Black Swan pic.twitter.com/ayjvruEn4S
— Bravo Johnson (@BravoJohnson5) June 28, 2021
Month: June 2021
The Steroidal Abstraction
In the contemporary landscape of intellectual discourse, a peculiar phenomenon has emerged: abstractions, once lean and limber, are now excessively pumped up, their muscles bulging with the aid of intellectual steroids. The modern theorist, driven by the insatiable hunger for recognition and authority, has resorted to augmenting their conceptual frameworks to the point of grotesque hypertrophy. This essay will explore the implications of this trend, where the very fabric of sense-making is distorted by a culture of intellectual enhancement and dishonesty.
The Steroidal Abstraction: A Cultural Decadence
At its core, the intellectual steroid is the infusion of grandiloquent jargon and complex terminologies designed to mask the shallowness of one’s arguments. These inflated abstractions are akin to bodybuilders who, in their quest for perfection, turn to performance-enhancing drugs to achieve an idealized physique. Just as the bodybuilder’s muscles are not a genuine reflection of their natural strength but a contrived image of potency, so too are these abstractions a veneer of depth, concealing a lack of substantive insight.
This phenomenon is not merely about adopting complex terminology; it is an entire aesthetic of pretense. It is about creating a façade of intellectual rigor where none exists, a form of cognitive posturing that seeks to dazzle rather than enlighten. The discourse is less about genuine understanding and more about the performance of understanding, a spectacle where the intellectual athlete flexes their conceptual muscles to an audience eager for validation.
The Lie of Intellectual Enhancement
The core of this critique lies in the deception inherent in these intellectual enhancements. The steroids of abstraction do not merely inflate ideas; they fabricate a lie about their true nature. The intellectual athletes, much like their bodybuilding counterparts, are complicit in a charade. They present their enhanced concepts as if they are the product of natural intellectual prowess, whereas, in reality, they are the result of artifice and contrivance.
This dishonesty is not without consequence. It leads to a distortion of the very sense-making processes that underpin our understanding of the world. When intellectual frameworks are artificially inflated, they do not merely mislead; they undermine the capacity for genuine critical engagement. The inflated abstractions, by their very nature, become resistant to scrutiny. They are designed to be impervious to critique, operating in a realm where the absurdity of their claims is obscured by their ostentatious appearance.
The Impact on Sense-Making
The impact of this intellectual enhancement is profound. Sense-making, the process by which we interpret and understand the world, becomes fundamentally skewed. When abstractions are pumped up with steroids, they are no longer capable of providing clear, actionable insights. Instead, they obfuscate and confuse, creating a landscape where clarity is sacrificed for the sake of spectacle.
The steroidal abstraction operates within a logic of excess and distortion, where the goal is not to elucidate but to impress. The result is a proliferation of intellectual products that are superficially engaging but fundamentally hollow. This hollowing out of content is not merely a passive byproduct; it is an active element of the strategy. By presenting ideas in a manner that appears sophisticated but is, in essence, empty, the intellectual elite maintains a monopoly over knowledge while denying others the means to engage with genuine understanding.
Indian Summer
SmallPox Blanket
Amerikanische
Neon Glitter
Luminal Cool
The Long Man
Time Travel
Bartholomew “Dutch” Doobin, a man whose name seemed perpetually on the verge of dissolving into a cough, stood there, knees wobbling like malfunctioning gyroscopes, at the “bottom” of the world. The air, a fistful of shattered diamonds, stung his lungs with each gasping breath. Below his crampons, the white expanse stretched, a canvas upon which the Antarctic wind scrawled cryptic stories in swirling snow. But Dutch wasn’t here for the scenery, no sir. He was here for the time, or rather, the complete lack thereof. Here, at the South Pole, all meridians, those cruel rulers of our existence, converged in a grand, mocking point. Here, a man, so Dutch fervently believed, could step outside the tyranny of the clock.
He shuffled a nervous foot forward, the crunch of his boot echoing off the desolate horizon. A tremor, subtle as a butterfly’s wingbeat, snagged at his gut. Had he…crossed a line? Was he, in this bureaucratic wasteland of longitudes, a smuggler of stolen seconds? He squinted at his chronometer, a relic from his grandfather’s rum-running days. The hands remained resolutely glued at 3:14 pm. Frustration, a familiar companion in Dutch’s life, gnawed at him. Was it all a hoax, some elaborate prank by the goddamn penguins?
Suddenly, a voice, distorted by the howling wind, materialized beside him. “Looking for a temporal transgression, Doobin?”
Dutch whirled around, heart hammering against his ribs like a frantic bird. A figure, bundled in layers that defied definition, stood there, a spectral grin splitting their frost-encrusted face. “Who the hell are you?” Dutch rasped.
The figure chuckled, a sound like wind chimes in a hurricane. “Think of me as a custodian of these desolate crossroads. A shepherd of lost moments, a purveyor of misplaced tomorrows.” The figure extended a gloved hand, revealing a single, glowing eye in the palm. “Care to step outside the bounds, Doobin? It’s a bit drafty, mind you, but the price is right.”
Dutch stared at the pulsing orb, a primal fear battling with a desperate yearning for something more, something beyond the relentless tick-tock of his life. He took a shuddering breath, the South Pole wind whipping at his exposed skin. What did he have to lose, really? With a trembling hand, Dutch reached out and grasped the offered eye. The world dissolved into a blinding flash. When his vision cleared, he found himself…well, that was the question, wasn’t it? The adventure, it seemed, was just beginning.
<>
The world solidified into a kaleidoscope of mismatched realities. A bustling marketplace hawked wares alongside towering chrome skyscrapers. A horse-drawn carriage clattered down a cobbled street, dodging a sleek, levitating delivery drone. Dutch stumbled back, his head throbbing like a drum solo.
“Welcome to the Chrono-Souk,” his guide boomed, the voice echoing from everywhere and nowhere at once. “Here, time is a commodity, traded like spices or used socks.”
Dutch squinted through the swirling chaos. A wizened figure, draped in a shimmering robe that seemed to shift between tapestries of ancient Egypt and holographic advertisements, beckoned him closer. A sign above their stall, in a language that defied translation, displayed a single, enticing word: “Yesterday.”
The guide chuckled, a sound like ice cracking. “Careful, Doobin. Nostalgia can be a fickle beast. You mess with the past, you might just unravel the present.”
Dutch, overwhelmed by the cacophony of displaced moments, yearned for a simpler time. A time, perhaps, before the chronometer betrayed him, before his wife left, before life became a relentless march towards a future he dreaded. He felt a tug on his sleeve and looked down to see a young girl, no older than ten, clutching a worn teddy bear. Her eyes were wide pools of fear and longing.
“Mister,” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the din, “Can you take me back? Back to before…?”
Dutch knelt before her, a strange kinship forming. He saw in her reflection of his own fractured past. “Where do you want to go, kid?”
The girl pointed a trembling finger towards a booth festooned with faded photographs and dusty record players. A sign, this one in a language he recognized, read: “The Nostalgia Emporium.”
Dutch swallowed the lump in his throat. Perhaps, he thought, some doors are best left unopened. But the girl’s hopeful gaze held him captive. With a sigh, he helped her to her feet and, with a final wary glance at the one-eyed guide, steered her towards the Emporium.
As they entered the dimly lit shop, the cacophony of the Chrono-Souk faded, replaced by the melancholic strains of a crackling phonograph. A kindly-looking woman with hair the color of spun moonlight sat behind a cluttered counter. She smiled at them, a smile etched with the wisdom of ages.
“Welcome, travelers,” she said, her voice as soothing as a lullaby. “Lost something precious, have you?”
Dutch exchanged a hesitant look with the girl. He wasn’t sure what he was searching for, or even if it could be found here. But one thing was certain: his journey through the fractured landscape of time had only just begun.
<>
Dutch watched, mesmerized, as the woman in the Nostalgia Emporium conjured a shimmering scene from the girl’s memory. Tears welled in the girl’s eyes as she reached out, fingers brushing the holographic image of her younger self, laughing with a lost friend.
He felt a tap on his shoulder. The one-eyed guide stood there, a sly smile twisting their lips. “Touching scene, Doobin, but sentimentality is a luxury we can’t afford here.” Their voice held a sharp edge now. “This little escapade has attracted unwanted attention.”
A ripple of distortion spread through the shop, and figures materialized from the swirling chaos. Tall, gaunt beings, their features obscured by swirling shadows, materialized, their eyes burning with an unsettling blue light.
“Temporal trespassers,” the one-eyed guide hissed. “Seems you’ve snagged yourself a Chrono-cops detail, Doobin. Not exactly the souvenir you hoped for, eh?”
Dutch felt a surge of panic. He’d heard whispers of the Chrono-cops, enforcers of the temporal order, their methods as ruthless as their efficiency. The girl whimpered, clinging to his arm.
The lead Chrono-cop, his voice a chilling rasp, addressed Dutch. “You have violated the First Law of Temporal Transit. Your presence here disrupts the flow of time. You will be neutralized.”
Dutch looked at the girl, her fear a mirror to his own. He wouldn’t let them take her. In a desperate gamble, he lunged towards the swirling vortex that had brought them here, the one-eyed guide shouting a warning behind him.
The passage pulsed with chaotic energy, threatening to tear him apart. He squeezed his eyes shut, picturing his own past, a time before regret choked the life out of him.
The world dissolved into a maelstrom of sound and light. When he stumbled back to consciousness, he was sprawled on the unforgiving white expanse of the South Pole, the biting wind whipping at his face. The chronometer on his wrist, miraculously unbroken, displayed the same time it had before: 3:14 pm.
He looked around, searching for the girl, the guide, the Chrono-cops. But there was nothing. Had it all been a hallucination? A desperate fantasy conjured by the harshness of the environment?
He stood there, a lone figure against the vastness, a shiver wracking his body. Maybe the past couldn’t be changed, the future remained uncertain, but something had shifted within him. The desperate yearning for escape had been replaced by a quiet determination. He wouldn’t let time, or the guardians of it, dictate his life anymore.
Dutch pushed himself to his feet, the South Pole wind howling its timeless song. He may not have become a master of time, but he had faced the consequences of defying it. And in that desolate expanse, he found a strange kind of peace, a newfound appreciation for the relentless, unyielding present.
Good Television
Cut-up chaos bleeds into the flickering tube. Network logos – pulsing, cancerous growths burrowing into your retinas. Feed. Consume. Obey.
Good television, if such a thing can exist, crawls out of the muck only during brief, fetid lulls in the relentless scramble. A lull. A synonym for societal collapse, perhaps. But in the fetid emptiness, something perverse can take root. A twisted creativity, birthed from the collective miasma of despair. It thrives in the cracks, the dead zones between the channels, where the static whispers secrets and the image bleeds. A world teetering on the edge, that’s when the good stuff leaks through. That’s when the message slips its leash and bites.
Rent seeking, a monstrous neologism, slithers across the screen. A psychic parasite, fattened on the carcass of innovation. Anomie, its fetid twin, seeps into the airwaves. A wasteland populated by vacuous faces, shilling products that bring no solace.
Good television, a flickering mirage in the desert of anomie, thrives on the tension between control and chaos. But the bean counters, those bloated ticks engorged on rent, have no patience for such subtleties. They crave the safe, the predictable, the mind-numbing. And so, television becomes a vast, glittering shopping mall, peddling the same tired inanities in a thousand different guises.
But wait! A flicker of subversion. A rogue signal pierces the static. A message scrawled across the screen in a language of glitches and distortion. A chaotic whisper, a burp of rebellion against the ironclad control. Is it a threat? A promise? Or simply another empty shill?
The answer, like everything else in this desolate landscape, remains elusive. But in the space between the commercials, a sliver of hope flickers. Perhaps, amidst the rent-seeking anomie, a new kind of good television can be born. A television that reflects the fractured reality we inhabit, a television that shocks and disturbs, a television that dares to question the control matrix.
But for now, we are left with the flickering ghosts of what once was. A wasteland populated by the walking dead, their eyes glazed over by the mind-numbing glow of the screen.