So is evil simply a result of chaos we're doomed to be powerless against or is it a force we must always be ready to...

so is evil simply a result of chaos we're doomed to be powerless against or is it a force we must always be ready to fight ?

it doesn't exist at all

so chaos

"Evil" is a religious concept. There's sense and nonsense.

evil is an emergent property of chaos

Why does the aesthetic persist so heavily in literature and language then?

So how do we act in the face of chaos? Nonplussed? It would seem to me that chaos is indeed the answer on the face of things yet we are obsessed with the aesthetic of evil. We live our lives more toward it being a force than accepting we are nothingness and if this were to change what kind of a world would this be?

fart on my dick teen

Both.

can't have free will without chaos and evil

Why would you think so?

Sense and nonsense religious concepts

Not possible the way it is framed. If evil is a force then we must fight it. If it is a result of chaos then we are powerless against it so fighting it is futile. You want to have your cake and eat it too though that renders you a hypocrite and thus untruthful

An example of this aesthetic would be season 3 of twin peaks. While interesting as it was it ended in futile nihilism, aesthetically it inspired dread. David lynch seemed to be saying we're fucked in the face of evil and chaos yet let's do it anyway - you're gonna fail tho.

We must fight the futile fight. We get neither the cake nor the eating it.
Especially if the question is asked in the context of Bolano's works.

see from my reading of bolano's aesthetic is that he believes it to be a force outside of chaos and that is why we must fight it, even if we are to lose, along the way there will be small victories. he accepts that if it were a result of chaos there would be absolutely no point aesthetically. none of his works are presented in such a lifeless manner. cormac macarthy is much more in line with that, i mean the most on the nose work would be 'the secret of evil'

even more bluntly, outside of bolano's aesthetics, contextually evil is expressed as existing within ourselves, not the universe

I think that's an interesting view.
I took the idea of "fighting a futile fight" from a something he says in his introduction to Antwerp:
>But I believed in literature: or rather, I didn't believe in arrivisme or opportunism or the whispering of syncophants. I did believe in vain gestures. I did believe in fate
The duel on the beach in Savage Detectives comes to mind for this discussion. The whole scenario is ridiculous but also comes off as serious and somehow necessary.

the key words there being 'fight' and 'fate'. you can't fight chaos and it would be foolish to make it a target unless you're writing some sci-fi, and to believe in fate is the exact opposite of to believe in chaos.

how the fuck are any of you dinks extrapolating any of this from a book about 3rd world psueds hovering (but never quite making it into) around a 2nd rate literary scene and pissing into the wind?

His idea of what constituted evil changed drastically between The Savage Detectives and 2666, btw. He realized that what he used to define as evil in his prior works was largely perception-driven and ambiguous in 2666.

The biggest example of this is Archimboldi. His health and mental state obviously gets worse after killing Sammer, and all he tries to do is justify what he did.

What he really argues in 2666 then, I think, is that "evil" looms around the corner (see Entrescu's death and all the misogynists in Santa Teresa who killed after the narcos started murdering women), and that we can all be agents of that evil.

yes yes i agree
another great example from 2666 is when the two scholars beat the piss off that arab

i'd like to thank everyone in this thread, really helped me work out my thoughts

lol

I finished the first section, which was a fine picaresque, but I stopped reading there.

evil is just perspective and also a mental construct. anybody who identifies with the concept of evil wouldn't want to live.

>tfw I'm the original Bolano and chaos poster

y'all are taking me more seriously than I thought. take that academia!

Harness it and jam it into cubes.
Or pentagons if you aren't Jewish.

>I took the idea of "fighting a futile fight" from a something he says in his introduction to Antwerp
From an interview of his

>Yo soy de los que creen que el ser humano está condenado de antemano a la derrota, a la derrota sin apelaciones, pero que hay que salir y dar la pelea y darla además de la mejor forma posible, de cara y limpiamente, sin pedir cuartel (porque además no te lo darán), e intentar caer como un valiente, y eso es nuestra victoria

the 2nd section is the best part

I had the chaos theory before I read that post, but user was excellent at elaborating.

Posting a quick translation for other people who also can't read Spanish.
>I am one of those who believe that the human being is condemned in advance to defeat, to defeat without appeals, but that we must go out and give the fight and give it in the best possible way, face and cleanly, without asking barracks (because they will not give it to you), and try to fall like a brave, and that is our victory
I'm the Antwerp poster. This looks like it fits in well with his intro and with what I've been saying. You can fight chaos just not with any expectation of victory, and yes it is foolish but why avoid being a fool. Fate is used not as some supreme force but as a resultant property of chaos.