The Last Man Revival

During the early to late 2000s there were a number of Christian themed post-hardcore and metalcore groups promoting Christian values popping up in the West. Many of those who listened to these artists were, at the time, largely atheistic urbanites that grew up in irreligious homes and were raised by the state. They didn't grow up going to church, never considered attending them, nor did the word of God ever reach them. They'd been taught to reject tradition by engaging in various countercultures such as the hardcore punk, metal, and social media scenes. They were thrust into a crucible of nihilism, vagrancy, and hedonism from an early age, and there weren't any other viable alternatives in sight because they'd been blinded by the pillars of modernity.

Violence, cruelty, and death are perfectly acceptable and even encouraged upon the world stage for our viewing pleasure as long as we're not the ones prescribing them.

A whisper among screams is not heard.

Having friends who share opposing viewpoints is a luxury of the first world. The ability to include people in one's life who possess motivations that conflict with one another's isn't an exercise in utility, it's an exercise in choosing indecision over decision. It's the sign of a compromised individual with little agency or self-awareness. If there's ever a war on, those undecided will either find themselves in the crossfire or required to choose a side. They'll either be collateral damage or a willing combatant thrust into a new and unfamiliar world of painful revelation.

On testosterone and the male psyche: Hormones have functions. Testosterone's function is anabolic (constructive). It is the male hormone. Men have a tendency and desire towards results. A man is satisfied when his job is done. Women can be sustained on love and validation alone - men cannot. Men are internal animals, and to prove their existence, they need to show results which stem from the internal. The Greek concept of Thumos is highly applicable here. In Homer's songs, Thumos leaves the hero's body in times of dire need to bring the hero back up. So; testosterone punishes man when he does nothing and rewards him when he shows his power. Be powerful and you will be healthy. Be powerless and you will lose even that little power you had. Matthew 13:12

"If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared." - Niccolo Machiavelli

Our cities weren't built upon the premise of love or decency. They were built upon the bones of useless machines. There's so much to witness within their arteries, yet somehow they all appear, sound, feel, and smell the same down to the rat droppings on every corner, the dumpsters burgeoning with garbage, and the gasoline fumes that rise from their roadways. The merit of the megalopolis is predicated upon the height of its monoliths, and just maybe their blinking lights will distract ones eyes from the waste that's piling up at their feet long enough to win over what's left of our cold, mechanical hearts.

"That propaganda is good which leads to success, and that is bad which fails to achieve the desired result. It is not propaganda's task to be intelligent, its task is to lead to success." - Joseph Goebbels

Lead was to the ancient Romans as fluoride is to modern-day Americans.

"We are nine in a hole. Nothing will get us out of here. But we have eaten, we must relieve ourselves. The first of us to feel the urge climbs out. He has been there for two days now, ten feet away, killed, with his trousers down. We crap on paper and throw it up and out. When we have no more paper, we go in our haversacks. The Battle of Verdun continues. We go in our hands. Dysentery flows between our fingers. We crap blood. We go where we lie. We are devoured by flames of thirst. We drink our own urine. If we remain on this battlefield... it is because they won't let us get away." - Jean Giono

Animals are not on the level of Man; emotional intelligence is however, not foreign to some; if not most of these creatures - even so, they are not to be disrespected, neither worshipped, neither looked down upon from a superior standpoint. God gave us this world and all that creeps along it; we may be the rulers of this domain but animals are not ours to mistreat.

"The guerrilla fighter is primarily a propagandist, an agitator, a disseminator of the revolutionary idea, who uses the struggle itself-the actual physical conflict-as an instrument of agitation. His primary goal is to raise the level of revolutionary anticipation, and then of popular participation, to the crisis point at which the revolution becomes general throughout the country and the people in their masses carry out the final task-the destruction of the existing order and (often but not always) of the army that defends it." - Robert Taber

"Video, interactive screens, multimedia, the Internet, virtual reality – we are threatened on all sides by interactivity. What was separated in the past is now everywhere merged; distance is abolished in all things: between the sexes, between opposite poles, between stage and auditorium, between the protagonists of action, between subject and object, between the real and its double. And this confusion of terms, this collision of poles means that nowhere – in art, morality or politics – is there now any possibility of a moral judgement. With the abolition of distance – of the ‘pathos of distance’ – everything becomes undecidable. And this is true even in the physical realm: when the receiver and the source of a transmission are too close together, a feedback eect ensues which scrambles the transmission waves; when an event and the broadcasting of that event in real time are too close together, this renders the event undecidable and virtual, stripping it of its historical dimension and removing it from memory. Whether it is virtual technologies which create undecidability or our undecidable world which gives rise to these technologies is itself undecidable. " + Jean Baudrillard, Screened Out

"In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists." - Eric Hoffer

"In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists." - Eric Hoffer

The belief that you can be friends with those who share opposing viewpoints to yours is largely based on ignorance. The fact that they're not your allies and would sell you out to the authorities or to the mob should your views or actions ever violate their sensibilities is an inescapable truth that you must be recognize when dealing with outsiders. Should they ever catch any flak from those who are ideologically related to them due to their affiliation with you, or be forced to choose between their own tribe or a member from another, they will almost certainly choose the former. Tribalism is alive and well, so bear that in mind when deciding who to include in your personal life.

Life's a never-ending war. It's a beautiful thing.

Life's a never-ending war. It's a beautiful thing.