withershins's recent activity
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Comment on <deleted topic> in ~talk
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Comment on Opinions on Hereditary? in ~movies
withershins Linki saw it in theaters opening night with some friends, all of which who hadn't seen any of the trailers/etc., and the general consensus was that it was a very well done film. it's definitely a...i saw it in theaters opening night with some friends, all of which who hadn't seen any of the trailers/etc., and the general consensus was that it was a very well done film. it's definitely a slowburn, so if you like slower paced films you'll probably enjoy it. it's a little arthouse-y in the sense that the camera tends to linger (some might say meander) during certain scenes and the plot unfolds like napkin origami (i.e. slowly). i don't think the supernatural or "horror" elements of it were that scary, but the themes of trauma and familial drama were very haunting. i absolutely recommend it.
the following is only really responding or building off of this line of yours:
dominik finkelde, a german philosopher from the hochschule für philosophie münchen, recently came out with a book (or it was recently translated to english) called excessive subjectivity that argues that there are instances in history where the moral agenda of (usually) one person leads to a revolution in morality that is only named moral retroactively by a future generation. he calls these moments of excessive subjectivity as it is the personal sensitivity (resembling neurosis) of that individual that brings about the revolution. if we think of it in terms of that species to genus metaphor that zizek sometimes uses, the personal sensitivity of the individual starts as a species in a given genus (i.e. it begins as a particular) but then slowly becomes the genus itself (i.e. it becomes a universality).
he offers several examples: jesus of nazareth, in that the christian cult began as a particular species of the genus judaism but then became the state religion of the roman empire; vladimir lenin, in that marxism-leninism began as a particular species of the genus marxism but then became the predominant theory of marxism; rosa parks, in that her personal sensitivity (the refusal to give up the backseat of the bus) helped bolster the civil rights movement (in a lecture he said that what she did was amoral relative to the historical context but that that singular act of amorality has now come to be viewed as an ideal instance of morality, or it is an act that has retroactively been bestowed moral sense); and finally edward snowden, in that there was some personal neurotic sensitivity that drove him to become a whistleblower and that in this post-snowden age we can more or less affirm that which he did as moral.
he spins out a bunch of kant, hegel, and lacan, but i will now focus more on the first thinker than the others as i have adequately put into layman's terms the (relevant) parts he borrows from the latter two. he uses kant's discussion of the "focus imaginarius" and a picture of an anamorphic installation of salvador dali's face as an example (you can look up the example he used by simply searching "salvador dali anamorphic installation") of the focus imaginarius. the example can be understood when one takes into account the idea that an anamorphosis is only intelligible from a specific location, a focus imaginarius, as otherwise if one were to step away from that specific viewpoint, one will end up being exposed to a "multiplicity of multiplicities" such that the artwork becomes unintelligible and appears to be a bunch of junk. finkelde says that individuals with excessive subjectivity tend to be one of these art patrons that steps away from the political focus imaginarius and the whole political anamorphosis consequently becomes unintelligible to them such that their personal sensitivity guides them to act amorally (i.e. contrary to the prevailing morality).
to sum it all up: occasionally it is necessarily to act outside, or against, the laws of the prevailing ideology in order to establish a new paradigm of morality that will retroactively be given moral sense. unfortunately, i don't think antifa really is acting outside or against the laws of the prevailing ideology and in some ways only works to reinforce them (as i think you've already said). i think they're practically and theoretically all over the place. still, i am moderately invested in their struggle, and the struggle of organizations like them, for the reason that (to draw on a passage in kierkegaard) "i must have the possible, or else i will suffocate." there's latent potential everywhere for revolutionary change, the task of theory is to unlock it. we may say the individual's finkelde investigates are keys to the lock, but even then i remain skeptical of the idea that we only need one individual (great man theory is antithetical to a materialist conception of history).