Ironically, this post is just a high-brow masturbatory essay that takes every human experience and turns it into the classic: ”bad because phone and junk food and instagram” or whatever.
The problem with stuff like this is that it never proposes how people should be. It just pines for some implicit perfect being that is somehow opposite the “porn causality” in every regard. In fact, it never even grapples with the simple fact that many life experiences simply don’t amount to their idealized form regardless of “porn” or whatever. Humans are easily short-circuited, and fundamentally just animals whose primary motivations involve social signaling and defining oneself in relation to others. Great man history likes to obfuscate this as if Aristotle or Xerxes didn’t have buttholes and never shit and never had embarrassing moments and never jerked it or ogled a woman or said/did something dumb.
People are gross, apish, and barely domesticated. And its ok. Stop writing imaginary horoscopes that you can cast on 85% of humanity to make yourself feel better about writing on Substack. Its just another type of social signaling.
Not a bad reply, though not great. I certainly wouldn't refer to this post as 'high-brow', and I can't see how that tracks.
As for proposing how people should be, well, people never take advice, especially those who ask for it. Any propositions, praxis, or actions would quickly be gamified into the recent—and yes, pornographic—stoic-esque rise and grind trap. Gaming for 6 hours *and* grindset dumbphone cold showers are *both* porno-approaches to life.
I never said Aristotle didn't jerk it (nor that he was great, to be honest). Nor does my outlining of the porn casualty necessarily imply a perfect being, there can be a socially entropic mess, without the former foundation being some sort of Edenic human. In fact, the reality is far less grand than any idealisation of the prior state, in that, the former human simply had a deeper relationship with *feeling* as opposed to thought.
I guess I am just left with a bad taste in my mouth from the tone of this post being a disgusted condescension on the mass populace, one which I agree is often grotesque and somewhat bereft of the “moral dignity” that seemed so abundant in bygone eras (which I hold is an illusion but neither here nor there).
If this post was moreso about how every aspect (and person) in society at large has become inescapably “porn-ified”, then perhaps I have missed it and may have more sympathy for the theme here.
My main issue is that the tone makes the implication that there are ‘enlightened non-porn casaulties’ but you don’t outline what virtues are actually imbibed by that mythical Talented Tenth, so it creates an air of smarminess.
You keep mentioning the (illusion, yes, I agree) of moral dignity in bygone eras and the past in general, I don't mention that in the post. It's a follow up to my first post Everything is Porn, which I linked.
Immediately assuming a positive 'enlightened non porn casualties' against the supposed negative is a form of 'vs', dualistic thinking. There are porn casualities and they have a way of being, and with this post, that's all I wish to make apparent.
Coming to terms with the fact I can’t do anything about it, I’ve come to appreciate the silver lining of the porn era (using the word in what I think is your intended broader sense of losing onself to a perpetual hyperreality of cheap stimulus): it may well be a great Darwinian Reckoning, much needed now as the weaker of our species no longer die en masse in childhood. The less vital among us — the gooner, the gamer — die off without reproducing. And with this evolutionary pruning there follows a healthier, profoundly less neurotic population.
'...failing this, they will quickly utilize an oft-repeated signifier of accepted cynicism as a deflationary retort, such as: 'I wish I watched a porno instead of reading this'
Idk maybe I don’t get it cuz I just got Substack.. does everything we listen to/watch/read etc have to be that deep.? Can I not listen to shake it to the max? btw ‘Inglourious Basterds’ is spelled wrong (I mean you spelled inglorious correctly, so incorrect according to Tarantino)
Great essay! Pornography nabs boys and girls so young a lot of them never get a chance to emotionally connect with their peers and learn what healthy, healing, loving feeling is like. Demonic stuff.
Ironically, this post is just a high-brow masturbatory essay that takes every human experience and turns it into the classic: ”bad because phone and junk food and instagram” or whatever.
The problem with stuff like this is that it never proposes how people should be. It just pines for some implicit perfect being that is somehow opposite the “porn causality” in every regard. In fact, it never even grapples with the simple fact that many life experiences simply don’t amount to their idealized form regardless of “porn” or whatever. Humans are easily short-circuited, and fundamentally just animals whose primary motivations involve social signaling and defining oneself in relation to others. Great man history likes to obfuscate this as if Aristotle or Xerxes didn’t have buttholes and never shit and never had embarrassing moments and never jerked it or ogled a woman or said/did something dumb.
People are gross, apish, and barely domesticated. And its ok. Stop writing imaginary horoscopes that you can cast on 85% of humanity to make yourself feel better about writing on Substack. Its just another type of social signaling.
Not a bad reply, though not great. I certainly wouldn't refer to this post as 'high-brow', and I can't see how that tracks.
As for proposing how people should be, well, people never take advice, especially those who ask for it. Any propositions, praxis, or actions would quickly be gamified into the recent—and yes, pornographic—stoic-esque rise and grind trap. Gaming for 6 hours *and* grindset dumbphone cold showers are *both* porno-approaches to life.
I never said Aristotle didn't jerk it (nor that he was great, to be honest). Nor does my outlining of the porn casualty necessarily imply a perfect being, there can be a socially entropic mess, without the former foundation being some sort of Edenic human. In fact, the reality is far less grand than any idealisation of the prior state, in that, the former human simply had a deeper relationship with *feeling* as opposed to thought.
I guess I am just left with a bad taste in my mouth from the tone of this post being a disgusted condescension on the mass populace, one which I agree is often grotesque and somewhat bereft of the “moral dignity” that seemed so abundant in bygone eras (which I hold is an illusion but neither here nor there).
If this post was moreso about how every aspect (and person) in society at large has become inescapably “porn-ified”, then perhaps I have missed it and may have more sympathy for the theme here.
My main issue is that the tone makes the implication that there are ‘enlightened non-porn casaulties’ but you don’t outline what virtues are actually imbibed by that mythical Talented Tenth, so it creates an air of smarminess.
“Those who know don’t have to ask” sort of thing.
You keep mentioning the (illusion, yes, I agree) of moral dignity in bygone eras and the past in general, I don't mention that in the post. It's a follow up to my first post Everything is Porn, which I linked.
Immediately assuming a positive 'enlightened non porn casualties' against the supposed negative is a form of 'vs', dualistic thinking. There are porn casualities and they have a way of being, and with this post, that's all I wish to make apparent.
Fair enough.
Coming to terms with the fact I can’t do anything about it, I’ve come to appreciate the silver lining of the porn era (using the word in what I think is your intended broader sense of losing onself to a perpetual hyperreality of cheap stimulus): it may well be a great Darwinian Reckoning, much needed now as the weaker of our species no longer die en masse in childhood. The less vital among us — the gooner, the gamer — die off without reproducing. And with this evolutionary pruning there follows a healthier, profoundly less neurotic population.
i felt these essays
I wish I watched a porno instead of reading this
'...failing this, they will quickly utilize an oft-repeated signifier of accepted cynicism as a deflationary retort, such as: 'I wish I watched a porno instead of reading this'
Lolol
Nice diss but it doesn’t make your essay any better.. and I see u chose not to respond to my other comment
Idk maybe I don’t get it cuz I just got Substack.. does everything we listen to/watch/read etc have to be that deep.? Can I not listen to shake it to the max? btw ‘Inglourious Basterds’ is spelled wrong (I mean you spelled inglorious correctly, so incorrect according to Tarantino)
I love this essay!!! Somewhat what I had in mind when I wrote my Grow Up! Essay!!!
i feel like there's a link between porn overconsumption drug and other vice like addictive habits
The English language is certainly a casualty.
Great essay! Pornography nabs boys and girls so young a lot of them never get a chance to emotionally connect with their peers and learn what healthy, healing, loving feeling is like. Demonic stuff.