Archive for the ‘Defying The Demiurge’ Category
The Three Options
Efficient predators camouflage themselves. Not only the ideologies that mendaciously deny our predatory nature, but even the ideologies that on the surface appear to be resisting, controlling or moderating that predatory nature, may actually be serving the predatory interests of individuals or classes and assisting in the more complex predatory strategies. In fact, the most […]
In: AGAINST NATURE, Defying The Demiurge
Disingenuous Complicity
Those whose stomachs roil at such in-your-face glorification of our predatory nature, or are intelligent enough to see where it leads, are the main drivers of the two alternative attitudes. Guilt at one’s own ecological, economic, political and sexual footprints can result in defiance of, or, with increasing age, disingenuous complicity with our predatory nature. […]
In: AGAINST NATURE, Defying The Demiurge
Throwing Down The Gauntlet
The third basic attitude to our predatory nature is to defy it. To say, “The world ought not to be”. Evolution knows of no mechanism of self-restraint; any such thing must necessarily come from, so to speak, outside. We may suggest embryological and endocrinal explanations, or social trauma, but in the rare cases where this […]
In: AGAINST NATURE, Defying The Demiurge
Complicity And Defiance In Vegetarianism
The difference between complicity and defiance may be illustrated by vegetarianism. One obviously Complicitous strategy is pursued by urban man, that sentimental predator who does not do his own butchering. A less obvious one is the kind of vegetarianism that is based on health. For, whenever they extol the health benefits of their practice, such […]
In: AGAINST NATURE, Defying The Demiurge
On Being Cruel To Vegetables
It is time that someone protested against the deeply chauvinist equation of “predators” with carnivores. This is chauvinist because we ourselves know ourselves, or ought to know ourselves, as “meat”, potentially existing for the nourishment and delectation of carnivores. Because the all-important we do not wish to be their food, we define the predator animal […]
In: AGAINST NATURE, Defying The Demiurge
Adulation, Complicity And Defiance In Sex
At bottom, we want to have sex because we are descendants of people who did, and not of people who didn’t. Why organisms began to reproduce sexually in the first place is a surprisingly complex question into which we shall not venture; and in any case, it was sufficiently long ago not to matter. As […]
In: AGAINST NATURE, Defying The Demiurge
Adulation, Complicity And Defiance In Breeding
The extreme case of Adulation of our predatory nature in reproduction is, of course, the Judaeo-Christian command to “Go forth and multiply”, so delightfully parodied by Monty Python with their “Let not a sperm be wasted” musical number. Ibn al-‘Arabi taught that the end of human history would be characterised by sterility and many childless […]
In: AGAINST NATURE, Defying The Demiurge
Adulation, Complicity And Defiance In Religion
Instead of talking about creation in the image of God and the Fall and the redemption of nature and so forth, suppose we ask the right question: how does Judaeo-Christianity really treat our intrinsic nature as predators? Are Jews and Christians restraining their own predation or are they asking God’s blessing on it? From the […]
In: AGAINST NATURE, Defying The Demiurge
Complicitous Asceticism
There are so many payoffs from ascetic disciplines that have nothing to do with any kind of principled resistance to human appetites. Given that the word actually means “discipline”, it is worth remembering that discipline is not an end in itself, but a way of fitting someone to perform some act more powerfully or efficiently. […]
In: AGAINST NATURE, Defying The Demiurge
Transcendence
The emotions known as Weltschmerz and Ichschmertz are invariably described as juvenile; when they recur thirty-five years later, however, in men they are called the midlife crisis and in women, raised consciousness of patriarchal oppression. But why are we so quick to condemn the feelings as adolescent in the first place? For what is their […]
In: AGAINST NATURE, Defying The Demiurge
