vile music

Dr. Brian Russell says:

I wrote about a case back on May 26, 2009 involving the vile music of “artist” Marilyn Manson, and since it’s been a few months, I think my bottom line bears repeating: A person who enjoys graphically, grotesquely-violent music and imagery is, in my opinion, psychologically-bizarre at best and downright dangerous at worst, and I think it’s reasonable for a parent to worry that a person (whether it’s his or her own child or someone with whom his or her child associates) who not only enjoys but creates such imagery is at the dangerous end of that spectrum.
(http://girlpundit.com/2009/09/study-this-with-dr-brian-horrorcore-killer/)

But, concerning music/entertainment influence on young people, I think the issue is not as black and white as the above.

I listen to Marilyn Manson’s music now, but I used to think he was just some kind of freak whose songs I didn’t understand. He dressed strange, seemed weirdly sexual, was the center of lots of terrible rumors, etc. My opinion was that he was, as Dr. Russell put it, “psychologically-bizarre at best and downright dangerous at worst.” My opinion has changed. My earlier opinion of him was based on rumor. I had know idea who he was or what he sang about. So, I was curious and looked into it one day. I started listening to some of his songs — tried to make out what they might mean. It’s important to me that the music I listen to isn’t senseless noise and actually has a point. I cannot like music if I judge it to be morally flawed. It's true, Marilyn Manson is often graphically grotesque and sometimes sings about "violent" subject matter. But that’s not enough to dismiss the music as “bad.” You must look into the meaning of music and image. There is both great beauty (good) and great ugliness (bad) in the world and an entire range in between; should it be surprising that this is reflected in art? Secondly, if you don’t understand the meaning of a song or picture (or what the intended meaning is), then on what basis do you judge it good or bad?

If you’re following me, here’s the big point I’m trying to make: If something is to be deemed bad, there should be a good reason why. I honestly see merit in Marilyn Manson and meaning in a lot of his work (some things I still don’t understand). To some extent I have to interpret what I know and hear of him, but I’ve gathered a good perspective of him now from sources like his music, his interviews, and his writing. It’s often hard to tell who someone is at first glimpse. So, figuratively speaking, I’ve done some intense observation.

I would recommend you do the same. There are plenty of youtube videos of him in interviews. Watch them — I think it’s important to understand people who are different from ourselves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkxomNoPN-Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY1×7o7WjB4
This is a pretty great interview of "early" Marilyn Manson:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPfWnMXGmhE

Now an even bigger point to all of this is that if we were more willing to make an effort at understanding each other (and things that are strange to us) instead of being dismissive, I think our society, our culture, would be a healthier one. We wouldn't have so much to repress if we more communicative and understanding. Some people don’t feel like they fit into society, and at the same time can’t leave society. We’ve all felt this way in a small scale situation, e.g. at school or in a new place. If you ignore and distance yourself from “mis-fits” and make no effort to understand...what else is there for a “mis-fit” but to spiral further and further into deviancy (being different). Why would a social deviant try to become part of a society that ignores, looks down on, makes fun of, pre-judges, and cares nothing to understand him/her? If people communicate and try to understand each other I believe we would see less violently extreme behavior. That’s my theory anyway. And that’s why it’s important not to throw all weird, mysterious, shocking things into one category: BAD. A more sophisticated approach is necessary.

ideology = fate

You know your ideology is kind of like your fate. It's shapes your character. I think it's uncommon for people to actively shape their own ideology--to be aware of how they see the world and go through a process of molding a new view. If you control your ideology, I see it as controlling your fate. Really controlling your fate. (control fate? -- I'm not even sure I understand what I'm trying to mean by this.)

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." Proust

But how much control over ideology can a person have? I don't know. I was trying to point out that this realist, individualistic, classically liberal ideology (I don't know what else to call it), i.e. looking with this pair of eyes, overemphasizes an empty idea of freedom that is at the same time a trap.

tragedy

(loosely connected thoughts)

To be frustrated, angry, confused, this is nothing new in life. Yet these emotions continue to surprise us. And the potency of pain never wears away. It bites just as hard or harder each time. Thinking "Oh, I've felt this before..." does nothing to lessen the hit. Familiarity with feeling does not diminish its impact.

Yes, we can now take anti-depressants, mood stabilizers, what have you to block a good amount of the pain of feeling, at the expense of doing just that, severing yourself from your own emotions. People on meds do commonly report feeling numb and emotionless. "Chemical imbalance." What they're really saying is that you have a disposition, the tendency, to predominant unhappiness. Detrimental to yourself and others. So you must artificially check your emotional lows (and highs) and re-condition yourself to manageable (acceptable) levels. But you can never "re-condition" it away.

Of course, I'm aware that life can be overwhelmingly good, too. But my point is about fate. Necessity. Somehow, I think, we have to come to terms with the fact that we are all fated to go through pain, anger, confusion, frustration, sadness, i.e. formidable unpleasantness, over and over, again and again, that we do not have the control our realist, individualistic, classically liberal ideology says we have. In America, in general, we strongly recognize in ourselves, through the cultural mirror of ideology, the rational subject, unbridled autonomy ("Be anything you want to be!" / "Land of opportunity!" / "You have the power to change anything!"), individuality, independence, and unique identity. But this is a mis-recognition of what we really are, and of the real conditions of life and living. A set-up for disappointment and an impediment to understanding.

We cannot simply free ourselves of the bad, i.e. ugly emotions and life's tragedies. We cannot simply change our mind or alter our perceptions about life's tragedies. We cannot be consoled by reason either. In fact, we know that it is often useless to say/think "Well, if I had only done such and such, this wouldn't have happened. Next time, I'll avoid it all." It can frustrate us forever. We must often just accept it. And simply making ourselves feel better (or, not as bad) about tragedy through perceptual reconditioning only ever works, in my experience, to avoid bad feelings and never really helps one reach a better understanding. But the bad--pain and suffering--are just as much a part of living as the good, and will always be. Of necessity. Did you forget? We are all fated to die. And we must live with this knowledge, or be lucky enough not to think about it, or perhaps have the good fortune to understand something of death (though nothing of the power to change it). And so it's all very tragic, isn't it?

But tragedy, since the Ancient Greeks (see: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, etc.), has also been a major source of enlightenment, wisdom, and meaning, in addition to distress.

There is something to the study of tragedy that I think can help me reach a meaningful understanding of the human condition and cope with life in a way that is not mere avoidance or false hope or quick and easy rationalization of life's tragedies, but an honest appraisal of them.

In my view, there is a challenge to not become so hardened and bitter towards life that you resign from creativity, and wonder, and from putting yourself out there to confront the world.

To live.

But this is all kind of bullshit isn't it? It's all just varying levels of sophisticated rationalization. What is not--poorly constructed or otherwise--a rationalization?

Tragic.

choosing a career

From "The Point of Departure, Chapter 5: The Long Walk"

I needed to free my mind to do what I had never done before—figure out what I really wanted from my career—but I had spent too long concentrating on projects that required intensive analytical thinking without any personal involvement. I found that I couldn’t just shut down the logic and dream for a while.

Our society just isn't built so that we can all take the time to figure out what we really want in life. It is so essential we maintain some expected level of productivity. Sometimes I get the feeling that I am a package moving through a production line. Especially in college I've made myself so busy with chasing "success" that to stop and rethink the idea of success is to lose ground in getting it. The day-to-day is a constant barrage of email, schoolwork, DEADLINES. One random obligation after the next is how life feels sometimes. Like you said, sometimes you have to reclaim your life because we often revert to autopilot in the face of routine expectations. We live in a system that aims to maximize time, output, profit. We are trained to quantify, calculate, reason. We are told that we must be productive.

What it all comes down to IMO is the "for the sake of..." What is all this productivity for the sake of?

Calculated optimization doesn't exactly leave a lot of room for people to reflect, to dwell, to think slowly. In fact, we often retreat into our busy lives to avoid thinking about something or other that bothers us. Our lives hum at a pace that makes it difficult to dwell and spend a lot of time thinking deeply about ourselves and the world. I resent that. Especially now that I am scrambling to complete law school applications, hoping that, since I have no idea what I want, a law degree will afford me more time and more options.

pessimism / optimism

Is the world a good place? Does it want us to be happy? Or is it a horrible place where we can only do our best to battle or avoid its "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune"?

People don't really have any business thinking that the world thinks, much less that it thinks about them. I try not to moralize the world.

Somehow we have the (mis)fortune of being materially configured such that we (1) have minds and (2) experience suffering, elation, hate, and desire in a world that is utterly unaware of itself and lacks all capacity to feel.

It's just a category error to ascribe any kind of mind or morality to the world. If you expect the world to be nice, you will die thinking it hates you -- or else you will develop rationalizations for why you must be "tested" in such horrible ways. But, having lost all expectation that the world regards you at all in any manner, the issue becomes a non-issue and you are free to get on with things, or do whatever it is you do to cope.

Even if hell exists and we're in it, hell itself does not punish. It can be punishment, but cannot punish. Punishment is deliberate -- only by conscious design or purpose. The world is indifferent. It doesn't have a mind to mind us -- much less punish us.

The world is a giant operant conditioning chamber complete with random reinforcement and certain death, and as a species we face extinction or evolution, a fate that is, I'd say, largely out of our control. That much is certain.

Bottom line is: A bit of pessimism might be a call to action, but too much is completely disabling.

"Antonio Gramsci famously called for 'pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will': the one the spur to action, the other the resilience to believe that such action will result in meaningful change even in the face of adversity."