Category Archives: Nihilism

Michael Smiley, Sam Riley, Cillian Murphy, Brie Larson and Armie Hammer in Free Fire.

PHOTO COURTESY A24

While you couldnt technically call Ben Wheatleys Free Fire a chamber play, you might be able to get by with referring to it as a pressure chamber movie. Its concept is simple a limited number of players in a confined space and its execution slick, professional and all you would want from a mainstream movie. That it has nothing particular to say, I suppose, is part-and-parcel of most films served up for public consumption today, but its unsettling nonetheless. That we have become so blas towards gun violence is hardly new.

Set in late-1970s Boston, a motley crew of neer-do-wells convenes in a rundown warehouse by the docks to conduct a piece of business. Seems Chris (Cillian Murphy) and Frank (Michael Smiley), members of the IRA, want to get their hands on a cache of M-17 assault rifles to help their cause. Theyve brought along bottom-feeders Bernie (Enzo Cilenti) and Stevo (Sam Riley) to help them move their goodies, as well as the comely Justine (Brie Larson), who happens to know the dealer, Vernon (Sharlto Copley). He, in turn, has brought his associate Martin (Babou Ceesay) to help facilitate the deal, as well as Gordon (Noah Taylor) and Harry (Jack Raynor) to do the grunt work, while the dapper and ever-cool Ord (Armie Hammer) serves as the go-between.

Of course, when you have a group of drug-addled criminals with low IQs, short tempers, heaps of machismo and scads of guns lying around, troubles bound to start. A recent grudge and a smart mouth is all it takes for a bullet-ridden free-for-all to begin, many of the participants firing blindly, with innocents and those less so caught in the crossfire.

Wheatley soon runs into trouble once the mayhem begins, as his grasp of simple spatial orientation seems to be lacking. The action moves so quickly at times that its hard to get a handle on whos shooting at whom as well as where everyone is in relation to one another in this wasteland of a warehouse. Perhaps that was the intended effect to put us in the shooters confused shoes but it only steadily increases the viewers frustration where trying to keep track of whos still in the game is concerned.

The script by Amy Jump and Wheatley is very clever at times as one loaded bit of dialogue after another zings towards us. (One character is described as having never recovered from been misdiagnosed as a child genius.) In the hands of the capable cast, the many barbed lines are delivered with the proper sense of irony and menace. Hammer is a particular standout, remaining calm and cool as the bullets fly, the only one whos able to accurately assess the situation hes in as well as a possible way out of it.

The danger with a premise such as this is that it will become a static stale exercise in its restricted setting. Keeping the film at a crisp 90 minutes certainly helps, as does the writers ability to introduce a series of logical twists that suddenly redefine the situation. The inclusion of two snipers, who have no allegiance to any of the characters, proves an interesting diversion, as does the introduction of numerous tanks of compressed air, which elevates the carnage to imaginative levels.

To be sure, the film is well acted and, for the most part, ably directed and paced. Yet in the end, this is a nihilistic exercise that revels in its violence. In parading before us characters who we cannot empathize or relate to, Wheatley and Smart are giving us nothing more than targets whose sole purpose is to be dispensed with in the most violent and prolonged manner possible. Yep Free Fire, the feel-good movie of 2017.

Contact Chuck Koplinski at ckoplinski@usd116.org.

For a review of Unforgettable, visit the Cinemascoping blog at http://illinoistimes.com.

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Free Fire a slick exercise in nihilism - Illinois Times

By CHRISTIAN LEDFORD, Staff Writer

In 1859, Charles Darwin published On the Origins of Species, his magnum opus and the foundation of evolutionary biology, and changed the world. While many point to the publication of Origins as the point at which religion and science began to collide, it was merely a sign of the times; humanitys descent into naturalism began earlier, in the Enlightenment of the 1700s in which scholars and scientists began to reject millennia-old Aristotelian and Biblical knowledge. Whereas, anachronistic thinkers like Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Pascal, and too many others to name were devoutly religious, this age of naturalism saw a departure from theism in efforts to explain the world around us, and the universe as a whole, outside of intelligent design and outside of God.

Today, after centuries of secular scientific thought on biology, geology, and cosmology, science has left religion behind. Those who express skepticism in unproven theories of modern science are looked down upon as unintelligent. Those who advocate belief in intelligent design or even (gasp) creationism are seen as worse than unintelligent; as mentally-unsound deniers and haters of knowledge. In the wake of this abandonment, weve seen a rise of something peculiar called New Atheism, contrasted with the deistic atheism of Enlightenment men like Voltaire. This atheism couples itself directly with modern science in militant anti-theism, dedicated literally to the eradication of religious faith. This movement heralds champions like Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens, men whove made it their lives purposes to angrily persuade the world that life has no purpose.

Ive never understood atheism. I was admittedly raised in a devoutly Christian home and educated in church all my life, but that doesnt mean that Ive gone without my doubts and moments of existential crisis. However, every time Ive lapsed in faith or doubted God, Ive always come back to my core belief that there is a God who both created the universe and guides its fate. Nothing else makes sense. Atheism, coupled with theories like evolution and geological uniformitarianism, has always been an ideology of meaninglessness. Under Atheism, life, as well as every single other aspect of existence, is a combined result of chance, pure random, lucky chance.

Its by pure chance that the planet we live on exists perfectly in our suns habitable zone, which allows liquid water, an utter necessity for life, to exist abundantly on Earths surface. Its pure chance that our moon exists in the perfect location to secure Earths axial tilt and guarantee our necessary day-night cycle. Its pure chance that life, something we havent observed anywhere in any form in the entire observable universe, exists on Earth at all. Its pure chance that humans, intelligent life, exist and are capable of not only speech but species consciousness and advanced thought, things not seen in any other species. For all the talk of Earth as a privileged planet and humanity as a privileged species, theres equally as much equating this all to nothing more than a roll of the interstellar dice. At a certain point, does it not make more sense to attribute our monumental existence to some intention, some design, rather than pure luck? As Thomas Aquinas eloquently said long ago in Summa Theologica, Whatever is in motion must be put in motion by anotherTherefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other [than]God.

However, it isnt the scientific atheisms reliance on chance that disturbs me, but rather the natural denotation of this ideology. Specifically, if our understanding of truth in the universe can rest only on nature and its laws (i.e. gravity, thermodynamics, etc.,) then what does this implicate for decidedly non-natural phenomena, most importantly morality? It means that there is no absolute moral truth; it means that existence, deep down at its core, has no purpose, and in a universe where there is no meaning, nothing can have a meaning, least of all our short, insignificant lives. As far as Im concerned, this is the fundamental problem of atheism.

If there is no God, no absolute judge of right and wrong, no designer of our lives, no scribe of our purpose, then were all governed simply by nature, and, in natural governance, anything goes. Per the theory of evolution, the weak will suffer and the strong will survive, with no guilt or ethics required from either. Per atheism, in what position would we be in if we even attempted to ascribe some ethical judgement on the actions of either? What Im saying heres controversial; any self-respecting atheist would argue ethics developed as means to achieve communal unity to propel our species forward or that morality stems from our status as social animals. However, while perhaps making some sense on a base level, none of these attempts at explanation come close to explaining our uniquely-human species consciousness, instead only serving to promote tribalism. For example, a man in America may be implored to care for his neighbors or countrymen, but why should he care about those suffering in North Korea or Syria? A woman in Tokyo may care for her family, but why should she care if Congolese Africans starve to death? What evolutionary incentive is there in either case for compassion of the distant?

Finally: death, the great unifier. In atheistic science, death is nothingness; our deaths are but a slide into eternal oblivion, a complete failure to exist. In this sense, what hope does atheism have for children being blown apart in Aleppo? What hope is there for those forced into brutal, unending labor in Pyongyang? Under atheism, what hope is there for the downtrodden, brutalized, or broken? Their lives will not only be short but meaningless and insignificant as well.

In the end, there is no hope for man in detached atheistic science; therein lies only meaninglessness and despair. For all their vast knowledge, scientists like Richard Dawkins miss the painfully obvious, the fact that humanity needs truth and purpose, things that come only from one place: God.

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The Disheartening Nihilism of Modern Science - Michigan Journal

When The Silver Case cuts to a shot of the Moon, usually at the end of each level, it appears as a cool but benevolent onlooker. The title of the games first chapter, Lunatics, becomes a double entendre. Perpetually in conflictkilling one another on behalf of rival institutions and ideasthe characters in The Silver Case are nevertheless unified by the Moon. At the end of each day it watches over them all.

Throughout its work, Grasshopper Manufacture struggles with people. How The Silver Case details both specific crimes and the bureaucracies charged with investigating them betrays an infatuation with human experience not found in the studios later exploitation gamesby Lollipop Chainsaw and Let It Die, the developers have either given up on the rigors of our lives or become jaded to the point of nihilism. Just like how, as The Silver Case progresses, the Moon takes on different, gradually more ominous hues, Grasshopper, as it has produced more games, seems to have become first angrier at people and then dejected. In Killer7, one of the studios subsequent major works, blood and death are much more commonplace than in The Silver Case: rather than spiritually unite characters, the Moon appears to precede each sequence of mass-murder.

Killer7s characters suits and affectations suggest an interest in style rather than substance. Its deliberately convoluted, sometimes gaseous plot and many wonderful abstractions belie the presence of a single, encompassing truth. But still Killer7 has a heart. As its protagonists are murdered one-by-one, we cannot help but mourn them. And when Garcian is revealed to be a puppet of Harman and Kun-Lan, duelling gods who fight, endlessly, in service to their own egos, he seems suddenly similar to the put-upon police officers of The Silver Case, misused by the institutions that claim to protect them. At the end of Michigan: Report from Hell, after learning his employer, a huge corporation called Zaka, is responsible for creating and leaking deadly viruses, the protagonist is unceremoniously assassinated. Travis Touchdown, of the next Grasshopper staple No More Heroes, is manipulated also by a self-interested, higher power: after fighting and killing through the ranks of the United Assassins Association, he discovers the Association doesnt actually exist, and has been fabricated completely by a con-artist named Sylvia.

Since all these characters, ultimately and to varying extents, are defrauded or destroyed by organisations, its tempting to call Grasshopers earlier games adolescent or cynical. The mathematical way in which the city in The Silver Case is laid outlettered districts contain numbered wardsimplies a dehumanising totalitarianism which we automatically distrust. Harmans base of operations in Killer7, a lame trailer, also containing his assistant Samantha, who flips between eerie subservience and fiery rage, implies God is exaggerated and two-faced. When even the supernaturally cool Killer7 are helpless against the system, it impresses a belief common among angry teenagers that wealth and power crush nonconformity. But the fact we remain, despite some of these games inevitable endings, allied with the individual characters and not the organisations is precisely what saves them from irrelevance. In Grasshoppers earlier work, and before games like Haze, BioShock and Spec Ops: The Line, we are told to question instruction and admire individuality, to like the people even if we disagree or find repellent what they are being made to do. The Killer7 may murder for money, but their distinct personalities and attractiveness, contrasted with the shadiness and uncertainty surrounding the orders they receive, suggests we should root for people, not ideas.

Which is why the misanthropy or, more specifically, misogyny of Grasshoppers later games is so striking. Paula, the driving love interest of Shadows of the Damned, is also the subject of a rap by ostensibly the games most endearing character; its a contradiction, telling of how barely Grasshopper seems to regard its leading lady, when as well as beautiful, angelic and worth journeying into Hell to rescue, shes also described as a bitch whom the villain has kidnapped to help scratch his itch. Killer Is Dead seems similarly content to use its characters for any and whatever purpose. In one scene, women areperhaps in the most literal sense of the term possibleeye candy, since points are awarded for glaring at their legs and cleavage. In other scenes, they are innocent pixies, kidnap victims, bitchy traitors and grotesque monsters. If they were all given more screen time, or allowed a humanising moment each, one might argue the women in Killer Is Dead are varied, and by extension complex, above some of their contemporaries. But it uses them fleetingly and to appeal only to its assumed audiences superficial instincts. Feel sorry for them, be grossed out by them, be scared of them, lust after themthese are the only feelings Killer Is Dead wants us to have about its women.

Lollipop Chainsaw, released a year prior, is somewhat more covert: despite its pornographically proportioned protagonist, her skimpy clothes and humiliating lines like Agnes used to be hot, but now she has an intestine coming out her vagina, Grasshopper and writer James Gunn seem to almost anticipate the revisionist reviews, and keep reminding us they have a woman as their lead, shes likeable and shes dressing and doing things her own way. But Juliet Starling is an insipid materialist. Like Bayonetta, who is designed to appealalbeit via the smuggle-through-customs language of womens agencyto male dominatrix fantasies, she wears a cheerleader outfit quite literally placed on her by men. And so her enemies jeers, slut, fucking bitch, stupid cooze, seem not like barked encouragement to go and fight sexism, but genuinely disdainful: when Lollipop Chainsaw bullies Juliet, another of Grasshoppers superficial characters, it encourages us to laugh along.

The doubtfulness with which Grasshopper Manufacture once appraised systems, of any kind, seems to have evolvedor rather devolvedinto encompassing, people-hating nihilism. If The Silver Case, quite nobly, started on bureaucracy and Shadows of the Damned, Lollipop Chainsaw and Killer Is Dead moved onto women, by Let It Die, Grasshopper concludes that everyones lives are meaningless and were all not to be trusted. The very title suggests having given up; the games mechanics, whereby you die repeatedly, replace yourself using another generic body, stored inside a giant freezer like meat, and then go and kill your former self, who has since turned into a monster, suggests were disposable, similar and, in our final and definitive form, duplicitous. In its 18 years since releasing The Silver Case, Grasshopper appears to have stopped caring about its characters. Like David, the maniacal villain of Killer Is Dead, it seemingly wants to get away from peopleto observe from the Moon.

Ed Smith is a writer from the UK. You can follow him on Twitter @mostsincerelyed and find more of his work at bulletpointsmonthly.com.

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Grasshopper Manufacture's Descent Into Nihilism - Paste Magazine

Starring Brie Larson. Rated 14A

U.K. director Ben Wheatley has never met a genre he couldn't mangle to his own perverse and mostly satisfying ends. This is the filmmakers bluntest crowdpleaser yet, being no more than a 90-minute shootout between a group of exaggerated '70s stereotypes.

Brie Larson gets top-billing as Justine, who brokers a tense deal in an abandoned Boston warehouse between a couple of IRA operatives, Chris and Frank (Cillian Murphy and Wheatley regular Michael Smiley), and the weapons dealer and international asshole Vernon (Sharlto Copley, who gives his preposterous would-be tough guy just enough comic shading to nearly steal the film.)

Also along for the firefight, which we see coming within the films first 20 seconds, is Vernons disturbingly unkillable partner Martin (Babou Ceesay), a too-smooth liaison called Ord (Armie Hammer, also hilarious), and a pair of grunts on either side of the deal who, it turns out, have some unrelated business to settle from a bar fight the night before. Which is why the guns start blazing.

Probably because they thought they should, Wheatley and his screenwriting partner Amy Jump fire off a few brazen rounds of plot once each of these characters is bunkered down and bleeding out in their own grimy corner of the warehouse (for instance, those snipers in the rafters that somebody apparently invited). But Free Fire really exists to let this outstanding cast have a riot with the films flip nihilism (I think we can all agree that hes gone to a better place, announces a bizarrely hale Ord, when one guy seems to take a final slug).

As a reductio ad absurdum picture of gun violence, this film might have even less of a soul than Reservoir Dogs. And yetfurther aided by a faux-King Crimson score by Ben Salisbury and Portisheads Geoff BarrowFree Fire feels wonderfully, gleefully alive. It offers not a shred of pretence toward meaning (guns are bad, I guess?) and it does fuck all with the potentially fertile notion that were watching arms dealers go to war with their clients. But that's okay. Maybe Free Fire is just about having seriously shitty aim?

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Free Fire puts the fun back into super-violent nihilism - Straight.com

It used to be thought it would take longer than the average human lifespan for exercise to impact on discs. New evidence shows this is not so.

Victorian researchers have produced evidence that may lead to a shift in commonly held beliefs about back problems and exercise.

To date there has been no evidence in humans that discs in the spine respond positively to exercise.

Now, this study has shown they do respond to certain types of loading and that fast walking or slow running is best for strengthening them.

These discs act as shock absorbers between each of the vertebrae in the spinal column. They also protect nerves that run down the middle of the spine.

That they can be strengthened is an important change in the spinal medicine mindset that regards discs as a "slow tissue", with a metabolism too sluggish to respond to exercise within the human lifespan.

This new research challenges this. It appears in Scientific Reports, published by the prestigious journal group, Nature.

"These findings give us hope that we may be able to prescribe physical activity, or advise the community on physical activity guidelines, to 'strengthen' the discs in the spine," says lead researcher Associate Professor Daniel Belavy from the Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition at Deakin University.

The findings are particularly important for young people from teenagers to those in their 30s because it may help to reduce or prevent back problems later in life.

Researchers have spent years measuring how discs become damaged and how they deteriorate. This has led to nihilism, with little focus on how discs can be bolstered.

The mindset has been reinforced by research over the past decade showing disc components are replaced extremely slowly.

Many take the view that it would take longer than the average human lifespan to have an impact on discs with interventions such as exercise or drugs.

The new evidence, which measured discs with a highly specialised MRI, shows regular activity helps. Even a walk during a break at work, or taking the stairs, is good for discs and overall back health, says Professor Belavy.

"It is also important to reduce the amount of time spent in static postures, such as sitting or even standing still."

So is walking as good as jogging or running?

"Our findings showed no difference between joggers and long-distance runners and in fact, our findings indicated that walking might be enough," he says.

He anticipates this research will be a starting point to better define exercise protocols for disc strengthening in humans.

To reduce the impact of normal ageing, the study recruited people aged 25 to 35.

It's well known that tissues, such as bone and muscle, adapt to the loads placed upon them and grow stronger.

While it's known some kinds of loading, such as flexion and torsion, are more likely to damage lumbar discs, this is the first study to uncover what can benefit discs overall.

"At this stage the broader potential application is for prevention," says Professor Belavy. "There is no evidence yet but it may be the case that, in future, small amounts of damage could potentially be ameliorated."

His next project, approved by the European Space Agency, involves investigating discs in the necks of astronauts.

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Spinal discs don't just deteriorate, study shows they can be strengthened - The Australian Financial Review

When I started this column umpteen months ago, I asked you a question derived from one of my favorite Peanuts strips: Has it ever occurred to you that you might be wrong?

Well, it occurs to me that I might be wrong.

Now, this isnt necessarily a new revelation. There have been hints and allegations all along the way. When I wrote my column on fashion, one of my co-workers told me her friend read it and didnt think Iwas very well informed.

There are a lot of things Im not very well informed about. After several months of making up things to be angry about,I've begun to realize that this world might be a better place if people like me would shut up every once in a while about things they dont understand.

If theres one thing I hoped to have conveyed through this column, its that our society can be pretty silly, and sometimes its worth mocking the things everyone loves not for the sake of being contrary, but just to avoid taking things too seriously.When it comes right down to it, none of us really know much of anything.

But still, I think its about time I cleared the air about a few things:

When I wrote about hot dogs and sandwiches, I completely made up the Earl of Club, the Earl of Reuben and the Earl of Panini. There were no such historical figures, and I should have known better than to deceive my readers, especially now in the world of fake news and alternative facts.

After I wrote my column on figurative language, one of my mentors a man who is no stranger to the craft of opinion writing warned me to be careful when writing about language, because such columns can often come across as snobbish. (Snobbish? Me?) He added that my column pulled it off OK, but I sense he was just trying to spare my feelings.

In response to my Halloween column, my co-editors roommate sent me a lengthy email setting me straight on the subject: Halloween is when we embrace parts of ourselves that we cannot always demonstrate: our intrinsic, altruistic desire to save the galaxy from a tyrannical government, or our celebration of a new age of strong female characters who can do s--- like flip vans with their freakin minds. Fair enough.

Also, I have to admit that Ive never read The Lottery. I just know about the plot through cultural osmosis and my parents memories from high school English.

Myspace column was a pretty rancid pile of drek, and one reader justifiably called me out on it: The prosperity and power of America in the latter third of the 20th century owes a lot directly and indirectly to the Apollo program. It wasn't cheap, but those dollars were not blasted into space as some people imagine. They were spent here on earth, in America, and spent wisely.

And my column on love was pretty hypocritical, considering the fact that I was a month into a pretty good relationship.

One criticism I still take umbrage with was a Facebook commenter who said my column on Why you dont matter was written by a college kid who probably just learned the definition of nihilism. I have known the definition of nihilism for at least a couple of years, thank you very much.

While Im here, I have some people to thank. The first is my mother, my most dedicated reader, who texted me every time my column was published to tell me how good it was. Im sorry for all the references to drinking and uses of the word crap and heck.

The second is British comedian David Mitchell. The entire tone of this column was directly lifted from his brand of droll sardonicism. If he ever happens to read this, I know I said in one of my columns that I detested celebrity wedding crashers, but you have an open invitation to my wedding, sir.

Also, I guess it's worth thanking my editors, Kaitlyn and Chuck, for thinking it was a good idea to give this crotchety young man a platform.

Well, thats about it for me.While Im being self-indulgent, heres a complete list of my 19 Quite Contrary theses:

1.Partying and barhopping is exhausting and vastly overrated

2.Fashion doesnt matter. Except when it does. Dress only well enough that no one notices you.

3. Theres nothing inherently good aboutDisney.

4. Ahot dog is a sandwich.

5.Criticizing the internet is cliche and hypocritical. Stop worrying and hail our new robot overlords.

6. Toe the line andstop misusing expressions. Unless it's "literally," in which case I could care less (but I could care more).

7.Halloween doesn't mean anything.

8. Stop trying toget me to dance.

9.I don't care about your pet, and pigs get a bum rap.

10. Keep your kids offsocial media.

11. You are atiny, microscopic speck in a universe that doesnt care about you, and that should be a source of relief.

12.People who have everything together are secretly falling apart.

13. Celebrities whocrash weddings are rude.

14.Going to space won't solve our problems here on earth.

15. Other people'srelationships are not that special. Don't trust people who love love.

16."W" is a silly letter.

17. Surprises arent fun.Surprises are stressful and impractical and they ruin friendships.

18. Yourchildhood was boring.

19. I am wrong about everything. (Disregard items 1-18.)

Cheers.

William T. Perkins is a senior studying journalism at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Is William wrong about everything? Let him know by emailing him at wp198712@ohio.edu.

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Quite Contrary: I am wrong about everything - The Post

April 13 2017

via Acculturated by Carrie L. Lukas

Even for those who dont care much about musiclike methe songs we hear are an important element of the culture that surrounds us. In recent years, most of what I have heard has been dictated by my oldest, tween-age daughter. Shes programmed all the top 40 pop music stations into our vans radio, so Ive been saturated in Adele, Pink, Taylor Swift, Katie Perry, Justin Bieber and a bunch of others whose names I dont know, but whose songs I (sadly) could easily recite.

I try to pay close attention to the lyrics. Most pop stations seem to be good about policing songs for truly inappropriate content (like swearing and explicit sexual references), but I find myself constantly having to evaluate shades of gray. Many songs seem fine, but then include throw away allusions to casual sex and substance abuse. Flo Ridas hit My House is mostly a harmless recitation of the benefits of staying at home for a party, rather than going out, but a few stanzas in, the song makes clear that this partying involves undressing:

Morning comes and you know that you wanna stay; Close the blinds, lets pretend that the time has changed; Keep our clothes on the floor, open up champagne.

Others are far more explicitly sexual, like Ed Sheerans Shape of You, which starts with The club isnt the best place to find a lover, so the bar is where I go, and gets worse from there. Or Elle Kings Exs & Ohs with its endless double entendres. I try to switch the station whenever anything seems over-the-line, but often end up just hoping that the worst of the lyrics went over my kids heads.

Now, I have a more permanent solution in mind. A few days ago, our family took a road trip and as soon as we left the Washington, D.C. area we found that our radio choices had shifted. Gone were the multitude of pop stations, and country music dominated instead. We listened. My oldest was pleasantly surprised by how much she liked the country songs (which she had assumed would be lame), but I was mostly struck by the complete difference in content and imagery the songs relied upon. Over several hours, there wasnt one song that had me cringing or worrying about whether my kids were hearing something they shouldnt.

In fact, most of the songs had explicitly positive messages: The singers sang about being grateful for what they have, appreciating their partners and aging together. There was a song about the need to treat women (including your mother) with respect; another Carrie Underwood song about a man who had hoped for a son, but had a daughter who became the center of his world. There were mentions of holding hands, husbands and wives, backyards, driveways, and prayers. Im sure beer was in there too, but in the context of barbecues and good times in a way that seemed perfectly wholesome and reminiscent of an America that too much of pop culture scorns as fundamentally uncool.

Most of the country singers we heard on the radio were men, but their songs were overwhelmingly respectful and pro-woman. They didnt fixate on womens looks or evoke either over-the-top sexiness or antiquated ideas of femininity, but rather painted pictures of women as strong, full-of-life, complicated individuals. Take Dylan Scotts My Girl, which could earn applause from womens studies professors:

She looks so pretty with no makeup on You should hear her talkin to her momma on phone I love it when she raps to an Eminem song Thats my girl Man her eyes really drive me crazy You should see her smile when she holds a baby I can honestly say that she saved me My girl, yeah

Urban feminists often assume that rural and southern areas are hotbeds of sexism, where women are treated with less respect than women in the enlightened north and coasts enjoy. Yet if the songs they produce are any indication, women receive far more respect in country music than is typical in rap, pop or house music.

Im sure true aficionados of country can come up with counter examples of raunchy country songs that rival pop and rock in terms of kid-unfriendliness and mistreatment of women. Yet the impression left by a casual listener is that country music tends to highlight values youd actually hope seep into your kids mind, rather than desperately hoping theyll tune out.

Country music certainly isnt perfect: I dont think I heard a song that used the construction It doesnt, rather consistently reinforcing the incorrect it dont usage. But Ill take bad grammar in a song about loving your wife over pop cultures nihilism any day.

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Why Country Music Values are Better than Pop Music Nihilism - Independent Women's Forum

DLISTED Melania Trump is now $2.9 million closer to freedom

CELEBITCHY Amy Schumer declares Life isnt that fun. And who in America in 2017 can muster a full-throated argument to the contrary?

VERY SMART BROTHAS Life is also not fair, but heres a 1,000-word mic drop on Sean Spicers mediocrity to help get you through

VOX Bill OReilly may have shouted down his last guest

JEZEBEL Imagine one of those complex modern multi-agency investigations involving violent motorcycle gangs with their fingers in narcotics and illegal weapons and God knows what else, but swap in rogue midwives, fortune-tellers, dodgy priestsand poisoners. The book reads like Law and Order: 17th Century Parisian Poisoners Unit.

REALITY TEA Gizelle Bryant thinking shes not that shady is your guffaw of the evening

THE BLEMISH Orlando Blooms penis? Orlando Blooms penis

THE SUPERFICIAL Tit for tat: heres Olivia Culpos breasts

UPROXX Oh, Sioux Chef, I get it

(Photo credits: Orlando Blooms penis via Adriana M. Barraza / WENN.com)

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LINKS! Orlando Bloom's penis, Bill O'Reilly's last show, Amy Schumer's nihilism - Starcasm.net

According to University College London, you need to possess five skills if you want to be wealthy, healthy and happy in life: emotional stability, control, optimism, determination and conscientiousness. Well whoopty-do. If you ask me, this list completely ignores the real, practical life skills that help people get the most out of life. They are:

Its the age-old conundrum. Youve had an opened packet of chicken breasts in the fridge for a week and they are two days out of date. Youare on a tightrope, teetering between a delicious meal and a week-long bout of crippling illness. Only a few people, trained in the fine art of chicken-sniffing, are able to successfully navigate this dilemma. Honestly, they should teach it in schools.

This one is easy, and yet lost on the vast proportion of the population. All you need to knowis the basic layout of a ticket machine in a train station including where the credit cardslot is, the correct spelling ofyourdestination and how manypeople you are. A vague knowledge of the arcane intricacies of the on-peak-off-peak system is an added bonus, too. Bingo, nobody will ever roll their eyes at the back of your head again.

Need to open a jar? Basic grip strength. Need to carry a lot of shopping home? Basic grip strength. Need to do chin-ups in a park to look sexy for girls? Basic grip strength. Need to dangle off a gutter to avoid the murderous teeth of anescaped lion? Basic grip strength, every time.

The eyes, they say, are the window to the soul. If you can look someone in the eye, you automatically seem more friendly, trustworthy, confident and empathetic. So if you need someone to do what you want, look them in the eye. If they dont do what you want, keep looking them in the eye. Theyll be putty in your hands.

Ultimately, if you are going to prosper in life, emotional stability, control, optimism, determination and conscientiousness are meaningless. Whatyou really need is a sense that humanity exists by accident. Anunderstanding that Earth is simply a speck of dust in an oceanof nothing, and that it willnot be missed if goes away. Donald Trump knows this, and who is richer or more successful than him? Exactly.

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Chicken sniffing, ticket machines and nihilism: underrated skills for success - The Guardian

How dreadfully depressing life has become in almost all of the Western cities! How awful and sad.

It is not that these cities are not rich; they are. Of course, things are deteriorating there, the infrastructure is crumbling and there are signs of social inequality, even misery, at every corner. But if compared to almost all other parts of the world, the wealth of the Western cities still appears to be shocking, almost grotesque.

The affluence does not guarantee contentment, happiness or optimism. Spend an entire day strolling through London or Paris, and pay close attention to people. You will repeatedly stumble over passive aggressive behavior, over frustration and desperate downcast glances, over omnipresent sadness.

In all those once great [imperialist] cities, what is missing is life. Euphoria, warmth, poetry and yes love are all in extremely short supply there.

Wherever you walk, all around, the buildings are monumental, and boutiques are overflowing with elegant merchandize. At night, bright lights shine brilliantly. Yet the faces of people are gray. Even when forming couples, even when in groups, human beings appear to be thoroughly atomized, like the sculptures of Giacometti.

Talk to people, and youll most likely encounter confusion, depression, and uncertainty. Refined sarcasm, and sometimes a bogus urban politeness are like thin bandages that are trying to conceal the most horrifying anxieties and thoroughly unbearable loneliness of those lost human souls.

Purposelessness is intertwined with passivity. In the West, it is increasingly hard to find someone that is truly committed: politically, intellectually or even emotionally. Big feelings are now seen as frightening; both men and women reject them. Grand gestures are increasingly looked down upon, or even ridiculed. Dreams are becoming tiny, shy and always down to earth, and even those are lately extremely well concealed. Even to daydream is seen as something irrational and outdated.

*****

To a stranger who comes from afar, it appears to be a sad, unnatural, brutally restrained and, to a great extent, a pitiful world.

Tens of millions of adult men and women, some well educated, do not know what to do with their lives. They take courses or go back to school in order to fill the void, and to discover what they want to do with their lives. It is all self-serving, as there appear to be no greater aspirations. Most of the efforts begin and end with each particular individual.

Nobody sacrifices himself or herself for others, for society, for humanity, for the cause, or even for the other half, anymore. In fact, even the concept of the other half is disappearing. Relationships are increasingly distant, each person searching for his or her space, demanding independence even in togetherness. There are no two halves; instead there are two fully independent individuals, co-existing in a relative proximity, sometimes physically touching, sometimes not, but mostly on their own.

In the Western capitals, the egocentricity, even total obsession with ones personal needs, is brought to a surreal extreme.

Psychologically, it can only be described as a twisted and pathological world.

Surrounded by this bizarre pseudo reality, many otherwise healthy individuals eventually feel, or even become, mentally ill. Then, paradoxically, they embark on seeking professional help, so they can re-join the ranks of the normal, read thoroughly subdued citizens. In most cases, instead of continuously rebelling, instead of waging personal wars against the state of things, the individuals who are still at least to some extent different, get so frightened by being in the minority that they give up, surrender voluntarily, and identify themselves as abnormal.

Short sparks of freedom experienced by those who are still capable of at least some imagination, of dreaming about a true and natural world, get rapidly extinguished.

Then, in a short instant, everything gets irreversibly lost. It may appear as some horror film, but it is not. It is the true reality of life in the West.

I cannot function in such an environment for more than a few days. If forced, I could last in London or Paris for two weeks at most, but only while operating on some emergency mode, unable to write, to create and to function normally. I cannot imagine being in love in a place like that. I cannot imagine writing a revolutionary essay there. I cannot imagine laughing, loudly, happily, freely.

While briefly working in London, Paris or New York, the coldness, purposelessness, and chronic lack of passion and of all basic human emotions, is having a tremendously exhausting effect on me, derailing my creativity and drowning me in useless, pathetic existentialist dilemmas.

After one week there, Im simply beginning to get influenced by that terrible environment: Im starting to think about myself excessively, listening to my feelings, instead of considering the feelings of the others. My duties towards humanity get neglected. I put on hold everything that I otherwise consider essential. My revolutionary edge loses its sharpness. My optimism begins to evaporate. My determination to struggle for a better world begins to weaken.

This is when I know: it is time to run, to run away. Fast, very fast! It is time to pull myself from the stale emotional swamp, to slam the door behind the intellectual bordello, and to escape from the terrifying meaninglessness that is dotted with injured, even wasted lives.

I cannot fight for those people from within, only from outside. Our way of thinking and feeling do not match. When they get out and visit my universe, they bring with them resilient prejudices: they do not register what they see and hear, they stick to what they were indoctrinated with, for years and decades.

For me personally there are not many significant things that I can do in Western cities. Periodically I come to sign one or two book contracts, to open my films, or to speak briefly at some university, but I dont see any point of doing much more. In the West, it is hard to find any meaningful struggle. Most struggles there are not internationalist; instead they are selfish, West-oriented in nature. Almost no true courage, no ability to love, no passion, and no rebellion remain. On closer examination, there is actually no life there; no life as we human beings used to perceive it, and as we still understand it in many other parts of the world.

*****

Nihilism rules. Was this mental state, this collective illness something that has been inflicted on purpose by the regime? I dont know. I cannot yet answer this question. But it is essential to ask, and to try to understand.

Whatever it is, it is extremely effective negatively effective but effective nevertheless.

Carl Gustav Jung, a renowned Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist, diagnosed Western culture as pathological, right after WWII. But instead of trying to comprehend its own abysmal condition, instead of trying to get better, even well, Western culture is actually made to expand, to rapidly spread to many other parts of the world, dangerously contaminating healthy societies and nations.

It has to be stopped. I say it because I do love this life, the life, which still exists outside the Western realm; Im intoxicated with it, obsessed with it. I live it to the fullest, with great delight, enjoying every moment of it.

I know the world, from the Southern Cone of South America, to Oceania, the Middle East, to the most god-forsaken corners of Africa and Asia. It is a truly tremendous world, full of beauty and diversity, and hope.

The more I see and know, the more I realize that I absolutely cannot exist without a struggle, without a good fight, without great passions and love, and without purpose; basically without all that the West is trying to reduce to nothing, to make irrelevant, obsolete and ridiculous.

My entire being is rebelling against the awful nihilism and dark pessimism that is being injected almost everywhere by Western culture. Im violently allergic to it. I refuse to accept it. I refuse to succumb to it.

I see people, good people, talented people, wonderful people, getting contaminated, having their lives ruined. I see them abandoning great battles, abandoning their great loves. I see them choosing selfishness and their space and personal feelings over deep affection and inseparability, opting for meaningless careers over great adventures of epic battles for humanity and a better world.

Lives are being ruined one by one, and by millions, every moment and every day. Lives that could have been full of beauty, full of joy, of love, full of adventure, of creativity and uniqueness, of meaning and purpose, but instead are reduced to emptiness, to nothingness, in brief: to thorough meaninglessness. People living such lives are performing tasks and jobs by inertia, respecting without questioning all behavior patterns ordered by the regime, and obeying countless grotesque laws and regulations.

They cannot walk on their own feet anymore. They have been made fully submissive. It is over for them.

That is because the courage of the people in the West has been broken. It is because they have been reduced to a crowd of obedient subjects, submissive to the destructive and morally defunct Empire.

They have lost the ability to think for themselves. They have lost courage to feel.

As a result, because the West has such an enormous influence on the rest of the world, the entire humanity is in grave danger, is suffering, and is losing its natural bearing.

*****

In such a society, a person overflowing with passion, a person fully committed and true to his or her cause can never be taken seriously. It is because in a society like this, only deep nihilism and cynicism are accepted and respected.

In such a society, a revolution or a rebellion could hardly go beyond the pub or a living room couch.

A person, who is still capable of loving in such an emotionally constipating and twisted environment, is usually seen as a buffoon, even as a suspicious and sinister element. It is common for him or for her to be ridiculed and rejected.

Obedient and cowardly masses hate those who are different. They distrust people who stand tall and who are still capable of fighting, people who know perfectly well what their goals are, people who do and not just talk, and those who find it easy to throw their entire life, without the slightest hesitation, at the feet of a beloved person or an honorable cause.

Such individuals terrify and irritate those suave, submissive and shallow crowds in Western capitals. As a punishment, they get deserted and divorced, ostracized, socially exiled and demonized. Some end up getting attacked, even thoroughly destroyed.

The result is: there is no culture, anywhere on Earth, so banal and so obedient as that which is now regulating the West. Lately, nothing of revolutionary intellectual significance is flowing from Europe and North America, as there are hardly any detectable unorthodox ways of thinking or perceptions of the world there.

The dialogues and debates are flowing only through fully anticipated and well-regulated channels, and needless to say they fluctuate only marginally and through the fully pre-approved frequencies.

*****

What is on the other side of the barricade?

I dont want to glorify our revolutionary countries and movements.

I dont even want to write that we are the exact opposite of that entire nightmare that has been created by the West. We are not. And we are far from being perfect.

But we are alive if not always well. We are standing, trying to advance this wonderful project called humanity, attempting to save our planet from Western imperialism, its nihilist gloom, as well as absolute environmental disaster.

We are considering many different ways forward. We have never rejected socialism and Communism, and we are studying various moderate and controlled forms of capitalism. The advantages and disadvantages of the so-called mixed economy are being discussed and evaluated.

We fight, but because we are much less brutal, orthodox and dogmatic than the West, we often lose, as we recently (and hopefully only temporarily) lost in Brazil and Argentina. We also win, again and again. As this essay goes to print, we are celebrating in Ecuador and El Salvador.

Unlike in the West, in such places like China, Russia and Latin America, our debates about the political and economic future are vibrant, even stormy. Our art is engaged, helping to search for the best humanist concepts. Our thinkers are alert, compassionate and innovative, and our songs and poems are great, full of passion and fire, overflowing with love and longing.

Our countries do not steal from anyone; they dont overthrow governments in the opposite parts of the world, they do not undertake massive military invasions. What we have is ours; it is what we have created, produced and sown with our own hands. It is not always much, but we are proud of it, because no one had to die for it, and no one had to be enslaved.

Our hearts are purer. They are not always absolutely pure, but purer than those in the West are. We do not abandon those whom we love, even if they fall, get injured, or cannot walk any longer. Our women do not abandon their men, especially those who are in the middle of fighting for a better world. Our men do not abandon their women, even when they are in deep pain or despair. We know whom and what we love, and we know whom and what we hate: in this we rarely get confused.

We are much simpler than those living in the West. In many ways, we are also much deeper.

We respect hard work, especially work that helps to improve the lives of millions, not just our own lives, or the lives of our families.

We try to keep our promises. We dont always succeed in keeping them, as we are only humans, but we are trying, and most of the times we are managing to.

Things are not always exactly like this, but often they are. And when things are like this, it means that there is at least some hope and optimism and often even great joy.

Optimism is essential for any progress. No revolution could succeed without tremendous enthusiasm, as no love could. No revolution and no love could be built on depression and defeatism.

Even in the middle of the ashes to which imperialism has reduced our world, a true revolutionary and a true poet can always at least find some hope. It will not be easy, not easy at all, but definitely not impossible. Nothing is ever lost in this life for as long as our hearts are beating.

*****

The state in which our world is right now is dreadful. It often feels that one more step in a wrong direction, another false turn, and everything will finally collapse, irreversibly. It is easy, extremely easy, to give up, to throw everything up into the air, and to land on a couch with a six-pack of beer, or to simply declare there is nothing that can be done, and then resume ones meaningless life routine.

Western nihilism has already done its devastating work: it has landed tens of millions of thinking beings on their proverbial couches of defeatism. It has spread pessimism and gloom, and a general belief that things can never improve anymore. It has maneuvered people into refusing to accept labels, into rejecting progressive ideologies, and into a pathological distrust of any power. The all politicians are the same slogan could be translated clearly into: We all know that our Western rulers are gangsters, but do not expect anything else from those in other parts of the world. All people are the same reads: The West has been plundering and murdering hundreds of millions, but dont expect anything better from Asians, Latin Americans or Africans.

This irrational, cynical negativism already domesticated in virtually all countries of the West, has successfully been exported to many colonies, even to such places as Afghanistan, where people have been suffering incessantly from crimes committed by the West.

Its goal is evident: to prevent people from taking action and to convince them that any rebellion is futile. Such attitudes are brutally choking all hopes.

In the meantime, collateral damage is mounting. Metastases of the passivity and nihilistic cancers which are being spread by the Western regime are already attacking even that very human ability to love, to commit to a person or to a cause, and to stand by ones pledges and obligations.

In the West and in its colonies, courage has lost its entire luster. The Empire has managed to reverse the whole scale of human values, which was firmly and naturally in place on all the continents and in all cultures, for centuries and millennia. All of a sudden, submission and obedience have come to vogue.

It often feels that if the trend is not reversed soon, people will increasingly start to live like mice: constantly scared, neurotic, unreliable, depressed, passive, unable to identify true greatness, and unwilling to join those who are still pulling our world and humanity forward.

Billions of lives will get wasted. Billions of lives are already being wasted.

Some of us write about invasions, coups and dictatorships imposed by the Empire. However, almost nothing is being written about this tremendous and silent genocide that is breaking the human spirit and optimism, throwing entire nations into a dark depression and gloom. But it is taking place, even as these lines are being penned. It is happening everywhere, even in such places as London, Paris and New York, or more precisely, especially there.

In those unfortunate places, fear of great emotions has already been deeply rooted. Originality, courage and determination are now evoking fear. Great love, great gestures and unorthodox dreams are all observed with panic and mistrust.

But no progress, no evolution is possible without entirely unconventional ways of thinking, without the revolutionary spirit, without great sacrifices and discipline, without commitment, and without that most powerful and most daring set of emotions, which is called love.

The demagogues and propagandists of the Empire want us to believe that something ended; they want us to accept defeat.

Why should we? There is no defeat anywhere on the horizon.

There are only two separate realities, two universes, into which our world had been shattered into: one of Western nihilism, another of revolutionary optimism.

I have already described the nihilism, but what do I imagine when I dream about that better, different world?

Do I envision red flags and people forming closed ranks, charging against some lavish palaces and stock exchanges? Do I hear loud revolutionary songs blasted from loudspeakers?

I actually do not. What comes to my mind is essentially very quiet and natural, human and warm.

There is a park near the old train station in the city of Granada, Nicaragua. I visited it some time ago. There, several old trees are throwing fantastic shadows on the ground, providing a desirable shade. Into a few big metal columns are engraved the most beautiful poems ever written in this country, while in between those columns stand simple but solid park benches. I sat on one of them. Not far from me, a couple of ageing lovers was holding hands, reading cheek to cheek from an open book. They were so close that they appeared to be forming a simple and totally self-sufficient universe. Above them were the shining verses written by Ernesto Cardenal, one of my favorite Latin American poets.

I also recall two Cuban doctors, sitting on a very different bench, thousands of miles away, chatting and laughing next to two goodhearted and corpulent nurses, after performing a complex surgery in Kiribati, an island nation lost in the middle of South Pacific.

I remember many things, but they are never monumental, only human. Because that is what revolution really is, I think: a couple of ageing peasants in a beautiful public park, both of them in love, holding hands, reading poetry to each other. Or two doctors travelling to the end of the world, just in order to save lives, far from the spotlight and fame.

And I always remember my dear friend, Eduardo Galeano, one of the greatest revolutionary writers of Latin America, telling me in Montevideo, about his eternal love for his wonderful lady called Reality.

Then I think: no, we cannot lose. We are not going to lose. The enemy is mighty and many people are weak and scared, but we will not allow the world to be converted into a mental asylum. Well fight for each and every person who has been affected, and drowned in gloom.

Well expose the abnormality and perversity of Western nihilism. Well fight it with our revolutionary enthusiasm and optimism, and we will use the greatest weapons, such as poetry and love.

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are the revolutionary novel Aurora and two bestselling works of political non-fiction: Exposing Lies Of The Empire and Fighting Against Western Imperialism. View his other books here. Watch his Rwanda Gambit, a documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo. He continues to work around the world and can be reached through his website and Twitter. Read other articles by Andre.

This article was posted on Wednesday, April 5th, 2017 at 3:39am and is filed under France, Imperialism, Media, Narrative, Opinion, Philosophy, Propaganda, Resistance, Revolution, Socialism, Solidarity, United Kingdom.

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Love, Western Nihilism and Revolutionary Optimism | Dissident Voice - Dissident Voice