Cognitive implications

Engaging with Globality through Cognitive Circlets (Part #5)

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Whilst the above uses of the torc -- in whatever form -- stress how the wearer is to be perceived by others and to distinguish the authority of the wearer in relation to them, they seemingly say relatively little about the cognitive significance to the wearer. There is an implication that in some cases, beyond any matter of authority, there is an unusual level of understanding and insight. This would be the preferred current implication with respect to the papal tiara or the collars of rank in freemasonry, although such an implication is now deprecated in relation to constitutional monarchs formerly claiming to rule by divine right (but with the continuing exception of those still held to be "living gods"). In such cases the understanding is typically held to be secret or beyond normal ken. The imaginative exploration of "metapsychic" powers, by Julian May and others, has merit in pointing to possibilities, however speculative.

The use of torcs in slavery and in bondage games offers another sense of the potential existential implications as experienced. Whether or not distinguished by use of torcs, strong arguments may be advanced for the continued existence of slavery in its traditional forms (E. Benjamin Skinner, A Crime So Monstrous: face-to-face with modern-day slavery, 2008). There are now alleged to be more slaves on the planet than at any time in human history. In addition there is the effective emergence of other forms of slavery, including phenomena associated with sexual slavery, wage slavery, white collar slavery or blue collar slavery (Jolly Roger, The New American Slavery, 2005).

Enslavement of any such kind suggests the value of recognizing what might be understood as "virtual torcs" by which people are "torqued" into some form of subservience. The intangible characteristic of such enforcement is presumably closely associated with structural violence as analyzed by Johan Galtung (Violence, Peace, and Peace Research, Journal of Peace Research, 1969). The term denotes a form of violence which corresponds with the systematic ways in which a given social structure or social institution kills people slowly by preventing them from meeting their basic needs. Examples include: institutionalized elitism, ethnocentrism, classism, racism, sexism, adultism, nationalism, heterosexism and ageism.

The analysis has been extended to include cultural violence (Johan Galtung, Cultural Violence, Journal of Peace Research, 1990) understood as any aspect of a culture that can be used to legitimize violence in its direct or structural form. Symbolic violence built into a culture in this way does not kill or maim like direct violence or the violence built into the structure -- however, it is used to legitimize either or both.

It is curious that the far more common use of the term "torque" in mechanics, notably as a verb, has associations to such intangible forms of violence. Thus to "impart torque" is to cause to twist, typically about an axis, fulcrum or pivot. Torque is then the moment of a force, namely the measure of a force's tendency to produce torsion and rotation about an axis. It is typically used to describe a rotational force down a shaft (for example a turning screw-driver), whereas "moment" is more often used to describe a bending force on a beam.

Such precise use in mechanics offers a template for understanding subtle psycho-social phenomena described by the term "twisted" (Twistedness in Psycho-social Systems: challenge to logic, morality, leadership and personal development, 2004; Engaging with Questions of Higher Order: cognitive vigilance required for higher degrees of twistedness, 2004). Put bluntly, this would appear to justify the subtle sense commonly described in urban jargon by the phrase "being shafted". This would accord with explorations of the experience, attributed notably to the enslaved, of "being torqued". It is also suggestive of insights relating to any "axis" around which people rotate or are expected to rotate.

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