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| Malbon |
on Sun 11 Jul 10, 8:02 AM to the O_and_P group.
I'm very much in favour of redescription, and the O&P manifesto appears to me to be very much a classic instance of it.
Most of my understanding of this redescription stems from my reading of Wittgenstein, primarily for the notion of language games, and from Richard Rorty, for the notion of the liberal ironist who rejects the "final vocabularies" proffered by convention. A bit dry for some tastes perhaps, but these days I tend to look for things which offer some real nourishment, and for me some sort of philosophical infrastructure is essential for that.
For those who might be interested the key texts are here, and here.
Anyway I do think the O&P manifesto is a very useful redescription of some of the things we are concerned with. I suppose my only reservation with this sort of thing is the slight feeling that, as with most redescription, we tend to end up simply reshuffling the same pack of cards, rather than introducing any new ones. I do think there is value in rearranging existing terms into a different structure that appears to address our perceptions of the state of things in a more satisfying and congenial way. I just always have this feeling that we are attempting to employ terms from other language games to describe ourselves, and that this can provoke confusion and a lack of clarity.
For Wittgenstein the meaning of a word is its usage. Terms don't have any intrinsic meaning, other than the meanings we attach to them. So in that sense I suppose we should be content to understand some of these terms by their context of use. Terms like ownership and property have specific connotations in the context of O&P relationships, and while that may appear obvious to some there is a danger that the our use of these terms in this context may be misconstrued by others.
I suspect we all understand pretty clearly what terms like ownership and possession mean in the mainstream language games where they are deployed. In these games they come heavily loaded with all the paraphernalia of legality, and with deep and ancient cultural resonances. If I own something the law defends my ownership of it. If you steal something that belongs to me the police will be after you to give it back, and to punish you for taking it. Ownership of property is fundamental to almost every arrangement of Western society. You might struggle to find anyone in the vanilla mindset who had any doubts about precisely what these terms mean, or who would have any sympathy for the notion that there might be anything remotely contingent or provisional about them.
But in this context surely they are necessarily contingent and provisional. While I think of my submissive as owned property (in the original D/S sense as understood by me!) and she consents to that status, I'm also aware of the sometimes uncomfortable reality that she isn't really owned by me at all. If she decides she has had enough of it, she can release herself, and that will be the end of that. The police really won't think it is their job to go and bring her back for me.
I recall the theory of IE which Tanos used to talk about, which I understood as the notion that the enslavement of an individual to a dominant was effectively a mental construct, which could in certain circumstances have an approximately equal weight alongside our understanding of the ownership/possession terms in the mainstream games. I wonder if that is still considered a part of the O&P philosophy?
Is the O&P use of the term possession - "involving some or all of the rights associated with property ownership" actually valid? I don't see a problem if we are content with its provisional nature within this particular language game. The rights are assigned by the consenting individual and do possess a real weight within the relationship, as long as it persists.
We often understand new descriptions or new information by analogy with existing arrangements. I noticed somewhere below the suggestion of the analogy with someone who rents a house, and acquires provisional rights over the property, while not really "owning" it. But then of course many people are happy talking about "owning" a house, when in fact it is really the bank that owns it at the end of the day. Or consider the case of a compulsory purchase, where it turns out that you didn't actually own the house, because your rights could be abrogated by the government or the council. There is a sense in which ownership, even in the mainstream games, is always actually provisional.
Should I simply say that I own something if I believe that I own it, or conversely that I am owned if I believe that I am owned?
I suppose in the end I'm just expressing a certain unease with the use of borrowed terms in a different game. We often have to redeploy existing terms in order to be understood at all, but we're also often saying "It's like this", when in fact it isn't. We're getting some comprehension, at the cost of a full understanding of what is actually happening.
But then of course for someone like Rorty redescription is a continual process. We update our model as we learn and understand more about things, as we incorporate new perceptions, new information, new perspectives on the things that concern us.
| 11 Jul 10, 12:00 PM Belasarius UK(M), 8 yrs      |
Wow, this is useful and is going to take a lot of thought. I hope it generates a debate. For me, a couple of quick points. I think the IE thing does and should still exist. I woke one day to find that c_b had redefined herself, in her profile, as my possesion. Working together, we had reached a place where she could redefine herself. There will always be further to go, of course. I find the entire O&P manifesto to be hugely helpful in providing defined language we can use to describe ourselves, The outside world's use of this vocabulary is incredibly important to me, because I want the outside world to understand and accept us. But, the use of a commonly understood vocabulary within O&P gives us the ability to talk with each other with less misunderstanding. Finally, I begin to think that if one concept in O&P is fundamental to me it is that of authenticity. That is central and something I constantly question and try to ensure is present in my relationship. It isn't always easy. My goal - to save women from nature (Dior) | |||
| 11 Jul 10, 2:26 PM Malbon UK(LS), 8 yrs |
I think there are four things here. 1) Re IE I don't think there is much that is possible in human arrangements unless participants have internalised the structure they have entered into, and the behaviours expected from them. It's more that in this case that is all they have to work with, there is no external cultural validation. 2) the extent to which "people like us" can share and agree on a vocabulary which describes accurately what we are about. 3) the extent to which "people not like us" can also understand it. I'm not quite as concerned about 2) as you appear to be, and I suspect if you use terms like O&P, without any further qualification, to describe your relationship to a vanilla person they are likely to respond that it cannot be like that, you cannot own another person in our modern, liberated world. But then I would suggest that the thing vanilla people find so difficult to understand is the idea that someone (particularly female) could want to voluntarily submit or accept another's control. Maybe if you said something like "consensual possession", or "consensual ownership" then the gulf of comprehension might be more easily bridged. Of course this is addressed in the 3rd stanza of the manifesto but isn't visible in the headline expression "O&P" itself. 4) Authenticity. Yes, a very good question. Is all this really just a kind of game played by these weird, kinky people like us, or is it actually capable of being elevated into something more substantial? Something that might ultimately be mainstreamed. 'The perfect life will be the one which closes in the assurance that the last of his final vocabularies, at least, really was wholly his.' | |||
| 11 Jul 10, 3:42 PM Diablos_patience UK, 5 yrs |
This is basically how i see it though i have to admit to not taking te time to really sit there and read it... For me personally i don't think anything in the manifesto really changes anything in my relationships, though to be honest i have only skimmed read it... a few written words are not going to change what Domination/submission & servitude means to the individual or indeed the couple in the relationship, the relationship and the dynamic between the individuals is completely unique to them based on their own wants/needs and desires. With regards to IE, i do sincerely believe it is essentially a psychological construct and thus internalised. Submission and servitude comes from within and it's extent within the relationship is dependent on how the submissive views their own servitude... if IE isn't there submission isn't there, or at least the complete submission required to become a possession isn't there... for me its how i feel inside me that makes me ascertain the level of servitude and commitment to the relationship im willing to give. Nothing that is written anywhere will change that... The only thing in the manifesto which i would admit to defining me is that ultimately i view myself, or rather am working towards, becoming his property and possession... other than that i see nothing really that new with it, maybe i really do need to read it properly. The thing is my relationship is very similar to those that follow the O&P principles... but my Master has never once cast eyes upon the manifesto... well not that im aware of, he knows of it as he knows when i go to the meetings and we discuss the outcome, but other than that he has no interest as he sees his way being how he wishes to conduct his relationships regardless of what anyone else says, writes or thinks. Im not overly fussed about what others think about the dynamic of my relationship's, how i fit in to the whole thing, all im interested in is making my relationships work and achieving the best that my Master could wish for... if others don't understand that, or what drives me to want this then, that is their problem not mine, personally im too busy enjoying myself to worry about trying to validate my relationship's to others.
~* Raku wa ku no tané; ku wa raku no tané. *~ Edited 11 Jul 10, 3:43 PM by Diablos_patience | |||
| 11 Jul 10, 3:55 PM Belasarius UK(M), 8 yrs |
I have tried to explain how c_b and I work to vanilla people three times, Twice whilst drunk. My best synthesis is this: "We believe we get our own needs met by meeting the other person's needs before we meet our own. "We make sure this happens by filling our time together with rituals which make it difficult to stop concentrating. "We meet failure by confronting it and by one party having a clear final say. Who that is depends on what the failure was, "The kinky sex is good - yeah. But the kinky sex is good because we do this, We don't do this for the kinky sex." As to O&P, I would not even try to explain that to a person from the wider world until it is understood here. I may be waiting a while. My goal - to save women from nature (Dior) Edited 11 Jul 10, 9:29 PM by Belasarius | |||
| 11 Jul 10, 6:22 PM Ian_2007 UK(N), 4 yrs |
How about those who believe that property is theft? Or the larger number who believe that intellectual property is theft? Or those who rationalise theft with the belief that nobody who is successful can be completely honest?
Ownership of land and ownership of a charge upon that land are clean different things. That is why the Land Registry lists both owners If you're lucky enough to live in a really big, old, house, you could presumably also argue that English Heritage owns it too! They get to tell you what you can do with it. Maybe life would be simpler if we all just stuck to the vernacular, and when words needed extra explanation, added it explicitly...? | |||
| 11 Jul 10, 9:44 PM Malbon UK(LS), 8 yrs |
If I may say so, you seem to be expressing the classic autonomous position which I have a great deal of sympathy for, since it is what I have spent most of my DS life working towards. However I would gently and respectfully suggest that you would need to actually read the O&P manifesto carefully as a prerequisite of entering the discourse here. Perhaps I am mistaken but surely this whole group is about discussing what common ground there is between some of us. That is my understanding of Tanos's initiative in authoring the manifesto and requesting discusssion of his ideas here. 'The perfect life will be the one which closes in the assurance that the last of his final vocabularies, at least, really was wholly his.' | |||
| 11 Jul 10, 10:54 PM Diablos_patience UK, 5 yrs |
There is no need to have sympathy for how i view my stance, it works for me so im happy. I have now read it, and i still stand by my comments... I think what Tanos would like to see is discussion's regarding anything in regards of relationships which have a foundation in on protocol/etiquette and rituals discussed here... but hey i could be wrong.
edited to correct the quote but i can't see where it went wrong...
~* Raku wa ku no tané; ku wa raku no tané. *~ Edited 11 Jul 10, 10:56 PM by Diablos_patience | |||
| 11 Jul 10, 11:48 PM Malbon UK(LS), 8 yrs |
Well there you have it, in a nutshell. I think that sort of attitude, which is of course perfectly legitimate, encapsulates the essence of the problem with any attempt to discuss these things here with a view to teasing out any sort of solidarity or shared principles.
'The perfect life will be the one which closes in the assurance that the last of his final vocabularies, at least, really was wholly his.' Edited 11 Jul 10, 11:52 PM by Malbon | |||
| 12 Jul 10, 12:02 AM Ethics_Gradient UK(N), 5 yrs |
"Ownership of real estate" in itself probably bears little resemblance to most peoples understanding of the concept of "ownership of property". I would have thought, when asked, the survey would include things like; "Something that can be transferred to another" ie sold, given, or traded. Possession is maybe getting a better resonance - I currently posses several books, dvd's and other tat, that I do not own. Land is generally a bit weird, I can neither move it, control what is either underneath or above, build on it (without consent), destroy it, its not a crime for others to stray on it - in fact it looks more like a very limited exclusivity license/arrangement that says I can build a fence around it and no one else can build a structure there or cause damage to it - well - except they can, in some situations. My laptop appears free of that fluff, and is probably more in line with what people think of as property, but probably doesn't coincide with O&P so well... My left foot - I'm not sure. At risk of upsetting a thousand applied philosophers, I don't think I can put it on e-bay, but I have a lot more control of it than my land. Though the state will intervene if I try to do it too much damage. Perhaps this is the sort of 'property' that we should be analogizing?
And all men kill the thing they love, By all let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword! Edited 12 Jul 10, 12:04 AM by Ethics_Gradient | |||
| 12 Jul 10, 12:13 AM Belasarius UK(M), 8 yrs |
Hmmmm - possession seems to work better than ownership then, if we want wide understanding? My goal - to save women from nature (Dior) |
got it 
