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Shakespeare heterodoxia The moral and philosophical predicaments of Shakespeare still haunt us today. His sonnets exhibit a fixation with time, uncertainty and death, whereas his plays explore the gory existence beneath the pleasant veneer we manufacture. In the plays, human characters are flawed and inconsistent beings who are ignorant of life, but are required to live. While … Continue r... Mon, Sep 02 2019 A History of Nothing heterodoxia Chapter 1: In the Beginning… There was Nothing. Chapter 2: Ex Nihilo Chapter 3: We Know Nothing Chapter 4: Null and Void Chapter 5: Nihil Perpetuum Est Lucretius Seneca Chapter 6: Apropos of Nothing Chapter 7: A Crack of Light between Two Nothings Chapter 8: Nihil Sub Sole Novum Machiavelli Montaigne Sun, Sep 01 2019 Montaigne heterodoxia In the collected Essays, that masterpiece of self-analysis, the 16th century French essays Michel Eyquem de Montaigne began as a stoic and ended as a skeptic. The more carefully he pursued knowledge, the less he knew. “What do I know? And what does it matter?” captures the standard Montaigne response to everything. We cannot know … Continue reading Montaigne Sun, Sep 01 2019 Machiavelli heterodoxia As one of the most cynical thinkers of all-time, Machiavelli is remembered as the philosopher of realpolitik, or the politics of power. His detached, viciously candid investigation of power, The Prince (1517) was published five years after his death. His goal for the work was to “write something of use to those who understand… the … Continue reading Machiavelli Sat, Aug 31 2019 Nihil Sub Sole Novum* heterodoxia Discontent with the increasing wealth and unchecked corruption of the Roman Catholic church helped to interrupt and eventually break down the stagnant worldview of the Dark Ages, and the long slumber of free inquiry slowly began to end. For the first time in a thousand years, investigations into the nature of things could be directed … Continue reading Nihil Sub Sol... Fri, Aug 30 2019 A Crack of Light Between Two Nothings heterodoxia A key element of Aztec philosophy was duality: in Aztec poetry and the noble-dialect of Nahuatl, figure of speech and symbolic metaphors were based on paired words that were often contradictory such as “Water Fire,” which meant war. Quetzalcoatl, the chief Aztec god, was described by the duality between the mundane (earth, snakes) and the … Continue reading A Cr... Wed, Aug 28 2019 Apropos of Nothing heterodoxia In 314, the Emperor Constantine’s Edict of Milan assured the Christian hegemony over several competitors. You’d think the anxieties and melancholia present during the Roman Empire’s decline would be partially alleviated with the official sanction of Christianity. Hardly! With the dominance of Christianity, physical existence was perceived to be a period of trial... Tue, Aug 27 2019 Seneca heterodoxia Lucius Annaeus Seneca, one of Rome’s most famous philosophers spent a large part of his life trying to convince his student Nero the finer points of being a Stoic-flavored philosopher-king. While he did demonstrate unselfish nobility in his writings, his life was rife with greed, made base with expediency. and plagued with conspiracies. Seneca’s plays … Continue... Mon, Aug 26 2019 Lucretius heterodoxia Not only was Lucretius my all-time favorite Roman philosopher, he was also the greatest of philosophical poets who lived through one of the most anarchic periods in Roman history: a time of dictatorship, civil war, and conspiracies. No one was safe from this world. On the Nature of Things (De rerum natura) was Titus Lucretius … Continue reading Lucretius Mon, Aug 26 2019 Nihil Perpetuum Est* heterodoxia During its thousand year history, the Roman empire increased to a point where it encompassed virtually all of the known world. The most fascinating thing about the Roman civilization? Not its imperialist expansion, but that tortuous, strung-out slide to ruin. Why Rome fell is one of the great questions of history. Although the Romans seemed … Continue reading Nihil ... Thu, Aug 22 2019 Null and Void heterodoxia The Hebrew scriptures detail the creation of human beings and their relationship with the Creator. The first people, Adam and Eve committed an indiscretion that cursed the entire species a life filled with toil, pain and sorrow. Not long after the first murder, the Creator experienced revulsion for his creation and decided to extinguish the … Continue reading Null a... Tue, Aug 20 2019 We Know Nothing heterodoxia The hallmark of the Hellenistic era was chaos due to the deteriorating political influence of the city states and countless ruinous wars among autocratic rulers. That Tyche, the mercurial goddess of chance, was highly venerated everywhere, clearly indicates the instability of the time. Hellenistic people were deeply cognizant of the omnipresence of contingency in thei... Sat, Aug 17 2019 Ex Nihilo heterodoxia Ancient Greek mythology symbolized the existential considerations of the Hellenic Greek their origin and the nature of things. The Greek Pantheon consists of anthropomorphic beings with supernatural powers and desires. Much like humans, they are capricious, intolerant and bored. Therefore, these Olympians account for a frightening, unpredictable reality and the gratui... Fri, Aug 16 2019 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 ElenKASani liked this 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 |
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