Gender and Language
Here's an interesting discussion that I think some of you will enjoy—between Weapon of Kings and I on Twitter.
I think that leftists are right that human gender is mostly a "social construct"; I would say it's an anthropological notion. A creature's sex and biological makeup (it IS important) is only truely unescapable to an animal. Us humans are always more free:
http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue48/ngu1.html
I don't think you can look at hypermodernity (the excess of semiotics and consumables) and the history of man saying "oh this gender theory is untrue." Clearly elements are intrinsic to being a physical, animal human, but we are social, religious beings. Fluidity is intrinsic.
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[They go] on deeper in the article showcasing instances of both masculinity and femininity; the shaman undergoes both at once.
It actually further confirms my thesis that woman were the inheritors of imperative culture; shamanism begins by channeling the originary scene.
[Weapon of Kings:] “Why need call her a person during possession? Indeed, there is no strong sense of Self until declarative culture anyways.”
Animal hierarchal structures get reinterpreted through human culture. While animal hierarchy seems to have a complex way of differentiating between members (alphas, betas, etc), so to do imperative cultures develop vast amounts of ritual to differentiate roles within society.
She is a person inso much as the Bigman is a person. The aesthetics of rituals (where early priesthood can be said to be the only true actor on the scene) is a kind of pre-personhood, sure. So, when you say, "why call her a person?" I would just respond with, isn't this just a quote from an article? I would write it differently and gesture to that earlier when I posted about hypermodernity and the surplus of goods from industrialization.
You've written at length that the rise of feminism was indicative of women achieving firstness (or suggested it), but this happens precisely because of the re-tooling of our environment. I'm thinking along the lines of how we can shed light on that, through the anthropomorphization of our environments. It is no mistake that feminism could not arise, truly, in the way it had, in the American Revolution. Or even earlier.
We obviously reached a new nexus within our society, where all humans had become divorced from the struggle over carcasses (and thus the sparagmos and its interplay between ostensive hunter-warrior bands, and feminine priestesses); this has allowed us to further liberate each other. That is the historical line I am interpreting this dialogue through. I am not that confused over what a particular word might suggest. As we develop learning materials the idioms and vocabulary will shift out and we may find a more exact term along the way. As Gans said to me, "what matters are the ideas."
This article is from some scholar, who identifies as they/them and participates in queer conferences. I'm fairly aware of the language they use and what they are attempting to draw out of this older scholarly fight between onomastics and shamanism. For their discipline, person will work just fine. It works them more along the lines of hypothesis that do, indeed, blur the more metaphysical and darwininian narratives that just meaninglessly, anarchronistically project modern Selfs onto these past peoples.
Obviously me typing that out doesn't make a good tweet, and I try to simplify where I can 😔
Anyways, this is something Adam asked me about at GASC with where I was going with my discussion on the sparagmos and politics. Industrialization gave our societies women more freedom, and so too will this hyperindustrialization of not just materials, but also images and words. Although, I think you could say we are experiencing the current growing pains of declarative identity being liberated (that identity is ineluctably tied to the aborted gesture of appropriation being a "hard" thing to do, as all of those structures are still embeded within a framework of animal appetite being painful and something we must always be dragged into. Thus, through a primeval ignorance denying the sign of its intended designation.)
I'm assuming you were wanting to know how I'd posit this in the larger picture so I figured I'd just cut the BS and make a thread.
What I see happening is an increasing emergence of a Middle that has an increasingly pragmatic vision, and a High that rules through a notion of aesthetics rather than "results". That is half the picture: Where does that leave the elites, philosophers and priests?
That is a more difficult question, and I think we'll find the answer the more that the first half of the picture becomes a reality (or I learn how to map the current trends). Those of religious and spiritual consciousnesses will have the creative spark to adapt to those new dynamics between the High and Middle (and maybe I'm even speaking of a deeper gradient there) and I trust will be able to intelligently inspire some unifying rhetoric or vision.
I think my tenacity will push Adam to finish the necessary psychological break before the next coming age. [More or less I'm just implying here that the focus on a dialogue of GA and politics—what it means for two actors on a scene of representation to talk about ostensives on a scene—will create a new ritual between ostensives and declaratives, and thus a new meta-personal identity.] Of course, it would start small and extend beyond all of us, but we're as close as we can get. He'll be able to tell you about the specific organizational theory immediately, and how that applies to America. I can't provide that in the technical ways that he can off the top of his head. I just have intuitions and hypothesis that I work out in my soul and unleash them.
I'm more or less an agent of the Divine at this point and will just dynamo till I drop. What you see here on my Twitter is just what I'm thinking about at any given time, really.
[Weapon of Kings:] ‘"You've written at length that the rise of feminism was indicative of women achieving firstness"
I don't remember that. What I have said is what any elite theorist would say, which is that feminism was one more bludgeon for breaking up the Middle patriarchs.’
It was definitely discussed, whether it was actually from you or mentioned among others.
I don't doubt that, but that seems auxiliary to whether we consider feminism an expansion of the scene of representation. That would be a general allergy towards inherited positions. That to me rings closer to this same effect of older generations getting outdone by our younger-internet-able ones.
While both are still susceptible to being scammed through the internet, the stories we hear of the older gens tends to ridiculous and basic data security problems. And so, the same would seem to apply to feminist rhetoric between generations, right. Where these older ones, who view the rise of feminist ideology as just another fad, emphasize the abuse of its power by other members of their gen; while our younger generation will emphasize throughout their analysis, the basic unifying and anthropomorphic "equality", or ability to participate in scenic representation, of other humans, firstly.
You would be speaking to a very real process, but one that is secondary to this thesis.
I could write at length with this whole discipline of rhetoric on "equity versus equality," and how it applies here, but I'll leave that aside.
To clarify, I would say your analysis there actually hedges on what you termed desacral power theory. It is a pragmatic assessment, but would be blind to the broader linguistic theory, which includes the difference in the transmission of rituals between blocks of actors. An older generation ritualized towards viewing some groups of people one way will always have an allergic reaction to a younger generation that has developed new relationships and networks with those current, scenic versions of those groups of people.
Is this not the entire reason liberalism has the greater cultural hold over conservatism within corporations? The ability to say, "black people deserve equal opportunity," has more poignancy and tangibility than some old coot and his specific idea of what that race "should be".
Money is a secondary market to the language market—and elite theorists who don't include inherent sacrality (or anthropological significance) have secondary (sometimes tertiary) analysis' compared to a post-structuralist analysis'—that which makes moral sense makes money.
If you sense I'm leaning to some unbounded post-structuralism and worry about historical accuracy, I would say you misread me.
([Weapon of Kings:] “I'm not sure we need to affirm poststructuralism, and there is some 'slippage' between moral sense and commercial sense, but in the long run, yes. You can't maintain a marketplace without an innate moral, social order.”
If you're meaning that in a kind of market of rituals - where what is real is what is preformed and thus known - that the ideological boundaries of post-structuralism aren't necessarily needed, then yeah, sure.
However, there is always a wisdom in seeking the moral, whether it is explicitly, physically practiced or not isn't really the point, so much so as whether we mine out the moral and cast it in gold where it can shine.)
[Weapon of Kings:]
(Reply to: “To clarify, I would say your analysis there [that feminism was used as a weapon against the Middle] actually hedges on what you termed desacral power theory.”)
“For sure. I definitely see how secular power theory misses the meta questions and therefore can't be anything but a rear view explanation.
And it can even make sense for women to be (specifically, institutionally) liberated while classes are.
I just would caution you to start with Evola on gender theory and then go from there. Otherwise it's just many effeminates who would want to lead you astray.
Not everyone can read a million books within an economical span of time, so you have to pick your anchors. On gender, I recommend people start with Evola and compare against him.
It doesn't mean you can't ultimately disagree, but if a person were to just go all through the other options, they're likely to waste a lot of time and even start believing in self-destructive things.”
Yes, I've mostly left that stuff implicit because I know that the people who read me here already align with those values. Let's say I end up in some position where leftists are asking me these things, I would tailor it more to those questions of ostensive males cults.
I remember a lot of Evola's Eros, and the ways he makes amends to Kundalini and the confrontation of male energy with female energy; there is a section in "Women who fly" that also deals with that idea of male immortality and the feminine spirit supporting it. I can see both where we can pull out a historical dialogue, a mystic de-ritualizing one, and a general linguistic analysis (with ostensive v imperativity).
But, just as well, it always boils down to a team oriented to some project. There's no need to interject unnecessary items. So I hear your concern over minimality and esoteric quality: what we can admit in our thoughts but don't need to actively talk out loud about. I think there's a lot of different ways we can do that—too many to count.
That's kind of the thesis of what Evolas talks about right? He mentions that males come to feminine energy like a trial by fire, and that the goal is to survive that. It draws parallels to that intuition you draw out: If we let most people be guided by an unrelenting stream of imperatives, but no common center to orient around, it will lead to an unnecessary dissolution of rituals and that basic identity—without the ostensive the imperative means nothing—leading to self-destruction.
So yes, I would agree with what you're seeing.
[Weapon of Kings:] “I let some of my past thoughts recur to me, where I have spoken about how the feminine can magnanimously exude from the masculine, but I was meaning a male singer/athlete who becomes the object of desire to a woman.
open.spotify.com/track/58EsIYlS…
She becomes the hunter (backstage groupie) and he receives her but then commands her total world (masculine force—feminine object of desire). The best and most commanding relationships are indeed where the woman is chasing the man.
But that seems to be quite different from a shaman thinking he's a woman (what does that even mean, sexually pleasing other men?). In the case I'm thinking of, a biological man is still capturing a biological woman, nothing homosexual.
Freddie Mercury was obviously gay, but you can see a theme in his performance that many heterosexuals also performed:
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And you can keep going with the Hair Bands:
[Image]
People in the context wouldn't say the man in the purple circle is gay or even thinks of himself as a woman, but he is exhibiting some in the feminine to capture a woman (but not a man! very important).
So I can understand playing with boundaries up to this level, but beyond it I think it becomes just a pathology and not truthful to the spiritual interplay between biological men and biological women.
Men peacocking is more like an audition to the full woman to appear, that he is greater than her energy and won't become a simp; and tomboys are like an audition to the full man to appear, that she is strong enough to survive him.
After this touchdown/important tackle, the athlete dances in a self-aware, silly feminine way:
The men around him laugh and know what he's doing, how it's deliberately grandiose and inviting himself as the object of desire.
It pushes the women further toward that and doesn't affect the men. There is no gender transition that occurs by any party, but rather the athlete is showing some knowledge and mastery over the feminine exactly to lure the full woman in. So many securities in one performance.
Men being good dancers has nothing to do with them seeing themselves at any point as a woman. It's a communication that I can handle you, woman, in the ways these others who can't do this, can't.
You know better than most how enough tradcons have been confused by my taste in sexy Electronic Body Music (no disembodied violin??).
youtube.com/watch?v=2Ldbq1…
Of course all that they represent is an inability to handle the feminine (oxford shirts, button up!) and that they are simps and will be simps for a very long time.
Their best defense is to insinuate I'm gay or a degenerate. I'll stay content in my path and put my embodied metrics up to anyone's.
youtube.com/watch?v=wUX1vb…
Hail the bird-demon gods; women conquered, clad, and converted.”
So, what I'll talk about may be misinterpreted from me (that's fine) and I will be speaking in more theoretical and anecdotal experiences here (rather than my usual case studies); I'll make an attempt to make it as anthropological as it need be.
(I'm QTing because it allows me to make a thread)
Let's consider:
Q. Would a shaman entertain homosexual relationships, if they viewed themselves as a woman?
This is a pragmatic question, and worthy of thinking about. If my theories suggest this as an inevitable part of spiritual development, how do we lead those who are confidently, and assuredly males and females? Wouldn't this suggest to them that they must question themselves, in the wrong ways and dampen their souls?
In order to understand this inquiry better, we must think of a field of hypothesis about reality.
Starting with the hypothesis that the origin of language is the aborted gesture of appropriation and that this paradox births the human, then what does it mean to be on a scene of representation? We can imagine that in early human cults there would have to have been a delicate balance between the ways the body naturally behaved (its appetites, its lusts, it's fears even) and the transcendence of those through the use of the sign and the use of ritual to continue the signs "longevity" or half-life.
There would have been a major amount of play and work that had to be done with how they began to perfect rituals (perhaps roles within society) and how they then directed attention even further.
The largest and most ethical distinction we can draw is the way that these societies brought new objects into their fold, and thus when we look at this historical data (that almost indelibly suggests a separation between masculine and feminine roles) we can imagine what it would eventually mean for those roles to expand. That is to say, a man who must take upon a more feminine role, perhaps because the hunter-warband is too good, or the group has technologically progressed into a more stable societal arrangement, e.g.: maybe a new type of spear is made and then the hunting groups can capture 3x the amount of animals with 1/3rd the amount of people needed.
In an arrangement like that one, then we may get a more precise demarcation of rituals and bigmen (or just priesthood and shamans), where it begins to beg the question, with men entering feminine roles, "is being feminine a woman thing? or is it tied to the role itself?"
We see within the study I linked above that it allows me to pursue this line of inquiry, as a hypothesis about gender roles and rituals, further; I am not speaking here to a field of people who would misread me, but researchers within a discipline, professors and friends. When I talk about these things to other people I think about what it means to be held in a position in society—what position the person I'm talking to perceives they (personally) are in—and how I can relate this to that.
It is always an anthropological endeavor, like you are attempting to draw out, where we have to ask are these people still, ultimately, pursuing a family and procreative purposes for love and acceptance, despite inviting themselves to a degree of homoerotic insults. That is to say, by inviting themselves to be named and designated a "homosexual" they must be participating in some field of activities that invites us to ask this same question: "is it because we have seen homosexuals behave this way? or is it because of the role itself?"
Whether someone who is shamanistic actively engages in homosexual behavior is up to them; and whether they sense on a deeper level that what they identify their Self to be, transcends the animal desire to live in its body and its natural desires. Aurobindo understood this and said it didn't matter whether it was two males on a path together or a male and a woman, but rather that they pursued the same path. Again, we are always in teams. I'm presenting myself in a way that invites danger and that let's me identify on a deeper, less transient level or a part of my identity. It will be fruitful, but you do not see all the ways I am currently embedded in my culture with my people.
But anyways, I like the way that you're reviewing and organizing your thoughts. It is the more important, and one of the most important, things a leader can do. The more he demarcates his thoughts into categories and opens his mind to ongoing hypothesis, the easier he leads those already embedded within their own set of rituals. For they see him at the center, and they see the way he can suggest to them all of his desires (left unattended would hurt them), yet still is embedded within their culture and language and demonstrates a mastery of it even. When the being at the center can recreate the origin of language (both its appetites and abortions) with its role, almost entirely, then he demonstrates such a mastery of language that these questions of whether they should be at the center or not never really even come to mind.
I mean, not to be a little ridiculous here, but I have these Pancheros queso and chips right next to me, and it's the same thing. For reference, their chips are blue, so they say, on the packaging, "Our chips are blue—you might be too once their gone." They're saying that, "hey we understand that our chips are strange, so we'll call that out, but they're like this to attract you, and we planned that. We made sure to make them human, still. They keep up with our 'chip eating' standards. And in fact, we know youll miss them"
You'll hear older gens, and conservatives, call out stuff like this (in all the ways it happens) for being catering, pandering and for sissy shit. But they do that because [they] can't stand others being at the center other than them. [That is to say, conservatives just want to return to an older, clearer hierarchy than actually promote and encourage society and that actors within it to adapt to new social dynamics.] But I need to think more on the cultural reality of that, and how to relate it further.
I've been just comparing these thoughts in my head to people I meet in real life and then adding their scenes onto my scene and continuing to pile it up until I feel I can properly demarcate a new unifying gesture.
I live a fairly complex life.
To finish off that thought: we could say, conservatives think that these types of relationships are inplicit—like that chips and queso example. So, why bother talking to someone (teaching) or innovating in a market when you can be boring and just make normal colored chips for normal people? What they dont realize is that with the internet, and hyperindustrialization of words and things, we get stratified social relationships and then this casual horseplay that older conservatives (or neo-conservatives) priveledge has been cut off from someone who was raised on the internet or is even marginally technologically savvy. This means that the threshold for what they consider bullying and abuse is actually higher or entirely different than these more internet adept generations. We must be able to do both: encourage horseplay and be able to shepherd introverted, internet-able gens at the same time. As I say, and encourage myself, leadership is leaving hypothesis’ or assumptions open to change, and to be able to continually organize those relationships into categories of scenes. This allows the person at the center, with a patient and open mind, to anticipate and act on hidden imperatives that they might have missed—were they to be more ideologically focused rather than anthropologically focused.
I'll update those links and places for images at another date.