Firs tthing- walter Ben-ya-meen. If u bring him up in conversation and say ben ja min ur gonna look like an idiot apparently. But its funny bc its not like people say Valter Benyameen. They say walter. Go figure.
Anyways this text is So Great. im definitely late to the game to this contexts of frankfurt dialectics, post war philosophy manifestos, yada yada but this one is so powerful and formative esp if ur an artist or visual creator that is Woke. Its one of his more accessible writings, and he is also a very important person to kno if u r even remotely into literature/philosophie/art/design/criticism etc.
Benyameen talks about this loss/absence of human experience post war/industrual revolution whcih i think is rlly the root of all this floptok based retard gang xiaohongshu on the extreme side, but even at its most tame (yet this is more insidious/barbaric in the bad way as Benyameen puts it) all of these miu miu shoe unboxing, day in the life of a big city transplant, clean consumerism we are witness to online. It is rlly this central idea of experience that hit home for me, and the resulting idea of barbarism which fr opened my third eye and put words to the feelings of trying to contextualize our days of Today. Im also totally going to start using the word barbarian to describe creatives and intellectuals and world leaders haha. Be the Good Barbarian.
dm me if u want my annotated copy i culd keep going but arent these meant to be kept short idk<3