On Thursday night I went to one of my usual hangouts, and found a rather close acquaintance of mine who revealed to me that there was a fashion show on at one of the residences that she was involved in, and whether I would like to come, despite 'the VIP tickets being sold out'. Ever the yes-man, I duly assented.
As reflected by the tone of my latest entries which has, perhaps, been a bit subdued, Ive been in a bit of an odd headspace lately with those existential and teleological conundrums creeping in. However, this event turned out to be some very nice 'art therapy', though not entirely because of the event itself.
I suppose in a manner akin to first- and second-order logic, one can consider first and second order observation. What struck me, as a few hiccups at the beginning and a late start were duly remedied, was the second-order absurdity of the spectacle: the 'mingling' of people with their drinks, the VIP tags on certain individuals ('very important person'? because they paid an extra R20 for their ticket, get free alcohol, get to sit in the front row, and get some goody-bag giveaway item? How does one define importance in this manner?). Then during the show, there was the DJ, the lighting, the catwalk, the emcees, the catcalls and screams from the audience, and, of course, the models. I summed it up to a friend of mine in a text as 'a bunch of youngsters trying to emulate Western high society' though that may be a bit unfair. It WAS interesting as a first-order observer, though I still don't and probably never will understand what is fashionable about giving the white models giant bed-head afros and slopping them all over with strange make-up, but maybe that's just me.
I suppose this sort of second-order observation comes to me more often than perhaps it does for most, and maybe it is a reflection of the interest I take from seeing not necessarily how people act in given situations, but rather how they REact to given situations; i.e. what makes them tick and why.
All in all, I will not deny the organizer my kudos for the fact that she did a wonderful job and I thoroughly enjoyed the event, both first-order and second-order enjoyment, and I was very dismayed that there was a police raid that shut down the night-club that all attendees were supposed to get free cover for that night.
Talk about bad timing...
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Monday, July 25, 2011
Twilight of the Idols, Phajaan of the Humans
"To call the taming of an animal its "improvement" sounds almost like a joke to our ears. Whoever knows what goes on in kennels doubts that dogs are "improved" there. They are weakened, they are made less harmful, and through the depressive effect of fear, through pain, through wounds, and through hunger, they become sickly beasts. It is no different with the tamed man whom the priest has "improved." In the early Middle Ages, when the church was indeed, above all, a kennel, the most perfect specimens of the "blond beast" were hunted down everywhere; and the noble Teutons, for example, were "improved." But how did such an "improved" Teuton look after he had been drawn into a monastery? Like a caricature of man, a miscarriage: he had become a "sinner," he was stuck in a cage, tormented with all sorts of painful concepts. And there he lay, sick, miserable, hateful to himself, full of evil feelings against the impulses of his own life, full of suspicion against all that was still strong and happy. In short, a "Christian."
"Physiologically speaking: in the struggle with beasts, making them sick may be the only way to make them weak. The church understood this: it sickened and weakened man — and by so doing "improved" him."
--Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols
One of the nice things about meeting back up with my friend was it turned out he had brought with him a copy of The Portable Nietzsche, the same copy, in fact, that I had given to him a year or so ago to keep him company in Japan (along with Crime and Punishment, which he quite enjoyed). He told me he hadn't read any of it, but as I didn't have a book, I was able to while away some of the time on buses and such reading through The Antichrist and (re-)reading through Twilight of the Idols. As much as Walter Kaufmann makes of Nietzsche's 'insanity' at the time of his writing of The Antichrist, I believe it to be a powerful critique of Christianity and the rather demeaning effect that it has on the human spirit.
When I read the above quote, I thought about the Phajaan ceremony that goes on in Thailand. Phajaan is loosely translated as 'elephant crushing', and is basically what all elephants have to go through in order to be the servants to mankind that you see during many tourist ventures in Southeast Asia.
But then it is rather interesting that this 'torture' to crush the spirit of an elephant in order that the elephant will do the bidding of their captors is not seen in a more similar light to a lot of the ways in which religion (especially Western religion) has resulted in the 'improvement' of people the world over: improvement in the form of docility, being open to suggestion, and, in general, as Dennett once said, "a gold-plated excuse to stop thinking".
Just like the elephants, they are trained to no longer fight back against conflicting ideologies. The elephant wants to stay with its mother, it wants to eat, drink, and be able to roam free, etc. On the other hand, isn't this what the human wants as well? Or is it simply the fact that the elephant is not conscious of its own metaphysical position in the cosmos and therefore has no idea of the ease and automation with which its post-Phajaan life will be.
No more decision-making, just follow your master. What could be simpler?
"Physiologically speaking: in the struggle with beasts, making them sick may be the only way to make them weak. The church understood this: it sickened and weakened man — and by so doing "improved" him."
--Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols
One of the nice things about meeting back up with my friend was it turned out he had brought with him a copy of The Portable Nietzsche, the same copy, in fact, that I had given to him a year or so ago to keep him company in Japan (along with Crime and Punishment, which he quite enjoyed). He told me he hadn't read any of it, but as I didn't have a book, I was able to while away some of the time on buses and such reading through The Antichrist and (re-)reading through Twilight of the Idols. As much as Walter Kaufmann makes of Nietzsche's 'insanity' at the time of his writing of The Antichrist, I believe it to be a powerful critique of Christianity and the rather demeaning effect that it has on the human spirit.
When I read the above quote, I thought about the Phajaan ceremony that goes on in Thailand. Phajaan is loosely translated as 'elephant crushing', and is basically what all elephants have to go through in order to be the servants to mankind that you see during many tourist ventures in Southeast Asia.
But then it is rather interesting that this 'torture' to crush the spirit of an elephant in order that the elephant will do the bidding of their captors is not seen in a more similar light to a lot of the ways in which religion (especially Western religion) has resulted in the 'improvement' of people the world over: improvement in the form of docility, being open to suggestion, and, in general, as Dennett once said, "a gold-plated excuse to stop thinking".
Just like the elephants, they are trained to no longer fight back against conflicting ideologies. The elephant wants to stay with its mother, it wants to eat, drink, and be able to roam free, etc. On the other hand, isn't this what the human wants as well? Or is it simply the fact that the elephant is not conscious of its own metaphysical position in the cosmos and therefore has no idea of the ease and automation with which its post-Phajaan life will be.
No more decision-making, just follow your master. What could be simpler?
Friday, July 22, 2011
Ebb and Flow
It's sometimes funny how quickly we find ourselves at the top of the world after crashing down, or vice versa. A friend of mine once described his own approach to the world (psychologically speaking) as a 'sine curve' of peaks and troughs that reflected his brain state at the time. Sometimes, he said, there was much euphoria and he would get giddy at the drop of a hat. At other times (as I've been witness to), he has plumbed the depths of depression even when he 'should' have been really enjoying himself, e.g. on the beaches of India.
I won't hazard a guess as to the method behind his madness, but I will say that during my time in Zimbabwe, I often felt completely original especially in the Dionysian sense a la Nietzsche (the individual that says Yes to everything questionable). On the other hand, since Ive returned to Cape Town, it just hasnt been the same... I've gone out to my old haunts—even though they've changed somewhat—and thought to myself 'what the fuck am I doing here? At one point I thought I could extend this stay and was really enjoying my time here, and now I just want to get this degree over with.' Ever the party pooper, I guess all of a sudden my return has hit me with a small token of claustrophobia helped by the financial situation that is niggling at the back of my mind and the manner in which there seems not to be an easy solution in the near future.
And then of course there is the problem of alternate realities, either in the form of drug intake or in the form of movies. Watching Jason Statham go psycho on everyone in Crank 2, and then returning to the humdrum and mundane of reality often makes one thirst for a bit more. But then on the other hand, beginning in such a position as his (in the movie, anyway) may leave at least a bit to be desired. Anyway, no big deal.
In the end, the main thing is, obviously, the same thing that always arises in these sorts of introverted moments of doubt: what the fuck is the point of it all? I remember during my early days of studying philosophy, I went to the university library and got a copy of 'Classic Philosophical Questions', by James Gould I think. It was set up in such a manner that each section had some major philosophical topic: reality, knowledge, science, religion, etc., and within each section were two to four essays by classic authors defending certain opinions about the topic in question. The only section I really remember was one near the end about teleology. It contained two essays, the first by Tolstoy which he wrote near the end of his life when he had been taking religion (especially Christian anarchism) quite seriously; in it he argued that God gives us meaning (or something like that). The second essay, written by Albert Camus, argued that it is up to us to give ourselves meaning through what we do everyday and how we go about interacting with others and achieving according to our own wishes and desires.
I take the position of the secular existentialist (i.e. that of Camus') to heart... there is no doubt that I feel that I have created a whole bunch of doors and windows in my sea of reality that I can crawl through or explore within if I should get bogged down or what have you. However, sometimes you can't help but feel in the back of your mind that until you get back into some sort of a routine that provides you with a means to some sort of end, that you start to squirm.
I remember feeling a similar thing in the last few days I spent in Gokarna. As much as there were many ex-pats who switched between six months in Himachal Pradesh while the monsoon was on, then six months in Gokarna (or Goa or Kerala or some such) when the monsoon was no longer, when my time was winding down and my three weeks were nearly up, I got that claustrophobic feeling that I have learned to recognize when I feel like its time to move out of a certain headspace. I guess the best way I always find to sum up that feeling is to quote Jack Nicholson from a certain movie, when he is in a similar situation of confusion and indecision and utters those fatalist words:
"What if this is as good as it gets?"
I won't hazard a guess as to the method behind his madness, but I will say that during my time in Zimbabwe, I often felt completely original especially in the Dionysian sense a la Nietzsche (the individual that says Yes to everything questionable). On the other hand, since Ive returned to Cape Town, it just hasnt been the same... I've gone out to my old haunts—even though they've changed somewhat—and thought to myself 'what the fuck am I doing here? At one point I thought I could extend this stay and was really enjoying my time here, and now I just want to get this degree over with.' Ever the party pooper, I guess all of a sudden my return has hit me with a small token of claustrophobia helped by the financial situation that is niggling at the back of my mind and the manner in which there seems not to be an easy solution in the near future.
And then of course there is the problem of alternate realities, either in the form of drug intake or in the form of movies. Watching Jason Statham go psycho on everyone in Crank 2, and then returning to the humdrum and mundane of reality often makes one thirst for a bit more. But then on the other hand, beginning in such a position as his (in the movie, anyway) may leave at least a bit to be desired. Anyway, no big deal.
In the end, the main thing is, obviously, the same thing that always arises in these sorts of introverted moments of doubt: what the fuck is the point of it all? I remember during my early days of studying philosophy, I went to the university library and got a copy of 'Classic Philosophical Questions', by James Gould I think. It was set up in such a manner that each section had some major philosophical topic: reality, knowledge, science, religion, etc., and within each section were two to four essays by classic authors defending certain opinions about the topic in question. The only section I really remember was one near the end about teleology. It contained two essays, the first by Tolstoy which he wrote near the end of his life when he had been taking religion (especially Christian anarchism) quite seriously; in it he argued that God gives us meaning (or something like that). The second essay, written by Albert Camus, argued that it is up to us to give ourselves meaning through what we do everyday and how we go about interacting with others and achieving according to our own wishes and desires.
I take the position of the secular existentialist (i.e. that of Camus') to heart... there is no doubt that I feel that I have created a whole bunch of doors and windows in my sea of reality that I can crawl through or explore within if I should get bogged down or what have you. However, sometimes you can't help but feel in the back of your mind that until you get back into some sort of a routine that provides you with a means to some sort of end, that you start to squirm.
I remember feeling a similar thing in the last few days I spent in Gokarna. As much as there were many ex-pats who switched between six months in Himachal Pradesh while the monsoon was on, then six months in Gokarna (or Goa or Kerala or some such) when the monsoon was no longer, when my time was winding down and my three weeks were nearly up, I got that claustrophobic feeling that I have learned to recognize when I feel like its time to move out of a certain headspace. I guess the best way I always find to sum up that feeling is to quote Jack Nicholson from a certain movie, when he is in a similar situation of confusion and indecision and utters those fatalist words:
"What if this is as good as it gets?"
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Tourist Traps: How I hate them
Victoria Falls is probably the first heavily touristy niche Ive been to in Africa. It is probably the first such place Ive been to since Siem Reap almost 18 months ago.
The entry into the park containing the waterfall is $30, which, considering it costs only $20 for a day pass to Angkor and you can walk around for hours, seems a bit steep. Touts follow you around and harass you to no end about buying their carvings, going on the their rafting trips, bungee jumping, etc. But the main difference between Victoria Falls and Siem Reap is that Cambodia probably gets a huge portion of its income from tourism: go anywhere, and there are plenty of tourists. On the other hand, Im not sure Ive seen a single tourist in Zimbabwe (including Harare, Rushinga, Bulawayo, and Bindura) since I arrived two and a half weeks ago (outside of Victoria Falls, of course, which is swimming in them... no pun intended). Maybe one or two, but I wouldn't swear to it.
So I asked a number of people how they came to be there. It seems many are on tour buses from Johannesburg, some fly straight into Livingstone (internal flights are pretty ridiculous outside of South Africa), others come via Zambia. But what worries me most is the perception that the hordes of tourists may get of Africa in general and Zimbabwe in particular. Victoria Falls isn't Africa at all, and you really learn nothing about Africa by coming here. If you only came to Victoria Falls, there is nothing to say that you're in Africa other than that the local touts are black. For example, an individual I met said that some people he knew 'didn't like Zimbabwe at all', and I can see why if they only visited Victoria Falls. But we aren't in Zimbabwe. We are in a tourist bubble.
Like China, Zimbabwe is probably, on the whole, safer than North America. Consider the fact that in Canada you have to practically get cavity searches before you get on buses, and even a small pair of cuticle scissors will often have to be put with your stored luggage. On the other hand, at Mbare bus station when I was sitting on my bus waiting to go to Rushinga, there were touts outside the bus selling plenty of bizarre things, including 12-inch long kitchen knives and 15-inch sickles (which Li Weiguang could have used to behead an individual in one swipe...), their points capped with a small piece of cardboard or the top of a Coca-Cola bottle. Then on the bus as we were traveling through Harare, there were a few touts who stayed on the bus to do their selling. Standing in the middle of the bus aisle, he pulled out a chopping board and some cabbage to demonstrate the manner in which his 5-in-1 knife could shred cabbage. He then brought out some green onion and made short work of those. After this demonstration, the asking price was a dollar each and he distributed them like candy around the bus to anyone who put up their hand.
I can't explain this phenomenon completely, but my guess would be that there are at least two major contributors (aside from the completely random, absurdly gruesome, and probably unrepeatable Li Weiguang incident, which actually started the checks on buses in the first place). The first lies with the traditionally communal and often pacifist nature of Africans. Many are farmers (especially those going to remote villages like Rushinga) and survival is by no means a given (see the previous post), so violence is basically unheard of in many parts (putting aside violence between tribal factions, that is). In North America, the ultra-competitive and high intensity nature of society seems to lead people to adopt much more aggressive and dog-eat-dog demeanors. I have seen a few fights arise in bars in Africa now and again, but there is always a certain level of pride and humility involved on both sides. It isn't what sometimes feels like Hollywood nature of a lot of the bars in Canada with guys in muscle shirts calling each other out and heckling each other because they are so incredibly bored and need to somehow validate the inflated and often farcical notions of 'respect' and 'street sense' that they take from sitting in front of gangster and/or ghetto survival movies.
The other reason is likely the manner in which 'lawsuit society' has crept into Western society. Bus companies probably care much more about not being sued or getting bad publicity over some incident than the actual safety of their customers. When it is possible to sue the Winnebago company and win (and this may be an urban myth, I haven't corroborated that such an absurd incident actually happened) because it crashes because you put yours on cruise control to go into the back and make a sandwich, and 'it wasn't in the owner's manual that I couldn't do that', then companies this side really need to cover their asses.
But it brings me to a notion of freedom: in Africa there is much more freedom because of the organic nature of society, whereas in North America, everything is much more scrutinized and much more controlled. We may think we have more freedom because of the constant banding around of political buzzwords like 'freedom' and 'democracy', but in the end society ends up controlling itself through (amongst other things, see for example, Adam Curtis' series The Trap and/or Ray Bradbury's short story The Pedestrian), a combination of vanity and lack of confidence in one's ability to think for oneself. Acceptability and unacceptability to often come down to popularity amongst the general population: people think it absurd that I could study mathematics and philosophy with no eye to a possible career.
Education as an end in itself? You actually what to learn about the world for it's own sake? You want to satisfy your own curiosities about the underlying secrets of human nature? Have you seen a psychiatrist lately?
The entry into the park containing the waterfall is $30, which, considering it costs only $20 for a day pass to Angkor and you can walk around for hours, seems a bit steep. Touts follow you around and harass you to no end about buying their carvings, going on the their rafting trips, bungee jumping, etc. But the main difference between Victoria Falls and Siem Reap is that Cambodia probably gets a huge portion of its income from tourism: go anywhere, and there are plenty of tourists. On the other hand, Im not sure Ive seen a single tourist in Zimbabwe (including Harare, Rushinga, Bulawayo, and Bindura) since I arrived two and a half weeks ago (outside of Victoria Falls, of course, which is swimming in them... no pun intended). Maybe one or two, but I wouldn't swear to it.
So I asked a number of people how they came to be there. It seems many are on tour buses from Johannesburg, some fly straight into Livingstone (internal flights are pretty ridiculous outside of South Africa), others come via Zambia. But what worries me most is the perception that the hordes of tourists may get of Africa in general and Zimbabwe in particular. Victoria Falls isn't Africa at all, and you really learn nothing about Africa by coming here. If you only came to Victoria Falls, there is nothing to say that you're in Africa other than that the local touts are black. For example, an individual I met said that some people he knew 'didn't like Zimbabwe at all', and I can see why if they only visited Victoria Falls. But we aren't in Zimbabwe. We are in a tourist bubble.
Like China, Zimbabwe is probably, on the whole, safer than North America. Consider the fact that in Canada you have to practically get cavity searches before you get on buses, and even a small pair of cuticle scissors will often have to be put with your stored luggage. On the other hand, at Mbare bus station when I was sitting on my bus waiting to go to Rushinga, there were touts outside the bus selling plenty of bizarre things, including 12-inch long kitchen knives and 15-inch sickles (which Li Weiguang could have used to behead an individual in one swipe...), their points capped with a small piece of cardboard or the top of a Coca-Cola bottle. Then on the bus as we were traveling through Harare, there were a few touts who stayed on the bus to do their selling. Standing in the middle of the bus aisle, he pulled out a chopping board and some cabbage to demonstrate the manner in which his 5-in-1 knife could shred cabbage. He then brought out some green onion and made short work of those. After this demonstration, the asking price was a dollar each and he distributed them like candy around the bus to anyone who put up their hand.
I can't explain this phenomenon completely, but my guess would be that there are at least two major contributors (aside from the completely random, absurdly gruesome, and probably unrepeatable Li Weiguang incident, which actually started the checks on buses in the first place). The first lies with the traditionally communal and often pacifist nature of Africans. Many are farmers (especially those going to remote villages like Rushinga) and survival is by no means a given (see the previous post), so violence is basically unheard of in many parts (putting aside violence between tribal factions, that is). In North America, the ultra-competitive and high intensity nature of society seems to lead people to adopt much more aggressive and dog-eat-dog demeanors. I have seen a few fights arise in bars in Africa now and again, but there is always a certain level of pride and humility involved on both sides. It isn't what sometimes feels like Hollywood nature of a lot of the bars in Canada with guys in muscle shirts calling each other out and heckling each other because they are so incredibly bored and need to somehow validate the inflated and often farcical notions of 'respect' and 'street sense' that they take from sitting in front of gangster and/or ghetto survival movies.
The other reason is likely the manner in which 'lawsuit society' has crept into Western society. Bus companies probably care much more about not being sued or getting bad publicity over some incident than the actual safety of their customers. When it is possible to sue the Winnebago company and win (and this may be an urban myth, I haven't corroborated that such an absurd incident actually happened) because it crashes because you put yours on cruise control to go into the back and make a sandwich, and 'it wasn't in the owner's manual that I couldn't do that', then companies this side really need to cover their asses.
But it brings me to a notion of freedom: in Africa there is much more freedom because of the organic nature of society, whereas in North America, everything is much more scrutinized and much more controlled. We may think we have more freedom because of the constant banding around of political buzzwords like 'freedom' and 'democracy', but in the end society ends up controlling itself through (amongst other things, see for example, Adam Curtis' series The Trap and/or Ray Bradbury's short story The Pedestrian), a combination of vanity and lack of confidence in one's ability to think for oneself. Acceptability and unacceptability to often come down to popularity amongst the general population: people think it absurd that I could study mathematics and philosophy with no eye to a possible career.
Education as an end in itself? You actually what to learn about the world for it's own sake? You want to satisfy your own curiosities about the underlying secrets of human nature? Have you seen a psychiatrist lately?
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