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Para Žižek, este es el núcleo del problema ideológico contemporáneo. El sistema no necesita que no veas lo que pasa, necesita que verlo no te cueste nada, que la conciencia crítica sea una experiencia disponible, satisfactoria y sin consecuencias. Y acá está el punto que cambia todo. Nombrar la trampa no es escapar de…
A more serious problem arose for Tolkien, especially with apparently wholly evil beings, especially Orcs, but it applies also to others such as Wargs and Trolls. Since in Catholic theology evil cannot make, only mock, Orcs cannot have an equal and opposite morality to that of Men; but since they can reason about their…
Obviously, it takes discipline to make any radical change in one's own behavior patterns, and psychotherapy can drag on for years and years. But this is not my suggestion. Does it really take any considerable time or effort just to understand that you depend on enemies and outsiders to define yourself, and that…
I was never chasing applause. Applause is loud, but it disappears quickly. I chose discipline over praise. Because discipline builds when no one is watching. Anyone can shine when the lights are on. Few can stand upright in silence, when recognition is absent. Strength is not aggression. Honor is not weakness. True…
Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without…
The use of games to represent the manoeuvres of warriors on stylised boards can be found throughout the historical record; archaeologists have unearthed sets of miniature soldiers that represent Sumerian and Egyptian armies. Many of the earliest board games that, like chess and go, are still played today are either…
Conservatives have been upset since the enlightenment. It’s the politics of aristocrats and anything that ever helped regular people to be more comfortable has enraged them. It’s literally a reactionary response to the enlightenment. These current assholes are trying to make a new country that bursts out of the body…
Full thirty times has Phoebus' cart gone round Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbèd ground, And thirty dozen moons with borrowed sheen About the world have times twelve thirties been, Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands, Unite commutual in most sacred bands.
0:00 Take a close look at how we write our addresses. 0:03 In the East, including Korea, we start with the biggest unit. 0:08 We write the country first, then the city and province, then the neighborhood and street. 0:14 And finally, we reach the smallest unit, the individual's specific address. 0:20 The Western way…
To be, or not to be — that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep, No more. And by a sleep, to say we end The heartache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is…
G. K. Chesterton once said that whereas the philosopher tries to get the heavens into his head, the poet asks only to get his head into the heavens. So when one asks, in today’s lingo, “Where’s your head at?” it would be ideal to answer that it’s in heaven. The problem is that most of us now live in cities where the…
Why do kids act like that? I have noticed that one of the first things that many new players do is try to break the world by being anti-social in a way they never could in real life. They do naughty things like slap guards in the face, flirt with the mayor's husband, or tell off the sheriff. After all, it can be good…
A thread asking dungeon-masters how “fantasy racism” – the antipathy of dwarves and orcs for example – affects the design and play of campaigns received a range of answers. One poster said “I have a pretty accepting world. I’m a bit more flexible with alignments than the books suggest … there aren’t really any major…
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen argues that: “any kind of alterity can be inscribed across (constructed through) the monstrous body, but for the most part monstrous difference tends to be cultural, political, racial, economic, sexual.”3 Fear of racial difference has been embodied through monsters for centuries, and the idea of…
The impact of Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) and its many transmedia products, while fairly infrequently discussed by historians of fiction in Fantasy, ought not to go unremarked. Even if the trickle-down influence of the game is not considered, its most popular realms were shared worlds in which large numbers of novels…
Conan is a White American hero: self-sufficient and independent, strong, honest, and moral, abiding by his own code of honour. His “dual identity of being a savage, but being white,”72 makes him naturally suited to lead the softer, more decadent and corrupted peoples of the south; he becomes, among other things, king…
Tolkien’s explanations of the differences between Good and Evil humanity – that the former descended from those who had greatest contactand affinity with the Elves in ancient times – does not obviously relate to pseudo-scientific explanations of racial difference; it smacks more of religious constructs of a “chosen…
The influence of philological Anglo-Saxonism on Tolkien is clearly visible in his depiction of the Riders of Rohan who “resemble the ancient English down to minute detail.”42 Tolkien had access to the culture of the Anglo-Saxons through his professional work, and drew on their literature extensively. Yet that access…
Modern concepts of race were formulated as a “widely shared theory of biologically determined, physical, intellectual and moral differences between human groups.”35 Hannah Augstein identifies three key elements in nineteenth century race-thinking: that humanity can be divided into races “whose characteristics are…
Fantasy is a useful sub-set through which to explore popular culture not only because of its prominent position at the present historical moment,but because its inherently non-mimetic nature creates a space which is at least nominally not “the real world” and is therefore safer for cultural work around fraught issues…