You are delusional if you think public opinion has never changed policy. Much less that it wouldn’t do so more often if it stopped acting as delusional as you and actually got involved, informed, and voted. Which was my point.

You’re delusional if you think policy changes are based on public opinion. What is the evidence for that?

Fred: ok! Fine! You got me! You speak of “high on your own supply.” indeed, the self-actualization journey inevitably involves altered states of consciousness! However, in many cases, the “altered states of consciousness” experienced by my heroes in their self-actualization journeys were forms of dissociation caused by traumatic event(s) they managed to heal from in the process of making the album! My self-actualization occurred on April 16th, when I was taking Dr. Carrier’s naturalism class! That was the day I synthesized my Cartesian Demon with my Laplacian Demon! The reason it sounds “crazy” is that it was phenomenally (metaphysically) indistinguishable from a psychotic episode! I experienced (“heard”) an audible pop in my head! I thought I was having a stroke or something! I called an ambulance! They still want me to pay $450! I have insurance, Fred! Anyway, the “statistical miracle” is that I was able to stay calm and not panic because of everything I had learned about the subconscious in the course of taking three of Dr. Carrier’s courses! It’s not just him! I did a lot of extra reading! But he recommended a lot of it! But you’d expect me to have been panicking (if you didn’t know I had been learning so much about the subconscious) because I was having a psychotic episode!!! But I’m my actual self now! That means I can’t go back to my pre-actual self! And it’s not like I haven’t experienced systems trying to get me to go back somehow!

Mario:

…But the whole point of Orwell is that war isn’t peace. That’s yet another practical failing of the dialectic: It can be used identically to the reasoning of authoritarian propaganda to transmute one thing into its opposite using verbiage, basically a fallacious Ship of Theseus argument. Orwell’s whole point is that any language or any assumptions that can lead you to think war can in any way be peace is tricking you. That’s why Politics and the English Language suggests plain-speaking, honest discourse.

And you would not do well under Stalin’s purges, Mario. It’s really scary that you don’t recognize that. Orwell’s contemporaries, or even people before the Wall came down, could maybe be forgiven for not realizing how utterly screwed up the Russian dungeon was and the kind of ongoing damage it did. The ongoing problem with Russian corruption is fully traceable to the Soviets (and, yes, the Czars before them): Authoritarian regimes make people lie to each other even in blatant ways because of the panoptic fear that either will get ratted out (the Russians call it vranyo , and this enables blatant corruption).

People today don’t have that excuse. It is willful ignorance now to look at these regimes and think they’re at all defensible. Bakunin’s prediction of the red bureaucracy beating the people with the people’s stick is apt. And when people make falsifiable predictions that are ultimately confirmed, they deserve to be paid attention to.

Regarding the hero’s journey: Okay, then why are you using his Nazi idea? The whole point of Fish’s argument is that the idea itself is fundamentally flawed. It’s not just that Campbell sucked. It’s that Campbell’s biases can be seen in the journey. How the hell did Bjork refuse the call? She’s been in music since she was six. What threshold guardian did she battle? In what way did she meaningfully leave home? She went back to Iceland because of gun violence.

What you’ve done is just take people with any kind of remarkable journey and shove the name “hero’s journey” onto it. This is, of course, totally contrary to Orwell’s advice about avoiding needless jargon. It’s actively misleading. And, since you clearly just mean any kind of trajectory of personal growth, it makes the idea that liberal subjectitude can’t do it especially false…

Especially as you talk about people in the fucking belly of liberal subjectitude . Bjork is a goddamn Norwegia. She’s influenced by Kraftwerk and Kate Bush. She’s not singing Kapital.

So, yes, self-actualization is a transformative process. That’s different for each person. That doesn’t follow a monomyth. And is done all the time by people in all sorts of social contexts.

And when you say “Even if those skills might not be recognized as “useful” in the capital economy!”, that’s you condemning capitalism. Not liberalism. See why I keep makng the distinction?

I’m sure what you do feels good. But, as an outside person interacting with you, Mario, it seems like someone high on their own supply. It’s okay to take a second look at these ideas. It’s okay to say, “Okay, yeah, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a bad idea”.

Fred: sorry about the 1984 thing. It’s just that the Goldstein book is the document they give Winston that explains the dialectical relationship between war and peace! Anyway! I don’t know if you live in America, but fascists are about to take over! Maybe if I click my heels together three times, I’ll be lucky enough to get DEPORTED to a “dictatorship of the proletariat”! That’ll teach me, I bet! Then I’ll be sorry! 😒

Re: Campbell: I watched Maggie’s videos about that Nazi! I don’t care about him! Björk IS my hero! I don’t need some Nazi to tell me she went on a journey! She says herself that she’s going on a journey in the song “Hunter”! At the end of the album, after “Alarm Call,” where she “goes to the mountaintop,” and “Pluto,” where she “explodes,” she finds that “all is full of love”! That’s a big deal! Self-actualization is a TRANSFORMATIVE process! The self-actualized individual who recognizes theirself as a child of mother earth and a member of the class that works for itself has inner peace! They don’t live in fear of their neighbor! They live in the spirit of imagination and curiosity! They have useful skills! Even if those skills might not be recognized as “useful” in the capital economy! They love and respect theirself! They are fiercely loyal (i.e., they demand a society where there is NO CONTRADICTION between loyalty to the self, to the class, and/or to mother earth)! They know how and when to stay in their own lane! They have a sense of humor! Especially a sense of gallows humor! They know the meaning of struggle and “earning it” and self-sacrifice! They know how to mourn! They have a long memory! The indomitable revolutionary human spirit of the self-actualized […] individual working in a collective of other so-self-actualized individuals will not be defeated in the long run! I am a self-actualized individual who recognizes theirself as a child of mother earth and the class that works for itself! And I can assure you that I think for myself! And I always will! Even if it kills me! It’s not like I haven’t had a few scrapes!

Mario:

I have read 1984. I know Orwell was a socialist. I’ve read Animal Farm, I’ve read the foreword to it, I’ve read Shooting an Elephant, I’ve read his socialist work, I’ve even read parts of Homage to Catalonia. I know that 1984 is intended as a specific warning about the trend of Western nations to fascism, hence him using Oceania. But the problems he identifies, as he well knew, being a fierce critic of Stalin (ironically to doctrinaire Marxists like yourself – that’s literally who the foreword for Animal Farm is targeted at), extend to the USSR and to “Communist” states. In fact, in reality, as I’ve discussed elsewhere just recently, if you look at fasciist states, they’re rarely that organized. They’re usually far more incompetent and bumbling. It’s actually really only the authoritarian left and a more traditionalist autocratic right that has ever actually run regimes with the density and sophistication of the propaganda and cultural engineering he discusses in 1984. (Though, as Chomsky points out, Doublespeak is something that corporate media can promulgate quite well).

And, yes, Mario, I know that capitalist societies can do those things. This should tell you why the dictatorship of the proletariat is a bad idea. Because you can have a dictatorship, using propaganda to say that it’s the dictatorship of the proletariat, that’s just a degenerate form of state capitalism. Like the USSR . Like China. Indeed, that is the only mode we have ever observed for it . Yes, including Vietnam.

And, yes, Mario, you have tended to avoid class reductionism, but your response here is flailing. The point is that Marxism, as an analytical category, places economics, a priori, ahead of all other concerns. That’s the point of the substructure-superstructure analysis. Marx was brilliant at recognizing the interconnections, but he still put his own preferred disciplne, economics, on top, analytically.

But a feminist can point out that the most fundamental structures of societies are really famiilies and kinship groups, and that those dynamics precede essentially any sophisticated economics, and all economics pass through them. A cultural anthropologist or anti-racist can point out that culture dictates everything, that culture is what people actually live, day to day, and all other things are secondary. I read a fantastic article that I wish I could find again that argued that the ideology of capitalism was secondary to racism and colonialism, effectively an ad hoc justification for “The thing we are doing to these people anyways”. And a an anarchist or pollitical science can note that all human interactions take place in contexts of norms, rules, laws and policies, that when we seek to act collectively we always engage in a kind of politics.

So why put economics first? There is no reason.

And this is yet another flaw of the dialectic. It’s one-dimensional. You can only ever analyze one topic. But soocieties aren’t one-dimensional. They’re not univariable.

So Liberating Theory ( https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264871916_Liberating_Theory , there are other free PDFs) argues, I think far more successfully, for a “force field” approach. These different axes of human interaction are always co-operant. While one may be more important in any given context or even across many contexts, all can be dominant at any given point, and all matter. There is no “superstructure”. There are interacting structures, like a spiderweb.

And, yes, we can seize the means of production. Which doesn’t require a dictatorship. Again, I’m being really specific here, and you’re dancing around it.

Okay, so you recognize that the atomization of the individual is a problem. Great. I think a “neo-tribe” format is perfectly reasonable. Do you have any evidence that it works? That there are no additional problems? Chomsky lived on a kibbutzim. He pointed out that, as much as he loved it, small groups like that tend toward a kind of busybodyism, of people being really inordinately worried about other people’s business. So how do you get the benefits of love and community without intrusion and loss of privacy?

And, yes, it doesn’t matter if they’re complimentary interfaces. They’re fucking not . Dictatorships destroy all the organic solidarity you’re discussing. Seriously, why are you still defending this? It’s so transparent that you don’t actually care to. Your method really is wholly un-dictatorial. So why not drop it? Get rid of it. It was a bad idea. Doesn’t make anything else Marx said wrong. But we ran the experiment, and it has a miserable failure rate. It’s not worth including it.

(And want to talk about square pegs in round holes? Again, dictatorships don’t do great on those! The idea that neurodiverse people are well-served by some top-down one-size-fits-all solution that just has sickle and hammer branding is, in my view, utterly moronic).

As for the hero’s journey: Just watch the Maggie Mae Fish video. I think it will make you realize how utterly restrictive the hero’s journey is. And you are talking about folks like Bjork and McLachlan and Del Ray who you do not know. You do not know if they fit this pattern, and in fact, women rarely do. Hence the proliferation of the “heroine’s journey”, a story pattern where a woman goes through a hero’s journey, comes home, and realizes there’s still work to be done that doesn’t fit into some easy pattern. Ironically, one reason why is social issues. Social issues don’t see final resolution the same way killing a dragon does.

You’ll also notice that the hero’s journey is both individualistic rather than collectivistic and parochial rather than universal. The hero’s journey ends with the hero returning home. What about the hero leaving his homeland forever, in solidarity with a new people? Finding an adoptive family? Seems like the kind of things lefties in particular should pay attention to.

And, again, I really want to point out: You are forcing innumerable people you don’t know into a pattern that was meaningful to you but you have no idea was meaningful to them. That’s the same kind of analytical violence you decried in liberal servitude. Based on an ideology derived from liberal servitude . Look up what Campbell had to say about women and the left. You may be shocked.

But, again, what I suspect is going on is that you’ve taken a specific category that is rich with information and, in trying to retrofit it to everything, reduced it to triviality. Just like the dialectic. Just like Skinner with behaviorism. You want master keys to the world and you don’t have any. You have good ideas in specific contexts that you are overapplying.

Fred: apparently you haven’t read 1984. Fine, whatever. It’s not “a warning against socialism.” If anything, it seems like Orwell is saying, like Marx, that the fall of capitalism is inevitable! What it’s a warning against is the surveillance state, the permanent war state, the end of history narrative, and the (resulting, apparently) death of love/joy! We didn’t need to transition out of capitalism (or even liberalism) for our governments to adopt those policies! History can only “end” after class society ends! Because the “advent” of history was very tied up in the “advent” of class society! I don’t “reduce” people to their class! It’s capitalism that tends to “reduce people” to their class! Let’s remember that a person’s class is tied up in their relation to the means of production! The revolutionary (working) class can have all the discussions we want, but we need goals, right? And one of them has to be seizing the means of production, right? So we need programs to get all us proles ready for that! We need to create dual power movements/organizations, not (completely) unlike Hezbollah in Lebanon!

What are we talking about when we say we’re against the atomization of the individual? Because the philosophy of synthetic naturalism fights the atomization of the individual by putting the individual in very intimate relationships with their own community members! A “neo-tribe,” if you will! A “tribe” of self-actualized individuals who attained self-actualization through recognizing themselves as children of mother earth, and as members of the working class that works for itself! The philosophy of synthetic naturalism sees the human being as “synthetically natural,” not (completely) unlike the bacteria that evolved to eat plastic! It doesn’t see people like me, who have autism, as (merely) “square pegs” just because of our limitations in the capital economy! It sees a place of dignity for everyone! We just have to rethink “dignity” a little! Ok, fine, the dictatorship of the proletariat isn’t the same thing as the neo-tribe, but it doesn’t really matter as long as there are compatible interfaces! These are just sketches! But we can’t fight fascism as atomized individuals! Let’s not forget that!

Ok, look, I don’t want to get into the hero’s journey too much, but it’s what Björk went through when she made Homogenic! It’s what Sarah McLachlan went through when she made Fumbling Towards Ecstasy! It’s what Lana Del Rey went through when she made Ocean Blvd! In other words, it’s not something everyone goes through in western society! You almost have to “luck into it” by surviving heartache and tragedy! But at the end, they find love and peace! They had it the whole time! They just weren’t looking in the right places! It’s a big deal to find/figure out where your love and peace come from!

Mario:

And yet you had it, in liberal subjectitude. So even if we can’t blame any issues on capitalism, clearly it’s not inconsistent with liberal subjectitude. I think you are conflating what the model promises with what it allows. It’s precisely one of the strength of multicultural liberalism that the model allows a lot more than its ideal default package. I’m dubious if that’s even true, I suspect your hero’s journey is perfectly consistent even with liberal subjectitude, but whatever, it’s certainly not precluded by it. Your argument is self-refuting by your own example.

(Also, I recommend watching Maggie Mae Fish on the hero’s journey. The idea is fundamentally flawed, ironically an idea in need of a dialectic).

So if you don’t care how they did it, why did you defend a dictatorship of the proletariat? But, whatever. The problem is precisely that such a dictatorship inevitably creates alienation. The process of creating authority of some over others produces precisely the dynamic where the working class cannot operate together. Dictatorships inherently concentrate power and this inherently prevents class solidarity. Also, the point of the revolution isn’t to make the working class ascendant. It’s to end class.

And “natural cycles”? Okay, so you’re the one making a biotruth. With no evidence. Either humans are cultural animals or they’re not. You can’t have it both ways. So, again, it seems like your problem with the people saying history is over is just that they called the play early, not that you actually have a fundamental problem with ignoring humans as a group that is culturally evolving.

Your arguments hinge on evidence you don’t have. Again, this is a failure of Marxism, and of a metaphysical focus. You’re smuggling in quite non-metaphysical assumptions about anthropology, history, sociology, etc. in your framework. Those assumptions may be true or false, but they need to be defended. They’re not proper axioms. And, near as I can tell, the assumptions are false. (Which is not the same as endorsing liberalism or patriarchy or technocracy).

Fred: my hero’s journey looked a lot more like liberal 1984 or Invisible Man (the one by Ellison) or, hell, The Passion of the Christ (I’m not kidding!) than anything we’re promised in liberal subjectitude! But the only reason it even turned out “that well” is that I SURVIVED! The philosophy of synthetic naturalism dictates that I regularly mourn my loved ones who did NOT survive their “hero’s journey”! Because we have to synthesize our survivor guilt with our survivor bias! That’s how tears become a dialectical synthesis of the tragedy and the statistic, Fred! I’m only good as a “Marxist” insofar as I am a missionary FROM the Sentinelese! We practice the same religion! Mother Earth! And, look, I don’t care HOW they do it, but the revolutionary (working) class can only come into consciousness of itself as the individuals in the revolutionary class come into collective class consciousness, and the self actualized individual can only come into consciousness of theirself as a member of the revolutionary class insofar as they also recognize theirself to be simply another child of mother earth within/in terms of the DIALECTICAL order of NATURAL CYCLES, regardless of where humanity aspires to put themselves in any bullshit liberal patriarchal technofuturist “hierarchical” order!

Mario:

Where do we do the hero’s journey in liberalism? In fucking life? Have you taken a look around? This idea that we need our social systems to give us more shit on our plate to deal with than death, illness and pain is some straight up fascist shit. It’s misanthropy, masochism and sadism. It’s total nonsense. It’s a Joe Rogan quip.

Social systems in the vein of liberalism (and, again, I’m an anarchist, I’m not arguing for classical liberalism, but come on, a classical liberal could have you absolutely caught here) create opportunities for autonomous agents to express themselves and learn. To develop and grow. In fields like science, sport and civic participation, we discover who we are. We do so relatively safely so we don’t throw away the wisdom that people have gained by killing them. Humboldt, Locke and Dewey’s visions of education and human liberation are incredibly beautiful for precisely that reason. And, frankly, Freire continues in their vein.

And is a dictatorship of the proletariat supposed to do that? Gulags aren’t exactly “Live Love Learn” moments.

And “graduated from an anthropological species”? You mean, like suggesting that we’ll have a classless society and history will be over? Is your complaint that they jumped the gun on this? Frankly, I’d argue that a lot of modern people in the purported Enlightenment tradition, like Pinker, are actually infinitely more guilty of the opposite: arguing that we are an anthropological species, constrained by entropy (which is erroneous anthropology as well as missing the point), fixed in social change by biotruths they make up. It strikes me that it’s the left’s point that humans are so adaptive and social that we cannot be understood like we are Paleotithic people. Culture changes us in a very real way.

I agree that many act like history isn’t important… which is the opposite of the accusation you’re making, near as I can tell. But that’s modern liberals, who view history as being “over”, erroneously. But that doesn’t make the other ideas incorrect. They’re just wrong that this is the pinnacle.

And “Western supremacy”? Where the hell was I Western supremacist? Saying that one group had a great idea doesn’t mean no other group did. I don’t think Westerners are metaphysically superior, and I think the idea is nonsense. I think that the “West”, already a nonsense abstraction, came up with some great ideas along with a lot of bad, and we should use the good ideas. Just like the good ideas from everywhere else.

But, again, the fatal flaw in any argument like this is that the only framework in which this conversation is even coherent is under something like multicultural liberalism. Perhaps something more radical, but with the assumption that individuals can and should be free to develop and create. I would argue that liberalism focused too much on the atomized individual and that they should be focusing on the social individual, but even that is something that’s easy to say for an extrovert, and a good society needs to be able to work for the hermits and the socially anxious as well as me. Only I am talking about a framework that actually lets people live together.

It sounds like you fundamentally don’t want to defend the dictatorship of the proletariat. I’m glad! It’s indefensible.