Transcendental Black Metal, by Hunter Hunt-Hendrix (Liturgy)

[rapidshare]

Transcendental Black Metal, by Hunter Hunt-Hendrix (Liturgy)

Some good fodder here. Basically: rejection of nihilism through aesthetics is also rejection of the arc of counterculture.

Problem: indie rock took over black metal, not a transcendental genre.

[Conservationist]

Transcendental Black Metal, by Hunter Hunt-Hendrix (Liturgy)

Some good fodder here. Basically: rejection of nihilism through aesthetics is also rejection of the arc of counterculture.

Problem: indie rock took over black metal, not a transcendental genre.

So he's saying that he thinks Nietzsche was right, and aesthetics are the solution to nihilism, and his suggested aesthetics are nerdy rock music?

Help

[Iron]

Someone should engage this inventor of false-dichotomies in dialogue. Like many metal 'outsiders' he instinctively grasps that there is substance in black metal, but is confused or alienated by the aesthetic sensibilities of the genre. He then tries to disentangle the substance from the aesthetic sensibility, without understanding that the latter is an organic expression of the former. His attempts to liberate substance from aesthetic are doomed to failure because he has failed to grasp the whole 'riddle' of metal (death and black both): that the 'solar' and the 'lunar' are part of a unified whole, that life and death go hand in hand, that ugliness and decay support vitality and beauty, etc.

[Iron]

Whatever you think of the guy, these are topics we should be discussing, especially as HHH manages to piss off enough people to get people discussing this.

I agree with this. This guy - someone I'm assuming is a 'metal outsider' insofar as he doesn't seem like a life-long metal enthusiast with an encyclopedic knowledge of metal - nevertheless has stumbled, as many do, on the realization that there is something vital, inspiring, and really different about 'black metal'. His writing suggests that he is enthusiastic but poorly informed; sincere but overly dismissive and attached to his personal interpretation.

People who are 'metal insiders' should care about this insofar as it represents someone who isn't inside of our bitter, cynical, self-referential little clubhouse subculture recognizing, even if in an incomplete way, the spirit of the music that we believe is powerful and important. I think I'll try to write him an email or something.

[Veritas]

Insiders vs Outsiders:

The first group collects data from outside themselves, processes it within, and creates meaning to be distributed out again. The second group collects already refined meaning from outside themselves and redistributes it as meme.

The integrity of meaning after this redistribution rests on the quality of extravert. The quality of the extravert must match or exceed that of the introvert creator else the meme is degraded to some extent. This is the structure of the competition and an explanation for how entropy works in this type of closed system.

Meaning comes from within, but it is up to those who it exists in to put it into a form expressible to others. The quality of the intuited experience will necessarily be degraded as it moves outwards, but something is better than nothing. As it stands, the meaning inherent to the metal aesthetic has not been formulated in a way that captures the truth of it, while transmitting that truth to the outside. "Hipster" philosophy is far from ideal, and yes we already know this stuff, but we need some way of recording these ideas which doesn't depend on being an insider first - otherwise the outward conveyance of meaning will be left to those who have little grasp of the genre.

[Veritas]

I'm not saying that it's "obvious" that the ANUS crew are infatuated/intimidated by this Liturgy band, but it's obvious.

Right from the first moment the "Hideous Gnosis" symposium was announced, this forum has ridden the band like a whore.

In fact, this forum is the only place online where you can find a supporting consensus for this troll band.

He has the right idea about showing the deep connection between Black Metal and Philosophy, but his conclusions leave much to be desired.

The troll attacks on him basically say: what he is doing is something you should pay attention to, but we don't agree with what he said.

[Conservationist]

Basically: rejection of nihilism through aesthetics is also rejection of the arc of counterculture.

He seems to think that having a happier aesthetic is transcendental, while being bleak/"nihilistic" means people have no hope for life.

That outsider view is totally broken. Black metal is transcendental BECAUSE it embraces the dark, not because it bullshits us with the light.

[JewishPhysics]

I think he's made a quite obvious and critical error in his assessment:

He states that the will to power requires two stages 1) fortification and 2) sacrifice.  Everything he argues afterward derives from this idea.  It doesn't appear to me that he has justified this original assertion in any way.  I'm not by any means an astute philosophy student, but I can't recall Nietzsche or any subsequent philosopher making this case.  Please feel free to point and laugh if I am wrong.

If we throw out this original assertion of this dichotomy and replace it with the notion of a constant, continual struggle, his entire philosophy would seem to collapse into something approximating the ANUS perspective on Black Metal.

[Conservationist]

If we throw out this original assertion of this dichotomy and replace it with the notion of a constant, continual struggle, his entire philosophy would seem to collapse into something approximating the ANUS perspective on Black Metal.

OK, this make sense to me. How can life not be a constant continual struggle? Life itself is constant and continual. Unless we buy into the "Progressive" belief system, in which history is a linear struggle for justice, but I can't get into that stupid asshole shit. I'm more of a Jack London kind of guy. If there's a God (HELLO) he wants us to struggle for supremacy, so the smarter and stronger come out on top. Mathematically, this makes the most sense. In every case it works.

I can't stand the style of the paper, but I think you've parsed it well. Academia has become so spacy they can't even just write old school dead white guy stuff, which was clear. I blame the overdramatic Mr. Nietzsche for that. Every asshole in the world wants to emulate him. Then again they would have done that anyway, being (today's word/phrase) stupid assholes.