Monday 7 November 2016

Trump Election. Star Wars and Max Webers magical thinking.

Trump Election:

I remember reading 'the Painted Man' series. It is a fantastic series, one of the few fiction book series I still read. It had very realistic discussions of all sorts of magic :).

In it, there were two men competing indirectly to be the 'deliverer'. Who were similar in a lot of ways but one was a conquerer and one was a unifier.

There were two characters in these two characters vicinity that were similar (if that makes sense.) Jardir, the conquerer, had a man named Hasik nearby who was a big muscly brute involved in the violent and dark aspects of that society. Arlen, the protagonist of the series, had another man, Gared, who was also large, muscular, selfish and self centered to begin with.

Hasik, under the fairly service to self society under Jardirs control gets worse and worse. The bad parts of his personality turn him from your average thug to a sinister crazed killer who respects no one and no rules.

Gared starts off making peoples lives difficult and being intimidating, but he becomes a part of Arlen's 'entourage' and used his strength to fight the demons that plague the communities in this story. At one point Gared gets on his knees in front of Arlen and thanks him, saying that before he met Arlen he had only ever used his strength for selfish purposes and he was grateful for Arlens presence in his life.

It is the fundamental effect of the positive polarity to turn those who are blocked in such a way that might make them seem disharmonious and violent, and speak to their concerns. As the reverse pattern is true of the negative.

This is what Scott Adams has to say on Trump:
a. Trump paced his base by saying he would deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. Once he had his base on his side emotionally, he led to them to his current policy of deporting only the people who committed crimes while here. Have you heard any Trump supporters complain about it lately? 
b. Trump paced his base by saying he would ban all Muslim immigration to stop terrorist infiltration. Once he had them on his side emotionally, he led them first to a ban on specific problem countries, and then again to “extreme vetting,” which is a lot like Clinton’s plan. Trump supporters followed, and you don’t hear them complaining. 
c. Early in the primaries Trump paced the racists in the Republican party by not disavowing them as clearly and as loudly as even the racists thought he would. Since then he has led Republicans to think that some form of a “New Deal” for African-Americans might be worth a look.

d. At the Republican National Convention, Trump used his emotional connection to his supporters to declare he was the strongest voice to protect the LGBTQ community. Republicans stood and cheered.
This was what I was reminded of when I read this from Benjamin Fulford:
Direct reporting from a White Dragon Society member in the US also reveals overwhelming support for Donald Trump at the street level. Here is his report: 
“I went to a Hillary ‘rally’ two weeks ago…there might have been 1500 people tops. On Friday night I went to a Trump rally in Hershey PA. It filled up a hockey arena, at least 15,000, plus 7000 outside…Trump is turning rednecks into peaceniks. Hillary is turning dovish liberals into warmongering self-loathing retards.”
Star Wars

Another thing I wanted to talk about was how completely the new Star Wars has wrecked the integrity of the series.

The trailer is amazing. The sense many of us got from the original series was one of wonder. Of the sociological writers I studied at University, I'm starting to fall down a little on Max Weber. Who stated, that society has tension from rejecting 'magical thinking', that our ancestors once had. That we have become over computerised and rational. That this rationality can act as an 'iron cage'. When I watch this I realise the sense of what people desire from this series:


This trailer is FANTASTIC. 

When there is an 'iron cage' like we do experience to some extent, the mind craves magical thinking. Rather like our mind must escape to dreams to experience life under a different set of rules. This advert is good partly because, Harrison Ford's narration of 'it's all true' gives us permission to then lift our veil of disbelief and enjoy that thinking again.

Also, the Jedi and Sith are not in the first part of the advert. The first part sets the life of a scavenger, someone who's lost and someone part of an army who's questioning things. It sets the life of people doing thing they are not sure of and this is a familiar reality of a disbeliever, the reality without magic. Then it slowly brings in the jedi, the Sith and these magical rules with the anchor of the Star wars music and floods in the magical, into the mundane reality we subconsciously connect with.

But, the actual film, or at least the clips I saw, are awful. I deeply trust the independent youtube bloggers that reviewed it, everyone says the same things. One of which is that the main character picked up the whole of the force and faced a Darth Vader like opponent without any training. When watching it, the fight scene between these two and many other aspects of this are very very innaccurate and break you out of the magical thinking (by abusing the suspension of disbelief) for the following reasons:
  • The fight scene between them was terrible, it was made up of unskilled sword fighting. This was true of the original episodes IV through VI. But after episodes I - III we are a more sophisticated audience.
  • In the torture scene where Kylo Ren (Sith) character is trying to get information out of the protagonist, it is ridiculous. he is unable to intimidate this girl. Darth Vader would never have had such troubles, neither would anyone if they have the power of tying up someone else and doing what they wanted to get information. The scene ended with Daisy's character taking the moral highground where a simple knife to the vagina (or other torture method more suitable for Disney) would have given the Sith character any information he wanted to know. Or if that torture did not work nothing would and he could just have let her die.
  • Related but not the same as the above point, Kylo Rens character is like someone out of Twilight.
  • Daisy's character is able to out 'telekinetic' Kylo Ren at one point. But those abilities do not work like that. They do not switch off and on. If Kylo Ren had the ability for telekinesis he would always have it... This understanding is closer to the negative polarities understanding of such forces, the 'subtle body' is not 'transcient'.
Harrison Ford (who the reviews tell me gets killed in this film) his narration is a big part of what links us to this universe in the trailer and I realise, after having watched the Clone Wars series that almost exclusively has Jedi and Sith characters, that part of why we love Star Wars so much is because of Harrison Fords character, many of us probably relate more to him than Luke. He's the one that gets the princess and he's the normal guy in the midst of this magical story. He is the one that really gets the thrill from these experiences and does not have the same, crushing responsibility that Luke has.

1 comment:

  1. You had me until you went to review a Star Wars film you haven't actually watched. Watch the story and how it unfolds. Solo's death is a necessary part of the story and his role as the audience surrogate has been replaced by Finn.

    There are obvious SJW nods to the veneer of TFA, but the soul of the film is classic Lucas through and through. SW has always been slightly leftie, because Lucas is.

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