(Obscure christian issue follows.)
My problem with a lot of complementarian / 'equal but different' language is that it ends up being what Hegel would deride as 'one-sided': complementarian means there's men, and then women complement them. It's bush-league. And then it gets backed up by a lot of generalisations about what men and women on average are like, which helps no one, because even granting they are true, who wants to be in a community where averages are enforced*? There should rather be a mutually interpreting dialectic of male and female to give the whole, but since even I felt my eyes roll back in my head at the word dialectic, we may never get there. What follows is a speculative attempt. It is probably just me talking words, just a whole stream of words, right out of my mouth**. But on the off-chance that its true, I have got up at 4 o'clock in the morning to jot it down, because I want to see some progress.
I heard a wedding sermon once, where the text of the creation of Eve in Genesis was preached. The speaker drew out the exact Hebrew translated 'counter-part' or 'one suitable for'. Hebrew did not use a large vocabulary and little words would often be joined to express a more jointed concept. The original word is literally 'like-opposite'. Now you can't have a single like-opposite - the man is like-opposite the woman, the woman is like-opposite the man. Last bit of Bible to draw out, is the summary statement 'In the beginning God created Man, male and female he created them. The word 'man' here is made the inclusive language, defining both male and female.
As I've previously noted (almost exactly a year ago), there is something funny going on in research on men and women - some people find substantial differences, other people minimise them. It often seems that women will stress Like-ness when male researchers stress Opposite-ness. As I noted a year ago, the blog wife responded to this by suggesting that probably a proper study would show no difference on how difference-conscious men and women are.
So I'm suggesting we take individual humans as like-opposites, defined by the other***, and find expressed in human male-female-ness a larger like-oppositeness, in which women (the image and glory of man****) express Like, and men (a bunch of jerks*****) express Opposite. I think this faculty of being Opposite is tied to the relationship of men to violence, to force. ('Your desire will be for your husband but he will dominate you'). The Opposite says No, sets boundaries, governs, and is Love expressed. The Like is life and union and community, Love accomplished. While every individual human being is a complete like-opposite, when in community these emphases allow the whole to express ourselves more truly.
Now that I've written it, it still seems essentialist stereotyping, but I think keeping the stereotypes close to violence and community will limit the romancing of this.
The next thing I would like to do is get away from the legalism that causes large groups of evangelical men to go huddle together, fondling their masculinity, so that they feel better about the legalism of walking out if a woman speaking from the front of the congregation strays into 'teaching'. I think the like-opposite articulation explains the stereotypes we live with. Being challenged (nagged) by your partner is an affront because you thought you had like, but got opposite. Similarly, a woman speaking to me (maybe not to all men, but certainly to me) sets up some hackles so that I have to consciously force myself not to retreat into Opposite-ing, just going 'Nuh-uh' resentfully in my pew.
* I/ESTJs.
**Peep Show reference.
*** Hegel says your Essence is the Other.
**** Fragment of actual bible verse
*****More just the vibe.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Monday, February 27, 2012
Future Movies
This weekend has been an SF film extravaganza (by my standards) in the Fool household.
We re-watched Moon - an impeccable contained thriller that makes explicit the hidden agenda that motivates cloning - to have a person be equipment. Brilliant film from front to back - don't miss it.
We watched 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' - probably the best Planet of the Apes, a rich homage to the others, but a strong film in its own right. In a world where you can hardly get a film made with a black male lead, the screenwriters sold a concept where the central character is a CGI chimpanzee.
Finally, District 9. Somehow, like Moon, it just flows so effortlessly that it is a first rate film, full of surprises.
When will we see an SF best picture Oscar, I wonder, instead of nostalgic pap?
We re-watched Moon - an impeccable contained thriller that makes explicit the hidden agenda that motivates cloning - to have a person be equipment. Brilliant film from front to back - don't miss it.
We watched 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' - probably the best Planet of the Apes, a rich homage to the others, but a strong film in its own right. In a world where you can hardly get a film made with a black male lead, the screenwriters sold a concept where the central character is a CGI chimpanzee.
Finally, District 9. Somehow, like Moon, it just flows so effortlessly that it is a first rate film, full of surprises.
When will we see an SF best picture Oscar, I wonder, instead of nostalgic pap?
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Coda on the Nord G2 Engine
Interesting result on the G2 engine - listed on ebay.comau at $599, with a buy-it-now at $999, the auction was won at $1167. How does this happen?
I guess two or more people wanted it very badly, but worried they would overpay buying it now, and also worried they might not win it without bids well over that price. Effectively, they priced the saving if the auction settled below $999 against their unhappiness missing out, and both bid over $1150. Even the winner can't be happy at wasting $170.
The disappointed runner-up might find relief at musicswopshop.com.au, where an identical item is $1100. Or in the UK, where gumtree.co.uk lists two identical items for £650. Or using the free mono software version from Nord.
I guess two or more people wanted it very badly, but worried they would overpay buying it now, and also worried they might not win it without bids well over that price. Effectively, they priced the saving if the auction settled below $999 against their unhappiness missing out, and both bid over $1150. Even the winner can't be happy at wasting $170.
The disappointed runner-up might find relief at musicswopshop.com.au, where an identical item is $1100. Or in the UK, where gumtree.co.uk lists two identical items for £650. Or using the free mono software version from Nord.
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Monday, February 20, 2012
Real, Symbolic, Imaginary
Further to my terrible Lumpish 'theory' of mind, 'Resolution, or This is That', I just realised that I could lump Lacan's Real, Symbolic and Imaginary into this diagram - the Imaginary being the play space between the Real (handled in Perception and Recognition), and the Symbolic (where reflecting abstraction analyses, orders and relates handles), presents unrecognized monsters and gives new judgements or resolutions to the recognizer. The Imaginary is the space of rising unrecognized monster and the descending symbol-laden image (metaphor), or judgement of resolution.
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Thursday, February 16, 2012
Curious coincidence
On Jan 7, a clavia nord modular keyboard and a rack unit went up on melbourne.gumtree. I'm inclined to think they may actually be the same unit accidentally listed twice, but they do seem quite different.
Today a g2 factory went on melbourne music swop shop $1100, and the same day one in brisbane listed at $600 with a buy it now of $999.
The timing is so tight, for items of which there are maybe a few hundred in Australia that I am wondering what the hidden cause is. Collusion in a secret owners club? Terminal frustration with the pc / mac -based support programs? Software upgrade to Lion ceases support? Acquisition of a software modular synth that's easier and better? All of the above?
I think if you pay attention to anything, you find this sort of mystery.
Today a g2 factory went on melbourne music swop shop $1100, and the same day one in brisbane listed at $600 with a buy it now of $999.
The timing is so tight, for items of which there are maybe a few hundred in Australia that I am wondering what the hidden cause is. Collusion in a secret owners club? Terminal frustration with the pc / mac -based support programs? Software upgrade to Lion ceases support? Acquisition of a software modular synth that's easier and better? All of the above?
I think if you pay attention to anything, you find this sort of mystery.
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Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Conjunction
Slate (slate.com) has two headlines side by side that make a good pair:
Michael Bay to Continue Assaulting Your Senses with Another Transformers Film.
Germans select 'Shitstorm' as Anglicism of the year.
I guess the Germans will be ready.
Michael Bay to Continue Assaulting Your Senses with Another Transformers Film.
Germans select 'Shitstorm' as Anglicism of the year.
I guess the Germans will be ready.
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Monday, February 13, 2012
Gratuitous Gene Wolfe
From 'Citadel of the Autarch', p283. Severian has attained the Autarchy, and is exploring the accumulated treasure of the Autarch's rooms in Nessus.
... the most interesting of which was a mandragora in spirits.
The curcurbit in which it floated was about seven spans in height and half as wide; the homoncule itself no more than two spans tall. When I tapped the glass it turned eyes like clouded beads toward me, eyes blinder far in appearance than Master Palaemon's. I heard no sound when its lips twitched, yet I knew at once what words they shaped - and in some inexorable sense I felt the pale fluid in which the mandragora was immersed had become my own blood-tinged urine.
'Why have you called me Autarch, from the contemplation of your world?'
I asked 'Is it truly mine? I know now that there are seven continents, and none but a part of this are obedient to the hallowed phrases.'
'You are the heir' the wizened thing said and turned, I could not tell if by accident or design, until it no longer faced me.
I tapped the curcurbit again. 'And who are you?'
'A being without parents, whose life is passed immersed in blood.'
'Why such have I been! We should be friends then, you and I, as two of similar backgrounds usually are.'
'You jest.'
'Not at all. I feel a real sympathy for you, and I think we are more alike than you believe.'
The tiny figure turned again until its little face looked up into my own. 'I wish that I might credit you, Autarch.'
'I mean it. No one has ever accused me of being an honest man, and I've told lies enough when I thought they would serve my turn, but I'm quite sincere. If I can do anything for you, tell me what it is.'
'Break the glass.'
I hesitated. 'Won't you die?'
'I have never lived. I will cease thinking. Break the glass.'
'You do live.'
'I neither grow, nor move, nor respond to any stimulus save thought, which is counted no response. I am incapable of propagating my kind, or any other. Break the glass.'
'If you are indeed unliving, I would rather find some way to stir you to life.'
'So much for brotherhood. When you were imprisoned here, Thecla, and that boy brought you the knife, why did you not look for more life then?'
The blood burned in my cheek, and I lifted the ebony baculus, but I did not strike. 'Alive or dead, you have a penetrating intelligence. Thecla is the part of me most prone to anger.'
'If you had inherited her glands with her memories, I would have succeeded.'
'And you know that. How can you know so much, who are blind?'
'The acts of coarse minds create minute vibrations that stir the waters of this bottle. I hear your thoughts.'
'I notice that I hear yours. How is it that I hear them, and not others?'
Looking now directly at the pinched face, which was lit by the sun's last shaft penetrating a dusty port, I could not be sure the lips moved at all. 'You hear yourself, as ever. You cannot hear others because your mind shrieks always, like an infant crying in a basket. Ah, I see you remember that.'
'I remember a time long ago, when I was cold and hungry. I lay upon my back, encircled by brown walls, and heard the sound of my own screams. Yes, I must have been an infant. Not old enough to crawl, I think. What am I thinking now?'
'That I am but an unconscious exercise of your own power, as the Claw was. It is true, of course. I was deformed, and died before birth, and have been kept here since in white brandy. Break the glass.'
... the most interesting of which was a mandragora in spirits.
The curcurbit in which it floated was about seven spans in height and half as wide; the homoncule itself no more than two spans tall. When I tapped the glass it turned eyes like clouded beads toward me, eyes blinder far in appearance than Master Palaemon's. I heard no sound when its lips twitched, yet I knew at once what words they shaped - and in some inexorable sense I felt the pale fluid in which the mandragora was immersed had become my own blood-tinged urine.
'Why have you called me Autarch, from the contemplation of your world?'
I asked 'Is it truly mine? I know now that there are seven continents, and none but a part of this are obedient to the hallowed phrases.'
'You are the heir' the wizened thing said and turned, I could not tell if by accident or design, until it no longer faced me.
I tapped the curcurbit again. 'And who are you?'
'A being without parents, whose life is passed immersed in blood.'
'Why such have I been! We should be friends then, you and I, as two of similar backgrounds usually are.'
'You jest.'
'Not at all. I feel a real sympathy for you, and I think we are more alike than you believe.'
The tiny figure turned again until its little face looked up into my own. 'I wish that I might credit you, Autarch.'
'I mean it. No one has ever accused me of being an honest man, and I've told lies enough when I thought they would serve my turn, but I'm quite sincere. If I can do anything for you, tell me what it is.'
'Break the glass.'
I hesitated. 'Won't you die?'
'I have never lived. I will cease thinking. Break the glass.'
'You do live.'
'I neither grow, nor move, nor respond to any stimulus save thought, which is counted no response. I am incapable of propagating my kind, or any other. Break the glass.'
'If you are indeed unliving, I would rather find some way to stir you to life.'
'So much for brotherhood. When you were imprisoned here, Thecla, and that boy brought you the knife, why did you not look for more life then?'
The blood burned in my cheek, and I lifted the ebony baculus, but I did not strike. 'Alive or dead, you have a penetrating intelligence. Thecla is the part of me most prone to anger.'
'If you had inherited her glands with her memories, I would have succeeded.'
'And you know that. How can you know so much, who are blind?'
'The acts of coarse minds create minute vibrations that stir the waters of this bottle. I hear your thoughts.'
'I notice that I hear yours. How is it that I hear them, and not others?'
Looking now directly at the pinched face, which was lit by the sun's last shaft penetrating a dusty port, I could not be sure the lips moved at all. 'You hear yourself, as ever. You cannot hear others because your mind shrieks always, like an infant crying in a basket. Ah, I see you remember that.'
'I remember a time long ago, when I was cold and hungry. I lay upon my back, encircled by brown walls, and heard the sound of my own screams. Yes, I must have been an infant. Not old enough to crawl, I think. What am I thinking now?'
'That I am but an unconscious exercise of your own power, as the Claw was. It is true, of course. I was deformed, and died before birth, and have been kept here since in white brandy. Break the glass.'
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