Thursday, January 23, 2014
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
I'M STRAYAN AND I LOVE STAYIN' DUMB | The HooplaThe Hoopla
I'M STRAYAN AND I LOVE STAYIN' DUMB | The HooplaThe Hoopla
Perhaps it’s time for all the human rights advocates and lawyers to stop appealing to Australia’s good sense. Perhaps it’s time we dispensed with the idea that Australians can be reasoned with and if they’re just given the facts, they’ll make the effort to figure things out for themselves. It’s not going to happen. We want short slogans, simple solutions and lots and lots of drama.
Perhaps it’s time for all the human rights advocates and lawyers to stop appealing to Australia’s good sense. Perhaps it’s time we dispensed with the idea that Australians can be reasoned with and if they’re just given the facts, they’ll make the effort to figure things out for themselves. It’s not going to happen. We want short slogans, simple solutions and lots and lots of drama.
The unknown universe: black holes and narcissistic spite
The unknown universe: black holes and narcissistic spite from Jennifer Frances Armstrong on Vimeo.
Not all that exists appears visible to the naked eye, not just in the physical universe but in the realm psychological as well.
Saturday, January 18, 2014
Why Nothing Gets Done | Clarissa's Blog
Why Nothing Gets Done | Clarissa's Blog
It seems to me that groups of people advance their collective interests by making, as it were, chemical changes in the environment around them. Just as different forms of animal and vegetable life alter their environments to maximise their chances of survival, groups congregate together and emit this primeval ooze, which looks a lot like religiosity. That there is no consistency between their professed aims and values and the ooze they emit is no real criticism of this phenomenon. A defensive weapon doesn't have to look like and spell out exactly who you are in order to be effective. In fact, it is far more effective if it looks nothing like you and just appears automagically when you need it.
All the same, an environment protected in this way becomes slimier and less interesting to those of us who do not need, or cannot use, that sort of protection.
It seems to me that groups of people advance their collective interests by making, as it were, chemical changes in the environment around them. Just as different forms of animal and vegetable life alter their environments to maximise their chances of survival, groups congregate together and emit this primeval ooze, which looks a lot like religiosity. That there is no consistency between their professed aims and values and the ooze they emit is no real criticism of this phenomenon. A defensive weapon doesn't have to look like and spell out exactly who you are in order to be effective. In fact, it is far more effective if it looks nothing like you and just appears automagically when you need it.
All the same, an environment protected in this way becomes slimier and less interesting to those of us who do not need, or cannot use, that sort of protection.
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Books on Rhodesia/Zimbabwe
2013 in Review and Blogging Suggestions | Clarissa's Blog
So far as I am concerned there are two camps of writers in the world. I am oversimplifying a little but I think this helps to clarify what seems to happen. There are those who write from the perspective of the assumption that identities are good, that they are consistent and morally defined in almost an apriori way. One has ideals, which may be disappointed, but one battles through. Then there are those who write as if they don't know what their identities are; they feel themselves to be just an open eye looking out onto the world. This affords them a very wide perspective on ethical and political issues.
I find it very hard to read books from the perspective of those who have a closed identity, because they alienate me politically. I see what they are saying, and yes, lives are tough and the world is harsh, and people are manipulative and awful and do the wrong thing. But I also feel that my own life has been in many ways unnecessarly tough and manipulated. So I can't produce the reaction that may be expected -- that colonials are/were evil and non-settlers automatically authentic or good.
I think the better writers avoid making us think in overly simplistic terms. Their writing is harder to read, certainly more painful, but it's more real. If I want to know how it felt to be on the other side of the war, growing up, I read Marechera's HOUSE OF HUNGER. Self-righteous people disparage the writer for his madness and his wildness, but the truth is they want a docile, Christian nigger whom they can poke and prod at: "show us your wounds!"
Marechera, rather, makes you feel his wounds, as does the writer of WHITE MAN, BLACK WAR. This gets beyond the narrow moralizing tendency that satisfies superficial people as it bolsters their sense of identity and so gives them something cheap at the writer's expense.
If you want to know what the war meant for the people in it, you would do well to try to understand these more complicated writers. But this is exactly what Ango-Saxon readers do not want to do, as it spoils their nice view of there being good and evil in the world, along lines of well-delineated identities.
So far as I am concerned there are two camps of writers in the world. I am oversimplifying a little but I think this helps to clarify what seems to happen. There are those who write from the perspective of the assumption that identities are good, that they are consistent and morally defined in almost an apriori way. One has ideals, which may be disappointed, but one battles through. Then there are those who write as if they don't know what their identities are; they feel themselves to be just an open eye looking out onto the world. This affords them a very wide perspective on ethical and political issues.
I find it very hard to read books from the perspective of those who have a closed identity, because they alienate me politically. I see what they are saying, and yes, lives are tough and the world is harsh, and people are manipulative and awful and do the wrong thing. But I also feel that my own life has been in many ways unnecessarly tough and manipulated. So I can't produce the reaction that may be expected -- that colonials are/were evil and non-settlers automatically authentic or good.
I think the better writers avoid making us think in overly simplistic terms. Their writing is harder to read, certainly more painful, but it's more real. If I want to know how it felt to be on the other side of the war, growing up, I read Marechera's HOUSE OF HUNGER. Self-righteous people disparage the writer for his madness and his wildness, but the truth is they want a docile, Christian nigger whom they can poke and prod at: "show us your wounds!"
Marechera, rather, makes you feel his wounds, as does the writer of WHITE MAN, BLACK WAR. This gets beyond the narrow moralizing tendency that satisfies superficial people as it bolsters their sense of identity and so gives them something cheap at the writer's expense.
If you want to know what the war meant for the people in it, you would do well to try to understand these more complicated writers. But this is exactly what Ango-Saxon readers do not want to do, as it spoils their nice view of there being good and evil in the world, along lines of well-delineated identities.
Saturday, January 11, 2014
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