Wednesday, 30 November 2011
Tuesday, 29 November 2011
Sunday, 27 November 2011
Thursday, 24 November 2011
Psychoanalysis and the role of parent figures
- November 25, 2011 at 1:39 am | #39| Quotebloggerclarissa :
In terms of literary criticism, I also hate it when people start applying psychoanalytic theories to literary analysis. However, we have to distinguish between that and therapeutic practices that allow people to resolve their major psychological issues without ever even looking at a pill. And that, I believe, is priceless.I guess my real beef with psychoanalysis is that it becomes a dogma for reinforcing patriarchal norms. If you don’t accept that your character structure is formed by the father and has to be thus formed in order for you to be considered in any way normal, then you are guilty of a sin against the orthodoxy of psychoanalysis. Of course, Deleuze and Guattari take up this issue in a typically French way, which means you can’t quite draw a line between where they are being serious in intent or just rhetorical and subversive.On the other hand, the influence of our parents on us, particularly in terms of forming the superego, can be quite significant. These effects don’t even have to be patriarchal. For instance, my father (a severe stroke victim of five months) is now dictating to me his memoirs. It would be hard to underestimate the effect that the motif of personal sacrifice has had on his life. He just about starts his story with it. A few paragraphs down:“I had a lot of reasons to be introverted. The circumstances of my birth. There was this huge pile of presents, such a big pile of presents that it was quite a daunting operation. During the war, my mother had stayed in the mess, which was a group of women who had got together and hired some flats, and these women pulled together. I had such a huge pile of presents for Christmas that my mother thought it was wrong for me to have all those presents and maybe I should give one way. My mother said it couldn’t be one I didn’t like, it had to be one I liked, so there was sacrifice involved. She wanted to teach me values. It taught me to sacrifice things that you make too valuable. So then under pressure I selected a wooden fire engine, which was duly put back in its box and later I was taken to the children’s home and the box was placed in my hands and I was told to take it in and give it to them. I walked into this building and all there were was a lot of kids running around. Some boy came up to me and said what do you want. I pushed the box to him and said that is for you and some matron came and said yes what is it.I said this is for the boys and she said okay, and off she went. Strangely enough, many years later, I met a young man who had actually been bought up in the children’s home and professed to remember the fire engine. It gave me a link back to my childhood, which was a good thing. My childhood was full of broken promises and broken connections.”
Reader maturity: don't count on it!
Reader maturity, which Nietzsche (more than) touches on here, is a huge issue that isn’t often addressed. Having been writing for a number of years, with all sorts of feedback, one point stands out most significantly: If the reader finds your perspectives harmonious with his or her own, s/he will generally proclaim to have found “good writing”. If your perspectives deviate from those, the writing will often be proclaimed bad or suspect.
Dealing with the prejudices of readers and interpreting them correctly is one of the most difficult features of self-development. The more controversial ones topic happens to be, the more one is likely to become lost in a snowstorm of confusing and contradictory criticism. One cannot take it all to heart. I’ve had overwhelming compliments for writing that appealed to people’s nationalist and patriotic sentiments in a trivial way, yet as I’m matured and delved much more deeply into things, the less the compliments are forthcoming. This suggests that most readers, from those who are relatively naive to those who are more sophisticated, desire above all to have their prejudices confirmed in their reading and prefer to avoid written constructs that pose difficulty to them.
I imagine this is also why academics whose areas are less controversial can often find it easier to succeed than those who deviate from an expected route.
STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism
Wednesday, 23 November 2011
My African memoir
The whole point is that when I wrote the book, the link between the adult self and the child self was broken. That is really the point of the book. My writing of the book involved the repression of my adult self in order to recover the real and concrete nature of experience.
I first discovered the power of self-hypnosis writing my autobiography. I used it to take myself back to earlier life stages, and to try to attend to what exactly I might have been thinking, feeling, hearing and understanding.
I learned to do this back in time movement so well, after a time, that now or then I found that the childhood emotions I'd been accessing were "sticking" with me in my adult, conscious mind. (Whilst taking casual courses at university, I crossed a field on campus feeling like a child again, and thinking: "Gosh -- I hope no adult sees me on this field, a place in which I shouldn't be. Rhodesian society was very authoritarian). So it was that I caught myself reflecting back through the adolescent trope, and amazed myself. Back was the child underneath all that had passed between now and then, the developed layers of adult thinking.
The autobiographical sections are highly realistic portrayals of how I and others of my age were, back then. So successful was my entrance back into a childlike state to portray it, that many of the group members who read my prose began to treat me as if I was really at the level of maturity which I had been representing.
The kinds of responses I get always tell me a great deal about those who make their critiques. Conservatives (male and female) tend to read "emotion" into my writing. Others read their own dilemmas, giving me a clear and often poignant understanding of their own psychological structures.
But, let's get back to the issue of self-hypnosis, which can be a useful writing technique, but also fun. When I went skydiving, I again employed my powers to suggest to myself that the air below me, whether thin or empty, was in fact a lake of water, into which I'd make an easy dive! After about fifteen minutes or so of self-talk, I'd convinced myself that the air was in fact water.
STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism
My father's memoir: introduction
My earliest memory is one of getting into a suitcase that had been opened and my mother lifting me out and saying that's not a good idea. Some conversation carried on between her and another woman who was there and then I remember urinating in the case and my mother making a great sound of apologies. The funny thing is I can remember exactly what she looked like. She was dark with rosy red cheeks and a very friendly attitude. Ten years later, she bought me a red dressing gown for my birthday and that dressing gown became a favourite of mine. Her name was Dolly Wisdom as she married a bloke called Frank Wisdom. The family maintained friendly relations with them for years and years.
When I was about fifteen, we bought a farm, probably fifteen kilometres from where the wisdoms lived. I can only remember going to their house once. They had a swimming pool and all these kids were running energetically around the pool. They seemed to be other teenagers, but they were a bit old for me. If they were boisterous, I couldn't deal with it. I remember thinking that looks like fun. I'd like to join in. But I didn't know how to get to that stage. I was very introverted.
I had a lot of reasons to be introverted. The circumstances of my birth. There was this huge pile of presents, such a big pile of presents that it was quite a daunting operation. During the war, my mother had stayed in the mess, which was a group of women who had got together and hired some flats, and these women pulled together. I had such a huge pile of presents for Christmas that my mother thought it was wrong for me to have all those presents and maybe I should give one way. My mother said it couldn't be one I didn't like, it had to be one I liked, so there was sacrifice involved. She wanted to teach me values. It taught me to sacrifice things that you make too valuable. So then under pressure I selected a wooden fire engine, which was duly put back in its box and later I was taken to the children's home and the box was placed in my hands and I was told to take it in and give it to them. I walked into this building and all there were was a lot of kids running around. Some boy came up to me and said what do you want. I pushed the box to him and said that is for you and some matron came and said yes what is it.
I said this is for the boys and she said okay, and off she went. Strangely enough, many years later, I met a young man who had actually been bought up in the children's home and professed to remember the fire engine. It gave me a link back to my childhood, which was a good thing. My childhood was full of broken promises and broken connections.
My mother had put me I a crèche run by a Mrs. Stirrup, once again surrounded by a bunch of kids running around, I didn't feel like I belonged. So I wandered down onto the front lawn and did the one thing that I knew in the past had produced results. I started to bawl my eyes out. My mother had just started work at the standard bank, a job she needed to hold onto to feed me. When she was told about me, she told the boss I'm sorry but I have to go and she came down and picked me up. A few days later, I was taken there again and put into a playpen with a large African nanny. I yelled my head off and told the matron I wanted to get out of there. I was warned that I had to behave myself, I must have become quite wild because eventually somebody restrained me.
I was dumped with my grandmother whilst my mother was at work. A fierce lady who spoke Portuguese, and a little English. The first time I went there, she said, "Atow Petaaah! Who has cut your hair?" As I had no idea who had cut my hair, I feared for the worst, but my mother, whose name was Doris, walked by at that moment. "Dor, who has cut this boys hair?" So she continued for the rest of my life, because she was used to being in charge of my mother. She had always been in charge of my mother and there was my mother doing something she had to okayed. The issue of my hair was to be brought up every time we visited her.
My grandmother's house was gloomy. All the binds were kept permanently drawn. It was like the house in Ruwa, only darker. The dining room had all new wooden furniture, but you couldn't see where you were going. A heavy sideboard had a lot of silverware on top and in the drawers. My grandmother was born to a Portuguese family who were very well off and owned several properties all over the world, many of which were sold during the depression.
My grandmother was married to an eccentric benign old man, Edgar Ansell. He also came from a well to do family. At the time when my mother was born, he was working for the eastern telegraph company, near the island of Fayal. The island is part of the Azores. He was there for the purpose of laying the telegraph cable to America. My grandmother was brought up strictly catholic. My grandfather was not catholic and didn't want to have anything to do with the church. He was definitely secular. He didn't like the whole thing. My grand other remained faithful to the end. The silver was from one of the clans and their name was Forgage. All the silver is monogrammed. That includes knives, forks, and various eating utensils. It wasn't pure silver it was EPNS, which is electroplated nickel silver. Also on the cabinet were some elephants in ivory and ebony. After my grandmothers death, uncle Charles came and collected the silver for the money.
Charles was my grandmothers only son, seven years older than me, hopelessly spoiled and undisciplined. From the earliest time, He used to shoot the fruit in the neighbours garden with a pellet gun. The same pellet gun or a catapult was used to demolish all the street lights in the neighbourhood. He had a cruel streak. The more noise a cat made when he shot it, the better he liked it. He used to roam the streets with a gang. One of them was named Labruscfen. All of Charles misdemeanours, which were many, came from l. Charles took anyone he could along with him, including me, and would pick a fight with passing Africans. Occasionally, he would take me out with him t night, on his bicycle, which meant I had to sit on the handlebars or cross bar and dodge his flying knees. It was a bit frightening, especially when he went downhill. Charles contributed a hell of a lot to my upbringing, what I experienced. One day he came round to our house on his motorbike, which was a 500CC AIS. He said he was going to take me for a ride. I remember everything going past in a blur. He asked me in front of my mother how fast I thought we were going. I guessed 60. He said 100. This was in a built up area. I was 10.
Charles would park his motorcycle next to the kitchen door and rev it up until it roared because He knew it annoyed my grandmother. He looked down on her because he'd come to the conclusion other people looked down on her because she was Portuguese. My grandmother would call to help to my grandfather, asking him to deal with the situation, but Charles was too violent. He had no chance.
He also ran a kind of a club in the garage at the back of the house. They used to make model aeroplanes and fly them. I can remember the smell of ether mixed with something, for fuel. The plane engines were fixed in a vice and run until you couldn't think anymore. Then we would take them out onto a large empty field and send them off never to see them again. I remember walking for hours after dark, looking for the planes. There was no remote control.
I had all his collection of superman comics and William series books. I don't anymore. Charles got married eventually to a pretty, delicate woman, who couldn't put up with his violent behaviour and left. This was not before the rest of the family had pooled resources and built him a house. I took the photographs at his wedding. In those days, I used to do my home processing, and when I took them round to him the same day of the wedding, Eileen was in tears. That wasn't the only problem. He used to work long humours of overtime as a motorcycle mechanic. He would get home late every night, stopping at the pub en route. Then if he met a friend at the pub, they might decide to go to Beira for the weekend without leaving any messages, which worried my grandmother to distraction.
One side of it you're free and easy, you grow up and upon extend yourself as much as you can, the other side is you have to consider the people who nurture you. I didn't say anything to him. I didn't really want him angry. The only person who Charles took any notice of was my mother. She could get angry, especially when he took my grandfathers check book and forged his signature. To me that was the limit. I was about sixteen. Charles then got married again to Lynn who was very self composed and good looking in a dolled up way with lots of makeup. I tried once or twice to get in touch but made no progress. They don't reply. I think Charles never liked me.
When I was sixteen, an endowment from the national war fund appeared, in my name. I bought a motorcycle. My first motorcycle was a Frances Barnett 150CC, which I bought from Charles. Some years later, I traded it in on a matchless 500 single. Then later, I sold it back to him for the original price, but we had a disagreement about its mechanical condition. Nonetheless, I used the money to buy a car, a VW beetle.
When I was about fifteen, we bought a farm, probably fifteen kilometres from where the wisdoms lived. I can only remember going to their house once. They had a swimming pool and all these kids were running energetically around the pool. They seemed to be other teenagers, but they were a bit old for me. If they were boisterous, I couldn't deal with it. I remember thinking that looks like fun. I'd like to join in. But I didn't know how to get to that stage. I was very introverted.
I had a lot of reasons to be introverted. The circumstances of my birth. There was this huge pile of presents, such a big pile of presents that it was quite a daunting operation. During the war, my mother had stayed in the mess, which was a group of women who had got together and hired some flats, and these women pulled together. I had such a huge pile of presents for Christmas that my mother thought it was wrong for me to have all those presents and maybe I should give one way. My mother said it couldn't be one I didn't like, it had to be one I liked, so there was sacrifice involved. She wanted to teach me values. It taught me to sacrifice things that you make too valuable. So then under pressure I selected a wooden fire engine, which was duly put back in its box and later I was taken to the children's home and the box was placed in my hands and I was told to take it in and give it to them. I walked into this building and all there were was a lot of kids running around. Some boy came up to me and said what do you want. I pushed the box to him and said that is for you and some matron came and said yes what is it.
I said this is for the boys and she said okay, and off she went. Strangely enough, many years later, I met a young man who had actually been bought up in the children's home and professed to remember the fire engine. It gave me a link back to my childhood, which was a good thing. My childhood was full of broken promises and broken connections.
My mother had put me I a crèche run by a Mrs. Stirrup, once again surrounded by a bunch of kids running around, I didn't feel like I belonged. So I wandered down onto the front lawn and did the one thing that I knew in the past had produced results. I started to bawl my eyes out. My mother had just started work at the standard bank, a job she needed to hold onto to feed me. When she was told about me, she told the boss I'm sorry but I have to go and she came down and picked me up. A few days later, I was taken there again and put into a playpen with a large African nanny. I yelled my head off and told the matron I wanted to get out of there. I was warned that I had to behave myself, I must have become quite wild because eventually somebody restrained me.
I was dumped with my grandmother whilst my mother was at work. A fierce lady who spoke Portuguese, and a little English. The first time I went there, she said, "Atow Petaaah! Who has cut your hair?" As I had no idea who had cut my hair, I feared for the worst, but my mother, whose name was Doris, walked by at that moment. "Dor, who has cut this boys hair?" So she continued for the rest of my life, because she was used to being in charge of my mother. She had always been in charge of my mother and there was my mother doing something she had to okayed. The issue of my hair was to be brought up every time we visited her.
My grandmother's house was gloomy. All the binds were kept permanently drawn. It was like the house in Ruwa, only darker. The dining room had all new wooden furniture, but you couldn't see where you were going. A heavy sideboard had a lot of silverware on top and in the drawers. My grandmother was born to a Portuguese family who were very well off and owned several properties all over the world, many of which were sold during the depression.
My grandmother was married to an eccentric benign old man, Edgar Ansell. He also came from a well to do family. At the time when my mother was born, he was working for the eastern telegraph company, near the island of Fayal. The island is part of the Azores. He was there for the purpose of laying the telegraph cable to America. My grandmother was brought up strictly catholic. My grandfather was not catholic and didn't want to have anything to do with the church. He was definitely secular. He didn't like the whole thing. My grand other remained faithful to the end. The silver was from one of the clans and their name was Forgage. All the silver is monogrammed. That includes knives, forks, and various eating utensils. It wasn't pure silver it was EPNS, which is electroplated nickel silver. Also on the cabinet were some elephants in ivory and ebony. After my grandmothers death, uncle Charles came and collected the silver for the money.
Charles was my grandmothers only son, seven years older than me, hopelessly spoiled and undisciplined. From the earliest time, He used to shoot the fruit in the neighbours garden with a pellet gun. The same pellet gun or a catapult was used to demolish all the street lights in the neighbourhood. He had a cruel streak. The more noise a cat made when he shot it, the better he liked it. He used to roam the streets with a gang. One of them was named Labruscfen. All of Charles misdemeanours, which were many, came from l. Charles took anyone he could along with him, including me, and would pick a fight with passing Africans. Occasionally, he would take me out with him t night, on his bicycle, which meant I had to sit on the handlebars or cross bar and dodge his flying knees. It was a bit frightening, especially when he went downhill. Charles contributed a hell of a lot to my upbringing, what I experienced. One day he came round to our house on his motorbike, which was a 500CC AIS. He said he was going to take me for a ride. I remember everything going past in a blur. He asked me in front of my mother how fast I thought we were going. I guessed 60. He said 100. This was in a built up area. I was 10.
Charles would park his motorcycle next to the kitchen door and rev it up until it roared because He knew it annoyed my grandmother. He looked down on her because he'd come to the conclusion other people looked down on her because she was Portuguese. My grandmother would call to help to my grandfather, asking him to deal with the situation, but Charles was too violent. He had no chance.
He also ran a kind of a club in the garage at the back of the house. They used to make model aeroplanes and fly them. I can remember the smell of ether mixed with something, for fuel. The plane engines were fixed in a vice and run until you couldn't think anymore. Then we would take them out onto a large empty field and send them off never to see them again. I remember walking for hours after dark, looking for the planes. There was no remote control.
I had all his collection of superman comics and William series books. I don't anymore. Charles got married eventually to a pretty, delicate woman, who couldn't put up with his violent behaviour and left. This was not before the rest of the family had pooled resources and built him a house. I took the photographs at his wedding. In those days, I used to do my home processing, and when I took them round to him the same day of the wedding, Eileen was in tears. That wasn't the only problem. He used to work long humours of overtime as a motorcycle mechanic. He would get home late every night, stopping at the pub en route. Then if he met a friend at the pub, they might decide to go to Beira for the weekend without leaving any messages, which worried my grandmother to distraction.
One side of it you're free and easy, you grow up and upon extend yourself as much as you can, the other side is you have to consider the people who nurture you. I didn't say anything to him. I didn't really want him angry. The only person who Charles took any notice of was my mother. She could get angry, especially when he took my grandfathers check book and forged his signature. To me that was the limit. I was about sixteen. Charles then got married again to Lynn who was very self composed and good looking in a dolled up way with lots of makeup. I tried once or twice to get in touch but made no progress. They don't reply. I think Charles never liked me.
When I was sixteen, an endowment from the national war fund appeared, in my name. I bought a motorcycle. My first motorcycle was a Frances Barnett 150CC, which I bought from Charles. Some years later, I traded it in on a matchless 500 single. Then later, I sold it back to him for the original price, but we had a disagreement about its mechanical condition. Nonetheless, I used the money to buy a car, a VW beetle.
STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism
Tuesday, 22 November 2011
About U-Mhlahlo
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STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism
About U-Mhlahlo
U-Mhlahlo we Sizwe sika Mthwakazi (U-Mhlahlo) is the community based, civic Organization of Mthwakazi which is fighting for the abolition of the “Rule by Conquest” of the Inter-Cultural Society of Mthwakazi and promotes its diverse cultural identity and the right of people to its symboitic nationality on the bases of equality and the right to self-determination. U-Mhlahlo was formed on 11 June 2006 at Amakhosi Cultural Village, at Makhokhoba Township, in Bulawayo. It was formed by the Activits from 29 community based civic groups, which consisted of political activists, cultural, religious, workers, students, women, youths, elderly people and some traditional leaders.
U Mhlahlo is an inborn child of the sponteneous underground movement in a territory which had been subjugated for the past 118 years under the ‘Rule by Conquest” consisting of 87 years of the racial domination from 1893 upto 1980 and 30 years of tribal domonation from 1980 to the present date. Its people are conquered, traumatized, displaced, exiled to fruitless lands concentration areas in the Native Reserves and subjected to be permanent forced and cheap labour that was permanently impoverished. Their region is underdeveloped, featuring lack of education, its people are denied the fundamental freedoms and human rights. Generally the territory features the everlasting reign of terror and deprivation situations which is characterized by oppression sychosis and the attitude of insecurity among its population.
The Emergence of U Mhlahlo
During the shocking impact of the 5th Brigade (Gukurahundi) after 1983 in which within six weeks, it had left thousands of civilians dead, hundreds of the homestead burnt and many others had been killed and tortured or desappeared. Most of them were killed in public executions, mutilated, some bodies were left to rot, others were thrown into old gold mines, others covered with bunches of trees and burnt, tortured, kidnapped and caused to disappear, while women were raped, other pregnant ones operated alive by barrels of guns, with the claims that the perpetrators were searching for the unborn babies of the dissident. The people of Mthwakazi sponteneously went uderground in various hideouts in the killing grounds. When the situation eventually cooled down. Slowly and secretly the people started coming up in twos, small groups, at hospitals, prisons, funerals, work places, wedding parties, prayer meetings, pulic transports or any other getherings; the people wispered trying to find out about the fate of others who were being unnoticed probable being dead, kidnaped, disappeared, jailed without a fair trial and so on. The consultations resulted with the formation of various groupings. These groupings systematically convergenced bringing together the victims and survivors of the Gukurahundi genocide. The small groups gradual grew into secret and larger formations, their communication spread among the multi-ethnic nationalites of Mthwakazi until after 23 years on 11 June 2006 when the 29 civic groups of activits resolved to move from the underground activities into a formal registered organization operating legal to solve the “Question of Mthwakazi” once and for all. Hence the birth of “U Mhlahlo we Sizwe sika Mtwakazi” the Community, civic Oganization is the voice of the conquered Inter-Cultural Society of Mthwakazi.
STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism
Monday, 21 November 2011
Sunday, 20 November 2011
Gender ideologies and sexism: JENNIFER CONTRADICTS
JENNIFER CONTRADICTS:
- (summary here :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091112151434.htm
(ohmy, i really *want-to-be-the-change)Benevolent sexism is still a gender issue. After all, it is sexism. I prefer an environment where there is no game playing based on gender, but people do in fact use gender as a means to ascend the hierarchy. For instance, women do it by pointing out that others do not play the game of femininity. Hence those who do not play it well are popped off, leaving room for those who have a higher level of feminine shrewdness to claw their way a bit further up the ladder.I put a lot of this stupid game playing down to an overcrowded world. People don’t care too much about complexity, but about competing in the narrowest terms possible, very often. - November 20, 2011 at 9:58 pm | #17| QuoteFurthermore, hierarchy is not the source of the problem. Getting rid of hierarchy in fact exacerbates this problem of sexism, since people don’t respect formal qualifications or social protocols so much once hierarchy is gone. Instead, they revert to much more primitive ideologies. Ideologies based on gender differentiation are the most basic of these.I maintain that those who oppose hierarchy on the basis of feminism are taking society in entirely the wrong direction and making it much worse.
Playing the old school
My school was old style colonial, hence based on a military model of organisation. This was very different from nursery school where we were expected to “play” as if spontaneously — and yet guided away (if female) from toys considered to be “for boys”. This actually happened to me. I wanted to play with some coloured blocks and was told I couldn’t, but must go and play with a bunch of girls I didn’t know, who were playing “house” on a mattress near a window. The teacher said, “This is Jenny and she will join you.” The kids asked me what I wanted to “be” and I had no idea what that meant. I felt I had to play at knowing what I didn’t know and what I had no interest in knowing.
But, primary school had a very military type of order. We pretty much marched in single file between classes and learned to behave in a rather disciplined way. This sense of order stopped at the playground, which was literally chaotic. For instance, we had a grade one and a grade two slide and one was steeper than the other. In both cases, the boys and girls would jostle to form a very crude line and then three or four kids would go down the slide together. It was really what we called “rough”.
STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism
Saturday, 19 November 2011
Thursday, 17 November 2011
Wednesday, 16 November 2011
Monday, 14 November 2011
Sunday, 13 November 2011
PIC0006.JPG (image)
PIC0006.JPG (image)
It’s from a really funny story by Marechera (once again, considered not at all so funny from the narrow perspective of contemporary identity politics, but nonetheless really funny.)
It’s about the protagonist’s (actually, Marechera’s) inability to “cross the threshold” into sexual adulthood, because he didn’t know what his identity was.
So, he becomes in turn (I’m not sure if I have the correct order) somehow who goes into a coma and wakes up to find shit spread everywhere in his house, including on the ceiling. He also becomes a European aristocratic gentleman, waking up to find he’s painted his body with whitewash. In the other instance, he’s an evil father Christmas, sending Christmas cards with strange messages or insults.
This all happens as a backdrop to the idea of fusing in unity with his feminine side, in the river.
STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism
It’s from a really funny story by Marechera (once again, considered not at all so funny from the narrow perspective of contemporary identity politics, but nonetheless really funny.)
It’s about the protagonist’s (actually, Marechera’s) inability to “cross the threshold” into sexual adulthood, because he didn’t know what his identity was.
So, he becomes in turn (I’m not sure if I have the correct order) somehow who goes into a coma and wakes up to find shit spread everywhere in his house, including on the ceiling. He also becomes a European aristocratic gentleman, waking up to find he’s painted his body with whitewash. In the other instance, he’s an evil father Christmas, sending Christmas cards with strange messages or insults.
This all happens as a backdrop to the idea of fusing in unity with his feminine side, in the river.
STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism
On cultural dryness
The Japanese have a very, very dry sense of humour. I can wholly relate to this sense of humour (which seems impermeable to Westerners) because I also come from an extremely authoritarian (and somewhat collectivist) society. For instance, they think that any departure from protocol, especially when it is unintentional, is remarkably hilarious.
When I began writing my memoir, I began writing it with this kind of sense of humour. I wrote, for instance, of a situation where my friend and I began gently rocking our school desk (we shared one old fashioned wooden desk between two). This was in a classroom where students were actually beaten with a wooden bat for inadvertently dropping their pencils off their desk, or some other very minor crime.
So, we began rocking our desk very gently and then we looked at each other through the corner of our eyes and saw a gleam, which was a dare to rock the desk to more extreme angles. As we increased the extremity, suddenly the desk slipped through our fingers and fell over. Naturally, we were flabbergasted at the possible punishment that would be extracted for our “crime”.
In my narration of this story, I drew a loose parallel between the “irredeemably falling desk” and the political situation of the time.
I would say that this was so subtle that even many of my compatriots would not have grasped it. It makes sense whilst one is still in an authoritarian context, but less so when one has entered a liberal democracy.
Still, if I were to narrate the story to any of Japanese, they would be in hysterics. So, it just goes to show.
STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism
When I began writing my memoir, I began writing it with this kind of sense of humour. I wrote, for instance, of a situation where my friend and I began gently rocking our school desk (we shared one old fashioned wooden desk between two). This was in a classroom where students were actually beaten with a wooden bat for inadvertently dropping their pencils off their desk, or some other very minor crime.
So, we began rocking our desk very gently and then we looked at each other through the corner of our eyes and saw a gleam, which was a dare to rock the desk to more extreme angles. As we increased the extremity, suddenly the desk slipped through our fingers and fell over. Naturally, we were flabbergasted at the possible punishment that would be extracted for our “crime”.
In my narration of this story, I drew a loose parallel between the “irredeemably falling desk” and the political situation of the time.
I would say that this was so subtle that even many of my compatriots would not have grasped it. It makes sense whilst one is still in an authoritarian context, but less so when one has entered a liberal democracy.
Still, if I were to narrate the story to any of Japanese, they would be in hysterics. So, it just goes to show.
STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism
On being all "privileged" and "special" and sh*t
When I first came to Australia 20 years ago (and indeed, to some extent, this has never ceased) people began insinuating that I thought I was “special” in some way. Of course, not having been brought up in a competitive individualist culture, nor indeed in one where one maintained any “specialness” as in the sense of a new soap powder being considered “revolutionary”, I had no idea what they meant.
It took me about ten years to realise that they thought I thought I was special because I came from a society that had been partly racially segregated until three years before my family migrated to Australia. It was presumed that I had a self-conscious notion about my individual superiority — hence the continuous jibes.
In reality, such were the cultural and historical differences between me and my Australian counterparts, that I couldn’t even attach a particular meaning to “special”. The best I could do was with “special” was that you experienced it when you were allowed to have some Coke or potato chips on the weekend. Or, you felt vaguely “special” when you had your birthday. My culture was heavily ascetic and rigorously stoical most of the time -- and also not particularly individualistic, but rather tribal.
So, the concept of individual specialness that I’ve always been accused of having has nonetheless generally eluded me.
Even today, I can’t quite relate to an extremely individualistic culture that upholds that competition and standing out from others ought to be one's absolute priority (not that these things are bad, but to make them the essence of your identity is very bad indeed). That’s why I’ve chosen not to go into Western academia, but to teach Asian students instead. I’m much more comfortable, for instance, with Japanese culture and expectations, which do not take me by surprise, as compared to Western culture (which never ceases to).
STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism
It took me about ten years to realise that they thought I thought I was special because I came from a society that had been partly racially segregated until three years before my family migrated to Australia. It was presumed that I had a self-conscious notion about my individual superiority — hence the continuous jibes.
In reality, such were the cultural and historical differences between me and my Australian counterparts, that I couldn’t even attach a particular meaning to “special”. The best I could do was with “special” was that you experienced it when you were allowed to have some Coke or potato chips on the weekend. Or, you felt vaguely “special” when you had your birthday. My culture was heavily ascetic and rigorously stoical most of the time -- and also not particularly individualistic, but rather tribal.
So, the concept of individual specialness that I’ve always been accused of having has nonetheless generally eluded me.
Even today, I can’t quite relate to an extremely individualistic culture that upholds that competition and standing out from others ought to be one's absolute priority (not that these things are bad, but to make them the essence of your identity is very bad indeed). That’s why I’ve chosen not to go into Western academia, but to teach Asian students instead. I’m much more comfortable, for instance, with Japanese culture and expectations, which do not take me by surprise, as compared to Western culture (which never ceases to).
STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism
On rape, hitting, terrorising (and other things we're free to do)
You would be very surprised how widespread the bias against women is — the one that holds that they have no access to reality. If you are ever in a situation that is abusive in the way that Tolstoy was to his wife, it is inadvisable to express any doubt at all — about anything. You can’t be seen to be questioning your grasp on reality in any way, otherwise even seemingly nice, liberal friends, will adopt the stance that the man in the situation grasps reality accurately, but you don’t. Interestingly, the casual observer who draws such a conclusion does not even have to have been present in any of the aspects of your life for him (or sometimes, but more rarely, her) to be absolutely assured that your grasp on reality is compromised.
After all, no loving humanitarian Christian Tolstoy, who wrote so well and gained so many admirers, could be an unsavory person in his own home!
STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism
After all, no loving humanitarian Christian Tolstoy, who wrote so well and gained so many admirers, could be an unsavory person in his own home!
STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism
Saturday, 12 November 2011
Shamanistic cures
From my shamanistic perspective, which I developed through writing my thesis, there are no guarantees in life whatsoever. That should be the fundamental proposition of my shamanism. Secondly, often we can find the cause of our illnesses by getting to the root of the problem ourselves. Our illness can and should teach us something. Nonetheless, in remaining with my proposition concerning the disinterested nature of the universe, many events happen to us, including illnesses, which are not within our range to cure. Shamanism radically departs from conventional “spiritual” cures in that it refuses to take its cue from the sick priest — the one described by Nietzsche in Genealogy of Morals. So, “taking responsibility” of ones illnesses — if this responsibility implies first and foremost MORAL responsibility — is rejected for its epistemological falseness. Almost always, sickness originates outside of oneself. If one is powerful enough, one can reverse its effect. That is shamans of all ages are supposed to do. But, whether or not one can do it is a matter of personal power in its broadest sense and not a matter of one’s moral fiber or otherwise.
And this is why, as I have implied before, my memoir became for me an exercise in destruction of my own patriarchal character structure, which was self-doubting and deferential to the idea that men were superior to women. I fully succeeded in destroying it. When I began writing it, I had a lot of male admirers, from the right. Now, I have succeeded in becoming incomprehensible to almost everyone — but very much admired and appreciated by myself.
And this is why, as I have implied before, my memoir became for me an exercise in destruction of my own patriarchal character structure, which was self-doubting and deferential to the idea that men were superior to women. I fully succeeded in destroying it. When I began writing it, I had a lot of male admirers, from the right. Now, I have succeeded in becoming incomprehensible to almost everyone — but very much admired and appreciated by myself.
Thursday, 10 November 2011
On being monitored
As those who are able to discipline themselves so as to obtain even a minor capacity of understanding of my blog posts will know, I come from an extremely right wing culture.
Therefore, nothing is more second nature to me than monitoring myself. I monitor my emotions; I monitor my reactions. Right now, I am monitoring my blood pressure. Nothing is more "second nature" to me than this alertness in relation to authoritarian disapprobation.
I'm an extremely subtle reader of it -- most of the time, reading it accurately, but occasionally overdoing the reaction in my zealousness. I end up reading something into a situation that isn't in fact there.
Blame this on the authoritarian nature of my upbringing. I'm capable of reading danger singles with extreme ease -- with inculcated ease. My "sixth sense', my intellectual peripheral vision, is par to none.
If nothing else, fighting is in my blood stream.
Second to that, is monitoring oneself -- the cost of living in an authoritarian culture. Day and night, monitoring oneself.
STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism
Therefore, nothing is more second nature to me than monitoring myself. I monitor my emotions; I monitor my reactions. Right now, I am monitoring my blood pressure. Nothing is more "second nature" to me than this alertness in relation to authoritarian disapprobation.
I'm an extremely subtle reader of it -- most of the time, reading it accurately, but occasionally overdoing the reaction in my zealousness. I end up reading something into a situation that isn't in fact there.
Blame this on the authoritarian nature of my upbringing. I'm capable of reading danger singles with extreme ease -- with inculcated ease. My "sixth sense', my intellectual peripheral vision, is par to none.
If nothing else, fighting is in my blood stream.
Second to that, is monitoring oneself -- the cost of living in an authoritarian culture. Day and night, monitoring oneself.
STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism
Wednesday, 9 November 2011
Tuesday, 8 November 2011
Monday, 7 November 2011
Sunday, 6 November 2011
the fundamental human schism
Separating the view of life as basically a moral discourse and as politically dynamic is a huge experiential chasm. My cultural affiliations -- the ones I feel immediately in my gut -- are with those who see the world in terms of power dynamics rather than in terms of competing moral discourses.
Maybe this relates to the violence in my blood, that violent sensibility that comes from being born African. If you speak a close enough strain to my own language -- that being the language which takes into account that issues of life are related to issues of power -- then you will be culturally closer to me, even as an enemy, than anybody who espouses that life is basically a matter of making correct moral choices for oneself.
So there it is: the fundamental human schism. And those who speak about morality are often really speaking about power, whereas those who speak superficially about power are often really moral crusaders. You have to know the differences.
Writer Marechera's critical discourse is about power, and only lightly is it about morality. And his Western critics (although not those of the dark continent) speak fundamentally in terms of a moral discourse. They perceive a deeper discourse about power to be "mad". Although perhaps this is a slip of the tongue --What they are really meaning to say is that is is "maddening".
STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism
Maybe this relates to the violence in my blood, that violent sensibility that comes from being born African. If you speak a close enough strain to my own language -- that being the language which takes into account that issues of life are related to issues of power -- then you will be culturally closer to me, even as an enemy, than anybody who espouses that life is basically a matter of making correct moral choices for oneself.
So there it is: the fundamental human schism. And those who speak about morality are often really speaking about power, whereas those who speak superficially about power are often really moral crusaders. You have to know the differences.
Writer Marechera's critical discourse is about power, and only lightly is it about morality. And his Western critics (although not those of the dark continent) speak fundamentally in terms of a moral discourse. They perceive a deeper discourse about power to be "mad". Although perhaps this is a slip of the tongue --What they are really meaning to say is that is is "maddening".
STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism
Saturday, 5 November 2011
Name calling
It happens even in the intellectual realm, whereby somebody like Bataille is deemed by somebody named Wolin to be a “left fascist”. Well, for a start the term doesn’t make any sense, no matter how you dissect it. If you take Mike Ballard’s (husband’s) views into consideration, fascism is the ideology that the workers and corporations have identical interests. If you take a more psychological angle (mine), fascism is capitulation to authoritarianism, whereby the primal level of the emotions is collapsed into complete subservience to leadership, without any intervening rational attitude in between. In terms of neither of these definitions is Bataille a “fascist” (left or otherwise).
I dislike the anti-intellectual (name-calling) assault on ways of thinking that are not immediately accessible or easy to understand.
It's shocking that quite a number of intellectuals are themselves guilty of such anti-intellectual strategies.
STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism
I dislike the anti-intellectual (name-calling) assault on ways of thinking that are not immediately accessible or easy to understand.
It's shocking that quite a number of intellectuals are themselves guilty of such anti-intellectual strategies.
STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism
Friday, 4 November 2011
Thursday, 3 November 2011
Culturally conditioned strengths and weaknesses
The ideology that there are some people who function according to psychology and others who function according to reason was shown to be wrong sometime around the 50s, when it was discovered that everybody has a psychological breaking point. Before that time, it was assumed that some people were susceptible to breaking down (“shell shock” was considered a crime stemming from moral cowardice during World War 1) and some people who were above that.
This is not to say that some people do not have seemingly innate advantages over others in terms of being psychologically robust. Many women in the West and from other cultures face psychological battles in terms of how they’ve learned to see themselves.
Early cultural conditioning can really make or break us. I have many advantages (although a lot of disadvantages too) that stem from my early cultural upbringing. On the plus side, it is impossible for anyone to impose a judgment on me by looking down on me. I just can’t believe this order of judgment can be anything other than a sign of imbecility on the part of the one who presumes to do so. This is my direct reaction due to coming from an arrogant master-race culture (that's was the colonial perspective at that time). I’m very psychologically robust on that point.
STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism
This is not to say that some people do not have seemingly innate advantages over others in terms of being psychologically robust. Many women in the West and from other cultures face psychological battles in terms of how they’ve learned to see themselves.
Early cultural conditioning can really make or break us. I have many advantages (although a lot of disadvantages too) that stem from my early cultural upbringing. On the plus side, it is impossible for anyone to impose a judgment on me by looking down on me. I just can’t believe this order of judgment can be anything other than a sign of imbecility on the part of the one who presumes to do so. This is my direct reaction due to coming from an arrogant master-race culture (that's was the colonial perspective at that time). I’m very psychologically robust on that point.
STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism
Wednesday, 2 November 2011
Tuesday, 1 November 2011
On the nature of shamanic regeneration
Unless you hit rock bottom, you will not be able to know the psychological resources available to you. One does not develop shamanistic strategies unless you have no other recourse and unless you are severely marginalised. And shamanistic strategies are the close cousin of pathology although they are arguably not pathological at all in that their intention is to produce redemption -- and in this they often succeed, if not in whole then at least in part.Shamanism is a strategic kind of madness -- a controlled madness. One allows oneself to go mad. One watches oneself go mad. But the madness is never out of control, but rather strategic, as a way of counteracting powerful political, military and other interests, that exert themselves directly on one's life.The shamanistic "doubling" introduces a level of complexity into the psyche that makes one's behaviour hard to calculate and one is less manageable and less able to be controlled by draconian authorities. One also gathers unusual perspectives in this way and it can open up the psyche to some very creative and creative insights. Shamanism is not a cultural concept, but relates to what happens to the psyche if the psyche is on the ropes and fighting for its life. It's a form of health obtained by the severely oppressed. It's not recognised as such, but that is what it is
Shamanistic self-renewal is not “once-off” but multiple, in that one needs to be renewed many times. The process of "shamanising" involves the -destruction and regeneration of the self. The traumatic induction into shamanism is in terms of “shamanic initiation”. Later experiences are from a position of mastery over this realm, and are most likely to involve feelings of “ecstasy”. Knowledge of this other realm of being – the one involving -destruction and self-regeneration – fueled Marechera’s creativity and psychological insights as a writer. In psychoanalytical terms, it is the superego that is destroyed and reborn through shamanistic experience. One creates the basis for a better one, using habits and ideas that one has chosen.
It is much like sparring in that sense (destroying temporarily the mind in its pursuit of safety), or violent training that destroys the muscles in the body – "ripping" them and forcing the body to renew itself in a better way.
Nietzsche and Bataille were both at war on behalf of ethical principles, which is something that could be said of Marechera, too. It wasn’t that they simply wanted to hail in a different kind of society. They had to use the principle of violence and rupture (that was already within them, and had been put there by their own traumas), to explode whatever container was in fact closing in on them, making them feel self-satisfied and blinded.
A shamanic type opposes society's conventions on principle because once you become comfortable with those conventions, you are no longer creative. Hence: "live dangerously, build your houses on the slopes of Vesuvius" etc, from Nietzsche, where Bataille focuses more on the destructive and hence self-renewing aspects of the same dynamic of which Nietzsche gives us the formula.
LIVE DANGEROUSLY
Anger is a forbidden emotion for women and anyone considered subservient in conventional society because it explodes the bubble of consciousness that has been designed to keep you unaware of your own reactions to aggression. The ideological bubble is a closed microcosm of ideas and prescribed and anticipated reactions. Many who are broken and frightened by their various traumas wrongly consider remaining in such a closed microcosm to be invaluable for continuing their lives. They succumb to counseling (re-education) to re-enter subservience to authority.
To constantly explode limiting bubbles of consciousness to take ourselves out of the comfort zone into the danger zone, where nothing or little is regulated, is the key to shamanistic self-renewal.
Jennifer's seven dangers to human virtue
1. Wealth without satisfaction
2. Not being conscientious about having pleasure
3. Knowledge without application
4. Business without meaning
5. Science & medicine without funding
6. Religion devoid of intelligence and a humanitarian spirit
7. Politics without participation
2. Not being conscientious about having pleasure
3. Knowledge without application
4. Business without meaning
5. Science & medicine without funding
6. Religion devoid of intelligence and a humanitarian spirit
7. Politics without participation
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