Ruminations 100(4) (The Year of Olokun; The Object is Not Itself): Looking Back on 2021 in Epigrams and Aphorisms

Pix Credit: Adam Klasfeld, "Derek Chauvin and Three Other Ex-Officers Plead Not Guilty to Civil Rights Charges in George Floyd's Death," Law & Crime (14 Sept 2021)

 

Eyo Olokun masquerades at the Eyo Festival in Lagos, Nigeria

 For the last several years, and with no particular purpose other than a desire to meander through reflection, I have taken the period between Christmas and New Years Eve to produce a s summary of the slice of the year to which I paid attention through epigrams and aphorisms.  It follows an end of year  tradition I started in 2016 (for those see here), 2017 (for these see here), 2018 (for those see here), 2019 (for those see here); and 2020 (for those see here).   

At the start of this year I noted, in passing on the Annual Oracle of the Ifa practitioners of Cuba, that this was to be the year of Olokun (The Orishas Speak: The 2021 Letter of the Yoruba Association of Cuba (Letra del Año para el 2021 de la Asociación Yoruba de Cuba) and My Preliminary Interpretation).

Olokun is effectively ungendered, or multi-gendered--Olokun is male or female or male-female, or not male or female or male-female. Olokun "is." He can be revered as the head of all of the manifestations of divinity connected with water and is thought to guard vast wealth at the bottom of the seas where Olokun takes residence. But that is the essence of Olokun--dark, submerged, the holder of treasure, androgynous or gender multiple.  The Patakis speak to Olukun's sense of mutual respect but also of his temper in the face of affront.

"Awa ntoro ilosiwaju lowo Olokun" (We seek prosperity from Olokun); and this year it is not coming. 

And, indeed, the year proved to be just that, a year of longing for things that could not be, of of rage for the things that had befallen. This was a year of submerged and violent temper, of the breaking of things, and people, and of the fluidity of people, places, things, and events. That rage proceeded from the top as well as form the bottom. It was a year of confinement--and of passion. It is the spirit of the oceans and the subconscious--and also the year that plague became institutionalized and its practices deeply embedded in the consciousness and practices of social ordering. That that produced rage--submerged for the most part, but rage all the same --chained and unchained, and of storms and tempests.  But it was also a year of binding. Populations confined, economies bound, and for those willing to bear its chains, the great wealth of the oceans, expressed not just in the fabulously expensive boats of those who managed to profit through global confinement, but those as well who forge and maintain the chains that now bind those who produce their wealth (material wealth, as well as the wealth flowing to those weave the narratives that bind collectives). And around all of it--rage.  

And it is in that spirit, the spirits of 2021, that the epigrams and aphorisms that follow are offered. In this part 4 we look at the way the the year revealed the way that things are not themselves. That is, 2021 and its pandemic foundation made it easier to note that objects and their meaning are neither intimately connected, not nondetachable. Objects provide the basis for signification, which then makes it possible to invest object signified with meaning.  Yet the object has no connection either with its signification or meaning other than as its predicate.  It can be detached and repurposed.  When that is undertaken for single objects with simultaneous multiple significs and meanings, then one enters the world of 2021.  Take common words--democracy, currency--and observe the way that the object (democracy as a thing or a collection of actions; currency as paper with peculiar symbols, etc.), its signification (paper is the representation of currency, etc.) and its meaning (value, process, legitimacy, norms, etc.) are each connected and yet detached from each other, The resulting complications of communications, and conflicts of meaning, provide the terrains and the tools which rage, desire, or strategy can utilize to its own ends.  And yet rage itself is also an object, a sign, and a meaning, it is an act and also its underlying cause.  It is its own justification and the boundary markers within which it may be expressed. That, in a few words, was 2021.

1.  A thing has whatever meaning someone else is willing to give it and as much value as someone is willing to pay; the thing, however remains a thing in itself even as it signifies something for someone else and acquires value-meaning for yet another.

Cryptocurrency and blue-chip art collided Thursday when a self-taught artist named Mike Winkelmann, who goes by the professional name of Beeple, sold a digital image online at Christie’s for $69.3 million. That’s more than anyone has ever bid for artwork by Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dalí or Paul Gauguin—and it makes Beeple the third most-expensive living artist after Jeff Koons and David Hockney. It’s also the most expensive digital asset to ever sell with an accompanying digital certificate of authenticity known as a non-fungible token, or NFT, according to NonFungible.com. The sale could prove a watershed moment for crypto asset markets as well as an art world suddenly obsessed with NFTs, even as many top collectors and dealers admit they are still figuring out what the digital trademarks do. NFTs incorporate technology similar to bitcoin, the decade-old digital currency, albeit with a key difference: Whereas one bitcoin is exchangeable with another bitcoin, each NFT serves as a singularly unique marker for the digital asset it tags. NFTs are also being used by tech giants like Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, who recently turned his very first tweet into an NFT, and the NBA. A trading-card like video NFT of LeBron James dunking a basketball recently sold for over $200,000. The winner of Beeple’s 2021 piece, “Everydays: The First 5,000 Days,” will receive the image along with its unique token, which will be sent to the winner’s address—the unique identifier for a cryptocurrency account. This token will convey ownership from the artist to its new owner. (Kelley Crowe and Caitlin Ostroff, "Beeple NFT Fetches Record-Breaking $69 Million in Christie’s Sale," Wall Street Journal (11 March 2021)).

2.  A thing can cease to exist as itself and exist only as a recording of itself or as transmitted to others; the object is then no more than the meaning that is possible based on the curation of the image projected; except at the instant of its creation, the object is irrelevant in itself.

The Tokyo Olympics will be held without spectators, the organizers said, after Japan declared a new state of emergency that will continue through the end of the Games due to a rise in Covid-19 infections. Hundreds of athletes and officials from around the world have already arrived for the Olympics, which open on July 23. Foreign spectators were ruled out in March, but the organizers had intended to allow stadiums and arenas to be around half capacity with local fans. More than 3.5 million tickets have been purchased by people in Japan for the Olympics, which run through Aug. 8. Most of those tickets would have remained valid. The plan was upended by a surge in infections in Japan this week, which prompted Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to put Tokyo under a state of emergency starting Monday and lasting until Aug. 22, the fourth emergency period since the start of the pandemic. Shortly after Mr. Suga declared the emergency on Thursday, representatives of Tokyo Olympic organizers, the International Olympic Committee and the Japanese government met and agreed to bar all spectators.(Alastair Gale, "Tokyo Olympics Bars Spectators as Japan Declares Covid-19 State of Emergency," The Wall Street Journal (8 July 2021)).

3. Society makes meaning when it extracts it from the bodies of its members, casting away the remaining physical husks.

Derek Chauvin was convicted of three counts, including murder charges, in the death of George Floyd, a Black man whose death last May in police custody was captured on video that went viral and set off a summer of unrest over law enforcement’s treatment of people of color. The anonymous jury deliberated for more than 10 hours over two days, and without asking the judge a single question, filed back into the Hennepin County Government Center on Tuesday afternoon to a courtroom under tight security and Covid-19 restrictions. Mr. Chauvin, 45 years old, sat impassively as Judge Peter Cahill read that he was guilty of all counts: second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter. Wearing a mask like everyone else there, the former Minneapolis police officer was handcuffed and taken out of the courtroom after the judge revoked his bail and remanded him to the Hennepin County sheriff’s office. The decision came in a city on edge from the recent killing of another Black man, Daunte Wright, by a police officer in the suburb of Brooklyn Center. A large police and National Guard presence around government buildings and along commercial corridors across the Twin Cities has been in place for days.In Minneapolis and other cities gripped by violent protests last summer, fears of another outbreak of protests eased after the jury’s decision. Police and journalists outnumbered demonstrators and bystanders who made their way to Washington, D.C.’s Black Lives Matter Plaza, where police clashed with protesters last year. Outside the courthouse in Minneapolis, sustained exuberant cheers went up. Men, women and children raised their fists and screamed their approval. A few started crying. “It’s a beautiful day in America,” said Farji Shaheer, a 41-year-old Black man who lives in Minneapolis. “It feels great to be recognized as a human being.” Minneapolis authorities lifted a curfew that had been in effect for the last week. President Biden hailed the verdict, saying the nation should seize the chance to acknowledge and confront what he called systemic racism and racial disparities in law enforcement. “We can and we must do more to reduce the likelihood that tragedies like this will ever happen or occur again,” he said. (Joe Barrett and Jacob Gershman, "Derek Chauvin Guilty of Murder in Death of George Floyd," The Wall Street Journal (20 April 2021).

4. People are objects that produce other objects; all these objects collide; the question is what results from the collisions both for the objects and those who find meaning in them.

Then, on June 10, 2020, Rowling published a lengthy post on her website and sent out a tweet that read “TERF Wars.” (TERF is an acronym that stands for trans-exclusionary radical feminist.). . . Rowling explains that she became interested in trans issues while researching a character she’s writing. Rowling also outlined “five reasons for being worried about the new trans activism.” Read her full post here. The fan backlash: Rowling’s initial tweets and her subsequent doubling down have drawn a lot of ire from trans activists and fans of Harry Potter, many of whom had found comfort in the story of an outsider finding a place where he belonged. The celebrity and industry response: Radcliffe, Harry Potter himself, was the first star from the franchise to release a statement (via the Trevor Project) about Rowling’s comments. . . .He continued, “To all the people who now feel that their experience of the books has been tarnished or diminished. I am deeply sorry for the pain these comments have caused you. I really hope that you don’t entirely lose what was valuable in these stories to you…. And in my opinion, nobody can touch that. It means to you what it means to you and I hope that these comments will not taint that too much.”. . . Also, Bonnie Wright, the actor who played the onscreen sister of Grint’s Ron, Ginny Weasley, spoke out via Twitter. “If Harry Potter was a source of love and belonging for you, that love is infinite and there to take without judgment or question. Transwomen are Women. I see and love you, Bonnie x,” she wrote. . . Her next book isn’t helping. On September 14, 2020, her latest book, Trouble Blood, sparked another round of outrage after an early review began making the rounds. The book reportedly follows a detective on the hunt for a cis male serial killer who dresses as a woman in order to hunt and murder cis women. The Telegraph’s review describes it as a “book whose moral seems to be: never trust a man in a dress,” per Pink News.

5. What is the meaning of a thing that cannot be changed to suit the times?  

"Remember why we went to Afghanistan in the first place? . . . We delivered justice to Bin laden on May 2, 2011. Over a decade ago. Al Qaeda was decimated. . . We succeeded in what we set out to do in Afghanistan over a decade ago. Then we stayed for another decade. . . This is a new world. The terror threat has metastasized across the world, well beyond Afghanistan. . . The fundamental obligation of a president, in my opinion, is to defend and protect America. Not against threats of 2001, but against the threats of 2021 and tomorrow. That is the guiding principle behind my decisions about Afghanistan." (President Joseoh Biden, Remarks 31 August 2021; quoted in  "So I do... What I do... When I'm through... Then I'm through... And I'm through... Toodle-oo!": President Biden's on the Republic's Cabaret (1972) Moment: Text of President Biden's Speech on Afghanistan Delivered 31 August 2021 Law at the End of the Day (1 September 2021).

“That was the choice, the real choice between leaving or escalating,” Mr. Biden said, his voice frequently rising to sort of an indoor shout. “I was not going to extend this forever war.” In making that argument, Mr. Biden offered a glimpse of a different American foreign policy in the post-9/11 world. He said he would shun ground wars with large troop deployments, instead favoring a strategy guided more by economic and cybersecurity competition with China and Russia and focused on countering threats with military technology that allows strikes against terrorists without having large contingents of troops based on the ground in a place like Afghanistan. (Michael D. Shear and Jim Tankersley "Biden Defends Afghan Pullout and Declares an End to Nation-Building," New York Times (7 October 2021))

6. Individuals ave merged into their archetypes; in a society that abhors stereotype, archetype reduces the individual to her socially understood essence without the bad conscience of conflating individual and collective character.

"Unless you have been living under a rock, you probably know the answer to this question: What is a Karen? Well, if you don’t, “Karen” is the not-so-nice nickname for a middle-aged woman who complains endlessly and exhibits entitled behavior—like demanding to speak to the manager. Over the last few years, Karens have been making unfortunate headlines around the world. Look up the phrase “Karen meme” and you’ll find so many examples: Soho Karen, Courtside Karen, Victoria’s Secret Karen and so on. A business comparison company out of the United Kingdom called Bionic recently decided to do a humorous new study looking into the prevalence of Karens around the globe, examining not only the countries where you are most likely to find a Karen, but also the top states in America for Karens. The company also looked at how this impacts travelers and what to do if you encounter a Karen somewhere. . . Turns out, the biggest Karens aren’t actually named Karen. According to the data, the top name for women most likely to complain around the globe—the name with the most Karen-like traits—is Louise, followed by Ann and Jane. Karen only came in at number eight on the list. “Louise is three times more Karen than Karen—responsible for 4.8% of complaints in the 1,799 reviews we analyzed on Trustpilot,” says Bionic.  . . According to Weller, Bionic’s report shows some other trends. “The report indicates that while California is the state with the highest density of Karens, the Karen phenomenon is one that is broad and universal,” says Weller. “The issue of unruly and unreasonable customers is one that affects customer-facing workers, as well as other customers, the world over.” So how does all of this impact travelers? “This Karen demographic is key for those traveling, looking to move abroad or looking to work while traveling, especially as the world opens up again and travel returns to normal,” says Weller. “The study shows that Karens are widespread, so it’s also good to travel well-armed with knowledge on how to negotiate a Karen; whether that be on the subway, in your local cafe or when starting work in a new place or country.” (Laura Begley Bloom, "Complaining Karens: Report Reveals Where You’ll Find The Most Karens In America)," Forbes (30 July 2021)

"Karen (or Ken) videos shed light on racism and ongoing harassment of people of color by white people, sometimes even their neighbors, and this “othering” of people of color is another surreptitious way of attempting to maintain a predominantly white socio-economic power structure, and effectively erecting an invisible white picket fence around their own neighborhoods. These incidents, others say, merely reveal a more explicit form or racism that permeates neighborhoods, workplaces, colleges and businesses across America. They see it as a generational transfer of white economic power that can express itself as an unfriendly neighborhood committee or a boss that overlooks a person of color for promotion. Meanwhile, some white feminists argue that the Karen video meme has gone too far, smacks of misogyny and aggressively shames women, rather than men, who may be having a bad day, or suffering from other emotional problems. Others say the Karen narrative trivializes the anger and economic disenfranchisement of a white working class that helped propel Donald Trump to the White House in 2016." (Quentin Fottrell, "Why are ‘Karens’ so angry?," Market Watch (25 May 2021)).

7. All Liaisons are each in their own way Liasons dangereuses

British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty on Wednesday of facilitating the abuse of underage girls at the hands of wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein. A federal jury deliberated for five full days before finding Maxwell guilty on five of the six counts she faced, including the sex trafficking of a minor. The 60-year-old was acquitted of enticing a minor to travel with intent to engage in illegal sexual activity. Epstein, a convicted sex offender, died in 2019 while in a Manhattan correctional facility. Throughout the trial, jurors heard from four women who accused Maxwell of luring them into Epstein's lavish homes to have sex with him and other powerful men. Over three weeks, the women described how Maxwell, who dated Epstein in the 1990s, presented herself as a friendly older sister, earning their trust with gifts and shopping sprees. Two of the women testified they were 14 years old when Maxwell coaxed them into engaging in sexual acts with Epstein. One woman testified that Maxwell was present and even participated in some of the encounters. (Jasmine Garsd and Vanessa Romo, "Ghislaine Maxwell found guilty of helping Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse girls," NPR (29 December 2021)).