#sublation

[ecoevoexoart]

"Aufhebung" by Anemone Moss

all that is solid melts into air

[evilisasevildo]

On the Advancement of Decay from Sublation

[nicholasandriani]

From Scrolls to Presses: Unraveling the Artistic Tapestry of Eastern and Western Printing History

It’s officially summer here at the University of Missouri. Grades are in. Evaluations complete. My Mozilla Hubs space is fleshed out, and I’ve fulfilled Unity’s programmer curriculum! As for the University of Arizona, my satellite campus, we in the Asian Studies department have another week to go. Translations are movin along beautifully and I’m excited to continue sharing my work on the Hyakunin…

[ashhaven]

me thinking about the moshpit:

Untitled (You construct intricate rituals), Barbara Kruger, 1981

[ammonitetestpatterns]

patrick phillips

[thearbourist]

The Dialectical Methodology of the Activist Left and How to Diffuse it

Arguing with certain people can be very frustrating as they seem to not want to engage with what is being said.  Instead, the use of hyperbole, insults, and emotionally charged language are meant to infuriate and obfuscate with the goal of winning the superficially wrought emotional battle (arguing versus agitating).  The Activist Left are engaging you with a Dialectical (See the third meaning)…

[zvaigzdelasas]

The schmitt'ian conception of "Sovereignty as the ability to decide the state of exception" really does map onto the Leninist concept of the form of the State as an instrument of enacting the collective will of a specific class, insofar as said "instrument expressing class will" is effectively conceived of as an "error boundary" - ie the imagined role of the Sovereign is in establishing a set of normative behaviors so as to minimize the input of said Sovereign beyond said axiomitizing

[kanasakurai]

SUBLATIONS

Sec.09 Collection

SUPER GOOD / SUPER BAD

Model：Tola

Photographer：Hiroki Yamaguchi (Planβ)

Stylist：Takuro Shimizu

Hair&Makeup：Kana Sakurai

[pettybourgeoisblues]

If I was a woman I would be a man

[determinate-negation]

i really dislike the tumblr milieu’s fandomization of sexuality and making different fetishes trendy for a few months. like are we not all being compelled by moments in childhood to obsess over select things we are unwilling or unable to express except in the depths of despair or only in indirect sublated form? or is it just me

[neuromantis]

i am not a friendpilled smilecell, i a dialecticspilled imperfectsoulcell.

i guess you can call me the discusserrrrrrrrr.

every time i bring up the importance of a social life and connection to people i feel like i an a friendpilled smilecell.

and i am still kinda awful to my friends. even ifi know how important it is for a social animal, such as human.

[thedaythatwas]

TW: Hegel.

So, what’s up with Shuake and dialectics? Click below to watch this user (who is not a philosopher) give this (frankly too invested) analysis a shot!

Something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is the fact that most– but not all– of Joker’s confidant routes involve some sort of transaction. Joker does something for someone, Joker gets a favor in return. Joker’s identity revolves around what he can do for others. He’s got a different mask (haha game mechanic is narrative device etc.) for everyone in his life. 

Getting a little bit in my head about this led me to a (not-all-that-novel) realization: Akechi’s confidant route is largely non-transactional. Sure, he says that he wants to meet with you to talk about the Phantom Thieves, but that more or less directly translates to just wanting to hang out with you. The “favor” that you're doing for Akechi, if we follow the logic of some of the other confidant routes, is spending time with him. (Which is of course also about getting close to Joker for metaverse recon purposes… But I’d argue that amounts to more or less the same thing in the long run anyway). Really, that’s what your relationship with him is, up until you realize the heart he needs you to change is actually one of the big-bads of the game. And at that point… Well… 

Where am I going with this? I’ve also been thinking a lot about Hegel (I’ve seen some really fun posting about Akechi and Hegel on here this past week– thank you philosophy P5R tumblr!). Akechi’s paraphrasing of Hegel goes a little something like “advancement cannot occur without both thesis and antithesis.” Hilariously, this is how he frames his desire to talk to you more, his flirting is just like me forreal I understand him etc. etc. BUT! The interesting thing here is that the game is cueing you to view your relationship with Akechi through the lens of Hegel’s dialectics.

More on that to follow, but first, I want to plug the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s page on Hegel’s Dialectics here– If you haven’t used it before, SEP is a reliable, peer-reviewed source. It’s great. I use it like. All the time. It’s good for getting the gist of big ideas when you don’t have time to read full texts. (Also if I get any of this wrong please know that philosophy is not my field and I’m totally open to constructive criticism.)

Hegel’s dialectical process revolves around three key moments: the moment of understanding, the dialectical moment, and the speculative moment. These moments can also be referred to as thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. The moment of understanding, thesis, is the point at which an idea is seemingly stable. In the dialectical moment, antithesis, this idea “sublates” itself– the idea is challenged and destabilized because an inherent contradiction in the idea has been made apparent–importantly, part of the idea is preserved. The speculative moment, synthesis, negates the contradiction. A new idea takes form, containing elements of the original idea that was sublated (Marx’s theory of history, anyone?) 

This process continues on and on. Ideas naturally reveal their contradictions, are destabilized, and resolve their contradictions through the creation of a new idea, which is challenged again. This is because the dialectical moment does not come from outside an idea. Antithesis is not an external push against thesis, but rather, the moment when thesis is forced into instability because of its own tightly-bound restriction. 

So back to what I was saying. The game kicks off your relationship with Akechi with a nod to, uh, all of that. Could this be a throwaway comment? Of course! But it’s much more fun to work under the assumption that it isn’t. So bear with me. Akechi is framing himself and Joker as thesis and antithesis. What does that mean? Why do I think it has something to do with Akechi and Joker’s relationship being non-transactional?

Previously, I’ve thought that in the context of their relationship, Akechi represented thesis, and Joker antithesis. This isn’t exactly true (at least per the criteria above) but I do think I was on the right track. 

At the beginning of his story, we can think of Akechi’s worldview as thesis. The world is a stage, and he is a performer. His entire life is dedicated to destroying Shido. It’s a key narrative element of P5 that Akechi doesn’t have confidant relationships (as contrasted by Joker, who has many confidants and becomes stronger through building up those bonds). He views himself as deceiving literally everyone in his life for his goals– his “fans,” his father, the Phantom Thieves. He doesn’t trust, because to him, trust is failure. 

Still, he’s starving for approval, and not just from Shido. You can see the inherent conflict between his desires and beliefs in just about every interaction he has with Joker, particularly those where Akechi overshares about his past. He desperately wants someone to hear him. I don’t think his (primary) aim in that was to strategically win Joker’s trust by showing vulnerability– if that was all he was going for, I doubt Akechi would have been so honest. He omitted information, sure, but he gave Joker the honest-to-god broad strokes of his childhood.  

When Joker comes into his life, Akechi comes to realize that his stable worldview might be wrong. Watching Joker and the rest of the Phantom Thieves reveals the cracks in his own internal logic. Joker has friendships and he is stronger because of them. When Akechi sacrifices himself for the Phantom Thieves on Shido’s ship, we see his moment of synthesis. If Akechi really still internalized all of what he said in his “Teammates? Friends? To hell with that!” monologue, he wouldn’t trust Joker to change Shido’s heart in his stead. To be clear– he probably would have reached this point with or without Joker’s intervention. Joker just happens to push Akechi towards self-sublation a little bit faster.

In Royal, we see a new iteration of Akechi. He doesn’t really regret his actions, and he is still very distinctly Akechi, but we can see that his original perception of the world has made a shift. He is willing to team up with Joker. While he may not place a great deal of faith in all of the PTs, he certainly has real trust in the protagonist. He’s learned that he can be recognized (dare I say loved?) without being perfect, and accordingly, his driving desire for approval has been displaced by his desire to never be so completely under anyone else’s control again.

But ok— that’s kind of an old take. Perhaps a hotter one: I’d also like to propose that Akechi does the same for Joker. 

As mentioned above, Joker’s identity for most of the game is defined by what he can do for the people around him. While a large part of this has to do with the fact that he is a playable character, this is a game, and a game needs to have things for you to do– it wouldn’t be very fun otherwise– it also seems pretty clear that this is part of his characterization. Joker is selfless to a fault. Like Akechi, he is a wildcard who can take on multiple personas. Unlike Akechi, instead of having a handful of personas directly linked to the core of his character development, Joker has as many personas as you want him to. He literally has a mask for every situation. You can equip a persona of the correct arcana to level up your relationships faster– a game mechanic, but also, an interesting meta statement about how Joker bonds with his confidants.

In Royal, however, Joker has the option to do something for himself. His greatest wish isn’t for someone else's happiness– it’s to have Akechi back, for selfish reasons, I would argue. Joker can sacrifice reality to keep him in his life, and depending on the actions you choose to take, sometimes, he does.

Loving Akechi teaches Joker to be selfish. This is especially poignant when you think of how adamantly opposed Akechi is to staying in Maruki's reality. Giving up the true reality to keep Akechi is a wholly selfish act on Joker's part, nothing altruistic about it. And if he doesn't make that choice? Well, don't forget about how Joker spent his wish.

He would have learned how to do this without Akechi– one tends to realize that neverending self-sacrifice is unsustainable sooner rather than later. Again, Akechi just pushes Joker towards effecting that self-sublation a little faster.

By spending time with Joker, Akechi learns that there are people he can truly trust. By spending time with Akechi, Joker learns how to put himself first. Their confidant relationship from this perspective is not only transactional, it’s actually one of the most transactional relationships in the game. Joker actively impacts how Akechi sees himself and the world around him, and vice versa. Their relationship is profoundly transformative for the both of them. To paraphrase Akechi, advancement cannot occur without both thesis and antithesis.

But also, we can forget dialectics for a second. Even without a fun analytical lens, Akechi’s confidant route centers two misunderstood people who find understanding in each other. That’s enough for me!

[bogusfilth]

zizek voice even the insistence on trying to convince people not to vote represents an acceptance of the total sublation of politics into the state. if you want to vote, vote, the effort required is extremely low in comparison to almost anything else you could do.

[ashantisinterlude]

Blog Post #2

Is social media actually toxic?

It isn’t necessarily the media that’s toxic, but the people using it. The easy accessibility that we have access to the internet has really created a change in the way that society functions and handles certain situations. Many people nowadays go straight to social media to voice their concerns rather than taking the issue up in person with said party involved; finding peace that way. Depending on the issue at hand, bringing it to social media can actually over-escalate a situation, blowing it to unprofound proportions. “Only by clearly grasping the main conflicts and choices that shape our current media system can ordinary citizens successfully unite with the concerned journalists and workers within the system to bring about meaningful reform.” (Gonzalez and Torres 2012) Social media has potential to be a good outlet to express certain things, but requires change, yet stability from the society using it.

Why isn’t there better moderation of our media?

There isn’t better moderation of our media because we cannot put a specific boundary on what is acceptable and what isn’t because of our freedom of speech and freedom to express ourselves. “If we want to conduct a critical analysis of social media, then we require a critical philosophy as a foundation.”(Fuchs 2014) Many people have different ideas of what they believe should be able to be released onto social media platforms and other areas, so it would be hard to implement fair rules unto everyone. 

Is social media today comparable to media back then?

The same way that we have issues within racial bias and gender roles, etc. they had the same problems in earlier forms of media. “...it is not just simply the right to speak, but the right to be heard by others.” (Gonzalez and Torres 2012) There were publications by the non-white community that weren’t being posted, the same way that certain non-black media gets shadowbanned, or underlooked.

Would society be less susceptible to racism/ racial bias without social media? 

Although its creation has brought a lot of people problems, it has also alleviated problems for many other people. “Sublation is a difficult concept that helps us to understand how change happens. For example, it can be used for explaining what is new and old about the contemporary form of social media.”(Fuchs 2014) It serves as an outlet for people to relate on certain things, or talk about topics that most people aren’t bold enough to bring up in a regular conversation setting. In addition, it allows for people from all different backgrounds and areas to display their cultures and what life means to them. 

FUCHS, C. (2014). Social Media: A critical introduction. SAGE PUBLICATIONS.

González, & Torres. (2012). News for all the people: The epic story of race and the American media.

[kanasakurai]

SUBLATIONS SEC.08 【 NOISE / MUTE vol.2 】

Model：Yihan , Mikiya Nakano

Photographer：Hiroki Yamaguchi

Stylist：Syuto Tanaka

Hair&Makeup：Kana Sakurai