Right now I'd say I'm probably ideologically closest to a Bolshevik. If the vanguard party forms tomorrow I'm in it, if the barricades go up next week I'm on them. "No compassion no compassion no excuses" has been my monk mantra throughout the past few years. Revolution would be lovely and I watched the full rally on Woke's 6-screen stream.
Not once, not for a microsecond, was I jealous of any of them. When they marched on Rome to hear Trump unleash the storm and he bitched about Oprah, I sat there with my coffee and laughed my ass off. When a giant mass of maskless people cut into construction plastic and filled some closed-off building full of teargas, I just said "oh no no no no no" in a mocking way and then had to go make breakfast because I couldn't take the boomer leather daddy medic. It was like a crude parody of what rioting is. When they marched on the capitol I wasn't jealous, I was just bewildered by the lack of some coherent message as they were about to get slaughtered by the police. When the police let them in and they toured the building, I wasn't jealous because they did nothing with that gain and couldn't press further. They just looked stupid as they took selfies of themselves and gave each other COVID-19. The only thing that went through my Marxist, revolution-hungry head was, "man Debord really knew his shit this is stupid I can't imagine being that ridiculous" .
Look at the media messaging around the event. "Storm the capitol", "coup", and "putsch" are all far more escalatory than the "riot" ascribed to us. Taking the capitol is the crowning act after you have all the infrastructure and public support. Do it prematurely and it means nothing to us, completely counterproductive because it just invites the full wrath of the state. If PSL did it tomorrow I would have to scramble to drive 50 miles to the nearest PSL chapter and explain to most of the city what socialism means before even 1% of the population understands what an ML revolution means. Without simultaneously either controlling or replacing the media, every episode of Rachel Maddow's Fear Hour for the next six months will be convincing the public that I'm a Chinese spy or a fascist terrorist. The politicians inside won't suddenly become revolutionaries. They'll just be hostages that suddenly become the focus of the most powerful military on the planet. Nothing about that seems like a good idea to me.
What they said. Society of the Spectacle is like the Marxist version of They Live or The Matrix, a study of how Edward Bernays and Sigmund Freud changed capitalism in the 20th century to be an image-based relationship of distraction from alienation. The dynamics of mass media and later social media created new forms of parasocial relationships and commodified experiences which add a whole new layer to the traditional ideas of a working class.
That being said, it's hard to read because it's written as like 250 aphorisms about the central idea. Brilliant book, but obnoxious to read. Partially Examined Life did a decent companion podcast for it which helps a lot.
Right now I'd say I'm probably ideologically closest to a Bolshevik. If the vanguard party forms tomorrow I'm in it, if the barricades go up next week I'm on them. "No compassion no compassion no excuses" has been my monk mantra throughout the past few years. Revolution would be lovely and I watched the full rally on Woke's 6-screen stream.
Not once, not for a microsecond, was I jealous of any of them. When they marched on Rome to hear Trump unleash the storm and he bitched about Oprah, I sat there with my coffee and laughed my ass off. When a giant mass of maskless people cut into construction plastic and filled some closed-off building full of teargas, I just said "oh no no no no no" in a mocking way and then had to go make breakfast because I couldn't take the boomer leather daddy medic. It was like a crude parody of what rioting is. When they marched on the capitol I wasn't jealous, I was just bewildered by the lack of some coherent message as they were about to get slaughtered by the police. When the police let them in and they toured the building, I wasn't jealous because they did nothing with that gain and couldn't press further. They just looked stupid as they took selfies of themselves and gave each other COVID-19. The only thing that went through my Marxist, revolution-hungry head was, "man Debord really knew his shit this is stupid I can't imagine being that ridiculous" .
Look at the media messaging around the event. "Storm the capitol", "coup", and "putsch" are all far more escalatory than the "riot" ascribed to us. Taking the capitol is the crowning act after you have all the infrastructure and public support. Do it prematurely and it means nothing to us, completely counterproductive because it just invites the full wrath of the state. If PSL did it tomorrow I would have to scramble to drive 50 miles to the nearest PSL chapter and explain to most of the city what socialism means before even 1% of the population understands what an ML revolution means. Without simultaneously either controlling or replacing the media, every episode of Rachel Maddow's Fear Hour for the next six months will be convincing the public that I'm a Chinese spy or a fascist terrorist. The politicians inside won't suddenly become revolutionaries. They'll just be hostages that suddenly become the focus of the most powerful military on the planet. Nothing about that seems like a good idea to me.
What's that then? Gimme some theory to read!
Debord wrote society of the spectacle. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Society_of_the_Spectacle
Also in a similar vein, Lefvbres monumental work critique of everyday life.
Oh nice. I have that wikipedia page saved for later perusal and finding of that book, probably. I'll have to also look at the other book.
What they said. Society of the Spectacle is like the Marxist version of They Live or The Matrix, a study of how Edward Bernays and Sigmund Freud changed capitalism in the 20th century to be an image-based relationship of distraction from alienation. The dynamics of mass media and later social media created new forms of parasocial relationships and commodified experiences which add a whole new layer to the traditional ideas of a working class.
That being said, it's hard to read because it's written as like 250 aphorisms about the central idea. Brilliant book, but obnoxious to read. Partially Examined Life did a decent companion podcast for it which helps a lot.