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Friday 24 February 2017

All the Same


Part One

Some time ago, about four years I suppose, while working in the outdoor retail business, I decided to conduct an experiment. It was around the end of winter, a quiet period for trading, and on that day the shop was being run by just me and a female colleague. With respect, she was an ideal subject for my research, since her conscious attitudes were almost completely formed by full immersion in mainstream media.

Being located near the centre of a small city very much on the tourist trail, our shop was visited by a steady trickle of people from all around the world, a trickle that could turn into a flood during the summer months. On the day in question, a Chinese family had just been in to buy some snow boots, winter jackets, or whatever. After they had departed, I started to imitate the accent of a typical Chinese visitor.

My colleague, who looked rather pale at the best of times, rapidly turned a whiter shade of white. Once she managed to animate her jaw, which had dropped open wide as I began to speak, she let out a tirade of protest. "What are you doing? You can't speak like that! No! No! Stop it." Encouraged by her interesting reaction, I continued. She turned her back on me, clasped her hands tight over her ears, and began jumping up and down on the floor. "No! No! Don't! You can't do that. That's awful. I didn't know that you were like that, Ian!"

I eventually relented, permitting my natural all-too-English accent to return. From that day on, however, a certain power was conferred upon me over the poor girl. Anytime she was messing around, not getting on with what she was paid to do, I would cast her a knowing look. "No, Ian. Don't you dare," she would stutter timidly. Then she would scuttle off to do something vaguely useful.

For the second stage of my research, I approached the shop manager. Year after year, the shop manager came bottom of the league table for political correctness. Even he was initially taken aback, however, as a pristine example of rucksack-purchasing Chinese-style issued from my mouth. Anyhow, he found it so outrageously entertaining that he got me into the room when a meeting of local managers was taking place shortly afterwards. I felt like I was being dragged along like a pet, but that's what managers sometimes do. Just like Fido doing his trick for the amusement of the family, I bleated out my Chinese in front of the gaggle of managers. I could see great confusion spelt across some of their faces. I could see shock, horror: like my female colleague, they had a 'what is going on? You can't do that sort of thing' look about them. At the same time, there was real amusement. But I was left with the abiding impression of them thinking "Ian always seemed like a nice guy. I didn't know he was like that......"

So what is that that, which supposedly nice guy Ian was like? Behind it all, apparently, a bit twisted, warped, not quite healthy: racist.

The interesting thing is that, at no point did I suggest, imply, or express any malice, ill wishing, ill intent, any prejudice toward anybody at all. If anything, my humour was flavoured with sympathy. Having spent over a decade in London trying to teach English language to people from all around the world (a highly suitable job for somebody with racist feelings), I knew full well how difficult our language can be. This is especially so for Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Thai students. Anybody from the Far East who succeeds in a degree of fluency and accuracy in English gets my genuine respect. Their own languages are so different to English - in grammar, pronunciation, the perception of life even, embedded in their native tongue. To become proficient in English, it's almost as if they need to rewire their brains.

It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the English which comes out of their mouth can sometimes sound a bit weird, a bit amusing, to a native English speaker. There's nothing wrong with that at all. But certain influential elements within modern society have twisted the very notion of racism, to include not just prejudicial acts rooted in ignorance, but the very recognition of difference itself. All that I expressed during my research was a certain difference.  The effect that my experiment had on other people is what was truly shocking. I had simply presented an undeniable reality, nothing more, nothing less. This, however, is apparently no longer permissible. The reality staring us straight in the face is to be denied. "You are forbidden from recognising reality. There is something more important. More important than reality."

It was clear demonstration of the repression of truth, simple truth, which has become the hallmark of much so-called anti-racism nowadays. It is not about racism at all. It is about chopping off people's natural instincts and reactions, forbidding freedom of experience. It is every bit as repressive as the morals of the Victorian era ever were.

Part Two

Maybe we should return for a moment or two to Donald Trump. Dear old Donald. The main reason, I feel, that he is so viciously reviled by the 'liberal' global elite and its puppy dogs, the mainstream media, is his acknowledgment of difference. Not only difference, but that a difference does, or at least can, make a difference. Some of his posturing threatens to undo all the good work they have done over recent decades to reduce everybody to sameness; to being bland, placid cogs in an easily-managed machine. Take the travel ban, which has created the predictable outrage, venom, histrionics. Trump has merely followed the simple logic of the narrative that has been spun for us. Over the past fifteen years, we have been told, the major threat to our stability and safety has come from extreme and 'radicalised' people who profess the Muslim faith. At the same time, it is very bad, unacceptable even, to say anything critical about aforementioned religion. It is important to be 'inclusive', 'tolerant', to avoid putting obstacles in the way of the establishment of Heaven on Earth i.e. total sameness.

Trump has come along and seen the naked emperor. "Hang on a minute. We're saying that international threats originate especially in these countries. Yet we're allowing folk from these places to roam around the globe pretty freely. Even my own basic understanding of logic knows there's something weird here."

An awful lot of people, it seems to me, have been freaked out by the arrival of huge numbers of people into Europe from Syria, Iraq, northern Africa, you name it, in very recent times. Just walking in. "Come on in. You're all welcome. No passport? No identity? No worries." Even the UN has confirmed that the vast majority of those people were not bona fide refugees, but economic migrants, especially youngish males. To large portions of the western populace, the credibility meter was put under great strain. Then it just exploded. Even to Norman Normal, this was all too weird, it didn't add up. It was a step too far. Maybe it's all part of an evil plan by the global elite to take more control in a 'divide and conquer' manner, by creating further instability in western nations. Maybe it was a miscalculation on their part; maybe they overstepped the mark. I don't know.

Part Three

There is a higher dimensional aspect to all this. For want of a better term, let's talk 'spiritual growth'. Our growth is rooted in, based upon, our own uniqueness as individuals on this planet. It cannot be any other way. Only a unique and solitary individual can decide to grow. I am me, you are you. We are not all the same. We have feelings, wishes, likes, dislikes, thoughts, aspirations, pasts and presents. Some of this we may have in common with other people; but it all flows out of our individuality, our uniqueness.

To 'grow' depends on my abilities to discern, to distinguish, to discriminate (using the word in its original meaning). I need to be able to see difference, and to be able to say 'these things are different, but it makes no difference' (the way people speak English), and 'these things are different, and that really makes a difference' (this person wants to be friends with me, while this one wants to blow me up).

This natural, healthy experience of difference is thwarted, repressed, by modern political correctness as it is applied to the reality of difference of peoples, races. Instead of being seen as a marvellous resource, variety is viewed with suspicion, paranoia even. It is not to be spoken or thought, the hope being that it will eventually disappear from our conscious perception completely. Thus will Paradise on Earth be established.

On a deeper level, the denial of difference is a war against 'growth' in itself, and all the great that human beings can achieve in this life. The result is a completely sterile environment, rid of vitality, 'edge'. Excellence, which requires a sense of difference, specialness even, in order to emerge, is absent, replaced by mediocrity, the lowest common denominator, the fear of offending anybody. God, the Divine, the All, the Dharmakaya, take your pick, may be One; but it expresses in distinctions, meaningful distinctions. Gender, race, preferences, abilities.There is a body of thought which suggests that the One actually requires duality in order to be aware of Itself. Heaven help us, surely not. But hey, we're getting ahead of ourselves here.

In the meantime, my wife has been laughing at my efforts to speak in Spanish -again. I'm off to complain to the Equalities Commission or someone.

Image: Amitabha, Buddha of Discriminating Wisdom

Sunday 12 February 2017

The Mask of Feminism



Part One   

It's a way of looking at things, anyway. Surely feminism is a good thing? A great thing, even? It has liberated untold numbers of women from slavery to the home, the kitchen, to husbands. Surely it is good that they can stand on an equal footing, be free to carve out their own lives. Unfortunately, I don't think it's actually quite like that.

Feminism has been, in the main, a recruitment drive for Empire, the status quo, the way things have been set up to be; for 'the Establishment', if we talk in slightly outmoded terms. Feminism has invited women, not to be free, independent, authentic, individual, but to become fully active members of the System. This is how it has panned out for the vast majority, at least.

The campaign has been remarkably successful. Now women can do everything that Empire approves, but which were once solely the province of men. They can have careers, make plenty of money, compete in the workplace, become bureaucrats and politicians, go out on a Friday night with their female buddies and vomit all over the High Street at 2 in the morning. It's a grand life.

I see very little liberation in the lives of many women I see. Some - especially the middle-aged ones - really are like slaves, a role they seem to perform happily in a 'this is the way to live' kind of way. Safe in the deception that they are independent, go-ahead modern females. The talk is of 'equality'; but equality in what? It is the equality to participate in a way of going about things which leaves a whole lot to be desired. Nothing new, nothing life-enhancing, nothing interesting in it at all.

This is the key. Hypothetically, I suppose, it could have been different. But nobody, man nor woman, asked females about the possibility of actually changing the way that things happen. The programme, the agenda, is fixed; the values, the aims, the aspirations remain unaltered. Women were invited to sign up to a predetermined blueprint, and they have (in the main) fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.

Some feminist academics, in particular, look at the ills of society and point the finger: patriarchy. Patriarchy. Patriarchy is the cause of the evils of this world. From what I can make out, their agressively marketed 'solution' is almost the same, just dressed up in ever-so slightly different clothes. More rules, more regulations, more don'ts, in order to create a utopian world where all distinctions between men and women have been effectively eradicated, so that 'sexism' no longer exists because it is no longer possible. 'Patriarchy' as defined by such academics is replaced by state, corporate, academic, maternal/paternalism. The System rules OK, the System rules completely. This is the genderless nightmare, far beyond anything that Orwell could come up with.

Rarely has there been a culture whose mainstream has so excluded the feminine. The sacred feminine, the divine feminine, if I may so write without sounding too cliched. Take the political thread. Thatcher, Hillary, Merkel, Saint Teresa of Westminster, the Sturgeon, Christine Lagarde, the IMF woman. A more macho bunch of bruisers it is difficult to imagine. Should we be searching for the results of a century of 'equal rights for women' - this is it.

Part Two

The skeleton of what has become 'Part One' above was lying around in my in-tray for quite a while (yes, by the way, real in-tray, and hand-written on real, touchie-feelie A4 white paper). I don't aim to devote overmuch space on Pale Green Vortex to politics, parapolitics, underlying agendas and manipulations etc: there's an endless pit of that nonsense to uncover should one so wish, and there's a point beyond which it's not very good for the soul. Nevertheless, without those basic recognitions and understandings, we're a bit lost. It's like trying to climb a mountain by using only one leg.

It was during the run-up to the victory of the Trump that I considered doing something with this discarded draft after all. As a final desperate move to stop the Trump juggernaut, the sexist card was played. As if by magic, all manner of claim and accusation emerged about Donald Trump speaking and behaving in not very nice ways with various women. In the emerging world, until recently at least, the sexist card, along with the racist card, has indeed been the trump card. There is nothing more criminal than being branded a sexist or a racist. I used to tell a story to my wife about the Latin American culture from which she hails. It doesn't matter if you've killed a few people in the morning; so long as you turn up for lunch wearing a clean shirt and with a straight tie, that's all that matters. There is an equivalent in our western cultures, especially those based in protestantism. It doesn't matter what you did this morning - how many lies you told, how many people you deceived, how  many innocents you conned - so long as you didn't say anything racist or sexist.

What interested me was how the 'Trump-is-an-unelectable-sexist' ploy failed. Those blinded by political correctness, those who believe their own publicity, may have found this puzzling. Disturbing, even. The thing about Trump is not so much the words that actually come out of his mouth; like many others, I shall cringe at some of his policy decisions. It's the subtexts, the unconscious messages, that do the business. In this case, the message went something like this: I am man, and that seems to mean something important, though I don't know what. You are woman, and this is important too. I am who I am; you are who you are. We are different. There are differences. This is OK. This is important.

The message comes through the distorted filters of Trump's power complexes, and arrives on the dinner plate in unedifying form. Yet, nevertheless, there it is. After decades of wave upon wave of tedious programming that we are all the same and should be treated as being the same (not, mark you, as not better or worse - just not different), along comes somebody who doesn't play that game. For this, the people of the U.S.A. gave mighty unconscious thanks.

Then there is the interesting and highly-publicised case in England of Nicola Thorp. She was sent home from her work for refusing to wear the high heels that the company stipulated she should wear. Result: outrage, righteous indignation, equality for women at work, blah blah blah. Now I, for one, would never wish for anybody to have to go through unnecessary pain or discomfort while at work for the sake of looking a bit sexy. It's a poor deal for women who have spent years with feet contorted by footwear at work, only to then be subject to painful bunions in later life as a result. At the same time, if I had gone to the trouble of starting my own business, I wouldn't want some other busybody telling me what my employees can and cannot wear at work. If I wish to stipulate that anyone working for me should wear baggy clown's trousers, purple bow tie, droopy false moustache, and an orange sombrero, that should be my business, and mine alone. Should I fail to get any decent recruits, then I may have to reconsider the situation.

So it should be. Most people setting up their own business nowadays are not actually setting up their own business at all. Their personal autonomy is negligible. They are setting up an arm of the State, of Big Brother's empire. The plethora of rules and regs makes their enterprise nothing more than an expression of a programme, an agenda, a predetermined system of values and ideology. This is how things work; conform or else is the motto. The details of that conformity are, in a sense, irrelevant. It's the presumption of superiority by those who insist that there are no superiors, that we are all 'equal' and the same, that really sucks. Mercifully, the ruse has been seen through, by some at least. The mask of feminism has been seen for what it is: a cover-up job for something else entirely.

Image: What lies behind the mask? Sometimes good, sometimes bad.
             Fool, Dark Fairytale Tarot