2025-09-03, 0954h, On zen fascism

Zen fascism

californication

self as erotic savior-slave in crisis settlerism

there are constitutive contradictions in liberalism - i.e. universalism and individualism - stress (i.e. crisis, Collapse) exposes them

this creates the Liberalism Legitimacy Crisis: - as these contradictions intensify, liberalism loses credibility|validity as an ideological system. - it can't produce the resolutions it promises - so it shifts to promising regulation - see Foucault

California as projection zone: California Gold Rush, Misiones Californianas (the Patronato Real of California), psychedelic revolution, Hollywood, Esalen Institute, techno-utopianism

californication is a process of responding to systemic contradictions by performing personal coherence? - doesn't address structural tension - processes it as a material to be commodified - aesthetic, affect - Brian Wilson (and the Barenaked Ladies song) - Valley of the Dolls - On the Road - californication as genre scripting: genre structures expectation (Lauren Berlant) - platformal liberalism induces californication as the dominant genre of contradiction management - crisis is trauma, mood, healing - MASH television show, Red Hot Chili Peppers, skateboarding - cybernetic settlerism, cybernetic subject - you change the world by how you route events into mood, not with your beliefs or action (which come from mood) - Calm app, Burning Man, lifehacking, microdosing

Zen - don't fear Collapse: be serene - detachmenet - nonreactivity - Apple advertisement (1984 novel) - Starfleet and San Fransisco (Misiones Fransiscanas?) - ayahuasca entrepreneurism - stoicism, in late-season MASH - eroticization of detachment - crisis is desireable: - source of good affect, source of good life - crisis is the source of healing, spiritual growth, betterment of self - liberalism is legitimate /because/ it produces crisis - trauma aesthetic and aesthetic trauma - vagus nerve, self-regulation

savior-slave subject - californicational subject is: - savior - personally responsible for managing global crises - slave - governed by external systems (and crises) - Collapse as performable norm: - collapse is not hidden or denied, it's: - narrativized (healing arc) - monetized (survivalism, resilience, adaptation) - collapse becomes sustained because it is wanted - this makes wanting to resolve it incommensurable - more structures and incentive and power-force to sustain it than end it

RAND Institute, Summer of Love

shift from Trapper to BJ: critiquing to affecting - therapeutic

Disneyland

Watts Rebellion

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

California Über Alles

Reaganonimics

The Day After

Rodney King Uprising

doomscrolling, rageposting