[lbo-talk] Chavez vs Halloween

[Bitch]

At 10:00 AM 11/1/2005, Dennis Perrin wrote:
>>Tommy:
>><<<I agree with Chavez; it is a stupid holiday that gets more, and more
>>absurd each year, with some people getting a little to into the freaky
>>spooky nonsense. <<<
>>
>>But the masses seem to enjoy that nonsense, don't they?  They even seem to
>>prefer it to the left-of-the center and progressive storytelling.  Where
>>does that leave us?
>>
>>Wojtek
>
>Christ, are you people that fucking sad? What's the big deal about 
>Halloween? I took my son out last night and he and I had a blast -- got to 
>dress up in costume and play act in public. How does that keep the working 
>class down?
>
>Dennis

Oh come on. Wojtek said the other day that people need mystery. If they 
live like he wants them to, above, then they'll shit all over himself -- I 
mean, themselves. (somedays, my typhos are fortuitous, eh?)

It's The Two Wojteks! And, I believe, his theme song should be something 
like this:

"I have a can of shit.
Can you open it?"

Speaking of, I wrote about this recently when The Bitch got serious for a 
moment and replied to A on splitting, reparation, depression, etc. as it 
related to her thoughts on Marx's letter to Arnold Ruge, a letter which 
Althusser points to as significant to Marx's break with Hegel, the infamous 
split in Marx that some point to as an important way to understand the 
various tribes among Marxists, Marxits, Marxishes, and Heavy Users of Marx.

Anyway, I thought about the list because I think the passage inthe book is 
useful to understanding the productivity of shame and the regressiveness of 
guilt, issues about why things never change (constant recycling), etc. etc. 
and whether things like patriotism and shame at the behavior of a nation 
are phenom that can be progressive or are only ever regressive.

And frankly, given the phenom of depressive marxism doug talks about, and 
the slew of extremely depressed people it seems i encounter all the time, 
maybe it's worth reading no matter what your interests are or where your 
politics are:


It's a shame
http://blog.pulpculture.org/2005/11/01/its-a-shame/



Over the weekend, a friend couldn't figure out why she was crying over 
something that happened years ago, a memory that surfaced adjacent to what 
otherwise might have seemed a happy situation. Someone she'd hurt a month 
ago (the person had also hurt my friend­a virtual gang bang of pain goin' 
on there) revealed that all was well between them.
...

I decided to read a passage of the book, to help her understand why I 
thought she needed to stop obsessing about the memory and get at what was 
really eating her: her own anxiety about the friend she'd hurt and fear 
that the olive branch, while welcome, might end up making her feel exposed 
to potential pain once again.


<...>

The Reparative Process

The sense of shame appears to have several roots. One is shamed by the 
damage done to others, particularly when these others have contributed 
positively to one's life; one shamed by one's pettiness, and one is shamed 
by the discovery of one's defensiveness, of the lies one tells to oneself. ...

In a third, key element of the reparative process, shame leads one to 
repair one relationship to others, but not in order to ask forgiveness. 
When we act out of guilt, we affirm our insignificance (emphasis added): We 
cannot transform the feeling that we are unworthy, and we require that 
others more powerful than we are to tolerate our inadequacies. In contrast, 
when we act out of shame, we affirm our value to others by offering 
something of value to them. In such a situation, we do not see the other 
person as all powerful, as one who can either punish or forgive, bur rather 
as someone whom we have hurt. We thus overturn our experience of being 
inadequate by being adequate and important to that person.


Completely Shameless Bitch,


Culture Lab | Pulp Culture Collective

http://www.pulpculture.org
http://blog.pulpculture.org