Greetings James,
I hope this email message finds you in good health and even spirits. Please interpret my Canukistanian politeness and general good naturedness as being a product of being civilized in the method I was that SOME people of my generation have here north of the 49th parallel.
Having an artistic temperament I don't mince my words nor suffer fools lightly. HENCE, I contacted you, a bona-fide NON-fool, by my standards. LOL
I wanted to send you a quick note to thank you for taking the time to respond to my question or your blog. I'm still attempting to unpack it mentally.
There is one particular sentence that I am still having trouble with,
"Honor, is strictly a holdover from barbaric communities, yet it served to bind together civilized authority figures in cooperative agreement and truce. It’s eradication, slowly and by stages over five millennia is almost at an end and I suspect will herald the fall of this civilization into savagery, not barbarism, for barbarism rises from savagery in opposition to Civilization."
I was under the impression that capitonym-B-Barbarism was the opposite of capitonym-C-Civilization. When you interjected the word Savagery into the mix, as yet another stage (?), I seem to be missing what is probably a most significant point here.
I thought Barbarism WAS Savagery. Isn't it? How are these two different? Is it that Barbarism does contain SOME sort of honor coed a opposed to Savagery which is just pure might-makes-right cold bloodedness? Is that the part I am failing to comprehend?
Many thanks for the endorsement of the artwork!
In regards to the topic of "Plantation" I came across this recording of the Behind the Woodshed with Hal Anthony entitled "The Digital Plantation" You can find it at this link here on Youtube
link › youtu.be/yShoTq9LEGE
When I first listened to it, I couldn't help but think of the topics you covered in that interview you did with the Myth of the Twentieth Century group concerning said topic.
The relation between the two, as I see it, is how Hal's discussion on the topic gives me a modern so-called "digital" version of what you had described in discussing the History of the USA. I could be wrong, I keep mentioning this to you because I sincerely believe there is something in this episode there for you. Take it as it is.
Be ye well,
~ C.
James
Thanks for the digital Plantation link. This should be important to volume 13 of my series on that subject.
The term Barbarian or barbarism is taken from the ancient Greeks who used it to label all folk outside of their cultural continuum, as defined by language rather than race. Unlike most Barbarian tribes, who label outsiders as The Enemy and themselves as The People, Civilizations, which all begin failing as soon as they are born, are all based on slavery [which is a manifestation of debt] and must grow or die, see barbarian folk as potential slaves, which is to say citizens.
When considering Civilization and Barbarism we must understand that the Western Civilization we were bequeathed was the result of roughly 5,000 years of Civilizations displacing barbarian peoples and then, some 2-300 years later, being conquered by other barbarian folk. Those barbarian warlords then replaced the leadership of the fallen dynasty and founded their own, slowly being seduced by the ease of civilized life, losing their edge and falling to young tribes of invaders. These invaders were invariably Arуan [Indo-European] or northeast Asian, the two families of conquering races who have subdued every nation on earth between the two of them at least once.
My knowledge of Northeast Asian Barbarism is limited to its impact on Western Civilization, which has been identical to Arуan impacts. It has been the habit of civilized folk to blame all bad things on barbarism. I identify four levels of barbarism:
-Aboriginal, pre-political, pre-tribal life, defined by nomadic hunting and gathering with the greatest value being solidarity and in-group empathy far exceeding postmodern family ties in psychological depth.
-Traditional, tribal societies with external contact limited to aboriginal and traditional societies, supported by nomadic and/or sedentary lifeways and possibly limited agriculture, with the greatest value being heroism. Note that this type of society does not survive civilized contact but either advances to the next stage or crashes in the final stage.
Both of the above—in Eurasia and the Americas—were lifeways that featured no beating of children and permitted the woman ownership of her body unless she was a slave. Slavery in these types of societies was strictly limited to captives from enemy tribes and was generally a transitory state between enemy status and ritual execution or adoption. For instance, every member of a Comanche war party would rape a captive woman on the way home. But once she was part of the tribe, she had rights exceeding those of civilized women.
-Barbarism, in the classic sense, was a term that denoted tribal peoples who ranged from animistic hunters to sedentary farmers, depending on the habitat and migratory stage of the society. The barbarian society is always in contact with a civilization, from which it derives commodities which support its greatest value, which is heroism, whether it be soft civilized slave girls to abduct, swords to wield or status symbols to wear or wine to drink in celebration of deeds. Such societies are generally in contact with traditional and aboriginal folk as well. Slavery is important to barbarian societies, largely as a means of intercourse with civilizations. This human commerce with civilization seems to have brought parental brutality to children into traditional tribal society via their external monetization.
-Savagery is a state of feral immorality typically seen when any society, including all of the above, fails. Savagery is most commonly the result of a failing civilization, such as street gangs which mimic tribal societies but lack the strict moralities and ethics that these societies bequeathed to Civilization. Every aspect of civilized life can be traced to one or more of the three stages of tribal progression, including: slavery, charity, agriculture, writing, honor, material surpluses, warfare, etc., except for one thing that Civilization has and these others do not, monetary systems. Monetary systems are based on existing cultural artifacts [such as wampum and other art media] amplify slavery geometrically from a tiny minority to the vast majority, suppress charity, expand agriculture, expand writing, corrupt and suppress honor and encourage hording rather than giving of material surpluses. As honor fails in the face of monetary systems and their attendant legalities and worship of proxy action over heroism erodes honor further, honor among the ruling elite disappears, becoming a joke in thoughtful circles and honor and heroism become exclusively the province of the war slave [soldier] and the criminal.
In Imperial Rome, all things virtuous harkened back to the barbaric virtues or the warrior and as the society went into terminal decay the gladiator, a class of warrior slave, became the focus of both popular and elite mania for hero worship. In our current society the only place honor remains is among the military—where it is being eradicated ruthlessly by legalisms and feminization and in the world of crime, where the feral sense of heroism has only the barest shred of honor attached to it. Right now, Western Civilization, in its inner cities in America and no-go zones in Europe, holds within its sickening body politic more feral barbarians, more savages utterly lacking any morality or sense of honor than Rome ever faced on its borders. Rome’s barbarians had superior morality standards and honor systems than Rome, making them more potent. The lack of human solidarity and honorable fidelity among the inner hordes of savage Americans has led the ruling elite to be overconfident in their ability to manage that amoral demographic storm, just as Rome arrogantly thought that She could play Her barbarians off against one another without consequence.
Civilization rises from Barbarism, sustained by the honor code of its rulers, rulers who were, in ancient times, replaced by fresh waves of untainted souls. But with the rise of the managerial elite dependent on their monetary and legal systems honor becomes a hated commodity currently being hunted to extinction.
The death of the handshake deal, an absolutely barbaric practice, at the anonymous hands of legality is the death of Civilization, which can ironically only be sustained by such practices as were brought to it by the barbaric sword.
One does wonder if a moneyless Civilization free of legalities is possible, or possibly existed, or if it is possible for a Civilization to arise out of Barbarism without geometrically expanding servitude.
One thing that is certain is that the preeminent twin pillars of Civilization:
-money
-law
Are diametrically opposed to the preeminent singular pillar of Barbarism:
-honor…
And just as austere honor eventually falls to the hordes of greed and the lords of the lie, to rise again from the rubble of duplicity is inevitable and preordained by its natural, unilateral simplicity.
Note
It is a dichotomy of the ages that a Civilization conquered by exterior forces tends to bloom in the aftermath, but that those undermined by their own interior elements—such as banking—suffer extreme moral corrosion.
Under the God of Things
Masculine Axis: A Meditation on Manhood and Heroism
-
Salut James,
Thanks for your response to my question. That definitely added some depth to your previous response.
Just to clarify, I thought I saw a parallel between your discussion on the TPOIC of "Slavery" as it was practiced in the past here in so-called North-America and what Hal describes in to his musings on the so-called "Digital Plantation" No intentions on my part to "mischaracterize" anyone by focusing on such issues as Ethnos.
In my own studies of various Spiritual practices, it seems to me that many state that ALL of capitonym-M-Man is ONE MAN. People/folks/individuals are the so-called "cells" of the body known as Mankind, as a metaphor. I realize full-well that this notion may sound naieve on my part. Or even unrealistic. However it IS more than JUST a metaphor, it seems many Spiritual traditions have problems with expending what they have to espouse on what is considered healthy thought and action for an individual let alone for a society, and having that extend outwards to others.
Which COULD make for more divisiveness/ divide-and-conquer approach on the part of the so-called "Managers" of various societies. Which is all I will state here about that for the time being.
Moving forward, I plan to keep this "Dialogue with an Artist" theme going with more inquiries in the future.
Later,
~ C.
Thanks for the food for thought.
And good luck with your art!