Post by art on Apr 13, 2015 22:03:31 GMT -5
My comment on the Wildernist post:
www.thewildernist.org/blogs/hg/2015/04/leftism-function-pseudocritique-pseudorevolution/
Of course, in terms of leftism, I don't have much to critique, other than being a bit of a "cultural leftist" myself. I kind of like sticking up for women and minorities, and I understand their oppression to be a symptom of civilization, in that the heart of it is the subjugation of certain groups of people as "less than human" or merely "talking tools" to use the way the Romans addressed slaves. Leftist egalitarianism then has roots in addressing the worst aspects of domestication and oppression, but it does it in a half-hearted and dishonest way. Otherwise, the idea that the Left is merely the reform wing of capital, no matter how much it objects otherwise, should be an obvious truism by now. The fact that it isn't is a real problem.
However, even in the title, it seems that UR is blissfully unaware of how inconsistent they are being in positing a critique of leftism yet somehow adhering to "revolution" as a means to counteract "techno-industrial society". "Revolution" is the essence of leftism, the essence of thinking of the Masses as Universal Reason, to cite Hegel, for example. This is of course inherited from Freedom Club (FC), but even then there is a significant failure to realize that the first "machine" is society itself, or what we would call "civilization", but they are all pretty much synonyms. It seems that FC and UR get hung up on "technology" without questioning what technology is, or what it's roots are. Technology by its very essence entails slavery and domestication: machines only exist to take the place of what "meatware" slaves such as animals and people used to do. (There is a book that I intend to read sometime in the future entitled "When Computers Were Human"). "Revolution", no matter how you can conceive it, uses the "technology" of "mass society" to somehow crush the same "mass society". How this is different from leftism seems to be in the accidents and not in substance. Societal solidarity on that level, even if this just involves a "vanguard" (which is inherently hierarchical) is no better than leftism. Indeed, I can't see anything coming from this other than capital getting stronger, as "green washing" and "green technologies" seem to indicate, as does the "small is beautiful" slogans of "environmentally-friendly" marketeers.
I know the people behind the Wildernist have criticized anarcho-primitivism as it exists, and I find this unfortunate. The way I see it, anarcho-primitivism is a tendency that seeks to abolish slavery among all beings, from humans to animals to plants to mountains and forests, etc. This seeks to pull out the problem from the roots (to used a civilized metaphor) rather than just treating the problems in an impressionist and opportunist manner. If you want to get rid of technology, you have to get rid of domestication, as it is its cause. If we are going to fight for quixotic goals, they might as well be clear ones, and not ones that are muddled and confused by the imposing but deceptive holograms that civilization projects.
www.thewildernist.org/blogs/hg/2015/04/leftism-function-pseudocritique-pseudorevolution/
Of course, in terms of leftism, I don't have much to critique, other than being a bit of a "cultural leftist" myself. I kind of like sticking up for women and minorities, and I understand their oppression to be a symptom of civilization, in that the heart of it is the subjugation of certain groups of people as "less than human" or merely "talking tools" to use the way the Romans addressed slaves. Leftist egalitarianism then has roots in addressing the worst aspects of domestication and oppression, but it does it in a half-hearted and dishonest way. Otherwise, the idea that the Left is merely the reform wing of capital, no matter how much it objects otherwise, should be an obvious truism by now. The fact that it isn't is a real problem.
However, even in the title, it seems that UR is blissfully unaware of how inconsistent they are being in positing a critique of leftism yet somehow adhering to "revolution" as a means to counteract "techno-industrial society". "Revolution" is the essence of leftism, the essence of thinking of the Masses as Universal Reason, to cite Hegel, for example. This is of course inherited from Freedom Club (FC), but even then there is a significant failure to realize that the first "machine" is society itself, or what we would call "civilization", but they are all pretty much synonyms. It seems that FC and UR get hung up on "technology" without questioning what technology is, or what it's roots are. Technology by its very essence entails slavery and domestication: machines only exist to take the place of what "meatware" slaves such as animals and people used to do. (There is a book that I intend to read sometime in the future entitled "When Computers Were Human"). "Revolution", no matter how you can conceive it, uses the "technology" of "mass society" to somehow crush the same "mass society". How this is different from leftism seems to be in the accidents and not in substance. Societal solidarity on that level, even if this just involves a "vanguard" (which is inherently hierarchical) is no better than leftism. Indeed, I can't see anything coming from this other than capital getting stronger, as "green washing" and "green technologies" seem to indicate, as does the "small is beautiful" slogans of "environmentally-friendly" marketeers.
I know the people behind the Wildernist have criticized anarcho-primitivism as it exists, and I find this unfortunate. The way I see it, anarcho-primitivism is a tendency that seeks to abolish slavery among all beings, from humans to animals to plants to mountains and forests, etc. This seeks to pull out the problem from the roots (to used a civilized metaphor) rather than just treating the problems in an impressionist and opportunist manner. If you want to get rid of technology, you have to get rid of domestication, as it is its cause. If we are going to fight for quixotic goals, they might as well be clear ones, and not ones that are muddled and confused by the imposing but deceptive holograms that civilization projects.
