Coolness as an Ideal
Hey,
The aim of the Radical Aesthetic Movement (fronted by the likes of Lydia He et al) is to make personally certain to a vast number of individuals the claims and statements of a given movement. It is the brute-forcing of beauty, beauty as battering-ram, for some given end. It is a means of circumventing the constraints of formal logic (which is often unconvincing) with a tool that is nearly immediately convincing, intuitively.
How does this manifest itself (often)?
It's to be "cool." The aim is to be subtly, effortlessly, yet unambiguously unaffected by the World. Though no secular (knowingly) takes seriously the ancient Christian concept of the 'World' as the satanic realm, they do believe it implicitly. Someone, an angel among men, who lives innocently and carelessly as to the affairs of the world (to be above it, so to speak) is as a god to seculars. It is to be beyond space and time, place and moment--to be ascended. The gurus of our age constitute of anyone who can do this. The examples of these "aesthetes" are everywhere and evident.
Liam Gallagher, Hailey Williams, Bob Dylan, Julian Casablancas, Lou Reed, Damon Albarn.... I could go on. No doubt each of these artists has suffered tremendously in their own respect. The way they hold themselves, the way they move and speak. No matter how crass they may actually be, their mannerisms show a complete disdain--no, an absolute obliviousness--to the evident evil of the World. To take an example, for a brief moment in the mid-90's, Liam Gallagher could swagger down the aisle of an award ceremony to claim his laurels--cigarette in hand and glasses on his eyes--while the world burned. This is not a criticism: this is reality. He was a god in the moment. Whatever critic who at other moments was murmuring about British Imperialism was now colonized by the imminent Personality of Liam Gallagher. When Hailey Williams hit the floor after the release of "Hard Times," with the innocence of a starry-eyed she dazzled the incoming jadedness of the late 2010's. After the ethereal post-chorus, one could hardly tell if the much-criticized presidency of President Trump had been an illusion (perhaps the song is about this?)
For the bard-hero-demigod, the World bows--because he/she is not concerned with the World. The spell that is cast is efficacious--and it is a spell!
No doubt each of them has spoken to some extent or another about their suffering (and what is to suffer but to be caught up in the World?) That said--these moments of vulnerability are never taken as such. These instances constitute the mere humanity of the Demi-god, making the unattainable more relatable. The empathy shown by fans is often no more than a tether to the bard-hero, though perhaps in better situations it is more.
Regardless...
This is the aim. This is the radical aim of the Radical Aesthetic Movement. To be beautiful, to feign all effortlessness. By a trick of the eye and a hex on the consciousness, to conquer all. Beauty is not argued with--it can't be. Beauty transcends (or avoids, or stems elsewhere from) the formal logic of Man (is this not what Kant attempted to suggest in his Critique?) You can not argue with the dazzling. All things bright and beautiful continue to baffle the logician.
It is evident everywhere. Napoleon--his name so derogatory that it once took the place of the stock "bad-guy filler-word" (now occupied by Hitler)--has been all but forgiven because of his beauty. A google search will prove this: the amount of Napoleon fan-fics and romances is a bit astonishing. This phenomena has also been seen in serial killers, like Ted Bundy. His handsomeness acquitted him.
I use these examples, not to justify the crimes of the aforementioned characters, but to demonstrate the following paramount principle: Beauty covers more than a multitude of sins--it absolves all of them in the eyes of the World.
To be cool is to be free... so, be cool!
I think that when we use “cool,” so often what’s “cool” is often what is bad, or at least nonconformist, and it’s cool because of its very disrespect for authority and hierarchy, or at least the status quo. God forbid we do what others do in our personal quest for authentic identity, atomized individuals who don’t know how to have friends that we are.
ReplyDeleteI also think it’s unfair that you seem to be juxtaposing “logic” with “beauty,” and then when you say that Ted Bundy was forgiven his sins on account of his beauty it almost sounds like you think that is a good thing. How is that not incredibly unfair and a wildly falsely-juxtaposed statement? You can’t just look at everything that doesn’t jive with your feelings and say “it’s beautiful so it must be better.” That kind of romance is the destroyer of men and the destroyer of the world.
I also wonder how this works with a Christian world-view. I can see how the self-sufficiently of gliding through while the world is burning has attractive elements to it, but this philosophy seems like it’s escapist and running away from the reality that redemption is only in suffering, and our glory is the cross.
To suffer is to be caught up in the world. I guess Christ was too caught up in the world then? Strange.
What do you think of these potential critiques?
I think you misunderstood this article.
DeleteJoe here:
Delete1) I am offering a "practical" tool for religious or political organizations who see the limitations of logic as a "compelling science" (which I believe is demonstrated by Kant in the Critique). The examples I use (Ted Bundy, Napoleon) are there to offer exemplars of individuals who bypassed logical compulsion (not a thing) by their attractiveness, both physically and personality-wise. They demonstrate that, where logic fails, perhaps an organization like Christianity should fall back upon its tradition of beauty--which derives from intuition and not the logical faculty (though it is absolutely processed by the logical faculty, just not reduced or originated from it).
1.1) Beauty absolves sins not universally but rather in the eye of the beholder, i.e. the World.
2) The examples I gave are not the examples of known saints or Christ-types--insofar as this is true I am not recommending to imitate them. Further, I am not suggesting that their suffering is somehow nonexistent. Rather, I am suggesting that very little true empathy is felt for the bard-demigods. The same is absolutely true for Christ, as I see very few people who truly "suffer with" (empathize with) Christ.
3) Lastly, to your first point, insofar as the World is an organism governed by the "Spirit of the Air," I do think that non-conformism is positively prohibited; rather, I think it is positively condoned. Non-conformity to the world does not equal Atomism.
Blessings,
- J