The Feminization Of Man

[Xev]

Jan Ardena:

This (male) form is not degraded, in fact it could be seen as upgraded but that is neither here nor there. Man (and woman), in my opinion, has lost the meaning to masculinity, this I believe is the problem, and as such is becoming lost, whereas woman (or man) has not lost the meaning to femininity , in fact, it is encouraged at every moment, and in every nook and cranny of modern society.

How could a true "meaning" be lost?
If a meaning is lost, it is construction, not fact.

That said, the construction is being lost, predominately in American society (which dominates world culture)
This is to be expected - American culture is a void, as Evola pointed out.

In order to go deeper into this subject matter we should understand the characteristics of masculine and feminine, which are attributed to all aspects of the universe not only living beings.

"Attributed" is a good word. They are indeed "attributed".
Things ARE. They are not "like" or "attributed" except in our attempts to make sense of the universe.

In today’s modern society, the archetypal male, God, is seen to be non-existent,useless and/or unnecessary,

I presume you refer to the Judeo-Christian Yaweh. I fail to see how this God could be seen as an archetypal male other than in the cocaine-ravaged brain of Freud.

What, precisely, is masculine about the dying-God-on-a-stick?

or if He is to be accepted He must either be formless or hermaphroditic.

Most significant Gods are, if not precisely hermaphrodites, bearing characteristics of both male and female.

This understanding, I believe to be the degredation, where the male has lost or is losing his identity and intelligence affording the female a false sense of grandeur, and as such is drowning hopelessly in the sea of materialism which is feminine by nature. The future is bleak for both male and female IMHO.

Because we're abandoning the Jewish idols? But they have only dominated for the past 800 years.
Believe me, Jan Ardena, the only hope for your gender is that the pallid tyrant Yahweh has his brains smashed by Mjolnir.
Hail Thor!

 

[WANDERER]

When we talk of ‘man’, we talk about physical form nothing more. You cannot say for sure whether I am a man or a woman unless you see me or I tell you, and even then, there may be deception. This (male) form is not degraded, in fact it could be seen as upgraded but that is neither here nor there. Man (and woman), in my opinion, has lost the meaning to masculinity, this I believe is the problem, and as such is becoming lost, whereas woman (or man) has not lost the meaning to femininity , in fact, it is encouraged at every moment, and in every nook and cranny of modern society.
In order to go deeper into this subject matter we should understand the characteristics of masculine and feminine, which are attributed to all aspects of the universe not only living beings.

Isn’t that what I said in my post?
You fail to se that I use the terms ‘masculine’ and feminine’ in a way that is not encompassed by gender types.
It is true that men are more likely to exhibit masculine traits as are women to exhibit feminine ones but both the masculine and feminine exists within both sexes.
The labels are metaphors that anthropomorphosis universal trends.

Female demurness….you’re kidding right?
Already you are generalising big time, you say males are ‘rebellious’ and ‘non-conforming’.
To what?

No, are you?
Just because modern females exhibit less of this 'demureness' only speaks to the fact that gender roles have been so skewed and warped in our present age, which goes a long way in explaining the rise of asexuality and homosexuality as a viable alternative. It also explains our modern sexual anxieties and confusion.

If we look at a nice motor car, a top of the range Bentley, we see a beautifully crafted machine, designed to give complete comfort, prestige and peace of mind, to its owner, resulting in a pleasurable experience. This is the feminine aspect to the car, the owner enjoys this beautiful toy on different levels. The more beautiful or opulent, the more one enjoys, this is tennant of modern life. The bit we don’t see, the assembly room, the workers, the shell before the paint is applied, the design, the idea, the sweat, is the masculine aspect. Most of us don’t really care for that side unless it adds to the pleasure, we are usually only interested in the finished product, because that is the pleasure principle, which is undoubtedly feminine.

Pleasure is not the goal of life it is only the mechanism by which we are made to behave in certain ways by nature.
Pleasure and pain is how nature dominates us.
Power is the the purpose of life.
By submitting to pleasure we are giving up power.
Femininity in all its glory.

In today’s modern society, the archetypal male, God, is seen to be non-existent,useless and/or unnecessary, or if He is to be accepted He must either be formless or hermaphroditic. This understanding, I believe to be the degredation, where the male has lost or is losing his identity and intelligence affording the female a false sense of grandeur, and as such is drowning hopelessly in the sea of materialism which is feminine by nature. The future is bleak for both male and female IMHO.

Love
Jan Ardena.

Here we are in agreement.
Live well,

 

[Jan Ardena]

Xev,

How could a true "meaning" be lost?
If a meaning is lost, it is construction, not fact.

I never stated that the “meaning” itself was lost, but that “we” had lost the meaning

This is to be expected - American culture is a void, as Evola pointed out.

What in your opinion is the “void” referred to by Evola?

"Attributed" is a good word. They are indeed "attributed".
Things ARE. They are not "like" or "attributed" except in our attempts to make sense of the universe.

I don’t see anything wrong in that. “Masculine” and “Feminine” aren’t actual objects, they are qualities.

I presume you refer to the Judeo-Christian Yaweh. I fail to see how this God could be seen as an archetypal male other than in the cocaine-ravaged brain of Freud.

LOL!
The idea of a Judeo-Christian Yaweh was not what I had in mind as it only describes a god soley for the purpose of Jews and Christians. I’m afraid that falls into the void you spoke of earlier.
This is the god in the “god is dead” statement made by Nietzsche, IMHO,
you know “god bless America” and all that stuff.
I speak of the god of Abrahm, Brahman. Yahweh is a name which describes a certain characteristic of Brahman or God.

What, precisely, is masculine about the dying-God-on-a-stick?

I’m not sure what you mean by dying-God-on-a-stick, but what is masculine about God is that He is the Creator, the Maintainer and the Destroyer, He is the Seed-Giver, the Teacher. And before you go off on one, this for the purpose of discussion is MY opinion.

Most significant Gods are, if not precisely hermaphrodites, bearing characteristics of both male and female.

For me there are no “Gods” only God. As stated before God displays masculine qualities through certain activities, not that He is actually Male, there is a subtle difference.
God also displays Female qualities. In vedic literature He is described as All-Atractive (Krishna) and is exquisitely beautiful, and is described as having all opunlences in full. {beauty, strength, fame, wealth etc…} Opulence is feminine IMHO. His energy known as “prakriti” or material energy, the agency through which the universes are created is feminine. The illusory energy known as “Maya” is feminine.
These are my opinions.

Because we're abandoning the Jewish idols? But they have only dominated for the past 800 years.

Idols are nothing to do with God, they are ideas of man, and apart from that those idols will only be replaced by new idols. Idols are necessary to control the masses. New world order, new idols.

Believe me, Jan Ardena, the only hope for your gender is that the pallid tyrant Yahweh has his brains smashed by Mjolnir.
Hail Thor!

Ultimately there is no hope for anything of material substance for all will perish in the due course of time. I suppose I could be seen as rather nihilistic, but nothing could be further from the truth, it is just a fact of nature/science.
I don’t believe this life, this body, this world or universe is the be-all end-all.

Thor would be foolish to attempt such a thing, I’m quite sure he would lay outstretched on his stomach at the lotus feet of Yahweh singing songs of praise with tears of ecstatic joy streaming down his face. And Mjolnir will transform himself and follow in his masters footsteps.

Again, my opinions.

Jan Ardena.

 

[BigBlueHead]

Jan: Mjolnir is just a hammer. Granted, a very heavy hammer that comes back when you throw it, but a hammer all the same. I doubt that a hammer would worship your god, no matter how heavy it was.

 

[Jan Ardena]

Jan: Mjolnir is just a hammer. Granted, a very heavy hammer that comes back when you throw it, but a hammer all the same. I doubt that a hammer would worship your god, no matter how heavy it was.

So the cat whose paw was lifted by Thor was really only a cat and not a giant snake with it tail in its mouth?

Jan Ardena.l

 

[BigBlueHead]

Yep, that's right. If the hammer is what it looks like, then obviously everything has to be what it looks like. That makes perfect sense - so, either everything is exactly what it looks like, or everything is in disguise all the time. Hence, since one thing has ever been in disguise in a story (which is the best kind of proof), a hammer obviously worships your god.

That's a good one, but it's still just a hammer.

 

[Xev]

Jan:

I never stated that the “meaning” itself was lost, but that “we” had lost the meaning

Are we not creators of the meaning?
"Man is the measure of all things"

I don’t see anything wrong in that. “Masculine” and “Feminine” aren’t actual objects, they are qualities.

Qualities define objects.
I find it amusing to watch the social conditioning of a person being displayed. Passivity is feminine, so is cruelty. Resistance is feminine, so is passivity. Sin is feminine, but females are supplient. Make up your fucking mind or actually think. (Don't mean you in particular, no offense)
Objects are objects.

LOL!
The idea of a Judeo-Christian Yaweh was not what I had in mind as it only describes a god soley for the purpose of Jews and Christians. I’m afraid that falls into the void you spoke of earlier.
This is the god in the “god is dead” statement made by Nietzsche, IMHO,

I was actually thinking of Maniac from Mayhem exhorting the crowd:
"How many of you out there believe in God?"
["NONE!]
"Well let me tell you - GOD IS DEAD!"

Ultimately there is no hope for anything of material substance for all will perish in the due course of time. I suppose I could be seen as rather nihilistic, but nothing could be further from the truth, it is just a fact of nature/science.

Here, we are in agreement.

Thor would be foolish to attempt such a thing, I’m quite sure he would lay outstretched on his stomach at the lotus feet of Yahweh singing songs of praise with tears of ecstatic joy streaming down his face. And Mjolnir will transform himself and follow in his masters footsteps.

*Laughs*
No, Thor would not. Thor is not supine or weak - none of the Norse Gods are.
Not even the girls. Freya could just as easily dispach Yahweh with her shining spear.

It strikes me that we ought to carry on this topic somewhere else, as we're far off topic and I'm babbling.

 

[Jan Ardena]

Xev,

Are we not creators of the meaning?

We are not full-blown creators, we create using things and ideas that are already in existence. I would say we are “developers”.

"Man is the measure of all things"

“Of all things the measure is Man, of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not.”

That’s a fair enough statement, but it is only in the context of what we can observe with our senses which are imperfect.

I find it amusing to watch the social conditioning of a person being displayed. Passivity is feminine, so is cruelty. Resistance is feminine, so is passivity. Sin is feminine, but females are supplient.

Social conditioning varies from time to time and place to place. Right now we see the tables are turning. Imagine 100 years from now, at this current rate. I can see males being stripped of everything they have enjoyed over the past however many years, and supplicating like their life depended on it. It’s inevitable.
The female form may need a different environment to achieve a lofty position e.g. a more technological one, but the mind, personality and aspirations of the female needn’t be feminine, or she can be feminine as and when it suits, which is what we are seeing now, you being a perfect example. In other words femininity is not a prerequisite of being female, nor masculine male, it is just the best way to advance spiritually, IMHO.

Jan Ardena.

 

[Jan Ardena]

Yep, that's right. If the hammer is what it looks like, then obviously everything has to be what it looks like. That makes perfect sense - so, either everything is exactly what it looks like, or everything is in disguise all the time. Hence, since one thing has ever been in disguise in a story (which is the best kind of proof), a hammer obviously worships your god.

That's a good one, but it's still just a hammer.

BigBlue..

OK, so its just a plain old hammer!
I think you are taking this thing a little too seriously.
Lighten up!

Jan Ardena.

 

[BigBlueHead]

I can see males being stripped of everything they have enjoyed over the past however many years, and supplicating like their life depended on it. It’s inevitable.

Uhm, yes, if power were held by "males" and handed down to "males". But power is held by an organization that has decided that it happens to like men and will choose them over women. The fact that its membership tends to largely contain men is only a reflection of its bias, not its constitution.

Most men are already as subjugated as those in power need them to be, all the more so because they accept their condition as if it were a deserved blessing.

Ol' Emma Goldman said:

The poor, stupid, free American citizen! Free to starve, free to tramp the highways of this great country, he enjoys universal suffrage, and, by that right, he has forged chains about his limbs. The reward that he receives is stringent labor laws prohibiting the right of boycott, of picketing, in fact, of everything, except the right to be robbed of the fruits of his labor. Yet all these disastrous results of the twentieth* century fetich have taught woman nothing. But, then, woman will purify politics, we are assured.

She didn't care about the vote. Why? Because the government would continue to pull the same stunts as before, except that then they would blame her for them, because she voted. She didn't want to get the blame without the power...

"Females" are never going to get the power from "males" because the males don't have it. There is no pendulum to swing the other way, just a few people in charge who either give something to you or not.

Sorry about the Thor thing, but having his hammer bow down and worship your god sounded too much like some kind of creepy religious Bob the Builder story.

 

[Jan Ardena]

WANDERER,

Pleasure is not the goal of life it is only the mechanism by which we are made to behave in certain ways by nature.

I disagree. Pleasure is our desire to enjoy nature. And pleasure is actually the goal of life for all living beings.

Pleasure and pain is how nature dominates us.

Nature is not in a position to dominate, it does does discriminate against anyone. When our desire for pleasure is satiated, it becomes like a drug and we want more, bigger and better. When it is not satiated we can become desparate, at which point we can lose our mind. Then mind then takes its orders from the sense organs dominating the person.

Power is the the purpose of life.
By submitting to pleasure we are giving up power.


We seek power to fulfill our desires.
There is nothing wrong with obtaining pleasure, i believe it is our right, What can be detrimental is the type of pleasure we seek.

Live well,

Thank you.
You also.

Jan Ardena.

 

[Fenris Wolf]

Power is the the purpose of life.
By submitting to pleasure we are giving up power.

We seek power to fulfill our desires.

I disagree with the suggestion that power is an end in itself. Rather, I'm more inclined to agree with Jan here in that it can be a means to an end. Power without purpose has no use.

What would you suggest is the object in aquiring power for it's own sake, Wanderer? Is this not akin to a dragon sitting on a hoard of gold?

 

[Jan Ardena]

BigBlueHead,

Uhm, yes, if power were held by "males" and handed down to "males". But power is held by an organization that has decided that it happens to like men and will choose them over women.

In the past (and present), males have enjoyed a dominent position over the female which has been abusive irregardless of status, power or wealth. This cannot be denied. Even after the male slaves had been worked and beaten mercilessly, the male would go back to his hovel and mistreat his wife in much the same way. Not only that, the wife, in some circumstances would be raped and beaten by the slave master, then ill-treated by the slave masters angry, jealous wife, who herself was not treated the way she would like, by her husband, although it may not have been brutal.

Powerfull organisations, in my opinion, aren't about who they like or don't like, they are about making huge profits. I would say that right now, women are contributing to giant profit margins way more than men. Wouldn't you agree?

The fact that its membership tends to largely contain men is only a reflection of its bias, not its constitution.

Effeminate men!

Most men are already as subjugated as those in power need them to be, all the more so because they accept their condition as if it were a deserved blessing.

This is or was the position of the (oppressed) female, which validates this thread. The thing is, this is not a natural position for either men or women. But i believe what goes around comes around, and when it comes it is usually far worse.

She didn't care about the vote. Why? Because the government would continue to pull the same stunts as before, except that then they would blame her for them, because she voted. She didn't want to get the blame without the power...

It was hard to get anything from that snippet other than she saw the game being played at that time by the leaders and was prepared to air her views. She displayed her masculine tendancies.

"Females" are never going to get the power from "males" because the males don't have it. There is no pendulum to swing the other way, just a few people in charge who either give something to you or not.

What power do males have on their own, likewise with females?? Women and men differ only in body, the mind acts in asociation with the body which gives a slightly different perspective, but the basic drives, intellect, ambitions etc...are basically the same. But now women (in general) have revenge in their minds regardless of whether they've been abused or not, it is actually being encouraged. Why? Because revenge is big business. So we men can expect some serious table turning in the future.

Sorry about the Thor thing, but having his hammer bow down and worship your god sounded too much like some kind of creepy religious Bob the Builder story.

That's alright. One question though! How do you reckon Mjolnir was able to come back to Thor?

Jan Ardena.

 

[Xev]

Fenris:

I disagree with the suggestion that power is an end in itself. Rather, I'm more inclined to agree with Jan here in that it can be a means to an end. Power without purpose has no use.

Means to what end?
One loses power when one seeks to have it. Power is something that must be attracted to one.

This answers Jan's question of why Mjolnir comes back to Thor, why Odin gave himself onto himself in order to learn the runes, why the Goddess of love supervises the carnage of the battlefield. Freya's human lover Ottar dies and she, in her love for him, grants him status as her beserker.
Power seeks itself. Every woman knows this. Every mystic feels it.

Power is the the purpose of life.
By submitting to pleasure we are giving up power.

Pleasure lies in having power. All else is fluff.

 

[BigBlueHead]

Jan said:

Powerfull organisations, in my opinion, aren't about who they like or don't like, they are about making huge profits. I would say that right now, women are contributing to giant profit margins way more than men. Wouldn't you agree?

Let's take a powerful organization, like say, CNN. Let's ask the average woman from Africa whether CNN does or does not like her. She might say something like,

"Well, if I was ever pictured on CNN it would be a half-second clip of me being shot, or maybe as part of some stock footage of AIDS victims if I got AIDS. So, insofar as I mean anything to CNN, I would say that they don't like me very much."

Now, why does CNN make Africa look like a continent full of dead people and AIDS victims? Not sure. Perhaps it is helping the US government continue its economic development in that area, perhaps there is a hidden agenda of some kind too obscure to be seen by the likes of me. But! It does seem to maintain some kind of business interest in making Africa look like the most benighted and hideous hell on Earth that it can. This means one of two things.

1) CNN already owns a big enough section of the wealth in the world that it can't get much bigger, and is just screwing around depicting people in this way for fun. In this case, the powerful organization would indeed be about who it liked or didn't like.

2) CNN is protecting or advancing some business interest by depicting people in this way, in which case the giant profit margins are motivated by their liking or not liking people. In which case, the powerful organization would still be about who it liked or didn't like.

So no, I don't agree.

As for women being responsible for profit margins... I assume that you are saying that women are more responsible for profit margins than men because you're attributing the propagation of the human race largely to women and hence all material wealth that was ever generated by any person was actually generated by a woman because the wealth generating person must have had a mother. This is true, and it earns Women a place in my heart right next to Men (who are also necessary for the propagation of the human race last I checked) and Oxygen and Gravity, and the many other things that we rely on for survival. Truly, the loss of even one of these things would kill us all. That doesn't mean that I should give the credit for everything to one of them, whether it be Men or Women or Oxygen or etc. etc.

It was hard to get anything from that snippet other than she saw the game being played at that time by the leaders and was prepared to air her views. She displayed her masculine tendancies.

Look harder. She said that the "man's life" that she was being offered was garbage and she was holding out for something better.

Furthermore, why do you characterize her assertion as showing a masculine tendency? Are you giving credit only to the male half of the species for her actions? Or do you just consider her an honorary man insofar as she exhibits any kind of strength?

But now women (in general) have revenge in their minds regardless of whether they've been abused or not, it is actually being encouraged. Why? Because revenge is big business. So we men can expect some serious table turning in the future.

Well, now right next to the "AI Theorists waiting for computers to spontaneously conscious" I can put the "People waiting for the great feminist vengeance backlash", and they can hang out in Limbo together and wait forever.

What if oppressing women was bigger business? You're trusting your predictions to a pretty thin economic argument.

Lastly, Mjolnir probably came back because Thor had some kind of string on it. He was a pretty smart guy.

 

[WANDERER]

XEV said

Means to what end?
One loses power when one seeks to have it. Power is something that must be attracted to one.

Here lies one of the most fascinating aspects of power and of life in general:
The more one wants or needs something the less one is worthy of it and the less chance one hasin acquiring it.
By wanting power we just reveal how powerless we are.
It would appear that the less we want or need the more we are worthy.
Indifference once more the key to domination and acquisition.
In my personal experience it was when I was not looking for something that I found it and when I was desperately looking for it, it was nowhere to be found.

Fenris Wolf said

I disagree with the suggestion that power is an end in itself. Rather, I'm more inclined to agree with Jan here in that it can be a means to an end. Power without purpose has no use.

Power is the means, the end is decided upon by the one possessing power.
If it were otherwise the idea of free-will would be ridiculous.
It is in fact the purposelessness of power that makes it more... powerful.

What would you suggest is the object in aquiring power for it's own sake, Wanderer? Is this not akin to a dragon sitting on a hoard of gold?

Here you are just exposing your own lack of power by asking me to provide a focus for it.
If I would do that and you would accept it you would have just given up power to me.
Power is a tool, what it is used for is determined by every individual personally.
Meaning and purpose is given by the possessor and not from some transcending law or external source.
A dragon sitting on a hoard of gold is power that is unused. When the dragon wakes and focuses its hoard towards personal desires it acquires both purpose and meaning.

Jan Ardena said

I disagree. Pleasure is our desire to enjoy nature. And pleasure is actually the goal of life for all living beings.

That one brought a tear to my eye.
A common mistake by the common mind.
Most human beings are so attracted to pleasure that they fail to see how it is a mechanism to maintain behaviour and so an enslaving tool; they interpret pleasure itself as the goal because they want it to be so.
We feel pleasure in sex so that we may strive to indulge in it and therefore ensure the continuance of the species and of life in general, we feel pleasure in eating so as to ensure that we continue searching for nutrition to maintain life, we feel pleasure in human contact and in socializing so as to ensure that we continue to do so, we feel pleasure in power so as to ensure that we always look for it. But by succumbing to that need for that pleasure we are actually making certain that we never find it. We may find power over others, that isn’t hard to do, but power real power is the one over ones self.
In truth there is no such thing as pleasure only varying degrees of suffering and the absence of it.
Life is need, need is suffering, ergo life is suffering. To live is the state of being conscious of suffering.
What is suffering? It is the conscious awareness of the unending strain and stress of the universe in flux that is pushing and pulling every piece of our being into dissimulation, degradation and destruction while the multiplicity of forces that we call ‘I’ resists and fights back.
What we call pleasure is the momentary alleviation of need or suffering causing a temporary absence of it before a new source of suffering replaces it in our mind. We might say that suffering is never fully absent it only subsides to such a degree that we fail to be conscious of it for a time befoe it starts building up again within us.
We suffer because we need sexual gratification, we ejaculate or reach orgasm causing the eradication of the suffering for just a moment before we remember that we are now hungry or thirsty or tired and so a new source of suffering takes the old ones place. The need for sex itself is only momentarily pacified into a whisper and it soon starts building up to a deafening crescendo.

Many mistake or delude themselves into believing that their own selfish interests are somehow transcending ones and so take their own happiness and contentment to be the goal of all life or the purpose of life’s existence.
Life’s only interest is the continuation of life and pleasure is how it ensures it, as pain is also another way to ensure it.
Both pleasure and pain make sure we behave in a certain manner.

I believe power is the only goal in the universe and life itself is only a new method of acquiring it.
In my view life is matter given consciousness in order to gain an advantage over unconscious matter in the pursuit of perfection or godliness or absolute power. Even if these ideals may be impossible goals in an imperfect universe.
What is matter?
Matter is a multiplicity of forces in momentary union through space/time. It is an illusion caused by our own inability to perceive the infinite speed of change causing the perception of solidity and substance where there is only phenomena and constant flux.
So we might say that life is an alliance of forces for the purpose of mutual benefit in the search for more power and pain/pleasure is how the alliance keeps together and in line.

What is reason?
Reason is the arbitrator or the one deciding which drive [force] within us is given free reign and which one is suppressed. The degree by which each drive is expressed or repressed is what creates the difference in character or personality. Reason is like a referee sometimes siding with one drive sometimes with another and as such is oblivious to both pain and pleasure but only in how theyu relate and affect the whole and each drive specifically

What is logic?
Logic is a set of rules created by reason through experience.
When a phenomenon is perceived multiple times with similar results the mind decides that it is a logical rule that governs reality. So the predictability and persistence of a phenomenon decides what is logical and what illogical within perceptible reality.

So you see to give pleasure such transcending power is to fool oneself into believing that the universe is not indifferent to our finite human woes.
Pleasure can be the goal of individual power, that is someone may choose to use reason to enhance pleasure in life but another individual may choose to use whatever power it possesses to pursue knowledge, which is irrelevant to pleasure, or adventure or enlightenment or even nothingness and death.

But what do I know? I'm just a wanderer passing through.

 

[Xev]

Wanderer:

By wanting power we just reveal how powerless we are.

To an extent, but 'power' is so many things.
Often when we most reject it it comes back to us. Rather like Mjolnir.
This is not to say that it can be won only through indifference. Take ascetic practice, which demands devotion so that we can overcome being (as you mentioned) dominated by the pain/pleasure dichotomy. Freedom takes constant discipline.

In my personal experience it was when I was not looking for something that I found it and when I was desperately looking for it, it was nowhere to be found.

I notice that when I lose my keys.

BigBlueHead:

Now, why does CNN make Africa look like a continent full of dead people and AIDS victims?

Perhaps Africa really is a festering shithole.
Ockham's razor. Why rely on theories of the "big evil corporations" when there's such a more simple explanation?

 

[WANDERER]

Wanderer:
To an extent, but 'power' is so many things.
Often when we most reject it it comes back to us. Rather like Mjolnir.
This is not to say that it can be won only through indifference. Take ascetic practice, which demands devotion so that we can overcome being (as you mentioned) dominated by the pain/pleasure dichotomy. Freedom takes constant discipline.

Isn’t asceticism an indifference to both pain and pleasure and so the acquisition of power over ones self?
Isn’t freedom another word for power?
Freedom is choice and this is also what power is.

 

[Xev]

Wanderer:

Isn’t asceticism an indifference to both pain and pleasure and so the acquisition of power over ones self?

That you can take them or leave them. They move you, they don't dominate you.

Isn’t freedom another word for power?
Freedom is choice and this is also what power is.

As far as I'm concerned, freedom is having power: others cannot make you submit. And freedom and honor and power and beauty are all aspects of the same thing.

 

[WANDERER]

Wanderer:

As far as I'm concerned, freedom is having power: others cannot make you submit. And freedom and honor and power and beauty are all aspects of the same thing.

You are thinking of power as too much of an aggressive force or tool.
Sometimes power means choosing to submit.
It’s having the choice that matters.

For me all these terms, honour, dignity, freedom, power, beauty, mean the same thing because you cannot subtract one and preserve the others.