Tag Archives: power

Interpretation of American Globalism

Leave a reply

An Interpretation of American Globalism

This brings to mind the old social studies lesson about African tribalism… How the most an extended tribe based upon a familial kind of interconnection–that is, relationships knitted together based upon direct recognition of one another–could only extend to about 500. This is the maximum, so the theory goes, that individuals could be acquainted with one another in any kind of direct recognition of one another ;beyond that, there would be strain put on ones ability to feel kinship with all the members of the tribe and you get internal discord.

This is one of the breakdowns in human cultural evolution of extended civilization which religion directly addresses. Religion provides the foundation for recognizable kinship and a basis for understanding which extends beyond a single persons ability to actually know and recognize members of a community beyond this direct acquaintance number of 500 people.

This is also why, religions, to remain pertinent to their mission, must incorporate an inherent regard for members of different faith groups on the terms of those differing faith groups. There are, as with most legitimate doctrinal religious mores, other reasons for the same established value or values–in which the observance of one aspect creates the danger of diminishing the importance of other aspects, which is why to speak of such things in brevity is dangerous and why such issues require a more meditative (or prayer-like) approach. Such issues require a next-step brand of cognitive awareness; rather than a bullet-point explication a more topographical understanding–the kind of cognitive apprehension which would explain the incites of say a Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi or Dr Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

Without this cultural innovation, or evolutionary stage, and something we see almost trapped in amber in the rendering of US bases across the world, we revert to more archaic forms of societal order. In a word, militarism. That is, the presence or threat of power to keep order. A strategy for societal order which inevitably means slavery.

Whenever you have the amassing of power with its attendant hierarchical structure… you will always have those within that hierarchical order who abuse their position, leveraging their place and title to amass personal power–or more likely, having amassed personal power, leveraged this to seize their position thus setting the tone of their conduct a priori. Suppressing the rights of those beneath them in that hierarchy to steal what would be their just due–the use of threat in this relationship renders this the accomplishment of slavery.

Unfortunately, the alternative without another organizational doctrine, results in a chaos and strife which reduces the societies ability to support the population numbers we now enjoy… In other words, a correction results in whatever form–war, famine, disease–to bring the populations back down to a manageable number; determined by whatever organizational structure is put in place to take up the job of societal management, or governance. The simpler the system, the greater the misery, strife and diminution of population and control over ones own fate–the greater the debasement of humanity. This system of order, because it does not obtain by slow negotiation of the various representatives of the various communities, WILL result in that system of organizational structure being one of devolved cultural resource. That is, a more ancient pattern; which means, based upon power; a greater consolidation, and more oppressive kind, of authority.

This is why revolutions are a failure from the get-go and evolution is the preferred route to change. Anything else… ensures the debasement of culture, ensures slavery…

Hands all over / Soundgarden

Don’t touch me
Hands all over the eastern border
You know what I think we’re falling
From composure
Hands all over western culture
Ruffling feathers and turning eagles into vultures
Into vultures

Got my arms around baby brother
Put your hands away
Your gonna kill your mother, gonna kill your mother
Kill your mother
And I love her, yeah
I love her

Hands all over the coastal waters
The crew men thank her
Then lay down their oily blanket
Hands all over the inland forest
In a striking motion trees fall down like dying soldiers
Yeah like dying soldiers

Got my arms around baby brother
Put your hands away
Your gonna kill your mother, gonna kill your mother
Kill your mother
And I love her, yeah
I love her
I love her

Hands all over the peasants daughter
She’s our bride she’ll never make it out alive
Hands all over words I utter
Change them into things you want to
Like balls of clay
Put your hands away

Yeah, put your hands away
Put your hands away
Gonna kill your mother
Gonna kill your mother
Gonna kill your mother
And I love her
I love her
I love her
I love her
And she loves me, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Written by Christopher J. Cornell, Kim A. Thayil • Copyright © BMG Rights Management
Advertisement

Talking Heads / Crosseyed and Painless

Leave a reply

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Zrkf65GmwE Talking Heads / Crosseyed and Painless

Lost my shape Trying to act casual! Can’t stop I might end up in the hospital I’m changing my shape I feel like an accident They’re back! To explain their experience Isn’t it weird Looks too obscure to me Wasting away And that was their policy I’m ready to leave I push the fact in front of me Facts lost Facts are never what they seem to be Nothing there! No information left of any kind Lifting my head Looking for danger signs There was a line There was a formula Sharp as a knife Facts cut a hole in us There was a line There was a formula Sharp as a knife Facts cut a hole in us I’m still waiting…I’m still waiting…I’m still waiting… I’m still waiting…I’m still waiting…I’m still waiting… I’m still waiting…I’m still waiting… The feeling returns Whenever we close out eyes Lifting my head looking around inside The island of doubt It’s like the taste of medicine Working by hindsight Got the message from the oxygen Making a list Find the cost of opportunity Doing it right Facts are useless in emergencies The feeling returns Whenever we close our eyes Lifting my head Looking around inside. Facts are simple and facts are straight Facts are lazy and facts are late Facts all come with points of view Facts don’t do what I want them to Facts just twist the truth around Facts are living turned inside out Facts are getting the best of them Facts are nothing on the face of things Facts don’t stain the furniture Facts go out and slam the door Facts are written all over your face Facts continue to change their shape I’m still waiting…I’m still waiting…I’m still waiting… I’m still waiting…I’m still waiting…I’m still waiting… I’m still waiting…I’m still waiting…
Songwriters: BYRNE, DAVID/FRANTZ, CHRISTOPHER/WEYMOUTH, TINA/HARRISON, JERRY/ENO, BRIAN, PETER GEORGE
      Such a great song… Such a great video. It is indicative of an aspect of human culture in its evolution through time that rather than losing it, such great songs like this one actually gain pertinence. Even now, perhaps especially now, this first line sets up a primeval pattern in human existence in its modern context. When man first entered the cave, his sensory perception deprived to the minimum, the mind began its first strides inward and consciousness was, if not born, conceived. I came across a later manifestation of this rite of passage from somewhere in, likely, the 900’s ad in the written memory of the Slavic east in an excerpt from the Russian Primary Chronicle. I discovered it at a time in my life when I was becoming more and more isolated from family and friends–when I was finally beginning to shed those “childish things…” my chemical escapism. I was so freaked out by what I read , I had to put down the book and then come back to it again later… then again the next day–and I still had a hard time introducing it into my schema of understanding.
The passage was describing a funerary rite for a fallen warrior… The young women, along with the old, were gathered and asked for their participation. Only one would be selected and it would be a great honor. The young girls were all eager for the chance to participate and all volunteered for this privileged. In such an uncertain life, lived so close to brutal death… surely it was honor which would see you safely to the center of things. A girl was selected and taken into the hut where the body of the slain warrior lay. Outside the old women began a hooting and hollering commotion, followed in this by the unknowing young, to mask what they knew was going on inside. Inside, the girl was raped and slaughtered as offering.
You see, at this point in human cultural evolution, it wasn’t the pre-birth of consciousness one found in that dark room out of sight… it wasn’t the beginning of the traversing from Id to Ego, but Ego to Super-Ego. The awakening of the individual into that broader consciousness of the self within the context of the society in which that self lived. This was the funeral rite of the warrior, and she would honor his sacrifice in kind–likely, both of them went to these roles eagerly without understanding what awaited them.
Years later, I came across a similar illustration of this ancient pattern in the book, The Fratricides, by Nicholas Kazantzakis. This time the pattern was much more easily digestible. A huckster at a fair entices young men to enter a tent where-in he will find the truth of the fallacy of marriage… for a modest fee. Once inside the dupe is presented with an empty tent and the huckster says, [now, do you really want to humiliate yourself by confessing you’ve been tricked and cheated so easily?] And thus, the young man kept his silence.
This first line, “I lost my shape, trying to act natural…” reveals this same pattern as succinctly and profoundly as could be imaginable. This is what happens… you undergo a transformation merely through inaction, just by trying to pretend that nothing has happened. How many of us have walked into a room where there was nothing but idiotic malevolence so profound as to be hard to comprehend, and then walked out again stupefied and knowing that no one would believe what we found. This is how legacies of power so ancient as to be rooted in the lizard brain manifest. It reminds me of the line from a Radiohead song… “I am sorry for us, the dinosaurs roam the earth…” To act natural afterwards is to [lose your shape.]
I won’t bother with an explication of the entire song but leave it with this… at the end,,, this chanted line… “I’m still waiting… still waiting.” Is the single tacit mantra of Christianity. Theology being that other thing that saw us through the darkness of that prehistoric cave, a thing which, despite your stated atheism or agnosticism, guides us still. By entering that room and learning the legacy of the beast, we, at the very least, learn the stakes.
cfjurgus