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What is this thing?
Welcome to yet another personal Web site. I've had a series of personal sites before, but it has been a long while since I have made a consistent and prolonged effort to develop a site. During the past few years, I explored a variety of creative disciplines, especially musical performance and literary composition. Now I believe the time has come to establish a new online presence and advance other skills I may have neglected during that time. Though it has begun with a few short written explanations and a collection of favorite URLs, this project will eventually feature much more. This small group of documents will be expanded, and I will add archives of written material, musical sequences, and imagery. The site will make it possible for me to reach all of these things from anywhere on Earth. However, its main purpose is to improve my ability to share my interests with others.
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What's new? (initial upload 4/2/2001)
2007 UPDATE: I've been doing a blog for a while now. Anyone who cares to read it can find it at http://demonweed.wordpress.com. This site has changed little since its creation, but for a couple of months now I've been churning out at least five substantial essays per week over there. Heck, some of it may even be worth reading.
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What's an abbaugebieter?
"Abbaugebieter" is one of those nifty German compound words. I have no idea if it has been used in the past, but I know enough of the lingo to understand that just about any two nouns can be fused to make a new word. Since my highest ambition is to articulate a coherent, progressive social philosophy, I chose to create a persona that relates closely with my objectives. Technically, I guess it should be AbbauGebieter, but geocities.com is not a place for caps in your username. The first root word is "abbau," meaning something like "demolish." Perhaps the best way to think of it is the opposite of build. "Dissemble" would be a good translation except that it has become associated with deception. At first glance, there is a certain paradox about "abbau" because it is an affirmative negation. To explain, "abbau" is about tearing down and destroying things. However, among philosophers it has come specify the destruction that is a neccessary part of the process of refining thought. Like one sometimes must backtrack to find the exit of a maze, thinkers must sometimes revise firm beliefs to accomodate new learning. Whether we deal in towers of glass and steel or pure thought, only by selective, intelligent annihilation is it possible to create new structures in the spaces currently dominated by dysfunctional antiques.
Gebieter is comparatively straightforward. Various German-English dictionaries list the translation as "master," "lord," and my favorite, "governor." Like most regimes, the republic of the United States of America is more than a timeless ideal. While threatened, either by foreign powers or internal strife, this nation has developed along a positive trajectory. It is my belief that this evolution became devolution somewhere around the beginning of the 20th century. I fear we will only continue to degenerate as a civilization until we make an effort to deconstruct government on both a phisophical and an institutional level. Only by clearing away rubbish like the IRS or the DEA can anyone realistically endeavor to promote the kind of justice, tolerance, and security that this union was originally intended to guarantee. Only by refuting the mythology at the heart of conventional political discourse can we initiate honest, rational debate about public policy. When I took the title abbaugebieter, it was a grandiose way of embracing my ambition to deconstruct our stagnant social order. Though I have written a fair selection of essays on philosophical and political topics, for the time being I regard most of it as unfinished. I am still a young man, and I understand enough to realize the material is much more likely to be effective if it evolves into a coherent body of work before it is circulated in any concrete form.
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All of the literature, images, and code used in this site are my original creations. If you want to appropriate some elements for non-commercial use, be my guest. However, I strongly recommend learning to do this sort of thing on your own, as it can be a satisfying endeavor. If you somehow actually make money with content borrowed from here, you had better send me a healthy slice. After all, these documents are ©2001 to the dude lurking behind the abbaugebieter@geocities.com e-mail address. Drop me a note if you have comments or questions, especially if you spot an error or a dead link. |
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