| Burroughs, Gnosticism and The Johnsons |
[Dec. 11th, 2007|12:08 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | ethics, philosophy | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | interested | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Drone Zone: Atmospheric ambient space music. Serve Best Chilled. Safe with most | ] |
Fascinating article about ol' William Lee and his ideas, found via Signs of Witness:
One key idea - which I'd forgotten, as I last read Nova Express in my teens - is that of the Johnsons, who article author Robert Guffey defines thus:
' Burroughs’s libertarian brand of morality was based on Jack Black’s notions of the “Johnson family” as chronicled in Black’s 1926 autobiography You Can’t Win. The impact this book had on Burroughs when he was still a young man can’t be overestimated. In Burroughs’s own words, the Johnson creed can be described as follows:
“The Johnson family” was a turn-of-the-century expression to designate good bums and thieves. It was elaborated into a code of conduct. A Johnson honours his obligations. His word is good and he is a good man to do business with. A Johnson minds his own business. He is not a snoopy, self-righteous, troublemaking person. A Johnson will give help when help is needed. He will not stand by while someone is drowning or trapped under a burning car.
Surely in Burroughs’s world this would be the only mandatory social stricture established for his personal temporary autonomous zone. '
The Johnson's philosophy/approach to life is something I've tried to pin down for years... and usually I reduce it down to 'giving a fuck'. I see it as a pretty good basis for moral conduct - and it seems to be the common factor in everyone I love and admire. The absence of it also seems to be the prime characteristic of all those I hate and fear (and is roughly equivalent with the Right Man/Violent Male psychosis noted by AE van Vogt and Colin Wilson - the inability to admit ever being wrong, meaning that all who suggest this possibility are enemies. By definition, the Right Man doesn't give a fuck about anyone but his sycophants - and treats those as inferiors too).
Anyone else who'd be proud to be a Johnson? |
|
|
| The Magic of sleaze |
[Aug. 1st, 2007|12:05 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | magic, philosophy | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  awake | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Limbik Frequencies - Radio Elektro[u]nique | ] |
Ramsey Dukes, interviewed by Phil Hine, stating something I've always had a gut feeling about:
"Why do you think that people are still drawn to mysticism and the occult when the terrain is so obviously dominated by frauds, wastrels and knaves?
Now that’s a bit like saying why are people still interested in sex when obviously the sex industry is so full of corruption and sleaze. I think for some people there is actually a fascination in the sleaze, fraudery and trickery, which actually adds to the subject - sex is actually more intriguing because of the aura of sleaze about it. I’m not sure if that is so for me, but I think the occult too is something which you can be put off by the sleaze of it or actually you can find that as a rather intriguing element in it. One of the ideas I was putting forward in ‘The Charlatan and the Magus’ (in ‘Blast….’) was that maybe existence itself is sleazy, and that mankind’s instinct always attempts to eliminate sleaze, which is as misguided as swallowing a load of antibiotics, which although they may kill the germ, they kill off certain other things in your gut which then has to recover; or as misguided as trying to make a clean compost heap by putting a lot of disinfectant on it which actually would stop the composting process. In other words, sleaze is itself inherent. The universe itself has a strong element of sleaze in it and it’s part of the nourishment of life. We need to work on our own exaggerated concepts of hygiene."
(Emphasis mine.) |
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
catvincent's journal