September '25
Let's dance
‘Lilus Kikus’ by Leonora Carrington
Simulacra or Simulation
I’m sure everyone’s heard the modern quip that suggests we live in a simulation (Elon Musk is notorious for propping this). But what if it’s something more nuanced?
Simulation: to pretend
(an obfuscation of reality)
Dis-simulation: to pretend elsewise
(a misrepresentation of reality)
Simulacra: a crude representation of reality
(which becomes taken for the real)
Orders of Simulacra
A reflection of reality
“Its hiding the truth!”
“Its hiding that there is no truth”
“Its not hiding anything…its not real…”
Discussion 1 — Education
What do diplomas represent anymore?
When university education has failed to retain its value in the workplace?
Artifice from a bygone era?
Discussion 2 — Euro-politics
Why have European societies become so liberal? While America retains its republicanism?
Smaller countries…less people…converging ideologies?
Existed longer…alignment of values…less need for republican representation
(ala fewer “important” minorities)
Discussion 3 — Fascism
Fascism results from a society losing power and embracing its melancholy
(turning to anger…uproar)
Society used to erupt into violence when those in power overreached
But now, in this era of hyper-real, there is no true understanding of what motivates society
Discussion 4 — Ascetics
Nihilism predates postmodernism
“the disappearance of meaning” become “what even is meaning”
TL;DR — Ketamine. And chain smoking cigarettes:
The oldest known violin
is an Amati believed to be from 1564 that’s in the Ashmolean at Oxford. The oldest instrument we studied was from 1580 and the latest was probably a German violin from the 1960s. Aside from the angle of the neck they were the same. Nothing had changed. Nothing.
That seems rather remarkable.
Yes. What’s even more remarkable is that there is no prototype to the violin. It simply appears out of nowhere in all its perfection.
And what do you make of that? You’ve told me this for a reason.
It’s just another mystery to add to the roster. Leonardo cant be explained. Or Newton, or Shakespeare. Or endless others. Well. Probably not endless. But at least we know their names. But unless you’re willing to concede that God invented the violin there is a figure who will never be known. A small man who went with his son into the stunted forests of the little iceage of fifteenth century Italy and sawed and split the maple trees and put the flitches to dry for seven years and then stood in the slant light of his shop one morning and said a brief prayer of thanks to his creator and then—knowing this perfect thing—took up his tools and turned to its construction. Saying now we begin.
Cormac McCarthy (Stella Maris)
If reality was inverted
(werewolf, assassin, and rain dancers with infinite aura)
(the Pope with -5 lol)
This also reminds me of a Jerry Seinfeld interview where he touts that in the 1970s no one cared how much money you made. That it was entirely “how cool your job was”. Something true in that.
Some Literature
“What does it mean that those trees and mountains out there are not magic, but real?”
I’d yell, pointing outdoors.
— Jack Kerouac (Dharma Bums)