Dear List:
Mike writes:
> I see the destruction of self as a masochistic,
social psychological tendency--a kind of
self-immolation, if you will.
Why can't you see it as a liberation? If we immolate the self as it is presently constructed and substitute a more realistic understanding, why is that masochistic? *******************************************************
For example, to the degree we see ourselves as mere consumers and not producers of the world, we remain in a passive position. We immolate ourselves as creators and adopt the role of thanking our creators.
**************** Isn't maintaining a notion of self that facilitates exploitation the masochistic act? ******** Yes. *********************************************
> The destruction of self is an important aspect of
political power, domination by another person or in
the case of say, capitalist social relations,
acquiensence
to the domination of the ruling capitalist class.
***************************************************
Yet it is the actuality of the self (as you conceive
it) that permits exploitation and domination. Why
support such a pathology?
*******************************************************
I think that you have misunderstood me. To paraphrase
the bearded ones: the ruling ideas of any era are
ever the ideas of the ruling class. The self which is
ruled by capitalist ideas is not the self which can
make a communist revolution. Among other anomalies,
that self believes in a freedom which is based on the
unfreedom of her/his competitors in the marketplace
for commodities. For workers, that means other
workers. Hence, solidarity amongst class conscious
workers is a necessary part of self-interest, an
interest which coicides with class interest.
******************************************
> The destruction of political power and thus
domination of one person by another, should be a
general principle of the movement toward greater
freedom.
***********
Agreed.
**********
It pleases me and is in both my self and class interests that you are on the same side of the barricades as I am.
*******************************
> It is in the class interests of all individual
wage-slaves to have in mind the strategic goal of
abolishing the wage system for this will result
in the overturning of capitalist class domination,
reulsting in more freedom and justice for all : one
planet without gods or dominators--a democratic
association of producers where the conditions for the
freedom of each are the conditions for the freedom of
all.
*******************************************************
But don't class interests arise from self-interest?
*******************************************************
Authentic ones do.
****************************************************
And if self-interest is toxic, then class interest is just toxicity squared. **********
The "hooray for me, devil take the hindmost" kind of self-interest IS toxic. It is not in my class interest.
***********
If you are concerned with freedom, why do you want to ensnare people in the slavery of self/class interests? **************************
I'm not interested in becoming a "master of hounds" or
any other such non-sense. When it comes to class
interests and self-interest, I want workers to know
what they want and desire it on a material basis. We
are dis-empowered to the degree that we allow the
social product of our labour to be appropriated by the
employing class.
****************
> Class interests don't negate the individual, they
only negate narrow, bourgeois self-interest where one
person's freedom is based on another's un-freedom.
*****************************************************
Can you define the self in terms other than self-interest?
******************************************************
That's a big ask. Good question. I'd say that the great authors of the centuries have attempted this feat. I'm not one of the great authors, but I have made attempts to describe this, socialist self in what I have written, both from a negative point of view i.e. presenting the casualties of the System and also the fighters against its tendencies to ground us down with its "Iron Heel". I have also hinted at in my posts to this list, including this one.
Best to you, Mike B)
===== It is the simple thing that is difficult to do, being-for-oneself, whose ways must be won by fighting, whose excellence demands bravery.
Ernst Bloch, "Dialectics and Hope" http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal
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