They are in danger of revealing all the strings and mechanisms that cause the patriarchal system to function.
Ideally partriarchy wants to keep you on tenterhooks: "If only I just yield a little more of my values and interests, perhaps it will give me security and prosperity."
Patriarchy needs to maintain a level of uncertainty about whether something that appears to be meanspirited actually has a benevolent side.
Then along comes a troll and spoils the subtle effect that patriarchy has been for so long creating.
Tuesday 28 April 2009
Saturday 25 April 2009
how right wing ideology works
Of course it works on the basis of divide and rule. There will always be people weaker than thou to look down upon -- or, alternatively, people who just look weak because that is the way they are portrayed.
But, let me tell you one thing: So long as you are not one hundred percent obedient to the status quo, you, too, can become the victim of a right wing propaganda offensive.
If you have ever had even a minor disagreement with your boss, you have already overwhelmingly demonstrated your irrationality. For, who is the more powerful -- them or you? Since they are the more powerful out of the two of you, your position in disagreeing with them, even in a civil way, is merely emotional. As for them, the superiority of their rationality is demonstrated by the amount of power they have over you. If they were not rational by that measure, they would not have the power to tell you what to do.
Another factor: The degree of distress that you exhibit in your disagreement with the authorities just goes to show how emotional you are! (Yeees it dus, yes it dus, coochi koo!)
If you were truly rational at all, you would be walking in lockstep with your superiors, who have already demonstrated that they know better.
Divide and rule.
But, let me tell you one thing: So long as you are not one hundred percent obedient to the status quo, you, too, can become the victim of a right wing propaganda offensive.
If you have ever had even a minor disagreement with your boss, you have already overwhelmingly demonstrated your irrationality. For, who is the more powerful -- them or you? Since they are the more powerful out of the two of you, your position in disagreeing with them, even in a civil way, is merely emotional. As for them, the superiority of their rationality is demonstrated by the amount of power they have over you. If they were not rational by that measure, they would not have the power to tell you what to do.
Another factor: The degree of distress that you exhibit in your disagreement with the authorities just goes to show how emotional you are! (Yeees it dus, yes it dus, coochi koo!)
If you were truly rational at all, you would be walking in lockstep with your superiors, who have already demonstrated that they know better.
Divide and rule.
numbing signifies trauma
There is a part of my chronological continuous self that is missing. It has various reference points in memory, but none in feeling. I am unable to access the feelings and capacities of that self. It is the self that spans from about 12-16. During this time, I had more or less conformed to a fairly passive identity, since I had no idea how to make it in the world on my own.. I was wild at heart, but also desired -- perhaps unsuccessfully in terms of my results -- to be a peacemaker. I sought ways to engage others with my humor through creativity, but I also had a cultural notion that relationships should be harmonious.
When I tried to teach middle-school, I needed to access my self from this period of time, in order to teach people, I was unable to do so. My mirror cells respond to adult childishness and adult seriousness, but cannot react to this condition of being 'in-between' in people. In all, I cannot rediscover this condition of the in between inside myself. Instead, when I try, I feel numbness, and my throat begins to tighten. I also can't relate to babies or small children.
I was, as has been said before, the victim of some extreme identity politics, which did not allow me to speak and express my mind, because my way of thinking (either obviously or just in the imagination of others) identified me as 'white african' -- a quintessential social and political taboo on the automatic naturalness of simply being.
Friday 24 April 2009
reasoning irrationally about gender
Well you didn't expect the patriarchal system to reason rationally about it, didja?
Watch out for always its slight of hand techniques. Someone said that domestic violence had to do with gender, which she said is something that patriachal valuations ignore. However, this is not precisely true. Rather, patriarchy appropriates gender distinctions on the basis of whether one is victimised or not. (It, in effect, reasons backwardly about gender as being denoted by violence, rather than as being already denoted prior to the violence.) So, anyone -- male or female -- who experiences victimisation is classified thereby as "female", whereas anyone who victimises is taking on the role of male. Well, that gets us so far, with regards to policing gender roles, but obviously for the patriarchy it does not suffice to leave it there, or you would have people of the wrong gender 'crossing lines' and messing everything up. So, now a new level of policing has to be added, whereby a woman who crosses these symbolic genderlines (by taking on the male role of being violent) is considered to be profoundly pathological in going against the grain of her 'nature' (which, doncha know, is to be the victim), whereas for a man to be victimised also means that something apocalyptic has gone wrong with society and its 'natural order'.
So this is how patriarchy reasons about gender.
Watch out for always its slight of hand techniques. Someone said that domestic violence had to do with gender, which she said is something that patriachal valuations ignore. However, this is not precisely true. Rather, patriarchy appropriates gender distinctions on the basis of whether one is victimised or not. (It, in effect, reasons backwardly about gender as being denoted by violence, rather than as being already denoted prior to the violence.) So, anyone -- male or female -- who experiences victimisation is classified thereby as "female", whereas anyone who victimises is taking on the role of male. Well, that gets us so far, with regards to policing gender roles, but obviously for the patriarchy it does not suffice to leave it there, or you would have people of the wrong gender 'crossing lines' and messing everything up. So, now a new level of policing has to be added, whereby a woman who crosses these symbolic genderlines (by taking on the male role of being violent) is considered to be profoundly pathological in going against the grain of her 'nature' (which, doncha know, is to be the victim), whereas for a man to be victimised also means that something apocalyptic has gone wrong with society and its 'natural order'.
So this is how patriarchy reasons about gender.
Thursday 23 April 2009
Wednesday 22 April 2009
reductio ad absurdum of culturally current conceptions of the moral way
In Reeducation, the correct response to it all would have been to ask myself what I had done to deserve these people's meanness
This is a big one — because it plays upon the naive idea that most people have (including intellectuals when they forget who and what they are, and so revert to ‘common sensical’ thinking) that the universe is inherently just. Oh! This is such a big one! It is such a big source of error (and of course this inherently “just universe” concept is linked to the idea of democracy as it conforms to ideas about social darwinism, that the best results for humanity are achieved by forgetting your ethics and behaving randomly according to “instinct”). This is supposed to induce justice to appear automatically out of the chaos of everyday life, in order to give you your verdict of whether you are a worthy humanbeing or not. And, if you are not a worthy humanbeing according to these pronouncements from out of the belly of chaos, then you had better darn well do some soul-searching, to find out why the justice that was percolated in the belly of the laissez-faire de-ethicisation of human relations happened to disapprove of you so.
“Why, why, oh Lord, does chaos reject me in this way? I always submitted myself absolutely to his commands. I tried to embrace chaos in every possible way, in order to reveal to all in a definitive modality that I was not uppity or arrogant, but somehow my need for depth of soul got the better of me! No wonder chaos cast the final judgment against me that it did!”
Shamanism: creativity versus pathology
A certain amount of psychological and conceptual difficulty is linked to the psychological underpinnings of shamanism, especially in distinguishing it from everyday pathology. Anton Ehrenzweig spells it out the nature of my difficulty in conceptualizing shamanism as something distinct from pathology when he states that creativity and pathology are two sides of the same coin.
He presents an example when he contends that a schizophrenic cannot effectively create art, simply because he cannot dissolve his fears and anxieties in the depths of the psyche to remold them. His traumas are unable to be transmuted via a dialectical relationship with the deeper or inner parts of his psyche.) Ehrenzweig also holds that creativity and pathology have superficial resemblance as both creators and mad people have a relationship with the depths of the psyche. But only the artist integrates the elements of the unconscious with the elements of the more rational mind.
The creator delves deeply into the constructs of his own psyche and uses the material there to reconstruct a world that is different from how it actually appears.In Nietzschean terms, the character structure of the one whose mind generates pathology has at its core a sense of decrepitude or lack, where the one who operates creativity does so from a feeling of excess or plenitude. Thus a creator and a merely sick man, acting from very different senses of the world, must logically not be the same. Nietzsche's view about their necessary separation seems to have changed, at least with regard to himself, later in his life, for in his memoirs he acknowledges that he was simultaneously "a decadent" and at the same time somebody who had healthy enough instincts to know how to cure himself.
This epiphany, written two years before his death (having perhaps sensed its approach) accurately encapsulates the age-old idea of a shamanic persona, being one who has gained insights into himself through his wounding and has thus gained the power to become a healer of himself and others.
The parallel between art and shamanism is already obvious: both artist and shaman descend into a realm of uncertainty (where all that's solid seems to melt) and this extreme level of uncertainty is experienced as a state of ecstasy within discomfort. Object relations psychoanalysis gives a name to this uncertainty -- the paranoid-schizoid position -said to relate to an early stage of childhood development.
Tuesday 21 April 2009
self-hypnotism
The techniques that the shaman uses -- magical thinking, splitting, dissociation, projective identification -- are all related to self-hypnotism. In effect they utilise different aspects of the psyche and cause them to come to bare upon each another.
These techniques are not used DIRECTLY on others, nor are they used for personal gain.
These techniques are not used DIRECTLY on others, nor are they used for personal gain.
sustained peace?
In the dream, I ascended the lighthouse to meet the wizard who lived at the top. Behold it waivered in the wind, a small blow might cause it to completely disintegrate, the owner inside coming down with 'flu and we would all be dead in it, for it would shiver and collapse. And yet the next day when we had awoke, we were still there in it, protected by its glassy hendecagon, which had stood firm during the night, despite the threat of loss of ideological power. Half a kilometre down, the ocean had come in wild and free, and we were able to observe it in its blue-grey frenzy, safe above it.
All of the living capsule machines went into motion as it was time to join the rush-hour traffic, far above the rhapsodising fluid of pure nature that had swamped the entranceway to the city and the elegant bridge. We looked down from the glassy windows, from a regulated temperature and space of living, and glided along at an hypnotic pace.
All of the living capsule machines went into motion as it was time to join the rush-hour traffic, far above the rhapsodising fluid of pure nature that had swamped the entranceway to the city and the elegant bridge. We looked down from the glassy windows, from a regulated temperature and space of living, and glided along at an hypnotic pace.
Monday 20 April 2009
Training
I've been training rather more than usual, and so that it shows, I will provide some pictures shortly. The training I did on Friday was so extreme that my arm muscles were aching for three days afterwards. It seems a little too intense, however this appears to be the only way for me to get ahead. I was able to complete a full aerobics programme on the running machine, Monday, alternating between eight and ten kilometres an hour, so the benefits of developing oneself through extreme training are already clear to see.
On the nature of shamanic regeneration
What is shamanism? Unless you hit rock bottom, you will be able to know what it means implicitly. One does not develop shamanistic strategies unless you have no other recourse and unless you are severely marginalized. 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 behavior hard to calculate and therefore 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 innovative insights. Shamanism is not a cultural category 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 recognized 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 "shamanizing" 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 with the mores of their culture based on 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), in order 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. You have to feel as if something is continually at stake, so opposing society's conventions on principle is opposing one's own comfort on principle -- hence "live dangerously, build your houses on the slopes of Vesuvius" etc, from Nietzsche, whereas Bataille focuses more on the -destructive and hence self-renewing aspects of the same dynamic of which Nietzsche gives us the formula.
EMOTIONS THAT LIVE DANGEROUSLY
Anger is the particular forbidden emotion in conventional society because it explodes the ideological bubble that has been historically designed to keep you in your place. The ideological bubble is a closed microcosm of ideas and prescribed and anticipated reactions. Many who are broken and frightened by their various traumas consider such a closed microcosm to be invaluable for continuing their lives. In different ways many people may submit to a form of counseling (reeducation) which forms a bridge for the broken people back to this place of trust and subservience in relation to authority (although authority in this instance is the submission to rules) -- an unfortunate piece of engineering!
To explode the bridge back to normality would be frightening to many people, but for those of us who enjoy wildness, it is our only hope. To constantly explode this bubble (that operates via repression), and 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. The element of destruction positively guarantees a process of renewal, if a person is still young and healthy.
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 behavior hard to calculate and therefore 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 innovative insights. Shamanism is not a cultural category 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 recognized 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 "shamanizing" 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 with the mores of their culture based on 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), in order 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. You have to feel as if something is continually at stake, so opposing society's conventions on principle is opposing one's own comfort on principle -- hence "live dangerously, build your houses on the slopes of Vesuvius" etc, from Nietzsche, whereas Bataille focuses more on the -destructive and hence self-renewing aspects of the same dynamic of which Nietzsche gives us the formula.
EMOTIONS THAT LIVE DANGEROUSLY
Anger is the particular forbidden emotion in conventional society because it explodes the ideological bubble that has been historically designed to keep you in your place. The ideological bubble is a closed microcosm of ideas and prescribed and anticipated reactions. Many who are broken and frightened by their various traumas consider such a closed microcosm to be invaluable for continuing their lives. In different ways many people may submit to a form of counseling (reeducation) which forms a bridge for the broken people back to this place of trust and subservience in relation to authority (although authority in this instance is the submission to rules) -- an unfortunate piece of engineering!
To explode the bridge back to normality would be frightening to many people, but for those of us who enjoy wildness, it is our only hope. To constantly explode this bubble (that operates via repression), and 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. The element of destruction positively guarantees a process of renewal, if a person is still young and healthy.
Sunday 19 April 2009
SIMILARITIES TO NEOPLATONISM AND ENCOUNTERING THE ONENESS OF BEING THROUGH FACING DEATH OF INDIVIDUAL EGO
also from the site linked to above:
Narbonne concludes his book with a comparison between the verticality of the Neoplatonic metaphysics and the Seyn of the Ereignis as immediate horizontal ground:
Despite a certain communality in the will to pass beyond objectification…we have ascertained that Neoplatonism is set out along an axis opposed to that of which Heidegger has an inkling. The Neoplatonic way is erected vertically; it is ordered upward along a mediation notably by way of soul and intellect.…The Heideggerian horizontal approach is totally different.…In place of the steps of reality he substitutes a pure process which begins from an event (the Seyn as Ereignis), with which no mediated connection is permitted…To the Neoplatonic theme of the “beyond” (epékeina), it seems to me that he opposes the theme of the “on the contrary side,” that is to say of that which happens without mediation, if not in opposition, at least as something done behind its back, and as a kind of crossing-over from everything else.[95]
A parable
One day the butchers were feeling bored. "Woe unto us," stated the butchers. "Our lives are very boring and without attraction." They stood around staring sullenly.
Whatever could be the matter with them? It would only take a minute or two to find out:
"Day after day, we must slaughter these pigs. It's backbreaking work and it makes us feel bad, having to do that to poor piggies."
The farmers were not prepared to overlook the hardness of their lot.
"Hey I have an idea!" said one of the butchers. "Let us pretend that the pigs are competing against us, and that we are charged with the role of keeping them in order, so as to prevent them from taking away our lot."
That seemed like a really good idea, and it really cheered everybody up.
"It isn't wrong to slaughter poor piggies if they were going to take what was ours anyway!"
The butchers spirits were visibly enlarged.
They had alighted upon the key towards getting others to respecting them as downright noble folk, whilst assuring the daily grind of everyday work seemed so much brighter.
Whatever could be the matter with them? It would only take a minute or two to find out:
"Day after day, we must slaughter these pigs. It's backbreaking work and it makes us feel bad, having to do that to poor piggies."
The farmers were not prepared to overlook the hardness of their lot.
"Hey I have an idea!" said one of the butchers. "Let us pretend that the pigs are competing against us, and that we are charged with the role of keeping them in order, so as to prevent them from taking away our lot."
That seemed like a really good idea, and it really cheered everybody up.
"It isn't wrong to slaughter poor piggies if they were going to take what was ours anyway!"
The butchers spirits were visibly enlarged.
They had alighted upon the key towards getting others to respecting them as downright noble folk, whilst assuring the daily grind of everyday work seemed so much brighter.
Friday 17 April 2009
defensive sparring
When someone is projecting some need of theirs into you, you ought to know that this situation has more of the physicality of actual boxing than it relates to shadow boxing. Shadow boxing is just metaphorically akin to dealing with your own anxiety. But if someone is projecting something into you, it feels -- regarding the physical nature of the sensation -- more like a jab. The thing to do then is to keep moving, not to become transfixed. I know this sounds highly figurative, the way I'm saying it, but it was not until I actually started to learn this process of evading a pursuing opponent in the non-metaphorical sense -- that is, in the gym -- that I really understood the process as it relates to psychology. It's really similar, because you endure proximity with the psychological opponent, and that alone is likely to get your nerves working and your gut responding to the sheer viscerality of the situation. Yet it is so important to distinguish between the proximity of aggression and a direct hit. I heard one of the main instructors giving advice to somebody he was training to spar today. He said that the important thing, when confronting an agressive opponent, is not to tense the muscles. Even if you are hit in the face, just relax the head, because the hit will do less damage when you are relaxed and you can recover more quickly from it. But the one way to do this, I have found, is to put it into the mind to keep moving, no matter what happens. So long as your opponent is unable to stun you with his or her blows, causing you to be transfixed upon the spot (and thus be a steady target for even more blows), you can probably evade most of the punches. It's when the mind becomes transfixed or stunned because of the power of the hits, that resistance starts to break down, and you start to lose control of the situation. So when a person says, "you should really get in touch with x person" you can say, "yeah, sure, one of these days," or "no, not just yet, It'll have to wait," in fact anything that doesn't commit you to a particular chain of behaviour and reaction. That way you keep the other person guessing (boxing is a kind of mind game), and you get to keep and set your own agenda.
By the by, he main thing that hinders women's creativity is repression of their aggressive instincts. WE are conditioned not to be aggressive in any way, and effectively what that means is that we can't say anything that hasn't already been said before -- nothing that will upset the applecart. This could be why, historically, there are so few female geniuses.
I found a way to break out of that conditioning was by employing a technique that we call in sparring, "feinting". Actually, this was more for my own benefit than to achieve any actual effect, although it does serve to throw the enemy off his game. Feinting sets up a psychological wall of defence for you. The more you use it, the less you will feel that your enemy can read you like a book.
But you must harness the kind of aggressivity that goes beyone mere gender role thinking. The way you would do it in the particular instance you described is to give an indication of having intentions that are the exact opposite of your intentions. As we say in sparring, "get them thinking about defending their head, and then kick them low. Or get them thinking about defending the lower body and then hit them on the face."
You could give the enemy the impression that you fully intend to see x about your Spanish, whilst sitting back in your confidence that you never intend to. The audacity of telling a lie can bring a lot of awareness of your own aggressivity into consciousness, which is a good thing, too. Just by being aware of this resource of aggressivity, you will feel less vulnerable to attack.
By the by, he main thing that hinders women's creativity is repression of their aggressive instincts. WE are conditioned not to be aggressive in any way, and effectively what that means is that we can't say anything that hasn't already been said before -- nothing that will upset the applecart. This could be why, historically, there are so few female geniuses.
I found a way to break out of that conditioning was by employing a technique that we call in sparring, "feinting". Actually, this was more for my own benefit than to achieve any actual effect, although it does serve to throw the enemy off his game. Feinting sets up a psychological wall of defence for you. The more you use it, the less you will feel that your enemy can read you like a book.
But you must harness the kind of aggressivity that goes beyone mere gender role thinking. The way you would do it in the particular instance you described is to give an indication of having intentions that are the exact opposite of your intentions. As we say in sparring, "get them thinking about defending their head, and then kick them low. Or get them thinking about defending the lower body and then hit them on the face."
You could give the enemy the impression that you fully intend to see x about your Spanish, whilst sitting back in your confidence that you never intend to. The audacity of telling a lie can bring a lot of awareness of your own aggressivity into consciousness, which is a good thing, too. Just by being aware of this resource of aggressivity, you will feel less vulnerable to attack.
Wednesday 15 April 2009
new thesis statement
Marechera’s universe is one where the idea of direct use of force -- ie.expressed as deference to the primal father--is more common than the sublimated law of the band of brothers. This is a historical situation outside of the ideology of a modernist universalization of morality (which reached its ideological height in the West in the 50s). His writing encompasses and also generally critiques historically pre-modernist (but also postmodernist) situation whereby tribal fiefdoms – for example of black and white Africa -- predominate. Not just in colonial society, but even in “postmodernist” social contexts, we might consider ourselves to be in a post-Freudian era of neotribalistic social organisation, based upon identity politics and other more pernicious sorts of local fiefdoms, which, within their a limited social context, strike us as "natural" due to our emotional indebtedness to them in giving us feelings of belonging and protecting us from a feeling of danger coming from those who do not "belong". Marechera’s shamanistic propensities for emotional detachment enable him to take a more detached moral and political position in relation to fiefdoms of social and political identity. His hard-won psychological distance (gained through “facing death” -- in particular, the sense of not fitting into any particular group) gives him a profound understanding of the intricate workings of power relations and how they affect the human psyche, whilst avoiding playing into the impassioned tribalistic subjectivities of identity politics, which would only make him a victim of their highly emotive tropes of belonging or exclusion. By contrast to these features of identity politics, Marechera's shamanistic detachment enables him to make deeper critiques than can be given within the scope of contemporary identity politics of power relations and to see the damage they do to the excluded "other".
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NB. ‘Facing death’ doesn’t mean self-annihilation, so much as it is an experience that enables one to “double” the self and thus transcend certain aspects of the everyday, concrete self and its historical limitations. The facet of shamanism that differentiates it from madness is the capacity for self-observation and the wisdom this imparts in terms of dealing with others on equitable terms. It may seem that some of Marechera’s shamanistic “wisdom” is emotive and as such subjective, however, even in his most polemic and invective modes there is an element of self-reflexivity that makes for a psychological counterbalance within the political critiques he is making.
terminology
There's some degree of complexity about the use of the term, "pre-oedipal field". Different writers give it a different meaning. For those who follow Klein, along the lines of Bion and Meltzer, there are gradations between being in the paranoid-schizoid position and being able to accept the value of others.
Even -- or especially -- if you think you don't view the world through some or various gradations of this consciousness, you are bound to do so, for it is part of "human nature" and indeed, if the world were not given coherent by means of your unconscious projections, you would see yourself as being equal to every other individual, whilst not possessing any essential characteristics that define your overall identity. This status of individuality applies to few -- and even then, not always to the few.
This ubiquitously expressed, regressive part of our consciousness is particularly adept at bringing us into conformity with power hierarchies by re-proportioning parts of our personality so as to be able to accept our position within them as "natural". We project the sense of self-competency upwards in the hierarchy, and the sense of our own incompetency downwards towards those who are defined as lower than us in the social/political hierarchy. The altogether human tendency to project into others is so ubiquitous that one would not do justice to the human mind to label this dimension as always and inevitably pathological.
In some cases, the "pre-oedipal field" can also have a positive value if it is not entirely immature but has developed towards appreciating the existence of others. Shamanistic initiation ought to bring about such a sense of the nature of being as a quality of sharing one's existence with others. To empathize also involves projecting, only we project our understanding and sensations into situations that are not purely ours.
summary
Marechera’s writing enables us to see the psychological effect of power relations, instead of simply leaping to conclusions about their moral status. His analysis of power relations is not limited to something isolated and set apart for its particular negativity, termed ‘colonialism’. Rather, his psychological methodology is consistent for pinpointing the effects of unjust power relations wherever he finds them.
His writing is philosophical and far-reaching as he is not intent on condemning the latest outrage of his time, but is rather taking a look at what it is in human power relations that can cause them to distort and shred the fabric of the human psyche, but his concern is with the psychological illnesses of society and the possibility of healing them. I deem his approach to be shamanistic, in the sense that traditional shamans directed their work towards diagnosing and healing the ills of their societies, which had resulted from social imbalances of power. Belief in society's totems can insulate the believer against a fear of death.
This has relevance to shamanism, for it is a sacrifice of the belief in totems through facing death that allows the shaman to see reality in a way that isn't determined only by his emotional needs. This is what is needful to produce detachment -- which in turn facilitates (although doesn't guarantee, as this depends on the quality of the character) a greater capacity for an ethical orientation in the long run.
His writing is philosophical and far-reaching as he is not intent on condemning the latest outrage of his time, but is rather taking a look at what it is in human power relations that can cause them to distort and shred the fabric of the human psyche, but his concern is with the psychological illnesses of society and the possibility of healing them. I deem his approach to be shamanistic, in the sense that traditional shamans directed their work towards diagnosing and healing the ills of their societies, which had resulted from social imbalances of power. Belief in society's totems can insulate the believer against a fear of death.
This has relevance to shamanism, for it is a sacrifice of the belief in totems through facing death that allows the shaman to see reality in a way that isn't determined only by his emotional needs. This is what is needful to produce detachment -- which in turn facilitates (although doesn't guarantee, as this depends on the quality of the character) a greater capacity for an ethical orientation in the long run.
Monday 13 April 2009
patriarchal standards
Is deference to patriarchal standards universal?
My feeling is that it has, indeed, become the contemporary psychological norm to view men -- and fathers in particular -- as the sources of all social authority. That is why it is so difficult to criticise them, for one would not criticise one's own standard or one's own totem. Similarly, one does not criticise the standard of measurement for all social values. If one's society is patriarchal, it is the patriarch who, in himself, supplies the standard of measurement for what it good and what isn't. So, it appears (from this point of view) that one criticises the patriarch only from a position of not having a standard, or not desiring to have one, or desiring (which is worse) to destroy an existing standard. One is not granted permission to criticise from any existing position -- that is, from any standard that is not already defined by patriarchal values and beliefs.
To the degree that it is impossible to criticise standards of patriarchy from outside of a system of patriarchal standards, we can say that patriarchal standards give the appearance, at least, of being absolute. One who represents "fatherhood" (whether of a nation or of a family) will be beyond reproach. So long as he rests his laurels firmly upon this rock of patriarchy, he can be assured that others will not wish to demolish the standard upon which their own identity has its foundation.
Patriarchal standards are the particular standards of belief by which each patriarch establishes his castle or his home. They are not objective standards in the universal sense, so much as by becoming standards at all they seem to exert a force on those who do not have the power to develop and enforce their own standards. In fact, the standards might be quite subjective, particular, and badly thought out, but they will still have the social resonance of universal standards, simply by being enforced by the respect engendered in society for the social efficacy of the system of patriarchy.
In short, these days there doesn't seem to be any moral position that one can take outside of patriarchy. In Rhodesia there was. The women in that society formed a countervailing matriarchy, which was designed to enforce the standards of civilisation over and against the standards of the males. The males were considered to be wild, simple and useful, but not privy to some of the more complex mechanisms required to to keep civilization going. So male aberrations of behaviour were often noticed and attended to, with a strict form of moral policing.
That's just how it is
It's not supposed to apply to women, because like jelly sandwiches or goldfish in a bowl, they are supposed to be motivated by something other than human nature. However, it is only at the level of misperception that women are perceived as being sandwiches or fish. Acuity of perception, whether it exists or whether it goes in and out of tune like a shonky radio from the fifties with loose parts, does not affect the meaning or the sense of that which has been broadcast. One hears what is being said, or one does not, and when not, there's very little point in getting all het up and throwing aspersions at the announcer for the little that one manages to hear.
What doesn't kill me makes me stronger. And this applies to everything. It's a process of development that takes place whether or not your receptors are attuned to it, whether you like it or not. That's just how it is.
So, taking a talibangelical approach to women's rights is only going to exascerbate this effect. That is, it will either serve to "kill" me -- or it will make me stronger. Whatever the result, it isn't up to you.
What doesn't kill me makes me stronger. And this applies to everything. It's a process of development that takes place whether or not your receptors are attuned to it, whether you like it or not. That's just how it is.
So, taking a talibangelical approach to women's rights is only going to exascerbate this effect. That is, it will either serve to "kill" me -- or it will make me stronger. Whatever the result, it isn't up to you.
the risk
The risk that Marechera as a shaman/writer faces is portrayed in Mindblast in Part 2 of the prologue: It is in loss of his soul. It is precisely in starting to feel empty, to believe that his writing has no particular qualities, like Donna’s poetry: “They were not childish. They were not mature.” In affirming the woman admirer’s amateur poetry, he is accepting the deathknell that sounds for his own. “They stirred within him that great hollowness from which he sought to escape everyday. He tried to read them through the eyes of his own poetry and discovered a strange affinity between Donna’s and his own poetry. ( p 71)” The rest of the story deals with the poet’s unravelling. His bloody throwing up is an expurgation of his soul. His drunken reeling is an acknowledgement of soul loss.
Sunday 12 April 2009
Moral messes
There are those who read superficially, who have concluded that it is uncool to take a moral position on something. Perhaps they're okay about taking one in the abstract, regarding a situation or country as far away from them as possible. Thus they don their Che T-shirts and believe themselves to radiate a leftist cool. Their moral position will come off at the end of the day, and hopefully go for a spin in the wash.
There are the even more hilarious types -- unwittingly funny, these, who consider that Nietzsche was somehow against morality. To the contrary -- he presumed that we would not degenerate to being like apes, but would experience attacks on our pride as the very basis for establishing a more substantial and firmer basis for morality than Christianity had furnished up until that point.
There are those of the identity politics mindset who think that group-think (so long as it remains within the group) provides the only way for thinking about moral issues.
There are those who believe implicitly in the efficacy of sadomasochistic emotional dynamics at work within society. They think that morality is an illusion of the masochists and the means by which sadists find a way to give a duplicitous justification for their grab for power. Such a faith causes the lowbrow political animal to lean to heavily on his crutch -- it will soon give way, with him or her toppling after afterwards, with a sigh. The spirit of humanity will not stay bowed beneath the frown of the sadist (and his limited view of the world) forever.
Lameness is ultimately one of the least impressive of humanity's developed traits.
There are the even more hilarious types -- unwittingly funny, these, who consider that Nietzsche was somehow against morality. To the contrary -- he presumed that we would not degenerate to being like apes, but would experience attacks on our pride as the very basis for establishing a more substantial and firmer basis for morality than Christianity had furnished up until that point.
There are those of the identity politics mindset who think that group-think (so long as it remains within the group) provides the only way for thinking about moral issues.
There are those who believe implicitly in the efficacy of sadomasochistic emotional dynamics at work within society. They think that morality is an illusion of the masochists and the means by which sadists find a way to give a duplicitous justification for their grab for power. Such a faith causes the lowbrow political animal to lean to heavily on his crutch -- it will soon give way, with him or her toppling after afterwards, with a sigh. The spirit of humanity will not stay bowed beneath the frown of the sadist (and his limited view of the world) forever.
Lameness is ultimately one of the least impressive of humanity's developed traits.
Wednesday 8 April 2009
One of those things....
I wasn't brought up in a society of bourgeois values, as I've noted before, most of all in my memoir. I believe that there may have been Rhodesians who were, but that doesn't seem to have pertained to me. The narrow individualism and the attribution of well defined characteristics to gender roles was not part of my childhood experience, at school, or towards my mid teenage years. Maybe I simply didn't pay enough attention. I'd internalised a few ideas that women were different from men, by the age of emigration.
Yet no matter to what degree I tried to externally conform, inwardly my spirit was rough and wild and wanted to climb trees, race across fields on horseback, and touch the sun. I had little inwards compliance towards the strictures of femininity, although externally I did roughly what I thought was expected of me. The problem, I guess, if there really was one, was that I didn't feel particularly defined by any social role. I hadn't cottoned onto the idea of putting myself into a category. My responses to life and to others were based upon crude calculations of what was expected from me, rather than from any feelings from the inside. I saw social authority as inevitable, but lacking in insight. So I didn't relate to it from the heart.
That was very different from how my Western peers behaved. I saw them as those who had lost their spirit -- the remains at the bottom of the teapot; something wasted and used. Their competitive individualism seemed to be in contention for things that didn't really matter, since all were in this same resigned pasta-boat of placid conformity. You were supposed to aim to win approval when the stakes were very low indeed, when those who could give you such approval had no fire of their own to impart. Due to my sense that life had evaporated from my peers and those around, I didn't have very much of a social life in high school, after immigration. I didn't miss it, either. Rather, I desperately missed a sense of wildness, or social and political unpredictability in my experiences.
Because of my stoical upbringing, I tend to presume that when others do not communicate, they are experiencing the world in a way that is ruggedly thick-skinned. Since I don't necessarily experience the emotional world of Westerners, in the absence of other signs, I tend to posit something about their emotional states from my own background experience. For instance, if I express a concern about my life and its situation, and that is ignored, then I am inclined to conclude that we are, all together, upping the ante in terms of thick-skinnedness and indifference to our material surroundings. Yet that is rarely the case -- or the correct interpretation.
Rather, in accordance with Western cultural logic, I am supposed to accept that my concerns are being overlooked because of the femininity that has been attributed to me, whilst I have been unaware. The overlooking of things that matter to me is not to be taken as a sign that we are all entering a zone of transcending the things that seem to matter -- rather I am supposed to take it as a sign that my gender causes me to raise issues that are of no relevance. (I understand how that works intellectually nowadays, but when I am comfortable with a relationship, I often revert to relating not in the Western way, but in my childhood African way, which leads to confusion, as thick-skinnedness was one thing that we sought to socially demonstrate.)
Miscommunication ensues, and those imbued with Western cultural logic take offence. I seem to be emotionally blunt and insenstive -- or perhaps too emotional (take your pick). Either way, I'm not responding to unspoken assumptions about gender roles in the conventional Western way -- and some conclude that I am persecuting them.
Yet no matter to what degree I tried to externally conform, inwardly my spirit was rough and wild and wanted to climb trees, race across fields on horseback, and touch the sun. I had little inwards compliance towards the strictures of femininity, although externally I did roughly what I thought was expected of me. The problem, I guess, if there really was one, was that I didn't feel particularly defined by any social role. I hadn't cottoned onto the idea of putting myself into a category. My responses to life and to others were based upon crude calculations of what was expected from me, rather than from any feelings from the inside. I saw social authority as inevitable, but lacking in insight. So I didn't relate to it from the heart.
That was very different from how my Western peers behaved. I saw them as those who had lost their spirit -- the remains at the bottom of the teapot; something wasted and used. Their competitive individualism seemed to be in contention for things that didn't really matter, since all were in this same resigned pasta-boat of placid conformity. You were supposed to aim to win approval when the stakes were very low indeed, when those who could give you such approval had no fire of their own to impart. Due to my sense that life had evaporated from my peers and those around, I didn't have very much of a social life in high school, after immigration. I didn't miss it, either. Rather, I desperately missed a sense of wildness, or social and political unpredictability in my experiences.
Because of my stoical upbringing, I tend to presume that when others do not communicate, they are experiencing the world in a way that is ruggedly thick-skinned. Since I don't necessarily experience the emotional world of Westerners, in the absence of other signs, I tend to posit something about their emotional states from my own background experience. For instance, if I express a concern about my life and its situation, and that is ignored, then I am inclined to conclude that we are, all together, upping the ante in terms of thick-skinnedness and indifference to our material surroundings. Yet that is rarely the case -- or the correct interpretation.
Rather, in accordance with Western cultural logic, I am supposed to accept that my concerns are being overlooked because of the femininity that has been attributed to me, whilst I have been unaware. The overlooking of things that matter to me is not to be taken as a sign that we are all entering a zone of transcending the things that seem to matter -- rather I am supposed to take it as a sign that my gender causes me to raise issues that are of no relevance. (I understand how that works intellectually nowadays, but when I am comfortable with a relationship, I often revert to relating not in the Western way, but in my childhood African way, which leads to confusion, as thick-skinnedness was one thing that we sought to socially demonstrate.)
Miscommunication ensues, and those imbued with Western cultural logic take offence. I seem to be emotionally blunt and insenstive -- or perhaps too emotional (take your pick). Either way, I'm not responding to unspoken assumptions about gender roles in the conventional Western way -- and some conclude that I am persecuting them.
Tuesday 7 April 2009
intellectuals consume caffeine!
It's good for the mind, but not so good for the body. I perform better in my training when I'm not so jumpy.
Just lately I've been noticing a couple of lines upon my face. I think they may be martial arts lines -- quite possibly grimace lines of some sort, caused by pushing forward the jaw, or alternatively, opening the mouth hard downwards in a war cry.
I'm happier with how I look these days as compared to how I looked in my twenties or thirties. In those days I still had a face that wasn't yet my own. These days, I have claimed this territory for myself.
Just lately I've been noticing a couple of lines upon my face. I think they may be martial arts lines -- quite possibly grimace lines of some sort, caused by pushing forward the jaw, or alternatively, opening the mouth hard downwards in a war cry.
I'm happier with how I look these days as compared to how I looked in my twenties or thirties. In those days I still had a face that wasn't yet my own. These days, I have claimed this territory for myself.
Monday 6 April 2009
Sunday 5 April 2009
Nietzsche and the bourgy
There is no question that if what the bourgeois individual wants is strength, he or she should lock up with others who share similar views to his or hers. As a pure individual, you are only as strong as your last impulse. However, a bourgeois individual who proclaims him- or herself to be ruggedly individual and then resorts to a moral argument when he or she does not get their way is nothing short of a hypocrite.
By the way, I consider that Nietzsche's conception of the psychologically strong individual has nothing in common with the bourgeois concept of individuality. Nothing.
By the way, I consider that Nietzsche's conception of the psychologically strong individual has nothing in common with the bourgeois concept of individuality. Nothing.
Friday 3 April 2009
Thursday 2 April 2009
Lauren St John, you can be part of Zimbabwe now.
From the backcover blurb of Rainbow's End: "The ending of the beautiful memoir is a fist to the stomcah as Lauren St John, now grown and living in London, realizes that she can be British or American, but she cannot be African. She can love it--be willing to die for it--but she cannot claim Africa because she is white."
It's okay, Lauren. Your sins were not that great! Your greatest one was being part of a defeated white tribe, in the core of Africa. Tribal war has always been rife in Africa, but that still doesn't mean that there is no place for the members of a defeated tribe. They don't need to depart the continent with sad expressions and their tails between their legs. Africa may not embrace you wholeheartedly -- but what did you expect?! Zimbabwe's Ndebele came in for a rougher time than any of Rhodesia's whites, even post-independence, when the farm invasions were going on. (Many of the evictees at least had weapons to try to defend themselves, and a radio warning system.) Africa can be cruel to anyone, but the key is that it's not always about colour. I'm not denying that there were moral issues at stake in Rhodesia's war, but they were not as bloated and pretentious as complacent whites living in bland Western suburbia want to make them out to be. They just can't imagine any way of living that is white and isn't bland. They think that drawing outside of the lines of white and bland is "evil" -- but it isn't. It is merely African to do so (black or white).
Africans themselves will realise that you are just part of a defeated white tribe. So, don't worry about it -- no biggy so far as the history of Africa is concerned.
It's okay, Lauren. Your sins were not that great! Your greatest one was being part of a defeated white tribe, in the core of Africa. Tribal war has always been rife in Africa, but that still doesn't mean that there is no place for the members of a defeated tribe. They don't need to depart the continent with sad expressions and their tails between their legs. Africa may not embrace you wholeheartedly -- but what did you expect?! Zimbabwe's Ndebele came in for a rougher time than any of Rhodesia's whites, even post-independence, when the farm invasions were going on. (Many of the evictees at least had weapons to try to defend themselves, and a radio warning system.) Africa can be cruel to anyone, but the key is that it's not always about colour. I'm not denying that there were moral issues at stake in Rhodesia's war, but they were not as bloated and pretentious as complacent whites living in bland Western suburbia want to make them out to be. They just can't imagine any way of living that is white and isn't bland. They think that drawing outside of the lines of white and bland is "evil" -- but it isn't. It is merely African to do so (black or white).
Africans themselves will realise that you are just part of a defeated white tribe. So, don't worry about it -- no biggy so far as the history of Africa is concerned.
shamanism and ego psychology
Perhaps the reason why Western ego psychology has difficulties coming to terms with my conceptualisation of shamanism is that it equates "ego strength" with "strength of will". It seems to me that these are, potentially, at least, two different things. More to the point: In Western culture, what is considered to be a strong ego, from a conventional viewpoint, is actually an inflated ego. An inflated ego says: "Me first!" and "recognise me!" That approach works best when energy is not required for more complex interactions, like learning, like making difficult evaluations or coming to conclusions involving complicated mental processing.
An ego-generating approach takes a lot of energy, which it draws up and away from deeper thinking processes.
My kickboxing did not start to improve until I was able to subvert ego, whilst amplifying willpower. Both can be done at the same time. One doesn't need the threat of shame or of being outcast, in order to motivate one's learning: one does much better without these, and is more single-minded as a result.
Will-power just needs to be given a simple command by the ego, like: "The next half hour is for learning." Once the simple command is given, the ego can switch off, take a holiday, go about its business -- it isn't needed any more.
The amount of energy saved, and the amount of focus increased, with this approach, is huge. Reducing the dominance of ego allows one to take in all sorts of criticism objectively, and to put it to good use. The mind becomes a sponge.
There are times when ego will be needed again -- to give the necessary command that pulls the whole act together...
But, not now.
An ego-generating approach takes a lot of energy, which it draws up and away from deeper thinking processes.
My kickboxing did not start to improve until I was able to subvert ego, whilst amplifying willpower. Both can be done at the same time. One doesn't need the threat of shame or of being outcast, in order to motivate one's learning: one does much better without these, and is more single-minded as a result.
Will-power just needs to be given a simple command by the ego, like: "The next half hour is for learning." Once the simple command is given, the ego can switch off, take a holiday, go about its business -- it isn't needed any more.
The amount of energy saved, and the amount of focus increased, with this approach, is huge. Reducing the dominance of ego allows one to take in all sorts of criticism objectively, and to put it to good use. The mind becomes a sponge.
There are times when ego will be needed again -- to give the necessary command that pulls the whole act together...
But, not now.
Wednesday 1 April 2009
Alienation
In general, social alienation is a very useful state of being, since it creates the space to be a writer. Those who are too comfortably ensconced in the social wrapping of a community do not acquire the sense that reality is still undecided. Rather, for them, it is fixed by the necessities of social mores and social reciprocation. Reality becomes, thus, already determined, absorbing their time, their thoughts and aspirations for the future. Social obligation creates a sense of belonging, but it also fills in the gaps in time, in the imagination, and in terms of the direction that the future will take, which social alienation does not.
We should all wish to be more socially alienated. It's only write.
We should all wish to be more socially alienated. It's only write.
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