Editors note: The following, third in a three-part series, is adapted from an essay inNational Reviewand is republished here with permission. ProfessorAeschlimanis the author ofThe Restoration of Man: C.S. Lewis and the Continuing Case Against Scientism(Discovery Institute Press). Find the full serieshere.

Much of George Bernard Shaws greatness was properly destructive of illusions and self-interested shibboleths and bromides, what Kant called the radical evil the use of the language of ethics as a screen for self-interest or self-love. An outsider to Victorian England, Shaw saw how post-Christian Great Britain habitually used such screens, and he mocked them with hilarious and hygienic effect. Jacques Barzun claimed that Shaw was in the true dramatic tradition of Aristophanes and Molire, and Shaw himself said, My business as a classic writer of comedies is to chasten morals with ridicule. He was proud of reintroducing to English drama long rhetorical speeches in the manner of Molire. Barzun called him a 20th-century Voltaire.

Yet Shaws positive criterion by which to measure and ridicule folly and vice was fatally ambiguous, eclectic, and inconstant, as Chesterton pointed out, more in sadness than in anger. Shaw could deplore scientism, what he called the anti-metaphysical temper of nineteenth century civilization (preface toSt. Joan), and thus excoriate the inhuman and subhuman implications of Darwinism, and he could sincerely invoke the conception of a Godhead immanent in all human beings. His critique of scientistic imperialism in promiscuous, cruel vivisection finds a resonant echo in our time in our better protocols for animal experimentation, as John P. Gluck in hisVoracious Science and Vulnerable Animals(2016) has movingly shown.

But often his clear, confident moral rectitude is just a muddle; as his character Barbara Undershaft, the Salvation Army Major Barbara of his 1905 play, says after her loss of faith, There must be some truth or other behind this frightful irony. Shaws close friend Beatrice Webb castigated the play as amazingly clever, grimly powerful, but ending ... in an intellectual and moral morass. The same could be said of a number of the plays absurd outcomes, without the later, post-Shaw intention of celebrating absurdity (Beckett, Sartre, Pinter, Albee; Tom Stoppard is a salutary exception Shaws true successor). Some of the plays are almost unbearably tedious, such as the vastBack to Methuselah, despite its brilliant prose preface. In a notable attack on Shaw, the actor and playwright John Osborne, who had acted in provincial productions of many of the plays, asserted in 1977 that Shaw is the most fraudulent, inept writer of Victorian melodramas ever to gull a timid critic or fool a dull public. It is not difficult to agree with him that the much-praisedCandida(1900) is an ineffably feeble piece and that it is hard to think of anything more silly.

Shaws biggest box-office success was the poignant, strangely piousSt. Joan(1923), written especially for the actress Sybil Thorndike (18821976), which made her career. Some of the plays still make powerful reading and seeing Pygmalion,Androcles and the Lion, andArms and the Manare marvelous comedies. His prefaces are often lucid and profound, his music criticism expert, eloquent, and memorable for example, his early championing of Beethoven is deeply moving. His literary criticism is sometimes classic and even lapidary, as in his famous 1912 introduction to Dickenss novelHard Times.

But Chesterton was right to think that trying to synthesize Nietzsche and socialism and ultimately communism was to produce fools gold and destructive illusions. Writing after his own painfully revealing year in Moscow in 193233, as a correspondent for theManchester Guardian, Malcolm Muggeridge, a favored relation of Shaws close friends the Webbs, who was raised on Shaw in his London socialist home, deplored Shaws fellow-traveling propaganda for Communist Russia, whose reality the acute Shaw failed to recognize in his 1931 guided tour or for the 20 years of his life that remained. Chestertons ambivalence about Shaw as man and writer remains a superbly judicious guide to the most influential English-language dramatist of the 20th century; and Chestertons own body of writing, in several genres, remains a golden thread by means of which the sanest and most salutary elements of the classical-Christian literary, ethical, and political tradition made their way into the apocalyptic 20th century, and make their way to us.

Link:
Shaw, Scientism, and Darwinism - Discovery Institute

Certain truths seem inimitable, like: Age is just a number.

Wrong! Age is a word.

Friedrich Nietzsche helpfully explains in Human, All too Human (1878), Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.

Postmodernist, post structuralist, post Life Jim, but not as we know it. 2020 has been a year where many grand narratives have weakened, waned and died. A year when that which many never imagined came to pass, and brought a friend with it. Summers in the armpit heat of the Tropics, separation from loved ones over space, and often too, over time, prolonged exposure to those same loved ones in quarantine. Some lighter losses- The Guardian reports that women have ditched the iVenus and the hot wax, going au-natural in the body hair department- Yes kids, Mummy is doing Movember Some harder losses- many lives have been taken by the virus. For those its touched, its been tough. This is life.

COVID has changed the way many of us view life. 2020 has been a year of re-evaluations. Like some horrible, inverse countdown, the uncertainty rises with the years of the fledgling century. What does it mean to be an expat in the middle of a global pandemic? What does it mean to be grounded, literally, to a breed of wanderlusts? What does it mean to be good in a world gone mad?

Thankfully, there is a whole field of thought which suggests that this may be a move towards an honest appraisal of life, rather than away from it. The idea that telling someone what we want and how we feel is easy seems pretty straightforward. This is at the heart of many stories, a hero pursuing a goal at all costs- the goal ever present and unwavering, like a mosquito in the bedroom in the depths of night. But simply opening the mouth and declaring the feeling or intention may be more difficult in practice than in theory.

Culture and nurture play a huge role in determining the things people feel able to speak openly about, and those which must be hidden away behind the skeletons in the closet. Missteps in communication of an authentic and honest truth begin early, when children are not allowed to speak openly about their feelings, or to express them in the authentic ways known only to the young- screaming, hissing, biting, punching, tearing, crying and whining. Angry retaliations, or fragile pleas for quiet by parents similarly quietened in their own childhoods quickly teach children to hide or modify natural impulses to chew on each other or explore their full lung capacity at a supersonic pitch. Slowly, slowly, educational and childhood theories promote positive emotional nurturing for apprentice humans.

Bad communication has its roots in the feeling that you cant be truthful, and tolerated, and loved. Alain de Botton, philosopher and author writes in The School of Life; An Emotional Education, (2019). Habits formed in infancy and early childhood, can and do become hardwired into the cognitive operating system, however, and as with so much in life, it is harder to unlearn something than it is to learn it, just the same as you cant un-fry an egg. Worldviews are nurtured in the womb, their roots reach far deeper than most are willing to believe.

So whats all this got to do with truth, and with me, you might well ask? What have these dishonest babies got to do with anything?

As 2021 draws near, certain inequalities still exist in our global societies of which we are all aware. And yet, as a species, we are quite unable to stop ourselves from tripping over the same rock twice. Your average, garden human is hardwired to believe certain versions of reality by around five years of age. Implicit biases and ways of being form the basis for all future understanding. There are no facts, only interpretations, adds Nietzsche in On Truth and Lies in the Nonmoral Sense, (1873), calling this tendency to pan the happenings in the physical world through subjective knowledge sieves perspectivism.

Culture is the non-biologicalor social aspects of human life.Itrefers to the way we understand ourselves as individuals and as members of society, including stories, religion, media, rituals, and even language itself. This demonstrated itself amply in 2020 when more collective cultures enjoyed relatively shorter lockdown times than their more individualistic counterparts, valuing the greater good over individual rights.

Unfortunately, extensive levels of individual freedom also allow for the corresponding degree of poor choices and freedom to indulge in misguided behaviour.

And yet, surely if there is any truth, it is that there is good inside all people. And everyone considers themselves to be good. So what then, are the narratives that sustain practices of hate and prejudice in our global human culture? It can only be a story that is held to be as true as your name, your hair, your mother tongue? The very words that allow us to articulate our experience in the world? A story that paints other groups at bad, or less or wrong in some unpardonable way.

2020 has taught me some things about truth.

Step 1. Think.

Step 2. Think about what you thought about.

Bad information leads to bad choices. In the information age, it has never been easier to seek out knowledge, to update the cerebral software. Culture encapsulates and engenders all that we know. Lack of a proper awareness of this fact leaves us lost in a sea of interpretations.

In the face of an increasingly unpredictable world, its comforting to cling to that which we know to be true. Rioters and voters and people suffocating under the weight of these truths have taken to the streets in unprecedented numbers in 2020. They reclaim the right to mandate over their own bodies, the right to breathe, the right to be.

Hegemony, political or cultural dominance and authority over others, means that the ones who walk among us with souls that shine a different light from the dominant culture spectrum are subordinate to the mainstream.

Diversity is dangerous. Different is deadly. Back with Ug The Caveman in the Palaeolithic era, this made sense. Evolution had no space on the bus for dead weight.

It still doesnt. Diversity is the spark that makes the human race electric. Understanding that the old ways may not be the best ways can be liberating.

There are plenty of stories weve outgrown, stories like women being denied the vote on account of sex. Its 100 years ago this year since universal suffrage was granted in the U.S. Little has been made of this monumental shift in worldview in the media. Women in Saudi Arabia were granted the right to drive a car in June, 2018 and its been just 1 year since abortion was legalised in Ireland.

If we are to look at how the dominant narrative about women and womens rights has evolved over a century, its clear that once the hegemony absorbs new knowledge, change is possible.

Taking a deep breath and admitting that this has been a batplop crazy year, that life is sometimes blind jump into the abyss, that no one really knows their ass from their armpit- this can liberate all of us. Or thats my interpretation. Nietzsche would warm again making absolute judgements either way.

As Jeremy Goldberg said, Courage is knowing it may hurt and doing it anyway. Stupidity is the same. Thats why life is hard.

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Asking Ourselves What is truth in a Post-COVID World? - The Nanjinger

There are two mind-blowing moments in Jean-Paul Sartres 1944 play No Exit (Huis clos). The first is when we realise that the three well-dressed, well-mannered people, conversing in a living room in the style of the Second Empire are dead souls gathered in hell. The second is the famous line lenfer, cest les Autres or hell is other people.

I dont believe that man is, by nature, a social animal. To be honest, I believe the opposite. Not my quote Albert Camus. Heres another: All existing societal structures are artificial and inadequate for an individual being. Also not me, but the remarkable Russian philologist Mikhail Bakhtin, the forefather of intertextuality. I agree with both views, however, and I believe that society, even the most liberal and advanced, restricts our individuality to such an extent that we can only ever hope to realise a tiny fraction of our authentic selves.

Lets consider one of the most important decisions of our lives: choosing a profession. This is how the process is supposed to work. First, I look deep into my heart and decide what my dream is. Once Ive identified this dream, I set out to find a job that represents its perfect embodiment. Then I look hard and I persevere and, unfailingly, there comes a day when I find it. If this sounds like rubbish, thats because it is. Anyone who has looked for a job knows that the process is exactly the reverse: I dont start with a dream, I start with a list of available options. I see what jobs are out there, how much they pay, what their prospects are, and where my limited abilities might realistically fit in.

Now, for arguments sake, lets consider a scenario where I do have a dream and a talent to go with it. I am a prodigious orator: I have a gift for rhetoric, I can rouse the crowd to fever pitch and I have the power to convince. I am determined to make a living out of this gift, and so resolve to become a trial lawyer. I feel elated: from now on, my life will be one long, uninterrupted realisation of a dream.

So what are my next steps? Oh, a minor matter of seven years of studies, more years of junior legal work, nights in the archives, meetings, admin, office politics. All worth it, you might argue, as, one day, I will get to stand in court and stun the jury with the power of my word. Except that, by the time I do this, my original passion would have been trimmed and moulded to a barely recognisable shape. The consummate trial lawyer I may one day become will no longer be me, but a product of extensive compromise between me and the societal structures in which I operate.

In The Ego and its Own the German philosopher Max Stirner writes that thousands of years of civilization have obscured to us what we are. If you think thats pessimistic, wait until you read Mikhail Bakhtin, who posits that society was built without the knowledge of the fact that I exist, and, as such, it annihilates me.

Although annihilates may be too strong a word, society certainly restricts me most obviously through its laws. The laws that, I hasten to add, I did not vote for. But the country voted for these laws, you might retort. Yes, but I didnt, so how does this help? Law is the product of peoples will, you might go on. But is there really such a thing? As people, we are just an assortment of contradictory consciousnesses, each pursuing her own interests and beliefs.

If laws restrict me, morality does it more. Be good, be kind, save the world, work hard, love your family, your neighbours and your fellow human beings. Through the imperative to comply with moral codes Stirner referred to these as higher essences, absolute ideas, bigger truths society creates an artificial we and forces us to act (and think, and feel) in ways that are not our own. Because do I really owe anyone my love? And does love work through obligation?

Unlike the laws, I dont have to abide by moral codes: they wont lock me up for not loving my fellow men. But God forbid that I should admit it! Because can you imagine what they will say? They, other people, les Autres.

I cannot think of an influence more malevolent, more poisonous, more corrupt than the influence of other people. Our need for their approval, our wish to look good in their eyes is the single most powerful instrument of distortion of personality. Bakhtin writes that another is a source of infinite violation of my own I. Each day, l live in anticipation of her criticism, her mockery, her contempt and so my actions, my thinking, my whole presentation to the world bear the painful marks of her opinion. Eventually, I stop being myself and I become other peoples definition of me.

And if only these were the people who mattered. But no, when it comes to external validation, anyone is fair game. After meeting death by the firing squad, on his first day in hell, war deserter Joseph Garcin (No Exit) looks down on earth and sees his old newsroom, his comrades pulling on their cigars and talking about him. They call him a coward and they smirk with contempt. He cannot live with this, Garcin, not even in hell. So he turns to Estelle. He asks her to believe in him, to tell him that he is good and brave. He begs her, he implores her, he promises her his love. Thats right, Garcin turns to Estelle, the woman who tied a stone around her newborn babys neck and drowned it in the lake. Trust in me! Garcin implores her. Estelle refuses, and his hell begins.

Is there a solution? A way to resist societys evisceration of my authentic I? Not according to Bakhtin who, towards the end of his life, became resigned to the hopelessness of our situation. Max Stirner was more optimistic, however, as he thought he had found the answer in egoism.

I do nothing for Gods sake, I do nothing for Mans sake, but what I do I do for my sake, Stirner writes. Love, virtue, common good, family, patriotism, kindness, respect for fellow men an egoist does not care. For him, these are abstract ideas, distant theories invented by someone else. What have they got to do with him? The only power that motivates an egoist is himself: he is his own guide, his own justification, his own truth.

This is a fascinating proposition through sheer provocation, if nothing else (The Ego and its Own was published in 1844). But it has problems. For example, how do several billion egoistic truths interact in reality? Who decides which truth is right and which is wrong? Stirner has no answer to that, simply saying: take whats yours if you cant, you are weak.

Another problem is Stirners blanket egalitarianism. Everyone is unique, even the born shallow-pates, who, he happily concedes, form the most numerous class of men. The shallow-plates should also be left to do as they please, according to Stirner and it is easy to see just how bad this idea is. Then its the general feel of his prose. Stirners depiction of an egoist is not without literary talent, and the image he creates on the pages of The Ego and its Own is, frankly, that of an asshole whereas most of us would much rather deal with a nice guy.

The problem with nice guys, however, is that you never know at what point they will crack. Soaked in moral codes and doctrines, the nice guy tries hard to be good. I can always count on him to buy my raffle ticket, and to cover up for me when I mess up at work. But the raffle ticket costs two quid. What if it cost fifty? Would he be still committed to the cause? And would he still protect me if his own career were at risk? Its easy to be nice when nothing is at stake, we can all do it. But as soon as the nice guys own interests are threatened, watch his niceness quickly vanish and crude egoism take its place. As a source of motivation, egoism is really hard to beat.

If it looks like I have painted a gloomy picture of a world without decency, honour, kindness and compassion, this is not the case. Stirner writes: I love men too, but I love them with the consciousness of egoism; I love them because love makes me happy.

There is a passage in For Whom the Bell Tolls in which Ernest Hemingway explains Robert Jordans decision to fight for the Spanish Republic by his desire to join something bigger than himself. I always found this line surprisingly weak, as it comes in sharp contrast to everything else we learn about this masterfully developed character. Namely, that whatever Robert Jordan did, he did for himself.

And this finally brings me to Nietzsche, who picked up where Stirner left off in elevating egoism to the level of philosophy. In a welcome departure from his predecessors egalitarianism, however, Nietzsche writes that the value of egoism depends on the value of him who possesses it. It can be very valuable, it can be worthless and contemptible. In other words, there is egoism and there is egoism. There is the basic selfishness of everyday man whose fumbles are directed at getting a nicer job and a bigger house and there is the egoism of Robert Jordan, who lives with courage and honour, who fights for a cause and dies for a cause not out of respect for the concept of virtue but because doing so gives him joy.

For Nietzsche, egoism is an exceptional instinct of an exceptional individual, of the noble spirit strong enough and wise enough to devise his own rules, of the man who can rightly say: I serve the higher interest of mankind not for its sake, but for my sake.

Although the idea of living a decent life through inner compulsion, rather than a nod to morality, is strong and viable, the rest, I am afraid, is a fantasy. In my entire life, I met two people whom I would trust to devise their own rules. Two. The rest would quickly descend into Lord of the Flies. There are certain societal frameworks we simply cannot live without: laws, systems, standards, procedures. Nietzsche would argue that these are only required if man cannot know himself what is good for him and what is evil. Well, to be honest, many men dont. And even if we did, would we really want to live in complete, unbridled freedom, with no guidance, no benchmarks, devising our path from scratch every single day?

Does this mean that our only option is to side with Bakhtin and watch, in mournful resignation, how, year after year, society chips away at an ever larger chunk of our personality? Society lets us realise only a tiny fraction of our authentic selves: I said this before, and I maintain it.

At this point, however, I should probably add that this problem is largely theoretical simply because most selves do not possess much by way of authenticity, and, on a day-to-day basis, there is not a large pool of uniqueness for society to suppress. And for the majority who look at life and wish for a nice job, a nice family and a nice weekend hobby, the frameworks and structures that society provides can play a good organising role. Furthermore, if we take advantage of societys intellectual and creative heritage, we might not realise our authenticity but we could realise something better. Cicero would not need seven years of university studies to win cases in court: such is the nature of genius that it flourishes on its own but for everyone else, a top law degree could enhance their abilities in ways they could never manage alone.

For better or worse, we are stuck with society, its standards and rules, its collective les Autres (otherwise known as public opinion), and its general resentment of anarchy. So perhaps the wise thing to do is forget about Stirner and Nietzsche and limit our displays of egoism to basic day-to-day stuff. After all, we wouldnt want to get on the wrong side of other people.

And yet I find Nietzsches utopia of high egoism breathtakingly splendid. A spirit thus emancipated stands in the midst of the universe with a joyful and trusting fatalism. Nietzsche wrote this about Goethe. He might have written this about himself. Because he was, in fact, the perfect egoist, his own Dionysus, his own Zarathustra and there he stood, and there he fought, intrepid, unrelenting, oblivious to consequences, unheeding to any voice that was not his own, that fiercest of creatures, that rarest of men. A man with the courage to be himself.

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In defence of egoism - TheArticle

In todays episode of the Telos Press Podcast, Camelia Raghinaru talks with Robert Miner about his article Human Joy and the Subversion of Work/Play Distinctions: A Note on Adornos Minima Moralia2.84, from Telos191 (Summer 2020). An excerpt of the article appears below. If your university has an online subscription to Telos, you can read the full article at the Telos Online website. For non-subscribers, learn how your university can begin a subscription to Telos at our library recommendation page. Purchase a print copy of Telos191 in our online store.

From Telos 191 (Summer 2020):

Robert Miner

For those intrigued by the notion of joy and its place within a human life, Theodor Adorno is unlikely to be the first thinker that comes to mind. For many, he will not come to mind at all. This is unfortunate because Adorno was keenly sensitive to the importance of joy and its dialectical relation to both suffering and joylessness. Like any brilliant aphorism, Minima Moralia 2.84 demands that its reader explicate what it contains in highly compressed form. The following note will do just this, illuminating the aphorisms claim that joy and mind have been expelled equally from both work and amusement, so that blank-faced seriousness and pseudo-activity hold sway.

The aphorism begins with a single word: Timetablea reminder of the sign under which we tend to live. It proceeds as follows:

Few things separate more profoundly the mode of life befitting an intellectual from that of the bourgeois than the fact that the former acknowledges no alternative between work and recreation.

The proposed contrast between bourgeois and intellectual will not strike todays reader as an obvious one. Many of those whom contemporary culture regards as intellectuals or thought leadersto use a particularly noxious term that has acquired currencyseem entirely bourgeois in their mode of life. Some thinkers in Adornos own time saw the point clearly. Leo Strauss, for example, uses intellectual as a term of abuse. For him it names neither the philosopher who embraces the radicalism proper to free thought nor the statesman who, however limited as a theorist, has the practical wisdom required for governing. The intellectual in Strausss usage tends to be either a sophist, notable for his verbal cleverness, or a theorist who is reasonably adept at conceptual manipulation, but blind to the unacknowledged assumptions that direct his thinking. He is not a philosopher, statesman, or scholar.

To avoid misunderstanding Adornos proposal, we must put aside the pejorative sense of the term intellectual. Adorno is well aware that many of those regarded as intellectuals are bourgeois, precisely because they operate with a strict dichotomy between work and play. But such intellectuals are counterfeits, pale imitations of the higher type: One could no more imagine Nietzsche in an office, with a secretary minding the telephone in an anteroom, at his desk until five oclock, than playing golf after the days work was done. For intellectual to be more than an abstract label, it must be reserved for those who live a certain mode of life, one befitting an intellectual. What is this mode of life? The aphorism supplies a negative description: it acknowledges no alternative between work and recreation.

In order to understand this denial more clearly, we might compare it with aphorism 94 of Beyond Good and Evil, which supplies its positive correlate. There Nietzsche writes: A mans maturityconsists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child, at play. The bourgeois bifurcation of work and play, far from being grown-up, is essentially immature, a case of arrested development. The alternative to the dichotomy between work and recreation is the integration of seriousness and play, an integration that Adorno takes Nietzsche to exemplify. Without some such integration, our prospects for anything worth calling joyas distinct from an assortment of pleasuresseem dim.

If particular intellectuals fail to live in the manner that befits them, it is often because they have been too quick to accommodate themselves to the conditions of late capitalism, taking for granted the dominant oppositions between work and play. The case of the genuine intellectual proves the possibility of living in a manner that is not determined by these oppositions. Adornos point, however, is not that only the intellectual can live such a life. The possibility of overcoming strong work/play distinctions extends to any form of life in which work conforms to a negative criterion: Work that need not, to satisfy reality, first inflict on the subject all the evil that it is afterwards to inflict on others, is pleasure even in its despairing effort. By this somewhat paradoxical formulation, the aphorism intends to suggest the possibility of work that is at the same time pleasurableand so retains an essential element of play. When work is painful, it is typically because it is work conceived as labor, whose etymological connection to suffering should always be kept in mind. So long as work is meaningless, involving little more than the exploitation of laborers who have nothing to show for their suffering, it will be experienced as painful. Work, however, that is not labor in that sense always carries with it the possibility of being pleasurable, even in its despairing effort. To the extent that it is not judged by the criterion of success or failure at producing something external to itself, such work is simultaneously play. It is enjoyable in itself, regardless of whether or not it succeeds in accomplishing some objective imposed from without.

Such autotelic activity, undertaken for its own sake, is the natural home of joy. Moreover, it suggests the possibility of a certain type of freedom. Its freedom is the same as that which bourgeois society reserves exclusively for relaxation and, by this regimentation, at once revokes. It follows that bourgeois souls are perfectly capable of recognizing the kind of freedom characteristic of the mode of work that is not opposed to play. They have had some taste of such freedom in their leisure activities. What they cannot see is that some things that are correctly described as work can also possess the freedom of play. For the bourgeois conception, the strict opposition between work and play is an unalterable fact, not some questionable idea with a particular genealogy. Just as bad interpretations think they are the only interpretation, or regard themselves as something other than interpretations, the bourgeois conception of the work/play relation supposes itself to be the only possible conception. For those to whom the bourgeois conception is self-evident, nearly every human activity is classified either as done for work or done for pleasure. Consider one example: that of reading. If someone in the grip of the bourgeois conception catches you in the act of reading a text that seems demandingone that requires attention and is not obviously amusingshe will assume that you are reading for work. In the most earnest of tones, she will ask if you ever read for pleasure.

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The Telos Press Podcast: Robert Miner on the Division of Work and Play in Adorno's Minima Moralia - Telos Press

Ubisofts Assassins Creed series is one of the worlds best-selling video game series. Featuring settings ranging from Ancient Greece to the French revolution, Assassins Creed: Valhalla, released last month, takes the player into the mind of Evior, a viking raider who invades England.

Little about Assassins Creed is unique or new: many games feature historical settings, with or without time travel; there are countless third-person action and action role playing games and the entire video game industry is preoccupied with making each game look and sound better than the last.

Even Assassins Creeds signature stealth action gameplay, which allows the player to sneak past foes, set ambushes, and avoid notice or eschew subtlety and rush in with a battle-cry, was first deployed by Eidos Thief: The Dark Project, in 1998.

First appearing in 2007, the franchise has spanned a dozen big budget PC and console games and inspired mobile tie-ins, comics, novels, board games, a film and a forthcoming Netflix live action series. So whats its secret?

Part of it is the varied settings, stretching from Ancient Egypt to Renaissance Italy to the near future. But the real secret sauce, Id argue, is in the motto of the in-game Assassins: nothing is true, everything is permitted.

Assassins Creed plays fast and loose with history, simultaneously putting huge amounts of effort into the reproduction of historical architecture and styles while also staging an endless war between the Assassins, who fight for the freedom of all humanity, and the Templars, who believe peace can only be achieved when everyone is under their thumb.

The game enables the protagonist to put on an in-game headset known as an Animus device an interactive history simulation. Rather than a time machine, the Animus uses the plot device of genetic memory. Protagonists can access their ancestors memories through their DNA to justify diversions not only from history but also possibility.

Like the play within the play in Hamlet, no-one really dies in an Animus simulation. This is an accepted fact of the plot. The goal isnt to fix the past, but to learn from it, and apply that understanding within the world of the game. This gives players consistency in terms of the series world and overarching plot, while also allowing each game to explore a different historical setting.

Small twists on familiar game-play paired with diverse settings have kept fans hooked as the games moved from 15th century Venice to 18th century Boston, to 5th century BC Athens, and beyond. Theres a different chapter of the eternal war between the Assassins and the Templars to relive in each game, a new Animus simulation.

In an era where games, from indie hit Undertale to military shooter Spec Ops: The Line, ask players to consider the consequences of their actions, the Assassins Creed games ask the player to identify with groups often seen as the bad guys. Assassins, pirates, and invaders are the heroes here.

The player can engage in assassination, piracy and colonisation without hesitation because its only an Animus simulation.

The actual historical Knights Templar are hard to get a grip on. Prominent in the 12th and 13th centuries, they fought brutally in, and profited greatly from, the Crusades. The order was later disbanded on false charges of heresy, with some burnt at the stake for confessions extracted under torture. More recently, they have grown popular with conspiracy theorists and white supremacists.

Read more: Knights Templar: still loved by conspiracy theorists 900 years on

On the other hand, the Hashashins, the historical Assassins that inspired Assassins Creed, are infamous. This Ismaili sect was active at the same time as the Templars, but in Persia (modern-day Iran) and Syria, far from the Crusades. Often incorrectly described as a cult of pot-smoking killers without fear or remorse, the motto nothing is true, everything is permitted has been attributed to their founder, Hassan-i Sabbh.

Slovakian-Italian author Vladimir Bartol collected rumours and created salacious details about the Hashashins in his 1938 novel Alamut. In it, stoned Assassins were carried to a hidden garden full of beautiful women and told they were seeing a vision of paradise.

Assassins Creed took its motto from Bartols novel, but Bartol was actually quoting Friedrich Nietzsche. The first recorded instance of the the maxim nothing is true, everything is permitted is in Nietzsches Thus Spoke Zarathrusta(1883).

In this philosophical novel, Nietzsche develops his concept of the endless return, of living the same life over and over. Thats exactly what players do in the Assassins Creed games.

Read more: Explainer: Nietzsche, nihilism and reasons to be cheerful

In Assassins Creed: Valhalla, the life you are living over is that of Evior. The player controls Layla Hassan, a modern-day Assassin, as she inhabits Evior, and he or she (the game lets you choose or periodically swap genders based on those genetic memories) re-stages the Norse invasion of the British Isles.

Eviors back-story and motivations are textbook: s/hes the orphan who needs to prove their worth, beat a nemesis and save their community. Its a rubber stamp that leaves the player free to go i viking, raiding coastal settlements and camps, butchering any opposition, pillaging valuable goods, and using them to establish and fortify a Norse settlement in England.

Read more: What does the word 'Viking' really mean?

Being an Assassins Creed game, the player also has the opportunity to infiltrate English cities, assassinating foes and rivals before quietly slipping away or cutting a gory swath to freedom.

Fandom is all about wanting new experiences that make you feel the same way you did when you first became a fan. Its a challenge for creators to provide something fresh and interesting but faithful to what fans already know and love.

Assassins Creed has worked this out: each version of the game is absolutely familiar, but makes that familiarity feel new.

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Assassin's Creed: after 13 years, 12 games and a ton of sales, what's the secret to the franchise's success? - The Conversation AU

Now, as Shakespeare said, is the winter of our discontent.

Covid keeps on coming, creating a third wave of infections that put the earlier upswells to shame. We are hunkered down, tired out, fed up, and strung out. People fret and businesses suffer.

What is an entrepreneur (last time I looked, entrepreneurs are people, too, subject to all the slings and arrows of human experience) to do during a dark moment like this? How can an emerging business move forward when everything is locked down?

Every entrepreneur is unique and every business different, but here are a few thoughts on how to traverse terrible times.

Focus on your core.

In challenging times, startups should cut away all the clutter, pare back big dreams, and pay attention single-mindedly to their core. This means core activities, like lab research and software development. Or core customers: keep every buyer you have today satisfied, occupied, and ready to expand in the future. It means paying attention to your key team members and to your most critical investors. Make a list of essentials. Tighten that list down to only the most central requirements. Pay attention to those. And leave everything else for later.

If you cant act, prepare.

In some cases, with all the restrictions now in place, action is impossible. You cant go to the office. The lab is shut. The customers are closed. The factory is inaccessible. The supply chain is sundered. In this case, be the farmer in winter: Paint the barn. Clean the root cellar. Muck out the stalls. Do all you can to prepare and improve your foundations so that when action becomes possible again, you can take the greatest advantage of it.

Remember the Shawshank Redemption.

In this classic story, an inmate chips away at a wall with spoons day after day for years. The task of escape seems impossible, ridiculous. But they persist. Imperceptibly, they make progress. Until one day, unimaginable when he began, the prisoner is free. Be that guy. Do what you can no matter how small. Keep the faith. Believe in yourself, your plan, and your tomorrow. Even if progress is minuscule, that is still progress and worthy of your effort.

Recognize that winter ends.

Vaccines are here. In Britain, inoculations began yesterday. In the US it may be weeks before they begin. But that is weeks, not years. The Covid crisis should ease over the spring and some degree of normal socialization should return by summer. It has been a long, dark nine months, but the end is in sight. Take a deep breath, adjust the heavy pack on your back, and just keep doing. Even if you cant see it yet, the brilliant sunshine of the summit is only a few switchbacks ahead. Truly, this nightmare is almost over.

Dont forget yourself.

Focus on your team, your customers, your prep, your tech. But dont forget to focus on yourself. You are human, too. All of this is taking a toll on you, as it is on all of us. Stay as close as you can to those you love. Reach out and do the things that bring you joy and comfort. Workout. Eat and drink so your body and mind are ready for the marathon ahead. Cut yourself some slack; in one way or another, all of us are a bit off our game during this conferment.

Nietzsche said, that which does not kill us makes us stronger. In our current malaise, this is literally true.

Be strong.

Reprinted by permission.

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Covid and the Winter of Our Discontent - AlleyWatch

As we celebrate the release of David Bowies seminal recordHunky Dory, which arrived 39 years ago today, we thought wed rank the iconic album from our least favourite to our most cherished track. It may well have been the moment that David Bowie finally fulfilled his potential, but that doesnt mean the record is perfect from start to finish.

That said, in an album filled with some of Bowies best pop work, it may be more difficult than you think to rank the songs from worst to best. The album remains the breakthrough record for Bowie and saw the then-24-year-old finally make his name. While the success of Space Oddity in 1969 had afforded the Starman some fame and acclaim, it wasHunky Dorythat really set him on his path to becoming a bonafide legend.

In the record, Bowie set out his blueprint for success. He would take the kaleidoscopic influences he fell upon and which fell upon him during the previous decade, tie them up together in a neat bow and deliver them with a charismatic smile. If theres one thing thatHunky Doryis, its an introduction to an icon. It should be the first place you send any Bowie virgin not least of all because of the vast range of songs and styles.

Here, we rank them all for you so that you can be as efficient as possible with your David Bowie adoration. Yes, we know. These kinds of articles are essentially just one persons opinion in an ocean of opinions. However, we like to think of ourselves as Bowie experts here, so maybe well surprise you, or maybe, just maybe, youll disagree with our rankings.

A few rules to note, for any ranking article we avoid bonus tracks or any remixes. We also try to listen to the albums on shuffle so that we avoid falling into the traps of clever producers.

Without doubt one of David Bowies more opaque songs, in fact, it never warranted itself a title, the song remains as a leading example of Bowies expressive lyricism. It was not an aspect of his songwriting which had been fully explored, but these are some of the first steps to Bowies legendary pen.

While the exact interpretation is hard to define, youd be forgiven for thinking this may surround the urbanisation of modern life and Bowies struggle to come to terms with it.

In an album chock-full of hits, this one falls by the wayside a little.

One of the funkier moments on the album, adding some delicate jazz touches wherever possible, the overarching sentiment that Bowie lets resonate is the last repetitious line free your mind, which punctuates the track with aplomb.

His first cover since I Pity The Fool, the special rendition of Biff Roses track had been featuring in the singers earlier live sets for some time. Never afraid to show his admiration for another, Bowies cover is up to scratch.

Largely seen by many as one of the most challenging songs of Bowies to navigate, it was one of the last tracks to be written for the 1971 record. Its dense texture, and rock hard exterior has it sinking to the bottom of the rankings for us, but that wont be a popular opinion.

The Bewlay Brothers has taken on a life of its own in recent years as a new generation discovers the singer. These are the artistically driven moments in Bowies career that have always seen him on the sharper side of the cutting edge.

The B-side to Rock N Roll Suicide, this 1971 song remains a bastion of Bowies inspiration at the time. While the arrangement was amply provided by Mick Ronson, it is in the lyrics that we see the beginnings of Bowies career unfolding.

The lyrics are influenced by Buddhism, occultism, and Friedrich Nietzsches concept of the Superman everything that makes Bowie brilliant.

In it, he refers to the magical society Golden Dawn and name-checks one of its most famous members, Aleister Crowley, as well as Heinrich Himmler, Winston Churchill and Juan Pujol. A kaleidoscope of influential figures to match the ranging styles of the music.

Not our favourite song on the record as it feels a little too dad-rock but Bowie himself once highlighted the songs significance to his own career in a 1976 piece inMelody Maker.

He once recalled: Theres even a song Song for Bob Dylan that laid out what I wanted to do in rock. It was at that period that I said, okay (Dylan) if you dont want to do it, I will. I saw that leadership void.

He added: Even though the song isnt one of the most important on the album, it represented for me what the album was all about. If there wasnt someone who was going to use rock n roll, then Id do it. This was the moment David Bowie made it clear that he was not just a showman; he was an artist capable of changing society.

Starting of course with David Bowies uncanny impression of Warhol, and a comedic expression that shows off Bowies acting skills, the song soon descends into a folk-pop track about the mercurial pop artist that is certainly tinged with apprehension and darkness.

The lyrics highlight a distrust of the artist: Andy Warhol looks a scream, hang him on my wall / Andy Warhol silver screen, cant tell them apart at all. Allegedly, when the two icons met and Bowie played the song for the pop artist, Warhol was not particularly impressed, leaving Bowie more red-faced than his usual make-up routine afforded.

Sadly, the possibility of two of the 20th centurys most creative and purposeful minds ended with the drop of a record needle as Bowie and Warhol quickly ascertained they were never going to be great friends. But Bowie certainly made off the better of the two from their meeting. Bowie could count two lifelong partners in Iggy Pop and Lou Reed, who he met on the trip and the seedlings ofhis upcoming creation Ziggy Stardustwho he lifted from the underbelly of NYC.

Allegedly written in tribute to Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground, the former of which Bowie would introduce too much of the British audience in 1972 with his work on Reeds Transformer, Bowies Queen Bitch is an insight into the artists future.

First port of call is Ronsons decidedly thrashier guitar work which pulls this song apart from the rest of the album and turns a folk ditty into pure rock n roll. The songs arrangement, featuring a wonderfully melodic bass line, a tight and disco drum pattern, choppy fuzzy guitar chords, and an understated vocal performance by Bowie, all add up to glam rock gold.

As well as being a bloody brilliant song (in whatever decade) the track also provided the template for the invention of glam rock as we know it. It would be a template too for The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, the 1972 introduction to Ziggy Stardust.

An anthemic adolescent bounces down Carnaby Street, Bowie transforms this jaunty little tune, somewhat reminiscent of The Beatles in their pop pomp, to something far more textured and intriguing.

Despite being originally released by Peter Noone of Hermans Hermits, upon inspection, it is really hard to imagine anybody but Bowie writing this track.

Lyrically and thematically, Oh! You Pretty Things has been seen as reflecting the influence of the aforementioned occultist Aleister Crowley, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and Edward Bulwer-Lyttons 1871 novel Vril, the Power of the Coming Race, most notably as heralding the impending obsolescence of the human race in favour of an alliance between arriving aliens and the youth of the present society.

An anthem for the outsiders of this world, Kooks may not be the most famous of the albums incredible tracklist, but for many fans, it resonates most strongly. The song, written for his son Zowie, is the track which recognises not only Bowies own kookiness but the effect that will have on him as a parent and Zowie as a child.

I bought you a pair of shoes, a trumpet you can blow and a book of rules on what to say to people when they pick on you, sings Bowie. Cause if you stay with us youre gonna be pretty kooky too.

Its a song which has transcended its intended target and instead hangs around the shoulders of all those who hear it as a comforting cradle of emboldening creativity. Its a forgiveness for the errant character traits and odd affectations. Its Bowie signing off on your weirdness and recognising it for the unique beauty it is.

Was there ever really any doubt that this song would be near the top of the pile?

One of the songs, that for many people, is one of the best that Bowie ever wrote. Its equally a song that Bowie admits it started out as a parody of a nightclub song, a kind of throwaway we think its fair to say that were all glad he didnt.

What transpires instead is a song drenched in optimism and guarded enthusiasm for life and art. As well as being an indictment of the previous generations lack of control, Bowie stating in 1968We feel our parents generation has lost control, given up, theyre scared of the future. I feel its basically their fault that things are so bad. The song is also an anthem for evolution and tolerance.

Its a mark of Bowies character and his artistic destination. Its a manifesto for his career as a rock and roll chameleon, for his life as a patron of the arts and creativity, and his legacy as one of the most iconic men in music.

Without doubt one of the most powerful and poignant songs, Bowie has ever written. Likely to be as powerful in a rock opera as on a pop record, with Life On Mars Bowie really changed the game and made artistically-driven music hit the heights of pop stardom despite never being released as a single.

Compositionally the song is near-perfect. Piano work provided by Rick Wakeman, Bowie reflected that it was actually an effortless creation: [The] Workspace was a big empty room with a chaise longue; a bargain-price art nouveau screen (William Morris, so I told anyone who asked); a huge overflowing freestanding ashtray and a grand piano. Little else. I started working it out on the piano and had the whole lyric and melody finished by late afternoon.

While lyrically, it ranks among the most surreal and deliberately difficult to ascertain any real concrete truth from, it is in the series of tableaux that Bowie provides which shows off his creative genius. Not comfortable with providing a searing narrative that the music warrants, instead Bowie provides a disjointed and designed medley of vignettes from the museum to the modernasking the listeners to create their own tale.

For us, if you can write a song filled with lyrics as non-sensical as Life On Mars while still having the audience sing those mysterious lyrics back to you with passion and drivethen youve truly succeeded as an artist.

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The songs of David Bowie album Hunky Dory ranked in order of greatness - Far Out Magazine

LTZEN/RCKEN, GERMANY- It would seem an interesting locale for a Texans fan, this small village located in the eastern expanses of modern day Germany. When we say small, we do mean small, as it barely exceeded 600 people (in what population statistics are available). However, aside from maybe winning a Euro or two in a German geography bet at the bar, this town does have one other claim to fame. Its most famous resident is also the newest celebrity fan of the Houston Texans.

Of course I am a fan of the Texans opined Friedrich Nietzsche Why wouldnt I be? The famed German philosopher, whose writings in the second half of the 19th century did much to drive modern thought on life, God and the constant struggle of man to find his place in the world. Love what I see going on there with that team, or at least, if I was capable of such a thing as love, which I am not.

Setting aside the fact that Nietzsche has been dead for 120 years What, weve already killed off God, why wouldnt we have killed off Death? If Death is dead, then we do not die, and we can transverse between life and death. Since there is no Death, and since we killed off God, there is no one to regulate the realm between life and death, thus, we can have this conversation, despite what is said about my life and death.

As we attempted to decipher that last statement or three, Nietzsche proceed to describe how he came to view the Texans as worthy of his attention. Always had a thing for those sort of out there folks, especially if they take the view of life that ultimately, it is not filled with any real hope or purpose. My boys Wagner and Dostoyevsky, they fit my style perfectly. Long-winded, bombastic at times, and the endings, all filled with no expectation of hope or victory...perfect.

When asked how exactly that fit into the Texans, Nietzsche did not answer right away. Ahhhmy first hit in a while. What? Oh, just had to pop a couple of opioid pills. Damn, where the hell was this back in the day? Had to go with the old, need

Herr Nietzsche?! The Texans!

What about the Texans? What is this Texans thing you speak of?

The point of this interview.

What is the point of this interview? What is the point of any interview? What is the point of is?

KNOCK IT OFF!!!

What is theoh, hell, my buzz just endedok, where were we? Actually, where are we? Where will we be, or can we be? Alright, the Texans, yes, anyway, my reasons why

Go on.

Well, as you know, I tend to see life as a whats the point? sort of game. Yes, this American football is a game of sorts and well, even if there is a situation where there is a winner or loser, there is presumption of hope. Yet, I then see the Texans and I notice, Where is the hope and where is the purpose?

Yes, Watson is a great player and I am damned glad he is on my fantasy team, but what is the point of what he is doing? He will put up all of those stats and he will throw it all over the place, but to what purpose? There is no championship in his future for this year. Also, there is the built-in torment of false hope with the whole worst team getting best draft picks, but since the Texans dont have to worry about that. It is as if they are the perfect team for me, playing with no short or long term hope.

When asked if couldnt have just been a Cleveland or Detroit fan, Nietzsche just blanched Why the hell would anyone waste their life cheering for those losers?

We did ask if he perhaps had followed Green Bay at one point Alright, Im going to stop you right there. Ever since the 1960s, I always hear that damned joke, especially from that douche Heidegger Hey, how was it playing for Lombardi? or I remember that great game against Detroit when you limped the pick-six into the end zone. Thats usually when I tell him that he was a dumbass in the Hawthorne short storysuch is the afterlife for us philosophers. Of course, since Death is now dead, and there is still no God in the way since we killed him, there is really not such a thing as afterlife or life or life-after-death. Of course, if we killed God, but then killed Death, how could God still be dead? If that is the case, then God is alive, and then there is once against Death, but then, we just kill them all again, for them to kill us again

So, anyway, in the existence that we occupy at a given point and space, the lame-arse Nitschke jokes are so pass. Besides, Heidegger knows that during that time, I was all about the Butkus. Big bruising linebacker, treating other players like we treated the French in the Franco-Prussian Waror at least until the one night at the French brothelstill drives me nuts, literally. He [Butkus] was more my style, toiling away on a team that did noting and went nowhere. Kinda like [J.J.] Watt now.

When asked if any other folks he knew were Texans fans, he demurred Well, they are certainly gaining some converts in the nihilist school right now. Their lack of purpose or hope, stuck just living and playing, it does match our beat. Heard Wagner thought of updating the Gotterdammerung to have the BOB coda, but that could just be the long-standing ringing in my ears that hasnt stopped since 1889. Anyway, Ill keep tabs on the team. They seem like they will be the poster children for my school of thought for seasons to come.

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Totally Not Fake News: The Latest Texans Fan - Battle Red Blog

Like High School Musical on some sort of absinthe/Xanax cocktail, The Prom is an outrageous work of steroidal show tune madness, directed by the dark master himself, Ryan Glee Murphy, who is to jazz-hands musical theatre what Nancy Meyers is to upscale romcom or Friedrich Nietzsche to classical philology.

Meryl Streep and James Corden play Dee Dee Allen and Barry Glickman, two fading Broadway stars in trouble after their latest show closes ignominiously; it is called Eleanor!, a misjudged musical version of the life of Eleanor Roosevelt with Dee Dee in the title role and Barry as Franklin D Roosevelt. Barry also has financial difficulties (I had to declare bankruptcy after my self-produced Notes on a Scandal). After unhelpful press notices turn their opening night party at Sardis into a wake, Dee Dee and Barry find themselves drowning their sorrows with chorus-line trooper Angie (Nicole Kidman) and unemployed-actor-turned-bartender Trent (played by The Book of Mormons Andrew Rannells). How on earth are they going to turn their careers around?

Then Angie sees a news story trending on Twitter: a gay teenager in Indiana has been prevented by her high school from bringing a girl as a date to the prom. The teen in question is Emma (a nice performance from Jo Ellen Pellman, like a young Elisabeth Moss), her secret girlfriend is Alyssa (Ariana DeBose) and it is Alyssas fiercely conservative mom (Kerry Washington) who is behind the ban. Our heroic foursome declare that they will sweep into hicksville with all their enlightened values and glamorous celebrity, and campaign against this homophobia, boosting their prestige in the biz. They gatecrash a tense school meeting, declaring dramatically: We are liberals from Broadway!

The Prom is based on the Broadway stage musical by Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin which incredibly is based on a real-life case from 2010. This movie starts in Manhattan but doesnt fully come to life until it moves to the school, with all its deeply serious drama, and then the raddled showbiz grownups arrive as desperate, insecure, lonely and status-obsessed as any teenager thus proving the ancient maxim that adult life is just high school with money.

The Prom is as corny as you like, and there is hardly a plot turn, transition or song-cue that cant be guessed well in advance; but its so goofy that you just have to enjoy it, and there are some very funny lines. One narcissistic girl sings to herself in the mirror: You have to hand it to me / Even I would do me. When the local hotel doesnt have a suite for Dee Dee, she slams both her Tony awards on the reception counter to prove how important she is, and then poor Barry does the same with his mystifying New York Drama Desk award statuette and no one knows what it is. The night of the revived prom brings a location-cheat editing trick that I havent seen since The Silence of the Lambs.

Could this be the first film of the Joe Biden era, as the liberals from the big city have to get over their snobbish disdain for the basket of deplorables and all come together? Well, maybe. It is amusing when the schools principal Mr Hawkins (Keegan-Michael Key) happens to be a massive fan of Dee Dee and there is a spark but Dee Dee cannot grasp the idea that a man could like Broadway musicals and be heterosexual. But of course there is no question of the music-theatre megastars seriously conceding anything to conservative-minded locals, other than the time-honoured virtue of putting aside your self-love for a bit. But self-love is the whole point.

The Prom is released on 4 December in cinemas, and on 11 December on Netflix.

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The Prom review is Ryan Murphy's musical the first film of the Biden era? - The Guardian

German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was born on October 15, 1844. The noted philosopher is known for his writings on good and evil, the end of religion in modern society, and the concept of a super-man.

Nietzsche began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest ever to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in 1869 at the age of 24. Nietzsche resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life; he completed much of his core writing in the following decade.

In 1889, at age 44, he suffered a collapse and afterward a complete loss of his mental faculties. He lived his remaining years in the care of his mother until she died in 1897 and then with his sister Elisabeth Frster-Nietzsche. Nietzsche died in 1900. Nietzsches writing spans philosophical polemics, poetry, cultural criticism, and fiction while displaying a fondness for aphorism and irony.

Throughout his productive life, Nietzsche struggled to have his work published, confident that his books would have culturally transformative effects. While he did not live long enough to witness his fame, he did learn that his work was the subject of a series of lectures by Georg Morris Cohen Brandes, delivered at the University of Copenhagen in 1888.

Nietzsche died on August 25, 1900, from pneumonia and a stroke. The Nietzsche manuscripts were eventually moved to the Goethe and Schiller Archive in Weimar.

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Friedrich Nietzsche Birth Anniversary: Top 10 relatable love quotes by the philosopher - Newsd.in