Monthly Archives: July 2022

Ottessa Moshfeghs jam is conjuring broken, unlikeable protagonists who lurch through the world leaving ruin in their wake. McGlue, the authors 2014 novella, a 19th-century dirge, featured a gay, drunken sailor who possibly murdered his best friend. Moshfeghs 2015 debut novel, Eileen, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, centred around a self-loathing petty criminal. In her acclaimed 2019 book My Year of Rest and Relaxation, we became unfortunate observers of the interior life of a lazy misanthrope locked away in a year-long drug-induced self-exile.

In Moshfeghs latest novel, Lapvona, the author trades her distinctive first-person voice to introduce a conga line of fringe-dwellers who live in the post-plague medieval village of Lapvona, where subsistence is tough, and life is cheap. It proves a setting ripe for Moshfegh to gleefully indulge her appreciation for the grotesque; just dont expect her to conform to historical accuracy.

Ottessa Moshfeghs latest novel pushes the boundaries of existential nihilism.Credit:Alamy Stock Photo

Teenage anti-hero Marek lives with his physically and emotionally abusive father Jude, a shepherd who detests his bastard son and prefers the company of his lambs. With a face not even a mother could love, but with a searing Oedipus complex to boot, Marek has grown crookedly, his spine twisted in the middle with a misshapen head. He is a failed abortion attempt and the offspring of incest. Marek believes his mother Agata died birthing him; in fact, she ran away to a nunnery and later makes a surprise return in Mareks life.

The boy is in love with pain: He lived for hardship. It gave him cause to prove himself superior to his mortal suffering. In his search for a maternal figure, Marek suckles the withered and blind witch, Ina, once the village wet nurse, whose milk is long dried up.

Lapvonas serfs are ruled over by the corrupt lord, Villiam, a lazy, self-obsessed man-child who makes a sport of humiliating his servants and believes Terror and grief [are] good for morale. Villiam is pandered to by the sycophantic priest, Father Barnabas, whose head was soft, as though the fat in his face had travelled upward and collected there and who loves not the Christ but himself and the thrill of keeping people in line. With the priests encouragement, the lord swindles his subjects and secretly hires bandits to sack the village at any sign of insurrection.

Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh.

The predictable rhythm of life in Lapvona begins to unravel when Marek murders or is it an accident Villiams dashing son, Jacob. To settle the score, Villiam trades his dead son for Marek. Jacobs death invokes supernatural consequences: rain ceases to fall, plunging the once fertile village Lapvona dirt is good dirt into a long, harsh drought and famine. Many locals starve and die, while others survive by eating dead bees, bats, vermin, dirt desiccated cakes of animal dung and finally because Moshfegh cant resist the temptation to horrify each other.

Meanwhile, a bountiful life carries on for Villiam and his crew, with the villages water diverted to the manor, and Marek is propelled from a life of squalor to being anointed the lords son and heir, sinking into gluttony and indolence.

From this point in the novel, Moshfegh unleashes a cacophony of plot twists and gore that would make Shakespeare blush. She treats us to headless torsos, disembowelling, hanging, cannibalism, rape, human excrement, floods, fire, incest, death by poisoning, a virgin birth and human sacrifice. A parade of monstrous characters mines the depths of depravity; the antics in Lapvona recall the writing of the Marquis de Sade, except in Moshfeghs novel, it spills over into the absurd; she bludgeons the reader to the point of desensitisation.

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Lapvonas cacophony of gore and depravity would make Shakespeare blush - Sydney Morning Herald

What is Posthumanism and what does it mean for theology?

First of all, any movement or time period with the prefix post attached to it (Postmodernism for example) lacks substance by its very name. It is literally defined by what came before it, precisely as just coming after it. Today we live in an era that is built around this proliferation of the posts, which again, says nothing about itself. We may be able to conclude that it is all embracingall inclusive, as we commonly hear todayand for that reason the posts have no real identity per se because delimitation is simply denied and thus avoided.

A grandchild of Postmodernism is the more sinister Posthumanism, the dominant philosophy today. Philosophical Postmodernism seeks to deconstruct human reason while philosophical Posthumanism intends to deconstruct the human itself. For the posthumanists, the prior era (from the Enlightenment to the 20th century, roughly), that is, the era of Humanism, was too anthropocentric. The exceptionalism of man or past anthropocentrism suppressed the emergence of other types of beings, especially artificial beings according to them.

According to the posthumanists, the very notion of human must be reassessed. Posthumanism proceeds from the Critical Theory philosophy which basically re-interprets reality, with the Marxist binary lens, as those who are oppressors and those who are oppressed (believe it or not there is a Critical Cyborg Theory based on The Cyborg Manifesto). The goal is to erase all inequalities in many different aspects, depending what the focus of the specific Critical Theory is. In the case of Posthumanism, dualisms such as human/animal, human/machine, and, more in general, human/nonhuman are re-investigated through a perception which does not work on the oppositional schemata. In the same way, the Posthumanist deconstructs the clear division between life/death, organic/synthetic and natural/artificial.

Posthumanism leads directly to nihilism or the belief of empty values, since no immutability exists. It is an attack on nature itself. For that reason, it can, in no way, be accepted as a sound philosophy for true Catholic theological progress. True progress in theology stems from solid philosophy applied to the mysteries of our faith. There is definitely philosophical pluralism within the Catholic tradition, but this in no way means that Catholicism can be philosophically all-embracing. There are philosophies that cannot be accepted for orthodox theological progress. In fact, all the heresies are simply rooted in bad philosophy (Nestorianism, Modalism, Monophysitism, etc.). The Church has a duty in promoting good philosophy for the sake of having a theology that can convey the truths of the divine mysteries in human terms.

Posthumanism cannot be applied to our faith to make a good theology. In particular, Posthumanism would eliminate a good anthropology that would allow for a correct understanding of man according to divine revelation. If man is purely mutable, and can ultimately merge with the artificial forming a new being (a cyborg), then in what aspect is man created in Gods image and likeness? How could Our Lord Jesus Christ assume a nature of something that in our day needs to be essentially reassessed? Man is substantially body and soul and he cannot essentially change.

Posthumanism promotes not only an indifference towards the essence of man, but an outright hatred for it. According to this view, the artificial being must emerge and ultimately replace our outdated and rigid concept of man in the strictly naturalistic sense. However, the truth is that man is the synthesis of Gods creation (matter plus the spirit) and God loves man for his own sake. God not only created man but re-created man in Jesus Christ, His only Begotten Son. The love of man and his dignity is fundamental in Catholic theology, especially in Christology, and this dignity is something Posthumanism negates. Profound love has to be based on an immutable good, for true love is in a sense immutable. So we see here another clear example of bad philosophical anthropology leading to bad theological anthropology.

We see clearly today that Satan is attacking nature as a means to attack supernature. The assault is extremely intelligent and strategic. The demonic attacks on philosophy have always been for the sake of attacking theology. The devil knows well the intimate relationship between heterodox theology and the condemnation of souls.

I would say that the biggest hindrance to evangelization is precisely a prevalent erroneous anthropology, especially the Posthumanist view. For if we do not know what man is, we surely will not know what is man for. For the final cause of a thing is imbedded in its very nature. Let us ask Gods grace and do our part also in studying good solid philosophy, especially anthropology. Let us also avoid theologies that diminish the importance of philosophical (metaphysical) underpinnings, like existentialist theology for example.

In the end, the existence of immutability is vital for the salvation of our very souls. Truth is essentially immutable since it refers to universal concepts (truth, charity) or historical events (Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate), and these obviously never change. Truth is our only true guide in a changing world and the basis of all truth is Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Immutable Truth Himself.

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Posthumanism and Theological Anthropology - OnePeterFive

They were careless people, the narrator in The Great Gatsby says of two of that novels wealthiest, cruelest characters; they smashed up things and creatures. They would probably get along with the similarly careless wretches who populate The Forgiven, though especially the unhappily married couple who smash into a teenager, killing him.

David (an excellent Ralph Fiennes) and Jo (a decorative, badly used Jessica Chastain) are yelling and looking at each other while rocketing down a dark Moroccan road when they plow into the boy. For reasons that are more narratively useful than persuasive, they bring the body with them to their destination, a sprawling compound where a bacchanal is underway. There, after servants whisk away the body, David and Jo join the festivities, assuming their place among the other avatars of wealth, great privilege and bone-deep rot.

As Fitzgerald observed elsewhere, the very rich are different from you and me. They are not, though, always dissimilar onscreen, and in far too many movies, they tend to fall into reliably distinct camps of gaudy buffoons, heroic saviors or unrepentant villains. The Forgiven is about villains. Specifically, it centers on the kind of white scoundrels who with their empty hours and seemingly bottomless pockets, their cultivated cynicism and to-the-manner-born prejudices stir up trouble for less-privileged souls. These monsters twirl their mustaches, seduce the nave and rob the credulous because they can. They also do so because authors know villains provide easy entertainment, including when theyre object lessons.

Certainly, in his adaptation of the Lawrence Osborne novel, the writer-director John Michael McDonagh has done his best to be diverting while he shoots fish in a barrel. His richest, most dubiously easy targets are the partys hosts, an unctuous British libertine, Richard (Matt Smith, continuing his journey as Jeremy Irons 2.0), and his down-market American lover, Dally (Caleb Landry Jones). Theyre introduced lounging in bed the camera opens on Dallys naked rear as a visibly uneasy Moroccan servant enters with tea. Richard smiles at the man or maybe his discomfort. Is the servant uncomfortable with male intimacy, its unembarrassed display or merely his bosss amused gaze?

McDonagh lets the moment linger, which outwardly lets him off the hook. It doesnt, though, not really, and he is saying something by making two gay lovers the storys most conspicuous embodiments of neocolonialist excesses. So it goes: That night, Richard refers to the servants as boys, and Dally winds up the party (and your sensitivities) by thanking their little Moroccan friends who renovated the compound. The guests in tuxes and gowns laugh and swirl, eating and boozing as Moroccans hover and serve. A shrieking blonde jumps in a pool the size of a lake. Later, Jo casually drops that she and David killed a Moroccan en route to the festivities; at another point, David sneers about pederasts and name checks Allen Ginsberg.

The Forgiven doesnt get any subtler, although things improve when David agrees to drive off with the dead boys father, Abdellah (Ismael Kanater), and a companion, Anouar (Sad Taghmaoui). It doesnt make any sense given Davids prejudices and suspicions. He goes simply because the story needs him to, but it does get you away from the compounds claustrophobia. Mostly, though, it allows you to spend time with Fiennes, whose performance in its intricate, complex play of emotions and in the push-pull of Davids contempt for himself and for everything else says more about this worlds nihilism than all the brittle chatter. Fiennes peels David in layers, unraveling this man until you see his hollow interior.

McDonaghs work is more nuanced and his touch lighter in the scenes with David and these other men, even as the story grows heavier and then leaden. Theres less yammering and hyperbolizing, and McDonagh makes fine contrapuntal use of the landscapes visual drama and of the chasm separating these characters. Here, in the prickling, ominous spaces between David and Abdellah, in their glances and halting words, you see how power flows from man to man, from world to world, and how it nourishes but also engulfs.

Its then that you are reminded of the sharper work that McDonagh has done before, such as Calvary and The Guard, and how good he can be when characters talk because they have something to say.

The ForgivenRated R for gun and vehicular violence. Running time: 1 hour 57 minutes. In theaters.

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The Forgiven Review: When the Haves Dispose of a Have-Not - The New York Times

The soundtrack to Everything Everywhere All At Once is now available on vinyl.

On 5 July, A24 announced the original motion picture soundtrack to their 2022 hit film Everything Everywhere All At Once will be released on vinyl. The soundtrack includes the film's original musical score composed by experimental band Son Lux, as well as original songs by Mitski, David Byrne, Andr 3000, Randy Newman, and more.

The black-and-white vinyl design mirrors the film's trademark motifs, the googly eyes and the everything bagel.

Since its premiere in March, the Michelle Yeoh-led film was met with thriving success at the box office and was recently crowned as A24's highest-grossing film of all time. Directed by Daniels, a directing duo made up of filmmakers Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, the film has charmed audiences with its comical wit, authentic Asian-American representation, and careful examination of themes of nihilism and existentialism.

Check out more details of the vinyl and pre-order here.

Check out 'This Is A Life' by Son Lux, Mitski, and David Byrne here.

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Everything Everywhere All At Once original soundtrack is now available on vinyl, featuring Son Lux, Mitski, David Byrne, and more - Bandwagon

Every day billions of people devote a significant amount of time to worshiping an imaginary being. More precisely, they praise, exalt, and pray to the God of the major Abrahamic religions. They put their hopes inand they feara transcendent, supernatural deity that, they believe, created the world and now exercises providence over it.

In the prophetic writings of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, this God appears endowed with familiar psychological and moral characteristics. Hethe Abrahamic God is typically conceived as masculinehas knowledge, perception, intention, volition, and desire, and He experiences emotions such as jealousy, disappointment, pleasure, and sadness. God is powerful and free, unconstrained in His omnipotence. He issues commandments that He expects to be fulfilled, and He exercises harsh judgment over those who fail to obey them. God is also good, benevolent, and merciful, and the providential plan conceived and pursued by God is grounded in wisdom and justice.

This all-too-human God does not exist, or so argues the seventeenth-century philosopher Bento de Spinoza.1 Such a divinity is a superstitious fiction, he claims, grounded in the irrational passions of human beings who daily suffer the vicissitudes of nature. Feeling lost and abandoned in an insecure world that does not cater to their wishes and yet, at the same time, finding in that world an order and convenience that seems more than accidental, they imagine a governing Spirit that, on the model of human agency, directs all things toward certain ends. Here is how Spinoza describes the common psychological process:

They findboth in themselves and outside themselvesmany means that are very helpful in seeking their own advantage, e.g., eyes for seeing, teeth for chewing, plants and animals for food, the sun for light, the sea for supporting fish. Hence, they consider all natural things as means to their own advantage. And knowing that they had found these means, not provided them for themselves, they had reason to believe that there was someone else who had prepared those means for their use. For after they considered things as means, they could not believe that the things had made themselves; but from the means they were accustomed to prepare for themselves, they had to infer that there was a ruler, or a number of rulers of nature, endowed with human freedom, who had taken care of all things for them, and made all things for their use.2

A comforting thought indeed, but no more true for the consolation it brings. Such people who feign a God like man...wander far from the true knowledge of God. There is no transcendent deity; there is no supernatural being, no being who is separate or different from or beyond Nature. There was no creation; there will be no final judgment. There is only Nature and what belongs to Nature.

The word God is still available, even useful, particularly as it captures certain essential features of Nature that constitute (at least among philosophers in Spinozas time) the definition of God: Nature is an eternal, infinite, necessarily existing substance, the most real and self-caused cause of whatever else is real. (Spinoza defines substance, the basic category of his metaphysics, as what is in itself and conceived through itself, that is, what has true ontological and epistemological independence.) Thus, God is nothing distinct from Nature itself. God is Nature, and Nature is all there is. This is why Spinoza prefers the phrase Deus sive Natura (God or Nature).

Early in his philosophical masterpiece, the Ethics, Spinoza says that whatever is, is in God, and from the necessity of the divine nature there must follow infinitely many things in infinitely many ways.3 All things, without exception, are in and a part of Nature; they are governed by the principles of Nature and brought about by other natural causes. Spinoza can be read either as a pantheistand historically this seems to be far and away the most common interpretationor as an atheist, as some of his most vehement critics (and fans) have done. Either way, what is non-negotiable is the denial of the personal, anthropomorphic Abrahamic God.4

It follows that there is, and can be, no such thing as divine providence, at least as this is typically understood. Everything that happens in Nature and by Natures laws happens with blind, absolute necessity. Every thing and every state of affairs is causally determined to be as it is. Neither Nature itself nor anything in Nature could have been otherwise. As Spinoza puts it, In nature there is nothing contingent, but all things have been determined from the necessity of the divine nature to exist and produce an effect in a certain way.5 In Spinozas view, this is not the best of all possible worlds; it is not even one among many possible worlds. This is the only possible world. Things could have been produced by God in no other way, and in no other order than they have been produced. 6

Needless to say, there are not, and cannot be, miracles, understood as divinely caused exceptions to the laws of nature. It is not just that miracles are highly unlikely or difficult to detectthey are metaphysically impossible. Nature cannot possibly contravene its own necessary ways. Events we take to be miraculous are simply those of whose natural causal explanation we are ignorant. Nothing happens in nature which is contrary to its universal laws....The term miracle cannot be understood except in relation to mens opinions, and means nothing but a work whose natural cause we cannot explain by the example of another familiar thing, or at least which cannot be so explained by the one who writes or relates the miracle.7

Teleology, too, is a fiction.8 There are no purposes for Nature and no purposes in Nature. Nature itself does not exist for the sake of anything else, and nothing is directed by Nature toward any end. Whatever is, just is; whatever happens, just happens (and had to happen). Neither the universe itself nor anything in the universe was created to achieve some goal.

What is true for teleology is also true of moral and aesthetic values. Nothing is good or bad or beautiful or ugly in itself. As far as good and evil are concerned, they also indicate nothing positive in things, considered in themselves, nor are they anything other than modes of thinking, or notions we form because we compare things to one another.9 God did not create the world because it was good; nor is the world good because God created it. Again, whatever is, just is and had to be as it is, period.

Such is the universe that Spinoza describes and establishes through the geometrical methoda series of definitions, axioms, demonstrated propositions, corollaries, and scholiain the metaphysical parts of the Ethics. It seems, on the face of it, a rather bleak picture, one worthy of the most radical form of nihilism.

But there is more.

The inviolable necessity of Nature governs not only the world of physical bodieswhere apples fall from trees and rocks roll down hillsbut also the domain of human activity, including whatever happens in the human mind. Thoughts, ideas, intentions, feelings, judgments, desires, even volitionsour everyday acts of willing and choosingare all as strictly necessitated by the laws of thought as bodies in motion are by the laws of physics. Indeed, Spinoza boldly proclaims in the beginning of Part Three of the Ethics, where he turns to human psychology, I will treat the nature and powers of the emotions, and the power of the mind over them, by the same method by which, in the preceding parts, I treated God and the mind, and I shall consider human actions and appetites as if it were a question of lines, planes and bodies.10 One mental act or psychological event follows another with the same necessity and deductive certainty with which it follows from the nature of the triangle that its interior angles add up to 180 degrees. In the mind, no less than among bodies, a strict causal determinism rules, and nothing could have been otherwise than as it is.

This means that there is no such thing as freedom of the will. The idea that what one wills or desires or chooses is a kind of spontaneous act of mindpossibly influenced by other mental items, such as beliefs or emotions, or states of the body, but by no means absolutely determined by themis an illusion. All men are born ignorant of the causes of things....[They] think themselves free because they are conscious of their volitions and their appetite, and do not think even in their dreams, of the causes by which they are disposed to wanting and willing, because they are ignorant of those causes.11 There is, to be sure, a kind of freedom available to human beings, and it is in our best interest to strive to attain it; this is what the Ethics is all about. But human freedom does not, and cannot, consist in the classic capacity to have chosen or willed or acted otherwise than as one did. In the mind, there is no absolute, or free, will, but the mind is determined to will this or that by a cause which is also determined by another, and this again by another, and so to infinity.12

There is no point in lamenting any of thisthe demise of a providential God, the emptying of the world of all meanings and values, our loss of free willor wishing things were different (since they could not possibly be different). To spend ones life in a state of passive resignation or bewailing ones fate and cursing Nature for the hand one has been dealt is not only a waste of time, but irrational and harmful. It is, in effect, to suffer, and to be (in Spinozas word) a slave to the passions.

But what is the alternative? Is there, within that eternal, infinite, necessary, deterministic, and meaningless world, a way for finite, mortal beings such as we are, subject to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, to flourish? When there is no wise, just, and providential God directing things to some end, when everything is governed by an inviolable, lawlike necessity and nothing could have been otherwise, can we nevertheless hope to achieve, through our own resources and effort, a life of well-being, even blessedness and salvation?

It is precisely this question that moved Spinoza, around the time of his herem (ban or excommunication) from the Amsterdam Portuguese-Jewish community, to abandon the life of a merchant and begin investigating that deepest and most important of moral inquiries: what is human happiness and how can it be achieved?

This is an excerpt from Think Least of Death:Spinoza on How to Live and How to Die bySteven Nadler.

Steven Nadleris Vilas Research Professor and the William H. Hay II Professor of Philosophy at the University of WisconsinMadison. His many books includeRembrandts Jews, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize,Spinoza: A Life, and (with Lawrence Shapiro)When Bad Thinking Happens to Good People: How Philosophy Can Save Us from Ourselves(Princeton).

1. Bento was Spinozas given name in the Portuguese-Jewish community of Amsterdam. Baruch was the Hebrew name used in the synagogue, and Benedictus is the Latin version of his name that appears in his published writings. All three names mean blessed.

2. Ethics I, Appendix, G II.7879/C I.44041.

3. Ethics Ip15 and Ip16.

4. For pantheistic readings, see Bennett (1984) and Curley (1988). For an atheistic reading, see Nadler (2008).

5. Ethics Ip29.

6. Ethics Ip33.

7. TTP VI, G III.8384/C II.15455.

8. The place of teleology in Spinozas philosophy is a topic of much discussion. For attempts to find a role for it in his system, see Garrett (1999) and Lin (2006b).

9. Ethics IV, Preface, G II.208/C I.545.

10. Ethics III, Preface, G II.138/C I.492.

11. Ethics, Appendix, G II.78/C I.440.

12. Ethics IIp48.

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A new way of life - Princeton University Press

2022 already has a Film of the Year nominee and thats the acclaimed sci-fi action-drama Everything, Everywhere at the Same Time.

Directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (known artistically as Daniels), the narrative starts from a simple premise already seen in several other productions on the film circuit the multiverse. The plot centers on Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh in Career Best Performance), a Chinese woman who is about to be audited and lose the washing powder she owns next to her husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan). However, Evelyn discovers the endless facets of a multiverse that is about to collide and sees her as a rallying point to prevent everything she knows from collapsing in the blink of an eye. . And, unlike similar works, such as the recent Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the production dives headlong into the aesthetics of the absurd and offers a journey full of incredible fight sequences, fantastic performances and impeccable dialogues that range from existentialism to philosophical nihilism.

Despite the films many themes, one plays a central role in building the arcs and, because its presented so subtly, goes unnoticed by the audience: language.

The concept of language is not rigid and is a subject of analysis by several linguists, historians and philosophers. The Russian thinker Mikhail Bakhtin, for example, discriminates language as the system of language, the substance of which is constituted by the social phenomenon of verbal interaction, realized through utterances; in this way, the construction between interlocutors is essential for language and language to exist and, in this way, there is dialogism between one person and another.

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And what is the relationship with Everything, everywhere at the same time?

Even though Evelyn has huge problems on her hands, one of the obstacles she faces along her journey is the constant conflict between her Asian roots and all the characters around her even her own, who struggle to build an identity that is bombarded by the social roles it has to play. This is how the clashes between Evelyn and her daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu), her father Gong Gong (James Hong) and even IRS employee Deirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis) come to life in a metaphysical explosion that explores the language barriers in an original and thoughtful way. way, leading us to understand what is shown on the big screen instead of just teaching us from coercive didacticism.

The first layer to examine is the almost belligerent relationship between Evelyn and Joy. As a child, Evelyn was all but disowned by her family for choosing to marry Waymond, transferring the traumas of needing to be the perfect girl to Joy who was already shunning the heteronormative, Asian construct Evelyn had cultivated since her youth. But Joy refuses to be someone other than what she is, which fuels the clash of generations and foreshadows future events. In this respect, it is language that serves as a support for reiterating the conflict: Evelyn unfolds in several personalities to respond to the request that is asked of her, both from the father and from the daughter. It is for this reason that the protagonists lines waver between Mandarin and English, as if searching for common ground to converse with the two and regain the long-lost concept of family. Joy, on the other hand, seems to be moving away from the cultural roots of her father and mother by refusing, albeit unconsciously, to learn Mandarin: if the linguistic distance between her and her mother was already perceptible, the chasm between her and his grandfather is screaming.

The second layer, although less explored, rises between Evelyn and Gong Gong. Even after starting a family and establishing her own business, she still bows her head to her fathers sense of superiority, as if seeking approval lost for decades. In that same desperate tumult, she also cant shake off destructive thoughts about what her life might have been like had she not married Waymond and followed her dream of being an actress a glimpse we see in one dimensions of the multiverse. However, the weight of dishonor, so to speak, is even greater when Evelyn cannot resort to the linguistic evasion of English to express her feelings for her father, returning, in a gesture obliged, to the Cantonese dialect the roots of which still extend to permeate your mind and leave you locked in a bind.

Now even Evelyn and Deirdres relationship faces similar obstacles: the character played by Curtis is the ultimate representation of American predatory neo-imperialism, whose lack of empathy with Evelyns daily struggle (in this case , Asian immigrants) is reinforced by the way you speak. The dialogism between the two is nil; what exists is a one-dimensional rhetoric through which Deirdre touches on condescension and uses Evelyns lack of language skills to put her in her place and make her tremble for fear of losing the last shred of independence she has. .

The intersection of these structural issues is Waymond: even shunned by the more humble background and lack of ambition, the character is tasked with enabling Evelyn to be who she is, serving as the intangible and tangible support that keeps her from to commit madness. . After all, as can be seen in the films acclaimed conclusion, the variables of the multiverse are out of control but Waymond remains there as the only constant, metaphysical and linguistic.

Everything, Everywhere at the Same Time goes beyond what the eye can see and, for that reason, it establishes itself as a dense, complex film that reveals its deepest layers every time we look at it. lets see again. And, when we stop to analyze it, the impulses of language function as a link between the endless subplots, allowing us to create a bridge between the reality of the film and our own.

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Items | How language became the protagonist of Everything, everywhere at the same time Designer Women - Designer Women

After the wreckage of Watergate, the conventional wisdom embraced the clich that the coverup was worse than the crime. Actually, thats still true. But we need to upgrade our hierarchy of horribles.

Politicians will always commit crimes, and some will try to engineer elaborate schemes of concealment. The sins of the powerful are with us always; their essential untrustworthiness was baked into our system of checks and balances.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary, James Madison would have tweeted. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.

This, of course, is the tricky part, because it assumes that the institutional and political restraints would hold, and that the American people would want them to.

But what if they didnt?

What if we had a coup and a coverup, and nobody (by which I mean the GOP) cared?

In 2022, the real danger isnt just the crime or the coverup, its the acceptance.

We know that the nation can survive insurrections and even attempts at obstruction of justice. But can it survive a shrug?

Polls continue to show that the majority of Republican voters still believe the Big Lie, and support Trump.

So what happens if one of the nations two dominant political parties decides that it doesnt care? And is rewarded by the voters for its cynicism and moral nihilism?

This seems like a good time to point out something else: The real threat to democracy is not the Big Lie. Its something worse.

This is not to suggest that election denialism or conspiracy theories are not dangerous; they are, of course. But the House January 6th Committee has reminded us of something important: The whole Big Lie thing is ludicrous, risible, inane bullshit. It is an entire political belief system based on demented theories about Italian satellites, Venezuelan voting machines, and the hallucinations of Mike Lindell.

But thats not the point.

You may have noticed how the various claims from Rudy/Dinesh/[Insert name of insane Republican] are ever-shifting. A bogus charge is made, it is debunked, and it is quickly replaced with the next fabrication, and so on. Its an endless morphing chain of guano-soaked nonsense. But despite the parade of absurdities, no factual refutation ever seems to stick.

Why? Because the lies dont matter. Only the outcome counts.

In other words, millions of Americans dont necessarily believe something crazy and bogus. They believe something much worse.

The Big Lie is the pretext for the refusal to accept the peaceful transfer of power to political opponents who are seen as evil and dangerous.

Forget about the dropboxes, mules, and rigged voting machines; nobody really cares about the votes or the counting of votes. Its not about that; its about winning or to be more precise, defeating the enemy.

A subtext of right-wing politics now is that the other side simply cannot be allowed to win. They hate America, they hate God, and they will destroy everything you hold dear.

Its the Flight 93 election forever. Its Jan. 6th . . . forever.

So we get increasingly brazen attempts to rig elections, including the notion that gerrymandered majorities in state legislatures can overturn the popular vote.

And because the stakes are apocalyptic, we are hearing threats of secession and nullification, and seeing polls like this:

More than one quarter of US residents feel so estranged from their government that they feel it might soon be necessary to take up arms against it, a poll released on Thursday claimed.

And if you doubt that partisans would simply ignore the results of an election, I give you this tale from my home state: Wisconsin Court Validates a Republican Strategy to Preserve Power.

Via the NYT: Trump Group Pays for Jan. 6 Lawyers, Raising Concerns of Witness Pressure.

WASHINGTON Former President Donald J. Trump's political organization and his allies have paid for or promised to finance the legal fees of more than a dozen witnesses called in the congressional investigation into the Jan. 6 attack, raising legal and ethical questions about whether the former president may be influencing testimony with a direct bearing on him.

The arrangement drew new scrutiny this week after Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide in his White House, made an explosive appearance before the House panel, providing damning new details about Mr. Trumps actions and statements on the day of the deadly riot.

She did so after firing a lawyer who had been recommended to her by two of Mr. Trumps former aides and paid for by his political action committee, and hiring new counsel. Under the representation of the new lawyer, Jody Hunt, Ms. Hutchinson sat for a fourth interview with the committee in which she divulged more revelations and agreed to come forward publicly to testify to them.

Must, must, must read from Tim Miller:

They all had internalized what they thought were the lessons of the previous decade. The political reality meant that the base of voters in the Breitbart comment section must be appeased and managed. A groupthink emerged whereby this reality came to be treated as if it were delivered from on high. And the Truth mustnt be reflected upon without the whole game being jeopardized.

When I dug deeper beneath this cozy conventional wisdom, what I found were real choices made by individuals who all fell back on a few phyla of rationalization that reveal why they did what they did.

They fit into different categories, some of which reflect universal, human failings replicated across industries and societies and ideologies. Others are unique to the creatures of Washington or the contaminated right-wing political ecosystem that sustained the Mango Monstrosity.

They all turned out to be much more powerful than I had anticipated.

I divide them into these buckets:

Messiahs and Junior Messiahs Demonizers LOL Nothing Matters Republicans Tribalist Trolls Strivers Little Mixes Peter Principle Disprovers Nerd Revengers The Inert Team Players The Compartmentalizers Cartel Cashers

Heres a field guide, my taxonomy of enablers, so you can identify them in the wild.

Bill Lueders in this mornings Bulwark writes that governors promising clemency and prosecutors vowing non-prosecution wont keep abortion providers open in states with bans.

The day after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers made a public pledge to cut a break to anyone convicted of violating the states 1849 law banning abortion.

I will provide clemency to any physician that is charged under that law, Evers said during a rally preceding the state Democratic Party convention in La Crosse. During his convention speech, he said: I dont think that a law that was written before the Civil War, or before women secured the right to vote, should be used to dictate these intimate decisions on reproductive health.

Wisconsins Democratic attorney general, Josh Kaul, has also said he will not use to resources of his office to prosecute abortion providers. So have the district attorneys for the states two largest counties, Milwaukee and Dane.

These statements naturally elicit a question: Is there any talk about using these pledges of protection to continue to offer abortion services?

The quick answer to your question is no, writes Lisa Boyce, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, in an email. She continues:

We appreciate the Governors support and commend AG Kauls stance on access to safe and legal abortion in WI. Unfortunately, the attorney generals office does not handle most criminal prosecutions in the state. There are 71 county district attorneys who would be free to try and enforce the criminal statute against providers. There is also a 6-year statute of limitations on felonies in Wisconsin, which means even if someone doesnt prosecute a provider now, a DA office would have 6 years to decide to prosecute.

Jeffrey Isaac, writing in the Bulwark:

We should hope that Tuesdays testimony by Cassidy Hutchinson, along with the other evidence made public by the Jan. 6th Committee, will lead to criminal liability forand prosecution ofeveryone involved in planning and executing the Trumpist coup attemptup to and including Trump himself.

But this is secondary business.

The primary business is not criminal but political. The Republican party which aided, abetted, and participated in this crisis must be held responsible by voters for its ongoing efforts to undermine constitutional democracy. It must be fought from top to bottom in the upcoming November election and in the one to follow in 2024.

And it must be defeated.

David Brooks asks an exceedingly good question: Why on Earth Is Pelosi Supporting the Trumpists?

The Democratic Party is behaving recklessly and unpatriotically. So far, Democrats have spent tens of millions to help Trumpist candidates in Republican primaries.

In Illinois alone, the Democratic Governors Association and Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker spent at least $30 million to attack a Trumpists moderate gubernatorial opponent. In Pennsylvania, a Democratic campaign spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads intended to help a Trumpist candidate win the G.O.P. gubernatorial primary. A political action committee affiliated with Nancy Pelosi worked to boost far-right Republican House candidates in California and Colorado.

They are doing it because they think far-right Trumpist candidates will be easier to beat in the general elections than more moderate candidates.

Because WTF could go wrong?

Go here to read the rest:

The Big Lie Is Just the Pretext - by Charlie Sykes - The Bulwark