Unholy
The headlines (not in the MSM obviously) around Pfizer’s “Satanic Mass” at the Grammys have been hard for many to resist.
A particularly egregious example obviously. Though not unrepresentative.
In this dirty information war I am not criticizing anyone’s tactics. Pfizer’s corporate marketing department certainly scored yet another own goal. That is all I have to say on the association with Pfizer. But let me unpack this more broadly, because it’s interesting.
The performance at the Grammys of a song by Sam Smith and Kim Petras called “Unholy” related to their being awarded top place in the category Best Pop Duo or Group Performance. Here is the official music video recorded in tempore non suspecto.
Don’t worry, watching it will not deliver your soul to the devil. As you might expect - this is the Grammys after all - it is musically lame. But it’s actually even more lame than you might expect. The selection of this as the winning performance is clearly itself a performance. In part, the choice of the jury seems to be attributable to the fact that the female performer, Kim Petras, is a trans woman. Not of the male fetishist variety, but a real trans woman.
When your identity is closely tied to your sexual orientation or to disidentifying with your apparent sex at birth, there is an obvious tendency for those with repressed sexuality to fetishize you. It may offer some lucrative opportunities but it is also, and in the main, a bind. No one much cares about trans scientists. This performance, on the other hand, performs sexual transgression on behalf of everyone who has suddenly decided that it is cool to rebel against inherited gender norms. This is why this song was selected, not merely to virtue signal support for trans artists.
I have nothing against it, other than to observe its extreme naivete. It is much what you would expect of Hollywood culture. This may shock some people, perhaps some of my readers, but I assure you that it scarcely elicits a yawn amongst most of us. It is full of the kind of watered-down BDSM tropes that have invaded mainstream culture over the last few years, to the point where surprisingly many people even on mainstream dating apps presently signal their unoriginal cleaving to traditional gender norms by universally “identifying” as dom(inant) or sub(missive), a taxonomy which, if it really were an objective fact of nature, would surely undermine all feminist and anti-patriarchal struggle. It follows that we are supposed to believe that “voluntarily” assuming the roles which for most of history have been imposed on everyone without choice is somehow transgressive and emancipatory. It’s all, presumably, in recognizing that identity is simultaneously performative and essentialist. Or something like that.
This is patent nonsense and the best we can hope for is that it is just a phase or an epiphenomenal manifestation of some deeper tectonic shifts in culture which actually do need to happen.
But what of all the Satanic symbolism? Is this similarly transgressive and performative?
Again, it is hard to give credit to this thesis. In the cultural circles which are generative of this performance, this wouldn’t shock anyone. It probably still elicits a faint discomfort, a reminder of what our ancestors used to believe about the world, about the insecurity of our own path through it, but to confront those fears could be salutary. Mostly, though, it seems to me just superficial and dumb. Par for the course. This kind of commercial extravaganza has never been on the leading edge of culture.
Magical philosopher Eliphas Levi once said that the Devil is God as understood by those who do evil. This remarkably perspicacious observation offers us a key here. Firstly, what we are witnessing is an uncategorical affirmation of the reality that we all live under spiritual law. Whether you love him, hate him, or are somewhat on the fence, putting forward this Satanic symbolism is an unmistakeable acknowledgment of supernal power. It is childishly defiant of a power that deep inside, each of us knows is far vaster than any of us can conceive, so vast indeed that our defiance has all the allure of a toddler’s tantrums.
Rather, though, than affirm this transcendent and self-evident reality and adopt the attitude of profound humility which it demands, the creators here, by which I mean all of those involved in the chain of production of this entirely commercial performance, are stuck in a despairing cynicism of their own making. They know God exists, but they can imagine Them (sic) only in the dim and failing light of their own moral darkness. God in the shape of the Devil does what they would do if they were God, and this they are kind enough to reveal to anyone who is paying attention; they are also gracious enough not to attribute this to the real God, who they all know is lurking there in the background unperturbed or just vaguely amused.
The nihilism in which they are trapped is very dangerous for all of us, but it is more childish, I think, than wicked. It lacks any compelling narrative and it contradicts the moral sense of anyone born with human DNA, regardless of chromosomal details. It is not so much misguided as, in fact, directionless. All that we can and should do in response is laugh, remain compassionate, and shine our light. This is not irrefutable proof of Satanic takeover of human institutions. It shows not strength but, in fact, a heart-wrenching weakness.