This piece is a sequel to this one critiquing the men’s right activism (MRAs) from the perspective of collective initiatory experiences and trauma. In that piece I laid out the conceptual grid of trauma and initiatory movements and how they shed incredible light on the MRA movement—an understanding…
8 posts in
Feminism
“Traumatic injury in childhood has been equated with a kind of unconscious initiation ceremony—not because it is a spiritual or ceremonial experience, but because the movements within it mimic the movements of the first two stages of real initiation. Understanding the stages of initiation (and the ways in which…
This piece is in many ways the inverse of my piece on Deadpool as the perfect postmodern movie. Star Wars did (most) everything wrong that Deadpool did right when dealing with our contemporary postmodern zeitgeist. Whereas Deadpool wasa postmodern triumph, the new Star Wars trilogy is a postmodern disaster. This…
A little while back I wrote this piece on how inclusivity and diversity could use more matriarchy to regenerate authentic power. I want to revisit this topic but from a slightly different though related-angle: the deconstructive philosophy of Jacques Derrida. In so doing I want to explore what deconstruction might…
"And believe it or not, Deadpool 2 is a family film. True story. And every big family film starts... with a vicious murder. Bambi, The Lion King, Saw 7." --Deadpool, Deadpool 2 Postmodernism is a central topic around these parts. Understanding postmodernism is key to understanding our current moment. Postmodernism…
The Red Pill. Everyone remembers Morpheus offering Neo the choice of the red pill which will “show him how far this rabbit hole goes.” Only as it turns out later in the films it doesn’t quite work out that way. This misremembering would simply be an interesting cinematic footnote…
[Note to the Reader: This piece is going to be very multi-layered. It’s a very complex argument with multiple pieces. It’s also something I’m stretching into mentally. It’s by no means a fully worked out thesis. So please consider it in that exploratory light.] In this…
In this piece I want to look at some core aspects of the thought of Jordan Peterson. Peterson is a very polarizing figure. But what I find odd is that rarely, if ever, do people take a more balanced view of the strengths as well as the limitations (and in…