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19 February 2003
Backside to the FutureCoherence and conflation of dominant strategic metaphorsWorshipping the Golden Ass- / - Introduction IntroductionIn these strange times vital decisions affecting the peoples of the world are being made at the highest level by people whose mindsets and priorities have been predominantly determined by their experience in the oil industry -- or their obligations to it [more; more; more; more; more; more], as well as the prospect of rapidly diminishing oil reserves. It is useful to review metaphors specially associated with those who work in such environments, including the military, that exemplify a very grounded and concrete aspect of human activity -- far from what they would see as the "egg-head" theories, speculations and resolutions of international policy-making regarding human rights, democracy, justice, environment and other preoccupations of the "weak". As bluntly expressed by a New Zealander, this is the world where men are men and the sheep are nervous. According to Edward de Bono, for example:
A valuable point of departure is the image-rich language associated with many strategic and practical decisions. In the case of informal oilfield jargon: "Almost all the terminology can be taken two ways" -- a "dual use" terminology -- one of which has sexual connotations [more]. In what follows the focus is provided by the very widespread use of the term "ass" (or "arse" as it is spelt and pronounced in British and Australian English [more]). The two spellings are often interchangeable. In American English, whether signifying a donkey or the buttocks, the two are pronounced identically (as specified by the American Heritage Dictionary). This paper is an exploration of the unconscious implications of the confused relations between these terms with respect to how they frame the primal action-oriented driving force of many -- from the highest executive level down to the worker in the field. This follows an earlier exploration of the strategic implications of a lack of distinction in the pronounciation of "Terror" and "Terra" in most American dialects, and a second on the pronunciation of "Iraq". The concern is how these terms may frame thinking about practical options for the future. Although the focus of this paper is most distasteful to polite society, it does recognize the operational reality of large numbers of people whose actions are affecting the future of the world. It recognizes the framing of the social reality with which they so effectively engage. The fact that such language is primarily characteristic of the "smoke-filled rooms" and field sites where real decisions are taken -- and tends to be excluded from public discourse -- is part of the problem of the times. In the USA, for example, habitués of the Executive Mansion are known to "yell and swear" and many presidents have used "locker room jargon" [more] -- as is evident from the Nixon tapes [example]. George Bush was widely reported for his use of the term "asshole" in public dialogue with Dick Cheney -- both from the oil industry -- during his 2000 election campaign [more].
Part of the problem also derives from the fact that the association of terms is peculiar to the English language -- as the vehicle of global decision-making -- and especially to its American variant. Another aspect is that the terms in question tend to be restricted to a mode of discourse that is considered by some to be inappropriate "in front of the ladies" or in religious groups -- problematic when both are now intimately involved in key decisions. As a kind of "secret discourse", it points to what might be termed the "backside of decision-making" -- recalling Elise Boulding's extensive study on The Underside of History: A View of Women through Time (1976). Hence the title of this paper: Backside to the Future (which, coincidentally but appropriately, is also the title of a porn movie). No wonder the disempowered, especially the young and women, occasionally resort to "mooning" ("baring their asses") to express their disdain for the "globalization" proposed by the "suits" for their future. If the world's future is to be conceptually grasped and framed through the backside, then there is a case for understanding what this may imply. ContextAss has two primary referents:
It is curious that it is the second (the buttocks) that interfaces directly and intimately with the former (the donkey) in one of the oldest transportation systems developed by man -- an "ass-on-ass" connection, like a modern centaur. Clearly there are many possibilities for conflation of meaning. However it is the metaphorical connotations associated with these, separately or in combination, which are of much greater interest in framing individual and collective collective action relating to the future -- and attitudes towards it:
The argument which follows draws upon the collapsing semantics between two referents of "ass" (thanks in part to technical comments by Benjamin Slade and Fred Riggs). As with Pavlov's dog -- even though there is no a priori relation between bell-ringing and food, when the two continue to occur at the same time, the mental link between the two is strengthened. Likewise, even though there is no real semantic connexion between "buttocks" and "donkeys", the homophony of the word "ass" in American tends to reinforce a "pavlovian" association between the two. Additionally, when one word in a homonym pair becomes contaminated with negative associations, it tends to contaminate the other. Through the fact that both have derogatory connotations, the semantics may collapse to be interpreted, either consciously or subconsciously, as the "same" word/concept. Such conflated/associated semantics are ultimately driven by whatever the processes are behind punning and folk-etymology, For example, "hamburger" (derived from the city Hamburg) has nothing to do with pig-meat; but the "ham-" of "hamburger" has nevertheless been re-interpreted in folk etymology, (by contrast with "cheeseburger") even though few believe that is made from ham. A more extreme example of this is to be found in Chinese (as discussed by Kuang-Ming Wu. The Butterfly as Companion, 1990, p. 198) which has a peculiar semantic principle: "Words of a sound flock together in sense; like sound, like sense" -- often exploited to explain a notion or prove a point. From another perspective, Plato held that letters and syllables had ontological significance (I M Crombie. An Examination of Plato's Doctrines, 1963: II: 115-17, 202ff; 241-60; 411-16). A far more concrete approach to this semantic association is through the deliberate product promotional process of "co-branding" or "cross-branding" that ensures consumers associate one product name with another unrelated category of product to which it has also been appllied. This has been a matter of considerable concern to environmental groups with regard to corporations endeavouring to "greenwash" themselves using eco-labelling and other promotional devices [more]. Similar concern has also been expressed at the opportunity offered to corporations to "blue wash" themselves through partnership with the United Nations through its Global Compact [more] -- as with the abortive pairing of UNICEF with McDonald's [more; more]. In the terms of such intentional word association, the concern in this paper is with the possibility that global strategic decision-making is effectively being subject to a process that might be called "ass washing". As extensively demonstrated by George Lakoff with Mark Johnson (1980, 1987, 1999), language matters -- or as Lakoff (1991) put it in relation to the Gulf War, "metaphors can kill" [more]. "Ass" might well be considered as one of the "dangerous things" in Lakoff's Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: what categories reveal about the mind (1987). As background to the concerns of this paper, the implication of metaphor for strategy-making and governance has been explored in a series of papers elsewhere and notably in commentaries to a section of the online Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential. This paper is not concerned with the extensive discussion of "colourful" or "bad language" in governance and efforts to deplore it [more], suppress it [more], or justify it (as with the robust language of the parliament of Australia -- famously described by its Prime Minsister, Paul Keating, as "the arse end of the world"), or the fact that Winston Churchill trained a parrot (alive in 2002) specifically to use such language. All the "bad" terms listed below are however characteristic of debates in some parliaments with a generous view of so-called "unparliamentary language". It is extremely improbable that oil industry executives would exert a restraining effect on this tendency. The concern here is with the effect which certain metaphorical expressions may have in framing strategy so as to render it inappropriate to the challenges it faces. In the much quoted phrase of George Orwell (Politics and the English Language, 1946): "But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better." He noted that the English language "becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts." [more; more] Contrasting clusters of operational meaning of "ass"In the clusters which follow, the various uses of "ass" in decision-making outside "polite discourse" are identified. Each cluster can be reviewed as effectively holding a vital relationship to action and reality -- whose significance tends to be obscured by the associations. Such significance is in each case effectively collapsed into "ass" as an operational marker for a distinct mode of dealing with reality (identified in an italic comment) -- but is distorted, if not perverted, by the negative associations with which it is amalgamated.
Configuring preoccupations with "ass"These nine dimensions of "ass" may be usefully interrelated in the tentative diagram below using a much studied dynamic template -- the enneagram. This has the merit of suggesting the possibility that there may be functional relationships between them, in some version of that diagram, that can be fruitfully rendered explicit.
This pattern might be explored in the light of studies of sets of sins and their corresponding virtues, such as that of Donald Capps (Deadly Sins and Saving Virtues, 1987). And with increasing reference to "corporate greed", it is interesting to explore the possible collective equivalents to the "sins" implied in the diagram. Following an earlier study, in the light of Capps analysis, these might run as follows:
Insight into the underlying nature of the functions highlighted in the diagram might also be explored in the light of insights from various meditative disciplines that also recognize nine key modes -- as indicated below. Whether or not the enneagram provides useful clues to the dynamics of their relationship also remains to be explored. At issue is the nature of the obstacles to fruitful global strategy resulting from "ass-washing" collective thinking. Possibilities for each of the 9 have been indicated in the previous section. It is in what ways that the dysfunctional dynamics of such usage precludes more credible global strategies that is the question. Myth and transformation of "ass"Of subtler implication than those above, are some of the mythological and metaphorical associations of "ass" explored below. According to Robert Graves (Greek Myths and Legends, 1968.), the ass was domesticated by early peoples in the upper Nile valley. It was priceless for farming as well as trade and transportation and became the center of a cult. It was worshipped as being sacred to the great god Set, Lord of the Universe, the original head of the Egyptian pantheon, whose home was the South. Set often was depicted in a donkey's shape. His distinguishing mark was, unsurprisingly, long and pointed ears. Representations of these ears became the prototypes of divine and royal power, i.e. ultimate authority. They form the power glyph: the two tips of every scepter carried by Egyptian gods and kings, as tokens of remembrance that all legitimate power derives from Set. With Set's downfall in Upper Egypt and the regions under his influence, the Southern part of sky and earth lost early on much of its prestige. The seat of power, celestial and otherwise, moved slowly north, down the river Nile to the Mediterranean basin. Elf Raymond (1992) remarks that "Contemporary attitudes toward the South, whether they be geo-political, or relate to the human body as cosmic analogue, seem to perpetuate the judgments accompanying the fall of Set". In the cults of Asia Minor the ass was also a symbol of Typhon (notably for Gnostics), Satan, Jehovah, or Saturn. In that period the divinities worshipped were frequently symbolized by animals. Thus the Gnostic Demiurge, engendered seven animal-headed angels to assist in governing the world -- the second with the head of an ass [more]. The ox was associated with a form of worship that was being displaced at the time of the arrival of Christ -- symbolized by the birth in a manger. But there were still many who worshipped the bull, following practices prevalent in an earlier era (associated by astrologers with the age of Taurus), and which were preserved at that time in the mysteries of Mithras and of Egypt. The era immediately preceding that of Christianity (the age of Aries, the Ram or Lamb) is symbolized by the sheep motif in biblical times. The ass was specifically associated with the story of Mary and her Child. Two asses are mentioned symbolically in the Gospel story, one coming from the north and bearing Mary to Bethlehem, and the other taking her down into Egypt. [more] Christianity now focuses negatively on the "beasts in the wilderness" [more], including the wild ass (Job. 39:5), having effectively lost their former symbolic and transformative significance. Priapus, the Greek God of fertility was born with a massively enlarged penis. This phallic symbol was used to ward off the evil eye and statues of him were used as scarecrows in gardens. His cult was similar to that of Dionysus, and he was often depicted as an ass -- during a Dionysian festival it is said he was disturbed by the braying of an ass while trying to seduce a nymph, highlighting the mix of lust and stupidity for which he was known. [more] Bacchus, as a variant of Dionysos, was also associated with ass-worship -- an accusation made of Jews at the time [more]. The Roman ass-god was Pales, whose temple on Palatine Hill was called a "palace". Pales was worshipped as a priapic god with erect phallus (symbolised by obelisks, church steeples, and minarets on a mosque). At the festival of the Palilia, traditional date of the founding of Rome, the wooden statue of Pallas Athene was brought to Vesta's temple. Priests of Pales wore ass-head masks as they danced in honor of the long-eared deity. One of its old customs may have given rise to the Halloween game of 'Pin the Tale on the Donkey', which recalls Rome's sacrifices of equine tails triumphantly carried to the temple of Vesta". An early pagan belief held that Jews worshipped the head of an ass in their temple. The Jewish Enclopedia has an excellent commentary on ass worship of which both the Jews and the early Christians were extensively accused by Greek and Latin writers over a period of centuries. The calumny of onolatry, or ass-worship, attributed by Tacitus and other writers to the Jews, was afterwards, by the hatred of the latter, transferred to the Christians [more]. Christians in turn accused a gnostic sect of ass worship and the commentary relates this to the association with worship of Typhon-Seth, an Egyptian god. The ass is also considered by Catholics as a symbol of heresy, or of Satan [more]. The ass continues to be considered by some neo-pagan cults as a symbol of Satan. Significantly, the worship of the ass flourished at the same period as that of another domesticated animal the ox, or bull. There has been considerable related commentary on worship of the Golden Calf amongst the early Israelites following a practice they borrowed from the Egyptians (Exodus, 32) [more; more; more]. The Israelites claimed that this borrowed symbol had delivered them from Egypt [more]. It was destroyed at the command of Moses. In a most insightful review, the Jewish Encyclopedia states that: "Next to the fall of man, the worship of the golden calf is, in rabbinical theology, regarded as the sin fraught with the direst consequences to the people of Israel" [more]. Christian commentators make much use of the Golden Calf, seeking modern parallels to the idolatry and fixation on material wealth that it represented [more]. One speaks of a Golden Calf Syndrome [more]. Another prophesied in 1998 that "America's Golden Calf Is Coming Down!" -- with reference to collapse of the financial markets [more; more]. There is extensive rabbinical commentary (on the web) concerning how the sin of the Golden Calf is to be atoned through sacrificial purification by the ashes of the Red Heifer (Parah Adumah) [Bamidbar Rabbah 19:8]. This is necessary to cleanse anyone entering the Temple -- whose reconstruction, in fulfilment of Biblical prophecy, is also of such concern to evangerlical Christians at this time [more]. This mysterious ritual is renowned for exemplifying a spiritual concept that is beyond human comprehension and conventional reasoning -- notably because the person upon whom the heifer's ashes are sprinkled becomes spiritually purified, but those who prepare the ashes become spiritually defiled [more]. Burning the Red Heifer (a female calf, as yet unyoked) is believed in some way to represent nullifying those thoughts and emotions seduced by the lure of the Golden Calf and all its seductive successors in the temporal temptations of this world. The Red Heifer is currently the subject of a much-publicized breeding program by evangelical Christians in Texas [more; more; more; more] as part of speculation that sacrificing such an animal could help trigger the End Times scenario [more]. In considering the dynamics of use of the various forms of "ass" identified above, there may be merit in reflecting on the ritual of worshipping an animal -- entrapped conceptually in the process of dancing around it. The challenge to understanding is exemplified by the extensive commentary on the Red Heifer. Lucius Apuleius (120-180 AD) produced what has been recognized as the first novel: Metamorphoses, better known as The Golden Ass, of which there are many translations [online text; online text] and many studies [biblio], notably by the psychoanalyst Marie-Louise von Franz (1970, 1992), the poet Robert Graves (1998), and the philosopher Elf Raymond (1992). The tale may be summarized as the story of a young man, Lucius (also the name of the author), who is punished for his ignorant behaviour by being metamorphosed into an ass -- a literary device borrowed from Egyptian story-telling. Eager to experience the wisdom of an owl, he had resorted to the aid of an apprentice witch. His botched attempt at magic resulted in his taking on the form of an ass. According to one review, in tantric terminology he is trying to tap into feminine energies via the left-hand path -- he identifies with mindless emotions, while dissociating himself from wisdom. Paradoxically it is while he is an ass that he begins to understand the nature of consciousness. His learning as an animal is associated with wit, and an unusual degree of ribaldry, consistent with the perspective of an ass. After being stolen by thieves, he suffers as a beast of burden, is tormented by cruel owners, and is pampered as a curiosity. These experiences may be reviewed in the light of the above classification. Finally he is restored to human shape through the intervention of the goddess Isis -- by the consumption of rose petals from a garland, as had originally been suggested to him by the apprentice witch, remorseful at the failed transformation:
This suggests an interesting way of using the enneagram by which the various uses of "ass" may be interrelated. It is worth recalling that the symbolism of the rose, through the rosary, has been advocated as a defence against terrorism [ |
