/lit/ - Literature

>>11921913
no, that's it. you got it. the meaning of the apocalypse, in a sense, and how we think or imagine this in relation to history. it's almost an opening move for continental philosophers today, and it certainly animates no small amount of activist-academics.

i think derrida really sort of felt it had happened, in some sense. baudrillard for sure. but this idea of living at the end not necessarily of all time, but certainly some kind of historical epoch that had the European experience at the centre, and perhaps by extension the Anglo-American alliance that came after WW2 and led up to 1990, when the soviet union falls and fukuyama says, okay, that's it. and, in a sense, he was right, that was it - free markets and liberal social democracies, what's better? the only problem is that those things were capital-compatible, but capital wasn't necessarily compatible with them, and in the long run, people chose capital. and now, perhaps, they are reaping the whirlwind, because we can't go back to what we gave up before to get here.

and so, the questions begin: have the clocks stopped? how are we measuring them? in terms of technological progress, social progress...?

>But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning?

and so, we have to get a grip on this process, in some sense. even if is the Grip of No-Grip or whatever else. because otherwise things get carried away under their own momentum. totalitarian forms of government do exactly this, in times of economic and psychological crisis, as do revolutionary movements, which in the end become totalitarian forms of government engendering revolution...

...but those are humans for you, perhaps. Ye Olde Dethe Spiralle.

also, we're coming up on the image cap, always a sad moment. we can keep going and if we want to post images just stick the link in below, but, aarrh, it's annoying.