Should we wait for the revolution?
How can freedom have a future when we are made to desire our own slavery, subjection and dependence?
How can we oppose a global capitalist machine while the human race is still enslaved to it?
I’ll try to motivate this question with a quote from billionaire George Soros:
Do you agree? And if Soros is right, what do we do about it?
You’re arguing from the standpoint that it is impossible to live outside of the capitalist system, why do you feel that way?
Do you know that other than man, ants are the only other creatures to own slaves or herd beasts, that we know of. Interesting is it not?
Do you know the difference between us and ants? We are sentient. We may be slaves for a while but, eventually we become the masters. It sounds trite compared to all the flowerey words that the most educated can put forth, but, even the weed has flowers. We hit cycles of slavery and independence.No big shock there we have been doing it since man fell into tribes. You are what you fight to be.
Enjoyable post.
Cultural revolution precedes political/economic revolution. If we challenge people’s preconceptions about the system that they desire then they might stop desiring it in sufficient numbers for the big revolution to take place.
Because capitalism is an arrogant political system that actually provides its slaves with the means of their own liberation. After all, if 100 million armed people marched on the White House, there’s not much they could do to stop them…
I don’t agree entirely, and calling anything ‘inhuman’ doesn’t make much sense to me, particularly a human-made political economic system. But yes, applying a given limited criterion to the multitudinous paradigm that is human behaviour will tend to produce people enslaved to that criterion. Put more simply, you can use politics to change how people think of themselves and how they behave.
Ever seen ‘The Trap’, a three part doc. series by Adam Curtis? It has its flaws but it’s nonetheless an expansive and interesting set of films.
That was a trick.
For example, a skirt is not female.
Symbols can be made of lies and their actual meaning is either non-existent or the opposite, also. And so, good tasting foods could have poison in them, as another example of this.
The desire for slavery, subjection and dependence is part of a large and complex, devious process, impure and bazaar.
Example:
A trap which is a cage, a locking spring-loaded door, and food inside.
The hungry animal runs in, then is trapped and kept as a pet or killed for fur/meat. The hungry animal wanted the food, and nothing else.
Humans desire freedom, but the modern breed of humans would prefer a trapped life to a free death. Your mom would choose prison instead of execution if she had to choose between the two. Same with civilization and the parasites on top of it. People don’t want to be enslaved but they want even less to be killed, so there.
If I remember right, it was either you or futureman who said democracy is a form of goverment which depends on the control of the media. It was probably futureman who said it.
People will not march armed, in a group of 100 million, unless they are first properly organized via mass-media. So, to prevent revolt, prevent organization of a revolt. That is how it is. And to prevent change, they prevent the proper organization of change. So, “democracy” is controlled by mass-media control.
I don’t recall ever saying such a thing.
I was talking hypothetically.
So seize control of the means of transmission and dissemination of data. The point being that the kind of freedom we have under capitalism (essentially the choice to buy or not to buy and the capacity to have stupid opinions without being institutionally reprimanded for them) actually allows us some leeway - 90% of talk radio and the internet is bollocks, as I’m sure you are aware. But about 5% of it is absolute gold.
“How can freedom have a future when we are made to desire our own slavery, subjection and dependence?”
Because for a lot of people those conditions are comforting within the modern setting. The removal of responsability and of decision-making is highly desireable in a society that prizes liability as one of it’s chief decision-makers. If you remove all responsability from a person, are they not free based on their own slavery?
“How can we oppose a global capitalist machine while the human race is still enslaved to it?”
With communism? If you are opposed to capitalism then you should take a closed reading of the manifesto, it might euclidate some feelings for you. Granted I think we missed the boat towards a revolution, I don’t think there is any reason to believe a socialist control on capitalism cannot make everyone happy.
“The market is a hard task master: It does not allow either self-indulgence or consideration for others. What others think of you matters, but the results–measured by an objective criterion, money–matters more. Having an objective criterion encourages objective performance. That is what makes financial markets so efficient: they turn people into profit-making machines. That has its merits, but a society dominated by financial markets could easily become inhuman. This is not a flight of fancy but a present danger.”
I am just thinking back to people who would farm 7 days a week for 14 hours… for 8 months a year… and not even get paid for it. In this market the encouragement is performance, allowing performance to be measured and paid accordingly. It seems as if this has a very negative view of people within the market, while the market strives for paraeto optimality the people within the market strive towards their own goals. Some are very conscious of others, others are terrible self-indulgant (Bill Gates owns part of Lake Washington for no other reason than to own part of Lake Washington).
I think freedom is an illusion in any system, either there is too much control and freedom is clearly trumped or there is a lack of control in which case freedoms are often conflicted with other’s presumed freedoms. The capitalist system at least offers a means by which a person can be personally free within the system, at the bare minimum.
Keep it up, Joe.
What’s that Plato quote again, that the world will not move forward until we’re ruled by philosopher kings? Something like that?
Even for those of us that want to remain strictly scientiffic are having problems with capitalism. Money has no scientiffic basis or measure. It has no accurate account of the resources that we actually have. Money is the whim of every random human desire. And that random unsophisticated measure is the true ruler of the modern world. As we tell ourselves “it’s out of my hands now” we admit that we are being ruled by a mechanism of principal, trend- rather than by anyone’s desires- person, god, philosophy, anything.
Capitalism is not the answer (we don’t compete fairly). Communism is not the answer (we’re not equal). Anarchism isn’t the answer (we don’t respect each other). Democracy is an inefficient tool because the motive isn’t there to make smart choices. Humanity grieves because it cannot contend with itself. We are survival machines. Not fairness machines. We must design our rulers, not elect them.
If you’d be so kind as to take the time, I think you’ll enjoy the essay I just posted in the, “Essays and Thesis,” section.