The claim that some patriarchs make is that patriarchy holds me to a higher standard than "matriarchy" (or some alternative system) would. This is self deception in the eye of the beholder. The truth is that patriarchy is the enshrinement of shit-throwing as a way to establish social hierarchy. It is this, and nothing else besides.
Considered according to my lights, the "higher" standard that patriarchy holds me to is this and nothing else: the ability to allow shit to be thrown at me without flinching. This, my friends, is the beginning and end of patriarchy's testing of "strength of character". One is considered to have such strength if one can allow the shit to be thrown without acknowledging it. One is considered to lack "strength" if one notices that what is being thrown is actually just shit. (I am saying that it is shit that is being thrown -- nothing more; nothing less.)
Grace in execution is something patriarchal society yearns for -- not least because it is the factor that is entirely eliminated by the necessity of living under the principles of a patriarchy. One simply does not, cannot, throw shit gracefully. One must throw it, rather, as best as one can, with a certain degree of ape-like preponderance -- but, certainly, without grace.
Grace, unfortunately (for this isn't what we have), belongs to a matriarchy. One must be queen of something -- certainly a domain of some sort -- to be able to afford to act with grace.
Conversely, however, it is only a resigned stoicism that belongs to patriarchy -- this being the highest attainment of patriarchy in the current era. One must stand still and accept one's fate. The shit smells like roses. It has that beautiful aroma of transcendence -- a sign that one is making definite progress along one's way.
Tolerance of everyday aggression and violence is a sign that patriarchal values hold sway. This is aggression and violence made profane, deprived of any particular significance, apart from signifying the nature of every day life. The associated lie is that this violence, this aggression, is somehow implicated in one's transcendence, that it presupposes it. Remove the illusion, the rose-coloured spectacles, and what remains are images of grotesque apes, throwing their shit.
This is the spectacle that this century enshrines as the penultimate expression of human nature; human freedom.
1 comment:
Brilliant. There was a psychotic ape at the San Francisco Zoo that banged his head on the top of his cage and threw his shit at people. This was considered funny. We laughed and ran and had no sympathy for the poor old crazy ape. That's how we used to be in the good old days.
You don't talk about the grotesque sex fantasies of men, but that is getting worse and worse and has totally invaded the academic and literary world here. In order to appeal to the prestigious male readership, novelists are filling their work with intrusive and degrading images of women. Getting women to accept the degradation could be a problem, however. We might stop buying their books.
The word verification is "uncodge." Does that mean becoming more youthful? As in, "I uncodged myself."
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