Capitalism Isn't Working.
- Thread starter TremulousTetra
- Start date
TremulousTetra
prismatic universe
sorry, I wasn't trying to imply you were.I'm not really under an illusion that posting on here or other boards is gonna do anything
are you familiar with the Marxist historians argument, "there is no such thing as working-class culture". It is pertinent on my opinions upon contradictory levels of consciousness within revolutionaries. If not, please don't ask me to try and explain it. I don't seem to be very good at that.
Nylock
I hate 'these days'...
Trip got postponed, but yeah i'll leave it. I'm clearly reading the wrong things in your posts so i'll leave it there
TremulousTetra
prismatic universe
hey, genuinely big respect to you. Internet forums are so full of bile and hatred filled morons, incapable of sharing a difference of opinion, without responding with bile and hatred. It is genuinely refreshing to come across someone in a who talks to people in here, as he would in real life. Again, big respect.Trip got postponed, but yeah i'll leave it. I'm clearly reading the wrong things in your posts so i'll leave it there
In my opinion, the views you have shared are probably the views of the vast majority of people. I accept that mine are a minority view, a minority that needs to work harder to convince people like you of its opinion. In that I clearly failed.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Does it? I think it's a legitimate comment from a literate person.
Elucidate this "complete misrepresentation", please. I'm betting that whatever you elucidate, I can find a non-selective quotation from the writings of a member of the CC that gainsays your elucidation.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Perhaps its because the swp change their position so many times?
That's pretty much the meat of it, froggie.
TremulousTetra
prismatic universe
You fucked up, apologise and move on.Does it? I think it's a legitimate comment from a literate person.
Elucidate this "complete misrepresentation", please. I'm betting that whatever you elucidate, I can find a non-selective quotation from the writings of a member of the CC that gainsays your elucidation.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
No it isn't. Such views may be hegemonic, if you want to get all Gramsci about things, but they're not unavoidable. If they were unremitting and all-pervasive, there wouldn't be an SWP, for a start. Hegemony is inherently unstable, which is why the ruling classes continually attempt to legislate in favour of their ideas - to reinforce them against any and all alternative currents.
But it does negate it. You can't have it both ways, that inculcation and indoctrination is all-pervasive and unremitting, and that such unremitting all-pervasion affects people asymmetrically.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Apologise for what?
TremulousTetra
prismatic universe
Agency V Structure?
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
We can all exercise a degree of agency within even the most constraining structure, just as all agency inheres structural elements. There's tension between the two forces, but they're interdependent as well as being contingent. Even the "all-pervasive" and unremitting" ideas you posit are subject to those forces working within them. That's why no political or economic regime is permanent - because even the most closed political idea, theory or concept is still subject to influence.
well, like many interested but politically naive people, I started to read this and am now falling over with ennui. Takes me back to tedious seminars on post-structuralism and other such opaque subjects at college (when at least it was (almost) free - if I had to pay 9 large ones to hear the same sort of rambling incoherent rubbish I reckon I would be disrobing, shouting out demons out or summat). And yes, I also paid subs to various left wing tribalists in the 70s and 80s, only to flounder about with yet more incomprehension. Well, I am sure these discussions are thrilling and enlivening to those in the know or who possess the relevant tools for understanding but god help us dimwits who just want some theoretical grounding in our political landscape, if only so we can inculcate our grandchildren that there is more to life than the Kardashians and X-factor. Pleased to say said grandaughter had her first taste of Occupy - takes me back to encircling the base at Greenham.
TremulousTetra
prismatic universe
There you go then.
TremulousTetra
prismatic universe
easy reading.http://socialistworker.co.uk/ http://socialistworker.org/
Don't think it's you. like computer geeks, political geeks have a lot of their own terminology which can be indecipherable when not familiar with.sorry for my part in that.
TremulousTetra
prismatic universe
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
There you go then.
What, you think that my post supports your point? It doesn't, you eye-rolling twat.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
You found post-structuralism opaque?
How can you find the Emperor's new clothes opaque? They were transparent!
TremulousTetra
prismatic universe
What point is that comrade?
TremulousTetra
prismatic universe
okay I missed this one. Perhaps you could calm down, and explain to me how my English is bad.
now you seem to be saying that both the political compass, and the traditional left right spectrum are invalid yardsticks. Okay. So how do you measure the BNPs ideology, and decide they come up to the measurement of "crap"?
from my reading there seemed to be a contradiction in what you say. On the one hand you seem to be the saying, there is no difference backwards and forwards, higher and lower, crap and good, in ideologies. They are just different viewpoints.and then you seem to say the opposite. can you explain your views?
I fully agree with you, that notions of revolutionary and political consciousness etc are a revolutionary perspective,I didn't mean to imply otherwise, that's what I meant by a revolutionary centric viewpoint.so I am acknowledging it is not an objective viewpoint IMPOV. What would have been a better way to phrase that?
now you seem to be saying that both the political compass, and the traditional left right spectrum are invalid yardsticks. Okay. So how do you measure the BNPs ideology, and decide they come up to the measurement of "crap"?
from my reading there seemed to be a contradiction in what you say. On the one hand you seem to be the saying, there is no difference backwards and forwards, higher and lower, crap and good, in ideologies. They are just different viewpoints.and then you seem to say the opposite. can you explain your views?
TremulousTetra
prismatic universe
chill.
why is saying that the influences, the pressures, from the structures of UK capitalism touch everybody everywhere all of the time wrong? if this is wrong, where can I go in the UK where there will be no structural means of influence upon my consciousness? I read a newspaper, I have to struggle against its attempts to influence me. I listen to the news. I get a job. I pay my rent. etc.
Saying we suffer constant pressures from capitalism, which we have to struggle against, was not meant to deny agency. It didn't deny agency.if I were to deny agency, then you are right, the SWP couldn't exist, and nor could any other kind of resistance to capitalism, we would all just be like a capitalist borg.
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
Can you see the difference between a measurement of distance and the allocation of moral worth? A yardstick does the former; a revolutionary perspective is premised on the latter. Trying to force ultimately moral choices into the same category as feet and inches has been tried and found wanting.
Louis MacNeice
TremulousTetra
prismatic universe
thanks for that.
The question is, is there a difference between the politics of Nick Griffin, violent panda, and the political spectrum in between, that we can assess.
People much cleverer than me talk about levels of political and/or revolutionary consciousness. If you have a higher level of revolutionary consciousness, as does violent panda in my opinion, you have a higher consciousness of how society works, what the problems are, and what are the solutions, in a social evolutionary sense. If you have a really low level of consciousness, like Nick Griffin, you're quite the opposite, and offers solutions such as dictatorship which would be retrogressive in a social evolutionary sense. And between them to extremes you get people who accept progressive and regressive ideas, with contradictory levels of consciousness.
The notion that higher and lower levels of consciousness, is somehow elitist doesn't wash in my opinion. If I am out cold asleep in my bedroom with the television on, I have a low level of consciousness of what is taking place on the television. If I start waking, the items on the television can intermingle with my dreams, giving me a contradictory level of consciousness. Waking up, I become fully aware of what is happening, and have a higher level of consciousness.
How do we measure political/revolutionary/working-class consciousness? Different people measure in different ways. I'm not saying the measuring is objective, but just like violent panda measures the politics of Griffin to be crap, revolutionary socialists talk about levels of consciousness. Why shouldn't they?
Wasn't it CLR James who talked about the Chartist as been the first flowering working-class consciousness? He was right, in my opinion. For me the notion of consciousness has made understanding society easier, it is useful tooL. I am interested in why people object to so much. I'm not saying people can't laugh and scorn such a notion, I'm asking for an explanation of why they laugh and scorn. But more importantly, if they do not use that tool, what do they put in its place.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
nah, griffin's a twat but he certainly isn't unaware or stupid. and would you say cameron etc had a high or low level of class consciousness? i'd say their awareness of what benefits them as a class is pretty high tbh, even if they're utterly incompetent at carrying out their aims.
TremulousTetra
prismatic universe
yes but there's a difference between working-class consciousness, political consciousness, and revolutionary consciousness. So whilst Griffin has a high level of political consciousness, he has a low level of revolutionary consciousness. His politics are counterrevolutionary politics, fascism. [just repeat read, what I said above, from that perspective.]
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
would it benefit him, or the class he's in if there was a revolution tho? no. he's a pretty rich guy. and he's made a living through counterrevolutionary politics so he'd probably be first up against the wall and he knows it. he's aware of what a revolution would involve if it took place
TremulousTetra
prismatic universe
I think I need to explain my social evolutionary perspective.
As far as I'm concerned society has evolved, to increasingly more complex sets of social relations, which have been better able to satisfy human needs. First of all we had primitive communism of hunter gatherer societies. These were not complex at all, but they did not allow the greater stockpiling of wealth and knowledge beyond that which could literally be carried.
The first-class societies, slave societies, saw the first social relationships where some definable groups in society controlled the means of production, and could stockpile wealth and knowledge. Not only that, they could use this wealth to fund people who sole purpose was to increase the level of knowledge. [Some of which could be used to greater satisfy human needs.]
Feudalism built on the basis of above, but did slightly move away from the burden of slave ownership. If you own slave, it's a good idea to look after your property.
Capitalism moved right away from this, the workers not being the capitalist property, he could use and discard them at will. But there is a contradiction, even though in many ways capitalism can seem more barbaric, it has also been the most successful and satisfying human needs.
So in social evolutionary terms, Nick Griffin wanting to turn society back to a dictatorship, is not the same obviously, but it is retrogressive motion in the direction of feudalism, rather than going forward to a society based on production for human need rather than profit. If I had to choose between fascism, and capitalism, I would choose the latter.
I think this is the measure by which I would measure peoples levels of consciousness.
As far as I'm concerned society has evolved, to increasingly more complex sets of social relations, which have been better able to satisfy human needs. First of all we had primitive communism of hunter gatherer societies. These were not complex at all, but they did not allow the greater stockpiling of wealth and knowledge beyond that which could literally be carried.
The first-class societies, slave societies, saw the first social relationships where some definable groups in society controlled the means of production, and could stockpile wealth and knowledge. Not only that, they could use this wealth to fund people who sole purpose was to increase the level of knowledge. [Some of which could be used to greater satisfy human needs.]
Feudalism built on the basis of above, but did slightly move away from the burden of slave ownership. If you own slave, it's a good idea to look after your property.
Capitalism moved right away from this, the workers not being the capitalist property, he could use and discard them at will. But there is a contradiction, even though in many ways capitalism can seem more barbaric, it has also been the most successful and satisfying human needs.
So in social evolutionary terms, Nick Griffin wanting to turn society back to a dictatorship, is not the same obviously, but it is retrogressive motion in the direction of feudalism, rather than going forward to a society based on production for human need rather than profit. If I had to choose between fascism, and capitalism, I would choose the latter.
I think this is the measure by which I would measure peoples levels of consciousness.
TremulousTetra
prismatic universe
the notion of revolutionary consciousness accept all that. He has a high level of political consciousness, from a fascist viewpoint. But he doesn't have a consciousness of the innate contradictions within capitalist society which cause it to going to boom and slump, for example, and which would be just as inherent in a fascist society. so he has a low level of revolutionary conscious, not a low level of political consciousness.
TremulousTetra
prismatic universe
only if you explain why."built on the basis of balls"
/cheapshot
Why was CLR James talking balls When he described the Chartist as the first flowering working-class consciousness?
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