Lars Von Trier's Antichrist

I just read an article about how people are getting kidnapped and tortured in Phoenix, AZ due to the drug wars that are slowly but surely making their way north

  playbynumbers said:

sure, pre-christian culture often reveled in barbarity (though not always); this is part of the problem, that we're returning to the decadence of the late roman empire.

Right, because witch trails, Inquisitions, and the Crusades were nothing short of philanthropic.

A repressive society can be as damning if not more than an open one.

the show Rock of Love imo has a lot more evil in it than Antichrist, but thats just my opinion

Pretty much all the programming on Spike, VH1 and MTV.

Seen MANSWERS?

Evil has no boundaries

  Quote

I just read an article about how people are getting kidnapped and tortured in Phoenix, AZ due to the drug wars that are slowly but surely making their way north

It's fucking awesome.

  Yegg said:

  playbynumbers said:

sure, pre-christian culture often reveled in barbarity (though not always); this is part of the problem, that we're returning to the decadence of the late roman empire.

 

Right, because witch trails, Inquisitions, and the Crusades were nothing short of philanthropic.

 

 

A repressive society can be as damning if not more than an open one.

if there is anything more misleading than this popular caricature of the history of christianity, and in particular catholicism (i'm not catholic, btw), i haven't yet found it. the witch trials were carried out by superstitious peasants, entirely outside the purview of the church; hundreds of church officials tried to stop it. the spanish inquisition, likewise, was invented and enacted by the spanish monarchy, who were trying to consolidate power; the torture happened almost entirely in the secular courts, not the ecclesiastical courts, and many bishops/popes tried (and succeeded) in tamping down the more extreme manifestations. and so too for the crusades; a very small percentage of crusaders committed horrible crimes, in the third and fourth crusades, and were arrested and condemned afterwards; soldiers commit war crimes in every war. on the whole, religion, and christianity in particular, has added an astounding amount of charity and love to the west (hospitals, orphanages, charities, etc., etc., all of which didn't exist in the roman empire), and a profound sense of the human person.

the idea of 99.9% of societies being "repressive" is assuming that freud is right, and that anything other than indulging fantasy and perversion is just "repressing" our "real nature," but this is a normative claim about what our "real nature" is --- the claim being that we are pure nihilistic will.

  Awepittance said:

using your own overly prudish (in this instance) subjective values ... when in short you are offended by the film because it shows clits getting cut off for entertainment

there is no possible rational response to this, sorry. i guess i just keep forgetting that i'm just repressing my wholly good and natural human desire to WATCH CLITS GET CUT OFF FOR MY ENTERTAINMENT. what an odd subjective opinion to hold.

  Awepittance said:

  playbynumbers said:

torture porn is a GENRE, ffs. think about that for a second.

 

i've thought about for literally one second but then my thoughts got interrupted by the fact that actual torture happens everywhere all the time where real people die not fictional movie characters

torture has happened for all of human history, and will continue to happen; films celebrating torture, and selling it as entertainment, approved by the culture industry, is the troubling development.

  playbynumbers said:

  Awepittance said:

If i didn't know any better it seems like you are using your own overly prudish (in this instance) subjective values as a means to put yourself on some sort of intellectual pedestal to criticze the movie, when in short you are offended by the film because it shows clits getting cut off for entertainment. if you had said that instead in the beginning it would be perfectly understandable but i feel like you have this urge to rationalize to a ridiculous degree your base emotions about this movie.

 

there is no possible rational response to this, sorry. i guess i just keep forgetting that i'm just repressing my wholly good and natural human desire to WATCH CLITS GET CUT OFF FOR MY ENTERTAINMENT. what an odd subjective opinion to hold.

well you are in the minority on not wanting to see the movie on the basis of a fake clit being severed, it seems like msot of the people here including myself are ready and willing to subject themselves to watching a clit being severed for entertainment purposes. So in the world of wattm (and yes of course the world of watmm is not representative of most culture especially with the likes of Yegg's animated gifs ) you being offended by this film's content of prosthetic genital mutilation is somewhat prudish. In light of the fact that i see at least one disgusting image on watmm per week that sometimes makes me unable to eat a meal afterwards, i just find it odd that you would pick on Anti christ as your bone of contention with how 'accepting western culture has become of evil' or whatever

edit: i quoted my actual statement above instead of your truncated one

  Awepittance said:

well you are in the minority on not wanting to see the movie on the basis of a fake clit being severed, it seems like msot of the people here including myself are ready and willing to subject themselves to watching a clit being severed for entertainment purposes. So in the world of wattm (and yes of course the world of watmm is not representative of most culture especially with the likes of Yegg's animated gifs ) you being offended by this film's content of prosthetic genital mutilation is somewhat prudish.

sure, in terms of watmm, i'm prudish; though i wouldn't use the word prudish. but sure.

  Quote

In light of the fact that i see at least one disgusting image on watmm per week that sometimes makes me unable to eat a meal afterwards, i just find it odd that you would pick on Anti christ as your bone of contention with how 'accepting western culture has become of evil' or whatever

i guess i usually avoid the disgusting images on wattem; i came across the von trier stuff elsewhere.

i still don't get the extreme focus on this film Antichrist opposed to other traditionally barabaric or 'evil' things that are widely accepted in mainstream entertainment. I feel like compared to a lot of other things this ranks pretty low even if i was using traditional morals as a barometer.

It's not like this movie is being marketed as a family friendly comedy, it's marketing very clearly shows that it is a disturbing atmospheric mind fuck horror film.

  Awepittance said:

i still don't get the extreme focus on this film Antichrist opposed to other traditionally barabaric or 'evil' things that are widely accepted in mainstream entertainment. I feel like compared to a lot of other things this ranks pretty low even if i was using traditional morals as a barometer.

this is true; i'd say some forms of pornography are much worse. 'antichrist' just particularly annoyed me, for whatever reason (probably the nightmares), and seemed to make me revile postmodern western culture just that much more

wait dude you are talking like you saw the movie!

lol; the very detailed description particularly annoyed me.

  playbynumbers said:

  Yegg said:

  playbynumbers said:

sure, pre-christian culture often reveled in barbarity (though not always); this is part of the problem, that we're returning to the decadence of the late roman empire.

 

Right, because witch trails, Inquisitions, and the Crusades were nothing short of philanthropic.

 

 

A repressive society can be as damning if not more than an open one.

 

 

 

if there is anything more misleading than this popular caricature of the history of christianity, and in particular catholicism (i'm not catholic, btw), i haven't yet found it. the witch trials were carried out by superstitious peasants, entirely outside the purview of the church; hundreds of church officials tried to stop it. the spanish inquisition, likewise, was invented and enacted by the spanish monarchy, who were trying to consolidate power; the torture happened almost entirely in the secular courts, not the ecclesiastical courts, and many bishops/popes tried (and succeeded) in tamping down the more extreme manifestations. and so too for the crusades; a very small percentage of crusaders committed horrible crimes, in the third and fourth crusades, and were arrested and condemned afterwards; soldiers commit war crimes in every war. on the whole, religion, and christianity in particular, has added an astounding amount of charity and love to the west (hospitals, orphanages, charities, etc., etc., all of which didn't exist in the roman empire), and a profound sense of the human person.

 

the idea of 99.9% of societies being "repressive" is assuming that freud is right, and that anything other than indulging fantasy and perversion is just "repressing" our "real nature," but this is a normative claim about what our "real nature" is --- the claim being that we are pure nihilistic will.

very well put. man knows his history. might I add that after the First Crusade's clarion call from Pope Urban, the papacy had very little to do with the actual Crusades, it was the kings and queens of western and central europe that wished to expand their realm and destroy the caliphates for trade purposes.

i got your back pbn...cant argue it as well as you have though.

  Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

  playbynumbers said:

  Yegg said:

  playbynumbers said:

sure, pre-christian culture often reveled in barbarity (though not always); this is part of the problem, that we're returning to the decadence of the late roman empire.

 

Right, because witch trails, Inquisitions, and the Crusades were nothing short of philanthropic.

 

 

A repressive society can be as damning if not more than an open one.

 

 

 

if there is anything more misleading than this popular caricature of the history of christianity, and in particular catholicism (i'm not catholic, btw), i haven't yet found it. the witch trials were carried out by superstitious peasants, entirely outside the purview of the church; hundreds of church officials tried to stop it. the spanish inquisition, likewise, was invented and enacted by the spanish monarchy, who were trying to consolidate power; the torture happened almost entirely in the secular courts, not the ecclesiastical courts, and many bishops/popes tried (and succeeded) in tamping down the more extreme manifestations. and so too for the crusades; a very small percentage of crusaders committed horrible crimes, in the third and fourth crusades, and were arrested and condemned afterwards; soldiers commit war crimes in every war. on the whole, religion, and christianity in particular, has added an astounding amount of charity and love to the west (hospitals, orphanages, charities, etc., etc., all of which didn't exist in the roman empire), and a profound sense of the human person.

 

the idea of 99.9% of societies being "repressive" is assuming that freud is right, and that anything other than indulging fantasy and perversion is just "repressing" our "real nature," but this is a normative claim about what our "real nature" is --- the claim being that we are pure nihilistic will.

 

 

very well put. man knows his history. might I add that after the First Crusade's clarion call from Pope Urban, the papacy had very little to do with the actual Crusades, it was the kings and queens of western and central europe that wished to expand their realm and destroy the caliphates for trade purposes.

 

i got your back pbn...cant argue it as well as you have though.

You can rationalize the innocence of Christianity left and right, but the point is both pre and post-Christian culture enjoyed the spectacle of death and barbarity. The only difference is that one had plumbing and other had not.

i'm not following the 180 this thread seems to have taken in defending the violent atrocities perpetrated through out history in the name of jesus christ .

NE1 RED BR8KING DAWN??

  zaphod said:

i don't think this movie is going to rape and kill your family, although i'm all for it if it decides to

lol

  playbynumbers said:

  lumpenprol said:

  playbynumbers said:

my point is that depravity was never CELEBRATED before; it's not as if the roman emperors tried to mount a defense of such things by using hellenistic philosophic and religious arguments.

 

um, is Von Trier?

 

 

 

sure; he's celebrating his right to make this film, he sees it as some sort of meaningful worthwhile exercise (even if within the film itself, and it's debatable in this case, he isn't 'actually' being misogynistic). the artistic license that creates films like 'antichrist' is being celebrated, is my point.

 

what I was saying is I don't think Von Trier is " trying to mount a defense of such things by using hellenistic philosophic and religious arguments." Seems to me you're most outraged by "evil" masquerading as philosophy, of people promoting "doing what thou wilt" no matter what the cost to others. I'm not sure that's really the point of this film...maybe it is, I don't know yet. However I get the feeling you're reading a lot into it due to the critique of contemporary culture you seem to have built up. Guess we'll see.

  playbynumbers said:

if there is anything more misleading than this popular caricature of the history of christianity, and in particular catholicism (i'm not catholic, btw), i haven't yet found it.

YOU SHOULD CHECK OUT THE WEST'S CARICATURE OF ISLAM IT'S PRETTY GOD DAMN MISLEADING

edit: left caps lock on. it's actually not that urgent that you check this out.

  Awepittance said:

i'm not following the 180 this thread seems to have taken in defending the violent atrocities perpetrated through out history in the name of jesus christ .

the violent atrocities are no different than the ones done by people practicing Islam, Shinto, Paganism, and a number of other religions. To say anyone is excusing crimes done in the name of Christianity is misleading, I was merely stating that the blame on the Popes for the Crusades is largely misunderstood era of history.

I guess I didn't clarify my position enough, I don't really care to get into pbn's post barbarism beliefs and what have you, just the historical perspective. I find it almost dangerously naive that most of the Western world is having a backlash against religion , as if the political motivations behind it are completely intertwined with the religious doctrine itself. Thats about all I care to go into as i can't be arsed and Im sure this conversation will not remain friendly.

so, yay for buttons

  playbynumbers said:

  Awepittance said:

using your own overly prudish (in this instance) subjective values ... when in short you are offended by the film because it shows clits getting cut off for entertainment

 

there is no possible rational response to this, sorry. i guess i just keep forgetting that i'm just repressing my wholly good and natural human desire to WATCH CLITS GET CUT OFF FOR MY ENTERTAINMENT. what an odd subjective opinion to hold.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Awepittance said:

  playbynumbers said:

torture porn is a GENRE, ffs. think about that for a second.

 

i've thought about for literally one second but then my thoughts got interrupted by the fact that actual torture happens everywhere all the time where real people die not fictional movie characters

 

 

 

torture has happened for all of human history, and will continue to happen; films celebrating torture, and selling it as entertainment, approved by the culture industry, is the troubling development.

romans and greeks (old ones) are responsible for lot of BS going on today. not to mention sexual perversities,

dissection of sciences into a bunch of non-compatible specialized teachings with isolated terminologies.

Sounds a lot like the 70s Australian film "Long Weekend". Troubled couple travel into the bush to rekindle their romance.... end up getting fucked by nature.

  Yegg said:

You can rationalize the innocence of Christianity left and right, but the point is both pre and post-Christian culture enjoyed the spectacle of death and barbarity. The only difference is that one had plumbing and other had not.

people are often evil, sure, both within religion and outside of religion; the point is that the net

benefit of buddhism, christianity, etc., is much higher than secularism, or paganism, or barbarism.

  lumpenprol said:

Seems to me you're most outraged by "evil" masquerading as philosophy, of people promoting "doing what thou wilt" no matter what the cost to others. I'm not sure that's really the point of this film...maybe it is, I don't know yet.

i don't think it's the point of the film, no. the mere existence of the film implies this about society and about culture, is my point.

  zaphod said:

  playbynumbers said:

if there is anything more misleading than this popular caricature of the history of christianity, and in particular catholicism (i'm not catholic, btw), i haven't yet found it.

 

YOU SHOULD CHECK OUT THE WEST'S CARICATURE OF ISLAM IT'S PRETTY GOD DAMN MISLEADING

dude, tell me about it. i'm growing mighty tired of reading right-wing columnists (goldman, kristol, krauthammer, etc.), or even 'scholars' like huntington, talking about islam as a monolithic fascist movement, or muhammad as a bloodthirsty delusional war-mongering madman, etc.

Why do I get the feeling PBN has some issues?

it seems that, skimming between the lines, he may have recently broken up with his gf.