Bakker XLIII - the prattle of unnumbered years

[themerchant]

He was originally going to make race the focus, but changed it after input/pressure from editor(s?) to gender.

Weirdly (considering the objective spiritual inferiority of woman) via the Judging Eye and a tiny sample size, the one woman looks a lot healthier spiritually than the men. That's probably due to having the judging eye though. Or being a guardian of the gates.

 

 

 

[Darth Richard II]

1 minute ago, themerchant said:

He was originally going to make race the focus, but changed it after input/pressure from editor(s?) to gender.

Weirdly (considering the objective spiritual inferiority of woman) via the Judging Eye and a tiny sample size, the one woman looks a lot healthier spiritually than the men. That's probably due to having the judging eye though. Or being a guardian of the gates.

 

 

 

What the fuck?

Didn't he write the first trilogy pretty much before he was even published? Where are you getting the race thing from? Seriously, is there some extension interview I missed?

[Kalbear]

He didn't change it in editorial, but he did toy with race being the inferior thing instead of gender.

That came from the bakker and women threads.

Also, belief does not change reality. If it did, the consult could simply change how everyone believed. That doesn't work. Kellhus changing things doesn't change anything about the way the universe works.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

40 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

Yeah considering how shocked some of you were to find out Bakker was trying to address feminism and that he made the world that way on purpose, I doubt SA has "everything" Bakker's ever said.

Hey, I'm not shocked. I heard about since I started reading the books. Its just not something "most" people even pick up on unless they are looking for it. Your average reader doesn't say, "Whoa, this Bakker here is problematizing feminism here." No, they just see it as a shitty world to live in. And hey, you said Bakker made the statement, not us. And SA is pretty thorough on commentary from Bakker, they have his stuff from the old three--seas forum.

ETA: if Bakker said Moe lies about everything then, well, that changes a lot. That's why your getting so many response to that. 

[Darth Richard II]

Yeah, I would argue most people DO pick up on it, but I don't think we're ever going to agree or get hard data. I think we could all agree I really need to do a re read though.

To clarify, I didn't mean to say Bakker outright said Moe is wrong, just that he's implied some of the stuff he's said is wrong. Like, Moe said the moon is made of cheddar then in an interview Bakker states its made of swiss, or something.

[Sci-2]

Bakker said there is a right way to believe, and that whole nations would be damned. A lot of people interpret this to mean one of the extant religions is the "right way to believe". I'm not 100% convinced.

Also, I don't think Big Moe ever said people aren't damned?

But the question is as a Cish, even a limited one, was Big Moe damned? Kellhus thinks Big Moe is what he once was, a Dunyain. Yet for Big Moe to perform *any* Cish magical abilities suggests - by Kellhus' own metaphysics of magic - that Big Moe has some recollection of the God.

Lockesnow did a really great analysis of that meeting, and it does seem Big Moe could be more Cish than Dunyain. After all one of the big themes of the book is that people fill in what they don't know with what they know. Everyone assumes, and the reader is led to assume, that Kellhus is beyond this cognitive deficit...but upon reflection - thanks again to Locksnow - this seems unwarranted.

Kellhus was raised by nutjob monks in some commune and taught to process the world in a particular way. Even in our world his processing might not hold up, and in the enchanted world of Earwa it seems incredibly faulty. One might even see Kellhus' children as a big fat warning sign. We think of them as lesser versions of Kellhus, yet we could also read them as Kellus' various flaws thrown into stark relief. 

An idea worth further posts, possibly...but getting back to Big Moe & Kellhus. There are stories in certain mystic traditions where someone thinks they've achieved Enlightenment but later realize this is in fact more reaching one rung higher than the mundane. Kellhus has one revelation on a tree, and because we're primed with the Christ mythos, we make much of it. Yet in, for example, certain shamanic traditions, that would be a first level initiation. Even Odin hanging off Yggdrasil comes off as an initiatory act into occult understanding rather than complete revelation/apotheosis.

How do we compare hanging from a tree versus having your fucking eyes torn out? (Again, think Odin giving an eye to Mimir to drink the waters of Wisdom.)

Big Moe may be far, far beyond Kellhus. Kellhus thinks his father is still Dunyain, still seeking to master circumstance which will lead to corrupting the Ordeal in order  to stave off damnation. But what if Big Moe is so far along he's ready to achieve Oblivion of Identity, and like the Boddhisvata that puts off Nirvana for just a little longer, only seeks to keep the world from succumbing to the horrors of the Inchie Bros?

[Darth Richard II]

Seriously question: didn't Bakker imply at one point that TSA and Neuropath are connected? Or am I remembering that wrong.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

8 minutes ago, Sci-2 said:

Bakker said there is a right way to believe, and that whole nations would be damned. A lot of people interpret this to mean one of the extant religions is the "right way to believe". I'm not 100% convinced.

Also, I don't think Big Moe ever said people aren't damned?

But the question is as a Cish, even a limited one, was Big Moe damned? Kellhus thinks Big Moe is what he once was, a Dunyain. Yet for Big Moe to perform *any* Cish magical abilities suggests - by Kellhus' own metaphysics of magic - that Big Moe has some recollection of the God.

 

This was the exact point I was trying to get across. Another, the only way that we know woman are objectively inferior on Earwa is because of Bakker. So, let's assume death of the author. Where in the books does it say women are objectively inferior? Yes, women are treated like shit and basically hold no worthy positions. Yet, by the time of TAE that has all changed. And this is where I am going with the belief bit. If women are objectively inferior why are they the ones granted the judging eye? Why would the god let an inferior being see as he/her/it sees? Textually this objectively inferior stuff holds no weight.

[Kalbear]

Mimara indicates the objective value of women at one point, iirc.

The death of the author works when you're examining themes and goals. It doesn't work at all when you're talking about the underlying system of the world. Are you basically saying that Bakker doesn't understand the metaphysics of his own world? That'd be awesome.

Moe might not be wrong, but moe was telling Kellhus all the wrong things. Even if he's cish, what we know about them indicates that they don't believe that it's arbitrary how to believe. And that isn't right at all.

But textually what we have is women gain power when they serve the gods or the god. We see this with psatma and mimara. When they don't attempt to escape their fate, when they stay in the lines drawn for them - then they get to have the goodies. In that frame TJE - which is given to women only because they can have kids and is at the cost of a stillborn child - isn't that special. You're asking the metaphysical equivalent of why women are the only ones who get to have abortions.

Another way to frame it: what better way to enforce the desired slavery of women than to have women be able to see that they're not worth as much as men? And not just see it - know it with as much certainty as anything in their life?

[Sci-2]

Does anyone have a source on Bakker saying women are metaphysically inferior?

I honestly don't remember the exact wording.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

Kalbear, but when Mimara looks at herself with the judging eye in the pond, she sees that she's is good. She doesn't see that she is lesser. In fact she can't bear that she is good because she's been told her whole life that she isn't.

ETA: and never does she say that she isn't worth as much as men. Where are you getting this from?

[sologdin]

judging eye bleh,

 

kal, i got no problem saying that the RSB is wrong in interpreting his texts. 

[Sci-2]

Well, we have reason within the text to believe Mimara's Judge Eye is not wholly objective.

So even if she sees women as inferior it might not be so.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

24 minutes ago, Sci-2 said:

Well, we have reason within the text to believe Mimara's Judge Eye is not wholly objective.

So even if she sees women as inferior it might not be so.

Does Mimara see women as inferior with the judging eye? I can't recall, but I don't remember that.

[Sci-2]

1 minute ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

Does Mimara see women as inferior with the judging eye? I can't recall, but I don't remember that.

I don't remember either TBH. I do vaguely recall some one thinking that...I think it was at the same time she talks about snakes being holy and pigs being unholy in either TJE or WLW.

But remember Mimara actually sees a damned soul's future torment...and it's exactly like what's depicted in some tradition's scriptures. If I told you that after you die you go to a city watched over by a guy in red & blue tights who is weakened by green rocks...do you think Superman is real or do you think I'm confabulating?

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

Superman is fucking real. Look I get what Kalbear is saying and really he has a great understanding of it. But, why isn't there direct textual evidence? If there is, I don't recall it. Mimara sees herself as good and pure and to me that down at equate with inferior. Even in PoN there is nothing said about woman being objectively inferior. There's quotes about not sufferring a whore from the Tusk. Nothing to back up what Bakker says, at least that I can recall. Not trying to argue as much as trying to see the textual evidence for it. 

[Darth Richard II]

Probably cause he doesn't want to bring up textual evidence about a subject that's been beaten to death in posts that were old before I signed up. Just guessing.

[Sci-2]

2 minutes ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

Superman is fucking real. Look I get what Kalbear is saying and really he has a great understanding of it. But, why isn't there direct textual evidence? If there is, I don't recall it. Mimara sees herself as good and pure and to me that down at equate with inferior. Even in PoN there is nothing said about woman being objectively inferior. There's quotes about not sufferring a whore from the Tusk. Nothing to back up what Bakker says, at least that I can recall. Not trying to argue as much as trying to see the textual evidence for it. 

I think it's what Mimara sees with the JE.

But I think the fact the JE replicates something from Mimara's own cultural upbringings is deeply suspect.

[Sci-2]

Here's the part where Mimara sees a specific damnation:

Quote

Such torment. Clenched and cringing, huddled in ways outside worldly dimensions. Prised and flayed, the innumerable petals of his soul peeled back in shrieks and sulphurous flame. Screams braided into screams, pains heaped upon agonies.

She sees it, his future, a gleam across his eyes, a fiery halo about his crown. His suffering disgorged like paint, smeared and stroked into obscene works of art. His soul passed from Ciphrang to feasting Ciphrang, dispensing anguish like milk through the endless ages.

She sees the truth of the Excruciata, the One Hundred-and-Eleven Hells depicted on the walls of the Junriuma in Sumna

Come on, that's obviously bullshit right?

[Kalbear]

Seeing mimara is not the same as seeing all women. Figured you'd be better for that sort of thing.

As to why I haven't dug it up, it's largely because msj made the same arguments before and was not swayed by any examples I brought up before either. Time is a flat circle. It takes a while to search 5 books for specific citations just to prove something which the author has explicitly stated is a fact. Why bother?