This one is a bit of a mess but here goes. Just getting back into the swing of things before I fall down dead again. Right, anyway:
There is an increasingly shocking hypocrisy in world and domestic events. Shocking in the sense that I - a rather seasoned and jaded perceiver - will glance at the headlines and have my jaw drop anew, again and again.
To see what powerful white people will get away with, for example, in plain sight, contrasts pretty starkly with what the powerless can get away with in hidden view, to compare two extreme poles, and then there is everything in between. And I suppose that is partially the point: if you situate justice within a mythology, and rationalize within that mythology, and at the same time manage those rationalizations, you can excuse terrible deeds for the most powerful, while at the same time you can punish the powerless for the most minor infractions. This is only possible if the observers you are appealing to are only able to make judgements using the symbols and logic of the mythology you are pushing.
So you look at how rich white people are treated by the law, versus poor people of color. Or you look at how different races and classes are talked about in media language. Or you look at how white terrorists are treated in America - who are much more dangerous in America - as opposed to brown terrorists. Or for that matter, to truly study ISIS and world affairs is to begin to grasp a strange saga: those speaking most feverishly about the surging tide of monsters are doing their best to create monsters.
We could call this hypocrisy, which has already been done plenty of times, but the truth of the matter is that everything is built on hypocrisy, or the more general formula: I get to do whatever I want, but that means you can't do anything that you want, because me doing anything that I want is predicated on the removal of any sort of obstacle to my full exercise of power, including the boundaries and wills of other people.
The intractable conflicts that we experience as a society today are intractable because their course of destruction is built into their very function.
The entire shape of capitalist society is predicated on this universal extension of domination, which for all intents and purposes, functions to disintegrate, as the minute someone or something is dominated, that domination is passed on, and someone or something else must be dominated, or else the dominated turns away in resent from the dominator.
This is how power is maintained. A single instance of injustice can be repaid immediately: well it is pretty apparent that you stole from me, so I'll need it back, or some equal value.
But if you graduate injustice over tiers and tiers of higher classes, whose existence is predicated on injustice and who can be convinced to fight for injustice, you can delay the repayment by hoisting the weight of an entirely unjust society on the shoulders of the oppressed. But again this is only a delay: "...the dominated turns away in resent from the dominator."
The ownership of capital is essentially an act of robbery which replicates itself, reproducing more of itself as it inspires reactions in kind. But the process has an end. There is only so much energy available to continue concentrating that domination, even if it is spread in gradients over a greater dimension.
It is as if the unfurling flower is slowly spiralling itself apart. Or the bursting firework is nearing its completion as its burning embers separate and dissipate in the atmosphere. It is the unfurling ends - and the dissipating and dispersing - that reveal a spiralling outwards that would be difficult to see otherwise. The process must burn out; it has to run out of energy and break down to reveal its finer contours, and its direction as a process.
It is all so strange and bewildering, that just attempting to write about it is a trial of its own.
Saturday, January 30, 2016
Thursday, January 28, 2016
PC in Time and Space
Political correctness is a curious phenomenon. Supposedly it took its name from an inside joke in leftist circles stabbing at orthodox Marxism, which dogmatically judged political positions for their "correctness" in relation to doctrine.
It seems like the right uses it more than the left now, not as ironic reference, but as a weapon to break down policies, actions and language that presents a resistance to their projects of domination.
"Their projects" is the key designator here. This divide is illustrated by leftist practice. When it comes to what is referred to as politically correct language and practice, language and practices which are offensive to white people are generally not taken as seriously in leftist circles.
Mere offence is not what is being avoided here, but the offence of the oppressed. Politically correct language is a form of eliminating the offence of the oppressed, on a linguistic and ideological level, and then an emotional and physical level by extension. The general project is protecting the oppressed from any more harm, and buttressing their position in the body politic, which is a project that is peculiar to a particular time or stretch of time, and place(s).
Of course it isn't like I'm making a staggering political discovery by claiming that offense itself is heavily reliant on political relations and power.
It seems like the right uses it more than the left now, not as ironic reference, but as a weapon to break down policies, actions and language that presents a resistance to their projects of domination.
"Their projects" is the key designator here. This divide is illustrated by leftist practice. When it comes to what is referred to as politically correct language and practice, language and practices which are offensive to white people are generally not taken as seriously in leftist circles.
Mere offence is not what is being avoided here, but the offence of the oppressed. Politically correct language is a form of eliminating the offence of the oppressed, on a linguistic and ideological level, and then an emotional and physical level by extension. The general project is protecting the oppressed from any more harm, and buttressing their position in the body politic, which is a project that is peculiar to a particular time or stretch of time, and place(s).
Of course it isn't like I'm making a staggering political discovery by claiming that offense itself is heavily reliant on political relations and power.
A Bit Scattered
In capitalist society, power is accumulated through reciprocal exchanges - at least reciprocal on their face - but these exchanges still require a tacit sort of consent, or at least a consent that is legally demonstrable, which of course doesn't mean that much anymore.
What happens then is that each interested actor looking to make an exchange is vying constantly to catch and hold the attention of those who are to be parties to the exchange. In this case we're talking about consumers.
What we have then is a constantly unfolding process of growth - which has its share of stops and starts - in which new actors are springing up in competition with each other, competing for the attention of the consuming mass to engage and "exchange" with it.
The products around which these exchanges are based must catch and hold the attention of the consumer, whatever the cost, and so that is built into them.
Thus something is praised for its "addictiveness." Some sort of food, show, game, what have you.
What this means for the consumer is that the consumer is perpetually assaulted with appeals, day by day, every hour of the day, splitting the attention, dragging the attention into whatever pleasure hole is most forcefully impressing itself at the moment.
So it really is a wonder, this preponderance of ADHD and ADD, diagnosed or not. And then this tendency becomes a manner of functioning. It takes on a life of its own, and it alters the environment to better perpetuate itself. And so the environment encourages its further development.
One can come back in from the woods, one's attention tightly wound and focused, and have it peeled back in a thousand directions all over again, just living and breathing in this society.
What happens then is that each interested actor looking to make an exchange is vying constantly to catch and hold the attention of those who are to be parties to the exchange. In this case we're talking about consumers.
What we have then is a constantly unfolding process of growth - which has its share of stops and starts - in which new actors are springing up in competition with each other, competing for the attention of the consuming mass to engage and "exchange" with it.
The products around which these exchanges are based must catch and hold the attention of the consumer, whatever the cost, and so that is built into them.
Thus something is praised for its "addictiveness." Some sort of food, show, game, what have you.
What this means for the consumer is that the consumer is perpetually assaulted with appeals, day by day, every hour of the day, splitting the attention, dragging the attention into whatever pleasure hole is most forcefully impressing itself at the moment.
So it really is a wonder, this preponderance of ADHD and ADD, diagnosed or not. And then this tendency becomes a manner of functioning. It takes on a life of its own, and it alters the environment to better perpetuate itself. And so the environment encourages its further development.
One can come back in from the woods, one's attention tightly wound and focused, and have it peeled back in a thousand directions all over again, just living and breathing in this society.
Monday, January 25, 2016
Networks Pt. 2
The interesting thing about connections is that they seem to be formed or renewed constantly; otherwise they slowly decay or are even severed. Though this characteristic differs depending on the strength of the bond.
A signal that passes forth between connected individuals takes its nature from the relation of the individuals, and will pass in the direction of the connection even after the connection is severed.
The connection is constantly renewed through feedback, and even without the feedback, the connection will be maintained on each side via projected images.
A signal that passes forth between connected individuals takes its nature from the relation of the individuals, and will pass in the direction of the connection even after the connection is severed.
The connection is constantly renewed through feedback, and even without the feedback, the connection will be maintained on each side via projected images.
Power and Privilege Over Time
Part of the difficulty of addressing privilege and power is the way in which oppressive structures are built up over time, and at the same time, we must interact with one another in the present.
One is born into a social formation and socialized with a certain set of expectations, and a baseline understanding of how one can expect to be treated, and how to treat others, and what sorts of technologies and resources are going to be at one's disposal.
The nature of this formation takes its character over time due to complex interactions of individuals, environments, and histories, among other things.
Two individuals from two completely different backgrounds or formations may interact with each other with a differing set of expectations, but the human base is relatively the same: one knows when one is slighted, and one knows when to slight. One knows what pain and pleasure are, and they happen immediately.
And the problem is, pain and pleasure can mean very different things for those in different tiers of privilege.
It hurts someone of higher privilege to be told to step down, while a person of lower privilege is always hurting, and looking to step up.
For both individuals to understand the world in the same framework, a decent understanding can be worked out.
But there is still the matter of the more privileged individual willingly stepping out of the way of her or his own ego, and willingly accepting a lower standard of living. A little more difficult to do than simply understanding these things intellectually. It happens easier when it happens apart from personal choice, but it can happen by choice.
The mountain crumbles rock by rock, where it is disturbed or where parts of it are already tumbling off and connected.
One is born into a social formation and socialized with a certain set of expectations, and a baseline understanding of how one can expect to be treated, and how to treat others, and what sorts of technologies and resources are going to be at one's disposal.
The nature of this formation takes its character over time due to complex interactions of individuals, environments, and histories, among other things.
Two individuals from two completely different backgrounds or formations may interact with each other with a differing set of expectations, but the human base is relatively the same: one knows when one is slighted, and one knows when to slight. One knows what pain and pleasure are, and they happen immediately.
And the problem is, pain and pleasure can mean very different things for those in different tiers of privilege.
It hurts someone of higher privilege to be told to step down, while a person of lower privilege is always hurting, and looking to step up.
For both individuals to understand the world in the same framework, a decent understanding can be worked out.
But there is still the matter of the more privileged individual willingly stepping out of the way of her or his own ego, and willingly accepting a lower standard of living. A little more difficult to do than simply understanding these things intellectually. It happens easier when it happens apart from personal choice, but it can happen by choice.
The mountain crumbles rock by rock, where it is disturbed or where parts of it are already tumbling off and connected.
Monday, January 18, 2016
Relationships and Self Mastery
Part of the coming of age process is advancing one's understanding of the nature of individuals, and boundaries, differentials in energy, and mastering the navigation or negotiation of those boundaries.
An especially strong tendency persists in this culture for one to look within oneself, witnessing one's play of energy, and declaring that play to be reality, seeking to systematize it and formalize it and replicate its expression. For some odd reason, it seems more comfortable for people in this culture to seek to replicate what is limited to them, instead of acknowledging that they are merely a distinct play of energy, and that there is more to life, which seems much more of a comfortable conclusion to me, as this affords the lifting of the enormous burden introduced by the belief that one's pains are all there is.
This process of mastery leads to a self mastery, as part of self mastery is learning to move in a world where there are others, and often-times moving successfully requires moving with others.
This can only be done by interfacing directly with others. As to properly grasp boundaries and act in accordance with that understanding is to feel those boundaries vividly in direct interactions.
An especially strong tendency persists in this culture for one to look within oneself, witnessing one's play of energy, and declaring that play to be reality, seeking to systematize it and formalize it and replicate its expression. For some odd reason, it seems more comfortable for people in this culture to seek to replicate what is limited to them, instead of acknowledging that they are merely a distinct play of energy, and that there is more to life, which seems much more of a comfortable conclusion to me, as this affords the lifting of the enormous burden introduced by the belief that one's pains are all there is.
This process of mastery leads to a self mastery, as part of self mastery is learning to move in a world where there are others, and often-times moving successfully requires moving with others.
This can only be done by interfacing directly with others. As to properly grasp boundaries and act in accordance with that understanding is to feel those boundaries vividly in direct interactions.
Volition and Natural Forces
We make distinctions between alterable acts of volition and unalterable acts of nature, and we make these distinctions for the purposes of shaping and controlling our personal and collective behaviors.
Acts of volition can be directed and controlled, and subject to sanction and reward, whereas forces of nature simply wash over us and influence us with or without our approval.
In the same way, we make the distinction between mysterious and magical "emotions" and seemingly transparent rational controls.
But it seems in the end that these things merely exist as extensions of each other, in various stages of complexity, and there are times when these things can be controlled and shaped, and other times in which they simply burst free.
Acts of volition can be directed and controlled, and subject to sanction and reward, whereas forces of nature simply wash over us and influence us with or without our approval.
In the same way, we make the distinction between mysterious and magical "emotions" and seemingly transparent rational controls.
But it seems in the end that these things merely exist as extensions of each other, in various stages of complexity, and there are times when these things can be controlled and shaped, and other times in which they simply burst free.
On Emotion and Mapping
We seem to use rational mappings to attempt to establish certain emotional baselines, such as security. However it is the emotional undercurrents that are able to sweep it away.
Mapping feeds back in, as an attempt to direct, resist, and control the oscillating emotional states, so as to better situate them for navigation.
Mapping feeds back in, as an attempt to direct, resist, and control the oscillating emotional states, so as to better situate them for navigation.
Deep Learning
Once impressed, trauma is something that continues to impress itself and beget itself, long after its point of contact, like ripples flowing forth from a point of force.
In individuals this manifests in differing patterns of power maintenance, which crash together.
Much of it is buried deep, and there is a constant grinding of its effects as the process unwinds in time, amplifying old traumas, and producing new ones.
The private perpetuation of trauma, and the secret maintenance of personal power regenerates and amplifies itself mutually between individuals, as each individual pursues their logic of difference in isolation.
And to recognize the sameness of different traumas in each other is to begin the harmonization process, and lessen the crashes.
Person by person must learn, but each must be receptive to the difference.
In individuals this manifests in differing patterns of power maintenance, which crash together.
Much of it is buried deep, and there is a constant grinding of its effects as the process unwinds in time, amplifying old traumas, and producing new ones.
The private perpetuation of trauma, and the secret maintenance of personal power regenerates and amplifies itself mutually between individuals, as each individual pursues their logic of difference in isolation.
And to recognize the sameness of different traumas in each other is to begin the harmonization process, and lessen the crashes.
Person by person must learn, but each must be receptive to the difference.
Privilege
Privilege is the basic linch pin lending to the coherence of oppressive social systems. The metaphor of the linch pin is incredibly appropriate in this case: it is the fastener which keeps the wheel attached to the axle.
A privilege is something one does not wish to lose. The cycles of oppression are constantly renewing themselves around this resistance. Behind an oppressive empire is the dogged pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain, which becomes reflexive and natural, or invisible.
You're a radical for that which you abhor and wish to change, and a conservative for that which you love and wish to preserve. Though the impulse doesn't have to correlate directly.
And radicals abhor things because those things are compromising what they love, and conservatives abhor that which seeks to compromise what they love.
So what does it take to love one thing or another?
Privilege has been designated as bad, because this tower of privilege that is global capital is fixed so prominently in our attention, for good reason.
It is a privilege to be organized energy suspended above the chaos. It is fortunate that one is what one is. But to be what one is necessarily implies that which isn't, and if something that is can prevent something else that could be, which is something that could be beautiful and good, then that something that is needs to be re-evaluated.
And at the same time, there has to be something that is. Something that is privileged over something else. What will that be?
A privilege is something one does not wish to lose. The cycles of oppression are constantly renewing themselves around this resistance. Behind an oppressive empire is the dogged pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain, which becomes reflexive and natural, or invisible.
You're a radical for that which you abhor and wish to change, and a conservative for that which you love and wish to preserve. Though the impulse doesn't have to correlate directly.
And radicals abhor things because those things are compromising what they love, and conservatives abhor that which seeks to compromise what they love.
So what does it take to love one thing or another?
Privilege has been designated as bad, because this tower of privilege that is global capital is fixed so prominently in our attention, for good reason.
It is a privilege to be organized energy suspended above the chaos. It is fortunate that one is what one is. But to be what one is necessarily implies that which isn't, and if something that is can prevent something else that could be, which is something that could be beautiful and good, then that something that is needs to be re-evaluated.
And at the same time, there has to be something that is. Something that is privileged over something else. What will that be?
Friday, January 01, 2016
Been Here Before
This was a pretty major fallow period, and sometimes fallow periods look like the end. But here we are. I suppose the term "fallow" itself implies some future state of fertility or some such, we should hope, for the farmer's sake.
For the writer's sake - especially the serious writer - it is create or die. The writer is usually a writer on account of some cultivated worldview, cultivated because the default worldview is somehow inadequate, or has even failed. To write is to process and refine and display that worldview back to oneself. Hopefully for the sake of better living.
Or, when you're actually falling down, it is not the time you are learning. You are feeling and experiencing, and you are subject to a series of inevitable motions, and it all happens so fast anyway. The learning comes recursively, after one is gazing back over one's mistakes.
More to come shortly.
For the writer's sake - especially the serious writer - it is create or die. The writer is usually a writer on account of some cultivated worldview, cultivated because the default worldview is somehow inadequate, or has even failed. To write is to process and refine and display that worldview back to oneself. Hopefully for the sake of better living.
Or, when you're actually falling down, it is not the time you are learning. You are feeling and experiencing, and you are subject to a series of inevitable motions, and it all happens so fast anyway. The learning comes recursively, after one is gazing back over one's mistakes.
More to come shortly.
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