ah a few tech problems today, I see.
One stumbled upon as far as why there were hardly any posts here...Call it my "newbie-ness" in not catching that...I assumed that *all* posters could do so anonymously on blogspot.com...
Feel free to comment and engage me in any dialogue you see fit to engage in!
Also am noting problems when i try to put spaces in the "title" area of posting to this blog.
Finally, I noted that the number of alleged visits to this site appears in error... Oh well, can I do anything about it having not the funds to have more control over that? I don't think so!
Will keep going from time to time, and may measure the value of such by how many (or few) the comments.
cheerz!
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
another response to the BBC blog, re: "morality" (see first below)
The BBC asks:
do you believe in the notion of ‘moral authority’? Are some people or countries morally superior to others?
Are there some countries or people who do behave in a way that give them an ‘authority’ to pass comment on the actions of others? Or do we all have our hands dirty, and to take a stance about someone’s conduct is to embrace hypocrisy?
My given response:
"if the standards of the Nuremberg trials were applied [to the u.s.a.], then every post World War II American president would have been hanged as a war criminal."--Noam Chomsky (http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/rage/ ...see question #5)
I don't want to say that the u.s.a. is the "only" immoral state in the world, but in its current position as "global enforcer state" for those whom have used deceit and lies to now "own" the entire world (i.e. through financial hegemony), the country I find myself in is quite the apostle of severe alienation, incorporated. Including the origins of the u.s.a.
But I think every state is an "immoral" organization, no matter how allegedly democratic. Every state forced, in one way or another, to subordinate to nato and the wto, and so on and so forth. The very idea of entrenchable hierarchy vying for positions of *power over* others! The very idea of *forcing* people to "the will" of the majority or any portion there-of; the very idea of formalized dualities, where people's humanity gets squashed under the weight of a very alienated idea of "the common good". And the very idea of war as we have been manipulated to believe is any sort of "solution."
States and all the coercions that come with them (i.e. propaganda as considered by Jacques Ellul) are obsolete if we wish to be frank about "morality." It all comes back to *severe alienation* and the perpetuation of that.
To evolve beyond the same old again would mean to re-learn the values of living in harmony not only with Mom Earth, but also each of our own powers which scream within us to speak our truths. For me, this would mean exploring "radical" strategies that allow our hearts to speak our depths.
Others have said that "morality" changes with time and place; but i say that all depends on how the hierarchy (or state) of each era plays its perpetual alienation games. The bottom line goes beyond each era's propaganda, and settles upon informal humanity's intuitive longing to speak truths unallowed by whichever hierarchy. For me, this brings us towards societies *wanting* input from its dissenters, say, in the form of the *vision quest* (as articulated by indigenous people the world over) and similar openings.
-----(end of letter to bbc's blog)------
NOTE: To keep to the "radical" underpinnings of this site, i'd like to also include the ideas of post-left anarchist ways of seeing "morality". Excerpts:
"Compulsory morality involves self-subjugation to a system or set of values that are, for one reason or another, believed to require mandatory compliance-even if the person believing this is unable to-as the cliché goes-"live up to them." Although compulsory morality can potentially be grounded within an individual's subjective experience, it is almost always instead grounded somewhere outside the realm of directly lived human experience."
(...)
"Science is one example of a source of many forms of modern, enlightened compulsory morality. I have capitalized it above to indicate that it is not the actual practice of experimental exploration of nature in pursuit of knowledge (science) of which I'm speaking, but an ideological construct (Science) of particular fetishized scientific ideas taken out of their finite, experimental contexts and elevated into general, quasi-religious principles....The formal structure of the various scientific moralities is, once again, the same as that for religious morality: sacred values from an unseen source to be followed by a relatively worthless human being whatever the context. Like religious morality, scientific versions of morality attempt to limit and determine what is supposed to be humanly desirable and possible, narrowing the choices that can be made by true believers."
See his article:
Demoralizing Moralism: The Futility of Fetishized Values
http://www.insurgentdesire.org.uk/moralism.htm
do you believe in the notion of ‘moral authority’? Are some people or countries morally superior to others?
Are there some countries or people who do behave in a way that give them an ‘authority’ to pass comment on the actions of others? Or do we all have our hands dirty, and to take a stance about someone’s conduct is to embrace hypocrisy?
My given response:
"if the standards of the Nuremberg trials were applied [to the u.s.a.], then every post World War II American president would have been hanged as a war criminal."--Noam Chomsky (http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/rage/ ...see question #5)
I don't want to say that the u.s.a. is the "only" immoral state in the world, but in its current position as "global enforcer state" for those whom have used deceit and lies to now "own" the entire world (i.e. through financial hegemony), the country I find myself in is quite the apostle of severe alienation, incorporated. Including the origins of the u.s.a.
But I think every state is an "immoral" organization, no matter how allegedly democratic. Every state forced, in one way or another, to subordinate to nato and the wto, and so on and so forth. The very idea of entrenchable hierarchy vying for positions of *power over* others! The very idea of *forcing* people to "the will" of the majority or any portion there-of; the very idea of formalized dualities, where people's humanity gets squashed under the weight of a very alienated idea of "the common good". And the very idea of war as we have been manipulated to believe is any sort of "solution."
States and all the coercions that come with them (i.e. propaganda as considered by Jacques Ellul) are obsolete if we wish to be frank about "morality." It all comes back to *severe alienation* and the perpetuation of that.
To evolve beyond the same old again would mean to re-learn the values of living in harmony not only with Mom Earth, but also each of our own powers which scream within us to speak our truths. For me, this would mean exploring "radical" strategies that allow our hearts to speak our depths.
Others have said that "morality" changes with time and place; but i say that all depends on how the hierarchy (or state) of each era plays its perpetual alienation games. The bottom line goes beyond each era's propaganda, and settles upon informal humanity's intuitive longing to speak truths unallowed by whichever hierarchy. For me, this brings us towards societies *wanting* input from its dissenters, say, in the form of the *vision quest* (as articulated by indigenous people the world over) and similar openings.
-----(end of letter to bbc's blog)------
NOTE: To keep to the "radical" underpinnings of this site, i'd like to also include the ideas of post-left anarchist ways of seeing "morality". Excerpts:
"Compulsory morality involves self-subjugation to a system or set of values that are, for one reason or another, believed to require mandatory compliance-even if the person believing this is unable to-as the cliché goes-"live up to them." Although compulsory morality can potentially be grounded within an individual's subjective experience, it is almost always instead grounded somewhere outside the realm of directly lived human experience."
(...)
"Science is one example of a source of many forms of modern, enlightened compulsory morality. I have capitalized it above to indicate that it is not the actual practice of experimental exploration of nature in pursuit of knowledge (science) of which I'm speaking, but an ideological construct (Science) of particular fetishized scientific ideas taken out of their finite, experimental contexts and elevated into general, quasi-religious principles....The formal structure of the various scientific moralities is, once again, the same as that for religious morality: sacred values from an unseen source to be followed by a relatively worthless human being whatever the context. Like religious morality, scientific versions of morality attempt to limit and determine what is supposed to be humanly desirable and possible, narrowing the choices that can be made by true believers."
See his article:
Demoralizing Moralism: The Futility of Fetishized Values
http://www.insurgentdesire.org.uk/moralism.htm
of late: BBC blog response and a bus wizardesse
In reply to the bbc.co.uk's blog, http://worldhaveyoursay.wordpress.com/2008/03/21/would-you-like-to-know-what-i-think-about-iraq/ where they ask: "...He says it’s time for journalists to come clean about their views. Would it be more honest and more impartial if we told you what we think?"
My response (being moderated); (did it show up?):
The more honesty in the chain-of-command called journalism, the better. Imperfect, but at least we are less misled. Traditionally, all in “lower” chains of command (i.e. here, journalists), have had to subordinate their humanity to the hierarchical norms sent down from “on high” (i.e. here, editors and owners). If they didn’t, they were “weeded out”. Today, the game of journalism begins on the foundation where journalists have to have the right “internalized values”, and if they don’t, they find themselves on paths similar to Gary Webb and many others forced to fend for themselves when it truly matters. Thus, all you nice journalists are “left, center, and right” within the stupidity of colonization as usual, where ideas and truths beyond the limits of so-called “freedom” aren’t even considered as “reputable” and so on and so forth; and since they don’t “fit” within the prescribed “right, centre, left” scenario, then they’re out.
By the way, this idea that “we” readers and such “set the agenda”–what a farce! You take topics that *agenda setters* set and then tell the public that *they* somehow set the agenda! What lies!
The BBC is “nice” to the liberal game players of colonization (not that being “nice” to the centre and right would be any different) and remains steps ahead of such naive simpletons, appearing to be “objective” while confining the limits of human responsibility by playing as though promoting contexts to “news” is not your “job”! Who gets to define these foundations upon which you build your so-called objectivity?? Not any democratic form, that’s for sure!
In other news,
had an interesting time on the bus through a dangerous side of town at a dangerous time of night lastnight. A woman got on and appeared to be in the throes of some drug. Most people did what's "normal" in urban places, ignored. Except there was another woman with a baby nearby.
My response was intuitive and tainted with "radical" creativity. i moved closer in once the man she had come in with had been raved at to get "the fuck" out. Intuitively i found myself looking into this lady's eyes as much as possible and as directly as possible. She reminded me of a raucous male friend of mine, anyway; a smaller version, but potentially just as cantankerous. With her one hand having long fingernails and her black leather coat and all her cussing. She was obviously having a rough time of life, like so many of the rest of us.
When I'd first sat down near her, i'd said to her that she was a wizard. She sat, silently, and we spoke much with our eyes. Her eyes could look into mine to verify that i wasn't messing with her. She then covered the more feminine aspects of her clothing (some pink shoes i had noticed), and i psychicly braced myself.
She challenged me, finally. "What are you looking at?"
"Your powerfulness," I said.
She said, "what?"
I repeated.
Pretty wild, eh? What was i getting myself into?
Well, i went further, calling her a wizard "or whatever other word you would use", and she feigned energy towards me as tho i was irrational; she succeeded in making eye contact with another rider, who smiled away, but said nothing (verbally anyway); i *let her* try to put me down at "my expense" (avoiding getting caught up in the "normalized" idea of competitive social appearance), accepting, aloud, that i must be talking to myself; i got on her level...wearing my weird art clothing and all... Nearing my exit, i somehow mentioned she must know of the Rainbow people, such was her vibe. And then we parted saying "peace" to each other.
What might have happened hadn't i been there? Likely she would have been met by the police or psych squad (public buses get so many of such folks, they *must* have such kinds of response things, right??); but somehow, a little "radical" interaction in the crucial arts made a difference...
What i was trying to instill:
The idea that we are all powerful. That we are "wizards"; that we have powers and how do we want to see ourselves, most? What do we want to do with our powers, when we begin to see them? Do we want to perpetually flail? i don't think so!
My response (being moderated); (did it show up?):
The more honesty in the chain-of-command called journalism, the better. Imperfect, but at least we are less misled. Traditionally, all in “lower” chains of command (i.e. here, journalists), have had to subordinate their humanity to the hierarchical norms sent down from “on high” (i.e. here, editors and owners). If they didn’t, they were “weeded out”. Today, the game of journalism begins on the foundation where journalists have to have the right “internalized values”, and if they don’t, they find themselves on paths similar to Gary Webb and many others forced to fend for themselves when it truly matters. Thus, all you nice journalists are “left, center, and right” within the stupidity of colonization as usual, where ideas and truths beyond the limits of so-called “freedom” aren’t even considered as “reputable” and so on and so forth; and since they don’t “fit” within the prescribed “right, centre, left” scenario, then they’re out.
By the way, this idea that “we” readers and such “set the agenda”–what a farce! You take topics that *agenda setters* set and then tell the public that *they* somehow set the agenda! What lies!
The BBC is “nice” to the liberal game players of colonization (not that being “nice” to the centre and right would be any different) and remains steps ahead of such naive simpletons, appearing to be “objective” while confining the limits of human responsibility by playing as though promoting contexts to “news” is not your “job”! Who gets to define these foundations upon which you build your so-called objectivity?? Not any democratic form, that’s for sure!
In other news,
had an interesting time on the bus through a dangerous side of town at a dangerous time of night lastnight. A woman got on and appeared to be in the throes of some drug. Most people did what's "normal" in urban places, ignored. Except there was another woman with a baby nearby.
My response was intuitive and tainted with "radical" creativity. i moved closer in once the man she had come in with had been raved at to get "the fuck" out. Intuitively i found myself looking into this lady's eyes as much as possible and as directly as possible. She reminded me of a raucous male friend of mine, anyway; a smaller version, but potentially just as cantankerous. With her one hand having long fingernails and her black leather coat and all her cussing. She was obviously having a rough time of life, like so many of the rest of us.
When I'd first sat down near her, i'd said to her that she was a wizard. She sat, silently, and we spoke much with our eyes. Her eyes could look into mine to verify that i wasn't messing with her. She then covered the more feminine aspects of her clothing (some pink shoes i had noticed), and i psychicly braced myself.
She challenged me, finally. "What are you looking at?"
"Your powerfulness," I said.
She said, "what?"
I repeated.
Pretty wild, eh? What was i getting myself into?
Well, i went further, calling her a wizard "or whatever other word you would use", and she feigned energy towards me as tho i was irrational; she succeeded in making eye contact with another rider, who smiled away, but said nothing (verbally anyway); i *let her* try to put me down at "my expense" (avoiding getting caught up in the "normalized" idea of competitive social appearance), accepting, aloud, that i must be talking to myself; i got on her level...wearing my weird art clothing and all... Nearing my exit, i somehow mentioned she must know of the Rainbow people, such was her vibe. And then we parted saying "peace" to each other.
What might have happened hadn't i been there? Likely she would have been met by the police or psych squad (public buses get so many of such folks, they *must* have such kinds of response things, right??); but somehow, a little "radical" interaction in the crucial arts made a difference...
What i was trying to instill:
The idea that we are all powerful. That we are "wizards"; that we have powers and how do we want to see ourselves, most? What do we want to do with our powers, when we begin to see them? Do we want to perpetually flail? i don't think so!
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Escaping The Matrix (book excerpts)
Escaping the Matrix — How we the people can change the world
by Richard Moore. Published by The Cyberjournal Project, Redwood City, California
http://escapingthematrix.org/
Found out about this in an old issue of "Communities Magazine" (winter '06) by Molly Morgan. The part I shared with the author about how much I liked it is:
"...it is crucial to ...find our common identity, and come together as humans, moving beyond the ideological structures that have been created to divide us from one another. The current political systems were not designed..."
Basically, the author, Richard Moore seems to be articulating what indigenous folks worldwide have been trying to get out to the *strategically challenged* followers of colonialism (old and new) since the beginnings of their tresspasses, i.e. moving beyond dualistic forms of seeing each other.
Here's one excerpt from http://escapingthematrix.org/red_pill.html :
Our Harmonization Imperative
Our societies and political systems are characterized by competition and struggle among cultural factions and political parties. When we try to change this system by forming adversarial political movements we are playing into this game – a game rigged so that elites always win. If we really want to change the system, we need to learn how to come together as humans, moving beyond the ideological structures that have been created to divide us from one another. We are all in this together, and a better world for one is a better world for all. It’s not about winning, nor really even about agreement: it’s about working together in pursuit of our common interests.
To conclude, the "Table of Contents" section says a lot as well!:
Foreword
The Matrix
Are you ready for the red pill?
Imperialism and the Matrix
World War II and Pax Americana
Popular rebellion and the decline of the postwar blueprint
London banking elites and the strategy of oil-based dominance
World War I and the House of Morgan
The Anglo-American alliance
Abandoning Bretton Woods: the petrodollar scam
The neoliberal project
9/11 and the New American Century
The management of discontented societies
The UN and the new-millennium blueprint
Capitalism and the Matrix
Civilization in crisis
Elite responses to the crisis
A brief history of humanity
Natural evolution: competition within a cooperative web
The nature of primordial societies
Cultural evolution: stability within adaptability
Origins of civilization: inside and outside the Garden
The co-evolution of conditioning and hierarchy
We The People and the Transformational Imperative
We the People and cultural transformation
Lessons from our long experience of struggle
Our Transformational Imperative
Our Harmonization Imperative
Adversarial systems and representative democracy
Representative democracy and elite hegemony
Divide and rule: the role of factionalism
Our Harmonization Imperative
The dynamics of harmonization
Meeting dynamics: collaborative & adversarial
A gap in our cultural repertoire
Two promising meetings
The Michigan conference
Maclean’s “empowered dialog”
The Rogue Valley Wisdom Council
The role of a facilitator
The dynamics of harmonization
Collective wisdom: an ancient heritage
We the People
Envisioning a transformational movement
In search of a path to social transformation
Harmonization and cultural transformation
Cultural transformation at the level of community
Community empowerment as a transformational movement
What are the prospects for such a movement?
Political transformation and regime intervention
Social transformation
Transformation: the means are the ends
Envisioning a liberated global society
The basic paradigm: harmonization and community sovereignty
Regional affairs
A model for global self-governance
The management of the commons
The maintenance of peace
Democracy and property rights
Constitutions
The transition process
The moment of convergence
Common-sense economics and the management of the commons
Repossessing the commons
The global conversion project
Reflections on humanity’s future
Cultural evolution in a democracy
Education outside the Matrix
Democracy and personal liberation
Afterword
With knowledge comes responsibility
References
Bibliography and online resources
(...)
Media and propaganda
Online news and information
The current regime and how it got that way
Toward a sensible society
Dialog and community empowerment
What books have been pivotal to you? Please share below in the comments section
Books from off the top of my head include:
Wasase by Taiaiake Alfred
Stickman by Paola Igliori
The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto (http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/)
by Richard Moore. Published by The Cyberjournal Project, Redwood City, California
http://escapingthematrix.org/
Found out about this in an old issue of "Communities Magazine" (winter '06) by Molly Morgan. The part I shared with the author about how much I liked it is:
"...it is crucial to ...find our common identity, and come together as humans, moving beyond the ideological structures that have been created to divide us from one another. The current political systems were not designed..."
Basically, the author, Richard Moore seems to be articulating what indigenous folks worldwide have been trying to get out to the *strategically challenged* followers of colonialism (old and new) since the beginnings of their tresspasses, i.e. moving beyond dualistic forms of seeing each other.
Here's one excerpt from http://escapingthematrix.org/red_pill.html :
Our Harmonization Imperative
Our societies and political systems are characterized by competition and struggle among cultural factions and political parties. When we try to change this system by forming adversarial political movements we are playing into this game – a game rigged so that elites always win. If we really want to change the system, we need to learn how to come together as humans, moving beyond the ideological structures that have been created to divide us from one another. We are all in this together, and a better world for one is a better world for all. It’s not about winning, nor really even about agreement: it’s about working together in pursuit of our common interests.
To conclude, the "Table of Contents" section says a lot as well!:
Foreword
The Matrix
Are you ready for the red pill?
Imperialism and the Matrix
World War II and Pax Americana
Popular rebellion and the decline of the postwar blueprint
London banking elites and the strategy of oil-based dominance
World War I and the House of Morgan
The Anglo-American alliance
Abandoning Bretton Woods: the petrodollar scam
The neoliberal project
9/11 and the New American Century
The management of discontented societies
The UN and the new-millennium blueprint
Capitalism and the Matrix
Civilization in crisis
Elite responses to the crisis
A brief history of humanity
Natural evolution: competition within a cooperative web
The nature of primordial societies
Cultural evolution: stability within adaptability
Origins of civilization: inside and outside the Garden
The co-evolution of conditioning and hierarchy
We The People and the Transformational Imperative
We the People and cultural transformation
Lessons from our long experience of struggle
Our Transformational Imperative
Our Harmonization Imperative
Adversarial systems and representative democracy
Representative democracy and elite hegemony
Divide and rule: the role of factionalism
Our Harmonization Imperative
The dynamics of harmonization
Meeting dynamics: collaborative & adversarial
A gap in our cultural repertoire
Two promising meetings
The Michigan conference
Maclean’s “empowered dialog”
The Rogue Valley Wisdom Council
The role of a facilitator
The dynamics of harmonization
Collective wisdom: an ancient heritage
We the People
Envisioning a transformational movement
In search of a path to social transformation
Harmonization and cultural transformation
Cultural transformation at the level of community
Community empowerment as a transformational movement
What are the prospects for such a movement?
Political transformation and regime intervention
Social transformation
Transformation: the means are the ends
Envisioning a liberated global society
The basic paradigm: harmonization and community sovereignty
Regional affairs
A model for global self-governance
The management of the commons
The maintenance of peace
Democracy and property rights
Constitutions
The transition process
The moment of convergence
Common-sense economics and the management of the commons
Repossessing the commons
The global conversion project
Reflections on humanity’s future
Cultural evolution in a democracy
Education outside the Matrix
Democracy and personal liberation
Afterword
With knowledge comes responsibility
References
Bibliography and online resources
(...)
Media and propaganda
Online news and information
The current regime and how it got that way
Toward a sensible society
Dialog and community empowerment
What books have been pivotal to you? Please share below in the comments section
Books from off the top of my head include:
Wasase by Taiaiake Alfred
Stickman by Paola Igliori
The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto (http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/)
Friday, November 30, 2007
Engineering opinion department: The Artist's Way
=============
'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
'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
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
