Current Ancestor of 'Companions'?

POSTED BY: AgentRouka
UPDATED: Tuesday, October 5, 2010 21:07
VIEWED: 2580
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AGENTROUKA

Tuesday, October 5, 2010 4:14 PM

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
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Originally posted by AgentRouka:

Like what?

Well, for example, the whole rite-of-passage-by-sex thing and "union" thing in Jaynestown calls pretty strongly to a new-age revisioning of Hieros Gamos.

But sex has been considered a rite of passage into adulthood far beyond "new age" and it's really more the philosophy of Magistrate Higgins than it is Inara's. She adamently points out that it has nothing to do with getting closer to adulthood, in fact.

And sex is a form of union. Why is that necessarily "hokey" and fake?

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It doesn't even have to be that it was the entire Guild at first, but rather that business savvy leaders of the Guild at the time invented some kind of cult to attract members. It would still technically be more of a PR campaign if the intention was to make it acceptable for the mass public.

But why would a spiritual bend (as a shift away from what was already offered) make it more acceptable, if they already had a satisfied customer base? If anything, it might alienate previous customers.

And a super-gradual change over centuries would hardly be a desired result of a deliberate campaign designed to increase acceptance. The pay-off would be decades/centuries away and the outcome uncertain. Unless you - again - imply that intermediate generations were happy to participate in phony spirituality.

I don't get this angle at all. It's a lot less likely than a genuine development of culture. After all, even if you dismiss it all as "hokey new ageism", there are still people who feel at home in that world view, which makes it no less real or genuine than, say, Catholicism.

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I guess if this is going to go down a "the Guild MUST be bad because it is a large organisation" road then we should agree to disagree now.

No, but the Guild was, first and foremost, organized for the sake of a business enterprise. Otherwise why not call it the Church Of The Most High Goddess or something?

Because they are not a religious order? They are a union, a Guild. They protect an existing trade. They don't suddenly (someone had to suddenly have the idea, after all, no matter how gradual a change you suggest) change the trade for a dubious gain of acceptance.

I do suspect your bias and my bias do work against each other here.

AGENTROUKA

Tuesday, October 5, 2010 4:21 PM

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Originally posted by Bytemite:

He seems to have that same commitment to his crew, judging by his taking River and Simon back in during the movie, and going to rescue Inara, and his very real reaction when Book is shot (both in the series and the movie). He holds himself responsible, maybe too much.

It's more the emotional committment I meant. Mal is fiercely loyal. But even his best friend Zoe calls him "sir".

They say you don't pay a prostitute for sex but to go away afterwards. That's a little how I see Mal dealing with emotional committment to his crew "family". He gets to be fiercely loyal but it's because that's his Duty as The Captain. That way, he gets to push them away rather harshly when it suits him. He doesn't have all the work of real emotional relationships.

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, October 5, 2010 4:37 PM

I'm sorry, I'm atheist. Most of the organized spirituality people have come up with seems pretty hokey to me.

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And sex is a form of union. Why is that necessarily "hokey" and fake?

Because my guess would be considering Sihnon's considerable Chinese influence, most members of the Guild are of the Hànchuán Fójiào flavour of Buddhism, not the rare sect of Indian Vajrayana Buddhism that believes in sex rites. Inara espousing a philosophy of sex as a sacred union seems to be in direct conflict with what her actual religious beliefs probably are.

Though admittedly that was mostly to get Magistrate Higgins out of the way, so I also admit the possibility that this didn't represent Guild philosophy at all.

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But why would a spiritual bend (as a shift away from what was already offered) make it more acceptable, if they already had a satisfied customer base? If anything, it might alienate previous customers.

Maybe, but if they were accepted by the mainstream, they'd get more customers to replace the ones they'd lost, and if previous costumers saw that the offered services hadn't changed, they might win them back.

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And a super-gradual change over centuries would hardly be a desired result of a deliberate campaign designed to increase acceptance. The pay-off would be decades/centuries away and the outcome uncertain. Unless you - again - imply that intermediate generations were happy to participate in phony spirituality.

...Not really. How else does a cult form? Usually the leader just wants to make a crap ton of money, but the followers for some reason believe it all whole heartedly.

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Because they are not a religious order? They are a union, a Guild. They protect an existing trade.

So we agree here. I suspect our differences might lie in whether we believe a business can actually have a spiritual side. The Guild started as a business. It seems to have become something more. Still, the spiritual side of the Guild seems fairly inexplicable unless you consider the spiritualism must have all been developed early on for business reasons.

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, October 5, 2010 4:49 PM

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Originally posted by AgentRouka:
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Originally posted by Bytemite:

He seems to have that same commitment to his crew, judging by his taking River and Simon back in during the movie, and going to rescue Inara, and his very real reaction when Book is shot (both in the series and the movie). He holds himself responsible, maybe too much.

It's more the emotional committment I meant. Mal is fiercely loyal. But even his best friend Zoe calls him "sir".

They say you don't pay a prostitute for sex but to go away afterwards. That's a little how I see Mal dealing with emotional committment to his crew "family". He gets to be fiercely loyal but it's because that's his Duty as The Captain. That way, he gets to push them away rather harshly when it suits him. He doesn't have all the work of real emotional relationships.

Hmm. In some ways I agree with this... But I don't think he's fiercely loyal just because he sees himself as obligated by duty.

I'm also failing to remember specific instances of him pushing the crew emotionally away. He definitely pushes Inara away... I don't know. I know he can be snarky and mean, but he has more of an avoidant approach to close relationships. When he's actually in a "leave me alone" mood, he more tends to just walk away rather than push away. His response usually is "I can't (won't) deal with this."

For some reason it doesn't seem accurate to me to say the wages are a "you have to put up with me" insurance on Mal's part.

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, October 5, 2010 5:20 PM

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But sex has been considered a rite of passage into adulthood far beyond "new age"

See, that's another thing. Sacred Union and Hieros Gamos have absolutely nothing to do with sex-as-rite-of-passage.

That Inara even brings it up there is WEIRD, and indicates that her understanding of the history and philosophy behind all of that is incomplete. As I said, it's more in line with the amalgamation of ideas that is new-age-ism.

AGENTROUKA

Tuesday, October 5, 2010 5:22 PM

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
I'm sorry, I'm atheist. Most of the organized spirituality people have come up with seems pretty hokey to me.

I'm an agnostic, but I respect the religious or spiritual experience of other people. Not necessarily organised religious institutions, but I do not consider their members or leaders fake per se.

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And sex is a form of union. Why is that necessarily "hokey" and fake?

Because my guess would be considering Sihnon's considerable Chinese influence, most members of the Guild are of the Hànchuán Fójiào flavour of Buddhism, not the rare sect of Indian Vajrayana Buddhism that believes in sex rites. Inara espousing a philosophy of sex as a sacred union seems to be in direct conflict with what her actual religious beliefs probably are.

That's a pretty specific assumption, though, which discounts the possible shift and fusion of religious believe and practice in a space of 500 years.

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Though admittedly that was mostly to get Magistrate Higgins out of her face, so I also admit the possibility that this didn't represent Guild philosophy at all.

I agree with this.

I also think I may have wrongly given the impression that I think the actual service provided is necessaily spiritual. It can be, but the only suggestion of it is in "Jaynestown" and even there we both agree it's speculative whether it applies at all. What I see as spiritual is mostly Guild-internal and cultural, for the Companions themselves rather than as part of the "product".

That's why PR doesn't want to mesh with the concept in my eyes.

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But why would a spiritual bend (as a shift away from what was already offered) make it more acceptable, if they already had a satisfied customer base? If anything, it might alienate previous customers.

Maybe, but if they were accepted by the mainstream, they'd get more customers to replace the ones they'd lost, and if previous costumers saw that the offered services hadn't changed, they might win them back.

This assuming that profit is the only motivating factor. Since these women already chose a rather specific profession one would assume out of personal inclination, why would they agree to changing it by adding something they do not feel? Your theory places profit far over the "integrity" if you will, of the unionized professionals in question. It's one thing to offer a service of agreed illusion, another to pretend religious feelings.

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...Not really. How else does a cult form? Usually the leader just wants to make a crap ton of money, but the followers for some reason believe it all whole heartedly.

So now they're a brainwashed cult?

I already did state how I feel about the presumed "evil Guild", so we really don't need to go further on this if that's your starting point. :(

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Because they are not a religious order? They are a union, a Guild. They protect an existing trade.

So we agree here. I suspect our differences might lie in whether we believe a business can actually have a spiritual side. The Guild started as a business. It seems to have become something more. Still, the spiritual side of the Guild seems fairly inexplicable unless you consider the spiritualism must have all been developed early on for business reasons.

I don't see it as mainly a business. I see it as a union for business women, but a union with a spiritual bend that grew out of a genuine spirituality. I don't see Coca Cola or whatever it is you see and I certainly don't see Inara or most other Companions as brainwashed zombies too naive to realize if something is deeply fake.

So... really, as I suspected, we're not going to see eye to eye on this.

AGENTROUKA

Tuesday, October 5, 2010 5:22 PM

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
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But sex has been considered a rite of passage into adulthood far beyond "new age"

See, that's another thing. Sacred Union and Hieros Gamos have absolutely nothing to do with sex-as-rite-of-passage.

That Inara even brings it up there is WEIRD, and indicates that her understanding of the history and philosophy behind all of that is incomplete. As I said, it's more in line with the amalgamation of ideas that is new-age-ism.

She brings it up to negate it, not to affirm it. So this does - again - not apply.

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, October 5, 2010 5:37 PM

Why is a cult considered automatically evil? They aren't.

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That's a pretty specific assumption, though, which discounts the possible shift and fusion of religious believe and practice in a space of 500 years.

From the Vajrayana? o.0 I find that extremely unlikely, unless the Guild took all of this from new-age tantricism... Which arguably is neither Buddhist or Vajrayana.

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I don't see it as mainly a business. I see it as a union for business women, but a union with a spiritual bend that grew out of a genuine spirituality.

Yeah, you're right, we don't see eye to eye. I just don't see how that's possible. For me the only thing that makes sense is either that the Guild started as a business and had a spectacular PR campaign that evolved into an actual culture and spiritualism, or the Guild was started by someone who wanted to mainstream prostitution/protect prostitutes and created a cult to do so. Neither of which are evil goals, I note.

I'm also not sure how the Guild can have such a pervasive spiritual bend, when it's not necessarily part of the package that companions offer.

AGENTROUKA

Tuesday, October 5, 2010 5:43 PM

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Originally posted by Bytemite:

Hmm. In some ways I agree with this... But I don't think he's fiercely loyal just because he sees himself as obligated by duty.

You misunderstand me. He does not feel obligated out of a sense of duty. "Duty" as coded in "my crew" and being the Captain are his official reasons for all of his actions, whether they have a business motivation or an emotional one. An excuse, if you will. He can go as far as he wants in saving or aiding someone and it can still be "excused" as captainly loyalty, a form of principle and integrity as opposed to an emotional attachment to an individual person, which might lead to demands of emotional access.

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For some reason it doesn't seem accurate to me to say the wages are a "you have to put up with me" insurance on Mal's part.

But try being snarky and mean consistently the way Mal can be and keep those friends around. Friends, rightfully, demand a certain base level of emotional access as well as decent treatment. Neither of which Mal is consistently willing to provide. The business relationship creates a connection beyond personal attachment, a neutral ground for retreat.

Zoe's "sir" and the way we do NOT see them ever discuss emotional matters is deeply symptomatic of this. Mal has "officially" no close friends. He has subordinates and business relationships, passengers and.. Monty? Friendship is only ever implied, never openly aknowledged and in tense moments utterly dismissed.

That's a serious lack of emotional committment.

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, October 5, 2010 5:47 PM

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She brings it up to negate it, not to affirm it. So this does - again - not apply.

Okay, so perhaps this isn't something Inara believes. But does Inara hold new-age beliefs?

What do you make of the time when Inara tells Kaylee she selects clients based on their "energy"? That's pretty new-age.

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