BCM 110 Assignment 3: Title: Sister GlitterNullius: conceptualising the monstering through representation and the gaze of the Other.
Blog 3 of 5: Types of Monstering:
Welcome back my children! Get out your fangs and your big person pants! We are going to take a bite from my monstering concept!
The way I have come to understand how I was created is something I call, monstering. Monstering is the every-single-thing that leads up to an outcome that is, to the benefit of humans at the detriment of Nature. Monstering is any and all individual, community, social, organisational, national and international belief, policy, philosophy, law, social structure, behaviour or action that prioritises the needs and wants of some humans above others in Nature, be they human or non-human. Your consumerism is part of the monstering, every purchase in plastic, every like on social media, the list goes on and on (Aruguete et al, 2020, Britton, 2015; Edwards 2020; Hammond, 2004; Haraway, 2010, 2016, 2018; Orlowski, 2020; Pontes, 2017; Sunstein, 2000; Tsing et al, 2017; Zuboff, 2019).
Monstering stems from and maintains the hierarchical social structures of power, of colonialism, capitalism, consumerism and christianity. That is, any socio-political, socio-religious structure that colonises and destructively harvests from nature causing extinction, to benefit the few. That might include media ownership laws that block truths and allow a few to control our access to a variety of points of view. Monstering also includes the harvesting of meta-data, creating digital profiles of mass media users and narrowing their thought-worlds by feeding back algorithmic selections, closing down people’s exposure to thought diversity. In effect, as consumers of mass media, it’s eating us, we’re eating it and ultimately eating digital versions of ourselves. This looks more like a type of digital cannibalism but capitalism and its fat cats are the only ones getting fat. The digitalocene! This is not a symbiotic relationship folks (Cunningham, 2014; Latour et al, 2018; Lidburg, 2019; Lyon, 2002; Orlowski, 2020; Solove, 2021; Sunstein, 2000; Zuboff, 2019).
Oh my children! I haven’t even started on the contributions of fossil fuels, agriculture, micro-plastix, human trafficking, cyborgs, all the isms, like sexism or the control of humans by artificial intelligence … time and space do not permit (Edwards, 2020; Haraway, 2010, 2016, 2018; Latour et al, 2018; Tsing et al, 2017). The point I am attempting to reach with you, about monstering behaviours, is that there is an underlying truth that requires urgent individual and collective shifts in our capitalist-consumerist social structure, beliefs and behaviours (Edwards, 2020; Haraway, 2010, 2016, 2018 ;Latour et al, 2018; Tsing et al, 2017). The truth is that we live in the geological era called the Anthropocene. The earth, its plants, organisms, animals and environments are being polluted or extincted by one monstering species, humans. Only humans have the ability and response-Ability to change this (Edwards, 2020; Hammond, 2004; Haraway, 2010, 2016, 2018; Latour et al, 2018; Todd, 2015; Tsing et al, 2017).
The truth is that we are monstering ourselves and all of the rest of nature into an all encompassing prison of environmental demise (Edwards, 2020; Hammond, 2004; Haraway, 2010, 2016, 2018; Latour et al, 2018; Todd, 2015; Tsing et al, 2017). I think the 1999 film, The Matrix is about prisons and truth and our acceptance, rejections or intersections with it. The truth is not always an easy pill to swallow and it may even threaten the comfort of your denial, your reality and your truth.
I’ll leave you with The Matrix (1999) and ask you, tell the truth about your contribution to the monstering…
Your Friend, In & Out of Plastix,
Sister GlitterNullius. X
Juundaal Strang-Yettica 