Fantasy

When a book is picked up, or text or words otherwise experienced, the participant faces the question of suspension of disbelief. Human existence upon Earth, and associated cultural knowledge, generally brings participant to the experience with the knowledge that an artist has created the experience in some fashion: drawn the picture, collected the words, et cetera. From this may be concluded a lack of value in the "fictional," which finds its source in the belief that any tale which does not claim to be "true" is a farce. Within the strictures of absolutism, this is true: a made-up story speaks not to the real world, and is simply something thought up by the author/artist/creator to entertain. Why, then, be entertained? Real things are out there to be entertained by: real knowledge, real history, real harrowing experiences, and so forth.

This outlook bases itself on a number of dangerous, sad assumptions. Firstly, assumptions about nonfiction:

(1) "True tales are more accurate," the first. A tale which presents itself as true is, like all human experience, filtered through the physical senses, followed by the mental senses and emotional knowledge, of the artist, who then may only present it to participants to the extent of her or his grammatical and linguistic knowledge, as well as her or his understanding of the "real" earthrealm and how her or his experiences fit therein.

(2) "True tales are more accurate," the second. Good faith and fallible capabilities aside, nonfiction raises the question of honesty alongside that of the emotional capacity to recognize or express the truth. Consider, for example, Under Fire, anything by Bob Woodward, or any American presidential memoir of choice. And of course, the paper of record. The distinction between "fiction" and "non" is largely artificial.

A soul that has come to prize "hard realism" may find itself unable to process anything beyond. The faith-based assumptions about "fiction" are sadder still:

(1) "Fiction didn't happen." How does one know? In the multiverse of all possibility that has ever, will ever, or is now existing, or might exist--or even just in the faithful scientific explanation of the expanding universe of billions of years of age and countless unchartable stars and galaxies--who can say, except one making a fundamentalist-Christian-like leap of faith, whether something "fictional" did not, in fact, happen? Do worlds exist where humanoids dwell in polka-dotted purple rainbow trees? Where toasters talk? Possibly. Even to say "unlikely" is a leap of faith. Would you prefer that those possibilities did not exist? How very sad.

This is not to suggest that anything fanciful is worthwhile; rather, that anything fanciful is not to be casually dismissed for "fancy" alone. More accurately, good fantasy, or good imagination, is not truly imagination; it is, instead, a glimpse of something real, yet not otherwise perceivable in the participant's here and now, except through the art in question.

It is, in fact, the idea that "fiction" should be something imagined, rather than discovered (which goes very well with anglo property law, modern IP law, capitalism, enclosure and orderly death), that creates the great mass of bad pulp fiction available for ready experience, which is a reflection of the author's inner emotional state, rather than the discovery and sharing of something beyond.

(2) "Because fiction didn't happen, it is of less worth experiencing than nonfiction." Again, given the emotional-output pulp that predominates across the field of fictional art (literature, movies, paintings, et cetera), this viewpoint finds easy proof of itself. However, this proof is not definitive, anymore than an atheist serial killer proves the rightness of Christianity.

Good, channeled fiction teaches suprauniversal lessons--transcendent things that cannot be figured out from instant experience alone. It moves beyond the current cultural and temporal mores of the participant, allowing her or him to see what "people" would do in situation X, and from that, learn more about people, about life, about the nature of existence, and about possibility and wonder. Repetitive, yes.

(Again rises the specter of fiction produced to indirectly argue a current meme through example. Sharing struggles with those beyond, rather than making a point by coming up with a story, finds a difference, though one not expressible in earthrealm mathematics, the flow of which must be felt rather than pinned to the shelf for observation.

This one, too, shudders at most of the corporatized crap sold as "art," much as McDonald's masking-tape hamburgers masquerade as a fine roast of softened bovine meat with accompaniments.)

To be everbound by the confines of earthrealm is to be everbound by the time in which one's ghost channels through a certain shifting body of human cells. Which cells all die and are replaced by new cells throughout the course of the normal human lifespan, nonetheless generally maintaining the ghost with its perception of unchanging "self" and "reality."

High Arka on Inclosure

(Referring to material from the immediately preceding Inclosure.)

This one's own experience against enclosure has been many and varied. Most tribes this one encounters tends to find the experience indicative (naturally) of the viewpoint that everyone who disagrees with the tribe fits neatly into a preset model. It might (or might not!) be surprising to this one's detractors who still remember the encounter to know that this one, despite maintaining fairly high levels of expressive coherence throughout, has been characterized as, banned for (hi, Bitches!), or de facto banned for (hi, Ethan!) being everything in the following list (Nonetheless, it's illustrative as an example of the extremes to which people can go in making black as far from white as possible):

* a deathlusting military cadet (first ever! young age! also the most fun!)

* an evangelical Mormon (and, once, a fundamentalist Protestant!)

* a lesbian extremist (second most fun!)

* a socialist peacenik who was "probably" recently released from a mental hospital

* an out-of-touch, liberal academic elitist

* a (straight male!) chauvinist pig (most recent! not fun!)

* a paid, undercover Republican-party operative

* a frothing Economist reader and Adam Smith-style businessman

* a card-carrying, military-hating IWW member

All this because, obviously, this one would only disagree with a viewpoint and question someone else's behavior if this one was (selfish, rude, shortsighted, ignorant and) diametrically opposed to the viewpoint in question.

It's a dangerous business, trying to talk to people who don't already agree with you. Granted, if one finds oneself implanted in 21st century America, land of the simultaneous inheritors, facilitators and scarlet-hands committors of the world's greatest antihuman and antiearth horrors, it's practically the highest praise and greatest honor that the natives should not be enamored of what you have to say. But this one loves them. Lightspring embrace.

Inclosure

Internet communication in the form of largely western, but theoretically all entities being able to connect and communicate followed a traditional pattern much like other recent co-opted movements. A small community of deviates discovered something wonderful and new: the ability to use computers to transcend social and geographical boundaries for the purpose of communication, rather than simply financial management, prisoner tabulation and military or corporate information transfer.

Following the "movement" pattern linked above, this wonderful potential evolved and attracted new adherents, who developed largely unregulated chatrooms, listservs and chans, where communication could flow quite freely. Ideas were exchanged, arguments had, tribes formed, and occurred all the other wonderful and less-wonderful things humans may do.

Internet popularity increased. In a classic "state" model, the freedom of the chatroom, chan and even e-mail association became the enemy. The usual arguments against this freedom ran in traditional anti-anarchy form: the more publicly-acceptable "freeloader" problem, or the slightly-less-popular "social deviate" problem. Conscious and unconscious adherents used these arguments to adjust to a bulletin-board system (ezboard is now dead, but for the latter-linked corpse), where administrators and moderators could exercise social control of the information flow, reorganize, repress and ban, and otherwise impose the authoritarian model upon internet communication.

The pattern here, and the reason for this post's title, becomes obvious when paired with traditional British history: the internet has had its enclosure movement, and the fences are up.

The freeloader problem, just as in anarchy (or the classic American Republican Party argument against a "welfare state"), has elements of truth in it. In the unregulated commons, freeloaders can poop in the river or steal the well-bucket, then not clean up after themselves or contribute a farthing to next year's repairs. Thereby they harm those who put their own effort or coin into the system. In the unregulated internet, advertisers can post irrelevant commercial content, taking advantage of the work of others who post relevant content to blare their message at those who come for the substance, not the advertising.

Social deviation, though sometimes making token anti-absolutists squeamish to mention out loud, is another problem: namely, how does the community deal with someone who simply won't be what everyone else wants them to be? The midwife being crushed by the AMA, the Jesus on the Roman crucifix, or the Senator who keeps voting against the latest military appropriations bill, is a source of consternation for those who would prefer to leave assumptions unchallenged, or who feel it too tiresome to assist an erring fellow human.

Ergo the state. Or, in the case of the 'net, an authoritarian model serving the same functions the state serves in the earthweb.

Sadly, the results of internet enclosure have been the same as the result of the death of the common grazing field. By propertizing the internet to allow for groupthink control, the stage was set for onethink control. Community boards, even somewhat repressive ones, dropped in popularity, replaced by commercially-backed forums with professional moderators. Then came the weblog. It looked like a good idea, at first: say whatever you want! It's your blog! Invite anyone to read if you want!

The dark underbelly of the weblog (and the reason it became so rapidly successful) being, of course, that the weblog is the vanished voice of one, subject to the frailties and limitations of the singular entity, creating occasional mini-celebrity a la Hollywood in the earthweb, but allowing for most of the voices to vanish from the greater community and be relegated to a single wacko shouting on a street corner that something is wrong with the world. Opening weblogs to all while commercializing the rest of the internet is similar to putting big money behind chain bookstores and major publishers, then promising everyone else that they have the freedom to read whatever they want. Which is why we have such fine literature broadly available today in every supermarket and drugstore.

For the benefit of token functionality and a (possibly) more-polished look, the community of all had been replaced by the control of one, along with associated adherents. Where old admins served somewhat at the whim of the community as a whole, and a diverse population allowed for at least partial interest in idea exchange, the propertizing of the internet into blogs has resulted in absolute control over content to only that which the King shall allow. No longer do deviating thoughts need to be heard.

Of course, the lack of deviating thoughts, much like the lack of any chaos in an ordered system, is death, or in the case of western internet communications, a lack of the same free communication that once existed. The internet becomes a series of small echo chambers where those who already agree with one another pat backs, self-congratulate, demonize the other side, and avoid the interchange that might cause both the right and the wrong--and their associated societies, species and living world--to grow, develop and thrive. See Arthur Silber's tribalism.

On "We Who Are About To"

Here, Ethan of 6th or 7th laments the subjugation of women, as is his wont. Referring to a work by Joanna Russ, he observes that the survivors of a spaceship crash demonstrate their wrongness by forming breeding schedules in addition to constructing shelters and taking other actions ostensibly designed around long-term survival. Contesting the upper-middle-class western neoliberal theory of feminism, as this one is wont to do, is later characterized as a "defense of rape," ergo this continuation of thought.

The core issue discussed in the post, designed in the book by Russ to move feminists to emotion/action, is that the wicked (male, with female adherents) bureaucrats, in their attempt to perpetuate the species, institutionalize rape by requiring scheduled breedings so that there will later be offspring.

"Rape," as the common interpretation goes, tending generally toward wrongness, this one easily concludes that such a plan is not a good idea, or nice. As with most media- and academic-friendly pet causes in the west, however, the lay of Ethan is telling in how it (ironically? hypocritically? sadly? ignorantly?) exemplifies an expression of the underlying structure of the same antilife type of model (standard patriarchy) that marginalizes/demonizes one group, then uses said bogeyman (sic) to justify vile behavior. Parsed:

(1) Absence of men. If society imposes a breeding requirement, and only the women are allowed to be Ethan's victims, it is, much like Washington, D.C.'s holocaust museum, touched with an element of rightness (the women find themselves in an unfortunate position) but, more importantly, an indication of a more damaging blindness that affects the chosen victims as well as the ignored ones. For example, in the grand crusade for loudly expressing how unfortunate it is for the class [women who do not feel like breeding on schedule], other humans, and their non-conforming concerns, fade into the background: lesbian women; straight men who do not feel like breeding on schedule; gay men; impotent men; or male-presenting transvestites.

(2) The absence of classes [sapphic/ts/vanillamen] as allowable ideal victims, and the characterization of the breeding plan as something overarching that is resisted only/primarily by the main character (the cunning neoliberal upper-middle-class feminist hero who resists the overarching patriarchal society) has a built-in assumption about men. Namely, that men will all (or mostly, depending on the strength of the stereotype) want to breed with any woman they can get their genitals on as soon as they have the chance.

All men are, of course, mindless horndogs, unless they prove otherwise by talking about how great Betty Friedan is and agreeing that other men, who don't subscribe, are pro-rape. Though all knowledge of this stance (which is even recognized by George Lucas) will be disavowed by the Secretary if caught and brought to scrutiny, this type of absurd attack is kith and kin to us-v-them structural models, which is why it often slips by the mouth-warden of people who otherwise present better after having learned in grad. school to cloak black and white in token gray.

(3) A deeper assumption about men lies beneath (2) above, bolstering it as (2) bolsters (1). While (2) suggests that men are horndogs who always want sex from vulnerable feminists, (3) suggests that men are this way because sex is, for them, always a good thing. More advanced feminist theory has evolved, as the model begins to fade, into acknowledging that feminism "harms men just as it harms women," but the tenets of the movement are still frequently employed as Ethan does, to suggest that men always find sex a positive, thus why they always want it from women, thus why the Joanna Russ situation is such a perfect example of women being exploited in tandem with everything else wrong with the world.

The penis, during the insertion, is, under Newtonian physics as well as uncommon sense, more vulnerable than the vagina, being that both parties to the standard variety of intercourse swap fluids, yet only one can experience utter inability to breed in the future based on the shaft rigidity of even the thickest male member being weaker than the leveraged pelvic bone of the female body during a misguided shift of the hips. Unless Russ' survivors also have full-body condoms a la The Naked Gun, their forced breeding would involve skin-to-skin, which could be as unpleasant for a male forced into it as for a female, and would subject males to performance standards, the social mores of which require males to be rigid horndogs at the drop of a hat. Not Ethan's or Russ' concern, of course; the female who lies there weeping quietly to take it is, though miserable, a sweet, timid, chaste-at-heart heroine, while the male who exhibits the same behavior is a breeding failure, effeminate, and likely destined for a fate worse than rape. Or, if he's in prison, maybe rape and a fate worse.

Exclusivity of violation, and blindness to the stereotypical male Other, is a hallmark of the American grad. school white male feminism, which leads so many to lament so vigorously about naughty men and the unique and unmatched struggles of western women.

Which, regardless of quantity of devoted thesis text, cannot be a struggle greater and more important than mass murder. Evils should not and cannot be properly "weighed" against one another--however, the realm of "should not" should not be allowed a place of concealment for motivations to claim status of "better suffering" on behalf of some of the comparatively luckiest, wealthiest people ever yet to dwell throughout this planet, under this sky. Or did you not notice the continued breaths, the computer, the clean residence, the hospital access, the available direct police line, the education, the supermarkets, and the likelihood of few drone assassinations in your neighborhood this month?

A Muslim immigrant denied a job by a Sarkozy voter in France has been wronged--but he has it better than his brother in the West Bank. His wrong deserves attention, but not sole attention. Neither does the attitude "this is but the greatest of many struggles that only face Muslims in this cruel world of ours" merit whole support. We are our sisters' and brothers' keepers.

That Frenchman, when he's beaten in jail the next winter, continues to have it "worse" (continue quoting "worse" below!) than Joe the Plumber, who continues to have it worse than Joanna the Harvard professor unfairly denied tenure, who continues to have it worse than Hillary Clinton being marginalized by corporate media for her femininity.

At each stage of the game, many uniquify their own struggles--either by stating outright that they're unique, or (more advanced) by connecting all the problems in the world to a system which institutionalizes unique discrimination toward a target victim group by a target oppressor group, which target victim group we just fall into ourselves. It tends to be unpopular to allow into the room the hundredth part of the forgotten sorrow and rage of the stolen nowhere children, which is why this one is rarely welcomed in the smoking rooms of the wealthy west.

Hillary, and Sarah, are right: they are being marginalized. Yes, Virginia, there is a particular brand of mistreatment employed against upper-middle-class western females. Along with everyone else. And yes, some Palestinians do occasionally lash out. But from our perch in the bosom of mighty, privileged Oceania, it smacks of a very sad kind of self-centeredness to cry so vigorously for our own smarts in the face of the remaining 99% of humanity.

This is the lubrication of the grindery's wheels: the fact that, at every stage of the current caste system, so many people tend to feel so uniquely about their own victimhood that self-consciousness becomes selfishness. If, in the lament for one's own miseries, one finds oneself expressing in a way that marginalizes a group of others, however deservedly, and deifies one set of experiences above another.

Even the power hungry elites are victims of their own models, harming themselves and their offspring, and scarring their souls. This one will go a step above your dirge for wealthy western women and remind the world that Dubya should be pitied. He felt real pain when he lost Robin, and may never redevelop the capacity to feel that same human connection for those he had killed during his term. The lacerates ran down my cheeks. Cry for Robin; cry for little George, who didn't understand, and the environmental toxins of industrial runoff that killed her, to which he ended up spending the rest of his life in sad, morbid service. If that little angel had made it, maybe she would've been the one that called George on March 19, 2003, broke through to his heart, and saved so many. That's the problem with dead children--you never know what the world lost from their entire lives.

Break the dam, with its unfair and inadequate little pinprick pressure release valve, darn the torpedoes, and channel the core flow.

Here

...until Google takes as much notice as did 6th or 7th:

(War is peace? Shutting out is not shutting out?)

Ad hominems are fine as long as you (1) acknowledge them, which you've already satisfied, and (2) support them. The "you are engaging in ad hominems!" cry of woe is often a pretext to electronic censure on said teh internets, but this one's still here, rather than using such statement as exit justification.

Help me! Tell me which of your thoughts I missed; tell me why this one's logic is inherently flawed. Most (western? current? ever?) people patronize that which they already agree with. Here have you a pliable entity you could influence or improve.

Do you want to preach to the choir, or do you want to help this one understand things as well as you do?

Misdirected upset

Response to this.

As you mentioned Zinn in your earlier Federici post, Zinn's conclusion at the end of People's History was an indirect nudge to the bourgeoisie to ally downward.

(Incidentally, allying downward would involve allying with those being killed and starved, rather than with those upset they only got 1% this year when everyone else got 1.45.

I know, I know.)

The sans culottes turned against the bourgeoisie for much the same reason that, someday, Joe the Plumber may be leading an army to crush the grad. students at Penn. State: misplaced blame. And the bourgeoisie turned on them for the same reason that you express loathing of narrow-minded red staters: it keeps you from complaining as much upward. In place of that, try to join them. We are our brother's keepers. As long as we throw coursebooks at them and critique their backward social habits, we fail to not only move and improve them, but also to recognize and assess our own backward social habits and lack of other worthwhile cultural knowledge.

Tendencies

Please clarify a bit more your meaning when you write that "almost all *disagreements* find at their roots an attempt of antilife to try to destroy life." This seems to imply that any "back and forth" of conversation cannot devolve into a disagreement (or at least be perceived as one) lest the persons involved be characterized as in opposing camps of "life" or "antilife."

Mathematics may suggest an adjustment of the potentially erroneous "almost all" into "almost all serious," leaving aside "this song is so good" v. "this song sucks," or "I want pizza tonight" v. "I would prefer hamburgers."

Within the spirit, rather than the letter, of the words, though, there is no disagreement on strict expression of opinion (e.g., different preferences for tonight's supper, the evening's entertainment, most desirable celebrity, best sports team), unless one "side" attempts to argue that the other may not or cannot have a (proper) opinion. Such repression of thought variegation tends toward antilife, lending support to the above quote-in-quote conclusion.

As to other disagreements, though, characterized for ease as "serious," or "major policy preferences," the conclusion/suggestion stands. Serious disagreements will find in their source life (antilife?). Like a gravity well, if viewed in three spatial dimensions, all roads from all degrees lead toward either life or antilife, and the climb up or down, the shuffle to either side, or a one step, one back pattern, or even the maintenance of (artificial) inertia within the flow, is an act of conflict, much as, for lunged and/or capable entities, the decision to breathe, or to not self terminate, is a constant choice of a "side."

Here is where the formless flow fits into a troubling or worthless mold, being antithetical to antilife constructs of absolute classifiability. "Two camps," or "sides," fail, particularly in English, the spilldown language of warlike Germanic tribes who crushed the Celts, Scots and Irish, then extended themselves most everywhere else, in the attempt to homogenize troublesome differing cultures everywhere. (Japanese, for example, allows for more nuance of meaning between declarative statements, making for humorous translations.) Yet, like any tool, it can be employed for ends other than the builders intended, ergo so much chatter from this one.

Life is not a camp so much as the absence of camp; consider the first Anglo settlers asking the Iroquois "who owns this valley?" (Once they figured out what the madmen were getting at, the Iroquois could have, of course, answered "the living Earth" or "all of us," but may have been understandably rather too busy at the time.) The disagreement, there, swirled around Anglo attempts to impose a rigid, unnatural system of boundaries and classifications upon the ever-shifting ground, so that the "owners," with their then-current-form mortal lifespans, could be motivated to drain it for short-term excess to aggregate unnatural power over others and impose a stilling effect on themselves and the world.

(The philosophical stretch, of course, comes in the nature of the formless being itself a form. Boggles the linear mind, like the equivalent of a mobius strip bumped a spatial or temporal dimension above what we choose to/can/will now see. Absolute word definitions, though, tend toward antilife themselves, but it's still an appropriate trap to spring on gumby.)

Returning to the original point (Stopping the flow, as it were, or did it just bring this one back around the spiral? I wasn't steering!), almost all "serious"* disagreements have their source in a swirling living or vile tendency. Note that life tends toward certain things (including antilife--after all, we're the ones who make it, aren't we?) while antilife tends toward others. From the life side, a loving parent can watch a child die and then kill someone wrongly in revenge. From the antilife side, Ronald Reagan could be so caught up in token religious morality that he once did something right.

* (Cringe. Again, it's "serious" to deny the right to an opinion, from "I don't believe you have the right to live" to "I don't believe you have the right to make decisions about yourself" to "I don't believe your taste in favorite colors has any validity.")

The authoritarian believes that nothing could ever be good, or could ever be accomplished, without some form of power exertion and order. (Which is partially true! Which is why strict anarchism is flawed, even if it can argue to be the best possible choice.) Order's "opposite," (using best available English terms) chaos brings order, whether good order, or terrible order (such as a certain very powerful modern police state). Life finds itself in chaos, the absence of order, which is the (only possible) safeguard against total system failure. The lack of a plan ensures life's expansion and the survival and incredible development of existence beyond imagination, even as it ensures the constant potential for sudden destruction.

*blink*

>.>

<.<

=]

Tending toward one thing or the other is not necessarily absolutely or completely representing or being one thing or the other. Organizing your sock drawer is not evil, even if the act of classifying tends toward evil. Paying your taxes to a military state to avoid being thrown in prison is not evil, even if it it tends more toward such than does putting your ankle socks on the left and your long socks on the right. Having a bit more fun, the action of defending Sarah Palin's familial privacy tends toward good, but may simultaneously tend toward evil, depending on associated result-desires and underlying thought patterns.

So, antilife modes of language, classification and traditional logic (Miz take you Greeks!), designed by fearful minds to separate humans from their status as mortals by deifying abstract (unreal) concepts and declaring flowing organic matter to be lesser, would hold that, even if accurate, conceptions of antilife and life were worthless to analyze anything.

The reason that recognizing the tendencies of life and evil is helpful is that healthy, formless beings, splashing about down the length of the spring, will be able to guide themselves positively by using tendency cues to avoid behavior that they might otherwise fall into which tends too heavily toward the everdeath. Aside from helping guide others away from murder, theft, ignorance, persecution and associated miseries, a glimpse of antilife tendencies may help the individual free her or his own mind from descending microspirals of woe. Most of what mental health therapists do (the "shrink" model) is a limited version of this (expressed through the old Germanic, new western university model of education, degree and authority): word/mind games designed to break past subconscious barriers to underlying thoughts, which then may find conscious expression and allow the alteration of a troubling behavior, the reason for which the individual did not let her or himself perceive.

"Philosophy" left by the wayside, you may present hypotheticals for illustration of the original point (please!), but in the possible manner of the shell-game carnie, here's one off the top of this one's head. Abortion: antilife tendencies to control sexuality and maintain economic equilibrium through the forcible maintenance of a serf class conflict with life tendencies to be free and make choices conflict with antilife tendencies to exert control over timing or existence of offspring conflict with life tendencies to nurture and love young conflict with antilife tendencies under current patriarchal mold to expressly restrict femininity.

Avoidance

Almost all disagreements find their roots in the attempt of antilife to destroy life. Perhaps the most common clash, numerically speaking, is between antilife models, such as a basic and current "You are Christian! You are wrong!" countering "You are Muslim! You are wrong!" More complex models, such as disagreement over taxation structuring, follow a similar form, with a similar set of assumptions, but most cloud their perspective in the presence of the present, and are unable to analyze the clash of the "more complex" models in similar fashion, lacking the safe separation of history. The analysis is rarely turned within, because the party of the first and/or second part exempts her or himself from judgment to avoid cognitive dissonance. Among the rarer disagreements are those where a complex, modern antilife model encounters a flowing perspective.

Avoidance structures are used to avoid the cognitive dissonance. As almost all (all?) disagreements source (many of) their ultimate nexus(es) to an antilife tendency, the tendencies through which they express dissonance avoidance are easy to, ironically, model.

1) Violence is, historically and numerically speaking, the most common. Killing the source of unsettling viewpoints, or alternatively, bashing them until they stop making troubling noise, allows the modeling to continue unchallenged.

2) Moving beyond the personal application of violence, the separation of entities into sexual, familial, tribal, religious, national, et cetera boundaries, with direct violent barrier enforcement, or implied violent barrier enforcement, segregates troublesome thoughts, and allows for easier identification of non-conformity within each set of boundaries. Rulers within each set, sharing the interests of like-minded rulers in other sets, can then use one another as cat's paws to bolster modeling within each population, and use joint efforts to crush those sets who deviate in a way that threatens the set system.

3) On an interpersonal level, where set conformity is enforced and interpersonal violence among set members reduced, verbal techniques mimic the ultimate effect, sans death (usually) of the ignored participant(s). These are the main focus of this essay, to be detailed a bit further on, as in the postmodern lala land of crony capitalism, they are the most frequently employed.

4) Intrapersonally, where this one perhaps should have started, the subconscious is the realm beyond which one's own troublesome thoughts are shut away. Like all other repressions, be they geopolitical, national, or merely sexual, they cause sickness and inefficiency for the repressing set/entity. More later.

Returning to interpersonal. Violence, translated to teh internets, becomes an "ultimate solution" through the use of internet force. Hacking, banning or dislocation allows troublesome thoughts to be shut out like so many burned books or exiled rebels.

1) Bandwagon. "That is so wacky I don't even need to consider it! No one rational would." Though obvious when presented in cheat-sheet form, still commonly seen.

2) Clubbing acknowledgement/Eggshell skull acknowledgement. "Your choice of phrasing indicates that you are, in fact, a certified moron, unworthy of having your viewpoint paid attention to" or "Your choice of phrasing is so insulting that I simply cannot stomach paying attention to your viewpoint."

3) Busy! "It takes too much time to go through all this." Occasionally truthful, but generally employed improperly, much like going to a bar and then complaining that they are serving alcohol.

4) Mature acknowledgement. "You make good points, but this is neither the time nor the place to make them."

5) Higher education acknowledgement. "You make interesting points, but you failed to consider the following four books written by important people at various points in the past century."

All of these techniques--much like Grug the caveman clubbing Blub the caveman to death to avoid hearing something--accomplish the end result of deflecting attention from the topic of discussion, so that the modeler can avoid the dissonance that might result from careful analysis and conversational interchange. The "back and forth" of conversation is the flow of the living world, where things spring up that the speakers/writers/typists did not initially intend to, much as mental health professionals or hypnotists may crack through to the subconscious through clever tricks.

On Patriarchy (6th or 7th/Justin)

Continuing this, expecting to be banned soon, prompted by latest response by one Justin, quoted below in italics:

The focus of Ethan's angst is the difficulty in knocking down barriers or even being able to detect them in a reinterpretation of history that rejects the value system of the oppressive, patriarchal power structure.

Endquote.

While acknowledging the subsequent ad hominem (e.g., "this isn't even a real discussion" & "you are mentally clumsy"), this one continues as follows:

One of the central tenets of western neoliberal feminism is the attribution of many or all wrongs in the world to the "patriarchy," a system whereby societies are organized around male authority figures. Even as academic feminist historians enthusiastically chart counterexamples of differently-organized societies throughout human development, the patriarchy theory has developed to accommodate said information, much like modern Christianity responding to physics or astronomy.

The narrative of patriarchy conforms to a common antilife model in which the ills of the world are projected onto an ordered subclass of entities, creating two vilely useful separations: in one, one set of humans is turned against another; in the other, responsibility for the world is separated from the individual or group in question, and projected onto another individual or group. This is the "black v. white" "left v. right" "aware of patriarchy v. unaware of patriarchy" divide.

Some easy examples of these models can be found in immigration policy or party politics, or in examining the attempt/desire of some Christian fundamentalists to simultaneously fundamentalize American government while being terrified of Muslims for the perceived attempt/desire to subject the world to shari'a law. Some Muslims are happy enough to oblige by actually wanting to do that, and being terrified of American Christians for something converse that is, as on the other side, only partly true.

What are the problems with these types of models? Besides marginalizing the Others in a socially-acceptable way, they also harm their users. (More importantly, though, they serve as distractions to the real story of power and death.)

1) They tend to make their users feel that they are accomplishing something worthwhile by acting vigorously within the model;

2) They establish commonly-accepted standards for stereotyping, ignoring, book-burning, killing and victimizing;

3) They justify racketeering arrangements by providing a fearful Other of thought or entity which tends to motivate users to ignore more pressing concerns and throw energy behind the maintenance of the model.

How, then, does patriarchy exemplify this model? Patriarchy attributes the ills of the human world to patriarchs and those who support them actively, or who support them through lacking the wisdom to perceive and resist them. A number of flaws exist therein, the most currently recognizable being that women possess the ability, and have exercised it, to become bastions of power unto themselves, and to exercise that power in a way that harms the flowing world. Once, the argument went that women were directly, constantly controlled and prevented from having independent economic or social lives, or holding positions of power. As decades, then centuries went by, women in certain societies were shifted into roles of economic and social independence, granted the ability to vote just as powerfully and influentially as could the masses of men, granted the ability to hold positions, granted the ability to economically influence the world through the independent provision of resources, et cetera.

Although those perceiving the existence of antilife models of false dichotomy centuries ago would have recognized this at inception, the fundamental inherent flaws of the patriarchal model gained particularly strong evidentiary support through the ministrations of later British queens, continuing on through Margaret Thatcher and Sarah Palin.

The early evidence misused in support of the creation of the theory of patriarchy was a similar antilife model directed against women and femininity, some of which has lingered on to current times. Arthur Silber has written well on this evolution. Like the Hillary Clinton of B.C., this was best expressed in the Torah's horrific standards for the denigration of women. As much of modern Judaism has mutated its own Torah into a form that achieves current acceptance--by reworking its interpretation to accept current recognition-of-patriarchy mores--the older model of antifemale has faded in strength from much of western culture, even as the roots of antimale stretch.

(Male and female are, of course, bound counterparts. The divide between male and female is largely imaginary, fostered by the same nexus of illusionary separation that created the Torah and Betty Friedan, and just as surreal as the divide between hetero or homo sexual preference or "black" or "white" "races." Stereotyping and classifying are not in and of themselves absolutely wrong, which is why few people pet black widows twice by choice. However, classifying tends toward Evil.)

Those roots will, in time, foster horrific developments of their own. As science in the next century assaults the species through the improved provisioning of controlled artificial life, sexuality, biological evolution and sexual cooperation will diminish. Men conforming to older notions of patriarchy will be easily, and rightly, blamed for most of the horrors of the 19th and 20th centuries, thereby justifying a continuation of the same horrors in different clothes.

The death machine can easily operate under female hands. And others. In a hundred years, openly homosexual leaders may make brutal war, starve children and exploit the world's populace economically, while their loyal citizens congratulate one another for being progressive for writing dissertations on the subtle nuances of early 21st century antigay bigotry.

Once, lords openly ruled Britain under the premise that they were superior by virtue of blood, and that serfs were lesser. The great masses were poor, hungry, powerless, and regularly coerced through economic or social illusions into going to war against the great masses elsewhere. In time, this notion evolved. It became progressive to declare that no one would be a lord. No "birth" or "title" would allow one to exercise such authority over another ever again! And so--the American Revolution.

How'd that work out for you Americans? Does a nobility still rule you? Have the great masses of people addressed the problems of poverty, hunger, powerlessness, economic coercion and war?

That is because once, many, many years ago, "nobility" was the token battle. Like patriarchy, nobility was wrong. Nobles were mean, naughty and bad. Blaming "nobility," however, for the problems of the world, rather than addressing the problems themselves, solved nothing. Evil was able to easily evolve from killing and hurting through "noble" vassals to "elected" ones. And so the grindery grinds.

"It's the fault of the men!" This adapts easily, over many years, to "It's the fault of a certain sociocultural outlook which favors qualities traditionally labeled 'masculine'!"

On the grindery.

Cowboy Theft

Response to Reclusive Leftist.

After lol at the cowboy remark, this one reflected on the sad, treacherous theft of one of the most awful poor/minority occupations of American history, and its romanticization at the hands of the current crop of middle class white boyz with nice hats and pickup trucks.

(Cowboys, being primarily Hispanic, black or mixed race, nach, did a scuffy, dangerous, low-paying job, working to death for distant, wealthy land overlords under the supervision of brutal white middle managers.)

A hundred years from now, will white boyz hold fruit-picking competitions in private orchards, listen to fruit picking music, and proudly represent their long western tradition of being fruitboys? Or traveling maids? Will Garth Brooks' great grandson croon soulful ballads about raking leaves as a landscape artisan, with a rake propped against his drummer's drum set?

That would be just about as sad and insulting as if Scotland and a big chunk of Ireland ended up as part of the United Ki--oops.

On Goodness (Wolff 9/20/2011)

Response to this.

Are you saying that you don't know what makes someone a better person because there is no generally accepted standard? Some would say there is no generally accepted standard of beauty, or of how to judge the quality of a piece of music, but this one assumes you would not shrink from calling certain people, or certain pieces of music, beautiful.

You do seem to have strong moral opinions on some subjects, and to be willing and able to pass judgment based upon them. This one also doubts that you would like to condense your viewpoint into "being an interesting conversationalist (or being "deeper," as Jordan may prefer) is the only thing that makes you a better person."

Still, if you're willing to pass part of that judgment and say that being more interesting makes someone a better person (the pop-culture irony, or at least the majority view, might be that being well-versed in ancient philosophy makes one less likely to be socially interesting), it assumes a standard of judgment. Specifically, if being interesting is in any way good, then there must be a rational framework for identifying goodness, from which we could theoretically extract the means to identify other things besides "deepness" that are good.

What is that framework? To what end do and/or should we seek the ability to speak succinctly and well, and to be interesting to others? You challenge in your post the belief in a deity of absolute power, so this one will assume that you are not resting your framework upon any variety of blind faith.

On Feminism (6th or 7th prompt)

Continuation of this post, in which Ethan copies and pastes himself thusly:

You've now repeatedly shown that the instant the subject of women comes up, you become incapable of comprehending even the simplest things that other people write, but that you nevertheless feel the need to respond to what you don't understand with lengthy irrelevancies. I would ask you to please consider why this might be.

Quote ends.

(This one detects ad hominem and petitio principii.

As to the first, "you don't understand what is simple" is better translated as "you are stupid."

Secondly, "consider why this might be," even if sweetened with an "ask" and a "please," assumes that "this" is true. It is equivalent to asking someone, "So, have you told your parents you're gay?" Any answer which does not critique the question itself--even a sputtering, "Dear God, never!"--accepts the implication as true.)

Explanations? Can do. Let's rephrase your loaded question. Instead of this:

"High Arka, why are you so low of intelligence and character that you are unable to understand my viewpoints on feminism, and regularly rant worthlessly and at length every time I bring up that subject?"

...we could try this:

"High Arka, why do you express such a critical take on my posts regarding feminism?"

That one, this one can answer. The reason is that feminism is a carefully nurtured sacred cow. The tendency of evil is to coagulate the flowing world with murder, absolutism, resource accumulation, et cetera. This process is lubricated by twisting human empathies toward pet "causes" that, like pop culture or fast food, cram stuff into a need to create a dull sense of satiation without any of the healthy substance that might otherwise be experienced.

Socially, these things manifest as tribal loyalties of various forms, including blood, race, age, sex, sexuality, nationality, party, sports teams, et cetera. Their subconscious purpose is to keep people thinking inside the box.

You may have come to understand, for example, that the preferred American charade of Democrat v. Republican is a clever distraction to the perpetuation of empire. An empire that concentrates wealth and power for a few while engaging in horrific brutality, theft and dishonor, yes, but also one that, of necessity, destroys itself from within.

In an older time, you might have come to understand that the three-fifths compromise was a clever distraction, also. And, in its own way, just as terrible a symptom of the underlying horror as the Democrat v. Republican dog and pony show.

"Freeing" American blacks did not save Africa from subsequent centuries of brutal colonialism, which, it pains this one to have to say, continues today. Giving women the vote, and appointing them to high positions, has not changed the course of the world, either--it has adjusted the social mores for a sliver of upper middle class women in the "first world," and created the raw stuff of many a workplace comic, but the death machine continues grinding. And the landed classes, because of their triumphant feminist perspective, feel that they have done a great work.

Decades from now, when Arabs or token anarchists or atheists are granted the appearance of power and spoken well of in corporate media, your counterparts may be congratulating themselves on analyzing those early 21st century stereotypes. "I can't believe this is our first atheist president! How could people have been so blind?" They will write dissertations about how insidiously Arabs were treated as sub-human by a blind populace at the time.

And in the meantime, the death machine may grind on.

As long as you cheer your sacred cow, and how wise you are for upholding it, as your grand movement of centuries has accomplished nothing more than musical chairs in the faces of power, while the weak continue to be raped, starved and bombed, the machine will remain unthreatened in its work. That's why this one suggests to you that you care more about murder and theft than about paying lip service to a cause that was originally sponsored by, and has long been fully bought out by the Powers That Be. Did the "American Civil Rights Movement" of the 1960s (TM) change the course of history? Did it prevent millions of Asians from being coldly slaughtered less than half a century after the genocide in the Philippines? Did it prevent a token African leader from masterminding the continued mass murder, rape and dislocation of people in Africa and other continents?

No, of course, it didn't. That is because "feel good" social movements, much like resistance to those crazy red-staters, are presented to you as easy problems to solve, with predictable, non-threatening solutions. You're an asylum inmate tracing your pencil through the maze to connect the mouse to the cheese. The difference is, the metaphorical mass celebration of discovering and rediscovering different flavors of cheese over the centuries occurs while the soldiers are in the background bayoneting infants out of the wombs of pregnant aborigines.

That said, do cheer your sacred cow, in a form, if you must. "Sexism" (depending on the interpretation of the definition) is not good. People should all be treated fairly. The history of the ways in which power was exerted wrongfully over various groups/subgroups, be they large or small, deserves telling.

However, the monumentalization of the troubles of a certain class of women, when done in service of excessive focus and self-congratulating, disregards not merely the rest of humanity, but most human females throughout history. Even more importantly, it condemns to the shadow realm those who will be the targets in the future. In completing only the acceptable set of challenges, one makes oneself a happy participant in the system.

6th or 7th response log 9/19/2011

Response to a response to this, which was a response to this High Arka post. Ethan quoted here in italics:

I could go through everything you just wrote and respond to it point-by-point. On the other hand, I could just ignore you. The second option is probably the better one, but I'm going to take a middle path here.

You've now repeatedly shown that the instant the subject of women comes up, you become incapable of comprehending even the simplest things that other people write, but that you nevertheless feel the need to respond to what you don't understand with lengthy irrelevancies. I would ask you to please consider why this might be.

Quote ends.

The operative point here is the focus of your angst. Take, as an example, the holocaust museum in Washington, D.C. In and of itself, there is nothing wrong with it. However, taken in context with its geographical, national and temporal location, even something like said museum, which is not (necessarily and/or wholly) wrong in and of itself, can be highly indicative of a more important, more terrible problem with its builders, worshippers and/or the world at large. (Would that there could be a museum for every such atrocity. Then again, if there were, there wouldn't be space left for the dwellings of the living.)

For example, the immense cultural focus on that particular Jewish/communist/homosexual/unlucky mass killing throws into relief the resultant willing blindness toward other mass killings. This blindness works in tandem with (creates?) certain other aspects of the world in which said holocaust museum was built. The elephant in the room is, of course, Palestine and the ongoing hashemitic genocide, but many other pages of the penultimate human history tome make the point just as well. Currently, for example, the rape, starvation, displacement and brutal murder of women in Somalia. Insert other location here as needed. Or just go to the "black America" third-world-style infant mortality and prenatal care rates for a more proximate approach.

At an even deeper level, one might associate the monumentalization of the holocaust as a justification, rather than a sad reminder. The building of that museum in the geographical nexus where American labor is monetized, then used to fund death machines sent to murder homeless hashemites, seems too purposeful to be a coincidence.

Which is why, when privileged white westerners angst at length about the plight of privileged white women, there's something there. No, the abuse of women is not unimportant. No, the abuse of men is not unimportant. No, the abuse of children is not unimportant. This one tends to care more about the youth and life of the future. And even feminist statisticians tend to note that 9 of 10 deaths in war are women and children.

Which is why there's something there. Rabid focus on western female repression is a way of redirecting the conscious mind away from things that might otherwise command attention. Such as mass death and the crushing of life and the world. In the cosmic sense of things, your hand-wringing about sex discrimination in the middle ages is roughly tantamount to Paris Hilton screeching that she broke a nail, and why is the world so unfair?

Of course, Paris Hilton's broken nail is important. It sucks to break a nail. Human woes should not be ignored or marginalized, no matter how "small" they are in relation to other woes. This one would be happy to give Ms. Hilton some antibiotic ointment and kind words. The problem is not that she's unhappy about it; the problem isn't even if she throws a giant fit about it. However, if Paris' fit indicates that she genuinely believes that her broken nail is a problem more important and meaningful than the homeless guy on the grate, then there's something there: a subconscious repression of the real forces we are employing wrongfully against one another.

This one understands your desire to not think about it, and to choose "ignoring" it as the best option. Build your museum and throw this one out, if you must.

6th or 7th response log 9/18/2011

Response to this.

There is a certain distasteful aura associated with privileged westerners--particularly but not always of the kayaking white male variety--being very affronted at complex theories of the once ominous, now cunningly subtle patriarchal domination of western women. This said aura being that such affront tends to occupy a greater degree of energy than the affront at the shredding into death of the bodies and souls of less privileged women far away.

Does this brand of trickle-down antisexism work? Let's try it out. Here's a sample rallying cry:

"If we only had a powerful woman Secretary of State, with a strong political backing and personal wealth, serving her nation, perhaps we could finally address the problems of war, starvation, environmental destruction and bigotry."

Oops! It seems that the answer to the problems of the world will not be found in singing dirges of lower wages, fewer promotions, underwear models, and the many accumulated sins of the male of the species. Changing the sexes of the masks on the deathlords will stop the grindery no faster than changing the presumed races of said masks.

It does help the more (not most! admittedly! but still more!) privileged feel victimized, though. And helps the Pakistani set of men, women, children and elders fade far into the background, where they, apparently, belong.

The oppressed women of the Victorian era, who sat in dresses worth five hundred pounds sipping tea and munching crackers by the fire--while thousands of poor white children starved and froze to death, slaves were shipped overseas, and vast hordes of brown people of all sexes were butchered for living near the choice resources of the time--are laughing at you now, for the many decades and centuries that you have missed the point on your little crusade for "feminism." Death's grinning skull loves when you miss the point and divide humanity against itself for incidental slights. And yes, as painful as it is to hear, glass ceilings, sexist jokes and eleven thousand terrible spousal beatings a year, while not deserving of ignorance, are not as bad as one million starving children. That said, you can't weigh horror. But looking at those things side by side, and looking at the amount of American complaining about each, gives an insight into the problematic ways in which the grindery keeps on, well...grinding.

That is entitlement.

Why don't you take to the streets for the right of bicyclists to have more space on America's roads? The distressing problems of the financial exploitation of the upper-middle-class elderly by minority computer hackers? The agonizing worry of the single most powerful person in the world that unemployed white men in Kansas might misjudge his religion simply because he's a mulatto?

Or you could simply write many a dissertation about the nuances of sexism in the middle ages.

This has been your message from the spirits of dead children in a galaxy far, far away. Carry on, ye Joanna Russ crusaders.

Corporate Whore response 9/18/2011

Response to this.

Regarding the "destroying" of America's schools (or lamenting what American public education "used" to be about), remember that America's public education system is what produced the voters, administrators, reporters and ignorers who support and/or condone things as they are now. America's educational culture is also what produced the people that largely cheered on 20th century racism and sexism, the wars of the 20th century, the "bullying" problem and youth prison culture that is just now being acknowledged by corporate media and the population mass, and any other western problem you'd like to think of right now.

Public education has been a constant slide toward directing taxpayer dollars to technology and construction companies, and creating docile citizens who fear and respect absolute state authority.

Instead of idealizing a surreal past, look toward a brighter future. As you notice the evils currently being wrought, do not spend your energies falsifying the horrors of the past. You do not need the support of a fancified prehistory to justify small arguments for right behavior. The youth and life of the future is justification enough.

Super Tuesday?

Response to this.

Why does election speculation always remind me of the Superbowl pre-game show?

And why are things always the same after the game ends?

Wolff response log, 09/04/11

Response to this.

You may ban this one if you wish. Absent such, I shall continue enjoying reading here and occasionally commenting. If it helps, this one's blog has approximately one reader. Two, if we count you. :)

Additionally, in hopes that it may not ever be true, I've removed the appellation from said unread blog.

It was, of course, not a reference to the employment of RAM. Rather, it was a sad metaphor pertaining to the vantage point of the powerful passing a judgment of acceptance on drones, torture, phosphorous, et al.

It's as inappropriate for this one to channel the hungering spirits of little brown children as it is for you to channel different ones. Ergo, my apologies.