Re: Colin Wilson
Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2011 3:03 am
Alexis,
They aren't. Or at least my ideas are certainly (hah!) born into a nihilist age with its fading horizons. Even this type of analysis of the condition aggravates the condition, thereby echoing Baudrillard's ideas in 'On Nihilism' which you appear to be reading. Take your searching for a more "real" real, or a more authentic authenticity. My movement is not reactionary that way, and it doesn't oppose anything. It's not even much of an analysis I'd say.Are you not simply giving expression to inevitable nihilist notions, the unavoidable facts that arise from this destructive nihilism? Put another way, in what way are these ideas of yours non-nihilist?
And why would that be? Everything making "us" now can easily remake us in some simulation , remembrance, time machines and so on. My point is that even our imagined death is no guaranty of an "ending" (actually the ambitious gamble of the suicidal, as if their death would not make their "being in action" continue, that is: having sustenance, for eternity even).Only when one is dead and no longer present can there be said to be 'no-self'.
The complete imaginary, the 'unreal" is now all the horizon, a recipe for having also the "undead". New horizons might open up the moment something will truly be able to mystify again, to throw everything thought solid in disarray. Not something to wish for however. Aren't "we" too heavily invested in some of our heaviest elements?And as the world shrinks all the erstwhile escape mechanisms (conquering new territories, exploring the unknown, racing off to 'new horizons') become untenable (unsustainable too), what possible horizon could ever be proposed? The 'enlightenment freaks' speak of this unreal thing as if it is a real thing, and this forever mystifies me.
This is again about the subject/object relationship. The "other" is a special kind of object because of the level of similarities to mirror and as such communicate with. But in the real world the most significant 'other' to relate to, invoking a myriad of feeling can be an idea, a wish, a longed for being, an inner guide or even just a sports car. Necessarily this all has to arise together and one could say "we are the world" or the other is but our own self, etc.It is not, in fact, an 'other' but it is our own self, that is, our own being, here, in this place. That is the unchangeable fact, the one constant. To say 'you and me' only means a (yes, it indeed must be...) new way of understanding the Self, the primacy of self. It is both the horizon and the point from which one never moves.
It's always been about existence, of us, world, things, places (the "order of things"). Existentialism in a metaphysical nutshell. But the question remains still: "is it understood well enough"?All these symbols: the anointed of God descending to this realm; the world (as we knew it) ending; the dead becoming living (what is deadened, enlivening); a day of reckoning (inescapable): all these things are deep truths that arise in this place where we (you and I) are.
Nothing appears without horizon, so the answer would be: everything! But lets also say "meaning".When you speak of horizons, what are you referring to?
One can even make ones home inside [a sens of] alienation, and in those cases ones nature is one of being alien of course!Finally, I am curious what you do with the fact/concept of alienation, so central to Debord's analysis?