Nihilist poseurs and tiresome decadent rebels?

[Acutely decayed]

Quote Originally Posted by Justin Isis

You can't spend all your time creating artistic beauty if you're in a war zone

although some of the finest decadent art emerges as conditions for it's creation collapses I think, or perhaps this is only true in retrospect and because of our love of the liminal, because everything is in decay...



" what do you think of Death in June?"

death in june Forever Loves Decay - YouTube

but have they done anything lately?

[Evans]

Quote Originally Posted by James

Quote Originally Posted by Justin Isis The society Nietzsche inhabited was relatively permissive. Relatively permissive compared to other societies, but still tyrannical in its inculcation of supposedly objective, rigid, unquestionable values among the populace.

*Sigh* Not that I think the mores of 19th century Germany were anything wonderful but is the implied condemnation of the 'tyrannical' based on objective and thus unchanging values?

No, it is based on society's mandatory indoctrination of ideology. I have no idea if morals are objective or not. Perhaps sin is as material as water appears. I really have no idea. All I do think is that believing in something purely because it is taught is poor form, and I am sympathetic to writers who work against this idea whether they be nihilists, mysticists or Christians or Muslims.

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

ToALonelyPeace- I don't know if Rice is sincere about his beliefs but besides that he does seem like a hardwired provocateur. I don't know about Death In June in that respect.

Being a poseur doesn't necessarily prevent one from being a good artist. I've read that Kubin was like this and it is sometimes said that all artists are peacocks and there is a theory that all art comes from mating instincts, even if you're asexual or extremely self-indulgent. Who knows?

Reminds me when Frater linked an 80s documentary about bands like Coil and Current 93 and said something about the bands competing in pretentiousness. Great bands still and probably fine people. A lot of bands will have stuff like this that they look back on and cringe. Guy from Godflesh says he was haunted by an early tv interview he did.

Some thoughts on rebels: I think rebellion should be a last resort if nothing else works. People who have a general rebel stance are perhaps afraid of civil attempts to make things right with potential opponents, afraid to extend a hand and have it slapped.

[Mr. Veech]

Why anyone would go out of their way to pose as a nihilist and/or pessimist is completely beyond me, unless, of course, they're trying to get more people to buy their music albums. There are very few (if any) benefits to embracing a grim worldview. Those that do, the ones who are presumably not poseurs, do so because they find such a worldview compelling insofar as they see it as true.

If anything, my own pessimism has kept me from becoming a "successful" human being, which is why I don't flaunt or even share my beliefs with people when I'm in a professional (or even social) environment. This place is an exception, but only because there are others like me here.

[qcrisp]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_P...and_confession

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Panzram

There's a deep sorrow and peculiar disgust in Huysmans' La-bas implicit in the comparison of the modern-day Parisian Satanists with the historical child-murderer, Gilles de Rais, and in the repentance of the latter before his execution as compared with the continued, chronic dabbling of the Satanists.

[ToALonelyPeace]

Quote Originally Posted by Robert Adam Gilmour

ToALonelyPeace- I don't know if Rice is sincere about his beliefs but besides that he does seem like a hardwired provocateur. I don't know about Death In June in that respect. Some thoughts on rebels: I think rebellion should be a last resort if nothing else works. People who have a general rebel stance are perhaps afraid of civil attempts to make things right with potential opponents, afraid to extend a hand and have it slapped.

I agree he's a nihilist poseur, but he's sincere in his fascist leanings.

Boyd Rice - I have a dream - YouTube

I think extreme attracts extreme. In popular culture, most frontiers on sex and death have been thoroughly explored, the only thing left of shock value is misanthropy (of the killing-people-kind).
I'd argue every rebel has a martyr complex. The attraction of sacrificing peace and wealth for a grand purpose lures many. Once you take the role of fighting against decadence, every act can be justified in the name of a new vital world.

@Mr. Veech: At first it seems strange to me too, but the niche for nihilist, misanthropist, and antinatalist is apparently big enough for us to have poseurs.

[Justin Isis]

Quote Originally Posted by ToALonelyPeace

I think extreme attracts extreme. In popular culture, most frontiers on sex and death have been thoroughly explored, the only thing left of shock value is misanthropy (of the killing-people-kind). I'd argue every rebel has a martyr complex. The attraction of sacrificing peace and wealth for a grand purpose lures many. Once you take the role of fighting against decadence, every act can be justified in the name of a new vital world.

I predict we'll see even more boredom and edgelording-related crimes as the 21st century progresses. There are already numerous examples of people in first world countries engaging in murder and terrorism mostly because they wanted attention and thought it seemed cool, or else decided it was the best way of responding to their (in most cases completely imaginary) persecution complex. While people like this were mostly isolated maniacs in earlier times, the Internet is now acting as an enabler, not only giving them a platform but allowing them to interact with like-minded people - as well as, crucially, giving them an instantaneous flood of attention and reactions. If your goal is a giant fanbase, why not just toss around a few bombs or blast up the school? It's worked for, well, more or less everyone who's done it in the past 20 years or so.

These people are like the fast crack version of old-style edgelording, and make Boyd and Dougie P, with their tired Nazi gimmicks, look pretty outdated. A chubby old white dude in a mask playing folk music? What about a killer Lao goth girl who's ALSO a Nazi (doesn't make any sense, but sense is pretty last century), or this real life Bret Easton Ellis character? No need to release any music to get on the cover of Rolling Stone, just need to pull off some amateur bombing work. Capitalism has taught us that celebrity by any means is the highest possible attainment, just as earlier stages of the West considered saintliness to be, so it's no surprise that everyone has started biting on Herostratus.

[qcrisp]

Quote Originally Posted by Justin Isis

Quote Originally Posted by ToALonelyPeace I think extreme attracts extreme. In popular culture, most frontiers on sex and death have been thoroughly explored, the only thing left of shock value is misanthropy (of the killing-people-kind). I'd argue every rebel has a martyr complex. The attraction of sacrificing peace and wealth for a grand purpose lures many. Once you take the role of fighting against decadence, every act can be justified in the name of a new vital world. I predict we'll see even more boredom and edgelording-related crimes as the 21st century progresses. There are already numerous examples of people in first world countries engaging in murder and terrorism mostly because they wanted attention and thought it seemed cool, or else decided it was the best way of responding to their (in most cases completely imaginary) persecution complex. While people like this were mostly isolated maniacs in earlier times, the Internet is now acting as an enabler, not only giving them a platform but allowing them to interact with like-minded people - as well as, crucially, giving them an instantaneous flood of attention and reactions. If your goal is a giant fanbase, why not just toss around a few bombs or blast up the school? It's worked for, well, more or less everyone who's done it in the past 20 years or so. These people are like the fast crack version of old-style edgelording, and make Boyd and Dougie P, with their tired Nazi gimmicks, look pretty outdated. A chubby old white dude in a mask playing folk music? What about a killer Lao goth girl who's ALSO a Nazi (doesn't make any sense, but sense is pretty last century), or this real life Bret Easton Ellis character? No need to release any music to get on the cover of Rolling Stone, just need to pull off some amateur bombing work. Capitalism has taught us that celebrity by any means is the highest possible attainment, just as earlier stages of the West considered saintliness to be, so it's no surprise that everyone has started biting on Herostratus.

When I was much younger and less guarded in my speech, I remember telling a friend and mentor that I wanted to be famous. His response was, "Easy. Just kill the queen."

"That's not what I meant," I said.

"Then just carry on doing what you're doing."

At the time, being young, I found this frustrating. When you're young you want already to have made your mark on the world. Well, he gave me the easy answer and, when I didn't like that, the difficult truth, as I now see.

YouTube

I would wager there are more people out there pretending to be happy than there are pretending to be unhappy.