Flickr : Thomas Duchnicki
I love the Beatles. Any difference in opinion between I and their lyrics is not something that will make me love them any less. Still it’s interesting (and I suppose expected) just how much the song “Revolution” reflects the what I consider both the misguided ideals of the 60’s as well as the misguided ideals of most of the socialist groups of the 60’s.
The song “Revolution” reflects the very Buddhist idea that if we simply alter our own consciousness, we can change the world. This is a beautiful sentiment, but its success is based on the idea that everyone who comes in contact with that idea will want to be a part of it and will also agree with one another on just what being fully conscious means when it comes to improving the world.
Interestingly, although the 60’s was a very love-your-neighbor and unify kind of time, it was also the beginning of corporate individualism’s stranglehold on America, when buying things that made you unique (rather than seeking acceptance by following the herd, which was more the 50’s and before angle) really took hold.
This Buddhist take on change is very individualist and as we know, the problem with extreme individualism is that it can lead to a heavier emphasis on personal responsibility and blaming the victim than considering what environmental or institutional circumstances may be causing a given problem.
The misguided ideals of the socialists of the time were perhaps understandable, as the only purported socialist states revolutionaries had to look to at the time were Mao and Stalin, which is why we have groups like Revolution (of Revolution Books) who look to those two as examples of genuine socialism. I’m with the Beatles on this point, that “if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow”. Perhaps if they were carrying pictures of Marx and Lenin, they would have been a bit better off.
Paul Gauguin's "D'où venons-nous? / Qui sommes-nous? / Où allons-nous?", 1897
I love Chris Harman’s book, A People’s History of the World, and I want to have his socialist babies. No kidding, and I’m only on chapter 5.
Chris Harman disagrees with, “the idea that the key features of successive societies and human history have been a result of an ‘unchanging’ human nature.” I’m turned on already. He continues,
“It is a prejudice that pervades academic writing, mainstream journalism and popular culture alike. Human beings, we are told, have always been greedy, competitive and aggressive, and that explains horrors like war, exploitation, slavery and the oppression of women. This ‘caveman’ image is meant to explain the bloodletting on the Western Front in one world war and the Holocaust in the other. I argue very differently. ‘Human nature’ as we know it today is a product of our history, not its cause.”
Harman also explains his disagreement with the idea that, “although human society may have changed in the past, it will do so no more” and that, as Anthony Giddens claimed, we live in a world “where there are no alternatives to capitalism”. Harman argues,
“Capitalism as a way of organizing the whole production of a country is barely three or four centuries old. As a way or organizing the whole production of the world, it is at most 150 years old… Yet humans of one sort of another have been on earth for over a million years, and modern humans for over 100,000 years. It would be remarkable indeed if a way of running things that has existed for less than 0.5 percent of our species’ lifespan were to endure for the rest of it.”
So in short, Harman believes in the power of our environment to effect the way we think and act, and because that environment is constantly changing, so too can and will societal structures, culture and how people think and act.
This is an argument exemplifying the ideas of historical and dialectical materialism, philosophies popularized by Karl Marx. These ideas basically state that a society’s means of production determine the material conditions of society, and the material conditions of society, which are constantly changing, determine future changes to that society and to its people. Basically. What surprises people is usually the first half, so lemme ’splain.
“A society’s means of production determine the material conditions of society.” Lets take a simpler model than what we have currently. Hunter-gatherer societies were largely nomadic and subsisted on the food that they could gather or kill. Because the gathering half was fully compatible with raising children, women were largely responsible for this, and because gathering was the main source of subsistence, women’s contribution to society was considered equal to that of men. This exemplifies the means of production influencing perspectives on sex and gender.
Another example would be environmental changes necessitating a more reliable source of food, and this necessity begot agriculture. Eventually agriculture and sedentary communities led to a food surplus. Those who managed the surplus eventually became the first ruling class, because they had the power to give or withhold subsistence in times of drought or natural disaster. Eventually these people were looked to as priests or even gods. This is an example of the environment affecting the means of production which in turn affected social relations and beliefs.
In any case, these arguments say very little about our actual nature - what we’ve inherited biologically. What shocks me is that this still seems to be a gray area in terms of theory vs fact. Most people seem to be fairly solid on the idea that we have biological predispositions: we came this far because of our inherent ability to cooperate and be social, and because of our ability to adapt due to neuroplasticity. Other ideas such as heterosexual men like hairless women because they look like prepubescent girls which means they’re stronger and more fertile or something. Are these all theories at this point?
This is obviously the part of the post that I didn’t spend hours, days or weeks researching. I did read a few books. What’s confusing me right now is that I hear from one camp that we now know how very much our genes affect us, and from another camp that all we know about genes is that there are a couple for certain diseases and one for ear hair. This is a perfect example of the uninformed populace - no wonder we’re confused. If anyone has any insight into this side of things, please do comment.
The only conclusion I’ve been able to come to so far is the idea that we come with some predispositions, some different between individuals, but because we are biologically programmed to adapt, we are therefore impacted a great deal by our environment, and our predispositions can be shifted or overwritten. If this were not the case, I would not be an activist. Learn more about this in Gerald Huther’s book, The Compassionate Brain: How Empathy Creates Intelligence.
Lastly is the idea of “cultural evolution” or “cultural software” as Mark Pesce explained it in his great talk, “Hyperpolitics” from the Personal Democracy Forum 2008. Pesce describes what is called “the sapient paradox” (not worth much on Google, sadly), which explores the question that if the human genome has remained pretty much the same since 60,000 years ago, why didn’t we build New York City or invent the internet sooner? We’ve only lived in sedentary cities for roughly 5,000 years and we’ve only just begun to develop digital technology in the past hundred years, so if we had the “toolset” then, what happened to those 55,000 years in between?
Marc Pesce and others point to advances in communication as one kind of conductor of culture (duh, perhaps). A more intense level of trade occured after cities began springing up, Roman imperialism likely spread ideas and connected divergent cultures in a new way, Gutenberg’s printing press helped to spread knowledge faster than ever, and recent capitalist globalization likely had a similar effect. To go back to the Marxist perspective, these things didn’t just happen when they happened, they happened because of material changes in the mode of production and therefore in the organization of society. That and a host of details all collaborating to create an idea or event.
What’s really interesting about change today is that technological advancements are exponential. In addition, as Pesce explains in his talk, we are all hyperconnected, which means that ideas also spread faster than they ever have before. I believe this is creating the potential for a change in social relations. Pesce says, “A hyperconnected polity… has resources at its disposal which exponentially amplify its capabilities. Hyperconnectivity begets hypermimesis begets hyperempowerment.”
If we put all of my above babble together, we must begin to ask ourselves, “so what’s next?” Technological and cultural change are happening now faster than ever in human history. Capitalism has only been around for 0.5% of that time. The requirements for humanity to subsist will impact the means of production which will in turn effect our social organization and culture. Humans succeeded up till now because of their ability to cooperate and adapt.
I think it would be pretty conceited at this point to assert that we’ve figured it all out and that the way things are now is the be all end all of human history. I think change is coming, and it’s coming fast. What it will be, I don’t know, but I have a few ideas.
by agitprop on Flickr
Lawrence Lessig, open source and political hero to many, including me, has recently responded to Kevin Kelley’s article “The New Socialism“, to which I also recently responded. Lessig, of Change Congress and Creative Commons, is pretty much da bomb so I was pretty jazzed to be introduced to his blog, let alone be able to comment on it. I was however, surprised (although I probably shouldn’t be), that someone so willing to challenge the way capitalism and our government works today, holds the same McCarthyist perspectives about socialism as most uncritical people do.
Now, I could be being totally unfair about this. He said he studied this stuff thoroughly, and I know other Philosophy students who think socialism is idiotic, but I have to wonder what their teachers thought. Similarly, I’m fairly sure I had a Marxist as my sociology teacher, so perhaps that influenced my thinking as well. In addition, being around the International Socialist Organization long enough to feel pretty confident in my understanding of their perspectives, makes me an insider, and these other examples outsiders. Some would say that distorts my perspective, some would say it makes it clearer. At least I can say I know what Marxist socialists actually want. It’s not Stalinism.
Anyway. I responded. Here is the response (more for posterity’s sake than interest):
I think it’s SO AWESOME that you’re writing about this, because I’m a huge fan and I think you’re doing a lot of great things. Thanks for the whole package. On the other hand, I have to say, as I did with Kelley, that I both agree and disagree with your thoughts.
I wrote a pretty thorough blog post replying to Kelley’s article, called “The New Socialism Looks Suspiciously Like The Old Socialism“.
But I’d like to respond to your particular ideas as well. As with Kelley, I think that you’ve misinterpreted (and most people do, thanks to Stalin, Mao, Castro and McCarthyism) the intention and original definition of socialism. Your assertions that socialism is “a system enforced by law, and enforced contrary to the way individuals would freely choose autonomously to associate” and that “voluntary socialism” is essentially an oxymoron indicate that you and I have very different definitions of socialism.
The “socialist/communist” states under Stalin and Mao were horrifying regimes run by dictators - they were state capitalist, not socialist. Dictators in the last century have made a bad habit of claiming to be socialist in order to garner support. So we can throw those societies away as examples of socialism.
Of the many types of people that consider themselves socialist today, I would consider myself first and foremost a Marxist. Marxist socialism, by definition, requires the will of the people even to exist - he believed that true socialism cannot exist without a bottom-up revolution (not top-down as in the case of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro’s Cuba). The purpose of socialism is to put the needs of people before the desire for profit by putting the people in power. Many successful but short-lived socialist societies in history organized like the Russians did in 1917, into “soviets” or committees from the local to national level.
Personally this sounds like a pretty great way to “choose autonomously to associate” to me. I would more likely choose a system in which I had a lot of involvement in my community and in figuring out how society could best meet the needs of people rather than live in a system where the wealthy and powerful generally decide how everything works for us. But that’s just me.
So I disagree Mr Lessig, with your assertion that social software should not be called “socialist” because social software is not inherently coercive.
I do agree however that it’s inappropriate to call some of these endeavors “socialist” because they are inherently capitalist. In my blog post, I distinguish between not-for-profit open source projects and social platforms like facebook and flickr, because in the latter case, a minority at the top still stands to benefit greatly from the efforts of the majority at the bottom. I would argue though, that the business model of social software is even more successful than most capitalist businesses - because the workers do the labor for free!
In conclusion, I REALLY appreciate hearing you touch upon this subject. However, I also wish people would look more deeply into the history of socialism (especially now that everyone is talking about it again), and the perspectives of people who actually consider themselves Marxist socialists (I would recommend Socialist Worker). It is admittedly, a very hard task because, like the term “feminist”, there are so many different definitions, and a history that continually clashes with mainstream ideas.
I would like to emphasize that I understand Lessig is worlds smarter than I am, but it’s clear that he hasn’t done his homework on the subject when it comes to NON-mainstream definitions of socialism. Lessig emphasizes that the main definining characteristic of socialism is coersion. He states, “all of the examples of proper ’socialism’ begin with pointing to coercion by the state.” Actually, all of the examples of IMproper socialism begin with coercion by the state. In a true socialist society, there is no state. The people are the government, every one of us participates. So you have to ask, if people are being coerced by the government, who is the government?
Only this year did I learn about the keffiyeh scarf being used as a symbol of solidarity with Palestine, pretty much the same time I finally made an effort to understand the Israeli-Palestinian “conflict” (my previous posting on this is perhaps a bit immature - my stances have changed after a lot of research and I’ll make a point to write something new about that soon).
The next thing I heard about the keffiyeh is that Urban Outfitters was selling it - something that seemed like a butchering of a cultural symbol at first. Apparently they had to remove it from their shelves because of complaints of an anti-Palestinian nature.
Recently I saw brightly colored scarves VERY similar to keffiyehs at Hot Topic (seriously haven’t been in there in 7 years or something), and laughed.
I thought to myself, “This is hilarious. America, by nature of its foreign policy being a VERY pro Israeli country, has mainstream stores selling scarves that unwittingly position the wearer to look like they have a pro-Palestinian political perspective”. And I’ve definitely run into people with these scarves and asked politely if they’re wearing them for a purpose or not - everyone I asked that wasn’t at a protest had no clue what was up and regretted buying and wearing the thing for all the attention they’d get.
So I found that totally hilarious and ironic.
I still find it funny, although reading the Wikipedia article about keffiyehs makes it clear to me that cultural symbols can be reinterpreted, mangled, taken up, reinvented, and go through so many transformations besides those that I’ve encountered. It’s actually pretty fascinating. So read up on your keffiyeh:
by BinaryApe (Flickr)
Through a mention by Nancy Scola via TechPresident, I found a really awesome article on Wired today called “The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online” by Kevin Kelly. This response is first to the Nancy Scola and then to Kevin Kelly.
I personally have been making similar assertions to Kelly’s, however there are a lot of points on which I disagree with him.
Before getting into that, I have to say that I feel the statement by Scola that these new social technologies are “manifestations of ‘an emerging collectivism’ akin to a Stalinistic vision” is quite inaccurate. Many people have a skewed understanding of the definition of socialism, because of distortions from within (Stalin) and without (McCarthyism) the movement. Stalin was a tyrannical dictator claiming to run a socialist society, but Stalin’s Russia was NOT socialist (ie: fully worker-run), it was state capitalist.
This is why I feel that Kelly’s assertion that there is a “new socialism” which is no longer characterized by “authority centralized among elite officials, limited resources dispensed by the state, forced labor in government factories, government- controlled information and harsh penalties for criticizing leaders” is completely inaccurate. Kelly’s list of characteristics of the “old socialism” constitute everything that socialism should NOT be.
The vision of Marx and other Marxist theorists is a society where everyone participates in making decisions about how society is run, where our vast resources are used to offer a comfortable lifestyle to everyone, where every able body participates in laboring for only as many hours as it takes to produce what we need and want, where people have more free time to do things like create art or start up their own free-speech newspapers, and where leaders who were elected by the public can be immediately recalled by the public if their actions are disapproved of.
Because of this, I feel that the “New Socialism” that Kelly is talking about is basically the same as the intended vision of the “Old Socialism”. Unfortunately that got tarnished by a bunch of mass murdering dictators who used Marxist rhetoric to garner support from the public.
I do agree that some of these new technologies have very socialist characteristics, however I think it’s important to distinguish between projects that are fully participant run (such as most open source ventures) and in which all the participants share equally in the benefits, and projects where a minority (those who designed and own the site) can still benefit financially from the efforts of the participants. They participants do, of course, benefit from their “volunteer” efforts, but in a completely different way than those getting investment or advertising dollars. From my perspective, this latter type of venture is just a more effective Capitalist business in which the laborers work for free.
On the other hand, I think all of these technologies say something about the potential for socialist organization of society offline. Kelly asserts that participants in social technologies do so for “credit, status, reputation, enjoyment, satisfaction, and experience”, and I think this is a kind of proof that people will make an effort doing something they really love without the promise of unnecessary amounts of wealth. I don’t believe that all doctors are just in it for the money.
Kelly also says that many people participate in open source projects because it’s practical: “The major reason for working on free stuff is to improve my own damn software.” Progress IS practical, and I believe that if the promise of profit wasn’t a barrier to getting things done, that we could successfully progress as a species based on the passion, creativity and collaboration of people everywhere.
It’s my own personal nerdism, but I also love fantasizing about how these social technologies could actually help a future socialist society. Imagine a web app that emailed you to tell you that votes were coming up for neighborhood, state and national decisions that matched the tags you had given - “public parks budget, garbage pickup, endangered species, food labeling, fashion production, K-12 education”. Yum, efficient involvement! That of course, is just an example, since there really is no solid blueprint for a socialist society. I wonder what we could come up with if we put our heads together about that?
I think Kelly is really on to something here. We should pay attention to what works, what doesn’t, why, and what it says about people and societal organization.
Lastly, I wouldn’t use the word “socialism” to label any gains we may make under capitalism, because socialism is not defined by how much control the government has over the economy or society, but by how much control the people have over the government.
Photo/stencil by clagnut (on Flickr)
Recently my building was burglarized. Days later, there was a drive-by shooting down the street. The reason this is interesting is because this community is fairly low-key most of the year, and the large majority of residents are families with children and the elderly. Yet because it’s a beach community, it draws a great deal of tourists once it starts getting warm - all kinds of people, European visitors, students, joggers, other families, and a wide range of generic hoodlums.
The response to the burglary was to set up a “neighborhood watch”, which sounds a bit like a witch hunt to me, but is an understandable reaction. I’m glad there’s a community response at all. The response to the shooting is quite a bit scarier to me and perhaps more life-threatening than the boy who held the gun.
Looking at community responses to the West Seattle Blog (great example of citizen journalism!) and The Stranger’s blog, I see a lot of angry people who are looking for someone (or some thing) to blame, and are looking for a solution. This is great. What bothers me is that most people are coming to the conclusion that gangs and guns are to blame and more police and community reaction are the solution.
5 years ago, I probably would have gravitated towards these direct answers too, but I’ve learned a great deal about just how people are shaped by their environment, and I understand that to really solve a problem you have to identify and tackle the root cause, rather than simply applying a short-term bandaid.
There’s a push by some community members to “show these people that they’re not wanted” here, and someone has even suggested a protest. I can see it now. Group of 20 middle aged white folks holding signs that say “gangstas go home” and hoping not to even actually solve the problem, just to keep it at arm’s length. It’s the gated community mindset.
Political tactics have been a topic of discussion around me lately, and there are few grassroots groups that seem to have any that make sense. Immigrants Rights activists who are homophobic, Anarchists who isolate themselves and engage in seemingly useless acts of teen angst, and progressive organizations that go door-to-door asking for money, but don’t try to get the community engaged in meaningful action.
What does make sense to me is an understanding that all issues are linked. Homlessness is a women’s issue, immigration reform is an LGBTQ issue, building new jails is an education issue, war is a community concern. Together, we are greater than the sum of our parts.
What also makes sense to me is the Marxist perspective that the majority of people have one thing in common - our class - and most of our problems stem from the unfair balance of power between the wealthy and the rest of us. This shouldn’t be “The People vs The Gangs of Seattle”, but about ending the situations that create gangs in the first place: poverty, lack of education, expensive health care, lack of resources, institutionalized racism. The situation as it is benefits the ruling class (a less educated populace means lots of people ready to fill jobs that don’t pay well, privatized health care means money in the pockets of the people at the top, and institutionalized racism keeps us fighting amongst ourselves instead of looking beyond to the real problem). These things I believe.
I hope the comments I and some others made on these blogs get some people to think more critically about the situation, but I understand if “tackle the root of the problem” is a bit intimidating to most people. It’s still intimidating to me, even with a long-term Marxist perspective.
It may be the case that the only short-term solution really is to increase the police presence, although there may be some more creative solutions that someone smarter than me could think of. I think there are some middle-ground solutions such as increasing social programs in the places where these kids actually live and petitioning MTV to stop representing all black male teens as thugs. The kicker is of course, that I don’t believe any of this will stop the sources of gang violence. I think we need free, quality education for all, free, quality health care for all, fair and diverse representations of human beings in the media and entertainment industries, more social services focused on emotional intelligence and social emotional learning from an early age, the eradication of institutionalized racism and other prejudices, the eradication of homelessness and poverty, and a whole host of other things. Not exactly an easy task.
So where can we start? Engage in short-term activism with a long-term perspective. Participate in a food kitchen or find a Burrito Project, but talk to people about the system that creates homelessness. Join the two movements that have made the connection to school closures and the building of a new jail (in Seattle). Join a movement with a broader perspective than simply kissing up to the Democratic Party (”the graveyard of social movements”).
Get over the urge to simply blame people for not having a sense of “personal responsibility”. Ask what situations may have created this person, what the root causes are, and how we can tackle the institutions that create them. Go for small, local victories and keep a broad perspective.
And through this, I may be ignorant about some things as well. The idea of gangs may just be an easy label to place blame, and distracts us from the truth that these are just youths with no options. Perhaps this wasn’t even gang-related. Many etceteras. Sometimes I have to try to think outside of the box too, and I understand it’s often impossible to do so without someone handing you a piece of the puzzle. I suggest research, research, research.
I’ve probably talked a lot about this before, since it’s been driving me nuts lately, but I try to explain often that I don’t really believe we have access to the Truth very often (but we’re always looking for it). This is most frustrating when you run up against two completely different explanations for something. When trying to school oneself in politics, it becomes apparent pretty quickly that there’s a lot of competing and contradictory information out there, and at some point you have to ask with whom the truth lies (haha…. pun).
I think at a high level, it depends on the situation, and each issue should be evaluated separately. This can be a pain in the ass so my decision has been to find a source I trust and research what I can when I have time but generally accept what they say. If you don’t find someone whose analysis you trust, but you still search for knowlege, you’re just going to drive yourself insane.
Most of us have a source we trust. For many right-wingers it’s Fox News. For moderates perhaps it’s The New York Times or NPR. For me it’s Socialist Worker. From what I’ve discovered on my journey, there are some useful steps to finding someone to trust:
Look for a source that shares your morals and desires.
Ask yourself what they might have to gain from printing inaccuracies or misleading through omission, spin or specific language.
Find out what sources they use, and if you find those sources to be trustworthy.
For me, I trust Socialist Worker because the people who write for that paper share the same morals and goals with me: We are against bigotry, oppression, imperialism and poverty, and for the idea of putting people before profit. I personally believe that they have nothing to gain from misleading the public (it would only hurt their cause), because if they achieve their goal, everyone in the world will benefit. They do use loaded language, but since I agree with their cause, it doesn’t bother me.
I also tend to trust NPR because it seems like a reputable and largely neutral source, likely do to its funding by the public rather than corporate interests. I also get a lot of my news from The Guardian, a british newspaper that isn’t afraid to comment more bluntly on United States news (it may however, be not so great for British news).
I don’t trust sources run by bigots of any kind, because we don’t share the same morals or goals. In addition, information motivated by hate is often even more colored by biases and intense emotions, so you end up with really dumb stuff like “Feminazis are Jews” (go ahead, google it). I haven’t yet figured out if something motivates people to spread misinformation for their cause or if they just see what they want to see. These warnings apply for everyone of course.
In any case, I mistrust most mainstream news because news outlets like Fox, CNN, The Washington Post, etc are companies - they don’t exist to inform the public, just to make money, and a lot of people have interests in this success including many people in government. Media and government have a mutually beneficial relationship. I think this is becoming common sense among people now, but it seemed very much like a conspiracy theory for the past 8 years or more. I think a lot of people assume people in government and media are just like us, clueless. I personally don’t believe that.
So we’re all going to come to different conclusions based on our own experiences, beliefs, and biases. I’m sure there are a lot of people who think that Socialist Worker would benefit from misleading the public because the people who run it want to turn the world into marching formations of grey uniforms and want no one to have choice and want to kill a lot of people. I personally don’t believe that. 
The other step to moving um, closer to the truth, is to get as many perspectives as possible. For most people (perhaps unless you’re Noam Chomsky or something), your first impression is going to be missing a lot of pieces. As a radical leftist with a socialist perspective, I make sure to read views that I tend to agree with, but in order to get any context at all I have to understand what the mainstream media is saying. That way I can compare the status quo storyline to the radical storyline and ask which makes sense.
This process became really apparent in the past few weeks as I’ve tried to school myself on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I tried to understand it a bunch of times in the past and I just couldn’t get my head around it for some reason (mostly because I couldn’t remember who the Israelis were and who the Palestinians were - pretty dumb huh?). My first impressions came from hearsay and the mainstream media. What I heard was that the terrorists in Gaza, Hamas and normal people, were shooting rockets at and killing Israelis, so Israeli responded. Shamefully I have to admit, at this point I still had some inkling that “that’s just how they are in the Middle East”, because that’s what I’ve been told my whole life. People are poor, and poor people are more prone to violence, and everyone over there hates everyone else because they’re a different religion. I never really realized how little sense this made, and while I still think it’s true for some people (it’s no different from thoughtless and hateful racists and such over here in America), I don’t think it’s the rule any longer.
Looking at the socialist perspective (and even the regular left perspective like from the documentary Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land) really made things make a lot more sense. Israel occupied Palestinian land tens of years ago, kicked people out and forced them to live in horrible conditions for years, so a ruling power called Hamas retaliates by firing crappy rockets that have killed very few people. Israel responds disproportionately and kills over 1,250 Palestinians (so far) not just out of racist Zionism, but because they are imperialist and because the US supports and funds their bullying in the Middle East. That’s obviously not even half the story but it makes a lot more sense than the idea that Israel was defending itself, or that all Middle Easterners just like killing eachother.
So find a source you trust. Find a perspective and an analysis you trust. Mine is the Marxist analysis. Make sure to compare the mainstream story with your trusted perspective and ask yourself what actually makes sense. It’s amazing what idiocy they’ll try to stuff down our throats and we simply accept it because it’s repeated and supposedly spouted by professionals (remember “the terrorists hate our freedom”?).
Of course, I’m not an expert on anything except attempting to learn.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCUuEfgqctk&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]
Ok I’ll admit it. I love techno. I’m an ex raver. I love all the little kandi kids. Some rave songs make me cry. Techno has taken me to “a higher plane” at times in the same way that drugs have. Not really why I’m writing this post though.
I recently discovered hardstyle (a fusion of hard trance and gabber), which I think is just flipping amazing. The silly video above shows some really cool shuffling set to hardstyle music as an example. So what I want to know is: Why do so many hardstyle tracks sample audio clips of people talking about women in a derrogatory fashion? The last one I listened to was about prostitutes, and before that every derrogatory word for a female you can think of. I guess it’s a “problem” with techno in general. You don’t hear a whole lot of samples depicting men as objects or scratching of men moaning or anything. Obviously there are more male djs than there are female djs (although I’m not sure why - doesn’t it seem like a gender neutral kind of scene?). There’s a lot of girl skin shown at raves, and that’s played up in a big way online.
Anyway. Could you save the 5th grader crap for some other genre that I don’t like? Cause you’re really killing the PLUR. Srsly.
I have little to compare this inauguration to as I don’t think I’ve ever watched an inauguration before. I imagine it was quite a bit different in rhetoric from previous inaugurations, although there was still a LOT of god talk, an overuse of the word “freedom” and the overall feeling that America is in the right even if we’re a little broken right now.
There are a few things that made me twitch:
- Dianne Feinstein spent a lot of time talking about the importance of nonvoilence and then mentioned the people who are dying for our right to be nonviolent.
- Why is there an anti-gay bigot offering up a prayer for Obama’s family?
- Why is there a prayer?
- Aretha Franklin’s singing! Cue emotional montage!
- Find the cutest little Kenyan girl and focus on her.
- For that matter, get as many shots of black people crying as you can find. I know, I know it’s an important moment, it’s just that the presentation is so transparent!
- Even as Barack Obama seemed to burn bridges and talk about a new America, and getting rid of the old ways of doing things, he still spoke in grand generalizations which portrayed America as broken, but still the best damn country in the world. A friend to everyone, unless you do the same things that we do, like finance genocide or silence dissent, and then we will defeat you.
- “…for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.” So does that mean he’ll stop being pro-Israel and stop the genocide in Gaza?
- “To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history;” Sooooooooo, does that mean I have no fear of being beat up by riot cops the next time I go to a protest?
- What’s with the “we will not apologize for our way of life” thing?
- I don’t think I’ve ever been called a “non-believer”. Isn’t that usually used in the derrogatory sense? Or most commonly used when yelling about how all the non-believers are going to hell? The term is religion-centric rather than objective. It’s kind of like calling religious people non-atheists or black people non-whites. Anyway I just thought it was weird.
- I still don’t get America’s obsession with “freedom”. It’s such an abstract concept. How is it defined? People just cling to it without questioning what it really means. And I get that we don’t live under an oppressive dictatorship exactly, but there are a lot of insidious ways to control people in this country and they’re put to good use.
Hm, I wonder what David Cross would have to say?
I just received an email from the Barack Obama mailing list pointing me to a new government-endorsed volunteer site, complete with the the supersexy site design. Although there are plenty of really good volunteer sites already out there, the first thing I thought to myself was that it’s really cool to live in an era where your president encourages you to volunteer.
However I’ve been trying to examine the purpose behind Obama’s rhetoric since he began, and I wonder if this isn’t another mindshift that actually benefits the status quo.
When Barack Obama said that change comes from below, me and every other socialist just about choked on our own tongues. “That’s what we’ve been saying all along!” we said. It seemed completely contradictory to everything we’d been taught, which we considered false by that time, so it seemed really radical of him. Now he’s talking about a new age of service - of volunteerism. Funny how just that added element can make me wonder if he isn’t changing his tune.
The idea behind the classic idea of “change from below” could perhaps be called collectivism (?), and is the idea that struggle by The People is what changes the world and creates progress. This is not what we’re taught in school - textbooks tend to heroify one person, generally whatever president was in power at the time. For example, FDR is given all credit for the New Deal, when the only reason he even considered it was because of considerable pressure from below. The effect this has on the collective psyche is to discourage collective action, and make us feel powerless, because none of us see ourselves as heroes.
So when the president-elect “endorses” change from below, it very much seems as though he is humbling himself and recognizing the need for social movements to put pressure on not just him but on everyone in power.
This whole service thing has me thinking though. I never thought of it before, but I think the idea of volunteerism is incredibly individualist. While I agree it’s necessary (it helps some of the problem immediately, it’s a great exchange and very fulfilling), I think it’s potentially damaging to suggest that “change from below” EQUALS “volunteerism”, because volunteerism is nothing more than a band-aid. It’s great that people are feeding the homeless and planting new trees as I type this, but no amount of volunteering will change the fact that homelessness and polution are created by our flawed system.
I’ve come to believe that the president understands these sorts of things. I’m fairly sure that they have access to a LOT of smart people, sociologists, psychologists, public relations specialists and all kinds of powerful people who know how to essentially control the populace (if you don’t believe me, try watching BBC’s The Century of the Self or reading Edward Bernays’ book Propaganda).
Even keeping that in mind, I have to wonder - what is Barack Obama’s intention? Is someone or some idea pulling his strings in this? Does he intend for us to feel both empowered and responsible for fixing the system that can’t be fixed? How are people going to react to this, if at all?
PHOTO AT TOP: That’s actually the LA Burrito Project - a volunteer effort which I think is REALLY cool. It’s actually illegal to feed homeless people in a lot of cities, hence the masks.
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