The False Negatives: Intro
December 4, 2017
If they could have believed that these images only obfuscated or masked the Platonic Idea of God, there would have been no reason to destroy them. One can live with the idea of distorted truth. But their metaphysical despair came from the idea that the image didn’t conceal anything at all, and that these images were in essence not images, such as an original model would have made them, but perfect simulacra, forever radiant with their own fascination. Thus this death of the divine referential must be exorcised at all costs. (Simulacra and Simulation)
TIME IS MEASURED IN DISTANCE FROM GOD. Entropy dissolves oneness, knowledge sieves mystery, age breaks down our attempts at order. Children read fairy tales where every sentence is aphorism, old men ramble of dead names and changed places without moral or end, the body loosens its grip on homeostasis, map approaches territory so we describe but concede all attempts to constrain—“Don’t hate the player, hate the game.”[1]
What we refuse to admit is that we are part of it, the chaos, the chthonian; that whatever logic governs the universe cannot be seen from within. Blame the other, blame the outgroup, blame the system, blame the uncountable particles obeying unobservable dictates. All such attempts fail. Growing up is to witness the diffusion of sin across every animate and inanimate being, to realize that horrible and illogical cruelties are in fact horrible and logical. God does not die with wisdom. But you can see Him move further away.[2]
This is why I don’t blame the kids for dosing #red and #black pills like they’re going clubbing in Siberia. It takes a conspiracy to get out of bed in the morning and turn blurs of light into objects, I’m not sure what the alternative looks like but schizophrenia tends to get poor reviews. And besides, who am I to say that your conspiracy theory is wrong? How could a closed system be wrong? No, I don’t fault the kids for trying nihilism: it’s comforting. If no meaning can be imposed on the universe, then you can find meaning in this belief.
The problem is that the kids don’t go far enough. Because if you pause the goat sacrifice to pass around the sign-in sheet, “chaos reigns, but remember, smoking ain’t cool,” you’re lazy, you’re a poser, you need Satan more than he needs you. You fondle the inconsistencies of your cynicism as a way to pretend that your worldview doesn’t rest on thin air. You may understand that other people see the world differently, but you refuse the possibility that they might be right, that if you adopted their closed system it would make perfect sense. Because admitting that would destroy what it means to be you. It would let in the chaos. We’ll smash our idols instead.