Double vision isn't just what happens to you when you get hit hard over the head. It is also the basic function that facilites shamanistic knowledge. We have two eyes, and so it is easier for us to judge distance than if we had only one. Each eye passes information to the brain, which is cross-referenced, in order to facilitate depth perception.
One may be completely at ease with one's social and public identity -- as arbitrary these kinds of identities are. In that case, one will see no significant discrepancy between the characteristics that are routinely attributed and expected by those whose thinking processes are quite schematic, and those characteristics that are actually part of one's life.
If that isn't the case, however, and it turns out that there are discrepancies between the two systems of thought -- yours and those who think according to socially conditioned mores -- then you will be one who, in shamanistic terms, experiences "double vision"
The good news is that having two sources of data concerning such an important thing as one's very identity gives you a way to put your finger on society's pulse, to take its temperature and to work out whether it is politically sick or thriving.
A thriving society is one that is open to change and sensitive to new information. However, for a long time I was not permitted even to say I was Zimbabwean, as this was deemed by the majority to be too threatening. My double vision gave me the co-ordinates of Trouble, and I learned a great deal more about Australian society than they would have liked me to know.
A shaman does not choose her vocation.
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Right-wingers, here is the way to assure that interesting conversation around you gradually dwindles until it finally ceases to exist (at least to the extent that it involves YOU!)
When you don't like somebody's point of view, or disagree with it in some way, start trumpeting that you simply cannot understand what they are getting at, that they are not making any more intelligible sense than an ape mooning a rainbow, and that Reality is standing by your side, assuring you of all sorts of discrepancies in what the other person has to say.
Utter, with absolute complacency: "I do not get it."
If the person who is talking to you happens to be female, you can delineate her actual experiences for her, in a way that demonstrates your eagle's eye view on Reality itself.
You know weren't actually there when she experienced whatever it is she did, but you can act as if you were in fact there, step by step, throughout her life, as she underwent every single experience. Your view of reality trumps hers, because her experiences deviate too far from The Script (the one you read so long ago, that says how Reality itself deigns to act).
So tell her that you do not get it. And, for extra measure, tell her what it was she actually experienced.
And, very soon ... so very soon ... she will have nothing at all to say to you.
Which is to say, you will have WON!0Add a comment
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It is very easy to fall prey to Zombie Nietzscheanism, because the fundamental requirement for understanding Nietzsche is that the upper part of the Mind and the lower part of the Mind are already on good speaking terms. This is simply not the case for most people, as social conditioning and the pressure of Superego causes us to repress very much awareness of what Nietzsche terms "the instincts".
Let me make this even clearer by putting it into shamanistic terms. Shamanistic practice facilitates awareness of "the instincts" in Nietzsche's sense. These instincts are not at all who one is in the public and socially definable sense. These can be understood as the individual's underlying character structure as determined by the nature of the appetite for violence, sexuality, etc., but they are also the reflexes that have been acquired -- like the ability to move effectively in martial arts, without having to think about it. As unconscious mechanisms, they are necessarily hidden from the view of society, nearly all of the time.
It is through shamanistic practice that one can open up a dialogue between one's conscious self and the part of the mind that governs reflexive behaviour. This is the key feature of what I have termed "shamanistic doubling". It involve, necessarily, a "doubling" of the sense of self, because the higher parts and lower parts of the mind and function with very different orientations towards the world, and so can never truly become one in a practical sense. The best that can be done is to open up a dialogue between them. But it is this very experiential knowledge of the doubling structure of the mind that enables one to draw co-ordinates on reality, in such a way as to recognise the merit or lack thereof in various actions. For, one measures these on a ladder of value only in shamanistic terms. To attempt to establish a Nietzschean hierarchy of values on the basis of one's cultural or social conditioning is purely nonsensical, and it is an attempt that is doomed to fail. Who, after all, cares how dogmatic your position is, or how resolute, if you are merely stuck in the mud, and project an unpleasing disposition?
Rather, a perfect action is an action in which the "instincts" have become one with the higher mind. A thoroughly imperfect action is where the instincts and the higher mind are at odds. All other actions are on a scale in between these two standards, depending on the degree of coordination that has been facilitated between the higher and the lower minds.
This principle brings me to the issue of Zombie Nietzscheanism, as an example of contradistinction to the basic shamanistic position. A Zombie Nietzschean is one who reads Nietzsche's works in order to discover a hidden recipe for success. "Ah!" he mutters to himself, "Nietzsche confesses to a certain misogyny. It's only right, therefore, that I should also adopt a misogynistic attitude, if I aim to be powerful, like him!"
The abject failure of such a person to even begin to do the essential groundwork of discovering the nature and meaning of his own (rather than Nietzsche's) instincts is very evident. Why should there be any advantage in adopting somebody's else's self-knowledge and assuming their instincts to be the same as one's own? If this is "will to power", it's very misdirected, and a recipe for falling flat upon one's face.
I speak of a huge failure of instinct, measured in shamanistic terms.0Add a comment
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The warrior always acts in the proper mood, and this he learns to create. Whereas an ordinary person's moods seem to be related directly to the people and events around him, the warrior is taught to arrive at and maintain a specific mood independent of people and events.
Two attitudes are required for the proper mood, and they are to be held simultaneously. The first is control over himself and the second is abandon. He must have total command of himself and at the same time be free to let himself go without caring about the outcome.
p 395, Beyond Health and Normality
...which is basically another way of saying that the shaman learns to "master" contingency, so that it becomes the shaman's special realm of domination.0Add a comment
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According to Evolutionary Psychology, women like men who are slimy opportunists. They just don't know they like them, because they cannot reflect personally on anything at all. It has to do with the way their unconscious minds work. Luckily, these unconscious minds are easy to figure out by countless males, especially those whose intellects have been developed to that point of being just a slight cut above the rest of the herd.
But women cannot know how or why they actually make decisions. That's their limitation. Rather, they only know how to act blindly, and be tricked. It's in their natures!
But actually, that is all very fine, because women, don't you know, actually need to be tricked in order for evolution to proceed properly. Evolution rewards those with the slight advantage of being tricky and grants them fortunes over and above those of a less Machiavellian ilk. Mating privileges go unto those with powers of manipulation, for it is unto them that is granted the right to spread their seed.0Add a comment
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According to the shaman, don Juan, the fundamental principle of shamanism is 'not doing'. This makes it very similar, in my mind to Zen. One overcomes the common urge to 'do' and instead simply observes reality for what it is. Even this practice makes one aware of the kinds of information that one tends to habitually screen out. Zen gives one an understanding of how the mind works -- ie, it is like a stomach. It routinely excludes certain types of information, and leaps forth more expectantly to attach itself to other types of data.
But 'not doing' seems to take this Zen principle further, for one cannot simply 'not do' things, but must select one's moments for 'not doing', precisely so as to drive a wedge between the reality that is and its general trajectory. One thus opens a space within the deterministic properties of reality, to facilitate an altogether different kind of reality.
'Not doing' is a practice that requires prior shamanistic conditioning. It's about on the same level of avoiding responding to a feint in boxing: You learn how not to react, and in doing so, you win an advantage -- or at least avoid getting hit for the time being. But your 'not doing' must be chosen in exactly the right moment. Choose the wrong time not to do, and you could end up in an even worse condition than you started with.
Practically, 'not doing' involves inviting a better solution to arrive. One best exercises one's discrimination, in this invitation to the universe to provide a better answer than those that would make one into another effect in a chain of events. There is an internal logic to not doing, and when to practice it: One doesn't 'not do' a counterpunch, for instance, if the moment is right. But by 'not doing' in the times when it is right to 'not do', one can effectively undo potential whole chains of negative reactions, so that neutrality appears where hostility had been.
Despite the merely apparent softness of this approach, 'not doing' as a principle does not turn a shaman into pacifist. One creates the neutral space: a garden for creativity. It's a prize that one has won, a spoil of war. A shaman always is at war. According to don Juan, a shaman is a warrior.0Add a comment
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Such people exist whose whole psychological structure is so watertight -- so unshamanistic, so incapable of letting anything inside that isn't already definitely them -- that they are born propagandists for whatever cause they happen to latch onto. These type of people can discuss anything for hours, and at the end, they will still only hold the views that they were holding at the beginning. They will have given the appearance of having listened, even of having engaged, but later it is as if nothing new had been said. The simple appearance of intelligent conversation has been belied by evidence that anything said that did not fit the propagadists' bill has been entirely and quickly forgotten.
These are the people who are governed by one single ruling idea. Suppose,for now, this is the idea of their own moral superiority. In this case, any information they receive will be subconsciously screened to see if it will feed the impression that such people wish to nurture, concerning their own superiority. If the information does not yield such possibilities, it will be discarded, as if it had never been spoken. If it seems like it might offer such, then the information is taken up and distorted in order to become part of a story that enhances the listener's self-impression.
A ruthless and a desperate quality possesses those who are forced to adopt such an approach. No matter how much they seem to cover it up with an attitude of calmness and concern, underneath the surface an entirely different process is in operation. It's a cultivated attitude that seeks to take whatever it needs from the other, without concern as to what the other would offer willingly, or would rather choose to withold from the determined receiver. Rather, what the hearers hear is what they desire to hear, which is entirely at odds with what the speaker intends to be spoken. Such an attitude towards the other rapes and pillages the other's mind for all that it can get. It takes that which has not been given. This attitudinal pillaging distorts, as it corrupts, even the very conditions for any clear and honest communication in the future -- it undermines the interpersonal foundation of genuine trust.
They must persist in their ways, perhaps, for what would not be lost by actually letting part of the outside world in?0Add a comment
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I have it on good report that Nietzsche's position on feminism ought to be a very thorny issue for me., just as a bible-believing Christian should feel hurt to the quick to discover that her Creator doesn't really care about her very much at all. Despite various views presented to me concerning how I am meant to react in order to show authenticity, I still tend to take a higher view of things.
The Neechy is not the revealed word of God -- after all. And I, not being a believer of any sort, don't hold that demonstrating masochism is a basis for anything. Here is a quote from somebody who has taken the time to sum up very well Nietzsche's view on gender:
Nietzsche develops this flexible antagonism between men and women. He generally affiliates the former with the life-defying will to truth exemplified in dogmatic, metaphysical science while pairing the latter with life-affirming qualities [detailed above, as follows: The most powerful magic of life is the castrating woman and her bashful illusions, her “veil of beautiful possibilities.”]. Consider how Nietzsche remarks that woman’s nature is more natural than man’s (and the gay science gives us an idea of a re-naturalized mentality) and as the feminist movement encourages woman to become more like a man, woman denies her natural/life-affirming spirit.
(SEE: http://triceratops.brynmawr.edu/dspace/bitstream/10066/700/1/2004BriggsA.pdf )
The writing above already reads Nietzsche's writings in a way that is more sympathetic to women than most of his followers tend to be. Nonetheless the patriarchal "double bind" is represented here, albeit fairly sympathetically. What is represented is the substance of a certain patriarchal logic.
To try to become something is to make oneself less than nothing, under the patriarchal system: I am to be too enmeshed in my own illusions in order to see that I am being condemned to my own illusions. In terms of the earlier illustration of the Christian ideological view -- that women ought to be made more fearful and modest by self-hate engendered by reading of what the ultimate patriarch thinks of them, many contemporary followers of Nietzsche were already raising the bar too high. One would really have to be in the community of fundamentalist Christians to expect that slightly greater degree of honour and realism that Nietzsche does not extend to us, in assessing the capacities of women.
So, I reflect on the cost of this illusion that Nietzsche wishes to maintain, and how hystericism might seem quite amusing and particularly life-enhancing from a certain kind of male perspective, but it is not half the fun that it apparently appears to be. I reflect, even more, on the episode last night of Two and a Half Men, and its construction of feminism as being made up of a kind of nest of vipers -- a conglomeration, as it were, of castrated women. (You could tell they were castrated, because they had an eerie, voiceless way about them of expressing terror and vengeance, in a blind, deterministic way.) This seems to be the kind of feminism Neechy would condemn -- the kind made up of women who have always been castrated!
For the first time I have seen, in cartoon, the way in which feminism might be understood by certain men: It is the alliance of castrated women. Far better, I perceived, that they, being castrated, did not find any alliance with others in the same boat. They will only drag those who are relatively healthy -- men -- down into their excruciating vipers' nest. It would be better for them to be hysterical mistresses of illusion, influencing men to feel more pleasure in the world, even as their syren songs are instigative of male doom. A sublimated form of Nietzschean kindness might exist in the hidden injunction that women may improve their status of health and get some substance by latching onto a more healthy entity -- that is, a male!
But I -- I come to feminism from another direction. I approach it as one who is not castrated. I look upon these solutions to the condition of women, these Christian and Nietzschean solutions, as being crazy, mockable, hilarious in their reduction of human relations to such a low scope. Haven't they heard? God is dead!
... and furthermore, a healthy man cannot be happy with a hysteric, any more than an unhealthy woman can be happy with herself. And, more funny ... ever more laughable still!! Patriarchy must necessarily sleep in its own rotten bed that it has made out of gender relations. It has to dig itself in, to accept as normal, all of its delusions.
Either that -- Or feminism.0Add a comment
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