Interesting, thank you. On a psyche level, I think Keanu's Wick, like Willis and Carradine before him, appeals to the "enduring" side of us, where huge libidinal energy has been suppressed by cultural indoctrination or heavy handed parenting and we just get through the day. Wick embodies the release that is given social license, by an act of cruelty to another, and once begun must continue to greater and greater heights of expression and development.
A good portion of this reminds me of Bernard Suits’ philosophy in more Nietzschean terms.
Suits’ goal was to come to a definition of a game that fit towards having “ends”, yet accepted arbitrary obstacles to achieving those ends, thus limiting “means”. Ultimately, he recognized games as a system of ends and means with the ends-means reversal established using an initial pre-lusory ends.
What, of course, was interesting, however was his insight that under utopian conditions, the only systems that would remain from annihilation would be those that were games, since any end could be detected and accomplish prior to any thought — unless, of course, you limit means to not allow the imaginative, omniscient thought-reading machines.
The timing of the release of these films are very telling. Never in history have the ambitions of young men who seek power have been so frustrated as they are today. Even in achieving titles of nominal power (manager, landlord, coach), these positions come with so much constraints that it never actually feels like an exercise of power. I imagine this is true to an even greater extent the higher one goes, even the POTUS is handcuffed by systems.
Interesting, thank you. On a psyche level, I think Keanu's Wick, like Willis and Carradine before him, appeals to the "enduring" side of us, where huge libidinal energy has been suppressed by cultural indoctrination or heavy handed parenting and we just get through the day. Wick embodies the release that is given social license, by an act of cruelty to another, and once begun must continue to greater and greater heights of expression and development.
I wrote this up... John Wick, DC Barker & Wilhelm Reich: Breaking out of the Tic Matrix
https://devaraj2.substack.com/p/john-wick-dc-barker-wilhelm-reich
A good portion of this reminds me of Bernard Suits’ philosophy in more Nietzschean terms.
Suits’ goal was to come to a definition of a game that fit towards having “ends”, yet accepted arbitrary obstacles to achieving those ends, thus limiting “means”. Ultimately, he recognized games as a system of ends and means with the ends-means reversal established using an initial pre-lusory ends.
What, of course, was interesting, however was his insight that under utopian conditions, the only systems that would remain from annihilation would be those that were games, since any end could be detected and accomplish prior to any thought — unless, of course, you limit means to not allow the imaginative, omniscient thought-reading machines.
I hadn’t heard of Suits before. Thanks for the lead, I’ll definitely check him out!
The timing of the release of these films are very telling. Never in history have the ambitions of young men who seek power have been so frustrated as they are today. Even in achieving titles of nominal power (manager, landlord, coach), these positions come with so much constraints that it never actually feels like an exercise of power. I imagine this is true to an even greater extent the higher one goes, even the POTUS is handcuffed by systems.