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:
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