/lit/ - Literature

>>12050504
>the Optimization Process
i guess i should clarify one thing about this as well. in some sense history as Optimization Process is basically what drives us poor meatbags insane. there is Teleoplexy and there is *chronic* Teleoplexy. that's why zombies are what they are, and why they freak out.

one of the fundamental distinctions between the Taoists and the Confucians *is* their sense of the meaning of time. Optimizing the State is sexy, and it definitely dovetails well with Land's own Optimize for Intelligence as planetary-historical mandate. it is why he is writing about BTC. perhaps somewhat counter-productively, one thing that probably would be a good look for us is to consider an Exit or Secession from *that* process also, inasmuch as that is possible.

capitalism never *sleeps.* neither, for that matter, does Uncle Nick. and this leads to nightmare scenarios. the Taoist position on this is not a Hegelian one; and yet, my own sense is that there nevertheless has to be, at some level, some feeling of optimism about the future, or, failing this, some sense of skepticism about the past: that is, that a lot of things that were done were mistakes, and not necessarily inevitabilities. Hegel will fuck with you, for reasons good and ill. i think waiting and hoping for the Democracy-or-Communism-to-come is basically like sleepwalking through life. doubling down on the Temporalization to come also comes with its dangers also, but there are things i am attracted to about that that may or may not be shared by you. i like, very much, the idea of order in time.

it doesn't necessarily mean Capitalism Fuck Yeah. it's mostly just about understanding. as i've said in earlier posts, however you choose to leave the End of Time is up to you. i'm here because i think about these things constantly, but there's no real ideological program for what people ought to do, besides Space Taoism. Space Taoism i like a great deal, but you knew this already.

>>12050610
*record scratch*
guess i'll stop moralfagging like a fucking moralfag for a second and try to make a more thoughtful reply.

generosity, reciprocity and repetition

>As Girard observes, “the interminable vengeance engulfing two rival tribes may be read as an obscure metaphor for vengeance that has been effectively shifted from the interior of the community.”

>Theorists of religion have long debated whether sacrifice is essentially an act of offering and commensality or bloodshed and destruction. For Girard, of course, the latter aspect is most basic. But I have proposed that it is precisely the hybrid nature of sacrifice, embodying both hostility and generosity, that lets it serve as a mediating term in the transition between negative and positive reciprocity: “As the last act of hostility, the sacrifice redirects the violence against a neutral victim, breaking the cycle of vengeance. As the first act of generosity, it redirects the reciprocity in a positive direction, launching a cycle of nonviolent exchange. Sacrifice thus owes its pivotal position to its unique combination of nonreciprocity in violence and nonviolence in reciprocity.” The sacrifice of an animal separates the violence from the reciprocity, diverting the former toward a target that presents no risk of reprisal while allowing the latter to resume on a peaceful footing.

>For Girard, the point of departure in the Teotihuacan myth is “the total lack of difference between day and night. In this, we have a classic stereotype of crisis, the social setting most favorable for the scapegoat mechanism. We now have three of the four stereotypes: a crisis, faults if not crimes, one of the preferential signs of a victim, and two violent deaths which literally produce the differentiating decision.” Girard intuits that Mesoamerican narratives, like mythic tales elsewhere, offer a trove of information regarding primeval ritual violence.

>Despite the fact that Girard emphasizes a close reading of the apocalyptic texts in the Synoptic Gospels, he also maintains: “the apocalypse has to be taken out of fundamentalist hands.” The fundamentalist temptation is a modern temptation because the demand for an absolute certainty in the interpretation of texts “functions like unanimity” in the sacrifice of the scapegoat.

a total lack of difference between day and nght isn’t even purely symbolic. it happens in a very real sense under 24/7 turbocapitalism. but this is what leads to the need for a cycle of production-consumption-destruction, no? the sand keeps shifting under our feet, and someone is always to blame for the perilous interruption of productivity (or our inability to enjoy perfect happiness under this regime).