- There is only one physical reality, and only one real scientific understanding of why the world of human beings is the way it is.
- Almost all human beings live according to "consensus realities" - the totems of their particular tribe. (This is because we are social animals and have never been able to exist as isolated individuals.) They act as if these totems are real, and therefore they are real for them, even though in any objective sense they are fictional.
- Therefore, almost all of what humans collectively believe to be real - and act accordingly - is an illusion created by repetition. You are what you do; therefore, if you act in accordance with the tribal totems you help make them real, even though you might "intellectually" realise they're not.
- The ego - that is, the individual consciousness - is born to help the individual survive in consensus reality. Therefore it is irretrievably and mechanically tied to its particular tribal totems and cannot step outside them.
- Psychic disturbance comes from the ego squishing down the other parts of the psyche in response to its own survival objectives, including service to the tribal totems.
- Creativity does not come from the ego, but from some other part of the psyche outside consensus reality. We might as well say that creativity - and, in fact, everything that makes us "human" in the best sense, rather than robots or apes - comes from another, better world existing concurrently with that of consensus reality.
- Mental illness we can say comes from another, worse world existing concurrently with that of consensus reality.
- It is for this reason that even the more rigorously scientific, materialist analysis of human culture will be incomplete, because it cannot understand art, creativity, religion, madness etc. by its very nature.
- Those who really want to bring goodness into this world have to fuse science and spirituality, as Aleister Crowley said. "Science" in the sense of we have to understand on a physical, rational basis how humanity really works; "spirituality" because we have to accept that humans are not and can never be 100% rational, and indeed so much of what is truly glorious about our species-being works by non-rational rules.
- "New Atheism" is particularly pernicious because it seeks to demolish belief in "God" (i.e. a supra-human consciousness), but by default leaves all the totems of the currently dominant tribe (Consume Mass Quantities, Have A Good Time All Of The Time, We Are The Superior Culture And Deserve To Own The Planet And Tell Everyone Else What To Do) alone, because they're not "God" in the way that they understand it.
- Chaos Marxism says: God is the part of your own consciousness that comes from the better, creative universe. It existed prior to your ego and therefore it really did create your world. So have some respect.
- Our practice is to build, with actual concrete deeds, a new way of being, a new way of living together in this world, which will be sustainable, just. This will include: concrete ways of producing all those things we need to survive and thrive in a better way; practical loving-kindness towards all living beings; healthy ways to tap into the Better Reality and come back to Normal Reality safely (art, spirituality, etc); and political/cultural/memetic activism against the current world order in the service of the Great God Mammon who quite literally wants to eat the planet.
- The totems of the old tribe - of Western capitalist civilisation - are causing us to quite literally eat the planet and shit in our own nest. They can only be defeated by a combination of (a) rational debunking; (b) creating new totems for the new way of being. Humans cannot live without irrationality and totemic thought, at least right now.
2011-02-11
Chaos Marxism Manifesto #2 - Electric Boogaloo
2011-02-09
The death of individuality
By happily accepting a description of themselves as "THE HIVE" (or "hivemind"), the massed ranks of Anonymous show that capitalist normality's privileging of individuality as the highest good is a trap. Remember all those TV shows and stories in which the hero realises that being part of some movement that might change the world - or some old-fashioned "community" - is impinging on his precious individuality, and therefore he gives up and retires to private life, and that's a good thing? Remember how Billy Elliot's dreams of being a dancer (and thus getting all the privileges of the middle classes) lead to his father scabbing on a strike and wrecking the whole way of life of his community, and that's a good thing?
All this of course goes back to 1950's anti-communist sci-fi terror of the evil assimilating aliens who threaten the boundaries of our precious individuality, most recently reinvented as the Borg on Star Trek? Before Seven of Nine was "reverse-assimilated" back into being a (white middle class American) human individual, she yelled at Janeway "WE DO NOT WANT TO BE LIKE YOU". I agreed. I always wondered why my sympathies were always with the bad guys in those cartoons. They hate us because we don't need to be individuals.
All this of course goes back to 1950's anti-communist sci-fi terror of the evil assimilating aliens who threaten the boundaries of our precious individuality, most recently reinvented as the Borg on Star Trek? Before Seven of Nine was "reverse-assimilated" back into being a (white middle class American) human individual, she yelled at Janeway "WE DO NOT WANT TO BE LIKE YOU". I agreed. I always wondered why my sympathies were always with the bad guys in those cartoons. They hate us because we don't need to be individuals.
2011-02-06
Even the BBC knows about the serious business
Twenty Reasons Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere. Note in particular points 11-14, talking about the class basis of the new worldwide movements.
A few points:
- Point 1 is mistaken. The "graduate with no future" has been an endemic feature of the Middle Eastern client states of the West for decades now. They were the same crowd who overthrew the Shah in '79.
- Point 3 is also mistaken. Truth and lies now move at the same speed. The speed of a narrative meme is not determined by its truth content, but by how much it makes sense given the pre-existent consciousness of those spreading it. "Teabagger" memes in the USA spread plenty fast. But I suppose the point is that sheer memetics have rendered traditional propaganda obsolete, although people like the Chinese Communist Party and the Republican-aligned think-tanks in the US are keeping up with the play.
- Point 4; I'm afraid "radical Islam" works as a meme just like we mentioned above and spreads the same way. In fact - and this vital - Al-Qaeda itself is a meme, rather than an organisation, which spreads via online videos, flash animation games, etc etc. What is becoming obsolete are vertical bureaucracies - as people have said elsewhere, the platonic form of capitalist domination is not the Pentagon or a Central Bank, but it's Wal-Mart, with its networked forms of surveillance and domination.
- Point 18: "young people believe the issues are no longer class and economics but simply power". Hah. We'll see how long that lasts once the econocataclysm starts to bite. And in some cases - the open-source movement - that is simply not true, as the true interconnectedness of power with economics and class ("class" in the sense of "who does the work and who rakes in the money?") becomes obvious.
- Complication (e) - this is vital stuff. The highest ranks of the media priesthood and the ruling class no longer speak the same language as ordinary street humans. This is a contradiction that needs to be heightened.
A few points:
- Point 1 is mistaken. The "graduate with no future" has been an endemic feature of the Middle Eastern client states of the West for decades now. They were the same crowd who overthrew the Shah in '79.
- Point 3 is also mistaken. Truth and lies now move at the same speed. The speed of a narrative meme is not determined by its truth content, but by how much it makes sense given the pre-existent consciousness of those spreading it. "Teabagger" memes in the USA spread plenty fast. But I suppose the point is that sheer memetics have rendered traditional propaganda obsolete, although people like the Chinese Communist Party and the Republican-aligned think-tanks in the US are keeping up with the play.
- Point 4; I'm afraid "radical Islam" works as a meme just like we mentioned above and spreads the same way. In fact - and this vital - Al-Qaeda itself is a meme, rather than an organisation, which spreads via online videos, flash animation games, etc etc. What is becoming obsolete are vertical bureaucracies - as people have said elsewhere, the platonic form of capitalist domination is not the Pentagon or a Central Bank, but it's Wal-Mart, with its networked forms of surveillance and domination.
- Point 18: "young people believe the issues are no longer class and economics but simply power". Hah. We'll see how long that lasts once the econocataclysm starts to bite. And in some cases - the open-source movement - that is simply not true, as the true interconnectedness of power with economics and class ("class" in the sense of "who does the work and who rakes in the money?") becomes obvious.
- Complication (e) - this is vital stuff. The highest ranks of the media priesthood and the ruling class no longer speak the same language as ordinary street humans. This is a contradiction that needs to be heightened.
2011-01-07
A CM economic aphorism
The correct market value of something which doesn't actually exist is zero.
Note also this very convincing materialist explanation of why "decentralisation" and "networking" have become unchallengable dogma, even among the oppressed. Truly the 90's were the high point of pure solipsism among the Western intellectual classes (only in such an era could The Matrix have been such a huge hit). But philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point is to change it, and one could equally argue that it's been the failure of dialectical materialists to take culture and psychology seriously which has led to their current marginalisation, at times when the world is calling out for revolutionary ideas and leadership.
2011-01-04
Fnord 23, Pen 15
The latest XKCD clearly understands the appeal of cults and the paranoid lifestyle, as exhaustively discussed here.
2011-01-02
A cheery thought for the new year
There are other "states of awareness" than the one you are currently in. To swipe from the terminology of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there are heaven dimensions and hell dimensions - not separate "realities", but ways of experiencing That Which Is Really Here Right Now. You can call them "higher" and "lower" energy worlds if you like, and that's quite close to the concept of valence electrons, in the sense that you can "jump" from one to another, given an expenditure of energy.
The fundamental difference can be summed up thus: in "heaven", the impossible becomes possible, and "hell" the possible becomes impossible. Thus, "heaven" is of course a higher energy state than what you're used to, and "hell" is a lower energy state. Given this, it should not surprise you that - although you can suddenly end up in heaven or hell for no good reason - it takes effort to remain in heaven, and it takes effort to get out of hell.
The fundamental difference can be summed up thus: in "heaven", the impossible becomes possible, and "hell" the possible becomes impossible. Thus, "heaven" is of course a higher energy state than what you're used to, and "hell" is a lower energy state. Given this, it should not surprise you that - although you can suddenly end up in heaven or hell for no good reason - it takes effort to remain in heaven, and it takes effort to get out of hell.
2010-12-28
The power of love is a curious thing
I have experience of fantasy & its power, on the inside & outside. A very small part of it is real, which gives the rest of the illusion/delusion its strength. The Orthodox might call this a strategy of The Great Deceiver, The Tempter, the Prince of Lies, and see fantasy being used as a device to hold us to this earth, and prevent us realising our destiny.- Robert Fripp (source), emphasis added
Further to the discussion below: the religious might say that there ain't nothing that's completely foul and worthless through and through, because it wouldn't exist. All evil has a kernel of good, that's what gives it its power. And all cults have some real truth and goodness amidst all the bullshit and lies, else no-one would get involved in the first place. Fatso Hubbard was absolutely right that most people hold themselves down with subconscious commands, and Neo is absolutely right that most people live in a prison of their own imagination. But - physician, heal thyself. "Thou art that." The critic gives themselves away in their criticism - which might give you some insight into this Doloras, if you'll note that what she hates more than anything else is hypocrisy, people who say one thing and do another.
To whoever wrote this... thanks.
Robert Fripp suggests that music comes into the world despite, not because of, the personality of the musician. Reading back on the posts of this blog over the last two years, I am struck by how full of "dancing, nascent insight" (as one commenter put it) many of them are, how many of them accurately depict universal truths which go beyond psychology, mysticism and dialectical-material cultural analysis, and are actually funny and fun to read. And I'm shocked and appalled, because whoever wrote those posts certainly wasn't this Doloras. You see, this Doloras tends to be grouchy, negative and pessimistic. But the voice speaking through these posts is - while justifiably pissed off about a number of these things - also brave, wise, loving and generous. So it's certainly not my ordinary everyday personality.
Which is why I have to re-read this blog, because there's so much good advice here that I don't actually follow in my daily life. This Doloras is the person who gave up active political activity because she is incredibly thin-skinned and terrified of other people's reactions - when faced with an uncomfortable situation, she tends to either run away or get mean and aggressive. If she was half as brave as whoever it was who wrote the good bits of Chaos Marxism, why, she would have done much more good in the world than she already has. (Not that she hasn't done some good. But she hasn't nearly done as much as the writer of the good bits on this blog would be expected to have done.)
Well, at least this Doloras had enough brains to set up Chaos Marxism so something wiser, kinder and braver than her could speak through her. I hope it's helped someone out there. The adventure is ongoing, but I really would like more company, more feedback, more people who would confirm that the message of CM is as "real" as it seems to me. I have no wish to be a cult leader nor to wallow in a fantasy world of my own design. I aspire to live somewhere real, with kind and clean friends who share some basic assumptions but differ enough so we can have productive debates and discussions. But if no-one agrees... well, what the voice of this blog says is useful to this Doloras, at least. I could at least get used to the company of my own inner voice.
Which is why I have to re-read this blog, because there's so much good advice here that I don't actually follow in my daily life. This Doloras is the person who gave up active political activity because she is incredibly thin-skinned and terrified of other people's reactions - when faced with an uncomfortable situation, she tends to either run away or get mean and aggressive. If she was half as brave as whoever it was who wrote the good bits of Chaos Marxism, why, she would have done much more good in the world than she already has. (Not that she hasn't done some good. But she hasn't nearly done as much as the writer of the good bits on this blog would be expected to have done.)
Well, at least this Doloras had enough brains to set up Chaos Marxism so something wiser, kinder and braver than her could speak through her. I hope it's helped someone out there. The adventure is ongoing, but I really would like more company, more feedback, more people who would confirm that the message of CM is as "real" as it seems to me. I have no wish to be a cult leader nor to wallow in a fantasy world of my own design. I aspire to live somewhere real, with kind and clean friends who share some basic assumptions but differ enough so we can have productive debates and discussions. But if no-one agrees... well, what the voice of this blog says is useful to this Doloras, at least. I could at least get used to the company of my own inner voice.
2010-12-27
And who are you? Are you all slaves?
Soundtrack for this post: "Slave Trade", Sigue Sigue Sputnik
We mentioned before that being negative and mean is a way of getting some kind of "juice" into your life if you can't get the good stuff. Similarly, narcissism works well. Let's face it, what better way to pack your life full of lulz and drama than to go around acting like you are the Chosen One and all others exist to serve your whims, or are enemies that need wiping out? Sure you'll be ridiculed and hated, and virtually nothing will actually concretely go right in your life, but at least you'll have a nice narrative frame to package that in. Your life, while unpleasant and pointless, will make sense.
Even better, some gormless losers will believe you. And why will they do that? Why do people end up in cults? The easiest answer is - that narcisstic delusions are more fun than stupid reality. I don't have a reference, but at least one person who followed L. Ron Hubbard around on his nautical adventures in the 60s - looking for gold he buried in the Mediterranean in a previous life, I shit you not - said precisely that. That it didn't matter whether it was actually factually true or not, but living in Ron's private reality was far lulzier than anything else they could think to do with their lives. Dude could always spin a yarn.
Problem is that cults are necessarily self-destructive, because narcissism is an addictive drug, and the sufferer requires more and more narcissistic supply. O'Brien in Nineteen Eighty-Four pointed out that the Party had to torture people, because how else could you be sure that you were really imposing your will on them? For this reason, cult leaders have to increasingly ramp up the levels of control and abjection of their followers. If they're doing your will, then you have to make your will more mean and intensive to test how much they really love you. Eventually you get to purple Flavor-Aid with cyanide in it (Jim Jones) - or declaring the entire executive staff of your organisation to be traitors and locking them up (Joe Stalin and David Miscavige).
===
This post is by way of being a bit of a purge and a confessional. I have a "cult leader's personality" - that is, I have suffered from a narcissist streak a mile wide. So I can tell you in plain fact that the belief that YOU ARE THE ONE, THE SON OF MAN, THE KING OF KINGS, THE SHEIKH OF ARABY etc., that you have a destiny and everyone else has to either serve you or get the hell out of your way is a good way to substitute for not actually having a life. I'm trying to get over that, though. To some degree, that disavowed belief sullied the early contributions to this blog. I really thought I was breaking through into a better reality and everything would be better if everyone would just listen to me. *sigh* For that reason, it's good for me to study people who got completely lost in that kind of no-ego ego-trip to remind myself of where that road leads.
But google "codex veritas neo" for an example of the syndrome in full flight (yes, I've mentioned this fellow before, but last time he came and whined at me so I'm not directly linking). For a similar cult based on fiction, check these guys (although I must admit that, unlike these guys, Neo has some very good insights in among the self-aggrandisation and paranoia... but then, the same could be said of Scientology). There's also a lady who goes by the name of Doctress Neutopia who you might be interested in.
Part of having a narcissistic tendency is being fascinated - and just about ready to fall for - other people who do as well. Because don't their private universes look exciting and fun? But examine the cult leaders well. Because none of them are happy. None of them are actually achieving their stated goals. Indeed, the unhappier they are the more delicious, creamy attention they get from their followers. We call this "the downward spiral".
We mentioned before that being negative and mean is a way of getting some kind of "juice" into your life if you can't get the good stuff. Similarly, narcissism works well. Let's face it, what better way to pack your life full of lulz and drama than to go around acting like you are the Chosen One and all others exist to serve your whims, or are enemies that need wiping out? Sure you'll be ridiculed and hated, and virtually nothing will actually concretely go right in your life, but at least you'll have a nice narrative frame to package that in. Your life, while unpleasant and pointless, will make sense.
Even better, some gormless losers will believe you. And why will they do that? Why do people end up in cults? The easiest answer is - that narcisstic delusions are more fun than stupid reality. I don't have a reference, but at least one person who followed L. Ron Hubbard around on his nautical adventures in the 60s - looking for gold he buried in the Mediterranean in a previous life, I shit you not - said precisely that. That it didn't matter whether it was actually factually true or not, but living in Ron's private reality was far lulzier than anything else they could think to do with their lives. Dude could always spin a yarn.
Problem is that cults are necessarily self-destructive, because narcissism is an addictive drug, and the sufferer requires more and more narcissistic supply. O'Brien in Nineteen Eighty-Four pointed out that the Party had to torture people, because how else could you be sure that you were really imposing your will on them? For this reason, cult leaders have to increasingly ramp up the levels of control and abjection of their followers. If they're doing your will, then you have to make your will more mean and intensive to test how much they really love you. Eventually you get to purple Flavor-Aid with cyanide in it (Jim Jones) - or declaring the entire executive staff of your organisation to be traitors and locking them up (Joe Stalin and David Miscavige).
===
This post is by way of being a bit of a purge and a confessional. I have a "cult leader's personality" - that is, I have suffered from a narcissist streak a mile wide. So I can tell you in plain fact that the belief that YOU ARE THE ONE, THE SON OF MAN, THE KING OF KINGS, THE SHEIKH OF ARABY etc., that you have a destiny and everyone else has to either serve you or get the hell out of your way is a good way to substitute for not actually having a life. I'm trying to get over that, though. To some degree, that disavowed belief sullied the early contributions to this blog. I really thought I was breaking through into a better reality and everything would be better if everyone would just listen to me. *sigh* For that reason, it's good for me to study people who got completely lost in that kind of no-ego ego-trip to remind myself of where that road leads.
But google "codex veritas neo" for an example of the syndrome in full flight (yes, I've mentioned this fellow before, but last time he came and whined at me so I'm not directly linking). For a similar cult based on fiction, check these guys (although I must admit that, unlike these guys, Neo has some very good insights in among the self-aggrandisation and paranoia... but then, the same could be said of Scientology). There's also a lady who goes by the name of Doctress Neutopia who you might be interested in.
Part of having a narcissistic tendency is being fascinated - and just about ready to fall for - other people who do as well. Because don't their private universes look exciting and fun? But examine the cult leaders well. Because none of them are happy. None of them are actually achieving their stated goals. Indeed, the unhappier they are the more delicious, creamy attention they get from their followers. We call this "the downward spiral".
2010-12-06
You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change.
(reposted from elsewhere)
I was recently privileged to read Iain Banks' Walking on Glass. One of the major characters is a paranoid schizophrenic fellow, who believes himself to be a superior being who fell captive in some metagalactic conflict and has been exiled on Earth as a punishment. You find out later that he might actually be right, but that's not the point here - the point is that his beliefs, while they give some structure to his reality, actually totally get in the way of being able to function properly on planet Earth. Basically, since he interprets everyone he comes across as either perpetrators of a giant conspiracy to keep him trapped on Earth, or witless dupes of that conspiracy, he can't have any friends or any honest communication, and his life is in a downward spiral (which of course proves that he's a superior being victimised by a conspiracy).
Which brings me to a criticism of that otherwise impeccable Gnostic-revolutionary film, The Matrix. The one thing that always "got" me about that movie was that the people who'd been awakened from the Matrix were licensed to kill as many normal humans as they saw fit (because they might turn into Hugo Weaving at any moment, and really death would be better than their illusory reality while living as batteries). It is said that the nafs (the self-perpetuating ego which has evolved as a defence mechanism to keep you alive and safe in this world but will try to ensure you don't change or grow) will tell you any lie in order to keep you trapped, and "YOU HAVE BEEN ENLIGHTENED, THEREFORE YOU HAVE MORE RIGHTS THAN THE BLINKERED SHEEPLE, INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO UNLEASH VIOLENCE ON THOSE WHO GET IN YOUR WAY" is a pretty effective trap.
In contrast, the legitimately enlightened are known for their kindness, forbearance and wicked sense of humour, although occasionally their kindness manifests in being extremely rude to people to wake them up - giving them what they need rather than what they want, in other words.
I was recently privileged to read Iain Banks' Walking on Glass. One of the major characters is a paranoid schizophrenic fellow, who believes himself to be a superior being who fell captive in some metagalactic conflict and has been exiled on Earth as a punishment. You find out later that he might actually be right, but that's not the point here - the point is that his beliefs, while they give some structure to his reality, actually totally get in the way of being able to function properly on planet Earth. Basically, since he interprets everyone he comes across as either perpetrators of a giant conspiracy to keep him trapped on Earth, or witless dupes of that conspiracy, he can't have any friends or any honest communication, and his life is in a downward spiral (which of course proves that he's a superior being victimised by a conspiracy).
Which brings me to a criticism of that otherwise impeccable Gnostic-revolutionary film, The Matrix. The one thing that always "got" me about that movie was that the people who'd been awakened from the Matrix were licensed to kill as many normal humans as they saw fit (because they might turn into Hugo Weaving at any moment, and really death would be better than their illusory reality while living as batteries). It is said that the nafs (the self-perpetuating ego which has evolved as a defence mechanism to keep you alive and safe in this world but will try to ensure you don't change or grow) will tell you any lie in order to keep you trapped, and "YOU HAVE BEEN ENLIGHTENED, THEREFORE YOU HAVE MORE RIGHTS THAN THE BLINKERED SHEEPLE, INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO UNLEASH VIOLENCE ON THOSE WHO GET IN YOUR WAY" is a pretty effective trap.
In contrast, the legitimately enlightened are known for their kindness, forbearance and wicked sense of humour, although occasionally their kindness manifests in being extremely rude to people to wake them up - giving them what they need rather than what they want, in other words.
2010-11-29
Chaos Marxism is non-dualist
A brief look at our ontology:
1. CM is materialist. Matter led to biological life which led to awareness which led to consciousness which led to spirituality.
2. Spirit / God is a potential in humanity's relationship with itself, the rest of nature and the physical universe, rather than some pre-existing being. That, however, does not make it any less real. Anything which produces real effects in the material world is real, which means that if some conceptual entity in people's heads makes them do something, that entity is real and a force to be reckoned with. This is the sense in which "magick" works.
3. "The World-As-Is" does not refer to the physical world of quantum physics, rocks and bunny rabbits. It refers to what Gnostics call the kosmos - i.e. the system of language and social reality in which humans live and by which they make sense of the physical world. At the moment, the kosmos for a vast majority of the planet is a capitalist or state-capitalist one of wage labour and commodity production.
4. The individual ego is an integral part of the kosmos - the means by which you, as a biological Homo sapiens sapiens, interact with the kosmos. It has several different levels, which vaguely fit into the Freudian scheme of Superego/Ego/Id, or TA's Parent/Adult/Child. A crucial insight - and one of our main intellectual weapons against capitalist individualist/rationalist ideology - is that people very, very rarely act from the rational part of their being, and are generally driven by social pressure or unexamined psychological undercurrents (Parent or Child rather than Adult). In contrast, we use "Spirit" to mean those levels of the human personality which are not part of the kosmos, but come from an essential reality beneath that of language. (Nothing you can put into words is "essential reality".)
5. As materialists, we derive the "Should Be" from the "Is". The World-As-Should-Be is the kosmos as it could be if we made a conscious collective choice to act as if we were free, to maximise the ability of all to exercise their vital powers (which would mean, at the very least, a reorganisation of how we decide what stuff is made, and the very notion of "work for wages" as the fundament of the economy). The big issue is that most people are simply incapable of exercising "will" - i.e. to do something which is "right" even though it contradicts social or psychological taboos. This probably goes back to primitive ape days, when to go against the tribe pretty much meant being eaten by a leopard. But the essence of being human is: we are apes who have the capacity to not act like apes.
6. Therefore, Chaos Marxism promotes - on the rational, "Adult" level - a sophisticated dialectical materialist analysis of how human culture has evolved and where it might go from there, i.e. the best way to plan a map between World-As-Is and World-As-Should-Be. However, we realise that any scheme for changing the kosmos which works only on a rationalistic basis is doomed to self-destructive failure. The "human factor" means Parent and Child levels as well, and even beyond that, a "Spirit" level which is not part of the daily consciousness of the World-As-Is at all. (Schemes for changing the world based only on intellect are shown in the wonderful outcomes of neoliberalism and Stalinism in the 20th century.) One great thing about Lenin, as opposed to useless "Leninists", is that he understood the importance of will, of insurrection as an art, that in the heat of struggle resources are available to you that simply don't exist in normal everyday reality. This is an important psychological insight.
7. So-called "spiritual" groups which don't question the commodity/cash nexus are simply part of the problem. So are so-called "political" groups which are simply the same thing as the above "spiritual" groups only with secular rather than spiritual idols to which the individual is supposed to sacrifice themselves. In Chaos Marxism, the ego is limited and supposed to be prepared to sacrifice itself, but to the Spirit within, a zillion times more trustworthy than any Enlightened Leader. (There are such things as enlightened leaders, but they won't be the ones trying to get you to be cheap labour.)
8. Mindfulness/mind-calming techniques and other forms of "technology of ecstacy" are ways to access the Spirit. The more the Spirit is accessed, the less the ego's tyranny holds - the more that one proves to oneself by experiment that one is not simply a helpless pawn of subconscious or social impulses, the more "will" (see note 5 above) can be exercised. Therefore, real revolutionaries need a trustworthy psychologist and some kind of meditative practice if they want to avoid being wrapped up in the limits of the kosmos.
9. If political activism isn't making you a more loving, happy, creative person, you're doing it wrong. If your spiritual development isn't doing anything to actively spread loving-kindness in your space-time zone, you're doing it wrong.
10. Art is a means of communicating non-verbal, non-rational truths to a wider audience. As Trotsky says, it works by its own rules and should never be put to the service of expressing either political or religious agit-prop.
11. "God is omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient and created the world" is true - if you translate it to mean "the Spirit level of your individual consciousness continually creates your own personal section of the kosmos, and is many times smarter, powerful and nicer than your day-to-day self". In that sense, if we were to get in touch with the Spirit, by the ego sacrificing itself, then we could all be "fully human and fully divine", co-creators of everyday reality instead of just actors in its drama.
12. The main problem with so many "magickians" is a lack of ambition. So many of them just seem to want to get the best deal they can for themselves out of the kosmos, which means descending to grubby stage tricks and dominance rituals to improve their market value, or "cred" within some tiny clique. Chaos Marxism, like the original Surrealists, aim at nothing less than the total transformation of everyday life.
1. CM is materialist. Matter led to biological life which led to awareness which led to consciousness which led to spirituality.
2. Spirit / God is a potential in humanity's relationship with itself, the rest of nature and the physical universe, rather than some pre-existing being. That, however, does not make it any less real. Anything which produces real effects in the material world is real, which means that if some conceptual entity in people's heads makes them do something, that entity is real and a force to be reckoned with. This is the sense in which "magick" works.
3. "The World-As-Is" does not refer to the physical world of quantum physics, rocks and bunny rabbits. It refers to what Gnostics call the kosmos - i.e. the system of language and social reality in which humans live and by which they make sense of the physical world. At the moment, the kosmos for a vast majority of the planet is a capitalist or state-capitalist one of wage labour and commodity production.
4. The individual ego is an integral part of the kosmos - the means by which you, as a biological Homo sapiens sapiens, interact with the kosmos. It has several different levels, which vaguely fit into the Freudian scheme of Superego/Ego/Id, or TA's Parent/Adult/Child. A crucial insight - and one of our main intellectual weapons against capitalist individualist/rationalist ideology - is that people very, very rarely act from the rational part of their being, and are generally driven by social pressure or unexamined psychological undercurrents (Parent or Child rather than Adult). In contrast, we use "Spirit" to mean those levels of the human personality which are not part of the kosmos, but come from an essential reality beneath that of language. (Nothing you can put into words is "essential reality".)
5. As materialists, we derive the "Should Be" from the "Is". The World-As-Should-Be is the kosmos as it could be if we made a conscious collective choice to act as if we were free, to maximise the ability of all to exercise their vital powers (which would mean, at the very least, a reorganisation of how we decide what stuff is made, and the very notion of "work for wages" as the fundament of the economy). The big issue is that most people are simply incapable of exercising "will" - i.e. to do something which is "right" even though it contradicts social or psychological taboos. This probably goes back to primitive ape days, when to go against the tribe pretty much meant being eaten by a leopard. But the essence of being human is: we are apes who have the capacity to not act like apes.
6. Therefore, Chaos Marxism promotes - on the rational, "Adult" level - a sophisticated dialectical materialist analysis of how human culture has evolved and where it might go from there, i.e. the best way to plan a map between World-As-Is and World-As-Should-Be. However, we realise that any scheme for changing the kosmos which works only on a rationalistic basis is doomed to self-destructive failure. The "human factor" means Parent and Child levels as well, and even beyond that, a "Spirit" level which is not part of the daily consciousness of the World-As-Is at all. (Schemes for changing the world based only on intellect are shown in the wonderful outcomes of neoliberalism and Stalinism in the 20th century.) One great thing about Lenin, as opposed to useless "Leninists", is that he understood the importance of will, of insurrection as an art, that in the heat of struggle resources are available to you that simply don't exist in normal everyday reality. This is an important psychological insight.
7. So-called "spiritual" groups which don't question the commodity/cash nexus are simply part of the problem. So are so-called "political" groups which are simply the same thing as the above "spiritual" groups only with secular rather than spiritual idols to which the individual is supposed to sacrifice themselves. In Chaos Marxism, the ego is limited and supposed to be prepared to sacrifice itself, but to the Spirit within, a zillion times more trustworthy than any Enlightened Leader. (There are such things as enlightened leaders, but they won't be the ones trying to get you to be cheap labour.)
8. Mindfulness/mind-calming techniques and other forms of "technology of ecstacy" are ways to access the Spirit. The more the Spirit is accessed, the less the ego's tyranny holds - the more that one proves to oneself by experiment that one is not simply a helpless pawn of subconscious or social impulses, the more "will" (see note 5 above) can be exercised. Therefore, real revolutionaries need a trustworthy psychologist and some kind of meditative practice if they want to avoid being wrapped up in the limits of the kosmos.
9. If political activism isn't making you a more loving, happy, creative person, you're doing it wrong. If your spiritual development isn't doing anything to actively spread loving-kindness in your space-time zone, you're doing it wrong.
10. Art is a means of communicating non-verbal, non-rational truths to a wider audience. As Trotsky says, it works by its own rules and should never be put to the service of expressing either political or religious agit-prop.
11. "God is omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient and created the world" is true - if you translate it to mean "the Spirit level of your individual consciousness continually creates your own personal section of the kosmos, and is many times smarter, powerful and nicer than your day-to-day self". In that sense, if we were to get in touch with the Spirit, by the ego sacrificing itself, then we could all be "fully human and fully divine", co-creators of everyday reality instead of just actors in its drama.
12. The main problem with so many "magickians" is a lack of ambition. So many of them just seem to want to get the best deal they can for themselves out of the kosmos, which means descending to grubby stage tricks and dominance rituals to improve their market value, or "cred" within some tiny clique. Chaos Marxism, like the original Surrealists, aim at nothing less than the total transformation of everyday life.
Negativity is a buzz
Adrenaline/endorphins are a buzz. You can get that buzz from exercising your animal spirits (exercise, sex, good food, fighting, BDSM, deliberate exposure to danger). You can get it in a less stable sense from trendy chemical amusement; in a more stable sense from mindfulness/mind-calming practices, both which shut down the "Circuit III" babbling that runs around and around your head on a continuous loop for a little while. The thing about the healthier ways of getting the buzz is that they also put you into The Zone - i.e. enable a brief moment of unfiltered awareness, of just being and therefore being able to do according to the needs of the moment, not according to your automatic reflexes/"monkey mind".
On the other hand, a cheap and nasty way to get the buzz is to be negative about everything. Because if you live in a world full of mean and nasty people who are out to get you and everything's shitty and everyone's doing it wrong except for you and we're all doomed, then you get a nasty, low-grade boost of adrenaline. And it's easier than doing it the good way, which takes effort. Which is enough for many of us to develop an addiction to it. I know I have. Negativity is a habit-forming drug just like booze or smokes or white powders, and everyone is in danger of succumbing to it.
This is of course supremely applicable to politics. Addiction to conspiracy theory is one example of compulsive negativity. A brief tangent: by "conspiracy theory" I don't mean the belief that our rulers are lying to us, which isn't a theory, it's a pretty safe assumption. By "conspiracy theory" I mean a moralistic/idealistic discourse which puts the blame for the way the world is in the deliberate machinations of a hidden clique who made it all shitty like this on purpose. That's not politics, it's religion in the bad sense, because it's a good-evil narrative - the narrative that the only problem with the Machine of domination and oppression is that "lizard people" are in control of it. It also suggests that, in RAW's terms, "everything is under control" - control by the bad guys, but that's still more comforting than suggesting that the bad guys are not in control, that the more they try to exert control the worst it gets for them as for the rest of us, that things are getting worse because people make continuous choices to carry out the logic of the insane system because it's easier / it's of short-term benefit / it's what they've always done.
A materialistic explanation, which suggests that the system of generalised community production and capital accumulation itself creates incentives and externalities which inevitably create evil, conflict, waste, etc. not only avoids moralism, but also avoids determinism. I've always found ridiculous, for example, the idea that the Lizard People have a systematic programme to rape children to brainwash them into being mindless zombies. Just living in a capitalist system and being exposed to capitalist incentives does that already. It also encourages the kind of world in which we can tell ourselves that it's acceptable to rape children. The Machine doesn't require conscious evil as fuel - it feeds on its own waste products of alienation, reification and egotism.
Another way that politics becomes an addiction to negativity is simply the luxury of permanent opposition. Picking fights with The Man is a fun lifestyle, but it's not politics. Leisure activities are very rarely disruptive to the system. (Riot! the unbeatable high! tomorrow you're homeless, tonight it's a blast! - Dead Kennedys) The only sustainable disruption to the system is at the point of production. Smashing the windows of a Starbucks is just fucking up some other worker's day. Now organising a sit-down strike in your own workplace, that shows a little of what we need. It's also more difficult and places your precious self at risk.
A true revolutionary, like a true mystic, is motivated by great feelings of love, as Ché Guevara and the Sufis agree. Love which transcends the individual, that you are prepared to give up all the nice things that you have for your precious self (that you've found under the rocks and stones of the Fallen World-As-Is) as a sacrifice to the great Love for the World-As-Should Be. If you're motivated by negativity, you've drawn a line between yourself and the rest of the Universe which can only end in a selfish determination to screw the other guy and get what's yours, even though you might couch it in terms of communistic altruism.
On the other hand, a cheap and nasty way to get the buzz is to be negative about everything. Because if you live in a world full of mean and nasty people who are out to get you and everything's shitty and everyone's doing it wrong except for you and we're all doomed, then you get a nasty, low-grade boost of adrenaline. And it's easier than doing it the good way, which takes effort. Which is enough for many of us to develop an addiction to it. I know I have. Negativity is a habit-forming drug just like booze or smokes or white powders, and everyone is in danger of succumbing to it.
This is of course supremely applicable to politics. Addiction to conspiracy theory is one example of compulsive negativity. A brief tangent: by "conspiracy theory" I don't mean the belief that our rulers are lying to us, which isn't a theory, it's a pretty safe assumption. By "conspiracy theory" I mean a moralistic/idealistic discourse which puts the blame for the way the world is in the deliberate machinations of a hidden clique who made it all shitty like this on purpose. That's not politics, it's religion in the bad sense, because it's a good-evil narrative - the narrative that the only problem with the Machine of domination and oppression is that "lizard people" are in control of it. It also suggests that, in RAW's terms, "everything is under control" - control by the bad guys, but that's still more comforting than suggesting that the bad guys are not in control, that the more they try to exert control the worst it gets for them as for the rest of us, that things are getting worse because people make continuous choices to carry out the logic of the insane system because it's easier / it's of short-term benefit / it's what they've always done.
A materialistic explanation, which suggests that the system of generalised community production and capital accumulation itself creates incentives and externalities which inevitably create evil, conflict, waste, etc. not only avoids moralism, but also avoids determinism. I've always found ridiculous, for example, the idea that the Lizard People have a systematic programme to rape children to brainwash them into being mindless zombies. Just living in a capitalist system and being exposed to capitalist incentives does that already. It also encourages the kind of world in which we can tell ourselves that it's acceptable to rape children. The Machine doesn't require conscious evil as fuel - it feeds on its own waste products of alienation, reification and egotism.
Another way that politics becomes an addiction to negativity is simply the luxury of permanent opposition. Picking fights with The Man is a fun lifestyle, but it's not politics. Leisure activities are very rarely disruptive to the system. (Riot! the unbeatable high! tomorrow you're homeless, tonight it's a blast! - Dead Kennedys) The only sustainable disruption to the system is at the point of production. Smashing the windows of a Starbucks is just fucking up some other worker's day. Now organising a sit-down strike in your own workplace, that shows a little of what we need. It's also more difficult and places your precious self at risk.
A true revolutionary, like a true mystic, is motivated by great feelings of love, as Ché Guevara and the Sufis agree. Love which transcends the individual, that you are prepared to give up all the nice things that you have for your precious self (that you've found under the rocks and stones of the Fallen World-As-Is) as a sacrifice to the great Love for the World-As-Should Be. If you're motivated by negativity, you've drawn a line between yourself and the rest of the Universe which can only end in a selfish determination to screw the other guy and get what's yours, even though you might couch it in terms of communistic altruism.
2010-10-27
The important point...
... is that people are not monadic subjects. Your average human being consists of:
- a physical body;
- a consciousness (or awareness);
- various instinctual drives arising from the intersection of that body and consciousness;
- various subconscious "programmes" arising from the intersection of the instinctual drives and the Real World of Physical Laws and Other Humans;
- a rational mind;
- a self-image (created by the rational mind from on the basis of the subconscious processes - the purpose of this is to allow the individual to survive in the World-As-Is, and is the ego or at least what the individual thinks he or she is);
- and, in potential but only if worked on, a will capable of independent action, produced by the rational mind by the application of consciousness, which is capable of standing apart from all the above mental processes and making decisions based on principle.
Above that there's probably a Higher Self / True Will / Soul / God, accessible if all the above are working in co-operation, but about this it is not permissible to speak (because anything I could say would be asinine at best).
The essential crime of capitalism is that its ideology is based on the idea that the individual is nothing but a rational mind and instinctual drives (ignoring the deep interface between the two); and keeping the individual docile by deliberately trying to induce a gap between them. Capitalism and Schizophrenia, indeed.
The essential failure of leftist ideology is to believe that you can change this solely by an appeal to the rational mind. When rationality comes up against tasty treats offered to the animal brain, in all but those cases where an independent will has been developed, the rational mind loses every time.
Political radicalism must truly understand cultural theory, psychology, memetics, magick and mysticism if it has a chance of defeating the status quo this side of a total collapse of human civilisation. Because our enemies get it. They've turned it into an art, if not quite a science.
- a physical body;
- a consciousness (or awareness);
- various instinctual drives arising from the intersection of that body and consciousness;
- various subconscious "programmes" arising from the intersection of the instinctual drives and the Real World of Physical Laws and Other Humans;
- a rational mind;
- a self-image (created by the rational mind from on the basis of the subconscious processes - the purpose of this is to allow the individual to survive in the World-As-Is, and is the ego or at least what the individual thinks he or she is);
- and, in potential but only if worked on, a will capable of independent action, produced by the rational mind by the application of consciousness, which is capable of standing apart from all the above mental processes and making decisions based on principle.
Above that there's probably a Higher Self / True Will / Soul / God, accessible if all the above are working in co-operation, but about this it is not permissible to speak (because anything I could say would be asinine at best).
The essential crime of capitalism is that its ideology is based on the idea that the individual is nothing but a rational mind and instinctual drives (ignoring the deep interface between the two); and keeping the individual docile by deliberately trying to induce a gap between them. Capitalism and Schizophrenia, indeed.
The essential failure of leftist ideology is to believe that you can change this solely by an appeal to the rational mind. When rationality comes up against tasty treats offered to the animal brain, in all but those cases where an independent will has been developed, the rational mind loses every time.
Political radicalism must truly understand cultural theory, psychology, memetics, magick and mysticism if it has a chance of defeating the status quo this side of a total collapse of human civilisation. Because our enemies get it. They've turned it into an art, if not quite a science.
2010-10-20
γνῶθι σεαυτόν
There are two reasons anyone does anything, a good reason and the real reason; or, more precisely, a rationalisation and a subconscious motivation.
You can't stop unnecessary suffering unless you actually understand why you do things - i.e. what you really want, what your actual psychology and physiology needs but won't admit, and what prompted you to a course of action that led to suffering. The problem tends to be that if you don't get your subconscious needs met by your actions (and you almost certainly won't because the subconscious doesn't behave rationally), your subconscious will declare that the whole thing was a disaster and make you miserable. In contrast, if you admit to yourself what you were subconsciously trying to do, and that it was never going to work so no point beating yourself up over it, then you can actually rationally estimate the concrete advantages and the disadvantages of the action, and then try to turn the disadvantages to your advantage (even if the advantage is "now I know not to do that again").
In this way, you can minimise unnecessary suffering, to leave more time, space, energy and resources for necessary suffering. (Because, as the Buddha correctly said, life in this world is suffering, you might as well pick the most effective and useful form of suffering.) And part of that wisdom is learning that real fulfilment means acting in accordance with your own inner nature, and can't be found in any possession or symbolic capital. Aleister Crowley said "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law"; Karl Marx said that the essential nature of humanity was in labour (i.e. productive, creative work) rather than consumption.
You can't stop unnecessary suffering unless you actually understand why you do things - i.e. what you really want, what your actual psychology and physiology needs but won't admit, and what prompted you to a course of action that led to suffering. The problem tends to be that if you don't get your subconscious needs met by your actions (and you almost certainly won't because the subconscious doesn't behave rationally), your subconscious will declare that the whole thing was a disaster and make you miserable. In contrast, if you admit to yourself what you were subconsciously trying to do, and that it was never going to work so no point beating yourself up over it, then you can actually rationally estimate the concrete advantages and the disadvantages of the action, and then try to turn the disadvantages to your advantage (even if the advantage is "now I know not to do that again").
In this way, you can minimise unnecessary suffering, to leave more time, space, energy and resources for necessary suffering. (Because, as the Buddha correctly said, life in this world is suffering, you might as well pick the most effective and useful form of suffering.) And part of that wisdom is learning that real fulfilment means acting in accordance with your own inner nature, and can't be found in any possession or symbolic capital. Aleister Crowley said "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law"; Karl Marx said that the essential nature of humanity was in labour (i.e. productive, creative work) rather than consumption.
2010-10-12
So we keep saying!
Instead of performing a rational cost-benefit analysis, we accept information which confirms our identity and values, and reject information that conflicts with them. We mould our thinking around our social identity, protecting it from serious challenge. Confronting people with inconvenient facts is likely only to harden their resistance to change.
- George Monbiot
What do you want - to change material reality or just give yourself a new identity, a new lifestyle, a new religion which says it's not a religion?
- Chaos Marxist Aphorisms II,43
2010-10-11
An apology
To date, this blog has pretty much been the equivalent of a person who's lived in the trackless desert her whole life, telling wayfarers: "Oh yeah, I totally know the way to the Silver City. Of course, I've never been there myself. But I've talked to people who know people who have! And based on that and on my own experience of the trackless desert, it shouldn't be too hard for us to put our heads together and draw a map..."
Yeah. The ego (including the intellect) is a booster rocket. You'll never get off the ground without it, but you'll never get into orbit with it.
Yeah. The ego (including the intellect) is a booster rocket. You'll never get off the ground without it, but you'll never get into orbit with it.
2010-10-10
Arirang
Chaos Marxism aims to be a technology of ecstacy - or, more importantly, integration of ecstacy into the Real World of Horrible Jobs, of inner and outer worlds - which has always been the goal of mystical paths and dialectical materialist praxis. Capitalism generalises alienation, in which work is turned against the self; and, in the modern era, a "Chinese Wall" is erected between production and consumption, with the ideological apparatus of society actively encouraging a "split personality" (the dutiful worker always pushing for greater productivity suddenly transforms into a raging, impulse-buying party animal and sexual tyrannosaurus after 5 pm and on weekends).
In this sense, you could even make an argument that the Stalinist and fascist party-states had a slight edge, whereby officially promoted ecstatic states (generally in the form of leader worship, eg North Korean "mass games", or "compulsory social solidarity" events) were closely integrated into the daily grind of routine labour. "It's very chaste, but everyone has a good time," as James Church's Inspector O put it. Recent advances in the "creative workplace" in the capitalist countries are catching up, though - they're trying to integrate fun into work, but in such a way as to subordinate fun to work.
But Stalinist, fascist and capitalist technologies are simply safety valves - imposition of order leads to escalation of chaos, so there are clearly defined limits to "official ecstacy". When Saturnalia is over, the slaves go back to being slaves. So much "revolutionary" practice, unfortunately, fits into this remarkably well - political activism is something you do in your leisure time and lunch breaks, which is 100% compatible with the perpetuation of capitalist normality, as it's just another leisure activity. Assertion of workers' power and self-management on the job breaks the cycle, but of course that can't be done by isolated individuals - it needs social organisation, which capitalist normality does everything in its power to prevent.
So our problem is: how do we achieve ecstacy in a way in which something is disrupted in the system of the Black Iron Prison, rather than just letting off steam? Probably the answer lies in personality integration - that we should strive to become the same person on the job, in the sack, and communing with the Gods, rather than building barriers and compartments between experiences. They actually enforce something like this in Stalinist countries, but in the service of a closed, static, self-perpetuating social order - the people who talk about North Korea as "neo-feudal" are close to the mark, although I'd say it's much more like the Byzantine emperor+bureaucracy system than European feudalism, which if nothing else was radically decentralised.
Reactionary systems: workaday self and ecstatic self merged in a static loop.
Capitalism: workaday self divorced from ecstatic self.
Revolutionary systems: workaday self and ecstatic self merged in a dynamic loop.
2010-09-18
A chilling thought
Has anyone noticed that, these days, the fundamentalist Protestant churches market themselves as self-help, positive-thinking seminars? The local scary Elim crowd have big billboards by the side of the motorway saying "LIVE LIFE", complete with a white middle-class looking woman looking ecstatically fulfilled on a beach. You know, this kind of unnerves me because I always though that their message was "REPENT". But you tell people what they want to hear.
I was reminded of this, browsing in the Self-Help section of my favourite secondhand book store and seeing how many of the titles ("Be yourself! Allow yourself to succeed!" etc) were surplus from the library of some fundamentalist Protestant church or other. I knew already about the "prosperity gospel", but it kind of woke me up a bit to realise that these people are marketing The Lord And Saviour Jesus Christ as something that can motivate you to success in love and business. The Church of the SubGenius without the sense of humour. Or Scientology with all the really loopy personality cult stuff shaved off.
But of course, it will work. You go in there, you raise the Holy Spirit through pentecostalist measures, and of course that energy will be yours to use for whatever you think is important at the time. I must admit being unnerved that the sheikh of my local Sufi congregation also enthusiastically espouses "Think And Grow Rich" mantras. But if the technology is given to the middle classes, they will use it for middle-class purposes, no matter the flavour of the wrapping of the tasty treat of "raising the Spirit". All that energy goes into increasing one's acquiesence to the dogmas of the market economy. We need to do the opposite.
I was reminded of this, browsing in the Self-Help section of my favourite secondhand book store and seeing how many of the titles ("Be yourself! Allow yourself to succeed!" etc) were surplus from the library of some fundamentalist Protestant church or other. I knew already about the "prosperity gospel", but it kind of woke me up a bit to realise that these people are marketing The Lord And Saviour Jesus Christ as something that can motivate you to success in love and business. The Church of the SubGenius without the sense of humour. Or Scientology with all the really loopy personality cult stuff shaved off.
But of course, it will work. You go in there, you raise the Holy Spirit through pentecostalist measures, and of course that energy will be yours to use for whatever you think is important at the time. I must admit being unnerved that the sheikh of my local Sufi congregation also enthusiastically espouses "Think And Grow Rich" mantras. But if the technology is given to the middle classes, they will use it for middle-class purposes, no matter the flavour of the wrapping of the tasty treat of "raising the Spirit". All that energy goes into increasing one's acquiesence to the dogmas of the market economy. We need to do the opposite.
2010-09-16
I don't approve of charity.
Let me rephrase that. I 100% totally approve of donating your time, energy and labour. But donating money? The thing about money is that it's "made round to go round", and that it's totally fungible - which is the basis of the market economy - so whoever gets their hands on it can do whatever they like with it. The problem with giving money to an established charity is, to become an established anything in the World-As-Is, an organisation must do some kind of deal with The Prince Of This World (schmoozing big corporates and governments, etc). No matter its mission statements and "good works" on the ground, the larger the organisation, the more embedded it is in the very thing that the act of charity is supposed to be dissolving.
Of course, I'm not discounting the "metaphysical principle" that freely donating something which does have value to the individual is an act of selflessness which is good in itself - but as a consequentialist good, I would really recommend you get into volunteer labour. (And if you have more money than time and energy? Quit your job, schmuck.)
Of course, I'm not discounting the "metaphysical principle" that freely donating something which does have value to the individual is an act of selflessness which is good in itself - but as a consequentialist good, I would really recommend you get into volunteer labour. (And if you have more money than time and energy? Quit your job, schmuck.)
2010-09-15
Funny, had a feeling he was on his way
There are two struggles—inner-world struggle and outer-world struggle, but never can these two make contact, to make data for the third world. Not even God gives this possibility for contact between your inner- and outer-world struggles; not even your heredity. Only one thing—you must make intentional contact between outer-world struggle and inner-world struggle; only then can you make data for the Third World of Man, sometimes called World of the Soul.
Thank you, G (emphasis added). That serves as a mission statement for this blog better than anything I've written.
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