Stoney

Moreover, I can agree that studying can be harmful and that words don’t build anything. But then the same should apply to modern economists who structure the market based on their studies, I hope.

I've already replied to you. "The argument 'it's always been this way' needs to be better defined: if you mean that there has always been a divide between rich and poor, as well as justice and injustice, that makes sense. But if it is meant in the sense that the lifestyle has always been the same until now and that values in history have always been the same, well, then it doesn't hold up."

@Fedezan, many people (scholars, intellectuals, writers, directors, poets, musicians, and even scientists) have said that "facts" and "substance" are the last resources of those who no longer have values, and absolute pragmatism is a modern imposition born from a distorted view of human life. Now you will forgive me if my opinions have been shaped by considering the thoughts of these people and not just looking at the little garden outside my window. So, just to honor that typical human tension of always going beyond one’s experiences, to understand, to learn. Therefore, I am quite certain about my "thousand words." Studying history, the "facts" say that no pre-industrial society, although it has always struggled against diseases, famines, and fieldwork, has ever allowed itself to abandon a worldview that placed human life at the center of the universe, through a culture of rituals and spirituality that lasted for millennia. Only we have managed to sweep everything away and place money and market at the center of our thoughts. No one before us has ever had such an obsession with the material. So the statement "it's always been this way" needs to be better defined: if you mean that there has always been a gap between the rich and the poor as well as justice and injustice, that holds true. But if it’s meant in the sense that the lifestyle has always been the same up to now and that values in history have always been equal, well, then it doesn’t stand up. Perhaps I am the one talking nonsense, but it seems to me rather that you, embracing the prevailing view today, conveniently forget the teachings and studies of those who have well described and understood modern reality, evaluating its dangers and risks. There have been plenty of people who have opened their eyes, and until recently, they were taken into consideration as well. The fact that today popular culture prefers to ignore them to dedicate itself to hard work and "getting one’s hands dirty" as the only foundational value of existence is certainly a victory for those who sell convictions for the benefit of pragmatists, because it is pragmatism that convinces everyone that a reality like ours is strictly necessary and binding. There is no one today who dares to think or even simply fantasize about a different way of living; this is the point.

The fact that the modern market forces us to quantify, evaluate, and assign a price to any material good transforms people's entire lives into a sort of perverse "bingo" where you have to get the right numbers to survive, a kind of roulette where the one who scores the highest deserves to eat at the expense of others. I believe it’s normal that under these conditions people are driven to steal, cheat, and deceive: no one wants to lose in such a foolish way, watching their efforts, dreams, and hopes go to waste, except for those who find themselves in such a limiting condition that they can't help but stay in their place and suffer (the workers that someone mentioned, for instance, and generally anyone with a job as an employee). And yet, although this way of life is hated by pretty much everyone, nobody seems to think that PERHAPS it might be time to change the rules. Everyone continues to kill themselves over finding the best way to balance the books, because the modern production model is inescapable, and only a madman would say otherwise. I wouldn’t want to think badly, but it seems to me that sometimes it’s precisely those who belong to the most affected categories by this sick mechanism (workers, the poor) who categorically refuse to come to terms with this reality and instead prefer to play the victim. The common narrative is: if I can’t compete with the rich and powerful on the grounds of money and well-being, I can always find a reason and a personal pride in thinking about the efforts and the hard work I put in, which makes me morally superior to those who sit on a throne and command me. And this is truly humiliating, to find an alternative way to still feel better and like a winner, in the name of the same modern logic that accepts only those who win and crushes those who lose. So much so that they then play the lottery and make their children study, dreaming of prestigious positions for them, which shows that they are just as equal to those who command them, sharing the same culture and the same value system. All this is sad and mortifying, leading one to think that we are far from resolving things. Because things will never be resolved by adopting a better legal system, a better method of representation, or a redistribution of income: things will only change when there is awareness and a culture of one’s own condition. Perhaps in a few centuries.

Good review. Everything is shareable, except for this attempt to give them a conceptual background that I don't think they have. They themselves seem quite self-deprecating regarding their music, not taking themselves too seriously, because in the end, they are what they are: a band with splatter-demented themes where the imperative is to exceed the limits of grossness and depravity every time. As for the musical side... well, while it's true that playing this stuff requires "a certain type" of technique (technique is a concept much broader and more general than one might want to admit), it’s also true that excelling in this field inevitably means being limited in others, so I really don't think a bassist like the one from CC deserves crowds of other musicians at his feet; simply, everyone does the job they are best at, and he does this; maybe if compared to other types of music he wouldn't know where to put his hands. The question I ask myself is: why is it never enough to just say that a musician is good? Why this obsession to claim that everyone else should be silent and bow down? Unless we want to insinuate once again the usual tale of the hyper-technical musician, who, because he can pound like a blacksmith, must automatically know how to play everything else with effortless naturalness.

@De Lorenzo, you are predictable and cliché. I’ve already explained that I don’t give a damn whether you are a democrat, a fascist, or a terrorist... the problem is rather how you present yourself. Nevertheless, you’ve latched onto that phrase I wrote to stir up a new storm. You’re a clever agitator, a fraud, and also a bit of an asshole. You only accept criticisms that start with some ass-kissing and that don’t dare to question your absolute authority, and especially that don’t poke at your most troublesome contradictions. This also makes you a "bit" arrogant. Like, "let's talk freely, but I'm the one with the raised finger because I can afford it, look how many books I've studied." Well, for me, you can drop dead. Because you see, you can use all the distractions you want: communism, illiberality, anti-democracy, terrorism, with the same ease that the inquisitors shouted "heretic!" and stirred the crowd; people will continue to come here to talk to you openly and tell you to go fuck yourself whenever they see fit. Then, if you get scandalized by swear words and vulgarity like a nun just entering a convent, that’s your problem and yours alone. Don’t use this pretext to escape the effort of addressing the issues or to discredit your interlocutors; respect the intelligence of those who are in front of you.

De Lorenzo, let's do it this way: do you want a serious critique? Then let's pretend my previous comment doesn't exist and start. Let's be clear about one thing: believe me, it's not your ideas that disturb me, it's your way of speaking and presenting things. You could even sit here and defend Nazism, and if it were a point of view supported by sound and articulated reasoning, I wouldn't have anything to say against it, even if I disagreed, because unlike you, I believe that nothing is absolute and no point of view is ever totally absurd. But phrases like "E' tragicamente ovvio che (...) le sinistre italiane parteggiassero per la popolazione palestinese (...) sulla base di un'acritica, e come sempre fideistica ed infantile, adesione ai dettami del Partito e del Pensiero Unico" make me nauseous. Seriously, what are we talking about? There’s a big difference between expressing an opinion and offering a supposedly objective version "super partes" like you do. Yours are concluded, absolute judgments that you throw out there, puffed up with the confidence that they are true par excellence. I genuinely think you believe that all sane individuals share without hesitation the certainty that any pro-Palestinian stance is patently idiotic, and thus your analysis ends there. From your writings, it is clear that your "method of investigation" does not investigate at all. You have your dogmas and your axioms that you use as a benchmark for the various realities you consider, and based on how far they stray from these, you express your judgment. For example, you are able to judge any non-democratic system as "inferior" or "terrorist" because you start from the axiom that Western-style democracy is always a good thing regardless, whereas it’s precisely that which you are asked to demonstrate (if you want your writings to be taken seriously and not just as a somewhat more refined bar chatter), yet this doesn’t even graze the outskirts of your brain: your judgment is as true as it is obvious, packaged and ready for use. By doing so, you draw very narrow boundaries for anyone who wants to counter your points, because anything that lies outside your common sense automatically becomes biased, superficial, or obtuse. That’s why you think that 90% of the comments you receive are "offensive": because you don’t believe it’s possible to question the indivisible building blocks with which you construct your certainties, thus you come to think that people are taking it personally against you, rather than being capable of structuring a critique with a spirit of observation and reasoned understanding. And the sad thing is that you probably don’t even realize it.

@Sorciopeloso, the question is: if the purpose is fun and entertaining joking around, why does it always and exclusively lead to satanism? If the goal were to joke around joyfully, there would be extreme groups talking about random topics, including perhaps satanism once in a while, whereas it seems to me that throughout the extreme scene, the theme is always and only one: Satan, hate, wickedness, inverted crosses, blood, guts, violence. And this is because those who listen to this music enjoy hearing certain things spoken about in a certain way, and they like to identify with these individuals who present themselves with a nihilistic and violent attitude, because that’s exactly what they’re looking for. If these groups weren’t “we’re violent, we’ll smash everything, we don’t care about anyone, and we even dare to challenge the Almighty,” no one would listen to them. And it’s not a matter of being scandalized (by what, then, an inverted cross? The name "Satan"? Please...), the point is that this type of music has its own significant messages, far from innocent joking around, and says and communicates more than you want to admit.

De Lorenzo doesn’t believe a word of what he writes. His goal is to leave messages around that can outrage anyone with a hint of critical spirit. He doesn’t speak, as he writes in the preface, to the "average user of the site," but to those who grasp well the subtle ferocity of his statements, mocking them right to their faces. He then enjoys watching the indignant and serious reactions of the people commenting, having a good laugh at their expense. It’s the new rhetorical method used in mass communication: someone makes a statement on the verge of scandal, prompting everyone to feel compelled to lecture and assert their opinions, convinced they matter. Meanwhile, while everyone clashes over lofty ideals, the author of the statements continues on his path, gaining notoriety. For De Lorenzo, DeBaser is a laboratory for his research on the modern art of mockery.

Cornell, I appreciate your mindset and reasoning; it must not have been easy to face a situation like this, and I honestly tell you that I wouldn't have lasted five years like that. However, the point I was making earlier transcends the type of work: even if you were doing a well-paid and creative job, it would still take up almost all your time in life. I'm not against "low" and "hard" jobs; I'm against the concept of "work" in general that is inherent in our way of conceiving existence, that is, as the only activity capable of making you satisfied, free, and noble. A society that comes to think it is possible to be free by spending 40 to 50 hours a week of your life with 15-20 days of vacation a year is a ferocious and sick society, blindly convinced that you can have decision-making control over your own life through money, goods, "inert objects," and that everything is tradable and assessable. That's why we talk about "job opportunities": because society is truly convinced, deep down, of giving you the chance to choose. And it seems to me to be a dangerous way of thinking, born from a community that has lost sight of itself and its values. Indeed, we are children of a technological development never seen before in history, chaotic and fast, where the moral and religious values that once protected human life have been forgotten because they were an obstacle to great technological advancement and the modern market. Pre-industrial cultures had a completely different approach, and there are still cultures today that do not know what to make of the market, eight-hour workdays, and money as we understand it, and that are horrified at the prospect of adopting our materialistic and neurotic lifestyle.