#we humans have a tendency to project ourselves onto animals | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

circe-poetica · 4 years ago

Link

https://skywriter.wordpress.com/2009/09/29/7-secrets-you-may-not-know-about-the-12th-house/

https://skywriter.wordpress.com/2013/11/03/doomed-by-a-12th-house-stellium-think-again/

Donna Cunningham

The 12th pertains to witchcraft, mysticism and spiritualism and corresponds to the sign Pisces in the natural order of the signs and is ruled by Jupiter. The modern planet Neptune also has corule here and Venus is in her exaltation. Neptune has a bit of added strength for its quadruplicity here. Traditionally Pisces is cold, moist, phlegmatic, feminine, nocturnal. and mutable. The house is associated with large animals, private enemies, witches, sorrow, tribulation, malicious gossips and informers. It is also the house of large institutions such as hospitals, government agencies, and prisons, and of their inmates. Deception, celebrity, glamour, and illusion are hallmarks of the sign and the house. Yet, very fine artists, seers, and mystics also have been known to emerge. Mystics and spiritualists then can be a direct spiritual link but they are unreliable in general and will have a tendency to be prey to rumor, gossip, and various spirits. Monks and certain solitaries as well as confidence tricksters, inmates of prisons and hospitals, and spiritualists, witches, artists, and scriers all express the nature of this house. What they share is the power of glamour and an attraction to the invisible world. Generally malefics ruling or in this house if ill dignified or afflicted show many difficulties and usually unpleasant results. There is sometimes small aptitude and possibly an antipathy for witchcraft and mysticism. Benefics or perhaps better, well dignified malefics tend to show aptitudes in these arts and a tendency to mediumship. The tendency will be stronger with a bright star connected especially if its nature shows an interest in these arts or is compatible with the planets connected with the house. Peregrine and unstarred planets tend to leave the matters of the house neutral. Peregrine and afflicted tend to show antipathy.

Keywords

What is Hidden

Below the Surface

Karma

Self-Undoing

Soul Growth

Hidden Strengths

Hidden Weaknesses

Dreams

Private Affairs

Lost Items

Hospitals

Prisons

Spiritual Studies

Secrets

Sorrows

Suffering

Isolation

Confinement

Metaphysics

Hidden Desires

Fears

Fantasies

Rest & Sleep

Modality : Cadent

The Twelfth House is commonly referred to as the House of the Unconscious. The unconscious state can help engender our successes, as well as assist us in coping with our failures. Success vs. failure: do we consciously confront our lives or subconsciously sweep things under the proverbial rug? This house might more aptly be called the House of Reckoning, since it is in the Twelfth that we review what we have been (and done) and decide where we go from there. Along with these unconscious musings, we also deliberate on strengths and weaknesses that are hidden from public view.

Our subconscious works hard on our behalf, trying to make sense of our lives. This shadow play is slow and long, and often fraught with fear and pain. It is in this context that we are confronted with our sorrows, suffering and the secrets we keep from ourselves and from others. Ultimately, we are also confronted with our fate: karma. Here we meet up with the results of everything we have done. This further puts the focus on repressed agendas and restraint. What have we wrought with in our lives? This is a key question of the Twelfth House, and we will deal with it both consciously and unconsciously. Will the answers compel us to be transformed or reborn? This is another cornerstone of the Twelfth House — the manner in which we move forward.

We can learn much from the unconscious. In its most noble manifestation, we will be prompted to be charitable. If we learn our lessons, both past and present, we are also better equipped to move forward. The Twelfth House compels us to seek closure in a spiritual way as an aid to positive growth.

The last house of the zodiac also recognizes that we can feel bound in life — stuck and confined. For this reason, this house rules jails, hospitals, institutions, asylums and any space that inhibits freedom. More gloominess in the Twelfth comes in the form of danger, secret enemies and clandestine affairs. Beware!

While some may decry the Twelfth House as the garbage bin of the zodiac, it’s really an unfair term. Ultimately, this house is the champion of positive transformations. It is here that we stand on the precipice and determine how we will proceed. By visiting the unconscious and meeting with the past, we begin to glean what the future will bring.

The Twelfth House is ruled by Pisces and the planets Jupiter and Neptune.

This house is also known as the house of the subconscious and endings and is the last of the twelve houses of the zodiac. The planets and signs that are located in this house on the birth chart influence the cycles in one’s life, with the main focus on endings and regeneration. This is the place where you learn from both success and mistakes and move on.

The natural sign ruler is Pisces, the twelfth zodiac sign on the horoscope wheel, and the planetary ruler is Neptune, the planet of psychic receptivity, dreams and spirituality.

There is always something strange about the twelfth house and however hard we try to define it, we can be sure its meaning will slip through our fingers as soon as we start thinking we caught it. This is a house with the Latin name carcer, meaning “prison” and it can quite literally turn your life into prison in any imaginable way. It is also called The House of Self-Undoing. The natural progress of our Self goes through that logical row of houses, the second after the first, the third after the second, etc. If we realize that the twelfth house speaks of something entirely different, moving backwards from our first house to the twelfth, and right there behind our back, we have to ask ourselves how special it actually is and which way does it help us evolve. Or does it help at all?

This house shows how we think about our lives and how we think about the hereafter, or about spiritual things (cadent house).

It can refer to karma and spiritual matters. This is a house of non-self, which means it is concerned with large, impersonal, institutions, such as hospitals, prisons, large bureaucracies, the civil service, etc. That is areas where they claim to serve rather than seek a profit, and where the workers and managers are somewhat anonymous. Here we think of unselfish service.

This also adds up to hidden matters. Sometimes this is because the good is not published (selfless service, modesty), and sometimes it is because the bad is concealed. But it also refers to hidden matters which are being uncovered, or research in science, or something else. It refers to activities behind the scenes, for good or bad.

Anyone who reviews their life, is likely to think of things that they did not do, which they wished they had done, and things they did do, and wished they hadn’t. This can result in some sorrow, and can also result in guilt or shame. It can also result in pride and satisfaction when we think of the good things we did (or even the temptations we resisted).

In the third house, we learn basic things. In the sixth we make this knowledge automatic. And in the ninth we can range far and wide in thought because we have the knowledge which is unconscious within us. In the twelfth house, we can range even further through an unawareness of ability and an unawareness of self. In some ways we transcend ourselves and think not of our own selfish needs and viewpoints, but the viewpoint of humanity, or of all life. We can in a similar way transcend knowledge so we can understand it in what appears to be a mystic way, to those who have not attained this level of development. There is a no-mind unknowing where all knowledge is “routine” as are all viewpoints, so there is intuition.

The twelfth house is also concerned with health, either as a profession, or how we deal with illness. It is also concerned with meditation (impersonal), self-sacrifice (selflessness) and charity (selfless giving).

The twelfth house also indicates areas where we have secret enemies, which could be those aspects of ourselves which lead to our undoing.

The first house is “I, me, mine; who I am, what I do.” The twelfth is frequently “what I am not, what I do not do.” Traditionally, it is described as “self-undoing, hidden enemies,” including karma, bondage, prisons, hospitals, ashrams, monasteries, institutions, places of research. In Vedic astrology, one of its meanings is “final liberation,” or total freedom from ego and karma. It is the most important of the “moksha” or spiritual houses.

The 7th, the 12th, or more precisely, the qualities of the sign on the cusp and energies of any tenanting planets are likely to be projected onto others and the environment. Both houses seven and twelve correspond to the times of the day when the Sun is close to the horizon. One can be blinded by the light and deceived by the long, deep shadows thrown at those hours – dawn and sunset.

Planets in the 12th are not weak or weakened. It is the “house of the risen Sun.” They are very powerful, although the person may be strangely oblivious to the strength of the influence. An example was a young man with Uranus in Leo in the 12th. He had a very charismatic manner; his style of dress and haircut were distinctly different. He once asked me if he looked “weird” because he wanted to appear normal and fit in, or so he thought. I suggested he take a good, hard, long look in the mirror and then think about getting a new hair cut and different clothes. He gave all sorts of rationalizations why that would not work and continued to look “weird” while convincing himself he looked just like anybody else. Had Uranus been in his first house, he would have put much conscious attention on cultivating a dramatically different personality image. He would have wanted to look weird.

The seat of the collective unconscious is the 12th. It is from there that the archetypes can enter and overtake the personality. Archetypes are universal principles or energies. As mythic figures, they reveal inherent psychological processes embedded deeply in the collective psycho-mythology and work throughout the human species. They are neutral, yet to the degree an individual or a society represses, suppresses, or denies them, they become good or evil, angelic or diabolic. The material we store in the 12th, the unconscious, may be unacceptable because of trauma or conditioning and because it threatens the persona. It is the underside, the dark side, and the hidden part of the person. What we try to hide and deny to ourselves is often apparent to everybody else – like the emperor’s new clothes. Our hidden enemy, obvious to everyone but ourselves, is, more often than not, ourselves.

The house of dreams and imagination is the 12th. This is where we become aware of the contents of our own subconscious as well as that of the social and collective world. As the opposite of the 6th house of work, health and service, the 12th is retreat, respite, isolation, and withdrawal, long term or chronic health concerns. During the month that the Sun transits our 12th house we may want to “hole up,” sleep more, read, work alone on creative projects, or commune with nature. As Saturn and the other slow moving planets go through the 12th, we have the opportunity for long periods of introspection and communion. When we do not consciously choose to go inward as the rhythms of our nature dictate, we run the risk of becoming ill, of being forced to take time out.

Perhaps one of the more interesting facets of the 12th house to metaphysically inclined people is that it provides clues about our past lives. When we synthesize the meanings of an individual’s twelfth house, its ruler, and the ruler’s position by sign and house, planet(s) tenanting the 12th, along with the Moon and Saturn, we can make some interesting speculations about past life scenarios. On one occasion, I did that at the request of a client with Saturn and Pluto in his 12th house. I sketched several scenarios, all with similar themes. He then told me he had past life regressions under hypnosis and had come up with almost identical scripts. His reason for consulting a hypnotherapist and an astrologer was to try to find some explanation for his chronic health problems.

Planets in the 12th indicate prenatal conditions. Usually this can be verified by talking to the parents, other close relatives, and the attending physician. In the case of the above-mentioned client, Saturn in the 12th indicated a long labor, a labor induced by his mother’s rage during an argument with her own mother (Pluto was square the Moon in his chart). Neptune here indicates the use of anesthetic during delivery. In one ease, the mother had gone to a party and gotten drunk and was “under the influence” during labor. Mars can indicate unusual bleeding, either of the mother or from injury to the infant. Additionally, it can indicate minor head trauma, which can result in “minimal brain damage” syndrome, resulting in later learning difficulties. An astrologer can look at an infant’s chart and suggest what health areas the pediatrician needs to concentrate on and check out carefully if the child is having problems of any kind, and especially if he or she has one or more planets in the 12th house.

Charts with three or more planets in the 12th house, or one of the lights and an angular house ruler posited in this house, are frequently found among physicians, nurses, professors and others who work in hospitals or universities. A well-tenanted 12th house is also common among writers who must spend time alone working with their imagination and their mind, tuning into the muses. Very talented, very tragic people, like Judy Garland and Janis Joplin, and the notorious propagandist, Tokyo Rose, had many planets in their 12th houses. Pierre Teillard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest and monk, achieved distinction in paleontology and geology. He was acclaimed for his scientific and genetic research, and wrote spiritually philosophical works. The title of one of the best known of these was “To Build the Earth.” He had a stellium in Taurus, including the Sun and Moon in Gemini, all in the 12th house.

This is probably the most misunderstood house of all. The twelfth House refers to the subconscious, the hidden self that exists apart from our physical everyday reality. This includes the unconscious mind, subconscious memory, subconscious habit patterns from the past, mental illness, karmic debts, self-deception, escapism, spiritual realization, limitations, frustration, and ultimately our self-undoing.

On a physical, material level, the 12th house includes things that take us away from everyday life: institutions (such as hospitals, prisons, government offices), places of confinement, secrets, secret relationships, hidden enemies, and self-sacrifice for others. It also refers to sorrow, tribulations, widowhood, grief, funerals, exile, seclusion, bribery, subversion, murder, suicide, kidnapping, and endings.

For those who believe, the 12th house is also considered to refer to the collective unconscious of all humanity.

Let’s dip out of reality awhile and swim through the 12th house! This is a complex and mystical section of your birth chart that sheds a light on your spiritual life, your connection to the cosmos, your dreams, and your subconscious. While these traits and concepts can be challenging to grasp, it’s important to study the Astrology associated with your 12th House of Subconscious. By learning the advantages or challenges you face in this realm and working on your inner self to maintain a high frequency, you’ll live a much more fulfilling life both physically and spiritually.

The 12th house is a cadent one and ruled by the sign Pisces and its ruler planet Neptune. Before Neptune was discovered, Jupiter was considered the ruling planet of Pisces and thus he is still considered as the co-ruler of this mystical house. It is also called the house of the unconscious, self-undoing, and imprisonment. Even if it is considered one of the most dangerous houses, we should not forget that its basis lies directly in the depths of our mind. So, by changing the way our brain functions, and healing our souls, we can even extinguish the difficulties this house might bring in our reality. In this house are located the deeper levels of our mind. The mechanisms behind our thoughts and actions, our subconscious, and unconscious, things we have inside us but do not know (or prefer to not concentrate on). In this house, one can find his hidden psychological problems and work on them, the weaknesses that he tries to keep out of public view. These weaknesses are frequently patterns of self-undoing, and unless resolved in one’s psyche they will definitely strike back towards his reality. A 12th house Mars, for example, will accumulate hidden aggression which will some day reach some critical point, resulting either in an uncontrolled explosion (towards random people maybe) or in an introversive implosion, such as psycho-somatic diseases or a difficult time handling one’s own self. Generally, when planets are present in the 12th house, it is necessary to understand the meaning of their placement; you will actually understand things about you that are present but that you might not be aware of. The house is strongly connected to Karma, and many difficulties (or even rewards) that it brings are outcomes of previous or even future lives. It is also an open gate towards these other lives; by meditating, praying and living a monastic life you can send through this gate energy to your other incarnations. Indeed, a lot of people who live a somehow hermetic life (no matter if they are monks in a monastery, prisoners or simply lonely people), are having planets located in the house. These are usually triggered by slow moving transits, which are temporarily or permanently leading them to such a pattern of reality. The 12th house also rules our dreams, our sleeping patterns and the time we sleep. Psychology, as a science, is all about the 12th house and its mysteries. Also, psychic phenomena, clairvoyance and a lot of paranormal activities; mostly those that are uncontrolled by the native. The 8th house is ruling his conscious descent into the other realms; the 12th is more about his unconscious abilities, and they many times remain untamed unless the person digs deep into his soul. Furthermore, here lays self-sacrifice and suffering, while also secret charity. All that is hidden, the secrets and the skeletons in the closet are also matters of this dark house. Behind the scenes activities, illegal jobs, illegal affairs, and confidential documents are also categories falling under the influence of this house. In addition, the house is responsible about secrets that we can uncover, both in ourselves and in the collective unconscious. Researchers and inventors frequently have planets here, bringing them insights that help their discoveries. Here one can also observe his hidden enemies, and having malefic planets located in the house can show us a lot about their presence and nature. The 12th house is governing all large animals, in opposition to the 6th house that rules small domestic ones. People with malefic planets or planets that receive adverse aspects from “malefics” are advised to stay away from large animals, as accidents might occur near them. On the contrary, when benefic planets are present, the individual might be receiving a lot of joy through big animals, or even create wealth in a business concerning them. An individual with difficult planets present in the 12th house is advised to keep away from alcohol and other substances, as they might worsen the condition and functions of these planets. The house is also indicating prenatal conditions and how the baby was experiencing the time he passed in its mother’s wombs. “Malefics” present in the house can indicate difficulties both during pregnancy and birth. Finally, the house is also ruling monasteries, asylums, hospitals, prisons, rehabilitation centers and every institution that imposes limitations. This does not necessarily mean that a native who has planets in the 12th house will be restrained in such an institution; he could be even working for one. Another example could be an artist, passing a lot of time in loneliness so that he can work better, get inspired and use his imagination. All types of imprisonment are to be observed here, both willing and not. So, during a heavy transit, it is often better to try self-imprisonment, than face the pushy consequences of the planet.

The twelfth house of the zodiac is ruled by the zodiac sign Pisces and its ruling planet Neptune. Before Neptune was found, Jupiter was viewed as the planet of Pisces, and since then it has been considered as the co-ruler of this mysterious house. The 12th house is likewise called the house of the instinct, of dreams, of the hidden world and the unconscious. It is considered one of the most dangerous houses in the natal chart, but we ought not overlook that its foundation lies straightforwardly in the depths of our psyche.

In this way, by changing the way our perspective, and healing our spirits, the dangers that this 12th house brings us can be softened. In this 12th house we can find the deeper levels of our mind. The processes and values that are behind our thoughts and activities, our intuition and instinct, and unconscious beliefs that we have inside us.

What It Means

And finally, the twelfth house is where we go to recover, to restore ourselves when we have been wounded. There is sorrow and sadness here.

The concerns of the twelfth house are very personal and private…hidden from view, as it were. These are difficult things to share, and so we don’t. They may be things you feel ashamed of or emotional scars you bring into this life from previous lives. If you are feeling these things, therapy can help. Whatever planets you have in this house can shed some light on where these feelig are coming from, what lessons you might need to learn, and what forgivenesses you might need to grant. Having two planets here, I can certainly attest to the idea of havings some lessons to learn!

Another sensation associated with this house is that of being alone, not part of the group, even when you are in a group. From my earliest memories as a child, I have always had this feeling. I wasn’t particularly bothered by it, but I always knew it. And now, I can see that it has taught me resilience. I can go on, no matter what.

The twelfth house is also a very psychic house. It’s here that you can “see” the other side. You can feel the pain of those around you. And you can transcend the concerns of the material world and give selflessly to those in need.

Twelfth House in Vedic Astrology

First house represents the beginning, the birth and 12th house in Vedic Astrology, being the last house completes the lifecycle and represents the endings. It stands for seclusion, solitude and emancipation. This is the house of detachments. Whatever you have to detach from is represented by 12th house in horoscope, your materialistic tendencies, source of expenses, and so on. When afflicted, this house can lead to jail sentence, hospitalization, sleeplessness, separation, addictions, secret enemies, suspicion, inferiority complex and loss of near and dear ones. Affliction of the house also causes mental weaknesses, susceptibility to unspiritual addictions such as to intoxication, sex, enslavement, and so on.

This house is about letting things go, but this does not necessarily means negative. Being the last house, it represents what you have to renounce to move towards liberation. It stands for the time when you have to detach yourself from the material world and return to where you started – the purest form. It is a very important house concerning spiritual liberation. 12th house in astrology represents Moksha, when you are free from the endless cycle of birth and death, miseries of material life. It represents the freedom of the soul from the shackles of worldly attachments.

This is a crucial house in the horoscope for monks, sages, and people striving towards illumination. It also governs places like ashrams, meditation centers, monasteries, places of worship etc. Your capacity to relinquish everything to unite with the divine force is determined by the planetary position in the 12th house. It plays a prominent role in activities you indulge in out of generosity. Actions without expectations relate to this house. The tendency to be giving, humble and compassionate is ruled by twelfth house. It mainly suggests losing yourself to find God, be one with him.

Twelfth house in astrology gives detachment from people that the planets occupying the house represent such as parents, siblings, neighbors, friends and relatives. This detachment can be in the form of separation or death. 12th house also relates to bed comforts so you sexual ability, desires, fulfillment and sleeping tendencies fall under this house too. 12th house also represents detachment from the native place, in the form of long distance travel to faraway places, foreign residency, travel abroad, trade with foreign cultures and people, import, export, international tourism and business.

This house relates to the 12th sign in the zodiac circle, Pisces that also relates to intuition, isolation and imagination. It is also known as the Vyaya Bhava in Vedic Astrology, and gives an insight into wasteful expenditure and spending habits. Saturn is the natural significator of the 12th house. In Mundane Astrology, 12th house represents law enforcement, punishment, health care institutions, charitable organizations, crime, secret forces, espionage, and so on.

The Twelfth house represents the way we explore and deal with our inner depths in solitude and silence, marking a difference between spiritual growth and escapism. It is through this house that we transcend through the definitions of reality that confine us, creating a desire to move through and beyond what may be causing pain within our lives. Planets in the Twelfth house have a subtle, rather than a strong, influence, with the house working on a subconscious level of our mind.

The Twelfth house represents how we build our own inner strength to overcome limitations, fears and sorrows – allowing for individuals to adapt to the collective. Within this house we are able to come to terms with self-undoing by working out why we are not completely free, where we stand in our own way and who we desire to become. Karma, betrayal, sacrifice, secrets and limitations play a strong role in the Twelfth house. It reflects our subconscious and emotionally based feelings of responsibility, describing the extent we feel guilt for problems within the larger world. The house is most commonly associated with psychic sensitivity, spirituality, hidden understandings and awareness, omens, the need for time alone, the subconscious, karma and traits existent but unknown to one’s self.

Regeneration

As the last house, this is the place of endings, however, should also be regarded as place where transformation and regeneration are initiated.

It talks about tying up loose ends in life and ensuring you are always in control of an outcome, whether beneficial for you or not.

This is where the individual is confronted with own karma in an effort to advance. This is also the house of hospitals, hospices, jail and other places where he individual may find themselves confined in life.

Spiritual matters

The metaphysical comes to play in this house as well, along with creative matters but also the influence of secrets and possible enemies in life.

This house reflects what happens on the inside in times of failure or success and how the subconscious deals with personal failings. Does the individual learn or just move ahead, trying to dig everything as if it never happened.

This house governs subconscious desires to start fresh and sort of ensures that all stages of life are spent, before moving on.

It governs hidden strengths, urges and weaknesses and may become more apparent as one advances in life.

The 12th House Rules Hidden Fears and Desires

In this house, one can locate their deepest psychological fears and desires, and work through them, so that the weaknesses that they bring can be made harmless. These issues are much of the time examples of self-harm, and unless one accepts, acknowledges and chooses not to repress them, they will strike back with more fury. A twelfth house Mars, for instance, may have issues with hostility, which will some time or another reach a breaking point, coming about either in an uncontrolled blast (towards blameless individuals even) or in an introversive implosion, for example, as part of a psychosomatic illness or a difficult time dealing with one’s own self.

The 12th House Rules Dreams and Rest

The twelfth house likewise rules our dreams, the dream world and the how we sleep and rest. Likewise, mystical phenomenon, intuitive insight and a considerable measure of spiritual activity are also ruled by this house; even though these aspects are for the most part things that are not controlled by the individual. The eighth house rules one’s conscious plunge into alternate worlds; while the twelfth house is more about one’s unconscious capacities, and they ordinarily remain under control unless the individual gets put into a situation where they must dive into their own psyche.

The 12th House Rules All That is Below the Surface

All that is concealed, including the potentially disastrous secrets are likewise matters of this twelfth house. Hidden activities, illegal work, unlawful situations, and classified information are likewise categories that are affected by the twelfth house. What’s more, the house is a dependable place to look when one wants to learn about the kind of secrets that are in one’s lives, both in ourselves and in the environment around us.

Analysts and detectives can sometimes have planets here in the twelfth house, bringing them bits of knowledge that assist their investigations. Here, one can likewise find indications of an individual’s hidden adversaries, and having malefic planets situated in the house can demonstrate to us a considerable measure about their essence and nature.

The 12th House Rules One’s Wild and Untamed Nature

Being opposite to the sixth house, which rules pets, the twelfth house is also the house of wild animals. Individuals with malefic planets or planets that have more negative aspects are encouraged to avoid wild animals, as trouble may happen when they are close to them. But benefic planets in the twelfth house can indicate that the individual may get a great deal of satisfaction with wild creatures.

The 12th House Rules Addictions

A person with troublesome planets and aspects in the twelfth house is encouraged to also avoid liquor and addictive substances, as they may compound the condition and elements of these planets. The twelfth house is likewise able to one’s conditions before birth and what one’s experiences were while still in the womb. Malefic planets present in the twelfth house can demonstrate troubles both amid pregnancy and birth.

Ruling Planet Neptune

Zodiac Sign Pisces

Areas of Life

This is the house of dreams, of our subconscious and everything mysterious and hidden from plain sight. It speaks of imprisonment, no matter if it is actual prison sentence or any ties we are held back by in this lifetime. In general, this is the house that represents all things behind our back, all things left behind, and as such speaks most vividly of our past life experience. Things it hides can be clearly seen by people around us, and our friends might see its secrets as a normal part of their everyday routine, for this is the second, “logical” house from the eleventh. This is the field of greatest knowledge we can find in close friends and social contacts, and while some of us will get its best through gossip, others will get it through spiritual guidance and support.

Apart from its rule of prisons, the twelfth house also speaks of all places of seclusions, such as hospitals and mental institutions. It is elusive and secretive, we cannot see what’s inside it before we close our eyes, and even then it is a dreamland that has yet to be deciphered. It is our place of solitude and reflection, retreat and self-sacrifice, while at the same time being our comfortable bed and our most beautiful land of desires, talents and imagination. This house speaks of all those things we do not know and there for don’t understand, and we have to be very careful not to disturb its waters in order to see things clearly to the bottom.

The twelfth house in Scorpio is an interesting place. Something as taboo and as hidden as Scorpio rarely finds an appropriate secretive hideout, but this position allows them to. The most unfortunate thing here lies in one’s ability to bury their own feelings, doings, or aspirations, finally ending up without any awareness of their true inner light. This is the sign that speaks of our shadows and everything we want to bury and dismiss along the way, and when it is set in such a secretive house, shoving things under the rug becomes a routine. This can make these people explode in numerous ways, ending up in strange circumstances, weird conversations, interventions, institutions or even jail. To see the magic in Scorpio this person has to be truly and deeply open-minded, fully willing to accept the most devastating, darkest and most dangerous emotions they carry within.

#12th housw #astrology #solar return #12th house #masterpost #donna cunningham

5 notes · View notes

rjzimmerman · 6 years ago

Link

Excerpt:

Among the many quirks of human nature, one that has always struck me as particularly worthwhile is the tendency to project our own feelings onto other animals. This seems to me like a fast route to empathy, a way to bring us closer to different species. But many scientists disagree. They call this anthropomorphism, and they discourage it.

Scientists offer these words of caution with good reason: There are a number of very valid arguments against anthropomorphizing the creatures with whom we share this world, not least of which is that their inner lives deserve to be evaluated on their terms — not ours. At times, interpreting their behavior through a human lens might be misleading, silly or even harmful. But at other times — and they occur more often than science would care to admit — perceiving ourselves in these others is exactly the right response. When an animal’s emotional state is obvious to anyone with eyes and a heart.

Such is the case with Tahlequah, also known as J35, a 20-year-old female orca from the critically endangered southern resident population based near Puget Sound, Wash. On July 24, she gave birth to a female calf, who lived for just 30 minutes. The calf was emaciated, lacking enough blubber to stay afloat. Tahlequah kept the body at the surface, supporting it on her head or holding it in her mouth. Orcas and other cetacean species have been observed carrying their dead, but rarely longer than a day. Tahlequah has been swimming with her daughter’s body through choppy seas for, as of Friday, 10 days and counting, on what social media observers and orca researchers call a “tour of grief.” They’re right.

To learn the orcas’ natural and cultural history is to understand how closely connected a mother and calf are, how tight-knit their bond. Like us, orcas are self-aware, cognitively skilled individuals that communicate using their pod’s signature dialect. Unlike us, their core identity is communal: It encompasses not just themselves, but their family group. The idea that Tahlequah is grieving her dead calf is not some sentimental projection. Science strongly backs it up.

As with anthropomorphism, science balks at the notion that these animals affect us so profoundly because of some innate kinship — but that doesn’t make us feel it any less. When describing the many sublime characteristics of orcas, even the most rational scientists can begin to sound emotional. The marine ecologist Robert Pitman once called orcas “the most amazing animals that currently live on this planet.” Another scientist proclaimed them “the unchallenged sovereigns of the world’s oceans.”

But these days we’ve made such a mess of the marine environment that even its sovereigns struggle to survive.

#emotions #orcas #southern resident orcas #orca J35 #orca calf

11 notes · View notes

quantummindclassicalheart · 2 years ago

Text

It's interesting to think about the parallels to the original Koko the Gorilla case suggested in the original Tweet, too. There's a good You're Wrong About episode discussing why Koko wasn't communicating with humans in the way people thought she was, and a similar episode by Radiolab on Animal Minds.

Humans have a tendency to project their own ways of understanding the world onto decidedly non-human entities, be they animals, machines, or forces of nature.

When we do this for animal minds, it blinds us to the diversity of ways that animal minds and brains work (often very differently than human minds do!) and severely limits how we think about cognition and intelligence.

When we do this for machines, we risk failing the AI version of the mirror test, mistaking a statistical mixture of our own coded biases, opinions, and prejudices for a separate intelligence. See for example the following Tweet from another AI researcher, Janelle Shane:

These models are incredibly powerful and sophisticated, no doubt. But as the commenter above said, they are more similar to your phone's autocomplete than to human minds, at least at their current stage of development.

When it comes to non-human cognition, maybe the best we can do is to acknowledge there are many complex systems (including ourselves!) capable of processing information in diverse ways, and focus more on what makes these systems interesting and different rather than what makes them most like us.

#writing #science #when it comes to modeling animal cognition neither of the extremes are correct (nor widely believed these days)#animals are not unthinking stimulus-response systems but nor are they tiny humans in funny hats #they just... think differently #and that's what makes them wonderful!#long post

24K notes · View notes

evolutioncounseling · 6 years ago

Text

The paradox is that self-actualization, which is the process of unfolding unique potentialities within the individual, can only really happen in the context of human relationships. We’re social animals. We can’t thrive, most of us couldn’t even survive, without some sort of community around us. Even those pursuits that don’t appear to involve other people would cease to have meaning in a vacuum, most of them would cease to even be possible.

But when many think of their own growth and their own freedom to be fully themselves they don’t look at their close human relationships as assets in this process but rather as liabilities. They often see the people close to them as holding them back from their self-actualization rather than assisting in it.

And in some cases they’re right. This is because while healthy community does further self-actualization unhealthy community hinders it. By unhealthy community we mean abusive relationships. When it comes to self-actualization, those subject to abuse have just the opposite happen to them as those subject to loving acceptance.

Over time abuse leads to the deterioration of Self, it lowers self-esteem, it encourages pessimism and discourages optimism, it causes a sort of contraction where possibilities seem to become more and more limited. In short, rather than creating the conditions for the natural unfolding of unique traits, abilities, and potentialities it limits them.

Over time loving acceptance leads to the building up of self, it raises self-esteem, it encourages optimism and discourages pessimism, it causes a sort of expansion where possibilities seem to become more and more unlimited. In short, rather than hindering conditions for the natural unfolding of unique traits, abilities, and potentialities it assists in them.

Of course the dual psychological processes of transference and projection complicate the seemingly straightforward task of diagnosing the presence of abuse in a relationship. Many came from abusive situations in their families of origin and transfer that same label, that same perception of an abusive person, onto the undeserving intimates in their lives. They see abuse and they see nefarious motivations behind behavior where there are none.

And many act abusively themselves but project this part of themselves onto the intimates around them, calling them abusive instead. When we project, it’s because we can’t or won’t see something in ourselves. It’s too distasteful to us. So we put that material onto some entity in the external environment in order to distance ourselves from it.

To further complicate matters, a healthy relationship defined by loving acceptance has its destructive moments too. There are always times of strife, always misunderstandings and setbacks in human relationships, regardless of their relative health.

So with all this said, if self-actualization is the goal of human life, which we believe it is, then the task in front of us all is to limit those relationships defined by abuse and to strengthen those relationships defined by loving acceptance. It also means looking inwards in order to more clearly see our own tendencies towards transference and projection so that we can start to eradicate the abusive tendencies within ourselves while strengthening our capacity for loving acceptance.

Self-actualization can only occur within the context of human relationships but human relationships alone aren’t enough. Not all human relationships are created equal. What matters is their qualities. If one or both in an important intimate human relationship have tipped the scales towards abuse and away from loving acceptance the result will not be self-actualization but self-destruction.

3 notes · View notes

southposting · 7 years ago

Text

‘Doubling Down’ Rant.

I feel like one of the most prominent aspects of this episode was the portrayal of the characters’ psychology, the writing and the dialogue did a great job portraying how people spiral into toxic relationships on the first place, and why it is difficult for them to get away once they've fallen in.

Kyle for one, is portrayed as a caring and moral-ridden individual that although reasonable, lets his emotions get in the way of his course of action. Kyle wanted to intervene because he considered it to be the right thing to do, never once entertaining the idea of an ulterior motive with Heidi until the other girls proposed it to him. While all the other boys aknowledged Cartman’s poor treatment of Heidi, none of them were willing to get themselves involved.

This takes us to Kyle's initiative and how his and Cartman's dynamic plays out throghout the episode. Kyle has consistently been responsible for challenging Cartman’s attitude, positioning himself as ‘good’ and Cartman as 'evil’, this relationship that has ultimately served to feed both Cartman’s enthusiasm to torture him, and Kyle’s sense of selfrighteousness and tendency to see himself as a martyr, victimization is something Kyle has in common with Cartman, but to quote, 'We all wrongly see ourselves as the victim sometimes, but Cartman sees himself as the victim ALL the time’. Kyle differentiates himself in being able to aknowledge his mistakes and learn from them.

To get some insight into Kyle’s remark: 'In a way, I feel like we’re all going out with Cartman right now’ reflecting on how all of them are, at some degree, and specially Kyle, always been involved in a toxic relationship with Cartman’s mind games. Kyle has been, for a long time now, Cartman’s main sympathizer, he can’t help but look out for his personal improvement, often attempting to get him to do the right thing and aknowledge the fault in his ways, a cause that Cartman hasn't hesitated to take advantage of, tricking Kyle into commiting to a mean if he can profit from his support.

In this episode, Kyle appears to have come to the conclussion that Cartman is beyond help, and that neither he nor Heidi can do anything to change that, for the best thing they can do for him is not to feed his sociopathic needs, furthermore demonstrated by their encounter on the hallway, with Kyle continuously trying to reason with him and assure him it was all for his own good, Cartman making deaf ears to his claims, finally leaving Kyle no choice but to knock him out in self defense, who apologizes regretful.

Cartman, on the other side, is miserable with Heidi, but also without her. As I stated on my last post concerning their relationship:

'He can’t bring himself to end the relationship and thus giving Heidi freedom of choice, she’s his property and so Cartman can’t stand the idea of his belongings moving onto other people. Cartman thinks of Heidi as a tool that exists with the only purpose of being at his disposition to give him attention and validation on command, no more and no less.

Simultaneously, Cartman can’t stand Heidi, because she doesn’t Cartman’s idealized image of her. Naturally, Heidi isn’t the tool Cartman expects her to be, she is an human being with her own individual needs. Whereas Cartman seeks a relationship where he is prioritized over all, never giving anything in return, and a partner willing to follow him blindly against all the odds, without him having to worry about losing their support; Heidi looks for a functional, healthy romantic relationship, were all the parties involved contribute their part. Cartman is unwilling to fulfill this role, because doing so would position him as an equal of Heidi’s, which means, to him, degrade him from his high-entity status.’

Nearing the end we realize Cartman has found a way of manipulating Heidi into believing she’s in the relationship she's craved for, and thus avoiding any sign of resistance on her behalf. He has learned that if he wants to manipulate Heidi successfully, he needs to put a little effort on the relationship every now and then, offering her occasional reassurance when things seem grim. This way, Cartman can act selfishly while at the same time 'rewarding’ Heidi for her subservience, throwing away any doubt she might've had in him. He fools her into believing his toxic behaviour is a necessary mean that needs to exist in order to keep improving himself.

Heidi is someone who wishes to aid the needy, she cannot bring herself to refuse someone’s cries for help, which is, besides the ironic effects of peer pressure, the main reason she continues to be stuck with Cartman and allows herself to be manipulated by him. He sees in Cartman someone who takes bad decisions, but is fundamentally kindhearted. Someone who is in need for her guidance. Even when ditching Kyle after being gaslighted by Cartman, her kind nature is a definitive trait of her character. Cartman was persuasive enough to make Heidi compromise with his beliefs, he made sure his words appeared to be reasonable. He told her what she wanted to hear when she was feeling the most guilty, deflecting the blame for the failure of their relationship unto Kyle instead, but reassuring her by telling her he hadn’t been counscious of his actions. He convinced her of attributing her own supposed flaws ('being moody’) to her ethnic background, and this way implying she has no control over ever improving herself, comforting her but making her feel helpess over her situation at the same time, this serves to Cartman as a mechanism to increase her emotional dependence to him, by making her feel he’s the only one who will ever love her despite her imperfections.

Regarding Cartman’s idea of Kyle, I feel like Cartman projects all of his own corruption unto Kyle. He subcounsciously thinks of Kyle as his equal, although he cannot recognize the corruption from within. Kyle’s intentions are never pure in Cartman’s mind, he must always be plotting something against him the same way he himself does to him. To him, Kyle’s purpose in life is to get in Cartman’s way. As the series progressed, we’ve seen Cartman gradually watering down his hostility towards Kyle in latter seasons the more time they spent together, and instead replacing it with an odd sense of familiarity and trust, until this point, Cartman’s friendly demeanor towards Kyle that even manifested itself at one point earlier in the episode, takes a sudden turn the moment Cartman finds out he might have been responsible for his breakup with Heidi. Following this event, we see Cartman’s hatred towards Kyle reach its peak when he goes batshit after his trippy jewish dream sequence, spewing all his resentments against Kyle in spite of the latter’s attempts to excuse himself, Cartman feeling betrayed after letting himself 'fall into Kyle’s claws’ by allowing him the benefit of the doubt previously.

Having stated all this, I think Cartman has taken care of the problems he had with Heidi, and now that the challenge is over, the last scene leads me to believe he has shifted his interest from the pleasure he obtains from having domain over her, to the impact his behaviour towards her has on Kyle instead. He’s using his influence on the people around Kyle to make them into proxys as a mean to inflict pain onto him. Heidi is no longer the tool, his entire relationship with her is now a tool on itself.

It was also interesting to see the conection between B plot and A plot relying on the parallel of the toxic relationship between Cartman, Kyle and Heidi, and that of politicians with their supporters, instead of having each storyline intersecting with the other, though I don’t have a strong stand on the matter, since I’m for the most part ignorant concerning the USA political status.

The weakest point of the episode in my opinion was the introduction of elements that seemingly served no purpose in the narrative, and ultimately aimed for a specific purpose in order to lead the plot in a certain direction. For example, Cartman’s dialogue when making fun of Heidi for gaining weight after tricking her into introducing meat into her vegan diet, indicated he had a goal in mind by doing this, though we never get any insight on what this particular goal may be other than to reassure his dominance over her. Besides this being a dangerous move for Cartman to make just after getting Heidi’s trust back, it seemed like it didn’t serve any purpose other than to incite Kyle into intervening in the relationship. Another example would be Cartman visiting Token’s house, there wasn’t really a point for Cartman to do this besides giving him the chance to make racial remarks some more. Finding out about Kyle being responsible for his breakup with Heidi through Token’s dad seemed too coincidental, though I don’t really mind, even less after being presented with Cartman’s fantastic Kyle delirium sequence.

I really enjoyed the execution of the humor, there were some great jokes, the animation team did an amazing job and overall I think this was a fantastic episode with a rather dark thematic.

#south park #sp #rant no one cares about #kyman #heiman #kydi #doubling down #analysis #rant

1K notes · View notes

raygoodwinmajournal · 4 years ago

Photo

Industrial Society and its Future - Theodore Kaczynski’s Manifesto

Theodore Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomer is a convicted domestic terrorist, anarchist and mathematician. Ted is renown for his actions, which constituted of himself living in a shack in the Montana wilderness, creating and sending postal bombs to various universities and airlines (un = universities & a = airlines, creating unabomb). Ted is an incredibly intelligent man, with an IQ of 167 making him a certified genius, with Ted also attending Harvard at 16 and obtaining a PhD in Mathematics at 25. But, how can a man this smart with an intense intellect become one of the America’s most renown terrorists?

Ted was a particularly tormented individual, with multiple rejections and estrangements from an early age. Whilst at Harvard, it is said that Ted fell into the grips of physiological experiments ran by Henry A. Murray, with those experiments performed on 22 other students within Harvard. These experiments targeted the unwitting students to a torment of stress and attacks on their very ego and beliefs, making them crumble under great stress and distress. These sessions were filmed and then played back to the students to further break them down. Ted was humiliated over three years, with these experiments potentially being linked to the Project MKUltra experiments, which was the CIA’s research into mind control.

After years of torment, embarrassment and torture, he finally resided into a wooden cabin that he and his brother built in rural Montana. Ted would live a secluded and isolated life, living off of the land and sometimes venturing to the local town to volunteer at the library. Ted became angry about the society he was placed and the technology it created, which caused him to start sending postal bombs to various addresses, which he made in his shack. A quick side note, I do not condone what Ted undertook, with the crimes he committed being completely heinous and twisted. Yet, I feel ones actions shouldn’t mar their ideas and thoughts. Ted may have acted wrongly, and the people he injured and killed are sadly a victim of a damaged individual. But, Ted’s ideas of our modern society - for the most part - are correct within my opinion.

Industrial Society and Its Future is Ted’s manifesto, with himself being referred to as We and F.C (Freedom Club). F.C was also inscribed onto pieces of metal within the shipped postal bombs. What Ted’s manifesto outlines is where society went wrong and the implications of it. We have lost touch with nature and the real problems of it, instead creating problems for ourselves within society that we aren’t equipped to figure out, creating stress and psychological issues. We undertake surrogate activities - activities that feature an arbitrary goal with little to no meaning, which includes sports, bodybuilding, mountain biking and the like. Within our society, we have become so detached from our origins that our lives are controlled not by ourselves, but by the society itself. What is good for society, must be good for it’s citizens. We are controlled by every facet of life - if it isn’t the stop signs or traffic lights telling you when to go or stop, it is the select few people at the very top telling the population what is acceptable. What Ted is saying here, is that we are subjugated as a whole within society. We aren’t able to do what we want to do as it has to be socially acceptable to do so. And if we do something that we think is of free thought, it probably isn’t because of our susceptibility of advertisements and propaganda. Our lives are ran on rails which society has laid down for us, and there is no way of derailing that unless we do what Ted does, and live completely remotely and isolated from society, which most people aren’t equipped to do as they’re so ingrained and subjugated by the industrial society with little to no knowledge of how to escape it.

What this manifesto really says is the dangers of modern society, and how it has twisted and skewed how humans live, and how they have adapted - or not - to cope with technology. It is clear to see that Ted is an incredibly alienated and estranged man, even from his own family as well as society. And from my point of view is an extreme case of what can happen with someone is estranged from modernity and angry because of what has happened to them because of our society. The end of paragraph 18 “Thus if a person is “inferior” it is not his fault, but society’s, because he has not been brought up properly”, which in context speaks about how leftists view someone who is inferior blames society rather than one’s lack of ability or skill. In contrast “heavy pressure is put on children to excel in these fields (science, engineering & mathematics). It isn’t natural for an adolescent human being to spend the bulk of his time sitting at a desk absorbed in study” on paragraph 115. This reflects on Ted’s own upbringing, using his intellect to skip grades and attend Harvard whilst being grossly emotionally underprepared. Ted was brought up normally in a normal American household, but because of society has strayed and caused a trail of destruction, but certainly not being seen as inferior.

Ted also mentions that leftism has something to do with it too, referring to the neoliberal policies being brought in since the 1950′s, and becoming more apparent in the 1980′s with Reaganomics and Thatcherism, with “almost everyone will agree that we live in a deeply troubled society”, which is true but somewhat subjective, as some might not even think about how we live as a whole, yet Ted attributes this to leftism - the politically correct types who are usually university professors with secure employment, comfortable salaries and mainly being white, middle aged heterosexual upper middle class men who are usually within the stronghold of being P.C, instead of the usually oppressed minorities such as African Americans or Asians. Ted also calls the politically correct types as “feminists, gay and disability activists, animal rights activists and the likes”, paragraph 7. The two phycological tendencies that Ted outlines is feelings of inferiority and over socialisation, with feelings of inferiority being “low self esteem, feelings of powerlessness, depressive tendencies, defeatism, guilt, self hatred, etc. And over socialisation being, “avoid feelings of guilt...have to deceive themselves about their own motives...find moral explanations for feelings and actions that in reality have a nonmoral origin”, paragraph 25. This again is reiterated at the end of the manifesto: “Anyone why strongly sympathises with ALL of these movements is almost certainly a leftist”, paragraph 229. That being said, even Ted says it hard to underlie what really is a leftist, showing that he doesn’t have all of the answers, sometimes being vague and admitting that his knowledge on a particular subject isn’t up to par, and can’t comment.

An interesting note that Ted brings up is how technology has subordinated us, making us compliant and subjugated. Technology is at first, completely optional. We don’t have to drive a car to get around, we can get to destinations just fine by walking. Yet, as it is more accessible to us, it becomes harder and harder to get around until we have to get a license and a car. The car is seen as a sign of freedom as we can go where we like, but in order to do that we have to own a license and drive where we are permitted to drive, with most cities being designed around the car or motorised transport. Soon enough, all technology becomes forced upon us until we cannot live without it. Another example - which is more contemporary - is the mobile phone. Back in 1995, we could get away with not having a mobile phone, as we either had a landline or even a pager. Since then, the mobile phone has evolved into a pocket computer, with it become a ‘smartphone’, where it can do everything and anything. Now, we cannot live without it as it is so deeply ingrained within our society, and trying to get along without one would be an uphill struggle. This can also be said for the internet, as in 1995 it was still in its relative infancy in terms of the general population using it. But, now it is incredibly hard to get by without even using the internet on our mobile phones, let alone having it at home where it is seen as a necessity: “When a new item of technology is introduced as an option that an individual can accept or not as he chooses, it does not necessarily REMAIN optional. In many cases the new technology changes society in such a way that people eventually find themselves FORCED to use it.”, paragraph 127. What Ted is saying is, that we have no choice but to give in and use certain technologies forced upon us by the society, whether that is by advertisements or eventual progression: “The average American should be portrayed as a victim of the advertising and marketing industry, which has suckered him into buying a lot of junk that he doesn’t need and that is very poor compensation for his lost freedom...It is merely a matter of attitude whether you blame the advertising industry for manipulating the public or blame the public for allowing itself to be manipulated”. paragraph 190.

This brings up an interesting point. Are we to blame for allowing us to be led along by flashy adverts, or blaming the advertising industry for the flashy adverts and making us into victims? What Ted is bringing up here is the issue of control, and where that lies. There is no doubt that these conglomerates control the population in such a way in which they have to buy that certain thing. Because we most certainly are controlled by higher ranking people such a politicians, business executives, bureaucrats and the like, as we live in a society which subordinates and controls every aspect of our lives: “You need a licence for everything and with the license comes rules and regulations. The individual has only those technological powers with which the system chooses to provide him”, paragraph 197. Just because we are told we can drive a car, doesn’t mean we can do what we like. We have to stop when the light says stop, go in that direction, follow this road until the next until we stop again when told to do so. It is no wonder we are so depersonalised driving home from office jobs where we are reduced to slaves working for someone with a higher wage just to do the same thing tomorrow 9am to 5pm. Yet that can be fixed with the magic of anti-depressants, which are just a way to modify a person’s behaviour to “enable him to tolerate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable”, paragraph 145. This is another example of how we have created more problems than a society can deal with and overcome. The need for such a drug only came about because of the rise in depression within the industrial society, because the conditions that it breeds just aren’t healthy for us. How can it be acceptable that we live our lives working jobs that we hate and have to take a drug everyday to make us happy again? And this won’t go away until the society that we know completely collapses and we have to start again, which probably won’t happen as historically, we have only progressed as a species and technologically. The only way this could happen is a revolution against technology and with all of us collectively acting against it.

Ted mentions that this could happen similarly to the French and Russian revolutions respectively, with the people overpowering, and overthrowing the controlling governmental powers, but in the case against the industrial society: “The two main tasks for the present are to promote social stress and instability in the industrial society and to develop and propagate an ideology that opposes technology and the industrial system”, paragraph 181. This would be massive undertaking and as the vast majority of the Western World is so connected and ingrained within technology, would be impossible to do. Imagine asking people now to go against what they have ever known, overthrow the society that subjugates them and go back to a hunter/gatherer mentality. All of the mod cons that we have grown up with simply wouldn’t exist. Ted uses the refrigerator as an example of this with the two main types of technology: “smallscale and organisational”, paragraph 208, with smallscale used by small communities without outside assistance, and organisational depending on large-scale social organisation. “Without factory-made parts or the facilities of a postindustrial machine shop it would be virtually impossible for a handful of local craftsmen to build a refrigerator...imagine trying to make that wire without modern machinery. And where would they get a gas suitable for refrigeration?”, paragraph 209. In a sense, this revolution against technology would send society back to the dark ages, but can you imagine the waste that would fill up the land if this happened? Ted already mentions the damage that we have done to the planet, yet suppose this revolution happened. Where would all of this technology go? We have already harmed the planet with enough pollution since the industrial revolution. Imagine the mess that would ensue of we completely disregarded all of the technology that currently resides on Earth? Our planet would be a wasteland of trash and junk, whilst we live off the land being polluted by more of our rubbish. As much as I admire Ted’s philosophy on revolting against society, it simply couldn’t happen.

A coda. It feels rather odd reading a manifesto written by a domestic terrorist, and much caution has been taken to not come across as if I have been radicalised by Ted’s writing and ideas. If anything, I share a lot of these ideas and philosophies with Ted, but unlike Ted writing: “In order to get our message across before the public with some chance of making a lasting impression, we’ve had to kill people”, paragraph 96, I think going as far as mailing homemade explosives is extreme. Yet I don’t think that Ted should be judged on the brash and extreme measures he undertook to make people see his views. He is obviously an incredibly intelligent and well read individual with actions put aside, has written a well articulated and easily readable summary of our modern condition. I can also see how Ted came to these conclusions, and strangely admire him going against the society and living in a secluded cabin in rurality. I do agree with Ted on most of his points, with society making is sick, subordinate, subjugated and obedient, this is clear to see when you look at society as a whole and realise the truth of it. This is why I found Ted so alluring, as it is someone else who is obviously alienated from society but also an extreme case of what can happen when one is estranged from a society and angry towards what it does. I think it is a shame that he did what he did, which is completely heinous and abhorrent, because without those actions, I think he could have been one of today’s great thinkers and philosophers. Industrial Society and its Future is a well rounded summary of our modern world, detailing how it controls us and how it could be changed. I would recommend this text to anyone who is critical of how we live today compared to how we lived before the industrial revolution. Ted’s manifesto is a key piece of writing for this project and underpins how modernity can make one feel alienated from modernity, late capitalism and the industrial society.

Bibliography

Richard Barnes (no date). [Online]. Available at http://www.richardbarnes.net/projects#/unabomber-1/. [Accessed on 17/02/2021]

Kaczynski, T. J., (1995). The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future. Jolly Roger Press.

#101

0 notes

gr-und-blog · 7 years ago

Photo

W.E.L.T.001–Apophenia

April 20 – May 15, 2018

Opening April 20 6-11.59 pm

Artists: Cindy Coutant, Alan Dunning, Benoit Ménard, Duncan Passmore, Adriana Ramić, Gonçalo Sena, Lisa Strozyk, Aldéric Trevel, Steven Warwick Curated by: Théo Pozoga, Karin Schlageter, Anna Siebold Presented at non-profit-space gr_und in Berlin-Wedding, W.E.L.T.001–Apophenia asks how we experience, organise and hence construct the reality that we perceive. The accumulation of vast amounts of information has produced a sort of sleeping archive that is lingering to be unravelled. At the same time we have gone from scarcity to overabundance, from collecting to analysing, from adding on to filtering, from research to pattern recognition, from enrichment to simplification. What mechanisms come into play when we attempt to decipher and make sense of the world? How do we decode, order and categorise incoming information? And what happens when we create systems and algorithms to take over these processes? W.E.L.T.001–Apophenia is a curatorial proposal that combines artistic positions from both music and visual art whilst taking a theoretical, multidisciplinary angle. A month-long exhibition (20.04.–13.05.2018) with nine participating contemporary artists; a release on vinyl with newly produced contributions by six contemporary musicians located at the interface of experimental and techno music; as well as a publication, all constitute the body of this project. Operating independently of each other, the three outputs provide varying access points and angles to the overall theme of apophenia. The term “apophenia” first appeared in the psychiatric field in the late 1950’s to designate the unmotivated seeing of connections accompanied by a specific feeling of abnormal meaningfulness. Today the term is applied universally to the tendency to perceive connections and meaning between unrelated things, and simply refers to the human brain’s tendency to create order in chaos, meaningfulness in absurdity, ease in struggle. The most common example for this tendency is pareidolia – the psychological phenomenon of recognising human or animal features in random constellations: puppies resemble chicken nuggets, buns look like nuns, and the Cydonia region of Mars has a human face sitting on its surface. In trying to make sense of the world, we superimpose a structure onto what we discern. We produce the reality that we experience and thereby continuously produce ourselves. Today, what occurs to us is endless: we find ourselves drowning in material, in a sea of data so vast that we need technological support in order to navigate this ocean. Nevertheless, the great variety of algorithms we develop carry the interpretative frameworks of the humans who generated them and can therefore only fail in their attempt to create neutral and objective tools. Struggling with these issues, the vast array of positions presented in the book, the record and the exhibition encompasses hijacking gestures, art of assemblage, automatic drawing, derivation and shifts of meaning, illusion and confusion, oil painting, low-res 720p images as well as ultra-bright 5K video. Apophenia, the first installment of W.E.L.T, was conceived by founding member Théo Pozoga, curators Karin Schlageter and Anna Siebold, as well as research assistant Jan-Philipp Siebold. The release of the book and the record will occur at the exhibition opening at gr_und. The record features compositions from: Broshuda (DE) Buttechno (RUS) Garrett David (US) Gregor Belibi Minya (FR) Hugues Rey (FR) Steven Warwick (UK)

FB Event

#cindy coutant #alan dunning #benoit ménard #ducan passmore #adriana ramić #gonçalo sena #lisa strozyk #aldéric trevel #steven warwick #théo pozoga #karin schlageter #anna siebold #broshuda #buttechno #garrett david #gregor belibi minya #hugues rey

2 notes · View notes

recentanimenews · 4 years ago

Text

FEATURE: Ojamajo Doremi and the Magic of Children's Animation

Hello everyone and welcome back to Why It Works. Though there are a lot of interesting anime projects coming down the pipeline, one, in particular, might come as a bit of a surprise. That would be the Ojamajo Doremi revival film, a continuation of a children’s magical girl franchise from 20 years ago, which I’m told will star a trio of Doremi fans who’ve now reached adulthood and are looking back on the magic of their favorite show. We’ve been getting more and more tidbits of info about the film for a while now, and at this point, I can honestly say it’s my most-anticipated upcoming production.

All images via Toei

I was actually only recently introduced to Ojamajo Doremi, courtesy of some friends who’d been watching it for years. Though I’ve long appreciated the dramatic flexibility and charming atmosphere of great children’s anime, Doremi still felt like a revelation, in terms of both its beautiful direction and art design, as well as its ability to gracefully explore topics both poignant and frivolous. Ultimately, Doremi’s strengths embody the unique and laudable strengths of children’s animation as a whole, as a vehicle apart from our usual late-night shows. So today, let’s explore those strengths as we tackle the unique appeal of great children’s anime!

First off, though you might naturally assume children’s anime are more simplistic in terms of their characterization and themes than late-night anime, you’d be making a grave mistake by doing so. Children are more thoughtful than you might think; they can handle topics like grief or prejudice or any of life’s other injustices, so long as those topics are handled with care. Some of Ojamajo Doremi’s strongest episodes focus on co-heroine Aiko’s attempts to grapple with her parents’ divorce, culminating in devastating moments of vulnerability for herself and her overwhelmed father. Children’s shows can handle nearly any of the topics you come across in late-night anime and frequently explore them with more nuance and grace than their more ostensibly “adult-oriented” counterparts.

Part of this comes down to intended audience and authorial perspective. Most of the anime we’re immediately familiar with is designed for teenagers, specifically to echo and validate their view of the world. In light of this, many popular anime are inherently limited in their perspective, because they’re viewing the world through an adolescent’s eyes with an adolescent’s value perspective. There are obvious repercussions of this perspective — the dearth of parental figures, general idiocy of adults, and tendency to frame all problems as solvable by punches — as well as not-so-obvious ones, like the way the base mechanics of daily life, social interaction, and personal responsibility are often considered too “boring” to play a key dramatic role.

In contrast, great media for children is designed to appeal to children, but not to simply reinforce their view of the world — it’s designed to instruct and to help its audience grow. Frequently, this means shows like Ojamajo Doremi will actually be quite harsh on their characters and lead them through difficult circumstances that force them to reevaluate their understanding of the world. With no compunction to flatter its audience, children’s anime is free to speak directly with respect and emphasizing the ostensibly mundane but ultimately critical elements of growing up and coexisting with others.

As it turns out, children are capable of understanding some really tough topics! Great shows like Ojamajo Doremi sympathize greatly with their protagonists but do not coddle them — they convey their universal human conflicts honestly and demand their protagonists rise to the occasion through personal strength and moral integrity, not physical acrobatics or energy beams. Ultimately, a show’s narrative complexity or darkness of tone has little to do with its maturity or moral complexity, and by presenting difficult conflicts that demand not physical strength but emotional growth, children's anime frequently exhibit a great deal of the latter.

Along with their ability to handle tough topics, children also tend to be amenable to wild shifts in visual style, perhaps even more so than older audiences. As we age, it becomes harder to fully immerse ourselves in media, and disruptions within an aesthetic can easily create a sense of emotional distance, as we’re no longer able to “believe in the reality of the fiction.” Visual continuity becomes more of a requisite over time, in order to lure our increasingly skeptical minds into full emotional engagement with an obvious fiction.

In contrast, children are perfectly willing to embrace massive visual disruptions, and thus shows like Ojamajo Doremi are absolutely brimming with fun visual experiments, absurd stylistic shifts, and ostentatious creative methods of breaking up the frame. Just look at the early works of Masaaki Yuasa to see how gleefully a great animator can embrace the flexibility of children’s animation and children’s capacity to embrace all manner of visual invention in pursuit of raw emotional expression.

Of course, Yuasa is far from the only great animator to make his mark on children’s anime. In fact, many of the greatest directors and animators in the business succeeded by climbing up the ranks of children’s anime, or are still lending their abilities to dynamic shows like Pretty Cure and Pokemon. Rie Matsumoto first made her mark on Pretty Cure before exploding onto the scene with Kyousogiga and Blood Blockade Battlefront, and Ojamajo Doremi itself has one of the most stacked staff lists of any production in history. Directed by Takuya Igarashi (Sailor Moon, Soul Eater) and Junichi Sato (Sailor Moon, Princess Tutu, Aria), with character designs by Yoshihiko Umakoshi (Mushishi, My Hero Academia), and even a few turns by Mamoru Hosoda. Before discounting a children’s anime, it’d be wise to check and make sure it doesn’t feature a bunch of your favorite artists!

With all that said, I still feel like I might be burying the lede a bit here. Yes, children's shows are capable of poignant moral complexity, and yes they're often suffused with beautiful contributions by top-tier animators — but ultimately, what might set them apart the most is their sheer joyfulness and willingness to embrace all the happy, incidental experiences of everyday life. Not every story needs to be a tragic or difficult one, and shows like Ojamajo Doremi or Pretty Cure feel uniquely comfortable reveling in pure, honest friendships and the positive experiences that accompany them. Sometimes it's nice just to feel good and spend time with characters who truly appreciate both each other and the infinite potential of the world around them.

All in all, while there are obviously limitations on the sorts of stories you can effectively construct for children, the nature of the industry means children's anime are frequently able to explore tough topics, engage in more wild visual digressions, and employ a sharper tone than more ostensibly “mature” productions. At the same time, shows like Ojamajo Doremi, Pokemon, or Pretty Cure are also warm and joyous experiences, tempering their difficult lessons with a clear love of their cast and embracing the uplifting and community-building potential of animation. There is so much to appreciate in the wide world of children’s anime!

What anime first spoke to you as a child? Let us know in the comments!

Nick Creamer has been writing about cartoons for too many years now and is always ready to cry about Madoka. You can find more of his work at his blog Wrong Every Time, or follow him on Twitter.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

0 notes

movingimage · 4 years ago

Text

Koyaanisqatsi Notes

-Starts off with quite ominous music with a deep voiced man saying the title of the documentary in a prayer like tone.

-The first image looks like cave paintings then transitions into an explosion that looks to be in a factory.

-All this is happening with the first song/prayer happening.

-My first impressions is that it is a very abstract and artistic film.

-The second scene proceeds to change song into a more mellowed but sorta religious song as the camera, shot from either a drone or helicopter unveils a barren landscape of a dessert, the music really entwines with the visuals creating an almost alien feeling for this environment.

-The composition is beautiful and has definitely been thought out, the cinematographer uses the shadows of these mountains as part of the landscape as much as the physical land itself, I believe this opening cinematic is meant to examine the beauty of nature.

-So far I really like the beginning of this. It has brought intrigue into what the doco is about but it also is just a very beautiful and enchanting thing to watch and observe.

-By the ten minute mark we finally get to see some colour in the sky and forestry which as of yet has not been there or very minimal to notice.

-I feel like the director is slowly opening the world to us to digest bit by bit.

-12:10 the landscape changes to skyscapes , of rolling clouds erupting into the air.

-14:10 the transition from cloud to the whites of a waterfall and then further into shots of the sea and water.

-The director does an excellent job at transitions each one is seemless and as there is no dialogue it tells the story of the land so well.

-16:40 we see our first sign of humans with the eruption of the earth, using to what I think is bombs.

-Showing our destructive tendencies.

-The shots of humanities impact onto the earth clearly showcases that we are an interference, an obscurity in the landscape of the natural world.

-By being shown almost 16 minutes of just natural landscapes the viewer really gets a grasp of the alien like qualities we impact onto the landscape, no more natural curves, now it is symmetry and lines.

-When humans are shown it is usually to coincide with our destruction, in my opinion symbolising the destruction of the natural cycle.

-The things we create are so unnatural.

-Around 23:00 the music changes to this choir singing jolly arias and people looking up to the sky, the music sounds so “we are gods” if you get what I mean, the camera transitions to huge towers and plains.

-I think this part is to show how we have sorta overcome our natural bonds and how we think we are godlike in our way of technology, dominating every form of natural development

-With all these highways and roads, from above we look like ants all following an unforeseen path.

-It is so much work, so many shots of so many different ways of life. I believe it must be found footage as well as the other shots cause the workload that has been created is immense.

-One shot is a POV with a camera strapped to the back of a jet, looking like a POV of a bird, I think this is another comparison to us evolving ourselves.

-All this creativity came at such a cost however and at 30:30 we start to see bombs explosions, the loss we have endured to get to where we are. I believe this is stating the scourge that technology has also done to humankind and the planet

-At 33:09 a beautiful shot of an obviously bombed city centre as it zooms out we can see the extent of the trauma.

-36:40 starts to show man made demolitions of buildings. Hundreds of them.

-At 39:20 a series of time lapses with completely still cityscapes but clouds flying like a Hungry sea, I’m still trying to think of What it means but I find it real interesting how the cityscape is never changing but nature is ongoing. Maybe it’s stating that in time we will be nothing and it will just be these still cities, while nature still follows its course and continues.

-41:10 starts off with sounds like the noise of a beehive and shows visuals of thousands of people waiting for lines or in groups. We are so advanced but we still follow those animal imstincts but now we have pretty outfits to go alongside us. It shows humanity as clueless, stumbling round not really knowing where to go.

-I feel like this is sorta filmed in chapters with a different subject and theme for each one.

-At one point around 45:00 there was many time lapses of green buildings with lights going on an off and cars racing round like fireflys, I didn’t know what it meant then but I think it was talking about us going into the age of electricity and movement.

-I feel like we are getting more familiar to the city.

-There was a lot of destruction from the war and now we are rebuilding ourselves, I think this, because as before it showed humans sorta stuck and not walking but now all of a sudden we a thriving with this jovial music that coincides with the visuals of people nipping around now being busy, getting stuff done.

Humanity has finally come to terms with our powers and we are thriving.

-We’ve now got machines doing what we used to have to do, no more sorting mail, packing food or creating clothes, we have become masters of our technology, creating bounties that we would never have dreamt about a century ago. We have essentially escalated past nature at this point.

-Just realised but this is the same “we are gods” song the director played when we first created the planes and high rises.

-I really think this is showing humans getting back on track.

-53:10 showing the creation of recreational entertainment, cinemas, game machines, bowling alleys, malls, shops, fastfood joints.

-humanity is consuming so much.

-It is showing how efficient we’ve become in making almost anything whether it is cars or jammy dodgers, we have learnt to coexist With the technology weve created. It is more incorporated into everyday life.

-59:00 a great and very scary shot of machines making machines. Technology has come to overbear on all we do.

-1:06:00

Very abstract now the music sounds very space like or distant and very calm. It continues with images of compute routers but every now and then they would put a satellite (google earth type) image in the mix and you can see how similar the two are, as a society we are becoming more and more robotic in the way we live. To the extent that from above with all the lights and roads we can’t even distinguish us from a computer router.

-1:11:06

That old prayer like music is finally back and we watch footage of everyday people but it’s up close and each person looks more and more hopeless, we see their eyes and they are empty. With all this technological development we have forgot the meaning of being human and from that people have voids in their souls that all this entertainment and industry will never fulfill.

-Shots of homeless, cripples people in hospitals,it shows the people we have forgotten.

-The director really loves to hold onto his shots, when he shoots these people on the street, he does not waver away and instead sticks onto people’s gaze like a hunter, capturing every emotion whether it be annoyance, happiness or insecurity. He attacks it.

-01:16:14

We see what is the thrusters of a rocket igniting, we follow it up into the sky and as it gets higher and higher the title word KOYAANISQATSI starts its chant and With that we see the shuttle erupt into a ball of flame and we follow the long descent of the shuttle cabin as it plummets to the earth. I believe this is a message of aspirations, how far can humanity keep travelling up the unnatural ladder until we fall to ash.

-1:20:00 we see the same cave paintings that we were shown at the start and the chanting stops this obviously implying us going back to the stone ages.

-With the first shot of the cave and the huge explosion, I can only assume that is the creator of the doco saying an error If humanity is ending.

-I think the documentary is about the cycle of humanity. Our relationship with the earth and nature and how our aspirations with technology can be our undoing. For a documentary that has no dialogue at all, it’s use of visuals and music made the whole thing coherent throughout the movie. The film tackled so many different issues and went about it in these chapter like segments where each idea would be generated. These ideas almost always tackled the theme of humans interfering with the natural balance of the earth.

-I think this documentary was a masterclass in semiotics the subject that we Learnt about last year in class. There were so many chapters in this documentary which I had to look at in-depth and really think broadly about. The overlying narrative from the start, was about humans interfering with natural world; However I did not expect the whole thing to go on for one hour and 30 minutes with not a single use of dialogue. The way that the director used visual and audible signs to let the viewer understand his meanings was brilliant. The magnitude of work created in this project was overwhelming and so many different meanings to extract from every different thing. I felt like I was writing in my notebook every second trying to keep up with the deeper themes of the peice. I think the way the director took his time with the piece and slowly showed the change between the natural habitat and a technological, let the viewer soak up the different environments so when it changed you could easily tell the difference between the natural and the technological. For example the first 30 minutes was all natural environments of hills and skyscapes, it was only when humans came along, that you could start to see the unnatural lines and the weird curves in everything that we make. This is when I really realised how much we indented the human way of life onto the surface of the earth.

-In my opinion the piece has ages very well. I couldn’t discern what year the film was shot and the broader message still hits home in our modern day. Even now with all the environmentally friendly and efficient structures humanity is putting into place to stop climate change, we are still a world away from the balance we should have with our technological emissions. One thing that intrigued me halfway through the film, was the directors choice of shooting close-up videos of ordinary peoples faces. With what we can see with the fashion of the people being shot, it looked to be around the 60s and 70s. At this point in time It shows that we were still not comfortable with technology modern technology, with people looking very unnerved when the camera spotlighted them. This sequence was shot again however but this time it looked to be more the 90s-00s. The shots parrelleled the previous chapter however this time people didn’t even seem to notice being filmed and if they did, they didn’t care. I think this shows how complacent we have become with the course our technology follows and that we are becoming more and more numb to the alien effect it used to have on us.

0 notes

loveanimalstory-blog · 5 years ago

Text

Who Cares If They're Cute? This Zoologist Accepts Animals On Their Own Terms

Zoologist Lucy Cooke says humans have gotten it all wrong about sloths. "People think that because the animal is slow that it's somehow useless and redundant," she says. But actually, "they are incredibly successful creatures." Cooke is that the founding father of the Sloth Appreciation Society and therefore the author of a replacement book called the reality About Animals: Stoned Sloths, Lovelorn Hippos, and Other Tales from the Wild Side of Wildlife. The book aims to line the record straight on some long-held misconceptions about the animal world. "The sloth isn't the sole animal that's being misunderstood during this way," she says. "I thought it had been time that we rebranded the Animalia consistent with fact and not sentimentality – because we have a habit of viewing the Animalia through the prism of our own rather narrow existence and judging animals on our terms." The book discusses creatures big and little, furry and slippery: eels, bats, hippos, frogs, storks, and more. "I wanted to showcase a variety of stories," Cooke says. "I wanted to point out misunderstandings that date all the way from Aristotle to Disney." She sat right down to talk with us about how we are (literally) watching sloths the wrong way up, why Aristotle was so confused about eels, and why pandas need ambiance to urge within the mood. Interview Highlights On humans projecting their bipedal ape values onto sloths We are busy, bipedal apes, and that we are hooked into moving faster than nature intended. So we glance at the cheetah and that we think ... this magnificent creature, and that we looked down at the sloth, and think: Oh, it is so slow, it is so pathetic. ... The sloth is an icon of energy saving. ... They've managed to survive by some fantastically peculiar adaptations that allow them to survive on only a few calories; actually, just 160 calories each day, which is about an equivalent as a packet of chips. ... The early explorers who first traveled to America ... described [the sloth] because the stupidest animal which will be found within the world. ... They got it wrong because the sloth is an inverted quadruped — so it hangs from the trees. And to hold like that's an incredibly energy-saving existence. ... the matter is, once you turn the sloth the opposite high ... gravity removes their dignity. On the tendency of films like March of the Penguins to moralize animal behavior We are, I think, a very insecure species, and we're constantly trying to find our reflection within the Animalia . ... It happens a day within the newspapers, and on the TV, and in documentaries. We should not be looking to the Animalia for moral guidance. we should always be looking inside ourselves. ... There are hazards involved in choosing a little, flightless, fish-eating bird for moral guidance. On tracing a number of our animal ideas all the way back to Aristotle He's the grandfather of zoology, and he was an excellent scientist. ... He'd measure and observe animals in place, and dissect them, then draw conclusions about their behavior, and he made some amazing discoveries. But he also got a couple of things wrong. and searching at those mistakes, I think, is incredibly charming, and provides us kind of a window into the thinking at the time, as well. On what Aristotle got wrong about eels They go through not one, but four metamorphoses. they create this extraordinary journey from the Sargasso Sea ... all thanks to the rivers of America. ... They fatten themselves up and sleep in rivers for years, only in order that they will fuel the huge journey all the way back to the Sargasso to breed. ... Aristotle sliced open eels and he couldn't find any sex organs. and therefore the reason why is because they only develop therein the fourth metamorphosis, as they're heading back to the Sargasso. therefore the eels that you simply find in rivers are completely sexless. So he thought: Well, they need to reproduce by abiogenesis. The action of water on mud must create eels. then that was one among his mistakes, which idea of abiogenesis, hung about until the 17th century. People thought all kinds of animals that they couldn't explain how they reproduce, "spontaneously emerged." On why we aren't doing pandas any favors by infantilizing them The thing about pandas is because they appear like wobbly toddlers — they have these baby-like features, in order that they trigger the reward centers in our brain to require to nurture them. and since of that, we've infantilized them. ... we do not consider them as bears. we expect of them as helpless evolutionary mishaps that can't survive without our help. A lot of the conservation has been centered around captive breeding efforts in China and the type of micromanaging the bears' lives. The insinuation is that they can not survive within the wild without us — and this is often complete rubbish. What we'd like to try to to is that the reverse. we'd like to go away them alone, but just leave them with enough bamboo forest. Because pandas, we expect of them as being very famously ... rubbish at sex. you recognize papers like to scream headlines: "Oh, Zoo Panda did not roll in the hay Again!" ... Pandas are even as choosy as humans are. they do not want to only get plumped into a cell with another panda and expected to procreate. it's extremely difficult breeding in captivity because you've got to know what these complex behavioral environmental cues are so as to urge the animals to try to to it. On an op-ed within the NY Times that described Harvey Weinstein as a hyena I thought to myself: that's the foremost ridiculous thing I even have ever read. ... they are available from a matriarchal society. ... most of the people think that they are all scavengers, they are not. they're highly successful predators. Really, really intelligent. Amazing communicators with a really quite complex language, you'll almost call it. That "woop" that they create ... decodes the individual, the sex, how old it's. They're very, very sophisticated creatures. ... In the ancient BCs, they thought they were hermaphrodites. and that is fair enough that they made that mistake because the feminine hyena's genitalia may be a perfect facsimile of the males. She has what's described in polite zoological circles as a "pseudo penis" and they are almost impossible to inform apart. ... It was interesting on behalf of me writing the book to trace back where tons of those myths came from, and to seek out that a number of the mistakes and therefore the preconceptions we've, they date all the way back to Greek, Roman and Medieval times. On the important problem with our anthropocentric approach to animals These are dangerous times. We face mass extinction of numerous different species. and that I really would like it if we could appreciate animals on their terms, and respect them for what they're, and not what we would like them to be. ... I think we're choosy about what we like, and that we do not like it. So vultures as an example — hugely unpopular. People do not like them because they're scavengers and they are filthy. But they are doing an incredibly important job. ... Vulture conservationists, they can not get anybody to donate money to them. Because nobody likes them, because they appear just like the Grim Reaper and that they eat dead things for a living. But we'd like them even as very much like we'd like the pandas.

0 notes