Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff
Iamwhomiam » Sun Apr 15, 2018 7:47 pm wrote:Pssh! Babes! I was boogieing to this, back when:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbfnh1oVTk0
But regret not yet having been around for this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rcq93txBdtM
dada » Wed Apr 18, 2018 12:04 am wrote:I'm writing this because I've been thinking about why the board doesn't capture my interest anymore. I figured it must be more than just the lack of comments in poster's own words, which I feel discourages discussion. For what it's worth, I thought I'd share my critique of the board, with the board. When I become disillusioned with something, I often do a critique like this, for my own benefit. And I think the spaces I inhabit, both on and off the internet - including my own mind - deserve nothing less than rigorous critique. Maybe you'll get something out of it, as well.
First off: I'm full of shit, and so are you. Everyone is full of it. Being aware of this at all times is imperative. If someone isn't conscious of the fact that they are full of shit, they're doubly full of shit. Notice that most of what you read is written by people who are not conscious of this simple fact.
This is true everywhere. But I hold Rigorous Intuition to a higher standard. A community of fearless and passionate people asking hard questions, with the wealth of information that is this board's legacy, should know better. So I'm tougher on this community, and also more disappointed in it when it fails to own up.
I've realized that the lack of poster commentary is just a 'straw that broke the camel's back.' The big pile of straw is important, though, not only the final one. What the big pile of straw amounts to, is something like this:
Posts with no commentary or critique is basically Show and Tell (the excerise that teachers give to kids as a homework assignment) for grown-ups. (I'm using the term very loosely) Pay attention now, class.
However, arguing against show and tell, and for critique and commentary, doesn't mean we should graduate to Current Events, the homework assignment for the next grade. Find a newspaper clipping and summarize. This is far, far from critique, and way beneath the dignity of this board. In my opinion. Obviously there are many of you here that live for this stuff.
So critique and commentary as an overall practice has become passe here. Yes, there are still some posters who are interested in doing it. But as an overall practice, no. (And yes, there are still passionate posters. But passion has also become very unpopular. It makes people squirm uncomfortably. Personally, I'll take passion over the poppy field afternoon tea party tone, any day.)
I want to say it's the social mediatization effect that causes this. The tweet, the stream chat, the text message, the social media comment and 'like' are corrosive to the synapses. We take turns, 'reproducing the spectacle' and reacting to the reproductions. This mode of thinking is having a much greater effect on culture and society than we give it credit for.
Although, that might not be such a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. Culture and society ain't no great shakes. It's junk food, unfit for human consumption. Wouldn't feed it to my dog. And my cat, forget about it. He has better sense than that.
Before you label me a nihilist, the current trendy word for dismissing all things you don't understand, let me clarify.
I am, uh, part of a time-honored tradition of going beyond tradition. The poet, the visionary, these worn out words have baggage that doesn't apply. Suffice it say that I've chosen to undertake the long, painful process of liberation of the senses.
It takes time to rid one's self of what is known - the sayings and concepts, the way they are expressed and their basic values. Everything customary, all the trappings of the dualistic mind, they are to be gently set aside, out of the way.
There are others on this board who have chosen this process. I know who you are. Don't worry, nothing that you've said reveals it. It's something underneath, behind the words. Looking at the screen, I can't see it. When I look through the screen right at you, though, it's easy. To you, I say: if working here at the new Rigorous Intuition is good for you, I get it. I know that no time is wasted if you are working. One person (me) can stay up every night binge watching bad horror movies until the sun comes up and it is fuel for the process. Another will do the same thing, but use it to shut down and escape.
It's the same with everything, even this message board. So if this message board is a place where you do your work, I can understand that. It just isn't a place for me. My place is scary non-euclidian spaces and old graveyards. Well, a different kind of old graveyard than this board! haha
So you see, I'm no nihilist. Or maybe you don't get it. The non-lineage of the oldest, newest, unnamed and unmentionable secret society isn't for everyone.
But if you aren't one of us, do everyone a favor and don't put on airs pretending like you are. You aren't fooling anyone but yourself, anyway, and it makes you look like an idiot.
But getting back to my point. I can't say it's merely the social mediatization effect that causes this collapse of critique. If I say it's consumerism, or authoritarianism, I know you won't hear me, beacuse of your reflex defense mechanisms to those words.
So I'll say it's age-ism. Not like age discrimination, but acting like being twenty, forty, or sixty means anything more than just that. I know you are a person in time, by virtue of the fact that you are reading these words. It goes without saying. But you make a fetish of it. You escape into the past, escape into the future, escape into the present. Even though you know the only thing worth escaping from is escaping. You know this! You've come in contact with Rigorous Intuition, afterall, haven't you. But go ahead, make a mockery of the board. You know what's best for you, you're two whole score years old. Oh, three score? My goodness. And you're still riding on your robot tracks, I see. That's quite an accomplishment.
So, something like that is what I think the problem is, here. Now, I'm being extra tough on you fine posters, because again, this is Rigorous Intuition. You're here because you have the ability to ask hard questions in pursuit of simple truth. This means you're a creative individual. It's in there, somewhere. I know this because you need creativity to pursue simple truth. Of course, creativity is another of those words with a lot of baggage. By creativity I mean real creativity, whcih is pure originality. Creativity which doesn't rebel against the old and the used is not real originality, that's just fantasy.
And so we come to simple truth. Not the facts, not the opposite of lies. The simple truth is something more subtle, more difficult to pin down than that. It's like true alien contact, which will always be nine-tenths subjective. Or like investigating a true haunting, the electrical instruments will always malfunction, the film will become mysteriously exposed. Or like a true synchronicity, it cannot be proved to the complete satisfaction of a rational mind. That's how you know when these things are real.
And you should know this already. I mean, how long have you been reading Rigorous fucking Intuition?
(This is my last real post here, I hope you liked it. I am allowing myself ten more posts after this one, but I'm going to save them for when I have something important to say. Directions to my new graveyard or whatever.)
“Dada hurts. Dada does not jest, for the reason that it was experienced by revolutionary men and not by philistines who demand that art be a decoration for the mendacity of their own emotions"...
Richard Huelsenbeck
Return to The Lounge & Member News
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests