Sunday 31 August 2008


Let's face it; if you'd consider WKD, it's all you're worth.
"The most pitiful example: the corruption of Pascal, who believed in the corruption of his reason through original sin when it had in fact been corrupted only by his Christianity." - Nietsche

On the Correct form of Monasticism















It can hardly be denied that monastic living is not just a good way to live, but superbly beneficial to wider society. What better way to aid society, one must ask, than to engage in non-societal dwelling of a non-societal nature? But the merits of monasticism vary between the forms thereof. It would serve no one to remove oneself from societal dwelling in the wrong way!

Some have proposed the life of a hermit. Others, a collective form of holy (literally, here, "set apart") life alongside others of a similar order. (We consider here the monastries and nunneries most familiar to the reader, those of Medieval Britain, to be unholy frauds of the true model of non-societal dwelling. In such places, the doors were often known to be open to all, and attempts were made to better society in the form of rudamentary medical provision and broth for the disposessed. Such "welfare", however primative, doubtless earned monks a good deal of praise, but likely sacrificed their souls. How one can attempt to live beyond earthly societal contact, yet try to better the sinful world, beggars belief. And beggars, we shall find, rarely believe. But one digresses.)

The life of a hermit is an elephantine battle with self-importance and self-righteousness. As the hermit meditates on scripture, he will find himself unable to reconcile his attention-seeking with the message of said writings. Instead, he will find that such an overtly holy life in a cave outside town is barely preferable to the heathen oracles of old, where misguided pagans sought to consult the heretic demi-gods. "Wisdom", or some vile perversion thereof, was dispensed at high cost to the misguided soul, and to the benefit of the daemon in the hills. In exchange for morsals of food, hermits adopt the role of sage, and pronounce vague judgements on the souls seeking solace. The pained soul has access enough to scripture to garner vague pronouncements of judgement without seeking a hermit as an intermediary! So one must remain vigilant to anyone claiming wisdom of any kind, especially those seeking to present an argument on matters eternal. Such things are the subtle work of the Deciever.

It must be argued that just one monastic model will suffice. Where the individual alone in a cave is led astray by his carnal desires for food and water, and the collective monastry becomes too easily embroiled in interference with the World of the Flesh, one must look to the most practical aspects of both models of life. Having found these to be the provision of care for the poor and hungry from the monastry, and the provision of scriptural instruction from the hermit, we must cast the daemons aside at once! Of what use to the heathen are the words of even the most honest hermit? And what pagan stomach will truly be filled by a nun's broth? The redeemed must take themselves from the World of the Flesh and withdraw into solitary communities of their own. Only then will the Unbelieving recognise the chasm between this World and the next.

Such communities must not be viewed in the traditional sense of the word. Living alongside others should serve to keep the Forgiven from sinning, while vows of silence and intrusion ensure that no carnal desires are expressed between one another. Vows against such sinful frivolities of the Flesh as electricity will prevent a reliance upon all but the most central relationship between the Almighty and the Forgiven. Ten hours of personal prayer should be followed by another ten of copying scriptures, manuscripts of which should be burned for warmth to remind the Forgiven of their reliance upon the Word for all things. Self-made paper has many nutricional qualities little understood in the World of the Flesh. Children, should they be so provided in passionless union, must be educated in the arts of reading and writing only in so far as to facilitate copying Scripture. This will, hopefully, prevent them gaining by the hands of the Deciever the ability to ponder matters beyond the realm Eternal.

As has been argued, the Forgiven have no role in debate, discussion or persuasion of any sort. Academia is not the realm of the Holy man. They need not fill the pagan's stomach with broth for fear of sacrificing their own soul, and should keep scriptural understanding within their order, not to pollute it with exposure to the World of the Flesh. All forms of communication are inherently sinful, therefore, and do grave damage to the Word as given to us. Personal, private meditation on the Scriptures should form half of one's waking hours; and personal, private prayer to the Almighty the other. There is no benefit to corporate prayer, or public "wisdom" from the Scriptures. In fact, prayer of any form public is sinful in the highest, making one more like the regulation-bound Pharisee than the graceous tax collector! It is with these considerations that the present writer has lived for approaching six decades, having been snatched from the Flesh. The Promise is mine.
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:

That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;

And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
These the words of Paul, in his epistle to the Philippians. The failures of every Scriptural translation are evident to the writer, but such a discussion is to be the next consideration to be made on this Weblog soon. This weblog iself is bloody good, isn't it? Anyhow, while this site is in consideration, perhaps your thoughts would be appreciated in the comments section. Your participation in the consideration of these issues would be welcome.

To close with a prayer popular in the order,
Almighty,
Keep us from the evils of the Flesh.
From worldly contact and communication.
From the comforts of furniture and colour and light.
From fulfilment in all but the pleasures of the Word.
Bear fruit in our solitude.
Amen

For As Long As The Patriarchy Is Dead

We shall remain Post-Feminists



















Let us first emphasise that the corpse is still twitching.

Remnants exist, this can not be denied. Scattered around us are the debris, the toxicity of which should neither be underestimated nor understated. But this is the same as dropping a bomb upon a house filled with asbestos: to declare that the house continues to poisons is truth, to assert that it still stands is falsehood.

Secondly we must hesitate to criticise the legacy of feminism. Although the means of their success are largely mistaken (the Suffragettes achieved a few broken windows and burnt houses, the Suffragists brought about female suffrage) both the First and Second Wave brought about their aims of votes and jobs, respectively. The demolition of the Patriarchy is a gaping Leviathan of an achievement, for which all who live in the areas graced by movement feminism should be appreciative for.

But this establishes Feminism's historical importance. It does not secure its position as a relevant movement for the present day. So, thirdly, let us try and determine this.

Having praised it highly before it may seem treacherous to turn on it now. But what is required at present is something entirely other to what was needed for the entirely dissimilar task of tearing down an edifice of Male Rule. A bulldozer is an appropriate tool for demolition work, but for the delicate work which we now are required to perform it simply will not suffice.

This is because the device in question is inherently ill-suited to the role which is required of any ideology hoping to clear the mess of contemporary gender: an ideology which attempts to advance the interests and rights of women can never achieve the aim of the elimination of gender. And let us be bold about this issue ladies, gentlemen & in-betweens; this is what is required.

A Prayer for the Merging









Almighty God,

Allow us this day and every day to realise the power and totality of your Love,
Accept the way which you spread it: the same to each and none without,
Realise that the importance of this transcends markings made by mere mortals,
Acknowledge that separations have been, by humans, brought into existence, but
Commit ourself to ending these divisions through whichever means are apt, and to
Remember that all of us were made to worship and love your eternal splendour,
Recall that this renders our differences an irrelevance, minuscule by comparison,
Bear in mind that edifices thrown up by man must fall: nations, states, races, all,
Decline the temptation to see these temporal constructs as keys to identity
Rely upon only your Word, which came before these things and all things


And will exist after,
Amen

Saturday 30 August 2008


I call Christianity the one great curse, the one enormous and innermost perversion, the one great instinct of revenge for which no means are too venomous, too underhand, too underground and too petty - I call it the one immortal blemish of mankind.

-Nietzsche

Friday 29 August 2008

Feeding the Machine


Its an enticing, if over-recited metaphor. Mankind as a mechanism, its methods of arrangement much like an endlessly intricate system of levers, cogs and valves. The idea has been kicking around since our (and by that I mean industrialised) society came to be dominated by the machines that did the majority of our labour, then the idea came to dominate the majority of sociological though when the functionalists ascended, the peak of their control being in the 1950s.



The functionalists were largely positive in their view of society, though, deeming the meticulous operation of it and the institutions that ground it into motion to be a broadly positive formation. To them the workings of this grand device were to be admired and the order which it brought to the world cherished through analysis and understanding. Not so those that followed, with "The Machine" being seen as a foul mechanism by the radical thinkers of the decade that followed the functionalist's grip being at its tightest. The only appropriate response to understanding its hold was to attempt to escape its clutches. Tear it down, rend your way free, fuck it up. There was a division between those who thought you should liberate yourself and if it came crashing down then that was a consequence not worth mourning and those who wished to see everyone saved from its relentless operations, but all were certain that they wanted out. This wave of resentment died down but survived and festered, culminating in a band referencing the name becoming on of the most popular in history.

In effect, though, this only resulted from a shift in perspective. The same machine was still being considered.













Unlike so many influential tropes this one seems to be likely only to grow in relevance rather than become tired and increasingly obsolete. This is because the relationship with humanity and machinery seems likely only to grow more intimate. I speak not of our increasing dependency in contemporary life (ranging as it does from central heating to mobile phones), nor of the speculative sciences of cybernetics (which at the moment can allow a crippled man to walk through a swimming pool if he's rich enough, but struggled to mend the harm inflicted upon victims of Thalidomide).

Instead I wish to discuss solely pieces of technology that are entering more frequent human usage. Not as means of communication, but instead which entail direct human interaction with machinery. There are variety of gains that can be obtained from as much but the most striking is sexual.

The device to the left of this text is a fuckmachine. Its used as part of the rapidly expanding mech-porn sub-industry. These devices penetrate women in lieu of men and the sight is increasingly popular, with websites springing up and turning in healthy profits.

The immediate, intuitive response from most is to find these contraptions bizarre, outlandish. But on a smaller scale are these devices not the primary supplanter of a genuine for the modern woman? Are they not now available at Boots?

For let us not allow the feminists to cast the cock-bots as yet further evidence of male strangeness an insecurity (although so strong a wish not to see a real penis does suggest a rather severely excessive heterosexuality). More laughably still let us not cast this as another instance of the male exploitation of women and their forcing of them into foul acts. Women than men are far greater perpetrators in this carnal merging of flesh and metal. This has been the case for a considerably lengthier period of time than most imagine, with batteries and marketing being the only two advantages that the modern equipment has over the wind-aways of old.


Let us shift the topic from pleasure to health, and it is hear that things grow truly remarkable. For the temporary entrance of substitutes for sexual flesh is a single thing, and the permanent for organ flesh another.

A pacemaker is a simple machine that brings about the regulation of the heart using electric pulses, as you are no doubt already aware. What is rarely considered is how close this device drags us unsuspectingly towards post-humanism: the failings of the human body are amended and the natural irregularities of a failing system adjusted for using mechanical means. This remains natural: tool-making skills applied to problems are the hallmark of species seeking the perfectly standard aim of self-preservation. But it also sets up apart, fuses the once distinct animal and machine in a fashion that authors of science fiction had long predicted.

The same is true of the shunt, used upon sufferers of hydrocephalus.


This device extracts the liquid that would swell and damage their brains to their abdomen, where it can be safely vented through their bladder along with the rest of the body's excess fluids. Earlier versions were manual but present ones make use of magnetism for superior salvation.

In these ways a merging of machinery and humanity results either in the delivery of immense pleasure or the aversion of immense woe. When bodies and bolts inter-sect in such beneficial ways it can only by surmised that the technocrats were perfectly correct: both in that humanity can be improved upon and in that through mechanical solutions our lot is enhanced.



It is also easy to imagine that given these advances further progress might be accepted a good deal more easily than conservatives would imagine. The creators of Google have spoken of wishing obtaining knowledge could be a matter as simple as speaking a question into the breeze and having the answer whispered into your ear, as gossip of Midas' ears in reverse. This would require technology barely more sophisticated than that in existence already. Indeed, reconfigured it probably could be done.

This opens vistas of possibility that are difficult to exhaust, simply by us mingling as freely with computer and code as we should do each other. Already there are those who would implant micro-chips in their arms purely for kicks. No doubt these technophiles shall be joined by many others as their augmentations grow other than superfluous.

Those in need of assistance from machines, be it in seeking pleasure or a regular heartbeat, have their needs met. Increasingly they are not judged as strange for it. All that restrains us, therefore, is that machines can not fulfill our every need.

Yet.

What I said for chickens...

...makes me a moderate, you see. Really.


Tool from Joy & Misery on Vimeo.

Mystery dykes go walkabout (the unburnt offering)

I went for a walk today.

(Forgive my deviation into meatspace; but I wish to discourse amusingly in a vague and anecdotal fashion. Normal quasi-misanthropism will resume soon.)

Limited as my existence is to a suburban dystopia which I shan't name for all our sakes, this inevitably involved an encounter with shops; and, indeed, the ubiquitous T*scos.

I am not hugely fond of T*scos. Or, indeed, supermarkets in general; the ultra-concentration of material for the sole purpose of massaging capital and the servicing the material needs it fuels through its own advertising somehow irks me. People - meat, walking meat - wander round aisles buying meat raised in caged aisles with the specific, consuming desires of that walking meat in mind. A blatant assertion of species bias; to raise an animal with the specific purpose of slaughter in mind suggests you feel it is inherently permissible to kill that animal even if unnecessary, which suggests in turn you feel yourself to be superior to it. And, given that, in order to purchase that carcass you must subject yourself, for a time, to the cramped and stifling conditions in which the animal lived (or, rather, suffered), I see little basis for such a conclusion of superiority.

Yes, supermarkets repel me, and so I try to stay away; or, if that fails, I make a mess. Which you might say happened today, more or less. Approaching the graveyard of chickens that is the frozen meatspace (for you, it's a shop. For them, it is the holocaust. Or, the apocalypse, given how holocaust actuallly derives from the word for conflagration. Fucksticks. The tyranny of language indeed.), I decided to erect a memorial. One frigid bird mounted another as I slowly constructed my mausoleum (and a somewhat ugly metaphor to accompany it.)

Incidentally, if you're ever in a frozen goods section and try to construct a wall in protest at man's inhumanity to chickens, try lamb instead. It's easier to stack.

This attracted a crowd. That was, I suppose, a step; you can never quite pass on a message if no-one is listening. Unfortunately, I suspect none of them were listening anyway, the central topic of their thoughts and whispers being what they no doubt conceived of as my spurious mental stability (fools.)

They clearly needed instruction. And so, as Zaranthustra climbed a mountain and spake as though he had something worth saying (as though anyone really does), I finished my mausoleum. There was a sign nearby offering these poor, dead creatures at a price of 3 for 2; I tore it from its holder and scrawled "DACHAU" on the back.

(Accustomed as they were to the standard nadir-wards plunge most make in their references I suspect that that one passed them by.)

At this stage, security arrived. They challenged me; I provided my usual response, with an added diatribe on how, as corporate slaves to the suits who commissioned the slaughter, they were party to attempted genocide and so under the precedent set by the Nuremburg Trials should be hung.

They threw me out. Little did my entreaties to them to renounce their ways (I even promised not to hang them!) help; little did my point that, all land being held in common (clearly, no-one is born in possession of the land, and so long as there might be a common use, none have the right to take it. ~Take possession if it is for your own good, and doesn't impinge on the good of others. But don't assume a private right to any land or material naturally held by none.) T*scos, and thus they, had no right to determination over the patch in which I had erected the shrine.

Thus ended my escapade. I suspect I am now banned from the premises; but why should that stop me? Land is held in common, and I must make my point.

So, next time, I may invite the press...



A casual stroll through a lunatic asylum will show that faith does not prove anything.
-Nietzsche

TAZ - The runway?

I note the following:
Noting the squalor which has overtaken blogging the Mystery Dyke Squadron has come to the decision that an enclave from the filth, an outpost of good honest depravity, must be formed.
Excellent; for this suits my purpose so far as I have one. (So far as any of us have them? That this takes place on the internet at all would suggest otherwise, given the medium's utter proclivity towards complete banality at times. Ah, but such potential...)




And that's rather the (point.) The internet has such potential; and yet it's wasted. We have, in effect, the potential for total freedom, a new society in which tired old barriers of gender, race, age, class, religion, nationality, physicality and conventional morality could be abandoned. We have anonymity, and we have space limited only by whichever tricks of technology preserve us in our incorpereal congress.

You know the shiz.

But, yeah, that went wrong somewhere, didn't it? Everywhere we turn on the internet, we find the same hives of mental filth. We had the tools to create an anarchich utopia devoid of the tiresome trappings of physical reality. And yet; websites for old and meaningless imagined communities, dead gender paradigms (I mean boths sides, thankyouverymuch), etc, etc. The conflicts of the meatworld find their way here and ruin our space.

But that was inevitable. People are rooted in their physicality; the transcendence of that reality usually requires some extramental aid. (Perhaps, though, that can be avoided. More later.) Their minds find a home in their bodies, so the problems of those bodies are transferred into a space reserved for those minds. Fine. Whatever. Etc, etc.

We need an escape, though. I want to escape the fleshworld; the fascists, the fuckwits, the Liberal Democrats. And so we need this.

Hakim Bey suggested the best escape from a world of overwhelming control was to be elusive. Create temporary, mutable structures which evade all forms of social control; temporary autnomous zones. (For those with the patience and good taste, the actual essay is here.)

The internet is perfect for such zones. It could even be considered the largest one in existence. We may not be able to escape the fleshworld in its entirety; but we have anonymity, and we have an ever changing space. We can occupy a space, say there are no rules, and there will be none. Our only vulnerability is to the host, and the ISP - but to thus, they become immovable objects, like the seas and winds were for Pirate Utopia's. We live with them as best we can, and if they get too much, we fly elsewhere. Simple.

So, this is our (my, at least; I can't speak for the Squadron Leader or whichever other batshitters its found for us) TAZ. Here, there are no rules. Any attempt to impose them will be met with ridicule.

Happy?

Opening Strafe

Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings. Post-Feminism is the rational notion that miscegenation is needed.

Noting the squalor which has overtaken blogging the Mystery Dyke Squadron has come to the decision that an enclave from the filth, an outpost of good honest depravity, must be formed.




We're not (quite) pretentious enough types to go about crafting a manifesto, nor tenacious enough to put the extended effort into crafting one even if we possessed the collective will. And the idea of a "Statement of Intent" is far too hackneyed a concept for us to consider without retching. In fact, there's a lot of things that induce nausea in us.

We aren't interested in talking about matter civil. We've enough nastiness in the depths of our closets to pelt the state with if it dares knock down our door.

As far as We're concerned correctness is madness gone political.

We don't seek to disabuse anyone of the notion that they're in control of their existence. Its this illusion that's kept civilisation upright since it started. We'll whisper our message to elm trees instead, since those things can stand up by themselves and so there's no harm to be caused there.

We consider it only a matter of time before people come to realise that Elijah Wood deserved to die.

We think you'll find that the Patriarchy lies in shattered pieces coating the floor & we'd like to invite you for a dance.

We are recruiting so if you can manage to send a piece of yours to mysterydykesquadron(@)gmail.com then you're bright enough to be put under consideration. No bores, no bigots, no dullards.

The other public members of the Squadron will begin contributions shortly. I'm hardly going to prejudice you by presuming to know what sort of content to knock out so you'll just have to suck and see. Fuck knows that's a lost art.

Now if you're ready to free yourselves from the rigid confines of the endless series of restraints
and limitations that your precious "Identity" doubtless consist of, we can begin.