=============
'artists are the antennae...' --Ezra Pound
==============
(re-edited for clarity, January 2008)
The following were posted in a forum promoting the artists' workbook entitled "The Artist's Way" by Julie Cameron. i've edited it in a way to make it more readable for those who weren't on the forum.
For those of you unfamiliar with this book, it became *very popular* quite suddenly a few years ago amongst many creatives in the business art "community" (or lack thereof), and was touted as especially allegedly "helpful" for those whom have, for some supposedly "unknown" reason, found themselves experiencing the phenomenon called "artists' block" and related challenges to making more money and living the materialist life we've all been socialized to think is just dandy and even "responsible".
One might assume that this isn't *such a big deal* until you begin to understand that the naive artists whose attention is hooked by this book are *also* being hyped-up to separate themselves from fellow artists whom are labled in destructive ways like "crazymaker".
Typical of "self help" books that get plugged in mainline society as being "exceptional" these days we see a certain pattern where:
A) Contexts for situations can never be more thoroughly explored much less found to lie within the institutions and their constructs that we're to uncritically subordinate to, but only in those who are having a hard time adequately assimilating (for reasons which escape most well-indoctrinated folks in our thought-control-oriented suiciety).
B) Rational explanations for why others, say "Crazymakers", do as they do are not to be adequately understood; they are to be labeled, reduced, and excluded!
My original reply to one of the happy promoters of the book:
My response to D, a happy promoter of the book on the forum mentioned above who posted various links to help sell it... She asked what my specific problem with the book was, and whether i had actually read it. Here's what i said:
D, i had a big problem with the way [Julie Cameron, the author] reduces and labels a group of artists who are exhibiting the *very real* (and crucial) symptoms of living a colonized (i.e. systematically alienated) life. (Yes, I'm saying that *all of 'society'* is a colonization attack on all whom are put through it in compulsory or otherwise duped ways, i.e. "the manufacture of consent").
Further, the author labels as "bad" (i.e. "crazymaker") the most potentially threatening group (to the social order) and seeks to further separate these very sensitive *social antennae* from those creative people who are even less in touch with their intuitive rebellion (from the "normalized" situations of artists working to enhance the social order).
Instead of promoting deeper thought about how some people can become "crazy" in the face of art cult-ure and all of its superficialities (which act as tho this is completely "normal") Cameron works to isolate these folks she has labeled and the reader with various cheap shots. Of course, by that time in the book, everyone reading "The Artist's Way" has already been bedazzled by the formula that *fills a void* (which virtually no one adequately demystifies) so they quite easily go along!
Thus a Bandwagon effect is put into action, and rebellion --especially that which is not yet even close to being articulate--is blocked from even coming to the veritable surface!
No wonder her book was allowed to shoot quickly up to the "Best Seller" list! No wonder all the commissars of the art industry LOVE this book! This is what propaganda is all about! This is classic thought control hoodwinking a majority (of often mediocre artists, hence their ability to fit into the business at all) while scapegoating a minority!
Consider Noam Chomsky's remarks in the preface of his book _Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies_ (http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/ni/ni-preface.html ):
"A large part of this task is assumed by ideological institutions that channel thought and attitudes within acceptable bounds, deflecting any potential challenge to established privilege and authority before it can take form and gather strength. The enterprise has many facets and agents."
And only adding to divisions and alienation! Same old story!
Of course, such labeling and discrediting wouldn't have happened in communities, say, where intense folks are interpreted as *Gift givers* (i.e. shamans). Communities not fully "developed" like in Africa or other Native/indignous communities world-wide. Hadn't the Western Civilization art ghetto been already so deeply corralled (i.e. sensitives not being given any frame of reference to articulate their dissent from a profit-oriented, consumer art society, thus drinking away their pain), this wouldn't have so easily slipped past! (There may be challenges in the margins, but no "Art Magazine" "worth their salt" would publish serious dialogue amongst artists! No!)
And so thought control continues hardly challenged. And dissidents told to "get therapy" or be labled with these increasingly hostile reductions (let's not forget "Oppositional Defiant Disorder", now reportedly being used on adults as well as kids).
Every institution --including "the art world"-- which wants to continue having "a seat at the table" of *privileges* has to play this meta game. And it's no biggie scapegoating those minorities whom can't fight back. That's "normal" in thought control societies like ours.
i'm a working artist as well, yet my face has been repeatedly slapped with reality to a point where i was "lucky" to begin stumbling upon various subjects around institutional analyses which have similar patterns between them. Not a far stretch, then, to apply such to the art "community", especially when one sees the very real politics happening!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "As domains of experience become more alien to us, we need greater and greater openmindedness even to conceive of their existence."--R.D. Laing in _The Politics of Experience_ from: http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace
Friday, November 30, 2007
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
dialogue with an allegedly "resurgent" administrator & a warrior-like dude, re: Wasase depth charginG
This exchange took place recently on a list i'm on. The admin contacted me for being a little too radical for his (and allegedly others') tastes. Significant questions arose and want to be shared with folks who want to see resurgence (and truly authentic transformation) towards shared evolutionary ways of seeing. Your input is thus much invited, no matter how challenging!
The letter which was being responded to follows this exchange, along with the original letter by Jerome (who was okay with keeping things out in the open, and thus, i assume okay with me publishing his letter here).
The volunteer administrator, who i'll call "A" said:
C,
I'm saying the same thing to everyone involved: the tone of this
discussion has dropped below the point where it could be considered to
achieve the standard of respect that is a requirement of all members of
this list. If you wish to continue this conversation in a different
format or a different place, that's fine. But please consider letting
this conversation go in this place and medium. This isn't judgment or
blame; it's a result of complaints received from other members of the
list and my own feeling of unease.
It's probably best to let it end here.
A
------------
My latest reply:
i hear you, A, yet i have to start asking questions, you know. Because if we are to follow Tai's way of seeing and speaking (i.e. in his book _Wasase_) things like resurgence aren't always going to be peachy-creamy. So i'm wondering if you (and the perennial complainers) are getting tripped up too much in what passes for "normal" relations, i.e. "polite" et al.
That's the feeling i'm getting...As if this list is *already* compromised by such mind-set that sees not what it does.
What if you at least published this, along with my letter to Jerome (who asks to keep it public, notably), with this question in mind, inviting others to speak up? --Rather than go with what i think is your uncritical tendency to manage how people wanting resurgence speak to/with each other.
It's your call, and i'll go along. And it is true that i *may well* have a blindspot on this, but then again, i'm coming from more than 10 years of discourse online with all sortz of folks in heated discourse, and i tend to trust *authentic* communications rather than "nice" ones (as does Tai in his book; shall i quote him?).
What is it that is intended by keeping language so reduced to the norms of settler banter and reporting??
Note that i have ways, and method, which are *differently abled* and fly in creative ways of nonviolent confrontation. i am very aware that my freespirit'd style pushes buttons, but this is amongst a broad way in which i see resurgence coming into play. Are you going to join "normal" settler mentalities in suppressing such spirit?
Like i said, i'll go along, tho; since so many do seem to be soooo trapped in such beliefs in this world. How disenchanting the imaginatioN!
QUESTION FOR ALL:
How do you expect to bring spirit'd HEART into this resurgence if you fall back only on what you know and are comfortable with --in whichever way that speaking and singing our hearts is done??
And do you REALLY agree that creative approaches such as my free-wheeling angle of approach on thangz must be kept reduced to the kind of "nice" and "normal" that academic and intellectual communications are kept in (rather, corralled) as a "rule"??
Sure, i "disrupt"; and what is this idea we are socialized with?? i "disrupt" the "normalized" idea of how speaking "must be done", trusting my radicalized intuition...
If this email list were a traditional village scenario, imagine a chieftan (Adam) telling a fellow villager whose way of speaking is different than his this kind of thing!!!!
Whatever you all agree on (not to take you too far away from your normal focus!), i'll go along with. After all, i'm "only" another relatively new "white guy" who *appears* to be "way too" disrespectful and so on and so forth.
(Really, i see my honesty of form and spirit (even if it is poetically challenged, heh hee) to be of a possibly inspirational nature for others whom have subordinated their SPIRIT much too long to the same old again! Perhaps that's REALLY why we are "supposed to" follow along with so-called "tried and true" "rules" --which sound to me to be awfully SUSPECT in themselves--in terms of colonialist attitudes not allowing themselves to be resurgently scrutinized!!!!)
((four exclamations to sing truth to the four directions!!!!))
==================================
==================================
The exchange that brought this up:
> */Jerome @gmail.com
> wrote:
>
> At one point in this conversation I thought one of you
> guys were going to say that you met an indigenous person
> at a gas station once and you were lucky he was a shaman
> who helped you to understand indigenous peoples. Too
> bad...it looks like no one won the pissing contest.
>
> The only thing that kept jumping into my head while I was
> reading this was misplaced concreteness.
>
> C, I'm guessing you have not read Andrea Smith's
> writing on white supremacy [published in online pdf format at "The New Socialist" website]. Or, you have read her
> work but failed to comprehend it because you embody what
> she discusses.
my reply:
> On 11/28/07, *c* @yahoo.com
wrote (privately to Jerome):
>
> Har har, whatever you say must be true since you're
> indigenous. And if you were Dickie Wilson, also indigenous
> (Lakota, the b.i.a.'s 1970s pick for divide and conquer
> technique on the Pine Ridge Rez), the reasoning would be i'd
> also better subordinate myself? i don't think so!
>
> How about some actual backing up of your quick resort to
> labeling me into that category, eh?
>
> Hoo hoo, you must be having fun, eh? What Ever!
> {;
>
*/Jerome @gmail.com>/* wrote:
>
> >Lets keep this conversation out in the open...which was the
> original intent, right? [referring to my original interest to share a letter with an apparent Leftist with all on the list]
> --
> great! :}
>
> >c...I'm sensing discontent on your part. It surprised me a
> bit considering your email address is "spiritd_dude." But I was
> probably misleading myself because a "spiritd" person in my
> community is someone who is wise. A wise person is an individual
> that has the experience and knowledge of power and place.
> --
> Ah..and you think because i don't subscribe to your angle on
> morality that i'm suddenly unwise? OooO! For me, spirited (or
> spirit'd) includes a much wider variety of truth than this
> reduction you seem to want to hold onto (for what intent?).
>
> Why get bogged down into this off-topic thingy? My approach is
> simply different from yours. Egad! (i'm such a BAD citizen!)
>
> >Also, I'm missing the connection between what I wrote and what
> that has to do with truth and being indigenous. Where I'm from,
> being indigenous has a lot to do with the process of
> self-awareness and how one creates balance upon understanding of
> self and the relationship to one's environment. Being the one who
> holds the "truth" is something that is embedded within Western
> thought. Categorizing and characterizing one's self and the
> environment based on "truths" can easily be found in Western
> science and religion.
> --
> Self-awareness is in the eye of the beholder, you know.
>
> As for balance, i can certainly hear what you're saying. And like
> the feminine way of balance, my form is different from yours. As
> for being indigenous, i'm no "wannabe"; i openly state i'm a
> settler. And yet, i have praxis to share in community. Albeit
from
> a differently-abled situation than you, i guess.
>
> i don't need to defend my process to you; i mean, based on your
> way of relating to me (awfully authoritarian just under the
> surface, man!) and all. Assuming automatically becuz i don't fit
> your prescription that somehow means i'm "unwise". You just can't
> figure me out; and i'm okay with that!
> :}
>
> You misread my language on "truth". Notably, i don't capitalize
> the word, so that means a definition similar to Confucious'
> Elephant. Familiar with that one?
>
> As for "categorizing" i think you're putting words into my mouth.
> Care to back up your assertion with actual samples to chew on?
Oh,
> i make my feelings heard alright! But that don't mean i'm seeking
> to do what so many of my uncritical fellow settlers do without
> thinking through such! Gee-whizzies!
>
> Again, you're gonna need to back up your assertions with actual
> examples, and stop tryin' to brow-beat your way into my heart!
>
> >So don't sit there and tell me that my calling you out to be
> aware of yourself is me acting as if I hold the truth. You asked
> for it when you wrote, "Perhaps i could use an attitude
adjustment
> (?) even?!" So don't ask for it if you can't take it.
> ---
> Hey, i can take it, baby; i just ain't gonna take it from them
> folks who come up and brow-beat my punk ass without any actual
> examples to back up their allegations!
>
> i'm actually looking forward to a good ol' ass-whippin' by any o'
> y'all that wanta step up to the plate with some REAL challenge!
>
> And tho i may appear to your hidden colonized mentalities
> (obviously as above) to be here just to "disrupt" and all that
> b.s., you'll see, if you actually respond in the way a
traditional
> community would respond to one labeled "crazy" by colonials, with
> your hearts open, that i got some HEART dudes! And i ain't coming
> from lies and manipulations!
>
> So, Jerome...is this the best you can do?? Maybe you should turn
> the tables around and have me interpret myself, eh?
>
> winkte-ly,
> c
> www.angelfire.com/psy/intheheart
>
> p.s. i'd like to send a copy of this to Tai [Taiaiake Alfred, author of _Wasase: Indigenous Pathways Towards Action And Freedom_, 2005], but he's on vacation
> 'til June! [so he said to me, anyway]
The letter which was being responded to follows this exchange, along with the original letter by Jerome (who was okay with keeping things out in the open, and thus, i assume okay with me publishing his letter here).
The volunteer administrator, who i'll call "A" said:
C,
I'm saying the same thing to everyone involved: the tone of this
discussion has dropped below the point where it could be considered to
achieve the standard of respect that is a requirement of all members of
this list. If you wish to continue this conversation in a different
format or a different place, that's fine. But please consider letting
this conversation go in this place and medium. This isn't judgment or
blame; it's a result of complaints received from other members of the
list and my own feeling of unease.
It's probably best to let it end here.
A
------------
My latest reply:
i hear you, A, yet i have to start asking questions, you know. Because if we are to follow Tai's way of seeing and speaking (i.e. in his book _Wasase_) things like resurgence aren't always going to be peachy-creamy. So i'm wondering if you (and the perennial complainers) are getting tripped up too much in what passes for "normal" relations, i.e. "polite" et al.
That's the feeling i'm getting...As if this list is *already* compromised by such mind-set that sees not what it does.
What if you at least published this, along with my letter to Jerome (who asks to keep it public, notably), with this question in mind, inviting others to speak up? --Rather than go with what i think is your uncritical tendency to manage how people wanting resurgence speak to/with each other.
It's your call, and i'll go along. And it is true that i *may well* have a blindspot on this, but then again, i'm coming from more than 10 years of discourse online with all sortz of folks in heated discourse, and i tend to trust *authentic* communications rather than "nice" ones (as does Tai in his book; shall i quote him?).
What is it that is intended by keeping language so reduced to the norms of settler banter and reporting??
Note that i have ways, and method, which are *differently abled* and fly in creative ways of nonviolent confrontation. i am very aware that my freespirit'd style pushes buttons, but this is amongst a broad way in which i see resurgence coming into play. Are you going to join "normal" settler mentalities in suppressing such spirit?
Like i said, i'll go along, tho; since so many do seem to be soooo trapped in such beliefs in this world. How disenchanting the imaginatioN!
QUESTION FOR ALL:
How do you expect to bring spirit'd HEART into this resurgence if you fall back only on what you know and are comfortable with --in whichever way that speaking and singing our hearts is done??
And do you REALLY agree that creative approaches such as my free-wheeling angle of approach on thangz must be kept reduced to the kind of "nice" and "normal" that academic and intellectual communications are kept in (rather, corralled) as a "rule"??
Sure, i "disrupt"; and what is this idea we are socialized with?? i "disrupt" the "normalized" idea of how speaking "must be done", trusting my radicalized intuition...
If this email list were a traditional village scenario, imagine a chieftan (Adam) telling a fellow villager whose way of speaking is different than his this kind of thing!!!!
Whatever you all agree on (not to take you too far away from your normal focus!), i'll go along with. After all, i'm "only" another relatively new "white guy" who *appears* to be "way too" disrespectful and so on and so forth.
(Really, i see my honesty of form and spirit (even if it is poetically challenged, heh hee) to be of a possibly inspirational nature for others whom have subordinated their SPIRIT much too long to the same old again! Perhaps that's REALLY why we are "supposed to" follow along with so-called "tried and true" "rules" --which sound to me to be awfully SUSPECT in themselves--in terms of colonialist attitudes not allowing themselves to be resurgently scrutinized!!!!)
((four exclamations to sing truth to the four directions!!!!))
==================================
==================================
The exchange that brought this up:
> */Jerome @gmail.com
> wrote:
>
> At one point in this conversation I thought one of you
> guys were going to say that you met an indigenous person
> at a gas station once and you were lucky he was a shaman
> who helped you to understand indigenous peoples. Too
> bad...it looks like no one won the pissing contest.
>
> The only thing that kept jumping into my head while I was
> reading this was misplaced concreteness.
>
> C, I'm guessing you have not read Andrea Smith's
> writing on white supremacy [published in online pdf format at "The New Socialist" website]. Or, you have read her
> work but failed to comprehend it because you embody what
> she discusses.
my reply:
> On 11/28/07, *c* @yahoo.com
wrote (privately to Jerome):
>
> Har har, whatever you say must be true since you're
> indigenous. And if you were Dickie Wilson, also indigenous
> (Lakota, the b.i.a.'s 1970s pick for divide and conquer
> technique on the Pine Ridge Rez), the reasoning would be i'd
> also better subordinate myself? i don't think so!
>
> How about some actual backing up of your quick resort to
> labeling me into that category, eh?
>
> Hoo hoo, you must be having fun, eh? What Ever!
> {;
>
*/Jerome @gmail.com>/* wrote:
>
> >Lets keep this conversation out in the open...which was the
> original intent, right? [referring to my original interest to share a letter with an apparent Leftist with all on the list]
> --
> great! :}
>
> >c...I'm sensing discontent on your part. It surprised me a
> bit considering your email address is "spiritd_dude." But I was
> probably misleading myself because a "spiritd" person in my
> community is someone who is wise. A wise person is an individual
> that has the experience and knowledge of power and place.
> --
> Ah..and you think because i don't subscribe to your angle on
> morality that i'm suddenly unwise? OooO! For me, spirited (or
> spirit'd) includes a much wider variety of truth than this
> reduction you seem to want to hold onto (for what intent?).
>
> Why get bogged down into this off-topic thingy? My approach is
> simply different from yours. Egad! (i'm such a BAD citizen!)
>
> >Also, I'm missing the connection between what I wrote and what
> that has to do with truth and being indigenous. Where I'm from,
> being indigenous has a lot to do with the process of
> self-awareness and how one creates balance upon understanding of
> self and the relationship to one's environment. Being the one who
> holds the "truth" is something that is embedded within Western
> thought. Categorizing and characterizing one's self and the
> environment based on "truths" can easily be found in Western
> science and religion.
> --
> Self-awareness is in the eye of the beholder, you know.
>
> As for balance, i can certainly hear what you're saying. And like
> the feminine way of balance, my form is different from yours. As
> for being indigenous, i'm no "wannabe"; i openly state i'm a
> settler. And yet, i have praxis to share in community. Albeit
from
> a differently-abled situation than you, i guess.
>
> i don't need to defend my process to you; i mean, based on your
> way of relating to me (awfully authoritarian just under the
> surface, man!) and all. Assuming automatically becuz i don't fit
> your prescription that somehow means i'm "unwise". You just can't
> figure me out; and i'm okay with that!
> :}
>
> You misread my language on "truth". Notably, i don't capitalize
> the word, so that means a definition similar to Confucious'
> Elephant. Familiar with that one?
>
> As for "categorizing" i think you're putting words into my mouth.
> Care to back up your assertion with actual samples to chew on?
Oh,
> i make my feelings heard alright! But that don't mean i'm seeking
> to do what so many of my uncritical fellow settlers do without
> thinking through such! Gee-whizzies!
>
> Again, you're gonna need to back up your assertions with actual
> examples, and stop tryin' to brow-beat your way into my heart!
>
> >So don't sit there and tell me that my calling you out to be
> aware of yourself is me acting as if I hold the truth. You asked
> for it when you wrote, "Perhaps i could use an attitude
adjustment
> (?) even?!" So don't ask for it if you can't take it.
> ---
> Hey, i can take it, baby; i just ain't gonna take it from them
> folks who come up and brow-beat my punk ass without any actual
> examples to back up their allegations!
>
> i'm actually looking forward to a good ol' ass-whippin' by any o'
> y'all that wanta step up to the plate with some REAL challenge!
>
> And tho i may appear to your hidden colonized mentalities
> (obviously as above) to be here just to "disrupt" and all that
> b.s., you'll see, if you actually respond in the way a
traditional
> community would respond to one labeled "crazy" by colonials, with
> your hearts open, that i got some HEART dudes! And i ain't coming
> from lies and manipulations!
>
> So, Jerome...is this the best you can do?? Maybe you should turn
> the tables around and have me interpret myself, eh?
>
> winkte-ly,
> c
> www.angelfire.com/psy/intheheart
>
> p.s. i'd like to send a copy of this to Tai [Taiaiake Alfred, author of _Wasase: Indigenous Pathways Towards Action And Freedom_, 2005], but he's on vacation
> 'til June! [so he said to me, anyway]
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Unlearning the Language of Conquest (and liberate yourself along the way)
DANGER! Angry, alienated, perpetually hyped-up folks who frequent this tribe ARE PROHIBITED from reading info which may inspire them to liberate themselves (or even imagine such) from their misery and hysteria --much less think through the manipulative ways in which their "masters" keep us/you in our/your Nice (tm) "freedom" corralls. GO BACK TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED KNEE-JERK HYSTERIA NOW! BE THE STUPID MASSES YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE!!!
Heh heh.
Anyway, thought i'd share the following excerpts excerpted from this webpage:
http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/excerpts/exjacunl.html
Found this while looking for a critical appraisal of a book Erik suggested in the thread about european arrogance ( _Sick Societies: Challenging the Myth of Primitive Harmony_ ). Some very deep articulating going on here!!
from the book: _Unlearning the Language of Conquest
Scholars Expose Anti-Indianism in America_
Edited by Four Arrows (Don Trent Jacobs)
Excerpts:
(...)
Such publications have done and are doing to American Indians what a number of "academic" authors have done in Australia to dismiss the value of the Australian aboriginal worldview. Interestingly, the vice president of the Australian Council of Professional Historians, Kathy Clement, recently edited a collection of articles from academic professors entitled Whitewash: On Keith Windschuttle's Fabrication of Aboriginal History; her book sets out to counter the influence of books like Keith Windschuttle's, which is "part of a range of writing that seeks to counter left-wing influence on people's thinking about the history of Indigenous Australians."
These are examples of one side of the dual-edged sword academics have used against Indigenous People. The other side relates to how they typically ignore them. Several decades ago Francis R. McKenna categorized this policy of dismissal as follows:
Academics generally have little interest in Indians. Scholars generally can be divided into three categories: (a) Those who are overtly racist. An example is John Greenway, a folklorist at the University of Colorado. Greenway posed the question, "Did the United States destroy the American Indian?" and answered, "No but it should have." (b) Those who exclude Indians from academic life. To illustrate, witness the rejection of the application of the American Indian Historical Society for participation in the International Congress of Historical Sciences; and (c) those who neglect to include the Indian in scholarly presentations. For example, the revisionist historian, Colin Greer, in an otherwise excellent collection of works of ethnicity in America, makes no mention of American Indians.
These examples are, of course, more or less obvious and intentional, but such work filters down into the system to support the a more subtle hegemony, one that the authors expose in this book. This "filtered" material is woven into the fabric of everyday communication from those who themselves have become "brainwashed" (in a sense) from years of learning that began in elementary school and pervades most media in the United States.
(...)
Thus, the "fourth wave of killing the Indigenous" builds on the first three waves, pulling in decades of anti-"Indian" literature, films, and social commentary. Sometimes appearing as a smothering maelstrom, other times as an invisible poison, it ultimately emerges as a "commonsense" view of the world that automatically disregards truth. It represents the kind of hegemony that prevents people from realizing that social and environmental injustice are not a natural by-product of human nature; that the current form of global capitalism is not the only economic system available to humanity; or that living Indigenous cultures possess a measure of wisdom that may be vital for all of our futures.
This fourth wave is in reality an insidious form of cultural genocide against Indigenous People that tends to support
>ongoing ignoring of Indigenous People's legal rights and the legitimate relationship between the various First Nations and the federal government.
>legislation that attempts to abrogate Indian treaties or to deny federal support.
efforts of white citizens to launch anti-Indian campaigns in connection with acquiring coal, timber, gas, fishing, and other land-use rights.
>suppression of Indigenous People's religious freedoms, as when museums display ancestral bones or religious objects, or when sacred medicine bundles are confiscated or destroyed by U.S. Customs officials or peyote ceremonies are disallowed. (I myself recently had my Sun Dance rope taken away from me at the Phoenix airport for fear I might "tie someone up with it.")
>the ignoring of cultural relevance in education as exemplified in implementation of laws like the No Child Left Behind Act.
>expropriation and exploitation of reservation lands, which ultimately pollutes, poisons, or extracts vital resources while robbing Indigenous People of fair compensation or opportunities to litigate for environmental restoration.
These items represent just the tip of the iceberg. Volumes would be required to itemize attacks on American Indians and the deceptive language of conquest that supports these attacks.
(...)
In noting and remembering such injustices against Indigenous People, the reader should also realize that the loss of Indigenous perspective is a loss to all people. As noted earlier, Indigenous worldviews, as varied as they are, have common associations that are significantly different from those operating in the dominant cultures of the so-called Western world. For example, assumptions about children, authority, community, language, deception, art, music, justice, competition, animals, religion, land, and money are often polar opposites from those that guide the typical American citizen's life and typical U.S. government policies. Although these assumptions are not exclusive to American Indian cultural paradigms and can be found in alternative philosophies in all societies, this book asserts that the wisdom of traditional American "Indians" is an essential ingredient for those wishing to mitigate the dominant American influence on domestic and world systems. Moreover, many First Nations citizens still maintain these values today and can help the process of transforming American culture.
Our goal is thus a lofty one. We hope to replace anti-Indigenous hegemony with understanding that is both truthful and constructive. We do not mean to say that Indigenous worldviews are always better ways for knowing reality than those that pervade Western culture. No worldview is epistemologically privileged in the sense that it is the only absolutely truth and all others are false.
Heh heh.
Anyway, thought i'd share the following excerpts excerpted from this webpage:
http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/excerpts/exjacunl.html
Found this while looking for a critical appraisal of a book Erik suggested in the thread about european arrogance ( _Sick Societies: Challenging the Myth of Primitive Harmony_ ). Some very deep articulating going on here!!
from the book: _Unlearning the Language of Conquest
Scholars Expose Anti-Indianism in America_
Edited by Four Arrows (Don Trent Jacobs)
Excerpts:
(...)
Such publications have done and are doing to American Indians what a number of "academic" authors have done in Australia to dismiss the value of the Australian aboriginal worldview. Interestingly, the vice president of the Australian Council of Professional Historians, Kathy Clement, recently edited a collection of articles from academic professors entitled Whitewash: On Keith Windschuttle's Fabrication of Aboriginal History; her book sets out to counter the influence of books like Keith Windschuttle's, which is "part of a range of writing that seeks to counter left-wing influence on people's thinking about the history of Indigenous Australians."
These are examples of one side of the dual-edged sword academics have used against Indigenous People. The other side relates to how they typically ignore them. Several decades ago Francis R. McKenna categorized this policy of dismissal as follows:
Academics generally have little interest in Indians. Scholars generally can be divided into three categories: (a) Those who are overtly racist. An example is John Greenway, a folklorist at the University of Colorado. Greenway posed the question, "Did the United States destroy the American Indian?" and answered, "No but it should have." (b) Those who exclude Indians from academic life. To illustrate, witness the rejection of the application of the American Indian Historical Society for participation in the International Congress of Historical Sciences; and (c) those who neglect to include the Indian in scholarly presentations. For example, the revisionist historian, Colin Greer, in an otherwise excellent collection of works of ethnicity in America, makes no mention of American Indians.
These examples are, of course, more or less obvious and intentional, but such work filters down into the system to support the a more subtle hegemony, one that the authors expose in this book. This "filtered" material is woven into the fabric of everyday communication from those who themselves have become "brainwashed" (in a sense) from years of learning that began in elementary school and pervades most media in the United States.
(...)
Thus, the "fourth wave of killing the Indigenous" builds on the first three waves, pulling in decades of anti-"Indian" literature, films, and social commentary. Sometimes appearing as a smothering maelstrom, other times as an invisible poison, it ultimately emerges as a "commonsense" view of the world that automatically disregards truth. It represents the kind of hegemony that prevents people from realizing that social and environmental injustice are not a natural by-product of human nature; that the current form of global capitalism is not the only economic system available to humanity; or that living Indigenous cultures possess a measure of wisdom that may be vital for all of our futures.
This fourth wave is in reality an insidious form of cultural genocide against Indigenous People that tends to support
>ongoing ignoring of Indigenous People's legal rights and the legitimate relationship between the various First Nations and the federal government.
>legislation that attempts to abrogate Indian treaties or to deny federal support.
efforts of white citizens to launch anti-Indian campaigns in connection with acquiring coal, timber, gas, fishing, and other land-use rights.
>suppression of Indigenous People's religious freedoms, as when museums display ancestral bones or religious objects, or when sacred medicine bundles are confiscated or destroyed by U.S. Customs officials or peyote ceremonies are disallowed. (I myself recently had my Sun Dance rope taken away from me at the Phoenix airport for fear I might "tie someone up with it.")
>the ignoring of cultural relevance in education as exemplified in implementation of laws like the No Child Left Behind Act.
>expropriation and exploitation of reservation lands, which ultimately pollutes, poisons, or extracts vital resources while robbing Indigenous People of fair compensation or opportunities to litigate for environmental restoration.
These items represent just the tip of the iceberg. Volumes would be required to itemize attacks on American Indians and the deceptive language of conquest that supports these attacks.
(...)
In noting and remembering such injustices against Indigenous People, the reader should also realize that the loss of Indigenous perspective is a loss to all people. As noted earlier, Indigenous worldviews, as varied as they are, have common associations that are significantly different from those operating in the dominant cultures of the so-called Western world. For example, assumptions about children, authority, community, language, deception, art, music, justice, competition, animals, religion, land, and money are often polar opposites from those that guide the typical American citizen's life and typical U.S. government policies. Although these assumptions are not exclusive to American Indian cultural paradigms and can be found in alternative philosophies in all societies, this book asserts that the wisdom of traditional American "Indians" is an essential ingredient for those wishing to mitigate the dominant American influence on domestic and world systems. Moreover, many First Nations citizens still maintain these values today and can help the process of transforming American culture.
Our goal is thus a lofty one. We hope to replace anti-Indigenous hegemony with understanding that is both truthful and constructive. We do not mean to say that Indigenous worldviews are always better ways for knowing reality than those that pervade Western culture. No worldview is epistemologically privileged in the sense that it is the only absolutely truth and all others are false.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
depth dialogue, re: heavily arming our desires!
This dialogue comes from a discussion forum i frequent. Note especially the stuff in "bold" type. "O" is me.
"O":
Right on! And we're in need of a lot of practice, tho i'm not willing to try to get anyone to "follow" me on this; just say, hey, if we wanna arm our desires, we iz gonna hafta not only see that the arting of ourselves is happening *rite* now (but is it our best?), but also see that it's an on-going process of desire arming; for me, this means, keeping my heart open to *all possibilities* --not as a "rule" but as an input i happen to like.
"O":
Me, i wouldn't look at the situation like that. i'm learning to look at the institutional mind-set that runs many of these people. They are really a kind of a soldier ("god's soldier, perhaps) when they're out there in their formal uniforms (really, it's like that, you know) with the intent to basically recruit!
So i want to look at that dynamic. Stand back a ways and look at what's going on, not only the immediate (or microcosm). And compare them with other formally organized folks. Say a social worker. So you've got a human being basically being tooled by an ideological/rigid way of seeing themselves and others. Why? Partly they want community in a community-less society. Partly they want to share their beliefs, so far; what has made a difference in their lives.
Okay, so you see that bigger picture.
And maybe you say this stuff outright. Maybe you don't "beat around the bush"; maybe you validate yourself to be the master of your own poetic language and you "wing it" according to how heavily armed your desires are!
So you don't bridge well, perhaps, right off. Maybe you don't bridge at all. The trick is, you play with these ideahz, you "wear" your desires and you have fun, and at the same time you see the value of seeing the other human being as yourself, only likely a little more strategically challenged.
The depth of it is that since they are human beings, they likely *also* have something to gift you/us. But we're not going to see it as poisoned as so many of us are already by state-subordinated religion (or, in the case of Jehova's Witnesses, hierarchically-challenged religion). So we see the value of pivoting beyond the confines of their language and norms, and experiment with our own!
Making sense? (i better watch myself, eh? if i start making "too much" sense so openly, the war-habituated are gonna label me as a "charismatic" type and find a way to silence my ass, rite? But it is, after all, a path of what i call "spirit-uality"; we all gotta go some way...and why not "go" if we gotta, with our desires as fully armed and as deeply accurate as we dare?!)
"O":
i dissent. We *could* learn from, say, the likes of Ken Carey where he suggests that the excellence of human intelligence could be used towards ENHANCEMENT of the natural world. So what creative angle might we come up with?
Me, i'm envisioning a situation where friendship is made with the coyotes (while empathizing with the context of their situation--we being the invaders of their territory, after all), by feeding them a portion of the pot, so to speak; yet not letting them have control, like we already do with dogs.
We colonized folks have been led to believe that there are no grey areas "possible" and so we give our power away, systematically!
Is there a POSSIBLE way to live in harmony with those we assume we cannot (and must fall back on the human stupidity of killing and maiming)?[b] Pre-colonized folks the world over thought so, and that's how we got dogs in the first place! (yeee-haaa, this is so fun!)[/b]
...btw, i sense your 'dark' humor; but alas, you're seeing that there's more to this shit than you may've expected,,,,heh heh!
(or perhaps we're "simply" having a little PRACTICE between ourselves! A little fencing/word swordplay to see each other more clearly?! Now, how to take such creativity into realms we assumed were "impossible"?!!)
"O" originally said:
I see that this noncompassion is a direct reflection from these fellow human beings whom have been largely de-individualized (as Aldous Huxley discussed in his _Brave New World--Revisited), at least *when it counts*; and instead of attacking them for their alienation, i would rather explore and find ways to intervene, in order to inspire and evolve their mind-set.
"F" replied:
Yes, I think you're right. We're back to en-framing as subtle programming. I don't think we're in a position to tell anyone what's what, but all communication should be mind-bending.
"O":
Right on! And we're in need of a lot of practice, tho i'm not willing to try to get anyone to "follow" me on this; just say, hey, if we wanna arm our desires, we iz gonna hafta not only see that the arting of ourselves is happening *rite* now (but is it our best?), but also see that it's an on-going process of desire arming; for me, this means, keeping my heart open to *all possibilities* --not as a "rule" but as an input i happen to like.
"F" challenged:
The other day, a jehovah witness elder came by to capture my soul to serve in the kingdom after armageden. I didn't tell him I was an atheist, (that would have ended the communication right then and there) but put my thumb into his chest and said "the man said the kingdom's here". Then I said it was my impression it was all about love, and in a loving relationship, where is there room for subservience and rulership? I politely suggested the kingdom of heaven was created in the image and likeness of man's kingdoms on earth. He said my points were interesting, but he had to go, grabbed his watchtower and sped away. Did I go too far? Probably his thinking hasn't changed one iota. One can only hope.
"O":
Me, i wouldn't look at the situation like that. i'm learning to look at the institutional mind-set that runs many of these people. They are really a kind of a soldier ("god's soldier, perhaps) when they're out there in their formal uniforms (really, it's like that, you know) with the intent to basically recruit!
So i want to look at that dynamic. Stand back a ways and look at what's going on, not only the immediate (or microcosm). And compare them with other formally organized folks. Say a social worker. So you've got a human being basically being tooled by an ideological/rigid way of seeing themselves and others. Why? Partly they want community in a community-less society. Partly they want to share their beliefs, so far; what has made a difference in their lives.
Okay, so you see that bigger picture.
And maybe you say this stuff outright. Maybe you don't "beat around the bush"; maybe you validate yourself to be the master of your own poetic language and you "wing it" according to how heavily armed your desires are!
So you don't bridge well, perhaps, right off. Maybe you don't bridge at all. The trick is, you play with these ideahz, you "wear" your desires and you have fun, and at the same time you see the value of seeing the other human being as yourself, only likely a little more strategically challenged.
The depth of it is that since they are human beings, they likely *also* have something to gift you/us. But we're not going to see it as poisoned as so many of us are already by state-subordinated religion (or, in the case of Jehova's Witnesses, hierarchically-challenged religion). So we see the value of pivoting beyond the confines of their language and norms, and experiment with our own!
Making sense? (i better watch myself, eh? if i start making "too much" sense so openly, the war-habituated are gonna label me as a "charismatic" type and find a way to silence my ass, rite? But it is, after all, a path of what i call "spirit-uality"; we all gotta go some way...and why not "go" if we gotta, with our desires as fully armed and as deeply accurate as we dare?!)
"F" said:
There are, however, some situations when one must shoot the coyote who's molesting your sheep: "Off the pig!" even while feeling bad about it.
"O":
i dissent. We *could* learn from, say, the likes of Ken Carey where he suggests that the excellence of human intelligence could be used towards ENHANCEMENT of the natural world. So what creative angle might we come up with?
Me, i'm envisioning a situation where friendship is made with the coyotes (while empathizing with the context of their situation--we being the invaders of their territory, after all), by feeding them a portion of the pot, so to speak; yet not letting them have control, like we already do with dogs.
We colonized folks have been led to believe that there are no grey areas "possible" and so we give our power away, systematically!
Is there a POSSIBLE way to live in harmony with those we assume we cannot (and must fall back on the human stupidity of killing and maiming)?[b] Pre-colonized folks the world over thought so, and that's how we got dogs in the first place! (yeee-haaa, this is so fun!)[/b]
...btw, i sense your 'dark' humor; but alas, you're seeing that there's more to this shit than you may've expected,,,,heh heh!
(or perhaps we're "simply" having a little PRACTICE between ourselves! A little fencing/word swordplay to see each other more clearly?! Now, how to take such creativity into realms we assumed were "impossible"?!!)
Thursday, November 8, 2007
a vision experienced (in ongoing process and seeking your input)
Hey y'all, this is a vision i've been experiencing for awhile now. It is in process, and portions of it come to me suddenly at various times. Just now, for instance.
What if we stopped letting our imaginations be reduced into all these reductions running rampant? i mean, it's one thing to dress all alike during situations in which we may want to confuse implementers of state mandates (i.e. at stand-offs where folks wear masks and the uniform clothing), yet what of times when we don't have to?
Here i'm thinking of activating as much of who we are as individual human beings as we can. i'm thinking of, say, a painter, who wears their paintings. Maybe becomes a walking "tower" of their paintings. And also someone who loves stuffed animals --wearing them and even having them "riding" helium balloons (up to our imaginations!). And so on.
Imagine such diversities of humanity being panned by TV (which systematically tries to reduce us all into character-assasination-type reductions). Or mobilized settlers meeting up with *colorful characters*; i can even imagine some dressing as famed cartoon characters --would such persons be attacked?? If hundreds of natives wore Santa Clause outfits, wouldn't they *mess with* the same old game of polytricks/politics?! (my experience is that they would!)
Imagine implementers of the state being seen attacking people who are holding and carrying various Loved symbols of humanity. Up to your imagination what that means. Maybe you want to dress as a refrigerator full of food. Maybe you want to be a couch. How could it be done? How could our HUMOR be utilized in ways which *go outside the experience* of those whom are to be kept hyped-up and held on "the proper track" of fear and hysteria?
All i'm saying is, how to reduce and even breach the stranglehold that today's media keep on their unsuspecting audiences; and what imagery we can bring to these places to "bring home" our fellow humanity in SPADES! Even via our own media!
This is where i think the Raging Grannies have an angle worth playing with more. Even tho their politics are so damned superficial.
So far, i've seen people systematically tooled into not thinking, apparently, about what we wear and how we express ourselves when we go to the very serious situations affecting us. i see us human beings (across the spectrum) reduced by normalized ideas of politics and all the "values" that go along with such confined ways of thinking. i see us giving away our powers of creativity continually to these ideas we have in our heads about What One Is Supposed To look like and be like. i see this in every image i've ever noted, indigenous included. Oh, your indigenous regalia is another thing --BUT we settlers have been separated from that language-ing; so i say, if you want to reach the HEARTS and LIBERATORY DESIRES of potential allies in a larger way, you're going to "have to" seriously play with image forms of language-ing within *our* experience.
Do you understand at all what i'm saying?
And, yes, i have been and continue to play seriously along these lines! For instance, see:
www.angelfire.com/folk/magixnartz/flouggindex.html
What if we stopped letting our imaginations be reduced into all these reductions running rampant? i mean, it's one thing to dress all alike during situations in which we may want to confuse implementers of state mandates (i.e. at stand-offs where folks wear masks and the uniform clothing), yet what of times when we don't have to?
Here i'm thinking of activating as much of who we are as individual human beings as we can. i'm thinking of, say, a painter, who wears their paintings. Maybe becomes a walking "tower" of their paintings. And also someone who loves stuffed animals --wearing them and even having them "riding" helium balloons (up to our imaginations!). And so on.
Imagine such diversities of humanity being panned by TV (which systematically tries to reduce us all into character-assasination-type reductions). Or mobilized settlers meeting up with *colorful characters*; i can even imagine some dressing as famed cartoon characters --would such persons be attacked?? If hundreds of natives wore Santa Clause outfits, wouldn't they *mess with* the same old game of polytricks/politics?! (my experience is that they would!)
Imagine implementers of the state being seen attacking people who are holding and carrying various Loved symbols of humanity. Up to your imagination what that means. Maybe you want to dress as a refrigerator full of food. Maybe you want to be a couch. How could it be done? How could our HUMOR be utilized in ways which *go outside the experience* of those whom are to be kept hyped-up and held on "the proper track" of fear and hysteria?
All i'm saying is, how to reduce and even breach the stranglehold that today's media keep on their unsuspecting audiences; and what imagery we can bring to these places to "bring home" our fellow humanity in SPADES! Even via our own media!
This is where i think the Raging Grannies have an angle worth playing with more. Even tho their politics are so damned superficial.
So far, i've seen people systematically tooled into not thinking, apparently, about what we wear and how we express ourselves when we go to the very serious situations affecting us. i see us human beings (across the spectrum) reduced by normalized ideas of politics and all the "values" that go along with such confined ways of thinking. i see us giving away our powers of creativity continually to these ideas we have in our heads about What One Is Supposed To look like and be like. i see this in every image i've ever noted, indigenous included. Oh, your indigenous regalia is another thing --BUT we settlers have been separated from that language-ing; so i say, if you want to reach the HEARTS and LIBERATORY DESIRES of potential allies in a larger way, you're going to "have to" seriously play with image forms of language-ing within *our* experience.
Do you understand at all what i'm saying?
And, yes, i have been and continue to play seriously along these lines! For instance, see:
www.angelfire.com/folk/magixnartz/flouggindex.html
Friday, October 26, 2007
an initiation ceremony for the crazed and channelling
I would like to envision, with your input, possible "initiation ceremonies" for those who are labeled crazy amongst us, and usually encouraged or coerced to seek so-called "professional help". The more creative your vision, the better. The more outlandish, the more excelling! Any other visionaries out there?
i got into this particular idea after reading the following:
"Instead of the degradation ceremonial of psychiatric examination, diagnosis and prognostication, we need, for those who are ready for it (in psychiatric terminology, often those who are about to go into a schizophrenic breakdown), an initiation ceremonial, through which the person will be guided with full social encouragement and sanction into inner space and time, by people who have been there and back again. Psychiatrically, this would appear as ex-patients helping future patients to go mad."
from:
http://www.laingsociety.org/colloquia/peaceconflict/divisions.levine.htm
There is some really good reading here. Here are some excerpts for the expected skeptics to think about:
"In the opinion of Dr. Thomas Szasz, psychiatry may be the new secular religion in an age of pseudo-science:
"The discerning reader may detect a faint note of familiarity here. Modern psychiatric ideology is an adaptation-to a scientific age-of the traditional ideology of Christian theology. Instead of being born into sin, man is born into sickness. Instead of life being a vale of tears, it is a vale of diseases. And, as in his journey from the cradle to the grave man was formerly guided by the priest, so now he is guided by the physician. In short, whereas in the Age of Faith the ideology was Christian, the technology clerical, and the expert priestly; in the Age of Madness the ideology is medical, the technology clinical, and the expert psychiatric.
"Thus psychiatry, like the nuclear family, becomes an instrumental motive force in the creation of the total social institution; through a process of mystification, both define normality and mould the individual into the one-dimensional shape of social utility. Laing calls this mystification a political act of "violence masquerading as love". "
and:
"'From the moment of birth, when the Stone Age baby confronts the twentiety-century mother, the baby is subjected to these forces of violence, called love, as its mother and father, and their parents and their parents before them, have been. These forces are mainly concerned with destroying most of its potentialities, and on the whole this enterprise is successful. By the time the new human being is fifteen or so, we are left with a being like ourselves, a half-crazed creature more or less adjusted to a mad world. This is normality in our present age.'
"Some people can adapt to this system. We call them normal. "Society highly values its normal man. It educates children to lose themselves and to become absurd, and thus to be normal," Laing tells us. "Normal men have killed perhaps 100,000,000 of their fellow normal men in the last fifty years." But some cannot adapt to this imposed normality. They break down. Instead, they devise a strategy to deal with their inability to hold their invalidated experience ant their sense of themselves together. As Laing puts it, "it seem to us that without exception the experience and behaviour that gets labeled schizophrenic is a special strategy that a person invents in order to live in an unlivable situation".
"Though, in [David] Cooper's phrase, the schizophrenic may look like someone whose "logic" is "ill", he is, in reality, someone, who has been made an invalid because his experience has been invalidated. For Laing and Cooper, schizophrenia is no 'something happening in a person but rather something between persons". Thus when one psychiatrist calls schizophrenia "a failure of human adaptation", Laing responds that it may as well be "a successful attempt not to adapt to pseudo-social realities". It all seems to be a matte of perspective: "Schizophrenia is a label affixed by some people to others in situations where an interpersonal disjunction of a particular kind is occurring. This is the nearest one can get at the moment to something like an 'objective' statement, so called."
"The validity of a definition is ultimately determined by the identity of the one who is defining. It is in this context that Laing argues: "There is no such 'condition' a 'schizophrenia,' but the label is a social fact and the social fact a political event." Seen from this radical perspective, all our definitions may have to be turned upside down ant inside out. "What we call 'normal' is", according to Laing "a product of repression, denial, splitting, projection, introjection and other forms. of destructive action on experience.... It is radically estranged from the structure of being." No wonder, then, that "the condition of alienation, of being asleep, of being unconscious, of being out of one's mind, is the condition of the normal man." On the other hand schizophrenia may be seen as an alienation from this alienation, where, "even through his profound wretchedness and disintegration", the patient may be "the hierophant of the sacred". Finally, "madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be break-through. It is potential liberation and renewal as well as enslavement and existential death."
"In _The Politics of Experience_, Laing describes how, in some instances, breakdown does become break-through; transforming the "schizophrenic experience" into a "transcendental experience". As depicted by Gregory Bateson, the schizophrenic embarks upon a voyage from the "outer" world of the "ego" to the "inner" world of the "self" -and back out again. He regards it as an archetypal journey that bears a close resemblance to descriptions of religious experience:
"It would appear that once precipitated into psychosis the patient has a course to run. He is, as it were, embarked upon a voyage of discovery which is only completed by his return to the normal world, to which he comes back with insights different from those of the inhabitants who never embarked on such a voyage."
i got into this particular idea after reading the following:
"Instead of the degradation ceremonial of psychiatric examination, diagnosis and prognostication, we need, for those who are ready for it (in psychiatric terminology, often those who are about to go into a schizophrenic breakdown), an initiation ceremonial, through which the person will be guided with full social encouragement and sanction into inner space and time, by people who have been there and back again. Psychiatrically, this would appear as ex-patients helping future patients to go mad."
from:
http://www.laingsociety.org/colloquia/peaceconflict/divisions.levine.htm
There is some really good reading here. Here are some excerpts for the expected skeptics to think about:
"In the opinion of Dr. Thomas Szasz, psychiatry may be the new secular religion in an age of pseudo-science:
"The discerning reader may detect a faint note of familiarity here. Modern psychiatric ideology is an adaptation-to a scientific age-of the traditional ideology of Christian theology. Instead of being born into sin, man is born into sickness. Instead of life being a vale of tears, it is a vale of diseases. And, as in his journey from the cradle to the grave man was formerly guided by the priest, so now he is guided by the physician. In short, whereas in the Age of Faith the ideology was Christian, the technology clerical, and the expert priestly; in the Age of Madness the ideology is medical, the technology clinical, and the expert psychiatric.
"Thus psychiatry, like the nuclear family, becomes an instrumental motive force in the creation of the total social institution; through a process of mystification, both define normality and mould the individual into the one-dimensional shape of social utility. Laing calls this mystification a political act of "violence masquerading as love". "
and:
"'From the moment of birth, when the Stone Age baby confronts the twentiety-century mother, the baby is subjected to these forces of violence, called love, as its mother and father, and their parents and their parents before them, have been. These forces are mainly concerned with destroying most of its potentialities, and on the whole this enterprise is successful. By the time the new human being is fifteen or so, we are left with a being like ourselves, a half-crazed creature more or less adjusted to a mad world. This is normality in our present age.'
"Some people can adapt to this system. We call them normal. "Society highly values its normal man. It educates children to lose themselves and to become absurd, and thus to be normal," Laing tells us. "Normal men have killed perhaps 100,000,000 of their fellow normal men in the last fifty years." But some cannot adapt to this imposed normality. They break down. Instead, they devise a strategy to deal with their inability to hold their invalidated experience ant their sense of themselves together. As Laing puts it, "it seem to us that without exception the experience and behaviour that gets labeled schizophrenic is a special strategy that a person invents in order to live in an unlivable situation".
"Though, in [David] Cooper's phrase, the schizophrenic may look like someone whose "logic" is "ill", he is, in reality, someone, who has been made an invalid because his experience has been invalidated. For Laing and Cooper, schizophrenia is no 'something happening in a person but rather something between persons". Thus when one psychiatrist calls schizophrenia "a failure of human adaptation", Laing responds that it may as well be "a successful attempt not to adapt to pseudo-social realities". It all seems to be a matte of perspective: "Schizophrenia is a label affixed by some people to others in situations where an interpersonal disjunction of a particular kind is occurring. This is the nearest one can get at the moment to something like an 'objective' statement, so called."
"The validity of a definition is ultimately determined by the identity of the one who is defining. It is in this context that Laing argues: "There is no such 'condition' a 'schizophrenia,' but the label is a social fact and the social fact a political event." Seen from this radical perspective, all our definitions may have to be turned upside down ant inside out. "What we call 'normal' is", according to Laing "a product of repression, denial, splitting, projection, introjection and other forms. of destructive action on experience.... It is radically estranged from the structure of being." No wonder, then, that "the condition of alienation, of being asleep, of being unconscious, of being out of one's mind, is the condition of the normal man." On the other hand schizophrenia may be seen as an alienation from this alienation, where, "even through his profound wretchedness and disintegration", the patient may be "the hierophant of the sacred". Finally, "madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be break-through. It is potential liberation and renewal as well as enslavement and existential death."
"In _The Politics of Experience_, Laing describes how, in some instances, breakdown does become break-through; transforming the "schizophrenic experience" into a "transcendental experience". As depicted by Gregory Bateson, the schizophrenic embarks upon a voyage from the "outer" world of the "ego" to the "inner" world of the "self" -and back out again. He regards it as an archetypal journey that bears a close resemblance to descriptions of religious experience:
"It would appear that once precipitated into psychosis the patient has a course to run. He is, as it were, embarked upon a voyage of discovery which is only completed by his return to the normal world, to which he comes back with insights different from those of the inhabitants who never embarked on such a voyage."
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
"Tooled by massa" political cartoon
Note, the art seems to have been blocked by blogspot.com, but if you highlight this area and then copy it into a wordperfect (or similar) program, it appears that you can actually STILL SEE the art! (Far out, huh?)
Some visionary paths towards "in-the-heart" solutions
"...Any politics we pick up and follow, they are...alien politics...[and] do not reflect the reality of who we are, but our culture and art does. ...if we are going to use [politics] then let's recognize that's what we are doing. It's a tool. It's not an identity..."--a Lakota wisdom keeper
intro:
Dear reader, I suspect that you will find this page a bit too wordy, tangent-tending, and not easy to read; I hope you will perservere, though, and at least scan/hop around for the nuggets of value which i claim are here. Composing text is not "first nature" for me...
Subheading run-down:
intellectual self-defense
informal resistance consciousness
formal organization
informal organization
the meta game
a new imagination
liberation of our desire and an obstacle
Continue alienation war, or?
understand and implement our liberatory desires?
spirit liberation, or psychological ju-jitsu
crazy people
an example
another example
the problem of institutional fear
Intellectual self-defense
Intellectual self-defense has been deeply articulated by the much despised luminary, Noam Chomsky. Basically, the method is to "undertake a course" (of self-instruction via Chomsky et al's *institutional analysis*) so that we may better understand how we are collectively manipulated via notable methods of thought control by major influence institutions: i.e. the mainstream media and the State.
Informal resistance consciousness
The still quite marginalized John Trudell articulated this idea in a very basic way in his *We Are Power* speech, shared with his fellow indigenous people in 1980. Basically, I see this way as a way of utilizing (tooling) the excellent values of formal resistance, while not letting the destructive sides of formal resistance tool us.
formal organiztion
Formal resistance, as the model lives in the popular imagination (and especially the imaginations of institutionally "well-educated" persons (a phrase to ask significant questions of)), brings into our imaginations certain camoflauged angles which we need to scrutinize more carefully if we are to see exactly when we become tooled and fooled.
Let's take ideology (or, rigid belief system) for a moment: One must subordinate the "serious" sides (at least) of their individualities to the Given ideology that formal organizations have chosen; usually, this seems to be the political route or program in which the organizational controllers/designers/planners have decided to follow as THE way (and no other way is possible, unless one is prepared to fight, tooth and nail, to have the way finally added someday--a microcosm to what the organiztion is seeking to do in seeking reform in the larger society!).
Formal organization also imposes a conventional imagination of confining concepts like "memberships" and "leaders", "dues" and "social ettiquette"; and a usually uncritical acceptance of the kind of orthodoxy which provides these models of formal, "reputable", or what is supposed to be "serious" organization in the first place. (Incidentally, this model has, over and over, proven disasterous to groups not yet allowed "a place at the table"--much less the 'right' to negotiate for their independent survival. It's probably disasterous also for individuals who have gotten stuck in believing that they are making some reformist gains, but let's save that, too, for another conversation).
(The most pointed examples of this disasterousness for groups not yet allowed "a place at the table"/social appearances of acceptance, has been the continuing havoc wreaked by legal and illegal official covert action upon formal organizations since at least the 1950s; as well as the strange, yet systematic pattern of ignorant naivity of "well-educated" organizers and leaders in these organizations. The best lessons may be gleaned from the f.b.i.'s illegal COINTEL Program; for those into reading, try the websites booklist, or explore William Kunstler's autobiography (_My Life As A Radical Lawyer_) as well as one by Philip Agee (_On The Run_); see also the anarchist critique of formal organization, via such luminaries as Feral Faun; contact the editor of a certain crucial anarchist publication at www.anarchymag.org)
Informal self-organization
Informal resistance, on the other hand, offers much more room, at least as far as the informal member's individual imagination may be "allowed" to go, either by chance, spiritual path, or error. With no one to coerce or manipulate a member's ideological conformity or keep them from going into "dangerously" independent inquiry, or even simply escaping the list of tasks given by organizational functionaries, informal resisters have much more freedom to explore areas that interest them.
This especially rings true when we see that informal resistance motions are usually made up of individuals who are oriented to working/playing on their own, or with small groups of friends or "affinity groups". They may come together in order to carry out direct actions, but most of their time is spent doing activities they, individually, are enamored to. They remain focused on the activities they're interested in, whereas in formal organizations, they may become *burnt out* by tasks which run far from their original desires (re: fund-raising, newsletter editing and mailing, and other secretarial duties). They can still take advantage of peer critique or support, when they ask, but the interaction remains much more oriented to directness, and has less of a chance to be clouded over by the need to conform ideologically, and remain "in good standing" in the formal group.
Further, when we organize ourselves informally, we are also not limited by ideological demands about what sources we may make use of. In fact, we may utilize a broad variety of resources. This is what has been called creative self-mobilization... Myself, i've found much value in insights found in methodological anarchy and situationism, as well as from Reader's Digest and other places one wouldn't normally expect to find gems. The trick is *reading between the lines* and keeping one's ability to compare and try out, intact; this comes back to critical thought and intellectual self-defense.
the meta game
Depending on how meaningfully deep one has allowed themselves to delve, one may begin to see a pattern of similarity between ALL the vast, seemingly terribly complicated and divergent views and beliefs we have as individuals. Notably, we all are similar, it's just that we've been socialized/programmed/enculturated into a seemingly huge diversity of rigid difference. This kind of realization is typically not allowed by formal, ideologically-challenged organization, which seems to need to keep a rigid dichotomy between "us" and "Them". The reason for this I haven't yet been able to put my finger on, but perhaps there is insight to be found in the *meta game* as played by the elites of every formalized group (i.e. every group articulating itself towards being better understood and seeking "reform"/assimilation or "revolution"/changing of the boss). As R.D. Laing says:
"...I discover there is a meta-road...[Society] is playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing the game."--R.D.Laing, in a biography called A Divided Self p.151 (Laing later died apparently prematurely of an apparent sudden heart-attack; was his death "wag-the-dog" style?)
We see this meta game all throughout the imagination called society and culture, and as well, formalized concepts of organization and resistance. Parents and other conscious adults play it upon persons called children. Teachers play it upon parents and kids. Administrators play it upon implementers of policy called teachers. Elite policy makers play this meta game upon elite implementers. All throughout our imagination we are neatly corralled and confined within something like Oz, though for me, a more exacting insight is to call this prevailing and imposed imagination *Is*. **The Wizards of Is** keep us "properly" subordinated, unthreatening, tooled, and mentally confined. We are modern-day peasants with neon. "Dark ages with neon glasses" as John Trudell would say.
Why this happens, why this meta game has to be played at all, probably has something to do with our "information society" being one completely subordinated to the needs and values of *propaganda* (see J. Ellul). All institutions and their public relations aparatuses utilize propaganda--manipulation--as THE method of choice for getting mass audiences/"consumers" to pay attention. Since we are basically a WAR-oriented culture, the war of propaganda comes with the territory. And thus the game that "must" be played while not speaking of the game; and those who do, being viewed as a danger because they might ruin a particular aspect of the propaganda that "MUST" rein.
a new imagination
The only way out that i can see, beyond continuing to naively strengthen that (including propaganda) which systematically attacks all of us in continually rotating ways (continually finding new differences amongst us to exploit our fears and keep us alienated and/or against each other), is by escaping the heart of the situation, and bringing forth a new imagination.
My study and experience leads me to the conclusion that FEAR, followed closely by severe alienation, is the heart of our challenge as humans at this juncture.
We need to liberate ourselves from this imagination which has been imposed upon ALL of us (including elite policy makers) from times when war was viewed as the only option (as in the history of all so-called "civilized" organization (popularly, it is also believed that pre-"civilized" groups, like the American indigenous folks, were committed to senseless violence; yet I maintain that there is a context to that which cannot be easily understood by domesticated man's severely confined imagination)).
Liberation of our desires and an obstacle
We can see already where our desires tend to want to escape to, when we think of young children of age 3 or 5. Their spirit is still full of the "spirit of discovery" and the love of life, and the misery of "Reality" has not yet been imposed upon them (via our social norms). The lucky few (those who see this anyway) that find time to walk down paths with them and notice things that otherwise would be missed, says oodles about this all too private joy, alone.
Parents have regularly spoken fondly of "being able" to "revisit childhood" through their youngchildren. Through this imagination we call "childhood" we experience a renewing of our own spirits, and this is to be celebrated; yet, at the same time, due to our alienated conditionining, this way has turned into a way which we *mine* for our own nursings, while allowing little vitality to escape to where our children may grow and become stronger.
In our single-minded, severely alienated interests, we've turned the youngpersons moving through us into objects. An object similar to what John Holt characterized, in his book _Escape From Childhood_, a "superpet". A youngperson not allowed to be viewed as fully human alongside us (thanks to the work of the convenient, and the systematically superficial analysis of the highly political, state-subordinated, social sciences).
Probably because of this value that we find in this somewhat natural time of life, the whole realm of "childhood" has become a highly sentimentalized time of all-too-escapist entertainment, aloof play, unthreatening fantasy, industry and business, keeping the very *objects* we claim to so avidly cherish and wish to "protect" locked up in a 'prison garden called childhood' (John Holt; see also: Paul Goodman: _Growing Up Absurd_ and Gerald Farson: _Birthrights_). We think nothing of this, until, for whatever reason, we finally allow ourselves to step back and look at a bigger picture. (Perhaps we are moved by youth liberationists of yesteryear or today, or remember our own feelings as kids)
Continue the war, or?
The trick, then, is to not allow our severely alienated desires to get the best of us. (Perhaps this is where the danger of "ego" crops up, though I wonder at the validity of this characterization; is it too simplified? Reducing too quickly? I prefer a word which sheds light on the context of our resorting to all shades of allegedly bad selfishness.) This is the juncture where liberation may be had, or where struggle/war may continue (even inarticulately, as we see with so many kids now being labeled "oppositionally defiant disordered" and so on).
Liberation is the situation in which people learn the value of shirking off confined imaginations about themselves and others. Liberation is when many many people start to let their imaginations freer than ever thought "possible" before. The 1960s/early 70s was such a time of liberation (called a "crisis" by the ruling war order). Quite suddenly (all too quickly for the war powers), due to the example of a heightening black civil rights and anti-war movement, all sorts of groups and individuals were starting to think that they might be able to be heard if they dared to speak up about their intutions and awareness about the plight of themselves and those they'd been moved by.
Where the 1960s/70s liberation movement went wrong, in my view, is that they got stuck up in the game that their consciously political "leaders" played. Reformist-oriented or "revolutionary", the same underlying "Us vs. Them" dichotomy was (and continues to be) as rigid and **unempathetic** as the established mindset (and this goes for all the anarchists as well, even if they are not ideologically-oriented). Of course, most of those who thought nothing of following along, didn't see this. They didn't see that they were being manipulated against each other; tooled. For the needs and interests of their even more severely alienated "leaders" and owners and puppeteers.
Spirit liberation or psychological ju-jitsu
Spirit liberation is the uniqueness of our individuality which we had in spades and flying colors when we were less programmed/socialized/conditioned/indoctrinated into imposed "Reality"/death culture/misery/severe alienation we collectively view as "Reality". That is, to come back to this again, *when we were "kids"*. The time when we still could allow ourselves to look upon the reality all around us and come up with our OWN individual ideas; and not be completely encircled by others' imaginations. "There are two ways of thinking. One can either accept current ideas and associations of ideas, just as they are or else undertake, on his own account, new associations or, what is rarer, original disassociations. The intelligence capable of such efforts is...a creative intelligence."--Remy de Gourmont (1899)
Thus, spirit liberation is the action and conscious (as well as unconscious) reverting to times when we come back under control of our own imaginations/culture/desired reality. i've talked about kids being naturals at this. Another group has not been mentioned: the "crazy" ones.
Crazy people
"Crazy" people, are, really, people whom've found a way, a self-taught folk way, to deal with their mental nilness resulting from living in the "norms" all around. The "norms" imposed and coerced by other persons so severely alienated and lost that they cannot allow the "crazy" people to explore their own path as they would like to explore it. This is saying things simplistically, but i see that it boils down to this. The more the severely alienated "carers" try to impose their designs/beliefs as an arbitrary remedey, the more the "crazy" person naturally seeks further escape--sometimes way too deep into the chaotic seas of "schizophrenia". Naturally, they tend to seek the ways that resonate with them the most.
Our severely alienated society wants them to "adjust" and "adapt" to the imposed "Norms", and anyone in their *right mind* will naturally rebell, even if they're not articulate to their rebellion!
Where the spirit liberationist can learn from "crazy" people should be obvious by now. "Craziness" is not "sick"; it is a way we can become when we must find depth. If we can become articulate and more conscious of our needs to "let things all hang out", or otherwise openly challenge social "norms" in ways not yet mapped by the political forms we can now imagine, while avoiding the pit-falls of inarticulate "craziness", we can learn to tool this folk method, just as we may learn to tool the methodology of youngpeople!
Does this make sense to you yet?
In liberating ourselves and each other so that we tap back into the ways of our original, individual selves--creating culture and community which realizes the value of such an endeavor--we merely dare to bring out the artways which we've buried (often under heavy armor) deep inside of us, or may've forgotten (and may still be remembered, via examples of informal, spontaneous realness)!
That is, for example, we tool "craziness" and "pre-socialization" ("childhood") in order to help us informally liberate ourselves from the Imposed Norms.
An example
An example of this is to enter into "an emotional break down" consciously, like I did lastnight. I was depressed and wished to *go into* my depression and take it by the horns. For years I had avoided going into its fearful depths. But i was feeling at the end of my rope. i was unsure, in a really heavy way, as to whether i wanted to continue "living" in this reality, on this planet, in this dimension. So, i took matters into my own hands (i didn't seek the alleged insight of the array of professionals around me, nor the models of "support groups"; nor the same old 'friend' interactions of 'how are you?' 'i'm fine, and you?' crap).
i feared living. And i was fearing living for too long. But i also feared death (by my own hand as well as another's). So i dared to jump into this fear almost full-throttle, via my alleged "addiction" to ganja, and kept my screaming cries muffled just enough to avoid someone calling the police from outside my home (my home is not your "normal" lifestyle at all). And then i proceeded to make calls to all those i intuit have "hearts of gold"--or, enough "gold" in their hearts that they send beautifulness off in ways that i need and want. (the "heart of gold" thing comes from a favorite country song of mine, where a father is talking about his daughter) i dared to be open and direct with everyone, to make a longer story short. i dared to say what i meant and get it across emotionally as well.
And i lived through that. And i found some stability and insight, some informal spiritual/spirit liberation. A way for me to continue on and to come back here and try finishing this composition for the possible benefit of other humans.
Notably, the forray escaped the "normal" ideological grip, in that i dared to move into "my addiction", instead of avoid it as "conventional wisdom" would pressure. The same ideas which tell us that if *things are going "bad"--i.e. "bad trip"--then it's 'best' to avoid them and continue living like "shiney happy people holding hands" (remember that from a song?)*. Fakeness. Lostness. Lack of depth. Lack of realness. Lack of sharing in time of need.
Another example
Another example would be the essay i wrote called "Good Peasant, Bad Peasant" (see at: http://www.angelfire.com/folk/crucialarts/goodpeasant.html ). Basically, it is a situation in which a group of people, such as in a neighborhood ghetto which is not being *openly* warred upon (i.e. wouldn't work in WWII Jewish ghettos), is having trouble with a "public servant" of some sort, and they decide something must be done. But, at the same time, they hold no confidence in "traditional" modes of rectifying the situation. My example was individual police officers whom are not acting with enough respect/professionalism towards people, and how we, the peasantry, can apply a type of crucial classical conditioning upon those whom are out of line yet remain regularly within the ghetto community.
This is certainly a bad seague here, but I don't have the time to rectify this: Notably, we don't completely "throw out" the wisdom learned from our ventures in the imposed, "traditional", and now dominant imagination. We utilize what we find liberating and valid, while *continuing* a critical awareness of WHEN such are most liberating and valid. At the same time, neither do we completely subordinate ourselves/society to the inexperience (in this world) and alleged chaos of persons called children or called crazy.
We seek the excellent **heart** and beautiful energy of people called children and people called crazy; not as yet another resource to commodify and exploit, but as a method or way of doing things which brings out our indepth needs and desires!
the problem of the institutional fear
Now, having said all this, there remains the test of the hardest challenge. My testing has been on myself and the observation of my fellow beings (humans, etc.) My testing has also touched on heavy situations (like direct emotional/nervous breakdown). Next to the direct imposition of the state (and all institutions, formal and informal, which automatically subordinate to it), there enters the problem of daring to articulate myself versus mindsets which do not value such, and see no form of rebellion as an option.
If pressed (or perceiving a threat), the human beings whom have subordinated their "professional" lives to the meta game of the state/ruling order, cannot allow themselves, it seems to me, to allow for too many people becoming of independent mind, and will (as history shows) work to see that such nonconformity becomes corralled in the smallest, unthreatening terms possible. Thus we have tiny academic circles exploring Polanyi, Kuhn, and Feyerabend. Or tiny, yet highly mystified, groups of cyberneticians. Or small groups of elite vanguardists keeping their 'single issue' reform measures intact at all costs (via such things as formal organization). Or 'indigenous' peoples remaining aloof from non-indigenous commonfolks.
Yet, this is the ultimate beauty of resistance consciousness. It remains informal. It remains "underground". It remains as a tool to be utilized when direct actions are desired, and can only be blocked when the whole society openly loses its freedom. The beauty of this form of resistance, also, is that it remains seeing the value of nonviolent interaction towards bridging.
But, alas, not every oppressed person (across the spectrum of left, right, center, and beyond) sees the value of nonviolent interaction *towards mutually beneficial outcomes*. This will have to be the discussion for the next section:
the crucial arts and spanarchy (forthcoming)
Monday, October 22, 2007
Deep thinking about settler society's chain-of-command imperialism at home
A response from a tribe.net post at:
http://shamanism.tribe.net/thread/17e44cfd-628d-4fee-b4ed-29ca6a0ed0bd?newpostingid=04d10046-d322-4582-b50f-4a99f06028d2#04d10046-d322-4582-b50f-4a99f06028d2
posted by Exodus entitled FOR ALL THOSE WHO WERE INDIAN IN A FORMER LIFE
My responses follow (a bit rough, so hold on):
This is an example, roughly articulated, of solidarity thought where indigenous folks, as a group, get thrown right out of the window when settler/"white" politics is viewed as being in some way "More Equal"...
I read through Andy Smith's sharing in a topical way, i'll admit, yet i think i have something to offer.
i think it is crucial to note one thing that most or a lot of indigenous challengers have apparently missed when seeking to challenge "white society"/settlers, and that is to think through the meta realities of said society, rather than attack the symptoms. Of course, there is good reason to attack the symptoms, such as in order to gain the attention of said settlers who do not see what they do. On the other hand, to challenge only in this way as a rigid way not allowing grey areas, and basically replicating the mind-set of settler alienation, well, that is obviously problematic.
Because then indigenous folks can get stuck in the perpetual war that settler society is stuck in; i.e. never seeing the bigger picture, never thinking things through, never using one's own intuitive intelligence and creativity to solve challenges via the amazing excelling styles of our being human beings!
The crucial thing that ought to be systematically challenged, instead, in my feeling, is the reality of a *chain of command* mentality throughout settler society. Then, to systematically challenge the ways that formalized (as different from informal, intuitive, and free) ways of thinking, relating, and believing fool and tool we settlers.
So the germ of truth Andy makes in discussing feminists has some truths --YET such leaves out the all-important CONTEXT to why and how!
((NOTE: sounds like Andy (like so many other native folks) lives in a rural part of the country where some truths about the most politically-known feminist community are "dragged through the coals" by "right wing" interests --such as The New American --whom don't tell you that they have, as part of their interests, the desire to put females back in a subordinate position to males; this being said, the "left wing" is hardly better, as taken as a whole it is deceitful to their real interests, such as of perpetuating domestic imperialism and formal settler hegemony over "conquered" peoples))
Like every other "rights"-oriented group in settler society (feminists being only one more amongst oodles of superficial challengers), the reality is that these groups are organized into something like military structures themselves; that's because they are groups which have usually been organized *into* structures which petition the occupation state for "A Seat At the Table" of security and freedom. This in itself is tell-tale for anyone outside of such positions. Thus, one is "free" to discuss the single issue --of feminism in this case-- but not free to go deeper than that, really.
How settlers dismiss
So, to take a little somewhat recent history (1980s) if a thing like the political import of showing solidarity with the Sandinista government of Daniel Ortega's Nicaragua shows up into the consciousness of New Age-type folks (via the media they read), solidarity with Miskito Indians will depend upon whether the feminists' trusted leadership deem it politically valuable or not, first and foremost. If, as happened, the Miskito people are deemed non-allies, then, suddenly, their voices are censored and empathy becomes unheard of. Why? Because the meta of every state-subordinated group is playing the game of not playing the game of politics/polytricks.
Of course, in this case, the Miskito thought it in their best interest to remain neutral, and in some cases openly retalitory where the Sandinistas were concerned --as they were painted with a broadbrush to be "Contras" working for the c.ia. Thus, they wouldn't play the meta game, and they were "out", to use a little parlance that Noam Chomsky uses from time to time (see his "Media Control" speech, published as a book now, for more examples, where he's talking about Iraq).
This example, of the Miskito and Sandinistas was actually a very real situation. And if you look at www.coloradoaim.org's site, they discuss this at length, and give the reader grey areas that were never tolerated in dominant feminist media. Not even Z Magazine discussed the Miskito situation thoroughly, to my knowledge. Everyone just joined in on what the orders were.
And now you can start to see why indigenous folks see right through the superficiality of feminist New Agers, or New Agers in general (those dominated by Leftist, or even Rightist ways of Telling), or euro-peons all.
Because we, as a people, are largely subordinated to chain-of-command ways of thinking and being. If our trusted leaders Tell us to think in some way, we largely go along with that. We largely do NOT challenge, nor do our "alternatives" provide adequate space and time to critically appraise topics; actually, we as a mass are seen as *incapable* of such things, for whatever reason!
So what indigenous people are getting at is that we as a general population just DON'T HAVE IT IN US to be true indigenous people! Regardless of our claims, our actions prove the truth. We still remain subordinate to the polytricks (politics) which control the thought and actions of our communities, generally. And so, in seeing this, you may now see why indigenous folks are saying that everything we touch that isn't really who we are, we pollute!
Exodus (a tribe.net poster), what do you think of this way of saying? i'm sure i could have said this much more succinctly; perhaps a better writer will take this and run with it! Good!
My responses follow (a bit rough, so hold on):
This is an example, roughly articulated, of solidarity thought where indigenous folks, as a group, get thrown right out of the window when settler/"white" politics is viewed as being in some way "More Equal"...
I read through Andy Smith's sharing in a topical way, i'll admit, yet i think i have something to offer.
i think it is crucial to note one thing that most or a lot of indigenous challengers have apparently missed when seeking to challenge "white society"/settlers, and that is to think through the meta realities of said society, rather than attack the symptoms. Of course, there is good reason to attack the symptoms, such as in order to gain the attention of said settlers who do not see what they do. On the other hand, to challenge only in this way as a rigid way not allowing grey areas, and basically replicating the mind-set of settler alienation, well, that is obviously problematic.
Because then indigenous folks can get stuck in the perpetual war that settler society is stuck in; i.e. never seeing the bigger picture, never thinking things through, never using one's own intuitive intelligence and creativity to solve challenges via the amazing excelling styles of our being human beings!
The crucial thing that ought to be systematically challenged, instead, in my feeling, is the reality of a *chain of command* mentality throughout settler society. Then, to systematically challenge the ways that formalized (as different from informal, intuitive, and free) ways of thinking, relating, and believing fool and tool we settlers.
So the germ of truth Andy makes in discussing feminists has some truths --YET such leaves out the all-important CONTEXT to why and how!
((NOTE: sounds like Andy (like so many other native folks) lives in a rural part of the country where some truths about the most politically-known feminist community are "dragged through the coals" by "right wing" interests --such as The New American --whom don't tell you that they have, as part of their interests, the desire to put females back in a subordinate position to males; this being said, the "left wing" is hardly better, as taken as a whole it is deceitful to their real interests, such as of perpetuating domestic imperialism and formal settler hegemony over "conquered" peoples))
Like every other "rights"-oriented group in settler society (feminists being only one more amongst oodles of superficial challengers), the reality is that these groups are organized into something like military structures themselves; that's because they are groups which have usually been organized *into* structures which petition the occupation state for "A Seat At the Table" of security and freedom. This in itself is tell-tale for anyone outside of such positions. Thus, one is "free" to discuss the single issue --of feminism in this case-- but not free to go deeper than that, really.
How settlers dismiss
So, to take a little somewhat recent history (1980s) if a thing like the political import of showing solidarity with the Sandinista government of Daniel Ortega's Nicaragua shows up into the consciousness of New Age-type folks (via the media they read), solidarity with Miskito Indians will depend upon whether the feminists' trusted leadership deem it politically valuable or not, first and foremost. If, as happened, the Miskito people are deemed non-allies, then, suddenly, their voices are censored and empathy becomes unheard of. Why? Because the meta of every state-subordinated group is playing the game of not playing the game of politics/polytricks.
Of course, in this case, the Miskito thought it in their best interest to remain neutral, and in some cases openly retalitory where the Sandinistas were concerned --as they were painted with a broadbrush to be "Contras" working for the c.ia. Thus, they wouldn't play the meta game, and they were "out", to use a little parlance that Noam Chomsky uses from time to time (see his "Media Control" speech, published as a book now, for more examples, where he's talking about Iraq).
This example, of the Miskito and Sandinistas was actually a very real situation. And if you look at www.coloradoaim.org's site, they discuss this at length, and give the reader grey areas that were never tolerated in dominant feminist media. Not even Z Magazine discussed the Miskito situation thoroughly, to my knowledge. Everyone just joined in on what the orders were.
And now you can start to see why indigenous folks see right through the superficiality of feminist New Agers, or New Agers in general (those dominated by Leftist, or even Rightist ways of Telling), or euro-peons all.
Because we, as a people, are largely subordinated to chain-of-command ways of thinking and being. If our trusted leaders Tell us to think in some way, we largely go along with that. We largely do NOT challenge, nor do our "alternatives" provide adequate space and time to critically appraise topics; actually, we as a mass are seen as *incapable* of such things, for whatever reason!
So what indigenous people are getting at is that we as a general population just DON'T HAVE IT IN US to be true indigenous people! Regardless of our claims, our actions prove the truth. We still remain subordinate to the polytricks (politics) which control the thought and actions of our communities, generally. And so, in seeing this, you may now see why indigenous folks are saying that everything we touch that isn't really who we are, we pollute!
Exodus (a tribe.net poster), what do you think of this way of saying? i'm sure i could have said this much more succinctly; perhaps a better writer will take this and run with it! Good!
Further
one thing more to add as far as settler culture goes, it really is a top-down type of culture.
A few stalwarts rise to the "leadership" often after having their very authoritarian impulses heavily funded by government; in dominant feminist politics, some feminists, those called "radical feminists" like Andrea Dworkin and Cathrine MacKinnon, received crucial funding and crucial openings and support at a very curious time for very curious reasons, while other feminists, namely the truly liberatory feminists like Pat Califia and Camille Paglia (or how about Karen McElroy?), who DID NOT preach an authoritarian scenario of retaliation (and further division), were heavily marginalized and struck from what is called "normal" feminist consciousness today.
And then they dictate the culture, and the rest of the community of feminists, takes those orders and basically goes in the direction they're herded. Oh, sure, individuals mumble and sometimes openly dissent, but their non-politicized/"political naivite" (aka crucial critique) is outwardly frowned upon, and "managed". Therapy is even advised for those who "refuse" to be "progressive".
And since the politics that took over's (when the professional activists and organizers entered the movement and commandeered it) sole purpose is to assimilate, and thus reinforce the chain-of-command of the state, the values of that dominant society must be replicated. If feminists --like all assimilators (whom usually know not what they do, or believe such is *all* that is open to them, as they look upon the fate of the Black Panthers and AIM)-- don't remain "vigilant" about these values and subordination to them? Ah, then CHAOS is said to arise and the ideologues step up and tell their constituencies to STOP THE BASHERS AND ABUSERS BEFORE ITS TOO LATE!
Why do they systematically resort to such hype? Because, above all, they MUST keep their constituencies (that's what we're all reduced to, mass numbers, mass "weight") "on the proper track"; this is true if you read Edward Bernays or Walter Lippmann (and so on, social managers et al) and it's true as far as political vanguardists/leaderships are concerned. Again, Chomsky's "Media Control" speech touches on this in a pivotal way, and is worth reading.
So, yes, this is a roughshod attempt to expose the reality of polytricks/politics, and why indigenous people are *rightly* critical of such.
Unless, of course, they are themselves seeking to assimilate (there is a growing number of this in indigenous communities, thanks to milliions in b.i.a. influence strategies, and "conservative" aboriginals as well --whom likely have been just as fooled and tooled as "liberal" aboriginals)...
If this latter is the case (and there seems to be a growing pattern of this thought), then the unmentionable meta is even more sinister than before, and i personally am MOVED to say, hey, maybe it's TIME to put my safety on the line again and try to expose this further reality as well; and then be "offensive." Because if such a way of seeing gets entrenched (i.e. ideological/rigid ways of thinking used as trickery to blind righteous victims to a very narrow way of behaving and subordination to Given orders), such instilled dogmatic mind-set will continue to become even more polluting than it already is, and the challenge of autonomous thought and the original insights of indigenous great spirit? Even more lost by the wayside of ideologically-challenged beliefs!
Know what i'm sayinG?
Clearing the pollution out of Euro-peon arrogance!
Hey, i'm a non-indigenous european person and i've been having a discussion with an elder lady friend about the topic of exactly what indigenous folks were like compared with europeans, and whether there was always a shared mentality of severe alienation in both cultures, and here's what she said to me...(i'm looking for insights from others, including possible proofs or info leading us to seeing such)
My lady friend said:
>Please I don't mean to offend you.,
but the reality exists that long before europeans came to this
continent that war, starvation, incest, slavery and genocide was a
reality for the people. There has always been inhumanity in every
cultuer and indeed the natives were particularily ruthless and felt
justified by there culture.... that europeans were so capable of
overpowering thier foes had alot to do with the developement of steel
and manufacturing, but the mentality of consciousness is universal
and although the european culture was colonistic they did not/ do not
hold the strings of brutality and even within european cultures there
existed a great deal of enlightenment.... Also let us not forget the
stong hold and influence of the church which is probably much more
influencial than any european country ...
---
i replied:
Where do you get this information, S? How do you know these things for certain? How can a european know what happened long before europeans were here?
Oh, yes, you are partially indigenous; yet what does that really mean if you look only through the lens of the european way of seeing? (a way that has, by the way, systematically utilized fraud and sleight-of-hand to conceal its own history not only during conquest of the indigenous people here, but also on *every* topic after "legally" securing this land). Every topic you can think of, i bet that there is a long history of suppression of truths that simply are not allowed.
Some questions:
Where do you get the idea that the original natives practiced genocide against each other?
What does slavery really mean between varying cultures, and do severely alienated cultures like european cultures truly have similar ways of seeing these things? After all, indigenous folks never had *wage slavery* (they tended to look out for each other, realizing the value, i see and think); nor did they have all of these long lists of ways to keep some marginalized while others, via deceit, gained wealth!
Why is starvation spoken here? If a group, say the Irish, die of a "potato famine" is there a context that is deeper? How about when others, say indigenous folks began to starve? In what context, again? Perhaps because their food stores were destroyed by europeans always taking and hardly giving anything in return? And before europeans arrived? --Okay, some starved at times, just as the Irish, just as the peasants in a world dominated by feudalism.
Does incest mean the same thing in all cultures?
For instance, if there is no heavy-negative-feelings in a culture about sexuality or *bad touches* then would people have the same kind of a taboo feeling about it that a culture that *has* such heavy-feelings?
I mean, look at the European history of the state-backed church's way of aiding in the control over the masses via the prohibition and demonization of ALL sex acts except missionary-position procreation made by heteros married by the chruch! Now compare that to ways peoples free of such influence and orders might behave (of course, most of we colonized folks are so well poisoned, er, trained, that all we can imagine is what people in our society would be like as soon as the bars of the cage we live in are lifted--obviously, a berserk situation!). On the other hand, a society that has survived thousands of years and didn't have this "manifest destiny" need to conquer others and move roughshod over them at whim, would naturally have a very different approach.
So i'm wondering, are there grey area ways that make it possible to approach things which are taboo in one culture and yet not at all similarly viewed in another? (We can compare and contrast on several topics to give us light here, you know!)
So, no, i see very heavily-loaded value assumptions being thrown, blanketly, upon those labeled the "primitives" in general by you and so many others who don't seem to see what they do. i say, read some critique and demystification of anthropology (and any other usually politically-suberservient social "science") before you make your sweeping judgements (which have a curious way of making the conquering society sound so much "better", notably)! i know an author off-hand that could help you in that area...i'm trying to recall his name...um...oh yes, Theodore Roszak (spelling?) went into this in some detail in his book about the 1970s counterculture.
And i don't agree, either, on the "mentality of consciousness" as you seem to believe it was some universal. Look at indigenous medicine, look at how shamans were created and when, look at every facet of pre-colonized life and then tell me that they shared a "mentality of consciousness"! i don't see that at all!
But when the europeans arrived, a ton of shit began cropping up. Tribes were divided up and the old trick of "divide and conquer" was employed systematically (to this day); indigenous folks did not understand this. Nor did they understand the selling of lands. You read any account of old-way chiefs talking to europeans and you see that there is a QUALITIVE difference between the two cultures! Once indigenous folks were pushed into the insanity of european seeing and believing, all of these pollutions began cropping up, and peoples, seeking to remain in harmony, did what they could to get along; but systematically, they were fooled and tooled! Only now have they, as a whole people, begun to get a full understanding of we colonized peoples' mentality.
So the point i'm trying to make is that we can see, often too clearly, that indigenous society wasn't nearly as insane as european society! How?
By recalling that the waters were not polluted, the forests were not decimated, the wild animals were not decimated by hunting, nothing was wasted, and so on and so forth. Guns were not invented, not even the wheel. Alienation did not exist as we know it today, if at all; Mom nature (aka wakan tanka) was always there in everything they were and did. Animals, when killed, were prayed to (before and after death).
Even if i'm somewhat "romanticizing" the indigenous, pre-"civilized" way of life, you know you cannot help but to see the truth when comparing with european feudalistic society, right?!
The other info is interesting to me, thanks for sharing about the jewish guy who saw in his captors their lostness; do you have a title in mind? i'd like to read about that one.
As for the stronghold of the church? Back when the church ran states, okay. Yet, after they became *subordinate* to states, all they did was its bidding. We can see examples of this in movies like "At Play In The Fields of the Lord", where missionaries are tolerated to change
the indigenous peoples, but if they don't, the military will kill and terrorize them. The church (and every state-subordinate religion!) is yet only one more example of the bigger picture of the meta Chess Game being played on all diverse humans who subordinate their individualities to such a dumbed-down way of being in the world.
Do you see what i'm saying?
My lady friend said:
>Please I don't mean to offend you.,
but the reality exists that long before europeans came to this
continent that war, starvation, incest, slavery and genocide was a
reality for the people. There has always been inhumanity in every
cultuer and indeed the natives were particularily ruthless and felt
justified by there culture.... that europeans were so capable of
overpowering thier foes had alot to do with the developement of steel
and manufacturing, but the mentality of consciousness is universal
and although the european culture was colonistic they did not/ do not
hold the strings of brutality and even within european cultures there
existed a great deal of enlightenment.... Also let us not forget the
stong hold and influence of the church which is probably much more
influencial than any european country ...
---
i replied:
Where do you get this information, S? How do you know these things for certain? How can a european know what happened long before europeans were here?
Oh, yes, you are partially indigenous; yet what does that really mean if you look only through the lens of the european way of seeing? (a way that has, by the way, systematically utilized fraud and sleight-of-hand to conceal its own history not only during conquest of the indigenous people here, but also on *every* topic after "legally" securing this land). Every topic you can think of, i bet that there is a long history of suppression of truths that simply are not allowed.
Some questions:
Where do you get the idea that the original natives practiced genocide against each other?
What does slavery really mean between varying cultures, and do severely alienated cultures like european cultures truly have similar ways of seeing these things? After all, indigenous folks never had *wage slavery* (they tended to look out for each other, realizing the value, i see and think); nor did they have all of these long lists of ways to keep some marginalized while others, via deceit, gained wealth!
Why is starvation spoken here? If a group, say the Irish, die of a "potato famine" is there a context that is deeper? How about when others, say indigenous folks began to starve? In what context, again? Perhaps because their food stores were destroyed by europeans always taking and hardly giving anything in return? And before europeans arrived? --Okay, some starved at times, just as the Irish, just as the peasants in a world dominated by feudalism.
Does incest mean the same thing in all cultures?
For instance, if there is no heavy-negative-feelings in a culture about sexuality or *bad touches* then would people have the same kind of a taboo feeling about it that a culture that *has* such heavy-feelings?
I mean, look at the European history of the state-backed church's way of aiding in the control over the masses via the prohibition and demonization of ALL sex acts except missionary-position procreation made by heteros married by the chruch! Now compare that to ways peoples free of such influence and orders might behave (of course, most of we colonized folks are so well poisoned, er, trained, that all we can imagine is what people in our society would be like as soon as the bars of the cage we live in are lifted--obviously, a berserk situation!). On the other hand, a society that has survived thousands of years and didn't have this "manifest destiny" need to conquer others and move roughshod over them at whim, would naturally have a very different approach.
So i'm wondering, are there grey area ways that make it possible to approach things which are taboo in one culture and yet not at all similarly viewed in another? (We can compare and contrast on several topics to give us light here, you know!)
So, no, i see very heavily-loaded value assumptions being thrown, blanketly, upon those labeled the "primitives" in general by you and so many others who don't seem to see what they do. i say, read some critique and demystification of anthropology (and any other usually politically-suberservient social "science") before you make your sweeping judgements (which have a curious way of making the conquering society sound so much "better", notably)! i know an author off-hand that could help you in that area...i'm trying to recall his name...um...oh yes, Theodore Roszak (spelling?) went into this in some detail in his book about the 1970s counterculture.
And i don't agree, either, on the "mentality of consciousness" as you seem to believe it was some universal. Look at indigenous medicine, look at how shamans were created and when, look at every facet of pre-colonized life and then tell me that they shared a "mentality of consciousness"! i don't see that at all!
But when the europeans arrived, a ton of shit began cropping up. Tribes were divided up and the old trick of "divide and conquer" was employed systematically (to this day); indigenous folks did not understand this. Nor did they understand the selling of lands. You read any account of old-way chiefs talking to europeans and you see that there is a QUALITIVE difference between the two cultures! Once indigenous folks were pushed into the insanity of european seeing and believing, all of these pollutions began cropping up, and peoples, seeking to remain in harmony, did what they could to get along; but systematically, they were fooled and tooled! Only now have they, as a whole people, begun to get a full understanding of we colonized peoples' mentality.
So the point i'm trying to make is that we can see, often too clearly, that indigenous society wasn't nearly as insane as european society! How?
By recalling that the waters were not polluted, the forests were not decimated, the wild animals were not decimated by hunting, nothing was wasted, and so on and so forth. Guns were not invented, not even the wheel. Alienation did not exist as we know it today, if at all; Mom nature (aka wakan tanka) was always there in everything they were and did. Animals, when killed, were prayed to (before and after death).
Even if i'm somewhat "romanticizing" the indigenous, pre-"civilized" way of life, you know you cannot help but to see the truth when comparing with european feudalistic society, right?!
The other info is interesting to me, thanks for sharing about the jewish guy who saw in his captors their lostness; do you have a title in mind? i'd like to read about that one.
As for the stronghold of the church? Back when the church ran states, okay. Yet, after they became *subordinate* to states, all they did was its bidding. We can see examples of this in movies like "At Play In The Fields of the Lord", where missionaries are tolerated to change
the indigenous peoples, but if they don't, the military will kill and terrorize them. The church (and every state-subordinate religion!) is yet only one more example of the bigger picture of the meta Chess Game being played on all diverse humans who subordinate their individualities to such a dumbed-down way of being in the world.
Do you see what i'm saying?
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Getting to the HEART of racism
This is a reply to a post made by "Topiltzin" on Wed Apr 4, 2007 where she/he quoted the below article. I have excerpted it from the original:
Combating White Racism Against Indigenous Peoples
By Thomas Ivan Dahlheimer
(...)
...If we're going to get to the roots of racism, we go beyond the point of colonization.
Before Cook sails to Hawaii, what brought him there? What brought Columbus to America? What sent the Spaniards to Central and South America? How did that happen?
Well it started back in the 1500s and it started in Rome. From edicts that were enunciated through the Papal Bulls. These were statements and pronouncements that came from the Vatican. And with these pronouncements, the world was divided up for European,
Christian colonizers.
What was actually happening at the time was that the monarchs of the Christian nations - the Brits, the French, the Italians, the Dutch - began to fight and war over land and natural resources. In seeking a way to resolve this bloodshed in Europe, they went to the Holy
Father.
This is at a period of time in Western history that predates the concept of secularization, there wasn't a division of the Church and the state and the Pope was the head of the world.
And so we had, for a period of a couple of hundred years, these Papal Bulls sought to prevent the fighting by dividing the world.
My favorite one is the Papal Bull of Pope Alexander the VI, it's called the Inter Caetera. When I read the translation of it, (it was written in Latin), it just stunned me. The Pope is saying here that he will sanctify the subjugation of the new world and its barbarous
nations.
So the blessing of the Pope was given, and the colonizer sailed out. It's important that we understand this to be the root of racism, because to this very day, the churches form a central part of the social system of the nation states that are Christian.
And so the Pope divided up the world. When you look at the colonies, especially in North, Central and South America, you can see this division to this very day.
{ends}
My reply:
An interesting take on things, except for one thing. You make it sound like the pope knew about "the new world" even before columbus sailed.
While I think it makes tons of sense what you're saying (statesmen always looking for ways to deflect the continuous building frustration of "the masses"), i see this view as yet another symptom, and not really "the root" or even near the heart of racism.
I mean, what moved columbus to go "off the end of the Earth" into the Unknown?
In my view (inviting additions), what it seems to boil down to is that all of these "explorers" were continuously seeking ways to continue getting their paychecks (in the context of their belief in their society), so that they could continue to escape the society they wished to escape, yet had no idea of how to do so in real terms.
Is that at all possible?
And no matter how "free spirited" their lost hearts might be, they were used, tooled, in a [i]meta[/i] way by the system in which they were products of. [b]Whether that system consciously understood the "fine tuning" of social control at the time (and honed it into a so-called "fine art" as today's social and cultural managers might well say) may be a moot point.[/b]
The fact is, as it seems to me anyway, that these "men of daring" --as a kind of radical within their formal positions, perhaps similar to university professors who play at radical ideas without being actually *from* (or having direct experience with) such intensities-- [b]were leashed.[/b] They were leashed and they were tooled to perpetuate the value system of the realm.
Others could probably articulate this better, but I'm the kind who tries to get the idea out into *some* kind of consciousness...even if i only have the idea "on the tip of my tongue" so to speak.
This is something i've been thinking about for awhile. The idea that all these adventuresome people had the balls to go into the Unknown, [b]but were consistently reined-in by their "betters" when it most counted.[/b] I think this is true of Lewis and Clark too, but i'm getting off the subject.
root and heart of racism
As to the root of racism, i have to agree with the crux of what the Lakota wisdom keeper, John Trudell says; that [b]racism has been a tool amongst quite a few other tools, to fool the implementer class [/b](those implementing Given policies, from nobles/middle classes "down" to peasants/working class) into believing that they were allowed "A Seat At The Table" of "Power" (really, tyranny, terrorism)...and thus get them to do the bidding of the kings/upper classes (who Play the Meta Game in dutiful ways).
Surely there are holes to poke in this theory, and that's why I want to post it here. What am I possibly missing?
To delve further, the HEART of racism, i see, is a NORMALized experience in the context of a severely alienation-oriented society. A society, a host of societies --perhaps civilization itself?-- organized for various forms of perpetual war. A society which uses its masses as [i]fuel[/i] to run the confined imaginations and constructs of a so-called "elite" machine (the machine characterized by the reduction of realities allowed to be viewed as Possible/Reputable/Valid).
In this scenario, the perpetually kept off-balance "citizenry" is kept as a kind of guard dog to the Social Order --while the "elites" (nobles to princes), in their youthful indoctrination stage are kept as a kind of handler. And I do mean *kept*; because the way the thing works is that even the "elites" are manuvered to *believe* in the Given Way Of Doing Things. And they are threatened if they don't follow along in this dogma as well! (i.e. haven't you heard of threats to kick rich kids out of their family wills, or to send them to military boarding schools, or even psychiatric facilities?)
Having said all of that, I hesitate to throw yet another coercion upon them, such as calling them "clinically psychotic"; i can see the value of arting such intensity, yet i question the value of reproducing the Given social order in any shape or form...even tho it may well be important as a phase in our contentions.
Combating White Racism Against Indigenous Peoples
By Thomas Ivan Dahlheimer
(...)
...If we're going to get to the roots of racism, we go beyond the point of colonization.
Before Cook sails to Hawaii, what brought him there? What brought Columbus to America? What sent the Spaniards to Central and South America? How did that happen?
Well it started back in the 1500s and it started in Rome. From edicts that were enunciated through the Papal Bulls. These were statements and pronouncements that came from the Vatican. And with these pronouncements, the world was divided up for European,
Christian colonizers.
What was actually happening at the time was that the monarchs of the Christian nations - the Brits, the French, the Italians, the Dutch - began to fight and war over land and natural resources. In seeking a way to resolve this bloodshed in Europe, they went to the Holy
Father.
This is at a period of time in Western history that predates the concept of secularization, there wasn't a division of the Church and the state and the Pope was the head of the world.
And so we had, for a period of a couple of hundred years, these Papal Bulls sought to prevent the fighting by dividing the world.
My favorite one is the Papal Bull of Pope Alexander the VI, it's called the Inter Caetera. When I read the translation of it, (it was written in Latin), it just stunned me. The Pope is saying here that he will sanctify the subjugation of the new world and its barbarous
nations.
So the blessing of the Pope was given, and the colonizer sailed out. It's important that we understand this to be the root of racism, because to this very day, the churches form a central part of the social system of the nation states that are Christian.
And so the Pope divided up the world. When you look at the colonies, especially in North, Central and South America, you can see this division to this very day.
{ends}
My reply:
An interesting take on things, except for one thing. You make it sound like the pope knew about "the new world" even before columbus sailed.
While I think it makes tons of sense what you're saying (statesmen always looking for ways to deflect the continuous building frustration of "the masses"), i see this view as yet another symptom, and not really "the root" or even near the heart of racism.
I mean, what moved columbus to go "off the end of the Earth" into the Unknown?
In my view (inviting additions), what it seems to boil down to is that all of these "explorers" were continuously seeking ways to continue getting their paychecks (in the context of their belief in their society), so that they could continue to escape the society they wished to escape, yet had no idea of how to do so in real terms.
Is that at all possible?
And no matter how "free spirited" their lost hearts might be, they were used, tooled, in a [i]meta[/i] way by the system in which they were products of. [b]Whether that system consciously understood the "fine tuning" of social control at the time (and honed it into a so-called "fine art" as today's social and cultural managers might well say) may be a moot point.[/b]
The fact is, as it seems to me anyway, that these "men of daring" --as a kind of radical within their formal positions, perhaps similar to university professors who play at radical ideas without being actually *from* (or having direct experience with) such intensities-- [b]were leashed.[/b] They were leashed and they were tooled to perpetuate the value system of the realm.
Others could probably articulate this better, but I'm the kind who tries to get the idea out into *some* kind of consciousness...even if i only have the idea "on the tip of my tongue" so to speak.
This is something i've been thinking about for awhile. The idea that all these adventuresome people had the balls to go into the Unknown, [b]but were consistently reined-in by their "betters" when it most counted.[/b] I think this is true of Lewis and Clark too, but i'm getting off the subject.
root and heart of racism
As to the root of racism, i have to agree with the crux of what the Lakota wisdom keeper, John Trudell says; that [b]racism has been a tool amongst quite a few other tools, to fool the implementer class [/b](those implementing Given policies, from nobles/middle classes "down" to peasants/working class) into believing that they were allowed "A Seat At The Table" of "Power" (really, tyranny, terrorism)...and thus get them to do the bidding of the kings/upper classes (who Play the Meta Game in dutiful ways).
Surely there are holes to poke in this theory, and that's why I want to post it here. What am I possibly missing?
To delve further, the HEART of racism, i see, is a NORMALized experience in the context of a severely alienation-oriented society. A society, a host of societies --perhaps civilization itself?-- organized for various forms of perpetual war. A society which uses its masses as [i]fuel[/i] to run the confined imaginations and constructs of a so-called "elite" machine (the machine characterized by the reduction of realities allowed to be viewed as Possible/Reputable/Valid).
In this scenario, the perpetually kept off-balance "citizenry" is kept as a kind of guard dog to the Social Order --while the "elites" (nobles to princes), in their youthful indoctrination stage are kept as a kind of handler. And I do mean *kept*; because the way the thing works is that even the "elites" are manuvered to *believe* in the Given Way Of Doing Things. And they are threatened if they don't follow along in this dogma as well! (i.e. haven't you heard of threats to kick rich kids out of their family wills, or to send them to military boarding schools, or even psychiatric facilities?)
Having said all of that, I hesitate to throw yet another coercion upon them, such as calling them "clinically psychotic"; i can see the value of arting such intensity, yet i question the value of reproducing the Given social order in any shape or form...even tho it may well be important as a phase in our contentions.
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Wasase says fight, phuncah-delcized says PHIGHT! (self-published widely in indymedia networks)
The Onkwehonwe author of ~Wasase: indigenous pathways of action and free-dom~ has kept a posting on hiz website calling to fight. What this may mean is explored in this sharing of a recent ish-you of a phuncadeliah zeen (with phight scenes)
To fight. To fight. What might fight mean to you? A whole array of intensity comes to mY mind.,,.
For Onkwehonwe and other indigenous folks who are being systematically challenged and pressured by military-types of war-style strategy, such could mean many things related to physicality. Or so says our general programming and encult-uration. ...And so says the continuing pressures that show us other human beings --who are still allowed the illusion of privileges-- the actual truth when it "really matters'.
Those of us not yet backed up against walls (in our heads or elsewhere), not yet having *reality* revealed to us, we feel in our hearts that there are ways to intervene, to interact with each other that bring out the hidden sistah and brothah; that loved human spirit we aren't usually able to truly deeply perceive, nor led to autonomously believe, or even wildly see ...that iz, as "reputable' and irrefutable,,,
So deep haz our general conditioning and socialization/domestication been!
So hyaar comz this 40 plus yr old white red/black/grey/cosmic mutt audio and bibliophile sayin there's wayz beyond perpetual Us v. Them, wayz we can still attend, ways we can still rend and defend
=--even on the offensive (or, in *cruciaL aRtz vernacular::"ophensive").
To *phight* from many angles, like this one, a "philiah" (psychiatric jargon for *love*) angle; jujitsu the professional (i.e. psychiatrick) labels and holier-than-thou chain-of-command, beyond the dark ages "fight' and into light ages phight. PHIGHT.
O' course, the stealth mental "health" planted in our heads says NO and *if you know what's good for you YOU'D BETTER conform! ,,,,,WELL IS IT NOT SO? Some narrative over-voice be TELLIN you you better move on to something *more serious*! Not somethin like THIS!
Thus, legions of folks/pholks are to be tooled by Same Old Again mind-set. Whole populations politricksterized in wayz they cannot, 'for the life of them" see and relate to. "All we can do" we're told over and over in classic repetitionist push is FIGHT as smashers, killers, crushers, blood spillers! You know what i'm sayiN
So how to relate, to bridge --as severe alienation continues? =--Only with guns and human stupidity???? =--Only in "Tried and True' truths??? Only in politricks (politics)??? Must ya'all FOREVER do as your told, even amongst your claimed alternative?
So follows a buncha art(e), along with an action i'm doin' NOW, wearin' a part; meant as a seedin', for y'all to taste as input!
an actual scene
earlier in the day, hair wildly tied-in with a real DEER ANTLER, and reddish-pink ribbon, carryin' neon green sign sayin' :::*TO POSSIBLY INSPIRE OUR HEARTS*:::and just as i exited my caveship, there he was, a soldier in blackn'white machine. Drove by, turned around, and i? i thot sure he'd stop me....but nope....musta read my sign!
:}
Then o'er to the drum circle o' strangers, listenin' then sit-dancin' then jumpin and chicken- & daffy duck-dancin and more; and phinish'n me art(e) zeen too. Then jumpin inta their bizness and speakin, reflectin a bit o tha intense-ities i've been feelin', then articulatin --==--"You folks must get a lotta weird folks here." And then it was a joke, you know? And they liked it, cuz here i waz, crazy but articulatin', and tellin' about us all bein' descendants of tribes!
WoW, a small, tiny step after too long not doin.
Wanted ta go inta this here University environ with all that. But ended up (right now!) jus' wearin some strange outfit that isn't THAT strange, except for the green neon askin passerby "HOW DEEP IS YOUR ART?"
Tiny, "nothing", "hardly radical" if you wanna believe, but a PROCESSIN' to me.
Especially in the context of *knowing too much* (opposite of "ignorance is bliss"), of fearing so much; needin' to get back inta the spiRit of thangz, revvin up for some possibility springz!
2nd scene
gOOd therapeufinicky with b'ful lovely dude (in 20s) and we hung out and experienced much magick! Ohmy! (see the zeen) Hiz HEART ticklin my worn out old one with not-yet-too-beaten-down. Such magickal thingz that were happenin!
Took a good easy time and then got o'er hyaar, and now postin...and wonderin'...hmmmm...maybe? Maybe i'm makin waves in spirit'd dir-ectionz?! To students on their last week b-4 testy sprintin? How to art them in wayz that they might take with em?
(i've been long experimentin')(back in '03 over 20-plus places and cities!)(and before that? oh,...heh...before that! back in '93 and '95 hoooooooooo0ooooooooooo; chances chances taken to roustabout anglez, hoooooboiii! but now phine-toonin')==see some here::
www.angelfire.com/folk/magixnartz/flouggindex.html
What if
EVERY thing we do iz processin' YET ALSO *arting ourselves too*?
What if
You could reach behind the PAIN to the HEART of the hidden SANE?
...Now, the terrroristic powers, they are tryin to block any arisin' yet b'twEEn all o' us on the streeeet? OooO, possibility is EVERyWHERE, up to our imagin ationz! Open your eyez and see, there is SO MUCH possibility ==to PHIGHT with our hearts in full gear, to see our daily interaction as phight, dear!
Is your depth deep enough? How to know?
How about your fear? So pick and steer your own style!
So sit back and look and see if any o' this aids in your outlook, adds to what you'r already doin' or even more!
((the pre-seed-ing and phollow-ing is called "surreal" by otherz; i's call such an angle on the confrontational nonviolent tactics of da cruciaL aRtz---not martial))
Hear more of the depth insights of the Onkwehonwe author: www.taiaiake.com Compare and contrast with what you know!
Moved? perhaps you "should" join open-ended seeding discussions at www.anti-politics.net and other favorite intanet spaces
links with full art peices (8):
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2007/05/358984.shtml'
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2007/05/198356.php
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Calling symptom of racism central to problems is superficial
Racism is a symptom. It is not the root, or even close to the heart --to the challenges oppressed humanity faces (in my view). Symptoms of a deeper problem don't mean they are not worthy of taking on indepth. Such just means that if we really want to understand the "bigger picture" situation and get to solving such, we're going to have to look deeper.
Decades, if not centuries, have been spent attacking racism (i.e. from slave revolts to abolitionists and up to now). Yet the root (or heart) of the matter of *authoritarian hyping against difference* --exploiting our fears in the same manner that racists do-- remains fully intact! And we see this proof every time national or local media come out: hyping the national or local prejudice and frustrated fears against others who are not allowed CONTEXT to their actions--across the board.
But those on the Left (and Right, etc.) wings of colonization don't point this out. Why is that? Because they're playing games too, in order to maintain the larger picture of colonization. They're utilizing hype to manipulate their target audiences towards actions that they believe "Are The Way To Go"--despite centuries, now, of continuing this with the same old superficiality still completely intact! And, each time this same old crap--fear and hatred of indigenous folks, Chinese, Irish, Italians, Germans, Blacks, women, etc. etc. etc.--has reared it's ugly head, various persons representing colonization have come in and said that "we will help you" if you "just follow us."
I got to responding to a Leftist thinker (named Chris D.) over on the infoshop.org site awhile ago who sounds pretty articulate and had the courage (?) or naivity (?) to bring his internalized (?) value system into anti-authoritarian territory. What follows is an excerpt which takes on his orientation to racism as central to "the revolution". We're talking about leaders and the necessity, in his mind, to categorically "respect" black reform-oriented "leaders" because of their experience and status as Black. Why cannot we respect people based on the actual *merit* of what they say?? (What a curious manipulation we're apparently getting stuck in with this thing called "respect"):
Chris: The abject failure of so many movements in U.S. history to overcome the obstacles of whiteness suggest that this is a question worthy of special attention.
oingO: We need to look *behind* this "failure" and see it for what it is: the routine method of elites courting "leaders" to "join with them"; cooptation. Alienated from their "followers" as leaders usually are, it's quite easy to "convince" them into a continuing heightening of cooptation.
What do you think Colin Powell (or Condoleeza Rice) is doing? They're "Black" but they learned, like every other minority (including whites) to *subordinate the depth of their own experience* to the allowances of the profession. Whites have to do this too. Whites have to *subordinate their individualities* and individual experience (and intuition) to the Given value system, or they don't move "up".
Like Noam Chomsky shows, persons have to *internalize* the Given *values*, period, or they don't move up in their careers (in the media or wherever).
And the New York Times, today, discusses this a bit on the topic of secretary of state (?) Rumsfeld just picking a new military chief in the psy ops community--viewed as a non-mainstream part of the "service". The generals are "seething", but they know they'd better find a way to fall in line, or they won't move up.
Whiteness helps, yes. But it ain't foolproof if they don't know how to, or don't want to play the game. Look at every "independent" that runs for president (for a quick reference); recall how the Green Party candidates are kept out of the debates, and how Ross Perot (the *billionaire*) had his character quite fully assasinated. The color of his skin may've gotten him as far as he did, but when *it truly counted*? Nope.
So it, by itself, is not the only thing to look at, and I see the Left wing of colonization simplifying this as a way to apparently *deflect* the reality that the depth of the problem is much broader than simply 'race'. Racism is a symptom, and so is sexism, and class, and hatred of "radicals" and so-called "traitors" (like Philip Agee), and so on.
The onus of the problem, I think is either something along the lines of *strategy* where there is *NO* racial solidarity amongst whites except as a tool.
There is no real solidarity amongst peoples who are well-colonized and subordinated to the whims of the social engineers.
The origins of this? Fear is the one I've come up with. Alienation leading to FEAR, and for a society that has been at constant war for the last thousand or so years (in so-called "peacetime" or not) that FEAR has become institutionalized.
To overcome this FEAR, we're not going to do it by only continuing our trenches and racial lines. That is one way, but at the same time we're going to have to follow our intuitions to reach out and build bridges of understanding.
Charles H. King, an Atlanta, GA Black lawyer (author of _Fire In My Bones_) used to hold discussions on something that made a lot of sense to me. He had a way of doing things where he'd point out and we'd realize how MOST OF US are afraid of peoples who are different from us, and that we act in racist ways all the time, or at least when our loved ones are concerned.
I attended one of his forums back in the 1980s, which was being attended by mid-level management types and persons who a local Black newspaper thought ought to attend (I got a "scholarship" to go, myself). Here's the story he gave, and I thought it was quite reasonable to see what he was saying:
"You're with your loved ones in a car in a winter blizzard in unfamiliar territory and your car breaks down. You leave to go find help at some homes you saw a ways back. You come to two homes equidistant away and one, you see, has a black family and the other has a white family. Which one do you go to first?"
Generally, you can see his point, depending on your race. If you're white and you happened to grow up surrounded by blacks, you'd mess with that generalization, but you can see what i'm getting at. And it's true if we replace it with ladies or gays or whichever group we can think of.
The point he made was NOT to demonize people for holding ignorant fears and beliefs, because you want to keep a bridge with people, and try to evolve their thinking. So, not to villify being racist (aka being imperfect), but to take responsibility for our fears and ignorance, and act constructively in the future.
But see the colonizer mentality (Left, Right, and often beyond) doesn't allow us to have any grey area approach whatsoever. Their rigid belief/ideology is playing a game, a meta game; a game of hype, of reinforcing our divisions, while calling for cosmetic sleight of hand. And so our imperfections are *reduced down* to expediency and what passes for political "pragmatism".
Curious ideas, eh?
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