Mike writes:
> Basically, the kind of self who realizes that
freedom is attainable through class conscious
solidarity. Our power to change the world grows as we
act in classwide
solidarity for ourselves.
Brian responds:
Which I would call interdependent reality. The only
difference is that my approach is to clear away the
debris to discover the reality that is already there.
Western thinkers seem to prefer the scenic route --
building from scratch a solidarity which already
exists, but that has been obscured by delusion.
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Mike again:
The irony is that as a class, we are organized, but
not for ourselves. We are organized to carry on
production for wages or salaries for the capitalist
class and their State. Production is social, but
ownership and control of that production and the
wealth which is created is not. We are dependent on
each other to make the system work: producing food,
drink, services and so on, as commodities for sale
with a view to profit for the owners. Surely, we are
socially interdependent--we useful producers need each
other to survive. We don't need parasites i.e. the
ruling class, except as they become useful producers
in a classless society--after the revolution.
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Mike wrote:
> To the extent that we give our power to decide what
will be and what we want over to bureaucracies,
cliques, masters and other classes, we distance
ourselves from attaining our own liberation.
Brian replies: I think the problem is that most Westerners have been so trained/programmed that they cannot envision a liberation which involves the acknowledgment of interdependent reality. The indoctrination that occurs around the issues of self and desire is overwhelming for most people.
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Getting workers to become conscious of their class interests is not going to be easy. It's not going to be done by positive words and political programs/actions alone. The failure of the System to provide for the felt needs of the producers e.g. for a planet not on a self-destruct course via global warming or for an end to the human destructive oil wars or for deterioriation of democracy under police state pressures and so on...
The indoctrination which you mention is part and parcel of the history of ideas which dominate our era.
These ideas are inculcated in us from cradle to grave, from parents to the State, from work to leisure time TV viewing....The upside down world is, in a word, "nurtured" by our experiences in daily life: GM produces cars, We give thanks to God for this food, Wearing trousers with Jeans North labels make us sexy, the people with power deserve it because they're smarter and worked hard and produced so much...they are our friends and give us our jobs--Arbeitgebers all.
> For a good read on the negative side of the modern
self, try Beckett's MALLOY. On the postive side, try
B.Traven's GENERAL FROM THE JUNGLE.
I am a fan of both Beckett and Traven. A nice study is Beckett and Zen: A Study of Dilemma in the Novels of Samuel Beckett by Paul Foster.
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Thanks for the tip, Brian. I just finished MALLOY myself. What a hoot! Black humour at it's best, IMO.
Only CATCH 22 compares. Beckett is quite good at depicting the absurdities of consciousness amongst those who accept the notion that "there's nothing to be done" because our Godots are no longer here to tell us and give us this day our daily meaning or maybe they are somewhere issuing their orders from obscure places--perhaps from bunkers underneath some mountain in Montana. As these Morans and Malloys body parts atrophy from disuse, the world churns on around them: A-bombs are built; cities destroyed; people murdered; children starving; species becoming extinct; ever cheapened commodities being produced; flooding markets with trash, being sold globally to those who can still afford them; Coke drunk as a substitute for clean water....the list of atrocities which are being perpetrated by the ongoing capitalist system and its absurd cronies who wail, "Nothing can be done..better just fold my hands over my buttons and watch that instant reply of the child burning to death in X."
Reading Bloch's SPIRIT OF UTOPIA seems appropriate right now.
Best, 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, "Dialectic and Hope" http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal
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