Monday 31 March 2014
"Master Morality" (NOT a walk in the park!)
Nietzsche's master morality concerns a character structure that has its primarily relationship to honor, to discharging debt and to duty, whereas contemporary egoism? -- It seems more to do with gaining self-esteem by appealing to the regard of others.
Master morality is no 'walk in the park', for it can be experienced as a crushing burden, albeit one that is inescapable when one's character structure was already formed by it, from an early age.
Some what I say in this video will be deemed politically offensive by some listeners. However, I've never been impressed by the ethics of those who cannot even absorb what I am saying without contending moralistically against the very facts I have presented. History is what it was.
Weight Loss | Clarissa's Blog
The gym won’t help you to lose weight unless you get so stressed that you go off your food, which slightly happened to me last week or so. Actually I had aches in unusual places from my increased training (try the top of the thigh at the leg joint, also inside the pelvis bones and across the chest under the rib cage — very strange indeed. true story.)
Don't try this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rMjuAIrLOg&feature=channel&list=UL
Sunday 30 March 2014
Saturday 29 March 2014
Friday 28 March 2014
I Can’t Teach Literature | Clarissa's Blog
I Can’t Teach Literature | Clarissa's Blog
Here is how deep Christian patriarchy is in Western culture. People see the male as the rational principle and assume that whatever he is doing it must be for the best. Let me explain: When you are being strongly psychologically assaulted on an ongoing basis by an ex-soldier who is used to a high degree of psychological sadism and has normalised it, and when this has been occurring since you were fifteen, you are not considered a credible witness in your own case. Why? Because you don't know where the line SHOULD be drawn between normal behavior and craziness and because you are a bit emotionally wrecked.
This was my situation in relation to my father and ABSOLUTELY NOBODY took my side. Instead they took his. And he was playing fast and loose, trying to pass off all the blame for his obnoxoius behavior onto me. To criticise him was to be "too sensitive" and "emotional".
And Christians lap this sort of stuff up. Even those professing atheism or secular sensibilities can't seem to get enough of it. The only way I've been able to escape my trauma is to cross cultural barriers and speak exclusively to Japanese. They don't have this same way of codifying "emotion" as a negative trait, (like a hot potato -- whomever is left holding it is the loser).
Really, I IS good to know that there are normal people in the world -- and I will speak to some of them today! :)
But here is who things were, when I was trying to figure it all out intellectually and more generally.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsmNqYyV-FY
Here is how deep Christian patriarchy is in Western culture. People see the male as the rational principle and assume that whatever he is doing it must be for the best. Let me explain: When you are being strongly psychologically assaulted on an ongoing basis by an ex-soldier who is used to a high degree of psychological sadism and has normalised it, and when this has been occurring since you were fifteen, you are not considered a credible witness in your own case. Why? Because you don't know where the line SHOULD be drawn between normal behavior and craziness and because you are a bit emotionally wrecked.
This was my situation in relation to my father and ABSOLUTELY NOBODY took my side. Instead they took his. And he was playing fast and loose, trying to pass off all the blame for his obnoxoius behavior onto me. To criticise him was to be "too sensitive" and "emotional".
And Christians lap this sort of stuff up. Even those professing atheism or secular sensibilities can't seem to get enough of it. The only way I've been able to escape my trauma is to cross cultural barriers and speak exclusively to Japanese. They don't have this same way of codifying "emotion" as a negative trait, (like a hot potato -- whomever is left holding it is the loser).
Really, I IS good to know that there are normal people in the world -- and I will speak to some of them today! :)
But here is who things were, when I was trying to figure it all out intellectually and more generally.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsmNqYyV-FY
I Can’t Teach Literature | Clarissa's Blog
I Can’t Teach Literature | Clarissa's Blog
Christian society is very backward. Christianity forms the historical and ideological bedrock underneath any form of secularism in Western cultures. So you can always expect some breathtaking idiocy to make its appearance. By contrast, Japanese culture is like breathing clean air. Everything is just remarkably charming and psychologically normal. But the Westerners usually get around to accusing me of manipulating them in some way, just because they cannot understand all the ins and outs of something I may have done. They start attacking me as an evil, “feminine” principle and I have to duck for cover. I’m really tired of this, but that is their fallback position when they cannot immediately understand everything about everything. They resort to Christian metaphysics as an explanatory mechanism. The more different you are from them, it seems, the more they resort to it. They’re such turkeys.
Christian society is very backward. Christianity forms the historical and ideological bedrock underneath any form of secularism in Western cultures. So you can always expect some breathtaking idiocy to make its appearance. By contrast, Japanese culture is like breathing clean air. Everything is just remarkably charming and psychologically normal. But the Westerners usually get around to accusing me of manipulating them in some way, just because they cannot understand all the ins and outs of something I may have done. They start attacking me as an evil, “feminine” principle and I have to duck for cover. I’m really tired of this, but that is their fallback position when they cannot immediately understand everything about everything. They resort to Christian metaphysics as an explanatory mechanism. The more different you are from them, it seems, the more they resort to it. They’re such turkeys.
Russia’s Big Win at the UN | Clarissa's Blog
Russia’s Big Win at the UN | Clarissa's Blog
Sorry, my reactions are all bad and these kinds of things make them wronger than ever because I get into a mindset that everything is an outrageous farce. Therefore I do not take anything seriously and behave like the donkey's but-tocks. But I have been increasingly disappointed for many years by the prevailing quality of ignorance just about everywhere. As Marechera says, rewriting (I think it is) Voltaire, the savage that went abroad would be faced with the most extreme cerebral shocks that he would likely return to his homeland with an altogether shocking notion of "civilisation" and what it entailed.
So, please excuse me and my lack of appropriate seriousness and generally bad attitude all 'round.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsmNqYyV-FY
Sorry, my reactions are all bad and these kinds of things make them wronger than ever because I get into a mindset that everything is an outrageous farce. Therefore I do not take anything seriously and behave like the donkey's but-tocks. But I have been increasingly disappointed for many years by the prevailing quality of ignorance just about everywhere. As Marechera says, rewriting (I think it is) Voltaire, the savage that went abroad would be faced with the most extreme cerebral shocks that he would likely return to his homeland with an altogether shocking notion of "civilisation" and what it entailed.
So, please excuse me and my lack of appropriate seriousness and generally bad attitude all 'round.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsmNqYyV-FY
Thursday 27 March 2014
Missing Malaysia Airlines plane live: CCTV shows pilots going through security as officials say missing plane 'could have LANDED' - Mirror Online
Missing Malaysia Airlines plane live: CCTV shows pilots going through security as officials say missing plane 'could have LANDED' - Mirror Online
Australian researchers say they believe they know where the cabin of flight MH370 is and that it went down in one piece.
Scientists at the University of Western Australia said that the lack of debris suggests that the plane held together rather than breaking up into little pieces, according to the Daily Telegraph.
Professor charity Pattiaratchi said: "I think the way the plane crashed, a lot of the debris has been kept inside the plane. If the plane broke up, we should see a lot more debris floating around. We should have seen smaller bits of lifejackets and seats, things which are going to float."
He added that the bits of debris that have been seen are likely to be pieces of wing and that the possible wreckage spotted from a Thai satellite are about 249 miles from the impact site.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/missing-malaysia-airlines-plane-live-3251098#ixzz2xDMnX8vF
Follow us: @DailyMirror on Twitter | DailyMirror on Facebook
Australian researchers say they believe they know where the cabin of flight MH370 is and that it went down in one piece.
Scientists at the University of Western Australia said that the lack of debris suggests that the plane held together rather than breaking up into little pieces, according to the Daily Telegraph.
Professor charity Pattiaratchi said: "I think the way the plane crashed, a lot of the debris has been kept inside the plane. If the plane broke up, we should see a lot more debris floating around. We should have seen smaller bits of lifejackets and seats, things which are going to float."
He added that the bits of debris that have been seen are likely to be pieces of wing and that the possible wreckage spotted from a Thai satellite are about 249 miles from the impact site.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/missing-malaysia-airlines-plane-live-3251098#ixzz2xDMnX8vF
Follow us: @DailyMirror on Twitter | DailyMirror on Facebook
Our Political Prospects | Clarissa's Blog
Our Political Prospects | Clarissa's Blog
Well, so there is a difference between being able to split hairs on a moralistic level and getting results. A lot of the politics of the left is a politics of purity. So, as I have said before, Julia Gillard was deemed by many of the far left as not being good enough to represent them, because she wasn't a totally motherly mother figure, she made political compromises and would not support gay marriage. (Can you imagine how much she would have put her position under threat by embracing a controversial proposition like 'gay marriage' when she was already considered a threat to the patriarchy because of her unmarried and atheistic status?) So the far left itself was highly instrumental in bringing down the most leftwing prime minister we've ever had. And now we have the most anachronistic right wing government we may have ever had. Imagine, Tony Abbott wants to bring back knighthoods and not act on climate change and basically capitulate entirely to the principles of neoliberalism.
But perhaps this is what the left wanted all this time? It wants to feel distressed and dissatisfied with itself. It doesn't like its representatives to be in power, because then it feels embarrassed with itself. I mean if you have spent your whole life dreaming up a notion that a really motherly mother would deeply understand you and make darkness into light, but then all you get is a relatively efficacious female politician, perhaps the only way you can maintain your illusion is to be put a right wing patriarch in power?
Such is Australian politics nowadays.
Well, so there is a difference between being able to split hairs on a moralistic level and getting results. A lot of the politics of the left is a politics of purity. So, as I have said before, Julia Gillard was deemed by many of the far left as not being good enough to represent them, because she wasn't a totally motherly mother figure, she made political compromises and would not support gay marriage. (Can you imagine how much she would have put her position under threat by embracing a controversial proposition like 'gay marriage' when she was already considered a threat to the patriarchy because of her unmarried and atheistic status?) So the far left itself was highly instrumental in bringing down the most leftwing prime minister we've ever had. And now we have the most anachronistic right wing government we may have ever had. Imagine, Tony Abbott wants to bring back knighthoods and not act on climate change and basically capitulate entirely to the principles of neoliberalism.
But perhaps this is what the left wanted all this time? It wants to feel distressed and dissatisfied with itself. It doesn't like its representatives to be in power, because then it feels embarrassed with itself. I mean if you have spent your whole life dreaming up a notion that a really motherly mother would deeply understand you and make darkness into light, but then all you get is a relatively efficacious female politician, perhaps the only way you can maintain your illusion is to be put a right wing patriarch in power?
Such is Australian politics nowadays.
Cold War and Chess | Clarissa's Blog
Cold War and Chess | Clarissa's Blog
I would find it hard to imagine that there is any international situation that would not involve some degree of 'cold war' hostilities. There are ideological and political attempts to destablize new political regimes after a war, for instance. Those are the aftershocks that seem to follow any war. I think this may be surprising to people who have not directly lived through hostilities but have nonetheless benefited from them. Other people can more or less anticipate what to expect. But many people are very, very naive about these other types of warfare. They may even talk about "seeing reason" or "improving communication", thus indicating that they have no basis for even beginning to understand the meaning of war. If a situation is chaotic, or bad or 'evil', it is because either one or both parties WANT it to be so. It's rarely due, directly, to a lack of rationality or reason.
I would find it hard to imagine that there is any international situation that would not involve some degree of 'cold war' hostilities. There are ideological and political attempts to destablize new political regimes after a war, for instance. Those are the aftershocks that seem to follow any war. I think this may be surprising to people who have not directly lived through hostilities but have nonetheless benefited from them. Other people can more or less anticipate what to expect. But many people are very, very naive about these other types of warfare. They may even talk about "seeing reason" or "improving communication", thus indicating that they have no basis for even beginning to understand the meaning of war. If a situation is chaotic, or bad or 'evil', it is because either one or both parties WANT it to be so. It's rarely due, directly, to a lack of rationality or reason.
Wednesday 26 March 2014
Moral defensiveness and the fear of moral contamination
This relates to Nietzsche's notion that consciousness is "a stomach" -- and some people have weak digestion indeed, therefore their consciousness revolves around moral issues.Nietzsche was not wrong that there is something slimy about expressions of morality. Likely these stem from a terror of extreme violence and extreme vulnerability. It is better to face these things with courage, but one cannot help distorting logic at times.
Emigration and Immigration | Clarissa's Blog
Emigration and Immigration | Clarissa's Blog
This is good writing and we have many parallels, even down to us both having a revolting experience of an anti-creativity, Marxist FSU.
I think what has taken far too long to dawn on me is the nature of cultural classes. I used to think everyone was equal, but now I understand that cultural classes very much exist. Sure, in some instances their strange culture is a result of some kind of shared cultural trauma, for instance in inheriting a degree of poverty or lack of spark that would enable them to participate more fully in higher cultural experiences, for example philosophy.
But the deliberate knocking down of inspired effort -- the collective tendency to make it much more difficult than it really is -- that seems to be an entrenched attitude for whole groups of people. Even the idea that you cannot simply perform effectively without being passed and assessed and endlessly monitored by your authorities in the hierarchy stems from a certain hatred and suspicion of humanity. (I found that very much in the culture of the FSU.)
In all, I have discovered that most groups have to some degree created a culture of obstruction. They may complain that they are very sad they cannot get ahead and that these obstructions are objective and external to them, but very often they have acquiesced to them so as to belong to a community.
As an outsider, one has to learn to look beyond the complaints and really just not pay them out. After all, this is pointless unless one is seeking group membership, which I am not.
But certainly, the potential of most people is kept at a very low level on the basis of all sorts of superficial justifications about safety and being realistic, when the real issues are about power and belonging.
Even problems with communication are rooted in other people's needs to associate with power and to feel they belong. For instance, whilst in the FSU I raised an objection to my degradation by asserting that it would be appropriate to treat me with respect.
"Respect?" exclaimed the supervisor. "You have to earn it!"
In other words, there is a system of emotional blackmail in place. Once you start to please us by your abject obedience to any and all requests, no matter how arbitrary, we will give you your human dignity back piece by piece. But don't expect it, just because you happen to work here. You're got to earn it back now.
This is good writing and we have many parallels, even down to us both having a revolting experience of an anti-creativity, Marxist FSU.
I think what has taken far too long to dawn on me is the nature of cultural classes. I used to think everyone was equal, but now I understand that cultural classes very much exist. Sure, in some instances their strange culture is a result of some kind of shared cultural trauma, for instance in inheriting a degree of poverty or lack of spark that would enable them to participate more fully in higher cultural experiences, for example philosophy.
But the deliberate knocking down of inspired effort -- the collective tendency to make it much more difficult than it really is -- that seems to be an entrenched attitude for whole groups of people. Even the idea that you cannot simply perform effectively without being passed and assessed and endlessly monitored by your authorities in the hierarchy stems from a certain hatred and suspicion of humanity. (I found that very much in the culture of the FSU.)
In all, I have discovered that most groups have to some degree created a culture of obstruction. They may complain that they are very sad they cannot get ahead and that these obstructions are objective and external to them, but very often they have acquiesced to them so as to belong to a community.
As an outsider, one has to learn to look beyond the complaints and really just not pay them out. After all, this is pointless unless one is seeking group membership, which I am not.
But certainly, the potential of most people is kept at a very low level on the basis of all sorts of superficial justifications about safety and being realistic, when the real issues are about power and belonging.
Even problems with communication are rooted in other people's needs to associate with power and to feel they belong. For instance, whilst in the FSU I raised an objection to my degradation by asserting that it would be appropriate to treat me with respect.
"Respect?" exclaimed the supervisor. "You have to earn it!"
In other words, there is a system of emotional blackmail in place. Once you start to please us by your abject obedience to any and all requests, no matter how arbitrary, we will give you your human dignity back piece by piece. But don't expect it, just because you happen to work here. You're got to earn it back now.
Extreme conditions teach toleration of extreme states
Extreme conditions teach toleration of extreme states from Jennifer Frances Armstrong on Vimeo.
Out of Africa -- common African cultural and political conditions. The psychology of bluff.
Tuesday 25 March 2014
Monday 24 March 2014
New data shows flight MH370 plunged into ocean, says Malaysia PM Najib Razak | The Australian
New data shows flight MH370 plunged into ocean, says Malaysia PM Najib Razak | The Australian
This is an outrageous absurdity.
“It is with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that according to this new data flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean.”
This is an outrageous absurdity.
“It is with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that according to this new data flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean.”
Obsession with Personalities | Clarissa's Blog
Obsession with Personalities | Clarissa's Blog
What is even weirder than the obsession with personalities is the assumption by the average person that they have a handle on 'the truth' so that they can detect when a politician "is lying". Lying is supposed to be the thing that corrupts the character, which in turn creates disasterous political results out of what could have been perfect circumstances. It's just this one tendency -- to lie -- which means we don't have the perfect democratic circumstances we ought to have today.
What is even weirder than the obsession with personalities is the assumption by the average person that they have a handle on 'the truth' so that they can detect when a politician "is lying". Lying is supposed to be the thing that corrupts the character, which in turn creates disasterous political results out of what could have been perfect circumstances. It's just this one tendency -- to lie -- which means we don't have the perfect democratic circumstances we ought to have today.
Sunday 23 March 2014
The shamanic type's absorption of EVIL
Guilt is a social neurotoxin, so most people try to get rid of it by reflexively passing it on to others. Sometimes they do this in the belief that they are acting for the good. The 'shamanic type' does the opposite and contains the socially bestowed evil within him- or herself, rather than passing it on to others. Such a type of human personality is able to develop a high tolerance for the poison, to the extent that they are able to analyse and understand its workings. An ability to tolerate the mind-altering effects of guilt rather than to reflexively react also assists them (indirectly) to defend themselves if they are 'eaten'.
Saturday 22 March 2014
When Soviets Go Religious | Clarissa's Blog
When Soviets Go Religious | Clarissa's Blog
Actually Christianity is based on sado-masochistic dynamics, where women (femininity) are mistakenly viewed as an endless resource, to be used up and wasted at will. In reality, that is just the same as believing you can endlessly exploit the rainforests to make whatever money you want to make. The ecosystem is not made of money and ethics are not made of prestige. Christianity is founded on the unscientific assertion to the effect that the opposite it the case. It's contradictions have already doomed it.
Actually Christianity is based on sado-masochistic dynamics, where women (femininity) are mistakenly viewed as an endless resource, to be used up and wasted at will. In reality, that is just the same as believing you can endlessly exploit the rainforests to make whatever money you want to make. The ecosystem is not made of money and ethics are not made of prestige. Christianity is founded on the unscientific assertion to the effect that the opposite it the case. It's contradictions have already doomed it.
Thursday 20 March 2014
Wednesday 19 March 2014
Missing Malaysia Airlines plane lacked $US10 upgrade that could have provided crucial satellite data for search
Missing Malaysia Airlines plane lacked $US10 upgrade that could have provided crucial satellite data for search
The new information indicates that had the upgrade for a system called Swift been installed, it would have continued to send flight data by satellite even after the plane's transponder and Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) communications went dead.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/missing-malaysia-airlines-plane-lacked-us10-upgrade-that-could-have-provided-crucial-satellite-data-for-search-20140320-hvkna.html#ixzz2wSTg8knq
The new information indicates that had the upgrade for a system called Swift been installed, it would have continued to send flight data by satellite even after the plane's transponder and Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) communications went dead.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/missing-malaysia-airlines-plane-lacked-us10-upgrade-that-could-have-provided-crucial-satellite-data-for-search-20140320-hvkna.html#ixzz2wSTg8knq
Bah Humbug
A Finer World | Clarissa's Blog
I read the article you linked to.
The thing with the po-mos, is that they basically get their notions indirectly from Nietzsche, but they don't really understand his criticisms. For Nietzsche, shoots of Enlightenment start a historical march toward The Truth, which in turn lead us to the recognition of the Death of God. Thus it leads humanity to an existential crisis, in having to face what one does about one's knowledge of reality when Truth starts to take on more and more of a negative stark quality, for instance by pointing to our mortality. The sacrifice of the fanciful illusions entailed in religiosity, at the altar of The Truth, seems pointless from a perspective that already admits God is Dead. So one has this quandary as to what to do about Truth, from an atheistic perspective. It's a philosophical issue, bringing up issues of historical progress and aesthetics and what it means to live the good life, and what it means to be ethical. It is not wise, for instance, to be compulsively, brutally honest. Nietzsche eschewed such absolute dictates of behavior.
For Nietzsche, the advancement of Enlightenment thinking was inevitable, but it was also very important that one had to handle this inevitability in such a way that finer feelings and aesthetics and so on, that were part of the religious tradition, were not tossed out along the way.
But anyway, the French bring in their critique of instrumental reason in the 20th century, and it ties in quite well with Nietzsche's modulated stance toward the Enlightenment. But the French do to philosophy what they do to a model on the catwalk, which is to dress [her] up in excessively exaggerated and sometimes shocking ways. It's a cultural trope and I think it does not translate well into Anglo-Saxon culture, which takes everything too literally.
Anglo-Saxon postmodernists are idiots in my view. They are sophists who do not even know they are sophists. Above all, they are the victims of their own unclear thinking about issues.
Literary postmodernism is neither here nor there, but 'philosophical' postmodernism is a piece of nonsense, except in the case that you are French. Then you really ARE ironic and irony is your bread and butter.
And if you really fear progress, you need to look at it more closely to notice what it is you feel you fear. If I am too 'enlightened' it may not be that I start to kill people, but that I have to start acting more like an adult.
It really isn't adult to insist, for instance, that we cannot comment on what happens in some very patriarchal societies because for all we know a woman being stoned to death for some sexual misdemeanor might actually enjoy her full cultural participation in that way and who are we to insist she shouldn't. That is what I would call a childish lack of engagement of the imagination.
Overall, I don't think sophistry is clever, not unless the people doing it have a much better idea of what they're doing and their aims in going about it as they do. You can't just rest assured that it is the right thing to do because you are combating the capital T in Truth.
I read the article you linked to.
The thing with the po-mos, is that they basically get their notions indirectly from Nietzsche, but they don't really understand his criticisms. For Nietzsche, shoots of Enlightenment start a historical march toward The Truth, which in turn lead us to the recognition of the Death of God. Thus it leads humanity to an existential crisis, in having to face what one does about one's knowledge of reality when Truth starts to take on more and more of a negative stark quality, for instance by pointing to our mortality. The sacrifice of the fanciful illusions entailed in religiosity, at the altar of The Truth, seems pointless from a perspective that already admits God is Dead. So one has this quandary as to what to do about Truth, from an atheistic perspective. It's a philosophical issue, bringing up issues of historical progress and aesthetics and what it means to live the good life, and what it means to be ethical. It is not wise, for instance, to be compulsively, brutally honest. Nietzsche eschewed such absolute dictates of behavior.
For Nietzsche, the advancement of Enlightenment thinking was inevitable, but it was also very important that one had to handle this inevitability in such a way that finer feelings and aesthetics and so on, that were part of the religious tradition, were not tossed out along the way.
But anyway, the French bring in their critique of instrumental reason in the 20th century, and it ties in quite well with Nietzsche's modulated stance toward the Enlightenment. But the French do to philosophy what they do to a model on the catwalk, which is to dress [her] up in excessively exaggerated and sometimes shocking ways. It's a cultural trope and I think it does not translate well into Anglo-Saxon culture, which takes everything too literally.
Anglo-Saxon postmodernists are idiots in my view. They are sophists who do not even know they are sophists. Above all, they are the victims of their own unclear thinking about issues.
Literary postmodernism is neither here nor there, but 'philosophical' postmodernism is a piece of nonsense, except in the case that you are French. Then you really ARE ironic and irony is your bread and butter.
And if you really fear progress, you need to look at it more closely to notice what it is you feel you fear. If I am too 'enlightened' it may not be that I start to kill people, but that I have to start acting more like an adult.
It really isn't adult to insist, for instance, that we cannot comment on what happens in some very patriarchal societies because for all we know a woman being stoned to death for some sexual misdemeanor might actually enjoy her full cultural participation in that way and who are we to insist she shouldn't. That is what I would call a childish lack of engagement of the imagination.
Overall, I don't think sophistry is clever, not unless the people doing it have a much better idea of what they're doing and their aims in going about it as they do. You can't just rest assured that it is the right thing to do because you are combating the capital T in Truth.
Shamanism as a metaphor
Shamanism as a metaphor from Jennifer Frances Armstrong on Vimeo.
How one learns to operate "shamanically".
WHEN ONE LOSES EVERYTHING AND IS ERASED
WHEN ONE LOSES EVERYTHING AND IS ERASED from Jennifer Frances Armstrong on Vimeo.
It's not a common experience, fortunately, but here is what it feels like. This relates to my book, MINUS THE MORNING, set in Africa. A memoir.
Tuesday 18 March 2014
Monday 17 March 2014
Sunday 16 March 2014
Q&A: your basic character
Q I want to understand conceptually how structure is built and what it is exactly. For example you talk a lot about the difference between the contemporary western character and a more disciplined sort of character....is discipline something "inner" or something coming from an outside, even if it's oneself pushing himself?
It seems as if discipline is imposed from the outside at an early age and can't come in the same way later on, it's repelled. Nobody wants to be told what to do, no matter if he is disciplined or not, unless there is a masochistic pleasure involved; in any case the problem seems to be you can't compensate once you grow up for the lack of discipline in childhood on your own - this is the main problem I'm trying to understand how one can deal with, how is discipline possible after childhood is gone.
To make it short and clear, could you also give me a definition for structure and discipline, as you use them in your videos. What you replied to me was important but I was asking about this specifically.
A. I will try to answer your question, but as usual I should remind you that my response is based on conjecture, albeit having thought about these issues for many long years.
Discipline, in the case of an old-fashioned character, largely like mine, is inner. I think mine was based very much on the military style regimented culture of Rhodesia, along with the Victorian (19th Century) British notion that children were to be seen and not heard. I was also, that is to say, brought up in a way that was very detached from my parents from an early age. Adults were real people but children considered more akin to animals. Well, that attitude was paradoxical as it led to an enormous about of libertarianism of spirit, along with very rigid notions of what children had to do whilst being actually observed. Along with this, I also learned an attitude of discipline from my father's rages. I had to be sure to withdraw my own emotions until these storms had passed. That means learning to impose my own emotional discipline from a very early age.
Now, all of my conjectures have come about as a result of being misread by people. They maintain there is a universal character structure, and that I am just the same as them, and yet they insist on misjudging me, which means they are wrong as a simple matter of logical deduction. To be exact: people see the libertarian or wilder side of me and think I must be out of control and can easily be harnessed by their wills. But their own deductions are wrong. At the very foundation of my character is a layer of very extreme emotional discipline. Like turning on or off a tap, I can choose to feel a great deal or almost nothing at will. And even if I feel a great deal of pain, I can express myself in such a way as if I do not.
Now, I think (I conjecture) that having this kind of facility of mind is part of the old-fashioned character. I see that modern people do not assume I have it, which is like assuming I don't have any special gears I can flip to engage with social or emotional terrain that is much rougher than usual. I can, though. Take me on and I can go rugged. One uses less energy when the social emotions are turned off and I could go my whole life like this.
But the modern type has their emotions much closer to the surface of their being. It's a different structural type. They can also be stoical, like me, but there is something qualitatively different about it. They seem to "bear up" under social criticism, whereas I don't take "social" anything seriously, although if I identify a tangible threat I go to war with it.
Now, in a way, we could flip the whole thing over and say that modern types have had too much SOCIAL discipine when they were growing up, at least from my perspective. They seem to be socially embarrassed by many things that would not worry me. I, then, have been brought up extremely libertarian compared to them, except from the authoritarian paradox.
In all, I can surmise that how one is brought up from a very early age has a HUGE impact on who one is -- one's basic characterological structure.
That doesn't mean that all is lost, though, if you happen to have been brought up in a different way from others. They key is to be able to work with what you've got. Can you work with it or not? Do you NEED to have discipline imposed from the outside, or is that just an ideology? Or to look at it in a different way, supposing discipline were to be imposed on you from the outside, now that you are an adult, whom would that serve? It may in fact serve you IF you are looking for structure, but it's not automatically beneficial.
I have another theory, too, which is that in early childhood, we make adaptations that give us a certain functional psychological equilibrium. There are pluses and minuses to every adaptation. For instance, it is likely that I learned extreme emotional control so as not to be present to my father's rages. This has left me with the legacy of being able to control my emotions in a very precise way, especially in situations of extreme hardship. On the negative side, I am inclined to emotional repression, switching myself off without being aware that I am doing that.
In general, then, look for the pluses and minuses of every adaptation and work with it. I have gradually been able to make myself more socially and emotionally aware in relation to myself, but this takes many decades. In the mean time, try to find out what is beneficial about your particular form of adaptation. Good luck.
Saturday 15 March 2014
Dominance | Clarissa's Blog
Dominance | Clarissa's Blog
I absolutely don't like [denatured things] at all. I can't function with them as a feel partly dead and then I make all sorts of missteps. Better for me to feel in danger and alert.
I absolutely don't like [denatured things] at all. I can't function with them as a feel partly dead and then I make all sorts of missteps. Better for me to feel in danger and alert.
question and answer time
Q Hey Jennifer, I want to ask you something in relation to your late videos and some thoughts I've been wanting to get your perspective on, rather than solely my own and that of the psychoanalyst I visit. Do you think structure in a character can be built later in time as opposed to early childhood? Maybe the presence of structure results in feeling your limits. How is structure developed in any case? I sense it has to do with investing into something or even fooling yourself into it....but then the investment itself will crumble down if structure isn't present, or maybe this happens only if you don't know what your desire truly consists of and mistake the demands of an external agent as your own desire.
A The question you ask is very general, so I can only answer generally. But to my mind, the so-called oedipus complex, which would be better called the authoritarian complex, so that one does not get it mixed up with notions of sexuality and gender, is built at later times. In my view, it also seems to develop more slowly, as you are gradually molded to the fit of your society. It's what military bootcamp is about, and why they break you down so as to build you up into their own shape. They don't want you after the age of thirty or so, because by then you can't be remolded.
If you're molded to one society and then you have to fit to a different society of course this is problematic. Certainly one feels a different set of limits to everyone else in that case. In fact, apart from cases of deliberate transgression, one may only FEEL that one has a character structure at all if one is among those who simply FEEL differently about things as a matter of course.
We all "invest" in something as we get older -- we subconsciously invest in the idea that are societies will continue and will be able to support us... we invest in the feeling that our authorities can teach us what is important and what we need to know....we also invest in the notion that if we conform to what is required of us from our society and its authorities, we will not be harmed. These are all subconscious investments that shape our character in youth. Also, if the authorities are particularly frightening or violent, we may develop a rather too narrow and shrinking character structure at a fairly early age.
Jennifer
A The question you ask is very general, so I can only answer generally. But to my mind, the so-called oedipus complex, which would be better called the authoritarian complex, so that one does not get it mixed up with notions of sexuality and gender, is built at later times. In my view, it also seems to develop more slowly, as you are gradually molded to the fit of your society. It's what military bootcamp is about, and why they break you down so as to build you up into their own shape. They don't want you after the age of thirty or so, because by then you can't be remolded.
If you're molded to one society and then you have to fit to a different society of course this is problematic. Certainly one feels a different set of limits to everyone else in that case. In fact, apart from cases of deliberate transgression, one may only FEEL that one has a character structure at all if one is among those who simply FEEL differently about things as a matter of course.
We all "invest" in something as we get older -- we subconsciously invest in the idea that are societies will continue and will be able to support us... we invest in the feeling that our authorities can teach us what is important and what we need to know....we also invest in the notion that if we conform to what is required of us from our society and its authorities, we will not be harmed. These are all subconscious investments that shape our character in youth. Also, if the authorities are particularly frightening or violent, we may develop a rather too narrow and shrinking character structure at a fairly early age.
Jennifer
Dominance | Clarissa's Blog
Dominance | Clarissa's Blog
If you were born in Africa, you would know the whole of the society bends to these laws of primal social dominance, even in relation to the authorities of the law. You need to be able to hold your stance ande bluff your way through at times. This comes very naturally to me, with animals as well as people in that context. A huge part of social attitudes and behavior there are based on bluff. I guess that was related to the war, too. Otherewise people push you around at check points and so on. And of course I rode horses and played with animals -- and yes, you learn that how you posture is very important, for instance never run away from a large, aggressive dog (as many of them were) or they will chase you. Even if a lion chases you, stand still and once it is close up, flick it really hard on the nose with a piece of cloth. These were the sorts of thigns we were taught.
If you were born in Africa, you would know the whole of the society bends to these laws of primal social dominance, even in relation to the authorities of the law. You need to be able to hold your stance ande bluff your way through at times. This comes very naturally to me, with animals as well as people in that context. A huge part of social attitudes and behavior there are based on bluff. I guess that was related to the war, too. Otherewise people push you around at check points and so on. And of course I rode horses and played with animals -- and yes, you learn that how you posture is very important, for instance never run away from a large, aggressive dog (as many of them were) or they will chase you. Even if a lion chases you, stand still and once it is close up, flick it really hard on the nose with a piece of cloth. These were the sorts of thigns we were taught.
Friday 14 March 2014
Missing Plane 'Flown Towards Andaman Islands'
Missing Plane 'Flown Towards Andaman Islands'
If the plane had disintegrated during flight or had suffered some other catastrophic failure, all signals - the pings to the satellite, the data messages and the transponder - would be expected to stop at the same time.
If the plane had disintegrated during flight or had suffered some other catastrophic failure, all signals - the pings to the satellite, the data messages and the transponder - would be expected to stop at the same time.
Mammalian psychology and migrant antipathy
I look into the level of human psychology that is communal; the mammalian part of our identity. Women are supposed to be more at home here than men, at least so says folk wisdom. This is the relational part of our beings -- how we experience ourselves in terms of our families, our sense of peer group pressure and relative economic success. Frankly, I'm not drawn by these at all, but one is not free to decide not to be.
Thursday 13 March 2014
Let us get away from crude and overly simplistic ways of defining privilege
Let us get away from crude and overly simplistic ways of defining privilege from Jennifer Frances Armstrong on Vimeo.
Let us get away from crude and overly simplistic ways of defining privilege. Intergenerational trauma, not an unlikely a feature of a right-wing society, can can lead to results that are anything but privileged and in many ways deblitating.
Wednesday 12 March 2014
#banbossy | Clarissa's Blog
#banbossy | Clarissa's Blog
That’s right. It is the exact opposite to what is presented as the common-sensical solution. We are told to be more assertive, because we are so silly we just can’t figure out that we would automatically get a great deal of what we wanted if only we asked for it. In fact, the deferential women are the ones more likely to get ahead. They’ve got to play the feminine game to a high degree. Even Julia Gillard softened her image, wore make-up and tried to draw attention to the fact that she engages in knitting. It’s all part of the game to give patriarchy more of what it wants — so that it will allow you to get ahead.
That’s right. It is the exact opposite to what is presented as the common-sensical solution. We are told to be more assertive, because we are so silly we just can’t figure out that we would automatically get a great deal of what we wanted if only we asked for it. In fact, the deferential women are the ones more likely to get ahead. They’ve got to play the feminine game to a high degree. Even Julia Gillard softened her image, wore make-up and tried to draw attention to the fact that she engages in knitting. It’s all part of the game to give patriarchy more of what it wants — so that it will allow you to get ahead.
Tuesday 11 March 2014
#banbossy | Clarissa's Blog
#banbossy | Clarissa's Blog
I can’t speak to anything American as it has a whole different dynamic from anything that would make any sense, but as you point out, a lot of contemporary feminism has the tendency to hedge women in, rather than to give the the range they ought to have to explore the world. I have hypothesised that many times Western types have had too much freedom and therefore welcome any caging or unfreedom. Moreover, the lack of freedom gives a limit to the ego, which produces a sensation of safety, albeit at a great cost. (I think to some extent we all rest easy in the lazy assurance that we “have limits.) So Americans, having been given too much freedom to “be themselves” seek re-entry into a defining box.
Now, me, I’ve had to move in the opposite direction, out of the box. At a later stage in development — as an adult — that is MUCH harder to do than if you do so as a child. For instance, in my original society, men had access to knowledge of violence but women did not. Women may have been victims of psychological violence, and often were, but they had no direct knowledge about the mechanisms of violence. This was precisely what I had to learn about to stop being such a child-woman (the natural default state of my upbringing — you witness my right-wing female peers, who are still like this in middle-age).
I sought knowledge of violence everywhere, to better understand it and its relationship to myself. Obviously if your character structure has formed so that there is a great deal of the mature range of experience and emotions that you have not been permitted to know about, you have already been the victim of strong cultural violence. Also, you are going into forbidden “male” territory.
Bataille terms this expansion of self-awareness “transgression”. It is very fraught.
But Americans, who have rarely been the victims of cultural repression have the opposite drives. In fact, I am totally unintelligible to them. My wants are the opposite of their wants. I want to understand how violence formed me so that I can master those forces of violence, whereas they desire more violence (repressive measures on their psyches) so as to be finally formed by these measures of repression.
I suppose it is okay to desire repression on one’s own behalf — but never on my behalf.
American feminism really has the opposite goals to my sort of feminism, which would make men and women more similar. My method for increasing similarity (and a psychical balance within myself) has been to increase my knowledge of violence to the greatest extent. Bataille was useful for this, as his project seems not dissimilar from mine. Andrea Dworkin and other feminists, however, cannot see any value in this sort of method. This already shows their extreme limitations in terms of self-knowledge, in my view, since they expect the limits against violence to be drawn arbitrarily, by some repressive social force, instead of by their own minds after having encountered their own natural limits. In other words, they show they prefer an externally imposed system of order rather than the option to adventure, find out what one needs, and then impose a personal limit, based on furthered knowledge abot their own individual nature and its needs.
But what I have described here is very intellectually complex and sophisticated — therefore, also hard to communicate, especially to people who have the opposite goals and ambitions to mine. You would really have to be of the same type to be able to resonate. And then, too, there are my female peers, who are of my type, but have no desire to be anything other than they already are, although they may express unhappiness with their lot on occasion.
I can’t speak to anything American as it has a whole different dynamic from anything that would make any sense, but as you point out, a lot of contemporary feminism has the tendency to hedge women in, rather than to give the the range they ought to have to explore the world. I have hypothesised that many times Western types have had too much freedom and therefore welcome any caging or unfreedom. Moreover, the lack of freedom gives a limit to the ego, which produces a sensation of safety, albeit at a great cost. (I think to some extent we all rest easy in the lazy assurance that we “have limits.) So Americans, having been given too much freedom to “be themselves” seek re-entry into a defining box.
Now, me, I’ve had to move in the opposite direction, out of the box. At a later stage in development — as an adult — that is MUCH harder to do than if you do so as a child. For instance, in my original society, men had access to knowledge of violence but women did not. Women may have been victims of psychological violence, and often were, but they had no direct knowledge about the mechanisms of violence. This was precisely what I had to learn about to stop being such a child-woman (the natural default state of my upbringing — you witness my right-wing female peers, who are still like this in middle-age).
I sought knowledge of violence everywhere, to better understand it and its relationship to myself. Obviously if your character structure has formed so that there is a great deal of the mature range of experience and emotions that you have not been permitted to know about, you have already been the victim of strong cultural violence. Also, you are going into forbidden “male” territory.
Bataille terms this expansion of self-awareness “transgression”. It is very fraught.
But Americans, who have rarely been the victims of cultural repression have the opposite drives. In fact, I am totally unintelligible to them. My wants are the opposite of their wants. I want to understand how violence formed me so that I can master those forces of violence, whereas they desire more violence (repressive measures on their psyches) so as to be finally formed by these measures of repression.
I suppose it is okay to desire repression on one’s own behalf — but never on my behalf.
American feminism really has the opposite goals to my sort of feminism, which would make men and women more similar. My method for increasing similarity (and a psychical balance within myself) has been to increase my knowledge of violence to the greatest extent. Bataille was useful for this, as his project seems not dissimilar from mine. Andrea Dworkin and other feminists, however, cannot see any value in this sort of method. This already shows their extreme limitations in terms of self-knowledge, in my view, since they expect the limits against violence to be drawn arbitrarily, by some repressive social force, instead of by their own minds after having encountered their own natural limits. In other words, they show they prefer an externally imposed system of order rather than the option to adventure, find out what one needs, and then impose a personal limit, based on furthered knowledge abot their own individual nature and its needs.
But what I have described here is very intellectually complex and sophisticated — therefore, also hard to communicate, especially to people who have the opposite goals and ambitions to mine. You would really have to be of the same type to be able to resonate. And then, too, there are my female peers, who are of my type, but have no desire to be anything other than they already are, although they may express unhappiness with their lot on occasion.
Monday 10 March 2014
Shamanic regeneration and the violent human mind - YouTube
Shamanic regeneration and the violent human mind - YouTube
I have finally, at least to my own satisfaction, been able to describe what shamanic initiation DOES, and perhaps even why Bataille thought that Nietzsche's emotional breakdown with the Turin horse was in some sense a breakthrough, odd as it may seem. (This relates to a certain logic that we feel we must transcend ourselves because of shame and guilt, but we can RETURN TO ourselves through no longer trying to take stiff measures to distance our emotions from life's violence).
Humans as such feel guilty and ashamed of what is possibly within us, not just in the ability to act out violently, but also in terms of our potential to succumb to violence. So we hide ourselves from ourselves in small containers of the mind. And we accept bondage so that our emotions may not longer range to the limits of our being, where we would risk finding out what lurks there. Externally imposed servitude produces is desired because it produces safe sensations (--which is what is on offer from monotheistic religions). But shamanism cracks the mental shell to open you up to all of what life is.
I have finally, at least to my own satisfaction, been able to describe what shamanic initiation DOES, and perhaps even why Bataille thought that Nietzsche's emotional breakdown with the Turin horse was in some sense a breakthrough, odd as it may seem. (This relates to a certain logic that we feel we must transcend ourselves because of shame and guilt, but we can RETURN TO ourselves through no longer trying to take stiff measures to distance our emotions from life's violence).
Humans as such feel guilty and ashamed of what is possibly within us, not just in the ability to act out violently, but also in terms of our potential to succumb to violence. So we hide ourselves from ourselves in small containers of the mind. And we accept bondage so that our emotions may not longer range to the limits of our being, where we would risk finding out what lurks there. Externally imposed servitude produces is desired because it produces safe sensations (--which is what is on offer from monotheistic religions). But shamanism cracks the mental shell to open you up to all of what life is.
Shamanic regeneration and the violent human mind
I have finally, at least to my own satisfaction, been able to describe what shamanic initiation DOES, and perhaps even why Bataille thought that Nietzsche's emotional breakdown with the Turin horse was in some sense a breakthrough, odd as it may seem. (This relates to a certain logic that we feel we must transcend ourselves because of shame and guilt, but we can RETURN TO ourselves through no longer trying to take stiff measures to distance our emotions from life's violence).
Humans as such feel guilty and ashamed of what is possibly within us, not just in the ability to act out violently, but also in terms of our potential to succumb to violence. So we hide ourselves from ourselves in small containers of the mind. And we accept bondage so that our emotions may not longer range to the limits of our being, where we would risk finding out what lurks there. Externally imposed servitude produces is desired because it produces safe sensations (--which is what is on offer from monotheistic religions). But shamanism cracks the mental shell to open you up to all of what life is.
Missing Malaysian Airlines plane: How can a jet just disappear? It's not hard
Missing Malaysian Airlines plane: How can a jet just disappear? It's not hard
More mysterious was the disappearance of another 727 in Africa. It was being used to transport diesel fuel to diamond mines. The owners had numerous financial problems and one day, just before sunset, the plane took off without clearance and with its transponder turned off. It is believed to have crashed in the Atlantic Ocean. One theory, never proven, is that it was stolen so the owner could collect insurance.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/missing-malaysian-airlines-plane-how-can-a-jet-just-disappear-its-not-hard-20140311-hvh7a.html#ixzz2vc4cpXvM
The current state of capitalist decline and its "reality"
Putting pressure on people to keep innovating, by the way, causes many to fall into a psychological trap -- they keep trying to innovate their way out of an impossible situation and they keep failing. Finally the vultures descend and pronounce you have a narcissistic personality disorder. After all, you keep trying and you keep failing. Is no situation good enough for you? You can't just settle down and 'get real' for once?
Sunday 9 March 2014
Bottle of vodka provides miracle cure for dying dog - Australasia - World - The Independent
Bottle of vodka provides miracle cure for dying dog - Australasia - World - The Independent
“In Australia, the only antidote we have is alcohol...In fact for the whole weekend, Charlie had a huge party with us in the Pet ICU,” the team said in a blogpost.
“In Australia, the only antidote we have is alcohol...In fact for the whole weekend, Charlie had a huge party with us in the Pet ICU,” the team said in a blogpost.
Good analysis as Australia heads for the swamplands
The economy of making women care | libcom.org
Looking at the economy of care brings up that ‘caring’ is not so much something that women do because they are born to do so, but because of very precise and at times coercive economic measures. It is on these bases that our feminism needs not to aspire to the privileges men have but to attack and subvert the social hierarchies that sustain capitalism.
Looking at the economy of care brings up that ‘caring’ is not so much something that women do because they are born to do so, but because of very precise and at times coercive economic measures. It is on these bases that our feminism needs not to aspire to the privileges men have but to attack and subvert the social hierarchies that sustain capitalism.
Semite and Anti-Semite | Clarissa's Blog
Semite and Anti-Semite | Clarissa's Blog
If you look at the context of the old testament, the privilege seems linked to suffering, at least as history progresses. In any case, religions nearly always link privilege with suffering, hence monastic orders.
If you look at the context of the old testament, the privilege seems linked to suffering, at least as history progresses. In any case, religions nearly always link privilege with suffering, hence monastic orders.
Saturday 8 March 2014
Nietzsche's hairs | INTELLECTUAL SHAMANISM:NIETZSCHE, BATAILLE, MARECHERA, SHAMANISM
Nietzsche's hairs | INTELLECTUAL SHAMANISM:NIETZSCHE, BATAILLE, MARECHERA, SHAMANISM
I think that in shamanism one is privileged enough to suffer...the shamanic wound gives one privileged insights, but at a cost. Prior to Christianity,then, although Christianity made a fetish out of suffering. Shamanism just draws a link.
I think that in shamanism one is privileged enough to suffer...the shamanic wound gives one privileged insights, but at a cost. Prior to Christianity,then, although Christianity made a fetish out of suffering. Shamanism just draws a link.
Suspicious Hair | Clarissa's Blog
Suspicious Hair | Clarissa's Blog
Indulging people will only make things so much worse. you get the superficial people winning out and eventually their ideology does as well. So if they read something that evokes negative or sad emotions, instead of saying, "Well that was a sad story, but true to life," they maintain that the character (or author) had a psychological disorder. That's just how reality itself looks to a very immature mind, as if others who experience things you haven't are automatically crazy and intend to do you harm by expressing what they know to be true.
Indulging people will only make things so much worse. you get the superficial people winning out and eventually their ideology does as well. So if they read something that evokes negative or sad emotions, instead of saying, "Well that was a sad story, but true to life," they maintain that the character (or author) had a psychological disorder. That's just how reality itself looks to a very immature mind, as if others who experience things you haven't are automatically crazy and intend to do you harm by expressing what they know to be true.
Friday 7 March 2014
Dear Gina @e2mq173 responds #DearGina - No Fibs
Dear Gina @e2mq173 responds #DearGina - No Fibs
We are eternally grateful that Margaret Thatcher was never burdened by such foresight. She was firmly focussed on the here-and-now, on her mission to rid the public of its outrageous sense of entitlement. I hope you agree that Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey are on the right path by following Margaret Thatcher’s lead. - See more at: http://nofibs.com.au/2014/03/08/dear-gina-e2mq173-responds-deargina/#sthash.O9IXxF0Q.zhWOIafE.dpuf
Thursday 6 March 2014
Bataille’s book, THEORY OF RELIGION | Nietzsche's hairs
Bataille’s book, THEORY OF RELIGION | Nietzsche's hairs
In the book itself, Bataille wants to introduce us to his notion of the sacred as pertaining to the condition of being nothing. Death. Self-erasure. That is the thesis the book establishes. But his other writings go further. Bataille was Nietzschean but also Hegelian. According to Nietzsche on Hegel, God is the most thinly defined concept -- virtually nothing. In any case, I think you've summarized it well in broad outline, although not going into detail as to why erasing oneself produces revolution. Actually one erases the limits imposed on onself. One erases the bourgeois individual.
I get a sense that Bataille was setting a trap for the unwary. Nietzsche said, that some people do decide to will nothing, since willing nothing seems a better option than not being able to will at all. It's an experiment with nihilism. To will "nothing" is to negate the bourgeois identity. But superego is regenerative. Whenever you erase its boundaries, by destroying the internalized mores of bourgeois culture, superego draws another line. Only each time that superego redraws the line the defines the limits of your personal being, the line is drawn different and generally less narrowly. Each subsequent encounter with the sacred reduces the inner binds of social control and restores power to the individual. The individual becomes more and more himself (or herself) though facing death. (One's fear of death was responsible for setting the boundary lines for the bondsman's subservience, as Hegel demonstrates in his Lordship and Bondage.) Also, one has the pleasure of wrecking the bourgeois identity one had unconsciously developed. If you are a strong-willed and audacious nihilist, you can actually free yourself from social control by combating the "God" within yourself. You subdue it. You form a different kind of inner relationship with it. All of this is, ultimately, ego-strengthening.
But as I indicated, I think Bataille also set a trap for those who would not understand this need for mastery (through loss of the bourgeois self) implicitly. Facing down one's superego -- one's "God within" -- is one of the most terrifying things one can do, because a voice in one's head says, "If thou does this, thou wilst surely die."
I think some people may not make it through that kind of test to come out the other side in any sort of good shape. Some people just get wrecked and others get "wrecked out of their wounds" (Marechera).
In the book itself, Bataille wants to introduce us to his notion of the sacred as pertaining to the condition of being nothing. Death. Self-erasure. That is the thesis the book establishes. But his other writings go further. Bataille was Nietzschean but also Hegelian. According to Nietzsche on Hegel, God is the most thinly defined concept -- virtually nothing. In any case, I think you've summarized it well in broad outline, although not going into detail as to why erasing oneself produces revolution. Actually one erases the limits imposed on onself. One erases the bourgeois individual.
I get a sense that Bataille was setting a trap for the unwary. Nietzsche said, that some people do decide to will nothing, since willing nothing seems a better option than not being able to will at all. It's an experiment with nihilism. To will "nothing" is to negate the bourgeois identity. But superego is regenerative. Whenever you erase its boundaries, by destroying the internalized mores of bourgeois culture, superego draws another line. Only each time that superego redraws the line the defines the limits of your personal being, the line is drawn different and generally less narrowly. Each subsequent encounter with the sacred reduces the inner binds of social control and restores power to the individual. The individual becomes more and more himself (or herself) though facing death. (One's fear of death was responsible for setting the boundary lines for the bondsman's subservience, as Hegel demonstrates in his Lordship and Bondage.) Also, one has the pleasure of wrecking the bourgeois identity one had unconsciously developed. If you are a strong-willed and audacious nihilist, you can actually free yourself from social control by combating the "God" within yourself. You subdue it. You form a different kind of inner relationship with it. All of this is, ultimately, ego-strengthening.
But as I indicated, I think Bataille also set a trap for those who would not understand this need for mastery (through loss of the bourgeois self) implicitly. Facing down one's superego -- one's "God within" -- is one of the most terrifying things one can do, because a voice in one's head says, "If thou does this, thou wilst surely die."
I think some people may not make it through that kind of test to come out the other side in any sort of good shape. Some people just get wrecked and others get "wrecked out of their wounds" (Marechera).
Wednesday 5 March 2014
REALISE THAT THE NATURE OF THE PSYCHE IS ORGANIC
REALISE THAT THE NATURE OF THE PSYCHE IS ORGANIC from Jennifer Frances Armstrong on Vimeo.
It simply isn't a mechanical structure and can't be fixed that way either.
Tuesday 4 March 2014
Chris Hedges | Suffering? Well, You Deserve It
Chris Hedges | Suffering? Well, You Deserve It
“The kind of willfulness with which I can talk to you now is not guaranteed for future scholars,” he said. “The academic system has discovered it is no longer necessary to provide tenure. This system is fraying. And this is deliberate. This independence is a source of trouble. When Stalin carried out his purges he purged the best and the brightest. These were an alternative source of power. And I think there is a sense in government and business that there is too much independence in academia. We need to be put in our place. The spirit of free inquiry, free expression, and to some extent free teaching, and communality is alien to the corporate and political culture, which are repressive hierarchies.”
“The kind of willfulness with which I can talk to you now is not guaranteed for future scholars,” he said. “The academic system has discovered it is no longer necessary to provide tenure. This system is fraying. And this is deliberate. This independence is a source of trouble. When Stalin carried out his purges he purged the best and the brightest. These were an alternative source of power. And I think there is a sense in government and business that there is too much independence in academia. We need to be put in our place. The spirit of free inquiry, free expression, and to some extent free teaching, and communality is alien to the corporate and political culture, which are repressive hierarchies.”
Chris Hedges | Suffering? Well, You Deserve It
Chris Hedges | Suffering? Well, You Deserve It
“Let’s take the doctrine of optimal taxation,” he said. “If you assume a world of perfect competition, where every person gets their marginal products, then you can deduce a tax distribution where high progressive taxation is inefficient. This doctrine has been one of the drivers to reduce progressive taxation. But looking at the historical record this has not been accompanied by any great surge in productivity; rather, it has produced a great surge in inequality. So once again, there is a gap between what the model tells us should happen and what actually happens. In this case the model works, but only in the model, only if all the assumptions are satisfied. Reality is more complicated.”
“One of the issues here is when those in authority, whether political, academic or civic, are expounding their doctrines through Enlightenment idioms and we must ask, is this being done in good faith?” he said. “And here I think the genuine insight provided by the economics of opportunism is that we cannot assume it is being done in good faith.”
“When I hear Republicans in the United States say that taking away people’s food stamps will do them good I ask, what do you know that allows you to say this? This rhetoric invokes the Enlightenment model. We all use it. It is improvement by means of reason. But Enlightenment discourse should not be taken at face value. We have to again ask whether it is being carried out in good faith.”
Monday 3 March 2014
Sunday 2 March 2014
Reichsarbeitsdienst - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Reichsarbeitsdienst - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In the course of the Great Depression, the German government of the Weimar Republic under Chancellor Heinrich Brüning by emergency decree had established the Freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst (Voluntary Labour Service, FAD) on 5 June 1931, two years before the Nazi Party ascended to power. The state sponsored employment organisation provided services to civic and land improvement projects, from 16 July 1932 it was headed by Friedrich Syrup in the official rank of a Reichskommissar. The idea of a national compulsory service was quite popular, especially in right-wing circles, but it had little effect on the economic situation.
Theological systems and their taint on the primeval
I'm supposed to understand bourgeois consciousness implicitly and to universalise it, but I do not understand it automatically. I also have the feeling this failure to grasp it as normal or right is not allowed to me.
The return to the primeval is THE FORBIDDEN THING for the monotheistic religions -- but also for the secular ideologies they have engendered. It is as if an angel with sword prevents a return to the primeval states. As Nietzsche indicates, the theological instinct gets into almost anything. Psychoanalysis also contains this theological poison. The notion that the human psyche is fundamentally universal is pulled into service of a theological notion of primeval sin and evil.
The nature of Abbott’s game « The Australian Independent Media Network
The nature of Abbott’s game « The Australian Independent Media Network
I would readily conclude that policies and progress aren’t issues of importance for the Coalition. Vote winning is the only goal and on this principle the target groups are the apathetic middle-class or the bogan, redneck racists that have swelled dramatically in numbers since 2001 and unfortunately, possess an enormous amount of political clout.
Saturday 1 March 2014
The man who destroyed America’s ego — Matter — Medium
The man who destroyed America’s ego — Matter — Medium
I was not brought up in this kind of system at all, but rather where the teachers were extremely cutting and sarcastic, as well as occasionally physically violent, from Grade 1. Therefore American modes of measurement are not at all useful to me.
The movement’s U.S. origins are surely no coincidence. Self-esteem fits perfectly over the top of the traditional ideal of the free and noble individual, striving to achieve the American dream. The movement’s sin was making it sound easy. It removed the part about striving, replacing it with an unearned assumption of exceptionalism. The lesson became that simply wanting it is enough. You’re special. You deserve it.
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