The momentary gleam of the spectacle, immediate stimulation, is not beautiful, but rather the quiet afterglow, the phosphorescence of time.
— Byung-Chul Han, The Transparency Society
I am quite serious about building a town.
Over the last month, I have begun scouting around Europe for land. Naturally, this has me thinking about architecture - but more than that, of space; of place; of home.
There is something profound in the West’s abandonment of incandescent bulbs, with their warm yellow light and quiet hum, and their replacement with clusters of penetrating white LEDs. It is illustrative of a deeper reflex of the manic phase of our late-stage culture - its blind pursuit of autistic efficiency and the ever intensification of illumination, observation, and homogenization.
Our homes and our streets are now lit as only our offices used to be. The white light which we encounter everywhere in the physical world has the same character as the over-stimulating light of the screen and the virtual. This change in the quality of the light, though subtle, advances the universal process of demoralization and environmental sterilization which we are subject to.
One cannot dream in such intense light. One cannot drift between worlds and play with unreality and unseen things. The cold white light leaves nothing unseen, no shadows in which mysteries or spirits might dwell. It anchors and limits one’s consciousness to the crass objects which it covers.
This change of light presents us spiritual dissidents with an opportunity and a responsibility. To build towns, as I intend to, which seduce people away from the strongholds of the regime, we must rely on our natural advantages, which are metaphysical, spiritual, and religious.
The relationship between these metaphysical advantages and the metaphysical substance of light cannot be ignored. The regime’s white light carries no substance; our yellow light must be rich with meaning and place. Their seeking gaze leaves no room for shadows; our dwellings must have many cool and mysterious places. Their virtual reality provides no nourishment or color; our homes must be of dark woods and ancient stones, of surfaces and textures and warmth.
I wish to construct a place within the real in which every real sensation and emotion is deepened. A place which, once experienced, the initiate will never wish to depart from. A sensuous reality of masks, shadows, and dreams - a place of vitality, eroticism, and life.
An essay that I like very much, which I included last week in my recommended reading list, is Jun'ichirō Tanizaki’s 1933 ‘In Praise of Shadows’. This is a meditation on Japanese architecture, aesthetics, and philosophy. Tanizaki, who lived through the period of the rapid Westernization of Japan, contrasts the modern relationship to light to the traditional forms with which he is familiar.
Whenever I see the alcove of a tastefully built Japanese room, I marvel at our comprehension of the secrets of shadows, our sensitive use of shadow and light. For the beauty of the alcove is not the work of some clever device. An empty space is marked off with plain wood and plain walls, so that the light drawn into it forms dim shadows within emptiness. There is nothing more. And yet, when we gaze into the darkness that gathers behind the crossbeam, around the flower vase, beneath the shelves, though we know perfectly well it is mere shadow, we are overcome with the feeling that in this small corner of the atmosphere there reigns complete and utter silence; that here in the darkness immutable tranquility holds sway.
— Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows
In such a dwelling, light and shadow play with the materials which guide them and color them. The organic paper and wood imbue the light with warmth, softness, and subtlety. These are materials into which light can seep deeply and then be sent forth anew, colored, bearing the experience of the wood - rather than merely bouncing off a sterile white or reflective surface. Tanizaki notes that “our paper seems to take it in, to envelop it gently, like the soft surface of a first snowfall”.
Through these materials, the sun’s rays are restored to their rich yellowness, restored from their insubstantial white as they passed through empty space. The resulting warmth implies a nourishing, a home.
Only in shadows can we gauge distance and dimension. When we banish darkness from our homes and we dry everything with harsh light, we remove from our objects any power of suggestion. All is laid bare, blunt and explicit.
Lacquerware decorated in gold is not something to be seen in a brilliant light, to be taken in at a single glance; it should be left in the dark, a part here and a part there picked up by a faint light. Its florid patterns recede into the darkness, conjuring in their stead an inexpressible aura of depth and mystery, of overtones but partly suggested. The sheen of the lacquer, set out in the night, reflects the wavering candlelight, announcing the drafts that find their way from time to time into the quiet room, luring one into a state of reverie. If the lacquer is taken away, much of the spell disappears from the dream world built by that strange light of candle and lamp, that wavering light beating the pulse of the night. Indeed the thin, impalpable, faltering light, picked up as though little rivers were running through the room, collecting little pools here and there, lacquers a pattern on the surface of the night itself.
— Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows
There is something incompatible about artificial brightness and the sacred. The beating light forces itself onto our minds, locking it into a single, intense plane of existence. What is visible is so apparent that no attention can be spared for the invisible.
Transhumanists make the mistake that this implies that artificial projections and heaven are thus interchangeable; that perfect virtual worlds lie before us and represent an escape into ecstasy. But these false heavens will always be insubstantial and unsatisfying - even vaguely sickening, as one feels after intense and prolonged digital exposure.
In the true heaven we are incarnated, present in body and soul. Even in heaven, we require physicality, limitation, separation. Without these the sacred - which requires an existential separation from the profane - is meaningless. We never see God in his totality.
Dreams, memories, the sacred - they are all alike in that they are beyond our grasp. Once we are even marginally separated from what we can touch, the object is sanctified; it acquires the beauty of the unattainable, the quality of the miraculous. Everything, really, has this quality of sacredness, but we can desecrate it at a touch. How strange man is! His touch defiles and yet he contains the source of miracles.
— Yukio Mishima, Spring Snow
The animal in the zoo does not reproduce because the stress of being observed is antithetical to the mystery of sex and the generation of life. The lack of darkness in our society - the over-visibility - leads to a paradoxical ubiquity of pornography and sexlessness.
In our darkness, our pools of mystery and half-light, seduction and fertility again become possible.
Transparency is foreign to libidinal economy. Precisely the negativity of the secret, the veil, and concealment incite desire and make pleasure more intense. That is why the seducer plays with masks, illusion, and appearances.
— Byung-Chul Han, The Transparency Society
Thank you for reading.
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Next week, due to popular demand, I will be writing a follow-up to my piece ‘The rich should leave their wealth to their children, not to charity’. This will be a discussion of how the genuine aristocracy raise their children to be worthy of inheriting empires.
Sic transit imperium,
Johann
Beautiful and thoughtful essay. I really enjoyed the inclusion of Mishima and Han. Would you ever want to do a podcast episode with me on either?
I'm on board with building a town, a real, physical space for real people to live in a real community. My suggestion: look not to Europe for land; too much population density, too much gubbamint oppression. Come to Alaska. We can build earth covered dome homes. These can be built cheaper than regular houses, provide a shelter that will last a thousand years--surviving quakes and storms of any kind and will be heirloom homes for a distant future. Their concrete structure with steel shutters over windows and heavy gates will give them formidable defensive qualities. Land is much more readily available here. The town I envision, for what it is worth, will be laid out with curves and semi-circles, making wedge-shaped plots of land. The narrow end is the public face of the home, facing all the other public ends of the lots. This reduces the area one must upkeep for community quality and standards of appearance, and it makes for large back yards (2-4 acre lots is my goal; enough land to DO SOMETHING USEFUL.) The back yards are people's private spaces, for work and messes and gardens and whatever. Between the public faces of the lots will be common areas, with playgrounds, and BBQs and sports areas and pavilions with fire pits and churches and a community hall. Everything will be scaled for easy walking distances, ease of maintenance. Gone will be all the kitch crap to show status. People can show all the status they want in their small, public-facing front yards; the commons are what the community will be willing to make of them. A dome structured business district will be incorporated, giving opportunities for restaurants and businesses to support the town--also within walking distance (you lucky Europeans with your walking-zone city-centers...). That's part of my vision; take any piece of it you can use. And look up earth covered dome homes. I sincerely believe those are our best option. Also, please do get out of Europe. I know it's your home, but you will not find land cheaply enough there, nor will you escape the gubbamint oppression.