Human, Being

In this entry into the "Reflections" series, Jordan shares his personal thoughts on endings and why they are often so difficult to handle--whether the end of a relationship, the death of a loved one, or just the end of a good book. Note: This essay contains major spoilers for the game "Disco Elysium."

Excerpt:
"There is something apocalyptic in every ending. When you finish a good novel, close the book and set it aside, that world ceases to exist. The characters, even if the ending they got was happy, perish. The same happens with well-written films and video games as soon as the screen cuts to black and the credits appear. Sometimes when I finish a particularly immersive game I immediately long to replay it, to see the world brought back to life before my eyes, to rejoin the characters I came to love—but sometimes my loathing of ends makes it too hard to start once more, since I know that everything will only cease to exist again when I reach the end."

Reflections: The Inevitable End of All Things This essay contains major spoilers for the game Disco Elysium. The end: the conclusion of a process, of an event, of a moment, of an era. The last frame of a film. The final notes of a song lingeri…

In our newest essay, Jordan discusses the topic of political violence with references to the late Henry Kissinger's career, the current war in Gaza, and Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness. Where do we draw the line between violence that is justified and violence that is not?

Excerpt:
Kissinger was more than willing to approve murder in the name of U.S. interests, and he was not alone. He was constantly surrounded by supporters and defenders, and many presidents and other government officials continued to look to him for guidance long after his term in office ended. This was not merely in spite of his complicity in such terrible atrocities, but often precisely because of it. According to some, the atrocities were an evil necessary to protect us. The American way of life was under threat, and if some innocent people in far-away places had to die in order to save it, many people were (and still are) willing to make that sacrifice. Like the European imperialists of the 19th century who believed that they had the moral high ground in their forceful exploitation of “lesser” peoples, we were (and still are) upholding the “law” as we saw it, practicing extralegal violence on a global scale.

Stripping the Mask of Decency: Kurtz, Kissinger, and the Killing of Gaza In Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness, Charles Marlow recounts his journey deep into Africa to retrieve the legendary ivory trader Kurtz. The Company which employs both of them fears that Ku…

Today we have a new entry in our Reflections series. Jordan discusses the subject of loneliness using his personal experiences and those of the Underground Man from Fyodor Dostoevsky's "Notes from the Underground." Although it's an uncomfortable thing to think about, Jordan argues that embracing loneliness is necessary and even beneficial in important ways.

Excerpt:
"The fact is that loneliness can not entirely be done away with. No matter how much you distract yourself from it, no matter how present you are in the external world, no matter how much you surround yourself with people you love, it persists—if only quietly and beneath the surface. Arendt presciently notes that “loneliness shows itself most sharply in company with others” and I believe that is precisely because of this inability to communicate certain fundamental aspects of one’s self to other human beings. In that way, I deeply sympathize with the Underground Man’s feeling of being nothing and nobody, his desperation to be something which manifests as spiteful and irrational behavior. To be nothing, to be invisible to the world, instills a primal fear in the heart of anybody who has fallen too far into seclusion for one reason or another. But even for those who are more confident and more present in the world, there are still things hidden deep inside that can not be named or expressed."

Reflections: Existence is Loneliness I am certain that to exist in any real way is to be lonely. You might think that I am simply being depressive or nihilistic, and you might already be preparing your counter-arguments or words of co…

People have already been drawing comparisons between the game "Iron Lung" and the OceanGate submersible tragedy, but is there more connection between the two than the similarity of the vessels involved? Find out in our latest article which explores the significance--and the potential consequences--of certain efforts to reach the heights of the stars and the depths of the sea.

Excerpt:
"OceanGate was supposed to be helping in the further exploitation of Earth’s limited resources—the very exploitation that caused Shatner’s grief upon seeing our planet from space, the exploitation driven by individual ambition to achieve great things, to amass fortunes and to enter a realm of sublimity in our cultural consciousness, the realm occupied by billionaires as god-men who have only achieved their status through inhuman feats of wisdom and cleverness and moxie. This image is, of course, merely the façade put on by those who are kick-started by an inheritance, met with lucky circumstances, lifted up on the backs of common laborers, and fueled by the planet’s limited resources. Nonetheless the cultural status achieved by these individuals gives them the sense that they have the right to make fateful decisions about both humanity and the planet we occupy."

https://humancommabeing.wordpress.com/2023/06/23/subs-symbols-and-spaceships/

Subs, Symbols, and Spaceships: The OceanGate Tragedy and the Fate of Mankind In the 2022 computer game Iron Lung, the player is trapped inside a tiny submersible and is sent to explore a crimson ocean on an alien moon. There are a number of locations charted that the player…

Today's essay is the first in a new series called "Reflections," which is intended to feature shorter and more personal pieces of writing as a supplement to longer articles that often take months to complete. To start off this series, Jordan looks back on his recent visit to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, his personal struggle while visiting the camp, and the true impact of the fascist program of mass murder.

https://humancommabeing.wordpress.com/2023/04/30/reflections-a-stranger-in-sachsenhausen/

Reflections: A Stranger in Sachsenhausen This essay is the first in a new series on Human, Being called “Reflections.” This series will feature shorter and more personal pieces of writing intended to supplement my longer and more in-depth…

We have a new article today about FromSoftware's ambitious roleplaying game Elden Ring and some of the ideological concepts explored therein. Can such a fantastical work of ficiton really say something profound about the way we perceive reality and our place in it? Read the full article to find out.

Major Elden Ring spoilers ahead, so be warned!

Excerpt:
As Ludwig Wittgenstein puts it, “When you are philosophizing you have to descend into primeval chaos and feel at home there.” We can apply this directly to the questions that Elden Ring presents us; figuring out where the Golden Order went wrong and what a better future might require finds us digging deeper into the game’s lore and ideas long considered heretical. In reality, when we start to see cracks in the structures we have projected onto the world, the only way to prevent ourselves from collapsing under the weight of our own assumptions is to venture to the roots of our beliefs and try to figure out where things went wrong from the start, even if that means humoring ideas that seem to be outlandish or blasphemous given what we think we know about the universe.

https://humancommabeing.wordpress.com/2023/01/26/ideology-in-elden-ring/

The Lands Between Order and Chaos: Ideology in Elden Ring This essay contains major spoilers for the main plot of Elden Ring. There are many intense and emotional moments throughout the game Elden Ring, but one that is most memorable is when the player’s …

Today's article is all about the word "woke" and what implications it bears, especially when it is used so frequently by right-wing figures to disparage the things they don't like.

Excerpts:
"Even most hardline conservatives today would agree that black Americans were subject to very serious systemic injustices in the past. But if the same idea of 'wokeness' had been applied in those past epochs, one can only imagine what would have been dismissed as 'woke.' Rebelling against the monarchy to write a new constitution? Abolishing slavery? Forming labor unions to negotiate for better pay and workplace safety? Allowing women to vote? Ending segregation? All of these are clear examples of systemic injustices being addressed in the past. Why, then, are rightists so opposed to the idea that there might be similar issues worth looking at today?"

"There are things about 'wokeism' that are vain and aggravating, it’s true. But when people like Elon Musk refer to labor disputes as an example of 'woke' ideology, they give away the whole game. Musk out of all the country’s elite brands himself as a forward-thinking and even revolutionary individual, but his opposition to workers’ rights, his cooperation with far-right activists such as Andy Ngo and Chaya Raichik, his intolerance of criticism, and his general disdain for minorities reveal that the apple didn’t fall far from the apartheid tree."

Read the full article via the link below:
https://humancommabeing.wordpress.com/2022/12/16/getting-woke-about-woke/

Getting Woke About “Woke”: A Look at Reactionary Language In 1931, after getting in a fight with a handful of young white men, a group of black teenagers were accused of ra**ng two white girls. This accusation was made without any supporting evidence, but…

We're back with a new article on the phenomenon of AI-generated art. What implications does it hold for our culture in the near future? Read the full article via the link below.

Excerpt:
"Whether the new technology is ethical, whether it should be used, and whether the things created with it even qualify as “art” are not the questions we need to be asking. What we need to consider is how this new technology will forever alter our culture, and we can look back at similar technological developments in the past for some guidance."
https://humancommabeing.wordpress.com/2022/11/29/on-the-problem-of-ai-art/

On the Problem of AI Art Over the course of 2022, few things outside of electoral politics have been quite as divisive on social media as AI-generated art. This technology, though it almost seems to have sprung out of nowh…

Made some business cards!

Today's article is about taking the red pill... though not in the way you might expect. We explore themes of dystopia and how they can be found in rather mundane places in real life, specifically in the world of marketing. What threat could an advertisement for fried chicken pose to society? Follow the link below to find out.

Excerpt:
"Marketing is an exercise of social power because the associations made in advertisements are presented as 'common sense, science, psychic health, normality, public opinion' even when they are entirely nonsensical. And it works because it does not feel like one is submitting to power when one follows these suggestions, even though it is the power of money that has placed the advertisement on the television or computer screen and the power of manipulation that causes its message to become seeded in one’s brain. The purpose of planting that seed is for it to eventually grow into action—specifically, the action of buying the product or service advertised—which means that advertising is a means by which capitalists undeniably attempt to exercise power both over the individual’s internal and external lives."

https://humancommabeing.wordpress.com/2022/05/18/mundanity_of_dystopia/

Fried Chicken, Red Pills, and the Mundanity of Dystopia Russia began its full scale invasion of Ukraine early in the morning on February 24, 2022. I was up late the night before talking with a Ukrainian friend who was fleeing the country ahead of the me…

The great psychologist and humanist philosopher Erich Fromm once wrote that "man himself is the most important creation and achievement of the continuous human effort." Renowned existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre said that "man must create his own essence: it is in throwing himself into the world, suffering there, struggling there, that he gradually defines himself." And political theorist Hannah Arendt asserted that our appearance in the world as human beings "rests on initiative, but it is an initiative from which no human being can refrain and still be human."

But what does it mean to be our own achievement? What does it mean to create our own essence? What does it mean to take the initiative inherent in our being human? And what internal or external forces prevent us from tackling these problems head-on? These are the questions Human, Being seeks to answer, or at the very least to explore with a curious heart and a critical mind.

Today's article comes in the wake of "Don't Say Gay" bills and conservative fears about the influence of LGBT+ people on society. Why exactly do gender and sexual minorities inspire anxiety? Why are some people so eager to oppress them? Read the full article to find out.

Excerpt:
"There can be little doubt that a strong sadistic drive motivated the racist militants who harrassed recently freed black Americans during the Reconstruction era; their feeling of superiority had come under threat with the abolition of slavery, and thus they had to re-assert dominance through extreme displays of violence. In the 20th century this continued, with segregationists still grasping at the remnants of their superior social status in their attempts to uphold the separation of races. And with the increasing prevalence of gender and sexual minorities ever since the start of the gay liberation movement in the 1960s, those who are desperate for a sense of strength, superiority, and righteousness have found new fodder upon which to feed."

https://humancommabeing.wordpress.com/2022/04/07/existential-roots-of-lgbt-oppression/

The Self, the Other, and the Sadistic Urge: The Existential Roots of LGBT+ Oppression Content warning: This article includes mentions of child abuse, sexual assault, homophobic, transphobic, and racist rhetoric and violence. If any of these issues have the potential to cause distres…

Just got a new shipment! Get your own copy at humancommabeing.wordpress.com/the-crisis-of-individuality/ or contact me here on Facebook to reserve a copy.

In light of recent events in Europe, today's book recommendation is "Black Earth" by Timothy Snyder.

Snyder's history of the Holocaust is as enthralling as it is harrowing. Being fluent in ten European languages, he draws from numerous sources including firsthand accounts not often tapped by American scholars. He details the motivations and actions of those who perpetrated the Holocaust, their collaborators, and those who fought back.

Among the topics covered is the country of Ukraine, which was an important target for the N***s in their invasion of Eastern Europe. Snyder explains that Hi**er saw the fertile soil of Ukraine as being the future breadbasket of his empire, his intention being to prevent the German people from going hungry and turning on their government again as they had done in 1918.

In the end, Snyder makes the controversial yet very interesting conclusion that much of what spurred the N***s' genocidal ambitions was fundamentally ecological. In Snyder's mind, Hi**er wished to see the world return to its natural state--which would involve constant racial struggle in which only one race could triumph and thrive. It was therefore necessary for the N***s to purge Europe of whoever stood between them and the supplies of land and food they needed to be successful in that struggle, and Snyder warns that future ecological issues could give rise to similar ideas.

Excerpt:
"The planet is changing in ways that might make Hi**erian descriptions of life, space, and time more plausible. The expected increase of average global temperatures by four degrees Celsius this century would transform human life on much of the globe. Climate change is unpredictable, which exacerbates the problem. [...]
Perhaps the experience of unprecedented storms, relentless droughts, and the associated wars and south-to-north migrations will jar expectations about the security of basic resources and make Hi**erian politics more resonant. As Hi**er demonstrated during the Great Depression, humans are able to portray looming crisis in such a way as to justify drastic measures in the present. Under enough stress, or with enough skill, politicians can effect the conflations Hi**er pioneered: between nature and politics, between ecosystem and household, between need and desire. A global problem that seems otherwise insoluble can be blamed upon a specific group of human beings."

I'm going to try getting back into the habit of doing regular book recommendations.

We'll start things off again with "The Dawn of Everything" by David Graeber and David Wengrow." This truly monumental book on anthropology explores the evolution of human social order throughout our ancient history, and its publication at a time when many people feel that there is no alternative to the status quo could not have been more appropriate.

Targeting both Rousseau and Hobbes (as well as their modern intellectual progeny), Graeber and Wengrow challenge broad narratives about the nature of humanity and human societies: that we are inherently good or evil, selfless or selfish, peaceful or violent, inclined towards egalitarianism or hierarchy, etc. They argue that our early ancestors deserve to be seen more as free agents, and they seek to begin "a new science of history, one that restores our ancestors to their full humanity."

Among Graeber and Wengrow's most important discoveries is that many prehistoric societies--even very large and complex ones--were thoroughly egalitarian in nature, and many of those that had hierarchies were not so rigid as once believed. Early human beings were constantly experimenting with different forms of social order and accepted the ability to do so as one of their basic freedoms. If one arrangement resulted in abuses of power or some people's needs not being met, those who were dissatisfied would often simply move away and try out a different arrangement.

The observations in this book are important for us to consider today as we face a multitude of societal issues that seem insoluble because our form of social order is so resistant to change. We would benefit from looking to our prehistoric brethren who seem to have understood that, no matter what, we are always free to seek better arrangements, and the imagination and creativity necessary to do so are inherent in the human condition.

Excerpt:
"We can see more clearly now what is going on when, for example, a study that is rigorous in every other respect begins from the unexamined assumption that there was some ‘original’ form of human society; that its nature was fundamentally good or evil; that a time before inequality and political awareness existed; that something happened to change all this; that ‘civilization’ and ‘complexity’ always come at the price of human freedoms; that participatory democracy is natural in small groups but cannot possibly scale up to anything like a city or a nation state.

We know, now, that we are in the presence of myths."

Got a pleasant surprise in the mail yesterday!

Our latest article dissects Facebook's "metaverse" and related phenomena--cryptocurrency, NFTs, etc.--using Guy Debord's "The Society of the Spectacle." What exactly are the implications of these recent developments in the world of technological capitalism? Read the article below to find out.

Excerpt:
"It is no mistake that this shift towards the metaverse was announced while Facebook was being confronted with heavy criticism after information was leaked about its business practices, specifically the fact that the website was promoting hateful and contentious material because of the engagement it generated and that the company was suppressing studies that found its influence on society to be negative. The metaverse idea was certainly brewing before these revelations came to light, but Zuckerberg’s decision to announce his new goals immediately after the leaks was no doubt intended to distract from the criticism. This, in a very general sense, is almost certainly what the metaverse will be: a distraction from real problems, a digital space in which all of our desires can be satisfied virtually even as the real world around us might be collapsing."

https://humancommabeing.wordpress.com/2022/01/24/the-spectacle-in-the-digital-age/

Avatars, Holograms, and Tokens: The Spectacle in the Digital Age What exactly is “the metaverse?” This is the question that many people have been asking since Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in October of 2021 that his company was changing its name to som…

Big news today! The Crisis of Individuality is officially on sale. Visit the link below to order your copy through Barnes & Noble.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-crisis-of-individuality-jordan-smirl/1140864876?ean=9781668599075

View on Human, Being:
https://humancommabeing.wordpress.com/the-crisis-of-individuality/

The Crisis of Individuality|Hardcover Who am I, and how should I relate to the world around me? These are the fundamental questions that underlie all human thought and activity, and the anxieties we encounter as we search for answers can inspire creativity and flourishing as much as they can drive us towards hatred and destruction....

Today is the anniversary of the 2021 Capitol riot. Here again are Jordan's thoughts on the event from last year:
https://humancommabeing.wordpress.com/2021/01/08/dali-donald-and-the-politics-of-surrealism/

Dalí, Donald, and the Politics of Surrealism Historian W. Scott Poole’s book Wasteland, which explores the influence of the First World War on Western arts and culture, includes a brief discussion of the renowned Spanish surrealist Salvador D…

To kick off the new year, here's a new article on hope and the future, reflecting on political issues over the past year. What are we looking forward to in 2022? How well-placed are our hopes? Is there more we should hope for or work towards? Follow the link below to read the full article.

"It is not necessarily futile to hope for that which seems impossible or improbable if one’s hope is substantial—that is, if it is backed by determination. In fact, we are at a stage where it is imperative that we hope for the impossible and the improbable. With the stagnation of our social order and the suppression of efforts at reform or renewal, we can see Antonio Gramsci’s words come to life before our very eyes: 'The old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.' These symptoms—desperation, disillusionment, unrest, conspiracy theories, mental illness, mass shootings, terrorism, and more—are indications that the structures of our society are collapsing. But rather than replacing any of the splintered and rotting beams we continue to paint the exterior with new colors and pretend that nothing is wrong."

https://humancommabeing.wordpress.com/2022/01/01/on-the-futility-of-hope/

On the Futility of Hope, or Where Did the Future Go? Hope is indispensable. To suggest that hope is futile is not to suggest that it should be done away with; the human mind, stuck as it is between past and present, can not function without some amou…

There's a page on the site now about my upcoming book. Should have more news on the publication next week!
https://humancommabeing.wordpress.com/the-crisis-of-individuality/

The Crisis of Individuality Available to purchase soon through barnesandnoble.com. Who am I, and how should I relate to the world around me? These are the fundamental questions that underlie all human thought and activity, an…

Today we have an article by R.C. Roberts, a review of Jordan's upcoming book, "The Crisis of Individuality." If you enjoy reading Roberts' thoughts, be sure to check out his newsletter Ferocia Animi (linked in the comments) and keep your eyes open for more news about the book's publication.

"The crisis of individuality, to Smirl, is the center of our battle with capitalism, with consumerism, and even with postmodernism. Individuality is under threat, and instead of reinforcing the old walls of ‘enlightened individualism’ that have failed us, or fleeing in fear towards a ‘posthuman’ future, giving ground to capitalism and surrendering the individual, Smirl asks us to do what we do best; standing up for ourselves by re-imagining what personhood is, but considering our humanity as belonging to a sense of being, a sense that we all share. In other words, he asks us to put more emphasis on ‘being’, and less on ‘human’, so that we might find a way to respond to this crisis, to the way we have become unsettled."

"It is being human, and not human beings, that is under threat in our world. And Smirl seeks a heroism that will protect us being human by connecting us to human beings."

https://humancommabeing.wordpress.com/2021/11/21/review_of_the_crisis_of_individuality/

The Poetics of Sunken Footprints, or a Review of J.D. Smirl’s “The Crisis of Individuality” by R.C. Roberts The following is a review written by R. C. Roberts of The Crisis of Individuality. It was originally published in the newsletter Ferocia Animi and has been reposted here with the author’s con…

Today's article takes on the strange phenomenon of NFTs and our attitude towards art in the modern age.

"The issue with art largely becoming the subject of exchange in the modern world is that, while reproducibility has emancipated art from the traditions to which it was once bound, the economic circumstances under which reproduction occurs have tended to re-enslave it to another form of ritual, that of capitalistic exchange. In the realm of economics there are supposedly laws--'the hidden hand of the market'--that dictate things like value and salability, and these laws are as authoritative as those guiding the participants in more traditional forms of ritual. As an artist bound to these economic conditions the liberating qualities of art are overshadowed by the machinations of the market. One is forced to prioritize exchange over expression, to subordinate individuality to market demands, to eschew authenticity in one’s work whenever it is not easily marketable. In the same way as I can not freely reign over the design of a table since, at the end of the day, it must still function as a table, I can not freely reign over my art if its primary purpose is to be the source of enough exchange value so as to allow me to put food in my pantry and to keep a roof over my head."

Follow the link below to read the full article:
https://humancommabeing.wordpress.com/2021/11/06/the-weird-essence-of-nfts/

On the Weird Essence of NFTs and Art in Late Capitalism I am an artist, though I have never made much money off of my art. The fact of the matter is that I do not particularly enjoy selling my art, and even when I do, I hesitate to charge much for it& #8…

Follow this link to read some excerpts from Jordan's upcoming book, "The Crisis of Individuality." If you would like an advance copy to review, feel free to send a request through the contact form on the site.

https://humancommabeing.wordpress.com/2021/10/23/excerpts-from-the-crisis-of-individuality/

Excerpts from Jordan’s Upcoming Book, “The Crisis of Individuality” The following are some passages from my upcoming book, The Crisis of Individuality. The book is a work of phenomenology, political theory, and cultural criticism which addresses the fundamental que…