The Objective of Our Desire?

[Note: apologies to any LGBT readers for the exclusively heteronormative regard of this essay, I'm just pontificating based on personal experience.]

Most young boys just want to find a way to have love and partnership, when they think about the object of their desire. As they grow, there’s a kind of gradual awakening that occurs within the minds of a given generation of young boys, as they come to terms with the fact of their sexual impulse, and discover a means by which to actualize it with young women. It’s not a specific timeline; it’s entirely subjective to the individual. It’s also related to their position within the social order.

Some boys learn from their Alpha figures, be it the father or the elder brother or what have you, about the way it all goes down with a woman. There are casual rites of preparation which occur between the men in the family, that collaborate with his general observations of the world and of the parents’ relationship in leading the young man comfortably and competently into their first sexual moments with a woman. Other boys don’t get that information.

Other boys have inexperienced or incommunicative fathers, or a parental relationship model which obscured the sexual component of their relationship from the child’s awareness. Or their mother was a victim of rape, maybe, or sexual assault, and they taught their son a hyper consciousness of the toxic potential of masculinity, at too early an age to make proper sense of it. Or the boys don’t have connection to the forward scouts of their generation’s sexual development in the social order, from which to vicariously glean experience or wisdom. Boys who aren't properly initiated into a healthy dynamic of sexual expressivity slowly find footing and climb their way out of the pit of adolescence, at whatever pace they can manage.

Along the way, those other boys are often punished by their peers for their inexperience, in behavioral reactions stemming directly from a culture that worships and ritualizes the competitive act. A boy who doesn’t get the girl becomes the loser, and there’s a ritual around that side of the process of winning that we don’t always talk about —a consecration of that division that occurs when the ritual of competition is performed. After all, winning doesn’t really mean so much without losers, if you think about it. So we must publicly anoint them, and often.

The children in our society grow up in a machine, which subjects them to damaging social mechanisms of ridicule and identity-limitation if they don’t demonstrate dominant personality tendencies along the way. They become acquainted with a sense of self that is informed by their lack; their failure—as early as elementary school.

For this type, Public Education is a psychic killing floor.

And that’s not just for boys, either. It occurs to me that women as well as men learn to relish in the domination of the weaker and less successful members of their gender, and their species. Young women compete against one another for prominence in the eyes of the young alpha male. And, by whatever degree of zeal with which they perform the rite, their rejection of males they deem undeserving of their affections signals, to the Alpha male, their fealty to his power. They signal their recognition, of this central fact that governs all life.

Either you’re a Winner, or a Loser.

Jim Halpert or Dwight Schrute; Abe Goodwin or Sam Tsohonis. Cain or Abel, Isaac or Ishmael, Jacob or Esau—are you getting the picture? In the foundational roots of the Bible is a premise that there must always be both. And it’s maybe the fundamental core of Western Culture.

For fuck’s sake, just the fact that we always find ourselves reducing the human culture of Earth into such grammatical binaries—Western and Eastern—speaks to the principal I’m trying to communicate.

The sexual protocols that govern the flow of human lives in our society are all predicated on this concept of Darwinian logic. Our social order is entirely built around the competition for reproduction.

Of course, primitive humanity was mystified by it; dominated, by the fact of it. Cockblinded, one might even say.

It was a very small world, and one had to expend great amounts of energy in just surviving it. Primitive humans found their social orders based on hierarchies of male dominance, relative to their ability to mate with women. Which, in primitive times, meant also their ability to physically intimidate or defeat other men, and also of course to produce food, shelter and safety.

We now live in a society where women have gradually evolved into a far greater sense of individuation, than possessed their primitive counterparts. To varying degrees, women no longer seek to be defined by the men who claim their sexual partnership. It’s a long-delayed blooming, a more complete coming-into-consciousness of their potential as individuals—which was, inevitably, originally squelched by the primitive paradigm in which we all originated, more than it was a conscious effort of primitive men to dominate an entire gender.

Of course, from the first act to repress a woman who longed for more, it became that.

Both men and women have evolved out of an extreme state of being, dominated by confusion and fear, and physical threat, to arrive at this point in time together. The original order we found was based on physical reality, alone. It started before the invention of fire.

Now, we have the knowledge and power to do anything we want. The only thing we have to fear is not fear, itself—it’s us, ourselves. And there’s only one power in humanity on which we can safely put our faith—Creativity, and it is the product of the Human Imagination. Based exclusively on both Historical anecdote and Empirical evidence, this is the most definitive trademark of a Mind that is adequately equipped for life on Earth.

We have risen out of a prehistoric state of subjugation—naked, homeless, striding barefoot through jungles! Judged on our Material virtues alone, we have no rightful place in this Nature; we have always relied on the power of Creative Thought, to produce the transformative bridges throughout our civilization’s development which have arrived us at this truly Superhuman state of living that we’ve achieved—we have risen, from a relative biological obscurity into a being that can lift itself to the stars.

We know that the power of humanity lies in its ability to imagine a better future. And yet, the majority of humans spend all our time around the act of gathering and circulating little pieces of paper that we tell ourselves symbolize our worth, just doing everything we can to cling for footing in the present moment.

We strive, in this fashion, often at the suffering of family or other forms of fulfillment, to pit ourselves against one another in our accumulation of these little pieces of paper. Then, in our national collectives, we reproduce the same act of striving. We find likely losers in the less fortunate Nations of the world, and we coerce them in their helpless states to let us bring to them our factories and jobs—then, of course, we siphon the surplus value these rigged infrastructures create into our own national economies.

Oh God, you’re just so Dominant, America! So very drenchingly sexy...

Money symbolizes more than just a person’s labor. Money is our pathway to Faith, in the true religion of humanity. It’s a religion that has no name because we don’t even see it. But we consecrate our faith in it, every time we laugh at someone else’s misfortune. Every time we ritualize the casting-out of a loser.

When we earn money we increase our potential for dominance, in the competition that is life. We all know the saying, ‘it puts food on the table’. Unless you grow what you eat in your backyard, Money feeds you. Unless you own your home outright, Money lets you sleep comfortably at night. Money gets you in the door, and Money drives you home when the work is done.

Ayn Rand put this principle forward, in bold type, in her epic rape fantasy Atlas Shrugged. The Dollar Sign was what the Society of John Galt chose as its emblem, in their hidden society of Avatar Industrialists.

I have a strange connection with Ayn Rand. It’s one of the ways I’ve learned about my penchant for willful ignorance, in my digestion of creative works. I read the Fountainhead back in high school, because this girl with whom I was in love was reading it (still am, incidentally, and always will be—not that I draw any benefit from this fact). And I’d seen other intellectual kids with whom I felt identity reading it around school, but it wasn’t one in any curriculum of which I’d been made aware. But I read both the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and was deeply affected. Only, I thought they were talking about the struggle of the Artist!

Well, of course, the Ayn Rand Institute: The Center for the Advancement of Objectivism, or whatever, sponsored a College Scholarship contest, at least back in my day. They had specific questions regarding Ayn Rand’s work, about one of which they wanted the prospective applicants to write an essay. There were significant prizes, for the chosen essays. I remember thinking that was pretty cool, actually. A neat pathway for an exceptional thinker to show their merit, at that age.

But the thing about Ayn Rand, and Objectivism, is that it’s afflicted by a grave form of tunnel-vision, and that was informed by Rand’s personal experience of the Bolshevik Revolution (she was 12, in 1917)—which, even a modern Socialist is likely to attest, quickly became a network by which to disseminate a thuggish sort of brutality, upon the former beneficiaries of the Czarist Oligarchy.

Apparently there’s a degree to which Narcissistic behavior is a product of Trauma, and it seems evident that the Narcissistic shortsightedness inherent in Ayn Rand’s Objectivist philosophy is a direct byproduct of the unfortunate brutality that became of the mechanisms of Bolshevism, post-Revolution. Perhaps as a direct result, her portrayal of the dynamics of Global Commerce and Industry were childish and naïve, even in her day.

Rand spoke often of ‘Second-Handers’, which were perhaps most perfectly exemplified in the character of Peter Keating, in the Fountainhead. He profited, again and again, off of the work of the genius Howard Roark—whose singular devotion to craft and vision, and the dialogue of Cultural Narrative, really painted him in the colors of an Artist; as much Mystic as Architect, almost. In Atlas Shrugged, Galt’s community of world-movers were delivering judgment upon the Plebes of the world, their loyal customers. She painted a picture where the uprising of these Advocates for Social Consciousness (the ‘SJW’ of Rand's day, I suppose) were compromising the very vitality of these noble idealistic achievers—these god-like Creative Giants driving the heartbeat of the country’s economy, with every Taggart Coal Train they sent across the Rockies; riding on rails of Rearden Steel.

But we know today, these corporations driving the economy of the world (into an approaching brick wall, it appears from my seat), they are in reality the Second-Handers of our world. They all start out with a great idea, that comes from a great mind, of a greatly-achieving human being. But the mechanisms that have evolved in the technology of profits are designed so exclusively for short-term gains, we’re now looking at the end of life as it has been known, since we first figured out how to use a bone as a club—at least in terms of the available bounty which Nature is able to provide, any longer. By the time Amazon becomes a household name, it ends up being expressed as a curse by half the people who utter it.

Ayn Rand’s idea of economy would be reasonable, maybe, if you were playing with a plastic Little Peoples playset. It does not take into account the entire spectrum of the human experience, though. And that’s because, inherent to her worldview, is an intrinsic devotion to the act of Capitalistic Domination.

Because she wanted so badly to be a Winner.

In two hundred and fifty years, the Industrial Revolution’s Boon to Humanity has been warped, by a series of these mid-level Winners, into a Suicide Pact between Secret Lunatic Monarchs, stealing and hiding the fruits of our labors from us, even before we can pick them off the branch.

I don’t mean to be an alarmist, but have you ever asked yourself what the dollar sign represents, as an image? Apparently there’s some ranging speculation as to the visual etymology of the symbol. But it occurs to this visual artist that it would work very nicely as an icon—say, to warn somebody; of a serpent, in some trees.

The fact is, Money is what we put before all else. We give our lives to the acquisition of these stupid fucking pieces of paper. Yes, it’s necessary. But what I’m putting forth is that we’ve allowed its use to shape us this entire time, like addicts. It’s shaped the entire face of the human experience. But that’s only because we’ve been unconscious, so far, of the ways we’ve allowed ourselves to be manipulated by it.

When you want something in the world, it takes on gravity. When everybody wants something at the same time, it becomes immense. And what do we do with the money we collect, other than spend it on necessaries? What do we do with it other than spending it, period? We save it up. Some few of us have immense troves of the stuff, just sitting around. These supple mounds of coin; these firm, virile stacks of hard, hot cash...

We use Money to separate ourselves from what we fear—which, almost universally, is to become the Loser. And so we stratify ourselves over others, in our thinking, based on the degree of wealth that separates us—because we have to believe in the narrative we derive from it, that we are other than them.

Hey, I mean—if not, we’re only that much closer to being Losers, ourselves.

Fortunately, shifting the angle from which you investigate the phenomena makes the whole thing feel like an unconscious reaction to trauma. The trauma of competition--rooting from the original struggle for survival in the primal hostility of Nature. We ritualize the traumatic act in our reproductions of it, just like in tragicommon cases where victims of abuse become abusers, themselves.

If you’ve stayed home through the quarantine, think about how different the world has felt. Think about how many people have been sitting at home, just reflecting. I’ve been having so many epiphanies. And I keep hearing other people telling me theirs! And I keep thinking how there’s been very few times in recorded history, where this many people have all been blessed at once with so much time to themselves, to think and ponder their place in the world.

It’s what the Industrial Revolution was supposed to have provided, really! And it’s no wonder we’re still hounded by these primitive artifacts of our psychological architecture, when Life doesn’t ever slow down enough for us to get in front of any of it. We’re too busy trying to pull of a Win, every moment of our Waking Lives.

If you think about it, the whole bipartisan deadlock (Or, as I truly hope you will join me henceforth in calling it, the Coke-Pepsi-Taste-Test-Challenge) is a way that guarantees half of America at any given time is going to wear that social stain, of the Loser. It’s a huge part of what galvanizes voters’ activity in this country, often far more so than the actual platforms candidates stand on. “My team is gonna win this time, goddammit. I’m not gonna be the loser again!” It’s easy to make fun of Trump right now, as he melts into a puddle of deflated Egomania—but he’s just like every one of us, really. Just desperately clutching onto this illusion he's cultivated about himself. That he's a 'Winner'.

We are all so afraid of losing, that many times the thrill we get when we win inflates our egos to the point that we draw more pleasure from our relishing in the defeat of the one who loses. And that doesn't happen, in a game on a field. Or in a fucking arena, where two warriors enter and only one leaves. The aspect of sportsmanship is entirely removed from the rites of competition, outside of the stadium.

And we pathologically apply this dynamic of competition into every aspect of our lives. It’s everywhere, informing everything we do. It makes us resent each other, ultimately. And it serves very well the purposes of the handful of people in the world who actually own the teams.

And this worship of the power of Dominance, whatever its miniscule reflection in our own personal lives, has enabled the rise of what has maybe become the most dangerous and wanton threat to humanity, in all recorded time. Us. The US of A.

You guys, really —what makes Iraq so different from Poland? This culture of Domination we’ve raised up around ourselves, it’s a cult of Self-worship. Its how so many Christians in this country can go around blaspheming in the name of Christ every day, without dying from some sort of aneurysm brought on by sheer cognitive dissonance.

Those ones hold another power higher.

People like to say, “It’s all about the love,” but I don’t really see a lot of love in the way our society expresses itself. In fact, we seem to believe that a man who demonstrates the kind of admirable attributes that, say, Jesus Christ or Luke Skywalker demonstrated in their narratives, is actually undeserving of a woman’s love. Nice guys finish last, in sex and in sales. It’s more than a catchy quip, my friends. It’s a form of worship.

And the force being worshipped—if you’ll excuse an Atheist the Biblical reference—is Beastly.