Sunday Link Encyclopedia and Self-Promotion | Clarissa's Blog
Certain cultural standards that ought to be maintained and not everything diluted into some fuzzy cultural pluralism. What is actually human nature is to have certain cultural conventions, & to have an expectation for certain kinds of treatment, based on what is considered normal. That means there is only so far a society can go in integrating other “cultures”. At some point, there are going to be issues of contention.
I always speak up against those who assert we cannot criticize other cultures, especially in terms of their treatment of women because “it’s just their culture”. That is not only logically inconsistent as a stance, it is gullible, because a lot of the time it is a way of succumbing to guilty feelings about “Western power”. Actually, if your morality is going to be determined by the level of your guilty feelings, best listen to Sam Vaknin.
Sunday 31 March 2013
"Deserving"
Go Zen: Drop Deserve and Take Responsibility | Ian Welsh
It is about moving from a moral framework, with imaginary postulates, to a realistic framework -- let us say a humanist one, with very different postulates. Because you are operating within a moral framework, along with one or two others that have commented on this thread, you don't see that it is not about denying that any particular group of people are deserving of something. Rather, the notion of "deserving" no longer applies, because a more rational framework replaces it.
It is about moving from a moral framework, with imaginary postulates, to a realistic framework -- let us say a humanist one, with very different postulates. Because you are operating within a moral framework, along with one or two others that have commented on this thread, you don't see that it is not about denying that any particular group of people are deserving of something. Rather, the notion of "deserving" no longer applies, because a more rational framework replaces it.
Gender essentialism
Sunday Link Encyclopedia and Self-Promotion | Clarissa's Blog
The problem is that feminism has incorporated a lot of ascetic values. Nietzsche considered that even the pursuit of "truth" is inextricably bound with the ascetic ideal, that is in turn linked to the historically engendered religious training of the mind and body. So if feminists are saying, "You have to accept feminism because 'it is true'," then what else is "true"? You end up with gender essentialism or other metaphysical (religious) postulates. And gender essentialism, false as it is because it does not take into account historical contingency, says that women are asexual or have a different kind of sexuality from men, or so on.
The problem is that feminism has incorporated a lot of ascetic values. Nietzsche considered that even the pursuit of "truth" is inextricably bound with the ascetic ideal, that is in turn linked to the historically engendered religious training of the mind and body. So if feminists are saying, "You have to accept feminism because 'it is true'," then what else is "true"? You end up with gender essentialism or other metaphysical (religious) postulates. And gender essentialism, false as it is because it does not take into account historical contingency, says that women are asexual or have a different kind of sexuality from men, or so on.
Emotional Crippling | Clarissa's Blog
Emotional Crippling | Clarissa's Blog
I will also mention that my inability to adapt to 'Western culture" (as I have experienced it) now appears to be to do with not understanding the logic of having other people mediate my experiences for me. I tried -- believe me, I tried hard -- to get into the mode where I could be mediated and mediate other people's experiences for them. I actually thought this is what was required to become acculturated. But it wasn't mature -- and I had been perpetually misled by needy people who had poor thinking skills.
I have been hugely fortunate. I now work casually for an Asian company and I had huge problems with my equipment on the weekend, such that I was only able to fulfill 60 percent of the tasks I'd agreed to do. Recalling how the old bosses would react -- as if I were creating a problem 'on purpose' to manipulate them -- I became extremely stressed and expected passive aggressive responses at best. But this didn't happen. The non-Western culture I am dealing with is, fortunately, rational.
It's a simple thing to be rational. But I'm in awe of it because its far from common in Australian culture. Neediness, passive aggression and suspicion are much more likely. The levels of immaturity here are very high.
My earlier cultural conditioning from Africa was much more logical, reasonable and effective than what is considered normal here. I think late capitalism puts people under tremendous strain to the point that they behave irrationally. But, there is also a cultural tendency toward embracing immaturity and neediness as a solution.
That's my judgment anyway.
I will also mention that my inability to adapt to 'Western culture" (as I have experienced it) now appears to be to do with not understanding the logic of having other people mediate my experiences for me. I tried -- believe me, I tried hard -- to get into the mode where I could be mediated and mediate other people's experiences for them. I actually thought this is what was required to become acculturated. But it wasn't mature -- and I had been perpetually misled by needy people who had poor thinking skills.
I have been hugely fortunate. I now work casually for an Asian company and I had huge problems with my equipment on the weekend, such that I was only able to fulfill 60 percent of the tasks I'd agreed to do. Recalling how the old bosses would react -- as if I were creating a problem 'on purpose' to manipulate them -- I became extremely stressed and expected passive aggressive responses at best. But this didn't happen. The non-Western culture I am dealing with is, fortunately, rational.
It's a simple thing to be rational. But I'm in awe of it because its far from common in Australian culture. Neediness, passive aggression and suspicion are much more likely. The levels of immaturity here are very high.
My earlier cultural conditioning from Africa was much more logical, reasonable and effective than what is considered normal here. I think late capitalism puts people under tremendous strain to the point that they behave irrationally. But, there is also a cultural tendency toward embracing immaturity and neediness as a solution.
That's my judgment anyway.
Sunday Link Encyclopedia and Self-Promotion | Clarissa's Blog
Sunday Link Encyclopedia and Self-Promotion | Clarissa's Blog
This is the fundamental insight of intellectual shamanism:
"A lifetime without the cyclical torment of mood disorders, Ghaemi explains, can leave one ill equipped to endure dire straits."
http://www.ianwelsh.net/screw-optimism-and-screw-sanity/
MORE:
It has been said that Nietzsche had "bipolar" features, although I believe that term should be in inverted commas as it wasn't an illness with him, just the fact that he could look at reality from its emotional heights and from its depths and that he constantly developed his mind on the basis of adjusting his perspectives like this.
Modernity, of course, disagrees, and this is costly: perhaps the tendency of contemporary parents is to become processing devices for the child's negative emotions. Children might fare much better with less attention, so that they would have to see their emotional storms. Others grow up to rely on authority figures to mediate their emotions.
This is the fundamental insight of intellectual shamanism:
"A lifetime without the cyclical torment of mood disorders, Ghaemi explains, can leave one ill equipped to endure dire straits."
http://www.ianwelsh.net/screw-optimism-and-screw-sanity/
MORE:
It has been said that Nietzsche had "bipolar" features, although I believe that term should be in inverted commas as it wasn't an illness with him, just the fact that he could look at reality from its emotional heights and from its depths and that he constantly developed his mind on the basis of adjusting his perspectives like this.
Modernity, of course, disagrees, and this is costly: perhaps the tendency of contemporary parents is to become processing devices for the child's negative emotions. Children might fare much better with less attention, so that they would have to see their emotional storms. Others grow up to rely on authority figures to mediate their emotions.
Friday 29 March 2013
particular skills
Incompatible Qualities | Clarissa's Blog
People have a lot of bull* formulations. My biggest encounter with one was quite personal. I have a really good mind for pattern recognition, both in social and systemic contexts. That is my fundamental skill. But I am very poor on detail. I just don't find a lot of things interesting enough to capture my attention.
As a result, in the past, I had masses of people accusing me of being possessed by huge intellectual pretensions and to be placing myself way above my league, because quite clearly, in their views, I was a dunce who couldn't even focus on what was in front of me.
The metaphysical demand that some people have, that one must plod up a ladder of accomplishments gradually, but not to flower as an intellectual until one has deposited one's foot on every rung of the aspirational ladder, is crazy-making. "You have to be social and detail-oriented before you become a thinker, otherwise you are a narcissist and a pretender!"
I am, to this day, traumatized by this demand, but more so by the fact that I tried to accommodate it. I developed extreme doubts about my abilities to attend to detail and to socialize effectively that I didn't have before these sorts of people got on my case.
Ultimately, I had to erase all that weird programming and my attempts to integrate it. I wiped the slate clean and went back to how I was thinking before I became a migrant. Nowadays, so long as I don't try to adjust to other people's demands and weird ideological expectations, things seem to go swimmingly.
It is noteworthy that the majority of the guys who attacked me in this way were leftists of the Stalinist sort, who thought that everybody should be the same, sunken in the mire of an antagonistic “equality”. Later, I was attacked by those who considered themselves “Nietzscheans” but were actually advocates of any extreme form of mob mentality and sought to jump on the bandwagon. I came to realize how very little people are able to use any critical thinking skills.
People have a lot of bull* formulations. My biggest encounter with one was quite personal. I have a really good mind for pattern recognition, both in social and systemic contexts. That is my fundamental skill. But I am very poor on detail. I just don't find a lot of things interesting enough to capture my attention.
As a result, in the past, I had masses of people accusing me of being possessed by huge intellectual pretensions and to be placing myself way above my league, because quite clearly, in their views, I was a dunce who couldn't even focus on what was in front of me.
The metaphysical demand that some people have, that one must plod up a ladder of accomplishments gradually, but not to flower as an intellectual until one has deposited one's foot on every rung of the aspirational ladder, is crazy-making. "You have to be social and detail-oriented before you become a thinker, otherwise you are a narcissist and a pretender!"
I am, to this day, traumatized by this demand, but more so by the fact that I tried to accommodate it. I developed extreme doubts about my abilities to attend to detail and to socialize effectively that I didn't have before these sorts of people got on my case.
Ultimately, I had to erase all that weird programming and my attempts to integrate it. I wiped the slate clean and went back to how I was thinking before I became a migrant. Nowadays, so long as I don't try to adjust to other people's demands and weird ideological expectations, things seem to go swimmingly.
It is noteworthy that the majority of the guys who attacked me in this way were leftists of the Stalinist sort, who thought that everybody should be the same, sunken in the mire of an antagonistic “equality”. Later, I was attacked by those who considered themselves “Nietzscheans” but were actually advocates of any extreme form of mob mentality and sought to jump on the bandwagon. I came to realize how very little people are able to use any critical thinking skills.
Embrace that which is alleged to be your opposite!
Who Makes Them This Way? | Clarissa's Blog
Of course Bataille's concept of "non-knowledge" was precisely a critique of instrumental rationality. But what most people don't see is that they can't simply adopt a non-rational perspective out of the blue. Instrumental rationality is already in them; it's already a part of who they are. It's also what divides the world up into supposedly rational men and non-rational women. It's part of the symbolic structure of late industrial cultures. It makes no sense, then, to proclaim that one intends not to be rational, in order to escape male control.
That assumes that one has a choice in the matter, whereas in reality one has been relegated, if female, to the non-rational side of the equation prior to any awareness one might have. If one wants to escape male control, therefore, one has to effectively not know about it; one has to become ignorant of it in some way, so that one does not categorize oneself in any way. One way to escape the categorization that has already taken place within one's subjectivity is to take on what has been denied to you. Women should embrace logic. After that, they should forget that they had ever been denied entrance in the realm of logic. It doesn't help to embrace exactly what you have been made to be by forces outside of your control.
Of course Bataille's concept of "non-knowledge" was precisely a critique of instrumental rationality. But what most people don't see is that they can't simply adopt a non-rational perspective out of the blue. Instrumental rationality is already in them; it's already a part of who they are. It's also what divides the world up into supposedly rational men and non-rational women. It's part of the symbolic structure of late industrial cultures. It makes no sense, then, to proclaim that one intends not to be rational, in order to escape male control.
That assumes that one has a choice in the matter, whereas in reality one has been relegated, if female, to the non-rational side of the equation prior to any awareness one might have. If one wants to escape male control, therefore, one has to effectively not know about it; one has to become ignorant of it in some way, so that one does not categorize oneself in any way. One way to escape the categorization that has already taken place within one's subjectivity is to take on what has been denied to you. Women should embrace logic. After that, they should forget that they had ever been denied entrance in the realm of logic. It doesn't help to embrace exactly what you have been made to be by forces outside of your control.
Thursday 28 March 2013
Zimbabwean joke
Dear sugar pie My chiken bone, i love yu. Wen i think u i heppy. I writting this massive leta to telling u that i am a love yu my sugar refinery. Wen yu tok to me i laugh becoz yu speaking chocolet voice. Hahahaaa i am a loving yu sterek. Dont hear John becoz he is a jealous baranz. He is a boring with a love of us. Me and yu are dead together , who is John on a meat of chicken? Sha i now working of securit gard Focet. I starting wek next wik. So cash of a lot of money just worry, yu are a maried of me next years my dilly daling. Thank yu once again fo spagorising my letology. I love yu fo eva and eva amen. I am a waiting to look yu Satadey afta chech, i off satadey so i am a look yu. Yours rosted chiken and chips Penentration.
Logic revisited
Who Makes Them This Way? | Clarissa's Blog
I think it's not logical THOUGHT that keeps women oppressed but rather gender-related *rhetoric* concerning "logic", which is not the same thing at all. For instance, if I say something that others don't want to acknowledge, for political, social or personal reasons, it can be the case that the one who is happier not to know will condemn my words as being "illogical".
I think the problem is that people don't really know what logic is. Again and again I've seen people express the idea that my normal, everyday speech is in some way a particular "logical fallacy". But, unless I am advancing a logical argument, there is no way I am in an position to make any sort of fallacy. Furthermore, it is oppressive to suggest that everyday speech is somehow in the mode of particular "logical fallacies".
I think it's not logical THOUGHT that keeps women oppressed but rather gender-related *rhetoric* concerning "logic", which is not the same thing at all. For instance, if I say something that others don't want to acknowledge, for political, social or personal reasons, it can be the case that the one who is happier not to know will condemn my words as being "illogical".
I think the problem is that people don't really know what logic is. Again and again I've seen people express the idea that my normal, everyday speech is in some way a particular "logical fallacy". But, unless I am advancing a logical argument, there is no way I am in an position to make any sort of fallacy. Furthermore, it is oppressive to suggest that everyday speech is somehow in the mode of particular "logical fallacies".
Letting it be
Who Makes Them This Way? | Clarissa's Blog
I can't speak for other people, but in the past I had to try to adapt to a society that made no sense to me, but was very demanding. The society was highly parental. People felt the need to reprimand me or to morally scold me in a number of ways, whilst demanding that I change. So, I got into a mode of, "Well if you're going to play the scolding parents, you're going to play the nurturing ones too. So, here is what I need....."
I really think, and I have said so before, that Western culture, especially industrialized Anglo-Saxon culture has a huge *moral* hangup about "colonialism". It's not even a particularly historical hangup, which would be useful. Instead, it's history denied and dissolved into morality. So, berating me was a way for a lot of people to feel better about their 'identities'.
It's been an ongoing problem, but it's not to do with me. I can move from Occidental to Oriental contexts, and the issue disappears without a trace. Go back to the Occident and there it is again.
Anyway, I decided to charge people for the liberties they took in morally scolding me. I would return to them and say, "So what are you going to give me now that I'm your 'child' and you have decided to take on the role of moral scold?"
I think I have been quite an unpleasant person -- but people have to learn how to let others simply be.
I can't speak for other people, but in the past I had to try to adapt to a society that made no sense to me, but was very demanding. The society was highly parental. People felt the need to reprimand me or to morally scold me in a number of ways, whilst demanding that I change. So, I got into a mode of, "Well if you're going to play the scolding parents, you're going to play the nurturing ones too. So, here is what I need....."
I really think, and I have said so before, that Western culture, especially industrialized Anglo-Saxon culture has a huge *moral* hangup about "colonialism". It's not even a particularly historical hangup, which would be useful. Instead, it's history denied and dissolved into morality. So, berating me was a way for a lot of people to feel better about their 'identities'.
It's been an ongoing problem, but it's not to do with me. I can move from Occidental to Oriental contexts, and the issue disappears without a trace. Go back to the Occident and there it is again.
Anyway, I decided to charge people for the liberties they took in morally scolding me. I would return to them and say, "So what are you going to give me now that I'm your 'child' and you have decided to take on the role of moral scold?"
I think I have been quite an unpleasant person -- but people have to learn how to let others simply be.
Wednesday 27 March 2013
Tuesday 26 March 2013
Making dogmas out of so-called natural laws
Communities Keep Sucking | Clarissa's Blog
Apparently my satire on taking "natural laws" as dogma cannot be understood easily by American atheists. I was really mocking the MRAs, who hold that there are natural laws that women must submit to, in order to fulfill their "natures". But here there is an overlap between USA atheism and MRAs, since both would like to hold that there are "natural" gender differences that must be acknowledged and if need be, reinforced.
Anyway, some militant atheist guy on Facebook was unable to understand whether my video was mocking science or something else. This shows the degree to which there has not been any critique of ideological dogma or of the idea of invoking "natural principles" in the atheist community. In a way it seems that atheists just want to replace the authority of religion with the authority of what they take to be science, including the spurious ideas of much of "evolutionary psychology". They especially hate that feminists question this authority, because then they are left without a dogma and feel threatened.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6_cEVSj4XA
Apparently my satire on taking "natural laws" as dogma cannot be understood easily by American atheists. I was really mocking the MRAs, who hold that there are natural laws that women must submit to, in order to fulfill their "natures". But here there is an overlap between USA atheism and MRAs, since both would like to hold that there are "natural" gender differences that must be acknowledged and if need be, reinforced.
Anyway, some militant atheist guy on Facebook was unable to understand whether my video was mocking science or something else. This shows the degree to which there has not been any critique of ideological dogma or of the idea of invoking "natural principles" in the atheist community. In a way it seems that atheists just want to replace the authority of religion with the authority of what they take to be science, including the spurious ideas of much of "evolutionary psychology". They especially hate that feminists question this authority, because then they are left without a dogma and feel threatened.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6_cEVSj4XA
American atheism
Communities Keep Sucking | Clarissa's Blog
The American atheists don't like feminists because Rebecca Watson and those around her exposed some of their behavior as slightly sexist. This led to huge, extremely sexist vendetta against all women who could be identified as feminist in any way. The tired old notions that women are oversensitive or irrational originate from Christian dogma. American atheists are so deeply enmired in these notions that they can't even see them for what they are.
The American atheists don't like feminists because Rebecca Watson and those around her exposed some of their behavior as slightly sexist. This led to huge, extremely sexist vendetta against all women who could be identified as feminist in any way. The tired old notions that women are oversensitive or irrational originate from Christian dogma. American atheists are so deeply enmired in these notions that they can't even see them for what they are.
Monday 25 March 2013
The limits and effects of language, as Nietzsche sees it.
How to communicate effectively. First, have experiences in common.
Defeat them easily.
We Could Have Defeated Them So Easily! | Clarissa's Blog
I noticed way back “We need more efficiency and management!” always sounded to me like, “We need the noose a little tighter around our necks!” Of course, this is what happened.
I should say in relation to my earlier comment that the only reason I noticed the phenomenon or why it seemed like an aberration or defiance of common sense was that my whole cultural background was one of political and economic defiance against the British regime, which did not want to grant its colony power under a white, minority rule. So we played games and got into some high jinx. The whole point and the whole spirit that was in the air was to show that the regime could keep going despite the powers-that-be trying to block it. Improvising, rather than asking for help was considered to be very impressive by our countrymen. We all learned the psychology of making it work and defying external systems of 'law and order' to do so. Fun times -- but it makes servility particularly hard to bear.
I noticed way back “We need more efficiency and management!” always sounded to me like, “We need the noose a little tighter around our necks!” Of course, this is what happened.
I should say in relation to my earlier comment that the only reason I noticed the phenomenon or why it seemed like an aberration or defiance of common sense was that my whole cultural background was one of political and economic defiance against the British regime, which did not want to grant its colony power under a white, minority rule. So we played games and got into some high jinx. The whole point and the whole spirit that was in the air was to show that the regime could keep going despite the powers-that-be trying to block it. Improvising, rather than asking for help was considered to be very impressive by our countrymen. We all learned the psychology of making it work and defying external systems of 'law and order' to do so. Fun times -- but it makes servility particularly hard to bear.
Sunday 24 March 2013
Metaphysics in the mind
There are indeed a lot of religious tropes in much of contemporary atheism -- such as the blind trust in 'logic' to furnish one with a world view, even though logic is a method for thinking clearly, no more. There is also the religiously based blind supposition that women are against science, or that we are inherently different from males in our manner of thinking.
When gender ideologies erase experience
Sunday Link Encyclopedia and Self-Promotion | Clarissa's Blog
“A birth is not supposed to be “beautiful” or “romantic”, you stupid twat.”
One wonders about the judgement of a person whose ideology of femininity exceeds her experience of her own biology. I mean female biology can be, and often is, and extremely violent thing. Giving birth is about the most extreme of the violence of which female biology is capable. It’s not an act of “femininity” in the conventional cultural sense. But then again, if you are female, you ought not to have to be told that.
“A birth is not supposed to be “beautiful” or “romantic”, you stupid twat.”
One wonders about the judgement of a person whose ideology of femininity exceeds her experience of her own biology. I mean female biology can be, and often is, and extremely violent thing. Giving birth is about the most extreme of the violence of which female biology is capable. It’s not an act of “femininity” in the conventional cultural sense. But then again, if you are female, you ought not to have to be told that.
Saturday 23 March 2013
THE THREE LEVELS OF SHAMANIC KNOWLEDGE
Somebody pulled up in the drive as I was making this one, but it still has all you need to know.
We Could Have Defeated Them So Easily! | Clarissa's Blog
We Could Have Defeated Them So Easily! | Clarissa's Blog
It’s the consumerist mentality again. People aim for personal, short-term gain, with the smallest expenditure, rather than looking at the issue in a long-term frame. Ego benefits by proclaiming one’s gender the best, and always right. It doesn’t matter how that messes with anything long term. Ego has its slice of cake out of the whole affair.
It’s the consumerist mentality again. People aim for personal, short-term gain, with the smallest expenditure, rather than looking at the issue in a long-term frame. Ego benefits by proclaiming one’s gender the best, and always right. It doesn’t matter how that messes with anything long term. Ego has its slice of cake out of the whole affair.
Friday 22 March 2013
MRAs
A lot of Men's Right's Activists suffer from problems that have their sources in the workplace, rather than in feminism. They don’t want to address these issues, because an authoritarian cannot take on the boss. He can’t go against the grain of his authoritarianism. So, he takes out his anger on ‘feminism’. I’ve even mentioned this on their sites (YouTube is one of their sites).
But of course they refuse to see the obvious.
But of course they refuse to see the obvious.
Please! Violate my rights some more. I cannot stand it!
Fired for Jokes and for Reporting Jokes | Clarissa's Blog
The animal that has attracted parasites cannot think for itself and turns against its own interests. There are insects who travel up leaf, instead of downward, in their normal direction, to give birth to a parasite from their heads.
This is the state of the contemporary person in most advanced industrialized societies. They've been played not once, but again and again -- and each time, they fall for the tricks anew, because they've already accepted the parasite.
Eventually, they will climb up leaf and die and parasites will come pouring out of their heads to start a new parasitical cycle.
Why does USA have no decent health care system to speak of and why do so many of its citizens continue to repulse a system that would take care of their health?
Parasites!
They will climb up the leaf and they will die in due course, but their unfortunate legacy will live on.
I just get so angry when people turn on each other instead of seeing that their rights have been violated.
The animal that has attracted parasites cannot think for itself and turns against its own interests. There are insects who travel up leaf, instead of downward, in their normal direction, to give birth to a parasite from their heads.
This is the state of the contemporary person in most advanced industrialized societies. They've been played not once, but again and again -- and each time, they fall for the tricks anew, because they've already accepted the parasite.
Eventually, they will climb up leaf and die and parasites will come pouring out of their heads to start a new parasitical cycle.
Why does USA have no decent health care system to speak of and why do so many of its citizens continue to repulse a system that would take care of their health?
Parasites!
They will climb up the leaf and they will die in due course, but their unfortunate legacy will live on.
Thursday 21 March 2013
I am to blame!
The Funniest Comment Ever | Clarissa's Blog
To be frank, I'm also the true source of all the problems in the world, since I came from colonial Africa as a white child, at the age of 15. From that point on, I began spreading pestilence. If only people could get me to renounce my intrinsic, ineradicable racism and my enormous superiority and my lack of morals, the world would suddenly become a better place.
But it isn't. Because of me.
To be frank, I'm also the true source of all the problems in the world, since I came from colonial Africa as a white child, at the age of 15. From that point on, I began spreading pestilence. If only people could get me to renounce my intrinsic, ineradicable racism and my enormous superiority and my lack of morals, the world would suddenly become a better place.
But it isn't. Because of me.
What logic can and cannot do
Transvaginal Probes and Genetic Testing | Clarissa's Blog
I find that it is extremely common for males from Northern America to try to use logic to do the role that religion otherwise plays for them. In effect, they misunderstand the nature of logic because they assume that it can furnish them with a world view and confirm the difference between absolute truth and absolute error. In actual fact, logic doesn't quite work in this way. Rather, it is a method to insure consistency between various statements one may make. If one's world view is already messed up or nonexistent, pure logic cannot give you a world view. It's not a means to define what is real and what isn't. In fact the logical positivists were severely let down when they tried to use it in that way. They grappled endlessly with the statement, "Pegasus doesn't exist."
They went mad over it, because they had a very significant problem with trying to get language to do all the work of defining reality for them when language was already capable of asserting a fantastical creature's existence (despite retracting the sense of its existence with the word, "not".) If one can use a word, then that means it is necessarily indicative of part of absolute reality -- so reasoned the logical positivists. But they were mistaken. Language is a relativistic structure or what Nietzsche calls "a mobile army of metaphors".
In any case, language and logic can't do all the work for us of furnishing us with a world view. Our reason is not bestowed from above, but emerges from our humanity. To think otherwise is to embrace a quasi-religious perspective, without realizing one is doing this.
Indeed such quasi-religious perspectives may present a clear and present danger to public health, if one happens to be sucked into the vacuity that is North American "thinking".
I find that it is extremely common for males from Northern America to try to use logic to do the role that religion otherwise plays for them. In effect, they misunderstand the nature of logic because they assume that it can furnish them with a world view and confirm the difference between absolute truth and absolute error. In actual fact, logic doesn't quite work in this way. Rather, it is a method to insure consistency between various statements one may make. If one's world view is already messed up or nonexistent, pure logic cannot give you a world view. It's not a means to define what is real and what isn't. In fact the logical positivists were severely let down when they tried to use it in that way. They grappled endlessly with the statement, "Pegasus doesn't exist."
They went mad over it, because they had a very significant problem with trying to get language to do all the work of defining reality for them when language was already capable of asserting a fantastical creature's existence (despite retracting the sense of its existence with the word, "not".) If one can use a word, then that means it is necessarily indicative of part of absolute reality -- so reasoned the logical positivists. But they were mistaken. Language is a relativistic structure or what Nietzsche calls "a mobile army of metaphors".
In any case, language and logic can't do all the work for us of furnishing us with a world view. Our reason is not bestowed from above, but emerges from our humanity. To think otherwise is to embrace a quasi-religious perspective, without realizing one is doing this.
Indeed such quasi-religious perspectives may present a clear and present danger to public health, if one happens to be sucked into the vacuity that is North American "thinking".
Wednesday 20 March 2013
These apes are going to Zimbabwe, too
You Wouldn't Believe How Fast Americans Are Losing Their Religion -- But the Fundamentalists Have a Plan | Alternet
For a long time they've been imposing grotty U.S. culture over there -- junk food ideologies.
QUOTE:
What's less well known is that three American evangelical preachers, Scott Lively, Caleb Lee Brundidge and Don Schmierer, visited the country a month before the bill was introduced, giving talks about how "the gay movement is an evil institution" which seeks to prey on children, destroy "the moral fiber of the people," and abolish marriage and the family and replace it with "a culture of sexual promiscuity." Lively boasted that their campaign was "a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda," and later admitted to meeting with Ugandan lawmakers to help draft the bill, although he professed ignorance of the death penalty provision. Other American evangelicals, including Kevin Swanson and Lou Engle, have also expressed their support for the so-called Kill the Gays bill.
For a long time they've been imposing grotty U.S. culture over there -- junk food ideologies.
QUOTE:
What's less well known is that three American evangelical preachers, Scott Lively, Caleb Lee Brundidge and Don Schmierer, visited the country a month before the bill was introduced, giving talks about how "the gay movement is an evil institution" which seeks to prey on children, destroy "the moral fiber of the people," and abolish marriage and the family and replace it with "a culture of sexual promiscuity." Lively boasted that their campaign was "a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda," and later admitted to meeting with Ugandan lawmakers to help draft the bill, although he professed ignorance of the death penalty provision. Other American evangelicals, including Kevin Swanson and Lou Engle, have also expressed their support for the so-called Kill the Gays bill.
Twiddling the thumb
http://clarissasblog.com/2013/03/20/who-undermines-women/#comment-87385
And then somebody has the temerity to down vote Clarissa's justified complaint. People just don't like it when they can't feel justified crossing someone else's boundaries.
I'm well aware that it is considered a social faux pas these days to make note of someone's "race" (a dubious concept), but not their gender. One can engage in subtle dominance ploys only in the latter case. But nonetheless, I had cause to respond to somebody recently who persistently overstepped the boundaries after I warned him off. Here is how it went :
ApeNOXIOUS: Thanks, Jennifer! btw, you are looking very feminine!Congrats!
Jennifer Frances Armstrong: Congratulating me for looking pleasing to a male is mindnumbingly stupid. Far better to try to demonstrate an understanding of the complex ideas I have spent time putting across.
•
LeeAnne Fourcrows Hensley: Looking "feminine" is a circumstance of one's birth. Not a personal accomplishment. Therefore it is an insult to congratulate someone on their feminine appearance, especially when they are a brilliant and accomplished individual.
•
Jennifer Frances Armstrong: Thanks, LeeAnne. It's people emulating the regressive Christian culture that comes from the US. They think a woman's greatest achievement can only be to please various random men.
[......]
•
Jennifer Frances Armstrong Those with insight express it, those with none fall back on traditional gender roles. Thus it was, thus it always will be. Gender roles are the ultimate security blanket for the one who must travel blindly through life.
•
LeeAnne Fourcrows Hensley I am grateful to my insight. Because the world would be a shallow, meaningless place without it.
•
Jennifer Frances Armstrong Yup. But those without insight are keen to perpetuate their own experiences of the world.
•
LeeAnne Fourcrows Hensley Lack of personal development. Reduces the intellectual and emotional capacity to a fraction of what it was built to be.
•
Jennifer Frances Armstrong: But it's also partly a matter of opportunity and culture....
ApeNOXIOUS: i have only said that you look feminine ,excuse me please.
Jennifer Frances Armstrong: Ok, well congratulations! You have black skin. Well done my man. I'm happy to notice it for you. It's rather shiny and flattering.
•
ApeNOXIOUSI didn't tell you that you are beautiful.
•
Jennifer Frances Armstrong I have no idea what you are getting at, but getting the brain in gear might be good
•
Jennifer Frances Armstrong and keep working on your blackness. It is pleasing to me...but not beautiful.
•
ApeNOXIOUS: You can be 'ugly' and feminine.
•
Jennifer Frances Armstrong: Ok, I am blockiing this idiot.
And then somebody has the temerity to down vote Clarissa's justified complaint. People just don't like it when they can't feel justified crossing someone else's boundaries.
I'm well aware that it is considered a social faux pas these days to make note of someone's "race" (a dubious concept), but not their gender. One can engage in subtle dominance ploys only in the latter case. But nonetheless, I had cause to respond to somebody recently who persistently overstepped the boundaries after I warned him off. Here is how it went :
ApeNOXIOUS: Thanks, Jennifer! btw, you are looking very feminine!Congrats!
Jennifer Frances Armstrong: Congratulating me for looking pleasing to a male is mindnumbingly stupid. Far better to try to demonstrate an understanding of the complex ideas I have spent time putting across.
•
LeeAnne Fourcrows Hensley: Looking "feminine" is a circumstance of one's birth. Not a personal accomplishment. Therefore it is an insult to congratulate someone on their feminine appearance, especially when they are a brilliant and accomplished individual.
•
Jennifer Frances Armstrong: Thanks, LeeAnne. It's people emulating the regressive Christian culture that comes from the US. They think a woman's greatest achievement can only be to please various random men.
[......]
•
Jennifer Frances Armstrong Those with insight express it, those with none fall back on traditional gender roles. Thus it was, thus it always will be. Gender roles are the ultimate security blanket for the one who must travel blindly through life.
•
LeeAnne Fourcrows Hensley I am grateful to my insight. Because the world would be a shallow, meaningless place without it.
•
Jennifer Frances Armstrong Yup. But those without insight are keen to perpetuate their own experiences of the world.
•
LeeAnne Fourcrows Hensley Lack of personal development. Reduces the intellectual and emotional capacity to a fraction of what it was built to be.
•
Jennifer Frances Armstrong: But it's also partly a matter of opportunity and culture....
ApeNOXIOUS: i have only said that you look feminine ,excuse me please.
Jennifer Frances Armstrong: Ok, well congratulations! You have black skin. Well done my man. I'm happy to notice it for you. It's rather shiny and flattering.
•
ApeNOXIOUSI didn't tell you that you are beautiful.
•
Jennifer Frances Armstrong I have no idea what you are getting at, but getting the brain in gear might be good
•
Jennifer Frances Armstrong and keep working on your blackness. It is pleasing to me...but not beautiful.
•
ApeNOXIOUS: You can be 'ugly' and feminine.
•
Jennifer Frances Armstrong: Ok, I am blockiing this idiot.
Tuesday 19 March 2013
Apes are confused!
I Finally Feel Very Understood | Clarissa's Blog
People are basically confused about everything. I have someone asking me on YouTube whether Westerners can be shamans. I say that there is indeed a Western type of shamanism, contractible through Nietzsche and Bataille and through the African writer Marechera, if you are already African enough to understand him.
This person writes back that these authors would make a "good start" for writing her forthcoming essay.
I responded, truthfully, that it took me over a decade to understand Nietzsche and that Bataille is difficult, too.
They responded, somewhat sarcastically I think, that one has to "start somewhere".
But this is so much not the point. To achieve something as publicly recognizable as a building of oneself, or to propose comparative measures in terms of the amount of knowledge one has accumulated, is not an essential part of shamanism. One has to go through the process of learning, which can take decades, but this doesn't mean anything unless the outcome is what one had wanted. One could just as easily spend years on a useless project or on the wrong path.
Making comparisons whilst you are asking for knowledge as to how to make your own way is singularly pointless.
People are basically confused about everything. I have someone asking me on YouTube whether Westerners can be shamans. I say that there is indeed a Western type of shamanism, contractible through Nietzsche and Bataille and through the African writer Marechera, if you are already African enough to understand him.
This person writes back that these authors would make a "good start" for writing her forthcoming essay.
I responded, truthfully, that it took me over a decade to understand Nietzsche and that Bataille is difficult, too.
They responded, somewhat sarcastically I think, that one has to "start somewhere".
But this is so much not the point. To achieve something as publicly recognizable as a building of oneself, or to propose comparative measures in terms of the amount of knowledge one has accumulated, is not an essential part of shamanism. One has to go through the process of learning, which can take decades, but this doesn't mean anything unless the outcome is what one had wanted. One could just as easily spend years on a useless project or on the wrong path.
Making comparisons whilst you are asking for knowledge as to how to make your own way is singularly pointless.
Metaphysics already in the "soul"
I changed this video to black-&-white to eliminate the distraction posed by my hay fever.
Sunday 17 March 2013
Saturday 16 March 2013
identity politicians -- a contemporary scourge
I find those who embrace identity politics are generally intellectually and emotionally lazy. They want other people to solve their problems for them, and they try to get this to happen by making others feel guilty, so that we will rush around and offer them support or nurture their always tender feelings. They've learned to use emotional blackmail to get their interests served, rather than using effort of their own.
Friday 15 March 2013
Thursday 14 March 2013
Start spreading the news....
Americans, who have discovered the hidden, esoteric laws of reality are keen to evangelize the news. They can't help themselves. They are full with spirit....of it all. Thus one guy last night informed me in a way that may well have been pompous had I been able to personally observe him, "feminism goes against the law of evolutionary biology." Stupidly is amply spread in the USA. Almost everyone has something of it. I couldn't help asking whether he applied the law personally in some situations, whereupon he announced that he certainly did, "directly".
This is so unbelievably funny. It made my night. Some guy is going to apply an impersonal law "directly".
I want him to come back again so I can be assured he is applying the law of gravity correctly when he suddenly gets out of bed in the middle of the night.
I love yanks.
Luuurv them!
Wednesday 13 March 2013
Tuesday 12 March 2013
Monday 11 March 2013
Sunday 10 March 2013
Saturday 9 March 2013
Take a leap of faith!
It's part of African cultures, but Western morality makes people way too cautious and circumspect.
Intellectual shamanism and the 'end of history'
History doesn't end -- but one should depart from its deterministic logic and rejoin it with a fresh mind!
Friday 8 March 2013
Absurd categorizations
Categorical thinking can be useful, but one also needs to understand that after a certain point it is obstructive thinking.
Thursday 7 March 2013
Oppression and identities
What Makes People Transphobic? | Clarissa's Blog
I think the only way to solve the problem of oppression through identities is to deny identities, not to dig into them still deeper. I'm not Marcusian in that sense. It was surely a failed experiment to expect people to start a revolution on the basis of their identities in relation to historical oppression. It's not that there haven't been revolutions of that sort, but they generally make things worse. It really is a spectacle to behold. People are so immersed in their petty guilt complexes and in the power trips entailed in guilt-tripping others, that they cannot see that this leads nowhere practical and just makes things worse. People like Mugabe love having this arrow in their quiver, because they can keep committing atrocities. His party's youth members burned alive the 12 year old son of an opposition politician, in his house, recently. His name was Christpower Maisiri. Nobody in the West will say anything about anything that involves 'black on black' violence, because...colonialism.
So you have a lot of self-righteous people morally purifying themselves from within, and having a righteous old time They know how to discipline members of their own fold and exert authoritative power over them, but they don't dare to comment on the issues relating to the world at large. That would be...um...sinful...overstepping the boundaries... losing the pleasures of the masochism involved in hair shirt whiteness.
And we are to believe that this isn't a meta form of domination? That it is not part of the process of continual colonisation of our minds?
Well, yes we are. And mea culpa and all that. See you in hell.
I think the only way to solve the problem of oppression through identities is to deny identities, not to dig into them still deeper. I'm not Marcusian in that sense. It was surely a failed experiment to expect people to start a revolution on the basis of their identities in relation to historical oppression. It's not that there haven't been revolutions of that sort, but they generally make things worse. It really is a spectacle to behold. People are so immersed in their petty guilt complexes and in the power trips entailed in guilt-tripping others, that they cannot see that this leads nowhere practical and just makes things worse. People like Mugabe love having this arrow in their quiver, because they can keep committing atrocities. His party's youth members burned alive the 12 year old son of an opposition politician, in his house, recently. His name was Christpower Maisiri. Nobody in the West will say anything about anything that involves 'black on black' violence, because...colonialism.
So you have a lot of self-righteous people morally purifying themselves from within, and having a righteous old time They know how to discipline members of their own fold and exert authoritative power over them, but they don't dare to comment on the issues relating to the world at large. That would be...um...sinful...overstepping the boundaries... losing the pleasures of the masochism involved in hair shirt whiteness.
And we are to believe that this isn't a meta form of domination? That it is not part of the process of continual colonisation of our minds?
Well, yes we are. And mea culpa and all that. See you in hell.
Feminism and the motherly disposition
I had a conversation on Facebook last night with a really nice feminist. I think she is somewhat mistaken, though, as she buys into some notions that seem to be based in religion -- implicit metaphysical notions of purity and contamination. She states that hierarchy IS patriarchy. She also states that one enters a woman only group in order to be free of domination by men, since (she states) women cannot dominate men, but men dominate women.
I raised the issue with her of how many women use “women only” groups as an arena where they dominate other women. She replied that this is because they have too much patriarchy in them, and that it takes a while to get it out.
There are many situations where women take the opportunity to dominate and exert control over others, using various issues as a pretext.
I don’t agree at all that hierarchy=patriarchy. Rather, it is often the case that a respect for formal station and hierarchy is the only thing that separates us from patriarchy, since otherwise everybody reverts to the more “natural” roles they had within their families of origin, where (of course) all adult women are, by necessity, mothers.
So, I really think we need to get away from female interest groups and the fear of hierarchy. It’s not that we should be craven and desire hierarchy for its own sake. It’s just that a formal social structure (i.e. hierarchy) gives women an opportunity to be recognised for something other than being mothers (or, motherly).
Wednesday 6 March 2013
Tuesday 5 March 2013
Monday 4 March 2013
Shamanic initiation through exposure to Nature
Nature doesn't have rules for you to learn. Species have rules. Eco-systems have rules. But Nature only has two sides: one seductive and the other terrifying.
Sunday 3 March 2013
Introduction to 'intellectual shamanism' PART 1.
As humans, shamanic experience is our birthright. So what are the impediments to grasping it?
In another video, I will talk about the meaning of gaining familiarity with each of these different levels of experience accessible to us.
Saturday 2 March 2013
Friday 1 March 2013
Bataille after a wilderness trip (literally)
My contempt for identity politics (parts one and two)
My knowledge of Western culture's machinations of conformity.
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