Trash, Jung, and a Pansy for Anima

Part One

It was 1994, maybe. 1995? It hardly matters. I was on an elliptical orbit heading out of the world of organised Buddhism at the time, the world which had been my homebase for many years. I was teaching English part-time on Fulham Road in west London, living with a friend on a council estate in Waterloo ( Morrissey, dream on), and getting to know the lady who would eventually become my wife. The days of teaching mindfulness meditation to newcomers, the Buddha's Eightfold Path and the rest were over. Nevertheless, once a fortnight I would make the trek up to Westbourne Grove, not far from Bayswater and the famed Portobello Market, to attend a business meeting at the Buddhist centre there.

Most of the topics on the agenda were of peripheral interest to me, and I really had little constructive to offer. I sometimes wondered whether my presence was more as the token wise old man of the centre - in which case it was a grave misjudgement. From my perspective, my purpose for attending was quite different, and quite specific - even if nobody else realised it.

A major aspect of those meetings was the ritual tearing to pieces of the centre chairman by various other members of the council, as it was called. He would present progress reports, make business proposals, which would be duly pulled apart by some of the others. Then his personal life, actions, and the rest would come up for ripping to shreds. The somewhat hedonic nature of some of his attitudes and weekend activities rendered him easy meat for a quasi-spiritual savaging. It was reminiscent of the myth of Actaeon, torn into bits by his dogs, who should have been faithful to their owner, but who pull him to pieces as a result of his cupidity, having spied the goddess Artemis naked.

My main function was to try and put the unfortunate guy back together again. I was in a unique postion for the self-appointed task: though arguably less vicious, ten years previous I had been in a similar situation to his. So, typically, following the conclusion of the sports, the chairman -who also happened to be a good friend of mine - and I would adjourn to a nearby cafe where, bloodied and bruised, he would replay the events of the morning, and I would try to chip in helpfully.

On several occasions, sitting at a table adjacent to ours could be seen Brett Anderson, singer in the famous indie group 'Suede'. His features are as distinctive as features can get; though, curiously, my chairman friend didn't know who I was talking about, despite being far more in tune with the 'youth culture' of the time than I was.

I quite like Suede. Or at least some of the music of Suede. Or at least some of their music that I've actually listened to. 'Coming Up' is their best-known album, full of memorable songs and well-crafted melodies, some really fine pieces of indie pop-rock (a genre that I've just created).      

So let's imagine a certain randomly-chosen male (he is not a caricature of me, by the way, despite sharing a few similarities). He is educated, informed, and generally well-intentioned. A man of principle, high principle; a man of thought, adept in the art of abstract thinking in particular, quietly proud of his ideas and his logic. Reason is the way forward, his badge of identity and the key to civilisation. He spends a good deal of time with his Kindle, where he has a collection of works by not-too-difficult-to-read slightly modern philosophers and political commentators. 'Understanding', 'meaning' are two more words that are important to him.

Then one day, for reasons completely beyond our limited comprehension, Anima enters the scene. Amongst other possible labels which she may or may not have attached to her elusive being, Anima comes as Soul-Image, the contrasexual Other. She stands at the threshold to the collective unconscious, if we follow Jung. All those things which go to fascinate and identify our randomly-chosen male mean absolutely nothing to her. Abstract thought: no way. Meaning: what's that? Linear rationality: entirely irrelevant to the purpose of Anima - in the garbage bin. And her voice is heard loud and clear on 'Coming Up' by Suede.....

So what's so anima-like about these particular songs for our randomly-chosen male? Listen to 'Coming Up' and there is a shine, a gloss, a sparkle, which appears to simply jump off many of the songs. It is part of the attraction. To our champion of abstract thought, surface matters are just that: surface, superficial, and the subject of self-justified disdain. Sheen, shine, surface texture: he is above and beyond all that - although it may cause him a slight involuntary discomfort. In general, however, it is just wrapping paper, with no meaning. And this is the horror of horrors. Anima announces herself without 'understanding', without 'meaning', at least in the way our hero of reason interprets these words. It's not her style, not her interest. She revels in appearance, just as it is and just as she is. Should she have a 'meaning', this is it.

Then there are the words, the lyrics. Little stories of banal lives, devoid of philosophical thought or speculation. Songs about totally mediocre people, according to our random male. Take 'Trash' for instance:

"Maybe maybe it's the clothes we wear/ The tasteless bracelets and the dye in our hair/ Maybe it's our kookiness......... We're trash you and me/We're the litter on the breeze/We're the lovers on the streets....Maybe it's our cheapness.... our sweetness.... the crazes and the fads...."

Thus, into the world of our principled, high-minded, academically-inclined random male, enters Anima. To her, trash is magnificent - and her feeling comes devoid of value judgement. Cheapness, ordinariness, surface sparkle and charm: how, to him, it's anathema; and how she loves it.

Part Two

Alongside Christianity, which I wrote about on April 30th in 'Pansies of Numinosity',  Anima is my other 'topic of contention' with Jung. On closer inspection, the two probably prove to be the same: how could someone still harbouring hopes of redemption through Christianism have a distortion-free view of Anima?: two thousand years of repression of the divine feminine at the hands of this religion cannot sit comfortably with a healthy experience of Anima, preoccupied as she is with the conjoining of masculine - feminine polarities, and boasting as she does a direct line to an eternal and sacred feminine?

Jung is not, in my view, exactly 'wrong' on Anima. It is more that he is inconsistent, sometimes unsure of himself, a bit muddled. This may be in part a reflection of the nature of Anima herself, who is anything but clear-cut, and notoriously reluctant to be caged by logical definitions gleaned from linear, rational thought. I also concede that Jung's own view of Anima morphed with time: in particular, he came to see her less suspiciously. All the same.....

This confusion and unsatisfactoriness is evidenced by the considerable quantity of literature to come out of the Jungian world on Anima since the death of Carl Gustav. It is also evidenced by the majority of 'information' to be found in more popular writings on Anima. This is, to me, overwhelmingly superficial, derivative, formulaic, if not downright incorrect. It seems the work of people who have copied out of textbooks rather than bathed and battled in personal experience of Anima.

An example. Some of the many sources (do a quick websearch on 'Anima') state that a prominent attribute of Anima is 'relatedness'. The insinuation is that, should you have a problem in your marriage or relationship, then Anima will provide the solution. In particular, that tricky husband will, under the influence of 'his anima', turn into that caring, sympathetic, infinitely understanding fellow who always does the dishes that you have always dreamed of. This is total bullshit. Anima is a catalyst for 'relatedness', but it is not 'relationship' in this sense. She is no patron saint of nice, warm, snugly, adjustment-to-life relatedness at all. Her relatedness is, to continue in Jungian vein, between consciousness and unconsciousness. Her 'relatedness' will bring all matter of unexpected hell-to-play into life, rather than a passport to happy-ever-after.

Fortunately, Anima has been saved by a number of more serious Jungian types; I include links to two long but worthwhile (if you are into this kind of thing) articles by Karen Hodges and Paul Watsky below. Above all, in my view, Anima has undergone redemption in the hands of James Hillman: in his book 'Anima' primarily (no surprise there), and in 'The Thought of the Heart and the Soul of the World'. To paraphrase serously, his overarching point is that, while all manner of idea may accrete to Anima as a result of historical and cultural circumstances, which change through time, her archetypal essence remains, by definition, constant. The task is to distinguish the two. Thus, some of the attributes accredited to Anima by Jung are more a reflection of his own times with their particular attitudes, his own moment in history, than anything inherently Anima.

Hillman takes to task the co-mingling and confusion of Eros and Anima: much that is erotic in nature has nothing to do with Anima. Similarly with 'feeling': Anima's coupling with feeling is not necessarily and always true. Most importantly, Hillman contends Jung's association of Anima as Soul-Image of men, and Animus as the equivalent for women. Anima is unique in her own right, says Hillman, with her own special role. Women and men both require the soul-making quality of Anima. In this way we avoid the way that Jung gets his contrasexual knickers in a twist with the never-ending ping-pong of opposites and compensations that plagues some of Jung's work on this issue.

Anima, if we can say anything, is 'Soul' in the Jungian sense. She mediates between conscious and unconscious. She is gatekeeper of the Unknown: beware.

Anima is for the experiencing rather than the theorizing. All the same, a little mental clarity can help us avoid disappearing up too many fruitless cul-de-sacs.

Some Quotes:

"I have noticed that people usually have not much difficulty in picturing to themselves just what is meant by the shadow.... But it costs them enormous difficulties to understand what the anima is. They accept her easily enough when she appears in novels or as a film star, but she is not understood at all when it comes to seeing the role she plays in their own lives, because she sums up everything that a man can never get the better of and never finishes coping with....... The degree of unconsciousness one meets with in this connection is, to put it mildly, astounding." (Carl Jung, Collected Works 9. Just so, Carl, just so).

"Recognizing the Shadow is what I call the apprentice-piece, but making out with the anima is the master-piece which not many can bring off" (Jung, letter to Traugott Egloff, 1959. Jung was 83 at the time....)

Some more Quotes:

"When I asked my anima how to sum her up, she replied irritably 'Don't patronize me!" (Paul Watsky)

"Do not be afraid; our fate cannot be taken from us, it is a gift." (Dante, channelling the voice of Anima, maybe)

"I would speak of anima and animus as archetypal images and archetypal experiences only when numinous female or male figures appear, for example in dreams; they are emotionally highly charged and they produce an intense feeling that makes possible a sense of transcending everyday life. That would correspond with the archetypal experience as Jung describes it." (Verena Kast, as clarifying and concise as it gets)

Links:

jungatlanta.com/articles/Anima.pdf

Reflections on Women, Depression, and the Soul Image: Karen Hodges (use a search engine)

For all those eager to hear Suede doing 'Trash', go to Youtube. It's easy....

Images: Not pansies, but bluebells. A fifteen-minute walk from home.







      

Anyone for Tennis?

It used to be a joke that the most likely thing to precipitate a divorce between my wife and I would be, from my side. not a sordid affair, but my watching too much sport. It was a joke, but was also probably true. Not that I have ever spent much time watching sport since my wife-to-be and I first set eyes upon each other 23 years ago. It's as much the fact that she experiences a strong aversion to anything sport-like. I, on the other hand, am the kind of person who can be sat in front of pretty much any sport, and within ten minutes I have already decided who I want to win and who is the biggest load of rubbish to ever walk the face of the Earth. It is a spectacular enactment of the archetypal battle twixt light and dark, conjured up with ease by the mere sight of a bat or a ball.

My own tolerance for sport has been low for many years, though, and continues to get lower. More than about ten minutes' exposure, and I am confronted by the King of Wands, who proceeds to undertake a thorough examination of my purpose during this short and precious lifetime.

I used to prefer 'team sports'. The spirit of co-operation, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Nowadays, however, the games which involve the individual in his or her solitude are the ones which are most likely to hold me in their thrall - for that special ten minutes or so, at any rate. Tennis it is which I find most fascinating in its professional form. A good match can really seem like two titans slugging it out to the death. They are laid bare, naked before the world, with nobody or nothing to help aside from their own skill, strength, guile, endurance, and self-belief (although some tennis players have the disconcerting habit of continually looking to their 'box' filled with coach, family, and miscellaneous other supporters for moral support. Some male figures like Murray and Federer are especially prone: what a bunch of wimps).

An event which has recently erupted into the tennis arena has been the return to competitive matches of Maria Sharapova, following her ban for 'doping', the consumption of meldonium. My impression is that Sharapova has been given a tough time since her return to the tennis circuit. By all accounts a bit of an Ice Queen, not to mention a mega-rich superstar, she was unpopular with many of the other tennis pros even before the meldonium affair. The extent to which anyone believes her insistence that it was an oversight that led to her taking meldonium after it went onto the list of not-to-be-used substances, and not an attempt to wilfully by-pass regulations, seems to depend entirely on personal prejudice rather than real information. Several other players have been vocal in protesting about the 'special treatment' handed out to her for entering tournaments; "She's a cheater (sic) and should be banned for life" whined one prominent racket-wielder. How many of these people have made the effort to personally find out the truth, I wonder. Invited Maria out for a heart-to-heart over dinner, maybe? Not many, I suspect. Grapes that don't taste too sweet come to mind; but maybe that's my problem.

Then we had the refusal to grant Sharapova a wildcard ('special treatment') into the forthcoming French Open tournament. "There can be a wildcard for the return from injuries - there can be no wildcard for the return from doping" declared French Tennis Fed chief Bernard Ferrandini. To its credit, the Women's Tennis Association criticised the French bunch on this: "She has already complied with the sanction" was the comment.

The functionnaires from France displayed a remarkable kind of self-righteous high-mindedness, the type which is normally the preserve of protestant nations. It always comes with a nasty smell. But then France is in a funny position, wedged uncomfortably between the fully-fledged catholic Mediterraneans to the south and the puritan cultures further north.

Amidst this shabby treatment Sharapova has remained a model of decorum, diplomacy, and restraint, in public at least. I have been surprised to find a sliver of sympathy emanate from my own being towards Maria, my own heart melt ever-so slightly in the direction of the Ice Queen. I have never been a Sharapova enthusiast. In fact, during more recent times I've found her impossible to watch, due to the loud, grating, shrieking noises which accompany every time she whacks the ball. But, dear friends in the Vortex, these are the questions I put to you:

Would Maria Sharapova have been treated the same (especially at the hands of the French tennis authorities) A) if she wasn't Russian?  B) if she wasn't white?

C'mon, you know the answer.......



      

The Tribe

Part One

There are times when I feel at one with, identified with, the rest of the human species. Here we are, all together. A certain empathy, an at-oneness, inevitably spills out from this feeling.

And there are other times, when I feel that the parabolas of my life and that of the majority of other folk on this planet are quite different. I look at people, in the street or on a screen, and sense that what I am doing with my life is really a bit different, to the extent that we could almost be different types of being. It is in moments like these that I remember my tribe.

My tribe comprises a motley bunch. Some don't even know of the existence of some of the others. They would certainly not all get on very well together if I convened a gathering of the tribe. My tribe consists of consciousness people, Buddhist people, former Buddhist people, psychedelic people, blog people, exploration-of-life people, various other shades of people; some of the tribe I have contact with on a regular basis, some infrequently. Some of my tribe I have never met, never shall, and some don't even know of my existence. Some are alive, some are dead. But what I have in common with all the other members of my self-created tribe is a kind of mutual recognition, a certain sense of being kindred spirits, even if in a sometimes vague, diffuse, undefined and indefinable way. We have a mutual respect, an intuitive understanding, ready to offer support should it be needed. In some ways my tribe is far from ideal: it's a reflection of the modern world, in that much of it functions without being face-to-face. It is a by-product of the computer age and of the global village. However, my main purpose here is not to analyse my own life......

There are, you see, other tribes. I am especially concerned here with the tribe which is formed by 'Them'. 'They', in case it's not clear, have turned up over the years on Pale Green Vortex under a variety of names, or subsumed under a number of different ideas. Control System, Global Elite, an aspect of 'the Construct'; Empire, Establishment, among others. As with my tribe, not all will necessarily see eye-to-eye. But they will recognise one another instinctively, as those with a similar version of reality. They will bear allegiance to one another despite surface differences, and appear to have a collective solidarity which transcends class, race, gender, and everything else.

One distinctive feature of this particular tribe is its organisation. As we might expect if we examine the nature of mind of those tribe members, the group is extremely and rigidly hierarchical. Power and domination are its hallmarks. On the lower rungs of its ladder we find the most visible manifestations of its existence: characters like politicians, very public, the fall guys and girls, the foot soldiers. As we ascend the hierarchy, it becomes more vapid, mysterious, and outrageous, to the ordinary mind.

Neil Kramer's version of the different layers of the Control System is enumerated in his book 'The Unfoldment' from 2012. I present it as illustration. It goes as follows, from bottom up: a) Enforcement (military, police etc): b) Government ('Superficial policy administration'); c) Realpolitik (practical power-based politics); d) Think Tanks, formulated by globalist institutions; e) Esoteric groups, based on sequestered sacred knowledge; f) Ultra-terrestrials.

I am not presently concerned with examining the details of Neil's map of control, but with getting across the overall principle. The further up you go, the weirder it may seem to many folk. Nevertheless, I think the general notion is clear and, with a little honest study, its overall existence is difficult to deny.

A necessary feature of this extended, telescoped tribe, is how it runs like a criminal organisation (hardly surprising, that). It is strictly hierarchical, and has a safety mechanism of limited vertical knowledge built in to protect its overall integrity. When I read about the Operation Julie LSD alchemists and distributors of the 1970s, I was struck by how they organised themselves. Forced by repressive government legislation into acting clandestinely, they were organised so that any one person in the hierarchy of production and distribution knew only one or two folk from the level above, and a few folk from the level below. For example, if you were a local dealer, you knew your customers and you knew the person who sold on the acid to you; but that was it. Who was actually producing the microdots was as much a mystery to you as it was to your granddad.

So the Control System functions similarly. Politicians will have no idea of the more esoteric aspects of the system which they are entrusted to administer. People giving the impression of being important chiefs are in effect unwitting puppets, no more. They have no more idea of their real position than does our fabled granddad. And this is one of the vital elements to the entire thing running.

Part Two

Forty-five years ago, you would have found me studying geography at one of the world's most apparently prestigious universities. This was generally a pointless affair, but the subject at least had its precedents. I was fascinated by maps from an early age - and by the globe, which turned up at home one year, possibly courtesy of Father Christmas. I would browse the pages of my atlas, perusing places of the highest exoticism. And at the time, anywhere outside south-east England came dripping in mystery, romance, adventure, so there was plenty of room for the great unknown.

The colours in which these many faraway places were depicted depended largely upon their imperial or colonial affiliations, past or present (this was the time when many European empires were being broken up, and 'independence' granted to the subject nations). French colonies were green, Spanish yellow. This was the colour of most South America, with the exception of Brazil, which was orange for formerly Portuguese territory. Then there was the Dutch (purple? I can't remember), plus little bits of the old Italian endeavours in north Africa. The ones to take most notice of, though, were the areas of the globe coloured in light pink. These were all once part of the British Empire, and covered a considerable portion of the globe: India, Canada, Australia, big places.

There was something about the bits of the globe painted in pink. Nobody actually told you directly, but somehow the truth was communicated - through tone of voice, maybe, the occasional telling gesture, the knowing smile. The pink bits were a bit different, and, well, a bit better. The business of empire was not a pretty one, but the British Empire was the best. Less brutal than the French and the Spanish, more heroic than the Italian. It was about, not simply domination and plunder: it was about inculcating more civilised attitudes. It embodied a culture which, though far from perfect, was an entirely different matter to whatever was exported from the other European nations. It was, in a nutshell, superior. And you grew up imbibing this sense of being just a little better, a little more fair, decent, honest, than the rest of the planet. Your conscious attitude had little say in the matter - this is vital to understand for the discussion. Just as my father, a professed atheist for much of his life, embodied many characteristics that are typically puritan/protestant, so did the anarchist, countercultural young me walk around with an element of this 'a bit better' quality emanating from every pore of my being.

I just assumed that everybody, across the face of the earth, would grow up with this same 'rightness and betterness' about where they came from. It would be naturally embodied in all cultures, all races, all nationalities. It was with surprise and fascination, therefore, that I began to get to know more deeply my wife-to-be and some of her family and friends.

My girlfriend, as she was at the time, hailed from Colombia in South America. Colombians, I discovered, are typically intensely patriotic, with the most macho of Colombian males liable to burst into tears if you say 'Viva Colombia' in front of his face. Yet they seemed to lack entirely that sense of national self-confidence, and the related yet not identical 'we are better than anybody else', attitudes which went with being English. They remained in awe of the west, of the USA, and even their conquerors. If anything, they felt inferior.

It hit home hardest when a football match was on. Spain was playing against.... Italy, I think. Many Colombians were actually supporting the Spanish team. To me, this was incredible. The abused still supporting the abusers, those who came and destroyed their cultures, took their women, burnt their villages, their sacred places. It was as if an Australian supported the English cricket team; or a Glaswegian cheered on the English football team playing against France. It just wouldn't happen. Thus, I realised, not all nations have the same sense of self-confidence, international assertiveness, sense of being right. On the world stage, Colombians remain submissive.

The stories we are told, the mythology, if you like, mould our attitude. The results are not conscious, and it matters not whether the contents of the mythology are literally, factually, true or not. The vital element is the myth, the story, itself. This is all that matters.

Part Three

Let us imagine, then, another group of people on this planet. Another racial and cultural tribe, if you will. In common with the English (not so much, you note, the Scots), they have this sense of being good, being right, being a bit better than the rest. But in this case, not only are they the better people, they are chosen. Not only have they been chosen, but they have been chosen by God, no less. Imagine what it is to be chosen by God. Again, conscious attitudes and beliefs have little to do with it: unless the assumption has been fully and courageously confronted, it will remain unconsciously influencing everything in your life, regardless of political, philosophical, cultural, or religious affiliation.

The mythology of these people is not that simple, however. Despite being God's favourites, they have had a rough time of it. For centuries, millenia even, they have wandered the face of the Earth homeless, rootless. And during the course of this unhappy process they have been treated badly: shoved around, kicked about; used, misused, abused. Only recently have they finally touched base in a place that they can call home. This they guard jealously, adopting whatever strategy they feel necessary to protect their spot on Earth. Though, strangely, many of them, rather than rushing home and settling down quietly, have opted to stay away, doing their business in every part of the globe.

So, to invoke a little amateur developmental psychology (and always be cautious of developmental psychology), let us imagine the effects that such a mythology may have. The sense of being special, unique, in the eyes of God will surely imbue many members of this tribe with a self-belief, a self-confidence, second to none. In addition, the hard times, the victimisation, prominent in their mythology will only make them more determined to succeeed, endow them with a certain 'steel' in their mentality. They will be madly protective of their interests, and not a little paranoid about how anybody not in their tribe behaves towards them.

A cursory glance around the world reveals that, yes indeed, many of these predicted characteristics have come to pass. Despite comprising a teenie-weenie percentage of people on the planet, this tribe has contributed many excellent and outstanding people in the world of culture, for example. Music and film, in particular, are liberally-populated by members of this particular tribe. They excel in many areas of life. At the same time, should we inspect even briefly the make-up and activities of 'Them', our tribe-of-tribes, we find a goodly proportion of these to also be members of, or closely connected with, our tribe of chosen ones. Top figures in finance, for example, wielding enormous influence over world affairs. Senior statesmen, along with the occasional woman, ditto. In the USA, for example, a little delving reveals how many of the people behind the scenes pulling the strings of the puppet political leaders hail from our group of chosen ones. Along with the excellence of their musicians and film directors, they serve up their fair share of participants in nefarious activities. People wielding huge influence in human affairs, and often of a very dodgy kind.

Furthermore, any cognisance of the alternative media inevitably throws up a plethora of news and theories about the part our chosen ones play in the less savoury aspects of human affairs. It is certainly true that there is a remarkable preponderance of chosen tribe members in positions of political, economic, and cultural power across the face of the globe, especially given their small overall population (about 6 million in their homeland, roughly 15 million globally). Some detractors claim that it is all part of a plan to realise their status as the special ones of God. Others point out how international instability (because instability rather than concord appears the hallmark of much of their activity), particularly in the regions surrounding their homeland, is to their tribal advantage: weakening the opposition, a strategy rooted in their insecurity and paranoia.

There are undoubted fishy elements to the situation. One is how some of the tribe's leading academics and politicians seem highly enthusiastic about 'multiculturalism' in Europe, aka the dilution of indigenous European cultures, while maintaining a strict 'thou shalt not enter' policy regarding their own homeland. This comes as an affront to that exaggerated sense of fairness and decency which is the characteristic of western European peoples. There is also the taboo against any questioning of the tribe of chosen ones, its attitudes, mythology, and history. In some European countries it is illegal to even question any details of the history which fuels and identifies these people. It is regarded as a particularly cheap and nasty form of racism, while it is nothing of the sort. It is simply the exercise of freedom of thought and speech. Any criticism will be met by recourse to the chosen ones' mythology of persecution and victimhood, especially that which is dated around 75 years ago. It provides our tribe of chosen ones with an especially potent weapon to defuse any trouble in a rather influential nation in central Europe above all, a place that remains a sucker for manipulation and blackmail because of its own dark role in the chosen ones' mythology.

Conclusion

My own appetite for parapolitical analysis is very small at the moment. I am definitely no expert. I will offer topics and ideas for the reader's consideration and personal research, little more. It seems important to be aware of some of the deeper realities underlying the human world we inhabit: this is one aspect of gnosis, if you like, not having the wool pulled over your eyes, not being blinded by lies and bullshit that are churned out to help keep us separate from our own deeper natures. Recognising the interface of 'inner work' with manifestation in the outer world, if you like, and how the one reflects the other.

I am not, however, interested in trying to point a finger, laying the blame for the woes of the world on a particular person or group of people. It is natural for us to want to find the root cause, and it would be convenient to find a simple object we could wag our accusing finger at. But as I've written before, I don't think it really works like that. On a more metaphysical level, we are all involved in a largely unconscious collusion based around a victim - perpetrator fantasy. I am involved in this nasty nonsense because part of me is congruent with it; such is the unappetising reality. Rather than simply scratch the sore, it behoves us to focus attention on our individual experience, our own consciousness: how it, maybe, continues to fuel the fire of empire. This we can take responsibility for, and is an act which will have a ripple effect on everything. Changing this is the Holy Grail, the real game changer.