#especially with the west bastardising it so much

[fellow-traveller]

A slight rant, I suppose. But it's more frustration than annoyance.

(under the cut because I don't want to spoil someone's day with this discourse)

I'm pretty much active in Twitter/X mainly because of the 1 Day 1 Hol Horse thing, but when I ventured deeper into the JoJo fandom, I realised the anti-proship discourse is just a huge WHY for me.

Like, why does this mess have to exist?

Why does one have the need to not interact with other fans in the same fandom, especially if they also share a similar preference?

Why can't everyone just like what they like, and leave what they don't, without harming actual fans, like sending death threats, trolling, doxxing, rallying hate etc?

To clarify, I've only known about this new definition of anti-proship about this year, when I got active again in the JoJo fandom. And it came to me in the form of being forced into a voting poll without my knowledge, and the fans that voted for or against my account labelled me a proshipper based on "problematic" fanarts from my Japanese friends and moots that I liked and shared.

It was the very first time I learnt what the bastardised definition of a proshipper is to these group of people.

Because during my anime/manga era, some good 20 years ago, proshipping basically means shipping whatever one likes and accepting that others may ship things one dislikes. We had terms like OTPs and NOTPs and BroTPs, and we use them freely to express love and acceptance, while also acknowledge what we prefer and what we don't.

Yes, there will occasionally be fans who will throw a tantrum about what others ship. They were the ones we call antishippers - the most intolerant of fans. They started ship wars, they send death threats, they doxx. They are the unhinged that most likely would kick a baby if given the opportunity.

Proshipper is actually a very positive word, and we love proshippers, because they're very tolerant, they work as middle men in ship wars, and by all things divine, most of them have really great artistic skills. Antishipper, nope, we don't want to be that. We hate that. We despise that.

But somehow the new generation seemed to shift the blame of all things bad on proshippers by changing the definition of it.

Depending on who you ask, proship could be a short to "proactive shipping", "professional shipping" or just "pro shipping" (as in pros and cons). All positive words. Now the new generation who most likely was never thought of how to explore fandoms at a young age, deemed proship as "problematic shipping".

The audacity to simply change the definition is palpable. Especially when I find out the kind of "problematic" things that they try to justify hating on.

Kids. Teens. Young adults. My dears.

Whatever "problematic" things you've seen in a fandom /ship /character now IS NOT NEW. It's not something that just happened to exist in a recent fandom to spite the younger gens. It has been there 20 years ago when I was underaged and older fans were making fanart of their favourites both "problematic" and not. Heck, probably way longer before for them as well.

If only you utilise some reading skills and maybe your library card, you can find the history of anime-manga was filled to the brim with "problematic" topics. It's a way of expression, it's a way of coping, it's a way of criticising certain factors like politics and people. Anime and manga has always been "problematic". That's a hard fact.

Virtue signaling especially if you're from the West is not gonna change that.

Also, I cannot stress it enough that fiction does not equate to reality. At best, it is an imitation of reality, in a form safe for consumption and indulgence that require no harm to real living beings. Once people can differentiate these, trust me, life will be so much easier.

While the definition of proship had seen a pretty twisted change, antiship didn't. They still did the same things, only now, the minors were dragged in.

Despite all, I won't deny there are absolute rotten eggs on both sides. There will definitely be proshippers who are so disturbing it scares even Junji Ito. There will also be antishippers who will do anything to spread more hate in the fandom, making it rather unlivable. And both sides have the capability to influence an attack on each other, or worse, take advantage of gullible, ill-informed fans, especially minors.

But if we stop lumping everyone into "proship dni" and "antis dni" lists, and openly, properly communicate and explore about likes and dislikes and preferences like old times, I'm sure complaints from antis like

"Why is this fanartist who draws / fan who like [insert ship] has to be a proship?"

"I like this fanartist's artwork but they are a proship, so now I can't see their stuff."

"There's not enough fanart of [insert ship/character]."

would be way, way less.

And I always wonder if these antis, who were mostly young teenagers of a sound mind, have a pending curiosity to explore something adult through fictional characters. Hence why, while they despise proshippers and anything not sfw, they still talk about it among themselves and draw lemony drawings, even to a detail I personally wouldn't share so openly. And why they still invade not sfw spaces even with a clear warning.

Because, I get that, I've been there, most likely as early as 12. Exploring sexuality is not wrong at that age, and it's already a correct method to use fiction for it.

But by pushing away people who had been there, who can actually help, is gonna continue making these antis be a hateful, intolerant bunch. And more easily influenced by actual real life predators.

And for the "proshippers", it's also pretty frustrating to see themselves being harrassed, blocked, and talked about behind their back from antis who never thought of maybe, just maybe, getting to know them first. Especially if they are not from the West.

So my advice to these antis and especially the antis who practically had no reason to be an anti, don't confine yourself into a small container and scream why it's too small. Fiction is there for you to explore reality and things that you can and will never do in real life. Exploring it is way better than suppressing yourself, as long as you know your own limits. Preference and discomfort are only evident if you communicate in a proper manner, not by bashing someone without them knowing and shift the blame of the discomfort you caused yourself on them when they had no intention to even present it to you.

We're in the same fandom. Sharing the same love for the same character and ships. I don't see why we should cut it down so meticulously just because one cannot separate fiction to reality.

As a pretty much seasoned anime-manga fan, especially in JoJo (I've been with the fandom since 2001, tbh), keep your mind open. Block and mute are always your friend if things get too overwhelming, but hatred shouldn't be the main motivator. Communication is key. If you want to know more, express your discomfort, discuss on characters / ships / fandoms...always communicate first. Never assume, never stab on the back. You might be surprised how helpful proshippers can be if you're just, for once, be nice.

That's all.

[fortressofserenity]

Westernised privilege

When it comes to anime characters, they’re often seen as white in the West and to an extent, outside of the Western world as well, that they’re treated as such by some people even though they’re not intended to be. Sailor Moon may have blonde hair and blue eyes, but she’s not intended to be a Westerner. East Asian people can have blonde hair and blue eyes, especially if they have a milder form of albinism.

But some people dye their hair blond willingly, so whatever the cause a blonde Japanese woman’s not much of a stretch really. The real problem lies with whitewashing characters, especially if they’re not intended to be white. Because most anime characters aren’t white, they experience this often as they seem white when they’re not intended to be.

Their non-Westernness becomes more evident in the cultural markers stories have, whether if it’s the landmarks, the clothes or the foods they eat. This kind of cultural ‘bastardisation’ isn’t unique to Westerners, when it comes to Arabic translations of DC Comics DC characters have been treated as Arabs by Lebanese translators and readers.

Likewise Yu Yu Hakusho characters were made Filipino in the Tagalog dub, but even then anime characters aren’t intended to be white. They look white, but they’re not supposed to be. They actually appeal to a wide variety of people, wider than their creators intended to whenever they have Kenyan or Philippine fans around. But they’re not intended to be Western, so they’re not Western.

When it comes to making a character white, as far as Philippine and Japanese media go, they will often have light hair and eyes sometimes coupled with a pointy nose. Even if not all blond characters are white, these are good markers of somebody who’s supposed to come from another place altogether. But whenever somebody of their ethnicity portrays their own ethnicity they don’t have strong markers.

Consider these characters from a Nigerian website, it’s in black and white but other than hair they don’t have any strong racial markers. Instead their Nigerianness has more to do with commenting on whatever goes on in Nigeria, as well as colloquialisms unique to this country. Japanese manga and Philippine comics, for all their faults, are no different in this regard.

It takes somebody with Westernised privilege to see them as anything but their actual or intended ethnicities/nationalities, if because they’re so racialised that they think they must be white even when that’s not the original intent. An Indonesian would immediately see Pangeran Mlaar as Indonesian, even if he’s an alien from outer space.

Much like how Americans see Superman as American, even though he was born far away from it. In the case with Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures, as of late, the characters are drawn more realistically but their ethnicities tend to be implied by the places they live in, rather than going by physical appearance alone. Even then, Kakyoin’s not white because he’s not supposed to be.

Appearances really are deceiving, but this is not an excuse to whitewash them a lot.

[taurianskies7]

Let me clear this up for you:

Since no one seems to understand. Time to rant. 

CONCEPT OF KARMA

I absolutely hate how western practitioners have twisted the meaning and bastardised it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not completely rooted in my roots and I’m not an extreme traditionalist but people using the concept of karma by first misunderstanding its foundations and then using it to justify horrendous shit is unbelievable. Which then, leads to people trying to divorce karma from its associations.

Okay, let’s just break it down. Idk how they just reduced Karma as “what goes around, comes around” & treated it like a cause and effect deal, because it isn’t. Using Karma to justify suffering and oppression was NEVER it’s original purpose. Looking through Hinduism & Vedic teachings, Karma is a law that human in the centre of responsibility, in every way, shape and form. There is a reason Karma is tied with Saturn (Shani), the God of Karma, Justice and Retribution, and ANY astrologer can tell you how Saturn operates in similar principal. Karma doesn’t teach people to shut up & suffer because they deserve it. Karma says that the cycles that exist are created by and through humans, their suffering & good fortune accordingly and by virtue, it is in their hands and will alone on how they want to cultivate their actions.

It DOESN’T discount systematic oppression.

It DOESN’T tell you to sit on your hands and suffer because it’s your fault.

It DOESN’T tell you that you’ll get good things after suffering.

What Karma does is present you with the situation of your life, then waits and watches what YOU choose to do with it, how YOU work or manage it. Ultimately, being tied to Saturn, it expects you to take responsibility on creating your own situation.

And no, I’m not saying this in the way that the way people are, and how they’re suffering is because they somehow “were a bad person in their previous life, etc etc”, I’m saying that it acknowledges that people have different situations & personal suffering, yes, a LOT of things in life are fundamentally difficult but you need to understand, the planets or the gods didn’t create suffering on such a global scale, it was ultimately humans/men themselves that perpetuated and continued the cycle of suffering, and it is, ultimately, in our hands to make it better or worse. Karma treats everyone equally this sense, but it is very difficult to understand this if you don’t realise that the concept of Karma is deeply tied with cycles, especially as Hinduism treats time as a cycle itself, and often times people really can’t and don’t have the knowledge of comprehending anything but their own/current life while they’re alive. 

Karma isn’t an immediate slap in the face (unless you have those placements that make it so) as you know, the GOD OF KARMA is literally called the slowest/slow moving planet and is symbolised by a tortoise, the effects of your Karma accumulate and thus it usually manifests in the various cycle of lifes. I understand that western practitioners or those growing up with largely Christian themes/society can’t understand because we don’t have a definite “end”, the only “end” that comes from cycles of reincarnation is through burning the ties of Karma and liberating the soul. There are three types of Karma:

1. Sanchita karma, the sum total of past karmas yet to be resolved. 2. Prarabdha karma, that portion of sanchita karma that is to be experienced in this life. 3. Kriyamana karma, the karma that humans are currently creating, which will bear fruit in future.

There are some things in life you can’t control, there are also things in life that you can control. Karma is a continuous cycle until you achieve moksha, which is the ultimate goal of liberation.

Hinduism/The Vedas has recognised and understood the way the Law of Karma works, that’s one of the main reasons Dharma was made one of the aims of life, the act of good deeds, performing proper responsibilities & personality that ultimately gears you towards attaining (good)karma that will make it easier for you to pursue the other “Purusartha” aka aims of life, and of course, the path towards liberation in general.

From this perspective, we see life as fundamentally connected with everything, including people, action, deeds, nature, planets, the universe etc etc, Karma is just a law that explains one part of such. Astrology has always been one of the main tools used to deeply study the bond between the planets and a human existence (soul & body), one of the main reason Karmic Astrology exists is because the intrinsic ties our existence has with different elements of life, and of course, the soul that has & will be going through everything. Now that you’re in the end of this post, I hope you never misuse the concept of “Karma” because I’m going to arrive there with Saturn to slap a bitch.

[the50-person]

Opinion on a Hollywood Adaptation of Kimi no Na wa

So Hollywood has gotten its grubby hands on Kimi no Na wa (Your Name) and I’m just...

This whole film is just so intrinsically tied in Japanese culture and mythology that I don’t see how it can work out.

(reposted from my disqus post)

Issues with a live-action, especially one from Hollywood:

One of the biggest selling points of Kimi no Na wa was the beautiful animation. The effect and impact cannot be replicated effectively in a live-action. How many times has one gasped at the breathtaking visuals and the extremely realistic yet equally surreal depictions of familiar objects and places that appear a hundred times more beautiful than they would in real life?

It is so rooted and steeped in Japanese culture and mythology, to the point that it is the essence of the film itself. The whole Japanese-ness is one of its major attractions, and the contrast between the quintessential qualities of a rural sleepy Japanese village/small town vs the quintessential qualities of the orderliness and bustle of a big Japanese city is what endears the film to the audience as it is Japan the country and the culture as a whole, both modernity in presentation and yet still very much rooted in tradition, nature and the typical Japanese small town life. What made it so great was the Japanese culture that pervaded each scene and how traditional lore played such a pivotal role. The whole film was a very spiritual experience. The concept of 'musubi' was a central theme, running from how Taki and Mitsuha even came to be related, all the way down to the crucial climax of Taki drinking Mitsuha's sake and the resolution of Taki's involvement leading to the town being saved and them meeting in the end. If not for 'musubi', none of this would have happened. To adapt this to Hollywood would be take away the essence of such concepts and themes and besides, I do not trust Hollywood to remain faithful or since it's an adaptation, to have a believable equivalent or present something similar in an equally convincing way. Taking away the root and essence of Kimi no Na wa, the film named Kimi no Na wa will cease to exist in a meaningful manner.

Another reason why this film resounded was because the tragedy of 311 was still fresh in Japanese public perception. The West does not have something similar. The closest thing is 911, and that would be a rather controversial and sensitive topic to touch on, especially since Kimi no Na wa is equallly serious and lighthearted, with a dash of comedy and romance. These are not things that would fit particularly well with 911 and the burden that comes along with those memories. 911 was terrorism and a resulting war, it was of revenge, fear and suspicion. 311 was a natural disaster, of helplessness, yet of neverending hope, that one could perhaps, with some stroke of luck, evade it and reverse fortunes. Those two tragedies are of inherently different natures. 311 was an acceptable inspiration because tragic as it was, it was a story of how people bonded together to help each other in times of need, and that granting someone like Taki and Mitsuha the agency to reverse a natural disaster was a form of comfort to the Japanese, as no one could do anything in the face of the earthquake and the tsunami's wrath. Stories are often affected by the real world, and they often function to fulfill the fantasies of the audience, the what-ifs that could have occurred had history taken a different path.

I'd rather follow Don's recommendation of watching Exchange Students and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time together than see a Hollywood bastardisation of a story steeped in Japanese culture and sensibilities.

To adapt it for the Hollywood palate, I guess you can expect that it will take on some cliches. Watch it go the John Green route.

And if one were to adapt it, why can't it stick to Japanese culture and have actors? In fact, hire the VAs as actors, all of them are actors first and foremost. Kamiki Ryunosuke is a strong actor, Kamishiraishi is still rather green but she at least isn't a deadfisheyes.

Further discussion here

[getseriouser]

20 THOUGHTS: Sinking Beers Dee Steven May-o

ONCE the treacherous venue of despair and disappointment, there’s a warm, generous glow hanging over the Tribunal in 2019.

Many have suffered the hand dealt by Chrisso or an errant match-day report, yet the little master, the son of God, joined a lengthening list this season by too getting off his charge tonight.

Secretly Chrisso is having a shocker and on this occasion the umpire should really not have reported Gaz in the first place.

But how good’s the tribunal? Funny world, who would have thought that we’d get to a point where the tribunal is as good as The Footy Show is bad.

Onto the stuff that matters.

  1.       David King makes note that there’s a pack of three who have separated themselves to this point and I tend to agree – Geelong, Collingwood and Western Sydney (they can reclaim the ‘Greater’ bit when they wing a flag, stupid name). Cats have beaten the Pies, the Giants beat the Cats, they all seem pretty up there without yet any major fail, however the Giants and Pies have had bad losses to the Eagles, so where are they in this group? Not close, for reasons that will be apparent in a thought or two.

2.       So why are the Cats so good? It’s not immense talent, they’re not the GWS, but then again nor were Collingwood last year. And that’s where the similarities lie: its not the sum of the parts but the difficulty they pose as an opponent. Their mix is not so much unorthodox but they are had to play against, their matchups down forward are not typical and their midfield mix is gritty, yet clean. Eventually they’ll be worked out and come back to the pack, or yep see 2018 Collingwood.

3.       Mark Robinson, the lite’n’easy ambassador you won’t see, got himself a nice kabana in his tracksuit pants watching Andrew Gaff on the weekend. Now Robbo, if you were reading last weeks column you’d know that’s a waste of time. Yes he got 33 touches, but in a game that the Suns were right in with a chance of winning with five minutes to go. If 30+ from Gaff keeps the Gold Coast competitive, I’ll pass Robbo.

4.       Alright, West Coast, they’re not with the aforementioned three clubs and showing quite clearly why. The Eagles had 14 players over 100 games on Saturday night, Gold Coast had 17 under, but over at Optus the visitors looked on for ever such a long time in that game. Their game plan is so risky thats the thing, the same style that saluted last year for the flag had them fall into the eight just 12 months earlier remember, its fraught.

5.       Essendon got their pants pulled down Sunday but still like them, I think the form from the Melbourne game to Anzac Day is far more representative, and with a lot of sides showing question marks it will just take a good month or two for the Dons to get into the eight and stick.

6.       North, oh they had a win, ‘are they back?’. No, it was North vs. Carlton, no-one is a real winner there, the Roos still have big problems and the Blues are showing isolated glimpses, first half against Hawthorn for example. Like the Blues more than the Kangas though, for say 2020, to be fair.

7.       Chad Wingard marks that ball, which wasn’t a lolly, goes back and kicks it he is the recruit of the year. He doesn’t and the knives come for him. Relax, Clarko said he hasn’t got a great side in 2019 and Wingard’s a month into a new club. Fickle.

8.       Jordan Lewis, gotta say it, 13 touches and only one tackle in defense, Christian Petracca, 11 touches and two tackles. What do you call people on the bus who aren’t the driver?...

9.       Don’t worry about Port on Friday, Pies had 12 players with over 100 games experience, the Power had 11 plays under 50 games. Were never a chance, so to get it close at stages is a credit to their potential.

10.   Aaron Naughton was a gun backman as a junior but flukishly ends up forward in the big league and looks a jet. Do you roll the dice again and put twice-failed Josh Schache down back potentially to try and salvage that?

11.   Good to see a Coleman that might be attached to a decent total, Jeremy Cameron’s on track for 80+ and if the Giants can stay top four looking slick, he could just, maybe just, nudge the ton. Until he gets suspended by routine some time in the winter.

12.   Nat Fyfe is still the best player in the comp and I won’t change on that, but the Bont is creeping up on him. Let’s roll some stats: second to Cripps for clearances but top five for metres gained and top ten for inside 50s and score involvements. $11 for the Brownlow at the moment, not bad. Congilio holding at $15 – value.

13.   Couple last random footy ones - Jack Steven, most rumours are untrue and hope the stuff on him at the moment is the same, but seems there might be a bit involved with relationships down there at Moorabbin causing more harm than good, fingers crossed its all ok.

14.   We did up front say there’s a leading three, but another reminder, Pies didnt make the 8 until Round 10 last season and the Crows were 3rd at the end of Round Seven - bit to play out.

15.   We have the inaugural (I think?) mid-season draft in 3 weeks, total random new event and could make a difference, stay woke, should be a very interesting scenario.

16.   State of Origin will start to ramp up, Dermie picked his Big V team, NRL's game 1 is next month so standby for the annual series of 'what if articles down south' – but Derm's opening paragraph shows why it should still be important to us in 2019, "Most of my football paraphernalia has gone to charity auctions, but I still have my first Big V jumper and refuse to part with it.”

17.    Be careful - especially those who are fans of the Borough, or the Seagulls particularly. The push for a consolidated AFL reserves competition continues, or something that definitively isolates the Melbourne-based seconds into its own comp, where the VFL currently serves six of those reserves teams, with four aligned clubs and then only four remaining standalones. When it happens, Port, Williamstown, Coburg and Frankston, well two of those may be able to survive, for whatever is next but for the other two, and the old Box Hill, the totally bastardised Preston turned Northern Bullants, then what? Does a new post-AFL VFA reemerge, or has there been too much fondling and interference to see something salvageable possible? Something very sad is on the horizon I fear..

18.    Why do we care about Prince Harry’s kid with the chick from Suits? I see people from regional England travelled miles just to what, stand near a random, monarchical residence to ‘celebrate’ the seventh in line to a throne? Its 2019, the only throne people care about is the Iron one at King’s Landing, not the one old Deustchland Libby sits on with her racist Greek cadaver husband looking to cause another road accident nearby. I’m not that fussed with its impact but if becoming a republic gets rid of half this nonsense, sign me up.

19.    Ben Simmons, averaging 10 points and 5 assists a game playing 38 minutes in the Eastern Semi’s against Toronto, hmm..... if Simmons doesn't contribute to the scoreboard does he even exist?

20.   And now our friends over in India. The cricket scheduling - ridiclous - last season 'dictated' no Gabba test, and no Perth as the first test, so totally made us change our schedule to suit their requests, as the visiting team. Now, next season, making us travel over there, literally only a few days after our Sydney test to play three one dayers, to then come back home to finish off our domestic season. Utterly insane, surely we could use our safe word by now, or is the gimp mask to tight to our face to make any sound? ‘Whipped’ in the Websters’ dictionary simple states “adjective - see ‘Cricket Australia’”.

[veganhiphopmovement]

Sharing this on point Facebook post with permission from the author, Eshe Kiama Zuri :

Veganism IS NOT white. Veganism is also NOT new and NOT a fad. Whilst *White Veganism* might be newer and non-inclusive, there has been forms of inclusive and intersectional Veganism and non-animal product living and eating habits around for much longer.

We are struggling with a more recent influx in racism, fascism, animal-only and non-intersectional majority whiteveganism™ in a community that should be dedicated towards caring and understanding. I seriously struggle to understand how someone (especially those who become vegan, not born vegan) can open themselves up to the struggles of animals and wish to break down institutions that result in the death or torture of animals and yet completely disregard and even place more hate on fellow humans and feed into and strengthen the systematic oppression of people around them and try to silence and ignore the voice of marginalised people who are also being killed and tortured, whilst claiming to 'be' or 'listen' to the voices of the unheard, but only when they are non-humans.

By ignoring the obvious groups of this that are forming in local communities you are helping them grow and strengthen. And yes this also makes you a racist vegan because unless you are actively turning up to fight when these groups and people like these are trying to take over movements, attacking and abusing people and spreading fascist propaganda then you cannot call yourself anti-racist or anti-fascist and you most definitely are not an intersectional vegan in any way.

Veganism has become popular in the white community very recently with the help of celebrity culture and the internet amongst other things but for veganism to be seen as mostly white is completely wrong and feeds into the racism that is being bred in the white vegan community.

This has been boosted by the appropriation (and bastardisation) of meaningful cultural food and eating practices that were once ridiculed and looked down on, for instance, ital living in Jamaica and other Rasta communities, the understanding of eating without animal products in Hindu and Hare Krishna communities (and across Asia) as well as natural living in many African communities, including Ancient Egypt and pre-colonial West Africa to name a few.

If we search online for vegan recipes I can guarantee you that you will find an abundance of white food bloggers and chefs 'recreating' or 'discovering' food that has been passed down to us in our blood and through ancestral bonds. Curries have become cool and quirky when sold by your local 'enlightened' hippies and no longer the butt of jokes about their smell or Asian culture. Ital food is delicious and fun when it is accompanied by the 'dreadlocked' Ras Trents of the vegan scene and not seen as 'cheap food' or -insert racist joke here- and it goes on.

Whilst the word Vegan is new, the culture of caring about and not eating animals and animal products is not.

Non-white vegans are here and always have been. We have been fighting for animal equality and rights and we have been influencing and nurturing veganism since day. We don't appreciate our culture being taken away from us and repackaged for white consumption. We don't appreciate the lack of support we have from the white vegan community. And we definitely don't stand with the white vegan community if this is what they will allow. And we don't need too, we don't need a whiteapproved™ sticker on something that we have been doing for a long time and something that comes naturally to us. Whether we choose to use the word vegan or not, we are here and always have been.

To erase this is racist. To ignore this is racist. To choose to support your local culture vultures instead of people making their own cultural food is racism. To allow platforms for anti-human veganism is racism. To pretend that white vegans are a majority is racism. To eat our food without appreciating our culture is racism. And there is so much more. So instead of making us spend the time fighting racism and fascism in communities like this (as we also have to do everywhere in our daily lives), help us. Call it out. Make the animal rights movements and vegan communities a safe space, as it should be.

[morwensteelsheen]

for the ask game: 9, 10, 11, 16, 20, 22?

9. Care to share a sneak peek of a WIP?

Yes! I’ll put a little passage from A Farewell to Arms beneath the cut!

10. What frustrates you the most as a writer?

I have a tendency to focus too much on the details — details I certainly don’t pick up on as a reader. To give you an example, I recently blew hours researching English land law (and the practice of perambulation) for willow cabin, because I thought it would make the plot seem unrealistic if I didn’t have some background knowledge on that. Absolutely nobody reading 100,000 words of bastardised Lord of the Rings porn is going to care about English feudal land law, but my dumbass goblin brain insisted it was necessary. So. That’s frustrating.

11. What’s something you have learned as a writer?

This sounds kind of wanky but I’ve actually learned to read better! Because I spend so much time writing now, I’m constantly looking out for answers to technical questions I have in the things I read. For example, I love the novel War & Peace, love it like nobody’s business, but until quite recently I never read it because I was interested in how to handle a large cast of characters effectively. Or the Portrait of the Author As A Young Man, which was for a long time a totally inaccessible book to me, now feels like an instruction manual for beautiful descriptive language and character development. I’d never picked up on those things until writing became part of my daily routine, but now it’s made reading so much easier and more enjoyable for me!

16. Any ideas you wanted to write about, but never did?

Oh, so many. For Star Wars I’ve always been interested in writing about either Luke setting up his Jedi Academy, or Rey and redeemed Ben Solo setting up a Grey Jedi-style academy, but the fandom has been quite fraught recently so I haven’t really found the courage to try either. For LOTR I’ve got a whole bunch of ideas kicking about that may or may not get written. The big one just now is a Fourth Age next-gen fic, lightly inspired by Green Scholar’s Seeds of the White Tree, but focusing more on the frontier politics of Ithilien and how Elboron and Morwen (my HC daughter for É + F) deal with growing up in what is, I imagine, a fairly Wild West setup while also being prepared/expected to deal with life in the high halls of Gondorrim politics. A lot of that has to do with my questions about what role Faramir takes on when Aragorn starts to rebuild and reintegrate Arnor, and especially my belief that Faramir ends up taking on a Ruling Steward-esque role because Aragorn probably spends a lot of time in the north.

20. What’s one thing you want your readers to know about you?

Ooooh, this is a good one! I think it’s that I’m the king of missing the forest for the trees, which is why my fics will have a lot of unnecessarily accurate information (see my answer to #11), but plots that feel like they were pulled out of my ass thirty seconds before I hit publish. Because they totally are, I’m mostly just writing for the chance to do lots of research about weird minutiae lmao. So when people comment and are like “oh what if [character interaction] happened?” or “I think it’d be cool if [plot point] played out like this,” I am absolutely, 100% going to read that and take it seriously because those comments usually involve more thought about the plot than I’ve actually done lmao.

22. Care to share any future WIP ideas you have lined up?

So I’m doing the Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang with a fucking beautiful Farawyn painting that I’m super excited about — it’s going to feature the early days at Emyn Arnen and is probably going to be a chance for me to do some obnoxious narrative wanking over Cambridgeshire before we move back up north. I’m also toying around with the idea of a Lady Chatterley-style AU featuring Faramir as Lady Chatterley and Éowyn as Mellors. If I ever get the courage, I also want to write about a Gondorian noble trying to overthrow Aragorn and using the red book as evidence to do it, though that would be a fucking nightmare to do lol.

Thanks so much!!! I’m gonna drop the AFTA passage below —

On the sixth day of travel, they crested a small hill and in an instant Éowyn’s world became infinitely more massive. She didn’t speak, didn’t ask to stop, just vaulted off Windfola and rushed to the very edge of the hillside road.

She had never seen anything like it before.

Even the endless, unfettered sky in the Wold could not compare to what lay before her. Never had she felt so at the mercy of the overwhelming power of things she could not control; never did she expect that she could be so at peace with that loss of control. It stretched out before her like a second sky but made rough, more alive by motion and imperfection. Under the blazing midwinter sun (warmer here than farther north) it glistened like a shattered mirror hastily reforged.

She had no expectations for the sea — it had occupied no space in her thoughts, it simply did not exist in her world. Now, the sea rushed into her mind like a summer wildfire engulfing the grasslands, it was everywhere and fast and with a quiet intensity she could scarcely begin to understand.

It was only as she was about to speak to remark on the quietness of it all that she finally heard it. No, it was not quiet, it was perfectly in balance with the soundscape around it. A sound she had thought familiar but now realised was very foreign indeed. It was a dull roar, but it was there, and it spoke to a world she had yet to know — vast and ancient and permanent.

Her knees trembled.

[its-lifestyle]

I am now back in the UK for a short visit, and was pleasantly surprised to be informed by my daughter that certain popular items in Malaysia are now big hits here. For a start, a quarter-pound burger made with jackfruit has been voted as the “Best Vegan Supermarket Burger” in the country.

And laksa restaurants are opening up faster than UK politicians can lie about Brexit (more on the subject of London laksa another time). It was surprising to see jackfruit so popular here as it was probably the last thing I had expected. So out of curiosity, I thought it is worth investigating.

Origin Starting with origin, there have been claims that the jackfruit tree (known as Artocarpus heterophyllus) originated in Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo, but the reality is that it is much more likely to be a native plant from the Western Ghats of India. There is evidence that jackfruit was cultivated in India between 3,000 to 6,000 years ago. The plant has now migrated to other tropical regions in Africa, South America and islands such as the Philippines.

The name “jackfruit” was probably derived from the Portuguese “jaca” which in turn was likely to be a bastardisation of the original Indian name “chakka pazham”. In Bangladesh it is the national fruit and known as “kathal”, the Thais call it “kanun” and Malaysians refer to it as “nangka”.

Properties

Artocarpus heterophyllus is part of the Moraceae family of fruit bearing trees which means the jackfruit is related to fig and mulberry trees.

However, jackfruits are by far the largest tree-borne fruits in the world, often exceeding 30kg in weight. The Guinness World of Records lists the largest validated jackfruit to be 42.72 kilos with a circumference of 132 cm, though there are other unverified claims of jackfruits weighing well over 50kg.

The jackfruit is thought to have originated in the Western Ghats of India.

Jackfruit trees usually require five to seven years before producing its first harvest. But once it starts producing fruit, the output is prodigious, between 10 to 200 fruits per tree per year, or around 25.71 tonnes per hectare.

The internal structure of the jackfruit itself is rather curious, as it is classified as a “dicotyledonous compound fruit”. This is because the fruit is a bundled collection of ovaries of multiple flowers glued together by a strong latex adhesive secreted by laticiferous cells along the axis and core of the fruit. The “flesh” of the jackfruit is actually the ovary casings surrounding the seeds.

The texture of jackfruit flesh tends to be firm, crunchy and sometimes a little stringy, though an over-ripe jackfruit can turn rather mushy. Around 30% of a jackfruit by weight is the edible flesh and jackfruits must be harvested by hand before they fall off by themselves as they would be rotten if left hanging too long on the tree.

The seeds of the jackfruit should never be eaten raw as they contain enzyme and mineral absorption inhibitors which prevent the uptake of various minerals by the body. However, after boiling for around 40-45 minutes, these inhibitors are destroyed/deactivated and I always remember how delicious boiled jackfruit seeds were when my mother prepared them.

Nowadays, it seems that they can also be roasted or baked (200C for 25-30 mins, until brown and toasted) though I have never tried it myself. The seeds are also processed/cooked and then ground into flour.

Note the rind and the fibrous laticiferous cells along the axis and core of the fruit are NOT edible as they are indigestible and may induce stomach cramps.

Jackfruit as a modern food

What makes jackfruit interesting as a modern food is its nutritional content and unusual texture, which is particularly interesting for creating meat substitutes. For such meat substitutes, the unripe jackfruit is used as it is less sweet and has less of its distinctive aroma.

The texture of chopped and cooked unripe jackfruit resembles closely the texture of meat, especially pork, and combining it with umami flavour elements and additional filler ingredients results in highly acceptable meat substitutes.

Jackfruit is also used to make a very convincing substitute for pulled pork which is strikingly usable in dishes and sandwiches/burgers; this is also gaining popularity in the West. But for Asians, jackfruit is already used extensively in curries and stir-fries, especially in India.

Jackfruit is versatile and be used in place of meat or to complement other ingredients. Pictured here is a jackfruit prawn curry. Photo: Filepic

Mature jackfruit can be included/made into various kinds of salads, desserts, ice creams and dessicated/dehydrated into crisps.

The low protein and fat content of jackfruit is also ideal for people who want a healthier diet, particularly if its other nutritional elements are considered. Jackfruit contains significant amounts of ascorbic acid, pyridoxine, riboflavin, thiamine, folic acid, magnesium and phosphorus.

It also contains an unusually wide spectrum of amino acids such as tryptophan, threonine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, valine, histidine, etc, which are important for healthy body functions.

In summary, there appears to be very few disadvantages of using jackfruit as a modern food and a lot of undeniable advantages. So this may be another impetus to the adoption of modern foods made with natural ingredients such as jackfruit.

To understand what modern foods are, please refer to A Modern Food Story – Part 3

Confusion with durians

In the West, many people still confuse jackfruit with durians. This may be because they both look like big, spiky green fruits from a distance, but the more discerning will realise their mistake once they get close enough to smell the fruits.

Jackfruit has a sweet, unusual aroma, perhaps a mix of bubble gum with a hint of fish sauce, whereas durian tends to evoke the full-on disgust reaction when encountering a bucket of rotten fruit mixed with dog poo.

Anthony Bourdain once said the aroma of durians is “indescribable, something you will either love or despise. Your breath will smell as if you’d been French-kissing your dead grandmother.”

In the West, jackfruit is often mistaken for durian because both have somewhat similar exteriors. Photo: Filepic

Nevertheless, I admit that durian is still my all-time favourite fruit and my abiding regret is that only frozen, odourless Thai durians are available here in Europe. They are vile and tasteless compared to the Musang King, Red Prawn, D101, D24, etc, varieties available in Kuala Lumpur when I was working there.

Still, it is curious why durians invoke such strong reactions in novices and I came across a 2012 German Research Centre for Food Chemistry study into a durian species often grown in Thailand called Durio zibethinus (or Monthong) where they performed an aroma extraction dilution analysis.

In the fruit, they found 44 active odorants, including some highly active compounds (with an indication of the aroma of each): hydrogen sulfide (rotten egg), acetaldehyde (sickly fruity), methanethiol (rotten, cabbage), ethanethiol (rotten, onion), 3-methylbut-2-ene-1-thiol (skunky) and propane-1-thiol (just an indescribable rotten stink).

Interestingly, three complex compounds which were completely unknown to chemists previously were found in durian: 1-(propylsulfanyl)ethanethiol, 1-{[1-(methylsulfanyl)ethyl]-sulfanyl}ethanethiol, and 1-{[1-(ethylsulfanyl)ethyl]sulfanyl}ethanethiol.

But they also found other attractive odorants such as ethyl (2S)-2-methylbutanoate (fruity), ethyl cinnamate (honey), 1-(ethylsulfanyl)ethanethiol (roasted onion), 2(5)-ethyl-4-hydroxy-5(2)-methylfuran-3(2H)-one (caramel), ethyl 2-methylpropanoate (fruity), ethyl butanoate (fruity), 1-(methylsulfanyl)-ethanethiol (roasted onion), 1-(ethylsulfanyl)propane-1-thiol (roasted onion), etc.

The study concluded that the researchers did not know which odorants were the most disgusting to uninitiated people. It may be one, a few or it may be many compounds operating in combination. It also does not attempt to explain why many people actually find the aroma of durians so attractive. Maybe they had lost interest by the end, after all that smelling in the laboratory.

Anyway, there are 400 known species of durians, and one suspects the German research centre is not too keen to investigate the other 399 species.

There is one other curiosity about durians, which may validate a Malaysian old wives’ tale. The University of Tsukuba in Japan tested the effect of durian extract on aldehyde dehydrogenases (ALDH), the important enzymes involved in the liver’s metabolism of blood alcohol.

Probably due to the high sulphur content, the durian extract inhibited the effect of ALDH by up to 70%, thus leaving much of the toxic blood acetaldehyde unprocessed for longer in the body. For the gory details, you can refer to A cure for hangovers.

I once had half a bottle of vodka after some durians and felt awful the next day. Until I came across the research paper today, I never understood why. At least, now you know.

The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.

from Food – Star2.com https://ift.tt/2njBFdR

[newslegion-blog1]

POST-MODERNISM IS A SELF-SERVING ICONOCLASM WHOSE END-GAME IS DEATH BY OBSOLESCENCE

Why has post-modernism taken hold so successfully, where did it come from and why does it continue to spread - despite the push-back and the warnings - a culture of mediocrity and reductive relativism that’s threatening to pervert centuries of Western thought and culture?

"We are absurdly accustomed to the miracle of a few written signs being able to contain immortal imagery, involutions of thought, new worlds with live people, speaking, weeping, laughing. We take it for granted so simply that in a sense, by the very act of brutish routine acceptance, we undo the work of the ages, the history of the gradual elaboration of poetical description and construction, from the treeman to Browning, from the caveman to Keats. What if we awake one day, all of us, and find ourselves utterly unable to read? I wish you to gasp not only at what you read but at the miracle of its being readable."  -- Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (1962)

The seeds of what’s become the global post modernist juggernaut were sewn in an unusual way for a cultural movement. It is rooted in a rejection of truth and an antipathy towards individual genius. It's has evolved into much more than just an academic school of Western thought. Today it has conflated itself through media (social media included) with a perverted democratisation of excellence that’s taken hold of vast swathes of “respectable” society and culture. In recent years the degraded redefinition of excellence has spread like a disease to erode truth and fact, disdaining expertise by somehow reducing it to an abusive power dynamic. This is a disastrous choice for us to be making as a society and if the trend isn’t reversed, we’re going to bankrupt Western thought and culture without hope of reprieve. This bankruptcy ends only one way: in our inevitable obsolescence, as the torch passes East and the West cannibalises itself on a banal descent into permanent irrelevance.

From its innocuous roots in late 1940s post-modernism has spread like a steady but relentless virus. It has become a formalised absolution from personal challenge, mobilising a kind of anti-ambition that’s kept virulent by successive generations of mediocre academics motivated by a seemingly bottomless well of intellectual vanity and tenured self-interest.

"Great spirits have always encountered the most violent opposition from mediocre minds."  -- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

A hundred individuals aspiring to creative genius will mostly fall short of the standard and most will have the intelligence to see the shortcomings are their own, be it cowardice or fear or insurmountable absence of virtuousity. How can intelligent academcs used to success reconcile falling short of genius they themselves worship more than any other human characteristic? Post-modernism has become the answer. It is the means to an end and it has served successive generations of post-war career academics - and their students. Just as the Nazis had bastardised Nietzsche to justify Aryan eugenics, the early post-modernists corrupted Heidegger’s rollback of temporal ontology (as the defining way to think about the world) to legitimise a rejection of the significance of all individual human beings in the creative process. The poison had entered the veins of post-war culture.

POST-MODERNISM AS A SICKNESS

In the years after the second world war, across societies in great flux with a demobilised but changed citizen spirit, post modernism was not at first a pervasive dogma. It was a convergence of genuinely blue sky sociology studying conditions in the immediate aftermath of war with philosophy chasing meaning in a mechanised relativistic universe. Philosophy and sociology might have kept themselves uncorrupted were it not for the arts - far more numerous and influential in an everyday sense - having been caught between a Joycean rock and a Woolfish hard place. Vladimir Nabokov, most famous emigre after Einstein, warned us what was going to happen in his greatest work, Pale Fire.

"Reality is neither the subject nor the object of true art which creates its own special reality having nothing to do with the average "reality" perceived by the communal eye."  -- Nabokov, Pale Fire (1962)

Career academics, their fragile conceits needing a system of protection against the genius of modernism, were driven to post-modernist ideas which they quickly and self-servingly appropriated. Beat poetry was a first response to these trends, born in Columbia University but dispossessed almost immediately as the colleges closed ranks rapidly. Some version of this dichotomy played out in a hundred academies: tenured professors in the halls, modernist genius in portraits on the walls, the vitality and individuality worthy of their natural successors shut out, excluded, forced outside the institutions.

The battle lines were rapidly arranged. Post-modernism was the armor chosen by the academy.

It didn't take long for it to spread. The benefits to conceited mediocrity and fearful conservatives and entrenched comfortable nepotism and lazy hubristic intellectuals was soon obvious. Post-modernism calcified into a cross-faculty movement that's been consolidating power ever since. Generations later it dominates in universities, converges with democratised consumerism and infiltrates all facets of 21st century society. POST-MODERNISM AS NEOLIBERAL FREEMASONRY

Post-modernism, having taken over the arts faculties, cross-pollenated into the outside world to colonise much of the mainstream media. Its spread and tenacity is testimony to its lasting appeal and the temptation to succumb to those worst instincts will follow a person's whole career, readily at hand should an academic or artist or media hold-out go through moments of doubt or crises of confidence or face a choice between principled independent hardship and acceptance plenty and security in joining the club. Neoliberalism is the post-modernist economics heart of this choice and this is as good a definiton as any for the pressures exerted on non-members. It needs no guns and cudgels to achieve its ends.

But why is this particular club so bad? Isn’t neoliberalism better than totalitarian communism? Couldn’t post-modernist principles be liberating for young minds stifled by the straightjacket canon of past generations? This could have been argued until the 1980s though even then the post-modernist exponents were already the children of diminished progenitors. The nature of the temptation post-modernism offers is too strong for most to resist. The early post-moderns began as pale fire apologists cowed by the challenge of modernist genius.

The post-war academics were indeed a mixed bunch, elder statesmen increasingly marginalised by: well-organised successors greedy for authority but unable to use sheer talent to justify their positions, professional iconoclasts in pursuit of misguided but sincere notions of democratising the academy, hostile to received wisdom and suspicious of outlier excellence, career academics increasingly threatened by the ongoing intellectual diaspora from broken Europe closing ranks to formalise systems that levelled the playing field, etc. With a few exceptions, it was left to America to carry the torch of academic continuity for at least a generation 1950s until as late as the 1970s. Europe and now East Asia are no longer behind North America but the parochial professionalism of the baby boomer period has injected itself deeply on the institutions, post-modernism the mechanism of delivery, neoliberalism lubricating the ambitions of its moving parts.

Post-modernism is particularly pernicious, once sufficiently widespread, because it gives faithful advocates a multipurpose toolkit designed perfectly for its continued spread and consolidation. The toolkit is subtle and subject specific, cynical and utilitarian, honed - ironically - by thousands of extremely clever engineers of corporate academia. It covers jargon and linguistics, provides litmus tests to gauge friends and enemies, dividing and conquer transformation of safe zones promising academic enquiry and widespread publicity so long as there’s no gainsay of post-modernism's unwritten rules. Like in a masonic lodge, would-be exponents of their contemporary post-modernist doctrines (and goals) receive informal schooling in identifying one another.

Half a century later the network is well established throughout the world, organised like Islam and its cooperative imam-led cells, it has the academy locked in a stranglehold. Outsiders, outliers and would-be rebels can be pinpointed and delegitimised with remarkable precision, without compromising any individual mason (or, in most cases, committing any single institution). There’s no need to instruct how to exculpate rebels at the time of rebellion. Everyone in the lodge has the toolkit and already knows how to use it against objectionable targets.

TRUTH IS LIES - LOVE IS HATE - PEACE IS WAR - PLENTY IS STARVATION

What might've started as a complex of motivations driving numerous schools of thought soon became comfortable and entrenched, conformism aligning with conservativism to appropriate tradition, especially in the face of counter culture having mobilised opposing forces that might’ve risen to the challenge of modernist luminaries with genius of its own e.g. Jack Kerouac and the beats, Tennessee Williams and the Southern renaissance, James Baldwin and the civil rights movement. These individuals were pushed out onto the front line dismissing academia as unwelcoming or careers in journalism as unworthy. The post-modernist arsenal had its first wave of targets. An insidious schism between the academy and the individual had been transposed onto a global narrative of culture versus counter culture that’s been polarising ever since.

"The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly"  -- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

The battle for the hearts and minds of the many academic institutions and plethora of media outlets, print, radio, television, film was irreparably divisive by the end of the 1960s. Vietnam, hippy counter culture anti-nationalism and the Situationists student revolts against corporate consumerism brought the power of the state into direct conflict with the individual. The timing was fortuitous and the ideological conflict already well developed within the universities made post modernists natural bedfellows with those pushing the agenda of state authority. Both saw their chance: to marginalise dissenters, including untrustworthy writers and auteurs and non-conformists professors. And, worst of all, anyone cheating the median by presuming to exhibit genius out of context becomes a threat to the mainstream social order, subject to a takedown by every means available in the formidable post-modernist playbook.

DEATH OF THE AUTHOR GONE MAINSTREAM

The breakthrough of post-modernism into mainstream culture can be marked into two distinct phases: the silent expansionist war and the loud entrenched victory.

Roland Barthes, French philosopher and literary critic, provided the seminal concept that allowed post-modernism's craven iconoclasm to market itself into mainstream culture. His 1962 work Le Mort d'Auteur "Death of the Author" gave credibility to the academy's anti-individual disdain of virtuosity in art, claiming the hard won life works of artist and scientist alike without having to acknowledge the standards as an implicit challenge. Celebrity was permissible, even desirable, but would be no democracy of equal participants trying to establish an influential off-narrative platform if it boiled down to a meritocracy 'won' by genius and hard work. Personal nuance was to be aggregated into group identity, rules by the academy, propaganda by Barthes and other misrepresented thinkers.

All this contributes to make post-modernism a toolkit for appropriaton, aggregation, subjugation of the individual to the aim of the groups. Recently #metoo is the latest diseased manifestation, born of feminism and the wholly authentic attacking on misogyny as endemic patriarchy, turned into a way to bring down experts and excellence unwilling to confirm to the post-modern dictates of entrenched groupthink - in this case selected by gender.

"What the public wants is the image of passion, not passion itself."  -- Roland Barthes Mythologies (1957)

The details of post-modernism evolution from movement to all-encompassing modus operandi needn't be repeated here. There are islands of resistance dotted around the academy and schools with sincere useful ideas not seeking to feed the growing monolith like structuralism, post-structuralism and deconstruction. These more authentic strains in philosophy and literary theory went through their own smaller conflicts, the leading lights like Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Jean Baudrillard, Noam Chomsky marginalized in plain site, separated from the mainstream of the academy in special departments - a standard measure in the post-modernist manual when dealing with intransigent voices grown too noisy to gag or too marketable to deplatform into insignificance.

The most expedient aspects of post-structuralism and, increasingly, any new idea cropping up in academic circles, came to be identified fast then, notwithstanding the stubborn individuals whose future had to be isolation or exculpation, brought into the post-modernist mainstream. Post-structuralism was cannibalised into one of the most insidious movements of the latter culture war years: identity politics.

Feminism, civil rights, the fight against homophobia, legitimate movements all but in the hands of post-modern spin doctors were twisted to serve different goals and increase the firepower of the academy, the ambitious arbiters of culture. This has been one of the most criminal abuses of the post-modernist cabal.

"...for better or worse, it is the commentator who has the last word."  -- Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (1962)

The appropriation of feminism, sexuality and race should be a practical warning of the ultimate bankruptcy of post-modern ideology. Great women or great gay artists or non-white virtuosos aren't freed from the shackles of traditional homophobic white male-privilege, to aspire to whatever greatness might be attained by their individual unfettered potential. Instead this potential is cut away just as it is with any other presumption of genius. The method is different but the post-modern iconoclast has a diverse toolkit. Women are demeaned into ciphers, gays into icons all face no substance, black writers forced to be poster boys and poster girls ringfenced into representing only a narrow group identity that's as racially segregated as any pre-war ghetto. At best the new oppression is coercive rather than violent but great art is often inspired by oppression. It's certainly always born from distinction by individual outliers and to be deprived of this is to make mediocre currency of great potential. It's ironic that the casualties of this particular battle are the very people the identity political advocates pay lip service to free and defend.

WHERE DOES “DEATH OF THE AUTEUR” END?

From innocent beginnings in the late 1940s, the movement known as post-modernism has evolved into a freemasonry of entrenched anti-intellectual mob legitimacy. It is positioned in the mainstream, confident and on the attack. It has appropriated a dozen counter-cultures, rebranding and often inverting their original good, turning them into cultural sticks to beat society into submission: feminism into gender politics, anti-misogyny into #metoo, anti-homophobia into queer theory, the civil rights movement into affirmitive action, free speech constrained by political correctness. Post-modernism has become ubiquitous, unarguably legitimate stamped with academy credibilty, spread from the institutions through society by brigades well-taught graduates. These days there’s only one line of defence against the self-serving end-game post-modernism continues to drive towards: the independent individual.

Disorganised, unusual, independent, mostly atomised and often contrarian, the individual presents a disunited self-centred front - easy target for patient groupthinkers - but it’s the only other game in town. Complete victory for the post-modernist cabal will mean a society without genius, truth subjugated to expediency, a safe zone so widespread no-one notices it looks the same as obsolescence.

"The bastard form of mass culture is humiliated repetition... always new books, new programs, new films, news items, but always the same meaning."  -- Roland Barthes (1915-1980)

The first post-modernist generation passed the latest literary, linguistic and philosophical theory - especially schools of thought coming out of France and Germany - through the prism of democratised merit and everyman relativism to construct an extremely effective popular legitimacy serving the conceits of the tenured academy. The career academic had an arsenal fit for the destruction of reputations and the exculpation of non-conforming genius. The success of this “death of the author” spin, cloaked in the complex language of post-structuralism and other extant obfuscating theory gave the post-modernists a commanding position by the end of the 1960s. This hegemony expressed itself into mainstream culture through successive waves of graduates.

The post-modernist academy bound itself hand in glove with state authority, underpinned by an intellectual neoliberalism sold to the public as responding to the vocational demands of the free market. Anything of substance seeking to thwart the academy or the increasingly polarising state narrative was tarred with the ‘counter culture’ brush, ornery youth the first victims (e.g. the beat generation) but soon anything off-narrative was subjected to the same process of marginalisation (in the case of individuals) and appropriation (in the case of movements).

What little resistance remained in the arts faculties was picked off over the post-Vietnam decades, neoliberalism and consumer capitalism natural bedfellows with post-modernism in a way that solidified in the 80s, integrated branding in the 90s and had become received wisdom - unquestioned, presumed part of the natural order - by the millennium. Small wonder this entrenched cultural regulation adapted quickly to take hold of the internet and, in particular, ringfence social media, turning the latter into a vehicle for population control and echo chamber isolation of contrarian thinkers.

There was no way the post-modernist culture would allow itself to be challenged by changes to the dynamics of society. Vigilant, pro-active and anti-individual to the marrow, the mainstream must remain committed to post-modernisms proven methodology. No genius could be allowed to turn a platform into a pedestal. No expert could be given credible authority over truth, however many facts might be marshalled in support.

"The petit-bourgeois is a man unable to imagine the Other. If he comes face to face with him, he blinds himself, ignores and denies him, or else transforms him into himself."  -- Roland Barthes, Mythologies (1957)

There’s something incredibly human about the early motivations of the academics, humiliated by the challenge of modernist achievements, occupying positions of authority but incapable (or unwilling) to go to the same lengths to justify their cultural power. It was wrong but it wasn’t an incomprehensible show of weakness. Perhaps if it had been able to admit a little nuance - like humility - the future would have been different. It wasn’t, however. Committed to a reductive perversion of intellectual relativism, quick to define the opposition in counter cultural terms, increasingly partnered with state expediency, things only got worse and more widespread and more difficult to dislodge in the decades to come.

"I believe in the value of the book, which keeps something irreplaceable, and in the necessity of fighting to secure its respect."  -- Jacques Derrida (1930-2004)

The rotten core of the post-modern movement remains throughout, though, and as it’s forced to greater lengths to prosecute an absolute authority, so much the reality and the impact on culture grow more extreme. Today it weaponises such awful characteristics as toxic envy and endemic narcissism. Mediocrity has become synonymous with common sense, conformity means to follow dogma and deny individual free thought. Power dynamics are abused daily, inverting expertise to a sin, traditions of excellence as oppressive patriarchy and individuality subsumed - whether you like it or not - into identity politics where transgression brings the most dire of consequences.

The post-modernist end-game is, by default, a mix of populism and passive aggression. There can be leaders, in the post-modern paradigm state, but these must be celebrities or accidents of ethnicity. Meritocracy becomes lottery - and lottery is an easier sell to a public convinced of its own self-worth but conditioned never to be examined, except for compelled social function. Death of the author and exclusion of individual genius makes life into a reality show - authenticity at arms length - an easy fit with slogans of democracy and universal median values. Equality itself is a twisted principle: not so much equality of outcome as equality of process. The whole system is delivered through the worst of human traits: vanity, egoism, outrage and opinion over complex nuance. It’s a recipe for mediocrity, at best, a disconnection with centuries of intellectual and cultural tradition that may not be restored. In a multifarious world, if we accept the broad sweep of history as led by the enlightenment West and the utilitarian East, it’s the former at risk of becoming obsolete.

We’re quick to spot the nightmare dystopian East when we hear about China and its surveillance social media scorecards for a billion citizens but the West is heading for worse. Mediocrity is a creeping death and will increasingly fall behind as the world moves forward. The Western traditions that have nurtured individual freedom and - quite rightly - arranged a natural order of achievement around encouraging and nurturing genius and original thought: all of this is at risk if the post-modernist social order achieves complete victory. Soon enough the voices of protest and their cries of “Shakespeare” “Newton” “Einstein” “Tesla” “Feinstein” “Goethe” “Nietschze” “Kerouac” “Dante” “Michelangelo” “Freud” “Jung” “Chomsky” “Orwell” will die away. What remains will be the echoing hubbub of an outraged mob that amounts to nothing more than an irrelevant cultural silence.

"There's a blaze of light in every word It doesn't matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah"  -- Leonard Cohen (1934-2016)

[culturallyconsciouslit-blog]

On Die Antwoord, Zef culture and emerging South African identities

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Uee_mcxvrw&

 I’m a big fan of the South African music duo Die Antwoord, well more accurately I’m a big fan of Yolandi Visser, and I love a few of Die Antwoord’s songs.  Die Antwoord is strange, REALLY strange. One reviewer described their sound as ” indigenous Cape Town sound that fused early Nineties chart dance energy with an in-credi-tastic white-trash ghetto-rap attitude.” Despite my love of their bizarre, almost impossible to describe if you haven’t witnessed it aesthetic, I hadn’t done much research on them. I knew their aesthetic was from something called “Zef” culture, a subculture common in South Africa but that was all I knew. After the history we learned in class, and reading Tales of the Metric System, I was inspired to look more into Die Antwoord’s background because I knew it was connected to Afrikaans culture in post-apartheid South Africa. I found a great scholarly article entitled “Bastardised Whiteness: ‘Zef’-Culture, Die Antwoord and the Reconfiguration of Contemporary Afrikaans Identities” which explained a lot. Before I discuss the article, I want to give a brief synopsis of what Zef culture is taken from Wikipedia. I know Wikipedia as a source is questionable, but this description is concise and at the same time helpful so I will record it below:

 “The concept of "zef" originated in the 1960s and 1970s as a derogatory term to refer to working class whites, including residents of caravan parks. It is a shortening of the name of the Ford Zephyr motorcar that was popular worldwide from the 1950s to the 1970s. In South Africa, these cars were often customized with enhanced engines, tires and wheels. They were often owned by working-class people, especially from the then-upcoming East and West Rand areas of Johannesburg (due to gold mining activity and the rising price of gold after it was de-coupled from a fixed price of USD 35 per fine ounce). The average Zephyr driver was generally from a more working-class than elite or highly educated background, so owners of these cars were given the derogatory description of being "zef" (Zephyr owner) by middle-class and more well-to-do South Africans...Authors Ross Truscott and Maria Brock have perceived the "rise of zef culture" to be an expression of "Afrikaner self-parody" growing out of a sense of "national melancholia" in post-apartheid South Africa.”

 Yolandi Visser, the female singer in the Die Antwoord duo, said Zef culture is “...associated with people who "soop" their cars up and rock gold and shit. Zef is, you're poor but you're fancy. You're poor but you're sexy, you've got style." Another reviewer described Zef as: “Zef is an Afrikaans term that roughly translates to what we in South Africa also refer to as ‘common’: clapped-out Ford Cortinas with fur on the dashboard, tight mom jeans pulled up too high, ‘synth-heavy ringtone rave’, mullets.” So with this information in mind, I will discuss the scholarly article a bit. The article argues that race should be examined as the product of numerous cultural factors communicated through performative aspects of one’s identity. The male lead singer in Die Antwoord, Ninja, exclaims that he represents “... South African culture ... Blacks. Whites. Coloureds. English. Afrikaans. Xhosa. Zulu ... I’m like all these different people, fucked into one person.” The article states that:  

“Evident in this description is an active reworking and construction of, and an engagement with, identities that do not necessarily conform to South African notions of either race or class. Breytenbach’s reference to ‘bastardisation’ read with Ninja’s reference to being ‘all these people fucked into one person’ points to the deterritorialized shifting cultural space of racial and class identities in contemporary South Africa, especially for young (white) speakers of Afrikaans. The effect of this is the creation of a liminal space where all identities are destabilized and open for reconfiguration.”

So basically, in post-apartheid South Africa, you have some serious reworking and changes in racial identities going on. The end of apartheid has in many ways destabilized the identities of all South Africans and in this context, young white Afrikaans musicians are employing music as a vehicle for engaging critically with whiteness as they overtly or covertly attempt to problematize and reinvent white identity. The article argues that Die Antwoord is challenging the status quo of what is popularly regarded as dominant white identities with what is referred to as their ‘zef’, or junk rap.  The article proposes that Ninja, by referring to himself as all these different people ‘fucked into one person’ and by explicitly constructing himself as a poor white living on the borders of the Cape Flats,  is indicating a clear distinction between himself and middle-class whites, and the article believes,   “it is possible that the Ninja might be promoting a more hybrid, creolized Afrikaans identity where race and class interacts.” The article notes that Richard Poplak described Yolandi Visser as ‘Afrikaans white trash elevated to performance art’. In situations where the race of low-income white people is overtly recognized, this is usually connected to discussions on their behavior, impoverishment and perceived backwardness. Yolandi Visser and Die Antwoord seem to imply that being low-income and white and Zef is almost another form of art, and a form of creativity to be celebrated. The article claims that Die Antwoord is trying to create a new identity for white Afrikaners, one which goes beyond tropes that they are poor, and backward, and into a liminal space where races converge and social class stereotypes are subverted.

There’s tons more I could say about this article and Zef culture, and the new youth identities going on in South Africa but this post is already gigantic, so I’ll just have to end here. But, yeah, do some research on Zef culture because it’s pretty damn fascinating.

-HM