#also not claiming marxism is ��just another religion’ I do not think that’s true or useful to think of it in those terms

[communistkenobi]

I’m curious if other communists have like a religious relationship to their political beliefs for lack of a better word? That’s not a good word to use but I don’t know how else to describe it. I’m solidly atheist but all of the feelings and emotions religious people talk about, revelation and spiritual connection to community and so on are all things I experience pretty regularly and I interpret those feelings as fundamentally communist. the way I take in and absorb information in particular feels revelatory in a religious sense. I’m pretty sure this is fairly common with MLs but I’m curious about it in general

[tinyshe]

Witchcraft 101

by Michelle Arnold  • 7/1/2008 Catholic Answers

What springs to mind when someone mentions “witchcraft“? Three hags sitting about a cauldron chanting “Double, double, toil and trouble”? A pretty housewife turning someone into a toad at the twitch of her nose? Or perhaps you think of Wicca and figure that it is witchcraft hidden beneath a politically correct neologism.

Witchcraft has become a hot topic in recent years. From J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books to self-described witches agitating for political and social parity with mainstream religious traditions, Christians have had to re-examine witchcraft and formulate a modern apologetic approach to it.

In an age of science and skepticism, it may be difficult to understand why intelligent people would be drawn to witchcraft, which encompasses both a methodology of casting spells and invoking spirits and an ideology that encourages finding gods and goddesses both in nature and within the self. In her “conversion story,” self-described Wiccan high priestess Phyllis Curott, an Ivy League-educated lawyer who was raised by agnostics, describes her journey from secular materialism to Wicca as a rejection of the idea that humans are made for mammon alone:

I discovered the answers . . . to questions buried at the center of my soul . . . How are we to find our lost souls? How can we rediscover the sacred from which we have been separated for thousands of years? How can we live free of fear and filled with divine love and compassion? . . . How can we restore and protect this Eden, which is our fragile planet? (Curott, Book of Shadows, xii)

These are indeed important questions that deserve answers, answers that can be found in their fullness in Christ and in his Church. In a homily then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger gave at the Mass just before his election to the papacy, he famously observed:

How many winds of doctrine have we known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking. The small boat of the thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves—flung from one extreme to another: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism and so forth.

Witchcraft has been around for centuries, perhaps even millennia, but is emerging once more from the shadows as one answer to skepticism, to materialism, even to self-absorption. It is, so to speak, the wrong answer to the right questions; it is, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “gravely contrary to the virtue of religion” (CCC 2117). Catholics should not discourage these questions but must be prepared to offer the only answer: Christ and his Church.

Witchcraft’s apologists like to claim that they are the misunderstood victims of centuries of religious prejudice. Unfortunately, all too many Christians make such claims credible when they misunderstand witchcraft and craft their rebuttals of it based upon those misconceptions. If someone you know is dabbling in witchcraft, here are five things you should know before starting a conversation with him.

Witches do not believe in Satan.

If there is one belief common to witches everywhere, it is that they do not believe in Satan and that they do not practice Satanism. Witchcraft’s apologists are quick to point this out.

Denise Zimmermann and her co-authors of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Wicca and Witchcraft emphasize, “Witches don’t believe in Satan! . . . The all-evil Satan is a Christian concept that plays no part in the Wiccan religion . . . Witches do not believe that negativity or evil is an organized force. . . . Neither do Wiccans believe there is a place (hell) where the damned or the evil languish and suffer” (13).

Christian apologists should acknowledge that witches do not consciously worship Satan and that they do not believe he exists. But this does not mean that Satan needs to be left entirely out of the conversation. A Christian apologist should point out that belief in someone does not determine that person’s actual reality.

One way to demonstrate this is to ask the witch if she believes in the pope. “No,” she’s likely to answer. “The pope is a Christian figure.” True, you concede. But there is a man in Rome who holds the office of the papacy, right? Your belief or disbelief in the papacy does not determine whether or not the papacy exists. Put that way, a person will have to acknowledge that something or someone can exist independently of belief in its reality. That’s when you can make the case that Satan exists and that he does not require belief to determine his reality or his action in someone’s life. In fact, disbelief in him can make it easier for him to accomplish his ends.

In the preface to The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis notes that “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”

While it is true that witches do not directly worship Satan or practice Satanism, their occult practices, such as divination, and their worship of false gods and of each other and themselves—which they explain as worshipping the “goddess within”—can open them to demonic activity. To make the case though, it is imperative to present it in a manner that won’t be dismissed out of hand.

Witchcraft and Wicca are not synonyms.

Wicca, originally spelled Wica, is the name given to a subset of witchcraft by its founder Gerald Gardner in the 1950s. Although some claim the word Wicca means “wise,” in her book Drawing Down the Moon, Margot Adler states that it “derive[s] from a root wic, or weik, which has to do with religion and magic” (40). Adler also says that the word witch originates with wicce and wicca. Marian Singer explains the difference between Wicca and witchcraft this way: “Witchcraft implies a methodology . . . whereas the word Wiccan refers to a person who has adopted a specific religious philosophy” (The Everything Wicca and Witchcraft Book, 4).

Because witchcraft is often defined as a methodology and Wicca as an ideology, a person who considers himself a witch but not a Wiccan may participate in many of the same practices as a Wiccan, such as casting spells, divining the future, perhaps even banding together with others to form a coven. This can make it easy for an outsider to presume that both the witch and the Wiccan share the same beliefs. But, if someone tells you he is not a Wiccan, it is only courteous to accept that. The Christian case against witchcraft does not depend on a witch identifying himself as a Wiccan. (There are also Wiccans who reject the label “witch,” but this is often a distinction without a difference. Even so, use the preferred term to avoid alienating the person with whom you are speaking.)

Several strands of Wicca attract followings, including: Gardnerian, Alexandrian, and Georgian, which are named for their founders; Seax, which patterns itself on Saxon folklore; Black Forest, which is an eclectic hodgepodge of Wiccan traditions; and the feminist branch known as Dianic Wicca after the Roman goddess Diana. Knowing the distinctions among these traditions may not be important for the Christian apologist, but he should keep in mind that there are distinctions and that he should not make statements that start out with “Wiccans believe . . .” Rather, allow the other person to explain what he believes and then build a Christian apologetic tailored to that person’s needs.

Witches question authority.

When dealing with self-identified witches, remember that no two witches will agree with each other on just about anything. Witches are non-dogmatic to the extreme, with one witch apologist suggesting “[s]ending dogma to the doghouse” and claiming that “[r]eligious dogma and authority relieve a person of the responsibility of deciding on his or her own actions” (Diane Smith, Wicca & Witchcraft for Dummies, 32).

Generally speaking, witches prefer to give authority to their own personal experiences. Phyllis Curott, author of a book titled Witch Crafting, puts it this way: “Witches, whether we are women or men, experience the Goddess within us and in the world all around us. I love what Starhawk [witch and popular speaker and writer] said about this: ‘People often ask me if I believe in the Goddess. I reply, Do you believe in rocks?’” (121, emphasis in original). In other words, witches know “the Goddess” exists because they can experience her by at least one of their five senses. Faith in such a material deity calls to mind the demon Screwtape’s longing for hell’s “perfect work—the Materialist Magician” (Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, 31).

Throwing a bucket of cold water on a witch’s “personal experiences” will not be easy, particularly since one of the frightening.aspects of witchcraft is that some witches do have, and blithely report, extraordinary preternatural experiences. Incidents that could and should scare away many dabblers from playing with forces beyond their control are recounted by witchcraft’s apologists as affirmative of their path. Curott tells of a man who once dreamed of “being prey” of a monstrous creature; ultimately, in the dream, he was captured by the creature. Rather than taking this as a sign he should reconsider the path down which he was heading, he awoke “deeply transformed” by the dream’s ending because he believed “tremendous love” was felt for him by the creature. He eventually became a Wiccan priest (Witch Crafting, 154–155).

How can a Christian argue against a belief like that?

Ultimately, it may be that a Damascus-road moment might be necessary to sway someone that deeply entrenched in traffic with preternatural creatures. To those who are not as enmeshed, a Christian can point out that sometimes apologists for the occult have warned their readers not to be taken in by their experiences with spirits.

In a section of his book titled “Practicing Safe Spirituality,” author Carl McColman gives a checklist of “some common-sense precautions” occultists should be aware of “while meditating, doing ritual, reflecting on your dreams, or doing any other spiritual work that may involve contact with spirits.” The first item on the list is “Don’t automatically believe everything you hear. Just because a spirit says something doesn’t make it so” (The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Paganism, 129).

Witchcraft is an inversion of Catholicism.

Observers of witchcraft have claimed that it is remarkably similar to Catholicism. Catholic journalist and medievalist Sandra Miesel called it “Catholicism without Christ” (“The Witches Next Door,” Crisis, June 2002). Writer and editor Charlotte Allen noted that “Practicing Wicca is a way to have Christianity without, well, the burdens of Christianity” (“The Scholars and the Goddess,” The Atlantic, January 2001).

It’s easy to see why the assertion is made. Allen notes that as witchcraft cycles through its “liturgical year,” many of its adherents honor a goddess who births a god believed to live, die, and rise again. Fraternization with apparently friendly preternatural spirits is encouraged and eagerly sought. The rituals of witchcraft call to mind Catholic liturgies, particularly the libation and blessing ritual alternately known as “Cakes and Wine” and “Cakes and Ale.” Like Catholics collecting rosaries, scapulars, statues, and prayer books, witches have their own “potions, notions, and tools” as Curott calls them —some of which include jewelry, statues and dolls, and spell books and journals.

But to say that witchcraft has uncanny similarities to Catholicism is to understate the matter. Witchcraft is an inversion of Catholicism: Catholicism emptied of Christ and stood on its head. This is most readily seen in witchcraft’s approach to authority.

In his book Rome Sweet Home, Scott Hahn compares authority in the Church to a hierarchical pyramid with the pope at the top, with all of the members, including the pope, reaching upward toward God (46–47). With its antipathy to authority and its reach inward to the self and downward to preternatural spirits, witchcraft could also be illustrated with a triangle—every adherent poised at the top as his own authority and pointed down in the sort of “Lower Command” structure envisioned by Lewis’s Screwtape.

Witchcraft is dangerous.

In my work as an apologist, I have read a number of introductory books to various non-Catholic and non-Christian religions. Never before my investigation into witchcraft had I seen introductory books on a religion that warn you about the dangers involved in practicing it. The dangers that witch apologists warn newcomers about are both corporal and spiritual.

In her book, Diane Smith includes a chapter titled “Ten Warning Signs of a Scam or Inappropriate Behavior” (Wicca & Witchcraft for Dummies, chapter 23). Her top-10 list includes “Inflicting Harm,” “Charging Inappropriate Fees or Demanding Undue Money,” “Engaging in Sexual Manipulation,” “Using Illicit Drugs or Excessive Amounts of Alcohol in Spiritual Practice,” and “Breeding Paranoia.” Smith claims that such a need to be wary is common to religion: “[U]nscrupulous or unstable people sometimes perpetrate scams or other manipulations under the guise of religion, and this situation is as true for Wicca as for other religious groups” (317).

However true it may be that there can be “unscrupulous or unstable people” involved in traditional religions, most practitioners—Christian or otherwise—do not experience problems with these behaviors to such an extent that religious apologists see the need to issue caveats to proselytes. That Smith does so suggests that these problems are far more widespread in witchcraft than in traditional religion.

We noted one paganism apologist who warned his readers to “practice safe spirituality.” McColman goes on to caution that the “advice” of spirits “must be in accordance with your own intuition for it to be truly useful.” He goes on to say, “You remain responsible for your own decisions. Remember that spirit guides make mistakes like everybody else!” (Paganism, 128).

Catholics concerned about loved ones involved with witchcraft may not be attracted to witchcraft themselves, but there is danger for them in pursuing dabblers down the road to the occult in hopes of drawing them back. In preparing themselves to answer the claims of witchcraft, they may feel the need to read books like those mentioned in this article. If they are not fully educated and firm in their own faith, such Catholics may find their own faith under attack. Three suggestions are in order.

Not all are called to be apologists. If you are not intellectually and spiritually prepared to answer the claims of witchcraft, leave such work to others. Search out knowledgeable Catholics with whom your loved one can speak.

Prepare yourself. Common sense indicates that if you are about to rappel down a cliff, you do so with safety ropes firmly attached and in the presence of someone you trust who can help you if you are in danger. Don’t even think of rappelling down a spiritual cliff without seeking to fortify yourself intellectually and spiritually—particularly spiritually. Inform your confessor or spiritual director of your plans to study and answer the claims of witchcraft. Ask trusted Catholic friends to pray for your work. Regularly receive the sacraments of confession and the Eucharist. If you need to stop or take a break from this area of apologetics, by all means do so. And, most importantly:

Pray. Whether or not you are called to personally minister to those involved in witchcraft, the most fundamental thing you can do to help witches and other dabblers in the occult is to pray.

Saints whose intercession you can seek include Bl. Bartholomew Longo, the repentant former satanic priest who returned to the Church and spent the rest of his life promoting the rosary; St. Benedict, who battled pagans and whose medal is often worn in protection against the devil; St. Michael the Archangel (Jude 1:9), invoked especially by the prayer for his intercession commonly attributed to Pope Leo XIII. And, of course, there’s St. Paul, who reminds us: “For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38–39).

SIDEBARS

The Catechism on Witchcraft

There are a great many kinds of sins. Scripture provides several lists of them. The Letter to the Galatians contrasts the works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit: “Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God.” (CCC 1852)

God can reveal the future to his prophets or to other saints. Still, a sound Christian attitude consists in putting oneself confidently into the hands of Providence for whatever concerns the future, and giving up all unhealthy curiosity about it. Improvidence, however, can constitute a lack of responsibility. (CCC 2115)

All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to “unveil” the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone. (CCC 2116)

All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one’s service and have a supernatural power over others—even if this were for the sake of restoring their health—are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another’s credulity. (CCC 2117)

Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan, and all the evil spirits, who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

Further Reading

Charlotte Allen, “The Scholars and the Goddess,” The Atlantic, January 2001 (Available online: www.theatlantic.com)

C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (HarperCollins)

Sandra Miesel, “Who Burned the Witches?” Crisis, October 2001 (Available online: www.catholiceducation.org)

Sandra Miesel, “The Witches Next Door,” Crisis, June 2002

Catherine Edwards Sanders, Wicca’s Charm: Understanding the Spiritual Hunger Behind the Rise of Modern Witchcraft and Pagan Spirituality (Shaw Books, 2005)

Donna Steichen, Ungodly Rage: The Hidden Face of Catholic Feminism (Ignatius, 1991)

Alois Wiesinger, O.C.S.O, Occult Phenomena in the Light of Theology (Roman Catholic Books)

[loststargrazer-blog]

What Comes First, Theory or Reality?

In the history of natural philosophy and in fact all philosophy and much academic work besides, there has been a strong tendency to create theory, whether this is Aristotle's Physics or even a topic like modern critical theory. In fact every university subject today is brimming with theory, and a churn of half baked theories continues; it is what drives academic careers. One can question this: Should there be theories for everything? Also, can we know if there is a valid theory for all topics? Can we even justify turning all this theorising into syllabus, and of course dogma, that is taught, read, and absorbed into our beliefs as part of the creative greater self?

There have been philosophers like Sir Karl Popper who held that knowledge wasn't proven, but theorised, and these theories were tested, if not falsified, then held as provisional pragmatic truths. But given that there is almost an infinity of theory and likely only one true minimal and complete description, it doesn't seem to me that Popper's approach would be very successful in finding a true description of the universe unless there was a pre-selection, a seeing of what is going on in order to select/build a theory. However, empirical observation relies on a theory of logical consistency, a theory of how the domain works, an analysis of objects in the field, the mindset of the observer, and a number of factors local to the experiment. So it becomes clear that most theorising is the process of adding layers of philosophical speculation to other philosophical speculation. Is all this theory a load of rubbish?

* * *

With empirical results there is often a repeatable observation, however with theory there is just the adding of layers, one on top of the other. If a single flaw exists then the tower is unsound. There is also a difference between the mathematical descriptions of physics and economics and the analysis of critical theory in literature studies or psychoanalysis. The mathematical sciences are more highly defined, with problems fitting to the world as described in blog 15, 'What Does It All Mean?', but interpretations are less of an issue. Other subjects have greater interpretation issues, for example finding it inexact when offering theories about theory about descriptions about interpretations. As a result, the theories morph according to things like political interest. An example of disagreement is a Marxist interpretation of counter revolutionary facts, like believing the CIA can drive history and economics single handed. This is less of a problem in physics, but still dogmas persist like the millenium long reign of Aristotle's physics, only punctured by the heroic efforts and experiments of free thinking giants like Galileo, Newton, and Einstein who rejected more theory than they created.

In the analytical philosophy tradition of the 20th Century there was a rejection of some theorising, particularly metaphysics, as it was argued it was meaningless because it had become detached from its empirical foundations. An aggressive form of empiricism became dominant in the UK. I see this historical debate as flawed on both sides (see blog 11: 'What Makes Us for Real?'), however it has asked some questions which are still important like:

1) How can we justify theories and theorising;

2) Does everything need theories;

3) Are more abstract theories like cultural theories valid like scientific ones, or are they pseudo-intellectual and meaningless;

4) Is it possible to create grand narratives from systematizing theory or are they all just local and observable?

I have previously touched on a number of these themes, but we will briefly try to answer these questions here with reference to the previous blogs as a conclusion to our endeavours that will help you understand and argue with people who want to inflict a grand narrative on you, or their value judgements, as is often the case in education, religion, politics, debate, or even just the marketing of products promoting a way of doing things.

The first question, how can we justify theories, is another way of asking about justifying generalisations that we discussed in blog 5: 'Were You or Your Big Data Given to Generalising...?'. If we are making a generalisation, we are creating a simple theory that the world works in a particular way. The problem becomes a new problem when we extend the theory so that it changes from becoming a local theory, for example Napoleon was erratic, to becoming so wide and far from the evidence; for example Napoleon was an agent of the spirit of history that had manifested itself since creation (to slightly abuse Hegel). This proceeds to our second question, does everything need theories. For example, has Hegel's view of history been a positive influence, is it valid, is it false, can we tell the difference?

These questions lie within the last blog on religion, (blog 17: 'What Good Is Religion after the Lies?'); for if a theory is not a local scientific theory, given at the correct level of non-reduction (as mentioned in blog 8: 'Is AI & Science Stuck in an Unhelpful Reductionist Paradigm...?'), then the role of the theory must be religious. We have accepted that although grand narrative theories (or religious theories) may not or can not be proven or even correct, we need religion. So we need religious theory to provide us with a framework for our worldview, lives, and judgements.

This answers our third question, are abstract theories like religious ones meaningless. The answer to this is they define people, so even if you think square circles lay eggs on Tuesdays, this is still meaningful even though it doesn't apply to anything. Many theories may be pseudo-intellectual as, like religion, they can't be falsified, and this is the definition of pseudo-scientific provided by the Vienna Circle group of philosophers. Unlike the Vienna Circle, we can see this lack of falsifiability does not make the theory meaningless, but religious.

Religious or grand narrative theories can certainly be produced, in fact they are impossible to get rid of, but I would disagree with the claim they are scientific as part of the answer to the third question. Many theorists mistake their religious beliefs for scientific ones. particularly when they apply inappropriate scientific thought to areas out of scope in sphere confusions (as discussed in blog 1: 'A Little Understanding Has Big Implications'). I would define the opposite of Post-Atheism (discussed in the previous blog) to be Moral Totalitarianism, and this term applies equally to extreme religion as extreme politics like marxism, fascism, or absolute rule. There is a framework that defies justification in scientific terms, but still controls the narrative in participants through a grand narrative of a religious order.

So answering the fourth question, you can create positive impact grand narratives, although attempts to do so usually have a less good conclusion. There are some clear examples of dodgy narratives having positive effects: For example the US constitution making everyone equal before God and the law, when it is not clear that there is any true equality; but at least this helps rather than hinders justice, even if the laws themselves are sometimes highly prejudiced like the war on drugs. However, I do not think claiming equality before 'God' is a valid scientific claim. So while, like Hegel, it is possible to make grand claims, and for them to be meaningful, I don't think they are likely to be correct or justified in absolute terms.

* * *

We have an important branch of thought that is not scientific, but is rational and hyper real (see blog 11: 'What Makes Us for Real?'). It sits between mathematics, religion, science, and empirical description. I claim this whole archipelago, this whole continent, in the name of philosophy. You as philosophers shall find your kingdom here, and your hyper reality. You shall rule academies with your exciting theorising, your refining, analysing, and defining. Thinkers of all types will hang on your every word as you define their deepest prejudices.

* * *

The conclusion is passed, now we are in the post-note, the health warning; and we shall discuss the pratfalls of theory and philosophy that you need to avoid. There is the naive view that philosophers can be wrong, but we know this is usually not the biggest problem for theory. More dangerous is being confused; however the biggest existential threat is being illogical; but if you deny, defy, mould, and redefine your theory, selling it as you go, then you may hold onto it for generations until it becomes a permanent religious feature.

Being logical is not that hard, a simple guide to logic may help if it is unclear, but anyone with exposure to truth tables, computer code, electronics gates, will already be familiar with most of the useful content. To be useful with logic, you need a knack for good definitions; this comes with practice. An eye for synthesising arguments is a creative skill, like writing verse, but even your garbled thoughts can be clarified and will probably be seen as genius where there is a gap in the theory.

Now we will consider a topic of philosophy that was open to confusion in the past and even rejected from some of the philosophy canon, 'ontology' the way of existence. The aim of this exercise is for you to criticise the arguments and come up with your own bits of ontology.  There will be some clues after this stack argument:

1) Properties are real

2) Causation is the actualisation of properties

3) Emergence is caused

4) The hyper real is emergent

5) Language is hyper real

6) Description is language

7) The impossible are descriptions

Therefore: 8) The impossible are real

So perhaps you like this argument? This argument is a good example of religious thinking as it takes arguments from across the blogs, but probably this is a distraction from how you define what is real. The argument is somewhat consistent (or circular as you might otherwise call it), especially if you leave out steps 2-6.

Of course every argument benefits from follow up arguments. So if you rejected the first step ('premise 1'), consider this:

1) Unused properties do not exist in the real

2) Scientific laws are mostly about unused properties

Therefore 3) Scientific laws mostly do not exist in reality

4) Properties are a thing's nature

5) A thing's nature exists

6) Scientific laws express a thing's properties

Therefore 7) Scientific laws exist

8) If a thing is contradictory, then it is impossible

Therefore 9) The existence of scientific laws is contradictory being both true and false

Therefore 10) Scientific laws are impossible

I think this argument is interesting and is a bit like that popular meme:

Cheese has holes

More cheese = more holes

More holes = less cheese

So more cheese = less cheese

So the reason ontology is not as popular as it was two centuries ago is that there are probably multiple definitions of real, and probably even no grand narratives to realness. So ontology is a muddle that is mostly semantic; it is also highly religious and so it is difficult to be definitive; for example, does Hegel's world spirit of history exist when you can't really prove empirically that it doesn't? Accordingly, this is just one example where you can freely make up your own philosophy and add it to any theory you are interested in, so following a rich tradition of thinkers of all types, left, right, ancient, modern, scientific, or religious; examples include Plato's forms, Newton's universal time, Marx's march of history, Aristotle's forces, various theisms, the free market, mathematical objects, etc.

Based on what I said about identity in blog 6: 'Is Cause and Effect the Wonderwall of Everything?', you can also add that while properties like motion exist, the objects in motion do not persist, and this applies to all properties over time. Further factor in emergent properties and latent properties. Thus to make claims about the things existing in the world is to be open to a massive confusion of identity and the real, lending itself to much interpretation. This should keep you in theory for a while.

Before anyone decides it is clear the impossible works better than science, I will dig you out of the stack argument the way I see best: This is to say that scientific laws only exist as descriptions, like the impossible. A real description is not the same as being real unless you are talking about a theory like mathematics; so scientific laws are only descriptions of the possible. But whether you think latent properties are real, I leave to you. Perhaps they are just part of the impossible, also described like the possible, when considered in absolute terms like whether they have causal existence, which they don't. When they do have that causal existence, their identities will have changed; so that what exists in the latent category is the cause of a cause or the cause of an ability to interact to create an emergent property. This would unwrap the problem for you so you may redefine everything to your taste.

* * *

I shall now end with some final words. Philosophy is sometimes ignored, but it can be a battleground. There is something to the cliche that philosophy can alienate people, however this is much less likely if you take a post-atheist approach as described in the last blog. Although the possibility remains that people will alienate you, normally this will be based on something you now understand and can feel empowered to reason with. Philosophy is a many sided coin; one side is the power of theory to interpret meaning and change lives.

Our final conclusion to this blog question of what comes first, theory or reality, is that they live together in our minds' eye. So although much theory is a waste of time, it will define our thinking and concepts.

[eternalloveheart]

Morality: God or man?

I started reading the book “What if the bible never existed” by Dr Kennedy. He explores the importance of the bible by its impact on the world. I am only a few chapters in so far just wanting to bring out my thoughts and the quotes I pulled that made me think. I am pretty much summarizing my take on the points of the first few chapters. I will be making more posts on this book with different points. I know this is a blog so I am not making this into some kind of academic essay just posting the aftermath of my reading.

God or man’s?

There are many reasons we cannot officially have a moral code without God. One main “reason you can’t have morality without religion is not that can’t draw up a common code of ethics. It is that without an external authority, most people will not follow it. Now, I will grant that the humanists have drawn up a code, and they have gotten some people to follow it” (Dr Kennedy, page 435).

Brute force

It seems one of the easiest successful ways to get people to conform to a set of moral rules is by religion. A main problem is being human we know that everyone is capable of just as much evil as us if not more with no true claim to some high ground. I have personally asked some atheists how one might go about ensuring morality with those who do not agree with them such as sociopaths who have no empathetic compass. I explained that religion has helped a sociopath namely David Wood turn from his murderous ways to live a life for God. I wait attentively for a response only to hear the atheist respond with the words “brute force”.

It is difficult to use of brute force as it often leads to tyranny and rebellions. I am taking a policing course where we overview policing history. History shows it only aggravates the people further when more force was involved such as military intervention. It went against the human desire for a decent amount of liberties and rights (which even a sociopath would desire). In the Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science, Vol. 55 by J. L Lyman from the Northwest university of Law there is a review of historical mistakes using force against one’s citizens. In the journal it mentions the way the law enforcement was so hated it was inefficient in stopping crime which in turn had crime running more rampant. The journal states that “by 1828 one person in every three hundred and eighty-three was a criminal” in London. The method of “brute force” had worsened the situation as it never got to the core of the problem.

Reasoning

I assume not everyone would have immediately jumped to “brute force”. I think some may have even thought of just reasoning with people. I mean someone has to be able to convince if not through force or empathy that one should dogmatically follow a moral code. I do not just mean sociopaths I include anyone with opposing views of morality. I have to concede everyone has their own views of morality whether right or wrong.

In recent times “the president of the Yale University in a meeting of university professor and educators. He said that we need a new renaissance of education and morality in American colleges. You would think he would have been applauded. But he was booed! They hissed. They asked ‘Whose morality, professor, are you going to impose upon them?” He couldn’t answer the question (Dr. Kennedy, page 482). His ideas might have been the most perfect ideas in the world. It did not matter because no matter how perfect his moral is the human heart is just so full of its own evil. It will not listen to reasoning because it does not care for reasoning based upon their own moral reasoning.

So what if he got a chance to speak would anyone have listened? No one cares what anyone or any group claims is moral. “Charles Darwin knew this. He said it was a horrid thought to realize that all of his speech may have no more significance or meaning than the babbling of a monkey. He said, ‘Would anyone trust the conviction of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?” (Dr. Kennedy, page 506).

It is a hard pill to swallow to admit only God is righteous enough, powerful enough, efficient enough, knowledgeable enough, loving enough and so on to sustain a moral code. God even offers this moral code yet again to those who have broken it with a renewing of his mercies.

Born in sin

So if God is so great why is not everyone just following Him? The heart being born in sin wants to refuse the law for himself and have the laws imposed on others. It is where hypocrisy and double standards arise. I mean having the mental capacity to measure fairness and justice while having fleshly overruling savagery sins.

“Huxley was the most prestigious evolutionary scientist in the world at the time. The interviewer asked him, “Why do you think that evolution caught on so quickly?” Huxley began, “We all jumped at The Origin [The Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin] because . . .” Now if you ask a high school science class to finish that sentence, what do you think the students would say? They would say, “The reason we jumped at The Origin of Species was that the evidence amassed by Darwin was so intellectually compelling that scientific integrity required that we accept it as fact.” That is not what Huxley said. Rather, I heard him say, “[ I suppose the reason] we all jumped at The Origin [was] because the idea of God interfered with our sexual mores.” I almost fell out of my chair! What does that have to do with science? (Dr. Kennedy, page 692).

It seems like the same problem all over again with no one caring about absolute morality when they care too much for their own morality. This time it is different when we peak behind the veil. God makes a promise to those who seek Him diligently in Ezekiel. Ezekiel 36:26-28 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.

Change

Before we go any further we must consider historical ways people have tried to impose change in the human heart. I know not all have tried “brute” force or “reasoning”. I must admit some have tried changing the environment to help people flourish into their best selves with the hope of fostering perfect peaceful moral.

Many people have been convinced the heart can be changed apart from divine intervention with environmental remodeling. The communists thought they were going to create the “new communist man” without religion. Karl Marx the intellectual founder of communism found his ideas to be the key to solve the mankind’s predicament proclaiming this as the “true solution”. It is no wonder they prohibited ministers from preaching heaven when they had ushered it in prenatally. He thought man was pretty good inside just corrupted by his environmental structures. I have read some books on communism the dream does not pan out.

The communist plan instead of thriving the fruit of good people had made room for a greater evil as “Marxism did produce a new Communist man—a man so cruel that he could commit the most barbaric crimes against his fellow human beings without the slightest qualms of conscience. When we become aware of what took place in the ghastly labor camps, or gulags, we can understand the nature of the new Communist man, perhaps the cruelest man the world has ever seen” (Dr. Kenny, page 811).

“An example of Communist torture occurred just within the last few years. Two Christian women were being punished by the Chinese authorities for the “crime” of being a part of the unregistered house church movement. They were stripped naked, hung up by their thumbs with wires, and beaten unconscious with cattle prods. The system Marx helped create—based on a false paradigm, which was itself based on a false picture of man’s true nature—has probably caused more evil than any system known to man” (Dr. Kennedy, page 821).

In the West “we are told, the new man will be fashioned by psychology and psychiatry. Before you become too excited about that possibility, remember that of all of the professions in America, the highest level of suicide is found in psychiatrists. So if you are contemplating such an act, I don’t recommend that you go see one. He might decide to hold your hand and jump first” (Dr. Kennedy, page 854). I have run into some issues with psychologists lately as I have been told by numerous friends their psychologists think they are beyond help. I almost think that should be illegal to tell a patient because these vulnerable people will remember this every time they reach another low. I can see how a self-fulfilling prophesy could take into effect.

Testimonies

The bible has changed many lives for the better helping people turn a new leaf. It is because being born again is gives a person a new heart and spirit with new desires. God promises to give people a new heart so is there any evidence of this change?

The same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead still has the power to change a person to this day. “No unbeliever could tell me why His words are as charged with power today as they were nineteen hundred years ago. Nor could scoffers explain how those pierced hands pulled human monsters with gnarled souls out of a hell of iniquity and overnight transformed them into steadfast, glorious heroes [of the cross]” (Dr. Kennedy, page 936).

Kwai

There is a movie called “The bridge over the River Kwai” based on the book called “Through the Valley of Kwai”. The author of the book had spoken to the chaplain man of Princeton University who had been part of British forces. He was the very man that had written “The bridge over the River of Kwai”. “He told [him], heartbrokenly, what Hollywood had done to the truth. Here is the real story of the bridge over the River Kwai. The captives had been reduced to savagery. They were starving. They were snapping for every crust of bread like animals. And then the British commander discovered in one of their backpacks a New Testament. He began to read it. As he read it, the wonder of the love of Christ began to fill his soul, and he surrendered his life to the Savior and called on Him for His grace and help. He was transformed. He began to read that New Testament to his men each day. One after another became transformed until virtually the entire camp was transformed by the gospel of Christ. These animal-like men began to save their crusts of bread to give to those who were weaker and sicker than they were” (Dr Kennedy, page 897).

Joad

It is often easy to believe mankind is mostly good when one is living safely in a first world country founded on Christian foundations (which is further elaborated in later chapters). “C. E. M. Joad was one of the great philosophers of England in this century. He was a brilliant intellect and a militant unbeliever. [...] Earlier he had thought that man was basically good and that, given the right conditions, we could create heaven on earth. But two devastating world wars and the threat of another one brought home to him the reality that man is sinful. The only solution to man’s sin, concluded this former skeptic, is the cross of Jesus Christ” (Dr. Kennedy, page 957).

David wood

Note: the pages may not be exact though they are within the range of the found text. It is harder to tell on the kindle app if it is the exact page number.

[southeastasianists]

In the last few weeks, over 400,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled a bloody pogrom in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, crossing into Bangladesh. Among the horrified and largely moralistic reactions in the West, some have pointed to economic factors supposedly behind these events. They are right to highlight the importance of political economy drivers of conflict, but their analysis is disappointingly superficial and crude. This post critiques their approaches and briefly outlines a better one.

Vulgar Marxism 101: land grabs and the Rohingya crisis

The most prominent commentator suggesting economic drivers behind the Rohingya crisis is the renowned geographer Saskia Sassen—whose published work I generally admire greatly. Sassen penned an extremely speculative piecefor The Guardian in January 2017, and another for the Huffington Post in September 2017, linking the conflict to land grabs. In her lengthy January essay, Sassen suggests that the conflict is “generated by military-economic interests, rather than by mostly religious/ethnic issues”. However, she offered no evidence for this proposition except that the government had designated 1.27m hectares of land in Rakhine for agricultural development. “Expelling them from their land is a way of freeing up land and water”, she asserted. Many Myanmar scholars reacted with some scorn on social media.

Undeterred, she rehearses these claims in her latest article, again with precious little evidence supplied—though now she also cites the Chinese port and special economic zone (SEZ) being constructed at Kyaukphyu. She speculates: “the land freed by the radical expulsion of the Rohingya might have become of interest to the military… Religion may be functioning as a veil that military leaders can use to minimize attention on the land-grabbing aspect of this economic development part of their agenda.” Some other scholars penned a similar piece for The Conversation, again offering little concrete evidence but pointing to the oil and gas pipeline connecting Kyaukphyu (though they mistakenly suggest it runs from Sittwe) to western China, and an Indian port development in Sittwe. They conclude: “The government of Myanmar therefore has vested interests in clearing land to prepare for further development”.

One does not need to be a particularly brilliant political economist to recognise that these claims are extraordinarily sloppy. One can simply look at a few maps. Firstly, note the map of Rakhine below, showing the Rohingya population concentrated heavily in a few townships bordering Bangladesh. Then note the second map, showing the latest forced displacement and burning of Rohingya villages, which have been concentrated entirely in these townships. Almost all of the far north of Rakhine has been depopulated of Rohingya, but the centre and south have been relatively unaffected this time around.

Now consider the location of the developments that are supposedly driving this forced displacement. Kyaukphyu is in central Rakhine state, about 120km south of the present crisis. How can a desire to clear land in Kyaukphyu possibly explain the ethnic cleansing of townships located so far away? Sittwe is also about 40km from the nearest violence.

It would be far more plausible to link the present crisis to the shocking announcement, just days into the pogrom, of the state’s intention to establish an SEZ in Maungdaw, at the centre of the recent violence. This certainly deserves investigation, though it is missed entirely in these recent commentaries.

However, this is not just a question of shifting the explanatory weight from one land grab to another. Ultimately, the vulgar Marxism of these accounts does a disservice to political economy analysis more broadly. Attributing complex events like this to “business interests” is crude and reductionist, and can actually explain relatively little. Yes, land grabs have happened across Myanmar to facilitate megaprojects like mines, dams, SEZs, ports and agribusiness plantations, and this has certainly fuelled ethnic conflict. This is well documented by the indefatigable Kevin Woods, whose years of painstaking fieldwork and brilliant scholarship nonetheless goes unacknowledged by these authors. And land grabs, including for the projects cited in these articles, have undoubtedly produced forced displacement in Rakhine state, causing resentment among both Rohingyas and the Buddhist Rakhine, the state’s dominant ethnic group.

But development-induced land grabs simply do not require vast ethnic cleansing displacing 40% of a given population. Nor, crucially, can “business interests” explain why this ethnic cleansing is greeted with indifference or even enthusiasm by the vast majority of Myanmar’s population—even by groups, like the Rakhine, that have themselves been victims of previous land grabs. Nor, crucially, can it explain very similar pogroms in 1977 and 1992, both of which occurred decades before any megaprojects and their associated land grabs.

Towards a better political economy analysis

The only benefit of such crude accounts is that they do prompt us to think about the relationship of sociopolitical conflict to economic factors. This is better than simplistically attributing conflict to “communalism” or “religious intolerance”, as if the problem were solely ideological, lacking any material underpinning—which is never true in reality. But rather than suggesting that the “real” cause is land-grabbing and religion is only a “veil”, it is important to situate sociopolitical conflict within a historically evolving political economy context, in a way that takes social and ideological formations seriously. I can only gesture here at the main lines of analysis one might undertake, but this is still an improvement over the commentary just described.

Buddhist–Muslim conflict over land and resources in what is now Rakhine state is not new. From the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries there were struggles between Muslim empires expanding from the west and the Buddhist Arakan kingdom of Mrauk U, ending only when the area was conquered by the kingdom of Burma in 1785. However, it was British colonialism (1824–1948) that arguably sowed the most important seeds for the contemporary crisis.

Burma was ruled as part of the British Raj, enabling vast inward migration from the Indian subcontinent. The British particularly encouraged Bengalis to migrate to address labour shortages on agricultural plantations. In Akyab district, for instance (present-day Sittwe), from 1871–1911, the Muslim population more than tripled, while the Rakhine population grew by barely a fifth. Understandably, then, the Rakhine have long cultural memories of being “swamped” by “Muslim immigrants”. More broadly, immigration to Burma peaked at 480,000 in 1927, out of a total population of 13 million. By then, ethnic Indians had acquired prominent positions across the Burmese economy, not just as agrarian coolies but also as skilled professionals, merchants and financiers. In the 1930s economic crisis, many farmers indebted to Indian moneylenders defaulted, leading Indians also to become major landlords.

The reaction to this rapid influx was a racially inflected form of economic nationalism which still persists today. This is not entirely dissimilar to the xenophobic nationalism that has sometimes accompanied mass immigration in straitened economic circumstances in many Western countries. There wereanti-Indian riots in 1930–31 and specifically anti-Muslim riots in 1926 and 1938. These were led by the majority ethnic Bamar and did not spread into Rakhine itself. It was not until Britain’s defeat by invading Japanese forces in 1942 that communal violence erupted there, with Rakhine militias exploiting the war to wreak bloody vengeance on their Muslim rivals, prompting tens of thousands to flee into India.

To make matters worse, the British then armed Rohingya volunteer forces, ostensibly to attack the occupying Japanese, but instead these groups often raided Rakhine settlements and Buddhist monasteries and pagodas. These forces also accompanied Britain’s reconquest of Rakhine, after which armed Rakhine groups were forcibly suppressed. Understandably, some of the returning Muslims feared being incorporated into the postcolonial Burmese state, launching a “Mujahit” rebellion to press for the incorporation of northern Rakhine into East Pakistan, prompting counterinsurgency operations by the Burmese army through the 1950s.

An important legacy of this WWII-induced displacement, and the subsequent unrest, is that Muslims gradually returning to Rakhine were thereafter often depicted as “illegal Bengali immigrants”. This complex, unhappy history is what lies behind the subsequent rejection of the Rohingyas—a term used commonly only after Burma’s independence—as one of Myanmar’s 135 official “national races”, and their designation instead as “Bengalis”.

Given the experiences under British colonialism, it is not surprising that, from the outset, popular Burmese nationalism has had a strongly racist flavour, directed in part against those branded kalar—dark-skinned “interlopers” from the Indian subcontinent. The central objective of Burma’s post-independence government was the Burmanisation of the foreign-dominated economy. Recalling the trauma of the 1930s, land was nationalised in 1953, and private lending to farmers banned (a situation that largely persists today), eviscerating the remaining Indian landlord class. Burmanisation culminated in the nationalisation of 15,000 businesses after the 1962 military coup, prompting 125,000 to 300,000 ethnic Indians to flee the country. They followed the more than 400,000 Indians, British and Anglo-Burmese who had already left following decolonization. The post-2011 “969” movement, which encouraged Buddhists to boycott Muslim businesses, is arguably just the latest instantiation of this form of xenophobic economic nationalism.

Colonisation also left a legacy of deep religious trauma. On top of the loss of indigenous sovereignty and the influx of Muslims, the British refused to perform the usual duties of Buddhist kingship, such as appointing abbots, and permitted growing Christian missionary activity, provoking a deep sense of cultural crisis among Buddhists. The restoration of Buddhism became central to Bamar nationalism, and steadily this religion, and Bamar culture, became hegemonic elements of postcolonial nation building efforts, with ethnic and religious minorities being increasingly “othered”.

Today, many ordinary Myanmar Buddhists genuinely believe that—like in colonial times—their religion and culture is under threat from a Muslim demographic “tidal wave”. They often point to countries like Indonesia, formerly home to Buddhist and Hindu empires, as examples of what Myanmar will become without vigorous countermeasures. This has virtually no objective basis: only about 3% of Myanmar’s population is Muslim, while around 89% are Buddhist.

But this fact is irrelevant, since most people nevertheless believe it, following decades of government propaganda, atrocious educational provision, and widespread deference to Buddhist monks, some—though far from all—of whom have promoted virulent Islamophobia. Nor is this fear of being culturally overwhelmed new, or somehow a product of the post-2010 “democratic” transition. Anti-Muslim riots occurred under the previous military regime, in 1997 and 2001, and the notorious Buddhist nationalist monk, Ashin Wirathu, the figurehead of MaBaTha, the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion, was jailed for incitement in 2003.

This history explains why there is widespread support today for MaBaTha, for the Protection of Race and Religion Laws (which discriminate against Muslims) and for the ethnic cleansing currently being perpetrated by the Myanmar military. It also explains why, politically, Aung San Suu Kyi has such limited room for manoeuvre—though it must be stressed that she has done virtually nothing to challenge these dangerous myths or to foster intercommunal harmony. Indeed, her own office’s use of the term “Bengali”, her past remarks about “global Muslim power”, and her purging of Muslims from the ranks of NLD parliamentary candidates in 2015, all suggest that she may even personally share anti-Muslim prejudices.

It is the intersection of these material and ideological dynamics that explain the recurrent persecution of the Rohingya and anti-Muslim attacks more generally, rather than a simplistic, short term land-grabbing agenda. Many Muslims were viewed with inherent suspicion due to their association with colonialism and the Mujahit rebellion. After decolonisation, although the term “Rohingya” was used in official circles, they were never formally accepted as one of Burma’s official ethnic groups. Initially, they were allowed to vote, and several were elected to parliament, with one even serving as a junior minister. However, as Bamar Buddhist nationalism intensified, and struggles by ethnic minorities resisting forced homogenisation mounted—prompting the onset of the world’s longest running civil wars—the state became increasingly hostile towards its Muslim population.

In 1962, the army expelled Muslims from its ranks. In 1977, the belief that many “Bengalis” had exploited the state’s weak border controls to cross from East Pakistan/ Bangladesh into Rakhine led the military-backed regime to launch clearance operations ahead of a national census, displacing 200,000 Muslims into Bangladesh. Thereafter, under the new 1982 Citizenship Act, the Rohingyas were gradually stripped of their rights, often finding themselves unable to prove their families’ long-term residency in Burma—thanks in part to the destruction of records in previous rounds of conflict and forced displacement. When, after 1988, the Rohingyas participated prominently in the pro-democracy movement, hoping to recover their rights, they again faced violent suppression, prompting another exodus in 1992, with 250,000 fleeing to Bangladesh.

The position of the Buddhist Rakhine needs special mention here. From their perspective, they have been doubly “victimised”, by a growing “illegal Bengali immigrant” population (even if the Rakhine still outnumber them two to one), and by the Bamar-dominated central government. Rakhine state is Myanmar’s second poorest, and what little development has occurred there has involved either a tiny handful of megaprojects—which create virtually no local employment and whose benefits are monopolised by the regime and foreign investors—or the development of a highly exploitative fisheries industry, with Thai trawlers using quasi-slave labour.

Conditions in Rakhine villages are sometimes scarcely better than those in Rohingya internally-displaced person camps. In conditions of extreme scarcity and economic competition, they profoundly resent the Western focus on the Rohingya, seeing donors as deeply “biased”, which explains violent attacks on aid convoys and protests against donor offices perceived to have slighted Buddhism. The Rakhines have seized the opportunity offered by the post-2010 transition to organise politically, dominating the state assembly. Many have also supported heavy handed military and police action as a long awaited form of redress against their local rivals, and have exploited periods of unrest to seize land used by Rohingyas. However, some have even joined the Rohingyas in exile, reflecting a shared sense of desperation and impoverishment.

It is hardly surprising that these extraordinarily grim conditions have spawned violence among both communities. Rakhine militias organised to attack Muslims during the 1940s, and today three are active, all of which promote “self-determination” in Rakhine but reject the Rohingyas as “Bengalis”. The Rohingyas have also taken up arms periodically, and the only mystery is why the latest armed group, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), has taken quite so long to form in the face of such harsh persecution and misery. ARSA’s attacks on police and army outposts—the most recent of which, in late August, triggered the army offensive behind the present refugee crisis—smack heavily of desperation, as men often armed only with catapults and wooden “guns” launch themselves at the security forces.

In short, while simple pecuniary motives can never be entirely discounted, particularly in Myanmar’s borderlands, the political economy underpinning the current Rohingya crisis is far more complicated than is suggested in articles making a few sloppy references to megaprojects and land grabs. Ultimately, like Myanmar’s other ethnic conflicts, it reflects the crisis-ridden nature of the Burmese state since its inception.

Burma was founded with no real meaningful consensus among its population groups over the nature of the state or nation, or the extent of power and resource sharing. Bamar-Buddhist chauvinists, unprepared to make the concessions needed to secure others’ consensual participation in nation-building, have instead sought to impose their vision by force, leading to brutality across the borderlands. However, the Rohingya have suffered particularly harshly because their claim to ethnic-minority status is not even recognised. While the Bamar state seeks to coercively incorporate recognised ethnic minority groups into the Union, it seeks to coercively exclude the unrecognised Rohingya. That is, ultimately, traceable to British colonialism and its legacy.

…………………………

Lee Jones is Reader in International Politics at Queen Mary University of London’s School of Politics and International Relations. He has written extensively on Myanmar’s political economy, regime transition, experience under sanctions, and relations with China. You can follow him on Twitter at @DrLeeJones.

[paperbackwritersblog]

It is March 2020, the world is not at war, at least not in the physically world war sense of the word. And yet the world is very much at eachothers throats! It is impossible to tell if there has always been an underlying issue with ideologies and beliefs not being able to debate and find middle ground in times before now, for I can only take in what history has left us in terms of information, even that information is always told from a perspective. After all isnt all information just a perspective? Isnt everything we think and feel just a personal perspective? The information passed down again a perspective.

With that in mind, the ability to understand that it is all perspective seems to be lost on the vast majority of people! Why else would people venomously defend their set of beliefs unless they genuinely believe they know the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It blows my mind to exist at a time where so many of us sapiens believe we KNOW the truth! When I read about history , the further you go back the less and less people believed they knew anything, only a select few thought they knew anything. And when someone elevated themselves as someone who KNOWS, people hung on their every word. Nearly all belief systems are designed by someone at some point in time who knew THE TRUTH!!

To understand that there is no TRUTH, just your truth. To empathize with others and understand their truths are as real and undeniable as your truths takes either a natural ability or constant mental work. I have met people in my life who naturally seem to feel, know or understand that we are all so very different, the differences are what make our species as remarkable as it is. These people have been rare to come across, possibly just because of my time and place of upbringing.

Most of the people I know and have met in my life think their experiences of life and their reactions to experiences account for anyone elses experiences, they think we all think the same when things happen and if you dont then something is wrong with you!! They believe the first story they are told unless they already have an impression or view on something or someone , they are unable to hear anything contradicting the beliefs they already hold! This is the person I was for the best part of my life so far, id say the first 37 years of my life! Then something happened, a psychological shift in how I see things. And even then, a daily reminder, an hourly nudge! Even with much better awareness of myself it still happens. I now find myself in another group of people who understand yet still have years of programming to be undone, its a daily grind.

I thought for a long time that with the right ingredients I would one day have a satori moment! Something would click and I would from that day forth see the truth in things!! And there we are again, the TRUTH!! So to get to a place where there is no truth to strive for, just my perspective to roll back.

How would this be felt by others, how can the world become more aware? Obviously this question has never been answered despite it being asked throughout time! Was Marxism an attempt at this? An attempt to make everyone the same, was confucianism the same? Although these ideologies were an attempt to put everyone in the same place physically! Its painfully obvious it didnt hit everyone mentally in that way or the outcomes would have been completely different when attempted.

I recently sat and watched a parlimentary session, I think it was prime ministers question time. What I found to be so destructive was not the need to keep the government to their word but the want to destroy and tarnish peoples moral code and reputation! I understand the opposition in parliament is there to keep the opposite side in check, oppose bad ideas, suggest better ideas etc etc. But I saw none of that! All I saw and heard were people doing their best to make their opposite number look inadequate, il-informed, stupid, racist, bullying etc etc. So rather than stand tall on their own ideas, they would rather stand tall with their feet on the head of whoever they have slayed!

Wokeness and virtue signaling has become so dangerously destructive, with the finger pointers completely unaware that when pointing at someone or thing, at least 3 of their fingers are pointing back at them. The hypocrisy of the movement is not allowed to be questioned, for doing so gives you an instant label, of us and them. Like religion, philosophy, ideologies it creates a “we are right” and a “they are wrong” , not even wrong! They are evil!!

So I see , that throughout time this has never changed, tribalism is so deeply rooted in us as a species.

I dont think its impossible for us a a species to think or feel differently, however I think time is most deffinately a factor, for evolution is a very long process.

I believe states we reach in meditation is an idea of where our species can eventually evolve to, the world is crying out for understanding , love, kindness. However we are not evolved enough to deliver on our desires on a grand scale. Pockets of people exist that truly understand the only real TRUTH there really is! That there is no truth, only perspective.

Im leaning very slowly that the things I have always believed to be true are only true to me. The hardest part of this understanding is to not judge others when they act in a way that makes me look away. Nowadays when I feel the need to look away a voice whipsers that im turning away from attributes of my own that I cannot face! This causes discomfort in so many areas of my mind, to admit and take ownership of these traits is not something anyone will cheerfully jump into. There are parts of my darkness that are easier to see and admit than others. As someone who was bullied significantly as a child, to recognise the bully in me was something that I did not want to admit, after all I know how it feels to feel stripped of power in that way, yet when I really got down into it, it wasnt so difficult to see how I had bullied in my attempt to claim power back at some point.

When I started to truly dismantle my darker attributes I realised that all of the traits I had worked so hard to subdue or remove from myself completely were all the traits that reminded me of my father! I was so effected by his behaviour growing up and the opinions of him that others held I was determined that no one would ever think or talk about me in that way and this was something I know I felt, this was not subconcious at all, I actively and openly worked to that end. But then for many years I atrributed the shitty sides of myself to him! When I acted out of character I didnt just think but also said aloud thats my father! And this ment not taking any of my own personal responsibility.

This was my truth, and it only applied to me. I cannot speak for my father nor his aims and wishes in that situation. My truth could have been that my father was a cunt and he fucked me up in many ways!! And in a way that is a truth! But its choice , do I choose that to be my truth? I could just say that my father made many mistakes, yet his mistakes are not mine, if anything they are lessons he gave me in what not to do, I could spin this truth very much into a positive.

So you see truth is a very personal perspective, it applies to you. I often wonder if there are any collective truths! Because even the scientific world is not absolute truths, they are answers based on testing and monitored results up to this point! All science is open to new information, all science is never absolute truth, only what we know and have measured thus far.

Do we all feel exactly the same about our truth? Is the feeling shared for all. Peoples protection of the truth is linked to their past present and future! When long held beliefs are disturbed and shaken it can cause such psychological disturbance that we react as if protecting a loved one from a rabid dog. Thats because hard wired truths are so deeply rooted that to shift the perspective of that truth it means to shift the entire lense that life is seen through. From my own experience of this, it is initially destabalizing. If dealt with appropriately we can grow from this and go onto much healthier mindsets, after all these beliefs would be unshakable if they were anything close to a fundamental truth shared. Most of these challengable truths are sets of programming we have taken on from our peers. For me to believe that all black people are criminals, all chinese people know kung fu(all stereotypes are programming), to believe in god, to believe in flat earth, to believe in vaccinations, to belive in anything and everything as a truth, this is ok so long as I understand that this is true to me, its is not true to others.

And with that moving forward I think a great place I am nearing is the truth of no truth.

E. Plaistow

[encephalonfatigue]

god is not dead. god is bread. the bread is rising! bread means revolution.

this is a reflection on Kropotkin’s “Conquest of Bread”, because i couldn’t fit it all in goodreads. the title of this post comes from the New York Young Lords,‘‘Celebration for a People’s Church” (1969).

This was a fascinating book. My interest in Kropotkin came out of reading about Anabaptist radicals. Kropotkin thought that Western anarchism’s roots could be traced back to Anabaptist communities. The affection has, in a sense, run both ways though. Catholic Workers adore Kropotkin, and he had an outsized influence on Dorothy Day, who writes a lot about Kropotkin in her autobiography. I can see the connection. Even as Kropotkin spoke frequently about revolution he also was less enthusiastic about violence than many other anarchists. For example, I came across this in Jacqueline Jones’ biography of Lucy Parsons (with whom Kropotkin was acquainted, meeting in London and Chicago):

“At the same time, Kropotkin disavowed the use of violence, which, he said, is “not characteristic of anarchists or the Anarchist party.” He told his listeners that true anarchists accepted “the principle that no man nor no society has the right to take another man’s life.”

That being said, Kropotkin observed the Bolshevik revolution with interest, though certainly through a critical lens, and returned from England to Russia in 1917, in June following the February Revolution. The Menshevik David Shub quotes Kropotkin’s comments as the October Revolution was unfolding:

“When, in Moscow that November, Kropotkin heard the first cannon volleys of the Bolshevik uprising, he exclaimed: "This is the burial of the Russian Revolution.””

Kropotkin eventually met Lenin, as Lenin was in fact quite fond of Kropotkin, even if they had their disagreements. Lenin’s personal secretary Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich, first met with Kropotkin in 1918, and eventually arranged Kropotkin’s meeting with Lenin. Bonch-Bruyevich documented this in 1919, in a very fascinating piece of writing.

A total tangent, but Bonch-Bruyevich (though a Marxist, and eventually a Bolshevik) was also friends with the anarchist Tolstoy with whom he collaborated with in aiding the Doukhobor immigration to Canada. Tolstoy requested that Bonch-Bruyevich escort the Doukhobors to Canada. The Doukhobors were radical pacifist dissenters. I have a book at home called “Folk Furniture of Canada’s Doukhobors, Hutterites, Mennonites, and Ukrainians” by James Fleming and Michael Rowan, and it describes the Doukhobors in this way:

“The Doukhobors adopted the peasant commune system, or mir, that had existed for centuries… One of the persistent bases of the commune was the rejection of land ownership in the usual sense. Work alone gave rightful claim to temporary possession of land in theory at least land was to be redistributed from year to year. In the early years under this system there as no personal property, and each individual, each family, shared in the common wealth and goods of the community, and contributed to them… Koozma J. Tarasoff has described the Doukhobors as “Christian anarchists in search of a practical utopia.”

Bonch-Bruyevich (aka Bruevich), besides his politics, had a deep interest in folk religion, and spent time studying various ones of Russia. The Canadian folklorist Robert B. Klymasz wrote about Bonch-Bruyevich (aka Bruevich) in a paper called “V. D. Bonch-Bruevich and the Lenin Connection in New World Folkloristics”:

“A number of important ideological factors helped bridge the two sides of Bruevich: that is, Bruevich as revolutionary activist on the one hand, and Bruevich as avid folklorist on the other. Lenin in particular had noted how, in the past, religious heresies were the seeds of political revolutionary change, and how there appeared to be a universal connection between political protest Bruevich committed much of his energy to a long-term search for publishable materials that could underline aspects of social protest that simmered among the tensed-up masses of Imperialist Tsarist Russia before the Revolution. Bruevich's search inevitably led him to investigate the folkloric formulations of dissent as couched in the rich oral traditions of the Doukhobors, whose dicta were immune to the ruthless suppression of the printed word by the official censorship in tsarist Russia. By the turn of the century he foresaw the publication of a series of volumes full of materials concerning the history and study of Russian sectarianism and schism.”

Back to Doukhobor immigration to Canada, and the Tolstoy connection: Tolstoy had written to an economics professor at the University of Toronto called James Mavor (he was involved in a Scottish Socialist League, and while in Toronto, deeply involved in the founding of the ROM and AGO, and is the great-great-grandfather of Noah “40” Shebib, Drake’s producer). Tolstoy described them as Russia’s best farmers who would use land and seeds in the best way possible. One other supporter of Doukhobor immigration to Canada was Kropotkin himself, who also wrote to the Toronto economics professor Mavor, requesting they be granted “land in a block; they cannot live in isolated farms. They are Russians, for whom it is more indispensable than for Mennonites.” (The stuff you learn about in books about Canadian folk furniture.) George Woodcock has also written a book about the Doukhobors that I hope to read some day.

For more reading on the Bonch-Bruyevich angle, there is a record written by Vera Mikhailovna Velichkina (Bonch-Bruyevich’s spouse) about travelling with the Doukhobors to Canada. When the Doukhobors were interned at Grosse Isle, Quebec, in the St Lawrence River, Bonch-Bruyevich began writing down their hymns, psalms, prayers, and narratives, many of which are collected in the “Book of Life of Doukhobors: Materials Concerning History and Study of Russian Sectarianism and Schism”.

Alright, returning from the enormous tangential diversion, what I think is fascinating about The Conquest of Bread, is that it highlights the distinction (of emphasis) between the real politik communism of Marxism-Leninism and more libertarian tendencies of anarcho-communism.  I will start with some fun examples (anarchists are always so good at these things, I can see that David Graeber really fits this tradition so well). These examples reflect a mode of ‘grace’, theologically speaking, where deed and reward are not so tightly coupled in any precisely quantifiable manner:

“When you go into a public library — not indeed the National Library of Paris, but, say, into the British Museum or the Berlin Library — the librarian does not ask what services you have rendered to society before giving you the book, or the fifty books which you require, and he comes to your assistance if you do not know how to manage the catalogue. By means of uniform credentials — and very often a contribution of work is preferred — the scientific society opens its museums, its gardens, its library, its laboratories, and its annual conversaziones to each of its members, whether he be a Darwin, or a simple amateur.”

“The tramways and railways have already introduced monthly and annual season tickets, without limiting the number of journeys taken; and two nations, Hungary and Russia, have introduced on their railways the zone system, which permits the holder to travel five hundred or a thousand miles for the same price. It is but a short step from that to a uniform charge, such as already prevails in the postal service. In all these innovations, and a thousand others, the tendency is not to measure the individual consumption. One man wants to travel a thousand miles, another five hundred. These are personal requirements. There is no sufficient reason why one should pay twice as much as the other because his need is twice as great. Such are the signs which appear even now in our individualist societies.”

What’s interesting is that I’ve witnessed over my lifetime the eradication of this type of transit fare. My first visit to Singapore, I witnessed with fascination the tapping in and out of subway stations and buses, which charged your accounts to precisely the stops you boarded and alighted from. Years later, Presto arrived in Toronto, and I have witnessed the TTC subway stations one by one, replacing their subway gates to eradicate the use of tokens. The fare is still a level one as of now, but there are plans to move it into the direction of GO Transit policy, where journeys are charged according to precise distances travelled. (Of course there are monthly passes, but if it is not universalized, just like health insurance in Amerika, it becomes unaffordably expensive.) Technology has a way of enabling this sort of erosion of commons and grace, into a calculating self-absorbed individualist mode of existence.

This ethos was what provoked Kropotkin to speak out against anarchists like Proudhon, who advocated for labour-cheques, effectively paid on the basis of labour-time rather than the market-determined value of one’s labour:

“It is the same with the wages system; for after having proclaimed the abolition of private property, and the possession in common of all means of production, how can they uphold the wages system in any form? It is, nevertheless, what collectivists are doing when they recommend labour-cheques. It is easy to understand why the early English socialists came to the system of labour-cheques. They simply tried to make Capital and Labour agree. They repudiated the idea of violently laying hands on capitalist property.  It is also easily understood why Proudhon took up the idea later on. In his Mutualist system he tried to make Capital less offensive, notwithstanding the retaining of private property, which he detested from the bottom of his heart, but which he believed to be necessary to guarantee individuals against the State… how can we defend labour-notes, this new form of wagedom, when we admit that houses, fields, and factories will no longer be private property, and that they will belong to the commune or the nation?”

My greatest affinity for Kropotkin comes from his emphasis on human needs before the question of production, because when our most basic needs are not met is when we are most vulnerable to exploitation. He writes in The Conquest of Bread:

“It was poverty that created the first capitalist; because, before accumulating “surplus value,” of which we hear so much, men had to be sufficiently destitute to consent to sell their labour, so as not to die of hunger. It was poverty that made capitalists.”

“Let us limit ourselves at present to opening up the new path that consists in the study of the needs of man, and the means of satisfying them.”

“We study the needs of individuals, and the means by which they satisfy them, before discussing Production, Exchange, Taxation, Government, etc. To begin with, the difference may appear trifling, but in reality it upsets official Political Economy. If you open the works of any economist you will find that he begins with PRODUCTION, the analysis of means employed nowadays for the creation of wealth; division of labour, manufacture, machinery, accumulation of capital. From Adam Smith to Marx, all have proceeded along these lines. Only in the latter parts of their books do they treat of CONSUMPTION, that is to say, of the means necessary to satisfy the needs of individuals…”

Marx the materialist insists on starting with the material conditions and realities, that is the mode of production. The problem is theorists never can get to a consensus as to how production should be organized, who should look after what thing, how best to do so etc. The ultimate materialist base consists of basic human needs. Kropotkin’s claim is that, hey we already have the ability to produce enough for everyone’s basic needs. He spends pages and pages of calculations showing this. Kropotkin encourages us to settle the issue of what must be done to meet everyone’s basic needs, and only when we understand the basic needs can we adjust production to better suit those needs. This is ultimately the issue that is foregrounded in Kropotkin’s 1920 letter to Lenin, where he highlights the food distribution issues in the first few years of Soviet Russia.

I do believe the focus on Universal Basic Income is ultimately a good one. Everyone has the unconditional right an adequate supply of healthy food, clean water, hygienic shelter, and basic healthcare and drugs. Let us secure these things, and focus production around these things. Only when our basic needs are met, are we free enough to think clearly about the details of revolutionary theory and organization. Kropotkin writes:

“That we are Utopians is well known. So Utopian are we that we go the length of believing that the Revolution can and ought to assure shelter, food, and clothes to all — an idea extremely displeasing to middle-class citizens, whatever their party colour, for they are quite alive to the fact that it is not easy to keep the upper hand of a people whose hunger is satisfied.

All the same, we maintain our contention: bread must be found for the people of the Revolution, and the question of bread must take precedence of all other questions. If it is settled in the interests of the people, the Revolution will be on the right road; for in solving the question of Bread we must accept the principle of equality, which will force itself upon us to the exclusion of every other solution.”

Marx is famously known for wanting to abolish ‘wage labour’, but his means of getting there was in fact far more moderate than anarchist theorists like Kropotkin. Marx believed there was to be transitional phases required before we could reach a wageless economic system. Kropotkin in contrast writes:

“Unskilled labour in the eyes of the collectivist is simple labour, while the work of the craftsman, the mechanic, the engineer, the man of science, etc., is what Marx calls complex labour, and is entitled to a higher wage. But labourers and craftsmen, weavers and men of science, are all wage-servants of the State — “all officials,” as was said lately, to gild the pill.

The coming Revolution can render no greater service to humanity than to make the wage system, in all its forms, an impossibility, and to render Communism, which is the negation of wage-slavery, the only possible solution. For even admitting that the Collectivist modification of the present system is possible, if introduced gradually during a period of prosperity and peace — though for my part I question its practicability even under such conditions — it would become impossible in a period of Revolution, when the need of feeding hungry millions springs up with the first call to arms. A political revolution can be accomplished without shaking the foundations of industry, but a revolution where the people lay hands upon property will inevitably paralyse exchange and production. Millions of public money would not suffice for wages to the millions of out-of-works. This point cannot be too much insisted upon; the reorganization of industry on a new basis (and we shall presently show how tremendous this problem is) cannot be accomplished in a few days, nor, on the other hand, will the people submit to be half starved for years in order to oblige the theorists who uphold the wage system. To tide over the period of stress they will demand what they have always demanded in such cases — communization of supplies — the giving of rations. It will be in vain to preach patience. The people will be patient no longer, and if food is not put in common they will plunder the bakeries.”

Of course Marx recognized the problems of wages. His ideas in Capital centre around the problem of how a global market deeply shapes hierarchal relations of domination. As soon as we have a universal signifier of value like money, anything in the world has a relative value to any other thing in the world. There is theoretically an exchange rate between an object and any other object in the world. One shoe is worth x number of carrots. However, it is not merely objects that have been commodified, but our labour. Our labour is sold on the market, and therefore any single person’s hour of labour has an exchange rate with any other person’s hour of labour. There are ratios of value between people’s labour. A doctor’s labour is more valuable in the market than a janitor’s and custodian’s labour. Hence, markets inevitably create classes of people, some of whom are more valuable in the market than others. Hence some people are more disposable than others. One person’s hour of labour, and ultimately life, is more valuable than another person’s life.

Kropotkin writes:

“Most collectivists, true to the distinction laid down by middle-class economists (and by Marx) between qualified work and simple work, tell us, moreover, that qualified or professional work must be paid a certain quantity more than simple work. Thus an hour’s work of a doctor will have to be considered as equivalent to two or three hours’ work of a hospital nurse, or to three hours’ work of a navvy. “Professional, or qualified work, will be a multiple of simple work,” says the collectivist Grönlund, “because this kind of work needs a more or less long apprenticeship.”

Other collectivists, such as the French Marxists, do not make this distinction. They proclaim “Equality of Wages.” The doctor, the schoolmaster, and the professor will be paid (in labour-cheques) at the same rate as the navvy. Eight hours visiting the sick in a hospital will be worth the same as eight hours spent in earth-works or else in mines or factories.”

The solution that Kropotkin writes of here attempts to rectify the issue by equalizing everyone’s hour of labour to an equal value. As long as you work, an hour, you receive the same thing in return. The issue then becomes, what if you are unable to work as much as others, you have more children, you are sick more often, you have a disability, etc. Marx recognized this issue and made a comment, that would be capitalized upon by the authoritarian left for generations. In his “Critique of the Gotha Program” Marx writes:

“In spite of this advance, this equal right is still constantly stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation. The right of the producers is proportional to the labor they supply; the equality consists in the fact that measurement is made with an equal standard, labor.

But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only – for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal.

But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.

In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!”

While Lenin early on emphasized the need to better equalize wages, he would eventually come to the conclusion that is rendered in the deutero-Pauline epistle 2 Thessalonians (3:10),:

“The socialist principle, "He who does not work shall not eat", is already realized; the other socialist principle, "An equal amount of products for an equal amount of labor", is also already realized. But this is not yet communism, and it does not yet abolish "bourgeois law", which gives unequal individuals, in return for unequal (really unequal) amounts of labor, equal amounts of products.”

“Not directly relying on enthusiasm, but aided by the enthusiasm engendered by the great revolution, and on the basis of personal interest, personal incentives, and business principles, we must first set to work in this small-peasant country to build solid gangways to socialism by way of state capitalism .••• Personal incentive will step up production; we must increase production first and foremost and at all cost.”

By the time you reach Stalin, this ideology is made extremely explicit:

“What is the cause of the fluidity of manpower? The cause is the wrong structure of wages, the wrong wage scales, the "Leftist" practice of wage equalisation. In a number of factories wage scales are drawn up in such a way as to practically wipe out the difference between skilled and unskilled labour, between heavy and light work. The consequence of wage equalisation is that the unskilled worker lacks the incentive to become a skilled worker and is thus deprived of the prospect of advancement;  …hence, the fluidity of manpower. In order to put an end to this evil we must abolish wage equalisation and discard the old wage scales. In order to put an end to this evil we must draw up wage scales that will take into account the difference between skilled and unskilled labour, between heavy and light work. …Marx and Lenin said that the difference between skilled and unskilled labour would exist even under socialism, even after classes had been abolished; that only under communism would this difference disappear and that, consequently, even under socialism "wages" must be paid according to work performed and not according to needs. But the equalitarians among our economic executives and trade-union officials do not agree with this and believe that under our Soviet system this difference has already disappeared. Who is right, Marx and Lenin or the equalitarians? It must be assumed that it is Marx and Lenin who are right. But it follows from this that whoever draws up wage scales on the "principle" of wage equalisation, without taking into account the difference between skilled and unskilled labour, breaks with Marxism, breaks with Leninism. And what does promoting them to higher positions and raising their wage level mean, what can it lead to as far as unskilled workers are concerned? It means, apart from everything else, opening up prospects for the unskilled worker and giving him an incentive to rise higher, to rise to the category of a skilled worker. You know yourselves that we now need hundreds of thousands and even millions of skilled workers. But in order to build up cadres of skilled workers, we must provide an incentive for the unskilled workers, provide for them a prospect of advancement, of rising to a higher position.”

By 1972, this quid pro quo ideology is expressed as such (by V.S. Kulikov):

“Under socialism, greater rewards are given to those workers who create more value, whose contribution to the fulfillment of plans and the development of production is larger. This is achieved by paying higher wages to skilled workers, to those requiring longer training. Work undertaken in dangerous or harmful conditions is also better paid. If this were not so, there would be no incentive to acquire eduction, to raise skills, to undertake more complex and responsible work.”

I mean this is the sort of stuff you hear rich capitalist reactionary assholes and ‘white collar professionals’ in America saying to minimum wage workers. This is trajectory from which it is best to read this last quote from Kropotkin that I want to conclude with:

“They will speak of “Scientific Socialism”; they will quote bourgeois economists, and Marx too, to prove that a scale of wages has its raison d’être, as “the labour-force” of the engineer will have cost more to society than the “labour-force” of the navvy. In fact, — have not economists tried to prove to us that if an engineer is paid twenty times more than a navvy it is because the “necessary” outlay to make an engineer is greater than that necessary to make a navvy? And has not Marx asserted that the same distinction is equally logical between two branches of manual labour? He could not conclude otherwise, having on his own account taken up Ricardo’s theory of value, and upheld that goods are exchanged in proportion to the quantity of work socially necessary for their production.

But we know what to think of this. We know that if engineers, scientists, or doctors are paid ten or a hundred times more than a labourer, and that a weaver earns three times more than an agricultural labourer, and ten times more than a girl in a match factory, it is not by reason of their “cost of production,” but by reason of a monopoly of education, or a monopoly of industry. Engineers, scientists, and doctors merely exploit their capital — their diplomas — as middle-class employers exploit a factory, or as nobles used to exploit their titles of nobility.”

[stopkingobama]

Inside the Soros-backed "Alt Left" terrorist movement

Click here to deport George Soros! —

Image credit: World Economic Forum Photo by Sebastian DerungsCC by SA 2.0

When writing this piece, a quote kept rattling around in the back of my head. It was the title of the opening chapter of “The Feminine Mystique,” Betty Friedan’s seminal 1963 feminist manifesto: The Problem That Has No Name. Apologies in advance, for appropriating and altering three of the quotes I find most meaningful from that chapter, for my own purposes here:

The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American liberals…

Even so, most liberals still did not know that this problem was real. But those who had faced it honestly knew that all the media dismissals, the academic justifications, the intellectualized double speak and the manufactured outrage were somehow drowning the problem in unreality…

How can any person see the whole truth within the bounds of one’s own life? How can she believe that voice inside herself, when it denies the conventional, accepted truths by which she has been living? And yet the liberals I have talked to, who are finally listening to that inner voice, seem in some incredible way to be groping through to a truth that has defied the media.”

The Alt-Left Is Real

There is an effort underfoot, in the media and in academia, to declare the Alt-Left a myth, to sweep it back under the rug, to reduce it, in effect, back to being a sickness not spoken of, a problem that has no name. I have had well-meaning friends tell me I should not use the term Alt-Left (or any of its synonyms: Regressive Left, CTRL-Left, SJWism) because they are ‘pejoratives’ used only by the right to attack the left.

In my experience, this is not true. Like canaries in the coal mine, liberals who do not (or no longer) subscribe to the Alt-Left ideology have been sounding the alarm about this creeping plague of repressive groupthink for quite a while now. I believe this attempt to dissuade our use of the term Alt-Left is purposeful (even if not consciously recognized by individuals who are doing it) — for how can we discuss something we cannot refer to by name?

When asked to define Alt-Left, I would describe it as a leftist but illiberal authoritarian ideology rooted in postmodernism and neo-Marxism that supports censorship, condones violence in response to speech, is obsessed with identity politics (much like the Alt-Right), and functions like a secular religion that gives its believers a sense of moral self-worth.

It masquerades as a form of liberalism, but it has more in common with authoritarianism than its true believers can (or want to?) admit. It claims to speak for the marginalized, but it either ignores or attempts to hatefully shame members of marginalized groups who do not subscribe to the ideology.

It is not simply Antifa; it is the ideology that undergirds Antifa, and it has swallowed much of BLM and intersectional third wave feminism. It wishes to swallow the whole of the left, the country, the world. It is rooted in nihilism, resentfulness, and arrogance, though it presents itself as being rooted in equality, justice, and morality. It favors collectivism over individualism, statism over liberty, forced equality of outcome over freedom.

Now…imagine if I had to say that mouthful every time I wished to talk about the Alt-Left because I bought into the notion that to give it a name it would be insulting to fellow liberals. No, to speak of it by name is to out it for what it is and to reduce some of its power.

What’s in a Name?

I can’t tell you how good it felt when I first discovered the work of Dave Rubin, a reasonable liberal, and realized I wasn’t alone in seeing this pernicious belief system for what it really is.

In his video, Rubin offers that it doesn’t matter which term we use, what’s important is that we are allowed to identify the problem. “Whatever name you use for this well-meaning yet painfully misguided set of ideas is largely irrelevant. We needed this phrase to identify this backward ideology which puts groups before people. And sometimes you need a label to get people to understand an idea.”

Reasonable liberal Maajid Nawaz, widely credited with coining the term Regressive Left, also made the following observation last year:

Today’s active, organized left is no longer liberal. A liberal will always prioritize free speech over offense. This behavior, censorship on the organized left, post factual behavior, violence being seen as an option and prioritizing group identity over individual rights. That isn’t liberal.”

Do yourself a favor and watch the whole video:

Yet another reasonable liberal, Tim Pool, points out that one of the few things Politico gets right about the Alt-Left is that it is a term used by centrist liberals. Pool says, “Yes, I use the term Alt-Left because I want to make sure everybody knows when I say I’m left-leaning, I’m not the kind of person that’s gonna go out and punch somebody in the face or take away their rights because I think mine are more important.”

I’m also a liberal who’s been using the term Alt-Left since I first learned to trust that voice within myself, that voice that denies the conventional, accepted Alt-Left “truths” by which I had been living.

The first time I used it in a public piece of writing was back in May while attempting to articulate my transformation in belief systems in an essay called On Leaving the SJW Cult and Finding Myself. The essay itself was a long time coming. I started to wake up to the creeping authoritarianism and endless internal hypocrisies of the accepted Alt-Left ideology over a year ago. But leaving behind a belief system to which you’ve subscribed for twenty years is a bit like razing your house to the ground and rebuilding from the ground up.

Suddenly you are starting with nothing; everything you thought you knew is suspect. It takes a long time to evaluate each previously held belief and try to discern which ones hold substance. Where before my house had foolishly been built on the shifting sands of postmodernism, this time I want to ensure that, as Dr. Jordan Peterson might say, my house is built on rock.

It makes me think of George Lakoff’s “Don’t Think of an Elephant,” my first introduction to the concept of framing. Lackoff said “Frames are mental structures that shape the way we see the world….Neuroscience tells us that each of the concepts we have — the long-term concepts that structure how we think — is instantiated in the synapses of our brains…If a strongly held frame doesn’t fit the facts, the facts will be ignored and the frame will be kept.”

I devoured this book when a young SJW. It helped me understand how people could vote Republican and why my right-wing Aunt didn’t seem to be swayed to my point of view no matter how many facts I threw at her. What I didn’t think too much about was how this human tendency is just as prevalent on the left as it is on the right.

The Frog and the Pot

I am of the opinion that a lot of well-meaning people have become converts to the Alt-Left ideology without even realizing it. Like the parable of the slow boiling frog, if you had told me at the beginning that one day I’d be expected to perform mental gymnastics in order to defend censorship and violence in response to speech, I would have leaped from the pot.

Instead, I was conditioned to accept as gospel each new tenet of SJWism over a period of twenty years. I believed in the essential goodness of the ideology, and in my own essential goodness in preaching it. When facts about the direction it was taking me made themselves known to me, I rejected them because they did not fit the frame. As the ideology became more noticeably toxic, hypocritical, and authoritarian, so too did the tactics of the true believers. Whether in academia, in the media, at Google, or online — the message is clear: dare to step out of line or express an independent thought, and a mob of zealous SJW zombies will come for you. The fear of losing one’s job, status, friends or personal safety is a strong motivator in forcing reasonable people to remain silent.

I have received a lot of positive feedback about the sentiments expressed in my writing about SJWism from people all over the political spectrum. Most meaningful to me of these might be the messages I get from fellow liberals who are going through the same realization, confusion, and fear.

In addition to the public responses you can read yourself, I have received private messages from people in academia, journalism, and entertainment — many of them liberals — expressing that the piece resonated with them and that they were afraid to share it (or presumably in some cases, to express themselves about anything at all). Excerpts from a handful of these are below:

I honestly was scared to tweet that…that’s how bad things have gotten. I’ve nearly lost work…The world has gone mad.”

“I have definitely taken notice of so many of my friends on the left going to a dark place.”

“It is totally wild. These people are my friends — my community….They’re so angry.”

“…your piece on the social justice cult affected me more than words can say. After being called ‘violent’…because I used a word that someone decided was offensive…I had a bit of an existential crisis about my life and self-worth. Thus, I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit… I remain committed to the idea that privilege exists and it should be combated through both self-reflection and system action. I also am a proud liberal, and that hasn’t lessened. That said, I can’t get behind the individual scapegoating, shouting and intimidation in the name of fighting hate, or defining sharing a point of view as “educating” and “labor.” Ultimately, the world needs more compassion….I’m trying to get there on talking and writing about some of this a little more publicly, but I don’t think I’m quite there yet (also, the fact that I’m on the academic job market makes me a bit hesitant).” 

“I saw your posts and they were refreshing. I hate politics but free speech is so important to me….but then I remember I work in TV and Music and I can’t say anything that’s going to make me lose my job. It’s crazy what’s going on right now.”

“Just wanted to let you know I’m one of those people who greatly appreciates your voice on social media, but am too afraid of the thought police to voice my support.”

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

If the Alt-Left doesn’t exist, why are so many liberals and centrists afraid of expressing themselves? Why are so many people self-censoring for their own sense of safety? I was fascinated by the James Damore story, not because I have an opinion on the legality of his dismissal, but because his online stoning and subsequent firing confirmed for me what I already suspected: Google, like most of the tech space, the entertainment space, the academic space and the media space has become a panopticon of Alt-Left groupthink, self-censorship, and fear.

I know this fear intimately. As I started waking up to the illiberal nature of the growing Alt-Left ideology, I held my tongue for a long time out of fear of losing job opportunities, the safety of anonymity, and friends. After all, I built my career, and by proxy a lot of my friendships, from this SJW frame. I don’t judge anyone for subscribing to this ideology out of misplaced idealism and a desire to do good; I did for twenty years. Likewise, I don’t judge anyone who is currently waking up from it but is constrained by fear. As I tell folks who write me about it: I don’t know the exact way to get over it. I suspect it’s different for every person. But trust me when I tell you, it is so liberating on the other side.

For those self-identified liberals who may have been seduced by this belief system, by its propaganda, and are fuming at this piece, thank you for reading this far. I believe a part of you is struggling to wake up if you stuck it out this long. I encourage you to start listening to that small voice inside yourself, the one that tells you when something doesn’t seem quite right or reasonable, no matter if it’s accepted by all of your peers.

Take a look at who was really at the Free Speech Rally in Boston for starters. This, for example, is Shiva Ayyadurai. You may decide you don’t like him because he’s conservative, but to call him a “white supremacist” is a dangerous Alt-Left falsehood.

Take the time to listen to Will Johnson and Joey Gibson, two of the organizers of the Patriot Prayer Rally in SF this past weekend. Their rally was canceled after successful media (and political) attempts to smear them as “white supremacists” caused subsequent threats of violence from the Alt-Left. Ask yourself if it’s not odd that so many so-called liberals are now smearing people of color with whom they don’t agree as “white supremacists” (Charles Barkley is apparently one now too, so Johnson, Gibson, and Ayyadurai are not alone).

Then ask yourself if these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these students, or these students, or these students, or these students are really fighting fascism, or if they are acting as footsoldiers (some witting, some unwitting) for a pro-censorship and pro-violence ideology. These facts may not fit your frame, but — do the actions depicted here reflect your liberal values?

I read a C.S. Lewis quote some time ago, that has stuck with me during my transformation in thought. Perhaps it will stick with you:

“Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, ‘Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,’ or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything — God and our friends and ourselves included — as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.”

Keri Smith

Keri is Co-Founder of Whitesmith Entertainment.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

[americanlibertypac]

Inside the Soros-backed "Alt Left" terrorist movement

Click here to deport George Soros! —

Image credit: World Economic Forum Photo by Sebastian DerungsCC by SA 2.0

When writing this piece, a quote kept rattling around in the back of my head. It was the title of the opening chapter of “The Feminine Mystique,” Betty Friedan’s seminal 1963 feminist manifesto: The Problem That Has No Name. Apologies in advance, for appropriating and altering three of the quotes I find most meaningful from that chapter, for my own purposes here:

The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American liberals…

Even so, most liberals still did not know that this problem was real. But those who had faced it honestly knew that all the media dismissals, the academic justifications, the intellectualized double speak and the manufactured outrage were somehow drowning the problem in unreality…

How can any person see the whole truth within the bounds of one’s own life? How can she believe that voice inside herself, when it denies the conventional, accepted truths by which she has been living? And yet the liberals I have talked to, who are finally listening to that inner voice, seem in some incredible way to be groping through to a truth that has defied the media.”

The Alt-Left Is Real

There is an effort underfoot, in the media and in academia, to declare the Alt-Left a myth, to sweep it back under the rug, to reduce it, in effect, back to being a sickness not spoken of, a problem that has no name. I have had well-meaning friends tell me I should not use the term Alt-Left (or any of its synonyms: Regressive Left, CTRL-Left, SJWism) because they are ‘pejoratives’ used only by the right to attack the left.

In my experience, this is not true. Like canaries in the coal mine, liberals who do not (or no longer) subscribe to the Alt-Left ideology have been sounding the alarm about this creeping plague of repressive groupthink for quite a while now. I believe this attempt to dissuade our use of the term Alt-Left is purposeful (even if not consciously recognized by individuals who are doing it) — for how can we discuss something we cannot refer to by name?

When asked to define Alt-Left, I would describe it as a leftist but illiberal authoritarian ideology rooted in postmodernism and neo-Marxism that supports censorship, condones violence in response to speech, is obsessed with identity politics (much like the Alt-Right), and functions like a secular religion that gives its believers a sense of moral self-worth.

It masquerades as a form of liberalism, but it has more in common with authoritarianism than its true believers can (or want to?) admit. It claims to speak for the marginalized, but it either ignores or attempts to hatefully shame members of marginalized groups who do not subscribe to the ideology.

It is not simply Antifa; it is the ideology that undergirds Antifa, and it has swallowed much of BLM and intersectional third wave feminism. It wishes to swallow the whole of the left, the country, the world. It is rooted in nihilism, resentfulness, and arrogance, though it presents itself as being rooted in equality, justice, and morality. It favors collectivism over individualism, statism over liberty, forced equality of outcome over freedom.

Now…imagine if I had to say that mouthful every time I wished to talk about the Alt-Left because I bought into the notion that to give it a name it would be insulting to fellow liberals. No, to speak of it by name is to out it for what it is and to reduce some of its power.

What’s in a Name?

I can’t tell you how good it felt when I first discovered the work of Dave Rubin, a reasonable liberal, and realized I wasn’t alone in seeing this pernicious belief system for what it really is.

In his video, Rubin offers that it doesn’t matter which term we use, what’s important is that we are allowed to identify the problem. “Whatever name you use for this well-meaning yet painfully misguided set of ideas is largely irrelevant. We needed this phrase to identify this backward ideology which puts groups before people. And sometimes you need a label to get people to understand an idea.”

Reasonable liberal Maajid Nawaz, widely credited with coining the term Regressive Left, also made the following observation last year:

Today’s active, organized left is no longer liberal. A liberal will always prioritize free speech over offense. This behavior, censorship on the organized left, post factual behavior, violence being seen as an option and prioritizing group identity over individual rights. That isn’t liberal.”

Do yourself a favor and watch the whole video:

Yet another reasonable liberal, Tim Pool, points out that one of the few things Politico gets right about the Alt-Left is that it is a term used by centrist liberals. Pool says, “Yes, I use the term Alt-Left because I want to make sure everybody knows when I say I’m left-leaning, I’m not the kind of person that’s gonna go out and punch somebody in the face or take away their rights because I think mine are more important.”

I’m also a liberal who’s been using the term Alt-Left since I first learned to trust that voice within myself, that voice that denies the conventional, accepted Alt-Left “truths” by which I had been living.

The first time I used it in a public piece of writing was back in May while attempting to articulate my transformation in belief systems in an essay called On Leaving the SJW Cult and Finding Myself. The essay itself was a long time coming. I started to wake up to the creeping authoritarianism and endless internal hypocrisies of the accepted Alt-Left ideology over a year ago. But leaving behind a belief system to which you’ve subscribed for twenty years is a bit like razing your house to the ground and rebuilding from the ground up.

Suddenly you are starting with nothing; everything you thought you knew is suspect. It takes a long time to evaluate each previously held belief and try to discern which ones hold substance. Where before my house had foolishly been built on the shifting sands of postmodernism, this time I want to ensure that, as Dr. Jordan Peterson might say, my house is built on rock.

It makes me think of George Lakoff’s “Don’t Think of an Elephant,” my first introduction to the concept of framing. Lackoff said “Frames are mental structures that shape the way we see the world….Neuroscience tells us that each of the concepts we have — the long-term concepts that structure how we think — is instantiated in the synapses of our brains…If a strongly held frame doesn’t fit the facts, the facts will be ignored and the frame will be kept.”

I devoured this book when a young SJW. It helped me understand how people could vote Republican and why my right-wing Aunt didn’t seem to be swayed to my point of view no matter how many facts I threw at her. What I didn’t think too much about was how this human tendency is just as prevalent on the left as it is on the right.

The Frog and the Pot

I am of the opinion that a lot of well-meaning people have become converts to the Alt-Left ideology without even realizing it. Like the parable of the slow boiling frog, if you had told me at the beginning that one day I’d be expected to perform mental gymnastics in order to defend censorship and violence in response to speech, I would have leaped from the pot.

Instead, I was conditioned to accept as gospel each new tenet of SJWism over a period of twenty years. I believed in the essential goodness of the ideology, and in my own essential goodness in preaching it. When facts about the direction it was taking me made themselves known to me, I rejected them because they did not fit the frame. As the ideology became more noticeably toxic, hypocritical, and authoritarian, so too did the tactics of the true believers. Whether in academia, in the media, at Google, or online — the message is clear: dare to step out of line or express an independent thought, and a mob of zealous SJW zombies will come for you. The fear of losing one’s job, status, friends or personal safety is a strong motivator in forcing reasonable people to remain silent.

I have received a lot of positive feedback about the sentiments expressed in my writing about SJWism from people all over the political spectrum. Most meaningful to me of these might be the messages I get from fellow liberals who are going through the same realization, confusion, and fear.

In addition to the public responses you can read yourself, I have received private messages from people in academia, journalism, and entertainment — many of them liberals — expressing that the piece resonated with them and that they were afraid to share it (or presumably in some cases, to express themselves about anything at all). Excerpts from a handful of these are below:

I honestly was scared to tweet that…that’s how bad things have gotten. I’ve nearly lost work…The world has gone mad.”

“I have definitely taken notice of so many of my friends on the left going to a dark place.”

“It is totally wild. These people are my friends — my community….They’re so angry.”

“…your piece on the social justice cult affected me more than words can say. After being called ‘violent’…because I used a word that someone decided was offensive…I had a bit of an existential crisis about my life and self-worth. Thus, I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit… I remain committed to the idea that privilege exists and it should be combated through both self-reflection and system action. I also am a proud liberal, and that hasn’t lessened. That said, I can’t get behind the individual scapegoating, shouting and intimidation in the name of fighting hate, or defining sharing a point of view as “educating” and “labor.” Ultimately, the world needs more compassion….I’m trying to get there on talking and writing about some of this a little more publicly, but I don’t think I’m quite there yet (also, the fact that I’m on the academic job market makes me a bit hesitant).” 

“I saw your posts and they were refreshing. I hate politics but free speech is so important to me….but then I remember I work in TV and Music and I can’t say anything that’s going to make me lose my job. It’s crazy what’s going on right now.”

“Just wanted to let you know I’m one of those people who greatly appreciates your voice on social media, but am too afraid of the thought police to voice my support.”

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

If the Alt-Left doesn’t exist, why are so many liberals and centrists afraid of expressing themselves? Why are so many people self-censoring for their own sense of safety? I was fascinated by the James Damore story, not because I have an opinion on the legality of his dismissal, but because his online stoning and subsequent firing confirmed for me what I already suspected: Google, like most of the tech space, the entertainment space, the academic space and the media space has become a panopticon of Alt-Left groupthink, self-censorship, and fear.

I know this fear intimately. As I started waking up to the illiberal nature of the growing Alt-Left ideology, I held my tongue for a long time out of fear of losing job opportunities, the safety of anonymity, and friends. After all, I built my career, and by proxy a lot of my friendships, from this SJW frame. I don’t judge anyone for subscribing to this ideology out of misplaced idealism and a desire to do good; I did for twenty years. Likewise, I don’t judge anyone who is currently waking up from it but is constrained by fear. As I tell folks who write me about it: I don’t know the exact way to get over it. I suspect it’s different for every person. But trust me when I tell you, it is so liberating on the other side.

For those self-identified liberals who may have been seduced by this belief system, by its propaganda, and are fuming at this piece, thank you for reading this far. I believe a part of you is struggling to wake up if you stuck it out this long. I encourage you to start listening to that small voice inside yourself, the one that tells you when something doesn’t seem quite right or reasonable, no matter if it’s accepted by all of your peers.

Take a look at who was really at the Free Speech Rally in Boston for starters. This, for example, is Shiva Ayyadurai. You may decide you don’t like him because he’s conservative, but to call him a “white supremacist” is a dangerous Alt-Left falsehood.

Take the time to listen to Will Johnson and Joey Gibson, two of the organizers of the Patriot Prayer Rally in SF this past weekend. Their rally was canceled after successful media (and political) attempts to smear them as “white supremacists” caused subsequent threats of violence from the Alt-Left. Ask yourself if it’s not odd that so many so-called liberals are now smearing people of color with whom they don’t agree as “white supremacists” (Charles Barkley is apparently one now too, so Johnson, Gibson, and Ayyadurai are not alone).

Then ask yourself if these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these students, or these students, or these students, or these students are really fighting fascism, or if they are acting as footsoldiers (some witting, some unwitting) for a pro-censorship and pro-violence ideology. These facts may not fit your frame, but — do the actions depicted here reflect your liberal values?

I read a C.S. Lewis quote some time ago, that has stuck with me during my transformation in thought. Perhaps it will stick with you:

“Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, ‘Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,’ or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything — God and our friends and ourselves included — as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.”

Keri Smith

Keri is Co-Founder of Whitesmith Entertainment.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

[fabelgis4680]

Module 4

Weeks 5 & 6

Lenin  The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism - an interesting comparison to liberal science defending the slave wage, interesting to compare to today’s minimum wage. Materialism, capital, labor theory of value, and utopian socialism are all pretty well explained.

first chapter of Lenin’s State and Revolution -  The State as a product of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. Classicism and the divide of working and wealthy. A good touch on power, prisons, and false scientific claims of special bodies that somehow confirmed wrongful ideas. 

Trotsky’s The Transitional Program - prerequisites for a socialist revolution and its inclusion of the working class unified. I want to know more about sliding scales because I have heard of it in terms of today but not thoroughly. Overall this is a good guide and it reestablishes its societal questions answered. 

Proletkult by Bogdanov – Proletarian Culture or working class culture. It rejects pre-revolutionary art which I could disagree with because revolutionaries and art both are timeless. I enjoy the overview of art and revolution as important hand in hand. Art as living images. I can compare this to today’s graphic design as important for change it must be appealing both to the eye and emotion. Creation and labor is brought up as a collective. I think this should be touched on more because he does mention Marxist ideas with labor but I need more information on what collective includes.

Bogdanov and Tektology pp. 1-36; 63-79: - Tektology was to be theoretically and scientifically useful. I think in class it was discussed the relationships between Marx / Bogdanov / Stalin to tektology but I am curious on other discourses that were agreed or disagreed on between them. Marx thought tektology discouraged his philosophy and Stalin had it almost forgotten because of WWII. I can see the how organizational methods could go in hand with Marxian community organization. He talks about isolation of the worker, labor embracing physical and mental exhaust like a machine, labor dependent on time, machine technology. Tektology as social biological and physical should be revolutionary. I enjoyed the aspects on astrology and time.

Bogdanov’s essays and Bukharin’s memorial for Bogdanov in the Molecular Red – Some contradictions in the essays have me a little, conflicted. A point I have to bring up would be comparing the astronomer to Marx, explaining points of view, the astronomer explained Earth’s point of view being one of many planets circling the sun, it is proved and agreed on. Other examples being the conservation of energy or Darwin’s theories also proved in History. Marx explains the point of the worker being estranged and exploited, yet under capitalism it continues. Was that point of view agreed on and willingly continued or have there been waves of realization and retaliation / revolution? Costs of labor rising from the workers’ demands for better wages could be an example of the retaliation being coddled for some but still not all fully aware of their power.

Molecular Red Preface and ch 1 – Metabolic rift is a term I have not heard of before, but labor and technique leading to the destruction of natural resources is something I have. I wonder if climate change deniers are aware of the carbon liberation front. Poverty of options has a great explanation, “Economic, technical, political, and cultural transformations are all advisable, but at least part of the problem is their relation to each other”.  Functional dependency, could it be scientifically compared to today’s oil industry? There seems to be no intent to change it or abandon it even though it is not needed.

“A Dialectic Approach to Film Form” & “Methods of Montage” in Eisenstein’s collection of essays Film Form – I loved this reading because of my new-found appreciation of film / cinematography. Finding the conflicts in art with social missions, nature, and its methodology can be applicable to all art including film. The importance of spatial form, tension, and rhythm. Film shots and montages as dramatic or epic principles. Linear or anecdotal. Metric /measures or rhythmic montages like the Odessa steps.

Roger Corman analyzing the famous Odessa Steps sequence of Eisenstein’s The Battleship Potemkin – with great sequence of movement and editing techniques for this montage I was left a little confused for the silent film / black and white made some things a little hard to read. Were the soldiers in the crowd shooting in revolution or retaliation? Revolution being the massacre being done for change, or retaliation to the soldiers who were not obliging to maintain power? Was it the soldiers who were going against the powers on the boat or the soldiers who were remaining complicit? The analysis well explains how it was a successful montage though cuts of different shots going back and forth in a linear pattern showing the passing of time in its chaotic manor.

The battle of potempkin study guide is an overall good critical set of questions to evaluate that are not just related to the film but to other analysis’ that need reflection, example being the world map of the 1920s.

How Battle of Potempkin reshaped Hollywood – Thinking about all of the films I have seen or know about that use montage schemes similar to the battle of Potempkin. How film uses fear and emotion in its art form to convey messages. How camera angles can be changed to get different points of view. Being a first for action drama. Conveying tension even with no dialogue or color still was achieved in what some movies today trouble to do even with actual screams, sounds, and colors that can depict chaos or violence.

Chapter 2 Molecular Red – Platonov being the son of Proletkult and proletarian writing. Mentioning historical allegory of revolution, everyday qualities of history, and a new tektology in the proletariat narrative. Pulling off what Bogdanov suggested. Fourteen Little Red Huts is mentioned but I would want some more background on this, maybe an interpretation / explanation source.

Antisexus – Very interesting. Very versatile names in the reviews (Ghandi / Mussolini). The sex-gender industrial complex is … complex. I look back on this quote for help, “We cannot  overlook  the exceptional  literary  talent of  the  author of  this brochure, just as we have to acknowledge the imperial cynicism, serviceable pornography,  and terrible  banality  of this  business  essay, the  size  of which makes it really sad”

The Third Son by Platonov – was a nice story. A little heartfelt. Pulled at the heart strings but I was trying to find the comparisons which may have been easily misinterpreted. I think the story can be interpreted in many ways depending on the narrative. Examples being the mother representing the working, the young daughter of one of the sons representing the future of scared, the sons sad, unaware, and unable to think of nothing but the sad until small spurs of family rejoice. I may need some help connecting dots because I know there are deeper meanings.

Arthur de Gobineau’s Inequality of the Human Races – “RACIAL INEQUALITY IS NOT THE RESULT OF INSTITUTIONS” Nice of it too all be in capitals. “when we consider the isolation of primitive tribes and communities” this is hard to read, but at least you warned us. “I do not flatter myself that I shall be able to enjoy this inconsistency without opposition” damn right.

Fichte’s “Address to the German Nation” – This states x people should stay with x people. Boundaries are complicit with “nature”.  “Christian Europe, I say, has split itself into various separate parts. Since that event, and not before, there has been a booty in sight which anyone might seize; and each one lusted after it in the same way, because all were able to make use of it in the same way; and each one was envious on seeing it in the hands of another.” ????

Adolf Hitler “First Letter on the Jewry” – Antisemitism is given the chance to not only be emotional politics but “factual” politics. Nationalism giving focus to materialism. The term “irresponsible press” can be compared to today’s presidency and the mistrust and mistreatment to the press / media.

Adolf Hitler & Anton Dexler, “Program for the German Workers Party”-  Stating “Only members of the nation may be citizens of the State.” Nationalism / white supremacy and antisemitism stating no jews allowed as members of the nation. The term alien is used which is perpetuated to this day.

Joseph Goebbels, “Speech at Nuremburg, 1934″ - Calling nazi propaganda as background music for government policy. Big on propaganda. “Political propaganda in principle is active and revolutionary.” True but can be taken good or bad. ‘The organizational union of mass demonstrations, the press, film, radio, literature, theater, etc., is only the mechanical side to the matter. It is not so much that all these means are in one hand. The important thing is that this hand knows how to master and control them.” Control of the media / the press, gives leeway to visual politics in the wrong hands.

Benito Mussolini, “What is Fascism?” – fascism as an opposite to Marxian socialism. Believes in holiness and heroism. “Men as no more then puppets” “the myth of "happiness" and indefinite progress” expansion of the nation, imperialism,

Benito Mussolini, “The Doctrine of Fascism” – “By exploiting general fears of labor unrest and communism, Mussolini gained his followers among war veterans and the middle class” exploiting fear is a recognizable pillar. Fascism as a system of government and a system of thought like a religion. Fascism “takes over all the forms of the moral and intellectual life of man” The fascist Decalogue / commandments is outrageous, dystopian, dry of critical thinking, and it is a conditioned narrative that is fearful in its ideas of power.

[omcik-blog]

New Post has been published on OmCik

New Post has been published on http://omcik.com/what-worries-investing-guru-jack-bogle-right-now/

What worries investing guru Jack Bogle right now

Investment legend John “Jack” Bogle is worried about President Trump’s policies and the massive surge in the stock market.

“I don’t feel super confident in the stock market. By any historical standards, it’s pretty fully valued,” the 87-year-old founder of Vanguard told CNNMoney in a phone call.

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Bogle isn’t calling it a bubble yet, but he think stocks are clearly expensive. His view is in stark contrast to another famous investor, Warren Buffett, who recently dubbed the market “cheap.”

Bogle says: “I don’t think it’s a bubble. I think it’s a significant high valuation, but not a bubble.”

He warns that returns in the next decade are likely to be very disappointing (think under 5% a year, instead of the 10% a year historical average).

Still, Bogle doesn’t advise pulling your money out. It’s too difficult to time the market. History has shown those who stay in, win. His own portfolio remains 50% in stocks (Vanguard funds, of course) and 50% in bonds.

Related: Trump adviser Carl Icahn is betting against the Trump rally

Bogle’s concerns about Trump

Last month, Buffett called Bogle a “hero” of the investing world. But Bogle thinks about a lot more than stocks. These days, he’s warning that some of Trump’s policies are “bad for society” — and the economy.

Bogle disagrees with Trump on restricting trade and immigration, and he is alarmed by the hate crimes and growing inequality in America.

“We’re all children of immigrants. Open immigration is good for the economy,” he says. “I don’t mean just open the doors and let floodgates in. I do think discipline is required, but I don’t think it should be based on religion.”

He’s calling on politicians to do something about inequality. His own life’s mission has been to help “Wall Street get less, and Main Street get more.”

Below are key takeaways from the Bogle interview. Read the full interivew here for more insights. Vanguard is now the second-largest investment manager in the world (behind only BlackRock). It manages $3.5 trillion worth of people’s money.

Related: Trump’s economic boom: 3 red flags

Bogle’s take on the world

John “Jack” Bogle founded Vanguard in the 1970s.

On how to invest: “Own American business and hold them forever at the lowest cost you can possibly hold at. It’s an extraordinarily simple strategy and the mathematics are enduring.”

On growth: “The economy will have difficulty growing more than 2.5% this year.” (Trump has promised 4% growth).

On daily market moves: “I couldn’t care less about what the market did today. If you’re a long-term investor, your one big bet is that GDP will be significantly larger in 2027 than it is today. And that’s that.”

On stock prices: “I use a price- earnings (PE) multiple — a good indicator of value, although it’s not perfect. I get it up to 26x earnings. That’s way on the high side. Long run, the norm is more like 16x earnings or 17x earnings.”

On inequality: “Anything that increases the gap between rich and poor is bad for our society. It’s bad for our society and bad for our economy and stock market.”

On trade: “Anything that puts impediments to free international trade is also bad for our society and bad for our economy.”

On being called a “hero”: “I don’t consider myself a hero, but maybe, just maybe, it may take a hero [like Buffett] to know a hero. The remark has gotten a lot of attention. Nobody has written me to say I’m a jerk.”

On Social Security: “I’m convinced Social Security has been — and will continue to be — a good investment.”

On investing in index funds: “Indexing is not Marxism again, as some claim. If you’re on Wall Street, you don’t like the idea of indexing. But when grandma comes to you and says, “You’re a stock broker, what do I do with my money?: You say: Put it in an index fund.”

On why he only invests in U.S. stocks and bonds: “I’m a great believer in the U.S. Since 1993, the S&P 500 has gone up about 800%. The MSCI EAFE index of international stocks has gone up around 280%. I’m in no position to say whether the same thing will happen in the future or not. But I don’t mind betting on U.S. Half of revenues and profits of U.S. companies come from abroad anyway. I’m not some island of ‘American first’ at all.”

On the BIG risks: “If there’s a nuclear war, it won’t matter whether you own stocks or bonds.”

CNNMoney (New York) First published March 8, 2017: 12:32 PM ET

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