Saturday, May 18, 2024

ILLUSTRATING THE END OF THE WORLD

Once upon a time, magazines had such high budgets for illustrations that they could commission illustrators to muse about the end of the world. 

For example, Life magazine paid artist Rockwell Kent to imagine four different scenarios for the end of life on earth.  Life's editors explained that an artist's interpretations "suggest reality much more forcefully than a scientist's six-lettered formula:"


The loss of heat

The loss of gravity

Collision with a meteor


Solar flares

Coronet Magazine commissioned a similar set of speculations from illustrator Chesley Bonestell:











In the years following these illustrations, scientists discovered that the universe is expanding at an increasing pace, which points to a totally different ending.  It now seems that the universe is likely to dissipate to a state of maximum entropy-- a cold, empty void where individual subatomic particles become so spread out they will no longer be capable of sustaining life or heat.  In the distant future, form will no longer exist. 

Fortunately, today's illustrators are up to the challenge of illustrating a formless, empty void.  Some publications now substitute photographs for illustrations, but wish to imply that human creativity continues to play a role in the process.  To achieve this result, they add pointless random squiggles around the photograph.








These are excellent illustrations of the dissipation of form at the end of the world.


57 comments:

  1. To be honest, all these works are rather bland. By the way, the fact that there's no nuclear war apocalypse dates them. But there's no excuse for lacking some Chtulhu action.

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  2. It's criminal that those last two pass as illustration. They are just a mess.

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  3. I think that the expanding is supposed to be speeding up, now.
    Bill

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  4. Ehm, as you noted.
    Bill

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  5. Under my country's copyright laws, these would not be deemed to possess sufficient creativity to be considered copyrightable. There simply isn't enough content. Only the stock photos would thus be considered to actually exist (in a legal sense). The added graphic design and doodles would not.

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    Postmodern Anonymouse.

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  6. The Kents are curiously powerless. I would have thought that his style would have lent itself to a more hallucinogenic and visionary approach, something taking off from Blake's twisted religious symbolisms into something more Jungian and cosmic, in keeping with the theosophy jazz of his time. As it stands, we get Kent's poor drawing skills - a kind of gummy and bedraggled literalism - without his idealistic dreamy side to lift it up and transcend the moment. I don't think he was sufficiently inspired with authentic fear and awe to give the apocalypse its due.

    Bonestell's practical engineering approach works better, I think. His Manhattan aflame is a masterpiece of technical spectacle. And the people, cars, and boats floating in the city sky picture has more rapture to it than any of Kent's. The others seem more reportorial, which is strange given how imaginative they are as creations. I guess his engineering-mind led Bonestell to think like a matte painter more often than not. Or maybe that was his assignment.

    Ultimately, on questions of the apocalypse illustrated, the presumed facts of the presumed ultimate moment can only be a starting point for some more cosmic conception. To get at the godlike importance of the last grand goodbye requires big profound poetic abstractions, I would think, suggesting the artist's profound emotional resonance with the terrifying subject.

    As far as the Washington Post Apocalypse goes, I'm reminded of a recent Rick Beato video headline regarding AI's malign utility in the corrupt online music business: "Only Creative People Can Save Us."

    All the smart conversation I hear about dealing with our crumbling institutions, the inept pretend-adepts staffing them, and the parasites bleeding them for their own benefit are coming from outside those institutions. I don't think Laurence Peter of Peter Principle fame really considered his pet problem in its full measure.



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  7. xopxe-- I agree about these works. None of them are great; certainly they are not up to the grandeur of their subject matter. But at least the Kent and the Bonestell pieces exhibit a little sincerity and some drama. My point was mostly that there was enough money sloshing around in the system that an editor could turn to well established artists and commission a bushel basket full of pictures on topics of no great urgency or topicality.

    In fairness to Bonestell, he WAS commissioned to paint a nuclear apocalypse (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/hiroshima-usa-169079615/ ) as were several other artists. Illustration was a very different game back then.

    Anonymous/Bill-- I thought we had billions of years left, but those last couple of illustrations look like early sightings of the great nothingness. The end of the universe may be closer than we thought.

    MORAN-- I thought it was pretty funny that publications would pay istock for something like that.

    Postmodern anonymouse-- Good point (although I think the intellectual property laws --including copyright--are soon heading for a day of reckoning. They are premised on a defnition of human creativity on the verge of becoming obsolete. Governments around the world are going to have to go back and reexamine first principles about what it means to "create" something.)





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  8. Kev Ferrara-- I agree with you. Kent's figures were always a little stiff, but he created a sweet spot with monumental, upright figures where stiffness mattered less. Here he drew figures swirling around in different angles (in his picture of the loss of gravity) so his weaknesses really showed. It was a surprising choice.

    As for the Washington Post, I understand modern newspapers concluding that budgets are too thin to pay for new illustrations, so they rely upon stock photos. And I understand newspapers wanting to do something to customize or personalize those stock photos, to create the illusion that human hands were involved. But even in a postmodern era of lowered standards, I'm baffled that any professional publication could think that those stray wisps of lines were worth reproducing and presenting to subscribers.

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  9. When I look at what is known as illustrations today I wonder why I spent so much time in my youth learning anatomy and drawing, buying art books, going to classes, agonizing over composition when all I needed to do was paste a photo over squiggly lines.
    “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It And I Feel Sad.”

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  10. Oh the squiggles! How far we have fallen.

    (I will now identify motorcycles to prove I am human.)

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  11. But even in a postmodern era of lowered standards, I'm baffled that any professional publication could think that those stray wisps of lines were worth reproducing and presenting to subscribers.

    As is often said, every mark you make on a canvas shows exactly what you were thinking at the very moment you set it down.

    The worry is that there are people on staff that are either dumb, distracted, or untalented enough to believe those squiggles are artful. Or so dismissive of the taste of their readership that they believe the readership would find it artful. Or simply don't care about what they are doing at work, because they are addicted to their phones. Or something.

    Equally worrying is that there is in fact a segment of the readership that would find those squiggles different, interesting, or au courant in some way. (Or simply don't care about the aesthetics of what they consume, considering it ephemera.)

    Once the New York Times began - instead of carefully curating the letters for its daily print edition letters page - allowing all letters to the editors to be published online, I completely lost faith the in the mystique of some kind of cultural-intellectual tribe surrounding and supporting that paper. As one editor reportedly said, "our role is to provide entertainment for people who want to feel smart." Which doesn't guarantee much in the way of actual smarts.

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  12. Oh the squiggles! How far we have fallen.

    (I will now identify motorcycles to prove I am human.)


    Actually (I laughed) funny,
    and true, of course.

    The squiggles simultaneously draw attention to and away from the stock photos, which are pastiches of illustration. Without the squiggles, the photos would be invisible. Thus the squiggles illuminate — and illustrate. They funtion as eye floaters, drawing attention to the act of seeing, which is unavoidably done through the lens of postmodernity.

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    Postmodern Anonymouse

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  13. The squiggles simultaneously draw attention to and away from the stock photos, which are pastiches of illustration. Without the squiggles, the photos would be invisible. Thus the squiggles illuminate — and illustrate. They funtion as eye floaters, drawing attention to the act of seeing, which is unavoidably done through the lens of postmodernity.

    Bot text.

    Whoever is playing this stupid AI troll game with "Postmodern Anonymouse" please know that you are detestable; whatever your purpose is. Though my presumption is that you're a Chinese bot with the intent to seed demoralizing postmodern bullshit wherever people write in English online.

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  14. Postmodern Anonymouse-- OK, but to what end? The word "illustration" comes from the Latin illustrare, meaning "to light up or enlighten." Since enlightenment doesn't seem to be at issue with this space on the page, what purpose is served by drawing attention to (or away from) the space?

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  15. Apatoff - I prefer to think that some soon-to-be-let-go-anyways illustrator, graphic designer or AD decided to spotlight the paper's lack of illustrative effort by adding these elements as an act of subversion, to draw attention to the mechanical mimicry meant to replace the performance of actual illustrative work, but I doubt it. The most likely intent was, as you say, to add some minimal human touch. And as an act of content creation this obviously failed, but it failed in an interesting way - the squiggles actively draw attention to the otherwise entirely passive stock photos. Like eye floaters, the make us aware of our act of looking & seeing. They illustrate the lack of actual illustrative content by making the simulation glitch.

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    Postmodern Anonymouse

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  16. Ferrara:

    I know you worry about your precious bodily fluids and cognitive integrity being corrupted by the Commies, so I decided to help you preserve your latest statement for posterity, lest it be intentionally deleted by some cowardly actor.

    The squiggles simultaneously draw attention to and away from the stock photos, which are pastiches of illustration. Without the squiggles, the photos would be invisible. Thus the squiggles illuminate — and illustrate. They funtion as eye floaters, drawing attention to the act of seeing, which is unavoidably done through the lens of postmodernity.

    Bot text.

    Whoever is playing this stupid AI troll game with "Postmodern Anonymouse" please know that you are detestable; whatever your purpose is. Though my presumption is that you're a Chinese bot with the intent to seed demoralizing postmodern bullshit wherever people write in English online.


    You're welcome.

    PS! I can't help you with your fluids. But maybe you should have them checked, just in case.

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    Postmodern Anonymouse

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  17. Cutie pie,

    I guess I'll waste some time discussing your points as if they were legitimate attempts by a brain to use reason.

    the stock photos, which are pastiches of illustration.

    In what sense are the photos imitations of another artist's style? Or of some genre or epoch of illustration? They're just stock photographs cropped with random framing angles in the Post's layout software.

    Without the squiggles, the photos would be invisible

    What are you talking about? Photos alone (sans squiggles) have been used for a hundred years in newspapers without being "invisible". The squiggles here actually compromise the photos; they somewhat lead to the photos, but lack any visual resonance with them. So while guiding us to them, their disunity with the photographs actually distracts us slightly from processing the photovisual content.

    Thus the squiggles illuminate — and illustrate. They function as eye floaters, drawing attention to the act of seeing,

    No they don't, bot. And why would anybody do that anyway when that has nothing to do with the article being illustrated. Do you understand what the word "illustrate" means?

    If anything, given the article content, the squiggles might represent the wild afterimage trail of an attempt to - while jogging - look at, say, an apple watch lcd display for heart rate as one hustles, bounces and jostles.

    And as an act of content creation this obviously failed, but it failed in an interesting way - the squiggles actively draw attention to the otherwise entirely passive stock photos.

    The stock photos are not "entirely passive". (Fyi, humans interest other humans, bot.)

    And the very point of the squiggles was to draw attention to/superficially enliven the stock photos. That is their purpose. So how could the same scribbling effect fail and also be interesting with respect to its lone superficial intention?

    The reason you sound like a bot is because you rap just like one. There is the telltale lack of internal logic in nearly everything you say that allows you to assert puzzling jabberwocky with abandon.

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  18. What the fuck is wrong with the Washington Post that they would publish stuff like this?

    JSL

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  19. What the fuck is wrong with the Washington Post that they would publish stuff like this?

    • They lost $77 million last year?
    • They are staffed by distracted and self-righteous woke college grads who are paid in prestige instead of money and who were indoctrinated into postmodern anhedonic therapy-culture from birth?
    • Will Lewis, their recent CEO-publisher has announced a full-scale move to AI to save the paper? So only heavily medicated staff will be necessary.
    • They still exist because - to a large degree - they are a cutout PR/propaganda outfit for elite political-business and power interests? And that is so valuable a service to the lords-that-be that the paper doesn't actually need to respond to a real marketplace or demographic like a normal business.
    • The vast majority of their actual readership only pretends to be cultured. In reality, they are only cultured by what they read in the paper. If scribbles appear in the paper, the flock has been told that scribbles are not just art, but symbols of prestige aesthetics, and then scribbles become good culture by such authoritative word-magic and status-assertion.

    Need more bullet points? ;)

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  20. Same everywhere, across the world. Sales are in the toilet and many are getting by on grants tied to covering particular caus..., issues.
    Bill

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  21. Yep. This is a symptom of something that is happening across most institutions, organisations and domains at all scales, and witnessing the process is a dismal, dispiriting and depressing experience.

    I was first aware of it in during my student days where the seed of post-modern deconstruction was finding the initial fertile soil in which to start spreading its roots - gain of function cultural research in the 1960s finally out of the ideological petri dish.

    Wiping this stuff onto newspapers is nothing compared to it being dosed into the the AI pipes.

    But at least the cat is now fully out of the bag and in plain sight. Most people can at least see they are facing some kind of weird 'nonsense monster' even though not yet aware it has emerged from certain aspects of what we've been doing for the last hundred years or more. They've yet to understand, deep down, what it is, where it has come from and what it has in mind...

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  22. Never attribute to a small group of French nerds that which is adequately explained by capitalism.

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    Postmodern Anonymouse

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  23. Except nobody is buying either that or the papers.

    Bill

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  24. Or that totalitarianism is better than capitalism or democracy.

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  25. It's weird that you all discuss that newspaper thing so much. It's obvious what happened, an overworked and depressed staffer was told he had 30 minutes to do something because of an editorial mishap *everybody* knew would happen. Anyway, he knows he is out of a job in the next CEO power move, so fuck it. And so he sits there, in front of this article written by a freelancer as soul-crushed as him, contemplating death.

    Now, to the important stuff. That Bonestell meteorite. It's about a 1km crater, which means a meteorite of about 100m diameter. That's tens to hundreds of Megatons in TNT equivalent. City and perhaps region ending, but no world apocalypse. But this area would look much worse, with molten rocks raining, and the river itself would have changed its course and swept all those docks away in huge waves of super-heated mud.

    It's also fascinating how popular the no-gravity imagery is. This probably plays into the Rapture symbolism in Christian lands. Also, flying and floating are very popular content for human dreams[1][2], so these images are at least evocative.

    [1] https://www.ejqrp.org/index.php/ejqrp/article/download/62/57
    [2] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232499927_Gravity_Content_in_Dreams

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  26. "It's obvious what happened, an overworked and depressed staffer was told he had 30 minutes to do something because of an editorial mishap *everybody* knew would happen. Anyway, he knows he is out of a job in the next CEO power move, so fuck it. And so he sits there, in front of this article written by a freelancer as soul-crushed as him, contemplating death."

    The two posted squiggle examples appeared on different days, September 7 and September 20th of last year. Which would indicate that the squiggles were vetted as the ongoing signature design style of the particular series (WELL + BEING) in an art department meeting (or its equivalent).

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  28. Regarding the now deleted comment, I certainly do recogize ideological indoctrination. The inane (and inanely conflating) takes on post-modernism and marxism vectorized in the form of thought-terminating clichés by opportunist super-spreaders like Jordan Peterson and his ilk is just that.

    And, OF COURSE the squiggled-upon stock photos are a product of laissez-faire competition, dwindling budgets and an insatiable need for surplus extraction. They were only ever let to print because editorial gambled on the market allowing them, not because anybody thought they were otherwise "good".

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    Postmodern Anonymouse

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  29. 'laissez-faire competition' + 'editorial gambled on the market allowing them, not because anybody thought they were otherwise "good".'

    Does not compute.

    Bill

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  30. It does, the one who cheapens the most and goes away with it, wins. Capitalism is not a race for the best product, is a race for the biggest margins.

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  31. Well, and I'm going assertions by others here as I neither know nor have an interest, the particular paper is losing money, rather than 'winning' ?

    And capitalism is trying to sell stuff for money, anyway, barter through codified substance. The creation of junk through costcutting or deliberation to make well or improve what's made are neither inevitable from that. You'll find evidence of both since it began.

    Is the 'competition' pointed to above about profit and costcutting to get there ? That would maybe explain clip art.
    But it's a (supposedly/formerly) prestige publication elevating the substanceless glyphs that's been placed on the clip art. Apparantly by design, with a meaning-versus/within-unmeaning pretense of some kind struck as part of the pose,

    Sad, laughable, only a stupid squiggle in a paper... all at once whether or not one cares ?


    The real and only matter of imprtance is whether the capability to create things that are worthwhile and well wrought that arise from the human spirit within the world - and whether the capacity to recognise these - endure in the world at large.

    The disbelief that this is of importance is the real 'horseshoe' where meet the spirit-divested, utiltarian, wealth-as-abstraction; capital-for-its-own-sake,
    & the all leftward 'isms' that are founded on the denial, divestment & deconstruction of meaning and spirit, whether for supposed ideological or utilitarian reasons. They're the same thing.

    Bill

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  32. The real and only matter of imprtance is whether the capability to create things that are worthwhile and well wrought that arise from the human spirit within the world - and whether the capacity to recognise these - endure in the world at large.

    «All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.»
    - not a postmodernist

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    Postmodern Anonymouse

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  33. He missed its applicability to his own guff and what it lead to. Which was my point.

    As for the 'postmodern' thing ? Nothing to do with me, mate. Take it back up with the hand in your sock.

    Bill

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  34. My apologies, the reference to conflation of «leftward 'isms'» wasn’t uniquely in response to your post. And sure, Marx was no saint. And the the atrocities caused by appropriators of his work are undeniable. And and lot of the texts are severely outdated. But his critique of capitalism (and empire) still has merit, and being the postmoderns we all are, it need not be dogmatically read.

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  35. The system he proposed is nonsense, irregardless of the "communism's never been done right" apologists when the parallels become too obvious for them to miss.
    There is no difference between the essential negative chatacterics of what he 'critiqued' in capitalism and imperialism and the proposals of that daft manifesto.
    They're anti-human in the exact same way.
    When people think in manifestos, systems, abstractions..., rather than in terms of meaning, and as humans, they can't see this.

    Bill

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  36. The conservatives' relationship with Capitalism is funny. It's evident that it is the force wrecking all the cultural and social values that are dear to their hearts, but at the same time, it's the reigning doctrine of power, and because of it's by default correct and must be defended at all costs. It's the beaten wife syndrome.

    This causes all this psychotic blame-shifting, where market forces are not responsible for the rise and fall of media or the obliteration of the "old" with the "new" but some college cabal with depraved tastes and mythical powers.

    No, wait, not funny, sad.

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  37. It's evident that it is the force wrecking all the cultural and social values that are dear to their hearts, but at the same time, it's the reigning doctrine of power, and because of it's by default correct and must be defended at all costs. It's the beaten wife syndrome.

    There is so much good debate, theory, and socio-historical information out there that could immediately defeat your potted analyses of both commercial enterprise/wealth investment and current conservative thinking about, for example, corporatism. Yet, you seem to have never encountered even a single word of it.

    How can you stand to have such a siloed information diet?

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  38. "It's evident that it is the force wrecking all the cultural and social values..."

    Media here is becoming increasingly subsidised - filtered through ngos, direct from EU deptartments, etc.
    So, you get psychotic junk from that, decidedly 'left'-scripted end, and mere junk from the other. The prongs meet back in the middle somewhere.

    Bill

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  40. This causes all this psychotic blame-shifting, where market forces are not responsible for the rise and fall of media or the obliteration of the "old" with the "new" but some college cabal with depraved tastes and mythical powers.

    That is not the argument being made here, and is typical of the standard off-the-shelf progressive defence of its ideology. 'Post Modernism' or 'progressive ideology' is an intellectual calcification or reductionist model of how society is believed to work based on an existential trend founded on a fundamental misunderstanding of, for one thing, the context of technology. In other words believing materialism to be a comprehensive account of reality and consequently, for example, the belief that all hierarchy is driven by power.

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  41. Indeed. I think most people, however wistfully, rationally accept any decline or fall in media that's caused by normal market forces.
    What's happening now, though, to a large extent - certainly in parts of europe, not sure about the US - is that choices are being made to interfere with forces with an intent, even in cases where the changes run counter to consumer appeal, and buyer's wishes. Newspapers, for instance, have here dropped in sales by about 90%. They now get grants tied to giving space over to vested topics of one kind or another. But more importantly, it has altered editorial policy. 'Classic-hits' commercial radio stations (which were entirely music-based, ie, no current affairs up until this year) now have saturday afternoon segments with guests from government media bodies telling listeners how to recognise 'disinformation' from vested malign interests on the internet (!) Funded by the taxpayer. And the companies are hooked on it.
    We all politely refrained from sniggering out of civility when this kind of govt. buttressing was used to keep crap concept artists afloat, even when the open-submission commissions were overtly politically-themed. But this is something else.....squiggly.

    Bill

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  42. Sounds bad, Bill. What country do you live in?

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    Postmodern Anonymouse

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  43. One in europe. Or I just cribbed it for the sake of this discussion after I read about it on google, where you too can find these things.
    Bill

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  44. "'Post Modernism' or 'progressive ideology' is an intellectual calcification or reductionist model"

    Chris,

    I believe we have to distinguish tactics from ideology.

    Postmodernism - in its activist form - is a suite of rhetorical and socio-political tactics to quickly dismiss, bully, or crush any information, belief, personage, tradition, or institution in the way of the usurpation of social and political power by radicals.

    Progressivism branched into its new form 'woke' by picking up those tactics, saying thank you very much, these tactics will do just fine for our purposes. In the process of taking those tactics into the boat, other mission-confusing pomo detritus flowed in tow. Such that proselytizing inductees must circuitously defend their religion's scrambled doctrines by pretending only they understand its coherence or true nature. (Classic cultist behavior)

    Some older boomer progressives are still believers in the 50s-60s mission they were raised into, and are still a little wary of the woke insurgency, though few have the energy anymore to put up a fight. (And some just want to watch Rome burn as they fade, no matter who strikes the match.)

    "In other words believing materialism to be a comprehensive account of reality and consequently, for example, the belief that all hierarchy is driven by power."

    Both the Soviet and Maoist models are founded on the intellectual superiority and purity of the ruling council/nomenklatura cast. Which excuses any abrogation of the rights of lessers, unbelievers and apostates, including their mass murder.

    This sociopathic sense of superiority was never dropped as the woke offshoot adopted non-judgmentalism and anti-hierarchy. The offer of prestige without achievement and disdain for selected outsiders is a permanent lure in political demagoguery. The hierarchy-leveling remit of postmodernism and pretend non-judgmentalism, again, are only tactics; superficially adopted to use only against opponents. It doesn't apply to the Soviet Holy nor their hierarchies and high perches.

    (Hypocrisy and other inconsistencies don't matter in power warfare.)

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  46. Kev,

    Yes, absolutely true, so, many thanks for unpacking the distinction. I was trying to define the root of the situation but of course that turns into a trunk which branches. And defining those branches is a very necessary though cumbersome task because the trip wires are everywhere. Your eloquence made seemingly light work of it!

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  47. «Media here is becoming increasingly subsidised - filtered through ngos, direct from EU deptartments, etc.» + « I just cribbed it for the sake of this discussion after I read about it on google»

    Does not compute.

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    Postmodern Anonymouse

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  48. I was telling you it's none of your business whereI live, and go look for yourself.
    Here's a kick in the behind for some initial impetus for your travels - https://iea.org.uk/how-government-subsidies-to-the-media-undermine-editorial-independence/
    Bill. Not UK.

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  49. "Hayek advises Fisher; Fisher recruits Harris; Harris meets Seldon. In nine words, that is the start of the IEA.”

    Right.

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  50. Not really interested in where you live, but actually interested in the validity of your claims. I live in one of the most progressive countries in Europe myself, and even we are nowhere near the Alex Jones’ish reality you laid out.

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    Postmodern Anonymouse

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  51. It's in the e.u. publications, meetings & c. As referenced in the article. Go read it or piss off, as you prefer.

    Bill

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  52. Haha, nobody beating the allegations here, I see.

    Coming back to David, thanks to the pointer for that Collier's Bonestell work. In another place I found this work, closely related to what I assumed was a meteorite hit (though the placement does not match exactly):

    https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Atomic-Bombing-of-New-York--Collier-s-Ma/A10D07F49C4F1C30

    The guy hated Manhattan.

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  53. Also, does the expanding-sun-caused drought scene with the dry riverbed correspond to an actual city?

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  54. 'Atomic Bombing of New York, Collier's...Mixed Media on photograph' [ !!! ]

    Bill



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  55. There certainly is a resonance between the apocalyptical artworks and the alledged death of Western culture. When one adds what Frank Kermode termed "men in their middest" to the mix, the resonance is amplified. The spectacular end of the world seems always imminent, because singular man cannot bear that the world will somehow go on without him. And it must also be immanent, because the apocalyptical structure is foundational to the narrative of our lives. Going out not with a bang but a whimper isn't the apocalypse we were promised.

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    Postmodern Anonymouse

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  56. <<<Haha, nobody beating the allegations here, I see.

    Haha. See Brandolini's Law, narcissist. We aren't here to correct every political assertion you make. But to discuss illustration art.

    ~ FV

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  57. Not sure who was talking to whom in a couple of the above, some general comprehension issues affecting more than just the 'mouse'-character....
    Anyway, here's an english language one from the vererable Times on their, ahem, 'progressive' neighbour. You'll get more of the same on several of the others, but only if you look.
    The e.u. paid for a study - you'll amazingly also find it on the internet - on the effects of media subsidies either direct from themselves, through national governments that determined that this kind of thing, of course, didn't happen. The 'plan' referred to is the implementation by Ireland of macro e.u. policies on climate, migration, usual suspects


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/martin-attacks-dubious-2040-media-deal-c6wtq772d
    "Government ‘paid for good news stories’ over Ireland 2040 plan
    Concerns have been raised about an “ethically dubious deal” between the government and national newspapers that involves journalists writing positive pieces..." etc

    Bill.

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