So I am reading Lacan -- a really good expository book this time. I am reflecting that the mirror stage -- whilst it contains a lot of truth -- is still somehow too narrow in its identification of the self as being defined and limited by the subject's body (in other words, the narrow individual).
I still maintain that my sense of self, before I came to the West, was much broader than this, as well as much more diffused. (This is due to the lack of experience of industrial and post-industrial consciousness).
I would say that my sense of self included the environments that I frequented, as well as my association with my peers. They were all included in my sense of self. Suppose I went somewhere where I did not feel was already part of myself -- like the boys' school across the vlei -- then I would feel that I had no right to assert a self. So my sense of self was rather tribal and territorial.
Monday 30 June 2008
Sunday 29 June 2008
no rest
I must say that I have been living and breathing a bit too much of Zimbabwe of late. It's cloying soil is getting into my lungs. I must relent. There's nothing I can do about that fateful situation in any case.
Last night I dreamt I met some wierd-ass hermit-shaman, clambering all over the rocky, dry hills.
I've been working hard, but I don't give myself the time to have a break. I ought to, and yet do not.
MEN
Men are like sadza -- squishy and white, (but only if they are first white!)
Men are like cheese puffs -- party food!!!!!!!!!!!
MEN are like schoolchildren -- you can take them to school, but you cannot teach them anything new!!
Men are like cartoons -- Itchy and Scratchy cartoons remind me of MEN.
Men are like carbon copies -- if you read one man you've read them all!
Men are like ear-rings -- you need one for each ear.
Jennifer
Men are like cheese puffs -- party food!!!!!!!!!!!
MEN are like schoolchildren -- you can take them to school, but you cannot teach them anything new!!
Men are like cartoons -- Itchy and Scratchy cartoons remind me of MEN.
Men are like carbon copies -- if you read one man you've read them all!
Men are like ear-rings -- you need one for each ear.
Jennifer
Saturday 28 June 2008
Some Americans and some Australians have swimming pools, too.
You know, I do get weary with the constant reminders that Westerners are given (to boost their state of arrogant aloofness through a model of faux humility) that they are better than the Colonials, albeit remaining evil, still, in their leaders' opportunism. Some Americans, Brits and Australians have swimming pools and workslaves too. Oh yeah, and other perks. But never mind. Let us narrow our vision and put on our moralising hats:
Of all the people I knew in Zimbabwe, only one had a rundown private tennis court. When the black Zimbabweans became elites, they, too, received some of the perks of bourgeois society. (ie. they also got swimming pools and black servants.) Go figure. The world, apparently wasn't fair back then -- but how fair is it now, especially in Zimbabwe?
If the International Herald Tribune disagrees with bourgeois values and their inherent unfairness, it should just come out and say so. But passing the buck and making out that such tendencies towards inequality were merely "colonial" or related to Western racist proclivities is disingenous and inappropriate at this time of actual crisis in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe's situation needs a rational, clear and focused viewpoint from our newspapers, not tokens of vulgar self-deprecation.
The international community looked the other way, still pleased that Mugabe had urged reconciliation with the whites who had oppressed his people,
allowing former Rhodesian ruler Ian Smith to draw a government pension and
whites to continue living privileged lifestyles with domestic workers in
mansions with pools and tennis courts.
Of all the people I knew in Zimbabwe, only one had a rundown private tennis court. When the black Zimbabweans became elites, they, too, received some of the perks of bourgeois society. (ie. they also got swimming pools and black servants.) Go figure. The world, apparently wasn't fair back then -- but how fair is it now, especially in Zimbabwe?
If the International Herald Tribune disagrees with bourgeois values and their inherent unfairness, it should just come out and say so. But passing the buck and making out that such tendencies towards inequality were merely "colonial" or related to Western racist proclivities is disingenous and inappropriate at this time of actual crisis in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe's situation needs a rational, clear and focused viewpoint from our newspapers, not tokens of vulgar self-deprecation.
Key Marecheran elements
Key aspects of Marechera’s writing
1. employs a mix of high and low culturally and conceptually; the concrete and the high Modernist Abstract, the local Zimbabwean lingo with the images and ideas of classical Western culture (eg. ancient Greek philosophy and literature)
2a Uses a mode akin to shamanism – an approach based on the employment of images to ‘read” a society, rather than directly using concepts as such.
2b. Uses ideas that appear to offer themselves up synchronistically (Jung) in conjunction with spontaneously encountered local images, to produce a penetrating political reading, as if in terms of a dynamically inspired dreamscape / nightmare scape.
3a. The political nature of his writing, which reorganises and reappraises our societal perspectives, supplying the basis for a new gestalt.
3b The revaluation of values (Nietzsche) as the intended outcome of his writing.
1. employs a mix of high and low culturally and conceptually; the concrete and the high Modernist Abstract, the local Zimbabwean lingo with the images and ideas of classical Western culture (eg. ancient Greek philosophy and literature)
2a Uses a mode akin to shamanism – an approach based on the employment of images to ‘read” a society, rather than directly using concepts as such.
2b. Uses ideas that appear to offer themselves up synchronistically (Jung) in conjunction with spontaneously encountered local images, to produce a penetrating political reading, as if in terms of a dynamically inspired dreamscape / nightmare scape.
3a. The political nature of his writing, which reorganises and reappraises our societal perspectives, supplying the basis for a new gestalt.
3b The revaluation of values (Nietzsche) as the intended outcome of his writing.
nature, lack, castration, and Lacan
It seems to me that when Lacan speaks of the idea that we are "castrated" and thus are introduced into language by virtue of a "lack" he is not really talking so much about language itself but about metaphysics. When we lose touch with the self-sufficiency of Nature, we enter a realm governed by the intellect, which organises the world on the basis of abstract reason along with the postulation of notions of "essences", which are not to be found with the bare eyes, looking empirically for them, in Nature.
What my old Zim school friends seem to lack, apparently, is lack. It seems to me that they do not wander in the corridors of metaphysics at all. The degree of lack in their lives has been so slight, that recourse to the intellect as a way of coming to terms with life has hardly been necessary for them. Their orientation towards the world still remains relatively natural, if not indeed to the degree of being "one" with Nature. Their degree of closeness to the idea and sensations of consolation by Nature is greater than mine.
Unlike many of my old school friends, I have two selves -- one behind the wall of possibility now. The old self is very much undifferentiated from nature, at least in terms of my own subjectivity. My old self expected to move through life without much need to contend for anything. The fluidity of such a self, that would move through society as it moved through a rain forest is gone now. My later self, a much more intellectual and capable self, is free of the naivety that had expected social fluidity. Yet the "lack" (as per Lacan) that is acquired through a loss of unity with nature is ultimately stored up as an excess of unutilised and disconnected possiblities (including the possiblities of meaning something -- an aspect of (unpredictable) resourcefulness stored up within a subjectivity that is necessarily unfinished). The self that is separated from nature is therefore more dynamic than the self that is relatively more attached to it.
I am capable of being both selves -- but, not at the same time. Odd as it is, I revert to the former (less dynamic sense of self) when my old school friends recognise me as the former. Little do they know but this is NOT a Western way of being.
Friday 27 June 2008
life molds us
The reason I could relate so well to the anxieties of people suffering in Zimbabwe is because my early adult life was measured in terms of an extreme angst. It lay underneath everything I did that had to be performed for public consumption. I was okay performing for my own consumption and enjoyment, however, and so turned my attentions to that. But doing something for public consumption meant trying to appeal to people who had rejected me for being a white Zimbabwean. Additionally, relating in a very soft and intimate was was not my desire, nor even a possibility, since I had learned to toughen up due to my father's hatred of me as a female adult. So there were a few things I could do, but felt uneasy about doing (performing for the public) and a few things I couldn't do, because the anxiety went too deep (being vulnerable to those whose mode of operation was too soft or weak). Such is life, and how it molds our characters.
Thursday 26 June 2008
why feminism?
Yeah, it is an interesting issue, for sure: Is feminist epistemology (the aspect of feminism I am interested in) to be concerned with mens’s issues, or just with those of women? Can it, on a practical level, ever be concerned with how men experience the world? I think that there are two different issues here. One is the issue of feminist epistemology and how that has to function if it is to have any meaning. The other is a moral issue about how we treat other people. They are not the same things at all — or ought not to be (although I understand that the nastier seeming feminists may tend to conflate the two).
Feminist epistemology has to be concerned with how women experience the world. If, for instance, I am deemed irrational when I try to get social help for a very antagonising situation, then it probably doesn’t help me to go looking for how men are treated as irrational — at least not in the first instance. The reason that I would not look to humanity in general is that there are already signs that the issue is a female issue. The signs presented to me may include such things as: My abuser determined, upon my reaching puberty, that I had become irrational, and that I had come to represent to him the realm of FEELINGS (but not the realm of logic, reason, or of ethical human relations). The realm of feelings is considered in the academic literature to be a definitively FEMININE realm. // 2. My abuser was highly irrational in his thought processes — for instance, he thought that reading a philosophy book in a room in which I had not opened the curtains fully was a sign that I was communing with Satan. He got an elder from his Church in, to check me out. He also chased me out of the house in one instance for refusing to discuss his state of sexual arousal with him, whilst he was watching Basic Instinct. In chasing me out of the house (after I politely refused to continue his line of conversation), he accused me of “being afraid of everything” (not true). //3. When I mentioned my father’s behaviour to others, including what he had said to me, others acted towards me as if I were the irrational one. This said something to me about patiarchy and how the authority of fathers is based upon the political and cognitive divide between public and private realms. Nobody would touch this situation because my father was deemed to be acting rationally within the preserves of patriarchy. //4. Other signs that I was dealing with an issue of patriarchal power and values were that I have never been successful in raising this issue (whilst being even partially understood) in an other than feminist forum. So the signs are that I have interpreted the power dynamics correctly, in terms of general feminist critiques regarding patriarchal power.
If I had gone to look for my answers in terms of the suffering of men in general, I would have found what I did actually find — that men in general simply cannot relate to a situation of someone being deemed irrational because they are being bullied in the home. Some men might relate peripherally to the situation of being deemed irrational when complaining about bullying at work. (There is also a power dynamic here, of dominance and submission.) However, I was deemed irrational by my father upon puberty — and it was at that point that the bullying started and has continued ever since. Also, those in particular who deem themselves really good and proper citizens are the least likely to understand what I have told them. Their inability to attend with any seriousness to the examples I give them indicates to me that what I have to say is not understandable by “people in general”. However, feminists do understand it.
Feminist epistemology has to be concerned with how women experience the world. If, for instance, I am deemed irrational when I try to get social help for a very antagonising situation, then it probably doesn’t help me to go looking for how men are treated as irrational — at least not in the first instance. The reason that I would not look to humanity in general is that there are already signs that the issue is a female issue. The signs presented to me may include such things as: My abuser determined, upon my reaching puberty, that I had become irrational, and that I had come to represent to him the realm of FEELINGS (but not the realm of logic, reason, or of ethical human relations). The realm of feelings is considered in the academic literature to be a definitively FEMININE realm. // 2. My abuser was highly irrational in his thought processes — for instance, he thought that reading a philosophy book in a room in which I had not opened the curtains fully was a sign that I was communing with Satan. He got an elder from his Church in, to check me out. He also chased me out of the house in one instance for refusing to discuss his state of sexual arousal with him, whilst he was watching Basic Instinct. In chasing me out of the house (after I politely refused to continue his line of conversation), he accused me of “being afraid of everything” (not true). //3. When I mentioned my father’s behaviour to others, including what he had said to me, others acted towards me as if I were the irrational one. This said something to me about patiarchy and how the authority of fathers is based upon the political and cognitive divide between public and private realms. Nobody would touch this situation because my father was deemed to be acting rationally within the preserves of patriarchy. //4. Other signs that I was dealing with an issue of patriarchal power and values were that I have never been successful in raising this issue (whilst being even partially understood) in an other than feminist forum. So the signs are that I have interpreted the power dynamics correctly, in terms of general feminist critiques regarding patriarchal power.
If I had gone to look for my answers in terms of the suffering of men in general, I would have found what I did actually find — that men in general simply cannot relate to a situation of someone being deemed irrational because they are being bullied in the home. Some men might relate peripherally to the situation of being deemed irrational when complaining about bullying at work. (There is also a power dynamic here, of dominance and submission.) However, I was deemed irrational by my father upon puberty — and it was at that point that the bullying started and has continued ever since. Also, those in particular who deem themselves really good and proper citizens are the least likely to understand what I have told them. Their inability to attend with any seriousness to the examples I give them indicates to me that what I have to say is not understandable by “people in general”. However, feminists do understand it.
Teaching the Children
It's one thing to teach children how to conform to what society expects of them. This requirement to conform is represented as necessarily painful, although ultimately productive, in Lacan's notion of castration. It is by this means that children leave the realm of Nature and enter into the realm of the Civilised social order.
How does Marechera's views on teaching the children differ from this process outlined above? Clearly there is a great deal in terms of children's "natures" that Marechera has no wish to refine, correct and adjust to the social order. In fact, his mode of writing to children is a form of teasing their minds and emotions, in a way that invites these young minds to reach out and explore their local environments for themselves. Marechera's writing to children invites them to doubt the veracity and integrity of the adults and their worlds, and to adopt and independent and adventurous mode of being, perhaps with also using literature as an emotional window on the world.
How could a Zimbabwean child, who would almost certainly live much closer to animals and to nature than many a Western child would have the opportunity to do, be anything other than amused at a story which spoke of a cat sneezing, startling the mice, with the consequence that the cat's whiskers shrunk in shame? ( p 220, Scrapiron Blues). The subtle injuction attending this segment from the Marecheran short story on "The Magic Cat" night be not to believe everything you hear. This tone of mocking hilarity also accompanies the following segment, which would be read differently by Zimbabwean adults than Zimbabwean children (although the children, too, would one day put two and two together about idealised and genteel world of the magic cat:
My Cat asked the soldier"Where is Heroes' Acre?"The Soldier smiled and pointedMy cat loves the Eternal Flame.
The soldiers at Heroes' Acre are notoriously taciturn. It would be hard to imagine them smiling and pointing, then, even for the pleasure of something as innocuous as a magic cat. And it is, notably, the author's cat -- rather than the author himself -- who "loves the Eternal Flame". The author's subtle snubbing of the state socialist regime is readily apparent in this children's short story he wrote in the early 80s. Already a few years after national liberation, it was apparent to the author that there were autocratic aspects to the regime -- including keeping him in Zimbabwe when he wanted to leave. His own experiential knowledge of a hidden, and politically repressed reality, is conveyed through the foil of his cat.
There is present in this a peculiarly Zimbabwean flavour of humour, however. To take note of, and to surreptitiously remark upon the discrepancies one sees between lived reality and the officially contrived versions thereof, has traditionally been a mode of political and social commentary in Zimbabwe for a very long time.
Marechera's children's writing, which invites children to see the discrepancies between reality and purported reality, is therefore profoundly culturally Zimbabwean.
In Fuzzy Goo's Guide (to the Earth), Marechera goes even further in his endeavours to safeguard children from the devices of "civilisation" employed by adults. He encourages them to doubt and fear a range of adult authorities -- including the police, ambulance men who "rape you (girl or boy) if you are unconscious", and the powerful members of the political inner circle known locally as the "chefs". To instil an emotional tendency towards doubting one's authorities is arguably a way of protecting the young from ideological subsumption into the political roles and models formed by their elders. Such protection is particularly pertinent in a society which is violent and/or exploitative. One must put a wedge between the adult world and the children's world, in order to preserve the children by making them adopt a mode which is constructively "paranoid". (see Isabel Menzies Lyth on “Constructive Paranoia”.) This mode of seeing is also related to the facility of the strong mind which – aware of its anxiety -- overcomes a human tendency to revert to primitive psychological defences [as described by Menzies Lyth] in the face of overwhelming anxiety. “Paranoid means seeing all the things which big humans have been taught not to see." ( p 241)
Marechera draws very much from his own experiences in his education of the children. His teachings, being experiential, invoke shamanistic wisdom -- they are not abstract teachings, or those based upon transcendental principles. Rather, the teachings furnish the emotional and cognitive basis for living in an objectively dangerous world.
You know what I said about big people! They have a torture machine called drought which they bang on the heads of the little people: they say there is no food. Drought means no food for the little citizens. All the big chefs will be eating silly -- but not for you. Especially if you are sick. ( p 243)
Marechera's advice to children, as I have said, is to be independent as much as possible, and to seek to experience the world on their own terms, on pain of death:
So when you know you are growing up you must kill yourself before you become just another very boring blah. If you are a coward, then you must smoke ganga or get mean and drunk every day and night. It is usually better to run away from home. All you need is a rucksack and a small tent. If you stay in society and the big ones want to beat up the other society next door they will put you into the army and you will get your small finger and private parts blown up with bombs. It is very painful. If you stay in society, the big ones will make you stand in line in the streets and wave stupid flags and sing horrible national songs, and be kissed by the thick drunken lips of the biggest of the big human beings. They won't let you pee when you want to but when they want you to. ( p 241)
The writer's message to children is clear: If you do not want your lives totally controlled all the way down to every microscopic detail -- including when you can pee -- and if you want to escape the fate of beind reduced to both the ordinary and more extreme forms of misery that are the lot of adult human beings, you must take extreme action up to and including running away from home.
From Dambudzo Marechera's passionately experiential and humorous point of view, the greatest danger that can come to children is that presented by adults and by their ideals of "civilisation".
How does Marechera's views on teaching the children differ from this process outlined above? Clearly there is a great deal in terms of children's "natures" that Marechera has no wish to refine, correct and adjust to the social order. In fact, his mode of writing to children is a form of teasing their minds and emotions, in a way that invites these young minds to reach out and explore their local environments for themselves. Marechera's writing to children invites them to doubt the veracity and integrity of the adults and their worlds, and to adopt and independent and adventurous mode of being, perhaps with also using literature as an emotional window on the world.
How could a Zimbabwean child, who would almost certainly live much closer to animals and to nature than many a Western child would have the opportunity to do, be anything other than amused at a story which spoke of a cat sneezing, startling the mice, with the consequence that the cat's whiskers shrunk in shame? ( p 220, Scrapiron Blues). The subtle injuction attending this segment from the Marecheran short story on "The Magic Cat" night be not to believe everything you hear. This tone of mocking hilarity also accompanies the following segment, which would be read differently by Zimbabwean adults than Zimbabwean children (although the children, too, would one day put two and two together about idealised and genteel world of the magic cat:
My Cat asked the soldier"Where is Heroes' Acre?"The Soldier smiled and pointedMy cat loves the Eternal Flame.
The soldiers at Heroes' Acre are notoriously taciturn. It would be hard to imagine them smiling and pointing, then, even for the pleasure of something as innocuous as a magic cat. And it is, notably, the author's cat -- rather than the author himself -- who "loves the Eternal Flame". The author's subtle snubbing of the state socialist regime is readily apparent in this children's short story he wrote in the early 80s. Already a few years after national liberation, it was apparent to the author that there were autocratic aspects to the regime -- including keeping him in Zimbabwe when he wanted to leave. His own experiential knowledge of a hidden, and politically repressed reality, is conveyed through the foil of his cat.
There is present in this a peculiarly Zimbabwean flavour of humour, however. To take note of, and to surreptitiously remark upon the discrepancies one sees between lived reality and the officially contrived versions thereof, has traditionally been a mode of political and social commentary in Zimbabwe for a very long time.
Marechera's children's writing, which invites children to see the discrepancies between reality and purported reality, is therefore profoundly culturally Zimbabwean.
In Fuzzy Goo's Guide (to the Earth), Marechera goes even further in his endeavours to safeguard children from the devices of "civilisation" employed by adults. He encourages them to doubt and fear a range of adult authorities -- including the police, ambulance men who "rape you (girl or boy) if you are unconscious", and the powerful members of the political inner circle known locally as the "chefs". To instil an emotional tendency towards doubting one's authorities is arguably a way of protecting the young from ideological subsumption into the political roles and models formed by their elders. Such protection is particularly pertinent in a society which is violent and/or exploitative. One must put a wedge between the adult world and the children's world, in order to preserve the children by making them adopt a mode which is constructively "paranoid". (see Isabel Menzies Lyth on “Constructive Paranoia”.) This mode of seeing is also related to the facility of the strong mind which – aware of its anxiety -- overcomes a human tendency to revert to primitive psychological defences [as described by Menzies Lyth] in the face of overwhelming anxiety. “Paranoid means seeing all the things which big humans have been taught not to see." ( p 241)
Marechera draws very much from his own experiences in his education of the children. His teachings, being experiential, invoke shamanistic wisdom -- they are not abstract teachings, or those based upon transcendental principles. Rather, the teachings furnish the emotional and cognitive basis for living in an objectively dangerous world.
You know what I said about big people! They have a torture machine called drought which they bang on the heads of the little people: they say there is no food. Drought means no food for the little citizens. All the big chefs will be eating silly -- but not for you. Especially if you are sick. ( p 243)
Marechera's advice to children, as I have said, is to be independent as much as possible, and to seek to experience the world on their own terms, on pain of death:
So when you know you are growing up you must kill yourself before you become just another very boring blah. If you are a coward, then you must smoke ganga or get mean and drunk every day and night. It is usually better to run away from home. All you need is a rucksack and a small tent. If you stay in society and the big ones want to beat up the other society next door they will put you into the army and you will get your small finger and private parts blown up with bombs. It is very painful. If you stay in society, the big ones will make you stand in line in the streets and wave stupid flags and sing horrible national songs, and be kissed by the thick drunken lips of the biggest of the big human beings. They won't let you pee when you want to but when they want you to. ( p 241)
The writer's message to children is clear: If you do not want your lives totally controlled all the way down to every microscopic detail -- including when you can pee -- and if you want to escape the fate of beind reduced to both the ordinary and more extreme forms of misery that are the lot of adult human beings, you must take extreme action up to and including running away from home.
From Dambudzo Marechera's passionately experiential and humorous point of view, the greatest danger that can come to children is that presented by adults and by their ideals of "civilisation".
Tuesday 24 June 2008
"If Dambudzo Marechera came to Australia today, how would he react?"
He would probably see the Aboriginals and migrants in detention centres as heroic, and would see that these had the true kernels of life to offer to the otherwise bland milieu of common Australian society. He would probably also draw the analogy -- as he took images and made them into criticisms with a deeper meaning -- that Australian society was a vast cultural desert.
He would probably see the Aboriginals and migrants in detention centres as heroic, and would see that these had the true kernels of life to offer to the otherwise bland milieu of common Australian society. He would probably also draw the analogy -- as he took images and made them into criticisms with a deeper meaning -- that Australian society was a vast cultural desert.
Politicide Warning: Zimbabwe
Politicide Warning: Zimbabwe
19 June 2008
Zimbabwe’s run-off Presidential election on 27 June will take place in an atmosphere of terror. ZANU-PF militias, the Zimbabwe army and police, and ZANU-PF mobs have pushed Zimbabwe to Stage 6, the Preparation stage immediately preceding political mass murder.
Families of Zimbabwe’s opposition leaders are being targeted for brutal execution. The mutilated body of Abigail Chitoro, wife of the Mayor-elect of Harare, was found on Tuesday. Mr. Chitoro said, “The body was butchered. They had used heavy objects to crush the head. She still had the blindfold that my kid said they put on her head when they took them away.”
In the last week there have been three reports of local MDC officials who fled their homes from marauding Zanu PF mobs and who had their homes burnt down. In each case their wives were put to death, two burnt alive, the other battered to death. Four other MDC leaders were also murdered this week, bringing the total of political assassinations to over one hundred in the last two months. Hundreds of other MDC supporters have been beaten and tortured. Murder and torture victims have had their ears, lips, and sexual organs cut off.
Mutilation of bodies is one of the surest signs of the de-humanizing of targeted groups during genocide and politicide (political mass murder.) ZANU-PF’s hate speech, torture, and murder have terrorized Zimbabwe since the Movement for Democratic Change defeated Mugabe and the ZANU-PF in March’s elections. Now ZANU-PF has stepped up its violence to openly kill leaders of the MDC and their families. Such acts are prelude to every politicide or genocide.
A sign of the gravity of the danger is the phenomenon of “mirroring,” a strange but common psychological mechanism of denial used by mass murderers. ZANU-PF spokesmen accuse their victims of being traitors or terrorists, when in fact ZANU-PF is the real perpetrator of atrocities. Mirroring is a predictor of intent to commit crimes against a targeted group.
The terror campaign is being directed by Air Marshall Perence Shiri, who was commander of the infamous North Korean trained Fifth Brigade, which carried out Mugabe’s genocide against the Matabele in 1983-84. Working with him is General Constantine Chiwanga, Commander of the Zimbabwe Army, and Sidney Sekeramayi, Minister of Defense, both of whom were senior officers directly involved in the 1983-84 genocide.
The military has taken effective control of Zimbabwe. With military support, gangs of ZANU-PF marauders sweep through villages at night, killing, torturing and raping MDC supporters. The Mugabe regime's order to NGO and UN relief groups to stop distributing food to Zimbabwe's starving people is a sign of complete contempt for human life.
President Mugabe’s open declaration that his followers would go to war rather than accept defeat in the election is a sign of the high probability that Zimbabwe is headed for a bloodbath.
1. Genocide Watch calls on Tanzania, the Chair of the African Union, to inform President Mugabe that if the election is followed by mass killing, African Union troops will intervene to stop it.
2. Genocide Watch calls on the United Nations Security Council to demand that Zimbabwe immediately restore direct food distribution to people in Zimbabwe by NGO and UN relief organizations.
3. Genocide Watch also calls on the United Nations Security Council to refer the situation in Zimbabwe to the International Criminal Court, so that those perpetrating the crimes against humanity there, including Mugabe himself, will be brought to justice.
http://www.genocidewatch.org/
19 June 2008
Zimbabwe’s run-off Presidential election on 27 June will take place in an atmosphere of terror. ZANU-PF militias, the Zimbabwe army and police, and ZANU-PF mobs have pushed Zimbabwe to Stage 6, the Preparation stage immediately preceding political mass murder.
Families of Zimbabwe’s opposition leaders are being targeted for brutal execution. The mutilated body of Abigail Chitoro, wife of the Mayor-elect of Harare, was found on Tuesday. Mr. Chitoro said, “The body was butchered. They had used heavy objects to crush the head. She still had the blindfold that my kid said they put on her head when they took them away.”
In the last week there have been three reports of local MDC officials who fled their homes from marauding Zanu PF mobs and who had their homes burnt down. In each case their wives were put to death, two burnt alive, the other battered to death. Four other MDC leaders were also murdered this week, bringing the total of political assassinations to over one hundred in the last two months. Hundreds of other MDC supporters have been beaten and tortured. Murder and torture victims have had their ears, lips, and sexual organs cut off.
Mutilation of bodies is one of the surest signs of the de-humanizing of targeted groups during genocide and politicide (political mass murder.) ZANU-PF’s hate speech, torture, and murder have terrorized Zimbabwe since the Movement for Democratic Change defeated Mugabe and the ZANU-PF in March’s elections. Now ZANU-PF has stepped up its violence to openly kill leaders of the MDC and their families. Such acts are prelude to every politicide or genocide.
A sign of the gravity of the danger is the phenomenon of “mirroring,” a strange but common psychological mechanism of denial used by mass murderers. ZANU-PF spokesmen accuse their victims of being traitors or terrorists, when in fact ZANU-PF is the real perpetrator of atrocities. Mirroring is a predictor of intent to commit crimes against a targeted group.
The terror campaign is being directed by Air Marshall Perence Shiri, who was commander of the infamous North Korean trained Fifth Brigade, which carried out Mugabe’s genocide against the Matabele in 1983-84. Working with him is General Constantine Chiwanga, Commander of the Zimbabwe Army, and Sidney Sekeramayi, Minister of Defense, both of whom were senior officers directly involved in the 1983-84 genocide.
The military has taken effective control of Zimbabwe. With military support, gangs of ZANU-PF marauders sweep through villages at night, killing, torturing and raping MDC supporters. The Mugabe regime's order to NGO and UN relief groups to stop distributing food to Zimbabwe's starving people is a sign of complete contempt for human life.
President Mugabe’s open declaration that his followers would go to war rather than accept defeat in the election is a sign of the high probability that Zimbabwe is headed for a bloodbath.
1. Genocide Watch calls on Tanzania, the Chair of the African Union, to inform President Mugabe that if the election is followed by mass killing, African Union troops will intervene to stop it.
2. Genocide Watch calls on the United Nations Security Council to demand that Zimbabwe immediately restore direct food distribution to people in Zimbabwe by NGO and UN relief organizations.
3. Genocide Watch also calls on the United Nations Security Council to refer the situation in Zimbabwe to the International Criminal Court, so that those perpetrating the crimes against humanity there, including Mugabe himself, will be brought to justice.
http://www.genocidewatch.org/
Lacan
Just like Althusser, who appropriated his paradigm, Lacan can be viewed as a high Modernist, in the sense that he gives place to any subject only to the degree that the subject has become a predictable machine (a machine = by definition calculable, predictable). In terms of this paradigm, the subject must be a thoroughly scientifically comprehensible object in order to be recognised as a proper social subject. The object, "woman", is thus an empty set, precisely because the subject-position of "woman" in patriarchal society is thought not to yield anything predictive about the behaviour of whatever is there, within this patriarchal subject-position.
So to understand Lacanianism is to understand that neatness and predictability must prevail within this paradigm -- a paradigm which is essentially mechanistic.
What kind of people does such an actual social system (if the paradigm as a form of analysis, is anything like accurate about it) churn out? What kind of view of people does such a paradigm (in itself) reinforce?
Do we see anything like those sort of people in the contemporary Zimbabwe of today?
So to understand Lacanianism is to understand that neatness and predictability must prevail within this paradigm -- a paradigm which is essentially mechanistic.
What kind of people does such an actual social system (if the paradigm as a form of analysis, is anything like accurate about it) churn out? What kind of view of people does such a paradigm (in itself) reinforce?
Do we see anything like those sort of people in the contemporary Zimbabwe of today?
Sunday 22 June 2008
mugabe
Why is cultural pluralism always used as a smokescreen to deny cultural differences? Is it so that we cannot see the woods for all the trees?
I actually argue in my thesis that Mugabe take more than a leaf or three out of Ian Smith's book. Have you heard of Operation Hectic / Operation Quartz?
But things are always infinitely more complicated than the black and white identity politics that Westerners habitually read onto the (post)colonial scene so that they may apportion blame along exactly those lines. In many respects the colonised of Zimbabwe saw the colonisers through the lens of tribalism, rather than in terms of Modernising domination. The colonisers were considered in some respects to be a white tribe who had conquered them and were to be respected and ultimately defeated on those terms. So the white influence in Zimbabwe was not read -- at least not entirely -- as a colonial plague from the outside, whose influence was to be eliminated in order to make Zimbabwe pure again.
The white Zimbabweans left a legacy of ...certainly oppressive practices, but also Christianity, a notion of democracy (for white liberals also intervened) and so on. This interpollenation between black and white cultures cannot be reduced to the terms of a simple morality play.
I actually argue in my thesis that Mugabe take more than a leaf or three out of Ian Smith's book. Have you heard of Operation Hectic / Operation Quartz?
But things are always infinitely more complicated than the black and white identity politics that Westerners habitually read onto the (post)colonial scene so that they may apportion blame along exactly those lines. In many respects the colonised of Zimbabwe saw the colonisers through the lens of tribalism, rather than in terms of Modernising domination. The colonisers were considered in some respects to be a white tribe who had conquered them and were to be respected and ultimately defeated on those terms. So the white influence in Zimbabwe was not read -- at least not entirely -- as a colonial plague from the outside, whose influence was to be eliminated in order to make Zimbabwe pure again.
The white Zimbabweans left a legacy of ...certainly oppressive practices, but also Christianity, a notion of democracy (for white liberals also intervened) and so on. This interpollenation between black and white cultures cannot be reduced to the terms of a simple morality play.
The disappearing Western object
The Westerner views himself as the quintessential SUBJECT, and that is why he does not permit you to refer to him in the OBJECT position in the sentence. In plain words, if the Westerner himself is not making a statement (about himself) starting with "I..", then no sentence can be made concerning the Westerner at all. It is as if he does not exist.
Last night's dream
Last night, I went to bed thinking about whether there is something about language itself that it has the capacity to have a stablising effect on our minds.
Next minute I dreamt that I had gone skiing on various icy mountains with two male friends. We performed a daring robbery and I managed to instigate an escape by pulling my rip-cord and floating down to the ground under canopy. The Sunday Times was writing a feature story on us. I enjoyed the pleasure of my success, showing my punching techniques against a punchbag in the corner of the ring, whilst thinking of the number four. Four was deeply relaxing, rewarding and stabilising. I was profoundly able to enjoy four, and visualised the base of a chair with four legs.
However, each time I thought of four, Mike, lying beside me, would get into a rhythm with his sleeping and suddenly snort -- the sound of a loud snore.
This happened four or five times. Finally I made him go and sleep out on the couch. That was before I woke up uttering to myself something about "forty-four".
Next minute I dreamt that I had gone skiing on various icy mountains with two male friends. We performed a daring robbery and I managed to instigate an escape by pulling my rip-cord and floating down to the ground under canopy. The Sunday Times was writing a feature story on us. I enjoyed the pleasure of my success, showing my punching techniques against a punchbag in the corner of the ring, whilst thinking of the number four. Four was deeply relaxing, rewarding and stabilising. I was profoundly able to enjoy four, and visualised the base of a chair with four legs.
However, each time I thought of four, Mike, lying beside me, would get into a rhythm with his sleeping and suddenly snort -- the sound of a loud snore.
This happened four or five times. Finally I made him go and sleep out on the couch. That was before I woke up uttering to myself something about "forty-four".
Saturday 21 June 2008
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Friday 20 June 2008
Bataille's "immanence"
Bataille's form of immanence is not the same as de Beauvoir's notion of it. Beauvoir's is pure immanence, whereas Bataille's is transcendence visiting immanence.
on femininity
Fluffy femininity is useful for avoiding many of the effects of all sorts of antagonisms. After all, who would stomp on a little kitten or silky terrier?
However, don't even hint to one of the fluffy females that you think their femininity is a disguise. They will be all over you with bared teeth.
However, don't even hint to one of the fluffy females that you think their femininity is a disguise. They will be all over you with bared teeth.
politics and cultures
I think that two issues to be carefully distinguished between are culture versus power. The two are not the same, by any means, and having or not having power can be -- as you know -- very decisive in terms of what happens to you.
For instance, like many defeated enemies in historical tradition, I have also been subjected to the treatment of defeated enemies -- a relentless but milder version of the Aztecs' torturing of the defeated warriors' bodies following by their rolling down the steps of the shrine: an image designed to boost the sense of local power. That is the collective nature of power (or the lack thereof) at work.
Now there are those who consider that because I was treated this way, (and I have been mistaken on this matter too), that I must have said or done something overt that somehow betrayed a negative aspect of "my culture" in order to have deserved it. But I had not and did not. That is a huge misunderstanding that assumes that people are basically moral and will only call you out if there is indeed something to call you out about.
It would be good if we all lived at this transcendent level of culture, but the majority do not. And intellectuals, I think, tend to misunderstand them and presume that they do.
For instance, like many defeated enemies in historical tradition, I have also been subjected to the treatment of defeated enemies -- a relentless but milder version of the Aztecs' torturing of the defeated warriors' bodies following by their rolling down the steps of the shrine: an image designed to boost the sense of local power. That is the collective nature of power (or the lack thereof) at work.
Now there are those who consider that because I was treated this way, (and I have been mistaken on this matter too), that I must have said or done something overt that somehow betrayed a negative aspect of "my culture" in order to have deserved it. But I had not and did not. That is a huge misunderstanding that assumes that people are basically moral and will only call you out if there is indeed something to call you out about.
It would be good if we all lived at this transcendent level of culture, but the majority do not. And intellectuals, I think, tend to misunderstand them and presume that they do.
odious comparison
Despite my persuasion that religion usually -- although not always -- implies a darkening of the cerebral fibres, I see that the religiosity of those who remain in Zimbabwe and are able to cope with the violence of the situation there (by invoking "God") is somehow superior to the typical emotional distancing and aloof stance of the liberal intellectual.
Thursday 19 June 2008
But I don't understand...?
I don't understand why women are supposed to be enthralled in neatness or to be the peacemakers. They are the ones who menstruate for Christ's sake! A violent, violent process.
Wednesday 18 June 2008
postcolonial blindspots
Anyway, when it comes to postcolonial studies, I think the key point — and it is an interesting one — is the likelihood of projective identification. (Klein)
Various elements of the dominant society do not label elements of society evil without that forming a feedback loop that has further effects. The recognition of 19th (and earlier) colonial society as evil does not complete the end of the line in terms of cause and effect. And this is why I said the postcolonialist theory, in general, seems to have a blind spot, because there seems to be the assumption that once something is labeled then it is dealt with.
Yet the labeling of 19th (and earlier) colonial society as evil has further run-on effects that are far from being uninteresting. One of these effects is, as I have mentioned before, to create a distraction (projecting evil firmly into the past) so that present day aspects of dominance and submission, moreover, imperialist invasions of other countries do not seem so comparatively evil as the evil which “we have dealt with”.
Another way that types of postcolonial discourse which condemn the past but doesn’t focus on the present create a distraction is by overtly reprimanding attitudes identified as “colonial” whilst pursuing a neo-liberal or neocolonial agenda in the ex-colonies.
And so on.
The reason I consider that projective identification — the projection of one’s “evil” or waste matter on to another — is involved is that I have generally been treated with poisonous contempt by first world whites who are themselves beneficiaries of colonialism. But I do not recall an instance of a black person making a similar assumption about me that I am evil. Therefore the treatment I get from most whites is indicative of the fact that I serve a purpose for them — they can use me to convince themselves that they are pure, despite their agitating self-doubts.
Various elements of the dominant society do not label elements of society evil without that forming a feedback loop that has further effects. The recognition of 19th (and earlier) colonial society as evil does not complete the end of the line in terms of cause and effect. And this is why I said the postcolonialist theory, in general, seems to have a blind spot, because there seems to be the assumption that once something is labeled then it is dealt with.
Yet the labeling of 19th (and earlier) colonial society as evil has further run-on effects that are far from being uninteresting. One of these effects is, as I have mentioned before, to create a distraction (projecting evil firmly into the past) so that present day aspects of dominance and submission, moreover, imperialist invasions of other countries do not seem so comparatively evil as the evil which “we have dealt with”.
Another way that types of postcolonial discourse which condemn the past but doesn’t focus on the present create a distraction is by overtly reprimanding attitudes identified as “colonial” whilst pursuing a neo-liberal or neocolonial agenda in the ex-colonies.
And so on.
The reason I consider that projective identification — the projection of one’s “evil” or waste matter on to another — is involved is that I have generally been treated with poisonous contempt by first world whites who are themselves beneficiaries of colonialism. But I do not recall an instance of a black person making a similar assumption about me that I am evil. Therefore the treatment I get from most whites is indicative of the fact that I serve a purpose for them — they can use me to convince themselves that they are pure, despite their agitating self-doubts.
The role of identity as cultural and political construct
A huge depletion of energy does give you a shamanistic perspective concerning the underside of society, viewed from a rather weakened position.
But I am assured that I'm on track with my views. I think any society which has internalized as normal a rather extreme condition of mind-body dualism will demand that somebody name their identity before they speak. Thus their speech can then be interpreted retroactively into the identity that is already at least to some degree "known" or much more often presumed, merely, to be known. (The mirror stage of Lacan's psychoanalysis gives us the capacity to make such presumptions. Yet mirror stage presumptions are qualitatively different from the long and hard process of actually 'getting to know you'. The latter is empirical rather than ideological -- hence my reference to the value of studying history, earlier.)
Perhaps the animism of more primitive societies has more psychological acuity to it than identity politics (engendered by late Modernism). In my view, identity politics puts the cart before the horse and demands that someone prove the merit of their worth as a human being by engaging in dialectical politics. By contrast, animistic thinking and empirical thinking take Being for granted and analyse what is presented by someone's actions, in a way that can bypass the demand to make artificial or formal claims about identity.
But I am assured that I'm on track with my views. I think any society which has internalized as normal a rather extreme condition of mind-body dualism will demand that somebody name their identity before they speak. Thus their speech can then be interpreted retroactively into the identity that is already at least to some degree "known" or much more often presumed, merely, to be known. (The mirror stage of Lacan's psychoanalysis gives us the capacity to make such presumptions. Yet mirror stage presumptions are qualitatively different from the long and hard process of actually 'getting to know you'. The latter is empirical rather than ideological -- hence my reference to the value of studying history, earlier.)
Perhaps the animism of more primitive societies has more psychological acuity to it than identity politics (engendered by late Modernism). In my view, identity politics puts the cart before the horse and demands that someone prove the merit of their worth as a human being by engaging in dialectical politics. By contrast, animistic thinking and empirical thinking take Being for granted and analyse what is presented by someone's actions, in a way that can bypass the demand to make artificial or formal claims about identity.
Lacan and Lacanians
I think what Lacan and Lacanians fail to take into account is that there are degrees of castration. (And perhaps in addition to this, there are different levels of it -- more than one castration.)
If 'castration' is, as what it is indicated to be, a movement from the realm of nature into the realm of civilisation, then there are obviously degrees of this, depending on what kind of civilisation we are talking about. In terms of tribalistic civilisation, the degree of castration (away from Nature) will probably be much less than it is, say, under an industrial totalitarian and militaristic regime.
If 'castration' is, as what it is indicated to be, a movement from the realm of nature into the realm of civilisation, then there are obviously degrees of this, depending on what kind of civilisation we are talking about. In terms of tribalistic civilisation, the degree of castration (away from Nature) will probably be much less than it is, say, under an industrial totalitarian and militaristic regime.
Tuesday 17 June 2008
The walls have a conscience
The Tony-Jane chronicles at the beginning of Scrapiron Blues are a kind of Marecheran joke. Whereas the writing in Scrapiron Blues is not quite shamanistic -- which would involve, as in previous Marechera writings, the writer trying to change the course of history by acting as cultural and historical mediator, the stories in this book are certainly animistic. Animist thinking is related to shamanism in its approach of giving a human face and meaning to nonhuman entities or nonhuman objects. According to an article on "Recovered Animism" [Medical Hypotheses (2007) 68, 727–731], animist ways of thinking avoid the alienation that is necessarily a part of more advanced, rational society.
The humour of the Tony-Jane chronicles is entailed in the author's recognition that the kind of suburban lifestyle that Tony and Jane are living is divorced from the pulsating forces of animistic vitalism that surround them. It should not have to be said that Marechera disapproved of such a normative lifestyle. Hence he sees that Tony is castrated by his lifestyle even in his aspirations to be a writer. In fact it is the wall that makes lascivious love to Jane whilst Tony is oblivious.
"Had the walls lips and tongue they would have kissed her all over and licked her juicily. She looks like that. [...]She likes her eggs soft, with just the edge of the white slightly crispy. It feels like the walls like them that way too." ( p 9)
To Marechera, the suburban lifestyle chosen by Tony-Jane characters everywhere involves an embrace of psychological and social stasis. Jane -- a schoolteacher but actually a woman who embraces the reality and necessity of trauma and war and one who believes in the power of fantasy is able to see the castration involved in this, although Tony does not see it and believes he is merely being mocked. Jane is having an affair withe the author ( p 17) -- someone who is not so castrated into civil life and conformity as is Tony. Marechera's point is that such a lifestyle it does not even equip its adherents to do more than have the illusion that they are keeping trauma at bay. Thus, the motif of Tony's washing of the walls -- the blood on the walls representing the traumas accumulated through historical process.
"Tony is trying to wash all the blood from the inside walls of his flat in Montague. He uses a stiff brush, soap and a bucket of water." ( p 5)
"He is trying to wash the walls. It is hard work trying to wash invisible blood from perfectly clean walls, Jane thinks." ( p 6)
"Tony, scrubbing loyally away at the blood and gore of history, is covered from neck to foot by his blue tracksuit." ( p 6)
"In the bedroom Tony is running on the spot. He needs exercise to have the muscles to wash the walls. He likes running on the spot. It somehow represents the purpose of life. It is shomehow the answer to the overwhelming riddle looming in each individual's life. Running on one single spot." ( p 9)
--(And in relation to Tony's working for the Man -- a condition of extreme alienation, in Marechera's books): "The Man reads the draft. The Man nods. The Man gives Tony an envelope. The Man departs. With a strangled sigh of relief Tony turns around. The Gory details of the walls hit him. He clutches his chest." ( p 10)
"You're making it out like I am an idiot. An imbecile armed with stiff brush, soap and a bucket of water." His stutter had come out. I had not noticed it before. That was interesting. It would perhaps bring in a Freudian significance.
"What's wrong with washing walls, Tony?"
"There's no point to it!"
"Three points, in fact. Clarity, cleanliness, conscience," I pointed out.
"He clenched his pitiful feminine fists. "The point is you know that I am a serious writer. A poet." ( p 16).
(Finally -- a total Orwellian assimilation without conscience):
"Tony has bought a house in Brightwood, a quiet suburb on the outskirts of Harare. he has also bought a car. Gone are the days of the tracksuit, the golfing cap and the tragic washing of the walls. Tony is now something in the Ministry of Information. He still doesn't know exactly what but he has an office, a telephone, a secretary and several big ideas." ( p 26)
The humour of the Tony-Jane chronicles is entailed in the author's recognition that the kind of suburban lifestyle that Tony and Jane are living is divorced from the pulsating forces of animistic vitalism that surround them. It should not have to be said that Marechera disapproved of such a normative lifestyle. Hence he sees that Tony is castrated by his lifestyle even in his aspirations to be a writer. In fact it is the wall that makes lascivious love to Jane whilst Tony is oblivious.
"Had the walls lips and tongue they would have kissed her all over and licked her juicily. She looks like that. [...]She likes her eggs soft, with just the edge of the white slightly crispy. It feels like the walls like them that way too." ( p 9)
To Marechera, the suburban lifestyle chosen by Tony-Jane characters everywhere involves an embrace of psychological and social stasis. Jane -- a schoolteacher but actually a woman who embraces the reality and necessity of trauma and war and one who believes in the power of fantasy is able to see the castration involved in this, although Tony does not see it and believes he is merely being mocked. Jane is having an affair withe the author ( p 17) -- someone who is not so castrated into civil life and conformity as is Tony. Marechera's point is that such a lifestyle it does not even equip its adherents to do more than have the illusion that they are keeping trauma at bay. Thus, the motif of Tony's washing of the walls -- the blood on the walls representing the traumas accumulated through historical process.
"Tony is trying to wash all the blood from the inside walls of his flat in Montague. He uses a stiff brush, soap and a bucket of water." ( p 5)
"He is trying to wash the walls. It is hard work trying to wash invisible blood from perfectly clean walls, Jane thinks." ( p 6)
"Tony, scrubbing loyally away at the blood and gore of history, is covered from neck to foot by his blue tracksuit." ( p 6)
"In the bedroom Tony is running on the spot. He needs exercise to have the muscles to wash the walls. He likes running on the spot. It somehow represents the purpose of life. It is shomehow the answer to the overwhelming riddle looming in each individual's life. Running on one single spot." ( p 9)
--(And in relation to Tony's working for the Man -- a condition of extreme alienation, in Marechera's books): "The Man reads the draft. The Man nods. The Man gives Tony an envelope. The Man departs. With a strangled sigh of relief Tony turns around. The Gory details of the walls hit him. He clutches his chest." ( p 10)
"You're making it out like I am an idiot. An imbecile armed with stiff brush, soap and a bucket of water." His stutter had come out. I had not noticed it before. That was interesting. It would perhaps bring in a Freudian significance.
"What's wrong with washing walls, Tony?"
"There's no point to it!"
"Three points, in fact. Clarity, cleanliness, conscience," I pointed out.
"He clenched his pitiful feminine fists. "The point is you know that I am a serious writer. A poet." ( p 16).
(Finally -- a total Orwellian assimilation without conscience):
"Tony has bought a house in Brightwood, a quiet suburb on the outskirts of Harare. he has also bought a car. Gone are the days of the tracksuit, the golfing cap and the tragic washing of the walls. Tony is now something in the Ministry of Information. He still doesn't know exactly what but he has an office, a telephone, a secretary and several big ideas." ( p 26)
Recovered Animism
From p 728: Medical Hypotheses (2007) 68, 727–731
http://intl.elsevierhealth.com/journals/mehy
Animism
Animism is not a religious or philosophical doctrine, neither is it an ‘error’ made by people too young or too primitive to know better; animism is nothing less than the fundamental mode by which human consciousness regards the world [1,2]. Consciousness just is animistic [3,4]. And this perspective is a consequence of human evolutionary history.
Humans evolved sophisticated brain mechanisms for dealing with the complex social situations that formed a dominant selection pressure throughout primate evolutionary history [6,7]; and in animistic thinking these social mechanisms are flexibly applied to interpret complex aspects of the world in general. Information on animals, plants and landscape are fed-into a system that codes them into social entities with social motivations, and models their behaviour in social terms.
Human consciousness is therefore essentially a social intelligence, designed by natural selection for dealing with people, but accidentally highly applicable to understanding, predicting and controlling a wide range of phenomena. Unless suppressed during upbringing, this way of looking at the world is spontaneously generalised beyond the social sphere, so the significant world is seen as composed of ‘agents’, having dispositions, motivations and intentions. Humans see the world through social spectacles [3].
The significant features of the natural world are seen as sentient and evaluated using social intelligence modes of thinking. Therefore, for an animistic thinkers significant events do not ‘just happen’
– like inert billiard balls bouncing-off one another – instead events occur because some entity wants them to occur. Every significant event is intentional and has personal implications. Animism is an extremely effective way of dealing with the natural world under the conditions of hunter–gatherer societies.
http://intl.elsevierhealth.com/journals/mehy
Animism
Animism is not a religious or philosophical doctrine, neither is it an ‘error’ made by people too young or too primitive to know better; animism is nothing less than the fundamental mode by which human consciousness regards the world [1,2]. Consciousness just is animistic [3,4]. And this perspective is a consequence of human evolutionary history.
Humans evolved sophisticated brain mechanisms for dealing with the complex social situations that formed a dominant selection pressure throughout primate evolutionary history [6,7]; and in animistic thinking these social mechanisms are flexibly applied to interpret complex aspects of the world in general. Information on animals, plants and landscape are fed-into a system that codes them into social entities with social motivations, and models their behaviour in social terms.
Human consciousness is therefore essentially a social intelligence, designed by natural selection for dealing with people, but accidentally highly applicable to understanding, predicting and controlling a wide range of phenomena. Unless suppressed during upbringing, this way of looking at the world is spontaneously generalised beyond the social sphere, so the significant world is seen as composed of ‘agents’, having dispositions, motivations and intentions. Humans see the world through social spectacles [3].
The significant features of the natural world are seen as sentient and evaluated using social intelligence modes of thinking. Therefore, for an animistic thinkers significant events do not ‘just happen’
– like inert billiard balls bouncing-off one another – instead events occur because some entity wants them to occur. Every significant event is intentional and has personal implications. Animism is an extremely effective way of dealing with the natural world under the conditions of hunter–gatherer societies.
4 2 sleep
It's pleasant to sleep finally.
My mode of living is clear -- and it alone has transparency. My mode is different from theirs. I can't understand why people would have children. Nobody has explained the logic to me. Just when I was learning things anew, and nobody explained the logic of that either. I alone need explanations, it would seem. Whereas others can find their ways automatically.
My mode of living is clear -- and it alone has transparency. My mode is different from theirs. I can't understand why people would have children. Nobody has explained the logic to me. Just when I was learning things anew, and nobody explained the logic of that either. I alone need explanations, it would seem. Whereas others can find their ways automatically.
Monday 16 June 2008
from Daemon (Marechera)
I combed my hair sparks flew
Revealing, stutteringly, grotesque
Human minds twisted in hideous pain
I saw you....
Revealing, stutteringly, grotesque
Human minds twisted in hideous pain
I saw you....
on Identity
I think the isolation and refinement and (indeed) development of the ego along the lines of "I think therefore I am" where thinking is the condition and justification for being is also what is quintessentially Western.
I don't want you to think that I am making my comparisons on the basis of some emotional reaction, ie. "hurt feelings" -- a mode of reacting that is somehow separate from thinking... However, it seems that the polarisation of consciousness into EITHER 'thinking' OR 'reacting' can also be identified as quintessentially Western. (And this, in turn, links with the development of ego as the prime decision-making faculty that not only "decides" but also furnishes the basis for a sharply delineated identity that is separate from others.)
Conversely, weak identity, which renegotiates its position in every new situation is something that I -- rightly or wrongly -- identify with my African upbringing. This is not "I think therefore I am", but the reversal of this equation. It is, "I am, without a doubt, and therefore, sometimes I may think."
Identity is, in the latter case, something that is incipient, that emerges within a social situation and endures for as long as that social situation endures.
That is why the questions concerning fatalism (as per the responses to the post on my blog) are interesting but somehow seem to miss the point of what I was trying to say. Because the kind of fatalism I was describing was not, as I saw it, a feature of choice or of identity, but was rather much more linked to the principle of "I am therefore I think." In other words, the identity that comes into being is determined by fate, and not by an overt act of thinking (ie. "let me go and live in Africa, so that I may...." and "my justification for this is..."). Rather, the basis for thinking are the already existent modes and traditions of the community. (It does not seem overwhelmingly productive to speculate about the origins of that community and how it got its fatalism to begin with. At least this approach would be in danger of suggesting a false identification between original motives for colonial migration and the kinds of cultures that the migrants alighted upon and assimilated as their own.)
This seems to imply a union between mind and body (along with less of an emphasis on control over life) that historically precedes Freud's Discontents of Civilisation. The narrowing of the ego is what produces discontent in association with imperfect control over one's destiny (despite the sacrifices one has made for this, in conformity with the demands of "civilisation"). By contrast, "primitives" live in a less ego-developed state and are to that degree without neurosis as well as without presumption to control their environments.
I don't want you to think that I am making my comparisons on the basis of some emotional reaction, ie. "hurt feelings" -- a mode of reacting that is somehow separate from thinking... However, it seems that the polarisation of consciousness into EITHER 'thinking' OR 'reacting' can also be identified as quintessentially Western. (And this, in turn, links with the development of ego as the prime decision-making faculty that not only "decides" but also furnishes the basis for a sharply delineated identity that is separate from others.)
Conversely, weak identity, which renegotiates its position in every new situation is something that I -- rightly or wrongly -- identify with my African upbringing. This is not "I think therefore I am", but the reversal of this equation. It is, "I am, without a doubt, and therefore, sometimes I may think."
Identity is, in the latter case, something that is incipient, that emerges within a social situation and endures for as long as that social situation endures.
That is why the questions concerning fatalism (as per the responses to the post on my blog) are interesting but somehow seem to miss the point of what I was trying to say. Because the kind of fatalism I was describing was not, as I saw it, a feature of choice or of identity, but was rather much more linked to the principle of "I am therefore I think." In other words, the identity that comes into being is determined by fate, and not by an overt act of thinking (ie. "let me go and live in Africa, so that I may...." and "my justification for this is..."). Rather, the basis for thinking are the already existent modes and traditions of the community. (It does not seem overwhelmingly productive to speculate about the origins of that community and how it got its fatalism to begin with. At least this approach would be in danger of suggesting a false identification between original motives for colonial migration and the kinds of cultures that the migrants alighted upon and assimilated as their own.)
This seems to imply a union between mind and body (along with less of an emphasis on control over life) that historically precedes Freud's Discontents of Civilisation. The narrowing of the ego is what produces discontent in association with imperfect control over one's destiny (despite the sacrifices one has made for this, in conformity with the demands of "civilisation"). By contrast, "primitives" live in a less ego-developed state and are to that degree without neurosis as well as without presumption to control their environments.
chapter on Scrapiron Blues
Theme: the social psychology of the daemonic (as animism) along with a Modernist aesthetic structure makes for the good story.
See pg s77 ff. under section “animism as relational epistemology”, which refers to cutting trees into parts versus talking to trees.
Nurit Bird-David et al.
-----------------
Marechera’s way of writing – sounding out situations, hence fragmented.
See pg s77 ff. under section “animism as relational epistemology”, which refers to cutting trees into parts versus talking to trees.
Nurit Bird-David et al.
-----------------
Marechera’s way of writing – sounding out situations, hence fragmented.
Sunday 15 June 2008
Hatred
I've have pain. J'ai mal. It's in my arm muscles and its due to training after slacking for a while -- it is the consequence of poor conditioning.
Ode to Castration
Just as one is castrated into civilisation by virtue of adopting a language (Lacan), so a migrant is also castrated into a new version of civilisation by virtue of having to learn a new cultural language -- a language which supercedes and erases the language they would have used in the past. What remains of the past language are mere traces - words which evoke emotionally charged images but which can no longer conveyto others the sense of these images.
Thus the migrant is castrated and forced to transcend him or herself -- in order to find herself anew at the level of transcendence.
I can't fully imagine why it worked out differently for others in my past than it did for me. Had I ever had that direct relationship with the mother literally or figuratively, that psychoanalysts speak of, (Chodorow, for instance), I have lost it now.
The sensitive, direct feeling for the necessity of maintaining harmony between things exists prior to "castration". One cannot presumably relate so well to an essentialistic feeling for harmony between things if the sense of harmony that was present to you in your previous mode of language has been violently disrupted. Others who have not had such a disruptive experience may be less "castrated". But believe me, I have been castrated out of any subjective assumptions concerning naturalistic "givens" in my world. Society appears to me, through and through, an artificial construct. This insight is an outcome of my higher order negation or "castration".
I don't think others have experienced the same thing at all. My old school compatriots do not seem to have thrown off gender roles or anything, due to having become enlightened about society's artifices. The damage is there in some of them, but not the reconstruction. (According to Lacan one gains in societal terms more than one loses through castration.)
So, I don't have a one track line to a basic ground of nurturing. And I'm not "feminine" in that exact sense. Whereas I may have succeeded in doing feminine jobs in the past, relying on this chord of feeling back to my mother's womb to guide me in my actions, I am now completely barred from that. My mentality -- which has survived a double violation (first learning one culture and then immediately another) -- will not allow me to feel this underlying feminine harmony now.
Sometimes, under strong direction, I try to feel this exquisite feminine harmony or rightness in things. Yet it feels like looking for dropped stitches in an article of clothing too fine for me to see.
I don't experience things in that way anymore -- although I can appreciate that there are those who do.
Thus the migrant is castrated and forced to transcend him or herself -- in order to find herself anew at the level of transcendence.
I can't fully imagine why it worked out differently for others in my past than it did for me. Had I ever had that direct relationship with the mother literally or figuratively, that psychoanalysts speak of, (Chodorow, for instance), I have lost it now.
The sensitive, direct feeling for the necessity of maintaining harmony between things exists prior to "castration". One cannot presumably relate so well to an essentialistic feeling for harmony between things if the sense of harmony that was present to you in your previous mode of language has been violently disrupted. Others who have not had such a disruptive experience may be less "castrated". But believe me, I have been castrated out of any subjective assumptions concerning naturalistic "givens" in my world. Society appears to me, through and through, an artificial construct. This insight is an outcome of my higher order negation or "castration".
I don't think others have experienced the same thing at all. My old school compatriots do not seem to have thrown off gender roles or anything, due to having become enlightened about society's artifices. The damage is there in some of them, but not the reconstruction. (According to Lacan one gains in societal terms more than one loses through castration.)
So, I don't have a one track line to a basic ground of nurturing. And I'm not "feminine" in that exact sense. Whereas I may have succeeded in doing feminine jobs in the past, relying on this chord of feeling back to my mother's womb to guide me in my actions, I am now completely barred from that. My mentality -- which has survived a double violation (first learning one culture and then immediately another) -- will not allow me to feel this underlying feminine harmony now.
Sometimes, under strong direction, I try to feel this exquisite feminine harmony or rightness in things. Yet it feels like looking for dropped stitches in an article of clothing too fine for me to see.
I don't experience things in that way anymore -- although I can appreciate that there are those who do.
Center (Core) and periphery
In terms of my rough overview, the postcolonial terminology of "centre versus periphery" do not work for me.
These hazy terms which describe nothing and yet too much are a way of framing the ventures of 19th Century colonialism (and earlier) which puts the West firmly in the centre of the picture as the giver of core values. Those who have the core values are, of course, orthodox, and pure (even in their refusal to give up power, which of course makes them evil). Those on the fringe, on the 'periphery' are by comparison going to be heterodox transgressors, who derived what was core from their Western (although it is not permissable to say so) mother and then ran wild and messy. They are like Mr Kurtz (or Captain Kurtz, more aptly) whose methods have "become unsound". Thus the postcolonial "core" ombudsman calls them back into the fold to repent. "Come ye away from the periphery!" he pronounces, "But take ye not my job nor any bit of land from my core occupation. If needs be thou mayest live in the ocean."
Core and periphery: One is supposed to be able to move between them, becoming necessarily more radiant as one approaches the "core". Herein lie economic prosperity as well as ideological purity, for instance. On the periphery? Only incoherence, evil, and individuals crying out to be corrected (in a core way).
---And now, according to Lakoff, I have just reinforced the frame. Let us all have a good laugh at is as it floats before us.
These hazy terms which describe nothing and yet too much are a way of framing the ventures of 19th Century colonialism (and earlier) which puts the West firmly in the centre of the picture as the giver of core values. Those who have the core values are, of course, orthodox, and pure (even in their refusal to give up power, which of course makes them evil). Those on the fringe, on the 'periphery' are by comparison going to be heterodox transgressors, who derived what was core from their Western (although it is not permissable to say so) mother and then ran wild and messy. They are like Mr Kurtz (or Captain Kurtz, more aptly) whose methods have "become unsound". Thus the postcolonial "core" ombudsman calls them back into the fold to repent. "Come ye away from the periphery!" he pronounces, "But take ye not my job nor any bit of land from my core occupation. If needs be thou mayest live in the ocean."
Core and periphery: One is supposed to be able to move between them, becoming necessarily more radiant as one approaches the "core". Herein lie economic prosperity as well as ideological purity, for instance. On the periphery? Only incoherence, evil, and individuals crying out to be corrected (in a core way).
---And now, according to Lakoff, I have just reinforced the frame. Let us all have a good laugh at is as it floats before us.
Saturday 14 June 2008
Colonial Fatalism
I maintain that colonial Zimbabwe was a mixture of archaic Western culture (but barely the Modern variety of Western culture) and African traditional culture. Since both have created the uneven blend, it is hard to know where one culture stops and the other starts. In general it seems that Zimbabwean culture as a whole embraced fatalism.
Hear Marechera:
"[B]ut the brain only dies at its own behest and the body is a precious thing which, fading and knotting within itself, generates a new being who shimmers around the old body and does not die unless the great star comes down." [ p 80 The House of Hunger]
Similarly, in reading an article by a white ex-Zimbabwean author, I recently caught a whiff of the notion that "you do not die unless your time is up." This certainly explains how many white Rhodesian young men joined the army, trusting their fates into "God's hands". It is an ode to fatalism. They understood that they could take any risk imaginable but would not die unless their God had particularly set that time and place in advance for them to die. This explains why they did not read the sign of the times correctly, (seeing that the force of global opinion would not allow them to prevail). Instead, they continued to sacrifice themselves, believing in Providence to do the right thing by them.
And now? I see that a different mode of thinking prevails. It says, "You had a choice!" and "You are to blame completely for making the wrong choices!"
Could it actually be that I am now living in a completely different culture?
Hear Marechera:
"[B]ut the brain only dies at its own behest and the body is a precious thing which, fading and knotting within itself, generates a new being who shimmers around the old body and does not die unless the great star comes down." [ p 80 The House of Hunger]
Similarly, in reading an article by a white ex-Zimbabwean author, I recently caught a whiff of the notion that "you do not die unless your time is up." This certainly explains how many white Rhodesian young men joined the army, trusting their fates into "God's hands". It is an ode to fatalism. They understood that they could take any risk imaginable but would not die unless their God had particularly set that time and place in advance for them to die. This explains why they did not read the sign of the times correctly, (seeing that the force of global opinion would not allow them to prevail). Instead, they continued to sacrifice themselves, believing in Providence to do the right thing by them.
And now? I see that a different mode of thinking prevails. It says, "You had a choice!" and "You are to blame completely for making the wrong choices!"
Could it actually be that I am now living in a completely different culture?
postcolonialism
The structure of the argument seems to go like this:
The term Western society is non-specific because it refers to a plurality of societies that have a Western influence.
Therefore, if you have a Western influence in your society, you have no right to refer to a Western society that is outside of who you are yourself.
Therefore, Western society is everybody and nobody, but if you happen to see that Western power (eg ideology that is American imperialist) is imposing itself on you and denying you a voice, you are actually oppressing yourself and/or you are delusional.
The term Western society is non-specific because it refers to a plurality of societies that have a Western influence.
Therefore, if you have a Western influence in your society, you have no right to refer to a Western society that is outside of who you are yourself.
Therefore, Western society is everybody and nobody, but if you happen to see that Western power (eg ideology that is American imperialist) is imposing itself on you and denying you a voice, you are actually oppressing yourself and/or you are delusional.
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