the spirit cant be scene
May 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment
in hegel we encounter a new way to see god. to cut directly through the previews, ultimately, for hegel, the holy spirit [as part of the triune god] is god embodied in community [in this case: humanity]. humanity at its best. for cultural theorist zizek, the occupy wall street is one such place where the holy spirit emerges. a moment where the human community emerges as they were meant to be – as revolutionaries.
so, what of the nature of this thing called spirit? what do we mean when we refer to spirit?
is not spirit something ‘out there’, undefinable. something that transcends itself within reality. it is unseen. my [our] freedom is something untouched when pure. when i sustain my [our] freedom is that not unseen from the bourgeois? is that not untouchable, when in a revolutionary moment i attack or undermine that which entraps me [us]. the holy spirit is then that which is the fighting spirit within the human community that imposes a new of way seeing the whole of the world. the nature itself is restless until it finds the world/reality as it was meant to be. and so when we speak of the nature of the holy spirit it is that which inhabits a revolutionary spirit. a spirit that overtakes a moment when all is lost and proclaims [and i mean this quite literally] a new world can be made and can emerge.
it proclaims that neither the bourgeois nor the proletariate merit the right to own the world, but rather, in the dissolution of these grotesque identities will sustain the illusion of something to fight for.
the spirit is that which cannot be taken from us. that which cannot be seen. that which calls to fight against the capitalistic evils posing as reality.
Catastroika
May 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The creators of Debtocracy analyze the shifting of state assets to private hands. They travel round the world gathering data on privatization in developed countries and search for clues on the day after Greece’s massive privatization program.
The documentary uncovers the forthcoming results of the current sell-off of the Greek public assets, demanded in order to face the country’s enormous sovereign debt.
Turning to the examples of London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow and Rome, Catastroika predicts what will happen, if the model imposed in these areas is imported in a country under international financial tutelage.
Slavoj Zizek, Naomi Klein, Luis Sepulveda, Ken Loach and Greg Palast talk about the austerity measures, the Greek government as well as the attack against Democracy on Europe, after the general spreading of the financial crisis.
Academics and specialists like Dani Rodrik, Alex Callinicos, Ben Fine, Costas Douzinas, Dean Baker and Aditya Chakrabortty present unknown aspects of the privatization programs in Greece and abroad.
CATASTROIKA – ENGLISH SUBTITLES by infowar
‘i’m sorry’, but i just (don’t) mean it
April 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment
forgiveness cannot be universal. as altruistic as the concept might be and however romanticized the idea of assuming responsibility for the ‘sins of the father’ simply leave the one promising some sort of pseudo-reparation thereby implying an ‘all is well’ between the two parties. this is not forgiveness, rather it is a violent gesture of over-approximation.
we have assumed our place in someone else’s narrative. we stand in a gap, where the chasm is too large. and so in this instance, we assume an identity that is not our own. we embrace the ‘i’ that is not ‘i’, we are merely then puppets of our own making attempting to act on stage that wasn’t ours in the first place, thereby creating more context where there should be less. universal forgiveness or asking forgiveness on behalf of others is perverse because it does not allow a natural progression of healing, it attempts to repair something that needs more time.
it denies that process in its entirety by assuming one’s role is to seek forgiveness of ghosts (those who initially perpetuated the act) and in doing so plays the part of ‘father’ (in the catholic sense) to absolve history and the present of ‘their’ sins. so in a sense, this absolution has nothing to do with the people involved, but rather two alive yet inanimate objects called the past and present. these inorganic substances then stand-in for the people seeking the repair and in essence negate the people involved and in essence negate the whole scenario of forgiveness in its entirety.
the symbolic self or ideal ego (the person i think i need/must be) is then encouraged to continue in this role and fulfill its role as mediator and confidant (is this not the theological claim of jesus christ according to the author of hebrews?). if the author of hebrews is correct then jesus never progressed as a person and rather only fulfilled the social order by advocating forgiveness to be something that ‘we’ (as humanity) we were forever incapable of either handling or doing. jesus couldnt have sought forgiveness for the whole of humanity, because god created us with the ability to forgive/love one another. this small truth is why the general notion of forgiveness as universal cannot stand because it rests on the idea that we are incapable of contextualized reparation.
like when tiger woods apologizes to the general public for cheating on his wife and some of the general public believe him and others condemn him even more, this is a great example of the issues involved with over-generalized forgiveness, in that: (1) he decontextualized himself out of his own story and assumed his place was in everyone’s else’s (i.e., making his apology public) and thereby negating any need for an actual apology to his wife.(2) he subordinated himself to the general public for acquittal when the act itself was committed toward his wife, hence also replacing his wife for the general public, so there was no room for his wife to be able to choose reparation; any chance on her part would be sublated by the rest of the general public.
forgiveness must be contextual. it has to be bound to a story, a narrative, it cannot rest in a metanarrative (i.e., general public), in fact, if it does, it loses its own identity and get lost in some romantic notion of false-healing. forgiveness that rests on context is a true form of forgiveness…
[si]n[ew]
March 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment
the modern world is immersed in idealistic ideology. what i mean to say is that most of us, without even thinking about desire for things to be whole, have an end, and somehow make sense as a totality. we are searching for the ‘whole’. but, let’s be honest, this is nothing more than an illusion.
psychoanalyst jacques lacan posited that language is born out of desire (i.e, we speak because we want); and also that we are fragmented people (and that this is a good thing; how i read it) and that we keep desiring things to fill us.
one possible way people desire the vulgar illusion (aka, idealism) of the whole is through communal connectivity (community). we want the ‘other’ to fulfill us (is this not also how some view marriage, narcotics, and so on?). and so what occurs is this version of the false whole is sustained by the illusion of being made ‘complete’ and in doing so rejects the fragmented self (the ‘real’ self).
imagine ourselves as a body (different from ‘having a body’) and one of the features of most bodies is the sinew. which is the tissue uniting flesh to bone. it gives us the ability to move and flex our muscles amongst other important things. what i would like to posit in a metaphorical sense is that our desire for this idealistic connectivity is like this sinew in that it presents itself to us as that which connects us the ‘other(s)’ in community, but in doing so (and in reality) is the very thing that tears/will tear us apart. for me this term is part of a developing lexicon of work i am going to be exploring on the end of idealism and the entrance of the fragmented self (aka, the real self). which also means we are a plurality of selves. to find one’s self is to only encounter a part of one’s self, not the whole self (because the whole self does not exist). what this then means is that we are compelled not by things to fulfill us or the perverse illusion of the whole, but rather we are drawn to discover the plural in the very essence of our being (ontology.
sinew is a bad thing because it projects wholeness when there is none. at one point a biblical author employs a body as a metaphor for how people should ‘work together’, but interesting enough he doesn’t end with us as a possible ‘truth’, but rather focusing on the fragmented self (i.e., some are an eye, foot, ear and so on). it is in the tearing away of our sinew where we are free to discover ourselves in the other, not because we ‘need’ them to fulfill some partial-object, but rather we have the choice to participate in discovering is part of ourselves in the other ( and vice-versa).
the story of all
January 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Noah means rest.comfort.long-lived (think: legacy). so what if the ‘Ark’ (which in Hebrew: means boat or ‘word’ – as in language) — along with the ‘two of every kind’ is a metaphor for humanity (as in, left/right, gay/straight, man/woman, black/white, good/evil and etc.) coming together allowing divisions to collapse for a greater society. Numbers always mean something in Judaism, the fact that 8 humans were on the Ark means the following: “It is 7 plus 1. Hence it is the number specially associated with Resurrection and Regeneration, and the beginning of a new era or order.
When the whole earth was covered with the flood, it was Noah “the eighth person” (2 Peter 2:5) who stepped out on to a new earth to commence a new order of things. “Eight souls” (1 Peter 3:20) passed through it with him to the new or regenerated world.”
Then this new order would be an event where society (as we currently know it) collapses itself and out of this collapse, both resurrection and a new era will emerge…
the traumatic demise of a hotel on acid…
January 21, 2012 By 1 Comment
“Alienation is a foundational claim in Marxist theory. Hegel described a succession of historic stages in the human Geist (Spirit), by which that Spirit progresses towards perfect self-understanding, and away from ignorance. In Marx’s reaction to Hegel, these two, idealist poles are replaced with materialist categories: spiritual ignorance becomes alienation, and the transcendent end of history becomes man’s realisation of his species-being; triumph over alienation and establishment of an objectively better society.”
in the following clip from ‘fear and loathing in las vegas’ with johnny depp, several themes are developed. one being a notion of normative behaviour. as in, there is an over all assumption that social behaviour is metaphysical and categorized. that one’s essence is determined by how they act, talk, walk, use their eyes, and ultimately in the way the interact with others. in fact, if someone does not follow these rules they tend to be marginalized, rejected and alienated because they did/do not fill certain criteria. in this sense, the one being alienated is the one who lies out of the symbolic order (the world). in the alienation of the other is the salvation of the other because they are rejected by the one’s who support the symbolic order and are therefore outside of the constructed reality.
however, just the opposite occurs for the one who alienates, they are deeper entrenched in their arrogance and ignorance, they ultimately fall prey to the spiritual dogma of the self-preservation of the ego (the constructed self). and in this moment defend nothing more than the evil that hides behind the idealistic self. the idealistic self searches only for the ideal because it attempts to conceal what it lacks at the deepest level of the soul. it seeks salvation from itself and so it either seeks to consume/eradicate the other and make it like themselves or completely reject them. this is also racism, denominationalism, tribal terrorism and so on. a defense of the act of alienation is the greatest of errors, because in the hope for creating a society of norms, the most abnormal are the one’s who seek normalcy and reject everyone who does not fit the cookie-cutter design. this is why Zizek states that ‘only one fantasy can survive in a room with many fantasies’ meaning that eventually normalization will occur because of the dogmatism behind ideology.
censorship is that which denies anyone the ability to speak, it is not that you cannot say certain things, but rather it is the pervasive act of speech itself that offends censorship. censorship defines itself as that which is a policing agent against offensive matieral against the masses. however, it presents itself as a self-mediated entity, but in reality is perverse big other that seeks to mediate through the religion of normalcy.this is why wikileaks was such a big deal, because it upset the normalcy, it disrupted ‘reality’ as everyone knew it. this is also why the nebulous nature of the current ‘occupy movement’ frustrates most people, because they are not offering conventional answers, which tends to be defined by a majority and also that which emerges out of the modern methodology. censorship fears speech, because speech that is true, will silence the need for censorship.
in socialism is the idea that society work together for a better goal, and not that we have to give up what we believe or uphold but in the name of which we believe we defend the benefit of the other, of the alienated, even at the risk of losing socially normative behaviours/ethics.
in the greek there is a notion known as grace, one definition is the ‘attraction to something beautiful’. attraction is spontaneous, it erupts when one least expects it. it is the libidinal energy and search for jouissance (enjoyment) that drives the ontology of grace. if it is spontaneous, then it naturally disrupts the normative (that which is stayed, historical and contractual). it denies one access to the constructed self and in a sense brings a sort of death to alienation. there is not enough grace. this is why racism is still present today. this is immigration is such a hot topic, because the nation is afraid of that which is alienation.
that which is other is traumatic. because an experience of trauma (the word itself means ‘wound’) is something that comes outside of the subject and permeates itself through any outer protection and throws the subject off guard. the other is a wound and creates for the masses that reject it. this is why it is called alien-nation. that which is foreign to the masses. that which is foreign to the historical structures in place.
in the clip, the hotel represents the normalization of community. the structure in place. its quite fitting the clip itself is titled ‘hotel on acid’, as we can see it is hunter s thompson (depp) who is the one who physically took the drug, but the one’s receiving the after-effects are the pedestrians. acid, as you can see, is a fantasy-inducing drug, it distorts reality. and yet, the one’s distorted are the one’s depp meets and interacts with. when he stares into the mirror back onto himself, this is the only moment he sees himself and we the viewer see no distortion as if to claim that he is really the only normal one there. it’s as if he has entered hell and charon (aka, the ferryman) (del toro) is the one who is leading him out and away from the hell of normative behaviour.
the hotel itself is the structure, the historical vicar who commends to his congregation that this is they way one behaves. yet, the true addicts and distorted heathens are the one’s who have given themselves over to the narcotic dichotomy and winning/losing. in this is the irony that when they win something, they are getting deeper into the psyche of the hotel and ‘playing the game’ to win (playing by rules) and when they lose, they ultimately lose even more of a sense of reality and fall prey to banality (the narcotic of losing and then playing ‘just one more time’ in case there is a chance of winning).
once we remove structures in place (including the ‘historical’ idea of ‘place’) we then find the other awaiting our embrace, or even moreso, we await the embrace of the other…
when ‘x’ does (not) ma ‘r’ k the sp(o)t
December 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment
let’s think of the word grace as a gift – in fact, the hebrew notion of grace is that it is uncontingent (it does not/can not be defined by the reliance on something/someone else or their behaviour) it is freely given. Alasdair John Milbank refers to morals as a gift, rather than something to be sacrificed. let us also redefine sin (not as somethin that separates us from god) to mean that which leaves/or is a gap of some sort within ourselves (not because of a separation from god either) – and so when paul says this: “should we keep on sinning so that grace may abound” – he is not referring to the current understanding of the orthodox christian narrative – but something about the gift (see above) – that if we constantly give of ourselves without an exchange then a gap within ourselves occurs (sin – in the pervasive sense; in that we are separated from the greatest aspect of ourselves – god).
now, if grace isnt contingent, then it can only be given from someone without the intention of something else, this is the paradox. because you cant keep giving and giving, this is not grace, this is a form of self-negation into nothingness. that isn’t grace, that is stupidity without boundaries. and i don’t mean stupidity in the sense of a character flaw, but the perpetuation of an idea without thinking about it.
what this then means, is grace cannot be used as a tool for power or hierarchy. one gift is not better then another. and because i gift this to you, does not mean i now own you. this is what happens in those relationships where one of the friends/wives/lovers manipulatively says: “if you love me, then you will do X” – this is not grace, this is a control device rather where counselling might be more beneficial. a gift is that which is given out of a person. it is born of nothingness. no intention, no agenda, but only that this uncontingent gift somehow make the receiver a better person (which becomes the sole responsibility of the receiver).
i think because its the nature of a gift, to encapsulate into one narrative (the typical christian one is that everyone NEEDS grace to be acceptable and so on) is to disregard this uncontingent grace. in fact, i would go so far as to say this is no grace at all, but something grotesque and perverse because this interpretation demands the gift. and we know when someone demands something as if it is their’s in the first place that this too is not a gift but a misrecognition and mis direction of appreciation of identity in the other. for grace only can come alive, in the face of the other.
holy spirit, the middle finger
November 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment
at times, i think this was jesus’ response to oppressive systems in place…is this not the role of the holy spirit – to convict of change? to challenge our ontology (essence) to awake us from the slumber of un-thinking??? the holy spirit is ULTIMATE MIDDLE FINGER…
(t)rauma had amnesia…
November 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment
I guess now it’s time for me to give up
I feel it’s time
Got a picture of you beside me
Got your lipstick mark still on your coffee cup
Got a fist of pure emotion
Got a head of shattered dreams
Gotta leave it, gotta leave it all behind now – Take That
dreams are traumatic. when they fall apart, they don’t remind us of how whole we are, but rather how fragmented we are. trauma to the greeks originated from the idea of a piercing that arrives from the outside (the objective) to the subjective (you and i; experience). in fact all types of idealism are perversions, for they seek to hide our fragmentation and make us seem something we are not and what we think we must be (whole).
again, is this not the current state of the world state?? if a westerner watches a commercial about bloated babies, what is the initial response? (that somehow as a westerner we must do something to ‘help’ (otherwise known as wholeness/idealistic) stop the bloating. it is not that help is wrong, but most of the time it is not about the other, but about the one who helps. which becomes about asserting our western ideology upon another. so to help another in this way is to promote nationalism and nothing else. and the dying dreams we once had never leave.
they remain as ghosts. they resist forgetfulness.
in fact, they remain in our psyche long after they break. they return when we least expect it. is this not what we mean when we use terminology like: ‘when i was younger, i used to be able to (fill in the blank’ or ‘i wish i could go back in time’. in this sense, we are forever trapped in a master-slave dialogue where our memories and losses dictate to us not only our future direction (what decisions we make) but also but the very value of our essence. this also occurs in the perverse gesture of television commercials. the object promises to be something you think you have you lost, to fill it, to cover the very hole that you are. the object assumes you must need it, and it buries itself within your mind only to find another way to show up.
this is repression.
this is another reason why commercials are a narcotic and they keep arriving, one after the other, because if the object before doesnt attract you and remind of your loss, maybe the next one will. and in this is infinity. that somehow trauma never leaves because it is repressed and finds a way to return. the way to break the trauma is to begin to realize the object isnt an object at all, that we don’t need that object (even if the object was a past relationship/love/friendship/parent and etc.) we must be willing to fully mourn the ‘death’ of the status of the object and realize that this object is actually, in reality, subject to us.
