They can’t. Its not a matter of personal greed, its just how capitalism works, it creates immense wealth for a few on one end and mass immiseration for the masses on the other. Billionaires exist because of the system that creates them.
My son showed me this last night, its insane. Its like one video from his feed and then two videos of people getting mauled
Right, electronic devices talk to each other all the time
Same, except i wasnt a lit major, just a guy who was going through the phase of “this is what intelligent people look like” while trying to educate myself. I was convinced DFW was the voice of our generation, heralding in a new era of consciousness.
The book is conceptually pretty cool, like it is really well written and he draws together so many disparate elements to make kind of a coherent narrative.
But the idea of making a book impossible to read on purpose is a funny joke, especially one that so many aspiring intelligentsia gush over. I can appreciate a good shaggy dog as much as the next guy, but IJ is just so far beyond the pale.
A book should be challenging because the concepts are unique and well considered, and it draws from lots of historic and philosophical research; not because the author decided to intentionally break the flow of the narrative to make you flip to the not-optional appendix to read 32 pages of made up synopsis about a character’s avant-garde filmography.
A condom is just a dick thimble
The leg shakes, or beat the devils tattoo
Quebec
Yeah if our reality could stop resembling Infinite Jest, that would be great. I can’t stand that stupid fucking book and how accurately it predicts our increasingly insane circumstances
Fascism shouldn’t be thought of as a static “thing” or an object of ideology. Peoples beliefs come from their environment. We are so individualized as a society that often we as progressives take “personal responsibility” too far, we buy the premise implicitly without realizing there are flaws with thinking in this way. Every logical system has flaws and contradictions, its proven mathematically though I think some systems are more rigorous and based on evidence.
GWF Hegel’s philosophy of Right was written in 1820, and influenced political thought ever since. Liberalism was still in it’s revolutionary phase and theories about it were still fairly new, the Wealth of Nations was written just 50 years before, and Karl Marx was like two when it was released, although it would serve as the basis for much of his work analyzing the hidden relationships of Capital, and ethical political philosophy on the whole.
The book is the closest I think someone can honestly get to an actual “horseshoe theory” because not only did it influence the left but it also influenced the far right. Hegel, using the works of other great liberal philosophers such as Locke and Kant, who Hegel was always working to surpass, applied his dialectical philosophical methods to the writings of liberalism.
What he discovered was a natural tendency toward what we would calll fascism. Like he prefigured fascism by 100 years. He wasn’t a fascist, there was no such thing. He was just exploring the ideas of this revolutionary philosophy, one that purported to liberate the mind, body and spirit, and discovered the oppressive seeds which might grow into something quite different.
This isn’t to call liberals fascists, I’m a communist and 20th century communism had a lot of problems, to put it mildly. I would say confidently that progressive liberals are not crypto fash, in fact the term “progressive” is a typically left-Hegelian ideal, in that it describes human progress and development as the subject of history. Instead it challenges the idea of the liberatory nature of private property, a key component of liberal thought. Of course this is all depending how you look at it, right-Hegelians see this same formulation as proof of the inevitability of their ideas and justification for their actions.
You’re getting a lot of different opinions about this stuff so I’m trying to make sort of a different point about philosophy, history and action. Other reading for a deep dive on fascism is the essay Ur Fascism by Umberto Eco (great empirical analysis, but the least scientific IMO), Trotsky’s pamphlet Fascism: What it is and How to Fight It, and HA Roy’s Fasism, Its Philosophy, Professions and Practice.
In a way, fascism has always been there below the surface, informally shifting the sands of history until it was formalized in the early 20th century. I don’t think you can have a society based on private property without some elements of fascism somewhere. Mostly “western democracies” will outsource their extreme cruelty to other countries where it doesn’t affect their citizens.
But in summary, Fascism is the realization of the contradictions inherent in liberal ideology, its liberalism turned inside-out, with all its appearances of justice and freedom cut away, leaving only the logic of expansion and domination that most liberal democracies do their best to hide. This is how fascists are able to hide in our society, their individual beliefs are not completely unpalatable to centrists and conservatives who have also started to dispense with justice and freedom in the interest of national greatness. Its what makes their beliefs so malleable, and its also why liberals have such a hard time defining it. But fascism isn’t an individual’s beliefs, if it was it would be just regular bog-standard chauvinism. Fascism is a mass movement which will use charismatic leaders amenable to their politics to rally the masses.
In our society, the middle classes are the “battery” for fascism. Middle classes are constantly under attack under capitalism and the individuals often feel this and become paranoid (doomsday prepping, etc.,) and this paranoia and real social pressure to produce or be wiped out, the fear from the constant threat of precarity and uncertainty fits hand in glove with the aims and means of fascists.
The love comes from the fact that it is a masterpiece. I have no idea where the hate comes from.
You’re entitled to your opinion of course, but the game you describe in your next comment is not the Bloodborne I have spent an ungodly amount of time playing and helping others to get through.
I’ve had difficulty getting started with Souls games before, Sekiro took me like 5 or 6 years to git gud after starting and quitting in frustration half a dozen times. Bloodborne failed to hook me the first couple times, but once I got it I was completely hooked.
But weapon design, drip, environment, story, all these things are practically unrivalled by any game. Gameplay is maybe second to Sekiro and Elden ring, and Bloodborne being locked at 30 fps is pure pain. There is nothing like the trick weapon system that makes each weapon practically a completely unique gaming experience, with almost all weapons being both viable and fun to play with. Elden ring and ds3 for example just have buckets of garbage weapons. Bloodborne has like maybe 1 objectively bad weapon, and a couple that are strong but kinda boring, and maybe a few that are fun but underpowered in higher ng+ cycles.
Still bust this out around Halloween and help new players through the game for a few weeks every year.
Is such a utopia possible?
Sure. Yeah its very hypothetical and silly. As if the Banks that manage national and international money supplies, since most of their managed assets are debt, haven’t thought of it? So no such button exists, whereas there might be a delete twitter button somewhere or one could be rigged up 👀
Attacking twitter would be more useful than deleting all debt? I mean go wild, take that shit ass site down but if you had a “delete twitter” button and a “delete all debt” button, mashing the second one would make you the greatest hero who ever lived.
There are other forms of democracy than this one kind with parliaments, which, incidentally, is only as as popular because its easy for private interests to control. What’s happening now is particularly blatant, there’s no more profit in hiding their intentions. Parliamentary constitutional democracy was def a progressive development over divine right of kings, but its been pretty ineffective for a long time, as well as the preferred form of government by private interests.
One might argue that parliamentary governments are particularly stable, and that’s why they are preferred by capital interests. But in that case, why then do capital interests prefer brutal dictatorships over any other form of democracy, even fairly stable ones? I think “stability” only matters with relation to business and finance, which dictators are often willing to deliver in service of their own power. These dictators are often praised in the imperial core, while other forms of democracy are called dictatorships.
I think that parliamentary “democracies” are particularly good at disempowering large swaths of the masses, while establishing various national ruling and administrative classes. This democracy that obscures class domination is barely any kind of democracy, when you pay close attention. But it is the only form of democracy acceptable to powerful private interests.
Seems almost intentional.
Appreciate your response, and I agree: there’s like a toxicity on the left. Some of it I can try to account for, Mark Fisher wrote about it a good deal in some of his essays, but confronting it I have the same problems that you might, I get banned from left spaces or dogpiled. From my investigations, I would say that a great deal of this framing, often bearing the title of “Marxist” is anything but, which isn’t a condemnation of anyone’s beliefs, since most people on the left, including progressive liberals are moved by deep injustices in society. And anyone moved by injustice is my comrade, of not today then surely in the future. But I do think the point of Marx has been lost, since so many Marxists deploy a sort of reasoning that Marx himself criticized and all but condemns.
Its true we all have an ideology to reckon with, I think its a consequence of the world we live in vs our ability or willingness to live with it. Its a big question that has plagued me for over a decade, but also driven much of my intellectual development. I hope the challenging and development of your ideas on your journey is just as fruitful, and maybe a little easier or more pleasant than I’ve experienced. Unfortunately, the times being what they are, many lessons will come hard for all of us, I’m afraid.
Sorry for any ungenerous interpretations of your intentions or intellect or anything like that. Its not my intention to like win debates or be petty, but being someone who thinks about politics a lot, it comes with the territory, I’m afraid. I try and improve.
Thanks for the discussion!
This is a really funny comment. What’s the difference between your WOT and mine? Also as far as that last comment goes, you assume I am just angry at capitalism. No, I am actively organizing against it. As much as you might like to strawman me, I do help people, I volunteer my time, I host and help organize any number of events. So spare me the sanctimony? I may have an ideology but I understand it, and yours, while you seem to think you don’t have an ideology. Its like a blind person saying there is nothing to see.
money is just power
Is that all it is? What is power? Its effort expended over time. What effort, what time? It is the accumulated value of the commodities that workers create. So you admit one of Marx’s basic premises, but ignore it out of incurious and dismissive nature.
So according to your definition of power we can answer your own question about what capitalism is: it is a system that pays an individual wage for socialized production methods (like assembly lines) where the compounding effects of socialized production are owned and realized by the capitalist. Its a complex topic. Wealth of Nations is 500 pages, Capital is over 1000. So you may like digestible little bites of info, but you might have to actually read a book if you want to understand it. Which you plainly don’t, you just want me to waste time giving answers that are insufficient to answer your question, and then nit pick those answers to make yourself feel smart.
What you describe in your second paragraph is an epistemic crisis, and its very true. What you don’t understand is that it is a two way street. Just because you don’t understand me doesn’t mean I’m speaking gibberish, it could be you just don’t want to, or want to strawman me as unintelligible.
I already explained how it is an ideology and an economic system, try to understand instead of just claiming everything as incomprehensible. I actually teach this stuff, so the burden of learning is on you. Its not just an ideology. But how would we define ideology? Well in any historical era, the dominant ideology is the ideology of the ruling class.
Liberalism does have a through thread, in all historic forms and it is the development and state protection of private property. It has different aspects which appear at different times in different places, as you allude to, but it is the ideology of capitalism that emerged in the 17th-20th centuries which defeated the ruling kings and queens of Europe and established global capitalism by the middle of the 20th century.
You probably aren’t going to investigate any of my sources, but a good place to begin is Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Friedrich Engels, Wage Labor and Capital by Marx, Capital by Marx (just read Marx he’s amazing) and Imperialism the highest stage of Capitalism by VI Lenin.
But really you could try and read any books on the topic to improve your understanding, which is actually ignorance of how much you don’t know. And I mean this in the most generous way possible. I think I already partially addressed some of your questions in my first post so go back and read it before assaulting me with 1001 bad faith questions. I’ve spent years as an organizer and educator, don’t belittle me to give yourself some wiggle room to hang on to your misconceptions. Actually test your own assumptions and see if they hold up under scrutiny; or if every “answer” as you see it leads to more questions, and doubts, about what is really going on.
That would be great if it weren’t definitively proven to be otherwise. Just because you aren’t familiar with Karl Marx doesn’t mean he didn’t write extensively on the subject. Specifically you could look at critique of the Gotha Program by Karl Marx, Reform or Revolution by Rosa Luxemburg and State and Revolution by Lenin for comprehensive arguments against your view.
Even the ruling class, which once had many socialist-y sentiments among them, hasn’t subscribed to your views since WW2. I used to make arguments similar to yours, but if I followed through and tried to prove those views the only “evidence” was either just experts making claims to that effect, or people literally misconstruing data to suit that assumption. Its almost as if the consensus reached by the experts is itself a way of hiding the true relationships produced and reproduced for and by capitalism.
The way to uncover the nature of domination and exploitation, to prove that it isn’t just an economic system, is to instead of thinking of it as an objective thing with certain defining characteristics, but instead look at it as interconnected relationships that drive infinite growth, then it becomes apparent how it actually functions as a mechanism of class domination. The way you look at it, you only see the appearances of capitalism, you have an idealist view.
This is why so many people say things like “such a policy doesn’t make sense, its irrational.” But when viewed as a class struggle, it makes perfect sense, the system exploits the problems created by the relentless search for profit, by exploiting those problems for profit. Its the system that is irrational, and your desire to make it rational is well intentioned, but is basically just naval gazing. “This is what I learned it is so that’s what it is”. Its easier to see the illusions of capitalism for what they are than to hold on to them, but because they are a part of our identity, how we evaluate the world and our place in it, we don’t want to let them go. This is understandable.
But the stakes are higher than ever and the system is destroying, not building, killing and starving, not emancipating. This isn’t progress, its suicide.
I read the whole bible as an adult.
But the discipline that took, probably shows that I was starting to think more deeply about things