Wednesday 27 February 2013

Intellectual shamanism, feminism and self-knowedge



Many people embrace identity politics INSTEAD OF self-knowledge. These two tend to be inimical in many ways.

2 comments:

conflictedcollarslut said...

Thanks for this Jennifer :) I particularly like what you've said about identity politics - they are a wonderful and powerful thing when engaged in for the pursuit of change and awareness, but it does seem that too often the perspective of 'us and them', which is a necessary tool for these ends, lives on way past the point at which it stops being useful.

Would you mind clarifying further what you mean by 'contingency' in this context? I am not very knowlegeable when it comes to shamanism (I'm devouring everything I can get my hands on to do with it as we speak!). Are you talking about the nature of infinite possibility that characterises everything that happens? I often find myself confused about the ontology of 'purpose' within non-monotheistic spiritualities.

Jennifer Armstrong said...

It just means don't try to impose metaphysics. By the way, I'm not really talking about a "spirituality" here. It's atheism. But the point is to ride the wave of life, as I mentioned, not to try to create a wave out of nothing.

Cultural barriers to objectivity