/lit/ - Literature

>>13109888
>Briefly, then, the hipsters are ready to worship as art any object whatsoever, however ugly and worthless, provided it belongs neither to antique art (which they regard as outmoded) nor to popular art (which is, well, popular)

>they find in this so-called "modern art" a means for advancement in what I call "the slave game" — the game for social distinction. To take each case separately, the hipsters — being generally stupid, lazy, utterly talentless, with no skills whatsoever, usually even extremely ugly — need some sort of trick, some sort of cunning, subterranean stratagem in order to compete with the strong, the intelligent, the beautiful and the talented, and they find this in affecting an air of "higher intellectuality" — in attempting, that is to say, to appear as if they stood on a higher plane compared to everyone else at least in one respect: in the intellectual-artistic sphere — a sphere in which they have observed that uneducated people (i.e. those who lack a solid philosophical background) are extremely easy to dupe.

> then, art no longer serves to give pleasure in itself, but is instead used as a chip in the slaves' game of social distinction, as a means to an increase of social status — and it is this increase which provides the pleasure, and for the sake of which the artfags and the rich will stop at nothing to appear to be worshipping little preposterous, repulsive, useless knick-knacks. So we see that even in this case, the most extreme case of ugliness in art (for in the entire history of art nothing has ever been created even remotely as ugly as modern art — Baudrillard: "thus painting currently cultivates, if not ugliness exactly... then the uglier-than-ugly (the "bad", the "worse", "kitsch"), an ugliness raised to the second power") — even in this case the artworks (i.e. the knick-knacks) still manage to give pleasure, but indirectly — not through the effect they have on their owner, but due to their effect on everyone else — on everyone but the owner! A fact which explains why these "artworks" no longer need to be beautiful — quite the opposite in fact, they must necessarily be ugly, otherwise they'd end up becoming popular and would no longer be suitable to serve as the ultimate chips in the slave game.

>What is most remarkable about this whole business, and can be discerned only now, once it has been properly analyzed, is how the artfags, who reside at the bottom of the slave game, and the absurdly rich, who stand at the top, end up turning to the same means in their struggle to raise themselves higher, and in a sense collaborate, with the artfags creating repulsive trinkets and the rich buying them up, thus meeting each other at the point of inversion — where the game comes full circle, and reveals itself for what it is.

>>12885226
You dare insult the Nietzschean cybercriminal lord of videogame journalism?

>>12883400
There is a guarded,
malicious little rumour-mongering and whispering from every nook and
cranny. I think people are telling lies; a sugary mildness clings to every
sound. Lies are turning weakness into an accomplishment, no doubt about
it – it’s just as you said.’ –
– Go on!
– ‘and impotence which doesn’t retaliate is being turned into “goodness”; timid baseness is being turned into “humility”; submission to
people one hates is being turned into “obedience” (actually towards
someone who, they say, orders this submission – they call him God). The
27
First essay
inoffensiveness of the weakling, the very cowardice with which he is richly
endowed, his standing-by-the-door, his inevitable position of having to
wait, are all given good names such as “patience”, also known as the virtue;
not-being-able-to-take-revenge is called not-wanting-to-take-revenge, it
might even be forgiveness (“for they know not what they do – but we know
what they are doing!”).33 They are also talking about “loving your
enemies” – and sweating while they do it.’
– Go on!
– ‘They are miserable, without a doubt, all these rumour-mongers and
clandestine forgers, even if they do crouch close together for warmth –
but they tell me that their misery means they are God’s chosen and select,
after all, people beat the dogs they love best; perhaps this misery is just a
preparation, a test, a training, it might be even more than that – something that will one day be balanced up and paid back with enormous interest in gold, no! in happiness. They call that “bliss”.’
– Go on!
– ‘They are now informing me that not only are they better than the
powerful, the masters of the world whose spittle they have to lick (not
from fear, not at all from fear! but because God orders them to honour
those in authority)34 – not only are they better, but they have a “better
time”, or at least will have a better time one day. But enough! enough! I
can’t bear it any longer. Bad air! Bad air! This workshop where ideals are
fabricated – it seems to me just to stink of lies.’
– No! Wait a moment! You haven’t said anything yet about the masterpieces of those black magicians who can turn anything black into whiteness, milk and innocence: – haven’t you noticed their perfect raffinement,
their boldest, subtlest, most ingenious and mendacious stunt? Pay attention! These cellar rats full of revenge and hatred – what do they turn
revenge and hatred into? Have you ever heard these words? Would you
suspect, if you just went by what they said, that the men around you were
nothing but men of ressentiment? . . .

>>12880911
>>12880933
What's wrong? No proper responses for the futuristic machine-god?

>>12870822
598. Nor does reading a genius's writings help in any significant way, shape or form, if you are not already a genius, as all the inferior intellects are pleased to think. "Maybe I wasn't born as smart as him, but all his smartness must be contained inside his books, so all I have to do to become like him is read them!" A gross overestimation of the power of words, that amounts to believing that reading books can change your genes! The reality is that, at most, and if you are sensible, the genius's books will give you an inferiority complex. If you aren't, they'll turn you into a stark raving retard for whom there is no cure. — And you thought that lifting weights above your strength was dangerous! But reading books above your intelligence is unimaginably more so. But that, too, you stubbornly refuse to acknowledge and heed, precisely because evaluating the power of books is an unimaginably harder task than sizing up the weight of a couple of barbells, while to you books are, after all, just books. "What harm can there be in reading them?", you think, like all uneducated people.

>>12859056
I'm living in Japan right now. Will that be a problem?

>>12818725
http://orgyofthewill.net/

>>12663834
You called?

>>11844773
This

>>11290758
ye

>>11205062
as bald as they come senpai

>>10791263
*bullies you*