Mama Weer All Carers Now (Something to Reflect Upon Whilst in Self-Isolation)

On a rather schadenfreudenistic note, it has amused me to see how the coronavirus pandemic has obliged millions of people to essentially adopt the life that I've been living for almost four years; one of illness, isolation, constant handwashing, financial hardship and grave concerns about the future.

Experts are already expressing fears about the mental wellbeing of people in a lockdown situation denied normal social interaction and deprived of certain material comforts that they have previously taken for granted. And I can vouch for the fact it isn't easy ...

However, if spending 14 days shut-up indoors worrying about whether you'll run out of quilted toilet paper is your idea of hardship, then try spending 1,448 days caring for an elderly parent with Alzheimer's without any external support and just £66.15 a week to live on ...         

I'm just saying that people should learn to make do - or do without - with a certain equanimity (or, if you prefer a more philosophical term, then go google ataraxia - a crucial component of the good life for Stoics and Epicureans alike).*  


* Note: those interested in this can also click here to read a post on the topic from April 2018. 

The Bear Necessity: Reflections on the Case of Timothy Treadwell

Promo image for Grizzly Man (2005)

I.

It's funny how life works out: one minute you're just an audition away from landing the role of Woody Boyd in one of TV's greatest sitcoms; the next you're being eaten by a brown bear ...

II.

Failed actor, self-confessed substance abuser, and gonzo naturalist, Timothy Treadwell, believed he possessed a unique bond with all creatures great and small, particularly bears, which, he insisted, were just harmless party animals. To prove it, he spent his summers in an Alaskan National Park getting chummy with grizzlies, whilst pissing off the park rangers who repeatedly warned him about the risks he was taking.

Warnings he blithely chose to ignore; refusing, for example, to carry a can of bear spray (just in case), or protect his campsite with a (non-lethal) electric fence. Both of these measures were dismissed as cruel and unnecessary, 'cos he loved his furry friends and they would never hurt him, he said.

Unfortunately, this proved to be a fatal conceit ... Something that Treadwell discovered when he and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, encountered a denizen of the woods out looking for a meal, rather than searching for human companionship.


III.

The tragic result of this encounter was documented in Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man (2005); a film which makes silent use of a six-minute audio recording in which the agonised screams of Tim and Amie can be heard as they meet their grisly end (excuse the pun). Whilst some vorarephiles might find that idea arousing, I suspect in reality there's nothing very erotic about having a large male bear chow down on you (as Leonardo DeCaprio will vouch). 

Interestingly, however, whilst praising Treadwell's astonishing video footage of bears, Herzog makes it clear in his narration that he repudiates Treadwell's Disneyfied view of nature and regards him as a disturbed individual harbouring a bizarre death wish. So, perhaps it was the end he longed for after all ...? 

If nothing else, it certainly makes one question why it was that Treadwell, who usually left the park at the end of the summer, chose in 2003 to stay until early October; a decision that placed him and Huguenard at far greater risk, as bears become more aggressive in the autumn as they desperately search for food prior to hibernation.

Herzog speculates that by staying later in the season Treadwell was almost deliberately inviting trouble. And he concludes:

"What haunts me, is that in all the faces of all the bears that Treadwell ever filmed, I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only the overwhelming indifference of nature. To me, there is no such thing as a secret world of the bears. And this blank stare speaks only of a half-bored interest in food."

Notes

For a lengthy essay discussing the case of Timothy Treadwell entitled 'Night of the Grizzly - A True Story of Love and Death in the Wilderness', visit: yellowstone-bearman.com

To learn more about Grizzly People, the grassroots organisation founded by Treadwell devoted to preserving bears and their natural environment, click here. 

See: Grizzly Man, dir. Werner Herzog, (Lions Gate Films, 2005): click here to watch the official trailer.

Of Priests and Pornographers in the Age of Coronavirus

It's interesting to note how, even in the middle of a global health crisis, we can rely on the superstitious and stubborn stupidity of priests to reassert itself, as well as the cynicism of pornographers attempting to peddle their wares by encouraging those in self-isolation to engage in auto-erotic activity. 

Thus, in Greece, despite the authorities issuing precautionary guidelines and suspending festive events and large public gatherings (as well as closing schools, museums, bars, restaurants, etc.), the Church announced that Holy Communion - in which the faithful share a spoon to eat pieces of bread soaked in wine from a chalice - will continue because the blood and body of Christ is without blemish and so cannot cause illness - in fact, if anything, it possesses the miraculous power to heal.

Amusingly, the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, went on national TV to plead that religious duties be adjusted to reality, but, of course, when have true believers ever been concerned with the latter?  

In Italy, meanwhile, where millions of citizens are in almost total lockdown as the government there does what it can to halt the spread of coronavirus, Pornhub - one of the world's largest and most popular porn sites - is offering free access to premium content (usually available only to subscribers) until April 3rd.

In a tweet, Pornhub declared they felt duty bound to do what they could to help keep spirits up during such difficult times. Such generosity has won the company many new fans - which, of course, was the point. 

And so, it appears that whilst most shoppers are stocking up on toilet rolls, hand soap, and packets of pasta, some are buying sex toys and lube and looking to make the most of prolonged periods stuck at home, with or without a partner.     

A Town Called Prato (Notes on Sino-Italian Relations in the Age of Coronavirus)

I. 

The Italian city of Prato has a long and noble history that commenced with the ancient Etruscans and is home to many museums and cultural monuments. Lying north-west of Florence, it is Tuscany's second-largest city and an important industrial centre, particularly associated with the textile sector and the production of luxury leather goods that are sold all over the world and stamped with the names of the great Italian fashion houses.

Many factories and workshops, however, are no longer owned by local people. They are owned, rather, by wealthy Chinese investors (and often operated by criminal gangs). And they mostly employ tens of thousands of Chinese workers from Wuhan and Wenzhou - some of whom are working legally, many of whom are not.

New direct flight routes were established between China and Italy. Those who couldn't get official work visas paid people smugglers huge fees, which they then had to work off; a form of modern slavery enforced with the threat of violence. Those not making designer goods for the rich produced fast affordable fashion for the poor, eagerly sold via the high street retailers.   

There have been a number of police raids on these premises, but mostly the authorities turn a blind eye to what's been going on since the 1990s and the EU have also remained silent on the flouting of their own labour laws. For as one local official pointed out, the economic performance of his region is significantly better than in the rest of the country thanks to Chinese capital and cheap Chinese labour, so it would be crazy to intervene.

Of course, many Italians resent the Chinese immigrants, accusing them of undermining working conditions and lowering wages* - but what can they do? This is the brave new world of globalisation that the liberal elite promised would lead to opportunities for all. Don't mention organised crime and corruption, or rising tensions between the two communities, just enjoy the cultural diversity and order some kung pao chicken to takeaway.        

II.

On 31 December 2019, the Health Commission of Wuhan, Hubei, China, informed the World Health Organisation about a cluster of acute pneumonia cases with unknown origin in its province. On 9 January 2020, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported the identification of a novel coronavirus as the cause.

The first cases of coronavirus in Italy were confirmed on 31 January 2020, when two Chinese tourists in Rome tested positive for the disease. Six weeks later, and Italy has the world's highest per capita rate of coronavirus cases and is the country with the second-highest number of positive cases (as well as deaths) in the world, after mainland China.

On 8 March 2020, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced that all of Lombardy and 14 other northern provinces were being quarantined; the following day, this lockdown was extended to the entire country and nearly all commercial and social activity has since ground to a halt.

At the time of writing (12 March), Italy has had over 15,000 confirmed cases and over 1000 deaths. On a brighter note, there have also been 1,258 recorded recoveries. 

Ironically, the Chinese authorities have offered medical assistance and supplies and, according to a Beijing news agency, China and Italy have reaffirmed their close bilateral ties in a phone call between respective foreign ministers; Luigi Di Maio apparently congratulating his Chinese counterpart for the robust action taken by China in preventing the spread of the disease and saying that Italy can learn much from China's successful experience in combatting the virus. 

Notes

* It's vital to note that just as Chinese migrants aren't responsible for the negative consequences of globalisation, nor are they to blame for the spread of coronavirus in Italy. In fact, in Prato, where there are at least 45,000 Chinese citizens (including those there illegally), there are so far no recorded cases of the disease. Something that those who would seek to politicise this health crisis in often racist terms might like to consider.

See: D. T. Max, 'The Chinese Workers Who Assemble Designer Bags in Tuscany', The New Yorker, (16 April 2018): click here. Note: this essay originally appeared in the print edition under the headline 'Made in Italy'. 

D. H. Lawrence and Vaginal Ecosophy

 Manko-chan by Rokudenashiko (Megumi Igarashi) 
Click here for her official website

The physiological status of the vaginal milieu is important not only for the health and wellbeing of women, but also for those lovers who desire to enter such an environment in order to deposit their semen or simply for the pleasure of poking about.

Obviously, there are several factors that are conducive to the latter, including degrees of tightness and levels of lubrication, for example. When it comes to vaginas, one is always hoping to discover the Goldilocks zone ...  

According to D. H. Lawrence, however, speaking in the guise of an Old Testament Patriarch, the secret places of women are not to be wallowed in under any circumstance and it's never safe to penetrate the cunt unless one does so with God's blessing:

"I tell you again, whosoever goes in unto a woman, unless the Lord of Hosts goes with him, goes towards his own death."  

Thankfully, Lawrence immediately provides an oppositional voice to such misogynistic stupidity; someone who speaks up for love between men and women and who playfully points out that even if sex results in la petite mort, so too does every erection signify a kind of miracle and a triumph over death.   

Another dissenter goes further, and speaks powerfully in defence of the sons and daughters of men who act in the world and remain true to the earth - unlike those who claim to be the Sons of God and are desirous only of a spiritual afterlife:

"Sons of God, you look into the heavens. Sons of men, daughters of men, we sweep the bread beneath the fern-leaves, we put seed in the heavy earth. We watch the flocks, we take milk in gourds, we make cheese in the butter-skins. We weave white wool and dip it in colour. We build houses of wood, we press the glass of earth into knives. All these things we do, with wit and nimble fingers. We labour, and then we sing, we dance, we have pleasure among the limbs of women. All this is ours. - Sons of God, you toil not, neither will you dance. You dwell apart, and your silence is like a cloud. You speak to command  and to chide. Your hearts are dark to the children of men."

This Nietzschean-sounding passage is one we should recite before all those idealists who hate the flesh and subscribe to superterrestrial (and transhuman) fantasies.  
 

Notes

D. H. Lawrence, Noah's Flood, in The Plays, ed. Hans-Wilhelm Schwarze and John Worthen, (Cambridge University Press, 1999), lines quoted are on pp. 565 and 566. 

Readers interested in a related post that discusses Lawrence's play should click here.

Megumi Igarashi, aka Rokudenashiko, is a Japanese sculptor and artist notorious for her work featuring female genitalia. See her memoir, What is Obscenity? The Story of a Good For Nothing Artist and Her Pussy, trans. A. Ishii, (Koyama Press, 2016).  

The Curse of Ham (Reflections on Genesis 9:20-27)

I.

I've said it before and I'll doubtless say it again; from Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is a profoundly queer book, full of perverse and puzzling incidents and some deeply unpleasant characters. Take, for example, this tale of Noah and his son Ham: 

And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.
And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.
And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.
And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.
And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.

- Genesis 9:20-27 (King James Version)

The precise nature of Ham's transgression - and the reason why his father Noah reacted as he did - is something that has been discussed within theological circles for millennia. Everything hinges on the interpretation of line 22: And Ham saw the nakedness of his father ...

Should it be taken literally, or is it a euphemism for an act of gross immorality? And if the latter - and most biblical scholars are convinced it is the latter - what exactly did Ham do?   

II.

As indicated, the majority of commentators, both ancient and modern, have felt that voyeurism isn't the issue here; that Ham's spying on his father as the latter lay drunk and naked, isn't sufficient to explain the punishment that follows - even if it would undoubtedly be a cause of embarrassment and shame for Noah and even if his son compounded matters by laughing about his father's predicament with his brothers.

Having said that, in some cultures staring at (and mocking) another man's cock is a very big deal indeed and Noah may have felt mortally offended and betrayed by his son's actions. Also, it's worth noting that Shem and Japeth move quickly to cover their father's nakedness and keep their faces averted at all times in order not to take even a sneaky peek, so clearly there's an issue here. 

Still, let's assume like the authors of the Talmud that something a bit more serious transpired here; that seeing someone's nakedness has a sexual connotation; that Ham sodomised his father - and then possibly castrated him for good measure, rejoicing and laughing as he did so. If that's true, then no wonder Noah was outraged and cursed his son - or more accurately, his son's son, Canaan (which is a bit unfair, but God himself sanctions such behaviour and Philo of Alexandria suggests that Ham and Canaan were equally guilty of sinful behaviour, thereby dishonouring the old man). 

III.

Finally, I think it's significant that Noah had planted a vineyard and produced wine; a magical fluid that is nearly always connected with sexual behaviour in the Bible.

As Bergsma and Hahn point out, "the only other reference to drunkenness in Genesis also occurs in the context of parent-child incest: Gen 19:30-38, the account of Lot's intercourse with his daughters" - another wtf incident that I've written about here on Torpedo the Ark.

See: John Sietze Bergsma and Scott Walker Hahn, 'Noah's Nakedness and the Curse on Canaan (Genesis 9:20-27)', Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 124, No. 1 (Spring, 2005), pp. 25-40. Line quoted is on p. 30. 

Bergsma and Hahn give an oedipalised reinterpretation of this story, arguing that Ham's crime was one of maternal incest, not paternal rape; that he entered his father's tent, saw him naked and unable to perform his duty as a husband due to his drunkenness, and so engages in relations with his mother in an attempt to undermine (or usurp) his father's authority. It's an interesting reading, but not one I'm convinced by, even if it does provide a stronger motive for Ham's actions.    

Probably I Should Want to Be Noah (Notes on an Unfinished Play by D. H. Lawrence)

It often seems such a pity that Noah and his party 

didn't miss the boat - Mark Twain

I.

I'm often obliged to make clear that the phrase torpedo the ark does not mean exterminate all life; it means, rather, destroy the attempt to coordinate life and consolidate a totalitarian system of theo-anthropic control over all other species.

If, in the attempt to resist this biblical process of Gleichschaltung the patriarch Noah and his family become collateral damage, well, that's too bad. He may, according to those who revere him, have been the first person to cultivate a vineyard and produce wine, but even as a child I disliked hearing about Noah and his ark (though to be fair, I was bored by all such Sunday School narratives).

And besides, here was a man who didn't stop to consider his fellow human beings or even pray for his neighbours when told of God's plan to undo Creation and flood the earth; he simply got on with the job of ensuring his own survival.          


II.

In an unfinished play which he probably began writing in mid-March 1925, D. H. Lawrence attempts to reconcile the Atlantis myth and the Old Testament story of Noah. [1] He reveals the central storyline in a letter to his friend Ida Rauh, the American actress and feminist who had helped found the Provincetown Players:

"I've got a very attractive scheme worked out for a play: Noah, and his three sons, his wife and sons' wives, in the decadent world: then he begins to build the ark: and the drama of the sons, Shem, Ham, Japhet - in my idea they still belong to the old demi-god order - and their wives - faced with the world and the end of the world: and the jeering-jazzing sort of people of the world, and the sort of democracy of decadence in it: the contrast of the demi-gods adhering to a greater order: and the wives wavering between the two: and the ark gradually rising among the jeering." [2] 

One can't help wondering what a thoroughly modern woman like Ida Rauh would have made of this ...? For my part, I don't find the idea very attractive at all and have grave concerns about any critique of the contemporary world that is articulated in terms of decadence and demi-gods.

Unsurprisingly, Lawrence lifted some of the material for Noah's Flood straight out of The Plumed Serpent, his disturbing theo-political novel which he had just finished writing in its final form about a month before sending the above letter. It might be noted, however, that the figure of Noah had long held special significance within Lawrence's apocalyptic imagination, as the title of his fourth novel clearly indicates.

In a letter to Ottoline Morrell, written in May 1915, Lawrence says: "It would be nice if the Lord sent another Flood and drowned the world. Probably I should want to be Noah. I am not sure." [3]

It's this humourous tone and uncertainty of his own position - is he one of the sons of God, or merely one of the sons of men - which is sadly lacking in his antediluvian play fragment and The Plumed Serpent. Everything becomes so overly earnest, as Lawrence develops his fantasy of a dark-eyed, hot-blooded, prehistoric race of men and a theocratic world order different in every respect to modern pale-faced humanity and democratic society. 

Happily, however, after one attempt at revision, Lawrence abandoned Noah's Flood and moved away from the rather absurd (and sinister) theo-political themes of The Plumed Serpent, perhaps realising that what the world of theatre was calling out for in the mid-late 1920s was not a tub-thumping religious work (the critical reception of his other biblical play, David, which was staged in London in May 1927, undoubtedly helped him reach this conclusion, even though he blamed the cast for the poor reviews and described those who found the play dull as eunuchs).

Notes

[1] In this, Lawrence was of course influenced by Madame Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine (1888).

[2] D. H. Lawrence, The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. V, ed. James T. Boulton and Lindeth Vasey, (Cambridge University Press, 1989), letter number 3362, (3 March, 1925), pp. 217-18.

[3] D. H. Lawrence, The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. II, ed. George J. Zytaruk and James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 1981), letter number 920, (14 May, 1915), pp. 338-40.

See: D. H. Lawrence, The Plays, ed. Hans-Wilhelm Schwarze and John Worthen, (Cambridge University Press, 1999), Appendix IV, Noah's Flood, pp. 557-567. 

Readers interested in another Bible study concerning Noah, should click here. 

And for a sister post to this one, click here.

Pablo Picasso is Back in Fashion

Moschino S/S 2020 Ready-to-Wear Collection

The American fashion designer Jeremy Scott has done many things in his time that have made me cringe and want to look away; and many that have made me sit up and take notice.

In the latter category, for example, one might place his debut show in 1997 based on Ballard's novel and Cronenberg's film Crash, as well as his sci-fi inspired A/W 2018 collection, featuring Gigi Hadid and friends looking fantastic in their neon wigs and fur-lined moon boots.

But I think his S/S 2020 ready-to-wear collection for Moschino - for whom Scott is creative director - is my favourite to date. Inspired by Picasso, it brilliantly reminds us of the permanent relationship between art and fashion and the crucial role played by the model acting as an intermediary between these two worlds.  

Of course, Scott's not the first fashionista to have been influenced by the great Spanish artist and to have incorporated his ideas into their work; Oscar de la Renta and Jean-Charles de Castelbajac are just two other designers we might name. And it's important to recall that Picasso himself was happy to get directly involved in the worlds of fashion and costume design; famously collaborating with the Ballets Russes on several productions (much to the horror of fellow Cubists) and, many years later, accepting a commision from Fuller Fabrics to produce patterns and designs for use as high quality prints on dresses.*

I've little doubt, therefore, that Picasso would have been delighted by Scott's sexy, stylish and often witty attempt to subvert the shapes of garments in the much the same way that he subverted reality (playing with notions of symmetry, experimenting with volume and proportion). 

Notes 

* The following year Fuller's Decorama Division introduced the Modern Masters print series for home furnishings. Aimed at a more exclusive market than the dress textiles - they were only available through approved decorators - Picasso again provided several designs, though was unhappy with the thought that these might be used on chairs, saying: 'People can lean on Picasso; but they can't sit on Picasso.' 

Readers interested in watching the Moschino Spring/Summer 2020 show can do so by clicking here.

We Are All Fashion Clowns

Joaquin Phoenix in Joker (dir. Todd Phillips)

Warner Bros. Pictures, 2019

I don't know if it's a post-Joker phenomenon, but the fashion world is still loving a full-on clown look at the moment, with zany outfits, exaggerated makeup, and ludicrous footwear; exactly the sort of thing I was wearing 35 years ago in my Jimmy Jazz period (and I'm still of the view that you can't beat clashing prints and colours, kipper ties, baggy trousers, and clumpy shoes).        

Clownishness would, on the (painted) face of it, seem to be the very opposite of elegant and sophisticated cool; a kind of anti-style that transgresses all notions of restraint and good taste. As Batsheva Hay rightly says, it's the epitome of what most people in their muted blues and browns regard as loud and would normally reject in terms of appearance. 

And yet, it has a queer kind of sexiness and, of course, a slightly sinister edge; the evil clown being a well-established figure within the popular imagination, combining horror elements with the more traditional comic traits. Mark Dery, who theorised this figure with reference to Bakhtin's notion of the carnivalesque, regards the psycho-killer clown as a veritable postmodern icon. 

Which returns us to Joaquin Phoenix and his astonishing performance as Arthur Fleck (Joker) dressed in his burgandy red two-piece suit, gold waistcoat, and green collared shirt ...

It's a very carefully thought-through look created by two-time Academy Award winning costume designer Mark Bridges (in close collaboration with director Todd Phillips); one that is suggestive both of the period in which the movie is set (late-70s/early-80s) and true to the character and his means. Thus, Arthur looks good, but not catwalk fabulous; as if he found his clothes in a thrift store, rather than an expensive designer outlet.     

Again, I can certainly relate to that and maintain that a punk DIY ethos provides the crucial (shabby-subversive) element if you are going to assemble your own clown-inspired outfit ...

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Punk Clown 

by Gaelle Sherwood (c. 1984)

See: Mark Dery, The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink, (Grove Press, 1999), chapter 2: 'Cotton Candy Autopsy: Deconstructing Psycho-Killer Clowns'.

Play: Joker - final trailer - uploaded to Youtube by Warner Bros. Pictures (28 Aug 2019): click here. 

Note: some readers might be interested in an earlier post to this one called Send in the Clowns: click here.

Notes on Patricia MacCormack's Ahuman Manifesto Pt. 3: Chapters 4-6

Patricia MacCormack: Professor of Continental Philosophy
Anglia Ruskin University: click here for profile

It's always a bit worrying when an author says that the work that follows is experimental, because - sometimes, not always - that means badly thought through and lazy writing. Still, I doubt that's the case here, so let's investigate MacCormack's occultural and thanatological escape routes from anthropocentrism ...

VI.

Occulture, for those who don't know, is "the contemporary world of occult practice which embraces a bricolage of historical, fictional, religious and spiritual trajectories [...] an unlimited world of imagination and creative disrespect for [...] hierarchies of truth based on myth or materiality, law or science" [95-6] and a ritualistic method of catalysing ahuman becomings.

In other words, its a demonic mix of chaos magick, witchcraft, Lovecraft, and Continental philosophy that aligns itself with feminists, minorities, and nonhuman animals and which leads onto a paradoxically vital form of death activism, which we shall discuss below.

Occulture is also, according to MacCormack, a material and secular practice; a kind of atheism that opposes religious fundamentalism (or moral power and authority) in all forms that perpetuate anthropocentrism. It's compassionate too - for even the demons and monsters invoked by MacCormack conveniently share her ethical concerns.*

All that one needs to do to become a practitioner is read and think a little differently from the mainstream. No other experience is necessary and no teachers are required. It's self-inspirational. However, it's not about self-help, so much as loss of identity and refining the ego towards nothingness (what Deleuze and Guattari term becoming-imperceptible).     

That said, the key idea seems to be "remake the self and remake the world" [106] - though I hope that MacCormack is not suggesting that these projects are linked or one and the same, for that would be to fall into the purest idealism, or what Meillassoux terms correlationism. (To be fair, I'm pretty sure MacCormack is not suggesting that - even if she often writes of neural networks, modes of perception, and environmental systems in the same sentence.)  

Despite once spending a good deal of time at Treadwell's, the truth of the matter is I don't really know enough about chaos magick, or Elder Gods, etc. in order to comment on MacCormack's work in this area. Having said that, I have written fairly extensively on the cunt as a site of loss (where flies and philosophers lose their way), so was very interested to see what she had to say on why the cunt has been deemed "antithetical toward anthropocentrism, particularly phallocentrism" [116]. 

First thing's first, it's important to note that the cunt is not merely a biological organ; the cunt, in other words, is so much more than an obedient vagina. MacCormack likes to think of it as a kind of demon that incarnates as a viscous, fleshly, mucosal entity; "all the features of femininity despised by patriarchy [...] as abject and horrific" [119]. 

Alternatively, we might think of the cunt as a monstrous nonhuman animal; a "threshold of internal and external" [122] that is crucially composed of folds; a conceptual gate that grants access to unnatural worlds even while belonging itself to the natural order.

Ultimately, however, the cunt can never be fully known or described; can never have its form and function fixed like the rigid phallus. And it "will not come unless it is desired" [125], says MacCormack - and I don't quite know if she's only making a point about demonic evocation or if this is what passes for a saucy double entendre in the world of occulture.    


VII.

And so we come to death. But this is not just death; this is a life-affirming, ecosophical model of death that is about "the death of the human body in its actual existence more than just a pattern of subjective agency" [141]. This is the death of man (as species) understood as "a necessity for all life to flourish and relations to become ethical" [140].

Which, as I indicated in the first part of this post, is certainly not an idea I'm unfamiliar with or unsympathetic towards. As a thanatologist, I'm perfectly happy to curdle the distinction between life and death, or collapse the binary as MacCormack would say, and I'm pleased to see her discuss her project in relation to the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement and the Church of Euthanasia - something I did in my own work several years ago.

And if I'm not fully persuaded by the arguments in favour of cannibalism, necrophilia and utilising human corpses as a source of fuel, I'm kind of on board with sodomy, antinatalism, and suicide (as a practice of joy before death). Where Patricia and I part company is on the topic of abolitionism, which seeks to "abolish all interactions with animals based on human superiority presumption" [145], thereby ending vivisection and closing circuses, sea parks and zoos.

For although I don't subscribe to human exceptionalism, as a Nietzschean I do accept that life is founded upon a general economy of the whole in which the terrible aspects of reality - cruelty, violence, suffering, hatred, and exploitation, for example - are indispensable. MacCormack may address this elsewhere in her work, but, as far as I can see, she entirely fails to do so in The Ahuman Manifesto.

Instead, she adopts a fixed, unexamined and, ironically, all too human moral standpoint throughout the book from which to pass judgement (on men, on meat-eaters, on breeders et al). She may push her work in a queer ahuman direction beyond the "constraining systems of capital, signification and normativity" [155], but it's certainly not, alas, beyond good and evil.

Even when she does get a bit Nietzschean, celebrating death as an absolute Dionysian frenzy, for example, she quickly adds a proviso: "the celebration of the corpse and of death here is entirely mutual and consensual" [158]. Ultimately, as she later admits: "I want to create an ahuman thanaterotics based on love, not aggression" [158].

And by that she means free of misogyny, racism, and the angst-ridden pessimism of the typical white male who can only imagine necrophilia and cannibalism in savage, sensational, and pornographic terms - and we don't want that, for this form of "serial-killer necro-cannibalism is a microcosm of normative anthropocentric practice" [160] of the kind that objectifies the world.

In the thanaterotics of love, the corpse can be fucked or served with fava beans and a nice bottle of Chianti, but only if the corpse has not been produced against its own agency via anthropocentric violence. Necro-cannibalism can thus be made perfectly natural and politically correct - and if it is still against the law, that doesn't matter because the law is a white, male Western phallocentric ass that seeks to deny the liberating potential and beauty of death for a variety of reasons (none of them good).

So Patricia says it loud and says it proud: "Go forth and love the dead!" [164]

And if you must eat meat - eat human corpses: "Our world is groaning under the weight of the parasitic pestilence of human life and yet our excessive resource is the human dead [...] a phenomenally cheap, if not free, resource." [162] 

Is this nihilism? No - this is the "only available creative outlet in an impossible situation" [165] and a form of ethical affirmation; it's fun too - and a form of freedom (the freedom to be eaten or become a necrophile's object of desire). After all, even Jesus - whom MacCormack regards as an activist - offered up his flesh for human consumption.   


VIII.

The closing chapter of The Ahuman Manifesto is a kind of apocalyptic conclusion that reminds readers that whilst they are right to have fears about the future, they can still act in the present with "tears of love and joy" [191] streaming down their faces - which is a bit too ecstatic for my tastes; I would rather people showed a little self-discipline and curbed their enthusiasm.    

For MacCormack, there are multiple apocalypses, large and small; the sexist apocalypse that women are born into and where "assault from a young age is expected" [172]; the speciesist apocalypse in which nonhuman animals - especially those that are farmed or enslaved for entertainment - are condemned to lives of abject misery; and even the Brexit apocalypse that shows "fascism can and does win" [174]. (I wish I were making that last example up, but unfortunately I'm not.)

None of these minor apocalypses really interest MacCormack though; she longs for something a bit bigger and regrets that plagues and wars in the past didn't do a better job of finishing off humanity: "For me personally, I am deeply saddened that there has never managed to be an annihilation of the human species ..." [176]. A sentence that seems a long way removed from her preface promise that this is not a misanthropic manifesto. 

Ultimately, there's not much left for us to do now, she says, but manage our extinction and act as kindly caretakers for the planet. Which is all a bit Letzter Mensch sounding, is it not? The last man being the one who is tired of life and seeks only a slow and gentle way out ...

Oddly enough, MacCormack quotes from Zarathustra towards the end of the chapter and suggests that her compassionate model of apocalypse is in tune with his message of creating beyond the self. But, for me, it's hard to see anything very Nietzschean about her ahumanism. Indeed, it's arguably no more than another unfolding of the slave revolt in morals; one that speaks of love and joy, but is shot through with ressentiment and a refusal to accept that nothing is tastier than a tender lamb.


* Note: Zarathustra says that if you take the hump from the hunchback, you take away his soul. I do feel MacCormack does something similar to the demons and monsters she invokes; robbing the former of their horns and the latter of their very monstrousness. I simply can't see why she is so sure that creatures of the underworld and hidden realms also read The Guardian - especially as she is keen to point out that "this cosmos is not [a] happy hippy cosmos but a terrifying one" [122].

See: Patricia MacCormack, The Ahuman Manifesto, (Bloomsbury, 2020). All page numbers given in the text refer to this work.

To read part 1 of this post - notes on the preface and introduction - click here.

To read part 2 of this post - notes on chapters 1 and 2 - click here.