The words of Dieter Uchtdorf precisely articulate the depraved rationale of the faithful Latter-Day Saint: «Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith.» Within such a paradigm there can be no room for questions or dissent, only acquiescence to the institutional politick.

Furthermore, this cult universality engenders a sense of profound defensiveness in the individual where any critique of the whole is perceived as an attack on the individual. Scepticism from the Other becomes a test of faith which again strengthens belief in the institution.

The dissonance created in the mind and identity of the Latter-Day Saint serves to recursively entrench and re-entrench the disconnected and often completely contradictory teachings of the Church. Lacking any identity beyond Church membership, they lack the will to generate meaningful scepticism.

This affiliation is not a neutral status; it carries with it a set of values that inform a social aesthetic. In a way, it sets up a panoptic system of self-policing and expression wherein the primary aim is to signal doctrinal adherence to other members. Shame is the jury and guilt the jailor.

The result is an epistemic and ethical crisis— a member of the Church can never know how they ought to act with any real certainty. They become incapable of developing stable identity beyond the superficiality of institutional affiliation.

The Church's own history within the socio-political sphere force the faithful to rationalise paradoxically opposed positions as both being the desire of the Supreme. As such, members are at the mercy of the whims of the current Church leadership— effectively a soup du jour approach to politics.

absolutely!

I love to start in the middle of a social or combat encounter that gives the PCs a reason to cooperate and engage with the world right from the get go. My personal favourite was a noble/high society ball that the party had infiltrated with individual objectives based on discussions in session 0.

«Lack of binding connection to the Other is the transcendental condition for crises of gratification and debt… capitalism only works with debt and default. It offers no possibility of atonement…» (p. 10)

Nuance, the bane of short-form text-based social media platforms (:

Nonetheless, suffering ought to be mitigated wherever possible (I do not want to be misconstrued as some accelerationist or masochist). I only wish to impart some hope in the face of disaster; the threat of death can give new zeal and purpose to life.

«Auto-exploitation proves much more efficient than allo-exploitation because it is accompanied by a feeling of liberty. This makes possible exploitation without domination.» (p. 9)

I have never come across such a succinct and complete verbalisation of the panopticon of modernity — perfectly said.

Regarding chapter one «Melancholia», my thoughts are these: (1) Han echoes many of my own fears about the radical lack of love or «eros» in the modern achievement society, and (2) the dialectic of apocalyptic fatality and salvation in Otherness is a perspective I am still coming to terms with.

«the atopia of the Other turns out to be the utopia of eros.» (p. 4)

Indeed, it is a recognition of the distinct negativity of the Other (and perhaps not merely in difference) that the revolutionary power of love can be made manifest.

«Depression represents the impossibility of love. Alternatively, it is the impossibility of love that has led to depression.» (p. 3)

I think that here Han is lighting on a common subject recognised by others like Weil and Deleuze: there is a need for genuine relations that has been obliterated.