A.P.C., the French fashion brand best known for well-made wardrobe staples and raw denim, has launched a collection of six beauty products with a philosophical bent.

Priced between $20 and $85, the range includes shower gel, body lotion, hand cream, hand soap, lip balm, and cologne. On the back of each product is a label bearing a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche's book Thus Spoke Zarathustra: "I am a body through and through, nothing more: and the soul is just a word for something in the body."

God is dead! But at least we're moisturized.

Another, non-existentialist element unites the curated selection of products: scent. All six offerings are fragranced with orange blossom, an ingredient that's particularly nostalgic for A.P.C. founder Jean Touitou the fragrant flower flourishes in his native Tunisia. (In fact, Nabeul, a city in the country's northeast, is known as the capital of orange blossom water.)

"In fashion as in the cosmetics industry, the balance between too much and not enough is difficult to find," Touitou said in a press release announcing A.P.C.'s beauty launch.

"These six products are the best possible. They are designed to make you feel good and comfortable and help you to have a good day."

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Available online and in-store, the products aren't A.P.C.'s first foray into beauty. Back in 2009, the brand released a limited-edition fragrance, Sustain, formulated by perfumer Haley Alexander Van Oosten. 300 bottles of the perfume were re-released in 2014.

According to previous coverage of the fragrance, it was meant to smell like the "inside of a guitar case strewn with rose petals." Its bottle was modeled after "the waves on a computer screen that a 12-string guitar makes when playing the opening chord of the Kinks 'Waterloo Sunset.'"

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A.P.C. Launches Beauty Line Inspired By... Nietzsche? - Highsnobiety

Jan 31, 2024

As Grammys 2024 inch closer, here's looking at all the times celebs left us awe-struck at their glitzy jewellery at the event.

Cardi B's 2018 Grammys debut showcased her in a voluminous Ashi Studio gown complemented by Messika's diamond earrings and bracelets.

Lady Gaga owned the 2019 Grammys red carpet with 10-carat Tiffany diamond earrings and a 91-carat diamond necklace from the Tiffany Blue Book collection.

Megan Thee Stallion, a triple winner at the 2021 Grammys, adorned herself with 220 carats of Chopard diamonds, including a Red Carpet Collection necklace.

Lenny Kravitz blended edge and elegance at the 2022 Grammys with a Saint Laurent chainmail look adorned with layers of diamond necklaces and bracelets by Anthony Kantor.

Jennifer Lopez's 2023 Grammy look featured over 150 carats of diamonds in layered Bulgari Serpenti diamond necklaces and stacked sapphire and diamond rings.

Taylor Swift's 2023 Grammy appearance showcased Lorraine Schwartz kite-shaped earrings and over $3 million worth of jewellry, including 136 carats of purple sapphires, Paraibas, and diamonds.

10 Best Quotes of Friedrich Nietzsche

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Macbeth loses his head and soul in the unknowing clouds of his own sin-deceived ego. So does Nietzsche. Far from seeing life as a quest for truth, they are left with nothing but their own bitter inquest on life, signifying nothing. This is the deepest consequence of their rejection of faith and reason.

Ive recently enjoyed six months of discussions on Henri de Lubacs masterpiece, The Drama of Atheist Humanism, with Father Fessio and Vivian Dudro as part of our ongoing series of book discussions for the FORMED Book Club. One of the things that puzzled us was the choice of title. Why would de Lubac frame his study of the ideas of the major atheist philosophers of the nineteenth century as a drama? The answer to this puzzling question didnt fully emerge until the final part of the book in which de Lubac dissects the decline and fall of Friedrich Nietzsche. It was only at this point that the history of humanism in the nineteenth century is revealed as darkly comic and deeply tragic, culminating in a providentially ironic denouement of such dramatic power that it could be seen as a delightfully grotesque tragicomedy.

The drama that de Lubac narrates was such that it seemed to be worthy of the stage but then, as Shakespeare reminds us, the world is a stage and all the men and women of history merely players on times stage. It is, therefore, appropriate to see the striking parallels between the real-life factual character of Friedrich Nietzsche and the larger-then-life fictional character of Macbeth who prefigures Nietzsche in his manic pursuit of self-empowerment in defiance of reason.

Like his tragic Shakespearean forerunner, Nietzsche begins by abandoning reason in pursuit of power. From the very outset, his denial of the existence of God had nothing to do with any rational process of thought: Atheism, is not, for me, the consequence of something else in my case it is something that goes without saying, a matter of instinct. In similar vein, his rejection of Christianity had nothing to do with any rational process of thought and everything to do with pride and its prejudices: [I]t is our preference that decides against Christianity not arguments.

If Nietzsches atheism and anti-Christianity is irrational, there is nonetheless a reason for it, a rationale for his irrationality. The man who refuses to subject himself to reason is freed from the rational constraints that reason imposes. He is the freed man, liberated by the will to power (der Wille zur Macht), who can do what he likes and to whom nothing is now forbidden. The rule of reason, this last bondage, must be cast off. [W]e have abolished the world of truth, Nietzsche proclaimed; nothing is true.

The consequences of such abandonment of reason to the appetite for self-empowerment was obvious enough, even to Nietzsche. The philosopher, he wrote, is a terrible explosive from which nothing is safe.

This being so, de Lubac comments, it was not surprising that the drama that had taken shape in human minds quickly reached the point at which it burst forth in fire and slaughter.

Ironically, Nietzsche would have agreed with de Lubac. I herald the coming of a tragic era, he said, assuming the role of a self-proclaimed prophet of doom. We must be prepared for a long succession of demolitions, devastations and upheavals. [T]here will be wars such as the world has never yet seen. Europe will soon be enveloped in darkness. These words, written at the end of the nineteenth century, would prove to be truly prophetic of the new century about to be born. Europe would soon be enveloped in darkness. It would suffer two wars such as the world had never yet seen, with weapons of mass destruction, produced by those serving the will to power, beyond the imagination of more primitive peoples.

As for who would be to blame for such destruction, Nietzsche claimed that he would himself be responsible for it. Thanks to me, he wrote, a catastrophe is at hand.

His words were true enough, even though others would share the blame, including Comte and Marx, both of whom played leading roles in the drama of atheist humanism which de Lubac recounts.

As for Nietzsche, his ideas would prove not merely destructive but self-destructive. There is more than a suggestion, for instance, that he had ceased to believe his own philosophy and that the living of the lie might have contributed to his final descent into madness. I must persist in my dream under pain of perishing, he wrote. De Lubac is masterful in teasing out the psychological consequences of Nietzsches refusal to confess the lie that he was living: He who smelled out so subtly and flogged so harshly the unconscious hypocrisies of others, he it is who has become in the final analysis, not a masked man, but the man of the mask, almost, as it were, a theoretician of the self-indulgent, obstinate illusion, an adorer of a fiction that he knows quite well in the depths of his heart to be a fiction.

De Lubacs reading of Nietzsches self-deception is borne out by the words that Nietzsche puts in the mouth of his alter ego, Zarathustra: In truth, I advise you, get far away from me, defend yourself against Zarathustra! Better still, be ashamed of him. Perhaps he has deceived you. Or, as de Lubac suggests, perhaps he had deceived himself.

As early as 1883, long before the onset of madness, Nietzsche confessed to being on the brink of suicidal despair: I will not hide it from you, he wrote to a friend. Things are going very badly. Night overwhelms me more and more. I believe that I am walking ineluctably to my ruin. The barrel of a gun is now a source of relatively pleasant reflections for me. A month later, he wrote that he was no longer interested in anything: At the very depths of my being, a black and immutable melancholy. The worst is that I no longer understand at all to what purpose I should continue to live, be this only for six months ahead. Everything seems wearisome, painful, disgusting to me. Considering that Nietzsches whole philosophy is rooted in radical egocentrism, with the self as the centre of its self-empowered cosmos, it is the very self who is everything. Since this is so, the wearisome painful everything that is disgusting to Nietzsche must ultimately be a radical self-disgust.

We will conclude our survey of Nietzsches decline and fall in the company of his alter ego, not Zarathustra but Macbeth.

Having accepted the lie of the wyrd sisters that fair is foul, and foul is fair, Macbeth seeks to go boldly beyond good and evil blazing a self-delusional trail that Nietzsche would discover and follow almost three centuries later. Having chosen power over reason, Macbeth will live increasingly in the narrow and narrowing confines of his own head, making himself the centre of his own contracted and constricted cosmos. As he speaks to himself in secret, divorcing himself from others, his subjective perception supersedes objective reality. His decay is, therefore, as much a decay of philosophy as it is a decay of morality. The more he thinks of himself, the less he thinks of others, and the less he thinks of others, the less he thinks of the Other, i.e. the truth that transcends the self. The result is that his first thought of murder coincides with the murder of thought:

My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,

Shakes so my single state of man

That function is smothered in surmise,

And nothing is but what is not. (1.3.138-141)

As Macbeths pride takes pride of place on the throne of his soul, he begins to lose his sense of reality. Sin smothers reason so that the normal function of a mans mind, which is to seek and find the truth, is smothered in surmise until nothing is but what is not. Thus, Macbeths nihilism, which will come to bitter and futile fruition in the final act with his dismissal of life as a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing, is seen to have its roots in the plays opening act with his turning away from fides et ratio towards infidelity and irrationality.

When we see Nietzsche in the light or the shadow of Macbeth, we see him as a disciple of his great fictional forerunner. Long before there was the madness of Nietzsche, there was the madness of Macbeth.

Macbeth loses his head and soul in the unknowing clouds of his own sin-deceived ego. So does Nietzsche. Far from seeing life as a quest for truth, they are left with nothing but their own bitter inquest on life, signifying nothing. This is the deepest consequence of their rejection of faith and reason. In losing sight of the significance of others, or the Other, they lose sight of the significance of everything else. In choosing themselves above others, they are not even left with themselves. They lose everything, perhaps even their own souls. They are left with the nothing which is nothing else but the real absence of the good that they have rejected, the ultimate annihilation to which nihilism points.

The Imaginative Conservativeapplies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politicswe approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please considerdonating now.

The featured image is a painting by Charles A. Buchel of Herbert Beerbohm Tree (18521917) as Macbeth in Macbeth by William Shakespeare. This file is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

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Macbeth Revisited: The Decline & Fall of Friedrich Nietzsche - The Imaginative Conservative

The actor and director Christoph Waltz on his musical childhood in Vienna, and the links betweentheatre, film and opera

I grew up with classical music. In the 1950s, early 60s, pop music hadnt been assigned todays importance yet, so what I grew up with was classical. Later, I remember my younger brother introduced me to The Beatles, but up until then music for me was classical music. Even then the orchestras and operas had programmes for children.

Seeing Birgit Nilsson in Turandot, aged about 10, was just incredible, and I remember almost every bit of it. My stepfather was a composer and conductor so he took me to the opera it was his responsibility. He said as long as you promise never to try to be part of the music business its the dirtiest business there is! Not that he knew many other businesses.

I studied voice and singing for a while at the University of Music and Performing Arts, so auditioned in both segments acting and singing and was enrolled in both for a while, until they said its too much, you should actually decide: do you want to be a singer or an actor? I had started working in films already by then, so I think I spared the music world an annoyance! But I thought how can I still live this unfulfilled detail of my life? And so when I was asked 10 years ago by Opera Ballet Vlaanderen whether I wanted to direct an opera, I said well, actually, I was more considerate when I studied and now I will not spare the music world the annoyance anymore!

They suggested Der Rosenkavalier I wouldnt have dared! (I wonder which one would I have dared to suggest?). I said are you sure, you know its kind of a major chunk as a first directing endeavour? And they said: Were looking for a director who can handle the theatrical aspect of it, because it is an interesting piece in that respect. It has been performed as a play, and it holds up as a play. I think it was that acting element that that made them approach me.

Ive done 15 years of consecutive theatre, but film informs my idea too about acting. I dont think stage necessitates neglecting details, thats one of my convictions that an audience doesnt want to be the target of stuff thats being thrown at them, they want to be the ones who decide whats going on, or at least I do when Im in the audience. You need to enable, you need to give the space and opportunity to enter whats going on upon the stage.

Singing was thankfully not the only musical activity I kind of pursued as a dilettante but I always tried to understand, I always tried to either get information about, or to figure out, what holds a work together thats a major part of my enjoyment of listening to music.

Im in Los Angeles now, so the offer of classical music is actually, for a town this size, ridiculously small ridiculous is kind! If youre in Vienna or London or Paris or Berlin, you might have three orchestras playing every night and 5-10 chamber ensembles. And not to talk about the opera houses! Vienna has three, Berlin has three, London has two, and they play every night because they play in repertory. Its not like that here.

In terms of what kind of music I listen to, I dont want to limit myself. Im interested in contemporary music, not that I understand it all that much, not that I like a lot of it, but then I dont like everything in Viennese classical either. Music is pretty much as Nietzsche said: it wouldnt be a life worth living without music but not only the three pieces that I like so much, or that I listen to on Classic FM every day. I need to expose myself to new works, to actually engage, to not make a priori judgements but to educate myself a little bit, not only by reading up but by actually exposing myself, widening my horizon, and maybe trying to live up to the occasion rather than trying to reduce the occasion to my restricted view. I find that one of the really, really fascinating aspects of music.

Christoph Waltzs new production of Der Rosenkavalier opens at Grand Thtre de Genve on December 13

This article originally appeared in the November 2023 issue of Gramophone magazine. Never miss an issue consider subscribing today

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Christoph Waltz | My Music: 'Music is pretty much as Nietzsche said: it wouldn't be a life worth living without music' - Gramophone

If there could be said to be a general diagnostic problem within the reception of the death of God, it is perhaps the interconnection between its originary Nietzschean articulation and the rationalist atheism of the Enlightenment as such. It is certainly true that Nietzsche is expressing a statement of unbelief in God not entirely unlike his Enlightenment predecessors. Nietzsche, just as much as Diderot or DHolbach, dispenses with the idea of God and does so with a familiar degree of flourish and self-satisfaction. The similarities, however, end somewhere around there. Not only is what emerges from the Nietzschean articulation of atheism a different sort of discourse, but it is also a discourse that will find itself establishing and even cultivating an antagonism to its rationalist corollary, not to mention generating its own internal genealogical lines and maneuvers. Here, I would like to outline what I take to be a secret history of the Nietzschean form of the death of God, one that runs beneath and counter to its dominant form, which runs rather straightforwardly from Nietzsche to Heidegger. It is this pedigree that elides the death of God with the foreclosure of Western metaphysics, the prestige of which has been received warmly by both atheistic and Christian post-Heideggeriansa rhapsodizing for which, in my opinion, the bloom is long off the rose.

Yet rather than play to my worse angels, I will defer my castigation of this line of thought for another time. Here, my focus is on Nietzsches afterlives, and it must begin with a return to the phenomenon of Nietzsche, to Nietzsche as phenomenon, to Nietzsche as navel, to borrow an image from Freuds interpretation of dreams. What I hope to show is that Heideggers reception of Nietzsche is just one such reception in the early twentieth century and it is both the less interesting and less intellectually viable one, at least (and this is me being modest) for religious forms of thought. The reception of Nietzsche that interests me is the one enacted first by French Surrealism and later by French traditions of Freudian thoughta distinction that is real but less than absolutewhich bequeaths to subsequent French and French-styles of philosophical thought a Nietzsche that is more wild, libidinal, and manicand less fascistthan the one we find in Heidegger. What is at issue in the individuation of Nietzschean genealogies is the role and place of pathos. It is pathos that effectively demarcates Nietzsche from rationalist atheism, and it is the modulation of pathos that continues to mark traces within this secret history. It is also pathos that invites the application of psychoanalytic terminology, which will come largely from Freuds famous essay Mourning and Melancholia, in order to map this terrain as well as to come to some degree of constructive engagement with Christianity. It is through a Freudian lens that we not only see Nietzsche best but also through which we can establish the categories that identify what is common to both these forms of the death of God and even the most mainline forms of redial Christianity.

Fundamental to Freuds Traumdeutung is what he calls the dreams navel, the point in the dream which refuses interpretation and knowledge of it end, the spot where it reaches down into the unknown. To treat Nietzsche as both navel and phenomenon is not to speak out of both sides of my mouth: Nietzsche figures within the properly phenomenological field of appearance as the impenetrable point at which atheism reaches down into its own unknown, the point that refuses rational appropriation, the point at which rationalist atheism loses its bearing in the face of the tremendum of what cannot in principle be known. Thus, the point cannot be that Nietzsche is an atheist but rather the operation of what he does to atheism, to unbelief. My claim is that Nietzsche is the first to transform utterly unbelief by the investment of pathos into it, and, moreover, to foreclose the drole haughtiness of Enlightenment rationalism, and it is from here that we can go back and retrieve other forms of unbelief to identify their pathologies. Within this genealogical line, the recovery of a pathologized Hegel is paramount.

Nietzsche is the first, in Terry Eagletons words, to confront . . . the terrifying, exhilarating consequences of the death of God.[1] That is, it is Nietzsche who is the first to see the death of God not as the conclusion of an argument, but as a premise. It is for this reason that Nietzsche could be considered the first real atheist. Thus, the transmutation of mere unbelief into (Nietzschean) atheism represents the normalization and regularization of a pathological attitude towards the determinations of truth. In the Genealogy of Morals, for instance, Nietzsche describes atheism as an awe-inspiring catastrophe, the outcome of a two-thousand-year training in truthfulness, which finally forbids itself the lie in the belief in God.[2] The atheist, then, is not one who merely rejects belief in God, but is rather the one who denies herself the luxury of supernatural comfort. Atheism, for Nietzsche, is a form of self-denial rather than affirmation, giving structure and character to his program of philosophical askesis on the whole.

If such real atheism finds its origin with Nietzsche, it is only through structurally similar transformations that original formulations of true atheism are produced. That is, if a new formulation of atheism is to surpass rationalist mere unbelief, it must pass through this Nietzschean manifold in which it is divested of its rational justification and becomes invested with pathos. Paul Ricoeur argues for a reading of Freud as precisely within the Nietzschean genealogical project, one in which the analysis of the illusion at work in religion consists in discovering in the hidden movements of consciousness the source of an illusion whose function is myth-making.[3] Freuds contribution to the Nietzschean project is nothing less than a new type of this criticism.[4]

Following Ricoeur, Lonergan writes, Freuds originalitythe originality of Freudian atheismis that his atheism is not just another instance of philosophical atheism or scientific positivism, but of an interpretation of personal experience.[5] There Lonergan identifies the way in which Freud brings atheism under the mantle of personal experience, such that atheism is no longer the conclusion to a logical argument, but is rather an outcome of self-reflection, a self-reflection that is opened up to and complicated by the discovery of the unconscious. In any case, both Ricoeur and Lonergan recognize the legitimacy of the psychoanalytic reading of religion, not on the grounds that its judgment is final, but rather because the critique is incomplete. What is more, Lonergan continues, this incompleteness itself must be addressed, as in the past Freud has reinforced the faith of unbelievers, so that in the future he may be used to reinforce the faith of believers.[6]

It is this mode of reinforcement of the faith of believers that I am trying to pinpoint. Following Ricoeur and Lonergan, we can consider Freuds atheism as a development within the pathology of Nietzschean atheism insofar as it formalizes the identification of God as being on the side of the transfiguration of the image of the Father,[7] that is, as being genetically implicated in the traumatic economy of the Father, mythologized as the murder of the primal father and pathologized as a consequence of the process of repression.[8] In short, Freud enables us to see atheism itself as a symptom of the repression of paternal trauma. The matter of repression links Nietzsche to Freud, but where Nietzsche advocates for the virtues of that repression in the form of an active forgetfulness, Freud will caution us against it with the reminder that what is repressed always returns. On a Nietzschean account, the death of God is the traumatic event par excellence and it is thus the supreme achievement of the active will to have forgotten it.

The fundamental difference between Nietzsche and Freud on this point is that Freud locates the death of God in the order of primordial repression (Ur-Verdrngung), that is, in Slavoj ieks words, not as a repression of some content into the unconscious, but a repression constitutive of the unconscious, the gesture which creates the very space of the unconscious.[9] In other words, God survives Gods death but only in the unconscious register of repression as the fundament of prohibition as such. Thus, the configuration of Freud and Nietzsche is properly dialectical insofar as Freuds recognition of the genius of Nietzsches pathologization of atheism surpasses the Nietzschean frame precisely by taking it beyond the strictures of the active and conscious will. At the same time, however, Freud gives us the means to pathologize attitudes towards atheism, such that the notion of active forgetting is not merely a concession to Gods revenant existence in and as repression, but also as the expression of an unconscious grief, which for Freud will manifest itself as melancholic or mournfulthat is, as confronting a loss that is either pathologically incomprehensible or consciously accepted and integrated.

In the post-Freudian era, the reception of Freuds understanding of the death of God and its implicit connection to the primordial murder of the primal Father is destabilized in the thought of Jacques Lacan. What is mainly in question for Lacan is the effectiveness of the death of God in forestalling a divine post-mortem existence for God. Or, to put it otherwise, the question is whether a genealogical critique of religion, be it in a historicist or psychoanalytic mode, is sufficient for the task of articulating an affirmation of atheism at all, especially if that form of atheism coextends with the death of God. Lacan will argue that it is not. What Freud fails to see in his own theory is that the death of God fundamentally contradicts atheism; Freuds discovery of the unconscious was likewise the discovery of the very means by which God covertly continues to enjoy a posthumous life. Nietzsches exclusive focus on the conscious, active will likewise implies that the paternal trauma of the death of God cannot be properly identified and integrated, which casts the entire Nietzschean project as melancholic, as a sustained failure to confront the immensity of the loss that Gods death truly represents.

The true formula of atheism is not that God is dead, Lacan will claim, but rather that God is unconscious, though God is not the unconscious or a projection of the collective unconscious, as Jung says in his work on Job. That God is unconscious does not pertain to belief but is rather a recognition of how beliefs are unconsciously structured. Thus, atheism can rid itself of God only at the level of conscious intentionality in the mode of repression. That is, if God is unconscious is the true formula of atheism, then the entire horizon of atheism must be redrawn, and redrawn in such a way as to include God within it. Thus, Lacan presents a vision of atheism in which coexistence with and co-affirmation of God is its only viable avenue, yet at the same time he identifies it with the theological task per se. As Lacan says in Seminar XX, it is the theologian, the only true atheist, who speaks Gods words, and does so without fear of Gods continuing to speak from exile in and through human language, even or especially in the pronouncement of Gods death.

In other words, atheism, like theology, is limited not only to God but also by God insofar as God subsists in the very structure and structuration of belief. Lacans contribution to atheism, then, is a way out of melancholia, a means to confront and identify with the loss announced by the death of God. In short, it is to make atheism into a mode of mourning. From the Christian vantage, I want to insist that we at the very least try to see a kinship. Both atheism of this sort and Christian theology of any sort can be seen as what Freud calls Trauerarbeit, the work of mourning. Christians are baptized into the death of Christ who is and was and will be God; we commemorate and sustain ourselves by his death in the Eucharist; we appeal to his death for the forgiveness of sins, and so forth. What else could our soteriology, liturgical theology and practice, and even our trinitarian theology be if not the work of mourning? For both the Christian and the atheist, God survives Gods own death. For us, granted, that death is sweetened, even sublated, by resurrection and the hope of eternal life, but does (or should) theology ever cease to be done for the sake of his sorrowful passion? Does theology ever cease to be the work of confronting the loss represented in the Cross, even if (or especially if) it is regained beyond measure in Gods saving work? As Slavoj iek has rightly pointed out, it is the atheist who very often shares more profoundly in Christs exclamation de profundis of godforsakenness, even if we insist, and I think we must, that it is atheism that has left those depths unplumbed. The threat to atheism is not belief in the same way that the threat to belief is not unbelief, but is rather to give our grief over to melancholia, to refuse the hard work of identifying with a God who has died, to see only absence or presence when in fact there is both.

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How God Survives the Death of God | Church Life Journal | University of Notre Dame - Church Life Journal

It has become terribly fashionable to lament the ongoing existence of Andrew Tate. For the blessed minority who still know nothing of this peculiar man, catapulted to fame by the invisible hand of social media only then to get slammed by the iron fist of Big Tech, the following details should be more than enough.

Born in Luton, England, Tate made his millions as a pornographer and casino tycoon in Romania. Before the financial success and his ascent to global stardom as a machismo, outspoken guru offering life advice to young men on TikTok, Tate enjoyed an impressive career as a kick-boxer. The fighting spirit, the fast cars, and the flamboyant entourage of scantily clad women are all a key part of Tates image, but thanks to his relentless self-promotion and his addiction to courting controversy with intemperate remarks, this post-modern King Solomon is now infamous throughout the world. Content posted under the hashtag #AndrewTate has been watched more than 13 billion times and counting. He is on record as having said all sorts of things which have made him, in many ways justifiably, persona non grata. A lot of it is just oh look at how edgy I am locker-room talk: women cant drive, wives are their husbands property, etc. At other times, it gets much darker. Its bang out the machete, boom in her face and grip her by the neck. Shut up bitch! Tate shouts in one video, talking about how he would react to a woman if she accused him of cheating.

It is not always clear when Tate is actually being himself and when he is, rather, amusing himself. Particularly in an appearance on the Your Moms House Podcast, he seemed to shift from impassioned, even intelligent diatribe on serious subjects at some junctures, to breaking character at others. Often, after an especially grotesque comment, ill-disguised laughter (perhaps even caused by his own cartoonish alter-ego) would get the better of Tate. Are we always seeing the real man? His critics do not care. Still less are they interested to learn whether, buried deep beneath the obnoxious, shock-jock bravado, Tate might have some valuable things to say. Back in August, the social media giants caved to the squawking, intolerant wokesters. Tate was banned by Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok.

As will be apparent, Tate has very little time for political correctness. He often serves, therefore, as a strong defence against the continued spread of harmful but fashionable orthodoxies. He objects to the way in which the feminization of men has weakened the backbone of the West and made the inhabitants of decadent, advanced democracies more vulnerable to top-down control and social engineering. He encourages young men to be aspirational, enterprising, and independent-minded. It is no real surprise that such basic messages should resonate in a modern culture which, at least according to the ascendant narrative, demands that menmany of whom feel neglected, apathetic, even invisibleapologize for their apparent privileges and prostrate themselves before the altar of social justice. Tate, by contrast, calls on men to take up the struggle of an adventurous life. By his reckoning, that means shunning petty mandates, making loads of money, and striving for masculine excellence. He also boasts the virtue of being, at least on occasion, somewhat funny.

But this man is not just a jacked Jordan Peterson, only lacking the degrees and sporting a skinhead. He has said some grotesque things. For example: The reason 18 and 19 year old [girls] are more attractive than 25 year old girls is because theyve been through less d**k. True enough, in most cultures throughout history, virginity has been highly valued. In this sense, Tates statement can be interpreted as a uniquely revolting way of stating a basic principle of social conservatism: that women should prize their sexuality enough to save it, rather than degrading themselves by lowering the standards a man must meet to obtain it. According to Tate, it is not righteous, still less attractive, for a young lady to have had countless sexual partners.

But why should this standard apply only to women? Tates own definition of the good, by which he claims to live, reads more like an ode to licentiousness: I think righteousness is living true to your heart, and doing good by people, not snaking anybody, not lying to anybody. On what grounds, then, does Tate condemn women for acting in a promiscuous fashion? Living true to your heart provides no sound basis for condemning female sexual vice as Tate routinely does. If Tate is righteous for living true to his heart, and his heart rules that sleeping with scores of women is not only permissible but a testament to his masculine vigour, then why should the same not also hold for these women themselves? Moreover, Tates virile, liberated ideal of manliness, according to which self-restraint and Christian gentility are thrown in the bin, really depends on the ready availability of fallen women. On Tates own criteria, how else can a man be great if not by treating women as trophies to be collected? And yet, again according to Tates criteria, for a woman to reduce herself to a trophy, an accessory that testifies to the sexual conquests of men like Tate, is for her to lose her value. For one sex to be virtuous, the other must be drenched in vice.

Tate would probably reply that, while high-value men should be free to sleep around, they are entitled to expect perfect monogamy from their women. As such, there is no real contradiction between the male pursuit of excellence through sexual prowess and the female virtue involved in remaining loyal and self-restrained. Tates ideal man can have sex with countless women without making them into sluts, so long as these women are bound exclusively to him.

This is not a convincing escape. First, Tate has openly boasted about engaging in one-night stands. Does he really expect that these lucky ladies, the vast majority of whom never hear from him again, will for monogamys sake withdraw from the sexual arena following this single encounter? In reality, the more Andrew Tates there are in the world, the more promiscuous women will be needed to fuel their profligate lifestyles. The cancelled social media star is a leading manufacturer of dissolute hoes, yet goes around identifying as righteous and presuming to tell the rest of us, as if we did not already know, that there is nothing more beautiful than a modest, devoted, self-respecting lady.

Second, there is also a public interest in sexual relationsa fact which Tate, oddly enough, has at other times acknowledged. A culture that embraces enforced monogamy will, ceteris paribus, produce the optimal conditions in which to raise children. But in order to perform its proper social function, enforced monogamy must work both ways. Tates liberal critics, therefore, are mistaken in condemning him from the clichd angle that maximal sexual autonomy is great, but should be embraced by women as much as men. Conservatives have a stronger retort: monogamy is desirable for collective social flourishing and must therefore make a claim on everyone, including the men who may otherwise be tempted to become indulgent, serial playboys like Andrew Tate. Meanwhile, on Piers Morgan Uncensored, Tate hinted that he secretly has numerous wives. He certainly keeps a string of sexual lovers. Such polygamy, practised on a societal scale, is profoundly destabilizing.

Tate calls himself a libertarian, so he regards individual freedom as the ultimate value in political, social, and moral life. But there is in fact a strong Nietzschean side to Tates understanding of liberty, for he equates freedom not only with the absence of external constraint, but with the cultivation of knightly-aristocratic virtues which facilitate the maximal exercise of individual power. If Tate were a literary genius, he might give the following list of the keys to virtue: powerful physical development, a richness and even superabundance of health, together with what is necessary for maintaining life, on war, adventure, the chase, the dance, the tourneyon everything, in fact, which involves strong, free and joyous action. Tate would only add sex and perhaps even threesomes to Nietzsches catalogue of strong, free, and joyous activities. The odd bit comes when Tate attempts to unify this heroic, individualistic philosophy of personal salvation with a traditionalist take on sexual ethics, though of course men are exempt from the strictly monogamous standards which he believes women alone should apply to their own sexual behaviour. We may regard Tate, then, as an entertaining, unlikely mix of Ayn Rand, Lord Byron, and Mary Whitehouse. Tates recent conversion to Islam further complicates the picture. The strange move may be sincere, but there are many who suspect, given his track record, that it is little more than an attempt to put a divine sheen on his polygamous incontinence.

The sexual revolution, it seems, has created two male types. There is of course a varied spectrum, but young men increasingly tend in one of two directions. They either become so-called incels (shorthand for involuntary celibates), frothing with such resentment at their circumstances that they only make themselves further undesirable to women, or they are made into ultra-proud, promiscuous hedonists. Resentment should never be encouraged. The incels should look inwardly for solutions to their sexual failure before scapegoating the women who are repulsed by or indifferent to their existence. Still, there is a sense in which the second type of man, who triumphs where the first type abjectly loses, makes life harder than it needs to be for these incels.

Sexual liberation has turned dating from a respectful game of courtship, with established patterns of conduct, into a loveless, toxic blood-sport. A culture that prizes the norm of one man and one woman creates rotten conditions for the libertine scoundrel, but it does also discipline the male instinct for aggression by giving every man a reasonable chance in the sexual sweepstakes. In our semi-polygamous society, meanwhile, the overdose of sexual freedom means the fact that eighty per cent of the women pursue just twenty per cent of the men makes practically everyone miserable and unfulfilled. These men are under no cultural pressure to pick just one woman wisely and devote the rest of their lives to her happiness. Liberated as these new men are, they can pick as many as they choose. Following in the footsteps of Andrew Tate, they will then boast endlessly about their high body counts.

This does three things. First, it leads to despair among the vast majority of men who must live without female attention. Second, it makes the tiny minority of successful men develop a cynical attitude to women, whom they will now forever associate with ease and sensation. Finally, it deludes many women into believing that, just because they can command the attention of a high value man for a single evening, they will also be able to command that attention long enough for what began as casual sex to blossom into a loyal, flourishing relationship. The bottom eighty per cent of men will thus continue to be neglected, as the majority of women are too busy trying to tame the very men who have profited most from sexual liberation and are therefore least likely to give up the narcotic of promiscuous gratification. The ideal of the strong Christian gentleman and the old belief in enforced monogamy were thrown out as patriarchal constructs in the 1960s. Andrew Tate is our punishment.

Still, somewhere behind Tates impressive bodily frame and jock bravado, there is a sound social conservative trying to get out. I believe in family, I believe in children, he says on Piers Morgans show. But these obvious goods require restraint and sacrifice on the part of fathers at least as much, if not more, as they demand virtue of mothers. Tate preaches old-fashioned sexual ethics to the women of this world, yet encourages men to combine a Nietzschean drive towards master morality with the hollow, playboy hedonism of Hugh Hefner. No wonder there are now swathes of unsatisfied women. Given the importance of boundless pleasure to the few men who thrive in our mad-max sexual dystopia, those who can find a loving, committed boyfriend, still less a husband, willing to give her undivided romantic love and erotic attention, are dwindling in number.

Still, it is no good criticizing Tate out of resentment. I have mentioned Nietzsche, one of Christianitys most challenging critics in the history of thought. The German philosopher argued famously that the religion of faith, hope, and charity triumphed not through the influence of the Holy Spirit, but due to a cunning psychological trick played by the weak against the strong. The wretched slaves of pagan antiquity, claimed Nietzsche, found in Christianity a universal ethic which not only sanctified their lowly, pathetic condition, but could be weaponized against domineering, would-be Caesars. For this reason, Nietzsche believed the animating emotion of Christianity to be not love, but ressentiment. One of the most gripping ideas to emerge from this polemic is the sense that it is at best suspect and at worst invalid for us to condemn an act if we are physically or spiritually incapable of performing it ourselves. After all, without this test, it is impossible to know whether we condemn it out of genuine outrage or wounded envy. No doubt there are today many men jumping on the bandwagon to attack Tate less out of principle than an agonizing sense of jealousy.

Nietzsche was correct to identify the ways in which cowardice and resentment often cloak themselves in the more illustrious colours of high-minded moral judgement. Kant had said ought implies can to emphasize the fact that a system of ethics must be built on the presupposition of free will or risk incoherence. Nietzsche then came along to add, in effect, that ought not implies could. A truly virtuous form of masculinity would involve men becoming capable of imitating Andrew Tate and then willingly refusing to do so. For what could be less admirable than a man who makes hateful, performative utterances about the villain in the company of others while living vicariously through his exploits in his own daydreams?

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The Real Problem With Andrew Tate The European Conservative - The European Conservative

You probably knew this already, but nihilism is in. Im a chronically late adopter I only found out about skinny jeans in 2012 and Id be growing a beard around now if my follicles were up to it. A cultural vibe shift has to be seismic before I notice it. So if new-gen nihilism is on my radar, it must be everywhere, a dense, pillowy fog of meh enveloping the globe.

There were hints earlier: I remember being charmed by the Why dont you just give up and let the moss reclaim you? meme of 2019 its certainly a phrase Ive whispered countless times since, imagining inhabiting a silent, primeval forest, nostrils filled with the damp, earthy smell of moss as it slowly conquers my inert form, all thoughts of Virgin Mobiles call centre and our perpetually clogged sink forgotten.

Despite that, I missed Wendy Syfrets book The Sunny Nihilist in 2021. In it, Syfret reframed nihilism as a potentially life-enhancing response to the relentless pressure to self-optimise in an exceptionally suboptimal world. She describes this nothing matters philosophy, appealingly, as a balm for a group burning out over exceptionalism, economic downturns, performative excellence, housing crises and living your best life on Instagram.

What has taken me from a vague attraction to moss, to a sense, as 2022 fizzles miserably out, that nihilism is everywhere? Its logical, I suppose, that roiling permacrisis makes us more receptive to the notion that striving is pointless. You can get Nietzsche coasters and nothing matters cross-stitch kits on Etsy now. For me though, it was an egg that did it.

Im in thrall to Gudetama, the lazy egg. On the off-chance youre as out of touch as I am, Gudetama is a listless cartoon egg created in 2013 by Sanrio, the kawaii megacorp behind Hello Kitty. Kitty-cute, but sluggishly disengaged, Gudetama cant see the point of anything in the face of their certain fate: being eaten. They are joyless and hopeless and completely without opinions or ambitions, except to be left alone to squelch and loll in their own malaise, according to a New York Times feature on the ovoid antiheros new Netflix animated series, which launches

Does that appeal? Like many (Gudetama has a huge fanbase), Im drawn to this desultory puddle of albumen and anomie, urging us to accept the essential futility of everything. There are alternative nihilist role models: a TikTok of a sheep with a bucket on its head, supposedly at a place in her life where peace is a priority resonates. Noodle, the pug who slumped in his basket to announce a no bones day died recently, but his spirit lives on. When life is fraught, I Google the blunt-headed burrowing frog, a tiny-eyed, marsh-dwelling amphibious blob. I dont know what it is about the burrowing frog, but Im instantly soothed by contemplating its impassive features and imagining myself belly-down in a Thai marsh.

Neo-nihilism makes sense as a corrective to frenetic hustle culture, multi-jobbing and tech oligarchs futilely trying to biohack their way to immortality with flaxseed sludge and 23-hour fasts. Vision boards, manifesting and five-year plans feel ridiculous when the traditional sources of meaning fulfilling work, forming a family, having a home, planning a future have never felt more out of reach for so many. Thats terribly sad when you think about it: no wonder it feels more soothing to conclude that nothing matters.

Is that really where we are? Im probably behind the curve and over optimistic, but I dont think nihilism is about to conquer the world most of us are fortunate enough to feel our lives still have meaning. Even so, plenty of things dont matter nearly as much as we feel they do. As a thought experiment, there might be sanity in having the spirit and fortitude not to care at all, as the Gudetama cookbook urges, at this time of year. No turkey, courier lost your presents, a family member spoiling for a fight about pronouns? None of it matters. Wrap your egg white around you like a cosy blanket, become moss, enter the marsh. Peace is your priority now.

Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist

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I am getting into neo-nihilism it is so soothing to conclude that nothing matters - The Guardian

What makes a chief executive officer? Kevin Norquay uncovered more surprises than stereotypes when he investigated for a 12-part series starting today.

What are our CEOs made of? Not snips and snails, not puppy dogs tails, nor sugar, spice and all things nice. But pretty close.

One business leader comes from a family so poor they ate scraps intended for the pigs, another had an alcoholic father; tough times.

Three of the 12 worked at Greenlane Hospital, three more reached the top from South Auckland, some could do every part of their business, others are more hands off.

READ MORE:* Are our friends in the Beehive fickle spinners of tall tales, and mythical slogans?* 'You're Awesome': 800 vouchers for Auckland health workers as thanks for Covid-19 efforts* Pensioners claim bad tax advice to blame for bills

John Kirk-Anderson/Stuff

Peter Beck, CEO of Rocket Lab.

One wrote a thesis on Nietzsche's philosophy of love, then sought to find himself backpacking overseas and failed; some see their career as a series of random lucky events; others simply followed their hearts.

Pop band Fleetwood Mac features, as does English football side Leeds United, leagues Northcote Tigers and Glenora Bears, while a pair of netball wing attacks, and a Poneke rugby club lock talk of how they soared to the top.

These are the new CEOs, challenging the view of what a business leader looks and thinks and behaves like. Old stereotypes have gone, with nary a tie to be seen; they are juggling ideas, visions and children, several overcame rough starts in life to show what is possible.

So what bonds these community and industry leaders, other than having to cope with Covid smashing into their best laid plans?

Abigail Dougherty/Stuff

Auckland Rugby League CEO Rebecca Russell.

OfficeMax boss Kevin Obern offers Stuff one theory.

Lots of chief execs I've talked to, we're about impostor syndrome. Oh, someone's going to find I'm not as good as they think I am, he says.

If you're a real person, you're true to yourself, true to your own values and the things that matter to you, that's the first step.

If you don't do that, there won't be any other steps. Or if you do go forwards, you won't stay very long because you're going to get found out.

Self reflection is another theme, then stir in getting the best people to work with you and supporting them back, making the best decisions you can, and dont (or try not to) beat yourself up if they go wrong. Front up and own it.

With all the negativity swirling in 2022, sitting down with a CEO comes recommended as an uplifting vaccine, pillars of can do and optimism, each inspiring in their own way.

MONIQUE FORD/Stuff

Margie Apa, chief executive of Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand.

Here are the leaders and visionaries you will meet over the next few weeks.

Peter Beck (Rocket Lab); Margie Apa (Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand); Paul Newfield (H.R.L. Morrison & Co); Cheyne Chambers (Ryman Healthcare New Zealand); Nick Astwick (Southern Cross Health Society); Arihia Bennett (Te Rnanga o Ngi Tahu); Chris Blenkiron (New Zealand Aluminium Smelter); Mark Ryland (Milford Asset Management); Naomi Ballantyne (Partners Life); Kevin Obern (OfficeMax); Rebecca Russell (Auckland Rugby League).

This week: Rhiannon McKinnon (Kiwi Wealth).

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Apart from Covid smashing our best laid plans, what common traits do we share with chief executives? - Stuff

As domestic maize (corn) prices are trading higher by about 34% year-on-year at Rs 2,225 per quintal (ex-warehouse Chhindwara). Due to higher prices, the government is considering curbs on the export of maize.

As per market sources, the Ministry of Food Processing Industry has written to the Commerce Ministry proposing a ban after starch manufacturers raised the case of higher maize prices and non-availability. As maize is not included under the essential commodity, it is unlikely that the government would impose an export ban.

India is not a regular exporter of maize and comes under the export picture whenever there are global shortages or supply chain crises across the world. Indias maize export share to production is only about 10% in the previous two years. India exports maize mainly to South Asia and a few Southeast Asian nations, major export destinations are Bangladesh, Nepal, Vietnam, and Malaysia.

In the coming months, the export demand from India for maize to the South East Asian nations would fade as their demand would shift towards South American corn as Argentina and Brazil start their new crop harvest.

India would be uncompetitive for exports in the Southeast Asian market as the FOB rates for Argentina corn is $282.5/MT, and Brazil is $287.25/MT while India is offering at $305/MT, and the CIF quote for Vietnam is $330.75/MT.

On the other hand, there are no severe supply shortages of maize crops in India this year. The Kharif season maize crop was estimated at 21.31 Million MT, 2% lower than the previous years 21.77 Million MT.

In the ongoing Kharif season, maize prices have bottomed out at Rs 2,100 per quintal (ex-warehouse Chhindwara). The strong demand for maize from stockists, traders, exporters, and feed manufacturers kept the prices firm despite the peak arrival season. Also, the rail rake movement of maize remains strong this year.

Meanwhile, the domestic maize demand is expected to improve this year, domestic demand would increase by 2.3% year-on-year to 28.8 million MT due to an increase in feed demand by 2.5% year-on-year to 17 million MT while food and industrial demand would increase by 2% year-on-year to 11.7 million MT. Hence, strong growth in maize demand coupled with firm prices for substitute feed grains would keep the maize prices sentiment bullish.

We believe maize prices would trade sideways in the coming days unless there is clarity on the export ban. Thereafter, maize prices would trade bullish towards Rs.2300 per quintal in the short term and Rs.2500 in the medium term.

Origo Commodities Maize Production Estimate: CY 2022-23Table-Commodities-

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying. - Friedrich Nietzsche

Continued here:
Commodity Column | Will the Government impose an export curb on maize? - Economic Times

Rapper Big Naughty and his mother will be appearingas special guests onMBC's variety program 'DNA Mate.

On the upcoming December 6 KST broadcast of MBC's variety show 'DNA Mate', rapper Big Naughty and his mother caught the attention of many with their relationship that resembled that of two friends, rather than the typical mother and son. Here, they talked about how Big Naughty competed on Mnet's hip hop survival show 'Show Me The Money' when he was just17 years old, quickly making it to the finals. Big Naughty continuesto see a lot of success with his music even after the show, earning the title "music chart gangster",and even winning music awards for his music.

In the upcoming broadcast of'DNA Mate', Big Naughty' showedthat he spendshis morning at the recording studio, hard at work as usual. Barefoot and comfortably lounging in his studio, Big Naughty turned heads by suddenly reaching for a book titled, 'Nietzsche's Words'. When Big Naughty's mother showed up, it was revealed that her favorite artist is Big Bang, to the point where she even put Big Bang's albums on display in the house, instead of her own son's albums. Despite the mother and son sharing their love formusic, many were shocked to learn that Big Naughty's mom was actually not that happy to learn her son had passed the first roundat 'Show Me The Money'. The reason for thiswill be revealed in the upcoming episode.

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Rapper Big Naughty's mother says she wasn't happy when her son passed the rounds on 'Show Me The Money' - allkpop