Simultaneously new ("neo") and established ("ism")
People sometimes ask me what classes I'm taking. I list them off, one by one, and when I get to "The Manifesto", I often get an "ooooh, what's THAT one about?" Well, my brain is atrophy...ing, so I'm just going to post the second of two parts of the exam (ie, the bit I got to write an essay on). I'm beginning to think that to be able to write brilliantly about nothing is a sign of genius*.
Hello and welcome to Neoism, the international movement of games and total freedom. It may be difficult for the casual audience to understand or appreciate Neoism because Neoism is the vehicle of its own understanding. Neoism simply means that what is done in its name is simultaneously new ("neo") and established ("ism"). It does not imply that it is original. In this sense, Neoism makes past, present and future the same, rendering them pointless. With time left behind them, Neoists find any obsession with freedom futile. Neoism is not a means to freedom, but supports censorship as a radically populist cultural practice. In the same spirit, Neoism prescribes arbitrary game rules to put the lives of Neoists under the discipline of rigorous combinatorics, with perpetual permutations. The purpose of Neoism is to reinforce mnemonic structures on the mental plane and so invigorate culture. Of all values and norms we believe the value of tradition is the greatest; this is the one we try hardest to reinforce.
In a Neoist view, the world is not things colliding in space, but a random array of disconnected phenomena. Neoism does not conceive of the spatial as lasting in time. Since every phenomenon is irreducible, the mere act of giving it a name implies falsification. The paradox however is that names and philosophies exist in Neoism, in countless numbers. There are Neoists who consider a certain pain, a green tint of yellow, a temperature, a certain tone the only reality. Other Neoists perceive all people having sex as the same being, and all people memorizing a line of Shakespeare as Shakespeare. Another group of Neoists has reached the point of denying time. It reasons that the present is undefined, that the future has no reality but as present hope, that the past is no more than present memory. Yet another group has it that the history of the universe is the handwriting produced by a minor god communicating with a demon. Those Neoists think that the world is an emblem with a lost subscription where only that which happens every three hundredth night is true. Other Neoists believe that while we are asleep here, we are awake somewhere else, so that everyone is two. Books are rarely signed, and the notion of plagiarism does not exist.
Neoism is, above all, a prefix and a suffix without anything in between. According to Neoist sources, it was founded in the year 1346. Since then, Neoism has permanently been about to dissolve. Some Neoists even claim that Neoism never existed and is a mere invention of its enemies, Anti-Neoists. Since Neoism is indivisible, it cannot grasp itself, and anyone who wants to grasp it has to be an Anti-Neoist. And since the Neoists want to create a situation in which a definition of Neoism would make no sense, attempts to write off Neoism by historicizing it are just part of the Neoist cultural conspiracy. Obsessed with speculation, reality adjustment and mad science, Neoists produced nothing but manipulations of their own and other histories.
When such manipulations make it impossible to differentiate between words and things, the structure of things must begin to repair itself. Neoism is here to fix these things once and for all. Neoist names like Monty Cantsin, Akademgorod, Neoism are regarded not as artificial, but as tangible symbols so that everything done with them immediately affects the things they represent. At first, Neoism was probably nothing but a collection of obscure in-jokes and ironical references. They were elaborated into fanciful allegories and hieroglyphs whose points only insiders would get. Later, their hidden allusions were forgotten, and the signs were taken for themselves. Since they obviously had to mean something, Neoists had to reinvent their meaning. The remotest analogies between signs and meanings were constructed until Neoism became an art of concordant discord, a sphere with as many coordinates as diameters, a self-refuting perpetuum mobile.
The pompous claims and the solemn pathos of Neoism had an extraordinary impact on naive people. Rich with obscurity, riddles and esoteric subtexts, Neoist writing such as "The Disposal of Truth," "Mind Invaders," "The Seven by Nine Squares," "The Book of Neoism," "The Universe in Contention" and "Dialectical Immaterialism" tries nothing less than a complete reinvention of culture. Neoist achievements allegedly include time travel, the transformation of blood into gold, inexpensive telepathic technology and, more generally, collective control over matter, space and time by manipulating things through their names. Neoism finally claims to have overcome the parameters of life and death, offering immortality to everyone: Through the name Monty Cantsin, Neoists live and explore the paradox of a subjectivity that is one and multiple, collectively realizing individuality and abandoning it in the end. The result of this experiment is a simultaneous "both/and" and "neither/nor" as the principle of all Neoist thinking.
A chief concern of Neoism is to turn people into players. This is to be gradually achieved. First, Neoism denies there is a game. Second, it hides the rules from those involved. Third, it gives them all penalties and no wins. Fourth, it removes all goals, enforces their playing, inhibits their enjoying. Fifth, it makes them look like players, but forbids them playing. To make everyone remain a piece in the game, it permits him to associate only with pieces and denies the existence of players.
Imagine a house. Six walls. A house, no door, no window. A person inside that house. The house consists of nine squares, 20 feet across and 20 feet high and 20 feet wide. But the person's diameter is only 19 feet. His awareness is only 19 feet. Does he see the walls? No! Neoism makes him think he is a one-lifetimer, and his awareness goes down to 18 feet. And when it goes down to 18 feet, Neoism moves its walls in to 19 feet. When Neoism gets him down to the size of a fist, its walls are the size of stretched out arms, and things have been nicely repaired. And if anybody jumps out of the line, we got lobotomy, shock treatment, Siberia - whatever you want, baby, we have it here.
So be on your guard! Watch Neoism. Take it home. Don't be ignorant. Neoism is compassionate, and it is cruel. Be on your guard! Don't hate its obedience and don't love its self-control. Don't dismiss it in its weakness, and don't be afraid of its power. Why do you despise its fear and curse its pride? It lives in fears and strengthens in trembling. Neoism is stupid and it is wise. Neoism will be silent among the silent, and it will appear and speak. Why then have you dismissed it?
Neoism appears when you are away, and it hides when you appear. Take it home to places which are ugly and in ruin. Out of shame, take it home and scatter its members shamelessly. Approach it and turn away. Neoism is the reading that is attainable to anything; it is the speech that cannot be grasped.
If you want to understand Neoism, differentiate. If you want to know what it's all about, understand its philosophy. Understand its technical application, and study Neoism in its own words. Conceptual understanding is of importance here. Not everything in Neoism is of equal value. Neoism has its own opinion, and it has a right to keep its own opinion. And boy, it's got some wild opinions. You oughta hear them sometime. But that's a different thing... a different thing... and you can tell very easily when it swings over into its opinion, when it starts rambling about this or that. Take it as amusing, but it doesn't have anything really to do with Neoism. Neoism itself is cleaner than a wolf's tooth. There are a lot of wolves' teeth out there and they aren't too clean.
Neoism is clean because it does not exist except in the reactions it creates. Some Neoists used the experimental arts to promote the Neoist values of tradition and speculation. Neoism, in this disguise, was a movement that created the illusion of a movement called Neoism. After various mutations, Neoism developed an increasingly complex web of contradictory self-descriptions, a hermeneutic drift that leads every Neoist to re-interpret Neoism in any suitable way. Neoist self-descriptions soon became an impassable maze. This explains why it is so difficult to approach Neoism whose only work has been a never-ending monologue about itself. To complicate things even further, Neoists now refuse categorically to reply to any questions or requests for information about Neoism.
Neoism is like porn movies: The subject has no importance, logic is unneccessary, there is an accumulation of well-known things, the focus is always on the same explicit facts, repetition and boredom rule. One is tempted to believe that Neoism once had some sort of intelligible shape and is now only a broken-down remnant. Yet this does not seem to be the case; at least there is no sign of it. By its own standards, Neoism is irrefutable, perhaps the only perfection in mankind that has superseded nature. In any case, closer scrutiny is impossible, since it is extraordinarily nimble and can never be laid hold of. It lurks by turns in the stairways, the lobbies, the entrance halls. Often it can't been seen for years; then it has presumably moved elsewhere. It always comes faithfully back to your place again. By differentiating a little bit, one can get the true intention of what Neoism tries to accomplish. Neoism is sound where there is sound. It really wants to help people and at last we owe it great respect for that.
Join us, we want war with you. Cursed be anyone who doesn't believe us.
Monty Cantsin
Wow, Monty. I tip my hat *thusly* in your direction.
3/5 exams done
3/5 papers written
Tomorrow morning I take on British Columbian Literature. I wonder, if I just roundhouse kick the exam in the face, will I get an automatic A+? [scratches beard thoughtfully]
*It excites me to know that I am halfway there - I often write about nothing ;).
Hello and welcome to Neoism, the international movement of games and total freedom. It may be difficult for the casual audience to understand or appreciate Neoism because Neoism is the vehicle of its own understanding. Neoism simply means that what is done in its name is simultaneously new ("neo") and established ("ism"). It does not imply that it is original. In this sense, Neoism makes past, present and future the same, rendering them pointless. With time left behind them, Neoists find any obsession with freedom futile. Neoism is not a means to freedom, but supports censorship as a radically populist cultural practice. In the same spirit, Neoism prescribes arbitrary game rules to put the lives of Neoists under the discipline of rigorous combinatorics, with perpetual permutations. The purpose of Neoism is to reinforce mnemonic structures on the mental plane and so invigorate culture. Of all values and norms we believe the value of tradition is the greatest; this is the one we try hardest to reinforce.
In a Neoist view, the world is not things colliding in space, but a random array of disconnected phenomena. Neoism does not conceive of the spatial as lasting in time. Since every phenomenon is irreducible, the mere act of giving it a name implies falsification. The paradox however is that names and philosophies exist in Neoism, in countless numbers. There are Neoists who consider a certain pain, a green tint of yellow, a temperature, a certain tone the only reality. Other Neoists perceive all people having sex as the same being, and all people memorizing a line of Shakespeare as Shakespeare. Another group of Neoists has reached the point of denying time. It reasons that the present is undefined, that the future has no reality but as present hope, that the past is no more than present memory. Yet another group has it that the history of the universe is the handwriting produced by a minor god communicating with a demon. Those Neoists think that the world is an emblem with a lost subscription where only that which happens every three hundredth night is true. Other Neoists believe that while we are asleep here, we are awake somewhere else, so that everyone is two. Books are rarely signed, and the notion of plagiarism does not exist.
Neoism is, above all, a prefix and a suffix without anything in between. According to Neoist sources, it was founded in the year 1346. Since then, Neoism has permanently been about to dissolve. Some Neoists even claim that Neoism never existed and is a mere invention of its enemies, Anti-Neoists. Since Neoism is indivisible, it cannot grasp itself, and anyone who wants to grasp it has to be an Anti-Neoist. And since the Neoists want to create a situation in which a definition of Neoism would make no sense, attempts to write off Neoism by historicizing it are just part of the Neoist cultural conspiracy. Obsessed with speculation, reality adjustment and mad science, Neoists produced nothing but manipulations of their own and other histories.
When such manipulations make it impossible to differentiate between words and things, the structure of things must begin to repair itself. Neoism is here to fix these things once and for all. Neoist names like Monty Cantsin, Akademgorod, Neoism are regarded not as artificial, but as tangible symbols so that everything done with them immediately affects the things they represent. At first, Neoism was probably nothing but a collection of obscure in-jokes and ironical references. They were elaborated into fanciful allegories and hieroglyphs whose points only insiders would get. Later, their hidden allusions were forgotten, and the signs were taken for themselves. Since they obviously had to mean something, Neoists had to reinvent their meaning. The remotest analogies between signs and meanings were constructed until Neoism became an art of concordant discord, a sphere with as many coordinates as diameters, a self-refuting perpetuum mobile.
The pompous claims and the solemn pathos of Neoism had an extraordinary impact on naive people. Rich with obscurity, riddles and esoteric subtexts, Neoist writing such as "The Disposal of Truth," "Mind Invaders," "The Seven by Nine Squares," "The Book of Neoism," "The Universe in Contention" and "Dialectical Immaterialism" tries nothing less than a complete reinvention of culture. Neoist achievements allegedly include time travel, the transformation of blood into gold, inexpensive telepathic technology and, more generally, collective control over matter, space and time by manipulating things through their names. Neoism finally claims to have overcome the parameters of life and death, offering immortality to everyone: Through the name Monty Cantsin, Neoists live and explore the paradox of a subjectivity that is one and multiple, collectively realizing individuality and abandoning it in the end. The result of this experiment is a simultaneous "both/and" and "neither/nor" as the principle of all Neoist thinking.
A chief concern of Neoism is to turn people into players. This is to be gradually achieved. First, Neoism denies there is a game. Second, it hides the rules from those involved. Third, it gives them all penalties and no wins. Fourth, it removes all goals, enforces their playing, inhibits their enjoying. Fifth, it makes them look like players, but forbids them playing. To make everyone remain a piece in the game, it permits him to associate only with pieces and denies the existence of players.
Imagine a house. Six walls. A house, no door, no window. A person inside that house. The house consists of nine squares, 20 feet across and 20 feet high and 20 feet wide. But the person's diameter is only 19 feet. His awareness is only 19 feet. Does he see the walls? No! Neoism makes him think he is a one-lifetimer, and his awareness goes down to 18 feet. And when it goes down to 18 feet, Neoism moves its walls in to 19 feet. When Neoism gets him down to the size of a fist, its walls are the size of stretched out arms, and things have been nicely repaired. And if anybody jumps out of the line, we got lobotomy, shock treatment, Siberia - whatever you want, baby, we have it here.
So be on your guard! Watch Neoism. Take it home. Don't be ignorant. Neoism is compassionate, and it is cruel. Be on your guard! Don't hate its obedience and don't love its self-control. Don't dismiss it in its weakness, and don't be afraid of its power. Why do you despise its fear and curse its pride? It lives in fears and strengthens in trembling. Neoism is stupid and it is wise. Neoism will be silent among the silent, and it will appear and speak. Why then have you dismissed it?
Neoism appears when you are away, and it hides when you appear. Take it home to places which are ugly and in ruin. Out of shame, take it home and scatter its members shamelessly. Approach it and turn away. Neoism is the reading that is attainable to anything; it is the speech that cannot be grasped.
If you want to understand Neoism, differentiate. If you want to know what it's all about, understand its philosophy. Understand its technical application, and study Neoism in its own words. Conceptual understanding is of importance here. Not everything in Neoism is of equal value. Neoism has its own opinion, and it has a right to keep its own opinion. And boy, it's got some wild opinions. You oughta hear them sometime. But that's a different thing... a different thing... and you can tell very easily when it swings over into its opinion, when it starts rambling about this or that. Take it as amusing, but it doesn't have anything really to do with Neoism. Neoism itself is cleaner than a wolf's tooth. There are a lot of wolves' teeth out there and they aren't too clean.
Neoism is clean because it does not exist except in the reactions it creates. Some Neoists used the experimental arts to promote the Neoist values of tradition and speculation. Neoism, in this disguise, was a movement that created the illusion of a movement called Neoism. After various mutations, Neoism developed an increasingly complex web of contradictory self-descriptions, a hermeneutic drift that leads every Neoist to re-interpret Neoism in any suitable way. Neoist self-descriptions soon became an impassable maze. This explains why it is so difficult to approach Neoism whose only work has been a never-ending monologue about itself. To complicate things even further, Neoists now refuse categorically to reply to any questions or requests for information about Neoism.
Neoism is like porn movies: The subject has no importance, logic is unneccessary, there is an accumulation of well-known things, the focus is always on the same explicit facts, repetition and boredom rule. One is tempted to believe that Neoism once had some sort of intelligible shape and is now only a broken-down remnant. Yet this does not seem to be the case; at least there is no sign of it. By its own standards, Neoism is irrefutable, perhaps the only perfection in mankind that has superseded nature. In any case, closer scrutiny is impossible, since it is extraordinarily nimble and can never be laid hold of. It lurks by turns in the stairways, the lobbies, the entrance halls. Often it can't been seen for years; then it has presumably moved elsewhere. It always comes faithfully back to your place again. By differentiating a little bit, one can get the true intention of what Neoism tries to accomplish. Neoism is sound where there is sound. It really wants to help people and at last we owe it great respect for that.
Join us, we want war with you. Cursed be anyone who doesn't believe us.
Monty Cantsin
Wow, Monty. I tip my hat *thusly* in your direction.
3/5 exams done
3/5 papers written
Tomorrow morning I take on British Columbian Literature. I wonder, if I just roundhouse kick the exam in the face, will I get an automatic A+? [scratches beard thoughtfully]
*It excites me to know that I am halfway there - I often write about nothing ;).
posted by Sara at
11:47 p.m.
2 Comments:
Darn that was heavy. My brain was frazzled at the end of the 1st paragraph. Hardly an introduction. More of a supernova to the frontal lobe.
Just ask yourself, what would Chuck Norris do?
Maybe it's just me, but philosophical concepts are for those I class as "difficult" or "obnoxious". A bit like me, really, only I don't have to have a theory behind it. Ah well... back to the grindstone.
Verif word: ucgrg. Sounds painful...
By
Mike, at 3:53 a.m.
Meh, don't worry so much about the heaviness. Once you get past the feelings of "What the Dickens is this man smoking/snorting/shooting?", and you just read it (despite the heaviness), it becomes a more accessible piece about self-contradiction, false grandious (sp?) and this thing called "newism". You can't pin it down, so if you go into it with that in mind, it becomes a somewhat chucklesome experience. I mean, "And if anybody jumps out of the line, we got lobotomy, shock treatment, Siberia - whatever you want, baby, we have it here." I'm laughing right now!
You have a thing for the word verification, yeah? Mine's "Naiqv." Sometimes in my case, I think the Q is silent.
By
Sara, at 8:40 a.m.
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