Bakker LVI: the Rectum of Creation

[lokisnow]

On 3/31/2019 at 6:24 AM, sologdin said:

the author's stated interpretations are not particularly helpful overall--but certainly this author should not be taken seriously while the narrative is subject to revision.  CUS was supposed to have been dead, for instance--his return was accordingly a revision, or the cunning author by means of these ultra vires pronouncements inhabits our interpretation as ajokli inhabits AK, puppeteering our readerly experience but leaving us blind to the cause thereof. 

whether premeditated trickery or spontaneous amendment, it is nevertheless a very flexible plot spoiler insurance policy to bodyguard the truth of a work in progress, a whispered revelation...the secret of prattle: unconquerable deceit, indomitable affliction.

Yes to all this.

[lokisnow]

On 3/31/2019 at 5:10 AM, One-Winged Balrog said:

“A novel is a machine for generating interpretations.”

Umberto Eco

“A novel is a machine for assaulting the genetic interpretive compulsion immanent in readers.”

RS Bakker

(some pollution begs the knife, and Bakker is going to try to cut it out)

[Spring Bass]

Thinking about it now, I'm most disappointed at how little really came out of that ending in TUC. So the Apocalypse is back on, another civilization (the Three Seas) is probably going to get wiped but civilization itself might survive because a big part of it is far away (Zeum), the No-God is alive but can be destroyed with sorcery now maybe, etc, etc, etc.  What's interesting that's new here, especially after Mimara's whole storyline was thoroughly squandered on something much less interesting? Who cares if her kid is something divine or whatever?  

[Cithrin's Ale]

9 hours ago, Spring Bass said:

Thinking about it now, I'm most disappointed at how little really came out of that ending in TUC. So the Apocalypse is back on, another civilization (the Three Seas) is probably going to get wiped but civilization itself might survive because a big part of it is far away (Zeum), the No-God is alive but can be destroyed with sorcery now maybe, etc, etc, etc.  What's interesting that's new here, especially after Mimara's whole storyline was thoroughly squandered on something much less interesting? Who cares if her kid is something divine or whatever?  

Time for some weak defenses that are me grasping at straws. With Kellhus gone from a leadership role of the Ordeal, this is a perfect time for Kayutas or Serwa to take control of its remnants and possibly Kellhus's empire itself. This relies on assuming that there's anything left of the Ordeal to lead and that either Kayutas or Serwa survived, of course. In addition, Moe junior is now in control of the Scylvendi. If he chooses to lead the Scylvendi against the Consult, his leadership might end up being very important. If the outside is now blocked, Ajokli might be trapped in the physical world, making him a dangerous wildcard in the works that may come in the future. Proyas also reached a resolution of sorts in regards to his relationship with Akka, although this isn't as compelling as it should be since, from what I recall, Akka and company abandoned Proyas to die in the burning tent.

As for me, I'm unhappy that Crabicus is the focus of the first work of TNG. I have no real feelings towards him as a character and worry that Bakker will use him for philosophical musings rather than an exploration of the world in the aftermath of the rise of the No-God, which I would much prefer.

[.H.]

So, I heard something and it has me thinking, one, I need to read up more on this, but two, perhaps @sologdin might be familiar enough with this to perhaps point me in the right direction on it.

I heard someone talking on a podcast about Marcuse's idea of the "Great Refusal" and that, in a way, to just "recast" women in the "ideal of" men, that is, just have females taking on what is viewed as "masculine qualities" is essentially to cast humans as "One-Dimensional" that is, that the "aggressive" manner in which we socially construct men and "masculine qualities" is not being "overcome" in this, rather, just the role of who takes on those qualities is just applied to everyone.  This would mean that women are not really "liberated" by this, rather, they are simply passed from one pigeon-hole to another.

Granted, I only just stumbled across this, so this idea is likely malformed.  And I'm sure there are critiques of Marcuse out there that are cogent.  However, having heard an overview, my poor quality brain seems to notice something like parallels in how his ideas seem to be and what Bakker almost seems to be doing.

[sologdin]

missed this earlier.  now you've got me wanting to reread one dimensional man; i recall it as an unhappy marriage of heideggerian phenomenology and freudianized marxism. am not recalling specific arguments about gender therein, but it has been a while.

the notion of the 'great refusal' shows up in his essay on liberation, and is connected therein with a nietzschean project of 'radical transvaluation of all values.'  that language is from the ubermensch argument; my reading of nietzsche there is that the ubermensch would need to be sonething that we have not seen yet--like a corporation, or by analogy, what would have the same relationship to corporations as corporations have to us (dunno if the NG fits that analogy, but it probably fits the ubermensch).

we know that the RSB reads heidegger and that he used marcuse's colleague for an epigraph in the third volume.

[Wik]

On 4/2/2019 at 10:11 AM, Cithrin's Ale said:

Time for some weak defenses that are me grasping at straws. With Kellhus gone from a leadership role of the Ordeal, this is a perfect time for Kayutas or Serwa to take control of its remnants and possibly Kellhus's empire itself. This relies on assuming that there's anything left of the Ordeal to lead and that either Kayutas or Serwa survived, of course. In addition, Moe junior is now in control of the Scylvendi. If he chooses to lead the Scylvendi against the Consult, his leadership might end up being very important. If the outside is now blocked, Ajokli might be trapped in the physical world, making him a dangerous wildcard in the works that may come in the future. Proyas also reached a resolution of sorts in regards to his relationship with Akka, although this isn't as compelling as it should be since, from what I recall, Akka and company abandoned Proyas to die in the burning tent.

As for me, I'm unhappy that Crabicus is the focus of the first work of TNG. I have no real feelings towards him as a character and worry that Bakker will use him for philosophical musings rather than an exploration of the world in the aftermath of the rise of the No-God, which I would much prefer.

I've been out of the loop here for a bit....so is Bakker announced that another book or trilogy is coming? Crabicus is the young one, right? I would say I am due for a re-read but the ending sucks and so what is the point of torturing myself....lol

[.H.]

On 4/27/2019 at 8:39 AM, sologdin said:

missed this earlier.  now you've got me wanting to reread one dimensional man; i recall it as an unhappy marriage of heideggerian phenomenology and freudianized marxism. am not recalling specific arguments about gender therein, but it has been a while.

Well, I think I might have been wrong, as I think maybe this idea is actually a mash up of what is in One Dimensional Man and what is in Eros and Civilization.  Along with something of what is in this speech, Maxism and Femanism.  I guess it "made some sense" to me because it's an idea I had seen before, that a "recasting" of women in "traditionally male" roles only maintains the idea of such "masculine traits" being sort of "dominant" or "superior."  This doesn't really liberate anyone, only recasts the role those traits are played out by, that is, everyone.  So, if it is the case that society "socially enforces" they idea that men should be "aggressive" and so then we turn the wheel and say, "well now women should be aggressive too" no one has been "liberated," really, from the tyranny of "enforced aggression."  Rather, people have just been homogenized.

Likely this though is part of where Marcuse goes wrong, if he ever was right, though.  While he'd sort of lament reducing humans to "one dimensional" he sort of ends up doing exactly that.  But I can't help but feel that likely what Bakker throws into the setting, how the fundamental metaphysical principle is not a dominant hierarchical force, rather a passive foundational one, is a jab right at the nature of a sort of "patriarchal ontology."

Or at least, so it seems to me in my deluded thinking.

[kuenjato]

On 4/28/2019 at 9:52 AM, Wik said:

I've been out of the loop here for a bit....so is Bakker announced that another book or trilogy is coming? Crabicus is the young one, right? I would say I am due for a re-read but the ending sucks and so what is the point of torturing myself....lol

We don't know. Bakker floated some vague ideas about a series of books, possibly in the vein of the Atrocity Tales (i.e. short story collections post-TUC), and that Crabicus would be the focus of the first one. He hasn't said anything since, and hasn't updated his blog in nearly 7 months. Maybe he's been using that time to write?  

[.H.]

30 minutes ago, kuenjato said:

We don't know. Bakker floated some vague ideas about a series of books, possibly in the vein of the Atrocity Tales (i.e. short story collections post-TUC), and that Crabicus would be the focus of the first one. He hasn't said anything since, and hasn't updated his blog in nearly 7 months. Maybe he's been using that time to write?  

Word on the street is that, yes, he is writing, but as to what and how much, we don't know.  He made a vague comment about it before he disappeared from his own blog, but it wasn't any detailed information.  I'd be willing to bet something gets done, but then when is not at all a certainty at all.  If I had to guess, I'd think 2021 is a real possibility, but that is not based off much (which is all we have).

[Darth Richard II]

He also doesn't have a publisher.

[Darth Richard II]

Yeah word of mouth is not Bakker's friend.

 

Edit: One could also argue that a certain subset of his fans are not helping his sales much either

[sologdin]

someone best fire the bakkickstarter up in this motherfucker then to fund the third series.

[Darth Richard II]

I remember we talked about that but dismissed it as being unfeasible for some reason.

[Lord Patrek]

Emailed Bakker a couple of times in the last few months, but he never got back to me. I was asking for a progress report and what his plans were, so I guess he's not ready to answer those questions. . .

[LuckyCharms]

Heard through the grapevine of my friend who runs a chain of bookstores in the Hamptons. But apparently Abrams publishing had purchased Overlook last year at some point as an imprint. During the Overlook acquisition PON and I think Judging Eye were all out of print. But Overlook  told Abrams that TSA was one of their better selling series and wanted to get it back up and running. I was told that PON and Judging Eye are now back in print and the Abrams editions are supposedly slightly larger in dimension than the old Overlook ones. So Bakker might be in communication with Abrams if they want to do something in the future for series three? Hopefully.

Don't grill me on details. This was all heard second-hand. My business insider friend will keep me updated lol. But we can maybe be a bit more optimistic than we have been before.

[sologdin]

so it seems to me in my deluded thinking.

doubtful that there's delusion here.  but i think one-dimensionality is less marcuse's desire to diminish anything than his argument that modern industrial society produces a specific sort of person--think nietzsche's letztermensch, or kierkegaard's 'crowd,' or heidegger's das man--all of the villains of right-existentialism--marcuse is very much a student of heidegger here, though heidegger's grievance of the modern world is a right-pastoralist's lament rather than a left-progressive's critique and demand.  arendt's 'banality of evil' argument is a heideggerian thesis, as is any fascistic sort of argument that modern capitalism is laden with ennui because all of the adventure has been sucked out of the world by bureaucratic rationality.

not sure about the gender arguments.  it strikes me as completely arbitrary that certain traits or behaviors should be gendered one way or another.  aggression as coded masculine is unwarranted; rooting that gendered code in something assumed to be a biological sex is similarly unwarranted.  i've got no problem with a solitary dimension here, where we strip away the ideologies of sex & gender and deal with what might be considered actual irreducible anatomical difference--some persons menstruate, for instance, but it does not follow from that fact alone that the menstruating person is a woman or even that such a thing as a woman exists outside of gender ideology.

[.H.]

2 hours ago, sologdin said:

it strikes me as completely arbitrary that certain traits or behaviors should be gendered one way or another.

Well, I agree, but there is a level and more levels though, right?  I mean, in the sense that anything outside of what we could ascribe a (seemingly certain) Final Cause to could also be just seen as arbitrary?  Which sort of robs the word of any meaning to me.  So, why isn't it the case that E=mc­² and not E=mc³?  I mean, in isolation, that seems rather arbitrary.  But there are foundational reasons why it is specifically a 2 and not a 3 (or another other number, for that matter).  So, in a sense, yes, it is "arbitrary" that some trait got a "male" distinction and some other a "female" one, but there was likely some reason for it in the past.  Unlikely that our ancestors were flipping coins on what would be what.  Now, that is not to say they were/are good reasons though.

Now, to be clear, I am not out to get this into the Is-Ought quagmire.  I'm not saying just because it was/is means it how it must/should be.  In fact, just the opposite, it could well be the case that the use of the function as outlived the usefulness of the function.  But, I do sort of see this as part of the whole Eärwan "Damnation system" that it is in fact hot garbage, because it literally is completely arbitrary (because, Bakker made it all up).  You are pretty much damned no matter what you do, you only have a tiny track to walk to try to skirt the whole rigged system.  Which makes sense, that Eärwa is a "damnation factory," a "granary" and there is only a tiny window out.  And in any case, you lose your Self.

Maybe then, again, possibly out of delusion, I am seeing this a a critique of modernity?  (Post-modernity? I'm not sure.)  That we are in a "system" that regardless of what we choose, we lose something of our individuality?  We lose it to biology, we lose it to society, we lose it to technology, we lose it to religion, maybe even to philosophy or rationality?  But then again, I have this idea, this sense, that I'd rather not fall to reductio ad absurdum either.  This is why what little I have seen from Deleuze strikes me, something about parts of a whole.

Or am I just raving at this point?  I not even sure what I am saying most of the time now.  Maybe I should brush up on Heidegger, but maybe that is a waste of time...

[House Balstroko]

On 4/30/2019 at 8:10 AM, Darth Richard II said:

He also doesn't have a publisher.

This is what worries me the most. 

[sologdin]

ose something of our individuality

something to be examined, the point at which individuation occurs, if ever.  

also be just seen as arbitrary

i normally use the term as synonymous with the phrase "goal-oriented rather than truth oriented," so the notion of an aristotelian final cause is in line with it.