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[cassandrasthoughts]

Nature, identity politics, colonialism, nuance

Though identity politics is an extremely useful tool for understanding hierarchal injustices of society, it cannot be the PRIMARY lens through which we view the world, as it forgets many aspects of the innate human condition.....

As I have read in Camille Paglia’s book, as societies become increasingly ADVANCED (and usually therefore liberal and relaxed), complex, BUEROCRATIC, hard to manage, irreligious and dispassionate: such as the Roman empire, the BARBARIANS on the border of society who ARE passionate and religious, BRING IT CRASHING DOWN WHILST THE ROMANS WERE PLAYING ALL THEIR SEX GAMES AND IDENTITY MASQUERADES THOUGHT THEY WERE INVINCIBLE!!!!!!!!!!! 

Then the dark ages of disease and desperation followed. . . . . . . .   Is it analogous to our own progressing society: hugely technologically advanced, increasingly liberal and understanding, with the extremely passionate ISIS and others like desperate to bring it crushing down?

Our discourses and knowledge are extremely stuck in the present. We do not look at ourselves in ancient times and how we were, or ANTHROPOLOGY.

Genghis Khan riding down the mountainside committing genocide. The pyramids of Egypt bound together with the bones of slaves that put them together. In the future, Chinese could take over, and white men could be the “oppressed”. So we would have the same state just different race lol. All races have had the desire to conquer each other at one point, its just currently the Europeans one that due to their geographical auspiciousness perhaps allowing them to? European colonialism brought many ills to the world, I am so angry at what they did to the native americans and aborigines for example……….. however, on a broader level, all races do this to each other, BEYOND RACE, ALL HUMANS!!!!!! It’s in our DNA, all the way back to our rudimentary state as tiny cells: CELLS AND ORGANISMS EAT EACH OTHER. BACTERIA AND PARASITES TAKE OVER AND POSSESS THE MIND OF BUGS AND ALSO I THINK ITS HAPPENED TO HUMANS TOO.

Identity politics imposes a fixed ideology that does not factor in the above aspects. Dealing with a fundamental threat like ISIS becomes racist. There is very little liberal condemnation of ISIS compared to white people, because of the rigid “identity politics triangle” that positions white man as the top evil, and women, “people of colour”, at the bottom. It is inconsistent as a superpower like CHINA could easily take over the world for the worse (I say this as a Chinese woman, Hong Kong will become far worse and scary under chinese rule than british rule and many Hong Kong people are scared). In our current societal incarnation, this triangle does hold true for many aspects (but not for others and there’s so many nuances) HOWEVER, we forget that that the triangle is in fact easily RE-ARRANGEBLE.

This position then becomes seen to be allying with right-wing politics, because I am criticising the left “why never criticise the right?” Partially it is because I am a liberal person and the peoples I associate with are therefore likeminded liberal usually, and I assume the left to be more intelligent (and the majority) rather than insane far right conservatives.  

However, social activism is more and more looking like the hypocritical do-gooder Christians to me lol i.e: condemning people and outcasting them, in the name of moral virtue, which isn’t particularly moral at all. And some Christians were genuinely good people going round the village with nice muffins and always caring for ppl. Just like all religions. Good muslims and bad muslims, good jews and bad jews etc. (but Buddhists usually seem to be majority peaceful imo lol — perhaps because the philosophy is about submission to nature so they understand human nature?)

We tend to think of “nature” and “society” as completely separate phenomena as if society was fabricated out of thin air. 

we must remember society GROWS and develops from nature. Of course there will be imperfections and flaws, and society still carries forth some of the brutality of nature and our primal drives.

Though I become outraged on an emotional level, on the grand philosophical level, I realise this is our condition as humans. Social puratinism denies and hides its face away from the actual ugly beastliness that is the flip side to the beauty of the human spirit. We are both, dark and light, yin and yang.

There is a disconnect between how we can view for entertainment the savagery of nature in David Attenborough documentaries for example, and think that it is insane our humans are also quite savage lol. Nature is the most POWERFUL, FASCISTIC, TYRANNICAL AND OMNIPOTENT FORCE. WE ARE TRAPPED BY GRAVITY, OUR CONSCIOUSNESS BORN INTO THESE AGEING BODIES. However, also this entrapment is necessary balance to our freedom to action. It would not be life if we could fly around without gravity la la la la . Maybe that’s in the next life. Like many great paintings are a combination of rigid borders and then free flowing paint flowing like the waters of emotion within the border. . . . . . 

In my opinion, we should have an honest look at human nature. To understand the truth of our nature and accept it means we can PROGRESS in the right direction. The current direction seems to have inflamed many patriotic people (and being honest, MOST countries ARE patriotic, it is only the educated American and British class who spurn patriotism I guess understandably because of imperialism — i am not particularly patriotic myself — maybe about british music actually). Many moderate people have decided to vote conservative because we failed to have an honest discussion about things like immigration without calling people instantly RACIST! It is important to be DIPLOMATIC and get people on your side. Not left and right shouting at each other — there’s no results. I know this as a seductive woman, my best results come when I use my cunning seduction and make a man like putty in my hand.

A rightful endeavour I believe is to use the resources of the advanced societies and the superrich to put their money into helping the world. I commend scientists who are making many inventions like the electric car to stop so much use of fossil fuels, and great humanitarians of the world trying to help. But in trying to help we must have a sophisticated understanding of human nature and our beastly animalism and not naively forget it!!!!!!!! 

Paraphrasing Canile Paglia paraphrasing Oscar Wilde : it is our human duty to DEFY nature !!!!! (Though simultaneously hold a profound respect for nature).

[cassandrasthoughts]

Nature, society, technology

The definitional separations of “nature”, “society”, and “technology” are somewhat paradoxical and misleading, and skew our contemporary discourses on a multitude of issues across the board.

For “society” the phenomena cannot come out of nowhere like it was fabricated in a vacuum. Society is..... an extension of nature. In the brutality

Humankind (assuming that it is true we came from this planet and not another dimension with another set of metaphysical rules)

Do we consider a beaver’s dam nature or technology?

A spider’s web?

A bee’s beehive and honey? We think of humans as destroyers of the planet.

In fact, the grand mistress NATURE has orchestrated it all herself.

Nature ebbs and flows always between creation and destruction.

Like a flower or tree’s birth and bloom and withering and death. 

A period of serenity and stability, turning to stagnation, and a shattering earth-quake will disturb and destroy everything; but it refertilises the soil for new life.

It is arrogant of humans to think we have any hand in nature’s rise or fall. We are birthed FROM nature: our bodies and bones and blood and brains, nature created, and has coded and designed us to battle with the other elements and the wild beasts and created human societies as a shield against the chaos. Nature

But in a way I am contradicting myself, because we ARE nature.

[cassandrasthoughts]

ART OF A GLAMOROUS WOMAN & other tangents

There is a real art to being a glamorous woman. I have learned that when I eat a big mac burger, I should throw my hair back behind my shoulders, (lest I get salad in my hair and unbecoming wet white streaks of mayonnaise lining it), and lean forward: and there I am created as ART, not through any aesthetic intention, but simply as a natural and pragmatic response to my environment….. it’s a matter of SURVIVAL — for the glamorous woman.

They say I am a construct. But some things just happen !

Some say the high heel is a patriarchal enforcement on women. Maybe it’s true…..

Maybe it is not true. Some kind of artisan spirit in old days I believe saw its beauty (as the foot can naturally bend this way, it’s not fully unnatural as many say) on many women who arched, and decided to find a way to distill it forever: held in place by the foot shell itself — THE STILETTO. and allow it as a prolonged state of being. It’s the prolonging and permanence that is unnatural, rather than the position itself.

Some say it’s the ORGASM feet position.

Well then I’m in an eternal state of ecstasy forever.

Which we all know is a continuum of pleasure and pain……

Ahaha. But I think gender shouldn’t be enforced -- a painful and potent and state-altering object like a high heel shouldn’t be forced on anyone! BUT NEITHER should it be DESTROYED. Like the current attempt to destroy the gender binary, as not everyone fits in the rigid gender binary. But some people like being binary, and fit that mould. So then they will be vilified, those who endorse gender archetypes! It’s really encouraging a culture of acceptance of people’s DIFFERENCES that I think would be more appropriate. Those things like gender are just the surface symptoms of what is actually our human mechanics (fearful or difference, ostracising the weird ones, harking back to our tribal days -- but there were many people I remember at school days for example, considered weird and cruelly ostracised -- which had nothing to do with gender revolt -- they were still mocked. Yet gender is the big discourse today. If anything I found children at my school quite experimental -- it was looks, being good at sport, social adeptness, that organised the hierarchy, and a few undercover gays and lesbians actually quite high up the hierarchy. Nerds and those considered strange people were at the bottom). Though here I forget myself -- for on the street and the sidewalk, subversive play with your gender is the most attractive of either people wanting to aggravate and attack or mock you, or touching their nerve and shocking them. It’s so funny that it is one of the most potent identity forces (wonder why -- cos it insinuates sex? And makes them very afraid of what they could feel.. I take on an amazonian warrior woman identity though and can handle bad and naughty men (and women) -- and there’s many lovely people too, so sometimes I forget. But again I think we should not destroy things, perhaps a broad history of art, culture and anthropology into people’s minds from a young age would cure the culture of thinking everything now and what they are is normal, as compared to people who are different, who actually proliferated various times throughout history. And like second-wave feminism’s attempt to destroy glamorous women, say they are stupid, and write her off as simply a fantasy of men. Removing agency from the woman’s identity. I always found this more catty of feminists than the women they complain about. And then modernism’s trying to destroy beauty -- I believe simply through actually the fact it is competitive rather than it having an inherent bad or cliche quality. The world of nature in that it is not exactly fair. There are many much more beautiful than I. But I still celebrate and love beauty as a divine aspect of nature. Why should I destroy beauty should I become jealous and envious of those more beautiful than I? Caging it will just make it an even more FEARED force. I remember at art school my overt celebration of beauty provoked nervous reactions..... I think it’s good to critique beauty and of course beauty is not everything, but the pendulum swung too far the other way in recent years completely rejecting beauty ! Now I see it coming back. It’s ultimately a good psychological discipline to have -- to be able to appreciate beauty though you are not beautiful yourself (I think most people are like that anyway). 

As I click-clock with my heels that when I walk through a train station echo like bugle calls I am powerful like a horse (and with my hooves I could tear a six inch incision to any man who tried to mess with me!!!)

I am powerful, but there are many who want to subjugate my power. Assault and attack!!!!! My click-clicking does send an alert to my enemies and make me VULNERABLE TOO. But if it brings me to battle it is for I am a powerful adversary.

And well they say it was the patriarchy and men that came up with all these things like heels and makeup. (Weren’t the eyeliner wings we wear today originally by the hand of CLEOPATRA??)   But has anyone thought, back when the bible said a man shouldn’t lie with another man, it was actually an undercover GAY MAN?????!!!! ( or a transgender spirit ??? ) With a great eye for detail and design and adornment and the SILHOUETTE of a woman.   Undercover, incognito, feigning interest in the woman for a matter of survival, BUT well the interest was true, just it was not that of the same as the red blooded lusting straight man ! It was a different interest that could masquerade as another: an eye for beauty, feeling design inspiration, she is a DIVA and a MUSE. Maybe this is historically inaccurate need to do my research lol.

With all my heart and all my mind, we’ll find a way to create and bind……

My friend says the straight male mind is one of a general picture. Whereas it is her other female friends who comment on and pay attention to the details of eyebrows etc. things of DETAIL AND  REFINEMENT. Maybe that’s a generalisation I am always curious to quiz straight guys on things that belong to realms which they have little acquaintance either through bashfulness or simply no interest. Such as, what do you think of Madonna? (though formerly she was a sex icon to straight men in early 80s, it’s with age she became more of a gay icon).  

But my thoughts all relied on if she has long hair and heels though, and that archetypal look of glamour. And is it not a European one ?? Hmmmm But there are other environment responses that can produce GLAMOUR AND DEBONAIR

The aesthetics of a masculine man produced by testosterone, the culture of a man, ancient times....??? 

Hair are the routes of our nerve endings and emotions, and for it to be long and flowing and abundant, symbolising the high presence of oestrogen in a woman’s body? (Bad science? Let me research quickly lol) 

But I forget I am not really a woman (or am I? Depends what you mean by woman -- the surface of one, or the through and through biologically reality of one? we do identify each other by our surface and what we appear to be. Which supports the theory of those who say a transgender woman is not a *transgender* woman they are just a WOMAN. Personally I’d call myself a man first/originally a man/part man -- but now art-woman. Maybe I am a hybrid. Whatever it is, I know it’s one that’s SEXY to many straight men, which is a phenomena that surely contradicts the essentialism of a man-is-a-man-and-a-woman-is-a-woman style thinking. I’d say my personal philosophy is in the middle of gender essentialism and gender constructivism ). But what I was going to say, I am not really a woman am I? But actually, a simulacrum of one — a painting of one. But then you could say is the woman a woman, and what’s a woman. We are all simulacrums of each other? ! ?  Well it’s complicated-ly interlinked, but I think that gender is neither wholly constructed and fabricated not purely biologically. It is both is an intersection of culture and nature (as says Camille Paglia). My glamorous debonair is more complicated than the simplistic gender discourse of today !!!!!! It’s my brain, spirit, outside forces, cells, imagination, psychology, all reacting against one another to produce me. Super-natural !!!!!!!!!!!