Dematerialisation.

HMGovt said:

High time preference: egotism, hedonism, solipsism, profligacy, nihilism, consumption, indolence, fame, Bluewater
Low time preference: discipline, foresight, strategy, dynasty, thrift, investment, posterity, Chartres

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That is rather genius - are those terms from economics then?

"Soul" is what's earned or acquired through suffering, loss, lack, trials, tribulations, or other negative experience - experiences that are lived with, learned from, overcome or transfigured, accepted etc.

So someone who has always existed within a frame of instant gratification - has never had to wait, go without, or not get the thing they wanted - could be said to be soul-less. They exist within the delusory omnipotence of primary narcissism aka the infantile. There is a lack of the depth that comes from accepting the existence of others and the fact that their desires and needs might not correlate with our own. That the world is not simply there to satisfy our needs.

Perhaps "soul" comes with an awareness or acceptance of the fact that other things have power over you - the lover, to start with, but also Reality / Fate / God. That would explain the religious resonances of "soul" maybe.

"Soul" I would connect with emotions or states of mind like patience, gratitude, humility, awareness of blessing or good fortune etc etc

The internet / games etc tend to promote the feeling that you have control - you are the master of all that you see. It's your choice that matters and that you are constantly flexing that choice-power with a myriad of clicks or likes or whatever.

Solipsism = soullessness.

(Does that mean rap is anti-soul or un-soul music?)

Soul = understanding that fundamental basis of being is loss... and that each individual is incomplete, can never be self-sufficient

The salve for the wound of being is either love, or God - or the community of congregants.

Positive thinking (Trump's religion) is a profound perversion of Christianity in so far as it says that God is Supply - god will give you everything your heart desires if you get your mind in tune with the positive vibrations of the universe. There is nothing in the Bible to support this.

thirdform said:

there has always been a soulnessless element in modern music, stretching right back to Stockhausens and Schoenberg.

i don't think that is necessarily, a bad thing. in fact i don't get on with posh neo-soul really.

The thing is that a lot of pop/rnb doesn't really owe itself as much to previous trends that we're used to. in the US shitty rock n roll (not rock music as such) won. which must be bitter for us in the UK. By 1984, maybe even 1979, we were already moving away from it!


i like this tune but yeah best illustration of what im sayin'. also Future doesn't really sing like an rnb singer.

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Schoenberg disingenuously once claimed that in the future, grossers would hum his serialist compositions like they did bach or mozart or whoever.

the fact that that never happened illustrates that he was never interested in subordinating his music to the concerns of others. i think that is the soulnessless that @blissblogger was talking about. i can't.. necessarily see that as a bad thing.

i don't think immediate gratification is bad either i mean Americans are wrong Destiny's child are better than Erykah Badu who is better grounded in reality rather than DC's liberal shtick.

i just think it's a question of belief really you'll find people who genuinely believe that Justin Beiber is great pop. i'm more interested in when that belief maxes out, and if it doesn't for some people, why not?

john eden said:

Yes it was Watson, who is too marxist even for me but still an interesting writer.

I think the whole idea of Adorno's take on "Jazz" what that it was exactly the sort of bland lift music that people with very conservative tastes in music like.

Which can apply to all genres.

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Oh he probably meant Jazz properly, which is fine somehow?

He recognized that Jazz at it's basic form serves as dancefloor 'environmental' music. I bet he hated Satie because the idea of music in service to a situation rather than being the spectacle itself is capitalism in effect kinda.

Modern example would be rappers having to think of music to service stripclubs in order to primarily succeed in certain pockets of the country.

1:30

CrowleyHead said:

Oh he probably meant Jazz properly, which is fine somehow?

He recognized that Jazz at it's basic form serves as dancefloor 'environmental' music. I bet he hated Satie because the idea of music in service to a situation rather than being the spectacle itself is capitalism in effect kinda.

Modern example would be rappers having to think of music to service stripclubs in order to primarily succeed in certain pockets of the country.

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tbf i hate Satie as well. vile music.

I think humans thrive off of chaos, we need it and it nurtures us. Heard about some study comparing two almost identical housing blocks with people from similar socio-economic backgrounds, one with foliage about and one with nothing, the one lacking in nature saw complete breakdown, depression, illness etc. Drugs, food and whole host of other things attest to the complete inability of our brains to know whats good for them, we will happily continue to consume and self-destruct.

The further things around us are abstracted from chaos the harder it is to create, whether it be the literal surroundings our social interactions or music the itself, chaos is only created via recursion.

The ring around your bathtub

blissblogger said:

"Soul" is what's earned or acquired through suffering, loss, lack, trials, tribulations, or other negative experience - experiences that are lived with, learned from, overcome or transfigured, accepted etc.

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There's also soul which comes from loving and being loved and being happy. Doesn't have to start from negativity. But it does seem to be that suffering is the most potent source.

blissblogger said:

Perhaps "soul" comes with an awareness or acceptance of the fact that other things have power over you - the lover, to start with, but also Reality / Fate / God. That would explain the religious resonances of "soul" maybe.

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Submission is a big part of it. To the bigger unknown thing. Letting go. Hanging up the hang ups. This is where religion helps some tap into it. Faith.

blissblogger said:

"Soul" I would connect with emotions or states of mind like patience, gratitude, humility, awareness of blessing or good fortune etc etc

Soul = understanding that fundamental basis of being is loss... and that each individual is incomplete, can never be self-sufficient

The salve for the wound of being is either love, or God - or the community of congregants.

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Feels like all of those are noble things and I'm not sure soul has to exclusively be so. It can also lead you down the wrong path, just with integrity Mr Clinton explains this pretty well in the clip, imo. It's an acceptance of the good and bad. Truth.

For me, the main thing to keep in mind is that the origins of this thing are about healing. Nobody here needs to be told the roots of western contemporary black music, and why those people needed that music at the time, and have continued to ever since. This is the key to it imo. Medicinal music. There is a different type of strength there. A perserverance. The ability to still express love in spite of the of their reality. This is soul, for me, and also Cornel West: 0:49. Don't think I've heard it put any clearer than that. It's about how open your heart is. We can't quanify it, but somehow we instinctively feel it when we witness it. And even moreso when it's live in front of our faces. The human connection.

blissblogger said:

(Does that mean rap is anti-soul or un-soul music?)

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I saw a docu about that old US tv show Soul Train. It covered the lifespan of the show which started in the 70s and (I think) went on into the 2000s. Toward the end of it, they do a chronological recap, squishing the entire history into 2 or so minutes of clips from the show. As it ends, you see the change from dance music being played live by a band, can't remember exactly now, I think it was probably some boogie group. And then it cut to Snoop Doggy Dogg. Now Doggystyle was an incredibly important album for me in my youth, still love it to this day. But when it cut to him, my heart sank. In contrast to what had just preceded it, it sounded shit and he looked stupid. It's definitely a lot to do with me being the proverbial old fart when it comes to music nowadays. But I've never seen another representation of the difference between the two eras make the point so clear. And then to bring us to the current day, it feels like the more precise things have gotten wrt production, the further we get away from the human (or I should probably just say the living) and the less my soul responds to what is being produced. I wonder if this has a knock on effect of slowly reducing the level of inspiration out there too. Because most music is just a game off pass it on, right? 80s and 90s producers grew up on live played music, and used samplers to reappropriate it. Subsequent generations grew up on the results of that. So the technology aspect is important to consider. And maybe Autotune is the most visceral emblem of all of that. Twisting the human voice into something no longer human/living...

blissblogger said:

Positive thinking (Trump's religion) is a profound perversion of Christianity in so far as it says that God is Supply - god will give you everything your heart desires if you get your mind in tune with the positive vibrations of the universe. There is nothing in the Bible to support this.

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Should be a separate thread on the positivity Nazis.

the thing Luka said about soul being embodied is important, whereas "spirit" refers to that Gnostic idea of the undying god-spark within the fallen flesh

that's why an expression like "soul food" makes sense, whereas "spirit food" wouldn't

"passion" also comes in here as well ... the Christian meaning of it is suffering, right. passion is what embodied beings going through, the suffering that comes with desires and appetites.

cf all the other kinds of religion that are about stilling the unrest of desire, achieving desirelessness

possibly relevant quote from Mark K-punk

"What we have with digital culture now is a strange hyper-ordinariness. People done up to the nines but it isn't like Bowie where you're playing with abstract aestheticisation. It's a normative model: perfect teeth, skin tone. An utterly conservative artificiality... A normalisation of photoshopping & cosmetic surgery: a wash-back from digital, people's anxiety about their appearance is measured by the standards of a depressing normativity. Neuroses & dissatisfaction are highly productive & useful for capitalism: they can be sold to endlessly"

what could be called "subglam" - the pixel-by-pixel polishing of the image in TV postproduction (a/k/a digital intermediate) - smoothing out blemishes and spots, evening out skin-tone, superglossing hair and teeth - that has fed back into everyday life... ordinary people look hyper-groomed.... all those intricate beards.... as if aspiring to digital sharpness and brighness

blissblogger said:

profound perversion of Christianity in so far as it says that God is Supply...There is nothing in the Bible to support this

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well it's a version of the prosperity gospel, which calls on various NT parables i.e. The Parable of Talents, but also can be potentially be taken from be fruitful and multiply

unsurprisingly it's a particularly American invention, the spirit of the Protestant work ethic filtered thru Andrew Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth, periodically updated for the times

it's controversial even amongst evangelicals but pretty popular - some megachurches and the kind of faith-derived inspirational speaking that blurs with preaching

obviously it does jive perfectly w/Trump - irreligious but forced to court evangelicals - and he is associated w/various prosperity gospel big shots

padraig (u.s.) said:

Protestant work ethic

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tho tbc they are diametrically opposed on their attitudes to personal austerity vs indulgence

Weberian Protestant work ethic - profit is a by-product of hard work in service to God

prosperity theology - getting rich is of itself is a good work, what Jews would call a mitzvah

also positivity and positive thinking shouldn't be directly equated with prosperity gospel or Trump's secular version, tho related

there's definitely some connection to the recent/current obsession with efficiency

the rise of analytics, algorithms, AI

which in some things - resource allocation - is obviously good, is still a potential false god if you make it one. output still only as good as input.

personal efficiency - blurring and destruction of the boundary between labor and leisure - esp as labor becomes ever more precarious for more and more people

captive producer-consumer loop thru screen curated by User Interface

pattycakes_ said:

further we get away from the human (or I should probably just say the living) and the less my soul responds

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this idk, as a personal reaction ofc it's valid

but you're talking about what is "the human" or "living", it's hard to define

there has been always been change, and it always provokes discomfort

I'm no transhumanist advocate but it seems an inevitable future-now to resign to at this point. we're in the long uncanny valley rn, can't see over the next ridge line.

I appreciate luka's aims but I don't think it's ever easy or maybe possible to understand the meaning of individual events in the moment

there's a reason the social sciences are heavily reliant on statistics and modeling