Ask Nathan Anything 2: Self-Absorption Boogaloo

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

What anime is your sig from?

It's from Black Lagoon, which is a delightful genre pastiche of big, dumb, nihilistic 70s-90s action movies. I changed it from McThief the Crime Cat to better reflect my current tired-of-the-BS outlook.

@Hindsight is 2020, Nathan’s sig turned me onto it and, 12 episodes in, I can say it’s pretty cool!

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

You sport a socialist avatar. Do you care to specify your preferred economic structure?

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Is neo-paganism a racist attempt by (some) Europeans to say that God couldn’t be Jewish/Middle Eastern/Italian?

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

1. Personal liberation, or sociopolitical reform? I pose this question to you because you are both a Christian and a socialist. Marxists (to my limited knowledge) have for years decried that religion may call one to look inward, viewing one's personal cosmic status as a salve and a distraction from the true fight--class liberation. Rather, many philosophical materialists on the left would prefer to focus on material, social problems at hand. I have my own thoughts on this but have generally drifted in a "set your own attitude" direction over the past few years, in part because I think at some point you've got to draw the line on how your personal difficulties relate to some big ol' superstructure and be willing to self improve ("Yes, your job may be mind-numbing, but what you do outside of it is your prerogative" type of stuff). Perhaps a clumsy way of asking whether you prioritize the social or the personal.

2. You ever encounter Hannah Arendt? I've only read a few things by her, and they can be hard to get through (On Revolution still lies on my bookshelf, only half read--I like to think I read the good half). Nevertheless, even though the conclusion of her On Violence is something I can never seem to actually remember, it remains probably my favorite piece of political theory I read in undergrad. This is partly because she tries to delineate between "power", its antithesis "force", and a variety of other political terms, such as "authority", and does so in what I at least felt at the time was remarkable fashion.