Interview with Lerue Delashay

Lerue Delashay is a Los Angeles based composer who specialises in ominous soundscapes. His multifaceted career kicked off with a stint as the keyboard player in the symphonic metal band Theatre of the Macabre.

Since then, he has written and performed the film scores of several films, including The Homecoming, Book of Lore and Dead Men Do Tell Tales. In addition to his film scores, he also released several excellent solo albums of brooding, introspective neo-classical and ambient compositions.

With the release of the latest Lerue Delashay album, The Cycle of Fifths, Lerue was kind enough to grant The Necro Files an interview.

NF: First things first. Your new album, "The Cycle of Fifths", was mastered by Hollywood engineer John Rodd. How would you describe your working experience with him?

Lerue: John is an extremely professional Engineer who was very proficient in his craft and had a wonderful ear for bringing out the richness and character of the music. His vast experience in Mixing and Recording Classical and Orchestral film music helped him to bring the most out in my compositions, and I was very fortunate that he was interested in working together.

NF: Would you name 5 of your favourite composers?

Lerue: Ludwig Van Beethoven, Richard Wagner, Peter Ilyach Tchaikovski, Igor Stravinski, Alfred Schnittke.

NF: Could you name some of your favourite compositions?

Lerue: Degas - The Sorcerer's Apprentice.
Verdi - Requiem Mass.
Wagner - The Flying Dutchman Overture, Ride of the Valkeries, Ring of the Nebilinglund cycle.
Tchaikovski - Marche Slav, Pathetique Symphony.
Holst - The Planets cycle.
Orff - Carmina Burana.
Stravinski - The firebird, Rite of Spring.
Schnittke - String Quartet series.

NF: You recorded a metal album (A Paradise of Flesh & Blood, with Theatre of the Macabre). Do you still enjoy metal?

Lerue: On occasion, though I tend towards the nostalgic music that I grew up with when listening to metal, and have not kept up on current music.

NF: Have you ever been ostracised due to your beliefs? Does it bother you either way?

Lerue: My beliefs are my own, I tend to not wear them as a badge and therefore do not become a martyr.

NF: Besides being an accomplished classical composer and an accomplished solo artist, you also worked with CD 1334. Please describe your working experience with the original Christian Death members?

Lerue: CD 1334 was an interesting experience, and it was wonderful to have the opportunity to play music that I had listened to as a young man. They had a great sense of dramatic imagery and the music still had an impressive sound, which brought to the stage made for many wonderful performances.

NF: Recently, you've composed some film scores. Is this something you particularly enjoy, or do you just do it to pay the bills?

Lerue: Certainly, I do enjoy creating music for film, and I have a deep passion for writing music which accompanies the drama and action that unfolds as the movie tells its story.

NF: How did you learn music theory? Did you have formal training or did you teach yourself?

Lerue: I have had no formal training, and a majority of my acquired knowledge has come from my personal studies of harmony, counterpoint and Orchestration. I have been approached by an accomplished Composer who studied for twelve years at the Rome Conservatory who wished to tutor me on advanced techniques though, and so my studies with him will commence shortly.

NF: Pirates or ninja?

Lerue: Books.

NF: What would Cthulhu do?

Lerue: Let me try and write my favourite Quote from Lovecraft.

"The most merciful thing in the world, I believe, Is the inability of the human mind to correlate its contents. We live on a placid isle of tranquillity amidst the black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each striving in their own direction, have hitherto harmed us little. But one day, they shall open up such terrifying vistas, and of our place therein, that we shall either go mad from the blinding light, or stumble forth into the dawn of a new dark age"

I memorized this quote for its elegant structure and divine meaning. Lovecraft was certainly more than a pulp writer, and his style to this day still draws me in.

I would like to express my gratitude to Lerue Delashay for taking time from his busy schedule to grant me this interview. Thanks very much!

External Links

• Lerue Delashay on myspace. Listen to some of his tunes here!


• The official Le'Rue Delashay website. Order all his albums from his website.

Stop violence against women in South Africa

It is no secret that I have a pet hate for feminists. A bunch of women could have no equals in mastering hysteria. Some sources of my amusement for feminists are rooted in their irrational actions.

Learning your As, Bs and Cs

Feminists trashed bras to protest against beauty pageants. They saw brassieres as symbols of oppression. These 'instruments of torture' were interpreted as symbols of enforced femininity. This is irrational because the modern brassiere was invented, developed and patented by a woman. Mary Phelps Jacob, the mother of the melons, registered a patent for the first open back brassiere in 1910.


The first brassiere as we know it. You did this to yourselves, ladies!

Ida Rosenthal (with the reluctant help of her husband – yeah right, about as reluctant as Hugh Heffner to find a new Playmate) noticed that not all lumps of love where equal. Funny that no man is an island yet each person is as deep as the ocean and just as unequal. Ida devised a way for this instrument of torture to hug and cuddle each breast with the endearment it deserved by inventing a standard for different cup sizes.

Before Ida, men and women had a largely androgynous look. Strange how androgyny always comes about when we are about to embark on one of Toffler's ages. Ida is responsible for turning women from Boyishform Flappers into Maidenhood stunners who caused as many cases of blindness by poking as they did horse cart accidents.

Even the name bra was coined by women, for women. Mary registered the name, although the word brassiere is a French word which refers to military armour designed to protect the arms. I can fathom how a set of double Ds can protect your arms in combat – not just a fancy double barrel slingshot. I can also understand how waging a full scale carpet bombing invasion could be equated with the brave deed of motherhood. I wonder if you would then be permitted to call a French soldier without a bra unarmed? No wonder they couldn't take Russia.

Burning bras to rebel against enforced femininity is as rational as burning stav churches to protest against enforced Christianity. Besides, what would a male who had been circumcised right after birth burn or trash to protest against enforced masculinity? I have news for you, bra burning tomboys: you can trash a brassiere but foreskin does NOT grow back and no amount of calamari rings is going to replace that skullcap.

But I digress, as I often do when I start thinking about voluptuous breasts. This post is actually serious. I have no problem with admitting that I am a male chauvinist pig, but I also happen to have a streak of justice in me, so I had to get this off my chest.

Getting abreast of the topic

In a recent thoughtleader entry, Charlene Smith did a post entitled I've had it with men in this country. My reaction was: "Oh, here we go. Another day, another bra burnt". After reading the article – coupled with some forum discussions on the Zapiro cartoon and how serious portrayals of rape are – I was shocked.

The way I was raised implied that a real man was a tough guy who could battle the crocodiles on the muddy banks of the Limpopo river in order to procure leather for home made undies. Sure, this is a very traditional view of masculinity, but it is not only conquering. It is also very nurturing, because bravery and valour imply honour.

An honourable Rambo or Chuck Norris would never in his life even think about forcing a women into the position of Lady Justice as depicted in the recent Zapiro cartoon. Even if she does have a mullet. This is precisely why I was shocked to learn about the dishonourable attitudes and actions of the majority of South African men.

You should read Charlene's post for her take on things, but I did some research and found some more shocking statistics on the People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA) site:

• Every 26 seconds, a woman is raped in South Africa. Guys who treat women like masturbation aids should be kicked in the nuts, by guys bigger and tougher than them.


• 85% of South African rapes are gang rapes. Dude, not even animals do that. This is beyond bloody disgusting. That is someone's mother, someone's daughter, someone's sister! It could be YOURS!


• For every 4 women, 1 is in an abusive relationship. We're not talking emotional abuse here, we're talking wearing shades and telling your friends you fell over the dog kind of abuse. That's a quarter of our ladies. This has to stop.


• Less than 2% of reported rapes are false alarms, yet out of the reported 400 rapes in 2007, only 17 (?!?!?!?!?!?!) even made it to court. Of that 17, only 1 perpetrator was convicted.
  
  That means, of the 400 reported rapes, if 98% were legitimate, 1 out of 392 perpetrators was convicted. That's only 0,25%. And we wonder why most rapes don't get reported! Percentage wise, girls get more calories in rice cakes than the proportion of rape perpetrators getting convicted.


• In 1998, only 7% of the reported rapists were prosecuted. This, coupled with the recent rape case in which Jacob Zuma was acquitted, has seriously damaged the faith our ladies have in the system.

Not having faith in the system is alarming enough when you consider that the government is systematically disarming our citizenry and that political big shots are conveniently unlikely to get a fair trial. It is a much more grave scenario when women are left without the ability to defend themselves and the system which is in place in lieu of weapons is also inadequate.

Most rapes occur thanks to the aid of a knife. Now, to use a rock, paper, scissors analogy, knives are like paper and guns are like scissors. Knives are like rocks and guns are like paper. You could take out an 8 armed rock, paper, scissors champion and rapist with a gun.

While I know some girls who could drink me under the table and who could knock out Mike Tyson (I'd actually like to introduce Mike to them), let's face it: as far as averages go, women are the weaker sex. It is our responsibility as knuckle-dragging, beer guzzling, farting, sniffing, rugby watching Neanderthals to take care of women.

Chivalry does not get old. Don't let it die.

External links of shame

• Act against abuse, one of our government's better ideas.


• One in nine, showing solidarity with women who speak out.


• Women's Net, using technology to empower women.

Zapiro and the Zuma cartoon of the African Renaissance

Zapiro is a controversial cartoonist who rose to fame during apartheid. His nonchalant portrayals of former South African president P.W Botha as a big crocodile was partly garnered from and partly responsible for the groot krokodil (big crocodile) nickname of Botha.

With the advent of our integrated democracy, Zapiro shifted gears and focused on the new boss. First, there were endearing portrayals of Madiba as being more famous than the pope (which, in our part of the world, is in fact the case. Dude, Madiba is bigger than Jesus here. Madiba is bigger than John Lennon here!). Then, there were portrayals of president Thabo Mbeki as an aloof well, loof, who is more concerned with earning Voyager miles and smoking his madala pipe than running a country. None of these bitter satirical portrayals were however pills too bitter to swallow.

Enter Jacob Zuma, a dictator in the making. From his all too frequent run-ins with the law, to his all too frequent attempts at censoring the press, to his attempts at sowing discord among our excellent (and, mind you, ANC appointed) judiciary, to his dismal level of education, to the vitriolic company he keeps who threaten to kill those who do not support Zuma's cause, the man is quite frankly just asking to be ridiculed.


This is it: the controversial Zapiro cartoon. That is, the latest one. Hopefully not the last! Used without permission.

Who could be a better man for the job of pulling down Zuma's trousers and giving him six of the best than Zapiro, the man with 'ballpoints of steel' and vanguard of freedom of speech?

How to miss the point of the Zapiro cartoon

• There are many women who have pointed out that rape is not an issue that should be taken lightly. Let me ask you this: if rape is nothing to be taken lightly, then surely you would expect a judicial system that is stable, free from favour and free from prejudice, to fell judgement on those who are guilty of such a vile and barbaric deed?
  
  To respond to the Zapiro cartoon with a beaten wife syndrome knee-jerk reaction, is missing the point.


• There are some (not surprisingly, the same folk who threaten to kill anti-revolutionary forces) who pointed out that the cartoon is racist. Racist? In what way? By portraying Zuma and his cohorts like thugs - as they do come across when one only considers their words and their deeds, without considering their level of eduction, their gender, or their race? If a Taiwanese lady boy threatened to kill people who do not support their cause and they get treated with the indignity they deserve, would it be a racist issue? If the answer is no, it's definitely not a racist issue.
  
  Let's put this in perspective. You could portray lady justice as a cross-dressing Taiwanese lady boy, but I fear not many would recognise lady justice as lady justice. In the same way, you could portray the Mona Lisa as a black man, but then it won't be Mona Lisa. The fact remains that lady justice, along with the rule of law, is a distinctly Western notion and she is traditionally depicted as a blindfolded, white marble statue of a Greek lady. Now, I may not be politically correct here, but to the best of my knowledge, Greeks consider themselves Caucasian.
  
  For the slow readers: the lady in question is not a white madam, it is lady justice. She is an abstract concept, but it does not surprise me at all that the members of the Zuma revolution could not recognise justice if it kicked them in the balls while they try to rape her, let alone being portrayed in a meticulously executed political comic.
  
  To turn the Zapiro cartoon into a race issue is missing the point. Especially when the demographic representation in the cartoon reflects the demographics of our country (five black people to every white person - actually that's too many black people and not nearly enough Taiwanese lady boys).


• Then there are those who argue that freedom of speech should be free, but not that free. This is certainly a debatable point. Many compare this portrayal of Zuma raping the justice system with Malema and Vavi's threats to eliminate and kill anti-revolutionary forces. Not so.
  
  Our constitution holds that freedom of speech is free, except when that speech condones or incites violence. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but suggesting that a public person who is calling for political solutions to his own legal problems is raping the justice system is a far cry from calling for violence.
  
  To turn the Zapiro cartoon into a half-baked excuse for censoring the press, is missing the point. It merely proves us Zuma critics right. There is something fishy brewing around this whole Zuma issue, which we will only be able to lay to rest by allowing lady justice to take her course. That is, with due respect for the rule of law.

How to get the Zapiro cartoon

• One word: satire. Political cartoons are meant to initiate discussion. We are talking about women being abused, reputations at stake, racism, the ruling party's threats to our judiciary and, thankfully enough, about Zuma's fitness for office.
  
  If you've thought or talked about the Zapiro cartoon (preferably in that order), you got the point.


• Rape is disgusting. Short of killing someone, it is the most vile deed you could possibly do to another person. While the manner in which Zuma's obvious disregard of the justice system is portrayed may raise a few eyebrows, it is certainly a very apt metaphor.
  
  If you've considered the message instead of the way the message was portrayed in the cartoon, you got the point.


• Imagine a world without freedom of the press. In this world, South Africa is still under apartheid, because without freedom of the press, no amount of pseudo-military training in Africa would ever have presented a real threat to the apartheid government. Without freedom of the press, South Africa would not have experienced economic sanctions, entertainment bans, sports bans and general upturn of noses due to apartheid.
  
  If you've started discussing what freedom of speech means to you and to the process of democracy, then you got the point.

We need to think very carefully about the leaders we elect. It's time to realise that the days of someone leading our country by divine right are over. Thanks to democracy, we are now directly responsible for our leaders. The government works for us, and not the other way around. Thanks to Zapiro, more of us will realise this.

If you looked at the Zapiro cartoon and you started thinking and talking about the fitness of Jacob Zuma to hold office, you got the point.

Disclaimer: this post is obviously an attempt at link baiting. I'm discussing the Zapiro cartoon to get sweet, sweet traffic.

If you read this post and thought: "What a cheap way to get hits!", then you got the point.

External links

• Jacob Zuma on Uncyclopedia, more satire than what is healthy. So close to the truth, it's scary!


• Satire on Wikipedia.


• Zapiro in Zuma cartoon uproar, from Mail & Guardian.


• Zapiro's official web site.

The Singularity Age

This is part four of "A field guide to Chauvinism". You may find the other parts here:

1. A field guide to chauvinism, part 1


2. The conquering archetype and the nurturing archetype, part 2.


3. Why we still need chauvinism, part 3.


4. The singularity age, part 4.

While many futurists and some AI researches refer to the fourth wave as the knowledge age, I feel this term is used mostly due to the status of knowledge in the field of information science. Information scientists employ the terms data, information and knowledge.

• Data is the raw, unstructured, uninterpreted information. In the digital age, data is bits and bytes.


• Information is data after it is interpreted and structured, much like this blog post you are reading right now. Students of a field work hard to gather information of that field.


• Knowledge is applied information. Experts in a field have far more than information on their subject matter. They have what is termed heuristics – general guidelines or rules of thumb – which come as a result of their years of experience in processing information.

Data from Star Trek: the Next Generation. His icy stare is raw and unstructured.

While expert systems brought the dusk of the knowledge society (see also knowledge economy), they did not bring about enough of a revolution to reason that they signalled the start of one of Toffler's waves of civilisation. Many believe that technological singularity will bring about such a revolution.

Singularity: A definition

Singularity is the creation of superintelligence. This implies creating intelligence that is smarter than human intelligence. Singularity is a mind boggling concept, which is precisely why it is called singularity.

Vernor Vinge originally coined the term "Singularity" in observing that, just as our model of physics breaks down when it tries to model the singularity at the centre of a black hole, our model of the world breaks down when it tries to model a future that contains entities smarter than human.
From What is the singularity?

Clarke's three laws

Arthur C Clarke, one of the most distinguished science fiction writers of all time, proposed three laws of prediction:

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.


2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.


3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

When evaluating the knowledge age, with its emphasis on knowledge engineering and knowledge sharing, by these three laws, it is clear that it is a natural extension of the information age and not nearly sufficient to claim dominion in the fourth wave. The knowledge age is also unmistakably nurturing.

Clarke's laws themselves are nothing more than heuristics, and as such, products of the knowledge age. Gone are the days where scientists make rules which are absolute and always applicable. Newton would never have dreamt of writing laws of motion including the words probably, almost certainly, a little way past or sufficiently advanced, yet here is Clarke proposing a rough guide to evaluate predictions about the future.

There are already scientific fields like quantum mechanics which are based entirely on probability. After singularity occurs, all current human knowledge and experience would be effectively cast upon the not good enough pile. For this reason, I propose that the singularity age would require the conquering archetype in our mere organic intelligence if we are to survive the rise of the superintelligent machines.

Why singularity will have a revolutionary impact on our world

The short answer is hyperbolic growth. Most are familiar with the term exponential growth, but hyperbolic growth is even more impressive.

Exponential growth occurs when the growth rate is proportional to the current value. A famous example of exponential growth is the wheat and chessboard problem, whereby grains of rice are doubled on each square of the chessboard. The proportion of the growth rate here is constant.

Hyperbolic growth occurs when the proportion itself is growing exponentially. Ray Kurzweil calls this double exponential growth (“...meaning that the rate of exponential growth itself is growing exponentially...”). That's a lot of rice!

While technology has exhibited exponential growth thus far, we can expect the growth rate to go beyond mere exponential growth. One reason for this is that superintelligence would be employed to improve itself.

The conquering archetype will rule in the singularity age

The nature of the information age lends itself well to the prevalence of the nurturing archetype. Information is everywhere. Everyone is thought to be equal and everyone is thought to deserve their 15 minutes of fame. That is, in our postmodern society ("where everything is possible and almost nothing is certain") which places great emphasis on Nietzsche's radical perspectivism, all views may not be true, but all views are necessarily regarded as valid.

With the arrival of the information age, a new hierarchy in perspectives arrived. Since information was everywhere and readily available, those with information were common. Those with knowledge were a little harder to reach. This implied a hierarchy with those with information at the bottom of the pyramid, and those with knowledge at the top. Expert knowledge becomes more valid than novice information.

With the arrival of the knowledge age, yet another new hierarchy in perspectives arrived. Soon, knowledge would be commonplace. Those with knowledge – the experts – would soon become the bottom of the pyramid, while those with access to superintelligence would rise to the top. Superintelligence will become more valid than expert knowledge.


A viking by fantasy artist Daren Bader. You shall require a loincloth and a broadsword to survive singularity.

It is clear that the survival of our species may become threatened by a superintelligent entity. As we have seen, when the survival of a species is threatened, the law of the jungle comes into play. We will move beyond the placid, nurturing state of genetic drift we currently experience into the realm of natural selection. If we are to survive this next wave, we shall require dominion of the conquering archetype.

Next time someone calls you a chauvinist pig, tip your hat gracefully and say: "Thank you."

The Wicker Man

In ancient Celtic times, the wicker man was a large wicker effigy of a human being. It served as a scapegoat for all the ills of society, such as unwanted pregnancies, stillbirths, drought, warm beer and bearded women. Celts with their Black Sabbath Brummie accents and Asterix hats burnt the wicker man, thus ridding society of all its perceived ills.



The classic British cult horror, The Wicker Man (1973). Not to be confused with the retarded remake which starred Nicolas Cage (from the year that Cthulhu has cursed forever, for that very reason, 2006).

It worked to rid ancient England of its ills, because the villagers actually placed those who caused unwanted pregnancies, stillbirths, drought, warm beer and bearded women in the wicker man before they lit it. Whether those immolated with the wicker man deserved this or not, it certainly worked wonders to lower the amount of unwanted pregnancies and bearded women. When is the last time you saw a bearded woman? I rest my case.

Upon considering the wicker man and the classical logical fallacy of the straw man argument, one can't help but notice the similarities. I mean they're both effigies of men, made of straw (or wicker), and they burn.

The difference is that a real wicker man quickens the return of some men (and bearded women) to dust, while a straw man argument is a form of character assassination.

Here in Mzansi, we never had a wicker man. No, here wicker is far too useful for building shacks and filling the vacuum between your ears. We have a curious practice called necklacing instead. I'll spare you the gruesome detail. Suffice to say you better hope nobody comes knocking on your door when lightning strikes somebody.

I wanted to see either a wicker man or a straw man up in flames, if it's the last thing I did before Egoli. Well, it's currently winter here in a summer rainfall territory, meaning it's hardly necklacing season. I also haven't seen a bearded woman since the last time I went to the traffic department. Imagine my delight then when I found a straw man argument in the news.

"NP is back, itching for a fight"

The NP (the National Party) was the party of the 'architects of apartheid'. This fact is often pointed out by the ANC when they want to do a bit of character necklacing themselves. The fact that the NP was also the party of the architects of our democracy is not so often pointed out in these sessions. They don't serve to instill the sklavmoral, you see.

Regardless, this is not an instance where the ANC spewed forth their habitually obtuse drivel. Nay nay, this is a case where a journalist spewed forth ANC-like obtuse drivel. Of course, this is hardly surprising considering the innate affinity of those in soft sciences for sklavmoral, but damn it, I was looking for a straw man argument and I was going to see it proverbially in flames, immolated by necklacing, if it's the last thing I did before Egoli.

The nature of the yeast

Clearly, the author of NP is back, itching for a fight is brewing.

• The piece is littered with ad hominem attacks which have more in common with infecting Sefrikans with ideology as opposed to being informative. Isn't the media supposed to trust Sefrikans to have the ideologically ideal equal brain capacity each human possesses to formulate our own opinions?


• There are serious journalistic ethics and standards contraventions. There is no clear separation between news and opinion. Competing points of view are not portrayed in a balanced manner, nor are they characterised objectively. It's like a Polokwane conference.


• The presentation is not in a standard, formal variety of English. This is due to the atrociously exaggerated improperly opportunistic use of adjectives.

After a bit of googling, I learned that the author is in fact a columnist. The piece originated as a column in its native Sunday Independent, yet it was syndicated as news for iol.

It is thus not the author who had been negligent, but the editors of iol who decided to present the opinion of a columnist as news against better judgement. All you disinformation conspiracy theorists, reach for your alarm bells. The time is nigh to wear those tinfoil hats.

Dic mihi solum facta, domina (Just the facts, ma'am)

Sticking to the facts, the piece would be much shorter. Next time, think of the trees, you capitalist pigs! This is the same piece, minus the adjectives, plus my own bias:

• National Party spokesman Juan-Duval Uys was an employee of Cape Town councillor Badih Chaaban. Uys is no longer associated with Chaaban. In fact, Uys is currently a witness against Chaaban in an assault case.


• The NP is well aware of its past racially based practices. It is trying to bridge the gap between the races by having a more demographically representative (yawn) membership and launching a youth group to appeal to more black people. The youth group is to be launched by disillusioned ANC youth (read: members of the ANCYL who haven't received a Model C-class Mercedes Benz yet).


• The NP is well aware that the DA has become a refuge for former Natte who switched from wearing khaki to wearing Nigerian buba without realising that wearing Nigerian man dresses is not exactly showing your ethnic solidarity.
  
  Uys and his party are trying to win back the favour of these voters by claiming to implement non-racial employment policies once they come into power. I'm thinking they'd need bigger Mercedes Benz luxury vehicles if they're going to succeed with this one.


• The NP is well aware that being associated with its Protestant Afrikaner past is going to be a stumbling block for many who adhere to different religious faiths. More specifically, the NP learnt from the blunders of the ANC that the majority of people want the separation of the church and state, or pay lip service to that noble concept at the very least.


• Uys blames Marthinus 'used to be kortbroek but is now tree-hugging buba boy' Van Schalkwyk for proverbially floor crossing (read: taking the standard bribe of a Model C-class Mercedez Benz) to the ANC and disbanding the NP without consultation with the rest of the party members.


• Black diamonds, the rising black middle class, who just like white Africans (read: colonialists in PC terms) my age did not grow up under apartheid and were largely unaffected by it and definitely not responsible for it, are disillusioned by the leading party's talk of revolution.
  
  Most of us are easy pickings to a party who manages to move away from ethnicity issues. The Anglophile black youth are more in tune with Y-fm and Usher than with the ANC and Stalin. They are unashamedly more skilled than their unskilled counterparts, they are unapologetically ready to make money and they rightfully feel that they don't need to rely on BEE to prove that they are worth as much as whiteys with degrees. Uys is trying to sway them to the NP side with his envisioned youth brigade and his talk of more realistic employment policies.


• Uys is trying to cash in on the relative respect former president and Nobel peace prize winner F.W de Klerk enjoys. De Klerk should enjoy this respect for being integral to the transition from apartheid to a social democracy (read: serfdom that realises it needs to keep capitalists on a leash to feed the rest of the animal farm), but in reality de Klerk just has respect because he is associated with another former president, Nelson Mandela.
  
  De Klerk is evasive and weary about being associated with the Neo-New-National Party, but the link has already been forged in the popular press.

Why I will not vote for the NP

"On religion, the NP says it respects the practice of all, but will not tolerate Satanism."

That's like saying you're a non-smoker, except for menthol. As far as I am concerned, this dark Satanic anti-revolutionary legion is yet to be discovered. Of course, you get the odd Slipknot ninja, who is disowned even by Satanists for being an idiot. Next thing Uys is going to tell us that Rodney Seale is going to be the vice president once they come into power.

I am apolitical (libertarian at best), but I do feel that voting for any party except the ruling party at any point is a good idea to prevent a disproportionate amount of power in any party's court. We don't want a de facto single party state like the ANC has run into the ground for the past 15 years.

ANC apologists are quick to point out that we've had an impressive economic growth rate of above 4% for the past couple of years. They are not so quick to point out that in 1995, our GDP was 1 548 100. In 2005, our GDP was 1 523 254. For the period of 1995 to 2000, the average household income actually decreased. The GDP took a huge dump from 1995 and took until 2005 to recover. This means we spent an entire decade just catching up with what the minority managed to achieve all by themselves during apartheid.

We're not anywhere near actual growth. The key to surviving our public health system is not getting sick. We have a serious brain drain, just like the entire world apparently, but our skilled people are leaving to fix the entire world's problems because of our crime and our mampara BEE serfdom (which is bound to get worse if the Tzars of the ANC implement their Hugo Chavez-like nationalising of privately owned property as per the proposed expropriation bill).

Because they retain their skilled people, other emerging economies like China, India and Brazil are riding the wave of the global recession while South Africa is still following the white rabbit after the tired 'rich get richer while the poor get poorer' sloganeering down the socialist dream world rabbit hole.

How can the poor get poorer? They're already rock bottom poor. You can't take nothing away from someone.

From what I've seen, the NP are committed to rectifying these wrongs. They are making a big splash in a small pond, but they are hardly offering anything that other opposition parties like the DA, IFP or the UDM aren't offering already.

The difference is that the DA and the UDM would allow me to be a Satanist if I really wanted (as does our wonderful constitution). If you're going to have an effective group, you're going to have to live with views you don't agree with.

"A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular." - Adlai Stevenson

In other words, a free society is a society without the wicker man. Now if there were a political party with a bearded woman, they'd automatically get my vote!

Why we still need chauvinism

This is part three of "A field guide to Chauvinism". You may find the other parts here:

1. A field guide to chauvinism, part 1


2. The conquering archetype and the nurturing archetype, part 2.


3. Why we still need chauvinism, part 3.


4. The singularity age, part 4.

Why we still need chauvinism

1. In times when our survival as a species is threatened, the conquering archetype deals effectively with the conditions determined by natural selection (survival of the fittest). In times when our survival is not threatened, the nurturing archetype introduces genetic drift.


2. Chauvinism preserves strains of both conquering and nurturing archetypes in any society in case we may need them to advance to the next wave of civilisation at some point.


3. We are currently in Toffler's third wave, the information age. Since each age followed more quickly upon its predecessor, the fourth wave is bound to follow sooner upon the third wave than the third wave followed upon the second wave.


4. When any given archetype becomes so overwhelmingly dominant that it causes a group to become ineffective, it is time to start talking about the next revolution to favour optimal wisdom of crowds.

A sabre tooth tiger. Grrr, baby!

Natural selection and genetic drift

Natural selection is the process whereby desirable traits become more widespread in a population and undesirable traits become less common. It's the process that caused the slow runners to be eaten by sabre tooth tigers in the hunter-gatherer era, while fast runners were not. This meant that by the time of the agrarian age, everyone could more or less negotiate their way around sabre tooth tigers thanks to latent running talents.

It is the same process that causes smarter people to make more money than dumber people during the information age despite all the socially conditioned equality and virtually equal access to information. This drives the specialisation of a population, resulting in populations of mostly fast runners or quick thinkers, provided that the slow runners and the slow thinkers are prohibited from splashing in the same gene pool.

Eugenics was an ill-fated attempt at formalising what mother nature already inevitably does when our survival is threatened. Natural selection takes care of the slow runners and the slow thinkers, thus ensuring that subsequent generations are faster runners and quicker thinkers.

Genetic drift is the process whereby traits are merely randomly distributed without any apparent favour. In times when our survival is not threatened, it is not that easy to distinguish between desirable and undesirable traits. This is why eugenics failed miserably the first time around. Think of quick runners. Is it currently desirable to be a quick runner? That's arguable to both sides, with no clear conclusion.

Genetic drift is currently the overwhelming evolutionary process in the majority of the human species. We're not making progress here, we are mostly treading water for as long as our environment allows everyone an opportunity to run, regardless of talent or skill.

When our survival is not threatened, the nurturing archetype tries to preserve as many possible traits as possible, which is sensible. I mean you never know when those pesky scientist might find the DNA of sabre tooth tigers in amber and we need to start running again.

Chauvinism preserves the less dominant traits for when we may need them

During the agrarian age, it was technically no longer required to be a fast runner. You could effectively work a field of crops with slow moving child slaves, as the Children of the Corn demonstrates. Yet we are now running faster than ever before. If it weren't for chauvinism which dictated the preservation of the allele that causes fast runners without any clear purpose, we would have channel surfing as an Olympic event. Homer Simpson would be the reining champion, while also taking home a gold medal in beer guzzling.

Similarly, there are still male chauvinists and female chauvinists, even though their time has come. Yet male chauvinists tend to be far more successful at sleeping with the enemy than their female counterparts, thus ensuring that a male chauvinist streak will be preserved, for no apparent reason. This while female chauvinism is systematically being ridiculed and rooted out, also for no apparent reason other than the relatively established socially conditioned notions of equality and the population shrinkage of the more advanced nations.

This begs the question why male chauvinism tends to be biologically favoured, despite the noble efforts of the female chauvinists to eradicate it once and for all. Perhaps looking at the succession of the waves of civilisation and the overwhelming archetype in each wave would answer this question.

The pattern of revolution

Each wave of civilisation requires the dominance of a certain archetype, namely either conquering or nurturing. This dominion is established each time by a revolution which goes against the grain of the dominant archetype of its age.

• Hunter-gatherer societies required dominion of the conquering archetype. Fast running, accurate spear lugging and as little knuckle dragging as possible. You go, girls!


• The agrarian age required dominion of the nurturing archetype, which was achieved by the agrarian revolution. Women stopped growing beards because it freaked out the kids. Kids were taught how to pick berries and how to grow them instead of just chasing after more furry vermin.


• The conquering archetype was required for the industrial age, and it came into power thanks to the industrial revolution. Facial hair continues to recede, with mutton chops and handlebar moustaches being the order of the day. Bearded women continue to be victimised and usually end up as freak show attractions, except in Greece and Portugal.


• The information age is a consequence of the information revolution, which was brought about by a nurturing archetype. Social conditioning dictates that even body hair is now taboo. It becomes exceedingly difficult to distinguish between men and women, with biology taking a back seat to the chosen affirmations of the individual.
  
  You can even get chopped off and sewn across if you are a guy. If you are a girl, you can get an adadictomy. In extreme cases, the state even pays for your operation but it refuses to foot the bill of the years of therapy your disillusioned parents would require, because they are merely being overly conservative.


• It appears that the fourth wave (which I would call the singularity society) would result from the dominance of the conquering archetype achieving dominion once more. This despite the socialist utopia offered by the authors of The Fourth Wave: Business in the 21st Century. If you really need another lesson in environmentally responsible economics, try Buddhist economics. It acknowledges the human component without the Marxist drivel.

The pattern of the revolutions which lead us through the ages of development of society. As you can see, it's a highly scientific graph.

The times they are a-changin'

How does mother nature determine when it is time to switch archetypes? It would appear that the situation presents itself when a group is no longer capitalising on the wisdom of crowds (which I described in my review of Curse of the Devil). In other words, when a group starts exhibiting the following behaviour traits:

• The diversity of opinion in a group is no longer encouraged. Individuals are no longer allowed to differ from the group. You may no longer write 'he' when you mean a person without a lengthy explanation that you aren't a sexist at the beginning of your book, despite the agony this causes to the rainforests thanks to the trees required for the extra printing.


• Independence is discouraged. The institute of the state is no longer even questioned. Death and taxes are deemed as unavoidable realities we have to face, come hell or high water or corrupt politicians. We are not conditioned how to think, we are conditioned what to think. You try to explain the benefits of eugenics to random people you meet on the street. If you survive, you are clearly a fast runner.


• Centralisation which does not allow for the specialisation of knowledge. This was a particular weakness of the church during the dark ages, which meant the slow thinkers were kept slow since they were never challenged, the fast thinkers were silenced since they were antagonising sanctified opinions and homosexuals are to this day barred from church despite all the spin to the contrary. This is not a mantelpiece of an era gone by. There are still superstitious cretins who try to make evolution out to be some theory on par with more sensible biblical explanations of biological diversity.


• No clear aggregation of knowledge. Information needs to be useful, and we need a standard to judge its utility. To me, this parallels Ludwig von Mises' criticism of socialism, which you can read about in my review of Nile's Black Seeds of Vengeance.
  
  Lacking a free market, a socialist system has no clear method of measuring the needs of a society or measuring the performance of its services. Catering for a broadly defined average results in a general collapse of standards instead of an overall upheaval.
  
  I feel that a free market and the associated meritocracy it implies are sufficient standards to aggregate virtually every aspect of society. More importantly, such a meritocracy would dictate the dominance of the appropriate archetype for each wave of civilisation without the senseless bloodshed.

The woman's movement did not put an end to chauvinism

And if it did, our species would end as soon as we reached the next revolution that requires a dominant conquering archetype.

Paris Hilton arguably deserves credit for her marketing abilities, but ultimately she's famous for being famous. More precisely, she's famous because her tits and ass appeal to male chauvinist notions of female qualities waiting to be conquered.


Paris Hilton naked. Oh, my bad. Paris Hilton with clothes on for a change.

The disdain, envy and jealousy she inspires in womanists, radical feminists and less noticeable fellow women are almost as vitriolic as the sweating and drooling she inspires in chauvinists of the male variety. These male chauvinists are refugees from the days when a night out with the boys consisted of raping and pillaging the nearest neighbouring village.

It is thus clear that the film 300 is not only about an ethnically pure group resisting integration into an ethnically diverse group, much like ethnically pure China is resisting attempts from the ethnically diverse West to globalise everywhere with the smell of oil, but also about the preservation of the conquering archetype by means of chauvinism.

Nobody could deny that the dominance of male chauvinism was required for the people of Sparta to resist the Persian invasion by Xerxes. By the same token, nobody could deny that if they employed their nurturing instincts, there would have been far less immediate bloodshed. However, if they and everyone who ever reached a challenge to their instincts merely gave way to the overwhelmingly popular opinion, we'd all be living in one of Stalinist Russia, Hitler's Nazi Germany, Eisenhower's America or Mao Zedong's communist China by now. While the immediate bloodshed would have been less, the total bloodshed would have been far greater.

What does the fourth wave entail?

In conclusion, it seems that our current society is treading water in the third wave. Granted, the nurturing archetype was necessary for the third wave and the woman's movement did a great job at nurturing it, but it is time to start thinking about what the fourth wave would entail. Judging by the biological shenanigans of the male chauvinists and the pattern of domineering archetypes we've had so far, we could assume that the conquering archetype would be effective in bringing about the next revolution.

In the next chauvinist post, I will draw inspiration from Timothy Leary's 8 circuit model of consciousness, thoughts on technological singularity and a deck of Tarot cards to predict the fourth wave. Hopefully without having to clone sabre tooth tigers.

The conquering archetype and the nurturing archetype

This is part two of "A field guide to Chauvinism". You may find the other parts here:

1. A field guide to chauvinism, part 1


2. The conquering archetype and the nurturing archetype, part 2.


3. Why we still need chauvinism, part 3.


4. The singularity age, part 4.

A field guide to chauvinism, part 2

When times are tough, the conquering alpha male archetype rules. When times are comfy, the nurturing alpha female archetype rules. You need the alpha male to scare away lions and tigers and bears. You need the alpha female to ensure we don't use our nucelur bams on each other when the lions and tigers and bears are no longer a threat. Perhaps male and female are unfortunate terms in this regard. Let's call the alpha male the conquering archetype and the alpha female the nurturing archetype, since a male may very well fall victim to retail therapy maggoty faggotry and a female may well fall victim to the conquering ways of dungarees and chewing tobacco.

Patriarchy: The extreme of the conquering archetype

When most individuals in a society are conquering types, you get a patriarchy. This has nothing to do with fatherhood, although gender roles tend to enforce the overriding national character of a society. This is also not necessarily oppressive, because in some societies it is crucial for slow runners to be fed to the wolves, no questions asked. Naturally, you can get an oppressive patriarchy, which usually results in a revolution that causes the overwhelming character of a society to evolve into a more nurturing matriarchy again.




Singapore. Civilisation, something I have never seen.

An example of such a society where the conquering archetype needs to rule is Singapore, which is a meritocracy. Fastest runners get the rewards, slowest runners are figuratively fed to the wolves in their thriving free market capitalist society. It works, because their capitalism is in a position where it exploits their natural and human resources in an effective way with no clear sign of running out of resources any time soon.

Matriarchy: The extreme of the nurturing archetype

When most individuals in a society are nurturing types, you get a matriarchy. Again, this has nothing to do with gender, but gender roles do serve to affirm the overriding characteristics of a society. It is likewise absolutely crucial in some societies to stick with the berries.

An example of such a society is Zimbabwe. They are going to have to get rid of their hunter-gatherer nurturer leader in favour of an agrarian nurturing leader who can restore their agrarian age society and put it on course to develop into an industrial age nation, and thereafter into an information age nation. More on that later.

Conquering and nurturing archetypes are always in equilibrium. If your society is unsure of its place on the conquering/nurturing equilibrium, it tends to get androgynous. Androgynous creatures make their appearance whenever a society is bound to go from one extreme to the next. Think of the monster nurturing Victorian zeitgeist that the androgen Oscar Wilde had to battle in his day right before the Industrial revolution.


Oscar Wilde. Not that Wilde by today's standards. Also not that effeminate by today's standards.

Coincidentally, in emerging economies like India and China, people are starting to eat more meat and less berries, while simultaneously turning from societies ruled by nurturing archetypes into societies ruled by conquering archetypes, but for the time being I'll assume this is a case where correlation does not imply causality.

The waves of civilisation

Alvin Toffler's famous book the Third Wave describes three waves of civilisation:

1. The first wave was agrarian civilisation, which replaced hunter-gatherer society. Hunger-gatherers try to conquer by taking from their environment with little regard for anything except the booty. That's booty as in bounty and not booty as in tits and ass. Hunter-gatherer societies were tough and called for blundering, conquering archetypes. Cave kids who were slow runners were fed to the wolves. Cave women were big, strong, mean and probably grew beards as frequently as men did. However, cave women somehow felt warm and fuzzy over cave kids who could not run fast, and tried to prevent feeding them to the wolves. Conquering cavemen refused, because hunting and gathering required fast runners. Women argued that they could find a way to sustain the lousy hunters without hunting. Cave men said: “Over my dead body!”.
   
   I imagine a particularly conquering type of bearded cave woman took this to heart, got a cave woman style divorce with the aid of a spiked club and fed the entrails of her cave divorcee to the wolves. She then taught the slow running child more gathering than hunting, which meant more staying where the berries were. She also learned that where they crapped out their berries, more berries grew, thus the slow running kids were not reliant on a nomadic hunting and gathering lifestyle. Slowly but surely, this lead to the agrarian revolution, which caused the hunter-gatherer style conquering to fall out of favour.


2. The second wave is industrial civilisation, brought about by the industrial revolution. During the first wave, the nuclear family with the big bad farming dad that could sustain a modern slow running kid tinkering with mechanics in the shed over weekends and the self-sacrificing cooking mother in the kitchen creating the necessary society to give rise to the industrial revolution.
   
   The first wave called for a nurturing archetype, until the industrial revolution. The cut-throat capitalism which resulted due to the industrial revolution called for the conquering archetype again, and developing nations still need to free themselves from the nurturing bondage of the agrarian society by embracing free market capitalism if they are to develop into an industrial society and beyond.
   
   By contrast, conquering in a capitalist sense is not sustainable if it doesn't give heed to the lessons learnt by the nurturing agrarian society. These lessons include not exploiting your environment to the point of barrenness, but harnessing natural processes in order to make you more fit to conquer.
   
   The first wave favours running, the second wave favours learning. In an industrial society, slow learners become employed by the military, the church or the government, which is the equivalent of feeding them to the wolves, only much worse.


3. The third wave is the information age, which is created by the information revolution. The information revolution started with the printing press (although some trace it back to the invention of writing), and it calls for the nurturing archetype again.
   
   Actually there are societies which are already past the information revolution. These societies are in trouble once more thanks to the bondage of the nurturing archetype in the shape of an overly zealous ever watching Big Brother. If the pattern of civilisations so far is anything to go by, these societies are going to have to breed conquering archetypes again if they are to bring about the revolution to ride the fourth wave.
   
   An information society favours innovation. Slow innovators end up spending daddy's industrialist fortune on a cookie cutter politically correct humanities degree, a mass produced Mercedes Slk, vacuous overseas trips which stray far from anywhere culturally significant like the Beyreuth Festspielhaus, donations to Peta and Che Guevara T-shirts to dampen their feelings of guilt for having access to all this wealth without earning it. They feel that buying a Che Guevara T-shirt entitles them to claim solidarity with socialist nurturing nanny states without realising the irony. That is, slow innovators usually end up in management.

Bayreuth Festspielhaus. Designed by Richard Wagner himself. You can get your ambrosia at the door after Der Ring des Nibelungen. That is if you can still walk after that many multiple eargasms.

What do the third waves of civilisation have to do with chauvinism? Plenty.