Jobs Are Jails

What would Hessianism be, if it were expressed as a philosophy? The idea that beauty is found in whole structures and not textures; in other words, when you see all that is there, you understand the role of darkness and how the beauty in it is essential to have other good things, and when we deny it, we fall into an abyss of ourselves and suck in everything around us, choking ourselves out with our own weight.

You might call it a war of realist transcendentalism against narcissistic hubris, or even an anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian movement, because it is surely that. Metal has never liked the normies, nor the faux dissidents like the various punk bands with a lot of complaining and no solid ideas or philosophy about what to do about the situation.

When you translate metal into music, you get beauty shaped of darkness, and intense structure taking the place of happy harmonies and blithe, distracting melodies. You get lyrics about things of great intensity, not all of them dark — many are triumphant — instead of songs about fornication and emotional drama mistaken as love. You get songs ruled by the riff, where the riff only shines when it makes sense in a dialogue of riffs that reveals a journey from order to chaos to a new type of order.

If we translated this into politics, it would be the notion that life is short and therefore we must destroy all things which do not enhance life. Paperwork burns. Idiots die. Foreigners go. Parasites drown. Ugly modern buildings burn. THOTs get sold to the Arabs. Vegans and pacifists get whipped. Prostitutes end up in six different dumpsters each. We build great things, wage great wars, live life with intensity, and never forget that beauty depends on darkness, namely the removal of the stupid, pointless, inept, parasitic, incompetent, base, pacifistic, and otherwise weak.

In fact, if metal and natural selection had something in common, it might be “sodomize the weak” or some analogue. We want life to be great, not just mulching along for basic survival, and to do that, we must destroy the wimps (weak) and poseurs (parasites). We also have no tolerance for modern life, especially the dual slavery of school and jobs. Recently some Swedes decided to satirize our cultureless society dedicated to money and being a worker’s paradise through constant work with an art project mocking jobs:

Starting in 2026, this will be one lucky (or extremely bored) worker’s everyday reality, thanks to a government-funded conceptual art project in Gothenburg, Sweden.

The job’s requirements couldn’t be more simple: An employee shows up to the train station each morning and punches the time clock. That, in turn, illuminates an extra bank of fluorescent lights over the platform, letting travelers and commuters know that the otherwise functionless employee is on the job. At the end of the day, the worker returns to clock out, and the lights go off. In between, they can do whatever they want, aside from work at another paying job.

“The position holds no duties or responsibilities, other than that it should be carried out at Korsvägen,” the job description states. “Whatever the employee chooses to do constitutes the work.”

Titled “Eternal Employment,” the project is both a social experiment and a serious political statement.

When you think about this, it is a description of our society in a nutshell: you go to your job, do whatever seems sensible, and then stay in that job until you die. Some get promoted above because they figured out more effective work to do, or more likely, figured out how to be less effective, because their incompetence made other people needed to clean it up and therefore, everyone had full employment guaranteed forever.

In an ironic twist, capitalism and communism end up at the same place because in the end, the problem is human organization from a bottom-up perspective. If you rely on people to take the initiative, they act for their own benefit, but since most are mediocre, they aspire only to consistently showing up somewhere, doing inconsequential things, and getting paid for it. Capitalism takes the lead because it rewards those who invent useful things, so eventually one out of a hundred million does, but it also fails when the buying audience cannot tell the difference between a useful object and a fascinator designed to waste their time. Most people cannot be effective, but everyone in the herd can appreciate an iPhone, Big Mac, Diet Coke, Escalade, No Fear sweatshirt (XXL), PowerBall ticket, or Glock 19.

This system centralizes power in the hands of those who administrate, and those act only to ensure that their power expands, since to cease growing is to die in a competitive environment. This means that soon everyone serves what is convenient for government and big business, and while this is destroying them, they have no capacity for understanding life as something else, so they keep voting for solutions that make the parasite more powerful: more taxes, more benefits, more laws. All of these benefit those in power who have the wealth and influence to evade them, but come down extra-hard on all the ways that we might escape this world.

Think of AD 1900. You could set up a farm, grow corn, and sell it on the roadside. That was all that you needed to do in order to survive. No paperwork, no diversity seminars, no anti-rape pamphlets, and no ten thousand regulations and sixty hours a year of filing tax paperwork. That was life before jobs. But, if we are going to include everyone — this always makes a group of humans nod as if they were animated mushrooms — we have to offer employment, categorize those roles, set up pay schedules, and provide for those who are in-between jobs or poor. This means a gigantic welfare state and massive government, in which people are also working jobs, so they do what makes their jobs secure at your expense. Still this is too much clarity for humanity.

Not surprisingly, our best people are dying out because this life is existentially miserable. That is, it is both boring and pointless, and by doing that, it replaces our independent will to make something of our individual lives that is not for profit alone and instead makes us servants to everyone else, with government taking its cut (and hiring more busy parasite bureaucrats while it does so). Misery makes animals cease breeding, and humans are animals like any other:

Espen Andersen from Statistics Norway says the downward trend – 55,120 children were born in 2018 in the Scandinavian country of 5.3 million, down from 56,633 in 2017 – has been going on since 2009.

The same is true across the West, and worse, it starts with our most intelligent people who are the most capable of contributing to our future. Looking at a world that is insane but refuses to recognize that it has a problem, they simply opt out, take easier jobs, and have fewer if any children. As always in egalitarian systems, things are not equal so the strong must subsidize the weak, which leads to many more weak as the strong die out.

Some call this anomie, or a sense of rootless boredom, but more properly, it is internalized despair resulting in passivity. Centralized systems do that to people: in these systems, the only actor is the centralized authority, so everyone becomes conditioned to wait for something to happen to them instead of taking the lead to figure out what is satisfying for them.

Following WW2, as our societies became more modern or man-made and disposable, people lost any sense of life outside the system, and it made them inert. This was described best by Michel Houellebecq back in 1996 with his book Whatever, which showed how the postwar system had devastated Generation X:

The unnamed narrator of Houellebecq’s novel is Marcuse’s one-dimensional man. A single, 30-year-old computer engineer in Paris with no sex life, he suffers from a chronic passivity that, in Houellebecq’s view, is characteristic of Generation X. He buys, but doesn’t take joy in any of the things he possesses. He has acquaintances, but no friends.

If this book is too much, you can try the American movie version, Office Space, which came out four years later. Houellebecq nailed Generation X, by the way. Left alone as latch-key kids in the odious fug of failing relationships caused by the sexual bacchANALia of the 1960s in which their parents participated, Generation X had no hope that anything would change. Basically, we anticipated living forever in the Suicidal Tendencies “Institutionalized” video which, like Repo Man, accurately described life in the 1980s once the postwar regulations, demographics, ideology, and tax structure kicked in and made all of us job-sheep working to pay taxes to fund the underclass. There simply was no hope of escape.

The convergence of all those things — high taxes, bureaucratic incompetence, careerism, parasitism — make jobs particularly odious. As we become more dependent on generating taxes, just like in the Soviet system, we are less interested in actual productivity and more in pretend productivity, because the system runs on taxes and not the economy itself. The economy depends on a strong government and its military to guarantee it primacy through superpower status — both the US and EU benefit from this — and so there is no need to actually be competitive outside of our own little system.

Most of the laws we created to make jobs better actually made them worse. Every regulation creates another bureaucrat, and that means more requirements for workers, which in turn translates to less time doing anything of importance and more time fulfilling bureaucratic needs. If you wonder where the modern “make-work” environment comes from, look no further to union-friendly law, affirmative action, the many lawsuits, and of course, the extensive paperwork required by our centralized governments.

Somehow, despite not being formed of a single system as in the Soviet Union, in the modern West government, industry, and “the people” have come together to demand what people always demand, which is guaranteed support at the expense of others, and this has created a massive bureaucracy — democracies always do this — which has made work into a horror. As one source expressed, jobs are jails:

What is The Economy? It is all of us doing all this work–a lot of it a waste of time! But the media tells a different story: we are chided for lacking “consumer confidence” and scolded for “hurting The Economy,” or perhaps we are counseled that “it’s bad right now,” as though The Economy was suffering a transient medical problem that will pass just like a cold.

Government as we know it is a major part of the problem, not because it stands in the way of business and the market, but because it offers them the ultimate guarantee of force, and has proven its willingness to act. Unions are also part of this. They have clear legal responsibilities, primarily negotiating and upholding legal contracts with large companies, ensuring “labor peace”; they cling to the law, hoping that eventually the government will change the laws and then enforce them to allow a new wave of unionization. They imagine that they will someday be allowed back in the club and once again enjoy a piece of an expanding economic pie as they did during the post-war period, when they played an important role in crafting U.S. foreign and domestic policies by purging radicals and communists and becoming ardent cold warriors.

The marketplace and wage-labor impose a fatal break between our inclinations and duties. We are objects cast about in the rough seas of the market, rather than thoughtful subjects considering the zillions of ways in which our lives could be better immediately, and organizing ourselves to help bring it about. We are locked into “careers,” or perhaps vicious cycles of underemployment, unemployment and bad luck, instead of choosing from a smorgasbord of useful activities needing attention, from cooking, cleaning and caretaking, to planting and building, along with a variety of well-stocked workshops for easy “self-production” of essential items.

No one wants to address this situation because they are on the other side of what we might call “the humanism divide.” They see what most people want, and even though that desire leads to disaster, they are unwilling to be unsociable, or to do what makes people feel uneasy. Metal does the opposite: it embraces what we are in denial of, namely the darker and more unsafe sides of life, and shows us the beauty within them. It might be the only real political rebellion of the postwar era.

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57 thoughts on “Jobs Are Jails”

  1. Calamari says:

    Not everybody has a trust fund tho

  2. Fish says:

    Many articles on this site appear to be in conflict with the very purpose of its existence. This article is a great return to form, as well as many over the previous 2 weeks. Instead of pushing a more conservative agenda (see life failure fired from third rate website), inapposite to lamenting how liberal sites do the same on the other side, more introspective reads regarding philosophy which directly speaks to “us” are needed such as this article. Thank you for the great read.

    1. LeftWingRapeSquad says:

      Really dumb ass? Seems like the exact same right-wing faggotry to me.

  3. LostInTheANUS says:

    NEETs rise up!

    1. Public Shitting Space says:

      Drop out, kick back and strung out. Then you too can become a memeolosopher.

  4. Svmmoned says:

    With jobs people often become their most loyal advocates and enforcers. Every each one of them, no matter how small, become a guard in this prision without walls. Since they are helpless, feeble parts of some error, this error needs to be defended and sanctified. And it is not because of some greater realization on their part. They can’t even imagine that everything could be different. They are proles, so their definition of work is limited and they apparently need it. As usually, their misplacement is a problem here. All of this can be used for something actually good, because those things are clearly remians of organic functionality. However, they are hijacked and utilized into meaningless, mechanistic and disjointed processes.

  5. berzerker says:

    Brett, what job do you do? Where does your income come from? It’s certainly not writing because your sites have no advertising or subscribers so where’s the dosh come from, bro?

    I’m going to engage with this.

    “What would Hessianism be, if it were expressed as a philosophy? The idea that beauty is found in whole structures and not textures; in other words, when you see all that is there, you understand the role of darkness and how the beauty in it is essential to have other good things, and when we deny it, we fall into an abyss of ourselves and suck in everything around us, choking ourselves out with our own weight.

    You might call it a war of realist transcendentalism against narcissistic hubris, or even an anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian movement, because it is surely that. Metal has never liked the normies, nor the faux dissidents like the various punk bands with a lot of complaining and no solid ideas or philosophy about what to do about the situation.

    When you translate metal into music, you get beauty shaped of darkness, and intense structure taking the place of happy harmonies and blithe, distracting melodies. You get lyrics about things of great intensity, not all of them dark — many are triumphant — instead of songs about fornication and emotional drama mistaken as love. You get songs ruled by the riff, where the riff only shines when it makes sense in a dialogue of riffs that reveals a journey from order to chaos to a new type of order.”

    Okay, I get this, even if it’s a bit long-winded. And then….

    “If we translated this into politics, it would be the notion that life is short and therefore we must destroy all things which do not enhance life.”

    A total non-sequitur. You don’t provide any evidence as to why this outcome is the conclusion of the previous thoughts. If anything, the fact that patterns can only be elucidated over time shows that life is not short but long and to live it properly one must discern qualities which only become apparent over time, repeating patterns, synchronicities, evolution, growth, and so on.

    This means moving beyond ephemeral parts of your life and seeing it as a whole, which means moving beyond things which are intrinsic to ephemeral modes of your life, e.g. metal. Metal is for nostalgics and fetishists.

    The only reason metal means a thing to you is because you were introduced to it as a teenager. Had you never heard of it, and been introduced to it in your 30s, it would mean nothing. Therefore it has no intrinsic value, only the value your subjective experience gave it.

    You are reliving a time when you thought there was a future. As you age you realise more and more it doesn’t matter.

    The most bizarre thing about this site and it’s devotion to early Norwegian black metal and in particular Burzum is the fact that the most interesting thing about Burzum is how NON-METAL it was. Rather than being the pinnacle of metal, as this site seems to think, it was the point when metal stopped being metal. The whole thing is Velvet Underground, My Bloody Valentine and early 90’s trance combined with Bathory, Destruction and Manowar yet it’s treated totally as this linear thing within metal.

    Burzum is noise-rock, and with different marketing would have been widely accepted as such.

    1. AAAAARGH! Bloody 2-handed chainaxe blow says:

      Yawn, Spinoza Ray Prozak/Vijay Prozak/Brett Stevens has always been a defeatist, and romanticized time periods he never lived through, exposing problems without solutions or action.

      Wants to have an idealist society, but doesn’t want to contribute to it

      Doesn’t want regulation, but regulates his own site like a racist.

      Wants the strong to survive, but is frustrated that somehow “weaker” society is winning.

      Denial that metal music isn’t just entertainment.

      He’s been whining about this the last 20 years.

      Even metal “greats” admits that metal is an escape. Not necessarily a bad thing, we need it sometimes, but it is nothing more.

      And this is truly Brett’s pitfall, he is in denial of that.

      1. Bathory,mercyful fate,Burzuum,Morbid Angel etc stated thay metal is more than entertainment. Even the the DSP moto was no mosh no fun no core. Research the greats before saying something idiotic.

        1. AAAAARGH! Bloody 2-handed Chainaxe Blow says:

          And what are they all doing now? Seems like they’ve all backed off of those mottos and are all producing music that is truly entertainment and lacks artistic value (save the last Burzum album). None of those guys are holding up the standard they set forth in their prime. Why? It was always just entertainment.

        2. As an important potential addition to your statement, we should consider that metal has a hard line on “selling out” for when bands pass from art/war into entertainment/crowd. This tells us that on some albums, bands are “true” to their ideals, before the world absorbs them (that was the point of Burzum’s use of the title “Until The Light Takes Us”).

          1. berzerker says:

            Why are metal musicians’ best work always their first 3 or 4 albums? Because metal, like all pop music, is about novelty. Metallica were on fire in 83-86 because nobody had heard that before. Morbid Angel were on fire from 1989-1991 because again death metal was novel. Black metal was the next product to sell and got its two years in the limelight, the new edgy thing. A major part of metal’s appeal was as a result of the novelty factor, something that got upgraded every couple of years, always had a new star around the corner, just part of the technocratic consumerist media-driven process like everything else. To be relevant in metal, moreso maybe even than in regular pop music, you had to have a novelty, a new gimmick – faster, harder, more technical, less technical, more evil, more political, whatever. It’s one of the most consumerist and novelty-driven genres there is. Jazz and classical musicians are still allowed to experiment in old age, some rock musicians too – metal musicians’ time as relevant original composers is up at 25. Basically all metal bands will hit the “sellout” stage before too long. It’s inbuilt into the system. It’s like Logan’s Run. It’s part of the bargain. As a metal musician you’re there to represent youth and novelty, once that’s gone, you’re gone. The musicians’ newness is part of the product that is being sold to the constantly regenerating teen audience that is just slightly younger than the musicians. The same principle works in children’s TV shows – the characters are always just slightly older than the intended age demographic. That’s not to say some of the music doesn’t have artistic merit while it’s being produced and that older people who’ve grown up on it can’t enjoy those albums still, or that aging bands can’t still flog the dead horse, but it has no political or philosophical authority because it belongs primarily to the young and is therefore always transient. Metal as a way of life does not exist. To be a metalhead you need to experience it as a teenager. It’s like religious indoctrination. Once you’re past a certain age it has no effect on you. Nobody over the age of 30, maybe 20, who has not got into metal by that age will ever get into it. Hessianism is not a real thing outside the internet.

            1. You are confusing quality with novelty. Most metal musicians tend to develop quality earlier in life due to having at least 5 years to produce all their ideas and greater time. With youth tends to come imagination and passion that dies in most people. It was never about upgrading metal but rather exploring the unexplored. There was never an incentive in the Underground to copy other bands as non of them were going to get mainstream success, so each band set off on their own path. Some succeeded, while other failed. When artists get older, they all get softer and revert back to their influences due to the surprisingly low number of ideas most musicians tend to develop within a liftetime. Comparing metal to Children TV shows is like comparing oranges to planes, there may be similar phenomenon in both but not for the same reasons. Remember correlation is NOT causation. A lot of people have embraced metal in their lives to achieve success. Look no further than the “Warmaster” Josh Barnett for an example of a true Hessian.

              1. berzerker says:

                For every UFC fighter who listens to Bolt Thrower there are probably a thousand who listen to Kanye West. A lot of successful people enjoy different things in their life, it doesn’t mean those things have a philosophical basis or any political meaning or are responsible for their success. Out of the vast numbers of successful people in all walks of life, it’s quite striking how few actually listen to metal.

                “There was never an incentive in the Underground to copy other bands as non of them were going to get mainstream success, so each band set off on their own path.”

                Well, this is not really true, as most metal bands are clones of whatever is fashionable at the time, but let’s restrict ourselves to two of the greats you’ve mentioned – Mercyful Fate and Morbid Angel. There is no way King Diamond or Trey Azagthoth didn’t think their bands could become commercially successful. In the 80s metal was a growing phenomenon and many people – particularly deluded metal musicians barely out of their teens – assumed the public’s tastes were going to get even more extreme than just listening to Iron Maiden and Metallica and Megadeth. So their exploration was in part informed by the allure of commercial success as represented by the metal music industry – the record companies, the magazines, the radio stations and so on. And success isn’t just about big album sales – for a 20-year old it’s about getting to travel the country playing music, partying and shagging groupies. When the metal industry declined in the 90s and this infrastructure crumbled, innovation stalled. People who a few years previously would have been playing metal were now playing alternative rock, so there is nothing intrinsic to metal, it was just how rock music manifested itself at a certain time due to all kind of technological, commercial and social forces combining. Those forces no longer exist so metal is largely about nostalgia nowadays.

              2. When artists get older, they all get softer and revert back to their influences due to the surprisingly low number of ideas most musicians tend to develop within a liftetime.

                I agree here, and would add two more factors: time and industry. They no longer have what they did as youths, which is a lot of time to sit around thinking and going over their influences, eking out more of an understanding of what it all means. Instead, they have adult lives to manage which as we all know is mostly tedium, and they are responsive to the industry, which harasses them about sales and staying current with trends and other stupid stuff. In many cases, the instability of the band is also revealed, at which point the cycling of members begins, and the resulting lack of consistency guarantees salad metal.

                1. Public Shitting Space says:

                  Is this why your writing has become so soppy?

      2. Calamari says:

        Hobbyists detected. Although the jerbs are jerls catchphrase is silly, as are the catchphrases sodomize the weak and ship liberals off to Venezuela, metal, the kind championed here, is not mere nostalgia and/or entertainment. It’s more than that. Metal has had cultural, artistic, and occult/esoteric implications that thrust beyond the threshold of youthful expression and entertainment.

        1. Lance Vigianno says:

          Yeah this is all a bunch of bullshit. We are all hobbyists. You, me, everyone reading this site. We’re no different than dudes who love building RC airplanes or something. Although it seems that music hobbyists are more stupid and delusional (re: faux grandeur of said hobby) than people who play with wood and servos. It’s part of the hobby to write overly enthusiastic platitudes (dmu) because you’re giddy about stuff. Look at the guys who made the stuff that’s praised in said. They are either deadbeat losers or normal guys who work normal jobs. Even Paul Ledney is just another fat guy with fat wife making novelty tee shirts.

          1. torpedophile says:

            you talk like a hobby is a lesser type of thing, but by which metric are you scaling the value of a hobby? is a hobby lesser than a job? a girlfriend? family? probably it comes down to the individual and their circumstance so its inaccurate to cast a really broad judgment. but if you perceive participation in a hobby to be a lesser sort of experience with no purpose but to amuse you when really it should be the thing you want to do more than other things, then you’re not even at the level of a hobbyist yourself so reeeeeeee back to Instagram faggit

            1. Public Shitting Space says:

              None of that shit matters.

            2. Lance Vigianno says:

              My attitude makes precious little difference where the rubber meets the road. Which is the Crux of my position. What you believe wrt music as art or hobby is irrelevant. These beliefs rarely translate to meaningful differences in living. I will say from personal experience that art seems more significant when you don’t have other shit going on in life ie when younger. Presuming people grow up and get entangled in mature pursuits (family for example) art is revealed as a pursuit of lesser importance as it can at best help you mentally survive the real challenges of the world. It’s a product of leisure not borne of survival. All of these so called “high pursuits” are. Spinoza ground glass and produced his famous work in his spare time. Socrates fought first then philosophized later and died for it -when he took his beliefs to the public arena challenging his society face on. Metal musicians drive trucks first but nobody is coming at them with hemlock for their artistic products. What I am disillusioned with is clearly not life but the things that are sold to others made to seem larger than they are.

              1. torpedophile says:

                well there you are – disillusionment is due to overcompensation of perceived value judgment error in the past. but you’re now just projecting your reconfigured perception onto others under the assumption that you’ve stumbled over something that they have not. something much more important than art. but you didn’t say what it was ththerefore my suspicion that you’re just being a faggot

                any impact or lack thereof a hobby and its participation may have on your life says nothing about the value of that hobby in and of itself. rather it’s about your own predeliction. and it sounds like you just dont care about metal, which makes you retarded for playing the preachy dad on dmu. sounds like you’re mad that other people are having more fun than you

                1. Lance Vigianno says:

                  The way projection works is there has to actually be a “hook” ie the person I am projecting onto actually has to have unwanted characteristics of myself. Second there has to be a hypocritical element but my approach is “look man I’ve been there.” Which is obvious if you’d focus on what I mean. Try again without the shitty psychology.

                  1. Calamari says:

                    Take your hobbyist bitchass back to reddit

                  2. torpedophile says:

                    you said you were disillusioned with your hobby after you inferred that hobbies were not to be taken seriously. idk if you felt dumb for liking metal or what but I’m hardly reaching to conclude that you’re projecting when you come to the most srs business metal site on the internet and tell people they are incorrect, what else would you call that

                    1. Lance Vigianno says:

                      No I meant I am disillusioned with the high art shit that’s all the rage. Hence everything I’ve said in the comments here. Context is everything.

                    2. Mostly because it is neither high art nor art in the first place. It is LARPing. Your average “high art” metal band is pretending to be something that it is not, in order to cover up the fact that it could not be credible if the music had to stand on its own without being tricked out through arrangement, imagery, production, and quirky personalities. Metal has been hipsterfied.

            3. you talk like a hobby is a lesser type of thing, but by which metric are you scaling the value of a hobby? is a hobby lesser than a job? a girlfriend? family?

              A hobby means something you do for yourself to please yourself. Music is meant to communicate, so it is only a hobby if you are sitting around playing cover songs or other material you never intend to release.

              reeeeeeee back to Instagram faggit

              “Go back to Reddit” is meaner. Instagram may be full of metrosexuals, but Reddit is full of LARPing proles.

              1. torpedophile says:

                nitpicking syntax. participation in metal at all is hobby – playing, listening, writing about

                my intention was to avoid speaking of high or low art or art at all because the subject opens the door for masturbatory (((debate))). what I’m saying is hobby is what you do because it’s what you like best and if you’re not doing that it’s because you’re doing stuff for other people and if you’re not even doing stuff for yourself your opinions on others and their participation in hobby should be obviously irrelevant but somehow it’s being rationalized

                lance is a renowned metal hating metrosexual so my insult was laser guided

                1. Lance Vigianno says:

                  Using special definitions is an idiots tool. Responding to someone but shifting the conversation to something else entirely is an asshole’s.

                  1. torpedophile says:

                    “heh I’ll just point out that this guy is being rude that’ll show em”

                    yeah I’m touching on a lot of peripherally related topics maybe but I’ll distill my points by saying look bruv you’re wrong that participation in any hobby or art is a lesser thing and you’re wrong to think that you’re not role playing just because you got too cool to geek out over a hobby. everything you do short of rape and murder is role play because you’re following someone else’s rules to benefit from their game even when/if you really want to do otherwise. participating in hobby and art for pleasure (not socialization [no mosh no core no fun no trends]) is ultimately realization of the self because it’s an act of pure desire and creativity to manifest what is most inwardly your self. why you would look down on those who do this is anyone’s guess and mine is that you’re jaded and projecting but do provide a corrective explanation otherwise

                    I’m only granting you the disagreement you no doubt anticipated by posting something contrarian so assholery shouldn’t rattle you so

                    1. Lance Vigianno says:

                      Bro you’re pulling too much of this out of your own ass. I don’t look down on people who have hobbies geek out over them or whatever. I look down on people who USE HOBBYIST AS PEJORATIVE. you know the guy I initially responded to. And of course all that nonsense about high art this and profound esoteric implications that. THERE IS A SPECIFIC FACTION WITHIN ART HOBBYISTS THAT ARE POOFTER CUNTS. aye?

              2. Come on says:

                Dude you’re more active on Reddit than anyone don’t even go there.

                1. Eradicator of Bitchass Hobbyists says:

                  Duh. His periscope goes anywhere there are bitchass hobbyists to fuck them up!

          2. Kuh-RISpy says:

            So, where’s the line between hobby and art, then? Isn’t there any? Is a Rembrandt just another version of an RC airplane model? If so, I’m surprised your disillusionment with life hasn’t killed you already, and I don’t see why anyone would want to follow your lead. If not, I suppose you don’t see the great metal albums as great art, and that’s, well, too bad for you and I don’t agree at all.

            You feel DMU are exaggerating things? Well, maybe, but to my mind you’re underplaying what these bands achieved back in the day. Who cares what they’re doing now?

            1. Lance Vigianno says:

              See my comment to torpedo. Adequately addresses the both of you.

              1. Kuh-RISpy says:

                Yeah, life be like dat sometimes. Now and then, the starry night sky is just a pointless black void; at other times it’s what gives you motivation to go on.

                Anyway, do you consider Things That Are More Important Than Metal to be important because they give more to life than metal music, or because focusing on metal as something great in life makes society crumble because we don’t pay attention to more basic, non-leisure stuff? (I exaggerate, but you get my point.)

                1. Lance Vigianno says:

                  Neither. Listening to music and making music is highly rewarding and something I’ve never stopped doing or will stop doing. It’s just that these activities are only personally (artist and audience) enriching not something of any cosmic significance as might have previously appeared. I am a not that old dad dude. I really hate to pull that shit in here cause it’s gay but like it’s true at the same time. It’s difficult to explain the impromptu shifts in what is important in life when these phases of life hit you. Outside of the music itself the intangibles of dissatisfaction with life as it is, misanthropy, occultism; these just are not the values or perspectives or beliefs of a Man. Stoic values on the other hand are. Which here is to say: knowing you can change only a little around you, putting up with the hum drum boring dry even technical shit and above all: a accepting that you need the people around you no matter how much you may hate them or think them inadequate. If you want to be sane and constructive. I say all this as a generally angry angsty curmudgeon.

                  1. Public Shitting Space says:

                    “It’s just that these activities are only personally (artist and audience) enriching not something of any cosmic significance as might have previously appeared.”

                    Really!? How did you come to this brilliant deduction?

          3. Calamari says:

            Fucked up of you to label others as hobbyists on par with your bitchass. Go back to reddit hobbyist

          4. goatlieb says:

            Varg Vikernes burned churches, killed poseurs and made good music. He lived by his beliefs. Does that mean he had to do all that to make good music? I don’t think so.

            Art is indeed born out of leisure. You cannot make / enjoy art if you’re always stuck in survival mode. Art is an aristocratic trait, it’s not for wage-slaves. If death metal means nothing to you, you can go to McDonald’s and hear some guy burp since all it is is just some guy making some noise right?

            The best art conveys a proper symbolic vision of intense life experiences. A good artist can do this without necessarily having been in extreme situations himself. As great as they were, Achilles and Odysseus did not write the Greek epics themselves. Although I would also argue that if an artist doesn’t really have the potential and the spiritual power for these experiences, his work will come out fake; and when he misses this spirit, he’s turns into a sellout.

            Some metal has indeed become some of the best art of our times and at the DMU a philosophical interpretation of it is given. The Trojan war would have been just a footnote in history if it were not for poets and philosophers to tell the story and give it a higher meaning. This is also the mission of this site for good extreme metal.

            Can art lead to actions / can it make you change your life? In a way yes, but in the end, it’s only through our own forces that we do this. Art / philosophy shows the way in a symbolic form, it prepares, it shows the possibilities of life. Living life itself, surviving, is a completely different beast. You’re just reducing one thing to another and you’re missing the point of both.

            1. Lance Vigianno says:

              Hi thanks for the first sensible reply.

              “Varg Vikernes burned churches, killed poseurs and made good music. He lived by his beliefs. Does that mean he had to do all that to make good music? I don’t think so.”

              He did. I agree with you.

              “Art is indeed born out of leisure. You cannot make / enjoy art if you’re always stuck in survival mode. Art is an aristocratic trait, it’s not for wage-slaves. If death metal means nothing to you, you can go to McDonald’s and hear some guy burp since all it is is just some guy making some noise right?”

              I disagree. “Lower” classes have always made art. As a quick example Feudal Peasants had a ton of free time as they worked probably three days on average. That time was spent by artistically inclined people’s playing instruments and writing folk music. Much of which was the raw material later used by Aristocrats to make “High” art. Beethoven, as an offhand example, wrote much of his own versions of folk songs.

              “The best art conveys a proper symbolic vision of intense life experiences. A good artist can do this without necessarily having been in extreme situations himself. As great as they were, Achilles and Odysseus did not write the Greek epics themselves. Although I would also argue that if an artist doesn’t really have the potential and the spiritual power for these experiences, his work will come out fake; and when he misses this spirit, he’s turns into a sellout”

              This is difficult to respond to as it’s very, well, romantic. The fellows you named did not surely write any epics but guys like the aforementioned Socrates engaged in philosophy later. Marcus Aerelius was an emperor and stoic philosopher. Hesiod appears to have been a free farmer/land owner.

              “Some metal has indeed become some of the best art of our times and at the DMU a philosophical interpretation of it is given. The Trojan war would have been just a footnote in history if it were not for poets and philosophers to tell the story and give it a higher meaning. This is also the mission of this site for good extreme metal.”

              Which stories are being preserved by metal in your view?

              “Can art lead to actions / can it make you change your life? In a way yes, but in the end, it’s only through our own forces that we do this. Art / philosophy shows the way in a symbolic form, it prepares, it shows the possibilities of life. Living life itself, surviving, is a completely different beast. You’re just reducing one thing to another and you’re missing the point of both.”

              Yes these things can do so but, as per my brief examples, more often than not don’t lead to anything for musicians or listeners. Most of the time art and philosophy is cosmetic which is to say, mental landscaping. Like ideology and most human beliefs; it rarely makes it into action. People might have intellectual interests and though they are ornate in many cases, they live like normies (or worse!)

              1. As a quick example Feudal Peasants had a ton of free time as they worked probably three days on average. That time was spent by artistically inclined people’s playing instruments and writing folk music. Much of which was the raw material later used by Aristocrats to make “High” art. Beethoven, as an offhand example, wrote much of his own versions of folk songs.

                Many of the great composers did. These were folk songs handed down over time, which people played and danced to in the evenings or during other free time. Many of them existed for cultural holidays, when certain songs were appropriate. There was some great material there. Then again, it is hard to say that anyone “composed” them. Someone started a melody and rhythm, and other people added on to it, and every musician had their own interpretation. In that way, songs gradually changed over time, edited by thousands of hands, but kept their essential character.

                Most of the time art and philosophy is cosmetic which is to say, mental landscaping. Like ideology and most human beliefs; it rarely makes it into action.

                I disagree here. Ideas move history.

                1. Lance Vigianno says:

                  “Many of the great composers did. These were folk songs handed down over time, which people played and danced to in the evenings or during other free time. Many of them existed for cultural holidays, when certain songs were appropriate. There was some great material there. Then again, it is hard to say that anyone “composed” them. Someone started a melody and rhythm, and other people added on to it, and every musician had their own interpretation. In that way, songs gradually changed over time, edited by thousands of hands, but kept their essential character.”

                  Yep. Metal as well. Darkthrone used Metallica and Bathory Riffs. Mercyful Fate used led Zeppelin riffs. The actual content is a bit different because the person playing the material inevitably adds their own character to it in the execution.

                  “I disagree here. Ideas move history.”

                  As a rule, these days, I avoid the abstract. History moves and there are too many variables making it impossible to isolate causation. I could argue of course that ideas follow events, especially those of an unexpected unpredictable nature but that’s beyond the scope of my subject which is: musicians and music listeners who take more than a passing interest.

                  1. As a rule, these days, I avoid the abstract.

                    This is the equivalent of saying “I can’t hear you!” while plugging fingers in your ears. The abstract is with us, and if skillfully done, informative. I dislike the abstract which does not correspond to reality.

                    History moves and there are too many variables making it impossible to isolate causation. I could argue of course that ideas follow events, especially those of an unexpected unpredictable nature but that’s beyond the scope of my subject which is: musicians and music listeners who take more than a passing interest.

                    We could argue that Christ Jesus did it all. We could argue many things. In the meantime, look at what happened once egalitarianism infiltrated our society. Was this brought on by physical events? Certainly, the fucktards circulating the “strong men make weak times” meme think so, but that simply removes human agency, which is what egalitarianism sought to do anyway. People are agents with the power of choice and they can be infected by ideas, especially when they cannot see how those ideas will expand and mutate over time.

                    We can look at a more immediate example. Black metal reacted to the events of the 1980s and 1990s, but did so in an eternalist context, ending up with something more like a philosophy than politics, and now almost every point that they raised is in the news on a regular basis. The entire Alt-Right could well be said to be the translation of black metal into politics.

                    1. Lance Vigianno says:

                      “This is the equivalent of saying “I can’t hear you!” while plugging fingers in your ears. The abstract is with us, and if skillfully done, informative. I dislike the abstract which does not correspond to reality.”

                      No I just avoid it because my experience dictates that it is too easy to bullshit in the very abstract or conversations go nowhere not the least of which because concrete evidence, anecdotes, data can be used to support almost anything that is sufficiently generalized. If my real world problem is getting clean running water to my municipality; then that problem is not solved by discussing abstract things. What moves history is just not worth any effort on my part. Last year for mo apparent reason, Korea started talking to itself again. Global politics now need to get rearranged accordingly. That’s something that people well above me need to reorient themselves to. At my level I am worried about the school curriculum for my boys.

                    2. Soar says:

                      Have ideas always been that important, though? I can imagine they are in this current idea-driven civilizations of ours, but otherwise ideas can’t possibly *always* be the cause of the movement of history, if that’s what you meant. Ideas and material preconditions seem to play off each other in a way that simply doesn’t warrant ideas as primary cause of history, especially if we consider ancient times. The evolution of, say, farming certainly needed human brains and snippets of ideas, but the cause that turned farming into an actual idea must certainly have been the material conditions of a certain geography at a certain time (warm period), no?

            2. Lance Vigianno says:

              I neglected to mention an important detail: with the advent of recorded music + playback the need for any classes to make music in their leisure diminished to be left for those interested in an “artisan” career. A family of roofers for instance can just as well buy a CD instead of needing to experience music by way of family members or neighbors playing it. Other avenues used to be church musicians, and the like. By and large today music is produced by the well to do who can afford the cost of equipment and not working. Bowie, the strokes, Swans, Norwegian BMers. Rock music is largely the product of rich kids pretending to be DIY, street level, tortured souls, etc.

              1. By and large today music is produced by the well to do who can afford the cost of equipment and not working. Bowie, the strokes, Swans, Norwegian BMers.

                If you have read The Bell Curve, you can see how this might be an improvement.

                A family of roofers for instance can just as well buy a CD instead of needing to experience music by way of family members or neighbors playing it.

                True, but more people than ever before seem to be playing instruments as a way to pass the time. The only difference is that people are mostly isolated, which means the only people to whip out guitars at parties are penisless douchebags.

                1. Lance Vigianno says:

                  “If you have read The Bell Curve, you can see how this might be an improvement.”

                  I’m not a fan so we’ll leave it at that.

                  “True, but more people than ever before seem to be playing instruments as a way to pass the time. The only difference is that people are mostly isolated, which means the only people to whip out guitars at parties are penisless douchebags.”

                  True but this is a good thing. I mean playing a guitar with your free time is better than a lot of other possible activities. I don’t personally care what the outcome or motivation of the guitarist is. The guy at a party learning just enough to play a simple girl wooing song acquired more discipline and talent doing so than he probably otherwise would have. Silver lining and all that.

              2. still goatlieb says:

                Just to be clear, because I’d say you sort of misunderstood my point: when I say art is an aristocratic trait, I don’t mean in a proper sense (meaning only open to higher classes etc.) but in a spiritual way, as in an aristocratic disposition of the soul, which you cannot access if you’re struggling in survival mode. I don’t care about the artist’s social background.

                So Lance, when you say “Lower classes have always made art.” – I agree, but it’s irrelevant here. Why are art and philosophy more than entertainment (or ‘mental landscaping’ as you say) ? Well, the first thing is the artist needs to get out of consumer / survival mode to make something. Entertainment is consumer mode and not art.

                Next, in your final remarks you say ‘Which stories are being preserved by metal in your view?’ and then you basically agree with the point that art and philosophy have a symbolic power, but you say that their practical influence is lost with the masses. I agree, but again it’s irrelevant (e.g. you’re arguing ‘ad populum’ here). I don’t care how many people see value in art or not.

                I’ll take it further and say that a certain philosophy is in action all the time in all the people. Without some conceptual worldview (which includes an internal order of values), you’d be lost. I’d say art (good metal, the Greek epics, Renaissance sculpture etc.) is not that much about preserving stories and is not that much about being pleasant either, but its ultimate meaning is to be a gateway to a philosophy. It is the crossing through the doors of perception towards a new perspective. It’s opposed to entertainment in the fact that entertainment is more of a gateway to a bubblegum philosophy for non-complex listeners.

                For me the DMU has the important role of talking about this (how many other websites do it?) although I do not share all their perspectives. Art is not a hobby (or entertainment) – it touches philosophy, which drives all human action. Yes, most people ARE weaklings and live carefully. Most people cannot discuss metal or art other than ‘I dig it’. Never forget though that good metal has a meaning beyond this point. I’d quote the entire “Father to Son” song by Bathory.

                1. Lance Vigianno says:

                  I am familiar with aristocrat of soul but we will have to shake hands over it and drop that particular subject. Nothing productive will come of it.

                  I do not presume to know the motivations of people who make art and do not want to project my own motivations onto other people. I do not like the internet propensity for fly by night psychology. I will only remark that: is art not entertaining? is art not released to the public so that others can enjoy it?

                  Let me clarify: philosophy and art aren’t lost on the “masses.” They amount to nothing, in action or living, for most people especially artists and intellectuals. My direct experience with people especially in these circles is significant enough evidence for me.

                  Philosophy is not active in action simple heuristics are. These are learned via trial and error or via religion for example, some are instinctual. You wouldn’t say my brain is doing math when I’m driving would you?

                  Art is beautiful sure but all this worldview and meaning stuff could just as well be done for psychological health. Experience Greek tragedy so you can deal with hardships. Make and listen to metal so can deal with the problems of today and not collapse as a person from distress. I don’t know why humans make art or philosophy. Anyone who claims to know is as of this moment in our history full of it. My point is that it is beneath picking up a plow. These are: pastimes. Which isn’t to denigrate artisans or hobbyists.

            3. Art is indeed born out of leisure. You cannot make / enjoy art if you’re always stuck in survival mode. Art is an aristocratic trait, it’s not for wage-slaves.

              This is why peasant songs in the hands of Beethoven, Respighi, and Mozart became something far more interesting.

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpjBwwxf3UU

    2. ASDFGHJK says:

      hi boychev

  6. boom says:

    Jobs > slavery > starving. In another age, having a job was a step up from feudal slavery, which itself was a step up from starvation / death in a war etc.

    The main failure I see in all extremely smart people is that they are infatuated with their knowledge. They succumb to the desire of the universal. They think that their value-judgements apply to everyone and everything.

    For example, some folks are perfectly happy being tools that in the weekends go watch some football, come back home, turn on the TV, grab some beers, and then Monday it’s off to work again. Other people, let’s say more creative, find jobs dehumanizing. OK, so what ? Another example is this Beauvoir chick who thought she’d free women from the “enslavement” that society brings to women through the social preconceptions it pushes from an early age. Of course, to her this is enslavement, but to many other women this isn’t even an issue. The question is, are more women more happy now as a result of the feminist propaganda started by Beauvoir & co. ? Most women (and men!) have medium intelligence / capabilities, do not need her feminist liberation crap and would be a lot happier without it.

    The point is jobs are shit only for people that want a different way of life – but most people don’t! Living in a capitalist democracy, jobs are truly the tyranny of the majority. Is it that bad ? Yes if you’re smart enough to see it, no if you’re both smart and strong enough to escape the prison.

  7. Rutabaga says:

    Brett have you read much Foucault? His concept of social “discipline” underpins much of this.

    1. No, I have not. I found him irritating, but may revisit. Most of this is straight out of the Greeks and Burroughs, with a few additions of my own. Like those peasants making songs, I offer up my understanding and then give it the innovations that I can.

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