Thoughts on fear and domination based society

The culture of domination

In a hierarchical culture of domination - both economic and political in nature such as the one we live in - compulsion is a primary aspect of social reality. Through conformity one adheres to structure. The social structure ensures relative order, but not without the attendant neurosis which is always created by the use of force and social compulsion. Anger, which may be one socialized reaction used to confront the neurosis (or ill-adaption to the structure), such as at home or in the classroom, engenders fear. Fear breeds compliance and participation. Non-participation in the prevailing order leads to alienation, and alienation breeds further contempt. Therefore, the cycle, which is mostly unconscious and vaguely instrumented towards the social hierarchy, perpetuates the so-called order (also supported by baton, prison system, and various modes of punishment and torture).

As we go through our routines in the hustle and bustle of daily life, our activities and perceptions reside among the elements of processing habit. Shuffling around from work to consumer location and then finally bed, participation in daily life is predominantly the aggregation of assorted unconscious activities accumulated toward the back of the mind, mediated by desire and the inhibition of desires. Stimulation is an instantaneous reward in the fast image-based society we live; it drives us toward the more immediate concerns of pleasure, consumption and survival instinct, steered by advertising, market concepts , and profit management. Over-saturated, we all too often become unwitting participants to mind numbing patterning.

Removing fear and neurosis in a fear-based society

Everyday we associate emotion with things found in the environment. More importantly, we assign value to them, or they are assigned for us. Emotion is a precious commodity now bought and sold within the profit system, be it within a movie theater or as seen on billboards on the drive home. Emotions, after all, are what guide us to instinctively act. Manipulating emotion is just another example of compulsion. When you fear something, for example, you look at it and associate negative feelings like danger, and to one extent or another withdraw from the situation or are compelled to react/not act at all. Such behaviors become habit, that is to say learned reflex, or the continuation of the assigned value. We scarcely understand the true nature of our selves or the psyche. Further, we are taught to fear the unknown side of self, the magical, mystical aspect of our being. In an irrational society like ours, one has to work diligently to align the mature self with the adaptive self. One's emotions must reflect reality and inner harmony. We can examine the self and the environment and choose which values to operate from or which patterns should apply.

Through the use of fear and compulsion in a domination-oriented society, the individual's instinct towards curiosity and learning is shunned. Creativity is traded for compliance. Wonder is revoked for predictability. Every little step away from that tendency is a positive move.

In order to regain the fertile ground of imagination, one must look to the unconscious mind and employ its assets more wholly again. Living in closer unison with the unconscious (also wilder roots of self) helps to reduce the neurosis of the ordering, control-fetish society/mind through mindful spontaneous being. The inmost psyche represents the greater content of our whole. In order to express our selves more fully we must first grant it permission to come forth like the natural flower of beauty it is. This often takes work and is what some may refer to as the "unlearning of everything taught in school".

Observing vs. evaluating

Western society has taught us the ability to evaluate things in the manner of linear abstractions, quantity, and material judgments. This lends itself well to things like building roads, designing great architecture, and developing better, faster technology. It has also led us astray in our egoistic venture to "know and master the universe"- a doomed to fail pursuit, at least for the species of the human being presently - mostly through domination and arrogance. The greatest technological societies are those that procure the most resources (money, labor, natural materials) from the rest of the world through coercion. A more integrative and flexible approach we can employ daily is to pull oneself back and become observer rather than manipulator of the environment. That way one attaches less ego (through objectifications leading to struggle) and remains open to multiple possibilities or solutions (through learning and receiving). One can not contain the universe within the microscope or the telescope, but one can immerse oneself in it relatively innocently as observer (rather than manipulator), viewing oneself as connected rather than separate, and be richer for it in the process. We operate on the premise of power equals wealth. Societies of a hierarchical nature result in ultimate divisions that are difficult to process and understand. Giving out of kindness releases us from these modes of domination and force. Cooperation furthers strength, support and participation of all members of the human clan. If we can relearn balance between human, animal, and natural environment we just may have a chance.

Transitioning into the future

If we do not manage to blow ourselves up first, humanity will have the opportunity to adapt to and implement strategies for new kinds of social relations, based on both modern and old ways. Most likely this will be at the smaller level when globalization will have run its course and industrial expanse is on the decline. One day, we should hope, the culture of domination will be relegated to that place in history of a once barbaric past where it belongs.

(To be followed by a history of torture and domination in the so-called civilized world)

Nuclear first-strike, NATO, and the club of fools

Now that the world economy is starting to strain and the price of oil shows no sign of weakening, some of the world's political geeks and post-colonial war crafters are starting to show their true colors having convened in a recent NATO club of fools meeting. They cite things like the dark side of globalization, climate change, "energy security", and religious and political fanaticism. The "nation states" are at risk of weakening. To tackle the issues of an increasingly brutal world - which of course has certainly been aided by our wars of resource allocation and nation building, they are seeking more powers to act to worsen the situation by creating additional brutality in the world, it seems, paving the way further for first strike nuclear options to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction, of all things. Those issues will likely be discussed at a meeting in April. Too bad we appear to be incapable of writing a new script as old habits just die too hard.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/nato/story/0,,2244782,00.html

Cultural and social critiques and the collapse of societies

A book list I have going at Amazon.com.

Wired to the machine

Recently, my boss told me about his visit to Bill Gates' home in Washington. In a somewhat amazed tone, he first described the size, which in width spanned about five lots wide. The square footage was rumored to be around 50,000 feet (with heating and cooling costs at around one million per year, no doubt; he's certainly not concerned about his carbon footprint). When you walk through the front door there are giant LCD's illuminating the walls. Those change, apparently, according to your tastes in music, history, and art - if you have a chip placed on your lapel which signals to the network of myriad displays what your profile of interests are. I happened to be reading through the current edition of PC magazine at the time which looks backwards at the last 25 years, as well as forward into the next several, with all the most influential computer minds discussing their take on things. I don't have the issue in front of me, but overwhelmingly, of course, the message is more, better, faster, more convenient.

Today, when I look in the technology news online people are still devising robots to run around the house vacuuming up and sorting our various useless items and picking things up off of the coffee table for us so we can stay focused and wired in once we are wired out from work all day long.

Yesterday I read another article about how everything was going to be wired to be wireless. And some exec. at Microsoft eagerly boasted that we were already becoming cyborgs because of the way we are wired in to our computing devices. Unfortunately, he meant it literally. This brings to mind a few bad images of Jean Claud Van Damme in Universal Soldier, flailing about in the post-apocalyptic movie Cyborg, or Peter Weller chasing bad guys down the street with huge guns in RoboCop. What is it with our fascination with robots, anyway, and why do we aspire to integrate with them more, in fantasy and actuality? Is it their mechanical perfection or our preoccupation with control and security? Does it occur to anyone where any of this is supposed to be heading, besides towards more convenience and productivity? With cameras on every street corner, and our cars, cell phones, and even instant weather reports networked together through satellite 24 hrs a day, the world remains housed in its bubble of safety and predictability.

As Cyborg Nation pushes forward, breaking new barriers in both technology and fascination with the stupid, one has to step back and marvel a bit at the drunken fashion in which we stagger towards the blinking lights and gadgetry without much attention to the bigger picture. Technology has mostly had a snowball effect upon itself; as we unconsciously suit it towards our more immediate desires of consumption and convenience, the social and ecological effects of our excess continue to remain under-scrutinized, though nevertheless nagging problems. Nevermind that we are reaching the threshold of keeping the machine running because we are actually maxing everything out. Will it be that we have burnt everything up and society implodes under the ashes or will all that burning up create an inhospitable climate that necessitates an end to it?

At what point does the wizard step out from behind the curtain and start handing out hearts and minds and lead us back to Kansas? If only technology could give us a pair of red magical slippers. I suppose they might just call it at some point "uploading consciousness".

A pond of stars

Sometimes the woman in all white threads would wander to the pond and drink of the water in all its stillness, a swan always present beneath the snow-white clouds, as the forests burned, an on-goining event throughout the seasons. Red and white, the color of beauty and passion, the color of tongue on flesh. The silver rain fell - beacuse it contained both the elements zinc and cobalt it had the essence of silver - and in doing so the pond became a mirror from which emerged a sky, several flocks of birds, and the orange-colored balloon. In the balloon rode the wolf, and a wolf is a horse when it is given in to the imagination. From the balloon emerged, quite like bubbles, several other smaller balloons, which, un-manned, arranged themselves like stars in the sky from far away. Of course, the woman remarked about this disorderly although beautiful process of turning day into night as feeble occupation. But these were not really her words. She was merely a statue holding a flower wearing a wreath signalling to the sky. A little breeze whistled around. A leaf perhaps, but nothing else. And then the evening was still again, blue as if housed inside a giant aquarium.

Ephemeral City

Something stirring in the night:
it is the warmth and glow
in the pulse of the digital city.
Lights are set in rows as if
pressed in peg boards
in an arcade dream.

Money fluctuates, changes hands.
Clocks wind down; people must
sleep eventually (there is someone
on the terrace now, blowing kisses
to himself). Windows go out
and murmurs die.

So it goes (all energy dissipates
and then reforms). There are blind
people who always - and yet sometimes
never - sleep.

The world needs a vacation

No more needless work that contributes nothing
but misery to the world, idle unhappiness, strife,
and the loss of joy in daily life. Work is the culprit
(not livelihood or preoccupation, but rather that
which robs us of the freedom to make authentic
use of our time through ritual enslavement).

Work, progress, efficiency. Stratification, solidification,
over-population, degeneration, mortification, strangulation.
Production is the other side of the coin of consumption.
The world needs a permanent vacation.

Work is energy. Energy provides action and emotion. A society
of drones lacks both. Ritualistic work forces the public
into ordered frenzy. Beneath the veil lies a very simple
secret: pleasure. Make the universe the ocean of your
whim.

The Architecture of Dreamworld

The Architecture of Dreamworld 2:

The Disarming Reflex
(a commentary on capitalism, family, advertising and the spectacle)
by Michael Steinberg (author of The Fiction of a Thinkable World)

For fourteen years or so I lived with the most beautiful cat in the world. That, at any rate, was the way most people treated her. On pleasant days our cat would walk no further than the sidewalk. She would wait there all day, and almost every passer-by would stop, coo, exclaim at her wondrous beauty, and stroke her long, white fur.

Had she been a white Persian I doubt that she would have attracted this attention. What drew people to her was her face: a domestic long-hair face with an unusually big forehead, large round eyes, small nose, and puffy cheeks. She looked about as much like an infant human being as is possible without leaving off being a cat.

These are the facial characteristics of most mammalian young, and the sudden access of tenderness and warmth that inevitably greeted our cat was an example of what ethologist Konrad Lorenz called "disarming." As the late Stephen Jay Gould wrote, "Many animals, for reasons having nothing to do with the inspiration of affection in humans, possess some features also shared by human babies but not by human adults -- large eyes and a bulging forehead with retreating chin, in particular.” Humans and many other mammals melt a little bit when we see an infantile face. It keeps us from being too harsh to our young, and it's also what allows kids to manhandle pets in ways you or I would be foolhardy to attempt.

In other words, kids are mind-altering drugs. We don't feel the same around them and we don't act the same. And this is why there's something a little eerie in the way families with kids are proliferating on television, advertising, and film.

It's not a complete takeover, but over the past thirty or forty years the image of the family has achieved a kind of normative status. This isn't the way it always was in American popular culture, and the change isn't the result of any shift in audience. Back in the thirties any city kid with a dime was likely to spend Saturday afternoon at the pictures, but in the three or four hours of an avidly-watched double feature there weren't likely to be many shots of family life, except maybe in a B picture like the Andy Hardy series.

Films were about grownups. If a household was involved it was as likely to be the heavy-drinking Nick and Nora Charles as anyone more settled. True, Nick and Nora eventually acquired a little Nicky; but Myrna Loy only really became a model of middle-class domesticity after the war, in The Best Years of Our Lives. Even the post-war medium of television was slow to catch up to the new domesticity of its audience; it was a novelty for Lucille Ball to appear as a mother.

Today, though, political candidates all need campaign shots with an adoring spouse and children. More and more television shows spin narratives around nuclear families. Stars gush on TV talk shows about the life-transforming joys of parenthood. There are family channels, family restaurants, and family vacations. Times Square is now family-friendly, which it never was at any time in the past. Wal-Mart tries to combat its reputation as a ruthless exploiter of labor by getting employees' children or parents to pose in newspaper ads, identifying them as such.

The couple with children has become the definition of mainstream life. No wonder so many gays and lesbians want the right to marry and adopt; living single or with an unmarried partner is no longer enough for full humanity. Those who are without children at home Now have to be identified with adjectives -- they're the childless, the DINKs ("Dual Income No Kids"), or the "empty-nesters." They're different.

This proliferation of families, wound tight with the tranquilizing presence of children, is one of the elements of the new dreamworld. As ethically different as it is from the sex-obsessed, often pornographic edge of pop music, the omnipresent image of the family works in much the same way. Lorenz's disarming reflex is invoked over and over to generate a perpetual haze of parental warm fuzziness.

And just like the endless tumescence of "Sex Machine," the family warmth invoked and deployed all around us is a state rather than an incident of a process. The obvious fact about children is that, barring disease or accident, they grow up and leave. In the media, though, they grow up but stay around. We meet, marry, have children -- and life stops.

That's how we want it. Lynn Johnson, who writes and draws the popular semi-autobiographical family comic "For Better or for Worse," has confessed that she would have preferred that her own son had stayed at home, so she has his comic-strip counterpart living close to his parents and thinking about buying his childhood home from them.

People have always loved their children; once-modish arguments that childhood was "invented" a few hundred years ago are now mostly rejected. And a good part of human labor has always been expended on raising children.

Today, though, when we need a smaller share of our life-span for child-rearing than in any previous generation, we find ourselves more than ever defined by it. This is a measure of the emptiness of the rest of our social activity. In earlier centuries, and even fifty years ago, parents raised their children with some end in view. Today, children are an end in themselves -- precisely because no other social ends are recognized.

Child-rearing and its round of events -- kindergarten graduation, summer camp departure, junior prom, packing for college -- has become what Guy Debord called "pseudo-cyclic time." It doesn't express the biological rhythms of human generation, aging, and death, yet at the same time it repeats itself endlessly in place, without contact with the transformations of history. Real involvement in the movement of history is impossible, since under capitalism the history of human activities becomes the history of things:

The spectacle, as the present social organization of the paralysis of history and memory, of the abandonment of history built on the foundation of historical time, is the false consciousness of time. (The Society of the Spectacle, § 158)

By the same token there's no access to the movement of individual life. What is then re-presented to us in dreamworld is cut off from lived human time and is thus inevitably static:

The spectator's consciousness, immobilized in the falsified center of the movement of the world, no longer experiences its life as a passage towards self-realization and death. (Ibid., § 160, in part)

Debord lived long enough to see (and see his thought used by) the briefly-triumphant culture of youth -- another attempt at a pseudo-time removed from social process, cut short in part by the end of widespread affluence in the mid-1970s. Since his death, though, a new and better model has taken over, one which offers several advantages to governments and advertisers. Family images attract a much wider demographic and have the potential to retain customers for much longer than the few years of youth. They appeal to a less difficult audience, one whose tastes are easier to find out and manipulate. Best of all, they allow the agencies which make use of them to draw on the druggy satisfactions of the disarming reflex. The family circle is the pseudo-cyclic time of capital -- "the consumable disguise of the commodity-time of capital . . . which aims to retard concrete daily life, and to keep it retarded" (Ibid., § 149) -- made addictively enticing by our own biochemistry. Like sex, it sells itself.

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/steinberg171105.html