Search Results for: let the games begin

“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance." Karl … [Read more...]

"With their marked gift for calculation, the Jews "live" according to the principle of race, and indeed have done so for the longest time, for which reason they themselves most vigorously resist its unrestricted application. The arrangement of racial breeding stems not from "life" itself, but from the hyper-empowerment of life by machination (Machenschaft)." Martin Heidegger (Überlegungen XII, 82. Überlegungen XII-XV, GA. Peter Trawny translation) "Carl Schmitt's polemical discussion of political Romanticism conceals the aestheticizing oscillations of his own political thought. In this respect, too, a kinship of spirit with the fascist intelligentsia reveals itself." Jurgen Habermas … [Read more...]

"The repeated attempts that have been made to improve humanity, and in particular to make it more peaceable, have failed, because nobody has understood the full depth and vigour of the instincts of aggression innate in each individual. Such efforts do not seek to do more than encourage the positive, well wishing impulses of the person while denying or suppressing his aggressive ones." Melanie Klein (The Early Development of Conscience in the Child) "Finally... there results the generally acclaimed 'popularization'...in science. This is the notorious tailoring of science's coat for the figure of a 'mixed public,' to use a tailor-like activity for a tailor-like German (sic!)." Friedrich … [Read more...]

"What can be done?“ said Zeus, “for all is given; The crops, the hunt, the marts are no more free." Friedrich Schiller (The Division of the World, tr. Wm Wertz Jr.) " W.E.B. Du Bois deciding he had “not been Freudian enough” when he observed the body parts of a lynched Negro displayed in a local store." Eli Zaretsky (Political Freud) "Among the precepts of the Moses religion there is one that is of greater importance than appears to begin with. This is the prohibition against making an image of God—the compulsion to worship a God whom one cannot see." Sigmund Freud (Moses and Monotheism) "Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes and are irresistibly … [Read more...]

"Art is the exposure to the tensions and problems of a false world such that man may endure exposing himself to the problems and tensions of the real world." Morse Peckham (Man's Rage Against Chaos) "The study of Homer and Picasso are once again a class prerequisite, a luxury for the wealthy." Curtis White (Bad Science of Something Else? Orion Magazine) “...the thinkers, the artists and the heroes { } ...They are lonely, self-centred, not by choice but by necessity. Genius has no place for team-work. Poets and prophets do not go into committees." Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (An Idealist View of Life) “Our critique of science, technology and the industrial system is a critique of … [Read more...]

"Unless the Almighty Maker them ordain/ His dark materials to create more worlds,--/ Into this wild Abyss the wary Fiend/ Stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while,/ Pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith/ He had to cross." John Milton (Paradise Lost) "We don’t just talk anymore, we run programs. Whom do they serve?" Jonathan Beller (Digitality and the Media of Dispossession) "Bad philosophers are like slum lords." Ludwig Wittgenstein ( Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics) "Our supposedly algorithmic culture is not a material phenomenon so much as a devotional one, a supplication made to the computers people have allowed to replace gods in their minds, even as they … [Read more...]

"The erasure of the personality is the fatal accompaniment to an existence which is concretely submissive to the spectacle’s rules, ever more removed from the possibility of authentic experience and thus from the discovery of individual preferences." Guy Debord (Comments on the Society of the Spectacle) "The story goes that Fermi was having lunch with some colleagues back in 1950 (notice how both the Drake equation and the Fermi paradox are very old concepts, which does not exactly mark SETI as a field burgeoning with theoretical innovation).The conversation veered to how many intelligent forms of life there might be in the galaxy, apparently with most participants taking for granted … [Read more...]

“I believe that the action in film must become—will become—more and more interior.” Robert Bresson (Ideas and Men,Radio-télévision française, 1950) "On average, it took 58 days for the president to sign off on a target, one slide indicates. At that point, U.S. forces had 60 days to carry out the strike. The documents include two case studies that are partially based on information detailed on baseball cards. The system for creating baseball cards and targeting packages, according to the source, depends largely on intelligence intercepts and a multi-layered system of fallible, human interpretation. “It isn’t a surefire method,” he said. “You’re relying on the fact that you do have all … [Read more...]