Kombinat!
Thursday, December 23, 2004
Kombinatism! What-Notism!
Frank Paynter at Connect & Empower says:
(COMMENTS from the Usual Suspects)
Posted by: kent
Not to be construed as overly brazen, I'd like to offer some suggestions as to how we might go about designing and constructing a process for examing our new theology.
First, we might consider a religious design experiment from a perspective of hyperspirituality, where hyperspirituality is to spirituality as hyperreality is to reality.
Hyperspirituality might be significant as a paradigm to explain the Western Weltanschauung condition. Contempory religious orthodoxies, because of there reliance on sign exchange values (e.g. religious notion X makes you a cool theologian, adhering to concept Y means you’re theologically nerdy), is the contributing factor in creating hyperspirituality. Hyperspirituality tricks the consciousness into detaching from any real spiritually emotional engagement, instead opting for artificial simulation, and endless reproductions of fundamentally empty appearance. Essentially, fulfillment or spiritual happiness is found through simulation and imitation of the false perception rather than through spirituality itself.
Interacting in a hyperspiritual place like, say, the Vatican, a Buddist Monastery or the naturalist's stroll in the woods gives the subject the impression that he is walking through a fantasy world where everyone with a like mind-set is potentially playing along. The decor isn't authentic, everything is a copy, and the whole thing feels like a dream. What isn't a dream, of course, is that the religious institution takes your money and what you construe as your soul, which you are more apt to give them when your pre-postmodern Weltanschauung doesn't really understand what's going on. In other words, although you may intellectually understand what happens in your theology, your consciousness thinks that participating in the religious activity is part of the "real" world. It is in the interest of the religious heirarchy to emphasise that everything is spiritual, to make the entire spiritual experience seem real.
Note: Many postmodern hypertheologicians, including the neo-Baudrillardists, do not like to talk about hyperspiritualism in terms of a theological subject/object split.
Potential definitions of hyperspiritualty:
"The spiritual simulation of something which never really existed, spiritually." (Baudrillardly)
"The authenticaly fake spirituality." (Eco-esque)
Secondly, let's not make our religious texts hard to read or understand. Clearly, we should not allow our critical theory -- that will eventually spring up in the wake of postmodern religious construction -- be ridiculed for its stilted syntax and attempts to combine polemical tone and a vast array of new coinages.
More importantly, let's have the language of our texts focus on the implied meaning of words and forms, have the power structures that are accepted as part of the way our words are used. This obviously powerful example of the changing relationship between diction and discourse may make our theology less susceptible to postmodern criticism.
Since, in hyperspiritual thought, the "religious text" will be a series of "markings" whose meaning is imputed by the reader, and not by the author, this play is the means by which the reader constructs or interprets the text, and the means by which the author gains a presence in the reader's mind. Play then involves invoking words in a manner which undermines our initial authority, by mocking our assumptions or style, or by zealots, who may misdirect design intentions.
Immanence? The question of whether or not we should include some form of Immanence has been haunting me. (I used haunting in the hyperspiritual sense here). As we know, Immanence is derived from the Latin words, in and manere, the original meaning being 'to exist or remain within'. Will we have a divine rageboy-like force that pervades through all things that exist? I'm hoping that your religion will include some tibbits of dialectical neo-monistic thought, although this seems to contradict earlier, hyperspiritual arguments, it might allow for a post-hyperspiritual evolution of our religious dogmas. (In our case, dialectical monism might be viewed as an ontological position which holds that reality is ultimately a unified whole, distinguishing itself from plain monism by asserting that this whole necessarily expresses itself in dualistic terms. For the dialectical monist, the essential unity is that of complementary polarities which, while opposed in the realm of experience and perception, are co-substantial in a transcendent sense.)
As we assess our nouveau-religiosity, would it be appropriate to view the framework as 1) A response to a (perceived) logical difficulty in competing theologies, 2) Postulation of theological constructs to explain observable phenomena, and 3) a postulation of something beyond experience was not new (cf. the gods) -- what is neo-monistically postulated is not personified or anthropomorphic?
Lastly, on a personal note, I hope that we allow for the inclusion of recurrent greetings to one another drawn from earlier traditions -- like ""Happy Hogswatchnight"!
:)
------
fp adds:
It's good to be in on this thing from the beginning. At Jeneane's suggestion, I Googled "round young virgins" and found nothing... nothing tender, nothing mild, so the virgins part needs a little fleshing out. That said, I hope Kombinatism doesn't get involved in politics. Kombinat Kardinals locked down in embassies for decades eating omly crustaceans on Tuesday... we do eat crustaceans on Tuesdays, right? Anyway, said prelates would eat us out of house and home, so I hope we don't get involved in politics.
Also, let's not burn witches or unbelievers or anything. Okay? I mean, it seems like a stretch to have to codify that one, but you never know how deep the "faithful" will take this stuff once we get the show on the road.
And speaking of taking the show on the road, I vote for Airstream trailers and huge canvas tents. We can collect the money in brown paper bags, that'll show that we are simple and modest, but let's for K's sake be sure that we have air conditioned trailers to sleep in if we're doing the tent show circuit.
Maybe we don't want konverts? Do we? It's so difficult to keep track of everyone. Could we get RFID earrings or eyebrow piercings? We need certain marks to know each other by.
Also, let's not get too heavy into creation myths. They usually end up with some beautiful prioncess getting her fingers chopped off to become seals and stuff, and who wants to marry a raven anyway.
Also, let's stay away from any words with Theo in them. Theo was a lovely child on the leave it to beaver show, but he has no place in organized religion. Next thing you know you have people shooting at each other and prelates taking refuge in embassies and what-not. This "what-not" has to be watched out for too. We may need a Lord-protector-Mighty-Shield-against-creeping-what-notism. Or some such title. He or she should probably wear impressive robes.
Kent, what a wonderful post. I took sometime to think it through (in between life occurings going all around) and am late to the party to answer it. Hyperspirituality you mention reminds me of a book by U Eco - Travels in Hyperreality. - about the 'Absolute Fake' where what's fake is more real than reality itself. Artificial simulations which no longer is about simulation at all but a better replacement of reality (as seen in many computer games). In our Kombinatism we are all for Hyperspirituality then; because all we ever write here on these pages of wonderful white strathmore grainy texture paper is hyperblogging. An Absolute Fake of Blogging. We are slowly progressing towards dropping the pretense of simulation and embrace this here blog as a more-real-no-longer-alternative to blogging than blogging itself. The only question remains: how do we take money from the travellers in our hyperspirituality? Time will tell, it will. As to neo-Baudrillardists, I don't know anything about the modern billiards games as seen on ESPN.
Secondly, yes; the text need to be simple. Better yet simple images? We need to ask AKMA about that, could he perhaps want to moonlighting job at Kombinat! to exercise his religious text writing? Perhaps other more competent Noise Production writers than our staff could join? The stage is open. (We could recruit at e-church, no?)
About Immanence I have nothing to say, I think this is an advanced subject and our texts should be simple. I told the Head Janitor of Kombinat! about this Immanence and he just starred at me. Forget it I say.
And yes, we need special Jingles to greet each other by on holy days of Kombinatism!
Thanks for the note Kent.
All these traditional religions copy one another, mirror one another, and feel superior to all others.
So I suggest a parable in Kombinatism! (it should always have the exclamation point) in which the great seer, thinker, one with the direct (not dotted) line to the bigger great power, talks about swirls before pine.
And maybe a sacrificial goat or gekko, and some official, ritualistic manner in which the throat is slit.
Of course a major celebration of some victory or anniversary of an event of momentous or epic proportion must occur at each solstice. And remember to include the ritual washing three times of the elbows, just because each religion has some inane ablution, like it is part of the "what we gotta do to be a religion" handbook.
Then comes the obligatory dancing, except on holidays. (Heaven forbid!)
-------
Kombinat! responds:
I definitely vote for sacrificial gekko. We can then say famous latin phrases like "Ecce Gecco!" and we shall behold nad slit the throat of our sacrificial creature.
I definitely vote for inventing miracles.
Let me think more on this after I wash my elbows thrice.
"I think my answer is that I am no longer a Christian if I ever was one. Indeed, I am not a theist. I shy from the word atheis because it implies a dogmatism I do not assert. But I think that we have come a long way culturally since the middle ages, and Christianity is no longer of much use. Nor is Islam for that matter. Nor Judaism. Hinduism. Shamanism. Buddhism. Shintoism. Paganism. Jainism. And what-notism"Frank. Join us, we are launching Kombinatism! A New Religion. We haven't figured out the rules yet but I am sure we'll have some kind of miracle birth, perhas a virgin or two. There has to be travelling and escape from oppression. Anything else? Also we need to develop theses about the superiority of Xmas over Easter celebrations. We can corner the market for neotism thing.
(COMMENTS from the Usual Suspects)
Posted by: kent
Not to be construed as overly brazen, I'd like to offer some suggestions as to how we might go about designing and constructing a process for examing our new theology.
First, we might consider a religious design experiment from a perspective of hyperspirituality, where hyperspirituality is to spirituality as hyperreality is to reality.
Hyperspirituality might be significant as a paradigm to explain the Western Weltanschauung condition. Contempory religious orthodoxies, because of there reliance on sign exchange values (e.g. religious notion X makes you a cool theologian, adhering to concept Y means you’re theologically nerdy), is the contributing factor in creating hyperspirituality. Hyperspirituality tricks the consciousness into detaching from any real spiritually emotional engagement, instead opting for artificial simulation, and endless reproductions of fundamentally empty appearance. Essentially, fulfillment or spiritual happiness is found through simulation and imitation of the false perception rather than through spirituality itself.
Interacting in a hyperspiritual place like, say, the Vatican, a Buddist Monastery or the naturalist's stroll in the woods gives the subject the impression that he is walking through a fantasy world where everyone with a like mind-set is potentially playing along. The decor isn't authentic, everything is a copy, and the whole thing feels like a dream. What isn't a dream, of course, is that the religious institution takes your money and what you construe as your soul, which you are more apt to give them when your pre-postmodern Weltanschauung doesn't really understand what's going on. In other words, although you may intellectually understand what happens in your theology, your consciousness thinks that participating in the religious activity is part of the "real" world. It is in the interest of the religious heirarchy to emphasise that everything is spiritual, to make the entire spiritual experience seem real.
Note: Many postmodern hypertheologicians, including the neo-Baudrillardists, do not like to talk about hyperspiritualism in terms of a theological subject/object split.
Potential definitions of hyperspiritualty:
"The spiritual simulation of something which never really existed, spiritually." (Baudrillardly)
"The authenticaly fake spirituality." (Eco-esque)
Secondly, let's not make our religious texts hard to read or understand. Clearly, we should not allow our critical theory -- that will eventually spring up in the wake of postmodern religious construction -- be ridiculed for its stilted syntax and attempts to combine polemical tone and a vast array of new coinages.
More importantly, let's have the language of our texts focus on the implied meaning of words and forms, have the power structures that are accepted as part of the way our words are used. This obviously powerful example of the changing relationship between diction and discourse may make our theology less susceptible to postmodern criticism.
Since, in hyperspiritual thought, the "religious text" will be a series of "markings" whose meaning is imputed by the reader, and not by the author, this play is the means by which the reader constructs or interprets the text, and the means by which the author gains a presence in the reader's mind. Play then involves invoking words in a manner which undermines our initial authority, by mocking our assumptions or style, or by zealots, who may misdirect design intentions.
Immanence? The question of whether or not we should include some form of Immanence has been haunting me. (I used haunting in the hyperspiritual sense here). As we know, Immanence is derived from the Latin words, in and manere, the original meaning being 'to exist or remain within'. Will we have a divine rageboy-like force that pervades through all things that exist? I'm hoping that your religion will include some tibbits of dialectical neo-monistic thought, although this seems to contradict earlier, hyperspiritual arguments, it might allow for a post-hyperspiritual evolution of our religious dogmas. (In our case, dialectical monism might be viewed as an ontological position which holds that reality is ultimately a unified whole, distinguishing itself from plain monism by asserting that this whole necessarily expresses itself in dualistic terms. For the dialectical monist, the essential unity is that of complementary polarities which, while opposed in the realm of experience and perception, are co-substantial in a transcendent sense.)
As we assess our nouveau-religiosity, would it be appropriate to view the framework as 1) A response to a (perceived) logical difficulty in competing theologies, 2) Postulation of theological constructs to explain observable phenomena, and 3) a postulation of something beyond experience was not new (cf. the gods) -- what is neo-monistically postulated is not personified or anthropomorphic?
Lastly, on a personal note, I hope that we allow for the inclusion of recurrent greetings to one another drawn from earlier traditions -- like ""Happy Hogswatchnight"!
:)
Kent
----------
bmo asks: Who is this 'Kent'? His style seems familiar.
------
fp adds:
It's good to be in on this thing from the beginning. At Jeneane's suggestion, I Googled "round young virgins" and found nothing... nothing tender, nothing mild, so the virgins part needs a little fleshing out. That said, I hope Kombinatism doesn't get involved in politics. Kombinat Kardinals locked down in embassies for decades eating omly crustaceans on Tuesday... we do eat crustaceans on Tuesdays, right? Anyway, said prelates would eat us out of house and home, so I hope we don't get involved in politics.
Also, let's not burn witches or unbelievers or anything. Okay? I mean, it seems like a stretch to have to codify that one, but you never know how deep the "faithful" will take this stuff once we get the show on the road.
And speaking of taking the show on the road, I vote for Airstream trailers and huge canvas tents. We can collect the money in brown paper bags, that'll show that we are simple and modest, but let's for K's sake be sure that we have air conditioned trailers to sleep in if we're doing the tent show circuit.
Maybe we don't want konverts? Do we? It's so difficult to keep track of everyone. Could we get RFID earrings or eyebrow piercings? We need certain marks to know each other by.
Also, let's not get too heavy into creation myths. They usually end up with some beautiful prioncess getting her fingers chopped off to become seals and stuff, and who wants to marry a raven anyway.
Also, let's stay away from any words with Theo in them. Theo was a lovely child on the leave it to beaver show, but he has no place in organized religion. Next thing you know you have people shooting at each other and prelates taking refuge in embassies and what-not. This "what-not" has to be watched out for too. We may need a Lord-protector-Mighty-Shield-against-creeping-what-notism. Or some such title. He or she should probably wear impressive robes.
---------
Kent, what a wonderful post. I took sometime to think it through (in between life occurings going all around) and am late to the party to answer it. Hyperspirituality you mention reminds me of a book by U Eco - Travels in Hyperreality. - about the 'Absolute Fake' where what's fake is more real than reality itself. Artificial simulations which no longer is about simulation at all but a better replacement of reality (as seen in many computer games). In our Kombinatism we are all for Hyperspirituality then; because all we ever write here on these pages of wonderful white strathmore grainy texture paper is hyperblogging. An Absolute Fake of Blogging. We are slowly progressing towards dropping the pretense of simulation and embrace this here blog as a more-real-no-longer-alternative to blogging than blogging itself. The only question remains: how do we take money from the travellers in our hyperspirituality? Time will tell, it will. As to neo-Baudrillardists, I don't know anything about the modern billiards games as seen on ESPN.
Secondly, yes; the text need to be simple. Better yet simple images? We need to ask AKMA about that, could he perhaps want to moonlighting job at Kombinat! to exercise his religious text writing? Perhaps other more competent Noise Production writers than our staff could join? The stage is open. (We could recruit at e-church, no?)
About Immanence I have nothing to say, I think this is an advanced subject and our texts should be simple. I told the Head Janitor of Kombinat! about this Immanence and he just starred at me. Forget it I say.
And yes, we need special Jingles to greet each other by on holy days of Kombinatism!
Thanks for the note Kent.
------------
From Dean Landsman | January 11, 2005 06:29 PMAll these traditional religions copy one another, mirror one another, and feel superior to all others.
So I suggest a parable in Kombinatism! (it should always have the exclamation point) in which the great seer, thinker, one with the direct (not dotted) line to the bigger great power, talks about swirls before pine.
And maybe a sacrificial goat or gekko, and some official, ritualistic manner in which the throat is slit.
Of course a major celebration of some victory or anniversary of an event of momentous or epic proportion must occur at each solstice. And remember to include the ritual washing three times of the elbows, just because each religion has some inane ablution, like it is part of the "what we gotta do to be a religion" handbook.
Then comes the obligatory dancing, except on holidays. (Heaven forbid!)
-------
Kombinat! responds:
I definitely vote for sacrificial gekko. We can then say famous latin phrases like "Ecce Gecco!" and we shall behold nad slit the throat of our sacrificial creature.
I definitely vote for inventing miracles.
Let me think more on this after I wash my elbows thrice.
Monday, December 20, 2004
Sunday, December 19, 2004
Paintings of Jesters, Irony, Village Idiots by Jaroslaw Miklasiewicz.
Miklasiewicz_CourtJesterAgony
Jaroslaw Miklasiewicz social commentary in paintings. (his site in polish, click links Galeria 1, Galeria 2 and Galeria 3 to see painings)
Some of my favorite paintings:
Miklasiewicz_CourtJesterAgony
Jaroslaw Miklasiewicz social commentary in paintings. (his site in polish, click links Galeria 1, Galeria 2 and Galeria 3 to see painings)
Some of my favorite paintings:
Proletariat: Notice the jester and whores.
Death of a Jester: I wonder why his right hand is in a bucket.
The Blind: Not only the blind leading the blind but a new twist with the blind reading a newspaper. Parade of Fools indeed.
A Tip, A Gift: Perhaps a way Candidia might pass a tip to a homeless man an a street as long as her gesture were to be reported by the media.
Dialogs with the Past: A torn canvas, A rip in the fabric of the painting, a separation.
A Little Voting Booth: The leader speaks. The guys in the back hold a white sheet to cover the leader's naked ass. Notice the construction of a voting booth with the votes going straight into the garbage bin.
Jester going for a walk : parade as usual
Rounding Up of Fools (I invented this title): Polish title is "Skolowani", a play on words, it could be translated as Being Loopy, Loopy people as in crazy but it has to do with a wheel too so round shapes represent loopy crazy people. Notice the jesters cap hanging on a tree stump, tree is gone, the jester is gone.
