For a good number of years, probably a decade now, I’ve looked up to both Žižek and Chomsky. Both are prominent left-leaning academics on the world-stage. Ironically, they were at loggerheads not too long ago regarding Chomsky’s frustration with the abstractions of continental philosophy, which Chomsky largely views as distraction from real political issues.
It is true that Žižek deals more with abstract thought (philosophical ‘meanderings’), whilst Chomsky’s linguistics is more science-based and his political activism based on raw and incisive fact-finding and a concern with global social justice – particularly to help avert the threat of nuclear annihilation and run-away climate change. Žižek’s cognitive labour is of a much different flavour to Chomsky’s, but I think that Chomsky was wrong to dismiss the utility of Žižek’s approach to thinking about thinking.
Žižek has strong left social justice stances on global issues, as well as his talent for philosophizing about social issues such as that on ‘tolerance’, racism, the new social fantasy of ‘the end of history’ as ‘capitalism with a human face’, and brilliant philosophical concepts like ontological incompleteness to describe our innermost being or even as a characteristic of the natural universe.
All lives matter. Black lives matter. Blue lives matter. We need to think about racial exclusion on the back of slavery, colonialism, and now the late capitalist mode of production. Systemic racism exists and this is institutionalized, social and economic. Race is a social construct as there is more genetic differentiation between individuals within race than across it, yet race is still important in the realm of identity.
Under-privilege is both racial, but yet individual, and is across all realms of social categorisations of race and ethnicity. There are many white peoples who are poor, struggling and under-privileged.
We need to think about a base-line level of legitimate privilege being the individual’s freehold ownership of a block of land and house residing on that land. This should be a political right. This will allow people to flourish, and self-actualise and will help fulfill the lower levels of Maslo’s hierarchy of needs, (needed for self-actualisation). This is to be inclusive of the need for housing, food, and amenities needed to reproduce humane levels of basic ‘status’ needs in the advanced technological age.
What we often forget or neglect is the important and integral knowledges of all the races and ethnicities. All races and ethnicities are equal and should be valued for the integral knowledge-systems and roots in the soil which they all have. All contribute to humanity equally and we should avoid ethnocentrism.
Nation states, national sovereignty and national auto-determination work as buffers on centralized world power, which elites want, calling it the New World Order – i.e. world state-capitalist techno world government – a rule by a super-rich oligarchy that cannot be challenged.
Often nation-states are territories forged through years of bloodshed and sacrifice. Thus, being too quick to dismiss their ongoing utility and importance would be unwise.
One point I would make, somewhat contrary to Trotskyist political-ideological philosophy is my insistence that socialism can work in one country – an idea which both Stalin and Hitler perverted.
Whilst it is preferable that we have socialist revolution all over the world in synchronicity, we shouldn’t wait for such a phenomena which may never eventuate.
The capitalist elite are petrified of the achievement of genuine socialism in any country, which is why they enforce embargoes against states trying to implement socialism.
One of the obstacles of socialism in one country is how to survive capitalist encirclement. A strong military with nuclear weaponry will deter capitalist invasion, and productivity and efficiency of workers’ councils and workplace democracy can produce needs for intra-nation-state economic self-sufficiency.
The example of a sophisticated and wealthy socialism (workers’ control) in one country will set a shining positive example to the rest of the nations, fueling and sparking a socialist contagion all over the world.
Certainly the establishment, ongoing development and consolidations of political power of supra-national continental unions such as the European Union, North American Union, Union of South American Nations, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Asia Cooperation Dialogue, and African Union, mean there a lot less geographical political units to control in the elitists’ quest for capitalist or techno-feudalism (Varoufakis) world government in their coveting of geopolitical power.
It follows then that I am suspicious of supra-national centralizations of political power and bureaucracy such as the European Union. Are these kinds of supra-national political institutions merely superfluous at best and insidious at worst? I hope to do more research on these pressing matters. A fair and sustained inquiry into the politically motivating factors behind Brexit is in order! My tentative and provisional feeling is that because we want decentralised political power, and maximum sovereignty of individual citizens, as much as possible, then the tiers of democracy should be local, state, national and soft law international, thus circumventing centralized world government.
I recently wrote a piece on the archetype of psychotropic shamanism through the lens of marijuana, ayahuasca, magic mushrooms and peyote. Its archetypical form involves group bonding and/or psycho-somatic social healing in ritualistic settings. It is pro social and polyphasic behaviour, which I argued leads to psychointegration (Winkelman). You can find the book at:
Despite findings of the utility and progressive facets of psychotropic shamanism and the importance of these rituals especially to Indigenous cultures who have had to deal with settler-colonial subordination politics, I warned of the potential threat to mental health, particularly for those with a genetic predisposition towards psychosis from use of these entheogen substances.
I suggested we need to develop better genetic screening techniques for individuals with vulnerable genetics to psychosis and schizophrenia alongside of a truly principled decriminalization.
There is also the issue of hallucinogen persisting perception disorder which may also be outside the ambit of what qualifies as psychotic or schizophrenic.
These are powerful, mind-altering drugs and we don’t know much about their residual effects on brain health, and psychiatry has found a strong link between cannabis consumption and an increased risk and rate of developing psychosis and schizophrenia, for instance. The neurological processes involved in cannabis related deterioration of a person’s rational cognitive faculties are not well known, but a strong correlation exists.
It is evident that some appear immune to the acutely detrimental residual effects of cannabis or other entheogens. However, there may be a problem and issue in those people projecting their ‘drug fitness’ onto others. Those vying for legalisation should take the psychiatric community very seriously and work with them to develop techniques to identify people vulnerable to acute harm from use. There is currently no way of telling whether one is vulnerable as genetic variation can be so unique across individuals that even people without a family history of mental health complications can indeed be vulnerable. Furthermore, increased incidence of use may likely increase the risks of complications arising.
Fundamentalists on both sides of the fence obscure the real issues and the real facts of the matter: anti-drug demonization of psychedelics overlooks the intensely meaningful experiences one can have whilst inebriated, whilst pro-drug enthusiasts often overstate the point, projecting their own perceived invulnerability to health complications arising from use onto others.
Criminalization does more harm than good, especially with the over-incarceration of poorer peoples and people of non-white ethnicities in certain places on the globe. Whilst I am pro decriminalization, I think that an abstinence position is most wise, until we do more engaged studies on the potential residual neuro-toxic effects of these entheogen substances.
In South Australia, traction is being made at the level of the legislature for reproductive justice for women. A bill has been introduced to decriminalise abortion and situate abortion as a health issue instead of a criminal one. Human Services Minister Michelle Lensink introduced the bill to the Upper House.
Abortion is a fact of life with unreliable contraception methods, and unfortunately, the instances of sexual assault leading to pregnancy, as well as other instances of reproductive coercion. Even if a couple were ‘reckless’ in sexual activity, it still should be the woman’s choice as to whether she carries through with a pregnancy or decides to terminate it, as it is her body and thus her intrinsic life choice, where she can decide whether she would like a child or children in her life or not, at any given point in time. To raise a child is a huge and massive life-changing choice.
Abortion should be seen as unconditional healthcare and seen as a social good, not a necessary evil. This will reduce and eliminate abortion stigma1 which emanates from anti-choice propaganda, and archaic laws criminalising or illegalising abortion.
Experts say the fetus can only consciously experience pain at the 27 week mark of pregnancy2. However, the fetus still has not developed memory or preferences. Abortions performed after the 27 week mark of pregnancy would need an anaesthetic administered to the fetus, as long as this did no harm to the pregnant woman.
The apparent endowment of souls to material entities is deeply troublesome for adherents to anti-choice / ‘pro-life’. For many, the soul attaches at conception, and contains an individualistic blueprint as a unique personalist essence. For argumentation on the philosophical feasibility of an attaching, detachable, and re-attachable soul to human individuals, please see an extensively argued piece of mine:
In a nutshell, with religions such as Christianity and Islam, the preaching of an attachable, detaching, and re-attaching soul, we have pressurised, in a self-fulfilling philosophy, its coming into being through the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious is a Jungian term. Jung was a prominent and eminent psychiatrist, analytical psychologist, and philosopher. The collective unconscious is a term meaning and referring to:
“deep-seated, inherited personality structures—in Jung’s view a kind of “racial memory”—that reproduced age-old life patterns and forms of behavior. For Jung, the collective unconscious is composed of archetypes—basic situational, behavioral, and imaginative elements that provide the continuity of human existence. These are represented in condensed form, he argued, in mythology and religion”3
As theorised, the collective unconscious has ancestral imprinting in its makeup too:
“([I]n Jungian psychology) the part of the unconscious mind which is derived from ancestral memory and experience and is common to all humankind, as distinct from the individual’s unconscious“4
But, in spiritual interventions, the canny foresights of creationist Gods implemented a contingency fail-safe for the future event of a potential alienation of soul endowed fertilised egg / embryo or foetus wherein they may have otherwise suffered from the lack of latitude of a material body through which the soul can gain extra earthly enjoyment of the positive aspects to sentience—happiness, fulfillment, pleasure, ecstasy, rapture, wellbeing, positive meaning, enchantment etc. It was more a fail-safe against the potential for the offspring to be killed by evil force(s) before it could defend itself, i.e. its vulnerability, rather than the explicit foreseeing of the rise of a detachable soul—to prevent a life cut-short in that unjustifiable way. Theoretically speaking, these ‘creationist’ Gods, as polymath archetypes, may have themselves conceived both of evolution, and evolution as its own teleological end in itself particularly as emergence of complex highly sentient life-forms and their ecosystems, and of the big bang. This is a ‘big story’, disclosed by the machinations of the collective unconscious to which my conscious mind has been privy? Was there a God who spontaneously came into being through the surplus power of an infinite suffering? In a womb of mercury with a void filled with dark electric energy?
These kinds of philosophising might seem, prima facie, bizarre from a dogmatically narrow western perspective. Those finding it bizarre are those western background people without training in sufficient worldly reasoning. These narrow western perspectives are top-heavy on empiricism and ‘the scientism march’5. To offset this, studies in anthropology are vital, since they reveal a rich reservoir of radically ‘non-compliant’ and polyphasic meanings—radically non-western. Anthropology studies the myriad ways human nature expresses itself through individuals and culture. Anthropology gives you greater empathy for diverse identities of others and oneself, and for the human condition in general. For me personally, but not unlike many other scholars in the anthropological and other related academic fields, my polyphasic more intuitive Dionysian, more so than Apollonian, based knowledges come to fruition through a fusion of the anthropologist, philosopher, analytic psychologist, mystic and shaman facets of my consciousness!
I’ve studied in detail how many cultures experience truth in their own terms, radically different to western empiricism, and its monophasia—defined and developed in the succeeding paragraph. The task of the anthropologist in each adult person, is to take the best from all cultures to be studied, and letting go of the cultural mores (‘baggage’) that don’t serve people or humanity at large. In my neologism jargon, to undergo continually and continually select for—a rational cultural synthesis, is needed. Before moving ahead, it’s obligatory to define and contrast conceptual frameworks of an intellectual dichotomy device—monophasia ‘versus’ polyphasia.
Monophasic culture “is primarily concerned with tracking, cognizing and responding to external events in the so-called waking state”6. Furthermore, “western societies…foreground monophasic or ordinary states of awareness based on rationality and empiricism”7. In contrast “[p]olyphasic culture refers “to non-ordinary consciousness; dreams, visionary and mystical states, hallucinations, intuition, meditation, trance states, self-hypnosis, and near death experiences”8. In a scholarly and intellectual erring, “[t]he interpretive power of scientism and technology has either relegated or dismissed polyphasic states to the realm of irrationality and fairy tales”9. A part of this is the cursory, ironically unscientific, attempted relegation of the existence of non-local mind as metaphysical unreality; non-local mind can be defined as:
“the ability of one mind to influence another mind from a distance, or knowing something which is beyond the grasp of sensory perception…[and]…is referred to as intuition, premonitions, déjà vu, telepathy, ‘gut feeling’, precognition, distance healing, remote sensing, extra sensory perception (ESP), psyhokinesis and clairvoyance”10.
“There have been approximately 900 studies conducted over the last sixty years on non-local ways of knowing”11.
From the practices of witchcraft by the Azande12, the divination dancing of the Faqir/Dervish/Sufi13, to the subversive and resistant meaning-making and meaning-appropriations of film by Papua New Guinean informants14, we see the indefatigable sheer richness and varied meanings across the localised and globalised contexts and their overlaps.
Perhaps the imaginary power of a ‘third eye’ is being engaged with archaic knowledge based on placing individual and species essences? Is this a result of reconciling information gleaned from the conscious mind with the unconscious mind disclosures? On this, it’s now timely apt to give definitional scaffolding, herein, to the conscious mind of individuals:
“Although the concept has many antecedents in Western philosophy, it was Signmund FREUD who first systematically sought to distinguish between consciousness, the preconscious (denoting information available but not immediately present in consciousness) and the unconscious (a broad realm of the psyche hidden from conscious processes). Although Freud’s thinking on the subject evolved considerably during the course of his work, he maintained that what divided the conscious from the unconscious was a mechanism of repression that blocked socially unacceptable impulses, wishes, and traumatic experiences from conscious realization. Nonetheless, he argued that the relationship between consciousness and the unconscious was porous and dynamic: the unconscious shaped behavior outside of conscious intention. Freudian “slips” and TRANSFERENCE are examples. Although the manifestations of the unconscious opened it to study, Freud was highly sensitive to the processes of condensation and displacement—forms of camouflage and distortion—that repression imposes on unconscious material. Much of Freud’s work in this area derived from his study of dreams, where the barriers between the conscious and unconscious were lower than in waking life. In Freud’s later work, the term unconscious is largely superseded by the notion of the ID—an element of the tripartite division of the psyche into id, ego, and superego.”15
So, now we have covered the above Freudian and Jungian concepts, let’s get to the most pertinent question of this blog post: what might a workable (creationist) contingency look like in substantial resolution of the potential problem of denying the freedom of a soul to enjoy a material body in the event of an abortion?
For an aborted fertilised material entity—an embryo of foetus, in this world, the soul immediately detaches and reattaches off-world; it is then given a surrogate womb maintaining perfect homeostatic health; as surrogates to our on-world / on-cosmos genetic parents, care for infants is carried through by altruistic aliens, guardian angels and plant gods, who currently do a far better job at child rearing than any parents than any and every parent on this world!
There is a tax on the being of the genetic parents in this world, to be paid as energy off-world, to a parallel universe not for the purpose of compensation or a punitive deterrent, but for extra wellbeing of the progeny.
This is a partial corrective to Christian and Islamic metaphysics, with a culturally inclusivity of magical ‘alternatives’ to these doctrines, that have been victim to an unjust unduly hegemonic sidelining. These predating organised religious doctrine(s), as animist and shamanist spiritual ways of being-in-the-world16 need a resurrection to milk them of their humanising potential(s) and their contribution to the human project, generally. On this need, see professors Henneberg and Saniotis wonderful book chapter 17 thereon.
As a gendered position, I hold that being a mother (or motherhood), is only truly met at birth when the baby is no longer a part of the pregnant woman’s body.
There is also the argument oft parroted by anti-abortion activists that a woman who terminates a pregnancy will be psychologically traumatized. But why? Why would a woman feel any guilt for terminating a pregnancy of a fetus which has not developed memory or preferences and is still a part of the pregnant woman’s body and not a separate living individual/being – not yet a person.
We must prioritise the lives of already extant and existent pain-perceiving sentient beings who have developed preferences and are capable of acute emotional suffering – aka women, over that of fetuses who are not yet babies.
Singer (1995, https://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/1995—-03.htm), in his utilitarian ethics, argues that to be human is to be self-aware and conscious, and I would add to this, capable of consciously experiencing or perceiving pain, and a separate individual no longer a part of the pregnant woman’s body. Thus, we should assign personhood rights at birth. Fetuses, up until birth, are not human, yet.
We must combat abortion stigma. Anti-choice, anti-abortion activists are not approaching the issue from a rational standpoint, and instead employ and deploy dogmatic superstition in the face of scientific evidence. There is no empirical evidence that any living creature has a metaphysical soul whether sentient, non-sentient or not-yet sentient. The archaic religious dogma that fetuses have souls, encroaches on the rightful liberty of women who are sentient beings with personhood.
It is a crying shame that religious conservative women would vie for the erosion or curtailing of just reproductive rights of women, subscribing to patriarchal monotheistic religious dogma such as that in some Christian sects. It’s alienating when women do not subscribe to truly feminist causes. But worse when men, especially those afforded with high degrees of economic privilege, subscribe to anti-choice sentiments. Second wave feminists had it right, and we should revive reproductive rights as a truly feminist cause, which is entirely rational and ethical, and seek to educate people of facts regarding fetuses and the stages of their development. Feminism is a progressive social force, and there is a dire need for a new progressive and inclusive wave of feminism, and masculine pro-feminism, throughout the world, to combat patriarchy at the level of social institutions, seeking law reforms.
Anti-abortion sentiment is two pronged in its misconception(s), which are often not entirely mutually exclusive:
It is based on a lack of informed empathy for women;
It is not based on scientific understandings on sentience, personhood, and/or is grounded in superstition.
The bottom line, is that anti-choice, when propagated by men, is patriarchal as it erodes the just liberty of women. In this instance, proper empathy for women and the baby – becoming one at birth – comes from technical and rationally materialist understandings, integral to formulating just and workable ethics on the matter.
For me, the above work of art depicts ‘The Pro-feminist, Pro-Choice, Masculinist Philosopher: Caring in the Mind’! It is in awe of the capacity for women to carry a foetus in the womb as a part of her body, and truthfully, simultaneously envious of this remarkable biosocial feat.
The foetus is a part of the woman’s body, giving pro-choice rights to women. This image depicts the masculine rationalist contemplating of the foetus as a part of a/the woman’s body in envy of (and ensuing masculinist bio-genetic-alienation from) the woman’s unique and exceptional capacity to carry a foetus as a part of her body: (acknowledging) the woman and the man (or non-binary) begin as a foetus in circular dialectics – all protecting and nurturing personhood through pro-choice ethics. There is the rightful masculinist fascination that life starts within a woman.
What of contractual pregnancy?
Let us set up an abstract thought experiment hereon, and progress through it. Could a man and a woman agree, say, in a monogamous sexual relationship, to use birth control methods, expressly stipulating they are both in agreement for not having a child or another child together, in a written and signed contract? You both want to engage in ejaculatory sex, but stipulate the intention not to procure a pregnancy, utilising birth control method(s), in such a written contrac. Perhaps such a contract could be setup, however, there are some serious problems latent in such a contract. Let us explore some potential legal remedies given an ensuing breach of the contract through a subsequent withdrawing of a legitimate consent to pregnancy.
“An equitable remedy to compel the execution in specie (in its own form) of a contract which requires some definite thing to be done before the transaction is complete and the parties’ rights are settled and defined in the manner intended…;
In its strict or technical sense, the enforcing of an executory contract by compelling the execution of an assurance to complete it…;
An order applied to an executed contract requiring the defendant to perform his or her contractual obligation…;
Specific performance is available, subject to discretionary factors, where the common law does not provide a remedy, or where the common law is inadequate.”
Specific performance would mean an abortion in this instance. However, specific performance of the term of contract in this instance, falls short of morally operable because it is intrusive to a woman’s body to contractually enforce an abortion as such.
Damages might be more feasible, prima facie? I don’t like enforcement of damages as a remedy for breach of contract concerning pregnancy and birth control, as it is potentially setting up an antagonistic relationship between the genetic parents at the outset. It is putting sexual gratification above a potential future offspring’s wellbeing. Thus, the rightful reproduction power of men lies in the choice for abstinence from having ejaculatory sex with a woman.
Concluding with a paraphrasing reiteration—attempting to force a woman to abort/terminate or carry through with a pregnancy is a form of reproductive coercion, as it is intrusive of and an interference with women’s bodily autonomy. Men’s rightful reproductive power lies in withholding the seed unless wanting to become a father!
Post Script: Perhaps the outsourcing of a womb environment to a technological surrogate, outside of a woman’s body, delivering healthy development of foetuses and babies will make abortion entirely redundant? That kind of technology, seems very far into the distance of our future?
Post Post Script: I don’t have all the answers on this matter, and my synthesis and ideas need dialectical action with other scholars on this area of philosophy intersecting with gender studies and biological and personhood science. As an alternative to the alleged metaphysical soul-attaching at conception, I have written on feminist-materialist ethics on abortion, as whole or at least partial alternative to the above writing and synthesis on this very complex and intellectually and emotionally delicate matter. I leave it open to the engaging scholarship of others: is there a materialist exceptionalism to the putative rise of a severable soul attaching at conception, in defiance of, diverging from and circumventing this emerged/ing religico-evolutionary phenomena therein? I allege, the more deeply we think about this, the more a nuanced sense of justice will eventuate and be augmented.
Reference List
Butt, P 2004, Butterworths Concise Australian Legal Dictionary, 3rd edn, LexisNexis Butterworths, Chatswood.
Calhoun, C (ed.) 2002, Dictionary of the Social Sciences, Oxford University Press, New York.
Evans-Pritchard, E 1976, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Henneberg, M and Saniotis, A 2016, The Dynamic Human, Bentham Science Publishers, Sharjah
Kulich, D and Wilson, M 1994, ‘Rambo’s Wife Saves the Day: Subjugating the Gaze and Subverting the Narrative in a Papua New Guinean Swamp’, Visual Anthropology Review, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 1-13.
Kumar, A, Hessini, L and Mitchell, E 2009, ‘Conceptualising abortion stigma’, Culture, Health and Sexuality, vol. 11, no. 6.
Laughlin, C 1997, ‘The Mystical Brain: Biogenetic Structural Studies in the Anthropology of Religion’.
Saniotis, A February 2002, Sacred Worlds: An Analysis of Mystical Mastery of North Indian Faqirs, A Dissertation Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Adelaide University, Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.
See Evans-Pritchard, E 1976, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande, Clarendon Press, Oxford. ↩︎
See Saniotis, A February 2002, Sacred Worlds: An Analysis of Mystical Mastery of North Indian Faqirs, A Dissertation Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Adelaide University, Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. ↩︎
Kulich and Wilson found that their anthropological informants ‘dislodge[d] the filmic narrative with parallel narratives of their own, fragmenting and then reassembling the film to satisfy their desire and their gaze’: Kulich, D and Wilson, M 1994, ‘Rambo’s Wife Saves the Day: Subjugating the Gaze and Subverting the Narrative in a Papua New Guinean Swamp’, Visual Anthropology Review, vol. 10, no. 2, p. 10. ↩︎
Calhoun, C (ed.) 2002, Dictionary of the Social Sciences, Oxford University Press, New York, p. 495. ↩︎
Welcome to Henry Willoughby’s Social Justice Blog!
Henry is a social philosopher and author.
He is a four-time graduate of the University of Adelaide: BA, LLB, BA Hons, B Soc Sci. He holds three bachelor’s degrees: law, arts with an arts major in anthropology, and social sciences. He also holds a postgraduate degree in honours in arts in anthropology. He is looking to extend his scholarly studies at University, along with augmenting his knowledge through informal studies.
He is also a proud member of the formal University academic merit Golden Key International HonourSociety which he qualified for and was subsequently admitted to in 2022, invited to join as per the requisite academic achievement.
Henry is passionate about engaged and collaborative scholarship, having studied many scholarly greats, past and present!
Henry welcomes your engaging comments, and any feedback on the blog posts, for a more mutually illuminating and enlightening collective dialectic, for all us socially mindful agents.
Henry has published works on social issues as they relate to the health and wellbeing of humans, animals and the environment: to aid in the development of humane social, political and philosophical praxis, in today’s world, and for the future.
His publications will soon be accessible and made available on Amazon and other major retailers, and there are more blog posts to come, so keep posted!
Some of my synthesis may sound and seem, prima facie, a little bizarre and/or eccentric, or somewhat unfamiliarising to people from a Western background, as my studies in anthropology have inevitably involved adapting to non-Western centric meaning-making. The adopted scientific method, therein, of suspending my cultural judgement and cultural baggage,and immersion, in ‘foreign’ cultural fields through fieldwork and reading, digesting and absorbing the scholarly ethnographies of (other) anthropologists, is the reason for the supra native cultural reproduction in my writing. Along with this is a rather Jungian and Freudian consciously being in touch with subconscious forces and meanings, and social symbolism. All this—in my writing—is strategically apparent and enriching. Also, some of my narratives are contextual, and some more contextual than others. All things considered, my narrativising synthesis is pertinent and functional meaning-making, nevertheless. We must encourage each other to become less culturally insular, through domestic and foreign memetic immersion.
To introduce, in foregrounding, the next related topic definitionally and conceptually — the collective unconscious. For those unfamiliar with it, it can be formulated as such:
“The collective unconscious was induced by Jung from his analysis of dream symbols and psychopathological symptoms. It is an inherited archive of archaic-mythic forms and figures that appear repeatedly in the most diverse cultures and historical epochs”1
I am privy to the phenomena of a person’s attachment to the collective unconscious, as formulated in Jungian psychological philosophy. This enormous breadth, plethora and tapestry of meaning-making for individuals across vastly and radically different and diverse cultural socialisations and experience, but with common, more universal underpinning mythical patterns, occurs, in part, through an uploading of meaning from the collective unconscious in tandem2 with the personal subconscious. These manifestations inform the unique meaning and knowledge systems that are attached to and part of an individual’s personal power(s).
Furthermore, my writing is in a very much embryonic and/or conceptual phase in some places, but still displays novel and informed synthesis.
I deploy, at times, some well and thoughtfully crafted, exigent neologisms where I deem a need and social demand therefore; language evolves; some will involve merely an extension of a suffix-neologism like surveiled, as rather self-explanatory neologisms, others involve an entirely new word covering and signifying a new concept, of which, will be explicitly explained and defined.3
Crucially, the blog allows for me to express myself in a media-medium with a written format, without needing, and freed from, the rigorous scholarly conventions of formalised academic work, expression and writing, whilst still advancing sophisticated synthesis and critical engagement with innumerous, to give the hyperbole, social issues. The blog acts as a supplement to the other range of mediums for enriching communication: articles, essays, precis, op-eds, editorials, expositions, journals, reviews, books, presentations, podcasts, and videos.
Herein, I write for academic populism, and free-spirits in a quasi-Nietzschean4 vein.
Life Coach Services:
I’m in the early stages of setting up a life coaching business, utilising my skills gleaned from my academic studies. I am reading through relevant information and will be seeking legal advice. I’m yet to incorporate, so i’m not taking on any clients until that process is complete!
I will be aiming to integrate personalised career and lifestyle skills optimisation so my future clientele are better able to take better predictive power over personal and interpersonal processes; this is achieved through empathic skills locating habits/habitus of the individualised self for each client, gleaned through my imparting of relevant and pertinent knowledge from studies of diverse social stakeholders (anthropology skills) as married with sociological theory (social sciences and sociology): elucidating the nexus between the uniqueness of the individual client and structural processes. Through my integrated academic skills I will be providing holistic yet tailored performance augmentation.
I am, at the least, in the early stages of being a true polymath: I have a wide range of integrated knowledge from reading scholarship, information and journalism on multi- / many disciplines. As a wise person once stated and formulated: “I have a black-belt in curiosity“, I hold and have interest in absolutely everything. The exigency of becoming polymaths is truly “building the self”. To quote Professor Steven Pinker:
“The more we learn about what we are and how we got here, the more we will mobilize our intelligence to protect the well-being of our species and our planet.”5
This invariably involves, results in, and is constituted by, personal and personalist success(es).
See Audi, R 1999, The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd edn, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 455. ↩︎
There is in fact a trialectical interaction and interplay of the conscious mind, the personal subconscious mind and the collective unconscious, in the meaning-making processes. ↩︎
This is a bit of an inspired ode to my high-school English teacher, commanding respect, who encouraged and inculcated creativity and free expression in students as such, inter alia. ↩︎
Note the reflexive entitling of Nietzsche’s book Human, All Too Human: A Book for free Spirits. ↩︎
Genetic reproduction is still an important way to reproduce oneself, and mixing your genetics with someone else’s is a sacred phenomenon, not to mention the life which one brings in the world which is ȕber special. Genetic reproduction has great virtue. Having said that, more than ever, we have the increasing opportunity to leave a non-genetic legacy with the attempt to leave virtuous non-genetic parts of ourselves for the future, to better the lives of the next generations, and of course – non-human sentient life. This emanates from our genetics mixing with our environment and its interplay. Having a child or children can be considered a form of legacy albeit genetic, but also many instances a social legacy too – in teaching children wisdom and knowledge so they make a better world for themselves and for others for instance! So, there is a kind of false divide between reproduction of genetics and leaving a legacy. We are all working on a legacy in one way or another! More cooperation is needed so that our (humane) legacies are supported. We can also do both (genetic and non-genetic), or many differing degrees of both; it is a choice that is up to the individual. Importantly, caring for one’s genetic offspring is not mutually exclusive with caring for the world generally.
What are some of your legacies that you are working on now?
Here I am referring to the narrow genetic-biological reproductive power of males (not the broader socio-symbolic reproductive power of males). Unless trying for a baby/child, cunnilingus is the only form of heterosexual sex/sexual exchange with no risk of unwanted (on behalf of a male) pregnancy. A woman, if fertile and ovulating, can manually impregnate herself with a man’s ejaculate. This can be a truly terrifying outcome for unwitting males who do not wish to reproduce but the woman does and can reproduce in this way. We males, of the human species, cannot tell whether or when a woman is ovulating. This is in contrast to female Chimpanzees whose buttocks grow redder and more swollen when ovulating, sending the males into a frenzy! We should note, that for human males, we want to know when a woman is ovulating when wanting to reproduce just as much as when wanting not to reproduce (recreational sex)!
Note: it is a form of reproductive coercion to try to pressurize a pregnant woman into having an abortion or from not having an abortion if it is her wish and will, as the embryo or fetus is a part of a pregnant woman’s body. In maintaining male reproductive power (or here more precisely – in maintaining the power not to reproduce) resides in maintaining control over the seed through the deliberate choice to abstain from ejaculating in a fertile woman’s presence, if not wanting a child or children as the only foolproof and socially just strategy to conform with the will not to reproduce. It is high time we men started to reflexively think with our brains and act on this ensuant refined morality on the topic of sex and philosophy of sex (sexology) and not excessively animalistic, undisciplined and unrestrained sexual activity, as is thoroughly manly! That way women might not view us males as weak and suffering from ‘a masculine stupidity’ (paraphrasing a Nietzschian formulation here).1 To truly make progress on this matter we direly need to shed the liberal hedonism, primarily in over-ejaculation in sexual exchanges with women, currently thoroughly rife and widespread in our modern times.
See Nietzsche, F 1886 (2002), Beyond Good and Evil, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 128, ‘aphorism’ 239. ↩︎
Is whether or not to legalise same sex marriage, or indeed marriage between any two non-heterosexual consenting adults, the business of heterosexual adults at all?
In thought-experiments, let us examine some different lines of reasoning:
If homosexuality (and other forms of non-heterosexuality) are not chosen forms of sexuality, but rather as solely caused and determined by a singular identified genetic difference, then would it not make sense to ask solely non-heterosexual adults whether they would want the right to consecrate non-heterosexual unions in marriage?[1] Surely this is more just/fair than the heterosexual majority having their say (on the rights of adults with different sexual orientations), which is encroaching on the rights and liberty of others (non-heterosexual adults) to choose to marry.
If homosexuality (and other forms of non-heterosexuality) are purely choices, does then change things? No, it would still make sense to ask the people to choosing to identify as homosexual (or non-heterosexual) orientation, whether they would want the right to marry, as it still exclusively affects their liberties.
Having explored the above thought-experiment scenarios, let us go straight to the (humane) synthesis: no matter whether homosexuality or other forms of non-hetero-sexuality is a choice or not (or somewhere in between – e.g. non-heterosexual tendencies), there should be the inalienable right of any two adults to marry. Why? Because it does not offend the (do no) harm principle.
In fact, there is a good case to be made that not granting or extending the right to marry as the right of any two mutually consenting adults (of any sex or gender), does, in fact, offend the (do no) harm principle!
Whether it is a choice or not or somewhere in between (for some or all), is irrelevant!
So the political stance should be not “let’s have a plebiscite” (appealing to insidious ‘paternal’-populism), but rather that the right to marry between any two consenting adults, be enshrined inalienably in law (in Parliament/Legislatures (and thus (in) their jurisdictions)) without the legal discrimination that comes with excluding non-hetero couples from their liberty/right of choice to state-sanctify their union in marriage.
[1] Here I am meaning state-sanctified marital unions (between two consenting adults), naturally.
In the 2016 Rio Olympics, a controversy was sparked concerning, in particular, the women’s 800m final (track and field event). This ignited a larger controversy about so-called non-intersex female women, and so-called intersex female women athletes. There were ensuing allegations, not only of sexism regarding ‘tensions’ between so-called female intersex athletes and so-called non-intersex female athletes, but also racism.
Intersex is a term used to describe a person or persons who do not fit normative binary associations of what is considered female or male. Many commentators implicitly characterize hyperandrogenism as being intersex.
For the women’s 800m race, the (top/first six) place-getters were as follows:
Caster Semenya (from South Africa)
Francine Niyonsaba (from Burundi)
Margaret Nyaisera Wambui (from Kenya)
Melissa Bishop (from Canada)
Joanna Jozwik (from Poland)
Lynsey Sharp (from Great Britain)
Jozwik, after the race, commented that she was glad that she was “the first European” and “the second white” [to finish the race].
For me, this above statement is ambiguous. It may have the following implicit meanings: that she regards non-whites to be (naturally) better runners and/or an accusation that non-white first, second and third place-getters, [all] may have been cheating through having higher testosterone levels than the white 4th, 5th and 6th place-getters. Here we should afford Jozwick the benefit of the doubt in the face of allegation of racism in her remarks.
Sharp also made a post-event comment about the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s ruling not to suspend ‘hyperandrogenism’; Sharp said, when interviewed, that “[t]he public can see how difficult it is with the change of rule but all we can do is give it our best”, perhaps adding to the controversy?
Jozwik also commented that “[t]he three athletes who were on the podium raise a lot of controversy. I must admit that for me it is a little strange that the authorities do nothing about this.”
This comment was in lieu of the fact Semenya has naturally higher levels of testosterone, which enables her to put on more muscle-mass than most other women, and thus compete at ‘a higher level of physical athleticism’ (all other things being the same).
It was wrong of Jozwik to insinuate that second and third place getters may have been taking testosterone, but right, in my opinion, to (indirectly) insinuate that all competitors should be screened for testosterone doping.
I do not wish to denigrate female so-called intersex athletes. I am sensitive to the fact that they, so-called intersex peoples, are victims of social stigma and even persecution, in some parts of the world. I do not wish to add to this: they are right to and have the right to identify as women, and as female, if they so wish. However, there is also the valid and legitimate (social) categorisation that they are female intersex women.
In my mind, low testosterone levels are such an inherent and core part of what it means to be so-called non-intersex female.
Caster should not be stripped of her medals. To do so would be to do injustice to her, and to the professional sport and sporting culture at large.
Instead, I allege, it would be better (more fair), to have all non-intersex female event(s), to have all female intersex event(s) (if indeed there were enough female intersex athletes to compete), and (even) to have mixed event(s) – intersex women and non-intersex women.
This is a moral and practical outcome considering that estimates are that as much as 1.7% of the global population are born intersex.
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