Kharmine

Boy, are you wired, Cathy! Must be good java 'cause they're good questions,

Um, hm.

1. If I understand the concept of anarchy right I don't know of any society that even got close to a successful model of it. First, I believe it assumes that people are basically good enough (or just smart enough) to govern themselves and run things without any kind of official governing authority.



OK, maybe a small group of like-minded persons can do this. For lack of a better example, I'm gonna use that of a commune run by the members. When it starts to get bigger and admit more diverse people it invariably starts falling apart until it is decided that chores need to be assigned in some way, and rules for the smooth functioning of the group have to be decided on. Eventually when someone gets to be a problem, decisions have to be made on what to do with that individual.

Because not everyone wants the responsibility, or is not good at assuming it, control eventually falls into the hands of a few. That's the first step out of anarchy, as far as I can tell, and the reason why it doesn't seem to take hold in any large society.

2. A market is created whenever there is a desire for something and someone to meet that desire who will ask something in exchange for meeting that desire. That goes back pretty far, and I couldn't possibly guess at what period the idea of selling one's art for a living came to be.

3. All I know is that when art has the potential to stir people's emotions and change thinking, it becomes a Force To Be Reckoned With by people who want to have at least some control over others. I can't think of any government that doesn't want to control its people, so I can't think of any government that hasn't tried to control art, one way or another.

Culture is a different matter. I don't know if the original so-called Easter Island natives had a government, but they did have a culture. From what I've read, the people were way into creating those statues because their culture taught them doing so would bring them power and good fortune.

People being competitive by nature, those statues got bigger and bigger and their creation took more and more of folks' time until there was no more hunting and gathering and fishing, just a frenzied period of sculpting of humungous ugly heads. Which, apparently, helped to slide their civilization into near-extinction. (OK, this is a simplification, but it's close.)

Was all that obsessive creation art? It certainly had a claim on the people's emotions and thoughts. Maybe this was an instance when some government control would have been a good idea!

Anyway, does that explain my contention about the subversiveness of art?

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What if the hokey pokey is really what it's all about?

belly_dancer

TOTALLY off SUBJECT!!!!
hey Kharmine.... would really likie to know/study more...... where did you read this???? I had always heard that their "end of civilization" had to do w/ the battles btwn the "long ears" & the "short ears" long after the heads were made........

Kharmine

I'll have to look it up, BD, as it was some time ago. I think there's been a slew of theories as to what happened to that civilization. I reallly doubt any one thing was the culprit. War, bad weather, disease, enslavement by Europeans, all played a part.

I do remember something called the "Birdman Cult" about a strange competition in which the winner and his clan would be given control over the island resources and eventually it led to so much pillaging that crops were destroyed and the soil eroded.

The theory I mentioned suggested that the hundreds of statues took up so much time and effort to produce that more important things, like farming, got left behind. But I have to track down who came up with that one.

We did get off track, didn't we? Did we ever talk about how belly dancers are controlled now in Egypt as an example of how governments try to control the arts?

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What if the hokey pokey is really what it's all about?

belly_dancer

did you ever read Thor Hederdahl's (probably butchered that name!!!)
book abt Easter Island... written in 50's or 60's??? (fascinating.... he wrote several books... one partly had to do w/Egypt...)
meanwhile back to our regularly scheduled programming.....
what DOES happen to belly dancers in Epypt.... currently.... remember they did generate the MOST revenue (due to how much they were taxed!!!) is this still true????(+ the whole thing about how the stomach must remained covered/etc...)but what is true TODAY>>>>> know there are some dancers IN EGYPT TODAY on this forum.... please enlighten us!!!

Kharmine

"Aku Aku," I think is the book you're referring to, BD -- I'm working on getting a copy. I just got a copy of "Kon Tiki."

What I've heard about Egypt is that today's government bans belly dancers from performing floorwork and has limits on what can be worn. There are dancers who have worn bicycle shorts with their outfits, which sounds pretty ugly. Their national dance performing troupe seems to be on the conservative side, too.

Better informed folks will shortly chime in here soon, I hope!

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What if the hokey pokey is really what it's all about?

Shanazel

My husband says that the reason anarchists never get very far is because they can never convince anyone to run for office

Nat242

Hi - If you're interested in Easter Island check out 'Collapse' by Jared Diamond, it's a fantastic book about why some societies fail and others survive, and he looks at Easter Island in detail.

Jared Diamond concludes his investigation into the causes of economic and social collapse on Easter Island by stating, “(there are) just two main sets of factors behind Easter’s collapse: human environmental impacts, especially deforestation and destruction of bird populations; and the political, social, and religious factors behind the impacts” (2005: p118).

Kharmine - it's highly likely that Easter Island had forms of government and a complex economic system. This is due to the massive resource demands of the heads - known as the moai and ahu - took to build. The stone used was quarried from one area of the island, rope and timber harvested from another area, best fishing and food gathering done in another area. In order to organise the amount of labour and resources required for this sort of engineering and artistic feat, some sort of government and economic system is highly likely to have been in place.

Can you tell I just finished an assignment where I used Easter Island as a case study??

Back to topic now...

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Natalie

cathy

Hi Kharmine,

You wrote:

3. All I know is that when art has the potential to stir people's emotions and change thinking, it becomes a Force To Be Reckoned With by people who want to have at least some control over others. I can't think of any government that doesn't want to control its people, so I can't think of any government that hasn't tried to control art, one way or another.

OK, I agree that governments want to control their people, and therefore art.

My emotions are stirred and my thinking has been changed by my ME dance.

Would you say ME dance is subversive here in the US or in the West in general? If so how?

Would you say that our government takes specific steps to control how ME dance is expressed, moreso than other dance forms? I realize there is the issue of how tax dollars are distributed, and "cabaret laws" about where it can be performed.....is there more to it than that?

Thanks, Cathy

Brea

Thor Heyerdahl's books are looked upon with a great deal of suspicion these days...later anthropologists talked to locals and they were told 'well of course we told him that, it seemed to make him so happy'. The dangers of anthropology.

Regarding ME dance: I run mostly into trouble with other dancers who find it blasphemous that I think of this as a sexual dance. I do not think of it as a stripping kind of thing, but the sexuality is definitely there. I have other problems with the rest of society's view (like, 'I could bellydance! I have the belly for it!' particularly when I encourage men to try it out). However, I wish that bellydancers could embrace this for what it is, and why I see it as unique: a bold and beautiful expression of something everyone does but we are all so repressed about- lovemaking. It's the greatest tale in the world; I'm surprised that no other art form has told it so well or for such a long time..and I'm also surprised that dancers want to yank that out of it...for me, that's like destroying the dance itself.

There's a way to be subversive with ME dance.

-Brea

Kharmine

Brea, oh yeah, there's always the amused locals who happily give the nice foreigners misinformation! But I haven't heard that Heyerdahl's work was actually discredited, in terms that meant he used shoddy or dishonest scientific methods. He was a real scientist and he used the best methods at his disposal in those days. Just goes to show, you have to keep everything in context, even when reading someone's scientific conclusions...

Nat242, that's neat that you had Easter Island as a case study! I think what Diamond (I like his book "Guns, Germs and Steel") said sort of goes along with the theory that one reason the civilization ran into deep trouble was because of all the time, resources and effort that had to be consumed in order to create those giant statues. There wasn't enough population left over to do the other tasks of keeping a society fed. Maybe we could consider that a warning for our times...

As to the subversiveness of belly dance in the West -- I think a lot of its popularity among Westerners from the beginning was precisely because it was uninhibited, a novelty in socially restrained and repressed societies. I don't think it was coincidence that it became especially popular in the U.S. at a time when women were pressured to wear girdles, defer to men and stay second-class citizens.

Belly dance definitely presents a threat to those who think women should not demonstrate their independence and ownership of their own bodies, to those who equate public enjoyment of sensuality (let alone sexuality) with outright obscenity.

So, IMHO, belly dance becomes a subversive act when it defies attempts not only to ban it or water it down, but also to degrade or marginalize it, to pen it up within the category of erotic dance and titlillation for its own sake.

Of course, when belly dancing becomes associated solely in people's minds with the hoochie coochie -- then, yeah, it becomes something institutions tend to ignore when it comes to consideration as a legit art form. Go figure.

OK, now I think I've pontificated enough on these subjects -- time for me to get off the soap box and encourage others to jump in here! These are just my opinions, folks.

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What if the hokey pokey is really what it's all about?