Not, not the case.

As stated, I have no intention of posting this Demotivator and only came to wonder this after thinking about it. It's intended to make light of what it reveals about the human condition, that failure is not an option when survival at stake, and not to make fun of Jews or people who died during the Holocaust. That you interpret it as your standard white nationalist schadenfreude and not in the Cards Against Humanity vein that it is intended is just indicative to me of that I'm correct in my assumption that it's just too bleak. If you substitute the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising for any failed revolt, you will run into the same problem. Even a fictional one wouldn't go over well.

The joke isn't terribly offensive in its own right. Perhaps, I could've chosen a different context, but, I've already elaborated upon what is also untenable of that. It's that what it reveals about the world is just too dark for anyone to consider to be funny. It's supposed to make light of the Absurd. It's supposed to be as if I have just told you something terrible and in my sardonic way of having done so you're supposed to laugh as a way of letting go a certain angst. Because it does have this deep, dark element particular to black humor, any old person will just take the kind of surface offense that I fear could be utilized in facilitating white nationalism.

As it concerns my employer, I actually think that I now have one of the better jobs that I've maintained. I just think that those phrases are entirely absurd. The joke is a rather extreme form of reducto ad absurdum. It could just be that it's not a very good joke, but I honestly suspect that I've just crossed a certain threshold of darkness. I think that it's kind of funny, but, for just about everyone, it's just too dark.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Israeli_black_metal_musical_groups

Though I have a response, I will merely say that that's fair enough and leave this conversation for another time, as I feel like I, and kind of the rest of this forum, has kind of habit of getting off-topic.

Of course some Christian work has been quite wonderful too. But when the theists say that without God there will be blood on the streets, that presupposes no blood was ever spilt by churches and church run activities. — Tom Storm

I am an atheist who has been invoking the concept of a secular religion to suggest that, well, without God, there kind of was blood on the streets. You are correct about kind of a lot of theists who say that, though.

The idea is that the decaying symbolic power of the Christian faith came to be tranferred unto totalitarianism. To oversimplify, Christianity was a mass cult. When it fell apart, other mass cults took this or that from it in the creation of new mass cults. What people ought to have realized was that they shouldn't be subject to cults whatsoever.

I'll let you respond to this if you like and then give Bertoldo back their thread.

Perhaps, I think that you haven't taken into consideration the implicatures of Christianity having been the locus of ethical meaning up until around the Copernican Revolution then.

There are many things to say of the death of God, but one implication of Nietzsche's declaration of that "God is dead." is that God is no longer philosophically relevant. Nietzsche's atheism, I think, went much further than most people expect for it to have. He wasn't just saying that there is no God; he was saying that it was no longer even possible for a free thinker to believe in God.

Within a political context, I would suggest that the symbolic order established by the aristocracy could, in the late Nineteenth Century, only be abandoned, something that Nietzsche, himself, in part, had failed to realize.

It wasn't just that during the Age of the Enlightenment that people make a paradigm shift away from established mystic Ontological, Metaphysical, Epistemologic, and Ethical explanations; It's that, to avert human catastrophe, they would have had to have made something like an epistemological break and create a completely other philosophical framework. The entire symbolic register was arbitrated by Christianity. What I posit is that it was a failure to cope with a lack of meaning within the world that later resulted in any number of human atrocities.

The French Revolution, for instance, culminated in the secular religion of the Cult of Supreme Being before a series of betrayals and the notable beheading of Maximilien Robespierre. Robespierre's reign was a kind of transference of the symbolic register of Christianity to the early form of totalitarianism that the Committee of Public Safety effectively enforced. This article, though rather high-flown, alleges something similar of the former Soviet Union. I once was capable of finding it online without having to pay for it, but no longer can seem to do so.

As it concerns the Third Reich, by their fascination with Occultism, I think that the concept of transference can be meaningfully applied.

What I am saying is that people have to cope with the loss of the Christian symbolic register. I am not saying that Christianity has transcendent virtues. I'm saying that it is no longer possible to believe in divine order to the universe and that people must both discover and create meaning otherwise. As I interpret Jean-Paul Sartre, or even Albert Camus, I think that the sentiment is quite similar.

Oh, well, I see what you're saying, then. My mistake.

It's the common person's notion of morality - that we need (typically a Christian) God as the foundation of what is good - or we will just go about killing and harming others. — Tom Storm

While that is a fairly common Christian assumption, I think that you have failed to take into consideration that Christianity was kind of the locus of ethical meaning up until around the onset of Modernity. Perhaps Dostovesky is and perhaps he isn't, but what I am getting at is that, without Christianity, humanity failed to create an ethic with which to prevent humanitarian catastrophe. You seem to think that this is evidently false, given the history of Christianity, which I don't think is quite so obvious.

I don't think there are any debates on the translation as such and I think the language is important. — Tom Storm

By the one article I read debating the translation, I did come to that assumption. I did only read one article, though.

Certainly many people I knew in the 1980's-1990's would have laughed anyone out of the room for considering existentialism to be philosophy. — Tom Storm

Your particular prejudice against Existentialism is just the sort of thing that I'm talking about. If you read Being and Time and Being and Nothingness, it would seem that the assumption that Heidegger ought to be considered canonical to the philosophical tradition, whereas Sartre is heresy, you can only come to the conclusion that the status that Heidegger cultivated as the philosopher king of the Third Reich has somehow failed to lose its ostensive allure, aside from that the caricature that you have just given of an Existentialist is clearly that of a French person. I suspect that people in the United States consider for the French to be better than them, despite having waged a less destructive revolution, and, for whatever reason, tend to malign them because of that and I, myself, live here.

I think that I can vaguely follow of what you're saying about Dostovesky's work as a whole, being that the polyphonic nature of man can only be transcended through a mystic process particular to Orthodox Christianity and that we ought to interpret Dostovesky in this sense, but am unsure as to what you mean about the resolution to Notes from the Underground. He suggests that he has explored an unknown yet untraversed terrain before stating that he can go no further. There aforementioned process doesn't seem to be offered as a resolution.

Are you referring to the concluding sentences to Notes from the Underground or just simply the latter part of the text?

You are correct that I am incorrect about that. I remember reading it on Wikipedia, but it could've been of another Nazi. Apparently, he was raised somewhat Catholic, but later came to attempt to unite German Christians under the Protestant Reich Church, to some internal opposition. Apparently, the Nazis later cooked up Positive Christianity, which, because of their denial of the Semitic origins of Christ and the Holy Bible, was considered apostate by Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant faith. I think that it's just that the Nazis had used the writings of Martin Luther so as to bolster support for German nationalism.

While Martin McGuinness was a former leader of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, he later became Sinn Féin's chief negotiator in the peace process. Engaging in dialogue is not the same thing as fostering political terrorism.

To my understanding, there are debates upon the translation, but the quote effectively says something to that effect regardless.

Slavoj Zizek has paradoxically concluded that "If God does not exist, everything is prohibited.", as a way of explaining that, without the mediation of the Other, the Ethical prohibits every action, or something like that. I always thought that I understood and later came to realize that I didn't really understand Zizek.

Anyways, there's a way to posit that Dostovesky is wrong, as people need something like God to justify all kinds of human atrocities. There's also a way of suggesting that he is correct, as, without any ethic being able to be meaningfully invoked, it does seem as if anything can be somehow justifiable. Despite that Joseph Goebbels was Catholic and Adolf Hitler was an Anglican Protestant, thereby necessitating some form of Christianity within the Nazi Party, I would imagine that the general attitude towards Ethics within the Gestapo could generally be characterized by what both is and is mistaken for as "Nihilism" by Existentialists. Being one of the most advanced intelligence agencies in the world, they must have known that the Jews did not have some sort of clandestine sempiternal power of global politics and capital and that most of Nazi ideology was kind of just bosh. From this, I assume for them to have constructed a rather elaborate set of rationalizations and justifications for their actions, which Hannah Arendt would characterize as the "banality of evil" in her highly controversial piece on the trial of Adolf Eichmann. In some way, shape, form, or another, I expect for these justifications and rationalizations to have relied upon a certain degree of Modern cynicism. To me, it does seem to be the case that a lack of meaningful ethic does hazard a certain humanitarian catastrophe. That, of course, is entirely speculative, however.

The resolution to the above aporia put forth by some is the "noble lie", which is as entirely duplicitous, self-interested, and condescending as any intelligent, and therefore skeptical, person might expect. I am of the opinion that Sartre was right, man is "condemned to be free", and that a fundamental goal of Existentialism ought to be to figure out how to cope with what he identified as the human condition. Sartre, however, is wildly unpopular within kind of a lot of philosophical circles, usually relating to a set of rather unfortunate details of both his personal and political life, and, so, often find for it to be fairly difficult to even engage in conversations with kind of a lot of other philosophers about this.

Being said, said quote and lengthy exposition, I think, will distract from the original post and, though I think you can continue this conversation, I do think that we should respect the thread enough so as not to derail it entirely.

I haven't read The Gambler, but may some day, as gambling just kind of fascinates me.

To my understanding, Notes from the Underground is an exploration of isolation and mania inspired by the revelation on the part of the underground man that individuals value their capacity for free choice above all else. He addresses the reader as his audience so as to highlight his character's alienation. The rest of society, for Dostovesky, it would seem, has become convinced of that systemization, be it either theological or technocratic, is somehow capable of transcending human agency. That the underground man often contradicts himself and is as someone who is considered to be "mad" was a way for Dostovesky to indicate as to just what was absurd of that only he had come to respect free will. It was kind of way for him to suggest that, regardless as to what psychological disorders a person would like to label his character with, it was the world, and not he, that had gone mad. Though Sartre took no decisive influence form him, Dostovesky's Ontological claim in favor of the preference for individual choice precedes that man is "condemned to be free", more or less the conclusion to Being and Nothingness. We agree, I think, upon that Notes from the Underground was an Existentialist text. What I am suggesting of The Brothers Karamazov is that that quote is kind of a double-entendre. He's suggesting that there does exist a divine order to the universe, but that our relationship to it is plagued by existential doubt. We are, therefore, beset by the perils of human agency, whether or not there is a divine. From this, I have assumed that Dostovesky has always been kind of a proto-Existentialist and, therefore, find myself to be perplexed by the supposition that we ought to exclusively interpret him within the context of Orthodox Christianity.

I only know so much about Dostovesky's life, however, and am entirely uninformed of the volumes of literary criticism that have been written of his work, and, so, perhaps there is all too much that I am just simply unaware of?

I have only read Notes from the Underground, Crime and Punishment, and half of The Brothers Karamazov, which I unfortunately lost, but the oft-cited quote, "If God does not exist, everything is permitted.", can be interpreted à la the condemnation to be free that Jean-Paul Sartre later invoked, despite Fyodor Dostovesky's Orthodox Christianity. To exclusively relegate it to a domain of a theistic argument for the necessity of the divine would mean that you could not interpret Notes from the Underground as an Existentialist text and would have to consider it as satire.

I'm not so sure that I foresee the danger of "militant Islam" within the Labour Party, who seems so inclined to be of a generally agreeable ethos in that regard, similar to that of Adam Curtis. They're not quite like the International Socialist Organization who offered a "critical, but unconditional support", whatever that means, for Hamas during the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.

Again, that's just a conspiracy that I harbor, but I just can't understand why a political organization like the Labour Party would continue to, at least, tacitly, support a biopolitical campaign that has been largely discredited and has had very clear dire consequences throughout human history.

I feel kind of the same way about black liberation and the Nation of Islam, though, would obviously substitute the Central Intelligence Agency for MI6. Within any left-wing or radical circles, though, chalking up any misguided ideas to having something to do with Intelligence is kind of a problem in its own right, and, so, am willing to admit that I am exclusively engaged in speculation.

To use the National of Islam as an example, though it would be unfair to blanketly characterize the organization as such, there are currents of a somewhat fanatical black separatism within it, proclivities towards black supremacism, strains of anti-Semitism, quasi-fundamentalist mystic Islamism, and an often all too reckless form of revolutionary orthodoxy. When you consider the life of Malcom X, it can seem as if he had been conscripted within the organization before becoming ardently devoted to it before having effectively renounced it. With some of the political history of the black liberation movement often lacking in any definite explanation, it does seem to be all too fortuitous for nearly every publicity crisis that the movement has to be traced back to the same organization, especially when its most notable member was responsible for, perhaps, the most divisive split within the anti-racist protest movement, which, upon leaving, he later attempted to rectify.

I'm not suggesting that the Nation of Islam is or was just simply a CIA front; I'm just suggesting that it could be possible for the organization to have been, to some degree, infiltrated, and, to some degree, utilized in dividing the various set of political factions to have come out of the Civil Rights Movement. If you take kind of long look into its somewhat esoteric history, there are a number of things about it that seem to be kind of odd.

I am also willing to posit that something similar could be happening with Eugenics and the Labour Party.

Being said, the truth is often stranger than fiction and people often come to rather odd social, political, or spiritual reasons wholly on their own and, as before, I would warn against forthrightly levelling accusations of entryism or espionage, as it can often be rather destructive. In the beaten way of self-critique, I have become isolated from the Anarchist movement as a Pacifist because of the Black Panther Party, and, so, do have a vested interest in criticizing the Nation of Islam, and, so, can't quite tell, myself, as to what is a well-founded suspicion and what is just simply a paranoid and persecutory complex.

An aside: As that the raison d'être for that people who are classified or identify as "punks" hate people who are classify or identify as "hippies", aside from that most Anarchists do tend to preclude strict nonviolence, is often cited as being because of the "diversity of tactics", effectively as it was adopted by the Black Panther Party, who, if you didn't know, does have an Anarchist faction, thereily leaving me with an odd kind of "white savior complex", as I am effectively trying to figure out how to convince the Black Panthers to let me back into the Anarchist movement, which, to me, seems rather unlikely, as, when the hippies tried to engage the Black Panthers within psychological encounters back in the late 1960s, it kind of resulted in a total breakdown of the social order. Experimental psychology may have just not been the way forward, but, as I'd basically be asking them to either revoke or reform their interpretation of "self-defense", effectively the foundational concept to their general ethos, it seems rather unlikely that I would be capable of convincing them of this favor, especially since I do happen to, at least, appear as person whom most people would assume is "white".

Perhaps, just the campaign of ostensively ethical Eugenics on their part? I can't rationalize how what is just simply ultimately a Social Darwinist strategem has become fairly popular among liberal utopian Socialists. They, now, seem to endorse a form of Eugenics advanced by the sets of society of which Julian Huxley, Aldous Huxley's brother and partial inspiration for A Brave New World, was a part of. If you watch Homo Sapiens 1900, though obviously a critical documentary, it does seem fairly clear that the racialist and classist tendencies were part and parcel to Francis Galton's theories, the history of Eugenics is inextricably tied to totalitarianism within the former Soviet Union, China, and Nazi Germany, and that whatever ostensive collective good it was that Julian Huxley endorsed ought not to justify what does ultimate as a form of social murder necessarily, as it'd seem to be commonly understood by that Aldous Huxley's allegory is taught in most high schools. I don't understand why the Labour Party has not absolved themselves of such notions, aside from my rather spurious claim that it has something to do with British Intelligence.

Am I the only person who suspects for the Fabians to be entryists within the Labour Party and that their defense of Eugenics is just a cryptic form of social murder, as Eugenics necessarily just simply is, orchestrated by the likes of certain sets of factions within, primarily, as it concerns Intelligence in the U.K., MI6, as well as a few relatively obscure intellectuals within the Conservative and Unionist Party? Obviously, this is a conspiracy that I have hatched, but I do often wonder as to whether or not there are grains of truth to it.

I am glad that you agree, but think that you have only been so fair to Marx and Engels, whose opinions and statements often changed and varied.

The phrase, "the dictatorship of the proletariat", comes from "The Civil War in France", written by Marx, which is largely a celebration of the Paris Commune. He uses the phrase to describe that the communards had largely dismantled the repressive apparatus of the French state, while keeping a minimal set of aspects of it operational so as to defend the commune. Lenin nearly completely expropriated this in his defense of a transitional and fairly autocratic state that was to guide the revolution from Socialism to Communism in The State and Revolution. Josef Stalin, later, interpreted that as a sanction for dictatorship, which he explicitly defended, I think, in Foundations of Leninism, though can't quite remember the particular Marxist-Leninist text. I am fairly certain that it is one of the foundational Marxist-Leninist texts.

Marx had chosen an incendiary phrase in a polemic that Lenin had interpreted in his creation of a political philosophy that, in my opinion, departed from what had come to be Marxism, which Josef Stalin later took as a justification for his regime. Though there are causal chains on the links of historical events, there isn't quite the through line between Marx and Stalin that some people propose, as Marx had originally used the phrase to describe something wholly other, perhaps only so justifiable in itself, than what either Lenin or Stalin did.

I'd bet that they take their name from the film. I'll have to check them out.

I should also like to point out a certain irony to my having just made such statements, as, upon doing so, I am now hoping to be recruited by Open Society Foundations, which was founded by George Soros.

I would, further, like to point out that the only agreed upon definition of Anarchism is that it is a political philosophy that advances the "abolition of any form of either apparent or implicit hierarchy." I consider for myself to be an Anarchist, and one that agrees to this definition at that, but have taken enough of an influence from the libertarian Left to characterized as a libertarian socialist.

The decision, on the part of the Left-Communists, to support the Bolsheviks had drastic consequences for both them and in the general course of human history. It was a mistake that would later lead their defecting during the Russian Civil War and persecution under the Marxist-Leninist regime of Josef Stalin, one that, though I generally have an aversion to speaking for anyone other than myself, we readily acknowledge. Our refusal to participate within any revolutionary project where any party, with any rationalization or justification whatsoever, considers for whatever class they offer the pretense of being capable of liberating as their political subjects is well-founded and more than reflective of our commitment to a Socialist project only in so far that it is necessarily anti-authoritarian.

It seems doubtful to me that you would be aware of the general sentiment or political praxis of the libertarian Left, and, so, I should hope that you don't take my elaboration upon this as a form of censure. What your query calls to light is the fundamental flaw within every form of Leninism and raison d'être for the failures of both the French Revolution and the so-called "Russian Revolution".

There is a very limited partial necessity for political organizations engaged in illegal activities, assuming that they are justified in doing so, to be somewhat clandestine. If we are to suggest that there somehow exists something like a general project for the common liberation of all of humanity as per the historical meta-narrative of quote unquote "civilized" progress, of this, I will say, there are certain elements of serendipity. In terms of the world becoming a better place to live, however it is that you should like to interpret that, often times that "The Lord works in mysterious ways" can be meaningfully invoked as a kind of socio-political allegory. Being said, even within Liberal democracy, it is nothing but self-evident that clandestine politics have overall been fairly damaging. One only need to point to the Intelligence community, particularly in the United States, United Kingdom, or Germany, as evidence of this. Rudyard Kipling described the form of diplomatic espionage that resulted in the war in Afghanistan between the British and Russian Empire as "The Great Game". Of it, he said, "When everyone is dead, the Great Game is finished. Not before."

As well-meaning as anyone could be in their invocation of the real-life Jedi Order in a defense of clandestine politics, the utilization of things like secret police within totalitarian regimes ought to illicit a forthright rejection of any political party that must rely upon secrecy. Your example of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, though I am willing to give you more of the benefit of the doubt in the general course of this thread, is paradoxically exemplary of what Karl Popper called the "Open Society", the very antithesis to any conspiratorial political sect.

Louis Auguste Blanqui, the leader of one of the political factions during the Paris Commune and arguably their better half, openly advanced a conspiratorial praxis, which he justified by the necessity of remaining outside of the apparently omnipresent gaze of the Sûreté. Despite this, communards of both factions, even, perhaps, particularly his own, did, to varying degrees, become committed to the open form of direct democracy which the Commune has been lauded because of, of which Peter Watkins's La Commune, an excellent film, I might add, is exemplary.

Blanqui's assumption that the revolution can only be carried by a conspiratorial sect was later taken up by Vladimir Lenin in his rejection of revolutionary spontaneity in the foundational theses of what has come to be called "Leninism", What Is to Be Done? and The State and Revolution. The assumption that an effective revolution can only be carried out by a cadre of "professional revolutionaries" in the form of a revolutionary vanguard directly led to co-option of the February Revolution by the Bolsheviks during the October Revolution.

Be they either Communist or Anarchist, I would sooner die as a quote unquote "White" than I would wait to discover what form of totalitarianism such revolutionary chauvinism takes. Though I do understand that you are merely posing a question as to whether or not we ought to consider "conspiracy" as being negative from a kind of philosophical skepticism that cultivates keeping an "open mind", I would like to take this opportunity to state, in no unclear or uncertain terms, that the characterization of political conspiracy as being somehow nefarious is not only to the point, but also ought to be just simply evident to anyone with even fairly limited understanding of the October Revolution. The February Revolution was a spontaneous revolution. Were it not to have been co-opted by the Bolsheviks, it is quite likely that people would have a dramatically different relationship to Socialism today.

Thank you! I'm honestly probably a better poet than I am a philosopher. Band of Outsiders is one of my favorite films. In passing conversation, I often cite it as such, as not many people have seen Chris Maker's Sans Soleil.

Though I think the poem could be better without revealing too much about what had inspired it, the anecdote which it opens with is actually true. This is the video that I had watched.

The Brian Jonestown Massacre is an incredible band. Though, as I live in a city where heroin addiction is a serious plight and have lost a few friends to it, I am not so inclined to tacitly support the revolution, if you will, that they endorsed as I was at a young age after having seen the film, Dig, I have listened to almost all of their albums and do think that Anton Newcombe, despite the many absurdities of his person, ought to be lauded as a creative genius.

I should add that my client and I don't avoid talking about politics because we think differently. We actively seek each others opinion on issues in an effort to understand the other's positions, not in an effort to beat each other over the head with our own positions. The characteristic of an intelligent person is one that actively seeks opposing views, rather than avoid them or automatically characterize them as "racist" or "sexist", in order to better understand and to be intellectually honest with the facts. — Harry Hindu

You are lucky to have such a friend, but I think that it is all too common for people to engage in debate otherwise.

Even within organized debates at the university level, we are taught that there are two parties who engage in debate upon a single issue, which has only two sides, and that one of them will come out as the victor. Politics, to me, seems like it ought to, at its most fundamental level, be some sort of conflict resolution. People should engage within politics to prevent things like two nations going to war with one another. I think that it ought to be quite obvious that even a cursory analysis of human history would provide a litany of examples to where the opposite is true. In order to mediate a dispute that could result in conflict, both parties have to be willing to take the other's position, perspective, and points into consideration. Within the domain of Politics, people ought to be making an attempt to come to a greater understanding of the world so that concrete measures can be taken so as to eliminate what gives rise to conflicts in the first place. In a wholly theoretical sense, were democracy to be brought to a hypothetical zenith, it would ultimately abolish itself, as there would be no need to resolve disputes, as there would no need for them to occur. That's, of course, assuming that human history progresses in such a manner that actually reifies this or that utopian project in the distant future. With however it does progress, what I am suggesting is that dialogue ought to occur in such a manner that makes it no longer requisite. That can be considered as progress.

Debate ostensibly having a winner and loser has also carried over into Philosophy. Outside of praxis, a philosophical debate need not result in an effective plan of action and ought to be engaged within purely to come to a greater understanding of the world. Regardless as to what cachet either of these Ethical philosophies may have, I think that you can point to the debates between Kantians and Utilitarians as evidence of that this is not what has been happening. Outside of conventional American Philosophy, a certain set of language disputes were famously satirized by the "militant grammarians" in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest.

Sure, there has never been a longstanding Anarchist commune or whatever, and, therefore, in broad geo-political analysis, it can be considered to be fairly insignificant. Particularly within intellectual currents in France, both Anarchism and libertarian socialism, which can be vaguely synonymous or can denote two different political currents, depending upon which person you ask, has had a definite influence, and, so, while I agree that there was kind of a tacit support of Marxism-Leninism on the part of the left-wing intelligensia that lasted up until the collapse of the Soviet Union, I think that it would be unfair to characterize the postmodern turn exclusively as such.

It seems clear to me that the Situationist International, for all that was absurd of it, established a Left wholly a part from the ideological trappings of Marxism-Leninism. While there is a contemporary phenomenon of Anarchism that has only come about in the information age, probably indirectly because of Wikipedia, I am sure that there have been Anarchists in the world since the Paris Commune whose ideas have had a certain degree of influence.

As I, myself, am from this current, I will say that we have been around and a few people, particularly Continental philosophers, have even been willing to listen to us.

Well, the intention was to get at more of an existential absurdity and not to mock anyone. I think that they can be too cynical by that account.

No, more basically, and not just in reference to leaders. In religious/spiritual circles, a measure of cockiness and haughtiness is an absolute necessity for day-to-day survival. — baker

LMFAO, just be a sanctimonious chauvinist. You must've just fallen into the wrong the Buddhist circles.

Critical Race Theory proceeds from the Civil Rights Movement and posits that racism is enshrined within American law. The disproportionate number of black Americans in prisons in the United States is often provided as of evidence of this, and rightfully so.


What I take issue with, which absolutely no person here has mentioned, is the rather naive interpretation of abolition that activists of such inclinations have. While I can imagine a society in the indefinite and indeterminate future that has no need of police, the facts in the world today that there are occasions where people do. In cases of Mafia coercion, Neo-Fascist terrorism, and certain kinds of political or economic crimes, for instance, there is nothing that a person can do about them aside from go to law enforcement. Being said, the oft cited disproportionate number of black American citizens in prisons ought to be convincing enough of that there does exist some form of systemic racism, which Critical Race Theorists, to my estimation, debate the details of. I don't understand why this is controversial.

How can a postmodernist have failed to have made a paradigm shift towards postmodernism? Perhaps, of the left-wing intelligensia more broadly, but I don't see what that has to do with Baudrillard. There has been a burgeoning libertarian Left since outside of Anarchism since, at least, Socialisme ou Barbarie. Historians often all too readily dismiss both Anarchism and the various theories to precede and follow Socialisme ou Barbarie as small ideological sects with an insignificant influence upon the greater course of human history. What, then, of the Spanish Civil War or the student protests in France in May of 1968?

I interpret Baudrillard as he was, which was one of the parties to come out of the absurd and arbitrary disputes within the Paris 8. I don't think that too many people consider for most of them to have been exemplary examples of academics or capable of creating whatever left-wing political philosophy there could be after the fall of the Soviet Union. The New School may believe such things about itself, but they can't help but know better. They were, however, mostly relatively anti-authoritarian left-wing philosophers, which I don't think anyone denies.

The characterization of postmodern left-wing philosophy and Critical Theory as being somehow lunatic actually, as a form of expropriation, makes a lot of strategic sense.

Alan Sokal's Fashionable Nonsense is often cited as evidence of charlatanism on the part of left-wing academics, to varying degrees of applicability. I, myself, began to find fault with a lot of what I had read after reflecting upon Francois Laurelle's A Critical Introduction to Non-Philosophy, which did admittedly read as if it had been written as the pure production of text. The focal point of Sokal's work is Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus, which I had been extraordinarily influenced by. Though I do now think that their text was kind of irresponsible, I do not think that it is just simply nonsense.

Both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations in Israel, Mossad, have incorporated A Thousand Plateaus within their respective operational strategies. It seems extraordinarily doubtful to me that either of those two parties can have been all that taken what Sokal alleges are mere left-wing trends. The characterization of such works as being written by "lunatics", therefore, is a way for think-tanks and Intelligence agencies to expropriate them from the Left. They're basically putting their theories to use, all the while characterizing anyone who would be willing to invoke them in a critique of their various machinations as "insane".

While it seems that the Right is just simply lacking in a respect for difference, among those who are fairly intelligent, and they do exist, a rather complex strategic machination is actually underway.

I'm pretty sure the BLM movement has been infiltrated by the government--just based on past Federal behavior. — Bitter Crank

Though I find for the vague support for Eugenics à la Julian Huxley on the part of the Fabians to be highly suspect, I think that a comparison between they and BLM would be more than unfair.

The Counter Intelligence Program, COINTELPRO, is well known, well documented, and widely discussed. I think that most activists assume for such activities to continue today. That any radical organization, however, is likely to have been, to some degree, infiltrated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation can not be cited as evidence of that any organization is somehow complicit in some form of police collaboration. Within the Anarchist movement, for instance, it is all too common for any initiative whatsoever to become wholly dysfunctional because of a generalized paranoia concerning law enforcement. We know that police informants and agent provocateur do exist. That is no reason, however, to let the entire social ecology of the movement as a whole to become completely untenable because of the nihilating fears of that this or that person is a "cop". I, thankfully, didn't grow up in the Bronx and am glad to have more common sense than what some people there all too often mistake for wisdom.

I should hope that you don't take the above paragraph as a dig, as I am really just using this opportunity to address a qualm that I have with Anarchism in general.

I am sure that the police monitor some BLM activists. The decentralized organization, however, has not gone under in any way, shape, or form.

An aside:

There's an Anarchist that I know whom I actually hold in fairly high regard who uses a certain idiom to tip people off about that any given situation is somehow precarious, being, "Have you seen Sketch around?" Upon reflecting upon this phrase, though it did have the effect of convincing me to leave the party that I was at, I felt that its use bore both a certain irony and certain humor. Asking someone this has the effect of, first, convincing them that they are accusing you of being an undercover cop, second, convincing you that they are an undercover cop, and ultimately leaving you wondering as to just who the undercover cop is. It's an odd kind of language game that has the effect of generating a certain cult pathology concerning undercover cops.

There's another phrase that is like this that people say before smoking a bowl of weed, which is, "Would you like to pipe down a bit?" Asking a person this before toking up has the effect of convincing them that they have laced the bowl with some sort of other narcotic or another so as to conscript them within an act of provocation. To my estimation, environmentalist Anarchists only use such idioms so as to force themselves to liberate themselves from any number of paranoid fears created because of the rare cases of infiltration by law enforcement and a kind of autopoietic fanaticism which relates to either the prison abolition movement or Anarchist Black Cross. They basically only say them to figure out as to why it is that they shouldn't. In a way, though I doubt that anyone else here has spent enough time in a dancehall to relate to this, it's kind of like a certain joke that the band, Twin Peaks, was making by describing themselves as having created "chi-chi rock and roll" on their bandcamp. Get it? There's just not a reason for you to listen to it. It's all very absurd and kind of funny to me.

An epilogue:

Within any given form of either political or lifestyle Illegalism, someone is willing to invoke Wilhelm Reich so as to suggest that whoever it is that has generated this or that cult pathology is probably the person responsible for it. People within such circles only really say such things so that whatever form of Illegalism it is that they have consigned to remains both to their benefit and liking. As wittingly saying them for this purpose has the effect of creating a social environment that even they believe could be better, especially considering that what now goes on at the back of everyone's mind is that they have been orchestrating the general cause of more or less everyone's plights, which they may even, to some degree, be willing to admit, though there is a world outside of any given social scene, they often find themselves within the certain predicament of that coming clean is what can ameliorate their social situation, but will ultimately have the effect of isolating them from the social scene that they helped to create, aside from the loss of social capital that they have taken such great care to cultivate. Thus, the endless cycle of death and rebirth of the often mythic police spies. I have tried to explain this well, but you may just have have to have had put kind of a lot of thought into the pointed claims that hipsters make about certain bands by now to come to a full understanding of it.

Being said, law enforcement agencies do do whatever it is that people assume that they do. It's not like we live in a world without police. I only bring this up because I think that a person should go to Art School is a better life choice than attempting to land themselves within the next New York City Underground is just simply good advice that not enough people are willing to take. All that any of this should take is just a little bit of common sense. Anyways, I will stop rambling now and even thank you for reading this if you do. There's wisdom, if you will, to it, despite that a person should've probably abandoned every social scene of which it was required to put this much thought into figuring out how to circumnavigate. It's wisdom nonetheless, though.

Coda:

All of which is to say nothing of that diffuse paranoia is nothing but all to likely to get people to be willing to give others information as they figure, when this is supposed to be an omnipresent occurrence, why shouldn't they just clear their name? What Thomas Pynchon said of paranoiacs just rings true. Hopefully someone on the internet will find this and explain it to the rest of the world better than I ever possibly could. Maybe they already have? Who knows?

It's just a take on how and why it was that the war had begun before it was declared. I think that you expect too much from a series of Libération articles.

The general gist of The Gulf War Did Not Take Place is that the simulation of the war preceded the war itself and that, because of the manner in which the media had stylized the coverage of it, it became difficult to distinguish between the simulation and actual event. It wasn't intended as in-depth analysis on the geo-political situation that incited the Gulf War. It was intended as a series of reflections upon Baudrillard's speculative theories concerning the mass media and fourth-generation warfare.

Your assumption that his conclusions are absurd is because of that you are considering the piece too literally and within the domain of political science, when it is a work of theory written for a fairly broad audience. It's as if you are attempting to apply the technical aspects of music recording to a review of the album, Pet Sounds.

In defense of this joke, I will say that it was intended to make fun of the winner-take all mentality within a society that is hyper-competitive via a reducto ad absurdum, but, by the potential misuse of it to demoralize people who are in opposition to Fascism, I can also understand as to how and why it is that a person could take offense. The purpose of this thread is not to either defend or admonish this joke, but, rather to put to question as to whether or not humor can be too cynical or bleak.

I am both excited for the release ofXVI and skeptical of it. The gameplay looks great, as well as that I think that they will have finally have had enough experimentation with the games after X to have come up with a great battle system beyond the former Active-Time Battle, which, though willing to admit that I don't miss the random encounters, I often lament, as X, for all that it lacks otherwise, did have great gameplay. I also think that they'll have learned how to create an open world environment well after what they've learned from XV and appreciate the return to a more consistent environment and what seems to be more of a focus upon the story, rather than just having a few idiosyncratic characters to substitute for it. By the trailer, though, it also still seems all too action-oriented and as if they'd like to compete with other modern games, such as Skyrim, which I don't think that there is too much of a reason for them to do, as they are well established and loved and would probably better bank off of a classic Final Fantasy game than they would by trying to gain a competitive edge.

Most people, it seems are not only engaged in Politics but quite so. Becoming a-political in the sense that you are actually in opposition to politics as such and not merely in so far that you have kind of personal aversion to being engaged within them, which may be more reasonable, would leave you both without friends and allies. Clearly, you can still be social, but it'd probably be likely for people to claim that you are anti-social on account of not wanting to be involved with Politics. I have probably considered this too well from a certain radical perspective, as that is what I have come out of, but political affiliation does seem to be somewhat contingent upon kind of a lot of relationships. On Bumble, for instance, a lot of women will note that they won't date a person who doesn't vote, meaning for the Democratic Party candidate. In much of the music scene, you kind of have to either be a left-wing Liberal or an Anarchist, depending upon which scene, to be welcome at most shows. Even from a fairly anti-authoritarian perspective, people will take a lack of political engagement for complicity and tend to isolate or malign any person who is willing to say anything critical about either of those two political inclinations. Film is kind of the same way, but in regards to academic Socialism.

There's also some irony to that you have said that you can still be social, as the Left, at least, is likely to call any person who has aversion to political engagement whatsoever "anti-social". Consider their blanket characterization of any critique of the Industrial Revolution or the myth of technological civilized progress as being insidiously anti-social, if not all too inspired by the likes of Ted Kaczynski. Granted, John Zerzan's decision to publish him in Green Anarchy only would've been acceptable had he not also supported him and did create any number of problems within the radical environmentalist movement, but the assumption that any person who thinks that the net effect of the Industrial Revolution may not have been terribly positive is somehow akin to a lone-wolf terrorist is just completely unwarranted and totally off-base, and I even kind of like Fully Automated Luxury Communism.

Within more mainstream Liberal circles, being politically active is considered a sign of amicable sociality and, within academia, you are effectively taught to become a participating member within Liberal democracy. While I most certainly am in favor of democracy, I feel like this has the effect of isolating anyone of such sentiments, if not dismissing their concerns almost entirely.

Fair enough, but I don't think that you have depicted Baudrillard well. It's been a while since I've read that essay, but he was more or less applying his theory of simulation and simulacra to the Gulf War. He was suggesting that a war does not begin when it is officially declared, but rather when a nation decides that it is going to war. He wasn't saying that the Gulf War did not actually occur.