From theory, action.

sparrow-medicine:

philosophy-of-praxis:

I quite like spotting out turns of phrase which, as a part of capitalist society, normalise us into a capitalist way of thinking.  Phrases which you’d use off the cuff without a second thought, but if you do apply a bit more time the connotations of what they mean demonstrates the way that capitalism structures everything we do.  I find it sort of amusing.  This is what I have so far, if anyone else has any suggestions then drop them in an ask.

“A market place of ideas” - religion, ideology and so on are co-opted to the commodity culture of capitalism.

“I don’t buy it” - belief in something as a financial investment.

“Time well spent” - your time is a financial investment.

“Self-ownership” - the attitude that you are an item of property which you are in possession of.

“Human resources” - humanity is boiled down and objectified, it is a resource not an end in its own right.

“Job market” - careers and vocations are to be bought and sold/people try to sell themselves into a career or vocation.  Links into the idea of “immigrants come over and steal jobs.”  Bizarre in its own right but more so with this concept of possession over a job.

“My child”/”my (boy/girl)friend”/”my partner” - the attitude of property possession regarding close interpersonal relationships.  This links interestingly into the idea of people having their boy/girlfriend “stolen” (well, less poignant a problem when you get older, but I’m sure many people will have heard this phrase used even if not by someone in their immediate friendship group.)  Your romantic relationship is alienated by the ideology of capitalism, therefore infidelity is not the fault of the significant other, but of the person they get involved with.  An object is inanimate, it cannot falter or do wrong, ergo the agency and therefore error is placed on the third point of the triangle.  Weird.  And gross.  Also links into the idea of, rather than responsibility for parents to raise children to be a part of a society, instead parents are able to enforce their ideals and parameter onto the child - who is their possession.  Hence things like circumcision [this is just the most immediate thing that springs to mind due to recent discussions, rather than intended as a dig.] are the parents choice, because the child is an object without agency.

I just read an essay similar to this! To add on, there’s the idea of “selling yourself” in the “dating market” and looking at your personality as if it’s a physical good that needs to be sold.

I think everyone should read What Comes After Money and try to be aware of these things. It’s interesting.

“Selling yourself” is a really convoluted one to think about, excellent to bring up.  This ‘happens’ (or at least, we talk about it happening) in a variety of different formats.  People that work in really menial, soulless jobs where they don’t get to be themselves are “selling themselves.”  But more importantly and where I hear this word most commonly used is in regard to sex workers “selling themselves” as if, through the act of sexual relations for the purposes of putting bread on the table, an integral part of what it is to be human is somehow given up or lost.  This cognitive distinction normalises us into being degrading towards sex workers because they have lost their full humanity; they are no longer human but now an object and therefore do not meet up to the requirements for rights or common decency.

Also “selling out” which clicks back into the possessive attitude we have over celebrities.  Whereby a band that makes it big and either a) tailors their music to sell more or b) just generally changes style as they age.  The original fan base doesn’t like the change but because a celebrity is not their own person, their actions must answer to those who view themselves as the fan base and are therefore entitled, change to style is the possession of the fans rather than allowing the individual their own agency.

allergictocats:

I’ve always thought about this in relation to people owning pets,
Like when I find myself saying “I want a cat/dog/etc.”, or “my pet”,
reducing the animal down to being a “pet” in which you own 

But you do own your pet.  It isn’t a symbiotic relationship with the pet able to develop as an autonomous being, it is permanently dependent on you (well, most animals are.  Some which have been less intensively bred are more independent.)  Generally you go to a shop or breeder and buy your pet, they are a commodity.  You can make whatever ethical judgements on that which you wish, and you may perceive your relationship to animals in your life as being different, but the social relationship under capital that we have towards pets is that of a material commodity not just on a linguistic level.

(Source: philosophy-of-praxis)

I quite like spotting out turns of phrase which, as a part of capitalist society, normalise us into a capitalist way of thinking.  Phrases which you’d use off the cuff without a second thought, but if you do apply a bit more time the connotations of what they mean demonstrates the way that capitalism structures everything we do.  I find it sort of amusing.  This is what I have so far, if anyone else has any suggestions then drop them in an ask.

“A market place of ideas” - religion, ideology and so on are co-opted to the commodity culture of capitalism.

“I don’t buy it” - belief in something as a financial investment.

“Time well spent” - your time is a financial investment.

“Self-ownership” - the attitude that you are an item of property which you are in possession of.

“Human resources” - humanity is boiled down and objectified, it is a resource not an end in its own right.

“Job market” - careers and vocations are to be bought and sold/people try to sell themselves into a career or vocation.  Links into the idea of “immigrants come over and steal jobs.”  Bizarre in its own right but more so with this concept of possession over a job.

“My child”/”my (boy/girl)friend”/”my partner” - the attitude of property possession regarding close interpersonal relationships.  This links interestingly into the idea of people having their boy/girlfriend “stolen” (well, less poignant a problem when you get older, but I’m sure many people will have heard this phrase used even if not by someone in their immediate friendship group.)  Your romantic relationship is alienated by the ideology of capitalism, therefore infidelity is not the fault of the significant other, but of the person they get involved with.  An object is inanimate, it cannot falter or do wrong, ergo the agency and therefore error is placed on the third point of the triangle.  Weird.  And gross.  Also links into the idea of, rather than responsibility for parents to raise children to be a part of a society, instead parents are able to enforce their ideals and parameter onto the child - who is their possession.  Hence things like circumcision [this is just the most immediate thing that springs to mind due to recent discussions, rather than intended as a dig.] are the parents choice, because the child is an object without agency.

Capitalist philosophy criticises that collectivist ideals deny the human will, yet it’s the most hardline free-marketeers that most ardently take a deterministic stance on social forces.  Trusting in the invisible hand of the market and lacking an analysis of the agency behind actions and their potentiality, free-marketeers not only deny human will they go to great lengths to ignore it.

When people finish practising religion, is there going to be a big religion concert?  Are there religion rehearsals for everyone who’s been practising enough?  Once you progress from simply practising religion do you get onto the professional circuit?

English is a strange language.

brunomarconi asked: I understand your point of view. The New Left begun with R. Hilton (I think), after the war, saying that they failed to change the world as Marx said ("Philosophers only tried to understand the world etc.")... but Perry Anderson (that is probably the most... bolchevist... from the New Left group) actually criticize against what he calls the Western Marxism (Adorno, Benjamin, Lukács...) for not linking properly theory and praxis like the antecedent generation (Kautsky, Lenin, Luxemburg...)

This is true.  But then if someone had been exactly as Lenin or Luxemburg in their action and deed they would not have been able to recreate the events.  Maybe I’m something of a fence-sitter on this one.  I think it was right that there was effort to find a new path, the reason that post-materialism got the attention it did and class analysis started to fade was that the post-war boom made the impending necessity of class struggle less a lived experience and more a rhetorical talking point.  Perhaps the “Euro-communists” were keeping Marxism alive in the ways most relevant to the socio-cultural position they were in, perhaps they should’ve been doing more to rally the masses …  Their works are definitely important, the challenge becomes how to weaponise it from being abstract analysis into a tool to effectively challenge power structures, incorporating it into the arsenal.  I know a tendency amongst Trot organisations (as a whole, not necessarily individuals) to be quite reductionist and narrow in the philosophers they look at or promote whereas really there’s a wealth of criticism that could be used and expanded upon, but the relevance to the physicality of class struggle isn’t so immediate so it gets left by the wayside.  Much like a marxist economist doesn’t have so much time for the concept of alienation, and I don’t have so much time for differential calculus …

(You possibly tapped into a ramble I’ve been waiting to have for a while)

brunomarconi asked: What do you think about the New Left moviment and Edward Thompson's work? Do you think they use the concepts of Gramsci and Benjamin properly?

I don’t have a very intimate knowledge.  Currently in between everything else I’m working my way through* Perry Anderson’s ‘The Antimonies of Antonio Gramsci’ which was printed in the NLR back in the 70s.  It’s … interesting so far but I’m finding the staunch emphasis on the War of Position to be … trying.  It’ll take me further reading to really solidify a strong opinion but I get this nudging feeling that they swung a bit too far in avoidance of the connections to Sovietism and became a little ossified as a class of intellectual marxists dissociated from active engagement with creating the sort of change they were talking about.

P.S. For disclosure I haven’t read anything on Benjamin to really be able to comment regarding him.

* The joys of ADD and reading chunky texts is I pick up three or four books/journal articles, start reading them around the same time and then decide a shiny spoon is much more interesting.  So it’s a slow process …

Anonymous asked: There is a myth (or not?) that gets often told in schools in germany, that the germans brought lenin to russia in an isolated carriage on the train (so that he could not talk about his revolutionary ideas to the other (often german) passengers) so that he would start a revolution and weaken russia. On another matter: would you call what happened in russia a revolution?

That is how I understood it.  A number of Russian revolutionaries were in exile, many residing in Switzerland because it maintains neutrality quite consistently.  The train was sealed to prevent communication with the outside world, and it travelled up from Switzerland, through Germany and Scandinavia before arriving in Russia.  Germany was banking on Russia withdrawing from the war effort with the success of the revolution, while in turn hoping it wouldn’t spread to their own workers.  Hence the sealed carriage.

I would call what happened in Russia a revolution, significant in that there developed a high degree of workers’ control.  A lot of that got rolled back under Stalin, but as a step and a demonstration of action it was significant.

clintirwin:

So, SOME ideological pacifists believe so strongly that all action should be non-violent that they will use any tactic to stop violence in a demo, including the morally questionable.

Yeah, but the problem is ALL pacifists, not just the ones that would rather punch someone for breaking the window of some bank.  Because pacifism is the ideological conviction that non-violence is the only legitimate tactic and therefore they won’t work cohesively with groups or individuals that aren’t pacifist.  If they happen to be people that accept violence as a tactic but don’t personally want to engage in it themselves, then they aren’t a pacifist.  Big difference.

It trikes me as strange that pacifist should be singled out for claiming movements as their own. When black bloc types start smashing and breaking things, they are doing just that. Violence drowns out all other voices and effectively becomes the only voice.

Don’t be fucking ridiculous.  Black bloc is a tactic, it can be used well or it can be used poorly depending on the situation.  There’s a difference between having a debate about whether or not it’s a contextually suitable tactic, compared to outright claiming ownership of a movement and saying that people are excluded as a result.

I have never seen a “black bloc type” walk about to a union worker who’s on a demonstration and say “you’re not radical enough, get off of my march”.  I have seen middle class assholes shouting at people for being masked up, when state profiling and repression of activists (especially youths who don’t necessarily have the backing of a union) is very much a reality.  ”Get off of my demonstration, you have no right to be here” - without any discussion about why the mask was worn, why that may or may not be suitable, and without consideration that this was a demonstration outside the conservative party conference and despite which specific group first called for the demo it could hardly be claimed by individuals.  This sort of behaviour of possessiveness, prejudice and exclusion is damaging to a movement.

It’s an attitude you seem to share though.

This is where you become problematic.

No it’s not.

This is sort of a generalized screed that essentially says, pacifists act like X (they don’t care about anybody but themselves)

Definitively, pacifists will not meet to resist fascists.  That’s why they’re a pacifist - because they’ll avoid conflict instead of meeting it where necessary.  Yeah, it’s a “generalised screed” if you want to look at it that way, but it’s also integral to the definition of a pacifist.  If a person wouldn’t act that way then they’re not truly a pacifist.

and socialists/anarchists act like Y (heroically down with the oppressed from the start.)

Erm.  Yes, because it’s a part of especially socialist creed that you take on the responsibility of combatting fascism.  Anarchists do so as well, consistently today and historically.  Antifa and united fronts against fascism are largely organised by anarchist and socialist groups.  It is NOT a part of the creed for liberals, for social democrats and so on.  It is especially not a part of the creed for pacifists.

That’s how shit goes.  On a UAF march there tends to be some Lib Dems and a few Labourites but the majority of the people there tend to be socialists and/or punks and/or anarchists.  It’s like a reunion.

This is a borderline ad hominem and incredibly glib but assuming it is true, it does not make them fascist.

lurn 2 reed.

>Pacifism isn’t fascist it’s pro-fascist,

Pacifism IS NOT fascist, it is PRO-fascist.

Pacifism IS NOT fascist, it WORKS IN FAVOUR of fascism.

Pacifism IS NOT fascist, it is FAVOURABLE OF fascism.

lurn 2 reed.

Doing something that has the effect of benefiting fascists does not make one a fascist, repugnant, maybe, misguided, maybe, but still not a fascist. I also find it a bit naive and somewhat arrogant to talk of bourgeois radicals being somehow effective and important in standing in defense of targeted groups. 

In defence of?  That is a term I know I didn’t use, because I specifically would not say that.  It isn’t about defending a group it’s about standing with them.  It’s about solidarity, about building relationships with groups and working with them for a better, stronger community rather than being atomised by capitalist society.

Don’t project your own arrogance and insecurities onto others.  Just because your brain only computes it in one way, doesn’t make that the fact of the matter.

Your bourgeois radicalism is better than their bourgeois radicalism. Anarchism especially is predominately found in middle class white folk who are affluent enough and have enough political influence to think they have a degree of control, that their voice is listened to by the ruling elite.They must be racist, too.

Middle class=/=bourgeois.  Re-read your Marx.  They can be used interchangeably at points, but the contemporary definition of middle-class does not fit with the definition of bourgeois.  I also specifically find that not to be the case with anarchists that I’ve known but of course feel free to generalise, just as you lambast me for apparently doing.

Anarchism also specifically doesn’t function in that fashion - anarchism is specifically not about making pleas of the ruling elite.  I’m not really that bothered though, it’s not like I’m an anarchist and I’m sure many other people may have something to say about it.

 clintirwin answered your question: clintirwin replied to your post: This talk about…

Protip: it was unquestioned in the debate, here. Slight examination reveals it as dumb, so it must not have been questioned.

Yeah, but it wasn’t just me arguing that point and I didn’t make any of the original claims on the matter.  However you decided to argue with specifically me about it, rather than reblogging one of the posts on the matter so everybody who’d been involved in the discussion would be included.  Slight examination reveals you don’t have a fucking clue how to read and after that your entire argument falls apart, so whatever man.  It has been questioned, rigorously, and still continues to have currency in discussion.

I’m questioning whether or not you’re a really crap troll or genuinely don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.  You’re not actually coming back on the points which are being made, just making glib general statements that aren’t consistent with the rest of the discussion going on.

apofis asked: what about pseudo intellectual for idealists/theologists/alikes?

Rather than an attacking their capacity to think, the problem is more in what they decide to think about. Mistaken, misguided perhaps.  That doesn’t call into question their dedication or belief in the merit of what they do.

johnnydib:

November 11 is remembrance day, remembering the war to end all wars, in which a third of all casualties were civilians. It was followed after 30 years by a war in which a half of all casualties were civilians. 20 years later Vietnam 75%+ of casualties are civilians. Vietnam is just one of many of the “cold war” era conflicts, that saw similar proportions of non-combatants dying and getting injured. In the 21st century we had more than 1 war in which 90%+ of casualties were civilian. November 11 is not the day we celebrate winning World War I. It is the day we contemplate its atrocities, and vow not to repeat them. If we celebrate anything it is the “civilizing” effect the war had on us, we celebrate the Vienna Convention which states that the forcible transfer of populations and the targeting of civilians during armed conflicts are crimes of war. What irony it is, that war had to be legislated and regulated, to in fact attain previously unimaginable ugliness. Is it irony? Or is legislation the modern equivalent of religious commandments; righteous words on justice that serve the victim as an anesthetic but doesn’t cure her wounds?

I’ve always had a problem with remembrance day for a few reasons, and it always seems to be the most consistent point in time where I start arguments.  So lets get this one out the way early, and I’m not saying this because I disagree with what johnnydib put but because I guess this is an opportunity to also start a discourse on the matter and establish the playing field early.

I think for anyone who follows my blog it won’t come as a surprise that I have a great distaste for imperialist wars, not least for the “rich man’s wars, poor man’s blood” dichotomy which is ever present.

I also sort of feel it’s a massive cop out.  At least in the UK there’s this attitude of wearing the poppy, and through the act of wearing the poppy for the week(s) surrounding November 11th, you’re suddenly actively showing respect.  You’ve given your bit of money to charity and now you can partake in displaying what a good, considerate, empathic citizen you are that cares about our troops/doesn’t like the brutality of violence.  You’ve taken this act for a day each your and your conscience is salved through this act!

Tony Blair wore the poppy at the appropriate times.

Tony Blair sent our troops to kill and be killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Tony Blair can, with all due respect, go fuck himself.

The greatest atrocity of Remembrance Day isn’t the “rich man’s war, poor man’s blood”, nor the blinding nationalism/patriotism that’s inherent in military parades as such.  The greatest atrocity of Remembrance Day is exactly that.  Remembrance Day.  Is it fuck, have Remembrance Year.  Every year.  Don’t remember the loss and the tragedy for one day of your year.  Remember it every day.  If people took Remembrance Day seriously we wouldn’t be stuck in neoimperialist wars in the middle east and north africa.  People who think that acting like an elitist shit about anyone who isn’t wearing a poppy, somehow not as good a citizen, is acceptable behaviour can go remove their fingernails with pliers.

Also in reference to the question: fuck the legislation as if that means anything.  Power politics shows the truth: the US, Britain, Israel, whoever else attack civilians (or take action they know will effect civilians but doesn’t care enough to prevent).  Without an organisation to enforce it adequately then the club that holds hegemonic military power (NATO, primarily) will do whatever they want and the legislation exists only so they can turn to it and say “but no, look how good we are we have rules about this shit.”  Global politics is interstate anarchy, and might is right.

ourben:

la-vie-est-politiques:

ourben:

kagrwe:

la-vie-est-politiques:

kagrwe:

What if when you go to sleep, you wake up in another reality, and what you dream is simply random memories from your other life flashing before your eyes?

What if between every instant in time the entire universe is destroyed then reconstructed with infinetly small changes we can never recognise because we’re a part of that permanent system of flux?

Fuck

What la-vie-est-politiques said. Plus everything exists, everything is possible, everything happens - provided it’s reversible.

HOW CAN YOU DIE IF YOU CAN’T KNOW YOU’RE DEAD?

Death is the non-being.  I cannot die, because as soon as I am not then I am not.  I cannot comprehend, nor experience, my own non-being.  Ergo death is not a reality unto me.

Indeed. I can eliminate you from my experience, but I can’t eliminate me. I cannot kill myself and know it’s happened. And how many universes exist? And what permits them to exist? And what prohibits a consciousness spontaneously emerging in a universe with all your memories?

It blows my mind.

Likewise you cannot eliminate me from my existence.  You can eliminate me from your existence, and I can eliminate you from my existence.  But I cannot eliminate you from your existence.

As for the rest of it, I tend not to worry about that stuff too much.  I’m much more into just doing shit.  The subjective realisation of my reality is that that stuff is out of my comprehension, yet doing shit is a really existent event in my life.  Ergo why think about stuff that is contra to doing shit, when doing shit is what causes shit to happen in my own life.

ourben:

kagrwe:

la-vie-est-politiques:

kagrwe:

What if when you go to sleep, you wake up in another reality, and what you dream is simply random memories from your other life flashing before your eyes?

What if between every instant in time the entire universe is destroyed then reconstructed with infinetly small changes we can never recognise because we’re a part of that permanent system of flux?

Fuck

What la-vie-est-politiques said. Plus everything exists, everything is possible, everything happens - provided it’s reversible.

HOW CAN YOU DIE IF YOU CAN’T KNOW YOU’RE DEAD?

Death is the non-being.  I cannot die, because as soon as I am not then I am not.  I cannot comprehend, nor experience, my own non-being.  Ergo death is not a reality unto me.

kagrwe:

What if when you go to sleep, you wake up in another reality, and what you dream is simply random memories from your other life flashing before your eyes?

What if between every instant in time the entire universe is destroyed then reconstructed with infinetly small changes we can never recognise because we’re a part of that permanent system of flux?