#please read marx liberals

[aoife-godessofsleep]

Its insane that certain self proclaimed “marxists” insist that Lenin differed from Marx and think it is weird for you to maintain that Marx and Lenin actually agree entirely.

Where Marx pointed out the growing international connections Lenin followed his analysis and completed it.

Where Marx developed his theory of the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat and the theory of lower and higher communism over his lifetime Lenin maintained his analysis against anarchistic slander in S&R.

That is what state and revolution is, it is a maintaining of continuity with Marx’s understanding of the process of revolution and development of socialism it is not a new theory. It has never been a new theory.

[ahaura]

the idea that "biden can't do anything to stop the genocide" is not only a part of useless hand-wringing by liberals but it's also false. by no means was president goerge h.w. a good person bush, however he was one of the few U.S. presidents to apply pressure to israel, threatening to withhold loans.

let's also not forget when what few aid trucks were let in an israeli official literally said that they "can't say no to the U.S." the united states is the primary backer of israel; they get almost all of their funds and arms from the united states. the united states, if it chose to, could easily end the killing TOMORROW. israel CANNOT exist without international backing. but u.s./western material and imperialist interests in the region, and their subsequent disregard for human life that comes with pursuing these interests, are the reason why they refuse to.

the u.s. and israel do not care about peace. they do not care about jewish people, israelis in general, and they CERTAINLY don't care about palestinians and any other arabs who they see as in their way. they don't care about peace or saving lives. you cannot apply (neo)liberalism to a situation which can only be accurately assessed if you understand that the american empire has material reasons for having israel act as an extended military base in the middle east.

[recreationaldivorce]

jk rowling identifying as a communist/marxist would literally be my 9/11 like british """"communists"""" are terrible enough as it is without jkr diluting the Discourse in the british far left... god could you imagine if she joined the cpgb-ml or something like i'd have to flee the fucking country. it is integral for my health that she continues to identify as a liberal actually

[bikazutora]

Voting is Not Harm Reduction https://www.indigenousaction.org

[psychotrenny]

I know that "revolutions always make things worse" people are so fucking stupid and annoying but can we please stop talking like serf revolts are what ended feudalism. Sure you can point to specific examples where rural violence was a contributing factor to the emergence and solidification of Capitalism in a region but like it was never the primary cause. Long story short in was the fucking Bourgeoisie who ended feudalism and in a lot of cases the peasantry primarily acted as a reactionary force to maintain feudalism due to a range of factors from religious sentiment to the preservation of the feudal privileges/concessions that Liberalism was to destroy. Successful progressive peasant movements are something you only really saw in the 20th century and even then these largely took place in the context of an alliance with the Proletariat and progressive Bourgeoisie against foreign Capitalist Imperialists and their Compradors who, while often ruling in a feudal manner, did so as subordinate agents for those Imperialist Capitalists.

Like we can just say that Communism is good actually. There's no need to talk about the end of Feudalism as though the Jacquerie personally tore down every castle in France and replaced them with polling booths. This isn't exactly esoteric stuff; it's in the fucking Communist Manifesto for god's sake. Like if you're going to align with Marxism it would be great if you read even a little bit of Marx

[read-marx-and-lenin]

Do you have any good reading recs for a socialist-curious, but relatively uninformed liberal? Something approachable and beginner friendly? I've found what little I've read of "the classics" (Marx, Lenin) to be steeped in a lot of historical context that I don't understand, so I'd love to get started with something more modern. Thank you!

It's hard for me to give recommendations of that nature, because what is more approachable to one person might be even more dense to another. I will say that there's no shame in looking up the terms and references made by earlier authors; I do this frequently myself. But even more helpful than that is to find people or groups who you can discuss these works with and study together.

Here is the reading list I always link to as a general scattershot rec list, it includes both modern and older works:

I will also say that if anyone else wants to suggest particular works, please feel free to leave your recommendations in the notes!

[dictatorshipofcapital]

Pinned Post needed some updating.

Hi! I'm Aipiri Aquayey, I'm a Native American Marxist Leninist Maoist, Principally Maoist. I'm transfeminine and engage in a lot of transfeminine and Marxist politics, so be warned. I am a Marxist-Feminist and have politically been identified as a Rad-Fem, albeit I am staunchly against TERFist politics.

I engage in kink, fetish, and other NSFW content at times, so Minors DNI, if your age is not in your bio, if you are vague about your age, etc, please DNI. (Exceptions for strictly political interactions.)

I am PRO:

New Afrikan National Liberation

Proletarian Revolution

Abolishment of Men as an Oppressor Class

Malcolm X

And more!

My reading list:

Refutation of the Dogmato-Revisionist Tendency of "Hoxhaism" Beat Back the Dogmato-Revisionist Attack on Mao Tsetung Thought, I (marxists.org)

enver-hoxha-refuted.pdf (redlibrary.xyz)

Legitimization of Maoism as a Third, Higher stage of Marxism.

(Obviously have to put Interview with Chairman Gonzalo here) redlibrary.xyz/works/pcp/interview-with-chairman-gonzalo.pdf

Marx, Engels and Lenin on the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (marxists.org)

Ready? Go!

S01-MLM-Basic-Course-Revised-Edition-10th-Printing.pdf (foreignlanguages.press)

(ARAK Activist Study ^)

fundamental-documents.pdf (redlibrary.xyz)

fundamental documents of the Peruvian Communist Party (Shining Path)

I encourage all of you to read much, much more than this! Marxists must read constantly and consistently, but must also put their reading into practice. I am open to conversation, but please don't expect me to immediately respond and especially not to bullshit arguments.

Expect me to call you out on your misogyny.

Explicitly Pro-Palestinian Liberation, and for the turning of the current genocide into a liberation of all of Palestine in a New Democratic revolution, to render it back into the hands of the Palestinian peoples.

TAGS: #commiegirl.txt

Textposts, probably political.

#puppygirl.txt

Textposts, probably horny.

#puppygirl.jpg

Selfies, probably horny

#commiegirl.jpg

Selfies, pictures, politically active pictures, propaganda, etc.

#commiegirlfeminist.txt

Feminist politics, definitely political.

Updated Spontaneously.

[madamepestilence]

About My Blog

This is a remade version of the old post, "Welcome to my blog!" both to update information and because the prior one was cluttered.

Note for Palestinian blogs:

I'm currently in poverty and unable to donate, but I'm willing to share fundraisers. If at all possible, please include a link to where it's been verified; thank you!

Note: I do understand if it's difficult to get a post vetted, especially with false scam flags. It's okay it you can't get it verified for a while - I would rather reblog from someone siphoning funds than deprive someone in a genocide of assistance.

Table of Contents

About Me

Donation Link

Current Projects

Special Tags

Political Philosophy and Heoism

Other Notices

Art Showoff

Israel and Palestine

Since it has to be said, I would like to publicly display my stance. Israel is a fascist government quite literally mimicking the Nazi party - the government of Israel using Judaism as a shield is inherently contributing to increasing antisemitism.

Israel does not have the safety or interests of Jews in mind, especially with how they treat Orthodox Jews.

At time of writing, Israel is committing a genocide in Falastine with heavy military and economic support from the increasingly fascist United States of America, as well as receiving additional support from the United Kingdom and Germany.

Falastine is not an Islamic monolith - especially given one of its more notable characteristics is having the oldest community of Christians. This was never about religion, and the actions of Israel are not to be pinned onto Judaism.

Oppressed people have a right to violence, and therefore Falastine has every right to resist. While their government may be heavily flawed, that does not mean its people deserve to be victims of a Holocaust. Never again means NEVER AGAIN.

Zionists are unwelcome on my page. Jews do not, "have to be a Zionist," to be a, "true Jew," nor are Jews a monolith. It should be rather clear that defending the actions of Israel as inherently Jewish is only going to bolster antisemitism.

The fall of Israel will liberate Falastine and the people within Israel as well. Both Israel and the United States need to be held accountable for their actions, and they should not be above international law.

About Me

I'm a queer, transfem Communist. I use she/her or She/Her pronouns, and you can call me Holly.

I'm autistic with the common combination of also having ADHD. I came from a christofascist family that practiced within a cult based on Baptist Christianity.

My experiences with this combined with the real world outside of helicopter parenting, extreme poverty, and my father encouraging me to read The Communist Manifesto heavily backfiring, I've become a massive Communist.

Donation Link

I'm pretty constantly dealing with poverty, so if you'd like to help out, you can donate to my Ko-Fi here. It currently goes through PayPal, so keep in mind that I lose ~10% of all payments between KoFi and PayPal fees.

Current Projects

Note: Due to a struggle to maintain focus on projects and frequent burnout, these are worked on incredibly slowly. As such, I can't guarantee any time frames.

The New Communist Manifesto

Not to be confused with New Communism.

I feel that while Marx's and Engels' work The Communist Manifesto was a very important development of Communist political philosophy, the manifesto being 200 years old makes it difficult for the modern proletarian to relate to lost historical context.

Hypixel Skyblock but it's played by an idiot

Currently on hiatus

A YouTube series documenting my very slow progress in Hypixel Skyblock. I am very bad.

Video Essays

I have several video essays I'd like to create for YouTube. These will range from serious topics to gaming analyses. Video essays take an extremely long time to research, write, record, edit, and subtitle.

Minecraft Misc

I occasionally make Minecraft skins, resource packs, and am currently researching how to make Fabric mods due to their greater efficiency, small mods pool, and separating from CurseForge, whose parent company Curse donates to Israel.

I may look into making Minecraft maps, and I quite like working with obscure redstone mechanics.

Special Tags

#mdmp art, #mdmp art (year) - A rarely-used set of tags where I may put my art into occasionally

#fav - I use this tag to help me find posts I'd like to come back to later

Political Philosophy and Heoism

I'm an amateur (i.e. unpaid) Communist political philosopher heavily influenced by the works of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Malcolm X.

When I discuss Communism, I'm talking about a stateless[1], classless[2], moneyless[3] society. When I discuss Socialism, I'm talking about the transition stage between capitalism and Communism.

[1] A stateless society in this context refers to a political milieu[4] in which the government, i.e. state, does not fundamentally hold power over its people. The job of the state has transitioned from controlling the people to providing human rights for them, and is completely at the whims of democratic control by the people.

Members of the state can be voted out of their positions at any time, and inversely, snap elections can be held at any time to replace political candidates.

This is fundamentally compatible with Anarchism, a milieu in which there is no state at all, wherein people self-organize and self-govern according to commonly agreed rules. (Note: Anarchy is most compatible with Neotribalism, and may suffer on a global scale)

[2] A classless society in this context refers to a socioeconomic milieu in which class systems have been completely broken down, allowing all people to be on an equitable field. As Karl Marx wrote, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."

This will be the longest stage of transition from Socialism to Communism - a stage of transition which will take years, and may possibly extends decades or centuries down the line.

To achieve a classless society, all people must be provided their needs, prejudices must be fully shed, and we must be at a political stage in which we can work out our differences with fundamentally incompatible cultures.

If you would like a direct example of this, I highly recommend analyzing the government of the Federation of Planets set in the sci-fi series Star Trek, in which a post-WWIII human society decides to shed capitalism entirely and migrate into Communism.

This society has many ways of cooperating with incompatible cultures (Deep Space 9 navigates a post-fascist previously slave-ship and the tensions of shedding a racial hierarchy, Voyager navigates maintenance, morale, and growth when separated from one's mother country, The Next Generation navigates using political philosophy and diplomacy to prevent wars, etc.) and isn't afraid to show that it's not perfect.

Even the Ferengi, who are meant to be a criticism and reflection of modern capitalist humanity, grow throughout Star Trek, most notably granting women's rights, increasing democracy, Quark unionizing and gradually putting morals before capital, and Rom becoming a Communist in Deep Space 9.

[3] Contrary to how right-wing media portrays it, moneyless does not refer to poverty in this context. Instead, it refers to the socioeconomic milieu in which all human rights are provided directly to people, and people work for societal and their own personal growth.

This disincentivizes the need for money, which breaks poverty barriers by eliminating capitalist classism entirely. People democratically elect employee positions, collectively own their businesses, and can leave their jobs at any time to demand greater worker rights or find more fulfilling work.

[4] A person's social environment

Other Notices

US 2024 Election

Joe Biden is directly participating in a genocide and has lied about every policy he promised. Biden is a fascist. I will not tolerate those who justify voting for a fascist committing a Holocaust.

"Those who choose the lesser evil forget very quickly that they chose evil." - Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship, Arendt, 1964

While I previously supported Dr. Cornel West, it has become painfully clear that he does not have enough ballot access. However, a backup candidate I previously advocated for, Dr. Jill Stein, at time of writing has ballot access in 22 states and Washington, D.C., meaning she can achieve 279 electoral votes.

For Biden apologists who still believe Biden can actually win this election, I implore you to consult the evidence demonstrating otherwise. For some context, FiveThirtyEight is conducting meta-analyses, i.e. data from all known polls, not just one.

Additionally, 270toWin shows that the only demonstrable change between the 2020 and 2024 elections is that Biden is now less popular, with 1 less electoral vote to Biden and 3 more electoral votes to Trump.

This means that we have two options: let Trump win the election, or fight hard as hell to replace the Democratic Party with the Green Party.

For those curious about how the fourth (bottom right) chart would cause a Green Party win, this would move the voting process to Congress, where the House of Representatives would vote between the three highest vote-receiving candidates.

With Dr. Stein in the lead, they would have the pressure of the threat of mass rioting to vote Dr. Stein into office.

Your key demographic is primarily converting non-voters into voters, but you should also talk to Biden voters and get them to vote for Dr. Stein instead. If possible, attend protests and raise awareness for Dr. Stein.

You may feel free to use the two images at the top of this section to promote Dr. Stein. Even if you believe that Dr. Stein would be blocked by Congress and unable to enact policies, she would at minimum be able to make the immediate improvement of halting all military aid to Israel as Commander-in-Chief of US militaries.

To increase ballot access for Jill Stein, here are the requirements (at time of writing, 1 July 2024) for the following states:

Alabama: 3,000 more signatures needed, deadline 15 August 2024

Alaska: Complete, awaiting confirmation

Connecticut: 3,250 more signatures needed, deadline 7 August 2024

Delaware: 41 more signatures needed, deadline 17 August 2024

Illinois: Deadline missed, 13,000 signatures short

Indiana: Deadline missed, 11,944 signatures short

Iowa: 3,350 more signatures needed, deadline 29 July 2024

Kansas: 4,330 more signatures needed, deadline 5 August 2024

Kentucky: 4,800 more signatures needed, deadline 6 September 2024

Maryland: 3,000 more signatures needed, deadline 5 August 2024

Massachusetts: 5,700 more signatures needed, deadline 30 July 2024

Minnesota: 2,000 signatures needed, deadline 20 August 2024

Missouri: Complete, needs submitted

Nebraska: 2,500 signatures needed, deadline 1 August 2024

New Hampshire: 3,000 signatures needed, deadline 7 August 2024

New Jersey: Complete, needs submitted

New York: Deadline missed, 5,000 signatures short

North Dakota: 4,000 signatures needed, deadline 2 September 2024

Ohio: Complete, needs submitted

Pennsylvania: 700 more signatures needed, deadline 1 August 2024

Rhode Island: 1,000 signatures needed, deadline 6 September 2024

South Dakota: 3,502 signatures needed, deadline 6 August 2024

Tennessee: 125 more signatures needed, deadline 15 August 2024

Washington: 900 more signatures needed, deadline 27 July 2024

Wyoming: 3,891 signatures needed, deadline 26 August 2024

Vermont: 590 more signatures needed, deadline 1 August 2024

Virginia: 4,100 more signatures needed, deadline 23 August 2024

It is entirely possible to grant Dr. Stein 24 more states for a total of 46 states and D.C. for a combined potential of 473 eligible electoral votes with a likely cap of 256 electoral votes.

Jill Stein ballot access if all eligible states gain enough petition signatures

Jill Stein maximum vote likelihood (discards Republican majority states and does not include currently Republican swing states)

We absolutely have the capability to do this. We need to organize. Don't give up, and don't give the same we'll try next time platitude. We should, need to, and can do this right now.

You can find state-specific ballot information for Dr. Stein here.

Art Showoff

Here's some random stuff I've made that I'm proud of

[nikator]

Do any of the people who think humans are inherently, naturally good and kind or [insert other culturally-derived concept of good] and not inherently selfish or [insert other culturally-derived concept of bad] because those are “socially learned” or whatever seriously not realise that the traits they think are good and natural are also equally socially learned? Like that’s just what a behavioural trait is in a species like us. Nevermind that the evaluations we make of those behaviours are culturally, historically, etc. relative and your evaluations would be incomprehensible to your ancestors and will be to your descendants because you’re clearly not ready to have that conversation yet. Your politics will ruin us all if one of its fundamental assumptions is that people are good if left to their own devices. It’s utterly braindead. Behaviour has to be learned by habituation and overseen by systems of accountability and control. It is social. All the opposite assumption does is make those habits and systems invisible and stop people from being able to understand, critique, and potentially change them. It doesn’t get rid of them. You cannot get rid of them. Just grow up, be a Marxist, and stop making farcical quasi-religious claims about human essences. Your humanism is so bad it’s an insult to humanists.

Marx was so right when he said utopianism is stupid and reactionary. It makes me want to pull my hair out. As communists, we want to build a society that will work: that will work well, that will work in our interests, and which, as Lenin said, will work with people as they are, not as we might want them to be. And in fact we want to change people! For the better! But that whole discussion is impossible if you genuinely think some behavioural traits are “natural” and unchangeable or more essential than others that are “unnatural” (whatever that could possibly mean for a natural being like a human)— and more importantly that, oh so conveniently, the ones which are “natural” just happen to be good and the one’s which are “social” just happen to be bad. (Again putting aside the absolutely crucial understanding that good and bad are loaded terms that are only comprehensible in a given social environment and cannot be used transhistorically like this anyway.) Utopianism can only think with the concepts of the society it is trying to critique, and so it inevitably just ends up conjuring up a fantasy society that, at root, holds the same assumptions and works in the same way. And talk of the “good” “natural” behaviour of humans in contrast to the “bad” “socially-learned” behaviour of humans is an utterly damning example of that and so hopelessly lost in ideology that it will never get out and make contact with the rest of reality. It’s worse than a dead end—it’s not even never leaving in the first place—: it’s going backwards.

[britneyshakespeare]

i think we can all agree that straight white male socialists who filter their ENTIRE world view through class oppression and talk about social discrimination on race, gender, orientation, etc. as an after thought, need to sit down, like, forever.

[aoife-godessofsleep]

I was making fun of the anarchist who thought it was a good criticism of marxism. If anything animal farm is a better allegory to bourgeois revolutions. Nevertheless that doesn’t make nations which have no participation by the proletariat, actively exploit their workforce and produce commodities “socialist” in the marxist sense. If you had read what I have written then you would see that it is entire based in what Marx and lenin said about socialism, communism and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Of coarse I don’t expect liberals to read, especially not Marx but to act like you understand him whilst denying evidence that he disagrees with you is absolutely hilarious.

I mean @forevergulag literally had to claim that lenin differed from marx to justify the insane notion that “socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat are the same” which is idiotic.

Finally there is something called hyperbole, and frankly there are much more important matters than the feelings of a few petty bourgeois individuals who can afford to be diagnosed with so-called mental disorders

I had a friend obsessed with with wicked but she was a narcissist who had to have everything about her and when she realised she could get a lot more attention from other people abandoned me at the beginning of the month meaning that the musical has forever been ruined for me because I cant hear a song for it or see it without getting incredibly emotional and crying on my bedroom floor for an hour.

[daddydubreuil]

its great that tessas all about womens empowerment, it really is, but someone needs to free that girl from gender roles....baby u dont have to act like u like to cook its ok u never need to cook anything in ur life if u dont want to

[youth-rights]

 Youth Rights Masterpost

This list compiles a variety of youth rights and youth liberation perspectives and resources. I do not condone or endorse every single item on this list. Read broadly, think critically.

Every effort is made to locate websites with free access to each resource. When a free version has not been located, resources are listed in bold.

This list is continually updated. Please send an ask or message if you know of a resource that could be included or if a link is broken.

Organizations and Websites:

National Youth Rights Association - A U.S. youth civil rights organization.

Freechild Institute - A U.S. youth engagement organization.

Youth Liberation Now! - An anarchist youth liberation zine.

Global Partnership and Fund to End Violence Against Children - A global platform for anti-child abuse advocacy.

End Corporal Punishment Initiative - An initiative of the Global Partnership and Fund to End Violence Against Children focused on ending corporal punishment.

The YP Foundation - An Indian youth development organization focused on empowering youth to lead social change.

Breaking Code Silence - A U.S. anti-troubled teen industry campaign.

We Warned Them Campaign - A U.S. anti-troubled teen industry campaign.

Unsilenced - A U.S. anti-troubled teen industry advocacy group.

Youth Liberation of Ann Arbor (defunct) Archive - The archived print materials of Youth Liberation of Ann Arbor, a U.S. youth liberation group that existed from 1970-1979.

Child USAdvocacy - A U.S. organization focused on legislative reform of child abuse law.

National Juvenile Justice Network - A U.S. community of state juvenile justice policy reform organizations.

Children’s Voting Colloquium - A global organization focused on eliminating the minimum voting age.

Articles:

“What are Youth Rights,” NYRA

“‘Young and Oppressed,’” NYRA

“Youth Liberation,” Freechild Institute

“Top Ten Reasons to Lower the Voting Age,” NYRA

“A Brief Overview of the Problems with Teen Brain Science,” NYRA

“The ‘Troubled Teen’ Industry,” NYRA

“The Rights of Kids in the Digital Age,” WIRED

“The Child and its Enemies,” Emma Goldman

“‘Missing’ Teenager, Tommy Crow

"Now I Am Free," Tommy Crow

“Youth Rights & The Libertarian Party,” Brianna Coyle

“The Young Person's Bill of Rights,” Dr. Robert Epstein

“Youth Liberation 15-point Program - Platform of Youth Liberation of Ann Arbor,” Youth Liberation of Ann Arbor

“Youth Liberation of Ann Arbor,” The History Search

"Children's Freedom: A Human Rights Perspective," Peter Gray

“Against Adult Supremacy,” Vyvian Raoul

Books:

No! Against Adult Supremacy, 2016 (x)

Escape from Childhood, John C. Holt, 1974 (x) (x) (x)

Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work, Akilah S. Richards, 2020 (x)

The Teenage Liberation Handbook, Grace Llewellyn, 1998 (x)

Schools on Trial by Nikhil Goyal, 2016 (x)

Thank You For Being Young, Andrew Lerner, 2011 (x)

Birthrights, Richard Farson, 1974 (x)

The Children’s Rights Movement, Beatrice and Ronald Gross, 1977 (x)

Help at Any Cost, Maia Szalavitz, 2006 (x)

For Your Own Good, Alice Miller, 1983 (x)

Growing Up Absurd, Paul Goodman, 1960 (x) (x)

The New Handbook of Children's Rights, Bob Franklin, 2001 (x)

Framing Youth, Mike A. Males, 1998 (x) (x)

The Scapegoat Generation, Mike A. Males, 1996 (x) (x) (x) (x)

FPS Magazine, 1970-1979 (x)

Children’s Rights Handbook, FPS, 1979 (x)

And Justice For All: The Legal Rights Of Young People, Sandra Nunez, Trish Marx, 1997 (x)

The Struggle for Student Rights: Tinker v. Des Moines and the 1960s, John W. Johnson, 1997 (x)

As Soon as You're Born They Make You Feel Small: Self Determination for Children, Wendy Ayotte, 1986 (x) (x)

Raised in Captivity: Why Does America Fail its Children?, Lucia Hodgson, 1997 (x)  

We Fight To Win: Inequality and the Politics of Youth Activism, Hava Rachel Gordon, 2009 (x)

Act Your Age!: A Cultural Construction of Adolescence, Nancy Lesko, 2012 (x)

Other Resources:

ACLU and ACLU Affiliates - The Know Your Rights pages of each ACLU Affiliate provides information on students’ rights and occasionally on youth rights in general.

[the-sad-oracle]

This whole absolute nonsense above really emphasizes one of the main issues with liberal democracy and its fascism, namely that fascism more often than not is a panic button for the liberal state when it is crisis. Moderates and liberals will turn to fascism because they see it as the lesser of two evils because it is the least threatening to the status quo to them. Please read Marx's 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte because it really emphasizes how autocrats and fascists (even though Marx didn't know that term, it still applies for a lot of what he talks about) will work with moderates to get into power by preying on their fears of disruption. You cannot make alliances with one group of fascists to defeat another group BECAUSE THEN YOU END UP WITH MORE FASCISTS IN AN EVEN STRONGER POSITION!

Löl

[mariacallous]

ALL Haymarket Books are 40% Off through Monday, January 3rd

[grandhotelabyss]

A few extracts from the leftist thinker of the hour. In his latest piece, he inveighs against an unrelated group of philosophers, political actors, and cultural traditions, using mostly guilt-by-association and ad-hominem attacks, with some puerile schoolyard epithets (e.g., “man-childs [sic],” “Boomer Theory”)  thrown in, all in the name of what he calls “positive biopolitics,” defined, if the following vague jargon is a definition, as

inclusive, materialist, restorative, rationalist, based on a demystified image of the human species, anticipating a future different from the one prescribed by many cultural traditions. It accepts the evolutionary entanglement of mammals and viruses. It accepts death as part of life. It therefore accepts the responsibilities of medical knowledge to prevent and mitigate unjust deaths and misery as something quite different from the nativist immunization of one population of people from another. This includes not just rights to individual privacy but also social obligations to participate in an active, planetary biological commons.

Because “many cultural traditions” remain extant, it’s hard to see how we get from here to there, which makes this discourse little more than apologism for present arrangements: the corporate monopolies will, with the financial, legal, and coercive assistance of the state, manage us down to our atoms, and we will be obligated to participate whether we like it or not. Though our author makes a few faint-heartedly woke noises, his vision is, to repurpose his own argumentative tactics, fundamentally indistinguishable from neoreaction with its dream of hyperracist face tentacles—except that I suppose Land or Yarvin would allow for more dispersed authority centers, making their cyberpunk paradise, ironically, the less fascistic of the twinned accelerationisms. 

From this unseemly polemic, one concludes that Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault are essentially equivalent to Alex Jones and Marjorie Taylor Greene and that only a simplistic reactionary with a pathological attachment to “lost objects” could have any objection to “any artificial governing intervention in the biological condition of human society.” And I’m not Agamben: I don’t object a priori to any, but surely I may object a posteriori to some. See how his abstraction serves his case: he argues at the level of ideas and would probably dismiss any assessment of the actual forces in play (pharmaceutical giants, the U.S. security state, the CCP, Bezos, Gates, etc.) as “conspiracy theory.” (If the conservative’s attachment to “lost objects” is deluded, by the way, what should we call the radical’s investment in an imaginary and basically impossible future, that famous omelette they will never be able to prepare no matter how much albumen they spill?)

The personal slam against Illich is particularly grotesque. Leaving aside the expert class’s new conviction that only a Trumpist CHUD could possibly think medical interventions must be consensual, I know people who died of tumors they had treated in exactly the way doctors recommended—they died a few months later than they might have otherwise, in agonies they might have been spared, from costly and ineffectual treatments with severe side effects. There’s no cure, after all, for cancer, though I wonder how much cancer might be prevented if the biopolitical agents our author extols did not devote themselves to coating the entire planet in a shell of plastic. But I’m sure his endorsement elsewhere of “deep climate governance”—i.e., “You’ve used your heat ration for the winter, pleb!”—will solve this problem. 

Note, too, the contradictions, flagrant in so swaggering an author. First he bizarrely and scornfully attributes to the soixante-huitards a belief in “subjective moral intentionality,” as if a bunch of Nietzscheans talking about the death of the author believed in any such Kantian thing. Then he delivers a moralistic little sermon on masks—wholly ignoring the actual disputed science on the topic—that only makes any sense at all if we subjectively recognize ourselves as moral agents rather than merely biological organisms. These intellectual misanthropes who insist we’re exactly the same as spores and houseflies always run aground on the same problem: if you’re saying it, and especially if you’re saying it to change people’s minds, then it can’t be true. Human exceptionalism, at least on this planet, is not an article of faith but an empirical fact. Marx certainly thought so—see “Alienated Labour” (1844), but then I suppose he was still a Romantic when he wrote that.

As for the wholesale dismissal of Romanticism, I suspect our polemicist hasn’t done the reading. There is no total “disgust with rationality and technology” in Wordsworth or Shelley or Emerson or Melville or Whitman—yes, comp-lit kids, you have to read the English and Americans as well as the French and Germans—only a complaint about their inability to coexist with other dispositions. I have no problem with rationality or technology, but believe their proper role is to serve us, not to master us. I would recommend Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947), but I imagine it comes pre-proscribed by our ardent technologist. And demystification? Please wake me if it’s ever anything other than a rival myth. “Humans are organic objects that should be managed by centralized power” is also a story, not a very good one. A better story, if our author will condescend to read a Romantic, is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818, 1831). Often interpreted as a warning about overweening science, it is also a caution—from a woman whose father, mother, husband, and friends were all left-wing radicals who made worse messes of their lives than Ivan Illich made of his—against what one critic memorably calls “Promethean Politics”:

By representing in her creature both the originating ideals and the brutal consequences of the French Revolution, Mary Shelley offered a powerful critique of the ideology of revolution. An abstract idea or cause (e.g. the perfecting of mankind), if not carefully developed within a supportive environment, can become an end that justifies any means, however cruel. As he worked to restore life where death had been, Victor Frankenstein never considered what suffering his freakish child might later endure. 

Mary Shelley’s middle-class gradualist liberal female politics—what Nancy Armstrong denounces as the domestic ideology of the English novel tout court—has its own dangers, and is nowadays complicit with the technocrats, as we hear “Think of the children!” used to justify every excess. Still, Frankenstein, with its gain-of-function experiment gone awry, remains a powerful vision of rampant radical technocracy, what may be unleashed on humanity when the quest to master what cannot be mastered meets its nemesis. Positive biopolitics, on the other hand, given its implicit endorsement of the powers that be and its emptily denunciatory rhetoric, is yet more evidence that we no longer have left-wing ideas in America but only “irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.”