Journal sielwolf's Journal: Kultur v. Zivilization 8

There is only one Sin in the 21st Century and that is to be Boring. Likewise there is only one Crime in the New Millenium and that is to inflict Your Boredom on others. This One Crime is punishable by Death. Or should be, anyway.

Seriously. I shit you not.

[to the tune of Joy Division "She's Lost Control"]

First the words Culture and Civilization are not the same. Not even close. Not in the context of this Journal.

Thomas Mann, 1918 Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man?

During that Great First Unpleasantness, the fine author penned this book where he laid out the dichotomy of Culture and Civilization in a sweet, very 20th century way. The way that Mann saw it, the Fate of the World was up for grabs, the winner being able to stamp their social construct across the globe. But this was larger than colonies or borders or stupid concepts such as Democracy or Socialism or rights of Kings. No, the war was being fought for the very fabric of each person's being.

Culture, to Mann, was a Continental virtue, best displayed by the Germans. From there it ebbed out, disappearing wholesale somewhere at the middle of the Atlantic. Culture is the fabric of nationalism, an organic spirituality. And even then it is more than just the refined social characteristics of a race. It is best to describe it as not Civilization.

Civilization can be traced back from the British but its most virulent strain births from America. Civilization is merchantile and wholesale consumerism. Civilization is a solvent, bent on the disolution of Cultures, rendering nothing but a soup of mongrel impulses.

Even that does not give the concept its due. It is best to view Culture versus Civilization as social "are's" versus "could's".

In Culture, the Man is the State. His life is subject to the role placed upon him. The most noble thing was "to be". To be a carpenter, a farmer, a religious man. The role (and through that, the State) defined who he was. From birth to death. Apprentice, journyman, master, cadaver. But it even extends beyond some feudal notion for a Culture can be Democratic, Socialist, or any other shade.

The fact is that that the Structure of the Nation was the mold from which each citizen was pressed: you were a free and equal citizen only because your nation was a free and equal state.

Civilization? Is... not. Civilization is like the realization of chemical reactions at the atomic level; it is a surprise, considering the circumstances, that it works at all. The whole national picture is the result of the actions of the Individual in multitude. In Mann's eyes this was a disgusting operation. Citizens came and went, driven only by their impulses, feeding and grazing until nothing was left. A person was whatever he fancied himself at the moment. He was free or not depending wholly as he felt at the time. Derived from this, the nation was just as aimless, trite, only at a thousand fold magnitude...

*yak yak yak*

"What the fuck are you talking about here? No doubt, bruh. This is some junior-high-bore-me-to-tears type shit."

Goddamn it, I'm trying to make a fucking point? Jesus Christ, ever notice the fact that it's eighty some years later and not much as changed? At the same time every goddamn thing has changed?

"Huh?"

Word to the wise. Look out from the window. Catch the half-naked beauty; eyes, thighs, tats, and cheeks all airbrushed to lolitic heights. A product of some sort: Jeans, cigarettes, purfume, junk bonds? Who fucking knows? Of course that little hard motherfucker between knees knows for damn well what it is: red-hot fucking.

More to the point: there is no message here. That billboard beauty is but two-dimensional. No greater purpose. The television, the literature, our food, our educations. From this there is no great reward. A lifestyle is nothing more than a cash-grab for things and objects, the next always elusively expensive and... just... out of... reach.

This world, this American Civilization, will only leave your poor, rotting corpse, crushed with debt; forgotten as the next fiscal quarter begins.

Thomas Mann was right: there is a War going on. But it wasn't a set of trenches somewhere on the Alsace frontier. And it didn't end in '18 or '45. The fact is that it will never end, not until one of two Nations is left standing: the half-breed Civilization or one of the Pure Cultures.

Of course in the face of Civilization, the banner of Culture has been passed. de Gaulle resisted any attempt at hegemony. Then there was that whole Soviet Mistake. Now we are dealing with the backlash of sub-Sayed Abul ala Mawdudi Islamic Fundamentalism.

Of course the idea of Civilization has changed too. Now it is synonymous with the Modern and all of its failings (and yet strangely none of its strengths). Whorish, low, godless and heathen. All of its failings are again those of the Individual flesh.

Once more Democracy isn't the problem, but from where it stems. It is a kikely Jewish idea. Faggy and homosexual. A system of prostitutes. Dark and menial races. Only under a Democratic Culture can Democracy flourish, they say.

National Socialism did not despise Communism. Nor did the Ba'athist Iraqis and the Iranians. They fought because that is what Cultures are want to do. As Heinlein said, war is inevitable when two nations' borders touch.

The situation is wholly different between Culture and Civilization. Civilization is the Death of Culture. Social anarchy. It is the enemy of All Cultures.

[The present day and the current situation]

All the players have changed yet the conflict is still centrally the same. Most of us here are on the Civilization side of the fence, like it or not. Yeah, boo-hoo that our languages are picking up foreign elements like a port-side whore gathers ticks. Goddamn this fucking world where godless corporations force me to eat this fat food, jerk off to this unending porn; get fat and disgusting.

Blah blah blah, fuck you. This constant talk that blames America, McDonalds, and Time-Warner for the downfall of Humanity is ignorant of one simple fact:

That too many fucking people are incapable of fucking taking it upon themselves to be their own ethical compass in a world that is completely dispassionate and immoral.

Hell, they're too stupid to even know the difference between being amoral and immorality.

No, they, like Thomas Mann, are children of the Old Way. For thousands of fucking years people lived solely Hand-to-Mouth. And now in this era of luxury there is something that people cannot stand:

Free time.

Free time and disposable income. Anyone who tells you they would be perfectly fine with no obligations and the cash to do whatever they want is a liar. No one can fucking stand it. Why? Because they are incapable of stopping themselves from gorging on that Extra Value Menu, or wasting away the kid's college fund on the Unabridged Happy Anal Sluts Collection vols. 1-10.

Deep down in side they are too fucking Boring.

Too fucking unoriginal to do anything but spend the next 60 years of their lives with their trousers around their ankles jackhammering their cock into a cold sweat.

And since they cannot protect themselves, they decide to make the government protect them, fuck the rest.

They decide that the government should mandate that Everyone Else Be as Boring as Them.

Fuck you for being gay since I can't keep myself from slobbering dick down at the gloryhole. Fuck you and your music and books and your ideas cause they make me want to think of nothing more than rutting like a damn dog, gravy stains on my lapel. Goddamn you woman for your fucking body, I want to smash in your fucking little face!

This is all Culture is: a state of perpetual Boredom. A Caliphate, a hardline sharia, a Stalinist clusterfuck. They're all the same damn thing.

When they say "They hate us for our freedom, our Democracy" is to only see the wet titty through a pinhole; the issue is much larger than that. It is something fundamentally human.

In the year 2000 there is no need for anyone in the Western World to prostrate themselves on the Temple of the Nation. Even the most brutalized of its people have produced works of Civilization that seduce and entice. No moment need be wasted twiddling our thumbs, trying our hardest to resist the siren call of Hot Wet Action.

The problem is that so many people see no difference. Culture? Civilization? Who gives a shit? The biggest flaw of the second is that it allows one to think like you're in the first. It allows you to be Boring. What is the point of a million options when you chose the same damn one unrelentingly?

Goddamn it, to take only what is given to you by your parents or your clique or your entire social conditions is a fucking slap in the face. The very chattle like march through life is a concession of Defeat. Really, what is the fucking difference trading in the mesh trucker hat, novel t-shirt and prefaded denims for some other fucking uniform? Life is not a single set of options arbitrarily filled with choices. I'm going to read this cause, shit, its what was given to me. Fuck this and fuck that.

Terrorism? Islamism? This is no new enemy. Their goals are no different. They just want to fit you into a hole and poor sand over the top. To be a spectator in this age is to offer nothing. Do you hear that? There is a war going on. And it is not fought with the the sum of weaponry, but with the very carcinogenic idea that the World must listen.

I sometimes think to myself, if the Universe ceased to exist save for me, would I, being the whole of Reality left, represent Humanity in a microcosm? Would I reflect the diversity? Could I carry on? Or would I, seeing that the world had stopped, simply snuff myself being that there is no more guiding voice? No point? Am I that fucking worthless?

If one is not Interesting, interesting to himself and interesting to others, than what is saving from All that Is collapsing into nothing? Seriously, what is the goddamn point of it all?

To be boring is to wage a guerrilla war against all that is decent and good in the world.

*looks around* And with that- I'm off!