Objectification, Land and Freedom

"Technology: ....the knack of so arranging the world that we don't have to experience it."
-Max Frisch, quoted in Daniel J. Boorstin's "The Image" 1963

'A woman as she aught to be', 'a garden as it aught to be', 'love as it ought to be', do these words not strike you as an oppressive and insipid injunction toward enforced uniformity?
Are we aware of the ways these concepts are formed by the dominant ideologies of our own and bygone epochs, how much our thinking and action is coloured by the residue, centuries of mystical interpretations have left between the World and our experience of it?

Without regard for the numerous inhabitants, migratory intersections or ecological processes underway in diverse regions of the geological terrain, claims have been conceived, plots hatched, wars fought & boundaries demarcated, in a primitive process of appropriation conducted by the most belligerent exponents of the animalistic practice of domination.
Walls have been raised by armies of slaves and eventually Kingdoms, Fiefs, Nations and Empires established. Everything formerly existing has been stamped with a new character again and again and again, ascribed particular form, content and value accordingly, injected with a new ethos or "spirit" symbolically represented by a flag, anthem culture and state, the ever changing world with it's myriad processes and connections, reified, re-envisioned & replaced.

Within these ideological realms;  rather than being an arena for the natural development of ecological and biological diversity, land,gains the static appearance of an object, embodying the relations of different cultures, ethnicities, animal species; aswell as the geological and environmental processes underway therein, natural resources becoming confined within a human conception or image applied to them, assume the character of property. Life is subsumed beneath the appearance of a fixed, fetishized ideal, "it" becomes an object, something easily grasped, endowed with various properties not at all analogous to it's actuality, it was in our territory so it belongs to us.

Borders being rigorously maintained and violently enforced become an obstacle to cultural exchange, cooperation, transmission of knowledge and natural development. All confined within are constrained by use of laws incumbent upon the captive residents to uphold, shaping the world or at least their part of it through the empowerment of a managerial caste, formed in the image of their King, this Feudal 'Elohim' playing the role of Lord and Vassal, the owner of numerous estates wherein an atrophied and servile subject population could be cultivated.

In the period immediately following the Norman Conquest of England the King through the assertion of his fictitious "alloidal rights"; claimed possession of all land in England as his private dominion. Upon this forceful assertion of his "absolute right", the King immediately granted large swathes of land to his closest allies in the form of feudal baronies, these Barons became Tenants in Chief obligated to serve the Monarch in his military endeavours (referred to as servitium debitum in Latin), by pledging a set quota of Knights who would fight for the King, a symbol of the Baron's loyalty to King and Country. Loyal Barons were granted the right to sit in parliament and empowered to distribute further feudal tenures in order to secure the services of these Knights, creating a pyramidal power structure of land ownership beneath the Monarch, in a process known as "subinfeudation". Beneath the "tenant's in chief" were appointed feudal Lords as intermediary tenants, who in turn infeudated lands to Vassals instituting a further class distinction beneath them; of Freemen who were essentially rent paying farmers enjoying far more independence and security of tenure than those beneath them; Villeins; Bordars or Cottagers; and beneath them Slaves.

A 7th-century Anglo Saxon "Oath of Fealty" , neatly encapsulates the servility and cowering servitude expected of the lower classes during the Feudal age, stating: "By the Lord before whom this sanctuary is holy, I will to be true and faithful, and love all which he loves and shun all which he shuns, according to the laws of God and the order of the world. Nor will I ever with will or action, through word or deed, do anything which is unpleasing to him, on condition that he will hold to me as I shall deserve it, and that he will perform everything as it was in our agreement when I submitted myself to him and chose his will." -parroting the imperatives towards mental and physical slavery continually asserted throughout the "Holy Bible", but most unequivocally expressed here in Collosians 3.22, where we are commanded: "Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favour, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord."

The fluctuating number of inhabitants or travellers through a particular region, formerly interpreting, interacting with and constantly developing their immediate environment independently, are recreated as a homogenized subject population, now dependent on an alienated caste of owners for the basic elements of their subsistence, following their enforced compliance with numerous Inclosure Acts conceived through the centuries by their would be exploiters.

Land itself assumes the appearance of a graspable static object, endowed with extraneous properties independent of the range of ecological forces or processes ongoing within it; the actuality becomes of secondary importance to the idealized representation, the conceptualized image of a Nation, Empire, County or Garden, hierarchically ascribed to it. The grass, water, soil and trees within this factitious representation no longer exist as part of the land, but as the properties of a superimposed concept.

Assuming this apparently concrete objectified form; numerous fetishized properties are ascribed to all within, helping to distinguish and divide a 'dominion' and it's inhabitants from 'outsiders'; people perhaps formerly frequented in a spirit of communion, encountered as equals, engaging in cultural or material exchange; begin to be portrayed as seeking to corrupt, dismantle, infiltrate or invade the 'motherland', undermine the established rituals or subvert a Nations 'sovereignty', in so far as their presence is perceived as a threat to the established powers residing there.

This is not naivety, one does not neglect the existence of hostile forces, but intentions are judged most effectively by the actions they provoke which we encounter, by our experience, not by the stereotypical images ascribed to a different culture, nation, race or creed; appearances of capitalist creation, often obfuscating the actual antagonistic relations, and sometimes seeking to justify them with factitiously constructed prejudices.

The result of this tribal mode of organization, of which nationalism is an increasingly irrelevant development of the Patriarchal family, is the inequality created globally and locally by competing, antagonistic selfish interests, inhibiting cooperation, inevitably leading to territorial disagreements which often escalate into devastating globally fought conflicts over resources. As Adam Smith wrote somewhat disparagingly, about the system of Land management in place under the Plantagenet dynasty during the Feudal age in Europe, unpredictable fluctuations in the price of basic commodities, want and lack are the inevitable results; 

"The price of corn, though at all times liable to variation varies most in those turbulent and disorderly societies, in which the interruption of all commerce and communication hinders the plenty of one part of the country from relieving the scarcity of another....one district might be in plenty, while another, at no great distance, by having its crop destroyed, either by some accident of the seasons, or by the incursion of some neighbouring baron, might be suffering all the horrors of a famine; and yet if the lands of some hostile lord were interposed between them, the one might not be able to give the least assistance to the other."

Reading on we see the implicit suggestion that tyranny is the only solution to such a divided and antagonist form of social order, authoritarian control by a strong man willing to subdue all inevitably emerging conflicts and class antagonisms:

"Under the vigorous administration of the Tudors, who governedEngland during the latter part of the fifteenth, and through the whole of the sixteenth century, no baron was powerful enough to dare to disturb the public security."[1]

Rather than being a logical framework within which numerous separate, competing interests can interact on the basis of equality before certain fundamental principles, through the fusion of State and Capital, Law becomes a public force predominantly used to maintain social subservience, the embodiment and violent assertion of mystical forms of order within a hierarchical framework of racial, national, cultural forms of fetishism.


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[1]  The Wealth of Nations pg157-8

"assessed according to the superficies"

Having recently relegated the online activism work and poetry of Charles Torres Veitch, to the darkened place in my non-awareness it's increasing irrelevance demands, I was surprised and horrified in equal measure to stumble upon a video of his entitled "Privacy is the Fetish of Evil", having been irresistibly compelled to watch such an intriguingly titled video, I have also decided some use value may be derived from a quick review of the ideological propositions on offer within it, the first striking impression received was that I couldn't help notice that Charles' "Freedom Fighting" crusade, has really become a cruel parody of his original apparent intentions, to produce a socially empowering artistic critique of our dehumanizing capitalist society, instead his rebellion has become a commodity, with what little popular appeal he garnered now serving predominantly private interests, as his means of obtaining donations from anyone with money beyond sense, who finds themselves moved by his increasingly elaborate appeals.

 Words from F. Nietzsche's Twighlight of the Idols
image Cornelisz van Haarlem's "Adam and Eve"

The reason Charles makes a good subject for a blog about Truth Fetishism, is simply his susceptibility to it's practice; the way the easy answers he seeks are translated into various sensational slogans like; the frequently deployed "freedom" façade; the ambiguous though apparently still effective 'appeal to pathos': "love"; the numerous false dichotomies littered throughout his performances; or as in this video where he describes his private encounter with a Sgt (Dick?)Tracey; simplified, reduced abstract thinking like "nothing is moving there is no space time", a slogan that nicely encapsulates the disjunction between mind and it's prime mover, the immediate environment, maybe therein is a hint to the naming of the character from the American television show he's been watching.

As with any 'ontological conservative', Charles inevitably comes baring illusory ideal forms with pre-determined moral values of good and evil, his attention, intellect and marginal oratory skills are primarily engaged in the maintenance and substantiation of his particular ideology, or "the truth" from which these ideal symbolic fictions and absolute values are derived, the concepts he intends to conserve through his asserted consciousness of their being.

This fundament of his work is evident in his poetry about quantum mechanics, his opinions on reality and the selection of enhancing facts he can extrapolate from philosophy, psychology, popular culture or behavioural science, -shaping what conforms, or can be made to appear to conform, into his narrative- to convey a façade of credibility, however these insights appear to be developed only so far as is required to assert and support his particular ideological vision, the essential aspect of them, and what the viewer receives from him, is what can be used to advance his agenda, support his sense of order, defend himself against those unpleasant sensations, experiences or situations he encounters in the world, with their material, tangible causes, which he refers to as "evil".

"Truth" at this stage designates all sorts of things that we today call "figments of the imagination", the factitious representations of concepts, people, events and situations, construed as being the embodiment of either a good or evil spirit, to be embraced or rejected, accepted or opposed, loved or hated, are assumed to be universally applicable and then applied to his superficial concepts of; "government", "the State", "taxation", or specific individuals, generally that which is encountered in the world which does not conform to his ideal, or which disagrees with his 'a priori'** moral values, these abstractions; "state" "media" "education" etc,. coming to represent a figurative grinding post for any fetishistic axe, everything is 'assessed according to the superficies', wheat separated from chaff then lumped together in 'bundles', forming the basis of rejection, a negative ideological worldview from which to become.

His interests in the subject are not with the processes at work, the forces at play, the totality of a thing it's inherent contradictions, nor are they with the thing itself, but in how his concept of 'it' serves to substantiate or affirm his adherence to this sense of morality, however this is merely an interpretation of certain phenomena — more precisely, a misinterpretation. Moral judgments, like religious ones, belong to a stage of ignorance in which the very concept of the real, and the distinction between what is real and imaginary, are still lacking.

"If people are good to you, if people are kind, if they treat you with respect, you should at the very least do the same for them"

In this blog I merely seek to question their motives, what lies behind this sycophancy, this desire to misinform and fill the mind with sweet nothings, is it insecurity, to what end is somebody making such a show of benevolence?

More often than not this tendency to appear to do good, to be humble, to flatter with kindness while seducing with factitious platitudes, is an attempt to ingratiate themselves, to weaken one's resistance gradually, to the imperceptibly slow advance of their control over your perception of them, this is how a salesman establishes "rapport" with somebody, by convincing them to perceive them a certain way, by conveying a certain image of approachability, respectability or enlightenment,  an evolutionary adaptation the Lion, Hyena or Crocodile could never accomplish, thanks no doubt to the prevalence and protection of the nursery rhyme every child should know: "Never smile at a crocodile".

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*see his comments about christianity, preteen girls, menstruation and suicide. 
**refers to an earlier entry in which Veitch posits an inherent "sentience" akin to transcendental good and evil.
*ˆsee Stanford Prison experiment, again another useful 'fact' constantly reproduced within this milieu, to support the rejection of psychology or all forms of authority outside the self, an example of how Truth fetishists focus on only what confirms their personal opinion.

Apotropaic Images

 Apotropaic images of Satyrs, Phalli or Fascinum, in short fetish objects thought to embody a mystical power were placed in gardens, on hearths, chariots and around one's person, as a protection against the fascinations of the envious "lower classes of the community", to divert the attention and intention, the "spells and sorcery" of this "evil eye" turned against them.

This small excerpt from Pliny's Natural History highlights the origin of the inequalities, which make the production and dispersal of fetish objects essential for the ruling classes to 'ward off the evil eye'.

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Pliny The Natural History
Book 19 Chapter 19 "THE PLEASURES OF THE GARDEN"

...In our laws of the Twelve Tables, we find the word "villa," or "farm," nowhere mentioned; it is the word "hortus" that is always used with that signification, while the term "heredium" we find employed for "garden." There are certain religious impressions, too, that have been attached to this species of property, and we find that it is in the garden and the Forum only that statues of satyrs are consecrated, as a protection against the evil effects of spells and sorcery*; although in Plautus, we find the gardens spoken of as being under the tutelage of Venus.....

.....It would be surprising indeed, for the beasts of the field to be forbidden the thistle for food, and yet it is a thing forbidden to the lower classes of the community! These refined distinctions, too, are extended to the very water even, and, thanks to the mighty influence of money, there are lines of demarcation drawn in the very elements themselves....

....is it the fact, then, that any herb of the garden is reared only for the rich man's table? It is so—but still let no one of the angered populace think of a fresh secession to Mount Sacer or Mount Aventine; for to a certainty, in the long run, all-powerful money will bring them back to just the same position as they were in when it wrought the severance. For, by Hercules! there was not an impost levied at Rome more grievous than the market-dues**, an impost that aroused the indignation of the populace, who repeatedly appealed with loud clamours to all the chief men of the state to be relieved from it. At last they were relieved from this heavy tax upon their wares; and then it was found that there was no tax more lucrative, more readily collected, or less obnoxious to the caprices of chance, than the impost that was levied in exchange for it, in the shape of a property-tax, extended to the poorest classes: for now the very soil itself is their surety that paid the tax will be, their means are patent to the light of day, and the superficial extent of their possessions, whatever the weather may chance to be, always remains the same. 


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*"contra invidentium effascinationes" =  to counter effects of the evil eye.
** bears reference to the abolition of the market-dues, or "portorium," by Augustus Cæsar, and the substitution of a property tax of one twentieth of the land, a method of taxation which inflicted greater hardships than the former one, as it was assessed according to the superficies, not the produce of the land.