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?
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?