What are we for?: The Socialist Decision.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > What are we for?: The Socialist Decision.

Willie Tomg: Feb 2, 2006

I too am basically holding off on the There, there. Until this rhetoric makes the face turn to self-criticism it's just jerking off into a mirror whilst crying.

Bar Ran Dun posted:

Chapter 2: The forms of Political Romanticism

Conservative and Revolutionary Forms
This chapter deal with basically what we see now within the Republican Party. The old guard gently caress you got mine tax cutting, regulation busting, poor hating, racist fuckers and the paranoid fringe, John Birch society, Alex Jone, Tumpist, racist fascist motherfuckers. Basically this chapter provides working definition and descriptions of the two groups on the right often now called “conservatives” and “Trumpists”.

Like, come on man. Tap that poo poo on in, I know you've got it in you. Integrate these oppositions. The problem isn't parties, the problem is that some people are comfortable with the way things are and some other people are most people on Earth at a time when the social, ecological and economic fabric of everything is disintegrating in the same 10 year window.

I feel like in attempting to be thorough, you're integrating notions that weaken your point as gadflies instead of strengthening it. You're thinking yourself into trouble so--at best!--you can demonstrate thinking yourself out of trouble. This is why technocracy is a four-letter-word. Like some current Democratic candidates for president I could name!

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Willie Tomg: Feb 2, 2006

I have written elsewhere that if you're reading these words, you have access to an incredible device that gives you multiple Libraries of Alexandria worth of information. Saying this in the wrong places is apparently harassment according to people who are no doubt trying their best to be taken seriously. That's unfortunate because if one was so inclined they could take that energy shitposting about conservatives and D&D posters they don't like very much in every direction all the time and turn it into learning stuff about things on this incredible online platform to approximate a personal education by doing the work of learning things they don't already know. Here's an approximately introductory chapter relative to this point in The Socialist Decision in another forbidden text whose meaning has been cruelly denied to too many for instance:

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/

Let's read ten paragraphs from this grimoire that describe every single economic transaction since the Bronze Age

quote:

The capital C is made up of two components, one, the sum of money c laid out upon the means of production, and the other, the sum of money v expended upon the labour-power; c represents the portion that has become constant capital, and v the portion that has become variable capital. At first then, C = c + v: for example, if �500 is the capital advanced, its components may be such that the �500 = �410 const. + �90 var. When the process of production is finished, we get a commodity whose value = (c + v) + s, where s is the surplus-value; or taking our former figures, the value of this commodity may be (�410 const. + �90 var.) + �90 surpl. The original capital has now changed from C to C', from �500 to �590. The difference is s or a surplus-value of �90. Since the value of the constituent elements of the product is equal to the value of the advanced capital, it is mere tautology to say, that the excess of the value of the product over the value of its constituent elements, is equal to the expansion of the capital advanced or to the surplus-value produced.

Nevertheless, we must examine this tautology a little more closely. The two things compared are, the value of the product and the value of its constituents consumed in the process of production. Now we have seen how that portion of the constant capital which consists of the instruments of labour, transfers to the production only a fraction of its value, while the remainder of that value continues to reside in those instruments. Since this remainder plays no part in the formation of value, we may at present leave it on one side. To introduce it into the calculation would make no difference. For instance, taking our former example, c = �410: suppose this sum to consist of �312 value of raw material, �44 value of auxiliary material, and �54 value of the machinery worn away in the process; and suppose that the total value of the machinery employed is �1,054. Out of this latter sum, then, we reckon as advanced for the purpose of turning out the product, the sum of �54 alone, which the machinery loses by wear and tear in the process; for this is all it parts with to the product. Now if we also reckon the remaining �1,000, which still continues in the machinery, as transferred to the product, we ought also to reckon it as part of the value advanced, and thus make it appear on both sides of our calculation. [1] We should, in this way, get �1,500 on one side and �1,590 on the other. The difference of these two sums, or the surplus-value, would still be �90. Throughout this Book therefore, by constant capital advanced for the production of value, we always mean, unless the context is repugnant thereto, the value of the means of production actually consumed in the process, and that value alone.

This being so, let us return to the formula C = c + v, which we saw was transformed into C' = (c + v) + s, C becoming C'. We know that the value of the constant capital is transferred to, and merely re-appears in the product. The new value actually created in the process, the value produced, or value-product, is therefore not the same as the value of the product; it is not, as it would at first sight appear (c + v) + s or �410 const. + �90 var. + �90 surpl.; but v + s or �90 var. + �90 surpl., not �590 but �180. If c = 0, or in other words, if there were branches of industry in which the capitalist could dispense with all means of production made by previous labour, whether they be raw material, auxiliary material, or instruments of labour, employing only labour-power and materials supplied by Nature, in that case, there would be no constant capital to transfer to the product. This component of the value of the product, i.e., the �410 in our example, would be eliminated, but the sum of �180, the amount of new value created, or the value produced, which contains �90 of surplus-value, would remain just as great as if c represented the highest value imaginable. We should have C = (0 + v) = v or C' the expanded capital = v + s and therefore C' - C = s as before. On the other hand, if s = 0, or in other words, if the labour-power, whose value is advanced in the form of variable capital, were to produce only its equivalent, we should have C = c + v or C' the value of the product = (c + v) + 0 or C = C'. The capital advanced would, in this case, not have expanded its value.

From what has gone before, we know that surplus-value is purely the result of a variation in the value of v, of that portion of the capital which is transformed into labour-power; consequently, v + s = v + v', or v plus an increment of v. But the fact that it is v alone that varies, and the conditions of that variation, are obscured by the circumstance that in consequence of the increase in the variable component of the capital, there is also an increase in the sum total of the advanced capital. It was originally �500 and becomes �590. Therefore in order that our investigation may lead to accurate results, we must make abstraction from that portion of the value of the product, in which constant capital alone appears, and consequently must equate the constant capital to zero or make c = 0. This is merely an application of a mathematical rule, employed whenever we operate with constant and variable magnitudes, related to each other by the symbols of addition and subtraction only.

A further difficulty is caused by the original form of the variable capital. In our example, C' = �410 const. + �90 var. + �90 surpl.; but �90 is a given and therefore a constant quantity; hence it appears absurd to treat it as variable. But in fact, the term �90 var. is here merely a symbol to show that this value undergoes a process. The portion of the capital invested in the purchase of labour-power is a definite quantity of materialised labour, a constant value like the value of the labour-power purchased. But in the process of production the place of the �90 is taken by the labour-power in action, dead labour is replaced by living labour, something stagnant by something flowing, a constant by a variable. The result is the reproduction of v plus an increment of v. From the point of view then of capitalist production, the whole process appears as the spontaneous variation of the originally constant value, which is transformed into labour-power. Both the process and its result, appear to be owing to this value. If, therefore, such expressions as ��90 variable capital,� or �so much self-expanding value,� appear contradictory, this is only because they bring to the surface a contradiction immanent in capitalist production.

At first sight it appears a strange proceeding, to equate the constant capital to zero. Yet it is what we do every day. If, for example, we wish to calculate the amount of England�s profits from the cotton industry, we first of all deduct the sums paid for cotton to the United States, India, Egypt and other countries; in other words, the value of the capital that merely re-appears in the value of the product, is put = 0.

Of course the ratio of surplus-value not only to that portion of the capital from which it immediately springs, and whose change of value it represents, but also to the sum total of the capital advanced is economically of very great importance. We shall, therefore, in the third book, treat of this ratio exhaustively. In order to enable one portion of a capital to expand its value by being converted into labour-power, it is necessary that another portion be converted into means of production. In order that variable capital may perform its function, constant capital must be advanced in proper proportion, a proportion given by the special technical conditions of each labour-process. The circumstance, however, that retorts and other vessels, are necessary to a chemical process, does not compel the chemist to notice them in the result of his analysis. If we look at the means of production, in their relation to the creation of value, and to the variation in the quantity of value, apart from anything else, they appear simply as the material in which labour-power, the value-creator, incorporates itself. Neither the nature, nor the value of this material is of any importance. The only requisite is that there be a sufficient supply to absorb the labour expended in the process of production. That supply once given, the material may rise or fall in value, or even be, as land and the sea, without any value in itself; but this will have no influence on the creation of value or on the variation in the quantity of value. [2]

In the first place then we equate the constant capital to zero. The capital advanced is consequently reduced from c + v to v, and instead of the value of the product (c + v) + s we have now the value produced (v + s). Given the new value produced = �180, which sum consequently represents the whole labour expended during the process, then subtracting from it �90 the value of the variable capital, we have remaining �90, the amount of the surplus-value. This sum of �90 or s expresses the absolute quantity of surplus-value produced. The relative quantity produced, or the increase per cent of the variable capital, is determined, it is plain, by the ratio of the surplus-value to the variable capital, or is expressed by s/v. In our example this ratio is 90/90, which gives an increase of 100%. This relative increase in the value of the variable capital, or the relative magnitude of the surplus-value, I call, �The rate of surplus-value.� [3]

We have seen that the labourer, during one portion of the labour-process, produces only the value of his labour-power, that is, the value of his means of subsistence. Now since his work forms part of a system, based on the social division of labour, he does not directly produce the actual necessaries which he himself consumes; he produces instead a particular commodity, yarn for example, whose value is equal to the value of those necessaries or of the money with which they can be bought. The portion of his day�s labour devoted to this purpose, will be greater or less, in proportion to the value of the necessaries that he daily requires on an average, or, what amounts to the same thing, in proportion to the labour-time required on an average to produce them. If the value of those necessaries represent on an average the expenditure of six hours� labour, the workman must on an average work for six hours to produce that value. If instead of working for the capitalist, he worked independently on his own account, he would, other things being equal, still be obliged to labour for the same number of hours, in order to produce the value of his labour-power, and thereby to gain the means of subsistence necessary for his conservation or continued reproduction. But as we have seen, during that portion of his day�s labour in which he produces the value of his labour-power, say three shillings, he produces only an equivalent for the value of his labour-power already advanced [4] by the capitalist; the new value created only replaces the variable capital advanced. It is owing to this fact, that the production of the new value of three shillings takes the semblance of a mere reproduction. That portion of the working-day, then, during which this reproduction takes place, I call �necessary� labour time, and the labour expended during that time I call �necessary� labour. [5] Necessary, as regards the labourer, because independent of the particular social form of his labour; necessary, as regards capital, and the world of capitalists, because on the continued existence of the labourer depends their existence also.

During the second period of the labour-process, that in which his labour is no longer necessary labour, the workman, it is true, labours, expends labour-power; but his labour, being no longer necessary labour, he creates no value for himself. He creates surplus-value which, for the capitalist, has all the charms of a creation out of nothing. This portion of the working-day, I name surplus labour-time, and to the labour expended during that time, I give the name of surplus-labour. It is every bit as important, for a correct understanding of surplus-value, to conceive it as a mere congelation of surplus labour-time, as nothing but materialised surplus-labour, as it is, for a proper comprehension of value, to conceive it as a mere congelation of so many hours of labour, as nothing but materialised labour. The essential difference between the various economic forms of society, between, for instance, a society based on slave-labour, and one based on wage-labour, lies only in the mode in which this surplus-labour is in each case extracted from the actual producer, the labourer.

That's it. That's the rational process by which one dollar becomes two, that's the rational process by which a worker is rationally considered less valuable than the machines with which they use to perform labor, its why the hegemonic system abhors ecologically sustainable inputs and its why more money keeps going into fewer hands, its how a nonvalue spits in the eye of the natural order and multiplies into something. The particular values of c, v, C, C', and s can and will change, and people can bicker for Woke Points about how close to v they are on Twitter, which is a company that tumerously derives its cruel facsimile of C' via investment while its notional value falls but the function does not. What use does a society have for existentialism that already turns nothingness into billions for those who are already billionaires, while we're talking as atomized and helpless voices on a phantasmal information network containing most of the knowledge that has ever been possessed by humanity? That a sectarian heart daydreams uncertain while empty stomachs, diseased flesh and indebted bodies decide is a point of persistent frustration with the American left that is only just now slowly and painfully being caught up on in the States

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0IopdH1e3s&t=45s

This, to me, is the problem and not a lack of proper spiritual inner-space, or a means to address such. The problem is that to seek democracy as-such is a dog chasing a car, if we have no equability then when we catch up it just drives off again. The answer is not a pathology of strange other fish or how they swim, but a study of the currents in which we all live. IMO.

Helsing posted:

This isn't about Buttigieg's inner mental state this is about trying to make sense of your political beliefs and how they fit together. In particular I want to understand why all your criticisms of American politics are exclusively focused on Fox News and the Republic Party when Obama and Buttigieg seem to be clear examples of exactly the kind of political romanticism that you're describing here. If we were to compare the crude mercenary rhetoric of Trump to the grandiloquent rhetoric of a typical Obama speech then Trump's semi-coherent ramblings would arguably be a much more honest and accurate presentation of American foreign policy than Obama's absurd attempts to argue that the US military empire is really somehow on the side of justice and human rights.

Let's take the essay on ur-fascism that you cite repeatedly and look at what is almost the very first passage:

You seem to be using articles like Eco's ur-fascism piece to narrowly criticism conservative politicians and media outlets in America while quite conspicuously ignoring liberal outlets and politicians. Referencing Martin Luther King's condemnation of the white moderate and again, remaining silent on the role of the liberal establishment in America, further emphasizes this discrepancy in your thinking. The idea that conservatives in America are more inclined toward political romanticism just doesn't follow. The opposite would be an easier case to make, at least in the last few years. Republicans tend to be more open in acknowledging the brutal self interest at the heart of American politics while liberals are eager to mystify American politics by invoking legitimizing myths.

This is all kind of indicative of how your real target seems to be conservatism rather than capitalism. If that's the case then calling yourself a socialist or a radical seems like a misnomer. You advertised this thread as a way to understand how to get liberals or centrists to think more like socialists but maybe the first step is to then demonstrate that this has actually happened. Where's the actual break here? What's the rupture between a liberal or centrist and a socialist, in your mind?

Earlier Brandor, by way of a NYT article referenced a Kierkegaardian condemnation of moderation and my note to that besides a long sigh would be that while these dead gay forums are perhaps a step ahead of the pundits we're about 80-90 years behind the actual grownups.

Your post made me giggle though, because this is a thread about nothing so much as one particular work of Paul Tillich, who himself was a contemporary of Theodor Adorno and in fact brought him to prominence in order to build a contemporary reading of Kierkegaard. Adorno would later go on to tear down Kierkegaard for spare parts as rank interiority and get more savage the more experiences in the UK, US, and postwar Germany disabused him in about the same way as I suspect you're getting ready to do here:

quote:

Through the negation of reality, however, the content of mystical faith itself becomes dubious: " The mystic is never consistent. lf he has no respect for reality in general it is not obvious why he does not regard with equal distrust that moment in reality when, as he believes, he was affected by the higher experience. That too is indeed a moment of reality!" This thought could easily enough turn against Kierkegaard himself. But his arguments do not crystallize. The mystic is judged not according to the measure of a reality that he fails, but according to the measure of his own inwardness: "The failing of the mystic is that by his choice he does not become concrete for himself, nor for God either; he chooses himself abstractly and therefore lacks transparentness. " Transparentness, however, is itself exclusively determined inwardly: by repentance. Ethical concretion therefore remains as abstract as the mystical act, as the mere "choice of choice." This choosing constitutes the schema of all of Kierkegaard's dialectics. Bound to no positive ontic content, transforming all being into an "occasion" for its own activity, Kierkegaard's dialectic exempts itself from material definition. It is immanent and in its immanence infinite. Indeed he hopes to protect the dialectic from the bad infinity of the simply unlimited: "When a mystification, a dialectical reduplication, is used in the service of a serious purpose, it will be so used as merely to obviate a misunderstanding, or an over-hasty understanding, whereas all the while the true explanation is at hand and ready to be found by him who honestly seeks it." Or in the act of "choice": "The self that one chooses in so far as one chooses oneself, is assumed to be in existence prior to the choice; and likewise, one can only choose the beloved that is indeed already the beloved. To choose the beloved can only mean her acceptance." Yet the origin of this immanent dialectic presents itself at the same time as functional: "Am I just suffering from an excess, morbid reflectiveness? I can give evidence that this is not the case. For there is a leading thought in this whole matter that is as clear to me as day, namely to do everything to work her loose and to keep my soul upon the apex of the wish." Maintaining the self at the apex of the wish is nothing other than dialectical movement within the enigmatic-unreal figure that Kierkegaard's philosophy of immanence confers upon this movement.

so yeah. ahead of CNN, at least! A little better than reddit at least! Well over half a century late for this, however.

Honestly this thread could keep going under a discussion of this comparative analysis of The Socialist Decision and Construction of the Aesthetic, that's basically where this is all headed anyway.

Willie Tomg fucked around with this message at 08:46 on Nov 6, 2019

# ¿ Nov 6, 2019 08:33

Willie Tomg: Feb 2, 2006

Bar Ran Dun posted:

Unfortunately not all not all my conversations can be public on the internet and that one I cannot do publically currently. Which is weird for me, I love doing that poo poo. Alas, it is happening and I may be able to post about some of it in the future.

SA is basically a clearnet front for like three dozen (at most, lol) deep web cliques worth a second tug on a dead dog's cock and everybody worth their salt know it, lmao dont sweat it.

quote:

You are correct. I wanted to eventually going to go in that direction, though I was headed towards a comparative analysis with Zizek. What is the �thread of expectation� in Tillich especially in the Socialist Decision? That paper has some very good stuff in it. Anyway, there is a line in there I think is worth focusing on. The idea that Kierkigard�s existentialism is a new idealism. I have opinions on that, ones probably worth another post later.

Zizek is a troll after my own heart, but he is a troll. If he's deviating out of his Heglian wheelhouse, it is to troll. If you don't know this on a fundamental level, you are the kind of person he is trolling. His invocations of Christ are specifically Antichristian in their particulars in order to point out how the Gospel is itself Antichristian and self-deconstructing when subjected to a psychological dialectics as distinct from theological ones. The Pervert's Guide to Cinema is a running joke about how all texts (and in that case specifically Zizek's favorite films), when we pursue their meaning, also create the conditions for their demeaning. Supermechagodzilla has made an entire posting ouevre out of this, and it is highly good IMO to see Marvel and Star Wars fanboys unable to rebut even the most clumsy dialectical readings of their preferred stanned franchises, but I wouldn't loving vote for SMG for Dog-catcher, nawmean?

Adorno is, IMO, a more valuable comparison for where you want to go mostly because Adorno and Tillich are contemporaries and also introduced the F Scale of authoritarian personality which it sounds like more where you want this to go. That Adorno had a hard row to hoe while Tillich was venerated and why/how that could possibly be the case is a nontrivial historical factor, as well, IMO.

I think this thread is suffering somewhat (to put it lightly) for having you, me, and Helsing being the only real effortposters in it. My best experiences on this forum were people who knew more than me leaping into action telling me the things they knew, and it kind of sucks that a thread like this isn't getting greater traction when it cuts so strongly to the core of so many issues in the contemporary center/left.

As for my expectation? I strongly suspect that at great length, your process of applying Tillich's dialectic to the current moment will synthetically recreate the "romanticism" you would so castigate and--entirely unknowingly and entirely in well-intentioned earnest!--try and set yourself apart from a repeated pattern of utterly amoral people activating these yearnings. I contend: this inevitable conclusion is why Tillich was elevated among the segments of the German "left" who were beaten like tame dogs until the Soviets--and all their problems and internal contradictions--cleaned the mess a hitherto triumphant Hitler left on the carpet. I contend: your existentialist approach leaves you blind, which is why you are so consistently duped by a materialist liberalism in christian clothing. This is how we arrive at politicians declaring hope for change isn't the way to get elected, a racial justice plan with no nonwhites fights racism, an audience of people clapping that Pete Buttegeig said something they didn't understand independent of whether they agreed or not, and theories of "psychology" utterly and aggressively independent of prevailing psychological writings that conveniently apply to the marginal percent of people with whom we disagree, but not ourselves or the people we hope to win over, and then determine that this moment above all other historical moments is the moment where we have crossed some kind of climactic Rubicon.

It's bullshit thought from and for bullshit people who are bullshitters, and you're better than that and we both know this.

Bar Ran Dun posted:

The Struggle Concerning Traditions

“Between the origin and the present stands tradition.” So to relate a myth of origin one must relate to traditions. Some of these traditions are pre-capitalist. But capitalism has broken most of them. Broken tradition have become “literary remembrances”. Political romanticism can attempt two things regarding traditions, the first is to preserve the ones that haven't been broken. The second is to attempt to turn literary remembrances into traditions again. This characteristic is why Tillich uses the term “romantic” for these groups. Tradition stems from the various origins discussed previously. They descend from the origin and they are subordinated to the origin. Traditions can be used to attack things that break myths of origin: education, individual autonomy, and departure from historic social norms.

Political romantics must attempt to create a national tradition to use to attack. But this attempt is always profoundly contradictory. An example from now would be the boy recently given an award for distributing flags to all the houses in his neighborhood to make it more patriotic. This isn’t a real tradition it has no real roots in the origins of the nation and people. But they attempt to fabricate it as such so that it might be used to symbolically attack and manipulate. Or this is a good example

Building on this idea of national traditions, if a national tradition cannot be built on a racial or social heritage then another root for the tradition is sought. That is where the idea of “National Religious Traditions” orginates. Tillich goes on to argue that the effort to create this religious tradition isn't particularly effective. But what is effective is that in trying to create it they expel the prophetic element from the religion and population at large and replace it with nationalism! “More often this takes the form of indifference to the church's proclamation and passionate devotion to the idea of nation”

Our romantics have been very successful in this. The remainder of the chapter explains why Protestantism is particularly susceptible to this, but that's probably interesting only to me.. In this chapter we also find what i think are the roots of Tillich’s later religious work. One way religion can respond is by its own return to “primal revelation”. When we look at something like fundamentalism we see this fight occuring. Romantics are attempting to cement a literal bible as the revelation allowing the religion to be subsumed fully into the national and capitalist myth. For those of us that are religious we cannot allow this. To allow it is to allow our faith to be subsumed for a fascist end. This is why Tillich wrote his systematics, and it is why right evangelicalism finds them particularly threatening. Tillich attempts to ground Christianity (and reality) in the event of Jesus as the Christ as it’s primal revelation.

This also leads to a new thought, something I haven’t seen in academic papers, or any of Tillich work explicitly, but that I’ve believed for a couple years now. Tillich’s later theological work in the US is also an attempt to insert the decision for socialism we see in the introduction to this work, and presented in this book, dialectically into American Christianity.

That’s not something the adults have been discussing for decades Willie. It also relates to that line I found so interesting in that comparative about Adorno, the one line about Kierkegaardian existentialism as a new idealism (and the exception made by Adorno for Tillich’s existentialism).

Marxism is, itself, systematized. It is, if anything, pathologically systematized, to the point that one could fairly argue it erases the "romantic"!! This is why I linked those couple passages from Das Kapital! The system exists! Learn the loving system! You're on the loving internet! There is no excuse for not being at least passingly familiar with this! You keep saying you're a socialist and missing the fundamental basics of it!! Oh my loving god!!!

if you are then claiming that this dispassionate and clinical analysis misses some kind of localized human/spiritual element, Negri and Hardt (50% of that pair being present in that video I linked, if you may recall, you should watch/rewatch it, it's quite good!) literally made their entire careers writing about that, and how one may reasonably fight in the face of hegemonic control. They have specifically done this alongside South American Liberation Theology! So yes!!! People HAVE been talking about this! You do not know they have, but they have!

If your grievance is that nobody has done this in a way that flatters your particular conception of the gospel, then perhaps remove the beam from your own (in the plural sense, not your singular, but also yes your singular) eye before removing the mote from an ongoing leftist discourse--which is quite active and vital, increasingly so lately, and we'd love to have you onboard!

----

You've also done a massive post, so give me a tick or two to read that.

Willie Tomg fucked around with this message at 07:37 on Nov 19, 2019

# ¿ Nov 18, 2019 07:44

Willie Tomg: Feb 2, 2006

D&D was never a "good" forum. It was never supposed to be. It was always a containment zone for people who were "funny" but a little too po-faced for GBS. Its humor, on this comedy website, was at best gallows humor, and at worst (and most common) probatably unfunny in GBS. Humor geared toward people who read too much. But those people did, at some point, actually read. That's why it ever had a culture, ever. Especially the parts that hated the culture! That cultures produce their antithesis is a fundament of dialectics!

Even when it was--to my estimation--worst, there was a background-radiation level of knowledgeability. This was the basis of making fun of grover's F22's-with-lasers fetishism, or goldbugs, or bitcoin. You come into this forum looking for a fight. You will almost always get it. This is why this forum has always generated the most reports, this is why I will never understand why anybody actually agrees to moderate this shitheap.

While I think D&D has been worse in the past, at what I consider this forum's lowest ebb, it would at least have more than three loving posters knowing something about anything at all posting in a thread that wasn't a containment zone for tweets, at an active invitation for discussion. That poo poo makes me sick, to think of how far things have degraded.

If you're thinking "this doesn't seem to have much to do with the thread" than thank you for reading this far.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2019 08:03

Willie Tomg: Feb 2, 2006

oh, that big post was just Obama's Big Excuse speech. oh. okay. well then

e; the old Soviet joke about not having to worry about censoring Das Kapital because nobody could understand where the text contradicted party doctrine, except its americans and christians slowly and painfully discovering what south american clerics were saying about the gospel since the mid-70's

anyway what if the guy elected on "hope" for "change" actually worked to change something about the structures that oppress us, and gave us something to hope for beyond more hope? sorry. sorry for the shitpost, we all know that short=poo poo

Willie Tomg fucked around with this message at 08:23 on Nov 18, 2019

# ¿ Nov 18, 2019 08:13

Willie Tomg: Feb 2, 2006

A big flaming stink posted:

sorry if this is too much "babby's first hegel" question, but could you elaborate on the bolded a bit? Is this a result of underlying contradictions within the culture, i.e. capitalism, or is this self-negation fundamental to any concept according to dialetics?

The latter. Hegel's idealist (i.e. your brain creates reality, as distinct from the materialist conception where the world structures your thoughts) process stemmed from the idea that interior thought created reality through a process that was not so much thesis->antithesis->synthesis (which is a misattribution and also kind of sloppy rhetoric in general), but abstract->negation->concrete which connotates more that every initial statement both *creates* AND is mediated through its negative/inverse which is internal to that initial abstract mental form, which act upon each other to create a "Becoming". At tremendous length and rigor in Phenomenology this gets applied to everything. There is no day or night, the night is a day-in-becoming is a night-in-becoming is another day-in-becoming. There is no water or beach, there is water washing over sand subducting matter becoming ocean washing up sand becoming beach. The water is liquid, vapor and ice in constant churning interplay, Becoming "beach" again and again over and over. The beach is rocks becoming sand, grains becoming "beach" as their individuality creates and aggregate quality constituent of "beach" and scho on and scho on

So a conception of culture itself defines a negative space of counterculture which mediates culture and shifts it.

When Brandor talks about "flows" for seeming no reason, its not no reason at all, the reason is exactly this. That nothing is created or destroyed, that ideologies, matter, resources and wealth are constantly washing back into themselves.

Which is why I am confused why Zizek would ever be a counterpoint, because while he has declared leftist beliefs, he is a hardcore Hegelian playing with idealism and would be the first person to admit he's mostly just loving around trying, in his capacity as a fairly famous professor, to get people learning Hegel (and also Lacan) the fun way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pmi-cFu5Plw

Seriously, that's his technique he does it like five times in this video: here is the main idea. Consider, in fact, the inverse. This, I claim, creates and so on and so on. It's all just a gateway to get college kids to have fun bearing up through Phenomenology. I strongly suspect this is leading up to Zizek's perennial riff on Christianity and Atheism and I contend: perhaps reread it because it's not really negating the core of idealistic/materialistic difference, and furthermore might not be saying what a well-meaning individual thinks its saying (or maybe it does and this is a prelude to a personal catastrophe :smith:

)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tABnznhzdIY

The work of Marx and Engels is specifically taking Hegel's work--which they admired greatly! but as you might imagine was subject to empirical criticisms of being uselessly "mystical" or transcendental or what have you--and applying his approach to not just materialism but a historical materialism where social forces were analyzed empirically, laid out in mathematical relation to each other, and then subjected to a dialectic process which eventually led to The Communist Manifesto. Marx in particular was somewhat catty about how they were in effect creating the negation to Hegel in order to render his work concrete to the bourgeoisie; a very powerful Posting Energy on that guy, for his day, if I may say so. They identify, summarized in Marx's own iconic statement, how the history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles, and that class struggle was THE fundamental paradox of the world, which then structured our psychologies and conceptions of power and hierarchy in inherently unstable forms whose internal contradictions would tear themselves asunder for entirely predictable reasons etc etc and from how you phrased the question it sounds like you're more familiar with that so I'll stop.

Willie Tomg fucked around with this message at 07:31 on Nov 19, 2019

# ¿ Nov 19, 2019 07:28

Willie Tomg: Feb 2, 2006

Fair cop, all around.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2019 21:46

Willie Tomg: Feb 2, 2006

Bar Ran Dun posted:

This post in USpol, is related to this threads topic

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3899507&pagenumber=1188&perpage=40#post500203151

quote:

Poor whites would never accept being slaves and any attempt to enslave poor whites would have created outbreaks of violence, even rebellion.

motherFUCKER learn literally the first thing about the colonial period, some were chattel and some were indentured but everyone who wasn't gentry was property. White people literally, factually, accepted being slaves in order to escape conditions elsewhere! i'd ask 'em to google "transportation" as criminal punishment but that the word is so vague outside the colonial context perhaps exposes the flaws of latter-day D&D where we just loving post tweets.

there's a really big stupid loving rest of the post and i'm doing it a wholly undue service by ignoring the trifling ways its dumb beyond that.

KVeezy3 posted:

White supremacy is waning, white people going extinct and Trump is a fascist? Pretty intellectually lazy.

The Great Replacement Is Real, Actually; And I'm Talking About It Wokely is a helluva take.

*goes back in a time machine, to the first time when a southern colonial homestead used habanero peppers to season their food and thinks harder than they've ever thought before in their lives*

"This is like.... the Holocaust..."

# ¿ Nov 22, 2019 12:06

Willie Tomg: Feb 2, 2006

Bar Ran Dun posted:

Yeah I was going to dig into it. But I�m going to respond to you first now, so it�ll have to wait.

First he�s not deviating to do it. Next it is Christian, that �self-deconstructing when subjected to a materialist dialectic� character of the gospel. Willie it goes further than that. Asserting that it is merely that isn�t getting it. Zizek is joking, we disagree about the punchline. How do I communicate this� The prophetic that breaks myth, what is that in Christianity? It is the cross. When we go looking to find where we expect something to be on the cross, there is nothing. It is that, �when we pursue their (its) meaning, also create the conditions for their (its) demeaning. It�s the content of revelation, of apocalypse. It is the Shaking of the Foundations. It is where things are inverted.

I acknowledge this and maybe there could be some movement on it, but I doubt it, because for all Zizek articulates what you're trying to say in what you think are sympathetically atheistic terms, you are ignoring his larger oeuvre in service of a (relatively) narrow(er) point--an oeuvre where he consciously and rationally chooses vileness and trivia. It is not his atheism-as-such which informs this lifestyle, it is his academia and to a significant but lesser extent his military service in Yugoslavia.

^^this is a loving guy who knows what he can get away with. You are right: we disagree on the punchline. The punchline according to Zizek is not one thing, but everything, where the gospel sits alongside the democratic party sits alongside game of thrones sits alongside What's A Mexican's Favorite Sport in entirely equal measure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Dr6KLoC8aA&t=906s

that nothing is venerated or forbidden is the solidarity according to him. It's fairly useless for having a grown-up conversation, but extremely useful for having a conversation about Slavoj Zizek. Which no doubt *sniffs* pleases Zizek *scratches* but consider, *shifts* perhaps *fidgets* the opposite;

quote:

Tillich is far more important to American thought than German thought. Four names (two not American) Barth, Niebhur (Rienhold), Niebhur (Richard), and Tillich. Quite a lot of American thought hinges on these four theologians. Barth is important because he sets the context of the discussion. Barth says No! In Barth we have the reaction I think you would characterize as existentialist, but it isn�t called that. In the face of the old systematics Barth asserts humanity (of no less than God) as more. This then becomes a new idealism, in his Church Dogmatics and that school of thought that turns into (though he disliked the term) Neo-Orthodoxy. Basically the pattern Adorno identifies in Kierkegard. Tillich is called existentialist, but he�s on the opposite end of the discussion, he thinks Barth is wrong. He thinks Barth is wrong to the point of wrapping up his lectures at Harvard on the history of christian thought with (paraphrased) and this (the whole of the history Christian thought) is why Barth is wrong.

That Tillich is venerated in the USA (home of Operation Gladio), but Adorno is just another brick in the road in Continental philosophy, is most of my point. I suspect we will get to this in more detail when you get to subsequent chapters in the book.

quote:

I�m coming at it from another source Willie, another tradition. I think in the terms of that other tradition.

Willie if we were to magically pop this thread into the brain of say Obama. I�d expect he�d be familiar with most of it. The language, the way things were structured. You�re mistaking the goal here. I am aware of many of those other discourses. I see the direction I�m moving, how do I move others within the myths I participate in, in that direction? I'm not going through this book to critque leftists. Y'all are doing fine and have a robust discussion.

I'm going through book because I expect to need to be able to make its arguements, to people who would never ever encounter them, or who like me put off delving into them because we knew where they would go..

Obama's tradition was undone in under 100 days of squiggle-signature executive orders except for the immigrant prisons he set up, the drone programs he expanded, and empty court seats almost immediately filled by a conservative majority and now that's everyone's problem until we die, or the judges do. Carter's tradition was no more lasting. Clinton's tradition was spent on the Lolita Express when he wasn't cutting welfare, dropping Tomahawks for PR reasons, and getting impeached himself.

If this was my tradition, I would look for a better tradition.

Willie Tomg fucked around with this message at 12:58 on Nov 22, 2019

# ¿ Nov 22, 2019 12:55

Willie Tomg: Feb 2, 2006

Bar Ran Dun posted:

Yes. In modern protestant Christianity it expresses in Bonhoeffer wrestling with: is it permissible to kill (Hitler). Additionally, when Bonheffer talks of religionless Christianity that is also this! But remember structurally identical, ontological inverted! Anything is permissible for Zizek. Bonhoeffer chooses to be part of the assination plot and to do the forbidden and unpermissable, but the necessity of that choice will be judged by us (his brothers and sisters) and by God (who is God of history).

Again structurally identical, ontologically inverted.

Christianity is a big drat tradition. There is very little I could want to be that I cannot be within it.

Here�s the problem, let's talk about the �existentialist impulse�. The best way to get what it is, I think, is to look at Melville. The �I�d prefer not to� of Bartleby the Scrivener, Billy Budd, these works are exemplars of the tyranny of a system (a hegemon or ideology might be good words here) and the individuals protest against that system. That�s the existentialist impulse.

And there is an alternative to this: �God must be radically subjective, i.e. God is ideology�

That alternative is that God is human. Tell em Jesus was a mother�s child.

Anyway the problem I see: Socialism cannot exist without that protest! That protest is bound up in our experience of the contradictions of capitalism! And dialectical thought has that protest built into it!

Further there is a leap of faith in socialism and communism (it�s stronger in communism) the expectation of what is possible next. It isn�t here now, the world we live in still has class struggle.

And here is my protest, I don't give a poo poo which side of the dialectic of materialism and idealism, I or any of us are on. Sometimes a dialectic is resolved by going further than either side, by asking a new question that makes the old question that created the dialectic irrelevant. I don�t have the language to do that, I�m looking for it.

But I can see the water has stopped getting hotter, it�s starting to boil.

That seems uselessly onanist if you can't figure out whether to resist Hitler (e; at the precise point of contact with which the Nazi state will meet you with vigor) till past the point he kills tens of millions and the Soviets solve the problem for you for historical reasons despite having countenanced him previously for also historical reasons! If God is either Pure Ideology or otherwise aloof perhaps we should look to another heuristic, because if the post WW1 period has conclusively demonstrated any one thing beyond doubt its that God at His most generous has left us to figure this bullshit out with the brains that we've got. Which is why it triggered the authors to whom we're both referring to have these discussions more than any internal meditations about divinity!

I think you are correct that an imminent crisis point is being reached in the world, I think we're eating around the edges of the whole meal, and perhaps we should plow forward to the rest of the text around which this thread is based because I suspect we're getting to the good bit.

Fond remembrances of posting the D&D Accelerationist thread as a mostly shitstirring attempt of my own. It wasn't great, and I don't have archives, but I wonder how some of those posts aged in the Trump Years?

Willie Tomg fucked around with this message at 08:03 on Nov 25, 2019

# ¿ Nov 25, 2019 07:02

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 23:43

Willie Tomg: Feb 2, 2006

This is a bookmark post because I'm tied up doing holiday stuff until the weekend where in my scarce free hours I'll be reliably either shitposting or sleeping some stuff off.

Which is unfortunate: because i think this last post is really where the rubber hits the road ITT. And I don't want to gently caress that up in a first response. Which is bullshit, and not what this thread deserves, but frankly I'm wondering if this thread deserves to be put in CSPAM so it gets some traffic beyond literally just Brandor and some people who also semi-consistently post in CSPAM. It'd get more shitposting, but it'd also get more: posting. And with this last chapter in particular I think we're really getting, if not somewhere, then decisively nowhere.

# ¿ Nov 28, 2019 06:15

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > What are we for?: The Socialist Decision.