In the movie “SAHARA” the warlord that put the “war into warlord said

“No-one cares about Africa”.

That’s, about, right..

UPDATE:
The CIO buried Gift Tandare at Granville cemetry (Mbudzi), Beatrice Road, Harare this morning. This was without the knowledge or presence of his family. His brother and wife were busy finishing off the paper work for a burial for their loved one. Mourners at the family home were dispersed by state agents this morning.
Gift’s father was taken by the CIO at gunpoint to be present at the burial.

The reason why this has been done is obvious. zanpf do not want any martyrs so they would much prefer to bury a body in an unmarked grave.

The viciousness of Mugabe and his enormous following of henchmen is a stain on humanity. What has Elder George to say, I wonder, about the benfits of Tribal ‘governance’. In so many parts of Africa recourse to murdering even the lowliest person seems the first option. Maybe Guy Fawkes should be consulted (as long as he has better help than last time).

Amfortas, perhaps you have had exchanges w/ EG by email as well, anyway, I asked him yesterday about this seeming problem with certain cultures that overtly demonstrate patriarchy and tribal communism etc., that being certain African and Arap (Persian etc.) cultures, and havent rec. a reply, though I do not presume answering me is priority. Nevertheless I have ordered and read those materials and find agreement with him mostly, and I really do wish to see how these behaviors can be reconciled. I see the damage from the feminisation of my culture, but if I am seeing correctly I see a potential derivation of the masculine influence. Surely there is a better masculine way without heading for the most base instincts.

I agree, conservativation (you have to get a diminutive, my friend!). The idea of a masculine principle could be fine if one defined it in such a way as to determine its essence and distinguished abberation. As it is, it seems part of masculinity to have extremities of variation that can be dangerous, even evil. Femininity is showing evil variation too and both concepts need to acknowledge imperfections.

We evolved with many features which barely served us in the past and can be liabilities today, unless we can find benign use for them. Governance today needs a quite different order of contemplation than at any time in our history and pre-history. The ‘Tribe’ is a poor model for a world with 6 thousand million people, especially as the Planet is now growing its own brain. Even large wealthy advanced countries need to rely on more and better than the meglomanic drive of psychopathic folk, even when they are elected.

The Wound of Amfortas – (from a Google):

Jung “unpacks” the Amfortas’ wound of its symbolic meaning only once, in Psychological Types (par. 371-3). He argues that sexuality did not cause, but only occasioned, Amfortas’ fall — the crux of the problem lying deeper, in the “nature-bound compulsion,” of the lower half of a split psyche. Lying deeper in one’s psyche than sexuality is one’s “attitude.” Jung does not refer, here, to our conscious philosophy but to the heritage of ideas and religious feelings stemming from “the primordial images of the collective unconscious.” These can be dealt with successfully “only when the individual possesses so much self-awareness and power of understanding that he also reflects on what he experiences instead of just living it blindly.” …
The story is quite simple. The greatest and holiest knight of Christendom finds himself at middle-age, seriously wounded, through the concerted efforts of two of his split-off complexes: a relentless, power-hungry magician, and a homeless, seductive witch. Impotent to help himself, the wounded Grail-King has to wait for the appearance of yet a third sub-personality, a foolish youth. The lad gains the power to heal the wound the moment he understands it empathically. In this way of reading the drama, the four main characters are each a fragment personality of a single Amfortas who suffers from two splits in his psyche. A vertical cleft divides Amfortas from Klingsor (the power-hungry magician) while a horizontal rift separates them both from Kundry (the seductive witch). Both of these divisions correspond to Jung’s struggles with himself.

(Such a formulation, common to both Jung and his French forebears, implies an original wholeness which has been injured or wounded in some way.)

—

Was this in fact the inspiration for your screen moniker, “amfortas”?

Certainly the theme of “wounding” is arguably central to MRA’s generic reactions/protestations to a modern regime of feminism…. and so much of MRA’s conversations might well be understood as dialogues towards the healing and restoration of the shattered masculine….

Additionally, Jung’s version of the human psyche is a symbolically very conflicted and violent landscape, populated by a virtual circus of fantastic personalities.

Not unlike most men’s blogs, eh?

DWG and Amfortas – damn, you guys make me proud.

Mike I’m working on a second Ph.D. thesis — “The Men’s Blogosphere as Jungian Archetype: Pride Goeth Before the Fall.” You can have right of first refusal on the TV movie deal…..

“The Men’s Blogosphere as Jungian Archetype: Pride Goeth Before the Fall.”

3 words: I Love It.

Love is cheap. Even free thanks to feminism. Show me the money. US dollars only. Well, Euros are OK. Maybe Yen. Yeah. Let’s make it Yen. I have a vision for the future….

(Semiotic aside…) –

Notice how easily this very earnest thread about political torture in Zimbabwe morphed into polite comedy quite disconnected from the original intent of the poster, one anonymous Zvakwana.

I did not do this intentionally, I simply fell into the easy conversational flow of repartee that is always available on good blogs.

There is a politics-behind-the-politics of the blogosphere USA.

Perhaps we have a national trait of trivializing everything outside our direct experience?

I apologize to Zvakwana.

Perhaps he will understand just how much “solidarity” he can expect from those who have never suffered a day in their lives.

And, the story of official tyrants stealing and moving Tandare’s body away from his deserved family burial ground is only too relevant to where the men’s movement is today.

DWG – consider yourself empowered. You’re now an MND author. I only ask that you provide a byline so that our readers can know you as a person, not as a situation or a condition.

Best,

Mike

amfortas re: 3

Your points and questions there are good.

Tribalism, Democracy, Communisim, Socialism, Nationalism are all systems which in them selves address Materialism.

I am sure Elder George has a response for you.

I cannot say that it will be mine.

Yet, I have remained on the fringe of his posting to see what his direction is ultimately.

Tribalism is where Israel started out (and is lighyears in the opposite direction now) but the mortar of the Society was a Rule of knowable and readable set Laws. A Republic, until the people demanded a King.

Even in my studies with a Rabbi, we studdies the Seven laws of Noah. The final law was the Law of Courts of Righteous Judgment.

Kind of etherial, like the endorsement of Tribalism, as what kind of governance will such a tribe have? Democratic, Despotic, Communistic?

The foundational lesson I recieved was that all law functions for one reason.

The contnuation and preservation of the life of Man. Each decision weighed and extrapolated 7 generations to discern the ruling/judgment to be immeidately or protractively destructive to life, or beneficial and correct.

Yes, something is Law if it is True in all cases for all time.

I think this is the only cure for Despotism in either Aristrocratic or Democratic forms.

DWG, you are ‘outing’ me! Amfortas also is the Guardian of the Holy Grail, of which he cannot partake. Others around him benefit from the cornucopia, the Horn of Plenty but the Grail itself is for a Greater King. I have plenty of horn as yet but Kundrey is the one dominating Klingsor at this time of life and possibly explains the drive to act as a corrective to feminism. The magic of male-female interaction is dimmed at present. The foolish boy – who is also destined to be the prefect Knight and future King of Grail is about somewhere. He is Parzival (a persona I use elsewhere when I am in full warrior mode!). I feel him in me and he sometimes shows himself – as you may have noticed. He is often funny but sometimes petulant, sometimes angry. He can be very fierce. But basically he is the boy. I rather like him. But even that probably reflects my age.

Jung was a strange fellow. He could spot the architypes alright, but that’s because he invented them. Don’t mistake it for perspicacity. You can learn more about the man’s journey through all these myriad charcters by reading Wolfram’s Parzival several times.

Which brings us back to EG and his masculine principle. It is in there somewhere, I am hopeful, but men are much more complex than the prevailing feminine-driven descriptors allow. We are not ‘just interested in one thing’. We are not even one person. Our drives are as myriad as our conflicting, combining characters/architypes – which indeed they represent. The magicial may be full of funny tricks but the laughing stops when the sawn-in-half body really is cut through. There are dark, animal forces that take some men. Unfortunately they predominate in leadership roles. It may be that the appeal that Bill Clinton had with some people was because his ‘foolish boy’ was let loose too much.

Women fear men. That’s because they understand neither themselves nor men. Women simplify in attempt but continually get it wrong. They have little imagination to lead them astray, it is ignorance that rules usually, or disinterest. They measure themselves against men. They blame men as a result.

Men fear men. Men emphasise. Men create every metaphor available to imagination to explore just what the f*ck we are. They buy the tales. Some fantastic stories take over and create monsters like Mugabe, Amin, Osama, Pol, Hitler, Mao. We seek and we fear the leadership of men because if the leadership were ours we would use it to kill. This is the main, sublimated drive of most politicians. Kill men. Some men need to be killed to keep others safe. Mugabe is one of them.

I haven’t read EGs tracts but I am hopeful that somewhere buried in them is a definition of the masculine principle. I hope it is God. But I have some doubts about God too. He has some very strange aspects! As ‘everything’, ‘all’, ‘ever’ , He must contain evil itself, too. He must also contain the feminine. The Princess of Lies may be his daughter.

Amfortas is the Fisher King. He is a lake-water fisherman. The waters of the Implicate Order run exceeding deep and his rod & line delve only so far. I must rest now.

Amfortas,

If the main drive of male politicians is to kill other men, then that is to have more women at their disposal.

For this, my post at 13 still stands.

The Rule of True Law, as discovered by Abraham (which were the Seven laws of Noah as taught by Melchizadek), stands against the Might Makes Right of the Law of the Jungle against men who lack stature and position.

It jsut so happens to also protect women and their babies (the sons and daughters of men) as well.

Ultimately, the Rule of Law as I described in 13 has to be the Masculine Patriarchal Principle. For Law comes from G-D. Chaos comes from Lucifer (the false light), as Lucifer indicted G-D saying he ruled by power, and G-D disproved him by the creation of man and the quandry that each of us plays out in our lives, to prove that some men will choose Right even if it destroys them.

Just as Fathers die for their Families. Just as Yeshua went to the Cross, to prove that the Materialism of all the Earthly Kingdoms are but a vapor, and meanigless, unless their is the Rule of Law of G-D.

The purpose again, proposed in 13. The preservation of Man.

Nothing else on Earth can be Holy since G-D made Man in his own image. And Men who seek the destruction of Men, like Mugabe, are false images, for they would know what they do is evil, and would repent. False images are not worthy of protection. We agree.

False enlightenment has been at War against Man for a long time. From the beginning of this world in its fallen state.

We were protected from the War in the Garden. We have been cursed by the World and with disproving the false light since being sent East of Eden (toward the rising materialistic light of the Sun).

Man complex?

What else can you expect from a creation in the image of G-D?

Women frustrated and unable to pigeon-hole Man?

No wonder there in consideration of complexity of Man.

The only place for us to meet and get a clue of one another is at The True Law.

This is an issue of oversimplification. – “If the main drive of male politicians is to kill other men, then that is to have more women at their disposal.”

Men in every age, even before thinking came on line, understood that along with more access to women came more liability. Having ‘women at their disposal’, as a main or only reason ignores the many other drives and causes, not least of which is the particular abberation of seeking power well beyond that needed for modest self-security.

Such power drive necessitates the sort of killing that ushers in with the Mugabes of the world. It is born of insecurity and spreads to the underlings that do the job for the aberrant leader. It was the policemen, ordinary Joe Bwanas with families and homes and a job, who obeyed orders and killed Mr. Gift Tandare. They didn’t do it to gain women.

Killing is fundemental to the nature of man. We are the only animal who reflects on killing – in our lucid moments between Bruce Springsteen tracks – being predominantly emotion-driven prey in our early days and a mind-driven predator as we advanced. Death is intrinsically part of our existence. We have grasped and captured death and made it our own just as we have grasped life. Perhaps more successfully. (This is where 19C psychobabblers went wrong with their view that we have sublimated Thantos. We actually bring Thanos to the fore). We rarely restrict our killing to the acquisition of women. Thats a ludicrous idea that flies in the face of experience.

We kill to eat. Other animals thankfully. We kill out of anger, passion, fear, delusion of self-primacy. Each other. We kill to retain space – which is now in shorter supply than ever before. As we have adapted to a convergent thrust in population distribution, an entirely new factor in the human story, we have expanded mental space. We kill for that now. Most of the killings of the past few hundred years have been to control mental spaces, ideologies.

Kill-driven leaders like Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol differ from Mugabe. They are ‘modern’, Mugabe is a throw back to personal aggrandisement.
Mugabe doesn’t kill for access to women. He’s a mad f*cker.

Shit man (amfortas)…

I just asked a simple question about your nickname.

And, as usual, you deliver a treatise on men’s existential realities with a little rant on tyranny thrown in for comic relief!

This is precisely why MRA’s should never exchange e-mail addresses.

It would lead to revolution.

And, gawd knows, Hillary does not want that now, especially… now.

Hahahahaha. You did pretty well yourself DWG.

Mike L. –

“DWG – consider yourself empowered. You’re now an MND author. I only ask that you provide a byline so that our readers can know you as a person, not as a situation or a condition.”

I usually like to shake hands and make eye contact with anyone proposing to “empower” me.

You’re in Chicago, right?

I have to drive my kid back up to Northwestern U. soon for the start of Srping quarter; maybe we could discuss this matter of my “elevation” of MND-status at a local pub?

I’ll buy the first round.

amfortas — “Most of the killings of the past few hundred years have been to control mental spaces, ideologies.”

No, I must respectfully disagree.

Most of the killing has occurred among people who could not spell, or agree upon the meaning of “ideology.”

Perhaps fewer than 5% of American voters could define intelligently the term — “ideology.”

(Most women would think it’s a designer brand name for Victoria Secrets underwear…)

Your thesis that thousands of years of slaughter have been a contest of ideas gives you away as a true idealist!

It’s really just about POWER.

Brutal, stupid, pre-literate violence against one’s “other.”

Whomever that might be…..

DWG – I’m on the west coast – about 2 hours north of San Francisco.

So far as me ‘empowering’ you – of course that’s all humbug. I meant it in the same way that Oz (the great and terrible) empowered the Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion. Which is to say: empower yourself.

Meet over a few rounds? Well, maybe. In general, though – like any serious iconoclast from Oz to J.D Salinger – I have little interest in “eye contact”, and I avoid it tendentiously.

I said the past few hundred years DWG, not thousands. The French Revolution startted the ball rolling down the different hill.

As for the apprehension of ideas by the man & woman in the street, I remind you that most of the time we know not what we do. Much of human activity is run on auto. It is only in the most recent epoch that man has reflected with tools other than convoluted imaginations. Science has overtaken philosophy and the man & woman in the street knows little of either.

Also, further to Elder George’s conceptions ( he is conspicuously absent here, by the way) I wonder how he places Minoan civilisation. Based in Crete it pre-dated Greece by a thousand or more years and there is absolutely no evidence that it was a patriarchy. Not even a hint. It lasted 1500 years very successfully until taken over by Mycenae and eventually destroyed by earthquake and tsunami. The King, Minos, was a man of legend only as far as we can see, and a Greek legend at that, well after the ‘fact’. There are no statues, no inscriptions lauding any particular person. It appears to have been a ‘corporate’ culture where men and women were equally represented and influential.

The Knossos excavations are a hundred years of ongoing work and show a DNA that spread to the whole of Europe. Its art, architecture and artifacts were far, far in advance of anything in Europe pre 3500BC and the evidence seems to show that not only was it the first major civilisation – that can be called one – in Europe- , but that it actually generated Greece as a civilisation. Greece was a hodge-podge of patriarchy and matriarchy ( Sparta, that bastion of warrior men with little regard for finery, was a matriarchy).

Jung too, tended to overlook the symbolism of the Minotaur and Theseus, the two antagonistic forces of man against beast-man. And he also skipped very lightly over the roles of the Minotaur’s mother ( the queen who lustfully seduced the beast – do women always bring awful things upon themselves?) and Ariadne, the nice girl, on the men’s side, who was abandoned by Theseus (do men always abandon women who love them?.

The architypes of Jung are quite modern really and maybe reflective of the same recent change to ideological power drive. The beast-man still exists though in the labyrinth of our soul. And so, throwback to Mugabe again!

Forbidden Planet, 1956.

I’ve seen this one 10 times – it remains spine-tingling.

Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon) was a member of an archaeological expedition sent to a planet in deep space. While on the planet, he was exposed to an alien device which rendered him capable of telekinesis. Shortly after this, a mysterious invisible creature emerged which killed every member of the expedition with the exception of Dr. Morbius and his immediate family. Morbius was then marooned alone on the planet for the next 20 years, until he was finally found by a passing ship from Earth.

In the movie, Morbius is a philologist – an expert in words and in their symbological meanings. (Nowadays he’d be a presidential speech writer.)

Anyway, there is a great moment in the film when the Commander of the visiting ship, played by a young and brash Leslie Nielsen, finally puts 2 and 2 together, and realizes that the mysterious killer beast is actually the good doctor’s nightmare rendered real by the alien machines buried under the surface of the planet. With no time left to mince words, the blunt Commander tells the old Philologist, “Morbius, that thing out there – it’s you.”

Morbius was a scholar, a husband, a father, a man of nobility and good intention. But every man alive – even a nobleman – is a direct decendent of savages and beasts. It seems the vestigial unifying themes of infancy – a baby’s instinct to suckle, or the urge to cry from discomfort – remain with us in some form till we die. So Freud invented the id, and Jung the mandala to describe these living – but often hidden – features of our personalities.

Anyhow, good movie.

Yeah, Mugabe. What a shite.

Well amfortas,

You have disappointed me.

I followed your comment to its basic conclusion and you rejected it.

That conclusion is the same reason liberal Patriarchy embraced feminism…to have more concubines and whores.

Simple fact.

You deflected by going off about step and fetch it brownshirts, when your original comment was about politicians.

First you get the power, then you get the money, then you get the girl, don’t mess up the order mang. (Pacino Scarface)

That is the rule. To Lord over Men, to be as G-D.

You read about Nimrod who did that. You see it repeated in 300.

Rule of Men v. Rule of Law.

Thanks for helping me remember.

I scratch my head at your response.

Now that I remember my silence can fall.

First you get the power, then you get the money, then you get the girl, don’t mess up the order mang. (Pacino Scarface)(Via Thurston)

Buggers the chances for the average 16 year old, doesn’t it.

Wowder, Miss a day and miss alot. But back to the struggle in Rhodesia (I’m in denial of “Botha” facts), EG answered my question amfortas, if it is of interest, and stated that Zimbabwe is bound up in a feminine derived conflict based upon the corrupting influence of those bloody Europeans who checked into the African hotel for a few decades, tidied up the rooms and gardens, then left without really training the houskeepers and gardeners in anything except the feminine principle. I’m more prone to believe my original opinion which you stated in your first reply to me, that being that either principle has its outliers, its dark side, and this is a manifestation of the masculine dark side. I believe for EG it could be an important “teaching moment” for him to have a real lab in which the experiment is conducted.
Yes amfortas he does define the principle of masculinity well in the booklets; they are very brief and quite good IMO. For those looking for someone agitating for a movement, he is a bit ahead of the curve in the philosophical realm, not to supplant the activities in courts etc. to sort out the family law issues, but rather to augment.
I too feel guilty a bit in turning this discusion of the events in Zimbabwe into this other blog direction, but, I think the writer while getting sympathy here indeed, realizes after scanning the site, men here are working on their own family issues, though trivial in scope compared to beatings and brutality. Interesting and horrible.

[...] detail that made me angriest in all these reports was the report that the CIO had seized the corpse of Gift Tandare, an activist shot by the police in their March 12th crackdown. According to the MDC, his body was [...]