The Cheerful Nihilist (On Ligotti's The Conspiracy Against The Human Race)

by Foul Apparatus  

From the first pages of Thomas Ligotti's The Conspiracy Against The Human Race, I knew this author would have his place among my spiritual masters, alongside Nietzsche, Cioran, Camus or Heidegger. This is a book I'll come back to again and again, as it reignited a private argument which will only end when I crumble under dementia or am six feet under. Besides the philosophical content, one of the most original aspects of this work is the synthesis between philosophical pessimism and supernatural horror. As both philosopher and horror writer, Ligotti is able to draw connections between abstract ideas and the concrete stuff that scares us in horrors: creepy dolls, clowns from outer space, unknown monsters of the deep sea, The Old Ones, decrepit mansions, and so on.

Ligotti draws the distinction between optimists and pessimists about life. Pessimists think that the existence of the human race is a tragic anomaly and that being alive is mostly meaningless suffering. The evolution of consciousness is a terrible accident as it amplifies our torment, making us aware of our own mortality and the fact that we're basically meat in a meat-grinder. The universe is a cold, dark place where no one can hear our screams and our horizon is smeared with blood. For the pessimist, the faster this nightmare existence ends, the better it is for everyone, and we should lament every birth as a violation of blissful nonexistence. By contrast, for the optimist being alive is all right; he has no major complaints as he's likely under the spell of a grand narrative featuring God, Family, Nation or The Good, a fabrication that infuses his life with hope and meaning. For the optimist, consciousness is a wonderful thing as it allows us to know the world and gives us the power to plan and change it for the better. On his view, the human race is special and noble, it rises above the rest of creation as man alone was awarded the power of consciousness, and the freedom and responsibility that come with it.

Following Norwegian philosopher Peter Zapffe, Ligotti argues that optimists manage to stay optimistic because they're able to minimize their consciousness and zombify themselves. This trick can be achieved in four ways: isolation, anchoring, distraction, and sublimation. On Ligotti's view, these four methods constitute what he calls "the conspiracy against the human race," in the sense that by this process of more or less conscious self-deception we avoid facing the pointless cosmic butchery we're trapped in, and thus we miss our only salvation, which is our outright extinction as freaks of nature.

When we use the first method, "we isolate the dire facts of being alive by relegating them to a remote compartment of our minds. They are the lunatic family members in the attic whose existence we deny in a conspiracy of silence." According to the second method, in order to "stabilize our lives in the tempestuous waters of chaos, we conspire to anchor them in metaphysical and institutional "verities"—God, Morality, Natural Law, Country, Family—that inebriate us with a sense of being official, authentic, and safe in our beds." The third method aims at turning a blind eye to cosmic horror by "distracting our minds with a world of trifling or momentous trash. The most operant method for furthering the conspiracy, it is in continuous employ and demands only that people keep their eyes on the ball—or their television sets, their government's foreign policy, their science projects, their careers, their place in society and the universe, etc. The final method consists of us sublimating "our fears by making an open display of them. In the Zapffean sense, sublimation is the rarest technique utilized for conspiring against the human race. Putting into play both deviousness and skill, this is what thinkers and artistic types do when they recycle the most demoralizing and unnerving aspects of life as works in which the worst fortunes of humanity are presented in a stylized and removed manner as entertainment. In so many words, these thinkers and artistic types confect products that provide an escape from our suffering by a bogus simulation of it—a tragic drama or philosophical woolgathering, for instance."  

   

Ligotti's main message is not news to me, since I've been an Emil Cioran (whom Ligotti calls "a maestro of pessimism") fan since the tender age of thirteen. Furthermore, I'm deep into existentialism, have a couple of grim horror books of my own, and am also into Depressive Suicidal Black Metal, a subgenre of Black Metal aimed at conveying feelings of alienation, loneliness, despair, and at reminding people that suicide isn't such a bad idea. However, Ligotti's passionate and clear arguments, his beautiful and honest style, and the graphic way he portrays our sorry existence has made me revisit my stance on these core existential issues. I have two interrelated critical comments on Ligotti's book, after a first reading. The first one concerns the psychological type of the cheerful nihilist, and the second one describes one of the main challenges for the pessimist, the challenge of being a nobody.

First, I and many others I would imagine, don't consider ourselves either pessimists or optimists, but are cheerful nihilists. Being a true pessimist is pretty hard. In The Trouble with Being Born, Cioran claims "I do nothing, granted. But I see the hours go by—which is better than trying to fill them." Cioran here refers to the excess of lucidity the pessimist endures, which, however, brings him closer to the ugly truth of life, and he proclaims this to be better than being a busy self-deluded puppet invested in killing time. Be that as it may, not many people are inclined to just sit around and see the hours go by. Eventually, they'll start doing something. Off themselves? Maybe. But the "maestro of pessimism" is quick to point out: "Only optimists commit suicide, optimists who no longer succeed at being optimists. The others, having no reason to live, why would they have any to die?" So, do what then? Camus' point in The Myth of Sisyphus is that the absurdity of the universe, in and of itself, has no bearing on how we should live our lives. Whatever we do is of no consequence in the big picture. Now, some might find this depressing and just decide to see the hours go by and wallow in self-pity. But the cheerful nihilist sees this grim state of affairs as pretty liberating. The universe is a playground where you can do whatever, as there are no parents in sight (or gods). The world is an amusement park and why not have some fun before surrendering to infinite darkness? The cheerful nihilist is neither a pessimist nor an optimist, he's mostly agnostic and non-committal. While he's aware that consciousness amplifies suffering, he also knows that it makes possible higher pleasures, like reading and writing books, which even Cioran himself has indulged in most of his life, when sick of watching the hours go by. So, the cheerful nihilist is not prone to any extreme views as the total eradication of humankind. Also, his commitment to life doesn't involve the delusions the cowardly optimist clings to. The cheerful nihilist is not fully anchored in any values and keeps a critical, ironic distance toward any grand narratives with a happy ending. He is, after all, a student of postmodernism. The cheerful nihilist might engage in sublimation for the fun of it, not with the heroic, virginal fervor of someone like Nietzsche, but with more restrained enthusiasm. The cheerful nihilist floats in a universe of scepticism, uncertainty, and irony, but, despite his awareness of the ugly truths behind the scenes of daily life, he's trying to enjoy what existence has to offer till sickness and the Grim Ripper make their necessary appearance.       

Second, I think being a true, fully consistent pessimist is not only hard but almost impossible. It's really a tough position to hold, without appearing hypocritical. Martin Heidegger has argued that human beings, as beings-in-the-world, exist mostly in a state of inauthenticity. That is, simply put, they do what others do, what They do, what is done. We mostly live in the inauthentic human soup of The They, we do what's expected of us in a zombie-like fashion. We keep busy, plan for the future, always ahead of ourselves, absorbed by some job or another. This goes on, Heidegger argues, until our awareness of our own death hits us and our knees buckle. No one else can die in our place, we face death alone. This gives us anxiety, and only in this state of fear of death do we become authentic, because death forces us to see our lives as our own, and no one else's. However, Heidegger argues, humans don't linger in this state of anxiety for long. Eventually, they reach a decision about the trajectory of their lives and then succumb again, willy-nilly, to the force of The They. The They is our home. Authenticity is just a bad trip we normally forget about. Now, the options of what to do with our lives are provided on the public market as predefined social roles. Tired of your job? Go back to school. A recent injury doesn't allow you to have a career in hockey? Try an office job. You don't know what degree to aim for? Try traveling around the world to find yourself. It follows that, like most of us, the pessimist cannot sustain the state of anxiety for long. Eventually, he'll submit to the power of The They and just live like others do. Like in the case of Cioran, he gave up on watching the hours go by and became a famous writer. He was also a voracious reader. In the same vein, Ligotti points out Lovecraft's interest in architecture. Schopenhauer was a monarchist and professional Hegel hater. My point is that despite the dramatic posturing, most pessimists are just like the rest of us, subject to the force of The They, they live like most of us, enjoying some things, hating others. And if they de facto take part in this inauthentic communal life, then what right do they have to say life is no good? Isn't that a bit hypocritical? Like some emo youth with a Nocturnal Depression t-shirt shopping in the organic section and complaining about the poor selection or an antinatalist trying to become a nurse. This schizoid Dr. Strangelove-type appearance is not a good look for the pessimist. It raises doubts and questions. Moreover, pessimists can't kill themselves either because only optimists kill themselves. Suppose then that they decide to live like pariahs, losers, at the margins of society? After all, Cioran famously claimed: "Only one thing matters: learning to be the loser." However, this, on the face of it, is a project, something to strive for. Like being the town drunk, being the loser is a social role, still in the social space of The They, though, admittedly, on the margins of that space. Cioran was well-aware of this challenge the true pessimist faces, which is one of the reasons he turned down a handful of prestigious literary awards claiming that one cannot write a book like The Trouble With Being Born only so one can cash a literary prize.

Ligotti is aware of the power of the survival instinct and how it can blindside us even if consciously and intellectually we want to reject it. Then, given that humans, like all animals, are hardwired to be social, maybe it's best to look for the authentic pessimist in the ranks of the mentally ill, those malfunctioning brains that make installing the sociability program almost impossible. In this respect, Ligotti's description of depression is telling:

"This is the great lesson the depressive learns: nothing in the world is inherently compelling. Whatever may be really "out there" cannot project itself as an affective experience. It is all a vacuous affair with only a chemical prestige. Nothing is either good or bad, desirable or undesirable, or anything else except that it is made so by laboratories inside us producing the emotions on which we live. And to live on our emotions is to live arbitrarily, inaccurately—imparting meaning to what has none of its own. Yet what other way is there to live. Without the ever-clanking machinery of emotion, everything would come to a standstill. There would be nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing to be, and no one to know. The alternatives are clear: to live falsely as pawns of affect, or to live factually as depressives, or as individuals who know what is known to the depressive. How advantageous that we are not coerced into choosing one or the other, neither choice being excellent. One look at human existence is proof enough that our species will not be released from the stronghold of emotionalism that anchors it into hallucinations. That may be no way to live, but to opt for depression would be to opt out of existence as we consciously know it."

Thus, the depressive would be a good candidate for an authentic pessimist. From a Heideggerian perspective, a depressive is no longer a being-in-the-world. He's a puppet with its strings cut off, an existential abortion. As Ligotti puts it, depressives need not "apply for a position in the enterprise of life." There's a gaping abyss between the depressive and the world, a darkness that strips him of the luxury of an identity or a sense of will. For the depressive, saying or thinking "I" is nothing short of a miracle. There's usually telltale signs of depression, so that even when a depressive decides to participate in the enterprise of life, they give themselves away easily. They're awkward and out of synch with the others, they either talk too much or are too quiet, they laugh too hard as if to keep the inner darkness at bay and reassure themselves that they're really succeeding at playing the game of life like all the others, and that the game is real. However, deep down, they know that the trick won't work and the illusion will dissipate soon, like the makeup running down the face of an alien dressed as a clown. When it comes to parties or other social gatherings, the depressive either cancels at the last moment or leaves early as they feel they can't ignite their socializing engine. If the engine starts, the depressive is the last one to leave the party as he knows this is as good as it gets for him and the usual darkness patiently awaits at home. A few years ago I had this friend suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder. I've noticed that even when she'd take a stab at socializing, she would refuse to appear in group pictures. Later, she explained to me that she wants to live like a ghost. After she dies, she confessed, she wants people to wonder if she truly existed. 

This notion of being a living ghost reminded me of John Darnton's brief portrayal of someone suffering from Cotard's syndrome in his book Mind Catcher, when his character, neurosurgeon Kate Willet, visits a psychiatric ward for severely mentally ill.    

"The room was dimly lit and she could not see very well, but she didn't care to get a better view. There was one bed in the room and a young man supine on it. His wrists and ankles were tied to the sides of the bed with thick white straps, and he was lying totally stiff, as if he were a piece of wood. His eyes were open and staring straight up at the ceiling; they didn't move. Nor did he seem to blink. His skin was ashen gray. His shirt was off, and when Kate looked closely, she saw that his upper torso and his arms and his ankles and his face were covered with wounds—deep angry red gouges running in parallel lines. He had evidently inflicted them upon himself with his fingernails.

The administrative assistant came up behind them. When she spoke, Kate almost jumped out of her skin.

"That is an unfortunate man," the woman said. "He has an extremely rare illness called Cotard's syndrome. [...] In this case, the patient has no emotions whatsoever. He's totally without affect. The patient is stripped of all signs of life. In fact, he becomes convinced that he is actually dead, and it is impossible to rid him of this particular delusion. At times he will smell his own flesh rotting. And at other times he becomes convinced that worms are crawling over his rotting corpse, and he scratches himself without ceasing. For that reason, he must from time to time be restrained."

To sum up, the authentic pessimist, as opposed to the emo poser, is most likely to be found in the ranks of those suffering from mental disorders. Unable to fully dissolve himself in the forgetfulness of the They, his surplus of consciousness giving rise to a chronic alienation, the true pessimist is a master of killing time, time is the enemy as each second takes him closer to inevitable death, and also because time is the reminder he already is dead, but not yet buried. As Cioran says, "A book is a suicide postponed," a suicide that will always come too late, as the true pessimist, being already dead, sees no point in final gestures or affirmations.

Like I said, these are just two of the multiple thoughts and ideas I've had while reading Ligotti's marvelous book The Conspiracy Against The Human Race. His incisive style, clear argumentation, beautiful prose, and grim imagery will make me come back to his book and read his fiction work as well. As a cheerful nihilist, I hope Ligotti's dark fiction is delightful and that my ability to enjoy good books lasts for many years to come.  

The Writing Dead

Beware, the dead are writing! They happened on a new way to trap us and eat our brains: zombie writing. As it's to be expected the writing of the undead is boring and foggy, impersonal and vague, tinged with unfocused nostalgia for real life. However, that writing has the terrible power to induce sleep and leave one defenseless in the face of a zombie attack It's crucial for our survival to be able to distinguish zombie writing from real writing. For that, we need to go back to the source of authentic writing and tattoo on our still-functioning brains the words of a master about his craft. I speak, of course, of Emil Cioran, Nietzsche's most significant disciple. 

“A book is a suicide postponed,” Cioran reminds us. “Write books only if you are going to say in them the things you would never dare confide to anyone.” "True confessions are written with tears only. But my tears would drown the world, as my inner fire would reduce it to ashes" "I like thought which preserves a whiff of flesh and blood, and I prefer a thousand times an idea rising from sexual tension or nervous depression to empty abstraction."

Now we have the litmus test for zombie writing. The dead don't commit suicide, being already dead and all, and therefore they can't postpone their suicide. The undead have no confessions to make and no tears to shed. The dead don't hurt, they have no emotions, no sex drive, no melancholy, they just want to feed on flesh and brains. The dead don't bleed either. If you cut the words of zombie writing with a knife, the wound doesn't bleed, no tears come out, but only the pungent stench of busy locker-rooms, the boiling pus of repressed nightmares, and the white sand of boredom.

Zombie writing is a serious threat to our survival as a species. Zombies write for money, the living are their customers. The undead use money to produce more dead prose and gradually annihilate their hapless victims with their poisonous offerings. The larger the web the more flies get stuck in it. Why are the living paying for this junk? Well, for the same reason they buy heroin: sedation, abdication, the promise of decay hidden in a shot of Krokodyl, the thrill of forgetting. Being human, let's face it, is hard work. All these thoughts and emotions, this constant torment of lucidity, it can get pretty exhausting. And for what? There's no reward for being human. Most of us want out, whether we know it or not. We want to apply for bankruptcy, we instinctively know there's no winning here. The EXIT sign flashes red under our fragile web of mundane thoughts and empty gestures. We just want to die and shed our consciousness. We dream of the Paradise of mummification. We want to discard our existence like a filthy rag. We crave the bullet, the guillotine blade, the black sack over our heads before strangulation. We're eager to find our Jim Jones and ask for our promised cyanide. That's why we read about riding nonexistent dragons and setting nonexistent cities on fire, we fantasize about nonexistent castles and kings and Disney princes and princesses, we fancy ourselves superheroes to make up for the deeper, nagging knowledge that we're not fit for life.  

I voice this warning about zombified art but it might be too late, the infection is spreading fast, the siren call of Death has turned into a totalitarian command. Besides the Edgetivist trend, no one seems to care about their lives. Human life is cheaper than during the Black Plague. On the positive side, I realize I have something in common with the undead, there's something to cannibalism. And I don't mean in Jeffrey Dahmer's sense, clean skin is probably just as disgusting to chew on as inked skin. But more in line with Emil Cioran's dictum: “Sometimes I wish I were a cannibal – less for the pleasure of eating someone than for the pleasure of vomiting him.”

Satanism Declawed (The Satanic Temple abomination)

Ecce Homo, according to TST, the perfect sub

I was pretty enthusiastic about the Satanic Temple (TST, for short) when I saw the documentary "Hail Satan?" I was so into it I wanted to join the Edmonton chapter, but I soon realized it was a sad gathering of soy losers. Looking back, I think my infatuation had to do with my bitter hatred against the fascist Evangelical movement in the US. I figured that the enemies of my enemy must be my friends. Plus, I fully support the leftist politics behind the Satanic Temple, and their fight for equality, social justice, and LGBTQ rights. But soon I realized there's something rotten about TST, and it has to do with their hijacking and banalization of noble Satanic symbols and traditions, with no regard to their spiritual significance.

TST reeks like a public toilet or the sour sweatness that infuses a crowded bus. Its members are animated by the fearful hysteria of special needs kids singing around a campfire, hoping to keep the monsters away. There's nothing Satanic about this movement. The central, traditional  Satanic virtues are aristocratic pride, uncompromising individualism, colossal arrogance, elitism, sadism, a glorification of war and strife, and a romantic, creative outlook on life coupled with a delight in solitude. Now, the first tenant of TST reads: "One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance to reason." A true Satanist would recoil in disgust at this. If you squint a bit, behind that tenant, you can see the defeated, grotesque figure of the perennial slave, the marginalized loser, the creature born with the sole task of tasting all flavors of pain. And that resentful slave is the exact opposite of what traditional Satanism is all about. In fact, that pitiful slave is precisely the Christian scum which has been the whip boy of the true Satanist throughout the ages. The repugnant slave is now hiding under the guise of his master. What a farce! What a bad joke! One can't help but wonder, how did this sad transformation come about? In what follows I describe a few factors that must have contributed to this absurd state of affairs.

It is well-known that the fascist Evangelical right in the US has nothing to do with real Christianity. Following their Protestant outlook, the right-wing Christians hate the poor and equate poverty with sin, while success and wealth are seen as a blessing. Now, gradually this so-called Christian entity started to take on some seemingly Satanic attributes: strict hierarchal social order, intolerance, arrogance and disdain for the weak and vulgar. If you want, it started taking on the attributes of the Ancient Roman ruling class, the class that had been the target of the early Christians. Now, with this analogy in mind, the rise of TST is starting to make sense. Under the veneer of Satanism, the logical opposite of evil Christians, the old Christianity is reformed. The cries for equality, justice and inclusion are heard again. But this is just socialism with a Satanic face. Satanism is in no way essential to this movement. It is a paradigmatic Christian movement. Very edifying in this respect are Nietzsche's remarks about the Christian roots of socialism. One of them reads: “The socialists appeal to the Christian instincts; that is their most subtle piece of shrewdness” (Will to Power)

Watain, one of the black metal bands carrying the banner of true Satanism

Although a ruling political class can exhibit virtues associated with Satanism, Satanism in and of itself is strictly apolitical. By definition, the Satanist values his private space, his solitude, the realm where his authentic freedom can blossom. Others are usually a hindrance. The fun begins when the noises of the herd die down. Following Aristotle, Nietzsche reminds us: "To live alone one must be either a beast or a god." And self-deification is something the Satanist strives for. By contrast, any political enterprise starts with the question of the common good, of an optimal organization of society. Now, any such endeavor, by definition, would make the Satanist vomit, as he knows his own good is not the good of the crowd. Those two values are incommensurable because of the unbridgeable gap separating him from the vulgar slave. To put it differently, the Satanist strives to be a monster or a god, he wants to transcend his own humanity. Being human is a limit to be overcome in the spiritual quest for freedom. Now, any political project hinges on the premise of our common humanity, that we're all more or less the same, a homogeneous mass, we have all the same pains, the same hopes, and aspirations, the same things that make us happy. For the Satanic beast, this postulated uniformity is pure blasphemy and should be rejected in all its shapes and forms.

And this is why there's no strict contradiction between being a true Satanist and a leftist, though surely there's a psychological tension between the two. These two commitments belong to different spheres. One is private and the other is public. In the public sphere, one's humanity is assumed and one fights for the common good of all humans. In the private sphere, humanity and its limitations are questioned, man challenges the idea that he's a creation and becomes himself a creator. This is why creativity, originality and a strong artistic impulse define the authentic Satanist. He doesn't bow down to whatever values happen to exist in the degenerate community he contingently inhabits, but he creates his own values. For more on this issue, see my posts Punching Nazis, Black Metal, and the use of Ideological Symbols and my review of Berdyaev's Slavery and Freedom. 

In conclusion, TST is a repugnant abomination, mixing Satanism with political activism, cheapening noble Satanic symbols with their vulgar practices thus obscuring their original spiritual meaning and power. The herd instinct of these weaklings to organize and form chapters and nests around the world is completely foreign to the Satanic spirit. I think it would be more honest and honorable for this movement to just be a political leftist movement and just drop the "Satanic" gimmicks. But honor and honesty are hard to expect from slaves who constantly use deception for attention and survival.    

Punching Nazis, Black Metal, and the Use of Ideological Symbols

I'm all behind the political trend of punching and scalping Nazis. Once you wear the swastika symbol or do the Nazi salute, then you're fair game, you can be beaten, pissed on, burned and so on, as you, in fact, have shedded your humanity. While this case seems to me pretty clear, I wonder about others that don't appear to clearly warrant a violent response. How about someone wearing the communist hammer and sickle symbol? Is that an endorsement of genocide, given the communist atrocities? I think people are less inclined to react to the communist mark, partly because of ignorance, and partly because the communist threat seems so distant and academic, compared to the Nazi threat, which became hard to ignore especially after the election of Trump. Also, I'm a bit biased so I wouldn't punch a comrade.   

Things can get pretty tricky when, like me, you're a leftist who happens to love black metal. The anxiety about whether the hoodies and band-shirts you wear warrant you getting punched is a real thing, especially when you yourself are itching for some political violence. I'm a fan of Revenge, Marduk, and Peste Noire, bands singled out and boycotted by Antifa as Neo-Nazi. Black metal is an extreme and serious business and the rise of National Socialist Black Metal (NSBM) seems to be a natural development within a genre aimed at smashing all taboos. Peste Noire is easily categorized as NS given, among other things, the frontman's, Famine, happily doing the Nazi salute, a penchant for Third Right memorabilia, and the title of their first demo, Aryan Supremacy. Revenge is a bit harder to categorize, in light of their minimalist style and the fact that they don't publish their lyrics. However, reading through the album and song titles paints a vivid far-right picture. On Scum. Collapse. Eradication. you get songs like "Parasite Gallows (In Line)" or "Burden Eradication (Nailed Down)" Now, if you ask yourself who are the parasites who need to be nailed down and eradicated, you can get a clue from titles like "Sterilisation (Procreation Denied)." Given that Revenge is from Alberta, Canada, where eugenics had been practiced mainly against Aboriginal People up till the '70s, it's not far-fetched to conclude a virulent racism against Natives is at work here, with yet another history of genocide right on its tail. Taking into account the evolution of their style, their changing aesthetics and the variety of themes behind their music, Marduk is yet harder to pigeonhole than the previous two acts. Their early output was straight Anti-Christian Satanic Black Metal. However, the Panzer tanks featured on their EP Here's no Peace and the Panzer Division Marduk  album, as well as the eagle insignia adorning the cover of their Live in Germania album, have raised a few eyebrows and placed them straight on the Antifa black list.

Although NSBM is the more explicitly political sub-genre of black metal, Satanic Black Metal also has some grim political implications. Black metal is closely associated with various forms of Satanism, and it has a cultish, fanatical side to it. And I don't mean the watered-down, compassionate and humanitarian version of Satanism defining the Satanic Temple, but the real deal: ruthless destruction of all creation, savage misanthropy, a celebration of darkness, chaos, and death. This is the ideology behind towering acts like Behemoth, Satyricon, Mayhem, Gorgoroth, Watain, Marduk, Inquisition, and so on. Now, genuine Satanic Black Metal hasn't received as much political attention as NSBM, but it goes without saying that it can be more dangerous. I mean, a real Satanist wants 99% of mankind eradicated or enslaved by the Luciferian elite, not only the Jews or the Slavs or the Blacks. If no satanic black flame of rebellion is burning within them,  Aryans can line up in front of gas chambers the same way as other misbegotten races. So, that's a tad worrisome, I'd say. Erik of Watain eloquently states his views as follows: "For me,

Satan represents something so much bigger than this world, than this universe, than the creator of this universe. It is a force that is constantly counteracting the creation and breaking it down until everything has returned to its totally unlimited state of chaos." And the natural conclusion comes when Erik states that he "totally encourage(s) any kind of terrorist acts committed in the name of Watain."

So then, do I deserve to be beaten up for wearing a Watain hoodie, just as I should be if I were wearing a swastika armband? Should I be burned? After all, one of my hoodies claims "Let the World Burn" and last time I checked I was part of this world. Also, isn't a leftist supposed to destroy only the ruling class while waking the working class out of its exploitative slumber and help it build a bright, majestic, just future? Revenge hoodies have minimalist designs (skull-and-crossbones, knives, gas masks and so on) and pretty vague inscriptions ("Doom Division," "Total Rejection," "Scum Eradication," or "Nihilist Militant")  so I feel pretty safe wearing them but I've decided against buying a Panzer Division Marduk hoodie and settled on buying a flag instead. I thought wearing that hoodie would be in bad taste, especially in the ugly wake of Trump's election. Plus, what adorns the walls of my place is private, my business, behind closed doors. The private/public distinction comes with its own problems. My Facebook account is technically private but social media seems by definition to be public. And what if I decide to throw a party, does my apartment then suddenly become a public space for one night?

Philosopher Richard Rorty has an original understanding of the private/public distinction. In the private sphere, we focus on self-improvement or overcoming ourselves. Or, to put it differently, we focus on becoming who we are, as opposed to who others want us to be. Nietzsche, Rorty argues, is a philosopher of the private sphere. His metaphors regarding war are just meant to highlight the struggles we face on the road to self-discovery, the struggle of the individual trying to distance himself from the herd, the master trying not to drown in the sea of degenerate slaves. For Rorty, privacy also comes with a spiritual and artistic dimension. Following Whitehead's definition of religion, Rorty characterizes it as "what you do with your solitude." The artistic impulse, for Nietzsche, also comes from solitude, and it's aimed at transfiguring the world. This is also the area of madness and perceived deviance from social norms. On the other hand, Rorty argues, in the public domain the focus is on the public good, on social and economic justice, and creating the conditions necessary for everyone's development, including the gradual reduction of cruelty and humiliation, which are harmful to the self in general. One example of cruelty and humiliation is life in totalitarian states where the individual's private sphere is crushed in the name of a collective purpose. By avoiding cruelty and humiliation, the public sphere poses only minimal requirements on the individual, the ones we're familiar with in liberal democracies, while giving the space to the individual to develop in whatever way he sees fit.

Now, I have to admit I've been using Rorty's private/public distinction to defend my infatuation with black metal for a decade now, the idea being that black metal falls mostly in the private sphere. Incidentally, Ash from Nargaroth has a similar understanding of Satanism in black metal, one inspired by Nietzsche and Ash's own studies in psychology. That is the philosophy behind Nargaroth's hit "Black Metal ist krieg!" Marduk's militaristic imagery and glorification of war can be interpreted in the same Nietzschean spirit. In addition to the destructive aspect mentioned above, Satanism also has a more constructive dimension, rooted in its uncompromising individualism. Echoing Nietzsche's distinction between master and slave morality, Satanism emphasizes that we're fully responsible for our own lives, we're the authors of our destiny, not God or our parents or the horde of sheep we happen to live amongst. Satan is, after all, the romantic rebel angel, the accuser and opposer, to quote a Marduk song. So then, to a certain degree, bringing satanic symbols like the inverted pentagram or the inverted cross or the trident into the public domain is justified as a constant reminder of a commitment to individual freedom. For a more detailed discussion of this point see my Satanism Without Gimmicks.  Of course, the madness and cultish character of black metal will also spill into the public sphere some statements that are hard to justify like "Let The World Burn."

Another important line of defense here is that black metal is an art form, just extreme music. Now, if the creators of that music also see it as a medium of communicating a political message, that doesn't imply that the fans of the music automatically agree with the message. The music itself is non-representational, it's not about anything. It can surely give rise to strong emotions but the direction of those emotions is pretty much left open. Like, Revenge definitely has developed one of the rawest, most barbaric and confrontational sounds in black metal and one cannot listen to them without being overwhelmed by burning hatred. But what's that hatred directed toward? Human scum, parasites? And we saw the meaning the band attaches to these notions. But why can't the listener attach his own meaning? Like, imagining beating Trump with a claw hammer and puking down a hole in his skull. Both leftists and fascists feel burning hatred. The fact that it's directed at different things doesn't diminish its intensity. Maybe the song titles and lyrics of black metal bands point to the target of the hatred? Maybe, but a text is open to various interpretations, and the author's intended interpretation is just one of many. The Holy Bible, let's say, is a militant book but not all readers of the Bible agree with its message. Similarly, I find the lyrics of bands like Behemoth, Watain or Marduk very well written and aesthetically pleasing, but that's not gonna turn me into a church-burning Satanic terrorist. In one of their songs, Peste Noire uses a poem by critically-acclaimed writer Charles Baudelaire. Obviously being exposed to such sublime art is not gonna turn one into a raving neo-Nazi.

All in all, I don't think the symbols and statements on black metal merch warrant the automatic violent response that a swastika armband does. Although someone wearing a Revenge tee or hoodie that states "Scum Eradication" is kinda asking for it. These are complicated issues and all I did here was skim the surface. Another layer to the problem is supporting Nazi-bands or militant Satanic acts with money by buying their merch and going to their shows. What if that money is used toward terrorist activities? Then there's blood on your hands? Does that, indirectly, make you a Nazi? Truthfully, I don't yet have an answer to these important questions.

In Defense of Hate

This post is in reaction to the YouTube crackdown on hate speech channels, which is part of a larger pattern of shutting down extreme voices online. The list of attributes of individuals or groups that shouldn't be targeted seems to get longer and longer: age, caste, disability, ethnicity, gender identity, nationality, race, immigration status, religion, sexual orientation, victims of a major violent event and their kin, veteran status.

Now, although I'm not racist or anti-LGBTQ rights, I watch this trend with alarm, skepticism, and distaste. I think if you squint hard enough you can see the neurotic SJW with a sign of "Live, Laugh, Love" hanging in her kitchen who comes up with these idiotic ideas.

So, first, where exactly do we draw the line between people it's ok to hate and the "sensitive" groups? Is it ok to hate my cheating wife or my lazy co-worker? Or maybe is hatred, in general, a bad thing? What if I hate the bourgeoisie and want to eat the rich and save the planet from the ecological catastrophe late capitalism will bring about? Is that wrong because it leads to violence? Well, that's the whole point: a red, violent revolution. So what if I hate religious people? Isn't religion the cause of genocide and various atrocities?  Wouldn't humanity be better off without these slavish freaks?

Second, hatred is a glorious, natural emotion that shouldn't be repressed. I can't think of anything positive that I've achieved in life without my hatred playing a role. I went to university partly because I hated my parents and wanted to move out of their house. I moved to Canada because I hated Romania. All my writing is steeped in bitter misanthropy. The same goes for the fiction of famous classical writers like Dostoyevsky, Kafka or Lovecraft, not to mention more modern writers like Martin Amis and Chuck Palahniuk.       

   

                                                                                           

Which brings me to my next point: you can't do psychology with a hatchet. Chopping off a strong emotion like hatred can only result in a fractured, lobotomized self. Hatred is the same as the sexual instinct: when you try to repress it, as Freud teaches us, it will come back ten times stronger and wreak havoc to the whole psyche. Hate is intimately related to love. Sometimes jealousy can turn the most sublime love into savage hatred, or someone we hate might suddenly appear to us in a beatific light. Also, the term "love-hate relationship" clearly captures the essential connection between these two emotions. In an ironic twist, the absolute divide between love and hate that SJWs assume is a remnant of Christian ideology. Christians have been happily torturing, raping, and killing people for two thousand years now. So, uncritically accepting that absolute dichotomy, that our modern hippies and feminazis find so appealing, didn't go so well in the Christian case. Lastly, the SJWs cry, all the hatred leads to violence. Well, I reply, first, there's physical violence and then there's systemic violence. Trump's decision not to pay taxes is systemic violence. Extreme inequality is systemic violence. Now, physical violence is sometimes used in reaction to systemic violence, like during the French Revolution. My point is that physical violence isn't bad in itself and that there are forms of institutional violence which are more sinister and damaging: the Catholic Church covering sexual-abuse cases, tax-giveaways to the rich, The Church meddling in the affairs of the state, money in politics, and so on. Thus, who's to say that the eradication of Catholics wouldn't be a blessing for humanity? Sometimes violence is the only solution. 

To sum up, I think the crackdown on hate-speech online could potentially create more difficulties than it solves, and it's a poor, ad-hoc solution to a complex problem; a cowardly, weak attempt to sweep complex, important issues under the rug. Who's to say that these hate groups would just disappear as a result of the crackdown? The oppressive censorship move might offer them more legitimacy and vindicate their narrative. We have to accept that hatred exists, try to understand its mechanism, and fight it head-on. 

Satanism without Gimmicks

I know many metalheads who consider themselves extreme, yet whenever I approach them I gag from the stench of nine-to-five easy meat. They are easy in more ways than one. It's easy to wear metal shirts and piercings and tattoos, it's easy to play guitar and emulate your favorite band, it's easy to go to metal shows, chug a few beers and wallow in a cheap sense of community. But when you take away the appearances, gimmicks, and conditioned behaviour you're left with the wriggling wormy body of the Satanist's arch-enemy: THE SLAVE!!

Besides a mixture of amusement and sadness, my encounter with this new embodiment of the archetypal peasant made me reflect of criteria we can use to tell apart the real Satanist from the multicolored scum. By definition, the Satanist is a rebel, an outsider, a master of his own destiny. He's full of his own will and, depending on his mood, either anti-social or asocial. A lone wolf, he regards others as either inconveniences or useful tools, and befriends only a chosen few. By contrast, the Slave is eager to follow and obey the will of others, he can't bear solitude or any sort of personal responsibility, he's most at home in crowds, and dreams of shaking off his humanity and one day turning into a sex doll.

So, if we are to identify the real Satanists in a society at a given time we first have to ask: What are the most oppressive forces operating in this society? We live in an age of unfettered capitalism and wage slavery. The oppression characteristic of such a system is very dangerous and insidious as it doesn't come from a well-defined center of power, as in more classical totalitarian systems, but it's spread out in a network of tunnels and economic traps hidden by the attractive facade of free market ideology. In this context, language heavy with political import and other means of thought control are also tremendous and sophisticated instruments of coercion. In addition, things like one's family or friends or "tribe" have always been known to try to manipulate the individual by imposing requirements like carrying on the family name, participating in meaningless family events or defending various social traditions or customs the individual has no genuine interest in. 

In a capitalist society, the Satanist should be either grudgingly employed or unemployed and living on welfare. Anyone who willfully sells themselves for a full-time job is NOT A SATANIST, but A LIFE-DENYING SLAVE! The Adversary might work full-time when running out of options but he never does it happily or willfully and he knows he'll have to take his revenge for every second of such humiliation. The Satanist sells his labor while plotting his revenge. He controls his alienation with savage thoughts of bloody payback. Part-time and casual employment or living on welfare are always more seductive for a rebellious spirit. Rather than looking for him in an office building, there's a better chance of finding the authentic Opposer at the public library reading The Communist Manifesto, or down the river valley having sex, writing poetry or exchanging survival tips with the tented homeless.  

The real Satanist doesn't care about family or tribe or nation or any sort of community he contingently finds himself in. He only cares about himself, his will, his life. If you see a happy family man, behold, that is A WRETCHED SLAVE!! For a Satanist having kids is the equivalent of suicide, or even worse, a long-drawn sordid self-torture. The Satanist has a few like-minded friends but is always vigilant about the terms of those friendships. If a friend succumbs to the siren call of slavery he's immediately rejected before he starts spewing his nonsense and poisoning the elite group. The Aristocrat only socializes on his own terms and never wastes his time on worthless, boring people, unless he indulges his cruel desire to mock them and introduce them to their own weakness.

Ash from Nargaroth and a kindred spirit. 

The genuine Master is usually quiet and doesn't enjoy running his mouth and engaging in endless small-talk. Language is a trap, a form of thought control, a great force that constantly saps the powers of the individual. That's why the Satanist strives to be creative in his language use, and tries to resist and dismantle the disciplinary power implicit in the value-laden vocabulary uncritically used by his troglodyte contemporaries. False idols like God, Money, Nation, Love, are but amusing targets for the Rebel's steaming jet of urine. Like a true artist, The Satanist delights in the game of creation and destruction, destruction and creation. Art is the highest expression of freedom, and a good artist is always an original. Originality is a satanic ideal by definition because it involves the highest degree of self-knowledge. The artist is a creator of worlds rather than part of a world created by someone else.

Philosopher Martin Heidegger

The desk at which Martin Heidegger wrote is masterpiece Being and Time, a work that revolutionized western thought and invented a new language to describe the human experience. Martin Heidegger is a poetic hero by definition. 

As you can see, being a Satanist isn't easy. It's not for everyone. It's a life of almost unbearable lucidity, constant struggle with others as well as the shadows of others in one's self, a life of  endless, neurotic vigilance. Yet it is also a life of euphoric delight in one's creative powers, in one's strength to overcome one's self, learn and develop, and in one's capacity to find kindred spirits and imagine new ways of being free. So, if you're ready to go to a metal show, take a good look in the mirror at the symbols you're wearing and decide for yourself if you're worthy of them. What anti-social deed have you done lately? In what interesting ways are you different from the mindless scum that makes up society? Did you create anything of value in your life? Are you a hero or just a follower? If that introspection isn't going well, there's always the option of transcending yourself with a bullet or a knife. 

Emil Cioran and Depressive Suicidal Black Metal (Part 1)

There are many interesting connections between the work of nihilist philosopher Emil Cioran and the art of Depressive Suicidal Black Metal (for short DSBM). This should come as no surprise since Cioran authored such books as On the Heights of Despair, The Trouble with Being Born, and  A Short History of Decay. Throughout his life, Cioran had suffered from insomnia and the pest of lucidity and deep awareness in a cold and meaningless universe. Trapped in a painful dilemma, Cioran hated living just as much as he did dying. While he praised suicide, he always lamented it coming too late, like all actions rooted in a mind on the brink of madness. Despising a moribund God, Cioran only craved the dark forgetfulness of the complete void, which he received when he was blessed with dementia in his old age. 

In this post I just highlight a deep, organic connection between Cioran's early remarks on despair and the grotesque and the dark imagery of DSBM. Cioran wrote On the Heights of Despair at the age of 20, and already considered himself an expert in the problem of death. This fragment is from his early book.  

Despair and the Grotesque

"Among the many forms of the grotesque, I find the one whose roots are steeped in despair more unusual and complex. The other forms have less intensity. It is important to note that the grotesque is inconceivable without intensity of feeling. And what intensity is deeper and more organic than despair? The grotesque appears only in very negative states, when great anxiety arises from a lack of life; the grotesque is an exaltation of negativity.

There is a mad launch toward negativity in that bestial agonizing grimace when the shape and lines of the face are contorted into strangely expressive forms, when the look in one's eyes changes with distant light and shadow, and one's thoughts follow the curves of similar distortions. Truly intense and irrevocable despair cannot be objectified except in grotesque expressions, because the grotesque is the absolute negation of serenity, that state of purity, transparence, and lucidity so different from the chaos and nothingness of despair. Have you ever had the brutal and amazing satisfaction of looking at yourself in the mirror after countless sleepless nights? Have you suffered the torment of insomnia, when you count the minutes for nights on end, when you feel alone in this world, when your drama seems to be the most important in history and history ceases to have meaning, ceases to exist? When the most terrifying flames grow in you and your existence appears unique and isolated in a world made only for the consummation of your agony? You must have felt those moments, as countless and infinite as suffering, in order to have a clear picture of the grotesque when you look at yourself in the mirror. It is a picture of total strain, a tense grimace to which is added the demonically seductive pallor of a man who has struggled along horrible, dark precipices. Isn't this grotesque expression of despair similar to a precipice? It has something of the abysmal maelstrom of great depths, the seduction of the all-encompassing infinite to which we bow as we bow to fatality. How good it would be if one could die by throwing oneself into an infinite void! The complexity of the grotesque born out of despair resides in its capacity to indicate an inner infinity and to produce paroxysm of the highest tension. How could this intense agony manifest itself in pleasant linear curves and formal purity? The grotesque essentially negates the classic, as well as any idea of style, harmony or perfection.

It is evident to anyone who understands the multiple forms of inner drama that the grotesque hides secret tragedies, indirectly expressed. Whoever has seen his face grotesquely disfigured can never forget it, because he will always be afraid of himself. Despair is followed by painful anxiety. What else does the grotesque do if it doesn't actualize fear and anxiety?" (Emil Cioran, On the Heights of Despair) 

Shining is a pioneering DSBM band, formed by the controversial Niklas Kvarforth. The philosophy of the band is the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment through physical and mental self-destruction. To illustrate this concept, Niklas is known for cutting himself on stage and even feeding bits of his flesh to members of the audience. Needless to say, many Shining gigs would end up with Niklas being taken to the nearest ER. The frontman also prides himself on the fact that his music can drive people to commit suicide as he hates not only humanity but everything that lives and breathes and grows. Even plants and trees, God dammit!!

The cynically named Lifelover band was also based on a self-destructive, nihilistic concept. Tragically, but not surprisingly, one of the founders, Jonas Berqvist, has died of a drug overdose. He explained the use of his mask on stage by the fact that usually his corpse paint would start running and become very messy as he sweated playing his guitar, so he decided to wear the painted balaclava or ski-mask instead, which gave him an even more sinister and grotesque look.

Silencer was a brief presence in the landscape of DSBM and their only album Death-Pierce Me has received cult status mostly because of the lead vocalist's, Nattram, terrifying, animalistic, high-pitched shrieks. Strange rumors about the enigmatic frontman abound, but it's NOT TRUE that he cut off his hands and sown pig's feet to the bloody stumps for the pictures above (more on that here). However, that would have been a very metal and kult thing to do. The fact that the pig's feet are only props doesn't take away from the sordid, disturbing character of the pictures.

I don't know of any DSBM band to have used these images of a supposed Russian Sleep Experiment that took place in the '40s. But they would fit perfectly on a DSBM album cover. The Russian Sleep Experiment is actually a horror story published on Creepypasta that follows five patients who were given a gas that would eliminate their need for sleep. After 15 days, the tale goes, the subjects began engaging in bizarre acts of self-mutilation and self-cannibalism. Their behavior became less and less human, their speaking slowly changing into alien shrieks. As the experiment got out of control the researchers were ordered to kill the nightmarish guinea pigs. "What are you?" one of the doctors asked the last of the remaining subjects. "Have you forgotten so easily?" the mangled patient replied. "We are you. We are the madness that lurks within you all, begging to be free at any moment in your deepest animal mind. We are what you hide from in your beds every night. We are what you sedate into silence and paralysis when you go to the nocturnal haven where we cannot thread." 

"I long to be free, desperately free. Free as the stillborn are free." (Emil Cioran, The Trouble with Being Born)