Sexual Metaphors Across The Centuries

by

As a person interested in Taoism, it doesn’t take much to run into some practices and statements of a rather sexual nature. Sometimes it’s tame metaphors. Sometimes it’s hanging weights from your genitals to straighten your spine. Sometimes it’s someone writing a passive-aggressive dis about another Taoist being a huge pervert. Taoism’s diverse history has everything, including a lot of sex stuff.

One thing that I had noticed in my readings over the years was talk about “intimate union” in meditative practices – and ones that are clearly not sexual. Often it’s about joining forces, the various elements of one’s being together, sense and essence, spirit and energy, etc. Sometimes it’s simple, sometimes it’s elaborate.

(And yes, these sexual-but-not-sexual metaphors have clearly been taken as sexual in history. Taoism has also used mercury as a metaphor and it didn’t stop people from poisoning themselves.)

These sexual metaphors had often passed me by. Yes, perhaps I am “joining sense and essence” in an intimate embrace like a couple or something, but that’s just a metaphor, right? Perhaps the Metal Man takes his rightful place with his spouse. Sexual metaphors I just kind of passed by, probably because our own culture uses them.

But in time, I began to see how useful such metaphors were.

In my meditations, the “unity” of forces is a large part of the practice Breath meditation has mind resting on an ever-refining breath in partnership. My energy work is about mind resting on energy as it flows through the body. But such unities can easily be broken as any meditator knows – sometimes the mind doesn’t rest on breath (or energy) but rests on itself resting on breath (or energy). You know how it is when you’re doing the thing but also sort of knowing you’re doing the thing and it just falls apart.

I came to realize that meditating, the mind rests on something – for example, a slow and even breath. The mind sets its intent to be there with the breath, the breath ever slow and evening, and that’s its only priority. In many ways it surrenders itself completely to the breath by being there with it while the breath is there just being itself.

Then I got all those sexual metaphors because that’s perfect.

Intimate metaphors are a great metaphor for meditation practices. They capture the closeness, the surrender, the passion of connection. I’d written them off as trite and simplistic, but they were the opposite – the use of sexual or romantic metaphor fit meditation very well. I got it.

Meditation is an intimacy – as are other such practices. Sometimes you need to go to something visceral – like sex and romance – to communicate such things. Perhaps it has to be carefully phrased or used, perhaps people will get it wrong, but it fits.

I also think this is a good reminder that when reading metaphors and symbolism to remember they are oft written by people who are not you in times that are not your own. Our reactions to them are not the ones that the writers of the past expected or even considered. You have to learn to listen across the centuries.

–Xenofact

Review: The Religion of the Future

by

A friend recommended I read philosopher Roberto Mangaberia Unger’s book “The Religion of the Future.” It’s an examination of religion, religions of the past, and how we might deliberately construct one for a better future. That summary barely does it justice, so a review is most certainly in order.

Early on, Unger clearly takes religion seriously as a social force – perhaps an inseparable part of human experience. His goal is to deconstruct religious trends to see what we can learn to deliberately create a helpful religion, The Religion of the Future. It’s obviously a heavy lift, but Unger is more than ready to do so.

In examining the human condition, he argues humans confront death, groundlessness, insatiability, and belittlement. We end, we are unsolid, we can be more than we are and do more than we ever do, and it’s very humiliating. Starting from this almost-Buddhist like realization, he analyzes what he sees as three major “advanced” religious trends.

Unger classifies religions into three categories for analysis. Overcoming the World (represented by Buddhism) seeks to transcend the world. Humanizing the World (represented by Confucianism) is about building society in an all-to complex world. Struggling With the World (represented by salvation religions like Christianity) is about people being a spirit who can grow and transcend. Unger believes the Struggling With the World holds the most promise, that promise of growth and being more than we are.

I found this section the weakest of the book, ironically, because even with my limited theological knowledge, his classification as related to existing religions is far too simple. There are salvation-driven forms of Buddhism, neo-Confucian schools that tended to mysticism, and Chrisianities that were basically pagan, and so on. His take on pagan religions ignores their complexities – and indeed how many survived in various forms, such as religious Taoism.

Unger also seems wary of some syncretic trends, whereas I’d argue most religions are inherently syncretic in practice. In fact Unger’s entire effort is essentially syncretic. This wariness is just odd, even when he actually has points about specific events.

This may seem that I’m down on this section of the book, whereas I’d argue it felt incomplete. Its’ salvation (ha) is the fact that despite what I’d argue is a deliberately narrow view of religions, Unger has spot on ideas of their benefits and flaws. Several times I found myself surprised by his conclusions only to agree with him – he at least “has enough” from his classification system to go places.

Unger also seems aware of his own bias. It’s clear he comes from a Christian background and that affects him – but he also comes to the conclusion that Christianity can’t evolve into The Religion of the Future. This book also has him wrestling with ideas, repeating things he’s clearly thought through.

The other benefit is that Unger, despite being an experienced writer and philosopher, hasn’t lost the enthusiasm of a second-year philosophy student stoned out of his mind. There’s a generosity to his work, he wants to share, he wants to wrestle with ideas (Struggling with the World indeed). Even though he has areas of deep opinion about certain philosophers, he’s not coming from a position of prissy judgement. Most importantly, it’s clear that he cares about people.

After analyzing religion, Unger then goes on to propose the framework, ethics, society, and challenges of an ideal Religion of the Future. I’d say this part of the book is superior to his initial analysis as he’s constructing an effective framework, though I’d have liked more historic examples. Critique aside, Unger opens up even more.

The funny thing is that ultimately Unger’s proposal reads as – dare I say it – a kind of syncretism. His confrontation with the instability of human existence more than echoes Buddhism. His emphasis on creating a functional society resonates with Confucianism and humanism. The ultimate goal is an evolution, a Salvation.

His Religion of the Future is a very pro-human religion, emphasizing what he calls Deep Freedom, the basis of a society that evolves and grows and encourages that in all people. To Unger – and more power to him I say – the goal of religion is a happier society and happier people who can reinvent themselves, and include as many people as possible. Each human is an embodied spirit, an infinite potential, to be given space to evolve and to connect to each other in love and cooperation.

However his proposals, though often abstract, are neither naive nor bereft of action. He has plenty of thoughts, from a general belief in limited market forces to the need for wide-scale education. He recognizes the flaws, often brutal, in society and religions – and he’s not here to make excuses.

He gives you an outline, albeit one that is hard to summarize unless you’re, well, him. Unger needs to release a condensed outline of his book, similar to Timothy Snyder’s On Freedom. This review indicates how hard it is to summarize easily as you’ll notice how general had to be.

It’s obvious that, flaws aside, I’d argue this book is well worth reading. Unger’s commitment to his cause, thoughtfulness, concern for humanity, all come together to create something special. I could argue with many things (yes, oft related to Taoism and syncretism), but I’d say he and I are about 80% on the same page. You might have a different 80% than me, but my guess is you’ll find yourself agreeing with him more often than not.

However, again fair warning, the book is deep and verbose. It is not written for everyone – it’s for people deep into philosophy and religion and applying it.. You might want to read a preview or borrow a copy to see if it’s for you.

As for me, it was well worth it. My copy is marked up with a bunch of those small page-stickers people use to mark passages without writing on the book. I’ll be reviewing it in time – and I rather imagine you’ll be reading some of what it inspires here.

May we, as Unger says, live so we die only once. As he closes out this book, he hopes we have a religion where how we live lets us “be deathless, temporarily.”

–Xenofact

Nobody Knows What Things Are For

by

A while ago someone on Mastodon posted a comment about how people “Don’t know what things are for” when it comes to our so-called leaders. I mean yeah some people know how to make money, but don’t know why things are. They try to get money out of things but don’t care or know.

That kept sitting in my head. People “not knowing what something is for.”

I used to enjoy the show “Dirty Jobs” because it gave me a view into how things worked – what they were for. After watching some poor roadwork in the city I lived in, I took an interest in urban planning and learned more about what things are for. As a Project Manager, I am about getting things done, about what things are for.

And that’s me. I’m sure you have had plenty of experience knowing “what things are for” on the job, in your hobbies, in your life. Some of us grow up in places where it’s part of the fabric of life, from farms to ports to plain historic cities. A lot of us know what things are for.

And, when you know what things are for, you also realize that yes, that person I mentioned was right. A lot of people don’t know what things are for and are making at best bad decisions – at worse just destroying things for greed. Usually seems to be the latter.

Once you see it, it’s hard to unsee it. Communities with people and history fearing data centers will drain their power and water, making them not a place just a host. Farms vanishing into giant agribusinesses. The stock market is even more gambling than it ever ones, and real gambling via online apps seems to turn the world into a casino and not a world. Things are stopping being what they are and are just about money or fame or clicks.

It’s a socio-cultural-economic gray goo. It’s turning things into nothing by people who don’t know what things are for.

But when things stop being what they are, then people stop being anything. Who are you in a world where your job is to train a so-called AI to replace you? Where’s a community when it’s just Influencers selling to each other? Who are you in a world where people don’t know what anything is for?

When no one knows what things are for, then people cease being people.

It’s a peculiarly meaningless world some of our so-called leaders have and want. No wonder so many of them seem so empty and angry – their lives are meaningless. No wonder so many of them fall into conspiratorial politics and grandiose racisms, trying to look for some meaning as well as explaining away people hating them. These people who don’t know what anything are for want to be something, something more than nepo babies or knob twiddlers who got lucky.

Those that build a world not knowing what anything is for aren’t anyone.

–Xenofact