The metaphor of the mass severs the purposes of individual self-assertion because it turns other people into a conglomerate. Crowds can be seen but the mass in the crowd in its metaphysical aspect – the sum of all possible crowds – and that can take on conceptual form only as metaphor. The mass, that is to say, is a metaphor for the unknowable and the invisible. What this intellectual effort failed to acknowledge was that the masses do not exist. “I would suggest, then, that the principle around which modernist literature and culture fashioned themselves was the exclusion of the masses, the defeat of their power, the removal of their literacy, the denial of their humanity. Modernist intellectuals responded to the rise of mass culture by demonizing the masses in literature.
#The black masses review full
Britain felt like a more crowded place that was full of people who no longer had any use for intellectuals. Intellectuals began to perceive the public as the “masses.” The old days of illiterate deferential peasants in the unspoiled, bucolic countryside of England were long gone and had been replaced by the threatening image of the mass of half-educated, philistine clerks immersed in the new popular culture who lived in the emerging suburbs and whose poor taste was plunging civilization into barbarism. Mass circulation newspapers like the Daily Mail which was founded in 1896 arose to cater to the public.įrom the perspective of the British literary intelligentsia, this was a highly disturbing development. The mass market developed to cater to consumers. After the passage of the Education Act of 1870, the British public became almost entirely literate. Europe became increasingly liberal and democratic. In the 19th century, the population of Europe doubled from 200 million to 400 million. In The Intellectuals and the Masses: Pride & Prejudice Among the Literary Intelligentsia, 1880-1939, John Carey shows that this divide has deep roots in the rise of Modernism. Why have they seceded from the nation to become alienated cosmopolitans? In the age of National Populism, the cultural divide between urban cosmopolitan elites and the masses has become extremely intense. Why do our elites despise their own people? Something that drives you insane but lucid at the same time.John Carey, The Intellectuals and The Masses: Pride & Prejudice Among The Literary Intelligentsia, 1880-1939 One more time, I’m far from being disappointed by ELECTRIC WIZARD, actually I’m really taken with their even more psych trip and that dirty sound that creates a more old school vibe, bringing back to life the 70’s guitar heroes overloaded with all kinds of substances, spreading out the bad word thanks to an orgasmic groove and maximum fuzz. Lower, even lower, Turn Off Your Mind and its reversed vocals tends to flirt once again with these psych rhythms and Scorpio Curse literally hammers on the brain, with once again a sick out-of-this-world solo.īlack Masses ends on a highly mystical atmosphere with Crypt Of Drugula, no riffs, no singing, just thunder and the distant echo of a bewitched guitar. A 10-minutes long moment of stoned torpor, spangled with highly neurotoxic overdrive guitar parts, but how good. There goes the mammoth doom of a “ Dopethrone” or “ Let It Prey” with Satyr IX. Patterns Of Evil still tears along strongly and drags us as it goes past with its irresistible groove, to end into a mesmerizing and slow orgy of strings screeches and larsens… The first half of the record is over : now that we have rolled down winding paths scattered with hallucinations and psychotropic smokes, we’re now ready to step into a dark cave where heaviness and slowness are a given. After 6 minutes of “Black Mass, black mass…”, I remain satisfied yet surprised by so much enthusiasm ! Let’s keep it up with Venus In Furs which maintains that hellish and insistent rhythm, and be sure that guitar solos are way more involved here than on the previous EPs ! The excessive psych side really starts to drag me into its electric spiral, goddammit ! The track is a hell of a whirl of 70’s energy, a vitamin course within an arcane world… The Nightchild (which has provoked some really positive feedbacks from the fans) is a good track, not so different on its form from the two others, but at least it feels like the British get truly enthralled on their instruments. The album opens with the easiest riff in the world on eponymous track Black Masses. This swinging track (!) recalls Sabbath’s beginnings in some way (when doom took its first steps), thanks to a stunning and highly groovy combo, so to speak. Might as well say that I have high hopes to listen to a darker than dark and louder than loud record here… Three years after the oh-so-cool “Witchcult Today”, ELECTRIC WIZARD is back to rock the basements with “Black Masses”.
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