In our hearts, we hold
the purest form of love
We guard it
We isolate it
Afraid to expose it

Why do we fear ?
Why do we withdraw?
from one of the purest
form of expression
That which we call
Love

McKenna’s take on culture is one well worth considering. Please excuse the low static. (Vid: 3:30min)

Posts in this blog concerning culture : What is Culture? and Culture: Division or Diversity?

This is a response to the Ask Aunt Fatty post on Shapely Prose called “Ask Aunt Fattie: How do I stop feeling negative about my girlfriend’s fat?” where I was unceremoniously censored from what I thought was an interesting discussion. Then came the little pot shots after that fact. It’s her blog and she’s perfectly entitled to do that. We have one here, and we’re free to speak here as well.

We have full sensitivity to media and society conventions and the possible effects on body image, please note our poem “Insecurities of the Flesh”.

Now to clarify some issues:

The term “letting oneself go” is the affliction of many long term relationships where one or both partners take for granted that the other is going to be attracted to them no matter what change in appearance and behaviour may arise. This could include changes in hygiene, fitness and/or behaviour.

There were suggestions I was a “concern troll”, a straw man argument since the concern is the letter-writer’s in this instance as witnessed by the title of the Aunt Fatty post. I am libertarian in view, and if people overindulge, it’s their business, whether it’s drugs, alcohol, food or some other activity.

Attraction is a prejudice and I said that “I believe no one needs to apologize for what they are or aren’t attracted to”. Few would argue this is an unacceptable prejudice. This is a question of aesthetics and as the old refrain goes.. “its in the eye of the beholder”.Bigotry towards overweight people is also a prejudice, an unjust one. I believe fat acceptance is about respecting another person regardless of their size. This does not mean that one needs to be attracted to one.

Now it can be said that media and society do have some influence, but how much? How much was the letter-writer inherent affinity to some aesthetic? It’s hard to gauge, yet here Aunt Fatty’s advice falls short, suggesting the letter-writer keep her doubts to herself.  I’ve learned it is wise to share doubts and concern and have a debate, discussion or even an argument so we can come to an understanding and consensus to what we fear about change. Maybe at the end of it all, we fear being alone, so sometimes we do become complacent and leave out a few detail to “not rock the boat”. That is for each of us to explore both as individuals and as a couple.

We blame TV, books, magazines, other people and genetics. When do we start taking responsibility for our behaviours and actions instead of blaming society on how they perceive us? This is road to powerlessness, as it is easier to change oneself than society. But one need not change to accomodate society but to accomodate oneself.

The Olympics. The spectacle begins with the ceremonial lighting of the torch in Greece, giving homage to an ancient tradition brought down from the Age of Zeus. A magnificent sight full of significance and pageantry by young women in robes. The Games, an occasion for nations to compete without violence in the spirit of sportsmanship and fair play. The Olympic Torch is lit, to begin its travels around our vast planet, a beacon of hope and harmony across national borders. People line the streets to witness its journey and the carriers running with both pride and honour. At the Olympic Stadium, elaborate productions involving twirling dancers, dazzling light shows and ultimately the precious children, the hope of the future, celebrate its imminent arrival, and the start of the greatest athletic event on Earth.

The Parade of Nations begin. Athletes from all over the world dressed uniformly carry the blessed flags of their homelands, The finest physical specimens their nations have to offer. Once the Stadium is filled with the potential heroes, the carrier makes his lap around the track, pauses dramatically so the crowd can take in the great significance of the moment and the smaller torch lights the larger one. The Games have begun.

Behind the Spectacle

I find it hard to grasp how some deem this highly commercialized sports event founded by aristocrat, a movement. Popular movements blossom from the grassroots, not by some privileged wealthy benefactor attempting to “save the world”. Its even given a term called Olympism, which is a hollow philosophy for “fitness, fair play and mutual respect”, which is amusing since the Olympic Selection committee has a corrupt history of bribery when selecting the host city.

It’s questionable how “fortunate” it is to be selected a host city, for example, the Athens games cost over $8.5 BILLION dollars for a 2 week event. Montreal’s Olympic Stadium (1976) was just recently payed off in 2006 , a debt of $1.5 billion , after 30 years. In China for the upcoming games, up to 1.5 million people are being displaced to accommodate the event according to a Geneva housing rights group, and usually those moved are among are poorest in society. Squandering these massive funds simply to accommodate these games, the athletes and the tourism for a COUPLE OF WEEKS, is obscene when many cities need better infrastructure and accessible housing.

Commercial interests tend to be most eager to push the “prestige” of the games, often subsidized by the taxpayers who must deal with the strain on their infrastructure to increase private opportunities. Socialize the risk, privatize the profit. It’s great PR for some of these giant corporate conglomerates who appear to be giving to a great humanist cause as sponsors, instead of just giving greater exposure to their company logo. It’s just advertising costs to them, in my opinion, not some altruistic attempt to expand the “Olympic Spirit”.

The Politics

This so-called bridge between nations has failed spectacularly several times as boycotts have been used to send political messages, especially during 1980 and 1984, casualties of the Cold War. Even now one is being considered for the Beijing games, due to valid concerns over human rights, but unfortunately at the end of it all, nothing will change.

Those who want to send a message violently, as they did in the games in Munich and Atlanta, get the attention they clearly don’t deserve. These centralized global sporting events can attract those who are willing to harm others to make their point, and the security costs can be astronomical as was the case in the Athens games which was five times higher than the Sydney Games after 9/11.

The Athletes

Doping scandals taint the games, as the pressure to win pushes some athletes to compromise their health and the spirit of fair play to get a better chance at Olympic glory. The organizers are addressing the issue, although there have been ridiculous draconian mesures like banning marijuana. The idea that this is a performance enhancing drug is pretty insane.

Professionals are now allowed to participate in the Olympics, which attracts more sponsors (read: more money) to the games, so the games themselves are becoming less and less about the so-called Olympic Ideals of amateur (”lover of”) sports. Even some of the victorious amateurs will quickly leverage their metal trinket into becoming professional spokesman for an often unrelated product you’re supposed to be more inclined to buy.

Resistance is Growing

The Games are looking less and less like a great honour, and more like a great burden and many are beginning to voice their concerns about the cost to taxpayers and strain to local infrastructure. In the case of the upcoming 2010 Games in Vancouver, these concerns were brought up by dissenters to the Olympic Committee . With good reason as costs are spiraling up. There is a great site keeping an eye on the preparations of the 2010 games at 2010watch.com .

How about the World Cup?

There are differences between the World Cup of soccer and the Olympic games although they are both popular global sporting events.

• The World Cup tends to celebrate the sport, soccer. The Olympics is about the event.
• As mentioned above, the Olympics tend to suggest its a great humanitarian and philosophical movement, while the World Cup doesn’t make such grand presumptions.
• The strain on local infrastructure is much smaller for the World Cup, where one needs a soccer field and place for people and cameras, while the Olympics need many specialized facilities for the bloating number of sports, many of which few care about anyways.

The Olympic Games have lost any appeal or credibility in my eyes. There are many international sporting event going on annually all around the world, but I wondered why did I watch a game I had no interest in to begin with simply because it was on the Olympics? Was it the Five Rings? The hypnosis is over, as far as I’m concerned. The Games are an overproduced corporate event subsidized by taxpayers where athleticism appears as a secondary concern to a global spectacle to glorify the organizers and the advertisers. I can’t wait until “regular programming” on the tube comes back when it on.

Similar to my critique but much funnier, here’s Stanhope’s take on that most sacred institution (2:23min)

I was appalled when I stumbled over this Wired article “Inconvenient Truths: Get Ready to Rethink What It Means to Be Green” The title itself attempt to redefine what is green, to encapsulate a vast field of concern that is environmentalism to a singular issue that should trump any other: global warming.

“Winning the war on global warming requires slaughtering some of environmentalism’s sacred cows. We can afford to ignore neither the carbon-free electricity supplied by nuclear energy nor the transformational potential of genetic engineering. …  The planet is already heating up, and the point of no return may be only decades away. So combating greenhouse gases must be our top priority, even if that means embracing the unthinkable.” (from link above)

I had already seen articles claiming that nuclear energy one solution to global warming  , an affliction that took over a Greenpeace founder, and Al Gore’s popular documentary has brought the alarmist level to a critical mass that has neutralized many people’s ability to discern and acknowledge other environmental problems (like the World’s Rubbish Dump mentioned in this blog).

This is one of the key problems of “Green Capitalism” which conveniently ignores consumerism, population growth, and industrial society since addressing these may hinder the ability to generate profit, which at the end of it all, appears to be the driving agenda of the aforementioned article. While I agree with some of the points mentioned, like creating greener cities rather than relying on suburbia and buying used cars rather than new hybrids, resorting to nuclear energy with the waste associated with it, and bioengineering show that no other environmental cost would be too high to appease the absolutism of those who worship at the global warming altar.

An interesting question was raised by commenter spaceagesage about our poem “what is culture?” (likely to the last line “do we need another word to further divide”) that prompted this post, and I hope to address it.

I feel many are too quick to embrace labels, branding themselves (and others) as full incarnations of some concept, set of cultural currents, or lifestyle. What is often overlooked, likely because its so obvious, is to first acknowledge our shared humanity. Engaging as individuals, instead of as representatives of some group or other, will more likely increase the potential of understanding, instead as seeing one another as walking sets of memeplexes.

In social situations I’ve been asked the dreaded question “What’s your background?”, usually a innocent question fueled by curiosity and as a conversational icebreaker. It’s likely because there are some visual distinctions in appearance and I appear to have come from somewhere else, despite the fact that I speak fluent english. I came here as a young child so have no great insight into “another culture”. So I pleasantly reply that I’ve lived here most of my life, and that’s that. Then I feel we can engage as individuals without the other innocently constructing bias based on some past experience of a culture or ethnicity.

The relationship between identity and culture is a deep, complex one that we hope to explore in future posts. In a crowded world with great potential for conflict, the question of culture cannot be simply dismissed as a semantic one. How we negotiate this question may be pivotal on how we deal with common challenges we’re likely to face in the near future.

religion, ritual
christian, gnostic
judeism, kabbalah
muslim, sufi
beliefs, traditons
is this cultural?
What is culture?
who decides, who defines?

society, civilisation
class, elite
upper class, ruling class
social class, racial class
middle class, lower class
What class, no class?
is this cultural?
What is culture?
who decides, who defines?

culture jamming
advertising, consumming
art, philosophising
popular, unique
texting, gaming
loving, hating
music, writing
symbols, language
is this cultural?
What is culture?
who decides, who defines?

understanding, creating
thinking, exisitng
values, systems
tools,rules
spirit, nature
universe, mysticism
is this cultural?
what is culture?
who decides, who defines?

capitalist, socialist,
sexist, fascist
evolution, revolution
democracy, freedom,
will we ever find a simple solution?
one word, many words
too many words, No words
silence, just for a moment
one conclusion!

do we really need another word
to further divide?

Faith,
Can you hear me?
Why am I so afraid,
To let go?
I have faith
That will bond us together,
Faith in each other.
I know,
Nothing lasts forever,
So, why am I still afraid,
To let go?
Fear of the unknown?
Fear to be alone?
Fear to try something new?
Reality, Sexuality, Creativity!
Change,
“The unknown mystery.
No need to be afraid
No past, nor future
Just enjoy the moment.
Just let go!
Have faith,
Continued faith in community.”

gender
Is it something we choose?
Identity do we lose?
Is it biology?
Is it sociology?
Are we really so different?
Does biology dictate?
Does social hierarchies rule?
or sometimes do we just fluctuate ?
Are we neither ?
or are we both?
man or woman,
male or female.
is it hormones?
is it chromosomes?
is this our identity?
is it conformity?
is this something we choose?
Identity do we lose?
Human perceptions,
is that reality?
or the battle
of constant duality?
combinations ,permutations
always calculating.
sex with one,
sex with the other,
sex for reproduction,
sex for reconstruction,
sex for pleasure,
sex for pain,
do these interactions,
define me?
or do I create my own identity?
who am i?
do i belong ?
do i fit in ?
soul searching for purpose
searching for meaning
why are we so different?
Are we so different?
where is the equality?
are we not social beings?
in this physical world
searching to connect
are we not energy
are we not simple molecules
in the spirtual realm
searching to connect
removing delusion
seeing past illusion
we are the universe
we are the galaxy
in between the destruction
between ego and identity
I hope we find unity