brutalism

Article

brutalism is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between October 04, 2024 and December 04, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as “postmodernist brutalist whatever”; “they’ll correct me - ‘Oh, I’m sure you don’t like Brutalism’“. It most often appears alongside America, Germany, postmodernism.

Metadata

  • Category: Concepts
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: October 04, 2024
  • Last seen: December 04, 2024

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

October 04, 2024 · Original source
I am no fan of medieval theocracy. But I do have a weakness for the 1880 - 1930 period of fin de siecle culture, Art Nouveau, economic liberty, and progressophilia. This period wasn't very religious - Nietzsche had already declared God dead in 1882. But the Cultural Christians would argue that such a flowering of culture and optimism could only happen within a generation or two of a Christian society. It (they would argue) contained the seeds of its own destruction, doomed to degenerate into our current postmodernist brutalist whatever. If I want the 1890s back, I shouldn't advocate the (mostly classically liberal) positions of the 1890s. I should advocate for Christianity, the only ideology under which something like those positions can be stable.
December 04, 2024 · Original source
One of my pet peeves is that when I tell a classy person I don’t like modern architecture, they’ll correct me - “Oh, I’m sure you don’t like Brutalism. But it’s unfair to hold that against the whole area. Why, surely even someone like you can appreciate the unique beauty of a von Shmendenstein, a Dazervaglik, or a Mihokushino.” Then I sheepishly admit that I’ve never heard of any of those people, and maybe I was overly hasty, and I should have been more careful and done my homework. They pat me on the head and say it’s fine.