Submitted by anon (not verified) on Mon, 09/30/2019 - 17:16
"“Hello? Is there anybody there?” The invention of the telephone, its invasion and reconstitution of everyday life, changed affairs. It was so unnatural to speak into the machine that people were more inclined to say “Hello?” than “Good day”. Since the presence of another could no longer be assumed, it seemed appropriate to call a question into the void. And that question-call is what we have unknowingly inherited.
The call into the void has since grown to inhabit all of social life. One index of its spread is the fact that the question-call “Hello” is now the most ordinary of greetings. It even has a cute form: “Hi!” “Hello” is the call into the void, the greeting of an era of telepresence, of ghostly pseudopresence. Ordinary greetings for an ordered life of loneliness shared with other people."
This is literally like what walking into the IRC feels like before others' texts pop in.
"...in Everything friendship is impossible."
This is patently untrue. Friendships are everywhere, even if what they mean, or how much they last, does not please you (the rhetorical writer?). Good and lasting friendships are always a rare thing, as is anything valuable. Friendships are easier to form as a child, and become harder as you age. Someone can be so old, callused and alone as to think that friendship is impossible. It's impossible for many, but not for many others. Many people can say they've at least had a friend once.
Being "against everything" does sound like the type of thing to make it harder to keep and make friends. The text sounds like a death cult if you read it the wrong way, it sounds like mumbo jumbo if you read it at a glance too. But I vibed with it even if it sounded wacky and ridiculous. One thing it did well is speaking in vague obfuscated code, it did not mention anarchy or any other common keywords, to its merit and detriment. Wink wink, nudge nudge, we get what you're hinting at. The bit about seduction is an ideal i think is rarer than the friendship. Not seduction as romance, maybe leading to foreplay and sex, but seduction as a veiled playful communication that can entice and interweave a tacit complicity. Wee look i used fancy words, shoot me. What passes as "seduction" is very straightforward and overt, no subtlety. Specially now with apps, very algorithmic and transactional.
Conspiracies among common folxxx (three x's make it good), and adventure (a stand in for "poetry" cuz people think of stanzas and get bored, they don't think of moving deep feelings, most "poetry" is terrible and boring) as everyday life is what's lacking. Conspiracy not as business, but as deeply romantic or platonic, faithful and loval, devoted friendships that are not contractual but...haha lol ideal things are funny, it sounds unreal, feelings are funny chemicals.
" In many places everything depends on being nice. Everything is everyone coming together to suffocate each other. No one may escape the group hug.
Many beg for the crushing embrace to cease, but everyone hears this as a plea for a more complete hug. Someone is always willing to listen, listen, nod, and perhaps give you some pills. In the end, most simply succumb. After all, it is said that suffocation is a peaceful and pleasant way to die.
So when we call “hello” – is there anybody out there? – we do in the midst of a crushing mass of bodies. We do so with what little breath has not been squeezed out. If the cry is weak, it is because everything muffles it.
You can’t be friends with everyone. To be true to another is to be an enemy of the group. To have space to breathe, to think clearly, to have solitude and silence, one must make space. And to make space one must destroy what takes it up. Only then there is anything worthwhile to occupy by oneself or with a friend.
Grasped beyond moralism, violence, like love and sorrow, is ultimately a passion suffocated by the demand for mediation and pleasantries. "
I feel this part, so hard. The hug part. When anyone who will hug you is someone you must keep your full defenses up against and not slip up. When hugging is a tense stiff moment of "Yep, we're doing this." And I like hugging, but real hugs, not polite keeping appearance hugs. Hugs should be a moment of mutual appreciation and enjoying each other's company and proximity, not a showcase of being hypocritical little shitbags.
It's a tenderness that many are lacking that others prey upon. The most benign being the opportunists in the emotional labor and sex work sector of the economy, the most horrific being cults and sects like all the internet boogeymen that pop up; feeding on resentment and need of validation and purpose. Normal jobs and the state feed on that as well, of course, but that's the default that most are unsatisfied with, and leave em looking for answers elsewhere, usually through consumption, but sometimes more deviously.
And to wrap up another ramble comment, i would end by saying that we get it, it's a text, but can we talk in normal speak now for a while, speaking in code gets tiresome. We can go back and forth, to escape the trappings of whatever ties us up in ordinary speak, but yeah, the back and forth is necessary.
"“Hello? Is there anybody there?” The invention of the telephone, its invasion and reconstitution of everyday life, changed affairs. It was so unnatural to speak into the machine that people were more inclined to say “Hello?” than “Good day”. Since the presence of another could no longer be assumed, it seemed appropriate to call a question into the void. And that question-call is what we have unknowingly inherited.
The call into the void has since grown to inhabit all of social life. One index of its spread is the fact that the question-call “Hello” is now the most ordinary of greetings. It even has a cute form: “Hi!” “Hello” is the call into the void, the greeting of an era of telepresence, of ghostly pseudopresence. Ordinary greetings for an ordered life of loneliness shared with other people."
This is literally like what walking into the IRC feels like before others' texts pop in.
"...in Everything friendship is impossible."
This is patently untrue. Friendships are everywhere, even if what they mean, or how much they last, does not please you (the rhetorical writer?). Good and lasting friendships are always a rare thing, as is anything valuable. Friendships are easier to form as a child, and become harder as you age. Someone can be so old, callused and alone as to think that friendship is impossible. It's impossible for many, but not for many others. Many people can say they've at least had a friend once.
Being "against everything" does sound like the type of thing to make it harder to keep and make friends. The text sounds like a death cult if you read it the wrong way, it sounds like mumbo jumbo if you read it at a glance too. But I vibed with it even if it sounded wacky and ridiculous. One thing it did well is speaking in vague obfuscated code, it did not mention anarchy or any other common keywords, to its merit and detriment. Wink wink, nudge nudge, we get what you're hinting at. The bit about seduction is an ideal i think is rarer than the friendship. Not seduction as romance, maybe leading to foreplay and sex, but seduction as a veiled playful communication that can entice and interweave a tacit complicity. Wee look i used fancy words, shoot me. What passes as "seduction" is very straightforward and overt, no subtlety. Specially now with apps, very algorithmic and transactional.
Conspiracies among common folxxx (three x's make it good), and adventure (a stand in for "poetry" cuz people think of stanzas and get bored, they don't think of moving deep feelings, most "poetry" is terrible and boring) as everyday life is what's lacking. Conspiracy not as business, but as deeply romantic or platonic, faithful and loval, devoted friendships that are not contractual but...haha lol ideal things are funny, it sounds unreal, feelings are funny chemicals.
" In many places everything depends on being nice. Everything is everyone coming together to suffocate each other. No one may escape the group hug.
Many beg for the crushing embrace to cease, but everyone hears this as a plea for a more complete hug. Someone is always willing to listen, listen, nod, and perhaps give you some pills. In the end, most simply succumb. After all, it is said that suffocation is a peaceful and pleasant way to die.
So when we call “hello” – is there anybody out there? – we do in the midst of a crushing mass of bodies. We do so with what little breath has not been squeezed out. If the cry is weak, it is because everything muffles it.
You can’t be friends with everyone. To be true to another is to be an enemy of the group. To have space to breathe, to think clearly, to have solitude and silence, one must make space. And to make space one must destroy what takes it up. Only then there is anything worthwhile to occupy by oneself or with a friend.
Grasped beyond moralism, violence, like love and sorrow, is ultimately a passion suffocated by the demand for mediation and pleasantries. "
I feel this part, so hard. The hug part. When anyone who will hug you is someone you must keep your full defenses up against and not slip up. When hugging is a tense stiff moment of "Yep, we're doing this." And I like hugging, but real hugs, not polite keeping appearance hugs. Hugs should be a moment of mutual appreciation and enjoying each other's company and proximity, not a showcase of being hypocritical little shitbags.
It's a tenderness that many are lacking that others prey upon. The most benign being the opportunists in the emotional labor and sex work sector of the economy, the most horrific being cults and sects like all the internet boogeymen that pop up; feeding on resentment and need of validation and purpose. Normal jobs and the state feed on that as well, of course, but that's the default that most are unsatisfied with, and leave em looking for answers elsewhere, usually through consumption, but sometimes more deviously.
And to wrap up another ramble comment, i would end by saying that we get it, it's a text, but can we talk in normal speak now for a while, speaking in code gets tiresome. We can go back and forth, to escape the trappings of whatever ties us up in ordinary speak, but yeah, the back and forth is necessary.