Nilsi

The only “postmodernist” your description might remotely fit is Foucault - and even then, the guy was a hardcore anti-Marxist for most of his career. Sure, he had a little phase in the late ’60s where he threw on a leather jacket and did the whole radical-chic thing for a few years, but that didn’t last long before he went right back to his elitism and racism. Really, this is the problem with calling everything “postmodernism.” It’s such a vague, lazy catch-all for such a rich intellectual tradition, and the way people throw it around these days isn’t just sloppy - it’s straight-up propaganda.

Postmodernism isn’t critical theory - you’re conflating things. Quintessential postmodernism is Derrida and Baudrillard - this intellectually sophisticated posturing of total ironic distance (pronounced in a French way, of course) from anything that even remotely resembles meaningfulness or sincerity (or truth for that matter). Critical theory and Marxism on the other hand, are very much not postmodern. They're deeply emotionally invested in the struggle for liberation, while postmodernists are holed up in old libraries, chain-smoking cigarettes, reading obscure literature, and deconstructing every word of it - without giving a damn about anything “real.” You know, in Baudrillard, the “real” even disappears entirely - there’s only simulation. Hence his infamous claim: “The Gulf War did not take place.”

I'm not even a fan. I've been very critical of Žižek in the past - not for his political or cultural views, which I couldn't care less about, but for his metaphysics. I've made this point a million times before: while Hegel and Lacan are, in my view, the truly important metaphysicians of the European tradition, it's precisely through their great critics - Nietzsche and Deleuze respectively - that all their pathological aspects are sifted out while their deep spiritual insights are retained. But I won't make this argument again here - you can check out this post I made a while back for more on that: or the argument I’m building in this thread:

Maybe that’s how it’s translated in English, but that wasn’t really my point anyway.

Hegel doesn’t talk about infinity, though (at least not explicitly, but I know what you're getting at). He speaks of absolute spirit as the fundamental reality and its journey toward realizing its own absolute nature - which is exactly what Žižek does too, in his own fucked-up way. You know, he has to be original to have a career. If he just regurgitated Hegel in a dry, technical way, no one would care. He’s doing it more subtly, but trust me - if you’re really looking for it, you’ll see it beyond any shadow of a doubt.

Žižek isn’t even a Marxist, if that’s what you’re getting at. I’m curious - what is Hegel for you? Turquoise or Orange? Because depending on what you want, you could argue either way.

He’s a Hegelian and a critic of postmodernism, political correctness and naive forms of social justice. Maybe if you had read the source material he's influenced by (mostly Hegel and Lacan) and actually listened to what he’s saying, you’d have something more original to add.

You’ve praised Hegel and Lacan in your blog posts before, and Žižek is at least as insightful - if not more. Reading them mostly feels like babble too, but if you really put in the effort, there’s profound insight to unpack (and a method to the madness).

He's been the most successful European public intellectual since Derrida’s death - easily a millionaire. And don’t dismiss him too quickly; he’s much sharper than his antics suggest. If you listen to his more serious talks, it’s clear he’s miles closer to God than fools like Jordan Peterson or many so-called religious figures. He’s giving Osho vibes. Now, is he as close as a hardcore mystic like Ramana Maharshi? Probably not. But that’s a pretty high bar to clear anyway.

When it comes to turning metaphysical comedy into a multi-million-dollar career, Žižek is probably as close as it gets. Whether that aligns with your idea of "awakening," I can't say - but he's no fool, he's hella funny, and he's definitely raking in millions.

They may partially cancel each other's effects, but they amplify the worst side effects, exponentially increasing the risk of heart attack, seizure, serotonin syndrome, and respiratory failure. Which is why this should not be attempted without extreme caution. But when you're out partying, it’s way too easy to get carried away - so yeah, this is really playing with fire, to be honest.

Do people even realize how advanced AI already is - and what’s coming in the near future? Ignore the clickbait title - this is genuinely high-quality content.

This is exactly the kind of creative intent it takes to make a 10/10 record. Absolutely adore this band. They’re like some magnificent bird - perhaps an evolutionary "dead-end," maybe not crucial in the grand scheme of things, but their sheer beauty justifies itself.

Really, this comes down to belief. If you truly believe that real creativity is possible, it is; if you don’t, it isn’t. And since most people are so dulled by their petty, utilitarian lives, we might as well describe their behavior and psychology in Lacanian terms - they operate as subjects of lack, forever circling the void. But clinging to this framework is a grave mistake if you actually want to live a life that affirms itself and its own potential. This is precisely why no Nietzschean can be a Lacanian and why Žižek, to this day, struggles to grasp the core of Nietzsche’s philosophy. Nietzsche is about becoming an active, life-affirming subject, not a passive one shackled to an unfillable emptiness at the core of their being. Just watch this. Isn’t it remarkable that one of the brightest, most well-read philosophers of our time struggles with Nietzsche, of all people? That alone should make you seriously question his entire project - which, of course, is a Lacanian one.

But that’s exactly the point of Deleuze’s concept of the Virtual - it’s not a "hole" in reality but the very creative potential that makes actualization possible. What you’re calling a hole is really an excess, a surplus of difference and intensity that hasn’t yet been actualized. The Virtual isn’t some lack - it’s the field of forces, tendencies, and potential becomings that structure what can emerge. Of course, this can collapse into a vacuum, a lack, and then we’re back in Lacanian metaphysics, but I’m not willing to surrender the potential of the Virtual to some childish nihilism. Quite frankly, it just doesn’t hold up under the scrutiny of direct experience. Go read Difference and Repetition and The Logic of Sense. I’m not going to make this argument better than Deleuze did.

Yeah, after watching this, I think I gotta take back what I said - because I absolutely hate it. I didn’t realize that most metalcore (outside of a few old-school records) is basically just sugary pop-metal garbage. As for the whole "is it metal?" thing - I don’t really think of Converge as metal at all. To me, it’s more like the most extreme possible expression of hardcore, almost in a Nick Landian sense, where it accelerates hardcore so violently that there’s barely anything left of that very Heideggerian struggle of the punk rock subject - the whole being-in-the-world, the sociological tension of the punk individual. Instead, it just spirals into this totally post-human zone of pure grief and devastation. Like, whatever was left of the punk subject gets obliterated in the process. But metal? Nah, I don’t really hear it in Jane Doe. I guess there are the heavy, tuned-down guitars and the “metal” screams, but that just feels like a byproduct of pushing the hardcore sound to its absolute limit on that record. It never gives me the sense that someone sat down and thought, “Hey, let’s mix hardcore and metal, that would be rad.” You can also just pretty easily prove this genealogically - just listen to Converge’s early records. There you clearly hear a hardcore/post-hardcore band, not a metal band.

Like it quite a bit. Jane Doe by Converge is easily my most-played gym album. I’ll check out your video later.

This album has always felt a bit underwhelming to me, especially considering that both Björk and Arca are among my favorite artists. Their solo work just operates on a different level - more focused, more fully realized. Here, it feels like Björk is already past the height of her creative powers, and while the collaboration has its moments, it never quite reaches the level of alchemy you’d expect from these two. Still, a good shout.

This album is the apex of one of the most fascinating and misunderstood musical movements: post-hardcore. As the name suggests, post-hardcore emerges out of hardcore, which itself is the distillation - no, the acceleration - of punk’s rawest impulses. If punk was already a rejection of aesthetic and social order, hardcore was the point at which that rejection became sheer sonic violence, a kind of thermodynamic law of excess: faster, louder, angrier, more relentless. And yet, post-hardcore comes along, not to reject that intensity, but to metabolize it, to bend it toward something else - something more dynamic, more exploratory, more structurally and emotionally nuanced. It doesn’t abandon hardcore’s energy; it refines it into something that isn’t just rebellious, but generative. If punk and hardcore were about setting everything on fire, post-hardcore is about seeing what new, strange forms might emerge from the ashes. And here’s where things get philosophically interesting. The genre starts coalescing in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s - precisely when postmodernism, once seen as the cutting edge of thought, begins to feel exhausted, questioned, even challenged. In the same way that punk rock was an assault on traditional musical structures, postmodernism was an assault on traditional epistemologies - on grand narratives, on certainty itself. But by the late ‘80s, that skepticism, that sense of ironic detachment, was starting to curdle. And what happens next? You get a kind of intellectual and artistic whiplash, a desire to retain the radical energy of these movements while also pushing toward something new. Hardcore fractures into post-hardcore. Postmodernism frays into what? A return to sincerity? A new kind of intensity? The same impulse, the same tension. Now, do Unwound solve this dilemma? No, of course not. But you can hear them wrestling with it at the height of their creative powers. This album is that struggle rendered in sound - intellectual, visceral, desperate, methodical, yet never losing its raw power. And it’s criminally underrated. It’s the kind of record that’s too ahead of its time to be properly appreciated on release, the kind that needs to marinate in the subconscious of the culture for a generation or two before its real impact becomes clear. Maybe one day people will finally catch up. And when they do, I hope they actually sit down and listen to this thing - really listen - because it’s absolutely worth it.

My point is precisely that creative work isn’t just another cog in the symbolic order, it’s a way out. It’s not some desperate reach for a missing phallus or whatever, it’s about breaking loose, tapping into new intensities, letting desire actually move instead of getting stuck in the same old lack-driven cycle. And yeah, like I said to Carl earlier, excess and lack are two sides of the same coin. It’s on you to take surplus and turn it into a force for liberation instead of letting it trap you. I think Lacan’s work is hugely important, but I ultimately reject the nihilism at the core of it. Also, didn’t i tell you to read Anti-Oedipus already?

This is ultimately an economic question. We’re not living in some Marxist hellhole where every ounce of our time and energy is wrung dry - there’s always a surplus, always something left to spend. That surplus can expand itself creatively, generating new possibilities, or it can get trapped in the structure of lack, where excess warps into a void - a vacuum that endlessly chases illusions, trying to fill itself with something that never arrives.

As for this point - hard disagree. Life is about choices and there’s always a tradeoff between pushing the boundaries of creative work and maintaining a so-called balanced life that ticks every box of conventional well-being. It’s no accident that the greatest artists, philosophers, and spiritual figures weren’t living in some suburban dream with a neatly portioned work-life balance, hitting yoga class and weekend BBQs with the neighbors. That kind of setup might be cozy, but if you actually want to create something remarkable, it’s the fastest way to dull your edge into total mediocrity.

You wouldn’t just eat whatever dead calories you need to stay alive - obviously, eating can be done consciously, and cooking can even be an art. When it comes to starting a family, it’s pretty clear to me that most people don’t do it because they have some deep, spiritual belief in the beauty of creating and nurturing life. It’s more like they think it’ll fill some kind of hole in themselves. Especially girls - they build up this fantasy that once they have a kid, all their problems will just disappear. It’s classic Lacan: objet petit a at work, that thing you’re chasing that always seems like it’ll complete you, but the second you get it, it slips away, and you’re left chasing the next thing. Again, this all comes down to whether you’re coming from a place of lack or a place of excess. Having a family because you want to add to the beauty of life is one thing - doing it because you think it’ll fix your depression is a whole different beast.

Yeah, she’s not ready - because you’ll finish faster than she can say, "not just the tip."