Sid-
dharta Guatama, dropping out (and is that even possible)? Or should we be like Jesus
the philosopher, deconstructing anything and everything?
T he real Jesus was all about dismantling human ego delusions. First he takes on
our civilization and religion and laws, and then he goes further and demonstrates
our misconceptions about life and death and meaning in the universe. He even laughs
along with the joke of his own crucifixion — at least that’s one way to see it. What’s
more, it isn’t enough for Jesus to tell the truth (very truly I say to thee); he actually
enjoys busting people’s bubbles. Surprise, mofo’s, I was just resting my eyes! Oh
snap, you shoulda seen the looks on your faces when you thought they killed me!
T he lesson here is obvious: salvation, lordship, resurrection, forgiveness… none
of these things are what you think they are. So don’t wait your life away fanta-
sizing for salvation. Think for yourself — if you still can! — IHS
I t didn’t start with Occupy.
It didn’t start with Arab
Spring, Spring of Nations 1848,
French Revolution, the Refor-
mation, the Great Schism nor
the fall of the Roman empire. It
didn’t even start with the Israel-
ites, though they were pretty
good at being losers. Radical
politics has been failing long be-
fore failing was cool. You might
say it is what radical politics does
best. Epic Fail.
O ur penchant for suckage is
exactly why radicals need to
get used to the idea of fighting and losing.
Even in those rare times when we on the
fringe aren’t the underdogs — in those few
instances when we have an honest shot at
achieving awesome revolution — we still
manage to gunk it all up. I’m not talking
about the blac-bloc Anarchists taking over
your meetings, though, dude, that totally
bites. (You shouldn’t let them do that to
you!) I’m saying that we were born to lose.
I’m saying that our ideas themselves are as
big of losers as we are sinners. So we can
start to address our loser-hood by doing
ourselves a favor and ceasing to blame our
lazy, inept natures, our original sin, the hu-
man condition, etc. . .
pathetic loser. In this way, we — human
beings with radical potentialities — are
made in the image of god. Also in this
way, history repeats itself.
W hen Soviet tanks invaded Czech-
oslovakia in 1968, it was a wa-
tershed moment for radical losers of all
stripes The resistance movement failed
in almost every one of its objectives of
opposing Soviet hegemony. But these
failures taught a mighty lesson. Genera-
tions of Eastern Europeans suddenly had
firsthand experience of non-violent re-
sistance. Gorbachev’s later liberal re-
forms were based at least in part on
Czechoslovak compromiser-president
Dubcek’s mediatory reforms. Also,
there was the counter-culture: losing, in
all its newfound coolness, planted
itself firmly into the Soviet mindset,
allowing the Soviet empire to
peaceably dissolve a generation later.
There is a theme in this losing-
compromise-interiority schema.
A fter having beat the Axis into utter
submission with nuclear bombs and
massive displays of military superiority,
Americans now drive Japanese
cars on a highway system
inspired by Hitler. Jack
Kerouac and the genera-
T he insight of Gandhi,
which is the same as the
insight of Jesus to my mind, is
that losing isn't what we think it is.
Feel better yet? If there is a
god, a “truth-force,” a right-
mindedness, then it too, is a
tion of boom-Americans become immersed in Zen practice, “Total Quality Manage-
ment,” Eastern spirituality and the like. In occupied India, a “subversive [according to
Churchill] half-naked fakir” named Gandhi becomes the iconic practitioner of pacifism.
(Note that Gandhi’s series of unlikely victories wouldn’t have occurred except that he
facilitated a collective shift of meaning in respect to the concept of ‘victory’.) The
American Abolition movement was driven in part by the exiled losers of failed 1848
revolutions. Out of defeat, we proclaim, comes true reflective politics. Solzhenitsyn
says as much in Gulag Archipelago: people need defeats; governments need victories
B e not depressed, o ye unhappy losers. The demise of the regime is always good
news, even if it happens to be a regime we kind of appreciate. When we lose,
our enemies suck us in with their cultural tractor beams and try to assimilate us into
the Borg collective. And that, as Captain Jean-Luc Picard will tell you, is precisely
when you power up thrusters, spool the warp engines, and load the proton torpe-
does.
S o rejoice, you overworked, underpaid, over-
sexed, under-
loved, overfed, unfulfilled losers: I have good news
for you! Blessed art thou, and woe unto those who would win
over-against you! — JLV
by Jaroslav Vygotsky
“Nature abhors a vacuum”
what is this, if not the definition of love?
the pouring out of self,
unable to abide a lack of meaning
“Nature abhors a vacuum”
what else do you need to know
about life?
A lmost everything humans have ever done can be fit into two cate-
gories: the WILL-TO-POWER and the WILL-TO-
TRANSCENDENCE. The human project is infused with the
will-to-power, and is punctuated by the will-to-
transcend itself. The object-oriented content of
the “civilized mind” is the corruption of a
more-natural way of being in the world.
W hen human beings see things
through the lens of identity
— when we think in terms of es-
sential attributes — indeed when
we look for essence, when we
talk about Sin, when we use
language to experience the
world — everything becomes
a threat to our identity. By
trying to pin down the vague-
ness of our own existence, we
impose on our concept of self
a falsity. The ideas of enemy-
love and ego-deflation in partic-
ular are actually attempts at
overcoming these existential fail-
ures. When Jesus tells us to love
our neighbors as ourselves, to love
our enemies, to pray for them as for
our own seemingly-fragile selves, he is
staking an epistemological claim. Jesus’ com-
mandment gets to the heart of the problem with
civilization and the will-to-power; stop seeing yourself
as separate from the world!
B ut even this fairly simple concept is lost in the cacophony of reli-
gious zealousy, cultic ideology, consumerist identity-generation.
Worse, it gets sucked-up into the machinations of ideology and religion:
“...every imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart was evil, continually.”
I am not Buddhist because of the truth in Buddhism, but because I wan-
na get me some of that nirvana, yo. I am not saved in Christ because
Christ taught me how to live free of the objectification that corrupts my
very sensory perception; I am saved by Jesus because I wanna
get into the big party in heaven. (Or what’s worse, get-
ting saved because I’m afraid of hellfire n’ damna-
tion!) This is the other form of the will-to-
power: the will-to-transcendence. Oh
come, sweet rapture! Take me away
from all these sinners and give me that
good shit that I know you been
keepin’ up there! This isn’t love of
enemies. This isn’t the breaking
down of the false walls of accu-
sation or the judgment of evil.
This kind of “faith” is purely a
selfish gesture aimed at manip-
ulating God. Gettin’ saved
and preaching the wørd is
actually ego’s way of project-
ing itself into the realm of
God. It is hubris and sin incar-
nate. I tell you, many of those
who’ve been waiting in the park-
ing lot in the clouds for the eter-
nal buffet to open will be disap-
pointed. There will be much crying
and gnashing of teeth. In other words,
the joke is on them — poor enemies we
love!
T his shameful covering-up with a scanty bit of
transcendence of our naked will-to-power is
the farce of the human project. We have failed at imagining a
way for humans to live in harmony with the existential truth, and wait
expectantly for God to supply a sublime punchline that is universal and
accessible. But, will we notice it when it comes? Will we even get it? †
THEY BE BANKIN’
WE BE JAMMIN’