Piggy

Many have the view that power in divided equally, that one need only speak one's mind in order to be heard to the degree that one's position is intrinsically reasonable or rational.  I was once deluded by precisely this ideology. My path, via shamanism, was the way out of this illusion.

Systems reproduce power relations.  Consider:

Piggy on the Railway
Picking up stones;
Down came an engine,
And broke Piggy’s bones. ‘Ah !’ said Piggy,
“That’s not fair,”
“Oh !” said the engine driver,
“I don’t care !”

Who feels sorry for Piggy?  One may wish to take his side, but ultimately one sides with the engine driver.  Piggy didn't need to choose the railway line to pick up his stones. I certainly would not have done so.

Reason re-contextualizes Piggy's suffering as perfectly fair, since one ought to know better than to pick up stones on a railway.

Reason has its place and that is to bring home the bacon and Piggy has to learn to comply with the established order, if he doesn't want to face unpleasant consequences.

Yet Piggy's idea of fairness is to be a pig picking up stones.  The engine driver's sense of meaning is to do his job.  There is something in the pig that is saying something other than, this is not fair, according to the rational notions of the engine driver.   This something protests unfairness in altogether different terms -- in terms of being a pig.

This hidden voice is significant to shamanism -- shamanistic techniques recover these.