philosophical

The Dictatorship of the Factual

“If there is to be any basis for solidarity, much more intensity is required. Firstly, to salvage and revitalise, and then to acquire full comprehension of the cohesive energy that binds the different elements our mistaken beliefs have disconnected from the primal origin. And then to synchronise that energy with the alienated environment in which it was lost.” — Nadezhda Kharitonov, Alien Republic

I was sent from the future. Any verbal object was a tool of the imagination. I was writing from within the essence of things, but the centre would not hold, so I related the following…

Nasrul was consenting and often anecdotal. He was aware that his collaboration with the author was in both their interests. Nevertheless, in making the golden choice, he was denying the cost of life or death and leaving behind the need to survive as a character. He had no belief in evaluation or development and had abandoned the mental effort to grasp the fact of time some time ago. None of this entailed withdrawal or disinterest. On the contrary, it enabled a fuller penetration and excavation of the great unknown.

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Beacon & Vessel

“Allow me the pleasure of your destruction.” — Agapios Stojanov, Bonds

The world inhabited by Nasrul was one in which the rationales of quantification and categorisation were dominant throughout all forms of human action and interaction. His life was experienced by its readers both within and outside this novel, but less via his character than his status as transmitter of the novel’s primary superstitions, yet his absence as a coherent character and his mysterious presence as an anomalous cipher meant that the novel had no conceptual form. Rather than possessing a core integral message as a communicating vessel, whatever was communicated was unknown / anomalous.

One accurate impression that was conveyed was of N as the last man standing. The one who best portrayed N was YOU, but YOU could not realistically expect to fulfil all the requirements of the main character by recourse to facts.

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Sentience & Chance

“A myriad of scenes reveal / a void forever / Simultaneous flames / no antecedent / for hearts and knaves” — Namdak, Swiftly to the Hills (trans. Bradley Rodier)

Sayings and customs were constructed and reconstructed within the gloom of the reader’s chamber. Although they had been spied in the square on the night of the execution, the reader, a sentient creature, had not yet been found in contravention of protocol.

Reality was once heroic, something like dying for one’s country. A great enthusiasm was shown for productivity and innovation. The illusion that the free market would labour for the crime of supply and demand gave total satisfaction, but the collapse of the real had already taken place decades ago and an idealistic fanaticism had given in to cynicism and lassitude. Eventually, the heroes of the ideology of reality would realise they were victims of the myth of creativity, but still they would imagine it was preferable to destruction. (more…)