Guest TOTW received via email, from Minona
Pacing down the street, I am confronted again by the common city experience of being persistently engulfed by a sea of strangers—of voices simultaneously alien and familiar. People slide past one another, each belonging to and experiencing a world entirely different from the other. It feels like people are growing more distant on a symbolic level (often by way of hyper-niche internet cosmologies), while growing more homogeneous in a material sense (reliably, behind the windows I pass is a large media-projecting screen, indicating conformity to a particular way of life—listening to a particular voice).
The question at the core of anarchism is about how to live. In a world of perpetual information overload, how do you retain authenticity or independence? How does one even begin to sort out the cacophony of voices, how does one locate the source(s) of their own speech? Is it even possible (or desirable) to locate any original voice (or will)?
Do you unplug from the World Wide Voice-machine, limiting the number of voices to pinpoint your own? Do you try to find another way of speaking, with other people or to yourself? If so, how? Is there a distinct culture you feel at home in, or are you lost in the webs and intersections of mass culture?
***
I cannot speak with my voice, but I speak with my voices.
Those eyes were the entrance to the temple, for me, a wanderer who loves and dies—I would’ve sung until merging with the night, until dissolving naked at the opening of time.
—Alejandra Pizarnik
***
Every voice is an echo
that resonates beyond time.
Comments
I just drown every waking
anon (not verified) Sun, 10/15/2023 - 12:42
I just drown every waking thought I can by blasting it with stimulus and let the my dreams do the living. Easy!
About time! Glad to see
anon (not verified) Sun, 10/15/2023 - 13:37
About time! Glad to see technology finally being (at least superficially) addressed critically on this site!
"my own" interests
nettles (not verified) Sun, 10/15/2023 - 13:49
I think I'm too much of a product of society to be able to fully distinguish between my interests that are "my own" and what I've been conditioned to want (or feel I should want) and that all ideas come from somewhere. Like even if I have a belief that someone hasn't been put into the words I explain them with by anyone else, that belief will have come from my experiences (a mix of what I've read, conversations I've had etc) but I do find it's better to have ideas that are fluid and work for me rather than rigidly sticking to ideas that ive uncritically accepted.
I think I'm too much of a
GodEmperorFauve (not verified) Sun, 10/15/2023 - 14:56
In reply to "my own" interests by nettles (not verified)
I think I'm too much of a product of society to be able to fully distinguish between my interests that are "my own" and what I've been conditioned to want (or feel I should want) and that all ideas come from somewhere."
How unfortunate that you are alienated, like all the normies around! Of course none can honestly claim having reached Egoist Purity without having lived it to its fullest... so you are already forgiven! But de-alienation is a process of being/becoming that is possible for everyone, that involves unlearning and nihilistic awareness of all the imperatives by which we live by.
Focus on what your "heart" wants, what your *body* needs, and educate yourself. To learn a steadfast, combative personal stance against the Existent, of critiquing everything starting with yourself... yeeeeees.
Namaste.
*levitates away with a fart*
BO-DREE-YARD IT UP, BROW!
GodEmperorFauve (not verified) Sun, 10/15/2023 - 14:45
The material, being the unsensible, mostly-aesthetical and meaningless industrial product of society, people are clinging to differing niche cultures of representations, that in turn are equally meaningless.. from ID pols to sports fanboyism or Otaku shit (which carries at least a level of sexual expression that is otherwise rather creepy) to neo-goth dark wave shit.
Honestly I dunno if there's any valuable discourse to be had between in your head, on an internet comment section or between friends of similar sensibilities (but that one can easily lead to an echo chamber of same-thinking people).
How to have your voice *heard*? Social media has at the same time given "voice" to the People, while shutting them down by rendering every person pointless, muffled by the million others, and their followers. The dictatorship no longer needs to silence dissent; they just need their influencers and the bot armies to make it irrelevant (e.g. Michael Malice, n such n such). The motto now motto that reads like taken out from the first Alien movie is "who's going to hear you scream?"
Having a voice now increasingly means having a stake. A skin in the game.
Evolution from the old saying: our silence has to become stronger than the million voices they platformed!
Mostly by going Insane.
Cordederoi (not verified) Sun, 10/15/2023 - 20:42
Insanity is freedom, sanity is what keeps me chained.
"In a world of perpetual
anon (not verified) Tue, 10/17/2023 - 08:39
"In a world of perpetual information overload, how do you retain authenticity or independence?"
Always authenticity without even trying, not yet independence, maybe not ever.
"How does one even begin to sort out the cacophony of voices, how does one locate the source(s) of their own speech?"
I seek silence and cherish it, that sorts out the cacophony of voices outside. On the inside, I find it easy to silence my mind of thoughts. There's always a cacophony of emotions I have to sit with, but these don't have to take the form of words or voices, just feelings.
"Is it even possible (or desirable) to locate any original voice (or will)?"
I'm not interested in exploring this. I think origins are illusions for the most part, just arbitrary points of reference in a moving whole.
"Do you unplug from the World Wide Voice-machine, limiting the number of voices to pinpoint your own?"
Yes, but not to pinpoint my own, I never lost it. Unplugging is essential, it was the default for the longest time. It seems being online is the default for more and more now.
"Do you try to find another way of speaking, with other people or to yourself? If so, how?"
No.
"Is there a distinct culture you feel at home in, or are you lost in the webs and intersections of mass culture?"
I am at home in a love-hate relationship with this globalized culture.
If no one takes the bait,
minona (not verified) Wed, 10/18/2023 - 18:43
If no one takes the bait, then it ain't good bait. Not my best work on display here, but hey, it’s a topic of the week.
Since I brought this upon us, I’ll try to answer the question, though the idea seems super abstract and not exactly topical. I have nothing but ambivalence for the questions. Yes, I feel somewhat lost in the webs of mass culture, but I also have a created home in certain ways (I’ve found the web of anarchy to get trapped in, as well as the webs of other people near and far). I think origins are impossible to locate, and perhaps (QUOTH Neetcha) the desire to locate origins is at the same time the desire to punish, to find fault or guilt. I do try (and fail) to find another way of speaking, but change still happens and that’s kind of the point.
As far as locating your own voice (authenticity). There’s a reason I like that Pizarnik line. The distinction between self and other is problematic, but nonetheless becomes defined in some way as a matter of course—I move toward what I desire and identify with, these voices are louder than others—but every voice we experience continues to echo within us and through us. It’s a complex flow, motherfuckers, existence is an ocean!!!!!
The question of voice immediately brings up poetry to me. There's been a lot of discourse among contemporary poets about voice and the idea of finding your own voice. The cool kids of contemporary poetry are, to put it plainly, against it. Against the idea of one's authentic voice as a legitimate concept, all for reasons that are pretty postmodern I think (not using that as a mere insult). But Nietzsche (drink) also has this idea about lyric poets that he brings up in The Birth of Tragedy, that the lyric poet is not speaking with his own voice but rather letting many voices speak through him.
"The “I” of the lyric poet thus echoes out of the abyss of being. What recent aestheticians mean by his “subjectivity” is mere fantasy."
"At bottom the aesthetic phenomenon is simple: let a man but have the faculty of perpetually seeing a lively play and of constantly living surrounded by hosts of spirits, then he is a poet : let him but feel the impulse to transform himself and to talk from out the bodies and souls of others, then he is a dramatist."
That’s the only bullshit yarn I’ve got to spin on it I guess.
Alright now you try. Or don’t.
The way that the poet and the
anon (not verified) Wed, 10/18/2023 - 21:57
In reply to If no one takes the bait, by minona (not verified)
The way that the poet and the dramatist are described, of these distinct voices flowing through people, contrasts with the experience of writer's block in front of a blank page, or the type of writer who considers words to be inanimate playthings that you mash together and then present them like an ink blot test to other people, who then project their emotions onto them. There's like a wholeness to the this notion of voice or authenticity that is being teased out, instead of strings of text haphazardly patched on a whim from scraps and pieces. And voices come from the inside, when you exhale, after inhaling (inspiration). But that's different than drawing arrows in the sand, pointing to rocks that are sitting there, like drawing the implicit connections between things you stumble upon. There's agency in both, and you could even say style. This interest in voices, and appreciating them, is somewhat romantic or nostalgic, like appreciating or missing a certain person, their characteristic personality, traits quirks, and mannerisms.
My answer to this is very
lettuceleafer Fri, 10/20/2023 - 14:46
In reply to If no one takes the bait, by minona (not verified)
My answer to this is very annoying and it's I don't care. I'm cool with both being true. I don't see much reason to try and hunt for an authentic "I". I mean I think it's a worthwhile question and a fun philosophy puzzle but my answer to it is to not care haha rather than me being condescending or saying u shouldn't be asking the question.
distant on a symbolic level?
anon (not verified) Thu, 10/19/2023 - 05:07
distant on a symbolic level? you want people to share the same symbols, memes, cultural references?
homogeneous in a material sense? you want people to have vastly different material basis or means of subsistence from one to the next? a transhumanist could imagine gaseous beings that photosynthesize, as well as a grey goo that can dissolve everything it its path. some primate, if they had a voice, might respond with: what's wrong with everyone just eating leaf?
of course, here the unease within city and internet culture is apparent; strangers, info silos, alienation, isolation, some form of depersonalization or derealization .
but what if i were to rephrase that paragraph as:
"It feels like people are exploring and developing diverse and varied ways to express themselves on a symbolic level (often by way of hyper-niche internet cosmologies, instead of a monoculture) making them more unique and interesting than people in the past, while sharing a material culture in common, which unites them across the world, forming many global villages."
someone/thing is unique or
anonymous (not verified) Thu, 10/19/2023 - 07:24
In reply to distant on a symbolic level? by anon (not verified)
someone/thing is unique or not. there is no"more" or "less" unique. is it one of a kind or is it not one of a kind?
everything is unique when
anon (not verified) Thu, 10/19/2023 - 09:11
In reply to someone/thing is unique or by anonymous (not verified)
everything is unique when looked at close enough and with enough detail and attention.
everything looks the same with a dispassionate and apathetic far away lens.
people are all alike, people are unique. both.
depending to what it pertains to, context, the differences that may make them distinctive matter or not.
A night in the box
GO3 Sun, 10/22/2023 - 13:18
Just start typing in the box, that's you. All the other voices are outside the box or in their own boxes. That's why this is a useful device for finding your own voice and amplifying it over the other voices which become background noise.
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