I am a hundred different people. No more than that. I'm an infinite number of people and every day I multiply that number by every two eyes I reach, each two ears that recognize something in my voice, some commonality or just the sound of a life, and finally by the unknown number of minutes I spend dancing through the curtains of thought and emotion that someone knows to be their experience of me. But do any of those infinite me-s exist? Are any of them the definitive me? We priviledged our own perceptions because it is supposedly constant and closest to us, loudest in our heads, but is that even an accurate attribution? Maybe I think too highly of humanity, maybe I priviledged us more than I should. But I have to wonder if there is more to me than my intentions. That unknowable part of me, that is a secret usually even to myself.

It's a stressing time of year, and its during these times when I think about the people in my life, and what they mean to me, and what I mean to them, and I wonder a lot. As much as i think I do a good job of keeping in touch with people and looking after people I realize how much goes undone and how many go neglected. There is a certain question I've answered many times in many different variations of the same incorrect answer. But the real answer is that I like things the way they are, life is a balancing act, some sides give while others take but if your good, it manages to balance out in a way that makes you happy.

The Destruction of Nature
The Construction of Social Hierarchies
and
Fear of the Subversive
(and other parts of a balanced breakfast)

by

genevieve purcell

A single problem has plagued mankind since the beginning. The question of “Who am I?” has constantly been redefined through religion, science, and philosophy. Some religions posit that mankind was created by a supreme being in Its likeness. Science claims that mankind evolved from apes. Some philosophy even questions whether we “are” at all. Mankind can then be said to have struggled with standing behind its identity, for as long as mankind has been able to stand at all. Complicating this already confusing search for answers is a proud attitude. The idea that mankind evolved from apes complicates, if not disrupts the idea that human beings were in their very design, superior to all other forms of life. And the more mankind strives to be superior, civilized and abstracted from nature, the more it is inclined to seek to destroy nature and other reminders of lowly birth and to create a social order that legitimizes their superior identity by casting others into a subordinate identity. However, this provision creates a dependence upon the exploited other, that gives them a potential power and creates an atmosphere of constant fear of the subversive. In the texts, “The Conduct of Life” by Maria Irene Fornes, and “Sitt Marie Rose” by Etel Adnan the question of “Who am I” is examined in terms of the domination of nature, the belief in an artificial hierarchy of social legitimization, and fear of the subversive other.

The domination of nature within the texts manifests itself through the act of hunting but also through the animal and plant imagery projected onto modernization. This domination exists because of a feeling of inadequacy, particularly of men in society who in turn seek to conquer and destroy in order to feel powerful and superior. Hunting is therefore an outlet or ritual of masculine superiority. It is a skill or a sport that takes place outside the domain of women, and as a result excludes them from ever participating. There is a proud aspect of this exclusivity that allows the men to position themselves above the women because of their ritual participation in the act of hunting. For example, in “Sitt Marie Rose”, Mournir’s female family members admire the men’s hunting video, but he asserts that they are denied the full experience that cannot be duplicated in film; “I can’t tell you what the desert is. You have to see it. Only, you women, you’ll never see it. You have to strike out on your own, find your own trail with nothing but a map and a compass to really see it. You, you’ll never be able to do that.”

This attitude of masculine superiority is performed through hunting as a means of dominating nature, and legitimized through its exclusivity, as an act not only beyond the capability of women, but also beyond their understanding. In “The Conduct of Life” when Leticia voices her complete disapproval of hunting and intention to subvert the hunter’s ability to “destroy a deer” if given the opportunity, her husband Orlando chastises her like one would an ingenuous child for speaking out of turn; “Hunting is a sport! A skill! Don’t talk about something you know nothing about. Must you have an opinion about every damn thing! Can’t you keep your mouth shut when you don’t know what you’re talking about?” In both situations hunting is protected and objectified as a ritual through which men legitimize their relationship to nature as one of conquest and domination, a ritual that women cannot know.

In addition to the discussion of hunting, the use of natural imagery accompanies the modernization and growing violence of the superior class order. The City, a creation of the new modernized man, is demonstrative of the abstraction from nature that is taking place as man rejects his shameful natural identity. “In The City, this center of all prostitutions, there is a lot of money and a lot of construction that will never be finished. Cement is mixed with the earth, and little by little has smothered most of the trees. If not all.” Nature disappears from the landscape as attempts to build a superior cement environment flounder. In this excerpt their very bodies are compared to processed materials such as iron and are used as weapons to annihilate the natural through a sort of slash and burn technique;

“They love destruction because it’s a process of peeling away. It makes them believe they’re on the road to truth. Everything which blocks the horizon encumbers them. Even the trees. They kill them so they can see further, that is, see nothing. They use their bodies like weapons made of iron.”

In addition to implementing rituals such as hunting and diminishing the presence of nature through the creation of cities, mankind also sought to create an artificial social network that legitimizes one class as superior by placing it in a position of domination over another class. It was not enough to turn the destruction of nature into a sport, to hone it and admire it as a skill, mankind needed to conquer something bigger. The artificial social system implemented has two main elements. There is the domestic order in which the superior males dominate the rest of society, which is supported by the economic order in which the superior males manipulate and exploit the rest of society.

In order for a man to achieve the benefits of a superior identity, such as wealth, prestige and constant paranoia, a man must make a sometimes costly investment into the system in which he hopes to fit. Sometimes it is a religious or marital investment, and other times a political or military investment. For example, in the beginning of “The Conduct of Life” Orlando is lamenting his lack of ascendancy in military society and his dedication to obtaining a remedy even if it means he must divorce his wife;

“Thirty three and I’m still a lieutenant. In two years I’ll receive a promotion or I’ll leave the military. I promise I will not spend time feeling sorry for myself. -Instead I will study the situation and draw an effective plan of action. I must eliminate all obstacles. - I will make the acquaintance of people in high power. If I cannot achieve this on my own merit, I will marry a woman in high circles. Leticia must not be an obstacle. -Man must have an ideal, mine is to achieve maximum power. That is my destiny. -No other interest will deter me from this.”

Orlando’s mention of the ideology of destiny brings up an interesting aspect of mankind’s drive for superiority. Destiny can feel like an internal motivation or an expectation projected upon someone by society. It is a man’s destiny to reach his superior identity,and within the text “Sitt Marie Rose”, it is explained that “No one is interested in anything but his own destiny. It’s always the destiny of others that must be conquered and destroyed.” This is the way domestic relationships are structured. These ideals are fostered in the community from a young age. Children, through necessity and desire find their way into social networks such as the military as a way of creating for themselves a role in that society; "In the street younger and younger militia men make their appearance. They employ children for their suppleness. They crawl under the line of fire and gather up abandoned arms in the adversary camp. They also learn to love the Party and how to die." This guarantees the continuation of the ideology, an ideology that is built on feelings of insecurity and shame, and a desire for superiority and power.

The economic hierarchy set in place by these social networks is largely dependent upon the exploitation and manipulation of one group, by another. This can usually be achieved if there is some way of legitimizing this injustice. On a smaller scale, like in “The Conduct of Life”, Nena is essentially held captive in her master’s house and forced to accept his abusive behavior because he is bigger than her, and he has convinced her that she is dirty. This demonstrates a physical and psychological manipulation of her dependent situation. On a larger scale, ideologies like religion and nationality can be used as legitimate markers of a superior or subordinate class. For example in “Sitt Marie Rose” a strong and popular opinion was that “unless one resembled Europeans one was nothing.” This belief was a driving force behind the civil war, and was held so deeply that it could easily be seen in the relations between Christian contractors and their Syrian workers; “The contractor is fierce. He talks to the workers like to sub-humans, like to beasts of burden who go on two legs only because the narrowness of the stairways makes it impossible to go on four.” Not only does this economic exploitation result in the dehumanization of a group of people in society, but it also legitimizes the superior identity of the upper class through its manipulations.

Finally, after the rejection of nature and the manipulation of domestic and economic social relations, the only issue to deal with is the constant paranoia that comes with a position of dependent superiority. To fully understand the nature of this problem, a very basic analysis of the two texts can be applied. Both of these works deal with war within traditionally civilian and feminine spaces. “The Conduct of Life” takes place within a bourgeois home, run by the woman of the house and her female servant, and most of “Sitt Marie Rose” takes place within a small classroom in which the chief authority is a female teacher. This spatial internalization of war within the domain of the woman represents the neglected root of the problem. It represents the blazing battalions within the mind, hidden back behind psychological borders, that call for total war on anything that stands to threaten and the conquest of all potential subversives, before they have a chance to physically cross lines in the sand. This problem is often dealt with through swift acts of merciless violence, frequently implementing the use of examples of what consequences await subversive actions. Within “The Conduct of Life” Orlando refuses to include his wife Leticia in his will because he doesn’t want his memory humiliated by the foolish things she would do with his money. The foolish thing he is referring to is giving money to the poor;

Orlando: “Ask her what she would do if she were
rich and could do anything she wants with her money.”
Leticia: “I would distribute it among the poor.”
Orlando: “She has no respect for money.”
Leticia: “That is not true. If I had money I would give it to those who need it. I know what money is, what money can do. It can feed people, it can put a roof over their heads. Money can do that. It can clothe them. What do you know about money? What does it mean to you? What do you do with money? Buy rifles? To shoot deer?”
Orlando: “You’re foolish!- You’re foolish! You’re a foolish woman! Foolish, foolish.”

He refuses to provide for her after his death because he is convinced of her ability to misuse the power she is given due to her foolishness. Also in “Sitt Marie Rose” the main female character is regarded as dangerous by the men who surround her, however unlike Leticia who is dangerous because of a perceived weakness, Sitt Marie Rose is regarded as dangerous because of a strength that is subversive and threatening;

“Their women can only exert indirect powers over them, powers that seem ineffective, or else are so strong that they, they men, can’t recognize them as such. But a woman who stands up to them and looks them in the eye is a tree to be cut down, and they cut it down. She falls with the sound of dead wood which disappears among the perfidious murmurings of the city, and to the smirking of other women who are satisfied with the male victories.”

This subversive character throws a cog into the confusion that functions as social order because although she is a woman, she is of the right class, and religion and nationality to be protected by the system. This situation is new, and calls for a decision to be made about the severity and allowances of the system and the nation it structures;

"Like the presence of this woman, taken at random at a roadblock, who should, according to the norms, be a part of his clan, his flesh and blood. He wanted to construct a country where this sort of problem could not exist. But the problem came before the ideal country Mounir wanted to build. He would have to fight the dissident Christians to save the real Christians. His head spun."

Within this society the mere “existence of the enemy is a kind of sacrilege which exacts a purification equally as monstrous”# but it is a necessary existence because the superior identity depends on the manipulation and exploitation of others. And so the powerful seek to destroy the subversives and control the rest; “They bomb the under-privileged quarters because they consider the poor to be vermin they think will eat them. They fight to block the tide of those who have lost everything, or those who never had anything, and have nothing to lose."

The question “Who am I?” and the insecurity of inferiority has long haunted mankind. Driven by pride, mankind has sought to redefine it’s identity as superior by rejecting and abstracting itself from nature, and creating a social order in which it can legitimize it’s superior identity by casting others into a subordinate identity. However, this relationship is problematic as it forces the seemingly superior to depend upon the exploited other, creating an atmosphere of constant paranoia and fear of the subversive.

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yeah so that was the paper i just finished... its really great and should you find yourself faced with the task of writing a paper on this topic, I hope this provides you with some interesting thoughts to munch while you aren't stealing my paper.

once again.. if anyone has any thoughts feel free to share them, provided the comment system is obliging.

How To Handle A Woman (sung by King Arthur, you know the one)

"How to handle a woman?
There's a way," said the wise old man,
"A way known by ev'ry woman
Since the whole rigmarole began."

"Do I flatter her?" I begged him answer.
"Do I threaten or cajole or plead?
Do I brood or play the gay romancer?"
Said he, smiling: "No indeed.

How to handle a woman?
Mark me well, I will tell you, sir:
The way to handle a woman
Is to love her...simply love her...
Merely love her...love her...love her."

--camelot

On gloomy days filled with rain, and on sunny days that bring warm memories and sweet hope, and on ever variation in between, there are moments and sometimes hours filled with far away thoughts, deep questions so confusing you aren't sure whether it'd be more fitting to put a question mark at the end or a comma. There are days when you feel like today is the day when you will be found, sitting in the grass suffering dreadfully from your allergies, and in that very moment when you consider going inside, there will stand before you the very person your heart has been dreaming of. Your eyes will know, and your words will shy away, knowing they aren't big enough for the moment that approaches... and the entire world will bow to the pure wonder of that exact moment in your life. And whether it is only the 7th time you've met or your 2 and a half year anniversary, may it never go away.

here's wishing a green and glorious may to all of you.