Home For Fiction – Blog

for thinking people

ignorance

Thucydides and Linux: a Free or a Peaceful OS?

May 27, 2024

Society

computer, ignorance, society, technology

You’ve got to admit, seeing Thucydides and Linux together in the same sentence isn’t something ordinary. “Linux” and “free” is far more common, for obvious reasons. But whether Linux is free is one discussion; whether it’s a peaceful operating system yet another.

So where does Thucydides, the ancient Greek historian, enter the picture?

You might recall from some previous posts – for instance, the concluding section of writing academic theses – that Cornelius Castoriadis, drawing on Thucydides, puts forward an apt suggestion: We can be free or we can be peaceful, but being both is impossible.

In our time – when to some/many/most/[pick depending on your neighbors] people to be free means to own guns – understanding the repercussions of freedom becomes more pressing than ever.

And yes, this includes your operating system! However, I should make one thing clear here: The role of this post is not to glorify one OS and snub others. It’s not even about computers and technology – not primarily at least. The post is about society.

Linux free, not peaceful; AI render of Thucydides using a computer on Acropolis
As if combining Thucydides and Linux wasn’t wild enough, I thought to reach the utmost of absurdity and use AI to generate this image
(more…)

The Collapse of Criteria and the Prostitution of Art

March 4, 2024

Society

art, creativity, ignorance, literature, mediocrity, social masses, social media, society, writing

In an interview in 1991 (I will share the relevant excerpt translated/transcribed in this post), the Greek-French philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis pointed out a sobering fact: We live in an era characterized by the collapse of criteria and the prostitution of art.

That is to say, Castoriadis argued, we live in an era with no criteria by which to gauge art. As a result, art prostitutes itself and loses its true meaning. It becomes industrialized.

There are two important elements in this very short excerpt I will discuss in this post:

  • Castoriadis naturally spoke before the internet and – especially – social media. I wonder what he would think about them.
  • Importantly, Castoriadis argues that art should create its own criteria.

If art should create its own criteria, and we observe a collapse of criteria today, what does that tell us?

collapse of criteria. image of Acropolis
The Acropolis of Athens, Greece. Each era creates its own criteria. Parthenon still stands, 2500 years later
(more…)

Santa Is an Emotional Abuser: On Modern Authority Structures

December 18, 2023

Society

children, emotional iq, ignorance, modernity, psychology, society

Yeah, OK, I know; Santa isn’t real (oops; spoiler alert?) but as Picasso ostensibly said, everything you can imagine is real. That is, Santa Claus might not be a real being, but the persona and the associated actions are. And Santa, as an emotional abuser, has some very real repercussions.

To be clear, emotional abuse doesn’t rely on Santa Claus alone. Parents have six ways to Sunday to emotionally abuse their children, threatening with repercussions, bribing them, gaslighting them, manipulating them. But Santa, besides a very efficient weapon of emotional abuse, is also a remarkably apt personification of the phenomenon itself.

Santa Emotional Abuser - AI render of an angry Santa sitting in a chair
Not quite the corporate Santa…
(more…)