Thursday 31 January 2013
ON NIETZSCHE
I'm rereading the Georges Bataille book, ON NIETZSCHE, with an introduction by Sylvere Lotringer. He says: "There is Christianity," Bataille argued, "a will NOT to be guilty, a will to locate the guilt outside the Church, to find a transcendence in man in relation to guilt. " This accounted for the church's inability to deal with Evil, except as a threat coming from the outside. Doing the Church justice "in total hostility," Bataille assumed guilt and anguish as his own, daring Christianity to experience Christ's sacrifice as the equivocal expression of Evil."
Mirena
Mirena IUD gives a different sort of ride. It's not quite the roller coaster sensation of a typical hormonal cycle, so the kind of creative bipolarity that male shamans generally enjoy ( I include Nietzsche, Bataille and naturally, Marechera) is missing from my repertoire.
Where already existing creative talent is strong and the executive center of the mind remains in control, any highs and lows are effectively harnessed to look inside oneself and thereby gain insight into aspects of the world that may no be so evident in other cases. Nietzsche employs shamanic metaphor to speak precisely of this method
Not having highs and lows can in fact also be useful, albeit in a different way. One can withdraw more effectively from life and turn oneself into a stone -- a philosopher of a more conventional sort.
Mirena gives a softer ride --- extending pain and pleasure into very gradual slope. One need no longer grasp feverishly at life for one's pleasure with the sure knowledge that dire pain is just around the corner.
On the other hand, one is constantly in a little bit of pain, hence a little bit sober minded -- but much calmer, more composed.
Perhaps this is how men expect women to be in general? But it does take a form of forced menopause to achieve it, at least in my case, where the hormonal forces have been so strong.
Where already existing creative talent is strong and the executive center of the mind remains in control, any highs and lows are effectively harnessed to look inside oneself and thereby gain insight into aspects of the world that may no be so evident in other cases. Nietzsche employs shamanic metaphor to speak precisely of this method
Not having highs and lows can in fact also be useful, albeit in a different way. One can withdraw more effectively from life and turn oneself into a stone -- a philosopher of a more conventional sort.
Mirena gives a softer ride --- extending pain and pleasure into very gradual slope. One need no longer grasp feverishly at life for one's pleasure with the sure knowledge that dire pain is just around the corner.
On the other hand, one is constantly in a little bit of pain, hence a little bit sober minded -- but much calmer, more composed.
Perhaps this is how men expect women to be in general? But it does take a form of forced menopause to achieve it, at least in my case, where the hormonal forces have been so strong.
Wednesday 30 January 2013
Contemporary marketplace values and confusion everywhere.
The Last Psychiatrist: No Self-Respecting Woman Would Go Out Without Make Up
I'm not sure how denying the fact that there are really systems all over the place can enable anyone to overcome narcissism. Certainly, there are systems and certainly humans create them.
What if someone walked around and said, "There is only me. There are no systems, no mechanisms of coordination or integration or control or hierarchies. Even if there SEEM to be systems, that is just the action of my mind, creating the illusion," would the person who proposed this be sane, or normal, or rational?
It seems to me that original, childhood narcissism starts from the position that what exists is only me and my mind, and that nothing really exists outside of me.
I'm not sure how denying the fact that there are really systems all over the place can enable anyone to overcome narcissism. Certainly, there are systems and certainly humans create them.
What if someone walked around and said, "There is only me. There are no systems, no mechanisms of coordination or integration or control or hierarchies. Even if there SEEM to be systems, that is just the action of my mind, creating the illusion," would the person who proposed this be sane, or normal, or rational?
It seems to me that original, childhood narcissism starts from the position that what exists is only me and my mind, and that nothing really exists outside of me.
Repost: limits and dangers of investment in language
Bataille gets his lessons from language and the danger of too much consciousness from Nietzsche.
The shaman sees both sides of the psychological coin — the advantages pertaining to the early world of paranoid-schizoid consciousness, and those that pertain to the adult state of rationality.
Bataille’s approach, like all shamanistic approaches, seeks to draw dialectic of communication between the two.
In the paranoid-schizoid state, there are only singularities, with nothing else sufficiently resembling each event enough to acquire the label of being “the same”. It is with this awareness in mind that Bataille rails against the limitations of the “I” that is adopted when we take up language.
The logic of language, which is the inductive method of knowing, makes him seem (to himself) to be one out of all too many human entities who have been linguistically reduced to conceptually simplified forms, rather than the singularity that he knows he is. He finds this “I” to be servile and lacking in the sovereignty that comes from being a singularity — a thoroughly individual self.
Bataille, however, is also keen to use language (the other way of formulating reality) effectively, to convey, if possible, this sense of lack he feels in having to imply that his identity is general and universalisable.
He also expects to fail in his attempt to bridge the two worlds that divide our self-identity, to the degree that we, as readers, lack the capacity to take in a point of view that does not depend on language.
Marechera’s Black Sunlight maintains knowledge of the two different modes of being, building a bridge between the paranoid-schizoid position and language.
Thus Black Sunlight expresses a shamanistic position that sees reality as having two very different sides to it.
Tuesday 29 January 2013
Atheism Vs. a theological world-view
Sorry, the pollen is still attacking my eyes, but you can see my marvelous back muscles!
Monday 28 January 2013
What is metaphysics? A 'Continental philosophy' perspective
This was in response to someone giving me a dictionary definition of metaphysics,
perhaps on the assumption that I didn't understand the term.
Nothing = Being
20th WCP: What Heidegger Wishes To Transcend: Metaphysics Or Nietzsche
According to Heidegger, Being (das Sein) should not be investigated through an inquiry into entities (das Seiende) as is done in the history of Western philosophy until now, but through an inquiry into Nothing (das Nichts) which Heidegger assumes to be identical with Being. (6) Investigation of Being through Nothing presupposes the question of "what is metaphysics?". This latter question is very important, because it plays a double role: on the one hand it secures the possibility of investigating Being through Nothing, and on the other hand it makes possible to transcend metaphysics . [Emphasis mine]Bataille, of course, makes a very similar move, in demanding that we should face the meaning of our lives through encountering "nothing"; that is, through confronting the actuality of death, both in the concrete form and in our abstract conception of it.
Sunday 27 January 2013
Saturday 26 January 2013
Friday 25 January 2013
Thursday 24 January 2013
Western FGM, Lacan & biological determinism
I look like there's a rifle going through my head, here. Maybe one is.
WOMEN IN THE MILITARY 2
A Victory for Gender Equality! | Clarissa's Blog
This quote from above: “Until then, it’s still a very physically challenging job that most women soldiers are simply unable or unwilling to do.”
This shows that the writer has no knowledge of the army and its ways.
There is no situation that would ALLOW any soldier, whether male or female, to be *unwilling* to do something. The assumption that military life is like civilian life, allowing for the scope of choice, betrays this writer’s ignorance about his/her subject matter.
This quote from above: “Until then, it’s still a very physically challenging job that most women soldiers are simply unable or unwilling to do.”
This shows that the writer has no knowledge of the army and its ways.
There is no situation that would ALLOW any soldier, whether male or female, to be *unwilling* to do something. The assumption that military life is like civilian life, allowing for the scope of choice, betrays this writer’s ignorance about his/her subject matter.
A Victory for Gender Equality! | Clarissa's Blog
A Victory for Gender Equality! | Clarissa's Blog
It would be impossible for me to imagine that women's physiology is wrong for all combat situations. It would be wrong for some, but just perfect for others. Guerrilla warfare and counterinsurgency might be just perfect for women, under many circumstances, whereas heavy artillery would not be. Nobody can easily carry a cannon for several kilometers.
I think those who suggest that women would generally not be suited to the army lack imagination as to what it takes to kill. Not every situation demands that you stand in front of the enemy and display your brawn.
It would be impossible for me to imagine that women's physiology is wrong for all combat situations. It would be wrong for some, but just perfect for others. Guerrilla warfare and counterinsurgency might be just perfect for women, under many circumstances, whereas heavy artillery would not be. Nobody can easily carry a cannon for several kilometers.
I think those who suggest that women would generally not be suited to the army lack imagination as to what it takes to kill. Not every situation demands that you stand in front of the enemy and display your brawn.
Wednesday 23 January 2013
Right wing gun culture, outdone
There are no wrong words, right?
There are no wrong trees, right?
There is no wrong sand, right?
I’ve slept the world in frilly
underwear
Dreamed I buggered all the little boys
who are future leaders
Fucked all the funny little girls made of
thatch and ghandy
My anarchist arse has shat on society
And LOOK millions of open flies
are homing in on your wide-open lips.
Why do people pretend to be more afraid of anarchists than they are of right-wing gun culture?
How Some Men Harass Women Online and What Other Men Can Do to Stop It
How Some Men Harass Women Online and What Other Men Can Do to Stop It
QUOTE:. When men harass women online, speak up. We can say something like, “As a man, your harassing comment offends me,” in the Comments sections. Say how it hurts you rather than speaking on behalf of the target.
QUOTE:. When men harass women online, speak up. We can say something like, “As a man, your harassing comment offends me,” in the Comments sections. Say how it hurts you rather than speaking on behalf of the target.
The stigmatizing nature of violence
Research Papers | Clarissa's Blog
My view is that if you lived in a society where there was a lot of pressure on you to excel academically, to adopt a certain identity and to endure a war, you might end up going a bit nuts. Not to mention the violence in Marechera’s life — of course he would have hit his teenage years just as the civil war gained steam. He was born in 56 and it was raging by about 1970, reaching its intensity in 76.
Somebody who applies the Western standards of a sedate European life to someone who did not experience those things might well come up with a diagnosis of the problem that suggests the mental anguish appeared from nowhere, except perhaps from the author’s biology.
But of course there was a context to it all — one easily overlooked by those who haven’t experienced the way societal changes can impact on their own psyches.
My view is that if you lived in a society where there was a lot of pressure on you to excel academically, to adopt a certain identity and to endure a war, you might end up going a bit nuts. Not to mention the violence in Marechera’s life — of course he would have hit his teenage years just as the civil war gained steam. He was born in 56 and it was raging by about 1970, reaching its intensity in 76.
Somebody who applies the Western standards of a sedate European life to someone who did not experience those things might well come up with a diagnosis of the problem that suggests the mental anguish appeared from nowhere, except perhaps from the author’s biology.
But of course there was a context to it all — one easily overlooked by those who haven’t experienced the way societal changes can impact on their own psyches.
Tuesday 22 January 2013
Monday 21 January 2013
Sunday 20 January 2013
More on MRAs
How to Avoid a Midlife Crisis | Clarissa's Blog
They’re not only infantile, but victims of self-deception, because they want to pull you in and get you to sympathize, claiming that it’s all about equality, equitability, and allowing others to have a fair say. But, really it is about you having to take it whilst they emit their tantrums.
It’s the same thing with the Rebecca Watson “elevatorgate” scenario. It’s about males getting their feelings hurt, but it seems impossible for these guys to just accept that “okay, it was hurtful for her to rebuff a stranger’s advances, but let’s get over it already.” They can’t let it go. Feelings were hurt. So, then they have to start their weird projections and make out that women can’t handle the big, wide world, because their feelings might be hurt. I’ve had these little males yell at me that I should “stop acting like a female stereotype” and just accept that a troll is an anonymous stranger who means you no harm. That was simply for visiting a site about “elevatorgate” and making a very general, non-offensive comment there.
So, I’m supposed to accept the pile on by all the trolls telling me, in one way or another, that I’m a female stereotype and treat this iimpartially, as if they were just simple observations from “anonymous strangers”?
I tell you, men will make you pay a very hefty price for getting their feelings hurt.
How to make the deadline of life work for you
How to Avoid a Midlife Crisis | Clarissa's Blog
I must say that as I approach official 'mid-age' this year and look back upon the past, I certainly have much to be proud of in the kind of person I've become. I was severely unhappy in my twenties, not believing that the outward expression of myself was the real me. That's actually why I went so deeply into a certain line within Continental philosophy, melding it with African intuitive understandings of ontology -- and came out on top!
I can't believe I completed the project before the deadline -- before middle age.
I can now age very, very happily indeed, knowing that I am fully in control of the process. Weirdly, enough in my recent videos, I see some completely Portuguese lines, which totally makes me laugh. I look like I'm developing very aristocratic, self-determined characteristics. (I'm only one eighth Portuguese, but these genes seem very dominant.)
Mike is the same. He recently turned 68 and seems like a sensual child. He just does as he pleases.
A lot of the men's rights rants consist of threats that men will no longer cater to the needs or demands of women and will go their own way and "then women will really be sorry...they will come crying back to us, begging us to take on our old roles" (paraphrased).
I think the movement needs to give up on that assumption, because history doesn't reverse. Women are not going to beg for the old roles. The only way is forward.
The capacity to move forward creatively is highly redemptive, though. The studies of Bataille and Nietzsche I have made, along with the example of Marechera to a certain extent, provide extremely useful models.
The MRAs, though, want to return to the old standards of the patriarchal religions, where a man had authority simply by being a man -- i.e. not a woman.
They ought to be able to see why this pattern doesn't work for many women, but it's very hard to see the bigger picture whilst one is insistent on licking one's wounds.
I must say that as I approach official 'mid-age' this year and look back upon the past, I certainly have much to be proud of in the kind of person I've become. I was severely unhappy in my twenties, not believing that the outward expression of myself was the real me. That's actually why I went so deeply into a certain line within Continental philosophy, melding it with African intuitive understandings of ontology -- and came out on top!
I can't believe I completed the project before the deadline -- before middle age.
I can now age very, very happily indeed, knowing that I am fully in control of the process. Weirdly, enough in my recent videos, I see some completely Portuguese lines, which totally makes me laugh. I look like I'm developing very aristocratic, self-determined characteristics. (I'm only one eighth Portuguese, but these genes seem very dominant.)
Mike is the same. He recently turned 68 and seems like a sensual child. He just does as he pleases.
A lot of the men's rights rants consist of threats that men will no longer cater to the needs or demands of women and will go their own way and "then women will really be sorry...they will come crying back to us, begging us to take on our old roles" (paraphrased).
I think the movement needs to give up on that assumption, because history doesn't reverse. Women are not going to beg for the old roles. The only way is forward.
The capacity to move forward creatively is highly redemptive, though. The studies of Bataille and Nietzsche I have made, along with the example of Marechera to a certain extent, provide extremely useful models.
The MRAs, though, want to return to the old standards of the patriarchal religions, where a man had authority simply by being a man -- i.e. not a woman.
They ought to be able to see why this pattern doesn't work for many women, but it's very hard to see the bigger picture whilst one is insistent on licking one's wounds.
WARREN FARRELL (MRA) says...
I have a theory that one only really experiences a midlife crisis if one has not been living authentically.
For instance, if you have been living according to an ideology that has promised obeying its rules will ultimately bear fruit, you might suddenly feel let down in mid-life when this doesn’t happen. That’s it not the fault of feminism, though, which (as Farrell’s quote also points out) allows women to actually make an authentic identity for themselves.
The unmaking of men comes about because they have bought into all sorts of nonsense in the first place.
“Stop allowing your life to be determined from the outside and instead develop an inner life of your own,” should be the advice given to whining males. Above all, stop trying to steal feminism’s inner light.
If it’s not your own light, you’re just going to make everything so much worse for yourselves. Growing up means learning how to establish an identity on one’s own terms. Oprah cannot do it for you. Smashing feminism can’t do it for you.
Sometimes it takes baby steps.
King Kong and psychoanalysis
The way I reflect upon the Lacanian and Freudian constructions of castration that I have drawn up below is that I wonder how much they relate to present day culture. I can certainly see that there is much more of a Nature/Culture division along gender lines as the fundamental conceptual schism at the very base levels of Western society -- which is to say at the levels where instinct predominates over education. It is less the case as you go higher up within Western culture ( to the degree that levels of education correlate somewhat with the capacity to go higher, to wield power, etc).
What I also reflect upon is the actual hollowness of the laughing gestures of the vulgar ape today. He is patriarchal in his evaluations, through and through -- and yet it is as if this is not enough; it is a joke; it is the unsatisfying position of being a dupe to the extreme. The current product of instinct in Western culture is deeply restless within himself and agitated in a way that causes him to strike out. He does not feel that women (represented via his mother?) have been castrated but that they have all the power -- and that they are out to feminize him. In some sense he seems to be crying out for a purer and more genuine castration -- to free him from the power of vulgar agitation that is his instinct working within him. He takes control over the force of language (represented in his mind as a symbolic absolute) -- he demands that others not deviate in their language from the meanings he has given words in his own head. He is oblivious to the fact that his own meanings (reinforced to him at the level of instinct) are not the same meanings attributed to the same words within higher culture. He rages, and demands that his own meanings be consented to, as representing the truth given once and for all -- (the masculine absolute of the law?) . But it is all a rage -- and somehow overtly pitiful, whilst gesturing in the opposite direction.
I sometimes wonder about the degree of damage that has been done within Western culture by the broadly-based appropriation of Darwinistic ideas in the crudest possible form. The breast beating antics of King-Kong may appear to represent the highest expression of raw power, whilst offering the opportunity to have one's cake (social power) and eat it too (express oneself in an uncastrated way, as a force of nature). Yet there are problems associated with this approach to life, as I have subtly indicated in the paragraph above. The inner agitation of the wanna-be king of the jungle, crudely beating his breast, is not an enticing sight. Educated women despise it. The approach misses its mark on all sorts of levels.
The Japanese, by contrast with their cultural notions of harmony with nature, may not have the most "masculine" of societies, but their society is extremely rational by contrast with the nature of the one given above. It is also highly authoritarian, and unimaginatively patriarchal.
Yet Western culture has a huge bubble of illogic with a self-defeating aspect to it, brought about by its vehement embrace of certain tropes of Darwinism.
The alternative to mishandling sudden change is shamanizing:
What I also reflect upon is the actual hollowness of the laughing gestures of the vulgar ape today. He is patriarchal in his evaluations, through and through -- and yet it is as if this is not enough; it is a joke; it is the unsatisfying position of being a dupe to the extreme. The current product of instinct in Western culture is deeply restless within himself and agitated in a way that causes him to strike out. He does not feel that women (represented via his mother?) have been castrated but that they have all the power -- and that they are out to feminize him. In some sense he seems to be crying out for a purer and more genuine castration -- to free him from the power of vulgar agitation that is his instinct working within him. He takes control over the force of language (represented in his mind as a symbolic absolute) -- he demands that others not deviate in their language from the meanings he has given words in his own head. He is oblivious to the fact that his own meanings (reinforced to him at the level of instinct) are not the same meanings attributed to the same words within higher culture. He rages, and demands that his own meanings be consented to, as representing the truth given once and for all -- (the masculine absolute of the law?) . But it is all a rage -- and somehow overtly pitiful, whilst gesturing in the opposite direction.
I sometimes wonder about the degree of damage that has been done within Western culture by the broadly-based appropriation of Darwinistic ideas in the crudest possible form. The breast beating antics of King-Kong may appear to represent the highest expression of raw power, whilst offering the opportunity to have one's cake (social power) and eat it too (express oneself in an uncastrated way, as a force of nature). Yet there are problems associated with this approach to life, as I have subtly indicated in the paragraph above. The inner agitation of the wanna-be king of the jungle, crudely beating his breast, is not an enticing sight. Educated women despise it. The approach misses its mark on all sorts of levels.
The Japanese, by contrast with their cultural notions of harmony with nature, may not have the most "masculine" of societies, but their society is extremely rational by contrast with the nature of the one given above. It is also highly authoritarian, and unimaginatively patriarchal.
Yet Western culture has a huge bubble of illogic with a self-defeating aspect to it, brought about by its vehement embrace of certain tropes of Darwinism.
The alternative to mishandling sudden change is shamanizing:
Saturday 19 January 2013
Friday 18 January 2013
Morons of the world, untie!
The Last Psychiatrist: No Self-Respecting Woman Would Go Out Without Make Up
A lot of invisible limits have been put on women's advancement. Some of them are of their own making, or at least aspects of life to which they acquiesce. Others are not so much so. I would find it very interesting if the authorities that dwelleth in the land of psychiatry were to really promote a standard for women's health, rather than insisting on female pathology. What if they said to women, "Oh, well, you know, you seem to be oppressed. How about some reality testing? It might be one way to discover what parts of the oppressive circumstances are your own and what belongs to other people?"
I guess such an invitation could be construed as yet another level of oppression, and in certain circumstances, that may well be true. But, there is a lot of pleasure in reality testing. We did it as kids until we were ordered not to continue our own experiments with the world, but instead adapt and conform.
Reality testing can be the ultimate, most pleasurable thing to do.
But psychiatry itself has traditionally put up a railing that has prevented women from testing too much reality. Isn't a woman who does that considered to embody what it means to be "insane"? She is refusing to grow up to accept her socially allotted position. She wants her childhood to go on, and on, and on.
The same principle applies to men, although to a lesser extent, since they are deemed less fragile than women, and therefore seem to have less to lose by testing reality for themselves. Bear Grylls gets a lot of kudos for his adventurism, but a female counterpart would probably not so much.
A female Bear Grylls, who threw off her makeup and went wild would very probably be accused of the following:
1. Exhibitionism
2. Thinking she is male (gender identity disorder)
3. Escapism
4. Masochism
5. Social disruption (depending on how 19th Century we get)
6. etc.
In fact, she would seem to have dropped from her relatively good position in society to become a moron.
Consequently, it would seem, a lot of feminism has to be bourgeois feminism, aspiring to climb higher up the social ladder by accepting most of the existing social values, including those of traditional femininity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMDtCXSlbPA
Thursday 17 January 2013
What is shamanic initiation?
Important topic.
Sorry I look like a professional fighter in this one -- I'm actually not one.
Repost: The 'feminine'
It seems to me that the purpose of the psychological concept of "the feminine" (--I am always wondering what that is--) is to create a definite gestalt (foreground-background outline) for feminine figures. The conceptual characteristics of "the feminine" are initially sought for, in the preliminary wandering of the eye over the field. Finally, once they are alighted upon, the outline of a "feminine" character comes into view. This is reassuring, since one has found what one was looking for.
Supposing, however, one sets out in anticipation of discovering a feminine object. One perceives, in the field of vision, certain characteristics that roughly align with denotations of "the feminine". Yet, ultimately, the outline is not firm, the characteristics keep wavering, the object of vision seems to continue to shift. Would not the failure of the potential "feminine object" to stay within the lines of conceptual demarcation of femininity produce the sense of a "part object" rather than a whole object? The failure to encounter a "whole object" through the conceptual lens of "femininity" (the search for the feminine object) is likely to produce persecutory anxiety, as perception of part-objects refers the mind back to the paranoid-schizoid position of early childhood.
Is it possible that the inherent structural failure of the concept of "femininity" to return to the perceiver a pure enough feminine object, leading in turn to perscutory anxiety as one is left with only a "part object" (the parts of the object that remain feminine), is the cause of misogyny? The failure of the object to appear consistently with the characteristics expected of it produces a shattering of perception, which is threatening to the would-be perceiver of the complete feminine object. This is starting to sound a lot like castration anxiety, but I believe it is only partly related to that -- since here the mechanism of "castration" is in the faulty conceptualisation of "the feminine" as well as in the faulty anticipation of it.
Anyway, my experiences tell me that I'm onto something here. Those who do not encounter an outline of the object, which consistently represents "feminine" qualities, in a way that since the gestalt is firm, would be soothing, tend to encounter a Medusa instead, and this is not because of anything that women are doing, but due to a faulty conceptualisation of "the feminine".
Supposing, however, one sets out in anticipation of discovering a feminine object. One perceives, in the field of vision, certain characteristics that roughly align with denotations of "the feminine". Yet, ultimately, the outline is not firm, the characteristics keep wavering, the object of vision seems to continue to shift. Would not the failure of the potential "feminine object" to stay within the lines of conceptual demarcation of femininity produce the sense of a "part object" rather than a whole object? The failure to encounter a "whole object" through the conceptual lens of "femininity" (the search for the feminine object) is likely to produce persecutory anxiety, as perception of part-objects refers the mind back to the paranoid-schizoid position of early childhood.
Is it possible that the inherent structural failure of the concept of "femininity" to return to the perceiver a pure enough feminine object, leading in turn to perscutory anxiety as one is left with only a "part object" (the parts of the object that remain feminine), is the cause of misogyny? The failure of the object to appear consistently with the characteristics expected of it produces a shattering of perception, which is threatening to the would-be perceiver of the complete feminine object. This is starting to sound a lot like castration anxiety, but I believe it is only partly related to that -- since here the mechanism of "castration" is in the faulty conceptualisation of "the feminine" as well as in the faulty anticipation of it.
Anyway, my experiences tell me that I'm onto something here. Those who do not encounter an outline of the object, which consistently represents "feminine" qualities, in a way that since the gestalt is firm, would be soothing, tend to encounter a Medusa instead, and this is not because of anything that women are doing, but due to a faulty conceptualisation of "the feminine".
Wednesday 16 January 2013
THE WHOLE STORY: intellectual constructs of history and individual madness
I put the two parts of the video together (part one and part two).
Tuesday 15 January 2013
On Trolls
The main problem with Americans, especially as I have come to know them in their guise as trolls, is that they work from basically narcissistic premises. These can be really destabilizing, unless you understand their fallacious nature. So, you might assert something like, "Oh, I've had such-and-such an experience!" and the troll will come back at you with, "You couldn't have had that experience -- you're just trying to big note yourself." So, the assumption is that one only speaks in order to self-aggrandize, or else communication is contentless. Well, you basically have to realize that they are working with a false epistemology -- the assumptions that they can know somebody else's experiences or motivations. The assumption that one can and does know these is fundamentally American (and to a lesser extent, more broadly Western).
Sunday 13 January 2013
2.SHAMANIC WRONGS & RITES: Nietzsche, Bataille and my shamanic initiatio...
See part one, below, first!
1 SHAMANIC WRONGS & RITES: Nietzsche, Bataille and my shamanic initiations
This is part one, which explains why I found certain philosophical writing to be essential for my development.
 |
| "Are we really that different? This picture was taken at the Lola Ya Bonobo sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Emilie Genty conducts her research on bonobo communication. This adolescent female kept that toad for hours and played with it like a doll, carrying it everywhere with her." Image from Nat Geo |
Friday 11 January 2013
Loss of language as an integral principle of self-discovery
Exploring a paradoxical principle of 'mystical' wholeness. Clearly I'm a bit pink -- must have come back from training on that day.
Thursday 10 January 2013
Richard Dawkins Interviews Creationist Wendy Wright (Part 6/7)
She has this false, fixed smile, a clownish mocking face. Doesn't understand Popper.
CFI's Women in Secularism Conference | The Intersection of Non-theism an...
Very interesting on the deleterious effects of difference feminism. Also a good point about how people embrace the ideologies that they feel are liberating (rather than actually embracing a rational position).
Wednesday 9 January 2013
Identity affinities and the non-Western 'soul'
Another reason why I don't embrace 'identity politics'....
Tuesday 8 January 2013
Ann Althouse & Rebecca Watson (Full)
Is there sexism or misogyny in the skeptical and atheist communities?
Monday 7 January 2013
REPOST
Death is the ultimate natural reality principle, as it is not defined by society and its mores, (which can vary from one age to another, often without reference to the needs or values of any particular individual).
When one 'faces death' one measures oneself. That is always a result of honestly facing death.
One initially encounters a foreboding sense that if one goes against the mores of the clan, one will surely die. That is the first, honest encounter with death. In fact, one is dealing with one's emotions concerning non-conformity and taking measure of oneself in terms of how far one would be prepared to go against the mores that keep one measuring oneself against others.
To be perpetually concerned with what others think is a form of madness in itself. One can attempt to break free from the values and control mechanisms you have adopted, but this awakens a feeling that one has come face to face with one's annihilation. That is natural and inevitable. One can ride that storm, for it is possible to emerge from the other side of it.
What is the measure of the man or woman who willingly 'faces death'? It is in the ability to emerge from one's own annihilation, somewhat intact. That first experience is known as 'shamanistic initiation'.
'Facing death' after that becomes easier-- and one faces it whenever one requires renewal. Facing death tells us what is real about our own experiences, because we learn what parts of ourselves we are willing to risk, as well as what parts we are either too afraid to risk or want to preserve. We are engaged in active self-management and we are jury, judge and executioner of our own lives.
To weigh up one's life in a balance, from the point of view of one already dead, is the ultimate standpoint in objectivity. This method also offers one deep, subjective self-knowledge.
Society can take us and form us into its shape, or we can shape ourselves. These paths tend not to overlap too much. It's either one way or the other, because the practice of shamanistic techniques shape our mental muscles, which means either opening or shutting off our possibilities.
REPOST: MY FEMINIST FIGHT
My engagement with feminism was based on very personal necessity — to bring myself out of a traditional mindset and into the 20th Century. My culture had a very limited pool of knowledge about sexuality and gender relations. We hadn’t even entered the arena of any sort of gender politics. That is to say modernity had not yet arrived in my culture.
This led to a state of affairs where I didn’t understand the sub-texts of any of the social situations I was in. In retrospect, I see a lot was implied about identity, including gender but I didn’t really catch on at the time.
My inability to respond appropriately and to defend what others perceived as my “identity” made me extremely vulnerable to such onslaughts as workplace bullying. I really had no idea what people wanted from me or how to behave normally. To make matters worse, I had internalized attitudes that were socially quite passive. A female in an extremely right-wing, militaristic culture has no need to assert herself. Men are expected to do that for her.
For me, feminism was a way of solving this set of problems, in order to bring myself into modernity.
Feminism gave me the philosophical justification for what I needed to do, which was to engage in a prolonged and difficult battle with my original character structure in order to transform it into something more effective for the modern world.
What surprised me was how few people were able to understand this need and how many — good liberals included — worked actively to sabotage my project. Since I wasn’t able to articulate the nature of my project at the time, the lack of active support could possibly be explained away, if one is keen to do so. At the same time, the attempts to sabotage my freedom by affirming my father’s perspectives over and against mine really beg for a lot more by way of explanation. It wasn’t just my inability to articulate the deeper nature of the problem at the time I was experiencing it. Rather, it seems that even those who are otherwise impartial in their dealings with others do in fact have a deep emotional attachment to patriarchal authority.
I finally won my battle to clear my mind of the threat of injury should I act outside of a very narrow range of behaviors, but was all by my own effort whilst having to parry forces of all sorts, including from liberals and the intelligentia, of attempts to make me feel guilty and repent.
Like most aspects of life, unless you’ve been through the experience — in my case, the experience of giving birth to oneself — you have little idea of what it means.
You will misconstrue everything.
Sunday 6 January 2013
Concretizing: goals for 2013
A correct attitude can take a person a long way toward their goals, so the significance of attitude should not be devalued in favor of short term goals. Meeting small goals can provide an emotional boost, but it is far better to develop and maintain an attitude can often take you through the trying, small setbacks, such as the inevitable injuries you get in martial arts.
Attitude can carry you forward like a wave. I do expect to be carried in that way in 2013. My underlying drives, having been been given channels and underlying structure by my already existing habits, should take me further this year than they did in 2012.
At the same time, concrete goals should be established -- not to replace the underground channels I have contrived and constructed, but to make the journey more meaningful.
With respect to this, here are my concrete goals for 2013:
1. I will write at least one book that is not messy, mad or half-heartily edited. I've found it extremely difficult to edit my own work in the past because when you are heavily immersed in developing completely new ideas, you can't step back and see the words from a fresh perspective. In 2012, I did a lot of stepping back and revising. One has to realize that different audiences have different needs.
Also, in the past, I didn't have an adequate understanding of where any particular type of criticism originated. I didn't understand the factional nature of Western society, so I used to give equal weight to 'criticisms' of my writing that came from men's rights activists as I did to professors or anyone else who wanted to criticize something I'd written.
That's what can happen when you have spent your formative years in a totally different milieu. I've since learned who to trust and who not to. I'm reading the cultural landmarks better than before. Consequently, I am not as stressed as before -- which means I am also able to trust my own judgment better.
2. I will train for and pass another grading. This will happen some time this year, probably June. I'm getting older, so I need to give myself some concessions. Above all, I want to make sure my knees are stronger, so that I can do some serious sparring. I will attend some night sparring classes to improve in this area.
3. Languages. I will push forward with learning Shona and perhaps developing my French. I recently watched a video with Camus speaking French. With reference to the subtitles, I realized I could already understand quite a lot of what he was saying. I would also like to delve more deeply into formal logic, to see whether I can learn this language better than I did when I first tried to, quite some years ago.
4. Leisure. I will go running on the beach -- get some vitamin D (sunlight) and do some sprints.
5. I will continue with my writing and editing work -- my father's memoir and the intellectual shamanism paradigm I am inventing.
6. Camping. I will continue to take journeys into nature, for days at a time, in order to zone out.
7. Openness. I will be open to whatever opportunities for work or personal development appear.
Attitude can carry you forward like a wave. I do expect to be carried in that way in 2013. My underlying drives, having been been given channels and underlying structure by my already existing habits, should take me further this year than they did in 2012.
At the same time, concrete goals should be established -- not to replace the underground channels I have contrived and constructed, but to make the journey more meaningful.
With respect to this, here are my concrete goals for 2013:
1. I will write at least one book that is not messy, mad or half-heartily edited. I've found it extremely difficult to edit my own work in the past because when you are heavily immersed in developing completely new ideas, you can't step back and see the words from a fresh perspective. In 2012, I did a lot of stepping back and revising. One has to realize that different audiences have different needs.
Also, in the past, I didn't have an adequate understanding of where any particular type of criticism originated. I didn't understand the factional nature of Western society, so I used to give equal weight to 'criticisms' of my writing that came from men's rights activists as I did to professors or anyone else who wanted to criticize something I'd written.
That's what can happen when you have spent your formative years in a totally different milieu. I've since learned who to trust and who not to. I'm reading the cultural landmarks better than before. Consequently, I am not as stressed as before -- which means I am also able to trust my own judgment better.
2. I will train for and pass another grading. This will happen some time this year, probably June. I'm getting older, so I need to give myself some concessions. Above all, I want to make sure my knees are stronger, so that I can do some serious sparring. I will attend some night sparring classes to improve in this area.
3. Languages. I will push forward with learning Shona and perhaps developing my French. I recently watched a video with Camus speaking French. With reference to the subtitles, I realized I could already understand quite a lot of what he was saying. I would also like to delve more deeply into formal logic, to see whether I can learn this language better than I did when I first tried to, quite some years ago.
4. Leisure. I will go running on the beach -- get some vitamin D (sunlight) and do some sprints.
5. I will continue with my writing and editing work -- my father's memoir and the intellectual shamanism paradigm I am inventing.
6. Camping. I will continue to take journeys into nature, for days at a time, in order to zone out.
7. Openness. I will be open to whatever opportunities for work or personal development appear.
Reality principles of shamanism Vs. Freud
Reflecting more on the differences between shamanism and psychoanalysis, I can encapsulate their fundamentally different orientation in this way: In Freudian psychoanalysis, a patient is to be brought into alignment with a reality principle that is, most generally, accommodation to society as it is.
I realize that in Civilization and its Discontents Freud makes the allowance that in some instances, there is a problem with society itself that needs to be rectified. I get the impression, though, that Freud did not consider there was much that ought to be changed in society, due to his mistreatment of Dora. In general, he thought the individual just had to adjust to the way things are. To move from entertaining unrealistic expectations to embracing how things have to be. One might not be happy with that, but Freud thought that 'happiness' was overvalued. It was just a discharge of biological urges, temporary and without value beyond itself.
The capacity to adjust to society as it already is therefore became Freud's measure of psychological health. By the same token, to criticize society was likely to indicate a failure to adjust to the 'reality principle' and was therefore probably a sign of being insane.
I think a new reality principle is needed, one that does not put us into a straitjacket for expressing dissent.
The need for a reality principle is to defend against insanity. One cannot simply invest oneself in a life of fantasy and expect this to have no negative consequences. That would be like eating sugar and popcorn every day and night whilst expecting to thrive.
A reality principle is therefore very important, but the principle of conformity will not do.
Intellectual shamanism chooses to weigh itself against another principle, and that is 'death'.
Death is the ultimate natural reality principle, as it is not defined by society and its mores, which can vary from one age to another, often without reference to the needs or values of any particular individual.
When one 'faces death' one measures oneself. That is always a result of honestly facing death.
One initially encounters a foreboding sense that if one goes against the mores of the clan, one will surely die. That is the first, honest encounter with death. In fact, one is dealing with one's emotions concerning non-conformity and taking measure of oneself in terms of how far one would be prepared to go against the mores that keep one measuring oneself against others.
To be perpetually concerned with what others think is a form of madness in itself. One can attempt to break free from the values and control mechanisms you have adopted, but this awakens a feeling that one has come face to face with one's annihilation. That is natural and inevitable. One can ride that storm, for it is possible to emerge from the other side of it.
What is the measure of the man or woman who willingly 'faces death'? It is in the ability to emerge from one's own annihilation, somewhat intact. That first experience is known as 'shamanistic initiation'.
'Facing death' after that becomes easier-- and one faces it whenever one requires renewal. Facing death tells us what is real about our own experiences, because we learn what parts of ourselves we are willing to risk, as well as what parts we are either too afraid to risk or want to preserve. We are engaged in active self-management and we are jury, judge and executioner of our own lives.
To weigh up one's life in a balance, from the point of view of one already dead, is the ultimate standpoint in objectivity. This method also offers one deep, subjective self-knowledge.
Society can take us and form us into its shape, or we can shape ourselves. These paths tend not to overlap too much. It's either one way or the other, because the practice of shamanistic techniques shape our mental muscles, which means either opening or shutting off our possibilities.
I realize that in Civilization and its Discontents Freud makes the allowance that in some instances, there is a problem with society itself that needs to be rectified. I get the impression, though, that Freud did not consider there was much that ought to be changed in society, due to his mistreatment of Dora. In general, he thought the individual just had to adjust to the way things are. To move from entertaining unrealistic expectations to embracing how things have to be. One might not be happy with that, but Freud thought that 'happiness' was overvalued. It was just a discharge of biological urges, temporary and without value beyond itself.
The capacity to adjust to society as it already is therefore became Freud's measure of psychological health. By the same token, to criticize society was likely to indicate a failure to adjust to the 'reality principle' and was therefore probably a sign of being insane.
I think a new reality principle is needed, one that does not put us into a straitjacket for expressing dissent.
The need for a reality principle is to defend against insanity. One cannot simply invest oneself in a life of fantasy and expect this to have no negative consequences. That would be like eating sugar and popcorn every day and night whilst expecting to thrive.
A reality principle is therefore very important, but the principle of conformity will not do.
Intellectual shamanism chooses to weigh itself against another principle, and that is 'death'.
Death is the ultimate natural reality principle, as it is not defined by society and its mores, which can vary from one age to another, often without reference to the needs or values of any particular individual.
When one 'faces death' one measures oneself. That is always a result of honestly facing death.
One initially encounters a foreboding sense that if one goes against the mores of the clan, one will surely die. That is the first, honest encounter with death. In fact, one is dealing with one's emotions concerning non-conformity and taking measure of oneself in terms of how far one would be prepared to go against the mores that keep one measuring oneself against others.
To be perpetually concerned with what others think is a form of madness in itself. One can attempt to break free from the values and control mechanisms you have adopted, but this awakens a feeling that one has come face to face with one's annihilation. That is natural and inevitable. One can ride that storm, for it is possible to emerge from the other side of it.
What is the measure of the man or woman who willingly 'faces death'? It is in the ability to emerge from one's own annihilation, somewhat intact. That first experience is known as 'shamanistic initiation'.
'Facing death' after that becomes easier-- and one faces it whenever one requires renewal. Facing death tells us what is real about our own experiences, because we learn what parts of ourselves we are willing to risk, as well as what parts we are either too afraid to risk or want to preserve. We are engaged in active self-management and we are jury, judge and executioner of our own lives.
To weigh up one's life in a balance, from the point of view of one already dead, is the ultimate standpoint in objectivity. This method also offers one deep, subjective self-knowledge.
Ok, those things I have to do in 2013
It's tough to consider 2013. Although I've consolidated many skills and abilities, I also have to consider that it is wise for me to simply build on what I've done so far, rather than try any very new trajectories. One must submit to old age to some degree, not in the sense of being resigned or crippled, but rather in understanding that human life begins on a slender stem which ideally grows into a tuber, with belly ripe around the middle, rich and crisp.
I've learned that I am very good at a lot of endeavors. I'm a radically free mind that accepts no potted ideologies. My critical thinking skills are at an all time high. The difference between the middle-aged me and the more childish and earnest one is that I've learned how much social and cultural conditioning delimits our awareness. The younger me fought against these psychological limits both in myself and in others. The current me is not inclined to fight these as restrictions, but rather to use my awareness of cultural, intellectual and social differences to draw boundaries around myself that serve to protect and reinforce my sense of identity.
Maturity should be enjoyed, not struggled against. After one has striven very hard to become what one is, one ought not to continue struggling, but one should enjoy the outcomes of one's efforts.
So, my new year's resolution for 2013 is to forge ahead without worrying. I embrace aspects of Buddhism, which assert that one's force is best expressed by extremely natural means. We see this in martial arts, too. If you tense your body you withhold the force from your strike. Punches flow more naturally when one is looser. Then they are stronger; more reflexive.
So I'll continue on my merry way, assuming that strength has a tendency to form into particular nodules and to aggregate.
I've given up trying to understand middle-class culture from the inside. One must stop giving energy to futile projects for ones tubers to have nourishment to grow.
I've learned to relax more and draw limits. These measures also grow potatoes.
I do think I'm a much better person for the wisdom I've accumulated over many years. I'm not inclined, as so many women are, when the years accumulate, to lament one's lost youth. I don't lament it as these years were hard for me, full of stress and struggle and not much merriment.
Nowadays, though, what is not to like?
I've learned that I am very good at a lot of endeavors. I'm a radically free mind that accepts no potted ideologies. My critical thinking skills are at an all time high. The difference between the middle-aged me and the more childish and earnest one is that I've learned how much social and cultural conditioning delimits our awareness. The younger me fought against these psychological limits both in myself and in others. The current me is not inclined to fight these as restrictions, but rather to use my awareness of cultural, intellectual and social differences to draw boundaries around myself that serve to protect and reinforce my sense of identity.
Maturity should be enjoyed, not struggled against. After one has striven very hard to become what one is, one ought not to continue struggling, but one should enjoy the outcomes of one's efforts.
So, my new year's resolution for 2013 is to forge ahead without worrying. I embrace aspects of Buddhism, which assert that one's force is best expressed by extremely natural means. We see this in martial arts, too. If you tense your body you withhold the force from your strike. Punches flow more naturally when one is looser. Then they are stronger; more reflexive.
So I'll continue on my merry way, assuming that strength has a tendency to form into particular nodules and to aggregate.
I've given up trying to understand middle-class culture from the inside. One must stop giving energy to futile projects for ones tubers to have nourishment to grow.
I've learned to relax more and draw limits. These measures also grow potatoes.
I do think I'm a much better person for the wisdom I've accumulated over many years. I'm not inclined, as so many women are, when the years accumulate, to lament one's lost youth. I don't lament it as these years were hard for me, full of stress and struggle and not much merriment.
Nowadays, though, what is not to like?
Saturday 5 January 2013
the shamanistic way to health requires an encounter with the void!
Emotional and intellectual vitality could be radically increased through shamanistic practices. The means to do this is you must face the void of the soul, where there is an absence of meaningfulness. By means of encountering such an existential threat to ego, one can often see those aspects of the real self that one's conformity to others' expectations has rendered invisible to you. Real shamanism works on you at the level of an existential threat, forcing a deeper investigation of one's inner resources.
There are degrees and kinds of shamanism. Nietzsche's intellectual shamanism is relatively deep, just as his experience of an existential "abyss" is central to his work. All the same, if had experienced an even deeper sense of the void, he may not have been so keen to reinforce radical gender polarities along the lines he did. He would have seen the aspects of "femininity" that he condemned in women as being part and part of his own psyche.
Bataille, it seems, had much more of an intuitive sense of going further, by means of "excess" which would break the existing boundaries of bourgeois consciousness.
The problem with any contemporary "New Age" shamanism is that it seeks to increase vitality on the basis of a prior acceptance of bourgeois norms about identity. The need to make shamanism commercially viable, according to Capitalist and consumerist mores, leads to the kind of "product" of learning that is all too reassuring in terms of the things as they are.
An enemy of shamanistic knowledge is the pervasive bourgeois ideology that we cannot change our essential characteristics but only work to refine and improve the ones we have. (This bourgeois pessimism is very pronounced, for instance, in the work of Lacan. His work proclaims, perhaps truthfully, that we are all, in one way or another, pathological, under the force of civilization. Yet his approach also effectively closes the door against any non-civilized means for recovering one's sense of wholeness. There is no void in which one may discover one's identity, within psychoanalysis. Rather, there tends to be the muted authoritarianism of the analyst's couch.)
Such bourgeois pessimism is (of course) also found in writers like Freud. He views the state of discontent with civilization as such, as pathological. Nietzsche effectively reversed this valuation by holding that civilization was itself an illness caused by the propensity to suffer too much from consciousness, at the cost of "instinct".
The historical picture and psychoanalysis
I confess to quite an acute skepticism of psychoanalysis because its terms of reference have seemed to me limited to the late capitalist nuclear family, without taking into account social or historical events. Because this kind of psychoanalysis is worse than useless to me personally, my skepticism had continued to grow and grow. Recently, however, I found this article and considered it embrace a balanced form of humanism.
I've learned to steer clear of traditional psychoanalysis because the paradigm it promotes seems to encourage people to believe that is one is suffering in some way, it is likely to be because one is "projecting something". I developed the impression that psychoanalysis was often, if not always, a means to expressing an unwillingness to deal with historical facts. By not dealing with these and with the impact they can have on the psyche, one preserves a sense that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and that nothing can or should be changed, apart from at the level of the individual. That is, the person suffering should change themselves, but they should do so in a way that doesn't implicate others or avoidable historical circumstances in the process of change. They should just make the changes as part of their moral duty to society, above all by hardening up and not taking any nonsense from anybody.
While I'm sure that the imperatives of bourgeois society are not necessarily the imperatives of psychoanalysis, there seems to be an overlap. According to the article I've linked to, the capacity to dig into emotional states, to find out what is there, is a core part of psychoanalysis. But, psychoanalysis occurs in a context, which is that of contemporary society, the society of the bourgeois individual. The functioning of the individual is important within this sort of system, but their individual mental states are not relevant so long as they perform their job effectively. Forms of therapy that would try to coax a person into expressing a certain impersonal demeanor are particularly noxious, although perhaps quite common. The article linked above outlines how psychoanalysis is supposed to simply make a person more aware of their hidden motivations, so as to have more control over their lives. The impressive aspect of the article was that it didn't frame a person's suffering in terms of individual moral culpability.
My resistance to psychoanalysis as a system has been on the basis that I must necessarily and rightfully defend myself against insinuations based on bourgeois concepts of moral culpability. I don't mean to imply that I'm a perfect little angel, in bourgeois terms. I just want to get rid of the bourgeois framing of experience. We are not guilty sinners, who suffer because of our mistakes or deficiencies. This reductive way of viewing human nature does much harm. Rather, we deal with issues the way we do, sometimes inadequately, because of emotional overload.
Sometimes the emotional overload is so strong that we demand others bear some of its weight. That is known as 'projective identification'. One does not resort to this because one is immoral or lax, but more probably because one does not know how else to deal with the burning intensity of emotional pain apart from spreading it around. By doing so, one survives, although if the emotions one has to spread are negative, this is highly costly to others.
We may often not come to like people who project onto us, because they are giving us a burden not our own. That tends to produce resentment and sometimes rage. If the project is negative, and not made up of overflowing joy, or if authority is not what's being projected onto us, we may feel that we have no choice but to carry someone else's pathology. We might do this willingly or unwillingly, but it can be more difficult, when young, to develop the ego strength to resist powerful forms of projection.
2.
I still have the notion that disaster can strike at any time, and it will be my fault.
I think I understand how that belief came about, but I would never have reached an understanding apart from my belated awareness of some very specific historical circumstances.
My father's rage was lit by his mother allowing her husband, his father, to be killed on a flying jaunt in World War 2. Participating in the war was "the thing to do," his mother had said. It sounded frivolous. He didn't have to do it, but it was the flavor of the day. My father said he didn't "trust her judgement". Of course not -- because a light tone ought not to be followed by a disaster. The two aspects of the deadly outcome, the feeling before the world fell apart and the feeling afterwards, are incongruous. There was much to distrust, including possibly, his mother's judgement.
All the same, I know what she was feeling, because it was how I felt when harsh and critical judgement were projected onto me. You see, my father didn't 'trust my judgement' either, on the basis that I seemed like a person not to be trusted. When I scan the past for anything I may have done to provoke such unwarranted criticism, I do not find it. It is likely that my gender was the fundamental element that drew this fire.
My grandmother's internal workings have become mine, to a certain extent, as a result of my father's issues. It is true to say that his relationship with her became his relationship with me. I know how it feels to be blamed for something terrible that one can't quite put one's finger on. I've had the responsibility to rectify historical wrongs, but without understanding their specifics. I just felt guilty. Also, it was very important for me that the world should know that I was deeply traumatized and not 'hysterical' -- women of my grandmother's era were often depicted as 'hysterical' and my father was inclined to handle his rage by displacing it -- and condemning me.
The plane that went up and never came down was all my fault. I didn't realize the source of all the hostility and aggression, but had I understood it all much earlier, my ego would have still needed further years to develop to be able to take the strain of being targeted in this way.
Psychoanalysis may be a useful tool, then, if it helps people to understand the sources of their pains, but it surely takes a great deal more to overcome historically inflicted blows -- and, if history is out of its picture to begin with, what then ...?
RHODESIA, SEX AND GENDER: THE RIGHT-WING WAY.
3. The cure for a man who still believes in female hysteria is to wait until he has something very urgent he needs you to understand.
Then say: "I'm sorry. I'm not getting it. Would you try and say that again in a way I can understand? I encourage you to keep persisting, if you like. Or, by the same token, don't persist. Either way, it's all the same to me!"
I've learned to steer clear of traditional psychoanalysis because the paradigm it promotes seems to encourage people to believe that is one is suffering in some way, it is likely to be because one is "projecting something". I developed the impression that psychoanalysis was often, if not always, a means to expressing an unwillingness to deal with historical facts. By not dealing with these and with the impact they can have on the psyche, one preserves a sense that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and that nothing can or should be changed, apart from at the level of the individual. That is, the person suffering should change themselves, but they should do so in a way that doesn't implicate others or avoidable historical circumstances in the process of change. They should just make the changes as part of their moral duty to society, above all by hardening up and not taking any nonsense from anybody.
While I'm sure that the imperatives of bourgeois society are not necessarily the imperatives of psychoanalysis, there seems to be an overlap. According to the article I've linked to, the capacity to dig into emotional states, to find out what is there, is a core part of psychoanalysis. But, psychoanalysis occurs in a context, which is that of contemporary society, the society of the bourgeois individual. The functioning of the individual is important within this sort of system, but their individual mental states are not relevant so long as they perform their job effectively. Forms of therapy that would try to coax a person into expressing a certain impersonal demeanor are particularly noxious, although perhaps quite common. The article linked above outlines how psychoanalysis is supposed to simply make a person more aware of their hidden motivations, so as to have more control over their lives. The impressive aspect of the article was that it didn't frame a person's suffering in terms of individual moral culpability.
My resistance to psychoanalysis as a system has been on the basis that I must necessarily and rightfully defend myself against insinuations based on bourgeois concepts of moral culpability. I don't mean to imply that I'm a perfect little angel, in bourgeois terms. I just want to get rid of the bourgeois framing of experience. We are not guilty sinners, who suffer because of our mistakes or deficiencies. This reductive way of viewing human nature does much harm. Rather, we deal with issues the way we do, sometimes inadequately, because of emotional overload.
Sometimes the emotional overload is so strong that we demand others bear some of its weight. That is known as 'projective identification'. One does not resort to this because one is immoral or lax, but more probably because one does not know how else to deal with the burning intensity of emotional pain apart from spreading it around. By doing so, one survives, although if the emotions one has to spread are negative, this is highly costly to others.
We may often not come to like people who project onto us, because they are giving us a burden not our own. That tends to produce resentment and sometimes rage. If the project is negative, and not made up of overflowing joy, or if authority is not what's being projected onto us, we may feel that we have no choice but to carry someone else's pathology. We might do this willingly or unwillingly, but it can be more difficult, when young, to develop the ego strength to resist powerful forms of projection.
2.
I still have the notion that disaster can strike at any time, and it will be my fault.
I think I understand how that belief came about, but I would never have reached an understanding apart from my belated awareness of some very specific historical circumstances.
My father's rage was lit by his mother allowing her husband, his father, to be killed on a flying jaunt in World War 2. Participating in the war was "the thing to do," his mother had said. It sounded frivolous. He didn't have to do it, but it was the flavor of the day. My father said he didn't "trust her judgement". Of course not -- because a light tone ought not to be followed by a disaster. The two aspects of the deadly outcome, the feeling before the world fell apart and the feeling afterwards, are incongruous. There was much to distrust, including possibly, his mother's judgement.
All the same, I know what she was feeling, because it was how I felt when harsh and critical judgement were projected onto me. You see, my father didn't 'trust my judgement' either, on the basis that I seemed like a person not to be trusted. When I scan the past for anything I may have done to provoke such unwarranted criticism, I do not find it. It is likely that my gender was the fundamental element that drew this fire.
My grandmother's internal workings have become mine, to a certain extent, as a result of my father's issues. It is true to say that his relationship with her became his relationship with me. I know how it feels to be blamed for something terrible that one can't quite put one's finger on. I've had the responsibility to rectify historical wrongs, but without understanding their specifics. I just felt guilty. Also, it was very important for me that the world should know that I was deeply traumatized and not 'hysterical' -- women of my grandmother's era were often depicted as 'hysterical' and my father was inclined to handle his rage by displacing it -- and condemning me.
The plane that went up and never came down was all my fault. I didn't realize the source of all the hostility and aggression, but had I understood it all much earlier, my ego would have still needed further years to develop to be able to take the strain of being targeted in this way.
Psychoanalysis may be a useful tool, then, if it helps people to understand the sources of their pains, but it surely takes a great deal more to overcome historically inflicted blows -- and, if history is out of its picture to begin with, what then ...?
RHODESIA, SEX AND GENDER: THE RIGHT-WING WAY.
3. The cure for a man who still believes in female hysteria is to wait until he has something very urgent he needs you to understand.
Then say: "I'm sorry. I'm not getting it. Would you try and say that again in a way I can understand? I encourage you to keep persisting, if you like. Or, by the same token, don't persist. Either way, it's all the same to me!"
Friday 4 January 2013
Those formative years
I don't accept the conventional moralizing perspective that everybody must keep up awareness about everything that is going on around them, or else they are a narcissist who thinks only of themselves. This is not a logical or scientific formulation but an ideological and historically specific one. There are many differentials in upbringing and historical conditions, which may make some people more aware of specific aspects of their environments than others would be.
Indeed, neurologists hold that brain nerve cells create pathways or die off in the first few years of life in response to the environment. Note that this neurological model goes way beyond psychoanalysis, in that human adaptation is seen not just as a response to parenting, but to the components of the larger environment. That is, adaptation is not just brought about due to familial relations, or even in response to social forces. Adaptation would necessarily be inclusive of the geographical, political and economic terrain that a child grows up within.
It seems likely that even in the very early stages of life, the child forms cognitive pathways that recognize and affirm many of the specific local features. To learn to recognize certain environmental features as salient and important for one's well being is to learn to de-emphasize others or let their significance fade into the background.
This explains why people who have spent the most significant, formative years of their life in a particular type of environment may not pick up cues pertinent to another sort of environment. It has nothing to do with the direction in which one focuses one's attention, but has to do with what they are conditioned to see within the environment. What one person sees as significant features may not be evident to another person, who has been brought up in quite different circumstances.
There may be no point in making a song and dance about others not seeing what you see. If the neurological pathways are there from an early age, they will see those things, but otherwise their understanding will differ from yours.
It may be that there are certain forms of cultural logic that are so self-evident to someone brought up within a particular culture that they can't imagine every having to explain them. These seem to be common sense. At the same time, there will still be people who cannot see clearly what to others is simply obvious and automatically comprehensible.
The idea that people may be willfully not seeing what you see, or that there's something necessarily wrong with those who see many things differently, is dogmatic and self-limiting.
It is better to be open to learn from someone else than to gain an temporary buzz of enjoyment by pointing out that someone else perceives aspects of experience wrongly.
Indeed, neurologists hold that brain nerve cells create pathways or die off in the first few years of life in response to the environment. Note that this neurological model goes way beyond psychoanalysis, in that human adaptation is seen not just as a response to parenting, but to the components of the larger environment. That is, adaptation is not just brought about due to familial relations, or even in response to social forces. Adaptation would necessarily be inclusive of the geographical, political and economic terrain that a child grows up within.
It seems likely that even in the very early stages of life, the child forms cognitive pathways that recognize and affirm many of the specific local features. To learn to recognize certain environmental features as salient and important for one's well being is to learn to de-emphasize others or let their significance fade into the background.
This explains why people who have spent the most significant, formative years of their life in a particular type of environment may not pick up cues pertinent to another sort of environment. It has nothing to do with the direction in which one focuses one's attention, but has to do with what they are conditioned to see within the environment. What one person sees as significant features may not be evident to another person, who has been brought up in quite different circumstances.
There may be no point in making a song and dance about others not seeing what you see. If the neurological pathways are there from an early age, they will see those things, but otherwise their understanding will differ from yours.
It may be that there are certain forms of cultural logic that are so self-evident to someone brought up within a particular culture that they can't imagine every having to explain them. These seem to be common sense. At the same time, there will still be people who cannot see clearly what to others is simply obvious and automatically comprehensible.
The idea that people may be willfully not seeing what you see, or that there's something necessarily wrong with those who see many things differently, is dogmatic and self-limiting.
It is better to be open to learn from someone else than to gain an temporary buzz of enjoyment by pointing out that someone else perceives aspects of experience wrongly.
Thursday 3 January 2013
STOCK CHARACTERS OF THE AMERICAN GENDER WARS!
These are the stock characters of the American gender wars. Whoever you are, if you have anything to say to Americans about the matter of gender, you will be depicted as one of these.
1. The Troll.
According to prevailing mythology, trolls are "static electricity" , whom we are supposed to ignore. Trolls appear on various sites and begin ordering women not to act "like a female stereotype". They assert the allegedly illogical and fallacious nature of individual women's opinions.
A troll is not capable of doing any harm, even when issuing rape threats. Trolls may even serve a developmental purpose in helping to toughen you up, in case you ever want to serve as a World War 2 fighter pilot or something similar. Trolls appear on the Internet because the Internet is a male preserve, created by males for males. If a woman ventures there and is not prepared to take troll harassment she should go back to where she came from. It's nobody's fault but her own.
A troll is "an anonymous stranger", who cannot do you any harm. Sometimes whole comments sections are filled with trolls, but you are supposed to ignore all the "static", because there might be one or two good individuals to talk to. Trolls are like the common cold: they allegedly behave without discrimination, although one suspects they often have a very specific agenda.
Most importantly, absolutely nothing can be done about them.
2. The Leader
The leader leads the ideological charge. Others adopt his or her postures, positions and attitudes, although they may not always interpret these correctly or know exactly what the leader meant to say in every situation.
Types of leaders are as broad as the range of social movements. Some are feminist leaders, others leaders of skepticism or atheism. Still others are leaders of the Men's Rights Movement.
The job of the leader is to justify the moral perfection of his or her particular ideological stance. Ideally, the ideology in question must be structured like a ramrod, to destroy other ideological stances.
The dear leader has to be defended by those who love him or her very much. It is an offence for anyone to criticize one's leader, so the other team must pay heavily if they go there.
3. The Fluff
This is always a woman, who supports convention and the status quo. She will state:
"I don't really understand the terms of reference, but I think [the one who goes against the status quo] is just being silly."
She will be met by heaps of applause and adulation, for seeming to see the point, without seeing anything at all. She is, of course, modest and admittedly air-headed, so what possible ax could she have to grind?
4. The male video-maker
He likes a lot of high intensity visuals and sound effects in his videos -- he's very passionate. He commonly enjoys a motif of a cartoon woman crying. He lapses into this representation suddenly and without warning, before continuing the passage of his narrative. He demands to be taken seriously, because his videos are very noisy, quite extreme in sundry ways, but above all very, very 'logical'. You can't dispute logic and that's why the videos are intended to be understood as only an expression of binary logic -- never 'emotion'. The character of the woman crying is "emotional": she is crying to remind you of the harshness of the masculine critique, which is so strong-minded that a cartoon woman cannot take it.
5. The feminist
The feminist is likely to be called Sunbeam, or Tulip. She's a result of her parents' lax hippy ideals. She's certainly not realistic. She hugs puppies or frolics in the marigolds, but she cannot stand loud, hardheaded logic, of the sort that tells her what it really thinks. She lays down all sorts of laws for men and boys to obey, to cope with her fragile emotional state. She also tries to get power and money by playing the victim. There's nothing she likes better than this, for no reason at all.
6. The White Knight or "Mangina"
This is a male who isn't really a male. He comes to the rescue of the feminists, who are necessarily foundering on the high seas of male supremacy. This male is a betrayer of his gender and of what he really knows -- which is that men are resolute and purposeful and women who think they have the right to enter a male terrain are flakes. If women want to enter male spaces, they should do so in a quiet way, without stepping on male toes, which is hurtful. These men make it too easy for women to say what they really think, without experiencing too much suffering.
1. The Troll.
According to prevailing mythology, trolls are "static electricity" , whom we are supposed to ignore. Trolls appear on various sites and begin ordering women not to act "like a female stereotype". They assert the allegedly illogical and fallacious nature of individual women's opinions.
A troll is not capable of doing any harm, even when issuing rape threats. Trolls may even serve a developmental purpose in helping to toughen you up, in case you ever want to serve as a World War 2 fighter pilot or something similar. Trolls appear on the Internet because the Internet is a male preserve, created by males for males. If a woman ventures there and is not prepared to take troll harassment she should go back to where she came from. It's nobody's fault but her own.
A troll is "an anonymous stranger", who cannot do you any harm. Sometimes whole comments sections are filled with trolls, but you are supposed to ignore all the "static", because there might be one or two good individuals to talk to. Trolls are like the common cold: they allegedly behave without discrimination, although one suspects they often have a very specific agenda.
Most importantly, absolutely nothing can be done about them.
2. The Leader
The leader leads the ideological charge. Others adopt his or her postures, positions and attitudes, although they may not always interpret these correctly or know exactly what the leader meant to say in every situation.
Types of leaders are as broad as the range of social movements. Some are feminist leaders, others leaders of skepticism or atheism. Still others are leaders of the Men's Rights Movement.
The job of the leader is to justify the moral perfection of his or her particular ideological stance. Ideally, the ideology in question must be structured like a ramrod, to destroy other ideological stances.
The dear leader has to be defended by those who love him or her very much. It is an offence for anyone to criticize one's leader, so the other team must pay heavily if they go there.
3. The Fluff
This is always a woman, who supports convention and the status quo. She will state:
"I don't really understand the terms of reference, but I think [the one who goes against the status quo] is just being silly."
She will be met by heaps of applause and adulation, for seeming to see the point, without seeing anything at all. She is, of course, modest and admittedly air-headed, so what possible ax could she have to grind?
4. The male video-maker
He likes a lot of high intensity visuals and sound effects in his videos -- he's very passionate. He commonly enjoys a motif of a cartoon woman crying. He lapses into this representation suddenly and without warning, before continuing the passage of his narrative. He demands to be taken seriously, because his videos are very noisy, quite extreme in sundry ways, but above all very, very 'logical'. You can't dispute logic and that's why the videos are intended to be understood as only an expression of binary logic -- never 'emotion'. The character of the woman crying is "emotional": she is crying to remind you of the harshness of the masculine critique, which is so strong-minded that a cartoon woman cannot take it.
5. The feminist
The feminist is likely to be called Sunbeam, or Tulip. She's a result of her parents' lax hippy ideals. She's certainly not realistic. She hugs puppies or frolics in the marigolds, but she cannot stand loud, hardheaded logic, of the sort that tells her what it really thinks. She lays down all sorts of laws for men and boys to obey, to cope with her fragile emotional state. She also tries to get power and money by playing the victim. There's nothing she likes better than this, for no reason at all.
6. The White Knight or "Mangina"
This is a male who isn't really a male. He comes to the rescue of the feminists, who are necessarily foundering on the high seas of male supremacy. This male is a betrayer of his gender and of what he really knows -- which is that men are resolute and purposeful and women who think they have the right to enter a male terrain are flakes. If women want to enter male spaces, they should do so in a quiet way, without stepping on male toes, which is hurtful. These men make it too easy for women to say what they really think, without experiencing too much suffering.
Wednesday 2 January 2013
Let's have a feminism that isn't biologically determined?
I'm looking back over past images and videos as a way to prepare myself to write a program I shall follow for the year.
It has become clear to me how and where my self-development went a little off track. That is, I'm happy to do anything with anyone, but don't tie me down to having to be a nurturer. I don't like that female gender role and strongly resist having to adopt its terms of reference. I don't like it when people assume that writings or products created by me have the purpose of enhancing people's emotional states -- or, if they don't then there is something wrong with my efforts or with me.
I don't write in that way and I don't think in that way and I don't act that way. I don't want to and I don't like to nurture anyone, unless it is a two-way street. When I've thought this was my job, to take on the form of the identity society was forcing onto me, I've always performed below par. Similarly, when people evaluate my writing in terms of how much it serves to improve community spirit, I feel like going mad.
In extreme instances, I have lost track of who I am. I had thought I was trying to communicate experientially, conveying my impression of phenomena. Instead, it turns out I am merely a failed nurturer.
But to fail at something one was never aiming for is shocking, disorienting and confusing.
Don't get me wrong. I have been extremely efficient at all sorts of endeavors when I was not faced with gender-based demands.
But, start to demand that I be your mother and the friendship rots, all falls in disarray and I cannot proceed, no matter how hefty the threats may be.
I was full of resentment, I admit. My parents loved me, but they turned the tables on me, and I was supposed to bring them up. Migrants demand knowledge and emotional support from the next generation. I was the eldest. If they come from an authoritarian culture, they may also demand that their children obey the old rules, from the old society, whilst bringing up the parents by the new rules in a new society. That doesn't work. But then there is another layer of opened wounds, familial traumas. My father needed much more parenting; whilst I needed support from him, not condemnation.
As you see, I had nothing and I knew nothing, but was required to make everything work, or spiral into tremendous feelings of guilt.
I don't want to have to nurture, because that evokes the sense of a pathological relationship, where those who have no power are supposed to take all the responsibility in life for what has not worked out historically. Had everything worked out, I would not have been a migrant-- let's face it. I was, because things hadn't worked out as they might have. So I had to rectify historical wrongs.
I did take on that burden, but that is enough to ask of me. To say my writing, and my actions and my thinking has to take the form of nurturing, in a self-conscious way, is far too much to ask.
The supposition I had entertained -- that I could even partially acquiesce to this demand, in order to fit in -- I no longer entertain. I'm calm when I am treating others as equals, but the maternal role causes me too much anxiety.
To both submit to external authority and yet to be the internal authority that makes the relationship work --that is beyond me. I'm sure I can be one or the other, but once you exert external authority over me, don't expect me to retain the energy to make the internal mechanism of the relationship work.
That sense I have, that what I am supposed to do is deeply contradictory, only follows me as far as gender roles do. That is why I am so keen to get rid of them. Since I do not function as a "nurturer", but do function as a decent human being, I am opposed to any system or idea that would reinstate gender essentialism: don't try to make me into my parents' and your parents' mother. I'm myself. I may be random, but I am an individual.
Also, please leave me out of nurturing professions, or nurturing roles. I fight myself when it comes to these -- and in the end, there is no energy left.
Let's have a feminism that isn't biologically determined.
It has become clear to me how and where my self-development went a little off track. That is, I'm happy to do anything with anyone, but don't tie me down to having to be a nurturer. I don't like that female gender role and strongly resist having to adopt its terms of reference. I don't like it when people assume that writings or products created by me have the purpose of enhancing people's emotional states -- or, if they don't then there is something wrong with my efforts or with me.
I don't write in that way and I don't think in that way and I don't act that way. I don't want to and I don't like to nurture anyone, unless it is a two-way street. When I've thought this was my job, to take on the form of the identity society was forcing onto me, I've always performed below par. Similarly, when people evaluate my writing in terms of how much it serves to improve community spirit, I feel like going mad.
In extreme instances, I have lost track of who I am. I had thought I was trying to communicate experientially, conveying my impression of phenomena. Instead, it turns out I am merely a failed nurturer.
But to fail at something one was never aiming for is shocking, disorienting and confusing.
Don't get me wrong. I have been extremely efficient at all sorts of endeavors when I was not faced with gender-based demands.
But, start to demand that I be your mother and the friendship rots, all falls in disarray and I cannot proceed, no matter how hefty the threats may be.
I was full of resentment, I admit. My parents loved me, but they turned the tables on me, and I was supposed to bring them up. Migrants demand knowledge and emotional support from the next generation. I was the eldest. If they come from an authoritarian culture, they may also demand that their children obey the old rules, from the old society, whilst bringing up the parents by the new rules in a new society. That doesn't work. But then there is another layer of opened wounds, familial traumas. My father needed much more parenting; whilst I needed support from him, not condemnation.
As you see, I had nothing and I knew nothing, but was required to make everything work, or spiral into tremendous feelings of guilt.
I don't want to have to nurture, because that evokes the sense of a pathological relationship, where those who have no power are supposed to take all the responsibility in life for what has not worked out historically. Had everything worked out, I would not have been a migrant-- let's face it. I was, because things hadn't worked out as they might have. So I had to rectify historical wrongs.
I did take on that burden, but that is enough to ask of me. To say my writing, and my actions and my thinking has to take the form of nurturing, in a self-conscious way, is far too much to ask.
The supposition I had entertained -- that I could even partially acquiesce to this demand, in order to fit in -- I no longer entertain. I'm calm when I am treating others as equals, but the maternal role causes me too much anxiety.
To both submit to external authority and yet to be the internal authority that makes the relationship work --that is beyond me. I'm sure I can be one or the other, but once you exert external authority over me, don't expect me to retain the energy to make the internal mechanism of the relationship work.
That sense I have, that what I am supposed to do is deeply contradictory, only follows me as far as gender roles do. That is why I am so keen to get rid of them. Since I do not function as a "nurturer", but do function as a decent human being, I am opposed to any system or idea that would reinstate gender essentialism: don't try to make me into my parents' and your parents' mother. I'm myself. I may be random, but I am an individual.
Also, please leave me out of nurturing professions, or nurturing roles. I fight myself when it comes to these -- and in the end, there is no energy left.
Let's have a feminism that isn't biologically determined.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
