Tag Archives | Culture

Cultural Shifts And Styles To Come In The 2010s

By on January 2, 2013 in News 6

As we begin 2013, here’s DIS Magazine looking forward to our happy, creepy future:

For humanity, gender bending will extend down generationally, all the way to the unborn. Gender for infants will be predetermined and hormone treatments will become standard treatment for children who reject their pre-natal assignments. Trannies will subsequently grow in numbers and be afforded a great deal of respect—especially transgendered pop stars.

Clearly, the current trend of heterosexual promiscuity will continue to accelerate in direct proportion to the rise in gay monogamy. “Republican sex” (formerly known as “the missionary position”) will become a popular term and it will be considered the most risqué, dirty sex a pervert could ever have.

Animal farming will soon reel from unfathomable scandal and animals will develop severe eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia. Animal obesity will also become a chronic issue. Domesticated family pets will deal with these same emotional eating issues due to the simple truth that these diseases are psychologically contagious and animals are psychic.

… Read the rest

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Are Shooting Spree Killers Following A Cultural Script?

By on December 31, 2012 in News 7

Via the Public Library of Science, Daniel Lende on the need to understand horrific mass shooting as a cultural practice with underlying meaning, rather than as anomalous, randomized insanity:

Paul Mullen, the esteemed Australian forensic psychologist, invokes cultural scripts as central to understanding why young men like James Holmes, Anders Breivik, and Jared Loughnerdo what they do. It is not because they are insane, some idea that seized them from the inside. Rather, they act out something – and the young men who do so are not random members of society, but have definable characteristics.

Mullen compares these mass killings to the Malaysian amok, a recognized “culture-bound syndrome” often defined as a “spree of killing and destruction (as in the expression “run amok”) followed by amnesia or fatigue.” (For more references, [search] Google Scholar for “amok Malaysia”.

Mullen also counters the common explanation in the United States and elsewhere that these killers must somehow be insane or mad.

… Read the rest

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Five More Possibly Upcoming Apocalypses To Provoke Panic

By on December 26, 2012 in News 4

We may have dodged a bullet with the end of the Mayan long count calendar, but we’re not out of the woods yet. Via Addicting Info, several other compelling ancient doomsday prophesies may be approaching, including the Norse Ragnarök, Nostradamus’ Last Days,  the Hindu Kali Yuga, and even the Zoroastrian apocalypse:

Yes, they have one, too. It is supposed to occur 3000 years after Zoroaster was born but since there is some dispute about that, who knows when it will happen? The whole thing will begin when the sun and moon are no longer seen and a long, dark winter kicks in. The usual fading of morality and religious values and such will darken our doorstep.

Then a big demon will break out of the cavern its been held trapped in and it will eat 1/3 of the world’s population. Then a virgin will bathe in a lake in which the long-ago ejaculated seed of Zoroaster is still alive and she’ll get pregnant and give birth to the savior figure, Saoshyant.

… Read the rest

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Senate Bill Proposed To Study And Possibly Crack Down On Video Game Violence

By on December 25, 2012 in News 23

Congressional Republicans poised to censor video games to ensure that a massacre at a school never happens again. In all honesty I thought kids just played Angry Birds nowadays. IGN reports:

A proposed bill could lead to a study of the role of violence in video games. In the wake of the recent shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, West Virginia senator Jay Rockefeller has proposed a bill to study “the impact of violent content, including video games and video programming, on children.”

In a statement posted to his site, Rockefeller wrote “I have long expressed concern about the impact of the violent content our kids see and interact with every day. As Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, I have introduced legislation to direct the National Academy of Sciences to investigate the impact of violent video games and other content on children’s well-being.”

Under the bill, the National Academy of Sciences “would be directed to conduct a comprehensive study and investigation of the connection between violent video games and violent video programming and harmful effects on children.” Rockefeller also noted plans to call upon the FCC and FTC to “expand their work in this area.”

… Read the rest

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Crazy People Make Sense

By on December 9, 2012 in News 2

Picture: Aries Author (CC)

Quinn O’Neill writes at 3quarksdaily:

Given the amount of senseless and stupid behavior that we perceive, it might seem outrageous to claim that people – all people – make perfect sense. The crux of my argument rests on the idea that behaviors are caused, and to the extent that they are caused – fully, I believe – they will always make sense if the causal factors are understood.

This seems to be the approach that we intuitively take when we observe unusual behavior in animals. We don’t blame the animal and label it a dumbass, we assume there’s something causing the behavior, like an illness, the presence of another animal, or the animal’s having been trained by humans. A bizarre behavior could also have a strong genetic component; maybe it’s evolved because it’s adaptive or maybe it’s the result of a spontanteous deleterious mutation. In any case, we’re likely to attribute the behavior to material causes rather than to blame the animal.

… Read the rest

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The Labyrinth: Slaying the Minotaur of Ego

By on December 2, 2012 in News 2

Picture: "Theseus Fighting the Minotaur" by Etienne Jules Ramey – Photo by Jastrow (PD)

Mark Dotson at Soul Spelunker deciphers the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur in the context of transformational psychology and Western culture. You might enjoy it, provided you’re not too bull-headed.

Soul Spelunker:

The Labyrinth is like the infinite depths of Soul. If one falls into it, it can very difficult to find one’s way out again. Many do not and must spend the rest of their lives in asylums. The Minotaur is like the out-of-control Ego we are so accustomed to seeing in Western society, especially in America. Its self-aggrandizing hunger for power and wealth is insatiable. Its name is Asterios, or “Star.” Ego loves the spotlight. It wants to be the brightest star in the human psyche. Many so-called stars in our culture are egomaniacs. It is the nature of Ego to tend to over-inflation.

… Read the rest

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Strange Sexual Taboos Around The World

By on December 2, 2012 in News, stories 10

Via Mind Hacks, a brief tour of cultural sex taboos:

The Cuna of Panama approve of sexual relations only at night in accordance with the laws of God. The Semang of Malaysia believe that sex during the day will cause thunderstorms and deadly lightning, leading to drowning of not only the offending couple but also of other innocent people. And the West African Bambara believe that a couple who engage in sex during the day will have an albino child.

Sometimes, sex is prohibited in certain places. The Mende of West Africa forbid sexual intercourse in the bush, while the Semang condemn sex with camp boundaries for fear that the supernatural will become angry. Among the Bambara, engaging in sexual relations out of doors will lead to the failure of crops.

Sex taboos can also apply to certain activities. Often, sex prohibitions are associated with war or economic pursuit. The Ganda of Uganda forbid sexual intercourse the night before battle.

… Read the rest

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3,500 Year-Old Historical Monument Destroyed by Morons

By on November 24, 2012 in News 19

Picture: Jproy2101 (CC)

“We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children” – Native American proverb

Petroglyphs look not unlike the hieroglyphs you see carved onto the walls of pyramids. They’re used to pass on the spiritual teachings of Native Americans from generation to generation. There are some etched on cliffs in the Eastern Sierra that have been there for more than three and a half thousand years. The region is known as Volcanic Tableland and it is held sacred by the Paiute-Shoshone tribe. According to The LA Times a gang of thieves have now, in a matter of hours, cut at least four of the sacred monuments down and successfully stolen them away. Apparently two others were seriously damaged and dozens more scarred with clumsy hammer blows and saw cuts. These monuments are some of the oldest treasures in the United States:

“The individuals who did this were not surgeons, they were smashing and grabbing,” U.S.

… Read the rest

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Poetic Re-Evolution: Reality Sandwich Interviews Jodorowsky and Montadon

By on November 22, 2012 in News 0

Sophie Pinchetti interviews filmmaker and artist Alejandro Jodorowsky and his wife and artist Pascale Montandon for Reality Sandwich (originally from the magazine, THE THIRD EYE):

Created by four hands, a third artist is born. The artistic communion, first drawn by Jodorowsky and then infused with colour by Montandon, levitates between fantasy, tragedy, humor and spirituality — all of which recall the essence of mysticism and symbolic theatrics in Jodorowsky’s films.
Sophie Pinchetti:  Your collaborative work seems to converge around spirituality. Where does your interest come from? 

Alejandro Jodorowsky: Spirituality is abstract. True art leads you to the discovery of your spirit. It’s not the quest, it’s the application, the practice of spirituality.

Pascale Montandon: In the same way I was simply going to say that it is a way of being in the world, a way of living. And obviously when you do an artistic work, the material of work is oneself.

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Here Come The Men in Black

By on November 16, 2012 in News 2

Picture: "RadioKirk" (CC)

LiveScience explores UFO buffs’ stories of the mysterious Men in Black.

Were any of these stories true? It is of course possible that at some point dark-suited men from government agencies made inquiries into UFO reports; there was, after all, an Air Force program that investigated flying saucer claims in the 1950s called Project Blue Book. Government officials (including those with the military, police, Secret Service, FBI, or IRS, for example) are sometimes known to throw their weight around and intimidate people, even unintentionally. Of course, hoaxing a Men in Black encounter would be very simple, and require nothing more than three somber, dark-suited pranksters to menace a UFO eyewitness. [The Real Men in Black: Secret Service Agents (Infographic)]

Mysterious, authoritative, and menacing figures dressed in black are hardly unique to UFO mythology. In fact, folklore from around the world often describe such figures as representing Satan or other dark forces.

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