A Heart-Breaking Divide

Increasingly, I find myself divided, pulled apart by opposing forces.

On the one hand, I am called to surrender my beliefs, my selfish and childish clinging to my own rightness in both political and personal affairs. It is the tragedy of ego-based interaction and socialization that leads me to seek salvation in the higher realms of religion and spirituality. Many a spiritual path beckons, asking me to trade conventional socialization and petty concerns for a loving attitude of selfless service. This path of self-annihilation finds its highest expression in charity, an unconditional giving of what I naively held to be 'mine' in the financial, psychological and spiritual realms. To be attached to a particular agenda other than one of indiscriminate love is anathema to this path.

On the other hand, I am called to serve humanity by joining the fight for a better world, to build up power from below and exert it to change society for the better. Perceiving the living Hell that is 21st century capitalism ever more clearly, I am compelled to take contrarian and rebellious action. Ultimately, what the political activities of the radical Left boils down to is the formation and harnessing of collective identities. It cannot be otherwise, nor should it, for to change the world requires a reshuffling of power, which in turn requires struggle. And in order to participate meaningfully in struggle, the very first thing I need to reject is my faux sense of neutrality; to live a political life is to be committed, ''a priori,'' to a camp, a side, a position. It is to say ''OK, boomer,'' and to shout ''no justice, no peace, f*ck the police!''

Thoroughly (but not desperately) bothered by this conundrum, I seek solutions to this dilemma. I find, though, that neither of these forces is soluble in the other. To believe that a better world is the result merely of improved individual behaviour is to abolish politics, to calm one's mind in an unacceptable cover-up of existing hierarchies. Whereas the suspension of all personal work till ''after the revolution'' is, similarly, to miss the point and shift responsibility.

But I know (or, rather, I think that I know) that to do nothing is the worst choice, trading uncertain gains for certain delusion and uselessness. I thus find myself moving, grasping in the dark, not knowing for certain where I go. I try to walk firmly, at a steady pace. Although I have never stumbled and fallen, I am naturally afraid of the road ahead, hesitant to trust in what lies before me. It is in this way, then, that I move - not necessarily forward, or in any particular direction at all.

Marblecake

Another retraction and apology for one of the big manifesto pieces of "old Chaos Marxism". Six years ago or so I wrote:

The Conspiracy (to use SubGenius lingo) needs you to be you. It needs you to have a forename, a hindname, and an address - an individuality - by which it "interpellates" you into the system... It needs you to be predictable. It needs you to have a place within the system.

... and therefore "Anonymous", not having an identity, was supposed to be liberation from late capitalist "interpellation".

But even at the time I should have realised that this wasn't true, because the problem with Anonymous was that anonymity went with lack of transparency. They weren't like Lawrence Miles' "Remote", autonomous signals-driven nihilist terrorists. There was far too often - maybe always - a man behind the curtain directing the mob.

We used to call it "marblecaking" - /marblecake/ was an IRC channel in which a kind of "invisible Central Committee" made plans for Operation Chanology. As far as I can remember, these were benevolent and sensible plans. But the whole idea that this hidden committee existed - and that many Anons were repulsed when they found out about its existence - should have revealed (to those who weren't too invested in the myth) that an Anon mob is far too easily manipulated by "social engineers".

Someone said once that they suspected that Chanology was in itself a "psyop" - like "someone was testing something", i.e. that it was all "marblecaked" from the beginning, by... who? State spooks? Corporate spooks? I am skeptical about that. But the last 10 years have shown how state and corporate spooks have gotten so good at marblecaking any movement of "meme politics" (as opposed to things which happen in the real world, like #BlackLivesMatter or #MeToo), and how this blog was full of shit at one point.

Are we having fun yet?

Capitalism promotes personal and social ... well, I don't want to sound like a fascist or a red-brown by saying "degeneracy", so I'd better say degradation. In the sense that William S. Burroughs meant:

“The junk merchant doesn't sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product. He does not improve and simplify his merchandise. He degrades and simplifies the client.”

As we never get tired and repeating, Marx and Engels were no workerists, no Red-Browns who actually thought the alienation, aggression, anger and gullibility of the actually existing working class were good things. No, the Marxist proletariat becomes fit to be the ruling class through the revolutionary struggle - or to put it another way, the Revolution can only triumph (in the full sense of the term, the social revolution, the transformation of everyday life, not just changing the political/economic system) is if we all "become better people". In this particular context, that means learning solidarity, inner discipline, rationality, being able to "fight with a loving heart".

Capitalism doesn't want us to become better people. It wants us to simultaneously become harder, more devoted, more flexible workers; and more amoral, manipulable consumers. This has been true ever since the late 19th century, where the workers' movement forced universal suffrage on the ruling class at the same time industrial capitalism evolved into consumer capitalism, and actually controlling the opinion of the masses became the vital technology in maintaining bourgeois hegemony.

I don't think it's true that fascism is just capitalism with the masks taken off - fascism is a political pathology which takes hold among the downwardly mobile middle classes, and the bourgeoisie won't let those thugs and clowns into the country club unless they really have to. But consumer capitalism, in continuously degrading mass consciousness - continually encouraging more selfish individualism, more amoral thrill-seeking and low-grade sociopathy, less rational thought and more jumping at whichever exciting meme comes down the pipeline - continually creates a constituency for fascism.

Fascism is fun, in the same way that conspiracy theory is fun, the narratives spread by FOX News, RT and the tabloid press are fun and the nastier forms of internet trolling or fandom are fun. They are socially sanctioned outlets for antisocial behaviour. I believe it was Walter Benjamin who described fascism as all the forms of an revolutionary uprising, but the content of who's in power and who's in control not only stay the same, but become embedded. In that sense, fascism is carnivalesque. It's a reaction to "normal times capitalism" where the masses are totally apathetic and quiescent - but the pendulum swings back, after untold destruction.

On the other hand, democracy (and workers' democracy, even more so) means hard work, going to meetings, and being responsible. Most people - as the world is today - would prefer a "bread and circuses" life under an entertaining dictator. This is why the legacy of "hippie revolutionaries" who promoted hedonism as a reaction to boring, rational, bureaucratized post-war Keynesian capitalism, always had a backdoor where fascism gets in.

Honestly, I think some of the Left like having Trump in power just so they can get off on hating him. Living under an emergency/apocalyptic situation is a lot of excitement and fun. Until it starts having actual impact on your daily life, of course. But Left-wing politics as a lifestyle choice - rather than as a discipline of learning to wield collective working power - is fundamentally irresponsible and conservative. The real Revolution is joy and freedom - but it's not fun.

A Chaos Marxist New Year's Resolution

I take immeasurable pleasure in welcoming Subtle Singer to the Chaos Marxism team. I've been doing this on my own for too long. Enjoy. - DlaP

In the Islamic tradition, one is required to host guests for three days, hospitality that is provided beyond that period being regarded as Sadaqah (voluntary charity).

Interpreting this matter-of-fact prescription as a spiritual imperative, we are called on to inquire into the nature of our own psychological hospitality;

1. Are you welcoming enough for guests? The coming of which particular guests would you like to be prepared for? 
2. What guests are currently staying in your house? How are you treating them?
3. What guests have overstayed their period, and should lovingly be shown the door? How will you put to use the gifts they have left behind?

In this New Year, regularly take the time to ask yourself these questions. God willing, you will have the courage to face these questions honestly, and adjust your door policy as necessary.