#opere religiose

[pier-carlo-universe]

Monsignor Ermenegildo Fusaro: l’Apostolo della fede e della carità, un esempio di amore universale

Un sacerdote, scrittore e patrono degli animali che ha dedicato la sua vita alla difesa dei più deboli e alla promozione della fede.

Un sacerdote, scrittore e patrono degli animali che ha dedicato la sua vita alla difesa dei più deboli e alla promozione della fede. Monsignor Ermenegildo Fusaro: una vita dedicata alla fede e alla carità Monsignor Ermenegildo Fusaro, sacerdote veneziano, è stato una figura straordinaria, un esempio luminoso di dedizione, compassione e amore per gli esseri viventi. Nato con una vocazione innata…

[accord-vn]

Major Players in the War Against the Firmament

The Republic of Stauros

The Republic of Stauros is a global superpower that controls the Americas and much of eastern and southern Africa, its imperialist agenda funded by the exploitation of abundant natural resources. This influx of resources means that they have been able to rapidly advance technology, particularly in bio-science, engineering, and materials science fields, and their advanced technology in turn makes for political capital with which they can bully nations into being subsumed by the Republic.

Stauros is a meritocratic oligarchy with republican structures, and presents itself as being a place where the best can rise to the top. It is centrally governed in its capital of Etorios, by a council of (what were originally) six departments that oversee facets of government such as treasury, military, agriculture, etc. These department heads are chosen from among a democratically elected parliament that makes up the upper levels of each department by the previous council. In short, the system rejects change very stubbornly as those who are eligible to lead have been entrenched in the system for a very long time. This entrenchment means that the Republic, while founded on progressive ideals, has now fully embraced the authoritarian streak that has haunted it since its inception.

Most prominent in Stauros's war against the Firmament is the ExoCorps, the executive arm of the Department of the Exterior. The Dept of the Exterior was created in order to protect Stauros's offplanet interests, however in the decades since they have come to rival the power of the Dept of Military, even surpassing it in many instances. The most notable example of this power imbalance is in the ExoCorps' development of Synaptic Transfer technology and the resulting Janissary program.

The Sophic Church

The Sophic Church originated as part of the Third Awakening, a reactionary revival in religiosity coupled with anti-Christian sentiment and strong undercurrents of paranoia brought about by a sharp rise in conspiratorial thought. What were several grassroots Gnostic revival movements came together to form a single ecclesiastical society, united in their desire to dismantle current institutions and build something new. These movements, originally different sects, syncretized their beliefs, though after several decades of transformation, their doctrine has evolved into a largely ahistorical conflation of Valentinianism and Sethianism alongside some entirely new ideas.

The Sophic Church played a key role in the formation of the Republic and rose alongside it, shaping it in the process, and as a result, within Stauros there is a strong presumption that most residents of the Republic are a part of the church.

Naturally, due to this relationship the Church has amassed a large amount of wealth and influence, and has invested this wealth into a number of corporate assets. The most prominent among these is Ascension, a corporation with child companies for mining, manufacturing, logistics, pharmaceuticals, and many other industries.

As a result, the Sophic Church has control over a substantial amount of the economy not just of Stauros, but the rest of the world as well.

The Stereomatos

In 2068, Olympia, Stauros's first permanent Martian research base, collapsed due to mismanagement. Due to the nature of the Stauros Dept of Research's control over the research base, while researchers lived permanent lives on base and even raised families there, leadership was not only appointed from a bureaucracy located on Earth, but also frequently rotated. As a result, most Directors of Operations viewed the position only as a temporary station, and ultimately failed to carry out their duties.

This culminated in 2067, when a failure in the water system caused dozens of people to become ill and 14 deaths. Civil unrest had already started to stir, but now was in full swing.

A nearby ExoCorps detachment was then stationed inside the colony to dissuade uprising, but the additional strain on resources that they caused served only to exacerbate discontentment. Before any violence broke out, the base was declared no longer fit for human habitation and disbanded, its residents either returned to earth or stationed in other colonies. The base was leveled shortly thereafter.

A mere two years later, Synesia was founded on Olympia's ruins. Synesia was intended to serve as a colony and an experiment in autonomous government, as well as a center for Stauros' civic operations offplanet. This quickly expanded into a semi-autonomous satellite state, granted nominal independence by Stauros in return for serving as the governing body for bases and offplanet stations too large and too distant from Earth in order to be effectively managed by a planetary bureaucracy.

In practice, the Stereomatos is a puppet state. Most of its leadership is either beholden or sympathetic to Stauros, and lives under constant threat of dismantlement. Stauros maintains exclusive trading rights with the Stereomatos, and uses the leverage of their monopoly on space infrastructure as means of controlling the nation.

The Firmament

The Firmament is a revolutionary movement across the Stereomatos with the ultimate goal of eliminating Stauros control over space.

The movement is comprised of several cells across both inner sphere and outer sphere colonies and stations, which frequently work together to improve the living conditions of Stereomatos citizens, smuggle goods and resources across planetary boundaries, and wage asymmetric warfare against Stauros.

The Firmament's immediate strategy is to hold Stauros at resource-point through piracy and targeted attacks on military installations so that they'll agree to several key conditions:

The right to self-govern independent of Stauros control, including reforming the government from a parliamentary republic into a syndical state.

Better access to tertiary industry, including the means to utilize synaptic transfer tech

Access to Stauros trade networks in order to carry out trade with other nations with minimal interference

The Stereomatos as a whole may be generally divided in their opinion on the Firmament's methods, however it is an unspoken rule to side with them whenever possible, because the Firmament represents hope for a freer future and an end to overcrowding and military police actions. Even those ideologically opposed tend to avoid speaking out, because the members of the Firmament are ultimately members of their community. A number of Stereomatos politicians have direct connections to Firmament leadership, and work to achieve the movement's aims through diplomatic means.

On Earth, however, the opinion is generally much more divided. Typically the details of their actions are largely reduced to the effect that they've had on Stauros, and are branded terrorists due to civilian casualties from their attacks. Within Stauros, media is sufficiently skewed that those who are aware of them despise them. Outside of Stauros, the Stereomatos is shown more sympathy, and even those who skew more conservative are open to the idea of free trade with the Stereomatos.

Federated Oceania

As climate change ravaged the global south, Aotearoa (formerly New Zealand) successfully pushed back the encroaching ocean with a sea wall, reclaiming additional land in the process. Having secured their new position as a safe haven for climate refugees, they pushed Australia into adopting a similar strategy. As a means of allowing displaced people to retain their sovereignty as well as protect against the threat of a subjugation-hungry Stauros on the horizon, the bloc of Federated Oceania was formed.

With a vested interest in environmental sciences and sustainable energy, Oceania rose to prominence by implementing the first viable fusion reactor and selling off excess energy from successive plants. This paved the way to further successes until it became the non-Stauros leader in technology on a global stage, and served as the first country to challenge Stauros's self-proclaimed "monopoly on space".

As a staunch rival of Stauros, Oceania is one of the few terrestrial nations to openly provide support the Firmament.

The Archon Program

The disappearance of the Caesarea is a mainstay of conspiracy circles system-wide. From independent blogs hosted on the clearnet to chatrooms on planetside LITEs to forums and message boards maintained on Firmnet servers in the belt, no hushed whisper passes through the internet's lips without mentioning its name, and the Caesarea is rarely mentioned without the words "Archon program" in its wake.

However, there is little consensus on what those words mean.  

They say that Archon Program is run by the Dept of the Exterior— no, by the Sophic Church— no, it's the secret Dept of Suppression— as a psyop— actually, it's in order to crush unions (the IPU has NEVER been able to touch Ascension)— no, to serve as a counter to the Firmament's dark matter bomb— and eventually, to dominate the world— utilizing heinous machines that are larger than any Cataphract, that bleed, that drive their enemies and pilots to madness.

When asked for proof, however, the stories converge. A would-be whistleblower from Ascension Aerospace, killed when lightning struck her complex as she was uploading the leak, severing the connection and her life at once. All that was uploaded was the first gigabyte of a single file, titled Archon Program, completely blank except for the image of an A with an ouroboros divided into seven pieces.

Nothing more is known by the public.

[blogitalianissimo]

Ho l'askbox in fiamme, rispondo a tutti con questo post Stai seguendo le olimpiadi? Nì, ho un po' da fare in questi giorni + è impossibile commentare tutte le gare + il canone lo paghiamo per vedere i pacchi di Pino insegno, mica per avere il privilegio di seguire per bene tutto l'evento Cosa pensi della cerimonia d'apertura e della polemica creata sull'ultima cena? Cerimonia d'apertura pazzesca + le parodie opere famose /anche religiose/ ci sono sempre state, stanno polemizzando solo per vomitare un po' d'odio sul GiEnDeR E della Senna non balneabile? Non molto diversa da noti litorali nel nord italia pieni di turisti tedeschi, scherzo, male qui amici francesi, spero che non nasca una nuova pandemia di qualcosa da questa roba Israhell partecipante? Disgustoso, ma comunque un pelo meglio del Sionvision dove alla Palestina non è manco permesso di partecipare

Aggiungo che mi ha fatto molto ridere che gli americani stiano contando il "totale del numero di medaglie conquistate" per mettersi primi in classifica, quando in realtà conta il numero di oro in primis

[rabbitcrimes]

Wangxian Fic Rec: Science Fiction Double Feature 🤖🚀

Mostly wangxian fics with sci fi elements - space, dream science, mindlink, androids, cyberpunk cities etc

Out of Nothing by Pip (Moirail) - zhanchengxian - 27k Summary: You and me, Wei Ying had said. Jiang Cheng is going to take him at his word. Command says that the first neural link is the one that stands out the most, the one that everyone has to be the most careful of, because a navigator’s thoughts can get tangled up with their pilot’s and become inextricably linked. Entangled. My Notes: All time fave. If I ever shut up about this fic you should assume I've been body snatched. Transhumanism, nostalgia, space opera, mindlink.

In Imitation of Life by travelingneuritis - wangxian - 70k Summary: Lan Zhan stops in front of one of the bespoke duplicates— a male figure, small, creamy-skinned and lithe. The name on the plinth reads Mo Xuanyu. Lan Zhan tested it on his first pass through the room. The doll was empty. No signals bouncing around its artificial brain, no operating programs queued to autostart. Not even a blinking dormancy light. "Hey big guy," says Mo Xuanyu, chrome eyes sparkling with fun. "Who do I gotta fuck around here to get unplugged?" Wei Ying is a rogue AI come to life. Lan Zhan is… handling it. My Notes: This is my Neuromancer. Actually one of my favorite cyberpunk cities EVER. When I figured out what OP was doing with the city and plot structure I legitimately went insane. Android erotics, cyberpunk city.

More fics under the cut!!

via AMONG THE STARS BY PLONK (a series of oneshots set in Firefly's CU, all really excellent but I want to draw attention a few all time faves) A Monk and a Myth - wangxian Summary: take_me_to_church.mp3 My Notes: This is THE and I mean THE final word on science fictional religiosity and devotion. Can not imagine trying to tackle those concepts without having read this. Man as myth, folk heroes, Lan Zhan's canon typical devotion. a grease monkey, a companion, and some pals aboard the lil apple - wangxian My Notes: Lan Wangji is a very prim and classy companion (in universe style of sex worker) and Wei Wuxian is a ship repair guy and Lan Wangji teaches him the ways of the secular flesh. My fucking god do I think about this sex scene all the time. Like, weekly. a chatty mechanic and a silent academy survivor aboard the lotus - wangxian genderswap Summary: Just really excellent. Wei Wuxian is a ship mechanic and Lan Wangji has psychic abilities from medical experimentation from which she's been rescued. Solidly space western, the end of this one is just wonderful. Love the mindlink elements here. escapees aboard the radish - wangxian Summary: So absolutely crazy about this one. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are both ex academy students or have both been victims of psychic medical experiments. I love it as a story about trauma and living in aftermath. Mindlink.

promises of the future by spookykingdomstarlight - wei wuxian/wei wuxian - 3k Summary: His ocular sensors spin themselves to life. In the mirror, he sees himself. And he sees himself, himself but different, reflected from the mirror he’s resting against into the mirror he’s facing. Himself but slighter, features sharper. Himself, with eyes brightened by the power of a star. Himself, crouched above himself, close enough to kiss. My Notes: Yes you read that pairing right!! Give it up for robot eroticism!!!! Android erotics, cyberpunk sensibility.

some lovely, perilous think by varnes - wangxian - 24k Summary: Jingyi makes a sympathetic sound. “I’ve got a buddy in one of the Hefei labs, and he says there’s some evidence to suggest that people stuck in limbo develop, like, whole new neural pathways. And you go in and out of it all the time, right, so who knows what your brain is up to.” His eyes light up. “Oh man, would you let me — ” “Obviously no,” Wei Ying says, voice flat. “But you’re close enough to right. I can keep you all safely in the level, but it’s tiring. I can’t be both dreamer and extractor.” “I’ll do it,” Lan Zhan cuts in, before Jingyi can protest or Wen Yuan can ask any further questions. “It’s not a problem.” “Are you sure?” Wen Yuan asks, brow furrowing. “If your sub-security picks up that Xian-gege doesn’t belong — ” “They won’t.” Wei Ying frowns. “Not for nothing, ge,” he says slowly, “but the last time we were in your dream together, I fell off a cliff.” Lan Zhan looks up and over at him. There is something in his eyes that Wei Ying can’t quite read: something fierce, and faraway. “I remember,” he says, voice quiet. “Do you?” - Wei Ying takes a dream heist job with an old friend. My Notes: God this is wonderful. We've got a full cast and some case/heist fic flavoured science fictional elements. I think it plays very nicely with a lot of the other cool mindlink stuff on this list.

world.runExecution by pip (moirail) - zhanchengxian - 30k IN PROGRESS Summary: What does it mean to be human, anyway? “Here we go,” Wei Ying mumbles, and Jiang Cheng doesn’t have the chance to ask what that means before Wei Ying’s squaring up his shoulders and moving in a way that cuts a swath through the crowd. My Notes: my group chat commissioned this for FTH in 2022 and it remains the love of my life. Pip you beautiful genius. CYBERPUNK I LOVE YOU.

i will be chasing a starlight by feyburner, sundiscus - wangxian - 71k Summary: “You know what?” Wei Ying said. “I think we should be friends.”

“Vulcans do not have friends,” said Lan Zhan. He was staring very determinedly at the screen in front of him.

Wei Ying frowned at him. “That can’t be right.” My Notes: I am so insanely crazy town about this fic. God there has not been a filler entry on this list YET! below the clouds, above the lakes by northofallmusic (tofsla) - wangxian - 22k UNFINISHED Summary: Wei Ying was not formally considered a Jiang until it became necessary for a Jiang to marry a Lan as a guarantee of alliance. Now, in the habitat dome which houses the palace known as the Cloud Recesses, he has to navigate a new role, a new marriage, and an unfamiliar tangle of political relationships and loyalties. My Notes: I remember LOVING the worldbuilding on this and really enjoying the space OP was playing in, I thought it was worth a read. Thank you so much to everyone who recommended fics!! It's coming to my attention that this list is going to get massive so I'll reblog as I read and update it 🚀

[sheiskindasweet]

What’s ur relation like with Christianity/going to church?

Somewhat complicated to be transparent. I have major issues with organized religion and recognize the hurt, brokenness, hypocrisy and bigotry that can occur "in the church". I have wrestled for years with the concept of organized religion and religiosity, and do not align with all the ways in which the Christian church/members operate.

That being said, I would identify myself as a "believer", or someone with faith. I have had periods of major doubt and utter rejection, but ultimately, I have found that those moments are largely underscored by the operation, approach and leadership of the Church as a formal organization/institution. All that being said, my faith is something that continues to underscore the way that I live, my morals and my outlook on life.

I have attended church on and off for most of my life and have personally experienced a lot of hurt and resentment towards "the church" based on my own experiences and the experiences of those close to me. That is partly why I say I have a complicated relationship with Christianity.

I am very thankful to have gotten out of my "bubble" and gone to a very "secular" liberal/socialist university; it really broadened my horizons and changed the way I view/understand the world and operate within it.

I am open to continuing to challenge views and perspectives and operate largely off the premise of love, acceptance, and comradery with all types of people from different backgrounds, walks of life, and religious affiliations.

I will continue to search, grow, challenge, question and seek answers

[onesunofagun]

This is probably a wildly unpopular thing to say, but I see chatter and takes concerning Hyrule and the Hylians and Hylia where the fandom dissects them as white European, or more often British coded. I've seen it be argued that this is because of surface level European (like Greco-Roman and Celtic) aesthetics are commonly used for them, though these are pretty shallow wrapping paper at best in game. Not that similarities can't be drawn! I'm saying this with all my Irish distaste for Britain! But it seems to be more of a symptom of ignorance or unfamiliarity with Japanese culture and history, and its own tilt at Imperialism.

Which I get! The average Western Fan's closest touchstone to Imperialism is likely Britain.

But Hyrule represents Japan. It's narrative is deeply rooted in Japanese Shinto beliefs regarding the relationship between man, nature and spirits-- including spiritual purity and impurity-- as derived from Buddhist concepts. Hylians are a fantasy race of elves who are Japanese coded, their Royal Family and Imperial structure and attitudes reflect a Japanese Nationalism that is deeply tied to Shinto. Hylia reflects aspects of the Goddess Amaterasu and her role as a progenitor of Emperors in Japanese myth.

I fully understand that many criticisms that apply also pertain to British Imperialism and their own Divine Hegemony, which is valid. But I think it's also falling short to critique and dissect the meta and intention behind this franchise without bothering to have the context of Japanese beliefs and history, and without bothering to really seek it out.

JP Imperialism formed as a response to the Western encroach and their subsequent focus on forced unification of the east in order to defend against it is deeply reflected in how Hyrule operates. The localisation of games like SkSw and TotK have wildly missed their mark in the impression that they give of certain concepts to especially the North American audience, and entire concepts and references to cultural beliefs and history (and what they might imply within game) are simply invisible to many who do not have that context to connect back to.

And I'm not trying to say that what anybody takes from the story they personally received isn't a valid impression based on their own experience with the games and media around them. There are many interpretations and themes that you can take away and play with.

But I don't think that saying Hylians are just white people coded or following Christianised themes or 'basically Britain' and calling it a day is quite good enough if you want to meaningfully and accurately discuss and dissect the narrative and intent of the Zelda franchise. Being able to critically read it with both external and Japanese context is really important in having the full conversation about what it reflects on real world history, religiosity and nuance.

[fortunatelychaoticphantom]

So, just to be clear, The Good Place is the greatest show in history, it is my heart, my soul, my everything. That said, after the bilionth rewatch, I need to talk about a couple of things:

1. Not a single person in the real Good Place should have been okay with the concept of the Bad Place from the beginning of time. The thing is that eternity, of any kind, is inherently cruel, and I was so happy that the show actually delt with it and acknowledged the problem of it, both as punishment and as a reward. But it makes no sense to me whatsoever that a person who is presumably good and caring would reach paradise and learn that there are people who will never ever reach it, and not immediately demand to talk to the manager or start a riot. In fact, even the people in the bad place wouldn't accept that. And not necessarily just about themselves! Knowing that people will suffer endlessly for the rest of time, regardless of their actions, is beyond horrific for the majority of people in the world, let alone ones who get into heaven. Even in the fake Good Place, there's no way that someone like Chiddi wouldn't be disturbed by it. You can say that Eleanor and Jason had other things to worry about, and that Tahani was too self centered at the beginning to care (though I don't think she was so self centered that she would become that cruel as to think that eternity of suffering is okay for anyone), but to know that your loved ones would never be there with you, that humans will suffer for the rest of time... I don't know how anyone could live with that. Or technically not-live with it, I guess. You know. Cause they're dead. Anyway, I know that we wouldn't have a show if this wasn't the case, but it still doesn't really make sense once you think about it.

2. Even if the humans in the existing system wouldn't revolt over the cruelty of infinity, I feel like the accountants should have. Technically speaking, within the existing system amazingly good people and generally good ones still went to the Bad Place because they had like 1,150,000 points instead of 1,200,000, and not to mention every other person with points between zero and the lower cut of the Good Place. The system makes no sense from its inception. Why on earth should a person with more than a million point literally burn in hell? Why would accountants be okay with this? To see so many green points go to hell? It's horrible.

3. Also, infinity doesn't apply only to humans - it is cruel and unfair that all non-humans in this world are immortal, and on top of that, forced into a job essentially from birth. They did touch it with Michael both changing his job and later becoming mortal, but it's such a shame that the possibility wasn't given to all non-humans. When your only options are forced labour (that you can't choose the type of) or brutal death ("retirement"), you are just as much of a prisoner of the system as the humans.

4. Why exactly is there a system? I know it is irrelevant within the frame of the show, but I am genuinely curious in the philosophical aspect of this, especially since the system in the show is explicitly detached from any religion, religiosity and divinity. Why are humans judged at all? Why only humans? What right or authority do the non-humans have to operate this system and judge humans in the first place? Does this imply a higher being does exist? Or is the universe just really into burocracy, randomly placing atoms in the shape of accountants and fire monsters?

4. Doug Forcett shouldn't have had any points at all. His motivation was just as curupt as Tahani's, and so it didn't matter how much good he did.

5. Funny enough, through the experiment Michael actually found a more moral and fair way to torture people, regardless of how it revealed the flaws in the system. This goes back to the fact that a lot of good people and just normal average people filled the Bad Place. It was established that the Bad Place workers truly believe in justice. They don't do their job because they're evil, they do it because it's their part in keeping the universe balanced. But I can't believe that a demon looks at essentially a good person's file and says "yeah they deserve to get their intestines pulled out of their ass for the rest of eternity". If the revolt wouldn't start from the humans or the accountans (or angles for that matter), it should have started with the demons, who actually deal with the consequences of the flaws in the system every day. Michael's solution is what the Bad Place should have been from the beginning - a tailored torture that fits the crimes of the individual human. Finding out that they're in the Bad Place didn't actually harm the torture at all, it's a form of torture all of its own and should have been incorporated into the new technique (which, technically, it was in the end, when it became the new system). Beyond that, it's just a question of the length of the punishment, which brings us full circle to the first point.

Still the best show ever.

[dailyanarchistposts]

The New Pacifism

The new pacifism is not really all that new. It is little more than an eclectic mixture of ideas and techniques borrowed from its various predecessors. From the old pacifism comes the flat refusal to fight; from the old anti-militarism comes the determination to resist war; and from Gandhi comes the use of mass non- violent direct action. There are other borrowings. From socialism comes the optimistic view of the future; from liberalism comes the idealistic view of the present; from anarchism comes the disrespect for authority. But the new pacifism is selective. It rejects the sentimentality of the old pacifists, the vagueness of the anti-militarists, the religiosity of Gandhi, the authoritarianism of the socialists, the respectability of the liberals, the intolerance of the anarchists.

The basis of the new pacifism is unilateralism, the demand that this country should offer a sort of national satyagraha to the world. “Someone has to arise in England with the living faith to say that England, whatever happens, shall not use arms,” said Gandhi before the last war; but “that will be a miracle.” Miracle or not, that is what has happened. The new opposition to war derives from opposition to nuclear war, to the Bomb rather than to bombs, and not from opposition to all violence. At first this looks like a retreat, but on second thoughts it is possible to see that it can actually be an advance. The progression used to be from the lesser violence to the greater; now it is the other way round, and instead of justifying war because violence is sometimes necessary we are now learning to condemn violence because its use in war is always useless. Few people start by accepting total non-violence; quite a lot can start by rejecting nuclear war. Thus many new pacifists refuse to take the name of “pacifist”, partly because pacifism has a bad image (see George Orwell) and partly because they aren’t like the old pacifists. The old pacifism tended to be simpleminded and tender-minded; the new pacifism tends to be tough-minded and bloody-minded.

And yet the new pacifism grew straight from the old. The British unilateralist movement sprang not from the formation of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in January 1958 nor even from that of its parent, the National Council for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapon Tests, in February 1957. It was really brought to fife by Harold Steele’s proposal to enter the Christmas Island test-area early in 1957, which led to the formation of an Emergency Committee for Direct Action against Nuclear War, and which followed years of grinding work by dedicated pacifists. The CND leaders like to take a lot of credit for their success during the last four years, but it was made possible only because the ground had been prepared for so long. The beginning of pacifist unilateralism was right back in 1949, when some people in the PPU formed a Non- Violent Commission; two years later some members of this group formed “Operation Gandhi”, and on 11 January, 1952, eleven pacifists in “Operation Gandhi” sat down outside the War Office and were fined 30s. apiece. So the first London sit-down wasn’t the one led by Bertrand Russell and Michael Scott on 18 February, 1961, or even the spontaneous one in Downing Street after the launching meeting of CND on 17 February, 1958, but was one carried out more than ten years ago by seven women and four men and probably forgotten by nearly everyone except themselves. The same is true of the later activities of “Operation Gandhi”— or the Non-violent Resistance Group, as it became. Who now remembers the demonstrations at Aldermaston (yes, Aldcrmaston) in April 1952, at Porton in March 1953, at Harwell in April 1953, and at Woolwich in July 1954? Who remembers the sit-down by two women at Msldenhall US base in July 1952? Who remembers any unilateralist demonstration before the march to Aldermaston at Easter 1958? Ask anyone when the unilateralist movement began and who began it, ask for the dates of the first examples of illegal action against the Bomb, and you wiH find that the answers are connected to some big name or other, to the adherence of a reputable person or body to an otherwise disreputable movement.

What happened to British unilateralism to make it seem respectable, non-pacifist, so that for four years there has been a sort of conspiracy to avoid admitting just how unrespectable and pacifist it really is? The turning-point was the announcement of British nuclear tests at the beginning of 1957, just after Suez, which caused not only the emergence of Harold Steele, an old member of the No Conscription Fellowship, but to the feeling by many thoroughly respective and orthodox people that things had gone too far. So we had Stephen King-Hall’s conversion to non-violent resistance (“breaking through the thoughtbarrier”, as he put it) and the growing feeling by the Labour Left that a unilateralist campaign was necessary. So we also had the National

Council in February 1957 and CND a year later. Understand that CND has never been a pacifist body; it has indeed tended to fall into a sentimentalism as dangerous as the old pacifist sentimentalism — hoping to get rid of the British Bomb without changing anything else, so it is all right to kill people as long as you don’t kill too many at once. Nevertheless CND has served a most useful service— for pacifism, despite itself, because it has built up mass support for protest action against not only the Bomb but all bombs; and for anarchism too, even more despite itself, because it has also built up mass support for protest action against the State that makes the Bomb and the whole social system that maintains the State, what Landauer called the topia. Thus the rank and file of CND have been consistently and increasingly more militant than the leadership; CND began as a pressure-group to make the Labour Party unilateralist, but it became an unwilling vanguard of Utopia, the nucleus of Alex Comfort’s maquis of the peace.

A more important unilateralist body was the successor of the NonViolent Resistance Group and the Emergency Committee for Direct Action— the Direct Action Committee against Nuclear War, which was formed in November 1957, and whose great contribution to the new pacifism is that it put illegal non-violent direct action on the British political map. The first Aldermaston march was planned by a D AC sub-committee as a direct action operation, but it was more or less taken over by CND— along with Gerald Holtom’s “nuclear disarmament” symbol, which was designed for the march and later became the universal unilateralist badge. (It is significant that CND turned the Aldermaston march back to front after 1958, so that it became a march from instead of to the research establishment— as if to symbolise the retreat of conventional unilateralists from unorthodox direct action back into orthodox demonstration and publicity— and took on the appearance of some kind of annual spring festival always ending with a bump at the dull meeting in Trafalgar Square.) This was something of a setback, but DAC was not deflected from its chosen course. First there was the almost forgotten sit-down at Aldermaston in September 1958, and then the famous sit-downs at North Pickenham in December 1958, at Harrington in January 1960, at Finningley in July 1960, and at the Holy Loch in May 1961, which— together with the two at Foulness in April and May 1960 (which were organised by Southend CND)— have rightly become a vital part of the unilateralist mythology. We should also remember the attempts to enter the Sahara test-area at the end of 1959 and the beginning of 1960, the CND demonstration at Selby in July 1959, the invasion of the lost village of Imber in January 1961, and the guerrilla activity of the Polaris Action jranc-tireurs last spring and summer. There was never non-violent action like this before in Britain. The Chartists, Suffragettes and Hunger Marchers organised all kinds of spectacular demonstrations, and the Aldermaston marches were getting bigger and bigger every year, but DAC was doing something quite unique — they were getting people used to the idea of not only thinking for themselves and demonstrating for themselves, but taking action for themselves and inviting punishment for themselves as well. In 1917 the leaders of the Champaran indigo-workers said to Gandhi: “The idea of accommodating oneself to imprisonment is a novel thing for us. We will try to assimilate it.” This is what we might have said forty years later to Michael Scott (who had taken part in satyagraha in South Africa ten years earlier) and to Michael Randle and Pat Arrowsmith and April Carter, and they did their best to show us how — they were the real maquis.

Not that their methods were strictly Gandhian. There were many traditional Indian techniques of non-violent resistance for him to use, as well as the universal ones of the strike and non-co-operation— the exodus (deshatyaga\ the trade-strike (hartal), the fast unto death iprayopaveshanaX the sit-down (dharna), and civil disobedience (ajnabhanga), Gandhi himself preferred civil disobedience and the tradestrike, and he preferred not to break the law until it became necessary. He always thought the sit-down was a barbaric technique, as bad as sabotage, and condemned it even though many of his followers used it (notably in Bombay in 1930). But it has of course become the chief technique of unilateralists who favour illegal action, whether it is used for direct action (against military sites) or for civil disobedience (at significant places in large towns). There are other points of difference —Gandhi used to insist on absolute obedience to his orders during a satyagraha operation (though he never tried to impose himself: it was more like the old Roman dictatorships than anything else), and on a very high degree of training and discipline; arrested satyagrahis used to co-operate with the police as soon as they were arrested (but we should remember that thousands of them were beaten unconcious before they were arrested in the 1930 salt-pan raids, for example); and there seems to have been much more shouting and scuffling than we are used to. Above all, Gandhi proclaimed that he loved his opponents— few unilateralists could claim as much, and Russell is clearly no satyagrahi by Gandhian standards! But in the important things the unilateralists have followed Gandhi pretty closely, especially in the insistance on non-violence, self-sacrifice, openness and truth, though they could do with rather more of his self-criticism and self-discipline.

The direct action sit-down was naturally the technique favoured by DAC, and its members were a little self-righteous about the superiority of their methods over anything else. Their self-sacrifice extended even to matters like choosing the most unfavourable possible time of the year or place in the countryside for their demonstrations, and this was something of a defect, since their impact was inevitably softened by the very small numbers they attracted. They were more important than CND in the long run, but instead of sneering at the CND leaders’ obsession with numbers they might have tried to see just why thousands of people would march from Aldermaston while barely a hundred would sit-down at any missile site. It would be disastrous for the unilateralist movement to calculate its success entirely in terms of the numbers of people who take part in or get arrested at illegal demonstrations, but numbers are significant all the same. It isn’t irrelevant to point out that there were less than fifty arrests at North Pickenham, less than ninety at Harrington, less than forty at Foulness, and less than thirty at Finningley— that the DAC demonstrations were very small, and the Committee of 100 demonstrations which came after them were relatively very large.

The Committee of 100 was formed in October 1960 as an act of dissatisfaction with both CND (which was too moderate) and DAC (which was too puritanical), and as a gesture of no-confidence in orthodox political action — this was the very month of the Scarborough vote! It was headed by Bertrand Russell and Michael Scott, the cleverest and the best man in the country, one representing the anti-militarist tradition, the other representing the pacifist tradition, one representing humanist thought, the other representing religious thought. But its inspiration was anarchist, both conscious and unconscious, and the effect of its activities since it was formed has been to give British anarchism a bigger push forward than anything else that has happened since the last War. The Committee has tried to use the sit-down technique both for civil disobedience and for direct action; so far it has only succeeded with the former, since people are still shy of direct action, and Very Important People (who make up a good proportion of the Committee’s official membership) are shyer than most. The idea is that either civil disobedience or direct action on a large enough scale come to the same thing, a sort of non-violent insurrection* though there have been powerful forces in the Committee from the start trying to pull it one way or the other. But last year’s three big sit-downs in central London (February 18th, April 29th, September 17th), the provincial sit-downs (December 9th), the Embassy sit-downs (American, April 3rd and September 6th; Russian, August 31st and October 21st), the Holy Loch sit-down on September 16th and the Ruislip and Wethersfield sit-downs on December 9th, are all part of the same campaign and differ from each other, in intention at least, only in tactical details. In practice it has become clear that the most successful ones, in terms of efficiency and discipline, are the sudden small ones which are organised without much notice, while the most successful ones, in terms of propaganda and effect, are the big ones which are organised weeks ahead, and which take place in central London.

Now it is regrettable, of course, that many people who are prepared to break the law in the middle of the metropolis are not yet prepared to do so at military sites in suburbs or out in the countryside, but there it is — it is very human, and we are dealing with human beings, not saints. It is one of our first principles that we are all free individuals and can make up our own minds and follow our own consciences. So it is nothing more than common sense to get people used to breaking the law where they are most willing to do so before moving them on into direct action when they feel more sure of themselves. (This is what Gandhi would have done in our place, for he was nothing if not shrewd. And just as people are being trained to take action in the right way, they are also being trained to take action at the right time.

We have already seen how the root fallacy of the old pacifists and antimilitarists alike was that they spent all their effort in making plans for a general strike and were then reduced to individual protest — they played with models of direct action in their heads. The new pacifists and antimilitarists began with the individual protest and use their effort to work up by stages to the general strike — they are playing with models of direct action in the city streets and the country lanes. We are learning a new language, as it were, by the direct method, which is far more effective than studying books of grammar; we can’t speak perfectly yet, but at least we have begun to speak.

Not that our direct action is real direct action yet. Even DAC never managed to achieve a genuine direct action demonstration; the nearest they came was in the first attack on North Pickenham, and the result was that they were attacked not only by the servicemen and police but by the civilian labourers working on the site. After all, real direct action can only be taken by people in their own homes and places of work; the only people who can take real direct action at military sites, until we can raise 100,000 people to surround one, are the people who work at military sites. Direct action is in fact almost unknown in British politics, and it is desperately difficult to open most people’s minds to it at all. But, as Gandhi said, “never has anything been done on this earth without direct action.” Somehow the Committee of 100 has to increase its numbers and eventually get them out to the sites, and this is punishing work.

This applies in other areas of political life too. Gandhi’s successors in South Africa and North America are fighting racial oppression as he did — indeed he once suggested that “it may be through the negroes that the unadulterated message of non-violence will be delivered to the world”— and there is room for direct action against the small amount of racial oppression we already have in this country. It is also possible to see a valid extension of the same technique into areas like housing, poverty, bureaucracy, subtopia, and so on. But above all the use of non-violent direct action can become an instrument of the unofficial Labour Movement, or at least that part of it which is still immune to Marx’s “incurable disease of parliamentary cretinism” (recently renamed “Labourism” by Ralph Miliband). The Committee of 100 formed an industrial sub-committee last October and maintains a loose alliance with the syndicalist movement in general. As Michael Randle said to a hostile journalist, “It is quite legitimate for people who come from a background of industrial struggle to see there is a relation between what we have been saying about nuclear disarmament and what they are saying about society in general.” So far the purpose of the alliance has been to mobilise the Labour Movement against the Bomb. Energy should also be flowing in the other direction, to mobilise the unilateralists against the State and against all the imperfections in our society — but not to pour the wine of the new pacifism into some old bottle or other, such as parliamentary by-elections or the Labour Party or the New Left. The unilateralists have stimulated the Left; let’s hope there is some feed-back so that the unilateralists are stimulated by the Left as well. Gandhi always insisted that every satyagraha operation should be accompanied by a “constructive programme”. At first it is difficult to see how unilateralists can have one (though I suspect that Gandhi would have told us to join Civil Defence en masse!), but a little thought shows that since our satyagraha or duragraha is directed against the Warfare State our constructive programme should be to replace it.

This isn’t such a new idea. All left-wing anti-militarists wanted the social revolution to follow the general strike against war, and though most pacifists wanted nothing of the kind there were always some, like Tolstoy, who wanted nothing better. Bart de Ligt said at the end of his mobilisation plan that “the collective opposition to war should be converted into the social revolution”, and elsewhere [10] he stated the law The more violence, the less revolution, and called for a non-violent “revolutionary anti-militarism”. Wilhelm Liebknecht had already said that “violence has been a reactionary force for thousands of years,” and Gustav Landauer had already said that “socialists are romantics who invariably and inevitably use their enemies* methods.” When Marx said that “violence is the midwife of a new order” and Bakunin said, that “every step forward in history has been achieved only when it has been baptised in blood,” they were being irresponsive and irresponsible; when Emma Goldman said that “the most pernicious idea is that the end justifies the means” and Simone Weil said that “the revolutionary war is the revolutionary grave”, they were being responsive and responsible. Violence in human history has brought us to the concentration camp and the Bomb; perhaps we can now learn to take Aldous Huxley’s simple and superficially rather sentimental statement that “violence makes men worse: non-violence makes them better” quite seriously at last. And when Richard Gregg says “although it is not a panacea non-violent resistance is an effective social instrument whereby we may remound the world,” and when Joan Bondurant says it is “the solution to the problem of method which anarchism has consistently failed to solve,” we will begin to listen with attention. How much better is “propaganda by deed” when it is against bombs instead of with them.

What is our task? It is to increase and extend our resistance to the Bomb and all bombs, to war and to the Warfare State, to our State and to all States, by direct action and by civil disobedience and by education and by mutual aid. Cobbett used to call what he hated “the Thing”, but the State isn’t all —Landauer said : “The State is a condition, a certain relationship between people, a way of human behaviour; and we destroy it when we contract different relationships and behave in a different way.” Nor is revolution a thing either — Gandhi said : “A non- violent revolution is not a programme of ‘seizure of power’; it is a programme of transformation of relationships.” The Committee of 100 has perpetrated its Pennine miscalculations and often made a fool of itself; but at the moment it is the most active agent in the destruction of the State, in the improvement of public relationships, in Trotsky’s “permanent revolution”, Zamyatin’s “infinite revolution” Landauer’s plain “revolution” [11] — “the period between the end of one topia and the beginning of the next”, in the present modern British Utopia. The Left, which sucks its life from Utopia, should be helping the Committee in its work; every section and sect should be forgetting its sectarian King Karl’s Head and giving all it can to the unilateralist movement— instead of sniping at the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Committee of 100 from all sides (even from the anarchist side which should know better). The unilateralist movement is an existentialist movement, drawing its being from its action, and in the last few years it has done more good than all the left-wing periodicals have done since the War. There is plenty to discuss without being rude to one another.[12]

We may not succeed— but at last we have started something, you and me and all of them. At last we are learning how to take direct action, even if at the moment it only involves “sitting in puddles as a symbolic gesture— of our own impotence.” At last the intelligentsia has found a cause that doesn’t involve being somewhere else when the trigger is pulled, as George Orwell put it. And at last we are beginning to see the possibility of the situation envisaged years ago by Alex Comfort, “when enough people respond to the invitation to die, not with a salute but a smack in the mouth, and the mention of war empties the factories and fills the streets.” We are far from this situation, but I still hope, remembering Gandhi’s observation that “A society organised and run on the basis of complete non-violence would be the purest anarchy.” I don’t know what our chances are. I only know what I myself am going to do.

[10]

[11]

[1] The State (1918), posthumously published in Untimely Essays (1919V reprinted separately by the American “Resistance Press” (1946–47)- never published in this country.

[2] See Margaret Hirst: The Quakers in Peace & War (1923).

[3] See Denis Hayes: Conscription Conflict (1949), which goes up to 1939 and its sequel Conscription & Conscience (1949).

[4] The Moral Equivalent of War, leaflet 27 of the American “Association for Internationa Conciliation” (1910); posthumously published in Memories & Studies (1911); reprinted separately by the PPU (1943).

[5] The Political Equivalent of War, in the Atlantic Monthly (August 1928).

[6] Le Discours de la Servitude Volontaire, ou Le Contr’un, written by La Boetie when he was 16 (1546–47) according to his close friend Montaigne; several pirated editions were posthumously published in France in the 1570s; there is a good English translation called The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude (1735) and a bad American one called Anti-Dictator (1942).

[7] Written immediately after the Massacre of Peterloo in August 1819 but first published posthumously in 1832.

[8] Published asan Appendix to de Ligt’s The Conquest of Violence”; reprinted separately by the PPU (1939).

[9] The best books on Gandhi’s political ideas and activities are Clarence Case’s Non-VioIent Coercion (1923); the first edition of Richard Gregg: The Power of Non-Violence (1934); and Joan Bondurant: Conquest of Violence (1958), which should not be confused with Bart de Ligt’s book of a similar name.

[12] The Conquest of Violence (1937), a translation of Pour Vaincre sans U Violence. No English translation seems to have been published of the same author’s monumental La Paix Creatrice (1934). Die Revolution (1907) has never been published in this country. There is a very useful list of relevant ideas, books and articles in Anthony Weaver: Schools for Non-Violence (1961)— a pamphlet published by the Committee of 100.

[daniela--anna]

https://www.instagram.com/p/C_nvHtqoPzx/?igsh=MTZzMW53dzUxM3AwbQ==

Gli AZULEJOS PORTOGHESI sono piastrelle di ceramica smaltata, caratterizzate da decorazioni intricate e colori vivaci, utilizzate per abbellire edifici e spazi pubblici in Portogallo sin dal XVI secolo.

La parola "azulejo" deriva dall'arabo "al-zulayj," che significa "pietra lucidata," riflettendo le origini moresche di questa forma d'arte, introdotta durante l'occupazione islamica della penisola iberica.

Inizialmente ispirati ai motivi geometrici moreschi, gli azulejos portoghesi si sono evoluti nel tempo, incorporando elementi rinascimentali, barocchi e rococò. Durante il XVII e XVIII secolo, il Portogallo sviluppò uno stile unico, caratterizzato principalmente dal colore blu e bianco, che evocava l'estetica della porcellana cinese, molto in voga all'epoca.

Questi azulejos adornavano chiese, palazzi e persino abitazioni comuni, trasformando le città portoghesi in vere e proprie gallerie d'arte all'aperto.

Gli azulejos non erano solo decorativi, ma anche narrativi. Spesso raffiguravano scene religiose, storiche o mitologiche, raccontando storie visive accessibili a tutti. Un esempio famoso è il Convento di Madre de Deus a Lisbona, che ospita un magnifico museo dedicato a questa forma d'arte, con opere che spaziano dal gotico al contemporaneo.

Il loro ruolo non si limitava all'ornamento; gli azulejos venivano usati anche per isolare termicamente gli edifici e proteggerli dall'umidità. Ancora oggi, passeggiando per città come Lisbona o Porto, è possibile ammirare facciate di case, stazioni ferroviarie e chiese rivestite di azulejos, testimonianza di una tradizione che continua a essere parte integrante dell'identità culturale portoghese. Questi pannelli di ceramica raccontano la storia del paese, unendo l'arte alla vita quotidiana in modo unico.

📚 Dal portale "Giubbe Rosse".

[aki1975]

Andrea Pozzo - Roma Sant’Ignazio di Loyola - Apoteosi di Sant’Ignazio - 1694

I conflitti religiosi che nel Cinquecento avevano visto una composizione con la Pace di Augusta in cui Carlo V aveva accettato il principio del “cuius regio eius religio” sfociano nel Seicento in due tendenze contrapposte:

- le meraviglie del Barocco e le opere della Controriforma cattolica;

- l’ampio scenario della Guerra dei Trent’Anni.

La Guerra dei Trent’Anni può essere riassunta lungo queste tappe:

- 1594 - Enrico IV Borbone, convertendosi al Cattolicesimo, Re di Francia

- 1598 - Morte di Filippo II

- 1603 - Morte di Elisabetta I

- 1618 - i rappresentanti dell’imperatore cattolico Ferdinando II d’Asburgo, che cerca di creare uno stato moderno, vengono defenestrati dai protestanti boemi

- 1620 - Sacro Macello dei protestanti in Valtellina

- 1624 - Richelieu Primo Ministro

- 1628 - il generale boemo Wallenstein, al servizio degli Asburgo, sconfigge l’esercito danese

- 1631 - il candidato francese al Ducato di Mantova e del Monferrato Carlo I Gonzaga - Nevers prevale, anche grazie all’abilità diplomatica di Mazzarino, sul candidato sostenuto dagli Asburgo di Spagna e dai Savoia dopo la guerra del Monferrato in cui dilaga la peste raccontata nei Promessi Sposi. Nello stesso anno l’Impero saccheggia Magdeburgo, città alleata degli Svedesi

- 1642 - Mazzarino succede a Richelieu

- 1643 - i Francesi, guidate dal Duca d’Enghien (poi Principe di Condè) sconfiggono gli Spagnoli a Rocroi. Luigi XIV Borbone Re di Francia

- 1648 - Pace di Westfalia. Fine del conflitto in cui si profila la leadership francese sull’Europa: gli Asburgo si concentrano sui possedimenti propri (Austria e Ungheria) anziché sull’Impero;

- 1649 - Carlo I Stuart decapitato in Inghilterra

Il Seicento, secolo in Italia di decadenza politica ed economica, è però anche il secolo di Carlo e Federico Borromeo e del Barocco ispirato dalla Controriforma i cui eventi principali sono:

- 1534 - Alessandro Farnese, fratello di Giulia, amante di Alessandro VI Borgia, eletto Papa Paolo III. Approvazione della Compagnia di Gesù

- 1542 - Paolo III istituisce l’Inquisizione

- 1545 - Concilio di Trento: accentramento del potere papale, importanza delle opere e non solo della grazia, formazione del clero, impegno pastorale

- 1566 - Michele Ghislieri eletto Papa Pio V, il Papa che raccoglie la Lega che vince a Lepanto nel 1571

- 1572 - Il bolognese Ugo Boncompagni eletto Papa Gregorio XIII, promotore non solo del calendario gregoriano, ma anche di importanti iniziative religiose, pastorali e culturali. Nel 1580 viene inaugurato il Quirinale

- 1589 - Fontana del Mosè sotto il pontificato di Sisto V che fa erigere obelischi e migliorare il tessuto urbanistico dell’Urbe: è il modello della “Ecclesia triumphans” dopo il contrasto alle eresie dei decenni precedenti

- 1592 - Clemente VIII Aldobrandini Papa

- 1600 - Cappella Contarelli a San Luigi dei Francesi (Caravaggio). Giordano Bruno al rogo a Campo dei Fiori, decapitata Beatrice Cenci

- 1605 - Camillo Borghese eletto Papa Paolo V. Cappella Cerasi in Santa Maria del Popolo (Caravaggio)

- 1612 - Carlo Maderno inaugura la nuova facciata di San Pietro

- 1623 - Maffeo Barberini eletto Papa Urbano VIII

- 1626 - Baldacchino di San Pietro (Bernini)

- 1633 - Abiura di Galileo

- 1651 - grazie alla mediazione di Olimpia Maidalchini, Innocenzo X Pamphili affida al Bernini la Fontana dei Fiumi che completa Piazza Navona

- 1652 - Estasi di Santa Teresa a Santa Maria della Vittoria (Bernini)

- 1655 - Fabio Chigi eletto Papa Alessandro VII

- 1657 - Colonnato di San Pietro (Bernini)

- 1660 - Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza (Borromini)

- 1667 - Oratorio dei Filippini (Borromini), Santa Maria della Pace (Pietro da Cortona)

Terminato lo slancio mecenatistico dei pontefici, l’Apoteosi di Sant’Ignazio con la finta cupola commissionata ad Andrea Pozzo dai Gesuiti segna nel 1694 la fine del Barocco a Roma.

[transmutationisms]

I just discovered your Succession analysis posts, and I LOVE your vampire and gothic connections. I literally thought I was insane for getting gothic vibes from Succession. Anyway, you vampire posts remind me of this Voltaire quote: " I confess that in both these cities there were stock-jobbers, brokers, and men of business, who sucked the blood of the people in broad daylight; but they were not dead, though corrupted. These true suckers lived not in cemeteries, but in very agreeable palaces. "

yeah! from the dictionnaire philosophique, right? vampires were all the rage in france in the early eighteenth century, largely fuelled by some reports coming in of them from eastern europe. so i think in the full quote here, voltaire is saying that this is a superstition endemic to the backwards east, whereas he has never encountered vampire myths in paris or london---capitals of the 'enlightenment'---yet the true bloodsucking is actually done by the well-heeled in these cities. marx (among others) later picked up on the metaphor of bourgeoisie as vampires, though by his formulation in das kapital, he had completed the theoretical move of describing the bourgeoisie as nothing more than a personification of capital, and thus described capital itself as vampiric: a dead thing with an insatiable appetite. for marx the metaphor was less moralised and more a way of capturing capital's dialectical transmutation from money to commodity to money again, and from agent to patient to agent of the whole political economy.

anyway this is one of the more reactionary elements of bram stoker's dracula. for stoker, dracula is an anachronism, even an atavism: old nobility, nostalgic about the warfare of bygone days, unable to blend into the bustle of modern england (this latter is also a function of stoker's orientalist view of eastern europe). dracula's appetite for literal blood is also a holdover from a 'pre-industrial' era; he's a creature out of time. this is why vampirism continually confounds the logic of the doctor and the psychiatrist; the only one who understands dracula is van helsing, who’s “a philosopher” (read: doctor in a pre-19th century sense: pre-specialisation, pre-clinical gaze; a man of metaphysics and natural philosophy whose knowledge of the human body is explicitly linked to religiosity). so we have a critique of wealthy people (voltaire) and later the modern value-form of capital itself (marx) as sucking life from the living... and stoker flips that and uses the vampire archetype to implicate only the ancient aristocracy and eastern europeans. quite funny, if irritating.

i think more people could do with reading succession as a gothic, honestly, and when i joined succblr i was surprised that wasn't a more common view. in addition to logan's body as a gothic monster, waystar itself is kind of a looming vampire entity, feeding off the inherent dysfunction of capitalist politics and operating on the logic of legacy media in a digital world. kendall and roman in particular can both function as gothic heroine figures: overwrought emotion, constantly distressed. all of the roy kids are menaced by their father; i've also used the cannibalism metaphor to describe the predation on one generation by its progenitor, but of course this idea of the old consuming the new is also common in gothics. you could even see the glass-and-steel waystar offices as a kind of castle for the 21st century. certainly logan and waystar have the insatiable appetite for expansion that characterises capital and the vampire. this is all a hugely underrated aspect of the show imo!

[thegianpieromennitipolis]

Da: SGUARDI SULL'ARTE LIBRO TERZO - di Gianpiero Menniti

IL BAROCCO PRIMA DI BERNINI

Leggere la storia dell'arte seguendo pedissequamente le categorie inventate per confinare gli stili e le poetiche, non è una prassi che mi abbia mai convinto. Così, anche la stretta relazione tra un artista e un'epoca, mi è sempre parso un epifenomeno retorico o, peggio, una soluzione sbrigativa. In realtà, il gusto dei "pubblici", le scelte stilistiche, l'impulso dei committenti e le scuole di pensiero, le tendenze filosofiche e religiose, il clima di un'epoca e gli avvenimenti, rappresentano il crogiolo nel quale si sciolgono materie dotate di variegate temperature di fusione e di necessari tempi diversi: creare un amalgama non è un progetto possibile ma solo eventuale, accidentale, imprevedibile. A posteriori, tutto si tiene. Ma è un artificio esegetico: non può essere accettato ed è tollerabile a patto di riconoscere la necessità dell'approfondimento, del dubbio, dello sguardo indagatore. Senza questa consapevolezza, nei passaggi d'epoca si nasconde l'analisi grottesca che non spiega e sorvola. Un esempio, tra i molti, riguarda il Barocco e il ruolo di protagonista assoluto attribuito a Gian Lorenzo Bernini, che fu insigne, ma non l'unico. Basterà considerare una delle opere di Francesco Mochi (1580 - 1654) per sorprendere lo spettatore: "L'annunciazione" conservata nel Duomo di Orvieto. Realizzata tra il 1603 e il 1608, il gruppo scultoreo è animato da un dinamismo che correla, a distanza, l'angelo nell'atto improvviso dell'avvento al cospetto di Maria e la reazione istintiva della Vergine che compie una torsione sollevandosi dalla sedia. In quest'intuizione figurativa appare, con la medesima folgorazione, il segno di un tempo compresso all'estremo: epoche intere ridotte in un attimo. E' già barocco. Ma nessuno in quel momento lo sapeva. E' già barocco. Ma è solo arte che chiede udienza. E' già barocco. Ma è già oltre.

In copertina: Maria Casalanguida, "Bottiglie e cubetto", 1975, collezione privata

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"After work at the [Lingan] mine resumed in February, fifteen men were dismissed “on account of their connection with the [union] lodge.” Members of Coping Stone met with Donald Lynk [mine manager] and requested that they be allowed to share work with their unemployed brothers. Lynk rebuffed them. A document among Henry Mitchell’s papers, addressed to Lynk and dated 1 March, presents the miners’ demands. The first was for work to be shared with unemployed lodge members. The second demand was that those who departed from the lodge “must be put from their work as they have been the Instigators of much trouble.” The document concludes: “Without Complying with the above wishes, there will be a suspension of work on the 8th of March 1882.” The strike would begin then.

The designation “McLynk” for Donald Lynk in a letter from Lingan published in the Trades Journal seemed to hint at a perception of the manager’s network of allies as Highland relations. Michael McIntyre was expelled from Coping Stone Lodge for “misconduct” but, as a correspondent from Lingan reported, “found a refuge in Donald[’]s arms.” Though Lynk had apparently forbidden the raising of pigs in the mining village, McIntyre was allowed to use a company house as a pig pen, while houses were in demand among union miners. Lynk was also regularly called “Donald Pasha” in the pages of the Trades Journal – another ethnic other, decidedly beyond the pale of British civilization. By the end of March, Lynk had reportedly sent letters “into the country offering heavy inducements to come and work.” The Trades Journal continued:

Two men came along, but seeing how matters stood they went over to Little Glace Bay. Thereafter, other three came who had worked in Lingan last summer. On going to see D.L., he told them to go to work and he would protect them. He asked one of them to go back home and endeavor to induce more men to come, and promising to give him $4.00 if he secured a pair of men, or $20.00 if he secured two pairs.

Lynk’s strategy achieved limited success. The previous summer, R. H. Brown spearheaded the formation of the Cape Breton Colliery Association (CBCA) to unify the coal operators against the Provincial Workmen’s Association [PWA]. But Lingan miners nonetheless found employment at Little Glace Bay, in defiance of CBCA efforts. The secretary of the CBCA wrote to the Glace Bay Mining Company to protest its employment of “Lingan men.” James R. Lithgow, a company director, considered the CBCA’s request “a piece of gross impertinence.” Lynk and the General Mining Association (GMA) were also looking elsewhere to recruit labour. At Lingan, Presbyterian service was delivered by the Reverend John Murray, of Sydney’s Falmouth Street Church, in “one end” of a GMA house. At neighbouring Low Point, Lynk provided use of “a whole Company house” to Murray and local Presbyterians. Lynk’s life membership in the British American Book and Tract Society is suggestive of his religiosity and connections to Presbyterianism. He certainly had an ally in Rev. Murray, who would travel to Scotland to accompany miners recruited there by the GMA to work at Lingan. Given the Catholic majority in the Lingan area, Murray’s initiative likely acquired sectarian meaning. But the GMA’s London board were the ones truly initiating these moves. GMA director Richard Brown wrote to his son and mine manager at Sydney Mines, R. H. Brown, in early April. He explained that C. G. Swann, the GMA’s secretary, “is sending out 40 Colliers for you. I hope they will turn out well. You must keep them out of the Union.”

Robert Drummond [main PWA organizer] was also in Scotland at the time. He happened to be aboard the Canadian with Murray and the recruited miners as it travelled across the Atlantic to Halifax. Drummond engaged in conversations with the miners for several days before Murray realized what was going on. Upon arrival in Halifax on 4 May, Drummond telegraphed news that the Scottish miners had left for Sydney and Lingan on the Alpha.

Numbering more than 30 miners and over 60 people in all, as several miners travelled with families, they were mostly from the mining county of Lanarkshire, plus a few from Fife. When they arrived at Lingan on 6 May, they were met by the members of several PMA lodges as well as by Lynk, R. H. Brown, and fourteen constables called in to protect them. Protection was unnecessary. The imported miners joined the union. Upon hearing the news, Richard Brown lamented the behaviour of “those scoundrels of Colliers from Scotland,” claiming never before to have witnessed “more dishonest or more disgraceful conduct on the part of workmen.” R. H. Brown had sent an urgent telegraph to James A. Moren, president of the Glace Bay Mining Company, in Halifax:

Thirty seven Scotch miners who our company have imported at much expense have joined Union and refuse to work for us. I request that you order your manager Glace Bay refuse employ them.

The company again defied Brown and the GMA. “Mr. Brown will get no comfort from us,” declared Archbold, who offered instruction to Mitchell on 9 May: “If you want men take them.” The Trades Journal reported just over a week later that the miners had left for “Little Glace Bay where they all received employment.” Mitchell complained that the move had made him a “black sheep” among the coal operators. The Glace Bay Mining Company’s defiance of the GMA and CBCA was powerful. In fact, the company had directly aligned itself with the PWA, and its directors had intervened to ensure that the Nova Scotia Legislative Council assented to the PWA’s incorporation. In January, the company had rejected the CBCA’s offer to enter into an arrangement with the CBCA collieries, whereby 50 cents per ton was to be pooled on coal sales and redistributed among the members on the basis of 1881 sales. The arrangement was clearly designed to subsidize the GMA’s fight against the PWA. Lithgow explained to Mitchell in early May, “we have made our choice + have chosen the P.W.A. rather than the C.B.C.A.” Lithgow not only considered the PWA “a first rate institution” that “was necessary to get justice for workingmen”; he also noted that without the PWA’s aid, the company would have been unable to ship tens of thousands of tons of coal to the Montréal market, “for we would have been afraid of not getting men to give steamers dispatch.” When the company hired steamships on time charters to deliver large quantities of coal to Montréal buyers, rigorous and steady operation of the mines was necessary to fulfill contracts and to avoid having a costly chartered steamship lay idle. This was precisely the case in March 1882, as the company contracted to deliver 30,000 tons of coal to Montréal – an aspect of the new economic leverage available to the miners under National Policy industrialism. Mitchell was not pleased about the arrangement the directors had worked out with Drummond and the PWA, and he expressed concern that he was being superseded as manager. But the PWA was better able than the CBCA to secure reliable coal production. Drummond co-operated with the directors and was treated as an adviser to the company. Responding to company concerns about maintaining a steady supply of labour, for instance, the Trades Journal criticized the tendency among the miners to take a day or two off following payday. In 1882, the Glace Bay Mining Company employed twice the number of coal cutters than the previous year and shipped more than 70,000 tons – well over double 1881’s shipments."

- Don Nerbas, “‘Lawless Coal Miners’ and the Lingan Strike of 1882–1883: Remaking Political Order on Cape Breton’s Sydney Coalfield,” Labour/Le Travail 92 (Fall 2023), 103-106.

[abatelunare]

Leggendo Antonio

Sto leggendo il romanzo di Antonio Fogazzaro intitolato Leila. La vecchia edizione in mio possesso conta ben 429 pagine, tutte stampate con un carattere non piccolissimo, ma piccolo. Attualmente ho raggiunto quota 255. La scrittura di questo autore mi piace. Il presente romanzo ha due soli difetti. Il primo è che ogni tanto la tira un po' in lungo nella descrizioni. Il secondo è che ogni tanto attacca a parlare di religione, in particolare del Modernismo. Io lì stacco la spina. Nel senso che leggo ma è come non leggessi. Sono sempre stato abbastanza allergico alle considerazioni politiche, sociali e religiose presenti nelle opere letterarie. Non mi interessano proprio per niente. Quindi quelle parti le salto proprio. In ossequio a quanto scrive Pennac nell'unico suo libro che ho letto. E che unico resterà, fra parentesi.

[thepoliticalvulcan]

The subtext here is that Elon believes being a parent is a human duty but parenting is not. He cannot fathom that someone for whom 50% of their genes will not be present in the next generation can genuinely care about the future of the society. Meanwhile Harris is known for having been very involved in her niece's life, Maya Harris gave birth at 17 but still was able to graduate from Stanford, and has been labeled an active and engaged co-parent by her spouse's ex. Elon Musk has procreated. Kamala Harris parents.

And this is completely normal! We see this throughout the animal kingdom. Its not at all uncommon for animals that operate in packs and family units to have non-breeders who instead devote their energies to the survival of the community's children. Back when parents often died before their children were mature, it was incredibly common for uncles, aunts, or neighbors to be raising foster children.

You cannot say it takes a village and then condemn someone for deciding their efforts are better spent helping other people's biological children to have the best possible start in life.

But then that gives the game away, doesn't it? In Elon and the ultra-natalist right's view, a woman is a womb. Everything she is or does beyond that is superfluous. A value ad, but the core "product", the "capital asset" is reproductive capability.

A world in which we spend a generation or two below replacement value is a terrifying one for these people. Its a world that will not look like our world. Young, healthy workers will exercise disproportionate power and, realistically, we will not be able to spare them for nonsense like fast food and other luxuries. Most of them will be needed for doing things that are vital to maintaining the core essentials of a civilization: infrastructure, healthcare etc. Not asking you if you need fries with that. And I think that terrifies a particular kind of oligarch whose very existence is dependent on abundant and low cost labor with minimal rights.

I lean into the material explanation not to dismiss the power of the ideological underpinnings. The vulgar sacred that these people have cooked up. Rather, if you cannot accept at face value their true commitment to spiritual notions that rationalize their behavior: rutting around like some unfixed alleycat and then insisting no has the right to deny them; then recognize that there may be a vulgar materialist explanation hiding behind the religiosity and empirically bankrupt longtermism.

No one who wishes to be a parent (noun) but does not want to parent (verb) should be a parent (noun) or tell other people what to do with their reproductive organs.

Deadbeat dad whose children want nothing to do with him tells nation's step-parents that their families don't count

[beautymaleform2]

Spiegazione del nudo

Quando le scolaresche visitano i musei, sorgono inevitabili domande a cui insegnanti ed accompagnatori debbon esser preparati a rispondere; il consiglio di base è quello di sottolineare le differenze intrinseche tra il nudo artistico e le altre immagini di nudità: l'arte cerca di rappresentare l'universalità del corpo umano, e va interpretata e giudicata assieme ai valori ed alle emozioni che si è cercato di esprimere in quelle opere.

Nudo giovanile

Nelle opere classiche i bambini sono stati molto raramente rappresentati nudi, tranne per quanto riguarda i neonati o la figura del putto. Prima dell'avvento di Sigmund Freud e della sua teoria sulla sessualità infantile, veniva dato per scontato che i bambini non provassero alcun sentimento erotico prima della pubertà, difatti il bimbo era mostrato spogliato proprio in quanto simbolo di purezza ed innocenza assoluta. Bambini che nuotano nudi vengono mostrati in diversi dipinti di John Singer Sargent, George Bellows e altri. In seguito vi sono state opere di nudi giovanili-adolescenziali sia simbolicamente che esplicitamente più erotiche.

Differenze di genere

«La rappresentazione del mondo, come il mondo stesso, è opera di uomini (maschi); essi descrivono dal loro punto di vista, che si confonde così con la verità assoluta. Simone de Beauvoir, Il secondo sesso»

Nudo maschile: dei e guerrieri

La storia dell'arte più accademica tende ad ignorare la sensualità del nudo maschile, limitandosi invece a considerarne solo la forma e composizione. Per gran parte della storia gli uomini nudi potevano rappresentare esclusivamente o santi martiri o in alternativa guerrieri. Sono state alcune artiste donne, come Alice Neel - ma anche Lucian Freud (nipote di Sigmund) a dipingere il maschio moderno nudo nella classica posa reclinata ma con i genitali prominenti ed esposti allo sguardo (sottolineando così per la prima volta un ruolo attivo anche allo "sguardo femminile"); Sylvia Sleigh poi ha rivisitato i tradizionali ruoli di genere nella rappresentazione del nudo, mettendo in posa modelli maschili come le figure femminili di opere di Velázquez, Tiziano e Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.

Il nudo artistico maschile si è maggiormente espresso nella statuaria, con la scultura greca antica, ed ha raffigurato prevalentemente figure mitiche, divine o religiose: questo fino alla metà del XIX secolo, con l'irrompere della novità assoluta data dal nudo maschile nella fotografia.

Nudo femminile: veneri e odalische

Le dee greche sono state inizialmente scolpite adorne di vesti piuttosto che nude. La prima scultura a grandezza naturale di una donna completamente nuda in piedi è l'Afrodite di Cnido, scolpita nel 360 a.C. circa da Prassitele; ma è stato nel più tardo periodo ellenistico che il nudo femminile è divenuto molto più comune.

Quasi completamente scomparso durante il medioevo il nudo femminile riappare in Italia nel XV secolo; successivamente l'erotismo che lo accompagna è diventato più enfatico in dipinti come la Venere dormiente (1510) di Giorgione e nella serie di cinque quadri dedicata alla figura di Danae di Tiziano (1553-56). Queste opere hanno ispirato numerosi nudi femminili sdraiati dei secoli seguenti. L'eccesso di dipinti di donne nude idealizzate presenti nel 19° annuale Salon parigino ha subito la satira di Honoré Daumier in una litografia del 1864.

Nel corso del XIX secolo il movimento che si richiamava alla corrente dell'orientalismo aggiunse un'altra tipologia figurativa al nudo femminile, oltre a quelle che già erano presenti, come possibile soggetto dei dipinti europei, quella dell'odalisca (la giovane donna schiava all'interno dell'harem): uno dei più famosi è stato La grande odalisca dipinta da Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres nel 1814 (vedi orientalismo).

Per Lynda Nead il nudo artistico femminile è una questione di contenimento della sessualità; nel caso invece del punto di vista dell'arte classica storica (rappresentato da Kenneth Clark) si tratta di un'idealizzazione della sensualità palese esteriore, mentre la visione moderna riconosce che il corpo umano è disordinato, illimitato e in definitiva assai problematico. Dalle immagini dell'arte classica che avevano assunto la figura di donna come essere virtuoso, debole e dipendente, si è passati ad una donna forte e libera che non può più in alcun modo essere definita come virtuosa.

Rivisitazioni moderne

Fino al 1960 la storia dell'arte e la critica hanno riflettuto raramente partendo da un punto di vista non strettamente maschile; il movimento artistico femminista ha cominciato a cambiare questo stato di cose. Lo scrittore, poeta e critico d'arte John Berger nel 1972 ha sostenuto che il nudo femminile riflette e rafforza il rapporto di potere esistente tra le donne ritratte nell'arte ed il pubblico prevalentemente maschile. L'anno seguente la teorica del cinema femminista Laura Mulvey ha scritto in critica cinematografica femminista che il concetto stesso di sguardo maschile afferma implicitamente che tutti i nudi femminili sono intrinsecamente afflitti e sottomessi al voyeurismo dell'uomo che guarda.

Critica sociale

Il nudo è stato anche utilizzato per produrre forti dichiarazioni politico-sociali; un esempio di ciò è dato da La barricata di George Bellows, che rappresenta i cittadini belgi utilizzati come scudi umani dai tedeschi durante la prima guerra mondiale. Anche se sulla base dei rapporti sul vero e proprio incidente viene provato che le vittime non erano nude, averle raffigurate in tal modo nella pittura ne sottolinea la loro vulnerabilità e universale umanità.

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