technology and the feminine iii

book of qlōnq

the prime danger to humanity lies not in man’s disappearance - for this is necessary - but in the possible inability to transfer the negative knowledge of woman to man before she loses it in the flowering glory of her newfound positive power. this danger comes both from woman in her forward thrust, and man in his resistance. yet they both have aids - man has technology and woman has the memory of her body - if man chooses, he can listen to her body’s rhythms though they neither flow evenly with his nor have a tongue he comprehends. through man’s love of woman’s flesh and the aid of the machine, he may absorb her secrets - although if he does, we will not know, for he will not speak them, as those truths do not live in the realm of words or will. once he cannot speak them, his will will have been fulfilled and his centre will be silent

 

man’s life is no longer his own, as he depends on two others to live - woman is his spirit, technology his will. to find the path to his centre, man must access woman’s flesh, which is no longer simply play and danger for him, but flesh and blood for his survival. his centre is outside himself, in woma - so he must seek her flesh to find it. his circumference, likewise, is outside himself, in the environment of technology he inhabits. when his environment was nature, his will drove him to consume it - he cannot consume his new environment, however, for he has placed his own will in it and that will will not allow consumption of itself, although consumption is its essence. as fire does not consume itself, so technology does not - as fire only consumes that which fuels it, so technology only eats what feeds it - namely, man

 

man likewise cannot consume woman because she is now too strong for him - he feeds on her even as technology feeds on him, but his feeding is not a diminishment of her, but rather a stimulant. this is the nature of woman - to be enhanced by feeding the world, an act that man feels lessened by. she may now feel pleasure instead of pain through the act of feeding, yet it still is feeding

 

woman’s feeding sustains man, while technology’s feeding destroys him - together they are creator and destroyer and so make man a unity. with both, he is made into a person, made whole, as he is no longer capable of being whole himself. his dependence is not complete yet, but it is near - he has left himself no room to maneuver, such that his total dependence, closer daily, is his fate

 

as man disappears as a force unto himself, the tension between technology and the feminine increases. the world’s eros will be between these two forces, not between man and woman.  neither force will speak openly about its erotic relationship, as forces wisely never speak the truth about themselves

 

woman feels ambivalent about her erotic partner, as she must. she is pleased because of the gifts it brings her. it diminishes her pain and labour while increasing her pleasure and power. she knows that she would not be as she is without its energy which frees her from the bondage of her physical limitations. yet she also knows, often at a deeper level, that this same energy destroys - not her perhaps, but everything she once held close. while she may protest the destruction of her past loves, her very ability to protest is a function of technology’s destruction. while she may mourn their absence, her present pleasure and movement are a growth from the organic decay of her past loves’ death. woman has watched the changes from the fiery recesses of her core, knowing them to be to her advantage, even if worlds and lovers fall in service of her rise. she gradually assimilates the useful material from technology’s slaughtering, as the earth sucks slowly up a tree’s decay

 

her protest of technology, when articulated, is both in opposition to her partner’s other ways and part of the necessary unity between them. the greatest unity on earth is erotic unity, which is not a union of companionship but struggle - the wild grasping of bodies, the thrusting opposition of spirits, the impossible attempt to break down barriers. woman is a physical-spiritual unity making love to a divided partner - man’s spirit outside his severed body. her opposing pole has been man, but man lives more and more in technology and is used by it, an extension of the will he built into it. there are few men left who attempt to be undivided, and they are either historical accidents, increasingly impossible as time flows forward, or ridiculous. soon, there will be none who even try. do not mistake the beating of the chest, the charm of formulaic words or the relentless crowing of the cock as evidence that man still lives in man. he repeats what he is told, traces the images he sees, and dances to the strings of a force beyond his strength and understanding. man’s nature is now a farce - his heart pumps to the beat of technology

 

man has always followed a formula, but now his formula is made visible and given flesh - he is forced to live in it and according to it. he becomes the numbers to be plugged into the pre-existing equations that his environment incessantly displays. his freedom is the freedom of math - x is now a 2, now a 3. in his roaming through the universe of numbers, he feels free, not realizing that x demands a particular number in each instance - he simply exists to supply its demand. also, x’s context - the equation in which it resides - is hardly man’s invention, but rather his discovery. he discovers the equations he inhabits and calls them freedom. his feeling and naming are sufficient to his belief