Euro-pean Theocracy
“The Polish interior minister, Joachim Brudziński, announced on Twitter on [6th of May 2019] that a person had been arrested for “carrying out a profanation of the Virgin Mary of Częstochowa”.
The “Black Madonna of Częstochowa” is a revered Byzantine icon that resides in the monastery of Jasna Góra, a UN world heritage site and Poland’s holiest Catholic shrine.
Brudziński, who described the posters as “cultural barbarism” when they appeared overnight in April, said: “Telling stories about freedom and ‘tolerance’ doesn’t give anyone the right to offend the feelings of believers.”
Poland’s ruling rightwing Law and Justice party (PiS) has sought to mobilize its core electorate in the run-up to the European elections by raising the specter of the country being overwhelmed by western liberal social values.
“We are dealing with a direct attack on the family and children – the sexualization of children, that entire LBGT movement, gender,” said the PiS leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, speaking to supporters last month. “This is imported, but they today actually threaten our identity, our nation, its continuation and therefore the Polish state.”
(Yeah, I know where you heard that before…)
PiS (Law and Justice) is a nationalist, conservative, Christian democratic and right-wing populist political party; currently, it’s the largest political party in the Polish parliament and its leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, is the country’s prime minister.
yummy!
A similar story played out in Greece in December last year, when a night club announced a Christmas eve party, to presumably celebrate the recent abolition of the blasphemy law in the country. The event was advertised with a poster depicting a masterpiece of Eastern religious iconography which has been digitally altered, adding lipstick, eye shadow, rouge on the cheeks and earrings on the portrait of Jesus.
Shock! Horror! The idea that God could be (gasp) gay or female! Heaven forbid!
Orthodox masculinity was triggered.
I read the same claims about “cultural barbarism”, “insulting the religious feeling”, “desecration of an artistic masterpiece”, “cheap/safe manipulation” etc.
The religious were “offended”. Their faith was “insulted”. Their precious, oh so insecure imaginary friend’s symbol got a booboo…The party was canceled after the organizers received death, arson and lynch threats. They had to delete their page from social media. They were targeted like people who dare “desecrate” flags in protest. Wait – what? Surely that’s happening in some backward theocracy – not in secular, progressive Europe?
No surprise, as far as Greece is concerned, at least. Women are still not allowed on The Monastic Republic of Mount Athos, the Holy Mountain of Men, a remnant of theocratic Byzantium in Northern Greece. Although women contribute via taxation to the upkeep and restoration of these monasteries, via EU subsidies. So much for equal rights…
Let’s step back a bit.
Countless images of universally acclaimed works of art, many far more famous worldwide than these two artifacts, both religious and secular (like national flags or their images), are used in public dialogue and protest; and for that very purpose – democratic, free speech & expression – they have been and are being continuously, critically, humoristically, even hubristically, iconoclastically, ironically, intentionally copied, altered, digitally or otherwise manipulated – to make a point, to satirically draw attention to a social issue, to raise awareness, to shock, to make people think, to provoke discussion, to speak truth to power, to challenge, make fun of, or parody academic, established, authoritarian, social norms, national symbols, icons or sacred cows.
Isn’t religion and religious beliefs one of those sacred cows that freedom of expression should be free to criticize, question, debate, denounce, refute, even insult and ridicule? Isn’t that precisely the reason secular democracies get rid of blasphemy laws? Isn’t that why Je Suis Charlie?
How can we justify censorship of art (or even anti-art, like the anti-capitalist Dada art movement) in order to exempt the religious sensibilities from the legitimate assaults by intellectual freedom and critical thought?
I personally welcome these artistic interventions – they are not just legitimate, they are necessary – we need them in order to evolve beyond the religious slavery: they protest and expose Patriarchy, its self-assumed, established sanctity and its authoritarian, dogmatic, homophobic, scare-mongering tyranny. It is the Abrahamic religions and their carte blanche free rein to abuse, indoctrinate, proselytize, exploit and brainwash people from childhood and subject them to their poisonous bigotry, to irrational fears and hatred of everyone who is “different” (women, gays, trans, infidels, atheists) causing immeasurable mental, physical and psychological harm through the malicious concepts of guilt, sin, eternal damnation and all the other putrid misanthropic Death Cult dogmas they preach – and to do so tax-free.
No idea and no belief should be exempt from criticism and ridicule. And least of all the religious, ergo irrational ones: they are the most powerful, the most toxic and the most harmful form of authoritarianism and organized, institutionalized abuse. What can be destroyed by the truth must be destroyed by the truth.
” According to the European Court of Human Rights it must be possible, in a democratic society, to criticize religious ideas, even if such criticism may be perceived by some as hurtful to their religious feelings. Freedom of expression as guaranteed by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights covers not only information or ideas that are favorably received or regarded as inoffensive or as a matter of indifference, but also those that shock, offend or disturb. “
– Woman arrested in Poland over posters of Virgin Mary with rainbow halo.
ps:
It’s obvious that the monks on Mt Athos are a rather special kind: much more weak and vulnerable to the temptation of female flesh than all the other monks in all the other monasteries in the world, that manage to retain their monastic integrity while allowing female visitors.
Instead of misogyny, this “holy” aversion to women sounds – or reeks – rather like fear: extreme pathological gynophobia, a dread of woman…
I wonder, are they equally vulnerable to the temptation of male flesh?
The Art of BS
Milady of Shallots
$96,000
mY hOmAgE tO aLfReD, lOrD tEnNySoN
Elections are a Circus, but…*
*American Elections are a Circus, totally corrupted by money and thoroughly rigged:
there can be no Democracy without Equality. There can be no Democracy in a system plagued by the Electoral College, Gerrymandering, Voter suppression, mass incarceration & stripping the poor, minorities and people of color off their civil rights and off their human rights, above all, their right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. There can be no Democracy in a system where Freedom from Religion, as enshrined in the Constitution, is not upheld. There can be no Democracy when the Constitution, in its entirety, is not upheld (and regularly updated, By The People). Finally, Democracy by proxy is not a Democracy. And in such an environment, the Government is not “of the people, by the people and for the people”.
Yet, there are Human Beings of humanity, integrity, principle and vision who enter the arena of this anachronistic, undemocratic, anti-egalitarian, Imperialist, Plutocratic, Death-worshiping, Theocratic Colosseum (not just in the USA, but everywhere around the world) knowingly and courageously, NOT to serve the system but to serve the people: to fight the system from within and change it for the better; human beings “willing to fight for people they don’t know”.
Bernard Sanders, age 22, chained to black women protesters, getting arrested in anti-segregation protest, Chicago, 1963.
They know that if Elections could change anything, they’d be illegal. And the system is working on making it not just extremely difficult, but literally “illegal” for most people to exercise their right to vote. In the meantime, they have achieved a high degree of their sinister agenda, by persuading people simply not to vote (more of that, below). But there are Human Beings who are not hardened cynics, who are not quitters; and they are not willing to give up Hope and the Right to Dream without a fight. So they enter the arena believing that it is possible to defeat the Imperium from within, if a critical mass of The People form unstoppable movements. I am not sure I share their optimism. But I surely admire their bravery and their vision and I hope they are right. Because if they aren’t, there is no hope.
So far, I found three phrases that survive the onslaught of the System, in that Arena, and encapsulate all that is worth living for and fighting for; and I found them all in the one place. In the largest political rally, in fact, by far. These are my top three takeaways from the entire Circus, so far:
1. ” We the People … in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice … promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”
If some folk think that is in any way radical, socialist or even communist… then I think they are the ones who are Un-American (not in the nationalist sense, but in the sense that they would be un-citizens, un-free and un-human, if they did not espouse these basic principles).
2. “I’m willing to fight for someone I don’t know“.
3. “behind closed doors your arm is twisted, the vice of political pressure gets put on you and every trick in the book, psychological and otherwise, is used to get us to abandon the working class“.
Powerful indictment from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez about her experience as an elected public representative. I found it here, on Twitter. I didn’t not find it highlighted in many places, as it totally destroys the corporate narrative about the two mainstream political parties in the United States of America. Neither party establishment represents The People: they represent the interests of their donors. The establishment Parties are part of the charade and an integral strategy of the Fascist State: their job is to put forward candidates that serve the System. And they do that job very well, election after election.
Alexandria perfectly explained, with this courageous and clear condemnation of the corrupt political system that dominates the corridors of power in Washington, why she chose to endorse the only candidate who has been steadfast and unwavering in his duty of service to the people:
“and it has been in that experience, over the last nine months, that I have grown to appreciate the enormous, consistent and non-stop advocacy of Senator Bernie Sanders“.
This crystal clear statement (from a young idealist who perfectly embodies the famous Ghandi quote: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”), also explains something else that is also very important: it explains why so many have lost faith in politics; why so many have lost their moral compass and their true north; why so many, convinced by the System that politics do not, ever, work for us, The People, indoctrinated to become apolitical and apathetic, have played Russian roulette with their votes; why so many placed their hopes on snake-oil salesmen, pseudo-Messianic saviors, faux anti-establishment heroes, cheap and vulgar demagogues, evil clowns, reality tv stars and strongmen type far-right populists, from Trump to Bolsonaro and from Orban to Boris, Farage, Salvini, Le Pen, Morrison, et al.
AOC’s experience in Washington explains the rise of fascism: the War on Terror caused massive waves of refugees and the worldwide recession left working people in desperation, easy pray for the likes of Steve Bannon and the Murdoch propaganda networks; the fascists, the talking heads and the strategists of the Oligarchy were there to pat the disenfranchised on the back and convince them that the enemy wasn’t the very system which caused immigration, recession, austerity, unemployment, insecurity, misery, poverty, despair, death, destruction, the Climate Crisis and mass extinction that is hurting their livelihoods and threatens all life on the planet, present and future, but people even poorer, even more desperate, even worse off than themselves: people who lost their homes and their livelihoods from the wars and the plundering of Earth perpetrated by the exact same worldwide feudal capitalism system that divides, conquers and lines its pockets from the utter misery, impoverishment and serfdom of its victims – the ordinary folk, us, The People.
People played Russian roulette with their votes in the USA, in Brazil, in Britain, in Hungary, in Italy, in Australia and elsewhere; these desperate choices are backfiring. What has been causing the austerity and the desperation and the poverty is the same neoliberal brutality that the fascists and corporate puppets now in power are ramping up with increasing intensity.
Have we learned our lessons yet?
I know that the indoctrinated Trumpistan cultists will not admit their mistake because they can’t: they need to be de-programmed and recover their faculties with some expert help. I know that many who voted for Trump to say “Fuck You” to the Establishment are suffering from cognitive dissonance and buyer’s remorse and it’s very difficult to admit they made a yooge error. I know that some of them voted for him because they are fascist, racist, bigoted, xenophobic and misogynistic, and those perhaps could be also be rehabilitated, if they were provided with some much-needed mental health assistance. And I know many are turning to other copycats, opportunists, narcissists, power-hungry, hypocritical faux-progressives and establishment puppets for help. They are deluded.
For me, there’s only one candidate in the race: only one that a rational human being could ever vote for, the original one, the people’s champion. And the reason is quite simple, really: if we had time to slowly evolve over hundreds of years, we might be alright with small, baby steps and centrist don’t-rock-the-boat types. But we haven’t. We are facing an existential threat to all life on Earth and there is only ONE candidate who understands the cause of the problem and how to fix it. There’s only ONE candidate who understands that to survive the Climate Emergency humanity needs to come together in an unprecedented scale of mobilization and consensus, which cannot happen without World Peace.
World Peace cannot be achieved with nods and winks to the Military-Industrial-Corporate pact; it cannot be achieved by “a strong military presence abroad” and “green military bases” and dressing up the Axis of Evil (the neoliberal capitalist patriarchy) with band-aid half-measures. Every other candidate in the Democratic primary is ignorant about international politics and naive in their policies or a downright tool of the predatory capitalism that has caused and is causing the Crisis. I see only one candidate who is clear-headed and astute about the problem; only one candidate has inspired the grass-roots people’s movement capable to defeat Trump and, more importantly, dismantle Trumpism. All the others are wishy-washy lightweights and if the Democrats put one of them against Trump, they are going to lose like they lost in 2016.
The fact that there are people like Sanders, with a spine and a brain, who combine wisdom with enthusiasm and do not know how to bow to the pressures and who do not betray their integrity, their empathy, their compassion, their honesty, their principles and their public duty, despite the vicious assault from the establishment of both parties, the corporate media ridicule, blackouts and character assassination attempts against him and the grass roots movement; that fact alone signals clearly who the Establishment is afraid of and whom The People should be supporting; and the fact that there are people like Alexandria and many others who are “willing to fight for someone they don’t know”, who are inspired by Sanders’ paradigm and his moral authority, to run for office and become a beacon of honesty, equality, justice, liberty, human rights and the principles enshrined in the constitution, and in particular, the right to Life on a healthy, hospitable planet, offers a glimmer of hope for the United States of America, and a substantial reason to dream, in these very critical times for humanity.
I dream, still, that humanity will not disappear into the night…
Life, monetized.
We treat animals – even the nearest and dearest: companion animals – like commodities, because that’s exactly how we treat each other.
Everything other than, perhaps, our own precious self, sometimes, is a “thing” – an object. We don’t recognize the same precious quality – life, and everything that comes with it: sentience, emotions, uniqueness of each individual person – in others.
Our interactions with others (marriages, partnerships, friendships, family and professional relationships) are, more often than not, in the “civilized” world, conducted as forms of commercial transactions; people (and other sentient beings), individually and collectively, their emotions, their images, their identities, their ideas, their bodies, their genes, their lives and actions, abilities, activities, creativity, talents and personalities, their companionship, their friendship, their love, their devotion, their courage, their choices, their honesty, their loyalty, their intelligence, their service, their work, their labor, their dreams, their hopes, their fears, even their sacrifice and death, are bought, kept, retained, coerced, used, exchanged, calculated, monetized, exploited, sold and disposed of, often taken for granted and subjected to all kinds of cruelty, and their “value” weighed exactly as if they were commodities: property.
People use and abuse others and are abused by others and consider that a norm. That’s how our society raises children. That’s the subliminal message we are all subjected to from cradle to grave. That’s how we are taught to think. All our values have been replaced by money, property, wealth and “what’s in it for me”. Society has been replaced by the Market. Those who reject that model are considered congenital failures and “losers”: they are treated with contempt, blamed and shamed and made to feel guilty.
That’s NOT human nature: that’s corruption of human values, of humanity. That’s betrayal of Life, All Life. But hey, that’s how the System operates, that’s how we are conditioned, like Pavlovian subjects, to get our rewards…
“Everybody’s looking for something.
Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to get used by you
Some of them want to abuse you
Some of them want to be abused.”
[Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) – Eurythmics]
We’re all objects in the Market. Programmed. Indoctrinated. We – and everyone, everything else – are Monetized Currency.
That’s how we are trained to play the Game.
No wonder, then…
artwork: Fatima Ronquillo
https://fatimaronquillo.com/
(thoughts prompted by a comment on facebook).
Even a broken clock can be right once.
“Follow Me Home”
Her mouth was dry, dry as the summer beating down on the bony knuckles of the land. Sparkling, scaly, rippling like the spine of a prehistoric serpent, the sea held the rock tight in its grip, surrounded, imprisoned. She could hear the pelagic heartbeat, the water’s breath hissing, wave after wave after wave writhing over the sand, retreating only to inhale, attack again, conquer, smother, subdue, relentless, insatiable. “Sand,” she thought. That’s how it will all end. The sea will painstakingly grind everything down; the whole world will eventually crumble into tiny specs, surrendering to her never-ending advances, until nothing else remains but sand and water. Ochre and blue.
She put the pad and pencil down on the marble steps, took the cigarette packet and the lighter out of her breast pocket, lit one; laid back on the hot shale slabs of the sun porch, closed her eyes.
That’s when it happened. Four o’clock in the afternoon. The radio was set up to come on, every day, Monday to Friday, tuned in to the hourly music program. Unusually, this time there was no intro, no spoken words, none of the familiar greetings from the voice of the host; she knew that voice well; for two years he had been introducing his ever-increasing audience to everything new that was happening in pop and rock universe, just as it was happening, and even before it “happened” for the big mainstream broadcasters abroad.
This time, there was no warning. The sound hit her straight and quick, right between the temples, to the heart, to the bone. That guitar, and the beat, and a voice that didn’t sound like anything she’d heard before. “You get a shiver in the dark, it’s raining in the park but meantime…” She jumped up, ran inside to turn the volume up. Stood still, permeated, saturated by the sound, inhaling it through every pore, soaking it up with her body, thirsty, hungry for more. Who was this? Where did that voice come from? More importantly – how did he know?
——————————————————————————————————————-
Aegean was always rough this time of year. The straits were whelping snakes. Northern winds descend furious onto the Cyclades, slither through the narrow gaps between the islands and have an orgy right there; Aeolus’ fury unbridled and unleashed smack-bang-wallop upon the ferry routes as the boats struggle to dock.
She leaned back against the wet white skin that enveloped the passengers’ lounge on the top deck, the thick crusty layers of paint on the metal ribcage that sheltered and isolated them from the elements. They’d be having drinks and coffees at the bar inside, some chewing sea-sickness tablets, others crossing themselves and praying. “You don’t need protection” he sang in the private auditorium of her mind. Convincingly, mocking his own disarming, exposed innocence, irony circling the vine of his passionate declaration of youthful love-lust like a playful emerald viper, almost imperceptible in the foliage of his green, raw voice, in his heartfelt, persuasive, self-parodying delivery.
She braced herself as the boat began turning to port, spray coming over the rails, reaching the chimneys with every dive of the bow, the fresh breeze stroking her face with cool moist fingers. Down below the engines were humming their monotonous baritone steady drone, the whole boat vibrating, its jarring pulse traveling through the metal, up from the soles of her boots to her legs, rising to her loins, stirring the anticipation in her chest, catching her breath short. That old anticipation. That old heartbeat racing. C’mon already, c’mon! Step on it, dammit, dock already, take me to him, now!
Eyes piercing the mist, drawn inland, mind racing over the once so familiar winding road to the north; she could follow every twist and turn and even do it blindfolded, back then. Young, fast, naive, reckless.
She had wanted so bad to go down on her knees and let the tears flow. But they wouldn’t come; she had wanted to sink below the busy waves, to the calm oblivious depths; sink to the sound of fingers picking, bending the strings on a night as the lazy wind is wailing…
The narrow streets are empty now. Just a woman in a long black coat walking up to the top of the hill. No cypresses here, tall and straight, stately and distinguished in their elegant grieving dresses. Just a few tough threadbare trees bent and gnarled and pitted by the wind, dry and hard like the bones of the earth their stubborn roots still hold onto, somehow.
And the tears still refuse to come as she leans over and touches the picture. It’s an old photograph behind the glass yet the smile is young, so young, so unbearably young, so impossibly handsome and cocky. Oh, that was a smile if she’d ever seen one! Sweat dripping from his dark hair on that summer day, as he threw his fist in the air, glorious, defiant, divine, looking for her in the crowd that invaded the pitch. It had to be that photo. She should have known.
Over the brows of the hills to the sharp-faced mountain, to the coves below, to the heaving steel-blue water, her roaming eyes stayed dry. No mourning. How can you lose someone who was never yours to own? There was no ownership. Just memories, and songs, and whispered words, his voice and hers, flashes of fragments they connected, images, heat, darkness, touch: her long silver scarf escaping as he untied it from around her neck, floating away on the breeze like a capricious eel under the moonlight that evening when they gazed into the shimmering water below, their toes on the edge of the abyss, themselves on the top of the world as they knew it.
He howled in the night like a wild one then, lifted her up high and spun her ’round and laughed; laughed like a madman, like a ram atop a granite boulder, and the world echoed his laughter, the goat’s song; queen moon smiled upon them as they tore off their clothes and feasted on each other like it was the last time.
Every time was the last time, knowing there was an end chasing after them, catching up with them every urgent moment; an abrupt end that would grab their heels and topple them hard onto the cobblestones of a crushing reality; an end stronger than both and inescapable.
Yet they didn’t care: they were careless about anything else but draining those moments, drinking every last drop of the seconds and the minutes and the hours, devouring, grazing skin on skin, stealing, grasping moments of now one after another, claiming them from life and death, converting visceral and temporary into immortal and eternal, hammering them onto time forever with breathless pounding, drawing themselves onto the invisible parchment of spacetime, indelibly weaving their togetherness into the fabric of the cosmos where it would stay, victorious, triumphant, two tiny fragile insignificant threads entwined, cheating Fates at their own game. Those summers and those winters they roamed upon the thin crumbled sliver of land in the archipelago like mountain goats, feral, fearless and free.
She began her descent towards the ravine, green and black schist awaiting below, no path, no road, no lush vegetation; just rocks and sand and thyme and wild capers and sky slashed by sunshine and cloud, blue turning into green at the narrow cove, granite jutting out on either side like two thighs parted, glistening wet, salty breeze stroking them; and a distant “e-e-e-e-e” now and then: horned beasts sticking their pink tongues out at the hairy god, laughing, mocking; Pan the entertainer blowing his pipes in the underwater caves for his secret audience, sirens and mermaids and sea nymphs, seals and starfish and serpents, dancing, seducing each other, invisible, hidden, elusive, quick to dive and disappear into the safety of myth, in the submerged courtrooms of Atlantis.
It was that tune, that liquid hypnotic sound of sea rippling, splashing and swirling on wet sand, rolling and whispering; the sound of hips moving together, of footsteps long forgotten, written and erased and yet indelible still, that fluid Aegean heartbeat tune of ochre and blue and blistering sun bleaching the carcass of the land, that once became a song; smooth like pebbles polished by water for centuries, elementary, ancient and timeless, primordial, universal, irresistible and compelling, that song playing over and over, in the room where Mnemosyne resided in perfect solitude inside her head; that song in her bones, in her veins, in her blood, all the way down, down to the water. Follow me home.
And the sea continued carving, gnawing, hissing, grinding, turning everything into sand.
Love, Language and the lack of it
I was around 16-17 when I figured out that what people call “love” (as in “romance”) is just fear of loneliness.
We are a social species. Our closest relatives, the other apes, live in small social groups, or families. But our lives have evolved in societies that developed into civilization: living in vast cities that, instead of bringing us close, have isolated us.
Modern architecture can be depressing, oppressing, uninvolving and inhuman, hostile to our own biological senses, needs, cognitive and emotional intelligence. The way we live in our houses and apartment buildings further isolate us.
As people had to somehow balance the deficit, they shifted the role that the social group plays, onto the individual’s romantic partner. He or she (*) are required to fill the void, this lack of togetherness that alienation, stemming from the modern city environment and society, has created.
Oh sure we still have friends – but unlike our cousins, the other apes, we don’t live with them. And because the “rat race” leaves very little time for most of us, we don’t see friends and family very often either. We might speak to them on the phone, chat with them on social media.
We patch up this emptiness by entertainment, television, gaming, alcohol, drugs. Especially in the internet era, we are constantly connected and disconnected. We are among very many people, but we are basically alone. “Loneliness is a crowded room“. And we are not coping very well with it.
We have pets because our affections are more often than not selfish and self-serving. We need others for our own reasons – to feel good. We need company, and acquaintances can be pleasant and distracting, but we also need meaningful company and a sense of connection.
We perceive a pet’s love as unconditional and non-judgemental. That’s why pets are so therapeutic: they offer us validation and companionship.
*When I previously referred to “he or she” I meant mostly “she”. Recently I read an article about the loneliness that toxic masculinity has boxed men in because emotions are perceived as a feminine “thing”.
In my first year at college, what impressed me most was how emotions were aggressively rejected by my male fellow students. “Awwwww, sentimental!” they would all shout and mock in unison, ganging up in a chorus of male solidarity, grimacing and laughing at her, when one of the girls made an emotional plea or spoke about something to do with feelings. We ignored them, of course, and didn’t protest, so if it was a trick to get our attention and engage in confrontation with them, a field where they felt they had the upper hand, it didn’t work. But they didn’t stop trying it so, eventually, we kept such conversation subjects to ourselves.
As I discussed before, a long time ago humans lived in social groups. The family shared a common dwelling. Couples did not move away from the communal home to raise their children. When a man won the attention of a certain woman, he was accepted in her family and joined them. He had no notion and no way of knowing that children born were his own offspring. Men were not even aware of their role in reproduction.
Agriculture leading to permanent settlement and private ownership changed all that and broke down the social grouping: a man who owned cattle could barter and acquire a wife for himself, take her away from the family, where she could procreate with other males, as our cousins the apes do: with the help of patriarchal religion and marriage, he could then become the exclusive master of her reproductive potential, ensuring, or at least increasing the chances that the children born to the couple were his own.
Eventually, patriarchal religion invented sin and romantic love, as effective strategies to control the natural promiscuity of the female of our species. The necessity to form a temporary bond – a pairing – stems from the need to assist in raising and protect the young, as seen in species that do not live in familial social groups. Removing the woman from her family, where all children were the children of the group, cared for not only by their own mothers but by the group collectively, and where no male could be certain about the parentage of the offspring, created the patriarchal model of the couple and the religious marriage; in this partnership, the temporary bond became a permanent union, blessed and made holy by the church and impossible, until, recently, to escape from.
Attraction is necessary to form that bond between the couple, and evolution has reinforced this, particularly in men. Love is a “commitment device”. Men fall in love “at first sight” much more often (about as twice as much) than women, feeling the urge to stay with the object of their desire and protect her against danger as well as from other male’s advances.
This could be because men being more visually attracted are quicker to fall in love than women, who tend to rely on the development of emotional bonds to strengthen their affections. As women are naturally promiscuous (because that favors biological fitness of the offspring), and can successfully rear their young with the help of the social group, or other males who are not the fathers of the children (the homosexual siblings play the role, in our species, that the aunts and the sisters play in others: in prides of lions and pack animals for example, where only the dominant couple procreate and the rest of the group share the caring of the adolescents), they have less reason to fall in love and remain exclusively with one male for longer than it is necessary for the child that particular man has fathered (or thought he fathered, as humans, as well as lions, deceive their partners about parentage, to avoid males harming the young sired by others); that’s where religion and marriage comes in.
We know that erotic infatuation and idealization of the object of desire doesn’t last much longer than it is absolutely necessary to aid with a successful gestation, birth and breastfeeding, in other words when the higher infant mortality period has passed. Studies have shown that this intense phase of exclusive erotic attraction (the “honeymoon phase“) lasts between twelve to twenty-four months.
Marriage is what keeps couples together. But people become dissatisfied. Their partners no longer fulfill their needs. Men have very few real friends. The social group does no longer exist: families seldom share the same roof in modern societies, and we park our parents in retirement homes.
As a result, people (especially males) are increasingly lonely and seek to fulfill their void with another romantic partner who they will invest in: a surrogate mother, a housekeeper, sexual provider, intimate friend, psychoanalyst, “soulmate”, everything. And this cycle repeats itself with every new failed attempt or until people give up and resign to their fate, either single or in an unhappy marriage. That’s what was meant by being “ready to settle down”. And the traditional model, making allowances for a man’s extramarital affairs, when often keeping a wife and a mistress was the norm, meant that everyone was dishonest to everyone else, with few exceptions, but patriarchy could perpetuate itself. For women, marriage was their only socially acceptable access to sex and status, while for men, it was the socially acceptable way to acquire a broodmare of sorts, father children and secure patrilinear succession. Until the sexual revolution, that is.
It is not then a coincidence that we see the most conservative, religious, patriarchal and male-supremacist groups pushing for the protection of marriage and the sanctity of the unborn, against homosexuality, against women’s rights, against abortion, against equality, against social welfare, child support, health care, free education, against every bit of social progress that would make the traditional, patriarchal form of marital monogamy less and less necessary and that would give women their freedom, independence and the ability to choose: these groups and the status quo they protect are precisely the ones that need these restrictions and strict social norms of institutionalized misogyny the most.
Single women able to support themselves, single mothers who do not subjugate themselves and their wombs to a husband, unmarried couples, same-sex couples, gender fluidity and all the variations to monogamy, even the so-called “inter-racial” marriages and birth control are threatening to religious conservatives. Not only these threaten the security of parentage for the husband, they would also remove the eternal support and unpaid services women are called upon to provide to the lonely, insecure, dissatisfied (and predominately white, Christian) uber-males. They could sever the umbilical cord and remove these stunted males from the tit they’ve been suckling upon from millennia, forcing them to grow up, accept and process their emotions, become capable of forming real friendships and restoring communal, social bonds based on equality.
If we look at animals, social species like apes, dolphins, and many others, are never alone unless they choose to be; they form special bonds with other individuals within their group, they have sex but not exclusively with one partner, they can spend time on their own when they feel like it and they join in communal activities, to play, hunt, feed and explore.
Solitary species don’t seem to need companionship as much as pack animals do. Solitude seems to come naturally to them, with the occasional social contacts during sex, feeding, rearing young and travel.
Even extremely social cetaceans seem to be able to cope with solitary existence, and they are also known to socialize with other species: there are many examples of inter-species friendships; one of the most prominent is the case of the world – famous Fungie, the dolphin who chose to live as a good neighbor to the people in the Dingle peninsula of Ireland; Fungie, and other dolphins, come and go as they please, they mate, raise young and return, mingling with us on their own terms, whenever they want to play, interact and observe, even study, one could say, humans. They are most probably as curious about another sentient life form as we are about them.
What is it that differentiates us and these sentient species? Why do we run into so many problems and mental issues, complicating our lives and failing in our relationships instead of being able to just live, like other animals? We are also animals after all…
I have a suspicion it has to do with speech and language.
Of course, I am not saying that the other intelligent animals don’t have language: indeed they do, and they can communicate and express themselves. But we seem to “measure” intelligence by the complexity, eloquence, verbosity and vocabulary size of our language. We consider dogs very intelligent because they (some Border Collies, in particular) can understand some two hundred plus different words.
Does that mean that pigs, for example, aren’t that intelligent, by comparison? Quite the opposite – they are more. What about apes? they squeak and vocalize a lot, surely, but do they hold lengthy conversations and give three hour-long lectures?
Elephants? They hardly say anything at all, yet nobody doubts they are extremely intelligent animals with self-awareness and the ability to pass on knowledge and culture, as are corvids, and mice, and many others. They too, seem to have a concept of future and the ability to make plans. They are aware. They are complicated and emotionally rich. Why, whales sing as good as many birds. Dolphins have a very complex language (that for all our intelligence we have failed to decipher).
Despite living with dogs for thousands of years, we have failed completely to figure out what they are “saying”, while they can read everything we say and most of what we don’t…they can read our expressions and body language to the point of being able to read our minds, much better than we can read each other…
So no, I don’t think anybody can actually propose that language is the end all and be all of sentience or that the size of the vocabulary is indicative or higher or lesser intelligence. Something else is afoot.
For all it’s richness and complexity, human language hasn’t actually helped us much to communicate with each other effectively, understand and be truly understood, as deeply and as successfully a dog can understand their human companions. It hasn’t improved our emotional intelligence. Speech hasn’t helped us to reason with others better and resolve our conflicts. It hasn’t replaced the deep, unspoken communication between mother and child, between friends, between lovers that are truly compatible, so much so that, we actually recognize, they don’t need words: they don’t need to explain with language. They know, and we know, and they know we know, and we know they know…And when they do speak, they do so to speak our mind, in perfect harmony, and to express exactly what we were thinking, and they always seem to “say the right thing”, and know us better than we know ourselves… but not because we explained ourselves to them with words.
So what is at work there?
Why haven’t other apes develop speech and language like we did?
Obviously, they didn’t need to: their ability to communicate is sufficient as it is in their species. They can express and share with their own code without our own style of verbal communication. Their intelligence, self-awareness, environmental awareness, mental and social skills are extremely well developed and excel ours in several ways.
In the Cognitive Trade-Off Hypothesis video we can see that their visual perception and short-term memory are far superior than ours. The theory proposes that language was a tradeoff: as we climbed down from the trees, becoming more exposed to predators and starting to hunt other animals ourselves, verbal communication became a skill that evolution favored; we needed language for sharing essential information that was vital for survival; fast visual recognition and perception was the price we paid for the increased speech and language skills and vocabulary.
If Matsuzawa’s Trade-off Hypothesis is correct, I think that in the bargain we lost, to a degree, precisely what we value in our non-human companions: their ability to know how we feel and almost read our thoughts by picking up the visual signals, our facial expressions, our eye movements, our body language. Our ability to express, explain, communicate, comprehend and be understood without spoken language was diminished by the trade-off. And, ironically, the need for cooperation and information-sharing that formed the basis of the trade-off, is leading us, in an age of a virtual constant bombardment by information, into a regression from meaningful communication, cooperation and reasoning. It’s as if as language has reached its limits yet failed to provide us with the very thing it was meant to do…
And if I’m right, it’s no wonder that we can write literature and poetry, lengthy essays and scientific papers, philosophical ponderings, moving, beautiful, extremely articulate and time-transcending works of literary art, drama, comedy, fantasy, fiction, history, lyrics, song expressed in words, with almost limitless delicacy, imagination and nuance put into letters, and yet…
When it comes to interpersonal relationships, our ability to understand each other in that deep, silent way, our ability to really feel what another person feels, and truly connect with another mind has greatly diminished – because we have learned to rely on words for communication and expression. We have invented and developed an ever-growing collection of vehicles to load our thoughts on and carry them to others, but this very fact, that we have articulated such a complex and extensive intermediary, comes at the cost of losing part of the meaning and part of the message.
Our ability for deep friendship and deep love – besides the parental and sibling relationships – is that much poorer, because our language has become that much richer.
In the wild, altruism, empathy, emotional intelligence, compassion, cooperation, meaningful communication, comprehension and synergistic behavior are essential for the survival of social species. In our egotistical modern world of capitalist antagonism and isolation, where we no longer live in closely-knit kinship groups, it’s easy for empathy to be bred out in humans, especially males: the traditional married couple, under the husband’s dominance, religious control and in capitalist environments, raises sons to male supremacist, patriarchal values, discouraging emotions as a weakness. Empathy is no longer selected as a valuable inherited trait nor is it taught, to half of the children at least.
Patriarchy and corporate values favor ruthless individualistic plutocracy, not caring or sharing. People are forced to live in monstrous mega-cities, instead of small communities. Our world is led by aggressive superpowers, while the happiest societies are small, human-sized, socially-minded countries. We are taught to value success, not happiness as the ultimate goal; we define success as power over others and amassing of private, not communal wealth. We are guided to value the same traits in our leaders and set those who exhibit pathological lack of empathy as role models. No wonder then we observe so many societal problems and mental health issues in a species that been mislead for millennia to pursue the existence of a solitary apex predator against its very nature.
The far-right quotes the so-called “western values” as its ideal. This is explained by social Darwinism, whereupon “survival of the fittest” is misinterpreted as “survival of the strong / wealthy vs the weak / poor” or the few over the many (authoritarianism). Society as a pyramid with the super-predators – the Elite – at the top, the 1% reigning, via exploitation, over the misery of the 99%. And yes I am fully aware that my opposition to their “appeal to nature” will seem to some as merely an appeal to nature. But the difference is we should always examine an argument on its own merits. And it’s quite obvious that a society is more efficient in its pursuit of happiness and the common good for all people, via a synergistic behavior (which also happens to be natural – and not by coincidence, but because such behavior is favored by evolution in social species) rather than by an antagonistic, authoritarian, parasitic model that serves the master class and exploits the majority of the population.
So the majority suffers the consequences. We agonize over the lack of understanding, even by our nearest and dearest. We are less sincere because words lie better than actions and spontaneous expressions. We marvel at how twins seem to be able to know without having to tell. It’s almost as if that beautiful, amazing thing that gave us civilization, language, the spoken and written word of letters, has also erected walls and towers of Babel between us, that other sentient animals, less vocal or verbose than ourselves, don’t seem to be impeded by.
They seem to be able to cross the boundaries of the self, and form friendships across species, without the need to use language, despite the vast differences between the various communication codes of animals. They seem to connect in a way that we would describe as magical, if we didn’t know better.
You will not hear a gorilla, a wolf or a tigress express themselves over a shimmering pond in a moonlit night with a Shakespearean soliloquy – because they don’t need to. Perhaps tigers don’t theorize or externalize as much as we do. Perhaps they even don’t have such a constant need for assurance, comforting, emotional support and validation because walls of isolation do not exist in their world to the degree we have invented them; perhaps because they haven’t lost empathy and emotional intelligence to the degree that we have.
And yet I suspect they can experience just as intensely and just as deeply as any human. Just listen to that nightingale song. Look into a Bonobo’s eyes. I know that my argument is not scientific… but I know many of you feel what I’m saying. You sense that these animals do perceive richly and meaningfully. And perhaps even more fundamentally, organically, directly, because they don’t need a vocabulary of hundreds of thousands of words, to be themselves. To feel. To know and express joy, sorrow, affection, anger, companionship, fear, tenderness, care, excitement, pleasure, curiosity, solitude. To live. A look, a touch, a change of expression, body language, are enough. Enough for beings that haven’t lost that ability, that is. To read and comprehend the unspoken. To articulate it without need for intricate vehicles and mediums in the shape of words and letters.
Do other animals understand each other, experience empathy, share joy, express themselves to a degree that crosses the boundaries of the self and joins two individuals together, knowing each other’s minds? I don’t know and I can’t prove it, convincingly, experimentally or scientifically. But I do know it’s very rare among ourselves and much more common between ourselves and them.
I never needed to explain myself to any of the dogs I shared my life with. They never asked me to, they never demanded that I was like them, in order for them to approve of me. They seemed to know me, deeply and intuitively, and understand me, thoroughly, and accept me, unequivocally; they seemed to appreciate and even celebrate my being, be joyous just being with me, even “love” me, if I could use that anthropomorphic term, that word of many meanings, subjective meanings, or perhaps no meaning at all. Much more than I could ever understand them, they did. They seemed to know sorrow and gladness, sickness and health, worry and care, who was kind and who was evil, whom to trust and whom to avoid. They were so much better at reading people, intentions, truths, honesty, deception.
Lioness with her adopted Oryx “cub”
They never said the right things to me. In fact, they never said a single word. And yet, the only time I ever felt loved, understood, celebrated, appreciated and at one with another human being (besides my own family), the only time I can ever say someone truly understood me, and loved me for who I was, and felt how I felt, and really knew me, was someone whom I communicated with on such a deep level that no words were truly necessary. Just looking into his eyes, a mere touch, the slightest gesture were enough, to experience what he was experiencing, and feel his joy, or his sorrow, and his thoughts, as clear and as intense and as familiar as if they were mine. In fact, there was no boundary, apart from the boundaries of our physical bodies; there was no partition where his self ended and where mine began – there was a free flow of communication instead. No border where he or I guarded and patrolled to keep the other one out. There was no sense of alienation or otherness. There was no intentional filtering or conscious desire to be separate entities – in fact, the very opposite was true.
And that was the most sublime feeling I ever felt, together with motherhood. The feeling of being able to cross that partition, and be at ease, at harmony, fully together, really connected with another mind. No words were needed. Language was no longer an obstacle, meanings no longer required a vehicle, there was no middleman between thoughts , emotions, expressing and communicating them, no translation into word was necessary, no division between signifier and signified.
And that is how I suspect animals communicate, too.
Aletheia in the Abyss*
La Vérité sortant du puits
Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1896
Once upon a time, Lie saw Truth and thought she looked fetching and gorgeous. “Hey girl”, he said: “you an’ me babe, how about it?” Aletheia (that was her real name but the barbarians couldn’t pronounce it) checked him out and thought he looked fine and fit; so she smiled.
“Wanna go for a swim, beautiful?”, asked Pseudos (that was his name, really), encouraged by her smile, and grinning back at her; “it’s such a beautiful day…” Veritas looked up to the sky and indeed, it was a glorious sunny day and warm, just perfect for a swim. Pseudos was clever, charming, rakish, with an edgy look about him. Bad boy kinda cute. Sort of like Colin Farrell in his twenties, dark and handsome and intense. Bright eyes, easy smile, quick-witted. He had the gift of the gab, of course. He could lie for Ireland, which is a lot, and then some.
They spent a lot of time together at the beach, looking for seashells; he made her laugh; they watched the sunset turn day into a mellow evening; the full moon glided up onto the hyacinth velvet, shedding a myriad silver mirrors upon the shimmering sea. They danced and they kissed and they took off their clothes, with their bare feet on the wet sand at the edge of the water – she had nothing to hide. She was even more delightful naked than she was dressed, he thought. She really should never wear clothes, if he could help it… Aletheia felt the water that was still warm and lovely, inviting in truth. So they began bathing and swimming, like two young ones in love.
And after that magic encounter Aletheia fell asleep in his arms, happy as can be. Only to wake up from the dream and find that her lover was gone, and her clothes too. Stark naked was she and rightly furious mad. She ran off, looking everywhere to find him, give him a right bollocking, and get her clothes back. She realized then, as she had time to think about it, who he was; truly, it was his nature to lie: he didn’t even know the reality about himself, truth be told…How could he? he was a lie, pure and simple; but his embrace was soothing, his kisses felt mighty sweet – that’s the attraction of comfortable lies…She hoped that maybe, just maybe, a little bit of truth off her managed to find its way into his heart – but she doubted it. She wasn’t sorry – to be naked suited her, it was liberating, perfect. But she was angry at him for stealing her garments and for getting away with it. Fury and passion made her even more stunning and powerful, but also very scary to humanfolk.
When the people looked at the Naked Truth they were shocked, horrified, threatened and enraged – how dare she appear like that before them? Had she no shame? They hated her boldness, because she was brave and real, revealing their cowardice and their false modesty. The clerics and the bishops, the hypocrites and the puritans, the lords and the sycophants, the courtiers and the serfs hurled abuse at her and tried to cover her up, drag her away, drown her in a well; they called her awful names, because she was a woman, bare, showing no respect for their high office and authority. A disobedient female, showing off her body, the embodiment of sin, so shamelessly…Terrified and triggered, they wanted her to vanish. Didn’t want to know. Be gone, they said, we don’t believe you. They closed ranks in denial.
Aletheia turned and run back to the water, disgusted with humanity; they did not deserve her; she hurled herself into the cool ocean and disappeared forever into its shadowy depths, hiding from the arrogant fools and the duplicitous braggarts: they were not worthy of her majestic true beauty. And ever since, Pseudos travels freely and swiftly among men, spreading his sweet-talking lies faster than the eye can blink; wearing the garments of Truth, he deceives and corrupts the innocent, satisfying the leaders and the common people alike, who have no interest and no courage to face the striking loveliness and honesty of the Naked Truth…
They much prefer the comfortable lies and falsehoods of Pseudos, shying away from knowledge and philosophy, science and facts; Truth is their enemy; they rather pay fortunes for the mesmerizing glitter of lies and the fool’s gold of false promises. Pseudos prospers and reigns supreme upon men, High Priest in their Churches, triumphant and venerated by rich and poor alike; famous and celebrated everywhere, he resides in Courts, palaces and parliaments, in books and in businesses, in trade and in classrooms, adored and worshiped by everyone.
*”Of truth we know nothing, for truth is in an abyss” (Democritus).
She Is Not Drowning; or, Truth Leaving the Well. Truth emerges from a well escaping the clerical hypocrisy and military force of the Dreyfus affair.
Édouard Debat-Ponsan, 1898
Regulate churches, not wombs
It’s Eros versus Death, always
Carl Sagan in his day spoke of “testosterone poisoning” – today’s we call it “toxic masculinity” and “it has left a generation of straight men stranded on an emotionally-stunted island, unable to forge intimate relationships with other men. It’s women who are paying the price”, sums up a recent article attempting to explain how men became emotional gold-diggers and how that, in turn, leaves women drained and frustrated.
Men still are “traditionally” raised to view emotions as a feminine trait and a weakness. Heterosexual guys are not supposed to be touchy-feely and sentimental with their buddies – that would be “gay”. So they transfer their need for emotional nurturing from their mothers to their girlfriends and wives, who are expected to become exclusive (and unpaid) male-life-support systems: surrogate mommies, lovers, sex workers, psychoanalysts, domestic doctors and man-flu treatment specialists, as well as gourmet cooks, expert gardeners, tireless housekeepers, house cleaners and decorators, incubators, educators, nannies, wet nurses and main carers of children and household pets, school-run drivers, shoppers, dog groomers, walkers and trainers, and a zillion other things; moms also have the demands of a job or two to keep up with: capitalism has worked out so great since the seventies that stagnating wages force ordinary folk to juggle two jobs just to struggle from paycheck to paycheck and protect the rich from paying their fair share of taxes.
No wonder heterosexual women with a partner and kids are prone to anxiety, stress, depression and sexual frustration – as, allegedly, many men suck in the sack: apparently, heterosexual men want their partners to orgasm not because they truly care for the woman’s satisfaction but because it boosts their own self-esteem and makes them feel more manly, (no prize for guessing that many overworked and emotionally drained women are simply faking it). Guys, we love you, and you like to hear us say that “size doesn’t matter” and “it’s not the size, it’s how you use it”. Well, learn how to use it, dammit! You can dismantle an engine and put it back together, you can write code to land spacecraft on Mars, yet so many of you still can’t find a clitoris even if we draw you a map and give you more instructions than the average guy needs for learning to drive a car…and despite this, some of you think they know our bodies, our health and our reproductive systems better than us – and what’s more, that they are entitled to dictate our choices…
Angry, Male, Christian and White.
Because of such male over-reliance and toxicity, the whole marital bliss charade turns into a vicious cycle: the more fed-up and unsatisfied women are, the less likely to orgasm and feed their men’s egos, the more insecure the uber-male man-child type gets and his deep-rooted fear and hatred of women intensifies; he develops an addiction to pornography which further feeds objectification, stereotyping and unrealistic expectations; his relationships predictably fail to fill the emotional void and satisfy him; he repeats the same scenario over and over, becoming more and more convinced after each failure that it’s the women’s fault. He turns to the internet to connect and vent, finding plenty of fellow haters among the “angry white men” of the men’s rights movement.
And yes, all men have a deep fear of, and are keen to blame women: for the majority (those that were raised by mothers), the boy’s childhood was entirely dependent on the mother-carer-and-provider-figure (the archetype he subsequently will tend to seek in every woman he gets attached to as an adult); this powerful comforting, soothing archetype is deeply imprinted in the boy’s psyche and grown men tend to expect and demand an almost maternal caring, self-sacrifice, singular devotion and unconditional love in their relationships with women; they feel entitled to this man-worship; if the woman does comply with such standards for exceptional adoration and saintly tolerance, she is a failure and this type of men feel utterly betrayed and let down in their expectations from us. “But-but-but…Mommy used to provide” (and no woman can ever measure up): the basis of misogyny.
After the traumatic realization (in psychoanalytic terms) that he does not own the mother (the Oedipus complex), when the heterosexual boy becomes sexualized, further anxiety is caused by his dependence on women for sexual release. Men who have not processed and overcome these issues tend to see women as controlling because they have the power to sexually arouse them, even to the point of embarrassment, resulting in a love-hate syndrome.
Adult women can’t possibly satisfy these extremely unrealistic expectations and of course, they also have needs and demands of their own, which many men feel inadequate to fulfill. Men who didn’t have mothers, on the other hand, may be prone to even more problematic if not pathological attitudes towards women. It’s no wonder toxic patriarchy seeks to claim ownership over women, vilifies them for “sin”, and is, in essence, a cynical plot to accuse, shame, devalue and dominate them. A strategy to deny women autonomy and independence, disempower them from the power they hold over heterosexual male sexual attraction – and for that reason, patriarchal religion had to anathematize and criminalize sex, desire, Eros. To invent sin and the asexual Virgin Mother. To portray women as disgusting, lecherous, treacherous, hysterical, satanic demons and witches. To subjugate Female sexuality and make the woman commercial property and her virginity a commodity, to be exclusively owned by the father and the husband, her body, her womb and her reproductive potential bartered, marketed, sold, transferred between overseers, consumers and users, always under the control of Church and State.
Women, especially mothers, tend to be forgiving, supportive and people-pleasing: patriarchal mothers, in particular, may spoil their sons feeding their syndromes and not helping them to heal, grow, mature psychologically and become independent. Often male sex offenders are men who are pathologically attached to their overbearing or mollycoddling mothers, or mothers whom they feel have “abandoned” them at a very young, formative age (through death, separation or adoption); often, conversely, such men may nurture a psychotic kind of misogyny which is extremely sadistic and motivated by revenge.
Susan Collins both complicit and a sucker – yes, she has proven that is a thing. One can be both criminally complicit and monumentally ignorant.
These women-hating phenomena, like Incels, are rife in the core of “Alt-right” (white nationalist and white supremacist, neo-Nazi, Christian fundamentalist, racist, homophobic) ideology, and quite prevalent among the less educated men, favoring typically “macho” male – sexist rituals, aggressive male-dominated professions and pursuits; the gun-worshiping / hunting & trophy hunting lobby and the online gaming community are awash with groups where rape is not just trivialized but also normalized and praised as a natural male superiority trait. And on many occasions, misogyny is espoused by some women who either have been duped to adopt such behaviors as empowering, liberating and advancing equality, or are cynically on the side of patriarchy, their complicity to be used in exchange for white privilege.
Trump is a very typical such example of an insecure, spoiled, emotionally stunted, thin-skinned, tantrum-throwing man-child brat: his white-privileged childhood did not provide him with self-respect and compassion, but armed him instead with contempt and false bravado; an illiterate proto-fascist, crude, vulgar, spiteful and arrogant, a conman who relishes mocking and belittling with impunity those who can’t fight back (exemplified by his TV persona as the “Boss” in The Apprentice and the numerous times he attempted to ridicule people, especially women, for their appearance, disabilities and presumed inferiority to him and his “billions and billions of dollars”).
He is overcompensating for his inadequacies with aggression, deception, fraud, fake qualifications, fake tan, phallic buildings, pursuit of power and wealth, shady dealing, trophy wives, judgemental objectification and “pussy-grabbing”, hyperbolic language (with emphasis on “winning” and “yooge”), exaggerating the size of his fortune, obsession with “greatness” and “ultimate” weaponry (nuclear bomb mushroom, space wars and “his” / America’s military prowess), all elements that serve the alt-right, NRA and evangelical agenda perfectly.
A text-book misogynist harboring a deep need to control, overpower and possess what money can buy, the Don is attracted to the man in the mirror, therefore to women who look like him and espouse the same anti-values: a narcissist and wannabe tyrant who admires not those who are better human beings, but those who he would love to be able to emulate – the strongman type dictators – and befriends pedophiles; entertaining sexual innuendos about his own daughter is partly auto-erotic narcissism and quite revealing, as pedophilia and rape are not about sex but power and control. The type of psychopath who fears and hates strong, independent women, he masquerades his lack of confidence by being a bully.
I have argued before – here – that feminism, the #MeToo movement, women in general, cannot hope to defeat misogyny on their own, despite our numbers because we have always been the target of the twin enemies that all humans regardless of gender, identity and political views are facing: Capitalism and Religion. No matter how many we are, without overthrowing the dual magisterium system, the dice are loaded against us. Rogue, neoliberal, unregulated corporate capitalism is a direct byproduct of toxic masculinity, while Religion is the tool and the strategy that allowed the male domination of human society, through monogamy, marriage and the concept of sin. Patriarchs cannot control women, women’s reproductive choices and children without these strategies. And they know it.
Sexual liberation, atheism / agnosticism, gender fluidity, homosexuality, same sex-unions and parenthood, relaxation of divorce laws and the increase in the number of couples who choose not to marry, non-conventional / non-religious intimate relationships / partnerships and family models (polyamory, open marriages), education, employment and equal pay of women, single motherhood, abortion rights, birth control, in other words, the emancipation and independence of women and social progress towards true equality at home and in the workplace for all citizens (which leads to reduced birth rates and therefore reduced numbers of unemployed, poorly educated, frustrated young people – primarily male – for military recruitment) is what threatens the establishment.
The agents of greed and patriarchy are triggered and marching, motivated by hatred and fear: against abortions, autonomy, choice, equality, freedom, independence. They feel their grip on humanity loosening with the liberal, “loose morals” and the demand for inclusive genders’ rights that threaten “western values”. The War on Women is the war of the Elites against the common human being and the working class, women and men. Abortion rights are human rights and denying that choice to women affects men’s lives, too.
Human society can never be truly free, without freedom from religion
The establishment’s goal is to put women and the other “inferior humans” back in their place. Overlords and their mouthpieces are emboldened and call for banning contraception next. And how else could they successfully poison the minds of the young and convince them sex is sinful and even masturbation is a crime, if not through the teachings of the church? That is the role of patriarchal religion – career politicians in modern, supposedly secular societies are not keen to openly be seen interfering with the individual’s faith or infringing on personal liberties – simply because that would have a political cost and could potentially backfire. The orders have to come from much higher – the “Heavenly Father” himself: lawmakers and court judges must be seen as merely obeying God’s will and constitutions interpreted accordingly. It’s all very neat and simple, therefore easy to sell and enforce, particularly in disadvantaged, conservative communities.
Church and the Corporation
Societies, therefore, are not really allowed to become truly secular – ironically, under the guise of religious “freedom” – the most deceptively named form of intellectual slavery and mass-poisoning of human conscience. The Elite have made sure Churches are given protection and unregulated reign to proselytize, indoctrinate, coerce, abuse, blackmail, brainwash, exploit the faithful and corrupt public life with reverence and impunity; the stoking of bigotry, jingoism, fear, frustration, prejudice and hatred in the public mind serves their agenda. By division and conquer, by religion infiltrating the classroom and hijacking education, church and state can control public opinion, effectively groom future voters (and consumers) since childhood and herd the adult electorate. It’s a two-way street and a self-serving strategy, as public representatives who relied on those strategies to get into office are guaranteed to maintain the electoral laws and voter suppression that secure the corrupt system in perpetuity.
That is why churches are tax-free and subsidized, why cults and preachers allowed to defraud, control and manipulate the sheeple: why the agents of patriarchy are free to employ hate speech and propaganda and the establishment media outlets promote intolerance, racism, homophobia, misogyny, persecution and dehumanization of women, of the LGBT+ community, minorities, refugees and everyone else – including objective journalism – that the status quo labels as “Enemy of the People”; that is why they are pro- genital mutilation (circumcision*), abstinence, “purity“-pledging (to daddy) and virginity, sanctity & personhood of the fetus, forced pregnancy and birth, child abuse by religious indoctrination that preserves male superiority, but against social justice and duty of care; churches deliver justification of rape, domestic abuse and incest, genocide, state terrorism, police brutality, preventable disease, social neglect and inequality as “God’s will”, criminalizing the victims and those who dare protest. (One wonders, if God allows rape to happen, as he allows innocent children to get cancer, why can’t it be argued that he also allows abortions, as millions of miscarriages and legal abortions take place daily around the globe? But of course, neither reason nor irony are effective arguments against irrational beliefs).
Patriarchal churches and especially white Christianity and the “Judeo-Christian” values are protected because they enable and provide excuses for a host of other crimes and injustices: by the hijacking or replacing secular education, pushing creationism, superstition and hostility towards science and fact-checking of information, by support of deregulation and biased media spreading misinformation, the public is blindfolded and sleepwalked to apathy towards totalitarianism, famine, poverty, energy wars, the Zionist state genocide and land-grabbing, destabilization and interventionism, child brides, child rape, child prostitution and arranged marriages, trafficking, slavery & sexual slavery cults, corruption, murder, violence, environmental catastrophe, blatant disregard of international treaties and law; above all, the invaluable services they offer to the establishment in return for their preferential status, these “Good Shepherds” have a unique license to interfere with democracy, legislation, justice, independent thought and the free will of the citizens, by dictating to the congregation whom they should vote for. It’s an ideal symbiotic and synergistic relationship of two parasitic bloodsuckers feeding off humanity and the rest of the natural world, which they are destroying for profit.
This is de facto Theocracy, serving and profiteering from Plutocracy, for the mutual gain of both.
Of course, if we look at statistics and facts, the numbers of unplanned pregnancies and abortions are much lower in the least religious, liberal and sexually liberated societies, where children are not raised with the concepts of sin, shame or guilt about sex: where good education and sex education in particular, contraception and abortion are freely available, where young people of all genders and identities are raised as equals and encouraged to discuss, at home and in the classroom, and adequately prepare themselves for safe sex .
But the religious far right is not really looking for ways to protect the unborn: Equality, sexual liberation, fairness, knowledge, facts, science, healthcare, a tax system that serves the common good, are their puppetmasters’ worst nightmare. So the in Christian Caliphate, the religious Taliban have crawled out from under their Dark Ages rocks to overturn Roe v. Wade, with the help of Chief Justice Kavanaugh, re-elect Trump and complete the wall that separates them from sanity.
Religious rape
The American public is expected to bleed financing and fighting wars around the world to protect the very “freedoms” and “democracy” they are increasingly denied at home; refugees and Muslims are blamed for threatening the “western values” while more than two hundred thousand little girls and boys have been legally raped and married against their will in the USA just in the last fifteen years, all in the name of “religious customs“. These customs and traditions, like male genital mutilation, have been allowed to become public policy, law and medical practice. It’s interesting to note here that male circumcision, one of the innumerable ways religions interfere with health and sexuality, may reduce penis sensitivity and sexual pleasure; if so, it could be argued that, among other consequences, it could be a motive in the reluctance of circumcised men to use condoms and instead rely on women for birth control. (Read more about the issue here).
So much for the sacred life of the fetus: the fetuses in the lab (fertilized eggs on Petri dishes, whose lives according to the Republicans “have begun at conception”) don’t count. The religious right does not want to protect the unborn – it’s the womb they want to control. They are not Pro-life but Anti-Women.
It should be obvious to all, regardless of their sex and gender, what rogue capitalism (Corporate Plutocracy) and patriarchy want. It should be clear that the War on Women is just one of the items on the agenda of Theocratic Tyranny that includes Perpetual War, War on the Environment, Human Rights, Equality, Justice, Freedoms, Peace, War on Life on Earth as we know it, in effect.
It should be evident that to deny regression back to the Dark Ages, it is Capitalism and Religion that must be regulated, the way they are regulated and not allowed to become rogue and destructive, in the happiest societies on Earth. Personal faith is a right. Religious indoctrination, proselytizing and dictating public policy is not.
It’s Eros versus Death, again
We are all in this struggle for sanity and survival: the Establishment threatens all of humanity and planetary life with Climate Apocalypse and Annihilation. The Orange Fürher and his Reichswehrminister, John Bolton, are doing their damnest to provoke Iran into War. Trump is motivated by fear about his reelection, Bolton by the fear he will never have another opportunity to satisfy his lust for Death (of others).
Of course, all this could have been avoided: a Democrat could have been POTUS if the DNC hadn’t royally screwed Sanders in 2016, if the progressives had turned up at the ballot boxes, if the Electoral College hadn’t overturned the popular vote. And there’s a lesson to be learned from that, but I doubt the American electorate has learned it. The lesson is simple – you can’t have equal rights without a progressive agenda: any attempt to fight back against this assault on women is bound to fail, if the underlying conspiracy of plutocrats and Christian zealots to strangulate progress and suffocate resistance is not addressed head-on. Without holding news outlets accountable when they broadcast bigotry and propaganda instead of facts, without taking Faith out of the classroom and Corporate money out of politics, everyone, women, men, and our children’s future are under threat.
In the meantime, and until the 2020 election in America, rational men and women have to once more take to the streets, lobby, protest, legally challenge and overturn these Handmaid’s Tale nightmares from becoming reality and spreading further. With Trump not impeached, he has a good chance to return to the White House for a second turn, as good a chance as the Brexiteers have in destroying the UK. These two evils combined, with the help of Bolsonaro and the other Dystopian forces on the rise, it would take a massive effort worldwide to avert the worse case scenarios. To put it bluntly, the Planet can’t afford a second term of Trump – or any other establishment puppet – driving the bus.
I would like to hope that with young radicals like Greta Thunberg and her young revolutionaries, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her Green New Deal and all the progressive movements around the globe, we might be able to keep our dreams alive long enough to buy some precious time for the future generations.
I have more faith that pigs might fly, however.
the first pig to officially fly
The Eros Principle 