Métis Hope 40

David Shrigley
Métis Hope 40: I hope that you can find a way through today. 

In my culture

Finished up Bruno Latour's book, "On the Modern Cult of the Factish Gods".  I am just going to speak to the middle chapter here as the last one hurt my head too much.  This middle chapter is called "What is Iconoclash?" and he defines Iconoclash as the moment or state of being where the viewer does not know what value to ascribe to an experience/thing.  Is the glass breaker a burglar or a fireman?  Until we have further information and apply lenses of interpretation - maybe they have a fire fighter uniform or the building is on fire - we are unsure of how to situate this thing before us.  This process of interpretation can itself be a contested space.  Religious or thought leaders might want to sell a particular lens.  The artist may play with our expectations in order to deliberately create a moment of crisis.  Destruction may be the key to new creation.  These elements mean that this space may be simultaneously uncomfortable while also being a space of potential creation and action.  This is the space between "transcendence" and "construction".




Latour explicitly speaks to the modern urge to see science and science facts as being transcendent and untouched by human hands, but if this were the case and hands were not able to reach truth, can science exist?  Can it, he asks, make something more truthful by acknowledging that it is created and understanding how it came to be?  Are we not be better worshipers when we can understand where the object of worship has arisen from?  Doesn't science still provide insight into our lives even when we know its histories and influences?  It is well known at this point that he observer influences the observed phenomena - can we stop being scared of that or pretending that it is a falsehood?  As we choose to engage in understanding how the "truth" is made, can we be closer to the truth? Maybe the truth/lie dichotomy does not serve us well.




He then categorizes the different responses to this space of iconoclash based on the roles the participants play.  Do I aim to free you from your false beliefs as I have better beliefs or do I not believe in belief at all?  He uses art as an example.  Can you create new art or is it all bound to be in reaction to what has come previously?  Many of us don't go to church, but literature and art still carry the references to these stories.  Are you a Judas?  Cast from Eden?  Stuck in a David and Goliath situation?  We can recognize the strings that connect us to the wider narrative or we can burry our heads in the sand.  But do we then risk creating a new god of the sand to protect us from scary questions?




His answer, which leads into the last section of the book is that, "...thou shall not freeze frame..."  We must always remain aware that a particular idea or thing we are engaged with has a whole history and we can't know it by one frozen moment, rather we must exist with these ideas or things and come to know them.  Again I am left feeling like that was a lot of words to come back to a pretty basic indigenous world view.  We exist together with all that came before and after us and we are related to all.  It is all relational and I do not exist alone.  What I find amusing is that when Bruno Latour sets this out it is science and philosophy and something proper from the western intellectual tradition, but it feels like when indigenous people say it, then it is a sort of quaint belief from a people who don't know any better.  I say that not to take away from Latour, but as a question to myself and a challenge as I think about my intellectual life.

Métis Hope 39

Link
Métis Hope 39: I hope we can be welcoming to our relations as they get used to city living.

Difficult decisions

I took a couple of days off and hung out at home to make progress on some projects and talking with Joel.  Runa is having a very hard time with her anxiety and she is missing so much school that we came around to talking about home schooling.  It is appealing as it gives us more time with Runa, reduces everyone's stress and gives us time to explore different kinds of learning, including a heavier focus on indigenous subjects.  It was a little scary and sad to make this decision.  Scary to walk away from school for a while and take that responsibility for ourselves.  It is sad that Runa is in such a hard place. 


At the same time we made the decision to move Sophie into a different school.  She is not having a good experience where she is, they are not supporting her learning needs and they are difficult to engage with (having no phone or email access) and the friends she went with are making her life miserable.  She also reported a teacher who is being homophobic, which has made her really uncomfortable.  This stuff is on top of her concern with the religious stuff (it is a Catholic School) and the high cost of a cab for the days where she misses the bus.


Joel and I both have a lot of negative feelings about our experiences with school and as we look at what is happening to our kids and family and we needed to make some changes.  Why is it so scary to step of the "normal path"?  This past week as we have been establishing a learning routine, we had time to answer and ask so many questions, "Why is there racism?", "Why do leaves turn colours?", "Why was Louie Riel hung?" We played word and number games, collected leaves and sewed curtains.  I felt very connected to the ancestors thinking of them teaching their children as they went through their days, answering questions and sharing experiences.  It was a good weekend.

Métis Hope 38

Ana Elisa Egreja
Métis Hope 38: I hope the relations in your bedroom are pleasant or at least colour coordinated.

Métis Fear 161

"Captain Hook" by Jenny Parks
Métis Fear 161: the veneer of civilization is thinner for some of us.

Métis Fear 160

Katerina Plotnikova
Métis Fear 160: wearing fur is cruel.  How bored will your fox get after a couple of hours on your head?