Originally Published March 9, 2012
I've been in a totally bummed out mood all freakin' afternoon. Not even Mel Brooks and Maker's Mark could break it over. That's what usually happens when that little light bulb above your head turns on, and what the light shows you is something contradictory and sad, yet another set of loops in the Gordian knot of misery that is the human condition. It's an occupational hazard of being a philosopher, it's what happens when you're chasing some particular "why" and it leads you over a cliff you didn't see coming. Lord knows I should have seen it coming, it evolved from one of several standing quagmires under consideration. But I didn't, and now I'm paying the price. Oh, well.
I've been in a totally bummed out mood all freakin' afternoon. Not even Mel Brooks and Maker's Mark could break it over. That's what usually happens when that little light bulb above your head turns on, and what the light shows you is something contradictory and sad, yet another set of loops in the Gordian knot of misery that is the human condition. It's an occupational hazard of being a philosopher, it's what happens when you're chasing some particular "why" and it leads you over a cliff you didn't see coming. Lord knows I should have seen it coming, it evolved from one of several standing quagmires under consideration. But I didn't, and now I'm paying the price. Oh, well.
It began with the previous post that began as a comment on CJ's blog trying to blow open the reasons behind her very legitimate concern and complaint for debate, trying to move away from indignation and outrage into some mode of thought to actually do something about the problem rather than just vent and repent having noticed it in the first place. What tripped the whole circumstance was CJ's outrage at a fetish image posted on DevArt, a graphic and frankly rather gross image of a girls tummy deformed and defaced with quite a number of large gauge needles piercing her skin, pulling her skin into knots up her belly and between her breasts to look like the spine of some emaciated creature. It was worse than disgusting, it was truly pitiful.
But still, being objective, I had to defend it as being art. Most certainly art capturing a totally deformed, degraded and degrading frame of mind, but still art. As I told CJ, art makes no promise concerning comfort. Art is quite capable of communicating a scream of emotional pain, a scream of social agony the artist really has little understanding of. But a scream of pain can be a traumatic thing in its' own right, inflicting pain on all who perceive it, and CJ was holding forth that art should self censure such screams rather than inflict them on those who have no knowledge of pain at such intensity.
I tried to point out that image was not unique, that I'd seen many other images of a similar nature, some calling themselves fetish work, others from the deviant side of hard core porn, but all of them sharing the same sense of a scream ripped from the lives of those portrayed by some force beyond their control. I wanted to point out that the ever growing number of such images, the never changing similarity in the symbolisms they present almost demands the assumption of some common pathogen impacting on the culture. I was hoping to spark some dialog as to what that common pathogen might be, where it might be possible to intervene with a deliberate intent. I tried, but I failed. What I got back were stock out of the box stereotypes of the sort used to dismiss an unhappy thought into the limbo of the socially ignored.
That bothered the fuck out of me, it did and it does. I was stewing, thinking hard thoughts about my friend, wondering why. Yea, I was just that deep. I know better than to wonder why about a why, that gets you going in circles that can be hard to break out of. Well, in one sense I was lucky I suppose, I broke out of the circle soon enough, but what broke me out of that spiral wasn't so very nice. I realized something much, much larger than anything involved with art, art was just the catalyst of perception, and it is that realization that is kicking my ass tonight.
Our culture is dying, there's no denying it. Every single indicator on the board is deep in the red, every critical system failing if not failed. The United States of America is on its' last legs as a viable culture. This fact is becoming known, and of course the associated despair is having its' way with the attitudes of the population. What I realized is the nature of how the culture is dealing with that despair, where that scream of social agony represented by that gross photograph actually originates.
Of course, of course the culture has to put forth some token effort at saving itself, of course it must. For the most part those token efforts revolve around the children, children who are the hope of the future. The battle cry of the day is Protect The Children! All well and good, but what must the children be protected from? What the children need protecting from are the same things that have damaged the culture of course, the children are part of the culture. So what have the dumb fuck hypocrites of America done? They've focused all their efforts on protecting the children from the least likely of hazards, the one that in absolute statistical fact is the most minor of threats.
They are focusing a landslide of attention on the evil of children abused in the production of sexual pornography, and what I realized was the overwhelming popularity of that focus is that it allows this totally fucked up suicidal culture to absolutely and completely ignore every other form of pornography attacking the children, the very forms of pornographic thought that are in the process of destroying it! They can't defend the children against those forms of pornography, those are what the adults are addicted to! Pistol porn, money porn, power porn, the list just goes on and on, every one of which impacts on the children's lives, every one of which does deep damage, every one of which is socially invisible. Our society is committing suicide by refusing to admit pornography doesn't have to be sexual in nature.
That's where that scream of pain seen in that photo originates, that is the scream of those who can sense, who can feel the impact of all the other pornographies ripping at their lives, lives that have been betrayed into being totally dependent on the very society that has betrayed them! The self destructive life styles are just their way of trying to attract attention to what their society has already agreed to ignore. The poor fools. They could commit slow suicide on the six o'clock news with a full manifesto as to why and no one is going to really give a damn. They can't, not without admitting it should be they, not the kids, who deserve to die.
Shit. Well, at least it is an answer. And it fits the observed facts, the observed behaviors. I was a total fucking fool to ever think art might be stout enough to challenge in against that. No way. Art will probably do a good job of recording the convulsions generated by the death agony of this land for history to examine at some later date, but the very nature of the people involved with art precludes it doing much more than that.
Oh, well. Idiot, get on your horse and ride, you knew when you signed up most often you'd end up riding alone.
Cyranos, the person who shot that image is affiliated with the Foundation for Sex Positive Culture in Seattle. For that reason, among others, I can't buy your interpretation that this somehow reflects psychic pain and not whatever attracts people to sado-masochistic sex. You can't say this is a product of contemporary culture as it has been around since the dawn of time. The human encompasses evil (darkness) and goodness (light). We all have that dichotomy. Some choose one over the other, and I can't say why. But it has always been that way.
ReplyDeleteContemporary American society is far better than, say, medieval England where people gathered for the Saturday matinee of hanging, drawing, and quartering.
CJ, I am wide open, all ears (Ferengi, as the Trekkies would say), for any answer detailing what could possibly cause people to invert their survival instincts, not to mention any form of sexuality, in such a manner other than some form of psychic pain intense beyond integrating into conscious thought. I’ve set that question before quite a number of folks who more than participate in such activities, they structure their lives in that manner, and not one of them have ever produced anything resembling an internally consistent rational answer to rebut that assumption.
DeleteAccording to what I’ve been told by those in the fetish world such piercing as displayed in that photo are not sexual in nature, they are most insistent on that point. Push the issue only if you want to see what they carry by way of psycho-babble grade pseudo-intellectual weaponry. If the motivations are not deformed sexuality, as the proponents of such brutality so adamantly claim, then whence comes the motivation to endure such mistreatment?
Since the fetish world disavows sexuality as a motive for their “decorations” I’d say the photographer’s affiliation with the bunch in Seattle is at best coincidental. Actually, I’d have to question if any legitimate foundation so named would really want to be affiliated with an individual who would promote such blatant brutality, such a deformation of the human body. If that foundation promotes such works of brutality as that then they were clearly misnamed as an act of malicious deception and should be watched very closely indeed with a most critical scrutiny. You know, the old saying about keep your friends close and your enemies within easy rifle range.
You know, you may very well be onto something with the bit about the brutality found in our culture’s past. What if empathy is an inherited trait, and those most possessed of that trait were shocked into reduced fertility by exactly the socially sanctioned public torture unto death presented to the masses by the society of the day as both entertainment and intimidation? That would sure explain a lot of what history has recorded of the descendents of that brutality.
I just took a quick look at FSPC's website. They say they exist to promote acceptance of alternative lifestyles, especially sexual lifestyles. My difficulty with them, though, is that (by their own website's evidence) they do seem to focus on "alternative," which often includes BDSM, rather than more life-affirming sexuality...
DeleteJochanaan, that was what I also observed: a great deal of kink and hink and very little about anything genuine. A "normal" homosexual relationship of companionship and nurture seemed to tame to be of interest to them, and hetero fertile??? Don't be funny.
DeleteThey, like so many decieved by cePorn, work from the assumption the deed creates the life rather than the truth which is the deeds of sex simply reflect the truth of the inner nature of the lives in question. Liberals. They've turned into a sad bunch over the years.
If this kind of image depicts universal psychic pain, why is it always women who suffer it? In traditional oil painting and sculpture, both genders expressed pathos. In bondage art, where are the bound and tormented naked men?
ReplyDeleteCJ, I think I can answer that question with like 85, 90% confidence, but it will take a bit more than a comment block... answer forthcoming in my next post.
DeleteCyranos, I just want to say, after reading this again, that even though you may feel you ride alone, you have "...seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him." (I Kings 19:18) Yes, there are many of us who dare to stand for Light, Health and Peace against the "boot stamping on a human face" (George Orwell, 1984) that is BDSM at its worst. Ride on, and remember you have a cabal of allies behind the priest's hole.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jochanaan... it's going to take everyone to pull it back out of the fire in time.
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