2000 – Dialogue with The Dreamer
– «Andre, emos were the forerunners of the decadent era we are living in; they were the normalfag’s representation of sadness and social exasperation. The movement was born as a crisis of the world.
We have been in a mental crisis since 2000; the crisis is within us, it is not economic only. The faith in progress is missing, it is like in 1900, D’Annunzio and the interventionist movement. He wanted to die in war because society was sick. War made new values, wiped out some shit; but one was not enough to make the West recover from decadence. How could we do it, we post-industrialists, post-computer scientists… We need a cultural movement because currently there is none.
Andre, I slowly dozed off, slowly crossed the nihilistic threshold when my enormous will to power found nothing to channel itself into; then I thought about the Internet, and about the things that you say, and then I saw that it’s all like that: you seek union/harmony in order to face the emptiness, but consciences don’t touch, on face (ed. Facebook), everyone is caught in the net, fish with blank looks, silent in front of the PC.
In 1982, just ten years before me, you could have been born and lived a better life than mine, and I’ll tell you why. Because the confidence in progress was clear. There was Jovanotti speaking on TV, there was the Kosovo war, the Berlin Wall fell, and 2000 was awaited as a revelation.
The disappointment of 2000 swept everything away; then the Americans, after the Twin Towers, “created” terrorism. If we scale down, if we only consider the Italian system, do you know where social exasperation emerges? In the fight against Berlusconi. The only hope for a better future: everyone believes that without him there will be a cultural renewal; it can only get worse. When another man rises, if he isn’t able to bring about a suitable movement, we’ll sink, there won’t even be any more fighting against the fake tyrant: it will be total decadence. (ed. correct prediction) Real communism swept everything away, when it existed: it was like face. They tried to put it all together, and in the end there was nothing left. Ferretti too is saying: “Electrified tabula rasa.”
And you can’t change anything if you don’t start a serious cultural movement, an artistic movement… “Waking Life” concluded the era; obviously it concluded with optimism, it could not be otherwise: it contains everything, it contains the pre-decadence faith in progress; if you and I had been born in 1980, we would have experienced New Year’s Eve 2000 as an event of a scale we can’t even imagine. The influence of American romanticism has killed us, with its degeneration à la “Uomini e donne” (Italian ultra-trash); today there’s more violence in love even, because all of this serves as an outlet. Connectivism failed because you can’t connect anything in a meaningful way. Today, who are you supposed to declare war to? But even then, it won’t be productive, because it’s an escape from anguish. Andre, one day I will again be influenced by the social, certain that I have acquired maturity, and I will laugh at our analyses of the world. (ed. unfulfilled prediction)
The only feasible model is falling in love (ed. correct prediction for him), because when falling in love you create millions of models about her.»
– «Hrmm, for those who can, for those who aren’t too ill such that it’s a realistic possibility, sure. In fact, love is the path that everyone takes; romantic movie-like storytelling is booming these days when role models are needed more than ever. Before, it was enough for you to have an ideal, to be this or that; now the best you can aspire to is to be considered by a girl. In wealth or in poverty, it becomes secondary, precisely because we all know by now that money is a false value.
Either you make and keep your social identity, or you die, you are nobody.
If I would ever found an actually good therapist, assuming these exist, he would indeed work on lowering the percentage of the self antithetical to the system. Then, how to keep one’s identity, well, I have no idea, I think it would actually fail there. (ed. correct prediction)
When it seems paradoxical that philosophizing can lead to certain material and practical decisions, the explanation lies precisely in individuality: you cannot be who you are not. Sloth is not about making or not making the next step, but it is the mental process that finds no purpose.
In the current year, the maximum application of thinking in physical reality is possible. In 2000 people began to feel the decadence and therefore tried to make dreams come true, projects that previously seemed absurd. Beppe Grillo at the beginning was something that amazed, today we understand that it was natural, necessary. It used to be strange for me to go against physical reality: as a child, I looked at the flame of the lit stove, and I thought that if I only wanted to, I could have put my hand on it: obviously I didn’t, but I was amazed by the fact that I could potentially do it. Today, if I’d like to, just because, I’ll do it, like the protagonist “of the Prime Numbers.” There are no more limits, because you no longer have a life.»