You have a great talent for precise, forceful language. Thank you.
From the beginning of the Trump ascent, I have always been struck by the aesthetics of it all, an almost macabre feeling of the grotesque. It is profoundly anti-human as you capture here.
People like to think of Trump as the embodiment of the worst of America, when really I think he is the pure American. He is not America’s dark id, he is its super-ego
"Though jarring and disorienting as it is, on some level this memified barbarism contains a seed of honesty that is confronting to witness."
This is exactly why books like Blood Meridian have become so popular. It was written before the internet, has never been adapted to film, and yet the Judge has been memeified all over 4chan and Reddit for better or worse. There was a time when the "overwhelming carnage" made it difficult reading even for critics; now it just feels honest.
Excellent piece once again Scarlet! Gotta love how AI was touted as this "revolutionary" and "life-changing" technology - only for it to become a tool adopted by the very fascists who actively develop and sell it to the highest bidder to commit the most heinous atrocities imaginable. The AI/reddit/memeification of the government really does feel like the definition of the spectacle. As insane as all of this has been and continues to be, you're right that it's also causing more and more people to confront what this country has always been - a state founded upon genocide, built by slavery and sustained by warfare and crimes against humanity. The permission structure of "you can be your worst selves" gives people the ability to participate in the spectacle without the simultaneous recognition that the spectacle itself is what's killing them. It reinforces capitalist realism and gives people a depraved and horrifying ensemble to enjoy as the absurdity of it all continues to expose the core capital contradictions. I just had a conversation with someone the other day who fully embodied Thatcher's 'TINA' (There Is No Alternative) Doctrine to a T by attempting to argue that "all systems of governance fail due to the inherent selfishness of human nature." The behemoth demoralizes folks into becoming that worst version of themselves, in which all that remains is reveling in the cruelty and barbarism capitalism feeds on and thrives off of. The spectacle serves as the ultimate dividing distraction that pits the people against one another in a desperate scramble for survival, while the ruling class lords over us all - laughing to themselves at the imbecility of their manufactured extravaganza. The way you close this piece out couldn't be more perfect: "If we want to break the spectacle we will need to reveal the truth contained inside these illusions, and unveil the true face of what we are. It is only in exposing the nightmare that we can begin to wake up." The more those contradictions are exposed, the more people will continue to wake up. That, as always, remains vital to our mandate moving forward.
We are living well into a rapid, anthropogenic extinction event. Who knows what tomorrow will be like, or how many tomorrows we have? All of politics now is necropolitics. Brutality is the norm, only ratcheted up every day. The herd is apparently being culled more overtly now, and with greater obvious sadistic joy.
We are here for only a short while. We get to love and to be loved. Only love makes suffering bearable.
I appreciate the fine reference to Guy Debord. What an insightful person! I focus on encouraging little beloved communities - no matter how small or temporary. I especially appreciate when writers go deep and clear away the disinfotainment, as you do here.
I think it is Bayo Akomolafe who says “ the way I’d not forward, but awkward.”
Perhaps one of the most revered 'spectales' of neoliberal capitalism is the heavily idealised theoretical notion of the market itself, which we are meant to follow, not challenge. What is meant to be a metaphor becomes a mantra.
The fascists always want to aestheticise politics, like you say American life now is seemingly composed entirely of signifiers totally unhooked from anything material which is probably why this aesthetic urge has so virulently grabbed a hold of the levers of power. There's no resistance internally anymore, we live on a flat earth and can see all the way to every horizon and isn't it bleak. I think that's one of the most disheartening things about it, it's obviously representative of the absolute brutality and cruelty that's being met out to anyone who's suspected of being an "illegal" (and isn't that a dystopian fucking turn of phrase to describe human beings) but also it's just so tacky. These people have everything they could want and they just want slop, they love the slop in fact and think it's better than anything made with care or consideration. For them it's better to practice this kind of protective ignorance, the world is simple and so they can just do simple things and think simple thoughts without doing anything wrong. I don't really know what to do about this but God it's depressing.
What I keep thinking about is a distinctly American unwillingness to address our rapacious, violent, and Puritanical history.
Like you said, there can be no reconciliation of our nation without accepting "all of the hideous things that were always there but we didn’t want to see." We once celebrated the progress points in our country's timeline, but all these achievements* were made grudgingly or with great resistance from parts of us. We aren't benevolent or generous or fair-minded, no matter the self-mythologizing -- there was always a forcing function of economic or social unrest to our becoming more humane and equitable. And now a subset of the population is driven to dismantle the progress that was accumulated through sweat and blood because punching down is better than acknowledging you are also on the bottom.
I don't know if our national character is capable of self-reflection. Even if the rest of the world ostracizes us and condemns our actions, we may go the way of other corrupt dictatorships because we can't be told what to do or that we are wrong. We have pockets of rot, cultural and generational rot, that are fed and watered through grievance and victim-hood narratives. It is just easier to blame the people who don't look like or think like you for your situation rather than your own choices and allegiance to people who abuse you.
* "Achievements" might be the wrong word, but correcting their absence is what I'm getting at: (non-exclusive list) creating a bill of rights and the concept of individual liberties, ending slavery, codifying voting rights for non-white and non-male citizens, New Deal labor policies, social welfare programs, civil rights protections.
# I love your writing, Scarlet. Thank you for putting it out there. #
You have a great talent for precise, forceful language. Thank you.
From the beginning of the Trump ascent, I have always been struck by the aesthetics of it all, an almost macabre feeling of the grotesque. It is profoundly anti-human as you capture here.
People like to think of Trump as the embodiment of the worst of America, when really I think he is the pure American. He is not America’s dark id, he is its super-ego
couldn't have said it better. all is revealed!
"Though jarring and disorienting as it is, on some level this memified barbarism contains a seed of honesty that is confronting to witness."
This is exactly why books like Blood Meridian have become so popular. It was written before the internet, has never been adapted to film, and yet the Judge has been memeified all over 4chan and Reddit for better or worse. There was a time when the "overwhelming carnage" made it difficult reading even for critics; now it just feels honest.
Excellent piece once again Scarlet! Gotta love how AI was touted as this "revolutionary" and "life-changing" technology - only for it to become a tool adopted by the very fascists who actively develop and sell it to the highest bidder to commit the most heinous atrocities imaginable. The AI/reddit/memeification of the government really does feel like the definition of the spectacle. As insane as all of this has been and continues to be, you're right that it's also causing more and more people to confront what this country has always been - a state founded upon genocide, built by slavery and sustained by warfare and crimes against humanity. The permission structure of "you can be your worst selves" gives people the ability to participate in the spectacle without the simultaneous recognition that the spectacle itself is what's killing them. It reinforces capitalist realism and gives people a depraved and horrifying ensemble to enjoy as the absurdity of it all continues to expose the core capital contradictions. I just had a conversation with someone the other day who fully embodied Thatcher's 'TINA' (There Is No Alternative) Doctrine to a T by attempting to argue that "all systems of governance fail due to the inherent selfishness of human nature." The behemoth demoralizes folks into becoming that worst version of themselves, in which all that remains is reveling in the cruelty and barbarism capitalism feeds on and thrives off of. The spectacle serves as the ultimate dividing distraction that pits the people against one another in a desperate scramble for survival, while the ruling class lords over us all - laughing to themselves at the imbecility of their manufactured extravaganza. The way you close this piece out couldn't be more perfect: "If we want to break the spectacle we will need to reveal the truth contained inside these illusions, and unveil the true face of what we are. It is only in exposing the nightmare that we can begin to wake up." The more those contradictions are exposed, the more people will continue to wake up. That, as always, remains vital to our mandate moving forward.
We are living well into a rapid, anthropogenic extinction event. Who knows what tomorrow will be like, or how many tomorrows we have? All of politics now is necropolitics. Brutality is the norm, only ratcheted up every day. The herd is apparently being culled more overtly now, and with greater obvious sadistic joy.
We are here for only a short while. We get to love and to be loved. Only love makes suffering bearable.
I appreciate the fine reference to Guy Debord. What an insightful person! I focus on encouraging little beloved communities - no matter how small or temporary. I especially appreciate when writers go deep and clear away the disinfotainment, as you do here.
I think it is Bayo Akomolafe who says “ the way I’d not forward, but awkward.”
Perhaps one of the most revered 'spectales' of neoliberal capitalism is the heavily idealised theoretical notion of the market itself, which we are meant to follow, not challenge. What is meant to be a metaphor becomes a mantra.
The fascists always want to aestheticise politics, like you say American life now is seemingly composed entirely of signifiers totally unhooked from anything material which is probably why this aesthetic urge has so virulently grabbed a hold of the levers of power. There's no resistance internally anymore, we live on a flat earth and can see all the way to every horizon and isn't it bleak. I think that's one of the most disheartening things about it, it's obviously representative of the absolute brutality and cruelty that's being met out to anyone who's suspected of being an "illegal" (and isn't that a dystopian fucking turn of phrase to describe human beings) but also it's just so tacky. These people have everything they could want and they just want slop, they love the slop in fact and think it's better than anything made with care or consideration. For them it's better to practice this kind of protective ignorance, the world is simple and so they can just do simple things and think simple thoughts without doing anything wrong. I don't really know what to do about this but God it's depressing.
What I keep thinking about is a distinctly American unwillingness to address our rapacious, violent, and Puritanical history.
Like you said, there can be no reconciliation of our nation without accepting "all of the hideous things that were always there but we didn’t want to see." We once celebrated the progress points in our country's timeline, but all these achievements* were made grudgingly or with great resistance from parts of us. We aren't benevolent or generous or fair-minded, no matter the self-mythologizing -- there was always a forcing function of economic or social unrest to our becoming more humane and equitable. And now a subset of the population is driven to dismantle the progress that was accumulated through sweat and blood because punching down is better than acknowledging you are also on the bottom.
I don't know if our national character is capable of self-reflection. Even if the rest of the world ostracizes us and condemns our actions, we may go the way of other corrupt dictatorships because we can't be told what to do or that we are wrong. We have pockets of rot, cultural and generational rot, that are fed and watered through grievance and victim-hood narratives. It is just easier to blame the people who don't look like or think like you for your situation rather than your own choices and allegiance to people who abuse you.
* "Achievements" might be the wrong word, but correcting their absence is what I'm getting at: (non-exclusive list) creating a bill of rights and the concept of individual liberties, ending slavery, codifying voting rights for non-white and non-male citizens, New Deal labor policies, social welfare programs, civil rights protections.
# I love your writing, Scarlet. Thank you for putting it out there. #
This is absolutely brilliant! Thank you.