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what Houellebecq says: humanity is obsolescent

D e what Michel Houellebecq is it called? What we are talking about there from book to book? I ask myself the question Badiou since I read it. Ie since its "Extending the field of battle" published in 1994. And I think I found part of the answer in his latest UFO goncourisé literary, "The Map and the Territory," released in this literary season by Flammarion ( read the excellent review here Devarrieux Claire in "Liberation" ). It is there, light in the pages of this black diamond which finally earned him recognition as a writer and witness a major turning point in our century :

"While most species are insignificant thousands, sometimes millions of years to disappear , manufactured goods are removed from the globe within days. We also we will become obsolete " as" cultural products destined to disappear .
O bsolescence ... from Latin obsolescens participates moved from obsolescere: "fall into disuse." Let like the author to clarify, we refer to Wikipedia assuming the plagiarism-collage creative how Perec which he is unjustly accused for his latest book : economics, "obsolescence is done for a product to be exceeded, and thus lose some of its value due to the only technical developments, even if it is in perfect working order ", aptly summed up the 'collaborative online encyclopedia. We're ...

A force of "progress" industrial and high-tech, humanity becomes obsolescent except "s'augmenter" by technology at the risk of dehumanizing us therefore Houellebecq said. In the wake of Paul Virilio and "acceleration of the world" and especially Günther Anders the first to have theorized as early as 50 "man obscolescent" , the writer tells us finally disenchanted not only this: the digital revolution of the XXI century - this new avatar of turbo-capitalism globalized - causes a phenomenon quantum acceleration of the process of obsolescence and dehumanization initiated by the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century .. . Move at the speed of high speed internet and real-time or disappear, that is the question today.

C e Houellebecq is not who invented it. We all know that. All company executives who want to survive the Darwinian process of the quarry, all human beings in search of love and necessity reproductive have integrated their conscience, without necessarily admitting it, trumpeting the: Today we must improve our ALL PERFORMANCE , as we sell marks. Being rich, handsome, famous, eternally young, lifts, Botox, retouched in Photoshop, bronzed UV graft, pacemaker, blood transfusions, chemotherapy until the terminal stage. To not be alone, DO NOT BE A LOSER , do not die too quickly socially and physically ...

D years the world of work, race speed technology, performance and profitability, the intellectual and physical perfection inevitably connectivity Permanent and information feedback in real time ... With the NETWORK which now irrigates the planet of its fiber optic veins through which flows a stream of digital data, there is no geographic boundaries, private and professional, more space-time, night or day. I was talking about some way in this post: Brotherhood human, what makes us twitter? " .

All this reduces the world, and from there the man, or ANYTHING ELSE ... less human, or worse, trans-human. Ho uellebecq coolly acknowledges in "The Possibility of an Island": " Any civilization can be judged in the way it treats the weak, those who were neither productive nor desirable " . Not to become obsolete, be ejected from our world of production accelerated by the centrifuge digital end up like a homeless man dying in the street pressed indifference of our fellow man should "s'augmenter" ...

Houellebecq had fun in "The Possibility an Island "by immersing his hero in the cult of Rael: " adapted to modern times, civilization of leisure, it imposes no moral restraint, and above all it promises immortality " writes he said. Car "in the modern world could be swingers, bi, trans, bestiality, SM, but it was forbidden to be old" .

M ais not a joke. The prophet of transhumanity Max More urges us to transfer without further Trial: "We challenge the inevitability of aging of death, we seek to gradually improve our mental and physical capabilities, and develop ourselves emotionally. We see humanity as a transitional stage in the evolutionary development of intelligence. We advocate the use of science to accelerate our transition from a human condition to a condition transhuman or posthuman. " transformation of self to blow implants, bodybuilding, cosmetic surgery, Viagra, and soon chips transcutaneous direct neuronal connections with the Network as a fucking film Cronenberg ( see another post about "man up by Google" ).

A ppliquée gender and love this race performance is even more desperate in Houellebecq: "Youth, beauty, strength: the criteria for physical love are exactly the same as those of Nazism," he quips in the book. Our little thing has theorized sexuality "As a system of social hierarchy" upon "Extending the field of battle" with an extra-lucidity hurts:

"In our society, sex is indeed a second system of differentiation quite independent of money, and it behaves as a system of differentiation at least as ruthless. The effects of these two systems are strictly equivalent elsewhere. Just as unbridled economic liberalism, and for reasons like, sexual liberalism produces effects of absolute poverty. Some make love every day, others five or six times in their lives, or never. Some have sex with dozens of women, others with none. This is called the law of the market (...). In perfectly liberal economic system, some accumulate vast fortunes, while others languish in unemployment and poverty. In perfectly liberal sexual system, some have a varied and exciting erotic life; others are reduced to masturbation and solitude (...)". See this post on shocking reality-TV show " Love is blind "Made in TF1, which has been worse since with" Who wants to marry My Son ".

O ui, houellebecquienne vision of humanity is pessimistic. But it can illuminate the dark light we perceive the world and society . We must go beyond the polemical and provocative accents Celinian of the author, go fast on the "bitches karma" of "Elementary Particles" (published in 1998), young Thai whores in narrow con "Platform" (2001) Raelian and delirium of "The Possibility of an Island" (2005). Peel the shell which he wraps his cynical About to read the bottom. Hear and understand about it for what it is: ie clinical philosophy (counter refractory tell the bad guys), but mostly public morals in the sense intended Montaigne who first wanted "spectator of life". Houellebecq is it our "contemporary capital" Gide and Sartre in their time? The writer Emmanuel Carrère the firmly believes . And I must say too, since all his earlier books.

P o proof, we must also read the essays of "Interventions" published by Flammarion in 1998 but unfortunately out of print. Preview:

"The animal and human societies set up different systems of hierarchical differentiation, which may be based on birth (aristocratic system), fortune, beauty, physical strength, intelligence, talent ... All these criteria seem equally despicable indeed, I refused; the only superiority which I recognize is the goodness. Currently, we are moving in two dimensions: the attractiveness and erotic money. The rest, happiness and misery of people, follows. For me, this is not a theory: we do live in a simple society, including these few sentences are enough to give a complete description " .

YES you read correctly: e assumed the Misanthrope Michel Houellebecq aspires only to goodness and simply only true condition of happiness in this world. The only way to remain human, not just become obsolete in an era where immorality, greed and survival of the fittest are built into virtues. Houellebecq no longer believes the cynical, but it sucks like we all love. And he is adhering to the philosopher Alain Badiou I quoted at the beginning of this post and wrote this nice sentence:

"The conviction is widespread today as each follows only interest. So love is a cons-test. Love is the confidence placed at random "

(Eloge de L'Amour, Flammarion 2009)

F inally Houellebecq is a great moralist. It does not resolve to see it disappear humanity in us when the time invites us . It gives us no key to not becoming obsolete, except the withdrawal from the world. "The world is tired of me and likewise me of him" : this quote from Charles d'Orleans opens "The map and territory". Jed and Martin, the hero of the book devoted his artistic life to "a nostalgic meditation on the end of the industrial age in Europe, and more generally on the perishable and transitory nature of all human industry" . In the end, "everything is calm" , Man is more "the triumph of the vegetation is total" ...

Desperate Houellebecq? Surely. But it is mainly the powerless witness stubborn and dehumanization process technology at work in our Western societies the 2000s. He could have summarized his position but Virilio says that for him (and him) this interview with "Liberation : " I am an escort-boy evidence, I accompany evidence that does not! It's more as boring, but at the point where I am, I continue. "

Yes, we must continue. But also believe in man (and his better half;) and HOPE.

Jean-Christophe Féraud

Are Zig Zag Wraps Better Than Swishers

"The construction of Jesus" by Bart Ehrman, H & O Editions

editions H & ; O , bearing the names of their creators and Henri Olivier, offer a wonderful range of books for all tastes: comics, novels or erotic adventures, literary novels, essays, photographs! Far from the French snobbery in publishing, and with great courage and determination, H & O continues to publish works of great riches that should not be neglected under the pretext that it is the radius "homosexual" or stamped as such.

With "The construction of Jesus " editions H & O are known in France the immense work of analysis and research of the American theologian Bart Ehrman ; this book, very accessible, we did follow a very thorough investigation on this key figure in the history appointed "Jesus" and all New Testament writings.

Jesus is all the more essential in our civilization in the name of men and women have "built" several churches, have promulgated dogmas have shaped the law, allowed characters also "constructed" in part, like Paul, to print to the world a terrible record of fire and blood with what they considered to be "good" and what they thundered to be the "evil"!

Paul's writings for example, have considerably night to the woman and returned convictions against homosexuality from obscure Leviticus forgetting that neither Exodus nor Numbers, or Deuteronomy in the Old Testament or the Gospels of his time, by including those considered Apocrypha today (a good score), have never said anything like that ...

G Gold - Jesus

authors and philosophers Michel Onfray as have more than one book, openly denounced these criminal tampering or these "constructs" unhealthy, to quote one of the key terms of the book by Bart Ehrman, who still badly polluted our contemporary societies. It is not vain to get back into the founding documents that touch the very root of all the "construction" of mental western society and all those that refer to books called "Saints" because at the beginning of XXIst century clerics of various backgrounds to the Pope continues to hammer the same speech that multiple people trying to make them feel guilty about what they are intrinsically:

"As human beings (homosexuals) are worthy of respect (...) they should not be rejected because of it. Respect for the human being is quite fundamental and decisive. But this does not mean that homosexuality is just as much. It remains (homosexuality) something that is opposed to the essence of what God originally intended, "dixit Benedict XVI in his latest book" Light of the World. "

We are at the heart of the problem is to say what that "God originally intended? As nobody was present to the interviewer or the film is through the sacred writings we can try to understand this message. It is interviewing all the books of the Bible and especially the New Testament books that we will try to approach this "divine teaching" and this is where the researcher, theologian and thereafter simply player or just a believer, going from one surprise because it happened to us is that together with fragments of words, sometimes incoherent or inconsistent, that the first or religious scribes wanted to enrich their fill of fancy or literary way, in these conditions can now claim to know what God originally intended ?

Rubens - the 4 evangelists

Bart Ehrman, himself a very religious when it arrives at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1978, will see its certainties melt before he gradually discovers in his studies from all parts of the New Testament and all other non selected by the "canon" to the test of "historical criticism" and "textual criticism", not to mention the "historical perspective" which puts the events and behaviors in their socio-historical. Thus, on the topic of homosexuality, for example, how can we refer to today about Paul for opposing our current designs for the notion of "sexual orientation" and "homosexuality" are concepts created in the nineteenth century and twentieth century and therefore did not exist in antiquity "One can hardly take prescriptions Paul on homosexual relations, and root out the presuppositions of Paul on sex and gender, and transplant them into another discourse on sex and gender."

But the official line of every church has always been to stop at the letter without trying to understand the context or to ask relevant questions by comparing for example to some other texts, because the contradictions and versions different swarm in the Gospels and other writings.

The 4 Evangelists and their symbols

Unfortunately, the men behind their traditions like the great apes in equatorial forests of palms. That is why a book as brilliant as it should enable everyone to have a fair idea about these "testimonials" and the various adventures of their creation in order to see clearly how Christianity has developed!

Another finding also edifying, that speaks volumes the mechanisms that drive human societies is the cruel lack of interest in Bible-believers! Bart Ehraman returns repeatedly in his study: " For me, this is one of the greatest mysteries of the universe: how much can people venerate the Bible, think it 's acts of a revelation of God to his people and at the same time to know so badly? ".

must also say that since the exegetical studies have begun to grow and be independent churches, there are about more than two centuries, rarely the findings of researchers were able to reach the general public and it spread. Today, following books and outreach programs as Corpus Christi in the late 90s, the public can finally reach what was known of a small number of researchers.

building a giant statue of Jesus in Poland

those who cloak themselves in the pages of the Gospels gaps in the Epistles Patchwork or assorted texts of the Old Testament writings for centuries and centuries after the events narrated, and who think they know " what God originally intended " we can only advise to read carefully this book very accessible, very clearly, where the author is hiding not behind a remote and scientific discourse but also tells us about his career as a man and a believer, to finally put things right Believers face the aggressive creationists blissful, enlightened and without culture.

To conclude, I quote these two passages that are the essential cornerstones of this survey on the figure of "Jesus": "It is better to promote readings that do not lead to sexism, racism, bigotry and oppression in all its forms " because" must judge everything we hear and what we see-inspiring prose of the Bible or Shakespeare, or Dostoevsky George Eliot, Gandhi, Desmond Tutu or the Dalai Lama. "

Notes:

site H & O, online shopping possible: H & O Editions

On Bart Ehrman wikipedia article

Tetu See article: Stubborn online

On the same theme AFP: AFP dispatch

On creationism: wikipedia article