Imperial Semantics

words are tricky. they shape our thoughts, and our worldviews. language is the context within which most individuals define themselves. studies of language and its usage can be loosely called "semantics."

the EMPIRE is both one thing and many things at once. the empire that we are referring to is today's USA. when we say empire we mean this particular entity considered singular, as a thing unto itself. but this empire is simply an idea with a bunch of parts. in other words it is an aggregate of components considered as one thing.

often when a person is referring to say the US military operation in Iraq, they will use the term "we went into Iraq," or "our troops invaded Iraq," as if they had something to do with it. as if it is "our" military. this tendency is so widespread that it must indicate a kind of democratic impulse, the feeling that this is "our" government. we use the term "feeling" because that is all that it is, nothing more. the reality of the situation is that most of these citizens have no power at all to influence government. they use the term "us" to feel included in what was once "our" nation.

similarly when writing i use the term "we" to refer to myself considered as an aggregate of components. certainly i am an individual person; however i am also an agglomeration of various parts and tendencies. thus i use "we" to refer to all of my own, sometimes competing, parts taken as a whole. i use this semantic device to give the feeling that they (my internal components) are all working together.

in the life of the empire individuals are the equivalent of cells in our own body. they perform the vital functions of keeping the empire alive, but they are controlled by the messages they recieve. the cell receptors recieve the information from the surface of the cell and then translate this into cellular activity. the messages they recieve are what coordinates the entire body to perform as an individual organism. if they were not coordinated then we would fall apart, or the cells would "go their own way," which is cancer. thus with empire as long as the individuals continue to recieve the messages and execute the proper actions then the center will hold.

the medium of these messages are the educational system, the media, and our families/peer groups. the message is the very mechanism by which order is maintained. it is crucial for the EMPIRE understood as a singular entity. however the message is not so clear these days. what are we supposed to be doing for the EMPIRE? what is the purpose of the EMPIRE?

our answer is in a word cynical. the grand purpose of our so called empire is pure greed and exploitation. this is achieved through the mechanism of POWER. this is why the United States of America is not a true empire, but a parody of one. the center, Washington, is not conscious of itself as an imperial center and so is not able to offer any transcendent justification for its existence. still it plays lip service to democracy and human rights, obviously we have a contradiction.

the exercise of POWER in a true EMPIRE needs no justification from humans, because the existence of the empire must have a transcendent justification. the EMPIRE is a truly sovereign entity, it defines its own reason for existence. in the past the justifications offered were transcendent in nature. Julius Caesar was a god.

and here we come to the fundamental incompatibility of democracy and imperialism. the former will tend to give rise to the latter. we will remark again that modernity is an anomoly in history, the result of modernity is to reverse every traditional idea. in the real of politics this resulted in democracy and the idea of majority rule. this is a pervasive assumption in today's America, that legitimate government must be democratic, the "will of the people." of course this is the very opposite of traditional perspective, which held that only a small elite should hold the reins of power.

All is Still Calm in the West

the summer solstice passed two days ago, still things remain calm.

we have not bombed Iran, the draft has not been reinstated, no domestic "terror" attacks have occurred, the dollar still floats along its merry way and the housing bubble has not been pricked.

still i have an unsettled almost sick feeling. as this state of affairs continues we drift further into the surreal realm of our postmodern entertainment phantasmagoria. which state of affairs are we referring to?

for starters lets start with the complete lack of cohesiveness to our society. the only thing that binds us all together is fear of the law and living within the national boundaries of the USA. there is no set of ideas that we all voluntarily ascribe to. lest we get bogged down in this lets move on to other observations.

we live far beyond our means, we have next to no civic life, we are accomplice to the slaughter of tens of thousands Iraqis, we are entertaining ourselves to death, we have no authentic spiritual direction

we are stars in our own personal reality tv shows, strike a pose here is your moment.

i have an idea; lets just fuck the pain away. if we try hard enough, it can happen. at least this seems to be the response of my own generation in the face of this obvious farce.

what underlies all this is the lurking suspicion that our future is bleak, that in fact we have not future.

listen up all you new parents, you better get pretty fucking angry, for your child's sake; because their future and yours has already been mortgaged away. the current generation of leaders, which is my own parents generation, the baby boomers have really fucked things up. not that the previous generation did that well either, but still, the entire illusion of wealth over the past twenty years has been based on debt. just look at the numbers yourself. there is no way in hell this will ever be paid off unless we sold the US military. say there's an idea huh? let's sell other countries weapons so they may be used against the weak. and the weak will be us in the future.

wealth is a trap. just let it go is my suggestion. simply stop repaying your debts and refuse to pay your taxes. this will grind everything to a halt. then our country will look to us: the young and the strong. listen, we are the future and we have a future only if we refuse to honor the obligations not of our choosing. otherwise we will pay for our entire lives.

if you live in California you will pay. last year the budget was balanced by issuing a bond. this bond will probably take thirty years to pay off. yes thats right. balance the state budget for 2004 and pay until 2034. of course bonds are issued with interest so we will pay off probably double the original principle. if your child is one they will be 31, if you are 30 then you will be 60, and if our dear governer Schwarzenegger is 50 then he will be 80 (probably dead). so you see? he does not give a shit.

what ever happened to good old austerity? you know the crazy concept of tightening the belt and getting through the tough times by consuming less.

ok my rant is coming to an end. all i can now say is that our society is "off the hook." unmoored from reality, detatched from what is actually going on in the world. we are not special, in fact based on our behavior it seems we are infantile.

and yes, we deserve whatever is coming our way.

HERE COMES THE WILD

“You are wild!”
When was the last time somebody said this to you?
How did it feel?

We pose the question: What is the wild?

Some cognates: chaos, entropy, libido, raw nature, primordial, danger, dark, mysterious, instinct, unstable, unpredictable, power

The wild is everything that civilization is not.

The wild is chaos, reaching back to the primordial strata in ourselves and we will find the wild. In the bosom of Nature the wild is nurtured, we call this the “wilderness” where the light of order has not penetrated. Untamed, instinctual and threatening. These evoke the feeling of the wild.

Civilization is order, and law. Civis is the city itself the very expression and symbol par excellence of nature tamed.

Humans have forever grappled with the wild. Within our own psyche and without, in the wilderness. The balancing of the forces of order and chaos are represented as the balance between civilization and the wilderness.

We speak of balance because the two forces exist in a dynamic equilibrium, at least as far as humans are concerned. When one gains the ascendancy over the other then a balancing will occur.

Internally for humans this may occur when an individual does not pay heed to his emotions and instincts. He “locks” them down and rationalizes them away mentally. This builds tension within, the “animal” has no place to go. Like an animal in a cage it becomes restless. If it is locked down for too long several things may happen. The animal will give up and die. Or it will become tame and work with its new master. Or it will break out escape and wreak havoc. Any which way we look at it the animal must be dealt with, it is there in all of us.

For civilizations the situation is the same. It must deal with the forces of chaos it unleashes and embodies. War is a specific manifestation of this. War can be relatively controlled through mechanisms such as honor, valor, and chivalry. Or it can be denied altogether only to be unleashed in an orgy of indiscriminate bloodletting and utter chaos.

The wild is the source of vitality. It must be tapped in order to maintain the life force, both for individuals and cultures. If the animal dies in the cage then so too will its master follow, having been cut off from the source of life. In this sense the wild is the interface with the primordial well from which we all partake. It is our experience of the chaotic waters of life which sustain us.

As it is so vital it is also dangerous. Confronting the wild brings the danger of death. Risk is always involved with the wild.

Economics is “risk management.” With the rise of our Economic Paradigm the wild has been forced back. To the most critical point. So many animals have died in cages. We have managed the wild so far out of our lives, that there is no longer any recognition of the need to placate it. Thus it bursts through in uncontrollable moments. Rape, killing and suicide are all the revenge of the wild upon those who have sought to banish it. The wild does not belong to any individual it is a common entity; so it is felt by all but has no compunction about individual life.

Volatility in our world is this same mechanism. The history of the twentieth century exemplifies the extremes of volatility. This century experienced the most bloodshed per capita then any other century that we know of. At the same time law and order have spread with the increasing use of technology and energy. The same volatility trend is only increasing. We can conclude by stating that any periods of general peace will have to be followed by a corresponding time of war and death. The longer the peace the greater the reaction. The wild must be placated.

It is amusing to us when moderns criticize human sacrifice as barbaric and “primitive.” It is perfectly clear to us what is going on. These people were intimate with the wild, they knew what it wanted. Granted sometimes the power which comes from interfacing the wild is intoxicating and addicting. Then we have a situation which is as imbalanced as denying the wild, becoming a power-hungry agent of this dark force happens too.

Our current global paradigm has pushed back the wild. We are in a terribly unbalanced state now. The wild is being unleashed. Whether this comes through ourselves unto each other or through nature doesn’t matter. The point is that it is coming, severely and forcefully. The balance must be renewed and the wild is not discriminating.

We can only hope that individual men will have honor. Yes old fashioned honor, which is discriminating, which only exercises violence for truly righteous causes. When the raw power rises within and demands an action the man must control this, and exercise restraint. Mere need and desperation are not justifications for violence. However neither is a revolutionary call to action, the deposing of another class. Every man is sovereign and it is up to him to make the right choice, may his conscience be true.