Foreignizing Sex

Right before the entire broughha of Miley Cyrus’ performance during the Video Music Awards, I had an odd idea. It came while discussing how people view things today, and even how they study them. I came up with the idea of some things being foreignized, and then used to sell the idea. I wondered if it applied to sex, because it seemed to be pushed a lot, even though the ideas themselves didn’t quite make sense. The next day Cyrus was on the NEWS, and I saw my idea had a great deal of merit.

The first thing that needs a really good explanation is the idea of foreignization. Within the more academic setting there are plenty of books, and papers on the subject. The biggest book is called Orientalism by Edward Said. He is a literature professor, and points out that in most cases the people of the East, which include his own people in the middle east, are made to be odd, and very foreign. In fact, he concludes that the explanation for cultural ways is to emphasize the foreign. In fact, it takes on a mythological point of view, making the foreignized out to be these weird people with brutish men and sexualized women.

Keep in mind, Orientalism was originally the study of the Orient, or Eastern culture. People with advanced degrees, who visited these countries, and spoke the languages would come back with the idea that the only explanation was that it was weird, and different. These were not foolish men, and women at all. There was a paradigm, and they followed it.

We still have it today. The explanation for many of the terrorist attacks start with the idea that the middle east is full of screwed up weirdos that we will never understand.

Let’s take this in another way though. What is it like to be rich? Not kind of sort of rich, but rich to the point that money doesn’t even have the same concept in it. When you are poor, there are whole shopping ideas that don’t even enter the equation. A designer wallet for $50 is considered weird. The idea that the wallet is the cheapest one in the store is even weirder.

When we describe the rich, we can only use what we know. The TV show Cribs, or various arrest warrants, or whatever the tabloids say is our lense on what it is like to be rich. When we think of the rich, we place the same weirdness onto the people as we would the Orientalist scholar of the past. The rich are weird, and our only explanation is that weirdness. It gets even more difficult when we get more specific. What is it like to be rich, and black? What we have is rappers, Pop artists, sports players, and the president. So in our minds, a black person can fire off nukes, has gold put onto his teeth, and can catch a ball. The weirdness simply adds up.

If you think that is odd, we go in the other direction of absolute poverty, and our minds break. We only know pictures, and documentaries about the lives of people. Whether it is viewed as good, or bad, the emphasis is on the difference and weirdness we see.

Keep in mind, this emphasis can be used for good and bad. There are plenty of people who think that the Native Tribal groups of the Americas know amazing things. They try to live their lives as best they can to be like that. They weird me the crap out. In Sedona Arizona, there are people who emphasize the lives of the tribes, by mentioning older traditions, trying to copy off some of the dances, and making sure to live in tipis. The only problem is that no one lives in tipis, and most of the traditions being talked about are barely like what is actually lived by the Navajo, Pima, and Apache. It makes the ability to talk about the cultures that much harder, because of so many people who are said to be experts, but only emphasize, and even make up differences.

This isn’t to say there is no difference. There are plenty of differences. The problem is that these differences can be explained, understood, and even accepted. The immediate response to difference is to simply say it is weird, and stop right there.

What if there are concepts in our lives that are actually only emphasizing difference? What if we are foreignizing things that should be obvious? What if the reason why we are having so many problems with it is that we are only saying that it is weird.

When Miley Cyrus went on stage for the VMA’s on MTV, there are some things we have to understand. The first is that this wasn’t just her idea. This was an entire team decision, with several people placing money on every item so that it would be perfect. There were camera crews who rehearsed the entire show. Every movement, and every song was planned out, and practiced before it went onto TV.

To give you an idea, Blurred Lines, the song being sung by the guy next to Miley Cyrus was about girls being good and bad. There is a music video for it, and it involves topless women, and was even banned in the US. The singer said,

In America, YouTube found the "Blurred Lines" video to be mostly inappropriate, and banned its unrated, NSFW version, which showed three topless women. "That’s just America," says Thicke. "I definitely don’t have any problem with nudity. I think people that are uncomfortable in their own bodies or are uncomfortable with their own bodies don’t want to see other peoples'."

What is his song about? By the video, and lyrics, it is about women, and how they should become more sexual. In fact, the video pretty much says that the artists within the video should be having more sex.

There is an accusation that the video is about rape. So, it would seem that Cyrus’ act, and the song with it were entirely about how women should be more sexy. Keep in mind, women were hired, an entire video crew was hired, and a sound crew was used to make this video. At no point did anyone question it, or wonder about its meaning.

This is not anything new. The Madonna/ Britney Spears kiss was ten years ago, and was likely just as planned, and prepared.

This is not an accusation that they added sex, it is an accusation that they foreignized sex. They specifically made the entire subject of sex into a way that if broken down does not work in the way expected. In other words, Miley Cyrus was trying to show that she was sexual. Robin Thicke, who wrote, sung, and directed Blurred Lines believes he was speaking about sex, and even moving it forward.

The people involved believe themselves to be experts on the issue. They are pushing their idea forward, and in fact it is what was promoted at the VMA’s. The entire song and dance was treating sex in a way that specifically makes it seem distant, and even foreign.

Selling the foreign is a common enough thing. It’s the reason why Eat Pray Love sold so well. It is about a woman going to foreign places, and doing foreign things to find herself. Every tale of Hawaii is not about how a gallon of milk costs $6, or that many people are living in poverty. It is about about how the women are beautiful, and the beaches are amazing. The image of Hawaii is what causes millions of people to come to the island, and spend billions of dollars.

The idea that an entire industry, and possibly several experts have begun to view sex in this idea of weird with no explanation begins to really become true. Past this point of thought, it takes looking at papers, and the ideas placed on them. In fact, the paper is ending here because of how difficult it would be to go into the idea past the point of hypothesis. Miley Cyrus danced, and flashed her tongue a few days ago. The idea isn’t much older. Give it time.

The basic idea is this. If we can make whole cultures seem foreign and odd, can we do it with ideas? Is sex one of these ideas? Does the Miley Cyrus performance show this idea? I tried to discuss the best I could. This idea needs more time, and work, but this basis seems to be worth checking out more.

How Odin Prepared Earth for War in the Marvel Movie Universe

Being a historian, I end up looking at things, and trying to understand them, even when I shouldn’t. I have watched the neighborhood dogs for weeks now, and understand how they work their knowledge and thoughts to the other dogs. I have discovered that my dog loves to show off by playing fetch with me. She now has moments, walking past the fence to sort of just stretch, and show off her amazing ball. She may not even bring it back she is so busy showing off.

But enough about my dog, and her ways, this topic is on Comic book movies. I was going to do comics, but then I realized that I haven’t read them all, so there is no way I could do much. Comic book fans can be more factual than some professors I know. I want to talk about the Marvel Movie Universe, and a weird pattern I have been noticing in the films. This pattern then shows us a larger story that may explain the entire universe, and its story line.

The first movies we see are the XMen movies, and we are introduced to a world with a crisis, the people are changing with no real explanation. It is causing people to do all sorts of weird things, like shoot fireballs out of their eyes, make knives come out of their arms, and make an actor mostly known for musicals turn into an ultra awesome character.

These mutations are everywhere, and although people are asking questions, they really don’t know what is happening. Some are using these mutants as weapons, some are trying to pass legislation against the mutants, and others are just getting tired of living in New York where all of them hang out. For the XMen it just sort of happens, and we aren’t really told how or why, we simply accept that they now have these abilities.

Then we get into the other movies, and everything gets explained, but not in the way the writers, producers, and directors meant. It explains that humanity is not human, and now its starting to show.

Let’s start with Spiderman, the story we all know is that he is bitten by a spider. This gives him supernatural powers. In the Tobey Maguire Spiderman, we see Peter Parker walking into a major testing facility, and talk about all of the insects, and animals around him. He knows the scientific equipment, how it works, and the science behind them. In other words, he is a genius. During the tour, they point out that one of the spiders can change DNA. Parker notes this, but he doesn’t act surprised. Even when one of the DNA changing arachnids is missing, no one responds in fear. There is no claxon call, and they are not evacuated from the area. If the spider could cause horrible human mutations, this is what should have happened. It didn’t.

The thing is, the lab would have known this. They would have been testing the spiders, and how they work all the time. There would have been animal testing, and blood sample tissues. They would have had spider beagles hanging on the walls with a ball in their mouth. There would be rats throwing open cages, and webslinging out of the room. There would have been spider Spidermonkeys. None of this happened, the tests did not have any of these mutations at all. In other words, you would have gotten sick, but the spider could not cause the mutation that happened to Peter Parker.

Take a moment to let that in, the spider did not make spiderman. The entire idea was actually from his own response to being bit by a spider, and then noticing he had powers. The spider sense was mentioned as part of the tour. Peter Parker assumed it was the spider, and kept it at that.

The problem continues when you realize that the spider would have bit other people. So far, none of the workers at the lab are hanging upside down near the water cooler. The entire lab did not notice a spider missing, and does not view it as harmful. It has not caused any other human mutations, and very likely hasn’t caused anything else to turn into a spider like super being.

So, the entirety of the event is in Peter Parker’s mind, but he still has powers. We need an answer, and the Spiderman movies don’t really talk about it.

The same thing happens in the Incredible Hulk. Actually, it’s even worse. Bruce Banner is the same as Peter Parker, a freaking genius who studies radiation. He tests himself on a new formula that should make him immune to certain radiations. It turns out to be a superhuman formula, but there is a huge catch. No, not the hulk, we know about that. If he had studied the radiation, he would also have studied the human body, and how it reacts to the formula. Not only that, he would have done non human tests to see if it worked. If he didn’t, the military would have. Once again, there would have been evidence, and lots of it coming from the animals who were suddenly giant green monsters destroying the lab. Nothing happened at all. Banner is so accepting of the idea, he tests the formula on himself. He turns into the hulk, but it is not the formula, or the test that created the monster.

Tony Stark probably said it correctly in the Avengers when he pointed out that the radiation should have killed Banner. The only thing that saved the scientist was the Hulk. It wasn’t the formula, it was already in Bruce Banner the entire time.

Let’s talk about Tony Stark. He is a freaking genius. I think you should be noticing this much of the pattern already, but all of the people involved have above average IQ’s. Stark gets a PhD in robotics at 17. He is also near impossible to kill.

In the first movie, they show his military escort torn to pieces by gunfire. Bullets enter into his truck, and do not kill him. He runs out, and is blown up by a missile he designed himself. He survives with barely a scratch. Although we talk about the lead heading to his body, he has already been blown up, and shot. The lead should have killed him already, and yet he can still function, and build an entire suit of armor with barely anything in the form of technology.

Near the end of the movie, he kills the bad guy by blowing up one of his own buildings. The reaction is actually closer to him than the bad guy. Heck, by this time his suit doesn’t have power, and he has his helmet off. He should be vaporized, but isn’t. Not only that, his arc reactor turns back on after the attack. He is either really lucky, or he can survive a ton of firepower, and hasn’t caught on to it.

Now let’s go to the Fantastic 4. I am sure you have already caught on that if they are in space, doing astronaut stuff, they are really smart. When they are hit by some freak radiation, it turns them into super beings. The thing is, they each have different powers. This is even more perplexing when two of them are siblings. The brother can turn himself into flames, and his sister turns invisible. I won’t bore you with talking about the movies, but it doesn’t look like it was the freak accidents that caused the mutations. As much as Grimm would hate it, a part of him was always the Thing.

If you haven’t noticed this is four different sets of super heroes who seem to be having the same problem. They also have similar abilities, you just haven’t noticed it yet. Spiderman has something he calls his Spider sense. We see it working in the first movie, he can feel or know about everything around him. Daredevil has the same thing, he can’t see, but he still knows what is around him.

Actually, we have seen this with another super hero. Hawkeye in the Avengers can shoot an arrow through a jet turbine, and hit a target inside of the same engine. Even if he knew the schematics, he would have to know more about it in real time to make the shot. He straight up starts shooting stuff down without looking by the time the movie is in its climactic battle.

So we have a fairly good description of the common superhero in the Marvel movies. You are probably asking why I bring this up? The answer is that there is another character with the same abilities, and he is freaking Odin.

Thor pretty much explains to us what is going on, but never says it out loud. We see the story from Thor’s perspective, not his father’s, so we don’t catch on to what Odin knows.

When Thor is being crowned ruler of Asgard, his father stops the ceremony because he knows something is rampaging in the vault. Not only that, while he is just standing there, he activates a monster to attack the threat. Think about it for a minute, and ask yourself how Odin would view this, and then compare it to Daredevil, Spiderman, Hawkeye, and others. I am not saying that Odin fathered all of the mutants now showing up on earth. I am saying that Odin and the mutants are showing the same powers.

Let’s get back to Thor for a moment, we know his powers pretty well. He is nigh indestructible, has super strength, and can control the weather around him. We know he could survive a bullet to the head, because we see him survive things that would be way worse.

You will be stopping me right now, and say that Thor can’t control the weather, Mjolnir his hammer does that. The answer is yes and no. When he was battling it out with the heavies who surrounded his hammer, it started to rain. He knew it would, even though there were moments later when he was nearby it, and the air didn’t even have clouds. In other words, he was activating the rain, and he was using Mjolnir as a way to focus that ability. This works the same as when he controls the flight of the hammer, or summons it to him. His father taught him how to use his powers, by setting the hammer as a way to focus. He couldn’t lift the hammer up with his own strength, he had to use his abilities to do it.

If you watched the movie carefully, you would have realized that Thor in mortal frame had some connection to his powers. He could make it rain while fighting it out with others. In fact, he was hit by a car, slammed in the face by some very big men, and it doesn’t show up on his body. He somehow healed himself from the fights, even though he was mortal.

But it gets even weirder, Odin was controlling Thor’s powers. He set up a way for Thor to feel, and use the powers in a limited way. Odin would know what the average human would be like, and yet he let his son have some control over himself. The only logical conclusion is that Odin knows what is happening to earth, and even supports it in some way.

At one point in the movie, Thor says that Magic and Science are the same thing where he lives. This is pretty accurate since the man can control the weather around him, but perhaps there is more to this. With the powers he holds, he can sense the electricity, and various particles around him. This would give him an edge in the knowledge of science, he could tell how things worked, because his powers allowed him to sense and even control things around him.

Let’s go back to the previous heroes; Spiderman is a genius, who can survive a deadly bite from a spider. Tony Stark is a genius, that seems to have better control of a super suit than anyone else, Bruce Banner is a genius that knows radiation in ways that few others could, and the fantastic 4 could all be described with the same descriptions as well. In other words, these superheroes are likely Asgardians. They have limited control over their abilities, and use them for science, and games of poker. They don’t know what is going on, and just assume that everyone else can do what they can do.

Then the cataclysmic event happens, and their powers turn on completely. In the case of Bruce Banner it is to the point that he is a completely different person. In the Avengers he talks about being a nerve opened up to all the world. He feels overwhelmed, and assumes that it is his own anger that is causing it. To calm collected Bruce Banner, his own powers are pure emotion hitting him at a sudden, and completely overpowering state. It would be like giving a kid who just got off his training wheels, a full man sized motorbike. He really can’t control it at first.

The ability is so foreign to the people who have them, that they only see what it does within their own understanding. Wolverine sees a healing ability, and claws. The Fantastic 4 see their own bodies as changeable, and not even in the same way. Magneto sees his powers as only magnetic. It makes sense in their minds, so they use it in that way.

This brings up the webshooter in spiderman. Whether it is being flung from his actual wrists, or from a device he made, Peter Parker believes it is from spiders. His own mind believes that this is something that spiders do, and since everything was caused by spiders, he must also be able to do this. He can walk on walls, swing on a web, and lift far more than his own weight, because he believes the spider did it.

For every superhero, there is an origin story, and then they use that to constantly remind themselves of their own powers. So it is a recursive thought process that makes them always have the same abilities. There are exceptions like Jean Grey who learned to control her abilities so well that she could control oceans if she chose, but still in her mind, there are limits. At one point she kills herself, because she believes it is the only way to stop a torrent of water.

Within the knowledge of Asgard, these people would be known as magical. Some of them have abilities they can use that are beyond our imagination. One guy is set as the guardian of the land, because he can see all other planets perfectly. He is very likely blind, because he has no need for normal sight.

So, there is a very high likelihood that Odin has been working to get Asgardian blood into humanity. The next question is why?

At this point we need to point out Loki. He looks Asgardian, but is actually Jotun. This doesn’t mean much, except that he also isn’t as tall as Jotun, or as strong. He also has incredible abilities to transform the area around him. His friends call him a sorcerer, because he can change the area around him, change shape, and even control matter around him. When he is crowned king, he seems to have the same powers as his father. Thor even speaks to him directly when the monster from the vault is attacking.

The abilities of Loki show that he is more than just a frost giant. When Odin found him in the church, he was blue. When Loki was held by Odin, the baby changed everything about him to look like Odin. It wasn’t even looking, Loki suddenly had Odin’s abilities as well. Odin caught on to this quickly, and decided to keep the child safe from danger. He raised the boy as his own son, and made sure he had the best childhood possible.

If Loki really can do these things, than he is more than just a Jotun. Laofi, the king of the Jotun knew this, and wanted to use him as a weapon. We know this because the child was placed in a church. We also know that Odin found him. Why would Odin be looking inside of a church after a war? Because his information said that the reason for going to war was right there.

He didn’t just take Laofi’s power, Odin took the reason for the war in the first place.

So what does this have to do with people on earth? The beginning of Thor has an entire invasion of earth by the Jotun. They don’t just jump in, and then leave. The biggest most powerful weapon is pulled out to wipe out the entire planet. The only reason it was stopped was because of Asgard. This part you get. The part you didn’t get was that Earth is also called midgard, or the place that all of the realms connect to.

It isn’t said out loud, but if earth is the central location for the many realms, then it would be important to other planets as well. Earth is somehow the jumping point to thousands of different star systems, making it one of the most dangerous places to live. Laofi didn’t invade earth to take on mortals, he invaded it to take over the other lands.

As you saw with Loki, if he touches someone, he gains their power. Imagine someone like that being used as the head of your war. You would be nearly unstoppable. Laofi was trying to take over everything, and Odin was forced to call forth his entire army to stop him. This was at tremendous expense of lives, and workforce, and Asgard may not be able to survive something better organized.

So, Odin hid Loki away to keep him safe from any more war bands. He raised the boy as his own son as a way to make sure he was always taken care of. He acted surprised when Loki turned out to have tremendoes skills in magic and learning. He even loved the boy, and couldn’t tell him the truth even when the boy was screaming at him for answers. Would you be able to tell your son that he is a nuclear bomb in a war older than even you are?

If this sounds like the best move for Loki, then what about Earth? It is still out in the open, and the civilization sitting on it are still using metal swords, and learning how to use basic musketry. They would be easy prey to any of the more powerful planets. Odin had to do something to protect earth, and not let it destroy his own kingdom. So, he armed earth.

This didn’t go unnoticed. I am sure you have some heroes in mind that don’t fit the Asgardian profile. Iceman, Mystique, and nightcrawler seem to gain their powers from Jotun, or even something like Loki. The game of placing seed in humanity seems to be a part of a larger war going on.

The one playing it the best is by and far Odin, and this is not his only game with earth.

When you watch Captain America, you find out that the Red Skull was looking for specific items left over by the Agardians. They were not just left, they were given. We know this because the church shows symbols of Ygdrasil on it. Heck, the tesseract was inside of the wall carving of Ygdrasil. The priest says it is not for mortal hands to hold.

We are left with an even more difficult question when we see the power of the tesseract in the hands of the Red Skull. He uses it as a purely energy release mechanism. The matter proves to be great as a weapon. Then in the Avengers, we see that it can open portals anywhere in space. Take a moment, and think about everything it can do, and ask yourself if you would leave it on earth.

Would you leave the equivalent of a nuclear bomb in the middle of New York City, with instructions on how to use it? No, that would be dumb. Odin did this, and he is the same guy that is mysteriously letting Asgardians spread their powers throughout the world. He is up to something, and we do have quite a bit of information on it.

First off, we need to follow the Tesseract to see what it does for earth. Schmidt does use it, but it is ultimately Tony Stark’s dad who figures it out. We know he did this because Captain America showed Mr Stark testing it, and then picking it back up in search of Steve Rogers. We then see another glimpse of it, but in a sideways glance in Iron Man II. The entire cure for Stark’s suit, and his arc reactor is a substance that looks remarkably like the material found in the tesseract. Stark Sr. had given his son the information through code, so Tony did not realize what it was at first. By the time we are watching the Avengers, Tony has figured out how to power an entire city with one small arc reactor. The tesseract becomes a scientific breakthrough that changes the entire world.

This leads us to realize what was happening, Odin gave earth the ability to fight back.

In Thor someone makes a comment that visiting earth was where you throw lightening bolts, and declare yourself a god. Keep in mind, Thor was a baby during the war with the Jotun. He had been visiting since. Odin had friends on earth, and treated them well. He even gave them a device, but didn’t explain what it does.

He told Asgardians to enjoy visiting earth on a limited basis. If the mortals thought you were a god, how would they reward you? If you answered with an awesome feast, you would be half right. Earth was treated like Hawaii is today. It was a beautiful spot that was perfect for shipping. The locals start to meet, marry, and have children with the immigrants. Then the immigrants disappear. The people who traveled through become the stories of legend, and myth. Odin made sure of it in fact. Even if an Asgardian shows up, no one would connect the dots back to Odin.

So what does the tesseract do? Nothing, until the people are advanced enough to figure it out. We know they are figuring stuff out when we see Stark Industries main man. He practically runs the company by invention alone.

When Tony Stark shows off his arc reactor, the one he made in a shop without telling anyone else, he out did every single scientific mind in his entire company. The company has brilliant people working for it, but they are nothing to a man that can figure out whole sections of physics overnight.

In other words, the company is run by the Stark mind. Not only that, this is sort of common.

Oz Corp is run by Norman Osborn. Every invention you see, he made on his own, with scientists running to help him. Once again, he is the brains behind every invention, every concept, and every contract they receive. And we know they follow scientific procedure because he directly goes against it when he gives himself the super hero serum. He was told directly that the lab tests show it could cause insanity, and he doesn’t listen.

To fully understand what is being said here, remember that Tony Stark has so much skill because of latent Asgardian abilities. He can control it, but just barely. When Bruce Banner turned his fully on, he can’t control it anymore.

Oz Corp is run by the same ideas, and thoughts as Stark Industries. The response is madness when the powers are fully activated. Norman Osborn only had a little bit of the serum for his testing purposes, and it drove him insane.

The Red Skull has the same thing. It is likely that he was not  just Asgardian when the test was given. Imagine a mixture of Jotun and Asgardian mixed together, and activated at the same time. It destroyed his entire body, and drove him to madness. The powers could only be  activated slowly. Dr. Erskine figured it out, and worked hard to find the right candidates to test on. He likely had been following Steve Rogers for a while, and had people follow him around. They would have seen the tiny kid get beat up by large men, and only have a few injuries. They would have seen him figure stuff out, even when his IQ test showed him lacking. In other words, he had the abilities, and the character Erskine wanted. He only told Rogers about the character part.

And this is the thing, the only way Erskine would have understood the formula, is if he had some of the same abilities himself. Once again, we see brilliant scientists unable to keep up with him in the tests, or understanding of the formula. Then you have to ask how Erskine knew the powers existed. He must have seen that some people were showing super strength, and abilities, and then studied it. Sort of weird to imagine, but Steve Rogers was given a formula that was based off studying people like Logan, who were alive and well at the time.

The powers were activating on their own. It took centuries to happen, but slowly the powers were showing up, and looking completely natural. Tony Stark is not linking himself to Thor. In his mind, he got his brains from his Dad. He is right, it is completely genetic, and he learned how to use it without realizing what it all meant. This creates a serious question about Stark Alcoholism if he has the same healing powers as Rogers.

The tesseract was explored, and studied by people who were using latent abilities. Not only that, it was starting to become common. Peter Parker just thought he was smart. Until something starting activating his powers, he was fairly ordinary. This would not be noticed by obserservers who were watching earth. In fact, it appears that Odin was playing a misinformation game.

During the Avengers, we see an entire alien species, bent on getting the tesseract, and the earth. They invade, and specifically try the God like beings trick again. The vehicles, and warriors were entirely designed to fit into the idea of Gods. They rode around on horse carriages, that flew in the sky. They had great beasts that were used like a barge. They had sticks that would throw men through a wall. In other words, they were trying to make humanity believe they were Gods.

The only problem was that Earth was not what they imagined. Humanity had better weapons, better cities, and a better sense of science than the invaders expected. The grand god like chariots made no sense to the average New Yorker. The giant beasts were not the grand show of power. The weapons did not impress people who could easily out shoot, and out gun the warriors attacking. It was a complete mistake.

Not only that, there were people who had the powers of an Agardian. One of them was a real life Asgardian, and the others were using powers that the Chitari could not even imagine. They were outgunned, and completely out of their league. Even the smallest, and weakest member of the team seemed to never run out of energy, and figure out how to use the chariot with ease. One of them is using the technology of the tesseract to create a suit of armor for himself. Another is so powerful, he has changed size, strength, and survivability.

Now that the earth is able to protect itself, Odin plays his next part of the game. This is the reason why he sent Thor down to earth. He could have taught Thor how to learn humility by sending him anywhere without his powers. The young brash boy was sent to a place where his mortal powers were still a little bit better than the average guy, but completely unimportant to anyone. This is likely part of what broke him, the average person not caring that he could lift a mountain if he so chose. To us, he learned to protect his friends, in reality he saw people choosing to be mortal.

Now that Thor is well known to humanity, there is little doubt that they will start looking up the stories of old. They will want to talk to Odin, and make some form of peace with him. Not only that, they met Loki. The powers of the most dangerous weapon created by Laofi, king of the Jotun, was not proven to be strong enough. In other words, it gives Odin a lot of leverage, and keeps Loki safe.

In Norse legend, the great warriors are sent to Valhalla, and await the day that Odin calls them forth to war. They would be trained by Odin himself, and be able to stop even the worst of attacks. The legend turned out to be true, just not in the way the old norsemen thought it would. Instead, Odin was preparing earth for war.

Hegemony: Pattern of Domination

There is an obvious pattern to one culture dominating another. It can be seen in the school we walk in. The pattern covers every continent and island. It can easily be found and traced in every culture in the world.

It begins with the dominating culture entering into the area. The older cultures are pushed back and made to quarrel among themselves. The dominated cultures slowly gains power back and then dominates. This pattern can take a few months or millennia to fully take place.

The culture that enters may not actually win the great wars and battles. In the beginning, the culture may actually help stop a previous dominant culture. For example, the Manchu empire saved China from bandits and began the Qing dynasty.

The dominating culture may actually seem like the lower culture. Although the Manchu dominated China, the culture was entirely based on Chinese Confucianism. Kang Xi, the second emperor of the dynasty, outlawed footbinding, but near the end of the empire every woman had the broken feet and small high heeled shoes of a Confucian. The entire Manchu culture is nearly gone today, replaced by the Chinese Han Culture.

The next step in cultural domination will actually take a while, but involves the consolidation of power and creating a power myth of domination. The myth of domination is something that doesn’t get explored very often. The dominant culture tells of how they easily took over because of their own great and divine powers. They will place the dominated culture as foolish and stupid within this myth. The Spanish claimed that the Aztecs believed in Quetzalcoatl, a white god that promised to return someday. The myth was made up several years after the fall of the Aztecs.

The idea idea that the dominating culture is naturally better will be promoted throughout the media. Such stories as Tarzan, Birth of a Nation, and our own modern Avatar have stories of a culture proving itself to be dominant and more important. Tarzan and Avatar tell the story where the good guy is better at doing things than even the natives. Birth of a Nation makes a particular culture seem evil and deserving of being dominated.

The promoted idea of the dominating culture would be pious, pure, intelligent, and capable. The dominated will be said to be stupid, lazy, sexually deviant, superstitious,  and evil. An example of this would be Orientalism, or the stereotype ideas of cultures from Arabia to China. Pictures describing these cultures show the women as sensual and at least partially naked. The men are shown as stupid and evil. The cultural beliefs of the culture are given a special mystical power. In fact, when attempting to explain these cultures, the common response is to use the foreignness as the explanation for everything.

The dominant cultures uses this to give the reason for domination and control of the people. During the reconstruction of the South after the American Civil War, many of the former slave owners said that the African Americans were too lazy and stupid to survive alone.

The USSR used the next tactic perfectly. The different dominated groups would be compared to the dominant culture and given perks for being closer than others. One group would be given a great reward for one thing, and then another would be given different praise. The infighting and attempts for other perks kept dominant culture on top and created a caste system beneath it. The reasons for much of the unrest in the Eastern European countries was caused by the USSR doing this. The same pattern can be found in the Philippines, South and Central America, and the entire African continent.

The dominated culture slowly moves up and gains more and more power. Usually the reason for this is the dominant culture has fewer and fewer children to do the more manual labor type of jobs. The dominated culture will have plenty of children and desperation to take any job at all. This will eventually lead to a need for education, and then to rise up in greater and better jobs.

Slowly this makes the dominant and the dominated begin to equalize in power. The closer to equalization the more strange things happen.

The dominated culture begins to assert its own culture as more important and even better. They will use the entire culture and not pick and choose parts. If there is an evil part it will be promoted as good and even better than it really is. This promotion will be given powers so the dominated culture has an excuse to fight back. The leaders will claim powers beyond human to promote their own ideals. Papa Doc from Haiti promoted his ideas by claiming to be a witch doctor that would hurt the people if they went against him.

This comparison has problems with it. Even after the dominant/dominated history goes away, there will be signs of the old thoughts. After decades of work to build black culture up in the United States, black girls still think that the black doll is ugly and evil compared to the white doll.

The next problem with the promotion of the dominated will be for customs that were only in the culture for a certain era. This will be said to be exactly as the culture should be, even though there are examples that the culture has changed since that time. This era will be the promoted golden time that everyone wishes they could return to.

During this equalization the dominant group continues to use the different stereotypes built up about the dominated culture. The mystical powers will be seen in a new light and said to be good. The stereotypes do no change. Likewise, the dominated culture will promote many of the made up stereotypes as important to the culture.

Within the Navajo Rez, and many other reservations the promotion of clothing and cultures that are from a different tribe are promoted. Cherokee tribes dress up in "Chiefs clothing" even though they have no real connection to Chiefs. Tee Pees will be promoted even when no one has or ever will live in one.

There will be a very strange item that needs to be mentioned here. When the dominated culture is able to see the dominant culture at home, there will be problems. The dominant culture promotes itself as better and greater than the dominated. The idea of a near paradise will be promoted as the natural home of the dominant culture. When the culture is seen, the dominated will reject the promotion almost completely. Gandhi was a lawyer in England, he saw London and knew its culture very well. When the English attempted to prove they were greater, he rejected their promotions and promoted his own culture instead.

There will also be attempts by the dominated to equalize that will be rejected by the dominant. This rejection was part of holding power earlier in the dominant/dominated culture but will do the exact opposite when the dominated have actually seen the life the dominant live. The greatest case would be the American Revolution when the higher up land lords of the American Colonies were treated as lower class citizens by England. The attempts to control this were lost, because many of the Colonists had been back to England and knew what the state of life in the country really was like.

When this equalization of the dominant and dominated cultures begin to equalize, there are three things that could happen. The first is the cultures simply stop being seen as dominant and dominated, the dominated becomes the dominant culture, and the previously dominant culture leaves.

The first happens when someone says the name of their culture, and no one negatively reacts to it. There may be odd reactions because of the unfamiliarity of that culture. This would be solved by simply being exposed to the culture without a negative problem.

The PCC helps in this by giving people a way to see the Polynesian cultures without any negative moments. It is only an open door and not a complete experience, so the tourist may be able to learn more later. The cultural rejection will not happen in either way.

Within the United States, an example of equalization would actually be holidays. St. Patrick's day which we just celebrated, Cinco de Mayo, Oktoberfest, and Black History Month are ways to show that everyone celebrates the cultures within these holidays. In the native lands they are usually not seen as important. St. Patrick's Day was a religious day and not the great time to party as is shown today.

Within these holidays you will find promotion of cultural beliefs and attempts to make good stereotypes to others. Oktoberfest is the most prevalent in my mind. The attempt to change the cultural understanding of Germans from that of the horrible Nazis to Bavarian is very much promoted.

The greatest example of equalization is modern TV. We see Jewish, Italian, Scottish, Irish, Black, Asian, and Mexican cultures as just common people. No one would reject an O'Brien today. No one would think twice on seeing a Jahnke -the origin of the term Yankee.

The next cultural response to equalization is the switching of dominant to dominated. The cycle begins all over again and should be feared. The previous group will be seen as the reason for several problems and the dominant culture will promote the ideas of revenge. Many of the people who had been living in the area for generations will be made out to be less than human and foreign.

Zimbabwe has had this problem. The president promotes himself by blaming the formerly dominant white culture. White landowners are kicked out for their land and money.

It was expected that the same thing would happen in South Africa, but Nelson Mandela specifically worked to stop this.

The third option is the dominant culture leaves. This can mean that they physically leave, are kicked out, or are wiped out. This leaves the most mystery in history. The dominant culture remains, and the former dominant culture can be found using archeology. This subject becomes difficult to talk about because it can involve the consideration of genocide. The dominant culture could still be trying to control from a long distance away, it could leave nothing but artifacts and bones. As examples, the mound builders near the Mississippi river are completely gone, along with them are the Anasazi, and then the Olmecs are all lost cultures that at one time dominated the area around them, and for whatever reason left.

In conclusion, the culture understanding of the pattern of domination lets a person see the various stages cultures around the world are in. The future dominant culture arrives, and then slowly takes over. Myths are made up on how this domination happened. The dominated people create a culture of survival and accept they are inferior. Slowly the dominated and dominant become equals. The end result can restart the cycle over again, or allow for an equalization of the people. This pattern continues today.

We Don't Know, and Its OK

It was 1998, and the school shootings began. This was before Columbine, and most of the world felt safe. I had moved to a new town, and the school just wasn’t for me. I tried to transfer out of it, but was denied. This is when I started to make the connection that I fit the description of the school shooters who had already shown up. The NEWS covered them as these outsiders who planned out attacks, and were angry at the world. I was 17 at the time, and angry. I was also smart, too smart really. I figured out that I fit the description perfectly, and I turned myself in. I was expelled from the school, and escorted out in handcuffs. To this day, I wish someone would have told me that everyone wants to blow up a school. It’s part of being a teenager. The question was more along the lines of actually doing it, which I wasn’t.
This led me to think about things in a different way from how most people have viewed school shootings. Columbine happened, and it was darker and more terrible for me than 9/11. It was partly because the town I had just moved away from two years ago looked and sounded just like Littleton. Middleton is a great place, but it has its problems like any other. So, when I first heard what had happened, I thought it was about my own beloved town, and that the people being shot, were my own friends.
The other reason why, was that I knew how the shooters had planned things out. I understood the motives, and ideas. When I heard the shooters had pipebombs, I knew they had placed some at the evacuation points where the students would stand during fire drills. I knew this because that is how I would plan it. Once again, I looked at myself, and wondered how it was I wasn’t one of them, these awful killers? This essay is my explanation on what is happening, and why I believe we have gotten it totally wrong.
The first thing I want to introduce to you is the idea of Outliers. They are statistical anomalies that are ignored by most researchers. As far as we are concerned they don’t exist, because they happen so infrequently.
Outliers are a very important part in our lives. Most stories are outliers. The hero who wins the big game, and the heart of the girl is very rare, yet it is also one of the most common movies. The man who was in right place to save the day is used as a description for all sorts of action movies. The stories we tell are about the people who did something amazing, even though the odds said it was a bad idea. We root for these characters, we empathize with them, and we want to be them.
We also use outliers to describe whole sections of people. When I went to middle school, a friend of mine was from Iran. It never occurred to me that this was big, or important. I knew him because we both liked computers. Then 9/11 happened, and a country that had very few middle eastern cultures within it, had an image of an entire people made out because of 7 men. So, I had my outlier of my friend, and many people I knew had their outlier of terrorists. Because of this, we all had an image of how the middle east worked. To me, everyone in Iran plays the violin, and enjoys computers. To many people in the US, the people of Iran are all waiting to blow up planes.
The outliers are completely false of course. My image of my friend is only of my friend. Iran has all sorts of people in it, from computer nerds to their own version of white trash rednecks. Likewise, the country has people who feel very strongly about how things should be, and others who are busy hitting on girls as I type this. In other words, Iran is just as boring, and common as the US. We are viewing an entire people because of a single example.
There is also another form of outlier. This happens when there are actually plenty of people that fit a description, but they are largely unnoticed. People who own guns, tend to think that everyone enjoys shooting guns. People who don’t own guns, believe that everyone agrees with them.
Within the highschool setting, there are more unpopular kids then there are popular kids. Yet, no one seems to notice the unpopular kids. Within a single highschool can be several groups of people that may completely disagree with each other. Some of these disagreements are completely dumb. I remember being in a class listening to someone who was against school dress code, unless it was polo shirts and slacks, because everyone liked dressing in those. Yes, this was the school I got expelled from.
Another example is being gifted. The vast majority of studies, and mental health workers, are based on those who have mental disabilities. There is a lack of studies, and recognition for being gifted. Imagine the world was graphed based on how many people had mental health disabilities, and those with giftedness. It would look something like a tall hill. The peak would be the average intelligent human being, because most people are hovering somewhere around it. The left would be people with mental health disabilities, and those with gifts would be on the right. There would be an equal amount going down this hill on either side. Yet, when we study, it looks like giftedness does not exist. It is a social outlier, or something that we don’t even consider. We don’t understand the mental state of humanity, because we tend to ignore understanding an entire section of it.
This is why it is so difficult to imagine a shooter. This is a perfectly good human being, who rationally, and sanely plans to kill people for his own personal glory. The idea does not make sense. A human being can not decide to begin murdering others unless there is something else happening. The shooter is an outlier in our mind, and we have no real ways to deal with it.
For every law, or idea proposed, it becomes obvious that we can not face this idea. Every statement I have read by friends, and the press has not covered this understanding because the outlier seems so impossible. This is the point though, it is an outlier. Literally something impossible and awful has killed children.
The act of a shooter is not the way we imagine it. We propose more laws, even when there are laws banning the guns being used. We propose mental health checks, when the majority of the shooters are completely sane. We say they were not raised properly, and yet these same people have perfectly functioning adult siblings. We want more guards at schools, not realizing that the amount of guards to stop a shooter would need to be very high, and still not work. Then we propose arming the teachers, even though this is the opposite of what any teacher wants to do with their life. We say he was bullied, or wore dark clothing. The Columbine shooters had friends, hung out, and did not do drugs. We say it is videogames, or a society filled with violence. Violent crimes have been dropping since the 80’s, and videogames have not been found to link to violent crime by psychological testing. In other words, we seem to be proposing all of the wrong things.
Taking care of people with mental health problems is a good and noble cause. Talking about violence in videogames is something that needs to be talked about. Placing them as the reasons for an awful event is not working, and placing a stigma on the breaching of the subject. It is now harder to talk to videogamers about the violence in their games. Many people with disabilities are being shunned because they are now being viewed as killers.
I want to point something out as well, I am a videogame playing, dark clothes wearing, quiet kid who grew up moving around all the time, and has ADHD. Not only that, I have the mental faculties to understand, and plan out an attack. Oh, and I lived in places where guns were all over the place, so I know how to aim and shoot one. You are making laws that outlaw me, and yet, it is not me who is doing it. This was why I turned myself in, as far as public evidence showed, I was a shooter waiting to happen. It frightened me. I have heard similar stories among friends, of them being kicked out of a school, or taken out in handcuffs because of the percieved threat. It doesn’t matter what side you are on, both ideas are proposing a police state. This is incredibly bad, and it is time we talked about it.
Researchers have been looking at the details of the shootings, and have found very little that commonly connect them all. The reality is, the people who decided to become a shooter were average. We could be describing anybody when giving the details in common with various shooters.
This is not a rage attack, nor is it a sudden snap of sanity. The people involved planned it out, and waited for the perfect time. There were plenty of people with guns at many of the shootings in recent time, they had to be in an exact spot to be able to do anything. Most shootings are fast, and last only a few minutes, being in another room would mean you are too late. A mall is not a warzone, nor is a school. Treating them as such destroys the reason why they exist.
So why are so many proposing ideas that will not work? There is an answer to this, and it is common. When something happens to someone you care about, you want to be able to do something. The feeling of uselessness is overwhelming. Each person tries to imagine a way that saves the day, from a well placed law, to a revenge fantasy. Grieving people are the most difficult to talk to about anything.
The fantasy of organizing, and leading a group to save the day is how one side is viewing it. They see the idea of creating a law, or awareness will save the lives of those in danger. We know laws only work if everyone agrees to them. There are plenty of people who specifically work against laws so that everyone can enjoy their favorite videogame, ipod, or movie for free. It gets even more basic since almost everyone goes faster than the speed limit, and then demands that laws be made.
The second group has a hero fantasy. The person is able to stop the horrible evil, by their quick wits, and cunning. Right after Columbine, I think everyone I knew had these fantasies. But there was always hundreds of shooters, and somehow they were not match for the hero.
Neither of these are real enough to stop the problems that are happening now. They are helping people grieve, and because of this, I tend to not point it out. Right now, I am seeing people trying to make these fantasies into reality.
The average mind of a shooter is very similar to that of a terrorist. It does not start that way, but the end result is the same. Law enforcement has done an incredible amount of research on how terrorists are recruited, and we can use that to help us in making decisions. The first thing to understand is that once an attack begins, it is too late. There may be someone who is at the right place, and has the ability to stop it, but he will not be common. The fantasy of simply stopping the enemy with bullets will not work. It does not matter if it is a teacher, a guard, or a common citizen, it is too late.
For terrorists, there is a training time. Someone helps the proto terrorist get over the idea that what he is doing is wrong. There are tapes of people performing acts of terror asking their friend if what they are doing is ok. Their more experienced friend assures them it is ok, and needs to be done. Eventually, the terrorist learns to separate themselves from those they kill, and those they care about. It does not happen overnight.
This is not happening with a shooter. They do not have trainers, or someone telling them it is alright. Entirely how this works out is completely unknown.
I believe this is the reason why so many are jumping to false conclusions. Even though there have been shooters for decades, we do not know why they do it. Because of this, we place other ideas, or try to mold the shooter into something we can understand.
We do not know why the shooter did it, so we assume they must have a mental health problem. This does not work out, because it is not a sudden crime, nor have many of the shooters had mental health issues that would lead to being a shooter. We are doing damage to people with mental health problems by labelling them as killers.
The same can be said for any of the other proposed ideas given. In fact there is a common pattern to it. The people proposing the idea either already believed a certain group was violent, or they were trying to push the idea away from themselves. People who dislike guns, are now proposing gun bans, even though the shooters did not use the guns being banned. Videogames are played as being the cause of violence by people who don’t play games.
We demand that the shooter not be us, not be average, not be normal, because then the shooter could be any one of us. It is a traumatizing thought, and the reaction by everyone involved has been to state that they are not the shooter. This is also part of the grieving, the dealing with the sense of guilt over the tragedy. The idea that nothing could be done, or something should have been done play back into the minds of the people.
Once again outliers happen, a single person becomes the explanation for an entire people. Someone who did something that is used by many as a form of relaxation, only in a horrible and awful form.
And now I have to tell you the truth, at this point there is no real answer. The people who research these ideas do not know why it is happening, or how to stop it. The understanding is very vague at this point, and no real conclusions can be made. In my previous paper, I tried to explain things using social equations, and thought patterns, but that does not mean I have a complete answer.
This is why we need to learn a very important thing, it is ok to not know. Something awful happened, and we do not know why. It will take a long time to understand, and work to stop it. This is why so many researchers have been writing articles, and telling people that they are being tricked. The details are proving that the knee jerk reactions to the tragedy are merely people trying to respond to their feelings of grief.
There is always talk about how much scientists know, and how they can do things. What people are having a hard time understanding is that science is an art of trying to understand the unknown. Scientists do not do tests on known things, they do tests on unknown things. The entire idea of science is that of finding out. The reason why scientists are excited is because they get to study the unknown, and how it works. Whenever I hear someone say they are a scientist, and that they know all sorts of stuff, I sort of laugh. A real scientist wants to know, and does everything they can to find out. It leads to long conversations on how things work, and what evidence there is to hold it. Most amazing tests hold high error rates, because of the knowledge that what is being done is dealing with unknown things. Electricity was being used before anyone knew how it worked.
Plato once said that he had learned that he knew nothing. What most do not understand, is that he was also saying, that he wanted to understand everything. The only way for him to do that was to admit how much he did not know.
In other words, I don’t know why there are school shootings. I do not understand how a perfectly sane human being would want to be a villain. There are questions I have that go back to things I enjoy doing, and I want to know how it may have affected the shooter. What was telling the shooter that it was ok, and that those being shot were not something to be sympathised with? I don’t know, I only know that I am not one of them. For me, that is a wonderful conclusion to make.
I also want to emphasize that the answer may happen without anyone noticing it. While people were worrying about the baby boom, and how it would make the population skyrocket. Women stopped having as many babies. It was happening before anyone noticed it in fact.
Some of the greatest things in the world have happened, before anyone ever realized it. In fact, a common thing is that the problem had become such a non thing for so long, that when the answer did happen, it wasn’t even considered big. Right now the proposals and the ideas are very big, and wrong. The reality is that the answers will be very slight, and personal. You will likely forget that shootings were even a thing unless someone reminded you.

In closing, I want everyone to understand that they are proposing ideas out of fear, and grieving. This grief is causing a large argument, over things that will not stop the next shooting at all. In fact, it is time to stop this bickering, because it is getting just as dangerous. I assure you, I fully know how you feel, how much you wish you could do something. You are reading the words of someone who turned himself in, because he was scared he was a monster. You are proposing that more people like me should be locked up, and the entire reason why, is because at this moment we do not have an answer.

Fred Rogers said to look for the helpers in tragedy. I want you to know of something similar. Every medical miracle we have today, came from someone else’s suffering. A doctor or nurse saw the suffering, and spent their lives trying to find answers. During the late 19th century, a woman saw men in the field of war dying, and she ran out, and dragged those men to a place where they could rest. The vast majority of these men survived. The woman inspired others to go out, and women began to volunteer to do this. They would be fired at, ripped to shreds, and yet they saved lives. Medicine owes these women a great deal of thanks. Not only did they inspire others around them, they began the modern thoughts and processes of medicine as we know it. That same compassion is felt today by doctors and nurses worldwide. So yes, we do not know why the shootings are happening, but that does not mean wonderfully caring people are sitting, and doing nothing. These people are working to find out what is really happening, and how it will be fixed.

If you see the horrors in front of you, and something inside wishes it could do something, then admit the truth. You don’t know why it happened. Only by admitting this, can you truly research the topic, and find the answer.