Philosophical Tangents: Culture Wars (Part One)

Power is Knowledge: Part II

This is a continuation of the series on the essence of knowledge (epistemology) and its relation to power.

II) The Mystique of Power

Power is knowledge, and power has its mystique. The powerful knows something you do not. We can take as an example the mystique of the bureaucrat. The less you know of them, the more powerful they are. The more arcane their character, the more pointless their rules and regulations; the more removed they are from any logical, rational, tangible reality, the better for them and the worse for you. Their counter-intuitive rules are capable of entrenching themselves into the world of things and beings, until jumping through their hoops becomes an accepted facet of existence. Just by their strength alone (the strength of the State) they can carve themselves into reality.

The know-it-all is the smaller cousin of the bureaucrat. They do not express things for any useful end. They like appearing intelligent as a means of controlling others. They are an expression of power as knowledge – their power does not come from knowing anything, but from the pretention that they have an infinite well of knowledge to draw upon. Such a character, desperate to impress, understands the mystique of power. They are deceitful, epistemological sorcerers, who can produce nothing of value, attain no results, speak not a single truth, and yet still maintain power over others.

The mystique of power is what maintains its position. This is why the powerful present themselves as inevitable, eternal, inheritors of some legitimate reign. Power maintains itself when the powerless have no hope. Power hates imagination, because imagination quickly realizes the mystique. The powerless do not only need to know injustice - knowledge is not power. The powerless need imagination, to lead them to hope, and then to wage war against power, until it is vanquished, and knowledge freed from its tyranny.

III) Knowledge is part of us

Knowledge is not something removed from the whole human being. To think of knowledge as some dis-embodied (distanced from the body), floating, transcendent well of information is to forget that we are biological beings. Knowledge is literally attached to the human being, and this means it is entangled with everything that makes us what we are. For instance, the beliefs of a religious fundamentalist cannot be removed from their personhood, nor separated from their emotions. The two are bound together. Far have they carried their erroneous beliefs with them, a companion through the shift of time; a warm body to hold in the cold, existential night.

Knowledge can also become attached, quite literally, to an authority. For instance, in the patriarchal family unit the father is power and it is this power that allows him to dictate what is and isn't true. He is an embodiment of power; it is conflated with him.

Much of our never-ending journey to enlightenment consists in shedding off false-beliefs, with an occasional shift in world view (or rebirth). But evil (untruth) is literally contained inside of us, and that is why it can never wholly be vanquished. Philosophy can only go so far in equipping us with shields against untruth, and no spiritual fire can wholly scorch away our epistemological sins.

Selim Talat

TWELVE YEARS OF SLAVERY

This story of one man's plight, kidnapped from his family home and forced into a life of slavery, reawakens one to the horrific acts that may be committed in the shadows of a sick mind.

This shadow casts an ideology of power, fear and evil, that unites men and women of the same colour, and divides them if they are of a different colour. Yet there are other divisions cast in the same way. Of great importance are such stories, which vividly demonstrate and show just how base we can become within a delusional narrative.

When such a narrative spreads into the minds and the actions of people, one enters into a false dialogue. One becomes seemingly ensnared by theatre, as a character who cannot see any other alternative unfolding of events; frozen and fixed within a self-fulfilling nightmare of which one partakes. When freedom of choice is limited within the parameters of such a story, it appears there is no way out. Permeating the unconscious behaviours, we so-called thinkers become enslaved to it, only to be awakened to drives pushing us into a direction none of us wish to go.

How can that be? It simply would not, if there was at one's disposal, a true, fair and moral tale. If there was more than one set of parameters, more than one theatrical performance, likewise there would be more than one script. However, who will narrate, produce, combust into a flame of flickering ideas? Becoming stuck in the thick slime of beliefs which allude to no other option but this one, one fails to do so.

Any sparks of creativity are quickly extinguished by the dominant powers, whose very foundation of truth contradicts any rebellion against them. From fear of retribution, the rulers, or benefactors, will conceal and destroy the tools of creativity and freedom. Passion and creative thought is quickly curtailed as folly, even by those who may be freed by it. Scared of the vengeful violence that occurs within such a paradigm, the nightmare deepens, reinforcing a fixed monologue of shit. What then, can awaken one from this evil reverie, when reason may ride the wildest dreams, and a fiction may be perfectly logical?

Indeed, a great author with a turbulent mind is needed to rage against such systems. A new story needs to be written. One which will encourage the minds of people to believe in something completely different, and so set them free from partaking in a play where only misery, loss, and fear is injected into all of our hearts; even those of the powerful. Lest their hearts have already burned out, surrounded by no light by which they may be guided out, let them be reignited by the imagination. The freedom to write and to think outside of such a dialogue presents a dash for freedom beyond the maze.

Do not believe, any of you, that there is no way out. Do not believe, not for a single second, that there is no alternative. For as long as human beings preserve the ability to tell stories, especially those stories which may find different assumptions, assumptions which lay the foundations for better conclusions, then it simply is not true that there is nothing we can do. It is wrong that you must play the role of the slave, or the master. Reject such notions as having no place in your story.

Once you have done this you may tell others, who also must reject such notions. And only when enough people have realised that they have been entranced and hypnotised by a persuasive lie, may they break out of it.

However, the lie is not the hardest part to accept, it is the fact that one may believe that they chose such a life. But no, this is not true either. It is only when one is made aware, when one understands they have been tricked, that they have any power to choose otherwise. But unless one wakes the others, one's own attempts to break out of such a narrative will be rife with booby traps, and zombies.

Ellese Elliott

Why Live? (Let us speculate)

The question "why should we continue living", cannot be seen as a purely philosophical question. There are interests at stake which lie on top of it, and smother it's purity. We could talk about it, but the words would have to compete with ingrained habits; the necessary connections that are created by our expectations. To truly ask the question “Why Live”' means a terrifying leap into the abyss of existential nihilism - to start again, from yourself, with nothing taken for granted.

This is why we cannot get honest answers from power. Power has at its heart only its own interests, and not your own as an individual (there is no such thing as a power which respects individuals). The question of why one should live does not even occur to one swept away by power. It knows why it should live, and that is to compete and win, to triumph, against other powers (be they natural or artificial). All other reasons to live - if indeed there are any - are subordinated to the ambitions of power. Dissidents will be tolerated so long as they do not pose a perceived threat to power. Indeed, dissidents can be part of power, themselves being defined through struggle with it. They become obsessed with it, hating it as they fight it. Dissidents may also give those within the bosom of power purpose and belonging. The people will choose a familiar dictator before they embrace the unfamiliar liberator.

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Perhaps corrupt is the wrong word - power is an expression of human purity. And that purity is the purity of an answer, which strife and contest provides. Nothing provides purpose like war. The question is not whether men will war, but only by what means. Castles and fiefdoms have today become replaced with ASDAs but the tigers on the train to Canary Wharf have all been reading A Game of Thrones the last time I checked.

But do we not have a natural drive toward happiness, peace, equality? No. How can self-hatred survive in so many people and how can so many deny their own interests for others if this were the case. Why do some people have unhealable wounds? The answer is that we human beings do not have a drive toward life and happiness, we have a drive toward purpose and meaning, even if that means maintaining our own suffering and stunting ourselves. We are context machines, and we will destroy ourselves, literally our own bodies, in the name of meaning and belonging. Nowhere more will we find our answers than in the bosom of power.

Mind / Body and Life -

If we take the above seriously, then we are posed with a simple criticism. It sounds as if I am saying that there are drives and forces beyond our control; as much within us as they are without us. How can this be justified? Are we two people?

An effective argument for mind/body dualism (the type I refer to states that a human being is made up of two 'components', and that the mind is not identical to the brain) lies out there, in the real world. It is also evident in our own bodies. Mind/Body dualism can explain human hypocrisy, or paradox, more than anything. The 'physiological morality' - that is, the morality of the body, consists in drives. We are not separate from them, but nonetheless do not know where they come from, when they will come, and we cannot turn them off. If we could turn them off by force of our own will, how could we turn them back on?

Greed, war, tribalism, these things are not the result of 'moral evil' nor individual selfishness. They are the product of physiology, and the playing out of natural drives; they are often, if anything, done for the sake of love. There is such thing as a human being, a human essence, that can be discovered. It is forever changing, it is not always the same, but it is still fairly predictable.

The awakened mind rests inside this irresponsible animal. I was once criticised, rightly so, for suggesting that the human body works like machine. So we know it does not, it is a forever changing, and subject to irregularity. This does not take away the fact that it is a creature of appetite. Just because something is not set in stone, that does not mean it is completely fresh and new with every passing moment; human nature will change with evolution, but it will bring with it patterns of behaviour which indicate what it is.

If you have accepted this, then you agree that we cannot hold human beings responsible for their actions precisely because of their unchosen natural imperatives. Our natural urge is to become powerful (in relation to a weaker body), or at least reach a basic level of power (ownership of space, resources and so forth). We may not consciously do these things at the expense of those immediately around us, but when one power rises, another will often fall.

The natural imperatives for power and belonging are encouraged by customs. We are social animals, and we are never alone - individualism is impossible, and desirable only for genii and philosophers. The masses are social animals, their internal, innate drives provoked by the outside world, for even at the smallest level of biology, genes require an environment to stimulate them. And the people cannot be held responsible for wanting to be part of power, for that is how they will hoard wealth, how they will find a sense of purpose, how they will fornicate and create children - in short, how they will become a human being. As each person is not responsible for their nature, nor are they then responsible for allowing it to actualize them. This will to life is separate from the conscious will! The drive to life is not you - as in, you the entity who is reading now.

It is only Inhuman Beings who we may hold responsible, those who are aware enough and willing to shut out the drive for life and outer-power. They have existed throughout history, in the form of monks and holy people (self-denying ascetics). However, the Inhuman Beings of the past had something we do not have - the ignorance of obsessive religiosity. We are left with no such escape route from ourselves, and this is why human civilization has not progressed beyond that of a bee seeking a colourful flower, or the enchantment of a politician's lie.

To advocate a world less wretched than our own, is to be inhuman. And as an (In)Humanist, I can only welcome the destruction of natural values - which allow a man to say one thing and then do another, and get away with it so easily. Which allow such a vast disconnect between idea (mind) and action (body). Whose Justice is so utterly, blatantly non-existent. Who permits evil so long as it is evil done within a custom. Where natural instincts to protect one's own lead to favouritism and inefficiency. And where every two steps forward have been accompanied by one backwards.

So why live?

In light of this, why live? If you are of nature it will be to execute your imperatives - to breed, to play, to cling, to gather, to power, and to fulfill your appetite. If you are not, then there is no reason to live. This does not make death any more of an inviting prospect - one does not need a reason to live to continue living. It simply means that there is no actual reason for it beyond what is dreamed up, or argued for. Certainly there is no appeal to nature; the easier answer!

The reasons to live given by institutions or power are just reflections of their own goals. This is obvious insofar as they provide a final answer which falls into the boundaries of their great plans. No institution will ever entertain the notion that life is goalless - their very power lies in the ability to get people to put themselves, body and soul (as it were) into their projects.

I am apart from the human sea, and my head is above water, so it is impossible to return to the flow. Out here, there is only the stark beauty of a fleeting, decaying, imperfect world to live for, and the 'romance' of solitude. That, and the warm glow of philosophy which may be a better guide to surviving the void than any religious belief or hiding hole. Who knows.

St. Zagarus

Philosophical Tangents - week one

Love - By Eliza Veretilo

Love

Love...

So many human acts, crazy acts, unjust, just, random, even evil acts, are justified under the banner of love. What amazes me is how powerful it is, as a justification. Its power to heal and turn everything into something good and how it takes over all other human emotions. What keeps a mother forgiving an ungrateful child? Love. What keeps a working man in a 9 to 5 jobs he hates? Survival, yes, but also and even more importantly, love to his family. Ultimately, love is an affection which causes joy and attachment. We need it, we crave it. It is goodness and we are inclined to feel it for everyone. The problem? Our society has turned this powerful, almost universal human love that everyone needs, into a selfish kind of love, the only accepted ‘love’ is love between couples.

Let me explain myself better, I’m not saying that having one partner is being selfish, it’s not, you can only love one heart at the time, they claim. What I mean is that humanity is more inclined to love each other, to share with each other, but it is more convenient to our economy for people to group in pairs and spend all their love tokens on each other. This is not exactly something we are naturally inclined to do. Our ancestors lived in communities where they shared; they shared time, resources and attention. Altruism is saintly, not as a coincidence, but because it’s loving. Our current focus on the couple as the centre of ‘life’ actually has some damaging consequences on us. For example, people who don’t have a partner feel less adequate and people who have one feel forced to stay in that relationship even though maybe their real interest is elsewhere. Neither of this people has something wrong with them and I’m sure, everyone has the same amount of ‘love’ to give. They are just doing what is ‘acceptable’.

I would like to point out the example of teachers; teachers educate and look after children that are not theirs, for the most part of the kid’s awake day. The children form an attachment, without asking question about ‘blood relations’ and so do the teachers, they begin to care. Could there be anything more natural than the human inclination to educate and look after the young? But no, love nowadays is equated with sex. The human you have sex with is the human you must love. And thus love turns into a cheesy, caricaturized, caramelised version of it. A pre-packed set of dresses, chocolate boxes, flowers and lube. Love is more than that. Love is caring, love is appreciating, not impressing, love is open, not jealous, love is universal, not only lustful. Love is life giver, not an accessory. Love is what prompts people to do things for others, not a certain partner you need to show off, to prove your value, like all the other items you need to literally hang on yourself nowadays to be somebody.

If love was the pink and red bubble portrayed mainly on television, if love was a quest that women needed to wear make-up to embark on and men needed to fill their wallets to join, love would not be that blanket under which some of the biggest craziest acts in history have been sheltered under. Love, raw, real human love to ourselves, to others, to nature, to animals, to knowledge, to art, to music, to sport, to hope, to life cannot be compared to the petty image of lust that romcoms sell us on a daily basis. Could we claim and re-brand the word love? Could we escape the set of ‘must-haves’ that are expected of each individual in Western society (must have a partner, must have an office job, must have a fiat, corsa, whatever, must have this month’s it colour, most have office party... you know the rest). Could we take the cheese out of the most powerful of human emotions and reclaim it as a basis for action? For growth instead of drama? Could we? Could we rid ourselves from the illusion and destroy the false idol that has been built instead of love? There is a little love heart sitting next to me on my desk, its reads ‘my hero’. I still want to claim, yes, we can reclaim love.

By Eliza Veretilo

Art - By Harry Wareham

For more art by Harry Wareham please visit www.subpots.co.uk/

                                  Philosophical Tangents: Class War!

 

On the Claim of Not Being an ‘-ist’ of Any Sort - By Soo Tian Lee

On the Claim of Not Being an ‘-ist’ of Any Sort

A few weeks ago, I was engaged in a discussion with some friends on that wonderful debating chamber that is also known as Facebook. We were talking about educational reform in quite an animated fashion when suddenly one of the participants in this online conversation said something along the lines of: “I don’t believe in being an ‘-ist’ of any sort. My politics is beyond self-identifying as socialist, anarchist, monarchist, etc. Such identities are ideological and I’m not interested in them.”

Oh, the wonders of the age we live in where some claim to hew to a politics without tradition, a politics that does not come from anywhere other than one’s own head. “Ideological politics is so 20th century,” they say in a tone which is almost a sigh of boredom, accompanied by a flick of the wrist. With an ostensibly questioning look, they continue: “Weren’t all these firm political stances what led to the totalitarianism that plagued the earth during that age of extremes? It’s time to move past such things.”

Such a standpoint, which some have called ‘post-political’, may look deceptively reasonable, and even laudable. Two imposing pillars of horror in the last century, namely fascism (Mussolini, Hitler, Pinochet, etc.) and communism (particularly the Soviet and Maoist forms), were indeed founded on inflexible  political ideas. Is it not much better, then, to be somone does not feel the need to identify with a tradition of political thought but is able to mix and match the best bits of various political ideas to form a balanced, ‘holistic’ viewpoint?

My view on this is quite simple: to claim that one is not an ‘-ist’ (or an ‘-ian’, an ‘-ive’, or whatever suffix one uses) is to hide from oneself and (some) others the views that one really does hold. And the danger with this is that quite often, these views will just be rather mainstream and, quite possibly, rather centrist. In other words, the dominant strands of political thought that are the building blocks of one’s political viewpoint will be the ones that are widely accepted and transmitted through newspapers, popular film and music, random conversations on the bus, and so on. For example, I have never met a post-political person who did not think that capitalism is the least objectionable (if not the best) way to organise society. Neither have I met a post-political person who objected to society being organised according to hierarchical structures. In both these cases, there were political beliefs behind these opinions, namely supporting capitalism and believing in formalised leadership. But these political beliefs were hidden by claims which rejected ‘politics of the old sort’, claims which acted as a fig leaf that covered the nakedness of the post-political position.

I was searching for a literary depiction of the post-political standpoint when I remembered a few lines from a fairly old book, fairly well-positioned in the Western canon of literature. Towards the end of this book one finds these sentences apparently written from a divine being to a group that claims to worship him: “I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other! But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth!”

Some may object to what I have just said, saying, “Alright, alright! So my pick-and-choose, lucky-dip-ish way of doing politics may be a random jumble that results in a lukewarm concotion. But, to repeat myself, isn’t this far better than the dogmatism that characterised the last hundred or so years? At least I’m not killing anyone by being a moderate!”

Do moderate, mainstream, and/or centrist political views not result in any harm? A popular saying commonly (but probably wrongly) attributed to Edmund Burke states: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” To be post-political often results in sitting on the fence and saying that things are too complicated for one to act. In other situations, being post-political results in one rationalising the present state of things as being the best that things could be at this present moment, and that all that can be done is just to tweak things a little bit here and there to make the situation even better. But the fact is that we live in times where those who seem to be moderates are actually extremists for the status quo. Even as the wheels in the great machine continue to turn, the earth continues to suffer from environmental degradation, inequalities among people continue to widen, and old forms of oppression linger on while new forms arise.

What is required of us today is not a balancing act at the centre of politics or a complete exit from the field but rather a new form of principled politics that strives to avoid the consequences of the old extremism by paradoxically infusing one’s principles with a strong dose of humility. We don’t have it all worked out just yet, and may be wrong on a number of accounts, but the solution is not to avoid convictions but rather to embrace them in a way that combines passion with the openness to change one’s views if they are proven to be inaccurate or less helpful than one originally believed. Yes, one should say no to dogmatism, but no to content-free politics as well, as such politics are but a new form of dogmatism, an unavowed (or even disavowed) dogmatism.

Well, what can I say to end this piece? Simply this: soon after the social network debate that inspired this article fizzled out, I quit Facebook, and so can now probably be considered a non-Facebookist. But make no mistake: this too is being an ‘-ist’ -- that is, an ‘-ist’ of the old sort, a political ‘-ist’, a principled ‘-ist’.

by Soo Tian Lee

At its most fundamental level, what is power?

If we move outside of our human world, what occurs in the cosmos? An asteroid, hurtling through space toward another, collides with it. The body with the greater mass and greater speed will be damaged in the impact, but it will exert more of an 'influence' on the other body. The very large and dense bodies, the stars, hold the smaller bodies, planets and their moons, in their gravitational pull. Effectively, looking at the cosmos we can guess at a motive, but ultimately it looks like a whole lot of cause and effect. With the cosmos being inanimate and incapable of perception, we cannot say there are any power relations at all, but just an unfolding of various movements and collisions and such.

Now have I just wasted a hundred words or so of article space, or has this helped to put things into some kind of perspective? Are we any different from naturally occurring bodies, bashing into each other with no real discernible motive? I think so. Yet before we get onto humanity, lets bring it closer to home; the animal kingdom. Some people may turn to the wild world of animals as some kind of indicator of our own power-situation. There is a lot of killing and chasing and worry outside the walls of civilization. Predators use whatever means they have at their disposal (i.e. their bodies and hunting skills) to catch prey, so that they may devour that prey and sustain their own bodies at the slain creatures expense. The prey on the other hand is going to do everything it can to escape. If we may generalize, it is a constant battle for survival, where hunger is an ever-present threat.

So, power in relation to human beings; what is it!

Power in the human sphere is more complex than the clashing of forces, or the 'violent/benevolent' survival cycle of nature. There are two great categories of power we must take into consideration in regards to humanity. These are materials/technology and identity.

Firstly, how powerful a group of humans are depends on how materially rich they are. With a greater potential to move matter, to disrupt matter and to enrich matter, a group of humans can maintain itself to a better degree than another group of humans, and can use its material superiority to destroy any perceived threats to it. Yet perhaps more fundamental to this material power is the notion of identity; namely, group identity. Without the ability to cooperate with, or bully, fellow humans in the same group, power quite simply cannot reach the magnitude it now occupies; group identity is the only way societies can form and function on such a huge scale. The identity people gain from belonging to a group, be it a nation, or a culture, or a religion, or anything, is the means used to win that persons loyalty and ensure they will act according to how the ruler-ship decides. These groups are held together, above all else, by a common language. Language therefore, is the prerequisite to a developed identity, and thus to power.

  

The actual human body

Language and technology determines how we react to biology. For instance, woman's lot has for most of human history been decided for her, either by the raw facts of her being the reproducer of human kind, or male dominance reducing her role in society to that of a second-class citizen. It is only recently, with more (but by no means total) recognition of woman's potential, and the material means to ensure reproduction is not too much of a burden, that women can move toward liberation from patriarchal servitude and be allowed to flourish on the world stage as man's equal. Thus, we cannot attribute group-identity to biology alone, but must look at the whole situation to determine how much power a group-identity is capable of obtaining.

We are not, however, completely free from biology, nor are we completely removed from the bounds of nature. Our bodies for the most part of our time on earth were geared toward a life of scant survival. Now we live in an age of abundance, yet our bodies have not had time to catch up. We have an instinctual, infinite hunger for everything that ever has been or ever will be, and nothing can satiate us. This biological lust for everything lurks within us all.

The individual

Whether I like it or not, I belong to the group 'human'. We could dance around all day searching for a definition of the word, but generally speaking we can recognise a human being from a stone, a camel or a lamp-post (or a lamp-post shaped like a camel). In addition to human, I belong to the group male, olive-skinned, attractive/cute, English-speaking, 'P' political group, 'Q' religious group, 'R' economic class, belonging to 'X' family, and so forth. All of these factors play on my abilities to function in society. We could potentially view all human beings as individuals, with their own source of power and their own unique possibilities, but how often do we see a person and how often do we see the metaphorical masks they wear, or are forced upon them?

     
That is not to say that individual power does not play some role. There are always geniuses emerging who defy all of the rules. For the rest of us individuals, we do have personal power structures and we can be strong or weak, we can make good or bad decisions. Like all highly evolved mammals, we have a sense of self and we can reflect and decide on what to do. Yet ultimately our success or failure is not entirely in our own hands; our power to act is hampered or aided by our belonging to this group or that group. This means that the ultimate choices we can make as individuals to exert our power on the world, require us first to find a similar group and forge an identity within it: A thinking individual within a mutually friendly group.

    
Those of great individual strength wish to make everyone fight on their terms; 'I'm a powerful individual, why can't you be too?'. In reality, the power of the individual is propped up by a collective identity, whether they care to acknowledge it or not. Just as a fish does not see water, the privileged does not see his privilege; he cannot see that much of his power comes from outside of himself.

An opinionated answer

So, what is power in relation to humanity? Power is economic, social, sexual, physical, personal. Power is the ability to project ones interests out of the mind and onto the world, to make people and matter move. But it is not just an unfolding random force, nor a drive for pure survival, it is couched in our sentient ability to use language and build group identities and create machines of abundance and destruction. Our use of power depends on great projects; goals and dreams and plans and visions - everyone who uses power does so for an end they think is worthwhile. The infinite lust for power may be informed by our biological drives, but how we react to and deal with this biology is determined by us.

Looking at the world today, the ultimate form of power manifests itself in dominant forces getting other people outside of their immediate interest group to destroy themselves for the dominators benefit. Nowhere has this been more historically demonstrated than in woman, who for most of history has failed to recognise herself.  Sadly, we have not yet found a way to prevent this almost universally occurring form of self-destructive behaviour. We certainly won't find it through moralizing, or meekness: No individual, or group has ever surrendered its power willingly. It is only through fighting that power can be taken and shared amongst all power groups, such that they may shape the world around them into a mutually agreeable place.

Selim 'Selim' Talat

Wheel power - By Sean Ash

Wheel power

The Political Party and the Ferrari are clearly two different things, yet peculiarly both things appear to be indistinguishable. Where there is power, there is a Ferrari and where there is a Ferrari, there is power.

The phenomenal power of the Ferrari has alluring capabilities with its radiant red body and dazzling shine. It seizes the corner of every eye as it first presents itself, and does so much more immediately than any other car as we instantly become struck by such beauty. The Ferrari is unique and arguably no other car could stand out or make such an impression. It is this very pulling power; the attractiveness combined with our very own fantasy that conjures and conceptualises such machinery as being powerful, and we know this as we soon come to realise that we want this particular car like we want no other. Although we may fantasise over such grandeur, it is a useless thought to accommodate if such power cannot be grasped, as power without the hand is like a Ferrari without the driver; disadvantageous, inactive, inexpedient, sterile and unproductive. If such a thing were not to be made productive, it would mean living in a world far from reality with the possibility of being enslaved by the imagination.

The driver, that being the hand, detects such opportunity and strives to take hold of the wheel. He does so essentially in order to fulfil a sense of self-satisfaction and security of the reality. Secondly, he does so in order to present to the subordinate a higher mode of authority by presenting them with the paradigm of both hand and power as one. Finally, he must attempt to hold onto the wheel at all costs. For the driver to succeed, he must first undertake a degree to learn how to drive so that a license can be attained. He must be highly skilled and ready to manoeuvre against many things that could potentially cause great danger for the driver, the Ferrari and the pedestrian. The driver must be concerned with all things and protect all, as if the driver were to lose the fuel (pedestrian) or were to 'write off ' the Ferrari, then he would surely face losing power. He must also be fully aware at all times; ensuring that one's senses are clear, pragmatic and undiluted so that the slightest possibility of danger can be avoided. The driver would need to mirror (White paper), signal (Bill) and manoeuvre (Act); pressing down firmly on the clutch to then find the biting point (cuts). As circumstances have changed, he will need to either speed up or slow down and so the shifting of gears is imperative as also is of the option to reverse. He must know his car inside out, its potential limits and most importantly, how to cut corners. The driver rev's his engine to display just how powerful the Ferrari is and the pedestrian has heard nothing like it.

The pedestrian represents the oil (fuel) to power. Without the oil of the pedestrian, both car and driver are insufficient as if the Ferrari receives no fuel then both car and driver become inoperative. As not all pedestrians can achieve the driving seat of the Ferrari, it is the pedestrian that lives in a world far from reality and it is they who are enslaved by the imagination. They build among them fuelling stations (polling stations) where they supply the necessary fuel every time the Ferrari should pull in. They would then wash the car, polish its body work as someone who washed cars for a living would clean expensive cars while imagining himself owning such a thing one day (should one work hard enough). The pedestrian would then go out and speak to other pedestrians emphasising just how great the Ferrari is, as they would then continue to glorify the machine in an attempt to persuade others to join in on their worship.

They are the energy that presents power with the opportunity to be efficient and they are the cause for it to act or not to act. Never realising that their fuel has an unparalleled power of its own, the pedestrian struggles as they push the car along every time it breaks down. They make excuses for it every time a part of the Ferrari goes wrong; sometimes blaming each other for faults that are not of their own but of the driver who had lost control. The Ferrari starts to pick up scratches that are deep within the body work and impossible to remove. The upholstery starts to pick up stains, burns and holes are all that remains in the seats. The mileage has reached its limits and the engine needs rebuilding. The pedestrian fears losing any purpose it may have had and they cannot see an ounce of security for themselves without the Ferrari. They salvage what they can and leave this as an inheritance to their children. The driver will always feel that he is destined to drive the car but this does not always mean that the driver is what is best for the Ferrari, the pedestrians and the driver himself. Power should not be given to those that seek it, but instead those who can reject such power are the ones that should have power. As those who possess the ability to reject such power are the only ones that can truly take control of it.

By Sean Ash

Beyond the Gods - By Ellese Elliott

Beyond the Gods

Once upon a time, above the vast ocean waves and over the rainforest dew, beyond the heavenly planets and past the light of the moon, there was a magnificent kingdom which harboured amazing power: Pantheios; kingdom of the Gods.

The kingdom of Pantheios was populated with Gods galore. There was the God of the seas Hydrathon, the God of fire Pyroniter and the God of the stars and the sun Aurora, and so on and so on. Each God had its own particular niche, but all gods were indeed the creators of the Universe. Again and again, they recreated the grains of sand and the drops of rain. Triumphant! Powerful! Unbeatable!

However, there is more than just the Universe. Lots more! And despite the fact that the Gods could move the tallest mountains, part the deepest seas or spin the gigantic planets with merely the sleight of their hand they could not answer humanities most simplest question; "Why?" [Soft Break][Soft Break]Why am I here? Why am I am human and not a Lion? Why does the sun appear small and big at the same time? Why does Aristotle think I am beautiful and Plato not?  Why is love deemed good and hate bad? These questions could not be answered by merely pointing to some physical thing in the world. For every answer the Gods gave another question followed, and then another. It was hopeless. These were what the Gods called philosophical questions, questions that could not be answered with the eyes, if at all.

And so, it was often, that the Gods did not create again and again, the stars and the sun, the mountains and seas, but sat thinking, or arguing among each other about such questions of beauty, of morality or of life. And whilst they did, time worked against them. Holes appeared in the universe, planets decayed, and humans cried out as the natural order of things was thrown off balance as some of the Gods created and others stayed thinking.   

In what appeared to be the middle of no where, in utter darkness, one could see a slither of light, tall and narrow escape form a page of black. Disguised in the absence of things, a door led to where the gods meet.

  "Booom!"  the strip of light quivered. "A king is needed to rule over the people Demos!" Pyroniter  

  shouted, slamming his fist on the majestic table. 

  "But why Pyroniter, can the humans not rule themselves? Why do they need someone to tell   

   them what to do?" Demos reasonably argued.

   "Because you made the humans imperfect Demos! You are a fool!" 

    "Now now Pyroniter, if people are imperfect, then so is the king and what use is an imperfect  

    king? I am no fool Pyroniter, you are just short tempered."

   "Short tempered! Short tempered!? We have been here for over one thousand years you long  

   winded fool.  I've had enough of you Demos! I am going to ignite planet earth and watch it  

   burn!"

   "Don't be so rash Pyroniter. Even if the humans are gone the question still remains, forever 

    unless we answer it."

    "They will die soon anyway when the sun, the stars and the water are gone because I,  

    Hydrathon and Aurora stay here with you, and these problems you have created, these people.

    We have argued much, we have listened much and I am tired."

And then a quiet Hydrathon who had been listening for quite some time said this.

  "What if we put it to a vote?"

  "A vote Hydrathon whatever do you mean?" Aurora questioned.

  "It is quite simple Aurora. Either we think the humans need a king or we think the humans do not  

   need a king. If you think the humans need a king then wazzle your inhilomar  if you think the

   humans do not need a king then shnoogle your grokinfider."

  “But how do we decide who is right?" Demos asked.

   "Well Demos we are all Gods and so it  

   simply cannot be that two Gods are wrong and one is right. So whoever out of you, Pyroniter  

   and Aurora is the only one who thinks so then that God must be wrong."

And so they put it to the test and they took a vote. Pyroniter wazzled its inhilomar as did Aurora, but Demos shnoogled its grokinfider.

That's it then, but as Hydrathon was about to champion Aurora and Pyroniter as the winner   Mons God of the Mountains and Dimensio god of extension came.

  "Oh no not you Dimensio." Aurora whined.

One time Dimensio sat thinking about the problem of beauty and what it is for so long the whole Universe shrank into a tiny point and so he and Pyroniter had to make it pop out again in a huge explosion. There was a ringing all around for ages afterward.

And so the gods created the philosopher

By Ellese Elliott

Politics and Power - by Mark Dawson

Politics and Power

When Charles Bukowski was asked ‘Why don’t you ever write about politics and world affairs?’ his response was; ‘What for? Like, what’s new? --- everybody knows the bacon is burning’.

When we talk of politics and power, this is not in reference to physical power (energy transference), it is in reference to the power of influence. We have to assume that if we are considering the objects of both power and politics we must initially assume that they are one and the same; showing a figurative, and symbolic likeness. Through this mirror-like naming of things we do away with the real; it is the plague of the logically, visual-biased mind, as outlined by McLuhan, that leaves us with concepts minus percepts.

Post-modern philosophers believed that power developed from a decentralised point. As such, does power really exist or is it a simulacra? In Simulacra, that of the naming of things, assigns it a sign value, but Baudrillard stated that a mirrored sign cannot hold value. The mirroring of the rhetorical sign, through mass-media, has transferred our attention away from the signs of power and politics and therefore these signs have no link towards the ground or its centralisation. Therefore, what are power and politics but the appearance of capital in the form of desire and demand; the end of the obliged sign where there is no monopoly but only duopoly?

It could be argued that power and politics do not just exist in centralised signs such as the House of Commons, The White House, the politician, the bank etc, but in all situations of subjective analyses. Chomsky and Baudrillard would argue that this takes form in private duopolistic media as transference. In subjective analysis both the signifier and the signified lose their connection to the ground when they are reproduced and duplicated. A monopoly can be mirrored but a duopoly is more problematic, and may not be possible.

Who really knows what power is (in the political sense), do we fall back to Heidegger? He stated that power is held in standing-reserve. If so, who or what possesses the greatest standing- reserve of duplicating methodology; that which brings-forth a sign incarnated in apathy. This is, in essence, political power; the reproduction of the mundane, the comfort of the known. And who doesn’t like crispy bacon?

Here, we return to Bukowski. If power and politics are ‘the bacon’, as he refers to it, then how does it burn? Does it burn in clouds of atomic smoke or diatribes that facilitate standing-reserve as force without action. How can the concept of power and politics be tackled if we cannot first locate its source, describe where it came from, or how it exists. We could adopt a more structuralist approach, one that observes power and politics as being facilitated through capital, influence and closed association. As Marx stated ‘Nothing can have value without being an object of utility.’ However, the sign of utility has been duplicated and regressed into the form of fashion, the sign value par excellence, beyond the point of retrieving utility as value.

Merton said that media dialogue leads to nothing but a form of narcotising dysfunction; the replacement of knowledge for action. Knowledge is not action yet we are left with a conundrum in the taking of action; where does power lie? Is it centralised or decentralised? Can it be challenged, and if so how? Should we challenge it and what would be the purpose in doing so? We know that the bacon is burning but as we discuss the how’s and why’s of the situation, nothing changes. Therefore we, as Bukowski did, return to his answer: ‘What for? Like, what new?’

This attitude is a reaction to the counter-productivity of action, the narcotising dysfunction within modern society. Therefore, if our actions have no worth, we may just as well, as Bukowski chose to, adopt an attitude of apathy. As such, who better to conclude this article than Bukowski himself:

“Now if you'll forgive me, dear readers, I'll get back to the whores and the horses and the booze, while there's time. if these contain death, then, to me, it seems far less offensive to be responsible for your own death than the other kind which is brought to you fringed with phrases of Freedom and Democracy and Humanity and/or any of all that Bullshit. first post, 12:30. first drink, now. and the whores will always be around. Clara, Penny, Alice, Jo- eeny, meeney, miney, mo”

by Mark Dawson