Shamanising: male and female

Now I am coming closer to see why Nietzsche and Bataille both tend to attach the appellation of “masculine” to their forms of shamanism, since it is already de rigueur to associate masculinity with violence.

A Yang mode seems to be more along the lines of Bataille — choosing to destroy the public persona (and, in particular, one’s sense of emotional identification with it) in order to set free the inner identity.

Refusal of interpellation could equally be construed as a “feminine” mode of resistance that leads to shamanisation. By “shamanisation”, I mean a mode of awareness of the manipulative nature of society’s common mores. (Nietzsche was particularly attuned to recognising this quality of manipulation in conventional morality).

A Yin mode of shamanising seems to be to refuse interpellation, which produces a doubling effect when one’s inner self acknowledges a certain transcendence of one’s public persona.

But of course, this is to speak of Yin and Yang — feminine and masculine — and in the context of Taoism, these are interdependent and related.

On Right Wing concepts of Identity

On the radio yesterday, I had a number of Zimbabwean men and even a couple of women express their extreme skepticism that self defence could ever work in Zimbabwe. Their hostility, disguised as skepticism, was based entirely on cliches linked to identity politics.

The fact is that I went to Zimbabwe, taught self defence to all sorts of sub sectors of the population there, and everybody -- men and women -- welcomed it. I see identity politics as an instrument of the extreme right wing, for it provides a false view of reality, whilst preserving the status quo by making an enemy out of anyone who tries to do anything novel or progressive.

bag rounds

Why one never tells all of the truth

I have gone incredibly easy on the patriarchy in my memoir. This is because most people — men and women — are patriarchal. It is not a good idea to suddenly shock them with too much of the truth. Rather, they have to be brought to examine their condition slowly — very gradually — or they could fall back into false optimism as a result of cognitive dissonance, or die of shock.

So, I have deliberately withheld much of the truth from them — truth which must some time see the light of day.

Here is a more straight-forward and less edited version of reality:

It has to do with my father’s sexism. I believe that when he first noticed my body start to develop into a more womanly look (actually whilst I was cantering on horse back), he lost his emotional equilibrium. It must have been difficult for someone as repressed as he is. Anyway, from that point on, he began to treat me as if I were emotional slosh, as if I had nothing to say, or nothing worth hearing. So, I learned to repeat myself a lot, judging that if I kept saying the same thing, it would eventually sink in somehow.

My father’s attitude towards life, to this day, seems to be that men cannot have emotions, only women can have them. At the same time he believes that women can have no intellect, only emotions. This seems to me to be a very strange way of thinking he has invented in order to get rid of his uncomfortable emotions.

On seeking stability

I am in every way opposed to the idea that the purpose of one’s life should be solely to seek equilibrium, and that a life that does not reach such equilibrium is a failure. (One must seek a certain degree of it, of course, but that does not mean that obtaining such a thing ought to become one’s goal.)

What makes this conspiracy of conservative belief even harder to oppose is the almost universal insistence that one should speak from a point of view that is already defined by social (and hence, psychological) stability. Otherwise one is seen to be saying exactly nothing.

Intellectual sleuthing

There are others whom I can understand intellectually, but no matter how hard I try I fail to be able to glimpse an overall logic in their systems of thought. Freud, for instance, only makes sense to me when I attempt to further complete the formulations I have obtained thus far from his oeuvre. I add that perhaps the obsession with the "Oedipus complex" and how pivotal that is supposed to be to family life has to do with a concern about "original sin". For, it is that which is forbidden, it seems to me, that really causes most obsessions of the mind, and so long as sexuality is not forbidden (nor made scarce by arbitrary bourgeois mores) there are surely more appealing objects of desire than one's parents.

Whilst on the topic of sexuality and how that resonates within the psyche, I admit to have only recently cracked another riddle that had perplexed me in the writing of another author whose work in general makes better sense. I refer to Georges Bataille and his concept of sexuality as "excretion". "But surely it is not excretion, but consumption?" I have said. The mystery is solved in the realisation that this concerns differences between the male and female sexual functions.

Finally, I turn to the issue of psychological projection which involves projecting parts of one's disposition into the natures and beings of others. Male psychologists tend to become particularly scolding whenever they suspect that psychological projection might be gallivanting on its hind legs. Only sleuthwork can make sense as to why this is.   Patriarchal reasoning would have it that projection is only possible when a weaker person seeks to project their negative characteristics onto a more powerful person in order to undermine them.   Priestly reasoning has a bad conscience about projection, since patriarchal structures cannot do without it for their maintenance.   Thus it becomes apparent that an almost universal way of becoming masculine in the eyes of others (and perhaps oneself) is to project characteristics deemed to be "feminine" away from himself and into women as such.

In essence, then, the male projects his negative characteristics into others -- and so he takes on his cultural attributes of masculinity as a result of expelling that which is culturally deemed "feminine" away from him. By contrast, women are taught that their real value is not to be found in themselves, but in the man with whom they fall in love. By virtue of such cultural training, women are more inclined to project their positive characteristics out of themselves and into male others, just as men are more inclined to project their negative characteristics out of themselves and into women.

Just women an' negroes, learnin' to speak

If one delves deeply into patriarchal psychology -- a dangerous, and thankless task in all -- one finds that it is the role of patriarchy, and of patriarchal types, wherever they can be found, to teach women and Negroes how to speak properly.

A woman, as we ought to know, is unspeakable. As Eve led Adam to conclude, her very body parts will lead to the downfall of Man. This sense of things is the psychological factor that leads right wingers to always attack the way she is speaking. The point is to reduce her to shame, to let her to reflect upon the unspeakability of her body parts -- and to reflect (above all) on how these led to the downfall of Adam.

Blacks, as we also know (via Ian Smith and the Colonial Experience) fail to speak properly. Whether it is the devil in them, or just the lack of English in their original culture, the failure is palpable in the eyes of those whose English makes them rational enough to govern others.

Nowadays Negroes see themselves as better than women -- those whose unruly body parts appear to make them impossible to govern. Yet both Negroes and women remain unable to speak. That is because they still need to learn all the techniques that are entirely necessary for them to speak properly.

Just women an' negroes, learnin' to speak

If one delves deeply into patriarchal psychology -- a dangerous, and thankless task in all -- one finds that it is the role of patriarchy, and of patriarchal types, wherever they can be found, to teach women and Negroes how to speak properly.

A woman, as we ought to know, is unspeakable. As Eve led Adam to conclude, her very body parts will lead to the downfall of Man. This sense of things is the psychological factor that leads right wingers to always attack the way she is speaking. The point is to reduce her to shame, to let her to reflect upon the unspeakability of her body parts -- and to reflect (above all) on how these led to the downfall of Adam.

Blacks, as we also know (via Ian Smith and the Colonial Experience) fail to speak properly. Whether it is the devil in them, or just the lack of English in their original culture, the failure is palpable in the eyes of those whose English makes them rational enough to govern others.

Nowadays Negroes see themselves as better than women -- those whose unruly body parts appear to make them impossible to govern.  White feminists are ordered to keep out of black, Zimbabwean culture as "it is our right to rape our women if we want to!"

Yet both Negroes and women will at times still lapse into a mode where they are unable to speak. This is because they still need to learn all the techniques that are entirely necessary for them to speak properly.

These are: submissiveness, a deferential attitude and the ability to express extreme self doubt in the company of one's superiors (whether male or white).

The status of women in Zimbabwe

I went back to Zimbabwe recently, where a small group of people still living the colonial lifestyle still prevail. In Zimbabwe's black and white cultures, women are still referred to as "ladies", for the most part, and are expected to have concomitant characteristics, such as being too delicate to do a number of things and needing male protection. This system of gender does not work against individual women, although it generally works to keep them as a group in their place. For instance taxi drivers will often pick up women first, rather than a male client, especially if she is calling at night, because they believe that women need to be protected more than men do. On the other hand, "ladies" are supposed to do their part by dressing real, real nice, especially on Sundays, or for a trip to the shopping centre. They are also supposed to uphold the belief that women and men are essentially different kinds of beings.

Another thing is that Zimbabwean men generally have no idea about female biology -- and neither do many Zimbabwean women. I'm suspecting that the pill is now widely prescribed there, so many of the women deal with fairly bad menstrual cramping. This is explained, in polite company, as "having a headache". Men believe that women suddenly become shy, are unable to eat their food with much gusto, and so on, because that is part of women's psychological nature. They do not make a link to the actual biological cause of this behaviour. Furthermore, a lot of women also seem to be confused about this matter, believing that prolonged bleeding (for a month or more) can be caused by "witches" (those who are jealous of you and wish you harm) or by the womb becoming tipped over so that it can "no longer hold any blood."

I was teaching women's self defence there, at a rural primary school, and was asked also to address the issue of female hygiene -- although this certainly was not my area. The Shona man I was with said he didn't know anything about that topic, and he seemed, from what I could see, to be speaking quite literally.

Political fictions about identities

Ideological fiction has always enabled various groups of people throughout history to consolidate their positions of power. Perhaps the oldest of these, (and one which remains a contemporary fiction), is the notion that winners are born, not made. This belief that "I am a winner and deserve to be successful at all times," leads directly to scapegoating, for fate is impersonal, and nobody is a winner all the time. Yet such is the need to be seen as a born winner, that many will alight upon boat people -- desperate refugees from other countries -- to feed their frenzy for success; or upon women (i.e. in terms of right-wing ideology, those whose "natures" are already weak). The long recognisable catch-cry of the right is that it is always the most vulnerable who are to blame whenever either fate deals them a bad hand, or they happen to make fatal errors of judgment.

So it is with extreme right-wingers, who are the majority in our midst:

Flowing down, from the powerful to the least powerful, goes the blame for any project undertaken by management that does not fully succeed.

Left-liberals, by contrast, tend not to see the world as being permanently divided between born "winnas" and born "losas". This political camp tends to modify this notion (above) by introducing the sense of a permeable membrane between two states of being, such that "losas" may become "winnas" if only they try hard enough. Each institution of society is encouraged to treat those who pass through it on the basis of this useful fiction -- namely the idea that each and every one of us is already equal.

Notably it also introduces a false epistemology (although no more false than that extreme right wingers) when it presumed that every individual enters each new field of contest as if it is a level playing field. Left-liberal goals (to achieve equality within the system) are then confused with what already exists -- that is, they obviate the fact that deeply entrenched, systematic inequalities continue to exist, and make it seem as if any individual who has passed through a liberal institution has already been treated with fairness and justness.

In the final analysis, there is only one point of view that does not completely fictionalise the individual, and that is materialism. To view the individual as a material being allows that she or he is subject to various social, psychological and historical forces, which, in turn, produce his or her very being. Despite what propagandists for the other side have claimed, this perspective does not take away free will from the individual, but rather puts him or her into a context that is true to each person's experience, validating what has happened to them.

A materialist perspective is the only one that enables the individual to proclaim, "my misadventures are my own loss although I didn't necessarily have everything to do with it," whilst avoiding accepting blame from those who have power -- those who want to "win" at any cost to others.

On wit versus wiles

Karen: I don't like the socially acceptable fiction that its permissible for women to be so "into their feelings " that they can be fickle and neurotic, and that's ok cos its "just women". I have always had good solid long term female friendships because I ignore the fact that most of the time they're going to have a snit on, and go into some sort of :"very hurt" repertoire.A man would normally be told by his mates to "get over it"...as he should.Once its established that there is mutual affection and concern, then its important not to be too prickly, or to expect too much.And because I accept most women are going to be really silly a lot, then I keep the friendships.

Where they fail is almost inevitably over men.That women feel the need to bitch about their males, and try inexpertly to dissect their relationship, but when I give them some psychological perspective, they immediately go into super protective mode towards their relationship.I have given up trying to help.they only want to bitch, not to change, and not to improve the relationship with any form of self actualisation.They are unhappy in their miserable little dynamic, but they can't face the world outside of it: at least not until they find the next guy same as the old guy to move onto.

And sometimes very "Assertive" women can be just as annoying as the relationship victims.(particularly to work with)using assertive as an incorrect adjective to mean everything from Premenstrual, mindlessly and male-like aggressive,plain old bitchy, nasty and mean, picky and rude..usually just plain rude.



Jennifer Armstrong

Karen, when you talk about women in that way, it is as if you are speaking about aliens, from my perspective. You are revealing, in detail, certain types of behavior of which I have no knowledge. The closest I have been to these kind of women you describe is watching Neighbours TV soap. I sometimes wonder why this makes me feel inwardly sick. That feeling is linked to the fact that the women in particular (but men as well) seem to handle their affairs with so little genuine wit.

Really, I don't know anything about the "very hurt" repertoire. I think that my lack of knowledge here is cultural. When I went back to Zimbabwe recently, I met a lot of Zimbabwean women whom I really came to admire. It doesn't seem to be part of Shona culture, nor is it part of the white colonial culture -- which is still there -- for women to go into this "very hurt" mode. Both of these cultures reflect a much greater stoicism than this. (I was very relieved to find that I was just the same as these women -- although compared to Australian women, I could not be more different.)

Also the trope of "assertiveness" for the sake of it is out of place in both Zimbabwean cultures. Really, you can't have wit if you are to have this kind of assertiveness.

masculinity, "female privilege" and the undiscovered feminine.

I think self-hatred often emerges in the formation process of the patriarchal character. If somebody has been teased at school for not being masculine enough, (or perhaps this takes place in some other character forming community, like a frat club — or whilst undergoing military service), then one is likely to have contempt for the elements of character that one must necessarily disown in order to become socially acceptable. One is also likely to resent women for seeming to have it easier — i.e. for not having to undergo precisely this sort of hazing.

Thus the wrongheaded notion of “female privilege” is born.

I confess that I am still unsure whether there is a kind of masculinity that might be differently formed than this. Part of my problem is the way in which the term, “masculinity”, is normalised through a cultural matrix — implying that it is learned and therefore somewhat arbitrary.

I wonder, all the same, whether there can be a kind of masculinity that it not founded upon a forcible (meaning socially driven) transcendence of “the feminine”. This other kind of masculinity would necessarily not be found in a hostile relation to something it deemed “femininity”, but might rather find in “the feminine” its complementary nature.  Exactly what “the feminine” might come to mean in this context I am not sure since it has so far come to mean almost the same thing as “that which males must transcend in order to become properly masculine.”

In the mean time, masculinity carries with it as part of its identity a certain quantity of self-hatred.

As a footnote: Mike, who was brought up by his mother (his father died in a road accident whilst he was still very young) has the qualities of self-acceptance that I would deem properly masculine in that second sense. He is very, very powerfully attractive, and yet without having to try to be.

Masculin, féminin: The pernicious politics of gender

It is so difficult to combat Western metaphysics, particularly as it pertains to male chauvinism, because it is so very abstract. The problem is that it has been allowed to define ontological sources, such that "masculinity" and "femininity" are definitions made to emerge not from any material origin or set of actual behaviour patterns. Rather, they derive from a psychological disposition to see the world in terms of opposites.

As a simple formula, "masculinity" comes to represent "all those positive human characteristics that I covet and lay rightful claim to as one who has been born biologically male." "Femininity" then comes to mean "all those characteristics that I wish to deny about myself, finding them to be offensive, trivial or dull." This psychological approach to gender is also, as I have said, metaphysical, since it is based on an abstract categorisation of humanity into diametric opposites, whether or not humanity is actually constructed that way.

That a metaphysical approach to gender necessarily ascribes little significance to concrete reality is significant indeed. It causes gender to have function in society that is overwhelmingly political, rather than being related to one's biology, or one's cultural conditioning, or suchlike.

This political function of gender can be understood best in terms of the rhetorical device that is "framing".[see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(social_sciences ]

Framing is so effective because it is a heuristic, or mental shortcut. According to Susan T. Fiske and Shelley E. Taylor, human beings are by nature “cognitive misers”, meaning they prefer to do as little thinking as possible[4]. Frames provide people a quick and easy way to process information. Hence, people will use the previously mentioned mental filters (a series of which is called a schema) to make sense of incoming messages. This gives the sender and framer of the information enormous power to use these schemas to influence how the receivers will interpret the message [5].http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(social_sciences)

So it is that the same behaviour (when viewed concretely, and hence objectively) can be interpreted as having a diametric opposite meaning, depending on whether the prior frame of reference for the behaviour is deemed to be "masculine" or "feminine". As a rule, an interpretive frame of "feminine" will be attributed to anything that women (biologically speaking) do. Similarly, and interpretive frame of "masculine" will be attributed to anything that males (biologically speaking) do.

Let us take as an example the very human (that is, not specifically male or female) emotion of anger. When the expression of this emotion is framed as "masculine", it is always rational and justified. A "masculine" frame suggests that a man is wanting to attack useless and negative things around him, by expressing his righteous indignation.

Give a "feminine" frame to anger, however, and we are encouraged to see the same behaviour as having the totally opposite motivation to that of male anger. "Feminine" anger is always against righteousness, against positive developments, and even against reason itself. This is not because there is any qualitative difference between a man's anger and a woman's anger. Not at all. Rather, it is a function of metaphysical category of "the feminine" to render all things in a negative light.

Metaphysical interpretations render actual behaviour thoroughly meaningless: Meaning is only to be found via the process of framing.

Indifferent to understanding actual behaviour, but always intent on assuring that all behaviour receives a rhetorical frame, metaphysical interpretations are nearly impossible to fight. One can hardly bring forth actual evidence to counter its claims, since any and all evidence can simply be reframed positively or negatively depending on the gender politician's own needs.

thinking through the patriarchy

Modern world patriarchy reveals its extremism in its ultimatums -- eg. the idea that women who mix their rage with an ambivalence towards their oppressors can't really have valid reasons for their hostility, given that they have already tempered their negative reactions with something positive. This viewpoint works as an ultimatum for deperate women because it penalises women for any possible expressions of empathy during an otherwise deplorable situation. It suggests, "To the degree that you express any empathy, your oppressor really can't be as bad as you say he is." The challenge given through this typical form of patriarchal logic is that it is necessary for women repress any form of empathy so they can render their perspectives logical enough to be taken into consideration.

The rhetorical extremism of this kind of patriarchy is likely derived from metaphysics (i.e. a system that upholds an abstract idea that male and female are polar opposites, with consequently nothing in common). This metaphysical approach to gender lends itself to upholding a patriarchal system that, in the final analysis -- and indeed on patriarchy's own terms (as I have shown above) -- is completely illogical and untenable.

By contrast, Zimbabwean patriarchy comes across as being far less metaphysical, less extremist, than the patriarchy I have experienced in more "contemporary" society. For instance, a male there can be criticised and called to task for not being properly ethical in his duty to his family and friends. Most of Zimbabwean culture is based on the basic idea that doing harm to a fellow human must be wrong. Although this society is still a patriarchy (hence unjust), its patriarchy is less abstract, hence less pervasive into everyday modes of thought, than the West in the 90s.

Fear is always guilt in disguise

"Fear is always guilt in disguise" -- from the latest episode of The Prisoner. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1472414/quotes

Why should a quote from a TV show that satirizes power relationships have such resonance? The idea that one ought not to be afraid unless one has something to hide is part of the logic of every dictatorial regime. This is a deep psychological truth that I will look at -- that a good conscience remains always in conformity with the status quo, no matter whether the values of averageness are ethical or otherwise. In the show, nobody is free. Those who dream of another life tend to commit suicide (perhaps responding to their own consciences' condemnation of their desire to be free). The ostensibly quiet life of the village is maintained by extreme forms of violence which prevent any actual freedom. 

Louis Althusser is instructive when it comes to understanding how our minds can be imprisoned by two different mechanisms of control:

C. State Apparatus: RSA (Repressive State Apparatus) and ISA (Ideological State Apparatus)
1. The basic difference between RSA and ISA is that RSA functions by violence whereas ISA functions by
ideology. Nevertheless, every State Apparatus-whether repressive or ideological functions both by violenceand by ideology (145).2. RSA functions first by repression then by ideology whereas ISA functions first by ideology then byrepression.3. A plurality of ISA must exist before the existence of one RSA.4. The ruling class who hold RSAs can also easily decree ISAs. In order to hold State power for a long period,the ruling class should at the same time exercising its hegemony over and in the ISA (146).5. RSA belongs to the public domain whereas the ISA belongs to the private.6. It is easier to lay down the laws in RSA than in ISA.7. RSA is secured by its unified and centralized organization under the leadership of classes in power whereasISA is secured in contradictory forms by the ruling ideology, the ideology of the ruling class (149).

One is controlled in more than one way, as well as the combined effect of such control, that makes it difficult to escape the confines of "the village" (where the show's protagonist, the prisoner, is forced to stay). Furthermore, one can look to the philosophies of Nietzsche and Bataille to understand how difficult it is to break free from an internalized mode of control: When Nietzsche's character, Zarathustra, suggests that we ought to destroy ourselves to "become new", he is talking about what is necessary to make a radical departure from one's internal embrace of values commanding the status quo.

You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame; how could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes! http://praxeology.net/zara2.htm

Zarathustra clearly states that one departs from internal adherence to the social norm only at the cost of one's "own burning".

And when a person goes through fire for his teaching -- what does that prove! It is more, verily, when out of one's own burning comes one's own teaching!

A similar psychological dynamic is employed by Bataille when he refers to "sinning". This should be understood as a way to break away from the social norms internalised by one's conscience. By "sinning", one thereby comes into a more direct relationship with one's conscience, whereby one comes to judge oneself on totally new standards governing behaviour and thought. "Sinning" is a way to break the stranglehold of the original form of conscience, in the case of Bataille's philosophical practice. Yet one is never free from conscience as a mechanism of control over one's life. One takes the mechanism of conscience off the beaten track and assures that one's relationship to it becomes highly personal and very individualistic. Thus, one departs from a more conventional relationship to conscience ( one whereby your conscience polices you on behalf of society and its status quo) toward a more individualistic, more intellectually directed relationship to conscience. 

When one observes this psychological structure underlying Bataille's and Nietzsche's philosophies, one can see that having a good relationship to one's conscience is not all it is cracked up to be. Rather, it could be a sign of playing it safe, of not wanting to challenge the how things are  -- indeed, of being too frightened to make a move on one's own behalf. It has clearly been a historical fact that those who have challenged the values of established orders have not fared well. Nietzsche takes pains to point out that the difficulties they face have an inward dimension:

You will be a heretic to yourself, and a sorcerer and a soothsayer, and a fool, and a doubter, and a reprobate, and a villain.

In other words, what he suggests on the part of the one who tries to command oneself is that one will have to suffer various assaults from one's own conscience.

[H]ow could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes!

The transitional experience that lies between "becom[ing] ashes" and "ris[ing]anew" is bound to be uncomfortable in the extreme. When this is occurring, you can be sure that various apologists for the status quo are likely to arrive on the scene, intoning: "Fear is always guilt in disguise." 

That they are correct in what they intone is beside the point. Rather, the sign that one has a guilty conscience indicates that one could be participating in a process that ends up with "ris[ing]anew" . (Of course, this outcome is not assured, but relates to what shamanism terms "a difficult crossing".)

On Nietzsche and his band of merry men

The inability of Nietzsche to understand the real dynamics of gender, despite his other very fine insights, is a source of humour to me. His male followers inevitably adopt his misogyny, despite the fact that the writer himself warns that his misogynistic views are merely his own truths and are not philosophical facts.

His male groupies make a number of mistakes, all of them quite funny. Here is a sample.

1. The idea that in order to become great, I must adopt somebody else's point of view and values. (What is wrong with your original ones, and why are you advertising your rejection of them in this way?)

2. The idea that Nietzsche was trying to attract followers and should receive a following in terms of this kind of emulation of his 19th century predilections.

3. The assumption that there must be a link between misogyny and greatness.

NO! -- rather, there is a link between honesty about unpalatable facts about oneself and greatness, in the Nietzschean sense.

Greatness is attributed simply because being honest about oneself has the opposite effect to gaining social approval. It does not guarantee success, but is likely to compromise the outward trappings of success. Only if one can be honest, despite honesty being the way that one's success is compromised, one shows a plenitude of strength (in the Nietzschean sense).  

If one succumbs to all sorts of negative flow backs (which is likely) if one then blames others for his demise, one fails to live up to Nietzschean precepts. In terms of this Nietzschean psychology, such a person who blames others has failed the test.

4. The confusion of psychology (Nietzsche's actual viewpoint) with metaphysics (the idea of eternal and unmoving truths). Those who think they have found in misogyny a basis for positing unyielding metaphysical truths should be required to think again.

5. Most followers of Nietzsche seem to have never thought independently -- that is, individually and individualistically -- so that when they fall down, they are even at that point unlikely to be provoked to think. But falling and failing is supposed to provoke deep thinking, according to Nietzschean psychology.

6.   They have bought into the idea of rigidity of values as strength, which is the opposite to Nietzsche's psychology of strength. Quite simply, one cannot be honest with oneself so long as one is in the grip of  rigid beliefs.

On the intellect and emotional blackmail

There is a problem with being too empathetic with the range of reference points that another person has, and thus trying to communicate with them in their language, when you already sense that the level of intellectual language they have developed is not sufficient to really understand what you are relating. This is particularly a problem for those who have been guilt-tripped into believing that the level of language that is needed in order to convey one's point of view makes others feel inferior.

Really, if they feel inferior because you address them in a way that they do not and cannot understand, that is not your problem. (I realize that it is nonetheless a real practical, political problem for women in the contemporary workplace, who can be taken to task by all sorts of invested onlookers for seeming to be too uppity.)

Still it is not your burden to bring yourself down to his level of consciousness in order to communicate with him. This is not something that can be achieved even if you were to beat your head against the wall relentlessly with effort. You can't have smaller and more crippled notions than you already have.

You feel emotionally blackmailed because you have been conditioned to believe that standing up as tall as you really are will be hurtful to all sorts of people. This belief has not come from nowhere but from society's attitudes towards women, and the fact that you have been punished over and over again for being too "uppity" when you were merely communicating in as logical and effective a way as you knew how to. Thus the stupider souls in society have managed to bring you down to their level. (There is the efficacy of lizard brain machinations in all of this, since they have found a way to indulge their laziness and blame YOU for it -- so that you have to do all the work to try to bridge the gap between their levels of thinking and yours.)

O my brethren, into the hearts of the good and just looked some one once on a time, who said: "They are the Pharisees." But people did not understand him.
The good and just themselves were not free to understand him; their spirit was imprisoned in their good conscience. The stupidity of the good is unfathomably wise.

Human natures--Zimbabwe and the world

Also the issue of "human nature" has come to have a particularly negative meaning, along with justifying the status quo in "Western" cultures. Once gain, English speakers whom I have encountered on the Internet (I cannot say what is the case for non-English speakers) tend to be very quick to wring out their hands after hearing mention of any kind of abuse. They sigh and say, "Ah.... human nature. Nothing we can do about it."

I have to say that one of the things that shocked me most about Zimbabwe, and made me think that this was a place where I needed to be, was that this attitude has not grown roots over there.

Actually nobody has that attitude over there at all (none that I met). People are still capable of being shocked over there about abuses. And they still think there is something they ought to do about them individually. Which is why I say that, despite my sense that Christianity seems to have permeated everything over there, the underlying system of values is nonetheless humanistic. People are still keen to make reasonable (non-political) distinctions about right and wrong.

When I reflect upon my associations with people in the contemporary world, however -- I refer to online acquaintances as well as those I have met in Perth, in everyday life -- I cannot think of one person who sees ethics as being a primary issue, rather than politics. This relates to a different sense of ordering, a different sense of what has priority, between the two cultures. In Zimbabwean culture, ethics (loyalty, etc) are more fundamental than political affiliation. In "Western" culture, it is the reverse. For instance, somebody here (let us say in Perth) will evaluate the legitimacy of a claim to have experienced something NOT on the basis of the content of the claim, but rather on the basis of whether they feel any affiliation with you on the basis of identity. If you are viewed as being the wrong category of person, then justice is not for you. Rather, you will be peered at very skeptically, as if you engaging in political rhetoric, rather than simply communicating.

Levels of cynicism here are deeper than words can tell.

What is "Western"?

The word is used in Zimbabwe to refer to former colonial powers, Australia, Britain and the US. Only I use the term with my own modifications, that is not really so much as an expletive (in the Mugabe sense), and not so much to designate a category of people either, but rather to describe the intensification of a zone in which particular types of phenomena are likely to be more heightened.

When I discover that somebody is using "Western" modes of thinking and behaving, it always takes me by surprise, by sheer virtue of the otherness of this kind of thinking and acting. I'm not anticipating the behavior at all, and this is why it immediately strikes me as "other" -- that is, in terms of my expectations. I am not saying that I see certain people, per se, as "other". Rather, it is the phenomena of behaving in a certain way that seems "other" to me.

No words suggest themselves to my mind so much as "Western" because I also deduce that the reason I am being taken by surprise so much is because (I have strong reasons for thinking) of my Zimbabwean cultural heritage, which leads me to expect and anticipate behavior that would be quite different from the types of behavior that surprise me in a specific way.

So when this behavior surprises me, I defer to my Zimbabwean roots in order to find a word that can sum up the nature of my surprise, and the word that most logically suggests itself to me (on the basis of my Zimbabwean cultural heritage) is "Western".

"Western" is, abstractly, as I have suggested, the behavior or attitudes that take me by surprise as being non-Zimbabwean. This is part of what makes it hard to define in the concrete, because it requires me to go back into my mind and to try to list all of those attitudes and behaviors that have shocked the living daylights out of me by being, for instance, the exact opposite sort of response to something from the one I would have expected in my originative culture. (Having just returned from Zimbabwe, I was extremely reassured to realize that most people there -- particularly black Zimbabweans -- do still think and feel in ways that I used to considered to be merely "common-sensical" before the living daylights were shocked out of me.)

So once again, what is "Western"? In the immediate (and still hard to elucidate sense) it is the manifestation of qualities that are alien, other, and defiant of my culturally based notions of common sense. It is also the manifestation of the mindset of a would-be dominator, somebody who will not take "no" for an answer, who insists on seeing things only in their way, whilst negating the validity of my perspectives. It is more specifically the attitude of one who denies my right to have a perspective that is "other" than theirs, whilst at the same time treating me almost exclusively as the other.

Speaking experientially, a "Westerner" is one who wraps me up in a double-bind by denying me the right to speak differently, from my own cultural perspective (when it suits him), whilst also treating me like someone whose differences are entirely noticeable (and punishable) when it suits him. That is to say, his words say, "You are entirely as Western as the rest of us, and will be treated as such whenever you speak as if you were actually different," whereas his actions say, "You are entirely alien from the rest of us, and you will be punished until you are brought into line and start to make sense."

A "Westerner", then, is somebody whose mind and being is entirely political. He will sacrifice any sort of meaning, or friendship or experience for a political advantage. (A "Westerner" is a kind of anti-humanist, then.) He is not particularly logical but likes to make a fetish out of being seen to embrace rationality above all things. But actually, logic is more of an image game for him as well as means for political point-scoring, rather than anything like he takes to be a practical or workable ideal.

Shamanism, Nietzsche, Bataille and Christianity

The Bible is very much embedded in Western metaphysics, in our common-sense modes of deducting the meaning and worth of somebody's behaviour. In fact two elements of Biblical myth underly everything about our ostensibly secular (or otherwise "rational") thinking processes.

These religious myths -- deeply embedded in an otherwise secular society's consciousness -- are the notion of original sin and the one concerning the impossibility of an spiritual return to anything like an original paradise:

Genesis 3: 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

The two are in fact interrelated. They stand in anti-thesis to any point of view that might be considered shamanistic -- that is, for instance in antithesis to the works of Nietzsche and Bataille, both of whom allow that there are (generally) hidden depths of human consciousness to be plumbed, and that to explore that which is hidden (Nietzsche) or (looked at from the point of view of Catholicism) expressly forbidden (Bataille) is the origin and source of all human joy in living.

But one does not, indeed ought not to "return" to a state or attitude that is marked by "original sin". This is the Bible's alternative and countervailing truth. Lacan's difference from Bataille is seen most pronouncedly in that Lacan embraces the Biblical precepts concerning human nature and what is good for it: "Thou shalt not return to thy origins, thy sinner. (You will only make yourself worse for trying)." Bataille, despite having earlier embraced orthodox Catholicism, resists the authority of orthodoxy in pronouncing, "Thou shalt" and "Why not?"

Bataille and Nietzsche are beyind a movement to open up the doors to the unconscious -- to states of mind and self-enjoyment that have been explicitly forbidden by the Christian tradition.

They are a reinstatement of the older shamanistic tradition of spirituality, that had been superceded by Christianity and its ascetic mores.

Has anyone considered the anomaly of having a metaphysics of gender? I mean how is it not self-contradictory to point to a biological woman and say she lacks the qualities of her gender. Quite patently -- which is to say materially -- she does not.

I am trying to highlight the way that metaphysics works, because we mostly don't even realise that we are appealing to metaphysics to justify our particular perspectives. For instance, in the case where one uses a figure of speech, "that person does not have the characteristics of a parent," one is actually appealing to values, which can shift of change according to historical time and place, and culture. But what is particularly pernicious is to confuse one's values with the actual substance of what one is intending to critique. If I say that a parent does not have the qualities of a parent, perhaps it is because they are not sufficiently nurturing to my taste, or their abusiveness towards their children goes against my sense of ethics. Therefore, what I am really saying is that they are a bad parent.

But one does well not to confuse the two levels of reasoning -- values and material fact. For instance, if I am biologically female, then it stands to reason that everything I say or do must be according to my "female" nature. There is nothing whatsoever that I can say or do that would possibly contradict it. On the other hand, I may still, in the eyes of some people, be a "bad" female. But this attribution of badness is according to the viewer's own values and beliefs, and does not penetrate to the level of my material substance. At that (second) level, I can't help being what I am, as a material fact, no matter what positive or negative evaluations this being-as-I-am happens to accrue to it. This second level is much more fundamental, indeed absolute.

Kwame E. Bidi: Hmm...quite convincing! I love your deductions. Let me stretch the discussion a bit further: I also know for instance, that biological endowments are not necessarily static and unchanging phenomena. No. They evolve, change and and a...re most susceptible to the influence of social and cultural circumstances. A biological endowment of 'femaleness' is therefore, potentially changeable. The level of change of one's femaleness could be influenced to any degree on the biological continuum by social machinations.

This reasoning, if valid, implies necessarily that a female, could deviate from her own biological constitution of femaleness (material substance) to a social or cultural constitution to any degree. Since the influence of culture on one's biological identity differs from culture to culture, it could be well said, technically, I think that a woman lacks the qualities of her gender without contradiction.


Jennifer: I was never arguing that a human female's biological status had anything stable to characterise it, except for the broadest anatomical determinan...ts. So it hardly matters if a female deviates from her physiological constitution on the basis of cultural influences. This of course will occur, practically and materially.

Rather than pointing out what can and does occur, however, I am engaging in an exercise of pointing out a moment of mental deception (which could be viewed, rather, as the WAY in which some of these modes of being are confused in our minds (eg. being female). In thus failing to maintain the distinction between ontological fact and cultural evaluation, we actually internalise cultural evaluations and change the very nature of our ontological beings (almost always in the sense of narrowing our identities and thus also our potential). Althusser calls this process "interpellation".

It is, as I say, a practical inevitability that our raw ontological beings should be interpellated by culture in this way. But I am also saying that the fact that we allow ourselves to be interpellated (ie. more narrowly constituted than our original state 'in nature") is based upon our own mental confusion -- our inability to maintain a necessary sense of distinction between the material bedrock of our identity, and the metaphysical notions (evaluations) of that identity that ultimately shape it.

shamanic doubling, destruction and regeneration

But the worst enemy you can meet will always be yourself; you ambush yourself in caverns and forests.

You solitary one, you go the way to yourself! And your way leads you past yourself and your seven devils!

You will be a heretic to yourself, and a sorcerer and a soothsayer, and a fool, and a doubter, and a reprobate, and a villain.

You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame; how could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes!

http://praxeology.net/zara2.htm

You force many to think differently about you; that, they charge bitterly to your account. You came near to them and yet went past: for that they never forgive you.

You go beyond them: but the higher you rise, the smaller do you appear to the eye of envy. But the flying one is hated most of all.

"How could you be just to me!" -- you must say -- "I choose your injustice as my proper lot.”

transcendental justice and western metaphysics

The western view of catastrophes is very strange to me!! But they like the idea that everything in life has a pre-existent order, that there is some invisible essence in the system of life, indeed in the system of the economy of the whole, that automatically punishes evil and rewards good. It's the idea of the inherently just universe. So the first thing a westerner will do, if you tell him of a misfortune, is to pan through your background to find any evidence of sin. Once he thinks he has found it, he alights upon it with an enormous sense of glee and self-congratulatory fervour. He has managed to put you in your place (lower than he) and at the same time assure that his life, the universe, and everything make sense again -- that events are not arbitrary (as they seem) but fully ordered and organised by a providence that distributes pain to the guilty and pleasure to those who work hard and do right.

The Shona way is much more humane and more delightful. It is better to laugh at things that go wrong than to put on the dour face of punitive seriousness and get out one's whipping stick.

I narrowly avoided -- I hope -- becoming thus, "western" in my memoir-writing, by trying to turn some of the weight of evidence against myself (even though I don't actually believe it belongs there). That is the way to try to alleviate the heavy load that providence alone would have to bear, in assuring we all live in a just universe.See

Suppose there was one segment of the population that was denied baths. The other half received baths whenever they needed any, but this segment was pretty much prevented from washing themselves, due to lack of water, soap, facilities. The segment that was able to wash themselves never thought about the issue of baths. "Phoo!" they said among themselves. "Those who obsess about baths lack the faculty of cleanliness." The other segment of the population could think of nothing else. "If only we could have a bath, we could go shopping, enjoy meetings and each other's company," they said. But the other segment of society were skeptical: "Nothing would change, because it's in the nature of that segment to be dirty. If it were not so, why do they obsess about trying to clean themselves? They surely already recognise their dirty nature among themselves, whereas our segment is more than happy just the way it is."