Enacting revolutionary psychodramas with action figures
It's Boxing Day, which means it's time for me to put a bunch of ebooks on sale at Smashwords. In all cases, just apply the coupon code at checkout to get your discount. All sales run through New Year's.
We'll start with the marquee sale, which is not so much a sale as a giveaway. Guided by the Beauty of Their Weapons, my anthology on science fiction and fascism, is available for free. You can get that with the coupon code SG29J.
I've also got my brand new book on the alt-right, Neoreaction a Basilisk, on a modest sale of $3.99 with the coupon code FB25Q.
Next up, both of my books on comics are available for $2.99. That means both Volume 1 of The Last War in Albion, my history of the magical war between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison, and A Golden Thread, my history of Wonder Woman.
The Last War in Albion Volume 1: TF24X
A Golden Thread: GT47P
And finally, our bread and butter, the TARDIS Eruditorum series, my critical history of Doctor Who, is all on sale for 50% off, reducing the price of each book to $2 ...
Check back tomorrow for the annual Eruditorum Press ebook sale, and Wednesday (probably later in the day) for my Twice Upon a Time review.
APERITIVO: The Italian equivalent of the apéritif, i.e. a before dinner drink. Eagle-eyed readers may note that this is the fourth episode of the season. The joke (and it’s a solid one) is that we’ve finally flashed back to answering what actually happened in the wake of “Mizumono,” and so this is the chronological first episode of the season. Hannibal - for all your highbrow narrative/Italian menu structure gags.
MASON VERGER: Are you wearing makeup? How long does it take you to put on your face in the morning?
DR. CHILTON: Now that I've got the routine down, no time at all.
MASON VERGER: Tell you what. You show me yours and I'll show you mine.
There is something trolling about revealing Chilton’s fate from “Yakimono” before getting to Alana. Unfortunately, taken in the context of the general problems Alana has as a character, it feels vaguely mean-spirited, with Alanna being treated as an object of peril in a way that Will, Jack, and Abigail were not. Still, reintroducing Chilton opposite Mason ...
Also, don't forget you can now buy Phil's new book Neoreaction a Basilsik (featuring a chapter I contributed to) on Kindle and in dead tree format (Amazon US, Amazon UK). It's a more enjoyable read than Hayek. Fucking trust me on this.
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Hayek’s position on Chile, and on reactionary authoritarianism generally, is the dollfussian logic of Mises working itself out, i.e. the Left makes a kind of temporary recuperative fascism necessary. Mises developed this view when collaborating with the anti-Nazi and anti-Communist 'Austro-fascist' Dollfuss.
None of the assumptions are especially non-mainstream – which tells us something terrifying about the mainstream – but Hayek synthesises them, accepts their implications in a principled (yes, in his own vile way he is principled) and non-opportunistic way, and takes them to their logical conclusions. If liberty is threatened by democracy leading to socialism leading to totalitarianism (Nazism being socialism too according to Dollfuss and Mises et al – another argument we still live with) then you need authoritarianism to quash democracy when it goes too far. We’ve already seen Hayek adapting the ideas of (ironically) Carl Schmitt to this end. And Hayek is employing ...
SECONDO: The heavier of the two main courses, typically meat-based. This is in no way a heavier or more substantive episode than “Primavera,” so do what you want with that.
BEDELIA DU MAURIER: Forgiveness is too great and difficult for one person. It requires two: betrayer and betrayed. Which one are you?
HANNIBAL: I’m vague on those details.
BEDELIA DU MAURIER: Betrayal and forgiveness are best seen as something more akin to falling in love.
HANNIBAL: You cannot control with respect to whom you fall in love.
Bedelia is recapitulating Bella with her account of forgiveness. Hannibal does not notice this, which speaks to his overall state: Hannibal is sullen, withdrawn, and even pouty here - his “I’m vague on those details” feels like an admission of weakness unlike anything we’ve really seen from him before. It is not quite an admission of regret for “Mizumono,” but there is a clear sense that Hannibal feels as though his response was in some way disproportionate or rash.
BEDELIA DU MAURIER: You're going to get caught. It's already been set into motion.
Bedelia glimpses the Aristotlean unities underpinning Hannibal’s reality.
Every season of Hannibal has an early episode that ...
So, as you might be aware, Phil’s new book Neoreaction a Basilisk is for sale in various formats, available from all good evil corporations that treat their employees like slaves:
And in EPUB form at Smashwords.
I was proud to contribute something to one of the new essays in the book, the one about the Austrian school, entitled ‘No Law for the Lions and Many Laws for the Oxen is Liberty’. I’ve recently been publishing off-cuts from what I wrote for that essay here at this site, and will continue to do so. If only because they fill up Fridays.
Today, however, you’re getting a podcast featuring me chatting with Daniel Harper.
It’s another Wrong With Authority Footnote, and in it Daniel and I chat about the Right, and about the fact that both of us have been researching them and writing about them recently – Daniel for a forthcoming project he’s cooking up which will be brilliant when it finally lands. I, of course, talk a bit about the Austrians essay for Neoreaction a Basilisk already mentioned.
By the way, my Patreon sponsors got this ages ago. They’re also getting my ...
And so it begins once again. And so it ends.
The stargazers tell us that when we look deep into the Night Sky, were are looking back in Time. Even at the speed of light, we can only see the stars as they once were, not as they are now. Hence, when we cast our gaze Skyward, we peer into our past.
It is always in Faroff Heaven where we seek our Origin. The foundational myth any state tells itself is of the separation between Earth and Heaven, because those in power cannot maintain it through divine right if the divine is accessible to anyone. And the Origin Story is always the tale which explains to us why the world is the way that it is. Our Natural Order issued to us from an aloof and distant land in a time so long ago it cannot be changed any longer. When Heaven is removed from us Heaven becomes banal. Or perhaps another Lament for a lost Golden Age, lost so long ago it might as well have been in Heaven? Some stories tell us how to get along with each other or how we might learn something of the nature ...
