Thought 78: Money as Technology

Money is a 
social technology. 

And technology enslaves
to the degree that it liberates,

and liberates to the degree 

that it enslaves, on account 

of the purgatory
that characterises the 
human condition.

Thought 77: A Note on Edge of Tomorrow (Live, Die, Repeat)

In the motion picture Edge of Tomorrow

(Live, Die, Repeat), it is clear that the enemy

alien race wins in all universes except the one

where Tom Cruise makes good on his power

to 'reset' the day.

Thought 76: A Note on Voting

Voting gives legitimacy

to the power structure.

Thought 75: Poisonous Politics

Politics is a poison

in so far as it feeds

on and fuels the 

worst in human 

nature.

Yet this

too is

a political

statement.

Everything

is political

=

Everything

is shit

(including 

this equation)

Thought 74: I Love Losers

As a loser, I love losers.

Art 10: Tree Outside

Art 9: Building Outside

Thought 73: Qualifications

Qualifications qualify.

Thought 72: The Power of Money

Though based

in universal deceit,

the power of money

lies in the fact that

people trust it enough

to do what they would

not otherwise do, e.g.

work a job they hate.

Money is 

quantified

power.

Poem 13: Amazon

Amazon...

Steer clear son

From this abomination

For all that tempts 

—the A-to-Z—

Is by them kept

At a finger's touch

No effort much

To transfer money

—It's so easy!—

At any time of day

Resist if you may

For pennies are easier saved

Than by hard effort made

Witness the world of work

That drives everyone berserk!

Enjoy what you own

Lying in your home

And use the library

Which lends for free

No need to clutter space

With needless blu-rays!

Yet I am a hypcocrite

I readily admit

Putting up for sale

Stuff dispatched by mail

Acquired in consumption

From the same corporation

Which gives me customers

And a stream of orders...

Amazon!

Review 6: Walter Benjamin, Selected Writings, Volume 1

Elliptical and Dense—A review of Walter Benjamin, 

Selected Writings Volume 1—1913–1926, 

Harvard University Press

This volume contains selected writings by thinker and cultural critic Walter Benjamin for the period spanning the years 1913–1926. 

Many of the entries consist in short fragments, interspersed by more lengthy pieces such as 'The Concept of Criticism' and 'Goethe's Elective Affinities'. 

Before I continue, I must confess to having a soft spot for WB. 

I first read him, in French translation, at the tail end of my 12 year mandatory stint in the French schooling system which never encouraged and in fact discouraged independent and critical thought; rather the aim of those twelve years seems to have been to annihilate all traces of imagination and creativity and ensure life-long submission to phoney authority.

So it was with much fascination and glee that I read some of WB's earliest essays which opened up a whole world of passionate intellectual enquiry into the nature of reality, all for its own sake. 

Nor did his output have anything to do with monetary or employment concerns, and indeed, taken too far, such concerns would have stifled WB's creative spirit and condemned him to obscurity, even post mortem. 

These things being said, I cannot now, as a mature reader of thirty years, heartily recommend this volume. 

While I still find WB's intellectual energy and penetrating analyses inspiring on principle, in practice WB's writing does not come off well in English translation, for his essays are at times impenetrable, elliptical, always dense, and all too often obscure in their argument. 

There are lighter and darker patches of density and ellipsis in this volume but I found my efforts at trying to penetrate the more arduous chunks of theoretical text slimly rewarded, for the contents when grasped are not all that revolutionary or illuminating.

Yes, WB offers new insights on certain terrains, such as fate, children's books, and translation, but I do not find the thinking, when understood, all that enlightened. 

WB lacks background knowledge of key areas such as the true content of Natural Law principles, the role of the occult, and the workings of conspiratorial power. 

To be sure, he was writing in earlier times but then some texts age better than others.

WB is often said to be a good writer, and this may be true in the German original, but in English his texts are chunky, lacking fluidity and clarity. 

Despite my best intentions of reading the book cover to cover, I gave up three quarters of the way through just because of the slog and the small pay-off for investing time and effort in getting to understand the heck WB is pointing out. 

While the world would undoubtedly be a poorer place without Walter Benjamin's literary and critical output, ultimately what inspires me the most about the character is his example as an always curious and diligent non conformist thinker, rather than the actual contents of his musings. 

Taking all these factors into consideration, the good and the bad, my score for this book is three stars. 

Thought 71: The Wrong Decision Fallacy

We impute present

unhappiness on

wrong decisions

—but all decisions

may have led

to unhappiness.

Thought 70: Fool's Consciousness

The price of high consciousness

is that it allergises one to low

consciousness, which is

the norm.

Poem 12: Welfare

Slavery and drudgery

Hallmarks of conformity

Are not my forte

—witness my résumé—

As I put off the day

Welfare won't pay

A pariah of the press:

A 'scrounger' no less. 

Feed me to the mob

It's the same as a job

Undergoing the loss

Of working for a boss.

Dependant on income

For needs and fun

Most sell labour

For financial favour

Yoked by necessity:

The logic of money.

Would they prefer the option

Of those in my position

To embrace the torment

Of reliance on government

Whose stated public aim

Is to end their benefits claim?

Review 5: Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings

Sensitive and Non-Wordly—A review of Basic Writings, 

an anthology of German philosopher Martin Heidegger

This is a strong collection, benefiting from an excellent and up-to-date critical apparatus and providing a decent, if not exhaustive, overview of the thinking of German philosopher Martin Heidegger through a well judged collection of essays by that author. 

These include the introduction to Being and Time, 'The Letter on Humanism', 'The Question Concerning Technology', 'The Way to Language', and more. 

It is indeed the collection's main strength to show the development, spanning several decades, of Heidegger's thought, albeit with a larger emphasis on later pieces, as Heidegger's shorter writings tend to belong to the post World War Two period. 

I read, or should I say re-read, this collection after having taken a year-long break from my forays into the captivating world of Heideggeriana, looking into other ways of interpreting history, the world, morality, and so forth. 

Over this period I have become more sensitive to the role of conspiracy in human affairs, including the occult, Natural Law, the monetary system, and methods of mind control and mass manipulation. 

With this in mind, Heidegger's writings as contained in this book, for all their poetic beauty, sensitivity to the nuances of language, awareness of the predicaments of our time, and attempts at providing new foundations for thinking the now, lack gravely in worldly knowledge and street wisdom when it comes to assessing actual as opposed to imagined motors in human history. 

While I am not prepared to discount the role of the metaphysical tradition in the shaping of today's world, including modern technology and this very web page, that is far from being the whole story, if one samples one's reading widely, and that is not something Heidegger will tell you.

Thus I would characterise this collection and Heidegger's writings generally as non-wordly, not quite of this world, but as nonetheless shedding light on basic phenomena such as the difference between beings and Being (the ontological difference), the origins of modern science, what technology actually entails on a planetary scale for the human species, the meaning of freedom, the relationship between thought and language, art as a setting-into-work of truth, and so on.

Thus with a bit of recule, as the French say, I would heartily recommend this compendium of Heidegger's but with the proviso that, however seductive and totalising a narrative Heidegger provides, it is far from being the whole story, and any genuine quest for truth will require study in many more areas, including political history, the occult, and the works of independent researchers worldwide, than that provided by a single philosopher, however genial. 

For as Heidegger himself says in his essay on technology, the destining of revealing that sends into enframing also contains within it the seeds for a more primal and dignified existence which is to observe all essential unfolding on this planet. 

And that includes the step of reading authors besides Heidegger who look(ed) deeply into the fabric of the world but with different, less philosophical, lenses on. 

All that being said, this is philosophy of the first rank and deserves nothing less than five stars.

Review 4: Friedrich Gulda's Well-Tempered Clavier

My Definitive 48: A Triumph of Musical Content over Musical Performance—
A review of Friedrich Gulda's recording of Bach's 
Das Wohltemperierte Clavier

It has been twelve years since I first started exploring interpretations of Bach's The Well Tempered Clavier, beginning with Richter, then Gould, then some lacklustre version I will not do the honour of mentioning by name, then a harpsichord version of Book 1, then Edwin Fischer's, then Angela Hewitt's, then Andras Schiff's, and lastly Pollini's. 

Only now has my search for the perfect 48 ended. 

I have found in Friedrich Gulda my definitive recording of these pieces. 

It pains me to think of the money and time I could have saved had I been made aware of this version sooner, but fate wanted me take the long haul it seems.

When it comes to Bach, I value transparency of playing so that each line can be isolated in the mind and meditatively absorbed in the integrated whole of the perfect music that it is. 

I quite liked Gould's 48 for this reason but his bravado and loud playing—frequently taken too fast or too slow—have always alienated me somewhat, and many of the preludes and fugues become deadened and boring through his over-interpretation; over-interpretation also mars Richter's version which also lacks a clear base line, preventing clear appreciation of all the voices of the fugues and of the contrapuntal melodies.

Friedrich Gulda's recording has in its favour an immediate, one might say intimate, non concert-hall sound, the microphones having been placed directly above the strings. 

Adding to the transparency of the sound is Gulda's extra delicate playing, slow and soft at the same time, where base and treble are clearly audible, which force one to pay attention to each note, each phrasing, each development, and come away mesmerised. 

This is the most sensitively played Bach for piano on the market. 

Gulda's tempi are also the most convincing I have heard, for example his very slow playing of Prelude I/8 or the fast pace of Fugue II/18, and I have never enjoyed listening to these pieces as much as now. 

It is rather like all these years I had been drinking watered wine until two days ago when, having purchased this set, I had my first sip of undiluted wine.

This set pleases me so much in its understated mastery that I cannot listen to it for too long out of fear of jinxing the spell of perfection it has me under. 

So long have I sought this exact interpretation, without even knowing it existed, that now I know that this has to be my favourite disc not only of classical music, but of all musical genres. 

It half surprises me that Gramophone gave a poor review of this set because it is hard for me to understand how critics could overlook such perfection, but then I am also aware that critics do not necessarily have better taste than I do in these matters.

Others may prefer more performance-heavy and romanticised versions of these Preludes and Fugues, but for those of us seeking the intellectual and spiritual content of these works, Gulda's is the one to buy, at least in the opinion of this reviewer who has over a decade's worth of exploring recorded interpretations of this work.

Thought 69: Uni-Verse

The uni-verse is

our big mirror.

Thought 68: Plato and The Picture of Dorian Gray

The novel The Picture of Dorian Gray

by celebrated author Oscar Wilde,

in so far as it relates the impact

of ill deeds on the soul by

way of a magical painting, 

joins up with Plato's

metaphysics of the

soul as something

that is impacted

in its health by

our thoughts,

emotions, and

actions.

That is why

'Those who find

beautiful meanings

in beautiful things

are the cultivated.

For these there

is hope.'

—Oscar Wilde,

Plays, Prose 

Writings 

and Poems,

The Picture of

Dorian Gray,

The Preface

Thought 67: Money

Yet another blog post

on money to help

me get over

my fear

of money.

Poem 11: Illusions perdues

Lucien Chardon

Bel homme garçon

Prey to an ambition
Nourished by illusion

Sought the company

Of High Society

But gained no ground

Lacking in background

As he lived off the funds

Of cherished loved ones

Condemned to misery...

The fate of so many

Suffering the injustice

Of that brutal artifice:

Monetary currency!

For economic scarcity

Serves ever to control

Your and my small role

In the absent Heaven:

La Comédie humaine!

Review 3: Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra

'Man Means the Evaluator'—A review of Friedrich Nietzsche, 

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Oxford World's Classics

This is a much preferable translation of this great work and having read some passages in the German, somehow feels closer to it in its light-footed, pithy, and indeed harrowing brilliance—the work of an intellectually isolated man who was thoroughly at odds with the modern age back in the late 1800s and while the religion in the West at the time was that of 'progress', had this to say instead: 'The wasteland is growing.'

In my perception, Friedrich Nietzsche successfully unravels in devastating fashion the Judean-Christian tradition which he saw as only having managed to tame humankind and ensure the preeminence of mediocrity, petty-mindedness, and the power of knaves and fools in their various social disguises.

Our whole current technological paradigm is still permeated through and through with the said tradition, and Zarathustra's call for creators to stay true to the earth has never been so evocative as it is today, when the planetary power of technicity has become almost total and the thought of human freedom seems remote and unrealistic, provided that the human does not itself become trans-human as the agenda of cybernetic elites would have it.

This book is 'for everyone and nobody' in so far as it is open to anyone to read it but for no one in his or her current state of being who remains in that state, because the book pushes for nothing less than the advancement of the type 'man' towards what the translator calls 'the overhuman' (Übermensch). 

In particular, Zarathustra hopes that man be such as to deliver himself from the spirit of revenge which he defines as 'the will's ill will towards time and its "it was".'

[This book paved the way for German philosopher Martin Heidegger's grappling with the Western tradition and the onset of a new Western beginning, the Western metaphysical tradition for Heidegger having found its logical fulfilment in Nietzsche's work.]

On a personal level, this book has in many ways determined the course of my life so far and, despite myself, I keep coming back to it and, each time I do, I make note of a new thought-provoking passage or insight which corresponds with my own experience and attempts at thoughtfulness.

That said, the book is not a comfortable read, but philosophy being the friendliness towards wisdom, and wisdom being often borne of suffering, this book must rate as a very wise work indeed, especially considering the bloodletting it represented for its author, who said as much in a letter to a friend.

It is in effect a new Bible addressed to an audience very different from that of the (Un)Holy Bible.

On this edition: as I said, this is a brilliant translation and better, in my estimation, than Hollingdale's or Kaufmann's. 

Moreover, there is an extremely useful critical apparatus which contains plenty of notes of the references Nietzsche makes in his philosophical novel to the Western tradition: the Bible, New and Old Testament, Luther, Aristotle, Plato, Hegel, and so on... 

The introduction is also quite helpful, although inevitably on the 'objective' side. 

I do wish there was a more elegant hardcover edition of this work available instead of a cheap paperback, an edition more fitting of its biblical nature, but some day maybe.

In conclusion: this is not entertainment, and I do not say that disparagingly as I too do like to read for entertainment, but a book for those who wish to transcend and overcome themselves spiritually, intellectually, and in relation to the world that surrounds them. 

It is a book for the few.

Addendum: Examples of  

Thus Spoke Zarathustra Decoding

'Their jealousy even leadeth them to the paths of thinkers; and it is the mark of their jealousy that they ever go too far, so that their weariness hath at last to lie down on the snow to sleep.' —Thus Spoke Zarathustra Of Tarantulae

The Tarantula is the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu who wrote a mean-spirited account of the German thinker Martin Heidegger: L'ontologie politique de Martin Heidegger.

'Do they only believe a stammerer?' —Zarathustra's Prologue, §.5

The Stammerer is the British Scientist Stephen Hawking who wrote a pale scientismic version of Martin Heidegger's Being and Time: A Brief History of Time. Yet Hawking gets all the credit and Heidegger all the blame.

'Whoever is of the highest species will nourish the most parasites.' —Thus Spoke Zarathustra On Old and New Tablets, §.19

Who has fed the most parasites in the last century than the German Statesman Adolf Hitler?

'Where solitude ceases, there begins the market-place; and where the market-place begins, there also begins the noise of great play-actors and the buzzing of poisonous flies.

In this world even the finest things amount to nothing without someone to make a show of them: great men the people call these showmen.

Little do the people comprehend what is great, which is: the creative. But they do have a sense for all showmen and play-actors of great matters.

Around inventors of new values the world revolves—invisibly it revolves. Yet around play-actors the people and fame revolve: that is 'the way of the world'.

—Thus Spoke Zarathustra On the Flies of the Market-Place

An illustrative example and vindication of these words of Zarathustra is to be found in the actor president 'showman' Ronald Reagan's lifting a passage out of the occult philosopher 'inventor of new values' Manly P. Hall's book The Secret Destiny of America for use in public speeches (see this article), in a case where indeed the people and fame revolved around the former, but the spirit and authority around the latter.

'And this parable too, I give to you: not a few who wanted to drive out their Devil have themselves entered into swine.'

—Thus Spoke Zarathustra On Chastity

As a youth, the ex-British Prime Minister David Cameron put his penis in a pig's mouth as part of an elite ritual.

Poem 10: Tobacco

Divided and dual

I'm a divi-dual

Caught in the grip

Of a habit that won't slip. 

Driven to pollution

I'm slave to addiction

Lucid though I am

About the nature of the scam.

Victory is ephemeral

Against this particular animal

For tried I have—my best—

To put the poisonous weed to rest

But my brain craves more

Altered chemically at core

By the fuming fiasco:

The plant tobacco. 

Review 2: Polybius, The Histories

War, War, and More War—A review of Polybius, 
The Histories, Oxford World's Classics

Polybius was one of the major Greek historians of the classical world and is also one of the least read. 

His work The Histories, of which only a fraction survives, purported to explain and elucidate Rome's ascendancy and supremacy over the known world towards the end of the second century BC.

Ultimately, what survives of The Histories deals in the main with political history and especially warfare between city states. 

The high point for me was the account given of the Second Punic War between Rome and Carthage, with Carthaginian general Hannibal's crossing of the Alps with his troops and elephants making for particularly gripping reading.

Less captivating and harder to follow are the long drawn out accounts of internecine warfare in the Greek world before it came under Roman control. 

I found myself reading without ingesting so to speak when it came to this part of the narrative.

Aside from tactical warfare, Polybius makes many outspoken remarks, an unusual tendency in those days, on how history should be written and the proper task of the historian which should be essential reading to modern students of historiography; for instance, armchair historians who rely solely on book learning and lack direct experience of politics and warfare come in for a serious beating in Book Twelve.

Finally, there is most famously the incomplete but nonetheless influential account of Rome's so-called 'mixed constitution' in Book Six which I studied in my Roman history class years ago and came to inform writers like Machiavelli and Monstesquieu in their theorising about the State.

Reading the book cover to cover, I got a sense of how all pervasive and constant warfare was in the classical world, particularly the Mediterranean area, and also how bloody tough and unforgiving life must have been back then, even though Polybius sadly does not cover the day to day life of the many as opposed to the mighty; and why should he have done, since that was a given at the time he was writing.

The greatest value of the book may precisely lie in undoing romantic notions of the Greco-Roman world in its constant conflict and battles for supremacy which, surprisingly, become rather tedious to read about after so many pages, but have the merit to put the ills of the modern world—also ridden with conflict—in perspective.

As regards the translation, I have not read the Greek nor any other English translation of this work but suffice it to say that the rendering in English was tolerably clear, and even at times quite enjoyable to read, which comes as little surprise the translator, Robin Waterfield, being a writer rather than an academic by trade, at least according to the biographical description of him in the book itself. 

The introduction is certainly competent and helps make sense and organise the whole text as it now stands.

My score for the book is four stars because, while the highs are very high, there is plenty in Polybius that is of little interest to the modern reader except as a reminder that the struggle for power was as pronounced back then as it is now.