heterodoxia

In the beginning… there was Nothing.
heterodoxia Nothing at all. Our relationship with death has profoundly shaped Western culture. A pervasive death consciousness has created religions, nourished philosophies and eventually stimulated scientific investigation, as well as fueled fanaticism, a brooding and melancholic pessimism, which resulted in nihilistic conclusions. Such nihilistic sentiments are far more than me...
Thu, Jul 18 2019

Protected: Heterodoxia Blog Compliation
heterodoxia There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Sat, Oct 20 2018

Panfuturism
heterodoxia From the established trunk of Afrofuturism emerges a new branch I call Panfuturism. This isn’t some Ukranian offshoot of avant-garde Futurismo, for what it is worth. Where Afrofuturism is science fiction without the colonial mentality and othering, and reimagined with ancient African traditions with an unapologetic black identity, Panfuturism is also science fiction...
Thu, Sep 06 2018

On Writing Pantheon
heterodoxia Last month, I finally published the first volume of Pantheon: Heterotopia. This blog is the lessons I’ve learned from writing and drawing it over the last few years. Writing Pantheon, at least the very first chapter, was done in a flash of inspiration, and unlocking a hidden treasure. But it wasn’t until long afterwards that … Continue reading On Writing Pantheo...
Sat, Mar 31 2018

Get Off Facebook!
heterodoxia A few years ago I ditched Facebook for the seductive promises of Twitter. I took the distinction between the two to be fundamental, that we were plagued by the ignorance of our friends on Facebook, but benefited from the wit of strangers on Twitter instead. However, in time this distinction turned out to be merely … Continue reading Get Off Facebook!
Tue, Jan 23 2018

True God of America
heterodoxia The true gods of America today demands ritualistic blood sacrifice. Interestingly, this cultural practice is entrenched in the land – dating back to the ancient Mayan and Aztec civilizations who sacrificed thousands per year – some were members of their own community, but most human sacrifices were prisoners of war. The Aztec preferred to capture … Continue read...
Wed, Oct 18 2017

Philosophers in Context
heterodoxia An alternative to the standard cookie-cutter history of philosophy, this blog presents the subject as a “way of thinking” that investigates the “Big Names” as character studies and intellectual portraits rather than a freeze-dried version that retains merely the propositional content of their writings. This way of thinking shows the interaction between the ind...
Wed, Aug 02 2017

Greatest Paradox
heterodoxia Some time ago, I wrote myself into a corner in a chapter from Pantheon, in which a character was forced to solve a conundrum: he had to stay at a location, safeguard a highly sensitive museum, but prevent interlopers from coming inside, while not showing himself to them, or destroy them, or the critical objects … Continue reading Greatest Paradox
Fri, Jun 02 2017

Are You Mad as Hell Yet?
heterodoxia Today, domestic politics end in hostile impasses, whereas international politics are charged with menacing acts of terror and revenge. These sociopolitical phenomena are symptoms of a fundamental rage, and revenge is the project of rage. If we cannot understand and address our rage, our age is doomed. It is odd that we haven’t really analyzed … Continue reading Ar...
Mon, May 01 2017

Narcissistic, still?!?
heterodoxia In the 21st century today, narcissism appears to be much less about the correlation between our self-importance and our own personal relationships than it is with the number of followers on Twitter or Facebook friends. Indeed, social networking is, at worst, a platform to cultivate one’s narcissism and indulge where it hasn’t metastasized. Are we all … Continue...
Wed, Mar 01 2017

Narcissistic, much?
heterodoxia It all began with mirrors – the birth of self-consciousness as well as the realization that we have been cut off from the great Earth mother, and therefore the source of life. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Narcissus died from the shock of recognizing his own identity. He was a young Greek of extraordinary beauty, but crippled … Continue reading Narcissistic, much?
Tue, Feb 28 2017

The Principle of Insufficient Reality
heterodoxia “You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” – Morpheus The Red Pill in the Matrix liberates the human mind from the Matrix … Continue reading The Principle of Insufficient Reality
Tue, Jan 31 2017

Plato on Trump
heterodoxia According to Plato, political regimes evolved consistently, from oligarchy to democracy to tyranny. When the elites become self-indulgent, lazy or promiscuous, and develop interests apart from the masses, they fall, oligarchies give way to democracies. And in turn, when mob passion overpowers political wisdom and a populist despot seizes the moment, democracies yield ...
Sat, Dec 31 2016
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The Bicameral Mind in Westworld
heterodoxia Last night’s episode of Westworld went out with a bang. But besides the science fiction elements, the most interesting thing about the show was the bicameral mind reference – first name dropped back in Episode three, and the season finale’s title. It was a provocative theory proposed by Julian Jaynes in his 1977 masterpiece, The … Continue reading The Bicamera...
Mon, Dec 05 2016

The Decline of Science Fiction
heterodoxia In this day and age, science fiction, not to mention its more popularized version, scifi, has lost its prestige. Before we get into its current dilapidated state, first we need a cursory analysis of its emergence, to properly assess its … Continue reading →
Tue, Nov 01 2016

Nihilism in the Iliad and Pantheon
heterodoxia It seems that our time is the most cynical and intensely pessimistic era ever in recorded history. Nihilistic themes, more than ever, has served as a wellspring for artists, writers, and academics. The ubiquity of nihilism that characterizes the current … Continue reading →
Sun, Sep 25 2016

Nostalgia and the Eighties
heterodoxia Miami Vice. BladeRunner. Raiders of the Lost Ark. The Goonies. Top Gun. We are all children of the eighties, due to an overpowering sense of nostalgia. The word nostalgia comes from Greek roots: nostos, meaning “to return home,’ and algos, … Continue reading →
Thu, Sep 01 2016

Mr_Robot_Fight_Club_American_Psycho
heterodoxia At the most basic level, the TV show was a deathmatch between two dominant cult films of the end of the 90s: the narrator from Fight Club and Patrick Bateman from American Psycho over the stakes of capitalism. Mr. Robot … Continue reading →
Mon, Jun 27 2016

Is Daenerys the Villain of Game of Thrones?
heterodoxia It has been a while since I posted on Game of Thrones, or more accurately, A Song of Ice and Fire. As we start winding down on Martin’s epic, a small but fast growing sector of the fanbase is giving … Continue reading →
Fri, Jun 10 2016

Pantheon and Postcolonialism
heterodoxia A reading of Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth inspired a possible story for my ongoing graphic novel, Pantheon, particularly a world full of a sentient species that were ruled by “divinities,” better understood as demigods from our ancient mythologies. … Continue reading →
Tue, May 31 2016

The Post-Human in Pantheon
heterodoxia One of the main reasons of conceiving my graphic novel epic Pantheon is to explore the post-human aspect of science fiction, and I felt this was the most interesting direction to take the stories of mythology towards. For me, science fiction works best … Continue reading →
Fri, Mar 25 2016

Cynicism in the 90s and today
heterodoxia In Saul Bellow’s novel, Seize the Day, the protagonist Tommy Wilhelm remarked that “cynicism was bread and meat to everyone. And irony too. Maybe it couldn’t be helped.” Irony became entrenched in the fifties, where the American economy flourished under … Continue reading →
Tue, Mar 01 2016

Battle of the Giants of Cynical Reason
heterodoxia In this matchup, we have two still breathing Giants of European intelligentsia, who agree that ideology must be the critique of cynicism. However, but of course, like every other philosopher in the history of thought, they disagree on everything else. … Continue reading →
Fri, Nov 13 2015

Explaining Donald Trump
heterodoxia There’s nothing funnier than watching the punditocracy twist themselves into pretzels in trying to explain why Donald Trump hasn’t already imploded by now like they all thought. Here are two recent articles on Trump that I found intriguing, if not … Continue reading →
Tue, Sep 22 2015

Genealogy of Cynicism
heterodoxia   This blog will illustrate a nonlinear trajectory of the “cynic” from antiquity to the present that relies on the historiographer Mark Phillips‘ conception of “reframing,” a master metaphor for historical change that demonstrated cultural transmission as a technique of … Continue reading →
Sat, Aug 08 2015

Tracing Cynical Reason in 20th Century America
heterodoxia In this blog I trace cynical reason of 20th century American history as a phenomenon in two aspects: in the sphere of economics and in the sphere of cultural arts. Instead of complaining about the so-called poverty of contemporary politics … Continue reading →
Fri, Jul 31 2015

Great Philosophical Divide of Science Fiction
heterodoxia Life without utopia is suffocating, for the multitude at least: threatened otherwise with petrifaction, the world must have a new madness. – Cioran, History and Utopia There’s a fault line running in science fiction that dates back to the space age, and … Continue reading →
Tue, May 26 2015

Cynics, Fanatics, and… Trolls?
heterodoxia However, this proverb is far more profound than its attempt at cleverness. All three are actually interrelated and the first two are two dominant aspects of our modern times. The cynic is the average person, having become enlightened, but since … Continue reading →
Wed, May 06 2015

Change the World?
heterodoxia “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.”  That much-repeated quote from the 11th Theses on Feuerbach is pretty memorable in its exhortation to liberate society with a call to action. Marx … Continue reading →
Thu, Mar 26 2015

Philosophy on Twitter
heterodoxia   Twitter is the perfect medium for today’s over-saturated media-soaked times.  We have been long tomfooled by the assumption that philosophical discourse must be dense and off-putting, as well as impenetrable, as if it was clumsily translated from the immortal … Continue reading →
Sat, Feb 07 2015

The Concept of Decline in the West
heterodoxia I’m interested in history as a narrative by philosophers of history, such as Hegel and Spengler. In this post I’ll go over the observations of two twentieth century thinkers: Oswald Spengler and Emil Cioran. In his mature work, Cioran warned … Continue reading →
Sat, Jan 31 2015

Best anime of 2014
heterodoxia Another tough year, down the drain. There were several deserving shows, regardless of the endless flow of mediocrity, and they deserve a mention.   Space Dandy   One of the all-time greatest creators in anime, Shinichirō Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop, Samurai … Continue reading →
Fri, Jan 02 2015

Scifi film in dialogue with 2001: A Space Odyssey
heterodoxia A few weeks ago, I came across an article on Grantland that pushed forth the thesis that all science fiction films after 1968 are in dialogue with 2001: A Space Odyssey, and shared it with my colleague in intellectual crime, … Continue reading →
Sat, Nov 29 2014

Ethics of Piracy
heterodoxia The other day I got into a debate on twitter about the morality of sharing ebooks. Someone was posting free copies of Roger Zelazny’s books on kindle, and I replied that I was entitled to ebooks of the printed books … Continue reading →
Fri, Jun 20 2014

The Hipster and Cynical Reason
heterodoxia Smoke clove cigarettes? Wear ironic trucker hats? Skinny jeans? Horn-rimmed glasses with bug-eyed lenses? Graduated with a liberal arts major? Carry a shoulder-strap messenger bag? Soi disant exceptionally cultured, with at least one pop vice? Have at least one Republican … Continue reading →
Mon, Jun 02 2014

Criticism and Pop Culture
heterodoxia Educated Americans tend to confuse morality and art, and morality for them tends to mean social consciousness which usually equals bad art. — Bret Easton Ellis (@BretEastonEllis) November 4, 2011 This quote illustrates the problem with criticism and art today, … Continue reading →
Sat, Apr 19 2014

Best Dystopian Films
heterodoxia Utopias had been the dominant literary form rather than dystopias in the past: Plato & Thomas Moore invented and re-invented the utopian society in order to present their political & economic views that did not extend further than coarse socialism. … Continue reading →
Fri, Feb 28 2014

Best Post-Apocalyptic films
heterodoxia Before I get into the list, I think a distinction between dystopian and post-apocalyptic films is necessary. Both classifications have been run together too often in recent years to the point that they’re nearly indistinguishable. However, a good understanding of cinema … Continue reading →
Fri, Feb 28 2014
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Best anime of 2013
heterodoxia Admittedly, this was a tough year, since there weren’t as many quality shows as there were in the last two years. It probably did not help matters that the best two shows actually began during the 2012 fall season. Last … Continue reading →
Mon, Dec 30 2013

The Best Time Travel Films ever
heterodoxia As a trope in science fiction, time travel allows for virtually any possibility and therefore, it’s the most abused plot gimmick ever. Luckily for us, a few diamonds have turned up in the rough. There are thousands of great time … Continue reading →
Sun, Dec 01 2013

Alan Moore and fan fiction
heterodoxia Some years ago, Alan Moore, the acclaimed author of Watchmen and Miracleman, claimed that all comics after the 1960s were fan fiction, largely for several reasons related to the massive replacement of the original writers with a younger generation. I … Continue reading →
Sat, Nov 23 2013

Antinatalism & Gnosticism in Cioran
heterodoxia The Great Architect, by William Blake This blog focuses on the relationship between Gnosticism and antinatalism, and whether the philosopher E.M. Cioran endorses either one in his works. Thanks to ControversialPhilosophy from the Anti-Natalist and Anti-Antinatalist Debate blog, I was … Continue reading →
Mon, Nov 18 2013

…Insomnia
heterodoxia I’m quite interested in the possible avenues of philosophizing out of the mood of insomnia — how it shreds the so-called default state of the self — and whether insomnia can show us a more acute state of consciousness that … Continue reading →
Mon, Nov 04 2013

Antinatalism and Cioran
heterodoxia   I am not well-versed on the anti-natalist literature, but the best way to learn about anything is diving head-first into the pool. As far as I know, Cioran was never a poster boy for antinatalism. Although some of his writings do … Continue reading →
Sun, Nov 03 2013

Heterodox Dictionary
heterodoxia AMBITION: the overpowering desire to be slandered by enemies while alive & made ludicrous by friends once dead. CONFORMIST: one who lives by imitation & by horror of originality. CONSERVATIVE: one who is fascinated with current perversities, as opposed to … Continue reading →
Wed, Oct 23 2013

Break On Through (Schopenhauer) to the Other Side!
heterodoxia O sweet & deadly nihilism, what cruel beauty… Of the four flavors of psychological states, Three intoxicants are poisonous Naturally & culturally, individually & socially! First venomous flavor is the cockcrow Of arrant meaninglessness– A failure of Grand Purpose, Promises … Continue reading →
Thu, Oct 17 2013

The Sense of Absurd in Schopenhauer’s Philosophy [English...
heterodoxia I have attached my working English translation of Clemet Rosset’s essay on Schopenhauer, The Sense of Absurd in Schopenhauer’s Philosophy. Rosset has emphasized the concept of absurdity as the chief intuition of Schopenhauer. In this fashion, Rosset has gone beyond … Continue reading →
Thu, Sep 05 2013

Nothing.
heterodoxia   Every ‘why’ question is a subset of the ultimate question: Why is there Something and not Nothing instead? If you can think yourself and the world away, if you can say no, then you are acting in the dimension … Continue reading →
Wed, Aug 28 2013

Existentialism in Pantheon
heterodoxia I had an epiphany a few days ago: the graphic novel I am working on, Pantheon, is a vampire novel. I mean, it doesn’t obviously share with many traditional elements (blood sucking, undead creatures), but they both feature immortal beings … Continue reading →
Wed, Aug 07 2013

Creation, by Gore Vidal
heterodoxia A historical novel by Gore Vidal, Creation is an Odysseus styled dialectic on religious dogma. The main character, Cyrus Spitama, is the grandson of Zarathustra, and his encounters with other 5th century sages are the highlights of the novel. Cyrus is fixated on the question of creation, or the origin of the universe or human [...]
Sun, Jun 23 2013