tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-96506142022-06-27T02:53:28.347-07:00Modern MythologyExploring the narratives we live by.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04721839742206290258noreply@blogger.comBlogger1032125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9650614.post-89439735811912068052016-08-02T00:16:00.001-07:002016-08-02T00:16:07.717-07:00Tales From When I Had A Face: Intro<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://medium.com/modern-mythology/tales-from-when-i-had-a-face-1-the-summer-tree-sample-be4d786794d4#.kt1tuhva3" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KTnLUIN7xR0/V6BIP32oReI/AAAAAAAA_U0/DOmBiPJ2XEsjqIHR_QshPjgywTVKnHbnQCLcB/s400/brand1-light.gif" width="381" /></a></div><br />Here’s your chance to read the intro to the illustrated novel we’ve been working on for 3 years. I predict we’ll be read to publish – if we find the right publishing partner – in 2018. We’re working very hard at this to build a rich fantasy world that feels like it comes from original folklore, that ties into dreams and visions glimpsed in the first Fallen Cycle book. <br /><br />In the meantime… <a href="https://medium.com/modern-mythology/tales-from-when-i-had-a-face-1-the-summer-tree-sample-be4d786794d4#.kt1tuhva3" target="_blank"><b>check this out</b></a>. And let us know what you think!<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none 0px;" /></div><blockquote style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; border-left-color: rgb(231, 231, 231); border-left-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 2px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin: 15px 0px 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 18px; quotes: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fallencycle.com%2F&t=ODkwZDBlNDlhZTAyZTVhZDA2ZjdmZjQ0ZTBmNWE3N2U4NWY0MzcwNyxzRVl0dEtsOA%3D%3D" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(68, 68, 68, 0) 50%, rgba(68, 68, 68, 0.247059) 0px); background-position: 0px 1.15em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 1em 2px; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0.15em; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Fallen Cycle</a>:</span> <i style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A battle between the light of remembrance and dark of forgetting, the burden of tradition, and the cost of progress. A war waged with stories and magic as well as guns and swords. </i></div></blockquote><center><h3>All It Takes Is The Right Story. <a href="http://www.mythosmedia.net/" target="_blank">Mythos Media</a></h3></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Modern Mythology - http://www.modernmythology.net</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04721839742206290258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9650614.post-49904445412221051072016-05-13T13:59:00.000-07:002018-12-15T06:37:55.491-08:00SITE MOVED<h2><a href="http://www.modernmythology.net/" target="_blank">GO HERE FOR MODERN MYTHOLOGY</a></h2><br />We've successfully transferred our domain to the new ad free Modern Mythology. This was done for several reasons, the main one being that Google really hasn't put much effort into doing any real development on blogger since around 2009. Consequently, at best, all blogger sites look... like 2009.<br /><br />I will be personally going through the archives and picking a small selection -- 50 or so -- articles that I think are the best that we've run out of the 1200 articles on the old MM. And from there, we hope to find new contributors and get rolling again. Want to contribute? Get a <a href="http://www.medium.com/" target="_blank">Medium</a> account if you don't already have one, and then get in touch on social media.<br /><br />We will continue to run sponsored content here to support this project.<br /><br /><center></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Modern Mythology - http://www.modernmythology.net</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04721839742206290258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9650614.post-81930342980146022482016-01-29T11:28:00.002-08:002016-01-29T11:36:12.542-08:00I Am A Disinformation Agent<b>A cautionary tale, by <a href="https://bradleythebuyer.bandcamp.com/" target="_blank">Rusty Shackleford</a>.</b><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">"May you live in interesting times." -Ancient Chinese Curse.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/404-Documents-James-Curcio/dp/0615592058" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4z5oMAdAMNI/TjnBNHFCTpI/AAAAAAAAA3w/ZeXcnKo4HoE/s320/ambian-rozarum-bunny.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>My editor has asked me to write a piece for Modern Mythology this evening. That is fine, but making this fit into the format of the site is his dirty job. I should mention that I think JC is a professional social deviant with a <a href="http://youtu.be/zyF894j32xk">sadistic sense of humor</a>, he is SCUM, a complete freak of a man, and this is why I like him so much.<br /><br />Classic example: it was only <i>after</i> I informed him that I have been smoking black tar opium all day long and eating Kratom, popping Rozarem to help "bring me down" (?!!) that he insisted I run a piece. Insisted.<br /><br />“And it has to be this evening,” he said. “Don’t worry. You won’t remember it tomorrow.”<br /><br />I think this is his idea of a joke.<br /><br />I have known him for nearly a decade now and he just told me this evening that "You've become the Diety representing intoxication in my personal pantheon. You should feel proud."<br /><br />I do. Either proud, or very, <i>very </i>scared.<br /><br />So I am going to fill you in on an important conversation I had at the apex of the evening tonight. At some point before reaching the end I <i>may</i> nod out from a pill that makes me think it is a good idea to go for a midnight drive in a stolen car at 3:30 AM to a soundtrack of obscure 70s kraut rock. For all I know, this is my last message to you. If so, I hope that you are deeply moved.<br />(There may be <a href="http://dependency.net/">a number of free resource articles</a> online that could shed light on some of those substances, but they are probably nowhere near enough to paint a pretty solid picture of the damage they can actually do.)<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-style: italic;">(</span><b>Note:</b><span style="font-style: italic;"> Yeah, I thought it was a joke at first too, but it is now 4:52 AM and it turns out that was a self-fulfilling prophecy. I did in fact go on a joyride at 3:30 AM this morning, ostensibly to get laid, and promptly forgot where I was. Couldn't find the house I had been to a million times that was about 5 minutes away- Thanks, Rozarem. I drove around on an adventure I will never remember for an hour trying to find the house. Sexually frustrated, mortified and humiliated, I resolved to call it a loss and drove to an undisclosed fast food restaurant open at 4:30 AM to pick up a breakfast burrito because I am a </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wkb7reXgus">consumer whore</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-style: italic;"> I don't remember much of this, other than driving through the exit eating the burrito spilling hot sauce all over my khakis which at the moment look like I just menstruated all over them.)</span></span><br /><br />Meanwhile, I'm hashing out the details of this "piece" with <a href="http://www.gonzomentary.com/">JC</a>. Talking about the "conceptual continuity" of this piece right now is a bit like doing push hand martial arts with an alligator... An alligator with 30 hands made out of black tar heroin.<br /><br />So I'll just cut to the chase and save him the trouble of having to wade through another 8 pages of this: have you heard of the drug JWH-18? Most people haven't, even though they have consumed it. (What does that say about the mentality of self-made "urban shaman" who readily swallow or smoke anything handed to them?)<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dt99NkxYTls/TjnB9FI4pCI/AAAAAAAAA30/U29o6FQZDR4/s1600/spice-300_tcm18-142135.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dt99NkxYTls/TjnB9FI4pCI/AAAAAAAAA30/U29o6FQZDR4/s200/spice-300_tcm18-142135.jpg" width="199" /></a></div>JWH-18 is a synthetic cannabanoid. To me, it sounds uncomfortably similar to the Zombie chemical in the "RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD" series (245 trioxin- within the mythos of the series it is a chemical the army initially used to spray on marijuana, ironically enough, and is ultimately responsible for reanimating dead corpses. Bear with me here, I am building up to my master's thesis on the <a href="http://www.modernmythology.net/2011/01/myth-undead-apocalyptic-imaginary-vol-1.html"> zombification of America</a> that will ultimately decompose if you pardon the pun and disintegrate into the gibberish of the cold light of morning and sobriety.)<br /><br />Of course, you could just go with <a href="http://www.royalqueenseeds.com/" target="_blank">cannabis seeds</a>. Who am I to judge?<br /><br />I myself have NEVER tried any sort of legal drug sold at a headshop before, so I wouldn't really know, but word through the grapevine is that we - and I say that in a very general sense, the "we" being the general public because <a href="http://www.modernmythology.net/2011/03/how-to-become-bi-winnertm-installment.html">I would never knowingly consume a dangerous unknown substance</a> - are all sort of guinea pigs. Canary in the mineshaft. Enter cliche here. The point is, we have no fucking clue what the long term repurcussion is of any of the legal or illegal chemicals we’re pumping into our bodies at unfathomable rates.<br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><br />The person who introduced me to the guy at the headshop that I wasn’t at I will not name. If that's cryptic enough for you. He is a new friend. That is all I will tell you.<br /><br />After randomly playing a Vinnie Paz solo track, my new friend began to ask me questions about the Illuminati, and conspiracy theories in general. I was wearing my coffee stained wife beater with an Eye in Triangle design crudely drawn on it in black magic(k) marker with the word "fnord" ambiguously printed underneath of it and a pair of dark wrap-around sunglasses that I never removed throughout the entire 4 hours I spent with him.<br /><br />I read his aura through a psychic body scan process only taught to the higher degrees of illuminated adepts (the people who pay their dues on time, apparently) and I surmised he was safe to speak with, guardedly.<br /><br />After all, I don’t know how advanced he is in the Order. <a href="http://www.joinmycult.org/" target="_blank">404! 404!</a><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.masonicinfo.com/images/illuminati_maspyra.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.masonicinfo.com/images/illuminati_maspyra.gif" height="193" width="200" /></a></div><b>"Of course I <i>know</i> about the Illuminati. I have a confession to make: I am an Illuminatus.”</b> I paused for a minute, and then decided to get down to brass tacks. <b>“Unfortunately, I’m a disinformation agent, so you can't rely on much of anything I tell you.”</b><br /><br />It was only after he sold me a chunk of black tar the size of my thumb that I decided to come clean with him. That really helped break the ice.<br /><br />He was more open-minded than most of you humans. I have learned to keep silence in these matters and break it very infrequently. Only when it is a luxury that I can afford. Nevertheless, I still felt by the silent response on his face and the disturbance in his Chi (he spilt the pot) that I had dropped a proverbial turd in the punch bowl. Everything smelled foul and I knew I may have to run for my life. Soon. I tried to keep my anxiety under wraps.<br /><br />He asked me a few initial questions, so I tried to hold it together.<br /><br />The organization I represent is very real, though it operates under many different names because we have to keep them guessing. No. There is no grand conspiracy. I think we are conditioned to miss the obvious more often than not and opt for the fantastic or incredible. The best hidden truths are in plain sight.<br /><br />I told him briefly of the interior design of The Plan: Let one hand know not what the other does, isolated cells operating largely independently of one another, no element of The Plan that is known by one cell is typically known by more than a few others at any given time. Ultimately, both sides in the struggle seem to play directly into one another, and at the end of <a href="http://ohinternet.com/The_Game">The Game</a>, the pieces go back together again into the same box.<br /><br />I think I read that somewhere.<br /><br />He asked me the typical questions: "Is Barbara Bush Aleister Crowley's daughter?"<br /><br />"No, maybe. I don't know. So what if she is? Jesus."<br /><br />"What do you think about Dan Brown?"<br /><br />Sorry. Had to take a break there to eat half a dozen stale dinner rolls smothered in red wine vinegar and a pack of Slim Jims. And some sort of what I imagine to be fish covered in some creamy white sauce. FUCK am I ever itchy.<br /><br />Meat and potatoes: The conversation with Bradley at the headshop. My friend who asked me the questions about my involvement within the <a href="http://www.partyattheworldsend.com/" target="_blank">Order</a> immediately referenced Bradley to me as someone I needed to meet, and I eagerly told him that the name Bradley in reference to any of the above was particularly relevant to me, <a href="http://www.bradleythebuyer.com/">Bradley the Buyer</a>. There had to be a <i>reason</i> for this. Bradley. Bradley. Bradley.<br /><br />When we arrived, I promptly purchased 15 grams of Kratom and ate it. The conversation that ensued began with my inconspiquous fixation on the “Aeon Blue” herbal incense at the counter. The package bore an image of a glowing, eerily illuminated crystal shaped like a human skull juxtaposed against a Mayan pyramid.<br /><br />I'm not going to insult your intelligence here and assume you don't know anything about the significance of Crystal Skulls in popular culture, Mayan prophecy or contemporary conspiracy theory. Google that shit. The bottom line was we both instantaneously grasped the REAL conspiracy at work here.<br /><br />Bradley looked at me with intense knowing eyes. The level of hivemind telepathy in the room was palpable.<br /><br />"These are the new spices. You know about this shit? I personally think..."<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.freewebs.com/write-on-book-club/crystal-skulls-mystery.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.freewebs.com/write-on-book-club/crystal-skulls-mystery.jpg" height="200" width="200" /></a></div>"Why the fuck is it called Aeon Blue? A Mayan pyramid and a Crystal Skull with an otherworldly glowing blue radiance to it? Not very subtle, are <i>they</i>?"<br /><br />"Exactly, man... You know what I think? You ever notice how all of these new herbs and synthetic cannabanoids they are coming up with are always called 'APOCALYPSE' or 'DOOMSDAY' or some shit? What if they are putting something in this JWH-18 shit that will be activated come THEIR manufactured Doomsday? What if..."<br /><br />"Yeah, Bradley. Nanotechnology. THEY are using nanotechnology now. Pretty sophisticated stuff. Ever read about Radionics? The best kept secrets are RIGHT OUT IN THE OPEN STARING US IN THE FACE. Let's just say in this hypothetical you are speaking of, they pump this new drug out in mass quantities and market it directly towards certain marginalized young persons... Now, after this drug has been consumed long enough by the masses, they need only flip a couple of switches and..."<br /><br />"ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE?!!"<br /><br />"Exactly."<br /><br />We were momentarily taken aback by the spontaneous realization that dawned not only upon Bradley and I but everyone else in the room simultaneously. After that, I taught him how to make Zombie powder, just in case (it’s an extract of black puffer fish and datura stramonium. This is commonly believed to be the origin of popular zombie films today.) This powder was used to lobotomize human beings chemically, subsequently "killing" them medically. The zombiemaker would then brainwash the human vessel into doing his or her bidding. I’ve been “meditating” all day upon Grant Morrison and his comic "The Invisibles", which has a scenario very similar to the one I just depicted.<br /><br />"Bradley, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't smoke some unknown spice with a glowing Crystal Skull juxtaposed against a Mayan pyramid in the background. Would you?"<br /><br />"No."<br /><br />The conversation quickly made its way to staple stoner conversation: Terrence McKenna, crop circles, 2012, Timewave calculations and the collapse of the Western World as we know it. The general consensus in the room: "We are all pretty fucked."<br /><br />We live in a frightening new world. These truly are interesting times. Highly potent psychoactive smokable drugs marketed as "Spice" that may or may not be mind control agents. Amphetamine analogues marketed as "bath salts". A pill for every mood, a fix for every scenario. Do you want to know what the Red Pill from The Matrix series is? Robitussin Cough and Cold Gels. There, I said it. Your mileage may vary. Don't follow the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiMhWBFj3J4">White Rabbit</a> too far, Alice. There is a There There. The rabbit hole is bottomless...<br /><br />Do your research. And you shouldn't believe anything just because I say it. Remember, the plainest truths are hiding right out in the open.<br /><br />Yours In Christ,<br /><br />Frank the Rozarem Bunny.<br /><br /><center><h3>All It Takes Is The Right Story. <a href="http://www.mythosmedia.net/" target="_blank">Mythos Media</a></h3></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Modern Mythology - http://www.modernmythology.net</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04721839742206290258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9650614.post-73767111939525128132015-11-18T08:00:00.000-08:002015-11-20T15:05:08.413-08:00WESTERN CULTURE, 2000 AD<div style="text-align: center;">by Guido Mina di Sospiro </div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TdGaZOl3bz4/VkwbNk9PFMI/AAAAAAAAxjU/1Ahozgmzn-4/s1600/tumblr_mqqstgPdCl1rujey2o1_500.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TdGaZOl3bz4/VkwbNk9PFMI/AAAAAAAAxjU/1Ahozgmzn-4/s320/tumblr_mqqstgPdCl1rujey2o1_500.gif" width="320" /></a></div>Prophets are the incarnation of a dilemma. Their message is quintessentially esoteric, yet they are driven to make it exoteric. As all dilemmas, this cannot be solved, and the usual outcome is the immolation or downfall of the prophet, unless exceptional circumstances temporarily suspend this predicament. Moreover, that there should be the initiate (the prophet) and the uninitiate (the disciples), has become a rather indigestible concept.<br /><br />Indeed, traditional values such as the teacher-disciple relationship, training, patience, methodicalness, and constancy, have been lost in the sacred and profane spheres alike. For example, in the figurative arts, think for a moment of Jackson Pollock, who based his life’s work on trying to reproduce in paint the patterns made by his long-lost father urinating on stone. Such paintings, to which I used to refer, perhaps flatteringly, as “unappetising spaghetti”, are on display in many major museums the world over. Clearly, this is not the environment for Cimabue to say to his pupil Giotto, “You have surpassed your teacher.”<br /><br />And yet, a “prophetic” forum such as this, one that rethinks one’s basic assumptions, feels the duty to promote and divulge esoteric ideas into the public domain. But, what is the state of popular western culture in the year 2000?<br /><br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><br />Pedro Almodóvar’s latest film, "All About My Mother," is on a victory march. He has been awarded as the Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival; Best Movie of the Year of the International Cinematographic Press Federation (Fipresci) at the Festival of San Sebastian (Spain); Best European Film and Best European Director at the 1999 European Film Awards; Time Magazine’s Best Movie of the Year; the Golden Globe for the Best foreign Film; seven Goya Awards; the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, and the list goes on.<br /><br />Manuela, the story’s heroine, leaving a performance of "A Streetcar Named Desire" with her 17-year-old son, Esteban, watches in horror as he is killed by a car while chasing the play’s star for an autograph. He had been begging his mother to tell him about the father he never knew, and keeping a journal entitled All About My Mother (the echo of All About Eve is deliberate).<br /><br />After Esteban's death, Manuela goes to Barcelona to find the boy’s father, who now goes by the name of Lola. Transsexuals, a pregnant nun who works in a shelter for battered prostitutes, the Streetcar star’s junkie lesbian lover—all have a role in Manuela’s life. Eventually, we are asked to believe that the transsexual father of the late Esteban has impregnated the young nun, though one wonders at the attraction a nun would have for an ageing transsexual? Dutifully, the latter is afflicted by AIDS. In the end, the nun dies at childbirth, and Manuela mothers yet another son by… Lola.<br /><br />Ernest Lehman, Alfred Hitchcock’s favourite screenwriter, and my teacher in Los Angeles, taught me a golden rule in story-telling: “Never tell the audience something it already knows.” Yet, Almodóvar first shows us the unfortunate death of Esteban; then has Manuela recount this tragedy not once, but twice to other unknowing characters. Is the audience yawning? Yes and no.<br /><br />The intent is to jerk the audience’s tears, to engender sympathy not so much for the son and mother, but for all characters involved. Almodóvar himself has stated: “There is no greater spectacle than watching a woman cry.”<br /><br />Consequently, we are made to commiserate a circus of painfully grotesque and implausible characters. This is the culture of the glorification of degradation, and of aimlessness. The film would seem to suggest, perhaps unwittingly, that the degree of freedom enjoyed by the characters is a burden of such magnitude. They simply cannot deal with it.<br /><br />Twenty-five years ago, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s "Salò", or "120 Days Of Sodom" portrayed yet more degraded individuals. Some might remember the notorious scene in which a few characters are made to eat human faeces. The intent was also, presumably, to shock the bourgeois, as the film was censored, sequestered, etc. Nowadays, the intelligentsia applauds, and lavishes awards to films that not only portray man at his most disoriented worst, but demand our sympathy, and praise.<br /><br />This is the blind alley of exasperated existentialism, a bottomless pit. At his best, existentialist man, just and upright, is a sad priest without God, as exemplified by Dr. Rieux in Camus’s <i>The Plague</i>; at his worst, an anthropocentric, arrogant individual who demands nothing of himself, and indulges in whatever weakness or degradation, either for the thrill of it, or because, not knowing any better, he cannot help himself.<br /><br />The sovereignty of the unqualified individual, of the generic human being as such, is no longer a juridical idea, but a psychological state inherent in the average man. Well, are average man and woman happy? Judging from Almodóvar’s film, not in the least.<br /><br />And there is more.<br /><br />A hugely popular recent film reveals another aspect of western culture, possibly more alarming. "Titanic" tells the fictitious story of a star-crossed love aboard the doomed ship on her maiden voyage. The heroine is betrothed to a rich but callous man for reasons of convenience. However, she falls in love, head over heels, with a clandestine passenger, a boyish and penniless painter.<br /><br />As the ship sinks, the rich man selfishly saves himself at the expense of a woman or child, whereas the poor man sacrifices his life so as to save the heroine’s. Millions of women have wept all the tears they had as they watched this. What do we have here? A clear anti-materialistic message? Yes, but most of all we have a reshuffling of the age-old Tristan myth. Western culture in year 2000 is, by and large, no longer Christian, yet not secular either. It is, however unknowingly, Manichaean.<br /><br />Manichaeism is hinged on a dualistic division of the universe into contending realms of good and evil: the realm of Light (spirit), ruled by God, and the realm of Darkness (matter), ruled by Satan. The two have become mixed and engaged in a perpetual struggle. The human race is a result and a microcosm of this struggle. The human body is material, therefore evil; the human soul is spiritual, a fragment of the divine Light, and must be redeemed from its imprisonment, both in the body and the world. In this world of matter, pure (spiritual) love cannot exist.<br /><br />Therefore, it can only be had in the afterworld. Hence, Tristan and Iseult, Romeo and Juliet, etc. Contemporary western audiences weep at Titanic in unconscious recognition of their shortcomings and failures. Drawing from their own experiences, they recognise that pure love cannot be had in this world, and identify with the star-crossed lovers. Despite their freedom in selecting their spouse; despite the possibility of amending mistaken choices by divorcing and remarrying over and over, western man and woman long for a love of a purity that, they realise in spite of themselves, cannot be had in this materialistic world, but only in the afterworld. Since most of them do not quite believe in life after death, however, this becomes a modern degeneration of Manichaeism, with a strong nihilistic tinge.<br /><br />Decadence is a comparative concept. Tremendous forces insist in showing us a rosy picture. “Progress”, this term of more than ordinary vagueness, has conscripted many powerful allies down the centuries. Indeed, the whole problem began in Florence, about six centuries ago. Some jewellers on the Ponte Vecchio were asked to hold gold in their safes by friends and clients. Noticing that the amount of gold removed by owners was only a fraction of the total stored, they realised that they could temporarily lend out some of this gold to citizens in need, obtaining a promissory note for principal and interest. This was the very beginning of the modern banking system. Indeed, the first modern currency was the Florin, employed throughout Europe.<br /><br />Thus usury was legalised by governments, and became banking. This sealed the end of what I call The Age of the Spirit, but modern world calls The Dark Ages. Yet, progressive propaganda teaches us that the Renaissance was just that: a rebirth. By intellectualising man, and withdrawing his soul, Descartes rebelled against the magnificent edifices that Pico della Mirandola, Marsilio Ficino, and to a lesser extent the chronically confused Giordano Bruno, had built. (Della Mirandola attempted to fuse Christianity with Neo-Platonism and the Cabala; Ficino “limited” himself to Christianity and Neo-Platonsim; Bruno attempted to revert to Egyptian magic [apocryphal, as it transpired].)<br /><br />Later on, Enlightenment further consolidated man in his self-appointed throne, along with whatever was deemed useful in Newton’s physics. (It must be emphasised that Newton was much involved with alchemy, but this would not have been an ally to progress). Then came the -isms, and progress triumphed utterly.<br /><br />Mechanism, Darwinism, Positivism, Determinism, Modernism, and their inevitable offspring:<br />Existentialism, Atheism, Nihilism. In other words, six centuries ago man began to seek God in his own navel. Not finding Him, he continued to explore, albeit in the wrong place. In the end, he forgot even what he was originally seeking, and all he could show for his quest was… nothingness. From this, he declared that, having found nothing, there was nothing to find, and God, or the Godhead, were inventions of primitive cultures. The word “superstition” became fashionable; reason, a fetish.<br /><br />Anthropocentric, un-subordinated man left to his own devices reminds me of an anaplastic cell, the cancer cell that invades and destroys the surrounding tissue, or system. Loss of subordination to a spiritual authority came hand in hand with loss in subordination to a temporal authority.<br /><br />The problem of Power is the problem of Sovereignty, and the problem of Sovereignty is the problem of Legitimacy. Power is effective, valid and just, not abusive, if it is based on a legitimate Sovereignty. As such, it is naturally, spontaneously, even intimately recognised by all who are bound to it. Yet, a few paragraphs above, I wrote: “The sovereignty of the unqualified individual, of the generic human being as such, is no longer a juridical idea, but a psychological state inherent in the average man.” And the average man is he whose life lacks any purpose; he who makes no demands on himself; he who does not transcend, but rather slides down the easy slope, or simply goes drifting along.<br /><br />“Traditional” civilisations, unlike “modern” ones, were based on a different vision of the world.<br />Reality was sacred and spiritual, as opposed to material and materialistic. Consequently, Power, Authority and Sovereignty were not based on the number of votes (and, nota bene, the turnout at<br />US election is about 10% of the voting population; these vote for candidates who only thanks to<br />immense funds and backing could afford to run campaigns), but on a superior and metaphysical<br />origin.<br /><br />In a society living in the time of myth, the divine origin of Power was not absurd, as any<br />right-minded (or should I say conventional?) modern person would have it, but natural. It was<br />not an abstract, but a concrete and indeed factual concept. The person who incarnated it, the<br />King or Queen, the Monarch, had a twofold function. Not only did he govern his subjects, but<br />was also a go-between with the Authority that, from above, legitimated his power. He or she<br />was, in other words, a pontifex, a bridge-maker.<br /><br />The Catholic pope is still considered a pontiff, a pontifex, but from the inception of the Christian<br />Church this concept was misapplied. When the Holy Roman Empire was born in 800, its first Emperor was not a pope, but Charlemagne. This fracture between Spiritual and Temporal Power<br />has caused wars, blood-baths and man-made calamities since.<br /><br />HRH Queen Elizabeth II is “by the Grace of God, Defender of the Faith”, although not the Head of the Anglican Communion, as the latter has no central authority and no one person from whom<br />it can expect final authority. Rather, it consists of national, autonomous churches that are bound<br />together by ties of loyalty between the see of Canterbury and each other. This is due to historical<br />reasons, of course. But, as Defender of the Faith, Queen Elizabeth II is the closest incarnation of a Traditional, and metaphysical, form of Authority. As is to be expected, many, many forces have been at work in the Twentieth Century so as to undermine Her Authority. This is a great pity, for She represents a veritable miracle of Tradition in an otherwise degenerated world.<br /><br />Liberals and progressivists may now trumpet their slogans and stock phrases. But they must be reminded of what Ortega y Gassett wrote. “Contrary to what is usually thought, it is the person of excellence, and not the common person, who lives in essential servitude. Life has no savour for her/him unless (s)he makes it consist in service to something transcendental. (…) This is life lived as a discipline—the noble life. Nobility is defined by the demands it makes on us—by obligations, not by rights. Noblesse oblige.”<br /><br />Yet, in this self-satisfied age in which ordinary man presumes to govern himself, we have become acquainted with a new set of afflictions. Never before have the masses been afflicted by the degradations of affluence. Insomnia; obesity, and its Phase 2: anorexia and bulimia; manic and chronic depression; drug addiction; alcoholism; autoerotic deaths, and so on. Un-subordinated, anthropocentric, listless people in the rich world realise that they are sick of themselves and of what they have worked so hard to surround themselves with. The mentioned degradations seem to them the only options. One might say that they need dope to counteract the impact of all their labour-saving devices. And those free from these afflictions can easily be complacent robots, food tubes.<br /><br />One of the many casualties of this climate of self-destruction and nihilism is prayer. The West no longer prays. On the other hand, Moslem nations pray five times a day, and then more. A semi-serious hypothesis has come to mind time and again. Could it be that, in response to their fervent prayers, the Arab nations were granted immense oil-fields, as if they were a manna, while the non-praying West produced its various industrial revolutions, which made this liquid hydrocarbon so all-important? It would be a subtle instance of retroactive praying. The response to their supplication was under the feet of the faithful, already. But it took the West to “activate” this long-granted response.<br /><br />Does this mean that praying is advisable? By all means, and not merely for selfish reasons, obviously. Praying, kneeling before the Godhead, sanctions one’s subordination to a Transcendental Authority. The goal in one’s life is outside it, beyond it. Transcendence makes us yearn for God and this goal at once. They may well be one and the same. As Queen Elizabeth II a-scended to the throne, so can we tran-scend our insulated egos and short-sighted desires. This is the life of the pilgrim, or, as the Sufis call it, the Tariqa. Transcendence implies subordination to a higher principle, and yet the elevation, and sanctification, of one’s life.<br /><br />But the intelligentsia sanctifies, with awards and promotion of all types, the glorification of degradation. There is an intrinsic anti-transcendental meaning in the very word. To degrade, from the Latin de- de- gradus- step. To transcend, on the other hand, derives from trans- trans- scandere to climb.<br /><br />When man was created, he could not help being jealous of the birds. Flying along invisible lines, they soared as high as he could see, and migrated to distant lands he could only imagine. Since he could not fly, he started to dream. In time, he began to build temples. But a more compelling drive was inside him.<br /><br />He became a pilgrim.<br /><br />His necessity to integrate the cosmic course made him contemplate, consider the flickering course of the stars. The very words say it: contemplate, from con- templum (a space for observing auguries); consider, from con- sidera, with the stars.Solar in his conception of the sacred, but also seeking the complementary lunar principle, all he needed was to align his path with the invisible tellurian forces along which shrines of all types have been erected down the ages.<br /><br />May we all start on a pilgrimage, reach our destination, and go well beyond it.<br /><br /><b>Guido Mina di Sospiro is co-author with Joscelyn Godwin of <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Forbidden-Book-Novel-Joscelyn-Godwin/dp/193887501X/ref=sr_1_1_twi_har_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1447869999&sr=1-1&keywords=guido+mina+di+sospiro" target="_blank">The Forbidden Book</a></i>, and Publishers Weekly’s recent staff pick <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Metaphysics-Ping-Pong-Tennis-Journey-Self-Discovery/dp/0835609421/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1447870035&sr=1-1" target="_blank">The Metaphysics Of Ping-Pong</a></i>, published by Quest Books.</b><br /><center><h3>All It Takes Is The Right Story. <a href="http://www.mythosmedia.net/" target="_blank">Mythos Media</a></h3></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Modern Mythology - http://www.modernmythology.net</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04721839742206290258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9650614.post-16687372671252292432015-10-29T08:03:00.003-07:002015-10-29T17:48:05.378-07:00Why Can't People Disagree Without Taking Things So Personally?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-H4UaS5dxDfg/VjI1dVjo4fI/AAAAAAAAvDQ/NFl1Sce_r1g/s1600/tumblr_mroz6sqsk71s8csdto1_500.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-H4UaS5dxDfg/VjI1dVjo4fI/AAAAAAAAvDQ/NFl1Sce_r1g/s320/tumblr_mroz6sqsk71s8csdto1_500.gif" width="320" /></a></div><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">I think a not-so-obvious reason is the relativism of modern moral discourse, best expressed in the theory known as “emotivism.”<br />In After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre wrote that “emotivism has become embodied in our culture.<br />He defined it as “… the doctrine that all evaluative judgments and more specifically all moral judgments are nothing but expressions of preference, expressions of attitude or feeling.” In other words, emotivism holds that there can be no way of rationally justifying one’s claims about those controversial issues mentioned above. (<a href="http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/why-can%E2%80%99t-people-disagree-without-taking-things-so-damn-personally" target="_blank">Intellectual Tackeout</a>).</blockquote><div>The basis of our actions aren't rational. Rationalizing is mostly the process whereby we narrativize what we've already done or were going to do anyway. So the issue isn't just about emotional relativism -- it's deeper than that.<br /><br />It's that we literally don't know why we do what we do, but we have involved stories about why we do what we do, which we call "my beliefs" or even, "me." Might some be rational and some not? I'm still somewhat unsure about this, based on the various interpretations I've read of <a href="http://aeon.co/magazine/philosophy/how-consciousness-works/" target="_blank">post hoc consciousness</a> etc. Maybe research has pointed in directions I haven't caught yet but it seems equally possible that our more cogent rationalization is still a blind, it just might also lead to more valued or preferred results. So we call this "truth" -- and yes I know this is a very William James kind of thing to say.<br /><br />All It Takes Is The Right Story. <a href="http://www.mythosmedia.net/" target="_blank">Mythos Media</a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Modern Mythology - http://www.modernmythology.net</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04721839742206290258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9650614.post-89923117524692494232015-10-20T13:11:00.001-07:002015-10-20T13:11:28.842-07:00Questions Toward The Impact Of Human Nature<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IV_W5l8pdnk/ViafUpckp2I/AAAAAAAAu-8/JkuYJHR5Q0c/s1600/GloriousRevolutions-header-1-810x456.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IV_W5l8pdnk/ViafUpckp2I/AAAAAAAAu-8/JkuYJHR5Q0c/s320/GloriousRevolutions-header-1-810x456.png" width="320" /></a></div>I've been doing a great deal of research and thought toward <a href="https://rebelnews.com/series/glorious-revolutions/" target="_blank">The Glorious Revolutions</a> series we've been running over on Rebel News. Much of this kind of work occurs behind the screen. For instance, the rough document for the first two essays was over 20,000 words long, while the essays themselves wound up being about 1,500 words a piece. Similarly, each required the reading of 5 to 10 books. (In addition to whatever was ready at hand from past reading, with a little Internet refreshing.)<br /><br />So... it's a process. But the next one I have planned has had me held up for a while. I've had a few conversations that have helped me spell out where I'm stuck, which have been both illustrative and interesting, so I wanted to share one here, while I continue to mull it over...<br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><br /><i>Clinton on Capitalism:</i><br /><i>"Occasionally, we have to save capitalism from itself."</i><br /><i>That kind of recursive and counter intuitive thinking will likely win over those in the middle class who wrestle with a fear of falling.</i><br /><i>They will want to ask:</i><br /><i>what specific polices do you plan on implementing to save capitalism from itself and how do you plan to prevent capitalism from harming itself in the future?</i><br /><i>They won't think to ask:</i><br /><i>why not create a system that doesn't need saving?</i><br /><i>Or, why not the reverse? It is no less preposterous to think that socialism can be saved from itself. And yet many will say that such a position is absurd.</i><br /><i>And yet, if we believe that democracy can tweak capitalism, why can it not tweak socialism?</i><br /><br />I think you might be undervaluing just how pervasive capitalism is <span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 10.4px;">—</span> it's not just a system of choice, nor one that's enforced, it isn't really comparable to politics (Democracy, Socialism, etc). It's re-enforced in literally every social, psychological, and now material structure that we've erected in the past several hundred years. It thrives on conflict and even disaster. I'm not saying it can't be undone, but it's not something you just take a vote on. No one I've spoken to <span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 10.4px;">—</span> and this includes Marxist theorists, maybe <i>especially</i> them <span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 10.4px;">—</span> seems to have any idea how to actually replace it with something, especially something that'd work better.<br /><br /><i>I was trying to ask the questions above in such a way as to expose how pervasive capitalism is, but I guess I missed a step somewhere...</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>Been studying Marxism for several years now, and I follow what you are saying. I don't think any serious thinker is under any delusion that Sanders will reverse or undo capitalism. I mean, he himself is really just as guilty of the "there is no alternative" Thatcherism as Clinton or anyone else. When pressed, he will describe a Casino style capitalism that he wants to end. And that is laying to one side the cultural aspects of capitalism no matter who is president (a position that has relatively little impact on economy).</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>I also agree that undoing capitalism in one fell swoop is impossible. </i><br /><i><br /></i><i>That said, we have to be more attuned to spotting rhetorical trends that could lead to incremental changes over time. </i><br /><i><br /></i><i>If we keep this discussion on voting, we can see that in a few short years something that sparked the left, and that is no small thing in a country as far to the right as the US. We have now public figures who can actually begin to critique capitalism an see the result of unbridled capitalism as immoral. That is quite an accomplishment. </i><br /><i><br /></i><i>And the rise of figures like Sanders and Warren, however little they my resemble serious Socialist theorists, reflect that some kind of disruption has occurred in the relationship between the base and the superstructure. Suddenly people are noticing class again. This might result is something very interesting or it could just be the next stage of capitalism. We will have to see. But people are starting to think differently than before and that is a good thing.</i><br /><br />For the record I'm actually not an advocate for undoing capitalism. I think the compromise implied by socialist democracy works better to cap the rampant exploitation unregulated capitalism is subject to. But the real problem at bottom is embedded in our hierarchical social behavior. We're not going to undo what we are, and by that I mean social animals, not capitalism strictly...<br /><br />This is complicated to spell out properly <span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 10.4px;">—</span> I've been working on a series that deals with this somewhat but am going to be stuck on the piece about cooperation v. competition, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Primates-Philosophers-Morality-Evolved-Princeton/dp/0691141290" target="_blank">de Waal's primate ethics</a>, etc.<br /><br /><i>I don't know anything about primate ethics. But I would be careful not to limit humanity to any fixed set of drives. Marx's point was that at bottom humanity was not limited to any sort of "-ness," not an evil or an inherent good; rather, human nature was malleable, it could change as conditions in the base (economic, class system) changed. This is why he wanted a dictatorship of the proletariat to replace the dictatorship of the middle-class that instituted and aided the pervading capitalist faith in markets as a way to structure nearly everything. A different base would lead to a different human nature. </i><br /><i><br /></i><i>When we say things like "we can't undo what we are" we display just how fully in the grips of Capitalist hegemony we are. We construct fantasies about objective views on reality that reinforce an interpretation of what humanity is at bottom. And we also construct a fantasy that says that capitalism is natural but socialism is not. This is not true and a historical view of class conflict shows it not to be true. </i><br /><i><br /></i><i>Hell, the tribes in America didn't operate that way until the Europeans began teaching them the virtues of exploiting slaves. </i><br /><i><br /></i><i>If you want to understand the ways in which capitalism is pervasive, you need to start with the a priori assumption that it's natural to human nature.</i><br /><br />This is why it's such a difficult topic to deal with right. Because that's not what I meant, but I can see why you interpreted it that way.<br /><br />I'm not talking about inherent morality (Hobbes v. Rousseau) though the discussion has to kind of begin there. We can't, at the same time, entirely dismiss the role of biology (and by that I mean our existence as social animals with a particular evolutionary history) and try to place the discussion purely in the realm of ideology. This is one of the fundamental issues I have with neo/marxism, though I am no less find of behaviorist or positivist on the other extreme. It may be more accurate to speak of tendencies toward social stratification and asymmetrical power dynamics, rather than hierarchy, at the least because when you look at the diverse ways humans have tried to organize itself across cultures, the types of solutions are limitless but the existence of in groups and out groups is nearly universal. Game theory can model some of this, but so much of it is based on the premise that our actions are fundamentally rational, which appears to be completely incorrect <span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 10.4px;">—</span> so much for Adam Smith but that's another story.<br /><br />In fact, the only reason we could arguably need government is because of this <span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 10.4px;">—</span> if our natural tendencies (whatever they are) are good in themselves, then what role could the state have but as an authoritarian parent? This is essentially Rousseau. What we really need is the piece of the puzzle that explains the multi-variable, conflicted "human nature" that drives personal and group subconscious (subconscious as the underlying driver of behavior). When we act, we hardly ever act for the reasons we think we act.<br /><br /> There's no claim in there that capitalism has any ground in human nature, mind you- merely that it solves some of the problems involved in surviving as a group of several billion <span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 10.4px;">—</span> when there are counterweights, and that's really the sticking point. I'd suggest that human nature, such as it is, drives our behavior, and capitalism provides one possible frame for that game. But not that the one is based in the other.<br /><br />Still, any game that is going to be "better" (and for whom? <span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 10.4px;">—</span> today's proletariat is tomorrow's bourgeois) has to take our behavioral tendencies to mind. And it is very hard, ultimately counter productive always to enforce these things top down (see also: fascism).<br /><br />And this is where Wilhelm Reich's <i>Mass Psychology of Fascism</i> enters into this discussion. By that I mean only his central thesis, that personal psychology and mass psychology are not so different, so in fascism we can see acted out many of the dynamics of, say, a dysfunction family or marriage. Of course, to Reich, being essentially a neo-Freudian, he saw this primarily as an outcropping of repression. I'm much more inclined to look toward the intersections of structure (history, ideology, ...) and decision-making and motivation as an outcropping of social primate instincts.<br /><br />The issue is this problem is raised by the final article I want to write for the Glorious Revolutions series. But it's looking more and more like the scope of a PhD thesis rather than a single article.<br /><br /><center><h3>All It Takes Is The Right Story. <a href="http://www.mythosmedia.net/" target="_blank">Mythos Media</a></h3></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Modern Mythology - http://www.modernmythology.net</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04721839742206290258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9650614.post-16092630150037965612015-10-16T09:35:00.000-07:002015-10-16T09:35:18.454-07:001491 before Columbus<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mJZ4zodkBXY/ViEnP6PYT_I/AAAAAAAAu9A/JZPmFCMW9aY/s1600/wave.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mJZ4zodkBXY/ViEnP6PYT_I/AAAAAAAAu9A/JZPmFCMW9aY/s320/wave.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><b>From <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/03/1491/302445/" target="_blank">The Atlantic</a>: </b><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Before it became the New World, the Western Hemisphere was vastly more populous and sophisticated than has been thought—an altogether more salubrious place to live at the time than, say, Europe. New evidence of both the extent of the population and its agricultural advancement leads to a remarkable conjecture: the Amazon rain forest may be largely a human artifact.</blockquote>The claims about the Amazon seem, at least on their face, more open to skepticism than what now fairly well known -- that the civilizations of the Americas were more developed, and more populated, than once thought. Though archaeological evidence of American civilization isn't quite as bare as the naysayers seem to be saying -- I've been reading about earthworks and the like found in North America from fairly credible sources for a while. And we shouldn't be surprised how quickly "nature" reclaims our civilizations, though also what an effect we can render on the world.<br /><br />Either way, this article is admirable in its approach. The author manages to dig into what psychological motivates different factions likely have behind their theories. Though it's not fully explored, this is something I think that needs to get much more attention in the social sciences. Even a passing interest in history will show such a wide range of contested theories by intelligent people. Some might say "they all can't be right," which is true, but given what we have to work on I think our unconscious motives for constructing a particular narrative might play more of a role than anything else. A lot of it we can simply never know for sure. And that's what we will forever butt our heads against -- the intractable and uncertain, lost past, and the ways our narratives can render a very real effect in the world, whether or not they are grounded in fact, after all.<br /><br /><center><h3>All It Takes Is The Right Story. <a href="http://www.mythosmedia.net/" target="_blank">Mythos Media</a></h3></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Modern Mythology - http://www.modernmythology.net</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04721839742206290258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9650614.post-40385089636877872662015-10-14T20:31:00.000-07:002015-10-16T10:23:32.490-07:00Glorious Revolutions Series<h3></h3><h3 style="text-align: center;">READ: <a href="https://rebelnews.com/series/glorious-revolutions/">The Whole Series To Present In Its "Glory"</a> (reverse order) </h3><br />All free on <b>Rebel News</b>, consider joining our <a href="https://www.patreon.com/rebelnews?ty=h"><b>Patreon</b></a> so we can continue to produce independent news, editorials, and activist reporting. <br /><br /><br /><a href="https://www.patreon.com/rebelnews?ty=h"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xuUETBuW4GQ/Vh8cwZUu6bI/AAAAAAAAu7k/ve6Z92oqY94/s640/movement.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">I still remember when the Wall fell. November 9, 1989. If you were alive, you remember.<br />A newscaster on the television, his image warped and tattered by static around the edges, was talking about the end of nuclear threat. It was a revolution of culture, some said. Then President Reagan appeared, and took credit for the fall of Communism.<br />Revolutions leave an indelible stamp on those lived through them. But how did a falling wall end the Cold War, let alone stanch the tide of violent revolution? This is the kind of rhetoric we are fed. We’re given the pieces to this puzzle, but never told what image they’re supposed to make.<br />If it wasn’t already painfully obvious in 1986, it certainly is now. No one should have thought that violent uprising was a thing of the past. The legacy of globalization has generally been more revolutions, not fewer. It’s as if, with every generation, we forget the lessons learned by those that came before. This “nightmare of history,” to refer to Joyce’s famous quote, calls to mind several essential questions. Are revolutionaries incapable of hearing the ghosts of the past? Is this forgetting itself the nature of revolutions? Finally, how can we keep others from using our own hopes and ideas against us? These questions are hard to answer, and any analysis is likely to sound irrelevant to those that have lived through the mute horror of violent conflict.<br />Still, we must wrestle with this legacy if we are to have any hope of freeing ourselves from it. The cycle of loss and vengeance itself is a crucible for revolutionary ideology.</blockquote><br /><h3 style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://rebelnews.com/series/glorious-revolutions/">Read The Series</a></h3><center><h3></h3></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Modern Mythology - http://www.modernmythology.net</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04721839742206290258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9650614.post-51107860741776567292015-10-09T11:26:00.002-07:002015-10-09T11:27:37.906-07:00Cultural Cartography<h4>From <a href="https://rebelnews.com/series/glorious-revolutions/" target="_blank">Rebel News</a>: </h4><blockquote class="tr_bq">We’re suckers for simplistic, captivating pictures, mostly because we don’t even realize that we’re being sold a “frame”; we think we’re just seeing “the way things are,” when, in fact, we are buying into a paradigm. That’s why, all too often, while trying to talk our way out of a problem we only dig deeper holes.<br />... Now imagine the picture holding us captive is a conceptual map that carves up the boundaries of ideas and disciplines, charting the course of intellectual history. A faulty map is the kind of captivating picture that is bound to mislead us. In that case what we’d need is a therapeutic cartography.<br />— "<a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/review/a-therapeutic-cartography/">A Therapeutic Cartography</a>," James K. A. Smith.</blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://rebelnews.com/series/glorious-revolutions/" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="430" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aR8LzLSIKAM/VhgGhjujdyI/AAAAAAAAu5s/s9iC51Amt5Q/s640/cultural-cartography.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><h3><br /></h3><h3>AUTHENTIC SUPERFICIALITY</h3>In the <a href="https://rebelnews.com/jamescurcio/symbols-and-signs/">previous essay in this series</a>, we looked at how we interact in a marketplace where surface identities drive our purchase choices. We have a very peculiar relationship with the things that we buy — both through and with our iPhones and cars, and soon enough, our <a href="http://nypost.com/2015/09/29/sex-robots-are-definitely-coming-in-the-future/">sex robots.</a><br /><br />More broadly, we identify ourselves and each other through the consumer choices we make, or even the ones we don't make. This is often called <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18729697">signaling</a>, and it's an important part of nonverbal and implicit social communication. That's what the <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_brand">lifestyle brand</a> is all about — integrating consumer choice with our lives, becoming grinning robots in some Orwellian hellscape ourselves, and so forth. <br /><br />Thankfully that's not entirely how it plays out. Theories about the pervasiveness of brands and <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/26/1182220/-Research-Study-Explains-How-U-S-Media-Brainwashes-The-Public">media brainwashing</a> fall short of reality. Nothing is quite so simple as the behaviorist “image in, behavior out.” We may signal our queerness or our religion through what we wear and buy, but that isn't all we are. We still have <a href="http://aeon.co/magazine/philosophy/how-consciousness-works/">inner lives</a>, and an experience that can't enter into this marketplace, and our identities and beliefs are shifting landscapes more than fixed, binary wastelands.<br /><br />The idea of <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/#Uses">Qualia</a> refers to the irreducibility of this inner life. The world of surfaces may be superficial, but there is something lurking somehow beneath all of that, that’s somehow authentic. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Schr%C3%B6dinger">Erwin Schrödinger</a>, creator of the famous living/dead cat thought experiment, said the following in <i>What is life?: The Physical Aspects Of The Living Cell</i>,<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">The sensation of color cannot be accounted for by the physicist's objective picture of light-waves. Could the physiologist account for it, if he had fuller knowledge than he has of the processes in the retina and the nervous processes set up by them in the optical nerve bundles and in the brain? I do not think so.</blockquote>But this way also points toward reductive either-ors. If we're going to distinguish between the commodifiable “dead shells” referred to in the previous article and some kind of deep seated, internal identity, what is that identity? How do we know it's authentic? We are wandering dangerously close to a schema of the false and replaceable versus the fixed and true, and that is not a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(social_sciences)">frame</a> that I’d like to imply. This has become a common sense distinction for most of us: surface and interior. Fake hipsters, and real trendsetters. But the distinction itself is superficial.<br /><br />Another way of contrasting the idea of real and false self, the figurative and literal, is through mimesis. Here we must challenge the “<a href="http://themedusavstheodalisque.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-tyranny-of-literal.html">tyranny of the literal</a>”,<br /><div><blockquote class="tr_bq">In ‘Realism,’ the opening chapter of J.M. Coetzee’s most recent novel Elizabeth Costello, the eponymous heroine, a successful Australian novelist, gives a speech in which she ironically likens herself to a talking ape from a short story by Franz Kafka. The story’s ambiguities lead her to reflect on this historical loss of certainty, the way it seems to have undone the very possibility of direct communication and unproblematic representation. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">There was, she argues, ‘a time when we knew’:<i> We used to believe that when the text said, ‘On the table stood a glass of water,’ there was indeed a table, and a glass of water on it, and we had only to look in the word-mirror of the text to see them. But all that has ended. The word-mirror is broken irreparably, it seems. ... There used to be a time, we believe, when we could say who we were. Now we are just performers speaking our parts. The bottom has dropped out. </i></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Her speech is not well received. Elizabeth Costello spends most of Coetzee’s novel acting the role of a celebrity writer. She travels the world making appearances, delivering lectures, fielding questions about the meanings and motivations behind her writing. It is not something she enjoys. Often her appearances do not run smoothly; her ideas tend to provoke dissent and dissatisfaction. ... The audience wants literal confession; but Costello’s aim is to keep ‘her true self safe.’ Or so her son John believes; for Costello the issue cuts deeper than this. She has come to doubt the very existence of such a thing as a ‘true self.’ The word-mirror is irreparably broken, yet she is compelled to appear before an audience. Inevitably, what she presents them is ‘an image, false, like all images.’</blockquote>So, we are drawn to question the authenticity of both surfaces and interiors. The mirror itself becomes the closest that we have to any kind of certainty — as the image and its reflection can both be called into question.<br /><br /><h3>A MAP OF OURSELVES</h3>We have to contend with this tension between surface and interior, and amongst all the principalities thereof. That's true, even in the face of such uncertainties. Many of us struggle against these seemingly geological forces, without even knowing what we're struggling against.<br /><br />The self and society as landscape is a frame suggested by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuralism">Structuralism</a>, and later by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-structuralism">Post-structuralism</a> when written in relief. Both position history as structure composed of geological flow rather than events; this was done, in terms of the latter, because the very structures imposed by theory could reify imperialist “grand narratives.” For example,</div><div><blockquote class="tr_bq">The history of events, Braudel was to scathingly write, were merely the history of “surface disturbances, crests of foam that the tides of history carry on their strong backs” (Braudel, 1980: 10). The outcome of the struggle for supremacy in the Mediterranean, then, was viewed by Braudel as the outcome of longer term structures (political, social, economic and geographic) and not at all the result events or the actions of individuals. —<a href="http://www.eisa-net.org/be-bruga/eisa/files/events/turin/Wight-colin_wight_turin_paper_final.pdf">Extending the Longue Dureé: Manuel De Landa and a Thousand Years of Nonlinear History</a>.</blockquote>The tension of surface appearance against deeper identity, and the constant anxiety that there is such a thing as a central or deep identity, drives the tectonic forces between what I'll be referring to later as cultural borderlands and centers. We needn’t know which is authentic, but merely recognize the tensions between these principalities. This might still seem a baroque metaphor, even if it’s far from unprecedented in the social sciences, but it's nevertheless apt. Dynamism in the self or the state arises from difference, conflict from too sudden changes; often arising where one identity abuts another, and all are also ever changing.</div><div><br />This is borrowing from the frequent use of geological and even cartographic metaphor in such works. These metaphors are essentially impersonal, even when they refer to parts of personal psychology. For this reason, they have been vastly preferred within post/structural analysis, over the earlier mythopoeia of Freud or Jung, for instance, which paints all inner experience as personal, in reaction to a mythologized external world.<br /><br />Manuel Delanda’s odd but brilliant <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/83779157/A-Thousand-Years-of-Nonlinear-History" target="_blank"><i>1000 Years of Nonlinear History</i></a> is possibly the penultimate example of this sort of device. In fact, the entire book is constructed as a series of geological, biological, physical-psychological-historical metaphors (even if he is insistent that it is not a metaphor but rather an “engineering diagram”),</div><div><blockquote class="tr_bq">We live in a world populated by structures — a complex mixture of geological, biological, social, and linguistic constructions that are nothing but accumulations of materials shaped and hardened by history. Immersed as we are in this mixture, we cannot help but interact in a variety of ways with the other historical constructions that surround us, and in these interactions we generate novel combinations, some of which possess emergent properties. In turn, these synergistic combinations, whether of human origin or not, become the raw material for further mixtures. This is how the population of structures inhabiting our planet has acquired its rich variety, as the entry of novel materials into the mix triggers wild proliferations of new forms. ...</blockquote>And so on. It's important to recognize that all the structures on these these maps ebb and flow, empires rise and fall more less the same as colonies of coral might. More prosaically, just as one might stand on the Pacific rim and hundreds of millions of years later, they <a href="http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/eoc/middle_school_t/t_tectonics/p_ocean_closing.html">might spy a new continent on the horizon</a>, a 19th century American Republican might find more in common with many of today's Democrats. Our labels are not what ultimately defines us. After all, nothing is fixed. And what of the center of the world? As Umberto Eco observed, you can hang Foucault's Pendulum anywhere.<br /><br />Thus, all domains are conceptual maps, even including the inscrutable, uncertain, and ultimately implicit world of qualia. A map does not provide a certificate of authenticity, of course — as so many counterculturists are bound to point out, “the map is not the territory.” But without it, we can’t begin to track our way out of the shifting hinterlands. We cannot properly understand society, or ourselves, until we've charted the surfaces of this never-ending symbolic fault line. But we mustn't find ourselves limited by the names, labels, and borders that happen to be written in this fleeting moment. <br /><h4 style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://rebelnews.com/jamescurcio/cultural-cartography/2/" target="_blank">So let's look at an example framework...</a></h4><h3></h3><center></center></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Modern Mythology - http://www.modernmythology.net</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04721839742206290258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9650614.post-81579982820651182462015-09-30T10:03:00.001-07:002015-09-30T10:03:22.208-07:00Symbols and Signs<strong>Via. <a href="https://rebelnews.com/jamescurcio/symbols-and-signs/" target="_blank">Rebel News</a></strong><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iebS57taMiM/VgwVtPebnJI/AAAAAAAAuv4/-hl2xl5KfUk/s1600/symbol-sign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="428" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iebS57taMiM/VgwVtPebnJI/AAAAAAAAuv4/-hl2xl5KfUk/s640/symbol-sign.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />How can we decrease the commodification of these empty signifiers? We can continue to build spaces, both virtual and material, that can be utilized by people who share common goals. We can continue to evolve as people and avoid over-identification with easy to replicate symbols of identity. Our interests and digital footprint aren’t who we are. We mustn’t let the map of our identities — personal or social — become the territory. But the border skirmishes on that map are never ending.<br /><br /> <iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hpAMbpQ8J7g" width="560"></iframe><br /><br />This is far from easy. Products themselves have become secondary, as symbols have overtaken the things they symbolized. <i>Fight Club</i> parodied this tendency as the “<a href="http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/adiab/clips/FF_FincherFightClub-possum.mp4" target="_blank">Ikea nesting impulse</a>.” This is a challenge of modern life, but it’s hardly a singular observation. Guy Debord’s<a href="https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/debord/society.htm"><i>Society of The Spectacle</i></a>, now a standard text amongst neo-Marxists and counterculturists alike, deals with this matter in nearly aphoristic style,<br /><blockquote>The first phase of the domination of the economy over social life brought into the definition of all human realization the obvious degradation of being into having. The present phase of total occupation of social life by the accumulated results of the economy leads to a generalized sliding of having into appearing, from which all actual “having” must draw its immediate prestige and its ultimate function. At the same time all individual reality has become social reality directly dependent on social power and shaped by it. It is allowed to appear only to the extent that it is not.</blockquote>We live in a culture where appearances count for a lot more than reality, and so it is little surprise that we may have a hard time actually making this distinction. We are what we seem. When Ludwig Feuerbach wrote the introduction to the 2nd edition of his <i>The Essence of Christianity</i>, he was speaking to Hegel and Marx’s world, the rapidly industrializing 19th century. But he may as well have been speaking of the present, <br /><blockquote>But certainly for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, fancy to reality, the appearance to the essence … illusion only is sacred, truth profane.</blockquote>Symbols of success matters more than the things they represent. The symbol becomes the value, <i>rather</i> than the thing signified. The sports car, the expensive watch, the designer suit are all, from a utilitarian perspective, equally or even less valuable than items half their cost. Though luxury items such as these are said to cost more because of increased craftsmanship – which may well be true – the customer is still buying them because they are symbols of wealth and success. To have either of these on their own is not enough; the symbols are of greater value. We are performing wealth at one another. Though this seems harmless enough in itself, a common indulgence of the upper class, it is the same mis-match of value (weighing the symbol over what is represented) that characterizes the ennui of our lives. <a href="https://twitter.com/nihilist_arbys?lang=en" target="_blank">Nihilist Arby’s</a> quite simply wouldn’t make sense as a joke if we didn’t grasp this on an implicit level.<br /><br /> <strong>Read <a href="https://rebelnews.com/jamescurcio/symbols-and-signs/" target="_blank">Full Article</a> for <a href="https://rebelnews.com/series/glorious-revolutions/" target="_blank">Glorious Revolutions</a> series. </strong><br /><br /><center><h3>All It Takes Is The Right Story. <a href="http://www.mythosmedia.net/" target="_blank">Mythos Media</a></h3></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Modern Mythology - http://www.modernmythology.net</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04721839742206290258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9650614.post-481881356662804942015-09-24T20:15:00.000-07:002015-09-26T09:43:33.402-07:00The Creative Relation of Whole and Part <br />The following article is by Philip Franses, Senior Lecturer at Schumacher College, who has for seven years been co-holding and teaching the Holistic Science Masters Programme. This piece encapsulates in a simple way the essence of what Holistic Science for him is about, not always an easy thing to articulate, and also inquires into some of its implications for the relation of science and faith.<br /><br />It serves as an introduction to the book <i>Time, Light and the Dice of Creation,</i> which is a journey of the encounter of spirit through the stories of science. The book is coming out on October 22nd with Floris Books.<br /><br /><h3 style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;">Part 1: The Dance</h3><h4>Creative novelty</h4><br />Our starting point is a simple shift in the relation of whole to parts. Normally we imagine the whole as something already there and the parts as the logical constituents. This article follows a long tradition, where the whole comes into being through the part; and the part is representative of the whole. The whole and the part are in a dynamic interaction. There is no whole without the part, and no part without the whole. The relation of parts to the whole inhabits the novel, which is thereby given the means of expression. <br /><br /><h4>Circular definition</h4><br />One of the dilemmas is that of circular definition where we define the whole through the parts and the parts through the whole. Immediately there is a problem in this circular definition. Do we start with the whole and get to the parts and then go back to the whole? Or do we start with the part and through this get to the whole? We seem to find that the dynamic of whole and part is illogical. We need another approach before we can deal with this circular definition. <br /><br /><h4>That which is not yet set</h4><br />The approach requires an attitude of that which is not yet set. This could also be described as something emerging, or about to emerge; still undefined; not yet categorised, fixed or compartmentalised. <br /><a name='more'></a><br /><br /><h4><br />Play</h4><br />In order to approach this circular thinking, the whole is in the part, the part is in the whole, we have to develop this attitude of that which is not yet set, or not yet having a definition so we are able to play around with this dynamic before it realises itself. We can play with the whole and the part, before they are actually committed to a form, to a definitive relation. The circular definition of whole and part is between two statements:<br /><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yBKCqk7tBnU/VgbKamrKNRI/AAAAAAAAus0/965Ll7B4kAw/s1600/diagram1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="84" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yBKCqk7tBnU/VgbKamrKNRI/AAAAAAAAus0/965Ll7B4kAw/s320/diagram1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Each statement rests for its definition on the other one. So we have a circular type of logic, where we do not know which to begin with. The crucial point is that we cannot get out of this dilemma rationally by fixing the whole to allow us to know the parts or vice versa. We have instead to approach this circular definition in an existential way by starting with the attitude of that which is not yet set. This attitude allows the possibility of meeting the whole and the part on their journey of mutual transformation. We allow the dynamic interplay of whole and part to realise together a form. The play of whole and part precedes the arriving at form. We are able to live with the coming-into-being of the form, by cultivating that attitude of that which is not yet set. <br /><br /><h4>Two-fold arising</h4><br />The pre-existence of that which is not yet set has the two possibilities for expression, as wholeness or part. It is an emptiness, that is not dead or passive, but which has two modes of expression implicit or latent within it. Because there is this double possibility of wholeness or part implicit within that emptiness, it gives the coming-into-being out of that which is not yet set, a form or structure. Both wholeness and the part are embedded within the attitude of developing themselves through that which is not yet set. First let us look into wholeness. <br /><br /><h4>Wholeness</h4><br />We meet wholeness, not as a thing or something that is already there. We meet wholeness elusively, on a path that leads through that moment to other moments. It is not something that is ever finished. It appears to us at a particular moment, but that moment does not exhaust what wholeness is, or what it tries to tell us, or what it is communicating about the world. Wholeness always meets us in a way in which there is something beyond, along its path, which we have to wait for or allow to unfold. Wholeness gradually reveals itself, by always transforming itself into something new, in a process that is never finished. <br /><br />Travelling illustrates this. When I go travelling, I set out with a fixed idea of what I am trying to do. And the first days are a complete nightmare because I am trying to follow this plan I thought beforehand. And then I have one disastrous day, where my bag gets stolen and it rains all day and I think I should better go home. And then I realise I have to surrender. And once I have surrendered and start living in faith, then this trip has a meaning for itself. Amazing things start to happen, because I am not in control any more, I am just allowing what appears to come. It might be a meal with friends, or a temple I see, or a village I visit, each event having a quality that leads onto the next. <br /><br />The implication of this understanding is that wholeness is always something we are meeting newly. We never understand it, we never fix it, we never say, “this is what wholeness is”. It is always presenting itself to us newly. There is always the chance that wholeness may appear to us in a different way. Wholeness has a concentrated quality of all things and can tell us something beyond our fragmented knowledge. Wholeness is always leading us beyond where we are. Wholeness is always taking us further, asking us to participate in it in order to give it expression. But that participation never exhausts it, we never come to the end of it. <br /><br /><h4>The parts</h4><br />Wholeness is an elusive concept. But equally when we come to the parts that are identified in the whole and we approach them with the attitude of that which is not yet set, we again meet something that is not yet fixed. A part is something that fits exactly as one piece of an exhaustive description of a phenomenon. We could say, “leaves” are the parts of the tree. But when we look closely at leaves, we find that each one is different and that the cloak of part-hood fits rather loosely. The parts are also wholes in themselves at another level of nesting. <br /><br />The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is attempting to get to the fundamental particle, or parts of matter. But what we understand as the parts of matter has shifted greatly in the last hundred years. First the atom was the fundamental part, then there were protons, neutrons and electrons as the fundamental parts; then they worked out there were quarks in the protons and the neutrons; then the quarks had flavours and colours. And in the LHC experiments, now there is an excitement that they might find a new particle foundation. <br /><br />Even after years of experiment, the problem remains in physics about the fine-tuning of the properties of the particles in such a way as to allow a universe to develop through them. Even at the level of the particles there is a sophisticated interplay that has to be just right for the order of the universe to have emerged through them. An answer to this conundrum is that the part is not just a static element of an objective universe, but the part is primarily related to a dynamic whole. The part is adapting its foundational basis in order to allow the whole to be born through it. The part is something that is becoming itself in order to realise the whole. This gives us another way to see development as the fitting of the parts to the whole in a pre-play of existence. <br /><br /><h4>Growing</h4><br />That which is not yet set, puts in another perspective, the dynamic between the whole and the part. That which is not yet set is a condition of growing, not yet fixed, a growing towards what is going to realise the form. The growing is not a material consequence of the causal interactions of the atoms or proteins. The growing is an attitude of something that is not yet set and is trying to find itself through the potential of wholeness and part. Growth is a consequence of something that has to transform itself to become itself. It is nothing when it starts, but there is the opportunity that through its journey, it can become itself. <br /><br /><h4>Being</h4><br />There is no being before the journey. There is a necessary journey in which that which is not yet set of wholeness, and that which is not yet set of the parts, find a way of relating together that realises being. The whole is self-differencing in the parts, and the parts are the journey to the whole. Both these things are happening at the same time. The difference in the parts is the journey that allows the whole to be. The conundrum, of the whole that appears through the parts and the part that is identified in the whole, is miraculously resolved. And when we see it we feel the miracle. Suddenly everything is fitting together. We haven’t started with the whole and then tried to find the parts, and we haven’t started with the parts and then tried to piece together the whole. When we allow the dance between the two, the whole is the origin of the parts in its differencing and the journey through the differences is the ground of the whole. <br /><br /><h4>Singularity of identity</h4><br />The relationship between the whole and the part is realised in another dimension. The happening, retrospectively, gives a logical connection to all the partial expressions on the way, so that all of the growth of the parts perfectly fits the whole. That moment in which all possibilities connect is in the dimension of the identity of the being, becoming itself (the challenge inquired into in part 2).<br /><br />The dimensions of whole and part fall together into the fulfilled unity of being. We might say, “I had this fantastic journey with this being”, and the onlooker might respond “Did you?”<br /><br /><h3>Part 2: The Challenge</h3><br /><h4>Encounter</h4><br />One day I was in a bookshop and had picked up Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav. In this book every chapter is called Chapter 1 to illustrate how modern physics references the void, where nothing is able to build consequentially out of anything else. I was wandering between the physics section behind me and the theology section before me. The reading brought me into an attitude of that which is not yet set, as something inherent in modern physics. At a given moment, I had a feeling of a relationship between the theology section and the physics section. This crystal clear insight said that every culture is this dialogue of wholeness and part, playing in the dimension of that which is not yet set. <br /><br />Prior to this encounter, I had been trying to talk about wholeness exclusively as its own property, something I wanted people to ‘get’. But this encounter made me realise that only by looking into the culture’s science, would I be able to appreciate its theology, its religiosity. Without knowing very much about physics at the time, or theology, I plunged into an investigation to explore this mirror reality between the parts as understood through science, and the whole as investigated in theology. Whole and parts have to find relation to each other in order to know themselves. Different cultures have expressed this in different ways. The whole-part relation can be explored through the different ways it has been practised in cultures.<br /><br /><h4>Harmony of the One</h4><br />The Ancient Greek culture saw wholeness as the essential thing. This is illustrated in their relation to number, as Klein writes: <br /><br />The discreteness of “numbers” is based solely on the discreteness of the units. This discreteness makes something like a “count” and a “number” possible; as “a number of…”, every number presupposes definite discrete units. Such discrete units form the homogeneous medium of counting only if each unit, whatever its nature, is viewed as an indivisible whole. That is why Aristotle can say: ‘Every quantity is recognised as quantity through the one, and that by which quantities are primarily known [as quantities] is the one itself; therefore the one is the source of number as number.’ (Aristotle quoted in Klein, p.53)<br /><br />Only in relation to an indivisible one in the world, do two, three, four… have any meaning. For the Greeks, there is no such abstract thing as number. One, as the indivisible unity, is the basis of the world. This was given expression in the aesthetic of proportion, ratio and harmony.<br /><br />Proclus meanwhile in the 5th century AD was equally exploring the existential ground of the cosmos. <br /><br />The concept of the One is the ground of the cosmos. The form this cosmos takes is phenomenal. It is the divine self-appearing which is the same time a divine self-othering and a divine self-return or identity. The Principle of the One qua One is simply its primary simple singularity. In phenomena this singularity, in its otherness and identity, takes various forms. Proclus is led therefore, to consider what the structure of these forms can be. <br /><br />The whole cosmic order has its structure in unity and being. Being is the self-negation of the One, the self-diremption into otherness or division. Being is thus the unity which negates itself and then is self-negated. (Lowry, 48-49)<br /><br />Proclus is working with the One and the many, but he is starting with the One. The One breaks apart into otherness and then returns to unity. And he calls that production, return and wholeness. Wholeness is always trying to produce itself into many and then there is a movement of return back into identity, the completion of the cycle. <br /><br /><h4>Competing parts</h4><br />Through the Roman civilisation and the adoption of Christianity, culture moved to another notion of the relation of wholeness to the parts. Wholeness identified with God was completely hidden from us. But God had given us an intellect capable of perceiving the many. The relation of whole-part turned around. Oneness became this hidden secondary thing and the many became the world on which we primarily focussed. <br /><br />The pure intellect in itself has no relation at all to the being of the world and the things in the world. What characterises it is not so much its “incorporeality” as just this unrelatedness. Descartes examples are characteristic of this. ‘We must comprehend that the power through which we properly know things is a purely spiritual one and no less distinct [separate] from all body, than blood from bone, or hand from eye.’ (Klein, p.202)<br /><br />Wholeness is exiled to such an extent that all we are left with is the many. Wholeness is hidden as something before the parts. The only bridge to the whole is man’s intellect. <br /><br /><h4>Choice</h4><br />This relating of whole and part that keeps reappearing through cultures is found again in quantum theory. Quantum theory deals in a world of possibility of all the particles before we can say anything about any individual. Wholeness again becomes the question that engages scientists. One answer is to rely only on the mathematics, which allows a calculation of the outcome of any experiment. But Pauli, Bortoft and others have a different approach. We can understand the experiments by saying that the enigma of the wholeness and the part is not in the mathematics, but in this very fact, how that which is not yet set can reveal itself both as the whole and as the part. This two-foldness is the very nature of how that which is possible can express itself. Bortoft even gets to the point where he can feel his mind jumping between these modes. One moment, he is the unseparated whole, and the other moment, the separated part, the particle. <br /><br />There are two perspectives on this science. When we close our fist, we hold the fixity of the element of matter that is the atom. When we open our fist, that which is not yet set is seen in the unity of whole-part resolution. This two-fold nature in that which is not yet set allows one to directly experience the puzzle in quantum theory without any difficulty, the structure already there, in the forming. Science reunites with the actual journey into wholeness, which is the driving impulse behind every culture. We are involved in the whole-part relation as the very act of the world revealing itself. It is a highly creative and vital work that re-appears in this age, at this time, with our science and with our need to return to wholeness. <br /><br />Even when we have abandoned the whole and made something separate of the parts, there is still this possibility of wholeness manifesting itself in this world. We do not start with the whole as the Greeks, nor with the parts as in classical science. Instead, the whole-part relation gives us a stark choice. We can close our fist and thereby gain access to an ultimate knowledge of destruction in the splitting of the atom. Or we can open our fist, freeing the whole-part relation, and find together a doorway to creation. <br /><br />Our endeavour is to surrender to this journey of wholeness and part, not by imposing an understanding, but by allowing the dynamic to express itself. Without imposing a template, we allow the dynamic between wholeness and part to find its own expression. Our faith is, that without any framework, the dynamic of wholeness and part still plays itself out. We surrender the primal relationship of whole and part, to its own realisation.<br /><div><br /> <br /><h4 style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Note from the author</span></h4><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In sharing this paper, my aim is to introduce the book </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Time, Light and the Dice of Creation </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">as a collective journey to find our culture’s relation of wholeness newly, through our scientific insight into whole and parts. In a culture that seeks new explanation by colliding together particles, we offer a rare event of wholeness revealing its meaning directly through a journey into science. </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How can we make visible this existential choice we collectively face? Do we close our fist in fear about the splitting of the atom, or do we open our fist, at the doorway of creation, in the tradition of people who did this before us such as Leibniz, Goethe, Pauli and Bortoft? On what ground do we live meaning? </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Please add your inputs, write, share, download, respond. In appreciation of your response, there is an introductory author’s discount of 40% on </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Time, Light and the Dice of Creation</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, by emailing me at </span><a href="mailto:info@holisticsciencejournal.co.uk" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">info@holisticsciencejournal.co.uk</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The article is also to appear in the next issue of Holistic Science Journal a special issue on phenomenology. A digital copy of this article is available as open-access and can be downloaded from </span><a href="http://www.holisticsciencejournal.co.uk/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">www.holisticsciencejournal.co.uk</span></a></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Many thanks,</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Philip Franses</span></div><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">References</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Franses, P. (2015) Time, Light and the Dice of Creation; Floris Books</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Klein, J. (1968) Greek Mathematical Thought and The Origin of Algebra, Dover(1992)</span></div><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lowry, J. (1980) The Logical Principles of Proclus’ Elements of Theology as Systematic Ground of the Cosmos, Rodopi NV </span><br /><br /><center><h3>All It Takes Is The Right Story. <a href="http://www.mythosmedia.net/" target="_blank">Mythos Media</a></h3></center></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Modern Mythology - http://www.modernmythology.net</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04721839742206290258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9650614.post-5949165817716752352015-09-04T11:10:00.003-07:002015-09-04T11:12:03.067-07:00Satan Never Tempted Me - A brief digital history of an odd little tune<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6BrFhRg6zKc/VencOcX1rfI/AAAAAAAAB-4/RMX84NtCVm8/s1600/IMG_20140214_022732.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6BrFhRg6zKc/VencOcX1rfI/AAAAAAAAB-4/RMX84NtCVm8/s320/IMG_20140214_022732.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>“Ol' Enoch he lived to be three-hundred and sixty-five when the Lord came down and took him up to heaven alive. .” - Bascom Lamar Lunsford, Dry Bones<br /><br />There is an old song recorded by the folklorist Bascom Lamar Lunsford in 1928 under the title <i>Dry Bones </i>(<a href="https://archive.org/details/Bones" target="_blank">Click Here</a> to hear the song via Archive.org), I draw your attention to it due to the fact that it has rather odd lyrics for what seems to be an ordinary folk hymn. The lyrics of the last verse in this recording are odd enough that the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_Bones_(Anthology)" target="_blank">Wikipedia entry on the song</a> actually omits them in favor of an <a href="http://judycook.net/ceijc02/CD2-19.PDF" target="_blank">alternate version</a> found on the webpage of contemporary folk singer Judy Cook.<br /><br />The song begins without any controversy, yet after a few brief verses recounting the story of Enoch’s translation into heaven, Paul’s escape from prison, Moses and the burning bush, and Ezekiel’s vision of dry bones coming to life, Lunsford intones an eerie concluding verse that takes us back to the temptation in the Garden of Eden:<br /><br />“<i>Adam and Eve in the Garden, under that Sycamore tree, Eve said to Adam, Satan never tempted me. I saw, I saw the light from Heaven shining all around. I saw the light come shining, I saw the light come down</i>.”<br /><br />In Cook’s version she changes Eve’s statement to the more orthodox - “<i>Adam, Old Satan is a’tempting me.</i>” Although Cook discovered the song via Lunsford’s recording, the version she uses changes the last verse to fit a rendering of the subject that balances with the standard Christian reading. Ironically Lunsford was known to alter and omit lines himself when he felt that they were too risqué for the educated Appalachian ‘hillbilly’ persona that he cultivated in his performances. The fact that this verse was included in his song means that they did not strike a particularly off chord with him. It's interesting to note that the description of the song on Archive.org does the same alteration as the Wikipedia entry and quotes the verse that Cook uses rather than Lunsford's clear singing of "Satan never tempted me" in the recording.<br /><br />On her web-page where the altered lyrics of her version are found she includes some history on Lunsford’s recording saying that ‘he first heard (the song)…from a traveling Black preacher named Romney who came through western North Carolina.’<br /><br />Lunsford was a lawyer in professional life and a careful folklorist, the idea that he might have mistaken the controversial last verse seems unlikely and it proves to be much more fruitful if we return to the previous examples and examine what underlying theme connects all of these familiar Biblical stories and ties them together with this strange rethinking of the story of the Fall. The answer is surprising considering the source – the theme is gnostic revelation, not the mixed bag of heretical doctrines that so inflamed the early Christian church, rather it is gnosis in its technical sense, that of a direct and intimate revelation of the Divine source. It’s a different sort of heresy, the kind that got Jesus nailed to a cross. <br /><br />It also appears to be the kind of heresy that causes innumerable sources to innocently skew the lyrical content of a simple folk song without recognizing that they are damaging the oral transmission of a very potent spiritual teaching. This simple little tune contains within it a key that opens up the Biblical narrative in a way that centuries of scholarly theological speculation, academic acrobatics and comparative analysis has failed to do – and it came from an itinerant evangelist passing through North Carolina in the early 20th century. <br /><br />I can’t take any credit for discovering Lunsford’s recording, it was a link to the piece on Archive.org and a brief note from the contemplative mystic David Chaim Smith that lead me to it. He said quite simply – “This song has a very esoteric meaning if you understand the implications.” Mercifully Smith’s book <a href="http://www.innertraditions.com/isbn/978-1-62055-463-0" target="_blank"><i>The Kabbalistic Mirror of Genesis</i>, now in its second edition</a> thanks to Inner Traditions, helps illuminate the issue:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">“The serpent is called “Nachash,” which has a numerical value of 358. This number shares gematria with the word “moshiach” (messiah). This suggests that the same power that can awaken the hearts of human beings can also cause confusion and antagonism. Creative tension is such a power. If its essential nature is recognized, then gnosis can be realized. However, if conventional fixation habitually contracts the brilliance of Ain Sof, then endless grasping will continually usurp creativity to manifest endless egoic nightmare scenarios. Life is what mind produces, and its habits determine the manner in which it will manifest. Thus the power of creativity inherent in the serpent stands at the cusp of discernment between the two trees in the garden and the two paths they represent.”</blockquote>Smith’s book focuses on the first three chapters of Genesis, however, as we can see from the song and his explanation of the term nachash the implications of these teachings stretch throughout the Old and New Testament. In the introduction he indicates how exceptional the mystery implied by this song truly is when he points out that “hidden within the first three chapters of Genesis rests one of the greatest jewels of Western mystical literature. Proper appreciation of this is rare. For millennia religious literalism has dominated the role of the Bible, imprisoning its subtle inner wisdom within the most coarse and superficial aspects of the narrative.” Those familiar with the writings contained in the Zohar, Sefer Yetzirah and other classic kabbalistic texts will be surprised at the ease in which Smith opens up their seemingly impenetrable mysteries and reveals the Biblical narrative as a powerful source of non-dual contemplative teachings. Those unfamiliar with kabbalah will still be astonished at how the Bible, a text that has become so commonplace and derided in our society, offers them far more insight into gnostic contemplative practice than the material being churned out for the contemporary spiritual market.<br /><br />So how did a wandering evangelist in North Carolina end up with a folk song that contains a core aspect of one of the deepest contemplative mysteries of the Judeo-Christian tradition? Perhaps he simply “saw the light from Heaven shining all around.” The oral tradition has a living power to it that defies attempts at easy explanation. Suffice to say, after listening to Lunsford’s tune or reading <i>The Kabbalistic Mirror of Genesis</i> the next time you’re in a hotel room you’ll look at that Gideon’s Bible a bit differently.<br /><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.innertraditions.com/isbn/978-1-62055-463-0" target="_blank">Click Here</a> to visit the Inner Traditions website for more information on The Kabbalistic Mirror of Genesis.<br /><br /><a href="http://davidchaimsmith.com/davidchaimsmith.com/David_Chaim_Smith.html" target="_blank">Click Here</a> to visit David Chaim Smith's webpage for more information on his work. </div><center><h3>All It Takes Is The Right Story. <a href="http://www.mythosmedia.net/" target="_blank">Mythos Media</a></h3></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Modern Mythology - http://www.modernmythology.net</div>David B. Metcalfehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02785408537002935025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9650614.post-81043435229694946802015-09-02T21:10:00.002-07:002015-10-09T20:28:51.013-07:00The Theater of Ultra-Violence<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uZi7ns6RlEE/VefHlIyJDPI/AAAAAAAAuXQ/irOEupRonsM/s1600/tumblr_mwzg3abA3D1suocejo1_500.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uZi7ns6RlEE/VefHlIyJDPI/AAAAAAAAuXQ/irOEupRonsM/s400/tumblr_mwzg3abA3D1suocejo1_500.gif" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />On last Wednesday, a man approached a couple talking on a patio, a man and a woman. It became apparent that the two were News reporters. How they spoke, the too put-together clothes and makeup all gave it away. We see the scene in the first person, as if we’re watching Half-life or Call of Duty. This sense is increased when the point of view pulls a guns and fires repeatedly into the bodies of three reporters.<br /><br />So runs Bryce Williams’ video footage that was discovered on social media minutes after the shooting. Traumatic real world violence, performed for the camera both on live TV and social media. We discovered his account moments before CNN did, so I didn’t know what I would find when I clicked it.<br /><br />When I saw it, for a moment, I couldn’t believe it was real. This is a common reaction even in the midst of real violence — somehow the surreal cuts in. But soon I lost myself in my job as an editor — getting the story up, seeing it’s updated, pushing to social media, reacting to the reactions…<br /><br />Nevertheless, this troubling sense of cognitive dissonance grew through the day. Especially as I heard all the same narratives over and again on CNN that always follow a violent tragedy. When we talk about psychology we are always talking about the killer’s motive. Were they a loner, a disgruntled worker, a jilted lover? But we never hear a dialogue about mass psychology, or about our relationship with violent media that gets past this surface level. We never talk about how we are all a part of this theater.<br /><br />So, I don’t want to talk directly about what happened yesterday. Instead, I want to explore the related, larger issues in a way that never seems to get on the news. And maybe that’s because it’s too complicated, or that it doesn’t have simple answers. Those aren’t good enough. It’s a conversation we should be having.<br /><br />Let’s begin not with the violent act itself but in the fall out, and how we talk to each other about traumatizing media.<h4 style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;"><a href="https://rebelnews.com/jamescurcio/theater-ultra-violence/" target="_blank">Full article</a></h4><br /><center><h3>All It Takes Is The Right Story. <a href="http://www.mythosmedia.net/" target="_blank">Mythos Media</a></h3></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Modern Mythology - http://www.modernmythology.net</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04721839742206290258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9650614.post-41396251232821902002015-05-31T17:23:00.000-07:002015-05-31T17:29:08.828-07:00Blackbirds and Fox Bones – Notes from an imaginal pilgrimageBy David Metcalfe<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">We that walk at nights, looking after our sheep, see many strange sights, while other men sleep, (from the 2nd Shepherd’s Play, Wakefield Cycle)</blockquote><center><div><iframe seamless="" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1896019930/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/tracklist=false/artwork=small/transparent=true/" style="border: 0; height: 120px; width: 100%;"><a href="http://xetb.bandcamp.com/album/hawthonn">Hawthonn by Hawthonn</a></iframe></div></center><br />Surprise and excitement accompanied a note I received from Phil Legard mentioning that Hawthonn was ready for release. As a collection of music that he and his wife Layla recorded in honor of Jhonn Balance, a creative soul who has long been a personal inspiration, I’d been eagerly awaiting the album. As a topic of conversation between my roommate and I just minutes before Legard’s email arrived I was surprised that the first digital release of the collection had come at such a coincidental and timely interval. Yet, so it goes when one walks the borderlands of reality and imagination.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6wqyFvteINE/VWunD6YkIfI/AAAAAAAAqc4/t0iynIQCu4o/s1600/IMG_20150521_201150.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6wqyFvteINE/VWunD6YkIfI/AAAAAAAAqc4/t0iynIQCu4o/s320/IMG_20150521_201150.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>With the song of blackbirds and rattle of fox bones Hawthonn opens an invitation to journey through the imaginal landscape of Jhonn Balance’s post-mortem pilgrimage from Worlebury Hill in Weston-Super-Mare to where his ashes were scattered by his lover beneath a Hawthorn tree which sits on the grounds of St. Bega’s church overlooking an inland lake at Bassenthwaite. Ethereal atmospheres of sound and voice draw the listener to the edge of that summerland beyond the veil, where spirit supplants flesh and all time comes together – a place well walked by Balance long before his transition. <br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">If you kill me, I'd have to live forever,<br />(Jhonn Balance in response to an audience member at a concert in 2004)</blockquote>Best known for his experimental sound work with Peter Christopherson under the moniker of Coil, Balance is one of the premier visionary artists of the late 20th century. As a testament to their vision – Coil’s multiphasic amorphous musical assemblage continues as one of the most challenging, primal, and beautiful examples of contemporary sound experimentation by way of “pop music,” despite the passing of both Balance in 2004, and Christopherson in 2010. Hawthonn’s success as a conceptual album can be seen in its eerie evocation of Coil’s underlying themes – ghostly sketches of possibility emerge from these sonic landscapes, a peculiar and specific spirit hovers over the work. Using what can in some sense be described as musical necromancy the Legards have created a series of sound evocations that allow the listener to embark on a mythopoetic voyage beyond the waking world. Diving deeply into the album’s compositional techniques one begins to understand the delicate process which lead to this effective evocation of Balance’s spirit.<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Don't believe AE, see for yourself the summer fields. See for yourself the summer fields, before the tractor comes and wakes you, before the cereal is sown, (Beestings, lyrics by Jhonn Balance)<br /><a name='more'></a></blockquote><h4>She Thought It Was a Bird (Notes on subjective engagement)</h4>I’ve had some strange experiences with Coil in the past. Jhonn Balance’s death was particularly moving to me, an inexplicable reaction that I’ve not had with many people who I only know through their creative work. However, it was when Peter Christopherson passed beyond the veil that I experienced one of the odder coincidental occurrences in my life – occurrences which now seem to continue as I engage with the Legards’ haunting Hawthonn recordings.<br /><br />2010 - It’s mid-afternoon and I am at the computer doing some research. Word of Christopherson’s passing is just making the rounds, and I am overcome with a strange feeling, a sort of potent dizziness. While I am looking for more information, my roommate walks into the kitchen behind me to begin boiling water for tea. She turns the dial on the electric stove and without warning the coil inexplicably explodes, sparks flying 4 feet across the room. There’s no damage outside of some burn marks on the stovetop.<br /><br />“That’s a bit odd…” I murmur out loud.<br /><br />“What is?” she inquired.<br /><br />“That coil exploded a few moments after I read that Peter Christopherson from Coil died in his sleep.”<br /><br />“Oh…”<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ls6yE4cjG9k/VWunLWhGhtI/AAAAAAAAqdA/kpnT6obSf2M/s1600/6427585071_85e9f8b547_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ls6yE4cjG9k/VWunLWhGhtI/AAAAAAAAqdA/kpnT6obSf2M/s320/6427585071_85e9f8b547_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>One of the original inspirations for the Hawthonn recordings lies in Ian Johnstone’s <a href="http://www.arktodd.com/%20page19.htm" target="_blank">written memorial</a> which recounts a coincidence that occurred after Balance’s ashes were scattered beneath the hawthorn tree. Balance promised a sign from beyond the veil when he passed, and upon returning home Johnstone found a male black bird dead near his front door, a female black bird dead in the backyard. Black birds were an important part of Balance’s personal mythology, making the appearance of these two a strange and significant reminder of the thin lines between dream and reality.<br /><br />Is there any surprise then that when I began to explore Hawthonn, curious coincidences were soon to follow?<br /><br />2015 – I am on the porch thinking about Ben Chasny’s Hexadic system for composing music and have a strange feeling. At the cabin we have no stable web access, and I have no cell phone, so I ask my roommate to borrow her phone to check email. Sure enough, I’ve received an email from Ben at the same time the odd feeling came over me. Mentioning this to my roommate I feel compelled to discuss Legard’s musical experiments as well – Legard is one of the composers experimenting with Chasny’s system - moments later I see that I have an email from Phil. Hawthonn has been released in a limited edition digital format. <br /><br />The next day I wake up and walk out onto the porch to discover a bloody bit of something that the cat caught the night before. My roommate sees where my eyes are set and says, “The cat caught a bird…” but upon closer inspection I realize that the bird is actually a bat. Facing west, the porch is flooded with light from the rising sun. Immediately I hear Jhonn’s voice in my head singing lines from Coil’s Batwings (Limnal Hymn):<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">And batwings, and batwings, and batwings sing this limnal hymn…</blockquote>It takes a bit of maneuvering, but later in the day I’m able to download Hawthonn. I’m standing in front of the main house down the way from the cabin we are renting, listening to the first strains of Foxglove beneath a towering oak when a blue black butterfly catches my attention. It hovers in front of me and I think of the butterfly’s association as a psychopomp, a symbol of the soul itself or of a guide for the soul in the underworld. As I reflect on this the butterfly begins to circle my head. I am reminded of some lines from a poem that Balance wrote when he was 13:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">At the dawn of time</div><div style="text-align: center;">The Lord Peacock</div><div style="text-align: center;">Drank the elixir of butterflies</div><div style="text-align: center;">And his drab, limp tail</div><div style="text-align: center;">Drew up</div><div style="text-align: center;">And reached for the heavens</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">And caught the colours of the rainbow</div><div style="text-align: center;">In its feathers</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">And they've remained unequalled</div><div style="text-align: center;">For ever...</div><br />The next day I go down to help my neighbor with the communal garden. While we are finishing up planting some potatoes the landowner stops by to chat. Something got into the coop at the main house and killed all of the chickens, the landowner says it was probably a raccoon, but begins talking of foxes. My neighbor mentions that he and his wife often hear foxes calling out from the granite outcrop near the cabins.<br /><br />Having spent time with the Hawthonn release at this point I think of an entry from the booklet included in initial digital release:<br /><br /><h4>July 11, 2014: A Journeying</h4><div style="text-align: center;"><br />Something brought us a fox and left it in the garden – </div><div style="text-align: center;">badly decomposed, just a skull and spine. </div><div style="text-align: center;">Or perhaps it offered itself?</div><br />And the haunting lyrics of the first song on the album:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">“Follow the fox</div><div style="text-align: center;">Through tangled time</div><div style="text-align: center;">Through the clouds of ash</div><div style="text-align: center;">And the copper moon</div><div style="text-align: center;">To the palace of birds</div><div style="text-align: center;">To a shadow garden</div><div style="text-align: center;">Where the hawthorn grow.”</div><br />Association is a beautiful tool, and as these coincidences pile up I begin entering deeper into Hawthonn’s imaginal pilgrimage – however, it’s the day following the mention of foxes that truly set the scene.<br /><br />This time I am walking back from the main house with the same neighbor, we are coming up the dirt road to the cabins when, off to the side of the path, he spots a blueberry bush in full bloom. Walking over to it he casually mentions the hawthorn growing beside it.<br /><br />“What did you just say?” I ask<br /><br />“These bushes by the blueberry are hawthorn.” He answers.<br /><br />“Hawthorn?”<br /><br />“Yep, hawthorn. See, they’re fruiting. Hawthorn berries are edible too.”<br /><br />Last night my roommate and I went out to a granite outcrop near the cabin to enjoy the stars. As we sat immersed in visions of the sky we heard a scuffling sound in the woods nearby – followed by the hoarse coughing bark of foxes.<br /><br /><h4>Imaginal Landscapes</h4><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mD92L9WZ40c/VWunTdmUp4I/AAAAAAAAqdI/sz6YIWOECCs/s1600/IMG_20150518_145212.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mD92L9WZ40c/VWunTdmUp4I/AAAAAAAAqdI/sz6YIWOECCs/s320/IMG_20150518_145212.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I would be remiss if I let you assume that in the aforementioned encounters I’m making a case for the spiritual efficacy of synchronicity. In discussing these occurrences I’ve been very careful to use the word ‘coincidence’ – these are events whose subjective interpretation runs parallel with each other, yet to propose meaning we would have to recognize that it is only in this subjective relationship that the meaning emerges. To use the term ‘synchronicity’ in a technical sense would be fine, but to load the word with the kind of careless assumptions that surround it in popular culture damages the potential power we can find in these liminal encounters. We are dealing with ‘mysteries’ in a very real way here, and easy answers degrade our ability to truly appreciate just how potent these areas of experience really are.<br /><br />For my roommate, the landowner and my neighbor nothing out of the ordinary happened. For me this is one of the exciting aspects of the kind of ‘speculative’ methodologies that composers like Legard use in crafting their work, and it is a testament to the power of such methodologies that immediately upon engagement with Hawthonn the imaginal landscape evoked in the recordings became so immanent and accessible.<br /><br />Within an imaginal landscape the geography is mapped through associative meaning rather than physical landmarks. While those around me continue to exist in their own perceived web of meaning, by allowing myself the freedom of associative thinking I can actively realign my own representational references and enter into a meaningful conversation with the symbols that encircle the album and its creation. We see through a glass darkly, and techniques such as those employed in the conception of this album provide a lens to adjust our vision.<br /><br />Describing his approach to composing music in The Many-Coloured Earth: Visionary Creativity, Imaginal Landscapes and the Hermeneutic Imagination, a paper presented at the Alchemical Landscape conference at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, Legard says:<br /><br />“I tend to use acts of contemplation, directed listening (in conjunction with field recording) and musical improvisation (within the field) as ways to stimulate the imagination and to create materials that can be used as further contemplative foci, as well as sources for constructing musical works. It might almost be said that the musical work is actually the by-product of a process of imaginal involvement with the landscape and derivative materials: (…) the experiential aspect of engagement is most important, and from this all the other work emerges.”<br /><br />These techniques are further focused on this album in order to bring the listener into a state of resonance with Hawthonn’s thematic goals:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Hawthonn itself was posited from the outset as an imaginal pilgrimage to the<br />memory of Jhonn Balance, with specified temporal and geographical endpoints, but<br />with the waypoints between subordinated to emergent intuitions and visions arising<br />from the holophonic engagement.</blockquote><h4>Holophones</h4>For the initial limited release of Hawthonn, the Legard’s have included the ‘holophone’ soundscapes they fashioned and used for inducing visionary states during the album’s formation. These are described quite aptly in the accompanying booklet as “not music. A tool. A sonic scrying machine,” and are based on the pioneering sound work of Kim Cascone, whose ‘subtle listening’ methodology was adapted by the Legards for this album. These ‘tools’ when used with the proper mind state provide a means to access imaginal landscapes – if one allows the active mind to settle, the subtle influence of these sonic beds gives way to a vibrant panoply of free-associative mental imagery emerging unbidden as the listener relaxes into the experience.<br /><br />Legard describes the use of these ‘holophones’ further along in the paper:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">In the early stages of the project, sounds were specifically composed as objects for speculation and observation intended to stimulate an imaginal engagement with the geographical themes of the album, focusing on Worlebury Hill (near Balance’s home in Weston-Super-Mare) and Bassenthwaite as poles mediating between the worlds of the living and of the dead. These compositions were called ‘holophones’, in reference to their intention to stimulate ‘holistic’ imaginal engagement through sound. They exploited devices such as the psychological phenomenon of phantom words and binaural entrainment: one example illustrated here is a form of exegetic alchemy, in which the geographically literal (the distances between landmarks at Bassenthwaite) were transferred into a more ‘allegorical’ domain (as proportions on a hypothetical monochord) to form a sonic object with some relation to the place of study, yet existing in an abstracted domain in order to stimulate less literal, more subjective imaginal explorations of an interior counterpart landscape.</blockquote>Hawthonn not only evokes these visionary states, but also explicitly investigates the techniques necessary for achieving them. As both a musicologist and performer, Legard is able to explore these areas with an attention to detail and process. More than music, these pieces speak to an active form of listening and engagement with sound that opens up to the deepest levels of personal experience.<br /><br /><h4>Stepping through the hedge</h4>A work such as Hawthonn acts as a cryptographic key for investigating the innumerable combinations possible with the symbolism that enfolds the main themes. The collection is a focal point that both begins the imaginal pilgrimage and defines the signs that lead one from point to point on the path. Even the name itself, which speaks to both the hawthorn and Jhonn Balance, provides a trail through the boundary of waking reality and into the imaginal realm of dream and vision.<br /><br />We’ve discussed Jhonn, but what of the plant? The hawthorn is traditionally used for hedges meant to keep predators and hungry herbivores out of gardens and fields. With its sharp thorns it is also traditionally associated with protecting against more ephemeral foes, such as malefic spirits and ill intended witchcraft.<br /><br />According to Clare Goodricke Clarke in her book Alchemical Medicine for the 21st Century:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">In Greek, kratos means “hard,” oxus means “sharp,” and akantha means“thorn. “Haw” is an old English name for “hedge,” and Hagedorn, the German name for Crataegus oxyacanthoides, means “hedgethorn,” so this plant has a long association with boundaries. The Greek name is accurate: the wood is hard and the thorns are long and sharp; it is not a hedge you can brush past. Hawthorn was planted to ward off sickness and evil. It is also known as May blossom for the time of its flowering. The white flowers give a very bridal air to the countryside when the hedges are in flower and a very distinct scent fills the air.</blockquote>She goes on to detail one of the legends associated with the plant, saying that, “the thorn associated with Joseph of Arimathea that flowers at Glastonbury, in England, is a specimen of hawthorn. By tradition, the hawthorn is a holy plant associated with suffering: legend makes it the source of Christ’s crown of thorns.” In Arthurian lore the hawthorn is sometimes said to have been what held Merlin in bondage after the nymph, Nimue or Vivaine, seduced him into revealing the inner secrets of the magical arts. Merlin’s last instructions to Arthur after his imprisonment come in the form of a vision had by Galahad, which spurs the quest for the Holy Grail.<br /><br />With its sharp thorns and relation to boundaries the hawthorn is a perfect symbol for the pain of initiation and the sacrifice necessary to step into the imaginal world. As a protective barrier it also acts as a symbol of a guarded journey, where the hazards of such a passage are held at bay. It is a complex and commanding symbol, perfectly matched to the delicate complexities found in Hawthonn. As a work that brings listener in tune with the spirit journey of Jhonn Balance after his passing, Hawthonn is a powerful vision of the pain and potency of Balance’s life and vision.<br /><br /><h4>Music, a mirror</h4>In a future article I hope to write in more depth regarding the nature of speculative music, focusing on the contemporary work of the Legards, Kim Cascone, Ben Chasny and others who are currently exploring this territory with renewed vigor. The word speculative comes from speculum, or mirror, and with speculative music the goal is to mirror the hidden processes of nature in sound. With Coil, Balance and Christopherson were eager participants in bringing these techniques to bear on popular music, and it is heartening to see others continuing to pull these powerful methods out of the obscurity of avant-garde experimentalism and into practical use.<br /><br />When I took up the task of writing on Hawthonn I had no idea that it would become such an intimate journey through my own imaginal mytho-poesis. The multi-faceted mirror found in these recordings continues to cast new reflections, and if I don’t leave off writing I fear running the risk of weaving a web of words with no end – a true pilgrimage leads far beyond a lifetime. For now, I simply invite you to spend some time with the recordings, “see for yourself the summer fields” and discover what happens when you “follow the fox…to a shadow garden where the hawthorn grow.”<br /><br />For more information on Phil Legard’s work <a href="http://larkfall.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">CLICK HERE</a> to visit his Larkfall website.<br /><center><h3>All It Takes Is The Right Story. <a href="http://www.mythosmedia.net/" target="_blank">Mythos Media</a></h3></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Modern Mythology - http://www.modernmythology.net</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04721839742206290258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9650614.post-16756323493905165652015-05-29T14:05:00.001-07:002015-05-29T14:05:32.606-07:00Half of the Literature Is False Science Journalism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VSTIq4OJ4XM/VWjUi2qg55I/AAAAAAAAqb8/vYsBtUh3Ajc/s1600/tumblr_mscmw46xVK1qbmgeto2_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VSTIq4OJ4XM/VWjUi2qg55I/AAAAAAAAqb8/vYsBtUh3Ajc/s320/tumblr_mscmw46xVK1qbmgeto2_500.jpg" width="255" /></a></div>The realities of the daily grind don't always mesh well with the necessities of good journalism, let alone good science.<br /><br />Consider:<br /><br /><b><a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/05/28/410313446/why-a-journalist-scammed-the-media-into-spreading-bad-chocolate-science" target="_blank">Why A Journalist Scammed The Media Into Spreading Bad Chocolate Science</a></b><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"He's really only scratching the surface of a much broader, much deeper problem," Schwitzer says. "We have examples of journalists reporting on a study that was never done. We have news releases from medical journals, academic institutions and industry that mislead journalists, who then mislead the public." And the pressure to publish or perish, he says, can lead well-intentioned scientists to frame their work in ways that aren't completely accurate or balanced or supported by the facts.</blockquote><b>And <a href="http://www.collective-evolution.com/2015/05/16/editor-in-chief-of-worlds-best-known-medical-journal-half-of-all-the-literature-is-false/" target="_blank">this is even more damning</a>, supposing of course that the supposition is correct,</b><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">In the past few years more professionals have come forward to share a truth that, for many people, proves difficult to swallow. One such authority is Dr. Richard Horton, the current editor-in-chief of the Lancet – considered to be one of the most well respected peer-reviewed medical journals in the world.<br />Dr. Horton recently published a statement declaring that a lot of published research is in fact unreliable at best, if not completely false.<br />“The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness.” (<a href="http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736%2815%2960696-1.pdf">source</a>)<br />This is quite distrubing, given the fact that all of these studies (which are industry sponsored) are used to develop drugs/vaccines to supposedly help people, train medical staff, educate medical students and more.</blockquote><center><h3>All It Takes Is The Right Story. <a href="http://www.mythosmedia.net/" target="_blank">Mythos Media</a></h3></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Modern Mythology - http://www.modernmythology.net</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04721839742206290258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9650614.post-47602488545535178572015-05-29T12:41:00.001-07:002015-05-29T20:29:54.471-07:00Bullying and the Cycle of Abuse<div><b>From <a href="http://metroidpolitan.com/blog/2015/5/26/bullying-and-the-enforcement-of-normal" target="_blank">Metroidpolitan</a>:</b></div><blockquote class="tr_bq">Research suggests my experience isn’t unusual. UC Davis sociologists Robert Faris and Diane Femlee have studied bullying extensively; in a CNN interview, Faris summarized their findings:<br />"Kids are caught up in patterns of cruelty and aggression that have to do with jockeying for status ... It’s really not the kids that are psychologically troubled, who are on the margins or the fringes of the school’s social life. It’s the kids right in the middle, at the heart of things … often, typically highly, well-liked popular kids who are engaging in these behaviors. When kids increase in their status, on average, they tend to have a higher risk of victimization as well as a higher risk of becoming aggressive."</blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_1Y-14Y3plY/VWjA60ny0ZI/AAAAAAAAqbY/Ov5bNa-l66w/s1600/under-water-scream.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_1Y-14Y3plY/VWjA60ny0ZI/AAAAAAAAqbY/Ov5bNa-l66w/s320/under-water-scream.gif" width="320" /></a></div><div>Abuse isn't restricted to one history or narrative. Abuse compounds abuse. That cycle passes from hand to hand and person to person.<br /><br />Such truisms can be deceptive, but that doesn't make them invalid. For one person it's their childhood trauma, for another, its when their brother was killed by Palestinians. For another it was growing up poor and having a meth addicted mother. Whether you turn around and take it out on someone else or whether it changes you in more subtle ways, you can't help but react to your history with every action you take, and inflict that history on others, maybe even without knowing it. Given how endemic cycles of abuse are, it seems unlikely we can heal all wounds, so long as you have to remain in this world to heal from the world. How do you get the goose out of the bottle? </div><br />More than any of these simple categories, more than even what we think we know about ourselves, our lives are conditioned by the unspoken and the unconscious. Yet there must be some commonality to our experience, for us to be able to even begin to understand one another, so maybe it isn't all shadow and silence. <br /><br />What can we say? In a statistical sense, certain populations are more systemically fucked than others. No doubt. So understanding may have to begin with these generalities. But it can't remain there, or we're just stereotyping one another in a new way. Do we not want to know other people's stories, because they might contradict what we already think we know about the world? Or is the complexity of difference simply too much for us to comprehend?<br /><div><br /></div><div><center><h3>All It Takes Is The Right Story. <a href="http://www.mythosmedia.net/" target="_blank">Mythos Media</a></h3></center></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Modern Mythology - http://www.modernmythology.net</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04721839742206290258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9650614.post-57773260524920814122015-05-22T08:35:00.002-07:002015-05-24T14:01:11.519-07:00hive<center><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Nrt4ZSR7XJA" width="560"></iframe></center><br /><h3 style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.mythosmedia.net/2015/05/hive-propolis-volume-i.html" target="_blank">HIVE</a></h3><br />In 2023, Hive (human interface for virtual evolution) is an augmented-reality technology that consolidates an individual's devices and technology into a holographic visual display that is projected from their mind. Millions connect and become a collective consciousness, while The Disconnected are left in its wake; forced to adapt to a primitive lifestyle in the outskirts of Hive cities. Conflict is inevitable, however the reality behind Hive may be even stranger than anyone realized. Propolis follows nine-year-old Samantha Plessis, as she witnesses her family opt-in to beta testing this new product to receive health insurance benefits to treat her immune disorder. Since her disease prevents her from connecting to Hive, she becomes gradually alienated by her family whose method of communication is now changing. Hive is a science-fiction transmedia project told through a series of books, films, social media and real-world interactive events. This six-part novella series is the main narrative. The story takes place from the year 2023 to 2050.<br /><br /><center><h3>All It Takes Is The Right Story. <a href="http://www.mythosmedia.net/" target="_blank">Mythos Media</a></h3></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Modern Mythology - http://www.modernmythology.net</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04721839742206290258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9650614.post-84354063659648523412015-05-19T08:15:00.000-07:002015-05-19T08:15:21.127-07:00The Lifespan of a Fact<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11583972-the-lifespan-of-a-fact" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="The Lifespan of a Fact" border="0" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347400587m/11583972.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11583972-the-lifespan-of-a-fact">The Lifespan of a Fact</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/41554.John_D_Agata">John D'Agata</a><br />My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1284209187">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />The Lifespan of a Fact caught my attention recently, in the course of a number of project-related conversations about truth and journalism. Overall, I would say that it delivers on exactly what it promises: a discussion, sometimes debate, about the nature of literature and fact. The Talmudic formatting is interesting, and allows the conversation to flow around the central text. The only way I think you're liable to be disappointed by this book is if you're looking for any final conclusions. But this is not a subject that can — or should! — have a final conclusion. It is meant to be struggled with. <br /><br />I think all writers that have worked in "nonfiction" wrestle with this issue — how narratives can't help but manipulate an audience. Literary journalism is kind of inherently manipulative, certainly you can bring out nuances and the complexity of a character, but ultimately you're painting a sympathetic or unsympathetic picture. The closest you can get to the facts would be to read out a list of data points — at this time, according to this source, this thing happened. <br /><br />The further we stray from that, the more it's didactic. But I think that narrative speaks directly to how we actually engage with the world. We aren't, fundamentally logical creatures, so that "pure fact" approach is actually more alien in some ways than appealing to people through a narrative that you've constructed out of a *particular evaluation* of the facts. <br /><br />The main issue with full out gonzo journalism is that it was often used to intentionally lie, or use people's ignorance against them. Like when Hunter S. Thompson went after Muskie by making a wild claim about ibogaine, knowing people take the mere suggestion of a possibility, frequently repeated, as fact. We can laugh about that, but I'm not sure there's much difference between that and what Fox News does, except that we might personally agree with Hunter's politics more. <br /><br />So there's a kind of contradiction here, the understanding that we make sense of our day-to-day world primarily through narrative, that journalism should play to that, and yet on the other hand, recognizing that narratives are inherently misleading, if not outright duplicitous. There are many ways of dealing with this complexity. My inclination is to own a bias, rather than try to cover it up with feints toward "fair and balanced objectivity." But there is no one, or easy solution. <br /><br /><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/131963-james-curcio">View all my reviews</a> <br /><center><h3>All It Takes Is The Right Story. <a href="http://www.mythosmedia.net/" target="_blank">Mythos Media</a></h3></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Modern Mythology - http://www.modernmythology.net</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04721839742206290258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9650614.post-31695667942881170022015-04-27T23:46:00.003-07:002015-04-27T23:46:51.083-07:00Debord on Riots<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mARUGaAFKYw/VT8sjJVdVfI/AAAAAAAAp1A/bWo374BAzZw/s1600/0001-riots.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mARUGaAFKYw/VT8sjJVdVfI/AAAAAAAAp1A/bWo374BAzZw/s1600/0001-riots.jpg" height="195" width="320" /></a></div><div>From <a href="http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/decline.html" target="_blank">Situationist International</a>:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">AUGUST 13 - 16, 1965, the blacks of Los Angeles revolted. An incident between traffic police and pedestrians developed into two days of spontaneous riots. Despite increasing reinforcements, the forces of order were unable to regain control of the streets. By the third day the blacks had armed themselves by looting accessible gun stores, enabling them to fire even on police helicopters. It took thousands of police and soldiers, including an entire infantry division supported by tanks, to confine the riot to the Watts area, and several more days of street fighting to finally bring it under control. Stores were massively plundered and many were burned. Official sources listed 32 dead (including 27 blacks), more than 800 wounded and 3000 arrests.<br />Reactions from all sides were most revealing: a revolutionary event, by bringing existing problems into the open, provokes its opponents into an unhabitual lucidity. Police Chief William Parker, for example, rejected all the major black organizations’ offers of mediation, correctly asserting: “These rioters don’t have any leaders.” </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Since the blacks no longer had any leaders, it was the moment of truth for both sides. What did one of those unemployed leaders, NAACP general secretary Roy Wilkins, have to say? He declared that the riot “should be put down with all necessary force.” And Los Angeles Cardinal McIntyre, who protested loudly, did not protest against the violence of the repression, which one might have supposed the most tactful policy at a time when the Roman Church is modernizing its image; he denounced “this premeditated revolt against the rights of one’s neighbor and against respect for law and order,” calling on Catholics to oppose the looting and “this violence without any apparent justification.” </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">And all those who went so far as to recognize the “apparent justifications” of the rage of the Los Angeles blacks (but never their real ones), all the ideologists and “spokesmen” of the vacuous international Left, deplored the irresponsibility, the disorder, the looting (especially the fact that arms and alcohol were the first targets) and the 2000 fires with which the blacks lit up their battle and their ball. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">But who has defended the Los Angeles rioters in the terms they deserve? We will. Let the economists fret over the $27 million lost, and the city planners sigh over one of their most beautiful supermarkets gone up in smoke, and McIntyre blubber over his slain deputy sheriff. Let the sociologists bemoan the absurdity and intoxication of this rebellion. The role of a revolutionary publication is not only to justify the Los Angeles insurgents, but to help elucidate their perspectives, to explain theoretically the truth for which such practical action expresses the search.<br />...<br />Through theft and gift they rediscover a use that immediately refutes the oppressive rationality of the commodity, revealing its relations and even its production to be arbitrary and unnecessary. The looting of the Watts district was the most direct realization of the distorted principle: “To each according to their false needs” — needs determined and produced by the economic system which the very act of looting rejects. But once the vaunted abundance is taken at face value and directly seized, instead of being eternally pursued in the rat-race of alienated labor and increasing unmet social needs, real desires begin to be expressed in festive celebration, in playful self-assertion, in the potlatch of destruction. People who destroy commodities show their human superiority over commodities. They stop submitting to the arbitrary forms that distortedly reflect their real needs. The flames of Watts consummated the system of consumption. The theft of large refrigerators by people with no electricity, or with their electricity cut off, is the best image of the lie of affluence transformed into a truth in play. Once it is no longer bought, the commodity lies open to criticism and alteration, whatever particular form it may take. Only when it is paid for with money is it respected as an admirable fetish, as a symbol of status within the world of survival.</blockquote></div><div><center><h3>All It Takes Is The Right Story. <a href="http://www.mythosmedia.net/" target="_blank">Mythos Media</a></h3></center></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Modern Mythology - http://www.modernmythology.net</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04721839742206290258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9650614.post-60416713689307767902015-04-25T09:44:00.000-07:002015-04-27T21:57:38.031-07:00The Choice of Ants <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t2VYPV3oXOo/VTvDoVeANoI/AAAAAAAApyo/vCsjuyzaxYU/s1600/choice-of-ants_caitlin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t2VYPV3oXOo/VTvDoVeANoI/AAAAAAAApyo/vCsjuyzaxYU/s1600/choice-of-ants_caitlin.jpg" height="320" width="201" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Caitlin Murphy</td></tr></tbody></table>I’m sitting, my arms wrapped around my legs, staring at ants crawling to and fro on the pavement. This was once a pastime of mine, when I was a child. When you are a certain indeterminate age, you can do things like spend hours a day watching ants. Eventually there are groundings and girls and grades and abortions and jobs and you pretty much forget altogether about the world that the ants live in. That is, until a moment like now.<br /><br />If they've missed me over the years, they show no sign of it. Dutiful. Dedicated. Did you know that sometimes they will build a bridge out of their very bodies, drown themselves, just so that others can cross a stream?<br /><br />Don’t judge. It isn’t the ants themselves that fascinated me, even as a child. It is the scale that they live in, and the truly magical way that they self-organize. I know it isn’t really magic, but we have no other word for it. Magic is what we call things that we don’t understand. (We don’t really understand anything, when you get right down to it, so the truth is that the entire universe is magical. But that’s something else entirely.)<br /><br />I can hear sirens in the background. The cops, dutifully, are arriving in a rush, and there will be questions and I’m sure at some point I’ll have to deal with the emotional weight of what just happened. But for right now, there’s just me and the ants—the not-so-benevolent God and His useless subjects. Sometimes I would squash one of them and watch it wriggle. It wasn’t viciousness. I didn’t revel in their suffering. It was just some primal urge. Every now and then when you see a long line of ants marching you just have to reach in and pick one. YOU, you say. And their body, half crushed by the mass of your finger, struggles against the inevitable fact that, for no reason at all, a choice was made, or it wasn’t, but either way, there is no turning back.<br /><br />That’s really what I’m getting at, I think, through all the shock. One moment everything is a certain way and the next it is completely different, and for no other reason than that you were picked out of a line because that’s just how it is, how it will be, forever and ever, Amen.<br /><br />My wife Sheila—she would have legally been my wife in three months but we had lived together for years—was broken just like one of those ants, a carcass tangled in the metal that used to be our new car. No more marriage planning, no more—well, none of it matters really. I reached down and pushed down, hard, on one of those ants. I picked his abdomen. It popped and spurted whatever ant abdomens contain onto the sidewalk, and he tried to drag the flaccid thing around for a while. Eventually other ants showed up to the scene and carried it off. I wondered if they were the cops and emergency personnel of the ant world, or if they just switched roles.<br /><br />The cops wanted to know a lot of details that seemed pointless. What was the make of the third car that hit us? Where were we headed? I looked at him dully and said, “Her favorite flavor was mint chocolate chip.” I couldn't think of anything else. Anyway, there were pieces of the car that hit us from behind scattered across the roadway. Did I look like a mechanic? It was a pileup. I remember the bus. The rest happened too fast.<br /><br />I thought back a moment. How many breaths separated me, now, breathing alone with the ants, and my wife and I in the car, breathing the same air together? A few hundred breaths? An endless chasm.<br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br />I was in the car with her. She was pouting in that way she did when she was half toying with me and half serious, and of course she knew that if she did that long enough she would get almost anything she wanted. She wanted to get ice cream. It was no good for her stomach and my stomach certainly didn’t need the extra padding, but she wanted ice cream. How could I argue with that?<br /><br />So I caved.<br /><br />“It’s my period,” she said, as if that explained anything. She had her period at least six or seven times a month. She made a left hand turn. I smiled at her. So what if the crazy romance part was gone? I’d drown myself in the river to give her safe passage. That was love. Not mad or crazy, just that point when two organisms really become one.<br /><br />Another right. And then the driver side of our car became a part of the engine block of a school bus.<br />It was like my train of thought refused to stop for a minute, to accept the reality of what happened. It continued—I could never say no to her. It’s why we were married, why we had pink curtains in our house. It was why our car was totaled.<br /><br />I could hear the children screaming after the impact, before I realized that the entire inside of my wife’s body had been turned to jello. Her outsides were in the right place, but then all the liquids inside her just started leaking out.<br /><br />Then, and I hate to admit it, but then my next thought was—I hope to God some of those kids died. Horribly, tragically, unbelievably painful deaths. I wanted to grab them and rip their jaws from their skulls, mid-scream, tongue and blood and palate flopping and splattering everywhere, every single fucking child smeared across the asphalt like jam on toast. I wanted a hundred mothers wailing over their broken bodies. They had taken my wife from me, split me in half like a chicken breast on the block. I know it was irrational. And I had nothing against children. But suddenly I was alone in a way that no one else could possibly understand, and it was all because we had decided to get ice cream.<br /><br />A few weeks later, I’d been through I don’t know how many therapy sessions. It was like being interrogated by the bureaucracy of an alien planet. I don’t know how else to explain it. None of their questions made any sense. Did I have hope for the future? On a scale of 1 to 5 rate your feelings about today. I had no idea how to answer these questions, so I just made things up. All I know is that I am never, ever getting ice cream again. The rest seemed so obvious and pointless.<br /><br />“You are depressed because of the death of your wife.”<br /><br />Gee. Does that take a PhD?<br /><br />But there was a real problem. I was terrified to make decisions. Little ones. The seemingly inconsequential choices we make throughout the day: vanilla latte or mocha? Left or right hand turn? Paper or plastic? Do you say hello or keep on walking? These aren't problems for most people. Most people fret and toil over the "big" questions. What am I doing with my life? What is my five year plan? Is my career on track? We are all trained from an early age to hunt The Prize, the career path, the blood diamond ring (better put a ring on it!), the right Man—fuck it all though. True, that line of thought might be valid, but it’s still all bullshit. You can’t rationalize true loss. You can’t replace it. Nothing ever will. Either it gets better little by little, and you get a new life, or it doesn’t and nothing—sure as fuck no rationalization—can fix it.<br /><br />Deciding what to invest yourself in, and what to let slip by, is a very tricky thing. All the chance occurrences are often the most significant. If you think about this, you too might become completely paralyzed. Even before the accident, sometimes I would feel it, like ice crackling its way through my legs, arms, eventually even my head, that pins-and-needles sensation of a “sleeping” limb that just won't listen any longer. I can't think, I can't choose. The only way to break out is to just choose something, anything at random. These decisions define us, and they are in the end defined not by free choice but by identity: our choices become us, and so, at the same time, they are as static or fluid as our Self is...<br /><br />Never forget: The number of moments we have is fixed.<br /><br />You get to live the illusion of big dreams and big plans until that giant finger slams down on your abdomen, pop! Your dreams were a distraction. It’s all the little choices that determine everything that matters, and each one of us can never, ever, not in a million years—not if you pray and cry and plead and cut yourself with a razor in penance—never be able to make that little decision again. There are no do-overs.<br /><br />And never in all the women I can meet in my life will I meet one just like her. It’s plain unfair to love someone because they remind you of someone who's dead.<br /><br />Maybe that is my fault. Some men seem attracted to women that seem cut out of a mold, women that can be described by the color of their hair, the tone of their laugh and what TV shows they like. Go out and get a new one. Your life isn’t over because your red corvette got demolished.<br /><br />Her death was a hole inside me that I carried with me every day.<br /><br />I started to cry. I’d been saying all these things to my therapist and finally a nerve was struck, like a chord on a piano that someone had carted into the center of an empty auditorium. That was the first time I’d cried since the accident. My therapist told me that it was an improvement. It changed nothing. The chord vibrated in empty air and died off. The auditorium, empty. The air remained. I remained. So did that hole, the little grave I carried in my pocket. My life sustained her absence, the memories of two people kept alive by a single beating heart.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CWdCWyk4wGQ/VTvEoPpGkcI/AAAAAAAApyw/LHTeO-KiHEY/s1600/5miles_heart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CWdCWyk4wGQ/VTvEoPpGkcI/AAAAAAAApyw/LHTeO-KiHEY/s1600/5miles_heart.jpg" height="234" width="320" /></a></div>A little crying led to a lot more, but I was still paralyzed. I had to be driven to and from therapy and kept myself shut up in my apartment. For a few months friends would stop by and awkwardly ask how things were (it was pretty obvious how things were), but eventually they stopped. Which was for the better, because their mere presence added to the uncertainty of the situation. It was the tiniest of decisions I was most concerned about. If it would have been possible to work a job or fly to the moon through some grand gesture and not a thousand tiny choices, I’m sure I would have been ready for the task. But I simply couldn't do it. I insisted that food delivery be left outside, and caught myself worrying about the trek up and down the stairs. I can’t even say what I was really worried about, since I’m sure a part of me wanted to die more than anything else in the world.<br /><br />One thing did change: I decided to start farming ants. At first it was just one of those little ant farms you get as a child, formicarium is the technical term, but we all know what they are for. They are so we can watch them work and then shake up the sand and laugh at the unfairness of it all. Soon enough, our apartment was full of an elaborate maze of insect habitats. Not just ants, either.<br /><br />Cockroaches, cicadas, grasshoppers, spiders. At night I sometimes thought I could hear her shuffling around in slippers, and I'd call out, realizing as my voice cracked in dry air that it was just the sound of insect legs and beetle wings rubbing against one another. Maybe just a dream away my wife wandered through empty halls, calling for me and finding nothing but insects in my place.<br /><br />I tried to stick to random chance as much as possible, even deferring to a set of dice: which cockroach would get fed, and which would be locked in a jam jar with ventilation but no food until it ever-so-slowly starved to death?<br /><br />I know that we like the big payoff of a happy ending. The myth that, despite all the challenges set in our way, we will overcome and emerge victorious. But that’s not really how life works out most of the time, is it?<br /><br />Eventually, my therapists gave up on me and instead committed me to an institution, (“...they can care for you better than we can...” I hardly heard them or cared) which is unfortunate for all my insects since they all surely starved to death with no one to look after them.<br /><br />To heal I had to let go of her, and she was the one thing in my life that had ever actually given me true joy. To let go of her was a betrayal. Even if there was some way that I could do it, I wouldn’t do it. I died with you, Sheila. This body shuffles through these corridors, but I died with you. Your grave is in my pocket, and I lie down every night beside you, still making room on your side of the bed, until the day when I can join you for real.<br /><br />Though maybe there is a silver lining after all, as they say. Few decisions are left up to patient discretion in here, aside from what we have for food from a very limited selection, and I have made arrangements so that someone even makes that choice for me.<br /><br />Most days I sit by the barred window, and stare outside as the sun rises, peaks, and sets, and think of nothing at all.<br /><br /><b>By <a href="http://www.jamescurcio.com/" target="_blank">James Curcio</a></b><br /><h3>All It Takes Is The Right Story.<br /><a href="http://www.mythosmedia.net/" target="_blank">Mythos Media</a></h3><div class="blogger-post-footer">Modern Mythology - http://www.modernmythology.net</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04721839742206290258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9650614.post-45535678454032685012015-04-24T11:16:00.002-07:002015-04-24T11:20:49.044-07:00Beyond New Age The Problem Isn't Just Belle Gibson<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4Qzfoa-zbGM/VTqIbh2UgCI/AAAAAAAApyM/Rkdv8jtwoO0/s1600/0-glitch1.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4Qzfoa-zbGM/VTqIbh2UgCI/AAAAAAAApyM/Rkdv8jtwoO0/s1600/0-glitch1.gif" height="208" width="320" /></a></div>It's a well known truism that, in life, we tend to find what we're looking for.<br /><br />I realize this truism is tautological, and it's been rendered down so far that it seems meaningless, yet it is something we repeat to one another in so many forms.<br /><br />This idea has been central to the 'positive thought movement' for well over 100 years, with many different off-shoots, but all can be considered unified in regard to this particular idea: "our mental states are carried forward into manifestation and become our experience in daily living".<br /><br />The belief is that Somehow (and this is The Secret), our mental picture effects the world. This produces the "law of attraction," whereby like attracts like, and our thoughts somehow manifest reality. This is the very foundation of what's happened with Belle Gibson, as JR Hennesey <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/24/belle-gibsons-cancer-lie-is-the-tedious-fulfilment-of-new-age-thought?CMP=fb_gu" target="_blank">explored on the Guardian today</a>: <br /><blockquote>Gibson needed to fake cancer, because the New Age narrative of transcending physical and spiritual sickness is so ingrained into its marketing. New Age philosophy is the clearest example of a utopian movement utterly absorbed by capitalism, which it once (feebly) opposed. </blockquote>This is a good article on the subject, and I recommend you read it. However, that's not what I want to focus on here,. Instead, I want to look at a deeper process. When we look out into the world, how surprising is it that we see our presuppositions and even past experiences reflected back at us? Are we actually manifesting our thoughts, or could something else be at work? Finally, can we really consider this a phenomenon that's entirely unique to the New Age movement?<br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br />I was thinking about these issues for several hours yesterday on a long, terribly long and awful bus trip back to Boston. In the process, I happened upon this wiki on <a href="http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism" target="_blank">Depressive Realism</a>.<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Depressive realism is the hypothesis developed by Lauren Alloy and Lyn Yvonne Abramson that depressed individuals make more realistic inferences than do non-depressed individuals. Although depressed individuals are thought to have a negative cognitive bias that results in recurrent, negative automatic thoughts, maladaptive behaviors, and dysfunctional world beliefs, depressive realism argues not only that this negativity may reflect a more accurate appraisal of the world but also that non-depressed individuals' appraisals are positively biased.</blockquote>The "evidence against" section begins like this:<br /><blockquote>Some have argued that the evidence is not more conclusive <i>because there is no standard for reality</i>...</blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BevPFmnYfRE/VTqIgrAAbBI/AAAAAAAApyU/IU8aR0oufY0/s1600/figuring-her-out.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BevPFmnYfRE/VTqIgrAAbBI/AAAAAAAApyU/IU8aR0oufY0/s1600/figuring-her-out.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>Indeed. Without probably intending to, they had struck on one of the fundamental philosophical issues that challenges <i>all</i> psychological research of this sort.<br /><br />This adds a new spin to one of our questions. How much more likely is it that we find what we're looking for because of an intrinsic bias that resides behind all intent?<br /><br />We can even demonstrate this using that genie of the modern age, Google. If you search for "climate change a hoax" you're going to find very different source articles than "climate change proof."<br /><br />Maybe that goes without saying, but even when we don't actively put our bias in the search terms, it seeps in, at the very least, through the articles we choose to select. Especially on the internet, we're all cherry pickers. Because we have to be. There are articles out there, and even apparently valid research, that supports pretty much any interpretation you want to bring. This may be less true in particle physics than it is in psychology, but whenever interpretation is a part of the process, we can't help but write ourselves into the picture.<br /><br />When you search in the world, you bring the aggregate of your past experience with you. You use it to make sense of what's put in front of you. <a href="http://www.modernmythology.net/p/what-is-modern-myth.html" target="_blank">As we've discussed before</a>, this is one of the fundamental ways that narratives are so intrinsic to our humanity. So this tendency to find the same things over and over, to be plagued by the same "luck", may not be the result of some metaphysical sleight-of-hand.<br /><br />Unfortunately, knowing this doesn't extricate us from this web, any more than thinking happy thoughts will banish the waking hell of depression or anxiety. We can of course attempt to balance our assumptions by aggregating them with contrary opinions<span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">—</span>one of the reasons that the atmosphere of PC "security" can be so counterproductive to our personal growth<span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">—</span>but we can't come to those interpretations of the facts as anyone other than ourselves.<br /><br />To borrow from another cliched truism, "wherever you go, there you are." Read the National Report if you identify as a liberal, or Mother Jones if you identify as conservative. Can you entertain the worldview without being converted? Can you accept that the narratives that resonate for you as "true" could be equally biased?<br /><br />Science is science to everybody, but we still have to make determinations about which claims to take seriously, and how to interpret what we see and hear. Maybe who we are is the worldview we bring along with us, that very same mind that makes the grass green. Can we make it blue, because we wish it so?<br /><br /><center><h3>All It Takes Is The Right Story. <a href="http://www.mythosmedia.net/" target="_blank">Mythos Media</a></h3></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Modern Mythology - http://www.modernmythology.net</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04721839742206290258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9650614.post-44805527794945315632015-03-27T18:21:00.000-07:002015-04-27T21:58:42.508-07:00The Society of the Spectacle It's hard to believe Guy Debord's <i>Society of the Spectacle</i> was first published in the 60s. Consider the world we live in today: a world of social media, where the mediated space is on equal footing with our lived experience. In fact, the virtual seems positioned to entirely replace the material in the course of history, a point at which we can truly say would be the end of history.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-89QB5cp3efk/VRX9yxy48HI/AAAAAAAActg/KFooWM1mhoU/s1600/angels2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-89QB5cp3efk/VRX9yxy48HI/AAAAAAAActg/KFooWM1mhoU/s1600/angels2.jpg" height="384" width="640" /></a></div><br />Now, these quotations, directly from the text:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">In a world that is truly topsy-turvy, the true is a moment of the false.<br />The spectacle presents itself as something enormously positive, indisputable and inaccessible. It says nothing more than "that which appears is good, that which is good appears."<br />The present phase of total occupation of social life by the accumulated results of the economy leads to a generalized sliding of having to appearing, from which all actual "having" must draw its immediate prestige and its ultimate function.<br />The spectacle is the existing order's uninterrupted discourse about itself, its laudatory monologue.<br />... The fetishistic, purely objective appearance of spectacular relations conceals the fact that they are relations among classes: a second nature...seems to dominate our environment. If the spectacle, taken in the limited sense of "mass media" which are its most glaring superficial manifestation seems to invade society as mere equipment, this equipment is in no way neutral but is the very means suited to its total self movement. If the social needs of the epoch in which such techniques are developed can only be satisfied through their mediation,<b> if the administration of this society and all contact among men can no longer take place except through the intermediary of this power of instantaneous communication, it is because this "communication" is essentially unilateral. </b></blockquote>We need not call to mind the PR debacle of Facebook "<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-users-emotions-news-feeds" target="_blank">emotionally manipulating</a>" its users. This is, after all, nothing but the type of marketing manipulation all companies attempt, with varying degrees of success. No. It is the much more casual way that these technologies integrate with our lives that bears the most consideration. It is the business of these platforms to set themselves up as the intermediary, the go-between when you engage anyone in this "topsy-turvy" world.<br /><br />More anecdotally, (and prosaically), it has been somewhat disturbing to me of late that the few times I've left my Facebook account, many people have ceased contact. When I returned, caving into what has increasingly felt like a Stockholm Syndrome like situations, the refrain was "I'm happy you're back, <i>now we can talk to you again</i>." The virtual is increasingly the world in which we exist in, socially. What then is the fleshy present? The mechanism of mediation is increasingly the "lived world."<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">To the extent that necessity is socially dreamed, the dream becomes necessity. The spectacle is the nightmare of imprisoned modern society which ultimately expresses nothing more than its desire to sleep. The spectacle is the guardian of sleep. </blockquote>Couched in the sort of "pomo speak" that seems to be less in vogue these days, it's not likely to be a top seller anytime soon. The tone almost strikes one as the bullet points read off through a bullhorn at a rally by a chain-smoking Frenchman with a megaphone. There are countless ways that we can critique, interrogate, and ultimately narrate technology. Whether it is our salvation or damnation is almost a literary conceit. But that makes this particular critique no less lucid, or downright prescient.<br /><br />Next up I'm going to start looking into how Situationism influenced Debord's work. And dig back at the anarchist primitive movement that was fire-bombed in Philadelphia. I'll report back what thoughts seem worth sharing.<br /><br /><center><h3>All It Takes Is The Right Story. <a href="http://www.mythosmedia.net/" target="_blank">Mythos Media</a></h3></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Modern Mythology - http://www.modernmythology.net</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04721839742206290258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9650614.post-34414297645071986542015-03-27T15:36:00.001-07:002016-01-05T16:50:09.859-08:00The 404 Attacks: Project MonarchI was at the high school dance. Waste of an evening. I mean, I wouldn't have even considered going to something like this. It was embarrassing. But I knew she'd be there. I spent the whole night wishing I could get closer to her. Excuses to brush by, to look just a moment more. I didn't want to be creepy. I want to be her friend. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w-HsIhmVUsY/VRXabvIQq2I/AAAAAAAActM/mlaM-VwY-QQ/s1600/angels.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="384" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w-HsIhmVUsY/VRXabvIQq2I/AAAAAAAActM/mlaM-VwY-QQ/s1600/angels.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />And then the song started. You know the one. "You spin me right round baby, right round." Cheesy shit but we can all dance ironically. That makes it safer somehow.<br /><br /><em>Yeah I, I got to know your name. Well and I, could trace your private number baby</em>. Amber. That was her name. Different hair color every week it seemed. Different piercings and tattoos. Same eyes. Nothing could change them. I wanted to.<br /><br />So I stood in the corner. Gibberish numbers were bouncing around in my head, blocking everything else out. They seemed to come from the music but compound themselves, a feedback loop of infinite proportions. 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, ... She turned to look at me when the words "Watch out, here I come" seemed to blow the eardrums out of my cheap skull. <strong>21, 34... <a href="https://hoodooengine.bandcamp.com/track/level-5" target="_blank"><em>ACTIVATE LEVEL 5</em></a>.</strong><br /><br />Something horrible happened. A snake slithered through my intestines and wrapped its coils like a vice-around my brain, and it squeezed, squeezed, squeezed. The juices in my pineal gland squirted all over my shoes. I fell to the ground. Everyone around me looked on in terror, but the music kept playing.<br /><a name='more'></a><em>—You keep spinning me right round baby, right round—</em><br /><br />I dragged myself to my feet, staggered and convulsed. Reaching out for someone to for FUCK'S SAKE HELP ME, and froze. Amber stood with her back slightly to me. On her shoulder, <em>a butterfly</em>. She saw what was happening to me but didn't react like the others. She knew. A monarch butterfly. The music was triggering something in me. I had read about this somewhere. Project Monarch. CIA operatives. Was I a—? No.<br /><br />Like that the switch flipped. Fzzzzt. Static tingle in me extremities. Click. Splice tape. All rules of reality moved tangentially to themselves, and suddenly I knew exactly who I had to kill and why. In another moment they would have me.<br /><br />Everything I'd believed, who my parents were, where I was raised, all of it was an implanted lie. I was a device, an automaton, with one horrific purpose. My bladder released, as if heeding the call of whoever had programmed me in the first place. RELEASE, RELEASE, RELEASE the order echoed through my body as if from a loudspeaker, and every system in my body took it altogether too literally. Release! My eyes screamed, evacuating tears and mucous. Release! My stomach said, disgorging thick splashes of stomach acid. Release! Release!<br /><br />"You fuckers won't take me alive!" I screamed, knocking over the punch bowl, bunching up the stained tablecloth and throwing it at the shrieking Field Hockey girls that were clustering in that part of the room like catty, horny squirrels. I got to my feet, and shambled toward an open window, leaving a trail of shit, semen, and urine behind me. The music stopped when I reached the window. I could hear a commotion behind me—the school authorities had finally realized something wasn't right. The cool air lingered over my face, a final beatific moment, respite from the sweaty pig pen that had been my invented life. And I turned to see her, the last face I would see. She gave an indifferent shrug and took a drag on the smoke she had illicitly brought into the auditorium. My body broke like bird bones in a cat's mouth.<br /><div style="text-align: center;">----</div><em>Did you hear about Jimmy, man?</em><br /><br /><em>No, why?</em><br /><br /><em>You didn't hear about fucking Jimmy! Dude! He shat all over himself</em><em>—</em><em>this is at the senior dance, too, right, everyone looking right at him as he gets covered in this mess of butt pudding—and he screamed along to the lyrics YOU SPIN ME RIGHT ROUND BABY RIGHT ROUND, I mean every word, screaming along and then</em><em>—</em><br /><em><br /></em><em>You're really freaking me out.</em><br /><br /><em>You should have fucking been there. Jimmy soiled himself, and projectile vomited the whole way to the window, and you're telling me about freaking? At the window he screamed YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE and then? Took a header for the concrete.</em><br /><br /><em>It's only two stories.</em><br /><br /><em>Fine, then you jump out the window face first and tell me—</em><br /><br /><em>—Whatever. So is that why he wasn't in Gym today?</em><br /><br /><em>Uh, yeah. Dude. He's fucking dead.</em><br /><br /><em>Guess I don't have to give back his PSP, then.</em><br /><br /><em>I guess. Come on, let's get out of here.</em> <br /><br /><br /><br /><center><h3>All It Takes Is The Right Story. <a href="http://www.mythosmedia.net/" target="_blank">Mythos Media</a></h3></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Modern Mythology - http://www.modernmythology.net</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04721839742206290258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9650614.post-62491498435724238742015-03-26T19:55:00.002-07:002015-03-26T19:55:47.888-07:00The Backfire EffectYou think your beliefs are informed by facts. Yet, research is demonstrating facts couldn't matter less...<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VswcnL4wKcs/VRTGfgFEc7I/AAAAAAAAcsM/9YNTm8btnVs/s1600/the-gif-connewhatever.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VswcnL4wKcs/VRTGfgFEc7I/AAAAAAAAcsM/9YNTm8btnVs/s1600/the-gif-connewhatever.gif" height="240" width="320" /></a></div><blockquote class="tr_bq">Science and fiction once imagined the future in which you now live. Books and films and graphic novels of yore featured cyberpunks surfing data streams and personal communicators joining a chorus of beeps and tones all around you. Short stories and late-night pocket-protected gabfests portended a time when the combined knowledge and artistic output of your entire species would be instantly available at your command, and billions of human lives would be connected and visible to all who wished to be seen.<br />So, here you are, in the future surrounded by computers which can deliver to you just about every fact humans know, the instructions for any task, the steps to any skill, the explanation for every single thing your species has figured out so far. This once imaginary place is now your daily life.<br />So, if the future we were promised is now here, why isn’t it the ultimate triumph of science and reason? Why don’t you live in a social and political technotopia, an empirical nirvana, an Asgard of analytical thought minus the jumpsuits and neon headbands where the truth is known to all?<br />Among the many biases and delusions in between you and your microprocessor-rich, skinny-jeaned Arcadia is a great big psychological beast called the backfire effect. It’s always been there, meddling with the way you and your ancestors understood the world, but the Internet unchained its potential, elevated its expression, and you’ve been none the wiser for years.<br />...<br />The backfire effect is constantly shaping your beliefs and memory, keeping you consistently leaning one way or the other through a process psychologists call biased assimilation. Decades of research into a variety of cognitive biases shows you tend to see the world through thick, horn-rimmed glasses forged of belief and smudged with attitudes and ideologies. When scientists had people watch Bob Dole debate Bill Clinton in 1996, they found supporters before the debate tended to believe their preferred candidate won. In 2000, when psychologists studied Clinton lovers and haters throughout the Lewinsky scandal, they found Clinton lovers tended to see Lewinsky as an untrustworthy homewrecker and found it difficult to believe Clinton lied under oath. The haters, of course, felt quite the opposite. Flash forward to 2011, and you have Fox News and MSNBC battling for cable journalism territory, both promising a viewpoint which will never challenge the beliefs of a certain portion of the audience. Biased assimilation guaranteed.<br /><h3 style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-effect/">The Backfire Effect</a></h3></blockquote><div><div><br /></div><center><h3>All It Takes Is The Right Story. <a href="http://www.mythosmedia.net/" target="_blank">Mythos Media</a></h3></center></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Modern Mythology - http://www.modernmythology.net</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04721839742206290258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9650614.post-41229525010460484532015-03-23T05:33:00.001-07:002015-03-26T19:26:12.289-07:00Peter and Paul: Lost in the Wonderland<blockquote class="tr_bq"><br />Most of us see life as a period we spend wading through morasses of daily challenges just so that, one day, if we’re lucky, we might retire in the never-never land we refer to as heaven, and spend the rest of eternity doing absolutely nothing but basking in the eternal light of G<br />In order to make such a dismal prospect achievable, we’d created a God in our own image, and endowed Him, or possibly Her, with an abundance of very, very noble attributes. The alternate permanent residence is the exact opposite of this prospect, yet equally as dismal.<br />Why?<br />Because they are both based on the assumption that eternal dolce far niente, known to us as “sweet doing nothing”, which due to their proximity to the Vatican the Italians had brought to near-perfection, is the way to be.<br />It is.<br />And it is a reward.<br />For a day. A week. Maybe two weeks. But Eternity? Any definition of hell would be preferable.</blockquote><a href="http://stankapuscinski.blogspot.com/2015/03/lost-in-wonderland.html?spref=bl">Peter and Paul: Lost in the Wonderland</a>: Most of us see life as a period we spend wading through morasses of daily challenges just so that, one day, if we’re lucky...<br /><br />A valuable, very necessary post for all those of us struggling to cope with unrewarded creative output!<br /><br /><center><h3>https://philipparees.wordpress.com/</h3></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Modern Mythology - http://www.modernmythology.net</div>Philippa Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04237512770210550162noreply@blogger.com0