Category Archives: Nihilism

The war in Ukraine is one of the most profound tragedies of the 21st century. But not only is it the largest continental war since World War II, it is also a crisis that could have far-reaching implications for the key players. For Ukraine, the outcome could define its fate for generations to come.

With Russian President Vladimir Putins recent partial mobilization and intensified nuclear threats, the Kremlin leader could be running out of chances for the survival his own regime. He has revealed himself as panicked and desperate. But it isnt only Putin running out of lives:

In other words, the world table has been perfectly set for a revisionist war and, sadly, given the totality of conditions, it is unlikely this war could have been averted. Prior to the fall of 2021, the only remaining question was who would pull the trigger?

As Russian armed forces gathered ominously around the borders of Ukraine, the world had its answer. But at whom is the gun really pointed?

The bullet

While economists might go on deluding themselves, lets not be nave; the single bullet in the revolver is not Russian gas, but the Russian bomb.

Blinding neon signs advertising the Kremlins main message to the world are there for all to see. These include continuous use of nuclear threats in Russian propaganda and state TV, recent deployment of hyper-sonic nuclear missiles on its ships, tactical nukes stationed in Crimea, the nuclear blackmail surrounding the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, and the recent deployments of nuclear convoys near Ukrainian borders.

In the absence of any real economic and scientific development, Russias nuclear arsenal is the only bullet the terrorist state can fire in its rapidly collapsing Potemkin state. To the prosperous West, this apocalyptic threat is more disturbing than for a starving and suicidal Russian population.

Having failed to gain a decisive advantage on the battlefield, Russia is now resorting to terrorism, torture and assassinations. It is also threatening Moldova, Poland, and the Baltic states. With Finland and Sweden joining NATO, and Ukraine and Moldova getting candidate status in the EU, Russia is successfully maneuvering towards self-destructive global isolation. That being the case, all Russia can do is clutch its nuclear card in its sweaty grasp, waving it at the world.

But Russia offers the ultimate nihilists bargain; if it goes bad for us, it will go just as bad for you.

The prize

He who controls the present controls the past and the future so the saying goes.

Most nations, even those regarded as wealthy and democratic, are pestered by nationalistic and authoritarian movements. Real economic development and freedom of expression are becoming prohibitively expensive in a world reckoning with the indiscriminate growth of previous generations. The Age of Abundance is surrendering to the Age of Scarcity.

However, in this new and gathering world of surveillance capitalism, the outlines of a new coalition are beginning to form.

This new coalition, whatever its composition, will control the agenda, assign the speed and direction of the worlds economic, social, and political development, and will create the framework for surviving the most ominous threat to human existence so far the exhaustion of the planets human-sustaining resources.

If Russia had not attacked Ukraine, membership in this burgeoning world order might have been determined differently. However, the behavior of the Ukrainian people and the strategic and tactical performance of its army, unexpected around the world, have made Ukraine a key participant in the Russian Roulette initiated by the Moscow regime.

The players

Player #1: Russian elites

In the presence of crippling sanctions and in the absence of economic growth, combined with a deteriorating quality of life for the average Russian citizen, it is only a matter of time before domestic opposition becomes impossible to eliminate. As a result, the time for a new nation-unifying external enemy has arrived in Russia yet again. In addition, military mobilization in Russia is creating new and unpredictable stresses on an already-precarious domestic peace.

As threats to Russia, Chechnya, and Georgia have been liquidated. Kazakhstan has been set up as the next enemy. However, successful intervention by China, having accumulated substantial interests in the region, has granted Kazakhstan a reprieve from outright Russian aggression.

Russians, having been nurtured on an endless diet of nationalist lies and propaganda, believe that Ukrainians are venomously anti-Russian. Never mind that nearly the entire history of Ukrainian/Russian relations is a dark tale of Russia working to exterminate Ukrainian identity. To the Russians, Ukrainians are offensive merely because they refuse to be Russian.

Even if the occupation of destroyed territories looks like a Pyrrhic victory, it can still be of use to the elites, fueling Russian pride and unifying the masses around their conquering leader. Equally, the restoration of these lands, coupled with the promise of fresh, warm territories for living, will provide a justification for new and exorbitant taxes (or, more accurately, an even higher level of government corruption).

Looking at this from the point of view of the Russian people well, they have never had a say to begin with. Their point of view is irrelevant now.

But for how long?

Sham referendums and illegal annexations notwithstanding, with every acre of its own land that Ukraine reclaims from the occupiers, the fragile scaffold of Russian social obedience becomes shakier and shakier. Forceful mobilization aiming to recruit at least 300,000 conscripts but in fact targeting at least 2 million completely unequipped and unprepared civilians does not help the regime.

Player #2: The West

Despite systemic flaws, the liberal democracies of the West have been doing well for themselves.

Nevertheless, the West is not invincible. Plagued by populism and other problems, including slowing economic growth, inflation, rising debt and inequality, the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed many of the dependencies and weaknesses of unregulated globalization.

Unrestrained money printing is tempting many world economies towards the biggest recession since 2008. Most importantly, the supremacy of the liberal and democratic order may face an existential threat if China wins the artificial intelligence (AI) and biotech race.

To be clear, geopolitical stability, the rule of law, and the respect of sovereign borders is a much better way forward than the path preferred by feckless dictatorships such as Russia.

If Russia brings only tragedy, misery, and death, then the West must bring the defeat of nihilism, and the creation of freedom freedom from oppression, freedom from corruption, and the freedom to thrive.

As it stands today, the West has bet on Ukraine, in large measure due to Ukrainians unwavering support and embrace of Western liberal values an embrace that Russia fears the most.

It may seem presumptuous, but through its sacrifice and its determination, Ukraine has not only led the West into the role of unconditional ideological and economic supporter, but has given it the chance for the reset it urgently needs.

In failure, Ukraine will represent a major blow to the unchallenged leadership of the Western liberal model. In victory however, Ukraine presents the West with what it needs most the moral leverage with which to beat back an authoritarianism resurgent around the world.

To be continued.

Kate Levchuk was born and raised in Odesa. A Futurist with a background in International Relations, Geopolitics and Venture Capital, she is a frequent guest lecturer advocating for science and progress. Kate lives in London.

David Dodson is an American film director and editor. He has edited ten Volodymyr Zelensky movies and directed Zelensky in three, including his last film, the most successful movie in the history of cinema in independent Ukraine. He lives in Los Angeles

The views expressed are the authors and not necessarily of Kyiv Post.

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Russian Roulette: How Ukraine Can Win the Game (Part 1) - Kyiv Post

Seven months into Moscows invasion of Ukraine, amid mounting evidence of Russian battlefield losses, Putin announced his countrys latest annexation of four territories. In a rambling speech that alternately sought legitimacy for the annexations in the UN Charter and railed against Western colonialism and transgender rights, the enigmatic Russian leader revealed a great deal about his views of international law, justice, and morality.

Some of the points Putin raised in the speech, paired with glimpses of his evolving rhetoric from the past two decades, shed insight into lessons that can be drawn between his worldview, his actions on the battlefields of Ukraine, and what he sees as a shifting geopolitical landscape.

And given his apparent readiness to resort to nuclear weapons to bolster his views, these lessons bear scrutiny.

Lesson 1. Putin Has Always Wanted to Revive Russias Great-Power Status But Has Grown Disillusioned With International Cooperation and Justice

With respect to Russias geopolitical position, early into his presidency, Putin expressed now-barely recognizable optimism about Moscows willingness to embrace democratic ideals and participate meaningfully in the global community.

In 2003, he spoke to these aspirations in a national address to Russias Federal Assembly (emphasis added):

We must focus all our decisions and all our action on ensuring that in a not too far off future, Russia will take its recognized place among the ranks of the truly strong, economically advanced and influential nations. Russia must become and will become a country with a flourishing civil society and stable democracy, a country that fully guarantees human rights and civil and political freedoms. Through [the aforementioned democratic ideals, along with economic freedoms, property rights, and military coordination with allies], we will create the conditions for people to enjoy a decent life and enable Russia to take its place as an equal in the community of most developed nations.

And in a 2002 press conference, he even indicated his view that Ukraine was welcome to join NATO:

I am absolutely convinced that Ukraine will not shy away from the processes of expanding interaction with NATO and the Western allies as a whole. Ukraine has its own relations with NATO; there is the Ukraine-NATO Council. At the end of the day the decision [ed: on whether Ukraine will join NATO] is to be taken by NATO and Ukraine. It is a matter for those two partners.

But over the years, a series of international and regional events undermined his faith that Western nations were truly open to cooperation.

In 2003, Putin vociferously opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq but remained optimistic at the time that the United Nations could pave the way toward peace. Citing what he saw as the increasingly cruel and lingering character of the Western military operations, and the casualties and destruction he said were fueling a humanitarian crisis, Putin told Russian lawmakers: In such conditions the only right decision would be an immediate end to the hostilities and a return to the process of political settlement within the framework of the UN Security Council.

By 2011, as another Western-led coalition invaded another sovereign nation Libya, this time with the blessing of the UN Security Council, as Russia, led by then-relatively-pro-Western placeholder president Dmitri Medvedev, had abstained from exercising its veto power Putin made clear that his earlier faith in the international justice structure had faltered. What troubles me is not the fact of military intervention itself I am concerned by the ease with which decisions to use force are taken in international affairs. This is becoming a persistent tendency in U.S. policy, he said at the time, as quoted by Reuters, adding: During the Clinton era they bombed Belgrade, Bush sent forces into Afghanistan, then under an invented, false pretext they sent forces into Iraq, liquidated the entire Iraqi leadership even children in Saddam Husseins family died.

He then railed against Western powers for pushing regime change in violation of the principle of sovereignty, saying that the lack of Danish-style democracies in the region surrounding Libya basically corresponds with the mentality of the people, as well as long-standing practice, as quoted by The New York Times.

The early aughts also brought a number of rude awakenings for Putin closer to home. In 2003, Georgias Rose Revolution shifted Tbilisi out of Moscows orbit. Then in 2004, several countries within the former Soviet sphere of influence become NATO members, including Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. In turn, Putins views toward NATO expansion become far more negative, and he began sounding the alarm over the safety of Russians whom he says face abuse in former Soviet countries/satellites. Also in 2004, Ukraines Orange Revolution led to the rise of pro-Western Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, spurring Putin to accuse the West of orchestrating color revolutions in a bid to destabilize/weaken Russia. Over the past two decades, Putins stances in both of these areas has hardened, ultimately shaping his view that Western Hegemony is a malevolent force driven to destroy Russia.

Lesson 2. This Disillusionment Has Contributed to Putins Belief that the West is Hypocritical, Decadent, and Abuses International Law to Advance Its Own Interests

Over the course of his presidency, Putin has championed what he sees as traditional Russian values, the impact of which has spanned from homophobic legislation to the revival of the Russian Orthodox Church.

In a 2013 press conference, Putin spoke to this point, saying:

Society falls apart without [traditional] values. Clearly, we must come back to them, understand their importance and move forward on the basis of these values. The point of conservatism is not that it obstructs movement forward and upward, but that it prevents the movement backward and downward. That, in my opinion, is a very good formula, and it is the formula that I propose. Russia is a country with a very profound ancient culture, and if we want to feel strong and grow with confidence, we must draw on this culture and these traditions, and not just focus on the future.

And with increasing frequency, he has accused the West of weaponizing its own values as a means of interfering with the autonomy of countries in the former Soviet space.

In a 2021 meeting with the heads of security agencies from across the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Putin referred to new, hybrid threats our countries face, which he defined as fueled by Western values:

What causes these threats is primarily thefact that theUnited States andits allies persist intheir attempts toexport, may Isay, their Western values, ortotalitarian-liberal values, asIcall them, inorder toinfluence our countries into changing our domestic andforeign policy.

Also that year, in a speech at the Valdai International Discussion Club, a Putin-led think-tank discussion forum, the Russian leader compared Western progressive values to early Bolshevik thought, saying: Looking at what is happening in a number of Western countries, we are amazed to see the domestic practices, which we, fortunately, have left, I hope, in the distant past, and then fleshing out his views on Russian conservatism.

This conservative approach is not about an ignorant traditionalism, a fear of change, or a restraining game, much less about withdrawing into our own shell. It is primarily about reliance on a time-tested tradition, the preservation and growth of the population, a realistic assessment of oneself and others, a precise alignment of priorities, a correlation of necessity and possibility, a prudent formulation of goals, and a fundamental rejection of extremism as a method. And frankly, in the impending period of global reconstruction, which may take quite long, with its final design being uncertain, moderate conservatism is the most reasonable line of conduct, as far as I see it. Again, for us in Russia, these are not some speculative postulates, but lessons from our difficult and sometimes tragic history. The cost of ill-conceived social experiments is sometimes beyond estimation. Such actions can destroy not only the material, but also the spiritual foundations of human existence, leaving behind moral wreckage where nothing can be built to replace it for a long time.

Putins wariness of what he sees as Western moral decadence and his suspicions that the West cynically relies on international law as a tool to advance its own interests converged last week as he sought to justify his latest Ukrainian annexations:

The West does not have any moral right to weigh in, or even utter a word about freedom of democracy. It does not and it never did. Western elites not only deny national sovereignty and international law. Their hegemony has pronounced features of totalitarianism, despotism, and apartheid. They brazenly divide the world into their vassals the so-called civilized countries and all the rest, who, according to the designs of todays Western racists, should be added to the list of barbarians and savages. False labels like rogue country or authoritarian regime are already available, and are used to stigmatize entire nations and states, which is nothing new. There is nothing new in this: deep down, the Western elites have remained the same colonizers. They discriminate and divide peoples into the top tier and the rest.

He also lashed out against myriad progressive Western values, which he suggested will lead to extinction, saying:

Do we want to have here, in our country, in Russia, parent number one, parent number two and parent number three (they have completely lost it!) instead of mother and father? Do we want our schools to impose on our children, from their earliest days in school, perversions that lead to degradation and extinction? Do we want to drum into their heads the ideas that certain other genders exist along with women and men and to offer them gender reassignment surgery? Is that what we want for our country and our children? This is all unacceptable to us. We have a different future of our own.

Over the years, a once measured wariness of progressive values had boiled over by last weeks speech into accusations of Satanism:

Let me repeat that the dictatorship of the Western elites targets all societies, including the citizens of Western countries themselves. This is a challenge to all. This complete renunciation of what it means to be human, the overthrow of faith and traditional values, and the suppression of freedom are coming to resemble a religion in reverse pure Satanism. Exposing false messiahs, Jesus Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount: By their fruits ye shall know them. These poisonous fruits are already obvious to people, and not only in our country but also in all countries, including many people in the West itself.

An early attitude that Conservative values simply made more sense has escalated into full-throated rhetoric of Russian good versus Western evil, making clear Putins view that his geopolitical difficulties with the West have taken an ideological and perhaps even existential turn.

Lesson 3. Putin Has Always Feared the Loss of Russias Influence Over Ukraine

In his book All the Kremlins: Men Inside the Court of Vladimir Putin, Mikhail Zygar wrote that since the early 2000s, Putin has often said, We need to deal with Ukraine or well lose it, adding that early into his presidential tenure, he took ownership over the Ukrainian vector, as he felt no one else in the Kremlin could be entrusted with Moscows fragile relationship with Kyiv in the early post-Soviet era.

His view of both the inextricable link between Russia and Ukraine, and his belief that Ukraine was essentially a Russian province rather than a state, came into sharper focus in the early aughts. In a 2005 address, Putin famously lamented: we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century. In 2008, he told then-US President George Bush on the sidelines of a NATO summit, Ukraine is not even a state. What is Ukraine? Part of its territories is Eastern Europe, but the greater part is a gift from us, as quoted in the book Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin by Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy.

In a 2019 interview, he told Oliver Stone that Russians and Ukrainians were one nation, and one people, explaining: This is the same world sharing the same history, same religion, traditions, and a wide range of ties, close family ties among them.

This rhetoric came to a head in March 2022, days after Russia launched its invasion, when Putin told members of the Russian Security Council:

I will never abandon my conviction that Russians and Ukrainians are one nation, even though some people in Ukraine have been intimidated, many have been duped by nationalist Nazi propaganda, and some have consciously decided to become followers of Bandera and other Nazi accomplices, who fought on Hitlers side during the Great Patriotic War.

His early openness to respecting Ukrainian independence even to the extent of NATO membership has given way to a determination that Ukraine has never been independent, and in fact, that it constitutes a critical national interest.

Lesson 4. Putins Wariness of Western Hegemony and Fear of Losing Influence in Ukraine Fueled Russias 2014 Annexation of Crimea

As was the case with the latest annexations, Crimea was annexed in 2014 on the ostensible basis of a rushed referendum overseen by Russian forces. In that case, rather than launching a full-scale invasion, Russian soldiers had flooded the region after the Maidan Revolution propelled Kyiv closer to the West. As the home base of Russias Black Sea Fleet, Crimea had always been a strategically critical location for Russian forces.

The referendum aimed to lend the annexation a veneer of legitimacy, but one that Putin knew the international community would see through. Accordingly, he was quick to justify his actions in the context of international laws malleability, as evidenced by what he saw as a post-Cold War era of victors justice in the international justice arena.

In a 2014 speech before the Valdai Discussion Club, Putin said:

The Cold War ended, but it did not end with the signing of a peace treaty with clear and transparent agreements on respecting existing rules or creating new rules and standards. This created the impression that the so-called victors in the Cold War had decided to pressure events and reshape the world to suit their own needs and interests. If the existing system of international relations, international law and the checks and balances in place got in the way of these aims, this system was declared worthless, outdated and in need of immediate demolition. We have entered a period of differing interpretations and deliberate silences in world politics. International law has been forced to retreat over and over by the onslaught of legal nihilism. Objectivity and justice have been sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. Arbitrary interpretations and biased assessments have replaced legal norms. At the same time, total control of the global mass media has made it possible when desired to portray white as black and black as white.

In many ways, this would continue to provide the framework for Russias compliance with international law. In Putins view, international law and justice are flexible concepts, open to interpretation. Whats more, he has made clear Russias specific motivation not to comply with the status quo.

Lesson 5. Russias Latest Annexations Show It Has Cemented This Putin-Specific View of International Law An Uncomfortable Truth When Nuclear Weapons Are Concerned

As with Crimea, Russias decision to absorb Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia, was augmented with rapidly orchestrated referendums to give the exercises the appearance of legitimacy. This emboldened Putin to justify the annexations on the basis of the internationally protected right to self-determination.

But unlike past referendums that have been more broadly accepted by the international community, such as the 2011 independence referendum in South Sudan, international observers from recognized bodies like the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems were not invited to monitor these ones. A peculiar bevy of international Putin supporters was invited instead, according to local news reports. Under heavy military supervision, and in the absence of a transparent protocol, Russian media announced staggering results in favor of joining Russia, from 87% in Kherson to more than 99% in Donetsk.

The US State Department swiftly protested, with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken stating:

The Kremlins sham referenda are a futile effort to mask what amounts to a further attempt at a land grab in Ukraine. To be clear: the results were orchestrated in Moscow and do not reflect the will of the people of Ukraine. This spectacle conducted by Russias proxies is illegitimate and violates international law. It is an affront to the principles of international peace and security.

But as with the Crimea annexation, Putin was ready to stand his ground. His disregard for Western morality and his belief that international law can be used by morally-wanting nations as a tool to manipulate foreign policy objectives combined in his annexation speech to dismiss Western interpretations of international law.

We have never agreed to and will never agree to such political nationalism and racism [perpetuated by what he sees as the values and colonial tendencies of Western elites]. What else, if not racism, is the Russophobia being spread around the world? What, if not racism, is the Wests dogmatic conviction that its civilization and neoliberal culture is an indisputable model for the entire world to follow?

In practice, this perspective creates something of a blank canvas with which to interpret international law to suit his own purposes. And he did so, leveraging his belief that Ukraine and Russia are essentially one people and one nation, along with Article 1 of the UN Charter, to justify his annexations:

It is undoubtedly their right, an inherent right sealed in Article 1 of the UN Charter, which directly states the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.Irepeat, it is aninherent right ofthepeople. It is based onour historical affinity, andit is that right that led generations ofour predecessors, those who built anddefended Russia forcenturies since theperiod ofAncient Rus, tovictory.

His reference to Article 1 is revealing. The article largely focuses on the imperatives of international peace and security, and his invocation of it comes amid his own countrys unprovoked invasion of a sovereign country that has resulted in mounting civilian casualties.

The article states (emphasis added):

The Purposes of the United Nations are:

To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;

To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;

To achieve international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and

To be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.

Ultimately, Putin dismisses Western references to international law by indicating that Western hegemony and values combine to manipulate foreign policy and interfere with the internal affairs of foreign nations. A man who once urged a US-led coalition not to invade Iraq, and to let the United Nations pave the way to a peaceful settlement, now ignores the provisions that dominate Article 1 of the UN Charter calling for international peace and security. A man who justified his 2014 annexation of a Ukrainian region with reference to the malleability and susceptibility to abuse of international law now brazenly picks and chooses the provisions of international law he is willing to apply to a situation. He zeroes in on a provision related to self-determination and claims that hastily organized referendums occurring in Russian-occupied territories indicate that this was an expression of such. And he chooses his words with an eye to minimizing the military brutality of his strategies to argue that Russia is acting within its rights under international law.

Putins disillusionment with the international systems of justice, vehement opposition to Western values, and deep-rooted will to maintain control of Ukraine at all costs have combined to fuel his own weaponization of international law. And this fact is all the more concerning in light of his access to and apparent readiness to deploy nuclear weapons.

Continued here:

What 20 Years of Putin's Own Words Tell Us About Russia's Subversion of International Law - JURIST

Alison Willmore is a film critic for New York magazine and Vulture. Formerly, she was the only critic at BuzzFeed News, the first TV editor at IndieWire, and the host of Filmspotting: SVU.

Photo: Fredrik Wenzel/Plattform Produktion

Satire is supposed to have a target, or so youd think, but the megawealthy who run the world in Triangle of Sadness are such broadly drawn grotesques that its easy to imagine an audience of yacht-owning billionaires chuckling along to their antics while feeling nary a twinge of recognition. Truth be told, a variation on that scenario likely did take place when the film played at Cannes in May, where it went on to win the Palme dOr, the second for writer-director Ruben stlund, who first nabbed the top prize in 2017 for his museum-curator comedy The Square. Triangle of Sadness would hardly be the first film to showcase the tension between the exclusive circles of premier festivals and the serious-to-incendiary subject matter those festivals often traffic in Todd Fields Tr, also out this week, is about the downfall of a conductor faced with allegations of sexual misconduct, and it played at Lincoln Center, a few hundred yards from where James Levine served as music director of the Metropolitan Opera before being terminated for similar reasons. But stlunds slog of a film is exceptional in the distance it creates between the viewer and its characters and in how comfortable its attempts at causticity actually feel. It comes complete with an ending that should be bitterly dark and instead just comes across as a moue of indifference.

stlund, a Swedish filmmaker with a talent for long takes and deadpan humor, has a well-established interest in gender roles and power dynamics, and the best scenes in Triangle of Sadness are ones in the beginning that explore both by way of the primary characters, a pair of models engaging in a somewhat transactional form of dating. Well, one of them is Carl (Harris Dickinson), who was the face of a perfume campaign a few years ago but whose career is now on a downslope, wants a real relationship with Yaya (the late Charlbi Dean). Yaya, whos still in demand, is more pragmatic about the fact that while she enjoys Carls company and being part of a famously photogenic couple, her 401(k) is going to take the form of eventually marrying someone rich. They have the cachet that comes with being professionally attractive but not much by way of actual cash, and during an argument over wholl get the check at a restaurant, we understand that, in the circles in which theyve gotten used to moving, theyre actually mismatched. Wealth can buy you the company of someone beautiful, but being beautiful only really gets you into the proximity of wealth. Carl and Yaya go back and forth over who usually pays (Carl) and who makes more (Yaya), but while their circular, amusingly passive-aggressive fight stretches from the table all the way back to their hotel room, at its center is something they can only really talk around, which is that they cant afford the lives theyre living.

They cant afford the luxury cruise they take in the second act, either, but its comped, courtesy of Yayas social-media following. Once Triangle of Sadness sets sail on the superyacht that consumes the films middle section, it gives up on any effort to make the people it puts onscreen resemble flesh-and-blood beings, with Carl and Yaya, the closest thing it has to actual humans, retreating into the backdrop to take selfies. stlund sets up the ships strata. The passengers, on top, range from a couple of elderly British weapons manufacturers to an Eastern European shit salesman (Zlatko Buri) and his younger wife. The service staff appears to be mostly Scandinavian and is led by the relentlessly upbeat Paula (Vicki Berlin) in the absence of leadership from the depressive Captain Smith (Woody Harrelson, insufferable). Below them, like a racist layer cake, are a slew of non-white support workers who cook and keep the engine running and clean, and there is a lot of that to be done once the ship hits rough seas.

stlund likes to use a static camera when shooting sequences of increasing discomfort, like the scene in which a passenger insists because theyre all equal that the young woman pouring her Champagne get into the hot tub alongside her. But theres little reason to squirm when these characters feel less developed than figures in a comedy sketch. One of the latter The Meaning of Lifes Mr. Creosote could be the inspiration for the orgy of bodily fluids that eventually follows, though the Monty Python sequence had the good sense to last for a few minutes, and Triangle of Sadness goes on forever. It ambles on to a third act in which passengers and crew from the ship get marooned on an island, where the established hierarchies are turned on their head. While this section of the film offers a breakout turn from Filipina actress Dolly de Leon, who plays Abigail, one of the cleaning women, its also the most plodding and joyless, offering nothing except a cynical, paper-thin twist on what it means to hold power. Ive seen Triangle of Sadness described as angry, and yet its foremost sentiment strikes me as one of smug nihilism in which the dynamics of the haves and have-nots cant be escaped, only replicated with different parties on top. Capitalism, right? What a drag, but then what else can you do?

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'Triangle of Sadness' Review: Hazardous Levels of Smug - Vulture

On Sept. 20, popular Chinese livestreamer Li Jiaqi, known as the lipstick king for his impressive ability to push sales of lipstick and other makeup products, reappeared on Chinese streams for the first time in three months. Li had disappeared from the Chinese internet for a mistake he probably had no idea he was making. In the middle of his summer sales push, on June 3, one of his employees brought out a cake in the shape of a tank. Alas, June 4 is the anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre of 1989, and the Chinese authorities relentlessly police any hint of commemoration.

Li and many of his fans were born after the massacre occurred. They may not have even been aware it happened. China has long policed historical memory, deleting and rewriting references to past atrocities and insisting on adherence to official narratives. As President Xi Jinping said in a speech last year, know history; love the party. Today, that relentless censorship is increasingly focused online.

Ahead of the critical 20th Party Congress starting on Oct.16, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) is inviting netizens to snitch on those guilty of historical nihilism.

On Sept. 20, popular Chinese livestreamer Li Jiaqi, known as the lipstick king for his impressive ability to push sales of lipstick and other makeup products, reappeared on Chinese streams for the first time in three months. Li had disappeared from the Chinese internet for a mistake he probably had no idea he was making. In the middle of his summer sales push, on June 3, one of his employees brought out a cake in the shape of a tank. Alas, June 4 is the anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre of 1989, and the Chinese authorities relentlessly police any hint of commemoration.

Li and many of his fans were born after the massacre occurred. They may not have even been aware it happened. China has long policed historical memory, deleting and rewriting references to past atrocities and insisting on adherence to official narratives. As President Xi Jinping said in a speech last year, know history; love the party. Today, that relentless censorship is increasingly focused online.

Ahead of the critical 20th Party Congress starting on Oct.16, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) is inviting netizens to snitch on those guilty of historical nihilism.

The term has been used by officials for decades, but it was given new importance when it was listed as one of the seven ideological threats the party faces in Document No. 9, which was leaked in 2013 and hinted at Xis intellectual agenda as he began his tenure as party chairman. According to the document, historical nihilism is tantamount to denying the legitimacy of the CCPs long-term political dominance.

Any fact, statistic, opinion, or memory that doesnt fit into the official line can thus be framed as a violation of the partys anti-historical-nihilism campaign. Authorities are taking action: More than 2 million social media posts alleged to be disseminating historical nihilism were reportedly deleted in the months before the centennial celebration of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) last year. In a speech last April, CAC Director Zhuang Rongwen described the necessity of powerfully refuting historical nihilism and other incorrect ideological standpoints on the internet.

Historical nihilism is important enough to merit its own reporting center, where netizens can rat on each other for sharing posts that distort the history of the party or the history of new China.

The incentives to snitch are strong. In the context of restrained civil liberties and curtailed political and, increasingly, personal freedoms, defending the partys version of Chinas history, the only version of history it can safely be proud of, is one way to guarantee your own safetyor to advance your career.

The leaderships incentives for tackling so-called historical nihilism are even clearer. Framing the past as a justification for present party leadership is existentially essential for the CCP and its leaders.

Subjects of Marxism and inheritors of Maoism, they argue the primacy of the party is the result of historical inevitability. As stated in Document No. 9, one facet of historical nihilism is denying the historical inevitability in Chinas choice of the socialist road. The explicit need to exert historical control, even and especially as online platforms get more advanced and intertwined with everyday life, demonstrates party officials and, specifically, Xis belief that tolerating contested histories threatens the legitimacy and stability of the regime.

As the researcher Joseph Torigian has written in Foreign Policy, Xi uniquely understands why historical grudges and differing views about the past are so potentially explosive. Thats because his father, also a prominent CCP leader, was part of a revolution-era clique from the northwest rife with violence and, later, controversy over how to write or omit such violence into party history. As Xi Zhongxun said at a meeting held to resolve the history of party violence in the northwest in 1945, while it was no big deal if people were ignorant about history, the most damaging is the distortion and falsification of history.

The apple doesnt fall far from the tree. Xis focus on historical nihilism similarly emphasizes the crime of distortion. To him, distortions are defined by their deviation from the party line. History either is official history, or its nothing, nonbelief, nihilism.

Such a stark contrast gives the party power. The CCPs official narrative positions its own rule as not only essential but inevitableboth in the past and the future. Part of this effort involves making explicit connections between past and current struggles.

Xis nationalism is very much looking forward to the 21st century, but it also draws upon some aspects of the 20th to strengthen itself, said Rana Mitter, a professor of history and politics of modern China at the University of Oxford.

The party has come up with two complementary terms to get at its envisioned future and its past failures. National rejuvenation refers to restoring China to its rightful position and a global actor in its own right, Mitter said. National humiliation refers to all the factors that have prevented that.Conveniently, only the CCP can deliver the Chinese people from humiliation to realized rejuvenation.

Along the way, its essential that the party comes up with a moral for every historical storyclear connective tissue between past events and their implications for the present and future.

One of the lines that [Xi] uses about the Second World War is that it was the first time China was attacked by an outside power and was able to fight back, which gives it a particular kind of cachet, Mitter explained.

This framing of World War II carries a strong nationalist narrative with clear contemporary applications in the context of U.S.-China competition. But coming up with a contemporary takeaway for every historical event is an ambitious projectand one that betrays the partys degree of dependence on historical narratives.

The current leaderships hefty investment in rewriting Chinese and international historians scholarship on Qing history, for example, demonstrates the depth of both its insecurity and its commitment to historical overhaul. Meanwhile, despite the official line that the Cultural Revolution was a disaster, authorities tolerance of neo-Maoist websites, which Mitter described as creating a nostalgic, rose-tinted version of the era, painting it as one of camaraderie rather than violence, shows there is more wiggle room to go beyond the party line if youre going in a positive direction.

But Xi has clearly deduced that for his own political protection, he should be the gatekeeper not only of Chinas history, but also of its historiography.

Societies that dont allow for nuance tend to create history that is more of use to politicians that it is to historians, Mitter said.

In a ramped-up effort to tighten control over all discussions of history, Chinas interagency speech control apparatus is also actively merging fighting rumors with taking down historical nihilism.

In 2021, a division of the CAC called the China Internet Joint Rumor Platform listed 10 historical events for which infringing on the official narrative constitutes clear historical nihilism. The Communist Party Member Website described the list of untouchables as 10 history-related rumors that have long flooded the online world. The announcement seeks to put these rumors to bed, claiming they have been disproved.

Since the party is highly defensive of its own reputation and, separately, the issue of Chinese history, it is perhaps not so shocking that it is extra sensitive about the combination of the two: party history. According to the announcement of the 10 irrefutable events, Online rumors involving party history severely pollute the ecology of the internet, mislead the public, and damage the partys image.

Even still, the 10 isolated events, posed in question form by the China Digital Times, appear laughably trivial: Was Hu Qiaomu, Mao Zedongs secretary, the real author of a poem by Mao, Snowto the Tune of Spring in Qin Garden? Was Mao Anying, Mao Zedongs son, martyred because he gave his position away while making egg fried rice? Was the Long March less than 25,000 li (7,767 miles)? Did the party center unseal Deng Yingchaos diary to research its own history?

That diary, which belonged to former Chinese Premier Zhou Enlais wife Deng Yingchao, reportedly includes suggestions that Zhou regretted supporting Maos policies.This rumor about the potential misgivings one long-dead former Chinese leader had about another was important enough to be the subject of an article released in 2018 by the Party Literature Research Center.

The article attempts to debunk the original allegations of Zhous opposition to Mao, arguing, This kind of deliberate misrepresentation, this concocted story, recklessly slanders and damages the reputations of our leaders. Its not just flawed history; its deranged history.

This alleged intentional disparagement of CCP leaders will not go unpunished. The post concludes: We should look into establishing responsibility for investigating [instances of historical nihilism] and punishing offenders, so we can regroup and come back even stronger.

In the aftermath of a controversy concerning some key CCP martyrs, the Politburo Standing Committee passed the Heroes and Martyrs Protection Act in 2018. According to the official story, the Five Martyrs of Langya Mountain in 1941 fooled and then fought off the Japanese Army as civilians escaped.

Then, when they had exhausted their options, they jumped off a cliff in a heroic show of bravery and defiance. Descendants of these martyrs sued Hong Zhenkui, who wrote based on his research in an academic paper that the men had slipped, rather than jumped, off the cliff. He was found guilty on the basis that the stories of heroes and martyrs are the Chinese nations common historical memory and the reputation and honor of heroes and martyrs are protected by law.

As the Chinese government continues to invest in advanced technologies that diminish private spaces, the degree of monitoring Chinese citizens face is likely to rise. In such a society, history becomes another riskundiscussable unless and until it adheres to the party line.

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In China, Only the Party Tells History - Foreign Policy

The Infinite Nihilistic Jest of Brian Ennals and Infinity Knives

Blue Chips is a monthly rap column that highlights exceptional rising rappers. To read previous columns, click here.

Releasing music in relative obscurity can engender insecurity, the self-doubt mounting with every year critical acclaim and peer recognition doesnt arrive. Brian Ennals was intimately familiar with that disheartening reality for a decade. Throughout the 2010s, the Baltimore rappers sporadic solo projects gained little traction, and songs with short-lived groups either languished on hard drives or were quietly buried on the back pages of small blogs. Following the release of King Cobra (Phantom Limb), his second album of brilliant tragicomic nihilism produced by fellow Baltimorean Infinity Knives, Ennals career narrative is slowly changing.

It was always weird to tell people that I was an amateur rapper, even when I was younger, the 39-year-old says over the phone, fresh from a weekend at the beach with his two-year-old son. I always wanted to be able to say, Not only am I a rapper, not only am I a good rapper, but Im also a successful one. Thats just happening now.

Ennals and Infinity Knives briefly toured Europe this past spring, received an Album of the Day nod from Bandcamp in June, and both appeared on ascendant rap podcast Dad Bod Rap Pod and graced the cover of Baltimore alt-weekly Baltimore Beat in August. None of it happens without King Cobra, which expands on the sound and subject matter of 2020s Rhino XXL.

Produced, mixed, and mastered by Infinity Knives, the songs fuse organic and electronic sounds while contorting 80s and contemporary hip-hop. They are unique departures from the dystopian, Vangelis-meets-Bomb Squad instrumentals of early El-P with occasional nods to 80s boogie and R&B. Ever adaptable, Ennals offers pistol-grip insurrection, self-aware gallows humor, and vivid song-length narratives written in white lines. He affirms killing landlords, ending homelessness, and eating pussy with the same fervor, raging against the ills of late-stage capitalism while fuming over the Baltimore Orioles dismal playoff prospects. No politician is safe, no institution is sacred, and repentance may or may not begin after the next eight ball.

Story continues

The album is very nihilistic, Ennals explains. Me and Tariq [Infinity Knives] are very cynical guys. If Rhino XXL was Star Wars, [King Cobra] is Empire Strikes Back. Were trying to go for a little more hopefulness on the next record. Like Return of the Jedi, but no Ewoks and shit.

King Cobra warrants far wider acclaim before the next sequel. Together, Ennals and Infinity Knives sit somewhere between Dead Prez and Danny Brown. You could also make the case that theyre a hybrid of The Coup and Too $hort for fans of Cannibal Ox. If youre after contemporary analog, think of them as the more approachable and intentionally puerile Armand Hammer, the pointed sociopolitical commentary competing with Ennals unchecked horniness.

Every time I write something kind of profound, my goal is to write something disgusting right after, Ennals says.

Born in Annapolis, Ennals and his older brother were raised in Severn, a census-designated place (CDP) roughly 16 miles south of Baltimore. Now a burgeoning suburb, Severn was once a rural, no-sidewalk town with a mix of trailer parks, Section 8 housing, and single-family homes. The Ennals family fell into the latter camp. His dad worked as a public school principal in Baltimore, and the boys mother oversaw equipment training at various phone companies. While his parents worked, Ennals unconsciously fell in love with performing, obsessively watching Motown concerts on VHS at home and singing in the grade school choir.

Though his older brother played radio-ripped tapes of Baltimore club tracks, Ennals eventually discovered rap, reading The Source and buying albums from the Fugees and Crucial Conflict. High school lunchroom ciphers led the formation of his first group, Special Ops. With no industry connections and music journalisms blog era in its infancy, Special Ops fizzled out after Ennals graduated from Howard University and navigated the grim job market in the wake of the 2008 recession.

The next decade was a blur of empty liquor bottles, blunt smoke, and powder-filled plastic bags. Ennals dropped two solo records 2010s Untitled and 2013s Candy Cigarettes that drew local acclaim from the Baltimore Sun but little beyond that. Between his day job and the odd recording session, he spent much time battling substance abuse issues.

Im pretty sober now, Ennals says, but for a large part of my adult life I was a hedonist but very depressed in a lot of ways and wanted something to numb that.

Infinity Knives and Brian Ennals (Credit: Shae McCoy)

Infinity Knives initially contacted Ennals after reading about him in the Baltimore Sun, but the two didnt begin recording until Knives solicited Ennals for his 2020 album Dear, Sudan. In the six-year interim, Ennals briefly bounced to New Jersey while Knives became a fixture in the Baltimore indie rap scene that sprang up around Baltimores Bell Foundry and spawned JPEGMAFIA. After working on Knives Dear, Sudan, Ennals knew they needed to record their eventual debut, Rhino XXL.

[Working with Infinity Knives] is the first time that I feel Ive been produced. Its not just a guy sending me a beat and asking me to record over it. Its him saying, like, Hey, maybe you should take this approach or this flow. Maybe take this line out or switch it around. Hes a big boxing fan, so he likes to describe as Cus DAmato and [Mike] Tyson. Its very much him coaching me and making me a better fighter.

Like the best coaches, Infinity Knives knows his fighters strengths.

[One] reason Im so drawn to [Brian] is because of how malleable his style is. He definitely has his comfort zone, but the more he goes, the more I can tell him to do weird shit, Infinity Knives says. Ive just seen him get better and better. He can rap with a triplet flow or rap on a beat in 10/4. And hes a scholar of the arts.

They carried the momentum of Rhino XXL into King Cobra, spending the next year and a half of the pandemic politely butting heads and pushing one another past their creative comfort zones. King Cobra received some promotion from Phantom Limb, but the publicist they hired bailed. Fortunately, thanks to a network of supportive peers and growing journalistic support, word of the duos collective brilliance continues to spread.

The whole thing has been word of mouth. We knew a lot of people who knew a lot of people. Its a real grassroots type of thing. Im glad its not hitting everybody at once, Ennals says. The way everybodys attention spans are set up, if everybody heard it the first weekend it dropped, we wouldnt be talking about it three months later.

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.

The post The Infinite Nihilistic Jest of Brian Ennals and Infinity Knives appeared first on SPIN.

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The Infinite Nihilistic Jest of Brian Ennals and Infinity Knives - Yahoo Entertainment

There are lots of fans of slasher movies who seem to treat the subgenre as a kind of sport, that the pleasure in viewing them comes from rooting for the killer as he makes his way through the victims who obviously deserve what they get in some capacity. This has always been strange to me as the whole point of horror is to be horrified for the characters. Yet the new film Bodies Bodies Bodies still intrigued me because it seemed to be using this concept to make some kind of statement about the more obnoxious tendencies of modern culture a potentially interesting idea that comes off sadly far more mean-spirited than genuinely satirical in execution.

The film follows Sophie (Amandla Stenberg), a recovering addict who invites her new girlfriend Bee (Maria Bakalova) to a hurricane party being held by some friends she hasn't seen in years. As the hurricane rages outside, one friend suggests they play a murder mystery game that turns real when one friend is found dead. As the bodies slowly pile up, paranoia and mistrust rule the night, but who is the real killer?

The film wants to have some kind of message about the narcissism, ironic nihilism, and general hostility that can so often be found in the "Twitter/TikTok Generation" but I'm not quite sure what that message is beyond "laughing at the horrible people." Worse, the characters are so terrible to each other, it becomes difficult for audiences to even care about their predicament. I understand the desire to show people at their worst but that can't be all there is. All films even horror films need some kind of empathy and humanity to keep audiences engaged. And you'll find neither of those qualities here. Forest Taylor

Directed by: Halina Reijn // Written by: Sarah DeLappe, based on a story by Kristen Roupenian // Starring: Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Myha'la Herrold, Rachel Sennott, Chase Sui Wonders, Lee Pace, and Pete Davidson // 93 minutes // Rated R // A24

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No Laughing Matter: Bodies Bodies Bodies Is Too Cynical to Be Much Fun - Erie Reader

Oliver Jeffers still keeps a workspace in Brooklyn, where he lived for 17 years before returning to his native Belfast to be closer to family during the pandemic. When I meet the author and artist in his studio on a drizzly afternoona few hours before hell recite an original poem at a gala for the UN General Assemblyits awash in paint-splattered amusements. In one corner sits a ghost, a sheet with eyeholes that Jeffers proudly says glows in the dark and really freaks people out. On a ceiling-high chalkboard, written in his signature scrawla cross between a childs handwriting and a ransom notehis list of tasks begins: Glue moon. Sure enough, on a large painted moon, hes been testing out paper cutouts of astronauts from old books. Theres a can of Modelo beer by the sink, old wooden drawers whose labels read Sorry cards and Library cards, and every artistic instrument imaginable.

The scene is everything the mother of a 4-year-old Jeffers devotee could imagine, and then some. Jeffers, 44, best known for the nearly 20 picture books hes both written and illustrated since 2004, and another 10-plus hes illustrated, many of them best sellers and award winners, is a bedtime fixture in my house. In his work, he often balances his playful sensibility with serious topics. Earlier books constructed allegories around grief (The Heart and the Bottle) and friendship (Lost and Found). Recent ones have tackled capitalist greed and environmentalism (The Fate of Fausto) and walls (What Well Build).

His latest, Meanwhile Back on Earth, coming Oct. 4, follows a Jeffers-like dad and his son and daughter through the solar system in a car turned spaceship. They look back on dark moments in historywars, the devastating first encounters of colonization, cavemen fighting to survive. Images depicting tragic chapters are interspersed with those of the trios little green car, bickering siblings in the back seat. A dose of reality, a dash of whimsy.

Read more: The 10 Best YA and Childrens Books of 2021

In our conversation, I refer to Jeffers as a childrens book author, and he gently responds that he doesnt see himself that wayhe makes picture books. Theyre primarily consumed by kids and parents, but not specifically intended for them. It just so happens that most 5-year-olds share my sense of humor, he says. But whos got much use for boxes these days? When he went to COP26 in Glasgow last fall, none of the options for profession fit; whoever made his name tag chose observer and translator, which felt just right.

In 2017, Jeffers traveled to Nashville to witness a total eclipse of the sun. He recalls standing in that path of totality and youre suddenly looking at a black hole in the sky. He felt the distance of 93 million miles the way you feel the distance to a tree or a house: It buckled the knees from under me.

Meanwhile Back on Earth channels this sense of perspective. Its subtitle is A Cosmic View on Conflict, and it has strong Lennon-esque Imagine theres no countries vibes. It calls to mind Earthrise, the first photo of Earth taken from space, shot by astronaut William Anders during 1968s Apollo 8 mission, which Jeffers suggests was perhaps less about exploring the moon than it was about looking back at the blue marble we live on.

The book was largely inspired by another experience Jeffers had looking at someplace familiar from a distance: his attempts to explain the conflicts of his native Northern Ireland to outsiders, beginning when he first came to the U.S. at age 11 on a summer camp scholarship to New York state. The Americans he met hardly knew the difference between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, let alone why they were fighting. Decades later, shortly after his son was born, he watched news reports of violence in his hometown, flare-ups between Catholic and Protestant factions. Itd be teenagers, 12-, 14-, 16-year-olds. What do they know? Theyve just been told a story, he says. He looked at his newborn and thought about how he might use his particular talents to offer up a new narrative. I dont want to tell you that story, he remembers thinking. I get to change the story.

Storytelling, a deeply ingrained part of Irish culture, came naturally to Jeffers, much like his penchant for art. The two were intertwined as he grew up in a lively household with three brothers, a lot of cousins, and many nurses, doctors, and family members filing in and out to help because his mother had multiple sclerosis. He found that his talent for drawing had a pleasant effect: Being in a big family and often ignored, I did whatever the hell I could to get some attention. He began to specialize in art in secondary school, and as a fledgling artist a friend pointed out to him that his proclivity for creating series of paintings might lend itself to books.

As his bibliography grows longer, its also getting deeper. Sure, some of his books are just for funI still need to entertain myself sometimes, he says. But many of them wrestle with the very survival of humanity, and the many issues we keep failing to adequately face. Hes become increasingly aware of their interconnectedness. In interviews and discussions about the themes of his books, people have asked, Is this book about the climate crisis? and Is this book about equality? His answer: Well, yes. Everything is connected.

Back in Jeffers Brooklyn studio hangs a small replica of a piano that appears to be on fire. Its from a 2019 exhibit of his work inspired in part by a quote from Buckminster Fullers 1969 Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. To paraphrase, Fuller writes that if youre in a shipwreck, and a piano top comes along, it would make for a passable flotation devicebut that does not mean its an optimal flotation device. The point is: when facing todays global problems, we are clinging to yesterdays solutions, despite our potential to do better.

This is what Jeffers is so galvanized by: if we could just see ourselves with a bit more perspective, see with clarity that the systems weve built arent working anymore, maybe we would be more compelled to try to change them. And he thinks that we can change them. Its this belief hes trying to champion in his work. And thank goodness, because what kind of picture books would result from someone who thinks were doomed?

But if were going to succeed, he says, we need to take a wider point of view, which brings him back to outer space and his latest book. Its this notion of the overview effect that happens when astronauts look at earth, he says, and are far enough to see that this is one giant, single system.

A lot of people, when confronted with the unfathomable vastness of the universe, feel insignificant to the point of apathy, or even nihilism. Jeffers takes a different tack. When people feel nihilistic, they havent finished that thought: if nothing matters, in a strange way, everything matters, he says, the levity and optimism that make him a favorite of parents and kids everywhere shining through. So we should try to solve our problems, yes, but also have a little bit of fun while were at it. The chances of being here at all are so infinitesimal. Why not just enjoy it as much as possible?

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Write to Eliza Berman at eliza.berman@time.com.

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Oliver Jeffers Gets Perspective With Meanwhile Back on Earth - TIME

Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance

Lets set the record straight right away.

Little Richard was the true innovator of rock and roll. Every genre of rock and roll can be traced back to The Beatles. The period of music from 1968 to 1972 will never be surpassed in terms of the birth of legendary bands and output of classic albums. The 1970 Alberts Hall concert by Led Zeppelin set the gold standard for incendiary, sexually charged, tight-but-loose rock and roll. The Allman Brothers did not waste one note on their Live at Filmores East album. And, of course, there will never be anything like the Age of Bowie.

I am 58, and most of my vinyl collection (before I regrettably sold it in 2005 when I temporarily moved to Switzerland) was right in the creative wheelhouse of the late 60s and early 70s rock and roll. Looking back, there was an almost incomprehensible quality of music that lit up the world in that short burst of time. Even seminal records in soul musicMarvin Gayes Whats Going On and Sly and The Family Stones Standwere released during this period. Both those albums, like those of that generation, have held onto their musical and cultural value. In my forthcoming book Sonic Seducer: Lust For Life With The Transcending Moments, Memories, and Magic of Rock and Roll, I dedicate a whole chapter to this four-year period of musicand what was missed!

Here is an excerpt:The moon landing. Vietnam. Kent State Shootings. Political assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. And, right in the middle of all of this was the end of The Beatles. These were just some of the global events that marinated with the cultural and musical impact of The British Invasion, led, of course, by The Fab Four. The resulting music stretched the emotional landscape from hippie optimism found in the musical Hair to the proto-punk nihilism that was rocket fuel for The Stooges. It was uplighting Age of Aquarius one second and hedonistic Down on the Street the next. And in between was some of the greatest music ever created.

However, most of the music I obsessively listen to now are from artists who exist in the here and now. The present I will get to the musical reason for this, but there is a larger, philosophical rationale for devouring the fruits of our presentand as such, framing our lives in this rock and roll effervescence.

Life exists only at this very moment, and in this moment, it is infinite and eternal. For the present moment is infinitely small; before we can measure it, it has gone, and yet it persists forever.

Our lives are enriched by the arts. They are enriched further if the time period that they are cherished is the only one that any human has ever lived inthe present. Dont get me wrong. The currency that has been attached to the high fermentation period of rock and rock culture of 1968 to 1972 will neverand should be neverdevalued. However, there is something quite special happening 50 years later. Something that just could not have happened back then. Having all the groundbreaking sounds of rock, metal, psychedelia, blues, and folk mix in the underground for many decades has created endless possibilities of mouth-watering fusion.

Lemmys favourite artistsLittle Richard, The Beatles, and Gene Vincenthad at least an emotional impact on the music and attitude that was created in Motrhead. That is how culturally relevant the roots of rock and roll were, and still are.

Now, dont you think that the richest period of rock and rollthat saw the end of The Beatles and the beginning of Black Sabbathwould have a similar impact? Only this impact would be seismic. Except the musical earthquake would have far below levels of mainstream detection.

Which explains the problem with almost everyone of my peers especially if they are in the shallow waters of the music industry. That they firmly believe that todays music is vastly inferior to the period during the heyday of classic rock/FM radio.

The simple reason for that false narrative is that these people have been disconnected from the deep end of music since the early 90s, when the whole Seattle music scene was dropped ceremoniously on their front door and everyone elses. That same time period, coincidentally, a less audible sound was dropped on the world. It was heavier. It was more psychedelic. It was just more muscle and grease. Kyuss, Monster Magnet, Fu Manchu, and Sleep had all arrived.

The Four Horsemen of stoner/desert rock would have a collective influence that would help deeply shape the decades to come. And those bands, collectively at least, mined their influences feverishly from known and unknown artists of the aforementioned golden generation of rock music.So while the Seattle/Grunge(yes, we all hated that word) scene began to evaporate by the late 90s, with only Pearl Jam standinglike some Survivor contestthe stoner rock community was at the cusp of truly growing, when the label Mans Ruin came on the scene. But, all of this has been firmly entrenched outside detection of the limp, mainstream musical radars.

So a false confidence that rock and roll was dying seemed to envelope most music critics, especially the ones who got rightfully fat on Electric Ladyland, Abbey Road, Morrison Hotel, Paranoid, Zeppelin IV, Whos Next, MadMan Across The Water, Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, Exile On Main Street, Deja Vu, Tapestry, After The Gold Rush, and so on, and so on

However, one of the best things that started happening with the onset of social media and its maturation, was the change in how information flowed.

It was no longer top-down vertical from institutions like radio stations and big ass publications, who were still pretentiously looking for the next R.E.M., Pavement, or Dinosaur Jr. No. Ideas and information started to flow horizontally, and everything got democratised. Just like in thermodynamics, you cannot destroy energy or matter. Here, you cannot destroy trust. It has to exist and move. And now it moves closer to the underground community of stoner rock, which also has folded in the more extreme sounds of doomin a nutshell, a sound that is slow and low on volume levels that Lemmy would approve of.

As such, the power of the gatekeepers in terms of what music was validated as being good, began to diminish considerably. Not that anyone should have ever paid attention to any Top 100 Rolling Stone poll. I think for the top 100 Debut Albums of all time, Zeppelin I didnt even make the top 50. Somebody hates rock music.

30 years ago, we waited with bated breath to listen to corporate radio and read corporate magazines like Rolling Stone and SPIN to find out what would surface in terms of new rock and roll. The underground of rock, which was even there in that golden age of the aforementioned years(have you heard of Granicus, Iron Claw, Atomic Rooster, Cathedral, etc.?), was still toiling away, not caring what happened above their subterranean dwelling.

Well, that institutionalised dominance of radio and print is gone. Rock and roll for these laggards sorry, no polite term is available here is some simple mash up of celebrating Pearl Jam and Metallica, while thinking The Black Keys are the lone heir to the throne of rock and roll. A throne which these boomer music critics would concede is a dying Monarchy.While there are several analogies which could symbolise the collective arrogance and ignorance that rock and roll somehow just shrivelled away, I think we need to find one which illuminates this simple truth:

Rock and roll didnt die. Your curiosity for it did. Great music still exists. Your sense of adventure does not.

Imagine telling your neighbour that there is this most stunning sunset happening right now, and they should come down to the beach and see it. All they do is simply step outside on their porch, squint at some distant clouds, and go back inside confidently thinking they didnt miss anything.

Well, you missed it. You missed an entire generation of deliriously creative music that has been evolving for 30 years now. The moniker which this music has gone under has been stoner rock. It is both accurate and misleading at the same time. Yes, much of the music taps into the psyche of heavy riffs, psychedelia, slacker lifestyle, and drugs. But, it is far more than that. Well, for one, it is the most knowledgeable generation of the same period of music that the older generation holds in high standing. There is a full stop irony right there.

Just look at the top image. The only reason I chose 30 bands is because anymore, it might be hard to recognise the artists. These bands, again of which there are many more, are currently putting out some of the best music.

Actually, I just sold that whole scene incredibly short. My apologies to them. They are putting out some of the best rock and roll ever. Period. Comeback and debate with me when you have listened to all of the albums pictured above. Maybe then you will stop pining for a Led Zeppelin reunion. If Robert Plant has moved on, maybe we should as well.

Maybe this allt shocking or improbable to many of you, that todays rock music is as good as 50 years ago. But, logically it makes sense, if we cycle back to where this generation sits in reference to the much earlier ones. The underground musicians of stoner rock, already having a deep reverence for all styles of music of that period, would be deeply curious to scope rocks encyclopaedia, and create/synthesise a new sound by seamlessly interlacing all the varied styles of that period. A new sound for this generation. This is not imitation. This is musical innovation. Rock and roll is about constantly finding its edges and creating art with every inspiration/idea possible. A quote below from one of its masters sums it up all too well.

You have to learn to be strong and be glad to be alive. You have to take every colour available in the palette and make the best painting you can, while you can.

There are more colours available now than 50 years ago. And many of those colours were still wetie. The birth of Sabbath, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Elton John, David Bowie, etc.

No other genre in the history of music has had a larger palette to work withand, actually dab/smear all of them into their music. And, my generation of Boomers and older Gen Xers, by failing to understand the depth of Nancy Wilsons wordsthe timeless clarion call of rock and rollhave done a disservice by transmitting grossly misinformed ideas about the death of rock music. An important point, this is only directed at those who are interested in rock and roll. If you are unaware of what is happening but are curious, then you are not the target of this article. Those who make it their occupation of giving the death rattle for classic rock sounds/70s musicianship in 2022 most definitely are.

Instead of looking for where Beatles musicianship, Iggy Pop attitude, Pink Floyd meticulousness, Sabbath doom, and Bowie experimentation ended upall in the expansive genre of stoner rock/doom/psychedeliathe so-called greatest generation made an arrogant and false decree that symbolises how they lost their way in their calcified ideas about music.In the end, they ended like most people. Romanticising music of their teenage years to a point of creating and living with the lie that rock and rollespecially in its most combustible, salty, and emotionally haunting formsis dead. Like their youth.

Ive never felt younger and more alive. Thats because of the music of today. Here, we are all forever youngand free. Its not too late to be seduced by the best bands of today and recapture your feral nature. Its not too late to be ageless through the magic of the sonically and spiritually heaviest music on the planet. The best rock and roll as adhered to this Anne Rice quote, part of a foreword she wrote for a book about some short stories from Kafka.

Dont bend; dont water it down; dont try to make it logical; dont edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.

Reaching back to the greatest period of rock music, one song, with three words, actually gave everyone the lifetime compass to never stop listening to the primalyet always evolvingsounds of rock and roll. The band is Hawkwind. The song is Born To Go. Play todays music loud. Play todays music often. Play itmercilessly. Now.

Sunil Singh: Author. Speaker. Math Storyteller. Porous Educator. Advisor at Amplify. Board of Directors, Human Restoration Project. Music freak and geek. Everything on 11.

Sunil is on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Mathgarden

View post:

Talkin' About My Generation: How Boomers Became Deaf, Dumb, and Blind To The Inspiration and Innovation of Rock and Roll - MetalTalk

NEW YORK (CNS) Adorable woodland creatures come together with sinister elements in this roguelike action-adventure game from developer Massive Monster and published by Devolver Digital.

But despite its cute artwork or engaging gameplay, Cult of the Lamb relies on and subverts religious imagery, giving the game an overall dark theme that should give parents pause before buying it for their children.

In the Realm of the Old Faith, four monstrous creatures called Bishops have been hunting down all the lambs to ward off a prophecy that states a lamb will free The One Who Waits,another entity that the Bishops hold captive.

The last lamb in existence is set to be sacrificed by the cult that follows the Old Faith and thus aims to forever thwart the prophecy.

However, The One Who Waits manages to save the lamb and bring him back to life. In exchange, the entity asks Lamb to start a cult in his name and destroy the Bishops of the Old Faith, as each one holds a chain keeping The One Who Waits bound in his prison.

Lamb agrees to the terms and is gifted a Red Crown, which allows him to travel great distances using markings on the ground, namely pentagrams. Guided by a mentor rat named Ratou, the fluffy, wide-eyed protagonist gets to safe ground and begins working on growing the cult.

Other animals can be rescued from where they, too, await sacrifice in the realm of the Old Faith. These animals then become indoctrinated into the cult where they work and collect resources like lumber or stone. Followers also have unique traits, such as how easily they are affected by dissenters or how much faith they generate.

Lamb is tasked with going on missions to find recruits and hunt down the Bishops but also in taking care of the other followers, preaching sermons to grow faith, as well as keeping them all fed and happy. And thus the cult grows, leading the protagonist ever closer to freeing The One Who Waits from his prison.

But despite entertaining game mechanics, expressive combat, and rather adorable animal characters, Cult of the Lamb is rife with dark elements of which Catholics should be aware, whether they are parents of young players or adult gamers themselves.

The main villains are known as the Bishops, a reference that cannot be lost on any Christian. Bishops are the shepherds of the flock of Christ, his Church. The position of a bishop is only present in Christian religions across the real world.

Other symbologies such as pentagrams or inverted crosses have divergent meanings. Despite their origins as pre-Christian or early Christian images, they have recently been appropriated as symbols by atheists, humanists, and modern occultists.

Cult of the Lamb does not make any direct references to the devil or God, but as a modern title, its hard to imagine the game developers did not intend to be controversial, juxtaposing well-known Christian symbols with anti-Christian symbols in popular culture.

Lamb is not portrayed as being benevolent or heroic. While Lamb can choose to give followers extra food or extra rest, cult members also can be sacrificed, innocents imprisoned and deceased members butchered for meat. At best, Lamb is an anti-villain, and at worst, hes a heartless monster in a realm of heartless monsters.

Whether or not the developers consciously intended it, they have created a larger commentary on religion overall with Cult of the Lamb one that is drenched in spiritual nihilism. The Bishops of the Old Faith and their cult followers are evil without a doubt.

Yet Lamb and The One Who Waits can be just as wicked. The supposed savior of innocent woodland creatures is less of a hero and more simply just a change in regime, not necessarily for the better. The only difference between the two religious regimes is that Lamb is cute and fluffy a grim reminder for adults that appearances can be deceiving.

Lamb and his Red Crown may allude to martyrdom a religious savior death and resurrection narrative but if so, its a sad rebirth. Lamb dies and is resurrected again, but in this new life, the sweet innocence of the lamb is lost. Indeed, he can end up taking the same nefarious actions the Bishops do.

But even without making some of the more drastic player choices, Lamb is, at the end of the day, killing other cultists and the Bishops. An anti-villain is still not a hero.

Cult of the Lamb relies on and inverts traditional Christian imagery, but also nihilistically suggests that, regardless of player choice, there are no true saviors. Good does not conquer evil evil just conquers and replaces another evil. No matter how things change, they ultimately stay the same. Its just the management that changes every so often.

Adults, even ones who are not Christian, are capable of recognizing that this message is wrong. Change can lead to goodness. Saviors exist, people can choose what is good over self-interest, and evil does not need to triumph.

From the Catholic point of view, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, is our Savior, and his life-giving love triumphs over evil. But the Cult of the Lamb cynically suggests this kind of thinking is a self-deception.

Cult of the Lamb has a landscape of deeper meanings that can be lost on impressionable children or adults who really lack spiritual formation or adequate catechesis in the Catholic faith.

Adults should discern whether playing such a game will prove a risk to their spiritual well-being, but parents should steer clear. At the end of the day, Cult of the Lamb is a silly game that combines the lighthearted aspects of other management games such as Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing with a message of spiritual nihilism that is the games bleating heart of darkness.

The game is playable on Playstation 4/5, Xbox One/X/S, Nintendo Switch and PC.

The Catholic News Service classification is L limited adult audience, material whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Entertainment Software Rating Board rating is T teens.

Link:

'Cult of the Lamb' and the bleating heart of nihilism - Catholic News Service

Blue Chips is a monthly rap column that highlights exceptional rising rappers. To read previous columns, click here.

Releasing music in relative obscurity can engender insecurity, the self-doubt mounting with every year critical acclaim and peer recognition doesnt arrive. Brian Ennals was intimately familiar with that disheartening reality for a decade. Throughout the 2010s, the Baltimore rappers sporadic solo projects gained little traction, and songs with short-lived groups either languished on hard drives or were quietly buried on the back pages of small blogs. Following the release of King Cobra (Phantom Limb), his second album of brilliant tragicomic nihilism produced by fellow Baltimorean Infinity Knives, Ennals career narrative is slowly changing.

It was always weird to tell people that I was an amateur rapper, even when I was younger, the 39-year-old says over the phone, fresh from a weekend at the beach with his two-year-old son. I always wanted to be able to say, Not only am I a rapper, not only am I a good rapper, but Im also a successful one. Thats just happening now.

Ennals and Infinity Knives briefly toured Europe this past spring, received an Album of the Day nod from Bandcamp in June, and both appeared on ascendant rap podcast Dad Bod Rap Pod and graced the cover of Baltimore alt-weekly Baltimore Beat in August. None of it happens without King Cobra, which expands on the sound and subject matter of 2020s Rhino XXL.

Produced, mixed, and mastered by Infinity Knives, the songs fuse organic and electronic sounds while contorting 80s and contemporary hip-hop. They are unique departures from the dystopian, Vangelis-meets-Bomb Squad instrumentals of early El-P with occasional nods to 80s boogie and R&B. Ever adaptable, Ennals offers pistol-grip insurrection, self-aware gallows humor, and vivid song-length narratives written in white lines. He affirms killing landlords, ending homelessness, and eating pussy with the same fervor, raging against the ills of late-stage capitalism while fuming over the Baltimore Orioles dismal playoff prospects. No politician is safe, no institution is sacred, and repentance may or may not begin after the next eight ball.

The album is very nihilistic, Ennals explains. Me and Tariq [Infinity Knives] are very cynical guys. If Rhino XXL was Star Wars, [King Cobra] is Empire Strikes Back. Were trying to go for a little more hopefulness on the next record. Like Return of the Jedi, but no Ewoks and shit.

King Cobra warrants far wider acclaim before the next sequel. Together, Ennals and Infinity Knives sit somewhere between Dead Prez and Danny Brown. You could also make the case that theyre a hybrid of The Coup and Too $hort for fans of Cannibal Ox. If youre after contemporary analog, think of them as the more approachable and intentionally puerile Armand Hammer, the pointed sociopolitical commentary competing with Ennals unchecked horniness.

Every time I write something kind of profound, my goal is to write something disgusting right after, Ennals says.

Born in Annapolis, Ennals and his older brother were raised in Severn, a census-designated place (CDP) roughly 16 miles south of Baltimore. Now a burgeoning suburb, Severn was once a rural, no-sidewalk town with a mix of trailer parks, Section 8 housing, and single-family homes. The Ennals family fell into the latter camp. His dad worked as a public school principal in Baltimore, and the boys mother oversaw equipment training at various phone companies. While his parents worked, Ennals unconsciously fell in love with performing, obsessively watching Motown concerts on VHS at home and singing in the grade school choir.

Though his older brother played radio-ripped tapes of Baltimore club tracks, Ennals eventually discovered rap, reading The Source and buying albums from the Fugees and Crucial Conflict. High school lunchroom ciphers led the formation of his first group, Special Ops. With no industry connections and music journalisms blog era in its infancy, Special Ops fizzled out after Ennals graduated from Howard University and navigated the grim job market in the wake of the 2008 recession.

The next decade was a blur of empty liquor bottles, blunt smoke, and powder-filled plastic bags. Ennals dropped two solo records 2010s Untitled and 2013s Candy Cigarettes that drew local acclaim from the Baltimore Sun but little beyond that. Between his day job and the odd recording session, he spent much time battling substance abuse issues.

Im pretty sober now, Ennals says, but for a large part of my adult life I was a hedonist but very depressed in a lot of ways and wanted something to numb that.

Infinity Knives initially contacted Ennals after reading about him in the Baltimore Sun, but the two didnt begin recording until Knives solicited Ennals for his 2020 album Dear, Sudan. In the six-year interim, Ennals briefly bounced to New Jersey while Knives became a fixture in the Baltimore indie rap scene that sprang up around Baltimores Bell Foundry and spawned JPEGMAFIA. After working on Knives Dear, Sudan, Ennals knew they needed to record their eventual debut, Rhino XXL.

[Working with Infinity Knives] is the first time that I feel Ive been produced. Its not just a guy sending me a beat and asking me to record over it. Its him saying, like, Hey, maybe you should take this approach or this flow. Maybe take this line out or switch it around. Hes a big boxing fan, so he likes to describe as Cus DAmato and [Mike] Tyson. Its very much him coaching me and making me a better fighter.

Like the best coaches, Infinity Knives knows his fighters strengths.

[One] reason Im so drawn to [Brian] is because of how malleable his style is. He definitely has his comfort zone, but the more he goes, the more I can tell him to do weird shit, Infinity Knives says. Ive just seen him get better and better. He can rap with a triplet flow or rap on a beat in 10/4. And hes a scholar of the arts.

They carried the momentum of Rhino XXL into King Cobra, spending the next year and a half of the pandemic politely butting heads and pushing one another past their creative comfort zones. King Cobra received some promotion from Phantom Limb, but the publicist they hired bailed. Fortunately, thanks to a network of supportive peers and growing journalistic support, word of the duos collective brilliance continues to spread.

The whole thing has been word of mouth. We knew a lot of people who knew a lot of people. Its a real grassroots type of thing. Im glad its not hitting everybody at once, Ennals says. The way everybodys attention spans are set up, if everybody heard it the first weekend it dropped, we wouldnt be talking about it three months later.

Link:

The Infinite Nihilistic Jest of Brian Ennals and Infinity Knives - Spin