ICONOCLAST, n. A breaker of idols, the worshipers whereof are imperfectly gratified by the performance, and most strenuously protest that he unbuildeth but doth not reedify, that he pulleth down but pileth not up. For the poor things would have other idols in place of those he thwacketh upon the mazzard and dispelleth. But the iconoclast saith: "Ye shall have none at all, for ye need them not; and if the rebuilder fooleth round hereabout, behold I will depress the head of him and sit thereon till he squawk it."
-- Ambrose Bierce

Sunday, July 14, 2013

The Procrustean Epoch:
Conspiracies in applied singularity

Saith Sir Thomas Brewbold, "for whereas, there is but one way to do nothing and divers way to do something, whereof, to a surety, only one is the right way, it followeth that he who from indecision standeth still hath not so many chances of going astray as he who pusheth forwards".
A. Bierce, on indecision.

Largely due to the inability to appreciate a sound flogging put forth by the skeptics but only after the institution of smarmy lawyers to discredit the even sounder linguistic intuitions of the sophists, the stoics prevailed behind the heels of the up-and-coming media personality, Plato. Rather than acknowledge independent thinking which might just put an end to voluntary sacrifice, stoics organized as the nouveau class of philosophers modern cynics might call sycophantic wankers, christian atheists or merely, ministers of unnatural science – that is to say, well-schooled dogmatics.

So the stage was set, not unhindered by the trials against impiety, for the more conservative of thinkers to fill the think-tanks with the smells of fish-like swells of the theologic systematizers who put together the first bible (still largely oral) for the growing Aegean state or region and called it Orphic Mysteries, named for the chairman of that illustrious committee, Signor Orpheus who said even bigger than that contemptuous Zeus and his afterthought, Apollo was the world creator Phanes (the name means lighthouse: "brings to light", the dude who laid the cosmic egg, that is controlled the monopoly of appearances, but in Latin it means mere image, unreality, a specter or apparition), named for a former Egyptian general who was prior, pissed off at the administration so led the Persians into alliance with the Arabs, as guides across the desert as if protecting just another caravan from unruly pirates, and entailed a hostile take-over of the Egyptian state. Some say for blasphemy Orpheus died of thunder-bolt, but the consensus said 'twas a gang of angry ladies cut his throat.

But back to Phanes, such seems the fate of alliances and empires who would share power. Bureaucrats must get a regular ass-licking – it's what they give so is their due – no matter how untasty or one's assured superiority. That's the lesson chairman Mao found out but all too late. The alternative is to reduce the levels of bureaucratic hierarchy to nil (impossible 'cause who would tend the til?) or avail the profitability of shill, the Public Relations Industry. JP Morgan was not just a banker, but treated information and research as if it was monopoly money – little even made it to the patent office censors without his signature. More a king or feudal duke than any smart-ass corporate puke – the rabble that he sired are the suits we all too often see today. But Phanes was more like the disgruntled bureaucrat or general-mover prone to temper tantrum, J. Edgar Hoover. The other Hoover was presidential, but like all things executive – increasingly – in name only. More properly, his only claim to fame was in his title – a little dick or nix, unsuited to J. Edgar's spittle.

But such things are small potatoes to the grand scheme of things, which is too far-fetched to entitle a conspiracy. The push was always hegemony of internal dependence, that is to say obedience itself, the fuel of state efficiency regardless of who's in power and what he's got to say. Empires can only reach out effectively to others by systematizing global entanglements – the trend in entropy is chaos. Such is where lawyers and other priests come in handy. The only alternative is always posed as a total global disaster,and still spun in terms of famine, pestilence or a great big solar flare. It's never mattered which ideology is in vogue, what's always concerned statesmen is that everyone is on the same page – of the hymnal, that is harmony – or playing on the same board – that would be monopoly. The field of economics is created when the currency which Milton Bradley provided in the box runs short so there's a frantic running after other currents. Exchange rates must be regulated just like irrigation water, and who better for the stand than the high priests (if certifiable) of the Order of the Invisible Hand? Oih!

But Hegemony is an unrealistic ideal even in the tightest system. In every dialectic, there are the bleeding heart but smarmy running opposition to the conservative but slightly stupid, well trained in aristotelean sentiments (or Babylonian religion), yet straight forward and foolhardy, they'd rather destroy the world on principle than be caught with their pants down jamming their torpedoes with the throttle set to full. It's why unitarian dictators rarely last more than a season, the two party system has since become indispensable. Plato's Republic slightly tempered with a little Aristotle. It's based on ancient marriages which ran on one or four or eight year cycles. By the time it comes around again, no one remembers, well-hid are all the little infidelities: "Thank the gods for rehab; this time will be different...he's our man!"

Like the greek patriarchs before had imposed a patrilineal genealogy onto diverse myth-time figures from different regions and changed the way that time is reckoned from a moon-year lasting 13 months (with one day off recovering from the party) which effectively took the meat out of stories useful to calculating diverse topographies as well as changes in the seasons, when and where the deer are there for all the meat eaters or some peppercorns, wine and taters for the veegers, Orpheus systematized a single rendering and came up with a greek religion not unlike christianity, specifically the catholic church from Constantine to Augustine, that saint named for the emporor, so in the end, based less on pastoral Greek than the Roman tax collector. Yet they were still working on the Classic Greek detournement in the fifth century ad., then after sixteen more centuries perfected by Hollywood and DC comics, should the neopagans ever take the revolution. Either way, as has been, will again be said "let them eat cake" which is a euphemism for old weevil-infested bread and the circus is just what is circular in any revolution – that is to say many casualties. What's changed in all this time is we've got not so many horses in our cart, plastic coin and everywhere a wall-mart.

The Byzantine think-tanks were more suited to restoring, not a greek democracy but imperial Rome which, contrary to public opinion, incurred some setbacks but never underwent a collapse. What's racist in the faux victories of the Gothic over Latin is that Bismark's heir or even an emir couldn't make an appearance as a distinguished roman citizen. What's common to the modern view in Agean, Judeo-christian and Islamic is the utopean platonic synthesis of republic mixed with a dash of Aristotle (the Islamic prophet and father of all atheistic science) together with Apollo (carried forth by christians in the figure of Roman Paul, no longer manly god but, like Orpheus, his smooth-talking – the word in French is where we get english parliaments – the gods' publicist and apostle).

Having successfully demised everything mysteriously pythic in Delphi before Apollo (like St Patrick) slew the snakes, by Mohamed's time everyone worth noting (that is, the patriotic) was already patriarchic. Of course today we don't speak of empires, and global village has had its day, and world-democracy is gasping for its final breath, the word that sounds so hip and intellectual is "singularity". But it's just another metaphor meant to draw our heads to hyper-sucking black holes or Borgs who look really scary.

If the verse was all so simple and straightforward and not multiply diverse or hectic in principle, there'd be no sense in science, philosophy and religion except as diversions into absurdity from all the endless monotony – but then we're led right back into it. And even if it's true there's not much anything that one can do to make everything better, there's just too much pressure, no imagination or wonder, we learn from Emerson that one can at least choose their own influences. This must be obvious given so many conflicting stories or perspectives as to fuel each version in explosive argument. There're still stories afloat unconcerned with any antagonistic polity or concrete (if "green") integument.

As to the claim that capital, or whatever current avant garde of civilisation, encompasses the earth so without deflector shields and warp drive, "out" is rendered meaningless, it's plain the claimant's head's already liberated but its body is stuck in the mud that's called the general economy. They might as well stick with Marx or Adam Smith for company. We heard that science is criticised as too reductionistic and justice and religion were just purveyors applicating blame but only slaves were blameless in their supplication. Isn't a conspiracy just sticking to whatever is in fashion? If only one avenue leads to truth or too much dam(ned determi)nation, every other way is radical, the root (one might say "route") to safety or salvation. Only the righteous call a field of possibility disorder and/or chaos. They only hold their nose because it smells like teen spirit, and that's not bad, it's just embarassing – every one knows deep down they had ejected prematurely. It may be the ever-rousing truth is what needs routed, and for the nihilistic bent the alternative is nothing: how can one get lost if there's no rigid plan for where we're headed? Procrustes' path gets everybody busted.

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