By: Kavarna Hayek
The Smodej affair is a typical consequence of perverted postmodernism, which has thrown away all ethical and moral boundaries of decency. At the centre is an influential hedonistic individual with good political connections who aims above all at personal well-being and satisfaction. Because there are no borders, since postmodernism has “liberated” art from the rules of aesthetics, any lifestyle of an artist is also legitimate.
Such excesses are becoming more and more common (bullmastiff affair), and are becoming a social norm, a kind of mainstream not only in the field of what we call pop culture, but also in politics, science, architecture.
The roots go back to modernism (although the seeds of evil were sown earlier), when cultural Marxism was born and when, towards its end, the French philosopher Jacques Derrida laid the foundations of the destructivism that inspired the hippie movement more than half a century ago. This gave postmodernism its true face: the established principle that life is what you want it to be, turned into the principle that life is not only what we want it to be, but whatever we want life to mean. This has infected the culture in general, so it is not surprising that the “art installations” in FotoPub are advocated (naked bodies, vegetables in the genitals). The ideologically far-left Legal Network for the Protection of Democracy defended the public display of nudity with a quote from “artists”:
“Breathing is a fight for life, we fight for our existence, for our meaning, for our thought. Through (…) action, we contemplate the basic human right to exist (…). Let’s let ourselves breathe, let others breathe too.”
At first, it seemed that modernism, which grew together with the industrial revolution, would be just a craze and an alternative of a certain period, that it would face a certain end, like all the bad, tasteless and unesthetic things that it brought in its mature period. Unfortunately, it was just an apparition. Modernism was based on the glorification of rationality and reason, the transcendent was despised as a sign of the remnant of the past. Therefore, it (and postmodernism in particular) wanted to change the world by destroying everything (material and immaterial) that resembled the world before it.
The classic modernist Le Corbusier, the architect, wanted (caricatured) to demolish half of Paris and build it anew. His architecture, which was based on the modernist dogma about the social role of buildings and the necessity of open space, infected later generations of architects and “inspired” the socialist monumentality of faceless masonry and walls. Corbusier was a contemporary of the pioneers of cultural Marxism, leaving behind devastation and bad taste. In architecture, he can be considered one (perhaps even an unconscious one) of the bearers of the socialist experiment (it was different in the West than in the East), at the head of which were the soldiers of cultural Marxism.
A similar thing happened in painting, literature, poetry, music, all of which were stimulated by the rise of social-democratic states and politics. Meritocracy became more and more undesirable in all areas, an era began when it was objectively beautiful and morally relativised, the door to clichés and all possible kitsch from all mouse holes opened wide. The ideas of Derrida’s destructivism are a direct result of this and the great changes in the educational system after World War II. With the progress experienced by the West, people were persuaded to completely renounce God and religion if they wanted to enjoy even greater prosperity under capitalism. At the same time, the same prophets (despite the proven totalitarian methods in the socialist countries of Eastern Europe) openly and without a hint of shame flirted with the communist regimes (Russia, Cuba). Engels, Marx, Lenin, and Stalin became their authorities (not only political ones). This “love” was passed on to the younger generations, who began to worship the mass murderer Che Guevara.
Few were aware of the dangers of modernist relativism. One of these was the writer Joan Didion, who died last December. She left behind a book (a collection of essays from the National Review) Slouching Towards Bethlehem, which is an anthropological look at the 1960s: Western capitalist countries were in an economic boom, households enjoyed unprecedented prosperity, people were free, but there were young people who protested. According to her, what happened at the time was not the traditional generational rebellion of children, which history has always witnessed, but the result of the fact that “we somehow neglected to explain the rules of the game to these children”. Because this was neglected, today we witness postmodernist children trying to set the rules of the game for the whole society. Feminists from the March 8th Institute are a typical example.
Postmodernism (because especially conservative circles did not respond adequately to nihilistic tendencies) went a step further: liberation from everything. No rules applied anymore, it became enough to mutually acknowledge yourself with friends and like-minded people, thus creating an impression of importance and becoming what you wanted. It was no longer important that you did something (by objective standards) beautiful as an artist, it was important that you were praised by the media mainstream. And no matter how many common-sense critics screamed, nothing helped. That is why today pounding the ground with the Slovenian flag, dragging a dead pig through the streets, eating a live bat, and inserting lasers into female genitalia is a “recognised art” that we sloppy conservatives do not understand. Moreover, planned conservatives are enemies stuck in the dark ages (that the Middle Ages were dark is another myth of cultural Marxists, but more on that another time), so they need to be removed from all positions of influence as soon as possible. So today we have as ministers Luka Mesec and Asta Vrečko, two who have been proven to socialise and admire art in the FotoPub. And that is why the editor of Mladina Grega Repovž wrote that everyone who does not belong to the progressive oriented national television should be removed from RTV Slovenia (it is the national television that is the biggest propagandist of perverted postmodernism). In this respect, today’s postmodernism resembles the decadence of ancient Rome; Western civilisation may collapse (and is well on its way to collapse) like the Western Roman Empire.
This decadence reaches its moral and cultural relativist peak in contemporary movements: from LGBT and wokeism to the fight against “hate speech”. The brutality with which they attack those who think differently is unfathomable, there is absolutely no prohibition or STOP sign in their actions and lives. It is worrying that, on paper, eminent scientists, experts, academics, and others who in another time and for normal (God-fearing) people would have been considered eminent have joined (and participate in) this race on the postmodernist road to ruin. Today, only a few still oppose (for example) the gender theory that there are more genders. If we resisted the perverted theories, we would be out of jobs and out of money. This is how much the woke people frightened them from moral disapproval. They no longer dare to defend even the most basic and provable facts.
Eric Utter, a columnist for the American Thinker portal, gave an excellent comparison of where liberation from moral barriers and sexual restrictions leads. He responded to a post by Eli Erlick, who identifies as “extremely queer and incredibly trans”. Eli wrote: “Trans women are natural women. Trans women are normal women. Trans women are biological women. Trans women are born women. Trans women are women.” From this logic, Utter deduced that pigs can have wings and he can be a German shepherd: “I mean, trans shepherds are natural shepherds. Trans shepherds are normal shepherds. Trans shepherds are biological shepherds. Trans shepherds are born shepherds. Trans shepherds are shepherds. The only inherent difference between trans shepherds and normal shepherds is that a trans shepherd is defined as human by a veterinarian at birth. Trans is simply an adjective that describes this arbitrary assignment.”
It is not difficult to see where this sexual militancy and open sexual code is leading to. Will polygamy and incest be the new social norm in a few years? Along with zoophilia? In Germany, zoophiles have already protested and demanded the right to be officially allowed to have affairs with animals, because love knows no boundaries. Even in the bullmastiff affair, which was never cleared up (the Baričević Affair), it was about “love”, even there (similar to the Smodej affair) the bestial politicians of the left milieu peeked into the open. Postmodernism (and this is already quite mainstream) allows everyone to be whoever and whatever they want to be. There are no more restrictions, moral restraints are a remnant of patriarchy that must disappear from the new world order.
It is difficult to predict what kind of society will succeed postmodernism. It looks like it is only going to get worse, and it is going to get really ugly. If we follow the current path drawn by new and new social movements, when standards are changing day by day and tradition is being swept away, we may end up in a tunnel with no exit on the other side. I am afraid that we are already in this tunnel because the present life is very dark with modern movements. Apparently, someone really forgot to close the door to Oscar Wilde’s house.
P.S. As a response to postmodernism, last year at Nova obzorja publishing house I started the Fortunato Bergant Gallery project, which is an attempt to build a postmodern art parallel to fine art, to return to its origin – to beauty and the beautiful. The curator is the talented artist Lan Seušek.