[Nettime-bold] Sadism - A political sport.

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Sadism - A political sport.



It is official; sadism is now a global international sport. Bush and Sharon
are our equivalent contenders battling it out with Gladiatorial proportions.
Of course they do not, in any way possess compassion, respect for life,
helping the poor, or empathy like the characters Russell Crowe and Kirk
Douglas did in the films Spartacus and The Gladiators. Plus Bush and Sharon
seem to be going through a mid-life crisis, and bombing and killing helpless
civilians is on par to a middle aged man deciding to get himself another
woman or buying a brand new sports car or motorbike.



No, they are nothing like what we would expect from leaders of our
countries. In fact they seem more like what Maximus and Spartacus thought
against. What a shame it is for humanity that they are instead stuck in a
repeated, psychotic groove, a pattern that they are not willing to move out
of. We, humanity, us peasants, civilians (as usual) are tortured by their
cynical, corporate owned armies. Their lack of imagination and lack of
self-worth can be measured by the pain that they are causing in the world.



No, they are not heroes; this is the shame of it all. They are over
protected sadists, like a violent parent who cannot help but to inflict pain
on their children. When the children cry louder they thump again, and we are
all caught, trapped in the re-occurring nightmare. They are spreading their
emptiness and poisonous contempt upon humanity each day, whilst the media
shakes its head in an institutionalised confused haze, in the meantime they
are getting away with it.



Have a good look and think about all the leaders of the world and those
controlling bosses who are constantly causing unrest in institutions and
work environments internationally, and you will immediately notice the harsh
similarities. What a mess these ape-men have created in the Middle East, the
world. As they shoot via their socially constructed power over our
submissive, blotchy faces. They have been given a free range to mutilate and
create a bloody death orgy - in a massive (Lord of the Flies) playground.
Where bullies with too much money, too much power, not enough love (self
love) go through the process of whipping the world's presumed slaves into
shape.



Of course sadism does not reside its psychological state in one single
gender alone. Yet it is not a coincidence that it is the male of the human
species that desires to dominate over others for their own personal gain.
Bush and Sharon are both male, and along with such basic linear-type
tradition, they feel driven to express their noncreative actions of violence
on the people of the world. It's 'Dick Thing', and a 'Sadist Thing'. For the
masochist, his/her world exists around the torturer's whim, not knowing what
they will do next. Each move is a matter of earth shattering consequence, as
the victim suffers at the hand of the sadist. The sadist enjoys inflicting
pain, it's like a game and only the torturer knows the rules whilst the
victim is a toy.



One of the many Borgias', Machiavellian tactics that we probably have all
experienced in our everyday lives and with politics; is that they never let
people know what their agendas actually are until it is too late. In
contrast it seems fated that the masochist cannot help but to declare their
own movements and intentions thus laying themselves open to corruption by
the sadist.



(Sadism and masochism originate during the oral and anal phases of infantile
development and are altered by later experience but their origin and growth
is unconscious. While the cruelty of sadism and the suffering of masochism
may appear to be separate, both are always present, one overt and the other
covert so their combination is called sadomasochism.) Paul Lowinger.



INSERT: A little History on how America has been subjected to masochist
conditioning.then the United Kingdom


America has been a perfect patient to look at in relation to its
psychological state & its relationship as a culture to itself and the outer,
other cultures. The impact that Anna Freud and Edward Bernays had on the
capitalist dominated subconscious is depressing and unnerving. Bernays
invented the profession of public relations in the 1920s and was the first
person to take Freud's ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American
corporations how they could make people want things they didn't need by
systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires.
Bernays was one of the main architects of the modern techniques of
mass-consumer persuasion, using every trick in the book, from celebrity
endorsement and outrageous PR stunts, to the eroticisation of the motorcar.



His most notorious coup was to break the taboo on women smoking by
persuading them that cigarettes were a symbol of independence and freedom.
But Bernays was convinced that this was more than just a way of selling
consumer goods. It was a new political idea of how to control the masses. By
satisfying the inner irrational desires that his uncle had identified,
people could be made happy and thus docile. It was the start of the
all-consuming self that has come to dominate today's world.



Freud's ideas about the unconscious mind were used by those in power in
post-war America to try and control the masses. Politicians and planners
came to believe Freud's underlying premise - that deep within all human
beings were dangerous and irrational desires and fears. They were convinced
that it was the unleashing of these instincts that had led to the barbarism
of Nazi Germany. To stop it ever happening again they set out to find ways
to control this hidden enemy within the human mind.



So we have now been caught up in the process of 'mediation of the self' by
corporate means. This creates a sadomasochist environment where the people
of a culture have no real information of what is happening in their own
culture, or anyone else's. So the Orwellian text 1984, which was meant to
mean 1948, started in America years before.



Matthew Freud is now carrying the flame; often credited with being the
creator of high impact, celebrity-led PR. His agency is one of the most high
profile in show business with clients ranging from Madonna, Guy Ritchie, to
Geri Halliwell and Chris Evans. He has the ear of the newspaper editors and
will soon become an official member of the Murdoch family when he marries
the media mogul's daughter Elisabeth. He is also marrying into the Murdoch
family (empire). He has much to keep him busy outside the world of PR - he
set up (and subsequently sold) Pharmacy restaurant in London with artist
Damian Hirst and recently clinched the deal to take control of the UK
media's favourite watering hole, the Groucho Club. Which is a place where
many privileged artists in the UK hang out, you are not allowed in unless
you are famous or have plenty of media clout.



(I got a lot of this information for - A little History on how America has
been subjected to masochist conditioning, from a documentary on BBC2 called
'The Century of the Self').



So this gives us some idea of how processed and active masochism is, not
just on the American people but also in the UK and Western culture via
capitalist agendas. It is not much different than the function of religious
brainwashing, subjecting the individual to feel in awe of the other, other
than their original selves, superseding personal needs. So desire does not
reside or settle with another person, a loved one alone, it shifts away from
there to the point of recognizing self value either via a product or
religious comforts. Both are external and potentially sublime, like nature,
like the media, like god.



Like what the excellent record says by 'Mc 900ft Jesus', Truth is out of
style. And

Propaganda is all about misinformation, placing all who conform to its
almost omni potent power, to act out and be the masochist, the mediated, the
submissive and prisoner and psychological victim of false information. It's
like having dodgy parents who do not tell you the real facts of life.



Unlike the mad Caligula, who killed for insane pleasure, or Nero and his
predecessors, who killed for political gain, the Borgias killed not only for
pleasure and political gain, but for personal wealth. They were, indeed, the
first crime family, a family unique to the annals of crime. They were not
bound together by blood ritual, but by genes. Bush and Sharon may not be
related but certainly do belong to the 'Old Boys Club', they both possess
immense wealth and they are both keen to rule over others at whatever cost.
And they are continuing the old fashioned Roman Empire scenario that
controls wealth of the world by murdering, whilst misinforming the mob, the
status quo, in the name of Neo-liberalism.



Neo-liberalism that has of course replaced the old classical liberalism in
its political as well as economic aspects, Replacing both feudal and
communal structures with market capitalism and various kinds of
pro-capitalist governments. Political life is organized through formal
elections controlled by professional parties --usually organized around a
more or less shared ideology. Behind a facade of pluralism, democracy is
confined to those allowed to vote and to lobbying for those who can afford
it.



A great weakness of our existing struggles against neo-liberalism is our
isolation from each other. The business interests and policies which have
crafted and imposed neo-liberalism are, unfortunately, much more united and
coherent than we have been. Neo-liberalism has been designed, pushed and
implemented by some of the biggest, most powerful institutions in the world.
The masochist psyche is universal, just like the sadist persona.



Sadism can only work successfully between consenting individuals if used for
playful, intimate sexual role-play. But if it is taken out of its realm,
brought into the world (outside) and used as a psychological weapon against
a mass of individuals, a very different result occurs. It becomes a cold and
calculated act used to impose thought control over the many for the gains of
the few. The sadist's enemy is the imagination, for it is our imaginations
that explore new ideas and potential life adventures that are independent
until mediated or officially suppressed. A good example is to look at the
function of educative institutions. They survive by collecting the top
thinkers in their culture so that they gain some kind of control over those
individuals and their ideas, thus death of the author was not just an idea
it was a necessity. The author is owned by the state unless that creative
thinker dares to go against the grain and questions the fundamental function
of that institution.



Sadism denies the victim to possess subjective reasoning, refusing a right
to dispute what is being done to them. I'm sure that many of the people who
are reading this are familiar with the saying 'this is going to hurt me more
than it is going to hurt you'. Yeah right, of course it will! The sadist,
who can take on the disguise of the teacher, or a parent, priest and
politician, enjoys inflicting pain on, or controlling people who have no
power to question such actions. Sadism takes on many forms and is not always
obvious until one realizes that one is doing something that one actually
would not want to do because of the actions implemented by someone else.



It is time for people to take control and challenge all the sadists and all
the institutions complicit in supporting them by working towards an
alternative together, lets put status aside and start a cultural revolution.
Lets push away this cynical Rome and move our selves headed for of a world
that respects individuals on their own terms, their own imaginations, what
they have to offer outside a work situation. Form collective groups that use
business models to improve working environments world- wide on people's
terms, for their needs and not for marketing companies' profitable needs or
political needs. Let's replace the old modernist style of from top down to,
from bottom up, leveling the platform to a point that democracy can actually
mean something worth while sharing.



POST: A few thoughts in relation to witnessing so many people being
victimized by corporate controlled gorillas and small-minded (little men)
despots, which do not care about the citizens of the world's lives. I have
not written a thesis or what can be termed as a cultural essay, but it is
rather an emotional plea to all who can be bothered to read it. To those who
are busy careering 'the white man's soul', whilst not taking responsibility
as a human to help others and themselves in an imaginative way. To those who
work in the media and have not taken it upon themselves to stop the lies
that are distributed as truth. To all those people who have been killed in
history and are being killed, murdered today. To all those religious groups
who value the sublime via male dominance over people's lives. To all those
people who reside behind institutional protocol leaving things to be changed
by default and not actively trying to improve conditions and standards for
the good of all. And of course to those who are actually bothering do
something about this topsy-turvy world.



marc garrett

http://www.furtherfield.org



Notes & References.


Where our imagination is, there our soul will be. I don't want to contribute
to yet another method of self-improvement, no matter how soft and subtle.
What I am recommending is nothing less than a cultural revolution: Getting
out of the 20th century myth of success, progress, battle, and intelligent
planning. We're in a new era now, I hope. And what I'm suggesting is not
academic or abstract. It just requires a different way of approaching life.
Until that shift is made, even the idea of care of the soul will be kept
under the inappropriate rubric of finding a successful way of living. Thomas
Moore.



Spartacus was the film that broke the Hollywood blacklist, giving open
credit to screenwriter Dalton Trumbo who had been blacklisted during the
McCarthy era.

Here is the story of Spartacus, who led the great slave revolt against the
Roman Republic in its last dying moments. I wrote this tale because I
considered it an important story for the times in which we live. Not in the
mechanical sense of historical parallels; but because there is hope and
strength to be taken from such a story -- and because Spartacus lived not
for one time of man but for all times of man. I wrote it to give hope and
courage to those who would read it, and in the process of writing it, I
gained hope and courage myself. http://www.trussel.com/hf/plots/t185.htm



Just as Bush once entertained himself by torturing animals, he now appears
to enjoy executing his fellow Texans. But the misapplication of the death
penalty is no laughing matter. For a recent case go to: Brooke A. Masters, "
Innocent Man Nearly Executed" Washington Post, December 1, 2000.



Dark Eros - The imagination of Sadism. Thomas Moore.

The Most Radical Gesture - Sadi Plant.

Knowing how to know - Idries Shah.


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