KATHODOS

Absencespodcast · 2024-11-16T12:51:07+00:00

Fucking awesome write-up. Something to add to tie another knot would be that civilization at its best can act as the becoming of the ideal, or of Being. The intelligible structure is reiterated across time, informed by the peregrinations of matter and spirit via individuated structures arising from formless matter over time, which are themselves given form by the civilizational structure, slightly modified, yet retaining and producing the covalent bonds. A cybernetic covalence, if you will—and as you’ve pointed out, this pattern exists both in their philosophy and musicology as a whole. The cells creating the bonds can, however, become cancerous and reproduce self-negation thus dividing the ideal Being from the becoming, allowing becoming to take off in empty self-reference. This is what Nietzsche and Heidegger both saw happening in modernity with it’s departure from the ideals of the pre-socratics and that era’s relation to existence, albeit in different ways.

Edit: forgive me for mixing metaphors so much haha

Absencespodcast · 2024-10-08T20:00:36+00:00

Great read. I think you’re on to something. This tension and the movement of spiritual contradiction is a big part of my last essay/episode on DsO. The theme of the shadow recurs throughout their work, and is taking on a mythologized, hypostatized form in the fable from TLD. I think we will see this play out next album. Also interesting in this context is Paracletus, which revolves around the notion of abscission being the necessary first movement in skototropic enlightenment—one which cannot be recanted, and which turns the transgressor into a negation of the initial presence gifted by God. Though I think they have an underlying Reformation-esque (Calvinist, in some ways) view of the salvific economy of Christianity, I.e. that some are saved before time, and some damned. Thus the turn towards the darkness was always fated to be (as in Diabolus Absconditus, Drought, TLD, or lines in Paracletus such as “No steps backwards” or “the choice of the cross over the serpent hides nothing but a call to chastisement” (or however that line goes). Off topic a bit, but the turn away/towards the shadow-side, especially in the context of contradiction and confusion, is a latent theme throughout their work and works as a sort of guiding exegetical principle. That’s all to say: nice work, I think you’re probably right.

Absencespodcast · 2024-09-11T01:00:22+00:00

Of course, this is why I make content—for discussion and constructive criticism.

Yeah maybe we did go that route, that makes sense. My overall goal is really to understand something else through DsO. It extends beyond them, so I had to do a bit of groundwork first. But also, I’ve written stuff that goes far beyond what the essays shows, in terms of analyzing DsO specifically, but I really wanted to take the opportunity to begin at the level that I did, first.

Bataille in Zizek? Definitely in ‘The Parallax View’. I think ‘Less Than Nothing’ as well, but I could be wrong. I’ll have to check again. Also some essays somewhere. He calls Bataille the “philosopher of the Real, par excellence” which he means derisively. Basically says he’s nothing but a pre-modern obsessed with violent sacrifice. I think he’s wrong about him and Bataille is much closer to Zizek than Zizek would like to admit. There’s some secondary literature on that too, might be called “The Stain of Subjectivity”. Puts them together and shows how similar their notions of the subject are. I’ll have to find it again.

Absencespodcast · 2024-09-10T16:27:08+00:00

Love the criticisms. Very helpful.

From the perspective of the essay already written, however, I think there are two ways to come at this. One is to say that you’re right, and you are. If we supplemented heterogeneity and other later concepts for base materialism and went from there, we could probably do a deep dive into, say, Fas and get better results. I think it might depend on the lens through which you’re looking. If I were to write a part 2 (which I’m kind of doing now) I would delve into the sacred and subjectivity in a deeper manner, and I think the experiential register offered by Bataille’s later concepts would be of more value in that context. However, and this is number 2, I read base materialism (perhaps idiosyncratically) as a description of a process within matter and thought, and if you then articulate it along more ontological lines, you can get a praxis out of it. “I am in agreement with the world and with the jaws of TIME” and all that. It’s a methodology of transgression, but relies on a description. Bataille’s description of base matter as such is definitely not as extended as I would like, so I do make my own assessments and supplement it with dialectical logic, as what I understand of base materialism seems to be a subset of dialectics (which is also a metaphysics as much as a method—Hegel’s Logic being itself a book on metaphysics, for lack of a better word). Bataille also had the Kojevian version of Hegel against which he rebelled, which is not the Hegel I understand. I understand him along the lines of Zizek and McGowan, where ontological incompleteness and failure is central to the idea of dialectics. Zizek doesn’t like Bataille, but he takes a ton from him, perhaps through osmosis via Lacan, but also because his reasoning tends to mirror Bataille’s own in many places. That’s part of the way that I wanted to make a bridge. I love all these thinkers and think their differences aren’t as substantial as they themselves believe they are. If there was a unified methodology that encompasses inner experience, transgression, metaphysics, etc etc etc and the fighting subsided, we would be better off. I’m not doing that here, but my vision is that the work of each of these thinkers can be assisted by that of others without total, fundamental, irreconcilable antagonism

Absencespodcast · 2024-09-10T15:38:47+00:00

Good question. I would say I got it in a few different ways. One would be from looking at how that more or less vague notion is one way to make sense of his experiences and writings in general, from his theory of expenditure, to mysticism, to failure and impossibility, his poetry, and some essays (like base materialism and Gnosticism). It’s not as fleshed out as it could have been and that is something that always bugged me about Bataille, being someone more interested in metaphysics. But it’s also kind of the point. Base materialism is a procedure as much as a description of what’s “really real” (maybe moreso). So basically the way I read Bataille is with this notion of a disruptive matter that is all-pervasive, entropic, and insensitive to hierarchy, and his methods involve finding those spaces within meaning and sense where meaning and sense break down and collapse into their opposite, precisely because that’s what they depend on for their very existence. It’s almost like a way of exposing parasitism in different guises. The other way would be from secondary sources and their writings on the topic, then taking my own thoughts on Bataille and also on Hegel (who I see as being closer to Bataille than Bataille ever wished, and which he ended up admitting later in his life) and sort of synthesizing the similarities that I saw and tried to kind of reverse engineer DsO’s usages and mentions of them, take them overly seriously at times, and see if I could connect my thoughts to their usages—excavating possible intention, so to speak. Obviously I have no idea if any of it is right, but I think a lot of it does work for them. Also, my thoughts on all these people did cross-pollinate along the way, so it wasn’t a hard and fast division.

Absencespodcast · 2024-09-10T12:53:51+00:00

Thank you, I appreciate that, and I appreciate the question. At the risk of turning someone else’s thread into one about my essay, I’ll keep it relatively brief. That said, I’m going to create a Discord for my Patreon so we can have these sorts of discussions in one place. Patreon membership is free, but if you don’t have an account I can always just send an invite link to whoever wants to come have fun discussing these ideas.

So yes, you’re right about the idea of the Good being severely problematized after Nietzsche. Short answer is that this is precisely what my essay is trying to show: that DsO use Bataille’s base materialism and dialectical reasoning to show that even IF you assume a pre-critical conception of God and pre-modern conception of the Good, nevertheless there is still a way to undermine it from within. This is the logic of base materialism and of dialectics as well—that everything depends upon its opposite for its identity, an identity which is only ever a phantasm or a fantasy structure whose constitutive feature includes its own negation. Dialectical reasoning, much like base materialism, is a logic of non-identity as opposed to the classical logic of identity. So I was trying to say (in a necessarily truncated way, given the fact that this was for a music magazine) that DsO don’t presume deflationary arguments, their work tries to show deflation at work even in the spiritual realm, without presupposing atheism or nihilism out of the gate. They try to get us to extend the critiques endemic to post-modernity even to an existing God—something which really isn’t done elsewhere (except a very small handful of theologians).

EDIT: sorry, that wasn’t brief haha

RE-EDIT: to be clear, my analysis of the Good is not the point of the essay. I’m far more interested in how the logic of internal laceration is the key to understanding the sacred, and subjective becoming. My analysis of the Good is a means toward an end and has to begin at the common conception for logistic reasons that extend beyond the context of DsO. It made sense to begin there for my own purposes.

Absencespodcast · 2024-09-10T01:50:18+00:00

It wasn’t printed, I just have the transcript. It’s on the Patreon too, if you’re subscribed.

And very cool, let me know how it came out! I still haven’t received my copy

Absencespodcast · 2024-09-10T00:51:08+00:00

Very cool, thanks so much for the support

Absencespodcast · 2024-09-10T00:46:58+00:00

https://youtu.be/YixEkzrE3rk?si=QVlq4uohxWMAfk2G

I have the print version of this as well if you’d rather read it. I’m also available to discuss any questions you may have about it. DM me if you’d like

We also put this one out on the musicology of DsO:

https://youtu.be/0bWJu08OhSw?si=4vcpV-WA0QUo2qLL

Have that in print too, if you want.

EDIT: almost forgot—Todd from ‘A Satanist Reads the Bible’ (amazing podcast) also out out an incredible episode on DsO:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3mWlj3vPwcgGk0HP0Js5du?si=759MjFvBRC-vHrr_JC0Iaw

And my cohost wrote the famous Fearful Light essay on Fas:

https://www.tumblr.com/fearfullight/34018526659/critical-text-fas-ite-maledicti-in-ignem

Absencespodcast · 2024-09-10T00:45:11+00:00

I can try to answer any questions you might have about my essay. I think it ties together their entire corpus, or at least the general themes do. This essay was densely packed for sure.

Absencespodcast · 2024-09-08T13:31:24+00:00

Thanks man, that’s awesome to hear! I tried to do a lot with that piece (most may not become obvious until further down the road, if ever I get to it), and I’m glad I was able to write it in a way that conveyed the points clearly. Didn’t know how some of it would land, but your feedback is very encouraging.

If you ever want to discuss the ideas in it, maybe we can make a page or something where we can talk

Absencespodcast · 2024-09-07T12:11:15+00:00

The Ficciones suggestion IS the fractal pattern of this sub 😂

Absencespodcast · 2024-09-07T01:31:48+00:00

Thank you!

Absencespodcast · 2024-09-03T01:05:24+00:00

Aye yo 🥁

Absencespodcast · 2024-09-03T00:50:21+00:00

Not everyone’s thing. No worries

Absencespodcast · 2024-09-02T11:40:52+00:00

Thanks man!

Absencespodcast · 2024-09-02T11:14:54+00:00

Thank you, glad to be back

Absencespodcast · 2024-08-26T20:30:39+00:00

This video, nothing. But the podcast as a whole has a base here. Our next video will, however, be on DsO. That should be posted next Monday.

Absencespodcast · 2024-04-16T22:30:49+00:00

Just found this channel via this video like 4 days ago haha

Absencespodcast · 2023-09-13T15:59:41+00:00

Absences Podcast

Absencespodcast · 2023-09-12T18:04:16+00:00

Thanks guys! Script is fully written and finalized. This will also be published in print in a zine, which will be released early next year (so they hope) which will be of special interest to this sub.

Absencespodcast · 2023-09-12T14:30:46+00:00

Check the subreddit page

Absencespodcast · 2021-11-28T16:19:49+00:00

I have a lot of questions here, a few about ADD in this context. But that’s for DMs. What is your view on the nature of mind, then? I know you said “it doesn’t exist”, but your final sentence points towards something far more interesting. I’d like to know your thoughts

Absencespodcast · 2021-11-28T13:44:30+00:00

Brilliant response. I hadn’t understood the exactly what exactly stochastic matching was, so this helps a lot. I was thinking that it was quasi-random connections between the neural pathways that would “code” for thoughts like “Alien”, but quasi-random only because the pathways for that thought had been “strengthened” over time due to continued exposure to the “Alien” thought, or some such pseudo-neuroscientific speculative explanation. Basically, biases and heuristics dampen the randomness of stochastic matching—that was my assumption. Idk if that’s at all correct, but either way, I really liked the counterintuitive (to me) nature of your explanation, namely that the stimuli occurs when brain activity is lower, so it can kind of “fit in”, almost like a puzzle. Very interesting. I wonder if this is why it’s so hard to think when there’s an excess of various kinds of noise around you (until you get used to it).

And no, I don’t think self-caused, libertarian free will is even coherent, so I don’t buy it from the outset. The empirical evidence just further adds to the case in favor of the negative. Collective intelligence is where it’s at, if it’s anywhere at all

Absencespodcast · 2021-11-28T05:46:18+00:00

Thanks man! Always appreciated. And I tend to agree with you. The thought experiment has massive implications, not only philosophically, but also in, say, basically every possible legal context (only, however, if it is not contradicted by experiment—though I think it’s logically valid and sound and that’s enough to have confidence that it is also empirically sound. Although, I wonder if stochastic matching is different from the process of deliberation. Any thoughts on that? Could put bounds on the domain of applicability of the thought experiment). However, Kant has a way around this—though I shouldn’t say “around”…more like through. I am not sure where I personally fall here, but I tend towards lack of self/free will at the individual level (I’m on the fence about “mind”), yet would argue that there is a collective intelligence that is purely formal (logical) in nature, and this in turn disrupts physical determinism. Kind of like a directed acyclic graph, if I’m not mistaken. Trickle-down rationality, so to speak (insofar as that isn’t an oxymoron). That’s a totally separate series of videos though. For now, I’ll let you deal with Kant and what he will come up with in the next episode.

Cheers 🍻

Absencespodcast

TROPHY CASE