Author Archive

What Umberto Eco is Saying to lelangir, Just Because I Want Him to

By ghostlightning on 26 April 2009 | Art and Culture, Internet | 39 Comments

Inspired by the non-shitty shitstorm here at Superfani called ‘twitter philosophy’ [->], I’m spinning the discussion off from lelangir’s epigram:

nihilism is knowledge/power; in most cases, it can only be realized/actualized within capitalist institutions, thus materialism is the means towards idealism, towards the construction of contingent truths, towards a philosophical happiness that grants material happiness.

Responses to this by the commenters abound, but I’ll get to them later. Meanwhile I greeted an important guest that invited himself into my media consumption schedule. I don’t mind because he’s a favorite of mine: the novelist and semiotician, Umberto Eco. He told me to tell lelangir,

Determining Decisive Contexts for Evil Behavior: an annotation of Dr. Chiba Atsuko’s experiment logs

By ghostlightning on 4 February 2009 | Anime, Art and Culture | 17 Comments

As an anime blogger I’m very much intrigued by the concept of evil. I’ve gone far and wide, to look into ethical considerations and such – but I never seem satisfied by what I find. Perhaps I really am less interested to understand, but to justify. I’m on the fence regarding whether humans are intrinsically good or evil to begin with.

Then I find more of Dr. Chiba Atsuko’s good stuff. Using similar techniques as developed and used by the noted Psychologist Philip Zimbardo, Dr. Chiba explores how evil behavior may be less a dispositional consequence, but rather a situational one.

atsuko-chiba

The Use of Power in Love Relationships: A Study of The Courtship of Irie Naoki by Aihara Kotoko Supplemented by Dream Therapy and the Use of the DC Mini Machine by Dr. Chiba Atsuko

By ghostlightning on 7 January 2009 | Anime | 8 Comments

I like Dr. Chiba Atsuki. She strikes me more of an adventurer than a laboratory researcher, the same way I see myself as more of an adventurer than an anime critic. I found this study while thinking of how I can meet Paprika in my own dreams. Sometimes, digressions lead to more interesting adventures.

atsuko-chiba

The study itself is broken into several parts. In this post, I’ll take not of the following:

1. Case notes regarding the courtship itself.
2. Theoretical framework on power dynamics in late adolescent relationships.
3. Dream Therapy and the use of the DC Mini machine.

Over 9000 meaningless words

By Pontifus, lelangir, Cuchlann and ghostlightning on 31 December 2008 | Anime, Art and Culture | 15 Comments

Ulterior motives in using this picture? Nah.

I have to admit, this one’s a little ridiculous, even for us. Ghostlightning, lelangir, Cuchlann, and I all somehow ended up in a chat a scant few hours ago. Initially, the topic was Kannagi, but, when matters of disparate theory arose, things got a little crazy. The title is apt; in fact, what you’ll see after the break is no less than 11,001 words of our discourse and debate. Is it worth reading? Absolutely.

It’s a good thing the concept of tl;dr doesn’t exist on Super Fanicom.