Parmenides states that all of the cosmos is One Being, the Monad, eternal and unchangeable.
Therefore there can be only one gender, which I henceforth baptize "Unending Jig-a-Jig".
Any deviation from this doctrine, positing that there may be two or more genders, is dangerous deviationism, correponding to Parmenides' "Way of Opinion", the crappy doxa of "ignorant night".
Its proponents must be pelted with illusory mud and gravel until they change their minds to the correct Unitary Way.
I loved reading your piece, Carolyn. I loved hearing you read it even more - I'm with Robin, I wish I could have seen it performed live. Gender really *is* everywhere, all the time, seeping into everything like water through rock. Thank you for your brilliant words 💜
Caroline, Thanks for sharing it. I particularly enjoyed this part: "There’s no flowers and weeds, but an abundance of forms." How true and how sharp. Hope you're doing well this week, Caroline-
I love the fact that diversity in the natural world is survival...the more diversity the better. Funny more human beings aren't onto that yet. As in, stupid.
I think diversity is to be found in the interplay of yin and yang. If I called them 'male & female' forces, or 'masculine & feminine' forces, I'd probably be shot down in flames. I really enjoyed hearing an English voice narrating the poem (being English I'm prejudiced against the dominance of Americanism taking over the internet and the world in general).
On gender (about which I'm old-school, and aware I'm talking to someone who has taught this subject) I'd just like to say that most identity crises of children/teenagers have nothing to do with gender - and I object to the growing trend of framing 'identity' issues as mainly to do with gender. {I hope that's incoherent enough to be welcomed... :) }
Thanks Joshua. I'm over 60 now, and remembering here how I felt as a 1960s and 1970s child, to whom that binary gender made no sense - as social structure that was so rigidly enforced, or as a way to imagine myself. I was always both/and or neither/ nor. Finally the world caught up enough for people like me to breathe and live. Growing understandings and scientific discoveries in biology and ecology have helped us all understand this as absolutely normal. I'm grateful and in this piece I put those things together.
Thank you for the reply. I'm 68 so I can remember my own feelings of 'foreignness' of the LGBQ community as 'not my tribe'. I accept a sliding scale on these matters, and have grown to accept it more and more over the years and have friends with all sorts of self-definitions. I live amongst the ageing-hippy-off-grid-unvaxxed-back-to-the-land community in central Portugal.
What I am not comfortable with is vociferous minorities who try and push their world-view onto others - whether they be evangelical christians or elite-billionaire-psychopaths or newspaper-media-owners or whoever. I'm all for living life as one likes it, without any interference from governmenrts or people who claim to know "what's what". I think that fits in with your experience of the world eventually catching up enough so you can "breathe and live" - progress is possible in some areas of life at least.
Anyway, I'm glad to make your acquaintance via substack and wish you all the best. (PS: I was also an academic, and in the year 2000 gave up my plum-job-professorship (much to the consternation of my colleagues) and did so because I wanted to do something more interesting with my life, and to discover if their was anything truly original in me that I could bring forth to the world).
That's an interesting story. Glad to connect. As ex academics, as people who don't love the system and also in great curiosity about the people who have shifted to Portugal. There's a few on here. We're living through quite a moment.
Indeed, living through the degenerative phase of a civilisation (Jean Gepser) is quite a challenge. Then again, my parents lived through WW2 and my grand-parents through both wars. Their whole lives were turned upside-down - and war-trauma passed down to the next generation ... :) making healing the family-tree part of my life-journey.
Parmenides states that all of the cosmos is One Being, the Monad, eternal and unchangeable.
Therefore there can be only one gender, which I henceforth baptize "Unending Jig-a-Jig".
Any deviation from this doctrine, positing that there may be two or more genders, is dangerous deviationism, correponding to Parmenides' "Way of Opinion", the crappy doxa of "ignorant night".
Its proponents must be pelted with illusory mud and gravel until they change their minds to the correct Unitary Way.
Right, that's gender sorted. What else ya got?
The free verse was amazing. Very well done. Wish I could see it performed live.
I loved reading your piece, Carolyn. I loved hearing you read it even more - I'm with Robin, I wish I could have seen it performed live. Gender really *is* everywhere, all the time, seeping into everything like water through rock. Thank you for your brilliant words 💜
Caroline, Thanks for sharing it. I particularly enjoyed this part: "There’s no flowers and weeds, but an abundance of forms." How true and how sharp. Hope you're doing well this week, Caroline-
Absolutely flourishing Thalia, and hope life is being good to you too. Thank you. X
I love the fact that diversity in the natural world is survival...the more diversity the better. Funny more human beings aren't onto that yet. As in, stupid.
I think diversity is to be found in the interplay of yin and yang. If I called them 'male & female' forces, or 'masculine & feminine' forces, I'd probably be shot down in flames. I really enjoyed hearing an English voice narrating the poem (being English I'm prejudiced against the dominance of Americanism taking over the internet and the world in general).
On gender (about which I'm old-school, and aware I'm talking to someone who has taught this subject) I'd just like to say that most identity crises of children/teenagers have nothing to do with gender - and I object to the growing trend of framing 'identity' issues as mainly to do with gender. {I hope that's incoherent enough to be welcomed... :) }
Thanks Joshua. I'm over 60 now, and remembering here how I felt as a 1960s and 1970s child, to whom that binary gender made no sense - as social structure that was so rigidly enforced, or as a way to imagine myself. I was always both/and or neither/ nor. Finally the world caught up enough for people like me to breathe and live. Growing understandings and scientific discoveries in biology and ecology have helped us all understand this as absolutely normal. I'm grateful and in this piece I put those things together.
Thank you for the reply. I'm 68 so I can remember my own feelings of 'foreignness' of the LGBQ community as 'not my tribe'. I accept a sliding scale on these matters, and have grown to accept it more and more over the years and have friends with all sorts of self-definitions. I live amongst the ageing-hippy-off-grid-unvaxxed-back-to-the-land community in central Portugal.
What I am not comfortable with is vociferous minorities who try and push their world-view onto others - whether they be evangelical christians or elite-billionaire-psychopaths or newspaper-media-owners or whoever. I'm all for living life as one likes it, without any interference from governmenrts or people who claim to know "what's what". I think that fits in with your experience of the world eventually catching up enough so you can "breathe and live" - progress is possible in some areas of life at least.
Anyway, I'm glad to make your acquaintance via substack and wish you all the best. (PS: I was also an academic, and in the year 2000 gave up my plum-job-professorship (much to the consternation of my colleagues) and did so because I wanted to do something more interesting with my life, and to discover if their was anything truly original in me that I could bring forth to the world).
That's an interesting story. Glad to connect. As ex academics, as people who don't love the system and also in great curiosity about the people who have shifted to Portugal. There's a few on here. We're living through quite a moment.
Indeed, living through the degenerative phase of a civilisation (Jean Gepser) is quite a challenge. Then again, my parents lived through WW2 and my grand-parents through both wars. Their whole lives were turned upside-down - and war-trauma passed down to the next generation ... :) making healing the family-tree part of my life-journey.
Thank you for following me. I post a poem once a fortnight on a Sunday. You might like this one: https://joshuabondpoetry.substack.com/p/mrs-noah