Were you implying that the bourgeoisie tend to come from the families of those that originally abstained from pleasure? Because that could at least explain why Jeff Bezos sits on a massive pile of gold when using it to equalize humanity would probably make him happier.
Not necessarily but I do think that there is a cult of self-denial that is passed down purposefully through the generations. I don't think the amount of "tee-totalers" (or w/e they are called) among the bourgeoisie is a coincidence; I think they view addictions as a liability if not a weakness.
And sadly, I think they are right about it being a huge liability. It has a delegitimizing effect in what is this so-called "meritocracy".
The fight against addiction is one of the major tasks of the proletariat. Liberalism's inability to deal with rampant addiction is for the same reason it is unable to dispel widespread poverty - a lack of political will; disasters are opportunities for profit within capitalism AND such things are disorganizing forces cast on the working class.
I think they meant from an drug/substance abuse perspective and not "everything is an addiction" perspective. I'm unsure if we're going to be able to get people to give up fiction books entirely, for instance.
"We are not here to tell them what they want- We are here to tell them how to get it."
Oh, yeah I forgot what comment we were bouncing off of.
Yeah, much to my dismay Lenin and Mao weren't subscribed to my blog.
Addiction is most noticeable when considering substance abuse but sometimes I think the more subtle ones are just as impactful due to the extent which we tolerate them; "bread and circuses", etc.
I don't think my aim is to live in a world devoid of pleasures but rather one where consumption is always preceded by production - people who consume fiction write fiction, too. People who listen to music, also play an instrument. People who collect shoes know how to cobble - with gifts being the manner in which people consume things they do not participate in the creation of.
I think you're putting the cart ahead of the horse, and vilifying a quirk of humanity that's been weaponized. The issue is not that people consume things produced by others, which is a good thing and should be encouraged, but that capitalism has turned this tendency into a form of control.
"Precluding" consumption with production and interaction with a field implies people can only consume that which either they themselves produce, or something someone else makes within the same field as them. I find this problematic on two fronts, depending on what you're saying:
If you are saying that people should only be limited to consuming that which they produce, this would completely short-circuit and destroy the entire beautiful exchange of artistic interaction. Human society would be reduced to basic discussion, necessity, etc, and culture would cease to exist.
If you are saying that people should only be limited to consuming that which is in their field, I disagree entirely. People's passion for multiple things at once has been the source of numerous sources of wonderful art, and this wouldn't really be possible unless they specialized in one of those things and teamed up with others who specialized in other ones. Plus, we're unlikely to achieve situations where people have lots of free time anytime soon, and so this would imply that only those in the intellectual class should be allowed to consume art, or those willing to burn the midnight fuel. This is problematic for obvious reasons.
This also raises cause for concern with other forms of pleasure: Should one not consume food cooked by a chef unless they themselves are one? Should one not fornicate without being a producer of sex toys?
My question is more along the lines of what we, as communists in the imperial core, should do- Should we abstain from sense pleasures? Or is that useless self-flagellation? Should we avoid attachment to notions such as community and love? Or are those useful motivations for "the cause"? Are gatherings for games and food a source of camaraderie, or distraction?
Well bear with me - this is a chain of inchoate thoughts in a thread meant to wax a bit bizarre.
But, let's see where the chips fall.
Your notion of “precluding”...
If you are saying that people should only be limited to that which they produce...
If you are saying that people should only be limited to consuming that which is in their field...
I think I can sufficiently address these qualms by going deeper into the "gift" aspect. The productive society I'm envisioning is simply one where things become more artisanal and less commodified; let's say we've reached the much-speculated "money-less" society. So, people no longer have the ability to command the labor of others via the market simply by having accrued abstract currency - my hope is that this leads to less consumption of goods for the sake of collecting (or any other form of storing non-liquid value) because absentee ownership and the possession of any item not yielding use-value to the owner will become a fruitless endeavor in such a society. So, as we can no longer simply purchase amusement/advantage in the form of commodities on the market - in fact I surmise we cannot purchase at all at such a point - we will simply have access to the fruits of society which have been deemed socially necessary (not going to comment on what this would exhaustively contain but food and shelter would be obvious ones). Beyond things we need for survival and without the ability to coerce labor with the mechanisms of capital - how are we to get our objects of delight? Gifts seems to be the only manner - and as such, most human labor will likely be spent becoming quite good at performing artisanal tasks for said production. So, to get such artisanal objects (formerly commodities) we'd have to make them ourselves, receive them as gifts, or achieve political mandate for them to become "socially necessary".
My question is more along the lines of what we, as communists in the imperial core, should do- Should we abstain from sense pleasures?
No - but during this crusade against capitalism I think it is a good idea to eliminate all forms of addictive/controlled behavior where possible. Where that continues past the death of global capital is up to each person I guess. As long as society is re-geared towards improving the human condition rather than simply harnessing it for profiteering then I think addiction will wane as a social malady.
Or is that useless self-flagellation? Should we avoid attachment to notions such as community and love? Or are those useful motivations for “the cause”? Are gatherings for games and food a source of camaraderie, or distraction?
I think we need to be critical of our consumption patterns and not allow pleasure to inhibit the requisite organization. I think the main force disorganizing the working class is psychological.
I think I can sufficiently address this qualms by going deeper into the “gift” aspect. The productive society I’m envisioning is simply one where things become more artisanal and less commodified; let’s say we’ve reached the much-speculated “money-less” society. So, people no longer have the ability to command the labor of others via the market simply by having accrued abstract currency - my hope is that this leads to less consumption of goods for the sake of collecting (or any other form of storing non-liquid value) because absentee ownership and the possession of any item not yielding use-value to the owner will become a fruitless endeavor in such a society. So, as we can no longer simply purchase amusement/advantage in the form of commodities on the market - in fact I surmise we cannot purchase at all at such a point - we will simply have access to the fruits of society which have been deemed socially necessary (not going to comment on what this would exhaustively contain but food and shelter would be obvious ones). Beyond things we need for survival and without the ability to coerce labor with the mechanisms of capital - how are we to get our objects of delight? Gifts seems to be the only manner - and as such, most human labor will likely be spent becoming quite good at performing artisanal tasks for said production. So, to get such artisanal objects (formerly commodities) we’d have to make them ourselves, receive them as gifts, or achieve political mandate for them to become “socially necessary”.
That's probably where my rub was. I would consider gathering to observe a song or thousands of people logging on to CommuStream.net to watch the debut of a brand new kind of animation which causes hallucinogenic trances to be community events, and not gift-giving per-say. This is probably able to be attributed to my idea of gifts as something that should be part of a special occasion. When in such an artisanal community, gifts would just be an everyday occurence among acquaintances, most likely done out of the pleasure of sharing one's own work.
No - but during this crusade against capitalism I think it is a good idea to eliminate all forms of addictive/controlled behavior where possible. Where that continues past the death of global capital is up to each person I guess. As long as society is re-geared towards improving the human condition rather than simply harnessing it for profiteering then I think addiction will wane as a social malady.
I think we need to be critical of our consumption patterns and not allow pleasure to inhibit the requisite organization. I think the main force disorganizing the working class is psychological.
Ah. So then my last question would be one of practicality. You implied in your root comment that almost everyone is addicted to something or other, or even that all sense pleasures are addictive. This makes sense in a society where suffering and meaninglessness is prolific enough to make this a practical requisite to retain one's sanity. But because this has been harnessed for control, this impulse is directly contradictory to revolutionary tendencies.
So then, I wonder, is the resolution to this? Pleasure is a method of rewarding behavior by our brain. Almost everything humans are supposed to do is encouraged through it. And so almost everything inherent to human behavior is addictive. This is where the conflict comes up- There is an internal conflict in every organizer and leftist between the biological urges of humanity and their own ideology. How do we resolve this? It has been observed many times throughout human history that people who try to abstain entirely from pleasure either 'relapse' or find much worse outlets. See: the stereotype of the religious pedophile. While this is an inaccurate stereotype most of the time, it does paint the difficulty of repressing all of one's own desires for pleasure, likely because of it being hard coded into our brains. So how do we, as communists aware of the nature of the dialectic, resolve this?
That’s probably where my rub was. I would consider gathering to observe a song or thousands of people logging on to CommuStream.net to watch the debut of a brand new kind of animation which causes hallucinogenic trances to be community events, and not gift-giving per-say. This is probably able to be attributed to my idea of gifts as something that should be part of a special occasion. When in such an artisanal community, gifts would just be an everyday occurence among acquaintances, most likely done out of the pleasure of sharing one’s own work.
Yes I think gifts "to the community" from individuals or groups would be conceptually cool and good. I definitely don't aim to bar any sort of product or practice in a puritanical manner - and as I'm taking a lot of liberties with the whole "money-less" society I concede that the evolution from where we are to that point would be hard to articulate. Perhaps, just a gradual automation of what constitutes involuntary labor would gradually push us towards it though when no longer prohibited by the political ambitions of a capitalist class.
Ah. So then my last question would be one of practicality. You implied in your root comment that almost everyone is addicted to something or other, or even that all sense pleasures are addictive. This makes sense in a society where suffering and meaninglessness is prolific enough to make this a practical requisite to retain one’s sanity. But because this has been harnessed for control, this impulse is directly contradictory to revolutionary tendencies.
So then, I wonder, is the resolution to this? Pleasure is a method of rewarding behavior by our brain. Almost everything humans are supposed to do is encouraged through it. And so almost everything inherent to human behavior is addictive. This is where the conflict comes up- There is an internal conflict in every organizer and leftist between the biological urges of humanity and their own ideology. How do we resolve this? It has been observed many times throughout human history that people who try to abstain entirely from pleasure either ‘relapse’ or find much worse outlets. See: the stereotype of the religious pedophile. While this is an inaccurate stereotype most of the time, it does paint the difficulty of repressing all of one’s own desires for pleasure, likely because of it being hard coded into our brains. So how do we, as communists aware of the nature of the dialectic, resolve this?
That is a prescient point. In a way I think that this might be one of the reasons why a DotP (and/or vanguard party if you want) is so invaluable - through a collective leadership body of people who have become as principled as humanly possible I think a benevolent authority could be expressed which allows for individuals to retain their sanity by experiencing the leisurely pleasures of life without endangering society at large. The post would not be abandoned, it would be maintained through a rotation.
But, to get to that point my fear is that we do need revolutionaries with zeal which allows them to push the boundaries of human potential and discipline so that said DotP can be erected - and perhaps the more ordinary people who shed degrees of their addictions voluntarily in the meanwhile the lighter the work will be for those revolutionaries who doubtlessly will be coordinating with the masses.
All makes sense, thank you for clarifying so much and continuing to discuss this.
I think a lot of these concerns will be significantly lessened as material conditions worsen, though of course with the trade off of "people are starving and dying". It could be argued that our material conditions are already as bad as they can be, but I would contest that the pandemic and death from it is unfortunately quite easy for most to ignore. This is not a good thing, and is obviously partially a product of our pacifying culture, but I think the majority of it is just because of selfishness and apathy. People won't really care until they're the one's starving, and unfortunately the disabled and those affected most by Covid were already the ones people refused to listen to. So, those already primed through theory and current action will be much more likely to become "zealots" of communism at this point, driven on by the hunger in their own stomachs. Or more precisely, once Capitalism starts directly contradicting human biological behavior en masse, this contradiction within socialists will partially resolve itself, though not entirely, as discipline will still be necessary.
I'm unsure if entirely eliminating one's desires and want for pleasure is possible, but "stealing" practices from religions and spiritual practice is definitely a promising proposition. Practice of meditation, rituals, mantras, and sometimes even just belief can lessen the difficulty of discipline. This wouldn't necessitate actually adopting those religions and spiritual practice's goals for oneself, but they have been dealing with stuff like this for a while, so to say.
Finally, the easiest solution is to just make pleasure and communist action one and the same. This isn't possible for all actions, but choosing to make as much of "leisure time" as possible just disguised communist praxis could be a legitimate method. For instance, things like the Black Panther's breakfast days and even just organizing politically explicit game clubs.
I have no be-all and end-all answer, and I doubt you do as well. But it's worth thinking about still, I think. Thank you for discussing all of this.
You're welcome, comrade. It was a good discussion to be had and I think we are both refining our thoughts here so that we can better articulate them later.
I agree that religion has a lot to offer on the topic - I know a lot of people have distaste for it here and elsewhere but I think religion can be reclaimed from capitalism's corrosive influence; not only would they provide a basis for praxis in terms of sustained discipline but such a movement could re-align communists with the masses who are still largely devout.
Love the comment on making the everyday leisure political, too. Many obstacles to deal with on the way to that but it needs to be done so that the common person can exercise their politics as often as they want and in a manner that adds up.
This is completely irrelevant, but i think it's worth mentioning that apparently there's a branch of Buddhism, that re-contextualizes it's practices as elements and weapons in the class struggle, and claims that monkhood and the seeking of Enlightenment branch from misconceptions of Buddha's teachings, claiming that he was actually a proto-Marxist, not a typical philosopher or preacher.
Now obviously this is a very extreme, if not simply outright insulting branch of thought to normal Buddhists, and it was probably made by a Nazi or some shit, or I'm misremembering what I heard about it, but it is at least an example of how people with no faith (like, most likely, me) in any kind of religion or even spirituality can still benefit from it and ultimately even influence it.
I don't think it's really worth starting a whole discussion about it, but it is heartwarming to know (at least with Liberation Theology) that weirdo commies that can't shut up about Lenin exist in every social circle, and we just have to connect with them.
Were you implying that the bourgeoisie tend to come from the families of those that originally abstained from pleasure? Because that could at least explain why Jeff Bezos sits on a massive pile of gold when using it to equalize humanity would probably make him happier.
deleted by creator
Not necessarily but I do think that there is a cult of self-denial that is passed down purposefully through the generations. I don't think the amount of "tee-totalers" (or w/e they are called) among the bourgeoisie is a coincidence; I think they view addictions as a liability if not a weakness.
And sadly, I think they are right about it being a huge liability. It has a delegitimizing effect in what is this so-called "meritocracy".
Well, materially this still results in communists having to overcome their addictions to organize. Maybe. I don't know, theory is confusing.
Lenin/Mao agreed
The fight against addiction is one of the major tasks of the proletariat. Liberalism's inability to deal with rampant addiction is for the same reason it is unable to dispel widespread poverty - a lack of political will; disasters are opportunities for profit within capitalism AND such things are disorganizing forces cast on the working class.
I think they meant from an drug/substance abuse perspective and not "everything is an addiction" perspective. I'm unsure if we're going to be able to get people to give up fiction books entirely, for instance.
"We are not here to tell them what they want- We are here to tell them how to get it."
Oh, yeah I forgot what comment we were bouncing off of.
Yeah, much to my dismay Lenin and Mao weren't subscribed to my blog.
Addiction is most noticeable when considering substance abuse but sometimes I think the more subtle ones are just as impactful due to the extent which we tolerate them; "bread and circuses", etc.
I don't think my aim is to live in a world devoid of pleasures but rather one where consumption is always preceded by production - people who consume fiction write fiction, too. People who listen to music, also play an instrument. People who collect shoes know how to cobble - with gifts being the manner in which people consume things they do not participate in the creation of.
I think you're putting the cart ahead of the horse, and vilifying a quirk of humanity that's been weaponized. The issue is not that people consume things produced by others, which is a good thing and should be encouraged, but that capitalism has turned this tendency into a form of control.
"Precluding" consumption with production and interaction with a field implies people can only consume that which either they themselves produce, or something someone else makes within the same field as them. I find this problematic on two fronts, depending on what you're saying:
If you are saying that people should only be limited to consuming that which they produce, this would completely short-circuit and destroy the entire beautiful exchange of artistic interaction. Human society would be reduced to basic discussion, necessity, etc, and culture would cease to exist.
If you are saying that people should only be limited to consuming that which is in their field, I disagree entirely. People's passion for multiple things at once has been the source of numerous sources of wonderful art, and this wouldn't really be possible unless they specialized in one of those things and teamed up with others who specialized in other ones. Plus, we're unlikely to achieve situations where people have lots of free time anytime soon, and so this would imply that only those in the intellectual class should be allowed to consume art, or those willing to burn the midnight fuel. This is problematic for obvious reasons.
This also raises cause for concern with other forms of pleasure: Should one not consume food cooked by a chef unless they themselves are one? Should one not fornicate without being a producer of sex toys?
My question is more along the lines of what we, as communists in the imperial core, should do- Should we abstain from sense pleasures? Or is that useless self-flagellation? Should we avoid attachment to notions such as community and love? Or are those useful motivations for "the cause"? Are gatherings for games and food a source of camaraderie, or distraction?
Well bear with me - this is a chain of inchoate thoughts in a thread meant to wax a bit bizarre.
But, let's see where the chips fall.
I think I can sufficiently address these qualms by going deeper into the "gift" aspect. The productive society I'm envisioning is simply one where things become more artisanal and less commodified; let's say we've reached the much-speculated "money-less" society. So, people no longer have the ability to command the labor of others via the market simply by having accrued abstract currency - my hope is that this leads to less consumption of goods for the sake of collecting (or any other form of storing non-liquid value) because absentee ownership and the possession of any item not yielding use-value to the owner will become a fruitless endeavor in such a society. So, as we can no longer simply purchase amusement/advantage in the form of commodities on the market - in fact I surmise we cannot purchase at all at such a point - we will simply have access to the fruits of society which have been deemed socially necessary (not going to comment on what this would exhaustively contain but food and shelter would be obvious ones). Beyond things we need for survival and without the ability to coerce labor with the mechanisms of capital - how are we to get our objects of delight? Gifts seems to be the only manner - and as such, most human labor will likely be spent becoming quite good at performing artisanal tasks for said production. So, to get such artisanal objects (formerly commodities) we'd have to make them ourselves, receive them as gifts, or achieve political mandate for them to become "socially necessary".
No - but during this crusade against capitalism I think it is a good idea to eliminate all forms of addictive/controlled behavior where possible. Where that continues past the death of global capital is up to each person I guess. As long as society is re-geared towards improving the human condition rather than simply harnessing it for profiteering then I think addiction will wane as a social malady.
I think we need to be critical of our consumption patterns and not allow pleasure to inhibit the requisite organization. I think the main force disorganizing the working class is psychological.
That's probably where my rub was. I would consider gathering to observe a song or thousands of people logging on to CommuStream.net to watch the debut of a brand new kind of animation which causes hallucinogenic trances to be community events, and not gift-giving per-say. This is probably able to be attributed to my idea of gifts as something that should be part of a special occasion. When in such an artisanal community, gifts would just be an everyday occurence among acquaintances, most likely done out of the pleasure of sharing one's own work.
Ah. So then my last question would be one of practicality. You implied in your root comment that almost everyone is addicted to something or other, or even that all sense pleasures are addictive. This makes sense in a society where suffering and meaninglessness is prolific enough to make this a practical requisite to retain one's sanity. But because this has been harnessed for control, this impulse is directly contradictory to revolutionary tendencies.
So then, I wonder, is the resolution to this? Pleasure is a method of rewarding behavior by our brain. Almost everything humans are supposed to do is encouraged through it. And so almost everything inherent to human behavior is addictive. This is where the conflict comes up- There is an internal conflict in every organizer and leftist between the biological urges of humanity and their own ideology. How do we resolve this? It has been observed many times throughout human history that people who try to abstain entirely from pleasure either 'relapse' or find much worse outlets. See: the stereotype of the religious pedophile. While this is an inaccurate stereotype most of the time, it does paint the difficulty of repressing all of one's own desires for pleasure, likely because of it being hard coded into our brains. So how do we, as communists aware of the nature of the dialectic, resolve this?
Yes I think gifts "to the community" from individuals or groups would be conceptually cool and good. I definitely don't aim to bar any sort of product or practice in a puritanical manner - and as I'm taking a lot of liberties with the whole "money-less" society I concede that the evolution from where we are to that point would be hard to articulate. Perhaps, just a gradual automation of what constitutes involuntary labor would gradually push us towards it though when no longer prohibited by the political ambitions of a capitalist class.
That is a prescient point. In a way I think that this might be one of the reasons why a DotP (and/or vanguard party if you want) is so invaluable - through a collective leadership body of people who have become as principled as humanly possible I think a benevolent authority could be expressed which allows for individuals to retain their sanity by experiencing the leisurely pleasures of life without endangering society at large. The post would not be abandoned, it would be maintained through a rotation.
But, to get to that point my fear is that we do need revolutionaries with zeal which allows them to push the boundaries of human potential and discipline so that said DotP can be erected - and perhaps the more ordinary people who shed degrees of their addictions voluntarily in the meanwhile the lighter the work will be for those revolutionaries who doubtlessly will be coordinating with the masses.
All makes sense, thank you for clarifying so much and continuing to discuss this.
I think a lot of these concerns will be significantly lessened as material conditions worsen, though of course with the trade off of "people are starving and dying". It could be argued that our material conditions are already as bad as they can be, but I would contest that the pandemic and death from it is unfortunately quite easy for most to ignore. This is not a good thing, and is obviously partially a product of our pacifying culture, but I think the majority of it is just because of selfishness and apathy. People won't really care until they're the one's starving, and unfortunately the disabled and those affected most by Covid were already the ones people refused to listen to. So, those already primed through theory and current action will be much more likely to become "zealots" of communism at this point, driven on by the hunger in their own stomachs. Or more precisely, once Capitalism starts directly contradicting human biological behavior en masse, this contradiction within socialists will partially resolve itself, though not entirely, as discipline will still be necessary.
I'm unsure if entirely eliminating one's desires and want for pleasure is possible, but "stealing" practices from religions and spiritual practice is definitely a promising proposition. Practice of meditation, rituals, mantras, and sometimes even just belief can lessen the difficulty of discipline. This wouldn't necessitate actually adopting those religions and spiritual practice's goals for oneself, but they have been dealing with stuff like this for a while, so to say.
Finally, the easiest solution is to just make pleasure and communist action one and the same. This isn't possible for all actions, but choosing to make as much of "leisure time" as possible just disguised communist praxis could be a legitimate method. For instance, things like the Black Panther's breakfast days and even just organizing politically explicit game clubs.
I have no be-all and end-all answer, and I doubt you do as well. But it's worth thinking about still, I think. Thank you for discussing all of this.
You're welcome, comrade. It was a good discussion to be had and I think we are both refining our thoughts here so that we can better articulate them later.
I agree that religion has a lot to offer on the topic - I know a lot of people have distaste for it here and elsewhere but I think religion can be reclaimed from capitalism's corrosive influence; not only would they provide a basis for praxis in terms of sustained discipline but such a movement could re-align communists with the masses who are still largely devout.
Love the comment on making the everyday leisure political, too. Many obstacles to deal with on the way to that but it needs to be done so that the common person can exercise their politics as often as they want and in a manner that adds up.
This is completely irrelevant, but i think it's worth mentioning that apparently there's a branch of Buddhism, that re-contextualizes it's practices as elements and weapons in the class struggle, and claims that monkhood and the seeking of Enlightenment branch from misconceptions of Buddha's teachings, claiming that he was actually a proto-Marxist, not a typical philosopher or preacher.
Now obviously this is a very extreme, if not simply outright insulting branch of thought to normal Buddhists, and it was probably made by a Nazi or some shit, or I'm misremembering what I heard about it, but it is at least an example of how people with no faith (like, most likely, me) in any kind of religion or even spirituality can still benefit from it and ultimately even influence it.
I don't think it's really worth starting a whole discussion about it, but it is heartwarming to know (at least with Liberation Theology) that weirdo commies that can't shut up about Lenin exist in every social circle, and we just have to connect with them.