In a world where individuals want to avoid being taken advantage of, those high on the Dark Triad [narcissism, machiavellianism, psychopathy], like James Bond, who tend to be more agentic than others, have a particularly difficult task at hand. How to get what they want without rousing the suspicions or retaliations of others? The answer is to be extraverted, open, high on self-esteem, and low on conscientiousness and anxiety while being individualistic and competitive. (Jonason et alii 2010:117-18). Recent Italian Fiorito scandal involving prestigious names of Berlusconi's party PDL in the administrative division Regione Lazio lists such princely expenses as euro 1.650 for one-day, one-person stay at a hotel, and euro 1.200 for a set of neckties; bawdy parties publicly funded as cultural events; a whirlwind of consumer goods. Moreover, party funds coming from public subventions (euro 900.000) seem to be “missing�: some accuse Fiorito himself of having possibly embezzled princely amounts (euro 1,3 million according to some news releases).
Some of Italian Regione Lombardia's elected politicians belonging to various parties across the political spectrum are charged with embezzling euro 2,14 million of public funds between 2008 and 2011 paying for frivolous amenities, fine dining and wines1366.
Neckties and fine wine may not be the only trapping a politician might need to stupefy the masses with simulations of authenticity: politicians in the predominantly German-speaking province of Bolzano (Italy) allegedly itemized sex toys and vibrators for reimbursement 1367. In November 2014, judicial investigations uncovers a flurry of frivolous expenses and princely bills settled with public money 1366 1367
TgCom24, March 31, 2014. ANSA, March 11, 2014.
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in the Italian administrative division Emilia Romagna: birthday parties, paid TV & media appearances, fine dining, designer clothes and even sex toys1368:
As you might imagine, members of [U.S] Congress have gotten into the habit of using their PAC funds for a gamut of non-electionrelated activities—from babysitting bills to bar tabs, Colorado ski trips, and so on. What’s more, less than half of the millions of dollars raised by PACs has gone to politicians actually running in elections; the rest is commonly put toward different perks: fundraising, overhead, staff, and other expenses. As Steve Henn of the NPR show Marketplace put it, “PACs put the fun in fundraising.”-...-. The congressmen were behaving as irresponsibly as they had before; some spent the PAC money going to strip clubs, blowing thousands of dollars on parties, and generally conducting themselves without a semblance of accountability. (Ariely 2012:103). Before being arrested, Fiorito himself both flaunts the have-nots, and their supposed righteousness, disclaims any wrongdoing: he maintains that the princely amounts involved weren't public money, but money legally belonging to political parties, or private associations that dispose of it as they see fit. Regione
Lazio's President alleges she couldn't possibly have known things were out of control in that way, invokes draconian reforms to bring politics in line with the austerities imposed upon the common man, then resigns.
In November 2014, disgraced Fiorito claims to have been scapegoated. Presumed austerity provisions would be make-believe to fool the gullible with simulations of redress: it is still possible to get a lavish State pension for life -which Fiorito dubs “win for life system” after a State lottery- by being politically appointed
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Rai News, November 10, 2014.
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for only one week1369 in the maze of State and para-State apparatuses.
Also, former politicians are filing suit to recover presumed lost benefits, which is most likely to be be granted in court, whereas actual politicians 1370 tamper with implementational decrees that nullify presumed austerity laws so bragged about in the press: life annuities reemerge as pensions; stipends resurface as bonuses, monies or the other way round: western mass-democracy impersonates Lady Luck indeed, at least for some.
Prominent politician Maruccio – belonging to left-wing party with the ominous name Italia Dei Valori (Italian Values)- has been arrested under the accusation he might have embezzled up to euro one million belonging to the party; he is also accused of having lost in excess of euro 100.000 playing video-poker 1371.
Reuters announces (25 September 2012) that the director of the in-house postal services of the Italian Senate has been arrested for drug-dealing catering to unnamed policy-makers;. It isn't the first time that drug racketeering takes place within the temples of Italian virtue, to paraphrase Saint-Just who equated a Republic with virtue: the scandal soon disappears from the news radar.
The temples of civic virtue can be places where peculiar pastimes are in favor:
1369 1370 1371
TgCom24, November 18, 2014. Il Giornale, November 16, 2012. Sarzanini 2012: no page.
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No one will argue that sitting on the Senate floor during session can get a little boring, but looking at porn is probably not the best way to pass the time. On Thursday morning, Sunshine State News captured exclusive video of Sen. Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton, looking at pornographic material on his state-issued computer on the Senate floor. Ironically, as Bennett is viewing the material, you can hear a Senator Dan Gelber's voice in the background debating a controversial abortion bill. "I'm against this bill," said Gelber, "because it disrespects too many women in the state of Florida." Bennett defended his actions, telling Sunshine State News it was an email sent to him by a woman "who happens to be a former court administrator." "I was just sitting there, bored as they were debating the abortion bill," Bennett said."I opened it up and said holy [ expletive]! What's on my screen? and clicked away from it right away." Sunshine State News could not verify how long the image of four bikini-clad women with their tops exposed was open before our cameras started rolling on it, but it was up for at least three seconds before it disappeared from the screen. Senate spokesperson Jaryn Emhof explained further on Bennett's behalf. "There was some confusion about an email he received," said Emhof. "He thought it was an email about an item being debated on the Senate floor. As soon as he realized it wasn't he closed the page." But the one image we caught on camera wasn't the only thing Bennett had viewed. It appears other files, including at least two videos, may have been downloaded, too. He was also caught on camera watching a video of a dog running out of the water and shaking itself off. It is unclear if he also thought that was an email about a bill being debated on the floor. (Wright 2010: no page). "All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!" (John 8:7). An article details a U.S scandal:
February 18, 2005—Now that is has been discovered that "Jeff Gannon" (real name James D. Guckert), a "reporter" for Talon News Service, a front operation run by the conservative Republican-oriented GOPUSA.com, was using an alias as a cleared White House reporter, details are emerging that threaten to immerse the Bush administration in a major scandal. "Gannongate," which is only now being mentioned by the mainstream news media, threatens to expose a potentially damaging GOP pedophile and male prostitution ring dating back to the 1980s and the administration of George H. W. Bush. James D. Guckert, using the name Jeff Gannon and possibly other aliases, was also running gay porn sites, one with a U.S. Marine 1004
Corps theme that solicited males for prostitution. (Madsen 2005: no page). In spite of the often bawdy, self-absorbed, dissolute and mundane image tabloids relay of politicians and their ilk, stereotypical good shepherd figures, saviors and their kin delight in letting their beloved flock inflict all possible punishments upon them in all sorts of guises as a therapeutic device.
As in Greek tragedy, the bystander/viewer/reader plays the part of the peeping busybody shivering in angst (anticipation, etc) witnessing the tragedy (disaster, indignity...) as the knot of people spontaneously gathering around street accidents does:
there is something enticing about horror (Solomon 2006: It's Good To Be Afraid). But, on the other hand, many people—so many, in fact, that we must concede that they are normal, at least in the statistical sense—do seek out horror fictions for the purpose of deriving pleasure from sights and descriptions that customarily repulse them.-...- For Otto, religion has a nonrational element, an ineffable object which he refers to as the numen. This is the object of religious experience, or numinous experience. The terms in which this experience is characterized, as is well known, are mysterium tremendum fascinans et augustum. That is, the object of religious experience—and here it helps to have something like God in mind—is tremendous, causing fear in the subject, a paralyzing sense of being overpowered, of being dependent, of being nothing, of being worthless. (Carroll 1990:158,165) Released from attachment to one's mortal part through a contemplation of the grave and constant in human sufferings —"correcting," to use Plato's felicitous phrase, "those circuits of the head that were deranged at birth, by learning to know the harmonies of the world" —one is united, simultaneously, in tragic pity with "the human sufferer" and in tragic terror with "the secret cause," Plato's 1005
"likeness of that which intelligence discerns." Whereupon, one day, with a cry of joy, leaving both humanity and intelligence behind, the soul may leap to what it then suddenly recognizes beyond the mask. Finis tragoediae: incipit comoedia. The mode of the tragedy dissolves and the myth begins. (Campbell 1960:50-51). The secret cause of all suffering is, of course, mortality itself, which is the prime precondition of life, and so is indeed "grave and constant." It cannot be denied if life is to be affirmed. Yet, along with the affirmation of this precondition, there is pity for the human sufferer – who is actually a counterpart, in this context, of oneself. (Campbell no date:no page). Louisa May Alcott (an American transcendentalist 1372, abolitionist and suffragist) gives her take on the hot commodity in her 1871 Little Men:
“I never had any grandmothers, but if you think it will cure me, I 'll let you snip my tongue,” said Nat heroically, for he dreaded pain, yet did wish to stop fibbing. Mr. Bhaer smiled, but shook his head. “I have a better way than that, I tried it once before and it worked well. So now, when you tell a lie I'll not punish you, but you shall punish me.". " How?" asked Nat, startled at the idea. " You shall ferule me in the good old-fashioned way; I seldom do it myself but it may make you remember better to give me pain than to feel it yourself." " Strike you ? Oh I couldn't ! " cried Nat. Then mind that tripping tongue of thine. I have no wish to be hurt, but I would gladly bear much pain to cure this fault." (60). The hero-savior offers his mystical body: the public shall choose 1372
Inspired by Kant's philosophy and Romanticism. Often construed as a reaction against empiricism, materialism and American Calvinism. An emphasis was put on human intuition, the divine in nature, the value of the individual. All on the backdrop of a spiritual reality that transcends human sensory perception, beyond logical or empirical reasoning. Many transcendentalists studied classics of Indian thought. Emerson describes transcendentalism thus:”The oriental mind has always tended to this largeness. Buddhism is an expression of it. The Buddhist who thanks no man, who says, "do not flatter your benefactors," but who in his conviction that every good deed can by no possibility escape its reward, will not deceive the benefactor by pretending that he has done more than he should, is a Transcendentalist. You will see by this sketch that there is no such thing as a Transcendental party; that there is no pure Transcendentalist; that we know of none but the prophets and heralds of such a philosophy; that all who by strong bias of nature have leaned to the spiritual side in doctrine, have stopped short of their goal. We have had many harbingers and forerunners; but of a purely spiritual life, history has yet afforded no example. I mean, we have yet no man who has leaned entirely on his character, and eaten angels' food; who, trusting to his sentiments, found life made of miracles; who, working for universal aims, found himself fed, he knew not how; clothed, sheltered, and weaponed, he knew not how, and yet it was done by his own hands.” (1841, cit in Myerson 2000:370).
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whether to consecrate or desecrate it, thus accepting or reviling all the 'great man' stands for at such great peril. It shall be noted how literature, as this writing argues, is just a clumsily disguised excuse for what chances to be all the rage in the period. It is also opportune to emphasize -again- how disciples and enthusiasts cook aggrandizing tales about 'the great man', which grow taller by the generation:
Yogananda himself claimed to have lived at Stonehenge around 1500 BC in a previous incarnation, and asserted that Winston Churchill was the reincarnation of Napoleon. (Churchill’s [1874 – 1965] life, however, overlapped with Aurobindo’s, with the latter, too, again claiming to be the reincarnation of Monsieur Bonaparte.) Also according to Yogananda, Hitler was Alexander the Great. In the same vein, Kriyananda (1977) relates Paramahansa’s declaration that Benito Mussolini was Marc Anthony; Kaiser Wilhelm was Julius Caesar; Stalin was Genghis Khan; Charles Lindbergh was Abraham Lincoln; and Therese Neumann was Mary Magdalene. (Neumann died in 1962; Rajneesh’s Vivek, claiming the same reincarnation, was born before then; etc.) Among the SRF gurus, Lahiri Mahasaya was, according to the same source, both King Janaka and the poet Kabir. Likewise, Ba-baji (as with Aurobindo) was believed to be the reincarnation of Krishna—with Yogananda himself being the Bhagavad Gita’s Ar-juna, Krishna’s most beloved disciple. (Falk 2009:246). Louisa May's father Amos Bronson, in fact, was a transcendentalist and an abolitionist who founded an utopian community based upon the principles of vegetarianism, socialism and pastoralism: so much about connecting the dots. Bronson was also an educator who -so the story goes- did put his own hand out for students to hit. From this, daughter Louisa -who fictionalizes in her novels her family, her father's ideas and professional practice- takes the lore further to include flogging: another tale growing taller by the generation, literally.
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A.B. Alcott may have indeed enjoyed popularity in his times and among circles of like-minded people, yet how increasingly compulsive the need might be to cook even more aggrandizing and taller tales about events and people, whose impact and renown frankly exceeds exponentially that of a quirky reformer, and his family on the fringe of what was then the 'civilized' world. In the Bible, Moses parted the Red Sea, which may have been a modest “sea of reeds” in the original Hebrew. In late rabbinical commentaries, the waters rose up to 16.000 feet.
It is impossible to attribute to Alcott the same motivations or situational attitude readers might identify with Euripides, Berlusconi, Codreanu or many other such cases discussed here. Both Little Lord Fauntleroy (from a 1885 novel), and
Pollyanna (1913) present carbon-copied characters who -in spite of the antipodal backdrops- do mostly the same things, and behave mostly the same way. Their 'redemption' of the surly unmarried aunt, or the surly grandfather surely look a lot like Luke Skywalker's redemption of Darth Vader. L.M. Alcott became a very wealthy person thanks to royalties from her books, and so did other litterateurs churning out another xeroxed version of the Pygmalion myth.
It isn't an original Victorian/ Belle Epoque device, either, for a Hebrew tradition prescribed to always excuse others liberally (=thinking the best of others). That's really cross-cultural; Confucian lore prescribes to “excuse others as you would excuse yourself, and blame yourself as you would blame others” (=I and the other are one); Theravada Buddhist Abbot Ajahn Brahm suggests to “give others the
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benefit of the doubt”.
For those who shun popular wisdom, and age-old religions, there is always a spin that may make the same concept look scientific, factual and tested:cognitive reconstruction1373, teamwork (=oneness), etc. Marx's alienation 1374 becomes1375 cognitive dissonance when the exact same situation refers to psychical Ben-Shahar 2005-6:lecture 11. Concept present in various writers since the XVI century. Médecine aliéniste (an early form of psychiatry) goes back to the late XVIII century (Pinel et Daquin for example studied mental disturbances). In the early XIX century the discipline is somewhat systematized within broader medicalization tendencies, for example with the French loi sur les aliénés of 1838. It is not surprising at all Marx may have appropriated another fad that was all the rage in his time, as the present writer elsewhere discusses regarding Marx's reference to opium. As it was understood back then, aliénisme was supposed to bring patients back in sync with society at large, which is quite understandable. While all this constituted a mature tradition well before Freud's birth (1856-1939), the Jewish-Austrian psychoanalyst refurbished the concept. Freud's talking cure, in fact, brings patient and analyst together. Analysis ends when both are in agreement, and the patient can for example sincerely admit:” Yes, the reason why I am [insert pathology here] is indeed that [insert diagnosis here]”. A poster boy for Maoist political reeducation, the memoirs of former Chinese Emperor -and Japanese collaborator- Pu Yi, a future Communist party bureaucrat, read exactly along the above lines. Habermas resurrected this dynamics as distorted communication. Of course, the ideological matrix is apparent: the analyst represents society (generalized other, mos or any other term) by proxy. Not very convincingly, Habermas tried to rescue the argument with the possibly noble but utopian corrective that communication should be sincere, relevant, constructive, fair and equally open to all. As professor of communication Kramer noted elsewhere, speech making -or persuasion in general- is eminently a one-way process (=the speaker wants to convince the audience), yet has to be engineered to look like a two-way process (=speaker and audience on equal footing). Also, Habermas -like Socrates- postulates that people should yield to the power of a better argument. Such possibly noble but utopian wish has been disproven not only in everyday life, but in the laboratory as well. Why would such luminaries as Habermas (or Socrates) waste time arguing for states of affairs that are patently false? Because in so doing they tapped into human mind's vortexes, or the schizophrenic (and schizogenic!) divide between what we are and the kind of person we (do not) want to be. 1375 Sociologist Goffman writes about “role distance”, a measure of which is essential to facilitate social interaction, and the switching between the many roles anyone plays (for example lover, teacher, parent, employee, supervisor...). Many of those philosophers, sociologists and psychologists end up describing much of the same concepts or realities coining verbiage and neologism in an attempt to get on the map of their field:”Finally, develop opinions. They can be similar to others in your field or dissenting. One thing all gurus have in common is opinions they can call their own.” (Lakhani 2005:70);”the “Matthew effect,” a term coined by sociologist Robert K. Merton, which states that excessive credit for any idea will be attributed to the most well-recognized person who is associated with it. Stephen Stigler, a statistician at the University of Chicago, called his alternative version of this effect Stigler’s Law (irony intended): “No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer.” The joke, of course, is that Stigler’s Law was just a restatement of Merton’s proposition. ” (Thaler 2015:192). Obama's “Yes, we can” slogan -which elated votaries consider as anticipating his role as appointed man of destiny- had appeared decades earlier in the USA as “Sì, se puede”, a 1972 slogan of United Farm Workers, a labour union. Shame&vulnerability researcher Brené Brown developed “opinions to call her own” (although very similar if not identical to those of pre-existing published authors) that she can declare:”Most people are surprised to learn that in addition to my research, I lead four companies and work with a team of about twenty-five people.” (2017b:61). 1373 1374
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processes instead of means of production and/or socio-cultural processes, although the realms of cognitive dissonance and alienation overlap to the extent they can be easily superposed:
Indirectness, ways of using questions or refusing politely, are aspects of conversational style. We also send out signals by how fast we talk, how loudly, by our intonation and choice of words, as well as by what we actually say and when. These linguistic gears are always turning, driving our conversations, but we don't see them because we think in terms of intentions (rude, polite, interested) and character (she's nice, he's not). -...-Thus conversational signals can get crossed when well intentioned speakers have different habits and expectations about using pacing and pausing, loudness, and pitch to show their intentions through talk—in other words, different conversational styles.(Tannen 1991, emphasis added). If stories in Little Lord Fauntleroy, Pollyanna, Heidi 1376, etc proceed from the child to the surly authority figure, what about the opposite being true? What about a surly and/or lovelorn authority figure who brings the pupil figure into his life because he wants to melt after all? Is that the myth of Pygmalion, in turn reedited as My Fair Lady? Possibly a sanitized variant for children such as Pinocchio (1883), perchance? A more adult version as Frankenstein1377?
In Daddy Long-Legs (1912), an orphaned girl finds a wealthy -albeit anonymous- benefactor, whom she nicknames “Daddy long legs”. He sponsors her studies on the condition that she maintain a regular correspondence with him. At
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Swiss story from a 1880 novel by J. Spyri: the surly authority figure is an old grandfather who lives in seclusion on a mountain pasture. 1377 As this writing contends, Frankenstein compounded a salad bar of myths (the Pygmalion myth, the apprentice sorcerer myth, the mind your choice myth etc etc) with then actual scientific fads linked to the exploits of reallife scientists such as Galvani, Aldini (Galvani's nephew) and Ure. Aldini and Ure performed experiments with dead bodies and electricity (bio-electric Galvanism).
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the book's end, the girl's love interest, and the elusive mister Long-Legs, are revealed to be the same person for a romantic happy end in perfect Pygmalion fashion.
Annie (an orphaned child) knew innumerable versions: a 1885 Riley vernacular poem about a 'bad' orphaned child (possibly based upon a real-life orphan Riley had known in his youth) goblins abduct on account of her misbehavior; a comic strip (1924 ss); several movies from the 1930s to 2014.
In a musical (1977ss) Annie has become adorable; she pairs up with a stray dog (=puppies and children), and winds up in the mansion of a sultry millionaire (=authority figure) with an ominous name: Oliver Warbucks.
Such characters may seem sketched by a middle-schoolboy on behavior medications: planetary success is their lot, however. Heidi, for example, has been widely translated. A 1974 animated Japanese adaptation has been broadcast since the world over with great success. In 2007 (47%) and 2008 (42%) in Italy, viewers in the 4-14 yo age range highly favored re-runs of the 1974 Heidi cartoon.
The millionaire in Annie ultimately melts, and helps her escape from crooks who pretend to be her biological parents (=search for long-lost origins). Authority figures never stop melting: F.D. Roosevelt (arch-patriarch 1378) appears in 1378
Just as it happened in Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Chinese etc lore, Warbucks serves as patriarchal figure indentured to an arch-patriarch (Roosevelt), mirroring exactly the blueprint of powerful satraps, kings and lords of lore ministering to almighty lords of lords and kings of kings (the Chinese and Roman Emperors; the Pharaoh of Egypt; the Persian Basileus...).
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the play, too, which ends with retribution for the bad guys (thanks to Roosevelt's patronage), and a great reunion under the auspices of Roosevelt's 'New Deal' (=political angle).
An early Christian version as Arianism, whereby father god -who has always been in existence- creates a son? Readers might prefer VI-VIII century BCE Hindu Shatapatha Brahmana:
At the beginning was the Self. He was Alone. He looked around and didn’t find anybody else except himself. He said: “I Am …”, but there was no other name to say, for he was alone… He was not happy. He wanted Another. The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." (Genesis 2:18). Myths tend to coalesce. The more or less surly authority figure may also have doubts about which heir/girl friend of his really loves him, thus deserving to receive his inheritance (1994 movie Greedy)/marriage proposal (1991 Road To
Ruin), and so forth. That's exactly the mimeographed dilemma behind all Job narratives (Mesopotamian variations exist pre-dating the Hebrew version 1379): does Job truly love god, or is he just an opportunist?
Trials and tribulations may prove expedient in order to find out. In advertising, toilet paper, malt liquor, detergent, toothpaste etc brands are often “put to the test” or “compared to find out” (=tournament). Japanese Buddhist Pure Land master Shinran wrote:”Do not manifest the appearance of wisdom, goodness, and 1379
Babylonian Theodicy.
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purity externally, because ( we) are vain and false within.”1380.
Buddhist Kakacupama Sutta tells the story of mistress Vedehica and her slave Kali. Vedehika has a reputation of being very kind and easygoing so Kali decides to test her by waking up later every day. At some point, Vedehica not only berates Kali, but hits her on the head. Bleeding Kali runs through the city announcing Vedehica's commodious nature: only as long as pleasant things happen, she displays a kind nature.
There is no limit to the juxtaposition and gradation of myths that look just like real life, at least to an extent. In 1991 Road To Ruin, the authority figure doesn't usher in his life a street tramp, bumbling relative or orphaned child, but an accomplished model: it works equally as well. Meek disposition and noble demeanor aren't necessary ingredients, either: the taming of the shrew shows how versatile Pygmalion myths can be.
Myths can easily compound; blockbusting Pretty Woman (1990) mixes Cinderella with Pygmalion (in the My Fair Lady variant, whereby a stern authority figure ushers a tramp into high society): a box-office and pop-culture sensation. The original script called for the floozy to also be a junkie, which was changed during filming to facilitate identification.
A man who had tried the “give love wings”/”give him/her wings” variant
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In ME6223 no date:CRJ-142:126.
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of the Pygmalion constellation confessed:
“I worked so hard to give her everything she wanted—to let her leave her full-time job to get that expensive and useless PhD in medieval history: and this is what I get? That motherfucker understands her? He [=lover on the side] inspires her? The $100,000 education wasn‘t inspiring enough?" Shaun feels robbed. And now he wants to ransack her life like she’s ransacked his. (Perel 2017:part 10). Floozies of the 1980-90s receive the message that being (very) sexually active doesn't preclude romantic happy endings: the endless restyling of the tramp with a heart of gold conundrum. The Jewish myth about the man-made golem of Ibn Gabirol1381 further compounds Pygmalion with Beauty and the Beast. The Beast -or the Beauty- may be just anyone whoever tells the story intends to enshrine.
In Pretty Woman, the Beast is a corporate shark, whereas Beauty is a street tramp. In Annie, the Beast is a millionaire war profiteer, and Beauty an orphaned child. In Little Lord Fauntleroy, Beauty is an orphaned grandchild, whereas Beast is an exploitative nobleman.
Beauty thus helps Beast to rediscover his inner, more compassionate nature: the profiteer becomes an altruist; the nobleman starts taking care of his tenants, and the corporate shark becomes a responsible businessman. It's the same shtick that recurs with the various Krishna-consciousness, Christly grace and 1381
“Another famous golem legend is associated with the historical figure Solomon ibn Gabirol, an eleventhcentury poet and philosopher from Malaga, Caliphate of Cordoba. Ibn Gabirol suffered from a repulsive skin disease that drove people away. According to legend, he created a female golem to do his housework. Unlike other golems made of clay, ibn Gabirol's was made of wood and door hinges, the only golem to have been so constructed. Jewish leaders learned of ibn Gabirol's golem, accused him of fornication, and made him destroy her ”. Golem As...1997:no page.
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Buddha-nature that lie dormant in every person.
Spoofs of the Pygmalion myth -in whichever direction- are innumerable: 1870 French ballet CoppÊlia; 1979 Italian erotic comedy Il Corpo Della Ragassa; 1981 surreal Japanese cartoon Dr. Slump. What is possible to see at work, though, are the vortexes of the human mind that different people in different ages and situations tapped for prompt results:�I tried it once before and it worked well�.
Called to explain the millionaire whirlwind of 'unofficial' money he had transferred to a host of people in connection with alleged sexual scandals, to counter allegations of blackmail and corruption, Berlusconi explained 'he was just like that', and couldn't resist offering people he knew disinterested princely assistance whenever they happened to be in financial or personal distress; the meek saviorhero in non-dualistic1382 rapture donates all he has to his flock (brethren, compatriots, tovarishi, comrades, common humanity fellows, or any other artificial kin group...) up to his life, flesh and blood.
Buddhist Ghaticara Sutta (as exemple from an entire class of religious texts from all traditions) narrates how the poor potter Ghatikara allows monks to take his food, and to strip his humble hut in order to refurbish Buddha Kassapa's crumbling hut. Not only is the weather merciful to Ghatikara, now without a roof above his head, but a pious king, who had heard Buddha Kassapa commend Ghatikara's support to the Buddha, sends him five hundred cartloads of food. 1382
Oneself and the 'other' are one.
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As Berlusconi spins his yarn, a diverse cohort of lefties, radicals and reformers axed around the former Communist party heckles. As this writing contends, however, the opposite always chances to apply. Justice Minister Cancellieri of the Letta government axed around the former Communist party apparently (ab)used her influence in order to be sure the byzantine justice system agreed to home arrest for G. Ligresti.
The Ligresti family is in fact under investigation for allegedly masterminding the financial crack of jumbo insurance company FONSAI that pulverized countless investors' savings. The opposite applies as disconcerted lefties learn in November 2013 how Cancellieri treated Ligresti's plea in term of an irresistible moral dilemma: Ligresti's frail life was purportedly in danger.
Pygmalion myths are here restyled as Good Samaritan myths: worshiping the wounds of artificial kin members in distress in the name of common humanity. Cancellieri thunders against those calling her integrity into question, and denounces a political conspiracy. Cancellieri's son, however, had worked as
FONSAI's manager under the Ligresti family leadership with an euro 5,5 million yearly salary. Both the position and the salary attached were matter of public record, yet it took the herd in the free press' magic show years to find it out, just in time to settle political scores.
If I'd written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people - including me - would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous 1016
commodity in the context of professional journalism. (“gonzo journalist” H.S. Thompson in 1979). The Cancellieri scandal reveals a supposed rogue exchange web of political favors against hefty sums of money; also, according to news, the Ligresti family allegedly helped Cancellieri in her political ascent. Prime Minister Letta throws the government's weight in Cancellieri's favor out of existential concerns, thus urging all contending parties to act responsibly for the great nation's sake. Morality plays again read like unwritten chapters of a mafioso novel.
The constellation of Pygmalion motifs and situations presides over political dynamics, too. The best, most suitable, most photogenic candidate is the one able to remain mostly aloof (=depersonalization) pointing at whichever stats or graph, and spouting politician's gobbledygook in endless shades of gray meant to bridge towards most constituencies at most times at least:”Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.”.
not only lies but several contradictory statements in the same breath. Very perplexing. It is as if psychopaths sometimes have difficulty in monitoring their own speech, and they let loose with a convoluted barrage of poorly connected words and thoughts . -...-They understand the intellectual rules of the game but the emotional rules are lost to them . (Hare 1993:126,143). This was a polite way of saying that they could never be sure whether Roosevelt was lying to their face. "When I talk to him, he says 'Fine! Fine! Fine!'" Huey Long lamented. "But Joe Robinson [a political enemy of Long's] goes to see him the next day and again he says 'Fine! Fine! Fine!' Maybe he says 'fine' to everybody."(Goldberg 2007:74).
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Yet, candidates (administrators, politicians...) who cannot melt, and remain poker-faced in front of living exempla that embody shared values, are not real savior-heroes: being fluent in ”conversational emotion” is paramount:
Of course, worthiness issues can and do underpin attention seeking, but in our social media world, it’s increasingly difficult to determine what’s a real attempt to connect and what’s performance. (Brown 2012:105). Without pursuing any diagnostic end, but as mere working conjecture, 'charismatic people', whom this writing assumes to be often psychopathic irrespective of clinical status, are typically seen (ab)using emotional language or concepts which -research tells- they're physically unable to grasp:
It seemed pretty clear from these brain wave studies that psychopaths were impaired in processing abstract words; something was wrong in the neurocircuitry of their brains that prevented the two types of words from being processed differently. -...-In nonpsychopaths, the right anterior temporal pole is the critical node for differentiating abstract representations of speech, including the difference between abstract and concrete words. As predicted by my research, psychopaths showed huge deficits in this region of the brain when processing abstract words (Kiehl 2014:141). They have to melt as the unemployed daddy of three on the verge of self-destruction pleads his case; they have to baby-talk to or kiss the child in the audience; they have to extol the virtues of -and claim affiliation with- prevailing
mos, and so forth:
If you tell stories without any inflection, without any emotion in your voice, they do not work as well. If you write stories without 1018
any inflection or any emotion, they do not work at all. (Lakhani 2005:61). Also, the baring of one's precious soul shall unfold according to the situation: rolling on the floor having seizures may be excessive when addressing the unemployed mommy of two in distress: a nice gasp, and/or a couple tears may equally sort the desired effect.
People in the audience experience hot flushes and know they are “right” as they worship the 'great cause' as the 'great man' bloviates because 'their feelings tell them they are right':”There is no outsider qualified to check and tell whether the mystic's experience is genuine or not.”.
A mind behind the successful Chicken Soup For The Soul franchise (in excess of half a billion copies sold), M.V. Hansen claims 1383 some doubted the authenticity of the glurge and inspirational stories in his books. The reader, however, shall “know” the stories are indeed true as s-he gets “goose bumps” reading it, Hansen shoehorns. As an aside, Hansen's stories in print are no different -whether in kind or degree- from chain-mail glurge that circulated wildly online in the 1990s, protestations of authenticity and eye-witness corroboration included. There is a terminally sick sweet child (mommy of three, etc) who may not die after all if one forwards the chain-mail to at least ten other people.
Leaders have to be personable, flirting with the faceless crowd. It is
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2010:part2.
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difficult to part 'authentic leaders' from psychopathic ones: both groups are “cool under fire”; nomadic and/or thrill-seeking, confident, exuberant, bold, deft at “managing impressions”, at “talking one's way out of situations”, and at “chatting people up”. Cabane1384 invites people who want to be(come) more charismatic to practice:
Hold eye contact longer than is comfortable. -...-Move closer to people than you usually would in an elevator, for instance. -...-Stand with your back to the elevator door, facing everyone else. -...-Strike up a conversation with a complete stranger. Few would dispute the various Hitler, Mussolini, Pol Pot, Stalin, Gaddafi, Amin, Bokassa, Saddam Hussein etc enjoyed -at least temporarily- the same popularity and intimacy with the crowd people associate with the various Gandhi, M.L. King, Mandela, San Su Ky:
Do not affect to treat him as an equal, do not trust his flow of words; since all this talking is expressly meant to test you, under cover of geniality he will be weighing you up (Catholic Bible, Sirach 13:11). According to Sayler1385, Obama's stifling of his partisans' interruptive cheers with hand gestures costed him New Hampshire. The horde in fusion didn't perceive him as personable, for he transgressed on the deference/demeanor plane:
Use good facial expression. Smile often. Smiling opens up your face, allows other expressions to flow easily, and projects confidence, happiness, and enthusiasm. Smiling also makes you approachable and human. (Lakhani 2005:151). 1384 1385
2012:45ss. No date.
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We assess visionary charisma primarily through demeanor, which includes body language and behavior. Due to the fact that people tend to accept whatever you project, if you seem inspired, they will assume you have something to be inspired about. For visionary charisma, appearance matters far less than it does for other charisma styles. You could be wearing rags and still successfully convey visionary charisma. (Cabane 2012:69). Consider what happens when your adopt the power pose Amy Cuddy and her colleagues refer to as Wonder Woman. -...-There are some unconsciously controlled systems in your brain that are ramping up in activity, while others are being suppressed. In just a few minutes, your personality actually changes; you become more confident and more assertive.(Vishton 2016:123). Being personable means being a sandwich-board man for cherished attitudes and shared values (subject to change, of course). As defections split Italian party PDL into two warring factions, Berlusconi -like Jesus and Ksantivadin of Buddhist lore- forgives rebel leader Alfano, formerly his second in command, because -so says Berlusconi- he loves Alfano like he would a son.
During his long harangue at the party's congress trying to control damage, Berlusconi is suddenly taken ill: what a gage of common humanity. Shortly thereafter, he's ready to harangue the crowd again: Forza Italia is reborn by unanimous consent, the old party's song plays, and attendees rise to a standing ovation1386.
Leaders have to offer undivided sympathy and endorsement to each and every individual, group or constituency, no matter how irreconcilable their claims or grievances are with those of other individuals, groups or constituencies that were 1386
ANSA November 16,2013.
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offered support and heartfelt emotional participation as well (for example green activists and heavy industry workers):
The ability to adapt to a variety of social situations is characteristic of highly charismatic people. Hayes Barnard, the charismatic CEO of Paramount Equity, told me that he sees himself as a Swiss Army knife, adaptable to any situation. When he moves through a room, he intentionally varies his voice and body language according to the person or people he is speaking to. In selecting leaders, he looks for people who have a similar ability to adapt in multiple ways. (Cabane 2012:73). That's Janusian thinking1387, or the ability to entertain opposites as true in order to reconcile them, the hallmark of creativity:
Within five minutes, Dave had bought the painting. It seemed the natural thing to do. Dave felt comfortable just looking at the painting. The [sales]woman had slipped in beside him, taken on the same body language as his and dropped into the same attitude. She made a seamless connection by exercising perfect, effortless synchrony: 55% body language, 38% voice tone and 7% words— the three "Vs." (Boothman 2000:79). When people are in rapport with each other, their bodies will match each other’s postures. This physical rapport occurs naturally over the course of our conversations with people we like. Scientists use the term mirroring to describe what happens to the bodies of individuals who are in rapport with each other. (Frank 2016:63). [Saint]Paul confronted [Saint]Peter in public and called him a hypocrite for eating with the Gentiles when no Jewish brothers were present, but refusing to do so when they arrived. (Ehrman 2011:210). In April 2015, Bill Clinton was forced to abruptly resign from his 1387
Readers shall come to their own conclusion regarding the similarities between this neologism, Hegel's tripartite understanding (thesis, antithesis, synthesis), and Hindu philosophy. Hegelian synthesis is but another interpretation or variation upon the theme of reconciliation, the great reunion/comeback and so forth. Of course, just because so-and-so (leader, politician, mogul...) postures like that (issues god-claims) doesn't mean she is “for real”: history shows god-claims are invariably bogus no matter who issues them.
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lucrative perch as honorary chancellor of Laureate Education, a forprofit college company. The reason for Clinton’s immediate departure: Clinton Cash revealed, and Bloomberg confirmed, that Laureate funneled Bill Clinton $16.46 million over five years while Hillary Clinton’s State Dept. pumped at least $55 million to a group run by Laureate’s founder and chairman, Douglas Becker, a man with strong ties to the Clinton Global Initiative. Laureate has donated between $1 million and $5 million (donations are reported in ranges, not exact amounts) to the Clinton Foundation. -...-Progressives have long excoriated for-profit education companies for placing profits over quality pedagogy. Still, for five years, Bill Clinton allowed his face and name to be plastered all over Laureate’s marketing materials. (Bannon 2016:no page). For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. (Frankfurt 2005:56). Hotelling's law proves true: competitors tend to be pulled to a common middle ground. An apt characterization surfaced recently. ”Schrodinger's candidate” appears, whose position is impossible to ascertain until a specific group looks at him; the outcome depends on the observer1388:
When I am with those who are weak, I share their weakness, for I want to bring the weak to Christ. Yes, I try to find common ground with everyone, doing everything I can to save some. ( 1 Corinthians 9:22). Relevancy and familiarity are closely linked. If you are relevant to me it is because you know something about me and the more you know about me the more familiar you feel.-...-We like people who are like us, so be sure that you accentuate your commonalities to increase the level of mutual friendship. Be quick to lend a hand when you can. Offer advice or information that is otherwise unavailable. Find out about specific personal hobbies or passions and talk about those things. (Lakhani 2005:124,139, emphasis added). “Now I Aggivessana, am aware that when I am teaching Dhamma to 1388
For a description of Schroedinger's paradox in quantum physics see:http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qtmeasurement/#CatSin.
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companies consisting of many hundreds, each person thinks thus about me: ‘The recluse Gotama is teaching dhamma especially for me'” (Gautama Buddha, Maha-saccaka-sutta. M.1.249, emphasis added). Every pore of the body of Avalokiteśvara contains and pours forth thousands of Buddhas, saints of all kinds, entire worlds. From his fingers flow rivers of ambrosia that cool the hells and feed the hungry ghosts.…He appears to brahmans as a brahman, to merchants as a merchant, to insects as an insect, to each in the aspect of its kind (Campbell 1991:150). This is a subtle trickster attribute. The trickster has the ability to communicate effectively across markedly different cultures. (Hansen 2001:106). Here ’ s how a televangelist enters the fantasy. He looks into the camera and speaks with emotional intensity and sincerity. “ God is telling me that there is a little old woman out there watching right now who has twenty dollars hidden away in her cookie jar and He wants you to get that money and send it in to Jesus right now. ” Knowing his audience, he understands that there are dozens, if not hundreds, of “ little old women ” watching who feel that they are being spoken to directly and who send in their cash.(Lakhani 2008:131). Kerry made the comment during a March 16 [2004] appearance at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, in response to a question about his vote against an $87 billion supplemental appropriation for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. As he tried to explain that he had voted for an earlier version of the bill before opposing final passage, Kerry said, "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it." -...-."It just was a very inarticulate way of saying something, and I had one of those inarticulate moments late in the evening when I was dead tired in the primaries and I didn't say something very clearly," he said. However, as the Bush campaign quickly pointed out, Kerry actually made the comment in the early afternoon. (CNN Politics, September 30, 2004). 1987 movie The Untouchables sees gangland king Al Capone weeping sentimentally at the opera while he orchestrates the murder of foes. Chinese Communist leader Mao had already posited the dynamics of contradiction as 1024
capstone of his version of Marxism-Leninism. Both Confucius and Buddha told different things to different people at different times, avowedly to get the best out of them under the present circumstances.
A psychotherapist who tries to fuse Freudian and Buddhist views, Epstein recalls how he told a patient how she was the ocean as well. Years later, he quips in a way suitable for all gnostic bromides:
Several years later, after her mother had passed away, Monica reminded me of my comment. It had had a tremendous impact, she said. I was surprised—I could have just as easily made a case for her not being the ocean—but I was glad I had been able to say something that mattered, something she remembered, something that made her think. (Epstein 2013:17, emphasis added). She told you exactly what you needed to hear, that's all. Neo, sooner or later you're going to realize, just as I did, there's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. (movie The Matrix, 1999)1389.
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Actor Richard Gere (2003) reminisces about a meeting with the Dalai Lama in the early 1980s. Gere claims the Tibetan Pope inquired about Gere's job, to which he tried to give a self-important, thoughtful answer: the Dalai Lama just laughed. Gere takes the monk's laughing as encouragement towards gnostic insight instead of a rude reply on the part of a clueless Tibetan who probably understood a third of what he was saying in English anyways. Because the Dalai Lama probably understood only bits and pieces of Gere's highfalutin answer, there is no way he might have addressed the actor's particular situation. In other words, it all probably rested in Gere's mind. The Dalai Lama might have quoted from a phone book, and Gere would have found deep gnostic pointers in that, too. Ram Dass recounts an experience with his Hindu guru Neem Karoli Baba, who also influenced the likes of Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Daniel Goleman. At 1AM, the guru threw a tantrum, woke disciples up and demanded that a certain food be served to him right away. Because 'the great man' is “with god” or something like that, the disciples obliged: Neem Karoli Baba gobbled the food down. Days later, the guru offered the following explanation. Precisely at the time of his tantrum, a disciple of his was dying far away. This disciple had -in his last moments- a craving for the food the guru had requested. Because such inopportune craving might very well spoil the disciple's up-coming rebirth, the guru had taken the craving upon himself to spare the dying disciple. At another point in time, Ram Dass sees awesome gnostic insight in the fact that his guru shooed him away with a leg when he was showing his devotion with a prostration in front of the holy man. Some oriental spirituality gurus had re-framed sexual abuse of disciples as a form of “initiation”. Ram Dass explicitly mentions disciples claimed to “love him so much” that they requested a sexual encounter, which he turned down in fear of reaping bad karma. In 1992, Ram Dass equates “adepts” and “addicts” as he explains that most people try to reach god through sexual activation (second chakra).
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But if he claims that he has faith in god, he cannot -in any like sense- specify what he means. He can identify god in fact only as a feeling: he has faith in a feeling. But since faith itself is only the worship of feelings, the man who declares to have faith in god is declaring that he has a feeling about a feeling: the feeling that his feeling is true. (Branden 1960/1969: lesson 4). Is “Janusian thinking” any different from gamesmanship? What about Jesus, who has “a personal relationship” with each devotee? What about Krishna, who -at the Yamuna river- multiplies to dance with each of his devotees individually? In the Pure Land, Buddhist devotees shall have “a personal relationship” with one -or more – among the countless Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in the retinue of Amida, the Buddha of infinite light.
Lakhani1390 is adamant: in order to close a final sale, one has to deliver the message to each individual recipient, just as presidential debates offer candidates who look into the camera delivering their truth to each individual viewer.
Isn't father god monitoring each and every one of us at all times? One and the same. The 'personal god' item is here crucial, as it encompasses not only fuzzy definitions of ghostly almighty ones few can exactly grasp, but all the dog and pony shows each society carries as politicized cultural baggage ( mos1391 and suchlike).
Ancient myth(ologie)s are not only the province of hazy speculation by amblyopic scholars, but are circularly reenacted, staged, spoofed on a constant basis. 1390 1391
2010:01. Slightly similar to Confucian li in China:”In sum, li is to make space for reverence in all things, treating seemingly ordinary interactions as if they were sacred ceremonies”. (Prothero 2010:46).
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As Debord argued, society as ongoing spectacle is based upon autonomous images, life's concrete inversion, whereby what is non-living takes on autonomous life: a pseudo-world where liars lie to themselves1392.
Professor of philosophy Roderick clinches:”Liberal Democracy; by which we mean the televised pseudo state, [=which Sartori dubbed “homo videns” or “videocracy” in 1997extnote] -..-. Once you have an economy that produces VCRs and stuff, and a pseudo state that gives you the satisfaction of lording it over the rest of the planet ”1393.
In 2013, Berlusconi surprises many, for he seemingly refuses to ride to his full electoral advantage the alleged involvement of Partito Democratico (the new designation of the Communist Party) in the huge financial scandal of bank MPS -another the hydra of regulatory bodies couldn't possibly prevent, resulting in about 4 billion State bail-out-. In 2016, MPS is once again on the verge of bankruptcy, with another possible State bail-out in order: frazzled bureaucrats are helpless as investors' savings are wiped out once more. At the end of 2016, a third bail-out (euro 20 billion) targets MPS and other banks.
“La réalité considérée partiellement se déploie dans sa propre unité générale en tant que pseudo-monde à part, objet de la seule contemplation. La spécialisation des images du monde se retrouve, accomplie, dans le monde de l’image autonomisé, où le mensonger s’est menti à lui-même. Le spectacle en général, comme inversion concrète de la vie, est le mouvement autonome du non-vivant. ” (Debord 1967, point 2). extnote It is highly interesting here to note how Sartori mostly pillories Berlusconi's (right-wing) rise to power, whereas Roderick – coming from a cultural Marxist viewpoint- sees no fundamental difference between liberal democracy (which Sartori champions) and the “televised pseudo-State” that Sartori deplores when Berlusconi is concerned. Of course, Sartori may find opportune to forget how “videocracy” is equally at work when Blair, Obama, Lula, Tsipras, Renzi or other cherished leftists are smiling at the camera (note of this writer). 1393 1992:Hegel And Modern Life. As the present writer suggests, every epoch has its totem imagery. Speaking in the early 1990s, Roderick here captures a clear obsession of the 1980-90s: the Videocassette Recorder (VCR). 1392
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Berlusconi employs the moral of
Aesop's fables (the lion and the
mouse1394) to explain: he has a feeling of gratitude for the bank MPS (avowedly Italy's III largest), which allegedly lent him money in his shaky beginnings as entrepreneur1395. Such narratives as “the lion and the mouse” are as ubiquitous and cross-cultural to even make it to one episode of 1977 Japanese tokusatsu animated series I-Zenborg1396.
What Berlusconi was tapping for prompt results was what psychologist Cialdini dubbed the fundamental principle of reciprocity. During WWI, U.S citizens were enthused to join the war effort with the imagery the USA were paying back a debt of gratitude as well. France had helped fight the English during the independence wars: Lafayette was chosen as monocratic figure to rally the U.S horde in patriotic fusion.
Alternatively, Berlusconi recurs to the image of the godly patriarch, shying away from rabid polemic for the sake of the bank's employees, whose job is on the line. As PDL secretary Alfano proposes a committee of inquiry to nail Partito 1394
Alternatively, Christian St. Jerome (IV-V century CE) is the one helping the lion first, then getting helped in return. Many examples of the story exist. Some with a happy ending (=paying favors back); others with a unhappy ending as favors are not paid back. In Buddhist Javasakuna Jataka, a woodpecker dislodges a bone stuck in a lion's throat. The lion replies thus to the bird in matters of gratitude:””To trust thy head to a lion's jaw. A creature red in tooth and claw, To dare such a deed and be living still, Is token enough of my good will.”. Aesop, and a Jewish tale around the I century CE, suggest identical stories where adventitious details vary. In Buddhist Alinacitta Jataka, an elephant serves some carpenters who had rescued him when a splinter had caused an infection in his foot (=mythology of the foot). The entire help and gratitude shtick can get short circuited in the tale of The Fisherman's Wife (https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm019.html). 1395 MPS 2013: no page. 1396 In partial English adaptation as Attack Of The Super Monsters. Under the elusive guidance of a power-hungry demon from another galaxy, dinosaurs emerge from the earth to destroy cities and reclaim the world for themselves. A special squad fights them with high-tech weaponry. In the Italian adaptation (episode Un Dinosauro Amico), children take an harpoon off an attacking dinosaur's nose, and they become thus friends.
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Democratico to its responsibilities, PD's sharp reply doesn't consist in La Fontaine's fables, but in the enumeration of eminent PDL executives who assertedly are equally linked to the financial scandal at large 1397:”democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. ” (W.Churchill, 1947).
Busloads1398 of soubrettes, ballerine, models and hostesses circulate within the networks of international policy making. As Italian newspaper Il Giorno published June 6, 2009, Berlusconi and prominent guests -including the naked then Czech Prime Minister- were photographed with “pretty topless girls”. One such alluring woman, in Berlusconi's official retinue at the Toronto meeting in 2010, is arrested (March 13, 20141399) at an Italian airport with a load of 24 kilograms of cocaine:
It will never be known for certain whether the Russians used [ Austro-Hungarian high military intelligence officer who committed suicide in 1913] Redl’s homosexuality to blackmail him into spying for them, or whether he sold secrets willingly to finance his sybaritic lifestyle. But we know this much: He betrayed the uniform he wore, and he contributed to the deaths of untold thousands of his comrades. He may well have been the greatest traitor in history. (Gordon 2013:no page). Alternatively, such women may be 'secret agents' on a patriotic mission, for so-and-so almost brought home a multi-billionaire contract for this Italian company, thus shifting the burden upon the critic, now under the angry stare 1397
Polidori 2013: no page. According to newspapers, some alleged a transportation service was run to bring a group of young women back and forth to follow Berlusconi as he travelled in his official capacity. 1399 ANSA. 1398
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(complete with gastrointestinal and neurological syndromes) of unemployed 'daddies of three and mommies of two', whose chances his crass morality literally ruined.
Hungarian-Italian porn-star and politician Ilona Staller declared to the press in 2007 how Hungarian Iron Curtain secret services had hired her to seduce and spy upon visiting foreign politicians and businessmen:
Then, when Magruder and others were working to reelect Nixon, G. Gordon Liddy entered the picture, hired by Attorney General John Mitchell to be Magruder's general counsel. Liddy was a wild card, a James Bond wannabe. His first plan to ensure Nixon's reelection was to spend one million dollars to hire "mugging squads" that would rough up demonstrators; kidnap activists who might disrupt the Republican convention; sabotage the Democratic convention; use "high-class" prostitutes to entice and then blackmail leading Democrats; break into Democratic offices; and use electronic surveillance and wiretapping on their perceived enemies. (Tavris&Aronson 2007:35). In the same time frame trepid viewers agonized over the plight of wartorn Georgia, the martyr State crisscrossed with lines of dispossessed refugees, the Georgian delegation seemingly partied wild in the company of eighty (80) prostitutes during a NATO meeting in Lisbon; unable to sleep, President Sarkozy alerted the security personnel1400:
Prostitutes questioned in the case have said that between 2009 and 2011 — when the IMF chief was dealing with a global financial crisis — Strauss-Kahn was organizing orgies at luxury hotels and a restaurant in Paris and also in Washington. (The Japan Times, February 11, 2015). 1400
Redazione 2010: no page.
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Naturally, foes arrange sordid encounters with 'prostitutes'...friends go to 'sexy' (not 'sex') parties, romantic escapades in order to “scherzare con eleganza” ( tell classy jokes, Berlusconi's own definition) with 'models':”commonplace incidental couplings” that also took place in the life of civil rights giant M.L. King, as a biographer would have it.
Still talking about M.L. King, Assistant Director of the CIA Brennan, who was involved in monitoring the supreme Afro-American civil rights activist, believed that “King could be bestial in his sexual abuse of women ”: an opinion many voice publicly about Berlusconi and other 'great men'.
Cocaine-snorting, profligate sybarites have orgies while elated partisans routinely forgive their trivial faults for the great cause's sake:”[The public] only wanted one thing from [a given public figure]: a story. He told it so well that we forgave him almost everything. ”;“[it] helped people to believe.”;”We want -...original content regardless of its validity. We're here for the scare, not for the plausibility”.
If an historic character has made a great contribution to country and society, and if his name and his deeds have been used over the generations to foster high ideals of character and service, what good is to be accomplished by digging out of the past and exploiting weaknesses, which perhaps a generous contemporary public forgave and subdued? (Mormon Apostle S.L. Richards in 1955). There is also another small return on these scandals. Despite his political and personal responsibilities, old age and health problems, foes accused Berlusconi
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of going through a string of uninterrupted sexual encounters with young women in one single night on a routine basis: Hercules couldn't probably have done much better.
According to press agency ANSA (April 18, 2013), Berlusconi himself wields the stereotype against left-wing hecklers at Udine, for he claimed:”Siete invidiosi -...- perché qui sotto il palco ci sono decine di belle ragazze ” (you are envious -...- because here at (my) stand there are dozens of pretty girls).
Parting humbugging politicians from other sybaritic entertainers might prove difficult. Actor Michael Douglas as well toots the horn of his (presumed) sexual frenzies and bohemian excesses. Disgraced boxing legend, addict, felon and bohemian Mike Tyson basks in his presumed sexual prowess while imprisoned:”''I was having so much sex that I was too tired to even to go the gym and work out,' Tyson wrote. 'I'd just stay in my cell all day.'” 1401. Donald Trump tweets on November 20, 2016:”My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body ”.
Having assertedly earned in excess of US$ 300 million during his career, Tyson – now a penniless bum on the run from the IRS- is penning his sensational autobiography full of motifs the precious human soul cherishes: he (frivolously) overspent US$ 62 million in one given year alone (=surfeit that boggles the mind) to gratify himself. French President Sarkozy equally tried to capitalize as much as he 1401
Sex Behind Bars...2013:no page.
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could on the string of (real or presumed) affairs
the media pinned on him by
cultivating for a while a 'casual' image of himself worth of a soap opera.
While policy makers and other celebrities possibly pose in the bathroom basking in the image they cultivate of themselves as irresistible he-men cavorting in the company of ballerine, Italian ballerina turned politician N. Minetti had shared her opinion about her “true love” ( vero amore) Berlusconi off the record: “piece of shit -...- old geezer -...- [with a] flabby arse” 1402. According to court proceedings again, Minetti also pledged to “raise hell” if her demands for rewards would remain unanswered.
Brazilian caudillo Getulio Vargas, who embodied the Brazilian version of paternalistic statism so popular in the 1920-40s (Mussolini, Hitler, Roosevelt, Salazar...), was often officially portrayed with a crowd of juveniles (whose image had been modified to satisfy aesthetic sense) running towards him: with the only exception of Brazilian flags, it could have been another godly image from the gospel; Vargas had, in fact, been nicknamed o pai dos pobres (the father of the poor). Characters from Japanese cartoons -in the 1970s for example- were normalized to reproduce standardized Caucasian features. Soviet-backed Communist leader Ho Chi-Minh was called “father Ho”.
Both Burmese activist San Su Ky, and Indian stateswoman Indira Gandhi enjoy(ed) the nickname of “mothers” of their people; the founder of the Turkish 1402
Minetti Story 2013: no page.
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Republic Mustafa Kemal is called “father of the Turks”: the human mind relishes this imagery.
Venezuela's Chavez in recent years revamped the item: murals depicted the leader in a fatherly embrace with a child; a statue also portrays Ho Chi Minh teaching a precious child; Chairman Mao also loved children in various posters. Vishton captures why dictators across history plaster their image all over the place:”mere exposure turns out to be a powerful means to make something -almost anything- seem more lovable”1403. In 2011 Italian Head of State Napolitano joined a similar scene 'embracing' juveniles from third-world immigrant groups he wished to extend citizenship to when born on Italian soil.
All those may seem -and are credited by some as being- clumsy, accidental, 'romantic' or inoffensive postures, 'gaffes', which -irrespective of any (dis)agreement regarding the line being followed- is highly unlikely given the 'machine' at work behind the image (ghostwriters, spin doctors, cameramen, makeup artists, digital imaging specialists etc).
Some wisely raise doubts about the characterization of various statesmen -such as U.S President Bush, jr. (Yale graduate), and Brazilian President Lula -as nitwits taped as they're unable to spell; Bush, jr. was also famous for his childlike goofs, just like other retarded heroes a la Rocky and Forrest Gump: they may not be “talking” (properly) but they are “reaching across the aisle”. 1403
2016: How Your Brain Falls In Love.
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Curzan1404 claims that language alignment leads to ingratiation:
Deception is such a common technique for ingratiation that its lack strikes us as aberrant. -...-In many ways, deception is not so different from tact; indeed, one could make a case that sometimes they are actually one and the same.(Feldman 2009:13,15). This raises the interesting possibility that, like much of their behavior, the mental processes of psychopaths are poorly regulated and not bound by conventional rules . This issue -...-outline[s] evidence that psychopaths differ from others in the way their brains are organized and in the connections between words and emotion. (Hare 1993:126). the study [analyzing the 2016 U.S Presidential election] found “most candidates using words and grammar typical of students in grades 6-8, though Donald Trump tends to lag behind the others.” -...-“The candidates’ speeches mostly went from seventh grade level for Donald Trump to tenth grade level for Bernie Sanders.” (Moyer 2016:no page). “We won the evangelicals, We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.” ( Donald Trump during his presidential campaign as he won the Nevada Republican caucus in February 2016). It all might be another spectacle: the personable savior-hero is one of us to a fault, including the common man's miserable shortcomings and gaucherie. After all, aren't Rocky and Forrest Gump semi-retarded? Yet, what heroes:
Former Senator John Danforth had multiple degrees from Yale University. He was also from a quite upper-class part of Missouri. Yet when Senator Danforth went out campaigning, he would talk about what was best for the great state of “Mizzourah.” I lived in Missouri when Danforth was campaigning, and in rural Missouri, people definitely said “Mizzourah.” But not in the upper-class St. Louis enclaves from which Danforth came. Likewise on campaign stops 1404
2013:How To Maintain Relationships With Talk.
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Danforth would use more of a Missouri accent: In Missouri, when you have a word that ends in “p” and then you put an “ed” on it, instead of changing the whole “ped” morpheme to “pt,” which is what most American speakers do, you change the accent profile of the word and say, for example, “stripe – ed.” There is no way John Danforth ever talked about a “stripe – ed” tie in Washington, D.C., but he talked about trouble farmers were having with “stripe – ed” cucumber beetles on the campaign trail. Likewise, if you listen to tapes of John Kerry from the 1970s, you hear a very definite Kennedy accent. -...-Bill Clinton played this up beautifully, making more of his Arkansas accent in the 1992 campaign than he had in his widely panned 1988 convention speech. There, he came across as a Yale educated, new-class intellectual. In 1992 he came across as a semirural, basically unsophisticated politician arriving to fix a broken system. It worked beautifully: Clinton allayed fears that as a Democrat he was too leftist by communicating to Southern and midwestern voters, through his voice and body language, that he was one of them. (Drout 2006:68-70). Quelqu'un a mal fait son boulot ? Un nègre qui n'aurait pas passé l'examen de langue exigé par l'identité nationale ? Ou l'indice que, sachez-le, on s'en fout. "Je"[=French President Sarkozy] parle comme "eux" [=Daher industrial workers], j'écris aussi mal qu'eux : ils croiront que je pense comme eux, ils penseront comme moi. Entre imitation et émotion, ça passe ou ça casse. Il s'agit de communiquer, pas de parler. (Cassin 2009:no page). The sooner you start telling yourself that you're excited rather than nervous, the sooner you'll be able to convince your subconscious that this is actually how you feel. And, in fact, that's really all that matters. Change your attitude, and your body language and voice tone will change to reflect your new attitude. Keep in mind that most people are as eager as you are to establish rapport. They will generously give you the benefit of the doubt. (Boothman 2000:63, emphasis added). Researchers who interact with known psychopaths regularly describe them as social chameleons (Babiak&Hare 2006:38). Parzival and his horse are on the ground. Parzival reaches into his quiver, takes a javelin, and sends it through the knight's visor into his eye and kills him. That's not the proper way to kill a knight, so Arthur's court is now twice shamed. -...- So this red knight [=Parzifal with his deceased foe's armor on] pulls up. As far as they know, this is the Red Knight, the great king. "Oh, come in." They take the armor 1036
off, and here's this fool underneath. What a shock. But Gurnemanz knows how to judge male flesh, and he realizes this is some boy. (Campbell 1989:In Search Of The Holy Grail). Similarly, a number of classic psychiatric disturbances have prospective bright sides to them. For example, milder forms of bipolar spectrum illness and attention deficit disorder have been associated with creativity (Abraham et al. 2006; Carson 2011; Healey and Rucklidge 2006). Both autistic individuals and their relatives sometimes possess exceptional mathematical skills (Baron-Cohen 2006), and obsessive-compulsive traits are often observed in industrious people (Bradshaw and Sheppard 2000; Polimeni et al. 2005). In contrast, there appears to be no silver lining associated with conventional medical disease, injury or any other form of unequivocal biological malfunction. Medical problems such as heart disease, emphysema, arthritis, diabetes, brain injury or mental retardation syndromes are never associated with symptoms or traits that can be construed as even slightly beneficial. -...-A number of fascinating experiments have found that, compared to normal control subjects, patients with schizophrenia sometimes demonstrate superior performance in a few specialized perceptual skills -...-Another study, which reviewed high school records, discovered that schizophrenic patients had higher marks in art, language and religion classes compared to their healthy counterparts (Helling et al. 2003). -...-Owen et al. (2007) evaluated whether people with schizophrenia possessed superior theoretical rationality. -...-Although schizophrenia patients were IQ-, gender- and education matched to the control group, they convincingly outperformed the control group with an average score of 8.76 correct out of 15 versus 6.21 correct. Because scientific discoveries are sometimes inherently logical while simultaneously contradicting convention, this study implicates the nonconforming disposition of schizophrenic patients as a potential contributor to ingenious creativity. (Polimeni 2012:75,93-4). David Koresh (born Vernon Howell) was another certified dyslexic, special education person, whom classmates dubbed “mr. retardo�. This messiah entered a savage whirlwind of biblical prophecy, debauchery, eccentricity and purported ascents to heaven as proof of manifest destinies soon to unfold.
This umpteenth lamb of god -born of a single mother and “man of 1037
sorrows” due to his troubled childhood- led his spellbound fundamentalist Christian followers to ultimate doom enacting judgment day in a bloody shootout with U.S ATF forces: dozens of people -including Koresh, and several children- died in the assault.
Belle Gibson, the alternative healing author and internet personality from Australia, was in April 2015 revealed to be just another hoaxer with the usual troubled childhood, teenage pregnancy and related 'man of sorrow' paraphernalia: experts in the media now label her an antisocial narcissist: the writing was all over the wall.
After swindling her many votaries, Gibson now simply retorts “she's just human”. Gibson's app was voted “best food and drink” app of 2013 with over 300.000 downloads. Her stories of miraculous recoveries thanks to alternative medicine were as fake as the non-existent illnesses she purportedly recovered from: the money Gibson made -plus engagements, endorsements, etc- sure was real. As with Koresh's equally outlandish claims, votaries were too busy putting their hands together to celebrate the providential (wo)man. Telling true or false stories makes no difference as far as public reaction is concerned:”we learn through stories” 1405. R.L. Moore1406 explains that “telling one's story” -to a therapist for exampleincreases integration of the self.
Is this too silly to have any effect in/on the real world? In early 2013, 1405 1406
Curzan 2013:How To Negotiate Professional Relationship. No date-3:part 5.
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main Italian Prime Minister candidates Monti and Berlusconi jockeyed for electoral positions using obtuse myths and glurge as light sabers. Monti was allegedly first to appear with precious children as part of his campaign: would opponents pour all that bile over righteous Monti in the presence of such little treasures?
Berlusconi riposted being photographed with a puppy even more precious than Monti's toddlers. Naturally, wise patriarchal figure Monti knew best: he, too, pulled a puppy from his politician's hat. Resourceful Berlusconi in turn pulled children from his politician's hat, while exit polls slowly but surely rose. Pope Francis I is also involved with children: kissing the foot of a disabled child, and letting a child take his seat, for example:
Ireland's Roman Catholic Church told the order of nuns who ran the former home where a mass grave of almost 800 children was found that it must co-operate with any inquiry into the discovery. Ireland is considering an investigation into what the government called a "deeply disturbing" discovery of an unmarked graveyard at a former home run by the Bon Secours Sister where 796 children died between 1925 and 1961. (Reuters, June 5, 2014). whereas Fidel Castro capitalized in 1999 upon the repatriation from the USA of a Cuban child, whose mother had drowned in flight from the island.
Myth(ologie)s tend to coalesce: Pope Francis I 1407 appears with a green parrot. What's more, the parrot is the gift of a professional male stripper -soon to appear in an erotic movie- who declares to be in love with the Pontiff. The myth of Saint Francis as quintessential animal lover -akin to Orpheus, Buddha and other 1407
ANSA, 30 January 2014.
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great hierophants- becomes thus fact for some, whereas others may daydream about the Catholic Church reversing course regarding various categories of supposed profligates and sinners. In May 2014, Berlusconi on a never-ending political campaign pledges his commitment in favor of animal rights 1408: animals and children, what a favorite imagery.
Some, however, opt for more traditional appeals. P. Bacchiddu, a candidate to the European Parliament with the left-wing radical Tsipras list, posts online her bikini pictures claiming to “use any means” (“uso qualunque mezzo”) to win1409. After the chances of being elected with a radical left-wing list vanish, Bacchiddu promptly switches allegiances to right-wing Lega Nord of nativist vintage. Charming coincidences, or artful stage management? Readers be the judge.
The message to the artificial kin member is, probably, that puppies and children are so pure at heart -whatever that means- they would never associate themselves with the awful person opponents portray so-and-so as being. Of course, legions of toddlers and puppies are successfully associated with many things in advertisement, from cars to toilet paper and shipyards: that's ethos (credibility) again, irrespective of any sense this may (not) make:
Most young children are truly authentic—what you see is definitely what you get. They have yet to learn how to hide, filter and manipulate their experiences to fit what others are expecting. Their motivations are out in the open (Brown 2007:180). 1408 1409
ANSA, April 27, 2014. ANSA, May 7, 2014.
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The baby, because his heart is pure, is an unlearned saint. The saint, because his heart is pure, is a learned baby (Watarai Nobuyoshi, 1615-901410). How the great leader (of the moment) behaves, the “fire in the minds of men”1411 he lights, may be interpreted in antipodal -yet perfectly functional- ways. In 1994, Berlusconi's party official song preached that “siamo tantissimi “ (we're so many, or the motif of the horde in fusion), “e abbiamo tutti un fuoco dentro al cuore” (and the heart of us all is on fire). 1986 'inspirational' soundtrack Hold On
To The Vision also urges to ”Keep the fire burning bright, got to make them realize”; a Rocky IV soundtrack song is aptly titled Hearts On Fire.
The concept goes back to mankind's dawn:”So, in the yoga of the Veda the first step is the discovery of the Mystic Fire within you – psychic presence. ”1412. Aurobindo comments on the Vedas:
Yet throughout the symbol of the sacrificial Fire is maintained. It is evident that we are in the presence of a mystic symbolism to which the fire, the sacrifice, the priest are only outward figures of a deeper teaching and yet figures which it was thought necessary to maintain and to hold constantly in front. (MAISI003 no date:lecture note 2:2). The biographer Plutarch, writing in the late first and early second 1410
N. Hirai translation. Commenting on the Hindu tradition and the image of fire, Joseph Campbell explains:”life comes out of death, create death and you create life -...- the world is an ever burning fire: feed that fire” (1989:episode The Sacred Source).It can apply (in both positive and negative form) to any group of zealots into any kind of pursuit. Often attributed to Dostoevsky, the phrase “fire in the minds of men” is also found in Richard Baxter's Christian Directory (1673):”atheism, which leaveth the heart free and open to all designs and desires of rebellion, doth kindle that fire in the minds of men, which government cannot quench -...- it poisoneth the heart of commonwealths”. Biblical imagery presents the same:”I have come to set the world on fire, and I wish it were already burning! ”(Jesus, Luke 12:49). Zoroastrianism, (some traditions in) Buddhism and Hinduism, too, practice fire ceremonies and/or fire worship. At the heart of the Roman household stood the sacred hearth (=fire), over which the virgin goddess Vesta presided. 1412 Varma, MAISI031 no date: unit 1:9. 1411
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centuries, documented another version of the myth of the birth of the twins that relates to the fascinum. He tells how the King of Alba beheld the strange sight of an erect penis that rose from his hearth fire and stayed there for several days extnote. He sought advice from the gods via an oracle, which informed him that a virgin should give herself to the phallus and the offspring produced would become a very great man. The king, named Tarchetius extnote in this version, ordered his daughter to mate with the phallus, but she balked at this and sent her servant to do it instead. Tarchetius discovered the truth and imprisoned them both. He was held back from killing them by a dream sent by Vestaextnote, and then Romulus and Remus were born. They were abandoned in the Tiber, suckled by a she-wolf, saved by a herdsman, and grew up to kill Tarchetius. This myth, which may be of Etruscan origin, is also reflected in a myth of the birth of one of the later kings of Rome, Servius Tullius, and has a connection to older Indo-European mythic motifs, where fire is equated with male virility and the divine spark of life. (Meineck 2005-1:37). In 1921, Freud labeled the relationship between a therapist and a patient as “fascination,” a form of hypnosis. He went on to describe romantic love as a state in which an individual becomes so submissively engrossed in his object of “fascination” that he becomes hypnotized, losing his critical faculties, in “bondage of love.” Freud, apparently, wasn’t the only one comparing fascination with hypnosis. The 1911 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica describes fascination as a “hypnotic condition, marked by muscular contraction, but with consciousness and power of remembrance.” (Hogshead 2010:14). The desire for honor and glory sets men on fire (Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes, 1.4.2). extnote
The Christmas log that is put on fire during Christian festivities derives from pagan, Nordic/Germanic practices still attested in medieval times of the Yule Log, again a phallic fertility symbol associated with fire. In Roman lore, even King Servius Tullius was miraculously conceived when his mother Ocresia mated with a magical phallus from the hearth, either sent by the god Vulcan or by the the lar familiaris, god of the hearth. The city of Preneste also shared a similar myth. Founder Caeculus' (=blind one, also “blind one fallen from the sky”, Caeculus Depidius) virgin mother got impregnated by a spark from the hearth. Caeculus was deemed son of Vulcan, survived ordeal by fire to prove his divine parentage, and could control fire. After being exposed, he was raised by his uncles, the divine twins Digidii ( etymology possibly related to Di Indigetes, native gods, literally “invoked”), connected with the goddess Fortuna daughter of Jove (note of this writer). extnote A mythical king of Alba Longa, “who was most lawless and cruel” (Plutarch, Perrin trans.). Brillonline Reference Works informs how “The root tarch- is well attested for people -...- and belongs to the original core of the Etruscan language; the etymology is unknown.” (note of this writer). extnote They were imprisoned and ordered to weave a set of clothes as a punishment, which the king had undone at night. Readers may note multifarious versions of the Romulus story. At times the mother is a Vestal virgin; at times a servant. In Jesus' case, it's the the low-class woman who's also a virgin (note of this writer).
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Again He comes back (=Agni [the god of fire, the divine will]), opening wide, desiring victory! Within all moving beings he has become [the] Desire! (Yatsenko on the Rig Veda1413, MAISI017 no date: lecture 4:6). People the world over (India, Spain, Philippines, RĂŠunion, Greece, China, Japan, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Fiji, Bulgaria, Thailand) walk on fire to celebrate various kinds of religious practices. Catholics celebrate Ash Wednesday as the faithful are blessed with sacred ashes, a vestigial fire ordeal that commemorates Jesus' forty days in the wilderness facing Satan. Tribal ritual set aside, new age movements catering to urban white collar (upper) middle classes have appropriated the item as well in the name of an higher perception, the actualization of one's self, the transcendence of physical limits, positive psychology and so forth.
Myth(ologie)s can coalesce: French RĂŠunion Indians walk on fire after pouring holy water over their heads:
Results indicate that there was a relationship between New Age practices and beliefs and schizotypal personality traits, characterised by magical ideation, a cognitive disposition towards looseness of associations, and emotional hypersensitivity. Women were also more likely to be drawn to New Age practices and beliefs. On the other hand, traditional religiosity was unrelated to all personality indices and measures from the experimental task. These findings suggest that an individual may be attracted to the New Age by virtue of its magical belief system and practices, which provide meaning to unusual ideation and experiences, and which emphasise the exploration and development of a loose cognitive style and emotional sensitivity. (Farias et alii 2005:979). Bundles of commingled mythologies are everywhere. Let's take W. 1413
XV century BCE or older.
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Churchill, for example. Most -in fact- would equate the British leader with just causes and best of all ideas the 'fire' in his speeches certainly derived from. Churchill's penchant -for example in a 1920 article1414- raised quite a few eyebrows over time, however. The torturing embarrassment regarding Churchill's ' true ideas'1415 could be easily solved dealing with another possibly controversial (and unpublished) article:
Sir Martin Gilbert, the eminent historian and Churchill biographer, -...- said the article was not written by Churchill at all, but rather his ghost writer, Adam Marshall Diston. He added that Churchill's instructions for the article were different in both tone and content from what Diston eventually wrote, and pointed out that Diston was a supporter of Oswald Mosley, the notorious fascist and anti-Semite. The present writer is not interested here in scoring political points, but in a simple fact. On one hand, Churchill is eulogized as the larger-than-life figure, whose uncompromising moral assumptions warranted him a place in history. On the other, he is just another gamesman trying different strategies. He commissions his 'memorable' pieces to a cohort of ghost-writers, each one in tune with a different portion of the political spectrum, just in case: most statesmen do so anyways on a regular basis1416. The leader of the French Fascist Vichy regime, Petain, had in his drawer a serenade to his appointed arch-enemy De Gaulle.
Berlusconi published in a limited edition in the mid-1980s his own alleged translation of Thomas More's Utopia: it was a more or less integral copy of “Zionism versus Bolshevism: A Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People,� Illustrated Sunday Herald, 8 February 1920. 1415 Smith 2007, no page. 1416 At some point, rumor had it that Berlusconi employed at least six speech writers. 1414
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Luigi Firpo's (1915-89, Italian historian and politician) earlier translation. Although Berlusconi's foes choose the episode to cast 'honest Firpo' against 'dishonest Berlusconi', Firpo apparently never pressed charges against Berlusconi.
The private exchange between the two regarding the matter was embargoed upon Firpo's death, soon to be made public in 2009: silence has shrouded the issue ever since. Readers shall come to their own conclusions regarding what sort of “patto tra gentiluomini” (agreement between gentlemen) might have been negotiated offstage: a word to the wise...
'Intellectual' politicians are a dime a dozen. Lega Nord secretary Salvini tries to project his image of highly sophisticated individual. In January 2015, he brags about two new books he's supposedly reading: too bad one of them was still to be released on the Italian market. Incensed votaries defend him from ridicule: he surely was reading the book in the original foreign edition. Media reported, however, that the book cover Salvini (or his press agents or cronies) posted online was that of the Italian edition yet to be released...
Decades earlier, Italian Communist Party ( PCI) secretary Occhetto in 1990 had serenaded party liners with a lyrical discourse as the party was shedding its communist skin to turn “democratic”. What he presented as his literary masterpiece was in reality his retelling of lines from the popular 1989 movie Dead
Poets Society.
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Politicians who ridicule the same obtuse myth(ologie)s they otherwise wield to enthuse the “Psychotics who identify themselves with the mythological image� are many. U.S President Johnson in an interview with German Chancellor Erhard jokingly remarked how he wasn't born in a log-cabin like Lincoln, but in a manger like Jesus. In 1960 Richard Nixon had given the same answer1417.
Dundes captures this dynamic:
In this connection, it is interesting that the mixture of religion and politics is found in stories about Nixon as well as Kennedy. An anecdote [exists] ridiculing Nixon's repeated references to his humble origins and suggesting that false modesty might conceal exalted visions of grandeur (1963:55). If I had to name my greatest strength, I guess it would be my humility (Barack Obama in 2008). Contrary to the rumours you have heard, I was not born in a manger,I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father, Jor-el, to save the planet Earth (Barack Obama in 2008). The new Pope is a humble man, very much like me[=Donald Trump], which probably explains why I like him so much! (Donald Trump on Twitter in 2013). Don't be so humble - you are not that great. (attributed to Israeli PM Golda Meir). People will forgive you for murder a lot faster than they would forgive you for displaying your exhibitionistic needs (Moore 2001:part 6). The same platitudes and strategies used in this example can be successfully used in a variety of situations involving different people with an equal degree of credibility: 1417
Free Lance-Star, August 6, 1960.
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It is one thing to suggest that a hero or a patriot is a martyr, it is quite another for a community to perceive it as true. Therefore, the metaphor inherent in associational catalysts requires that its author must maintain a degree of social legitimacy so as to invoke a believable image. (Allgrove 1994:55). The reason these Christians invented martyrdom stories and saw their history as a history of persecution is because then, as now, martyrdom was a powerful tool. Early Christians respected saints as holy people with a special connection to God. And, as already noted, there was no better argument for the sincerity of an individual’s belief than the fact that he or she was prepared to die for it. As such, in later times martyrs were powerful spokespersons for the church. When early Christians wanted to prove the antiquity and orthodoxy of their own opinions, they would edit or compose a story attributing their own views to an early Christian orthodox martyr. (Moss 2013:14). When told by Hei that he [=Japanese Buddhist Saint Nichiren] was to die, he said: "Now I am going to be beheaded this night. It is the very thing for which I have been longing these several years." Evidently he saw this as a necessary and desired part of the completion of the Lotus prophesy of martyrdom. The ill-treatment of the mob had not daunted his spirit; neither could this sentence of death. Within him had grown such conviction of his rectitude that he had most likely worked himself up to an emotional fervour reminiscent of the state in which the early Christian martyrs walked singing to the lions. He seemed to welcome ill usage and cruel treatment, and ecstatically he gave thanks to the almighty that he was worthy to suffer in the cause of the Buddha. Several of his disciples had died martyr's deaths while protecting him from his assailants. As his guardian had employed his prerogative, Nichiren was taken to be executed. He was humiliated by being led through the streets to be jeered at by scoffers. But not everyone along the road hated him, and his many friends came out to weep at seeing their master so treated. The scene is more than a little familiar to Christians -...-.Upon arrival at Tatsu-no- Kuchi on 17 October, where he was to be decapitated, a miracle is reported to have taken place. (Brudnoy 1970:33-34). What counts is not the case at hand, but the repository of exempla, fossilized characters, obtuse allegories and petrified mythologies. This in spite of the circular over-emphasis leadership scholars -such as Ben-Shahar- place on
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authenticity (=charisma), whatever that comes to mean in one's opinion, to the point of issuing this categorical statement: leading leadership scholars “have studied thousands of leaders -...- [and] they are all authentic”1418:
Many have wondered: is Qaddafi mad? A megalomaniac? Otherwise respectable psychologists have tried to analyze him from afar. More reliable is what Qaddafi says about himself; he considers himself a visionary. While many of those around him are corrupt, Qaddafi by all accounts is not, making him the worst sort of dictator: a truebelieving one. What Qaddafi believes is a muddled mix of Nasserist nationalism, Western anarcho-syndicalism and Bedouin desert egalitarianism. (Schumacher 1986-7:no page, emphasis added). When it is not exemplary, an authority figure has an uncertain therapeutic effect. (Rieff 2006:87). Social work educators Dean H. Hepworth, Ronald H. Rooney and Jane Lawson define authenticity as “the sharing of self by relating in a natural, sincere, spontaneous, open and genuine manner.” We cannot share ourselves with others when we see ourselves as flawed and unworthy of connection. It’s impossible to be “real” when we are ashamed of who we are or what we believe. (Brown 2007:188). Highly interesting is what the Cottingley witnesses thought about deceiving so many people for so long: “people wanted to be taken in”, “they wanted to believe”, “we did not have to tell a lie at all, because every time someone came out to justify it”1419.
Inducing trance through storytelling shall take aesthetic sense into the picture. Aesthetic sense brings about idealization: both Octavian Augustus and Napoleon -who were not exactly 'small fry' needing to prove themselves to anyone-
1418 1419
Ben-Shahar 2005-6a:lecture 7. Clarke 1985: Fairies, Phantoms And Fantastic Photographs.
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were immortalized satisfying esthetic sense; Jesus' image, too, was restyled to satisfy aesthetic sense. In Roman Egypt, the portraits on sarcophagi at times depicted an 'improved' image of the deceased:“"sentimentalizing and prettifying" everything that the public might find objectionable”. Messages on the Mormon Channel also follow this logic. Messages for youth are crafted like Disney Channel teen-oriented series plus the religious angle.
To this day there is controversy regarding some pictures typically used to portray Indian thinker Aurobindo; dissidents say such pictures have been enhanced to convey a spiritual or majestic image, whereas devotees claim the allegation to be false. Joseph Stalin's pictures were retouched to cancel the scars smallpox had left on his face.
That is why most politicians wear dresses engineered to hide protruding bellies and weak shoulders, thus making them look like rugby players fit as race horses; special shoes can often be worn to camouflage height issues:
He’d likely inflate his chest and pound it with his fists—both of these actions have the effect of making him look bigger. The pounding also makes him loud and scary. That’s how a gorilla charging through the jungle wants to look: big, loud, and scary. In human terms, we read confidence the same way: how much space people are willing to take up. Deborah Gruenfeld, organizational behavior professor at Stanford’s business school, says that “Powerful people sit sideways on chairs, drape their arms over the back, or appropriate two chairs by placing an arm across the back of an adjacent chair. They put their feet on the desk. They sit on the desk.” All of these behaviors, she says, are ways of claiming space. -...- As Stanford’s Gruenfeld found, people who assume expansive poses (taking up more space)experience a measurable physiological 1049
shift. In one experiment, assertiveness- and energypromoting hormones rose by 19 percent, while anxiety hormones fell by 25 percent. Assuming a strong, confident physical posture will make you feel more confident and more powerful. As you feel more powerful, your body language adapts accordingly. (Cabane 2012:104-5). Attractive candidates received more than two and a half times the vote of unattractive ones in Canadian federal elections. Attractive defendants are twice as likely to avoid incarceration as unattractive defendants (DeRue&Sytch 2015:unit 2). It's as old as man. Ancient Greeks -and Nietzsche- hold it up as a signpost of virtue: kalokagathia (beautiful and also virtuous). Prinstein1420 confirms just that: since birth, “attractive people” fare much better than non-attractive counterparts:”popularity is related not only to kind of parents we have but also to the kind of parent we become”1421.
But the more intriguing result was that the greater the social competence of the adolescents, the more successful they were at deceit. Just like adults, the more popular adolescents were better able to fool the observers with their lies than the less popular ones. (Feldman 2009:39). Modern social psychology restyles the same situation as “the halo effect”: charismatic people “glow” or “project auras of potency” just like the gods or Saints of lore had “luminous faces”. Pandit Tigunait 1422 recounts how accomplished Hindu Himalayan yogis could allegedly ignite yogic fire within themselves to disappear into the sun quite literally in order to leave their mortal coil behind.
For help with proper art, Joyce goes to Aquinas. He says, and he 1420
2017c. 2017c:63. 1422 2013. 1421
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uses the Latin words, that the esthetic object renders three moments: integritas, “wholeness”; consonantia, “harmony”; and claritas, “radiance.” (Campbell 1991:170). Brown1423 confirms that attractiveness automatically makes most perceive one as well above average even in unrelated matters, such as academic excellence. People at the Mormon Channel are listening: careful settings, and no gross, ridiculous, unattractive, clumsy person on stage as it is the case with glossy commercials: they must spend a fortune in teeth whitening alone.
There are -according to Brown- evolutionary, in-bred patterns of recognition
of
trustworthy
(more
feminine)
and
untrustworthy
(more
rugged/masculine) faces, which can be tapped for prompt results. In various countries, TV shows exist(ed) showing how ordinary -even despicable- nobodies could be turned into centerfold material with the intervention of professional makeup artists and 'image-makers'.
DeRue&Sytch1424 claim that J.F. Kennedy “won” a landmark televised debate with Nixon in 1960: unlike Kennedy, Nixon had refused the services of make-up artists to make him more telegenic. Nixon, on the other hand, was judged the winner by people who listened to the debate via radio.
Which presidential candidate will best manage international crises and encourage economic growth at home, all while safeguarding civil liberties and keeping us safe? If that’s too difficult to determine, you might try to decide which candidate you’d rather 1423 1424
2013:Characteristics Of Influential Agents. 2015:unit 2.
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have a beer with or which of them just seems more “presidential.” (Hamilton 2016:192). As she melts apart after her failed bid for the U.S Presidency, Hillary Rodham Clinton is uncharitably portrayed as her mediatic appearance deteriorates mercilessly:”[ Hillary Clinton ]re-emerged publicly for the first time since her [2016] concession speech looking like death warmed up ” quip political opponents.
Communist regimes -from Romania to Cuba- placed great emphasis on education, sanitation, literacy and physical prowess (sport and gymnastics): the Communist version of the Renaissance man imagery:”La condition de vedette est la spécialisation du vécu apparent, l’objet de l’identification à la vie apparente sans profondeur ” (being a star corresponds especially to life as it is represented: it identifies itself with shallow life made manifest)1425.
Movie stars and other mass entertainers also ride that bandwagon, whereby polished nails, hairdos worth thousands of euros, fantastic (plastic surgery) faces, and so forth, are equated with stupendous skills, virtues and the like.
A cursory look at tabloids reveals this couldn't possibly be farther from the truth: public figures (royalties, gurus, millionaires, politicians, entertainers...) are often a miserable bunch of contemptible bohemian profligates, mafiosi, addicts, crooks and psychopaths1426. 1425 1426
Debord 1967: point 60. Brown (2013:The Dark Side Of Influence) mentions personality traits he links to conmanship: narcissism, machiavellianism, psychopathy (=lack of empathy; deliberate and systematic disregard of consequences of one's actions upon others).
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Politicking 'men of destiny' embody Bronze Age Greek excellence indeed:
A senior British lord embroiled in a scandal over allegations by a tabloid newspaper that he used cocaine and hired prostitutes, said on Monday he would not return to parliament until investigations into his actions had been completed. John Sewel stood down from his post as deputy speaker of unelected House of Lords at the weekend after he was filmed snorting what The Sun on Sunday newspaper said was cocaine with two prostitutes. ( Lord Sewel...2015:no page). The skilled make-up artist, plastic surgeon, photographer, ghost writer and spin-doctor are always the 'unstated assumption' behind the glossy picture of this or that mountebank preaching urbi et orbi1427, or celebrities cat-walking past enthused groupies: putting lipstick on a pig; or “It may be that you will lay your scholarly reputation and the acclaim of your colleagues in the world as a sacrifice upon the altar of service.”. French sources1428 reveal how President Hollande's personal hairdresser shall pocket a cumulative gross salary of euro 593.700 over five years.
Different politician or party, same results. According to French Le
Point1429, French President Macron spent euro 26.000 in three months on professional maquillage:
Biden gave an unhurried discourse about his family and middleclass struggles with a conversational emotion that few American politicians can match, and showed humor, energy, homey sense and Roman (now Pontificial) proclamations were always directed “to the city and to the world”. Le Monde-AFP, July 13, 2016. 1429 August 24, 2017. 1427 1428
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an ability to tell a good story. -...- The teleprompter kept him from verbal wanderings (although he made occasional stumbles), and he managed to portray himself as a reassuring and rousing selection on a night dominated by the incomparable Bill Clinton. (Halperin 2008:no page, emphasis added). So, to what degree did [ U.S TV series 1999-2006]"The West Wing" create a test market for a minority candidate? By campaigning to have his guy portrayed in a network hit, did Axelrod soften up millions of Americans for the task of electing the first minority president? Attie says his latest e-mail from Axelrod includes the good news: "We're living your script." If the ending holds up, it may be Axelrod who deserves an Emmy. (Funt 2008:no page). Good looks, a touch of charisma, a flood of words, contrived distractions, a knack for knowing which buttons to press-all these can go a long way toward obscuring the fact that the psychopathic presentation is nothing more than a "line . " A good-looking, fasttalking psychopath and a victim who has "weak spots" is a devastating combination. If the psychopath's "show" is not enough, the adroit use of "stage props" -phony credentials, flashy car, expensive clothes, a sympathy-inducing role, and so forth-will usually complete the job. (Hare 1993:145). Jesus said, "He who will drink from my mouth will become like me. I myself shall become he, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him (Gospel Of Thomas no date no page n.108). You must look the part, sound the part, and act the part. If your message and your persona are not congruent, people you hope to persuade may make an unfavorable decision about you. (Lakhani 2005:16). Look the part and get the sale. (Lakhani 2009:43). The right handshake costs far less and will do far more for you than a designer suit can. (Cabane 2012:80). Schwartz had ghostwritten Trump’s 1987 breakthrough memoir, earning a joint byline on the cover, half of the book’s five-hundredthousand-dollar advance, and half of the royalties. The book was a phenomenal success, spending forty-eight weeks on the Times bestseller list, thirteen of them at No. 1. More than a million copies 1054
have been bought, generating several million dollars in royalties. -...-If he were writing “The Art of the Deal” today, Schwartz said, it would be a very different book with a very different title. Asked what he would call it, he answered, “The Sociopath.” (Mayer 2016:no page). 'Schrodinger's candidates', cybernetic politicians and freakish preachers in the media might prove eerie and/or disconcerting because they probe the depth of the “uncanny valley”. That's what psychopaths also do, according to author Sam Vaknin, himself a diagnosed narcissistic psychopath:
the phenomenon of Reagan; the hyperreal president, more real than real. I mean he’s better at being Harry Truman than Harry Truman. -...-Let me go over that again: Reagan’s popularity was popular. -...-I have actually caught some rather large sharks, I mean, I like to fish – you know, pier fish – so I have caught a few sharks, some of fairly good size. But those real experiences are so boring compared to [the movie] Jaws. I mean Jaws is a hyperreal experience. (Roderick 1993:Fatal Strategies, emphasis added). Q: Do you enjoy being President more than being a movie actor? The President [Ronald Reagan on May 14, 1982]: Yeah, because here I get to write the script, too. The happy ending was the invention of Russian Jews, designed to drive Americans crazy. It was a marvelous idea. What could make them crazy but to throw back at them their small towns? Look how happy it is here. Compare the real small towns with the small town on the MGM back lot. There's no resemblance. (Jill Robinson, daughter of a former MGM executive1430). [Harry Potter series author] Rowling worried her fame would bias response to the new novel. She wanted to let the writing speak for itself. So she released The Cuckoo’s Calling as Robert Galbraith. -...-Robert Galbraith’s novel had mixed success. Almost every person who read The Cuckoo’s Calling liked it. -...-Unfortunately, however, there just weren’t that many of them. Readers were few and far between. The Cuckoo’s Calling was released with little 1430
Cit. in Terkel 1980:52.
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fanfare and sold only 1,500 hardcover copies in the first three months of being on sale. Then one day the book surged from 4,709th to become the best-selling book on Amazon. Soon, hundreds of thousands of copies had been sold. Had people realized Robert Galbraith’s genius? No. Had careful inspection of the writing of The Cuckoo’s Calling revealed it to be a literary masterpiece? No again. Someone had simply unmasked Rowling as the book’s actual author.(Berger 2016:33). As it was/is common occurrence in online dating, pictures of third-rate models, often sexually suggestive, are used to 'salt the mine' of lonely heart or romantic websites while small print protects from litigation:”Photos and other data are for illustrative purposes only”. Other websites really want to take no chances with this disclaimer:
The story(s) depicted on this site and the person(s) depicted in the story are not real. Rather, this fictional story is based on the results that some people who have used these products have achieved. The results portrayed in the story and in the comments are illustrative, and may not be the results that you achieve with these products. Such a disclaimer should appear on many history books, news reels, political broadcasts and charity pleas:
It is hardly surprising that exercises in collective historical remembrance far more closely resemble myth on one side and political propaganda on the other than they do history, at least as that is understood as an academic discipline (Rieff 2016:19). Just as this or that public figure has elated votaries believe s-he is the current incarnation of Zoroaster, Jeremiah, Ulysses or other chaps from myth(ologie)s, so bimbos and studs on dating websites reside right within our ZIP code. 1056
They follow one around with unrelenting appeal from a variety of area codes that match one's as one beams out of seven world cities using a proxy server. After all, author Sam Vaknin (an expert on narcissistic psychopathology) concludes the (online) dating scene is the province of the mentally dysfunctional, whether clinical or sub-clinical.
It is hard to disagree with Vaknin given the ebbing and flowing tide of dating/romance scams and scandals both domestic and international. Websites exist(ed) to allegedly teach future (exotic) love doves how to bleed their (western) prospects dry, financially speaking. Some western embassies even broadcasted warnings to their citizens regarding rife romance or dating scams in the region (West Africa, Philippines, Former Soviet Union...).
Italian TV personality Gianfranco Funari in the early 1990s threw the gauntlet to the established media in an attempt to document the power of television. He thus started pushing a severely disabled man in a wheelchair as sort of opinion leader, in spite of the person's speech being somewhat impaired. The disabled man (A. Guidi) was thus showered with appointments: minister, parliamentarian (with Berlusconi's Forza Italia), and so forth. Readers be the judge about whether Funari made his point:
When you dominate a conversation by creating the conversation in the first place, it is very easy to move ideas forward. The ideas are created by you and those you endorse or create, present your ideas and opinions as their own to create awareness. They are highly persuasive because the only place that people can learn about the 1057
conversation is from you or those you endorse. (Lakhani 2008:115). If Funari played his tricks in the 1990s, a Down syndrome woman is hired to give weather forecast on French France 2 following an internet campaign in 2017.
Kalokagathia also meets its inverted doppelgaenger: saviors, heroes and founders act as heralds of the unwashed rabble:
The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.' But wisdom is proved right by her deeds." (Matthew 11:19). Thus vulgarity [in Sartre] comes to signify lack of social standing at best and outright evil at worst. (CharmĂŠ 1991:19). Moore1431 explicitly connects liminality and transition with the intensity of religious/mystical experiences: the more liminal or transitional the group, the deeper the crisis is,
the more intense the mystical, apocalyptic or religious
experience will be: the acquisition of meaning. Psychopathic personalities also relish liminal groups in critical situations: David Koresh and pastor Jim Jones come to mind.
As if the masses had any way to know -or even cared about- whether the 'great man' is feeling it, or faking it. In Italy, master chefs and TV personalities Cracco (2011) and Cannavacciuolo (2017) -who charge high prices in their restaurants- are found during an inspection to cook frozen food omitting such detail
1431
1986:part 3.
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on menus: a lawsuit ensues. Such chefs advertise telling the “story” of their early morning shopping for the freshest ingredients at pristine local markets in order to prepare delicacies according to masterful recipes. Both chefs claim frozen food was for the exclusive consumption of their family and staff, not the paying customer:
Authority is granted to people who are perceived as authoring their own words, their own actions, their own lives, rather than playing a scripted role at great remove from their own hearts. (Palmer no date, emphasis added). Whether the evangelist himself literally believes his gospel is about as important as whether an actor playing Lenin is really a communist. -...-Viewers are buying some meaning for their mundane lives. -...-And if she has simply been taken for a ride, it doesn’t much matter whether it was the TV preacher’s cynical greed or his naïve faith that was responsible. -...-It is notoriously difficult to distinguish spiritual uplift from sheer emotional excitement. -...-And so with pop evangelism. It doesn’t matter spiritually that it doesn’t matter effectively whether the whole thing is a scam. People seem to derive edification regardless. (Price 1981:no page, emphasis added). Steve Jobs exudes an almost giddy enthusiasm every time he presents. Former employees and even some journalists have claimed that they found his energy and enthusiasm completely mesmerizing.(Gallo 2010:7, emphasis added). For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. (Frankfurt 2005:56). Throughout our interactions, we instinctively look for clues with which to evaluate warmth or power, and then we adjust our assumptions accordingly. Expensive clothing leads us to assume wealth, friendly body language leads us to assume good intentions, a confident posture leads us to assume the person has something to be confident about. In essence, people will tend to accept whatever you project. (Cabane 2012:16, emphasis added).
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Appearing sincere, or congruent, is a key ingredient for building the trust that opens the door to likability and rapport (Boothman 2000:60, emphasis added). It’s easy to get caught up in the power of crowd decisions and to lose sight of when crowds fail. Crowds fail when they have a shared error in judgment. And when that’s the case, there’s a deeper problem: The people who are most confident about their judgments are often the most wrong. (Huettel 2014:126-7). If this was the case, all great actors are at their most authentic on screen playing Robin Hood, doctor Mengele, Billy the kid or Paul Atreides:
Why do we like great actors and take them seriously when we know they're only speaking lines that someone else wrote? Because they're believable; because they are congruent-...-It's just about impossible to be incongruent when you are operating from inside any kind of attitude, useful or otherwise. Because your attitude precedes you, it is an essential component of the first impression you make on new acquaintances. (Boothman 2000:55,64, emphasis added). Like a novel, an opera or a ballet, myth is make-believe (Armstrong 2005:7). After lovemaking, at Motta Visconti (Italy), C.Lissi slashes his wife's throat (=consecration/desecration of the body shtick), and also kills his two children. He then creates chaos in the house to simulate a burglary before heading to a pub in order to cheer very emotionally for the Italian national soccer team 1432.
Casual eye-witnesses wonder how a man might be so poker-faced as to dispatch wife and children in such a gruesome way: he looked so authentic as he devotedly cheered for the Italian soccer team. Vicious murderous sociopaths, and
1432
AGI, June 16,2014.
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the “authentic leader”, providential man, and arch-patriarch of positive psychology become one: Janusian thinking. Lissi then invokes mental illness to court leniency from the judicial system.
More often than generally thought, actors may experience difficulties -or failures- in quitting the iconic role that has been imposed upon them during filming. Sean Connery admitted his infatuation with his James Bond role led to difficulties in relationships: he is generally known for his ego while filming. Actress Miley Cyrus changed her name to allegedly accommodate family ties, but rumor had it that she intended to legally change her name to that of her fictional, Disney channel character Hannah Montana.
Multiple personality expert Braude tentatively suggests the “actor situation” may be a way to approach the issue of multiple personalities, which he also links to hypnosis and levels of consciousness. It is historically proven that leader or politician so-and-so may have been literally “possessed by” the image (the self-identification with homeland security, with an amnesty for illegal immigrants etc) originally fed to the masses as an engineered, cold blood promotional campaign spin-doctors concocted.
Many argue Clint Eastwood and John Wayne took the same character -probably a warped projection of how they saw themselves 1433- into all the fictional 1433
It won't elude readers how there actually was very little, if anything, in common between real-life Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Wayne, Chuck Norris, Clint Eastwood or Charlton Heston, and the novelized or imaginary characters they portrayed on screen. Just as there is little, if anything, in common between the onstage “mister homeland security” (mister immigration amnesty, etc) persona, and the individual performer in
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roles they played: brash gunslingers, cops, military men etc. How is Donald Trump's reality TV persona different from his entrepreneurial or political self?
”Let them be pulled in by your carefully crafted persona and let them remain enthralled by its depth, complexity, and completeness. If you make your persona one that they themselves would like to emulate, you have done your job perfectly.”1434;”A symbol is talking to you and, whether the head knows it or not, the heart knows it.”1435.
Aissa Wayne said the country needs a strong and courageous leader like her father. She said John Wayne would be offering his endorsement [to Donald Trump] if he were still alive. (Associated Press, January 19, 2016). Clint Eastwood, the 86-year-old four-time Oscar winner, excoriated the current generation of Americans as weak and overly sensitive while backing Donald Trump even though the Republican presidential hopeful has "said a lot of dumb things." (Reuters, August 5, 2016). The borderline individual is overwhelmed with her unmet needs and constantly tries to get them met in other people. She often creates a chameleonlike identity by taking on the qualities and characteristics of those she admires.(Engel 2002:184). Rumor had it that a policeman who had stopped Italian actor Maurizio Merli - outstanding for his vigilante police commissioner roles in the 1970s- for a routine control saluted him as “mister commissioner”, as if he were a real police commissioner, and as if his fictional on-screen vigilante characters were true people.
real life: mere psychological complexes. Lakhani 2005:35, emphasis added. 1435 Campbell&Boa 1989:49. 1434
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The same allegedly happened to Italian actor Ubaldo Lay, memorable for impersonating another famous policeman on TV from the 1950s to the 70s:”Teller and told, mind and body, are one: mutually possessed by the power of story”;”[The public] only wanted one thing from [a given public figure]: a story. He told it so well that we forgave him almost everything. ”;“[it] helped people to believe.”;”We want -...- original content regardless of its validity. We're here for the scare, not for the plausibility”.
Italian comedy actor Alberto Sordi did pretty much the same: it was mostly difficult to tell apart roles he played with the exception of costumes and backdrops. Sordi -whether the real person or the xeroxed characters he played on screen- was also taken as embodying the quintessential Italian: half crook, half existentialist; a versatile, slightly dishonest jack of all trades with an heart of gold deep down.
As sociologist Goffman argued, authentic (=sincere) and inauthentic (=cynical) performances may very well deliver the same result as far as the public is concerned. An entire category apparently exists that regroups not only former clergymen turned atheists or agnostics, but -as the Dennett-La Scola study showedof current clergymen busy pastoring churches and leading congregations who -far from their parishioners' earshot- openly subscribe to atheist, skeptic or agnostic beliefs: the society of spectacle.
Popular culture is never far behind: over the internet, laid-back 1063
personality coaches offer one the possibility to learn self-authoring skills for only US$ 14,99, 49,99 etc:”I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world ” (Matthew 13:35).
A 2005 article detailed something then President Bush, jr. - who in his memoirs acknowledged to have battled severe alcohol addiction- had confided in a foreign delegate:
Mr Bush revealed the extent of his religious fervour when he met a Palestinian delegation during the Israeli-Palestinian summit at the Egpytian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, four months after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. One of the delegates, Nabil Shaath, who was Palestinian foreign minister at the time, said: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I am driven with a mission from God'. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did." Mr Bush went on: "And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East'. And, by God, I'm gonna do it." (MacAskill 2005: no page, emphasis added). From a 'good' leader to a bad one:
On August 4th 1972 [Uganda's] President Amin announced the expulsion of Uganda's Asian population, thereby firing the first shots of the Economic War. He explained that God had spoken to him in a dream, directing him to act immediately and "win the economic war". -...-. He contended that the Asian were "sabotaging the economy of the country" and gave them 90 Days To Quit Uganda. The Government controlled TV Station then started an intimidating countdown campaign by flashing large numerals on our TV screens each night indicating the number of days left for Asians before their Final Departure Day- November 8th”. (O'Cleirigh 2004:75, emphasis added). Joyti De-Laurey, a thirty-year-old former personal assistant at a 1064
British investment bank, was sentenced to a seven-year prison term for stealing more than $7 million from her employers. She used the money for a lifestyle that would be considered extravagant even by the rich and famous.-...-Perhaps, but De-Laurey also had a grotesque sense of ethics and entitlement, and a convenient belief that God was on her side. The latter was evident in her “Bibles of Daily Thoughts,” notebooks containing her letters to God. “Dear God. Please help me. I need one more helping of what’s mine and then I must cut down and cease in time all the plundering,” she wrote. “Please ensure my job is safe and my integrity is unquestioned.” (Babiak&Hare 2006:238). Hallucinations can take many forms, but the most dangerous types are known as auditory command hallucinations. Command hallucinations are voices that the patient hears instructing him or her to perform some behavior.-...- The voices that constitute command hallucinations can be powerful forces that compel a person to act in an irrational manner. (Kiehl 2014:172). The 19-year-old [Nikolas Cruz] who is accused of killing 17 people and injuring dozens more when he opened fire on a South Florida high school Wednesday afternoon told investigators that he heard voices in his head, giving him instructions on what to do to conduct the attack, law enforcement sources told ABC News. The voices were described as "demons" by law enforcement sources. (ABC News, February 16, 2018). Flaky characters from all the provinces of the political spectrum have god whisper secrets, holy writ and providential blueprints of history to them. The entire U.S history pivots around the Puritan concept of “personal call” as a hint to a possible eternal salvation1436.
History receives some better than others: “At one point, he went mad, hearing voices, his agony increased by the bullet wounds he suffered during his capture. ”1437 and “ [He] Remains in jail for more than a decade, including two years'
1436 1437
Oden 1998: Bringing It All Back Home. The Guardian, November 16, 2014.
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solitary confinement at the bottom of a well, where he speaks to frogs and insects to maintain his sanity. ”1438. Would anyone trust the character above to hold a government position?
If he were a maximalist right-winger, then probably the shoe would fit: those kooks are not to be trusted. Yet he is the former leader of a left-wing insurrectionist group: refraining from hasty judgments shall now apply. Not only was he appointed as Uruguay's President, but he -José Mujica- enjoys universal accolades alongside Pope Francis for being so modest, austere and personable: a real providential man in the league of another beloved former left-wing terrorist who suffered equally to deliver the horde from evil: Nelson Mandela.
Why is the average contemporary reader likely to treat the remark about President Bush, Jr. as a 'blow below the belt' that signposts questionable allegiances? What about President Amin? Does the shoe fit, perchance? Why does psychologist Stout deliver a chapter1439 to portray the irresistible ascent of a fictional wealthy boy she portrays as a sociopath, whom many identify with President Bush, Jr.? After all, many factoids in the fictional account allegedly match Bush's biographical anecdotes, such as blowing bullfrogs up with firecrackers as a pastime.
The purpose of the achronotopos is this, too: judge the 'bad guys' according to their deeds, and the 'good guys' according to their intentions (=”trying to live the motivational vocabulary of the new religion”): 1438 1439
The Guardian, December 13, 2013. 2005:36ss.
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The investigators used functional neuroimaging (fMRI) to study a sample of committed Democrats and Republicans during the three months prior to the U.S. Presidential election of 2004. The Democrats and Republicans were given a reasoning task in which they had to evaluate threatening information about their own candidate. During the task, the subjects underwent fMRI to see what parts of their brain were active. What the researchers found was striking. -...- Once partisans had come to completely biased conclusions -- essentially finding ways to ignore information that could not be rationally discounted -- not only did circuits that mediate negative emotions like sadness and disgust turn off, but subjects got a blast of activation in circuits involved in reward -- similar to what addicts receive when they get their fix, Westen explains. "None of the circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged," says Westen. "Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones. -...- Behavioral data showed a pattern of emotionally biased reasoning: partisans denied obvious contradictions for their own candidate that they had no difficulty detecting in the opposing candidate. Importantly, in both their behavioral and neural responses, Republicans and Democrats did not differ in the way they responded to contradictions for the neutral control targets, such as Hanks, but Democrats responded to Kerry as Republicans responded to Bush. -...- "The result is that partisan beliefs are calcified, and the person can learn very little from new data," Westen says. " (Emory Study...2006:no page, emphasis added). What was the effect of the Duelfer Report’s correction of the original statement—that Iraq had an active WMD program—on people’s belief about President Bush’s assertion that Iraq could give terrorists these weapons? The answer depended on the participant’s ideology. Liberals shifted in the direction of even greater disagreement with the statement. The shift was not significant, because the most liberal subjects already tended strongly to disagree with it. But for those who characterized themselves as conservative, there was a significant shift in the direction of agreeing with the statement. In the words of those who conducted the study, “the correction backfired—conservatives who received a correction telling them that Iraq did not have WMD were more likely to believe that Iraq had WMD.” Not only did the correction fail, but it had a polarizing effect; it divided people more sharply than they had been divided before. (Sunstein 2014:42). These days, if a shot is egregiously bad, a golfer might write it off as a 1067
“mulligan,” place the ball back at its original starting point, and score himself as if the shot never happened (one of my friends refers to her husband’s ex-wife as a “mulligan”). Strictly speaking, mulligans are never allowed, but in friendly games, players sometimes agree in advance that mulligans are permitted. Of course, even when mulligans are not legal nor agreed upon, golfers still take them from time to time -...-.Putting our creative minds to work can help us come up with a narrative that lets us have our cake and eat it too, and create stories in which we’re always the hero, never the villain. If the key to our dishonesty is our ability to think of ourselves as honest and moral people while at the same time benefitting from cheating, creativity can help us tell better stories —stories that allow us to be even more dishonest but still think of ourselves as wonderfully honest people. (Ariely 2012:32,93-4, emphasis added). Over the past sixteen years as [a] member of the Board of Trustees of the Zen Studies Society and more recently as president of that Society, I have attempted to make excuses for Eido Roshi and to cover up the scandals as best I could. (cit. in Oppenheimer 2014:no page, emphasis added). Some might object that's about “threatening information”: quite difficult to appraise objectively. What about a simple math problem? Would 'best of all causes' get in the way?
So how did people fare on the handgun version of the problem [in a study by Kahan et alii published in 2013]? They performed quite differently than on the skin cream version, and strong political patterns emerged in the results—especially among people who are good at mathematical reasoning. Most strikingly, highly numerate liberal Democrats did almost perfectly when the right answer was that the concealed weapons ban does indeed work to decrease crime (version C of the experiment)—an outcome that favors their pro-guncontrol predilections. But they did much worse when the correct answer was that crime increases in cities that enact the ban (version D of the experiment). The opposite was true for highly numerate conservative Republicans: They did just great when the right answer was that the ban didn't work (version D), but poorly when the right answer was that it did (version C). (Mooney 2013: no page, emphasis added).
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Another reason that people overestimate the quality of their evidence toward a decision is that people tend to seek out evidence that confirms their existing beliefs, instead of evidence that could refute those beliefs. That’s called confirmation bias. We see echoes of confirmation bias in the popular media, in our conversations, and in ourselves. When people take a strongly held position—like on a political hot-button issue—they interpret new evidence in whatever way best fits their existing beliefs. So, new evidence tends to reinforce people’s strongly held beliefs, even when that same evidence might be seen by a neutral party as challenging those same beliefs. (Huettel 2014:96). Whether by choosing information or informants, our ability to cook the facts that we encounter helps us establish views that are both positive and credible.(Gilbert 2006:102). So much about Habermas' plea to yield to better arguments:”You can point out errors to your heart's content and it won't affect people's attitudes. It'll just make them mad.” (Yale History professor E.S. Morgan in 1977).
It's as old as man, or the divide between a personalized (dispositional factors= traits) and a depersonalized (situational factors) worldview. The Pollyanna syndrome (every cloud has a silver lining; seeing only the best in people or situations), and its inverse the Machiavellian orientation: the attitude towards the 'best of all causes', and its inverse:
but even when the incidents that befall us are the type of horrific events we never expected to encounter, we automatically seek evidence confirming that our misfortune is a blessing in disguise (Sharot 2011:129). This repetition compulsion, this urge to repeat, is referred to by Alice Miller as the "logic of absurdity". (Bradshaw 1988:109). [ a man who was emotionally abused as a child confessed:] I’ve 1069
caught myself beginning to act like my father with my own children. -...-The first time I couldn’t believe it was actually happening. I heard my father’s words coming out of my mouth— almost as if I was possessed by him. (Engel 2015:53). As soon as our potential experience becomes our actual experience —as soon as we have a stake in its goodness—our brains get busy looking for ways to think about the experience that will allow us to appreciate it. -...-Studies such as these suggest that people are quite adept at finding a positive way to view things once those things become their own.(Gilbert 2006:97-98). Propaganda of all kinds – which exerts the same effects mythology doesendeavors to depersonalize situations and worldviews, as a Germanophobic Englishman (=good patriotic guy) shows:
First of all, there is a curious, cloudy sort of argument, much affected by the professional rhetoricians of Prussia, who are sent out to instruct and correct the minds of Americans or Scandinavians. It consists of going into convulsions of incredulity and scorn at the mention of Russia's responsibility of Servia, or England's responsibility of Belgium; and suggesting that, treaty or no treaty, frontier or no frontier, Russia would be out to slay Teutons or England to steal Colonies. (Chesterton 1914: no page). It turned out, England was out to steal colonies (industrial patents etc) after all. Furthermore, the diaries of the French ambassador to the Czar 1440 confirm that at the Russian court many were already sampling anticipated flavors of victory over a defeated Germany when it was still high time to save the peace before WWI.
Many travel sites forewarn potential tourists that -in certain foreign locales- uniformed officials may tend to extract money from tourists under a variety of pretexts, which is seen as extortion and harassment only awful people could 1440
Maurice Paléologue 1925.
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perpetrate.
The same bilking can easily be wishfully ethicized. A nice policeman -who among other things is a gifted saxophone player, and the sweet daddy of three precious children- wants to prevent you from harming yourself -or others-; he's merely doing his duty as he operates a speed trap.
The typical riposte is that the 'sweet daddy on duty' doesn't line his own pockets like the corrupt cop from an exotic locale does. Most often he doesn't, indeed: his paycheck merely depends on it. Just like GESTAPO, CEKA-NKVD, Khmer Rouge etc honchos, he brings water to the mill of stale ideologies and the bureaucracies that preside over them. One person's rogue can be another person's Robin Hood: Stalin and Mujica robbed banks to fund revolutionary activities.
What would “a decent human being” wish to do? Would s-he wish to listen to celestial saxophone music? To baby-talk to the sweet child? Certainly s-he wouldn't wish that poor, honest daddy on duty harm, would s-he? “It is not that these stories are unimportant, not very sad, or unuseful, but they don’t help us understand what is happening all around us”.
Of course, could one extend the 'daddy on duty' courtesy to Fascist extortionist, Robin Hood1441 banda Carità1442? Left-wing insurrectionist group
Tupamaro also mixed Robin Hood and terrorist activities. What about Fascist 1441 1442
They at times engaged in the distribution of either free, or cheap stuff to the population. Also very active in the overzealous identification and brutal prosecution of dissidents.
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maximalist terrorist Croatian Ustascia?
Despite similarities, history passed a different verdict: unlike members of
banda Carità, Tupamaro leader Mujica became Uruguay's President. Mujica became an appointed 'man of destiny', whereas banda Carità members were just a bunch of sociopathic thugs, and Ustascia affiliates were hunted down, disposed of, or fled abroad undercover as genocidal war criminals.
Asked about their funding and shady accounting practices, a camerata replied that banda Carità only kept accounts on incoming funds. Banda Carità: an example of power-craziness and sadism under the commodious umbrella of socalled laws a bunch of scoundrels enacted to legitimate their own greed and ensuing misdeeds: extortion to fund private profligacy.
China invaded Tibet exclusively to liberate the peasant masses from an oppressive, medieval theocracy; India annexed Sikkim to prevent a bloody civil war, and Goa to restore the millennial homeland of the proud Hindu; Anglo-Americans buried German and Japanese cities under a deluge of incendiary bombs to make the world safe for democracy; Fascist regimes championed White, traditional cultural and
racial
heritage
against
demoplutocratic
corruption,
judaeo-masonic
internationalist agitators, and Bolshevik hordes: here are ways to depersonalize situations.
Alternatively, China invaded Tibet (India annexed Goa and Sikkim...) in
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a compulsive domination binge to simply replace displaced old masters at the top of the exploitation hierarchy, and so did the Anglo-Americans; Fascist regimes murdered millions of people in the futile pursuit of disused mythologies of selfaggrandizement.
These are ways to personalize situations:
Amplify your own fantasies by finding in the field of the cultural heritage of mankind analogous images, and these will pull you out; they will depersonalize your life, and that is what the function of myth is (Campbell 1974). Ben-Shahar1443 characterizes U.S capitalism thus:�what American business is about. Imperfect, but -...- much more integrity, much more honesty compared to any other place in the world�. Ben-Shahar at different points also cites the Ford motor company as a visionary company because of its values. Ben-Shahar probably overlooks the Ford Pinto and suchlike cases.
It is also difficult to guess which news headlines or stock-market reports did -or did not- Ben-Shahar base his categorical statement upon. Did the similarities escape him between desperate crowds rushing to withdraw funds from sinking banks in Albania in the early 1990s, or in Britain in more recent years?
A more pragmatic view might be that Ben-Shahar just went along in order to get along with fellow Harvard students. While this might be the case, it becomes thus impossible to part people who 'feel it' from people who 'fake it'. 1443
2005-6a: lecture 1.
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Heated disputes arose in early Christianity about whether Jesus nailed to the cross was truly suffering, or whether the crucifixion was only some sort of divine play. Japanese Zen Abbot Kobori declared:”'there is Buddha for those who do not know what he is really. There is no Buddha for those who know what he is really.'”1444.
Origen declared:” [Christian] Scripture contains many contradictions, and many statements which are not literally true, but must be read spiritually and mystically”1445. Lalitavistara Sutra is a Mahayana text that recounts Gautama Buddha's life from the descent to heaven to his ultimate ascent: detailed narration of the diversion of a supernatural being.
Of course, Jesus could not be some Terminator kind of figure who may be dismembered as he really doesn't feel a thing. In order for bystanders (congregants, hearers...) to choke, scream and gasp in participatory rapture, Jesus had to be a frail little creature just like themselves.
Politicians and other entertainers cultivate both the 'Renaissance' or 'providential man' image of themselves, and the 'meek and personable' aspect of their stage act. Brené Brown also connects 1446 the dots between exhaustion and worthiness in our society (for example endless extracurricular activities for kids, or endless pursuits for adults):
When a sociopath identifies someone as a good game piece, she 1444
In Eyre 1979:128. Commentary On The Gospel Of John, ch. IV. 1446 2012b. 1445
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studies that person -...- to know how that person can be manipulated and used -...- flattered and charmed. In addition, she knows how to promote a sense of familiarity or intimacy (Stout 2005:90). Russian economic expert Notkin compared the state of dilapidation of the collapsed Russian economy with the thriving West in the late 1990s thus:”[this banker] survived the financial crisis because he abided by the financial so to speak laws and rules which are wide spread in the west. -...- because of the arbitrary decision, of three persons, businesses suffered tremendously. This is unthinkable in Britain and America.”1447. Naturally, the Ford Pinto case may also be spun to mean something entirely different1448 from what the average schmuck is likely to believe after buying sensational press: another Rorschach test.
A Mormon publication stated:
That historian or scholar who delights in pointing out the weaknesses and frailties of present or past leaders destroys faith. A destroyer of faith - particularly one within the Church, and more particularly one who is employed specifically to build faith - places himself in great spiritual jeopardy. He is serving the wrong master, and unless he repents, he will not be among the faithful in the eternities. Do not spread disease germs! [Mormon Apostle B.K. Packer in 1981] ( cit. in Dana 2006:168-9).
1447 1448
Notkin 2005: DD304 City Stories, segment Moscow. Footage was from the late 1990s. 1971 Ford car with an apparently defective gas thank. According to media, Ford knew about the issues with the gas tank design, but went ahead anyways considering the cost-benefit analysis (the cost of possible lawsuits and damages versus the cost of modifying the vehicle). The vehicle caused a row of lawsuits and punitive damages, and had to be recalled. UCLA law school professor Schwartz writes, however:”Having reflected on these invocations of the Ford Pinto case, I have arrived at two general observations. One is that several significant factual misconceptions surround the public's understanding of the case. Given the cumulative force of these misconceptions, the case can be properly referred to as "mythical." Secondly-and quite apart from these misconceptions-there is something about the basic narrative of the case that has captured the public's attention: the narrative includes features that are evidently elemental or essential. In this quite different sense, then, we can also talk about the case as entailing "myth."” (1990-91:1013-14).
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Also, the [Tibetan Buddhist] Vajrapani-abhisheka maha-tantra says, “Keep the Master’s good qualities in mind, never seize upon their faults”. (Terentyev, ME6217 no date: unit 2:6.). He is a scandal-monger of the most dangerous type. He repeats all the rumors, criticism, he hears about our country’s part in the war. He’s very plausible… People like that… through their vanity or curiosity or treason they are helping German propagandists sow the seeds of discontent. (WWI U.S CPI propaganda poster). It is highly interesting here how the Socratic dilemma (=couldn't possibly have known) is consciously left behind in favor of a forthright prohibition -and chicaneries associated therewith- against washing dirty linen in public (=most know about it, but are supposed to mum the word).
Fears1449 chastises the unpatriotic tone of U.S historiography in recent decades bent on debunking myths and 'noble lies' of U.S history. Fears traces the trend back to the French Revolution, and to Prussian academics reacting to Napoleon's tyranny.
Fears – following Polybius- claims patriotism to be essential to the flawless working of a constitution: 'noble lies' are imperative in order to keep patriotism alight. Fears characterizes “debunking” as an “ignoble profession” fit for “petty people”1450. There may be a point in Fears' argument, which nonetheless is as ideological as any Prussian pedant's might have been for entirely different -but equally adventitious- reasons of political expediency.
1449 1450
2011:Lays Of Ancient Rome. 2011: Mythology As A Path To Wisdom.
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This guarding of one's dirty linen to oneself needs not to phrased in sinister or duplicitous imagery, but may as well stew in a sea of sentimentalism and emotional truth:
Precossi, that little thin fellow, who has languid but good eyes and a frightened look, is the son of a blacksmith. His father returns home drunk and beats him without any reason whatever; throws his books and copybooks around in every direction; and sometimes Precossi comes to school with black and blue marks on his face, and his eyes red from crying. But one can never make him tell that his father has beaten him. His companions say to him: "It is your father who has beaten you," and he answers immediately: "No, that is not true !" in order not to disgrace his father. "It was not you who burned this sheet of paper," the teacher said, showing him his lesson half burned. "Yes," he answered, "I let it fall in the fire." -...- This morning he came to school with the mark of a finger nail on his cheek, and all the boys said to him: "It is your father, you cannot deny it this time; it is your father who did that. Tell the principal and he will have him called before the police magistrate." But he arose and with a voice trembling with indignation, said: "No, it is not true ! It is not true! My father never strikes me!"(De Amicis 1918:63-5). It may be that you will lay your scholarly reputation and the acclaim of your colleagues in the world as a sacrifice upon the altar of service. They may never understand the things of the Spirit as you have a right to do. (Mormon Apostle B.K. Packer in 1981). Can't the reader see the “ languid but good eyes and a frightened look with a voice trembling with indignation” of all those busy covering up what is downplayed to mere “weaknesses and frailties” in the name of the 'great cause', or in order not to disgrace the 'great man'?
In Missing In Action II (1985), Chuck Norris plays a Rambo character in a Vietnamese prison camp, who stupendously refuses to sign a confession regarding presumed atrocities his country would have committed against the Vietnamese. It is 1077
interesting to imagine the retribution that would befall an Axis veteran with the same demeanor. Only when a friend's life is in imminent danger does the copycat Rambo consider signing: fabulous people and their awesome values.
Gerardo Hernandez, a Cuban Castrist infiltrator in the U.S anticastrist community is released in 2015 after 16 years in a U.S jail. The man behind espionage and violent acts as leader of the “Cuban five” goes on a “thank you” tour across Cuba sitting to Raul Castro's right hand. Rumor has it a glorious political career awaits him as he innocently admits that in his secret service job “we saved lives -...- I will do it again if I have to”1451.
Because discourse is all there is, and because discourse is essentially what the speaker/writer wants to make of it cashing as much credibility and returns as the times and circumstances allow:”[The public] only wanted one thing from [a given public figure]: a story. He told it so well that we forgave him almost everything. ”;“[it] helped people to believe.”;”We want -...- original content regardless of its validity. We're here for the scare, not for the plausibility”.
The same 'Bambi effect' can be ridiculed as wishful thinking; the 'ironclad' premises on which it rests can be taken apart without much effort, for example in Rubinstein's book: too bad for all the barrels of tears and spleen wasted on futile emotional exercises.
1451
Aljazeera, July 4, 2015.
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Accordingly, the victim's fate gets sealed in a sort of fatalistic
achronotopos out of reasonable reach; an 'alternative storyline' that is futile to even discuss because nobody could have altered such fate in any way, shape or form: ”In representing the involvement of the gods in human life, tragic myths dwell on crises in which precisely this kind of paradox comes into focus.”1452.
One possibility is that god(s) are only a hollow mask standing for certain moments across the spectrum of all too human extremes:
Tragedy is a crucible, a burning glass, an arena which displays events so terrible that one can hardly bear to contemplate them, yet so compelling that one cannot but watch to the end. -...-Most of the characteristics which I have described as ‘distinctively tragic’ can be paralleled in one or more other genres of myth-telling. But the combination of all of them in tragedy is what makes the genre unique. It is nothing less than an exploration, through the medium of traditional tales, of the place of humanity in the world, an exploration both popular and profound. Of all the ancient forms of myth-telling, only the Homeric poems can rival the tragedies in their continuing power to hold, enchant, shock, and unsettle (Woodard 2007:171,186). However, Guthrie ultimately concludes that this theological program is probably misguided—that God or gods “exist” only insofar as we infer their existence on the basis of our tendency to anthropomorphize our surroundings. (MacNeill 2011:56). “Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel” ( Psalm 22:3). The present writer takes this verse in the psalm to mean that god is basically a function of worship. In the Rig Veda, too, gods coalesce as “chosen deities”: function of worship. If there are no human beings, there are no deities (Yoruba proverb, Nigeria). In contrast, consider the case of an individual in the sway of a cargo 1452
Woodard 2007:184.
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cult, like the Prince Philip Movement in Vanuatu. Suppose X believes Prince Philip is a divine being, venerates his image, lives in fear of angering the son of the mountain-spirit he takes Prince Philip to be, and devotes time, thought and resources to worship and sacrificial offerings. Here, one cannot plausibly say that X’s respect is a reaction to something inherent in its object quite apart from X’s own attitudes: Prince Philip is not the son of a mountain-spirit. But by his acts of reverence, X bestows a special importance on Prince Philip, at least within his own hierarchy of concerns. Here, respect, and the attentional precedence involved in it, puts something on a pedestal and thereby confers importance rather than being a response to any attributes inherent in its object. Respectful behaviour often has this self-fulfilling quality. Respect is not always a reaction to what one finds: it is at least (if not more) often constituted by what one imputes. (Bird 2013:10). The sayings of Jesus are dictated by those who followed him; the Teacher is the effect produced by those who are supposed to be receiving the teaching. -...-the founder is founded.(Caputo, cit. in Fischer 1994:16, emphasis added). The historical Jesus did not make history. The remembered Jesus did. (Ehrman 2016:146, emphasis added). A copy merely points to the original, but a picture has an entirely different task. Via a picture the original comes to life, comes to be more like "itself". Without the picture, the original would not be same as it is with the presence of the picture. Without Spielberg's movie Oscar Schindler would not be Schindler; without Sibelius's Finlandia Hymn Finland would not be Finland; without Titus Livius= Ab urbe condita Rome would not be Rome; without The New Testament (the most powerful narrative in the western world) Jesus would not be Jesus, etc.. It is in this way that the truth happens in and through the picture. Something new emerges in the world, and something is uncovered as a result of the picture .Autobiographical narrative and identity share this same hermeneutic logic with the picture and the original. Autobiography is not just a copy, it has another task, the task of the picture. According to Bruner, there is no "life itself" without interpretation (Heikkinen et alii 2000: no page). Begin developing your leader. If it is you, build on your existing persona. If the leader is not you, carefully craft what the leader will look like, what the message will be, and how you’ll disseminate the message.(Lakhani 2008:168). 1080
The same uncanny comedy of innocence can be adapted to innumerable situations. When one of the countless corruption, sexual or embezzlement scandals rocks the boat of this, that or another party or politician, it all is a political conspiracy 'unbeknownst to them' (=Socratic dilemma).
In 1993, Lega Nord tresurer Patelli is arrested. The Italian party is under investigation for receiving duecento milioni (about 100.000 euro) as an unofficial kickback from an industrial conglomerate. Patelli admits he received the money, but that the loot had been mysteriously “stolen� (=conspiracy angle) that very night from a lockbox at Lega Nord's headquarters.
In other words, palatial houses, millionaire tokens, luxury properties and amenities get transferred to -or exclusively utilized by- so-and-so 'unbeknownst to them' as a manufactured conspiracy to tarnish the great man's reputation; or as betrayal to discredit the great cause.
Yahoo news copies Italian press agency AGI reporting 1453 (8 April 2012) a scandal threatening the core establishment of party Lega Nord. Investigations point to a whirlwind of mismanagement, ongoing misappropriation of party funds, and other illegal operations, at whose core allegedly stood no less than the party's
lider maximo and his immediate family managing the party and its many ancillary enterprises as private property, much in the way other parties were run according to previous scandals. They could thus allegedly appropriate wealth and goods in 1453
Lega 2012: no page.
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princely amounts (euro 40 million according to judicial proceedings 1454) through a rigged chain of straw men who -in turn- fed on the same source.
The lider maximo ripostes he had no knowledge of such activities and denounces a political conspiracy; the party media denounce “a trap” and cheer “newly found unity” in the “fidelity to the cause”. Some pity the leader above reproach, possibly betrayed by his near and dear; others sentimentally privilege the leader's severely impaired health condition; the leader in search of forgiveness delights the sentimental audience with a televised emotional operetta meltdown, and with healing fantasies of repentance and repayment (=reconciliation):”A sociopath who is about to be cornered by another person will turn suddenly into a piteous weeping figure whom no one, in good conscience, could continue to pressure.”. At some point, party media claimed the lider maximo's son -also a politician- was sulking in retreat pondering elusive questions of fairness; instead, tabloids caught him at an exotic vacation resort.
A news release announces how a party section decided to close down to protest, yet confirming the devotion to the leader “the affection that every son owes his own father in the acknowledgment of the dream he has given us -...- his teachings will always represent the path every activist will walk”1455.
Path, affection, unity, fidelity, betrayal, the father figure of the sullen 1454 1455
ANSA, November 29, 2013. “tutto l'affetto e la stima che ogni figlio ha per il proprio Padre. Il riconoscimento per il sogno che ci ha regalato in questi 35 anni non potra' mai esaurirsi ed il suo insegnamento sara' sempre il sentiero su cui ogni militante percorrera' i propri passi. ” Free translation.
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leader in both emotional and physical agony...the religious/affective nature (against all odds) of the relationship is unmistakable, with all this entails, especially in the light of the party's predilection for pseudo-pagan, 'nativist' charades that so much look like the rituals of other religions in decline, such as the vessel with the “sacred water� of the Po river -alternatively presented as the blood of the god Po-, and the cult for meta-historical figures from the mist of the Middle Ages.
Recent Italian electoral sensation Grillo -whose recently established party recorded between 20 and 25% in the 2013 national election- publicly affects an austere lifestyle (owning a beat-up car and so forth), declaims his honesty in line with the common man -and the sacrifices imposed upon him-, and pledges to expose and decapitate the corrupt regime in the name of superseding values. Newspapers, however, reveal Grillo's inner circle (sister-in-law, chauffeur...) to be possibly at the core of a series of dubious offshore financial operations including a 30 hectare luxury resort1456.
Enamored supporters defend him claiming it's the comedian's hard-earnt money, leave populism behind in the name of legalistic concern, and denounce a conspiracy to tarnish 'the great man':
The life-story approach to authentic leader development suggests that self-knowledge, self-concept clarity, and the internalization of the leader’s role into the self-concept are achieved through the construction of life-stories. (Shamir&Eilam 2005:409).
1456
Malagutti et alii 2013: no page.
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Winning business leaders use the power of storytelling as effectively as our most gifted public leaders. (Tichy 1997: no page). Storylistening might induce1457 a trance-like sensation in the hearer, which might work in favor of the 'Trojan horse' ingredient of the 'story' (speech, movie, chain email, song...).
The bewildered masses will soon forget and 'become one' once again as the bards of acceptable discourse resume telling those wonderful stories of annunciation, ministry, rejection, sparagmos and comeback; heart-warming fallacies and reassuring double standards; dying and rising savior-heroes, and the sacred blood they shed for our redemption; radiant days of reckoning that lie just ahead if people just will ignore traitors who propose to desert ( or desecrate) the 'great man' or cause at this crucial moment.
As Cambronne comments, St. Paul here epitomizes Antiochan Stoicism:
There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28). Modern day versions are common: the reformist versus the revolutionary tradition, as Cambronne says, in pursuit of an “ideal political form”: “you are all one in homeland security”; “you are all one in the pursuit of the greatness of America”:” the lazy tactic of making us think there's something based on audience reaction in the story. (Like a laugh track on a TV sitcom.) ”.
1457
Sturm 2000.
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Dependable, personable electioneering prophets so unlike all the rest shall materialize, ready to guide the horde in trance safely through the treacherous desert that is the present socio-political conjuncture by sharing the alleged virtues of the faceless rabble of have-nots: honesty, altruism, chastity, austerity etc.
The masses yearn for an administrator who shall be a fitting match for the petrified image of one of those innumerable Sandokan, Orpheus, hero-savior figures who are in rags because they left worldly satisfaction, covetousness and ego behind; meek because theirs is a world of voluntary, ultimate sacrifice; honest because they are godly; austere because theirs is a life of selfless service to their artificial kin members:”Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ” (Matthew 11:29); “Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth ” (Numbers 12:3);”[A Buddha1458 said to the bereft widow Patachara]You have come to one who is able to be your shelter and refuge. It is not only today that you have met with calamity and disaster, but throughout this beginningless round of existence, weeping over the loss of sons and others dear to you, you have shed more tears than the waters of the four oceans.”1459.
R.L. Moore clinches:”the psyche is hardwired to take refuge” as people seek psychological “containment” from “external forms”, SUVs, big homes, radical
1458
All Buddhas are equal as they minister to the ceaseless flow of common humanity in grief through endless aeons. 1459 In Epstein 2013:40.
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ideologies etc1460:”I wanted the deep, abiding joy I'd observed in my pro-life Christian friends. ”1461. Whether one worships a wooden cross, or the severed head of a monkey doesn't really matter: god is one, or the appeal of perennial philosophy.
In my lifetime, I have been unbelievably fortunate to have my good roots, which extend over many lifetimes, and conditions bring about my encounter with Pure Land Buddhism and Amitabha Buddha. When I am chanting, I experience what for me is a sense of correctness and joy that I find at no other time in my life. There is an unshakeable sense of confidence that when I am chanting, I am doing the most important thing in my life. In those moments, I am doing what I am meant to do. (Wuling, February 5, 2009). Famous for what he referred to as his “healthy ego”, Obama also hailed humility as his “greatest strength” in 2008. D.B. Feldman -Associate Professor Of Psychology-
claims
that
“supersurvivors”
who
experience
“post-traumatic
growth”1462 are indeed “humble” (just like Jesus, Obama, Moses, Pope Francis I, Donald Trump and others). More prosaically, the Dale Carnegie Organization advises that humility is a way to parade achievements so that people won't hold them in resentment against one1463.
Ben-Shahar cautions regarding post-traumatic and “peak experience” growth:
It’s important to realize, however, that these extreme positive and negative emotional experiences provide the opportunity for growth; they do not automatically induce growth. To seize this 1460
No date-3:part 9. Moore discusses the rise of fundamentalism in general. Quote from noted atheist blogger The Raving Atheist who converted to Catholicism and rebranded his site as The Raving Theist. (How The Raving...2011:no page). 1462 Concept Calhoun&Tedeschi originally pioneered. 1463 2005:disc 2. 1461
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opportunity, we need to openly embrace the emotions that these experiences elicit. (2011:36). It's enough to run casual internet searches for “he” or “she” said “he's humble”, and a deluge of hits appear: high school athletes; campaigning politicians; clergymen; military men, and the entire human zoo. So mesmerizing is the concept of humility that the University of Edinburgh devotes an online course to “intellectual humility”.
Prospect and customers buy you first; then they buy the idea that you can help them find a solution for their needs, and finally they buy the product. (Lakhani 2009:33). As mindful leaders, humility is how we express our delight -...-. And equally, humility is how we open to life's inconveniences and devastating tragedies -...-. Because we are humble, we do not pick and choose (Carroll 2007:part 4). Five studies tested the hypothesis that a quiet ego, as exemplified by humility, would buffer death anxiety. Humility is characterized by a willingness to accept the self and life without comforting illusions, and by low levels of self-focus. As a consequence, it was expected to render mortality thoughts less threatening and less likely to evoke potentially destructive behavior patterns. -...-an experimentally induced humility mindset would thwart the depleting effects of mortality salience on self-control. (Kesebir 2014:2,9). It is basically the idea according to which the shaman could master, dispose of and bequeath more primal boons such as the strength of a bear, the flying majesty of an eagle, the virility of a bull, the cunning of a fox, the speed of a cheetah etc. More sophisticated or presumably mature civilizations may have less need for an eagle's wing-bone than they do for the sparagmos of savior-heroes, and the more
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convoluted boons that is supposed to bestow.
Of course, the biggest part is to have the masses believe -such as the trick the coach plays on the Tom Cruise stock car driving character in Days Of Thunder (1990)- that they now do possess the speed of cheetah, the virility of a bull or anything else for that matter:
The largest developmental impact was raising the positive beliefs of followers, instilling in them the conviction that they were better at a performance task than they thought (Avolio&Luthans 2006:51). One of these studies involved a creative writing task. Participants were first induced to activate either a deliberative or an implemental mindset. Then, they were given the starting portions of several fairy tales and were asked to write three sentences that continued the stories. -...-When people had activated a deliberative or implemental mindset by thinking about decisions in their own lives, they carried that approach over into a seemingly unrelated writing task, essentially projecting their state of mind onto the protagonist of the story. (Hamilton 2016:86). It all hasn't to be phrased in terms of foul imagery of slaughter and horrors as imperialistic powers and arch-dictators overpower a different country every season:
The breakdown of marriage in America costs at least $112 billion a year, owing to expenses associated with health care, criminal justice, welfare and lost income-tax revenue -...-The cost is huge, Randy Hicks, president of the Georgia Family Council, told a Washington press conference yesterday. In the past five years, he said, the United States has spent more taxpayer money on the consequences of divorce and unwed childbearing than on the Iraq war: $560 billion vs. $500 billion.(Study Estimates...2008:no page). studies of modern families show that depending on the country, about 1088
2-20% of kids are being raised by someone who wrongly believes he’s the daddy (Welch 2015b:66). (Recent DNA analysis indicates that fully 10 percent of people have fathers other than the men they believe conceived them.) This meshes with the idea that through infidelity, women are seeking to “trade up”—conceiving a child with a more genetically appealing individual than their life partner. (Feldman 2009:57). DNA EVIDENCE OF PATERNITY -- THOUGH WIDELY USED TO ORDER PAYMENTS -- OFTEN IS NOT ACCEPTED WHEN TRYING TO STOP THEM. -...-Similar numbers come from the Texas attorney general's office, which enforces child support: About a quarter of the men who disputed paternity in the last year turned out to be right. In Florida, the proportion was one-third. ( Dallas Morning News, October 31, 1999). Un’indagine del Codacons del Friuli sugli esiti dei test venduti on line, afferma che il 15 per cento dei corregionali non è figlio del padre anagrafico. Trend confermato a livello nazionale dall’ Associazione degli avvocati matrimonialisti. "Secondo stime recenti – illustra il presidente Gian Ettore Gassani – il 10 per cento dei primogeniti non sarebbe figlio del padre anagrafico, percentuale che raddoppia quasi nel caso dei secondi figli. “ (Del Ninno 2018:no page)1464. Mythologies serve just that purpose. In the case above, the mythology in point is that of the typically modern and western paradigm of love romance with its colorful imagery of living happily ever after in a fairy tale of self-aggrandizing fulfillment of a slew of ego-centered, consumerist prophecies essentially based upon credit and debit schemes.
It in turn propels a massive cottage industry based upon intrinsic litigation on the basis of politically authenticated, elusive standards of fairness, 1464
A CODACONS consumer agency investigation in the Italian region of Friuli stated that 15% of children is not a legitimate child according to paternity tests bought online. The president of an association of marriage lawyers confirms: 10% of first-born children are not legitimate; a percentage that almost doubles in the case of a second child (free translation).
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dispute settlements and ensuing processes that necessarily require a proliferation of ancillary services (social workers, psychologists, advocates, lawyers...) as another massive cottage industry eventually lobbying to increase its prerogatives, market shares and ensuing financial returns society at large ultimately funds.
Another cottage industry jockeying for positions is the care industry (public and private childcare, nurseries, nursing homes...) ballooning as the increasingly dislocated society struggles to take care of the generational chain in alternative pursuit of either diversionary (=more work= broader access to consumption for self-gratification), or compulsory access to the job market (= dual income needed to make ends meet).
Truth, consistency, verisimilitude and even
statistical probability are not necessary ingredients when a story's success with the public is to be measured.
Reassuring double standards are plentiful. During WWI, the British politely renamed the chlorine gas cylinders used to (try to) poison the enemy as “the accessory”. During the mass-murdering campaign in Rwanda, as squads of executioners coordinated their efforts via radio, the act of rounding up -and disposing of- foes was cordially referred to as “(public) work”.
The NSDAP regime politely rephrased mass-murder in terms of relocation and internment: the suggestion of either deporting undesirables -such as Jews- to Madagascar, or forthwith to dispose of them went back to Lanz von Liebenfels and his occult Ostara publication and brotherhood of the early 1900s. 1090
The Communist Pol Pot regime disposed of foes and dissidents in the chaos of a massive relocation campaign for alleged agricultural purposes. The Ottoman regime dealing with allegedly anti-national Armenians also spun tales of fabulous relocation efforts.
The opposite may also chance to apply. Ethnic Germans evicted from -to name just one- the now Russian Kaliningrad oblast (former Koenigsberg, capital of Eastern Prussia) were literally deported to Germany after WWII, just as the Soviets claimed: no need to get paranoid reading between the lines:
The Potsdam Conference actually approved a vast process that was already taking place, the ethnic cleansing of some 12-14 million ethnic Germans who fled or were expelled from their homes in Eastern Europe. Some estimates go as high as 16.5 million. In the process, it is estimated that from half a million to two million died or were killed. The turnover of territories was anything but humane and orderly. (Liulevicius 2015:106, emphasis added). On a completely different plane, people were urged to be worthy of the sacrifice -and thus virtues- of WWI soldiers, who had died for them 1465. The same logic applies to any activists and suchlike the regime in power endorses as representative. Mussolini had wanted a place at the Pantheon to celebrate 'Fascist martyrs', whose pictures were placed in every classroom. The NSDAP regime used the flag stained with the 'sacred blood' of its 16 'martyrs' (killed during the failed 1923 Beer Hall putsch ) to consecrate other flags:
To be sure, Christian martyrdom stories depart from classical 1465
Gingrich, n.d.
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examples of noble death, but toying with, trumping, reversing, and usurping are not the same as inventing. Early Christians consciously and deliberately harnessed the cultural power of Greek, Roman, and Jewish heroes for their own ends. (Moss 2013:46). Later on, the activists the Fascist regime had considered 'bandits' and 'traitors' replaced on the civic altar the 'Fascist martyrs', now rabid henchmen of a criminal dictatorship. Likewise, the unwashed international volunteers fighting the Spanish civil war were transfigured on both sides in several documentaries. Le Pont
Des Martyres (martyrs' bridge) is indeed a landmark of Mali's capital Bamako celebrating yet another set of heroes.
Topography and martyrdom are staples of psychotic commemoration routines. Countless streets were named after Adolf Hitler across Europe; landmarks were named after a row of caudillos: Salazar, Mugabe, Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, and a host of others. Lenin, Stalin, Marx, Ho Chi Minh, Togliatti, Kirov and other Social-Communist agitators and honchos had cities named after them.
Later, the famous Salazar bridge in Lisbon changes name to reflect the new regime, and several URSS cities revert to ancient names after the fall of Communism. In South Africa, a re-naming campaign invests topographies bowdlerized to erase the footprint of White colonialism.
With an opportune naming of one's choice, one extracts order out of chaos with “the word�, just like Yahwah did in Genesis.
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When on high the heaven had not been named, firm ground below had not been called by name -...-. when no gods whatever had been brought into being, uncalled by name, their destinies undetermined ( Mesopotamian Enuma Elish, possibly XVI-XVIII century BCE, Speiser trans.). Sociopathic Christian pastor Jones, a cult leader and radical reformer of Social-Communist persuasion, founded Jonestown as his retinue relocated to Guyana: he led his followers -at gunpoint according to some accounts- to a masssuicide that left hundreds dead, including Jones and a U.S Congressman murdered during an inspection. Jones claimed that people looking at him were looking at god; and that god is “the divinity of socialism” who foreplanned to face off soon with the Antichrist of Capitalism. Jones was further bruited about to walk through walls or on water.
At certain points in time at least, it was possible to both walk the streets of memory in a sacred pilgrimage, and to actually worship 'the great man' as “the providential man” ( as Pius XI dubbed Mussolini) steered the country towards 'a rendezvous with destiny'.
Not without irony, Mussolini -in his radical left-wing incarnation- had participated from a virulently rationalist and materialist viewpoint in a debate with an evangelical pastor at Lausanne, which had been published in 1904 with an ominous subtitle: god does not exist ( dio non esiste). Mussolini had also declared in 1911 how “The national flag is for us a rag to be planted in a dunghill” (la bandiera
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nazionale è per noi uno straccio da piantare nel letame 1466). Mussolini had also defined the King as “useless citizen” ( il cittadino inutile) as the monarch escaped an assassination attempt in 1912.
Existential idolatry may come with a dishonest heart. Fringe radicals may loathe or embrace venues to reduce death anxiety depending on whether they are in power: the begetting of children and the State itself are subject to ideological small print.
Politicized small print is everywhere. Jewish-American Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield founded U.S brand Ben&Jerry's Ice Cream. The brand produced different editions linked to controversial political topics. Including one in support of self-proclaimed “Socialist”1467 Jewish-American candidate Bernie Sanders, and one in support of gay marriage.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders had a surprisingly good financial year in 2016. While the Democratic socialist was warning against the concentration of wealth in the hands of "the top 1 percent," he was also joining their ranks. Though his annual income of $200,000 still makes him one of the least wealthy senators, "the former Democratic presidential candidate made some $858,750 off book royalties alone last year," Newsweek reports. "Combined with his Senate salary, he likely cleared $1 million in earnings." (CNBC, June 7, 2017). While an assorted cohort of lefties buy another pint of ice cream to send an additional politicized signal, in 2017 it is announced an independent lab analysis 1466
The majority's existential idolatry is at stake. The U.S Christian ultraist Westboro Baptist Church sings:”The US flag belongs in flames It’s great for wiping crap! ”. 1467 1989 footage at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_QLek6Qvzg
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found traces of pesticide in Ben&Jerry's Ice Cream1468. Although it seems the level of pesticide was within legal limits, this clearly shows the company's attention was more focused on political innuendo than on consumer protection. What's more, elated lefties are fine with being poisoned with pesticide if that somewhat advances the 'great cause'. Can one imagine the reaction if a Donald Trump company had been producing Jerry Lauck, Westboro Baptist Church or Tom Metzger-themed foodstuff positive to pesticide?
Hitler the artist orders Paris, that abode of high culture, to be set afire once he can no longer rule it. U.S. Christian ultraist Westboro Baptists wish the worst upon the formerly great nation of the USA and its military because the country dismissed its Christian heritage in favor of liberalism, homosexuality etc. Honor killing imposes to get rid of children, that precious bulwark against death anxiety, whenever they fail to conform to expected “values”.
It never stops paying dividends. 7 July, 2010, protesters march at Rome, and clashes between the crowd and security ensue:”behold the blood of a citizen of L'Aquila [then recently hit by an earthquake]” claims a young, wounded protester while others parade blood-stained banners1469; the same person apparently claims to have painted graffiti with his blood on a bank's wall to bear witness 1470. 1468
“A growing number of foods commonly found in kitchens across America have tested positive for glyphosate, the herbicide that is the main ingredient in the popular consumer pesticide Roundup, which is widely used in agriculture. But few brands on that list are as startling as the latest: Ben & Jerry’s, the Vermont ice cream company known for its family-friendly image and environmental advocacy. ” (The New York Times, July 25, 2017). 1469 Protesta Tasse...2010:no page. 1470 Terremoto, Tafferugli...2010: no page.
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On a completely different level, “The Greek people are bleeding right now ”1471; the same press release relates how “Online hackers group Anonymous said it had attacked a number of Greek government sites. "We, as Anonymous, are next to the Greeks claiming their freedom. We are next to a people who have fought against the German occupying forces," it said.”.
Reuters announces on 8 February, 2015: “Leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras -...-In a symbolic move that appeared to take direct aim at Greece's biggest creditor, Tsipras finished off his speech with a pledge to seek World War Two reparations from Germany.”;“the importance that the past played -...- in debates over contemporary matters.”;”A great deal of dramatic time that could be put to more telling use is taken up with -...- priggish monologues.”1472.
The financial scourging of Greece seems to put a nail in the coffin of mythological charades of no concrete import.
As Heaney knew well, sacred drama is the antithesis of any decent politics. For once the sacred has been invoked, there can be no compromise with one’s adversaries, only their unconditional surrender. To the extent that this can still be called politics, it is a politics of totalitarianism. -...- [which] demonstrates the truth of a former governor of New York State, Mario Cuomo, who said that one campaigns in poetry but governs in prose. (Rieff 2016:55). Do the masses ”burnin' with determination to even up the score” storm government buildings demanding regime overthrows? Do people “who couldn't
1471 1472
Merkel Pledges...2012: no page. Rexroth 1989:8.
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possibly have known earlier” desecrate the altars of the idols that failed? Not at all. Not in Greece, Iceland, Portugal, Ireland, Cyprus, Spain, Argentina, Italy or any other country, whose financial bankruptcy gets dissected all over the media. Rather, the masses enjoy another fusion rallying behind the usual homeland first, pack pride flumadiddle. November 6, 2014, Berlusconi urges all political parties to collaborate under the sign of national interest: the time of patriotism has come 1473.
Roberto1474 quips that “symbolic actions” mixed in with concrete policy making -such as in Reagan's case- yield best dividends. According to the Homeric
Hymn To Demeter (VIII-VII century BCE) that deals with the Eleusinian mysteries, three kinds of actions took place, which may be readily extended to contemporary bloviating mountebanks: deiknumena (things revealed); dromena (things acted out);
legomena (things spoken).
Ages earlier, a series of violent confrontations between pro- and antislavery (later between pro-Union and pro-Confederacy) activists in the USA between 1854 and 1861 was dubbed “bleeding Kansas”.
Bleeding may not be enough in a rush to amass sentimental images to trigger compliance. According to Italian politician Bersani (former Communist party, 7 March 2013) “il paese può morire” (the country might die) 1475: aren't a few extra concessions and draconian taxes worth bearing to 'save' the 'great nation' and 1473 1474 1475
TgCom24, November 6, 2014. 2011:Key Levers Of Power. M5S 2013: no page.
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its manifest destiny?
Getting them to agree to a series of next steps that you will take together is inconsequential. Then, deliver on your end of the deal by getting your steps done as quickly as possible and report back. Hold them accountable by asking them to take the steps they agreed to. When they know you will be doing your part and following up to be sure they have done theirs, they become more likely to follow through because if you are familiar and liked, they do not want to let you down. Accountability is closely tied to inconsequence because people are more willing to be accountable for small outcomes than large ones. (Lakhani 2005:156). At the end of September 2013 the pantomime is still going strong. Berlusconi threatens to send the bipartisan Letta government home as his ministers resign. As a parliamentary high-noon approaches, the squabble between advocates and opponents of the move reaches new heights.
Politicians bargain and blackmail one another behind the scenes while simpletons gasp, choke, ire and shake fists: will the fabulous nation of Italy finally die? As his party PDL splinters into factions, Berlusconi gives his last-minute assent to the government in a melodramatic reversal:�At this they tried to seize [Jesus], but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come.�1476.
As the dust settles, and artificial kin members are still busy worshiping or reviling 'great men', a rash tax increase -which no party officially endorsed- has been passed. Giovanardi, PDL honcho now deserter, quips1477 how the maneuver (threatening to disband the government while voting a last-minute assent) brought 1476 1477
John 7:30. As news agency ASCA reports on October 2, 2013.
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about a 6% increase in the stock market value of Berlusconi's company Mediaset.
As pen-jockeys for hire in the media fight over which 'great man' (and associated symbolic 'values') finally stole the day, the rash tax increase slips into oblivion. A wall of smoke thicker than Berlusconi's gimmicks is possibly needed in order to push the rash tax increase even farther. The umpteenth boat-people tragedy at sea materializes to steal the day in a mass-mediatic orgy of vicarious trauma (= second person drama= hearing the accounts of trauma) as gage of common humanity: synchronicity, indeed.
traumatized people have a tendency to superimpose their trauma on everything around them and have trouble deciphering whatever is going on around them. There appeared to be little in between. We also learned that trauma affects the imagination(Van Der Kolk 2014:20). PTSD is further associated with impairment of a person’s ability to function in social and family life, including occupational inability, marital problems, family discord, and difficulties in parenting. Those with PTSD are particularly vulnerable to repeating the cycle of violence (Engel 2015:137). An Islamist leading a round table on immigration at Borgomanero 1478 chaperoned by PD (Partito Democratico, former Communist Party) urged to “seize this crisis to set things right”. He couldn't be more right: as newspapers heckle about boat-people incidents, the government “seizes the crisis” to launch billionaire humanitarian programs as noble as they are expensive.
Mafiosi, wheelers-dealers and politicians join hands spinning an endless 1478
Zonca 2013a:30.
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web of humanitarian agencies, cooperatives, venues as they laugh all the way to the bank to divide among themselves the hefty spoils that see in each new illegal immigrant a possible cash cow. The rash tax increase dissolves into nothingness: only “that kind of person” would prioritize like that in the presence of common humanity in grief.
According to LaPresse.it (May 17, 2013), Pope Francis I delights the audience with the imagery of the good Samaritan who not only settles someone else's bill, but washes and treats the wounds of the same (= adoration of the hero's pierced body); Pope Francis also claims the Church shall be ready to give churches away to raise money if all else fails (=ritual dismemberment).
The wound, otherwise a defilement that makes one unclean to enter temples in some cultures, is here restyled into a badge of honor. Jesus is associated with a particular set of wounds. Beriou 1479 claims St. Francis of Assisi held such a preeminent position because he had received the stigmata, which turned him into “a new Christ”; he was also a prophet, a “new Elijah”.
Shakespeare immortalized the fictional, quintessential hero ( St. Crispin's speech in Henry V) relishing wounds yet to be inflicted in a sentimental orgy of renewal through struggle. It doesn't really matter which section of the political spectrum one investigates.
1479
Visionnaires Et...1992:episode 2.
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Even convicted psychopathic criminals can startle the meek crowd with the wounds they carry:
Brian [Dugan] continued to commit burglaries, sometimes breaking into the same homes he had been caught burglarizing previously. He did not plan well, and he was caught with the stolen property a number of times. Judges’ sentences ranged from probation to several months in juvenile detention or boys’ homes, from which Brian would run away. Other boys sexually assaulted Brian at these homes, and Brian was treated for anal warts and hemorrhoids. When released, Brian was always sent home, where he quickly returned to burglarizing homes and businesses. One winter he was caught robbing a Kentucky Fried Chicken and sentenced to several months in juvenile detention. (Kiehl 2014:160, emphasis added). The same preposterous allegories keep emerging: the public chokes as gage of emotional oneness as it contemplates the hero's wounds.
Popular culture follows suit. In Bulldozer (1978), old glory of U.S football harangues group of drifters, petty smugglers, three-card monte crooks, pickpockets, muggers etc. They've just a few days to train in order to meet a professional U.S military football team. Bulldozer promises hard days ahead; days so hard they are going to remember the experience as long as they live.
After the 1805 Austerlitz victory, Napoleon informed his soldiers that only mentioning one had taken part to such battle would cause one to be considered valiant (Il vous suffira de dire “J'étais à la bataille d'Austerlitz” pour que l'on
réponde “voilà un brave”).
Is this limited to pop-culture and third-rate movies? Dweck&Van 1101
Huysse1480 claim that people “with a growth mindset”, “learners”, go ahead just as Bulldozer's pupils do in the movie: that's how the I-phone and I-pad project teams were assembled: effort and learning create talent.
When heel (=bad guy) wrestler Ted DiBiase faced off with his former bodyguard of color Virgil, wrestler Roddy Piper 1481 chaperoned the humiliated Virgil rising against his oppressive former employer 1482. Limping with crutches due to a supposed knee injury, Piper kept interfering at ringside on his protege's defense while abuse from DiBiase's side escalated from verbal to physical. In the end, DiBiase's wrath exploded: limping Piper was subjected to severe physical punishment, whose special target was his injured knee.
Left alone howling in pain on the canvas after his torment, hero Piper was then invoked by Virgil, who compelled him to rise on his feet, which he finally did on his own after some additional agony; Virgil and Piper hugged and left the scene.
Commodious hero stories -with their stale topographies and high pointswritten into offhand teleplays look increasingly like xeroxed newspaper headlines, precooked newscasts, or blueprints for the next religion that never materialized (annunciation, ministry, doubt, passion, torment, fall and comeback) with their barrels of tears, and buckets of spleen. 1480
2011. Heel wrestler turned face (=good guy), Piper had in earlier years run a campaign with a 'racial' angle feuding with Mister T who -in turn- apparently wished to first promote, then keep his Rocky III character alive. 1482 Thus went the storyline, for all it's worth. 1481
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It becomes increasingly difficult to tell apart the public going berserk or into conniptions watching wrestling as entertainment, from the public having the same neurological syndromes when it's about 'serious things', whatever that means in one's opinion.
Much as it becomes ever harder to tell apart -on the other end of the divide- wrestling promotions stirring up preposterous story-lines and artificially induced commotion to increase business, from hoaxers, poker-faced policy makers, informants for hire, P.R people and their ilk stirring up equally preposterous and artificial myth(ologie)s in the purported service of situational higher good(s).
Not only the gimmicks of the hero-savior are important, but the place where they unfold is as well. Places where founding moments took place (sparagmos, congresses, slaughter...) pockmark not only acceptable public discourse or collective consciousness, but also engender new topographies on the physical landscape.
The mythological Cumorah hill of Mormonism could assertedly be located at two distinct places (New York, and an undisclosed Mesoamerican counterpart that recent, disputed Mormon studies situate in Guatemala, the fabled Zarahemla from the Book Of Mormon):
Ambitious and costly restorations have commenced and temples have been constructed at three historical sites, contributing to the sanctification of these places. A collective sense of heritage has traditionally flavored to Mormon identity. In the face of rapid 1103
worldwide growth, Mormon leaders are increasingly seeking to anchor and root the religion in place, creating a sacred historical geography that all Mormons can feel a part of, thereby enhancing a trans-national sense of Mormon identity. (Madsen 2006:51). Rhetoricians have often been suggested to link arguments in a discourse to places along a given physical path, in order to help the speaker remember all of them in the correct order. Those become high places of public liturgy, often transiting from one regime to an antipodal one. Such was the case of pagan shrines rebuilt as Christian churches; or of Christian churches rebuilt as mosques.
In Quebec (Canada), a Presbyterian church became a Taoist temple: it has been a Buddhist temple since 1996; in Sydney (Canada), St. Andrew's United Church was converted into an Arts Center in 2014. Conishead Priory, an abandoned XII century Augustinian site in the UK, became in 1976 home to a Buddhist temple in the Kadampa Tibetan tradition. In Woodstock (USA), the Blue Lotus Theravada Buddhist Temple started in 1866 as a Puritan place of worship. At Leeds (UK) a 1887 Union/Congregational Christian Church has become a Sikh Temple.
Even before that, at La Chappelle Aux Saints in central France -as the name implies a place of Christian worship in the common era- sacred sites of Neanderthal burials were found in 1905 going back to the mousterian culture (70.000 to 32.000 BCE) of the stone age:
I. Gratacos souligne aussi une correspondance géographique entre les grottes des fées et celles où se pratique le culte marial. C’est notamment le cas pour la grotte de Massavielle où la jeune Bernadette Soubirous venait ramasser des ossements préhistoriques 1104
pour les utiliser comme engrais. Certains hommes d’Église connaîtraient la vérité sur la Dame Blanche de Lourdes. (Impériali 2008:no page). In Crete, at mount Ida's top -formerly associated with Zeus- stands a crumbling Christian church associated with the holy cross. In Sri Lanka, Dambulla cave is associated with human presence going back 25.000 years, today the abode of ancient Buddhist art.
Rituals are the enactment of a myth; a mode of paying attention, as J.Z. Smith suggested; “wishful thinking in action” 1483. Newberg describes1484 rituals based upon myths as a “morally neutral technology” to attain oneness within the group. R.L. Moore1485 considers rituals as “technology” that allows humans to be “less destructive”: slaughtering and cannibalizing one scapegoat instead of many.
Theory
is
a
secular
ritual:
psychoanalytic,
Marxist,
feminist,
queer...theory: one knows beforehand what the theorist is going to 'pay attention to'. Place is also a fundamental ritual accessory because it directs attention.
Enacting rituals is not simply a mandated, legalistic obligation of a myth but rather, rituals are a didactic, metaphoric, self-educating act of deepening and expanding one’s consciousness so that one may more fully grasp what it means to be a human being related to one’s self and other humans, to other animals, and to one’s world. (Olson 2017b:no page). Theory is as well mostly axed around the past: childhood traumas, conflict and abuses (psychoanalysis); indignities or slaughter women (feminism); 1483
Solomon et alii 2015:53. 2012:The Brain And Religious Rituals. 1485 1989b:part 4. 1484
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GLBT people (queer theory); various minorities (genocide studies) were routinely subjected to historically; the recovery of the long lost inheritance from a mythical past, etc: ”Remembrance in its paradigmatic form is permanently adolescent, and proceeds as if gravitationally drawn to suffering, conflict and sacrifice.”.
At Piazzale Loreto in Milan, a place where Fascist
forces
had
demonstratively deposed the bodies of executed antifascist activists, the lifeless bodies of Mussolini, Pavolini and other prominent Fascist honchos would be strung up at a later time: the former savior now rogue shall have his body pierced (by bullets); he shall also be equally lifted up.
Official explanations for the macabre ritual varied from public safety concerns ( Mussolini's body had to be lifted up as the mob rushed to see it) to anatomical concerns (Mussolini had been shot several days earlier; therefore he had to hang upside down lest his head would fold off), but human mind's miserable proclivities are apparently at work1486.
Campbell1487 casts the image of the man hanging upside down -just as it appears on the Tarot card- as one of “social death”: Mesoamerican rituals of
voladores (flying ones) sees -in most variants- people -often dressed as sacred birdshanging upside down suspended from a tall pole as a rotatory movement connects them to a spinning wheel. At the center of the pole on a small platform -just like the 1486
While Fascist forces demonstratively deposed the corpses of executed antifascist activists in the open as a threat directed to opponents, antifascists 'are not that kind of person' -another cherished motif- and do so out of public safety or anatomical concerns. 1487 1971-5.
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royal figure in the tarot card- another man dances: an element present in ancient Tibetan dances, too. Saint Peter, too, is crucified upside down according to the lore.
One night, the hermit Jaratkaru saw a vision. He saw his forefathers suspended by their heels over a dark abyss. “What can I do to save you?” he asked. “Father sons that we may be reborn,” said the ancestors. Jaratkaru was thus forced to marry and fulfill his biological obligation to his ancestors . (Mahabharata, in Pattanaik 2000:25). Another inverted ritual took place after Mussolini's hanging. Accounts vary, but the prevailing version is that Starace -the disgraced former Fascist party secretary who had devised the mass choreography- had been apprehended by happenstance that very morning. Starace would have been obliged to give the Fascist salute to Mussolini's corpse hunging upside down before being himself shot and ranged alongside his former master:
It is claimed that the Sinia Brigade was responsible for some of the worst atrocities in the conflict that has ravaged Northern Uganda and has led to most of the Acholi people living in protected camps. “I had my five-year-old with me when the female rebel commander ordered all of us with children to pick them up and smash them against the veranda poles," says Esther. Seven children were killed like this among 56 who died in Esther's village. The atrocity was one of the worst in the conflict (BBC News, September 8, 2008). [ In the DRC Congo] They forced my son to have sex with me, and when he'd finished they killed him. Then they raped me in front of my husband and then they killed him too ( The Guardian, December 5, 2008). They put a purple robe on [Jesus], then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. And they began to call out to him, "Hail, king of the Jews!"Again and again they struck him on the 1107
head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. (Matthew 15:17-19). In the IX century BCE, conquering Assyrian King Ashurnasirpal II rejoiced in making public the detailed torments he had inflicted upon rebels: innumerable people were flayed or burnt alive; limbs, noses and heads were cut off and so forth in order for the prodigious inventory to be put on public display around tree trunks or pillars as a warning.
What is sacred (= the numinous for Otto, or “the sublime”) produces power. What happened to Mussolini; what probably happened to Jesus, and a host of historical -like the unfortunate African woman- and pseudo-historical characters alike constitutes an inverted ritual, or an acid test. The numinous (family love in the African atrocities; Fascist ideals in Starace's case...) are revealed to be phony pretenses of no substance.
It is enough to apply some pressure for sweet human beings to start killing their own children, or to start having sex with one's mother: it's that simple. No thunderclaps, no angels with a flaming sword, no angry faces in the clouds materialized to prevent the desecration: Jesus, Allah, Sinterklaas, Mister Clean or any other ens realissimum1488 were nowhere in sight.
Of course, it is likely that in the jeering crowd some might have 'kept the faith', yearning -in their heart of hearts- to kneel in front of Jesus as King; or to give 1488
“A term for God, reflecting the belief that reality, like goodness, comes in degrees, and that there must be a limiting, ultimately real entity. ” (Oxford Reference).
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Mussolini the Fascist salute not as a travesty, but in all sincerity. The person one perceives as a tartuffe with a dishonest heart may be an enlightened being who “plays” with popular piety and conventional truth in order to get “ultimate truth” across; or s-he may just be a despicable tartuffe tout court.
During the Cultural Revolution in China, Red Guards desecrated the mummy of legendary Buddhist patriarch Hui Neng (VII/VIII century CE):
In the early days of the [Spanish] Civil War, devotional objects, including great works of art, were destroyed [by left-wing forces] in vast numbers, provoking an anguished response from the Right. Ordinarily, Nationalist denunciations of anticlerical actions treated iconoclasm and the exhumations separately, for the bodies of religious are not normally considered to be icons nor is exhumation, strictly speaking, an act of iconoclasm. -...-Why would anyone rip the ancient bodies of religious from their tombs and set these up on public display? What was signified in such a gesture? -...-The episode was nothing less than what I will call a profanophany: a revelation of the profanity, temporality, and corruption inherent to someone or something. -...-Like all anticlerical violence throughout Spanish history, they were not an assault on religion per se, but rather on one specific religious institution: an institution closely aligned with, and subservient to, the traditionally dominant segment of society.(Lincoln 1989:122,124-7). If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty's hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up." ( Daniel 3:17-18, emphasis added). In 2009, J.D Crossan published a biography of Jesus: he argued the Roman custom of crucifixion insured Jesus' body would have probably been eaten by scavengers, or thrown in a common grave: no power would have been produced as it occurs in the customary account of the Jewish preacher ascending bodily to 1109
heaven to be with his heavenly father as the sky darkens, the earth quakes, and stars fall from the firmament.
In the Graeco-Roman world, that entailed ultimate humiliation: being torn apart by scavengers. Yet in Zoroastrianism, the body used to be left on a tower to decompose, in order not to contaminate neither earth, nor earth, nor fire. In Tibet, “sky burials” used to be popular: the dismembered body would be left to wild animals in a commemoration of nature's eternal cycles.
What one does with the (anti)hero's body is the stuff of legend. The body of Hong Xiuquan, Chinese insurrectionist leader, self-proclaimed brother of Jesus, and “heavenly King” of an ephemeral “Heavenly Kingdom Of Great Peace” (=prince of peace mytheme) between 1851-64, was exhumed to insure his death; he was cremated, and his ashes scattered to insure eternal damnation.
In other words, 'great men' (Jesus, Mussolini, Najibullah...) who claimed they were rulers invested with higher powers (Jesus as son of god 1489; Mussolini as great chief of the Italian nationalist renaissance; Najibullah the leader of that paradise of workers that was Soviet Afghanistan...) were torn apart in order to show they couldn't produce any power: Najibullah was castrated, and hung from a pole
1489
“[Jesus said] Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matthew 26:53). The same imagery recurs circularly. Charles X (King of France) abdicates as he refuses to have troops fire against rebels in 1830. Pedro II (Emperor of Brazil) refuses to officially call Brazilian royalists to arms after a putsch overthrows him, and so forth. Left-wing harlequins Renzi and Tsipras pledge to short-circuit either the EU balance of powers, or the entire international financial structure: it ends in a total fiasco for both. Right-wing honcho Hitler plans to conquer the entire Soviet Union in a few months: Soviet troops finally conquer Berlin marching on ashes and ruins.
1110
also.
Ram Dass shares how some spiritual hippies who experimented with drugs in Hawaii challenged him: your books were great, they told him, why aren't you in person like in the books?
they fell upon [Roman Emperor] Elagabalus [218-222 CE] himself and slew him in a latrine in which he had taken refuge. Then his body was dragged through the streets, and the soldiers further insulted it by thrusting it into a sewer. -...- in order that it might never be buried (Historia Augusta, Magie trans.). Disturbing images of a blood-stained and shaken Muammar Gaddafi being dragged around by angry fighters quickly circulated around the world after the Libyan dictator’s dramatic death near his home town of Sirte. -...-Gaddafi is shown dazed and wounded being dragged off a vehicle’s bonnet and pulled to the ground by his hair. -...-They captured him alive and while he was being taken away, they beat him and then they killed him,” one senior source in the NTC told Reuters. “He might have been resisting.” (Reuters, October 21, 2011). The people passing by shouted abuse, shaking their heads in mockery. "Ha! Look at you now!" they yelled at [Jesus]. "You said you were going to destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days. Well then, save yourself and come down from the cross!" ( Mark 15:29-30). "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! [Jesus]'s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, 'I am the Son of God.'" (Matthew 27:42-43). Purported 'great men' were thus charlatans with no higher power at their command after all, whose rituals were mere make-believe to enthrall the gullible; or at best a rudimentary form of metaphorical psychotherapy: 1111
And it came to pass that they departed and went their ways, but came again on the morrow; and the judge also smote them again on their cheeks. And many came forth also, and smote them, saying: Will [Book Of Mormon prophets Alma and Amulek] stand again and judge this people, and condemn our law? If ye have such great power why do ye not deliver yourselves? -...-and thus they did mock them for many days -...- And the chief judge stood before them, and smote them again, and said unto them: If ye have the power of God deliver yourselves from these bands, and then we will believe that the Lord will destroy this people according to your words. -...-and the earth shook mightily, and the walls of the prison were rent in twain, so that they fell to the earth; and the chief judge, and the lawyers, and priests, and teachers, who smote upon Alma and Amulek, were slain by the fall thereof. (Alma 13:20-27). One of the criminals hanging beside [Jesus] scoffed, "So you're the Messiah, are you? Prove it by saving yourself--and us, too, while you're at it!" (Luke 23:39). The avatar cannot achieve his goal by acting in a non-human way. He does not come to display his supernatural powers or do miracles. He does not come to show what the divine is capable of but what the human being is capable of. For, if he were to come down, perfect conditions through miracles, and then return, it would certainly solve mankind’s present crisis, but it would not help humanity to make any inner progress. The human kind would remain exactly where it was before the descent of the AvatÄ r. The human nature must be assumed by the Divine, in order to exceed it. The AvatÄ r is omnipotent, but he has chosen his own limits. He limits himself to acting only by human methods. (Sarvadekar, MAISI014 no date: lecture 4:4). Of course, among the jeering crowd might be those who keep the faith as the 'great man' is being scourged and torn apart so that manifest destinies and new beginnings may unfold. Hindu nude goddess Chhinnamasta literally decapitates herself as her severed head partakes of her blood shared with two acolytes:
The Roman officer and the other soldiers at the crucifixion were terrified by the earthquake and all that had happened. They said, "This man truly was the Son of God!" (Matthew 27:54). 1112
And at the Capala shrine the Blessed One [=Gautama Buddha] thus mindfully and clearly comprehending renounced his will to live on. And upon the Lord's renouncing his will to live on, there came a tremendous earthquake, dreadful and astonishing, and thunder rolled across the heavens. (Buddhist Mahaparinibbana Sutta). Wojtyla eschewed death at the hands of both Fascist and Communist executioners, but as a Pope suffered a life attempt that injured him, just like Jesus was finally crucified. Devotees rework the narrative to imply the fulfillment of some sort of Da Vinci Code plot contrivance regarding manifest destinies.
Jerusalem -for one- is a landscape where conflictual -or alternativesupercharged topographies co-exist: Hebrew, Muslim and Christian. Bethlehem -on the other hand- is a landscape where topographies relating to ancient Mesopotamian fertility god Llaprat, King David and Jesus co-exist in a narrative axed around fertility (=house of bread/meat), although the Gospel of John seems to posit Jesus' origins in Galilee. Osiris, too, was connected with plenty in the form of the bread of life:
In another letter of the same correspondence, mention is made of a sun-emblem for Llaprat made of fifteen shekels of gold.- By nature, he appears to have been a fertility god of much the same type as Tammuz, the Sumerian equivalent being NIN-UBUR, 'The Lord Boar'extnote. Some conclusions about the original home extnote
The boar (often the pig also), a cosmic symbol, is an animal often associated with mother goddess figures. Campbell (1980) portrays the boar/pig as the bull's counterpart in a chthonic versus celestial sacrifice; he also connects the boar with the hero's death. For example a boar kills Adonis; Set dismembers Osiris during a boar hunt; personal pigs allow owners to go past the death threshold in the Melanesian underworld; Gautama Buddha dies after eating pork meat. In Hindu creation cycles, Vishnu in his aspect as gigantic boar plunges into the eternal waters to bring the goddess Earth back to light, then he slays the serpent-king who had tossed her down there:”Another animal that has this association in an earlier culture stratum is the boar, whose tusks are shaped like crescent moons. The black face of the boar lies between the dying moon and the resurrected moon just as three dark moonless nights separate the waxing and waning moon.” (Campbell&Boa 1989:83).”Generally, the principle sacrifice is of a major food animal. For instance, in Southeast Asia, it’s the pig; in Europe,
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of the cult of Llaprat can be derived from the Bible which defines the Hebrew equivalent of the name LIaprat, viz., Efrath, as an old name of the city of Bethlehem.' In view of the widespread practice of the ancient Semites in giving towns the name of the principal deity worshipped there it might appear that LIaprat was originally the god of the town of Efrath (Bethlehem). This conclusion is well in line with a statement in Saint Jerome to the effect that, at the time when the fertility cult of Bethlehem enjoyed the protection of the Roman overlords of Palestine, the sculptured head of a swine adorned the gate by which one left Jerusalem for Bethlehem (Lewy in Edwards 1971:720). Others said, "He is the Messiah." Still others asked, "How can the Messiah come from Galilee? Does not Scripture say that the Messiah will come from David's descendants and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?" Thus the people were divided because of Jesus. (John 7:41-43). Susan Jacoby contends that denial of the desire for revenge is akin to the Victorian (attempted) suppression of sexual desire, which didn't fare very well, and paved the way to a series of displaced anxieties, in turn erupting seriatim into more or less unrelated destructive behaviors.
As this writing contends, the preposterous alibi 'best of all causes' provide -a war to end all wars; a new 'special law' to prevent '...ists' from marching on town this very night; ”three years of struggle, followed by a thousand years of happiness”- is a fig leaf not to eradicate war, poverty or whichever other ill one may think about, but to selectively allow (paradoxes of doubleness) it when practiced or principally, it’s the bull. Both of these animals are symbolic of the moon. The tusks of the pig are the crescents of the moon, with the black face between; the horns of the bull, the same. The moon is that which dies and is resurrected, dies and is resurrected. The bull represents, in a way, the death of the moon out of which a new life can come.” (Campbell 1991:70). A demon in the shape of a boar attacks Arjuna as he endures penance in the wilderness. Both Arjuna and Shiva (disguised as a hunter) shoot the boar: a battle between the two ensues over who won. When Arjuna bows down to Shiva, the god grants him the most formidable among weapons (epic Kiratarjuniya, VI century CE ). In Balinese epics, the goddess of death Rangda turns into a boar to fight immortal hero Sadewa. (note of this writer).
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committed by the person(s) wearing the right armband.
Runia1490 talks about the compulsion to commemorate war and its meaning:”These are unexceptional sentiments. A memorial is a place for solidarity rather than subtlety, deference rather than criticism, piety rather than revisionism. -...-the ghost at the banquet of all public commemorations is always politics”1491.
In some countries, it is common enough to posit landmarks to commemorate the exact place a pedestrian died hit by a car, or other transportation accidents (=the recapture=hyperreal repetition):
Each time Ms. Honda comes back to her studio apartment [in Japan], although she lives by herself, she calls out, “Tadaima, I’m home,” to the photos on her Buddhist altar of her long deceased parents. In so doing she knows she is not alone. -...- Nonetheless, it is a powerful way that she has integrated her loss into her everyday life. Her “personal buddhas” make her feel at home. As the dead are transformed into “personal buddhas,” they enable the healing of the survivors. Through engaging in memorial and ancestral rituals, the living can find support and understanding in a way that is not readily available through other means. (Arai 2003:11). Landmarks are also posited to commemorate Garibaldi's patriotic expeditions during the Italian Risorgimento. It happens the same in myth(ologie)s: altars, rites, shrines and other landmarks, and/or festivals, were inaugurated to emblazon a place where a god -such as Artemis, Shiva or Apollo-, or a hero-founder -such as Hercules or Theseus- had spent time.
1490 1491
2007. Rieff 2016:66.
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Much as the horde - the organized mob- has its landmarks destined to public worship under the sign of oneness, so do many private citizens or families:“sacred place-...- where the sacred and the profane intersect”.
The transfer of the milite ignoto's remains (unknown soldier) on a train to the Pantheon at Rome in 1921 became a gigantic mass liturgy large crowds attended, and so did the U.S government also in 1921. Chinese Nationalist Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek provided a similar ceremony for the transfer of Sun Yat Sen's remains to Nanking in 1929: “variety shows with a coffin” (C. Hedges).
This point, too, is not as superficial as it may seem:”Again the idea of the hero, the man who has lived the larger life bequeathing that power -...- [that] will create a bulwark, a great power source that will protect [the collectivity that incorporated him]”1492. As examined elsewhere in this writing, once again consistency, truth and verisimilitude are not necessary ingredients in the coalescence of commemorative topographies, for dragons, too, are entitled to welldefined topographies.
The horde in fusion may be celebrated under the unknown name of the anonymous party liner (unknown soldier etc). Ben-Shahar 1493 elatedly cites Schweitzer, and George Eliot:
But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably 1492 1493
Meineck 2005: Myths Of The City discussing Oedipus at Colonus. 2005-6a:lecture 1.
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diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs. U.S President Ronald Reagan had already eulogized the anonymous heroes of U.S capitalism standing in line on both ends of a supermarket's cash counter. The Lancelots and Galahads of the post-war consumerist Mardi Gras are the overspenders who subscribe to one credit/debit scheme after another. In 2013, Italian energy provider ENEL runs an ad campaign that apparently has little to do with pedaling cheap energy: they lionize the common man in his capacity of underdog with a battle to win in the name of ideals.
Brazil built a monument to the bandeirantes, the gold-diggers, patriots, slave-drivers, pioneers and fortune-seekers who probed the Brazilian interior in a bygone age; as usual, culture heroes are mainly taboo-breaking swashbucklers. Already in the II century BCE, however, Roman statesman Marcus Porcius Cato -in his historical work Origines- had chosen -to take a stand against political personality cults- not to cite any names, with the exception of Quintus Cedicius, an obscure officer during the I Punic war, whom he compared to Leonidas.
In recent decades, the story of the Dutch boy and the dam, whereby a conscientious Dutch boy sticks his finger(s) into a (small) hole in a dam to prevent it from collapsing, and is rescued on the brink of death, has known many different editions and incarnations1494 on the cusp between fiction and real life. Different 1494
The story has been around since the XIX century. Appearing in fictional 1865 Hans Brinker by U.S author M. Mapes Dodge. Various statues in Holland celebrate the boy and the dam. During the North Sea flood of 1953,
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people in vastly different milieus and circumstances keep deriving the same 'lessons' -gnostic truths that are supposedly greater than life itself- from a multitude of unrelated facts and figures across the socio-economical, geographic and historical spectrum.
Are their deductions correct? Or aren't they rather punching at human mind's ghosts that -indeed- have remained the same across regimes, ages and continents?
Cronkite explained in an interview on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the show that the people involved with making the You Are There programsextnote [ polemic series that recruited people blacklisted during the red scare to propose scenes from history as live events] found history “rich with striking parallels for thinking about dissent and intellectual freedom” and that, stunningly, “the farther back in time we went the more contemporary the parallels became.” Cronkite singled out the episode about Socrates. “Socrates was the perfect hero for the 1950s,” he recalled, not only because he effectively engaged the free speech issue, but mostly because “he did not back down.” (Monoson no date: 32-3). Who came first? Who wrote down this allegory first? And that one? Who copied whom? Antiquarian investigations are indeed interesting, and dots can indeed often be connected. The present writer, however, contends that the human mind's vortexes are at work provoking the imagination of today's mountebanks and
which devastated Holland killing many, a real-life Arie Evegroen drove a boat into a dam in order to prevent its collapse. extnote the epic mode of telling stories, whereby the audience is invited/enmeshed in the story (=the eye-contact motif, whether real or figurative). As this writing contends, the same format was “sentimentalized and prettified” to suit local audiences: the Italian radio broadcast Interviste Impossibili (1973-5).“ekphrasis seeks to fashion spectators out of the listeners,”. So powerful is the “epic mode” or ekphrasis that contemporary psychology adopts it in all ways and shapes to heal trauma. (Note of this writer).
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filmmakers as they probed the bottomless pit of the mind of scribes of bygone ages.
The worship/cult of the hero's corpse is also common. Mythological antecedents are many.
Shiva carries the body of his deceased wife Sati 1495;
Gilgamesh sits up with his friend Enkidu's dead body; endless war memorials; a woman, whose child had recently died, carries his lifeless body from place to place seeking a remedy, and at some point meets Gautama Buddha, who indirectly teaches her that death is humankind's lot1496. Mary holds Jesus' dead body at the cross; Aeneas protects the dead body of his charioteer Pandarus. Italian medieval maritime powers Venezia and Bari rush to secure the remains of great Saint Nikolaos (III/IV century CE) in 1087 when Muslims threaten the city of Myra.
Saint Nikolaos ends up as Bari's patron (Nicola), and as protector of the Venetian fleet as San Nicolò. As remains of the Saint end up in the French region of Lorraine as well, St. Nikolaos becomes patron of Lorraine as Saint Nicolas. Nikolaos served allegedly to craft the character of Santa Claus. Nikolaos, Nicolas, Nicolò, Nicola, Santa Claus...endless local declensions of the same root figure.
Thor was the god of the peasants and the common people. He was 1495
Vishnu dismembers Sati's dead body in order to stop grieving Shiva from performing the divine dance of destruction (tandava). Whenever a piece of her body falls, Shakti Peetha (sacred spots of the divine female energy) are born scattered around the Indian subcontinent. 1496 An identical point is made in a folktale from the Friuli region (Italy). Several variations exist. Either a King, or the King's only son (or daughter), are very sad and depressed. Every stratagem and diversion is vainly put in place to change things. Ultimately, a coucil of sages informs the King that the only treatment for that illness is to wear the shirt of a thoroughly happy man. A desperate search begins. At some point, a man of low status (peasant, artisan...) is identified, who sings so merrily he has to be a thoroughly happy man. He is approached and offered the richest of rewards in exchange for doing the King a favor. As the poor man agrees the King is overjoyed, only to discover the man has no shirt on (because he is so poor he can't afford one). The King's wish remains thus unfulfilled. Jules Verne, Anatole France and others relayed similar stories.
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represented as an elderly man, jovial and friendly, of heavy build, with a long white beard. His element was fire, his color red. The rumble and roar of thunder were said to be caused by the rolling of his chariot, for he alone among the gods never rode on horseback, but drove in a chariot drawn by two white goats (called Cracker and Gnasher). He was fighting the giants of ice and snow, and thus became the Yule-god. He was said to live in the “Northland,” where he had his palace among the icebergs. By our pagan forefathers he was considered as the cheerful and friendly god, never harming humans, but rather helping and protecting them. The fireplace in every home was especially sacred to him, and he was said to come down through the chimney into his element, the fire. (Guerber 1895, cit. in Santa Claus 2002: no page). Jesuit Saint Francis Xavier (XVI century) also ends up at different locations. Once his supposedly uncorrupted body is discovered, the corpse comes to a halt in the Portuguese Indian colony of Goa. Later, his right forearm ends up at the main Jesuit Church at Rome, whereas another part of his right arm originally intended for Japan remains in Macau instead. In Japan, several bodies of presumed “living Buddhas” of the past are preserved, whose “miraculous” self-mummification through severe asceticism (sokushinbutsu ) proves their spiritual accomplishments.
Finally, the mummies of Egyptian, Inca rulers (attended to, worshiped and consulted as if alive) are present. Evita; Lenin, Mao, Kim Il-Sung and other Communist rulers are also preserved:
In 1949, the Bulgarian Communist leader Dmitrov became the first person to be embalmed by the personnel of Lenin’s mausoleum. After Stalin’s death in 1953 the body of the Soviet dictator was also treated with this proven technique and put alongside Lenin’s mummy. However, in 1961 Stalin’s corpse was hastily removed from the mausoleum, to be buried below the Kremlin wall. Meanwhile, Soviet experts were sent to take care of a number of politically important corpses across the world. They embalmed the bodies of a number of 1120
other Communist rulers: Choibalsan of Mongolia, Gottwald of Czechoslovakia, Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam, Netto of Angola (Mao’s body was treated by the Chinese themselves). (Lankov 2007:12-3). Historical ‘heroes’ are ten-a-penny, but some have a distinct ‘reliquary’ association: a material object which carries their imprint or, better, is a surviving bit of the heroic body, if not the whole thing. (Knight in Walsham 2010:229). [Malawian] Prophet Shepherd Bushiri, leader and founder of the Enlightened Christian Gathering (ECG) church has strongly refuted rumours that have been going strong in the media claiming that he is selling the blood of Jesus bottles. (Nyasa Times, July 10, 2016). Finally there was the macabre fetishism of the two labelled bullets that had been extracted from the brains of Zinoviev and Kamenev. Like holy relics in a depraved distortion of the apostolic succession, Yezhov inherited them, storing them in his office. (Sebag Montefiore 2004:223). In the third place, [ temple] Taisekiji claims that Nikko [one of the main disciples of Japanese Buddhist Saint Nichiren ] received one of Nichiren's teeth with a small piece of live flesh attached. Subsequently, the flesh is said to have begun to grow imperceptibly and the devout believe that today the flesh almost covers the entire tooth, which is now reported to be in the possession of Taisekiji. Leaders of the sect say that when the flesh completely covers the tooth, the sect will reach its greatest position of influence. ( ME6223 no date CRJ-5:64). The fascination with mummies extended beyond celebrities, royalties, and political honchos. At Palermo (Italy), vast catacombs ( Catacombe Dei
Cappuccini) are the resting place for thousands of mummies even to this day. The lore has it that people, rich and poor alike, wanted to be buried in an underground complex beneath the Capuchin monastery originally reserved for clergymen. Yet Capuchin piety, and extended prayer sessions in favor of the departed, turned the spot into a favorite burial ground, which visitors could access to interact with their 1121
dead. Beneath another Capuchin church at Vienna (XVII century), the Imperial crypt is located, where the remains -including some hearts and other body parts- of 145 members of the Imperial Hapsburg family rest.
Hindu Kali, patroness of the cremation ground and battle field, joins the Mexican cult devoted to Santa Muerte (holy death)1497, who -again following a blueprint countless religions adopted- doesn't turn anybody down 1498, literally, as patroness of narcos (drug dealers), cuartonas (in-call prostitutes) and presos (inmates). Santa Muerte's hotbed in Mexico City is the neighborhood of Tepito (barrio bravo, fierce neighborhood), cradle of urban resistance: the home to a diverse crowd of dispossessed devoted to various illegal activities.
In the Santa Muerte's religion the relic (=a female skeleton) takes on a mystical life of her own, a decomposing doppelgaenger1499:
More broadly, I would seek to discover why in less than a decade devotion to her had grown so much that her popularity now eclipses every other saint in Mexico except Saint Jude.-...-Back before the Bald Lady beckoned me to study her, I had thought about including a Santa Muerte's devotion includes all the high points one might expect in such narratives, namely persecution:”In late March the Mexican army demolished some forty Santa Muerte shrines on the Mexican border with California and Texas, mostly on the outskirts of Tijuana and Nuevo Laredo.” (Chesnut 2012:4). 1498 No juzgarás al hermano, ni por sus preferencias sexuales, ni por su color, ni por su condición de vida. ( you shall not judge your brother according to his sexual preferences, color or lifestyle);Cada paso que des, dalo firme. Goza y vive al máximo cada momento como si fuera tu último día (if you take a step, take it firmly. Enjoy and savor every moment to the fullest, as if it were your last day). 1499 “The theme of the three dead and three living men connects the horrible motif of putrefaction with that of the death-dance. This theme, too, seems to have originated in France, but it is unknown whether the pictorial representation preceded the scenic or the reverse. The thesis of monsieur Emile Masle, according to which the sculptural and pictorial motifs of the fifteenth century were supposed as a rule to be derived from dramatic representations, has not been able to keep its ground, on critical examination. It may be, however, that we should make an exception in favour of the death-dance. Anyhow, the dance of the dead has been acted as well as acted and engraved. The duke of Burgundy had it performed in his mansion at Bruges in 1449 “ (Huizinga 1972:140 ). 1497
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chapter on her in my future book on the Virgin of Guadalupe. Without having done any serious research on her, I had vaguely imagined the saint of death as a sort of anti-Virgin who specialized in dirty deeds unfit for the immaculate Mother of Christ and patroness of Mexico. My idea was that real understanding of the thesis (Guadalupe) demands examination of its antithesis (Santa Muerte). As appealing as the notion seemed at the time, it withered in the face of empirical evidence. If anything, the Pretty Girl is closer to a virginal figure for many devotees, especially women and girls, than a tequila-swilling, chain-smoking saint of underhanded deeds. In the final analysis the Santa Muerte worshiped by most believers is neither the morally pure virgin nor the amoral spiritual mercenary who perpetrates all kinds of demonic deeds for the right price. Rather, she is an awesomely powerful female personification of death, the most potent of Mexican folk saints. (Chesnut 2012:4,52-3) That's obviously a mixture of mesoamerican, European, AfroCaribbean1500 and Catholic beliefs1501 reaching – so the present writer supposes – ageold depths reminiscent of medieval “death dances”, ever present death imagery 1502, and related obsession with decay in both bodily and spiritual form that dated back from the epidemics1503 that had culled over time a huge percentage of the European population.
Death dances -just like Shiva's eternal dance- are human psychological landscape's common fixtures: Mesoamerican, Hindu and Tibetan-Buddhist 1504 lore include such imagery, in turn variably politicized. Just as Hindu lilas -or divine Santa Muerte's statues or images are honored blowing towards them the smoke of a cigarro. Tobacco was sacred to many pre-Colombian cultures in the Americas (including American-Indians). This ritual is widely adopted in Afro-Caribbean Santeria. Santa Muerte also loves water, which is typically offered on her altar. 1501 Just to name one, Compagnia Della Buona Morte (good death fellowship) was a Catholic religious brotherhood (confraternita) active since the XVI century operating under many symbols associated at a later time with Santa Muerte. Such brotherhood was in charge of burying corpses. 1502 Kiening 1995, passim. 1503 “L'explication la plus courante pour la reproduction extraordinaire des cadavres et des squelettes se réfère aux catastrophes épidémiques comme la peste noire par lesquelles le Bas Moyen Age était profondément ébranlé” (Kiening 1995:1160). 1504 For Tibetan and Hindu variants, Campbell 1989:Descent To Heaven. 1500
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plays- unfold, life might be compared to a game of chess, and plague to checkmate1505:
The corpse (or cadaver: cadere, to fall), that which has irremediably come a cropper, is cesspool, and death; it upsets even more violently the one who confronts it as fragile and fallacious chance. A wound with blood and pus, or the sickly, acrid smell of sweat, of decay, does not signify death. In the presence of signified death—a flat encephalograph, for instance —I would understand, react, or accept. No, as in true theater, without makeup or masks, refuse and corpses show me what I permanently thrust aside in order to live. These body fluids, this defilement, this shit are what life withstands, hardly and with difficulty, on the part of death. There, I am at the border of my condition as a living being. My body extricates itself, as being alive, from that border. (Kristeva 1982:3). It might date even earlier than that. In Hindu mythology, the wrathful goddess Kali either kills Shiva (=unmanifested form of god) turning him into Shava (=corpse; consciousness disengaged from time and space 1506); or the other way round: the goddess Kali copulates with Shava (a corpse with an erect phallus) in order to awaken Shiva, just like Isis copulates with the erect phallus of Osiris' (semi)dead body to beget Horus:
Shiva in this second form is known as Shava, "the Corpse," and the analogy with Ptah as the mummy is obvious. -...-Compare the figure, above discussed, of Ptah, the Mummy, begetter of the Apis bull, and Pharaoh, whose counterpart in the later Tantric symbolism of India is Shava, the Corpse, turned away from, yet in essence one with, the world-producing Shiva-Shakti pair (Campbell 1962:90,334). In relation to Siva, [Kali] appears to play the opposite role from At Norwich, St. Andrew's Church shows the depiction (around 1500) of death as a chess player alongside a bishop. 1506 Campbell 1980. 1505
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that of Parvati. Parvati calms Siva, counterbalancing his antisocial or destructive tendencies; she brings him within the sphere of domesticity and with her soft glances urges him to moderate the destructive aspects of his tandava dance. Kali is Siva's "other wife," as it were, provoking him and encouraging him in his mad, antisocial, disruptive habits. It is never Kali who tames Siva but Siva who must calm Kali. Her association with criminals reinforces her dangerous role vis-a-vis society. She is at home outside the moral order and seems to be unrestrained by it. (Kinsley 1998:82-83). Shiva is typically associated with the bull, a lunar symbol; whereas Shiva's wife Parvati is associated with the lion, a solar symbol. The goddess (=Sun=Kali as deflection of Parvati) possibly copulates to bring the Moon (=Shiva 1507) to life.
In fairy tales, kings/fathers are often associated with gold (=solar metal), whereas queens/mothers are associated with silver (=lunar metal) 1508. Even the Inca associated gold with “the sweat of the Sun” and silver with “the tears of the Moon”. In Buddhist Ratthapala Sutta: “Then his father, revealing the heap of gold & silver, said to [Buddhist monk Ratthapala], "This, my dear Ratthapala, is your mother's inheritance. The other is your fathers”.
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In his hair, Shiva often carries a pin in the form of the Moon's lower quarter, or “wet moon” (the Moon's horns point upwards). The “wet moon” is also present above the icon of the crucified messiah Orpheos Bakkikos. Kali, the Hindu goddess of the battle field and cremation ground also wears a “wet moon” tattoo under her third eye. Tibetan Buddhism as well presents the “wet moon” and Sun (the lower quarter and the dot) symbols just as present on Kali's forehead. Noted Tibetan Buddhist teacher Lama Michel explains how the Tibetan Buddhist stupa (with the “wet moon” on top) represents the progression of the elements (earth, water, fire, wind, space) that “dissolve” in the process of death. The Mesopotamian Stele Of Ur-Nammu (2097-2080 BCE) also presents such symbols: “wet moon” and Sun. The Babylonian cylinder seal The Garden Of Immortality (1750-1550 BCE) shows goddess Gula-Bau (a counterpart of Demeter and Persephone) in her garden: above the bounty shines “the wet moon”. The Serpent Lord Enthroned Akkadian cylinder seal (2350-2150 BCE) also presents “the wet moon”. Russian Christian Orthodox churches have crosses on top, at whose base the “wet moon” is present. 1508 Much the same can be said about Chinese yin and yang: masculine and feminine, moist versus dry etc.
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The same imagery recurs everywhere. At Naples (Italy), underground cemetery Cimitero Delle Fontanelle was the resting place for countless unidentified inmates, and victims of epidemics ( plague, 1656; cholera, 1836) alike. A peculiar rite (Rito Delle Anime Pezzentelle) unfolded, whereby commoners would literally adopt a skull from the cemetery, mostly starting around 1884 when the cemetery was restored.
The skull (anima pezzentella, ragged/miserable soul) thus became an element of family worship with its own altar -of clear pagan origins- in exchange for protection. The anime pezzentelle cult also had its semi-official priestesses (Maste) especially devoted to purgatorial souls, of which the abandoned, nameless remains were taken as epitome:
a particular stress is given in these secret men's societies to a skull cult that is often associated with the headhunt. Ritual cannibalism and pederasty are commonly practiced, and there is a highly elaborated use made of symbolic drums and masks. Ironically (yet by no means illogically), the most prominent divinities of these lodges are frequently female, even the Supreme Being itself being imagined as a Great Mother (Campbell 1960:321). Human skull cults are present at the time of Catal Huyuk (around 7.000 BCE); in ancient India, Shiva is associated with the skull as symbol of the rebirth cycle; wooden skull racks (tzompantli) associated with human sacrifices are popular among the Aztecs and other pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican cultures. German military units wear the “skull and bones” emblem in the XIX and XX century; Yale fraternity “skull and bones” appears in 1832, to later include prominent members such as three 1126
U.S Presidents, and a cohort of statesmen, moguls and dignitaries.
R.L. Moore connects the “skull and bones” SS variety to “necrophilia -...it will make you love death. And it will have you have a compulsion to create suffering -...- to act out and dominate, and destroy opposition -...-: it's the mind of rape”1509.
Japanese medieval warlords put on display the enemy's severed heads
aptly prepared to show their power.
Such celebrities often electioneer on both the left and the right, such as Bush, jr. and fellow member, Jewish-American Catholic politician Kerry, U.S Secretary Of State during the second Obama mandate: skull&bones members.
No wonder: the diverse constellation of Masonic and theosophic groups active during the Belle Epoque contributed to a series of antinomic political factions: judeophobes and judeophiles; left- and right-wing; national and international; Francophobes and Germanophobes; Germanophiles and Francophiles, and so forth.
The in-fighting between the embittered heads of the international Masonic hydra should not be forgotten. Aurobindo retreated under French tutelage at Pondicherry - incidentally a renowned centre of international Freemasonry since the late XVIII century-. He wrote about Napoleon:
If [Napoleon] had not risen at the time, the [reactionary] European powers would have crushed French democracy. What he did was to stabilize the French Revolution so that the world got the idea of 1509
2002:part 6.
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democracy. Otherwise it would have been delayed by two or three centuries.” Napoleon gave not only glory to France, “he gave peace and order, stable government and security in France. He was not only one of the greatest conquerors but also one of the greatest administrators and organizers the world has seen … The only trouble was that he was not bold enough. If he had pushed on with the idea of unification of all Europe, which he had at the back of his mind, then the present Spanish struggle [the Spanish Civil War] would not have been necessary, Italy would have been united much earlier and Germany would have been more civilized. If instead of proclaiming himself Emperor he had remained the First Consul, he would have met with better success (in Van Vrekhem 2012: no page). Over whether Napoleon I was a Freemason, the jury is still out: it is a political hot spot to 'give ammunition' to those who already consider the French Revolution a “Masonic conspiracy”.
Members of the Bonaparte family were indeed Masons, and Empress Josephine had presided over Masonic events. If Aurobindo had a Jewish-French sidekick, Jewish-Canadian Historian (and fitness mogul) Ben Weider delivered in 1998 a congratulatory article on Napoleon And The Jews. Weider claims that not only Napoleon enfranchised the Jews through legislative action, but that “When the French troops were in Palestine, and besieging the city of Acre, Napoleon had already prepared a Proclamation making Palestine an independent Jewish state. ”1510.
More or less secret societies modeled after freemasonry were a hot commodity during the Belle Epoque and beyond: in 1882 the Catholic society
Chevaliers De Colomb
1510
1998:no page.
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is born in North-America: charity, unity, fraternity,
patriotism; in 1926 the Catholic and Francophone Ordre De Jacques Cartier is banded in Canada.
In 1888 The Loyal Order Of The Moose is born on Masonic principles. Luminaries such as prominent actors (Abbott&Costello, C. Chaplin and J. Stewart) and U.S Presidents (among whom T. and F.D. Roosevelt) joined the order, which the Lutheran Church explicitly blacklisted in the 1960s.
Among such nonpareils both F.D. Roosevelt, who received awards from the Jewish community and fought Fascism, and industrialist H. Ford, who received decorations from the III Reich. F.D. Roosevelt was so interested in noted occultist and Masonic master M.P. Hall to order to microfiche Hall's extensive esoteric library in 1942:
In a speech and essay produced decades apart, Reagan [ a honorary member of Masonry] revealed the unmistakable mark of a littleknown but widely influential scholar of occult philosophy, Manly P. Hall. Judging from a tale that Reagan borrowed from Hall, the president’s reading tastes ran to some of the outer reaches of esoteric spiritual lore. -...-Hall’s concise volume described how America was the product of a “Great Plan” for religious liberty and self-governance, launched by a hidden order of ancient philosophers and secret societies. -...-At a 1957 commencement address at his alma mater Eureka College, Reagan, then a corporate spokesman for GE, sought to inspire students with this leaf from occult history. “This is a land of destiny,” Reagan said, “and our forefathers found their way here by some Divine system of selective service gathered here to fulfill a mission to advance man a further step in his climb from the swamps.” (Levingston 2010:no page). The Master Mason, if he be truly a Master, is in communication with the unseen powers that move the destinies of life (Occultist and Master Mason M.P. Hall, The Lost Keys Of Freemasonry, IV 1129
ed., 1923). Reagan never truly retreated from his pro-Israel position. Even after he was out of office his presidential seal continued to bear a configuration of stars in the shape of the Star of David. (New 2002:77). Such commingling of theosophical, transcendental and Masonic items could stew into a religion: Christian Science Church ( Church Of Christ, Scientist just as a Christ scientist headed the utopian society of Bacon's New Atlantis). M. Baker Eddy founded the church, whose emblem carries the Masonic cross-andcrown, in 1879. The same Masonic cross-and-crown emblem can be found associated with places of worship, religions (such as Jehovah’s Witnesses), organizations (such as the Salvation Army), hospitals etc.
At the root of Baker Eddy's thought -which proved very successful with millions of copies of her books in print over time- stood an eclectic primordial soup she mainly derived from P. Quimby (1802-66), an experimental mesmerist who had treated Baker Eddy with some sort of 'talking cure' (=”mental healing”). In 1859, Quimby wrote:”the trouble is in the mind, for the body is only the house for the mind to dwell in ”.
Quimby's follower E.G. Ware summarized in 1917:
Health is like liberty, directly from God, and it can be kept and enjoyed. Man can learn to live in health as truly as he can learn to govern his morals. With a full understanding of the truth man need not be sick and diseased any more than he need be vicious. The universal belief in disease is founded on the universal belief that 1130
matter has life, power, and can direct itself. If this is true, it accounts for disease, but it does not destroy it, and so long as this belief in matter lasts just so long will disease be in the world. Therefore, to destroy it we must take away its foundations. (in Dresser 1917:67). Skulls and bones serve different purposes in the lore. Much as the dead yearn for solace the living might bring them through prayer, so the dead can bring rain -or influence water- in favor of the living. In Lombardy -and elsewhere- the bones of the deceased (=medicinal quality of the body) could be thrown into wells in order to cause rain. Still in the XVIII century, the Milanese Senate petitioned the Archbishop so that he might organize a procession on All Souls' day to ask for rain.
The same logic unfolded as far back as the ancient Egyptians 1511, and today in predominantly Black U.S South. Afro-American practitioners of local varieties of Afro-Caribbean cults in the U.S Black South prescribe -to name just oneto leave a pint of alcoholic beverage, and a coin, at a deceased person's tomb -typically an obscure person's untended to tomb- in exchange for favors and/or protection the deceased are to afford the living.
Contemporary indigenous societies in Latin America (Mexico, Bolivia etc) also use alcohol (or alcoholic beverages) during their folkloric religious ceremonies, and as a votive offering on the tombs of the deceased. At Cap Ester (Guadeloupe, French Antilles), devotees of Afro-Caribbean religion Quimbois (a 1511
Magic spells and charms were often entrusted to the care of the deceased. Professedly restless souls from untended to and/or desecrated burial grounds were recruited for the purpose of black magic and revenge. The restless soul could also be provided on the spot by murdering someone in order for the spirit to carry nefarious deeds on.
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local version of Voodoo) held rituals -complete with alcoholic offerings- to enlist the ancestral spirits of African slaves killed during revolts to do the contemporary man's bidding.
Again, the tradition of libations (=liquid offering) goes back to the ancient world (Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, Israel etc): water, wine, milk, olive oil, honey etc were either poured and/or left as devotional token, for example on a tomb.
Even in the African Yoruba religion, the root of most Afro-American religions, ancestors and Onilé (mother Earth orisha) are honored pouring drops of beverage on the soil. R.L. Moore 1512 connects libations and sacrifices to an instinctual drive to acknowledge the archetypal self. Failure to acknowledge the archetypal self properly leads to symptoms, which Moore calls “psychological aneurysms”. Ritual is -according to Moore- a way to “stent” those “archetypal aneurysms”1513:”the myths and rituals Campbell describes therein correspond with
the inherent nature of the psychedelic experience”1514.
So the outside social structure is no longer sanctified through rites. The rite has been taken away, the object of the ritual no longer exists, nor does the manner of life that made it relevant. -...-The authority of the inherited religions is now in question. Christianity and Judaism are on the rocks, at least for many of the young people in our culture. So along comes the peyote and LSD fad of the 60s— inward turning. And today it’s no longer LSD so much, but meditation. (Campbell 1976:no page). 1512
2003:part 5, No date-3:part 2. 1514 Gerringer 2007:10. 1513
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Although rooted in a distant past, Santa Muerte's cult has been on a meteoric rise among Mexicans (at home or abroad) in both devotional and merchandising terms1515. Mixing filth with holiness is very common, indeed, as the archetypal trickster's serial “Gastronomic, flatulent, sexual, phallic, and fecal feats” epitomize.
Kristeva connects all that with “abjection”:
Loathing an item of food, a piece of filth, waste, or dung. -...-the most elementary and most archaic form of abjection. -...-"I" want none of that element, sign of their desire; -...-During that course in which "I" become, I give birth to myself amid the violence of sobs, of vomit. Mute protest of the symptom, shattering violence of a convulsion that, to be sure, is inscribed in a symbolic system, but in which, without either wanting or being able to become integrated in order to answer to it, it reacts, it abreacts. It abjects. (1982:1-3). Of course, if the worship/contemplation of the hero's corpse is godly, the defilement/execration of the same is ungodly. The bodies of valiant Hector and Abhimanyu are desecrated. Fascist forces demonstratively depose the bodies of executed antifascist activists -former rogues and future heroes- in the open. Mussolini -well aware of mythical lessons- quips:”That blood will cost us dear” (quel sangue lo pagheremo caro ). Shortly thereafter, it is Mussolini's corpse (the former hero now rogue) to be demonstratively deposed hanging upside down at the same open location. 1515
“In Morelia, Guillermina, whose father owns three esoterica shops in town, stated that since 2004 the Skinny Lady has accounted for approximately half of the total sales at their three stores. She occupied much more shelf and floor space than any other saint at each of the dozens of shops and market stalls I visited in the summers of 2009 and 2010.” (Chesnut 2012:9).
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It is not necessary to venture around the mainstream altars solemn pontiffs circumambulate, either. Local Italian periodical Giornale Di Arona (15 March 2013) publishes a retractation relating to one preceding article memorializing -through eye-witness accounts and so forth- the anniversary of the execution by Fascist forces of two local antifascist activists during WWII.
The retractation details how the two corpses hadn't been left in the open for five days, but had been immediately taken to a morgue; and how the heart of one of them -a 17yo, 18yo or 19yo depending on sources- had not been scratched out, but bayoneted. Various online versions of the story provide different details, often including the scratched out heart, which many have (allegedly) seen:
For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. (2 Peter 1:16). Then he clearly manifested himself to be the Son of God. For had [Jesus] not come in the flesh, how should men have been able to look upon him, that they might be saved? (Christian non-canonical Epistle Of Barnabas, cited in the II century, Jones&Wake trans.). They then made it clear that if I had not actually seen [Jesus] (and not in any metaphorical sense, but literally), they weren't interested in any stories I had to tell about him. Period. This is because, as I now knew, the Pirahas [indigenous tribe of the Amazon river] believe only what they see. Sometimes they also believe in things that someone else has told them, so long as that person has personally witnessed what he or she is reporting. (Everett 2008:266). Our fondest hopes and expectations were blasted -...-if this has proved a failure, what was the rest of my Christian experience worth? -...-is all this but a cunningly devised fable? (Hiram Edson, a Millerite distraught on October 22, 1844 after the dates given for Jesus' “second 1134
coming” proved to be repeatedly inaccurate). It is difficult not to recall the lore with Jesus' sacred, bleeding heart; or with Aztecs extracting and lifting up towards the sky a still beating human heart in order to propitiate their gods with the massive slaughter of people stretched out (=crucified?) on a sacrificial stone slab.
Jesus follows the same trajectory (Acts 10:39):
•
"We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a cross (New International Version);
•
And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree (King James Bible).
Not to mention other narratives that want Jesus to either disappear during the crucifixion, or to 'swap seats' with somebody else.
Another dubious Gospel passage is one of Bart Ehrman's (distinguished professor of religious studies) favorites, Mark (1:41) (“And a leper came to Jesus, beseeching Him and falling on his knees before Him, and saying, "If You are willing, You can make me clean." ”), then:
•
Jesus was indignant. He reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" (New International Version, emphasis added).
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•
Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.” (English Standard Version, emphasis added).
Christian apologist Michael Brown is resourceful to interpret the passage: Jesus was indeed indignant, but against the disfiguring illness, not the person.
Furthermore:
Although almost all the surviving manuscripts state that Jesus died for all people "by the grace of God" (CHARITI THEOU), a couple of others state, instead, that he died "apart from God" (CHORIS THEOU). There are good reasons for thinking that the latter, however, was the original reading of the Epistle to the Hebrews. -...-even though it occurs in only two documents of the tenth century, one of these (Ms. 1739) is known to have been produced from a copy that was at least as ancient as our earliest manuscripts. Of yet greater interest, the early third century scholar Origen tells us that this was the reading of the majority of manuscripts of his own day. Other evidence also suggests its early popularity: it was found in manuscripts known to Ambrose and Jerome in the Latin West, and it is quoted by a range of church writers down to the eleventh century. (Ehrman 2005:145). Of course, the precious human soul being as flimsy and unaccountable as it is, changes of opinion shall not be ruled out. Chinese Communist leader Mao explicitly posits contradiction at the center of his interpretation of MarxismLeninism:”The law of contradiction in things, that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the basic law of materialist dialectics. ” (1937).
The defilement of the former hero's body, then, becomes a gage to 1136
celebrate heartfelt conversion to the spirit of the times:
However, imperial portraits were neither immutable nor monolithic, and should an emperor be overthrown, his images were systematically mutilated or physically altered into the likenesses of other emperors.extnote This process, popularly known as damnatio memoriae, is the first widespread example of the negation of artistic monuments for political and ideological reasons and it has inexorably altered the material record of Roman culture. Jerome aptly describes the fate of the portraits of Rome’s” bad” emperors: “When a tyrant is destroyed, his portraits and statues are also deposed. The face is exchanged or the head removed, and the likeness of he who has conquered is superimposed.”. (Varner 2004:1). Portraits of [Mexican leader] Santa Anna proliferated; -...-When Santa Anna’s wife fell gravely ill, a huge procession—20,000 people, carrying 8,000 candles—paraded through the capital, headed by the Archbishop of Mexico and other dignitaries -...-. Revolt spread [at a later date, however]. Even in Santa Anna’s home state of Veracruz, the mob seized an official portrait of the President, which was then ‘publicly outraged and burnt in the plaza’. The veracruzanos had no leg (no ‘primary relic’) to desecrate, so they made do with a representational icon. Thus reviled, Santa Anna decided to quit. -...The most bitter aspect of his overthrow, it was said, was the treatment of his leg [lost in combat]; thirty years later, as he penned his selfexculpatory memoirs, the memory of that ‘sacrilegious attack by an impious faction’ still rankled (Knight in Walsham 2010:235,238-9). In 2015, for example, the billionaire philanthropist David Geffen donated $100 million to refurbish the concert space at New York’s Lincoln Center then named Avery Fisher Hall, after its original benefactor, on condition that it be renamed David Geffen Hall. In accepting his offer, Lincoln Center was obliged to pay the Fisher family $15 million.(Rieff 2016:58). The Taliban regime in Afghanistan destroys archeological vestiges of a long gone Buddhist past; Christian zealots deface and/or topple statues in the For example, the portrait from Smyrna of Caligula reworked to resemble the new Emperor Titus (today at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens). Or the bust of Nero reworked to resemble his well-liked predecessor Claudius (today at the Walters Art Museum). The earliest portrait of Emperor Maximinus Thrax (235-238 CE) were modified images of preceding Emperor Severus Alexander (222-235 CE). (note of this writer). extnote
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Ramesseum, the funerary temple (XIII century BCE) of legendary Egyptian King Ramses II. The stupendous left-wing Zapatero government in Spain removes the last statues and vestiges of the Francoist regime, and chases after purported Francoist horrors; Argentinian politicians are famous for jeremiads exposing one '...ism' or another.
Shortly thereafter, the Taliban regime collapses under a rain of foreign incendiary bombs; Spain's economy implodes; July 31, 2014 Reuters announces that “Argentina defaulted for the second time in 12 years ”, yet what stupendous faith did those regimes display:”burnin' with determination to even up the score”.
On a higher level, what happens to living people -and not only to reliquary remains of heroes- is often the stuff of legend. Roberge 1516 lists several urban legends regarding abduction for various purposes (rape, harvesting of organs to supply the clandestine market, prostitution...). Whoever ventures to a certain place, and/or accepts a certain invitation never comes back in a sort of Bermuda triangle narrative: a cursed topography.
Various cherished motifs coalesce: (illegal) immigrants streaming endlessly out of Africa at times claim rogue traffickers harvested their organs pronto in some rundown shack in Libya just in time for them to set sail presto in order to tell the story once on the other shore...
1516
2009:118ss.
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In the movie Vamp (1986), college students on a bawdy fraternity assignment visit a strip-club that is a facade for a syndicate of murderous vampires who -along with their undead henchmen- carry on a peculiar social hygiene program; clients never make it back.
The black hole can be located everywhere under an inconspicuous facade, and be groomed to fit other narratives. There supposedly is a police station (isolated farm...) where security forces lure or deport dissidents, who mysteriously disappear; the store/home owned by this, that or another sensitive outcast group: clients/visitors are robbed, abducted, or simply disappear: the “black site” controversy. Countless Australian aboriginal children were forced into mandatory schooling distances away; many parents would never see them again.
Innumerable children of dissidents under the Argentinian dictatorship were assertedly abducted, and given for adoption to eminent families who supported the infamous regime. Ben-Shahar 1517 tells the same story: children of liquidated dissidents would have been abducted by the “tens of thousands”, yet Ben-Shahar here indicts Communist Romania under Ceausescu.
Are Romania and Argentina still not particularly interesting to readers? Why not Francoist Spain, instead? The story reads just alike:
Lawyers believe that up to 300,000 babies were taken. The practice of removing children from parents deemed "undesirable" and placing 1517
2009:lecture 20.3.
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them with "approved" families, began in the 1930s under the dictator General Francisco Franco. At that time, the motivation may have been ideological. But years later, it seemed to change - babies began to be taken from parents considered morally - or economically - deficient. It became a money-spinner, too. The scandal is closely linked to the Catholic Church, which under Franco assumed a prominent role in Spain's social services including hospitals, schools and children's homes. (Adler 2011: no page). The same blueprint comes circularly back. In areas of rural Guatemala, tourists are advised to exert extreme discretion when being around children: spontaneous mobs have been spotted surrounding and/or attacking incautious tourists perceived as potential kidnappers of children in order to either sell them, or to make salchichas (sausages).
As devastating famine recurrently ravaged the USSR in its first decades, the abduction of children for the purpose of cannibalism was rumored to constitute common occurrence:
Catherine Edgerton-Tarpley (2008: 223) refers to three stock phrases regarding cannibalism which recur in gazetteers’ accounts of the 1876-78 North China famine: ‘people ate each other’, ‘exchanging children and eating them’, and variants of ‘people ate each other to the point that close kin destroyed each other’. (O Grada 2013:6). With these words she killed her son, roasted the body, swallowed half of it, and stored the rest in a safe place. ( Jewish historian Josephus describes the horrors that happened as Jerusalem was under Roman siege during a rebellion in Judea around 70 CE). Some Chinese people are known to be eating babies, and the news, which has been circulating through the internet and via email, is shocking the world. An email report [with photographic 1140
evidence attached, which was later revealed to come from a fake art exhibit] received by The Seoul Times confirmed that news with several vivid and appalling pictures of human embryos and fetuses being made into a soup for human consumption. ( Chinese Eat..., around 20091518: no page). That was the case in 2001 when widely-circulated photos which showed a large Asian man eating what appeared to be a cooked baby served at a restaurant were taken by many at face value. -...-The truth proved far less horrifying than the rumor. The photographs shown above were taken seriously by a number of law enforcement agencies who viewed them, and both Scotland Yard and the FBI investigated this matter, trying to determine when and where the pictures were taken and the identities of those appearing in them -...-.The origins of the images were quickly uncovered: The man in the photographs is Chinese performance artist Zhu Yu, who staged a conceptual shock piece called "Eating People" at a Shanghai arts festival in 2000. Maintaining that "No religion forbids cannibalism, nor can I find any law which prevents us from eating people," Zhu Yu acted out a performance in which he appeared to eat a stillborn or aborted child (likely constructed by placing a doll's head on a duck's carcass) and said that he "took advantage of the space between morality and the law and based my work on it." ( Fetus Feast no date: no page, emphasis added1519). As this writing suggests, mythemes tend to coalesce: child molestation, abduction
and
cannibalism
join
the
black
hole
topography.
Seemingly
inconspicuous trivia or happenstance then cause the horror to surface to public consciousness.
A shoe-box, field, basement, footage reel, etc is discovered as abode of the remains, tell-tale traces etc of countless victims: the sweet human soul screams in xeroxed participation. It is nearly impossible to part the mournful article detailing a nameless crime police investigates the world over from phony doctored pictures 1518 1519
Similar articles circulated online around 1995 as well. Such news were apparently relayed by 'respectable' mainstream media such as UK The Independent in 2001.
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used online to lure gullible viewers into clicking one more ad banner.
Then there is the mysterious car, van or truck, which organized maniacs, 'Men In Black' or '...ists' operate from: the horror is on the move as well. Just as the team of retrosexual lumberjacks (=lumbersexual) who raped an innocent child (now a convicted burglar who tells the story to be left off the hook) stole away into the night, so Men In Black disappear into hidden undercover government facilities while outer space kooks are teleported to spaceships after a row of rogue medical experiments on frail victims, just as doctor Mengele allegedly absconded to South America.
As reported1520, one such truck haunted the province of Novara (Italy). The event was certain. One (unidentified) middle-school girl (whom many happened to know, of course 1521) had miraculously escaped from maniacs: local schools had issued a formal warning to all students as well. Police determined it was an unsubstantiated urban legend growing bigger
through the grapevine.
Furthermore, no school confirmed issuing any warning about the matter:
Suddenly, the remorseless white slaver stalked onto the scene. Foreign devils snatched innocent daughters off the family farm, dragged them to the dangerous city, and chained them in brothels till they perished. The old fear of endangered innocents—this time, fresh country girls— roared back into the popular imagination. McClure’s magazine broke the story in 1909: New Yorkers had seized control of the world’s flesh trade. -...- A month later, in his first Annual Message,Taft described the “urgent necessity for additional legislation and greater executive 1520 1521
Giornale Di Arona, 26 October 2012. Readers may notice the incoherence. If the girl eye-witness has not been identified, how could other people back her up?
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activity to suppress the recruiting . . . of prostitutes.” He was ready to allocate $50,000 to fight “the White Slave Trade.”(Morone 2003:260). the slasher film has been drawing upon this contemporary form of oral folklore [=urban legends] from the very beginning. (Koven 2008:122). In New York City Lewis Watkins, 25, a black man claimed he had been beaten in January 1992 by five white men in a white van. -...-Watkins, it turned out, had made two previous unfounded reports of beatings at the hands of white men in white vans. Dinkins’ press secretary, Leland T. Jones, commented "It’s hard to condemn something that didn’t happen. -...-In a 1986 case, a St. Charles, Missouri black girl, Bridget Clark, 14, told her parents that two white men had thrown acid on her and shouted racial slurs as she walked home from school. The black community was in an uproar. A police investigation revealed that the acid was actually the result of an accident at a summer job where the girl spilled chemicals on her arm causing first-degree burns. "She made up the story on her way home," her mother, Shirley Clark, said.” (Wilcox 1994:56-7). Conventional bedlamites of one breed or another might not be enough. Characters literally lifted from third-rate 1980s actioners may also appear. Herriman informs that in Java (Indonesia):
For a short time, the most gripping conspiracy theory was that the killings in Banyuwangi had been undertaken by ninjas, and these ninjas were also targeting traditionalist Muslims and their leaders. During October 1998, after the killings of sorcerers had subsided, this idea seems to have quickly spread throughout Banyuwangi, and then East Java. -...-The notion that brigades of black-clad assassins were roaming the countryside provoked an alarmed response. Terrified of these ninjas, local communities began posting guards in villages and cities all around East Java. “Ninjas” were sighted, caught, and even killed. (2010:731-33). Such legends represent the contemporary rendition of ancient legends that relayed how children -or people- might disappear when wandering across areas
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barren with bears, wolves and other potentially noxious animals. At Imbersago (Italy), La Madonna Del Bosco (St. Mary Of The Woods) miraculously retrieved a child a wolf had abducted, much as it is the case in some versions of Red Riding Hood.
Alternatively, this, that or the other remote location was the place where a child's bones had been found, which a wolf had left behind: the black hole topography. These legends continued to be relayed as eye-witness accounts even centuries after wolves -bears etc- had either stopped representing a threat, or had disappeared altogether. Is that really different from contemporary accounts and cable TV story-lines that berate unidentified -but sighted- lakeside maniacs who lure innocent children wandering around to a secluded mountaintop cabin for unspeakable purposes?
Once again, nobody cares whether a faceless witness relayed rumors about non-existing maniacs:“ Mos requires neither deliberation, nor judgment, but praise or blame”;”These are unexceptional sentiments. A memorial is a place for solidarity rather than subtlety, deference rather than criticism, piety rather than revisionism. -...-the ghost at the banquet of all public commemorations is always politics”1522. Delcorno specifies that paradigmatic identification took place between exemplary mythic figures, and the individual or action being considered, thus reenacting a predetermined judgment meant to either condemn or justify 1523. 1522 1523
Rieff 2016:66. 1984:51.
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Here the question is about being one with the horde in fusion casting blame upon the generic ideal-type of a possible psychopath doing whatever violent psychopaths typically do according to our society's fleeting norms:”Reminiscence provides us quite literally with mental images of the past.”1524.
The legends’ physical settings are often close by, real, and sometimes even locally renowned for other such happenings. Though the characters in the stories are usually nameless, they are true-to-life examples of the kind of people the narrators and their audience know firsthand. (Brunvand 1981:12). The black hole in which countless people disappear can take up all sorts of garbs. Are U.S “FEMA camps” national emergency centers set up for incident management purposes, or a network of concentration camps ready just in case garrison state would prove expedient? Readers shall come to their own conclusions. Isn't the public clamoring for a yet bigger, more widespread, better funded and equipped providence State machinery when it comes to counter a slew of disasters, whether natural or otherwise?
June 7, 2013, U.S President Obama declared:”you can’t have 100-percent security and also have 100-percent privacy and zero inconvenience. We’re going to have to make some choices as a society ”. Privacy is allegedly being abused and eroded on all fronts, yet some counter that private companies spying on one online for the purpose of generating revenue offer opt-out clauses. People might just stop using this online search engine, free email provider or online bookstore, and a
1524
Koortbojian 1995:114.
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billion other operators, as if the next operator were not harvesting -and selling- data in turn. The State -critics contend- is a completely different matter.
But is it? Much as millions are addicted to their social networks, on which they splatter their private life in the minutest detail only to worry later some kook might be going after them as a consequence, millions more are addicted to the
Belle Epoque nation-State. A Moloch that shall be as omnipotent, omnipresent, funded and equipped as necessary to pursue the foolish dictates of the eerie utopias culled from long-dead, demented hacks people rave about.
People want the fox to watch their chickens, then wonder who's watching the fox. Is it the State's ultimate fault if such silly utopias about lands of plenty, nanny and therapeutic culture, lemonade oceans, mountains made of
polenta, ultimate redress and so forth are so wildly popular?
what we predict will happen next, something psychologists call “Expectancy Theory.� Dr. Marcel Kinsbourne, a neuroscientist at the New School for Social Research in New York, explains that our expectations create brain patterns that can be just as real as those created by events in the real world. In other words, the expectation of an event causes the same complex set of neurons to fire as though the event were actually taking place, triggering a cascade of events in the nervous system that leads to a whole host of real physical consequences. (Achor 2010:72). Is the feeling of partial ownership causing the upward spiral we often see in online auctions? Is it the case that the longer an auction continues, the greater grip virtual ownership will have on the various bidders and the more money they will spend? -...-once they thought of themselves as owners, they were compelled to prevent losing their position by bidding higher and higher. (Ariely 2009:83).
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It turns out Obama is as right as Robespierre, Hitler or Yezhov once were: you cannot make an omelet without breaking any eggs. The foolish NSDAP dream of the 1.000 year Reich of unending territorial expansion, self-esteem extravaganza and oversupply ended with the twin piles of ashes belonging to death camp inmates, and incinerated German towns. 1.000 years in the lore represent either Jesus' kingdom, or the post-apocalyptic kingdom of the Zoroastrian Saoshyant.
Eliade once said “si dieu n'existe pas, tout est cendre” (whenever god doesn't exist, everything turns to ashes). The opposite -as the case of Germany in WWII suggests- is also true: whenever god materializes, everything turns to ashes:”God appears, man is reduced to nothing; and the greater Divinity becomes, the more miserable becomes humanity. ”1525. It doesn't really matter which pile of ashes one means exactly: the ashes of mythological cities Hebrew god Yahweh supposedly razed in a time before time; the ashes of the victims of Bolshevik New Economic Policy (NEP); or any other example one might choose.
Jesus said, "Men think, perhaps, that it is peace which I have come to cast upon the world. They do not know that it is dissension which I have come to cast upon the earth: fire, sword,and war. For there will be five in a house: three will be against two, and two against three, the father against the son, and the son against the father. And they will stand solitary." (Gospel Of Thomas no date no page n.16). Jesus said, "Whoever does not hate his father and his mother cannot become a disciple to Me. And whoever does not hate his brothers 1525
Anarchist thinker Bakunin in 1871, God And The State, Tucker trans.
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and sisters and take up his cross in My way will not be worthy of Me." (Gospel Of Thomas no date no page n.55). As romantic as we want the image to be, Robin Hood was after all a thief. As heart-warming as it is to donate to a charity, there is always a chance such charity may be a noble facade for fraudulent money laundering, profiteering and so forth. The public sulks and weeps as politicking mountebanks, apparatchiki and kleptocrats laugh all the way to the bank.
It may all, however, turn out for the good. Culture heroes, often under the guise of quintessential tricksters or shamans, are essentially breakers of taboos in the name of higher goods:“If we annoy people, blessed be the Lord.�. The 'good guys' go as far as required to get the job done -with or without preexisting emotional or ethical baggage-, thus often bestowing boons upon the group, yet facing the transgression's possible negative consequences alone: another variant of the savior willingly suffering for his flock.
Stalin allegedly robbed banks to fund revolutionary activities; Uruguay's President Mujica also purportedly robbed banks as a leader of left-wing insurrectionist group Tupamaro. U.S intelligence agencies allegedly funded Contras in Nicaragua via drug-trafficking under the Reagan administration.
In the Tristan&Isolde cycle, Tristan and Isolde (betrothed to Tristan's uncle King Mark) accidentally drink a love potion meant for the marriage ceremony. As Isolde's nanny discovers what happened, she forewarns Tristan how
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he just drank his death, which was the punishment for adultery.
Tristan elatedly replies he accepts everything, even eternal fire in hell, in exchange for the sweet labor of love1526. Campbell1527 suggests ample similarities between the Tristan and Isolde cycle and the real-life tale of Abelard&Heloise: Heloise claims hell fire does not scare her in her love for Abelard (1079-1142). Even Buddhism discusses the dilemma of a Bodhisattva (= on the irrevocable path towards becoming a Buddha for the sake of others) who consciously chooses to commit murder to save people from a criminal while bearing the act's karmic consequences:
When they came to the threshing floor of Nakon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. The LORD's anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down, and he died there beside the ark of God. (2 Samuel 6:6-7) In The Fasti, Ovid tells a story of how the Temple of Vesta was burning and a Roman priest called Metellus ran in and saved the Palladium, knowing he would be committing sacrilege in doing so. Other versions say that he was made a hero of the Roman state but was ordered to be blinded for having gazed on the sacred objects. (Meineck 2005-1:37). When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. "I am innocent of this man's blood," he said. "It is your responsibility!" All the people answered, "His blood is on us and on our children!" (Matthew 27:24-5). The result is truly magic: each member of the group can repeat Readers may notice how this medieval bhakti (devotion) balderdash easily translates into politics: CEKA/NKVD, Khmer Rouge and GESTAPO thugs elatedly committed mass-murder in order to show allegiance to a cause. Belgian Fascist leader and Waffen SS General Degrelle defined the Fascist experience as one of “greatness”. Vietnamese Communist leader Nguyen Ai Quoc was nicknamed “the bringer of light”, Ho ChiMinh; Chinese Communist leader Mao was hailed as “red Sun”. 1527 1983. The Abelard romance -just as the Tristan romance does- takes place in Brittany. 1526
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the act without guilt. They are not responsible, only the leader is. Redl calls this, aptly, "priority magic." But it does something even more than relieve guilt: it actually transforms the fact of murder. This crucial point initiates us directly into the phenomenology of group transformation of the everyday world. If one murders without guilt, and in imitation of the hero who runs the risk, why then it is no longer murder: it is "holy aggression. For the first one it was not."(Becker 1973:135-136, emphasis added). The Christian interpretation is that it was pride that kept him from bowing: Lucifer would not bow to man. The Shi'ite Muslim interpretation is that it was love of God: Lucifer couldn't bring himself to bow to anybody but God. So Satan in hell is God's truest worshiper. They say that the great pain of hell is not fire or physical torment, but the loss, forever, of the sight of your beloved, which is God. And what supports Satan in hell? His memory of the voice of his beloved when his beloved said, "Be gone." This is the Shi'ite version of Lucifer's Fall. (Campbell 1989:In Search Of The Holy Grail). If we commit such an action without any disturbing emotion at the time, such as anger, desire, or naivety about cause and effect, but are motivated only by the wish to prevent others' suffering being totally willing to accept on ourselves whatever negative consequences may come, even hellish pain - we do not damage our far-reaching ethical self-discipline. In fact, we build up a tremendous amount of positive force that speeds us on our spiritual paths. (Terentyev, ME6217 no date: lesson 6:5). Popular culture spells the lesson for mugwumps in narratives interwoven with Book of Job and/or Pygmalion anxieties. Action movie heroes going under cover or behind enemy lines to serve the great cause (great nation, right race...) are forewarned that if something goes wrong, the pack back home (the President, the army, the illustrious nation...) shall disown them (=comedy of innocence).
The hero goes away (behind enemy line, etc) as a form of scourging (=training montage) that preludes to the comeback (winning the belt, ascending to
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heaven etc) and bestowal of boons (= freeing of U.S war prisoners; routing of a spy syndicate; transmitting the good news...).
Jesus said, "[The foxes have their holes] and the birds have [their] nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head and rest." (Gospel Of Thomas no date no page n.86). The various Abhimanyu, Hector, or the patriotic muscle-heads of the mimeographed Reaganite actioners of the 1980s, often volunteer to serve 'the noble cause'. Abhimanyu admits he's going on a suicide mission behind enemy lines as a moth dives into burning fire (a beloved allegory of mystical fusion with the godhead).
The various Jesus clones, dying-and-rising gods volunteer to be torn apart in death to bring salvation about, whereas action movie characters rout enemy syndicates, and slaughter foes to bring a happy end on screen. The horde back home may turn its back to -or jeer- the hero, yet -like the various Rambo and so forth- he yearns for reunion (=reconciliation) just like it is the case with Job narratives:
[The queen of the castle] says, "Rather than marry him I would jump from my tower into my moat. You've seen my tower, how high it is, you've seen the moat, how deep it is." "Well," says Parzival, "who's running the army out there?" And she tells him the name of this great knight, and he says, "Well, I'll kill him in the morning."extnote She says, "That's fine." So he goes to sleep. In the morning, down goes the drawbridge; the Red Knight comes extnote
It won't escape readers how these scenes seem to be lifted from contemporary action movies almost verbatim. Whether to perform them is some clod in tights and Robin Hood medieval costume handling a crossbow; a prig in Graeco-Roman attire with an iron dagger, or some rugged, suburban Steven Seagal character in leather jacket with a sub-machine gun is of little to no importance. (note of this writer).
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pounding across, and within a few half hours or so, he's got the leader of the invading power on the ground. He rips off his helmet and is about to cut his head off when the knight says, "I yield, I'm your man." Well, he's learned all the lessons. He says, "You go to Arthur's court, tell them Parzival sent you." Well, during the course of the next few months, a number of people arrive in Arthur's court saying "This knight named Parzival sent me," and Arthur says, "Boy, we really lost something there." So the court sets out to find him. (Campbell 1989: In Search Of The Holy Grail). Miguel Bosé aptly describes the inconsistent bundle of attitudes in his 1982 hit song Bravo Muchachos, whereby the swashbuckling culture hero is an entire generation:
A alguno puede parecerle absurdo Y somos la fuerza Que mueve mareas y volcán -...- Seremos fuertes Luchando hasta la muerte -...-Buenos chicos, buena gente Con principios diferentes Rabia sana, sin malicia Rota el alma sin justicia Medio locos, medio tristes Pobres cristos, siempre humildes En esta vida tan vacía Tanta violencia, tanta envidia Héroes y delincuentes Buenos chicos, buena gente Is the 'good guy' (patriot, hero...) just a hooligan with a nice excuse? History seems to suggest he is, more often than commonly thought:”Throughout the Vietnam War, U.S. soldiers consumed 200 million doses of amphetamine.”1528; “ by self report, 20% of soldiers leaving Vietnam were heroin addicts” 1529.
The statistics on post-traumatic-stress-related suicides, violence, addiction, and risk-taking all point to this haunting truth: For soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, coming home is more lethal than being in combat. From the invasion of Afghanistan to the summer of 2009, the US military lost 761 soldiers in combat in that country. Compare that to the 817 who took their own lives 1528 1529
Jack Li 2006:161. Gerrig 1992: lesson 5.
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over the same period. And this number doesn’t account for deaths related to violence, high-risk behaviors, and addiction. Craig Bryan, a University of Texas psychologist and suicide expert who recently left the air force, told Time magazine that the military finds itself in a catch-22: “We train our warriors to use controlled violence and aggression, to suppress strong emotional reactions in the face of adversity, to tolerate physical and emotional pain, and to overcome the fear of injury and death. These qualities are also associated with increased risk for suicide.” (Brown 2012:97-8). In Italian, teppista is a vandal. Yet, the etymology goes back to
compagnia della teppa (fellowship of the moss), a group of Italian patriots present in Milan from 1816, and active in both goliardic and sabotage acts against then then legitimate Austrian government that controlled the northern-Italian dominion of
Lombardo-Veneto.
Salvific heroes, whose mind is on fire yearning to serve the 'great cause' up to the ultimate sacrifice, may resort -like the Samson of Hebrew lore, like Japanese Kamikazes, suicidal serial shooters or Islamic suicide bombers- to selfdestruction -the Sufi moth and flame allegory- to bring as many foes along as possible:”Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines!" Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it. Thus he killed many more when he died than while he lived. ” ( Judges 16:30). Arjuna's son Abhimanyu willingly sacrifices himself for his clan, although he knows he cannot make it back from the enemy line.
The intrinsically schizophrenic and manic bipolar1530 human mind
1530
Behavioral, not clinical, statement.
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yearns for fantasies of blood baths, dismemberment and the like, much as it alternatively yearns for oneness, reconciliation, hugs and kisses: Eros and Thanatos in Freud:”[in a study] death-related words [by participants] were more frequent after considering the carnal aspects of sex”1531.
In Precolombian civilizations, prisoners bound to be brutally sacrificed to court favors from the gods were initially treated as guests of honor to a royal feast. The same archetypal blueprint happened to Jesus, who was initially hailed into Jerusalem as a triumphant “son of David”, only to be scourged and executed “apart from god” later on:
One of my favorite neuroscience resources, the Wise Brain Bulletin, suggested that a twenty second hug is enough to send oxytocin coursing through your veins, and that you can achieve the same effect just by imagining the hug. So the next time you’re feeling anxious, you might want to imagine being wrapped up in a great big hug from someone you care about. (Cabane 2012:50). “Sex, the vital life force, often counters thoughts of death. I’ve encountered many instances of this mechanism: the patient with a severe coronary who was so sexually driven that in an ambulance carrying him to the emergency room, he attempted to grope an ambulance attendant;”(Yalom 2008:212-3). Herriman studied recurring witch hunts and collective hysteria in Indonesia, which left several people dead as “ninjas”, “sorcerers” and the like. The root source of this routine outbursts of collective fury is particular indeed, and squares with the point this writing has made all along:
1531
Solomon et alii 2015:113.
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On the surface, the intensely close relationships of kinship, propinquity, and acquaintanceship are characterised by friendliness and intimacy. Beneath this lies an undercurrent of suspicion and strangeness (Herriman 2006:5). The enduring sadness of the [U.S] vampire stories lies in the fact that the accusers were usually direct kin of the deceased: parents, spouses and their children. “Think about what it would have taken to actually exhume the body of a relative,” Bell says. (Tucker 2012:no page). That's perfectly in line with the psychotic image of gods of immemorial lore busy -like Inanna- sending genocidal floods only to regret it afterward 1532; -like Hebrew Yahweh- alternatively indulging recurring fits of both anger and forgiveness; or -like Hercules- savagely murdering his near and dear only to go on a quest to atone for the sin. It sounds suspiciously similar to the all too common cycle of domestic terrorism1533:”About 30 percent of abused and neglected children will later abuse their own children (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2013)”1534.
This is very compatible with the blueprint of psychopathology. People are not only busy worshiping -and following- psychopathic 'great men' (carpetbaggers, dictators, cult leaders...) on Earth: they enshrine psychopaths in the clouds, too:”That's a trickster stunt. That's a ridiculous act. We think it quite normal for a deity, while if a human being behaved that way we'd send him to a lunatic asylum.”.
1532
Inanna also sends her shepherd-spouse Dumuzi to his death only to regret it afterwards so that she might bring him back to life in a recurrent dying-and-rising feat. 1533 Domestic terrorism is associated with elevated levels of physical abuse. It stands in opposition to more common, “normal” levels of domestic expressions of anger (aggression, hostility etc) and even physical abuse of no (serious) medical consequences, such as throwing (some) objects at, or pushing people. 1534 Engel 2015:5.
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French Fascist intellectual Drieu De La Rochelle referred to Stalin in almost identical terms: Stalin as the master who embodies the terror of god's omnipotence.
On a completely different level, domestic violence apparently follows the same warped logic, whereby the routine outbursts of physical violence follow stages of intermission during which the (typically male) perpetrator makes formal amends, tries to put his misdeeds into a favorable perspective, and pledges to reform his nasty customs, only to unleash some more violence upon his near and dear at the first occasion (=”cycle of violence”1535).
What goes on inside (most?) contemporary families resembles an habitual situation:
The opportunistic, deceptive, and manipulative behaviors of psychopaths can be as bewildering to the victims as they are devastating. Many victims become racked with self-doubt, blaming themselves for whatever has happened. Others deny that there is any problem at all. In each case, doubts and concerns about the psychopaths in their lives are converted into doubts about themselves. (Babiak&Hare 2006:284). Legendary fits of anger are associated not only with gods, but with archpatriarchs of both lore and history such as King Saul of Israel, Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, Napoleon1536, Wilhelm II of Germany, Hitler, Amin and many others. 1535 1536
Walker 2006. Ségur writes about Napoleon:”that besides his fits of anger like all other fits were followed by exhaustion that then with the return of his natural good humour he regretted and frequently tried to soften the pain he had occasioned that finally he might reproach himself as the cause of the disorders which provoked him ”. (1827:92).
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Some characteristics of PTSD can create abusive behavior, including irritability (extreme oversensitivity to noise or minor stimuli), explosive behavior, and/or trouble modulating and controlling anger. (Engel 2015:137). Other arch-patriarchs such as Stalin are furthermore stone cold. Stalin refused an exchange of prisoners, and his son Yakov thus died in captivity during WWII; Stalin also claimed:�I have no son named Yakov�. Whether today's Samson finally winds up getting gunned down by security forces; on a no-fly list; wearing a straitjacket, or in marble on a podium covered in garlands, entirely depends on fleeting socio-political priorities.
Theravada Buddhist abbot Aggacitta relates how an evil man named U Mya Maung had finally become an arhat in 1932 seven days after his conversion. U Mya Maung's fits of anger were so terrible that he first flogged, then set his own oxen alive on fire because they were unable to ford a stream pulling a very heavy load.
A mountebank preaches to a politicized audience; he has a loaded gun concealed in case security forces should disrupt the meeting to capture politically blacklisted attendees...Which side is the average pencil-necked sweat-hog going to take?
What if the preacher is U.S abolitionist clergyman Parker, and the politically blacklisted attendees fugitive African slaves in the 1850s? After all, Parker -and others- raised funds to equip violent abolitionists such as Brown, whose
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abolitionist expeditions left several people dead.
Parker, Thoreau and others also defended the right for slaves to kill their masters. What if -on the other hand- the preacher was “the kind of person” a la Tom Metzger, Gary Lauck or G.L. Rockwell haranguing Fascist skinheads about White supremacy? Should prigs and dolts shake fists at the preacher or at security forces possibly gate-crashing to reestablish order?
One can not berate White lynch mobs enough as people of color suffered so much; on the other hand, the routine race riots that see colored crowds march, burn and loot shall be assumed to have been justly prompted by “...ism” and inequalities.
Of course, “the White race”, “order” and so forth are just spurious concepts prompted by tribal hallucinations, folkloric intoxication, and lynchian fantasies; whereas '...ism', Black brotherhood and discrimination are real...unless one chances to be in denial, of course. The writing of history is often no better than commercial comparative advertisements: the brand that commissioned the ad always comes out on top.
Their worst fears were realized when it became clear that the Confederate battle flag had been an inspiration to the whitesupremacist terrorist Dylann Roof, who in June 2015 walked into the evening service at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, one of the oldest AME churches in the United States, and opened fire, killing nine people, including Senator Clementa Pinckney, the senior pastor. In the aftermath of the massacre, even white southerners who had previously defended 1158
official displays of the flag were forced to bow to public pressure to put an end to its use, and in the (particularly egregious) case of South Carolina, finally to stop flying it from atop the state capitol. In the aftermath of Roof’s acts, the question of why the Civil War had been fought became, for the first time in decades, part of the mainstream debate.3 Many whites, northerners and southerners alike, who had seemed impervious to the proposition that the Confederacy was not a noble lost cause and that celebrating the memory of a secession that had taken place in order to preserve slavery was anything but harmless, began to reconsider their views when confronted by the undeniable fact that the racism that had been the Confederacy’s raison d’être still lived on in people like Roof. If any good news could be found, it was that, however diminished its importance in the American imagination it may have been 150 years after it had ended, the remembrance of the Civil War remained at least somewhat accessible to many if not perhaps to most Americans. (Rieff 2016:16). As this writing argues, the same story can be applied to everything. The psychotic human mind desperately scans the surroundings to detect psychical states. Today people are no longer in search of angry lions, but of frail, frightened little creatures (=victims) prigs and dolts shall then defend at all costs.
Prigs and dolts in non-judgmental rapture of oneness wish to 'swap seats' with the victim, just as a row of meek and valiant saviors have been torn apart to 'deliver us' in an era of heroes. Japanese Buddhist deity Jizo Bosatsu has several “substitute forms” as he meekly takes on one's toil and/or retribution in hell or on earth: kaue Jizo helps peasants plant rice; tachiyama Jizo takes the place of peasant women once a month so that they may rest. Buddha, Romulus, Jesus, Krishna have all forsaken the realm of the high gods to take flesh in our valley of tears to bring salvation after all: they “swapped seats” with us, indeed.
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Asclepiades of Prusa (129-40 BCE) performed miracles, including one resurrection from the funeral pyre and pioneering work with tracheotomy (according to Galen):”Asclepiades soon won over almost the whole human race; it was as if he had been sent down from heaven to help humanity ”1537.
Salvo D'Acquisto was a member of an Italian police force who in 1943 surrendered himself to the occupying German forces in order to be executed in lieu of civilian hostages in a military reprisal. Real stories that look fictional meet fictional stories that look real. In De Amicis' fictional book Cuore, schoolchild Garrone stands up to take the blame for a classmate's transgression. Teacher Perboni knows best, however. As forgiveness and reconciliation rain all over:
Having said this, he [=teacher Perboni] descended among the benches, put a hand under Garrone's chin, making him raise his face; he looked straight into his eyes and said: "You are a noble soul!" Garrone, profiting by the moment, murmured something in the ear of the teacher, who turned toward the guilty ones and said: "I forgive you." (1918:19-20). Mahayana Buddhist devotees often take Bodhisattva vows: innumerable are sentient beings, and the devotees pledges to be reborn as often as it is required to help all of them, “a messianic resolve to save the world” (Robert Thurman). Tsongkhapa -the Tibetan Buddhist Saint- summarizes it well in the Lam Rim:”For the sake of relieving the suffering of a single being, I would rejoice at remaining in hell until I attain Buddhahood. What need is there to mention my perseverance over a shorter time and lesser suffering!”. 1537
Pliny, Natural History, 26.12.
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Joseph Campbell1538 gives examples from various cultures (New Guinea, Tibet, ancient Rome) in which boys that receive initiations come to “wear the mask” or robe they formerly feared and/or worshiped as an outer reality. They undertake to embody and pass on their culture's value system. In Mahayana Buddhism, devotees “become” Bodhisattvas, just like the lore's fabulous spiritual guides: Le
mort saisit le vif [=“the dead seizes the living” ] par son hoir plus proche et habile à lui succéder (French customary law).
Situational priorities determine who -or what- one enshrines in this shtick. Some rhapsodize about motherly love who conquers all: what would a mother not do for her children? Others sing the valor of veterans: what would they not do for their homeland? What would an Islamist jihadist not do to vindicate his faith? One and the same.
In one of his discussions about Buddhist philosophy, Mullin jokingly remarks how women in the audience seem to elatedly love when he talks about mothers:”Flattery, if it can be built into a doctrine, will always attract those who succeed in finding themselves there”.
In 2013 at Borgomanero (Italy) the frail, frightened creatures in need of a champion are not Yugoslavian children, boat-people, fugitive African slaves or dogs, but...donkeys utilized in a modest folkloric ride (palio degli asini).
1538
1968d.
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Event spokesmen retort that permits have been obtained; that veterinarians and animal welfare specialists would be present to cater to the animals' needs at all times; that a jockey of color would be joining the race. Animal right activists quip that the donkeys' “emotional and physical well-being� (literally) shall be in jeopardy during the event:
Hence personification, like anthropomorphism in general, is more solidly cognitive than usually thought; it is the interpretation of the nonhuman, or only fractionally human, in terms of human characteristics. (Guthrie 1993:130). An animal right posse with cameras stalks after the palio a member of a local hippo-pedagogical association1539 and his donkey: should he use force against the frail little creature, the animal right posse would denounce him. The man concludes how his association has for ages taken children for a hike in the woods with donkeys in order to tell tales.
In 20141540, attending veterinarians assisted by uniformed and armed police forces interrupt the folkloric palio at Borgomanero: technical interventions are necessary so that bridles won't be used as riding crops in order to cause donkeys to run faster.
In 20161541, a man goes to court for having allegedly beaten a dog. Animal rights organization ENPA seeks financial compensation in court, while a lawyer celebrates that in Italy animals are judicially equated with minors and the 1539
Zonca 2013:30. Giornale Di Arona, September 12, 2014:18. 1541 Giornale Di Arona, July 29, 2016:25. 1540
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mentally handicapped. The lawyer also welcomes that the judicial sensibility threshold is being lowered regarding animal cruelty to include most circumstances.
What “kind of person” is one? First a person of color, then sweet children are wielded against the accusation of endangering the donkeys' emotional and physical well-being. If no meek, frail African slave is there to have us choke, and shake fists, as hearts of darkness whip him, donkeys in a folkloric ride shall offer a substitute.
“Psychotics who identify themselves with the mythological image” are everywhere: one is spoilt for choice, indeed. “Professional almost” Jews, homosexuals, dogs, Negroes, Natives, Chicanos etc march to take advantage of a barratrous culture as the State levies a tithe: “vario” types; “identity artists” 1542 who do not “discover” but “create experiences” (G. R. Vizenor); who enact “global cultural scripts” in the “global village” that is a grotesque caricature of U.S society:”a practice domain for modes of being” (J.B. Peterson);”But if this story is not also our story, then it is not worth retelling”.
Barratry spares none: the Council of Europe (that federates 47 States) runs “the underwear rule” as a part of a wider campaign against child sexual abuse and molestation that concerns one child every five. Children are to be taught what
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An example of such a person would be U.S activist and author Jamake Highwater. Although he was a selfproclaimed Native-American active in Native-American causes, his heritage was Greek and/or Armenian. Various dates -from the 1920s to the 1940s- are proposed for his birth: he died in 2001. Highwater's identity was described in print as “fabricated”. Highwater wrote (1986:11):”our borrowed lives are necessities in a world filled with hostility and pain -...- devoid of credible social truths”.
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constitutes potential abuse so that they may alert mandatory reporters for judicial action.
A “larger and more generous sense of fairness “ can be applied to any and all circumstances: new year's fireworks were banned in some big Italian cities in recent years to cater to animal welfare, much as ages earlier new year's fireworks had been spontaneously given up in order not to inflict emotional agony upon juvenile refugees from then war-torn Yugoslavia:”When we pity, we are, at least for the moment, defenseless”;”we’re so caught up in the drama of what happened to soand-so that we don’t have the cognitive resources to disagree. We’re so engaged in following the narrative that we don’t have the energy to question what is being said”.
Beautiful souls and their retinue of gasbags, comstockers, prigs and dolts are everywhere, and are committed to showing that the list of inequalities to redress; of abuses to legislate against; of reparations to exact; of horrors to recall aghast; of frail little creatures to champion; of indignities to atone for; of paragraphs in history books to rewrite; of sensibilities to pamper is really limitless: ”The circumstances seem changed but the cliche is in one's psyche”1543:
In May of 1972 Jon Burge, a Vietnam veteran, was promoted to police detective on Chicago’s south side. For the next twenty years Burge and other officers used torture techniques Burge learned in Vietnam to force confessions from men arrested in the neighborhood. Jon Burge eventually sent over 200 hundred men to 1543
Campbell&Toms 1988:vol. 4.
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prison based on confessions obtained through torture. The practice finally came to light during proceedings before the Police Board in 1992 -...-.Reparations are often seen in the limited terms of money. The proposal in Chicago creates the potential for the genuine transformation of a radically cruel wound. Wounds from torture will not heal without acknowledging the reality that one of the purposes of torture is to terrorize the community. The proposal erases the illusion that the crime of torture is between the victim and the perpetrator. Instead upholding a stance that honors the vital inter-connections between victim and community with a broad understanding of impact. Psychologists from the Kovler Center, a center for survivors of torture, helped to draft the bill based on the experience of survivors. (Community Reparations...2015:no page). Aucune amélioration quantitative de sa misère, aucune illusion d’intégration hiérarchique, ne sont un remède durable à son insatisfaction, car le prolétariat ne peut se reconnaître véridiquement dans un tort particulier qu’il aurait subi ni donc dans la réparation d’un tort particulier , ni d’un grand nombre de ces torts, mais seulement dans le tort absolu d’être rejeté en marge de la vie. (Debord 1967: point 114). No amount of gold could provide an adequate compensation for the exploitation and humiliation of the Negro in America down through the centuries…Yet a price can be placed on unpaid wages. (Martin Luther King in 1964). We can’t undo that level of dehumanizing in one or two generations. I believe Black Lives Matter is a movement to rehumanize black citizens. (Brown 2017b:47). Vice President Joe Biden said transgender discrimination is “the civil rights issue of our time” during a visit to a Florida field office on Tuesday, according to pool reports. (Huffington Post, October 30, 2012). It is increasingly difficult to know what the fuss is all about, since the theatrics ensue in a xeroxed manner: donkeys, boat-people, Yugoslavian children, dogs, fugitive African slaves...which is which?
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For God has imprisoned everyone in disobedience so he could have mercy on everyone. (Romans 11:32). Through the perverse ripple effect of vicarious trauma (= second person drama= hearing the accounts of trauma), victims slip increasingly out of grasp. From the real victim of a forensic murder to an entire neighborhood, country, continent, ethnic,
religious
or
cultural
group
as
victim
par
excellence
and
by
proxy:”identification and psychological proximity, rather than historical accuracy let alone political depth.”.
The shaking of those fists, the shedding of those tears, the march to show support for -or hostility against- this, that or another party, country, cause or agenda no longer is a sheepish act brainwashed zombies perform going along with what happens to be 'in' this season, but the circular re-edition (=the recapture=hyperreal repetition) of the emotionally vibrant heroism of the savior:”it has been recognized that trauma survivors are prone to “continue the action, or rather the (futile) attempt at action, which began when the thing happened.””1544.
Since it is obviously no longer 1973, 1953, 1916 etc, it all amounts to a tragicomic politicized culture-bound syndrome:”We know that our choices sometimes reflect our aversions -...-, but we assume that other people’s choices reflect their appetites-...-.The list of differences is long but the conclusion to be drawn from it is short: The self considers itself to be a very special person.”1545.
1544 1545
Van Der Kolk 2014:47. Gilbert 2006:135-136, emphasis added.
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The hero went against the grain, against all odds when his precious life hung in a balance, and history was still in the making:”mental images are
atemporal.”;”the soul never thinks without an image”1546. Professor of New Testament And Early Christianity, Moss compares the appeal of Christian martyr narratives with action movie plots, whereby the hero remains calm and defiant as 'bad guys' torture or threaten him:
almost all the Christian virgins sentenced to brothels escape with their virtue miraculously intact. These plot details are Christian equivalents of a heroine opening the basement door in a horror movie. (Moss 2013:49). Who are the priests suffering in exile in accordance with the teaching of scriptures which say, "They will be frequently exiled"? There is no such priest in Japan except Nichiren (Nichiren in 1272, in Brudnoy 1970:19). the wasteland, a land of people who do simply what they are supposed to do, or what is thought by the society well to do-people professing beliefs because they have to, holding jobs that they've inherited not earned, and so forth-a group of zombies, you might say. (Campbell&Boa 1989:59). This is the time to remember Cause it will not last forever These are the days To hold on to Cause we won't Although we'll want to (Time To Remember, Billy Joel, 1986). Faulkner reiterates1547 that what people love most is congruence:”If you make your persona one that they themselves would like to emulate, you have done your job perfectly”;”Why do we like great actors and take them seriously when we know they're only speaking lines that someone else wrote? Because they're
1546 1547
Aristotle, On The Soul, Smith trans. 2002.
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believable; because they are congruent”. Cialdini appropriates the item as the “principle of consistency”, whereas Schmidt explains congruence as “good rapport with oneself”1548.
Quite a clinching of the commonsense argument that entire nations can't be wrong; or that one can fool many people all the time, but not everybody all the time:
Economists who analyzed the decisions of Deal or No Deal contestants found something surprising. As the game progressed, contestants tended to become more and more risk seeking, almost regardless of what happened. Contestants who were unlucky kept chasing after what little money was left. Contestants who were lucky stayed in the game in search of the largest prizes. All of the sounds, lights, and excitement of the game show push the contestants to become more risk seeking than they probably would be in everyday life. (Huettel 2014:7-8). It is easy to extend Huettel's (professor of psychology and neuroscience) conclusions to elated masses electioneering pitchpersons or firebrands psych up in the name of obtuse allegories and petrified mythologies (=symbolic action shtick).
The 'recapture' of duration -against linear time- mimics the lack of significant character development in the vast majority of hero (founder, savior...) stories: the hero-savior-founder embodies immemorial duration. Heroes and saviors may sulk, squeal as they are torn apart in agony and minister to the rag-tag band of misfits who worship them: cardboard cut-outs enacting fantasies of emotional pornography. 1548
In Faulkner et alii 1993: audio 3.
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He has always been really 'special' since the very beginning (the 'child prodigy' and 'miraculous birth' angle). Like Zoroaster, Mahavira, Jesus, Nanak, Gautama Buddha, the hero is always portrayed at around the age of 30:”nostalgia or the perilous practice of comparing a current struggle with an edited version of “the way things used to be.””1549.
Having extremely vivid memories of past emotional experiences and only weak memories of past everyday events means we maintain a biased perception of the past. We tend to view the past as a concentrated time line of emotionally exciting events. We remember the arousing aspects of an episode and forget the boring bits. A summer vacation will be recalled for its highlights, and the less exciting parts will fade away with time, eventually to be forgotten forever. -...-An imprecise picture of the past is one reason for our inaccurate forecasts of the future. (Sharot 2011:60). It is the very absence of psychological complexity that fuels [a man's] arousal. For if these women were real—if they had feelings, needs, insecurities, opinions—an entire closetful of boots wouldn’t do it. In these fantasies, complex personalities are substantially narrowed down to get just what he wants from them. The women in his pornographic movies must be sufficiently empty (i.e., objectified) to absorb his imaginary projections and fulfill his needs. (Perel 2006:171). Often, the name tells a great deal already. Heroes, saviors, gods etc are therefore personified metaphors of iffy gnostic import that are later historicized to identify presumed real-life characters. At play is the neurotic fixation humans have to talk in mythological terms about abstract qualities that are personified, and to later “euhemerize” such projections in terms of historical facts:
Most traditions realize this-that deities are personifications, not 1549
Brown 2015:146.
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facts. They are metaphors. They're not references to anything that you can put your finger on, or your eye on. They are metaphors transparent to transcendence. -...-It is a symbol of the spiritual biography of that man, and all of the elements of the biography are symbolic. Just through reading them properly you learn the message. (Campbell&Boa 1989:28,39). Unlike the Jewish and Christian scriptures, which glory in names and dates and the verisimilitude of historical accuracy, the Daodejing “contains no dates and mentions no proper names, nothing that would tie it to history.” Its home ground is the timeless aphorism. Its core concept, the Dao, floats above and beyond the vicissitudes of historical time. As for Laozi himself, there is some chance that he never lived, so the Daodejing may well be the work of multiple authors. -...-Laozi’s mother, also known as Holy Mother Goddess -...- Laozi was not only divine but the Way itself. In this way the Dao was transformed from an impersonal principle to a personal divinity, and the textual Daoism of Laozi and Zhuangzi began to merge with the gods and goddesses of Chinese popular religion.(Prothero 2010:98,102). Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6). Adam of Hebrew lore, and Manu of Hindu lore are simply “ (the) man”; various female figures of Polinesian mythology are aptly called Hina, “ (the) woman/girl”. An Hebrew prophet aptly bears the name Elijah: “Yahweh is my god”. (King) Arthur is probably a title of some sort of warlord, which derives from “bear” and -in turn- from the goddess Artemis.
St. Expedit -object of a syncretic cult on the Réunion island that assimilated this Christian Saint in red to Hindu goddess Kali- is a Saint who -just as his name implies- “expedites” urgent matters. Prometheus means “ (man of) foresight”, whereas his brother Epimetheus (“(man of) hindsight”) let Pandora in, just as his name suggests. Which could the name be of a wrestler nicknamed Macho 1170
Man? Randy Savage fits perfectly 1550. Another wrestler died in 2014: he was born J.B. Hellwig, but legally changed his name to assume that of his wrestling persona: (Ultimate) Warrior.
Porisada of Buddhist lore is -in fact- a former King who goes native as he becomes an anthropophagite (eater of men as his name implies); Angulimala is a serial killer as his name (garland of fingers) suggests; Hercules' wife Deianira brings about Hercules' demise just as her name (destroyer of men) implies; Arjuna's name means “pure”, whereas his Pandava brother Bhima (=”the terrible”) is the strongest man alive as the miraculous son of princess Kunti, and of Vayu, the god of wind; Abhimanyu is Arjuna's son, whose name invokes self-pride ( abhiman). Allah (the god of Islam) is simply “the god”. Another Pandava is Yudhisthira (steady in war1551), the son of Kunti (=spear) and of Dharma, the god of judgment 1552. Taoism founder Lao-Tzu aptly means “(the) old teacher”. Vishnu's avatar Ram (Rama) may either be a mighty prince who lived in a particular time and place, or the mystical embodiment of Sikh Vaheguru (god as “wonderful teacher” who resides everywhere at all times).
Mythical Cuzco Kingdom founder and lawgiver is suitably called Manco Capac (“royal founder”); the Queen of Carthage is aptly named Dido, the wanderer;
The athlete's true name was Randy Mario Poffo (1952-2011). A Greek counterpart would be names such as Agamemnon (“steady in contest”) and those beginning in Mene-... 1552 Unlike more modest royal virgins of Graeco-Roman or Jewish lore, Kunti begets several divine children from several high gods. A sage had bestowed a mantra upon her so that any god of her choice would bless her with a child. 1550 1551
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Buddha is Siddhartha, or “one who has accomplished a goal”, and Gautama, which reads as “dispeller of darkness” (=one who accomplished the goal of dispelling darkness). Saint Steven (the I martyr from the Book Of Acts) means “crowned”, as Christian thought saw martyrs as crowned in heaven 1553. Jesus, Joshua or variations of such a name, might have been generic titles reserved to a number of messianic Hebrew figures. “Nazarene” might also have been construed as a title, “holy one”.
A character in the Porky's movie franchise is named Meat: an ItaloAmerican skirt-chaser with the biggest phallus in town. Judas Iscariot in some interpretations means “Jude the liar”, a proxy for the Jewish people in rising Christianity. U.S Cartoon segment Galaxy Trio (1967-9) includes three space superheroes: Vapor Man, Meteor Man and Gravity Gal: readers can make safe guesses about them already.
Hebrew prophets around the time of Elijah (IX century BCE) wanted to emphasize how their god “was not”1554 in the wind, earthquake and fire as all those nature gods pagans worshiped (the root of Semitic Yahweh is related to that of Latin Iovis, or Jupiter, a supreme sky god-king just like Yahweh). Hindu Nirvana Shaktam by Adi Shankara (VIII-IX century CE) dedicates a similar song to Shiva: “I am not mind, nor intellect, nor ego -...- not the five senses -...-I am indeed -...- Shiva, love and pure consciousness”.
1553
“And when the Lamb opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony they had upheld.” (Revelation 6:9). 1554 1 Kings 19:11ss.
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Today, politicking hacks harangue mugwumps: mister immigration amnesty; mister holding-no-grudges; mister personable; mister homeland first; mister huge tax breaks and subsidies speaks:”identification and psychological proximity, rather than historical accuracy let alone political depth.”;”It's hard for me to separate who I am from what I want to do”;”United Russia is my flesh and blood” declared Russian President Medvedev in 2011 as he was leaving office1555.
In September 2015, Putin and Berlusconi1556 -two 'great men' who embody values- have a toast in Crimea under Russian occupation with a US$ 150.000 bottle of Jerez De La Frontera as Italy, Ukraine and Russia face endemic crises, albeit for different reasons.
NLP and advertisement specialist Boothman begs to agree:”Find something to set you apart from the rest. Give them something to remember you by.”1557;”Finally, develop opinions. They can be similar to others in your field or dissenting. One thing all gurus have in common is opinions they can call their own.”1558;”[create] a conversation piece”1559. NLP practitioner Lazarus lards his NLP advice with jargon dividing each step into tidy sub-steps with catchy little names that sound academic and impressive.
The appeal these walking exempla exert is so great that instant
RT.com, October 15, 2011. Corriere Della Sera, September 15, 2015. 1557 Boothman 2000:114. 1558 Lakhani 2005:70. 1559 Berger 2013:9. 1555 1556
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allowances are made:”[The public] only wanted one thing from [a given public figure]: a story. He told it so well that we forgave him almost everything. ”;“[it] helped people to believe.”;”We want -...- original content regardless of its validity. We're here for the scare, not for the plausibility”.
The power of the story is so powerful that, although human nature is in itself heedless, fickle and duplicitous, some relationships (parent-child; politiciantaxpayer; master-disciple; clergyman-congregation...) are mysteriously considered to rest on completely different grounds, perhaps because they embody 'great values'. Popeye is an ordinary man until he gobbles his dose of spinach, which turns him into a superhero...in comic books, of course.
People are later shocked when the umpteenth Catholic priest is caught in a financial or sexual scandal; when the next politician directs to his offshore slush fund donations directed to some 'great cause'; when the next oriental spirituality guru sexually and financially exploits his groupies without any sense of shame; when family members victimize and/or gaslight one another mercilessly 1560:
Chandeliering is especially common and dangerous in “power-over” situations— environments where, because of power differentials, people with a higher position or status are less likely to be held accountable for flipping out or overreacting. These are places where 1560
Terentyev explains thus Tibetan Buddhist doctrine:”We are willing, if male, to be with another's wife - or with an unmarried woman whose parents forbid it, or with any other inappropriate partner - when the woman has the strong wish to develop bodhichita but is overwhelmed with desire for sex with us and who, if she were to die not having had sex with us, would carry the grudge as an instinct into future lives. As a result, she would be extremely hostile toward bodhisattvas and the bodhisattva path.” (ME6217:unit 6:6). Corrupt gurus and lusty lamas find such elusive and byzantine explanations all too handy:”much of the psychopath's behavior and motivation makes sense if we think of him or her as a person rooted completely in the present and unable to resist a good opportunity.” (Hare 1993:88).
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our powerlessness and hurt get worked out. We maintain our prized stoicism in front of the people we want to impress or influence, but the second we’re around people over whom we have emotional, financial, or physical power, we explode. And because it’s not a side of us seen by many of the higher-ups, our version of the story is framed as truth. We see power-over chandeliering in families, churches, schools, communities, and offices. And when you mix in issues like gender, class, race, sexual orientation, and age —the combination can be lethal. -...- In research terms, we think about blame as a form of anger used to discharge discomfort or pain. The shame-blame combo is so common because we’re desperate to get out from underneath the pain of shame, and we see blame as a quick fix.-...-It doesn’t have to make sense either. It just has to give us some sense of relief and control. In fact, for most of us who rely on blaming and finding fault, the need for control is so strong that we’d rather have something be our fault than succumb to the bumper-sticker wisdom of “shit happens.” If stuff just happens, how do I control that? Fault-finding fools us into believing that someone is always to blame, hence, controlling the outcome is possible. But blame is as corrosive as it is unproductive. (Brown 2015:50,126). In fact, when you are trapped in the loop, the only way to get some relief without disengaging is to switch roles. You change from judged to judge or vice versa. What does this mean? It means you become the one who feels powerful instead of the one who feels powerless. If you have just gone through an experience of feeling attacked, perhaps without knowing it, and the sense of helplessness and shame that arises is difficult to tolerate, it is not uncommon to find yourself becoming critical of others or aggressively ordering them around, be they employees, spouse, children, pets, or objects. In this way, you temporarily escape your own powerlessness at the judged end of the loop and take on the powerful state of the judge. It doesn't matter if the external situation is different from the one that made you feel judged (this generally makes it easier to switch roles, in fact), because the judgment loop is inside you wherever you go. (Brown 1998:128-129). Although the number of people who suffer from emotional abuse as children and who either become emotionally abusive themselves as adults or become involved with partners who emotionally abuse them is phenomenal, few people are cognizant of how this form of abuse has deeply affected their lives. (Engel 2002:1).
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If some sort of character development unfolds – such as in Rocky, Karate
Kid, No Retreat No Surrender, Matrix etc- it only means the hero -such as divine founders Romulus, Hercules, Buddha (Mahayana) or Jesus 1561- 'rediscovers' his inner self that had been there all along, such as a call to vindicate manifest destinies, Buddha-nature, and so forth:
Where Utnapishtim had become wise by speaking with a god, Gilgamesh has learned to reflect upon his own experience without divine aid. He has lost some illusions, but gained ‘complete wisdom’, returning ‘weary but at last resigned’ (Armstrong 2005:31). Contemporary popular culture and academia deliver the same mimeographed message. It is hard to doubt people in other periods or geographic frames might have projected the same elated admiration we nowadays project on garden variety busybodies -across all the provinces of the political spectrum- onto the likes of Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Saddam Hussein, Amin, Bokassa, Pol Pot and others:
In an attempt to describe his sense of personal identity, one of the exemplars, Cabell Brandextnote, explained in an interview, "Who I am is what I'm able to do and how I feel all the time-each day, each moment . . . : It's hard for me to separate who I am from what I want to do and what I am doing." (Stout 2005:194-5). My life is my message (attributed to Gandhi, Sai Baba and others).
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In the apocryphal infancy gospel tradition, Jesus progressively learns to use his powers for the good of all instead of as a way to reward the ego. extnote Founder of a center “founded primarily to give students in the colleges of this region an opportunity to study and research issues of poverty “ as the Center's site would have it. Cabell Brand published a call to action titled “If not me, then who?”. (Un)surprisingly enough, Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha also gave the same explanation as he vowed to help sentient beings by visiting hell realms. (note of this writer).
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”"My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.” (John 4:34). So Jesus said, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. (John 8:28, emphasis added). Even the evergreen good guy ↔ bad guy shtick tells nothing about a given character in particular, but only belabors stale gnostic truth about the nature of every human being as a sort of doctor Jekyll and mister Hyde 1562 interplay that might apply to Hercules, Darth Vader, or to any drone waiting in line to join the rat race at 6h45 AM in Tokyo, New York or Paris.:”Deep in our soul A quiet ember Know it's you against you It's the paradox That drives us on”1563.
It therefore doesn't strictly matter whom or what is one exactly marching for -or against-, and shaking fists at exactly:
Drawing again from the semiotic origin of the Zombie, this creature has always in some fashion “followed” something or someone. (Lizardi 2009:44). As the global unleashing of unrestrained market-forces intensifies anxieties about the integrity of the body and generates horrifying images of bewitched accumulation, of occult forces exploiting zombie-labour, critical theory thus needs an alliance with the fantastic. In seizing upon fabulous images of occult capitalism, critical theory ought to read them the way psychoanalysis interprets dreams – as a necessarily coded form of subversive knowledge whose decoding promises radical insights In 1844, A. Ladbroke Wigan published A New View Of Insanity: Duality Of The Mind . He saw the brain's two hemispheres as independent and able to work either in synergy or antagonism. A more civilized “left brain” faces a more primitive and emotional “right brain”. The concept fascinated Stevenson, whence the famous story (1886). 1563 Rocky IV (1985) soundtrack Burning Heart. Wolfram's Parzifal tells more or less the same “but he who is false and unsteadfast, he is black as the darkest night, and the soul that hath never wavered stainless its hue and white! (Weston trans.)” 1562
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and transformative energies. Mining a popular imaginary populated by vampires, zombies and malevolent corporations that abduct and dissect people, critical theory needs to construct shock-effects that allow us to see the monstrous dislocations at the heart of commodified existence. And, because modern bourgeois consciousness was decisively shaped by its colonialist horror over African peoples and their customs, it is fitting that our investigation should culminates in Chapter Three with an interrogation of the poetic knowledge animating fables of monstrosity that emanate today from Sub-Saharan Africa. (McNally 2011:7-8). it follows that symporeia (collective movement) has a particular role to play in human cognition and emotional intelligence, beyond its usual role of creating social cohesion and reinforcing group identity. In neural terms, movement is the essential interpersonal communicator of emotion and empathy. Furthermore, the role of mirror neurons in cognition has also been linked to proprioception, which is the sense of the relative position of different parts of the body in relation to each other, or what might be termed the orientation of one’s limbs in space. (Meineck no date-2:8). Practice synchronization in all your activities, whether you're in an interview, at a bus stop, dealing with your children, calming an unhappy customer, or talking to the teller at the bank, the flower seller, the barman at the pub. You're not likely to run out of partners. Make it a part of your life for the next few days until you are competent without trying—until it becomes second nature. (Boothman 2000:86). [Jesus] bade us therefore make as it were a ring, holding one another's hands, and himself standing in the midst-...-He began, then, to sing an hymn and to say -...-Grace danceth. I would pipe; dance ye all. Amen -...-The Whole on high hath part in our dancing. Amen. -...-Whoso danceth not, knoweth not what cometh to pass. Amen. (apocryphal Acts Of John, possibly II century, M.R. James trans.). It turns out the warm human soul and its wonderful feelings is -in a state of rest, of course- taken aback by unabashed, brash displays of that much soughtafter, exalted and memorialized oneness of the pack on the part of both actual 1178
culprits, and the swarms of armchair supporters.
This also explains Jack Kornfield's popular -yet chloroformicpresentation style; the same applies to Pure Land Buddhist nun Wuling, right-hand person to noted master Chin Kung. NLP and hypnotherapy practitioner S.G. Jones also extols the virtues of the “monotone voice” that can put people in a sort of trance conducive to doing the master persuader's bidding:
And when a Jewish fanatic murdered taxi driver Taysir Karaki, who drove him from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, quite a number of respondents hurried to the Ynet and Walla! Web sites, and also to that of Haaretz, to celebrate the blood that was spilled. "Those Arabs can just keep on whining," they typed. "What is an Arab doing in Tel Aviv anyway? He was probably planning a terror attack." And in the best of succinct talkback style: "Poor Arabs hahaha." This is not right, this is not left, this is evil. (Oz-Salzberger 2007: no page). In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machinegunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright, ‘I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so’. Probably, therefore, he will say something like this: ‘While freely conceding 1179
that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement.’.The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics’. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. (Orwell 1946: no page). R.M. Price at one conference1564 reveals he was taken aback at a convention attracting a public of campaigning atheists: a defrocked Scandinavian pastor claimed he hated god. Price thus wondered whether the convention was really about secular humanism, or whichever other posh name may be interchangeably used to make atheism more palatable, just as Orwell explains above.
Richard Carrier1565 goes on an endless, impassioned tirade about clusters of the atheist/humanist movement who allegedly prevent women, homosexuals and minorities from joining the movement with incredible harassment campaigns, which prove especially intolerable to women.
The stereotypical atheist audience is 2:1 male and White, as it would have been the case with Marxism in a remote past. Carrier then attacks the show host who raises doubts about all those presumed harassment stories in the terms of 1564 1565
2010. March 22, 2014, Skeptic Fence Show.
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the host “being the kind of person who” thinks a story false just because a woman tells it...just like Carrier does with Christians and their miracles.
Prominently featured in atheist Christ-myth documentary The God
Who Wasn't There (2005), left-wing leaning “fact-checking” SNOPES.COM is mentioned thus by UK Daily Mail:”Facebook 'fact checker' [Snopes.com co-founder David Mikkelson] who will arbitrate on 'fake news' is accused [by ex-wife and website co-founder Barbara] of defrauding website to pay for prostitutes - and its staff includes an escort-porn star” 1566. “David claimed Barbara took millions from their joint accounts and bought property in Las Vegas. He has since remarried to a former escort and porn actress, Elyssa Young, who is one of the site’s staff members.”1567.
In July-August 2016, Carrier is allegedly involved in a purported sexual harassment lawsuit with a female victim, also a member of the atheist community. Champion of feminist “social justice” Carrier shifts gears and ridicules his opponents as he presses legal charges: he no longer “believes the survivor”, as his advice formerly ran. He's barred from attending popular atheist conference Skepticon, and his “freethought blog” is “suspended” as he fences with mortally offended lefty gadflies he formerly spearheaded.
Carrier criticizes the “kind of person” atheist/humanist circles tend to attract -much as Price does- as if there were audiences of an higher caliber Carrier 1566 1567
December 22, 2016. Schilling 2017:no page.
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(Price etc) might speak to as he plugs his books while being on the lookout for donations or sponsorship. Inversely, Obama speaks at Milan as a private citizen. To hear him bloviate on May 9, 2017, attendees shall pay euro 850 each: “a rock star event” quip adoring journalists.
Trying to make women (GLBT people or any category) feel uncomfortable for the sake of it might not be nice, but then the goal of the entire atheist/humanist movement is -indeed- to make devout religionists -whether Christians, Mormons or otherwise- feel uncomfortable about themselves and their beliefs: atheists typically retort theirs to be forensic truth bigots can't stomach.
The atheist/humanist movement, however, is a mixed bag indeed. Some may act out like mortally offended Marxist pansies, whereas others court right-wing audiences. Sam Harris, another of the Dalai Lamas of secular humanism, wrote in 2005:”I am one of the few people I know of who has argued in print that torture may be an ethical necessity in our war on terror. ”.
He also wrote “Some
propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them. ”. Poker-faced Harris unflinchingly defends both an opposition to the death penalty, and a blank cheque to garrison state expediency against an unspecified gamut of anti-socials.
At the Freethought Festival (a watering hole for atheists and their ilk) in 2013 a talk berated the twin blasphemies of Creationism and...climate change denial. On September 22, 2016, Terror Management Theory luminary Solomon 1182
delivers an explosive tirade (Fatal Attraction) at the New York Society for Ethical
Culture. “Trump will murder the planet”, Solomon clinches, because Trump is skeptical about man-made climate change.
Academic cronyism and political innuendo reach their nadir as Solomon is poised to warn people about quacks and their phony doomsday hogwash spun to enthrall the gullible with apocalyptic imagery in case of non-compliance, which is what Solomon himself is also doing.
Solomon himself claims1568 he doesn't believe that trying to scare people into compliance with doomsday scenarios really works. There is -Solomon addsevidence to the contrary1569. So why would Solomon do what he otherwise denounces as ineffective? “Serving the great cause”, perhaps? How different might Solomon's “ultimate concern” differ from Trump's if not ideologically or politically? “an individual is an imaginary particle of the ideological representation of society.”.
Jewish-American scholar Tannen wishes to add the scourge of Holocaust Denial to Global Warming denial and Creationism. Religionists are often ridiculed for their obsolete “five precepts”, “five pillars” or “ten commandments”, but is there any different between “five”, “ten”, “eleventeen” commandments or Tannen's three?
All that bigoted advocates want is a “plus one” commandment so that they can get their pet peeves and neurosis accommodated. What if one violates or 1568 1569
Horgan 2016. Smokers in Europe, Solomon says, are not only undeterred by threatening warning on cigarettes, but intrigued by the same.
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disbelieves a commandment? Every “proud ...ist” (scient-ist; religion-ist...) wants a lawyer to serve the transgressor; wants laws to impose fines, restrictions or jail; wants hooligans to meet the “sinner” in the parking lot: one and the same.
Tannen scoffs at the fetish for balanced views she otherwise espouses:
A scale will balance only when the items placed on both sides are of equal weight. When journalists showcase marginal, extreme, or even thoroughly discredited views and people in order to provide balance, they give them more weight than they deserve and bestow upon them the credibility of the press. -...-What we have is the culture of critique. The press is poised to pounce on allegations of scandal, giving them primacy over every other kind of news. And the standards by which scandals are judged have declined. Allegations make the news, no matter where they come from, often without proof or even verification. (Tannen 1998:42,277). According to Dr. Ignatiev, “The key to solving the social problems of our age is to abolish the white race.”.“Make no mistake about it,” he says, “we intend to keep bashing the dead white males, and the live ones, and the females too, until the social construct known as `the white race` is destroyed–not `deconstructed` but destroyed.”.What “social construct” will be left? A black one? An Hispanic one? Muslim? Asian? What about Jewish? The Washington Times reports that Dr. Ignatiev is himself Jewish. If Jewish intellectuals and Israeli political leaders can be believed, Jews have a cultural and racial consciousness. Israel is the Jewish homeland, and Israelis seem determined to keep it that way. Can anyone imagine a gentile at an Israeli university founding a magazine devoted to abolishing the Jewish race? Yet, Dr. Ignatiev believes that it is self-evident that whites in their homelands should be abolished. (Roberts 2002:no page). How to reduce the dissonance caused by the information that America, too, has been systematically violating the Geneva Convention? One way is to say that if we do it, it isn't torture. "We do don't torture," said George Bush, when he was confronted with evidence that we do. "We use an alternative set of procedures. A second way to reduce dissonance is to say that if we do torture anyone, it's justified. The prisoners at Abu Ghraib deserved 1184
everything they got, said Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), because "they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood on their hands." (Tavris&Aronson 2007:202). The vast majority of such people are just gamesmen trying to enter speaking circuits, or to secure gigs, research grants, positions or book sales making bombastic statements they can endlessly re-frame to suit whichever constituency might be buying the book or paying the entrance ticket.
Neuroscientist J.C. Wathey fulminates against Trump and indifference towards global warming: he's speaking to a Center For Inquiry audience about “the illusion of god's presence”. How could he do otherwise? Meanwhile, President Trump pardons Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, whom he dubs “an American patriot who kept Arizona safe” in August 2017. The judicial system had sentenced Arpaio for organizing special police patrols targeting (illegal) immigrants.
Just weeks before leaving office, President Obama on Monday issued 78 pardons and commuted the sentences of 153 prisoners, extending his acts of clemency to a total of 1,324 individuals, one of the larger uses of the presidential power to show mercy in modern presidential history. -...- Of the 231 people who received a pardon or a reduced sentence from Mr. Obama, virtually all had been serving sentences under tough antidrug laws (New York Times, December 19, 2016). A 2014 talk1570 by atheist speaker Tod Billings (Arkansas Society Of
Freethinkers) spells out loud and clear which the priorities are for this high-ranking atheist honcho, who professionally debates Christians and religionists: homosexual
1570
How To Debate A Christian.
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and abortion rights, and climate change. Billings even states he doesn't care whether people harbor deistic (= generic belief in god/s) views, as long as they agree with the party line: ”So we need to build our own Trojan horses, embedding our products and ideas in stories that people want to tell.”1571:
The Northeast Conference on Science & Skepticism has withdrawn its invitation to Richard Dawkins to participate at NECSS 2016. We have taken this action in response to Dr. Dawkins’ approving retweet of a highly offensive [=possibly misogynistic] video. Elated votaries praise Harris, Dennett, Dawkins and Hitchens as “the four horsemen” of atheism: no middle schoolboy on behavior medications could get more hackneyed.
One of the Italian replicas of Dawkins is Piergiorgio Odifreddi, an academic and a mathematician, who -clearly and without hesitations- declares himself both an hardcore fan of science, and an old-school Communist who flirted on and off with Partito Democratico.
Odifreddi -who also taught philosophy at universities- proves to be as droll as Dawkins as he elatedly praises Mahayana Buddhism that -in his (un)informed opinion- provides a bedrock for Communist regimes in China and Vietnam. In his all too common prostitution of just about anything to adventitious political goals, Odifreddi fails to mention Japan, and Taiwan as Mahayana countries: hardly Communist havens. He furthermore reduces the roughly 30 centuries of
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Berger 2013:19.
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Chinese civilization -until 1949 under either a conservative Empire or a nationalist Republic- to the last few decades of Communist rule: what perspective wouldn't 'the good guys' adopt to serve 'the great cause'. Will pencil-necked sweat-hogs then relay Odifreddi's very personal views as 'academic truth'? Readers be the judge.
Televangelists and fundamentalist Christians still inveigh against the GLBT community, but politely and defensively refuse to quote the purportedly divine truth on which their stance is based entirely:
If a man practices homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman, both men have committed a detestable act. They must both be put to death, for they are guilty of a capital offense. (Leviticus 20:13, emphasis added). You[=Jews] are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. (John 8:44). After all, their sacred texts may very well violate laws, precedents or statutes in several jurisdictions, so the story is refurbished to become at least palatable. The retribution befalling homosexuals -for example- is either postponed to the afterlife, or left very vague:”Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.”1572.
In 2016, Christian fundamentalist pastor Steven Anderson declares:”if the Bible condones slavery, then I condone slavery. Because the Bible's always right
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Leviticus 18:22.
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about every subject”. Frazzled believers, too, “are not the kind of person” to believe in such barbarities. The Hebrew Bible has been in existence as an established text for Zoroastrian dilemmas for ages: it all dissolves into endless shades of gray...
If ridicule is invoked to characterize the fundamentalist right, Price's uncanny encounter shows that militant sides, whichever their ax to grind happens to be, are but a diverse and colorful cabinet of curiosities bringing together the many heads of the same hydra, which often are as dissimilar as the hydra as a whole is from what it so vehemently opposes.
For example, fundamentalist Christians may rub elbows with activists of reaganite, racialist, tea party or survivalist persuasion; atheists may rub elbows with green progressives, bereft Soviet enthusiasts, GLBT activists, gauche caviar intellectuals, xeno- and homophiles, minorities etc. Every category thinks that the chap sitting in the next section is pretty weird and “doesn't belong here”.
Leading leftist scholar Paglia1573, a declared lesbian and revolutionary, froths at the mouth as she indignantly denounces academic neo-marxism and postmodernism as a travesty based upon third-rate French scholarship (Lacan, Foucault, Derrida etc). She vehemently protests against comparing all that with the revolutionary,
rugged
Sixties:
Jung,
“consciousness
effervescence, psychedelics, and “grand narratives” included.
1573
2017.
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studies”,
proletarian
For intents and purposes of First and Fifth amendment protection, U.S courts treat “secularism” or “atheism” as a religion:
Senior District Judge Ancer Haggerty ruled that prison officials violated inmate Jason Holden’s constitutional rights under the First and Fifth Amendments, and moved to recognize secular humanism as a religion for “Establishment Clause purposes.” The case, co-filed by the American Humanist Association, marks a victory for secular groups seeking access to the same legal rights afforded to Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews and Muslims (Ashtari 2014:no page). Communism is impudent with respect to mystery. It is a sterilized variety, I would say, of biblical mythology. It foresees only one society and the triumph of that society over the whole face of the earth. People outside aren’t even considered to be people—they’re liquidated with perfect impunity and nobody feels any guilt for it. -...-The big ideological quarrel between Russia and Red China, for example, is over who is interpreting this scripture correctly. It is a kind of scholastic quibble with reference to an unassailable book. Then you have those saints of the tradition who are embalmed, and are its true interpreters. Instead of icons of Jesus in his mother’s arms, you have images of Mao and Stalin everywhere, so that the individual is related to the society by way of mythologized human figures. (Campbell 1976:no page). It turns out, however, that the hydra's heads that gnash their teeth, and spew venom or fire rally bigger crowds than those wearing bow-tie, monocle, and who talk in terms of chloroformic shades of gray meant to satisfy all equally: the various Christian groups based upon a “god hates [insert scapegoat here] “ approach are an example.
As R.M. Price argues1574, that's rearguard action meant to safeguard the (remaining) faithful from the camel of (post)modernisn that's already in the tent.
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2009.
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Evolution is nowadays mainstream; with divorce and sexual promiscuity gnawing at the faithful's credal and spiritual integrity, an “at least we are not one of those” (for example homosexuals) last-ditch battle is fought.
Some Christian denominations even stumble farther trying to reach out for new constituencies, whose social and electoral weight appears on the rise. In 1991 the U.S Presbyterian Church published a report (Keeping Body And Soul
Together) containing a radical shift of perspective, which the General Assembly later rejected 534 to 31:
It may be said simply: Where there is justice-love, sexual expression has ethical integrity. That moral principle applies to single, as well as to married persons, to gay, lesbian and bisexual persons, as well as to heterosexual persons. The moral norm for Christians ought not be marriage, but rather justice-love. (in Hirsley 1991: no page). In 2013, Pope Francis I reaches out to a diverse cohort of religious transgressors (homosexuals, women who underwent abortions, common law relationships1575...) under the sign of a skeleton key of spirituality: who are we to judge, because we are equally tainted after all. In November 2014, Pope Francis once again severely chastises abortion and euthanasia as sinful acts “false compassion”1576 often justifies: accommodated truths.
The dew of reconciliation, however, does not come for free. Catholic media -in fact- expect the composite galaxy of sinners to crawl in unrestricted self1575
Sources claim that in Italy in 2006 260.000 weddings were celebrated versus 480.000 common law relationships. 1576 TgCom24, November 15 2014.
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denial, to loathe the sin they committed, and to reform in accordance with Catholic teachings so that reincorporation may take place after a long probation. The Catholic Church probably got our society's pecking order upside down.
'Good guys' or culture heroes need not necessarily to be hooligans frothing at the mouth. Eckel1577 gives anecdotal examples related to a visit of the Dalai Lama to Vermont. Devotees -who could otherwise have approached himwaited for the Dalai Lama to leave, then put flowers on the seat he had occupied: “The basic vocabulary of Buddhist worship. The Buddha is gone -...- we can't get access to him -...- but he has left behind powerful places -...-[to] get access in some way to the power he has left behind”, “sacred place-...- where the sacred and the profane intersect”1578.
The idea that deceased members of Fascist action squads could be 'martyrs' in charge of protecting the horde of the faithful from heaven reads like the dystopian concoction of an hallucinating quack, yet it was just the version of the same old cliches championed by another regime.
The masses have never enough of making the experience of the mythical past into the present, with its imagery of sacrificial dismemberment as moment of foundational creation, just as remote forefathers endlessly retold their creation myths.
1577 1578
2003:lecture 8. Voth 2010:The Continuing Importance Of Myth.
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The increasingly senile veteran and witness -whether by an individual or collective standpoint- cannot bear to hear -let alone to experience- that the world moved on, and it is no longer 1916, 1944, 1953 (the Moncada Barracks attack in Cuba), 1973 (The Yom Kippur war)...
Whence the common occurrence of hoaxes and fabrications of all kinds across the political and credibility spectrum, which try to keep mythical time alive:”[Jesus said]do this in remembrance of me ” (1 Corinthians 11:24). The durva grass has been associated with Hindu god Ganesha since a sage cured the god who was ill with such an herb in a time before time. Ganesha thus pleased ordered the durva grass to be thenceforth associated with him.
The agent of a minority watchdog group applies for a “neo-nazi rally” permit; credentialed scientists at the top of the ladder are enmeshed in the Piltdown man, Nebraska man or cold fusion fabrications. A non-profit organization that incessantly heckles about 'doing something now' about this or that plight or injustice is revealed as a “financial black hole” in which hefty donations disappear to the advantage of profligate politicking managers; of course little to nothing is concretely done about 'the great cause'.
Operators at Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua temple, known as the Tiger Temple, are accused of wildlife trafficking and animal abuse. They deny the charges. -...-The Buddhist temple first started taking in tigers nearly 20 years ago and since then has developed into a big and profitable tourist attraction. -...-22 people had been charged with wildlife possession and trafficking, including 17 members of the temple's foundation and three monks caught trying to flee with 1192
a truckload of tiger skins on Thursday. It followed the discovery of the 40 dead tiger cubs inside a freezer. (BBC News, June 4, 2016). The psychotic longing for a universal, trans-historical meaning -with or without religious overtones- that permeates the achronotopos for ever and ever is in sharp contrast with history books that are literally packed with 'zero hour' moments that appeal to different groups in different ways:
La classe dominante -...- doit lier son sort au maintien de cette histoire réifiée, à la permanence d’une nouvelle immobilité dans l’histoire. (the dominant class shall tie its fate to its ability to sustain this version of history made tangible, to a new kind of stillness in history.) Debord 1967:point 143). vertigo (without time) and hallucination (but with complete transparency of detail). (Gane 1991:130). Stolorow makes an interesting point about the impact of trauma, one that the Buddha’s psychology also supports. Trauma takes us out of time. There is no past or future when one is overtaken by it; it is as if it were happening now. “Experiences of trauma become freeze-framed into an eternal present in which one remains forever trapped, or to which one is condemned to be perpetually returned through the portkeys supplied by life’s slings and arrows,”(Epstein 2013:85). Moreover, it is amply documented how transcendental idealism – with its manifest destinies, fabulous genealogies, providential leaders, unparalleled heritages and divine calls to action- is after all one of the main causes of war, injustice and slaughter.
The best way to realize this is to consider how different segments of the world population refer to different dating systems. Although the European one -based upon Christianity- is the more widespread, the Muslim, Jewish or Buddhist 1193
year is also used in several countries: different 'zero hour' moments. Practicing Jews divide the time from sunset to sundown: the new day begins at sundown, not at midnight.
Time-keeping is sacred: the province of priesthood since Mesopotamian civilizations down to the Egyptians, Romans and the Catholic Church. Dominant elites and their ideologies are the sole arbiters in setting yardsticks and shifting goalposts when 'editing' the stream of historical events.
and since Paullus Fabius Maximus, the proconsul and benefactor of the province, sent by the right hand and reason of the god, in addition to all the other benefits he has conferred on the province, benefits of a size to beggar description, has devised to honour Augustus something hitherto unknown to the Greeks; to begin time from his birthday. For that reason, with good fortune and safety, the Greeks of Asia have decided that the New Year in all the cities should begin on 23rd September, the birthday of Augustus; and that the Greek date should be used as well as the Roman date so as to ensure that the dates in the various cities correspond ( Decree Of The League Of Asia about 9 BCE, Braund trans.). The French revolution tried to cross the border to the fairy land of utopia not only with 'progressive' laws, noyades1579, and Terreur, but with collective rituals and the subversion of customary time-keeping 1580: the abolition of the ancient calendar; decimal time; dĂŠcades in place of weeks1581.
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Mass-drownings. Another important occurrence is the era fascista, that is 'political' time-keeping during the Fascist regime, for example 1942, anno XX dell'era fascista was the 'accredited' version back then. In post WWII decades many 'accredited' intellectuals have tried to do the same with a new divide in time: pre- and post the German WWII camps. 1581 Some scholars remark the irony of the dĂŠcade, offering one day of rest every ten, as opposed to the conventional Sunday. A similar schedule was apparently adopted to build the great pyramids at Giza. 1580
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Possibly -yet not entirely- out of occultist or 'magic' preoccupations, Hitler was obsessed with the passing of time, and recurrently ruminated about how he either had -or most often had not- acted on time, after or before mythological deadlines only he was privy to. Most myths feature some sort of deadline or another (before sunset/sunrise etc). Popular culture obliges with 'impending deadline' movies in all sorts of sauces: Brewster's Millions (1985); Mr. Billion (1977); 48 Hours (1982); Star Blazers (1979)...
The fact that one's 'zero hour' moment could be another's more or less insignificant footnote of history triggers what Eliade termed “the terror of history”1582, or the panic fear that one's great founding moments -and ensuing mythology-, and reputedly transcendental ordeals meant to impart colossal moral teachings to humankind, are just paragraphs in the book of history growing larger every day: debris of history:”Take our meanings and purposes away, characterize them as juvenile, useless or evil, and all we have left are the vulnerable physical creatures that we are”1583. “con el hombre de las civilizaciones tradicionales que, como hemos visto, tenía frente a la historia una actitud negativa. Ya la anulara periódicamente, ya la desvalorizara encontrándose siempre modelos y arquetipos transhistóricos, ya, en fin, le atribuyera un sentido metahistórico (teoría cíclica, significaciones escatológicas, etcétera), el hombre de las civilizaciones tradicionales no concedía al acontecimiento histórico ningún valor en sí: en otros términos, no lo consideraba como una categoría específica de su propio modo de existencia.-...-Y en nuestros días, cuando la presión histórica no permite ya ninguna evasión, ¿cómo podrá el hombre soportar las catástrofes y los horrores de la historia —desde las deportaciones y los asesinatos colectivos hasta el bombardeo atómico— si, por otro lado, no se presiente ningún signo, ninguna intención transhistórica, si tales horrores son sólo el juego ciego de fuerzas económicas, sociales o políticas o, aun peor, el resultado de las “libertades” que una minoría se toma y ejerce directamente en la escena de la historia universal?” (Eliade 2001:88,93, emphasis added). R.L. Moore (2001:part 2) explains “the terror of history” thus:”your life world is going to run down -...once that experience of the world begins to be uninhabitable for you [then a search begins for ] the center with a capital C -...- not present in ordinary space-time and [that] could not be in principle be present in ordinary space-time”. 1583 Solomon et alii 2015:95. 1582
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History books could be substantially rewritten at any point in the future for political convenience anyhow. This squares with the assumption -by symbolic interactionist Thomas- that events perceived as real are real in their consequences. The present writer wishes to edit the phrase substituting importance (relevance) to reality. Nobody probably challenges the reality of a Juventus-Liverpool soccer match in 1985. Yet for some UK hooligans, that event was so important (relevant) they went on a murderous rampage leaving 39 people dead: ”burnin' with determination to even up the score”.
Quirky celebrities may also vye for public sympathy wearing the hat of a mythological man of sorrows. Bohemian Italian millionaire Lapo Elkann first alleged a Jesuit priest had sexually molested him in a Catholic boarding school, then claimed to have been kidnapped in New York1584.
Both accounts prove to be false: he never attended any Catholic boarding school, and he's under investigation1585 for having staged the presumed abduction in New York apparently in order to extract money from his family in pursuance of a bawdy escapade with a transgendered drug supplier and paramour:”If an event is salient in our minds and we believe it to be true, we will act upon it regardless of its absolute validity.”1586.
Daily News New York, November 28, 2016. “New York prosecutors have dropped charges that Lapo Elkann, grandson of late Fiat patriarch Gianni Agnelli, falsely reported he was kidnapped in November in an effort to get ransom money. The office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said on Wednesday it had declined to prosecute the case but gave no other details. ” (Reuters, January 25, 2017). 1586 Sharot 2011:106. 1584 1585
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In this light readers can appraise the squabble between Russia and Estonia over the removal of a monument celebrating the Red Army's redemptive crusade:”Estonia was mocking the dead, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. However, many Estonians saw the statue as a reminder of Soviet rule. ” 1587.
Setting aside the contention of the ground on which Russia alone appropriated the USSR legacy against all other former USSR States, and the pivotal role Russia itself played in the USSR's collapse, the divide of the 'good and bad side of myth' is clearly visible here, along with the divide of 'the price that is always worth it'.
The fact that Estonia wanted to 'turn the page', in a way triggered “the terror of history” in the Russian counterpart, or the fear that the protective cocoon of mythologies related to WWII – seen as the quintessentially 'honest', 'necessary' or 'just' war- could begin to dissolve, thus imperiling the ideological, geo-political and economic order, whose ultimate legitimacy WWII provided.
A row of censorship laws have been passed as the Cold War ended, and as the post-war organized order swiftly collapsed (late 1980s onwards). As the Catholic Church regularly did when faced with its model's patent failures (heretics attacking points of doctrine in the Middle Ages, and/or denouncing the clergy's corruption and inadequacy), or Italian Fascism resorted to after 1943, judicial and/or military repression becomes the only viable opportunity as the system pays 1587
BBC 2007: no page.
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increasingly fewer dividends.
The regime's tenors serenade absent-minded -or even angry- masses on a slow but assured path towards disaffection:
Sergei Shoigu, the respected emergency situations minister, has called for a law, based on Holocaust denial legislation in Germany, that would make it a criminal offence to suggest that the Soviet Union did not win the War. Mr Shoigu indicated that the legislation would also seek to punish eastern European or former Soviet states which deny they were liberated by the Red Army. The leaders of those countries could be banned from Russian soil, he said. (Blomfield 2009: no page). Ceux pour qui le temps irréversible a existé y découvrent à la fois le mémorable et la menace de l’oubli (Those who experienced time as irreversible discover by the same token the reality of memorialization and the threat that oblivion poses. Debord 1967: point 133). Colossal wars and other big events are not the only occasion to see such dynamics at work. When Peter Heehs published Aurobindo's biography after decades of involvement with the aurobindonian community, the fact that the book's tune didn't resonate with the generally hagiographic, and welcoming attitude surrounding the famous Indian thinker got the author in quite some trouble, such as judicial pursuits and bans on his book.
Over the internet, some claimed the 2008 book was the equivalent of martyrdom inflicted upon Aurobindo Ghose – who had died of natural causes in 1950-; others wished to deport the author; many complained about his blasphemous and intolerable attitudes; some clamored for a judicial ban fearing the book might lead to civil unrest; others yet detailed the author's duplicity, his lack of credentials, 1198
the checkered and bohemian history of someone who -divine paradox- had been an insider and associate to the point of being allowed access to the Ashram's most sensitive archives. One of the cruxes was whether or not Aurobindo had “attained the supermind�: Heehs says he didn't, whereas devotees say he indeed did. Readers shall come to their own conclusions.
The same screenplay replays over and over in many different circumstances, as the entranced pack enters the war path under the guidance of the masters of acceptable discourse (=those who 'control the conversation') to preserve oneness and fight contamination. Eysenck summarized thus his view of psychoanalysis:
psychoanalysis must be regarded as a failure. We are left with nothing but imaginary interpretations of pseudo-events, therapeutic failures, illogical and inconsistent theories, erroneous ' insights' of no proven value, and a dictatorial and intolerant group of followers insistent not on truth but on propaganda (1985:201-2). For example, some of the phenomena appear to be completely in line with findings from social-psychological experiments showing that powerful social pressures are brought to bear by the members of a cohesive group whenever a dissident begins to voice his objections to a group consensus. Other phenomena are reminiscent of the shared illusions observed in encounter groups and friendship cliques when the members simultaneously reach a peak of "groupy" feelings. -...- I use the term groupthink as a quick and easy way to refer to the mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence-seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive ingroup that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action. (Janis 1971:84). Joseph Campbell1588 puts the motif of the savior dying willingly for us in
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1989.
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the perspective of the paleolithic animal cults; the covenant between the animals men killed for sustenance and humankind itself, whereby humankind would honor the dead animal(s) as gods (with perhaps one animal taking up the role of 'animal master' to represent nature), and animals would willingly return to be slaughtered again according to the greater cycles of nature.
Today (for example among Japan's Ainu people) shrines containing the bones/skulls of animals are still honored; still in today's Japan, some Shinto temples present shrines devoted to giving thanks -and capturing the benevolence of - sea creatures, fowl, pickled vegetables etc eaten on a regular basis. To this day, nomadic Mongols recite Buddhist prayers upon killing livestock for sustenance so that the animal may attain a human rebirth.
Echo of this attitude survive in the descendants of the Maya people. One contemporary Maya peasant prayed thus to the forest he was about to slash and burn in order to make a living:
Oh god, my father and mother, lord of the high and low places, lord of the forest. Allow me to do what has always been done. I am making this offering -...-I make this offering as I am about to trespass against your kindness. But maybe you will allow me to do so. I am about to injure you. -...-I am about to injure you, working you so that I can make a living. May no wild forest beast track me down, no snake, no scorpion. Do not turn my own ax or machete against me, for with all my heart I am now about to work you. (Hale 2009: Decoding Rituals At Palenque). The primeval sympathetic savior-god Prometheus was chained to a mountain with his arms outstretched (crucified?) and tormented because he had 1200
first cheated the gods by teaching humans how to sacrifice only the fat 1589, thus keeping the meat for themselves (which was of capital importance in an underdeveloped subsistence/agronomic-pastoral society):”Then the priest will burn the food on the altar, as a fire offering for a pleasing aroma." All fat belongs to the LORD.”1590. Prometheus had also stolen fire back from Zeus (angry over being cheated) to benefit mankind again; Prometheus of course could not die because he was a titan after all.
Proper nutrition is at the core of one's being: Zeus rallies Cyclopes and Hecatoncheires1591 after feeding them nectar and ambrosia -food of the immortal gods- to treat their exhaustion1592. In exchange, the Olympic gods in battle receive gifts: a trident for Poseidon; thunderbolts for Zeus; the helmet that makes one invisible for Hades.
Since Prometheus' name invokes foresight, it is clear how the heroic 1589
Immemorial Hindu mythology preaches sacrifices through burnt offerings to the gods, as Agni (the god of fire) will serve as the gods' mystical mouth. A 'holocaust' is 'a sacrifice consumed by fire': in exceptional circumstances (very wealthy patrons and/or extreme danger for the community etc) the offer was left to be consumed by fire in its entirety. Even in contemporary post-Incaic culture in Peru, the fire is seen as mystical mouth of Pachamama, mother Earth. Vernant explains that Zeus -who had swallowed the goddess Metis (guile)- couldn't actually be fooled, but played along to reinforce celestial hierarchies. In the struggle with the Cyclops in the Odyssey, there is a pun regarding Ulysses' assumed name of “Nobody” ( me tis, None) and Wisdom (Metis): Ulysses as man of embodied wisdom. Frail humankind has to feed in order to survive, whence the meat they eat. Gods are immortal, and can be satisfied with the sacrifice of the smoke from the sacrifice's living essence the bones epitomized. To bring Ernest Becker into the discussion “ man, or as a god-worm, or a god who shits”, the gods “don't shit” because they eat ambrosia and nectar, and gorge themselves with the smoke of fire sacrifices. In Japanese Shinto, the body is pure, but because it produces waste, it ought to be ritually purified before it approaches the divine. 1590 Leviticus 3:16. 1591 Primeval creatures sons of Ouranos and Gaia. They were creatures with 100 arms (Hecatoncheires) and oneeyed craftsmen (Cyclopes). 1592 Zeus' father Cronus had imprisoned them in the Tartarus. Hebrew Yahweh and his Christian offspring are no different:”For if God did not spare the angels having sinned, but having cast them down to Tartarus, in chains of gloomy darkness, delivered them, being kept for judgment; ” ( 2 Peter 2:4). Tartarus is most often translated as “hell”.
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savior-god really intended to offer himself up for sacrifice for us all. The myth of Prometheus may merge with the myth of Phaeton, and get inverted. A Filipino legend tells that aswang cheated the gods with gold to steal fire as a gift to humans. Because -like Phaeton riding the chariot of his father the Sun- he couldn't control fire, the earth was scorched; heavenly rain was necessary to avert complete disaster (Zeus' thunderbolt hits Phaeton). People have thus hated aswang
ever since:
aswang is now a shape-shifting evil monster of lore (half ghoul, vampire or werewolf).
Gautama Buddha, too, professedly died at age 80 of food poisoning 1593, not before preventing -as an indication of foresight and selflessness - his disciples from sharing the same tainted food. While the Buddha's canonical life is not especially full of suffering, Buddhist literature immediately seized the opportunity to make up for such oversight in Jataka tales, or Buddha's past lives.
The divine savior is subjected to all sorts of indignities, scourging and reversals:
In all other Births Devadattaextnote failed to excite so much as an atom of fear in the Bodhisattaextnote, but in the Culladhammapāla Birth, when the Bodhisatta was only seven months old, he had his hands and feet and head cut off and his body encircled with “It is our conclusion that by eating sukara-maddava Buddha facilitated his desire to depart this world and enter Nirvana. He soon developed abdominal cramps, bloody diarrhoea and shock, and died within a day of his last meal. It was tainted pork that led to Buddha's demise. He succumbed to the disease pig-bel, a necrotizing enteritis caused by the toxins of Clostridium perfringens infection.” (Chen & Chen 2005:100). extnote Devadatta is Gautama Buddha's evil cousin. He plays a role similar to that of Set in the Osiris myth, or that of Satan in Christianity. (note of this writer). extnote Here: Gautama Buddha in one of his previous lives as he navigated the tumultuous ocean of death&rebirth in order to attain enlightenment. (note of this writer). 1593
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sword cuts, as it were with a garland. In the Daddara Birth he killed him by twisting his neck, and roasted his flesh in an oven and ate it. In the Khantivādi Birth he had him scourged with two thousand strokes of a whip, and ordered his hands and feet and ears and nose to be cut off, and then had him seized by the hair of his head and dragged along, and when he was stretched at full length on his back, he kicked him in the belly and made off, and that very day the Bodhisatta died. But both in the Cullanandaka and the Vevaṭiyakapi Births he merely had him put to death. (Culladhammapāla-Jātaka) Campbell1594 suggests the difference arises out of the four seasons present where Christianity arose, hence death and resurrection cycles on one hand; tropical India's one season where blossom and fruit are present at the same time on the other hand: the still point (also a tenet of Taoism).
Of course, the emphasis among some mythicists and enthusiasts on both ends of the political spectrum (left-wing homo- and/or xenophiles and progressives; right-wingers of tea party or reaganite persuasion) is often placed on the item of crucifixion, with maneuvers devoted to make Buddha or Krishna fit the bill 1595; more attention to terminology ought to be paid.
Such conceit probably just wants to earn a place as world axis for one's favorite savior-hero, whose story, deeds or death are thus ennobled to serve as 1594 1595
1989:The Way To Enlightenment. Doane, for example, belabors the subject thus:”This brings to recollection the doctrine of certain so-called Christian heretics, who maintained that Christ Jesus was crucified in the heavens. -...- The direst was the Logos, or Divine Wisdom, or a portion of divine wisdom incarnate ; in this sense he is really the Sun or the solar power incarnate, and to him everything applicable to the Sun will apply. -...- but whether it was intended to represent Crishna, Wittoba, or Jesus, it tells a secret : it shows that some one was represented crucified in the heavens, and undoubtedly has something to do with “; The next power to the Supreme God,”; who, according to Plato, “; was decussated or figured in the shape of a cross on the universe”;-...-The Sun-god Apollo, Indra, Wittoba or Crishna, and Christ Jesus, are represented as having their feet pierced with nails”. (1882:487-8). It is probable the theory of the axis mundi (cosmic axis) is here being described, such as Eliade and others expounded later.
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reality's cornerstone. It all seems very likely, and leaves the present writer unaffected, for the doom of the savior-hero is significant irrespective of the method through which it is achieved. Contemporary worship of antifascist activists is not hampered in the least by the fact they were executed, shot to death, hung or deported instead of crucified; one such icon among many, overthrown left-wing Chilean President Allende, did in fact commit suicide.
The present writer wishes to extend the same considerations to all typified mythological blueprints noted scholars have offered (Bastian, Olrik, Rank, Raglan, Campbell...), which at times tend to become too systematic and ossified. Let's consider only the example of the 'hero's journey'. The present writer prefers to present it as 'being on the move'; not all journeys are created equal, and -what's more important- they need not to be.
Popular culture couldn't be far behind. Legendary 1966 song California
Dreaming encapsulates the yearning for a hero's journey (“I'd be safe and warm if I was in L.A. ”) with a salad bar of mythological motifs such as the pathetic fallacy (“All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray ”); the threshold (“Stepped into a church I passed along the way ”); the enemy (“You know the preacher likes the cold he knows I'm gonna stay ”).
The motif of the journey may for example be perverted in Sade's (17401814) non-obscene work. First, it is not necessary to venture that far at times; characters in Dorci, Florville Et Courval, Le Président Mystifié, La Chastelaine De 1204
Longeville, L'Epoux Corrigé do not travel to faraway lands. What matters is that after the journey the actors and the world they inhabit will no longer be the same, which typically holds true for all sorts of 'inward' gnostic experiences. Louison and Colas ( in La Chastelaine De Longeville ) only travel from their village to the castle in order to have an affair with their adulterous seigneurs, yet -at the end of the journey- Louison finds abduction and murder by drowning, whereas Colas finds exile.
The present writer adds sparagmos (ritual dismemberment), an ecstatic state in which the followers of Dionysus dismembered animals and ate their raw meat as a sacrament1596: that's another way to appraise the supreme sacrifice of all those savior-heroes. In some versions of the myth 1597, Dionysus himself is a (willing) victim thereof, much as Orpheus is. Some 1598 claim pre-dynastical Egyptian tombs attest to ritual dismemberment, also attested in other geographical areas. Abraham in his capacity of Islamic patriarch tears apart three birds, only to bring them back 1596
As with any part of myth, some scholars contend this never happened concretely. It does not really matter, because what counts is the allegory, the symbolic value. 1597 Ancient myths often have versions that may be at a more or less significant variance with one another. The goddess of love Aphrodite could either be born from the foam ( aphros) that the impact of Ouranos' (sky) testicles severed by his son Kronos (a sort of time) had caused over the ocean; or she could be the daughter of Zeus (Roman Jupiter) and Dione (the name reveals the same root as in Zeus, Dios...). She may also be(come) ourania (celestial one) when representing sublimated love ” [Jan] Vansina offers one instance of this when he observes that African informants may provide "several conflicting testimonies" which they all insist are "true" (Bird 1979:76).”One striking fact to emerge from Parry and Lord’s extensive interviews is that the singers of these folk tales consistently and frequently insisted that their performances were “the same” every time. But when they said so, they did not mean that it was literally the same. For a singer, the fixity of the song “does not include the wording, which to him has never been fixed, or the unessential parts of the story.” How different could “the same” song be indifferent versions? Social anthropologist Jack Goody has noted that when Milman Parry first met a singer named Avdo, he took down by dictation a lengthy song that he performed called “The Wedding of Smailagiæ.” It was 12,323 lines long. Some years later Albert Lord met up with Avdo again, and took down a performance of “the same” song. This time it was 8,488 lines. Parry himself observed this phenomenon. He one time had Avdo sing a song performed by another singer, named Mumin. Avdo strongly insisted it was the same song. His version was nearly three times as long” (Ehrman 2016:94). 1598 Wright 1979.
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to life by calling upon them.
Benn1599 documents how popular self-immolation was in the refined tradition of Chinese Buddhism. In Tibet/Bhutan, Buddhist ritual Choed sees an idol representing the human body being cut to pieces and fed to the religious figure presiding over the ceremony; another such idol is -in another Buddhist Vajrayana ritual- cut to pieces, and offered to the god Mahakala. Christian Gingerbread Men (biscuits in human shape) eaten in some countries may go back to Roman Saturnalia: allegorical echo of ritual human sacrifice.
A primeval body the gods -or other quintessential forces- tear apart in order to create the world – such as Hindu Purusha- is also present in many myths; Mesopotamian Marduk -for one- subdues and dismembers Tiamat, for example. A Algonquin myth claimed maize was born when a sympathetic deity 1600 expressly asked to be killed and buried answering to the prayers of those anxious about the sustenance of elderly people too old to hunt: 1599 1600
2007. In some representations the deity's garb and headdress are similar to a maize plant. The deity wrestling the mortal recalls Jacob wrestling with god ( Genesis 32:24ss). Campbell comments:”In another such rite, described in a book about the Ona of Tierra del Fuego, the boy is in the men’s house, where there are these masked forms that he believes to be deities and punishing powers. One of them comes forward, and the boy has to wrestle with him. The man whom he's fighting almost puts the boy down, but then he yields. He lets the boy defeat him and pull off his mask. Then the mask is not simply regarded as a fake. It is both conquered and worshiped, because it represents both the bounding and the bonding power of the society. The boy puts the mask on himself, and he is now that power. What was feared is transformed into what is now supported.” (1991:65).As well, there is the circular motif of the mysterious stranger met by happenstance, who turns out to be superhuman (King, god, angel...). “One Algonquin story about the origin of maize tells of a boy who has a vision. In this vision, he sees a young man who comes to him with green plumes on his head and who invites the boy to a wrestling match. He wins and comes again and wins again, and so on. But one day the young man tells the boy that next time the boy must kill him and bury him and take care of the place where he has been buried. The boy then does what he has been told to do, and kills and buries the beautiful youth. In time, the boy returns and sees the corn growing where the plumed young man has been buried, or planted, you might say” (Campbell&Moyers 1991:87).
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There is a [Polynesian] girl who loves to bathe in a certain pool. A great eel is also swimming around in the pool, and day after day he scrapes across her thigh as she is bathing. Then one fine day he turns into a young man and becomes her lover for a moment. Then he goes away and comes back again, and goes away and comes back again. But one time when he comes, he says, just as the plumed man in the Algonquin story had said, "Now, next time I come to visit you, you must kill me, cut off my head, and bury it." She does so, and there grows from the buried head a coconut tree. And when you pick a coconut, you can see it is just the size of a head. (Campbell&Moyers 1991:87). The Hebrew record of the Creation similarly opens with an already existing dark, turbulent, watery abyss named tehom (Gen. 1:2), a Hebrew word corresponding to the Babylonian Tiamat (Whatham 1910:329). In New Guinea, there's a wonderful, wonderful event where the poor kid has to stand up to fight a man with a mask. They tell him that he's fighting a god. The man lets the kid win and then takes the mask off and puts it on the boy. Now, it's important that the mask is in no way defeated. -...- The mask represents the power that is shaping the society and is shaping the boy. After the mask is put on him, he is a representative of that power. That's a big story. There are quite a number of examples like that around the world. -...-All these initiation rites are based on the motif of death and resurrection. You think you're dead, really dead, and suddenly "bing," you've broken past it. You've got a new expanded life. What has died is the infantile ego.(Campbell&Boa 1989:67-8). Other deities may be dismembered with new crops growing from their scattered body parts1601; or such parts (such as Horus' all-seeing eye) may come to play independent roles:�The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. �1602. In Brianza (Italy), peasants of bygone times turned blades against the clouds: should one hailstone be destroyed in 1601
In Polynesian lore (Campbell 1960:190ss), the coconut grows after a mythical being's (a magical eel likened to a mystical phallus, an ersatz of snakes once unknown in the region) head had been buried in the aftermath of a feud between two heroes fighting over a woman (=identified with the Moon). 1602 Matthew 6:22.
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a collision with the blade (=piercing), the hailstorm would cease. Piercing and/or
sparagmos purvey new, auspicious beginnings. The corpses of Russia's Imperial family were dismembered and defaced with acid before a summary burial under Bolshevik supervision: the new Soviet era had just begun.
Did drunk Hercules sleep with 50 girls in one night, or with one different girl every night for 50 days? The point isn't that, really: the point is Hercules' bottomless virility that reflects his divine parentage (as in the Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset, England).
Sri Lankan mythical prince Jivahatta -son of a demon princess and a King- is so alluring all women lust after him so that he literally dies of exhaustion after endless, frantic sex encounters: he's reborn as the demon Kalu Kumara who persecutes women.
Mythical Hindu ascetic Saubhari Muni (Srimad-Bhagavatam, V-X century CE) married the 50 daughters of a reluctant King, one of many Kings having 50 daughters (Danaus and Thespius had 50 daughters as well). The 50 daughters -just like the cow maidens who adored Krishna- were individually convinced the sage spent most of the time with each.
Yet the cult of typically exorbitant erect phalluses as fertility or protection devices was present in Ancient Greece and Rome and in today's Thailand and Japan, where appropriate shrines exist. A giant, erect phallus is also associated
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with Tibetan Buddhist Saint Drukpa Kunle; or with depictions of Hercules (such as the Cerne Abbas giant). Ages earlier, hyperpotent phalli were associated with Shiva, whose anaiconic representation (lingam) is generally believed to represent an erect phallus, or -by Eck1603- the world axis. Erect phalli recalls the Roman fascinum, whence “fascination�, a sort of irresistible spell.
Within Japanese Buddhist temple pagodas, a central pillar that reaches skywards is assimilated to the Buddha himself. In traditional Japanese folk houses, a central pillar (daikoku-bashira) symbolizes good luck and wealth through the association with god Daikoku, a Japanese incarnation of Hindu Shiva (= the pillar connection). Portable festival shrines also house a small pillar in the hidden holy of holies only the high priest can look into: the god's presence.
Washing the pilgrim's kongozue (staff, used as a grave-marker in the past) as s-he checks in at hostels equals washing the feet of beloved Shingon Buddhism founder Kukai (VIII/IX century), who spiritually chaperons pilgrims on the Skikoku pilgrimage (Ohenro) that commemorates him: the kongozue is allowed to rest in the room's tokonoma (alcove). In Christian Ethiopia, Timket (epiphany) pilgrims on a Christmas visit to Gondar carry a peculiar staff that is revered because it identifies pilgrims as such.
The golden phallus Isis crafted for her semi-revived husband Osiris represents resurrection. Egyptian monkey god Babi, hailed as Osiris' eldest son, was 1603
1994.
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endowed with a cosmic, hyperpotent phallus. Babi's phallus is so cosmic to serve as mast for the underworld ferryboat, and as bolt on the doors of heaven. Babi's virility is so pronounced that his name means “dominant male (=bull) of baboons” eons before new age anthropologists and offhand personality coaches peddled the concept to the oblivious masses:
It is likely that the same underlying neurological circuits that produce the sensations described by mystics also produce the sensations of fear, awe, and ecstasy that are experienced by combatants during battle. This is rarely discussed outside of military circles, but it is a wellknown phenomenon during battle. This state of intense arousal is very similar to the state of arousal felt during copulation; indeed, some soldiers will candidly admit that during the heat of battle, they often experience a kind of sexual arousal, leading in some cases to ejaculation. (MacNeill 2011:72). Prometheus underwent daily sparagmos as an eagle by day ate his liver1604, which grew back by night only to be eaten again. Horus' opponent -his uncle1605 Set- loses his virility in the battle, whereas Horus loses an eye; the Grail King equally loses his virility in a clash with a Muslim knight 1606: echoes of the In Buddhist Lakkhanasamyutta, Moggallana -one of Gautama Buddha's head disciples- announces how he learnt that a dishonest fortune teller who cheated her clients had been reborn as a foul, rotting creature angry birds tormented. 1605 Krishna, too, was prosecuted by an uncle, and so was Jason. Mythology set aside, Lecuppre (2014:135) writes about what occurred in the XIV and XV century:”but many times child kings were dethroned by ambitious and charismatic uncles with the assent—and to the great relief—of the political community. After all, the crown remained within the royal family; a form of continuity with the preceding reign was established. Such crises reveal unspoken rules against children, women, and foreigners as kings. Kingship combined with virile charisma mattered more than the rules of succession. In addition, something new occurred in the 1380s, when youth ceased to be a mere matter of chronological age and became a sort of personal trait, a negative psychological profile.” 1606 In one of the many versions, here espoused by Campbell. Manuscripts tell of a wound between “the legs” or “the hips”. In old French also, “fisher” and “sinner” read alike. Only when he is out there “fishing” (=sinning?), does the King forget about his terrible wound. Jungian luminary R.A. Johnson extends the “fisher King's wound” analogy to the human condition. Humans are just like the Fisher King: he charged ahead in his idealistic crusade, and all he got was this excruciating, stinky wound that torments him. Joseph Campbell concurs:”It is disheartening to see those young people come in full-of-beans and, boy, do they get it.”. Only reveling in one's little “(over)compensatory neuroses” does “the wound” leave one in peace, be it pier fishing, 1604
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Golden Age King Saturn (Cronus) Zeus castrated; Attis -the consort of the great goddess Cybele- castrates himself; Ouranos loses his virility at the hands of his son Kronos/Cronus1607; the patriarchs in the Mahabharata are born blind (King Dhritarashtra), and sickly (King Pandu): echoes of ritual dismemberment.
Such allegories may be more or less explicit. Shiva as world teacher wears both a male and a female earring:”The Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, with a woman’s earring in one ear and a man’s in the other, represents mercy, or compassion.”1608. Echoes of allegorical dismemberment resonate.
Achilles, Tiresias, Thor, Hercules and Arjuna (the Hindu hero of the
Bhagavad-Gita) all served, dressed up as, turned into and/or lived in the garb of a woman. More explicitly, Arjuna's garb was an eunuch's following a goddess' curse. Seer Tiresias -possibly attested in Minoan culture at Knossos around the XIV century BCE- turns into a woman, then back into a man. Thor dresses up as a bride to impersonate Freya so that he might recover his hammer a giant had stolen while he was asleep. Mighty Pandava Bhima disguised as a woman lies in the bed of a lustful prince who had coveted Bhima's wife Draupadi: Bhima brutally murders his rival.
Many religions include sublimated sparagmos elements (for example, the savior's mystical body). Cross-culturally, ritual dismemberment is enacted in order writing, farming, “acting out” sexually or otherwise... Although written with a different “k”, the name seems to imply “a sort of time”. Echoes of Zoroastrian myths in which both Ahura Mazda and Ahriman are sons of Time (Zurvan). 1608 Campbell 1991:136. 1607
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to cleanse sins. In Latin America, average believers have their hands or feet pierced re-enacting the crucifixion; Hindu or Sri Lankan devotees walk on nails, or pierce their bodies in various ways in order to purify their souls: they are often lifted up, just as Jesus was. Hindu or Buddhist relics or icons are also lifted up, typically on an elephant's head. Messengers chosen by lot were charged to deliver pleas to Thracian/Dacian deity Zalmoxis by being hurled, thus pierced, on a bed of swords according to Herodotus.
Much as there is a 'holy' form of sparagmos, whereby the godly saviorhero willingly offers himself up for sacrifice, there is an unholy, cursed form: vampires and their kin sustain their diabolic immortality (a form of contaminated resurrection) by feeding on their victims' blood:
That is why I have said to the people of Israel, 'You must never eat or drink blood--neither you nor the foreigners living among you.' (Leviticus 17:12). Muslim customs prescribe to drain the blood from the veins of animals slaughtered to be halal (=permissible food).
The animistic obsession with certain body parts (eyes, phalli, hands etc) -or the possible remains of (ritual) dismemberment- is really ingrained in the human mind. In traditional Hindu cremation rites, the departed's eldest son has to split the corpse's skull to free the soul, should this not have happened already during the cremation along the river Ganges: Hephaestus splits Zeus' head so that Athena may be born. In ancient Mesopotamia, eye goddesses (=kind of skeleton eye figures) 1212
existed, later superposed with Inanna; the same skeletal eyes (spirits called Zémis) recur in rock art of the pre-Hispanic Caribbean (IX-X century CE or older).
The hands of colonized subjects – South Asian craftsmen, Egyptian mummies, harem women, and Congolese children – were at the crux of Victorian discussions of the body that tried to come to terms with the limits of racial identification. While religious, scientific, and literary discourses privileged hands as sites of physiognomic information, none of these found plausible explanations for what these body parts could convey about ethnicity. As compensation for this absence, which might betray the fact that race was not actually inscribed on the body, fin-de-siècle narratives sought to generate models for how nonwhite hands might offer crucial means of identifying and theorizing racial identity. They removed hands from a holistic corporeal context and allowed them to circulate independently from the body to which they originally belonged. Severed hands consequently served as “human tools” that could be put to use in a number of political, aesthetic, and ideological contexts. -...- [a] thesis applies to Victorian methods of hand reading, which drew a direct relationship between the legibility of the hand and the evacuation of its agency. -...- The works I examine use the trope of the severed hands of nonwhite subjects to inscribe them with new, and often unexpected, racial associations that overwrite the absence of recognizable racial features. In so doing, they provide “articulations of forms of difference” that are central to the “exercise of colonial power.” -...-. Just as Engels andMarx critiqued the work of the political economists by insisting on the material presence of labor behind the ‘invisible hand’ of the market, so ‘beast with five fingers’ stories literalize that synecdoche in order to probe the uncanny, alienating conditions of labor at home and in the factory.” These texts transform the factory worker’s forgotten – or literally severed – hand into gothic forces of revenge. -...-However, given the multiple forms of violence committed under Belgian rule in the Congo, the isolation of hands as the prime icon of imperial violence is worthy of investigation. I want to propose that it reflects the trust in the evidentiary function of hands, particularly severed hands, in sources ranging from Victorian fingerprinting manuals to popular fictions. This widespread confidence in the hand was shared by Leopold’s supporters, who seized on its authentic associations to dispel claims of imperial violence. The result was a discursive battle over who had the right to the proof afforded by hands and whether certain 1213
manual truths were more veracious than others. -...-“I saw with my own eyes.” Such assertions of eye-witnessing, even when expressed by a fictional character, were a recurring strategy in attempts to convey violence in the Congo(Briefel 2015:i,6,22,72,129-30, 132). The Vietnamese religion of Cao Dai (established in 1926) chose 'the allseeing eye' as a emblem, often embedded in a triangle according to the best Egyptian and Masonic imagery:”the pyramid form [in dynastic Egypt] is one of the forms used for the sun”1609. The all-seeing-eye is found not only on Masonic regalia, but on Christian Churches (such as the Salta Catholic cathedral, Argentina; or the mount Athos Orthodox monastery), Christian priestly dresses and paraphernalia, currency (such as the “old American dollar bill”), coat of arms etc.
The birth of guaranà was brought about burying the eyes 1610 of the loved child of a cacique1611 killed by the forces of evil envious rivals had summoned; in ancient myths so many plants, animals and places come into existence when a holy person (nymph, godly human, demi-god...) dies and is transformed.
In the late Roman Empire, violence against imperial portraits was punished as if against the Emperor's person. The concept of Securitas was subsumed under the Emperor's personal safety. As Virgil wrote: rege incolumi mens omnibus
una est (as long as the king is safe, people proceed in unison) 1612, whence the medieval (Arthurian) claptrap about the king and the land being one.
Hale 2009: Celestial Gateway At Giza. The fruit of guaranà resembles a human eye. 1611 Aborigenal Brazilian chieftain. 1612 Georgics, book IV. 1609 1610
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The dissection theater became a popular social gathering place to enjoy anatomy lessons as mechanical philosophy (=clockwork universe=beings as machines) triumphed in the XVII century, and well into the XX. Libertinism soon arose as well as both a lifestyle, and a literary genre.
The anatomy craze generated networks of underground body snatchers at work in graveyards to supply surreptitiously a burgeoning industry. In 1828 in Edinburgh, Burke&Hare killed 16 have-nots to supply anatomists with fresh, intact bodies: this led to the 1832 Anatomy Act to curtail such gruesome -yet widespreadpractices.
Death was omnipresent in the Victorian era, as epidemics culled large swaths of population. Being buried alive was a significant preoccupation, which -merging with a thick layer of legends about the undead- prompted -well into the beginning of the XX century- the invention of funerary contraptions coffins and graves might be equipped with in order to stave the dreadful possibility off.
Anatomy museums were popular in Victorian times as a venue to teach moral -and medical- lessons about rampant sexually transmitted diseases in an apparently forbearing, prude but otherwise very promiscuous society:
Public anatomy museums were tolerated, or even recommended, by medical men, until the mid-1850s, when museums at which treatments for venereal disease were sold became targets for antiquackery campaigns, in the course of which the medical profession made much of the “obscene� content of anatomy shows. The Obscene Publications Act was first employed against 1215
an anatomy museum in 1860 in Leeds, but London police and magistrates remained indifferent until the medical profession funded private prosecutions in the 1870s, when the last of the public anatomy museums was closed down [such museums, however, survived in other Commonwealth countries up to WWI]. (Bates 2008: no page). Car le crime, ce crime de l'avortement et de l'infanticide qui est devenu d'une si abominable fréquence dans l'état actuel de nos misérables mœurs, et qu'on pourrait appeler : Le Crime du XIXe siècle (Barbey D'Aurevilly 1882:no page). During the nineteenth century, museums dedicated to the collection, preservation, and display of human anatomy became familiar institutions in America and Europe. The anatomical museum operated under one of two guises: popular museums run as commercial establishments, or medical museums attached to a professional medical society or college. Over the course of the century, the medical establishment sought to cement its authority over anatomy by legitimating its expertise through specialized training. Doctors criticized commercial anatomical museums, which were eventually closed under accusations of obscenity, yet there was considerable overlap in the types of objects on display at both museums. (Wolf 2010:i). No significant religious divide emerged for a long time: dissection 1613 could indifferently be hailed as the exploration (=discovery mytheme) of either a vaguely deistic or atheistic mechanical universe; or as the exploration of a theatrical representation of god's work1614. The obsession with the dissected (mummified, treated...) human body as a spectacle, whether to vindicate deistic or atheistic agendas, is an evergreen one periodically resurfacing after temporary eclipses, and well alive in our time, as egyptologist Bob Brier shows in the TV series Unwrapped
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The term vivisection allegedly appeared only in 1702. Before such term entered common parlance, doubts may persist regarding the state -whether living or not- of the body being dealt with. 1614 An analogy with the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura, free examination of scriptures by each individual. Cfr. 1554 oration in praise of anatomy by Melanchthon (1497-1560), German reformer, and Luther's collaborator in the systematization of early Protestant theology.
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(2000).
In the refined mystical tradition of Vajrayana Buddhist Choed 1615, the advanced practitioner invites both gods and demons to tear apart his own (mystical) body: a tantric feast in the attempt to overcome ego and fears. Romulus -the mythical founder of Rome later known as the god Quirinus- underwent ritual dismemberment:”However, even on this great occasion there were, I believe, a few dissentients who secretly maintained that the king had been torn to pieces by the senators. ”1616.
However, as already noted, in Malabar [India], as late as the sixteenth century A.D., a king was observed standing on a platform [according to the cycle of the planet Jupiter], slicing himself to bits and tossing the pieces about to his waiting folk, until, when about to faint, he slit his throat (Campbell 1962:168). He was even made to appear as divine grantor of future greatness to his doubting subjects:
The loss of the king had left the people in an uneasy mood and suspicious of the senators, and Proculus, aware of the prevalent temper, conceived the shrewd idea of addressing the Assembly. ‘Romulus,’ he declared, ‘the father of our City, descended from heaven at dawn this morning and appeared to me. In awe and reverence I stood before him, praying for permission to look upon his face without sin. “Go,” he said, “and tell the Romans that by heaven’s will my Rome shall be capital of the world. Let them learn to be soldiers. Let them know, and teach their children, that no power on earth can stand against Roman arms.” Having spoken these words, he was taken up again into the sky.’ (Livy 1960:33-51).
1615 1616
Allegedly introduced by XI century Tibetan female Saint Machig Labdroen. Livy 1960:33-51.
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And until then I had a covering on my face,'' as I trembled. .And the Lord called me with his own mouth and said to me. Come hither. Enoch, to my holy word. .And he lifted me up''" and brought me near to the door. .And I looked. with my face down. -...- .And my face was transformed until I was unable to see (Book Of Enoch in Sparks 1984 203-223). No one who honestly remembers how hazardous it could be to look certain people in the face or how blissful to bask trustingly in the glow of another's power can accuse Freud of psychoanalytic rhetoric. By explaining the precise power that held groups together Freud could also show why groups did not fear danger. The members do not feel that they are alone with their own smallness and helplessness, as they have the powers of the hero-leader with whom they are identified. Natural narcissism-the feeling that the person next to you will die, but not you-is reinforced by trusting dependence on the leader's power.(Becker 1973:133). Then he said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. (Exodus 3:6). Having been born there, May I see Amitaba's face (Tibetan Buddhist prayer for rebirth in Dewachen). The fact that no one could find so much as one of his bones in the funeral pyre convinced men that Hercules had been raised to Olympus. Aristaeus, son of Apollo, had been taken into heaven because, like the Old Testament Enoch, he was no more to be seen. Aeneas was known to have joined the gods because after a battle no trace of him could be found, the same evidence that convinced Elijah‘s disciples that their master had been taken into heaven. Romulus, first king of Rome, had been seen rising into the firmament, confirmed later by no one being able to find a scrap of his flesh or his armor. (Price 2007:55). It appears that Luke has drawn the story of the centurion’s son from the wider gospel tradition, as it appears in both Matthew 8:5-13 (hence in Q) and John 4:46-54. It had already been derived from the Elijah story by early Christian scribes. But Luke has decided as well to add a new Jesus tale, unparalleled in other gospels, modeled upon the 1 Kings sequel to the story of Elijah and the widow. Whereas Elijah later raises from the dead the widow’s son, Jesus next comes upon a 1218
funeral procession and raises the man about to be buried, again a widow’s son, this time from Nain. Luke has decided to reserve one feature from the first Elijah episode to use in his second Jesus episode: the initial meeting with the widow at the city gate of Zarephath, which he makes the gate of Nain (even though historical Ain had no gate!). (Price 2011:171-2). Of course, many mystics have recounted the same experience of being afraid to look upon the face of the divine; here it is about Proculus and Romulus, whereas there it is about St. Hildegard of Bingen and Saint Mary.
Both Vishnu and Gautama Buddha -often identified with solar connections- are represented with a (series of) serpent hood(s) around their heads. In one case, it represents the cosmic serpent upon which Vishnu sleeps, whereas in the other it represents the serpent Muchalinda, who rose to protect Gautama Buddha during a universal storm while he was meditating at Muchalinda pond; Shiva, too, carries a serpent around his neck: once subdued, the formerly omnipotent ego can be worn as ornament. Aurobindo calls the quintessential, diffused godhead spirit bound to descend upon mankind supermind; Jewish mystics talk about the ten perfections of god to be realized.
What is war, then, if not sparagmos on a cosmic scale? This may explain the popularity of the Imitatio Christi1617 or of the “renewal through struggle”1618 “Wilfred Owen draws the same equation between his soldiers and the Christ who approaches His Crucifixion. In a letter to Osbert Sitwell written in early July, 1918” (Fussell 1975-2, no page ). 1618 “Myths of war arise initially because of the need to assign meaning to the individual experience and suffering of the past, and each of the myths of the Western Front has a particular social role in helping to make sense not only of the past but also of the present. The role of ‘‘loss, anger and futility’’ is to permit the expression of anger at the suffering that so many endured, and to grieve for those who were lost. The need for these expressions of feeling, although it may have weakened with the passing of time, remains strong. ‘‘Renewal through struggle’’, no less ‘‘authentic’’ than ‘‘loss, anger and futility’’, is a myth that asserts the worth of military and patriotic values, allowing those who fought on the Western Front to believe that, if they were on the winning 1617
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motif during WWI: other ways to convey the elation of the kind, sulking herosavior willingly meeting his doom. Why such gruesome choice? As the movie The
Passion Of The Christ exemplifies -in a sort of Braveheart minus the Scottish baggage-, the 'hour zero' of the founding myth, the suffering that always accompanies savior-heroes, shall be amplified and maximized to honorably reflect the historical and spiritual value; sparagmos was the best way the ancients could think of.
Some suggest the sacrificial dismemberment is bound to fuel and substantiate the ongoing cycle of creation and destruction that is the universe. According to Bruce Lincoln, alloforms -or alternative shapes of the same substanceidentify correspondences between parts of the dismembered body and constituents of the universe:
Executioners dehumanized their victims as they disembowelled and dismembered them, as did some of those who watched these gruesome exhibitions of annihilation. Officials deliberately disfigured the face of the Franciscan John Jones, by scratching, bruising, and blackening it with powder in 1598. In the case of George Nichols and Richard Naxley, executed at Oxford nine years earlier -...- Ironically, this only fuelled the spontaneous canonization of these priests as saints and fostered the enthusiastic pursuit of their relics. Their fragmentation and display at the behest of the Tudor and Stuart regime only made the bodies of the martyrs more accessible to the faithful and more available for appropriation. (Walsham 2010:128). Even artists fragmented the body. Liturgical and artistic treatment of side, they faithfully completed a worthwhile task while, if they were the losers, they did their best in fighting for what they believed, and for the survival of their nation. Their ‘‘truth’’ in the historical sense is only one aspect of their validity, since ‘‘Myths are stories told to answer some human need, so we should not feel overly surprised if they respond more faithfully to such needs than to the demands of abstract logic, of science, or even of morality. “ (Galer 2004:184)
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relics came increasingly to underline the fact that they are body parts (Bynum in Ellison 2007:6). The theory proposed here posits that religious experience and practice in humans are a consequence of the expansion of the dopamine-rich ventral brain systems that, in other mammalian species, mediate behavioral interactions with the most distant portions of the surrounding 3-D space. Specifically, it is argued that religion represents the extension of distant extrapersonal space and time into abstract and cosmic realms—e.g., heaven and eternity—even as it relies on mammalian brain pathways that ordinarily oversee wholebody, head- and oculomotor orienting and exploration in the distal portions of actual 3-D space. (Previc 2006:501). Naturally, sparagmos reflects its mythic nature, for myth always teems with superlative characters (the strongest, wisest, holiest, cruelest, richest, fastest etc man who ever lived/the most beautiful woman of all etc) and events (the greatest war, the biggest slaughter, the most glorious expedition of all etc).
Well before the same professedly happened to Jesus, King Nimrod killed seventy thousand children in fear of the birth of the celestial baby Abraham 1619. Well outside the Mediterranean and Mesopotamian worlds, Indian King Kansa ordered a massacre in order to kill the divine child Krishna.
An archetypal interpretation of threats against a divine child at birth – following hints from Suzuki Roshi, Campbell, Moore and others- may see every child as a potentially divine being (=new beginning) against whom life starts unleashing its own predicament: life is suffering, just as Gautama Buddha said.
1619
Ginzberg 1909:123. It is possible to extrapolate how much bigger the number of slaughtered children ought to be if presented according to today's levels of human population.
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Why is that so? Beside the historical and cultural legacy, it works as it always has in myths. In the Iliad, Ulysses is the cleverest; Achilles the greatest warrior; Ajax the greater is the strongest; Nestor the most venerable etc. It would only confuse things to have twenty heroes all equally credited with being the strongest, swiftest, or with having the longest spear or the heaviest shield 1620.
In modern times, the 'great nation' cannot tolerate anarchy and lawlessness in proximity to its borders and thus decides to 'pacify' the situation: such was the explanation given for the 1911 Italian invasion of Ottoman Libya, the 1975 Indian annexation of Sikkim, and for the 1978 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
The 'strategy' may also involve individual concepts: the United States and freedom; Italy and cultural heritage, etc: the 'shoe' of the exemplum shall fit in the minutest detail. This even when uncollected garbage mounts to the first floor, and classical ruins crumble in poor state of repair (in Italy); or when “making the world safe for democracy” for the USA only possibly amounts to:
A BBC investigation estimates that around $23bn (£11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq. The BBC's Panorama programme has used US and Iraqi government sources to research how much some private contractors have profited from the conflict and rebuilding. A US gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations. The order applies to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies. (Corbin 2008: no page, emphasis added). Much as Hegel tended to see the French revolution as heralding “the end 1620
Goldman relays the same concerns with fabulous weapons as he discusses (2003: Epics Of The Gods) Ugaritic myths from Canaan (XIV-XI century BCE, well before Homer).
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of history”, a curtain that irrevocably signposted the end of quintessential sociopolitical dilemmas, so did other generations with 410, 476, 1453, 1492, 1789, 1848, WWI, WWII, the Cold War or the implosion of the Soviet regime (for example Fukuyama)...
Chilean Fascist intellectual Serrano directed unrestricted praise to Adolf Hitler, which – as Serrano very well knew- constituted a likely criminal offence in several jurisdictions. British historian and government adviser Toynbee -on the other hand- heaped praise upon the United States as ideal harbingers of the 'universal state' of our epoch.
Curiously enough, this theory of a chain of succeeding universal empires as epitomes of stages of human civilization's development in the broader scheme of whichever providential blueprint one may want to see at work, is also the gist behind the sci-fi Dune suite of books.
Mormon Prophet Smith (1805-1844) -a master Freemason 1621, and apparently convicted of money-digging in New York in 1826- prophesied in 1832 about an upcoming civil war in the USA, which would engulf the entire world, and so did Seventh-Day Adventist co-founder Ellen G. White (1827-1915). Another founder possibly linked with Freemasonry, Jehovah Witnesses' Charles T. Russell, also foretold of a catastrophe doomed to unfold in 1914. A third founder, Baptist preacher “father Miller” (1782-1849) of the Millerite movement that spawned 1621
“Joseph Smith—lieutenant general of the Nauvoo Legion, mayor of Nauvoo, prophet of God, master mason, and candidate for the presidency of the United States of America” (Wicks & Foister 2005:4).
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various Adventist sects, also spent a period as a Mason (eventually Grand Master of the Morning Star Lodge) up to 18311622 harboring deistic and rationalistic views: he predicted the world would end in 1844 according to Biblical analysis 1623.
Different people freeze aghast reading the ominous signs
of fate
(quantum entanglement, Chi, Ain Sof, Prana, Haché, Pneuma, Num, Mana or any other all-pervasive force) in this, that or another historical event, slaughter, natural disaster, accession or overthrow much as elderly people recurrently muse about the time of their youth as having the best music ever:
Here I would like to call attention to a possible misunderstanding which may be occasioned by the term "synchronicity." I chose this term because the simultaneous occurrence of two meaningfully but not causally connected events seemed to me an essential criterion. I am therefore using the general concept of synchronicity in the special sense of a coincidence in time of two or more causally unrelated events which have the same or a similar meaning, in contrast to "synchronism," which simply means the simultaneous occurrence of two events. Synchronicity therefore means the simultaneous occurrence of a certain psychic state with one or more external events which appear as meaningful parallels to the momentary subjective state- and, in certain cases, vice versa. (Jung 1960:34). If in me there is the kind of power that can stand against the tide of history, then I can become disengaged from it. Nietzsche says, “Beware of spitting against the wind.” You know what will happen. But if you can spit against the wind and it hits somebody else in the eye, then you’re going to be a Buddha. I’ve always looked for signs like that. When I had to register for the drafts, behind the desks there 1622
Miller was a Baptist while -for 15 years- also a Mason. He eventually parted ways with Freemasonry as he sought reconciliation with the Church in a period of strife between Christian Churches and Freemasonry at large. Masonic allegiance in the 1830s was considered -according to Rowe- non-Christian and non-patriotic. 1623 The date was originally in 1843. When 1843 came and went, it shifted to 1844 because of some 'analysis' that linked the “second coming” to the Jewish Day Of Atonement. Experts point out how Millerites got everything wrong, including the date for the Day Of Atonement that differs from official Jewish sources. Fervent Millerite publicist J.V. Himes ended his life as an Episcopal priest.
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were three men and one woman. I said if the woman calls me, I won’t be drafted. The woman called me, and just when it was time for me to be taken in, they learned that I was thirty-eight, and they could not use people of that antiquity. I think, as do the Buddhists, that what is to be is somehow implicit in what is, and that to look for such signs is a natural and amusing thing to do.(Campbell 1991:147, emphasis added). Some of the phenomena we have discussed, such as dreams, suggest that grace resides in the unconscious mind of the individual. Other phenomena, such as synchronicity and serendipity, indicate this force to exist beyond the boundaries of the single individual. It is not simply because we are scientists that we have difficulty locating grace. The religious, who, of course, ascribe the origins of grace to God, believing it to be literally God's love, have through the ages had the same difficulty locating God.(Peck 1978:261). Vandiver1624 raises a cogent objection about personifying cultures: it isn't possible -to her- that any given culture may have collective dreams, any more than it can be thirsty or sleepy. That's an old contention that goes back to debates between the linear and morphological approach to human cultures.
In other words, some -for example the eminent but today unknown British erudite H.T. Buckle writing in the mid XIX century- consider cultures as coherent living organisms going through distinct life cycles; others reject such approach in favor of alternative evolutionary strategies such as the linear one.
Aurobindo's -whose statues resides in the Indian Parliament and at UNESCO Paris1625- nationalism, too, can be seen as a collection of XIX century 1624 1625
2000: Why Is Myth. Rosicrucians consider their masters as anticipating UNESCO. UNESCO instituted the Comenius medal in honor of the noted Rosicrucian. “Occult” threads run very deep. Julian Huxley (brother of Aldous of perennial philosophy fame, also an intellectual with strong left-wing connections) was the first UNESCO director. He wrote in 1946 (UNESCO, Its Purpose And Philosophy ):”At the moment, it is probable that the indirect effect of civilisation is dysgenic instead of eugenic ; and in any case it seems likely that the dead weight of genetic
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attitudes and arguments that are widely reported in other writers advocating the necessary actualization on the earthly plane of the providential existence -this timeof no individual heroes, prophets or saviors the almighty set apart well before birth, but of various States such as Italy, Greece, Romania, Germany, Yugoslavia, Poland with the same mystical elation:
For instance, India is free and her freedom was necessary if the Divine Work was to be done. -...- Afterwards the work for the Divine will become more possible and it may well be that the dream, if it is a dream, of leading the world towards the spiritual light, may even become a reality.-...- India today is free but she has not achieved unity.... The old communal division into Hindus and Muslims tends now to have hardened into a permanent political division of the country. It is to be hoped that this settled fact will not be accepted as settled for ever or as anything more than. temporary expedient. For if it lasts, India may be seriously weakened, even crippled... . This must not be; the partition must go...By whatever means, in whatever way, the division must go. (MAISF001 no date :Sri Aurobindo on himself) It is difficult to ascertain whether Aurobindo -who was schooled in Britain- is here more under the influence of Hegelianism (the State as preferred vehicle for the world spirit to get to know itself in the actualization of its own inner purpose) than Hindu culture.
stupidity, physical weakness, mental instability, and disease-proneness, which already exist in the human species, will prove too great a burden for real progress to be achieved. Thus even though it is quite true that any radical eugenic policy will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible, it will be important for Unesco to see that the eugenic problem is examined with the greatest care, and that the public mind is informed of the issues at stake so that much that now is unthinkable may at least become thinkable.”. Aurobindo, too, was purported to herald “eugenic evolutionism”. In 1915 ( Essays In Philosophy And Yoga), Aurobindo wrote:”We must s t u d y t h e l a w o f h e r e d i t y , d e v e l o p a s c i e n c e o f E u g e n i c s a n d use it wisely and remorselessly—with the remorseless wisdom o f N a t u r e — s o a s t o e n s u r e b y i n t e l l i g e n c e t h e r e s u l t t h a t t h e Inconscient assures by instinctive adaptation. ”. As the present writer argues, little to no difference often subsisted between the conflicting heads of the occult hydra. Huxley's words -the recipient of a couple “Darwin medals” in 1956 and 1958- could easily be Hitler's, although Huxley was a noted left-wing internationalist, and Aurobindo called Fascist regimes “demonic”.
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Even those who wanted to see Aurobindonian mysticism as apolitical, or committed only to the anti-British Indian nationalism and insurrection the guru had vehemently embraced, were in for a surprise as:
Liberal imperialism was redeemable extnote; totalitarianism was not. -...concomitantly, the Motherextnote asserted that those who expressed support for the Axis in word or deed were equally servants of the evil forces of the Asura. This was a matter of yogic discipline. Aurobindo was using the mystical forces at his disposal to work against Hitler and Tojo through Churchill [= a Mason]. Thus those sadhaks who supported the Axis necessarily opposed their guru and the whole system of yoga he taught and embodied. (Lorenzo 1993:158). Of course, the question of the Bengali famine of 1943, and how the British administration did very little, if anything at all, to ease the situation that caused the death of hundreds of thousands (how many depends on who tells the story), was a memory Bengali-born Aurobindo never had in his politicized zeal.
Devotees claim Aurobindo with his spiritual powers was instrumental in Hitler's defeat; he evidently 'forgot' to summon the spirits to avert the famine that killed many compatriots of his. Some even contend British war measures 1626 actually worsened the situation: it actually depends on who tells the story whether such memory is worth having:”determining what one remembers, what one forgets—is Old Stoic concept. According to doxographer Stobaeus (V century CE), the (Stoic) sage can serve the State only insofar as such political entity represents a step towards the ideal State. “What is right” for the Stoics -writes Stobaeus- is so according to nature and not according to human convention. Chinese Communist leader Mao declared in 1954:”Ours is a just cause. A just cause is invincible before any enemy. ”(note of this writer). extnote Mirra Alfassa, “India's (Jewish) mother -...- How Mirra Alfassa went from being a French bohemian to an Indian goddess -...-The de facto goddess of this town is a Sephardic Jew from France. ” (Goldberg 2010: no page). In Hindu ashrams (=religious communities), the male chief philosopher was often accompanied by a female counterpart called “mother”. (note of this writer). 1626 After the Japanese occupation of Burma, the British practiced scorched earth tactics in parts of Bengal as they feared an invasion. extnote
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instrumental in constructing the unique personal world of each of us.�.
It is notable the fixation with mystical oneness to be pursued at all costs (if...then) in the face of modern nation-States being just more or less incoherent administrative jumbles of cultures, creeds and origins. Germany, Italy and India coalesced from a diverse lump of principalities that shared little cultural commonalities, and -in India and Germany- even different religions (Protestants and Catholics in Germany; Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs in India). To this day, postal hubs in India have translators that correspondence addresses in English to mediate between the various Indian regional scripts and languages.
Colonial powers (France in the case of Italy; Britain in the case of India) can even be credited with 'inventing' the idea of India and Italy for commodious purposes (orientalism in the British case; a client State for the Napoleonic Empire and its revolutionary rhetoric). Such glib colonial inventions could be later appropriated by last minute nationalist minutemen, and votaries of hegemonic forces (the Indian congress movement; Piedmont in Italy; Prussia in Germany), as if they had been in existence forever.
Aurobindo Ghose musing about India is no different from the various activists saying the exact same things about Italy, Yugoslavia or Germany generations before him; or from Italian Fascism tooting the Hegelian horn to justify dirigiste statism at unprecedented levels:
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The opposite sentiment, the contentment of a tree with its roots, the happiness of knowing oneself not to be wholly arbitrary and accidental, but rather as growing out of a past as its heir, flower and fruit and so to be exculpated, even justified, in one's existence-this is what one now especially likes to call the proper historical sense . (Nietzsche 1874:20). The very idea of a generalized collective unconscious (=Bastian's elementary ideas, Hindu marga) overarching humankind, and of localized manifestations (=Bastian's ethnic ideas, Hindu desi) is in fact an understandable development on the basis of both Hegelian (=States as collective persons) and upanishadic/Hindu philosophy. When asked why was the deer their sacred spiritgod, an old shaman of the indigenous Mexican tribe Huichol answered:”do you see any elephants around here?”1627.
Historiography, then, can be construed as the collective unconscious' localized coalescence: “the great moments in the struggle of individuals form a chain, that in them the high points of humanity are linked throughout millennia”,“the need to make the experience of the past into the present”.
Many authors -championing what some refer to as non-primordialismhave already punched holes in any theory that -in reality or in their eyes onlyseems to accredit notions even remotely associated with race, ethnic groups, ancestral heritage and so forth:'we are all immigrants', or 'our ancestors all were strangers coming from all over at some point or another no matter what the circumstances'. 1627
Allione 1991.
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The rhetoric associated with primordialism is neatly classified as more or less commodious and clumsy variations on William Tell, Paul Bunyan or -rarely and at the very best- Davy Crockett narratives:”Davy Crockett, frontiersman, U. S. Senator, and war hero, first told tales about himself and later had tales told and written about him. The Crockett almanacs, published between 1835 and 1856, collected new and old tall motifs.”1628;”stories are to be understood the same way, not as pieces of historical fact about individuals -...- but rather as something like political cartoons.”.
Their objections are often on target, as nation-States are patchworks built through military conquest or fortuitous annexation of (very ) diverse territories and populations and not (according to Isidore's definition often misapplied as he was writing about gens) multitudo ab uno principio orta (a multitude sharing a single origin).
What is offered in exchange for supposedly non-existing races, however, is a more or less equally politicized, artificial and commodious definitions resting on equally emotional terms enshrouding equally unsubstantial artificial kin groups:”All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia.”.
For example the romantic imagery of the perpetual immigrant is offered; pseudo-marxist fixations with exploitation hierarchies; the cult of hybridism, 1628
Brown 1983:4.
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exogamy, neophilia (=being attracted to potential sexual partners who look different from one's own group), and exoticism are eulogized; the 'human heart' (or other existential concept) causes one to gasp; 'the human race' (or other pseudo-scientific romantic concepts) and the longing for antediluvian oneness make one rise to a standing ovation:�Wonder you will have to answer to the children of the sky -...Right here, spread love, everybody join together now One race, one heart, love and unity, everybody sing�1629.
It necessarily follows that the blind frenzy that saw monarchs grabbing whatever territory they could for as long as they managed shall be re-branded to satisfy aesthetic sense and to square with whatever morality is dominant this season (or century...).
The ongoing trade at bed-, sword- or cannon-point of territories, whose residents where branded like cattle to reflect their new allegiance, is restyled to mean a sort of compassionate labour of mercy in tune with elusive providential plans, and/or more or less manifest destinies.
The chieftain counting how many more peasants, fields, cows and horses he can squeeze to do his bidding -and being so open-minded not to mind the cows' color and the horses' breed- meets the 'progressive' social alchemist pledged to end
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The invitation of a 2006 song ( World Hold On) popular a few years ago. In the music video, a sweet child with his doggie (=puppies and children) saves the world from an approaching meteor (=worlds in collision) by building a spaceship with garage scraps. He then (in a dream of course) meets the meteor in outer space, destroys it throwing basket balls at it, then comes back as a hero to a frantic press conference. As the video goes on, a charming Negro voice sings, thus bringing people 'in the zone' with popcorn gnostic truth.
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all prejudices and differences.
Branden commends such attitude. As a corporate consultant, he chafes at the idea of discrimination, so passe, that deprives industry of talents:
Remember what I am about to tell you. In order that a Calabrian boy might be at home in Turin, and that a boy of Turin be welcome in Reggio di Calabria, our country fought for fifty years and thirty thousand Italians died. You must respect each other, love each other, and anyone who would offend his class-mate because he was not born in our province would render himself ever unworthy to raise his eyes when the flag of our country passes." -...- They come from all parts of Italy. Look at them; one can almost recognize them from their faces: the Sicilians, the Sardinians, the Neapolitans, the Lombards.(De Amicis 1918:16-17,32). It's no wonder the inconsequential jumbles of creeds, cultures and origins that are modern so-called nation-States end up looking increasingly like the prodigious hybrids the human mind is so obsessed with. (Illegal) immigrants from Africa are the key to re-settle and repopulate deserted areas and boroughs: apples and oranges can be added after all.
In the last decades, professional European soccer has changed. Loyalty to a given team, in turn tied to a particular city or neighborhood, is nowadays directed towards corporations foreign, international business moguls often control, whose star athletes championing the city or neighborhood are foreigners (of color) coming from afar to save the day just as mythology demands.
It also ensues a fabricated (engineered etc) sense of eusociality (=instinct
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to commit acts of altruism, including the supreme sacrifice, for the benefit of the group) has to be manufactured, imagined, or legislated on a recurring basis. Such was the extension of U.S citizenship to the dominion of Puerto Rico in 1917, just in time to serve the 'great nation' in WWI.
Outcasts who came from afar in order to save the day are many. Documentary Hollywoodism1630 connects the rise of “the American dream” as typecast in movies with the social climb of dejected, traumatized Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe in flight from pogroms: the future moguls of mighty Hollywood movie studios. Authors in print are adamant:”I'm not sure there was an American Dream before Jews came to Hollywood”1631;”Hollywood, the American dream, is a Jewish idea,"”1632; “the happy ending was the invention of Russian Jews”1633.
This
follows
perfectly
modern
psychologists'
prescription:
a
superordinate goal is needed in order to reconcile and unite otherwise diverse or opposed groups such as the incoherent jumbles of creeds and origins camouflaged under
the
commodious
blanket
of
“...ness”
(Britishness,
Italianness,
Yugoslavianness...) bards for hire gathering across the dominant regional power 1634 crafted to serve the purpose.
1630
1998. Historian Aljean Armetz. 1632 Jill Robinson, daughter of a former MGM executive. 1633 Jill Robinson, daughter of a former MGM executive. 1634 Prussia in the case of Germany; Ile de France in the case of France; the Kingdom of Piedmont in Italy; Serbia in Yugoslavia; Castille in Spain; England in the United Kingdom... 1631
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The totemic piacular rituals [=atonement for sin] of yore are replaced by a “daily plebiscite” as Renan would have in 1882 (Qu'Est Ce Qu'Une Nation) to defend the idea of nation the French way:”L'existence d'une nation est (pardonnezmoi cette métaphore) un plébiscite de tous les jours ”. Contemporary high sins against the totem may include tax evasion; heterodox views about some 'necessary war'; simply voicing how weird some other groups that belong to the horde speak, look or act. Black U.S singer Beyoncé shocked almost everybody as she sung:”I love my negro nose with Jackson 5 nostrils ”.
The diverse horde in fusion macadamizes its unity, and pledges ongoing allegiance to a superordinate imaginary community. Meanwhile, bards for hire, political hacks and pen-jockeys working freelance are busy 'rediscovering' or 'documenting' the immemorial, unbroken, godly heritage that was the horde's.
A pseudo-rac(ial)ist perspective is not necessary to the creation of artificial kins: the “cosmic race” might be the apocalyptic embodiment of the ethnocultural soup that was Mexico in the early XX century, much as lusotropicalismo1635 was Fascist Portugal's rally cry. Exceptionalism may wear as many masks as adventitious opportunity and fleeting circumstances might dictate.
Certainly not followers of Marxist doctrine, a diverse cohort of nationalists, liberals and Socialists alike in Italy pined for foreign policy 1635
The Fascist regime in Portugal adapted various doctrines to signify how Portugal was a peculiar nation: pluricontinental, multiracial and multicultural since its inception, thus favoring exceptionalist doctrines to justify colonialism as the Portuguese way.
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adventurism. In very open terms, they articulated the colonial war with Turkey in 1911, then WWI in 1915, as a “renewal through struggle� endeavor to mold a nation out of an inconsistent geographic ensemble inhabited by an incoherent array of antipodal phenotypes and cultures.
Presented as some sort of Darwinian crucible of cosmic proportions that would cause evolution to jump ahead according to the providential blueprint of a chauvinistic version of history, WWI ended leaving behind millions of casualties, blighted natural landscapes, ruined cities, and an eerie crowd of veteran amputees with prosthetic limbs, widows, orphans and gueules cassĂŠes (broken faces): the horribly disfigured veterans that made the freak shows so popular in the Belle
Epoque look fit for children's books.
In France, Ile de France reached southwards after stakes had been set ablaze, cities had been pillaged and bullion had been expropriated by thuggish gentry from the North the Pope had summoned to deal with heretics in the XII-XIII century.
This also explains how in recent decades ethno-cultural grievances (Canada, China, Belgium...) receive free passes only under the cover of linguistic grievances: in the name of French language, Flemish language, Tibetan language...
All ethno-racial connotations have been expurgated from the narrative that adopts the viewpoint of Belle Epoque nation-States and their fixation with
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languages as depersonalized transmission belt behind the food processor of acculturation: only some people can be ethno-racially French-Canadian, Tibetan or Flemish, for example, whereas everybody can learn Dutch, Tibetan or French. Strong correlation was observed -according to J.B. Peterson- in Quebec between being a lapsed Catholic and being a separatist. It is unthinkable to test one's blood for racial clues, but it's perfectly acceptable to subordinate the obtention of citizenship to tests that verify language and folkloric1636 competency.
Of course, much as restored Israelites shall inhabit a restored Israel speaking restored Hebrew1637, so the Italian, Greek, Catalan, German etc languages were “expurgated” and “restored” in the XIX century as the lingua franca of that Frankenstein job that are modern “restored” Nation-States.
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Some countries demand that one sing the national anthem, and/or be privy to localized versions of history such as the Italian Risorgimento or the U.S Constitutional period. The manufactured and essentially pro domo character of the same is obvious. Bin Laden and radical Islamists are rogues who butcher the innocent. Mazzini, Pisacane and their ilk are patriots. Catalonia wanting to quit Spain -or the Confederacy quitting the U.S compact- is “high treason”, and brute force shall insure common interest prevails; whereas George Washington leading the Colonies away from the British yoke constitutes patriotism. 1637 At different points in time messianic figures attempted a “restoration of Israel”. Carrier writes that”[popular agitator]'The Samaritan' gathered followers and said he would reveal the lost relics of the true Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim-an act with obvious messianic meaning (the Samaritans believing themselves to be the true Jews; this is alluded to even in Jn 4.20-26, which attests the Samaritans also expected an imminent messiah). The original Jewish congregation led by Joshua had stood at God's command 'upon Mount Gerizim to bless the people' after crossing the Jordan (Deut. 27. 1 2), which is to say, when Joshua (the original Jesus-the names are identical: see Chapter 6, §3) crossed the Jordan on the day the nation of Israel was conceptually begun. Thus, the original Joshua inaugurated the nation of Israel by crossing the Jordan and congregating at Gerizim; and since the last messiah (the new Joshua) was to reconstitute Israel, he, too, could expect to begin the task by a blessing on Mount Gerizim. [another agitator]'Theudas' gathered followers and said he would part the Jordan another act with obvious messianic meaning: Joshua (the original Jesus) had also miraculously parted the Jordan upon beginning his conquest of Israel (Joshua 3), so this was another obvious symbolic starting point for the reconquest of Israel. Similarly, the Christian Jesus (again, 'Joshua') is depicted as beginning his messianic career by symbolically parting (or passing through) the Jordan, in the form of his baptism.”. (2014:69-70). Godly heroes and saviors “part the waters” (Joshua, “savior”; John the Baptist; Jesus...) just like chief Philistine fish-god Dagon, who “rose from the waters of the Red Sea” (according to Smith, 1875) in Babylonian mythology according to Berossus (III century BCE). Dagon was at times superposed with Zeus Arotrios, the inventor of agriculture (according to Phoenician pre-Homeric writer Sanchuniathon).
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In China, the Taiping rebel government (1850-1864) also tried to “expurgate” the Chinese language from “foreign influences” in order to “restore it”:”fictions that can never be verified other than by the force of the conviction that they convey”;”where folklore is deemed lacking or insufficient, individual creative writers imbued with nationalistic zeal have felt free to fill in that void”.
The lore has it that Belgian Fascist leader (and
Waffen SS general)
Degrelle wanted to restore Lotharingia, a X century Frankish kingdom often associated with Burgundy. After the collapse of the Catholic establishment, Quebec turned under Levesque (1976-85) into a province jettisoning the Catholic heritage in favor of a quest for political sovereignty under Social-Democratic auspices 1638: a Francophone Cuba? This is not just a slogan.
Gilles Duceppe, an icon of the Quebec independence movement, was in fact an hard-core Communist of Maoist persuasion. Sartre and Foucault sympathized with Maoists, too. French academic Badiou also sympathizes with Maoism, and hailed the Khmer Rouge (Kampuchea Vaincra, Le Monde, 1979) without ambiguity:”y compris en ce qui concerne la mise à l'ordre du jour de la terreur ” 1639 (the policy of ongoing terrorism included). Maoism proved to be so popular at the time that a hybrid form (“Nazi-Maoism”) was developed to serve the radical right, in
1638 1639
The fact that René Levesque had started his political career as a card-carrying Liberal is indeed interesting. “Outre les tensions accumulées dans les siècles par l'absolue misère du paysan khmer, la simple volonté de compter sur ses propres forces et de n'être vassalisé par personne éclaire bien des aspects, y compris en ce qui concerne la mise à l'ordre du jour de la terreur, de la révolution cambodgienne. -...-Une troisième guerre de libération -...- et assurer, dans les faits, le peuple cambodgien de notre soutien dans la guerre prolongée de libération”.
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Italy for example.
The linguistic fixation can even exist as a severed head in wait for a body: esperanto was artificially engineered in the Belle Epoque by Jewish-Polish intellectual Zamenhof (1859-1917) as language for a democratic, and prejudice-free new humanity.
It all goes back again to the Hellenistic world: to be civilized meant speaking koinĂŠ Greek: regional, ethno-cultural and civic allegiances had lost most importance under the rule of Hellenistic monarchs.
another parallel is what happened in the period of the Hellenistic mystery cults. The mythology of the polis, the earlier city, had broken up, and people were living in a cosmopolis, a world city— not in the vast dimensions of today’s world city, yet very much the same, relatively, for those times. And there again, as today, there was this inward turning. (Campbell 1976:no page). Earlier still, Hindus believed the Vedas
had been literally heard as
celestial recitation from the divine creation's inner recesses gifted seers had perceived in Sanskrit, the language of the godhead.
Along the same lines, Mohamed recited the Quran as the supreme god had intended in the original language of Arabic twenty centuries or more after the Vedas. Sikhs recite their sacred scriptures in the language they were intended: Punjabi. Zoroastrian texts, too, were originally in archaic Persian, the language of Ahura Mazda. At the Ambalpadi Temple (Karnataka, India), goddess Mahakali
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receives the postulant's question and utters answers to the same in Kannada, a regional language.
For because the Gods have shown that the whole dialect of sacred nations, such as those of the Egyptians and Assyrians, is adapted to sacred concerns; on this account we ought to think it necessary that our conference with the Gods should be in a language allied to them. Because, likewise, such a mode of speech is the first and most ancient. And especially because those who first learned the names of the Gods, having mingled them with their own proper tongue, delivered them to us, that we might always preserve immoveable the sacred law of tradition, in a language peculiar and adapted to them. (Iamblichus (245-325 CE), On The Mysteries, ch.IV, Taylor trans.). The Book Of Mormon was composed in a vernacular as well: the King James Bible English. Noted U.S anthropologist Evans-Wentz also rendered Tibetan
Book Of The Dead materials in King James English in 1927. In East Asia, Chinese used to be the medium for both Buddhist liturgy and high culture: many Buddhist texts are still recited in Chinese:
This principle, so useful to caterers, is available to everyone. We can add small things that sound exotic and fashionable to our cooking (chipotle-mango sauces seem all the rage right now, or try buffalo instead of beef ). These ingredients might not make the dish any better in a blind taste test; but by changing our expectations, they can effectively influence the taste when we have this preknowledge. (Ariely 2009:96). Although playing no part in both the Old or New Testament, Latin became the Catholic Church's scriptural, sacred language. Early Islamic commentators wrongly assumed the “original Christian Gospel� to have been written in Hebrew, which they (incorrectly) intended as the language of Christ and
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the Prophets: valid scriptures “have to be” in “god's original language”.
In other words, prophets and saviors are dummies who sit on the lap of the invisible one true god. They motion and move their lips in front of their contemporaries, but the “original word” comes directly from god almighty, or so the story goes. Of course, the “original word” may also come from the hand of successive earthly scribes, redactors, compilers and interpolators who wrote the “story” on the go. In that case, the god concept serves as mascot for the company's product line: Mister Clean and the Michelin Man would be an example.
The proof god ventriloquizes for higher good using prophets and saviors as dummies is precisely in the language itself (Sanskrit, Hebrew, Latin, Punjabi...):”[Yahweh says] I will make my words in your mouth a fire and these people the wood it consumes.”.”1640.
Thereupon, influenced by the psychic power of the Buddha, the venerable Shariputra addressed the holy Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, the great messiah, thus: “When any noble son wishes to engage in the practice of the profound transcendence of wisdom, how should he learn?” (Bhagavati Prajnaparamita-hrdaya sutra, Thurman trans., emphasis added). English is supposedly the high language of the new humanity with local macaronics emerging. A quote attributed to a row of characters across the U.S political spectrum reads:” If English was good enough for Jesus, it is good enough for me”.
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Jeremiah 5:14, emphasis added.
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Interestingly enough, Hellenistic kingdoms represented a sort of postcolonial offspring of the Alexandrine Empire. The only realm where the fixation with breeds and bloodlines still stands from where it was planted during the Victorian era is the animal realm: dog and cattle breeding.
The point isn't moot. The mythical Prester John was deemed invincible for various reasons: his incomparable wealth; his vast domains (= Prester John as Alexander's Christian doppelgaenger); the presence in his realm of springs granting eternal health and youth. Not only were his subjects innumerable, but they included a startling repertoire of wonderful and gifted races of all kinds 1641, among which people with twelve arms and legs.
Puerto Ricans were outraged after the [1898 Hispano-American] war. Instead of becoming citizens, Puerto Ricans were in limbo. “They didn’t even have a passport; they didn’t have any legal standing in the U.S. system until 1917.” That year, Puerto-Ricans became U.S. citizens under the Jones-Shafroth act—this way the U.S. could deploy them as troops during World War I (similar to how the Emancipation Proclamation legalized the Union’s use of black troops). The federal government believed that white people weren’t suited to fight in tropical climates because they didn’t have immunity to the diseases found there. Instead, the U.S. sent Puerto Rican “immunes,” as they were called, to defend the Panama Canal. (Little 2017:no page). In a way that recalls the imagery of the Persian empire of yore, John could have hurled his diverse hordes against Muslims in order to overpower them: hybridity equals power. John's imaginary armies looked on paper as phenotypically diverse as those of all hegemonic empires; of which, the Soviet and U.S armies are 1641
Sebenico 2005:91ss.
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the latest examples:
It has long been observed that in nature, hybrids usually fare better than their homozygotic counterparts. This is called heterosis or hybrid vigor and is seen most noticeably in plants -...-Boyer’s theory begins with the presumption that the mind is structured to deal with five basic ontological categories: person, plant, animal, natural objects and man-made objects. In other words, the human brain is constitutionally set up to pigeonhole every object in the universe into one of only five categories. Further, each category is associated with a set of defining characteristics which clearly define which objects belong in that category. These divisions may or may not be mutually exclusive but the mind treats them as such. In other words, every object in the universe is labeled by a distinct category, like numbers on dice, not like colors on a spectrum. -...-In Boyer’s theory, a religious idea must incorporate a fact that specifically contradicts or violates at least one defining characteristic of its ontological category (Boyer and Ramble 2001). For example, a ghost may have the form of a person but it lacks one defining quality integral to its ontological category: physical matter. (Polimeni 2012:108,170). Hybridity might prove eerie and/or disconcerting because it probes the depth of the “uncanny valley”: hybridity embodies that dilemma perfectly.
In the 1980-90s, third-rate U.S action movies saw an array of mestizo actors alternatively posing as Oriental (Chinese, Japanese...), Latino (Mexican, Brazilian...), American-Indian or White characters because their uncanny phenotype blurred boundaries. Blockbusting movie Kickboxer (1989) saw a Hong Kong Chinese actor and a Filipino-American actress acting as Thai characters. The same applies to (not so) vaguely androgynous adolescent boy band characters able to arouse the prurience of an homo-, bi- and heterosexual audience alike under the pretense of more or less modest vocal or dancing skills. 1242
It goes back to human mind's immemorial fears:
The sacrificial victim and the scapegoat both represent uncontrolled nature, chaos. In the southern European village festivals they take the form of form of frightening monster-constructions parading through the streets of the town, threatening the inhabitants. The monsters, either men dressed up in costume or mechanical structures, launch attacks on the villagers, who retaliate. The ultimate and inevitable defeat of the monsters clears the village of evil and introduces societal renewal. -...- As proponents of chaos that erupt in the midst of the village festival, to be fought and expelled, they bring about renewal. As frightening beings confronting initiates and bringing them to clearer insights into their community and their role within it, they bring about change. It can be concluded that monsters perform a vital role in the communal life of societies and in the personal life of individuals.(Posthumus 2011:85,89, emphasis added). [ XIX century museums were] famed for [their] collection of anatomical and pathological preparations containing the remains of remarkable abnormal bodies. -...- [that] are famous as much for their fantastical history as for their shocking appearance. Hunter, like some other medical men, was drawn to the physical remains of the abnormal and monstrous partly because of the stories that they told. These stories were recorded as identities and complied from the details of the bodies’ time on display; while living and after death. The carefully created micro-history of each deformed specimen on exhibit imbued the object with a value reserved for the most remarkable and prized specimens on the market. The origin tale of this specimen, like most claims about monstrous bodies in the Georgian and Victorian periods, was fantastical to the point of sensationalism. It incorporated elements of cultural violence, exoticism, rarity and wonder, and was (in all likelihood) mostly fabricated. But the authenticity of such narratives was, and remains to be, of little importance. Many scholars have noted that the late Georgian and Victorian fascination with the abnormal body was dually manifested in anatomy exhibitions and freak shows (Giese 2012:1-2). During the Belle Epoque, the French envied the powerful British Empire. They wondered whether the jumble of phenotypes they could assemble -from Africa to Indochina- to increase the great nation's glory and wealth could
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match the prodigious array of phenotypes from all over the British Empire.
An endless stream of colonial troops wearing pagoda hats, Manchurian caps, fezzes or turbans would give the proud country a place under the sun. Liberal sociologist Max Weber complained that “an army of niggers and barbarians” was besieging Germany during WWI.
In the late 1800s to well into the 1900s, Europeans created “human zoos” in cities like Paris; Hamburg, Germany;Antwerp, Belgium; Barcelona, Spain; London; Milan; Warsaw, Poland; St Louis; and New York City. These were popular human exhibits where whites went to watch Black people who were on display. The Black people were usually forced to live behind gates and in cages similar to animals in a zoo today. Some of the Black people were kidnapped and brought to be exhibited in the human zoos. Many of them died quickly,some within a year of their captivity. A large number of visitors attended these exhibitions in each city daily. For example, the Parisian World Fair featured a human zoo that exhibited Black people, and 34 million people were drawn to the exhibition in just six months. (13 Shameful Pictures...2014:no page). The same train of thought goes today under the label of diversity, which alone can guarantee prosperity and never-ending development to the post-war welfare state through the contribution of waves of immigration from the antipodes: hybridity equals power in a sort of X-men kind of situation; R.L. Moore refers to “diversity” as a form of “royal grandiosity”, “incredible narcissism” 1642.
It is not even new, either. History presents recurring examples of enlightened or demented monarchs (depending on opinion, in turn driven by sociopolitical conjunctures) who sought to impose an overarching culture, and to 1642
2003a.
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artificially engineer a new body politic to reflect it. Alexander openly pushed for hybridity antagonizing local ethno-cultural differences, and wishing for the birth of a mixed, exogamic ruling class of Persians and Graeco-Macedonians.
Much later, the Antiocan persecution saw Antiochus IV (175-164 BCE) legislating1643 to insure that all different creeds and ethno-cultural groups within his diverse domain1644 came together as one people under Hellenistic culture, which prompted the Maccabean revolt in Judea.
Antiochus IV Epiphanes (=god made manifest) came then to embody -in Hebrew collective consciousness- the antichrist, the “abomination” 1645, the archetypal arch-trickster in a long tradition that anticipated the various Nero, Diocletian etc of Christianity. Antiochus had introduced in Jewish temples the cult of Zeus with statues fashioned in the King's likeness; he had banned Jewish rites -such as circumcision-, and required rites Jews deemed impure.
French scholar Cambronne1646 sees in those events the first spreading of apocalyptic thinking destined to an evergreen fortune up to the present time. 1643
Some criticize this explanation, and claim that Antiochus IV was only after geopolitical gains or consolidation in a border area torn between Egypt and Seleucia as Seleucia was experiencing military setbacks. The present writer supposes it makes no real difference, for political regimes always use cultural and/or ethnic slogans as ancillary to more mundane geopolitical pursuits or in an attempt to stave decadence off. 1644 The Seleucid domain extended from parts of Anatolia to Syria and Judea in the South; it included Persia and Bactria to the far East. 1645 Other foes of the Hebrew imaginary follow suit. The ghost of the Emperor Titus -who quashed a Jewish revolt as a general- shouts in distress “Burn me and scatter my ashes over the seven seas so that the God of the Jews will not find me and bring me to trial.” in Talmudic literature: the god of Israel had sent a gnat to devour his brain while he was alive. According to P. Schaefer again ( Jesus In The Talmud), Jesus' spirit is evoked by Onqelos (Titus' nephew). In a seance, the Nazarene reveals how he -another foe of Hebrew consciousness- has been sentenced to dwell in boiling excrement. 1646 No date.
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Cambronne interprets the etymology of apocalypse as “going past/through the veil” to get visions of divine things as god grows increasingly silent 1647:”With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. “1648.
Later still, Mughal Emperor Akbar in India (1542-1605 CE) followed policies similar to Alexander's trying to engineer a new, exogamic ruling class, and to establish his Hindu and Muslim subjects on roughly equal footing under royal authority. He – like Alexander and especially Antiochus IV- also tried to reform religious customs (Din-I-Llahi) towards syncretism to accommodate the various religious traditions best (Jainism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism...) by incorporating aspects of all, such as fire worship (Hinduism, Zoroastrianism ), prohibition of animal slaughter (Jainism), etc: togetherness through belief.
All these artificial kin groups are alike, although every activist thinks that his kin group is real, based on irrefutable evidence and honest intentions, while the opponent's kin group is a tribal hallucination, a sad charade awash in the blood of the innocent, whose premises are less than laughable.
One's 'great man' -however inherently imperfect- is always an Ozymandias, impeccably above reproach; anything to the contrary amounts to a vile insinuation to slight the 'great cause'. The bards of a rival group, however, are all 1647
God – Cambronne explains- in the beginning converses with Adam face to face; then the burning bush serves as intermediary; then prophets relay god's words. Prophecy gradually disappears. In the absence of god's word, people try to get visions of things divine. 1648 Mark 15:37-38.
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scandal-ridden, deranged buffoons, murderous sociopaths, slick salesmen harboring unspeakable passions or allegiances.
Such diatribes do not make the main contention go away, though, or the perplexity why parties with normative power within a designated culture (and a majority of members of that community) have an inescapable penchant for some mythologies, related rhetoric, and pathetic imagery. Isn't a series of shared moral senses1649 what binds societies together?
Already Roman historian Livy seemed to grasp the concept pretty well:
There is no reason, I feel, to object when antiquity draws no hard line between the human and the supernatural: it adds dignity to the past, and, if any nation deserves the privilege of claiming a divine ancestry, that nation is our own; and so great is the glory won by the Roman people in their wars that, when they declare that Mars himself was their first parent and father of the man who founded their city, all the nations of the world might well allow the claim as readily as they accept Rome’s imperial dominion. (1960:33-51). Livy here establishes a simple equation between Rome's military might bestowing legitimacy upon whatever myths Rome chose for itself. The same can be applied to any other historical case: generations of elated leftists and 'progressives' sang the glory of the USSR as workers' paradise. When the Soviet regime collapsed out of its economical rather than political failure, the political, logistical, human and economical miseries that lurked behind the muscled curtain - whose extent had evaded even the most anti-communist sovietologists- appeared in full sight. 1649
Broadly put, what (the majority of ) people feel about sets of issues, for example sport, pornography, alcohol consumption...
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For a short while the Napoleonic or Fascist regimes (and their countless imitations) were touted as the miraculous combination of oligarchy, tyranny, dirigisme and yet western mass-democracy, only to be forever berated later as bizarre experiments in mind-control, war and mass-murder by deranged buffoons. Tyranny1650 here is not utilized to emotionally denounce the exaggerated figure of the demagogue, freak, mass-murderer or squanderer:
The reason is, that in the way that the Greeks imagined the figure of the tyrant, as projected in the fifth and fourth centuries, he took on the features of the hero of legend, an individual at once elect yet accursed. By rejecting all the rules that the Greeks regarded as the basis for communal life, the tyrant placed himself beyond the socialpale (Vernant&Vidal-Naquet 1990:226). We may shudder at the crassness of earthly heroism, of both Caesar and his imitators, but the fault is not theirs, it is in the way society sets up its hero system and in the people it allows to fill its roles. The urge to heroism is natural, and to admit it honest. (Becker 1973:4). It is as though the heroic symphony had been arranged for two flutes and reserved for the use of dreamy opium smokers (Nietzsche 1874:34). The figure of the tyrant-monster is known to the mythologies, folk traditions, legends, and even nightmares, of the world; and his characteristics are everywhere essentially the same. He is the hoarder of the general benefit. He is the monster avid for the greedy rights of "my and mine." The havoc wrought by him is described in mythology and fairy tale as being universal throughout his domain. This may be no more than his household, his own tortured psyche, or the lives that he blights with the touch of his friendship and assistance; or it may amount to the extent of his civilization. The inflated ego of the tyrant is a curse to himself and his world—no matter how his affairs may seem to prosper. (Campbell 1949:14). I have intentionally adjusted my teaching materials as the political 1650
The precise definition of Weber's charismatic form of authority with no need for neologisms.
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winds have shifted. -...-Most of my colleagues who still have jobs have done the same. We've seen bad things happen to too many good teachers (anonymous college professor in 2015). in Taiwan1651, just as it was the case with Western tyrants, gods (the village protector Tudi Gong, Earth god) enter in a complex web of interactions with humans: should their presence not live up to expectations, humans might dismiss the god and find a new one. Magna Mater Cybele was imported from the East in Rome with pomp in 204 BCE to ward off Hannibal's threat; in 325 and 380 CE, Roman Emperors first legalized, then introduced Christianity as the sole permitted religion of an Empire in dire geopolitical and social crisis.
If everybody knows what the export of cultural and political material by Fascist regimes really stood for, the U.S model is noble: “English takes you everywhere”. Culture-specific events such as Halloween can be interpreted as harmless exports occasioning bursts of consumerism, in turn a boon to the economy:”This “airport civilization” that’s, as it were, putting down its centers all over the world—is that something that’s going to fade as the gifts of the British Empire faded? ”1652.
The omnipresent anglicized pidgin oozing from press releases and massmediatic culture also signposts the sunset of provincialism:” worship of a foreign god can be a political action that affirms loyalty to another nation” 1653. The Royal Seal Eyre 1977:Taoism. Campbell 1976:no page. 1653 Holland 2005: Classical Israelite Prophecy. He talks about the introduction of foreign gods in the Hebrew kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 1651 1652
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Of Ezekiah (Ophel excavation of a X century BCE refuse dump) depicts a winged sun and an Egyptian ankh (looped cross): quite telling for King Ezekiah ( 715-686 BCE) who is hailed as restorer of orthodox Hebrew faith.
In 196 BCE -as Rome had become a dominant power in the region-, the pan hellenic Apollo oracle at Delphi acknowledged the Romans as Aeneas' descendants. For decades, the USSR was recognized in many quarters as the workers' paradise, whereas to this date aggressive U.S foreign policy does not constitute bloody imperialism, but disinterested “freedom exportation”.
The average layman might have been in favor of “the White man's burden” well into the 1930s, cathecting with hopes and worship 'Aryan heroes' a la Errol Flynn. Some may have even flirted with NSDAP-inspired nordicism and neopaganism.
Today's laymen just changed their model of reference:
When the young Surinamese came to Amsterdam, however, they also found transnational youth culture waiting for them, among their peers and in the marketplace. Some became ‘disco freaks,’ with whatever this implied in terms of clothing fashions and musical taste. In their case, as elsewhere in Europe, it turned out that in one particular context at least, being black was no handicap; among the devotees of popular culture inspired from the United States and the Caribbean, belonging to an ethnic minority was rather a social asset, and Surinamers could find themselves as stylistic leaders on the dance floor. If there was a disadvantage to this, it might rather be that they were tempted to devote the larger part of their energies to the night shift. (Hannerz in Deben 2000:190, emphasis added).
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by 1850 almost any book by or about a Negro was in great demand [in America and England] Disdain at vulgarity is rooted in fear of the Other's difference, for difference by its very nature is subversive and carries the seeds of loss of control. By relativizing one's assumptions about the way the world is and ought to be, the Other's difference threatens the easy stability and security of seeing in the world only a reflection of ourselves. To neutralize this threat, it is necessary to devalue (and thus disempower) the Other as uncivilized, vulgar, dangerous, or even mad. (CharmĂŠ 1991:20). Mid-town Whites in the U.S start acting and talking ghetto to emulate 'cool' suburban gangs of African juveniles soon joined by Hispanic and Asian youth criminal gangs.
As the ashes of innumerable victims of NSDAP's racial utopia were still smoldering out, Germany in ruins had become -at the end and in the aftermath of WWII- a sort of land of sexual plenty, a juke joint for both the diverse Soviet hordes, and especially U.S Afro-American soldiers coming from a segregated society at home. Hitler had in due time ridden the scandal that German women had caused when they had eloped in large numbers with occupying French troops of color from Africa after WWI1654.
All this unfolded in the face of NSDAP bombast about Chandala (nonpersons in the NSDAP ariosophic worldview; literally=untouchables); racially pure, unbroken lineages, and the millions of victims sacrificed to this worldview. In a mixed metaphor some suggested, which is here being adapted, the importance of the 1654
Over 400.000 soldiers from Africa served in the French army in WWI. Roughly 600.000 colonial soldiers served the Entente.
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concept of soul in the Medieval Catholic Church has been replaced -in all its implications- with either racial or sexual considerations (homosexuality, hybridity...).
The problem -posited by Jewish-Lithuanian philosopher Levinas – according to which metaphysics, or the cult of the absolute, leads to violent intolerance and the annihilation of whoever is 'other' and does not conform, has some historical merit applicable to any other momentous historical event (the French, Russian and Chinese revolutions; Fascist and Social-communist regimes, etc).
The argument, however, loses most of its strength when it's reduced to a mere checking the color of the alleged perpetrator's armband, or wishful ethicizing:
Quella situazione statica, di equilibrio, in cui la psicologia individuale coincide con la psicologia collettiva, dove non c'è formazione di concetti nel confronto, ma semplice verifica di essi (That kind of static situation of equilibrium, where individual psychology comforms with collective psychology. Concepts do not arise through debate, but are simply acknowledged as being already in place) (Zorzetti 1980-1:151). If the color matches the day's (or the epoch's) socio-political climate, the great cause or great person (of the day, of course) shall be preserved tap dancing around definitions, facts or concepts in an improbable comedy of innocence that is exposed as such when another regime turns received notions upside down sending former heroes to the gallows, and former rogues to the podium.
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That's the incoherent minuet called politics, under the pretense of the irreversible (the in saecula saeculorum= forever and ever recurring several times in the
Bible)
restoration
of
quintessential,
perennial
moral/spiritual
orders
(=depersonalized, not closely tied to fleeting circumstances or priorities) accidentally perturbed. According to elated pen-jockeys in the press, (nearly) every Pope makes history: John XXIII (Vatican II); John Paul II (at times dubbed “XX century's most influential man”); Benedict XVI; Francis I...: irreversible changes in
saecula saeculorum galore.
Secular leaders aren't much different. Alexander, Octavian Augustus, Constantine, Cromwell; the Jacobin, the Bolshevik, the Fascist, the Khmer Rouge etc regimes were all convinced they were indeed changing history for good. Voltaire, too, fulminated against the vampire hysteria of his XVIII century by declaiming (Dictionnaire Philosophique) how vampires were gone, much as
convulsionnaires and Jesuits were gone:”c’est sous le règne des d’Alembert, des Diderot, des Saint-Lambert, des Duclos qu’on a cru aux Vampires ”.
The “new world order” concept electrifies mythicists and fringe enthusiasts:
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. (Romans 8:28). An identical message recurs in the Bhagavad-Gita as well (possibly V century BCE). Je vous le déclare, une page de notre histoire a été définitivement tournée. Le passé est bien mort, c'est vers un avenir de courage, 1253
d'honnêteté, de patience et d'union que le Pays doit résolument se tourner. (Marshal Petain on August 30, 1942). He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death' or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." (Revelation 21:4). Mira adelante que no hay nada detrás Y no se puede regresar (Miguel Bosé, 1982). fever's rising high the moment of truth draws near -...-hearts on fire strong desire rages deep within ( Rocky IV soundtrack Hearts On Fire). So they said to each other, "Weren't our hearts ablaze within us while [Jesus] was talking with us on the road and explaining the Scriptures to us?" (Luke 24:32). It may be that the lord will see my distress and repay me with good for the cursing I am receiving today. (2 Samuel 16:12). And the crisis of society is, of course, the crisis of organized religion too: religion is no longer valid as a hero system, and so the youth scorn it. If traditional culture is discredited as heroics, then the church that supports that culture automatically discredits itself. If the church, on the other hand, chooses to insist on its own special heroics, it might find that in crucial ways it must work against the culture, recruit youth to be anti-heroes to the ways of life of the society they live in. This is the dilemma of religion in our time. -...- The social hero-system into which we are born marks out paths for our heroism, paths to which we conform, to which we shape ourselves so that we can please others, become what they expect us to be. -...- People hunger for immortality and get it where they can: in the small family circle or in the single love object. The transference object is the locus of our conscience, of our whole cosmology of good and evil. It is not something we can simply break away from, as it embodies our whole hero-system.(Becker 1973:7,82,212). The highest forms of love are inevitably totally free choices and not acts of conformity. (Peck 1978:139). It is as old as man and has been labeled in a number of ways, notably as Hume's law:
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an evaluative claim cannot logically be derived from pure statements of fact.
The same disregard for the principle of coherence is everywhere. A reckless driver who killed a sweet 'mommy of three' speeding at a certain speed may be driving within the law in another jurisdiction; in one case, it warrants barrels of tears and jittery displays of common humanity, whereas in another is just a fatality. A drunk driver who killed a tender 'daddy of two' may have drunk what legally is a permissible amount of alcohol in another jurisdiction; in one case, it warrants barrels of tears and jittery displays of common humanity, whereas in another is just a fatality.
Driving with the vehicle's lights on during the day used to be an offense in Italy; it's now the norm disobeying which one is at risk of irresponsibly killing artificial kin members. In each and every one of hundreds of obtusely contradictory situations, 'experts' in the 'white as purity' lab coat of the 'priest of science' come forward to make whichever case applies at that moment with their electronic microscopes, compasses and culture dishes.
There is no limit to what 'scientists' can 'cook'. News agency RT (February 2, 2013) announces: “The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has issued Argentina with a 'declaration of censure' for providing inaccurate inflation and GDP data and has given it until September 29th to amend the problems or will impose sanctions. �. In 2014, statistical agencies of the European Union shall add prostitution, pushing, smuggling and other illegal activities to the parameters used 1255
to compute official GDP, thus leading to an overall GDP increase on paper 1655.
Boyle -the thinker and eminent chemist- in the XVII century had nicknamed scientists (=”natural philosophers” ) “priests of nature”; as Turner noted, Victorians had appropriated the concept:
Although he was a socialist, Pearson was no egalitarian with respect to the hierarchy of scientific talent. The role of the semi-educated citizen was still primarily one of respect for the “Priests” of science -...Pearson hoped for the establishment of ‘poets, philosophers, and scientists’ . . . as ‘high priests’” (2008: 6,18).
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ANSA, May 23, 2014.
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THE BARNUM EFFECT
Parallels between established religions (and ensuing systems of power) and ancient myths (or religions formerly established having nowadays lost their power)1656 are highly challenging. Church Father St. Justin Martyr wrote in the II century:
And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter. -...- [the demons] heard the prophets foretelling that Christ would specially be believed in; but that in hearing what was said by the prophets they did not accurately understand it, but imitated what was said of our Christ, like men who are in error, we will make plain. The prophet Moses, then, Was, as we have already said, older than all writers; and by him, as we have also said before, it was thus predicted: "There shall not fail a prince from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until He come for whom it is reserved; and He shall be the desire of the Gentiles, binding His foal to the vine, washing His robe in the blood of the grape." The devils, accordingly, when they heard these prophetic words, said that Bacchus was the son of Jupiter, and gave out that he was the discoverer of the vine, and they number wine [or, the ass] among his mysteries; and they taught that, having been torn in pieces, he ascended into heaven. (no date, no page, emphasis added). Second, in a variation on the theme, C.S. Lewis suggested that in Jesus' case "myth became fact." He admitted the whole business about the Mythic Hero archetype and the similarity to the pagan saviors, only he made them a kind of prophetic charade, creations of the yearning human heart, dim adumbrations of the incarnation of Christ before it actually happened. The others were myths, but this one actually happened. In answer to this, I think of an anecdote told by my colleague Bruce Chilton, how, staying the weekend at the home of 1656
The third term of the equation might be “sect� (typically as defined by those vested with normative authority), or a religion that hasn't established itself as mainstream yet.
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a friend, he was surprised to see that the guest bathroom was festooned with a variety of towels filched from the Hilton, the Ramada Inn, the Holiday Inn, etc. Which was more likely, he asked: that representatives from all these hotels had sneaked into his friend's bathroom and each copied one of the towel designs? Or that his friend had swiped them from their hotels? (Price 1997:no page). The very pliable, Barnum-like nature1657 of certain cliches is what made them palatable to different cultures over immemorial spans of time. Some dispute the influence of Orpheus crucified on Christianity on the basis of the position of the figurine's legs that may not match that of Christian art.
Accusations of being gullible and easily swayed fly in all directions; of either taking things at face value, of having an agenda, or of not appreciating the metaphor/fable enough; absolute, never before seen divine truths, or animistic forces of evil and deception are alternatively seen at work behind the curtain.
Christian fundamentalists are quick to denounce the sage -and Pythagorean healer or divine godhead depending on sources- Apollonius of Tyana -allegedly a contemporary of Jesus- as simply a folkloric carbon-copy of 'real Jesus'. Naturally, the same may not appreciate if a glass of their own medicine is served to them pointing out how figures optioning the position of divine, maltreated falling and coming back savior-hero-healer aren't exactly few.
The present writer therefore offers the above for consideration, but does 1657
The famous showman used to include a bit of everything in his travelling shows: small animals to amuse the children, voluptuous women to catch men's attention and strong men to catch women's eyes; the “Barnum effect� refers to statements that look customized but are in reality very generic and can be endorsed by a majority of people.
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not wish to explore to the full extent the contention of the ultimate veracity, validity or historicity of this or that savior-god, prophet or hero. Suffice it to say that myths, which we may call religions if they are established as a recognized system of power, or sects if they are on their way towards the above, are extremely pliable. It is enough to read some sources cataloging the seeming inconsistencies in a sacred text1658: these inconsistencies are a goldmine for future updates in one direction or another, as contemporary sociopolitical circumstances may allow.
That is why 'the Barnum effect ' 1659 (or: something for everyone) plays a role in this contention. Kolakowski wrote:
No debemos ser fervientes moralistas para algunos casos y para otros Realpolitikers o filósofos de la historia mundial, según sean las circunstancias políticas. -...- Le citaré (de memoria) lo que en una conversación me dijo sobre la tortura en Brasil un revolucionario latinoamericano. Pregunté: “¿Qué hay de malo con la tortura?” y él dijo: “¿Qué quiere decir? ¿Sugiere que está bien? ¿Justifica usted la tortura?” Y dije: “Por el contrario, simplemente le pregunto si usted piensa que la tortura es una monstruosidad moralmente inadmisible.” “Desde luego”, contestó él. “¿Y lo es la tortura en Cuba?”, pregunté. “Bien —contestó él—, eso es otra cosa. Cuba es un pequeño país bajo la amenaza constante de los imperialistas americanos. Ellos tienen que usar todo medio de autodefensa, incluso los deplorables.” Entonces dije: “Ahora bien, usted no puede seguir ambos caminos. Si cree, como yo lo hago, que la tortura es abominable e inadmisible por razones morales, lo es entonces, por definición, en todas las circunstancias. Si, empero, hay circunstancias donde puede ser tolerada, entonces usted no puede condenar ningún régimen por el mismo hecho de aplicar la tortura, ya que asume que no hay nada esencialmente malo con la tortura en sí. O condena la tortura en Cuba exactamente igual que lo 1658 1659
Regarding the Christian Bible, see McKinsey, no date. The famous showman used to include a bit of everything in his travelling shows: small animals to amuse the children, voluptuous women to catch men's attention and strong men to catch women's eyes; The “effect” refers to statements that look customized but are in reality very generic and can be endorsed by a majority of people, such as horoscopes magazines publish.
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hace con Brasil, o usted mismo se impide condenar a la policía brasileña por el hecho de torturar a la gente. De hecho, no puede condenar la tortura por razones políticas, porque en la mayor parte de casos es absolutamente eficiente y los torturadores consiguen lo que quieren. Usted puede condenarla sólo por razones morales y luego, necesariamente, en todas partes de la misma manera, en la Cuba de Batista o en la de Castro, en Vietnam del Norte y en Vietnam del Sur.” (No date: no page). It is possible to see the whole spectrum of tragicomic strategies at work: when Kolakowski asks the South-american revolutionary what was bad about torture, the brilliant activist asks back whether Kolakowski “justifies torture”; he tries to put the 'pure/impure' routine in motion or some other journalistic appeal of that kind to send the audience into conniptions of oneness. Prompted the question was directed to him, the revolutionary climbs the podium of absolute morality first, only to make excuses for Cuba seconds later:“that's a completely different story. It's a small country under the unrelenting threat of American imperialists. They have to use all possible means of self-defense, including deplorable ones”.
Tides of ink have washed ashore the 'immoral' claim of Southern exceptionalism, as Confederate States argued their peculiar socio-economical and ethnic configuration found no comparison, and was therefore worthy of exemptions and exceptions. Of course, today the mainstream response is that was just an inconsistent journalistic appeal to buttress infamous exploitation hierarchies and racial intolerance. Naturally, other groups today benefit of such exceptional status by virtue of what is no longer a commodious journalistic appeal, but humankind's supreme moral and/or legislative achievement.
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A former Communist turned critic, historian Draper ridicules Kolakowski's indictment of inconsistencies and immoralities in the Yalta settlement:
Even if Roosevelt and Churchill were as fatalistically clairvoyant as Kolakowski demands of them, what should they have done at Yalta? To this question Kolakowski has no hint of an answer. Should they have refused to deal with the Polish question at all on the ground that it was foolish to expect that Poland could be saved from sovietization by an intervention of Western powers, as Kolakowski puts it? Was it conceivable that they could threaten the Soviets with the use of force, if Stalin did not live up to his commitment in words? What kind of ultimatum could they have given Stalin to get the kind of Polish government and frontiers demanded by the Polish extremists? Some of them could have been satisfied only by Russia’s ultimate defeat in the war by some sequence of German and Anglo-American action. The deeper reason for the disillusionment with Churchill and Roosevelt is that they could not gratify this Polish fantasy. (Draper 1986: no page, emphasis added). It is another textbook case of the sophistry deployed in such cases. Poland's sovereignty and territorial integrity is reduced to “a Polish fantasy”. Poles are also ridiculed for their presumed appeal to irrevocable and absolute moralities that are easily debunked as the childish dream of people who haven't their feet on the ground; or Poles may now be “extremists” and no longer the martyrs in whose name the war was started. Of course, why emphasize Draper's real or presumed past allegiances so ungentlemanly?
Why does the mainstream reader think the same treatment is a service to higher values in David Irving's and suchlike cases? It is quite entertaining to see how the priggish worship devoted to moralistic routines and their totems cast in stone coexists with the most bohemian attitudes of scorn and ridicule.
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Last, in spite of super-massive, all-pervasive intelligence deployment documented and bragged about all over, Churchill and Roosevelt “couldn't possibly have known”...Greek drama at its zenith (or nadir?). Of course the “couldn't possibly have known” is a political courtesy reserved to the 'good guys' ( for example AngloAmericans) and denied to the 'bad guys' (for example the Catholic Church and its ties to arch-Fascist Catholic Croatia): attribution bias 1660.
In almost the same breath 1661, the priests of acceptable public discourse mention both the known, enormous reality of Soviet prison camps networks, and the secret reality of the equally enormous NSDAP prison (death) camp networks. The implications are obvious: “willing executioners” on one hand, “possibly misguided but well-meaning” on the other. The “couldn't possibly have known” item was at the core of medieval inquisitional practice. Potential heretics were in fact summoned, questioned and forewarned to recant -and repent- in case their beliefs proved to be unacceptable; only if they persisted (relapsed, didn't recant etc) would the prosecution unfold (torture, prison terms etc) in all its might 1662.
Does the Socratic dilemma make any sense beyond the trading of political tokens of damnation or absolution for commodious purposes? British media 1660
In short, it rests on the divide between internal and external, personalized and de-personalized attribution. For example, 'good guys' chance to do bad things because they are overpowered, ill-informed, clueless, sickly; their ultimate nature remains good. 'Bad guys' do bad things because that reflects their wicked innermost nature. 'Good guys' do good things because they are good after all. 'Bad guys' may seem to do good things once in a while, but there is an explanation, clay tablet, eye-witness report, cablegram, warehouse list etc that shows it all was a great deception. It's again the divide between the qualitative (=connotation=rapport) and quantitative (=denotation=report) approach. 1661 Liulevicius 2003. 1662 Daileader 2001:The Medieval Inquisitions.
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could easily report during WWII:
British and US bombers have dropped hundreds of thousands of explosives on the German city of Dresden. The city is reported to be a vital command centre for the German defence against Soviet forces approaching from the east. Last night, 800 RAF Bomber Command planes let loose 650,000 incendiaries and 8,000lb of high explosives and hundreds of 4,000lb bombs in two waves of attack. They faced very little anti-aircraft fire. As soon as one part of the city was alight, the bombers went for another until the whole of Dresden was ablaze. (1945: no page). Or shortly thereafter, a U.S source clinches the parable of the Third Reich and the master race's Atlantean future of wealth and power:
Unlucky Millions. Few happy endings have come out of the mass migrations of at least nine million Germans from East Prussia, Danzig, Silesia, Pomerania and the Sudetenland. It is a tale of horror, old men starving on the roads, young girls raped in boxcars, children who will never find their parents or remember anything of childhood except cold and hunger and the fear of more cold and hunger. ( The Sins... 1945: no page). Of course significant clues existed to NSDAP crimes of mass-murder as well, upon which Blackwell muses:
But it did not take psychologists to prove what the Nazis or the Committee for Public Safety or the Khmer Rouge or the Inquisition already discovered: that most of us would be willing murderers not because we have guns to our heads, but because we inherently trust authority. And let me clear up another myth about the holocaust that is still alive today. We have absolutely no documented cases of a Nazi refusing to kill Jews and being adversely affected because of it and as we know, the Nazis were meticulous records keepers. Nazis refused to kill Jews more than we would like to believe, and they were never killed for it. They were not even demoted. They were never docked a single Reichsmark for refusing. They were merely given another task instead. No, we obey out a genetic sense of obedience. Madness and 1263
brainwashing are much easier to accept than the truth. (2008:14). Is there any doubt about how pliable are references to these 'universal myths', or, as the present writer explains, these appeals to ' marma points of the human mind'? Distinguished professor of law Anderson explains:
The picture of the child laborer whose humanity was sacrificed to the needs of the industry is very similar to the picture of the average animal in industrial agriculture, which has become no more than an “input” in the production process. -...-And sometimes, progress was made only when disaster strikes. A prominent example was the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911, which killed 146 employees, mostly young girls, and brought the deplorable working conditions of the garment district to the public view. -...- In the animal welfare context, there has not been a similar “triggering event” to capture the attention of the public. There have been confinement operation catastrophes, in which hundreds of animals have been killed. In June 2005, 512 pigs died in a Virginia confinement operation due to a ventilation failure; on April 14, 2008, over 800 hogs died in an Iowa hog lot fire. These tragedies did not cause a ripple of public concern, despite the fact that they resulted from an industrial form of animal confinement in which human contact is largely absent. -...-The similarities in the development of child labor and animal welfare reform indicate that it is possible to construct a model of how protection for powerless groups is achieved in our society. While the impetus for reform may be moral and the development of a new ethic is crucial, the progress of reform depends on a number of other elements, including the development of an array of symbolic and structural resources. Social scientists and reformers alike can learn much from the study of this history. (n.d:8-17, emphasis added). It isn't a coincidence that:
In 1875, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals intervened in the abuse case of a nine-year old girl named Mary Ellen who had been treated viciously by foster parents. The case of Mary Ellen was splashed across the front pages of the nation's papers with dramatic results. As an outgrowth of the journalistic clamor, the New 1264
York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was formed. Soon incorporated under legislation that required law enforcement and court officials to aid agents of authorized cruelty societies, the NYSPCC and other societies modeled after it undertook to prevent abuse (Pfohl 1977:312). Eminent philosopher Singer continues:
My aim is to advocate that we make this mental switch in respect of our attitudes and practices towards a very large group of beings: members of species other than our own—or, as we popularly though misleadingly call them, animals. In other words, I am urging that we extend to other species the basic principle of equality that most of us recognize should be extended to all members of our own species. All this may sound a little far-fetched, more like a parody of other liberation movements than a serious objective. In fact, in the past the idea of "The Rights of Animals" really has been used to parody the case for women's rights. When Mary Wollstonecraft, a forerunner of later feminists, published her Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792, her ideas were widely regarded as absurd, and they were satirized in an anonymous publication entitled A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes. The author of this satire (actually Thomas Taylor, a distinguished Cambridge philosopher) tried to refute Wollstonecraft's reasonings by showing that they could be carried one stage further. If sound when applied to women, why should the arguments not be applied to dogs, cats, and horses? They seemed to hold equally well for these "brutes"; yet to hold that brutes had rights was manifestly absurd; therefore the reasoning by which this conclusion had been reached must be unsound, and if unsound when applied to brutes, it must also be unsound when applied to women, since the very same arguments had been used in each case. (1989: no page). What/who is this song by the singer Sandra denouncing:
I got something on my mind, makes me sad and makes me cry, Oh no, Johnny wanna live. Just an ordinary day, -...- [another one] will pass away, -...-. Who's to say he got no rights even not a right to life, Don't know why it leaves you cold, don't know how to make it show, -...Through his eyes I look inside his heart he can feel like me and you, -...- Can't defend himself -...- and this is why I talk to you Johnny isn't just a name he stands for every creature's pain -...- Go and try to look inside his heart you can find your own mistakes try to hide them 1265
thinking -...- but he can read them in your face. Genocide?
Abortion?
Political
imprisonment?
Homelessness?
Oppressing
minorities? In this case it was animal rights, but readers can easily see it could have been anyone/thing else.
In the final scene of epic/fantasy salad 1663 bar Ladyhawke (1985), an evil bishop is forced to look at the finally reunited Romeo and Juliet, whom his ungodly magic had cursed. Back to real life, a former Communist Resister during WWII in northern Italy1664 invites to “look, and read their courage into their [Resisters'] eyes”. The motif of the stare never gets antiquated.
I have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most heartrending shrieks -...-. No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest. He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush; and not until overcome by fatigue, would he cease to swing the blood-clotted cowskin. When -and about whom- were the lines above penned? Who plays the part of heart of darkness here? Who's the frail little creature who suffers so much? Ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia? Rwanda, perhaps? Khmer Rouge or Bolshevik purges? Fascist camps? U.S CIA sponsored underground interrogation facilities in South Vietnam? The plight of political prisoners under Castro or the Soviet regime in Afghanistan? Dissidents who “disappear” under the Brazilian, Argentinian or Chilean military regime, perchance? In this case F. Douglass, an U.S fugitive mulatto 1663
It contains sorcery, Romeo and Juliet, the hero's journey, the choice that entails suffering, a merry men angle, the “if only had known” moment, repentance, reunion, reconciliation and much more. 1664 Giornale Di Arona, 26 April 2013.
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slave and abolitionist activist published in 1845 memoirs about his life as a slave. Readers can easily see it could have been anyone/thing else.
Exactly as this writing suggests all along, Douglass – to some the Martin Luther King of XIX century- expressly linked his abolitionist campaign to fights against other kinds of oppression, namely that of women; of Irish people in favor of home rule; in support of temperance movements.
Again, Douglass was highly ambivalent about violent abolitionist Brown, alternating praise and endorsement with disavowal according to the moment's ebbing and flowing opportunity:
Marion Wilson Starling notes that at least ten slave narratives were listed in the British Catalog of Books, 1835–1863. In a period when few books sold more than fi ve hundred copies, slave narratives sold in the tens of thousands. The slave narrative’s popularity in turn spawned numerous imitators. Charles Nichols writes, “So successful were the narratives from a commercial point of view that free Negroes and whites took up the pen and wrote on similar subjects. . . . Indeed, by 1850 almost any book by or about a Negro was in great demand [in America and England].” (Lee 2010:10). The Negro and all things negroid had become a fad, and Harlem had become a shrine to which feverish pilgrimages were in order (Black writer Wallace Thurman in 1929). Internalized shame causes you to focus on a particular group of automatic thoughts, to the exclusion of all contrary thoughts. This preoccupation creates a kind of tunnel vision in which you think only one kind of thought and notice only one aspect of your environment. Aaron Beck uses the phrase "selective abstraction" to describe this tunnel vision. Selective abstraction means that we look at one set of cues in our environment to the 1267
exclusion of all others. Tunnel vision is the product of toxic shame. (Bradshaw 1988:187). It won't escape readers how Douglass and Obama are often juxtaposed in politicized narratives of promotion -or demotion- of the U.S President.
Fanon’s work makes a significant contribution to my own work, as an animal rights, food justice, and health activist within the African American community of the United States. Currently, I am analyzing PETA’s Animal Liberation project. nthis project, PETA has argued that non-human animal suffering and human suffering stem from the same source: dominance and power through “othering”. Their new campaign positions images of exploited non-human animals next to images of black slavery, blacks during Jim Crow era in the U.S.A., Jewish Holocaust victims, and Native American genocide. My research examines the responses from the black community who viewed PETA’s tactics as entrenched in white racism and cultural appropriation of ethnic suffering to promote PETA’s animal rights agenda. In response to the descendants of colonized and enslaved U.S.A. Africans, who were traumatized by the advertisement's images of black lynched men, PETA’s president, Ingrid Newkirk, a white identified female, wrote in 2005, “We’re all animals, so get over it.” (Harper no date: no page). In fact, these journalistic appeals have been milled for ages. Alternatively, it might be considered the epic mode, whereby the audience is invited/enmeshed in the story (=the eye-contact motif, whether real or figurative). Aren't the misdeeds of the vivisection industry to a more recent generation what the misdeeds of the various Mengele, Ishii1665 and others had been to a previous one?
The politicized nature of the same is apparent. While slavery was indeed a disreputable chapter in the story of the XIX century, so were the dreaded -and
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Japanese military scientist assertedly spirited away to avoid war crime trials in order to collaborate with U.S agencies in matters of bacteriological warfare.
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lurid- Victorian sweatshops, factories, workhouses, and cholera-infested slums. Readers might be hard-pressed to guess why in comparison “almost any book by or about a Negro was in great demand”.
Generally, it is all part of a broader constellation of horrors, indignities and suchlike being heaped upon a vast array of lambs without sin (blemish etc), nor voice (cfr Isaiah 53:71666; John 1:291667), or whom one's psychotic politicized narrative holds up as such, anyways. From Bronze Age forensic descriptions of animals fit for ritual slaughter to allegorical travesties depicting Platonic form flumadiddle that takes flesh on earth:
Now the controversies are two fold – one is that whether there is any intellectual knowledge, spiritual knowledge contained in the Vedas or is it just all kind of religious rights which are described and, second is that all kinds of imagery which is used, all kinds of symbols which are used (there is mention of cows and horses and other entities) whether it reflects the primitive kind of a thinking or barbaric kind of a thinking or there is a deeper meaning behind the use of these symbols and use of these terms. Sri Aurobindo of course disagrees with both that 1) it is not a book of knowledge and 2) entire meaning has to be understood after a very detailed interpretation of what these symbols mean and I would talk a little about it. (Varma, MAISI031 no date unit 1:3). Those monks who bar out both the letter and the spirit, by taking the discourses wrongly and interpreting according to the letter, such are responsible for the loss, discomfort and sorrow of devas and mankind. Moreover such monks beget demerit and cause the disappearance of this true Dhamma. (Gautama Buddha, Anguttara Nikaya, I, 69). 1666
“He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. “. 1667 “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! “.
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It isn't by chance that postmodern cultural studies appropriated the motif of the (absence of) voice to lionize the slew of oppressed or marginalized categories they routinely identified as alpha and omega of discourse, often from a militant, left-wing perspective.
Maupassant's 1881 Histoire D'Un Chien is just an example: the sudden reappearance of the rotting carcass of a dog killed by drowning by a reluctant master circumstances forced to do so is the 'emotional thunder of illumination' that precedes an appeal to support animal charities:
The Shogun was born in the year of the Dog ; let His Augustness decree that henceforth everything canine should be held sacred and sacrosanct ! Utterly absurd and ridiculous as the suggestion might be supposed to have sounded, it was at once eagerly adopted ! It was in 1687 that the first of the decrees denouncing pains and penalties against the taking of animal life was issued. From this date to the end of Tsunayoshi's administration there is scarcely a year in which ordinances were not published either reaffirming or extending the scope of the early legislation on the subject. Everything feathered or four-footed ultimately came within the purview of these drastic provisions for the prevention of cruelty to animals, from horses down to sparrows, while even the keeping of fish in tanks and ponds for sale was prohibited. But it was the dog that was especially to be treated not so much as King of the Beasts as Lord of Creation. (Murdoch 1926:188). Maupassant's imagery might not have entirely been his imagination's figment. Around the same time, Amelia Dyer, a British serial killer, had killed a huge number of children (some say 50 or more) in her capacity as “baby farmer� 1668. Although at first successfully hiding behind simulation of insanity, the deranged
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Advertising in order to adopt for a fee children from poor families in order to grant them a better life.
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addict was finally executed in 1896. Many of her victims were recovered from rivers.
Drowning appeared to have been a common form of suicide for a huge number of 'fallen women' and suchlike (=the water connection again):
Breaking with iconographic tradition, Victorian visual culture fixated upon redemptive female suicides by drowning, a morbid manifestation of water treatments to improve moral and physical health. Produced by artists such as Ford Madox Brown, George Cruikshank, Gustave Dore, Augustus Leopold Egg, John Everett Millais, Richard Redgrave, Thomas Rowlandson, and G. F. Watts, these images served a dual purpose in maintaining a social order dependent on the separation of the spheres. First, they prioritized women's domestic accountability, revealing the dangers that lurked outside their place in the home. Second, they showed dissolute men the tragic cost of deviance, which could undermine the family structure by pushing women into the public sphere and over the edge of sanity to suicide. -...-Because female insanity was often regarded as resulting from willful deviance, -...- suicide by drowning was visually recreated as a redemptive act for fallen women—a morbid manifestation of popular water treatments used to improve moral and physical health. (Nicoletti 1999:iii, xvii). Horrors befalling animals are a(nother) preferred item to sensationalize news:
In a documentary broadcast April 26, 1995, Born preyed on Germans' love of animals. The segments purported to graphically illustrate a new quarry for German hunters: stray cats. Viewers saw a man with a rifle stalking a cat in a wooded area, taking aim and shooting it dead. According to Weise, the rifle belonged to Born, the cat was from an animal shelter and the hunter was playing to the camera. (Petty 1996:no page). When the 'emotional thunder of illumination' strikes, people (are supposed to) 1271
remain dumbfounded, and to experience a sort of aesthetic arrest.
Maupassant, in his story L'Enfant, offers a great portrait of the dynamics under-arching the 'moment of illumination'. A playboy decides to forsake his mistress in order to clean his act up, settle down and get married. The very night of his wedding, however, he receives an urgent message informing him that his former lover lies on her deathbed after giving birth to a child she claims to be his. The ingredients are all in place for an orgy of sentimentalism like no other.
He thus attends a last meeting with the dying woman:
Elle fut quelques minutes avant de pouvoir parler encore, tant elle était oppressée et défaillante. Elle reprit: «C'est à toi, le petit. Je te le jure devant Dieu, je te le jure sur mon âme, je te le jure au moment de mourir. Je n'ai pas aimé d'autre homme que toi... Promets-moi de ne pas l'abandonner.» Il essayait de prendre encore dans ses bras ce misérable corps déchiré, vidé de sang. Il balbutia, affolé de remords et de chagrin: «Je te le jure, je l'élèverai et je l'aimerai. Il ne me quittera pas.» Alors elle tenta d'embrasser Jacques. Impuissante à lever sa tête épuisée, elle tendait ses lèvres blanches dans un appel de baiser. Il approcha sa bouche pour cueillir cette lamentable et suppliante caresse. Un peu calmée, elle murmura tout bas: «Apporte-le, que je voie si tu l'aimes.» -...On attendit encore. Les invités partirent; seuls, les parents les plus proches demeuraient. À minuit, on coucha la mariée toute secouée de sanglots. Sa mère et deux tantes, assises autour du lit, l'écoutaient pleurer, muettes et désolées... Le père était parti chez le commissaire de police pour chercher des renseignements.À cinq heures, un bruit léger glissa dans le corridor; une porte s'ouvrit et se ferma doucement; puis soudain un petit cri pareil à un miaulement de chat courut dans la maison silencieuse.Toutes les femmes furent debout d'un bond, et Berthe [the man's wife], la première, s'élança malgré sa mère et ses tantes, enveloppée de son peignoir de nuit.Jacques, debout au milieu de sa chambre, livide, haletant, tenait un enfant dans ses bras. Les 1272
quatre femmes le regardèrent effarées; mais Berthe, devenue soudain téméraire, le coeur crispé d'angoisse, courut à lui: «Qu'y a-t-il? dites, qu'y a-t-il?»Il avait l'air fou; il répondit d'une voix saccadée: «Il y a... il y a... que j'ai un enfant, et que la mère vient de mourir...» Et il présentait dans ses mains inhabiles le marmot hurlant.Berthe, sans dire un mot, saisit l'enfant, l'embrassa, l'étreignant contre elle; puis, relevant sur son mari ses yeux pleins de larmes: «La mère est morte, dites-vous?» Il répondit: «Oui, tout de suite... dans mes bras... J'avais rompu depuis l'été... Je ne savais rien, moi... c'est le médecin qui m'a fait venir...» (Maupassant 1882: no page). The 'narrative pressure' is what keeps readers (viewers, bystanders, hearers...) hooked, often gasping for breath or with butterflies in their stomach in anticipation of what comes next. A professional storyteller by trade, Harvey quips:”emotional empathy is one of the key tools for effective storytelling” 1669.
Leon Degrelle (Belgian Fascist leader and Waffen SS General) also details how he quickly scanned and probed audiences while beginning his speeches, in order to tune in to that magical wavelength that could bring about the fusion of the horde:
Our point is that several abilities—skills, actually—make it difficult to see psychopaths for who they are. First, they are motivated to, and have a talent for, “reading people” and for sizing them up quickly. They identify a person’s likes and dislikes, motives, needs, weak spots, and vulnerabilities. We all have “buttons” that can be pushed, and psychopaths, more than most people, are always ready to push them. Second, many psychopaths come across as having excellent oral communication skills. -...- They make use of the fact that for many people the content of the message is less important than the way it is delivered. A confident, aggressive delivery style —often larded with jargon, clichés, and flowery phrases—makes up for the lack of substance and sincerity in their interactions with others. This skill, coupled with the belief that they deserve 1669
2013: Emotional Arc And Empathy, emphasis added.
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whatever they can take, allows psychopaths to use effectively what they learn about a person against the person as they interact with him or her—they know what to say and how to say it to exert influence. -...-When someone presses one of our hot buttons, our attention may be diverted from more important things in our social environment, and our evaluation of a person or situation may be colored by the feelings and reactions triggered by the hot button. This reflex-like tendency—to let hot buttons get the better of us— is not lost on the psychopath or any manipulative person. They will identify your hot buttons and will push them to test their utility. They will use this information to establish in you a mood that is conducive to their current interests and schemes. It is difficult, except in the most blatant situations, to tell whether someone has purposely pushed your hot button or has inadvertently done so without any particular intent to manipulate or use you. (Babiak&Hare 2006:37-8,273, emphasis added). Hitler had turned them inside out as one turns a glove inside out with a few sentences. It had almost something of magic about it (Von Muller in Solomon et alii 2015:87). At one stroke you have transformed the state of my soul. Germany in her hour of direst need gives birth to a Hitler ( Luminary of German nationalism H.S. Chamberlain in 1923). The people were amazed at [Jesus'] teachings. Unlike their scribes, he taught them with authority. (Mark 1:22). Intimations of mortality amplify the allure of charismatic leaders (Solomon et alii 2015:89). This explains how commercial brands fight to their last cent to secure the exact best place for their ads and infomercials during popular broadcasts. That also explains how the concept worked equally well from the inside out, when -for example during the 1950s- name brands would craft a show basically around their own presence: namely the brand's (Chevron, Schlitz, General Electric, Kraft, Philco, Colgate, General Motors...) “hour”, “stars”, “theater” etc; broadcasts of all kinds can
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be engineered to accommodate sponsors and advertisement best.
It is a known axiom of salesmanship how the persuader has only a very short, passing window of opportunity to fruitfully connect in a meaningful way with the potential prospect, in order to bring about whichever outcome one wishes (voting for this candidate; supporting that cause; buying this liquor brand...).
The fact that a sound piece (song, jingle, slogan...) is going to get stuck in people's heads (earworm) if played often enough is a well-known effect an industry rests upon, which is not related to how intelligent, appropriate or otherwise deserving the item might be:
You know the Muzak you’re used to hearing while you shop for groceries? -...-. Then they measured the type of wine people purchased. When French music was playing, most customers bought French wine. When German music was playing most customers bought German wine. By triggering consumers to think of different countries, the music affected sales. The music made ideas related to those countries more accessible, and those accessible ideas spilled over to affect behavior. (Berger 2013:40). Also, the same strategy is most often the first step in 'getting the camel into the tent' (foot-in-the-door technique, or any other name):”Look carefully at your marketing, advertising, and public relations messages and see how you can carefully fold your core message inside something that is more easily palatable.”1670. This can be applied to “normalize” almost anything or anyone: homosexuality; onscreen presence and prominence rate of minorities, immigrants and the like.
1670
Lakhani 2008:9.
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Movies meant to 'normalize' homosexuality and to make it fit for the mainstream -such as 1978 La Cage Aux Folles and 1980 La Patata Bollente comedy movies- portrayed homosexuals in the uncomplimentary – but highly inoffensivecapacity of cabaret characters, hysterical transvestites and fringe lunatics with -however- a beautiful soul, and terribly funny. Many see the two robots in Star
Wars as portraying a couple of homosexual males. Long before hysterical gay fairies and men in drag flooded the screen, a possible -however closeted- homosexual subtext had been added to heroic Hollywood colossal Ben-Hur (1959).
In the 1980-90s, movies grappled with blurred sexual identity ( from 1982 Victor Victoria and Tootsie to 1993 Mrs. Doubtfire) and transvestitism. 1995
To Wong Foo sees popular action movie machos in drag such as Patrick Swayze, and Wesley Snipes; in 1989 Tango&Cash, Kurt Russell appears in drag. In 1995, Italian
Uomini Uomini Uomini sees popular actors of Italian cinema grappling with gay identity in a dark comedy.
Popular culture offered a slew of celebrities of sexually ambiguous renown such as Boy George and Michael Jackson with their local clones (Amanda Lear, the openly transgendered Eva Robins, and later transgendered entertainer and
PD parliamentarian Vladimir Luxuria in Italy): no shortage of political innuendo to indoctrinate the frazzled masses:”So we need to build our own Trojan horses, embedding our products and ideas in stories that people want to tell.”1671.
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Berger 2013:19.
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Social proof can also be used to help people lead more normal lives. In the 1960s, some researchers worked with a group of children who had a phobia of dogs. Their approach was remarkably simple. Researchers had young children come into the office and watch another young child play with a dog for about 20 minutes. The exercise was then repeated the next day. After just four days, twothirds of the study participants were willing to climb into a playpen with a dog and stay there even after all the adults left the room— only four days to go from phobia to close contact! This all took place through the power of social proof: Seeing someone else doing something normalizes that behavior, making it seem more reasonable and appropriate. (Hamilton 2016:102). Simply said, there's just nothing of significance in the gospels, which leads me to conclude there never was and the authors cheated, using the lazy tactic of making us think there's something based on audience reaction in the story. (Like a laugh track on a TV sitcom.) (Wojciechowski 2016:no page). If everyone else thinks I’m cool, then I am cool [teenagers] can’t make the distinction between what I think of myself and what everyone else thinks of me — those are synonymous at this age. (Mitch Prinstein in a 2017 interview).
Popular culture also created the metrosexual: a biologically male yet sensitive specimen devoted to coy, feminine grooming practices, whose sexual preferences are blurred (neither straight, nor homosexual). In turn, the metrosexual spawned its nemesis the retrosexual: a walking erection; an hirsute, ungroomed, brash he-man.
The metrosexual phenomenon might be subsumed under the more generic need to attract attention that obsesses the human mind. In countries such as Venezuela, beauty as public display for women has become a national obsession. Beauty pageant schools proliferate in a giant pantomime that might look like a summer camp for positive psychology advocates. 1277
Needless to say, it dovetails well with Chavez's re-take of the old stale bunch of homeland first, new era and ultimate redress myth(ologie)s. LouisNapoleon Bonaparte, still in exile abroad after failed coups in France, was elected to the republican Parliament on the basis of a left-wing reformist manifesto: as Emperor Napoleon III, he ushered in an authoritarian monarchy.
Worshiping oneself and the horde have never been more similar:
Marianismo is an ideal, based on the Virgin Mary’s Biblical representation, which prescribes women’s “appropriate” behavior; its image “is self-abnegating motherhood.” Ironically, through marianismo Venezuelan women have a prescribed foreign-inspired and contradictory role in society: to be both sexy and chaste. When Venezuelans were trying to emulate colonial Spanish culture, women mimicked the maternal and morally sound role of the Virgin Mary. Nowadays, as the country tries to emulate democracy in the first world, its women imitate what they believe is the epitome of their place in this political system: Barbie dolls. The paradoxical relationship of these two roles for women, the chaste mother and the Anglo-fashionite, describes the contradiction of contemporary Venezuelan femininity. (Roche 2007:65-6). In 1981, the comedy movie Nessuno E' Perfetto sees the same Pozzetto from La Patata Bollente fall in love and marry a fashion model portrayed by Ornella Muti, then allegedly one of the most beautiful Italian actresses; the model later turns out to be a former paratrooper, now male-to-female transgender.
In La Patata Bollente, a militant Communist oaf, and Soviet enthusiast, confronts homosexuality after saving someone from a gang of Fascist thugs. He accuses his apathetic tovarishi of ignoring how homosexuals had been the second group most targeted for extermination during WWII:”So we need to build our own 1278
Trojan horses, embedding our products and ideas in stories that people want to tell.�1672.
In hindsight, readers may individually assess how successful the strategy has been:
Until Alfred Kinsey claimed that the large majority of Americans had homosexual interests and John D. Rockefeller's empire marketed Kinsey's voluminous Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953) studies five decades ago, few ever spoke of homosexuality in public let alone as a public possibility. It certainly was not "O.K. to be gay" openly in America.-...- As late as 1960, all fifty states maintained laws criminalizing sodomy. In 1963 the New York Academy of Medicine Committee on Public Health, restated that not only was homosexuality a disease -...- Like Chinese water torture rather than brute force, only socially enforced public compliance at a minimum level, through continued application, can ultimately change the privately held attitude or belief. Thus, to psychologically propel societal attitude change regarding homosexuality, America is deluged with pro-homosexual messages, education campaigns, positive images, and sympathetic news in the media creating an antecedent condition that can be called societal dissonance. (Rondeau 2002:443-485)1673. Heady stuff. Gays said they could "reinvent human nature, reinvent themselves." To do this, these reinventors had to clear away one major obstacle. No, they didn't go after the nation's clergy. They targeted the members of a worldly priesthood, the psychiatric community, and neutralized them with a radical redefinition of homosexuality itself. In 1972 and 1973 they co-opted the leadership of the American Psychiatric Association and, through a series of political maneuvers, lies and outright flim-flams, they "cured" homosexuality overnight-by fiat. They got the A.P.A. to say that same-sex sex was "not a disorder." It was merely "a condition"-as neutral as lefthandedness. This amounted to a full approval of homosexuality. Those of us who did not go along with the political redefinition were soon silenced at our own professional meetings. Our lectures were canceled inside 1672 1673
Berger 2013:19. Most of the tactics Rondeau describes here are -in fact- deployed in the movies Nessuno è Perfetto and La Patata Bollente, hence Rondeau's text herein.
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academe and our research papers turned down in the learned journals. Worse things followed in the culture at large. Television and movie producers began to do stories promoting homosexuality as a legitimate lifestyle. A gay review board told Hollywood how it should deal or not deal with homosexuality. Mainstream publishers turned down books that objected to the gay revolution. Gays and lesbians influenced sex education in our nation's schools, and gay and lesbian libbers seized wide control of faculty committees in our nations' colleges. State legislatures nullified laws against sodomy. (Socarides, 1995: no page). When, in the development of a natural science, an individual or group first produces a synthesis able to attract most of the next generation’s practitioners, the older schools gradually disappear. In part their disappearance is caused by their members’ conversion to the new paradigm. But there are always some men who cling to one or another of the older views, and they are simply read out of the profession, which thereafter ignores their work. -...- The decision to reject one paradigm is always simultaneously the decision to accept another, and the judgment leading to that decision involves the comparison of both paradigms with nature and with each other. -...- Something much like that will also happen to the generalization that scientists fail to reject paradigms when faced with anomalies or counterinstances. They could not do so and still remain scientists.-...- Like the choice between competing political institutions, that between competing paradigms proves to be a choice between incompatible modes of community life.-...-Through the theories they embody, paradigms prove to be constitutive of the research activity. -...- when paradigms change, the world itself changes with them. Led by a new paradigm, scientists adopt new instruments and look in new places. -...-And these are terminated, not by deliberation and interpretation, but by a relatively sudden and unstructured event -...-. The competition between paradigms is not the sort of battle that can be resolved by proofs. -...-The very existence of science depends upon vesting the power to choose between paradigms in the members of a special kind of community.(Kuhn 1970:19,77-8,94,109, 111,122,148,167). In review, the necessary conditions for the construction of heroes, patriots and martyrs in revolution are closely analogous to symbol formation processes. Social ebullience, a term used to describe the chaos, violence and rivalry prevalent in revolutions, is responsible for collective cognitive dissonance. During this social decay, existing values and symbols no longer adequately explain the nature of social interaction. Hence, there exists a need for the creation of new 1280
symbols. (Allgrove 1994:47). It is imperative to understand it is not about third-rate comedies only. According to
VanityFair.it on April 26, 2012, Italian politician Giovanardi angered GLBT milieus by claiming that -unlike Jews- gay people were persecuted, not exterminated (=the “homocaust” approach GLBT milieus advocate), during WWII1674.
The trajectory of normalization is an eminently socio-political one:
While nineteenth century medical experts treated rape as something rare, and stories of rape as probable fabrications, by the early twentieth century the possibility of rape in circumstances where a female lacked social power had gained more credence and indeed engaged the imagination of the public and of governmental authorities. “True Life” stories of sexual violation made possible by inappropriate male social authority circulated in internationally organized egalitarian gender reform movements as a critique of existing authority patterns. (Harrington 2010:49). Seen in this way, the Negro protest movement in the United States will have to become more profoundly cultural if it is to succeed politically. Yet the American Negro is himself limited in his demands by the successful revolution of the rich . Being an American , the poor Negro believes that he too can live by bread alone. What the Negro asks, essentially, is a place at the American trough. But to gain that place, he is constrained to ask for something more than his share of places. His moralizings become an embarrassment, for they hint at the acquisition of something greater than a place in a vaster suburbia. (Rieff 2006:206). Levine also details the unholy and problematic alliance between traditional jingoist, 'sexist' regimes 1675 and the militant fringes of feminism and suffragism that WWI brought about:”It was "agitation over the suffrage question" 1674
“Per essere chiari di Olocausto ce n'è stato uno solo, ed stato è quello del popolo ebreo. Poi ci sono stati da parte del Nazismo tutta una serie di azioni che hanno riguardato gli handicappati, i malati mentali, gli zingari, le popolazioni dell’est e anche i gay ” declared Giovanardi according to the website. 1675 Feminist literature offers several tantalizing concepts: phallocracy, patriarchy...
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that most disquieted Commissioner Edward R. Henry when, at the outbreak of war in 1914, deputations of women approached both him and the home secretary about the opportunities for policewomen under wartime conditions.” 1676.
Women as a category -in spite of qualified exceptions that might certainly exist- acted as a societal crowbar to reinforce men's jingoist and patriotic tendencies, which is considerably at variance with the nurturing model some feminists -whether 'magical' or otherwise- suggest has always been the case with women in history:
There was a moment when I was driving home from an interview with a small group of men and thought, Holy shit. I [as a woman] am the patriarchy. Here’s the painful pattern that emerged from my research with men: [women] ask them to be vulnerable, we beg them to let us in, and we plead with them to tell us when they’re afraid, but the truth is that most women can’t stomach it. In those moments when real vulnerability happens in men, most of us recoil with fear and that fear manifests as everything from disappointment to disgust. And men are very smart. They know the risks, and they see the look in [women's] eyes when we’re thinking, C’mon! Pull it together. Man up. As Joe Reynolds, one of my mentors and the dean at our church, once told me during a conversation about men, shame, and vulnerability, “Men know what women really want. They want us to pretend to be vulnerable. We get really good at pretending.” (Brown 2012:64, emphasis added). This is the thing: when women value resources, they really don’t value the resources nearly as much as they value the willingness to provide those resources. -...-These scientists asked men to rate their own ambition level. The experiment was: half the men were unconsciously primed with an image of a young, beautiful woman right before being given the questionnaire. The other half of the men were not primed with any particular image. Interestingly, the 1676
Levine 1994:39.
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men who expressed the highest level of ambition were the ones who had just been primed with vision of youth and beauty. We shape each other’s evolution. Women have shaped men to want to provide and protect. In fact, from a female point of view, a man who does not want to do these things is not much use as a man. -...-These seem like totally shallow concerns, but, if you look at where we inherited these concerns from, you see that there’s actually a deep psychology to them, even though we might not like them. -...- men, the first thing you need to do is be as generous as you can be. Do not hold back. -...-It’s because you’re wanting to impress this woman. (Welch 2015). Non-wealthy men who catch a much better-looking woman tend to get cheated on, dumped--or cheated on *and* dumped. Women who aren’t very young and attractive, but nevertheless insist on a high-resources mate, usually don’t even get dumped or cheated on; they just get ignored.(Welch 2015b:32). Many subsequent studies have found the same pattern. The mere presence of others changes performance. People tend to do better when others are around. -...-This phenomenon has been described as social facilitation -...-.Animals behave the same way. -...- Across a host of situations, people (and animals) seem to perform better when others are present -...-.Having others around improves performance (e.g., speed and accuracy) on easy, well-learned tasks, but decreases performance on unfamiliar, and thus more difficult, tasks.(Berger 2016:96-97,99). When testosterone levels increase as a result of a mate-acquisition goal, men tend to be more nonconforming. They also engage in more conspicuous consumption and become more gainseeking, creative, and risk-seeking. -...-By taking saliva samples from some of the young men, the researchers confirmed that testosterone levels increased when the attractive girl appeared; this seems to have led to an increase in decisions to try risky stunts. -...-When the researchers correlated the [female] participants’ clothing preferences with hormone levels, they found that when they were ovulating, participants were more attracted to clothing and accessories that were independently rated as being more alluring. (Hamilton 2016:118). That's the reason why most feminists abhor prostitution, no matter how
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regulated, sought after and voluntary: it short-circuits women's power to act as society's crowbar1677. The 'Trojan horse' strategy is thus summarized: “ Women's entrance into police work came at a time when both militant and constitutional feminisms were publicly laying aside their political claims on the state in deference to the cause of national unity [during WWI]. “1678.
Once again, the unstoppable rise of grievance-shopping groups does not constitute the providential actualization on the earthly plane of sublime philosophical values arch-deities vouchsafed in the mist of time, but of the gimmicks of Belle Epoque nation-States busy patronizing, co-opting and funding a host of '...isms' they would later identify with their ultimate nemesis.
That goes back to the dawn of modern psychology. As war propaganda documents, the public may be bombarded with positive (or negative) characteristics enshrouding a certain group, cause, country or course of action to condition the oblivious masses into emoting whatever jittery response is expected. As well, highly ambivalent standards typically co-exist to inhibit or stigmatize courses of action selectively depending on whether the regime of the day may receive perpetrators and/or circumstance well.
Italian criminals such as Luciano Lutring ( bank robber il solista del
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If mercenary sex is widely available, fewer men will bother to go through endless societal rituals and requirements to secure some “love”. Prostitution shall therefore not only be combated, but also stigmatized: “real men” (=societal projections again) do not visit call-girls, but buy sport cars and diamond rings to propose to “ladies” in singles' bars, to name one. 1678 Levine 1994:39.
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mitra, the machine-gun soloist); or Cesare Battisti (the murderer and Communist maximalist) may become “possibly wrong but terribly romantic� icons.
In their latter days they revert to painting, writing and poetry while swarms of justice-minded devil advocates split hairs in the name of elusive best of intentions, and forgiveness, that know no crisis: Battisti and Lutring are associated with the left. Battisti also made elated lefties gasp for breath as his journeys to evade capture counting on several prominent sympathizers finally brought him to Brazil, where the left-wing establishment granted him sanctuary: what a triumph for human rights.
It is enough the invert the color of one's armband to not only see the comedy of innocence of best of intentions disappear, but to justify the existence of indomitable vigilante groups of '...ist hunters' hopping borders under cover to identify, apprehend and even liquidate people who are designated as butchers, murderers and thieves, not -as Lutring- bulwarks against corrupt international finance; or -as Battisti the member of Proletari Armati Per Il Comunismo, armed proletarians for Communism- as bulwarks against class exploitation and so forth.
Once again, the righteous culture hero who breaks a few taboos in the delivery of the ultimate boon, and the brutish sociopath (authoritarian personality etc) basking in his mental disturbance while he commits misdeeds look at each other in the mirror as professedly irreconcilable doppelgaengers. Readers shall individually determine the actual exchange rate to the real world of human mind's 1285
ultimate 'values'.
Persecuted groups pleading for tolerance, freedom of speech/worship and cultural pluralism surfing the stormy waves of an ocean of spleen and tears are -once in a position of power- persecuting not only their former foes, but any dissident group as well: Christians persecuted pagans and dissident Christians; GLBT groups lobby to criminalize so-called homophobes etc.
It turns out that the same groups who once finger-pointed kangaroo courts that were harassing them on the basis of special laws (lese majeste, “hate”, “human right”, “offense to the nation” or any other term ) -or the vaudeville surrogate of the nowadays ridiculed impiety and blasphemy laws of yore-, frantically applaud when foes are the target; the cutting of some corners becomes the heroic remedy to save the world (the social order etc) from unspeakable evil, and the principle of coherence or 'the concept' nothing more than figures of speech.
In 2016, professor J.B Peterson (a psychologist with the university of Toronto) gets in trouble. He might be prosecuted as he refuses to address GLBT people with “the pronoun of their choice” as an up-and-coming Ontario “human right law” seems to mandate. Peterson mocks political correctness while an assorted crowd of lefty homophiles wearing baggy pants, bootlicking journalists and indignant intellectuals boo him as they await judicial application of the much sought-after law: “the kind of redress we really owe them”.
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The University of Toronto finally silences Peterson while hailing free speech: “freedom within applicable laws” that appertains to Khmer Rouge Cambodia, Castrist Cuba and Fascist Spain as well. While Peterson might possibly think of himself as another Bonhoffer or Solzhenitsyn in the making, the frazzled citizenry checks the results of the hockey season instead of rising up. The cloud of angry lefty protesters has a silver lining: according to his PATREON account, tenured prof. Peterson raises $31.000 per month from online supporters in April 2017.
The Canadian government once again rises in desecrated anger to protect hyphenated groups, by all accounts a few percentage points of the population if at all: 97% people can be legally deprived of a right if that benefits the remaining 3%. ”All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia”.
The Canadian government can also embrace the very opposite view: culling the right of 97% people to do something isn't a worthy effort when a mere 3% is concerned1679 as it ventures to exploit the wild west of (online) gaming and casinos. Liberal Premier D. McGuinty of Ontario said in 2005:”There is no doubt about it, we have come to rely on gambling revenues. Perhaps in a better world we wouldn’t, but the fact of the matter is it’s here, it’s here to stay”.
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The divide here is between the vast majority of people who either approve of – or aren't opposed to- gambling, and a small minority of people who either oppose gambling, or are its victims (for example compulsive gamblers).
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The camel and the tent analogy work very well considering vexed controversies in the USA. Zealots worked hard to get the State meddle in controversies relating to race relations and religious content. The so-called Bible wars of the XIX century in urban settings between an increasingly sizable Catholic constituency and then dominant Protestant denominations over which version(s) of the Bible should be allowed in public schools had already sapped Christian unity (=no Bible in school is better than the 'wrong' version of the same) 1680.
While awarded early victories in matter of segregation and religious content, fundamentalists are now awash in a tide of social alchemy and 'progressive' measures from a myriad of State authorities they had invited to join first. Acquiescing to 'special laws and taxes pending war time only' in the defense of 'the best of all causes' brought the necessary consequence that people are still paying taxes directed to fuel wars -and counter crises and natural catastrophes- of bygone ages, and abiding by security restrictions and garrison state provisions supposed to be transient concessions of bygone war seasons.
The 1917 U.S Espionage Act might be an example. It was amended in 1918 to include all-encompassing provisions punishing with up to 20 years prison terms whomever might be construed as working against the U.S government in any way, shape or form, or sympathizing with said government's enemies in any way, shape or form.
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Prothero 2007:96ss.
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Third parties may be specifically commissioned to herald the thunder of illumination. There is something terribly crucial they have seen, read, heard, witnessed; you have to hear about right now: that shall change your opinion entirely...
The messenger of immemorial literature rushes onstage with a crucial dispatch bearing exculpatory evidence just as the guillotine is being released on the frail little creature of the moment, who has an instant to shoot a last desperate stare to the artificial kin members' heart of darkness. Some beautiful soul in attendance -just like Jason in No Retreat No Surrender- yelps:” Don't do that!” (=tragic urgency shtick). The obtuse human mind screams its angst at hasty judgments, and related claptrap:”Can an over-the-hill journalist uncover the evidence that can prove a [Black] death row inmate's innocence just hours before his execution? “ 1681.
The ad guy and the PR gal may also ponder at which point an espresso coffee commercial -or politicized harangue- might be inserted for maximum cashcounter -or ballot-box- yield:
When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied. "Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you 1681
Publicity lines for the 1999 movie True Crime. In the novel the movie is based upon, the inmate is White, but director Clint Eastwood chose to do otherwise. It is highly (un)surprising how the 1996 movie plot seems mimeographed from a 1960 western movie (Sergeant Rutledge): another White do-gooder scrambles to “save” another poor, unjustly accused Black chap:”The circumstances seem changed but the cliche is in one's psyche”.
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fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son." (Genesis 22:9-12). Future Chinese Chan Buddhist patriarch Hui-k'o cut off one of his arms, which he offered to patriarch Bodhidharma to be admitted as a disciple.
As this writing contends, whether stories are forensically true or false makes no difference as far as the public's reaction is concerned:”[The public] only wanted one thing from [a given public figure]: a story. He told it so well that we forgave him almost everything. ”;“[it] helped people to believe.”;”We want -...original content regardless of its validity. We're here for the scare, not for the plausibility”.
The present writer wishes to extend to the matter at hand a statement Campbell referred to the relationship between religion and science: “the origin of the mythological symbols is not pseudo-scientific, pseudo-historical -...- they [=mythological symbols] are not the consequences of observations; they are the consequence of observations misinterpreted through projections from the human psyche”1682.
Other investigators used a similar procedures to plant false memories of even more unusual events. In one study, college students were asked to recall actual events that had been reported by their parents and one experimenter-crafted false event (Hyman et al., 1995). The false event was an overnight hospitalization for a high fever with a possible ear infection, or a nonexistent birthday party with pizza and a clown. Parents confirmed that neither of these events had happened, yet participants were told that they had experienced one of the false 1682
1972-2:The Function Of Mythology.
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events at about the age of 5.-...- As for the false event, by the end of the second interview, 20% of the participants had remembered all or part of this creation. In a separate study, Hyman and collaborators created even more unlikely false memories, such as attending a wedding reception and accidentally spilling a punch bowl on the parents of the bride or having to evacuate a grocery store when the overhead sprinkler systems erroneously activated. This time, approximately 25% accepted all or part of the false memory by the end of the third interview -...-. A recent doctoral dissertation project also succeeded in planting false memories via suggestion that ostensibly came from relatives of the participants. -...-events that would have been traumatic had they actually occurred -...-. These investigators reported that just over 25% of their participants created a rather complete false memory, and another 30% created a partial memory. Clearly, these methods are capable of inducing false memories in a sizable percentage of people. (Wells&Loftus no date:154). Consider what is known as the “lost in the mall” experiment, for example. Academic researchers have shown that it is relatively easy to implant memories of events that never took place, such as having been lost in a shopping mall as a child. About 25 percent of subjects in these studies later “recall” that they were frightened and even fill in missing details. But such recollections involve none of the visceral terror that a lost child would actually experience. -...-Dr. Roger Pitman conducted a study at Harvard in which he showed college students a film called Faces of Death, which contained newsreel footage of violent deaths and executions. This movie, now widely banned, is as extreme as any institutional review board would allow, but it did not cause Pitman’s normal volunteers to develop symptoms of PTSD. If you want to study traumatic memory, you have to study the memories of people who have actually been traumatized.(Van Der Kolk 2014:148). You tell your friend that you’ve run a mile in under seven minutes, when in reality your best time was a tiny bit over seven minutes. A few days later, you tell someone else the same thing. After repeating this slightly exaggerated claim over and over, you could eventually forget that you hadn’t actually broken the seven-minute mark. You may come to believe it to such a degree that you might even be willing to bet money on it. (Ariely 2012:71). [the book] became an international bestseller, winning its author numerous awards. Now, it is more or less accepted that the book is a fraud. -...-however, [the author] still insists that he is telling the truth. -...-This highly disputed memoir is the product of the so- called 1291
recovered memory therapy. -...-It is well known how highly suggestive recovered memory therapy is (Salecl 2000:no page). There are reports that Frey initially shopped A Million Little Pieces as a novel but it found a publisher only when given the truth brand and repackaged as a memoir. Readers seemed to take personally the revelations of invented details and scenes. Oprah herself told Frey she felt “really duped” by his actions, and subjected him to a ritualistic onair grilling. (Feldman 2009:93). As of the time of this writing (March 2011), there have been 267 DNA-based exonerations and 200 of those were cases of mistaken eyewitness identification (Wells&Loftus 2013:617). Of all the convictions the Innocence Project has succeeded in overturning so far [through DNA testing], there is not a single instance in which the police later tried to find the actual perpetrator of the crime. (Tavris&Aronson 2007:151). For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. (2 Peter 1:16). My father also told me about one of his former girlfriends, Ruth Goldblatt(i), whose mother had survived a concentration camp. He had been introduced to the mother and was shocked to discover that her hands were reversed. Nazi scientists had severed Mrs. Goldblatt’s hands, switched them around, and sewn them on again so that if she put her hands out palms down, her thumbs were on the outside and her little fingers were on the inside. Just one of the many “experiments” they had conducted. (i) I’ve changed her name here because I have not been able to find her to seek her consent to use her real name.(Baron-Cohen1683 2011:1,201). To challenge the veracity of a person's memory is one of the boldest things one can do in the way of attacking deep-seated conviction. Memory is the peculiar domain of the individual. In going back in recollection to the scenes of other years he is drawing on the secret store-house of his own consciousness, with which a stranger must not intermeddle. To cast doubt on a person's memory is commonly resented as an impertinence, hardly less rude than to question his reading of his own present mental state. Even if the challenger 1683
Professor of Developmental Psychopathology.
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professedly bases his challenge on the testimony of his own memory, the challenged party is hardly likely to allow the right of comparing testimonies. He can in most cases boldly assert that those who differ from him are lacking in his power of recollection. (Sully 1887:232, emphasis added). TRIPADVISOR, the popular travel portal, comes under popular and judicial scrutiny in Italy1684. It appears that many comments/reviews on the site to describe products and providers might be inauthentic with the purpose to artificially promote -or demote- certain services or providers.
Providers exist allegedly offering businessmen ready made campaign packages to flood the internet with positive reviews. Federazione Italiana Pubblici
Esercizi -which federates hotel, catering and entertainment businesses- is exploring the possibility of a class action against the website.
Other providers offer to buy phone-verified Gmail accounts (US$10 for 100 accounts); to “buy twitter followers” (1 million followers for US$ 1.500); “Facebook likes” (10.000 likes for US$ 100); or “Youtube comments” (US$ 38 for 75.000 comments): hyperreality steals the day.
The 'authentic' messengers of higher good rushing onstage to let people know lest doom unfolds are -once again- the ad guy and the PR gal for hire working for so many dollars an hour, with their retinue of fitful gasbags (=influencers, community builders) eager to make a supercharged ethical statement about themselves: 1684
info.netweek.it, July 7, 2014.
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In a related study, Salganik and his coauthors, acting not unlike propagators, attempted to influence the process. They told people, falsely, that certain songs had been downloaded in large numbers, even though they had actually proved unpopular. More particularly, the researchers actually inverted true popularity, so that people would see the least popular songs as having the most downloads and the most popular songs the fewest. Their key finding was that they were able to produce self-fulfilling prophecies, in which false perceptions of popularity produced actual popularity over time. When people think that songs are popular, songs actually become popular, at least in the short run. True, the most popular songs did in fact recover their popularity, but it took a while, and songs that had previously been among the least popular—before the inversion— continued to be at or toward the top of the list. This is a striking demonstration of how people’s behavior can be affected by an understanding, even a false one, of what other people think and do. (Sunstein 2014:26). Naturally contagious content usually evokes some sort of emotion. Blending an iPhone is surprising. A potential tax hike is infuriating. Emotional things often get shared. So rather than harping on function, we need to focus on feelings. But as we’ll discuss, some emotions increase sharing, while others actually decrease it. So we need to pick the right emotions to evoke. We need to kindle the fire. Sometimes even negative emotions may be useful. (Berger 2013:18). Heroics sounds very strong, but we need to put it in context. We are not talking about walking into a burning building or charging a machine gun emplacement. Heroics in the eyes of the person being persuaded is simply the emotional contentment that comes from making a considered decision that feels right.(Lakhani 2008:138, emphasis added). Yes, we presented the participants with two destinations they had rated the same and asked them to choose which one they would rather vacation in if they had to decide between them. Would you choose Paris over Brazil? Thailand over Greece? Finally, we asked them to imagine and rate all the destinations again. As expected, participants rated destinations they had selected higher after choosing them relative to before, and destinations they had discarded lower. The crucial question was, How were these changes reflected in the brain? Our data revealed that the change was observed in the same part of the brain that responds to rewards 1294
such as food, love, or money—the caudate nucleus. -...-Nevertheless, after making these choices, the participants rated the “chosen� option higher than they had before the decisionmaking stage. Participants now indicated they believed they would be happier vacationing in Greece than in Thailand, whereas before the two options had been rated equally. Again, the change in ratings was observed only if the participants believed they were making the choices themselves.(Sharot 2011:88,90). Indeed, research shows that when people are given electric shocks, they actually feel less pain when they believe they are suffering for something of great value. -...-Intense suffering triggers the very processes that eradicate it, while mild suffering does not, and this counterintuitive fact can make it difficult for us to predict our emotional futures.(Gilbert 2006:109). Wrestler Tito Santana for example foiled Greg Valentine's plans, who had won over JYD via an illegal maneuver. Santana informed the referee, who reversed the victory formerly awarded to 'The Hammer' Valentine, who was then counted out resulting in JYD's victory.
Psychologist Cialdini assures that sales can be dramatically increased if the strategy of hinting at potential losses -rather than gains- and at exclusivity of information is aptly employed1685:
So, what does this fact mean for decisions involving risk? People tend to be risk averse when making decisions about potential gains, but people tend to be risk seeking when making decisions about potential losses. (Huettel 2014:48).
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At a conference, Cialdini (2001) used this example. A beef retailer split his customers in three groups, and solicited them to buy his goods as usual, but adopting the scarcity approach (=a shortage is soon to come because of future weather condition), and the scarcity and exclusivity approach (= a shortage is soon to come because of future weather condition. This constitutes privileged information gotten from authoritative insiders on a confidential basis). The alleged result in carload sale were 10 (standard request); 24 (scarcity); 61 (scarcity and exclusivity). It won't elude readers how this is a reworking of popular doom and gloom scenarios: a meteor, nuclear strike, ...ist insurrection... is going to strike, lest the horde as one...
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The discovery usually serves to put into a backdated 'moral' perspective the possible abuse or excess on the 'good guys'' part (=the wrath of the righteous):”burnin' with determination to even up the score” 1686. Once again, grandiosity -a psychological condition within the narcissistic personality disorder spectrum- may either constitute a pathological sense of superiority and boastful uniqueness, or -if political opportunity chimes in- as “simply being right”.
In 2015, future U.S President Trump made a televised declaration:”I think apologizing's a great thing, but you have to be wrong. I will absolutely apologize, sometime in the hopefully distant future, if I'm ever wrong. ”. The declaration sounds very similar to a legendary punchline exchanged between mister Largo and James Bond in Never Say Never (1983).
Sherman laying waste to a portion of the Confederacy, looting and burning, could be interpreted as getting even for what all those poor slaves had been suffering at the hands of those awful, racist rebels in the South (=wrath of the righteous).
Milosevic and other Serbian leaders went likewise to war in the defense of their idea of Belle Epoque nation-State: a pacified administrative jumble of different creeds and cultures against any form of exceptionalism. For some reasons, the Serbian attempts to salvage the 'great cause' went down in history as experiments in mass-murder, supremacy and brainwashing, unlike their Unionist 1686
Lyrics from Rocky IV soundtrack Hearts On Fire.
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predecessors. Irony has it that Serbia -and its patriotic ethos, whatever one may think of it- used to be the godly 'martyr State', in whose name WWI was started.
A few years later, Serbian maximalists might have stepped on the right side of history as bulwark against purported islamofascist rogues. Also, the fact that Milosevic tried to turn Montenegro into an aggressive fiscal paradise and offshore centre famous for its brass-plate banks, secrecy and lenient due diligence may be another possible -albeit nearly unknown to the general public- reason for the regime's demise.
Of course, the postulate of the goodhearted Yankee fighting prejudices on a routine basis doesn't quite explain how the Back to Africa movement 1687 -under the patronage of many eminent reformers both Black and White, including President Monroe in early XIX century- in pre-civil war USA didn't quite take off as Northern support for the initiative lacked due to basic absence of concern. Irrespective of nativist propaganda, Black masses were less than enthusiastic about the idea of “going back to Africa”. Lincoln, too, considered relocating Blacks to Central America, but Africans – who had been exploited in the South- started to be seen as a handy reservoir of cheap -and now mobile due to emancipation- labour for the North.
FDR's labor and agricultural policies threw millions of blacks out of work and off their land. The great migration of African-Americans 1687
Movement to encourage the emigration to Africa of slaves of African descent. It led to the establishment of colonies for that purpose such as Liberia, whose capital Monrovia was named after U.S President Monroe (181725).
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to northern cities was in no small part a result of the success of progressive policies. Black leaders didn't call the National Recovery Administration, or NRA, the "Negro Run Around" for nothing. (Goldberg 2007:153). Further emancipation from the remaining shackles of segregation was later needed in order to fully mobilize the Black population's industrial and purchase power for consumerist society's greater good as war measures had anticipated during WWII: that's a line of thought Herbert Spencer -the Victorian reformer and philosopher- had clearly outlined.
Durkheim also suggested morality is among modernity's greatest output: because the modern (XIX century nation) State needs to harness everybody's productivity (as Marx would have it) to feed the societal machine, social violence -hence taboos, castes, prejudices that might fuel or favor it- has to decrease dramatically.
The same alleged disinterestedness and rapture for idealistic and humanitarian causes would triumph in South Africa decades later, too1688:
The very success of the Afrikaner economic movement began to undermine the collective sense of a common Afrikaner identity. By the early 1960s, Dr. Albert Hertzog and other leaders of Afrikaner workers were arguing that the geldmag (finance power) of the new Afrikaner capitalists had betrayed the volk. By 1980, these Afrikaner entrepreneurs had largely turned their backs on Afrikaner volkseenheid (unity of the volk) in the name of profit. De Klerk and the Afrikaner establishment could jettison their entire political past with relative ease after 1990 precisely because the creation of 1688
With due adjustments, O'Meara's analysis could apply to the situation of the Acadian francophone minority in New Brunswick (Canada).
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Afrikaner business and a wealthy Afrikaner middle class had forever separated their interests and their futures from those of their less privileged volksgenote (members of the volk) (O'Meara 1997: no page, emphasis added). It took the courage of a white man, Frederik de Klerk, and a black man, Nelson Mandela. to avert me bloodbath that has followed in the wake of most revolutions, and to create the conditions that made it possible for their country to move forward as a democracy. (Tavris&Aronson 2007:210). The dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan is interpreted as a compassionate -if Machiavellian- effort to spare bigger trials, much as the amputation of a limb or two -if unfortunate- can spare a patient's life. Naturally, even the Jacobin, Amin, Soviet, Khmer Rouge or NSDAP regimes thought they were just amputating a limb or two -metaphorically speaking- in pursuit of a greater good, which prompts the party liner to scream his carbon-copied execration:
On the other hand, like most of the rest of us, one may invent a false, finally unjustified, image of oneself as an exceptional phenomenon in the world, not guilty as others are, but justified in one's inevitable sinning because one represents the good. (Campbell 1949:221). Alternatively, the masses grieve they had no opportunity to toe the party line protecting the victims at all costs. Martin Luther King wrote in 1963:”Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid ”. How many songs, soundtracks and the like elatedly take the pledge to “always be there for [insert favorite frail little creature here]”? Strong In The Rain is a poem by Japanese litterateur -and Nichiren Buddhism devotee- K. Miyazawa (1896-1933): “if there is[...]in the east[...]west[...]south[...]north[...]he goes there...Everyone calls him Blockhead No one sings his praises Or takes him to heart... That is the kind of 1299
person I want to be “1689.
The shtick can be applied in all circumstances. U.S war-mongering minutemen proclaimed during WWI:”I am everywhere helping to win this greatest of wars and to save the world for God and man. ”1690.
The (former) victims -now on a pedestal- are the object of envy, too. The (formerly) wrathful pack that used to relish the atrocities it committed now crawls in self-denial envying the victim's supreme ethical status as moral vanguard; pencil-
“Strong in the rain Strong in the wind Strong against the summer heat and snow He is healthy and robust Free from desire He never loses his temper Nor the quiet smile on his lips He eats four go of unpolished rice Miso and a few vegetables a day He does not consider himself In whatever occurs His understanding Comes from observation and experience And he never loses sight of things He lives in a little thatched-roof hut In a field in the shadows of a pine tree grove If there is a sick child in the east He goes there to nurse the child If there’s a tired mother in the west He goes to her and carries her sheaves If someone is near death in the south He goes and says, ‘Don’t be afraid’ If there are strife and lawsuits in the north He demands that the people put an end to their pettiness He weeps at the time of drought He plods about at a loss during the cold summer Everybody calls him Blockhead No one sings his praises Or takes him to heart That is the sort of person I want to be” R. Pulvers translation. 1689
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Four Minute Men no date:no page.
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necked sweat-hogs now wish -in tune with the new party line- they had suffered so much, too.
Much as it in actuality turns out to be flimsy, heedless and unaccountable, the sweet human soul loves to toy with grandstand fantasies of absolute morality and suchlike, just like the carbon-copied heroes and saviors of folklore, folklure and fakelore, for those who can actually tell the difference.
Video messages on the Youtube Mormon Channel may be exemplary. One recites “Motherhood is an eternal partnership with god”, whose theoretical wisdom -theological claptrap set aside- can hardly be questioned. One is left to wonder, however, why most countries the world over had to set up humongous welfare apparatuses to cater to a burgeoning juvenile population allegedly victim of family neglect, abuse and other ills which can hardly be constituted as “direct participation to the work of god” (to quote the same 2010 Mormon video message):”The consequences of caretaker abuse and neglect are vastly more common and complex than the impact of hurricanes or motor vehicle accidents.”1691.
According to data overviews1692, as much as 70 to 80% or more couples with (physically or mentally) disabled children get divorced: so much for “always being there for you”, just as the plot of that trendy tear-jerker on TV or sappy earworm demands. Like a well-choreographed body-building posing routine on the notes of Livin' On A Prayer, people flex their moral muscles to impress: here comes 1691 1692
Van Der Kolk 2014:116. Sobsey 2004:63ss.
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mister most loyal, mistress through thick-and-thin...
Then Pleasure Island turns into hell, and lying Pinocchios grow donkey ears...That's how “sweet saviors” land like flying squirrels to make excuses for -or forgive- the wicked, heedless, frazzled “common humanity fellow” uttering “word salads” that mean different things to different people: la parole en folie (utterance as madness, Foucault);”I was surprised—I could have just as easily made a case for her
not being the ocean”;”Some, however, made fun of [Jesus' apostles] and said, "They have had too much wine."”1693.
The mature mystic has developed his own private meaning as he reads and interprets dogmas and gospel truth s. Monolexis is an individual code for absorbing and transmitting doctrines with out risking dysfunctional conflict with the surroundings. What distinguishes the mystic' s religious doctrinal language from that of the ecclesiastic's is precisely this monolexis. He uses words from the Writ, but he uses them in his own code. In fact , you can recognize the school of the mystic by the way its members use scriptural terms in a non-scriptural sense, through the process of monolexis. "Peace" to Jesus, the mystic, seems to mean "peace with one 's own esoteric experiences" in innerstances and in circumstances. The mystic (l.e., the silent one) does not have to assert, express or explain his experience, nor does he have to insist on onto logical corollary to his experience. There is no outsider qualified to check and tell whether the mystic's experience is genuine or not. (Camhi&Rai 2015:ch.18). The average American adult spends 47% of his or her waking life not paying attention to what they're doing -...-[thus being] chronically unhappy (Davidson 2017). Of course, nothing works better to rebuild psychological integrity later than getting on one's high horse shaking fists, shedding tears, and contributing to 1693
Acts 2:13.
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this, that or another 'great cause': the 'kind of person' one does (not) want to be.
Jungian&Buddhist psychotherapist David Richo 1694 is adamant: placing a demand for 100% upon people is not fit for a grown-up. It is realistic to place upon people a demand for no more than 25% while negotiating the routine betrayals and disappointments without a retaliation that may spell the relationship's end.
Baptist pastor, counselor and best-selling author G.D. Chapman 1695 agrees: no retaliation is the best “Christian option” as one surrenders revenge to god:”Vengeance belongs to Me [says god]; I will repay. In time their foot will slip, for their day of disaster is near, and their doom is coming quickly."”1696.
Gnosticism and pop culture can join hands in Candi Staton's You Got
The Love reworked in endless variations since 1986 (still prime-time TV soundtrack in 2006):
But you've got the love I need to see me through Sometimes it seems the going is just too rough And things go wrong no matter what I do Now and then it seems that life is just too much But you've got the love I need to see me through When food is gone you are my daily need, oh When friends are gone I know my saviour's love is real You know it's real -...-Time after time I think "Oh Lord what's the use?" Time after time I think it's just no good Cause sooner or later in life, the things you love you lose But you got the love I need to see me through The song -as Staton recounts 1697- was originally created for an obscure, 1694
2008:03. 2008. 1696 Deuteronomy 32:35. 1697 Heawood 2006:no page. 1695
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direct-to-video, third-rate movie about an obese man trying to lose weight; it could have easily been a blockbusting catastrophe, inequality or genocide movie. When international acclaim came, Staton claims at first she denied ever recording such a song because she had no recollection.
The Rorschach test effect is evidently at work. “Always being there for [insert frail little creature]” is one irresistible commodity everyone can restyle to fit one's circumstances, needs and beliefs: “responsibility transfer” is a versatile tool, as any psychologist might recommend: object constancy 1698. “You” in the song can be anything or anyone: Jesus, “being White and proud”, Zoroaster, Buddha, “rainbow nation” credos, Pol Pot, oneself...
Also in 1986, Bon Jovi released another hit song: Livin' On A Prayer, which also proved to be irresistible over the decades: a salad bar of mythological images as good as any positive psychology seminar. It was also restyled as a part of a concert that followed the Twin Towers attack (America: A Tribute To Heroes).
In the present writer's opinion at least, Livin' On A Prayer is -unlike
You Got The Love- too contextualized to allow for a full, unrestricted Rorschach 1698
The infant needs absolute reliability in caretakers. Because this is almost never the case in human affairs, people create 'substitutes' on which they 'project' their need for “secure attachment”. Real-life parents or caretakers may have been physically and/or verbally and/or emotionally neglectful or abusive. In the clouds, however, Sai Baba, Krishna, Jesus, Aurobindo, Guru Nanak, Che Guevara, Michael Jackson etc do love one truly for what one is: they are there for one always. The relationship with higher powers “in the clouds” feels as “personal” as the ongoing relationship with one's favorite celebrity”a "kinship libido." This instinct he says, cannot be satisfied in any abstract way:”It wants the human connection.” ”. Much as people blurt out endless credal statements and xeroxed “stories” about this “one true god” or another, the public knows the inner recesses of a celebrity's life. But – as Pipher writes- such feeling of intimacy is illusory, even if politicians greeting a crowd pretend to “recognize” people here and there in the faceless hubbub. Like the milkmaids on the Yamuna river, each thinks to be dancing alone with the god Krishna.
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effect:
Once upon a time Not so long ago Tommy used to work on the docks Unions been on strike He's down on his luck... it's tough, so tough Gina works the diner all day Working for her man, she brings home her pay For love - for love She says we've got to hold on to what we've got Cause it doesn't make a difference If we make it or not We've got each other and that's a lot For love - we'll give it a shot Eminent Portuguese writer Alçada Baptista presents a pinpointed snapshot -allegedly from his own autobiography-. The quintessential motif of having failed to protect the victim at all costs floats atop a stormy sea of other motifs in a short paragraph: crossing the helpless victim's stare; the sullen departure motif (it's the last day at school and the author shall never see the victim again); the helpless victim looking (back) for a redeeming gesture that is not going to come as etched on the author's mind; the rationalization of one's behavior out of intimate shortcomings...alleged autobiography ends up looking exactly like notes from any major mythological book.
Phil Collins' 1989 hit song Another Day In Paradise follows adding the mytheme of the hero's wounds within the exemplum of the journey as tribulation. If in a tasteless autobiographical note -or in a commercial song- one inserts 'you know who' and 'you know what', third-rate pathetic rhetoric becomes an irresistible commodity warranting the rewriting of history books while party liners scream their cosmic realization:
NĂŁo dei um passo, nĂŁo fiz um gesto para o defender. A certa altura 1305
cruzaram-se os nossos olhares, ele como que à espera das minhas palavras e eu não abri a boca. Pergunto-me porque é que fiz isso. Por causa da minha timidez: eu não era capaz de enfrentar aqueles que me estavam a defender. E logo isto aconteceu no último dia e nunca mais o vi. Como recordação ficou-me aquele seu olhar inquieto e surpreendido com a minha indiferença, no meio dos que lhe batiam, à espera dum gesto meu. (Alçada Baptista 1998:32). She calls out to the man on the street "Sir, can you help me? It's cold and I've nowhere to sleep,Is there somewhere you can tell me?" He walks on, doesn't look back He pretends he can't hear her Starts to whistle as he crosses the street Seems embarrassed to be there -...- She calls out to the man on the street He can see she's been crying She's got blisters on the soles of her feet Can't walk but she's trying Oh think twice... Oh lord, is there nothing more anybody can do Oh lord, there must be something you can say You can tell from the lines on her face You can see that she's been there Probably been moved on from every place Cos she didn't fit in there Oh think twice... (Phil Collins 1989). Ekphrasis—the rhetorical technique of description that purported to present visual images through the medium of words—appears among the progymnasmata [ preliminary education] by the first century A.D. -...- Among the greatest of the rhetorician’s skills was his ability to bring the things of which he was speaking seemingly before the eyes of his listeners, so that these images might be imprinted firmly on their memories. (Koortbojian 1995:36-7). Such is the “comedy of innocence” that interests the contemporary reader, and has replaced the archaic version. Some may remember face (=good guy) wrestler Marty Jannetty in 1990, who shielded with his own body the hurting knee of tag-team partner Shawn Michaels (the duo Rockers) from further foul play while Michaels howled in pain on the canvas.
Reality melts in a sort of apocalyptic Bambi effect, whereby U.S deerhunting industry collapsed after the release of the Disney movie:
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'We all stood and looked at him. We were looking at that slender neck and those poor little ears, that I had seen bleeding one day, and that large jacket, which he wore with the sleeves turned back, and those two little sickly arms, which had been raised so many times to save his face from a beating. Oh, at that moment I would have thrown at his feet all my toys and all my books; I would have taken the last piece of bread from my mouth and given it to him; I would have undressed myself to clothe him; I would have fallen upon my knees to kiss him. (De Amicis 1918:71). Of course, the dynamics above are at odds with the horde in fusion that clamors to march on Paris; that engages in mass-murder; that posts tauntingly online pictures of missiles destined to Iraqi civilians (= the possible victims one had no way to know existed); that raids shops with German names in the UK during WWI, while police in attendance smirks smugly; that buries an enemy country under a deluge of incendiary bombs, whose colossal amount gets bragged about in the mainstream press in the face of Socratic dilemmas, and other existential claptrap.
This was the America Woodrow Wilson and his allies sought. And they got what they wanted. In 1919, at a Victory Loan pageant, a man refused to stand for the national anthem. When "The StarSpangled Banner" ended, a furious sailor shot the "disloyal" man three times in the back. When the man fell, the Washington Post reported, "the crowd burst into cheering and handclapping." Another man who refused to rise for the national anthem at a baseball game was beaten by the fans in the bleachers. In February 1919 a jury in Hammond, Indiana, took two minutes to acquit a man who had murdered an immigrant for yelling, "To Hell with the United States." -...-Mrs. Rose Pastor Stokes was arrested, tried, and convicted for telling a women's group, "I am for the people, and the government is for the profiteers." (Goldberg 2007:69). The crowd's inconsequential wishes and infantile reactions seem to prefigure the world as a never-ending Tom&Jerry cartoon, whereby characters 1307
relentlessly pursue their inclinations. They let off steam hitting one another with clubs; they exchange brutal blows; they blow up -or cause the other to blow up- in an explosion; they jump off -or cause the other to jump off- a cliff; they ingest -or cause the other to ingest- nails or poison, yet in the end nobody's really hurt: the story always ends on a happy, reconciliatory note.
To categorically state the end note is one of duplicity, tragedy, slaughter etc causes the precious human soul to wriggle in agony screaming its pain along with Luke Skywalker as he realizes (=thunder of illumination) Darth Vader is his father after all1699. Original footage of the famous Milgram obedience study (1961 1700) eerily looks like a botched Tom&Jerry cartoon.
This point isn't exactly moot. Luke Skywalker -Tolstoy's Ivan Ilyc if one wants to sound more profound and intellectual- screaming his angst joins the party liner screaming his horror as he reads rewritten history books giving him shocking information he couldn't possibly have known, nor guessed; or accounts of the indignities this, that or another savior-hero, pariah group etc was subjected to.
Isn't Munch's 1893 The Scream1701 one of the most famous -and highly prized in its many versions- paintings of all times? Is it just because of the brute The original scene is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlHIxZyJHg4 Participants were required to administer a series of ever greater electric shocks to a man strapped to a chair in another room in case he failed to answer each question in a long list. An experimenter in white lab coat urged participants to continue as “teachers” even as groans, whimpers and desperate pleas to stop were heard (=recorded sounds were played) from the “student” strapped to the chair. 65% of Milgram's participants were willing to administer the highest electric voltage on the scale. In later years, opinions surfaced questioning various aspects -hence the validity- of the Milgram experiment and its countless clones. 1701 An autobiographical epiphany as Munch -who suffered from extreme depression and anxiety- claimed to paint “nature's scream” he allegedly felt. 1699 1700
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painting's alleged art and craft, or rather because it injects immediate, psychical truths into most people? Is it by sheer chance that the head of Munch's Scream looks uncannily like American-Indian petroglyphs on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe?
Edvard Munch, well known for his haunting painting The Scream,was an irritable and solitary figure. He frequently behaved peculiarly and unpredictably. In midlife, Munch was hospitalized for anxiety and persecutory delusions (Steinberg and Weiss 1954). (Polimeni 2012:92). Two people walk quietly on a promenade (= another mythological motif) in the background, while the scream takes place in the foreground. Screams are everywhere. Do singers not often emit a long howling, screeching or other noise (=vocalization= phatic act) to enrapture the listener? Muslim mystics -whether Sufi or Dervish- practice rituals (zikhr) in which communion with god is professedly realized through rhythmic breathing, singing and moving in a group setting.
As his angry father thrashes the Bruce Lee shrine he built inside the garage, young Jason (No Retreat No Surrender) howls the Skywalker “Nooo!�, and runs away in emotional agony: the insensitive parent just shredded Jason's cherished Bruce Lee poster.
Such scenes are a dime a dozen. The sacred symbol (of the day) embodies the main actor's ultimate concerns. In Chinese Connection (1972), a faithful Chinese disciple crawls on the floor to save the picture of beloved master Ho Yuanjia, the Chinese hero, from desecration: evil Japanese assault him as he's thus 1309
powerless. In Japan during the early Tokugawa era, Christians were prosecuted and obliged to trample on pictures of Jesus ( humi-e). In Ip Man, valiant Chinese takes from the evil Japanese a bag of rice stained with the sacred blood of another (deceased) Chinese as prize for a death tournament.
In Pet Sematary (1989), a friendly ghost -trying to prevent a transgression that would result in horrible consequences- yelps alongside Luke Skywalker before disappearing: he realizes the transgression shall take place in every case. Of course, to either hear Luke Skywalker's scream, or Woody Woodpecker's famous laughter depends on socio-political expediency and individual propensities. What could readers make of it?
Is this Skywalker illumination routine unique to a salad bar of sci-fi antics awash in quantum mysticism? Is it unique to how rewritten history books are approached? Or isn't it rather unique to the human psyche as such, being thus adapted to all and sundry? An example -as apolitical as it gets- may help to explain the dynamics undergirding the rewriting of history.
Anthropologist Laura Bohannan spent considerable time among the Tiv people of Nigeria collecting their folk stories. One time, however, they asked her to tell one story from her culture, so she on purpose chose that seemingly universal masterwork that is Hamlet. Surprisingly enough, the tribe elders corrected her on a number of points.
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The chief concluded:
That was a very good story," added the old man, "and you told it with very few mistakes. There was just one more error, at the very end. -..."Sometime," concluded the old man, gathering his ragged toga about him, "you must tell us some more stories of your country. We, who are elders, will instruct you in their true meaning, so that when you return to your own land your elders will see that you have not been sitting in the bush, but among those who know things and who have taught you wisdom. (1966:49). Details the elders picked apart varied:
“Not yesterday, not yesterday, but long ago, a thing occurred. One night three men were keeping watch outside the homestead of the great chief, when suddenly they saw the former chief approach them.”.“Why was he no longer their chief?”.“He was dead,” I explained. “That is why they were troubled and afraid when they saw him.”.“Impossible,” began one of the elders, handing his pipe on to his neighbor, who interrupted, “Of course it wasn’t the dead chief. It was an omen sent by a witch. Go on.” -...- Determined to save what I could of the mother motif, I took a deep breath and began again. “The son Hamlet was very sad because his mother had married again so quickly. There was no need for her to do so, and it is our custom for a widow not to go to her next husband until she has mourned for two years.”.“Two years is too long,” objected the wife, who had appeared with the old man’s battered goatskin bag. “Who will hoe your farms for you while you have no husband?” (Ibid.:46). If to a baffling exchange with tribal chieftains during fieldwork in Nigeria readers substitute 'you know who', 'you know what', and psychotic fixations derived from war propaganda and/or the 1960s, then readers can easily understand how it all works. Nigerian chieftains, too, 'rewrote' Hamlet to match their cultural, political and social values.
The 'good guys' are never evil, never cynical, never duplicitous: they 1311
simply had no opportunity to know the truth. 'Good guys' never turn their coat when they change their mind; rather, they awake to the enemy's real, quintessential nature: the good old Socratic concept.
In 2013 former Italian prime minister Monti -now chasing after electoral success making all sorts of promises to both left and right- showed 'good guys' are always well-meaning, as he censored the last row of tax and due diligence provisions his government urgently approved: “Io non lo volevo� (It wasn't me who wanted that).
The same crowd frantically clamoring for total war or cheering indiscriminate mass-bombing or reprisals may at a later date hide behind the fig leaf of perfunctory ethical dilemmas and protestations of good faith: a comedy of innocence. If 'the good guys' venture too far - and that cannot be simply explained away -, it is because the enemy -and the enemy only- had provoked them. After all, the enemy went just too far: there are no excuses for that.
This line of reasoning can unsurprisingly be applied to all and sundry. MacNeill1702 discusses the gimmicks of the hoaxing post-modern academic left in the perspective that such antics are an understandable reaction against Fascist excess and brutality.
Fascists, however, were convinced that they were in turn reacting
1702
2011: lecture 14.
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against Social-Communist excess and brutality the Bolshevik revolution, and a host of local variations, epitomized. Fascism in Italy was expressly banded and funded after WWI to counter a radical Social-Communist wave ( biennio rosso, red twoyear).
In Germany, Jewish-German journalist Eisner proclaimed a SocialCommunist regime active in Bavaria between end 1918 and mid-1919; following Eisner's assassination, the fleeting regime assumed a Soviet identity under JewishRussian leader Levine. In Hungary, between March and August 1919, a Soviet-style Republic was established under the leadership of Jewish-Hungarian activist Bela Kun.
In the UK in 1919, Glasgow Town Hall was stormed by strike activists seeking the reduction of weekly work hours from the 54 of wartime emergency to 40. Tanks and troops were dispatched to quell Clydeside unrest taking place under the sign of the Red Flag; sailors aboard the HMS Kilbride mutinied and hoisted the Red Flag as well. In Belgium, leader Leon Degrelle would later band Fascist party
Rex (from Christus Rex, Christ the King, 1930-44) after a past as Christian activist from -in Degrelle's own appraisal- a Jesuit family.
In Mexico, Cristeros were Catholic rebels raising in arms ( Viva Cristo
Rey! Hail Christ our King) against the anticlerical government between 1926-29. The Knights of Columbus offered 1.000$ to Cristero rebels; the Ku-Klux-Klan in the U.S, back then an anticlerical organization close to the Democratic Party on the left, 1313
offered Mexican President Calles 10.000$ to fight the Catholic Church.
From Mexico to Romania, the world prepared for the upcoming clash between the cosmic left and right.
Lifting the Klan mask revealed a chaotic multitude of antiblack vigilante groups, disgruntled poor white farmers, wartime guerrilla bands, displaced Democratic politicians, illegal whiskey distillers, coercive moral reformers, bored young men, sadists, rapists, white workmen fearful of black competition, employers trying to enforce labor discipline, common thieves, neighbors with decades-old grudges, and even a few freedmen and white Republicans who allied with Democratic whites or had criminal agendas of their own. Indeed, all they had in common, besides being overwhelmingly white, southern, and Democratic, was that they called themselves, or were called, Klansmen. (Frantz Parsons 2005:816, emphasis added). In the commodious line of reasoning, however, the enemy -and the enemy only- triggers the “crisis of forgiveness”. Debord in another context terms this as being victim of the “tort absolu” (being irreparably wronged), which prompts the struggle about whether forgiveness might be appropriate. Of course, different constituencies may vary in their judgment about what constitutes “ultimate wrongdoing”.
In other words, there is such thing as “fairness”, “justice” etc that stems from “the mind of god”, “human reason” and such existential claptrap. Whether such-and-such an act constitutes here a “fair” or “just” act is left to politically authenticated, expedient chicanery to determine: is 16% APR on credit card debt “just and fair”? Are Afro-American looters “merely undocumented shoppers”, or
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should police open fire on them? In NSDAP Germany, the financial cost of supporting the “reckless”, “diseased” and “feeble-minded” was considered excessive, whence the “fair and just” policy of selective euthanasia and/or deportation. According to U.S authorities, incinerating Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs brought the war to an early end: a “fair and just” decision, although those cities' inhabitants -just as “defectives” in the previous example- may have disagreed.
As a result, different groups and constituencies may haggle over imposing their own thing as collective “ultimate wrongdoing”. Excess and gratuitous brutality become then the 'just payback' on the part of the righteous, akin to Hulk Hogan using illegal foreign objects to win a match just because “I feel strong about right and wrong, And I don't take trouble for very long”.
Academic cronyism transmits strange legends. For example, the fact that the Indian independence movement after WWII did not translate in a blood bath, but saw the British as simply leaving on more or less good terms, is usually credited to both Gandhi's strategy, and the 'morally superior' British ethos. Indians were lucky – in other words- that the British were those stupendous gentlemen they are universally reputed as being, and not the mass-murdering NSDAP brutes.
This clearly ignores British brutalities or inaction of then recent decades (Sudan; the Boer wars, internment etc; the Bengali famine etc). The immediate animosity between the splinters of British Hindustan (India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh); or the clashes between various factions (Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, 1315
Buddhist, Christian) also tarnishes the ideal of an idyllic transition.
The main problem lied with colonial empires being exhausted, and based upon untenable premises after WWII for both socio-economic, and geopolitical reasons. The Portuguese (not a contending party during WWII) tried to save as much of their empire as they could through improbable political expediencies (the
lusotropicalismo1703 doctrine1704), and armed repression, but in vain; and so did the French.
European powers remained such only in the collective imaginary, or -in Britain's case- fictional James Bond movies. The mega-powers of Soviet USSR, and demo-plutocratic USA jockeyed for geopolitical positions the world over dancing over the dead body of the Shiva that European empires used to be.
Isn't Hulk Hogan loyal? Of course, when Randy 'Macho Man' Savage turns on Hogan like that, 'real American' Hogan “gotta be a man, can't let it slide”: he has to win the belt back from estranged friend Savage ”burnin' with determination to even up the score ”1705.
It wouldn't be hard to quote elated praise directed to this, that or
1703
The Fascist regime in Portugal adapted various doctrines to signify how Portugal was a peculiar nation: pluricontinental, multiracial and multicultural since its inception, thus favoring exceptionalist doctrines to justify colonialism as the Portuguese way. 1704 The French also tried to push some variations upon this theme by restyling their crumbling colonial Empire into a Union Française (1946-48), and a Communauté Française (1958-61). Both looked slightly similar to the British Commonwealth, with the French President acting as Head of State for the entire compact under provisions that varied over the years. Both attempts collapsed entirely. 1705 Lyrics from Rocky IV soundtrack Hearts On Fire.
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another dictator across the decades (Amin, Bokassa, Franco, Mobutu, Mussolini, Hitler, Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein...). Time Magazine chose Hitler as “man of the year� in 1938; Stalin in 1943; Chiang Kai-Shek in 1937; Khomeini in 1979; Pu-Yi had a cover in 1934...:
One may dislike Hitler's system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as indomitable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations. (W. Churchill, 1937). If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons (W.Churchill, 1941). Hitler is a monster of wickedness, insatiable in his lust for blood and plunder. (W. Churchill, 1941). In the 1980s, Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell condemned the imposition of sanctions on South Africa as a means of ending apartheid, applauded South African President Botha, and encouraged his viewers to invest in Krugerrands. In the 1990s, Pat Robertson praised Zaire's President Mobutu on Zairian television as being a fine Christian, despite Mobutu's soldiers having recently killed a large number of pro-democracy citizens. At the time, Robertson was engaged in diamond mining operations in the country as part of a contract with Mobutu. Robertson signed another mining agreement with Liberia's President Taylor, who was also accused of widespread slaughter, and defended him as a fellow Christian. (Schuck&Wilson 2008:303). Mother Teresa, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who did many good things for the world’s poor and was beatified by the Catholic Church, accepted over $1.25 million and the frequent use of a private jet from Charles Keating, the principal figure in the U.S. savings and loan scandal of the 1980s (Hitchens, 1995). Even though Keating was convicted of stealing millions of dollars from investors, Mother Teresa wrote a letter to the court urging leniency. The deputy district attorney in Los Angeles asked Mother Teresa to return the money, but she declined. She also accepted an award and a donation from JeanClaude Duvalier, the Haitian dictator who stole millions from his 1317
impoverished country, later declaring that "Papa Doc" loved the country’s poor and they loved him. (Padilla no date:4-5). Some sources may have indifferently regarded boxer Cassius Clay, and Uganda's dictator (1971-79) General Amin -also a professional boxing champion- as icons epitomizing people of color's irresistible ascent: another 'psychologically positive' variation upon the theme of the resilient underdog with a vision who eventually triumphs. At any rate, could the imagery associated with people of color be anything but a positive one in our era?
This held in spite of the fact Amin had in 1972 expelled Asian-Ugandans at short notice with a corollary of vigilante/nativist violence, and property dispossession. At some point, however, 'the good guys' “gotta be men, can't let it slide”, as they finally awake to the tyrant's true goals.
On the same wavelength, Hulk Hogan discovered Savage's plans to have Macho-madness triumph over Hulkamania: it is as elusive to the common man as the reasons why some Muslim maximalist groups were alternatively labeled as the “freedom fighters” of the 1980s, the holy victims of the 1990s, the rogues of the 2010s.
Are we expected to agree or disagree with, laugh at or with the following articles appeared on the web discussing tragic circumstances and events related to WWII:
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Now, more than 60 years later, it seems we must lower our estimates -...-. Many of those who lost families-...- and loved ones in the catastrophe have found dignity and meaning in the sheer magnitude and dark grandeur of the event, and to see -...- casualty figures reduced -...- to more “normal” (though still horrendous) levels seems incredible, even insulting. And there are the political distortions. The [insert group n.1 here] were the first to exaggerate the number of victims for propaganda purposes-...-. Finally, [insert group n.2 here] in modern Germany conjure up dizzyingly high figures -...-. That it has finally issued its report seems something of a miracle. And that its members have courageously and doggedly followed the logic of the evidence, knowing the unpopularity it may bring, speaks strongly for the integrity of the historians involved. (Taylor 2008: no page). 2. [enemies of the group] have grossly exaggerated the [group] involvement in [...ism], distorted the facts, and interpreted them according to conspiracy theories. [group members] were also victims of [...ism]. -...- 5. The deepest problem is posed by the quasi-religious character of the [...ist] involvement of some [members of the group]. 6. There is no distinctive [group] radicalism. There is no ‘[group ...ism]’. [Group members] became [...ists] because of general mechanisms. 7. It was not [group culture] or [group] traditions but the social situation that led [group] to involvement in [...ism]. 8. Participation in evil can begin with noble and selfless intentions. (Krajewski no date:1). There are at least two good ways to pursue the question of why there were so many [members of the group] in SDS [Students For Democratic Society]. The first would be a sociological research study in which a large representative sample of the [group member] veterans of SDS and the New Left are asked about the relationship between their being [members of the group] and their activism. (Rudd 2005: no page). [Group members] were disproportionately involved in the 1960s student movement known as the New Left. Drawing on research data from primarily the USA and Australia, we explore some of the key factors that contributed to this prominence including the significant number of [group members] students at key universities, the impact of left-wing family backgrounds on many [group members] students, and the general influence of [group] cultural values and experiences. We argue that [group member] student radicals incorporated the whole spectrum of [group] identity from those who either rejected or expressed ambivalence about their [quality of group member] to those 1319
whose radical and [group] commitments were closely aligned. We also explain why the [group] contribution to the New Left had so little impact on mainstream [group] political culture. (Mendes 2009:1). Would one champion or jeer the above in a crowded theater hall full of mainstream public? So the ultimate question is: is this (whatever it is) reinforcing or undermining the mos? Is this good or bad for 'the cause'? Does agreeing with this amount to obedience or disobedience? “ mos requires neither deliberation, nor judgment, but praise or blame”.
After all, obedience training and bonding around societal mos1706 come first, no matter how 'persuasive' or 'fitting' anything may read. Is the prose below from a multi-award winning book, or from some 'impure' publication, whose author deserves to be dealt with impersonally inside the courts, or personally in a back alley?
[...ism n.1] espouses repugnant ideas, but [...ism n.2]'s ideas of equality, solidarity. social justice. an end to misery. and power to the oppressed are indeed beautiful. The New [...ist] Man- tireless. Cheerful, clean, brave, thrifty. and kind to animals-is an ideal all humanity should aspire to reach. The problem, As even believing [...ists] admit. is that this utopian landscape must be stocked with ordinary people. [...ism n.2] is lofty and grand, but human beings are flawed creatures. unwilling to pay [...ism n.2] the tribute of sacrifice it demands (Rosenberg in Myers 2002:143). Belief is essentially a test of loyalty to a system of power. To which degree is the reaction to the historical event/circumstances described above 1706
Mos maiorum: the way of our forefathers. It may be rendered as in: folkways, the customary way to go about it over here.”As organizational development pioneers Terrence Deal and Allan Kennedy explained it: “Culture is the way we do things around here.” I like this definition because it rings true for discussions about all cultures —from the larger culture of scarcity that I write about in the first chapter, to a specific organizational culture, to the culture that defines my family.” (Brown 2012:114).
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dependent upon the disclosure of the blanked parts in the otherwise preserved prose?
The masters of acceptable discourse, the craftsmen who shape the storyline, those who 'control the conversation' may at times push the boundary (Orwell's '2+2=5' concept) so that the ultimate test is administered to part true followers -who are one with the entranced pack- from opportunists and dissidents:�Even if such claims had merit -...- [people] cannot ethically stand by this [statement] whose end result can only be furthering discrimination under the guise of academic discourse.�.
Disbelief is invariably politicized, and interpreted to identify the dissident with the foulest anti-myths in their bloodiest variations, while at the same time
protesting
the
identity
of
one's
ideas
(=the
'good
guy's')
with
immaterial/immemorial -spiritual or otherwise- truths that can elicit the usual sentimental elation. Ovid1707 has almighty Jupiter complain how he had given signs that under his mortal disguise hid a god; commoners had started to worship him, yet arch-sinner Lycaon seized the opportunity to mock their credulity.
The same religious and mystical verbiage is borrowed to parade crass political items under the blanket afforded by knee-jerk reactions following impassioned harangues. The very word liberazione (liberation) is in Italy used to denote not only spiritual salvation, but the more mundane last moments of the Fascist regime collapsing as one foreign occupant (Germany) retreated in defeat, and 1707
Metamorphoses 1.220ss.
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other foreign occupants (Anglo-Americans) advanced victorious.
Then Belgian Socialist leader de Man apparently referred to the collapse of the Belgian regime following German occupation during WWII as liberation (délivrance). Various liberation or freedom fronts are/were active throughout the post-colonial world. Was Palestinian leader Arafat the liberator of Palestine (according to most Arabs or Muslims), or a terrorist (according to most Jews or Zionists)?
As in religious lore, the 'savior' (liberator or similar) may as well wield a rod of iron. Strikingly awful behavior may be thus presented as a moral lesson, or the paradoxes of doubleness:
But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them--bring them here and kill them in front of me (Luke 19:27)1708. To all who are victorious, who obey me to the very end, To them I will give authority over all the nations. They will rule the nations with an iron rod and smash them like clay pots. (Revelation 2:26-7). Accordingly, the trickster traffics frequently with the transcendent while loosing lewd acts upon the world. Gastronomic, flatulent, sexual, phallic, and fecal feats erupt seriatim. Yet the bricoleur aspect of the trickster can cause any or all of such lewd acts or objects to be transformed into occasions of insight, vitality, and new inventive creations. (Hynes 1993:42). The most dynamic and trans-cultural of the trickster's attributes must certainly be his wild sexuality. All but universally, he is depicted with 1708
One of the lines of defense out of the embarrassment such direct, full quotations pose, is to disclaim the parable describes (alludes to, implies...) Jesus, father god or the like, as it's most often implied, but the literal, fictional character “A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return. ”( Luke 19:12). Possibly a carbon-copy of 1 Samuel 11:12:”The people then said to Samuel, "Who was it that asked, 'Shall Saul reign over us?' Bring these men to us and we will put them to death." ”.
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enormous genitalia and an insatiable sexual appetite. Stories abound wherein the trickster lures away wives and gets himself into trouble over his libido. There is no limit to the outrageousness of these mythic narratives (Campbell 1999:41). Ironically, Sartre did imply that vulgarity might be a necessary component of existential authenticity. (Charmé 1991:17). Incitement to hatred, division and violent settling of disputes may be(come) as (un)acceptable as the person wishing for it, much as in wrestling matches foul play, and the use of illegal foreign objects, may be accepted or rejected depending on who is doing what.
Prominent Italian antifascists brothers Rosselli urged to support the Republican government during the Spanish civil war under the motto “ oggi in Spagna, domani in Italia” (Today [we fight] in Spain, tomorrow in Italy), whereas Jesus said: ”Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn "'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law- ” (Matthew 10:34-35)1709.
Resistance against Fascist regimes, and their invading troops, was the due course of action to thwart their brutal goals. Resistance against the AngloAmericans or the Soviets embodied an irrational refusal to take a medicine that -however very bitter- cooperated all for the good of mankind. As repeatedly argued 1709
As the present writer argues, it is easy to find passages from the early Christian tradition that contradict this image of Jesus, such as:”[A man said] to [Jesus], "Tell my brothers to divide my father's possessions with me." He said to him, "O man, who has made Me a divider?" He turned to His disciples and said to them, " I am not a divider, am I?"” (The Gospel Of Thomas no date:no page, n.72 emphasis added);”Jesus replied, "Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?"” (Luke 12:14).
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throughout this writing, the same concepts can be easily recruited to serve or condemn, promote or demote anything and anyone. The sole difference rests with the reader (voter, etc) and the elusive questions of credibility and emotion s-he bases his/her decision upon.
While it is fashionable to praise moderation and skepticism in the allegiance to any idea, party liners are always on the lookout for both people expressing views contrary to what's acceptable this season, and for people who are not enthusiastic enough:”A destroyer of faith-...- places himself in great spiritual jeopardy. He is serving the wrong master, and unless he repents, he will not be among the faithful in the eternities.”.
In fact, anything short of unbridled enthusiasm, display of fashionable loyalties, and
parroting of approved slogans might signpost doubtful moral
standards, hideous sympathies: “a speech-act”, just as Yahweh engages in in Genesis. Professor of English Curzan explains a basic fact of human interaction: “lesser adjectives”1710 are typically interpreted to mean disagreement1711.
Specifically, what Pennabaker found was that when the language style of two people matched, when they used pronouns, prepositions, articles and so forth in similar ways at similar rates, they were much more likely to end up on a date. -...-"The words reflect who we are more than drive who we are," he says. (Spiegel 2012:no page). Curzan is examining here simple interactions without the neurological 1710
Answering “that is nice” to a statement someone made to the effect that “this sunset is gorgeous” is Curzan's example. 1711 2013:How The Conversation Floor Works.
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and gastrointestinal syndromes that politics involve; the schizotypal fantasy about what is “evil in the eyes of god” and the like. In social settings, one might want to leave the room if you commit a (presumed) faux-pas; in politicized settings, one may want to have your employment terminated, or to send a lawyer, or a couple thugs, your way.
Called to express an opinion on “Jews”, J.B. Peterson – who is the supposed academic 'presentable' equivalent of counter-cultural Jordan Maxwell and Alex Jones rolled into one- lavishes praise on a model, successful minority, then one can almost see the eyes rolling in Peterson's head as he desperately fishes for words harsh enough to chastise the ultimate sin: antisemitism.
A cynosure of Jesus mythicism, R.M. Price has been sinking recently into disfavor with the left-wing, “social justice” dominant group within the atheist community not only because of his vocal Republican (right-wing) sympathies, but mostly because he takes his historicist-mythicist debates at face value, thus lacking the impassioned ardor of a zealot on a Zoroastrian crusade.
Flattery and blackmail, carrot and stick policies dominate the atheist, “secular humanist” community as well: R.M. Price's right-wing political sympathies thwart book publishing deals he had underway with “secular humanist” publishers. Richard Carrier, one of the Dalai Lamas of rabidly leftist social justice atheism, tussles with former tovarishi because of presumed sexual impropriety.
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A newsletter1712 from noted Ernest Becker Foundation chastises no other than the leading Jewish-American social scientist at its core: Ernest Becker himself. The “great man” turns out to be “not great enough” (not “feminist enough”) for his own good: the 'great idea' keeps cannibalizing its offspring.
Aspects of Ernest Becker’s works invoke regressive patriarchal ideologies that reinforce the institutionalized pattern of male dominance in society. The Ernest Becker Foundation does not endorse such regressive views and recognizes and supports gender equality as a fundamental human right. This reminds of recurring Maoist purges: future leader Deng Xiaoping was purged three times because he wasn't Maoist enough according to “the great helmsman”. This also explains how the Jesus figure could be (re)invented to match political fads and talk of town issues of later periods: comic book Superman fights Nazis during WWII.
“Secular humanists” (another disguise of the left-wing bandwagon) grow increasingly dissatisfied with Christ-myth theorists among them. They would be better served campaigning for “Hillary 2016”, or lobbying for minority rights and climate change. R.M. Price quips:
Why does Cooke [who wrote an article urging secular humanists to jettison Christ-myth theories] care if Secular Humanists espouse Jesus Mythicism? My guess is that it is not really any weakness in the theory, but rather that he does not want to lengthen the line of defense. He desires respectability for the Secular Humanist movement, and if the mainstream of conventional academics do not take Mythicism seriously, they will not respect Secular Humanism 1712
Vol. 24, nn.2.3, September 2017.
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insofar as a growing number of Secular Humanists espouse Mythicism. It is basically a question, I suspect, of public relations. But I may be wrong. It’s just a theory. (2016:3). Although Donald Trump was clearly ahead in the very final stages of the 2016 U.S Presidential election, the Social-Communist, liberal and lefty front with its civil society retainers couldn't possibly give up enthusiasm for “the great cause”:
A national recall went out Wednesday for the special “Madame President” issue of Newsweek that was prematurely shipped to stores and newsstands across the country.-...-“Like everybody else, we got it wrong,” said Tony Romando, CEO of Topix Media, the Newsweek partner which produces special issues under the popular brand. Both a Clinton and a Trump commemorative issue were designed and laid out in advance, but Topix Media, believing late last week that Clinton was likely to win, shipped only the Clinton issue. (New York Post, November 9, 2016). Compliance is not enough: full acceptance ought to prevail. Foul allegiances that must at all costs be made public and uprooted. R.L. Moore connects evil agency detection with threat of impending contagion 1713:
When the teacher treats him kindly, the boy makes fun of him for it. Once the teacher said terrible words to the boy, then the latter covered his face with his hands and pretended to be crying, but he was laughing. (De Amicis 1918:66). The legislation contained no provision for reporting incidents that turn out to be hoaxes as such. When an incident is discovered to be a hoax it might be dropped from the statistics, and it might not. Even more disturbing the legislation contained no provision to exclude unsolved offenses, many of which are probably hoaxes. Offenses having the mere appearance of a hate crime are to be reported as such, including unsubstantiated telephone threats, anonymous graffiti and unproven claims of name calling -...-.The 1713
1989:part 2. For example “...ists” may set up shop in town. Sooner than one thinks, legions of you-know-who might be marching down central avenue.
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decision to even classify incidents as "racially-motivated" is fraught with issues of subjectivity and bias. Although "racially-motivated" seems to be a neutral term, it is not. In practice it’s been a code phrase for crime by white (and not black) racists. It creates the anomaly of white youth receiving a stiffer sentence for mere graffiti on a black business than a black youth might receive for the burglary of its owner! (Wilcox 1994:21). Under Roman Emperor Decius (249-51 CE), Christians were required to sacrifice publicly in honor of the State, the Emperor and the pagan gods who presided over the Empire (=togetherness through belief=threat psychology), whose borders Barbarians besieged. In Tokugawa Japan, Christianity was outlawed; families were required to register with a Buddhist temple ( terauke). In early Japan, the administration of Shinto ceremonies and festivals ( matsuri-goto) became coterminous with governmental administration. Japanese Buddhist Nichiren denomination Soka Gakkai requests that converts destroy the traditional home altar, and replace it with one in line with their new allegiance.
Soka Gakkai groups also prevent relapse by pressuring members into conformity.
The contemporary elevation of remembrance, that is, of collective historical memory to the status of moral obligation-and in many countries of the European Union-...- a legal one as welltoo often appears like nothing so much as hyperthymesia writ large. (Rieff 2011:96). What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. (Matthew 10:27). Our normal affinity for the occasional thrill can make the risktaking sociopath seem all the more charming -...-. Such is the 1328
flavor of sociopathic “spontaneity”and risk taking and "charm," and though we may chuckle about the obvious come-ons when we read them, the overall approach has met with noteworthy success time and again (Stout 2005:89). At a judicial conference in Maine, Hare spoke about the ease with which convicted offenders often are able to convince various religious groups, simply by using the right words and phrases, that they too had “found religion.” The tactic of the offenders was to tap into the groups’ belief that there is good in all of us and that everyone can be redeemed, even though we sometimes temporarily go off track. (Babiak&Hare 2006:56). Most of us would be devastated and humiliated by public exposure as a liar and a cheat, but not the psychopath. He or she can still look the community straight in the eye and give impassioned assurances, on their "word of honor." (Hare 1993:112). Chutzpa is that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan (Leo Rosten). Remembrance might be enthralling, yet specialists detail how the human brain's memory capabilities are less than forensic. Schacter describes thus seven major and recurring problems with human memory:
1. “Transience--the decreasing accessibility of memory over time.
2. Absent-mindedness--lapses of attention and forgetting to do things.
3. Blocking--temporary inaccessibility of stored information, such as tip-of-thetongue syndrome.
4. Suggestibility--incorporation of misinformation into memory due to leading
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questions, deception and other causes.
5. Bias--retrospective distortions produced by current knowledge and beliefs.
6. Persistence--unwanted recollections that people can't forget, such as the unrelenting, intrusive memories of post-traumatic stress disorder.
7. Misattribution--attribution of memories to incorrect sources or believing that you have seen or heard something you haven't.” (Murray 2003: no page).
Isn't enthusiasm -in fact- the sole way to approach the best of all ideas or the best of all causes? One has to be elatedly ready to go as far as required to serve the best of all causes while scoffing at possible collateral damage: spiritual commandos.
R.L. Moore defines “spiritual warfare” as “one of the most fundamental, most powerful archetypal configurations in the psyche” 1714. Moore connects the dynamic to the Zoroastrian tradition, in turn gage of inner conflicts that stem from lack of psychological integration of one's shadow.
Cialdini1715 appropriates the item as his “principle of commitment”, whereby people are urged to voluntarily go/be active and public about their commitment: baptism in front of the congregation in U.S fundamentalist Christian churches comes to mind. Isn't this the method to the madness of all revolutions, 1714 1715
1988. 1995:2b.
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with their mentally unstable, bohemian or poker-faced apostles leading the unwashed rabble in trance?
Apostles and leaders who can also come under the guise of the omnipotent Belle Epoque nation-State.
a sense of split -...- he sees himself in two roles -...- the role of the clown, that's the outer role that he plays -...- inside he's the savior and he knows it -...- an experience -...- of terrific drop-off and regression backwards, [then] -...- feelings of new knowledge -...- then there comes a sense of a terrific task and danger to be master, also of divine presences that will help one and -...- the final crisis. (Campbell 1970). When healthy shame is internalized, it becomes toxic and destroys all balance and boundaries. You become grandiose: either the best, or the "best-worst". With toxic shame, you are either more than human (superachieving) or less than human (underachieving). You are either extraordinary or you are a worm. It's all or nothing. You either have total control (compulsivity) or you have no control (addiction). (Bradshaw 1988:99-100). Well, Guinevere kept being abducted, and this time she's abducted by the lord of a castle which is equated with the underworld. Arthur doesn't go to get her back;Lancelot goes. And he goes with such speed that he rides two horses to death. -...-He's plowing along there, and a cart, driven by a churl, a peasant, passes him. In the cart are people who are being taken to be hanged or punished in one way or another. -...-So he hesitates for three steps before getting into the cart. But he does get in, and an adventure begins. -...-He comes in to receive her great greeting and gratitude. But she's as cold as ice. Why? Because he hesitated for three steps before getting in that cart. How did she know? She's the goddess: women know these things. (Campbell 1989: A Noble Heart). Clowns and fools -...- were the constant, accredited representatives of the carnival spirit in everyday life out of carnival season. -...- As such they represented a certain form of life, which was real and ideal at the same time. They stood on the borderline between life and art, in a 1331
peculiar midzone as it were, they were neither eccentrics nor dolts, neither were they comic actors (Bakhtin 1984:8). Clowns have many striking trickster characteristics as well as links with shamanism. In earlier cultures clowns were frequently associated with obscene and scatological practices. Ethnographer Adolf Bandelier studied the Pueblo of New Mexico, and he described celebrations where the clowns performed sodomy, coitus and masturbated in front of the entire tribe. (Hansen 2001:30). One part of the claim tends to slip past us unnoticed because we have heard it so often that we no longer see what it amounts to. I mean the claim to forgive sins: any sins. Now unless the speaker is God, this is really so preposterous as to be comic. We can all understand how a man forgives offences against himself. You tread on my toe and I forgive you, you steal my money and I forgive you. But what should we make of a man, himself unrobbed and untrodden on, who announced that he forgave you for treading on other men's toes and stealing other men's money? Asinine fatuity is the kindest description we should give of his conduct. Yet this is what Jesus did. He told people that their sins were forgiven, and never waited to consult all the other people whom their sins had undoubtedly injured. He unhesitatingly behaved as if He was the party chiefly concerned, the person chiefly offended in all offences. This makes sense only if He really was the God whose laws are broken and whose love is wounded in every sin. In the mouth of any speaker who is not God, these words would imply what I can only regard as a silliness and conceit unrivalled by any other character in history. -...- A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg-or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. (Lewis 1943:28, emphasis added). In Rocky IV (1985), a hand-picked, Cold War style crowd of Soviet enthusiasts watching the boxing match under the piercing eye of a Gorbachevlookalike (=father figure who personifies the horde), instantly and spontaneously (=fusion of the horde) rises on its feet to cheer 'real American' Rocky Balboa as he 1332
proceeds to summarily defeat the Soviet champion: at-onement.
In Ladyhawke (1985), at least some prelates at a medieval general assembly in a cathedral wave and cheer the hero who had just dispatched their bishop (=the bad guy). In The Running Man (1987), a felon has to participate in a televised, deadly gladiatorial game. Towards the end of the movie, the public starts to bet on -and sympathize with- the underdog.
The opposite in fact applies: the underdog has been unjustly convicted as a set-up to cover government misdeeds up. In Kickboxer (1989), a crowd of Thai enthusiasts cheers the foreign Van Damme character as he knocks the Thai champion out. In No Retreat No Surrender (1986), teenager Jason Stillwell is in the end not only crowned as a Seattle hero, but his (former) foes who had humiliated him carry him on their shoulders in triumph.
The 'good guy' (of the moment, of course, that is whoever won and suchlike), and his values prove just irresistible to the stupendous human psyche, and its circular proclivities. On the same wavelength, the Bruce Lee character raids the Japanese Bushido school on screen (Chinese Connection, 1972); Ip Man defeats the arrogant English boxer; Jason Stillwell overpowers the Soviet rogue -and by extension the crime syndicate that sent him-; Rambo ( Rambo II, 1985) brings home war prisoners from Vietnam (=the victims nobody knew existed)...
All those hero-savior figures represent, embody the fusion of the horde
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to the highest degree. They got the gnostic realization that renders alternative interpretations, ideas or courses of action not only inconceivable, but sinful (insane...) to the highest degree:”hyper reality that exists without permitting a question to arise”1716;”No debunking, disbelief, or criticism (constructive or otherwise). ”;”to the point that they cannot imagine not sharing your opinion.”.
Opposing or criticizing what chances to be the upheld norm this season is rooted not in alternative opinions or sources, but in unspeakable covenants with absolute evil, whose sources are the foulest. R.L. Moore characterizes this dynamic as the clash between the “king of cosmos” and the “king of chaos” archetypal configurations: Ahura Mazda and Ahriman; father god and Satan; Horus and Set; the Anglo-American-Soviets and the Fascists...
Opposing patriotic extravaganzas amounts to being a traitor or an antinational who hates the meek horde ready to endure sweet deprivations for the greater good; criticizing a certain religion shall mean one's corrupt soul is afraid of this, that or another sweet savior, prophet and the like who loved us so much; picking apart social alchemy shall mean one's 'heart of darkness' cannot accept that you-know-who suffered you-know-what, and that the horde in tears owes them really that much.
Coming from Los Angeles, young Jason becomes the quintessential Seattle guy as the movie ends (=the outsider as savior motif); Jason Stillwell 1716
Gane 1991:138.
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furthermore “delivers the boon” as he protects Seattle's honor New York mafiosi threaten; Rambo is the (=not just another) 'real American'; Bruce Lee is a true Chinese, and so on and so forth. The hero is 'the best among us', even when he's ridiculed, torn apart in agony, ostracized, and goes (temporarily) away in disgrace.
The hobo, “pencil-necked sweat-hog” or hillbilly watching the drama unfold can thus identify with the myth that became fact. The “pencil-necked sweat-hog” is no hero, but s-he very well might be one as shown on screen.
Israeli Harvard scholar Ben-Shahar elatedly introduces role models: Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Ronald Reagan, Martin Luther King, and at pivotal points Winston Churchill. What Ben-Shahar ascribes to the latest 'scientific' findings, Neale attributes to the Tantric Tibetan Buddhist legacy.
Ben-Shahar seems to have no memory of Mandela's past as a radical leftwinger who declared:”Long live the Cuban Revolution! Long live comrade Fidel Castro! ”; “As Butler put it [in 1956], “If you suppress a fact because it is awkward, you will next be asked to contradict it.””. Fears1717, too, elatedly puts the British statesman right behind Caesar himself; Napoleon -to Fears- was kind of a bluff, but Churchill, attaboy.
Aurobindonian mysticism makes the same demands in order for the 'fusion of the pack (artificial kin group etc)' to take place on the cause's service:
1717
2011: Napoleon And The Mantle Of Caesar.
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There must be in no part of the being, even the most external, anything that makes a reserve, anything that hides behind doubts, confusions and subterfuges, anything that revolts or refuses -...-. If each time the Power intervenes and brings in the Truth, you turn your back on it and call in again the falsehood that has been expelled, it is not the divine Grace that you must blame for failing you, but the falsity of your own will and the imperfection of your own surrender. -...- Your surrender must be self-made and free; it must be the surrender of a living being, not of an inert automaton or mechanical tool. (MAISF001 no date: ch.5). The joke, because it breaks down the control, gives the monitoring system a holiday. Or, as Freud puts it, since monitoring costs effort, there is a saving in psychic expenditure. For a moment the unconscious is allowed to bubble up without restraint, hence the sense of enjoyment and freedom -...- The rite imposes order and harmony, while the joke disorganises. (Douglas 1968: 364,369). The analogy is fair for pollution is like an inverted form of humour. It is not a joke for it does not amuse. But the structure of its symbolism uses comparison and double meaning like the structure of a joke. -...-Thus pollution rules can serve to settle uncertain moral issues. (Douglas 1966:123,132). These people have upset the social order-by disregarding the conventions of polite society or by violating laws-so we label them "mentally ill" and punish them by commitment to a mental institution. The patient knows that he is deprived of freedom because he has annoyed others, not because he is sick. And in the mental hospital he learns that until he alters his behavior he will be segregated from society. But even if he changes and is permitted to leave, his record of confinement goes with him. And the practical consequences are more those of a prison than a hospital record. (Szasz1718 1991:84). What this does is to make the hour of psychotherapy itself a ritual experience: an initiation, a holy excursion into a tabooed and sacred realm. The patient imbibes another dimension of life, one previously unknown to him and unsuspected by him, truly a "mystery religion" separate from the everyday secular world; he engages in behaviors that are very esoteric and permit the expression of aspects of his personality that he never thought of expressing or even imagined that 1718
Jewish-Hungarian scholar and professor of psychiatry.
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he had.(Becker 1973:272). Mindful of Socratic dilemmas (=to know what's good is to do what's good), and other allegedly deep existential claptrap, 'the good guys' couldn't possibly embrace anything other than the best of all causes or the most justified of all ideas. The Socratic dilemma, gem of pagan philosophy, was swiftly absorbed in Christian theology to electrify the partisans of heretic Hebrew messianism as appetitus boni (natural tendency towards what's good).
The hero wouldn't suffer indignities, rejection, persecution and even slaughter if his ideas weren't the only true ones: that's why he can -and indeed shall- 'save' us. Both High Priest Caiaphas 1719 and Winston Churchill1720 reenact the foundational sacrifice of archaic religion: “one man alone”. Of course, Mussolini, too, denounced “un solo uomo” (one man alone, December 11, 1941) as the war's real culprit: U.S President F.D. Roosevelt. Back in time, Gallic chieftain Vercingetorix offers his life to victorious general Caesar in order to protect his people Romans had defeated at Alesia.
Liulevicius1721 talks of ideologies as “hijacked religious impulses”, but hastens to reject the saying that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter: freedom fighters just don't target the innocent; Jungian major-leaguer Von Franz talks of “...isms” as a false religion. Professor of Ethical Leadership Haidt 1719
“You do not realize that it is better for you that one man [=Jesus] die for the people than that the whole nation perish." ” (John 11:50). 1720 He repeatedly denounced Hitler and/or Mussolini as the “sole culprit(s)” for dragging their reluctant countries into WWII. 1721 2003: Defining Utopia And Terror.
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comments in 2012 regarding the U.S scene that “at the national level, politics is more like religion”.
Liulevicius seems to ignore how unambiguous advocates of terrorism (“propaganda of the deed” or any other euphemism one might use) often sit atop the pedestals of patriotic zeal indeed as cultural salvific tricksters who wanted to avenge ultimate wrongdoings by dropping a bomb or two; or by orchestrating a coup, or a few assassinations. Possibly wrong but terribly romantic? It is enough to ponder how far the Khmer Rouge, NSDAP etc actually went with the idea of “a few extra assassinations”.
Later, when Emile Henry, an admirer of Ravachol, tossed dynamite into a fashionable restaurant, a prosecutor wondered how he justified killing random patrons. “We will not spare the women and children of the bourgeois,” Henry snapped, “for the women and children of those we love have not been spared.” The resemblance between that sentiment and the justification given by the Pakistani Taliban for school massacres (“If our women and children die as martyrs, your children will not escape,” explained Taliban leader Umar Mansoor) should give pause to those who understand contemporary terrorism as specifically Islamic or solely religious. The scholar Richard Jensen reminds us that the “age of of anarchist terrorism coincided with the beginning of the age of mass journalism”. -...-in a survey of one Australian newspaper from October 1893 to 1 May 1894, the historian Bob James found no less than 67 leading items or editorials on “anarchist outrages”. (Sparrow 2015:no page). Examples are innumerable: Gavrilo Princip (Yugoslavia); Mazzini, Cafiero, Pisacane (Italy); Mandela (South Africa); Mujica (Uruguay); De Valera (Ireland); Castro (Cuba); Singh&Datta1722 (India), and so forth shine as both patriotic 1722
Indian insurrectionists who -in 1929- threw two bombs into the Delhi Legislative Assembly. They seemingly did not try to escape, and -during the trial that preceded execution- reclaimed themselves of the “ideals” of a
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icons and 'godly terrorists'.
Sympathetic journalists portrayed [ French anarchist terrorist] Ravachol as a “redeemer” and compared his “sacrifice and suffering” to those of Jesus Christ, also executed at age 33. A wood-block print by artist Charles Maurin, depicting Ravachol’s defiant face framed by the guillotine, was widely reprinted and pinned to the walls of working-class houses all over France. The anarchist newspaper Père Peinard taunted the bourgeoisie: “Ravachol’s head has rolled at their feet; they fear it will explode, just like a bomb!” (O'Hehir 2009:no page). The punch line: one of Jesus’ inner circle may have been a freedomfighter. Maybe not just one! Judas is dubbed “Iscariot.” What does that mean? There are a hand full of possibilities, but probably the most popular among scholars is that “Iscariot” represents another revolutionist label, the Sicarii, or “dagger men,” assassins who would slither through the crowds surrounding Roman officials and wealthy Jewish collaborators, short-swords up their sleeves, stab the victim, then join in the shouting while they slipped away undiscovered. Judas, then, may well be portrayed as another Zealot, “Judas the Sicarius.” Simon Peter is at one point (Matt. 16:17) called “Simon Bar-Jona,” but this was not a typical Jewish patronymic (an epithet identifying you as So-and-so’s son). Perhaps it originally denoted something else. There was another militant sect in New Testament times called the Barjonim, which means “the Terrorists.” Was Peter a member? If three of the twelve look like Zealots, it would hardly be a surprise if the rest were, too. And what does that imply about Jesus? You know, don’t you? (Price 2017:no page). The (spurious) letter Grand Master Freemason Albert Pike (“We shall unleash the Nihilists and the atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm ”) hypothetically wrote was addressed precisely to Mazzini in 1871, another great chief of the international secret society hydra1723:
While the influence of mystic renaissance writers on American and diverse cohort of historical figures ranging from Sikh guru Singh to Lenin, Lafayette, Garibaldi, Washington and Reza Khan, founder of the royal Pahlavi dynasty in Iran. 1723 Even future French Emperor Napoleon III had belonged to secret societies of irredentist flavor in his youth.
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French Revolutions are well documented and available in textbooks, it is rarely known that Indian freedom movement was also influenced by members and sympathizers of mystic organizations such as the Theosophical Society and Free Masons. In fact the very Indian National Congress which is synonymous to Indian freedom movement was started in 1885 by Theosophists, including Allan Octavian Hume, the British civil servant. Even Nehru and Gandhiji had been in fluenced by Theosophical teachings as we can understand from their autobiographies. Many Free Masons were functionaries of Indian National Congress. Besides these Western mystical organizations mentioned above, a number of Indian mystical organizations associated with traditional Yoga and Vendanta meditations such as Arya Samaj, Brahmo Samaj and Sri Aurobindo followers also had influenced the freedom movement through their members. (Varuggheese 2013:93). It was not my intention to doubt that, the Doctrines of the Illuminati, and principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more truly satisfied of this fact than I am. (George Washington in a 1798 letter to G.W. Snyder, cit. In Schulz 1999:407). Surely, this illustrates why many critics feel that institutional politics are heavily influenced by the participants’ transference of religious commitment. (Castronova 2004:36). such sensations can be induced by rhythmic chanting and body movements, combined with loud music and colorful visual displays, all of which produce a condition of sensory overload and sympathetic nervous system arousal, coupled with simultaneous parasympathetic activation due to conscious “damping down” of arousal. This process then induces a neurological condition characterized by a sense of depersonalization and ecstatic union with one’s surroundings. -...-The two types of activities— religious rituals and patriotic rituals—use the same underlying neurological pathways and chemistry. (MacNeill 2011:49). One regime's extradition of (alleged) transgressors -such as the French Fascist Vichy regime surrendering ideological transgressors to Germany- is the most barbarous act of contempt towards common humanity in search of sanctuary, or another fixation common to Graeco-Roman imagery. 1340
The opposite might chance to apply at all times depending on who does what: the so-called Bleiburg and Lienz “massacres” become Anglo-American “repatriations” (=importance of naming) of Fascist fighters, collaborators -and often their relatives- in Soviet hands. Some might have suffered hardship or perished in the process, yet – as one might expect when the opposite applies- the jury is still out regarding how they – or how many of them- actually died, and whether such deaths could be framed within a “deliberate&systematic” attempt.
Naturally, it all depends on the definition one gives to terms. German and Japanese -recently, Iraqi or Libyan; erstwhile Vietnamese or Cambodiancivilians could be buried under a deluge of incendiary bombs under the assumption they partook of the body politic's collective responsibility, however embodied in a given regime only a percentage of the population actively endorsed. Interestingly enough, such is the law suicide bombers apply attacking Israeli civilians, and the NSDAP regime applied to all Jews it could seize.
Of course, the opposite may chance to apply. Myths and folklore have already probed the issue. In Genesis (18:23ss), Abraham discusses with god the impending destruction of impious Sodom and Gomorrah. Would god spare the city if 50 righteous people dwelt in it? 45? 40? 30? 10? The phobia about hasty judgments, and possible ensuing horrors doesn't prevent, however, from connecting the dots regarding:
The group’s growing presence in southern Chile, the main center of 1341
German settlements, provided further ammunition, not least because many contemporary observers saw German-Chileans as supporters, and even willing collaborators, of the Third Reich. A memorandum by the Servicio de Investigaciones, which was drawn up in June 1934, clearly underlined the growing significance of the region in general and the German-Chileans in particular for the development of the Chilean fascists (Klein 2004:596, emphasis added). I called ADL Chairman Abe Foxman -...- [who said] "That's a very dangerous phrase, 'Jews control Hollywood.' What is true is that there are a lot of Jews in Hollywood," he said. Instead of "control," Foxman would prefer people say that many executives in the industry "happen to be Jewish," as in "all eight major film studios are run by men who happen to be Jewish." (Stein 2008:no page). Ruiz1724 claims that the Spanish inquisition in the XV century did not target Jews as such, but rather converted Jews, whose conversion was supposed to be inauthentic (for example they practiced some form of Judaism in secret). It is easy to identify the taboo or totem concepts or facts around which “the monitoring system” never “takes an holiday”:“ancient events continually held up for emulation” based on the psychotic “need to make the experience of the past into the present”.
Popular Yahoo France suggests what the “monitoring system” is on the lookout for:
Tout commentaire contraire à la réglementation en vigueur (et notamment tout commentaire à caractère raciste, antisémite ou diffamatoire) pourra donner lieu à la suppression de votre compte Yahoo! Le cas échéant, certains commentaires que vous postez pourront également donner lieu à des poursuites judiciaires à votre encontre. (Every comment going against the rules (especially racist, antisemitic or libelous comments) may lead to the termination of your Yahoo account. Whenever applicable, some comments of yours may trigger 1724
2002:Jewish Millennial Expectations.
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legal action against you). If you are accused of hate speech under the [Canadian] Criminal Code, you are presumed innocent. Not so under Section 13, where the onus is on you to prove your words hurt no feelings. While the truth and "fair comment" are defences in a criminal hate-speech trial - and the Crown needs to prove intent and show how your words actually led to discrimination - none of that is true at a human rights hearing. Nor do you have a right to face your accuser or cross-examine his or her testimony. What's more, whether or not your words or website expose an individual or group to discrimination is determined by what that individual or group feels has happened to them. There is no definition of hate and no objective standard of harm. Also, at human rights hearings, rules of evidence are much, much looser than they are in courts. Hearsay evidence, for instance, is often admitted. -...-The proof of just how stacked the tribunal process has been comes from the CHRC's conviction rate: From the time Section 13 was added to the human rights act in 1977 until it began to attract the ire of Storseth (and others, such as Sun News' Ezra Levant) in 2009, no person charged under Section 13 had ever been acquitted. In other words, the CHRC had a 100% conviction rate on hate-speech complaints. (Gunter 2012: no page). The magic show of the justice system might have failed to detect billionaire financial frauds, mafioso political rackets, and gross medical incompetence, yet in Italy in January 2014, a man risks being sentenced for libel: he pressed the button “like� on a Facebook 1725 comment someone else deemed offensive in a squabble between ordinary nobodies. CBS New York reports1726 about a man threatened with a defamation lawsuit after he allotted a store a negative review online: forces occultes at work or simple synchronicity? Once again, pencil-necked sweat-hogs and their rampant psychosis are handy crowbars the Belle Epoque nation-State Moloch uses to gain unsurpassed leverage.
1725 1726
ANSA, 30 January 2014. March 21, 2014.
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There may also be disturbances that may -or may not- be conducive to the party line. A conducive disturbance consists in jokes -more or less crude- that lampoon or celebrate the indignities and/or slaughter this, that or another pariah group was historically subjected to. In spite of their insensitivity and crudeness, those jokes do restate the facts as commonly perceived (=indeed they were ultimately killed, and/or brutalized).
An exemplary such case involves disgraced U.S comedian Michael Richards in 20061727. After a Black audience member interrupts his routine, Richards -who declared to be Jewish1728- shouts:”50 years ago we'd have you upside down with a fucking fork up your ass -...-. Throw his ass out, he's a nigger”.
Richards' “naming” brings into existence a world(view) the majority no longer subscribes to:”an emotion is a response to values”. Shocked audience members gasp in disapproval: the “disgust reflex” protects the social order as dominant powers intend it1729. In his racist furor, Richards confirms that -indeedBlacks in the old days used to be lynched, tossed out at leisure etc. Richards also tries to put a gnostic spin on his vitriolic tirade as he adds “You see...this shocks you -...- to see what's buried beneath you stupid motherfuckers”.
1727
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoLPLsQbdt0 . As one may expect, after the incident went viral online, Richards trekked the usual via dolorosa made of conference calls with psychiatrists, apologies to a number of Afro-American personalities, TV show meltdowns etc. 1728 After the “racist rant”, Jewish sources rushed in front of the camera to “demonstrate how” Richards “was not” or “could not be Jewish” according to increasingly fastidious standards. 1729 In Korea, for example, dog meat is considered an auspicious treat. In Italy, that very well is against the law. In Italy, horse meat is offered for consumption, which is forbidden in the USA, UK etc: “pet status”. The “disgust reflex” serves an ideological representation of society.
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A counterproductive disturbance was the crass online parading -for example- of pictures of missiles, bombs and suchlike – of which a mind-boggling quantity had been “delivered” according to some press- with (often obscene) taunts directed mostly at Muslims in general (on the occasion of the attack on Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya...).
It in fact ran against the party line about there being no -or very fewcivilian victims (=good guys don't do those things=would we good people ever support folks doing stuff like that?):
As the lethality of our weapons has increased, the widespread use of them has decreased. Indiscriminate carpet bombing was the rule during the latter days of World War II and the Vietnam War, but now “smart bombs” target specific targets and are designed to minimize “collateral damage.” Yes, innocent people (i.e., non-combatants) are still killed in wars, but in proportionally fewer numbers than ever before. (MacNeill 2011:110). As ultimate test of loyalty, religions may have improbable miracles presented to the believer, such as prodigious healing from terminal sickness or alterations in the Sun's course: the sacrifice of Isaac ( Genesis 22:2) as proof of ultimate loyalty recurs circularly.
Mormon founder Smith allegedly tested his followers by asking their wives as his plural wives. In one instance -possibly that of early Mormon Apostle Kimball-, Smith finally contented himself with Kimball's 14-year old daughter, upon whose family he promised to bestow eternal salvation.
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The same hogwash is as old as man: tribulations and tests as prerequisite for future reward:
There are a lot of wonderful stories about the troubadours. There's an entire volume from the twelfth century on the lives of the troubadours and their wild absurdities to win the woman's regard. One troubadour falls in love with a woman whose name means wolf. He clothes himself in a wolf skin and pretends, as a wolf, to attack a flock of sheep. Of course the sheep dogs pounce on him and tear him to pieces and he's in pretty bad shape, so he's taken into the woman's castle to be healed-by her and her husband. Another buys himself the robe of a leper and cuts off two of his fingers and then sits among the lepers. The lady comes out of her castle and says, "Well, my God, there's Gerard." So he wins her regard that way. (Campbell 1989: A Noble Heart). Of course, Unionist General Sherman, CEKA-NKVD, GESTAPO and Khmer Rouge thugs were competing to see who would go farther in the service of what -to each of them- was the best of all causes, worthy of unsurpassed zeal:”This is the general outline for an answer to why pollutions are often used in renewal rites.”1730.
Aurobindo traces this obsession with ritual sacrifice down to Hindu Vedas at the dawn of civilization:”All these associations are lost to us; our minds are obsessed by ideas of a ritual sacrifice and a material cord. We imagine perhaps the son of Atri bound as a victim in an ancient barbaric sacrifice, crying to the god of Fire for a physical deliverance!”1731.
In one match in 1990, Hulk Hogan supposedly injured one knee badly; everybody could see him in agony telling the referee how “his knee was gone”, at 1730 1731
Douglas 1966:164. MAISI003 no date: lecture note 1:1.
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which point commentators spoon-fed the public this story of career-wrecking knee injuries and so forth. Yet Hogan persevered and -at some point, oblivious or just annoyed- dropped the act of limping and agonizing. As he resumed using his leg normally,
commentators lectured about torn tendons and ligaments magically
snapping back into full recovery.
Civil powers may present dubious explanations held up as fact:
in 1760, as we are told, Uriel Freudenberger was condemned by the canton of Uri to be burnt alive, for publishing his opinion that the legend of Tell had a Danish origin (Fiske 1882:4). When professional wrestler Tully Blanchard suddenly disappeared, manager Bobby Heenan replaced him (in the tag-team The Brain Busters with Arn Anderson). Commentator Jesse Ventura cooked this story up about personally witnessing tensions within Heenan's stable as the reason for Blanchard's departure.
In reality, Blanchard had assertedly failed a test under the however lax drug-screening provisions. Naturally, public talks about drugs and steroids during a wrestling broadcast would be the equivalent of emphasizing corruption, skyrocketing deficits, financial meltdown, sexual or embezzlement scandals in politics.
On one hand, people are supposed to enumerate the virtues of the great sport that is wrestling, and on the other the unparalleled advantages of inclusive mass-democracy:
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Norman Ornstein, a political analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, articulates how. Ornstein offers some astonishing statistics: Between 1975 and 1989, the number of federal officials indicted on charges of public corruption went up by a staggering 1,211 percent. During the same period, the number of nonfederal officials indicted doubled. (Tannen 1998:277). As Butler put it [in 1956], “If you suppress a fact because it is awkward, you will next be asked to contradict it.” (Rieff 2016:41). Of course, whatever truly happened to an obscure wrestler in the 1980s is of no consequence; other events are of a much bigger consequence, yet follow the same warped logic. If the above seems a bit excessive, it is enough to ponder why the name 'Jesus' was added to (certain transcriptions of ) a song sung in Swahili serving as soundtrack for a...video-game, although it was not originally present? Some suggest that's how a certain Chrestos 1732 mentioned in ancient texts became Christos and thus the 'proof' myth had -indeed- become fact.
In 1999, the Globe and Mail ran an article subtitled ”Vancouver -- A judge of the British Columbia Court of Appeal says society's attitudes toward child pornography may prove as fleeting as views in an earlier age on homosexuality. ” 1733. In 2013, newspapers announce the American Psychiatric Association pledged to amend its famous manual indexing mental illnesses: qualifying pedophilia as “sexual orientation” was an “erroneous phrase”.
The possible member of a pariah group allegedly wrote -according to an
1732
According to different authors, a row of historical or pseudo-historical characters are argued to be the real-life incarnation of Jesus. 1733 Matas 1999:no page.
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email sent to a newsgroup in 20081734-:
My fantasy at the moment is to form a [insert name of pariah group here] army, then to stage a demonstration for [the pariah group] in the middle of some big city. All those [people who hate the pariah group] bastards who come out to throw rocks at us and shoot us, and all the police who come to break us up etc. will then be legitimate targets for all of the [pariah group liberation army] snipers that are staged around the area. That way, you don't kill innocent people, -...-. And this will only be legitimate because there is NO OTHER WAY. [members of the pariah group] do not WANT to be violent. But what other option is there. We are still RIGHT. Just because all other options for [our] liberation have been exhausted, does not mean we have stopped being RIGHT. We must continue to do something!... Now back to reality. If the police came knocking on my door, I would take a few of them down with me. I think I've said this before. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth (Gandhi). The above sounds like a great piece from war resistance, the 1960s -when most outcast groups were proudly marching for their rights-, or some later masterpiece on apartheid1735; yet, it hypothetically comes from a person the anonymous message denounced as being a...pedophile. Of course, great caution is advised when handling this kind of news, yet the only aspect the present writer is interested in is: it sounds like 'the real thing'; there are definitely those 'magic spots' in the human mind that always grant certain results.
1734
The message's source and credibility could not be verified, but chunks of the text copied here are still available online to this day. The present writer considers it mere internet lore. 1735 A doctrine stemming from Afrikaner Christianity tinged with XIX century Dutch Calvinism. Biblical bases for such doctrine were Leviticus 11:45 (“holy” translated as “set apart” in some instances):”I am the LORD, who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy. ”. Deuteronomy 10:8 (At that time the LORD set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the LORD, to stand before the LORD to minister and to pronounce blessings in his name, as they still do today. ). Nehemiah 9:2 (The descendants of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners ) and so forth. JewishBrazilian philosopher L.F. Pondé comments on the Hebrew tradition, whereby the word qadosh (sacred) also means separate and apart (cfr http://biblehub.com/hebrew/6918.htm).
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Avalanches of emotion are sliding through the Devlin-Hart-Dworkin debate over moral legislation and homosexuality, or throughout the 'enlightened' international appeals to clemency towards people like say Anatoly Onoprienko, Ukrainian serial killer who had murdered 52 people, sentenced to death in 1999 but still alive and well to this day. His deeds made it to television series - and other mainstream media- introspecting upon the alleged childhood deprivations/abuse Onoprienko suffered:
Unfortunately, programs of this sort merely provide the psychopath with better ways of manipulating, deceiving, and using people. As one psychopath put it, "These programs are like a finishing school . They teach you how to put the squeeze on people. " They are also a rich source of facile excuses for the psychopath's behavior: "I was an abused child," or, "I never learned to get in touch with my feelings. " After-the-fact insights of this sort explain very little, but they sound good to those primed to hear them . I am constantly amazed at how willing some professionals are to take such statements at face value. (Hare 1993:199). Norwegian mass murderer and self-proclaimed Nazi Anders Behring Breivik on Wednesday won his lawsuit against the state over his "inhuman" solitary confinement in prison. The ruling was greeted with surprise by the state's lawyer and some of the survivors of Breivik's bomb and gun rampage in 2011 that killed 77 people. "The prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment represents a fundamental value in a democratic society," the Oslo district court said in its decision issued after hearing the case in March. -...-The court said Breivik's almost five-year isolation violated Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. (Deshayes 2016: no page). Cast in front of the sweet child (puppy and so forth) who suffered so much, how could the public not dive in a prompt reconciliation ritual to comfort the frail, diminutive creature who shivers in angst fearing judgment? What matters
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is the public -jurors etc- is required to show 'the kind of person' they are according to emotional truth as current society spells it. In the background, Che Guevara, Jesus, Mandela, Saint Wojtyla or Horst Wessel are doing the high kicks: they are also bleeding for us, so one ought to better show s-he got the message (“as above so below”).
Terror Management theorist Jamie Arndt explains that “common humanity” primes (=suggestions) help defuse aggressiveness “death salience” has triggered. Lakhani1736 also states that a core ingredient for closing sales fast is the belief in the prospective buyer that “it happened to me also”, that the situation at hand is known to one: your problem is also mine, and my solution can be yours 1737. It is highly ironic how Panzram, a U.S serial killer executed in 1930, issued death threats to the bleeding hearts who were scrambling to avoid his execution out of humanitarianism.
As J.B. Peterson suggests, the forefathers of our day's “social justice warriors” behaved like doting little mommies with their precious little child: he (=the transgressor) kicks and bites them while they adoringly coo and goo.
According to Lieutenant Shaw, the general fumbled with his glasses, trying awkwardly to position the reading spectacles on the bridge of his nose while holding the letter, and said, "Gentlemen, you must pardon me; I have grown gray in your service and now find myself going blind as well."This brief spontaneous remark- a simple gesture of vulnerability from a loyal soldier-touched the 1736 1737
2010:05. Dating agencies promise to fix one's loneliness. Various peddlers pledge to fix one's receding hairline, plummeting income, ballooning waistline.
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heart of each man in the room. "There was something so natural, so unaffected, in his appeal that it rendered it superior to the most studied oratory; it forced its way to the heart," wrote Shaw in his journal. General Washington's simple gesture was jinpa-total openness- and it instantly reminded all his assembled officers that they shared a profound dignity as patriots and soldiers [and an upcoming mutiny of the U.S continental army was averted in 1782].(Carroll 2007:part 1). Nobody really cares -or has a way to know- whether once upon a time there really was such a child, puppy or other sentimental scarecrow, or whether the entire story is the masterpiece of pen-jockeys for hire having watched too many cable TV dramas:
There's nothing here to engage the other person's imagination. Instead of talking in black and white, learn to talk in color. Involve as many senses as you can in your conversation. Describe what things look like, what they sound like, how they make you feel and, if appropriate, what they smell and taste like (Boothman 2000:106). A new metaphor has to be "seen" if its import is to be fully grasped. Thus, metaphors connect the verbal and the non-verbal domains. (Hermanson 2017:23). Vantaggiato, who planted a bomb near an high school at Brindisi (Italy) causing huge damages, and leaving one student dead, was caught off-the-record detailing his strategy to plead insanity:�Devo arrivare al processo mezzo vivo e mezzo morto, voglio diventare come quelli dei lager, voglio uscire di qui... Lentamente mi debbo mettere in una condizione estrema � 1738 ( I shall appear at the trial on the brink of death, like those people from the concentration camps. I want out. I shall strive to look like a wreck):�But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If
1738
Bomba A Scuola...2013:no page.
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someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. ” ( Matthew 5:39);”Let them turn the other cheek to those who strike them and accept the insults of their enemies. ”(Lamentations 3:30); “Repay not angry men in kind and win a battle hard to win” (Gautama Buddha, S I 162).
Italian politicians in Berlusconi's retinue Dell'Utri and Galan are under judicial investigation for various wrongdoings: they instantly fall severely ill, with huge medical dossiers to match. Galan is arrested in a wheelchair; Dell'Utri is apprehended in a Lebanese hospital...
In both cases, official medical reports at first allegedly state that arrest and imprisonment might prove hazardous. As the press hastens to cover the issue, and the politicized nature of the same surfaces, medical reports suddenly take a turn for the better. Galan and Dell'Utri can be safely arrested after all: no writer of mafioso novels could do any better. Once in the maws of the justice system, Galan has to judicially acknowledge his wrongdoings; friends lament his poor condition, and hint he might commit suicide.
Marine Corps Times writes on July 23, 2014:”Sen. John Walsh of Montana said Wednesday his failure to attribute conclusions and verbatim passages lifted from other scholars’ work in his thesis to earn a master’s degree from the U.S. Army War College was an unintentional mistake caused in part by post-traumatic stress disorder. ”.
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Guilty of shooting his girlfriend dead “The Paralympian [Oscar Pistorius] waits in the dock,with a sick bucket by his side in case he is hit by the bouts of vomiting and retching that he suffered during the trial”. Pistorius' social worker ”Describing herself as an expert in trauma counselling, she said Pistorius persistently broke down during initial counselling sessions after shooting Miss Steenkamp last year. 'Some of the sessions were just him weeping and crying and me holding him,' said Dr Hartzenberg. 'I can confirm his remorse and pain to be genuine. We are left with a broken man who has lost everything.”: so many gages of common humanity. Teleplay writers for cable TV couldn't devise a better acted story-line:“acquittal of Pistorius on the murder charge sparked anger and controversy.” 1739. AGI1740 confirms Pistorius might be transferred soon to house arrest after only 10 months in jail.
Tommaso Campanella, the Dominican friar, utopian thinker and Italian revolutionist tried in 1599 to establish an utopian Republic in Calabria based upon millenarian expectations. He was finally arrested, and tried under torture. Because he was an habitual offender in such matters, he simulated insanity in order to get a prison term instead of a death sentence: he talked nonsense, shivered, and defecated all over himself during interrogation.
Are the countless Onoprienko, Campanella, Pistorius, Galan, Walsh, Vantaggiato and their lawyers particularly inventive? Or aren't they rather commodiously feeding the masses a salad bar of emotional truth lifted from last 1739 1740
Dont' Send...2014:no page. Italian News agency, June 8, 2015.
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week's cable TV movies, or last month's tabloids? “There is pity for the human sufferer – who is actually a counterpart, in this context, of oneself. ”.
I realize there is an excellent reason for the sociopathic fondness for pity. As obvious as the nose on one's face, and just as difficult to see without the help of a mirror, the explanation is that good people will let pathetic individuals get by with murder, so to speak, and therefore any sociopath wishing to continue with his game, whatever it happens to be, should play repeatedly for none other than pity. -...- And just as you or I, with practice, might become fluent in another language, so an intelligent sociopath may become convincingly fluent in "conversational emotion." -...- Any person who can observe human actions even superficially, or who can read novels and watch old movies, can learn to act romantic or interested or softhearted.(Stout 2005:108,128). many psychopaths come across as having excellent oral communication skills. -...- They make use of the fact that for many people the content of the message is less important than the way it is delivered. A confident, aggressive delivery style—often larded with jargon, cliches, and flowery phrases—makes up for the lack of substance and sincerity in their interactions with others. (Babiak&Hare 2006:37-8). In these modern multimedia tragedies, some empathetic third party (editor, friend, psychologist, lawyer...) takes up the ancient dramatic chorus' part. The horde shall thus know what's cooking behind the main character's attitude, or the usual doom and gloom chicanery. Pen-jockeys for hire in the press, and politicking mountebanks, may exploit the masquerade to their commodious advantage as the common man chokes, surrenders his wallet, or shakes fists.
Such third party (lawyer, editor, psychologist...) also plays the part of the narrator in a novel or movie, or of thundering off-stage voices present in many mystical visions such as Dante's or St. Hildegard's. Popular culture couldn't lag far 1355
behind, so various shows have the physical host in a dialogue with an off-stage voice, such as it is the case with Spanish TV travel show Planeta Finito (2006-7).
Charlie's Angels (1976-81) sees a group of alluring female sleuths taking orders from a mysterious patriarch interacting only through a speaker-phone. Magnum PI (1980-88) sees a Vietnam special forces veteran living on the property of an elusive millionaire who is seldom heard and never seen. 1992 movie Kuffs sees the C. Slater character addressing viewers on the other side of the screen as he talks to the camera:
narrating is never innocent, and the narrative that frames another allows the writer to dramatize the results of the telling. -...- there are what Tzvetan Todorov has baptized “narrative men” (hommesrécits ) (Brooks 1994:75-8). In Jewish biblical exegesis, a heavenly voice saves Tamar and her children from death as she had slept with her father-in-law Judah:”Both of you are innocent. From before the lord is the decree”. A celestial voice also confirms Solomon's wisdom as he awarded the contended child to one of the quarreling women.
A professional storyteller by trade, Harvey comments upon persuasive strategies in a court of law:
in order to convincingly tell your client's story, your audience has to understand what happened. But you have to make your client's action justifiable. -...- your audience doesn't just believe your story because you tell them the facts, -...-[but] because you make that progression of facts and events understandable, and emotionally true for your audience: this is what the emotional art does for your story (Harvey 1356
2013: Emotional Arc And Empathy, emphasis added). Heath and his coauthors contend that this process of “emotional selection” helps to explain the success of some rumors and the failure of others. Consider rumors involving satanic ritual child abuse, deviant sexual behavior, road rage, and flesh-eating bacteria. In all of these cases, emotions are likely to be triggered in a way that will increase the success of propagators. In the context of personal attacks, the parallels are evident. When rumors produce strong emotions— disgust, anger, outrage—people are far more likely to spread them. One conclusion, specifically drawn by Heath and his coauthors, is that the marketplace of ideas may well fail; the rumors that survive emotional selection “may not always be those that are most truthful.” (Sunstein 2014:51, emphasis added). Truth, consistency, verisimilitude and even statistical probability are not necessary ingredients when a story's success with the public is to be measured:
The knowledge of what is good and what is bad for man is a large part of wisdom. In identifying press we have found it convenient to distinguish between 1, the alpha press, which is the press that actually exists, as far as scientific inquiry can determine it ; and 2, the beta press, which is the subject's own interpretation of the phenomena that he perceives. An object may, in truth, be very well disposed towards the subject press of Affiliation ( alpha press ) but the subject may misinterpret the object's conduct and believe that the object is trying to depreciate him press of Aggression : Belittlement ( beta press ) . When there is wide divergence between the alpha and beta press we speak of delusion. (Murray 1938:122). The neurotic fixations of the 1960s, a direct metamorphosis of war propaganda, gradually replace(d) religiosity as the universal and absolute yardstick to judge present, future and past events:”If they accurately reflect the virtues of Christ, then the exempla are free to be augmented to appeal to a specific audience.”1741.
1741
Hunt 2001:43.
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That's as old as man: typological reading, whereby Old Testament's salient facts were invariably interpreted as anticipating, announcing or covertly commenting upon New Testament facts. Alternatively, the same method can be applied to follow the blueprint that 'all roads lead to Hitler' (in history); or that any social, religious or political stance soever presents fiery, cogent and unavoidable links to WWII, the fixations of the 1960s and suchlike: that's typological reading.
When you find a strong analogy that works, stick with it and make it consistent across your presentations, website, and marketing material. (Gallo 2010:8). For example, crime1742 (or the more or less fatal accidents involving wild animals in another context) is the 'just payback' 1743
to '(White) racism' and
'inequalities (stemming from 'White rule')', thus considering public remedial measures (enclosures, police intervention etc ) as based on 'Lynchian fantasies' “where the social imaginary discharges its fantasies.�1744.
Doesn't this look
suspiciously like karma theories (=good and bad fortune one reaps now precisely mirror good and bad deeds one accomplished in a more or less remote past)?
Weren't CEKA-NKVD and GESTAPO thugs on a retributive mission? After all, GESTAPO's ideologies claimed they were called to exact retribution upon anti-nationals,
Chandala
and internationalist Judaeo-masons. Bolsheviks
prosecuted and disposed of religionists, bourgeois, capitalists, hoarders, middlemen, nobility etc. Both CEKA-NKVD and GESTAPO wanted to vindicate the purported 1742 1743 1744
Davis: Pile, Brooks&Mooney 1999:142ss Davis, ibid.:141. Zukin, ibid.:44 Davis, ibid.:141.
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abuses and injustices blacklisted groups had assertedly committed against whichever constituency the dominant regime lionized.
Hegel's XIX century master-and-slave dialectic (the lackey serving the marquis under the Ancien Regime, for example) gets clouded in a devotional mist that forsakes class and regime ideology (Zhou as conquering autocrats; might makes right; Zhou triumph brought about by god-forsaken tyrants who had displeased the gods with displays of impiety) in the name of purported hijacked religious feelings (the mandate of heaven the conquering Zhou dynasty committed itself to) the newly established Zhou dynasty needed (=they couldn't sustain civil war and garrison State indefinitely).
The same jumble of vitalism, providential blueprints of history and transcendentalism the Chinese duke of Zhou invoked (about 1045 BCE) recurs in Mussolini, too, who in 1939 declared:�agli altri [popoli] ridotti a un mucchio miserabile di vecchiardi destinati a piegarsi sotto la sferza di un giovane padrone “ (once other nations will be reduced to a miserable cohort of old geezers, they shall bow under a young master's whip).
Mussolini here taps into the human mind's obsession with hyperfertility: one of the few assets of a dejected country like Italy that couldn't certainly boast gold mines or aircraft carriers as numerous as the stars in heaven. Italian Fascism in truth flirted with speed and technology: its hymn was in fact Giovinezza (Youth). 1359
Murderous animals are sedated and brought unscathed to secluded parks; common criminals of this, that or another 'sensitive' group slip through the net. On the other hand, wasn't the incineration of civilian enemy cities the most just of all paybacks? Isn't the hunt after 'black' terrorists a fashionable pastime? In spite of the string of multi-billionaire programs all over the western world to propel social alchemy, charity/solidarity (the right and left-wing designation of the same) etc, unfazed critics can still argue �Refusing to -...- [remedy] underlying social conditions, we are forced instead to make increasing private investments in physical security �1745.
It is quite an irony indeed that the NSDAP regime espoused the same thesis: unreasonable hardships inflicted upon the German people with the unjust peace after WWI justified a violent reaction against internationalist Judaeo-masons, demo-plutocrats and chandala. One example suffices to judge such hardships: victors in WWI left the war blockade in place for eight months after an already exhausted Germany surrendered in order to pressure the newly established regime into acquiescing to exorbitant demands.
Intermingled in these encomiums to what Lincoln Steffens called the "Russian-Italian method"-- signifying that, as far as he was concerned, Bolshevism and Fascism were not opposites but kindred movements--were lusty expressions of nostalgia for the short-lived American "experiment" with war socialism under Woodrow Wilson. "We planned in war!" was the omnipresent refrain from progressives eager to re-create the kind of economic and social control they had under Wilson. The Italians and the Russians were 1745
Davis, ibid.:141.
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beating America at its own game, by continuing their experiments in war socialism while America cut short its project, choosing instead to wallow in the selfish crapulence of the Roaring Twenties. In 1927 Stuart Chase said it would take five years to see if the "courageous and unprecedented experiment" in the Soviet Union was "destined to be a landmark for economic guidance" of the whole world. Half a decade later he concluded that the evidence was in: Russia was the new gold standard in economic and social policy. So "why," he asked in his 1932 book, A New Deal, "should Russians have all the fun of remaking a world?� -...-. Take away the text of New Deal, Soviet, and Nazi propaganda posters and other artwork, and it's almost impossible to tell whether the bulgingbiceps laborers are the New Soviet Man, the New Nazi Man, or the New Deal Man.(Goldberg 2007:72,86 emphasis added). The problem here is that the more equalized the environment becomes, the more the burden shifts onto genetics as key to explain any issue at hand 1746, which is what makes progressives and their lot groan in distress. Today's western providence States afford even the most dejected liminal group a series of infrastructures, opportunities and subsidies that were undreamt of among the middle classes just a few decades ago, yet without a corresponding decrease in dysfunctional or antisocial tendencies among the same groups:
The data showing the gap between blacks and whites for both math and reading scores is troubling because of the large size of the gap and because the gap appears to be constant with no appreciable improvement over time. There are occasional reports that the gap is closing, but the overall data doesn’t really show much if any narrowing of the black-white gap. There is virtually no disagreement about the existence of this gap; it is recognized as one of the most important problems in education. -...-Psychometric tests of intelligence consistently show average differences among racial and ethnic groups. On average, Asians score higher than whites, whites score higher than Hispanics, and Hispanics score higher than blacks. The average black-white difference is about 15 1746
Hinshaw 2010:Myths And Realities Of Heritability.
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points—about one standard deviation on the normal curve, essentially the same difference as the SAT gap. -...-However, it is important to remember that this is an average difference. It does not mean that all whites are smarter than all blacks. (Haier 2013:83-4). Lefties and progressives, of course, claim that equalization has not been implemented enough (like Chi, Num, Mana or god's grace); that the nanny State Moloch is far from being funded, thus equipped and present enough, in spite of slowly but steadily raising taxation rates: readers be the judge.
Instead of frocked Catholics and other obscurantist envoys of patriarchy, one has flop house regulars, men-in-drag and other mortally offended Marxist pansies who think the current year is still 1943.
J.B Peterson feuds with neo-Marxist activists as he urges people to go back to the wholesome, existential treasure-trove of world mythologies that uphold the notion of responsibility contra rights. R.L. Moore, however, aptly characterizes Eliade's “sacred space” as “a sewer”: in stercore invenitur (“ it is found in manure”, or “in the distressing darkness of the human psyche -...-there alone could be found those contradictions, those grotesque phantasms and scurrilous symbols” 1747). The place humankind's beloved mythologies come from is more akin to “a sewer” than seventh-heaven as historical events clearly show.
Peterson finds shame shamanism reprehensible when Marxists wield it, but he probably forgets that all major religions and traditions originated from a 1747
C.G. Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, 1955-56.
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presumed fight against real or imaginary iniquities, inequalities and -broadly putunfairness: from Jesus to Hitler; from Buddha to Pol Pot; from Moses to Trump, the rally cry was ultimate redress of historical injustice the “little people” or “underdog” had suffered: what the Tsipras foreign policy and Acadian PR fiascoes endeavored to accomplish.
If the Khmer Rouge or NSDAP were detrimental to the pre-existing societies they blighted, so was Christianity that -to name one- didn't stave off but accelerate the demise of the Roman world. Some historians argue that Muslim invasion in Egypt and other Byzantine territories was an option local masses preferred to ongoing Imperial rule due to the clashes between Christian sects in power and heretical groups.
There is nothing new: above readers see just the militant, progressive version of wanting god to hold each man individually responsible for the entire world, as St. John Chrysostom did; as Mahayana Buddhism does with the theory of
Bodhicitta (= roughly: personality of an enlightened being), whereby Bodhisattvas spontaneously feel the suffering of all sentient beings and thus desire to help 1748; as Tibetan Buddhism does with the idea of “universal caring” in the hands of “spiritual warriors”; of karma theories in Marxist sauce; or of being scolded publicly in order for one to crawl in front of “popular morality”, “explanations or interpretations usually put forth”, “prevailing cultural trends”, “only an old Phoenician tale of what 1748
Tibetan Buddhist master Lama Zopa Rinpoche puts it this way:”I, myself alone, am responsible for bringing happiness to all sentient beings and freeing them from all suffering and its cause. I am personally responsible for the happiness of each and every sentient being “.
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has often occurred before now in other places”, “free-floating folk beliefs”,“the audience’s pre-established set of convictions”, mos and suchlike.
J.B Peterson connects this “feeling of being responsible for everything” with “psychotic depression”. Of course, once one is in the thrall of guilt&shame, 'saviors' can step up with balm to salve the wound, provided one joins the party or the congregation: shame shamanism.
John Lee -an icon of the U.S masculinity movement- claims that what matters is whether one is “loving them well” (family members, confederates...), not whether “they” (parents, associates, spouses...) are loving one well. U.S President J.F. Kennedy in his 1961 inauguration urged one to wonder what s-he could do for the country, and not the other way around. Pop-culture psychologist Susan Jeffers in her best-selling 1993 cassette Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway also clinches that giving is better than receiving in life; “say yes to your universe”, she quips, just like Joseph Campbell did. Noted Tibetan Buddhist master Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche (1920-1996) was also explicit in that sense:
Whether or not the monks individually do any practice is their own business. However, by merely wearing the robes on their bodies, cutting the hair on their heads and gathering together in a group of at least four, their presence and the respect, faith and donations a benefactor may offer, no matter how insignificant the contribution or faith may be, will accumulate merit and purify obscurations. This is independent of whether or not the monks misbehave or misappropriate their donations: that is totally up to them. Mahayana Pure Land Buddhism advises that we ought to mind our 1364
actions because we are never truly alone even in the strictest privacy: legions of Bodhisattvas and supernatural beings surround us at all times, being thus privy to the most secret details: the 1791 Bentham panopticon1749 as a penitentiary model really goes that far.
Branden equates the idea of ongoing divine surveillance with detriment to one's mental health. After all, it's like surviving a slasher movie, or one of the many urban legends of that kind. Instead of a marauding, murderous bedlamite one finally concludes had been sitting next to one all the time, it's lord Jesus, Zoroaster, Vairocana Buddha, Krishna, Jupiter one finds standing next to one; or perhaps the next best thing: Mandela, Che Guevara, Horst Wessel...
The ax-wielding sociopath might kill one, whereas Jesus might send one to hell as a sinner: what now? Is this scene so different from the poor child who gets the heebie-jeebies as s-he has to explain to an irate parental figure how a precious porcelain vase finally got broken?
Alternatively, the foul bodily nature of humankind (in this case flatulence, but it might just be other kinds of excretion) is exposed in front of society's stern, watchful eye. A blindfolded man unaware he's lead into a room packed with eminent guests for a surprise party emits stenchful gas loudly as he believes to be alone: instead of lord Krishna, Buddha or Jesus, he's in the presence of 1749
A kind of correctional facility in which a watchman can observe all inmates at all times without recourse for them to know this to be the case at the moment. Bentham planned to extend the model from prisons to schools and hospitals. Although critics suggest a number of prisons were built according to panoptic standards, the model remained mostly theoretical.
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the boss or the pastor.
“Living by other people's standards” has never been more prominent. J.B. Rubin1750 claims that patients show up for psychotherapy with a biography ghostwritten by someone else with no input on their part.
A fellow and his date pulled into their favorite “lovers’ lane” to listen to the radio and do a little necking [1960 version of an urban legend]. The music was interrupted by an announcer who said there was an escaped convict in the area who had served time for rape and robbery. He was described as having a hook instead of a right hand. The couple became frightened and drove away. When the boy took his girl home, he went around to open the car door for her. Then he saw–a hook on the door handle! I don’t think I will ever park to make out as long as I live. I hope this does the same for other kids. -...-It turned out that virtually every student in the class knew the story as adapted in some way to their hometowns. -...-The radio—turned on originally for soft, romantic background music—introduces instead “the consciencelike voice from society,” a warning that the girl heeds and the boy usually scorns. Dundes concluded that this popular legend “reflects a very real dating practice, one which produces anxiety … particularly for girls.” -...-A plain Jane girl in school, who has never been out on a date, no boy friend, etc. One day the captain of the football team asks her to go to a big dance. She runs home overwhelmed -...-Near 7 o’clock (the time he’ll be there) the gas is getting unbearable. She feels about to bust. Just before she can get relieved, the doorbell rings. She lets him in, introduces him, but by this time she can hardly talk and is breathy. So she begins plotting how to get rid of it before she blows it. So, she plans that when he opens the door to let her in, she blows on his way around the car, rolls the window down, fans it out and everything will be fine. He opens the door for her, closes it, and starts to walk around. She lets it out, and it sounds like a howitzer, the windows vibrate, the license falls off, etc. She rolls the window down, fans it out, and is all cool and composed when he gets in. He smiles and says, “Oh, I’d like you to meet Ruth and Bob” who are sitting in the backseat.(Brunvand 1981:35-37,84 emphasis added). 1750
2014.
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Excreting is the curse that threatens madness because it shows man his abject finitude, his physicalness, the likely unreality of his hopes and dreams. (Becker 1973:33). Brown1751 dispenses with all-seeing and omnipotent father-god figures: he repackages the very same concept as “the newspaper test” he credits to billionaire Warren Buffett. In order to resist authority and peer pressure to violate ethical norms, how would we feel if a newspaper ran a front-page story detailing our (mis)deeds? The present writer suggests all examples are alike: they just swap some authority figures with others in line with one's socio-political penchants.
Of course, when the odd placement of you-know-who in certain statistics is considered, society, ...ists, religion or some other external cause is exclusively to blame. When odd placements in other statistics are considered, genetic potential, sense of rhythm, dedication and a host of internal causes are invoked.
When masses of color riot, burn and loot, more affirmative actions are demanded to “right wrongs”; when White supremacists parade, the public expects police to fire at least rubber bullets to re-establish order. When John Birch Society types march remembering the Confederacy that was suppressed 150 years earlier, gagging measures and clampdown are imperiously demanded to prevent “racists” from committing violence under wishful pretenses. When people of color march to commemorate slavery that was suppressed 150 years earlier, university presses
1751
2013: How Context Shapes Influence.
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dedicate history book to memorialize “truth”.
Studies documented students' attitude towards the performances of their local university's sport teams: “we won”, but “they lost”. If “the thing” (whatever that happens to be) reflects positively upon one, then one worked hard for it showing determination and patience. If “the thing” reflects negatively upon one, society (parents, rage, the clergy, ...ists...) made one do it etc.
Again, a critical point here is that when we view negative outcomes as bad luck and positive outcomes as a consequence of our own abilities, we don’t realize we are applying a bias. We believe we are looking at events objectively. (Feldman 2009:65). The strategy can go under a variety of labels such as fordism, socialdemocracy, welfare State, redistributive democracy and others. Enraptured tenors impassion the horde in fusion about brooking less and less inequality; about the threat this, that or the other awful government pose (Thatcher, Trump, Reagan, Berlusconi...) with blasphemous (purported) tax-cutting plans.
The proof -once again- is in the pudding. OECD's revenue statistics 1752, comparative tables, show that total tax revenue as percentage of GDP rose from 25,5% to 42,9% (Italy, 1965/2011); from 34,2 to 44,2 (France, 1965/2011); from 25,5% to 33,8% (OECD as total, 1965/2010). The same trend registers in various tax categories, such taxes on profits (tax revenue as percentage of GDP), from 2,3% to 3% (OECD as total, 1965/2010); or corporate (tax revenue as percentage of GDP)
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Revenue...2013: no page.
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from 2,2% to 2,9% (OECD as total, 1965/2010).
If oceans haven't turned to lemonade, mountains aren't made of polenta, and people aren't walking on streets paved with gold as of yet, it is not because taxes haven't slowly but steadily increased, but because a significant percentage of it has been diverted (wasted?) into this, that or another volatile, fancy and grandiose scheme meant to foster nepotism, governmentalization, foreign policy adventurism, absenteeism, vote-buying, political cliques and unproductive niches living
on
(in)direct State subsidies just as it was the case with the USSR, whose citizens experienced endless penury and shortages in spite of the country's immense industrial and natural potential.
An example suffices: U.N. FAO spends only about 50% of its 929.8 million budget (2008-9) on actual help to the poor and the needy. The rest goes into bureaucracy, studies, information analysis, and princely wages 1753. The private sector follows suit:
Throughout his presidency, George Bush [senior] persistently promoted his "1,000 Points of Light" campaign as the antidote for hunger, homelessness and poverty. But an examination of financial records by the Los Angeles Times shows Mr. Bush's Points of Light Foundation, touted as the charitable solution to poverty in the United States, has spent less than 11 percent of its multimilliondollar budget on grants to volunteer efforts. The records also show that $22.3 million has been spent on glitzy promotions, consultants, salaries, travel and conferences. The expenses include $5.5 million to produce a television advertising campaign and $1.4 million for a celebration of community service. -...-Despite early plans to 1753
Redazione 2009:no page.
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remain small, the Points of Light payroll has more than tripled to $4.1 million. Foundation President Richard F. Schubert, who was hired after he resigned under pressure as head of the American Red Cross, gets $160,000 annually. A 13-member management team receives average salaries in excess of $80,000. -...-However, Points of Lights officials concede they have no hard evidence that their efforts have led to an actual increase in community service.(Los Angeles Times, January 9, 1995).
Giornale Di Arona1754 reports grievances Borgomanero's (Italy) city council made public. In spite of being a speed-trap breeding ground, the city of Borgomanero remains badly strapped for cash. Powerless administrators call the waste management agency on the carpet in matters of accountability. Waste management fees have been skyrocketing in the last decades in spite of separate collection and so forth; a new increase (between 200 and 600%) is due soon in the province of Novara (Italy).
The internationally dominant paradigm these last decades is in fact “Neoliberalism [that] aims to give universal legitimacy to an idea of freedom based on the individual and the private sector” 1755, with the State serving as 'enabler'. Neoliberalism is a ”western-style notion of economic success based on a neo-liberal 'network of ideas' which currently underpins global city formation -...- to bind an increasing number of cities in developing countries to [its] influence” 1756, the implementation of standardized1757 policies by native classes of technocrats
July 26, 2013:52. Allen, Massey&Pryke 1999:236. 1756 Ibid.:210-257 1757 Kanji explains how Zimbabwe finally adopted development plans almost identical to those enforced in 40 developing countries in the 1980s,ibid.:261 1754 1755
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enamored1758 of the dominant govern-mentality1759.
This leads almost invariably not to the hoped for “silent revolution” 1760, but to casualization and informalization of the job market at large 1761, skyrocketing cost of living, the overhauling of the social fabric; in order to comply with stringent IMF and World Bank plans, credit crunches and privatization often become the norm, whence a sharp decline in welfare1762 and similar services, and ensuing social ills1763/unrest.
In spite of cashing millions from the administrations it serves, the agency in charge of managing Borgomanero waste keeps its accounting private: only “vague answers” are offered to justify how funds are managed. Last, no tax increase could satisfy the obtuse dictates and foolish wish-lists of any of the absurd utopias people rave about, much as no living society could even approximate to the godly equality, lordly oversupply and swashbuckling feats of folklore and other myths.
The horde in fusion rallying as one behind Belle Epoque nation States really is unstoppable. Oceans shall soon turn to lemonade, indeed, if only the meek masses acquiesce to this 'modest' tax increase, that 'well-intended' privacy breach, About Latin America, Green, ibid:233 A term Foucault coined to denote “particular way[s] in which government is made possible”, Allen, Massey & Pryke 1999:276 1760 Green, ibid.:233 1761 Gilbert (Allen, Massey & Pryke 1999.:268) writes:”“many more [Colombian] workers were working in 1992 to produce the same labour share of GDP as in 1970”. 1762 About Tanzania, Tripp (Ibid.:263-4) writes:”Social, public and welfare services -...- had dropped to their lowest point in twenty years “. Tripp claims that governmental expenditure on welfare services in Tanzania dropped from 21 to 11% between 1981 and 1986. 1763 Sweeney, Kubit&Renner (1999,passim) argue that by 2020 roughly half of the world's population will be living in slums. 1758 1759
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and fight this 'war to end all wars'.
Mountains may not be made of polenta as of yet, however the nanny State is a new demiurge that shall part the seas to protect the city of Venice (Italy) from treacherous tides thanks to a sci-fi system of automated dams. The glorious nation of Italy shall mobilize the endless resources of its thousand provinces spanning from the Alps to the African plaque to finalize the project.
In July 2013 a row of policy makers are detained following an investigation of the project MOSE, whose works are in never ending progress since 1981. It appears that a rogue web was in place to divide the hefty spoils among politicians, administrators of a slew of contracting agencies and mafiosi; a literally endless stream of public money was diverted to silence an equally endless list of conspiring parties.
Another inflow of public money (euro 182 million) for a tram line at Bologna (Italy)1764. A tram line that has never been in operation, yet recurrently refinanced over the last 10 years. 182 million: quite a pie to divide among the usual suspects, while artificial kin members lull themselves with fantasies of employment booms, ecological healing, and upcoming mountains of polenta.
The thousand provinces of the proud Italian fatherland never stop rushing to the rescue of the one that bleeds. Prefabricated settlements put in place
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ANSA, 18 March 2013.
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to house people in the aftermath of the 2009 Emilia earthquake not only costed 158% more than market value according to an EU dossier, but -according to photographic evidence- started falling apart and rotting away as soon as they were completed while politicians celebrated mystical oneness, and congratulated themselves on air over the best of intentions.
Reuters (September 16, 2013) announces the arrest of M.R. Lorenzetti, politician of Partito Democratico (former Communist party), former president of
Regione Umbria and of Italferr, one of the many companies belonging to the State railroad company in charge of developing the epochal TAV plan (high-speed railroad lines). She's accused of corruption and criminal activities. This is what most often goes on behind the noble facade of providence States promising lemonade oceans and mountains made of polenta while they boost employment and consumerism.
Social dynamics remain for some the playground of fatalistic 'invisible hands' and inscrutable quantum entanglement seen through pathetic imagery, whereas others take a more blunt approach. In 2001 “Dr. Stephen Steinlight [who] was for more than five years Director of National Affairs (domestic policy) at the American Jewish Committee.� wrote (from the influential and mainstream Center For Immigration Studies website ):
Let’s throw out a few and see how many sleepers we can awaken. The big one for starters: is the emerging new multicultural American nation good for the Jews? Will a country in which enormous 1373
demographic and cultural change, fueled by unceasing large-scale non-European immigration, remain one in which Jewish life will continue to flourish as nowhere else in the history of the Diaspora? In an America in which people of color form the plurality, as has already happened in California, most with little or no historical experience with or knowledge of Jews, will Jewish sensitivities continue to enjoy extraordinarily high levels of deference and will Jewish interests continue to receive special protection? -...- Does it matter that the politics of ethnic succession — colorblind, I recognize — has already resulted in the loss of key Jewish legislators (the brilliant Stephen Solarz of Brooklyn was one of the first of these) and that once Jewish “safe seats” in Congress now are held by Latino representatives? -...-Not that it is the case that our disproportionate political power (pound for pound the greatest of any ethnic/cultural group in America) will erode all at once, or even quickly -...-. For perhaps another generation, an optimistic forecast, the Jewish community is thus in a position where it will be able to divide and conquer and enter into selective coalitions that support our agendas. -...-.Finally, I confess that I suspect that MTV, for better of for worse, will prove more powerful with young Muslim immigrants than the mullahs, and that the remarkable material and cultural attractiveness of American life will cause the new immigrants to follow (mostly) in the footsteps of their predecessors. (2001:1-15). Steady immigration from Mexico, Latin America and Asia as well as higher rates of births among Latinos are shifting the United States' demographic makeup, making the nation increasingly non-white. The trend has been apparent in censuses from 1980 through 2010, which show a declining share of non-Hispanic whites, as well as in the Census Bureau’s projections for the period 2015 to 2060. ( “Tipping Point” 2013: no page). While the only mention of pedophilia may trigger another of those inescapable reactions, it is worth mentioning that the once mainstream attitudes towards this, that or the other fringe/outcast minority may nowadays constitute criminal offense in several jurisdictions. Many may be familiar with the debate related to the (successful) removal of homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses; many may also be aware that some proposed to replace it with homophobia.
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As well, other fringe groups replay the same drama:”there are no differences, and diversity is part of life”; it is difficult to guess whether such terrific gnostic punchlines come from a papyrus carbon-dated 3.000 BCE, or a chewing-gum wrapper's fortune. On such bases, people question assumptions, and imperiously demand that -to name one- the spreading HIV/AIDS epidemic be recast as “immunological diversity”.
Black and white British footage is famous 1765, in which a British veteran relates an exchange he had with German soldiers during WWI. Both parties were burying their dead in close proximity, when the British were puzzled to discover the Germans were carving “for fatherland and freedom” on the cross of one of their fallen countrymen, because the British thought they had a copyright on the item of the fight for freedom: the care and repair of public myth 1766; 'the thing' is pliable, indeed.
Of course, the above conclusions might appear simplistic, ethically infantile or jaded to some, yet in 1961 “The Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare printed a report of 186 pages on 31 July 196I, "National Defense Education Act Amendment of 196I," which named folklore (pages 20, 138) as a field to be excluded from Title IV graduate fellowships under the Act.” 1767.
This prompted eminent Jewish-American folklorist Dorson to plead with 1765
BBC 1964., McNeill 1982-83. That's a copycat of the collective injunction in the Hebrew scriptures tikkun olam, “repair the world”, “restore the creation”. 1767 Dorson 1962:160. 1766
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a politician: “The recent critics of folklore studies are through ignorance playing directly into the hands of the Communists. Folklore is one of the most powerful propaganda weapons -...- The democracies of course do not use folklore as propaganda, but for knowledge and insight. ”1768.
Later, U.S New York Republican Senator Keating 1769 (at the height of the Cuban crisis and ensuing scare) in 1963 could again denounce the (mis)use of traditional folk motifs to seamlessly serve the appetites (and fit the commodious agenda) of the formerly gallant WWII ally, the now accursed Soviet regime and its domestic fifth column of radical left-wingers:”Now it seems perfectly obvious to me that if people went around singing this [Yankee Doodle] today, we would be in a pretty fix with our shipping ban against Castro.”.
Entire theories, and not only private opinions, rest on mythology and folklore. It is possible to argue that Freud lifted the thread to weave his theories from ancient literature and myths (mother-son-father triangles such as that of Kronos, Rhea and Zeus; parent-child dynamics such as the story of Hera, Zeus and Hephaestus; the seminal role of dreams such as in the Bible or the Iliad, etc). In Buddhism, too, Gautama Buddha consorts with deities during the night, the time of dreams:
Now when the night was far spent, a certain deity whose surpassing splendor illuminated the entire Jeta Grove, came to the presence of the Exalted One and, drawing near, respectfully saluted him and 1768 1769
Ibid:161,163. no page.
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stood at one side. Standing thus, he addressed the Exalted One in verse ( Theravada Buddhist Mangala Sutta). So enamored was professor Freud with classical antiquity that his ashes were put into a 300 BCE Greek urn he owned, on which the god Dionysus appeared. Sinking for ever into madness, Nietzsche sent cards to his correspondents under the signature “Dyonisos” or “the crucified”:
When we dismantled Olympus, we turned the gods into symptoms (C.G. Jung). Indeed, in my work as a therapist, I take as my intellectual ancestors not so much the great psychiatrists and psychologists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—Pinel, Freud, Jung, Pavlov, Rorschach, and Skinner—but classical Greek philosophers, particularly Epicurus. The more I learn about this extraordinary Athenian thinker, the more strongly I recognize Epicurus as the proto-existential psychotherapist (Yalom 2008:2). Our first (and, sadly, often our only) notion of God's nature is a simple extrapolation of our parents' natures, a simple blending of the characters of our mothers and fathers or their substitutes. If we have loving, forgiving parents, we are likely to believe in a loving and forgiving God. And in our adult view the world is likely to seem as nurturing a place as our childhood was. If our parents were harsh and punitive, we are likely to mature with a concept of a harsh and punitive monster-god. And if they failed to care for us, we will likely envision the universe as similarly uncaring.(Peck 1978:190-191). For by day vice, looking outside of itself and conforming its attitude to others, is abashed and veils its emotions, and does not give itself up completely to its impulses, but oftentimes resists them and struggles against them ; but in the hours of slumber, when it has escaped from opinion and law, and got away as far as possible from feeling fear or shame, it sets every desire stirring, and awakens its depravity and licentiousness. It ‘attempts incest,’ as Plato says, partakes of forbidden meats, abstains from nothing which it wishes to do, but revels in lawlessness so far as it can, with images and visions which end in no pleasure or accomplishment of desire, but have only the power to stir 1377
to fierce activity the emotional and morbid propensities (Plutarch no date: no page, emphasis added). I think that -...- the intercourse of men with men, or of women with women, is contrary to nature, and that the bold attempt was originally due to unbridled lust . The Cretans are always accused of having invented the story of Ganymede and Zeus extnote because they wanted to justify themselves in the enjoyment of unnatural pleasures by the practice of the god whom they believe to have been their lawgiver (Plato no date-1:361). Once upon a time when Mah훮pat훮pa was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta came to life as the son of his queen-consort Cand훮 and they named him Dhammap훮la. When he was seven months old, his mother had him bathed in scented water and richly dressed and sat playing with him. The king came to the place of her abode. And as she was playing with the boy, being filled with a mother's love for her child, she omitted to rise up on seeing the king. He thought, "Even now this woman is filled with pride on account of her boy, and does not value me a straw, but as the boy grows up, she will think, "I have a man for my son," and will take no notice of me. I will have him put to death at once."extnote So he returned home, and sitting on his throne summoned the executioner into his presence, with all the instruments of his office. The man put on his yellow robe and wearing a crimson wreath laid his axe upon his shoulder, and carrying a block and a bowl in his hands, came and stood before the king, and saluting him said, "What is your pleasure, Sire?" -...- The king looked at the executioner. "What is your pleasure, Sire?" "Without further delay, off with his hands," said the king. At this moment the executioner took a sharp axe, and lopped off the boy's two hands, as if they had been young bamboo shoots. The boy, when his hands were cut off, neither wept nor lamented, but moved by patience and charity bore it with resignation. [the infant, or Gautama Buddha in one of his previous lives, is torn apart in death as he forgives his tormentors] -...-While [the queen] was thus lamenting, her heart broke, as a bamboo snaps, when the grove is on fire, and she fell dead on the spot. The king too being unable to remain on his throne fell down on the dais. An abyss was cleft asunder in the ground, and straightway he fell into it. Then the solid earth, though many myriads more than two hundred thousand leagues in thickness, being unable to bear with his wickedness, clave asunder and opened a extnote
Because of his exceptional beauty, noble Trojan Ganymede is invariably abducted. In this version of the myth, Zeus abducts him so that he may serve as cup bearer of the gods and -in some versions- as Zeus' minion. extnote Is this not a textbook representation of Freudian Oedipal conflicts? Yet Jataka tales date back several centuries BCE. (note of this writer).
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chasm. A flame arose out of the Avīci hell, and seizing upon him, wrapped him about, as with a royal woolen garment, and plunged him into Avīci. (Culladhammapāla-Jātaka, emphasis added). If we take Euripides' tragedy Bacchae, for example, the way Cadmus gently makes his daughter Agave -who had gone mad into Bacchic frenzyrecognize she's carrying her son's head in her hands, which she thought a lion's, could come from any psychoanalyst’s notebook. The early Christian tradition, too, was replete with gnostic hints that could very well come from a Freudian notebook:
[Jesus said] If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. ( The Gospel Of Thomas no date: no page n.70). People who choose compulsive hand washing frequently feel guilty, (Glasser 1998:200). When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. "I am innocent of this man's blood," he said. "It is your responsibility!" (Matthew 27:24). Many credit Hitchcock's phenomenal success as filmmaker to his irresistible portrayal of Marxist and Freudian situations and interplays. (Un)surprisingly for such a master of Marxist and Freudian motifs, Hitchcock as well had been busy on the service of the best of all causes milling propaganda films during WWII at the behest of British Minister Of Information. Many sociologists -with political sympathies perhaps- recognize an identity of undertones and broad categories between the convoluted thought of venerable Jewish-European masters of thought such as Durkheim, Freud and Marx. 1379
Writing in the I century BCE, Lucretius (5:1130ss) delivers a genesis of human institutions based on artificial power struggles and manipulation of the gullible that equals that of any postmodern pundit or hippie:
So the kings were slain, the time-honored majesty of thrones and proud scepters tumbled down in the dust, and the glorious crown that adorned the sovereign head, now blood-bespattered beneath the feet of the rabble, mourned the loss of its high prerogative; for people eagerly trample on what once they intensely feared. Thus the situation sank to the lowest dregs of anarchy, with all seeking sovereignty and supremacy for themselves. At length some of them taught the others to create magistracies and established laws, to induce them to obey ordinances. The human race, utterly weary as it was of leading a life of violence and worn out with feuds, was the more ready to submit voluntarily to the restraint of ordinanees and stringent laws. The reason why people were sick and tired of a life of violence was that each individual was prompted by anger to exact vengeance more cruelly than is now allowed by equitable laws. Ever since that time fear of punishment has poisoned the blessings of life. Violence and injustice enmesh all who practice them: they generally recoil on the wrong doers, and it is not easy for those who by their actions violate the mutual pacts of peace to pass a placid and peaceful life; for even if their crime goes undetected in heaven and on earth, they are bound to fear that it will not remain hidden for ever. And indeed many people, so it is said, by talking in their sleep or in the delirium of disease, have betrayed their own guilt and disclosed deeply hidden matters and their misdeeds. Buddhism had reached the same conclusion even earlier (society as Hobbesian social contract1770). Freud then added then popular obsessions with altered states of consciousness, mesmerism, sexuality and mental illness early psychiatry (phrenologists, aliĂŠnistes etc) grappled with during the late Victorian and
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“The people divided into each family and the householders started to store up the rice, instead of gathering it each evening and morning. Then the rights of property arose, and the first anti social activity, stealing, committed. Some householders kept their rice safely and took the rice of others. With this new experience, the people realized that they should establish the institution of state in order to get rid of anti social actions.� Abeynayake in ME6208:Buddhist view of the origin and evolution of society.
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Belle Epoque era.
Freud set sexuality as centerpiece. The average layman might probably credit him with inaugurating this practice. Yet Buddhism -and Hindu philosophical thought that preceded it- and Christianity had already set sexuality as core concern ages before Freud.
Gautama Buddha scolded a monk who had had intercourse with his former wife in the rash terms (Vinaya III, 19) that it'd be better for the monk to “put your male organ into the mouth of a terrible and poisonous snake than into a woman”;”For so long as the underbrush of desire, even the most subtle, of a man towards a woman is not cut down, his mind is in bondage, like the sucking calf to its mother. ”1771. With verbiage that closely resembles Buddhist and Jain thought (= pollution/defilement of the body through impure acts), Christian St. Paul had been equally adamant:”There can be no future resurrection, unless ye continue in chastity, and do not defile your flesh. ”1772.
St. Peter Apostle imparted the same lesson1773:
XXXIII. Now Peter was in Rome rejoicing in the Lord with the brethren, and giving thanks night and day for the multitude which was brought daily unto the holy name by the grace of the Lord. And there were gathered also unto Peter the concubines of Agrippa the Gautama Buddha, Dhammapada 284. Acts Of Paul And Thecla, Hone 1820: no page. 1773 Various Christian groups -from Shakers to Marcionites- emphasized strict adherence to chastity and celibacy. This -alongside persecution- heavily cooperated to the group's fading into oblivion. Creeds need as many followers as possible in order to rely less on converts and the compromises that might entail. That's possibly why the Acts of Peter and Acts of Paul and Thecla were excluded from the canon. 1771 1772
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prefect, being four, Agrippina and Nicaria and Euphemia and Doris; and they, hearing the word concerning chastity and all the oracles of the Lord, were smitten in their souls, and agreeing together to remain pure from the bed of Agrippa they were vexed by him. (James 1924: no page). Should Christian St. Peter not suit one's requirements, what about Gautama Buddha? In the Tibetan tradition a tale exists about Buddha being born in a previous life as Ksantivadin (=”teacher of patience”). The ascetic Kstantivadin was meditating in the forest as a King and his noisy retinue of innumerable concubines camped nearby cavorting all around.
As the King fell asleep in his drunkenness, the courtesans wandered about in the forest, and discovered Ksantivadin. Impressed by his saintly demeanor, they asked him to teach them. The ascetic preached against the defilement of lust and indulgence, and for the virtue of patience. When the King found out, he wasn't very pleased, and ordered to tear the ascetic apart in all sorts of torments 1774 (with thorny bushes like Jesus; his hands were severed etc).
The Earth opened: the impious King in an act of cosmic retribution went to hell; the King's henchmen made amends (= the turncoat motif) to the dying ascetic for torturing him as they feared divine retribution: the ascetic forgave them all. Saint Peter, too, was martyred at Rome: a champion of Christian forgiveness.
Chinese Pure Land Buddhism updates the Ksantivadin story, as it is often the case with these “eye-witness testimonies”: 1774
Just as this writing suggests, the list of torments inflicted upon the godly ascetic varies according to sources.
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But the ascetic, who was awakened, did not harbor the slightest hatred toward the king. Indeed, he vowed that the king would be the first person he would help after he attained enlightenment. We learn from sutra accounts that the ascetic was the being who became Sakyamuni Buddha in a later rebirth. The first person he helped after he had attained enlightenment was Kaundinya, one of his former five companions. In a previous lifetime, Kaundinya was that king of Kalinga. (Wuling, May 14, 2017). It is astounding how concepts -such as that of animus in Jung- that can't be discussed herein- find a nearly perfect enunciation in immemorial Buddhist philosophy1775. It all may be explained with a Victorian revival of Oriental spirituality -and related texts in translation- among litterateurs:
To understand the general receptivity of American culture today to Asian religions, we need to understand the intellectual foundations laid by previous generations of American reformers who embraced Asian religions as an intellectual foundation for positive social change during periods when entertaining such ideas was far less accepted. The subjects of this study include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Percival Lowell, William Sturgis Bigelow, Paul Carus, and Dyer Daniel Lum to name a few. The many connections between Asian religions and the various reform movements and activities in America are focused on these particular individuals and utilize them as case studies in order to make a larger argument. Ultimately, this dissertation contends that the interaction between Asian religions and American reform did not begin, for example, in the 1960s with antiwar protesters, but, in fact, there was an adherent to or a sympathizer with Asian religions on the front lines of most of the major reform movements in America leading back to the early nineteenth century. (Weir 2011:iv, emphasis added). Many deferentially argue that this, that or another author (Plutarch, 1775
““A man ponders over the masculinity in him, ponders over his masculine behavior, attire, ways, impulses, voice and charm. He gets impassioned with masculinity and finds delight therein. Thus impassioned and delighted he ponders on femininity outside, and ponders over feminine behavior, attire, ways, impulses, voice and charm. He gets impassioned and delighted therein. Being thus impassioned and delighted he wishes for external union and longs for the pleasure and joy resulting from such union. Being in love with his own sex (masculinity) he goes into union with woman. Thus he has not gone beyond his own masculinity.” ” (Somaratne, ME6101: Non-Self:3).
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Plato, Homer, Euripides...) anticipates Freud in the same way St. Justin Martyr argued that Bacchus anticipated Jesus through diabolic intervention. Readers shall individually judge whether Freud -more or less coherently, consciously and systematically- used themes and arguments from ancient literature to build his theories, or whether ancient literature prophetically anticipated Freud.
As Senator Keating pointed out, people's reaction is (unconsciously) triggered by the activation of those magic neuralgic spots of the human mind. The same exempla, myths and mos can be easily customized to fit the times, aims and the circumstances of those who wield them.
For example Theseus' conventional bronze dagger becomes Luke Skywalker's light saber; ancient Greek miasma (blood-guilt) takes up a new pseudoscientific garb when coupled with psychiatric concepts. As soon as the spokewheeled chariot was gradually introduced in the Bronze Age (starting around 2000 BCE), the gods started riding chariots as well.
In Ugaritic myth, the patriarchal god El lives “in a tent”; Hittite fertility god Telepinu “puts on sandals” just like the ragged Bronze Age Bedouins who concocted such tales. A god 'discovered' today -just like the Matrix movie characters- might be a fashionista who “goes online”, imparts orders via a cellphone and strikes enemies with mixed martial arts.
As Freud argued, the unconscious tries to get to us through images; Jung
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went further and clinched that psyche is image and image is psyche:
If we really get this whole idea of the imaginal level of the symptom we recognize that we need to engage the symptom with images. Our first relationship to the image is simply to engage it. To resist the impulse to interpret it, which we are inclined to do because of hermeneutic suspicion that there is something underneath, but underneath the need to interpret is this pathologizing thing. It’s like probing, and we want to do that but it is important when we do it to understand what it is that we are interpreting. Are we saying the image heals? Yes -...- The image is the primary datum of the Psyche. Stick to the images as that is where the truth is. -...- but that archetypal images are like stars in the sky, there are a gazillion possibilities and they just are out there just living where they are and that psyche is about the structure of the relationship between those luminescences. It does not need to be explained by parenting. It is the relationship that produces the event, the consciousness. ( Archetypal Psychology Lecture 2007: no page). A pivotal scene in the fantasy movie 1776 Krull (1983) unfolds thus: the hero climbs a high mountain the recover a magical weapon 1777 from a lava stream inside a cave1778. As he reaches out for the weapon deep into the molten rock, his experience reads out of Zoroastrian lore1779:
Then Airyaman, Yazata of friendship and healing, together with Atar, Fire, will melt all the metal in the mountains, and this will flow in a glowing river over the earth. All mankind must pass through this river, and, as it is said in a Pahlavi text, 'for him who is righteous it will seem like warm milk, and for him who is wicked, it will seem as if he is walking in the flesh through molten metal' (GBd XXXIV. r 8-r 9). (Boyce 1979:28, emphasis added).
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Dispossessed prince and band of merry fellows (Robin Hood style) try to rescue princess a monster-magician has abducted (deliverance of the virgin + belle and the beast motif) the day of her wedding (spoiled wedding mytheme). It just reads like the index of a fairy tales' book. 1777 A weapon that always reaches its target, akin to Hercules' bow and Karna's spear. While Karna got the incredible spear from Indra, Arjuna got the weapon pashupatastra from Shiva: the supreme weapon. 1778 Climbing a mountain, caves, lava flows...it goes without saying the stuff of legends. 1779 A similar scene recurs in Dune as young Paul Atreides is put to test.
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Fringe criticism of hyphenated groups often voices wishes about expropriating -or appropriating- hegemonic culture's discursive power-tools. As the present writer argues, expropriation may not even needed, for the same stale image banks and obtuse emotional truth cliches can be used to indifferently champion or indict any cause, group, party, individual, country or action.
The primeval concept (often associated with Buddhism ) of impermanence and anatman (all things are without a self) may be a bit too complicated and convoluted for today's semi-literate general audiences after instant gratification. If, however, we translate the same concept in terms fashionable for today's people -who love to see themselves as tech-savvy and go-getting – as people trapped inside the 'mind' of a computer (as in 1982 movie Tron or 1982 Japanese animated movie Andromeda Stories1780), we get them interested.
Erik Davis already termed 'techgnosis' the commingling of gnostic and technological themes, in the shared attempt to transcend existential limitations seeking some form of (meta)physical breakthrough1781. How innovative could this idea of life as unfolding within the virtual confines of an I.T environment possibly 1780
The plot is very similar to the Matrix. Machines surreptitiously take control of a peaceful planet. Inhabitants are enclosed in capsules to grant them perfect happiness under robotic surveillance. Twin princes with magical powers and a bunch of heroes fight back before a planetary collision ends the already tragic plot. 1781 “O gnosticismo histórico caracterizava-se pelo horror ao orgânico e a uma aversão ao natural. Tais elementos seriam inimigos do espírito na sua busca por iluminação. Ora, a tecnociência atual aproxima-se de tal filosofia ao propor a superação dos parâmetros básicos da condição humana: finitude, contingência, mortalidade, corporalidade, animalidade e limitação existencial. -...- Esta antiga busca gnóstica em transcender a carne parece ser o subtexto emocional por trás da eufórica reação a cada novidade em informática no mercado e a cada website ou blog com frivolidades que é lançado. -...-A partir do bombástico lançamento do Windows 95, tivemos o crescimento especulativo das potencialidades da Internet e das tecnologias computacionais. Paralelo a isso, o crescimento das técnicas motivacionais e de auto-ajuda explicitamente inspirados em modelos de programação de computadores.” (Vieira Ferreira 2009:14,16,20).
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be?
Philosopher Nozick wrote in 1974:
Suppose there were an experience machine that would give you any experience you desired. Superduper neuropsychologists could stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were writing a great novel, or making a friend, or reading an interesting book. All the time you would be floating in a tank, with electrodes attached to your brain. Should you plug into this machine for life, preprogramming your life's experiences? (644). If we add fashionistas with fantastic faces exchanging kung-fu chops in mid-air, or the staple of 1970s Hong-Kong cinema, we get them even more interested. Besides, figures hovering in mid-air as they exchange chops recur in the engravings of popular Hindu epic Ramayana popular all over Southeast Asia.
Nods are plentiful in the Matrix movies; one character contemplates a shower of numbers on a screen and claims he can see the real world behind the programming code, much as Pythagoras claimed the world's essence to reside in...numbers and ensuing ratios.
Flannery-Dailey&Wagner1782 have given an extensive lists of parallels between Buddhism, Gnosticism and the Matrix movie:
•
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“To a significant degree, the basic Gnostic myth parallels the plot of The Matrix, with respect to both the problem that humans face as well as the solution. Like Sophia, we conceived an offspring out of our own pride, as Morpheus explains -...-The film also echoes the metaphorical language employed by Gnostics. -...-
2001:no page.
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•
Drawing upon the Buddhist doctrine of Dependent Co-Origination, the film presents reality within the matrix as a conglomerate of the illusions of all humans caught within its snare. Similarly, Buddhism teaches that the suffering of human beings is dependent upon a cycle of ignorance and desire which locks humans into a repetitive cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. -...-Whereas Cypher and Mouse represent what happens when one gives in to samsara, the rest of the crew epitomize the restraint and composure praised by the Buddha. -...-Clad in threadbare clothes, subsisting on gruel, and sleeping in bare cells, the crew is depicted enacting the Middle Way taught by the Buddha, allowing neither absolute asceticism nor indulgence to distract them from their work�. The topic scene may even be the messiah stopping or avoiding missiles
thrown at him out of his divine illumination. Yet the image of stones or arrows thrown at Orpheus or Gautama Buddha is pretty bleak to our day's 'networked society', therefore the messiah stops or avoids bullets shot at him by droll Blues
Brothers characters, or the Men in Black who haunt the imagination of proponents of UFO-related doom.
It is also possible to rub elbows with the Men in Black in real life as 'secret service' or 'security' personnel consciously choose the attire. Men in Black can take up slightly different appearances and act out slightly different scripts always dealing with surveillance, stealth, mischief and ulterior motives.
They can become shadow people that obsesses enthusiasts of the paranormal, the incubi and succubi of medieval lore, or the huldufolk of Icelandic lore. If shadow entities -much as medieval incubi and succubi- love to sit on their victims' chest in order to oppress them, an Italian brand seized the immemorial obsession and offered his digestives with the catchy image of a man in his bed staring wide-eyed and aghast into the eyes of a boar sitting on his chest: a record 1388
case of poor digestion. Alternatively, shadow people might become dark matter beings from another quantum dimension: today's people are so tech-savvy and progressive they left abstruse fairy tales behind.
If we throw in a few more handfuls of popcorn philosophical gibberish -or the capsules of wisdom typical of Chinese fortune cookies in so many more words- with a music1783 video as a backdrop, it's guaranteed to bring the masses on the brink of ecstasy, just as the Matrix movies did:
O filme gnóstico parece caracterizar-se por uma espécie de autoconsciência. Procura abordar temas metafísicos ou espirituais dentro de narrativas verossímeis, procurando apresentar tais temas de uma forma plausível -...- Temos nessa primeira fase a clássica narrativa gnóstica de um mundo criado por um Demiurgo (a tecnologia) para aprisionar seres humanos. A narrativa apresenta um caráter maniqueísta -...- e vemos um explícito e dramático confronto do humano contra uma divindade enlouquecida pelo poder espiritual e tecnológico. (Viera Ferreira 2009:30,199)1784. I spoke about the transformation of emotions and there is a particular aspect of this deliberation where we look at the notion of devotional states or Bhakti grounded in a special kind of love. This particular area has key importance in a particular form of spiritual practice in the Indian tradition, a form of yoga which is referred to as Bhakti Yoga. One way of inducing a state of Bhakti is by exposure to a form of classical music often referred to as Bhakti music. (Varma, MAISI005 no date lecture 5:9). But from a hermetic perspective, which reads images and synchronicities at least as deeply as facts, the mythic structures and psychology of Gnosticism seem strangely resonant with the digital 1783 1784
For an interesting discussion of music artfully used to induce mood, see Solomon 2006: Laughter And Music. a sort of auto-conscience characterizes gnostic movies. They endeavour to tackle metaphysical or spiritual argument within possible narratives in order to present such topics in a plausible manner -...-. We got in this first phase a classic gnostic narrative about a world a Demiurge created (technology) in order to keep human beings prisoner. This narrative is typically manichean -...- and embodies a dramatic, explicit conflict between man an a deity inebriated by spiritual and technological power.
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zeitgeist and its paradigm of information. As we'll see, Gnostic myth anticipates the more extreme dreams of today's mechanistic mutants and cyberspace cowboys, especially their libertarian drive toward freedom and self-divinization, and their dualistic rejection of matter for the incorporeal possibilities of mind. (Davis 1999:80). Wright1785 seems to confirm Varma's findings: in an experiment, people hearing “scary music” thought an ambiguous image -which could also depict a ropeto be that of a snake: 70% versus 30% of the control group. Of course: an humungous industry has been built around manipulating people's feelings through music:
For music is psychologically not only an audio signal attached to an event; its complexity, span of time and complex emotional triggering turns it into an excessively processed phenomenon that passes through both conscious and unconscious matrixes and outputs as a Music-image. -...-This symbol-sign dichotomy can powerfully be detected when attempting to interpret that ‘abstract’ music-image, which is made of both archetypal, unconscious affect and an individual’s or group’s signs acquired through conscious knowledge, cultural trends and other cognitive sources. (Nagari 2013:210). In one field study, Ronald Milliman worked with a restaurant to play either fast or slow music on different days to see how the difference affected customer behavior. In general, people were slower and more patient when the music was slow compared to when it was fast. Customers spent an average of 12 minutes longer at their tables, which led them to order an average of $9.00 more in drinks.(Hamilton 2016:143). Research on the sympathetic and parasympathetic portions of our autonomic nervous system can help explain why happy music affects the brain regions associated with creativity. When we find ourselves in threatening, potentially dangerous situations, we activate our sympathetic nervous system. This prepares our body for a potential fight-or-flight reaction, aimed at increasing the 1785
2014:1-2.
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likelihood of survival. When we don’t sense a threat, our body activates the parasympathetic nervous system and enters into a tend-and-befriend mode of processing. Activation of the parasympathetic system is associated with complex cognition and creative problem solving. (Vishton 2016:82). In the interviews with our own research participants, music emerged as one of the most powerful conveners of collective joy and pain. It’s often at the heart of spiritual gatherings, celebrations, funerals, and protest movements.(Brown 2017b:79). These formula movies are not unique. 1986 movie Maximum Overdrive sees appliances and mechanical tools rebelling against humankind in a murderous rampage, much as in the Second Creation myth of the Maya. The movie ends as a Soviet satellite armed with nuclear weapons stops the mayhem as it destroys a large UFO in the Earth's orbit, thus administering the public a hefty dose of ancient and (then) contemporary myths alike1786.
The same may be argued regarding the concept of doppelgaenger (double), a 'paranormal double' of a person: the gnostic harbinger of either evil, good or psycho-philosophical truth. Duality plays a very important role in Oriental thought. Meineck writes thus about Roman culture:
Janus is one of the oldest Roman gods. His dual nature and affiliation with crossing boundaries and bridges connects him with Rome as a bridging point over the Tiber and a city with a rich mythic tradition in expressing duality (such as the Trojans and Latins, Romulus and Remus, Romulus and Titus Tatius, the plebeians and patricians, and the two consuls). (2005-1:44). Jesus said, "When you make the two one, you will become the 1786
The “nuclear satellite” reminiscent of the “Star Wars” program during the Cold War Reagan administration. Of course, to titillate viewers, the satellite is here a Soviet one.
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sons of man, and when you say, 'Mountain, move away,' it will move away." (Gospel Of Thomas no date no page n.106). The doppelgaenger can be understood in different ways, such as the unconscious, the logic of the dream (in Jungian terms); the guardian angel (in spiritual terms), and so forth. Olrik (in his epic laws) had already emphasized the importance of the twins mytheme.
In Christianity -as well as in earlier Zoroastrianism- each person is allotted an “angel” (=the “guardian angel” of Catholicism) that is often confused with one's soul, one's “celestial self”, or one's astral body such as Zoroastrian
Fravashi:
"You're out of your mind," they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so [=St. Peter was at the door], they said, "It must be his angel."But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him [freed from captivity], they were astonished. ( Acts 12:15-16). Fravashi, in Zoroastrianism, the preexisting external higher soul or essence of a person (according to some sources, also of gods and angels). Associated with Ahura Mazdā, the supreme divinity, since the first creation, they participate in his nature of pure light and inexhaustible bounty. By free choice they descend into the world to suffer and combat the forces of evil, knowing their inevitable resurrection at the final glory. Each individual’s fravashi, distinct from his incarnate soul, subtly guides him in life toward the realization of his higher nature. The saved soul is united after death with its fravashi. -...-In the popular religion, the fravashis of the righteous dead and of ancestors are invoked for protection. In the Parsi festival Fravartigan, the last 10 days of each year, each family honours the fravashis of its dead with prayers, fire, and incense. (Encyclopedia Britannica 1998). Ancient myths had already addressed this possibility, notably with the 1392
story of Inanna and her sister Ereshkigal. Ereshkigal was known in pre-Islamic Arabia as Allat, daughter/consort of Allah 1787; Dawn and Night the twin sisters of the Vedas; Ahura Mazda and Andra Mainyu the twin sons of Zurvan 1788 (Time); Esau and Jacob; Jesus and Satan the twins of gnosticism 1789 (alternatively Jesus and Thomas; Jesus and Barabbas1790); Mani and his heavenly twin; Leda's children, who were sons of Zeus and a mortal woman, hatched from an egg (a reminiscence of the the cosmic egg, perhaps) in pairs, one mortal and one immortal: Helen and Clytemnestra, Castor and Pollux; Lava and Kusha, twin sons of Rama ( Ramayana).
Readers may remember Hercules and his twin Iphicles, one son of two mortal parents and the other son of Zeus; the Skywalker twins in the Star Wars fiction; Leto II and Ghanima in the Dune series; Bizarro and Superman, Green 1787
Deity of the underworld, at times also associated with Aphrodite or Minerva under different attributes. At least according to some Zoroastrian denominations, such as Manicheism. There is a slight counterpart of this in Roman mythology. Coelus (the equivalent of both Greek Ouranos and Hebrew Jahweh; cfr the Italian word cielo, sky or heaven) is said to be the son of Aether (upper air, masculine) and Dies (goddess of daytime). 1789 LDS/Mormons considers Jesus and Satan as “brothers” following Hebrews 12:9 that identifies god as:”the father of spirits”. 1790 “We have no evidence outside these Gospel accounts that any such person as Barabbas existed. It is interesting to think about the name of this apparently nonexistent person. In Aramaic, the language of Palestine, the name Bar-abbas literally means “son of the father.” And so, in a very poignant way, the story of the release of Barabbas is a story about which kind of “son of the father” the Jewish people preferred. Do they prefer the one who is a political insurgent, who believed that the solution to Israel’s problems was a violent overthrow of the ruling authorities? Or do they prefer the loving “Son of the Father” who was willing to give his life for others? In these Christian recollections, the Jewish people preferred the murdering insurrectionist to the self-sacrificing savior. It is interesting to note that in some manuscripts of Matthew’s account of the Barabbas episode there is an important addition. In these manuscripts—which may well represent what the Gospel writer originally wrote—Barabbas is actually named “Jesus Barabbas.”” (Ehrman 2016:87-88).It all probably constitutes a pun within then Jewish messianic sects in competition, or an allegory of Hebrew Yom Kippur: one goat (without blemish) is sacrificed, and a scapegoat is set free to atone for sins. Carrier (2014:407) explains:” The Christian book of Barnabas discerns another aspect of Mark's allegory-...-Observe how in Mark's story Jesus is treated by the Jews exactly like the scapegoat: scorned and beaten and spat upon and dressed in scarlet and crowned and pierced, yet Barabbas is the actual scapegoat, whom the Jews embrace instead of abuse. So the Jews have not correctly discerned who the actual scapegoat is and who the actual sin offering is. Mark has thus created an allegory for Jewish blindness to what Jesus represents, the Jews choosing instead their sins over their salvationJesus Barabbas, instead of Jesus Christ.”. Already in the III century CE, Origen was troubled to find a “Jesus Barabbas” because a holy name such as”Jesus” (echo of such name as a generic title) didn't suit a bandit such as Barabbas. 1788
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Lantern and Sinestro in the comics. In Hindu Brahmanda Purana (IV-X century CE), three eggs emerged from the great goddess Adi Lakshmi (primeval Lakshmi). From the three eggs Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva emerged with a female counterpart (Parvati, Lakshmi, Saraswati): the couples were shuffled and married to each other.
Who is it that emerges from the river Jabbok to wrestle with Jacob? Pointedly, the text refuses to say. "Why is it that you ask my name?" But it is clear to me: we are dealing with the river god, Jabbok. His name is just a reshuffling of the same letters as the name Jacob (in all Semitic languages word roots are repeated combinations of three consonants, their order and the vowels between them being the differentiating element distinguishing related words from each other). And in the story's end, what happens? The opponent tells Jacob, "You will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, since you have striven with God and prevailed." In short, they are wrestling for the name, which both of them claim, just as Jacob fears he must fight his brother Esau for the birthright of their father. The name, given by the father, stands here for the birthright. Here is the importance of the pun. What about the hierarchy? The whole Bible presupposes the hierarchical subordination of human beings to God. Yet here is a text in which God appears in human form and loses a wrestling match with a man. He wins, true, but only by cheating. There is a very faint line between Jacob and his God, between Jacob and his brother, and between Jacob and his own alter-ego or super-ego. Indeed they are all the same. That to which man feels most responsible is actually his own creation, his own conscience created by him and his peers and reified as a god. (Deconstruction 2017:4). The thrown-away, pencil-necked sweat-hog and the superhero are
doppelgaengers: Donald Duck becomes the vigilante Duck Avenger; Goofy becomes Super Goof wearing a pajama and a potato sack as cape.
Popular culture couldn't lag far behind 1791. The Dark Half (1993); 1791
A viewer compiled a casual list of movies with a doppelgaenger motif:http://www.imdb.com/list/ls073346343? ref_=tt_rls_5
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Megaloman (1979); The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970); E' Arrivato Mio Fratello (1985); Non C'è Due Senza Quattro (1984) among others see people ( a businessman in The Man Who Haunted Himself; Brazilian millionaires in Non C'è
Due Senza Quattro; a school teacher in E' Arrivato Mio Fratello; a hero who transforms into a giant to fight outer space foes in Megaloman; an acclaimed writer in The Dark Half) grappling with the overt (1984,1985) or elusive (1979,1970,1993) presence of a doppelgaenger as harbinger of doom, confusion and so forth.
The doppelgaenger may either be summoned into one's life (1984); may enter it against one's will (1979,1985); or work supernatural havoc from out of sight (1970,1993). The nature of such doppelgaenger can be that of a sibling, either long lost (1979), or estranged (1985); of bums hired to act as doubles (1984); of a somewhat biological double (1993); or of one's “countercultural half” (1970).
Young Jason is initially ridiculed as a bumbling “Bruce Lee freak”; Rocky Balboa is originally a drudging nitwit in suburban Philadelphia:”he sees himself in two roles -...- the role of the clown, that's the outer role that he plays -...- inside he's the savior and he knows it”. In the end, Jason Stillwell (No Retreat No
Surrender) defeats a Soviet foe to become Seattle's hero; Rocky becomes a boxing superstar.
Sherman1792 clinches that “four basic points about Doubling can be gleaned”: 1792
1993:31ss.
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1. “Doubling has a mor(t)al aspect. As Otto Rank has pointed out, the experience of encountering one's Doppelganger has become associated with mortality rather than protection. The "subtext" to many Doubling stories is a character's "hubris" of sorts which somehow generates or perpetuates fragmentation of the Self, and thus is the cause of the conflict in the story.”. 2. “Doubling can be seen as synonymous with chaos, whether it develop within the story or be in medias res when we first encounter the characters.”. 3. “Doubling is not merely limited to division of a Self into antithetical dualistic "sides," but can be viewed as fragmentation or decomposition manifest (through multiplication, rather than division) in several characters of an attitude or "type."”. 4. “Doubles exist not merely as emblems of conflict but as manifestations of a deeper structure dealing with issues of wholeness, normalcy, propriety, and order.”. Could popular culture lag far behind? The relentless pursuit of “hyperreal repetition” and the doppelgaenger knows no bounds. U.S doll brand My
American Girl specializes in letting girl clients create a doll that is their exact doppelgaenger according to a myriad of variables such as eye/skin color, hairdo, ear piercing, outfits, accessories etc. In Japan, robotics engineers try to improve robots in order for them to look and act progressively “more human than human”: the slow but steady progress towards hyperreality.
The same logic of an engineered hyperreality recurs endlessly in the media. Televised productions of the 1970s induced Afro- and Italo-Americans into the American dream mainstream by catering to the community's inner narcissism, thus leading to feelings of grandiosity and consequential inflation. Still in 1988, Greek-American Michael Dukakis was generally not deemed “American enough” to
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stand a chance of being elected President.
All of these well-intentioned folks take it for granted that a high level of self-confidence, even narcissism, leads to success. There’s only one thing wrong with this popular, pervasive, and deeply rooted belief: it’s not true. -...-In other words, overconfidence backfires. This makes some sense; narcissists are lousy at taking criticism and learning from mistakes. -...- Third, overconfidence itself can lead to poor performance. If you think you know all of the answers, there’s no need to study.(Twenge&Campbell 2009:32). In a narcissistic cathexis, you invest more energy into your ideas about another person than in the actual, objective, external person (graphic artist Alison Bechdel) Brutish displays of physicality (dancing, boxing, singing, going native etc) were once again the hallmarks of a reversed Darwinian logic undergirding the irresistible ascent of yet another oppressed minority that suffered so much: compliments are lavished upon the same; judicial leniency never abates in an unending stream of narcissistic supply.
When it comes to the victimology poker, I hold the cards (JewishLebanese Gad Saad in 2016, Research chair in Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences And Darwinian Consumption). When my piano teacher tells me I did a great job playing, she saves herself the awkwardness and guilt of disparaging my performance, and I get to walk around thinking about what a great piano player I am. This point is so straightforward that it is often overlooked, but it forms an essential component of our complicity with liars. In many cases, a liar and the target of the lie both benefit from the lie’s success. (Feldman 2009:29). Bestial displays of physicality seem correlated with the African diaspora. Folklore relates bestial physicality with magical qualities: frogs – symbols of
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regeneration, metamorphosis, life and good fortune as often likened to the sun that raises from and disappears into water- solve complicate riddles, then turn into awesome young brides or grooms. Egyptian “frog goddess” Heqet (patroness of midwives) infuses a soul into each newborn, Horus included.
If biblical Hebrews fantasized about the Egyptians and their “large genitals”1793, popular culture nowadays sets Congoids -perhaps in a fluorescent banana hammock costume as commodification might demand- as having supersized phalli. R.E. Hood suggests the satyrs -mythological creatures of ancient Greeceshared Negroid traits, big genitals and unbridled sexual passion. Heritage of Black slaves, capoeira (Brazil) and moringue (Réunion) mix equal parts of dance and acrobatic martial arts.
If Confucius and Gautama Buddha had the usnisa (skull protuberance); if Pythagoras had a golden thigh that signaled a wondrous birth, so Congoids and other beloved inhabitants of an haunted collective psyche share (possible) anatomical peculiarities that -just like Feirefiz, De Valera, Bob Marley, P.E. Trudeau or Obama- make them harbingers of a new dawn.
Bestial displays of physicality do not preclude but affirm immense (presumed) spiritual boons: the African diaspora and the Gospel culture, or
négritude1794; the splendid spirituality of Muslim immigrants; the superb family or 1793 1794
Ezekiel 16:26. A Mandela-esque interpretation of the situation of Black people fraught with contradictions; it is associated typically with French-speaking Blacks.
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patriotic values of people from Southern Italy who also emigrate(d)...
Human nature is typically perceived as most authentic when most bestial: vulgarity equals authenticity; authenticity triggers synchronicity. A maniac cachinnates in hyperaesthesia as he obliterates frail little creatures; frail little creatures scream, shiver, moan away...
A transgressor now in the dock grabs his sick bucket or chamber pot to indulge his foul bodily urges in a courtroom; jurors can thus join their hands in worship of such gage of common humanity. The time has come for the Zoroastrian choice: will society hold grudges, proffer harsh judgments that may prove false, or choose reconciliation? “The circumstances seem changed but the cliche is in one's psyche”.
Six-time Mr. Olympia, British bodybuilder Dorian Yates was associated with the image he would squat so much weight that it caused him to throw up afterward; people are in awe at such herculean display of manliness. Again, the world of trauma -with its dorsal-vagal complex bursts- is at hand:”Trauma is an indivisible part of human existence. It takes many forms but spares no one.”1795.
Bodybuilding can be indifferently associated with brutish manliness in spite of a thick queer (for example waxing, spandex clothing) and homoerotic subtext. Vulgarity implies authenticity (ethos=credibility), and authenticity prompts
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Epstein 2013:10.
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synchronicity (=a not-guilty verdict, refugee status etc).
Nietzsche quips:”There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy ”. According to J.B. Peterson, for Carl Rogers the organism (=body) takes the place of god. The body “tells the truth” because it is sort of omniscient.
It is a common religionistic shenanigan to urge potential adepts to “listen to their hearts” in order to determine whether the hot flushes one experiences while listening to a (novelized, abridged, condensed) account of Joseph Smith's lynching mean Mormonism is god's true religion:”What Bill Clinton is like is, when he says that to you, you believe it in your heart. ” 1796;”Just as a pure cloth would take the dye evenly, there arose to the Brahmin Brahmàyu the pure and stainless eye of the Teaching [of the Buddha]”1797;”a mystic is a man who treats his feelings as tools of cognition. He knows he's right -...- because he feels he's right”;”There is no outsider qualified to check and tell whether the mystic's experience is genuine or not.”.
In 1970, Osho Rajneesh introduced the “dynamic meditation”: frantic movement, scream, cry and laughter outbursts interspersed with catatonic moments as a way for devotees to reach the godhead.
These attempts are often engineered masquerades (=hyper-reality) well1796 1797
Hughes 2012:no page. Brahmayu Sutta. After the meeting, the famed Vedic master Brahmayu dies. Upon hearing the news, Buddha comments how the scholar has reached the stage of anagami, namely a consciousness reborn only once in the Heaven Of The Pure Abodes. There in heaven, Non-returners reach full enlightenment.
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wishers and media people remotely control: in Italy in 2014, no individual with the family name “Balboa” is to be found on phone books nationwide. The hero of
Happy Days (1974-84) is a leather clad, blue collar Renaissance man bully named Arthur Fonzarelli. The Italo-mania of the 1970s is set in hyper-real 1950s: in 2014 no person named Fonzarelli appears in Italian phone books nationwide. Each time he starred in his 'alpha male' role as James Bond, Sean Connery wore hair replacement. While filming his blockbusting part in The Blues Brothers, John Belushi was allegedly under the influence of drugs.
The actor who won interminable accolades for playing an 'authentic' Italo-American gangster was in reality Jewish-American actor James Caan. Another icon of Italian cult movies -whether playing dysfunctional, murderous sociopaths in violent Charles Bronson copycats; or jolly nitwit-tricksters in grotesque comedy movies – was transplanted Cuban actor Tomas Milian (T.Q. Rodriguez). He represented an icon of Italianness on screen, highly proficient in provincial lingo
romanesco that voice actors -unbeknownst to the general public- afforded him: hyperreality steals the day. Informants for hire and agents provocateurs direct extremist groups enacting scripts that security agencies or minority lobbies supply: hyperreality steals the day once more.
Such controversial figures as Hercules, Alexander and so forth, could come to embody so many disparate qualities according to which variation of their myth people focused on. Hercules had fathered offspring all across Greece, yet had
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homoerotic relationships, too, and had as well served in the garb of a woman 1798. He had wounded Zeus' wife Hera; he had savagely murdered his wife, children, and his mentor Linus1799.
The next day an evil spirit from God came forcefully on Saul. He was prophesying in his house, while David was playing the lyre, as he usually did. Saul had a spear in his hand and he hurled it, saying to himself, "I'll pin David to the wall." But David eluded him twice. (1 Samuel 18:10-11). Father Zeus, great is the blindness you send to men. (Achilles in the Iliad, XIX:288). I dread the woes to come; for well I know When once the mind's corrupted it brings forth Unnumbered crimes, and ills to ills succeed. (Philoctetes speaks, Sophocles, Philoctetes, Francklin trans.). Yet, Hercules had been the one going on labors to atone for his sins; through his suffering he had become Heracles (glory of/through Hera depending on interpretation); he had delivered various people from danger; he (in the oft-repeated fable of Hercules At The Crossroad) had chosen the painful road to virtue rather than the easy way of vice.
Just like Jesus' sacrifice defeats death according to Christian doctrine, so
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Achilles and Arjuna too had their stint in a woman's garb. Very common mythological mytheme of transgression, trial and redemption. Yoruba god Ogun:”went into battle while under the influence of palm wine, and in a drunken rage slew friends and foes alike -...-Withdrawing to the surrounding hills, he spent his time beating swords into plowshares as a farmer (and/or a hunter). He did not give up alcohol, however, and neither do his devotees. In another version of the story, Ogun turned his sword on himself after he saw what he had done and then disappeared into the earth. ” (Prothero 2010:75). “Beating swords into plowshares” recurs in the Hebrew Bible ( Isaiah 2:4; Micah 4:3) although the opposite advice is also given:”Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weakling say, "I am strong!"” (Joel 3:10).”[Jesus] said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.” (Luke 22:36).
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Hercules – in the myth of Admetus and Alcestis 1800- literally wrestles with Death personified in order to save a soul from the nether world. Siegel 1801 relates how a patient in therapy for drug and alcohol addiction was haunted by a dream in which he had to choose paths at an intersection: an easy path leading to a sewer, and a difficult path leading out.
Modern mythologies are not so different: the divine revelation made to Prophet Smith -who founded the Mormon/LDS religion- involved a set of fixed attitudes, including polygamy1802, and the place of people of color in the greater scheme of things1803.
Alternatively, the idea of European culture as emanation of “aryan” culture of immemorial eastern origin was for a long time subject of posh and mainstream academic and cultural discussion all over the European world, before distressed scholars after WWII turned the concept into the discredited voodoo doll of pseudo-science only charlatans would take seriously. Eckel 1804 states that countries as apart as Ireland and Iran derive their names from the root “Aryan”.
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Through intervention of his friend the god Apollo, Admetus performed striking feats that gained him superb princess Alcestis in marriage. As a marriage gift, Apollo promised Admetus that death would not strike him in due time only if he could find someone voluntarily to take his place in the nether world. When time comes, Alcestis willingly takes her husband's place. According to Euripides' version, Hercules visits the palace. Having been informed of what has happened, he ventures to the nether world, literally wrestles with -and overcomesDeath personified, thus restoring Alcestis to the realm of the living. For three days (=common mytheme) shall Alcestis stay pale and mute before recovering her full health. 1801 2014:Interrupting Addiction And Troublesome Habits. 1802 Mormon leader Brigham Young wrote in 1867:”The only men who become gods, even the sons of god, are those who enter into polygamy”. 1803 The Mormons 2006. 1804 2003: lecture 2.
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Again, this is not the venue to discuss the ultimate validity, veracity or historicity of Smith's teachings: readers shall think what they deem fit. Suffice is to say a collectivity believed in them as a divine truth upon which to base their own life at then considerable risk. Yet over time, polygamy was not only officially abandoned but condemned and prosecuted. In 1978, a IRS ruling in the U.S under Carter nullified the tax-exempt status relating to White-only private schools in the South born to circumvent desegregation.
LDS doctrine seemed steadfast on the racial front. Still in 1967, the LDS Church (The Church And The Negro) defiantly proclaimed that:” Therefore, those who hope that pressure will bring about a revelation need to take a closer look at Mormon history and the order of heaven ”1805. In 1958, Mormon Apostle McConkie had written:”Negroes are not equal with other races where the receipt of certain spiritual blessings are concerned ”; in 1954, Apostle M.E. Petersen had told that “I think the lord segregated the Negro and who is man to change that segregation?”. Doctrine was to cave in under political expediency, however. In 1978, a “revelation” consequentially announced -albeit indirectly- that people of color were not only to be tolerated, but heightened within the Mormon religion.
The items of the “mark” or “seed of Cain” used in early Mormon theology to refer to Black skin color - alleged gage of a quintessential sin 1806- had 1805
Mormon Bishop dr. J.L. Lund. It's highly ironical that is precisely what happened when a “revelation” whitewashed people of color in 1978. The savior and the clown keep swapping seats. 1806 In the Grail cycle of romances, black and white allegorically represent the admixture of resoluteness and irresoluteness that epitomize human life. In the example at hand, the improper resolve at the time of the quintessential transgression. Another connection between Mormonism and the Grail cycle exists. The witnesses
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gradually faded into both political insignificance (= friendly constituency in sharp decline), and political inopportuneness (= hostile constituency in sharp increase):
And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them. (2 Nephi 5:21). And their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites (3 Nephi 2:15). Mormonism is not the only religion that undergoes major refurbishing to go along with what's popular in a given season. Not without contradiction, Pope Francis I flirts with categories of former sinners such as homosexuals and divorcees. Therapist Powell1807, who serves the public in the U.S Bible Belt, routinely advises Christian fundamentalists -who are parenting GLBT children in the process of “coming out” sexually- to pick their fights carefully: unless they give their worldview up at least in that part, their children are “lost” to their faith, eventually.
The Dalai Lama is supposed to have assured his U.S donors and supporters how the Twin Towers attack was in no way a karmic retribution, but mere happenstance. Others get all hot and bothered elatedly making exceptions when the notion of karma is applied to this or that group, but not to groups hostile that claimed to have allegedly seen the golden plates founder Smith had professedly received from the angel Moroni, from which Smith translated the Book Of Mormon, appeared to them covered with a cloth, just as the Grail appears at Arthur's court before the knights embark on their quest ( Queste Del Saint Graal, XIII century): divine coincidence. 1807 2016.
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to one's pet category: accommodated truths, indeed.
Karma proves a very handy tool when wishfully ethicizing the wrath of the righteous: a deluge of incendiary bombs, and invading troops, brought about the fall of Hitler, Mussolini, Saddam Hussein, the Taliban regime...just paybacks for their godless misdeeds. When karma is applied to various categories of terrorism, genocide or oppression victims, it becomes “blaming the victim�: that's such an unacceptable stance1808; an incensed lawyer may be ready to press charges if one persists.
Professor of Buddhist and comparative philosophy, Loy also analyzes the Theravada Buddhist Pali canon. Unwelcome stances -such as the status of women or conservatism- are considered as interpolations and perversions of the Buddha's thought on the part of scribes with vested interests, for the Buddha was a true revolutionary1809. Some even dispense with the notion of karma altogether.
Of course, the Pali -or Christian, Sikh, Confucian...- canon might be but a patchwork of loosely interconnected traditions claiming what they all state to be direct, but which is in all cases a rough one, filiation from a supreme sage that sources claim died at some point between the III and X century BCE. This loose agglomeration of oral traditions was then put in writing and subjected to scribal interpolations, and various rows of authentication. At this point, what could be considered 'true'? What resonates best with who's telling the story, of course. 1808 1809
Loy 2012. 2012.
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The highly diverse lump of texts “jibes”, “resonates”, “makes sense” to humans, regardless of whether Buddhism or Abrahamic religions are at stake, precisely because it stimulates human mind's obscure vortexes: humans join their hands revering “revelations” from above (the Quran, Gautama Buddha's doctrine he preached in heaven to his mother, or the Bible) or from below (Mahayana Buddhist texts serpent-beings from the nether world had preserved; the “caverns” of Taoist wisdom).
As it moved east into China, Buddhism confronted Confucianism, and the accusation of lacking filial piety. Buddhist doctrines were thus reworked in China in order to accommodate filial piety's pivotal role. In the Pure Land tradition, filial piety becomes the cardinal virtue from which all others strictly depend. What amounted to an expedient adaptation to local socio-political conditions in I century CE China was then backdated as a faithful reflection of what an Indian sage had taught XI centuries earlier. Nowadays, filial piety is so well woven into oriental Buddhism that parents are designated as “personal Buddhas” (Japan) or as “Bodhisattvas of the home” (Chinese Buddhist milieus).
Ven. Wuling (Pure Land Mahayana Buddhist monastic) expressly states that Theravada Buddhism did not fare well in China as Taoism and Confucianism had already shaped Chinese folkways: that's how Mahayana Buddhism thrived instead. Eastwards still, Chinese Buddhism docking in Japan had to be refurbished to coexist with cherished local religions such as Shinto (animistic cult devoted to
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nature spirits), Imperial cults etc.
The opposite may also happen. The U.S Republican party is construed -in today's common man's perception at least- as having markedly defended religious and very conservative values since time immemorial: the backdating strategy works.
Prothero tells a different story:
In the early 1990s a double-digit “God gap” opened up among frequent worshippers between the Democrats (now understood as the secular party) and the Republicans (the “faith-based” alternative). During the 1960s and 1970s there had been no discernible party preference among religious practitioners; religious affiliation was politically irrelevant. In 1992, however, frequent worshippers (those who attend religious congregations at least once a week) preferred Bush the Elder over Bill Clinton by 14 percentage points. That gap widened to 20 percent in the 2000 Bush-Gore and the 2004 Bush-Kerry elections, dwarfing the proverbial gender gap. -...- Since Jimmy Carter, bornagain bona fides seems to have become a requirement for the Oval Office -...- [about the concept of “family values”:] Although this term sounds ancient, it is actually of recent vintage, first used in its current sense in the late 1960s and injected into American cultural politics in the late 1970s. The Republican Party platforms of 1976 and 1980 endorsed “family values” as an antidote to what conservatives saw as the moral degradation of American society brought on by the sexual revolution, rock ’n’ roll, and the counterculture. By the early 1980s this phrase—and related ones such as traditional values and moral values—had come to serve as code for opposition to “atheistic schools, rampaging crime, God-forsaken homes, drugs, abortion, pornography, permissiveness and a sense of cynicism and spiritual desolation absolutely unprecedented in our country’s history.”extnote (2007:42,178) Gamesmanship is ubiquitous. In contemporary Brunei, and during the later stages of the Saddam Hussein regime, religion was a card played to macadamize national unity around pretended charismatic leaders experiencing difficulties. In extnote
Prothero here quotes words from Jesse Helms, North-Carolina Republican Senator.
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spite of emphasizing a jumble of socialist and nationalist ideas, Chavez didn't shy away from occasional displays of Christian faith. Italian party Lega Nord was born a secular party – lider maximo Bossi had in fact been formerly active in a number of radical left-wing groups-, yet in recent years started to flatly champion Catholic identity as alleged bulwark against immigration in order to seek electoral fortune.
Quite an irony, since the Catholic Church in Italy has possibly been -rubbing elbow with the former Communist party- the biggest proponent of unrestricted immigration: empty churches and deserted “red festivals” need new blood.
Radical Marxist thinker Toni Negri is adamant. As Europe relocates factories or outsources abroad, and the local labour force specializes, the proletariat vanishes: immigrants from the world's hellholes are needed in order to supply new desperate storm troops that will finally put the long-awaited Marxist revolution in motion. It helps to ponder Negri was born as a thinker in the milieu of Venetian Catholicism.
Pope Francis I1810 severely chastises the Catholic Church for boiler room tactics. He calls for an end to the “the novice trade” ( tratta delle novizie), whereby the Catholic Church fishes for prospective clergy among the dejected from the poorest countries, whose only inducement to embrace Catholicism is represented by free room and board. Pope Francis I also urges to raise standards for the admission to 1810
ADNKRONOS, January 3, 2014.
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seminaries: current lax policies only create “little abominations� (piccoli mostri).
Lega Nord and the Vatican engage thus in a frantic tango mafioso, whereby they intermittently point at each other's comedies of innocence and bad faith. The Vatican can thus lambast Lega Nord as 'racist' and insensitive; Lega Nord can thus ridicule all the perfunctory atonement rituals this, that or another high prelate engage in regarding (illegal) immigration, and dare the Vatican to write a cheque to help with the costs, or to open its innumerable estates to help with the room and board to be provided to the much lionized 'common humanity fellows rightfully seeking greener grass'.
As far as the USA are concerned, Schulze 1811 usefully categorized public discourse with overt religious characterization according to six pivotal points:
1. The rhetoric of conversion;
2. The rhetoric of discernment;
3. The rhetoric of communion;
4. The rhetoric of exile; or -as the present writer suggests- the rhetoric of the recapture of bygone times.
5. The rhetoric of praise.
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2003:7ss.
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After WWII in many quarters Christianity -which had been built in the name of the difference from, and often in antagonism with Judaism- was re-branded Judaeo-Christianity, despite the fact that Jesus had admonished his fellow Jews thus:
You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. (John 8:44). Mormons, too, started to emphasize their Christian beliefs (=we're all just Christians) in order to clip a few edges to bridge towards the mainstream. Pure Land Mahayana Buddhism also bridges towards the mainstream 1812 by emphasizing how Buddhism constitutes a system of education, not a religion. Emphasis is also put on the absence of ritual and ceremony in Pure Land Buddhism as faithful reflection of Gautama Buddha's 'true teachings'.
Some consider Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christianity just 'Abrahamic religions' on equal footing with Judaism. In some Muslim milieus, emphasis is put on the figure of Jesus, also a prophet of that religion, in order to bridge towards the Christian mainstream in their environment. The Dalai Lama also called Jesus a Bodhisattva.
It is in fact fashionable to x-ray old books seeking blacklisted buzzwords – such as “lower races”, “Aryan”1813 etc-; and/or unspeakable buzz-concepts: 1812 1813
For example as Buddhist monastic ven. Wuling (Pure Land Buddhism) described. Campbell (1969-3;1972-2:Man&Myth Through The Ages II ) did incidentally describe NSDAP's 'aryan' mythology as disproven, unscholarly and unihistorical.
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A reticular activator is a device that allows you to describe what people will literally see or experience after talking to you that will remind them of your conversation or presentation. With a reticular activator, you are simply tying pieces into your story that will remind people and pull them back into the ideas and emotion of your story at a later date. (Lakhani 2005:152). Campbell's statement about European civilization being the oldest and not the youngest1814 - to give one example - may lead to wild guesses about how many corpses were piled under the bed of such despicable people harboring such awful ideas and impure allegiances. As well, Irish-American Campbell's enthusiasm for European culture transpires as he describes stone-age caves in Europe possibly going back 100.000 years BCE: more appropriate estimates 1815 suggest 15/16.000 years BCE for the notable Altamira caves.
British surgeon, hygienist and mythologist T. Inman (1820-76) refers to Jews in terms of “miserable”, “contemptible as slaves and ignorant bigots, as well as for the vice of braggartism” 1816. Of course, Inman heaps scorn and ridicule upon other groups as well, for he was riding the Victorian fixation with demythologization and scientism.
It is staggering, however, to remark that people like Inman were their time's version of today's scientistic opponents of religion a la Dawkins. In very few instances, J.Campbell refers to Hebrews as “The Jewish race” in passing and with no apparent malice, yet such opinions or wording may today not just rise concerns in 1814 1815 1816
Concept expressed for example in Campbell (1967). Hale 2009:Hunting Magic In Sacred Caves. 1873:390.
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polite company, but in courts of law as well.
Instant, uncomplimentary psychological profiles may be also drafted:”we call people mentally ill when their personal conduct violates certain ethical, political, and social norms.”; society cannot tolerate dissent and doubt creeping in.
The most important work on communicating with children was carried out by psychologist Haim Ginott, who, in his book Between Parent and Child, writes, “Many people have been educated out of knowing what their feelings are. When they hated, they were told it was only dislike. When they were afraid, they were told there was nothing to be afraid of. When they felt pain, they were advised to be brave and smile.” Ginott advocates telling children the truth instead—that hate is hate, that fear is fear, that pain is pain. (BenShahar 2011:54). The subject thus becomes inherently tainted, impure, infectious... Even Hinayana Buddhist discipline codes prescribe that a monk is not liable for transgressions committed under the spell of insanity (amulhavinaya).
Religionists claim that atheists suffer from unresolved psychological issues: that's why atheists -according to Freudian categories- want to get rid of the heavenly father: an ersatz for defective or abusive earthly fathers.
Atheists reply that broken families and unresolved issues are the norm nowadays. That's why religionists put a figment of their own disturbed imagination up in the clouds to serve as heavenly ersatz of father/authority figures who failed, welched on or traumatized them on earth:
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The child is at the mercy of his godlike parents and, like the ancient Greeks, never knows when the next lightning bolt will strike. But the child of toxic parents knows that the lightning is coming sooner or later. This fear becomes deeply ingrained and grows with the child. At the core of every formerly mistreated adult—even high achievers—is a little child who feels powerless and afraid. (Forward&Buck 1989:18). Joseph Campbell (1904-87) and Hulk Hogan (of all people) did not escape such treatment1817:
It is not Judaism alone indeed that visibly aroused in Joseph Campbell an anger that he could hardly control. -...- Robert A. Segal, author of Joseph Campbell: An Introduction, testifies that not only Campbell's comments to his friends but his published writing (as we ourselves have seen) make clear that he was an anti-Semite. In his books Campbell "invariably disparaged Judaism as literalistic, chauvinistic and parochial-stock anti- Semitic epithets ” -...- In this we can perhaps see the joint root of Campbell's black anger against Judaism and his native Catholicism (Friedman 1998:397-98). Indeed, can we make moral judgments about works of art without making judgments about the artist? Consider the antisemitism, say, of a Joseph Campbell. Surely, if anti-Semitism is integral to his works, then these works are rooted in falsehoods and evil and need be studied only as Mein Kampf is studied, that is, for their historical interest. If it is not integral, then why can we not, together with the deconstructionists, separate the writing from the man? Why can we not deal with the writings as autonomous creations? (Polak in Harrowitz 1994:278). Another strategy that yields high recall is “hero AND myth AND 1817
Konner et alii 1989: no page. What sparked the controversy was -as far as the present writer can guess- an anecdote Campbell told over and over about an (inopportune) question Campbell asked Jewish-Austrian philosopher Buber during a conference. As an expert mythologist, Campbell ought to have known better. Without a significant background, Campbell's exchange with Buber remains obscure to say the least. Readers be the ultimate judges of Campbell's evident faux-pas: here the present writer examines the payback meted out through the decades. To watch Campbell recount the anecdote, see Campbell (1989) Pharaoh's Rule. An episode in the first coherent video series (Campbell 1989: The World Of Joseph Campbell ) piecing together segments of Campbell's lectures over the years explicitly critiques the NSDAP regime. “But Hitler used Nietszche’s words, which is very unfortunate, because Nietzsche absolutely despised anti-Semitism and the idea of the state. In fact, he said, “The new idol is the state.” And that’s what Hitler represented. A horrible little man. His ideas were not Nietzsche’s.” (Campbell 1991:97).
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Campbell,” with 2,597 results. While the strategy has to be modified, it is impossible to ignore the first relevant record: “Joseph Campbell As Anti-Semite and As Theorist of Myth: A Response to Maurice Friedman” (Segal 1999). (Tal 2006:27). World Wrestling Entertainment has fired Hulk Hogan—whose legal name is Terry Bollea—after an audiotape of the pro wresting icon making racist comments surfaced Friday. -...- Several hours before, the pro wrestling organization's website removed all references to Hulk Hogan, the wrestler who came to fame in the 1980s. At the center of the brouhaha is a joint investigation by Radar Online and The National Enquirer, which reported this morning that Hogan criticized black people in a profanity-laden rant while repeatedly using the N-word [in a 2012 leaked sex video over which court cases are pending ever since]. (WWE Fires...2015:no page1818). Delitzch [deliverer of a Babel and the Bible comparative mythology lecture in Berlin in 1902] veered into antisemitism many scholars would say, in which he essentially said: well, the Hebrew people are responsible for this view that the Bible is ethically superior, and therefore we should distance ourselves from the Hebrew people, and from the Old Testament (Goldman 2003: The Epic Of Gilgamesh I). Those who track your behavior on social networks may know what you said last year, or what you did last month. Taken out of context, what you said and what you did might suggest some terrible behavior or desire, or at least an error in judgment. (Like an elephant, the Internet never forgets.) And if propagators know how people will react, especially within specified social networks, they will have an increased capacity to spread their preferred rumors. If people within those networks have known fears and hopes, it should be simple to play on those fears and hopes to spread alleged facts and indeed to ensure that a belief in those allegations becomes a kind of ghost, hovering over its victim, or even that it becomes deeply entrenched. (Sunstein 2014:49). Even Jung changed his register 1819 after WWII to -if not to completely 1818 1819
News footage covering the incident here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HagwZxO85t4 Chilean diplomat and Fascist intellectual Miguel Serrano, who claims to have been at some point Jung's correspondent, reports:”In my book published in England and the VS, C.G. Jung a Herman Hesse, A Record of Two Friendships, I explain the circumstances which brought me to meet Jung. He wrote the foreword for my book The Visits of the Queen of Sheeba. I think that this Swiss professor knew better than anyone else in our time who Hitler really was. In the book of Professor McQuyre, Jung Speakings, published by Princeton University Press, three interviews of Prof. Jung on Hitler are reproduced. One is in the Observer of London,
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reflect- at least acquiesce with the updated “popular morality”, “explanations or interpretations usually put forth”, “prevailing cultural trends”, “free-floating folk beliefs”, “only an old Phoenician tale of what has often occurred before now in other places”, “the audience’s pre-established set of convictions” and suchlike.
The image, legacy and character of the popular Swiss psychoanalyst and mythologist - as this writing contends all along- can be indifferently used to make the case for a bizarre salad bar of occult themes revolving around demonic possession, altered states of consciousness and psychophonia (radio or phone talks another in an American newspaper and the third in the Radio Berlin, at the end of 1938. In these interviews Jung stated that Hitler was possessed by the collective unconscious of the Aryan race. This means that Hitler was the spokesman of the whole Aryan world. -...- Immediately after the war he started to change and made some very shameful statements about Hitler and the German people. These statements I didn't know until very recently, and have made me lose part of my admiration for the Jung personality. -...-Nevertheless, Jung was a cunning and opportunistic man, as I can visualize it today. When Hitler was in full power and National Socialism on top, Jung coined the concept of the "two unconcsious" which was a lethal weapon against the Jews and the Freudians. After the war this concept disappeared from his writings in such a way that today it is impossible to find it in his complete works. I have a book published in Argentina in 1939 under the name of El Yo y el Inconsciente ("I And The Unconscious) where it is explained. Moreover, Jung took a Jewish woman as a secretary. ” ([sic] Serrano 1995: no page, emphasis added).For actual footage of Jung's backpedaling, see Wagner 1990, where – in the 1950s- the famous thinker asserts he had been identifying -and issuing public warnings about- the rise of evil since 1919. The versatile Swiss psychoanalyst may have put more than one hat alternatively on:”It has also come to light that Jung operated as a spy for the OSS (the predecessor to the CIA). He was called "Agent 488" and his handler, Allen W. Dulles, later remarked: "Nobody will probably ever know how much Prof Jung contributed to the allied cause during the war." ” (Vernon 2011: no page). In his 1933 Eranos Lectures, Jung defines the NSDAP counterclockwise swastika as the epitome of a movement towards the unconscious. In 1936, Jung defines the swastika as a “mandala”, “unconscious collective attempt at the formation of a compensatory unified personality”. In September 1945, Jung updates his memory in a letter to Mary Mellon to mean he had predicted back in time how the the counterclockwise swastika meant a descent into the unconscious and evil. Just as it is the case with Mitterrand, Cole, de Man and their ilk, was 'the great man' an underground “good guy” who fooled the “bad guys” all along? The other way around? What about a gamesman who covered his bets on all tables, and fooled everybody at the same time? During the early French Revolution, Mirabeau “worked” both for (and against) the royalist and republican side. The item of Jung as U.S undercover “agent 488”originally comes from a 2003 biography by D. Bair. W. and L. Schoenl -who researched the topic of Jung and Nazi Germany in the 2016 book Jung's Evolving Views Of Nazi Germany - come to a less glamorous conclusion. The Schoenls relate how Jung alleged to have been on a “GESTAPO black list”, and blamed the allegations of his being a Nazi sympathizer on U.S “Freudian Jews”. Jung's opinion about Hitler as desperate and ready to commit suicide had been passed on to Dulles by Mary Bancroft, a friend of both Jung and Dulles: quite a different picture from Jung as a sort of “caped crusader” in pursuit of Nazis. In a game that is very common, one source gets cited -often without proper attribution- by many (J.B Peterson, for example) “as fact” , as if to simulate multiple attestation and validation that never took place:“If you tell the same story five times, it’s true.” (White House spokesman Speakes in 1983).
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allegedly underway with the dead) – as in an episode of Spanish TV program Cuarto
Milenio-; or – as in the 1989 UK TV program Carl Jung: The Wisdom Of The Dream- to claim that Jung advocated a return to religion, and wanted to show there was such thing as a soul.
All the rage as number one public concern in Europe in the 1980s, HIV/AIDS stopped being harped on gradually in the 1990s as unchecked African 1820 immigration flooded (enriched, found salvation in...) Europe. The GLBT community -to which the AIDS epidemic had originally been (in)appropriately linked- had grown stronger, and a diverse crowd of post-Communists and Catholics alike were interested in recruiting the new pariahs en masse to reverse the decline of their 'great cause'.
In 2014, as refugees from Syria land in Italy, many cases of scabies, TBC and other such infectious diseases allegedly appear among them as they are shuttled back and forth on school buses Italian students typically use: news agencies and big time press shun the topic confined to local outlets and polemic blogs. Boat-people are also routinely infected with TBC, scabies and other infections that had been eradicated from European soil.
Illnesses and infections European colonizers brought to the faraway places they invaded are, however, a favorite topic for xeroxed moral outrage outbursts: what is the purpose of standards if they cannot be redefined to suit the 1820
HIV/AIDS is rampant in Sub-saharan Africa according to many sources:http://www.womenshealth.gov/hivaids/aids-worldwide/.
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moment's adventitious priorities?
Prigs and dolts are thus called to make their Zoroastrian choice in another existential operetta. Politicians park their limousines and marshal their bodyguards to deliver vibrant speeches a ghost writer for hire littered with mythological images that show “the kind of person” they are.
The fight against contamination is too good to let go, however, so the more 'politically correct' swine flu, mad cow disease, avian flu, chicken flu, Chinese flu, Mexican flu, Ebola and what not appear over time:
We have the problem of AIDS and changing sexual mores, so if my principle of banalisation is right, how would a rational apparatus react to that? By talking about it so much, about sex with your mum, with your dad, with your sisters, with your uncles, with your aunts… transsexuals, multisexuals, polysexuals, you will just talk about it until the whole subject will become banal. (Roderick 1993:Marcuse And One-Dimensional Man). Sex is everywhere, in all its permutations -...- In fact, there’s no story to the story at all. Sex is separated from the story that brought it into being. -...-But this particular type of sexual activity seems less an expression of liberation than an acting out of underlying anxiety. -...-Perhaps these pretend libertines are not nearly as removed from the Puritan legacy as their Saturday night romps would lead us to believe. Their furtive encounters are not exactly a celebration of the pleasures of the flesh. If there wasn’t at least a shred of moral dissonance in their desire for sex, they might not need to get hammered in order to have it. If they were more comfortable with sex, they would actually place themselves in the heart of it and would want to remember it. -...- Single sex isn’t supposed to prepare you for committed sex. If anything, it’s seen as the last hurrah before a lifetime of sexual decline. (Perel 2006:90,94,96-97).
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Rather, the multiple cross-influence of folklore with court testimony and the news media is to be suspected, with the folk raconteur usually making a better tale of it than either lawyers or journalists. Storytellers somewhere up the line may well have read a corroborating news story. It is interesting to note that while oral tradition often states or implies that many thousands of dollars were won in law suits against soft drink bottlers [for “rat in the bottle” kind of scenes], the actual monetary awards in thirty-five cases reviewed by Professor Fine ranged from $50 to $20,000, with the median award being only $1,000 and the mean $1,727. Very few—if any—folk informants ever have a news clipping about foreign matter in food to back up their claims that the story they know is a true one. Their “evidence” remains in oral tradition. Recent food rumors are usually only summary accounts based on unverifiable descriptions of supposed news stories, and they are thus probably legends in the making. (Brunvand 1981:56). As shown above, the same pathetic images/similes can be invoked to sympathize with any and all causes, any and all groups: commercially farmed animals,
pedophiles,
illegal
immigrants,
corrupt
officials,
inept/dishonest
administrators and all craftsmen (plumbers, electricians...), serial killers and other felons...
After all, didn't this, that or another meek savior-hero preach absolute compassion, and the turning of the other cheek? Didn't he forewarn us about the hazards of rash judgments, for we are potentially as tainted as those we accuse? Of course -in the lore-, the savior-hero may also wield the rod of iron, just in case the opposite chances to apply:
Not the faults of others, nor what others have done or left undone, but one's own deeds, done and left undone, should one consider. (Gautama Buddha, Dhammapada) You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you 1419
will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. (Matthew 7:5). Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You will break them with a rod of iron; you will dash them to pieces like pottery. (Psalm 2:8-9). Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. "He will rule them with an iron scepter." He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. ( Revelation 19:15). Ancient Sophists typically embraced a very situational view that made no room for absolute truth or established versions: every argument could indifferently be defended and/or debunked (antinomies).
To put this 'flexibility' to test, and to show his ability, famed Gorgias wrote an Encomium Of Helen to vindicate the sort of Helen of Troy; he turned the received persona of the accursed adulteress -whose profligacy had wrought so much harm on the Greek world- into a basically unaccountable victim succumbing to overwhelming forces. The same treatment could be reserved to another Helen, Eve, now a gullible victim, whose innocence the devil exploits in a constellation of apocryphal texts called Life Of Adam and Eve (I century CE or later).
It is possible to punch holes in about everything. Vandiver 1821 picks apart Joseph Campbell's theories (or what she believes Campbell's main points are, anyways). Her punchline rests on the following example: snakes cannot be said to absolve the same function cross-culturally because in the Greek world they are
1821
2000: Why Is Myth.
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associated with positive imagery, whereas this imagery is negative in the JudaeoChristian tradition.
It is incredibly easy to make her example collapse: in Numbers 21:9 “Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived. “; Jesus ( John 3:14) said: “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up”. According to Campbell1822, the imagery of the serpent and the staff -later Hermes' caduceus- dated from 2.000 BCE ( libation cup of King Gudea of Lagash 1823). R.M. Price labels Moses a solar figure: Moses handles the staff with the serpent to heal people just as Apollo the healing sun-god handles the caduceus.
The serpent (as most of these mythic figures) is represented as the custodian of some 'x force' of immense power (knowledge, wealth, eternal life, etc), good or bad according to the times, cultural context and the priorities of those employing the allegory. In Hindu mythology, the serpent-King is instrumental in bringing forth the elixir of immortality. Elsewhere, the serpent-King also presents the cup of the elixir of immortality1824. Later, the serpent-King rises to protect Gautama Buddha during crucial meditation; later still, serpent-beings bring Buddhist Mahayana scriptures to mankind. In the Christian world, the serpent might represent nature in its reaches farthest away from god; yet, the serpent, too, partakes of the intrinsically 'good' nature as god's creation and can -as in the 1822
1968b. Dedicated to the serpent-god Ningizzida, “lord of the tree of truth”. 1824 Campbell 1967a. 1823
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examples above- represent the ultimate salvation whenever god wills it. The snake, again, roams around the trees of knowledge and eternal life in the garden.
Schopenhauer reminded us:
This is chiefly practicable in a dispute between scholars in the presence of the unlearned. If you have no argument ad rem, and none either ad hominem, you can make one ad auditores; that is to say, you can start some invalid objection, which, however, only an expert sees to be invalid. Now your opponent is an expert, but those who form your audience are not, and accordingly in their eyes he is defeated; particularly if the objection which you make places him in any ridiculous light. People are ready to laugh, and you have the laughers on your side. (Schopenhauer 2004:15). Incidentally, the motif of lifting the great man or the great boon up as clinching acts is recurring. Ancient Celts used to decapitate enemies, and to lift the beheaded bodies up as war trophy. Perseus lifts Medusa's head up to defeat the Kraken monster; Chamberlain lifts the 1938 Munich agreement up as he disembarks; Hulk Hogan lifts the championship belt up. Krishna and other saviorheroes may be lifted up in the sky in the same way supporters may carry their favorite sportsman or politician shoulder-high in a sort of secular procession.
According to certain Protestant denominations, the Christian faithful of dispensationalism1825 shall be raptured in mid-air1826 to meet Jesus, being thus spared the tribulations preceding the day of judgment. Samuelsson shocked the religious world claiming that his analysis suggested that: 1825
A movement mostly associated with British evangelist J.N. Darby (1800-82). It reshuffled the deck of biblical apocalyptic stories recombining parts of each into a new narrative. 1826 “After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.� (1 Thessalonians 4:17).
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The Gospels do not say Jesus was crucified, Gunnar Samuelsson says. In fact, he argues, in the original Greek, the ancient texts reveal only that Jesus carried "some kind of torture or execution device" to a hill where "he was suspended" and died, says Samuelsson, who is an evangelical pastor as well as a New Testament scholar. -...-He spent three years reading for 12 hours a day, he says, and he noticed that the critical word normally translated as "crucify" doesn't necessarily mean that.-...-"This word is used in a much wider sense than 'crucifixion,'" he says. "It refers to hanging, to suspending vines in a vineyard," or to any type of suspension.-...-He found very little evidence of crucifixion as a method of execution, though he did find corpses being suspended, people being hanged from trees, and more gruesome methods of execution such as impaling people by the belly or rectum. The same Greek word was used to refer to all the different practices, he found.-...-At the time they were written, "there is no word in Greek, Latin, Aramaic or Hebrew that means crucifixion in the sense that we think of it," he says. It's only after the death of Jesus - and because of the death of Jesus - that the Greek word "stauroun" comes specifically to mean executing a person on the cross, he argues. (Greene 2010: no page). It is highly significant that crucifixion was an integral component of many of the Mystery Religions -...-.In the Mystery ritual the candidate for initiation was symbolically bound or “nailed” to a cross and even, in some rites, put into a hypnotic coma, to be wakened from “death” after three days, on Easter morning. -...-The story originated in Egypt, then came to be a framework for a ritualistic dramatization of death and resurrection. One of the secrets of the transformative dynamic of the Mystery Religions was the regular use of very specific rituals, dramatizations, sounds, lights, and other effects to recreate symbolically the inner changes of consciousness being portrayed . (Harpur1827 2005:148). O mito de Zalmoxis parece, de fato, ter sido imensamente mais conhecido e influente na Antiguidade greco-romana que nos dias atuais. Sua rejeição por parte da Igreja Apostólica Romana, ao que parece, pode ter sido a principal causa de seu desaparecimento das considerações no Ocidente. A razão mais assertiva para se sugerir essa causa é a quantidade de comparações entre Zalmoxis 1827
Ordained Anglican priest and former professor of New Testament.
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e Jesus nos primeiros séculos desta era. A figura emblemática de Zalmoxis parece ter sido fundamental para os Gregos antigos, na medida em que precisavam reposicionar a temática que passou, aos poucos, a ter grande apreço entre eles: a imortalidade da alma. Tal tema, que foi associado a Pitágoras por alguns Gregos que viviam na Trácia, segundo se observa no relato originário de Heródoto, surge envolto a um forte etnocentrismo, na medida em que Zalmoxis é relatado como escravo do filósofo grego. Por ser o primeiro escrito que se tem conta no Ocidente sobre o mito de Zalmoxis, o relato de Heródoto será chamado, neste trabalho, de originário. -...-Opondo-se à visão tradicional da Grécia, o mito apresenta uma visão de imortalidade da alma que só seria popularmente aceita na Grécia depois das fundamentações de Platão e da crescente crença órfico-pitagórica. Heródoto relata que os Getas acreditavam que, depois da morte, iriam se juntar a Zalmoxis. (Silva Coutinho 2013:9,20). In the video of 1996 song One&One, ordinary nobodies from all walks of life 'going on autopilot' (cognitive overload, etc) casually wake up as one chap goes around with a maguffin in his hands as he would with a grail. The stare of the chap with the maguffin is also therapeutic, triggering aesthetic arrest:”Now a man who was lame from birth -...- Then Peter said, "Look at us!" -...- He jumped to his feet and began to walk.” (Acts 3:1-8). People who undergo aesthetic arrest in the musical video are literally lifted up contemplating a white light.
Maguffin is also a name that can be used to define this elusive object or quality of little or no ultimate value, in whose acquisition so much effort is put; some contend director Alfred Hitchcock -who popularized the term maguffininvented this situation:
The quest for a particular thing necessarily implies the existence of a desirable quest-object of one kind or another, and many Greek legends are structured around the idea of the quest for a rare or precious object 1424
or creature, the acquisition of which appears to be too dangerous or otherwise difficult to be feasible. (Hansen 2004:295-6) Oneness of the pack can be invoked under iffy gnostic premises such as those in the song the present writer just mentioned. A thicker political veneer is often needed. It is difficult to think of a more telling vehicle for the convergence of the multi-cultural tide and the WWII U.S worldview than Star Trek.
The show undoubtedly exerted more social influence at large the world over than most peer-reviewed works almost nobody reads. Actor/artist Leonard Nimoy describes in a conference the influence that his individual beliefs and position as engaged member of the Jewish community had on the popular “Mr. Spock” in the way he chose to portray him 1828. Visibly annoyed, Nimoy quips “if the value of education is a Jewish thing, yes there is Judaism in Star Trek -...- if social justice is a Jewish thing -...- tolerance -...- these are traits that are expressed in Star Trek constantly and they are Jewish traits -...- so the answer is yes, there is a lot of -...- Jewishness in Star Trek”1829.
It is opportune to caution how many orthodox Jewish groups would strongly censor Nimoy's sympathy for the social alchemy Star Trek embodied. That is the point: Judaism can be 'read' in conflicting ways; “Narrating is never innocent”1830. Readers be the judge about Star Trek, “Jewishness”, and issues of
1828
The 'Vulcanian greeting' and accompanying gesture are derived from Jewish rites. As well, the fictional mr. Spock is a living synecdoche for the Jewish people. In one episode, he claims that his true name cannot be pronounced. 1829 Nimoy, no date, no page. 1830 Brooks 1994:77.
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correlation versus causation. Connecting the dots couldn't be easier, however. Dismissed by fellow actor William Shatner ( Kirk) as irrelevant, Japanese-American George Takei (Sulu in Star Trek) tweeted on May 9, 2017:�Either Trump goes down forever in disgrace, or America does. �.
If a politicking entertainer is not credible enough, Pope Francis I 1831 explains his stance in favor of the poor follows the Gospel's core believe, whereas some accuse him (a Jesuit) of being a Communist (If Communism is...then...). The Catholic Pontiff flirts with tones similar to those of the once dreaded liberation theology in terms that could have been borrowed from Nimoy's harangue (with due collateral adjustment, of course).
The Planet Of The Apes movies are another clumsily disguised critique (or parody?) of the 'swinging sixties' and their fixations:
Since the release of Planet, the Apes series has been recognized by audiences, critics, and the filmmakers as an allegory of racism, and the saga has even entered into the national discourse on U.S. racial conflict. While at times this thematic concern was the result of deliberate choices made by the filmmakers, at other times the concerns and issues of the era may have been subconsciously incorporated into the films -...-. Taken to the Ape Management complex, he is wired to a shock table designed as a conditioning device to induce a Pavlovian association of pain with the word no which is shouted at the apes as they are given an electric shock -...- A shocked Virgil reminds Abe that because the humans had electrically conditioned apes to fear the word no, Caesar has forbidden humans to ever speak the word to apes, although apes can say it to humans. (Greene 1996:2, 104, 126).
1831
ANSA, April 4, 2014.
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Far from suggesting a world of flux and shifting appearance, metamorphosis, which is always to be located in the past, results in a firm natural and political order in the present. The human beings who undergo metamorphosis, an emphatically final process that leaves no possibility of a return to their prior shape, do not lose the enduring aspects of their being, rather they take on a form that reveals them – an idea that closely resembles influential stoic accounts of identity (Hardie 2006:171, emphasis added). The present writer hopes that surmising “no” stands for “the N word” doesn't amount to reading too much between the lines; in fact, people of color can use it without making a barrel of spleen burst. As well, we have another pariah chieftain named Caesar in the guise of Aphra Behn's enslaved African prince Oroonoko: “Behn's desperate attempt between 10 and 29 June 1688 to warn James II that if he continues on the path he has described since his accession, he risks suffering the same fate as his father”1832.
The same imagery can still send prigs and dolts into conniptions decades after the 1970s:
The Rev. Al Sharpton says a New York Post cartoon that appears to link President Barack Obama to a violent chimpanzee is "troubling at best.". The cartoon in Wednesday's Post by Sean Delonas shows a dead chimp and two police officers, one with a smoking gun. The caption reads, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.". The cartoon refers to Travis the chimp, who was shot to death by police in Stamford, Connecticut, on Monday after it mauled a friend of its owner. It links the chimp to Obama, who signed his administration's economic stimulus plan on Tuesday. Sharpton called the cartoon offensive and divisive. (Cartoon Appears...2009: no page). Is one to mock the party line, or to kowtow to it? It recurs circularly. In 1832
Kroll 2004:577-578.
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2008, in fact, Obama and monkeys had already been paired up in an inflammatory campaign when allegedly 'racist' T-shirts had been circulated with the image of cartoon character Curious George linked to the Obama campaign: it never stops paying dividends.
Taking things to the logical conclusion, Peter Hoeg's 1997 The Woman
And The Ape tells about “Madelene's behavioral scientist husband brings home a three-hundred-pound ape named Erasmus, and she comes out of her drunken lethargy to become the ape's champion, determined to save him from inhumane tests, and eventually they flee together and fall in love � 1833: guess who's coming to dinner, this time?
In Japan (and elsewhere), offbeat dog lovers can visit posh resorts with their pets to spend time; a wedding can eventually be celebrated between their fourlegged friends in full miniature bride and groom costumes: consumerism makes even gay marriage look so passĂŠ. If in the 'swinging sixties' it was trendy to arrange venues to congregate with outcasts, alternative lifestylers and pariahs, in Japan cafes exist to accommodate the whims of dog and cat-lovers who attend with their pets.
The same petrified mythologies and stale allegories recur everywhere nearly verbatim. In Italy in 2013 the Letta government (former Communist Party) seeks electoral fortune by appointing a minister of color: what a step forward for all mankind. 1833
From the book's page on Amazon.com.
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New faces look increasingly like old ones. Libero reports1834 on on November 10, 2013 how the 'honest' politician of color -whom the former Communist party recruited- founded in 2002 -and led until early 2013- another long time favorite of the usual suspects: a charity (DAWA) in charge of raising funds for Congo all along, whose executives belong(ed) to minister Kyenge's immediate family. Journalists interrupt the minister with inopportune questions about DAWA and related activity.
'The great woman' quips she's no longer in charge of the operation, then resumes her elated speech elucidating her grandiose plans to counter racism's unspeakable evil. Of the equally grandiose humanitarian plans for Congo, to which DAWA allegedly pledged itself with donors -who paid up to dollar 60-100 each to attend galas- there is apparently no tangible trace in Africa.
Public subsidies allegedly flurry from the offices of said minister of color in the name of many blessed causes, among which euro 40.000 to organize a reunion about Rom people at Rome; euro 1.500 for a “coffee break” within a meeting regarding “GLBT asylum seekers”; euro 5.940 for seminars on the TS/TG experience. An endless list of like-minded parties, venues and associations follow as recipients of four and five-digit public subsidies for so many blessed causes under the umbrella of anti-discrimination1835.
Equally seeking (possible) electoral fortune, party Lega Nord inveighs 1834 1835
Pizzanelli 2013:no page. Signorini 2013:no page.
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against the minister of color, in one instance bringing apes into the comparison. The usual
operetta
of
transgression,
defiance,
repentance,
atonement,
tactile
reconciliation and all the abstruse incongruities ensue.
July 27, 2013, news agency ANSA reports how...bananas have been thrown at said minister of color, “the symbol of the new Italy� ( simbolo nuova
Italia); the secret service is now urged to bring the vile perpetrator of such nameless crime to justice. A montage circulated juxtaposing images of President Bush, jr., with those of a grimacing monkey: everybody thought it was hilarious. Readers shall come to individual conclusions about the standards at hands here.
Here the victim who embodies the horde's sublime values is a minister of color, there a soccer player of color (Mario Balotelli) who -as ANSA reports on February 25, 2013- during a soccer match has to suffer the sight of inflatable bananas jeering supporters displayed.
'You-know-who' and bananas prove to be an irresistible combination.
The Guardian (September 16, 2013) bemoans the nameless crime from a Russian angle: Russian MP posts online a fake picture of a banana being offered to Obama; of many such doctored pictures online, that one is singled out for a prompt political harvest to shame the Putin regime.
In April 2014, Brazilian soccer player Alves in Spain eats a banana jeering supporters had flung on the field (how could such a pristine banana end up
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there is another story). The gesture catches on like wildfire: Italian Prime Minister Renzi cashes possible electoral returns as he eats a banana to fight prejudices. According to sources, the entire situation constitutes a(nother) marketing ploy. Tshirts capitalizing on the event instantly flood the market at euro 69 apiece, while PR men nod in agreement:”Neymar [another soccer player] was supposed to eat the banana; Alves did it instead: it worked like a charm at any rate”1836.
In July 2014 bananas take newspapers by storm the world over once again. Pen-jockeys “burning with determination to even up the score” call the unwashed sans-culottes to arms in the defense of the regime of the day and its stale slogans that match the circularity of those of the 1930s. The item is of such capital importance that Italian ANSA1837 devotes an article to the issue not in vernacular, yet in English, new humanity's liturgical language.
Carlo Tavecchio - an executive of Italian soccer governing body FIGCreferred to a soccer player of color as someone “who used to eat bananas until recently ”; FIFA imperiously demands a probe into the heinous crime. The controversy becomes more popular than Pope Francis' publicity stunts according to comments in the press.
Reuters UK concludes on October 7, 2014:
Italian federation (FIGC) president Carlo Tavecchio has been 1836
PR man Guga Ketzer declared “'Neymar ia comer a banana. Se foi o Daniel Alves, maravilha também'” according to Brazilian news site Veja on April 28, 2014. 1837 July 28, 2014.
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barred from the next UEFA Congress and from holding any position with European soccer's governing body for six months over an alleged racist comment he made in August. UEFA said its disciplinary and ethics panel had also ordered the 71-year-old to organise racism awareness event in Italy. The decision was an embarrassment for the FIGC whose own investigation had cleared Tavecchio of any wrongdoing. With the glib recurrence of a TV ad, in February 2015 1838 it is Italian celebrity trainer Arrigo Sacchi who irks party liners who indignantly rise as one in desecrated anger: Sacchi declared there are too many people of color in the Italian soccer youth section. In 2015, Tavecchio would not only be caught on tape as a possible “racist”, but also as a “homophobe” and an “antisemite” 1839: indignation knows no bounds.
FIFA -who had been busy with symbolic claptrap all along – crumbles under the umpteenth corruption scandal: the opposite applies. FIFA President Blatter, whom his third ex-wife had called “a psycho” in 2011 only to promptly recant, resigns (June 2, 2015) amidst rumors.
South Africa possibly paid US$ 10 million as a bribe to be selected as venue for the world soccer cup, then celebrated as a triumph for “diversity and inclusion”. Such bribery had been camouflaged under presumed contributions to some ominous African Diaspora Legacy Programme in the Caribbean: even the most discredited party can gain gain mileage with symbolic guff. In 2006, German sources would also have “bought” the rights to organize the world soccer cup in 1838 1839
ANSA, February 17, 2015. ANSA, November 1, 2015.
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Germany1840.
There is no limit to outrage: the sweet human soul bleeds profusely. Savior-heroes in the clouds wriggle in unspeakable agony witnessing the transgression of their sacred covenant. No matter how many Bolshevik agitators, CEKA-NKVD commissars, fifth-columnists, murderers, robbers, ...ists may be among [insert favorite group], stiff upper lips and moral indignation should never trespass into physical violence.
The opposite can naturally apply at all times. Incinerated cities and displaced populations may be a way to “let Germany find out what it means to start a war ”, as commanding officer Gen. Eisenhower had reportedly declared to the press describing the possibly critical situation in Germany after the end of WWII 1841.
There is never a valid reason to go that far:
Racism is rife in Russia, and black football players often face racial abuse involving bananas. In 2011, the Brazilian Roberto Carlos, playing for Russian team Anzhi Makhachkala, left the pitch in anger after a banana was thrown at him from the stands. In a separate incident, the club Zenit St Petersburg was fined the equivalent of about £6,300 when a fan offered Carlos a banana before a match. (Walker 2013: no page). According to Pearce and Littlejohn, opposing sides in moral conflicts tend to describe the issues using “incommensurate language”; that is, they talk about the issues in terms that just don’t compute with the other side. This tendency leads to us to view our opponents on moral issues as villains or enemies. At the same time, these scholars tell us 1840 1841
ANSA, October 16, 2015. Policies&Principles...1945: no page.
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that people often oversimplify moral issues and speak about them in absolutes, which can sometimes justify a move to violence. (Dues 2010:73). “The worlds of traumatized persons are fundamentally incommensurable with those of others,” Robert Stolorow writes. Trauma creates a “deep chasm in which an anguished sense of estrangement and solitude takes form.” (Epstein 2013:37). Apparently, not only apes but everything remotely associated with apes -in the collective imaginary, that is- triggers the the same shtick, unfolding nearly on a monthly basis: quite a sellable commodity as irresistible as training montages in action movies.
The circular civic liturgy, whereby the horde in fusion celebrates its sublime values as the priests of acceptable discourse officiate, may provide -at least to some- relief from the doom and gloom scenario of economy going down the drain, rampant family disintegration, commercial activities folding by the thousands, stock market crashes and swindles unfolding seasonally, unemployment rates slowly but surely rising as new taxes and due diligence provisions loom large on the horizon.
As prigs and dolts ire, march, sulk or shake fists to make an ethically supercharged statement about themselves, it matters little whether PR con-men and histrionic celebrities laugh all the way to the bank, cash counter or ballot box:
You may have noticed that when your boss walks into a meeting in a palpably bad mood, within just minutes it will have spread to the entire room. And the effects ripple out from there, as each worker 1434
returns back to his or her own office, spreading that negativity to everyone in his or her path.-...-So the happier everyone is around you, the happier you will become. This is why we laugh more at a funny movie when we’re in a theater full of laughing people (and similarly why television sitcoms use a laugh track). Likewise, the happier we are at work, the more positivity we transmit to our colleagues, teammates, and clients, which can eventually tip the emotion of an entire work team. (Achor 2010:189-90). Culture can often be used as a gauntlet to score political points. In most of his works, the marquis de Sade – a full-fledged Enlightenment litterateur contrary to popular opinion- exorcised -at times humorously, at times bitterly, with or without obscenity- the long-lived conflict between the two intertwined halves of French nobility, noblesse de robe and noblesse d'épée1842.
More's imaginary (artificial) island realm Utopia is divided into 54 city States, much as then England was divided into 53 counties (plus the city of London). The shire is an administrative division in real-life England and Australia, and one in Tolkien's fictional Middle-Earth, a place in turn already existing in Nordic folklore; Shirriffs are magistrates in Tolkien's nowhere, which sounds just too much like reallife English sheriffs.
Mythical nowheres do not have to exist in the land of the imagination only. However hard to believe, Mr. Spock's native planet Vulcan, a planet much closer to its own sun than the Earth is, is not a gem from the mind of some more or less gifted sci-fi writer. The planet Vulcan was -in fact- sighted a few times by 1842
The terms noblesse de robe and noblesse d'épée designate two intermingled, interlocked but very dissimilar halves of nobility. Robe, as the term explains, identifies nobility mostly serving the crown in the financial or judicial branches of the public administration; Epée designates nobility entirely grounded in ancestry and peerage and typically serving in the military.
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amateur and professional astronomers alike, such as Mr. W.F. Denning corresponding with the Astronomical Register in 1870, and Rev. S.J. Perry writing to the Royal Astronomical Society in April 1877.
Vulcan represented the intramercurial planet (orbiting between Mercury and the Sun) Newtonian physics needed to account for anomalies in Mercury's orbit. Vulcan disappeared when Einstein's theory of gravitation offered a new explanation for said anomalies.
For anthroposophist Steiner (1861-1925),
“Vulcan” represents an “evolutionary stage” planets like Earth (and related life forms) go through (Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Vulcan, Saturn, Sun and Moon). Steiner apparently got the insight as he peered into the “akashic record” in a vision.
Otherwise put, contrary to expectations, the public is spoon-fed not the more or less otherworldly gem, eccentric hallucination the seer/writer/activist channels through his supposedly unique sensibility, but a grotesque, scrambled image of the society of the day, its psychotic fixations and grotesque phobias.
Campbell1843 explains that in a collaboration with psychiatrists, it emerged how the psychiatrist's collection of imagery haunting (or coming from) schizophrenic patients matched the same mythological images he had dealt with in his career. Campbell1844 also related that his correspondence with LSD pioneer Grof showed how the psychedelic imagery entheogenic consumption triggered was also mythological in nature. 1843 1844
2002-a:Interpreting Symbolic Forms. 1975.
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Even if we want track back the more postmodern fixations, in some accounts Parsifal’s half-brother's complexion is mottled black and white because his parents are Gahmuret and the Black Queen of Zazamanc. Just as it happens in today's movie theaters, a deluge of allegorical and/or politicized pseudo-gnostic flapdoodle can be mixed -thus validated- with historical tidbits:
Wolfram places his scene in the world of the medieval battlefields - not just a fairyland, as you have in many of the other Arthurian romances, but right on the ground. Many of his characters have been identified. The name of the Black Queen of Zazamanc is Belak. If you translate that into an Oriental language, it's "Belakane," which means she was the widow of a warrior named Belak, who was killed in the battle of Aleppo. They're actual historical characters (Campbell 1989: In Search Of The Holy Grail). e de gli insoliti colori, quasi d'un novo mostro, ha meraviglia (the unusual (skin) color causes one to wonder, as if a new monster had appeared). (Tasso describes albino Muslim female warrior Clorinda in the book Gerusalemme Liberata (1581) XII:194-195). Allegorically, black and white represent the admixture of resoluteness and irresoluteness that epitomizes human life; black might also symbolize - among other things - hell, monastic virtue, and royal pomp. If black came to be associated with Fascism in the 1920s, it had formerly been associated with Bakunin and anarchism.
There is an increasing corpus of literature devoted to the study of hybridity in social and cultural studies; hybridity can then be understood as a province of freakery, best epitomized by Victorian traveling shows putting the performance and/or representation of otherness on stage to entertain enthused 1437
visitors. The freak, hybrid or monster -following St.Augustine- epitomizes some allegorical or moralizing truth as the Latin root of the word monster ( monstrare) documents.
The present writer, however, suggests the human mind has another weak spot in the fascination for hybridism: composite creatures resulting from the fantastic conflation of different animal, human, physical and metaphysical forms, such as dragons, centaurs, echidnas, chimeras and sphinxes.:
In short, Renaissance understandings of the body as fluid and dynamic militated against fixed or stable categories of racial distinction. (Seth 2010:175). Hindu
and
Egyptian
gods
combined
human
and
non-human
characteristics: animal heads (Egyptian gods; Ganesha the Hindu god with an elephant's head...); skin color (Hindu Shiva's skin color is blue); composite animality (Egyptian Ammit “the devourer of the dead” was part lion, hippopotamus and crocodile); or the entire thing (the Hindu god Hanuman is a monkey 1845):
These figures are imaged in theriomorphic (wholly animal) or therianthropic (a combination of human and animal anatomies or a human form wearing animal dress) forms in addition to their anthropomorphic representations. The deities and demons included in this study are Aesculapius, Charu(n), and the Genius Loci, who are depicted with ophidian imagery, Aita, Faunus, Silvanus, and Apollo Soranus with lupine imagery, Faunus (again), Pan, and Juno Sospita with caprid, the Minotaur and Achelous along with a discussion of the possible representation of Dionysos in taurine form, Picus and three unidentified divinities with avian. (Rupp 2006:xiii). 1845
Pandit Tigunait (2013) suggests that Hanuman was simply the king of a “monkey-faced” human tribe.
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Ancient biographies tell us that the Delphic Oracle predicted Pythagoras’ birth and that in fact he was the son of Hyperborean Apollo. (His name refers to “the Pythian,” that is, to Apollo.) These biographies also say that Abaris [from Mongolia, then called Hyperborea] came to Pythagoras and gave him the golden “arrow,” conferring on him the authority to, in effect, establish the European scientific, esoteric, and spiritual traditions. Abaris also saw that Pythagoras had a golden thigh, evidence of a shamanic initiation, in which the future shaman’s body is torn to pieces and reassembled, but with one human part made divine. Many of Pythagoras’ teachers and students display shamanic abilities, including being in two places at once, traveling to spirit realms in trance, journeying on a magic dart, accompanying Apollo as a bird, and remembering past lives. Indeed, Pythagoras could identify objects he had owned in previous incarnations. This is, of course, one of the techniques by which a reincarnated spiritual or worldly leader (Tib. tulku) is identified; the Dalai Lama is the best-known example. (Opsopaus 2012:no page, emphasis added). He can transform himself to wolf, as we gather from the ship arrival in Whitby, when he tear open the dog, he can be as bat, as Madam Mina saw him on the window at Whitby, and as friend John saw him fly from this so near house, and as my friend Quincey saw him at the window of Miss Lucy. "He can come in mist which he create, that noble ship's captain proved him of this, but, from what we know, the distance he can make this mist is limited, and it can only be round himself. "He come on moonlight rays as elemental dust, as again Jonathan saw those sisters in the castle of Dracula. He become so small, we ourselves saw Miss Lucy, ere she was at peace, slip through a hairbreadth space at the tomb door. He can, when once he find his way, come out from anything or into anything, no matter how close it be bound or even fused up with fire, solder you call it. He can see in the dark, no small power this, in a world which is one half shut from the light. (Stoker 1897:no page). Alexander once deified appears on his coins with the ram-horns 1846 of 1846
Zeus-Ammon is not the only god the horns allude to, for example in the case of deified Alexander. The Sun god (Helios) is another candidate:”As Alexander-Helius he was represented with the corona radiata symbolizing the sun.-...- A parallel to this is furnished by Moses in Exodus XXXIV, 29, 30, 35, Hebrew having the same word for horn and ray. Michelangelo in conceiving his Moses in San Pietro in Vincoli took these horns literally according to the Vulgate of St. Jerome, and reduced them to two, with the loss of their luminosity -...-.In passing we may note that the name Two-horned, by which Alexander was known in later days, is the literal translation of -...-one of the titles of Amen-Ra ” (Anderson 1927:100-1). The horns as symbol of irresistible royalty were borrowed both by some among Alexander's Hellenistic successors, and Roman Emperors.
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god Ammon (alternatively Zeus-Ammon), again a mixture of human and nonhuman characteristics:”co-host Blake Smith, an incisive skeptical investigator, speaks as well of the tantalizing sense of plausibility that gives cryptozoology its spice—even for doubters: “-...- I doubt most of these monsters or cryptids are real— but it’s the what if that keeps me excited.”1847. Banerji links the “magic animal” category fusion with entering the realm of magic.
This lunar symbology is ancient: the moon god in Mesopotamia was named Sin; the mountain that Moses ascended was Mount Sinai. It may have been the moon goddess mountain. When Moses came down from that mountain, he was so luminous from his reception of God’s energy that he wore a veil in front of his face, and emanating from his forehead were horns of light: the horns of the lunar mystery. (Campbell 1991:193). So [Elijah] got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. (1 Kings 19:8). Alternatively, human characteristics may be enlarged to superhuman level: Titans, Cyclops and other breeds of folkloric giants are superlatively big, strong, fierce, hungry; Hercules' virility is bottomless, and so is Genghis Khan's. Every epoch is haunted by a slightly different array of freaks and hybrids:
[In XVIII century France] As explained by Jay Thomas in his study of the Beast of the Gévaudan, unknown animals, hybrids or suspected hybrids such as the Lake Fagua Monster held a special place both in the popular imagination and in contemporary scientific inquiry as they appeared both at fairs and in the discussions of academicians (Langellier Bellevue Halbert 2011:32). Moreover, such freak show figures were remarkably well-known 1847
Cit. in Loxton&Prothero 2013:ch.7.
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across the classes of Victorian society. Their biographies and advertisements appeared in middleclass publications like the Strand Magazine and Chamber’s Journal, in working-class papers like The Illustrated London News, and also in medical journals such as The Lancet and The British Medical Journal. Throughout the century, moreover, the authors of these elite medical journal articles and puff pieces in the popular press had only to mention the stage names of human oddities to conjure specific images in their readers’ minds. (McHold 2002:5). But the marriage of two freaks—whether real or staged as a publicity stunt—kept audiences wondering about the bodily logistics of sexual activity, much in the same manner that people speculated about sex between circus animal ‘‘couples.’’ Bodily deformity, like animality and racial nonwhiteness, was a license, an acceptable avenue through which to discuss sexuality -...-. Still, the presence of the family could also be sexually evocative. Audiences perhaps found the domestic scenes especially appealing, because they offered ‘‘proof ’’ that the freak still had functional genitalia, practiced sexual intercourse, and produced children. Audiences surely imagined the logistics of sexual activity -...-. Euroamerican-made freaks and ‘‘novelty’’ acts were often in racial disguise. -...- Euroamerican sword swallowers were variously called Arabs and South Sea Islanders -...- Whereas tattooed women were marketed as victims of forcible abduction, the tattooed man’s ‘‘color’’ was the mark of his travels around the globe, like those of the sailor or soldier. His tattoos were a permanent record of his rites of passage into manhood, a living memento of his physical contact with faraway people. -...- Other forms of willful bodily mutilation further transmogrified the male body.(Davis 2002:141,179, 181). To the Egyptians, animals were not considered inferior species, primitive and gross . Such a way of seeing has come about by looking with an exaggeratedly Darwinian eye that places all beings in a hierarchy. This is the kind of thinking which In forms a theory like Piaget's , whose developmental ideas of intelligence, still enormously influential, suggest that a child's mental processes of growth recapitulate a centuries- long cultural evolution from primitive iconic processes or picture-thinking to formal abstract ones. Strictly applied, the theory prescribes the n ìature of intelligence in such a limited way that not only are many rich and subtle cultures denigrated, by virtue of their imaginative, picture-thinking capacities , as 'unintelligent' , but the very possession of 'intelligence' is restricted to scientists in Western cultures. To understand the Egyptian view we also have to summon Thoth and reimagine intelligence in a way that does not 1441
encourage us to look down on animals as somehow earlier and primitive. For the Egyptian, the special characteristics of animals meant that they were more likely to be revered than disparaged. In this view, each animal species is understood to embody a specific and supreme ability which it expresses to the full, and which is used as a symbol in the hieroglyphs denoting the gods. (Angelo 1997:15). But if monstrous species did not provoke fear, the same could not be said of monstrous individuals. Monstrous individuals (conjoined twins, a child born with two heads, and so forth) spoke not to the benign magnificence of God but to his vengeance and anger. Monstrous individuals generated horror less because of their form than because of their signification: They were warnings, portents of the evils to come if sinful Christians did not return to the path of God. (Seth 2010:178). As this writing contends, myth(ologie)s tend to coalesce: freakery is no exception. As the blurred imagery of mesoamerican civilizations (Maya/Aztec) caught Victorian imagination, P.T. Barnum promptly boarded the bandwagon putting on itinerant display “the Aztec Lilliputians”. The pair from Salvador was presented as living inhabitants of the lost city of Iximaya, probably modelled upon Palenque. Colonial escapades to a mythical Eldorado home to a fabulous race: the hottest commodity for the popular culture of the day.
In 1849, a deposition in support of the story 1848 was read before the Ethnological Society Of England, whereas in 1851 the Boston Society Of Natural History received reports of a different kind: the “Lilliputians” descended from Indio tribes and -in the specific- from deformed and imbecile parents, as their intellectual abilities warranted1849. Deceit notwithstanding, the “Aztec Lilliputians” met the 1848
An explorer in flight had allegedly captured the “Lilliputians” after the massacre of his expedition at the hands of Iximaya's ferocious natives (Altick 1978:284-5). Readers won't be hard-pressed to identify a bundle of cherished motifs such as the hero's journey; the desecration of the mystical body; the perilous flight; the boon to be brought back and so forth. 1849 Altick 1978:284-5.
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English royal family: ads claimed 400.000 visitors had come to see them during their London exhibition in 1853-4. Still in the Victorian age, a renewed interest in Atlantis bloomed. U.S politician Donnelly in 1882 published a theosophical Atlantis, which he described as the antediluvian abode of a “root race� of Aryans with Germanic traits.
Popular culture kept the 'miniature men' and the colonial escapade item alive in recent decades: 1961 Japanese monster movie Mothra, and its many sequels. Myths tend to coalesce. In Mothra, an expedition sails to a remote island to document atomic tests' aftereffects. Natives seem in good shape, and the island is blooming thanks to a mysterious cult presided over by two one-foot high singing priestesses, whom are spirited away by rogue expedition members in order to become a freak show attraction: a sacred monster finally comes to their rescue.
Mothra shows how Cold War scenarios easily meet the deliverance of the virgin, and Iximaya scenarios.
Yet, it is not always a matter of more or less preposterous and/or politicized folklore. Outsiders, whether metaphorical or otherwise, often save the day. To name just a few, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the controversial Canadian statesman, was considered to be in a privileged position to disentangle the Canadian bi-cultural dilemma because his parents afforded him both Francophone and Anglophone origins.
Eamon De Valera was born in New York to an Irish mother and a Cuban 1443
father: he became a pivotal leader in the Irish independence movement, and an Irish chief statesman. Bob Marley, the reggae star who became an enduring idol of lefty hippies as embodiment of colored Jamaica, was born to an European-Jamaican father, and an African-Jamaican mother; another herald of the new humanity pelted with unrelenting admiration is U.S President Obama.
Roberto1850 extols what he characterizes as W. Churchill's unparalleled gift to come across to Americans in 1943 as “one of their own” -just like Hitler had told the German Siemens crowd- (“a child of both worlds”) because his mother was American. Just as third-rate novels or movies of colonial or exotic flavor may predict, the liminal figure, the outsider, the scout guide who went native, the mestizo turns into a messiah to save the day as native, in-bred nincompoops can't figure it out after all. The ultimate hybrid, however, is the god-man: Aeneas was 50% divine, and so were Hercules and Romulus. If Gilgamesh was 2/3 divine, Jesus is 100% both human and divine.
Heralds of the new humanity are indeed ten-a-penny. Rock star Lenny Kravitz (born 1964) claims in an hagiographic interview:
Growing up the way that I did, seeing my parents’ struggles and what this country has been through regarding race and prejudice, Obama’s election was just such a huge moment -...-my mother told me, “Look, I’m African-American and your father is a Russian Jew, and you should be proud of both sides, neither more than the other. But understand this: Society is not going to see both sides. They are going to see your brown skin, and 1850
2011:Give And Take.
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assume you are black. (Barna 2011:no page). While many consider these occurrence as the mere actualization on the earthly plane of quintessential, independent values, it is more likely to see brute political expediency at work, such as when Alexander tried to forge a new ruling class for his intercontinental empire strongly pushing for intermarriage between his Graeco-Macedonian and Persian subjects1851.
In other words, the hybrid might at times play the part of the hero, whose power can be bequeathed to the people or group incorporating him. The Romans celebrated magna mater (great mother) Cybele. In a dies sanguinis (day of blood= obsession with blood), Roman devotees whipped themselves, and some even underwent ritual castration to emulate the sacrifice of Cybele's mystical spouse Attis, whom eunuch priests (Galli) served.
Although under the attack of secularization and Americanization, Zapotec Muxes (Southern Mexico), Hijras (India), and recently mainstream Burmese -often but not always transsexual or transvestite- nat ladies ( celebrating animistic spirits called Nats) used to retain traditional sacred powers based upon their status as third gender, which today increasingly falls within the conventional realm of GLBT lifestyles:�Thus sexual abnormality is reported in the lives of many shamans, in accord with the trickster constellation.�1852. In Cambodia, transgendered ladyboys help brides through the Khmer marriage pageantry. The blurring of sexual 1851
The Persian Empire in those times included even Egypt and reached India on one end, and Thrace on the other. 1852 Hansen 2001:67.
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boundaries may also embody a fight against oppressive authority, most often masculine.
As this writing contends, different strands of myth easily coexist, and TS/TV Burmese nat ladies not only generate good fortune and reconciliation with the gods, but actually shower the faithful with (some of the) money they just received as ceremonial offering; they also perform bawdy dances, and indulge themselves with food and drink as proxies for the spirit being honored: Nats are human to a fault (=we are all tainted).
An equivalent exists among the Muslim Bugi people of Muslim Indonesia, whereby transgendered priest-shamans (bissus) bridge between the human and the spirit realm. To prove they are one with the spirits, bissus try to stab themselves with sharp knives: drawing no blood is an auspicious sign (=the blood connection again).
Hybridity and politics are never disjointed, for even in the XVIII century France:
Political events of the decade then made use of these ambiguous creatures, playing on their allegorical potency in part derived from classical mythology to caricature destructive ministers and queens. -...conceptions of monsters like the harpies did not develop in a vacuum-...- social critics used the harpy to speak to numerous concerns and issues. -...- By way of their fantastic combinations and mixtures, hybrids and hermaphrodites could serve to help define the reasonable or normal. (Langellier Bellevue Halbert 2011:2,32)
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Men were men and beasts were beasts. Monsters sent shivers down the spines of many because they found a loophole in this separation. They combined civilization and the wild. in their physical form as well as their actions. They mocked the partition between the human and the animal, bouncing from one realm to the next or settling squarely in between the two. Even the high ideas of good and evil, the most contradictory of all man's categories, were not safe from the monsters' corrupting touch. (Kovatch 2008:24). When fully understood, the vulgarity of the Other stands as a manifestation of the inner tension all people experience at the heart of their own humanity. In his appreciation of the liberating potential of vulgarity, Sartre envisioned the possibility of a reappropriation of otherness that would ultimately bring about a reconsideration of the problematic categories of self and other. (CharmĂŠ 1991:8). As far as Feirefiz (Parzifal's half-brother) goes, he converts and relocates with his spouse (the Grail bearer, no less) to the East where he preaches the gospel to heathens.
His son is Prester John 1853, King of a Christian Kingdom European Christians will be in search of for centuries as an ally against Muslim invasion, as documented in real travel diaries and maps. Aurell 1854 claims Columbus wanted to take Jerusalem from the East in order to reach the kingdom of Prester John. John would rid Christianity of the Muslim threat, thus putting the end of times (eschaton) in motion.
The myth of Prester John presents much of the same ambiguities -as a Christ-mimetic figure- as William Tell and other millenarian figures do:� After this, it is not surprising to find that no two authors who describe the deeds of William 1853 1854
The Grail legend seems to have incorporated the legendary figure of Prester John. Visionnaires Et...1992:episode 5.
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Tell agree in the details of topography and chronology�.
According to the Dutch version of Lancelot, Parsifal is John's father, whereas in other variants he is John's heir 1855. John the priestly (=prester) King brings back Judaeo-Christian suggestions of kingly messiahs. In Mahayana Buddhism, too, many Buddhas can wear a crown (=kingly power over this world) and a monastic robe (=priestly duties).
No surprise, for even such eminent Christian writers as Lactantius and Eusebius give avowedly first-hand -yet widely diverging- accounts of Constantine's mythical vision that pushed him to adopt Christianity. The Emperor was either asleep (Lactantius), or awake leading his army, also a witness (Eusebius 1856); even dates mismatch, for the vision avowedly took place just before the Milvius Bridge battle for Lactantius (28 October 312), or quite earlier in Constantine's Italian campaign for Eusebius.
The content of the vision was disputed as well:
Constantine had a reputation for defining his actions in terms of religious visions and dreams. According to Eusebius, “God often honored him with a vision.� Two in particular have become famous. One was a vision of Apollo in 310. After defeating the emperor Maximian in southern Gaul, Constantine stopped at a temple during his march back to the Rhine frontier. There he had a vision of Apollo, or more likely of himself as Apollo. -...- Eusebius presented his History as a straightforward, unitary narrative from beginning to end-...-. In fact, his narrative was a pastiche of segments that included 1855 1856
Ramos 1997:38. While in his writings Eusebius implies to belong to the Emperor's inner circle, he possibly met Constantine only four times.
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numerous additions and modifications from different moments in his life. (Van Dam 2011:11,83). In 832 CE, Scottish Angus -King of Alba- received the vision of St. Andrew's cross over the blue sky: he thus defeated invading Angles and Saxons. That's how the Scottish flag was born, and how St. Andrew became Scotland's patron.
Miraculous visions that avert disaster were rather common: in 395 CE uprising Goths fail to pillage Athens. Greek historian Zosimus has it that Pallas Athena and Achilles materialized on the city's walls to dissuade the invader; alternatively, large sums were paid to bribe the Goths into withdrawal. In 1655, the Virgin Mary avowedly appears on the walls (=threshold motif) of the Czestochowa monastery (Poland) to defeat invading Swedish armies.
As with all those recurring figures in iterated situations, Prester John was avowedly located in several distant places. As with other such elusive figures, Prester John from time to time surfaced from the achronotopos of legend. John might be indifferently associated -or superposed- with St. Thomas Apostle ( St. Thomas=Prester John of the Indies1857), whose presence is also linked to Christian communities in exotic locales such as India -where Mar Thoma Christians believe St. Thomas evangelized them in the I century-, Sri Lanka etc.
John assertedly contacted several monarchs offering an alliance against 1857
Medieval legends suggested that St. Thomas' body rested in the Kingdom of Prester John. To choose the new Prester John (=death and life become one), a procession would take place around Thomas' relics, until his hand -that had entered Christ's wounds- would point to a successor.
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the Muslim world: Pope Eugenius III in 1145; in 1165 Pope Alexander III and Emanuel Comnenos Emperor of Byzantium among others at various points in time1858.
They tried to establish communication with the providential ally but in vain:
What lies behind the letter? It has been long recognized as the work of a European, for the author's background peeps out in many places. Most of the wonder stories introduced are from classical authorities of a 'scientific' character whose works were then available in Europe.' Other marvels are lifted from the Alexander Romance, composed in the second or third century by an author usually called PseudoCallisthenes. Some of the ideas expressed are new, however, and clearly fit the European picture of about 1165. The essential question is whether our author, using Prester John as his mouthpiece, deliberately fabricated a ruler and an empire for his own purposes or whether he wrote in behalf of a monarch he regarded as to some extent real. To answer our own question at the start, he did both.-...- To summarize the three theories: the first identifies Prester John with one person in Asia, the second makes him a series of sovereigns in Africa, and the third turns him into an allegory which the all-too-literal Westerners insisted on endowing with flesh and blood (Nowell 1953:436-7). Belief in the medieval fantasy of Prester John -...- drove military field decisions that propelled the Fifth Crusade to abject failure in the thirteenth century; in the fifteenth century and after, the fantasy of John’s existence beckoned to those who sought to open up new routes and territories, leading the way to settlement and colonization—new empires—in postmedieval eras. The fantasy of the medieval past itself, constructed and reinforced by postmedieval periods, delivers material effects: The fantasy of a pre-political, pre-racial, pre-nationalist, and pre-imperial time that is the Middle Ages—a zone of freedom evacuated of the dispositions bedeviling modernity and capital—has enabled the production of the very identities we know as modern, but at a distinct cost, and with material consequences for our understanding of race today. (Heng 2003:14-15). 1858
Prester John seems to be another of those evergreen, immortal figures ala Pindola or (count of) Saint Germain that myth cannot do without.
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Some contend all there was to it were sensationalized rumors about a clash in which Turkish (possibly Nestorian 1859) chieftains had defeated Muslim headmen near Samarkand in 1141. For a while, invading Mongol tribes were equated with Prester John's providential armies. Genghis Khan in the 1220s had become David, Prester John's son. Jean de la Roquetaillade (a Franciscan alchemist and seer who died in 1366) saw China -where Franciscans were establishing missions- as the abode of the Antichrist as a child in the Chinese Emperor's retinue.
Alternatively, Marco Polo mentions a clash between Genghis Khan and Prester John, whereby
in the end Chinghis Kaan obtained the victory. And in the battle Prester John was slain. And from that time forward, day by day, his kingdom passed into the hands of Chinghis Kaan till the whole was conquered. (cit. in Brooks 2009:276). Since the myth ought to have become fact by all accounts, Prester John reappears in the St. Ursula's church at Cologne (Germany), whereby the mythical Prester John materializes as a gilded XV century bust. John was assertedly in Ursula's retinue, the IV century Christian princess pagan Germans slaughtered along with the 11.000 (=surfeit that boggles the mind) virgin maidens in her retinue. What's more, the bust contains a skull, allegedly John's, which experts discard.
Beside the heart of Asia, Prester John's realm could be located elsewhere, for example in Ethiopia or on a number of exotic islands, such as the kingdom of 1859
A Christian heresy. It preached the disunion of human and divine nature in Christ to the point of hypothesizing two persons coexisting in the same body. After being excommunicated and prosecuted, Nestorians moved eastwards into Persia, later China and beyond.
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Oponia -somewhere between India and the Pacific islands-, which some identify with Japan. Alternatively, the Portuguese docking in India – or later trying to reach Tibet- thought for a while they had found the mythical, elusive Christian kingdom.
The heart of Asia (Kara-Kitai) is also offered as John's abode under the name of Ye Liu Dashi1860 who defeated Muslim forces at Samarkand. Alternatively, the Caucasus would be John's abode as the historical IvanĂŠ Orbelian, a Georgian chieftain who defeated Muslim armies in 1123-4.
In preference, a sort of Prester John figure could be identified with Sophus, a mythical Persian King who had defeated the Ottomans according to XVI century European chronicles that struggled with the correct identification of eastern ethno-cultural milieus: Persians were Muslims after all.
The Ethiopian version of Prester John didn't fade into oblivion, but is allegedly still present to this day, as one of the three magi 1861 honoring the infant Jesus is a Black African, or the distorted image of the Ethiopian version of Prester John, whose ambassadors had approached Pope Clement VI in 1351 at Avignon.
In his letter to Comnenos, Prester John bewilders his readers with a depiction of his fabulous realm, its magical wonders and riches (=the surfeit motif):
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Chimeno Del Campo 2006:135. Possibly a Sino-Mongolian region. Kara-Khitans were sinicized Khitans who migrated towards the steppes of central Asia. 1861 In another interpretation, the three Magi represented the three ages of man. Popular culture keeps the item fully alive. In Italy, a commercial brand of saffron features three chefs in its logo: a White man, a Chinese, and an African one.
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I, Prester John, who reign supreme, surpass in virtue,riches and power all creatures under heaven. Seventy kings are our tributaries. -...-Honey flows in our land, and milk everywhere abounds. In one region there no poison exists and no noisy frog croaks, no scorpions are there, and no serpents creeping in the grass. No venomous reptiles can exist there or use their deadly power. In one of the heathen provinces flows a river called the Indus, which, issuing from Paradise, extends its windings by various channels through all the province; and in it are found the emeralds, sapphires, carbuncles, topazes, chrysolites, onyxes, beryls, sardonyxes, and many other precious stones. Between the sandy sea and the aforesaid mountains, is a stone in a plain, of incredible medical virtue which cures Christians or Christian candidates of whatever infirmities afflict them, in this manner. -...- For gold, silver, precious stones, animals of every kind and the number of our people, we believe there is not our equal under heaven. There are no poor among us; we receive all strangers and wayfarers; thieves and robbers find no place among us, neither adultery nor avarice. (Cit. in Brooks 2009:251-3). Confusion of colonial flavor was present everywhere. Originally imported from the Americas, corn was described in Renaissance herbals as coming from Turkey, another fabulous land of colonial flavor, whence the Italian name for the plant: granoturco (Turkish grain). Maize could also be dubbed “wheat of Portugal�, which Iberian powers were spreading all over their colonial empires.
As this writing contends, myths tend to coalesce as duration wins over linear time. In contemporary Sikkim (India), certain Christian Churches portray Jesus dressed as a Tibetan Lama as he carries the cross. The quintessential sparagmos of Judaeo-Christian hero-founders nods at the hot contemporary commodity -in high demand in Sikkim, abode of a sizable Tibetan community- of Tibetan irredentism. In Cambodia, Jesus is at times represented on the cross without the lower portion of a leg in order to reflect the plight of peasants dealing with the
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threat minefields still pose decades after the Vietnam war ended:“a Rorschach test of ever changing sensibilities”.
In Islamic sources Jesus -also a prophet of that religion- is typically represented enveloped in fire, wearing a turban, and often with oriental traits reflecting the community that produced such representation. In Mormon iconography, Jesus is depicted with strong Caucasian traits as a blond Scandinavian hunk, and such also was the “Aryan Christ” that Belle Epoque German-speaking spiritual-nationalists worshiped so that he might deliver Aryans of the twin scourge of Chandala and Jews.
Still in Mormon lore, current representations of founder Smith are multifarious, as if they reflected several different people instead of one individual deceased in 1844. The Mexican patroness Virgin of Guadalupe is hailed as virgen
morena (dark virgin= mestizo virgin), just one in a long list of Black Madonnas 1862.
John Frum, the mythical Melanesian hero-savior, can equally appear as a U.S soldier in military fatigues, or -as he first appeared in 1939- a mestizo dressed in European style. Alternatively, John Frum's worldly identity can be denied in favor of a transcendental one: John Frum as a sort of holy ghost.
It'd be easy to lump it all together and dump it as folklore (at best). Still 1862
Although the virgin's skin color was in Mexico associated with the peculiar mestizo phenotype, other Black Madonnas existed, such as Monteserrat's (since the IX century, Spain), nicknamed la moreneta, the little black one. The legend want this holy statue to have been originally recovered by shepherds in a cave: mythemes galore. The origin of the color may be manifold: oxidation of an originally white statue (Montserrat); nods to immemorial mother goddesses such as Isis, and so forth.
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writing about hybrids and prodigious creatures, dragons were sighted, fought and slayed in historical times -as mentioned in numerous chronicles- and not in antediluvian golden ages, much as the hybrid of social, cultural and minority studies has allegedly been equally identified.
In other words, by the simple fact that he was a hero, de Gozon [III Grand Master of the Knights Of St. John at Rhodes, died in 1353] was identified with a category, an archetype, which, entirely disregarding his real exploits, equipped him with a mythical biography from which it was impossible to omit combat with a reptilian monster. (Eliade, cit. in Gerringer 2006:3)1863. To name just a few, the Italian monastery Convento Di Santa Fiora is home to part of the cranium of one such dragon a local landlord allegedly killed in 1488: experts have determined it to be the cranium of a Nile crocodile. At Verona, the centre is home to Arco Della Costa (arch of the rib) built in 1470; it's home to another relic some consider a whale's rib, others a dragon's. In the Bergamo province in Italy (in churches at Almenno San Salvatore and Paladina), giant ribs are presented as remains of a dragon, which some have identified as remains of a whale and a mammoth.
Sardinian folklore mentions a dragon called Scultone, whose stare could kill. At Baunei (Piana Del Golgo, Italy), a fissure is presented as the historical evidence of a battle between St. Peter the Apostle and the Scultone, whereby Peter fought using a mirror to avoid the dragon's lethal stare; it won't escape readers how that's just a retelling of the Perseus myth. At Leonidio (Greece), fishermen are 1863
The remains of the “dragon of Rhodes� de Gozon had killed were apparently still on display into the XIX century. Some identified them as the skull of a Nile crocodile.
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rumored to have slain a giant serpent that terrorized the region: a fossilized portion of such monster's tail is preserved in the Agios Nikolaos monastery.
The “alligator in the sewer” is considered as one quintessential urban legend embroidering upon anxieties the density and diversity of the city implies (=sewer system=the underground abode of the unholy); yet on March 3, 2011 the latest sighting of a crocodile in urban settings comes from Le Conce area at Foligno, Italy1864: a woman assertedly saw one attacking a duck to feed.
Many crocodiles have been sighted in Italy in recent years:
•
In the Enza river (May 2005);
•
At the Falciano lake (April 2010);
•
At the laghetto di Villa Bolasco (March 2011);
•
In a creek at Torrano Lodigiano (May 2013);
•
In the Po river (April 2014)...
The explanation put forth is that the crocodile might have been bought as a pet, and disposed of in the wilderness as he grew too big: precisely the explanation tied to the urban legend.
The sewer system -or another edition of the chthonic imagery like wells, 1864
Umbria 24 2011: no page.
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the terra cava of theosophic and NSDAP imagery- can regurgitate all sorts of things. For example -according to Associated Press on May 28, 2013- a Chinese baby (“baby n.59”) was still alive after an ordeal in a 10 cm wide L-tube. As expected in those cases, hundreds of sources copy the news the world over with diverging details:”After this, it is not surprising to find that no two authors who describe the deeds of William Tell agree in the details of topography and chronology.”. The baby would have spent in the sewer system any amount of time from 2 hours to days (2, 3...it varies).
Sick or endangered children -and related paraphernalia- are a preferred fuel to propel viral hoaxes over the internet. Well-meaning pencil-necked sweathogs would click on and spread gut-wrenching stories about sick or endangered children. Con-games, scammers, bogus MLM subscriptions, and worthless personal pages await those gullible enough to believe that forwarding the hoax far and wide enough would translate into the sweet baby (which may not even actually exist) being finally rescued, adopted, soothed, hospitalized, and so forth:”When we pity, we are, at least fur the moment, defenseless”;”we’re so caught up in the drama of what happened to so-and-so that we don’t have the cognitive resources to disagree. We’re so engaged in following the narrative that we don’t have the energy to question what is being said. ”.
The end of the story either consists in baby n.59 being well in a Chinese hospital incubator, with the optional horde in fusion competing to either visit the
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baby, or to offer plentiful help in the form of diapers and consumer goods.
A Catholic nun at Rieti gives birth in 2014 to a child -named Francis after the Pope-: she claims she never had sexual intercourse, but was hospitalized due to “stomach cramps�. Elated masses rush to send clothes and donations, despite all the perplexities the event ought to rise for many reasons.
It looks suspiciously like another edition of the adoration of a divine child who barely escaped death (was born dejected, and so forth) complete with gift-bearing witnesses, today podcast live via cellphone. Of course, the myth can be inverted: the divine child may be brutalized, thrown away in a garbage bin or public bathroom, or murdered. The three wise Kings bring gifts and devotion, whereas Herod brings mayhem to the divine child. At Mazzarino (Italy), a woman 1865 tries to get rid of her 10 month old daughter by throwing her into the sewer system.
Once again, the 'divine child' shtick -worthy of either consecration or desecration- is not the reflection of some celestial blueprint of what allegedly happened in a time before time, but a warped projection of human mind's recesses. In Japan, a slow but steady decline in birthrates accompanies a rise of the toy dog phenomenon as an ersatz, possibly rented out for so much an hour in specialized shops catering to lovelorn, frazzled inner city dwellers.
Toy dog breeds are manipulated to look increasingly child-like in
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ANSA, February 17 2014.
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appearance so that maladjusted humans can enact the same old routines folklore prescribes: lucky dogs are pampered like princes, wheres unlucky ones are thrown away, abused or neglected, just like the non-existent children they replace.
Obtuse allegories, and petrified myth(ologie)s, never stop paying dividends:
People are more willing to give when they know that a specific, identifiable other personextnote will benefit from their actions. This isn’t necessarily a good approach to charitable giving. When a child’s suffering makes the national news, spontaneous donations to that one child might total hundreds of thousands of dollars. Such giving is very generous, but it helps only one person or one family—at the expense of many others who might have similar needs. In addition, people are often less willing to give when many thousands or millions of people need help, as when famine afflicts an entire region or when war or genocide tears a country apart. In a general sense, the larger the problem, the less likely it is to elicit charitable giving. (Huettel 2014:134). From the sewer system, or the ventilation shaft, all sorts of threats may come. CBC News (August 5, 2013) reports that a rock python would have killed by constriction two boys at Campbellton (Canada) after it escaped through a ventilation shaft. Large, exotic and potentially lethal snakes on the run crop up all over. At Seriate (Italy), a boa snake is purportedly found on a...third floor terrace, as Italian site Yourreporternews reports on august 6, 2013.
Mythical or monstrous creatures can -as hypothesized earlier- take up extnote
That is why most charities, whether genuine or fraudulent, prefer to solicit the public -for example in ad banners online- with the image of -say- one infant of color, or one stray dog at a time, with some trivia attached, such as the child's name and age. As with most ads in the online dating industry, the person in the picture may not even exist. Online dating services -just another party that wants your money- are known for displaying stock or professional photos (note of this writer).
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human form; or humans can be provided of animal characteristics. The vagina
dentata (vagina with teeth) legend is also long-lived. According to Campbell 1866, this imagery represents a Freudian interplay, whereby the mother gets to absorb masculine characteristics as the primary disciplinarian who triggers fears of castration (=epitome of punishment) in the male child.
However based on anatomical impossibilities, such imagery persisted in tribal myths and immemorial folklore the world over. Such odd legend was last alive and well according to official statements given by U.S soldiers involved in late wars such as that of Vietnam. Different categories of hostile women (prostitutes, fifth-columnists...) avowedly put objects inside their genital area in order to maim, incapacitate or kill U.S soldiers1867. In Papua New Guinea, inter-tribal warfare resurrects the same myths. Enga tribesmen taunt rival clans thus in the 1980s:
Your girls are not like ours. Their skins were like crocodile skins, have pandanus thorns embedded in them [[=their genitals]], and their hair is as the red clay of Nomala. Our boys are afraid to touch the skins of your sisters or daughters. -...- You black-blooded people descended from a python [following their origin myth] could never become like other people. Even if you did try to wash, you would never look clean. Return to your mountain homes and look for the excreta of rats, pigs and marsupials to eat. (cit. In Wiessner 2016:no page). The item co-existed with rumors detailing fatal venereal diseases always spread by potential enemies or fifth-columnists. The fantastic hybrid devil-woman of the lore mixing human and animal characteristics -and her anatomical 1866 1867
1966b. Gulzow&Mitchell 1980.
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impossibilities- takes up the garb of wartime fifth-columnist: the legend is scaled down just enough to fit the storyline.
Western lore is replete with outcast or liminal group members ( homosexuals, Jews, women...) allegedly busy poisoning wells, stirring magic cauldrons or “greasing� doorstep with noxious ointments. It is an historical occurrence that itinerant processions of medieval flagellanti whipping themselves to atone in order to avert the catastrophic plague in Italy possibly contributed to spreading the virus as they shed blood everywhere.
Contemporary Catholic pilgrimage sites warn against the possible spreading of diseases as countless pilgrims kneel or crawl their way towards altars along predetermined paths, thus possibly coming in contact with infected blood stains previous pilgrims might have left behind.
As suggested above, hybridity goes along with other mythemes quite well. In Italy in the early 1990s, party Lega Nord cashed for a while enormous electoral returns upon the collapse of the political establishment in the wake of Communism's political desuetude; a row of judicial investigations and scandals wiped out the biggest ruling party Democrazia Cristiana, and its much smaller postwar allies (Partito Socialista, Partito Liberale, Partito Socialdemocratico, Partito
Repubblicano).
Irrespective of the salt that any political propaganda may -or may not- be
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worth as clumsy stage act, Lega Nord back then pined for a newly found unity among Northern Regions, whose social and ethno-cultural fabric massive internal migrations from Southern Italy had defaced; an exploit that then beginning unchecked Third-World immigration promised to repeat.
Lega Nord's nativism hit a nerve with the exogamic majority. Books started filling the top shelf announcing how Nostradamus -or any such other for the matter- had predicted 'the great nation' would implode (the USSR, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia...).
Op-eds circularly foretold ethnic hatred would lead (=manipulation of the time-line in the public mind) to the mass-execution, deportation etc of both transplanted Southern immigrants, and their panic-stricken, exogamic offspring;
Belle Epoque nationalists frothed at the mouth wanting to march in the defense of the artificial kin of 'Italianness' (=fusion of the horde).
Pedlars at a radio station rode the white horse of oneness with a new slogan: “one nation, one station�, flaunted nativism, and paraded pride in exogamic backgrounds in what looked like a re-edition of the gay rights movements of an earlier period. Lega Nord partisans -although mostly either in, or issued from, exogamic relationships percentage-wise - lulled themselves into a newly found sense of unity based upon meta-historical unbroken Celtic lineages.
Anxieties regarding one's bloodline are not confined to peculiar
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countries like Italy, Portugal or Spain object in the middle ages of extensive Muslim colonization (in Italy one might add slaves from Asia imported in late antiquity; Byzantine Greeks; Albanian Christians fleeing en masse from Muslim invaders...). Nor are they the exclusive province of those who contemplate with unease their foregoers who might include boat-people and other dispossessed, marauding gogetters in search of greener grass.
(Not so) oddly enough, Spain would produce the concept of limpieza de
sangre (blood cleanliness) that -after the Reconquista- allegedly parted those of immemorial, unbroken Christian ancestry from those who had Jews and/or Muslims in their family tree. Under the Francoist regime, the party line was that Arab Muslims came to Spain, stayed a while (some 7 centuries), then were surgically removed.
In northern Italy, party Lega Nord proposed Padania in the 1990s, a name given to an imagined homeland that encompassed Italy north of the Po river.
Padani (=inhabitants of Padania) would thus be of pure, unbroken Celtic lineage. This despite the fact that an overwhelming majority of people in Northern Italy – including Lega Nord's tenors and honchos- are either in -or issued from- exogamic relationships with transplanted immigrants from Southern Italy that flooded northwards in the 1950-60s. In the Iberic pensinsula as well, anxieties regarding broken lineages can be soothed exploring Celtiberia, or the Celtic (once again) bedrock of the Iberian stock.
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German Kaiser Wilhelm II -Queen Victoria's grandson- declared “I wish I had not a drop of English blood in my veins”, or – as a student- he wished “ he could drain all the 'damned' English blood from his veins.”. Wilhelm's detractors -especially during WWI- lampooned him, and made fun of the “little English blood” the Kaiser (Queen Victoria's grandson after all) possessed. Just a few years earlier, however, The Times (February 6, 1901) had greeted a Wilhelm grieving the loss of his grandmother Queen Victoria thus:”Your English tears for love of England's Queen - England will not forget ”.
WWI exploded among a coterie of consanguineous monarchs (the royal houses of England, Spain, Norway, Germany, Russia, Greece, Denmark, Romania etc were all consanguineous). Edward VII of England was named “the uncle of Europe” as he was related to almost all royal houses. If this network of blood relations seemed a pledge for peace, this clique of ill-assorted relatives plunged the world into a catastrophe because extended family struggles were camouflaged under the fig leaf of Belle Epoque nation States and their imagined community rhetoric:
but the way and the means to establish and maintain a relationship to a named God. And how is such a relationship to be achieved? Only through membership in a certain supernaturally endowed, uniquely favored social group. (Campbell 1991:102). A state is reasonably clear and objectively defined—it’s a necessary organizing principle—but a nation is a mythological, imaginal notion, a nation is a living myth. (Olson 2017:no page). As an ominous joke, Edward VII disliked his younger relative Wilhelm II, who in turn embodied the German bid to rival with Britain's maritime power. 1464
Wilhelm II in turn admitted he was interested in maritime exploits on account of his English blood as son of Queen Victoria's eldest daughter.
It was as well known party Lega Nord consulted with a series of intellectuals from various provinces of the political spectrum -from a Catholic down to a Spenglerian right; from a libertarian to a Social-communist left- in charge of weaving the party's line offering rows of suggestions that the leadership might -or might not- incorporate in the 'recaptured eternal truth' fed to the masses.
While nativism revealed itself as short-lived political charade based on untenable premises1868, it occasioned -as a reaction to the same- the birth of possibly the major, longest-lasting post-war political success in a major western country: Berlusconi's party Forza Italia.
Years later, U.S wrestler Eddie Guerrero plotted the same trajectory:
viva la raza. Guerrero enlivened pride in Hispanic/Mexican (=la raza) heritage as he presented himself as a champion of the same; he also emboldened exogamic members of the audience to literally parade pride in their mixed parentage by holding signs that read -to name one- “I'm half Mexican�.
The hybridity psychosis recurrently gives rise to well-orchestrated -according to op-eds and media headlines that conveniently start heckling in the opportune direction well ahead of time- pop-culture phenomena social alchemists, 1868
As repeatedly pointed out, most party leader were themselves either in -or issued from- exogamic relationships.
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progressives and their ilk sing as heralding the 'spontaneous rise' of the new humanity.
There is little difference with the artificial suspense, perfunctory storylines and 'accidental' events lined up to introduce and groom new wrestlers; the behemoth (Canadian) Earthquake in fact initially appeared as a meek member of the public 'casually' asked to step on the ring to assist with the main event. In Italy, such was the case the election of an Italian mulatto national beauty queen (Denny Mendez in 19961869); and -as of late- Black soccer player Mario Balotelli.
Pen-jockeys for hire cannot hold both their enthusiasm for the 'great ideas', the hybrid Ozymandias of the moment, and their execration for those who think otherwise:
After two goals Thursday that catapulted Italy to the Euro 2012 final, Italians immediately anointed a new national hero: Mario Balotelli, whose biography neatly encapsulates the changes that have swept Italian society in the past 20 years — as well as its contradictions. Born in Palermo from Ghanaian parents but raised by an Italian family in Brescia who legally adopted him when he was 18, Balotelli has become an icon of a country still struggling with notions of citizenship and legal rights. Even as fans and commentators have cited Balotelli as a symbol of Italy’s new multiethnic society, there are some Italians who still believe that nationality is a question of color. -...Yet while he was still playing in Italy, Mr. Balotelli, like other black athletes who play here, was subject to racist episodes. When newspapers reported that he had revealed in June after a visit to Auschwitz that one of his adoptive parents was of Jewish heritage, an Italian extreme right group posted unprintable slurs on its Web site. (Povoledo 2012: no page). 1869
Media headlines started politicizing the item and prophesying the 'providential' outcome to settle political scores well ahead of the actual event in what looked like a Fujimori or Obama event ahead of time.
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Balotelli's case is not unique. Born in the USA to recently landed Filipino immigrants, Michelle Malkin has become one of the loudest poster women for reaganite conservatism and anti-immigration policies: divine irony.
The fixation with hybridity truly is as old as man; even Buddhism identified a strand thereof. Much older examples are also common, such as the paleolithic Sorcier Des Trois Frères (France, about 13.000 BCE), a creature with human and animal characteristics (wolf, owl, deer, bison...opinions differ):
Now recall those ancient cave paintings and artifacts showing chimerical images that blended humans and animals together— believed to have been created by shamans. Initially, I only suggested that these hybrid images resembled contemporary shamanistic art, but -...- we can now move towards defining this artwork as religiously iconic. The oldest of these hybrid images, the lion-man statuette, which is a little over 30,000 years old, represents the first evidence of humankind’s fascination with violations of ontological categories and could therefore provide clues as to the specific date when hominid brains acquired religion. Notice that mere strangeness does not result in a religious idea. Bizarre or randomly put-together ideas will not seem religious unless they take on Boyer’s specific cognitive form. -...- The distinction between magico-religious themes and more generic bizarre ideas also applies to psychosis. Contrary to popular belief, psychotic experiences are not a random assortment of non sequiturs, but have their own intrinsic structure. Although no consensus exists on their precise form, it appears to me that many common psychotic ideas resemble Boyer’s religious forms. Examples include demonic influences, voices from God, telepathic communication and nihilistic delusions (such as feeling one is missing their vital organs). (Polimeni 2012:171-2). The journeying founder storyline may merge with the hybridism storyline: Khmer people claimed as mythical ancestors a Hindu sage having reached
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Cambodia, who married the daughter of the serpent-king, whose race ruled over fantastic underwater kingdoms (the kind of place portrayed in recent Star Wars movies, by the way).
‘hybridity’ is often misunderstood as a purely contemporary concern. The genealogy of the term is, of course, more accurately associated with the development of the natural sciences and in particular botany and zoology, where it referred to the outcome of a cross between two separate species of plant or animal. In the eighteenth century, when classification of the natural world and its material products became a veritable obsession, the concept of the hybrid was expanded to incorporate humans. Even before Social Darwinism had permeated nineteenth-century society the categorization of different human populations into taxonomies of ‘race’ was already a central theme within Europe -...-. the postmodern celebration of hybridity risks replicating the populist promotion of syncretism and miscegenation that has been central to much post-independence Latin American nationalist discourse, which set out to construct a seamless, unified national body via the assimilation of cultural and racial differences (Brah&Coombes 2000:3,56). I suggested that mestizaje offered an alternative -...-. In two poles of the debate over multiculturalism — assimilation and separatism. Assimilation, seeks to amalgamate diverse cultures into a universal, uniform model. By contrast, separatism strives to preserve the integrity of cultural traditions, contends that cultural traditions are incommensurable to each other, and argues that appeals to universal norms are simply one culture superimposing its tradition over another. Instead, I argued that a mestizo democracy entails that cultures can intersect and mutually transform each other in ways that ultimately seek to overcome the conqueror-conquered dynamic. In so doing, I contended that our public life will be much richer than one in which "one size fits all" or one that is an agonal contest between tribal enclaves (Burke 2008:34, emphasis added). Creating your own vocabulary is a powerful subliminal persuasion tool. Creating new names or renaming the commonplace can make something appear very powerful and new. (Lakhani 2008:21). Today, eccentric bozos online may congregate in the “therian
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community�. Transgenderism becomes passe: a diverse cohort of lefties, neo-pagans, spiritualists, and other odd birds nowadays claim to be non-human animals, just as their neolithic forefathers used to think with their totem animals: personal discovery journey or mental illness? The ambiance is pretty much that of a Star Wars or Star Trek convention, where people often masquerade as -or identify withthe fabulous races of on-screen fiction; therians, on the other hand, take themselves very seriously.
It is difficult not to remark the fashionable solutions the social alchemist wearing the red or rainbow armband of hybridism proposes are perhaps inverted in comparison with the unfashionable proposals of the alchemist wearing the black or white armband of purity, but not different in their degree of cunning manipulation and cynical treatment of humans as commercially farmed animals.
In today's torn apart Middle East, some Arab groups claim to descend from either ancient Egyptians, or groups from the historical lore such as the Philistines; Jewish groups oppose them claiming to descend directly (=unbroken immemorial lineage mytheme) from the Hebrews of Biblical times. The long and strong appendage the human mind raves about this time is an illustrious, unbroken family tree, and not a colossal erection.
According to experts Israel Finkelstein and N.E. Silberman 1870, no compelling archaeological evidence can be found to substantiate Biblical narratives 1870
2001.
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about the Patriarchs, the Exodus, the military conquest or the deeds of the Kings. Only two separate, modest Kingdoms (Israel and Judah) appeared much later (circa VIII century BCE).
No trace of a unified Davidic Empire could be found. It all started from a visionary -yet short-lived- ambitious political experiment under King Josiah of Judah1871 (649-609 BCE) who claimed to have “discovered” long-lost Torah books, and merged the Northern and Southern Hebrew traditions into one more or less coherent vision of an(other) imagined community based upon the Torah and centralized monotheism
as a sort of “portable nation” with the emergence of
literacy (VIII/VII century BCE):”ancient traditions from many different sources were crafted into a single sweeping epic that bolstered Josiah’s political aims.”1872.
Scholars Cross and Alt seem to agree as they posits that Biblical patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) were originally tied to individual clans worshiping local gods (“the god of so-and-so” may mean “the god so-and-so originally worshiped”). The Biblical tradition then merged all the local patriarchs into a unified lineage, much as in the Graeco-Roman world the Olympian gods merge with local gods (Aphrodite and Hyppolytus; Zeus and various goddesses he seduces).
Farther south, orthodox Ethiopians claim the authentic heritage -both 1871
Josiah's imperial ambition to constitute a living Israel with the annexation of northern territories put him on a collision course with another imperial power in the region. At Megiddo, Pharaoh Necho II defeated and killed Josiah. 1872 Finkelstein&Silberman 2001:54.
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Hebrew and Christian- as their own, for -among other supporting evidence- the famous Hebrew ark of the covenant would allegedly be found at different locations on Ethiopian soil; Ethiopian rulers (dubbed “the lion of Judah”, just like Jesus) in fact claimed to descend from mythical Solomon, and the equally fabulous Queen of Sheba, whom they take to be Ethiopian 1873:“narrative entwines different time-lines in order to empty the notion of chronological time in favor of that of duration ” 1874.
Rastafarianism also (born in the 1920s) cherished the idea that Ethiopian ruler Haile Selassie -whom many Rastafarians consider mystically alive even if he officially died in 1975- would spearhead an hermetical comeback or repatriation of all Black people coming together as one people, both in Africa and in the diaspora because he was a living god. Ethiopia was seen as the ideal place that had preserved the authentic worship of Jah (=Hebrew Yahweh) as a modern Zion.
The ideal NSDAP city might have looked like mid-town Bavaria in the 1910s; ideal cities according to the contemporary mainstream look like 'diverse' defiled Latin-American shanty towns or megalopolitan U.S slums:
Spanish colonial discourse was no less racist than its British counterpart but its belief in white superiority was articulated differently, in a way that allowed Spaniards – and post-independence Latin Americans – to convince themselves that they were not guilty of the racism that so visibly characterized the segregated societies of Britain’s past or present empire. Miscegenation was thus regarded as 1873
Alternatively, she might have come from a southern kingdom in the Arabian peninsula. In preference, the Ethiopian sites might have been a colony or outpost of the civilization of Saba that existed in Southern Arabia/Yemen. Be it as it may, her -and Solomon's- son was considered the first Ethiopian ruler, who brought the ark along. 1874 Vieira Ferreira 2009:146.
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‘normal’ or even, with the influence of Darwinist theory in the postindependence period, as a way of ‘improving the stock’, though in practice it was generally accepted only outside marriage and between white ‘master’ and female Indian or black, maintaining hierarchy. In reality, of course, this was a normalization of rape, resemanticized in Spanish colonial discourse as the myth of the white male generously donating his seed to the woman of colour and thereby founding a new hybrid race in which differences were transcended or redeemed. -...This colonial model of miscegenation as a means of incorporating racial ‘others’ allowed the Spanish fascist intellectual Giménez Caballero, in his political tract The Genius of Spain (1932), to argue for the return of Don Juan as the Spanish ‘Superman’ or ‘Messiah’ who would subdue the (feminine) populace through sexual conquest, casting domination as love (and conversely casting love as domination). Giménez Caballero’s blatantly sexual rhetoric (embarrassing to those used to the puritanism of British colonial discourse) proposes as national ‘Saviour’ a Great Inseminator who will redeem the wayward race, as the Spanish conquistadors had earlier done in the Americas, by planting in her his redemptive seed: the ‘genius of Spain’ is its virile, genital and (re)generative capacity. -...For the insistence in Spanish colonial discourse on the incorporation of the colonized via miscegenation gives identification itself the double function of disavowing (affirming/denying) racial difference: incorporation involves making part of the self that which is not part of the self. (Labanyi in Brah&Coombes 2000:57-58,60.). the Manhattan skyline remains the icon of urbanity ( DD304 City Stories 2005, segment New York). The images we implicitly draw on when we use the word 'city' can stem from a very limited repertoire of cities (Massey, Allen&Pile 1999:10). It is in fact problematic to part commercial farmers engaged to preserve a particular race or attribute, and those busy interbreeding and experimenting for the sake of 'improvement'. It was in fact -once again- the (Victorian) XIX century that saw massive eugenic ( term appeared in 1883 according to the MerriamWebster dictionary) efforts deployed to create the most diverse variety of canine and livestock breeds. The obsession with breeding simply tapped into human mind's 1472
psychotic obsessions with blood, lineages, contamination and purity of all sorts and degrees, for example among ancient Hebrews.
An eurocentric perspective isn't pivotal, either. Chinese reformer -and imperial adviser (1898 Hundred Days' Reform) - Kang Youwei (1858-1927) prophesied a future utopia based on well-known, ever returning ideas: centralized world government, communist principles of social organization, technology, and massive worldwide exogamy/interbreeding leading finally to the rise of one thoroughly homogenized -culturally, racially, phenotypically- human race; in spite of this, contemporary controversies point out Kang's possibly impolite opinion about people of color. It all goes back to blurred fantasies of Eden, or to historical antecedents: Sparta, a society of equals.
Kang Youwei wasn't alone in advocating racial alchemy. In Australia, vast efforts were deployed (from the Victorian era down to the 1960s) to remove aboriginal children (the “stolen generations” issue) to insert them forcibly into European civilization. The problem of mixed parentage children -or half-castes- was particularly irksome, so that strategies were deployed to “assimilate” half-castes into the White mainstream. Interestingly enough, in recent decades intellectuals have emoted their outrage, and circularly screamed at genocide.
A laboratory of diversity himself because he was part Japanese, Greek, Hungarian etc, Richard Coudenhove Kalergi -considered the respectable father of a united Europe- would have prophesied in 1925 how:”The man of the future will be 1473
a mongrel. Today's races and classes will disappear owing to the disappearing of space, time, and prejudice. �.
Beyond political expediency, however, it is difficult to see major differences between the brutalization of Australian aborigines, and the fate of innumerable cultures and ethnic groups forcibly acculturated through the relentless food-processor of Belle Epoque nation-States in their administrative efforts to mold imagined communities after the elusive blueprint long-dead hacks, bomb-dropping patriots and elated reformers provided.
Only political expediency allows to separate the forced administrative leveling of Irish, Scottish, Welsh, English ( BrĂŠtons, Basques, Corses, Occitans,
Alsaciens...)
to
produce
the
imagined
British
(or
French...Italian...Spanish...Yugoslavian...Soviet) community from any other such occurrence.
What would politicking intellectuals think, however, if Alsaciens, BrĂŠtons and the like tooted the horn of dispossession and ethno-cultural resurgence? Wouldn't they eviscerate such '...ist' arguments resting on fallacious tribal hallucinations, whose sole outcome are exclusion and possibly slaughter?
Such contentions aren't exactly pointless. In the aftermath of the WWI disaster, the conflation of Darwinism, eugenics, mesmerism, garrison state, statism and military catastrophe imploded. It can be safely evinced that the recourse
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metropolitan powers made to aboriginal colonial soldiers (India, Africa...) sparked a first wave of post-colonial (racial?) consciousness and tension destined to be long lived.
In 1920 went to press a book (which the author claimed to have penned right before the war in 1914) by T.L. Stoddard with the ominous title: The Rising
Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy . Brazilian Lobato in 1926 penned O Presidente Negro. In a future then judged remote, the White majority in the USA is divided by the criss-crossing activism of maximalist groups such as Feminists and Socialists. As a result of such confusion, a Black President is elected. The chaotic interlude takes soon a turn for the worst: a newly united White majority resolves to sterilize all Blacks.
It is not without interest to note that Lobato is numbered among progressives who challenged the deterministic, racialist version of social Darwinism in favor of an evolutionary social perspective. Brazil's social ills could be overcome through incremental policies such as that of saneamento (sanitation) in still perfect Victorian fashion (listerism1875 etc):”Edwin Chadwick and Florence Nightingale promised that national cleanliness would eradicate disease, dissent and disorder” 1876: “That dirt was fatal they had discovered; but why it was fatal few of them knew. At this point Lister [18271912] came forward with a scientific principle which rendered all plain. Dirt was fatal, not as dirt, but because it contained living germs which, as Schwann was the first to prove are the cause of putrefaction. Lister extended the generalization of Schwann from dead matter to living matter, and by this apparently simple step revolutionized the art of surgery. He changed it, in fact, from an art into a science. “Listerism” is sometimes spoken of as if it merely consisted in the application of carbolic-acid spray; but no man of any breadth of vision will regard the subject thus. The antiseptic system had been enunciated, expounded, and illustrated, prior to the introduction of the spray. ” (Tyndall 1882:462-3). 1876 Freedgood 2000:3. 1875
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The more deeply we go into this and similar rules, the more obvious it becomes that we are studying symbolic systems. Is this then really the difference between ritual pollution and our ideas of dirt: Are our ideas hygienic where theirs are symbolic? Not a bit of it: I am going to argue that our ideas of dirt also express symbolic systems and that the difference between pollution behaviour in one part of the world and another is only a matter of detail. (Douglas 1966:36). The capital's century-long struggle with filth was intimately connected with its unprecedented growth. Between 1801 and 1901, the population of London soared from one million to over six million. Suburbia replaced green fields, ‘crushing up the country in its concrete grasp’. Waste products multiplied in due proportion, whether smoke from household fires or mud from ever-increasing horse traffic. Some types of dirt posed a challenge in terms of the sheer volume of unwanted matter; others contained a real or perceived danger to public health. Nuisance and discomfort abounded. Some saw metropolitan dirt as the harbinger of moral decay. Filth implied social and domestic disorder; and, when discovered in the home, inculcated immoral habits – for it was widely agreed that working men, faced with poor housekeeping, sought refuge in the glittering comforts of the gin palace. (Jackson 2014:32). The Victorian/Belle Epoque's collective psyche was also haunted by a threat more dangerous and closer to home. Krumm 1877 establishes a parallel between the fear of what is 'other' seen as a 'beast within' and the obsessive fear of syphilis (in the UK dubbed as “the big pox”), an illness that was spreading like wildfire. According to some biographer, Bram Stoker ( Dracula, 1897) would have died of tertiary syphilis in 19121878: La hantise quasi-obsessionnelle de la syphilis est un topos repris par maints auteurs qui, tous, respectent le tabou nominatif. -...- La syphilis, documentée pour la première fois à l'orée du XVIe siécle, prend rapidement des proportions calamiteuses; la maladie est d'autant plus virulente qu'elle est nouvelle. -...-Elaine Showalter affirme, chiffres à l'appui, que la dernière décennie du XIXe siècle est l'age d'or de la syphilis: en 1880 on recense 5000 nouveaux cas par an à Paris. En 1900 20% de la population male serait atteinte, en 1902 l'estimation est à un million de cas. -...-Dans The Literature of Terror, David Punter constate que "the discovery of Darwin combined with psychological developments produced.., a fear that the Other thus postulated may relate to the bestial level which evidences human continuity with the animal world. '' Ce dont l'homme a peur c'est de la réapparition de cette bete (Krumm 1995:6-9). 1878 Marigny, Le Vampire 1984:episode 4. 1877
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The white slave panic offers one variation on an American epic: innocent girls fall into demonic hands. The Puritan captivity narratives organized the genre. Wild Indians captured young Christian maidens and carried them into pagan savagery. The natives, in those Puritan stories, were lustful and brutal. Some of the young women fell all the way and became Indians themselves. Recall the maxim in Anthony Comstock’s preface: the danger for every generation “is not that they will be devoured” but “that they will be transformed into wolves.” (Morone 2003:262). Everybody – thus not only '...ists' and crackpots- wanted to exploit the 'mood of the times', and to turn Victorian and Belle Epoque fads to the advantage of one's cause. Black NAACP co-founder -and U.S Black rights activist- W.E.B Du Bois – whom Ben-Shahar elatedly quotes1879- wrote in 1903:
The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education, then, among Negroes must first of all deal with the Talented Tenth; it is the problem of developing the Best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the Worst, in their own and other races. -...-Can the masses of the Negro people be in any possible way more quickly raised than by the effort and example of this aristocracy of talent and character? Was there ever a nation on God's fair earth civilized from the bottom upward? Never; it is, ever was and ever will be from the top downward that culture filters. The Talented Tenth rises and pulls all that are worth the saving up to their vantage ground. This is the history of human progress; and the two historic mistakes which have hindered that progress were the thinking first that no more could ever rise save the few already risen; or second, that it would better the uprisen to pull the risen down. (no page). 1879
The issue poses problems. Why does Ben-Shahar endorse Du Bois so uncritically? Is he not aware of Du Bois' enthusiastic endorsement of Bolshevism? What about Du Bois' expedient and temporary condonation of Hitler's racism and antisemitism? Once again, probably Ben-Shahar does know, just as the present writer does, but he couldn't care less. Du Bois' skin color, status as NAACP co-founder and lefty ticket are enough to wash away any “moral stain “ that would irremediably mar less credentialed candidates. Academia as the harlot of politics seems an apt metaphor. Again, politicians promise drastic tax cuts and huge subsidies even if they are aware there are no financial resources for either: mere pep talks to sell books or win an election. Mormon Apostle B.K. Packer summarized the attitude well:”It may be that you will lay your scholarly reputation and the acclaim of your colleagues in the world as a sacrifice upon the altar of service. They may never understand the things of the Spirit as you have a right to do.”.
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Some on the left went even further and praised Nazism. The progressive African American scholar W. E. B. Du Bois said Hitler’s dictatorship was “absolutely necessary to get the state in order.” In 1937 he wrote, “There is today in some respects more democracy in Germany than there has been in years past.” Du Bois even contrasted American racism, which he considered irrational, with Nazi antiSemitism, which he said was based on “reasoned prejudice or economic fear.” (D'Souza 2017:no page). I may be partially deceived and half-informed. But if what I have seen with my eyes and heard with my ears in Russia is Bolshevism, I am a Bolshevik. (W.E.B Du Bois in 1926, Russia And America). I have not the slightest doubt that the economic measures and the Socialist measures which one will find in countries of Eastern Europe, will become increasingly powerful against the uncoordinated, planless society in which the West is living at present. (future British Labor Prime Minister Callaghan in 1960). An anti-Semite early in his career--in 1924 his magazines started carrying a swastika on the cover, despite complaints from Jewish progressives--DuBois applied for a grant in 1935 from an organization with known ties to the Nazis that was run by a well-known Jew hater who'd dined with Joseph Goebbels. (Goldberg 2007:62). That line of thought -incorrectly linked to the names of Spengler and others- was just another strand of XIX century morphological evolutionary thinking applied to society, of which Darwinism was one incarnation.
Today only fringe activists excluded from polite company bother with what's in store for the White race, whatever it means. Contemporary catastrophic myths have to relate to enforced “popular morality”, “free-floating folk beliefs”, “only an old Phoenician tale of what has often occurred before now in other places”, “explanations or interpretations usually put forth”, “prevailing cultural trends”, “the audience’s pre-established set of convictions”. It all may simmer in catastrophism 1478
giving rise to all sorts of accounts ranging from planetary collisions to dystopian renditions of the fixations of the 1960s.
It shall in fairness be emphasized how catastrophes – as aesthetic (=purely formal) reality and object of contemplation outside the realm of religiontook a modern existence of their own in the XVIII century (plague in 1720; the earthquake that razed Lisbon in 1755; an earthquake in Messina in 1783). Cold War's 'nuclear holocaust'? The many re-editions of the plight, slaughter and injustice suffered by this, that or another minority or special interest group?
Evolutionism looks also suspiciously similar to quintessential creation myths from various cultures, which experts refer to as emergence myth. Opposed in nature to creations from nothing ( ex nihilo creations), emergence myths see creation as the...evolutionary parable of one breed of sentient beings that -through various vicissitudes and possibly transiting from one world/habitat to the nextgradually and incrementally transform into -or bring about- human beings. Possibly a variation upon the theme of the great chain of being without the baggage of Victorian scientism.
“All cooperates for the good” is a way to see this great chain of being at work:
for it is equally true that he [Aristotle] suggested the limitations and dangers of classification, and the non-conformity of nature to those sharp divisions which are so indispensable for language and so convenient for our ordinary mental operations -...-. in spite of 1479
Aristotle's recognition of the multiplicity of possible systems of natural classification, it was he who chiefly suggested -...- the idea of arranging -...- in a single graded scala naturae according to their degree of 'perfection' -...-. he conceived eleven grades, with man at the top -...-. in the de anima another hierarchical arrangement of all organisms is suggested -...- based on the 'powers of soul' possessed by them, from the nutritive, to which plants are limited, to the rational, characteristic of man -...-, each higher order possessing all the powers of those below it in the scale -...- the conception of the universe as a 'great chain of being' -...- from the meagerest kind of existence -...- up to the ens perfectissimus -...-. Among the great philosophic systems of the seventeenth century, it is in that of Leibniz that the conception of the chain of being is most conspicuous -...-. The essential characteristics of the universe are for him plenitude, continuity and linear gradation. The chain consists of the totality of monads, ranging in hierarchical sequence from god to the lowest grade of sentient life, no two alike, but each differing from those just below and just above it in the scale by the least possible difference-...-.the individuals, no doubt, unlike the species, seem to increase in numbers and to undergo change, but in reality this is a mere expansion or 'unfolding'(evolutio) of structures and characters that were already pre-delineated, on a minute scale of magnitude, in the primeval germs which lay encased one within another like a nest of boxes -...-. For one of the principal happenings in eighteen-century thought was the temporalizing of the chain of being. The plenum formarum came to be conceived by some, not as the inventory but as the program of nature, which is being carried out gradually and exceedingly slowly in the cosmic history. While all the possibilities demand realization, they are not accorded it all at once (Lovejoy 1936:58-9,144,243-4). Evolution -whether spiritual, biological or both- may even include several planets:
Several elements of what would become theosophical reincarnation doctrine were already in place. The human soul reincarnates in order to progress spiritually. Incarnations take place not only on earth, but also on other planets. (Hammer 2004:464). The truly revolutionary theses in cosmography which gained ground in the sixteenth and came to be pretty generally accepted before the end of the seventeenth century were five in number, none of them 1480
entailed by the purely astronomical systems of Copernicus or Kepler. In any study of the history of the modern conception of the world, and in any account of the position of any individual writer, it is essential to keep these distinctions between issues constantly in view. The five more significant innovations were: (1) the assumption that other planets of our solar system are inhabited by living, sentient, and rational creatures; (2) the shattering of the outer walls of the medieval universe, whether these were identified with the outermost crystalline sphere or with a definite" region" of the fixed stars, and the dispersal of these stars through vast, irregular distances; (3) the conception of the fixed stars as suns similar to ours, all or most of them surrounded by planetary systems of their own; (4) the supposition that the planets in these other worlds also have conscious inhabitants; (5) the assertion of the actual infinity of the physical universe in space and of the number of solar systems contained it it. (Lovejoy 1936:108). The same convulse obsessions where belabored on all corners of the political spectrum with similar conclusions:
One must be aware that the term [la raza] is originally from México and it was first promoted by José Vasconcelos, a respected and venerated Mexican intellectual (1881-1959). It was given shape in his book La Raza Cósmica [1925] and it was introduced as a response, based on "scientific" evidence then available as well as Catholic theology. -...- The most successful of them, José Vasconcelos, came up with a kooky concept where he claimed that the indigenous people of America had had their day in the sun but their mixture with the "better" Europeans gave rise to a new race, the mestizo. (In those days, it was common to divide Homo Sapiens into four races: Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid, and Amerindian. Thrown as evidence, he cited the lost continent of Atlantis.) He called this new race "La raza Cósmica" and argued that it would be the one that would show "the way" to the rest of the world. It is a very catchy and feel-good concept. Over the years, that concept was semi-officially promoted by the Mexican government to give "atole con el dedo" to the population (that is where the custom of calling "Día de la Raza" to "Columbus Day" came from) (Urrutia 1998: no page). Feral children, too, (a variation on the hybridism theme) have been a long-time favorite in all sorts of guises (Tarzan, Mowgli, Romulus and Remus...): 1481
The Lupercal is an incredibly important site in Roman history and cultural consciousness. As we will learn in a later lecture, it was the site of the suckling of Romulus and Remus by the shewolf. Is it the most famous of all Roman myths based on a Greek cult of human sacrifice? The connections certainly cannot be ignored. (Meineck 2005-1:25). Wrestler Kamala (a Black behemoth explorers had supposedly found in Uganda1880) was named after one such feral child. The motif is incredibly popular, especially in an explosive mix:
The memoirs of a girl of eight who wandered 3,000 miles across Nazioccupied Europe searching for her missing parents was amazing enough. Add in her claims of surviving two freezing winters living with a pack of wolves and you have a truly astonishing tale. Unfortunately the life story that earned its author £10million and was translated into 18 languages was just that. A story. -...- The money started rolling in for De Wael after she won a £10million court case that year against her American publisher for allegedly withholding royalties and not doing enough to market the book. Yesterday her lawyer, Marc Uyttendaele, said: "It matters little whether the account is real or partly allegorical, it is the product of absolute good faith, a cry of suffering and an act of courage.". (Author Who Made...2008: no page, emphasis added). The book caused a literary sensation on release in 1997. But more than 10 years later – and just a few weeks after a film adaptation, Survivre Avec Les Loups (Surviving with Wolves), premiered in France – it has been revealed that not only did she invent the story but that she is the Roman-Catholic daughter of an alleged wartime collaborator. -...-. "The book is a story, it's my story," said the writer, in a statement issued under her real name, Monique De Wael. "It's not the true reality, but it is my reality. There are times when I find it difficult to differentiate between reality and my inner world." -...-. The 71-yearold author also blamed her estranged publisher, Jane Daniel, for convincing her to release the book. "At first, I did not want to publish it, but then I was convinced by Jane Daniel," said Ms De Wael. The author successfully sued Ms Daniel, and her company, Mt Ivy Press, 1880
The gimmick wanted Kamala (in the garb of an African tribal chieftain) being escorted to the ring by a masked man in the garb of an explorer, who instructed Kamala in some unknown African language alongside the conventional manager.
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for $22.5m (£11.3m) in 2005 after claiming the company was withholding royalties. (Shields 2008: no page, emphasis added). Therapy sessions that elicit false memories of sexual abuse use a number of pre-persuasion tactics. -...- Next, a jargon is promoted for interpreting events—terms such as in denial, violated boundaries, emotional incest, codependency, and in recovery. Note how these terms can be used to put a spin on virtually any given event. When the client raises an argument against the abuse hypothesis, she is in denial. The mother who will not back the daughter's story of dad's rape is a codependent. Ambiguous behavior and even acts of love can be cast in a sinister mold by claiming that the fatherly hug violated boundaries and was really emotional rape. Clients who behave in a manner acceptable to the therapist are in recovery. -...- The source of the abuse message is typically a therapist or counselor. -...- A new identity is given to the client—that of victim and survivor. The client is rewarded for adopting this new identity by the therapist and in group sessions where reporting of abuse is encouraged. And this new identity feels good. (Pratkanis&Aronson 2001:ch.5). The False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF) published the results of its survey of the outcomes of recent malpractice suits against therapists in its December 1997 newsletter ( False Memory Syndrome Foundation 1997). An analysis of 105 malpractice suits flied by former patients against their therapists for development of false memories revealed that one case was dropped, forty-two were settled out of court, fifty-three are still pending, and nine went to trial. Of the cases that went to trial, all ended in a verdict in favor of the plaintiff (patient) against the defendant (therapist). (Loftus 1998: no page). In other words, prigs and dolts 'have it coming' -so to speak-. If the simpleton is ripe for the plucking, then why shouldn't the American malt liquor brand (the lefty pressure group, or any other agent one might choose) seize the opportunity right away? Should they wait until the Scotch or Irish malt liquor brand (right-wing pressure group, or any other agent one might choose) does? It'd make no sense:“Why fabulate ? Because if we do not, everyone else will.”;”[The public] only wanted one thing from [a given public figure]: a story. He told it so
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well that we forgave him almost everything. ”;“[it] helped people to believe.”;”We want -...- original content regardless of its validity. We're here for the scare, not for the plausibility”.
In the circular, ongoing rendition of Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, the “"sentimentalizing and prettifying" everything that the public might find objectionable” is more than obvious as the formerly 'impure other' takes centerstage as herald of the new humanity. The 'engaged filmmaker', however, needs the talent (and looks) of Sidney Poitier in his best days impersonating a famous physician to make the allegory palatable to the majority:
There has been a shift from eugenic concerns with ‘miscegenation’ to liberal concerns with the welfare of the children born from such unions, i.e. to expressions of benevolent concerns about the children. (Brah&Coombes 2000:77). Alternative rendition of the same want the 'other' to be a prince or someone of that kind. The 'biracial space prodigy' mister Spock has therefore a rich gallery of predecessors; in spite of the thick political veneer, there is no more substance than in all other similar myths.
Hybrids and oddities abound in the world of fiction. The Herculoids was a Hanna&Barbera cartoon from 1967. A hero figure (Zandor) routinely defeats evil aliens on a cosmic domination binge. His helpers include Zandor's wife, son, and a few bizarre creatures (= Zandor as “lord of the beasts”) equally dedicated to upholding justice in space; among them two kind, pear-shaped, shape-shifting and
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invulnerable ectoplasms (one juvenile and one adult ): Gloop and Gleep.
In 1970 two francophone 'creatives' concoct Barbapapa (French for spun sugar ): a family of...kind, pear-shaped, shape-shifting ectoplasms who went around righting wrongs: quantum entanglement, indeed. The Barbapapa family, however, includes ectoplasms (male and female, adult and juvenile) of...different colors on the backdrop of ecological and interracial themes: Barbapapa himself is at first ostracized and treated as an oddity because he's 'different'.
A sensation in the 1970s, Barbapapa is the object of recent massive merchandising as well. More or less apocryphal stories circulate presenting the authors as sort of Bodhisattvas who visualized Barbapapa as an emotional response to French upheaval in the late 1960s. Is the Barbapapa family a politicized rendition of Gloop and Gleep with a fashionable armband?
Is the acclaimed movie Gladiator (2000) not a remake of 1964 The Fall
Of The Roman Empire? Why haven't the disturbing similarities been publicly discussed? Nobody noticed, perchance? Yet both series were very popular in several countries. Readers shall come to their own conclusion.
Nimoy's strategy to elude the implications of the charge of politicization of the Star Trek mythology through apology (if...then) is not new. Brigham
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Young1881, Mussolini1882 and Stalin's contemporary admirers 1883 all adopted the 'if...then' strategy to diffuse criticism:”The final responsibility for the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion was, he said, "mine. and mine alone." Kennedy's popularity soared.”1884.
Eminent
Jewish-American
politician
Madeleine Korbel Albright
declared during a televised interview in 1996 1885 regarding the alleged huge loss in children's lives as a result of U.S sanctions against Iraq “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.”; Churchill had decades earlier commented:”We should never allow ourselves to apologize for what we did to Germany ”1886, although he also commented1887:”It seems to me the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed ”. Irrespective of any quarrel about estimates, biased sources, unspeakable allegiances and the exact number of possible victims, the 'if...then' strategy is very popular, and “Brigham says, "If Joseph Smith acts like a devil, he has brought forth a doctor that will save us. He may get drunk every day of his life, sleep with his neighbor's wife every night, run horses and gamble, but the doctrine he has produced will save you and me and the whole world." ” The Mormons 2006. As with many of that ilk, Smith had been involved in at least a few controversial situations. 1882 In the aftermath of the assassination by a Fascist commando of Socialist leader Matteotti, the Mussolini government tottered on the brink of collapse. At some point, Mussolini (1925) pronounced a famous harangue taking the “responsabilità politica, morale e storica” (historical, political and moral responsibility) of the events, then went on a series of 'if...then' clauses, such as “Se il fascismo è stato un’associazione a delinquere, io sono il capo di questa associazione a delinquere! ” (if fascism has been a criminal organization, then I am the leader of such criminal organization). Matteotti's death is invariably mentioned, yet Fascists, too, had earlier been assassinated in France in the tense political climate. 1883 “[coloro]che osano, senza traccia di morale, infangare il Socialismo e Stalin che ci hanno liberato dal fascismo di “lor signori” combattendo ” Buttafava, no date, no page. (Those who -without any trace of morality- dare to sling mud onto Socialism and Stalin who freed us from “their” fascism fighting...). 1884 Tavris&Aronson 2007:218. 1885 60 Minutes 1996. 1886 Cit. in Garrett in Nolan 2004:62. 1887 As reported in UK magazine The Spectator in 1979. 1881
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not only among 'cranks' and evil arch-dictators.
The 'if...then' strategy may also be coupled with mythic reminiscences of the hero (typically Achilles) who consciously chose a short(er) life according to certain principles (“unperishing glory” for Achilles, kleos aphthiton ), rather than an ordinary life outside of them. Even Matrix hero Neo -like a Zoroastrian devotee- is offered a quintessential choice in the form of pills.
Both Mussolini and Gautama Buddha claimed it was 100 times better to live one day (or one year) “as a lion”, “as someone who understands all is impermanent”, rather than 100 days (or years) “as a sheep”, “as someone who ignores what impermanence is”; Jesus assured that those leaving something behind in order to follow him would get it back 100 times.
People like Drouet, the French politician -and the man who arrested Louis XVI at Varennes-, could exclaim unfazed:”Soyons brigands, s'il faut l'être, pour le salut du peuple ” (let's behave like brigands, if the salvation of the people demands it). Literary (or cinematographic) rendition of pleas sympathetic to -very broadly put- a certain cause, or simple accounts of events, or any idea soever lose their innocence, as Schopenhauer aptly shows 1888, the very moment any writer tries 1888
“If the conversation turns upon some general conception which has no particular name, but requires some figurative or metaphorical designation, you must begin by choosing a metaphor that is favourable to your proposition. For instance, the names used to denote the two political parties in Spain, Serviles and Liberales, are obviously chosen by the latter. The name Protestants is chosen by themselves, and also the name Evangelicals; but the Catholics call them heretics. Similarly, in regard to the names of things which admit of a more exact and definite meaning: for example, if your opponent proposes an alteration, you can call it an innovation, as this is an invidious word. If you yourself make the proposal, it will be the converse. In the first case, you can call the antagonistic principle “the existing order,” in the second, “antiquated prejudice”. What an impartial man with no further purpose to serve would call “public worship” or a “system of religion,” is described by an
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to convey meaning in writing: choice of words, thought patterns, figures of speech and so forth betray biases, fears, situational ethics, allegiances.
“popular morality”, “free-floating folk beliefs”, “only an old Phoenician tale of what has often occurred before now in other places”, “explanations or interpretations usually put forth”, “prevailing cultural trends”, “the audience’s preestablished set of convictions” can either can be lampooned as priggish fantasies the hero-transgressor thankfully ignored in the service of the best of all causes, in whose name one never goes far enough; or can be taken literally, thus turning transgressors into brutes who went just too far:
Extremism in the defense of liberty is not a vice, moderation in pursuit of justice is not a virtue (U.S Republican Presidential candidate Sen. Barry Goldwater in 1964). Szasz (1970) emphasizes the dehumanization which follows from the "myth of mental illness If and which is produced by a pathologizing ideology in the interest of social harmony (Barclay 1990:61). In short, when One speaks of mental illness, the norm from which deviation is measured is a psychosocial and ethical standard. Yet, the remedy is sought in terms of medical measures that-it is hoped and assumed-are free from wide differences of ethical value. The definition of the disorder and the terms in which its remedy are sought are therefore at serious odds with one another. -...Moreover, because of the social consequences of such a judgment, adherent as “piety,” “godliness”; and by an opponent as “bigotry,” “superstition”. This is, at bottom, a subtle petitio principii. What is sought to be proved is, first of all, inserted in the definition, whence it is then taken by mere analysis. What one man calls “placing in safe custody,” another calls “throwing into prison”. A speaker often betrays his purpose beforehand by the names which he gives to things. One may talks of “the clergy”; another, of “the priests”. Of all the tricks of controversy, this is the most frequent, and it is used instinctively. You hear of “religious zeal,” or “fanaticism", a “faux pas,” a “piece of gallantry,” or “adultery”; an “equivocal,” or a “bawdy” story; “embarrassment,” or “bankruptcy”; “through influence and connection,” or by “bribery and nepotism”; “sincere gratitude,” or “good pay”. “ Schopenhauer 2004:12 (stratagem XII).
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both the "mental patient" and those who treat him as one become actors in a morality play, albeit one written in a medical-psychiatric jargon. (Szasz 1991:15,26). The seventeenth-century English dramatist Nathaniel Lee spent several years at Bethlem Royal Hospital (Porter 2002). Prior to his incarceration he demurred, “They said I was mad; and I said they were mad; and damn them, they outvoted me.” (Polimeni 2012:92). While the assumption is typically left unstated and the cat is carefully kept in the bag, it is possible to see dots being connected at times (in jargon, the “subtext”, the gist...). For example, objections against immoralities in the Yalta settlement can be discarded by ridiculing the entire concept of 'beautiful soul' and all the moral complexes associated therewith.
The 'sacred cow' can be put on a golden pedestal as untouchable reminder of the divine, or turned into hamburgers following the flimsy ways of situational ethics. The same outrage, emotional meltdown and jittery protest that meets disbelief in the 'sacred cow' is replaced by laughter, scorn and parody when it's fast-food time; the course might also be reversed in motion so that people may rescue what's left from the grinder and make a wailing totem out of it for all eternity.
Wolfram's young Parsifal routinely shoots birds, then bursts into tears upon seeing them dead, tears out his own hair in despair, only to shoot some more birds later. On a completely different level, domestic violence apparently follows the same warped logic, whereby the routine outbursts of physical violence follow stages of intermission during which the (typically male) perpetrator makes formal 1489
amends, tries to put his misdeeds into a favorable perspective, and pledges to reform his nasty customs, only to unleash some more violence (=domestic terrorism 1889 in the psychologist's jargon) upon his near and dear at the first occasion (=”cycle of violence”1890).
Ink never ceases to flow to dissect and psychologize the recurring outbursts of collective violence -such as industrial mass-murder-, but there is no compelling reason not to extend the “cycle of violence” model to collective actors equally busy interspersing acts of brutality with comedies of innocence, atonement liturgies and other dramaturgical acts meant to clean the collective slate.
The godly knight Parsifal and the tormentor of his near and dear rub elbows as they weep and feel remorse, only irresistibly to resume the same “cycle of violence” in good conscience as those gasps and those tears they shed somewhat afforded them a clean slate (= they settled their reconciliation bill etc):”When God created human beings, he made them to be like himself. ” (Genesis 5:1).
All obsessive-compulsive1891 people do that: after he gets plastered once again, the alcoholic pledges to give up drinking for good; after she loses everything at the casino, the gambler pledges to give gambling up for good...until the next time alcoholic beverages or a gambling hall may be within reach.
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Domestic terrorism is associated with elevated level of physical abuse. It stands in opposition to more common, “normal” levels of domestic expressions of anger (aggression, hostility etc) and even physical abuse of no (serious) medical consequences, such as throwing (some) objects at, or pushing people. 1890 Walker 2006. 1891 Behavioural, not clinical statement.
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Is it not a bit surprising that these violent, obsessive-compulsive misfits look exactly like the (culture) hero (also a savior in his aggrandized form) mythologies and positive psychologists alike lionize? “the trickster traffics frequently with the transcendent while loosing lewd acts upon the world. -...- all of such lewd acts or objects -...-[become] occasions of insight, vitality, and new inventive creations. ”.
It would be absolutely inconsistent to expect culture heroes, saviors and swashbuckling founders to abide by the fossilized, crass morality of any Hebrew code. The Hebrews derived their moral codes from pre-existing Egyptian 1892 or Babylonian codes, such as the code of Hammurabi (XVIII century BCE). After all, the savior-founder-hero is on a mission to vindicate a manifest destiny according to a vision.
Transgressions in pursuit of higher good(s) shall be disregarded as the hero/savior/founder delivers the ultimate boon:
Our normal affinity for the occasional thrill can make the risktaking sociopath seem all the more charming -...-. Let us take your credit card and fly to Paris tonight. Let us take your savings and start that business that sounds so foolish but, with two minds like ours, could really take off -...-. Let us lose these boring friends of yours and go off somewhere by ourselves. Let us have sex in the elevator. Let us invest your money in this hot tip I just got. Let us 1892
There is also significant overlap between the “negative confession” of the Egyptian Book Of The Dead and the Ten Commandments. Spell 125 in the Egyptian Book Of The Dead (in the customized version for the scribe Ani of Thebes circa 1250 BCE) lists 42 sins such as theft, murder, adultery, cursing god, uttering false or slanderous words, etc. Egypt had been a dominant power in the Middle East for centuries. Book Of The Dead ( actual title The Book Of Coming Forth By Day ) concepts start appearing around 2600 BCE to be codified on papyri from 1900 BCE.
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laugh at the rules. -...-Let us live a little. Such is the flavor of sociopathic “spontaneity”and risk taking and "charm," and though we may chuckle about the obvious come-ons when we read them, the overall approach has met with noteworthy success time and again (Stout 2005:89). In addition to all this symbolism, the sanctity of money could also be aided by the fact that money is a clear unit of exchange. It’s hard to say that a dime is not a dime, or a buck isn’t a buck. But look at the latitude we have with nonmonetary exchanges. There’s always a convenient rationale. We can take a pencil from work, a Coke from the fridge—we can even backdate our stock options—and find a story to explain it all. We can be dishonest without thinking of ourselves as dishonest. We can steal while our conscience is apparently fast asleep. (Ariely 2009:129). The endless shades of transgression, atonement and reconciliation pantomimes serve the basic purpose of reconciling one with oneself by rebuilding emotional
integrity that
society
-in
its capacity
as
generalized
other-
affords:”Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge.” 1893. The very act of shaking those fists, shedding those tears, donating to those charities, or any other course of action one engages in as persuaders play on human mind's obsessions, affords one a clean slate emotionally speaking.
No matter which dissonance or transgression s-he might have chanced to get into, the very act of voting for -or against- that candidate or agenda, buying that product etc shows one is “not the kind of person” (hence all the washing away of sins, atonement and rebirth claptrap) as the former self who committed those 1893
Psalm 51:4. Here it does not really matter who “you” (=the generalized other) might be: an imaginary voice of a literary Hebrew patriarch who lives in the clouds; a paragraph of some '...ist censorship' law; what happens to be “in” this season or decade...
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transgressions, and experienced that dissonance: do all religions not showcase felons, bohemians, prostitutes, sociopaths and half-wits as primeval vanguard?
The human mind also has an irresistible proclivity towards abstract, personified qualities seen -with the usual variations across regimes, cultures and epochs- as quintessential. In politics or business, mister immigration amnesty; the honorable mister homeland first; doctor twenty-percent-net-interest rate bloviate in front of an adoring crowd ready to make allowances, vote, donate, subscribe, march:”the brand or product benefit is integral to the story. When it’s woven so deeply into the narrative that people can’t tell the story without mentioning it.”.
Giornale Di Arona1894 reports how consumer advocacy groups are on the war path. Consumers who subscribed to State-issued, 30 year interest-bearing postal bonds issued in the 1980s shall find out how the hefty interest rate (9 to 14%) printed on the same bonds no longer applies thanks to an elusive 1986 executive order 'nobody could have possibly known about' until recently.
Signers find out the total amount they are entitled to receive after 30 years is about half of what the State had promised in writing. Mainstream media do not even devote scant attention to this insignificant detail: there are boat-people tragedies, ...ists ready to march onto town, the “new” swine flu or the collapse of the Euro zone to talk about.
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January 30, 2015:25.
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Among the Romans, the elevation to divine status involved not only the city's personification (Dea Roma), but abstract qualities (Virtus, Clementia,
Pietas...virtue, clemency, filial piety)- whose list later Emperors expanded (Tiberius added Moderatio, moderation; Claudius Constantia, resilience...1895)- documents how myths were made fit for particular purposes1896.
In Vino Veritas: wine (consumption) brings out the truth (in those who consume it). Being intoxicated was for ages credited to “the spirit of the god Bacchus”, and alcoholic beverages are also called “spirits”...that can possess one. What is thus anthropomorphized and spiritualized as “spirit possession” is just the lame working of the physical machinery of the human body.
Over the internet, several videos show cat mothers who adopt ducklings, or even a small squirrel monkey...possession of the goddess of mercy, or the biochemical miracles of oxytocin as “hub” of sociality?
Oxytocin, a very ancient peptide (chain of amino acids), is at the hub of the intricate network of mammalian adaptations for caring for others, anchoring the many different versions of sociality that are seen, depending on the evolution of the lineage. Oxytocin is found in all vertebrates, but the evolution of the mammalian brain adapted oxytocin to new jobs in caring for offspring and eventually for wider forms of sociability. -...- Besides the new roles for oxytocin and other hormones, two additional interdependent evolutionary changes in the brain were crucial for the mammalian sociality that prefigured morality. The first involved modifications that gave rise to negative feelings of fear and anxiety in face of separation from or threat to the offspring, along with the motivation to take corrective action. In addition, pleasure and relief 1895 1896
Almost 20 centuries before positive psychology emerged. Jaczynowska 1989, passim.
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come when the parent is rejoined with the offspring or the threat has passed. The second main modification was an increased capacity for learning, linked to pain and pleasure, that served an individual in acquiring detailed knowledge of the “ways” of others in the group. Expanded memory capacities greatly enhanced the animal’s ability to anticipate trouble and to plan more effectively. These modifications support the urge to be together, as well as the development of a “conscience” tuned to local social practices; that is, a set of social responses, shaped by learning, that are strongly regulated by approval and disapproval, and by the emotions, more generally. (Churchland 2011:14-16). Jaczynowska1897 discusses deities the Roman army honored: those connected with the imperial cult; the cult of signa, or the insignia of particular units that -according to Tertullian- ranked higher than all other gods; those connected with military ethos (Bonus Eventus, Honos, Disciplina...). Is it then so strange that Christianity took to unprecedented levels this fixation with the personification of abstract qualities? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1).”
Augustine accepted Christianity only after he listened to Ambrose's neoplatonic (idealistic, transcendental) interpretation of the Old Testament stories he considered nonsense:
In early Greece, this instinct was purely religious, not allegorical. Later, in Hellenistic Greece, the credibility of myth faded among intellectuals and their anthropomorphism became a consciously figurative means to a rhetorical end. It was only then that the "personification of an abstract concept was deliberately invented, and that its creator had a clear distinction in his mind between the philosophic notion and the human shape in which he chose to attire it." (Guthrie 1993:137). 1897
1989:175ss.
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The same development towards personification of abstract qualities occurred in Buddhism, too. If Mahayana Buddhism in general endorsed supernatural themes1898, and construed the constellation of celestial Buddhas as benevolent deities, Mahayana Chinese Pure Land Buddhism 1899 went further and construed all the Buddhas as representing abstract qualities such as wisdom, perseverance, loving kindness, help to the damned etc.
Even Buddha Shakyamuni (a designation of Gautama Buddha) is taken to mean abstract qualities and not -according to prevalent versions- “the enlightened lion of the Shakya clan”1900, or “the awakened sage of the Shakya people”. The four great Bodhisattvas of the Pure Land Buddhist tradition are interpreted metaphorically as well. 1898
Several Mahayana monastics preaching to the public describe Gautama Buddha in Theravada terms: an ordinary human being who achieved enlightenment; supernatural themes or connections are either minimized or disclaimed. Della Santina (ME6102 no date: lecture 5) claims that the government of Singapore instructed him not to include any miracle stories as he was working on a Buddhist educational project. Syncretism abounds, however, and it is common to hear Hinayana devotees or even monks describe Buddha in superlative Mahayana terms as “their god”. Moore (1986:part3) squarely points out that people in a state of crisis, in regression, cannot function at high levels of intellectual discourse, and need very basic structures in order to receive meaning and containment. 1899 As Ven. Wuling, Pure Land Buddhist monastic, pointed out. 1900 A solar symbol. The lion is often associated with the sun. Alexander, Vishnu and Parvati are often associated with the lion:”Also, in Hinduism, the sun is female and the moon is male: he is born of her, dies into her, and is born of her again every month. Śiva, this great power, is the moon god. Pārvatī, his consort, is the sun power. ” (Campbell 1991:151). Hercules kills the divine Nemean lion to subsequently wear his skin (=solar connection) as an armor, which renders him invulnerable. Also, Hercules in his journeys might be constru ed as reenacting the sun's course. The Sun is also associated with the symbol of the pyramid (in religious and Masonic lore the capstone is often used). Mesopotamian god Marduk as well shares ties with the Sun god as his name means “bull calf of the sun god Utu/Shamash”, although he's typically not billed as the Sun's son, but acquires the identity of a Sun god himself. Roman Emperors were also associated with the Sun:”when Tiridates stood in the open Roman Forum facing the sunlit emperor [Nero in 66 CE], and worshipping him as he did Mithra, he was in essence worshipping the sun.”( Champlin 2003:229).Following biblical imagery, Jesus too is also likened to a lion (“Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals." ” Revelation 5:5). Jesus is also likened to a corner stone (Ephesians 2:20; 1 Peter 2:6, akrogoniaios in Greek), the symbol of the Sun by the proxy of the pyramid. The snake can also be associated with the Sun, as in the case of Horus, Marduk, (Mayan) Kukulkan or Quetzalcoatl. Vishnu (as the Sun) carries a serpent-hood; Gautama Buddha also carries a serpent-hood. Apollo (as the Greek Sun under the name of Phoebus) slays the dragon Python.
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In the lore, Gautama Buddha is born of Queen Maya, and raised by his aunt (and step-mother) Maha Prajapati. If readers follow Aurobindo, the scholar of traditional Hinduism, they easily learn that Maya means either “illusion” (of this world, as in Vedantic philosophy), or -as Sarvadekar explains regarding the Gita“own power of becoming”1901. Campbell explains that Maya -which Vernant connects etymologically to magie, magic- is:
A Projecting Power, which then sends forth illusionary impressions and ideas, together with associated desires and aversions—as might happen, for example if at night one should mistake a rope for a snake and experience fright. Ignorance (the Veiling Power), having concealed the real, imagination (the Projecting Power) evolves phenomena. And so we read: “This power of projection creates all appearances, whether of gods or of the cosmos.”. With the projecting power, the forms of the world come through. The prism is the veil, but it is also the projector: what stops the white light and what projects the colors of the rainbow. In this second stage, the white light shows through the forms of the world. If you put a number of colors on a disk and spin it, you’ll get a white spinning disk—that’s the revealing power. -...-The Revealing Power of māyā, which it is the function of art and scripture, ritual and meditation: to make known. -...-The change of consciousness from stasis to kinesis is the Fall in the Garden. The bondages from which the Buddha disengaged—desire, fear, and social duty—are temporal matters. You can engage in them voluntarily, but compulsive engagement is linked to māyā.(1991:166-7,175-6). Prajapati (maha just means “great”) is also “the origin of all creatures” or “the original progenitor” in Vedic thought.
Gautama reads as “dispeller of darkness”, and Siddhartha as “one who has accomplished a goal”. The great allegory thus reads: the one who has accomplished
1901
MAISI014:audio lecture 4.
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the goal of dispelling darkness, born of the great worldly illusion (=power of becoming) and raised by the original progenitor: Siddhartha Gautama born of Maya and raised by Maha Prajapati.
It is tragic irony indeed how obsessive-compulsive misfits and rogues, too, blight people in the name of abstract concepts. Honor killing -among Muslims, for example- unfolds in the name of honor; domestic terrorism unfolds in the name of discipline, for example:�For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.�1902.
How is the line drawn between good and bad? According to situational priorities. Our guys are always good; the other regime's guys are always bad:
When the cheater is part of our social group, we identify with that person and, as a consequence, feel that cheating is more socially acceptable. But when the person cheating is an outsider, it is harder to justify our misbehavior, and we become more ethical out of a desire to distance ourselves from that immoral person and from that other (much less moral) out-group. -...-our experiments don’t show any real differences in dishonesty among various countries and cultures with the very strong personal conviction that people from different countries cheat to different degrees(Ariely 2012:102,120). Research in the realm of relationships documents how the same characteristics that drew one more or less irresistibly towards a given person as potential or actual partner ( for example he's thrifty; she's always jolly; he enjoys a healthy dose of sexuality...) most often become the crux as the relationship falls apart when the honeymoon phase is gone forever (he's a penny-pincher; she's 1902
Deuteronomy 4:24.
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childish and irresponsible; he's a sex addict...):”I’ve often noted that the difference between a stalker and a boyfriend is whether the woman wants the attention. -...most break-ups and divorces are female-initiated”1903.
Moreover, oxytocin itself can influence behavior in two very different ways. It can promote social cohesion and cooperation, but it can also strengthen the memory for negative events. Examples of this can be seen among couples who find themselves in a toxic divorce situation. The same oxytocin that creates love can contribute to its destruction. (Vishton 2016:169). you need to learn that the qualities you like and dislike in your partner are often flip sides of the same attribute, that you can’t have one without the other, and that your dissatisfaction may say as much about your own unresolved inner conflicts as it says about your partner.(Abrahms Spring&Spring 1996:131). Society at large just encourages this affiliation of often irreconcilable traits with a barrage of Romeo&Juliet, Cinderella and taming of the shrew (=the Pygmalion situation) 'sentimentalized and prettified' stories. Society's goal is the ongoing reproduction of its segments. If people endlessly chased after ideal partners who might not even exist, society would never reproduce:”In truth, I was not much worried about being wanted for who I was; I simply wanted to be wanted.”1904.
An affair -therapist Perel1905 emphasizes- is not just an attack on an individual, but on that individual's entire belief system, including the gingerbread fairy world of “forever love”, Pygmalion claptrap and all the rest:”marriage has become a mythical castle designed to be everything we could want”. 1903
Welch 2015b:61,143. Ben-Shahar 2007:112. 1905 2017:part 7. 1904
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A world-renowned expert in matters of infidelity, psychologist Abrahms Spring1906 tells which life changes might bring an extramarital affair into one's life:
•
Being uprooted, such as moving to a new community;
•
A shift in status, such as changes in power and/or resources;
•
Failure, whether actual or perceived, financial, personal or public;
•
Life transitions, such as pregnancies, menopause, illness etc;
•
Addiction, such as drug abuse.
People are therefore conditioned into settling for lesser evils, third best options and anything -or anyone- at hand as epitomized in grotesque 1665 Portuguese azulejo O Casamento Da Galinha1907 (the hen's marriage): a hen in a nuptial cortege joins her groom the monkey in order to get married.
Self-esteem psychologist Branden summarizes most relationships as “selfdisowning” and repressed thus:”I play dead, why can't you?”. Branden also adds that most couples profess to “love each other”, but they neither “like”, nor “admire” the partner: s-he is the last person they would love to be like. Many people just need roommates to split the utility bills, or are stuck after children enter the picture; many also do not feel like contradicting religious or personal beliefs in matters of
1906 1907
1996:131ss. At the Palacio Fronteira in Lisbon.
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