Tuesday 30 September 2014
Unwanted burgers
So I’ve finally pieced together my whole life story, at least in a manner that now makes sense to me, and I think it is apparent that narcissists are people who are hungry but can never be satisfied and therefore attack others, whereas a shaman takes what the narcissists throw at her and use it to destroy the aspects of the self that made her susceptible to narcissistic attacks in the first place. The shaman regenerates and resolves issues, both in the physical/behavioral sense and through coming to terms with reality on deeper and deeper levels. But narcissists — perhaps through no fault of their own, or perhaps very much so — can be given many things but they can’t seem to digest them or benefit from them, so they always want more and more and more. That is why one has to learn very carefully, especially in terms of responding to criticism. I take it as the height of naivety to bend in response to ongoing criticism, because the narcissist can never be satiated. First he criticises your writing and demeanor, but ultimately he has you bringing hamburgers to his own with free delivery, and he will still find something wrong with those burgers. They are never going to be cooked just right.
Exercise as a prescription for depression: here’s how it works | SBS News
Exercise as a prescription for depression: here’s how it works | SBS News: "Within the muscles, endurance-type exercise prompts the activation of a protein called PGC-1a1. This protein does a lot already: It promotes the growth of blood vessels, increases the efficiency with which the cells use energy, ensures that fatty acids are broken down for the body’s use, and guards against muscle atrophy.
But the authors of the latest study show that activating PGC-1a1 in the muscles also increases the production of kynurenine aminotransferases inside of muscle. And the presence of these enzymes catalyzes a chemical change in kynurenine, converting it into kynurenic acid.
In mice, and very likely in humans too, chronic stress increase levels of kynurenine in the brain—and high levels of kynurenine appear to induce depression. But kynurenic acid can’t get into the brain, because it can’t get across the blood-brain barrier. So, when PGC-1a1 levels in muscle are high, and kynurenine gets converted into kynurenic acid, levels of kynurenine in the brain naturally drop."
'via Blog this'
But the authors of the latest study show that activating PGC-1a1 in the muscles also increases the production of kynurenine aminotransferases inside of muscle. And the presence of these enzymes catalyzes a chemical change in kynurenine, converting it into kynurenic acid.
In mice, and very likely in humans too, chronic stress increase levels of kynurenine in the brain—and high levels of kynurenine appear to induce depression. But kynurenic acid can’t get into the brain, because it can’t get across the blood-brain barrier. So, when PGC-1a1 levels in muscle are high, and kynurenine gets converted into kynurenic acid, levels of kynurenine in the brain naturally drop."
'via Blog this'
Monday 29 September 2014
Sunday 28 September 2014
QUESTION: "What's Involved With A Shamanic Initiation?"
A lot of people are highly skeptical about descents into madness, and they maintain that it is not possible for such an experience to equate to something beneficial like a shamanic initiation. However, I sensed that the African writer had had this sort of experience. I had reasons for thinking so, in that I had myself had a one quarter madness experience and had greatly benefited from it in terms of insight and maturity. Also, this African writer did not adopt conventional, revengeful motifs of race but had much deeper, more insightful things to share. It was difficult for me to write more than notes on this topic, since even addressing it frightened me, but I wrote this: http://musteryou.wordpress.com/2008/04/25/house-of-hunger-2/
Product Placement | Clarissa's Blog
Product Placement | Clarissa's Blog:
'via Blog this'
It’s very unfortunate that I came to the conclusions about psychoanalysis that I did, but that is because I was also silenced, like Dora, by someone whom I respected and had anticipated getting some guidance or sagacious advice from. Instead, he treated me like Freud did Dora, and I had to take extreme shamanic measures after that to stop myself going into a tail spin and to regain control over my mind. I treat Freudians with great suspicion now, because I understand the harm that can be done by being excessively trite about gender issues.
'via Blog this'
It’s very unfortunate that I came to the conclusions about psychoanalysis that I did, but that is because I was also silenced, like Dora, by someone whom I respected and had anticipated getting some guidance or sagacious advice from. Instead, he treated me like Freud did Dora, and I had to take extreme shamanic measures after that to stop myself going into a tail spin and to regain control over my mind. I treat Freudians with great suspicion now, because I understand the harm that can be done by being excessively trite about gender issues.
COPING WITH ANXIETY (ON THE SHAMANIC PATH)
Far from curing anxiety, opting for the shamanic path may initially exacerbate anxiety. Indeed it may do so for a long time to come, but the trade off is that quality of life immediately increases once one has gone off the priestly path and opted for the path that is shamanic. By persisting long enough, it is highly probably that one stumbles upon various means to cure one's deeper levels of anxiety -- the shamanic means is by "facing death". One accepts one's limits in a state of sublime resignation. However, it is only possible to accept death if one is abundantly rich in life and is on intimate terms with the flow of life. Otherwise, one continues to fight against that reality and is better off remaining on the priestly path.
Saturday 27 September 2014
Responsibility to Help | Clarissa's Blog
Responsibility to Help | Clarissa's Blog: "It seems to me that if you want to help effectively, you have to help because you want to, not because you are compelled to by some abstracted “moral responsibility”. If people had their humanity,they would need not injunctions."
'via Blog this'
'via Blog this'
Friday 26 September 2014
Friday Link Encyclopedia and Self-Promotion | Clarissa's Blog
Friday Link Encyclopedia and Self-Promotion | Clarissa's Blog
““There’s a reason that “Social Justice Warrior” has become a pejorative. It’s not just the Right attempting to besmirch the name. No, these people do it just fine all by themselves. This is not a cohesive social movement; this is a bunch of whining babies attempting to one-up one another in the Oppression Olympics and having contests to see who can call out someone the fastest. If the Left wants the win the culture wars, it’s going to have to do better than that.” So true.”
The condition of contemporary leftism is that it insists on immaturity as the only form of political ihnocence acceptable to it. But then it has to deal with the consequences of immaturity, which is that people around them express borderline personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder as direct expressions of their immaturity. (These are modes of handling the world when one is in an immature state.) Consequently, cultural leftism is bogged down dealing with its own basket cases, and never rises to the level of political activism or political critique.
Disarming the Intolerable | Clarissa's Blog
Disarming the Intolerable | Clarissa's Blog
I find it is possible to neutralize one's intentions and step out of time. People tend to be able to crush other people when they are emotionally aroused, but to still the emotions enables you to step out of the social context and to buy as much time as you need to reflect on whatever matter is likely to crush you. Then, when you are ready and sure, you can step back into time again.
I find it is possible to neutralize one's intentions and step out of time. People tend to be able to crush other people when they are emotionally aroused, but to still the emotions enables you to step out of the social context and to buy as much time as you need to reflect on whatever matter is likely to crush you. Then, when you are ready and sure, you can step back into time again.
Friday Link Encyclopedia and Self-Promotion | Clarissa's Blog
Friday Link Encyclopedia and Self-Promotion | Clarissa's Blog
Well traditional patriarchy was a division of labor, fundamentally. That meant that men did the mental work and women did the emotional work (one could choose other ways to depict the schematization, but this one will do). The effect of this division of labor was that neither the man nor the woman grew up into full adulthood. The man may have been very disciplined and rule abiding, but his emotional maturity would not have developed, necessarily, beyond a very early childhood stage. And the woman, who supposedly ruled in the realm of emotions was also ruled BY her emotions, and hence not that mature either.
A correct analysis of patriarchy indicates therefore that it was a strategy for maintaining economic survival, which extracted a tremendous cost in that neither men nor women could ever become a whole person — that is, they were structurally prevented from becoming mature.
What's behind narcissism?
A Brilliant Quote on Narcissism | Clarissa's Blog
And you could say Marechera’s mother was the same, as she actually thought she was sending the demon that was in her into her son (literally, I mean).
But this kind of action comes from psychological torment and the fact that one does not have a free flowing river within oneself to draw from. One has to steal the waters of others.
There could be many reasons for this behavior, including extreme spiritual defeat, or learned bad patterns of behavior, or culturally instilled tendencies (like bad farming and bad workmanship). There are many reasons for wanting to steal the waters of others, but being parched and dry and not having any ability to produce water from one’s own well is always the ultimate motive. Therefore people have to be taught how to produce their own liquid energies for themselves, or to replenish these on their own when their wells start to run dry. Many will struggle, if their early childhood experiences have been extremely arid. But what we cannot do is cater to a narcissistic society, where people who are dried out feel entitled to consume from those who a relatively healthier.
Friday Link Encyclopedia and Self-Promotion | Clarissa's Blog
Friday Link Encyclopedia and Self-Promotion | Clarissa's Blog:
'via Blog this'
"“I may be a middle-aged white man, but I’m not an idiot. . . It seems that, in doing away with patriarchal authority, we have also, perhaps unwittingly, killed off all the grown-ups.” Yes, buddy, you are right, you are not an idiot. You are a total fucking brainless idiot. That’s an important distinction."
I think the main problem is that American society has never been mature, and perhaps neither has Australian society. I do think British society has a strong core of maturity. But many societies are simply too young. And part of the symptoms of immaturity is to constantly produce extremely trite solutions to complex problems, like the solution that original author seems to be proposing above.
'via Blog this'
"“I may be a middle-aged white man, but I’m not an idiot. . . It seems that, in doing away with patriarchal authority, we have also, perhaps unwittingly, killed off all the grown-ups.” Yes, buddy, you are right, you are not an idiot. You are a total fucking brainless idiot. That’s an important distinction."
I think the main problem is that American society has never been mature, and perhaps neither has Australian society. I do think British society has a strong core of maturity. But many societies are simply too young. And part of the symptoms of immaturity is to constantly produce extremely trite solutions to complex problems, like the solution that original author seems to be proposing above.
Musings on tradition and modernity
It's no doubt hard to look into another mode of existence when all of one's ideas and values have been conditioned by modernity, but in the past people had an identity from birth and were not encouraged to find out what they were good at or to develop individuality as part of their natures. We are losing touch with traditional modes of thought since they are becoming weaker in modern life these days. Progress is of course very good, but the loss of awareness of change is not so good at all, and we should be aware that throwing away all structure is not the method by which society can advance.
Collapse of channels of communication under Modernity
The Masculine and Feminine communication channels are now collapsed, according to a modern trend. I mean these gendered terms to have a symbolic meaning rather than implying anything actual or concrete. I note that the collapse of channels of communication taking place according to our modern trend means that what is communicated from the collapsed mode is unclear at best and abusive at worst. This is a problem of human relations and not just optimising communication.
video coming soon
The Masculine and Feminine communication channels are now collapsed, according to a modern trend. I mean these gendered terms to have a symbolic meaning rather than implying anything actual or concrete. I note that the collapse of channels of communication taking place according to our modern trend means that what is communicated from the collapsed mode is unclear at best and abusive at worst. This is a problem of human relations and not just optimising communication.
Thursday 25 September 2014
Philosophy: guilt, shamanism and historical contingency
In an ideal world we would all only suffer or experience reward on the basis of our individual merits. Perhaps humanity is working toward a world like that. In the mean time, the shamanic type and his or her body must be used to diffuse and handle the guilt arising in the primeval mind, which can register historical seismic shifts. He or she absorbs much of this guilt into the body -- and diffuses and reframes it. Thus, the shamanic intellectual leads the way to psychical restoration and a healthier society.
***THIS MATERIAL IS EXTREMELY DIFFICULT
Wednesday 24 September 2014
SHAMANIC RENEWAL
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| larger picture appears if you click |
I was fatigued on this day. I went to sleep just before the sun at around 6 pm and woke up the next day just after the sun at around 7 am. I processed thoughts, took stock, and revised my knowledge. My unconscious spirit was kind -- took me on a lot of vivid journeys, whilst making me very aware that life is much shorter than I think it is.
One thing for sure, the best thing that has ever happened to me has been getting older successfully. In my youth I always feared getting older in a way that would be unsuccessful in my own eyes. Indeed, that was what had been happening to me for a long time. The years were slipping through my fingertips and I was not making any progress at all in advancing beyond my instilled hostility toward myself -- a feature of extreme Christianity.
Like the proverbial fox stuck in a trap, I had to tear myself apart to escape from a very confining cultural heritage.
That method is very scary. One also has to die to oneself and be born again. Otherwise a more complete atheistic spirituality is not going to be possible.
shamanic renewal
To have a shamanic renewal, you really have to give up on your notion that somehow things are as they ought to be -- i.e. that the world is just, and that you deserve the punishment you are getting, or the benefits you are getting. None of this is true! Shamanic renewal means starting again from scratch.
Sunday 21 September 2014
Zarathustra & achieving objective self-knowledge
Nietzsche was very concerned with the achievement of self-knowledge. He was trying to draw our attention to the means of achieving objective self-knowledge by understanding ourselves and our subjective limitations. This is a paradox, if ever there was one, which is why the Nietzschean method is typically misunderstood.
"And whatever may still overtake me as fate and experience — a wandering will be therein, and a mountain-climbing: in the end one experienceth only oneself."
XLV. THE WANDERER.
"And when they misunderstood me, I, like a fool, indulged them more than I did myself: for I was accustomed to being hard with myself, and often even took revenge on myself for this undulgence."
THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA, "The Home-coming".
"But he has discovered himself who says: This is MY good and evil; He has silenced thereby the mole and dwarf who says: 'Good for all, evil for all.' "
All my progress has been an attempting and questioning--and truly one has to LEARN how to answer such questioning! That however -- is to my taste:
not good taste, not bad taste, but MY taste, which I no longer conceal and of which I am no longer ashamed."
"Of the spirit of gravity".
Saturday 20 September 2014
Rapes in Rotherham, Part II | Clarissa's Blog
Rapes in Rotherham, Part II | Clarissa's Blog
And to indicate a problem with modernity and tradition not understanding each other — and not being willing to — let me be anecdotal. My father, who fought for certain traditional values and lost the literal war, had made up his mind not to allow his family to adapt to modernity, as this would mean in his mind losing the war twice. Therefore I had to do a terrible battle with him for my independence of mind. And what happened when I went to modern professors or modern feminists for support? They told me I was just being overly sensitive and that we all have different patriarchies to deal with and it is just a matter of perspective. My ability to sink or swim in the given circumstances was, to them, a matter of theoretical perspective and not at all a big issue.
Therefore it seems that one of the problems of modernity is in fact a loss of perspective in dealing with issues that still impact on others as not at all just “theoretical”, but practical and real in the deepest sense.
I criticise modernity at times for its ethical bankrupsy (expressed as extreme relativism). That does not mean I am against modernity as such. But things have to be drawn back into historical context, even though this is painful for modern people to do. Leftist modern people do not like having to take on the position or attitude of having a superior intellectual or social vantage point because they have disavowed their role as colonials. The worst thing you can do to a modern person of the left persuasion is to suggest they still have colonial tendencies. They would rather be overrun and destroyed. That is easier than facing the ethical conundrum of the legacies of colonialism. But more than that, gaining and maintaining a historical perspective is too much work for most people.
Rapes in Rotherham, Part I | Clarissa's Blog
Rapes in Rotherham, Part I | Clarissa's Blog
Modernity has much to offer, but in terms of gender many people are still confused. On one of my YouTube videos I have trolls masturbating themselves like nobody's business because there is a female philosopher -- Luce Irigaray -- who seems to be stepping out of her proper feminine bounds by saying things in a way that people can't immediately understand. (It seems the obligation of women everywhere is to be immediately understandable or risk extreme male wrath and put-downs regarding one's intellectual acumen.) The trolls are in terror because to their mind, Irigaray is a "postmodernist".
And then we have actual postmodernism preaching its extreme cultural relativism, in terms of which "honor" killings and female genital mutilation are A-OK.
Modernity has much to offer, but in terms of gender many people are still confused. On one of my YouTube videos I have trolls masturbating themselves like nobody's business because there is a female philosopher -- Luce Irigaray -- who seems to be stepping out of her proper feminine bounds by saying things in a way that people can't immediately understand. (It seems the obligation of women everywhere is to be immediately understandable or risk extreme male wrath and put-downs regarding one's intellectual acumen.) The trolls are in terror because to their mind, Irigaray is a "postmodernist".
And then we have actual postmodernism preaching its extreme cultural relativism, in terms of which "honor" killings and female genital mutilation are A-OK.
Rapes in Rotherham, Part II | Clarissa's Blog
Rapes in Rotherham, Part II | Clarissa's Blog
I fully agree with this:
“The only way to prevent the horror of Rotherham from repeating itself over and over again is to reverse the idiotic policies of multiculturalism immediately. The idea that all cultures are equally valuable should be abandoned. All forms of attire that mark women as possessions should be banned and prosecuted in civilized countries in the same way as incitement to hate crimes is prosecuted. There should be intense public shaming of anybody who suggests segregation of women, selling children in marriage, etc. There should be constant efforts to desegregate immigrants and educate them about modern values.”
The mood of extreme cultural relativism with regard to women is indicative of how backward many ideas in the Western world still are.
Friday 19 September 2014
extreme masculinity (and shamanic feminism)
Anywhere where extreme masculinity is given permission to grow, it leaches the soil of nutrients for other types of plants. It takes all the energy out of the soil and ....what we have left is probably room for thinned personalities, who, with their own tremendous will, can become shamans.
Those are the two extreme types that an extreme right wing culture can produce.
Now, of course, I had to make do with very little in way of psychological or emotional nutrients – for the reason given.
But that was okay, so long as I remained in the right wing ecosystem with these tall, masculine trees providing shade for me. In truth, the situation is not so good otherwise, and one can only survive through extreme shamanism. For instance, one must learn to feed on what one’s mind is predisposed to feed on. So, throughout the three-quarter sleep I had last night, my brain nourished itself on the images of very young and very rugged Rhodesian soldiers [see video below] – and, of course, their lauded heroism. At the same time, one chooses to see part of the picture and deliberately ignore the fact that some of these were thugs and no doubt could have been very unpleasant characters – not so much during the war, when their minds were made up to fight heroically, but afterwards, when the whole reality collapsed.
Shamanic types survive the collapse of all sorts of realities because they had the habit of getting by on very little to begin with. The collapse of realities is painful but survivable --- and one can gain the ability to live through them again and again. Those who are absolutely committed, though, seem to have more difficulty.
Anyway, my notion that extreme shamanic types and extreme masculine types grow up on the same soil is what I want to present today. Is it any wonder that Western psychologists could not even begin to understand me? I don’t have the mindset they expect me to have. I’m undernourished, but still thriving.
Thursday 18 September 2014
Were Reagan and Thatcher the Last Nation-State Leaders? | Clarissa's Blog
Were Reagan and Thatcher the Last Nation-State Leaders? | Clarissa's Blog
People who adopt the mindsets of T and R are undialectical. Given that this is so, it was always possible to trap them in an anti-dialectical mode of one’s own. One just asks them what they are saying and why they are saying it –and then when they give a response, you say it cannot be understood. Then you ask them again what they are saying and why they are saying it.
People who adopt the mindsets of T and R are undialectical. Given that this is so, it was always possible to trap them in an anti-dialectical mode of one’s own. One just asks them what they are saying and why they are saying it –and then when they give a response, you say it cannot be understood. Then you ask them again what they are saying and why they are saying it.
Were Reagan and Thatcher the Last Nation-State Leaders? | Clarissa's Blog
Were Reagan and Thatcher the Last Nation-State Leaders? | Clarissa's Blog
"Both Thatcher and Reagan relied on the idea that the state was no longer responsible for the welfare of the people. However, they still wanted to control morality through the legislative means of the state apparatus. And that’s just not going to work."
And the people who inherited these views, the Reaganites and Thatcherites themselves, what horrible, noxious pieces of work they turned out to be! They invested in a whole atmosphere of being quick to try to exert moral control, whilst actively pulling out the rug from under people. Of course this is nasty and spiteful, but what used to bother me was that it was philosophically inconsistent.
"Both Thatcher and Reagan relied on the idea that the state was no longer responsible for the welfare of the people. However, they still wanted to control morality through the legislative means of the state apparatus. And that’s just not going to work."
And the people who inherited these views, the Reaganites and Thatcherites themselves, what horrible, noxious pieces of work they turned out to be! They invested in a whole atmosphere of being quick to try to exert moral control, whilst actively pulling out the rug from under people. Of course this is nasty and spiteful, but what used to bother me was that it was philosophically inconsistent.
Wednesday 17 September 2014
Tuesday 16 September 2014
Why feminism?
Why feminism?
I'd be so simple and say that my shamanic version of feminism is a quest for personal wholeness.
The femininity that patriarchal culture requires is, by contrast, mental and emotional atrophy. One cannot be whole if one is required to represent half the features of a human being, and moreover the negative and undesirable features at that.
Feminism therefore is part of the shamanic quest, which is the quest for personal wholeness.
Of course, shamanic wholeness means that we recover what was already part of us, not something new.
Feminism also involves personal sovereignty. This is not a power grab but a mode of being resolute in difficulty and not permitting others to make a power grab on your life. One needs skills, training and extreme resolve to secure one's personhood in a realm of opposing power relations.
Dominant power systems, including patriarchy, maintain that women have no right to speak authoritatively regarding issues that concern them. Even commentary regarding one's own life is thrown into doubt. Those who had never taken the time to know one well may proclaim that they have superior and more accurate perspectives into the features of one's life. To continue to speak authoritatively on one's own behalf, despite the cultural trend of second guessing women, is the most essential and difficult task that one must pursue for one's whole life. Without this insistence that one has the right to speak about the things one has known and experienced, and to do so authoritatively, one can never be a full public person.
Finally, feminism is about separating out what one is to blame for and what one isn't to blame for in life, so that one can also be a fully fledged moral individual. If one is taking the blame for things that were never one's fault, one is mistaken about one's very identity.
In short, feminism involves recovering dissociated aspects of the self, the insistence on personal sovereignty and the insistence that one has the authority to speak in a trustworthy manner about those things one has personally experienced.
Difference of Opinion | Clarissa's Blog
Difference of Opinion | Clarissa's Blog
Difference of opinion = celebrate diversity. Like when I once asked a feminist for help with a difficult situation and was told, “But, Jennifer, there are different patriarchies!” Or as postmodernists would say, “There is no postmodernism. There are postmodernisms!”
So put that in your hat and chew it.
Monday 15 September 2014
Sunday 14 September 2014
metabolic intensity
The highest force of metabolic intensity I have ever felt was when I was working for the labor union. It’s weird that so much direct evil was functioning in that work place, but we can see the logic of that situation if and when people renounce the role of being authoritative or taking on responsibility because they have decided that formal power is evil. But then they resort all the more violently to the appropriation of informal power, which means backbiting, undermining, allowing chaos to persist instead of fixing it (one of the most subtle forms of vile hostility and aggression).
And somehow they convince themselves that this vulgar state of affairs is necessarily redemptive.
ON METABOLIC WHOLENESS
Rhodesian society was largely and almost completely a society of metabolic wholeness, where what was inside of you was replicated by what was outside of you. This meant there was a seamlessness to the way people related to each other. I state that rather than competition, there was a seamless orchestration of duties and tasks. Metabolic competition occurred only in the roughest edges of the society, for instance it had some frequency in boys’ boarding schools and in the military. In general, however, we were brought up to take on a predefined social role and not to compete. This explains why I tend to view so much of metabolic competition as being extremely vulgar, because it seems to detract greatly from an individual’s capacity to take on a social role in a smooth and graceful manner. To my mind, one has either a social role or one has competition, but not both. (Certainly I do not understand the means by which one might have both.)
The lack of metabolic wholeness, on the other hand, where individuals are denied a seamless relationship to their society (or the attainment of a broader sense of fit), produces a state of craven graspingness and half-personhood. People may try to create an illusion of wholeness by grasping and competing at a hormonal level, but this certainly does not produce a seamless fit with the society at large. The whole state cannot be attained because the macro level of society and its organization has become decoupled from the micro level – that of the person himself. This decoupling produces an exacerbation of pointless competitiveness, as people try pointless routes to make themselves whole.
Or they may give up and decide that it is the human lot never to attain any semblance of wholeness. Perhaps only after they die? in any case there remains a yearning, which perhaps leads to the fantasy of a heaven that completes one’s being after one has passed away.
Saturday 13 September 2014
Friday 12 September 2014
Thursday 11 September 2014
Wednesday 10 September 2014
Sanity within madness
Is that there is a kind of sanity within madness, just as there is a kind of madness within sanity. I also want to say that this sanity within madness is structural – that is to say, not incidental, random or lucky.
Rather, let us put it this way. People who are mad are often, if not generally, recipients of society’s general madness. That is, they are the individuals who become the dumping grounds for toxic effects or states of awareness that a particular society cannot handle about itself.
Those targeted in this way usual curl up and die – that much is true. But for a very select few, most likely due to some aspect of hidden, congenital strength, instead of the effects making them die, it puts them into a state of hyper-alertness as to the real nature of a society’s conduit systems and how it disposes of its waste material. Needless to say (I Hope!) those genetically selected few are extremely dangerous.
adult society
All I am looking for is that we place a foundation for a more adult society. I think I have been reeling from the shock of not being in an adult society for too long.
The first time I became aware of it was when I gave a reason for some deficiency in my performance on a particular day (my comment was in a mood of penitence and expressed my hope that I might do better in the future through self-monitoring) and this remark I made was dismissed as “an excuse”. That was when I became aware that I was dealing with something very, very different from anything I’d encountered before. At the time I didn’t realize I was being infantilized, although I certainly felt something awry. Reasons, logic, a sense of how everything fits together into a whole – these are no longer remembered or understood.
This is what is missing and this is what I would like to reclaim.
Apart from this, I have no other goals or desires in my life.
colonial debris
Remember that Marechera was also receiving the colonial debris at the other side of the equation. So whatever was denied about the colonial culture – it’s undercurrent of madness and waste, and its lack of permission for visceral experiences and exposure to madness – all of these things Marechera brought to the fore. And that was right, because in many senses these elements were the cure. Think of it in terms of wholeness. If one is rigidly self-disciplined and single-minded, but lacking in imagination, the underside or shadow of this will be in terms of the opposite psychological, social and political characteristics. And you can’t really be whole, psychologically, unless you swing into the opposite and revisit what you have denied.
At least I found this to be very much the case for myself.
diagnostics
Most people cannot make anything out of trash.
But also I was relating it to what we talked about last night, about how people try to get rid of their psychological excrement. Of course, this is projected downwardly toward the less fortunate. It’s trajectory is always away from the powerful and toward those lacking in political power.
So we can imagine the shaman as a pathologist, waiting at the end of the conduit to gain a shit specimen from which he can diagnose the society’s ills. Society’s psychological rubbish is very useful for diagnostic purposes.
kachasu
I was thinking of Marechera’s unhinged mind. I don’t see any possibility of his writing becoming democratized, though. I really meant what I once said, that he seems to put a lot of garden refuse into his concoction and ferment and distil the result. The content of his writing is not going to appeal to the suburban mind. I once told you that his writing is like kachasu. What is kachasu? A few steps down from bootleg liquor. Ideally it is made from millet, but in actual fact, grass clippings rotten fruit and even (mythically perhaps?) body parts have ended up in this concoction. It is allowed to ferment and then distilled. It really does have a mythical reputation. One guy told me that if you poured a drop of this stuff on a table and stood back, it was so potent it would move by itself.
I think kachasu is a real shamanic intoxicant, since shamanism itself seems to come from the rubbish heap, from psychological dross left over, which is somehow concocted into something new.
So nothing facile here.
It’s like this biblical principle taken to extremes:
The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner.
Also, do not forget that anything defined as refuse or rubbish immediately becomes exocentric, which means it gains a privileged perspective in terms of knowing.
More on Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings | Clarissa's Blog
More on Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings | Clarissa's Blog
But, an honest question: How do you KNOW it is pompous and earnest? I mean you are reading a mood into it. How does anyone know that something is necesarily earnest? Even Beckett can be read in a manner of existential angst, as if he were overly dry and earnest, but I maintain that the best way to read him is in a much more mocking, comic light.
But, an honest question: How do you KNOW it is pompous and earnest? I mean you are reading a mood into it. How does anyone know that something is necesarily earnest? Even Beckett can be read in a manner of existential angst, as if he were overly dry and earnest, but I maintain that the best way to read him is in a much more mocking, comic light.
More on Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings | Clarissa's Blog
More on Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings | Clarissa's Blog
Interesting analysis. But don’t you think that sometimes people write in a semi-comedic fashion, for instance a bit like Beckett, showing the absurdity and limitations of the characters without trying to help them or develop them according to a higher wisdom? Not everything has to be a lesson in morality.
Interesting analysis. But don’t you think that sometimes people write in a semi-comedic fashion, for instance a bit like Beckett, showing the absurdity and limitations of the characters without trying to help them or develop them according to a higher wisdom? Not everything has to be a lesson in morality.
Tuesday 9 September 2014
moral contamination
I think a subject that is really at its core shamanic is the notion of moral contamination. Even Nietzsche recognized this when he saw that some people were conduits or lightning towers for bad feelings and sensations. And of course we can see it in the case of Marechera’s mother, who prostituted herself to put food on the table for her children. In turn she was afflicted with madness, which she tried to escape by passing on the moral contamination to her children. She actually hired a witchdoctor whom she beseeched to send her evil spirit into Dambudzo, of all her children, so that she might be free of it.
And if we are honest, this is what parents do to their children all the time, I don’t mean necessarily or as a matter of course, although this might be true as well, but very often they do try to cast off their demons into their children, who are expected to pay the price for the parent’s unfortunate circumstances. The parent can feel relieved when the child suffers instead of them, which is what he phenomenon of projective identification is all about.
Also, culturally inculcated superstitions about the sources of moral contamination create a whole invisible conduit system, whereby before even experiencing the moral contaminant, the privileged groups in society can pass their future dirt onto those lower in the system. For instance, dalits are moral contaminants, who serve the systemic social function of taking away the dirt from the higher classes. Suppose I am of the upper classes and am angry and upset, these people will be the manifest representation of this dangerous emotional scourge, and I will not have to feel it myself so intensely.
And there are superstitions about certain types of ethnic groups as well, who also serve to remove any sense of emotional contamination before it can be properly experienced. (For instance, when it is deemed that women, unlike men, are “emotional”, what is really being said is that they are expected to remove the sensations of moral scourge away from men, before the men can experience these too much. But this idea about gender is a superstition that designs and constructs an underlying conduit system to filter off society’s negative emotions.)
All in all, I fear a culture or even a person who puts too much emphasis on moral contamination. A healthy person, in my view, would not put any emphasis on it at all.
The origins of shamanism
If we look at the way identities are constructed by traditional forms of society, we need to concede that not everybody is allocated personhood. Even in Rhodesia (as recent as that in historical time), there were differently allocated levels of attributable personhood. For instance it would be very difficult for most people in that society to deny that a white person was in fact a person, possessed of full personable facilities and in command of their reason. But others in the society were not so lucky and indeed this had everything to do with their power quotient. A black man may have been considered needful of more cultural training and development before full personhood could be attributed to him. If that was the case for the black man, a black woman was in an even worse position. Her quotient of power was very limited since she was not in touch with white society at all (a proximity which, in the symbolic reading of her situation, would have brought her into closer to the radiance of civilization and power and hence the attribution of personhood). A rural, black woman was therefore deemed to be mad, and not at all in control of her faculties.
What does it mean when one’s personhood is denied? It means that those aspects of experience that would be considered capable of driving a “normal”, civilized person to distraction are not taken into account as significant when it comes to the person who is deemed to be of a very low status. To give an example, if a civilized person would find being raped by strangers in the middle of the night something horrifying and destructive, an entity who lacks personhood is not expected to raise a fuss. Indeed, to raise a fuss is to be seen to be demanding higher social status than others are willing to concede to you. It is considered to be both illogical and arrogant that a low status person would attempt to draw attention to themselves by making something out of “nothing”.
I think the discussion of gender really has to be had in terms of our understandings of personhood and non-personhood. Marechera noticed that the tendency (or capacity?) for women in his society to “see ghosts” is because they had been rendered barely existent, ghostly figures themselves. In Western society, by contrast, we tend to take for granted that everybody has an already pre-existent state of personhood, when in fact there may still be some instances of such uneven power distribution that it attenuates personhood.
In any case, you can see how the psychological systems that are developed within any particular society will tend, I think, to reflect the society’s power structures. Rather than criticize or explain the ramifications of uneven power structures, the formal psychology emerging from a particular society merely reinforces and justifies what already exists.
In fact, I think only shamans like Marechera go deeper to observe the different levels of impact that these power structures have. In this sense they are not at all like “psychologists”, but are deep readers of the actual psychical structures of society.
Also, it stands to reason that the motif of becoming ghostly or communicating with ghosts is reserved for those who lack the most power in the particular society. Their personhood has become very, very thin indeed. This may lead to the thinning of the metabolic boundaries, which is why we can talk about such people as being at lest potentially shamanic, especially if they learn to handle their disempowerment well.
Hush and listen
The thing is not to take in the left brained person’s notions and try to turn it into a whole. They don’t have access to the whole, only to some helpful ideas. The right brain, by contrast can and does have access to the whole, but can often be wrong about it, as in the case where his or her sense of the whole is tainted by a certain mood or emotional frame. But the really strong left brain type has no access to the whole at all, and would not be able to use the key of tone to gain the access that would be necessary to understand the whole as it represented by a particular author. This complete lack of training, which I have often observed, may have much to do with why it seems as if certain groups of people are just profoundly stupid. They have no training for tone, especially not for any tone that may appear from outside of their own culture. They don’t know how to be quiet long enough to just listen for it.
TONE
A significant deficiency in most Americans (which is the fault of their culture, not necessarily of their personal dispositions) is to be unable to gain access of any sort to the mode of irony. For instance, a USA toll chastised me recently for using “Um a lot”, which apparently was not to its taste. But if you listened to the way I used the pause tone in the particular video, it was purely ironic. I was saying, “I am stuck for words, because the following topic isn’t usually one I would address and in fact I find it a bit distasteful to try.”
Nonetheless, trolls serve a task of being revelatory as to the sweeping nature of American cultural blind spots. If I can think of anything that is quintessentially un-American, it is appreciation for irony in tone. They simply cannot take it in, and so sentences that were actually delivered with an ironic twist are taken as a kind of point blank plodding (which probably replicates the troll’s own plodding stupidity). This leads to people of remarkable stupidity criticizing Irigaray’s writing from their lowly heights (a few yards below her feet in height) and accusing her of being unscientific. Similarly, Nietzsche is read as telling Americans to note well that masters are good and slaves are evil. (I think Nietzsche endears himself to stupid Americans by seeming to be simpler than he is, but in fact he does employ something akin to the Hegelian dialectic when talking about the masterful shaping forces and the internalizing reactive forces and how both of these make up human reality. )
From long terms observations I can say that when a beginner is picking up a new book, from a culture or historical period he does not yet know much about, and is reading “a tone” into it, he is generally reading his own tone and existing range of experience into it. He would need to persist much longer, and with much more intellectual commitment than a beginner usually has, to gain access to the book’s real tone and flavor.
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