I found this piece that makes the points I was trying to make very clearly.

Enter Paradoxical Reality

Yesterday, Alexander Bard, Owen Cox, Raven Connolly and I entered The Stoa to respond to the video/dialogos around Game B, from a “Dark Renaissance” perspective. You can find our video here: Game B: A Dark Renaissance Response.

Here I would just like to reaffirm in written form some of the basic points I wanted to make in the video, both for clarity and in openness to future dialogue.

First, to set the scene, I want to offer two quotes. The first is a definition of Game B from Peter Limberg, and the other a definition of the Dark Renaissance from myself. According to Limberg, Game B (inclusive of its relation to Game A) is:

“Game A is the collective game that the world is playing, that will come to an end, if we continue to play it, we will self-terminate as a species, Game B is a new game, that we don’t know what it looks like, but their is a glimpse or a sense of what it could be.”

In contrast, the Dark Renaissance is:

“The Dark Renaissance is a broader potential artistic, philosophical and religious movement which seeks to reveal, affirm, confront, transform the more disturbing aspects of the human condition as the only way to organize society truthfully.”

These two definitions are not necessarily in a zero-sum competition. However, there are some dimensions of the narrative structure of Game B, which from my point of view, need serious philosophical reflection and reorientation, in light of the ideas of the Dark Renaissance.

The first is that — and as I would like to make clear is my main point — that the very logical structure of “Game A versus Game B” is itself problematic as a starting point. This sets up thinking for an ideological trap. We often set up simplistic narratives and oppositions, whether consciously or unconsciously, to bring thinking to an end in an impossibly clear and certain identity.

Whereas the definition of Game B points towards an openness and an uncertainty (i.e. “a new game, that we don’t know what it looks like, but their is a glimpse or a sense of what it could be”), it does this against the backdrop of a certain and known enemy (i.e. “Game A is the collective game the world is playing, that will come to an end, if we continue playing it, we will self-terminate as a species” etc.). Consequently, as soon as Game B attempts to represent itself to a popular or a broader audience, as it did in “Game B: An Initiation”, it falls into the trap of a utopian reification of an other identity. The A versus B structure is simply too simple:

Game A = bad, i.e. you are parasitized, competitive, far-from-equilibrium, separated, exclusive, rivalrous, dominating, lead to certain death

Game B = good, i.e. you are non-parasitized (wise/wisdom centers open?), cooperative, thriving, whole, no longer excluding or dominating or rivalrous

What if we are all parasitized from within? What if we cannot get rid of competition? What if our society is inherently far-from-equilibrium? What if separation, exclusion, rivalry, domination and death are features of our existence, and not bugs-in-the-Game-A-machine?

In any case, what happens very quickly with “A vs. B” thinking is that you fall into the basic temporality of ideology that has recurred and recurred in many different conceptual frameworks:

We were in a state of wholeness (oneness), and we need to return to a state of wholeness (oneness)

This basic temporality gains its legitimacy in the form of a simplified enemy-obstacle, that emerged to break the unity, and that needs to be banished to reclaim the unity:

Game A is the game “everyone is playing”, it is the source of all our troubles, and once we get rid of it, we will be in wholeness/harmony

Such a structure of A vs. B is the opposite of real thinking, and the opposite of what is needed to approach the very real need to (maybe) think “a new game, that we don’t know what it looks like, but their is a glimpse or a sense of what it could be”

In order to really think such a “new game” where we “don’t know” but “sense what it could be”, I would claim we need to learn dialectical thinking, and we need to learn how to apply this mode of thinking, to our unconscious thinking. Dialectical thinking operates on the logic of A=B. That is, dialectical thinking operates on the logic that embodies self-referential paradox. In applying dialectical thinking to unconscious thinking, we are willing to bring our thought in relation to the knowledge in ourself that we do not know, but which shapes or overdetermines our entire horizon of political action. In other words, we bring our thought to the fact that we are split from within, by a conscious and an unconscious knowing, and often this split reveals opposite desires and drives, which are in turn, often, irreconcilable and contradictory.

From this point of view, we are not in the temporality of “now we are in Game A, but soon we will be saved in Game B”; we are instead in the temporality of “reality is fundamentally paradoxical and split within itself: A=B”. From this point of view, we need to educate the types of minds that are capable of embodying and working with paradox, first within themselves, and secondly, within the intimate networks and communities that they build with others. What is at stake here is nothing like a utopian emancipatory space free of conflict, rivalry, separation, and so forth; but the “potential” for a “broader artistic, philosophical and religious movement which seeks to reveal, affirm, confront, transform the more disturbing aspects of the human condition as the only way to organize society truthfully.”

In order to truly become an artist, or a philosopher or a religious subject, one must be capable of being the type of knower that can embody paradox, first within oneself, and second within the intimate networks and communities, that one builds with others. This demands the logic of A=B, not A vs. B. This should be applied to this very article and this very “Dark Renaissance critique of Game B”. We are not here saying that the basic motive or desire of Game B is inherently wrong. Not at all. We as a species really are approaching global problems that may involve self-terminating dimensions. However, we are saying that there needs to be deeper self-reflection, deeper recognition of paradox, to raise the possibilities that we cultivate the form of knowing to enter a new world. This form of knowing is a form of knowing that cannot “jump to the end” with the vision of a “utopian wholeness”, but rather must “tarry with the thing”, which is the same thing as saying it must “work contradiction of its present moment”. What is essential here is that this tarrying with and working contradiction involves the irreducibility of intimate social reality. The typical intellect, the type of intellect that sets up Game A vs. Game B dynamics, does this precisely to avoid the irreducibility of intimate social reality, where we find the irreducibility of A=B.

To this end, I want to simply echo some of the core points that my “partners in dialogos” emphasized throughout their critique of Game B, as they relate to this dimension of staying with paradox and contradiction of identity.

Raven Connolly started off the session by making the core point that you cannot eliminate conflict from life. She warns that if you do, you end up with a lifeless world without the conditions of possibility for art, without the conditions of possibility to build the type of characters that can really withstand the real complexity of the world, and without the conditions of possibility to recognize our drives and incompleteness. She would later go on to emphasize that this drive and this incompleteness lies at the very heart of our sexual identities, where our very root-origin travels through us, from the genitals to the mind. How do we really channel this energy, in its enormous power? In its seemingly endless capacity for transformation?

Owen Cox started off the session by making the core (Nietzschean) point that we are a tension between “Apollonian” and “Dionysian” drives, and that the Apollonian drive has a tendency to reify a perfect political order at the expense of the Dionysian drive. Here, in this very tension, one could argue the real impulses and capacities for art emerge in the first place (and not from wholeness). When one accepts the tension between the Apollonian-Dionysian drives, we end up with a much more paradoxical character, an A=B character, where sex, power, conflict, cannot be eliminated, but rather worked with, to mature our characters and our capacities to deal with the real complexity of the world (to connect this with Raven’s main point). Owen later makes the point that, intellectuals should take more time to think the very edge of these zones of tension, where tantric forms of subjectivity and organizations, disrupt their identities from within their inner masculine and feminine, and create new artistic modes of being.

Alexander Bard started off the session by framing this same tension with the language of the “Boy Pharaoh” and the “Pillar Saint”. The Boy Pharaoh is the man who loves his body, but hates his mind (from Muhammed to Hitler); the Pillar Saint is the man who loves his mind, but hates his body (from Plato to Zuckerberg). For Bard, it is the failures of these types of men that have led to the reaction to a cynically nihilistic world (“post-modernism”), which cannot really think the masculine, which is not capable of navigating the split between body and mind. For Bard, “liminal spaces” like metamodernism or integralism, are capable of moving from cynical nihilism to ironic nihilism, but cannot take the necessary next step, that is: affirmative nihilism. Affirmative nihilism would be the emergence of the men who can recognize within themselves the tendency to either become “Boy Pharaoh” or “Pillar Saint”, and mature it (reveal, affirm, confront, transform it). In this maturation they can rather admire what they lack. For the man who loves his body but hates the mind, he would be able to admire the genius of the smarter men; for the man who loves his mind but hates his body, he would be able to admire the talent and force of the more physical men.

For my part, it is confronting these main points from Raven, Owen and Bard, that force the emergence of intellects that can ultimately confront sexual division (first within themselves, and then in the society at large). As Bard warns, this is necessary to prevent the continued escalation of the gender wars. I think what underlies all of the “meta” intellectual spaces is the inability (or the simple unwillingness) to think the real of sexual division (for more, see: Sexual Division, A Problem in Ontology). As Bard also suggests, perhaps the real problem of our time is not global warming or atomic weapons, but the very rift at the heart of our social order. What we see is an increasing inability to navigate sexual division. Confronting sexual division also means confronting A=B dynamics, where we have the appearance of two irreducible opposites which must be thought together as a paradox. The literal reproduction of the species and the maturation of the species, lies at this very divisive locus.

We cannot eliminate men, we should cultivate a “masculinity of the real”; we cannot eliminate women, we should cultivate an acceptance of a “femininity of the real” (Raven makes this point beautifully in the dialogos). Note here that the language “masculinity/femininity of the real” is not the same as “real men” or “real women”, and points towards the capacity for adult sexual identities to deal with self-referential incompleteness and paradox. Perhaps, from this standpoint, we could approach “a new game, that we don’t know what it looks like, but their is a glimpse or a sense of what it could be”. But this standpoint is dark. This standpoint involves a dark renaissance. It involves a movement “which seeks to reveal, affirm, confront, transform the more disturbing aspects of the human condition as the only way to organize society truthfully.” What could be birthed from such a movement, is the emergence of real artists, philosophers and religious subjectivity.

In a society that births real artists, philosophers and religious subjectivity, perhaps we could have real societies capable of tarrying and working with the paradoxes that we are, instead of once more entering the ideological combat of A vs. B.

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Idealism and Psychoanalysis

Victor, cute that you repurposed Nora’s phrase in your message there. Did you notice she is one of the co-producers of the video? I doubt she would agree that the video is BS or colonial as hell. I suppose there might be some merit to the rest of your critique, but I do think you’re misrepresenting and kind of straw-manning the messages.

From: theory of knowledge society discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Victor MacGill
Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2022 10:48 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: TOK An Initiation to Game~B

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of JMU. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.

HI All,

I finally got around to look at the video.

It BS always was

and its Colonial as hell.

I haven't looked at Game B before. I think there is something about it that felt like a new label stuck on same old stuff and I put off reading about it. All I know about Game B is what was on the video., so if that misrepresents Game B then I got it wrong.

The video buys into the old story of everything started out perfect and wonderful. Everyone co-operated and lived in harmony, then evil came - the parasite entered and turned humanity's heart to greed and hate and competition, but we can change it, get rid of the evil and live in a new co-operating utopia. This is Riane Eisler's Kurgan hordes who came and destroyed everything that had been so perfect and we can create a new partnership way.

The parasite is in the story from the beginning. It is baked into the pie never to be separated from it again. The serpent was always in the Garden of Eden, just not activated. The honeymoon is always great, that nice time when we can pretend everything is wonderful but everything that unfolds comes from what is already present in the honeymoon.

As a living system or an organisation is born and grows difference is low, requisite variety is low, opportunity is high. It is easy for the organism to grow, My men's group has 8 people in it. We can all sit and talk through anything that comes up. We have time to listen to everyone and come to a consensus. It all feels easy, but if there were 200 people in the group we could not do it. As difference and requisite variety grows opportunity increases, but so too does conflict - difference to be resolved. Conflict is an opportunity, but when the conflict is not resolved in positive ways, it leads to abuse and violence.

Exponential growth cannot continue forever, there will always be constraining factors that pull it back. Increased difference also creates increased inequality to be resolved and whatever entropy a living system cannot contain and bring to order it dumps on others - and the other in itself.

For as long as we create a dualistic spilt good-evil, co-operate-compete, autonomy-connectivity, we perpetuate all the old myths that perpetuate the colonial dream of getting rid of evil to create utopia and its all about the evil over there rather than I have seen the enemy and he is us.

Our capacity for violence comes from our ape ancestors. It's how they survived all those millennia. It was never not there. This is actually the core thesis of the book I put into this group a few days back. And thank you because the Game B video has clarified my understanding of my thesis so I can now rewrite it to be much stronger.

These ideas are nothing new. Nietzsche, Jung, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddha, the list goes on an on of people who have realised the potential for evil and violence is in everyone of us. We all have the capacity on a bad day of being evil, vicious bastards. We have to embrace the shadow, learn to live with all the drives and urges within rather than trying to separate them off and get rid of them.

That requires a brutal honesty that is extremely uncomfortable. It is so much easier to say "I am right, you are wrong. You are the problem". Of course I am as bad as anyone. My work is in family violence, so I see it everyday and I see it in myself everyday.

We need better stories.

Regards

Victor

On 19/01/2022 10:04 am, Alexis Kenny wrote:

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All,

Gregg, I was definitely holding the ToK System in mind while watching this video (noting the places where ToK delineations and specifications would be helpful and necessary).

SW, I think you're spot on in naming the issues of interest / accessibility / broad engagement that can be a part of Gregg's work. To his credit (as you note), he's super open to generating content beyond the abstract and is definitely moving more towards day-to-day applicability in his more recent projects. I would be REALLY interested to hear your thoughts on this as an artist, as well as the opinions of other artists and musicians out there (Ken and Greg and more). So...don't crawl back into your cave just yet!

Warmly,

Ali

El mar, 18 ene 2022 a la(s) 13:56, Metamodern Magick ([log in to unmask]) escribió:

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I just watched this. It's fantastic.

My initial thoughts, of course, are centered around the power of mythology/gamification/symbolism to convey a message. My sense is we are going to need more stuff like this if "liminal" culture is to go from a relatively niche community on the internet to a full-blown cultural revolution. I have plenty of ideas on how to do this as a (theory and ritual) artist, but the trickiest thing, I suppose, is reforming the academic and mental health paradigms to incorporate this.

Or maybe it isn't so tricky after all. Gregg's system does a wonderful job of utilising mythos as a way of demonstrating the relationship between different elements in his system. I'm curious on best practices for incorporating that mythos into less intellectually-inclined spaces. Art seems to be the way to go, but in terms of specifics...hmmm.

Anyway.

Also, this is my first time replying to a TOK Society email! Hello everyone! I'll be crawling back into my cave now.

sw

On Tue, Jan 18, 2022 at 3:45 PM Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

I really enjoyed this production.

And, folks, UTOK does have a place in this. We need some new kinds of knowledge-psycho technologies to get us from Game A to Game ~B, and there is much gold to be mined from UTOK to frame this.

Best,
Gregg

From: theory of knowledge society discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Chance McDermott
Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2022 3:14 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: TOK An Initiation to Game~B

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Christian,

Loving this art style that captures the imagination and inspiration of indie games.

On Tue, Jan 18, 2022 at 11:32 AM Alexis Kenny <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

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Christian,

This was pretty rad! Love the animation, accessible theory/language, and length!

As always, I'm always looking for more tangible/concrete directives...maybe the other videos will provide that kind of information?

Warmly,

Ali

El mar, 18 ene 2022 a la(s) 00:40, Christian Gross ([log in to unmask]) escribió:

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_cyCuCKQhs

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Alexis (Ali) Kenny, PsyD, LP

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Alexis (Ali) Kenny, PsyD, LP

Staff Psychologist

LeaderWise

email: [log in to unmask]

phone: 406.540.3411

site: alexisckenny.wix.com/marriedinmission

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Victor MacGill PhD

http://www.victormacgill.com

Author of When the Dragon Stirs: Healing our Wounded lives through Fairy Stories, Myths and Legends

and Gonna Lay Down my Sword and Shield: A complexity perspective on human evolution from a Violent Past to a Compassionate Future

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