Hopefully you will be familiar with the sublime South Park episode 'The death camp of tolerance'. A plot summary is on Wikipedia. For these purposes, Mr Garrison the children's teacher is trying to behave in an outrageous manner in order to get fired so he can then sue the school. He reaches his denouement by inserting Lemmiwinks the class gerbil into the anus of his lover, Mr Slave.
Once the sphincter closes, Lemmiwinks begins an epic journey through the gay man's digestive tract. He is aided bythe spirits of other animals who have been inserted in a similar manner. These are the Frog Prince, who gives him a magical helmet, the Sparrow Prince who advises him, and the Catata Fish who tests him with a riddle which he must solve. When he finally escapes and is coughed up by Mr Slave, he frees the spirits of the animals and is crowned the Gerbil King. Throughout, a song accompanies his quest. It is sung in a folksy voice and in a quasi-bardic style it outlines his heroic exploits.
Google Lemmiwinks and you will see excellent YouTube videos. The animated journey has Lemmiwinks portrayed as a realistically drawn gerbil, with no human expression on his face. Lemmiwinks has no internal life and undergoes no reflective process. He does not develop as a character, and his story is told entirely from an outside point of view - of the bardic singer and the animal spirits.
When i first saw the episode, i was amused for several reasons, only one of them being a long term love of the scatological. Obviously, Lemmiwinks is cute and innocent and that is juxtaposed with his gory plight. And obviously, he does not show human expression - he's a gerbil, for heaven's sake. But i was surprised how much his story resonated with me, and how i intuitively understood how the story went. Lemmiwinks is of course an archetypal hero in the Joseph Campbell mode. We know his story as intimately and unconsciously as we know that of Luke Skywalker or Herakles. Or Harry Potter.
But let's go back further, to a crucial age in the development of humankind, and because all of our thinking is moderated by the popular media we will consider Lemmiwinks the gerbil king from the points of view of two theories which i believe intersect in interesting ways - Karl Jasper's seminal ideas about the Axial Age, and Julian Jaynes' theories in his book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Thus we step into the gloriously dodgy field of psycho-history.
Between about 900 and 300 BCE vast and traumatic changes took place in the main civilisations of the world. People travelled and traded more, environmental crises occurred as semi-pastoral societies ran out of resources, and new technologies emerged. Larger units of society such as city states developed. The cultures we think of as our own various heritages were formed then - India, China, the Levant, and Greece.
There is evidence that prior to this Axial Age people did not have the reflective capacity we have now. They experienced their actions as driven by fate or the gods. Individuals had a name, loyalties and ties, and a personal history, but did not see themselves as conscious moral decision makers. Terry Pratchett would say they did not have a psycholology.
Jaynes takes the view that in the days of Homer's heroic age, people literally heard or were commanded by the gods. When early writing talks about this, it is meant literally. For Jaynes, people routinely hallucinated and obeyed their hallucinations. Their brains were 'bicameral', or split in two, and one side talked to the other. During this period of time, peoples' brains physically changed. They learned to mentalise - to talk to themselves inside themselves, and to reflect and choose. They became conscious moral agents. Jaynes sees vestiges of bicameralism in some modern phenomena such as hallacinations in mental illness, and the experience of religion or the psychic world.
Jasper noted the change wrought during the Axial Age in the development of religion. Early Vedic and Biblical scripture is ritualistic, and people become briefly divine by following ritual properly. Over time, ritual becomes more symbolic, and finally it becomes internalised. Instead of sacrificing an animal in fire, people meditate on their own internal fire, or even do away with the symbol altogether and just meditate. Early prophets in the Old Testament describe being driven by God to act, even against their will. Later on, God is less present in the world, but works through the moral doings of his servants. All our great world religions came from this period. All of them came to some sort of view that we must live rightly to understand our spiritual selves, and that we must have compassion for others. This was a revolution, and it happened over a surprisingly short time.
Lemmiwinks is a bicameral, pre-axial hero. He is guided directly by spirit animals, not by his conscience or by entering a higher state. In other words, he hallucinates his way through the gay man's digestive tract. He does not reflect on his actions, nor is he a free moral agent. His only choice is keep going or die. Despite having a deeply chthonic experience that harks back mythically to the time of Chronos, he is not aware of this. He frees the animal spirits incidentally, not because of any conscious compassion or belief about the value of life. If he has a soul, and there is an afterlife, he does not know about it.
He's a gerbil, for heaven's sake!
Recommended reading:
Daniel Smith 'Muses Madmen and Prophets' on hallucinations and bicameralism
Karen Armstrong 'The Great Transformation' on the Axial Age.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
To KM
Two notes may help this poem.
1. i express the idea 'necessary but not sufficient', which is often used in academic philosophy. i can think of many situations in real life where something is necessary but not sufficient.
2. i hold a negative view of evil. i share this with some important thinkers such as Augustine. Evil is the absence of good - it is what happens when good people do nothing. Evil is not a positive force or a person. Evil is in stupidity, ignorance and laziness. Evil is easy. It is what we sink to without education or hope or exposure to virtue. It is not a metaphysical concept. Major evil is probably rare.
i think when we die we take only virtue into the next life. This means if we have not developed virtue, we do not do well in the next life, because we lack the tools. A baby in the womb develops limbs and lungs for which it has imperfect or no use. Only when it is born does it find the use for what it has developed. We develop virtues in this way - but in this world we have the choice to do so consciously.
Here, then, is the poem.
TO KM, WHERE HE IS NOW
No one kills themselves on my watch.
i won't allow it.
But you did.
You were loved.
You were the most loved of men.
Love is necessary but not sufficient.
You were good.
You weere known for it.
Goodness is necessary.
Goodness is still necessary.
You take it with you
and you leave it behind.
1. i express the idea 'necessary but not sufficient', which is often used in academic philosophy. i can think of many situations in real life where something is necessary but not sufficient.
2. i hold a negative view of evil. i share this with some important thinkers such as Augustine. Evil is the absence of good - it is what happens when good people do nothing. Evil is not a positive force or a person. Evil is in stupidity, ignorance and laziness. Evil is easy. It is what we sink to without education or hope or exposure to virtue. It is not a metaphysical concept. Major evil is probably rare.
i think when we die we take only virtue into the next life. This means if we have not developed virtue, we do not do well in the next life, because we lack the tools. A baby in the womb develops limbs and lungs for which it has imperfect or no use. Only when it is born does it find the use for what it has developed. We develop virtues in this way - but in this world we have the choice to do so consciously.
Here, then, is the poem.
TO KM, WHERE HE IS NOW
No one kills themselves on my watch.
i won't allow it.
But you did.
You were loved.
You were the most loved of men.
Love is necessary but not sufficient.
You were good.
You weere known for it.
Goodness is necessary.
Goodness is still necessary.
You take it with you
and you leave it behind.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Wilie and the Poor Boys
i mentioned more on Willy Apiata and it is timely given that New Zealand/Aotearoa has had its first military fatality in Afghanistan. It rattles the teeth a bit. i have a nephew-in-law over there. We are still a small enough society to know someone who ...
On heroism. When i talked to my husband the Archduke Piccolo about Willy's VC he was scornful. In his view, New Zealand is an invading power and the true heroisim lies with the 'insurgents' who have been invaded, and who are fighting back with everything at stake. Yeah, i agree it is still the wrong war, even if Iraq was wronger. And i agree it is good to look at our ideas of heroism and take them beyond the military purview. To ask what are the medals for and what do they show us. And who gets them.
i wondered about the George Cross, which can be given to civilians. i noted that its recpients tended to be in uniform, if not in the miliatary itself. The only female recipient outside the British secret security forces in World War Two, (and unless you count half the population of Malta) was Barbara Harrison, a (uniformed) airline stewardess who saved passengers from a plane on fire, and gave her life doing it. New Zealand's most recent GC came out of the Aramoana shootout ( a quasi-military exercise, if you will). So the sort of heroism for which you get medals could be characterised by a sort of uniformed mentality. Nothing wrong with that. Short bursts of extreme action. Giving it up for your mates. Pragmatism. Knowing who you are. Task focused. Wily, quick, strong. Punching above your weight. Unity. But then of course there are other sorts of heroism - like the residents of Gaza, who require acts of uncommon bravery just to get through the day. Or those already-poor people of New Orleans who saved others during Hurrican Katrina - young people who kept others safe, and who are now battling poverty and gang violence in forgotten communities. There are also many people who are simply heroes of their own lives, survivors of the usual soul-crippling muck our kids often get dished out like sexual abuse and impoverishment and ignorance and stupidity.
i still think Willy Apiata is a hero. He also portrays dignity and humility and courtesy in all his public dealings. i hope he lives. i hope he continues to exude mana and provide a true role model to young men. Moreover, i hope noone tries to deconstruct him, or do a revisionsist hatchet job on him.
i also nominate for my own personal GC list Nicola Inchmarch, of Viva Palestina, who i understand is heading back again to run the Gaza blockade. Kia Ora Gaza!
On heroism. When i talked to my husband the Archduke Piccolo about Willy's VC he was scornful. In his view, New Zealand is an invading power and the true heroisim lies with the 'insurgents' who have been invaded, and who are fighting back with everything at stake. Yeah, i agree it is still the wrong war, even if Iraq was wronger. And i agree it is good to look at our ideas of heroism and take them beyond the military purview. To ask what are the medals for and what do they show us. And who gets them.
i wondered about the George Cross, which can be given to civilians. i noted that its recpients tended to be in uniform, if not in the miliatary itself. The only female recipient outside the British secret security forces in World War Two, (and unless you count half the population of Malta) was Barbara Harrison, a (uniformed) airline stewardess who saved passengers from a plane on fire, and gave her life doing it. New Zealand's most recent GC came out of the Aramoana shootout ( a quasi-military exercise, if you will). So the sort of heroism for which you get medals could be characterised by a sort of uniformed mentality. Nothing wrong with that. Short bursts of extreme action. Giving it up for your mates. Pragmatism. Knowing who you are. Task focused. Wily, quick, strong. Punching above your weight. Unity. But then of course there are other sorts of heroism - like the residents of Gaza, who require acts of uncommon bravery just to get through the day. Or those already-poor people of New Orleans who saved others during Hurrican Katrina - young people who kept others safe, and who are now battling poverty and gang violence in forgotten communities. There are also many people who are simply heroes of their own lives, survivors of the usual soul-crippling muck our kids often get dished out like sexual abuse and impoverishment and ignorance and stupidity.
i still think Willy Apiata is a hero. He also portrays dignity and humility and courtesy in all his public dealings. i hope he lives. i hope he continues to exude mana and provide a true role model to young men. Moreover, i hope noone tries to deconstruct him, or do a revisionsist hatchet job on him.
i also nominate for my own personal GC list Nicola Inchmarch, of Viva Palestina, who i understand is heading back again to run the Gaza blockade. Kia Ora Gaza!
Monday, August 2, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
notes written upon accidentally accessing internet porn
i was at work, looking up information about dholes. Dholes are asiatic canids. i am interested in the origins of domestic dogs, because it ts thought that humans made dogs and to some extent dogs made humans - we may not have had successful pastoralism without them. But dogs are not descended from wolves. What happens if you back breed dogs, is you don't get a wolf. All over the world dogs are let loose, and breed, and the result is a tan coloured, medium sized, prick eared dog like a dingo. Or a dhole. South East Asia has many such dogs, and they live with humans in an earlier version of the relationship, keping down mice and seeing off intruders, in exchange for scraps and some rough-hewn protection.
So i was at work looking up dholes and i found a site caled family pictures of dholes, and i scrolled down pictures of dholes, and dhole habitat, and cartoons of dholes, and then i came upon a picture of a thin blonde woman performing an indecent act upon a very largely endowed man of recentAfrican or Melanesian descent. Horrified, i called my work colleagues over. There was some hilarity. One female colleague thought it was a rather huge amount of chocolate. The picture was enlarged. There was further hilarity. She then thought it was probably a pepper grinder. Even more hilarity resulted. By this time i had, with some further hilarity, realised that i had accessed a pornographic image at work. Even more hilarity as i was told people had been sacked for less (it's true!) and i will never work in this town again.
i am now left with two issues. One is whether or not to confess to the Powers that i saw the image, with all its appalling racial stereotypes and resulting hilarity. Clearly the site abut dholes had been tampered with, as the picture was nested into paragraphs of text about dholes and other pictures of ... dholes, actually. We know the internet is not safe by any means, but we do not expect to access this stuff at work when WebMarshall forbids Photobucket and Flickr and all sorts of innocent material. In the end i took advice and did a big fat nothing. After a while i will stop feeling uneasy. Time is such a distraction.
Oh, the other thing. Never again will i look the same way at my husband's large dark wooden...
...pepper grinder, as it sits grinning evilly at me on the kitchen table. For my dining pleasure...
So i was at work looking up dholes and i found a site caled family pictures of dholes, and i scrolled down pictures of dholes, and dhole habitat, and cartoons of dholes, and then i came upon a picture of a thin blonde woman performing an indecent act upon a very largely endowed man of recentAfrican or Melanesian descent. Horrified, i called my work colleagues over. There was some hilarity. One female colleague thought it was a rather huge amount of chocolate. The picture was enlarged. There was further hilarity. She then thought it was probably a pepper grinder. Even more hilarity resulted. By this time i had, with some further hilarity, realised that i had accessed a pornographic image at work. Even more hilarity as i was told people had been sacked for less (it's true!) and i will never work in this town again.
i am now left with two issues. One is whether or not to confess to the Powers that i saw the image, with all its appalling racial stereotypes and resulting hilarity. Clearly the site abut dholes had been tampered with, as the picture was nested into paragraphs of text about dholes and other pictures of ... dholes, actually. We know the internet is not safe by any means, but we do not expect to access this stuff at work when WebMarshall forbids Photobucket and Flickr and all sorts of innocent material. In the end i took advice and did a big fat nothing. After a while i will stop feeling uneasy. Time is such a distraction.
Oh, the other thing. Never again will i look the same way at my husband's large dark wooden...
...pepper grinder, as it sits grinning evilly at me on the kitchen table. For my dining pleasure...
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
enGagement
Today was the day Gage the Police dog died in action, in a street not far from mine, in Linwood.
Gage, his handler and another officer were looking for someone and the officers knocked on the door of a neighbour. Suddenly they were in the middle of a cannabis growing operation.
The grower's flatmate shot Gage's handler in the face, the other officer in the leg, and Gage himself was shot dead in the street. Armed offenders squad members then arrested the 'suspect'.
i knew Gage, having worked with him twice or three times in the course of my work. He was a dog of noble dispostion, and huge enthusiasm for his work. That made him slightly scary. i would wonder if he was thinking 'ooh, testicles!'. He was also as beautiful as a German Shepherd can be, athletic and charming and bright.
It is often thought that humans made dogs. Actually, dogs may have begun the domestication process themselves. Friendly canid puppies may have sought human warmth and scraps, and human children may have played with them. The relationship has always been complex and possibly genuinely symbiotic.
Once i was walking my little dog Tigger and a wandering dog was hit by a car as we walked by. i tied Tigger up and went to help, along with others. The dog screamed with pain and snarled at its rescuers. When i returned to him, Tigger was shaking with fear. i took him home.
No physical harm came to Tigger that day but he must have some sort of imagination because he felt the fear and pain of that dog. Today, after Gage was shot, another Police dog was part of the AOS callout. i wonder what it was like for that dog, passing its dead companion, doing its job, like the human officers. When we enGage the services of dogs, we ask their all and we get it. Then, we owe them, for sure.
Now the two officers, including Gage's handler whom i also had worked with of course, are in hospital badly injured. i bet there will be a funeral for Gage. His handler would have dedicated a large part of his professional and personal life to Gage. i wish him healing and courage. And i do feel sour about the man who did the shooting. i hope his weed was worth it. Reflexively, i think that the penalty for killing a Police dog should be the same as that for killing a Police officer.
Well, Gage, you were born into a human world and your lot was thrown in with ours. Thank you for your service and go well, wherever you are, there will be crims to chase and balls to bite, and nobody to tell you to stop.
Gage, his handler and another officer were looking for someone and the officers knocked on the door of a neighbour. Suddenly they were in the middle of a cannabis growing operation.
The grower's flatmate shot Gage's handler in the face, the other officer in the leg, and Gage himself was shot dead in the street. Armed offenders squad members then arrested the 'suspect'.
i knew Gage, having worked with him twice or three times in the course of my work. He was a dog of noble dispostion, and huge enthusiasm for his work. That made him slightly scary. i would wonder if he was thinking 'ooh, testicles!'. He was also as beautiful as a German Shepherd can be, athletic and charming and bright.
It is often thought that humans made dogs. Actually, dogs may have begun the domestication process themselves. Friendly canid puppies may have sought human warmth and scraps, and human children may have played with them. The relationship has always been complex and possibly genuinely symbiotic.
Once i was walking my little dog Tigger and a wandering dog was hit by a car as we walked by. i tied Tigger up and went to help, along with others. The dog screamed with pain and snarled at its rescuers. When i returned to him, Tigger was shaking with fear. i took him home.
No physical harm came to Tigger that day but he must have some sort of imagination because he felt the fear and pain of that dog. Today, after Gage was shot, another Police dog was part of the AOS callout. i wonder what it was like for that dog, passing its dead companion, doing its job, like the human officers. When we enGage the services of dogs, we ask their all and we get it. Then, we owe them, for sure.
Now the two officers, including Gage's handler whom i also had worked with of course, are in hospital badly injured. i bet there will be a funeral for Gage. His handler would have dedicated a large part of his professional and personal life to Gage. i wish him healing and courage. And i do feel sour about the man who did the shooting. i hope his weed was worth it. Reflexively, i think that the penalty for killing a Police dog should be the same as that for killing a Police officer.
Well, Gage, you were born into a human world and your lot was thrown in with ours. Thank you for your service and go well, wherever you are, there will be crims to chase and balls to bite, and nobody to tell you to stop.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Lights and sirens
i have had the experience several times of ringing ambulances for people (not myself) where i am not in the house with them and only know the situation from phone calls.
The ambulance staff ask me if i want lights and sirens. And do i want normal road speed.
So, how the hell do i know? i'm not there in the house. i may not even know the person very well.
So, i say, well shit, just don't bother with the lights and sirens and drama, and how about you order a pizza and pick it up on the way there because it is cheaper that way, and when you arrive at the house i suggest you make like repo men and turn your lights off and cruise up the drive way really really slowly...
So, no, i don't say that, because i don't know what is going on in that house and i kinda don't want anyone to die.
What i say is this.
Fuck yeah i want lights and sirens. And speed. More speed, dammit! And i want helicopters and the armed offenders squad and at least one platoon of Marines going hut hut hut...actually skip the Marines, as i've heard they've had their brains removed to make more room for ammunition. Instead, i would like the New Zealand SAS led by the awesome Corporal Willy Apiata, VC. And i want him straight from Afghanistan looking like a hero from Gears of War or something XBox anyway, armed to the teeth and all sweaty in the dusty heat. And he can take my person to the Emergency Department and all the nurses will pause and look thoughtful, and it will be me who sent him and i will say, oh yeah, Willy, yeah, good guy, no worries, real casual.
Actually i don't say that either.
But more on Willy later.
The ambulance staff ask me if i want lights and sirens. And do i want normal road speed.
So, how the hell do i know? i'm not there in the house. i may not even know the person very well.
So, i say, well shit, just don't bother with the lights and sirens and drama, and how about you order a pizza and pick it up on the way there because it is cheaper that way, and when you arrive at the house i suggest you make like repo men and turn your lights off and cruise up the drive way really really slowly...
So, no, i don't say that, because i don't know what is going on in that house and i kinda don't want anyone to die.
What i say is this.
Fuck yeah i want lights and sirens. And speed. More speed, dammit! And i want helicopters and the armed offenders squad and at least one platoon of Marines going hut hut hut...actually skip the Marines, as i've heard they've had their brains removed to make more room for ammunition. Instead, i would like the New Zealand SAS led by the awesome Corporal Willy Apiata, VC. And i want him straight from Afghanistan looking like a hero from Gears of War or something XBox anyway, armed to the teeth and all sweaty in the dusty heat. And he can take my person to the Emergency Department and all the nurses will pause and look thoughtful, and it will be me who sent him and i will say, oh yeah, Willy, yeah, good guy, no worries, real casual.
Actually i don't say that either.
But more on Willy later.
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