Search Results for: let the games begin

" Mediation is no less to be inferred from the relation of art to nature, than from the inverse; art is not nature, a belief that idealism hoped to inculcate, but art does want to keep natures promise. It is capable of this only by breaking that promise by taking it back in to itself. Art is inspired by the negativity, specifically by the deficiency of natural beauty, in the sense that so long as nature is defined only through its antithesis to society, it is not yet what it appears to be. What nature strives for in vain, artworks fulfil; they open their eyes. Once it no longer serves as an object of action, appearing nature itself imparts expression, whether that of melancholy, peace, or … [Read more...]

"It is necessary to recognize that acts of extreme violence and cruelty do not represent merely an odd or marginal and private retreat into barbarism. On the contrary, warlike values and the social mindset they legitimate have become the primary currency of a market-driven culture that takes as its model a Darwinian shark tank in which only the strongest survive. In a neoliberal order in which vengeance and revenge seem to be the most cherished values in a “social order organized around the brute necessity of survival,” violence becomes both a legitimate mediating force and one of the few remaining sources of pleasure.11 At work in the new hyper-social Darwinism is a view of the Other as the … [Read more...]

At the start of Great Expectations, Pip has an encounter with an escaped convict, Magwitch, a very violent man. Throughout No Country for Old Men, violence appears and reappears as if a ghost, a haunting, and at the end the Sheriff sits with this thoughts for a lengthy reflection on our own complicity in violence and destruction. In Raymond Chandler and in Hammett, violence drives the narrative. Violence and crime. Transgressive acts, lies, betrayls. In Shakespeare, its hard to keep count of the bodies. How many are left on stage in Hamlet? There seems to be an outrage now... of a liberal flavor...about depictions of violence in movies and TV. There is also an outcry about … [Read more...]

Several topics rattling around my head....that seem (!) related. But maybe everything is related. Joe Nava wrote a nice small essay titled Looking for the Unconscious in Film, on his blog, here... http://www.joenava.com/ There is in this topic, a relation to the spectacle as it was vomited forth on all media outlets this week. The DNC. In particular, though, I've been thinking on Michelle Obama's speech. And by extension on the colonizing of consciousness. And I've been thinking a bit about Zizek, and how philosophy now, in the guise of this self promoting buffoon, is just more branding. Actually, its worse, for Zizek advertises himself as a leftist. And he's not left on anything. … [Read more...]