Being a Black American, I noticed that a lot of the more vocal, fiery, and/or analytical voices within Black Liberation politics often attempt to be at odds with “Western philosophy”, yet, they are indelibly… Western through and through.
Most Black Liberation Politics centers around Continental Leftist and or liberal (in the classical sense onwards) types of ideology centering around concepts such as deconstruction, post-structuralism, Critical Theory, existentialism to many extents, anti-colonialism, post-colonialism, and some degree postmodernism (e.g., hip hop as a late stage capitalist form of music that blurs high art with low art, pastiche, hyper capitalism, the subjectivity of morality, pop culture, etc.).
But, for those within Black Liberation politics, stretching from the Ivory Tower college seminars with the stereotypical dred-locked wise sage professor, to YouTube video essayists with their evermore ridiculous thumbnails to attract eyeballs (yes, I am talking about “Foreign Man in a Foreign Land”, etc.), and all the way to fringe cults pushing antediluvian Black Supremacist origin stories (even throw in a few UFOs or mad scientists, e.g., The Nation of Islam, Nuwabians, Hoteps, etc.), what I notice is…. there is no real black philosophy.
Rather, we what we have is blackness expressed through Western philosophy.
What I’m saying is….is that most of the Black Nationalist or liberation types who are quick to call another person’s “blackness” into question, even going so far as using white supremacist Antebellum slavery monikers towards each other, i.e., house slave, house negro, coon, Uncle Tom, the N-word, etc., but these Black Nationalist and liberation types are….living in the “House”, i.e., the house is the Western civilization including its philosophy.
So, to appear to be at odds with the West, when in essence we are products of the West, including using its language, didactic, etc., is ironic. In other words, don’t pretend that you’re higher or holier or more “organic” simply because you push pro-blackness when we are all living collectively under the roof of the house. The only way to truly alleviate this dilemma is to…leave the West.
Full unplug form the West or rather attempt at establishing a coherent “Black Philosophy” or “Southern Philosophy” that with academic rigor pools various indigenous African philosophies under one umbrella. No conspiracy theory, no anti-white girl paranoid black female nonsense, no toxic masculinity, but literal hitting the books and creating a framework that spans ethics, logic, etc.
I say Southern philosophy because we obviously know that Eastern typically represents Asian and/or Indian Subcontinent frameworks spanning Hinduism, Daoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, etc., whereas Western philosophy touches upon everything from the Sages, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, Continentals vs Analytics, etc. In other words, we live under a global “Eurasianist” viewpoint, which isn’t bad necessarily, but the problem is that it excludes the philosophical frameworks of other parts of planet, so we can’t have a truly united human specifies until we include other frameworks or test them at least.
My call, yes, Quinton Mitchell is saying, that there should be a Southern Philosophy that emphasis the major categories of philosophy such as Ethics, Metaphysics, Epistemology, Logic, and Aesthetics. This could be done my using game theory, Artificial Intelligence, computer regressions, etc.
The issue with black conservatives such as Candance Owens, Larry Elders, Thomas Sowell, the BLEXIT movement, etc., is that it’s not really….”black” and I don’t mean black in a stereotypical aesthetic standpoint (e.g., A.A.V.E , African American Vernacular English– i.e., blaccent, Ebonics, etc., fashion, lingo, rhythmic music, soul, gospel, hair culture, etc.), but rather black conservatism is ironically…anti-black, i.e., it sees black people as inherently defective, problematic, embarrassing, inferior, etc.
For example, BLEXIT rarely if ever has an uplifting message as an outreach tactic to attract black recruits to their capitalist, meritocratic (in theory), socially conservative mindset. For example, you never see “Today in Black History this accomplishment happened” as a means of showing often urbanized or posing urbanized black people, alternatives to the black culture they were told is the only avenue for them.
Black conservatism often seeks to fit into white supremacy to prove that black people belong, thus by doing so black conservatives often swing down on their own people as a means of differentiating themselves from the stereotypes that white supremacy ironically helped create, though contemporary black people have largely adopted this black creation for themselves and co-opted it and steered it in their own direction (basically just being the ironic opposite of whiteness…”improper English”, sagging, calling ourselves Niggas, etc.).
With black conservatives there is often no love, protection, defense, etc., of black people but rather they join forces with white supremacy (and, yes, white Jewish conservatives such as Ben Shapiro) to bully, shame, etc., other black people.
There is no real non-nationalistic black-centric platform that attempts to solve black issues as felt through the black experience.
Rather, all black conservatives can offer is 1) work hard and 2) have fathers.
It fails to even acknowledge the racism that even black conservatives may suffer in majority non-black spaces (e.g., elite prep schools, colleges, etc.). Black conservatism for example seems incapable of even acknowledging that racism exist notably within structures such as American policing. For example, would it have been so much to ask if BLEXIT at least posted a photo of Elijah McClain, Treyvon Martin, Breanna Taylor, etc.? Nope. Rather, BLEXIT and black conservatives joined forces with the forces of skepticism against black suffering, bullying, harassment, etc.
The goal of figures such as “Officer Tatum”, Candace Owens, etc., was to convince conservative white people that they are right in overlooking, disregarding, making fun of, etc., black feelings and experiences. I am not labelling all black conservatives or black people who fall within the capitalist middle class as engaging in this, but rather certain pundits who are platformed engage in this belittlement, and thus therefore are exacerbating the internal divisions with the black community, notably via the antiquated trope of “house slave vs field slaves”.
Yet, the irony, even if we are to view what I am saying on an even higher level, is that black conservatives are meant to keep the internal division going, by drawing a hard line in the sand between over simplistic binaries. In other words, the black conservative serves as full assimilation within white supremacy without any attempt at having black agency or black value within it, as means of perpetuating and maintaining stereotypical divisions between white and black people. Better put, black conservatives are…black people wanting to be “white”, thus they help create a harsh “either/or”, “you are with us or against us” standpoint. By acting “white” I don’t mean how you sound, dress, or like, but rather acting white in the sense of being against anything that isn’t white. You can still be a suburban black person for example and still feel connection to your roots unlike what many, sadly, other black people think.
I actually defend socialist and even some communists, though I never want to live under Communism.
But the truth is that Communist are annoying.
As an analysis method there is merit in analyzing the world via a non “idealist” and non “metaphysical” way as a means of understanding natural contradictions within nature, notably class hierarchies. There is merit in egalitarianism because to be human means to be a balance between individual and within cooperation with others. Communists reject metaphysics but the truth is we don’t entirely understand the nature of actual physics, so how can we say with certainty that even communism is factual, if the underlying nature in which reason is built from, isn’t entirely understandable to us?
(Note: my theory that shows itself in many of my writings, is that black diaspora culture is essentially a form of “internalized” white supremacy, despite black people coopting that trauma and stylizing it for themselves (prevalence of the N-word, black on black violence, attempting to be the complete opposite to whiteness just for the sake of it, etc.), since it was created or gestated within the materialist conditions of white supremacy, so no matter how militant or “black” a person seems, they are effectively stuck in a manufactured dialectic with the colonial construct of “whiteness”, and the only way to alleviate oneself from that dialectic is to fully “de-program” from Western Civilization, i.e., its ethics, metaphysics, knowledge, aesthetics, etc. Or, instead of fully de-programming we as black people instead accept the evolutionary process of being overtaken by a more advanced organized force — where this advanced nature is not biological but was rather the result of material conditions that just so happened to have developed in Europe leading to the Age of Discovery thus development of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. This acceptance of conquest is the same as other groups, even white groups who were forcefully absorbed into the Western framework (e.g., Germanic pagan tribes conquered by the Frankish Kingdom, the Franks themselves conquered by the Romans, or Baltic peoples conquered by the later Frankish assimilated Germanic kingdoms by way of the Teutonic Orders, etc.), but instead harmonize and venerate our black culture and merge it with Western culture, so blackness with all of its ethics, metaphysics (a good faith, educated, scientific, academic and anthropological approach to topics such as indigenous African religions as opposed to conspiracy theory), epistemology, etc., becomes in part “de facto”, i.e., everyone in theory is a “little black”, i.e., creating a synthesis between the manufactured thesis and antithesis of whiteness and blackness.
The latter solution also being facilitated white people stopping to promote supremacist tropes to justify that conquest as a means of supporting this “synthetization” process, because contemporary people often have contributed nothing to the achievements of the race they claim.
About the author: I have a Bachelors in Business Administration, an additional Associates of Applied Science degree with Contracts Management, and a Master of Science degree in Management with an Operations Management focus. I am honorably discharged veteran of the United States Air Force and veteran of AmeriCorps. I current work in corporate America.
Basic Summary and theory by Quinton Mitchell: There is no distinction between the “House Slave” and “Field Slave” because ultimately the House is “Western Civilization”, so for people who call black Western peoples as being “House Slaves” – often as a means of calling their blackness or lived-existences into question, i.e., shaming, de-legitimizing, etc. – this is actually ironic because even for those who espouse an often Leftist or Marxist, or “woke”, or de-colonial/post-colonial sentiment (e.g. black separatism, black nationalism, black supremacy, etc.) they too are a part of the Western framework (the House). Think about that… Marxism even as a combative ideology to capitalism/imperialism/colonialism IS STILL a Western framework of analysis. If anything those who consider themselves “Field Slaves”, insinuating to themselves as if they are more authentic because they claim to reject the “House”, are disingenuous because they have the decision to fully be unprogrammed from the West but choose not to (often because of comfort), and often come up with an excuse/gas-light to not deprogram (e.g., de-colonize and expatriate back to Africa). At least, those considered “House Slaves” are attempting to carve their own space (room), e.g., the black bourgeoise, within the House (Western Civilization), rather than constantly criticizing the “House” while still technically living in it such as the alleged field-slave. Adding more irony, many of the “field slaves” want what they consider to be the lifestyle that the “house slaves” to be, so in many cases this shaming tactic of “field slaves” (e.g., the urban and rural poor) is jealousy, resentment, taking out their trauma on those who may have had slightly more stable upbringings, etc. The “Field Slave”, i.e., the supposed “that nigga”, the “real nigga”, i.e., the black equivalent of a “chad” (Alpha Male) or self-ascribed unapologetic black person, is…speaking Western languages, using Western philosophy, didactic, has a Western spiritualism, etc. If anything the goal of the Field Slave, i.e., the “woke nigga” within the context of how its used in black cultural discourse, is not to really… achieve what it is they claim to want achieved, logically that is. The logical conclusion of all de-colonial thought is to expatriate, unless the goal is to maybe have some sort of incubation period without outside influences, but on the future goal of re-integrating within the larger multi-cultural society. If this logical conclusion is not followed all we end up with is a sort of “perpetual, spiritual, never-ending struggle”, because people never realize the solution is to de-program if they truly have an issue or see no reconciliation with the “program” (the West). To further add irony, this “perpetual, spiritual, never-ending struggle” becomes something equivalent to “intellectual masturbation”, because it’s not really achieving anything (just as the act of having physical intimacy, i.e., doing something in the real world), but rather is pretending to do something while tricking brain into thinking that it’s achieving something real, e.g., black intellectual talks a lot, but don’t do a lot, but the ultimate “do” is to “de-colonize”, i.e., put your money where your mouth is rather than being in perpetual “thinking” “analyzing” “deconstruction”, etc. The black intellectual notably of the Left, often leaves people with no “solutions” and still while profiting within a capitalist structure (if we are to agree capitalism is bad) say statements such as “there’s no ethical consumption in capitalism”, i.e., this is the best I can do, I can’t change anything, but I’m still going to get my money. Yet, even if giving a solution, the logical conclusion still remains which is to fully de-program.
Foreword #1 - The World is More Segregated Than I’ve seen in a While… Unfortunately… I blame the Far Left and Far Right
The Far Left and Far Right, who both have gripes with “Liberalism”, i.e., Democracy, Republicanism, the notion of individualism, etc., are sort of the same on race but from different directions. Yet, liberals, which includes was consider to be conservatives, are not off the hook either. Where as the Far Right fascist wishes to have racial segregation by positing a sense of racial hierarchy. The Far Left, often Communists, incidentally pushes racial segregation by position de-colonial self-determinism, which is basically, leaving races to purse their own paths. Yet, the liberal in the middle, often has an idea of commodifying race which by proxy creates its own unique segregation that can be profited off of.
Regardless, things are bad. Umar Johnson and Nick Fuentes are essentially the same but just different races. The Nation of Islam in the internet age is able to spread is ideologies under the guise of Pan Africanism so you get their borderline Nazi ideology spreading not only through the “Black West” but also the Caribbean, Africa, etc.
In the wake of Black Lives Matters, there’s been a split between African American and Asian American communities which is in part being addressed by the Stop Asian Hate movement, where many urban Asians see themselves under threat from “unaccountable black violence”. The BLM movement despite its noble intentions of humanizing black bodies, was always going to be scapegoated and gas-lit by white or other supremacists who have always had issues with black people.
Anyways, it seems like this segregationist movement that is on the rise because of Far Left Communist, Woke or “Clinical Gaze” Liberals, and Far Right Racist is…planned. As the world becomes more globalized, many the powers at be need to keep “groups in their zoo cages”. Racial segregation has always been an easy way to control the population.
Foreword #2 – Slight Problem with White Liberals: First off, separate from the core purpose of this post, I want to say that white liberals are sort of annoying, though I find Black Leftist living/benefitting under capitalism, especially those I would consider to be separatist, nationalist, “racial gatekeepers”, etc., to be equally if not more annoying. But relating back to white liberals, I only say this not because they are bad because, in theory, they are allies despite what old snippets of Malcolm X warning black people about white liberals being recycled in the ether of the internet is saying. Yet white liberals (allies) have a bad habit of being supportive of very problematic black ideas largely because they feel they can’t say anything for fear of pushing the “white savior” mentality.
White liberals, despite mostly good intentions, seem to be obsessed with finding the “blackest of black people” – a type of philosopher stone journey for “raw”, “tough”, “Mandingo”, “mama-san”, blackness – because they feel frustrated not being able to fully understand – at least from their perspective – the black experience.
As a result, white liberals end up elevating radical black voices where some are very inquisitive/helpful, but many are actually problematic and self-serving, i.e., grifters. For example, figures that are sexist, patriarchal, or, even woke – where woke to me is first off a subjective term, but how it has morphed in the public lexicon simply means “annoyingly aware to the point of deconstructing reality and slipping into New Age, i.e., “Far Out”, Neoplatonic, esoteric, quasi-Occultic nonsense“, which ironically can lead to cult-like thinking, and arguably in my opinion is a way of inadvertently controlling the public since the “proletariat” is riddled with relativism, thus unable to coordinate, act, plan, and execute).
Woke objectively is not bad. It’s really something akin to barbershop quasi conspiracy and intellectual fact rapping associated with black or BIPOC people as a means of inserting our roles, history, and contributions within the larger superstructures of society (e.g., the field of history itself), but the fringe of wokeness is pure post-truth relativism, paranoia, and conspiracy theory, which feeds back to tropes such as “woogedy boogedy“, i.e., black people stereotyped as overly superstitious and afraid.
White liberal support, though appreciated (and, I sincerely mean that, for example with white liberal support of global protests in support of Black Lives Matters calling out police injustices), often “pornifies”, “fetishizes”, etc., the black experience with a sort of “clinical gaze”, yet, many are just being played ironically by bad-faith black activists who simply want unaccountable power, i.e., a sort of racial cuck-holding, not only over other black people (by playing the “gate keeping and cultural-purity testing game” which i will speak about below) but also others in general. Yet, this behavior that I am criticizing can be done by anyone of any group (and, if anything is the just the dark-side of intersectionality – which in and of itself can be a helpful tool for analysis if used properly). So I’m not trying to insinuate that “white liberals” or even black activists are bad, but rather in many instances, the relationship can come off as mutually exploitative, and often defeatist since many opposing voices within black political discourse are cancelled for appearing not to be “black enough” from this black fetishized aesthetic of the “Black, Marxist, revolutionary, de-colonial” radical.
Foreword #3 – The Dark Wokeness of Umar Johnson, Rizza Islam, and Black Cults
For example, there’s so many “sinister woke” figures nowadays. Nation of Islam with Rizza Islam, followers of Umar Johnson who I call “Umarites”, Hoteps, Moors (Moorish Science Temple), Carbon Nation Cult, Nuwabians, Black Hebrew Israelites, The Nation of Yaweh, the Black Aboriginals (i.e., the fringe ideology that Black Americans are indigenous to the USA and not from Africa), and Naturopathic Con-spiritualist thinkers such as Yahki Rapha Elohim, etc. We can even include Kanye “Ye” in this.
Black people seem more conspiratorial in nature because we’ve had our roots stripped so there’s a deep rooted insecurity when constantly reminded by Western Civilization that we are “lesser”, rather than our African roots being fully included in the West. You add the legacy of segregation where people are left in “echo chambers”, the legacy of mass incarceration (often where Muslim conversion happens), etc.
Yet, instead of intensive, mainline research and anthropology it seems many use “dues ex machina” to fill in the gaps. For example, there’s a movement now saying that Black Americans are indigenous Native Americans, yet, this seems like fringe black though similar to the white supremacist “Vineland movement”, where they believe they as a Germanic peoples are entitled to the Americas because of Vikings settling parts of Eastern Canada.
Umar Johnson, who really doesn’t say anything original but his oration skills mixed with his ability of rapping off facts has elevated him as an important voice in black culture, despite his racial segregation ideas, sexism, and patriarchal tendencies that are often in alignment with the Manosphere (Kevin Samuels, The Fresh & Fit Podcast, etc.) which is prevalent online (e.g., such as his stance of patriarchal polygamy, yet, denouncing feminism and those on the LGBTQ spectrum, or even denouncing those not physically seen as black enough, i.e., dark enough, i.e. spreading colorist ideas but in an inverted way to support black supremacy as opposed to whiteness as purity in favor of white supremacy).
There’s also Rizza Islam of the black supremacist group and cult, the Nation of Islam, who has in my opinion as a person who spends a lot of time online, is simply appropriating conspiracies from other online conspiracy theorists but packaging them for the black community (for example, Rizza Islam’s discussions on transhumanism are no different than Jay Dyer, a white Eastern Orthodox YouTube conspiracy theorist who often spreads anti-West and pro-Kremlin adjacent conspiracies who has links to the MAGA movement via his relationship to Alex Jones). Let’s not forget other black cults such as Nuwabians, Carbon Nation, Black Hebrew Israelites with Brother Nathaneyl, and the child abuse case of Mother Anna in North Florida (who was later arrested in the Metro Atlanta Area), etc.
Main Paper/Post
You often hear in the political Left people say that race is social construct, and by Political Left I mean Socialists (a spectrum of ideologies), Communists – a type of socialism with specific criteria (often under a Marxist ideology which seeks to have a cashless, classless, stateless world by way of a centralized dictatorship of proletariat, i.e., working class), and to some extent Left Liberal (i.e., a progressive who isn’t socialist or Communist but still has liberal principles, and by liberal I mean deriving from the “classical sense” of liberalism to the early modernist definition of liberalism, i.e., believing in private property, separation of church and state, taxes on the rich, etc. We can even throw in some “Centrists” (who have learned to accept or at least tolerate this stance from the Left).
Yet, even though the Left says that race is a social construct, often as a means of challenging and deconstructing the manufactured social systems within colonial/post-colonial nations which are synonymous with the word “Imperialist” (e.g., capitalist, elite, bourgeoisie), it seems that the Left ironically is…race obsessed.
And race obsessed to the point of being a type of inverted version of the “race realism” and “segregation” notable within the Political Right. For example, what the Left ends up pushing self-determination, which is great, but often that self-determination is fueled by a type of race-based (arguably dialectical) anger towards whom a particular group sees as the responsible for their current and/or past treatment.
Adding to this, you get “gatekeeping” of culture where race and culture are often seen as intrinsic, rather than culture being what I call an “ontological construct nuanced by historicity” (i.e., ideas that just so happen to solidify over time and space, often as a people “anthropologically” interact with their environment and where such as ideas or expressions of ideas, e.g., art, are eventually seen as natural when in fact they are mental and social constructions in and of themselves.
As a result of seeing everything in culture as racial in nature – even though the Left refutes race existing in nature – what we end up with is…”purity testing”, which could be re-named “cultural eugenics”, which of course if…eugenics, i.e., the appraisal of purity based on often made-up ideas.
Ironically, for black people in contemporary Left-Wing politics, there’s something disingenuous about this because many people are accepting of the fact that race is a social construct, but many black people under the notion of self-determination are doubling down in their belief of race. Sure, it could be argued that we as black people just simply need our time to ourselves to peacefully process our existences within Western civilization that fell upon us (e.g., creating stable systems that do not “otherize” black peoples).
Yet, black people are more so protected – relatively speaking – compared to the past because of this idea of race as a construct being accepted by “non-blacks”, yet, with black people doubling down in racial consciousness, often where certain actors are not only gate-keeping but perpetuating a typical of “cultural eugenics test” on “outsiders” and “insiders” (i.e., “you’re not black enough” types), this all makes people fall in alignment with a culture (black culture) that ironically was produced by the same white supremacist system we as black people claim to want to transcend above.
Does that make sense? To restate, the political-left says that race doesn’t exist, often as a means of challenging white supremacy/colonialism and by default uplifting black/”BIPOC” peoples, yet, black peoples while using this notion to their benefit in one hand are double-downing in the other hand into a strict adherence to the concept of “blackness”, where such as blackness is ironically a byproduct of white supremacy, where blackness was designed to be the manufactured dialectic to whiteness (AAVE, i.e., African American Vernacular English, i.e., Ebonics vs King’s English, sagging vs wearing your pants up, fluidity vs rigidity, spicy vs bland, etc., etc.) . In other words, black people doubling down on racial purity/separatism are actually giving the white supremacists what they want because the white supremacist wanted black people to be segregated whether white supremacy (Right Wing) did it or black people did it themselves (via Left Wing ideology or even Right-Wing ideology, it doesn’t matter).
Sure, even though we as black people “claimed this culture from our manufactured situation of oppression for ourselves and turned it into empowerment” such as calling ourselves Niggers (niggas) and being polar opposites to what we consider to be “white”, the truth remains that what we are now empowered in what was and still is highly influenced by white supremacy.
In other words, black people will never be “free” unless we totally remove ourselves from this trajectory regardless of if we take it for ourselves. Better put, no matter how black you think you’re acting, you actually acting in many ways what were simply designed to be opposite. In other words, black simply means opposite of white. Just the way I am sure our Founding “Fathers” wanted the colonial caste system to be. To reiterate, acting “black” doesn’t mean “free”, but just opposite, but black to me is not a monolith, yet many black people have a hard time processing away from the monolithic viewpoint of blackness they too were indoctrinated with.
Most Black Americans, including those who claim to be woke, “down”, “bought it, bought it”, etc., aren’t really willing to fully be “unprogrammed”, i.e., leave Western Civilization. Nothing is stopping black people from going back to Africa, taking their US currency, and totally forgetting about all the trauma we seem to be obsessed with reminding ourselves about. But the truth is, most don’t want to leave and will always come up with a “saving face excuse”, such as “We’re still waiting on reparations”, as if reparations – especially in the form of controversial cash payments (only controversial because many people in the US now are not descended from the situations that created black oppression such as slavery) will ever happen. For certain extreme Pro-Black voices, they still desire their capitalist food, TV, sweatshop shoes, etc. So, if anything, most extreme Pro-Black types are not only disingenuous but are really just…talking but talking as a means of pushing what I talked about which is purity testing (cultural eugenics). They want to be rewarded and idolized for saying the most woke things to establish themselves atop a cultural hierarchy. Better put, the extreme Pro-Black woke talker is actually just using culture as a currency in a social hierarchy where performance, words, and aesthetics are more valuable than the actual construction of physical infrastructure, let alone advanced infrastructure. It’s easy to be Pro Black and segregationist and open a food stand, barber business or print T-shirts than it is to build…computers, rockets, etc. If anything, our obsession with race has resulted in a type of intellectual laziness were analyzing culture, qualitative studies, liberal arts, etc., takes precedence over hard to learn sciences such as math, engineering, etc. Instead of the hard things we are content with talking, “preach!”, “oh! snap!”, “he ain’t wrong!” intellectual “rap battles” which at this point have slipped beyond tolerable wokeness and instead have gone into literal La-La land of Ancient Alien, Neoplatonic, Occultic and Antediluvian conspiracy theories (with personalities like Kanye West as the extreme avatar this madness) .
Western Civilization colonized the entire planet. So be it. Who cares? Because Western Civilization doesn’t necessarily mean “white” because a civilization is simply the accrual of ideas that have embedded themselves into systems. Yet, ideas that created Western Civilization, despite being mostly “brewed” in Europe, since Europe offered the best real estate to do so (e.g., a temperate, seasonal area with access to fresh water and ocean access, without major viruses and predators as that of Africa), were derived from “ideas” from all over, be it Muslim math which played a big role in navigation technology, being awe inspired by the Egyptians, philosophy from the ancient Iranians, and let’s not forget that the oldest human activity is from Africa.
But, still there’s black nationalist, Pan Africans, etc., who want to be in the United States yet are continuing to use the antiquated tropes and manufactured dramas of “house niggas” vs “field niggas” as a means of analysis, which just further proves how black minds seem to have the inability to escape dialectical (us. vs them, either/or, Ying Yang) thinking, and if so, they go totally far into the deep end of conspiracy theory.
The irony of Black Extremists or woke types such tropes such as House Nigga or Field Nigga is sadly comical in a nihilistic sense because…we’re all in the house. The house is Western civilization.
For a people birthed from dialectics and who seem to not be able get over dialectical thinking, i.e., white vs black, house nigga vs field nigga, the only solution is dialectics, which is to assimilate or at least be more tolerable to the fact we are now a Western people or to…leave, seriously, go back to Africa. Man or woman up and go back if you give up on the West or the United States. Because, if this does not happen, blackness will forever be an Escher Maze
Black people’s inability to provide acceptance amongst themselves and accept differences will result in a brain drain as black people who climb the ladder will blend with others as they find themselves shamed by their own people but relate to others because they have expanded tastes or see that there’s a larger world outside the constraints of black culture, but also we will have a smaller more radical group of black people where black people will likely be fourth in place as Hispanics and Asians move in and outperform black Americans.
Referencing the film Fight Club is quasi-cringey because it represents every angry, in your twenties, posters on the wall without a frame, cliff-note Bukowski, jaded, wannabe Nietzschean “edge lord” that most of us, especially men, have dealt with.
But almost in my forties, over most things, and arguably…content mostly, etc., I do admit I daydream about how Edward Norton saw the banking buildings at the end of the film go down in rubble, but instead of banks, I envision social media companies. Seeing all the symbols come crashing down to Earth. The blue bird of Twitter, well – now the way too bright X shinning down in San Franscisco as drug addicts hiss in piss filled streets being bought up by hedge funds like BlackRock or Vanguard. The F of Facebook. The almost Hello Kitty looking camera symbol of Instagram. This, that, whatever. Yet, before I get flagged, I just want to say I’m not really serious – at least about any violence or destruction, though a world without social media, at least as it is now, would be much better, healthier, etc.
But I don’t hate Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, etc., though, yes, Elon is lame, but when I think of a person like Mark or Jack, I see optimists who had a dream they couldn’t’ control and still can’t control but can’t admit they don’t have control because they’re in charge of capitalist enterprises bent on profits. In other words, Mark, etc., signed out and could care less if the world burns. This adds on more to the irony. Analogous to demi-gods they created a universe but are letting it crumble because they didn’t comprehend the sheer power.
Books aren’t dead but they very well may be dead. To read means to sign out, and to feel catharsis must now be shared instead of silently appreciated by oneself. Basic cable, though organized and safe, doesn’t stimulate us as much as streaming where we can customize our experiences. Social media reigns supreme but still it’s…inhuman. Maybe it’s too convenient? With such an easy way of getting information, maybe it’s making us dumber, yet living in a world that requires us to keep track of the ever-growing interconnectivity of things, that is why people are…depressed? Stupidity mixed with complexity creates a dialectical tension that leads to hopelessness as one realizes they become masters-of-none, just repositories of trivial information.
At least, you get off with porn, though sure, many will say that too is bad, yet at least you get a spike of some naturally occurring chemicals in your body.
With basic social media…what is it even really for? To feel bad? To flex wealth? To juxtapose our romantic relationships against that of others to remind us that we should be happy where we are rather than being “single” or with someone else? To pretend to be a wise sage even though deep down instead you’re just speaking to yourself but through others without the fear of having to actually deal with…people? Are we just projecting our fears out onto the electric ether just like how a child who sees a scary movie will tell his or her friends about it, so they too are afraid but in that collective fear comes comfort, solace?
I think a healthy New Years resolution would be to spend less time on social media. And I get that is hard because in many ways we have “social media friends”, i.e., people we’ve met online who we’ve vetted who are people we consider to be on friendly terms with though you may not have ever physically have met the person. People who know you exist and are a person with a life in a world that may not see that. There are also legitimate close ties with people in your actual personal lives (friends, family, co-workers, business connections, etc.). Yet, the good parts aside, the truth is social media has destroyed the planet.
As with most tools, humans get utility out of it, but most tools become corrupted because of our innate nature as self-serving, self-preserving, aggressive yet passive-aggressive creatures. Instead of saying hello, we spy and snoop. Instead of trying to find common ground, we instead agitate an already agitated public. Instead of pursing our dreams in the real world, we scroll.
We don’t even need to fear Artificial Intelligence because we as humans have a good enough job at driving ourselves crazy, making alternative universes, pushing a culture of solipsistic post-truths, etc.
It will take us as a society to teach the social media companies a lesson by not spending so much on time so they can’t mine our data, etc.
Social media is a postmodern cesspool of racial tension against all groups, conspiracy theories (spanning the Great Replacement Theory, the New World Order, Blood Libel by Jews, a belief we are being turned gay, etc.), racial conspiracy theories, antisemitism, misogyny, sovereign citizens, Qanon, Manosphere & Men’s Rights shaming videos that feed the insatiable appetites of Incels across the blob of angry men who LARP (live action role play) in video games about killing people or dying honorably in battle. Men who struggle with women and publicly commit to “no fapping” (masturbating) as a means of tapping into their inner Marcus Aurelius but taking out their sexual repression on women by providing “fatherly words of wisdom” to women who they think have no minds of their own. How many Pakistanis, Saudis, or other horny Middle Eastern men using VPNs to access Western porn/women are the ones actually crying about their alleged addictions?
Let’s not forget the Instagram “thirst trap” models of large squat sculpted buttocks, sultry MILFs, what have you, but also…bot accounts, covert government operations both foreign and domestic, etc. Or wait, the annoying street interviewers attempting to make people seem stupid or lost for whatever agenda they are really about, such as “drinking liberal snowflake tears.”
You never know if its Iranian intelligence firms with bot armies infiltrating black “woke” Marxist liberation sites to stoke anti-whitey sentiments because Iran knows they have a backdoor plug into the Black American community via Muslim adjacent hate groups such as the Nation of Islam with figures such as Rizza Islam.
You never know if Israel Unit 8200 bot accounts ran by drafted Israeli teens are stoking racial division to keep the eyes away from Israel and that it’s not Jews behind the scenes but rather hordes of Muslim refugees flooding Europe who will topple the West.
You never know if Russian bot accounts are stoking unrest by infiltrating American Conservative politics as a means of depicting the West as a “corrupt, amoral, Sodom and Gomorrah” so more and more paranoid white Americans and Europeans see Putin as “big daddy savior” of Christendom.
You never know if what you’re seeing is being ran by a legitimate cult who are pushing every New Age conspiracy theory that intends to unravel our linear view of history apart. You never know if hate groups like the Aryan Brotherhood, or any other aspiring group are behind many accounts. You never know if it’s the CIA, FBI, DEA, ATF, local police, MI5/6, Mossad, etc.
We are literally living in a William Gibson Neuromancer nightmare, and we all know it, but we don’t know how to express it because outside of social media, in perfect American fashion for example, we’ve all been trained to be self-serving individuals. Despite out own quiet desperations and ennui, if we see such melancholy elsewhere, we are now trained to simple walk over the dying bodies of others, because we are too busy “manifesting” our own happy little worlds. Any whiff of negativity could lead to the dreaded…unfollow.
It is everything that Philip K Dick lost his mind over.
Social Media is arguably MK Ultra 2.0. A brainwashing tool for various parties, some in unison, and some in opposition, who fart out toxicity to scramble the general public’s brain.
I’ve literally been seeing people get murdered on social media. Seeing the N word is just commonplace now and even if reported, sites like Instagram do nothing. Nudity is even acceptable.
The thing is…it’s all insanity. It’s to the point where I make it a hobby to block accounts. I’ll literally try to block 50 a day because many are just replica accounts, often pushing Right Wing social conditioning that mixes a denunciation of progressive politics with a worship of capitalist greed, misogyny, Abrahamic religion, doomsday Revelation fears, etc. It’s as if the Koch Brother Foundation along with the John Birch Society wrote a blank check and gave it to a bunch of Young Republican college kids and shills like Charley Kirk to fart out as many bot accounts as they can as a means of pulling the youth to the far right, just because rich people or aspiring rich people want a tax break.
Social media is a joke
Deconstructed to an animal impulse the only thing on social media that makes me somewhat happy is a combination of food porn, glamour shots of retro porn actresses from the 90s to 80s, history stuff, and models in yoga pants.
Sex, food, daydreams
The only way to really fix social media is to (1) Dox everyone, i.e., make it some everyone’s real first name, age, and country of origin is on their profile because this will expose the armies of chaos agents stoking tension. Imagine if that Right Wing Anti-SJW account is owned by Boris in some oblast in Russia or Ahmed as the IT guy working with the Iranian Revolutionary guard or a Jewish kid with braces doing a high school project funded by the IDF. (2) Limit the number of accounts a person can have/hunt down replica accounts and limiting how many times a specific video can be uploaded or using digital forensics of some sort to post the date that photos or videos were taken in order to add context to conversations. For example, a racist account intent of shaming black people will upload frequent videos of black crime or racial tension when certain videos may be very old, but pretending they are new helps to feed the current narrative that black people are these “ungrateful criminals” intent on “killing the white man”. (3) More culturally sensitive content moderators because an Indian person in a cubical may not get certain American nuances or vice versa. (4) An active campaign to fight conspiracy theories by having users list sources. (5) Partnerships with sites such as Ground News to help show the political biases of articles (6) continued parental controls
Social media is too cerebral.
It reveals everything ugly about us without any way of making us better. Even most self-help just serve to reduce one into a consumerist bot.
But I saw some good food and yes, some great feminine, squat-sculpted powerful buttocks in an array of multi-colored synthetic material leggings. At least I am honest.
I was a huge Highlander fan as a kid. I have mixed emotions about a remake of the classic film. The magic of Highlander was that it was a film of open ideas. It was a B movie. There was freedom in the story line and direction. It channeled a street level energy, but also touched into something romantic about our human condition. The main character was cast as an effective no-name actor, which was great because it wasn’t a Hollywood decision. The magic of Highlander was that it was a student project effectively. It was an example of well-done DIY movie. We also have to realize the film was made in a time when a deadly diseases was sweeping the planet, there was a sense of lawlessness, etc., so it really touched people in many ways. So, what will a Highlander remake tap into? But, I do think a Highlander film could be great, if done correctly and if it retains an aura of indie film rather than explicitly going the route of Big budget Hollywood film, though it will need the best special effects. There’s plenty of studios who could a good job such as Annapurna Studios or A24, etc.
Highlander is Neoplatonism in that immortals are “pieces of essence” from a larger source, i.e., the ominous higher being or source known as The One or a Demiurge. By fighting in combat this insinuates a Darwinist “strongest survives” mentality, and the last one standing thus touches transcendence or “the next level”. The fact that combat is the underlying basis insinuates a Darwinist struggle of fitness and natural selection, yet the fact that only one immortal can truly stand in the end for The Game to be over, insinuates that Immortals are possessing an essence of larger otherworldly source of power. A larger force from another dimension “broke itself” apart or was “destroyed” and inhabits a few select humans over the course of time, and by consolidating itself without our dimension the last immortal who stands is effectively The One. The fact that humans on Earth are chosen, insinuates that Humans are a special species, having evolved through the game of evolution, through time, various struggles, pain, violence, near extinctions, admixtures, refinements, etc. Humans are the worthy in that they not only are the dominant species able to make free-willed decisions, but have the aptitude and consciousness of awareness, where conscious awareness is needed to understand the stakes of The Game. The Game would be useless if any other animal were involved. Humans are the chosen animals who can comprehend metaphysical possibilities, existentialism, asking their purpose within the universe, creators who make things within their own image, etc.
In The Game there are rules. 1) Only one on one combat. I think this is because it permits for a clean transfer of power from person to person, 2) Only use bladed weapons. I think this is because when an Immortal takes the head of their opponent, the power transfer, known as The Quickening, comes with the presence of electricity, meaning bladed weapons help conduct and transfer the power from The Source, 3) No fighting on Holy Ground which I’ll give theory to below, 4) Immortals can’t have children, which I think is because there’s no point, in that mortals spread their genes to live “forever” whereas immortals simply live forever carrying their own genes through time, 5) There can be only one remaining in the end, 6) There’s only so many immortals that will ever exists, in theory, and immortals can come in all ages, races, genders, etc., and 7) Mortals must die before being resurrected as an Immortal.
If we were to apply natural sciences to immortals in the Highlander series, then immortals are the a sort of biological necessity, possibly for an array of reasons, e.g., immortals must exists for the survival of the species in that they can A) have a volume of knowledge from their lived experiences to quickly help the species continue on its path of evolution without going all the way back to square zero in the case of catastrophe, and B) the fact that an assumed benefit of winning The Prize is having the ability to have children, meaning that the surviving immortal will not only have a plethora of information gained from their lifetime but also be the most genetically fit individual to help benefit the species in that their genetics span various epochs of human existence, struggle, fitness, adaptation, and development.
The fact that Immortals cannot fight on Holy Ground insinuates an otherworldly source in that the essence is “fractured” amongst immortals, meaning that religions, regardless of their diversity, all have a common source, with that source likely being humankind’s understanding of natural law (physical) but also the possibility of the metaphysical, i.e., things that humans cannot comprehend but can possibly exists. What we consider to be belief, religions, etc., is all just an interpretation of our purpose in the world, yet that interpretation is based off the fact that a higher level of existence does exists, thus Holy Ground is sacred in that these sites are the closest sort of “communication centers” or “portals” to a higher reality. Fighting on Holy Ground is like itching a rash on The One. It is too close to home. Holy Ground sites are where dimensions crisscross and create “portals” between each other. Therefore, violent events occur when Immortals fight on Holy Ground in that it creates an anomaly in physics or space-time. For example, Mount Vesuvius is recorded in Highlander cannon has erupting when two immortals fought on an ancient Holy site. To reconcile religion with biology or evolutionary biology, when humans have faith, they connect to a higher source. For example, when humans observe electrons, they notice that electrons mysteriously disappear. Belief might possibly have the ability to shape realities in ways we cannot understand based on science, yet quantum mechanics and quantum computers might pose insight.
When immortals beat another immortal in combat, they gain their essence and power, but this transfer of power called The Quickening, is typically defined by the presence of electricity, lightning, etc. Electricity is a form of energy resulting from the existence of charged particles (such as electrons or protons), either statically as an accumulation of charge or dynamically as a current.
So, if the source of Immortals comes from The One, when immortals kill each other, they consolidate power. In other words, The One, is a source of power, manifesting itself as a being, likely from another dimension, i.e., the Fourth or Fifth dimension, but within the human dimension, i.e., the third dimension, its presence is felt through electricity and consolidates as immortals consolidate power through combat. Immortals are like organic transceivers of otherworldly information which in our universe manifests itself a phenomenon from subatomic particles, i.e., such electricity from electrons.
The One has some sort of nature that it can only manifest itself in shards or pieces but to consolidate it must consolidate through what we deem as combat or fitness or struggle or tension. The One had to breakdown to communicate or relate to our dimension, but since the lower dimension, i.e., us in the 3rd will eventually strive to reach a higher one, similarly to a higher dimension will try to understand a lower one. Thus, the struggle of Immortals is a necessity.
Immortals are transceivers of information from a higher dimension manifesting within our dimension, hence, therefore immortals can sense one another, i.e., there is a natural magnetism between them all.
The importance of the head to an immortal is that it is what we consider to be the highest charka, i.e., it is where all the energy is conducted from, or rather where power plant of the human body is operated from. By taking the head it thus severs the operation of the human’s biochemistry and physiology, and the essence of The One inhabiting an immortal is transferred to the Immortal that is nearest.
Immortals as I have read elsewhere are effectively biological batteries and avatars holding a power from another dimension that is on the quests to consolidate itself within our dimension. This higher power seems to be morally ambiguous in that Immortals come in all forms of morals, i.e., some are good, some are evil, etc. The One is playing a game even if it does not realize that from its own dimension, but it plays itself out as such within our dimension. Its only goal is crossing dimensions and Immortals are the “building blocks” helping it manifest itself within our reality.
Think about us within the 3rd dimension and drawing a picture, i.e., a two-dimensional figure. Imagine if we had the ability to go into that picture and let us say that picture or pictures had an existence of their own. Our 3rd dimensional existence would be omnipotent and overpowering to the 2nd dimension, so in Highlander, it is the same thing, but we are in the 3rd and The One comes from a higher dimension. Yet, even if we could go into a second dimension, the same rules of physics we are used to within the third, i.e., up, down, left, right, space, volume, etc., would not work for us, so we must operate based on the physics of the dimension we are in.
The fact that Immortals cannot have children is because they do live forever, thus there is no point in having children if you cannot die thus there is no reason to spread ones’ genetics. The game of mortals and that of immortals are different. Immortality to a mortal is procreation, whereas immortality for an immortal is surviving in its most distilled form natural selection without the excess of needing to breed. Immortals are consequences of evolution, yet there is manipulation from this higher source. Immortals must exist. #highlander #higherlandermovie #highlanderfan #sciencefiction #fantheory #theory #fantasy
Kanye will forever be important despite his recent turns. I would fall asleep at night as a bored black teen in suburbia listening to the music of Drive Slow or Late on Late Registration.
I’ll get to the point. After Kanye’s Golden Era with College Dropout, Late Registration (his magnum opus in my opinion), and Graduation to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, he went through a lot. His mom died and this is similar to the character of Pink played by Bob Geldof in Pink Floyd’s musical The Wall. Even though Pink’s mother isn’t shown as passing away, the maternal bond is central to both characters. Yet, Pink and Kanye both came to rely on their mothers though Pink’s mother was suffocating, whereas Kanye’s mother was his anchor. This maternal bond (I won’t go all Freudian because I don’t feel well read enough into Freud to say it) was central to both people. Further, Kanye has a had problems with women though in more recent music he’s challenged his notions such as those found in his analysis of the Madonna Whore Complex in the song Violent Crimes on the ye album. This is similar to the character of Pink in The Wall with Pink as having a rocky relationship with his wife since he’s a traveling rock-and-roll musician. Pink has issues regarding fear of loss, control, etc., and can be heard in the lyrics of the song Don’t Leave Me Now which says, “I need you to put through the shredder in front of our friends, oh baby, don’t leave me now” , “How could you go? When you know how I need you…to beat up on a pulp on Saturday night, oh babe…don’t leave me now”. The lyrics depicts a man who blames his spouse of his behavior and can’t operate without having someone to coddle his bad decisions and take his abusive behavior. I’m not insinuating this Kanye, yet, still male and female relationships (or any type) can be rocky and at times have an unhealthy level of dependency going both ways where love and abuse or the ability to tolerate are seen as the same, and the negative behaviors can exacerbate as people push limits, essentially to see if the other stays around. Kanye’s relationship with sexual feminist icon Amber Rose seems similar to that of Pink’s character to his estranged wife, especially since Amber Rose left him for another rapper in an industry where masculine posturing and ego are everything, and she sexually doxed him by revealing alleged aspects of their private sex life to the world.
The Phallus and Vagina
So think about this… He lost his mom, his trophy girlfriend is attacking his masculinity in a masculine industry (historically speaking), he’s constantly in the media, he’s an artists advocating for black America while critiquing it, etc. That’s a lot to handle for a person. Black people, white people, etc., especially since rap music is so popular, took the opportunity of Kanye’s ill advised association with Donald Trump to shame him but also bring back old Civil War tropes attacking his black identity and I even saw supposed liberals equate Kanye to nothing more than a self-hating black man eager to “go back to slavery”.
Pink in the film after hearing of the infidelity of his wife in between the songs The Happiest Days of Our Lives, Young Lust, and One of My Turns, goes in a psychotic breakdown and endangers a groupie. Further, Pink’s father dies in WW2 at the Battle of Anzio and Kanye’s father was estranged from him. In addition, after Pink’s mental condition finally collapses after Comfortably Numb he starts fantasies of fascism as a type of subconscious defense mechanism to protect his deep rooted vulnerabilities and lack of stability. He equates his lack of stability to minorities, gays, “people with spots”, other ramblings and even screams to the entire crowd of his fantasy fascist supports that he’d wish they’d all be shot. A man with deep rooted issues but he’s human. Kanye’s play with fascism – which is common in the arts such as some of the works of David Bowie – during the Trump Era to me wasn’t an advocacy for fascism, but the anger of a black man within Western Civilization as he juggles the old question of “to be or not to be?”, i.e., to be a champion of our Western home or to stand at odds with it due to its history of systemic abuses which played a role in effectively…creating us.
Pink Floyd isn’t racist or fascist and their depiction of fascism in the film was a criticism of it. The film came out during the Margaret Thatcher years which was full of right-wing “Oi Oi” hate groups associated with the National Front and the conservative Tories in power. This is very similar to the far-right peripheries of the Trump Administration’s grassroots right-wing populism with groups such as Proud Boys by Zionist Nazi, Gavin McInnes, with his sad fantasies of reliving the glory days of an all white Cecil Rhodes-Rothschild Commonwealth (and, the fact Degrassi isn’t what it used to be. Gavin was born in England, raised in Canada, and helped with the hipster movement thus spawning the branch out movement of Alt Right). It should be noted that regarding the UK in the 1970-80s, punk music was being appropriated by Nazi Skinheads away from the original Skinheads who were multi-ethnic. The original punk movement was a blend of working class white youth culture mixed with black Caribbean and Black British youth culture in unison, but Neo Nazism branched out as economic conditions worsened under austerity. So, because of this appropriation, Kanye can be understood as doing that but in reverse. Taking symbols of hate against blacks but turning N-gger into N-gga.
Kanye’s play with fascism can be seen in his ironic lyrics in Black Skinhead which is really Kanye appropriating the hyper-masculinity of the far-right for his own purposes to scare the actual fascists. This can also be said about Kanye wearing the Confederate Battle Flag. By taking a symbol which was used to oppress blacks but then appropriate it to analyze it, it can help reduce the unilateral power of the symbol via its inherent white supremacy. Essentially, if that’s what you are, then this what I’ve become but I’m going to analyze it my way and your supremacy doesn’t intimidate me, i.e., we can go loco to loco any-day. The power of White Supremacy for example isn’t mere law or violence but its appropriating masculinity from minorities (and also hyper sexualizing females into caricature tropes – the Asian subservient women, the “freaky” black woman, the sultry Latina) in order to equate masculinity purely to Anglo Saxon and European standards. Thus by keeping this hidden fascism in the back of systems as a contingency plan. It’s a way how white supremacy sustains itself by positing that its form of masculinity is the apex predator of the caste system in both honor, virility, prow, level-headedness, etc. It essentially makes “outsiders” feel uncomfortable.
Seemingly normal Republicanism of Center-Right politics if pushed too far as bleed into far-right nationalism and this is something the political right has known and used for years without saying it because by not saying it, it creates an atmosphere of fear, intimidation, etc. Kanye’s loose association with the Blexit Black Republican movement in the Trump Era wasn’t Kanye being a “traitor” or “sell out”, but provoking African Americans to keep their political options open considering African Americans for the last half century plus have been Democrats and this association with Democrats hasn’t alleviated the important issues affecting the Black Community. It may not have been wise under this President but Kanye’s right to at least talk about African Americans considering Republicanism was him attempting to expand boundaries. And of course, most people didn’t get it, such as most people not “getting art”, i.e., lacking the ability to get context and seeing things simply in stark dialectics or polar opposites.
Pink in his delusion after his mental breakdown in Pink Floyd’s The Wall “It’s my flag now!” said Kanye West on Los Angeles 97.1 AMP Radio on Monday. Kanye West leaving his house after taking a private boxing class to stay in shape. He is wearing a green jacket with Confederate flag on a sleeve, hoody, and What Would Jesus Do? (WWJD) Bracelet. Saturday, November 2, 2013. Juliano/x17online.com EXCLUSIVE
Kanye was one of my idols and I still support the guy. He’s a black man fighting for freedom and not just freedom from the perspective of black liberation but total “ubermench” or “starchild” liberation. Yet, there’s a profundity to Kanye that most might not get. In Greek philosophy there was a man by the name of Diogenes the Cynic who was known for living an eclectic lifestyle, having sharp cynical wit, and living a life as a homeless beggar to show the uselessness of certain aspects of society. I see Kanye in this mode. There’s smarts behind the “madness”. Kanye also has an element of a type of old Testament figure channeling some higher power as people suffer in something which might be called a “mental desert”. Anyways, for a young African American kid who was born in the late 80s and witnessed the power of the music industry on the black community during the transition of hip-hop to gangster rap, right a moment where Great Society programs of the 60s and 70s started to pay off such as the solidification of a solid black middle and upper middle class in suburbia, a person such as Kanye was a fresher in the early 2000s. It wasn’t just about killing, screwing, slanging. There were only two types of black people depicted in the media. The Wills and the Carlton’s. It might be funny but it really was a detriment because of course everyone wants to be a Will, which is great, but by depicting such as stark dichotomy, which was a fabrication for comedic purposes by Quincy Jones, it showed to a generation of young African American men that power, style, and suave mattered more than law, business, management, science, art, philosophy, etc. However, I’m not hating on rap because it is art but simply saying its not the entire meta-truth or objective truth of the black experience.
Anyways, Kanye instead of entirely rapping about the grassroots realism that many African Americans face such as murder, misogyny, bravado and nihilism, Kanye analyzed not only that but the silent lives of the black middle class, but he leap frogged backwards by borrowing from Ray Charles, chain-gang hymns, the Harlem Renaissance, gospel, etc. Kanye was/ an existential meteorite of hyper-aware blackness, operating in a 4th or 5th dimension, that analyzed it from all angles included those that many African Americans don’t realize about themselves. Kanye can vacillate between bourgeoisie and proletariat, between “house slave” and “field slave”, but instead of picking either/or (shout out to Soren Kierkegaard) His pop cultural references were vast spanning foreign film, classical musical scores, political commentary, high art, low art, fashion, etc. Let’s be honest, hip hop changed after Kanye, and some might say for the best, yet, for a genre still dominated by black artists, he did open the window to express yourself in ways that were more experimental, existential, etc. Being black I do know that the community is highly social, i.e., we typically tend to be a monoculture and it typically takes martyrs to take the heat to level up the community.
Kanye’s vast array of samples and influences spanning true hip hop to Duran Duran, the film Juice with Tupac and Omar Epps, the film Welcome to America with Eddie Murphy, Bloods versus Crypts, the ability to not get a taxi as night, Richard Pryor to Bill Cosby in the 80s (a big deal), to Michael Jackson to Fellini films to surreal anime, etc., in my opinion will always set him above and apart from other rappers. I’m sorry but most rappers in the day didn’t take it to such erudite levels. Essentially, he’s the Picasso of Hip Hop. I call in the modern day Gatsby, the hip hop Bukowski with an emphasis on Bukowski in the sense of complexity since Bukowski despite being seen as a woman-hater (I’m not advocating his behavior) was really being a cynic to cover his deep wounds around love and acceptance. He spoke to the common man in a non PC way while making the common man ponder notions such as poetry, stream of consciousness, etc.
I can relate to Kayne because as an African American my interests are vast. I can also empathize before judging. It wasn’t easy to simply “be like everyone else”. To white people or others, black culture is a form of punk, but when you’re black it’s just…life, so when African Americans think outside the box I always support those people and find it honorable, because equality isn’t merely a matter of nationalism or economic empowerment, but it’s a matter of representation in various fields, while also showing the world the diversity of talents and the depths of your comprehension skills.
“Active or self-directed evolution, then – holistic, anthropocentric, and teleologically determined effort – are some of the terms that scholars have applied to most Russian Cosmist” (Young, p. 9)
Cover Art from A Natural Death by Horse the Band
Before I begin, I want to say that this analysis of Horse the Band isn’t to insinuate they have any connections to the right-wing. I think they’re simply storytelling and telling a story as if where a bad guys vs good guy epic. Horse the Band is an American metalcore band from Orange County, California, that became known for their 8-bit video-game influenced sounds which labeled them as Nintendocore. In personal opinion, I would call them Avant-Garde metal employing postmodern themes, such as transhumanism, simulation and simulacrum, 80s cyber and Cold War pastiche akin to the visions of William Gibson’s Neuromancer, merging high art with low art, and digitization, with the electronic synth elements serving as a device to suggest the informational overload of contemporary life.
The lead singer for Horse the Band with a Behemoth shirt at Warped Tour. Behemoth is a Polish extreme metal band. Relating to geopolitics, Poland and Russia have a traditional feud with one being Catholic and the other being Orthodox. However, you can see the image of the double headed eagle but also the Chaos Magick symbol. I’m not saying Horse the Band is Alt-Right, yet, their album A Natural Death has songs such as Hyperborea and Face of Bear which relates to Russia. Hyperboreans are a sub-sect of Russian Cosmism and in Young’s (2012) book, The Russian Cosmists, the word Arktos is referenced. Arktos is also the name of Arktos Publishing, once edited by Jordan Jorjani of the Alt-Right. Jorjani can be seen online commentating on New Thinking Allowed with Jeffrey Misholve. Mishlove is a Paranormal researcher from UC Berkeley. Finished reading this. A great book. This paper isn’t to indict the Russian Cosmist movement as a whole, but there are some elements within this frame of thought that relates to some current regressive ideologies, especially those relating to Aleksandr Dugin but also Transhumanism – both Western and Eastern – as a whole.
The band does a good job of analyzing the informational overload of postmodernity, where this era is defined largely by the domination of images or symbols which creates a self-destroying and self-replicating chaotic reality. In such a state of reality it’s hard to distinguish truth (fake from real; organic from synthetic), thus bringing upon existential (nihilistic) questions of being. Horse the Band doesn’t seem to be perpetuating a sense of cosmic dread through postmodern means with ill-intent, but rather they’re musing, feeling and thinking with music to attempt to answer the old philosophical question of, “What is the meaning of life”. But they’re also just having fun.
Their album, A Natural Death, in my opinion is their magnum opus, despite, their follow-up album, Desperate Living – which is good – getting higher rankings from music critics. Math metal is arguably seen as a type of nerdy aggressive male space and I think the bands on stage antics and style has relegated them from larger audiences. It is a type of Revenge of the Nerds, Reed College weirdo or M.I.T style of metal, thus engendering possible accusations of being for suburban, garage conspiring, computer hackers in some rainy Tech corridor such as Portland or Seattle, yet, their demeanor seems ironic, self-aware and assured, and artful. This relates to the underlying theme of artistic movements such as Dada. Essentially, they act quirky as to challenge audiences or listeners not to take life too seriously, i.e., to destabilize metanarratives, which is the key tenant of postmodernism.
Postmodernism sought to challenge the stiff and empirical mindedness of Modernism of the early twentieth century. Modernism posited a belief in structuralism, the ability to know truth, behavior sciences, and made bold objective truth claims such as science will liberate humanity, or skyscraper urbanism will be the future utopia. Yet, these claims were challenged harshly after WW2 since objective truth claims were blamed for the deaths of millions of humans and all in the name of “progress”. Speaking to the Dada art movement of early twentieth-century Europe, alongside other schools such as Italian Futurism or German Bauhaus, Horse the Band’s, A Natural Death, seems in alignment with Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Metropolis shows a future advanced urban society based on Modernist and Futurist themes, yet, the film could be argued as one of the earliest warnings of transhumanism and the film is known for its famous female Satanic robot. The fact that Fritz Lang chose a female robot seems interesting. Feminism is often at the forefront of globalist movements such as the Green Movement, or, there’s the banner call of the Future is Female. But, that future also possibly holds transhumanism. Transhumanism seems to be cross-juncture between feminism (particularly with its focus on gender as being a spectrum, not a biological axiom), the New Age movement, the Green movement, globalism, AI and IoT (Information of Things), and transgenderism, etc.
Essentially, transhumanism is related to all these topics, in that it represents a type of “inevitable progress”, and the female form of Fritz Lang’s robot and the real movement of the Future is Female – in a future that will be globally integrated with IoT – indicates the symbolic importance of femininity within this paradigm shift. In other words, femininity as presented and argued within the larger sociopolitical debate makes it synonymous with shifting, merging, androgyny, the evolutionary notion of progress, or, in alchemy language…it’s a malleable “substance”. The female form is also the window into life, so femininity has an esoteric element involving shifting, birth, renewal, etc.
The female robot from Metropolis by Fritz LangA statue of Hermaphroditus, the child of Hermes and Aphrodite. The merging of male and female thus has roots in an ancient esoteric tradition. With such traditions influencing technocracy as well, it does seem that the Trans movement isn’t simply for protecting the rights of marginalized group of people but rather promoting a lifestyle conducive to the upcoming technocratic global future.
A Natural Death seems to be a concept album with a linear but fuzzy storyline. It seems to involve a main female and male character through three linear storylines but all are related and the concept of time travel comes into play. One story arch deals with the violence of the American Frontier with songs such as Murder, Broken Trail, Crickets, and Rotting Horse. Another is set in the modern day such as in New York City, a club as insinuated in Sex Raptor, an occult sex ritual as insinuated in his Purple Majesty, and the Beach which seems to be the scene of a goodbye between the main male and female protagonists. The other story arch deals with the ancient past in Hyperborea or a land under threat from Hyperborea, but towards the end of the album we’re in a space travel setting akin to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Films or books that come to mind that might have been inspirations are (1) Eyes Wide Shut, (2) 2001: A Space Odyssey, (3) Conan the Barbarian by Robert E. Howard, but also HP Lovecraft, (4) The Legend of Zelda and Mario Bros., (5) the American West, (5) the comic hero, Red Tornado – further the albums transhumanist elements, (6) and Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series where a Wild West character is central to the plot involving a tower that serves as the bridge between different realities and worlds.
The songs relating to this paper are Hyperborea, Murder, The Startling Secret of Super Sapphire, Face of Bear, New York City, His Purple Majesty, The Red Tornado, Rotting Horse, and I think we are both suffering from the same crushing metaphysical crisis. Other songs could be inserted to help construct a larger storyline, yet this paper is about the Russian, transhumanist, and/or esoteric underpinnings which reflect themselves, oddly, within real-life scientific advancement, geopolitics etc.
1. Hyperborea (which I’ll argue as being related to the Hyperborean mythos of Russian Cosmism later in this paper). Yet, within the narration and plot of the album, the song depicts a type of unnatural winter storm roll in with the lyric, “Numbness swept down from the east.”, i.e., Numbness swept down from Russia. There seems to be the first appearance of the female main character of the overall album’s plot but based in a past life or past representation. The concept of time-travel will appear later in the album, so this reference along with others from other lyrics seems to shed light that this album is largely a romantic adventure, similar to Link with Princess Zelda. “She sulks from silver towers, she could save a life.”. Towers, princesses, Princess Zelda, and Hyperborea possibly being similar to Hyrule from the game’s franchise. Yet, the male lead character in this harsh wilderness, while making references to a female in a tower (a princess or maiden), also has to tap into something equivalent to Conan the Barbarian’s Riddle of Steel. Don’t trust man, don’t trust girl, don’t trust animals, trust in steel.
A scene from Zelda Breath of the Wind which comes to mind when reading the lyrics of HyperboreaA scene from Conan the Barbarian, where a young Conan first learns of the Riddle of Steel
There seems to be antagonist, briefly referenced in the opening song with the lyric, “He says he hates us and he’s afraid to try–and I know why.” but this same character might be manifesting himself later on as the “Purple Majesty” who seems to have a type of mental grip on the female. The albums deals with notions of time-travel, reincarnation, eternal recurrence, deja vu, or even possibly, parallel universes. The album involves a romantic relationship between a male protagonist with a female who first appears, as insinuated in the first song, with being a princess in a tower, but in the modern day this female character gets involved with “His Purple Majesty” in a sex ritual, yet, both are reunited towards the end on a cosmic journey towards transcendence. The album deals with love and death, and the male character is first heard has having to tap into his inner strength with the lyric “trust in steel”, yet, he seems to be bouncing back and forth in between time, thus comes in the transhumanist, postmodern, digital effects and themes.
Interestingly, some random facts found online, Robert E. Howard, the author of Conan, had Hyperborea as the land northeast of Conan’s home of Cimmeria. Howard was also a contemporary to HP Lovecraft who incorporated some elements of that into his Chutulu mythos. Friedrich Nietzsche referred to those who followed his philosophy as “Hyperboreans” in The Antichrist, where he states, ““Let us face ourselves. We are Hyperboreans” (Goodreads, n.d.). The Cimmerians were a real Indo-European group, likely from the Steppes, who lived in near the Caucus bridgeway near Armenia (the strip of land South of Russia to Northern Iran and Northeast Turkey) and were related by proxy to the Scythian tribe, and later migrated into Europe in lands know considered Slavic but with traces in Celtic and Germanic
Hyperboreans, an offshoot of the Russian Cosmist school, being described in The Russian Cosmists by George Young (2012)
2. Murder seems to fast forward in time to the American frontier during an Indian raid on white settlers.
I cut open the white man And take from his woman too If it were up to me, all the white faces would bleed Bleed and bleed and bleed, it’s truth
Murder, it’s murder Murder, it’s murder
Empty plains echo with empty screams There’s a wagon on the highland A father and his girl, both are heading south I tie the boy and the horses
Then you use the skills of the wolf I don’t use a bullet Get close enough, I can use my knife My knife
I cut open the white man And take from his woman too If it were up to me, all the white faces would bleed Red’s a better color, it’s truth
Let the blood out, let it flow Cut the blood out, let it flow Kill the blood out, let if flow Like a river let it flow
Let it flow like a river Let it flow like a river Let if flow like a river into the sea
3. The Startling Secrets of Super Sapphire which has an almost eighteenth-century American East coast, Atlantic, and Gothic nature to it, similar to the stories of HP Lovecraft which are abound with Mayflower East Coast characters found in situations of cosmic dread. Lovecraft is credited with the founding of cosmic horror where older themes of ghouls and ghosts are replaced by physical yet beyond comprehension creatures such as aliens. Lovecraft was a cosmicist, not be confuse with cosmist, and this view held that humans are insignificant to the cosmos and there’s forces in the cosmos beyond human reason such as inter-dimensional beings. Though Lovecraft popularized science-horror or cosmic-horror, writers such as Mary Shelley with Frankenstein used natural sciences as a device within horror before Lovecraft. The song seems to depict a character, whom I consider to be a Captain Ahab figure or Old China Trade Opium Merchant from the Port of Salem (Skull and Bones connection with the Russell and Forbes families), who comes across a sacred artifact (Sacred Sapphire), only to be come possessed by it. “The sapphire is the birthstone of the month of September. The name sapphire is derived from the Latin word “saphirus” and the Greek word “sapheiros,” both meaning blue. Some believe that the name sapphire is derived from its association with the planet Saturn. The name can be roughly translated to mean “dear to the planet Saturn” in many different languages” (Jewels for Me.com, n.d.). Saturn as a planet plays a role in cosmology. The halo is obvious with its significance in culture (angelic halos, wedding bands, etc.), but to many Saturn seems to represent the “Morning Star”, i.e., Lucifer or Moloch. Saturn’s mysterious black hexagon pattern at its northern pole has also sparked many comparisons with religious objects such as the Jewish Tefillin, the six sides and six triangles of the Start of David (which is up for debate it seems but there is the quote of Amos 5:25-5:27), and the Islamic Ka’bah . Yet, Saturn when connected to Saturn Day is reflected in Roman culture, thus our modern culture, yet, it’s also reflected in Hebrew such as Shabbatai שבתאי, meaning restful one, which corresponds to the Jewish Sabbath. When Rome conquered Greece, Saturn became synonymous with Chronos, thus being attributed to Chronos’ power of time, and this time attribute is also found in the Hebrew notion of Saturn. Horse the Band’s album as seen in the song “I think we’re both suffering from the same metaphysical crisis” speaks of time-travel, event horizons, etc.
NASA JPL Caltech Space Science Institute Photo of Saturn’s Hexagon
4. Face of Bear (the national animal of Russia)
Winters coming days die short at the end of autumns reign hunger becomes ravenous hibernation never waits soon the silent slumber for now October’s feast fearless and graceful crashing through dead leaves
DON’T FEED THE BEARS OR THE BEARS WILL FEED ON YOU
all the forest fauna frozen feeling fear flinching at the moment face to face with face of bear all the forest creatures vanish from sight their betters come with hungers that cannot be denied
A few lines downs…
DON’T FEED THE BEARS OR THE BEARS WILL FEED ON YOU
I’ll die with the honor i choose I’ll fight face of bear and lose
FACE TO FACE WITH FACE OF BEAR (x6)
5. New York City. Puts a romantic plot within the storyline between a male and female character. In other song, title, The Beach, we hear a female character crying. Yet, there seems to be a reunion within New York City based on the lyrics:
We embrace in the heart of our city On wet broken sidewalks we’re free
Further, the song seems to insinuate that Horse the Band is actually coming from a pro-Western viewpoint despite the Russian references. Towards the end of the song accompanying the lyric, “We embrace in the heart of our city. On wet broken sidewalks we’re free”, there’s effects of fireworks. Fireworks are a hallmark of American Independence and freedom. If the plot structure is truly a series of interlocking storylines of the same characters through time and space, it seems that narrator in Hyperborea is actually warning of Hyperborea and the antagonist within this song, in my opinion, might later on manifest himself as the “Purple Majesty”.
6. His Purple Majesty There seems to be something awkwardly Lolita and Crowley Sex Magick about this. There’s a lyric by a female character who states, “I’ll do anything you say”, with a coyness about it. The color purple appears a lot within Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, and the ceremony master is wearing a purple robe. According to the Museum of Fine Arts Boston in a , during an event titled: Color Tells A Story, it was stated, “This somber palette gives way to a rainbow of neon lights as Bill’s night careens out of control, with glimpses of violet and royal purple cropping up at the most perilous moments.” The color purple represents royalty, thus the word majesty makes sense, but it also represents sexuality, magic, you could even throw “Sex Magick” in there, eroticism, mystery, etc. Going over the lyrics again the song seems to depict a ceremonial sex scene. “But she wanted. But she needed. Perfect sex in purple robes. He said, ‘Hold my hand while I touch you’, he said, ‘it will feel better that way’. She said, ‘I’ll do anything you say.'” But, later, it’s said, “she let him INSIDE even though it feels WRONG. It was all the symptoms of love but bleeding a black horror, a horror”. So… How does the Crowleyian Sex Magick of his Purple Majesty relate to Russia, let alone transhumanism? Well, one of the Russian Cosmist was Konstantin Edouardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935) and a young Jack Parsons had correspondence with him and Werner Von Braun to ask for advice for his early rocket science curiosities. Parsons is known for being into the Occult and became involved with the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.) of Aleister Crowley. Sex Magick was a practice and Parson’s engaged in orgies with wife. Parsons was friends with L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, and was associated with the science-fiction writer’s guild, Mañana Literary Society, where Robert Heinlein – the author of Starship Troopers – was also a member. In Heinlein’s Starship Troopers a future alliance called the Russo-Anglo-American Alliance is formed. So, from Horse the Band’s Russian references, particularly through this song “His Purple Majesty”, we first come to Crowley Sex Magick before coming to Crowley himself, Jack Parsons, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Russian Cosmism which is transhumanism, and also Robert Heinlein who speaks of the Russo-Anglo-American Alliance.
A photo of Bella Heathcote playing Susan Parsons at a Crowley ritual. All rights of this photo are reserved to CBS and CBS All Access. Sharing of this photo is for educational purposes only. A scene from Eyes Wide Shut by Kubrick
7. Red Tornado, is based on the DC Comic book hero. This song firmly links the album to transhumanism, considering Red Tornado is an android. Here are some of the lyrics:
Circuitry and sympathy Are two different things But they come together In a robot who dreams Round and round And round he goes
Later in the song:
His emotions spin at destructive speeds That he needs to control The cumulonimbus inside the machine He’s half robot and half tornado So sad the cyborg cyclone seems Drifting through the sky A willful wisp of machinery Not born but devised Still the cyborg cyclone cries Coolant drips from his eyes Plastic hands on his heart That slowly… Tear him apart
Oddly, my theory, is this album channels the esoteric and technocratic struggle between East and West. It peels away the normal surface to reveal the seedlings of pseudo-science, mad scientists, and occultists who influence “above-ground” political discourse and technological development. The Western form of Technocracy as an application could be best understood through Zbigniew Brzezinski, with this book titled: Between Two Ages America’s Role in the Technocractic Future. A few quotes from this book are listed below.
“The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities.” (Goodreads.com, n.d.)
“In the technotronic society the trend would seem to be towards the aggregation of the individual support of millions of uncoordinated citizens, easily within the reach of magnetic and attractive personalities exploiting the latest communications techniques to manipulate emotions and control reason.” (Goodreads.com, n.d.)
Zbigniew Brzezinski receiving a medal from Jimmy Carter
This might sound odd, but it’s no oddity that John Dee, the minister to Queen Elizabeth, coined the term British Empire and he himself was a magus that practiced Hermeticism and alchemy. Whether it’s the British Empire, Russian Empire, or American Empire, besides or underneath pragmatic or realist policy is a supplemental esoteric ideology (example, Masonry in regards to British Imperialism or American Manifest Destiny; Masonry or Russian Cosmism under pre-Revolutionary Russian conquests, post-Revolutionary Communism, or post-Communist State Oligarchy & Ethnic Nationalism, i.e, Aleksandr Dugin, the Hyperboreans.
John Dee was an Occultist who first coined the term, British Empire
The album on purpose or by accident, though seemingly without any nefarious intent, touches on the current Russia versus USA geopolitical struggle (psychological operations included) involving characters such as Aleksandr Dugin with his concept of Chaos Magick and his Eurasianist ideology, Lev Gumilev’s Neo-Eurasianism, and Valery Dumin’s Hyperborean neo-paganism. All three of the men were analyzed in the book, The Russian Cosmists, by George M. Young (2012), a professor from the University of New England.
The album seems to be a clash of both East versus West and touches upon science, Gnosticism, and esoteric thought. The tension and aggression in the album through the guttural death growls meshed with melodic instrumental solos and computer effects depicts a type of “Chaos Magick War” of factions of both East and West that are warring with each other, thus revealing a deeper, ancient, eternally reoccurring, and more sinister end-game. Yet, this end-game outside of the view of the public is arguably rigged, i.e., a Manichean Dialectic. I say rigged because there is proof of transfer of information between both East and West during the Cold such as now revealed Esalen Institute exchanges as talked about in Atlas Obscura’s piece titled, How a Fame New Age Retreat Center Helped End the Cold War, by Sarakh Laskow (2015). Even the US establishment such as the Rockefeller Dynasty (who gave seed money to both Apple and Intel via Laurence Rockefeller of Venrock Capital) spoke briefly of merging with Russia. Ivy Lee (uncle of author, William S. Burroughs), was a founding member of the Council of Foreign Relations and the Rockefeller’s media fixer. Lee favored peaceful relations with Russia which he wrote in Present-Day Russia (1928), page 214, published by Macmillan & Co., which is archived at sources such Foreign Policy magazine which was reviewed by William L. Langer, but also the University of Chicago Press Journal which is referenced in Schuman (1929) in American Journal of Sociology 35, no. 1 (Jul., 1929): 144-145.
Further, David Rockefeller opened one of the first Western bankers in Russia during the Cold War. According to JP Morgan Chase & Co. (2017), “In the 1970s, Chase added nearly 40 new branches, representative offices, affiliates, subsidiaries and joint ventures outside the United States, including two historic firsts in 1973: Chase opened a representative office in Moscow, the first presence for a U.S. bank in the Soviet Union since the 1920s” (p. 13). Further, JP Morgan Chase & Co. (2017), “In 1973, Chase Manhattan Bank Chairman David Rockefeller visited China and met with Chinese Prime Minister Chou En-Lai. Chase became the first U.S. correspondent to the Bank of China since the 1949 Chinese Revolution.” (p. 13).
The concept of “from chaos comes rebirth” is symbolic of the phoenix symbol which is often associated with Dugin’s Fourth Political Theory, but is also symbolic to the regalia of the color purple (remember the song: His Purple Majesty) which according to legend was used the Phoenicians, i.e., where the word Phoenix has possible etymological origins here. The Phoenicians were a Canaanite peoples from the Levant region near modern Lebanon, Syria and Israel, who worshipped Baal. Baal was a deity equivalent to Zeus in Greece, who controlled weather, and was represented by a Bull which signified fertility and strength. This figure seems to be the same or related to the concept of Moloch, the deity known for child sacrifice. A rendition of this Baal figure was worshiped by the ancient Hebrews as Baʿal Berith and/or El Berith, when the Jews had broken their covenant with God during the times before the ascension of Gideon. Baal thus seems to have fallen out of favor and was assigned to the role of Beelzebub.
In my novice research into Russian Cosmism and the Occultist underpinnings of Transhumanism, this album, A Natural Death, seems very on point. By Transhumanism, and one could argue transgenderism, I’m talking about alchemical-materialist-evolution based in part on the Neoplatonic notion of The One, which relates to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution which posits that all life evolved from a singular primordial source. Neoplatonism and Darwinism, though seemingly from different fields of study, e.g., metaphysics versus natural biology, yet both posit that all life came from a single source. I personally believe in evolution of some sort, but that’s not important. Darwinism sees evolution as a sign of strength and vigor required for survival, whereas Neoplatonism seems to argue that merging concepts is a way to return to the source or The One. Thus, these two ideologies are related and support each other. It could be argued that Darwin himself was an Occultist and Neoplatonist. Merging is fitness if we were to say Neoplatonic Darwinism. This is the underlying logic of transhumanism, and arguably the prepping for transhumanism with transgenderism, and it is seen as the next evolutionary step, i.e., involving the alchemical merging and manipulation of matter. From a Neoplatonic viewpoint, this seems to be the reason why Occult movements tend to focus on the dark arts or dark fashion. To them, they see what we consider evil as not being evil since its an emanation of the one, or natural doesn’t create morality, so by performing black ceremonial magic, they are in effect merging reality as they see it.
On the album there are the songs such as Hyperborea and Face of Bear, where Hyperborea relates to the Russian esoteric movement that believes Russia is the ancient mystical source of humanity, while Face of Bear relates to the national animal and symbol of Russia. With Horse the Band being called Nintendocore, the two main franchise games of Nintendo that comes to mind is Mario but also Zelda. Zelda seems important to the paper because the fictional land of Hyrule seems loosely based on a Hyperborean concept, with the Zelda franchise taking place in a European medieval setting that blends Celtic, Nordic, possible Slavic, and Anglo-Saxon Germanic elements. The Zelda franchise had the famous game, Ocarina of Time, which involves the main character Link, using a magical musical instrument to go back and forth in between time in order to awaken the Seven Sages, so the villain of the game, Ganandorf, can’t obtain the sacred Tri-Force. The lyric by Horse the Band in the second to last song on the album states, “Initiate! Instruments set to yesterday. At the Speed of Light, across empty plains of time”. Also, within Ocarina of Time, the concept of the Seven Sages seems to relate to the Seven Sages of actual Classical Antiquity which included Thales. Within the Zelda universe, especially relating to Ocarina of Time, the elemental properties of the Tri-Force itself seems to be the equivalent to the Greek concept of the arche, which were the elemental constructs the Classical thinkers used to determine the origin of matter, reality, etc. For example, Thales’ arche was water whereas for Anaximander, apeiron was the arche, which was a concept outside of matter, like the concept of ether.
The finale end song (it’s the second to last on the album) of “I think were both suffering from the same crushing metaphysical crisis” reminds me of 2001 A Space Odyssey with concepts such as transhumanist evolution through metaphysics or theoretical physics, with the main character evolving into a new form of being (the Star Child) and connecting back to a higher source, i.e., the One, or The Grand Architect of Grand Masonry.
A scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey before transfiguration into the Star Child
The song starts off with “Dilation of chronal aperture in 3 2 1”, with the narrator sounding like a NASA rocket launch conductor. Chronal indicates time, whereas aperture is a window in which lights passes, such as a space through which light passes in an optical or photographic instrument, especially the variable opening by which light enters a camera. Paez (2019) states, “It is commonly accepted in energy medicine circles that a “healthy” chakra has a clockwise spin, it’s aperture is opened to the appropriate amount and has no energetic cords or other imbalances interfering with its function. The health of chakras can be controlled and improved through mental as well as physical means.” So, there seems to be an obvious Hindu Aryan mysticism via references to yogic practices of India.
Dilation of chronal aperture in 3 2 1
Activate! Initiate instruments set to yesterday! At the speed light across empty plains of time On a ship of jewels and gold All of time unfolds
A seven click blip For a fifteen-eon trip Crafting déjà vu Event horizon boom Days resind and lapse Birth after death Tomorrow is the past Event horizon boom Cities shrink and fade into the ice age Dinosaurs now new Event horizon boom
Time is broken!
How small we compared to space and time? (played in reverse) Time after time Time after time Time after time
All these machines that dream Make me want to scream There’s no bears or wild things The future not what it seems Causality denied All of time is now mine The crisis we both share Is you are me when I was there
Time after time It’s almost time Time to say goodbye At the end of time.
The song depicts a journey through space-time where the travelers – assuming a male and female (the songs Beach and His Purple Majesty involves a female character) – are experiencing déjà vu, but on the journey after seeing the future, it seems that Artificial Intelligence (the lyric: All these machines that dream, make me want to scream) have replaced all organic life (there’s no bears or wild things, the future not what it seems). Out of all the animals that are not there, the band singles out bear, which was stated previously is the animal of Russia. So, in theory, are they really saying, Russia is no longer there? The journey seems to go to the outer edges of the known the universe or towards a black hole since the term, Event Horizon, is mentioned twice. The event horizon is the boundary defining the region of space around a black hole from which nothing (not even light) can escape (Swinburne University of Technology, n.d.). It also can be used as the very outer edge of known space, indicating an expanding universe.
The song Rotting Horse with its drab lowly guitar playing, channels the sullen windswept brutality of the American frontier of the eighteen-hundreds, and this song seems to emulate the Wild West, Cowboys versus Indians, artwork on the album’s cover. Since time travel is a theme here, this period of time could have been just one of the visions or multiple realities the protagonist experienced. The repeating guitar with ominous background effects that seems to encompass both angelic choir organ keys, layered with electronic dissonance, touches upon in my opinion the temporary nature of life and the process of decay.
Russian Cosmism is effectively Russian transhumanism. It’s an umbrella of thinkers so you can’t really insinuate that all the Cosmists believed the same thing, or that they would advocate for how their ideologies have been appropriated over time. Yet, Cosmism is like Transhumanism found in the West, yet, since the West and Russia are culturally different, largely around religion, their independent transhumanist schools have notable differences. The Russian Cosmist branch of Transhumanism was inspired by (1) the introduction of Neoplatonic, Masonic, and Occultist ideas into Russia, (2) the wavering oscillation (depending on which specific Cosmists were referring to) of Traditionalism with modernist ideologies such as Marxism, and (3) from a sense of Russian Orthodox exceptionalism either in a global egalitarian “progressive” fashion or from an ethnocentric nationalism, emboldened by a ‘chip on the shoulder’ attitude towards concepts such as American Exceptionalism. Western Transhumanism, being influenced by Neoplatonism was also influenced by the socio-political and religious realities of Catholicism and Protestantism, whereas Russia was inspired or constrained by the solidarity of Orthodoxy.
It could be argued that after the schism between Catholicism and Protestantism, the West was more inclined to take on the Scientific Revolution (with modernity following), since Protestantism wasn’t purely religious, but was also a response to intellectual, economic, and personal freedoms away from the Holy See. For example, Giordano Bruno was a Dominican Friar who was a philosopher, mathematician, poet, and Hermetic Occultist. He was also a Neoplatonist and intrigued by the works of Pythagoras. His ideas, then heretical, were the possibility of life on other planets and that the universe has no true center. Bruno was later burned at the stake for concepts now considered either cannon or possible. Going back to the intellectual progression during and after the Protestant Reformation, the three concepts of intellectual, economic, and personal liberties were vital in sparking scientific secular innovation within the shift from mercantile capitalism to industrial capitalism.
Book cover with Giordano Bruno. The Book is A Primer to Giordano Bruno: New Age Prophet, Mystic and Heretic (The Essential Giordano Bruno Book 1) by Julia Jones
Transhumanism in the West in my opinion is strongly related to the political systems of Protestant nations, as typified by the British Empire (which included the United States), and these systems are democratic, pluralist (ironically insinuating the philosophical arguments around dualism), individualist, and capitalist models. The philosophical underpinnings of Western Transhumanism is diverse spanning Continental Philosophy of German idealism of Hegel, the Hegelian criticisms of Nietzsche and his resulting extreme existentialism (which thus links to the Darwinist notion of the strongest survives); the French postmodernists which their emphasis on deconstruction, merging concepts for analysis, and analyzing post-capitalist social conditions such as expanding upon Marx’s work on alienation; the Analytical School of Britain with thinkers such as Bertrand Russell or Gilbert Ryle’s critique of Cartesian Dualism; Game Theory and American pragmatism. Continental philosophy serves as the catalyst for deconstruction and merging, whereas American pragmatism and British Imperial Analytics inspired topics such as machine-logic, the Turing Test, and Game Theory. The Occult underpinnings traveling aside these philosophies ranges from Neoplatonism, Kabbalah, Christian Qabbalah, Averroism, Zoroastrianism with concepts such as magi, i.e., magic.
Underneath all these philosophies tracing backwards people at some point would cross upon Plato, and thus the later Plotinus, who is the founder of Neoplatonism and our concept of modern metaphysics, ceremonial magic within the West, etc.
Having read the book by Young (2012), I noticed in the progenitors of the Cosmist school of that concepts such as androgyny and body enhancements appeared more than once. For example, Vladimir Solovyov, in response to the hard technocracy of Cosmist Sergei Fedorov, argued that instead of the physical resurrection of all humans as called for in Fedorov’s “Common Task”, Solovyov instead wanted a spiritual resurrection of Sophic inspiration and syzygic unity, i.e., synergy, between male and female essences. Young (2012), states, “Instead of regulating nature, whether external or internal, Solovyov views the great human task as one of incarnating divine love on a universal scale. In one his major works, The Meaning of Love, he develops the idea of a Christian androgyny that would embrace all humanity” (p. 109, para. 2); “Already within itself physical love bears the death-defeating force, the seeds of life and immortality – our task is to realize in full what now exists only as an ideal in Plato and in potential in our everyday lives. Wholeness, “all-unity”, in love means androgyny.” (Young, p. 103, para. 2); “To them he bequeathed the doctrine of sophiology, the centrality of the eternal feminine in Christian spirituality.”
Pavel Alekandrovich Florensky provided a framework for mathematical theory, semiotics, and linguistics, but also cyborgs to Cosmism, building off the autocratic technocracy of Fedorov, the androgynous sophic synergy of Solovyov, and the sophic infused political-economy of Sergei Bulgakov. Young (2012) states Florensky, ”was another Cosmist who believed that the Communist future could possibly (but not necessarily) lead to a revival of medieval objectivism, collectivism, and constructive vision, and a turning from the illusionary individualism and self-destructive atomization that had characterized prerevolutionary modernity” (p. 124), and, Florensky’s natural inclinations may have led toward a kind of figurative levitation, up and away from everyday earthly realia and into a world of Platonic realiora (Young, p. 125). Relating to back Transhumanism, Florensky speculated on early cybernetics, with Young (2012) stating, “And in a 1919 article titled, “Organoprojection”, Florensky discusses the projection of artificial organs, continuation of our bodies, to extend human capabilities throughout the cosmos. Projected organs and body parts can operate and act on the world beyond the limits of our present physical bodies. “Magic, in the circumstance, could be defined as the art of altering the limit of the body with respect to its customary location” By a continuation of flesh and machinery we can extend our organs to reach as far as we can imagine, and operations now considered magical can become routine” (p. 131-132).
The Neoplatonic concept of “The One” could also be argued as being found Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. As previously mentioned, Tsiolkovsky links to Western Occultism and Technocracy through his correspondence to a young, Jack Parson, the pioneering rocket scientist who was inspired by Aleister Crowley and The Occult. Parson has a crater on the dark side of the moon, which to me reflects a commonality between the two nations who first made it into space, the USSR and the United States. Back to Tsiolkovsky’s relationship to Neoplatonism, Young (2012) states, “An idea at the heart of most of his nontechnical writings is that of the “atom spirit” (atom-dukh) inherent in every particle of matter in the cosmos, recalling Fedorov’s idea that all matter as dust of the ancestors” (p. 151).
Further, later but fellow Cosmist, Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky had a Neoplatonic view of Plotinus and/or a Material Monist perception in the liking of Anaximenes to reality. “Vernadsky rejects any separation of matter from spirit, but defines all present life as “living matter” and holds that all presently nonliving matter shares with all life a fundamental unity that includes the potential to change from inert to living matter and from living matter back to inert, from being presently alive to being alive formerly and once more alive in the future – a twentieth century scientific analog to Pythagorean metempsychosis” (p. 157). Further, “Vernadsky recognized that a unified view of nature, the idea of the interconnectedness of all, has for millennia been at the heart of much religious and philosophical speculation, and so at the deepest level he found no conflict between scientific and spiritual views of the world. He noted that of all the world’s religions he had studied, the one he felt closest would be the ancient Greek hylozoistic pantheism of Thales, Anaximenes, and Heraclitus, which finds life to some degree present in all matter” (p. 157).
To understand the basic theories of Thales, Anaximenes, and Heraclitus, to name a few, I referenced Stanford’s Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Wikipedia, for the sake of time.
Heraclitus (610 BC-546 BC), of the Ionian School, was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher taught by Thales (one of the Seven Sages), known as The Obscure and The Weeping Philosopher, believed in the unity of opposites and analyzed the nature of dialectics. He was committed to a unity of opposites and harmony in the world. He was most famous for his insistence on ever-present change, or flux or becoming.
Anaximenes was of the pre-Socratic Milesian School of philosophy, included Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. Anaximander was the teacher of both Anaximenes and Pythagoras (yet, Pythagoras had other teachers such as Pherecydes of Syros). Anaximenes practiced Material Monism, which is a Pre-Socratic framework which believes in the physical world and all its objects as being composed of a single element. This concept of Material Monism is related to the idea of Dialectical Monism, which affirms that everything is one but the one is represented by dual manifestations.
Yet, this would also way later inspired Dialectical Materialism of Marxism where everything is comparisons of materialist distinctions such as classes, cultures, genders, etc. Yet, dialectics based in part on the Classical thinkers listed above, way before Marx, would go to inspire the overarching Illuminus thought of Renaissance Europe which thus had an effect on early democratic theories, which then fractured into the dialectic expressions of Libertarian and Marxism. Both Marxism and Libertarian thought (cousin ideologies) are arguably based from the Jacobin schism between Girondins and the radical Montagnard’s of Robespierre, with the both being aligned to Masonry (British Lodges versus the Grand Orient Lodge of France), which itself expresses Monism via the concept of the Grand Architect and Neoplatonic ritualistic ceremony to achieve “levels”. Speaking of levels, this is basic concept in video design.
Anaximenes was the first to state that substances can change form, and he also believed that the universe was in constant motion, insinuating notions of flux or evolution. Pythagoras, is known for many things such as his ideas on mathematics, communalism, asceticism, and mystical symbology such as tetractys which would inspired numerology and cryptography, but also the concept of metempsychosis which is a philosophical term in the Greek language referring to transmigration of the soul, especially its reincarnation after death. In other words, the souls in immortal and transfers to other bodies.
Platonic Realism of Plato is the philosophical position that universals or abstract objects exist objectively and outside of human intelligence. In other words, there are universals such as shapes, forms, numbers, fractals, etc., way beyond human intelligence, and in a way we’re just seeing emanations of these, and matter as we see or can understand it, aren’t the purest forms, and these purest forms are beyond reason to humans.
Later, regarding Plotinus, who’s teacher was Ammonius Saccas (of the Platonic tradition), Plotinus taught that there is a supreme, totally transcendent “One”, containing no division, multiplicity, or distinction; beyond all categories of being and non-being. His “One” “cannot be any existing thing”, nor is it merely the sum of all things (compare the Stoic doctrine of disbelief in non-material existence), but “is prior to all existents”. Plotinus identified his “One” with the concept of ‘Good’ and the principle of ‘Beauty’.
We can see an overarching theme which is the material singularity of all things, dialectics, the merging dialectics as being closer to “The One”, but also progress, flux, transfiguration, metempsychosis, reincarnation. Thus, transhumanism has (1) a current hard science aspect inspired by Darwinist evolution; (2) an esoteric tradition; (3) political support within the Illuminus roots of Libertarians and Marxists, and (4) roots within both Analytical and Continental Philosophy. Interestingly, what happens when you mix Marxism and Libertarian? You get a corporation and they’re pretty good at research and development for products instrumental in Transhumanism. Marxism serves as the social glue of the organizational culture but also its hierarchical structure, though it may imitate diversity, this diversity is often a sign of representing the the diversity of the world it is exploiting. Libertarian is where the profit above all else comes into play, but also corporations like free-trade, i.e., globalism, as it searches for new markets and strives to reduce cost especially that of labor. The fact that Marxist and Libertarians are still arguing despite not realizing their common heritage as a unified liberty movement, is simple willful ignorance solidified by concepts such as race in post-colonial nations, e.g., libertarian movement in the USA is often post-Republican white and morally conservative, which actually defies the principle of respecting others personal liberties, and the notion of free-trade actually encourages immigration. Marxist in post-colonial nations still have an affinity for material fetishism often provided by the corporations they protest.
While reading The Russian Cosmists, relating to Hyperborea it was stated, “Along with Gumilev, another prominent unorthodox scholar with at least some direct connection to the Cosmist movement is Valery Demin, a proponent of a Russian version of the “Arktos” theory designating the Hyperborean extreme north as the original homeland of the Indo-Europeans, and perhaps all other peoples. Demin’s 1997 Moscow University doctoral dissertation was titled “Philosophical Principles of Russian Cosmism,” and he is the author of more than twenty books and one hundred shorter works, including essays in Cosmist collection, about the peoples, legends, history, and prehistory of the far north” (Young, p. 229). Regarding Valery Demin, Young (2012) states, “Basing their theories on the writings of Herodotus, Pliiny, Ptolemy, and other ancient authorities, and supported by modern research including Fedorov’s speculations on the origins of civilization in the Pamir Mountains, and Bal Gannadhar Tilak’s writings on the far norther origins of the Vedas, Demin and the Hyperboreans argue that the arctic, which had a much milder climate some 40,000 years ago, was a kind of northern Shambala, or perhaps a prototype for Plato’s Atlantis; in any case, the original homeland of a happy, healthy people who lived far beyond present lifespans”.
Relating to Horse the Band with their opening song on A Natural Death called Hyperborea the work Arktos is referenced in the book by Young (2012). Looking up Arktos, I come to Arktos Publishing, which is known as the main far-right publisher in contemporary times. Arktos Publishing is known for distributing the Alekansdr Dugin’s The Fourth Political Theory, but its editor was Jason Jorjani. Jorgani was a professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology who was fired for his association with the American Far-Right. His focus of study (his obsession) is that of Iran, which relates back to the Cosmist ideology of Sergi Fedorov, with Young (2012) stating, “The ancient Iranians, to whom Fedorov believes the Slavs are related, were continental rather than insular and peninsular in outland, land tillers rather than land seekers, and in their close relationship to the earth recognized that life is won only by constant struggle against nature. Evil, for the Zendo-Slavic peoples, is not an inescapable condition of existence, as in India, but can be overcome by concerted human effort.”
Russian Neo-Nationalism links to this esoteric Iranian link, with Young (2012) stating, “George Vendasky, for example, sees Russian pre-Christian pagan religion as a development from both Zoroastrianism and Mithraism. And Aleksandr Dugin and other current Russian neo-Eurasianists and neonationalists point to ancient Russia’s religious and cultural kinship with ancient Iran to support their calls for a new Russo-Iranian Eurasian continental alliance to counter NATO power and culture”. (p. 83).
Zoroastrianism was the religion of Iran; Jason Jorjani of the Alt-Right is a scholar of Iran via Arktos Publishing and frequently appears on New Thinking Allowed, a YouTube show, hosted by Jeffrey Mishlove (the only person to get a paranormal doctorate from UC Berkley); Iran is synonymous with the word Aryan and the concept of Aryan links the Eurasian landmass from Europe, Hindu India, the Western Chinese desert and Tibet. This region is considered the Grand Chessboard as stated by Zbigniew Brzezinski, with the USA, Russia, and China vying for supremacy in the resource rich region, thus, this is why esoteric ideology often accompanies militaristic expansionism, e.g., Nazis appropriating the Swastika and sending missions to Tibet, Dugin with his Eurasianism, etc.
Jason Jorjani analyzed by The Intercept
Indo-European studies often correlates to the Alt-Right and past regimes such as the Nazis, but also Cosmist as revealed by Young (20120; Iran is within the grand vision of Aleksandr Dugin’s Eurasianist ambitions; and the band Horse the Band (ironic since the horse was likely first domesticated by peoples of the Steppes) has Russian references in songs such as Face of Bear and Hyperborea, with the later being a real “Grand Origin” movement based on Russian nationalism.
Jay Dyer is often an apologist for Russia. His conspiracy, especially that visible to the public (thus with a larger chance of hits online), often denounces The West. Dyer in my personal opinion represents the post-Republicanism of MAGA America. In essence he is part of the link of Russian psychological warfare into the United States, and he’s a symbol that links Republicans to Russia which is something Dugin wanted. Dyer similar to white supremacist, Lauren Southern, have interview Dugin and helped him get a larger following. It’s also interesting to note that Dyer nor Southern, or any other Alt-Right, or Alt-Right adjacent person within the limelight speaks about Zionism as one of the culprits. MAGA America was not only made possible by the help of Russia but more so from the assistance of Zionism in the USA, Russia, and Israel. Yes, there is a unspoken relationship between the Zionists and the Alt-Right, such as Rebel Media which employed Lauren Southern being owned by Jewish businessman, Ezra Levant.
References
Frederick L. Schuman, “Present-Day Russia. Ivy Lee,” American Journal of Sociology 35, no. 1 (Jul., 1929): 144-145. https://doi.org/10.1086/214937
Mitchell Research Group 