So yes, no more giallo soundtracks for now. It was a great dip down through a wormhole into the past and back, but it was too much on one vibe to fulfill my needs. I’ve spent the last few days messing with the YouTube algorithms to get back to a varied mix of sounds and atmospheres. This came up yesterday after a brief flirtation with Vaporwave and Techno. It’s ringing my bells now for about a twelve hour stretch. It will get me through at least the first half of this day.

I tried for a while yesterday to listen to a couple philosophical discussions and podcasts and caught some interesting ideas that got my mind ticking some. That is all to be revisited in coming days. There were some discussions on post-modernism and hauntology that could be fun to revisit. There were some Adam Curtis documentaries, that while informative from a historical sense, seemed disjointed. Still, it was something to bookmark for future reference. My mind could rot sitting here waiting for the world to re-open, and that’s happening slowly. The rate of vaccinations is picking up. My own eligibility is still up in the air, and I don’t want to jinx myself, but the social distancing is working. I didn’t even get a cold since early in 2020. Again, I don’t want to speak too soon. There are enough other health things to worry about in the meantime.

One of the more interesting podcasts from yesterday was about “cancel culture” and I don’t mean that the topic is interesting because it really isn’t. It’s largely a mythological phenomenon especially considering that so many well known people are given giant media platforms to discuss it daily. It’s interesting to me that with everything else going on in the world there are people pretending that they have to fight to have a voice in the world. Trump’s people have especially got their teeth into the myth. The propaganda barrage going out to his supporters, who are a large and varied lot, that they are being marginalized and disenfranchised is simply preposterous. Their leaders can’t fart without it being reported on, and though much of the coverage is understandably negative they just don’t have enough ideas, good or bad, to generate this much furor from the opposition. There are still tens of millions of people who fully believe that they are being erased by a gargantuan leftist machine. As much as I shy away from Nazi parallels, it’s hard to ignore that about half our country support a party that is using the exact same rhetoric to fire up continued support, and more fear. Then pseudo-intellectuals who claim an objective middle ground sit on well-trod YouTube panels (like Rebel Wisdom) and say that it is somehow the fault of the left being so inflexible that the mess continues to grow.

Nevermind that nobody is being cancelled. A lot of the inflexibility is simply because the ideas that the Right is propagating aren’t new or novel at all. It’s philosophy we’ve heard literally for centuries with very little change. It’s desperation to hold onto these ideas, though it’s become increasingly clear that the ideas are outdated, if they were every of any real value at all. Did they not expect that at some point people would rise up en masse and say, look man, we’ve been doing it your way forever and it’s just not working, so isn’t it time we actually try something new that’s inclusive and equitable and decent?

For these so-called moderate moderators to single out “wokeism” which is the new derogatory term for political correctness (which had become derogatory enough)… it seems to me it’s just a softer touch on support for the status quo, like… let’s present ourselves as objective here while we undermine the ideas themselves by quiet, ad hominem attacks on the people behind the new ideas and strategies.

But again, I don’t even see it as inflexibility or “cancel culture.” It’s a determined front standing against hackneyed, worn out, exclusionary ideas that are really the root problem behind slow erosion and collapse. It’s not a new generation coming out of the closet (no pun intended)that are behind the erosion and demoralization. It’s the continued adherence to bad ideas. So people are rebelling. Didn’t the powers-that-be expect that at some point people would say, look I’m tired of your boot on the back of my neck and living in second and third-class serfdom with less rights. That’s not inflexibility. That’s desperation for a fair, just world that lives up to all the lip-service we pay to how great we are. Great for who/whom? Is it great for everybody?

So yes, this cancel culture thing is mythology. It’s propaganda. The discussion, which isn’t new despite that the half-wits in the GOP have latched so hard onto it, is entirely dishonest. You’re not being cancelled at any level. Your dominion over the lives and lifestyles of other people might be cancelled but how can we cancel what you own? All anyone wants is a chance for everyone to have the same opportunity to benefit from it. A prime example is gay marriage. If you don’t support gay marriage, don’t marry someone of the same gender. Just don’t deny gay people that right. It doesn’t cancel anyone or anything to give someone the same right.

In any event, that’s why it’s interesting to me. It’s not an honest discussion because it’s not really happening. Nobody is being cancelled. The idea that some people are more worthy than others of rights and freedom is what we want to cancel. Save the whales doesn’t mean fuck all other creatures. Save the rain forests doesn’t mean fuck deciduous forests. Black lives matter doesn’t mean that white lives don’t.

Et fucking cetera.

So if you’re wondering why the primary focus of The Right is on “cancel culture,” it’s because it’s the latest spearhead in The Big Lie, that the majority is being erased and will somehow end up disenfranchised. It’s a very transparent wall to defend an idea of white identity and hence, white supremacy. It’s simply hate speech and propaganda disguised as a civil rights discussion, and it’s not a particularly clever disguise. The only surprise to me here is that in their efforts to present themselves to the world as reasonable, so many self-proclaimed intellectuals haven’t called it out for what it is.

Get over yourselves guys It doesn’t make you any more reasonable or intellectual to allow stupid arguments and defenses to continue. That’s why they whole thing is so interesting to me, that the presentation of objectivity and the protection of self-image precludes calling someone out for bullshit when they’re clearly shoveling it by the truckload.

That’s also why this dystopian soundtrack is so perfect for today, and for these times. It reflects life outside The Simulation, or The Matrix. We are in an intellectual wasteland where image and appearance are preventing otherwise intelligent people to push back… A good number of our mainstream political leaders are blue-pill adherents and have no intention of taking the red pill if it’s offered again.

But for now…