Christians complain about the war on Christmas every year. But now they're making war on our favourite holiday. Halloween is being recast as "JesusWeen."
Oh my fucking god!!! Could they have come up with a lamer name? Halloween is beautiful. JesusWeen is so silly only a deluded fanatic could have invented it. But it is always delicious when your enemy is his own best enemy.
Why is Halloween so offensive? Well, for one it is downright evil. It celebrates all those wicked things like dressing up as witches and vampires and demons that Christians abhor...And Christians feel left out! Ah those poor little JesusWeenies. They are so oppressed. I mean we don't celebrate any Christian holidays in Canada. They just want their day every day.
I wonder how they feel about Gay Pride Day. Should we try to be sensitive to their gay-bashing feelings then? Poor, poor little JesusWeenies. (I mean seriously. You barely have to make fun of this fucking name!)
My favourite quote: 'If it's OK for children to learn about ghosts and demons or Superman or Spider-Man, it's also OK for them to learn that God loves them.' Well, I would agree if the whole point is to introduce children to fictional characters but if you want to equate harmless storytelling with evil mind control then it’s time to take a bite out of thought crime.
JesusWeen is a call to arms. A Christian declaration of war on Halloween. They are trying to OccupyHalloween. Let's OccupyXmas in turn. Help spread the darkness this Xmas.
Firstly, call it Xmas deliberately. The X is mysterious while the Christ in Christmas is just plain Christian.
Secondly, incorporate new ironic practices like watching 'The Nightmare Before Christmas.'
Thirdly, serve this for Xmas dinner.
Fight back in the war on Halloween. OccupyXmas and help keep Canada secular.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
The problem is fundamentalism
An ontological pervert has to be an atheist but not a new atheist. No, s/he is too dirty-minded to hang around with that clean-cut crew. S/he doesn't share the same smug disdain for religion and the religious. Her hostility is more measured and targeted--at fundamentalism!
I won't take on all new atheists here, only one oh so superior bastard: Sam Harris. Moreover, I'll just look at his raced reaction to the mass Norwegian killings this past summer.
So, what did Harris say about the massacre of 77 people? Well, Harris takes this teachable moment to tell us that the real problem is, always has been and always will be Islam:
'The emergence of 'Christian' terrorism in Europe does absolutely nothing to diminish or simplify the problem of Islam--its repression of women, its hostility toward free speech, and its all-too-facile and frequent resort to threats and violence. Islam remains the most retrograde and ill-behaved religion on earth.'
First, notice how Christian is placed in quotation marks. Harris does not believe that Breivik is a 'Christian fundamentalist' or even particularly Christian. See, Breivik doesn't really believe and that somehow is a hang-up here. Sweet zombie Jesus! What do his beliefs matter if his actions do the bombing and the shooting all in the name of Christian civilization? Does it really matter whether he was a fundamentalist or not? He walks like one, he talks like one...he sounds like one, even if he didn't have the faith. Harris' quibbles here seems too much like those of Christian apologists who would like to dismiss Breivik: 'Well, he isn't a real Christian, so this isn't an example of Christian terrorism--and that shows how this whole thing is idiosyncratic and not a real terrorist threat.'
Now that Harris has confused matters here, he can go on to the more important business of making sure that everyone doesn't forget about the horror that is Islam: 'one now fears the swing of another pendulum: We are bound to hear a lot of deluded talk about the dangers of 'Islamophobia' and about the need to address the threat of 'terrorism' in purely generic terms.' Yes, we wouldn't want to do that. I mean deal with terrorism as if it was like a tactic or deal with fundamentalism like it was a general problem.
A lot of non-Muslims like to talk about the problem of Islam. But Western civilization I ask you, is it really our problem? Sam Harris et al, shouldn't we really worry about Christian fundamentalism? Doesn't it pose a bigger threat?
Everything Harris and other Muslim-bashers accuse Islamic fundamentalism of is equally true of Christian fundamentalism. Dominionists and reconstructionists and all those other cranks and wierdos connected with the Religious Right deliberately seek to undermine secularism and impose a Biblically-based order. You're worried about Sharia, well, fuck, it is the Christian fundamentalists who stand a fucking good chance of actually introducting their version of it--and are doing their best to implement it step by fucking step. Look at all the laws restricting abortion across the USA right now, what else are those but part of the Christian assault on the modern world?
If you want to find out more about just how crazy, misogynistic and reactionary these Christian fundamentalists really are, read more about: Christian patriarchy, the stay-at-home daughter movement and Quiverfull. Anything supposed Islamic fundamentalists do, these guys do just as well--and unlike 'Islamists' they have connections, resources, and respectability as they attempt to create a society where blasphemy, sodomy, adultery, etc. are punished by death and women must serve their fathers first and their husbands later while they have gaggles of children.
Now, you could object that these groups haven't committed violence--but what the fuck do you call what Breivik did? Oh wait, he wasn't a real Christian so we can dismiss him. So what about the killing of abortion doctors or anti-abortion violence in general? Or the murder of shamans? The Lord's Resistance Army of Uganda?
There is enough evidence here of Christian-motivated terrorism to match any Islam-motivated terrorism. Add that to the movement to return Western societies to the Bronze Age and we have enough here to take the threat of Christian fundamentalism seriously. So why don't we?
Christianity is like whiteness in our culture. Just as whites are the racial universal that goes un-raced and unnoticed, Christianity is the background religious radiation that generally stays invisible because it's just assumed to be normal. That's why Harris sees the Islamic threat but remains blind to the far more immediate threat right before his eyes. That is Islamophobia--demonizing the other while ignoring or downplaying the same junk in your own backyard.
They wear hijabs. Ooooo spooky! We have the stay-at-home daughter movement. Well, that's just normal, isn't it?
I won't take on all new atheists here, only one oh so superior bastard: Sam Harris. Moreover, I'll just look at his raced reaction to the mass Norwegian killings this past summer.
So, what did Harris say about the massacre of 77 people? Well, Harris takes this teachable moment to tell us that the real problem is, always has been and always will be Islam:
'The emergence of 'Christian' terrorism in Europe does absolutely nothing to diminish or simplify the problem of Islam--its repression of women, its hostility toward free speech, and its all-too-facile and frequent resort to threats and violence. Islam remains the most retrograde and ill-behaved religion on earth.'
First, notice how Christian is placed in quotation marks. Harris does not believe that Breivik is a 'Christian fundamentalist' or even particularly Christian. See, Breivik doesn't really believe and that somehow is a hang-up here. Sweet zombie Jesus! What do his beliefs matter if his actions do the bombing and the shooting all in the name of Christian civilization? Does it really matter whether he was a fundamentalist or not? He walks like one, he talks like one...he sounds like one, even if he didn't have the faith. Harris' quibbles here seems too much like those of Christian apologists who would like to dismiss Breivik: 'Well, he isn't a real Christian, so this isn't an example of Christian terrorism--and that shows how this whole thing is idiosyncratic and not a real terrorist threat.'
Now that Harris has confused matters here, he can go on to the more important business of making sure that everyone doesn't forget about the horror that is Islam: 'one now fears the swing of another pendulum: We are bound to hear a lot of deluded talk about the dangers of 'Islamophobia' and about the need to address the threat of 'terrorism' in purely generic terms.' Yes, we wouldn't want to do that. I mean deal with terrorism as if it was like a tactic or deal with fundamentalism like it was a general problem.
A lot of non-Muslims like to talk about the problem of Islam. But Western civilization I ask you, is it really our problem? Sam Harris et al, shouldn't we really worry about Christian fundamentalism? Doesn't it pose a bigger threat?
Everything Harris and other Muslim-bashers accuse Islamic fundamentalism of is equally true of Christian fundamentalism. Dominionists and reconstructionists and all those other cranks and wierdos connected with the Religious Right deliberately seek to undermine secularism and impose a Biblically-based order. You're worried about Sharia, well, fuck, it is the Christian fundamentalists who stand a fucking good chance of actually introducting their version of it--and are doing their best to implement it step by fucking step. Look at all the laws restricting abortion across the USA right now, what else are those but part of the Christian assault on the modern world?
If you want to find out more about just how crazy, misogynistic and reactionary these Christian fundamentalists really are, read more about: Christian patriarchy, the stay-at-home daughter movement and Quiverfull. Anything supposed Islamic fundamentalists do, these guys do just as well--and unlike 'Islamists' they have connections, resources, and respectability as they attempt to create a society where blasphemy, sodomy, adultery, etc. are punished by death and women must serve their fathers first and their husbands later while they have gaggles of children.
Now, you could object that these groups haven't committed violence--but what the fuck do you call what Breivik did? Oh wait, he wasn't a real Christian so we can dismiss him. So what about the killing of abortion doctors or anti-abortion violence in general? Or the murder of shamans? The Lord's Resistance Army of Uganda?
There is enough evidence here of Christian-motivated terrorism to match any Islam-motivated terrorism. Add that to the movement to return Western societies to the Bronze Age and we have enough here to take the threat of Christian fundamentalism seriously. So why don't we?
Christianity is like whiteness in our culture. Just as whites are the racial universal that goes un-raced and unnoticed, Christianity is the background religious radiation that generally stays invisible because it's just assumed to be normal. That's why Harris sees the Islamic threat but remains blind to the far more immediate threat right before his eyes. That is Islamophobia--demonizing the other while ignoring or downplaying the same junk in your own backyard.
They wear hijabs. Ooooo spooky! We have the stay-at-home daughter movement. Well, that's just normal, isn't it?
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Sexy Halloween Costumes and Gender Performativity
'Tis the season for the sexy Halloween costume. Girls, need a costume. Well, you can choose from: sexy nurse, sexy maid, sexy cop, and sexy raccoon...Girls, you can be anything for Halloween--as long as it is sexy!!!
As any body knows, these sexy costumes do work. They are sexy; and they encase and infiltrate any body wearing them with all the signs and signifiers of sexiness in our culture. And as such, they provide the perfect example of gender performativity in a heteronormative society.
If you have never been able to figure out what Judith Butler meant by gender performativity, just look at this image. It oozes gender performativity. We have a sexy costume for the gal and an asexual one for the guy. Everything you need to know about gender is summed up here. The woman's role is to be sexy; the man's to be the insouciant arm to the arm candy all the while pretending like a bottom in a play relationship that he is not in total control of the scene the girl thinks she is choreographing.
Women are supposed to be liberated. Women are supposed to be free. Women are supposed to be...sexy because woman is sex as much as she ever was in the Middle Ages and throughout history.
You can see then how sex is repressive. Women are declared more sexually free than ever before; and their sexuality is turned on them as it always has been. The sexy Halloween costume is just one tool in the regime of female sexuality our culture uses to discipline women. Women wear their chains and claim they're liberating. The sexy Halloween costume is the new corset. A la mode! A la mort!
So this Halloween, women will don their sexy costumes and pretend to celebrate their 'inner slut' all the while creating her; and in the repetition bolstering female slavery to heteronormative expectations. Woman is sex. Woman exists to arouse man. Whatever else she does--that is her ultimate purpose.
Girls, get your freak on! That is not an option! That is a commandment!
As any body knows, these sexy costumes do work. They are sexy; and they encase and infiltrate any body wearing them with all the signs and signifiers of sexiness in our culture. And as such, they provide the perfect example of gender performativity in a heteronormative society.
If you have never been able to figure out what Judith Butler meant by gender performativity, just look at this image. It oozes gender performativity. We have a sexy costume for the gal and an asexual one for the guy. Everything you need to know about gender is summed up here. The woman's role is to be sexy; the man's to be the insouciant arm to the arm candy all the while pretending like a bottom in a play relationship that he is not in total control of the scene the girl thinks she is choreographing.
Women are supposed to be liberated. Women are supposed to be free. Women are supposed to be...sexy because woman is sex as much as she ever was in the Middle Ages and throughout history.
You can see then how sex is repressive. Women are declared more sexually free than ever before; and their sexuality is turned on them as it always has been. The sexy Halloween costume is just one tool in the regime of female sexuality our culture uses to discipline women. Women wear their chains and claim they're liberating. The sexy Halloween costume is the new corset. A la mode! A la mort!
So this Halloween, women will don their sexy costumes and pretend to celebrate their 'inner slut' all the while creating her; and in the repetition bolstering female slavery to heteronormative expectations. Woman is sex. Woman exists to arouse man. Whatever else she does--that is her ultimate purpose.
Girls, get your freak on! That is not an option! That is a commandment!
Friday, October 28, 2011
Women's autonomy and the abolition of school uniforms
Should women watch what they wear? That hoary question has come up again in the wake of some recent assaults on Catholic school girls in Toronto. As always, the focus of the public ire has been on the alluring attire of the victims; and the cops have reinforced this unwanted attention with advice that perhaps the girls shouldn't wear their sexy uniforms on city buses for the next little while.
Here we see 'common sense', that creaky social construct, again dictating what is in women's best interest; in this case suggesting the proper dress code for ladies who do not wish to be raped or ogled whilst going about their proper lady-like business. Rightly, many have been offended by this misguided and misogynistic advice.
Women's autonomy includes the right of women to wear what they want and to not be held responsible for other people's responses to their clothing. Moreover, not only are women not responsible for how other people act upon seeing them--but they have every right to negotiate these responses as well. Women can wear clothes that draw attention to them--sexy clothes even--and they can respond positively to wanted attention and negatively to unwanted attention. They do not have to take the bad with the good. It is not their fault if perverts refuse to control themselves. And it is not their fault if other people are offended that they didn't dress erotically for their unique pleasure.
That being said, the issue of school uniforms may complicate these conclusions somewhat. School girls are being subject to sexual harassment in this situation not because of clothes they chose to wear but specifically because of uniforms they are forced to wear. Defending women's autonomy in this situation would mean supporting the abolition of school uniforms as an anti-egalitarian institution. Free Catholic school girls from the bonds of their uniforms at the same time that we free them from the confines of the male gaze.
Here we see 'common sense', that creaky social construct, again dictating what is in women's best interest; in this case suggesting the proper dress code for ladies who do not wish to be raped or ogled whilst going about their proper lady-like business. Rightly, many have been offended by this misguided and misogynistic advice.
Women's autonomy includes the right of women to wear what they want and to not be held responsible for other people's responses to their clothing. Moreover, not only are women not responsible for how other people act upon seeing them--but they have every right to negotiate these responses as well. Women can wear clothes that draw attention to them--sexy clothes even--and they can respond positively to wanted attention and negatively to unwanted attention. They do not have to take the bad with the good. It is not their fault if perverts refuse to control themselves. And it is not their fault if other people are offended that they didn't dress erotically for their unique pleasure.
That being said, the issue of school uniforms may complicate these conclusions somewhat. School girls are being subject to sexual harassment in this situation not because of clothes they chose to wear but specifically because of uniforms they are forced to wear. Defending women's autonomy in this situation would mean supporting the abolition of school uniforms as an anti-egalitarian institution. Free Catholic school girls from the bonds of their uniforms at the same time that we free them from the confines of the male gaze.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Goths are so bourgeois...
Do Goths age better than members of other subcultures? And is that a good thing?
Paul Hodkinson, another Goth sociologist and sociologist of Goth, has some good points here about the adaptive nature of the Goth community. Responding to an aging membership creatively and positively is an obvious strength but are Goths changing the practices and structures of professional and family institutions or are they simply conforming?
We can debate the revolutionary merits of body art all we want but what does it mean when Goths are willing to drop piercings for the sake of a job? That act suggests 'selling out' to mainstream norms. If Goths follow that trend as they age, then any subversive potential in the movement disippates; and Goth becomes just another lifestyle option like yoga and golf.
Of course, it is easier for academics like Hodkinson and instructors like me to wear what we want and look as we please in the more relaxed and open-minded atmosphere of the university. It is also equally incumbent upon us to do what we can to promote the countercultural and radical aspects of the Goth community.
Paul Hodkinson, another Goth sociologist and sociologist of Goth, has some good points here about the adaptive nature of the Goth community. Responding to an aging membership creatively and positively is an obvious strength but are Goths changing the practices and structures of professional and family institutions or are they simply conforming?
We can debate the revolutionary merits of body art all we want but what does it mean when Goths are willing to drop piercings for the sake of a job? That act suggests 'selling out' to mainstream norms. If Goths follow that trend as they age, then any subversive potential in the movement disippates; and Goth becomes just another lifestyle option like yoga and golf.
Of course, it is easier for academics like Hodkinson and instructors like me to wear what we want and look as we please in the more relaxed and open-minded atmosphere of the university. It is also equally incumbent upon us to do what we can to promote the countercultural and radical aspects of the Goth community.
What does it mean to queer Goth?
Goth is pretty queer, isn't it? Yes and no says Dunja Brill, Goth sociologist and sociologist of Goth.
Some aspects of Goth are queer and transgressive, others conformist or even reactionary. Yes, Goth is LGBTTIQQ-friendly but only partially. LGBTTIQQs remain marginalized; and the subcultures' emphasis on bisexuality skews the general attitude of tolerance by confusing women-only bisexuality with transgressiveness. Really, how out there is female bisexuality in our porn-soaked culture? How unappealing is it to the 'male gaze'? And even when it isn't ironically gynocentric, Goth bisexuality too often expresses itself as a superior form of victimhood compared to the more accepted LGTTIQQ sexualities...
The truly queer and transgressive side of Goth, according to Brill, can be found in male androgyny and female hyperfemininity. Male androgyny subverts all kinds of gender norms--except that of the intrepid male hero courageously defying an unjust society. Its resistant role is, therefore, ambiguous. Androgyny is also reserved for men while female androgyny is far less popular (Brill's conclusion here is debatable).
As for hyperfeminity, it is both threatening and empowering; and also alluring, especially to smitten Goth males. Its transgressive quality is also highly ambiguous. Brill argues that it is a challenge to 'outsiders' only. Within the Goth community, hyperfeminity tends to conform to standard gender norms: women are judged by beauty and style like everywhere else, it's just the standards are a little different.
So Goth is not inherently queer, only somewhat. How then do we queer Goth? Well, let's find out...
Some aspects of Goth are queer and transgressive, others conformist or even reactionary. Yes, Goth is LGBTTIQQ-friendly but only partially. LGBTTIQQs remain marginalized; and the subcultures' emphasis on bisexuality skews the general attitude of tolerance by confusing women-only bisexuality with transgressiveness. Really, how out there is female bisexuality in our porn-soaked culture? How unappealing is it to the 'male gaze'? And even when it isn't ironically gynocentric, Goth bisexuality too often expresses itself as a superior form of victimhood compared to the more accepted LGTTIQQ sexualities...
The truly queer and transgressive side of Goth, according to Brill, can be found in male androgyny and female hyperfemininity. Male androgyny subverts all kinds of gender norms--except that of the intrepid male hero courageously defying an unjust society. Its resistant role is, therefore, ambiguous. Androgyny is also reserved for men while female androgyny is far less popular (Brill's conclusion here is debatable).
As for hyperfeminity, it is both threatening and empowering; and also alluring, especially to smitten Goth males. Its transgressive quality is also highly ambiguous. Brill argues that it is a challenge to 'outsiders' only. Within the Goth community, hyperfeminity tends to conform to standard gender norms: women are judged by beauty and style like everywhere else, it's just the standards are a little different.
So Goth is not inherently queer, only somewhat. How then do we queer Goth? Well, let's find out...
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
What is an ontological pervert?
The answer is not as exciting or pretentious as it sounds. In sum, an ontological pervert queers reality.
I am sure the term comes from The Conspiracy Against the Human Race by Thomas Ligotti but I cannot seem to find the quotation. Whether the actual term originates there or not, the concept certainly does.
Ligotti's book is an anti-manifesto of arch-pessimism--exactly the type of philosophy a horror writer should proclaim. In Conspiracy, Ligotti downgrades "life" to mere "existence" and attacks it as "malignantly useless." Human beings are nothing special and all of us would have been better off unborn rather than forced to suffer through a frail, miserable and death-haunted existence.
An "ontological pervert" would then be someone who accepts this reality against every social and biological urge to the contrary. In Ligotti's words, "What we do, as a conscious species, is set markers for ourselves. Once we reach one marker, we advance to the next--as if we were playing a board game we think will never end, despite the fact that it will, like it or not. And if you are too conscious of not liking it, then you may conceive of yourself as a biological paradox that cannot live with its consciousness and cannot live without it. And in so living and not living , you take your place with the undead and the human puppet (Ligotti, p. 28)."
That is an ontological pervert. So you see, there is nothing particulary sexy about it--unless you count it as the ultimate BDSM philosophy.
I am sure the term comes from The Conspiracy Against the Human Race by Thomas Ligotti but I cannot seem to find the quotation. Whether the actual term originates there or not, the concept certainly does.
Ligotti's book is an anti-manifesto of arch-pessimism--exactly the type of philosophy a horror writer should proclaim. In Conspiracy, Ligotti downgrades "life" to mere "existence" and attacks it as "malignantly useless." Human beings are nothing special and all of us would have been better off unborn rather than forced to suffer through a frail, miserable and death-haunted existence.
An "ontological pervert" would then be someone who accepts this reality against every social and biological urge to the contrary. In Ligotti's words, "What we do, as a conscious species, is set markers for ourselves. Once we reach one marker, we advance to the next--as if we were playing a board game we think will never end, despite the fact that it will, like it or not. And if you are too conscious of not liking it, then you may conceive of yourself as a biological paradox that cannot live with its consciousness and cannot live without it. And in so living and not living , you take your place with the undead and the human puppet (Ligotti, p. 28)."
That is an ontological pervert. So you see, there is nothing particulary sexy about it--unless you count it as the ultimate BDSM philosophy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)