SHIT
In one of Maxine Hong Kingston's semi-autobiographical novels there is an account of a farmer in Pre-Revolutionary China who visits a neighbouring farmer. He suddenly has to have a shit, so goes to the outside toilet of his neighbour's farm. There he carefully counts the handfuls of shit he is leaving in his neighbour's toilet bucket. His neighbour now owes him that amount of shit to use as fertiliser for his own farm.
Our mother told us that when we were infants we loved to play with our own shit, smearing it everywhere.
Lots of little critters love to eat any kind of shit. Waste to us, food for many.
For us Moderns, human shit is, in our minds, Absolute Waste. Has to be, at least in our imaginations, annihilated completely, even though in fact it is carried very inefficiently to the sea, or at best, water cleansing stations. Still, out of sight out of mind.
This attitude of Absolute Waste comes from a fear of life and death, an attempt to imagine a life without any of the warm wet, gooey stuff, mysterious stuff that is seen as frightening, disgusting, 'alien' to us, or 'abjecting' (a term coined by a Post Modern Feminist, Julia Kristeva). Even our own bodies become 'abject objects' foreign to our real selves.
Though this desire to escape the limitations of real life has a long history - as far back as civilisation itself - the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Pharaohs' tombs, etc. the emergence of 'Modern science' has enabled this pathological desire to control everything including disease and death and, of course, the unruly 'masses' who need to be organised into work armies, war-armies, bureaucratic armies - yes sir no sir three bags full sir armies - has become the dominant and usually sub-conscious ideology of Modern times - to predict with 'science and technology' the unpredictable, to know the unknowable, to eliminate real pleasure and pain in favour of ersatz hedonism, and thus get rid of real love and hate, real ecstasy and real hell, real connection and real joy - which are based on accepting the real mystery of Existence - the Being of being as Heidegger says, the Ground of all being as Tillich says.
This desire to escape the limitations of real life with technology is what JM Greer calls the semi-conscious religious-like principle underlying Modern civilisation.
And it s tied closely to the concept of Absolute Dirt. Dirt that will always be dirt in this mind-set until it is annihilated, disappeared from all existence (which is something that even scientific physics says is impossible).
Dirt is traditionally seen as matter out of its proper place. When put back in its proper place, it is no longer dirt (Mary Douglas has written a lot about this, Purity and Danger).
Modern Absolute Dirt has to be 'disappeared', at least in our imaginations. And so the Holocaust was an act of annihilating 'dirty people', cleansing reality itself of these genetically toxic elements.
The Holocaust was enabled and abetted by the idea of Absolute Dirt and its underpinning ideology, 'scientism', including the "Science of Eugenics", whose beginnings include the Galton Laboratory at 114-116 Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, which is still part of the oldest and most prestigious college of the University of London, University College. Recently University College produced a mealy mouthed apology for this history of Eugenics which they formally sponsored until 2020. Meanwhile universities support 'wokism' and Transhumanism - the two most recent avatars of Eugenics - Skin Walkers disguised as Medicine Men.
Shit is beautiful when it is in its right place - either in our bowels or feeding little critters who love it, and these little critters help plants and animals grow - many of which we eat.
Good shit is a sign of health. It is good food for flies and other little critters. Shitting good shit feels good. Shit is with us, inside of us all the time. it is part of us. Instead of making it into an 'abject object', a foreign presence that we have to rid ourselves of completely, we should honour its goodness and its presence in the world, as long as that presence is in the right place.
SCIENCE
"If you were wantin' to get there, I wouldn't be startin' from here". Irish jokes are meant to demonstrate the stupidity of the Irish. But sometimes they demonstrate the opposite. This is one instance of that. The seeming stupidity of the above statement in quotes - what a local Dubliner is supposed to have said to two American tourists who aske for directions - is only apparent stupidity. It demonstrates the wisdom of the Irish. These two tourists should have planned their journey more carefully. Now they have gone down a long and difficult road that leads nowhere, so they have to retrace their steps.
"“We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. There is nothing progressive about being pig-headed and refusing to admit a mistake. And I think if you look at the present state of the world it's pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistake. We're on the wrong road. And if that is so we must go back. Going back is the quickest way on.” (C.S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity).
“Progress is a useless word; for progress takes for granted an already defined direction: and it is exactly about the direction that we disagree.” GK Chesterton
This false and confused notion of 'progress is a deep seated Modern assumption, or ideology - often called 'scientism' by its wise critics - me among them! - that most people seem to hold onto without thinking. This ideology assumes that the search for knowledge and truth should now start with 'objective' scientific research, and on that supposedly rock hard base we can build values, ideals, etc. (see also on this blog, Words 4, Faith/Science and Words 9, Machine and Megamachine).
On the contrary, scientific research. let alone so-called "Science" (which does not exist except as an inane and juvenile fantasy ) cannot be the starting point in any search for knowledge and truth.
JM Greer neatly sums up the problem in After Progress by noting that ‘science’ cannot deal with values, and therefore cannot deal with the most important things.
But it is more that science cannot create 'values' - most importantly those values that inhere in our very immediate and deep 'perceptions' of beauty in others and the world; of our love for others and their love for us; in our very immediate sense of justice and honesty and truth. Pseudo-scientists like Dawkins, Ridley, Pinker and others want to reposition these values in a scientific framework as 'adaptive instincts' enabling us to 'survive'. But why survive? Why evolution to more complexity? Why this direction and not that? And lastly - WHY ANYTHING?
Bronowski eloquently in The Ascent of Man tries to argue that science is based on an unending quest for the truth, always on the edge of ignorance, always exploring and self-doubting etc. But what 'truth'? The 'truth' 'science' reaches towards is trivial compared to the most important truths. And even more, when it reaches these temporary, relatively trivial and partial truths, it reaches them from the wrong direction. And then even though trivial in an ultimate sense, they become in many instances the handmaidens of what I can only call evil: the Megamachine: the tyranny of bureaucracies, genocide, war, atomic bombs, pollution, and the attempt to deny the ultimate mystery of love, beauty, justice and existence itself. The Arrogance of Ignorance.
FILM HEROES AND VIOLENCE
Why are film heroes becoming more infantile and less realistic every year? Why is film violence less realistic every year, and audiences more and more often expected to laugh at the violent death of any character?
The most shocking film-scene for my students was in Kidulthood, when a school-girl bully punches another school-girl on the nose. The whole class exclaims in unison with a "Whoah!" Yet when a character called "Machete" in a silly revenge film eviscerates a guard and uses his guts as an escape rope draped over a window sill, no one 'bats and eyelid' - they just laugh.
Every soldier's death in the Iliad is treated with seriousness. In Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, every death is treated very seriously, both good guys and bad guys, heroes and ordinary people. Kurosawa would often use slow motion as the character falls over and dies so that we can pause and identify with this death, and treat it with respect, treat another being's death with respect.
I saw my first gangster film at age 5 or so. I said to our Dad after, "Those guys who got killed in the movie, they were very brave to die just for a movie." I thought the 'actors' had really been shot dead, it was so realistic.
Many films later on still made me feel their dangerous and violent scenes were real - an unwilled belief, not a willing suspension of disbelief. The elephant at the beginning of King Solomn's Mines (Stewart Granger version) who kills the 'native' who saves the 'white hunter' ("Gunga Din, you are a better man than I''). The giant spider in The Thief of Bagdad finally killed by the incredibly brave 'brown-skinned' teenage side-kick (played by Sabu) of the 'whitish' hero, who is actually a bit of a wimp.
Raymond Chandler said that a thriller-writer should not use a lot of explicitly violent scenes - what was more important was "the smell of fear". The threat of violence from dangerous characters.
Life is serious because we can die at any moment. Real life always has consequences, and the ultimate consequence is the loss of all that we love in this life to death.
If we cannot take life seriously we cannot take death seriously until it hits us in the face.
If we cannot take death seriously we cannot take life seriously.
PREDICTIVE PROGRAMMING
This is the supposed use of fictional stories about the future to prepare us to accept such futures. According to the theory, these are commissioned or funded by various powerful people or groups to make us compliant to measures they will impose in the future. Conspiracy theory or Possible? How would one know? No way of knowing. But the corporate press deny it is possible with the most damning label: conspiracy theory. So those journalists who have the resources to investigate this properly, instead paint word pictures of Tin Foil Hat believers in lizard-people, etc. End of investigation.
But the fact remains: there are films that condition many of us to accept certain things when they happen, or seem to happen. The 'plague film' is a popular one. A plague of some kind threatens a city, a country, the whole world. The politicians and authorities refuse to believe it because if they shut down everything to deal with the possible plague, there will be an economic downturn, tourists will stay away, etc. Nevertheless, a few brave, usually young and handsome rebellious 'experts' - preferably including a potential romance between two of them - are sure this threat will materialise and be a disaster unless they take immediate and radical, experimental, untested, action. The 'Established' authorities refuse to believe the Young Ones until it is almost too late, but then come on board when they see how the Young Ones have begun to save the day.
In the Panic-demic of 2020-2023, this plot was played out, with two crucial differences:
1) There were no Young Rebellious Experts fighting the stupidity of the Authorities who refused to take the threat seriously. Just the opposite, it was the old fogies, the 'authorities' who declared that there was an immense threat that required immediate shut downs, universal use of experimental and unproven 'therapies', etc.
2) There was. actually, no threat, no public disaster waiting to happen, and this was known by those who declared it to be a threat.
Another type of fiction plays the opposite role. These are stories that describe events in such a 'fantastic ' way as to imply that they could only be fictional, that they would never happen in reality. But often they seem to?
V for Vendetta is a good example.
In the original graphic novel, a UK Labour Government turns Fascist after a global nuclear war. How strange and fantastic - how could you ever describe the Labour Party of Tony - Weapons of Mass Destruction - Blair, and Keir -WEF stooge - Starmer, as even incipiently Fascist?
In the film, on the other hand,
".... in the near future, Britain is ruled by the Norsefire political party, a fascist and totalitarian regime led by a High Chancellor, ... which controls the populace through propaganda...... a Dr Surridge, led biological weapon research and human experimentation.... creating the "St Mary's Virus". Although dozens of political prisoners died during experimentation, an amnesiac in cell "V" developed mutated immunities and disfigurements as well as physical enhancements.... Peter Creedy, head of the secret police, faked a terrorist attack by releasing the virus at targets including St. Mary's and used the resulting public fear to embed Norsefire in power. Simultaneously, the company manufacturing the cure enriched party members..." (Wikipedia)
A lab created virus. A manufactured crisis. Martial Law declared. Human biological enhancement. Bioweapons' research. The mainstream press acting as a government propaganda machine. A 'cure' imposed on everyone by government politicians that enriched those same government politicians?
These are just fantastic fictions.
Aren't they?
OUR PRIVATE FAMILY WORLD
Our Mom and Dad created a world of our own, even though they were both very gregarious. Our private world. That was ultimate reality for us. All else was less real.
And so did Karen and I with Luke and Toby.
And so do most of us I assume.
And this hurts, because these most real of worlds disappear so quickly. Hinc illae lacrimae.
70%
It has been calculated that roughly 70% of an ordinary working person's income is taxed. What do we get for it?
Shafted, amigo, shafted.
These are some extremely pertinent points man! I am often harassed by the modern view of the body & it's connection with the rest of the world. All animals shit but we are supposed to view ours as a disease bringer and a danger. It's interesting how the forces of Big Pharma, which claim to protect us from our own infectious bodies with medicine & the 'environmental' movement which will regulate and govern our position in said environment, work in concord for the same dehumanising end.