Warning! This is a long and agonizing post / journal, don't read it if you have heart problems, kidney problems, if you are an elitist who knows everything or if you understand the notion of "Holistic Existence" - One brick upon another creates a structure we either like or dislike but we're but it is better for us to take a stand once we analyzed processes and phenomenons in a proper way. Even though some of you will probably have some clue or a full grasp of all the things I'm going to write about, I still write it ,especially for those who wish to ignore them and for those who never comprehended them.
I wish to emphasize: The main reason for which I write this manifesto of a journal is that apparently people seem to ignore some things that are pretty starkly real in our modern world. Another reason for the specification of all the words poured before your eyes (once you'll get to the wording below) is that...I just love to write.
To initiate my argumentation I'll quote the newly added group description of the group "I'm disgusted with the modern world ":
Let's say two things: first is that one can be disgusted about most of aspect of something without necessarily be against everything of it. Otherwise, here in this place, we're concerning sociological more than technological matters.
Second: before to argue, one should be able to understand of what he's talking about, what modern world is, for example, and other basic historical informations as well. "Why are you in front of a pc if you are so against the modern world" is so stupid as to say "Why are you using your car for work if you are so against world pollution".
Firstly, I declare that I'm going to deal with both paragraphs without separate counter-claims for each one. I'm just going to write "my" doctrine fluently.
A little background: I believe it was my post (and the reference to a "clever guy") that triggered this hurried verbal reaction. In a thread called "What exactly makes you disgusted about "modern world"? I said that
I have within myself a shrieking voice telling me: "Well...you should consider avoiding dogmatism and believe that you can enjoy everything in life in a very hypocritical way" - regarding the use of the Internet for the expression of anti-modern thoughts. But I also stated that it's understandable to a CERTAIN EXTENT (I leave these bold words as a reminder).
Now, it seems to me that when people are referring to this feel of 'disgust', they don't actually feel any real disgust but just general bitterness - which is common to a considerable bulk of our earthly race. Feelings of disgust or general bitterness can, occasionally, be associated with a romantic quench for "nostalgic times" or, if a society wishes it is related to the depiction of the road ahead - the thoughtful intention of insuring "a better future" - sometimes, we will have the combination of both. All these things were, as I see it, an utterly frequent trait found in many societies and many civilizations throughout History. So this feeling of disgust towards the contemporary status of 'society', is neither special to our epoch or important on our planetary surface since...well, I think that we really got into a state where nobody really wants to hold a mind-penetrating analysis for the future implementation of a real change -
but just to focus on issues that will not crush his current existential status and in other words - what is more suitable to his own habitual life-style and what 'disturbs' him personally, even though he had never had a real problem with any of the aspects of "modernity", a contemporary milieu that provides him all that he needs in order to sustain his insignificant life.
For many, the rebellious mindset fixed against the modern world is just a little emotional experience they're conducting, just to feel more "involved" and actually press their tingling intellectual button. This type of cerebral use (without the specific fixation against the modern world) is actually a thing that characterizes a great bulk of our modern folk (but not exclusively), which, due to the rise of the libertarian / individualistic thought can express their antagonism towards certain issues, thinking that by doing so they draw a distinctive line between them and the others; from that ensues the feeling that they are "special" and more "individualistic". What is the point in reckoning modern fallacies and just talk about it? Is this just another place on which people can pour their psychological problems or an inexpensive way to go through "virtual one-sided psychotherapy?"It doesn't differ from any other modern HORDE on the virtual plane - You can place any subject people are been repulsed from instead of "the modern world" - and you'll have the same counter-culture this group represents.
I also have suggestions for comments in the group shoutbox: "whee-hee...I love to think about better cocks from better times...most modern cocks turn me off so badly, I hate the modern world ^.^ but I l0vez social networks! ^_^". Almost every counter-group to contemporary standards are characterized by the typical behavior of a teenage girl standing before various objects while shopping and later saying "I don't like it in purple and yellow, I prefer the pink one...fuck, they used to have some better stuff around here...I'm like...disgusted with what it turned to...". In that sense this group is useless and meaningless, but I guess it is necessary to establish such groups.
Unfortunately We can hardly find better alternatives for an antagonistic approach against the modern world as seen in various counter-cultures/groups, but there is one or perhaps two groups/organizations based on the Internet that are visionary in a practical and realistic way.
To treat the claims mentioned above Ad Ram, I state that society and material culture are
BOUND. Saying that this is a group for people who are disgusted with "sociological stuff" characterizing the modern world is an inaccurate and incomplete, horribly too general and highly-over-simplistic claim which I believe was said only for the sake of argumentation and a selfish dialectic urge - but even if it is so, then people who are 'disgusted with the modern world' had never got into the point in which one can see with his naked eye the 'whole of reality' - and there's the possibility that he wishes to ignore it (as aforementioned).
What characterizes our modern society more than anything else? What, if you'd ask a humble fella' on the street, is the first thing that comes up to his mind when he is quizzed for the one true thing that really represents the modern world?...
TECHNOLOGY,
SCIENCE and
PROGRESS (in all fields). Such an illusive imagination we have. Never, in the history of man, were technology or science such a major player in the social structure and thought patterns of the entire world, a globalized world which is globalized thanks to technology manifested through scientific methods and a utopian idealistic vision. Our society and people's schedule is arranged thanks to and according to technology.
After the great metaphorical and literal declaration of our detachment from the Biblical chains, the human race succumbed from one type of ass-thinking stimulator (religion) to another in the very fashion of the Horde-mentality trend. So many people are bloating of pride when speaking of how "Atheistic" (or in a few cases "Nihilistic", when they don't actually know what Nihilism is and confuse it with Fatalism) they are, and how science and technology provide anything we need in order to "thrive" and succeed as a society, that now is the end of ignorance and wars - something which is obviously unrealistic. In fact, those "Atheists" don't differ much from creationists or any type of religious people - they too have their opium, their asylum. Not only that, but technology (the Industrial / Medicinal Revolution and the revolutions who followed it thereafter) enabled our world from the first place to become
over-populated and according to the constant variable of the majority of stupid folks we have an over-populated plant and thus more idiotic people who make dumb decisions. Therefore we are far from achieving the dream of a society ruled and navigated by those who are worthy and capable of leading the throng; all we have are government led by those who are trendy and popular - and just like anything else - people are following a popular trendy marvel to inure it into becoming a norm and a "usual" and legitimate or even the "right" thing. One of the trends is the cult of science and technology, another cult of obsession.
Yes, we have a gadget-obsessed society - a society that validates knowledge and "Science" only if it has a
materially practical-end, preferably something that will make our lives more convenient. The urge for convenience and couch-comforting which is the counter-state to the neurotic behavioral and functional state of society's day-to-day life, is being enforced and maintained by technology.
Who of us hadn't used the Internet (which is probably the greatest symbol of progression of our days), for dumb reasons and for dumb purposes? Will it really provide some sort of compensation for his lack of interest in anything or abysmal boredom? Over-surfing in social networks, uploading images to them, chatting with friends and spending time murmuring in social groups, watching idiotic videos on Youtube, playing MMORPG's for a considerable amount of time and so on. Why? probably so that we'll answer the biological call for social interaction or so that we wouldn't even bare the thought of us being "alone", "solitaire", "depressed", "sad" and "frustrated", "freakishly out-casted" - those feelings arise sometimes when people are bored, and boredom is another reason for the prosaic use of the Internet. This is how our self-esteem and potential travel into the pathetic plain of self-regression.
We can find this corrosive actions in almost every technological marvel in the hands of the modern throng. Cell phones - devices that suppose to aid us when trying to call someone in a distant place - turned into another all-in-one object containing many functions that in the end are just useless and destructive (Why oh why do people get so bored this days that they need all those
blistering devices instead of doing constructive and creative things)? We have Cars and Motorcycles and other motorized vehicles without which we just seem to be lost. Had we lost our limbs? Had they become organs that are merely used for simple movements or only when we go to the gym, to become more plastic? Even when people are engaging in out-of-doors activities they have to take their motorized vehicle with them all along the trip...depriving themselves the adventure of walking on foot and exploring Nature.
Anyway, the thing most notable on the list of the world's beloved technologies, just after the Internet (or above it perhaps), is the outstanding glowing box we call TELEVISION. Do I really need to further deepen and explain why and how do Television come to be the most important thing in people's life? How it transforming them into mentally bedraggled creatures? How it destroys our chances of a scholarly society (at least if the current framework of TV will not be replaced)?
Apart from everything I have mentioned above, there another thing which coincides in a certain way with "how technology effects society or various acts taken by society" -- the various branches of ART. And you know what? just thinking about technology provokes different artistic reactions (just look what it did to 'SCIENCE FICTION', for good or for bad). Imagine what technology, touchable and real can do to ART, and what it actually did is the forming of new fields of art, various methods by which artists form or refine their creations and other opportunities for artists to exploit. Funny, but ART...somehow became another consumerist product for the modern crowd to collect and CONSUME. I guess it is slightly unrelated to technology, but only at some points).
Part II
It's time for me to with-hold the equivocal sampling and asseverate my claim: IT'S TOO DAMN STUPID TO DETACH TECHNOLOGY FROM SOCIETY AND FROM SOCIOLOGICAL DISCUSSIONS. Technology, the mastering of new technological methods and material products coming out of it, are bound to social structures, social thinking and social behavior. It's an ancient rule, carved on the ever-growing monolith of History. Commerce, which is a route through which exchanging of ideas and technologies occurs, is another field we'll have difficult time detaching from society and consequently from studies or discussions relating to society.
Let me ask openly what it "sociological"? Does it mean "more philosophical" or "leaning toward the understanding and enlistment of the fallacies of modern social values and phenomenons". Well then, it is (as I hinted along this article / journal) - an interconnection of knots of various aspects in our modern world, that made it what it is. The enlistment and specification of phenomenons and common behaviors that are supposedly "modern" is not a very kindling thing to do, and as I said earlier - has nothing special in a sense, since we can find behavioral consistencies throughout History that are still with us, and thus, mentioning them is doing nothing about them despite our awareness, and I believe some behavioral traits will remain with us until the final cataclysm to end human existence (and I want to emphasize that it will remain as it is as long as we stay passive both in our mentality and in handwork. This kind of passivity is being magnified by technology, which is a phenomenon that took an ugly shape in our modern world - and it is what prevents us from surpassing this stage of spiritual decimation.
You want to describe the stupidity of humanity, like it is something new? Or what? declare that you're repulsed by certain modern values or general crowd psychology and behavior? That's not very unique, constructive or contributive. But, there are things that because of the clash of various fields, events, and historical creations - are unique to this epoch -- Once again I wish to remind that TECHNOLOGY is an important factor (perhaps the most important and it goes hand in hand with historical circumstances) that forged the materialization of the modern environment, that's why we can attribute it solely to our epoch and why it's relevant and important to our understanding of our age and moreover - for the correction and rebuilding of our world and society.
For those who wondered: My approach doesn't deny technology or claim it is inherently wrong, that's stupid. Ancient tools like swords, which many people who respect ancient times are fond of (including myself), are a form of technological product as well.
What I'm actually trying to say is that certain things we do with our technology are regressive, fearful, grotesque, destructive and foolish and that certain technologies are just as dumb as their application on life (...).
BUT the use of technology and the lack of comprehension regarding our ability to direct our progressive thoughts towards things that are BETTER is also understandable to a CERTAIN EXTENT (both in length of use and the use itself) since we are human beings and
by being human we find it hard to draw a border between virtue and vice (Not in a moral sense but in an intellectual, creative, heroic and scholarly one) - so, we think that some things will not effect other things and that we can enjoy everything the world present us, just because
it's there and we don't have to cogitate much about it. One might add that we find it even harder to apply what we understood on the physical surface upon which we live. APPLYING WHAT WE KNOW AND COMPREHEND IS EXACTLY WHAT WE NEED TO DO. TALKING ABOUT POLEMICAL ISSUES WILL NOT MAKE THEM DISAPPEAR, ESPECIALLY NOT TODAY - IN THE MODERN WORLD. ANOTHER DISCUSSION ABOUT ANOTHER IDIOTIC PHENOMENON / EVENT / YOUR OWN FEELINGS TOWARD A CERTAIN SUBJECT IS JUST ANOTHER DROP IN AN OCEAN OF WORTHLESS WORDS.
Saying that "sociological" matters are a distinctive thing people should focus on when trying to meditate rigorously about the modern world, is a false and deteriorative way to relay on, if someone actually yearns for a real change. I'll say it clearly for the last time: The composition of atomic components of our lives (both as individuals and as a society or societies) sums up to become our HOLISTIC existential status.
If it's a group for people who wish to discuss "sociological more than technological matters" by simply reducing or eliminating the importance of anything that is technological and deal with the "burning social issues", which have only a fraction of/no connection to technology ( or any thing derived out of the pattern of thinking) then...It's just another useless social group (And I really think that social groups in general and a lot of other things that WEB 2.0 created, are just plainly useless).
Just before the enclosing quote, I want to re-quote the first two paragraphs of the group description:
some really clever guy pointed out how also last.fm/internet and so on are a part of this modern world, so this group would become in fact contradictory.
Let's say two things: first is that one can be disgusted about most of aspect of something without necessarily be against everything of it. Otherwise, here in this place, we're concerning sociological more than technological matters.
Well, just as the claim that people can be disgusted with some aspects of the modern world, some aspects of the modern world (which people presumably are not disgusted with) make this group contradictory. I already hinted along this article/essay/manifesto that some people would just choose to ignore it or lessen its importance so that they wouldn't think about those self-falsifying matters.
Finally, I shall enclose and conclude the wording I have thrown up here (hopefully you read some of it...). To do so I'll quote the last sentence of the "I'm disgust with the modern world" group, group-description:
So please, if you want to argue, do it with your brain turned on, and without silly statements like that.
O' such wit of a statement I haven't witnessed for years!
And I totally agree...When someone wishes to argue he must do it with his brain turned on...but not THAT turned on...and one should also choose, with his fully functioning turned on brain to discuss and limit himself (for good intentions) to more "sociological than technological matters". That's what turned on brains are for.
Otherwise, people with a horrible tendency to WRITE would just throw up this mass of crap other people will actually have to READ in order to react...Alas!
With love,
that "some really clever guy" who once upon a time pointed out something that would make this group (that is more sociological than technological) contradictory.
Have a great day, whenever you read it. And don't masturbate too much.
People who like the following bands or ganres might be interested in what I wrote:
black metal martial industrial neofolk dark ambient ambient Ofermod Bathory Death in June Arditi Beherit Blood Axis Von Thronstahl Ildjarn Of the Wand and the Moon Ain Soph Dark Tribe Sol Invictus Falkenbach Empyrium Nachtfalke Drudkh Burzum Dark Funeral Havohej Mayham Throne of Ahaz Xibalba Wolves in the Throne Room
Blood Axis
