Being a heternormative, white, cis, male in a discussion about priviledge and issues pertaining to racism, sexism, etc.

I want to talk about my experiences with various forms of racism, sexism, and other forms of prejudice that surround our society.  I feel that they shine light on an issue that I feel has been ignored about these topics. The events in question that I want to talk about are actual things that have happened and occurred within the last few years of my life. Before I make the point I need to describe some of these events but I need to describe them as if they had happened from a different perspective then the one that I currently share. Please understand before you read these things that my goal here is not a presentation of “woah is me”, but rather instead I wish to bring to light an unpleasant truth that I have encountered that serves to “stall” the process of growth in regards to various forms of bigotry and social problems. I have simply been told countless that as a while heteronormative cis gendered male that I can't possibly understand or appreciate certain things; so let me represent things.

For the purposes of highlighting the events in my life, I wish to present this not in my chosen sex , orientation, or gender. (because these are often used as counter arguments) but rather I wish to replace the gender terms and one or two other terms when possible.

#1 I fell asleep one night only to wake up to a man I trusted going down on me, I was shocked and didn't know what to say or do. He took my silence and the fact that I was wet as a “yes” and then proceeded to have sex with me.

When I went to my guy friends to ask them for advice, they said that I had put myself into a situation where it was understandable where a man would think that was acceptable.

#2 I went to a festival and then proceeded to have a good time joking around with a man about the fact that he was wearing nothing more than a loin cloth and horns. He took this as interest and then proceeded to hit on me, when I told him that I was a girl who was interested in only other girls he took it upon himself to prove me wrong and spent an hour describing why it was a fact that I should at least try having sex with a man once just to prove him wrong even though I already told him that I had tried and it really wasn't my thing.

#3 I was working one night on a public when a man asked me if he could take a crack at it. I let him try his hands at it and he proceeded to look at me and said that I was really really good, but I could never be quite as impressive at it as man. The real pisser was that I was actually technically better.

Each of these events happened to me in the way that I have described, I was sexually assaulted by a woman, I spent the better part of two hours explaining to a gay guy that I really didn't want what he was offering. And I have had female fire performers flaunt the fact that they were better than I was because they have T&A.

I have tried to argue for the fact that privilege exists within a given context or situation and been scolded for lack of a better word. But, I can talk about the fact that instances such as the ones that happen above are individual instances. What makes them wrong has nothing to do with “societal” issues. Society influences the individual but at the end of the day each individual is in my view responsible for their own individual choices. What society does is validate our individual choices.

Being raped as a woman is not wrong because I am a woman, it is wrong because it violates my body and my right to self-determination.  Being harassed is not wrong because I am a woman, it is wrong because I am objectified in a way that I do not want or like in my life.  So if I take away gender from this,  it is still wrong.  Issues of gender and such then come into play at a larger societal level in terms of how that behavior is validated.

When we go to our group of friends and say what happened during the course of a day, our friends give us support or don't give us support. They tell us that were doing is right or wrong, or that we should go with our gut and that they support us. This is a process of social validation of behavior. When that behavior is validated it says “Go ahead and do it again; there was nothing wrong with it”. Or on the other hand the behavior is said “No, you shouldn't do this” and we feel socially obligated to reject or avoid that behavior(at least publicly).

I have a question for the reader, did the difference of gender, orientation, etc make a difference in how you reacted to those above statements. Because nothing changed that had any real importance. If I die, I die as a human, if I pay my bills I pay them as an American. If it did, the question I ask is why did it make a difference? How does me being sexually assaulted, harassed, or dealing with a pay difference between genders make up for someone else of a different socially constructed identity who is going through the same thing?

When I talk about the pendulum of human nature ,what I speak of is that it feels like we as a society seem to have a non-homeopathic perspective when it comes to at fixing social injustices or problems. Instead of fixing the root of the problem, the cause, we attempt to simply bandage it or, even worse, apply a counteractive agent to the issue. We are not balancing the scale of justice we are causing it to swing back and forth like a wrecking ball destroying lives in the process.

The events that occur are individual in nature. We as individuals, and as a society, need to perceive and interact with them as such. Because a man or women should never be laughed for being sexually assaulted, because a straight or gay person should never have to spend two hours of their life dealing with someone who doesn't get the concept of “not interested”, and no one should ever have pay differences “shoved” in their faces as if the other person was simply spiking a football.

I wrote this because this conversation needs to happen.  I am a person who deals with issues of gender, sexuality, race, and orientation and because I am white, male, cis, and heternormative it does not invalidate those issues or make them any less different or impactful on my life.

The Tools of Interpretation

It seems so simple to say that when you have a hammer, everything looks like it needs to be nailed in.  But I have found that this simple sentence professes a far deeper message than just a warning that “thinking outside the box is necessary”.  Our tools, our hammers, our screwdrivers go far deeper than just that.  Our lives and our studies provide a context that can very subtly change the nature of the thing that we observe.

It is my opinion that we walk around with what I call “tools of interpretation” that influence our understanding and interpretation of events.  At the core of it, it seems simple that our experiences and our understanding is what allows us to understand the world around us.  That when i see water boiling because of knowledge of science i interpret it as deeper; as the process of H20 over coming it’s bonds and becoming a vaper rather than remaining in a lquid form.  

But what happens when we insert being and human nature instead as the object of focus.  The danger of the hammer, is that everything looks like it is something to be nailed.  The studies of human life in their definitions create problems that limit them in the same way that a hammer limits the application of force to specific ventures.  

Foucoult, analyzed human nature through the spectrum of history.  His tool if intrepreation of human nature was that of history itself.  But the understanding of history is separate and different than the understanding of human nature or being as I might call it.  History as I understand the study analyzes future actions through past actions.  Thus all past actions lead to yet a greater and greater point that has either been already realized or will at some point be realized.  

Both Foucoult and ,aesthetic philosopher, Arthur Danto both applied this sort of notion to their independent perspectives.  But the study of history in and of itself is not the study of being independent of human nature.  It is just a perspective.  I believe that when we study with a certain perspective we are putting on “rose-colored’ lenses.  They help us understanding the world, but because they are just perspectives they do not in themselves have a complete perspective.  If a single human had such a perspective then we would call that human being god.  

In other words the perspective of our nature through the perspective of history provides a different analysis then the same view through the perspective of say nuerological psychology/psychiatry.  Both of these perspectives have their values and both of these perspectives (though some proponents would argue otherwise) have aspects that they “miss out on” so to speak.  

The more depth we add to a single perspective, we increase it’s capacity to analyze however our focus becomes super-limited as well.  A microscope is wonderful at seeing a specific sample, but terrible at seeing the whole picture.  In this I offer a danger,  when your entire world becomes wrapped around the cause and effect of one specific lens, you know longer have the capacity to see the importance of other perspectives and your own lens contains all the necessary components to your own personal view of being.  But because your own perspective is not the complete perspective then at some point your actions and your methods will not be line with how the world actually is.

In Danto proclaiming a historical end to art; to the extent that anything could be art we place the importance of art in a historical context we removed the immediacy of art.

In the discussion of male privilege we forget that privilege is a function of a society.  The fact that I am a cis-gendered male means that there are some things that I cannot understand or even discuss is in itself a function of privlidge.

In the discussion of magic forgetting that other belief systems and notions of divine are viable is one difference between religion and spirit.

In the discussion of psychology, forgetting the being that we speak of is a means to it’s own ends.

I could go on....but I have many tinted lenses that I enjoy peering through reality with.

The Tools of Interpretation are necessary and useful,  but they are tools.  They are NOT our being.

~Food For Thought

The Meta-Job

In the last few years I have heard a number of stories of police brutality, corporate mismanagement, a number of societal problems.  There is a part of me that wonders “why”, how is it that groups of humans can be so unkind and greedy to each other on a whole when individually we are normally decent in face to face encounters.  Why do these huge monolithic corporations and societal constructs (police, government) create such problems for us on such a large scale? 

A single thought hit my head today; that people care more about their “meta-job” then they care about their actual job.  I need to define of course what this “meta-job” actually is and how it is different than your actual job.  I am using “meta” here in the same way that one does when one speaks of the “meta-game” of a physical or intellectual sport.  There are in the individual rules that comprise a game of chess or football, but there is also the interaction between the players, coaches, fans, etc.  People often talk about the tactic of “getting into someone’s head”.  This is the meta game, it operates on a different level then the game itself and can also effect the game’s outcome.

The game’s existence is dependent upon the meta-game and thus by understanding the meta-game you can affect the game.  Think about it this way, by affecting the player’s mindset you can affect the outcome of the game. 

When you put a resume in for a job, you will often have read something about the nature of the job.  This includes necessary qualifications as well as your responsibilities.  Your responsibilities are essentially the service that your offering the company in exchange for money; in other words.  That bit of information is your job.  Your job depends on the relation between yourself and your boss/subordinates and those who give you what your need for your job.

In the same way that we have the meta game for a game, we also have the “meta-job” for the job itself.   We have all had the experience of doing a favor for someone at work either in exchange for a favor, good will, or the expectation of a favor in the future.  These things are normally done with the expectation of our job being easier.

But what happens when the “meta-job” is more important than the job that you are doing.  Every time the police let some rich guy off on a speeding ticket because they are worrying about losing their job; this is the meta job effecting their real job.  Every time a pharmaceutical employee ignores a drug’s side effects because they want their boss to be happy with the drug getting released on time; this is the meta job effecting their real job.

A real job often has morality as a necessity; whether it is the police, or the medical industry, or other similar industries.  But what happens when you let the meta-job effect your real job.  What happens when you are “required” to write a certain amount of citations?  What happens when you game the meta-game in order to try to get a promotion in a company?  What happens you turn into a supervisor who uses his people and resources in order to make his friend’s life easier because he wants a lateral transfer for the fast track promotion track.  Or oooo another example,  a commanding officer who uses the fact that all the officers on a base are friends so when one of his sailors files an appeal on a “captain’s master (non-judicial punishment) it gets swept under the rug so nothing happens.   Here is a scarier question, what happens when the entire chain of supervisors in a company is trying to do the same thing (ooo ooo I know….ENRON !!!! :D :D))).  At some point someone needs to say the buck stops here.

Sadly of course there are plenty of examples in which someone has blown the whistle or put their foot down and said “my ethical/business responsibilities” are more important than your “promotion” or your “bottom line”. 

http://www.cracked.com/article_21043_5-terrible-things-i-learned-as-corporate-whistleblower.html

Food For Thought

Da’ath: The Double Edge Sword of Knowledge

In traditional Qabala there are ten sephira and not nine; there are ten sephira and not eleven (Sepher Yetzirah).  There is a sephira that is not a sephira but rather the lack of one.  This “hole” is referred to as Da’ath which means “Knowledge”.    My thought of this is not in terms of spiritual “understanding” but rather of the concept of knowledge as it exists in our world.

The nature of the universe as I understand it for practical purposes is infinite.  This means that knowledge of the universe is also infinite.   Knowledge as I believe it is both a trap and necessary evil of spiritual development.  We understand the world only in the way that we have experienced it.    Modern philosophy and movies are both wonderful examples of this; if we only have spent time studying history then the only way that we can see the present is through the notion of historical development (Foucault); if we have spent our time as a con artist then the only way we can see the world is through the perspective of the con (Revolver). Our functional knowledge is necessary for translating our present experiences. 

We have then a doubled edged sword; the holding of knowledge can be a goal in and of itself.  But being, existence itself, exists outside of knowledge.  Knowledge has no meaning; but rather is a trail of cause and effect.  It is necessary to interpret what is called in Buddhism as “Dependent Origination”.  Knowledge is the arrow of faith that is fired across the abyss in order to understand the mysteries of highest supernal.  Have enough knowledge and you might be able to make it (somewhat) or one can become lost in the search for knowledge for the higher truths thinking that 

Some Food For Thought

Objectification and Privlege

I want to have a conversation about two rather important topics; the notions of objectification and privilege .  After some thinking I am starting to realize that objectification is the ugly little beast that allows privilege within a given subject matter to flourish.  I can't write from the perspective of society but rather I will write about the perspective I have as a "straight" (har har to those who know me) man within a subculture where I  have found myself in a minority.
For a little bit of a perspective,  an ex of mine who met me for the first time thought I was a "shy" ( she used a different word ;) )and possibly gay male.  This tends to be how I present myself when I am not working as an entertainer; introverted and socially anxious effeminate male.  I have no issue with this outside of the weird positions that it has sometimes put me into.

For those of us who are just joining the conversation, objectification (at least for the purposes of what i am writing) is the assumption of certain traits and characteristics of other people without any sort of consideration for their internal state and thoughts.  For example a woman who dresses in an attractive manner is thought to have automatically dressed in that manner for the benefit of the men in her life.  Objectification in other words is when we forget that others around us have minds of their own and with that everything that follows from having a mind.

Privilege , is for me, slightly harder to define.  Privilege is an expression of a culture that supports and benefits one side of a particular culture over another.  Thus,  privilege can be found in subcultures (where the example of privilege and how it flows might be different than the primary culture).  A wonderful example of the discussion of privilege in a manner that a lot of people can relate to can be found here (http://alittlemoresauce.wordpress.com/2014/08/20/what-my-bike-has-taught-me-about-white-privilege/).  It is rather hard to talk about privilege from the topic of "white" privilege due to the fact that so many articles, theories, and emotions are currently on the line for that one.  So instead, I will talk about my own experiences.

I believe that objectification and privilege go hand in hand and that one supports the other.  In many ways one of the aspects of privilege is the ability to effectively get away with something because it is not considered a "crime" or "wrong".  In the article I linked above the notion of privilege is not having to worry about things such as the law.  To quote that article

"And it’s not just the fact that the whole transportation infrastructure is built around the car. It’s the law, which is poorly enforced when cyclists are hit by cars, the fact that gas is subsidized by the government and bike tires aren't,"
Objectification is the justification for an action that will not be challenged because the culture of privilege that a person inhabits.

A few years ago,  I found myself at a pagan festival for a number of days and saw a man running around in nothing but a loincloth and a pair of horns.  Not being able to suppress my sense of humor I look at him and said "well aren't you a horny devil" and had to spend the next three hours explaining myself to him.  At no point did me saying that I was not interested and please stop ever actually get this discussion to stop.
Because of the fact that I normally present as rather effeminate (or at least at the time I did) I found that my sexuality was assumed to be a specific way and that I didn't know better (Which I can say after a number of years that I fairly sure what I am and what I will and will not do) I found myself in the position in which the person continued to operate and no one around him did anything about it, because it was "ok".
Most of the other examples that I know (or have been told ) of are not what i would call pleasant or good conversations and include examples as extreme as sexual assault in which the person was not challenged because of the privilege of their particular position.

Objectification is the notion that because I am young (or appear to be young) I cannot possibly have knowledge or experiences that make it noteworthy to listen to me.  My level of knowledge is objectified due to my age.  The "privilege" of the culture justifies this position and serves to reinforce the notions again.  Thankfully I am lucky to  have found a ohana that supports me and that I can speak to honestly and without holding back.
Objectification is the notion that because i am male I cannot possibly be taken sexually assaulted by a female.  The "privilege" of the culture justifies and supports this position leaving the male to feel "disempowered" and incapable of action. (http://www.vocativ.com/underworld/crime/hard-truth-girl-guy-rape/#!bNV6NY).

~Food For Thought~

Evocation of the ROTA Part I

~I am letting some of the knowledge that I have been granted be given unto others so they can do with it as they see fit.  I do not wish what I know be lost or fade into the distance~

There are multiple systems that represent divinity, the most common symbol is the notion of the circle.  That which never ends and never truly begins.  We divide this circle into many components each of which are equal and each of which can be used to represent different aspects.

While we cannot understand the infinite in both depth and expression by limiting one of these elements it makes it easier for us to develop such an understanding.  We create something that is infinite in depth but not infinite in expression.  This becomes easier for my our minds to wrap around and handle.  We segment the divine into components that we can observe, interact, and handle independently of the whole.  Thus we learn.

If we divide the circle by fourth’s we create the form of understanding of the divine that we receive through the elements.

If we divide the circle by 10 we create the form of understanding of the divine that we receive through the qabalah.

If we divide the circle by 360 we create the form of understanding through the Shem Ham Phorash, a system of angels that can be discussed through the goetia and sepher reziel.

If we divide the circle by 12 we create the form of understanding of the divine that we receive through astrology and the zodiacal forces that surround us.

In doing so we create the 7 planets, malkuth, the fixed stars, and the zodiac.  Thus the ten sephira’s of the tree of life are made manifest.

There exists a tool that combines each of these elements, and that is the tarot deck.

Each symbol is a door and that door swings both ways.  Each deck is a tool to access these symbols within their completeness.  But first the tree must be made whole; the 12, the 7, and the 3 must be made to go to their proper places else the tree false apart.

You can enter the door, but the lords can exit that door to this world.

The Four Ace’s...that of sword, rod, pentacle, and staff form the boundaries of the circle creating a space in which the great work might take place.

Aleph, Mem, and Shin form the world in which the tree exists.  Within the triangle is the door; the world made manifest.

There are 36 lords; each one representing a portion of divinity itself.  Each one holding a unique combination to their lock that exists within the deck separate from every other lord.  Within their unique combination and the angels of the shem hem phorash can their name be made manifest.

Within the Two of Cups Exists a Lord; they are the lord of Harmonious Change.  They are bound By Jupiter and Capricorn.  They are heralded  by Lekebel and Leshiriah.

Within the language of the universe ChROAGGhA shall be brought forth in the form a virgin clad in linen, with an apple and pomegranate held within their hand.

Horror Gnosis: Proof By Negation (Basic Theory)

The topic that I want to talk about is something that I mentioned in my earlier blog entry; the concept of Horror Gnosis.

There are a few concepts I need to discuss and introduce before the word horror even enters into 

this writing.

In philosophy if we take a statement like if A then B; or A->B if we have proof of A then we have proof of B.  This is also known as Modus Ponens.  There is also the proof known as Modus Tollens; we have the proof that B does not exist then we have proof that A does not exist.

The second concept is the work Immanuel Kant who introduced the notion of the categorical imperative.  One of the keystone elements of his moral theory was that in order to test any sort of moral theory was that if we were to take a moral statement and universalize it’s opposite would the world still exist and be functioning  For example if we were to take the notion of “thou shall not kill” and universalized it’s opposing statement “that one should kill” we find that we live in a non-functioning world. 

We as human beings seem to have a certain “notion” of how the world should be/how the world is.  They are certain existential/spiritual truths.  They are existential in the sense that they are true because they seem to be required in order for the world to function.  For example a certain existential truth that I take for granted is the fact that the world that I perceive is a “truth”.  There are other truths that deal with the notion of the “essence” and qualities of existence, being human, other beings, and the divine(our notion of god) as well that many of us believe as well. I believe that we can apply these ideas towards self growth (and very scary fiction).

I believe that if we take one of these spiritual/existential truths and maximize the opposite of that truth we create a contradiction that will inevitably create a world in which it is impossible to exist.  We basically introduce the element of horror that will slowly build until the character can no longer “interact” at which the point the story has to come to some sort of conclusion.  The action of doing this serves as a form of perfect/imperfect proof in the same sense that Kant’s system of morality offers the notions of imperfect/perfect moral laws (worlds where we would not want to live versus the worlds in which we cannot exist).

Let’s use the Lovecraft short story The Whisper In Darkness to demonstrate the principle.  In this story there comes a point in which a characters mind is separated from their body with his remaining flesh used as a “mask” for one of Lovecraft’s creatures.  There is a point in this story in which one of the given truths that we normally go by deviates in the story.  I take this “universalized horror” to be the notion of “identity” as others can see it in our world being solely contained within the body; with the body being nothing more than a mask for that which wears it.

So I take the idea, the spiritual concept as being that our own identities are a product not of our physical person but rather our mental selves as well.  Within this story there is a point at which the story diverges from that until such time as the world can no longer exist in a way in which we can also exist within it.  At this point we are faced with a truth.  Now this could be something that is true just for us, true for us culturally, and true for us as human beings.

My understanding is that those things which disturb at an individual level and at a cultural level are things that it would seem can be worked past; but those things that disturb us at an existential level I am not so sure about.  But it would seem most of the protagonists in these stories do not so much as win as they survive.  But in their stories we have proof by negation.

In order to understand, exercise might be best.  Think of some “truth” that you know, the more universal was better.  Don’t think of some sort of scientific truth such as water boils or that gravity exists, but think of a metaphysical truth such as the passage of time (Rip Van Winkle), identity, or something within your own faith.

Now write down a story, a few pages.  And create a situation in which the opposite of some sort this truth is held.   At this point write in the manner that you would feel that you would act.  How would you deal with this situation and how would you react to this particular “reality” that you are creating.  The more extreme better.  If the truth is that there is a soul with an attached consciousness and there is an “afterlife” write down how a soul must feel the passage of time and the decaying of its body over time.  (There are plenty of stories of the sheer horror of a premature burial because someone “thought” someone else was dead.) the opposite of this truth is that there is a soul but no afterlife and the soul must survive and experience “total” death as in the complete decay and rot of the body.  The words extreme Chinese water torture come to mind.  But the idea is to try and “create” the feeling of such in an experience in your own words so you can imagine your “horror” being tested and come to a better knowledge of the “truth” are you are attempting to understand.

Spiritual Fiction- The Untapped Source

Certain books in magic I refer to as “spiritual milestones”.  When we drive along a highway the mile markers help us know how far we have come if we have no other way of knowing.  Within the last few hundred years a plethora of spirituality influenced books have come along.  These includes older works such as Dante’s Divine Comedy or more recent works such as Aleister Crowley's Diary of a Drug Fiend.  These are not the only ones and in many ways these sorts of books are still coming and being produced by modern authors as well.

For those of us who are not lucky enough to be part of a well functioning spiritual organization or who are solo practitioners, the notion of having some sort of check point is an important one who one is beginning their self-development.  The idea here is that the protagonist/character of story provides a vehicle by which the author can describe a state of being that he/she wishes to share with the reader.

In Diary of a Drug Fiend, part of the book deals with the protagonist and his new wife celebrating a new life together with a rather large supply of Cocaine and Opium  that was supplied to them.  The “milestone” that the book mentions is the experience of watching your bodies cravings independently of your minds experience and being able to see your body  and subconscious attempting to place you into positions in which you would want to imbibe/partake of the substance in mind.

We often find this in the horror genre, when the protagonist/victim is faced with a spiritual untruth that within their literary world exist in reality.  This can be most often seen within Lovecraft’s world as well as modern horror as well.  Herbert West-Reanimator, Rats In the Walls, and other stories of his each create untruth that the we, as spiritual individuals, I feel must eventually come to terms with.  Our own experiences prove these horrors untrue but because of our perspectives and experiences we understand the horror and consequences thereof. ((One of the topics that I developed an understanding of was spiritual development through horror; “Horror Gnosis: Proof by Negation)).  Even in Cinema we find examples of these sorts of stories such as Revolver; a movie which explains the consequences of the shadow self through an analysis of gamesmanship theory/conartistry.  

Of the various types of books that are available (Grimoires/Workbooks, Magical Theory, Mythology, Philosophy, Psychology, and Spiritual Fiction) I feel that this is the type that is the most ignored however I feel it is also one of the most valuable as well; especially to those who are developing and growing themselves without access to teachers.  How do we validate some of our more extreme experiences without having sort of teacher who we can simply ask.  I feel that this sort of fiction and narrative can function here in this regard when otherwise one cannot justify or validate a mental state or experience that one has.