Forgive me if this is a silly question, but if there is one thing I have learned over the years is how important marketing is. This even includes politics as well, and the right weaponizes this to a scarily efficient degree. Politics becomes more than politics, but a form fashion itself. Think of how much of a selling point of "be one of us and you'll be cool and you'll get laid." CHUDs use.
So that leaves the question, what should we organize our optics around. What is the impression we want to leave on others?
Personally, I kind of like the Soviet aesthetic: Extremely cultured (as befitting of a largely internationalist ideology), hyper-rational, future-minded, egalitarian, hard working people. It implies that despite all the snobbery of fascists; they are the true decadents. Leftists are optimistic about the future, and know that no race or gender is superior to the other because that is simply common sense. Cuban aesthetic is nice too because of how fun and inviting the country looks too. Say what you will about cars, but there is a lovely aesthetic with the classic cars of Cuba. Also, Havana has nice paint jobs on buildings and the cars alike. (Please Hexbear create a Havana theme), especially in a world where corporations are embracing minimalism en masse, and shit like 4chan is around telling the world "conform to inoffensive conservatism or else". It's nice to see some color happily shown. If there was a way to combine the two, I would nut.
We get one of these threads every couple months, huh. The left already has an aesthetic, it's just not an aesthetic that's going to appeal to labor aristocrats until the collapse of capitalism tears their aristocratic status away from them.
Left Aesthetic is:
- Defending a drag bar in one of the most reactionary parts of a country
- Showing up in your dayclothes to interrupt commerce
- Wearing goggles to the protest
- Feeling solidarity with comrades
- Coordinating your outfits
- Inclusive of everyone
The future movement will be proletarian, and the proletariat, precariat, and lumpens will define its aesthetic. Reaching back into the past and creating awkward anachronisms won't draw in people. Stealing from cultures that aren't yours without understanding their relationship to material reality won't draw in people. You have to understand the people in your own country, what their aesthetics already are, how they already feel, and who they already want to be.
I think that, rather than a single unified aesthetic, there could be hundreds, thousands even. It would give us an excuse to pay small-time artists to work in their own style and appeal to multiple demographics. As long as the same symbols and messages are consistent. Which is, incidentally, a factor in marketing.
Yeah, people think superficialities are keeping imperial-coreletariat from becoming communists. It's not. The material conditions aren't here yet, that's why. Communists should be looking towards being helpful to others, not being attractive ideologically.
The material conditions aren’t here yet, that’s why.
This presupposes that communism is the only alternative to those suffering under worsening material conditions. The fact of the matter is that we're all swimming in nonstop propaganda that's directing people towards fascism as their alternative. And on many people out there, it is working. For the rest? Libs are happily hiring more cops.
It doesn't. We're just aware that Karen Copcaller was gonna end up being fash regardless what your poster says. Decaying material conditions just bring the referee out for the coinflip.
Material conditions don't just mean your bank account, cultural hegemony holds a lot of sway as well. We know Manufacturing Consent works and it applies to far more than just wars overseas.
edit: to expand on this a bit, there's a saying in the neurosciences: The eyes can't see what the brain doesn't know. Leftists often end up doomers while also having this weird survivorship bias where they assume that because they reached leftism that surely everyone else will as well. As the book club recently covered with Andrea's Malm's How to Blow Up a Pipeline, our history is largely whitewashed of accomplished leftist revolutionary movements and replaced by non-violent versions that libs have largely turned into their religion. If you assume that shit's going to get so bad that everyone is gonna turn anti-capitalist eventually, you're gonna be disappointed.
wym, we gotta get edgier, more insane, and more violent.
Increasingly more compact. Green dots eventually replacing red. Solar panels and capacitors replacing batteries. In larger optics I think we’ve hit a wall with miniaturization, but the non-telescopic rds-style optics still have a ways to go.
I think leftist optics manufacturing could have a ways left to go tho
marxism's pretension to being a "science" has always been its weakest aspect.
As a science marxism's goal is to learn and advance our understanding of how to change the world through creating theory and testing it.
Why is it a pretension to call that a science?
I feel like it had a much bigger claim to being a science when the USSR and Maoist China were co-existing, and North Korea was trying to follow a Leninist line. But as projects have diverged from ML(M) thought, dissolved, and ultimately failed at their stated goal, these theories have lost a lot of their claim to replicability. I feel like a lot of the claims to Marxism as a Science are riding off the coattails of Marx's cutting economic analysis, which was very scientific. All this means is that Marxism Leninism (Maoism) is an ideology and not a science, which is not a bad thing to be, unless you ask a lot of Marxists.
Like IDK, I don't really know how you can read the beginning of things like foundation of Leninism (specifically the parts pontificating about we've made breakthroughs in The Science and this is a Big Deal and provides the Objective Blueprint for revolution and such) and come across as anything other than "okay dude" rather than ":so-true:" if you aren't already a little lost in the sauce. There's probably better words that come off less culty like "practiced," "tried and tested," "refined," "established"
Such were the conditions under which the method of Leninism was born and hammered out.
What are the requirements of this method?
Firstly, the testing of the theoretical dogmas of the Second Interna- tional in the crucible of the revolutionary struggle of the masses, in the crucible of living practice—that is to say, the restoration of the broken unity between theory and practice, the healing of the rift between them; for only in this way can a truly proletarian party armed with revolutionary theory be created.
Secondly, the testing of the policy of the parties of the Second Inter- national, not by their slogans and resolutions (which cannot be trusted), but by their deeds, by their actions; for only in this way can the confidence of the proletarian masses be won and deserved.
Thirdly, the reorganisation of all Party work on new revolutionary lines, with a view to training and preparing the masses for the revolu- tionary struggle; for only in this way can the masses be prepared for the proletarian revolution.
Fourthly, self-criticism within the proletarian parties, their education and training on the basis of their own mistakes; for only in this way can genuine cadres and genuine leaders of the Party be trained. Such is the basis and substance of the method of Leninism.
How was this method applied in practice?
The opportunists of the Second International have a number of the- oretical dogmas to which they always revert as their starting point. Let us take a few of these
IDK why it's counter-revolutionary or whatever to refer to these passages as ideology and not science
I'm not saying it's counter-revolutionary. I'm just saying it's odd to dismiss marxism as being a science on the basis of having criticism about some parts of it being ideological. Merging materialism and ideology is always going to be messy an un-exact, humans and society is going to be messy and un-exact... At least until you get to a stage where you can drill down into excruciating detail about the material sources of various aspects. That is impossible under capitalism though. The first order of business is achieving revolution. The second order of business is then the fundamental sciences of changing society.
I assume since you refer only to Mao's China and not to modern China you do not consider them to be marxists? I'm a little confused by your use of "Maoist" here as Mao was never a Maoist and China was never Maoist, Mao was a Marxist-Leninist. Maoism comes from Shining Path.
crust-punk
solar-punk
garden-punk
basically, let your freak flag fly as long as it is based in the material conditions of climate change and the struggle against capitalism
'the left' are not afraid to get dirty and display some grit when the need arises
https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgmwd3/meet-the-furry-organizer-unionizing-starbucks
The left should be creating strong interpersonal networks that will survive a major civilizational collapse and be able to form new institutions in the ashes/fend off other actors seeking to fill the power vacuum. So I’m thinking like some sick gas mask and torn trash bag aesthetics
Honestly just an efficient look for your actions. Stalin just wore a neat button up, Castro wore military garb, Lenin wore a suit. The look depends on what you are doing way more than some imagined aesthetic. We don't need aesthetics as much as the fascists because we have material substance, not a cool story.
Yeah, look neat, but not fancy.
Or look fancy, Robespierre and Jenny Marx had mad fashion game.
