American culture is 365 corporate-led coups every year. America needs to splash some cold water on its face and come to its senses.
I always wondered : how did it come to this ? US' culture nowadays is just ads. Nothing more. What happened to the country of Twain ? How the fuck does a country, with citizens from ALL THE FUCKING WORLD does create nothing but a succession of bland fast-food chains and suburbs in terms of cities ? You'd expect, with its european origins, (names of cities, architecture being good examples) the USA could've been able to create something new, merging both european influences and foreign ones, and thus creating a synthesis, but no. Instead, we have this. How the fuck did it happen ? And how the fuck would anyone even fix this ?
Like, they managed to manufacture an entire culture in the South, so I'm genuinely wondering, how do you manufacture a culture artificially, and how do you make it not suck ? (lets be real, Dixie culture is horrible). You got nation-states like in Europe, or culturally-close ethnic groups such as in Iran for example, and culture naturally appears over time in these cases, but why the hell did the USA become so synonymous with capitalism, and NOTHING else ?
What happened to the country of Twain and Wilde ?
It has always sucked
I mean, yea. But it had the potential to be so much greater. Imagine if the workers managed to get a revolution in this country, and destroyed capitalist influence in the daily lives of the people. Basically, that 4chan marx greentext. A country with no ads, widespread public transportation, far less individualism, strong safety nets, common ownership of means of production, no hustle culture and so on. This is what we could've had. Actual freedom. The good stuff. But instead, people prefer to work until they die, and this makes me fucking insane.
far less individualism
The problem is better stated as selfishness, not individualism. Being unique and individual is OK; thinking you're so fucking special that other people can eat shit so long as you get yours is not.
Saying the problem is selfishnes still presupposes individualism: the problem is that there are individuals who act selfishly and they should stop doing so. It centers the solution around the actions of individuals.
But as socialists, we know this is not the real answer. It is material conditions that force people into competition against one another and isolates us from each other. Socialism will by definition have to be far less individualistic, but you'll still have selfish people.
He's saying that. The point being made is collectivism is a requirement of building community and community is a requirement of the kind of culture that would lead to revolution. In order to have collectivism you must have less individualism. The two are polar opposites of cultural communal behaviour in contradiction to one another under capitalism. Individualism under capitalism creates selfish competition.
In order to have collectivism you must have less individualism.
I don't think that's correct. What is needed for collective action is less selfishness, which is not the same as individualism. I can be a distinct, individual person with my own tastes, opinions, and desires and still participate in collective activities. That's just plain-old individualism, and that's fine. There are countless examples of all different sorts of collective endeavors that have different individuals coming together for the common good.
Where you run into problems is when that individualism turns into an unwillingness to do anything that doesn't perfectly align with one's personal goals, or a willingness to take one's ball and go home rather than accept less than 100% of what one wants. That's selfishness, and that's poison to collective efforts. Individualism can lead to selfishness in some circumstances, but it doesn't necessarily lead to selfishness. I know tons of people who are distinct individuals but who are the least selfish people you'll meet.
You are creating a new definition of individualism that focuses solely on personal identity and nothing else. That is not what the cultural battle over individualist and collectivist cultures is really about.
Individualism is not "having a personal identity". Individualist cultural is about working for oneself and pursuing competition against other individuals in society in order to drive a competitive atmosphere that results in the strongest/best rising out on top. Collectivist culture on the other hand is about building community links where everyone works together to raise everyone simultaneously.
Making "individualism" into an entirely new american definition meaning "having a personal identity" is a bastardisation of what it has always meant and been used to refer to within the context of socialist vs capitalist struggle over the last couple centuries. It is a distortion of the meaning.
Individualism under capitalism results in competition and atomisation of the working class, it actively creates that selfishness. That is why the bourgeoisie push it so hard.
In order to unite the working class you MUST lower individualism and build collectivism.
You are creating a new definition of individualism that focuses solely on personal identity and nothing else.
It's not a new definition: "the actions or attitudes of a person who does things without being concerned about what other people will think."
What I'm describing is very much part of the common definition of "individualism," even though there's also the more politicized definition you're referring to. This is why reactionaries insist on painting leftists as anti-individualism -- it doesn't sound absurd because they created the political definition, but it implies that leftists hate individualism in the "personal identity" sense, too. This is why Cold War propaganda characterized the commies as straight-backed, assembly line automatons while the Free World got cool, individual consumer stuff like blue jeans and rock and roll.
That is not what the cultural battle over individualist and collectivist cultures is really about.
Well yeah, the whole point here is that it's better to frame this cultural battle as selfishness vs. collectivism instead of individualism vs. collectivism. We shouldn't be playing on a field created by chuds in the first place, and "selfishness" really is a more precise descriptor of what we're criticizing. No one on the left is opposed to individualism in as much as individualism means just being your own person. There's no reason we should accept anything that sounds like that as a starting premise. Even individual excellence isn't really something any left philosophy has a big problem with; the problem only arises when a person wants to keep far more than they could ever need for themselves, personally, at the expense of many others (i.e., selfishness).
In order to unite the working class you MUST lower individualism and build collectivism.
I mean, good luck selling this on Americans. It seems much easier to point out that individualism is fine so long as it doesn't become selfishness. People already like individualism and dislike selfishness. Why not use that instead of fighting it? Do you honestly think the left is going to have success trotting out "you need to give up your individualism" to Americans?
Fuck. Never write stuff at 5am. I mixed him up with another author. God I need to die in a ditch.
Edit : WIlde visited wrote about America, which is why I must have thought of him. Still, it hurts to see my literary knowledge being so terrible.
What happened to the country of Twain and Wilde ?
The country of Shania Twain and Olivia Wilde is just fine!
There isn’t one homogenous US culture tho, since material conditions have been so vastly different for different communities of folks, we have as many cultures as there are varieties of exploitation and deprivation, of resistance and rebellion, of acquiescence and absorption.
If culture is a people’s’ conversation with material conditions... lost my train of thought
If culture is a people’s’ conversation with material conditions… lost my train of thought
Holy fuck Biden posts on here?
Listen Fat Jack Slim Jim... there’s a thing with the stuff and that ain’t it!
China was and extremely very culturally diverse, and that didn't seem to stop them.
An actual revolution can't happen without having a cultural revolution as well, especially in a country with a culture like the USA. Many issues need to be worked though in order to have a revolution, such as the racism present in the working class, and all classes in fact, the fact that the American upper class lifestyle is only possible by plundering and looting the global south, etc. In order for a revolution to be considered possible in the average persons mind, and in order for it to succeed, a massive cultural shift is needed
I don't disagree with this but culture flows from material conditions.
Getting rid of material insecurity and domination over property and the means of production would go a long fucking way to fixing US cultural problems.
Plus, the worst fuckers this country has to offer will literally die fighting before accepting the new society. So two birds, one stone kinda situation.
I think that’s starting to happen. There’s a growing current of anti-Americanism on the left.
I mean what the fuck do you think is happening in the streets right now. The tearing down of status is a sizable part of any cultural revoluton.
This thread is just repeated (for decades at this point) arguments over the base and super structure, and which one is ruling which. I take a middle stance. I don't think cultural revolution can actually solve material problems of property relation, but changing culture (in a way that I suppose could be called revolutionary) is absolutely necessary for instilling class consciousness to get the material organization going to change those conditions. I go back and forth on how much cultural productions actually do that (we're seeing a ton of cultural production around BLM right now, but is that driving the protests or the other way around, or it's both etc.)
