The Valley's music scene is always moving and churning at its own unique pace, with bands and artists continuously putting out new music, from thoughtful pop-rock to jagged lo-fi noise.

We've collected some of their more recent offerings that continue to define and perpetuate our fair city. Now turn 'em way up.

Commiserate"Grain of Sand"

This "emo-wave-try"band out of central Phoenix have been going strong since late 2017, releasing an excellent self-titled EP and gigging across the Valley and beyond. What's most appealing about Commiserate is their ceaseless curiosity that constantly pushes the outfit in new and more daring directions. Case in point: their single "Grain of Sand." The track is a hazy surf-pop ditty that features a 12-person chorus. You could describe the song as a collaboration between Polyphonic Spree and The Beach Boys, but even that explanation misses out on the sheer joy and earnestness this song exudes. Next time you're cruising down a lazy river, spin this breezy ballad pronto.

Audrey Heartburn "Siren Song"

In just a few years, Audrey Heartburn have released an impressive sampling of songs and EPs, including last spring's Round 2: Fight!, which isbest described as "sonic Lucas powder."More recently, they've returned with another great single in "Siren Song." Although the band have nailed the hyper-power-pop formula, this tune feels a little more understated, a blend of Pat Benatar's pop ferociousness and The Trucks' indie angst channeled into an earnest four-minute gem. And while past efforts hinted at more "playful" subject matter, they're tackling slightly headier ideas of heartache and separation with equal measures grace and nuance. If you need to be in your feelings, this one can take you all the way down.

Treasure MammaL"The Ballad of Mr. Bonkers"

Anyone who's seen Treasure MammaL over the last decade-plus will know to expect the unexpected (and then some). But even their latest single seems a little left-field: a cover of The Aquabats' "The Ballad of Mr. Bonkers," released late last year on the 20th anniversary covers album commemorating The Floating Eye of Death. Aquabats' original is weird even for those ska superheroes, a slow-moving spaghetti-western-meets-lounge-rock ballad that's nonetheless silly and saccharine. In the hands of Abe Gil and company, the song transforms into a delightfully ethereal '80s Kraftwerk jam if that band were fronted by a bargain bin Siri-inspired A.I. Now, it's not exactly the most enthusiastic cover ever, but it earns high marks for sheer weirdness.

Holy Fawn"Tethered"

In mid-January, local dark rockers Holy Fawn returned with a surprise three-song EP, The Black Moon.With more electronics and tape textures than previous releases, the band described it as "a little different, but it's still who we are." Maybe that's what led to "Tethered." Less than three minutes in length, it doesn't quite feel like a full song, just a slow saunter of light atmospherics and gentle keys. But in that brief span, something beautiful unfurls, and your ears can't help but saunter through the soundscape. Just when things pick up, everything drops out and leaves the listener churning for a moment or two.

Soft Shoulder"Thin Red Straw (High Tension)"

Hailing from Tempe, Soft Shoulder describe themselves as "post-punk/no-wave/junk-kraut," which may invite just as many new questions than answers. If you're trying to get to know this trio, then you need only devote four minutes listening to "Thin Red Straw (High Tension)." If you believe the band, this single (part of a 7-inch with "Wellness Line") was born from the spontaneity of a haphazard "studio" session. But there's a bit of control displayed here, and the band found an intriguing way to marry post-punk grit, no-wave nihilism, and the haunting drone of krautrock. Does such skill take away from the song's sense of chaos and deeply disturbing vibes? No, it does not. Just please listen to this one away from small children and animals.

Read more:

The Five Best Local Songs of January 2020 - Phoenix New Times

If I said one should come to the Everyman Theatre and see a play that deals with Geschwind Syndrome you may want to pass or even google it. But do not be put off by this. Just relax and see a play that deals with it. I never heard of this Syndrome and it truly does not make a difference if you know about it beforehand or after you see it. What you will see is an individual who has fainting spells due to temporal lobe epilepsy which results in sexual behavioral disorders.

Now to the play which begins with "Bari" (played by the incomparable Beth Hylton who directed this play last year at Everyman's Salon reading) laughing her way during a boring yoga class with two of her fellow employees Patty (Katy Carkuff) and Luanne (Shubhangi Kuchibhotla). The three of them work in a workplace where they pack Tchotchkes from Tibet for shipment after they cut off "Made in China" labels. 'Patty" and "Luanne" seem to love their jobs while "Bari" is bored to death.

"Bari" is also on a deadline to write her long overdue thesis on "Nihilism" which rejects all religious and moral principles in the belief that life is meaningless. She has lost her job as a professor in New York City due to her inability to complete her dissertation and returns home to hometown 100 miles north of New York to wrap gifts. Do not let this put you off. This is a comedy remember.

Everything changes when "Patty" fixes "Bari" up with a relative, "Mike" (Kyle Prue who returns to the Everyman boards after a 9-year hiatus, thankfully).

"Mike" arrives for the blind date riding his bike and wearing a helmet and oh does he have a story. He had a wonderful job, made lots of money, had a lovely home, a wife and child and one day has an auto accident where his wife and child die. He also causes the death of others and decides to give all of his possessions to the victims of his negligence, lives in a small cabin with his pet crow named Hubble, collects all sorts of garbage and items thrown away which he uses to make homes. "Bari" can't believe he received a MacArthur Grant for this great recycling. Thus, money is no object.

"BarI" is subject to headache-related seizures. Her friends at her job witnessed these as did "Mike". She refuses an ambulance. But soon, she changes completely. Suddenly she longs for affection and sex.

She realizes she has a choice. Take care of the seizures by removing a tumor and go back to her simple boring life or deal with the seizures and the joy it brought.

The playwright explains the origins of her play: "BE HERE NOW is about the search for joy, against all odds. I came across a podcast of someone talking about having Geschwind syndrome. She said she was generally a depressive person and for the first time in her life she was finding joy and meaning in life. Then she learned she had to have it (the tumor) removed. She did have it removed and regretted it, regretted losing that, like mourned that joy for the rest of her life, so I thought "Oh, this is definitely a play."

As one can easily see, there is a lot here to understand but if one just goes along with the flow, you will thoroughly enjoy it.

It is worth it alone to see Beth Hylton's magnificent performance. It's as if the play was written for her! Prue is simply superb as the rest of the cast.

Set Designer once again deserves kudos for his terrific set, a turntable that combines a yoga studio, the fulfillment center, a hospital, and a cabin. David Burdick does the spot-on costumes, Harold F. Burgess II the moving lighting, and Sarah O'Halloran the terrific sound design.

Deborah Zoe Laufer directs her own play beautifully.

The 90-minute play flies by. It runs until Feb. 16, 2020. For tickets, call 410-752-2208 or visit http://www.everymantheatre.org.

On Sunday, Feb. 9 after the 2 p.m. matinee there will be Panel Discussion in partnership with the University of Maryland School of Social Work.

Following the Thursday Feb. 13 7:30 performance there will be a post-show talkback moderated by Resident Company Member Bruce Randolph Nelson.

Everyman's New Voices Festival begins with QUEEN'S GIRL BLACK IN THE GREEN MOUNTAINS running March 3 to April 12. BERTA, BERTA, runs March 17 to April 26. CRY IT OUT runs March 31 to May 3.

cgshubow@broadwayworld.com

More here:

BWW Review: BE HERE NOW at Everyman Theatre - A Touching Dramady About Happiness and Laughter - Broadway World

We look at why John Baldessari burnt his art and baked cookies with the ashes, Francis Bacon slashed his best paintings, and Robert Rauschenberg erased a work by Willem de Kooning

During the mid-20th century, the 'art of destruction' emerged as a theme in the work of many celebrated artists. Although this tendency has existed for centuries Claude Monet allegedly slashed at least 30 of his water lily canvases the 20th century heralded a new age for creative auto-destruction. Defined by artist Gustav Metzger in the 1960s, 'auto-destructive' art reflected the recent violence of the Second World War, the ideological nihilism of existential philosophy, and the rising tensions of nuclear warfare during the Cold War.

Conceptual artists sabotaged, ruined or destroyed their artworks, either as a deliberate, artistic strategy, or as a result of malaise, anxiety, or displeasure with their work. To destroy an art object was not only radical but iconoclastic a gesture that disavowed the artwork as a material object that could potentially sell for vast amounts of money.

Contemporary artists, from Gerhard Richter to Banksy, have followed in the footsteps of their predecessors. Ironically, some of these artists have proved that destruction isnt always defeatist, or for the purposes of sheer vanity, but allows for liberation, which in turn, inspires new bounds of creativity.

Named the godfather of conceptual art, John Baldessari passed away on 2 January 2020, at the age of 88. An artist who irreversibly changed the landscape of American conceptual art, he worked across all artistic mediums, from installation to video art to emojis.

In 1970, he decided to destroy his entire body of work created between 1953 and 1966. Rather than throwing them away, he took them to a crematorium. Afterwards, Baldessari stored the ashes in a bronze urn (in the shape of a book), which he placed on his shelf. He also bought a bronze plaque inscribed with the birth and death dates of his deceased works, as well as the recipe to make the cookies.

Cremation Project was not only practical but strategic Baldessari was commenting on the cyclical process of the creative process, which could be conceptually recycled.

At one point I made cookies out of the ashes, Baldessari reflected, only one person I ever knew ate one.

By erasing his past oeuvre, Baldessari cleared his artistic slate. The following year, he gave instructions for a work titled I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art an oath to never create dull work again.

In 1953, Robert Rauschenberg arrived at the house of abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning, who at that time was one of Americas most respected and highest-earning artists. Then, a little-known artist, Rauschenberg asked de Kooning whether he could erase one of his works.

Reluctant at first, de Kooning eventually agreed. He offered the 27-year-old Rauschenberg a pencil, ink, charcoal, and graphic sketch. Over the following two months, Rauschenberg erased the artwork. When finished, he retitled it Erased de Kooning Drawing (1953)

Echoing the readymades of Marcel Duchamp and precipitating the arrival of appropriation art, Rauschenbergs gesture ignited conversations about the limitations of art (specifically, can art be created through erasure?), as well as questions about authorship.

In late 1954, at the age of 24, Jasper Johns destroyed all of his work. Later in life,he would reflect that it was time to stop becoming and to be an artist... I had a wish to determine what I was... what I wanted to do was find out what I did that other people didnt, what I was that other people werent.

Just as Baldessari found a new vision after destroying his work, the obliteration of Johns practice boosted his creativity as if freed from the intellectual shackles of his former self.

Not long after, Johns dreamed of painting an American flag. Shortly after, he made his dreams a reality and conceptualised his most famous work, Flag, 1954.

In 1967, the Canadian-born painter Agnes Martin one of the few female members affiliated with abstract expressionism decided to destroy her earlier works. Known as a reflective and quiet woman, her modular, muted paintings reflect a desire for tranquillity.

Before dedicating her energy to the motif of lines, bands, and the grid (her trademark) she experimented with biomorphic abstraction: pale-hued paintings influenced by organic, or geometric forms. Her mature style developed in the 1960s and moved towards restrained abstraction.

1967 brought about great rupture in Martins life. Not only did she experience the sudden death of her close friend, the artist Ad Reinhardt, but she also suffered from a decline in mental health, which would eventually lead to schizophrenia in her 40s. She retreated from New York and left for New Mexico where she followed the principles of eastern philosophy: Zen Buddhism and Taoism.

Martins decision to negate her former style could be read as a purifying of her former life as she embarked on a new journey, albeit one characterised by descending mental health. Her displeasure for her older work was so great, that she commented that if collectors wanted to sell them back to me, Id burn them.

Towards the end of Georgia O'Keeffes life in the 1980s, she purged works of art she no longer liked. But she also destroyed photographs by her former husband, Alfred Stieglitz.

Among many paintings, she attempted to bury Red and Green II (1916), an early watercolour that she documented as destroyed in her personal notebooks. Only publicly displayed once, in New York in 1958,O'Keeffes work despite her attempts to remove it resurfaced at a Christie's sale in November 2015.

After Francis Bacons death in 1992, hundreds of destroyed canvases were found in his cluttered studio in South Kensington. In total, 100 slashed canvases were retrieved from his home.

Known for his masochistic tendencies and emotionally-charged works, the cycle of creation and destruction was central to Bacons torturous, creative process. He allegedly referred to his art as an exorcism a cathartic, painful release of raw emotion. And once described the violent application of his paint as to do with an attempt to remake the violence of reality itself.

One of the destroyed works found in his studio Gorilla with Microphone used his repeated motif of a glass box, within which a central figure was cut out, leaving two white, negated spaces.

According to Jennifer Mundy, Bacon reflected that some of his destroyed works were among his best. He found it difficult to finish a work, and his canvases often became so clogged with pigment that they had to be discarded. He also routinely destroyed works he was not pleased with.

Noah Davis was a prodigiously talented LA-based painter who founded the Underground Museum. He tragically died aged 32 from a rare form of cancer in 2015, though he left an impressive artistic legacy.

A visionary and efficient painter who followed the mantra of less is more, one of his closest friends, Henry Taylor, described him as an artist who was constantly growing.

According to Bennett Roberts (the co-founder of Roberts & Tilton) The only problem with Noah, was that he would call me and say, Come to the studio, I painted 10 great new paintings. He was very fast when he was working. Id go in there and just be mesmerised. These are unbelievable, can we get them to the gallery? Ill photograph them. Two days later, he would say, Oh, sorry, I painted over every one of them.

Banksys self-shredding artwork dominated the headlines in 2018. When his most recognisable work, Girl With Balloon, sold for over 1 million at a London Sothebys auction,the artwork promptly began to self-destruct. Unbeknown to onlookers, the artist had previously installed an automated shredding device into the frame of the picture.

Shortly after, Banksy uploaded a video of the scandalous moment on his Instagram account, with the caption Going, going, gone Ironically, the destruction of the work was left incomplete; the work was supposed to shred entirely but stopped halfway through. To the surprise of many, the artwork increased in value after its public decimation.

In homage to Picasso, Banksy remarked: The urge to destroy is also a creative urge

One of the most prolific artists of the twentieth century, Louise Bourgeois left her New York townhouse in a state of bohemian disarray after her death in 2010. Known for her chronic anxiety, erratic moods, and sudden outbursts of creativity, the artists close friend and assistant, Jerry Gorovy once remarked, If she worked, she was OK. If she didnt, she became anxious... and when she was anxious she would attack. She would smash things, destroy her work.

If Bourgeois disliked a small sculpture shed been working on, she was known to push it off the end of her kitchen table and watch it smash and break into small fragments.

View post:

8 famous artists who dramatically destroyed their own artworks - Dazed

When I consider the past decade in Chicago music, I think about the songs and albums that not only muscled their way into my memory but also deepened my understanding of the place where I live. Music helped me navigate a city that seems to weather seismic sociopolitical changes several times per yearthe six months between the FBI's November 2018 raid of Alderman Ed Burke's office and the mayoral runoff election felt like a decade. Songs provided me with new insight into the forces driving the record single-year number of public school closings in 2013, the Emanuel administration's cover-up of Laquan McDonald's 2014 murder by Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke, the City Council's approval of construction contracts for a $95 million police and fire academy in West Garfield Park, and the abuse of tax increment financing to assist billion-dollar developments that will help displace the disadvantaged people that TIFs are supposed to benefit. Chicago musicians not only consider the specifics of what it means to live in this city but also frequently engage the community with more than their songs. Their albums and activism shape the culture in Chicago and elsewhere.

My listening experience, rooted as it has been in Chicago, isn't reflected in the "best albums of the 2010s" packages that the country's major music and culture outlets published late last year. And I didn't expect it to be. They're concerned with the broader world of music or with a narrowly defined genre, not with a specific city. I knew these lists would exclude a lot of important Chicago music, even though the city left an indelible imprint on pop during the 2010s (hello, drill). So I wanted the Reader to undertake something similar that would be nothing but great Chicago records, top to bottom.

With that in mind, the music department set out to create a "best Chicago albums of the decade" project. We e-mailed ballots to dozens of music criticspodcasters, zine writers, bloggers, freelance journalistswho'd demonstrated their engagement with the local scene. Our definition of a "Chicago album" was fluid. The artist could be born here but now living elsewhere; a group of musicians from several cities could have convened here to record. The point was to encourage diversity, not artificially narrow the field.

Fifty-seven critics ranked their ten favorite Chicago albums from the past decade, and we compiled the results in an ordered list that wound up 338 albums long. A first-place pick earned ten points, a second-place pick nine, and so on till tenth place, which counted for just one point. This scoring system inevitably generated a lot of ties in the lower reaches of the listthere are only 44 numerical ranks assigned to all those albumsbut it also created some clear winners.

One benefit of a massive decade-long retrospective is that it can introduce wonderful music to an audience that missed it entirely the first time around. That possibility guided our decisions when we chose 50 of those 338 albums to get a little extra attention, in the form of a paragraph written by a critic who'd picked it. Instead of focusing on the records with the most votes, we looked for the ones that didn't seem to have gotten enough attention on other lists.

We also wanted to represent at least some of the dizzying breadth of Chicago music. As a result, this might be one of the most varied "decade in review" pieces you'll read, covering hip-hop, gospel, R&B, house, ambient, hardcore punk, jazz, metal, electronic noise, soul, indie rock, footwork, contemporary classical, powerviolence, and whatever you want to call Fire-Toolz. Whether an album listed here tied for 44th place or came in fourth, it's important and worth your time. You might not agree with the rankings or even the picks, but we hope you'll listen with an open mind.LeorGalil

Click here to see the individual ballotscompiled for this list.

Twenty-six-way tie, one point each

Saxophonist Dave Rempis is a vital part of the improvised-music community in Chicago and beyond, not just for his playing but also for his networking and programming, and he's in so many great groups that it's a fool's errand to choose just one. But I'm a sucker for bands with two drummers, and when those drummers are Tim Daisy and Frank Rosalytwo of the best goingwell, that's game, set, and match. This burly, long-running ensemble is equally exhilarating whether creating engrossing textural explorations or dense, muscular grooves, and Rempis likewise excels wherever he ventures: thoughtful melodies, driving ostinatos, explosive abstract flights. Best of all, every so often the furious turbulence of the rhythm section (which also includes bassist Ingebrigt Hker Flaten) creates such a powerful updraft that Rempis's scaldinghorn practically reaches low Earth orbit.Philip Montoro

Thirty-two-way tie, two points each

When I first heard Willis Earl Beal, it seemed like his disarmingly shambolic acoustic lullabies could articulate every complicated emotion I was having but couldn't name, then broadcast them back to me. The Chicago native recorded Acousmatic Sorcery on a RadioShack karaoke machine using cheap or scavenged instruments, and even his most fragile song felt like it could break open the earth. My 2011 Reader story on Beal helped him land a deal with XL Recordings, which put out Acousmatic Sorcery the following year (Ihelped write the bio for his press release). Beal's evolution continues to produce music that expresses bittersweet yearning with rare and idiosyncratic power, but I'll always cherish his debut.Leor Galil

Chicago is well-known for forward-thinking metal, but few albums capture the city's 2010s vibe like the second full-length from blackened sludge crew Lord Mantis. Locrian and Pelican coursed between beauty and despair; Yakuza and Gigan spun heady, psych-addled trips; Oozing Wound and Bongripper, well, ripped. But meanwhile, Lord Mantis stewed in misanthropy, nihilism, and back-alley grime. Produced by Sanford Parker, Pervertor isn't for the faint of heart: it's uncompromisingly bleak and demands a visceral response. The band have gone through multiple transformations since 2012, among them suffering the loss of founding drummer Bill Bumgardner in 2016, yet they've perseveredand Pervertor remains one of Chicago's most ferocious musical exports.JamieLudwig

The Numero Group had already offered a rough idea of what its Cult Cargo series was about with compilations sourcing material from Belize and the Bahamas, but 2011's Salsa Boricua de Chicago flipped the concept of "American music reinterpreted by people in the Caribbean" on its headit features artists of the underserved Cuban, Mexican, and Puerto Rican diasporas in Chicago. Culled from the 1970s output of the Ebirac label, run by community activist Carlos Ruiz, Salsa Boricua includes amateur orquestas throwing down vibrant salsa, guaguanc, guajira, merengue, bolero, and rumba grooves that could match anything coming out of New York or Miami. Lock in and let the funk out.PatrickMasterson

Before Shaquon Thomas introduced himself to the Chicago hip-hop scene as Young Pappy, the stories told through drill music were set almost exclusively on the south and west sides of the city. In 2015 Pappy released the mixtape 2 Cups: Part 2 of Everythingthe second installment of a series named after his slain friend Mensa "2 Cups" Kifleand definitively expanded the geography of drill to the north side, Uptown in particular. Pappy had some success with his music while alive, but 2 Cups: Part 2 of Everything (hosted by DJ Legacy) has earned him mostly posthumous famehe was murdered at age 20 in May 2015, just weeks after its release. The lead single, "Killa," has become part of the drill canon, and Pappy's lyrics throughout the mixtape use graphic accounts of aggression and passion to paint a nightmarish picture that testifies to his artistry.MattHarvey

Twenty-six-way tie, three points each

She was introduced to Chicago in 2011 as "that girl toting the pistol in Shady's 'Go In' video," but by the time she'd dropped her first project, Bandz and Hittaz, Katieor Katiiiieeee, as her signature ad-lib wenthad become the de facto queen of drill. The project, produced entirely by her cousin BlockOnDaTrack, has never gotten its due as one of the era's best releases, but tough, minimalist bangers such as "I Need a Hitta" and "Ridin' Round and We Drillin" epitomize the spirit of golden-era drill. I'll never forget the night at some bougie Pirate Bay-sponsored party at Lumen when the DJ dropped "Hitta" no less than three times in an hour.MeaghanGarvey

In the spirit of albums by predecessors such as John Zorn and Marc Ribot, Dustin Laurenzi's Snaketime cleverly expands the jazz palette by exploring a forerunner who stood sideways to the canon. In this case, the forerunner is Viking-helmed, Bach-influenced Beat street musician Moondog, whose strong sense of melody and deft use of counterpoint and minimalist repetition provide a vivid, pleasing structure within which Laurenzi's octet can interweave hummable tunes and brawling skronk. It's avant-garde jazz at its most accessible or mainstream jazz at its most avant-garde, depending on how you want to hear it. Either way, it's a joyand evidence of the talent and genius to be found in the Chicago jazz scene's nooks and crannies.NoahBerlatsky

Twenty-nine-way tie, four points each

Chambers is the 2013 debut of Spektral Quartet, a Grammy-nominated string ensemble that often operates in the classical realm and just as often redefines it. The album is an entirely Chicago affair, released on Parlour Tapes (a local cassette-focused label dedicated to contemporary art music) and featuring works by six local composerswhich Spektral Quartet attacks with Windy City grit and passion. On the LJ White piece Zin Zin Zin Zin (credited to Liza White and inspired by Mos Def's wordless freestyling on the Roots song "Double Trouble") the musicians get about as percussive as possible while mostly bowing their stringsyou can hear them strike their instruments while making sonic booms of downstrokes.SalemCollo-Julin

Twenty-eight-way tie, five points each

DJ Taye's Still Trippin' is a consummate turn in progressive footwork. The Teklife member employs a palette of rap, R&B, New Jersey club, Baltimore club, and more to make the argument that footwork spans style and region, while also reconstructing songwriting's role in the Chicago subgenre. As frenetic as footwork can be, Still Trippin' is framed by the meditative, wordless introductory track "2094," which immediately dissolves the listener in the recesses of the artist's mind. The rest of the album unfurls in surprising leaps from one aesthetic to another, and nothing is misspentthe young virtuoso forges ahead to somewhere new, his world a kaleidoscopic milieu.Tara C.Mahadevan

Three-way tie, 5.5 points each

Nicholas Szczepanik began releasing sublime drone pieces late in the aughts, just as I discovered the joys of solo walks, and they remain my favorite companions for ten-mile rambles through Chicago's neighborhoods. The best of those albums, 2011's Please Stop Loving Me, begins with a bottomless current of churchy organlike chords that seems to come from just out of view, swelling through slowly shifting musical shapes as if from within a bank of clouds. Eventually, Szczepanik resolves the drone into a massive final chord that feels like finding the peace of home after a long journeyit's a sanctifying balm to those of us dedicated to spending time alone, whether by choice or not.J.R. Nelson

Over the course of the past decade, Natalie Chami, who records and performs as TALsounds, has mastered the art of making her totally improvised musicloops of billowing, burbling synths topped by the breathy arias of her vocalssound as melodious and cogently narrative as a meticulously produced pop song. Her standout 2017 release, Love Sick, is as challenging and rewarding as anything by Bjork or FKA Twigs, with the same internal drama as an all-consuming love affairand the same splendid highs and lows. I can easily imagine "I Can't Sleep" topping the charts in a musical universe more keen on free exploration than our own.J.R. Nelson

Thirty-way tie, six points each

Despite blowing up off the 2012 smash hit "Kill Shit," Lil Herb always refused to be labeled a drill artist. He showed us why on his 2017 debut album as G Herbo, Humble Beast. With raw, honest retellings of street tales mixed with sobering reflections on his childhood, the 21-year-old contextualized and humanized the violence that defined Chicago drill. Humble Beast balances soulful production, gritty yet introspective rhymes, and club hits, showing Herb beginning to master his craft and catapulting him into position to become one of rap's brightest stars.Aaron AllenII

King Louie's earliest work was rough around the edges, a prophecy of Chicago rap's national breakthrough. Yet initially, he highlighted a knowing sense of humor that suggested, if not optimism, then at least the personality to bridge the gulf between a far-flung regional satellite and the mainstream. Then the Chicago scene suddenly went supernova, creating a darkly controversial new center of gravity. His response, Tony, was Louie's best project of the decade, despite being his least colorful and most tersely aggressive, because he recognized that the ground had moved beneath everyone's feet. He went back to the source for a brooding, apocalyptic project that managed the neat trick of charging its grimly violent times with undeniable electricity. It also launched three classic street singles: "Til I Meet Selena," "Live & Die in Chicago," and "B.O.N.," the last of which spawned re-versions coast to coast.David Drake

A gem of Chicago's underground, instrumental quintet Monobody play a multifaceted prog-rock fusion with expansive shifts in sound and style. Raytracing, their masterful second album, journeys through prog rock, jazz, postrock, melodic math rock, and even the occasional metal riff. Monobody supplement their pulsing piano passages, squiggly synth lines, heavy bass grooves, and rollicking guitar leads with lap steel guitar, vibraphone, and programmed electronics to create a cornucopia of techniques and timbres. And unlike prog percussionists who go overboard, drummer Nnamdi Ogbonnaya crafts intricate, propulsive beats that always mesh with their surroundingshe knows when to pull back and when to go all out.Scott Morrow

Twenty-six-way tie, seven points each

Coping already have the classic emo one-album-and-done trope coverednow they await rediscovery. The band's sole full-length, 2012's Nope, opens with a screaming call-and-response vocal passage that bleeds teenage angst: "Have you ever thought that I don't care for anything you have to say to me?" The band's unabashed youthful confidence and willingness to be obnoxiously disorienting recalls local emo legends Cap'n Jazz as well as their own emo-revival influences, Snowing and Algernon Cadwallader. Nope is an exhilarating 100-meter dash of unhinged emotional exasperations and tangled guitars, with the melodies acting only as a home base to return to. Into this outpouring, Coping incorporate teenage love, awkwardness, heartbreak, and rebellionthe makings of a benchmark record for midwestern emo.TJ Kliebhan

Cupcakke may be retired from rap, at least for the moment, but her second full-length, 2017's Queen Elizabitch, is still out there turning heads. Her music is witty, authentic, and often hilariously explicit, with track titles such as "Cumshot" and lyrics that straddle the line between playful and raunchy ("I save dick by giving it CPR," for instance, or "I'm tryna fuck for a buck, not make love to Jodeci"). Queen Elizabitch also shows us the diversity in Cupcakke's repertoire: on "33rd" she's upbeat, poppy, and inspirational, while on "Reality, Pt. 4" she raps a capella about her struggle to find an audience, her thoughts of suicide, and the hunger and poverty she endured growing up in Washington Park. She may be famous for her salacious rhymes, and it's true, she's all thatbut she's also a lot more.S. Nicole Lane

Catherine Irwin and Janet Beveridge Bean have recorded as Freakwater mostly in Chicago, but seven albums and 25 years into their career, they shifted to Louisville, expanding their band with some north Kentucky musicians. The result is Scheherazade, filled with looser, bigger versions of their gothic country dirgesan aesthetic with more sweep and more serrated edges. "Down Will Come Baby" is a characteristically uncanny track, turning the lullaby "Rock-a-bye Baby" into a loping Morricone outlaw epic for murdered infants. Every song on Scheherazade swings and rasps; you don't want them to stop, even as they cut you. Though Irwin and Bean will probably always be better known for their classic 90s material, this record may be their most perfect.NoahBerlatsky

No stranger to hard times, gospel singer Donald Gay has faced formidable challenges over the past decade. In 2010, he became the only surviving sibling of a legendary musical family when he lost his last elder sister, pianist Geraldine Gay (the Gay Sisters scored gospel hits from the late 1940s through the '60s). But on his debut as a leader, released when he was 73, his deep bluesy feeling and sure command of his material remain undiminished. On a Glorious Day, which juxtaposes songs by his sisters with time-tested standards, demonstrates again and again how resolutely life-affirming gospel can be. Appearances by Donald's son, vocalist and coproducer Gregory "Juno" Gay, and by his guitarist nephew, Donald "Bosie" Hambric, also testify to his thriving lineage and the vitality of the tradition.AaronCohen

Raw house music producer Jamal Moss, aka Hieroglyphic Being, has been inspired by otherworldly jazz keyboardist and composer Sun Ra since the start, so his collaboration with longtime Sun Ra Arkestra alto saxophonist Marshall Allen for RVNG Intl. was a dream come true. The result is a mix of live ingredients, including digital horn, polyrhythmic drumming, and spoken word. J.I.T.U. means "Journey Into the Unexpected," and this albumdrawn from nine days of jam sessions with six musicians and two vocalists, all composed and conducted by Mosslives up to that name, merging unpredictable industrial-edged house beats with free-jazz experimentation.JacobArnold

Twenty-five-way tie, eight points each

Twenty-three-way tie, nine points each

Jointly led by drummer Mike Reed and vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz, the ensemble Living by Lanterns has released just one album: New Myth/Old Science, a magnificent study in artistic transformation and a special entry in Reed's ongoing investigation of post-1950s Chicago jazz history. Reed and Adasiewicz started with an enigmatic 1961 tape found in the Sun Ra collection of the Creative Audio Archive (located at Ravenswood's Experimental Sound Studio), extracting fragments and ideas from the rehearsal recording and expanding them into a suite of compositionsnot strictly Ra, not strictly them, but occupying some creative interzone. The ensemble mingles Chicagoans and New Yorkers, and the result is a constant delightswinging, buoyant, open, and prodding, with a scintillating lineup that includes Greg Ward's mercurial alto saxophone and Mary Halvorson's tensile guitar.JohnCorbett

Cellist Tomeka Reid had already been a valuable part of the Chicago jazz scene for years when her quartet released its self-titled debut in 2015and soon thereafter, she took on the world. Now based in New York, Reid creates new improvisational paths for string-forward groups not only with her own bands but also as a valuable member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago. The foundations of those explorations can all be heard here: myriad kinds of electricity flow through Reid's exchanges with guitarist Mary Halvorson, and the album also showcases Reid's superb compositions, including the lyrical "Etoile" and the open-ended "Glass Light."AaronCohen

Teen heartbreak is real. In 2014, there wasn't a high school on the south and west sides where you couldn't find teenage girls passionately singing "Somebody real is hard to find," the opening lines of Tink's "Treat Me Like Somebody" from Winter's Diary 2. Since her debut in 2011, the rapper and singer-songwriter has been releasing mixtapes that teens would rush to download from DatPiff, but this 2014 project is what arguably propelled her name beyond Chicago. The essence of Winter's Diary 2 reflects beloved 90s R&B, yet it's also relevant to the newer forms of heartbreak theInternet age introduced to relationships.JanayaGreene

Twenty-three-way tie, ten points each

The second full-length by Chicago heroes Arriver is a departure for metal: it's creative and interesting, rather than getting lost in an unthinking preoccupation with what's supposed to make metal "metal." Tsushima is progressive in the truest senseit draws from many inspirations, including a 1905 naval battle during the Russo-Japanese War, rather than from just oneand it dances through its amalgam of styles without losing its identity. Identity is key for Arriver, and they derive their sense of artistic self in no small part from their mental intensity: the brawn of Tsushima is more multifaceted than single-minded, more extravagant than restrained, and more cerebral than visceral.JonRosenthal

"Things fall apart, the center cannot hold," Cesar Robles Santacruz sings in "Satisfying Texture," the delicately unwieldy postpunk jam at the heart of 2019's Rotten Codex. For the past half decade, Bruised have been steadily gaining ground in the city's punk scene with their brooding, goth-infused tunes, and this full-length shows the quintet at their musical peak. Unlike many punk releases, it's never repetitive, swinging through a wide range of soundsincluding the driving, intense "Psychic Stain" and the drony, industrial "No Neutral Architecture." Bruised speak perfectly to the unbearable heaviness of these times, which we endure (to quote "Psychic Stain") by "looking for an answer in the dark."KerryCardoza

The theater of Cave comes through best in the nuances of their Krautrock-shaped psych, and 2011's classic Neverendless captures the band at their absolutely most Motorik. To maintain the effectiveness of such exactingly steady repetition, they have to set a mood by carefully modulating every sound swirling, twirling, and wriggling around the edges of the trackwhether produced by Moog or man. The 14-plus-minute "This Is the Best," with its ceaseless, almost taunting outro, and its follow-up, "Adam Roberts," with its swelling synths and a jaunty organ line, do this with a precision that you might overlook if you allow the foursome's rhythmic thrum to hypnotize you.KevinWarwick

On her third album as Fire-Toolz, Angel Marcloid cooks up a kitchen-sink combination of industrial, vaporwave, new age, dance pop, and black metal, peppered with AOL sign-on dings, cat meows, and that riff from "43% Burnt" by the Dillinger Escape Plan. At times, it sounds the way logging on has felt for the past couple yearsthat is, like slamming a nonstop torrent of news, opinions, and advertising into your brain at 100 miles per hour. It's a testament to Marcloid's skill and curatorial acumen that Drip Mental makes sense of it all, balancing its disorienting deluge against the exhilaration and joy of discovery. I found peace here when nothing else could soothe my overwhelmed mind.EdBlair

During the years that Robbie Fulks played regular Mondays at the Hideoutperforming 250 staggeringly varied shows from 2010 through 2017the club sometimes felt like a campfire gathering of sure-handed musicians fondly recalling tunes they'd heard long ago, breathing new life into their melodies with each pluck of a string. In the midst of that remarkable residency, Fulks released Gone Away Backward, a studio album that beautifully captures the craftsmanship and collaboration of his most intimate acoustic concerts. Deftly singing wise and witty lyrics that roam across the American landscape, Fulks made indelible 21st-century Chicago music built on memories of old-time Appalachia.RobertLoerzel

Radical hardcore band La Armada hail from the Dominican Republic, where they put down their roots in political activism and became a force in the country's punk community. After relocating to Chicago in 2007, they released their self-titled full-length debut in 2012. The band pair their fierce sound, heavily influenced by grindcore and powerviolence, with raw antiestablishment lyrics (all in Spanish) that focus on immigration, colonialism, and class struggle. The guttural opening words of the first track, "Esclavitud Organica" translate to "Hypocrisy! Cynicism! Falsehood! Eat shit!"describing the world in crisis that LaArmada are fighting to destroy and save.S.NicoleLane

In his merely extremely ambitious past projects, Damon Locks often used urgent, ethereal vocals that evoked June Tyson's work with Sun Ra, but for this Big Bang of ambition he's assembled a radical squadron of genius vocalists, instrumentalists, and dancers who draw on decades of Black Arts Movement audio, centuries of African music, and millennia-to-come of Afrofuturism. It seems too on-the-nose to use the word "art" to describe this album, considering that the second sleeve of its gatefold cover contains (in lieu of another piece of vinyl) a series of stunning prints by Locks. But this masterpiece is everything I want, and more than I expect, from art.JakeAusten

In the 2010s, Ken Vandermark appeared on at least 100 records. The veteran saxophonist and clarinetist takes the Braxtonian imperative of self-documentation very seriously, and his recordings are rarely casual affairsthe quality goes in before the name goes on. But New Industries is his achievement of the decade. Made with Marker, a band of exciting younger Chicagoans that's also the newest group under his leadership, the 2019 album combines impeccable studio recordings with a companion CD of live versions that suggests how the scores invite reinvention each time out. With this ensemble, Vandermark has found the best vehicle yet for his compositional concept, funneling postpunk energy into exploding architecture. Issued in physical form on the reedist's own Audiographic label, New Industries sold out immediately. It resolutely requires a reprint.JohnCorbett

Before becoming Chicago's most exciting rock band with the release of 2017's Nothing Valley, Melkbelly dropped a modest six-song EP-almost-LP in 2014, limited to 500 copies, via now-defunct label Automatic Recordings. At one moment raw and unrelenting, at the next haunting and ethereal, Pennsylvania occasionally shows its stitchesit's clearly the work of an underground group trying to iron out its identity and ambitions. But more important, it also demonstrates the band's early willingness to experiment with mood, as well as their inventiveness in lashing their melodic pop structures with freakish rhythms and howling noise. These brilliant songs are the first evidence that Melkbelly would become one of Chicago's most important revelations of the 2010s.KevinWarwick

With the 2014 album Kenny Dennis III, rapper Serengeti was poised to wrap up the saga of the fictional Kenny Dennis (his uber-Chicagoan alter ego) and his partner Jules, but their tale continued through the rest of the 2010s. It made a midlife crisis sound wonderfully odd, and it made Odd Nosdam sound like one of the best producers in the game. The album's use of actor Anders Holm as Kenny's estranged friend/outside POV may also be the last time skits made sense on a hip-hop album. If you don't want an O'Doul's and a hot dog by the endof this one, you've listened to it wrong.JillHopkins

Dr. Charles Joseph Smith's instrumental concept album War of the Martian Ghosts refracts his story of war and ghosts through the lens of dissonance and decay. With little but its ten track titles and stereophonic piano, Smith transports the listener to a Martian landscape, strange and mystical, akin to that imagined in Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land or Philip K. Dick's Martian Time-Slip. Smith shapes and reshapes his virtuosic piano playing with fierce experimentation: chaotic time-signature jumps, ever-shifting motifs, occasional gothy synth accompaniment, a one-minute interlude of distant and unevenly spaced legato chord strikes, and even a 20-second punked-out track called "Recapitulation," whose tongue-in-cheek take on the device of recapitulation in classical music demonstrates the sense of humor integral to Smith's life and work.NoahJones

This gorgeous album contains a traditional Shona song, six marimba solos by Jacob Druckman, and Third Coast Percussion's own arrangements of Philip Glass's Aguas da Amazonia. Its centerpiece, though, is a collective composition by the quartet that scores the 1966 short film Paddle to the Sea, storyboarded so tightly that big accents in the music land precisely atop dramatic cuts in the movie. Alternately lushly melodic and intriguingly knotty, filled with intricate multilayered rhythmic phasing that's simultaneously hypnotizing and baffling, Paddle to the Sea reminds us that the superhuman rigor that classical players struggle to achieve isn't an elitist aspirationrather than cut off such musicians from "regular" people, it opens up new ways for their work to engage us, both intellectually and emotionally.PhilipMontoro

Four-way tie, 11 points each

Whether you call it posthardcore, slowcore, emo, or indie rock, Slow Mass's debut full-length, On Watch, is definitely one thing: art. The 2018 album overflows with intricaciesit moves from a twinkling introduction ("On Watch I") to blistering chaos ("E.D.") and ends with a gentle, expansive poetic incantation ("G's End") that encapsulates the vastness of Slow Mass's expertise. I saw the band open two shows in 2019, and each time they delivered their set with cathartic potency. In the decade to come, they deserve to headline more shows of their ownand they've already started 2020 with two new singles.MadelineHappold

Two-way tie, 12 points each

Led by Todd Rittmann, Dead Rider accomplish a delightfully disturbing perversion of rock 'n' roll that befits an alumnus of U.S. Maple and Cheer-Accident. On the band's second full-length, turgid bass synth, louche horns, and Rittmann's creepy, oleaginous croon and jagged spurts of guitar all contribute to an atmosphere of decadent, addictively groovy decay. Much of the music's distinctive feel comes from the drumming, shared here by Theo Katsaounis and his eventual replacement, Matt Espy: they stagger and stumble, slipping out of phase or just flat-out falling through the floor, but they always snap right back on beat to let you know they meant to do that. As Hannibal Lecter has proved in other venues, deviance kept under tight control is often more effective than off-the-leash craziness.PhilipMontoro

Eight-way tie, 13 points each

Why waste money on anger-management classes or a gym membership when you can create one of the grooviest powerviolence records ever to emerge from Chicago's hardcore metal scene instead? In 2011, Weekend Nachos did just that with their fourth LP, Worthless. It's an unforgiving record fueled by a fury that can only be expressed with crushing layers of distortion and rage-filled lyrics. The band combine their merciless grooves with brutal hardcore breakdowns and sandwich them between some of the city's heaviest doom riffs to create a powerviolence masterpiece that couldn't have come from anything but the grit and grime of Chicago.NikkiRoberts

Rapper-producer Tremaine Johnson, aka Tree, can spin a symphony out of a single broken-sounding sample. To make what he calls "soul trap," he also cribs from modern pop songs, cracking and warping pieces of them till they sound like dusties, then looping them amid bustling percussion. He's also an arresting rapper and a wise, vivid lyricist, with an endearingly coarse voice that underlines his weary empathy. He dropped a streak of fantastic albums in the 2010s, but his hard-won critical breakthrough, Sunday School, is stacked with so many knockout tracks that it's era defining.LeorGalil

Four-way tie, 14 points each

In a music industry that enforces constant output, Kaina wants us to slow down. The act of feelingand processing all the good and bad, complexity and confusion that comes with itis the overarching theme of Kaina's first full-length, Next to the Sun. Her voice is smooth, her energy is calming, and her lyrics (which she writes herself) effortlessly bounce around the luscious melodies she sings. Kaina has all the makings of a star, and between her eager experimentation with musical composition and her celebration of identity and all that forms it, she's refreshingly undefinable.BiancaBetancourt

Mako Sica are one of Chicago's most genre-shattering bands, and on their finest album, 2012's Essence, they feed their musical supercollider with jazz, psychedelic, experimental music, and more. They close the LP with the soundscape "Fate Deals a Hand," which stretches for more than 21 minutes, and side one's two sonic journeys are nearly as epic in scalenot unlike the outre experiments of Meddle-era Pink Floyd. Drummer Michael Kendrick augments his kit with all manner of bells, chimes, and cymbals, while Brent Fuscaldo adds basslike guitar, thumb piano, and clouds of whispered vocals. The final ingredient comes from genius guitarist Przemyslaw K. Drazek, whose textural waves of guitar and similarly treated trumpet lend a Morricone-esque soundtrack vibe to thealbumand to Mako Sica's unique sound.SteveKrakow

Four-way tie, 15 points each

When Ganser released their full-length debut, Odd Talk, they were still relative newcomers in the city's music scene, but the four-piece had already established themselves as a band to watch. With the sleek synths, disjointed guitars, and plentiful grooves of Odd Talk, Ganser have crafted a smart take on postpunk that provides a breath of fresh air even as it nods to Chicago's noise-rock past. Not every band can hit a sweet spot between sophistication, trepidation, and weirdness, but even when Ganser grapple with difficult modern relationships and personal, political, and existentialanxieties, they make it sound like a blast.JamieLudwig

Five-way tie, 16 points each

Listening to Lux is like fighting a fever dream: the paranoia, the quickened pulse, the winding line connecting beginning to end. Logically speaking, the full-length debut from a band who deliberately mischaracterized themselves as "CCR via Minor Threat" shouldn't have ended up among Chicago's musical masterstrokes of the past decade, but throughout their eight-year run, Disappears were always in the business of defying expectations. Riffs wobble like they're on sea legs, Brian Case's yawps sound tongue-tied and tipsy, and every drum fill pops like a pistolmore than an album, Lux is a postcard from another world.Shannon NicoShreibak

Four-way tie, 17 points each

Toupee's Leg Toucher, the four-piece's last full-length before disbanding, sounds like it was recorded mid-exorcism. Front woman Whitney Allen (now Whitney Fragassi) pivots from sludgy sneers to incoherent shrieks, and the mix might as well have been run through a blender set to "puree." Despite all this, the chaotic sound that Allen crafts with bandmates Nick Hagen, Mark Fragassi, and Scott Frigo still does exactly what they want it to do. Swirling goth-rock guitar riffs create an ominous backdrop, but the horror punk of "Mommy Is a Mummy" and "The Spider That Lives in Your Hair" channels Halloween-store camp rather than attempting actual terror.AnnaWhite

In the beginning, there was house, which borrowed from breakdancing to help form jukeand then Chicago gave birth to footwork, a dizzyingly fast and weird dance style accompanied by a similarly fast and weird turntablist-approved soundtrack. British electronic musician Mike Paradinas gathered 25 cuts by Chicago producers in 2010 and kicked off the decade with Bangs& Works Vol. 1 (on his own Planet Mu label), a genre-defining compilation of footwork music that includes innovators RP Boo and DJ Rashad. Vol. 1 helped some of the producers on its roster undertake international tours, and in 2011 it begat Bangs & Works Vol. 2.Salem Collo-Julin

Three-way tie, 19 points each

Three-way tie, 20 points each

Meat Wave's self-titled debut was never supposed to be an album. The band recorded nine songs with the intent of sprinkling them across a series of split seven-inches. When that fell through, the trioguitarist-vocalist Chris Sutter, bassist Joe Gac, and drummer Ryan Wizniakpieced together an album. From the caustic guitar stabs of "Keep Smoking" to the triumphant explosion that closes "Panopticon," Meat Wave merge the catchiness of Chicago punk with the austerity of the city's noise-rock greats, resulting in an album that doesn't just pay homage to the past but also uses that history to pave a new path forward.DavidAnthony

Two-way tie, 21 points each

Three-way tie, 23 points each

Singers and multi-instrumentalists Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart birthed their debut full-length as Ohmme in 2018. Parts is a moody, avant-garde, psychedelic landslide that plunges you into the depths of some big questions: identity and the expectations that govern it, the meaning of consumption, and mislaid faith toward the end of a tumultuous decade. The album balances tensions and contortions against each other, whether personal or political, instrumental or vocal. Ohmme aren't exactly obscurethey lay it all out there, albeit in their own idiosyncratic waybut they build mystery all the same, stoking anticipation that buzzes and lingers even in the spaces between notes and songs. Sometimes Cunningham and Stewart provide answers to the questions they raise, but it's more fun to listen to the album and arrive at your own solutions to their lyrical puzzles.JessiRoti

Two-way tie, 26 points each

In 1983 the Reader called Ono "Chicago's best-kept secret." Here we are, nearly four decades later, still blessed more than we deserve. What is this blessing? Fearless avant-garde art that demands our surrender, nothing less. Ono drag us into the darkest conflicts of American history, but if you stay with themand the grooving bass lines ensure you willthey speak to our willingness to be called. There's nothing like a live Ono performance, but Spooks is a grand offering, recorded by two bands playing at once in counterpoint. The album is cinematic in its narrative construction, which gives shape to furious noise that sounds the emotional arc of characters voiced by poet-performer Travis, who spits, sasses, and bellows powerful, terrible words. Each listen unearths a new story arc, a new deviant sound, a new foundation beneath its noise, like sweeping a dirt floor. "You will never cover dirt!"SashaTycko

Two-way tie, 34 points each

Lala Lala's The Lamb is an immersive and illustrative experience, combining layered vocals, fearless exploration of varied sonic territory, and Lillie West's knack for honest and introspective storytelling. The London-born, Chicago-based songwriter showcases her creative growth on this sophomore effort, blending genres and ranging across the emotional spectrum on the album's 12 trackswhether the coaxing subtlety of "Scary Movie" or the jarring introduction of "I Get Cut." Throughout the record, melodies leap out that will stick withyou long after you've finished listening.RachelZyzda

Two-way tie, 37 points each

Feeding Frenzy is a relentless assault of D-beat hardcore from C.H.E.W.the payoff after a series of small releases brimming with promise. The groupcomprising three Orlando transplants and a front person who'd never sung in a band beforeare as brutal as they are seamless. Ben Rudolph, Russell Harrison, and Jono Giralt (the aforementioned transplants) click together with the intuitive precision of three players who know and understand one another's inner workings. Doris Jeane's raspy, mocking growl grabs listeners by the throat in confrontation and anguish.TimCrisp

DJ Rashad and his Teklife comrades poured decades of dance music into Double Cup. Its soaring vocal samples and pulsing kicks convey every emotion it's possible to feel while your sweat cools in the 4 AM air: pride, lust, anxiety, fear, ecstasy, bravado, and (by the time it concludes with "I'm Too Hi") utter intoxication. The album is haunted by the viscous trinity of highs alluded to in "Drank, Kush, Barz"ironic companions to the record's high-speed beats. Though Rashad's time with us was cut short, his legacy will live on through a lifetime of tracks, a generation of inspired producers, and the footwork masterpiece Double Cup.JackRiedy

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The best Chicago albums of the 2010s | Music Feature - Chicago Reader

In order to preserve nihilism as a meaningful concept, it's necessary to distinguish it from pessimism, cynicism, and apathy.

By: Nolen Gertz

Nihilism, not unlike time (according to Augustine) or porn (according to the U.S. Supreme Court), is one of those concepts that we are all pretty sure we know the meaning of unless someone asks us to define it. Nihil means nothing. -ism means ideology. Yet when we try to combine these terms, the combination seems to immediately refute itself, as the idea that nihilism is the ideology of nothing appears to be nonsensical. To say that this means that someone believes in nothing is not really much more helpful, as believing in something suggests there is something to be believed in, but if that something is nothing, then there is not something to be believed in, in which case believing in nothing is again a self-refuting idea.

It is easy therefore to fall into the trap of thinking Everything is nihilism! which of course leads to thinking Nothing is nihilism! Thus in order to preserve nihilism as a meaningful concept, it is necessary to distinguish it from concepts that are often associated with it but are nevertheless different, concepts such as pessimism, cynicism, and apathy.

If optimism is hopefulness, then pessimism is hopelessness. To be a pessimist is to say, Whats the point? Pessimism is often likened to a Glass is half empty way of seeing the world, but since its only half empty this scenario might still be too hopeful for a pessimist. A better scenario might be that, if a pessimist fell in a well, and someone offered to rescue him, hed likely respond, Why bother? In the well, out of the well, were all going to die anyway. In other words, pessimism is dark and depressing. But it is not nihilism.

If a pessimist fell in a well, and someone offered to rescue him, hed likely respond, Why bother? In the well, out of the well, were all going to die anyway.

In fact, we might even go so far as to say that pessimism is the opposite of nihilism. Like nihilism, pessimism could be seen as arising from despair. The fact of our death, the frustration of our desires, the unintended consequences of our actions, the tweets of our political leaders, any or all of these could lead us to either nihilism or pessimism. However, where these two roads diverge is over the question of whether we dwell on our despair or hide from it.

To be with a pessimist is to know that you are with a pessimist. But you can be with a nihilist and have no idea. Indeed you could yourself be a nihilist and have no idea. Such a lack of awareness is the point of nihilism, as nihilism is all about hiding from despair rather than dwelling on it. This difference was illustrated by Woody Allen in his movie Annie Hall (1977) when his alter ego Alvy Singer has the following exchange with a couple he stops on the street for advice:

ALVY (He moves up the sidewalk to a young trendy-looking couple, arms wrapped around each other): You-you look like a really happy couple. Uh, uh are you?

YOUNG WOMAN: Yeah.

ALVY: Yeah! So h-h-how do you account for it?

YOUNG WOMAN: Uh, Im very shallow and empty and I have no ideas and nothing interesting to say.

YOUNG MAN: And Im exactly the same way.

ALVY: I see. Well, thats very interesting. So youve managed to work out something, huh?

YOUNG MAN: Right.

Alvy Singer is a pessimist. The man and woman are nihilists.

What is most illuminating about this scene is that it shows how a pessimist can reveal the identity of a nihilist, just as it might be argued that the pessimism of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer helped reveal to Nietzsche his own nihilism. Before they are confronted by Alvy, they are just a happily shallow and happily empty couple. However, when he asks them to explain their happiness, they are no longer shallow and empty; they are instead forced to awaken from their reverie and to become self-aware. It is not that they are happy that reveals their nihilism; rather it is their attempt to explain to a pessimist why they are happy that reveals their nihilism. On the surface, they are soul mates who have found each other. But surface is all that they are. The attempt to go any deeper reveals that there is nothing deeper. And it is precisely a pessimist who, when confronted with such a happy couple, would ask the Why? that reveals their nothingness.

If, as I suggested earlier, nihilism and pessimism are opposites, then nihilism is actually much closer to optimism. To see the glass as half full is to think that we should be happy with what we have rather than focusing on what is missing. But being happy with what we have can also be a way of remaining complacent, of ignoring what is missing so as to avoid having to seek change. Similarly, to believe that everything will work out in the end, that there is always light at the end of the tunnel, is to believe that life is teleological, that there is some goal or purpose whether God or Justice operating invisibly behind what we experience.

It is by believing in the existence of superhuman goals and superhuman purposes that we lose sight of human goals and human purposes. Likewise, when we elevate someone like Martin Luther King Jr. to the status of a saint or a prophet, we see him as more than a mere mortal, thus freeing ourselves from the responsibility of trying to emulate him since we simply have to be hopeful that someone like him will come again. If optimism leads us to be complacent, leads us to wait for something good to happen, or for someone else to make something good happen, then optimism leads us to do nothing. In other words, it is not pessimism but optimism that is similar to nihilism.

In Ancient Greece, a Cynic was someone who lived like a dog (the Greek kynikos means doglike), or, to be more precise, was someone who lived by the Cynic philosophy of staying true to nature rather than conforming to what that person saw as social artifice. Today, a cynic is similarly someone who looks down on society and sees it as fake, though not because the cynic sees society as unnatural, but because the cynic sees the people who make up society as fake. To be cynical is to assume the worst of people, to think that morality is mere pretense, and to suppose that even when people seem to be helping others they are really only trying to help themselves. Believing in only self-interest, the cynic appears to others to believe in nothing. Consequently, cynicism can appear to be nihilism. But it is not nihilism.

A cynic can even enjoy life. In particular, a cynic can take pleasure in mocking those who claim that altruism exists, or that politicians are self-sacrificing public servants, and especially finds laughable the idea that we should try to see the good in people.

Cynicism, like pessimism, is about negativity. However, whereas pessimism is about despair, about the feeling that life is pointless in the face of death, cynicism is instead much more about disdain than despair. A cynic wouldnt say that life is pointless but would just say that what people claim about life is pointless. A cynic can even enjoy life. In particular, a cynic can take pleasure in mocking those who claim that altruism exists, or that politicians are self-sacrificing public servants, and especially finds laughable the idea that we should try to see the good in people.

Pessimists are not nihilists because pessimists embrace rather than evade despair. Cynics are not nihilists because cynics embrace rather than evade mendacity. A key part of evading despair is the willingness to believe, to believe that people can be good, that goodness is rewarded, and that such rewards can exist even if we do not experience them. But to a cynic such a willingness to believe is a willingness to be naive, to be gullible, and to be manipulated. The cynic mocks such beliefs not because the cynic claims to know that such beliefs are necessarily false, but because the cynic is aware of the danger represented by people who claim to know that such beliefs are necessarily true.

A skeptic waits for evidence before passing judgment. A cynic, however, does not trust evidence because the cynic does not trust that anyone is capable of providing evidence objectively.

A skeptic waits for evidence before passing judgment. A cynic, however, does not trust evidence because the cynic does not trust that anyone is capable of providing evidence objectively. The cynic would prefer to remain dubious than risk being duped, and thus the cynic sees those who do take such risks as dupes. For this reason the cynic is able to reveal the nihilism of others by challenging people to defend their lack of cynicism, much like how the pessimist reveals the nihilism of others by challenging people to defend their lack of pessimism.

Perhaps the best example of the revelatory abilities of a cynic is the argument between Thrasymachus and Socrates in the opening book of Platos Republic. Thrasymachus is first introduced as mocking Socrates for questioning others about the definition of justice and then demands that he be paid in order to tell them what justice truly is. Once appeased, Thrasymachus defines justice as a trick invented by the strong in order to take advantage of the weak, as a way for the strong to seize power by manipulating society into believing that obedience is justice. Thrasymachus further argues that whenever possible people do what is unjust, except when they are too afraid of being caught and punished, and thus Thrasymachus concludes that injustice is better than justice.

When Socrates attempts to refute this definition by likening political leaders to doctors, to those who have power but use it to help others rather than to help themselves, Thrasymachus does not accept the refutation like the others do, but instead refutes Socratess refutation. Thrasymachus accuses Socrates of being naive and argues that Socrates is like a sheep who thinks the shepherd who protects and feeds the sheep does so because the shepherd is good rather than realizing that the shepherd is fattening them for the slaughter. Socrates is never able to truly convince Thrasymachus that his definition of justice is wrong, and indeed Thrasymachuss cynicism is so compelling that Socrates spends the rest of the Republic trying to prove that justice is better than injustice by trying to refute the apparent success of unjust people by making metaphysical claims about the effects of injustice on the soul. Socrates is thus only able to counter cynicism in the visible world through faith in the existence of an invisible world, an invisible world that he argues is more real than the visible world. In other words, it is Thrasymachuss cynicism that forces Socrates to reveal his nihilism.

Here we can see that nihilism is actually much more closely related to idealism than to cynicism. The cynic presents himself or herself as a realist, as someone who cares about actions, not intentions, who focuses on what people do rather than on what people hope to achieve, who remembers the failed promises of the past in order to avoid being swept up in the not-yet-failed promises about the future. The idealist, however, rejects cynicism as hopelessly negative. By focusing on intentions, on hopes, and on the future, the idealist is able to provide a positive vision to oppose the negativity of the cynic. But in rejecting cynicism, does the idealist also reject reality?

Nihilism is actually much more closely related to idealism than to cynicism.

The idealist, as we saw with Socrates, is not able to challenge the cynics view of reality and instead is forced to construct an alternate reality, a reality of ideas. These ideas may form a coherent logical story about reality, but that in no way guarantees that the ideas are anything more than just a story. As the idealist focuses more and more on how reality ought to be, the idealist becomes less and less concerned with how reality is. The utopian views of the idealist may be more compelling than the dystopian views of the cynic, but dystopian views are at least focused on this world, whereas utopian views are, by definition, focused on a world that does not exist. It is for this reason that to use other-worldly idealism to refute this-worldly cynicism is to engage in nihilism.

Along with pessimism and cynicism, nihilism is also frequently associated with apathy. To be apathetic is to be without pathos, to be without feeling, to be without desire. While we are all occasionally given choices that do not particularly sway us one way or another (Do you want to eat Italian or Chinese?), such disinterestedness is what someone who is apathetic feels all the time. To be apathetic is thus to be seen as not caring about anything. The pessimist feels despair, the cynic feels disdain, but the apathetic individual feels nothing. In other words, apathy is seen as nihilism. But apathy is not nihilism.

The pessimist feels despair, the cynic feels disdain, but the apathetic individual feels nothing.

Apathy can be an attitude (I dont care about that) or a character trait (I dont care about anything). However, in either case the apathetic individual is expressing a personal feeling (or, to be more precise, feelinglessness) and is not making a claim about how everyone should feel (or, again, not feel). The apathetic individual understands perfectly well that other people feel differently insofar as they feel anything at all. And because the apathetic individual feels nothing, the apathetic individual does not feel any desire to convince others that they should similarly feel nothing. Others may care, but the apathetic individual does not, and because they do not care, the apathetic individual does not care that others care.

Yet apathy is still often seen as an affront, as an insult, as a rebuke by those who do care. For example, in MTVs Daria (19972002) a show about a highly apathetic high schooler Daria Morgendorffer and her friend Jane Lane have the following conversation:

DARIA: Tragedy hits the school and everyone thinks of me. A popular guy died, and now Im popular because Im the misery chick. But Im not miserable. Im just not like them.

JANE: It really makes you think.

DARIA: Funny. Thanks a lot.

JANE: No! Thats why they want to talk to you. When they say, Youre always unhappy, Daria, what they mean is, You think, Daria. I can tell because you dont smile. Now this guy died and it makes me think and that hurts my little head and makes me stop smiling. So, tell me how you cope with thinking all the time, Daria, until I can get back to my normal vegetable state.

DARIA: Okay. So why have you been avoiding me?

JANE: Because Ive been trying not to think.

The apathetic individual can thus, like the pessimist and the cynic, reveal the nihilism of others, though, unlike the pessimist and the cynic, the apathetic individual does this without actually trying to. Whereas the pessimist and the cynic challenge others to explain their lack of either pessimism or cynicism, the apathetic individual is instead the one who is challenged, challenged by others to explain his or her lack of pathos. In trying to get the apathetic individual to care, the person who does care is forced to explain why he or she cares, an explanation which can reveal just how meaningful (or meaningless) is the reason the person has for caring.

The apathetic individual doesnt care. However, not caring is not the same thing as caring about nothing. The apathetic individual feels nothing. But the nihilist has feelings. Its just that what the nihilist has feelings for is itself nothing. And indeed it is because the nihilist is able to have such strong feelings, strong feelings for something that is nothing, that the nihilist is not and cannot be apathetic. Nihilists can have sympathy, empathy, and antipathy, but they cannot have apathy.

Not caring is not the same thing as caring about nothing. The apathetic individual feels nothing. But the nihilist has feelings.

Nietzsche tried to demonstrate the feelings at work in nihilism in his argument against what he called the morality of pity. The morality of pity holds that it is good to feel pity for those who are in need, and it is especially good to be moved by such pity to help those who are in need. But, according to Nietzsche, what is often motivating the desire to help is how we are able to see ourselves thanks to how we see others in need, in particular how we see ourselves as capable of helping, as powerful enough to help.

The morality of pity is for Nietzsche not about helping others, but about elevating oneself by reducing others, by reducing others to their neediness, to a neediness that we do not have and that reveals how much we do have by contrast. Pity is nihilistic insofar as it allows us to evade reality, such as by allowing us to feel that we are better than we are, and that we are better than those in need. Consequently, we are able to avoid recognizing that we have perhaps only had better luck or have been more privileged.

The morality of pity drives us to feel pity and to feel good for feeling pity. Having such feelings is worse than feeling nothing, for if we feel good when we feel pity, then we are motivated only to help the individuals we feel pity for rather than to help end the systemic injustices that create such pitiful situations in the first place. Whereas apathy may help us to avoid being blinded by our emotions and to see situations of injustice more clearly, pity is instead more likely to motivate us to perpetuate injustice by perpetuating the conditions that allow us to help the needy, that allow us to see ourselves as good for helping those we see only as needy.

This is not to suggest, however, that we should try to achieve apathy, that we should try to will ourselves to feel nothing. Popular versions of Stoicism and of Buddhism advocate for calmness, for detachment, for trying to not feel what we feel. To force oneself to become apathetic is nihilistic, as to do so is to evade our feelings rather than to confront them. There is thus an important difference between being apathetic and becoming apathetic, between being indifferent because that is how one responds to the world and becoming indifferent because we want to be liberated from our feelings and attachments. Similarly, to become detached, not because of Stoicism or Buddhism, but because of hipsterism, is still to try to detach oneself from oneself, from life, from reality. So pursuing irony can be just as nihilistic as pursuing apatheia or nirvana.

Nolen Gertz is Assistant Professor of Applied Philosophy at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, and author of Nihilism, from which this article is excerpted.

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What Nihilism Is Not - The MIT Press Reader

This may have just gotten lost in our Christmas shuffle, but we could have sworn Sea Girls had a show planned in Allston last month, one that apparently dropped off the calendar before we had a chance to swing down the holiday lights off Harvard Avenue. Were bummed about that, but quickly put at ease as the UK alt-rock band continue to provide a steady stream of radio-ready anthems, this time coming correct with the electric Ready For More.

The new track follows Septembers Violet and serves as a taste of Sea Girls forthcoming LP Under Exit Lights, set for release March 6 via Polydor.

Ready For More is the bad apple of the EP, says Sea Girls singer Henry Camamile. It looks and sounds sweet, but its basically staring into this abyss of nihilistic behavior and being scared that I couldnt change it. This song practically embraces the slippery slope I was on.

Sea Girls, named by its members after a misheard Nick Cave lyric, are poised for a wild 2020 breakout. Ready For More? You fucking bet.

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Sea Girls face the slippery slope of nihilism on 'Ready For More' - Vanyaland

Why does every waiter act like they needs to explain how menus work now? Theyre menus. Appetizers up top, desserts at the bottom. We get it. That topic and more are covered in our interview with Avenue 5's Zach Woods and Rebecca Front, above. On Armando Iannuccis new farce, premiering this weekend on HBO, the pair play against each other as a nihilist customer service representative and a busybody passenger, both of whom are now stuck on what amounts to a damaged cruise ship languishing in space. Its a great premise for the two to play with, especially since theyre both veterans of the Iannucci-verse. In the clip above, the pair talk about their relationship with Arm, as Woods calls him, and well as who theyd ultimately find themselves becoming if they were trapped with strangers for the foreseeable future.

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Avenue 5's Zach Woods and Rebecca Front on nihilism and pet peeves - The A.V. Club

Fifty years after Samuel Beckett won the Nobel Prize in Literature, newly opened archives reveal the serious doubts the Nobel committee had about giving the award to an author they felt held a bottomless contempt for the human condition.

Announcing that the Irishman had won the laureateship in 1969, the Swedish Academy praised his writing, which in new forms for the novel and drama in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation.

But with Nobel archives being made public only after five decades, documents have now revealed there were major disagreements within the Swedish Academy over the choice of the Waiting for Godot author. According to Svenska Dagbladet, the split was between Beckett and French writer Andr Malraux, with other nominations including Simone de Beauvoir, Jorge Luis Borges, Pablo Neruda and Graham Greene.

Four members of the committee supported Beckett and two backed Malraux, with the primary objections to Beckett coming from the Nobel committees chairman, Anders sterling, who had campaigned against the playwright for years. sterling questioned whether writing of a demonstratively negative or nihilistic nature like Becketts corresponded to the intention laid out in Alfred Nobels will, to reward the person who, in the field of literature, produced the most outstanding work in an idealistic direction.

While sterling acknowledged the possibility that behind Becketts depressing motives might lie a secret defence of humanity, but in the eyes of most readers, he said, it remains an artistically staged ghost poetry, characterised by a bottomless contempt for the human condition.

But Becketts main supporter on the committee, Karl Ragnar Gierow, felt that Becketts black vision was not the expression of animosity and nihilism. Beckett, he argued, portrays humanity as we have all seen it, at the moment of its most severe violation, and searches for the depths of degradation because, even there, there is the possibility of rehabilitation.

Beckett was rejected for the prize a year earlier, in 1968, but a year later his champions won out. sterling did not give the speech presenting him with the award. That was done by Gierow, who expanded on the arguments he made to the committee, saying that Becketts work goes to the depths because it is only there that pessimistic thought and poetry can work their miracles. What does one get when a negative is printed? A positive, a clarification, with black proving to be the light of day, the parts in deepest shade those which reflect the light source.

Beckett himself accepted the prize, but he did not come to Stockholm to receive it, or give the traditional winners lecture. And the division among the jury remained secret for half a century unlike today, when the split over the decision to award the 2019 prize to the Austrian writer Peter Handke prompted the boycott of the ceremony by Peter Englund, the former permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, and further resignations. Guardian

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Revealed: The fight to stop Samuel Beckett winning the Nobel prize - The Irish Times

Broadway seems to get a new jukebox musical every few months: There are ersatz Chers and Tina Turners and Carole Kings and Jersey Boys all over Times Square. Still, there was something a little shocking about the very idea of Jagged Little Pill, the new jukebox musical based on Alanis Morissettes seminal 1994 album that premiered on Broadway in December. Jukebox musicals, surely, were for nostalgic baby boomers with tourist money to burn. They can be well executed, but traditionally they are painfully sincere hagiographies that wedge their songs into their subjects lives with much, too much, literalism. So what was Alanis, the poster girl for Gen Xs ironic nihilism, doing on Broadway?

Then Jagged Little Pill opened in Boston in 2018, and the rumors began: As jukebox musicals go, the early buzz whispered, Jagged Little Pill was actually not that bad. It had some astonishing performances. It had fixed the jukebox musical.

Part of what made Jagged Little Pill so exciting, according to those early out-of-town reviews, was that it eschewed the traditional biographical jukebox musical plot (And then they said I shouldnt be myself, but I was! And then I won a thousand Grammys! is usually how you can summarize a typical plot.)

Instead, first-time playwright Diablo Codys book tells the story of a suburban family caught in contemporary malaise. Perfect mother Mary Jane (Elizabeth Stanley) is drowning under the weight of keeping up appearances, and shes become dependent on opioids. Shes also struggling to connect to her daughter Frankie (Celia Rose Gooding), a committed activist who sings to Mary Jane that shes frustrated by your apathy. But both Mary Jane and Frankie have to reconsider their understanding of each other after Frankies classmate Bella (Kathryn Gallagher) is raped at a party.

Its still rare and unusual for a jukebox musical to have an original plot not focused on the artist themselves, so for many critics, Codys involvement was already an enormous step forward for the genre. But after the show moved to New York and was met with initial raves, a counternarrative began. For some critics, Codys book was the shows weak link that let down Morissettes music, a shaky and contrived mess of confusion and occasional silliness.

One month after the shows Broadway debut, the conversation about whether Jagged Little Pill is worth swallowing has calmed down a little. So Vox culture writers Constance Grady and Aja Romano decided to take this time to talk through Jagged Little Pill and the problems of the jukebox musical. What makes them work, what makes them not and is this particular musical any good or not?

Constance: In the month and change that Jagged Little Pill has been out, weve had time for a rough consensus on the show to develop among critics, and it goes a little something like this: The performances are brilliant, but the book is overstuffed at best and a shapeless mess at worst. Where you fall on the musical overall seems to depend upon which aspect of the show youre willing to give the most weight to.

Ill put my cards on the table. I think Jagged Little Pill is a mess, and I love it with my whole heart. I had a blast at this show. I laughed, I cried, I cheered. I have only a glancing acquaintance with Alaniss original album (I was slightly too young and way too uncool to listen to Jagged Little Pill very much in the 90s), but the music is so undeniable, and the young cast so strong, that it was easy for me to let myself get swept away by everything that was happening onstage.

Like, try to sit there while Lauren Pattens heartbroken Jo absolutely shreds You Oughta Know and not start screaming with catharsis. You cant! Its physically impossible! Thats why the show has to stop dead for a standing ovation every night as soon as shes finished.

On the other hand, I have to acknowledge that this show suffers from the standard jukebox musical problem of forcing its characters into position to sing a particular song. And because this particular example is trying to do so much at once, giving every single character a disconnected subplot of their own, it doesnt quite have time to pay off the tensions its songs set up.

You Oughta Know is a bit of a case study in this problem. An Alanis musical absolutely has to have someone sing You Oughta Know, because its one of her best and biggest hits. To set up the song, the show puts together a love triangle, so we see Frankie become torn between her girlfriend Jo and new kid Phoenix. But at the same time, the main concerns of Jagged Little Pill as a play are Mary Janes opioid addiction and the ripple effects from Bellas rape, and it really doesnt have time to make the love triangle feel like anything more than an afterthought.

The aims of this show as a jukebox musical and the aims of this show as an original musical are at odds, and as a result, its center of gravity is warped. This giant showstopper of a number is embedded in the slightest and weakest arc of the show. And the only conclusion Jo gets after the heartbreak and rage of You Oughta Know is half a verse in the finale, which is a pretty weak conclusion.

Having said all that, I actually think that as far as this genre goes, Diablo Codys much-maligned book is pretty solid. If nothing else, Cody managed to people the cast with characters who all have different personalities, but who all believably feel like they are the kind of person who would break into an Alanis Morissette song if given the chance. Thats such a monumental achievement for a jukebox musical that I have to give her props for it.

Aja, where do you fall on Jagged Little Pill? Does the critical consensus feel correct to you? And do you love it in spite of the structure or hate it because of it?

Aja: Ill be very upfront and say that I grew up with an unshakeable, nay, zealous, faith in the thoroughly integrated book musical, whose songs evolve organically from the book and the characters. So the last two decades of musical theater have been pretty fraught for me, because I deeply resent the rise of the jukebox musical. Its a regression in form! Its everything Broadway aspired for decades to evolve beyond, now wrapped in a fancy marketing package as a cheap trick to get people into theaters! Its cheating, Constance!

So, with all that said, I really do appreciate the spirit of Jagged Little Pill. Its aims are pure, its ambitions are to become a real musical, and Im mostly in its corner. The creative team understands that you just shouldnt treat Morissettes music like that in any other pop biopic. Most jukebox musical scores are light even if the subjects are serious, but Alaniss music is raw emotion. Its the classic Gen X mix of depression and angst, infused with societal malaise and a touch of addiction.

Even its upbeat moments veer into neurotic, manic, difficult. JLP really couldnt ever be a jukebox musical in that sense, because whos actually gonna play Alanis on a jukebox? You play Alanis while screaming into your pillow at 3 am over a dirty breakup. You play Alanis while eye-rolling at each other about how ironically self-aware youre being about playing Alanis a move the musical itself parodies, in a scene meant purely to lampoon the cultural reaction to Ironic.

But the fact that Im talking about how a musical is breaking the fourth wall to answer the longstanding cultural perceptions about one of its songs is part of the inherent problems you run into with musicals like this one. You have to work much harder to create characters the audience cares about as much as the songs themselves, and especially to get those characters to fit the situations prescribed by those songs.

You Oughta Know is one of the most glaring examples of this, because this song is meant to be the shows climactic showstopper, but it just doesnt fit. You Oughta Know is full of the kind of deep bitterness that results from a relationship thats lasted years, not the uncertain, relatively new relationship its assigned to onstage.

Lauren Patten acts the hell out of Jo who I read as emphatically nonbinary, FWIW and she also gets one of the shows other big numbers, One Hand In My Pocket. But her role is frustrating, because even though shes one of the most compelling actors onstage, shes working hard to fill a very thinly written part. Remember, Jo is the strongest leg in that ultimately weak love triangle Constance mentioned, and the character seems to have been created just to deliver strong (low-key queer) anthems, not to do much of anything else.

We barely get glimpses of her life outside their relationship with Frankie, and we really dont even understand that relationship before it starts falling apart. Ultimately, the contrast between these giant, overly emotive songs and such an underwritten part just highlights just how lacking so much of the book is. (Next time, just make the whole musical about the misfit genderqueer kid! Done!)

Diablo Codys book is overstuffed with too many social issues and too many characters, and its really obvious that much of this bloat is about finding ways to shoehorn in all the Alanis songs you know, whether or not they make sense and fit the plot or its characters.

Head Over Feet bizarrely gets split between two couples at once, as an attempt to give our main character, Mary Jane (Elizabeth Stanley), some backstory with her husband. Only this random nostalgia break abruptly happens in the middle of a bitter couples therapy session, where its placement makes no sense. Similarly, turning Ironic into a purely throwaway meta-number seems like a wasted opportunity, but thats what happens when youre trying to match characters to songs instead of letting songs grow out of character.

Additionally, Tom Kitt of the Pulitzer-winning Next to Normal did the orchestrations and arrangements for JLP, and I felt like Next to Normal heavily influenced this show in spirit without influencing its approach to characterization and story structure so I felt the ghostly imprint of a much better show about family dysfunction bleeding through at every turn.

Even so, theres a lot to like about JLP. The staging and choreography, together with the additional music by Glen Ballard (Morissettes co-writer and Jagged Little Pills original album producer) and Kitt are all fantastic and full of pulsing energy and heart. Even though the characters are all little more than ciphers, Mary Jane in particular is the classic unlikeable Diablo Cody protagonist. Shes really hard to take until she becomes almost heartbreakingly vulnerable, and Elizabeth Stanley really nails that performance.

I wasnt as moved as other audience members were by the scene where Uninvited invites us into the darkness in her head, but boy did I appreciate it as a way of drawing out that songs complex, layered meanings, and as a way of elevating the jukebox musical itself. If we have to have jukebox musicals, and it seems we must, Id rather have a dozen Jagged Little Pills that dont quite work than a dozen blander, frothier musicals that do.

Constance: I absolutely agree on Jagged Little Pills massive ambitions, and I think youre correct, Aja, that they are both its saving grace and one of its biggest problems. We can see this basic paradox not only formally but also thematically, because whoa, boy, does this musical have ambitions of handling a lot of different social and political themes. And it honestly only really has space for maaaaaaaaybe one and a half of them.

Most obviously, this is a musical about the opioid addiction crisis. Frankies mom Mary Jane is addicted to pills, and over the course of the show, we delve into Mary Janes addiction, its roots, and all the ways its begun to warp her ostensibly perfect suburban mom life. That plotline works nicely, I think: Smiling in particular, in which we see a disoriented and alienated Mary Jane going backwards through her days routine, really succeeds at making Alaniss music feel fresh and new and character-based, is staged in an inventive and effective way, and is also genuinely moving.

Weve also got the date rape plotline, which I would say is handled in a way that feels basically fine. Sure, some of the protest scenes are a little cringe-inducingly earnest, and yes, songs like Predator and No get extremely literal interpretations (Predator can more or less survive it; No cant). Still, Codys book gets nicely nuanced in the way she talks through the concerns here, especially when it comes to who believes whom and why. The plotline plays into Mary Janes addiction story in a thoughtful way. And Kathryn Gallagher gives a really grounded, smart performance as Bella throughout this subplot.

And then, sort of stuffed into the corners of the play, weve got Frankies political activism, and that just does not work at all. This plotline seems to want to cover basically all the progressive causes du jour, including climate change and, in a very bizarrely weighted moment, school gun violence.

Theres also the barely-sketched-in subplot of Frankies angst as a black girl adopted by a very white family, plus the sexual politics of her queer love triangle between Jo and Phoenix. Those issues are just kind of there. They take up space, they inspire some extremely energetic rage-dancing but theres no room for the show to explore them as fully as they deserve. It begins to feel as though its just going through a checklist of issues for the wokeness street cred, rather than caring about those issues for their own sake.

Aja: And that is, wait for it, the ultimate irony of Jagged Little Pill: The show doesnt care enough about any of the issues its cycling through to make them meaningful when the whole point of the Jagged Little Pill album is the terror of caring too much.

Alaniss album was an instant legend in part because it captured the zeitgeist of a generation that had turned toward ironic detachment to cope with the lack of control they felt over the world and their own lives. Alaniss songs explicitly voiced the terror and anxiety of letting yourself care for anything at the end of a century in a culture increasingly veering towards nihilism. Her lyrics embraced her own neuroses and the power of her own bitterness in ways that also enhanced and amplified her hesitant, constantly-deflected shows of genuine affection and positive emotion. They made us feel how hard it is to love and care for anything.

And look, everyone knows that a suburban nuclear family is always a deceptively idyllic allegory for larger societal disquiet, right? Thats the trope. But when we look at the vast pantheon of stories that use this trope, too often suburban malaise itself is treated as the problem and not a symptom of something larger.

I think thats the basic mistake Cody makes here: She treats most of her characters like theyve been inducted by default into the national suburban burnout epidemic, and thats the reason theyre all in individually self-absorbed hazes that keep them from connecting to each other or even listening to each other half the time. (On that front, I also think her storyline is strangely non-critical of the male members of our family, who both are actively dismissive of the pain of the women in their lives until they magically arent anymore, in ways that arent really fully examined or dealt with.)

These characters are performing their default identities, both individual and collective, and hitting their trope marks so they can get into position to sing their big Alanis number: the angry adopted child rebelling through feminism; the overworked absent dad who resents his depressed wife for not making him feel loved; the all-American jock who implodes under the pressure of getting into a top school by going to a dangerous high school party. It all feels perfunctory. But a cast full of characters truly inspired by Alanis Morissette would be fighting with themselves every step of the way about where they wanted to go, and why, and why theyre even this invested when its clear nothing matters at all.

Jagged Little Pill, the album, isnt about characters performing simulacrums of humanity while being stuck in a bucolic modern hell: Its about characters loudly and angrily trying to fight through that malaise to something better and more authentic. But here the characters struggles collectively feel far more performative than sincere. In a musical full of fight songs, theres very little fight at all.

More here:

How Broadways Jagged Little Pill tries to reinvent the jukebox musical - Vox.com

Democrats are trying to choose a candidate to beat Donald Trump, the most corrupt president in history. Some think nominating Joe Biden, a moderate white man who calls himself Middle Class Joe, makes sense.

But Biden has a big corruption problem and it makes him a weak candidate. I know it seems crazy, but a lot of the voters we need independents and people who might stay home will look at Biden and Trump and say: Theyre all dirty.

It looks like Middle Class Joe has perfected the art of taking big contributions, then representing his corporate donors at the cost of middle- and working-class Americans. Converting campaign contributions into legislative favors and policy positions isnt being moderate. It is the kind of transactional politics Americans have come to loathe.

There are three clear examples.

First, Bidens support for finance over working-class Americans. His career was bankrolled by the credit card industry. He delivered for it by spearheading a bankruptcy bill that made it harder for Americans to reduce their debts and helped cause the financial crisis. He not only authored and voted for that bill, he split with Barack Obama and led the battle to vote down Democratic amendments.

His explanations for carrying water for the credit card industry have changed over time. They have never rung true.

Nominating a candidate like Biden will make it far more difficult to defeat Trump

The simplest explanation is the most likely: he did it for his donors. At a fundraiser last year, Biden promised his Wall Street donors that nothing would fundamentally change for them if he became president. Now the financial world is raising huge money for his campaign. It clearly thinks hes going to be its friend if elected. Most Americans, who get ripped off by the financial sector on a daily basis, arent looking for a candidate who has made their life harder.

Second, healthcare. On 25 April, the day he announced his campaign, Biden went straight to a fundraiser co-hosted by the chief executive of a major health insurance corporation. He refuses to sign a pledge to reject money from insurance and pharma execs and continues to raise money from healthcare industry donors. His campaign is being bankrolled by a super Pac run by healthcare lobbyists.

What did all these donors get? A healthcare proposal that preserves the power of the insurance industry and leaves 10 million Americans uninsured.

Third, climate change. Biden signed a pledge not to take money from the fossil fuel industry, then broke his promise. Right after a CNN town hall on climate change, he held a fundraiser hosted by the founder of a fossil fuel conglomerate. He is pushing climate policy that has gotten dismal reviews from several leading environmental groups.

There are plenty of other examples that raise questions, like housing and social security. Big real estate moguls are playing a major role in Bidens campaign. Unlike his rivals, he has no comprehensive housing plan. When he pushed for cuts to Social Security, was he serving donors or his constituents?

I can already hear the howls: But look at Trump! Trump is 1,000 times worse!

You dont need to convince me. I have spent my life writing about and fighting against corruption, and in America I have never seen anything like the current administration. In the last three years, I have made combatting Trumps corruption the heart of my work.

I was on the first lawsuit against him for corrupt constitutional violations and I ran for attorney general in New York on a platform of pointing out just how dangerous he is, and how important unused state laws are to stopping him. My work on corruption was cited in the House judiciary committees report on impeachment.

2020 should be about a crystal clear contrast between truth and lies, corruption and integrity, compassion and cruelty

But heres the thing: nominating a candidate like Biden will make it far more difficult to defeat Trump. It will allow Trump to muddy the water, to once again pretend he is the one draining the swamp, running against Washington culture. Trump and the Cambridge Analytica of 2020 will campaign, as they did in 2016, on a message of radical nihilism: everybody lies, everybody is corrupt, nothing matters, there is no truth.

Corrupt politicians always use whataboutism. With Biden, we are basically handing Trump a whataboutism playbook. The comparison wont be fair, but if you think he wont use Bidens closeness to donors as a cudgel to try to keep people home, you havent been paying attention. Unlike Democrats, who must give voters a reason to come out, Trump doesnt need voters to love him. He just needs to convince people the whole game is ugly.

Whether or not Biden is making choices to please donors, there is no doubt his record represents the transactional, grossly corrupt culture in Washington that long precedes Trump. We cannot allow Trump to so lower our standards that we arent even allowed to call out that culture, which has not only stymied progress but also harmed the Democratic party.

The good news is that we still have time to break with this culture of corruption. We dont have to choose Bidens way, which would give Trump a perfect foil. The 2020 election should be about a crystal clear contrast between truth and lies, corruption and integrity, compassion and cruelty.

We have a rare opportunity to end a larger culture of corruption and we should take it we will regret it if we dont.

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Middle Class Joe Biden has a corruption problem it makes him a weak candidate - The Guardian

JNU professors during a protest organised by the teacher's Association of JNU against the resignation of Vice-Chancellor, outside the School of International Studies in New Delhi Image Credit: ANI

It was the autumn of 1994. The campus of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on the southern fringes of New Delhi was abuzz with just one thing: The plague scare that had created quite a panic in the western and northern parts of India. JNU wasnt immune to the perceived threat of a looming epidemic and the university authorities declared a weeks holiday.

In the midst of all the chaos over whether one should leave the campus or stay put, one batchmate of mine at the School of Languages had a very innocuous query for one of the senior students in the School for Social Sciences: How serious is the plague threat? Pat came the reply I can only talk about the political angle of plague leaving the questioner befuddled.

My first brush with campus agitation was barely within a few days after I joined the university, when I saw a bunch of students skipping lunch to attend a demonstration outside the vice-chancellors office, demanding sufficient hostel rooms.

Later that day, as dinner was served at the mess in Narmada Hostel, where I was a resident, cyclostyled pamphlets being distributed among students caught my attention. A closer look revealed a charter of demands from a Left-leaning students outfit, asking the World Bank and United States to refrain from their pro-corporate and anti-proletarian policies towards the Third World.

Hyper-sensitive culture

In a nutshell, that has always been the JNU story. Scarcely will one come across an educational institution in India that is politically so active, aware and sensitive. And the best part of this hyper-sensitive political culture, so to speak, was the fact that every single voice, every single shred of opinion was allowed unfettered space and attention without fear or favour.

A JNU Students Union election was the best example of this inclusive atmosphere where two students JNUSU presidential candidates for two different students outfits propounding two opposing views in a fiercely fought presidential debate, would finally be seen having a good laugh at each other over steaming cups of tea and plates of bread-pakoda (a light snack) at the iconic Ganga Dhaba in the middle of the night.

And on the night the ballots were counted in multiple rooms on the first floor of the Administrative Block, or Ad Block in popular JNU parlance, groups of students from rival outfits would sit together in huddles in the courtyard and share their anxiety over cups of tea or coffee as the late-autumn night would progress.

There was political rivalry in JNU; there was a point-counterpoint contour to academics in JNU that went far beyond pedagogy; there was a clash of ideologies among a section of students in JNU the list is long. But there was never an eye-for-an-eye brand of nihilism among a section of JNUites as I presume exists today.

Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined students and faculty being chased around by masked iron rod- and hockey stick-wielding goons. Never ever could I have imagined blood-soaked faces of members of rival student groups spewing venom at each other on social media.

Rival factions

One major reason why JNU managed to maintain a sense of decorum and sanity amid its super-charged political milieu is the fact that Left-leaning ideology always held sway over campus life in general and its political climate in particular. The rival factions would most often be aligned to Leftist thought, thereby acting as a foil to one another.

Battleground JNU was primarily dominated by either All India Students Association (Aisa) or Students Federation of India (SFI) the former affiliated with the ultra-Left Communist Party of India Liberation and the latter being the students wing of the Communist Party of India-Marxist. Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarathi Parishad, which owes its allegiance to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and National Students Union of India, the students wing of the Congress, were largely bit-players in this amphitheatre.

And SFI, in particular, with its moderate and more nuanced approach to socio-political issues, served as a perfect antidote to the Aisa brand of gung-ho scepticism, whereby, even the slightest hint of nihilism or anarchy would be nipped in the bud not through stick-wielding outsiders or militant insiders, but through a healthy practice of debate, discussion and a majority-endorsement of views and issues.

Us vs Them

With Aisa and SFI acting as a foil to one another, there was no us-vs-them dialectics on campus. Moreover, neither did the Central Government of the day really feel any serious need to get involved with campus politics, nor did the student outfits on campus ever allow any serious disruption of the academic pursuit in order to promote their agenda.

Since the BJP came to power at the Centre in 2014, two worrying trends have coalesced. Firstly, there has undoubtedly been an attempt to saffronise campus politics by forces outside JNU. Secondly, student politics within the campus has turned increasingly disruptive even to the extent of holding academics to ransom.

If masked goons wreaking havoc in JNU is a poor commentary on the political establishment trying to co-opt intellectual space and free speech, then students trying to disrupt the registration process for new admissions, in order to press with their demand for a rollback of higher fees, is no less worrying a sign of decadence.

Time has come for political forces within and outside the campus to answer this simple question: Do they really want the name JNU to be revered and sought-after; or do they want it to be just a relic of its past glory? That shouldnt be too hard a choice to make.

The writer is a former student of the Centre for Linguistics and English at JNU. Twitter:@moumiayush

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Why the attack on JNU is hard to digest - Gulf News

It's the second single to arrive from their new record 'You Know I'm Not Going Anywhere'.

The Districts have debuted a brand new track.

Titled 'Cheap Regrets', it's the second single to arrive from their new record 'You Know I'm Not Going Anywhere', and follows up on last year's lead offering 'Hey Jo'.

Singer and guitarist Rob Grote explains: ""Cheap Regrets" is some late capitalist nihilism channeled into a Districts dance party. It's about the extremes of American culture constantly reinforcing the self. The mirror reconfirms you. It's all iPhone, selfies, and mirrors. Sell yourself baby. The consumer gets consumed. I wanted people to dance together to a song about alienation to find some collective transcendence in that."

'You Know I'm Not Going Anywhere' is set to be released on 13th March. You can check out 'Cheap Regrets' below.

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The Districts have debuted a brand new track, 'Cheap Regrets' - Dork Magazine

Sponsored by Studio 52. A community artist space located in the heart of Allston, and is proud to support the Boston music scene and local artist community.

Theres a certain freedom in acknowledging were all fragments of disposable data. Sure, weve all been slapped with an inevitable expiration date, but so has all human life since the dawn of time (and, come the information-harvesting, climate-crisis-ridden age of 2020, isnt it a relief that no one was built to last forever?) Call it cheerful nihilism, if you will.

Thats the exact lens though which Jenee Halstead chooses to view the world in her new tune Disposable Love, out today (January 17).

Disposable Love is an attempt to capture the hollowness and horror of the dark side of the digital/social media age, Halstead tells Vanyaland. Artificial Intelligence and big data serve as our new guiding principles and a compass for making sense of the world. This is a world that promises ease and accessibility, at the behest of turning over our valuable personal information. The dangers of a world driven by algorithm serves only to turn us further into consumers commodifying every human interaction and need as transaction.

Halsteads lyrics stalk her pop-rock noir melodies, eventually constricting the dampened heartbeat of this photoshopped hero wandering through the Internet age. Its morbid, yes, but its also revealing a kernel of truth.

Social media in particular plays off and takes advantage of our fundamental human needs: A desire for connection, to be informed and for recognition and relay with one another, Halstead adds. The companies behind these platforms manipulate our basest egoic nature seeking to profit off an environment steeped in voyeurism, comparison and competition. Digital devices further separate us into worlds of our of imagination, a hall of mirrors. Its lonely out there.

Fill some of the void with Halsteads new tune below, and catch her performing with Melissa Ferrick at The Burren for her single release party on Thursday (January 23).

Read the original here:

Jenee Halstead eyes the vacuum of the Internet age with 'Disposable Love' - Vanyaland

All things considered, General Muhammadu Buharis regime is an anathema. General Buhari as President, continues to govern Nigeria as a nation where the lion is led by monkeys.

Buharis attorney general of the federation Abubakar Malami, is one of the most infamous members of Buharis cabinet. Malami always search for a banana peel to step on. When he cant find one to step on, he supplies his own. While we are yet to recover from his juvenile and primitive interpretation and application of court orders that granted Omoyele Sowore and Olawale Bakare bail, he came out like a confused lost cow and declared Amotekun illegal.

Amotekun is the security outfit established by the six governors of south west states to protect lives and properties of their citizens. Amotekun was conceived and birthed due to the abysmal failure of Buharis regime to secure life and properties of Nigerians. Political science 101 informs us that any government that fails to discharge the primary function of protecting life and properties of its citizens should cease to exist.

Only cowheads like Malami, Ibrahim Babangida and other backward feudal herdsmen terrorists need be reminded that as oxygen is to life, so also Amotekun is oxygen to Yoruba people for security. Malami, from time to time, believes administration of justice should be rationed selectively to different parts of the federation. He sees the application of justice as his prerogative to dispense to the ethnic group or groups he favours or the ones his northern terrorists recommend.

Malami is the worst unintelligent and professionally crude attorney general in modern Nigerian history. Malamis ethical and professional flagrant dishonesty in handling important national legal and constitutional issues that border on rule of law, equal justice, and the upholding of the constitution, shows how crooked the justice system has become under Buhari.

At every opportunity, Malami has managed to rewrite the constitution and redefine our laws: RUGA, court orders on bail, the supremacy of SSS, the illegal detention of Nigerians. The list goes on.

Malami has installed two systems of justice in the country - one for the south and another for the north with the north as superior to the south. As far as hes concerned, the north should be treated with special favour. Few examples will suffice: the security outfits of Hisbah and JTF in the north are legal and constitutional. Whereas Amotekun in the south is illegal and unconstitutional. Miyetti Allah is legal, but IPOB is a terrorist group.

Malamis ethical nihilism, his utter indifference to ordinary norms of professional behaviour, and his prostitution of justice, spell doom for the unity and co-existence of multi ethnic, multi culture, multi religion of different groups that make up Nigeria. Malami as the arrow head of northern feudal jihadists, is carrying out the larger agenda of the northern emirates: to suppress, oppress and subdue the south and Islamise Nigeria. This is why hes so concerned about the security and safety of northerners. But when it comes to the security of life and properties in the south, hes not affected. He could care less!

Malami has insufficient intelligence experience. As a lawyer and attorney general, he lacks the strong intelligence background to serve as attorney general. He does not represent the collective view of Nigerias intelligence community that believes in a fair, objective, and impartial one justice system for different ethnic groups in the country.

Justice security are key to a united Nigeria. Without justice and security, there can be no peace. Without peace, theres no Nigeria. Malami cannot sit in the comfort of his Abuja office and decree who has the right to live, who to wipe out, who Fulani herdsmen terrorists to kill or spare, where to deploy the police, which security agencies are legal or illegal. Yorubas will defend Amotekun with their last breath. No one can stop Amotekun. Amotekun is here and here for good and for life. Malami, bring it on... or go to blazes!

Read the rest here:

Malami: Bring It On... Or Go To Blazes! By Bayo Oluwasanmi - SaharaReporters.com

French philosopher Chantal Delsol discusses the roots of de-Christianization in the West and the new challenges facing the Christian faithful.

The first post-Christian generation has officially emerged in America: According to a 2018 study, a majority of the so-called Generation Z all Americans born from 1999 to 2015 rejects the idea of a religious identity. This generation includes twice more atheists than the adult population, and 37% of them believe there cannot be any certainty of the existence of God.

This alarming tendency is already widespread in Europe, where a majority of young adults have no faith, as a recent report showed. But it didnt arise out of the blue, as it results from a long process that started in the 18th century and became dominant in the 1960s.

As this topic is subject to passionate debates in the West, French philosopher Chantal Delsol offered a stimulating reflection about the mechanisms and implications of the phenomenon during a lecture she gave at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, in the framework of a Nov. 29-30 conference promoted by the Institute for Legal CultureOrdo Iuris. Entitled The House on the Rock: Axiology of Law for the Europe of Tomorrow, the event focused on the current stakes and the future of cultural and social life in Europe.

A Catholic philosopher and columnist well-known to the European public, Delsol is the author of a number of books and articles focusing on European identity in the age of secularism and relativism and on the origin of the political and religious crisis the West is going through.

While stating that Europe has officially entered a post-Christendom era, Delsol highlighted the fact that the end of Christendom by no means implies the end of Christianity in the West. However, this situation requires that Christians acknowledge their minority position and correctly identify the new forces and ideologies at play.

The Register interviewed her at the conclusion of the conference.

In your speech entitled After Christendom, you noted that Christianity was no longer the master nor the inspirer of our Western societies. In your opinion, this state of affairs is the expression of the so-called post-Christendom. In this respect, you speak about a reversal of the situation that occurred in the fourth century, when pagan myths were transformed into Christian truths: Today, Christian truths are gradually being transformed into myths. How is this transformation articulated?

Humans need to make their lives meaningful, to question their roots and future, to know why they are here. All societies meet this need through stories which are neither true nor false and that we call myths. Regardless of whether they are true or false, they are meaningful. We dont know if Achilles really existed, but it doesnt matter: he gives meaning to human courage and to its struggle against adversity.

But with ancient Greeks and Judeo-Christians came the notion of truth: Christ is no longer a myth but a true story. Christians, when they settled down and took power (during the fourth century) did not make a clean sweep of pagan myths; this wasnt possible because they were too deeply rooted in the hearts and minds. Therefore, the Christians took up these myths and made them truths. For example, the story of the virgin-mother existed as a myth and became a truth: For a believer, the Virgin Mary really did exist.

Today, we are witnessing the opposite movement: For our contemporaries, Christ becomes a mythical character, who is neither true nor false, giving meaning to life (compare Tolstoys book on the life of Christ). It is this ebb and flow that interested me. It means that we are definitely on the way back to a pagan mode.

What makes you think that our society is currently falling into paganism, more than into nihilism, as many elements in our societies suggest?

Nihilism means that we seek to break or bypass the very structures of anthropology; it is what sociologists Marcel Mauss and Claude Lvi-Strauss called base, which is made up of three essential polarities: life and death, man and woman, and filiation. This is why, for example, incest is prohibited in all human societies. We can identify such a base thanks to its permanence over time (which is called natural law; that can be identified because all people follow it it is an anthropological permanence). To be nihilistic is to want to challenge this base. Marriage between two persons of the same sex is typically nihilistic. Nothing of this sort existed in human history (except one case: Neros buffoon marriage with his catamite).

The situation is quite different for other so-called societal measures such as abortion, euthanasia or assisted suicide. In contrast to same-sex marriage, infanticide, euthanasia and suicide can be found in all human societies except Judeo-Christian societies (which is well documented, for example, in the famous Epistle to Diognetus). When we implement such measures, it is only a return to paganism, which precedes us, and which spontaneously and naturally returns when Christianity fades away.

Why is atheism now so specifically present in societies with Judeo-Christian roots, in your judgment?

It is because only the affirmation of the truth can produce its negation. There is no atheism in paganism, in which there are a multitude of divine or sacred myths that overlap and are worshipped with more or less ardor, in a kind of polyphony in which we do not know who believes in what. Historian Paul Veyne addressed this question in a book entitled Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths?: An Essay on the Constitutive Imagination. In the society of myths, everything is relative, and syncretism reigns which is very different from tolerance; that can only be exercised within the regime of truth. On the contrary, the affirmation of the unique, exclusive truth (which comes from the jealous God of the Bible) can produce atheism; that is, exclusivity into its opposite.

Aggressive secularism which is rampant in France and spreading to an increasing number of European countries seems to want to purely and simply eliminate any reference to religion within societies. I am thinking especially about the recent controversy in France over a nun expelled from an elderly home because of her veil, the ban on crches in town halls or the removal of the cross from St. Nicholas mitre in Belgium. ... Since nature abhors a vacuum, another form of religiosity is necessarily taking root in our Western societies. You often mention the secular religions peril. What is their relationship with paganism, and why are they so specifically hostile to Christianity?

Secular religions are paganisms, of the very ordinary kind. They favor attachment to all kinds of myths and stories that are more or less sacred, such as radical ecology, glorification of whales or dolphins. In short, we create all kinds of idols. All the prohibitions against religion you mention are real, of course: They embody refusals of the founding religion, which is considered oppressive, and which we must get rid of if we want to be able to indulge in the delights and disorders of paganism.

The question of truth, which was discussed above, is very important here: Because there is one Truth, the Christian religion is exclusive. We must never forget that the word heresy comes from the Greek word airesis, which means choice. The fight against the cross of St. Nicholas, and other fights, is a refusal of the exclusive truth, always suspected of intolerance. And it is a way of making Christendom which has not stopped dying for the past two centuries disgorge definitively.

You are rather critical toward our Catholic clergy, who tends, in your opinion, not to take stock of the minority position of Christianity in todays society. At the same time, the most traditionalist parishes are statistically the ones that massively attract young people. What approach would you recommend, in this respect?

I think our clergy is very sick. An all-too-big part of it is haunted by power and dominated by sexual passions of all kinds, in the midst of the vow of chastity. One need only look at the way Catholic institutions work, how poorly they are governed, with secrecy and appetite for power. The Church has known many other misfortunes and will experience a rebirth that may come from monasteries. But for the time being, it is natural that a clergy that is so busy with power and worldliness does not realize that it has lost power over society. Problems come from far away. The reason why the youth prefer a traditional Church is because they feel a more genuine fervor, more distant from worldly attractions: The Catholic clergy has long been flirting with Marxism, in order to be fashionable, and today it is flirting with contemporary art, for example, once again to be fashionable. Young people who hope for the Churchs holiness, and not its worldly success, are very reluctant to embrace all of this.

Speaking of monastic revival, what do you think about American writer Rod Drehers insights about the future of Christianity in the West, in his famous The Benedict Option?

Rod Dreher and I talked a lot, and his book is very interesting. We could believe that he calls for the creation of fortresses where children would be raised far away from a depraved postmodern society. Its not really that. The man is more open than his book may suggest. It only means that in the post-Christendom disarray, Christians need groupings around strong spiritual centers; in other words, monasteries. And I think hes right.

Solne Tadi is the Registers Rome-based Europe correspondent.

Go here to see the original:

Post-Christendom and the Return of Paganism in the West - National Catholic Register

President Donald Trump speaks about the situation with Iran in the Grand Foyer of the White House in Washington, D.C., Jan. 8, 2020. (Saul Loeb/AFP/via Getty Images)

COMMENTARY: The just-war tradition has much wisdom to offer in this moment of heightened tension between the United States and Iran.

Msgr. Stuart Swetland

We live in an age best described as post-Christian. The moral and anthropological truth of the Judeo-Christian tradition is no longer generally accepted in our society.

Walker Percy described our age as demented because of its loss of confidence both in faith and reason:

The present age is demented. It is possessed by a sense of dislocation, a loss of personal identity, an alternating sentimentality and rage which, in an individual patient, could be characterized as dementia.

Pope Francis confirmed Dr. Percys diagnosis in his recent address to the Curia:

Christendom no longer exists. Today we are not the ones who produce culture, nor are we the first or the most listened to. [Christianity], especially in Europe, but also in a large part of the West, is no longer an obvious premise of our common life, but, rather, it is often denied, derided, marginalized or ridiculed.

The loss of Christian vision is evident everywhere: There is rampant consumerism and materialism, self-centeredness and individualism, relativism and nihilism. These false ideologies lead to numerous social pathologies: abortion, murder, euthanasia, suicide, drug addiction, despair, divorce, sexual abuse, disregard for the poor, crippling isolation and disabling loneliness.

Fortunately, there are still some echoes of the Judeo-Christian moral vision generally accepted today. One area where this is seen is in the ethics of war and peace. Here, at least, a remnant of a workable ethic is still generally agreed upon (if not always acted upon). Perhaps the wisdom found here may serve as a steppingstone toward rebuilding a holistic vision of a just and caring society.

In particular, the just-war tradition has much wisdom to offer in this moment of heightened tension between the U.S. and Iran.

Generally, President Donald Trump, in his actions (but, sadly, not always in his rhetoric), has respected the tenets of the just-war tradition. He has generally refrained from the use of deadly force when other options (such as dialogue, sanctions and embargoes) have been available. While he has blustered about major attacks (on North Korea and Iran, for example), he has shown restraint and pivoted toward other options (sometimes at the last moment).

When force has been used, it has usually been proportionate to the actual threat (think ISIS in Syria, for example). Many in the military have been frustrated by the way Trump makes decisions (the decision to leave Syria, for example), but generally the president has kept his campaign promise to de-escalate U.S. military commitments in the Middle East and beyond.

In light of this history, many see his most recent action as more problematic and even reckless. Other administrations have had the opportunity to attack Gen. Qassem Soleimani and have chosen not to, despite the unanimous opinion that he is directly responsible for ongoing unjust aggression against the Iranian people, the U.S. and allied forces, and numerous other innocents throughout the region. However, if what the administration has shared is true, given the increase in direct attacks on shipping in the Persian Gulf and U.S. bases and personnel in the region, and Trumps clear warning (and a red line, if you will) about the consequences of any American casualties, one can make a strong argument that it was justified to interrupt ongoing, imminent action against actual innocents by disrupting the command, control and communication of this unjust aggression personified by Soleimani. One could surmise that his action was a proportionate and necessary response to Iranian escalation of hostility in the Gulf of Iraq and that further restraint or appeasement would only embolden Iranian aggression.

However one interprets the presidents orders, now is the time for all to revisit the wisdom of the just-war traditions where the following lessons could be learned.

Like in many areas, Congress refusal to engage in actual problem-solving (think immigration reform, criminal-justice reform, health-care reform, infrastructure repair, deficit control, gun control, environmental issues, all of which need comprehensive, bipartisan, workable solutions) has led to drift and more and more governance by administrative fiat or worse, judicial overreach. It is time for Congress, the peoples representatives, to do their constitutional duty and have serious debate about and oversight of the use of force. Our military deserves this basic service.

Msgr. Stuart Swetland is the president of Donnelly College. A 1981 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, he served six years as a line officer in the U.S. Navy.

Go here to see the original:

The West and Iran: Catholic Wisdom in Uncertain Times - National Catholic Register

Early in his career, Pete Buttigieg worked for 2-1/2 years as a management consultant for McKinsey & Co. That history is being mined by Mayor Petes lefty opponents to create dishonest attacks that exploit peoples lack of understanding of how providers of professional servicesconsultants, lawyers, accountantsactually work.

Media outlets and some of his criticsespecially his rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Elizabeth Warrenhad been demanding that Buttigieg release a list of the McKinsey clients he worked for, and he has done so. The list includes Best Buy, an insurance company, a supermarket chain and several federal agencies.

Buttigiegs work for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan has generated the most attention. Ten years ago, the insurer raised premiums and laid off 10% of its workers. But those decisions can hardly be pinned on a nerdy junior associate whose three-month assignment, according to Buttigiegs campaign, involved analyzing things like rent, utilities, and travel costsespecially since the layoffs occurred two years after Buttigieg left McKinsey.

Still, the outrage machine cranked up immediately, and a Politico headline captured the unscrupulous nihilism of the whole imbroglio: The left nukes Buttigieg over McKinsey work. Wrote a blogger on the progressive site Common Dreams, Buttigieg helped an insurance giant increase profits at the expense of workers. According to The New York Times, the client list is likely to provide ammunition to those in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party who have sought to tag Mr. Buttigieg with the pejorative Wall Street Pete.

Many people believe a clients conduct should be imputed to any lawyer, accountant or consultant who works for them, and Mayor Petes critics are doing their best to stoke such misconceptions. But that is not how business works. Entry-level associates in particular have little control over their assignments and clients. You work under a partner, who has the authority to make actual decisions and recommendations. As another former McKinsey associate wrote on the website MarketWatch, You have absolutely zero power and very little influence.

To be fair, Buttigieg once touted his McKinsey work for the insights it gave him about management and problem solving. He probably overstated the scope of his experience.

Contrast Mayor Petes low-level McKinsey work with Warrens longtime side hustle while she was a well-paid law professor, earning almost $2 million representing some of the same types of corporate interests she now rails against. Unlike Buttigieg, Warren had complete freedom to choose her projects and clients, and, owing to her stature, more power to influence their behavior.

When I was an associate at a large law firm, I was assigned to write a brief arguing that a lawsuit against our client, a railroad that had contaminated some land, should be dismissed. I did not choose the client, and the argument I developed involved a perfectly legitimate application of relevant law. Yet if I ran for office today and the matter came out, the line of attack would be (cue ominous music and stock video of toxic waste), Sanders believes dirty, disgusting polluters shouldnt being held accountable.

And so it goes with Mayor Pete. From the snarky attacks and indignation, you would think he had ordered those Blue Cross layoffs personally.

These portrayals of Buttigiegs short, wonky, unglamorous stint as a management consultant are irresponsible. They demonstrate that some on the Democratic leftwho demand ideological purity and scorn the more analytical, pragmatic politics of someone like Buttigieghave the same situational relationship with facts and candor as the Trumpian right. Progressives should be better than that.

__________

Sanders is professor of law at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law in Bloomington. Send comments to [emailprotected]

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Steve Sanders: Mayor Pete, McKinsey and dishonesty on the left - Indianapolis Business Journal

Nowadays, memes go through the internet like excrement through the titular character of the The Untitled Goose Game. As were rocketing through this information superhighway like fish in a tube (remember when the people of Twitter longed to be salmon?), clasping onto bits of digital detritus just long enough to see if they spark joy before discarding them, trying to remember even last weeks best meme can feel hilariously futile. (You know, like a woman yelling at a cat.) Once you start scrolling back through the year in memes, though, its a bit like trying kombucha for the first timeby turns, disorienting and potentially gross, then rather pleasing.

The year 2019 has been a difficult and uneven one. Online, political memes flew back and forth like spitballs, and even some of the most innocent ones (like that fish tube) took on a sense of ecstatic nihilism. People also had fun this year, finding joy in the mundanely bizarrelike watching hundreds of gummy bears appear to be singing along with Adele. Here are some of the years most important memes, great and gross alike.

30 to 50 Feral Hogs

In early August, the nation was grieving two back-to-back mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas, and country musician Jason Isbell tweeted in support of banning assault weapons. In response, Arkansas dad Willie McNabb authored a now-famous tweet: Legit question for rural Americans, he wrote. How do I kill the 30-50 feral hogs that run into my yard within 3-5 mins while my small kids play?" The phrase 30 to 50 feral hogs swiftly became a meme, a kind of latter-day thoughts and prayers, a way to express frustration with Americas gun-control laws in the face of preventable violence. As I wrote at the time, The banality of mass shootings and politicians' callous response is brain-breaking, and so is the diversity of experience in America. It's hard to find consensus when one person's absurdist image is another person's backyard.

Baby Yoda

If the internet had a favorite child in 2019, it was the Child: the breakout star of The Mandalorian, the tiniest, greenest, most lovably bat-eared Force user in the Star Wars universe, Baby Yoda. Without a word (and with some very cute sips of soup), Baby Yoda conquered the internet with memes. People Photoshopped the little cherub into every situation you can imagine, went mad captioning screenshots, professed undying love, and thenas things hit Peak Weirdpeople started admitting that they wanted to breastfeed it. Baby Yoda is still a young meme and the The Mandalorian isnt over, so this internet culture moments future is hard to see. One thing remains clear: Love Baby Yoda, you must.

Epstein Didnt Kill Himself

Disgraced financier and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein took his own life in prison last August while awaiting trial for trafficking minors. Because Epstein was connected with powerful figures, and because the guards outside his door were asleep and the cell contained no cameras, his death sparked conspiracy theories repeated by journalists and politicians alike. The theories (which suppose anyone from President Donald Trump and the Clintons to the deep state might have wanted the guy dead) are united by a single sentence that has become a meme: "Epstein didnt kill himself." Its appeared in news clips, on sweatshirts, and most recently, defacing a piece of art valued at $120,000 that happens to be a banana duct-taped to a wall. Its like a billboard for disillusionment and mistrust, I wrote this November. And its everywhere.

Storm Area 51

When Matty Roberts created a Facebook event this June proposing that the American people storm Area 51, notorious fount of alien-related conspiracy theories, because they cant stop us all, he was joking. Then 2 million people said they were going, and 1.5 million more were interested. The flurry generated media attention, stern warnings from the US military, and so many alien memes you hoped somebody would beam you up to get away from it all. When the scheduled date for the event arrived this September, only 134 people showed up and none made it inside, though about 1,500 more attended Storm Area 51 meme-themed music festivals that day. No aliens were discovered, but it was a lesson in the powerand at times, strange pretendnessof internet culture.

OK Boomer

If youre over 40 and have displeased a teen this year, you may have even heard this meme aloud. After years of stuffy, out-of-touch articles about how millennials (and now Gen Z) are killing off industries from diamonds and real estate to napkins with their frivolous ways and politics-infused complaints, younger generations came up with this blunt dismissal of their own. Its intergenerational tension boiled down to a single phrase: OK boomer. Its been used to protest racism and climate change denialism almost as often as its been a snippy response to an uncle. Each time, though, it hits the mark.

Hot Girl Summer

Everyonemen and women, young and old, from the Kardashians to Tom Hankshad a hot girl summer this year thanks to Houston rapper Megan Thee Stallion. The MCs catchphrase became a go-to Instagram caption, YouTube video title, tweet, headline, IRL quip, and marketing slogan. It was a chance for everyone to embrace their own sexy in a season often filled with potential body shaming, and for Megan Thee Stallion, it was a business opportunity. Embracing a trend among meme creators (and meme creators of color in particular), she quickly trademarked the phrase, avoiding the all-too-common fate her predecessors have faced: a corporation something you created and monetizing the crap out of it by selling merchandise without offering you a cent. Her fans were thrilled.

Sorry to This Man

The setup sounds like internet culture Mad Libs: Hustlers star Keke Palmer was taking a lie detector test as part of a Vanity Fair interview when she was asked if her character True Jackson from True Jackson, VP was a better vice president than Dick Cheney, and then was shown a photo of Cheney. Palmer genuinely had no idea who the former vice president was. I don't know who this man is, she said. I mean, he could be walking down the street, I wouldn't know a thing. Sorry to this man. The phrase became a meme, used as a stock reply to anything confusing or worthy of dismissal, a wholly unapologetic sort of apology often with a feminist bent. Its easy to see why it went viral: Sometimes, I wrote this September, ignorance is diss.

The Game of Thrones Cup

Of all the many memes that accompanied the final season of Game of Thrones, none was quite so emblematic of the experience of watching the show as the very anachronistic white coffee cup viewers spotted on a table beside Daenerys Targaryen. It was a crowning embarrassment for HBO in an already poorly received season, and a bitter disappointment for fans who felt that a story they had been invested in for a decade was being given a slapdash finish. It was also Photoshopped into oblivion and sparked a great many jokes: Was it a flat wight, or perhaps a Lord of the Light roast? At the time, the only winner I saw was Starbucks, who many assumed were the purveyors of the cup: They've gotten an estimated $2.3 billion in free advertising, and the cup isn't even theirs. As for the rest of us, our watch is over.

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The 8 Most Important Memes of 2019 - WIRED

How much trauma can you take? To what degree can an individual change society for the better? What would that change even look like? Is the world, increasingly chaotic and painful as it seems to be, worth living in? These are all questions posed by the fourth and final season of Mr. Robot, which will provide a cultural gavel bang for the 2010s with its last ever episode on Sunday.

A drama about a hacktivist group called fsociety whose goal is to erase the worlds debt, Mr. Robot began as nihilistic commentary on late capitalism; Fight Club for the Anonymous age, striking a similar balance of psychological distress and revolutionary ideas communicated through medicated monologues about why we should fuck society. Its less topless and self-serious than Fight Club, which is primarily a critique of male violence. Instead, Mr. Robot is concerned with the human cost of wealth inequality on all sides.

Its a fitting show to wrap up the decade. Airing from June 2015 to December 2019 just before the US presidential election put Donald Trump in the White House to just after the UK election that gave Boris Johnson a landslide majority Mr. Robot has overseen the Wests greatest lurch towards the right since the 70s. Whether its a rise in the number of billionaires, the near total eradication of the welfare state, the fact that our collective heads of state look like a sentient piece of Bristolian street art or the culture of distrust fostered by clashes between social and traditional media, the 2010s has been entirely reflected and in some cases foreshadowed by Mr. Robot.

For the first two seasons, the show seemed to align with reality in terms of the stakes. Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek), a cybersecurity engineer and the leader of fsociety, spends his spare time hacking pedophiles and miscellaneous strangers he views as deserving of comeuppance. He also hacks his therapist, who accuses him of playing God without permission, and his childhood friend Angela in an attempt to cancel her student debt. Elliot suffers from social anxiety disorder, clinical depression, delusions and paranoia.

Carly Chaikin as Darlene. Photo courtesy of USA Network

Its later revealed that he has an alternate personality known as Mr. Robot (Christian Slater) seen on screen as a separate character assuming the form of his dad. His sister Darlene (Carly Chaikin), also a member of fsociety, is equally damaged but not delusional, making her the more reliable narrator. In the beginning, the stakes seem pretty low: a small group of lonely hackers against the most powerful forces in the world, but they rise over the course of the series, eventually transcending the battle for wealth equality entirely and entering more philosophical territory.

Fsocietys ultimate goal is to set in motion the single biggest incident of wealth redistribution in history by targeting E Corp an international mega-conglomerate that owns 70 percent of the global consumer credit industry. The hack, referred to as Five/Nine, was designed to destabilise the financial markets, destroy all financial records and redistribute wealth in America. They pull it off at the end of season one, but things immediately go to shit. E Corps EVP of Technology shoots himself in the head on live TV after stating the situation is hopeless. Everyone involved in fsociety is picked off by the FBI, leaving only Elliot and Darlene.

Mass unemployment, homelessness and civil disobedience turn New York City into a ground zero of tents and burning rubbish. Hard cash becomes obsolete and the Chinese government bails out E Corp to create a digital currency called Ecoin, making people even more reliant on E Corp than they were before. Anger leads to destruction which leads to chaos. Most anarchist narratives depict the struggle to throw off the old world order. Mr. Robot goes beyond that to wrestle with the even greater problem of starting over.

After Five/Nine ostensibly makes things worse, fsociety shifts their focus onto the Deus Group an elite cabal of billionaires run by Zhi Zhang (BD Wong), the Chinese minister of state security. The plan this time is to target the groups members individually and transfer everything out of their accounts. Again, they manage to pull it off. In episode 10, Darlene sits on a park bench and transfers all the money they stole from Deus Group to the public, like Robin Hood in heart-shaped glasses (trust me when I say it brought a tear to my eye after I watched it approximately ten minutes before looking at the UK exit poll).

When the money gradually pops up in peoples Ecoin wallets, Dom an FBI agent initially tasked with investigating Five/Nine, whom Darlene becomes involved with looks at her phone and asks: Did everyone get this much? What started as nihilistic commentary on late capitalism eventually becomes a utopian fantasy. While season two showed us the consequences of quite literally blowing up one target and hoping for change, season four showed us what it would be like to actually win.

Of course, its not quite as straightforward as that. Winning becomes an increasingly confusing prospect as the concept of heroes and villains, good and bad, collapse in on each other. The most significant sub-plot running through Mr. Robot is that of Zhi Zhang, who is the public-facing persona of Whiterose a transgender woman who leads the Chinese hacker group the Dark Army. Long positioned as the final boss, Whiteroses cause becomes more sympathetic as Elliot goes increasingly off the rails (Whiterose refuses multiple times to kill Elliot off while Elliot seduces a Deus Group-adjacent woman, who then tries to kill herself, in order to pull off the final hack). Eventually, they meet in the middle.

BD Wong and Jing Xu as Zhi Zhang and Wang Shu. Photo courtesy of USA Network

The penultimate episode features an emotional conversation in which Whiterose and Elliot exchange worldviews. Whiterose believes she is acting out of altruism. Forced to live publicly as a man her entire adult life, she sacrifices everything including her partner to bring order to the worlds chaos. Elliot, on the other hand, is a lone wolf motivated by his own fear of people. Whiterose believes people are inherently good, trying their best when theyve been dealt a bad hand by a world unfit for us. Elliot believes they are mostly bad, saying people that Ive loved, people that Ive trusted, have done the absolute worst to me. Ahead of the finale, were left with a blue pill / red pill conundrum. If you were offered everything you thought you wanted stability, sanity, a timeline in which you were not hurt by the ones you love would you take it?

Generally speaking, most decades tend to be responses to the ones before them. In reaction to 90s counterculture full of nihilism and slackers, the 00s doubled down on aspirational lifestyles and the fetishisation of wealth. The most watched shows were teen dramas like The O.C., Dawsons Creek and Gossip Girl, or reality shows like The Simple Life, Big Brother and Jersey Shore (et al): total escapism in the lives of the rich and famous, or the spectacle of working class people elevating themselves into those lifestyles.

Watching a show like The O.C. back today is a wild ride, with any common ground felt with Bright Eyes-loving Seth or tragic Marissa melting into the background of their huge fucking mansions and people writing half-a-million dollar cheques like theyre handing over 2.50 for a McMuffin. If the 00s were about escapism, then the 2010s were the decade reality caught up. Relatability previously a valueless currency as people watched TV either to look up or down is now the only thing that matters.

Rami Malek as Elliot. Photo courtesy of USA Network

The growing divide between the one and 99 percent has been baked into post-Occupy American TV this decade, to the point that Vogue coined an inequality entertainment trend in 2015, citing shows like Silicon Valley, High Maintenance and Show Me A Hero alongside Mr. Robot. Sadly the same cant be said of the UK, where were still stuck on the middle-class whimsy to poverty porn binary. A few shows like Derry Girls, Chewing Gum, This Country, My Mad Fat Diary have worked to subvert that, portraying average people with comedic empathy, but they operate within narrower contexts. By and large, we dont do wider commentary on wealth inequality. Im not sure how much that actually matters (although it's worth saying that, with politics and the media being the way they are, there is a greater need for pop culture to communicate ideas that help people make sense of things). A TV show won't make radicals of us all, but its certainly the most tapped into the zeitgeist. In that sense, it often feels more comforting than escapism at a time when turning a blind eye seems to be the bewildering default.

In a 2017 interview, Sam Esmail, the shows creator described Mr. Robot as a period piece of today, which rings true. The world is so heavily influenced by technology and it has started to feel like its not on solid ground, he said. The world has become unreliable, unknowable. Facts are vulnerable and things you have come to rely on are no longer there. Its an overlap that Im not going to be so bold as to say I predicted, but that was what I was thinking about when I constructed the character of Elliot.

As always, its hard to know what exactly will happen in the finale on Sunday though Esmail has said the clues have been there all along, and the Mr. Robot subreddit has gone into hyperdrive trying to piece everything together. But either way, the point has largely been made already. In the penultimate episode, Elliot counterbalances his hatred of people in his monologue to Whiterose with a call to arms: Were all told we dont stand a chance, and yet we stand. We break, but we keep going, and that is not a flaw. Later in the episode, when it seems like Elliot about to die, his final words are Its an exciting time in the world.

That might be hard to believe at the moment, especially in the UK. In a post-election blog for Verso, Lorna Finlayson writes: It is difficult to hope now. We knew the system was closed. It was more closed than we knew. But if theres any broad takeaway from Mr. Robot, its that change doesnt happen immediately with a bang. You cant change society unless you change people. Its unclear what the general public in Mr. Robot actually want, but its interesting that the show has moved away from anger and towards more empathetic dialogue when reality has done the opposite. Regardless of what happens in the finale, the overall tone of Mr. Robot been one of galvanising optimism. Even when faced with the most insurmountable demons, both internal and external, the central characters doggedly pursue their convictions.

Even if you dont buy into its earnestness, you cant argue with its bittersweet irony. As much as Mr. Robot is the definitive show of the decade, its also an apt parting message that the revolution is something to be observed from the couch, as streamed on Amazon Prime.

@emmaggarland

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'Mr. Robot' Is the Defining Show of the 2010s - VICE UK

Men are disgusted by women in almost every way today. These were the words of a distressing, yet eye-opening conversation I recently had with a long time male buddy of mine.

It came about when he was voicing his frustration for failing to dissuade one of his friends from joining the MGTOW Movement. It was distressing to him because he was upset he lost another friend to this vile subculture, and it was distressing to me because Ive noticed how this trend is growing significantly, albeit quietly.

Imagine yourself as a woman who had been disappointed by her romantic history. She turns her bitterness towards all males by deeming men to be horrible, irredeemably predatory scum. She became this way after being indoctrinated by an ideology that preaches the inherent evilness of masculinity and therefore must be destroyed. Wed call her a bitter man-hating, radical feminist. The MGTOWs are essentially the same.

MGTOW is short for Men Going Their Own Way and its followers pursue a lifestyle of dealing with women as though women are the enemies of all men. Theyre basically the male version of the man-hating radical feminist. The males of MGTOW view all women to be worthless parasites, hell-bent on destroying the lives of men. Therefore, they Go Their Own Way and avoid building relationships or friendship with women.

The MGTOWs are merely one subset to a growing movement of an underground anti-women subculture. The others are the Incels (Involuntary Celibates), and the PUAs (Pick Up Artist). These males, like their feminist sisters, are people who are corrupted by the least intelligent and utterly damaging ideas of nihilism.

These males, like their feminist sisters, are people who are corrupted by the least intelligent and utterly damaging ideas of nihilism.

During the conversation, my buddy explained how despite persuading his friend against becoming MGTOW, he was still sympathetic to his friends excuse for doing so. In his words Men are disgusted with women in almost every way today and are finding happiness in just cutting them out of their lives. He continues, And I cant really argue against anything they (MGTOW) say because I relate to it all myself.

I pressed harder to ask if he could elaborate on exactly what he meant by that. Look around you. Every girl acts like a dude and has to have more guy friends than her actual boyfriend. Relationships are no longer partnerships. Theyre just mutual debauchery based on meaningless sex and fickle mind games. And in most relationships, I see the women being an overbearing*constantly humiliating their dudes.

Relationships are no longer partnerships. Theyre just mutual debauchery based on meaningless sex and fickle mind games.

I stood in momentary silence because I was unsure of how to respond to that. I wanted to hear the uncensored truth from him because he (unlike the women hating MGTOWs, Incels, and PUAs) had never viewed women in this way before. He was brought up in one of those traditionally wholesome, family oriented, Christian household, whereby the reverence for women was ingrained in him since a young age.

His father and male relatives were his role models for they knew exactly what it meant to be a protector and a provider. Consequently, the women in their lives (like his mother and grandmother) cherished and respected their men for that. It was then that I realized were in a turning point of history where men no longer held a reverence for women like they did in a previous generation.

It was then that I realized were in a turning point of history where men no longer held a reverence for women like they did in a previous generation.

The answer is blatantly clear. Men are losing their reverence for women because feminist ideology promotes the culture of anti-male nihilism through the feminization of men. By extension, it is actively destroying everything that is sacred about women since it robs femininity and masculinity of any meaning.

For instance, when my friend mentioned his observation of wives and girlfriends humiliating their partners, this is, in essence, a reflection of the larger cultural trend where women are encouraged to emasculate men.

The culture establishes that the ideal woman is smarter, stronger, better than the men in every way, and you can always depend on her to swoop in and save the day. This trope is apparent in just about any family sitcom, movies, music, and the literature we consume today. Thinkthe bumbling fool of a dad in contrast to the highly efficient mom.

The problem when we constantly showcase women in this way is how we are presenting women as nothing but a mother figure. This is perilous because it pushes men to subconsciously embrace the role of the Puer Aeternusthe eternal boy. The man need not grow up because why would he? He has women to bear the burden of life for him. He was raised in a culture where he primarily understands women to be his mother protectorthe mother superior. He fits perfectly in the feminist world as the subjugated son of the matriarchy. The ultimate feminists triumph against their imagined patriarchy.

The man need not grow up because why would he? He has women to bear the burden of life for him.

Every cause has an effect, and the effect derived from the feminists cause against masculine strength, independence, and ability is the wholesale embracing of the Puer Aeternuss (Eternal Boy) psychology by men. The clearest manifestation of this is observed in the sordid subcultures of the MGTOWs and the Incels. Mainstream male culture isnt immune to the feminist rot either. Absentee, deadbeat fathers refusing to give up their hedonistic lifestyle is another manifestation of the Eternal Boy psychology.

In these mens mind, why would they even worry about raising their child since the female form of the childs mother is thought and shown to be better than the male, and thus fully capable of running everything by herself? A child is incapable of raising another child, and hence the eternal boyhave no business raising children. This thought is terrifying in itself. If you remembered, Hillary Clinton once wrote a book which sounded benign, but holds a deeper, frightful seed called It Takes a Village. The title refers to the saying It takes a village to raise a child.

In these mens mind, why would they even worry about raising their child since the female form of the childs mother is thought and shown to be better than the male, and thus fully capable of running everything by herself?

When the childs own father is incapable of raising his children, he hands over his responsibilities as a father to the villagenamely, the governmentwhich will assist the childs all-capable mother to raise his offspring. In doing so, the man also relinquishes his adulthood because he accepts his role as the eternal boy. Hell never have to grow up, and hell never become a man.

It is not a coincidence that feminism brands strong, capable, action-oriented masculinity as toxic because feminism scorn men for being men. The excesses of the Puer Aeternus psychology, in turn, created the woman-hating subcultures of the MGTOWs, Incels, and PUAs. These manboys behave in hideous, imbecilic, vulgar and obnoxious fashionin short, theyre borne out of their defective philosophical motherthe radical feminist.

Just observe the outcome from their ideology by their lifestyle choice of idle and witless amusementunthinking video games, absurd genres of porn and unpalatably barbaric music. These are the effects of a mind corrupted by the destructive ideas of the feminists anti-male nihilism.

After calming down from the initially passionate outburst, my friend mentioned there was a time when he, along with his group of friends, wanted so many things in regards to their relationship with womenthey wanted to build families, raise children and provide a home for the women they love because this is how they could establish a supportive, lasting relationship with her.

Todays anti-women movement like the MGTOWs is contrary to these natural masculine desires. And it is feminism which most blatantly attempts to annihilate these desires. He explained to me how there is nothing more grotesque than a man who is incapable of picturing himself in the natural role of providing protection and support to the women he would love. The world may be falling apart, but a true man will continually preserve what he loves. True. I replied in admiration, Its just sad how there is so much working against men from achieving that dream today, women included. I added.

There is nothing more grotesque than a man who is incapable of picturing himself in the natural role of providing protection and support to the women he would love.

It doesnt matter, he says, finally. Despite the abhorrent state of affairs today, he isnt about to give up on women because The problem isnt women. The problem is feminism.

By SG Cheah Apr 22nd 2019

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MGTOW How Anti-Male Feminism Is Driving The Growing Trend Of Anti-Female Subcultures - Fathers4Equality