Politics

The Tao Isn’t The Market

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In my Taoist readings, “the Tao” is always a subject of discussion. This is ironic because as the beloved Tao Te Ching notes, when you speak of the Tao you’re not speaking of the real Tao. A great deal of Taoist writing is talking about how ineffable the Tao is then writing a huge amount about it. There’s a reason I compare writers like Chuang-Tzu to people like Dave Barry – you need that mix of humor and sarcasm to handle such irony.

Of course that’s kind of the point. You have a word for the ineffable (Tao) that’s behind all things, and that word represents everything and how you can’t really define it. The Tao is everywhere, it’s why everything is, it’s the smallest and the largest, the near and the far. Taoism takes a word that lets you refer to the great connected isness of absolutely everything that words can’t otherwise encompass.

It’s kind of a linguistic hack.

That, I find, is also the power of good Taoist writing. Using a single word and poetic writing, it reminds you that the universe is great and connected. Leading you around by words and sentences, you start intuitively getting to understanding the power behind everything. In turn, that lets you live in the world, living in harmony with things, knowing it’s all vast and everywhere and connected – Tao.

If you get it you get it. If you don’t, you don’t. If you want to fake it, you probably can for awhile. But a lot of Taoism is words leading you to the wordless, that there’s a force behind everything.

What’s funny is I realized lately that the Tao reminds me of how Capitalists think of the Almighty Market.

What is is. The Market speaks. The great and powerful force that reconciles everything is perfect and everywhere and if you don’t get rich then The Market has decided. The market is unquestionable and good and perfect and the foundation of all things. The market is like the Tao in that it’s ineffable, AND like a personal god in that it makes decisions about things, granting everything a moral quality. The Market cannot be questioned, it’s that awesome! Yet also it makes decisions.

What’s funny is the market being a human construct, being about profit and gain and exploitation, is something Taoists warned about for aeons. As a construct that warps human feelings, it’s to be regarded with suspicion. As something about gain, it risks the traps of greed and acquisitiveness, which corrupt society. As something surrounded by flummery and endless long-winded justifications, it’s as suspicious as pretentious intellectuals and politicians and would-be sages.

The way people treat The Market as some divine force darkly echoes the words of the Taoists with a touch of theology, and realizing that I understand Market Fanatics passion much better. It’s beyond greed, into religion and even a kind of perverse mysticism.

And thanks to the Taoists, who would have laughed at the Market Fanatics and their pretentious, helped me understand that better. And laugh, of course.

I appreciate the irony. Which Chuang-Tzu and Dave Barry would probably both appreciate.

– Xenofact

They Have A Fetish

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I’m rather genteel here, but I don’t feel like being genteel about the issue of idiots banning abortion. Abortion is necessary to let people who get pregnant to control their bodies. As far as I’m concerned a lot of the people who want to ban it or limit it extremely are acting out a sexual fetish by creating and enforcing these laws.

Harsh? Cruel? Well if you read this we probably think alike, so you may agree, but look, I’m on a roll here.

So first of all, let’s note that most of the “for the children” claims come from people who don’t give a damn about actual kids. There’s no concern about immigrant children (quite the opposite). No one’s talking about expanding medical care or heavens forbid universal health care. Schooling is treated as just a chance for indoctrination by the forced-birth crowd. Also if kids are LGBTQIA+ then, well, this crew of womb-controllers seem to be happy to let them die.

Since all the reasons for banning abortion as “protecting kids” are obviously not what the control-freaks say, we can focus on the anti-choice crowd’s obsession with controlling people’s bodies. Yes, it’s an obsession, because it’s everywhere in the usual right-wing control-o-sphere. If you’re familiar at all with these right-wing mindspaces, the overwhelming, constant anti-choice repetition is unmistakable. It is embraced, it is, in short, a fetish.

Now the anti-choice swarm ignores people’s right to control their bodies, ignores their choice of medical treatment, and ignores abortion is a lifesaver in many ways. The need of the pregnant people is tuned out. Again, the utter obsession is beyond anything, into the realm of sexual obsession – of a fetish.

Sounds harsh? Not really. You’ll also notice as much as womb-controllers say they’re “for the kids” they are also obsessed with suffering. Most of the anti-choice people also seem to want to “save the children” from assorted imagined Satanists, evil cabals, etc. They’ll talk endlessly about human suffering, and it’s clear they take pleasure recounting how kids are tortured in their imagination. Again, these people have a weird sexual fetish about control and suffering.

And they go on, and on, and on . . .

But all of these people who want to tell people who can get pregnant what to do with their bodies want to do it with force. With the law, with the police, with threats, and in a few too many cases when you really listen with execution. There’s a sick, bloody, need for control and to punish.

So, yes, the anti-choice crowd as far as I’m concerned are sexual fetishists who want to nonconsensually draw others into their obsession. They’re ready to use the state to act out their twisted desires.

Sure, there’s also issues of control and politics, but this stuff goes all the way into weird, sexual fetishism. These people are obsessed, unhealthily so, and to the detriment of everyone.

And, yeah, this isn’t my usual deep discussion. Or maybe it is in a more angry way. But having a bunch of people who can’t confront their own fetishes and who want the police and government to rope us into them? We should be angry.

– Xenofact

The Insecurity of Politics and Religion

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As I write this America is awash in discussions of politics and religion. It is my sincere hope that when you read this you know I mean “in the past,” if you get my drift. It’s certainly not being written when it’s the past if you get my additional drift.

There’s an insecurity about religion in politics, at least in America. You can feel it as preaching politicians try to convince you they’re somehow divinely guided. You hear it in their voices and see it in their actions – a mix of unsure and too sure. Insecure confidence, where you wonder which side of the state came first.

So as I am prone to think about such things, I’ve begun to speculate as to why some of these religionists who supposedly have great faith are so insecure. Also the bastards keep wanting to tell me and mine what to do with our lives.

First,think that’s because when you mix religion and politics, you end up having to deal with politics. You have to deal with power blocks and publicity, bureaucracy and laws that are there no matter what you believe or want to believe. Or say you believe. Religion has to deal with politics (even if, say, religion predated politics) as soon as it gets involved.

It’s talk Divine Truth when you’re really thinking in voting blocks and power blocks. The very sphere you want to move your religion to – and inflict your religion with – challenges it.

Politics also has to deal with reality, no matter how often it avoids it. Politics, as many of us are aware, is already awash in insecurity. People have to explain why they should be elected, or stay in power, or be listened to. When challenged they may have to explain themselves – or crack down which means people just lie to them out of self-preservation. Either way if you’re not facing reality, someone is lying.

Bring religion into politics and religion also has to collide with reality – even if some religious folk are real good at dodging that reality. This all means that when you bring your religion into politics, it’s being challenged constantly, and a lot of religious folks don’t deal well with that. A lot of politicians aren’t so hot at it either, so you get a kind of double-punch of self doubt and insecurity.

I think those trying to mix religion and politics in America are facing constant challenges, and often respond with made up confidence and bravado. Confidence of course is easily challenged, leading, of course, to more insecurity. It’s no surprise you end up with plenty of supposedly spiritual people acting like dictators – even if they didn’t start that way.

(Though for my money, most of them do start that way, they just get worse.)

Now these thoughts apply to current America and it’s revelatory/monotheistic dominant religion and our media landscape. In an age of television preachers, cable TV, and social media everything is in our faces constantly. You can select your own reality, but also have it challenged if you step outside of your media bubble. If you’ve ever seen some host of, say, an extremely political news show try to desperately spin reality you know what I mean.

I suppose at some point it’d be interesting to explore religion and politics in areas non-Christian (and indeed non-Abrahamic) religions. Though obviously you know where my concerns lie . . .