Review of Ryan Harding's Transcendental Mutilation

I loved Transcendental Mutilation; while keeping in line with the visceral prose that defined his infamous first collection, Genital Grinder, Ryan Harding adds elements of atmosphere, cosmic horror, and weird fiction, which lend a more cerebral and somber dimension to his writing.

Besides its more vague meaning of “spiritual,” the word “transcendental” is also a precise reference to Kantian philosophy, and points to the basic structures of human experience, how the world appears to us ordered in space and time, in causal sequences, presence and absence, quantity, and so on. One of the keys to Harding’s stories is that the basic norms of experience are broken, and the subjects enter into a paradoxical, Lovecraftian realm of mutilation. In “Divine Red” and “Temple of Amduscias,” the rules of space are bent as the insides of buildings are incongruent with their outsides, in “Junk” the law of cause and effect is suspended, and the time in “Angelbait” seems to flow differently from ordinary time.

In the Postcript, the author points out that the story “Down There,” about a girl’s fear of the woods, was partially inspired by The Blair Witch Project. I’m a big fan of that horror flick, and I think the way the evil presence of the witch is suggested rather than shown makes the horror more suffocating; it’s as if the forest itself is cursed, and the protagonists, unbeknownst to them except maybe on a subliminal level, are trapped from the moment they step inside. The same goes for “Down There,” the evil is absent, yet omnipresent in the woods, in the bark of trees, in the foliage, in the shadowy corners. Evil is shapeless and lurks. Not fully something, but not nothing either. A malignant nothing.  

Speaking of nothing, “Temple of Amduscias”,  has a more existentialist element to it as Olivia, the main character, has an obsession with empty, abandoned places. With the faces of the void, the nothing, with hopelessness. The grim mood of this story reminded me of the pessimism pervasive in some other works of cosmic horror or weird horror like Thomas Ligotti, Nicole Cushing, and Curtis Lawson’s The Envious Nothing. 

These journeys through the doors of our perception result in mutilation, but also mutation: “Progression could mean growing new organs and limbs. Perhaps it may also mean losing some of the old ones through an act of transcendental mutilation.” In Ryan Hardin’s universe, like in Clive Barker’s, evil is also an opportunity for transcendence, agony is also a gate toward ecstasy, as it’s showcased in one of the best stories of the volume, “Red Divine.”

I can only skim through the surface of this brilliant, unique collection in this review, but I hope it’s enough to increase the appetite of horror fans. Ryan Harding is an original, powerful voice with a morbid, depraved imagination and a penchant for philosophy. My next stop is Header 3, Harding’s colab with the extreme horror icon Edward Lee.

Splatterpunk, not Cancelpunk

As a black metal fan, I had to learn to distinguish between art and artist pretty quickly. As many of you may know from the best-selling book Lords of Chaos, turned into a movie several years ago, the beginnings of black metal in the early ‘90s were marred in criminality. Varg Vikernes a.k.a. “Count Grishnack”, one of the pioneers of the genre, the creative force behind Burzum, did jail time for murder and burning old Christian churches. Bard “Faust” Eithun of Mayhem stabbed a gay guy to death. Jon Nodtveidt of Dissection was also convicted of a homophobic hate crime. Given their anti-modernist and, at times, openly fascist stance, a few black metal bands, most notably Graveland and Marduk, were targeted by Antifa, resulting in canceled shows and overall chaos. More recently, Jason Weirbach a.k.a. “Dagon,” the frontman of Inquisition, was outed as a kiddie porn fan.

Since I’m not a neo-nazi, a homophobe, an arsonist, or a pedophile, I decided to make a strict distinction between the art and the artist, or, better put, between the art and the public citizen creating the art. That is, as citizens -- Varg Vikernes of Norway, Jon Nodtveidt of Sweden, Jason Weirbach of the US -- these people are criminals, and I don’t condone their crimes; I sit back and let the justice system do its work. No one is above the law of the land. I am, however, a fan of their music and I value these people as artists, such as Count Grishnack or Dagon and so on. Many black metal fans embrace this straightforward distinction. As Dayal Patterson, a scholar of black metal, puts it, “There’s no doubt that Varg’s statements in magazines (and on his website, which even relatively recently mentions “negros and other inferior races”) have long been politically charged, yet they have never found their way into his music. Burzum’s huge popularity suggests that Varg has managed to tap into something truly universal. Though his post-prison albums have not proven quite as significant as those recorded prior to his incarceration, Burzum remains hugely popular with a wide array of listeners, including those who completely disregard Varg’s politics and worldview.”  What would black metal be if Burzum and Mayhem were canceled? Would there even be such a thing as black metal?

Since discovering Richard Laymon in 2007, I’ve become interested in Splatterpunk and extreme horror and got to know many writers and readers in this community. In a nutshell, Splatterpunk is to mainstream horror what Cannibal Corpse is to Metallica, or, in movies, what Dead Alive or Bad Taste are to The Shining or The Exorcist. More brutal, more gory, more depraved, more disgusting. Compared to the extreme metal community, most artists and fans of extreme horror are peaceful and laid back, but, now and again, some perceived moral indignity would ruffle the feathers of the SJWs infecting their ranks. Most recently, Otis Bateman and Stephen Cooper have been on the receiving end of a public outcry. Did they kill anyone? No. Did they set buildings on fire? Not even. What they did is not so much criminal as it is in bad taste. They shared private nudes of a woman (gasp!) Now, in my view, the backlash to this indiscretion was completely out of proportion, barbarous, and cringeworthy, proving Nietzsche’s claim that madness is rare in individuals, but in groups, it is the rule. Incited by the outrage squad in their midst, the extreme horror community reacted with a feigned outrage and bogus solidarity that would have given Stalin a bulging erection. These rebellious creatives fighting societal taboos through their transgressive works, these fearless outlaws of imagination and conventional thinking, they all fell in line like a bunch of NPCs applauding a Kim Jong Un speech.

Soon, there was talk of rape, sexual abuse, sexual predators, psychological trauma, manipulation, suicide, and so on; the usual insults hurled by loving and tolerant internet mobs on the daily. Most extreme horror writers, afraid their sales would dip and they’d be unable to pay their bills, promptly joined the resentful mob and posted vaguely ethical and accusatory mumbo-jumbo. “Readers” ripped the books of Bateman and Cooper on deranged Tiktoks and threatened to burn them with Nazi fervor. A sex-starved pansexual fatty decided to steal the show and made a TikTok with her and her mom in a hospital room -- the poor old woman visibly confused and uncomfortable -- in which they ripped up the books of the disgraced authors while pick me Chubbs, caught in a cancel culture demented frenzy, busted some “dance” moves reminiscent of Sumo wrestling. 

Authors who collaborated with the two culprits speedily withdrew their support and threw them to the curb. This occurred soon after Otis Bateman and Judith Sonnet had released a novel together, No One Rides For Free (Absolute Chaos). Initially, the collab got stellar reviews and I was looking forward to reading it. But Judith Sonnet decided to pull the novel and have a characteristic mental breakdown. No surprise there. 

As I was dying inside following this cheap performance of deluded virtue-signalers, I remembered that Wrath James White, critically acclaimed splatterpunk writer, had mentioned Otis Bateman as one of the writers spearheading the fourth-wave of splatterpunk: “It might even be time to start discussing a 4-th wave that includes writers that began after 2020, like Otis Bateman, Rowland Bercey Jr., Bridgett Nelson, and Mique Watson.” In addition, the two were gearing up for a collaboration. Now, meekly following the outrage squad, Wrath James White did a one-eighty and, in an unexpected TikTok worthy of the Spanish Inquisition, began speaking of a “moral code” that extreme horror writers supposedly must follow. This move gave me pause. What happened? Did Otis Bateman’s work lose all its artistic value overnight? Did his books suddenly become garbage just because of a moral blunder? What’s with this deep asymmetry between the extreme horror community and the extreme metal community? Unfortunately, extreme horror writers are not critical thinkers and they can become victims of deep-seated prejudices like the best of us. These questions and bitter revelations made me revisit my argument for distinguishing art from the public citizen producing the art.

 

One widespread logical fallacy is the ad hominem argument. This means attacking the person instead of proving the falsity of their claim. When one makes a claim one puts something forward as being true. It’s beside the point to attack the person instead of the claim itself. As the saying goes, when the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser. A similar fallacy occurs when someone attacks the character of an artist. When an author publishes a work of fiction, they put it forward as something that has artistic value, something they think is unique and worth reading. In the context of horror, aesthetic value means something terrifying, disgusting, unsettling, or dreadful, according to the norms of the specific genre or subgenre. It’s up to critics and lucid reviewers to judge whether that work has artistic merit, whether it elicits the emotions it’s supposed to. The author’s character has no bearing on this judgment. Otherwise, it’s like saying the theory of relativity is false because Einstein was a commie. Book reviews that make references to the public life of an author are just cheap gossip masquerading as aesthetic judgment.

Why should we support an author who is abusive toward women? Why should we give our hard-earned money to them? These questions are the product of murky thinking. We support artists, not moral values. Supporting an author is an artistic statement, not a moral statement. Supporting an artist is different from supporting a political party. It is well known, for instance, that Bukowsky was an alcoholic and a wife-beater. Now, when I buy a Bukowsky book, that’s not a vote for alcoholism or violence toward women, that purchase only shows an appreciation for his gritty, dirty realist style of writing, for his poetic vision. The same goes for William Faulkner, William S. Burroughs, Neil Gaiman, J.K. Rowling, or other classic or contemporary writers accused of questionable behaviors and political stances in their personal lives. Was Lovecraft racist? Who cares? 

Unfortunately, the cancer of cancel culture spreads fast. Just the other day, this guy working for a minor horror publisher was bragging that they have fifty people blacklisted. This was cringe for so many reasons. Firstly, they already publish garbage and no self-respecting author would want to work with them in the first place. Plus, the hypocrisy. Suppose one of those blacklisted authors sends them something with real market value, something up there with the works of Bryan Keene or Bryan Smith. Do you think they’d stick to their guns? I’d bet they’d swiftly forget their moral posturing and go for the cash. But let’s consider for a moment the absurdities implicit in these oppressive attitudes. Should an author be subject to a background check when submitting a manuscript? After all, the publisher needs to make sure they don’t support the work of an outlaw. Should the police accompany them when they receive a literary award to confirm they are upstanding citizens? Shouldn’t a publisher have people infiltrate an author’s personal life to make sure they don’t commit any crimes? Make sure they don’t abuse their spouse or watch objectionable pornography. Shouldn’t we have artists under strict surveillance 24/7? Is this beginning to sound like Big Brother? What’s to stop the publishing world from becoming a police state? Having grown up in communist Romania, I can assure you police states are not fun, unless you’re a moral validation junkie or feminazi. Also, have you heard of the effervescent artistic life in North Korea? Their new fiction trends? Yeah, me neither.    

We need to step back and acknowledge a general fact about creatives, talent, and even genius. Artistic talent doesn’t come neatly paired with an angelic character in a nice package ready for mass consumption. Great art erupts from deep psychological conflicts in individuals who are fighting their own demons at the edges of sanity. These are deeply troubled psychological types, each unique in their extreme rebellion. That’s why so many are suicides: Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Wolf, Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, and so on. The impulse to create comes from a place of illness and war, not from a place of health, peace, and harmony. Also, as the famous movie Amadeus shows, God doesn’t necessarily bestow genius on the most pious but on, to quote Salieri, some “little creature, an animal. A gross and vulgar little man.” Thus, by canceling those with deviant behaviors and attitudes, we risk transforming a lush artistic landscape into a barren terrain populated with plastic smiles, neutered, sedated “artists” promoting derivative works to a crowd of neurotic Karens and ultrasensitive PC gender-benders. 

Interview with horror writer B.R. Yeager

B.R. Yeager's Negative Space was a mind-blowing surprise of the same magnitude as Curtis Lawson's Black Heart Boy's Choir and Nicole Cushing's Mr. Suicide. All of these novels vividly capture teenage angst and courageously follow their characters into the mouth of madness, to the point where the cold edge of the blade cuts through tender skin. B.R. Yeager does away with the cannon of mainstream horror—the building of suspense to a climax, the protagonist vs. antagonist dichotomy, detailed analysis of the main character's motives and thinking—and reads more like the account of a collective bad trip, the chronicle of the gradual physical and psychological ruination of a group of teens in the small town of Kinsfield. From the outset, we learn that Kinsfield is plagued by a wave of teen suicides. Tyler, the main character, wants to contact the sinister supernatural forces behind that wave, with the help of hallucinogens and black magic. We only learn about Tyler through the lenses of those close to him and can only speculate about the motives behind his erratic and often self-destructive behavior. Reckless and cruel, Tyler is ready to sacrifice himself and those around him in his attempt at transcending his humanity. As with any act of hubris, Tyler is physically and spiritually mutilated by the malignant forces he summoned. The gloomy story and morbid imagery in Negative Space project a thick sense of mystery and doom similar to what you experience while watching a David Lynch film. The nightmarish dreamscapes are like the surrealist landscapes of Dali, and reflect hidden symbols and archetypes. Negative Space is a hypnotic book, with an almost subliminal rhythm and sound it calls us to explore the network of caves and catacombs below consciousness.

Mr. Yeager was kind enough to answer some questions for my blog. 

Axl: First, Mr. Yeager, congratulations on writing such an amazing novel! Although it is very stylized, the reader can guess it's partly rooted in personal experience. Can you please share with us some of the biographical sources of the novel, as well as giving us a sense of its literary influences? 

B.R. Yeager: While I would definitely agree that much of Negative Space is rooted in lived experience, it’s much more complicated than it being strictly biographical. The short version is that the book emerged in response to a close friend’s suicide. Beyond that, there are bits and pieces of experiences taken from my own life, or the lives of people I’ve known, or things I’ve observed, and integrated into the story. But ultimately, it’s all been smeared together in a way that makes it completely fictional. 

Major literary influences would include Kathe Koja’s The Cipher, Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, Dennis Cooper’s My Loose Thread, Grace Krilanovich’s The Orange Eats Creeps, Philip K. Dick’s Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, The Kybalion by Three Initiates, Blake Butler’s 300,000,000, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and John Keel’s The Mothman Prophecies. 

Axl: Negative Space seems to fit the subgenre of cosmic horror but at the same time is wildly transgressive and subversive in both content and structure. Where would you place it in the landscape of contemporary horror fiction? 

B.R. Yeager: I have no idea. Honestly, I feel a bit out of step with—or at least not particularly knowledgeable—about the contemporary horror landscape. I tend to have a very broad and personal conception of horror as a genre, which would likely include works that many wouldn’t label as horror. Ultimately, I don’t think it’s my place to square Negative Space into any particular realm within the genre, though cosmic horror and transgressive fiction seem like appropriate tags. 

Axl: In the novel, you introduce the concept of mind without life. The way I understand it, the mind emerges in the brain but it can emerge in any kind of dead matter that has a certain pattern. Is it fair to say that Tyler dies but also preserves his consciousness? Can we still say that he's alive, but more like an astral body? 

B.R. Yeager: I’m becoming more and more hesitant to answer any clarifying questions about the text, not to be an asshole, but mainly because I think any answers I give will be infinitely less interesting than the questions being posed. I will say that this interpretation is a valid one. 

Axl: As a Satanic hero or anti-hero, Tyler seems consumed by the desire for power and control. Is it fair to say that he was used and then discarded by the higher negative force engulfing the town of Kinsfield? Also, did you focus on a group of teenagers because teens are more receptive to the actions of supernatural forces? 

B.R. Yeager: I think you’re correct in that Tyler is more a conduit than an original agitator. I’m not sure I would go as far as to say he was being used by the higher forces at play, as that implies those forces possess a somewhat anthropomorphic will, which I’m not entirely sure is the case. I’d say it’s more akin to a large stone placed in the middle of a stream. The stone diverts the water, but the water is not aware of this action, nor is the water aware of this change (as far as we know). But I could be wrong.

 

(I realize this uncertainty on my part may seem strange. But with this book I wanted to write about the Unknown, and in order to truly do so, it was essential that I kept myself in the dark regarding the inhuman forces at play). 

There were two main reasons I focused on teens. The first was that I wanted to write a horror novel in the tradition of “kids on bikes uncover nefarious forces,” i.e. Stephen King’s IT, or the film The Gate, etc. The second (and more practical) reason is that there has been far less drama and “excitement” (if one could call it that) in my adult life than there was in my teens and early 20s. By making the main characters teens, I had more experiences worth drawing from, in terms of drama. 

Axl: While the novel avoids a standard good vs. evil plot, and there are lots of gray areas, Tyler seems to be at the darker end of the spectrum and Lu at the lighter end. There's also a distinction between the moths and wasps that accompany a nefarious act and the bees that are present when something "positive" takes place. Can you comment a bit about the mythological symbolism of these insects or what made you use them? 

B.R. Yeager: I’m genuinely not sure I can speak to the insects’ relation to broader mythologies. Ultimately, I think these insects are very personal manifestations of aspects of the characters who invoke them. In the book, I did want the divine or the beyond to be accessible through a number of methods and ritual, not a single dogmatic practice, as I believe this to true in reality. As a result, all the magickal or spiritual practices occurring in the book are very personal in nature, and outside of a dogmatic framework or formal institutions. 

Axl: What are your writing plans for 2021? 

B.R. Yeager: Right now I’m co-writing a low-budget horror film directed by Nick Verdi (https://twitter.com/Verdi___Nick) that I’m very excited about. I don’t think I can say much now, but I feel like it’s in a similar vein of a lot of great low-budget debuts, like Abel Ferrera’s The Driller Killer, or Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left, or Gaspar Noe’s I Stand Alone. 

I also have a short story in Hymns of Abomination, which is a forthcoming anthology tribute to Matthew Bartlett, published by Silent Motorist Media. Bartlett is from my hometown, and primarily writes about a fictionalized version of it, so it was fun to play with that world. I’m also in the early stages of my next novel, but that’s likely 3-5 years away. 

Follow B.R. Yeager on Twitter @BRYeager

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.”

On Edgetivism

My Sister Before Her Suicide

While in the last post I gave a thumbs down to the degenerate Christian clique calling themselves The 'Satanic' Temple, in this post I give a thumbs up to the Edgetivist movement in art. Chaoscunt, the philosopher behind the movement, starts from the premise that art is not real life. The resulting behavior of a perceiver of a work of art is his own responsibility, not that of the artist. Art is just a virtual arena where we face our own demons, a realm of psychological exploration and experimentation. Chaoscunt warns of the danger of virtuestigmaism, the destructive trend "to categorize works of art by their most superficial aspects, notably 'political' associations." This leads to censorship and domestication of art, and the ascendance of saftyism, a wave of politically correct and safe works of art that by their nature are mediocre but highly praised by social justice warriors.

In reaction to this decadent trend in art, Chaoscunt advances Edgetivism, which is art with an activist dimension. The Edgetivist purposely explores the most taboo subjects in his society in order to remind everyone that art is not real life, thus re-establishing art as a realm of perfect freedom. The Edgetivist puts himself at risk and will be marginalized by the mainstream groups of castrated artists, but his mission is noble and heroic. "The Edgetivist will explore the most socially unacceptable aspects of life in his art. Not only does the work have to be breaking some sort of law that goes against freedom of artistic expression but also be reprehensible to the point of leaving 95% of society in shock. If you can put the contents of the work on a t-shirt and walk without getting into trouble with most people on the street, then it has failed to be edgetivist." 

Christians Oppose Abortions Because They Like to Fuck Orphans

        

I find myself in agreement with Chaoscunt's point that consumerism and political correctness can be very damaging to true art. There are many factors that contribute to the domestication of art once it's treated as a commodity meant to provide entertainment and 'an escape' from the drudgery of daily life. One thing I find particularly repulsive, connected with Chaoscunt's point about people's failure to distinguish art from the real world, is how people fail to distinguish the artist, as a real human being, from his art. If the artist isn't 'nice' they won't support his art. If the artist is personable and goes to talk shows and makes jokes and is humble, then they support his art. Examples abound. Black metal band Inquisition being dropped by Seasons of Mist once Dagon was found to be into child-porn. Yes, the guy has issues but he's a beautiful artist and the Inquisition sound will always stand out in the black metal landscape. That Roman Polansky is a rapist is not gonna stop me from enjoying Rosemary's Baby. That Varg Vikernes is a racist, murderer, and arsonist isn't gonna stop me from enjoying Burzum. There's a deeper issue here: the consumerist war against dangerous artists and dangerous art. Art has the special power of waking people up from their inauthentic slumber, like a chainsaw powered up next to your ear while you're in the middle of a sweet, wet dream. Terror and vertigo strike, suddenly you don't know who you are, where you are, and what's going on. But then when you see that very artist who rudely awoke you go to a talk show and smile and play nice so he can sell his merch, you see that they're slaves just like you, they're nothing special about them, and you let yourself dissolve in your dogmatic, comfy slumber again.  

Another related issue is the trend of people being offended by the content of a work of art and thinking their feeling is a suitable ground to judge the aesthetic value of that work. Speaking from my perspective as a fiction writer, I'm deeply repulsed by readers saying they don't relate with this or that character, that they have no one to 'cheer for.' What you relate to is irrelevant. Let's look at some classic characters. Raskolnikov, the protagonist of Dostoyevksy's masterpiece Crime and Punishment, is a disturbed student who feels he lives by a master morality that allows him to take an axe to an old woman and rob her. You don't relate with this 'monster'? Newsflash! It doesn't matter. Whether you feel offended is not part of the conversation about the value of a piece of art. Completely beside the point. Take Stavroghin, the main character of Demons: a nihilist who's part of a terrorist group and also a pedophile. Examples abound. Mersault, the anti-hero of Albert Camus' The Stranger, shoots an Arab for no apparent reason, except maybe because it was too hot outside. These novels are classic, paradigmatic works of art. Stop being offended and ask yourself why these novels are considered outstanding creations? 

Despite my agreement and support of Edgetivism I don't consider myself an Edgetivist for two interconnected reasons. First, it's a fact that some artists use art to further an ideological agenda. In that sense, the distinction between art and the real world becomes blurred as the artist wants his work to have a concrete effect (For more on this issue see my post Punching Nazis, Black Metal, and the Use of Ideological Symbols.) In this way, the artist moves away from authentic art as a medium of self-exploration and catharsis. Secondly, the same problem occurs in connection to Edgetivism itself. It too is militant art. And that's why I'm not an Edgetivist. My writing does have an edgy character but that's incidental. The essential thing is the inner struggle and tension it comes out of. Chaoscunt claims, "Always produce works that side against the predominant people in the art world. Make anti-Christian and feminist art in middle-age Europe, make anti-Islamic and anti-feminist art in 2016 Europe." I personally have nothing against feminism and I hate Islam as I hate all religions. But neither of these issues has penetrated my sphere of artistic interest and anything I'd write about them would appear phoned in and inauthentic. On the other hand, anti-capitalism is a notion close to my heart, the alienation, exploitation, and degradation of the individual that are intrinsic to this economic system fill me with monstrous rage. And this is something I tackle in my novella 'Ich Will'. My point is that there's a gap between what is edgy in an authentic work of art and what may be considered edgy and taboo in a certain society at a given time. No doubt there's a lot of overlap between the two but a true artist can't just mechanically follow what others find taboo and then force himself to make art against it. Instead, he should courageously face his fears and inner demons, and that confrontation is bound to have some edgy and disturbing aspects, but that's a natural side-effect and not the main goal of the artist.  

All in all, I salute Edgetivism as an authentic movement in a mass of artistic conformity. Saftyism requires relentless mockery and opposition as it leads to grotesque organizations like Antifa, and the rise of censorship and artistic repression, troglodytes judging beautiful works of art, a totalitarian nightmare.   

I

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.