Almost every political affiliation is, at best, a cult. — thewonder

Exactly. So it's like asking if one can be actively a-theist. We can. When one observes the negative effects of religion / political affiliations / group-think, one actively tries to engage with others in an effort to show these negative effect to others.

Even should one succeed, how are they to cope with the inescapable isolation to follow? — thewonder

What inescapable isolation? That doesn't seem to follow? You're not implyng that even atheism is a religion, or that a-political is a political affiliation, are you? We can be social without being political/religious can't we? Is there a difference between being social and being political?

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.

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. — thewonder

It hasn't always been this way. Within the past couple of decades politics has been infiltrating every aspect of our lives, such as late-night TV, Oscar awards, and sports.

My sense of being a-political is simply the idea of abolishing group politics, ie political parties. Most people have only one or two issues that they really care about and vote for the political party that they believe will represent their ideas on their one or two issues. So they end up voting against their positions on other issues. Many others don't bother educating themselves on any of the issues and simply vote the way their family and friends vote, or just look for the Ds and Rs on the ballot.

To those in government, it has become more of a religious endevour to get wins for your party and that means demonizing the other party and making out your party to be the righteous party. In this type of political environment, facts are obscured and hypocrisy is prevalent. Those constituents caught up in this religious movement see other humans that don't think like them as demonic and themselves and those that agree with them as righteous. It divides the culture into uncompromising factions. George Washington predicted this would happen, hence his outspoken aversion to political parties.

Being social and being political are completely distinct events. As an example, I have a client whose IT I service and there are some times where one of the owners and I talk about politics. He is a registered Democrat and I am a non-affiliated LIbertarian. We don't agree on many things, but we respect each other and still service their IT for over 20 years. Thinking differently politically doesn't necessarily get in the way of our other social interactions, nor is it even part of every one of our social interactions. I don't see how them calling me about a computer problem and me resolving it has anything to do with politics, or that we are practicing politics in any way. If you agree that atheism isn't a religion, then I don't see how one could also believe that a-political is still a political party. In the sense I am using the term, it is the abscence of political parties, just as athiesm is the absence of religion.

The term, "liberal" is thrown about and incorrectly used most of the time, especially on the left side. They call themselves liberals, but they have become more and more authoritarian socialist in the last 20-30 years. The right has become more authoritarian theocrats in the last 20-30 years. Astonishingly, authoritarianism has become the the dominating aspect of American politics, as everyone is out to tell you how to live your life and to put you into some arbitrary box based on the color of your skin or you genetalia. Libertarians are the true liberals and in America, liberalism is declining.

I see libertarianism as more of an a-poitical movement in the sense that it adopts the idea that you don't know what is best for others, only for yourself, so telling others how to live their lives is fundamentally a-liberal or authoritarian, and that freedom is a double-edged sword. Everyone is just as free as you are and can do what they want as long as it doesn't trample on the freedoms of others. Once you begin to tell others how to live, and put people into boxes to further your own, or your political parties goals, you abandon your liberal principles and adopt an authoritarian stance. Yet these people continue call themseles "liberals" and "progressives". It's not progressive to demonize another group and tell others how to live their lives, or put people into categorical boxes based on race and sex. Humans have been doing that since we evolved. What is progressive would be to actually be liberal in the sense that you abandon the idea that you know what is best for others and that we abolish political parties.

LIke the fundamentally religious, the fundamentally political individual needs to confirm the validity of their ideas by forcing people to believe what they believe. They group together and any one that believes differently is an outsider. They find safety in numbers, as if the logical fallacy of pleading to popularity is somehow the evidence they need to confirm their ideas. Progress has never been made in participating in group-think.

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.

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.

I think it’s also possible to be interested in politics while remaining apolitical to some degree. It’s about an interest in finding an equitable solution for everyone with good intentions (and despite what many would have us believe, there are plenty of well-intentioned people on both sides).

There's a certain irony to being relatively a-political, to me, in that I came to be so after being very politically engaged, aside from that what people often say of it seems like a more genuine Politics.

Interesting. I think it’s safe to say that for most if not all of my adulthood, I’ve been driven by a desire to look past my own biases on some level. I’d say I’m more politically involved than I used to be, but at the same time, I find conversation and unity to be extremely important.

I was a rather ardent devotee of the libertarian Left, and, so, have never been willing to sacrifice our gift for critique for any form of unity, which is to say that I had effectively created my own political sect. I took a class that was sharply critical of the Soviet Union a short time ago that was taught from a variety of different sources and I found to change my attitude towards political perspective. One text that we read Leszek Kołakowski's "My Correct Views on Everything". I enjoyed reading it immensely and was taken aback by that I finally actually cared about what someone on the Right had to say. Though perhaps still somehow suspicious of so-called "unity", I do now think that, when engaged in debate, people ought to agree to gain both a better understanding and perspective of the world. All too often, I had found that, in any given debate, I had merely been attempting to get a set of points across so as to further whatever my particular political position at the time was. I now am merely curious as to what other people know and I can find out about myself.

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. — thewonder

This is wrong. The two parties often adopt the positions of the other party when they are in power precisely because they want the win for their party and not for the other party. Just look at the fight over the Supreme Court.

There's a certain irony to being relatively a-political, to me, in that I came to be so after being very politically engaged, aside from that what people often say of it seems like a more genuine Politics. — thewonder

Exactly. This is how I became an atheist, too. Only after really learning what religion/politics is (group-think), do you come to abhor them.

This is wrong. The two parties often adopt the positions of the other party when they are in power precisely because they want the win for their party and not for the other party. Just look at the fight over the Supreme Court. — Harry Hindu

I was referring to the basic structure of an organized debate at the university level. I wasn't actually talking about the Democratic or Republican party.

Exactly. This is how I became an atheist, too. Only after really learning what religion/politics is (group-think), do you come to abhor them. — Harry Hindu

I became an atheist after considering that it was just completely insane that God told Abraham to kill his only son Isaac, he decided to go through with it, and what we are supposed to take away from this is a lesson about Abraham's devotion. It just seemed offhandedly authoritarian, if not self-interestedly didactic. Though I later came to have more of a nuanced understanding of The Story of Isaac after reading Søren Kierkegaard, I will say that what they generally teach you within Catholic catechism about it is just totally insane.

As an atheist, I would kind of just prefer to just kind of generally avoid religion and spirituality, whereas, as someone who is, to some degree, a-political, I feel like I should be actively opposed to much of what Politics has come to be. I guess that I haven't quite let go of enough of the knack that I had developed for spectacular displays of political strategems that I had honed while still somewhat fanatically ascribing to some sort of theoretical ultra-Left to understand that I would ultimately prefer to just kind of withdraw from the political arena at this point. I would basically deconstruct the dizzying array of manipulative tricks that I had pulled while doing them so that anyone keen on what I was up to would discover just what was wrong with the general conduct of more or less any person engaged in Politics. Within certain sets of society, people occasionally refer to this as "running numbers". I had effectively designed a number that would bring people to a realization that they just shouldn't run them. This tactic became so extraordinarily successful and useful to me that it became sort of a habit. I've been trying to kick it ever since, to only so much success.

The First Earth Batallion later became American psychological operations and even Richard B. Gregg's "moral jiu-jitsu" bears a certain predicament when taken too far. As much as I doubt that they will, I should hope that everyone can learn from my mistakes, even if I, myself, have only done so so well.

I don't know if that quite explains the certain absurdity that I'm trying to get at.

The Situationist International developed an ironic faux-aristocratic mein to effectively mock the common misconception that, within the art world, it would be somehow hip to act like a certain set of clandestine quasi-crypto-Fascist "lifestyle anarchists", if you will, which, for them, created a certain paradox. As much as they were extraordinary artists who created groundbreaking work, they kind of became a living caricature of an intelligence community. The reason for this, I suspect, is that they became kind of lost in their own act.

Upon thinking about the rationale behind the orchestration for the Holocaust for kind of an extensive period of time, I reasoned that, by that the Gestapo must have known that the Jews did not have some sort of sempiternal cloak-and-dagger control over geo-politics, following through with their various machinations was just kind of a baseless act of human cruelty. I, further, reasoned that Nietzsche was mistaken, there was a good and evil in the world, and that the Nazis were just simply evil. I, then, set out to discover what evil was.

Eventually, I came to the conclusion that evil was the attempt to exploit human cruelty in order to accumulate social capital, usually in the form of political power, and to conspire to do so further. Though I never came up with an adequate definition of good, I suspect for it to be whatever counters this.

I, later, came to suspect that how this operation was put into effect began with psychological manipulation. Psychological manipulation begins psychological warfare, the originary coercion, which begins authoritarianism, the epigenesis of nearly every political plight.

From this, I concluded that people think that they should be psychologically manipulative, something that is often justified through an odd kind of lesser evilism in their respective pursuits of whatever goals, was the source of the problem that I had with both Politics and Pop culture, both within and without the utlra-Left and independent music industry that I was formerly a part of, being that they were just kind of generally cultish. I probably should've come to this realization earlier, but I was kind of blinded by my devotion to both the ultra-Left and an odd kind of hipsterdom.

The paradox that I uncovered in my various attempts to counter this was that what seemed to work best was to just kind of make sort of a show out of a litany of rather chauvinist displays of both intellectual and aesthetic panache and, in my own sort of way, kind of just ended up just like the Situationist International, which was rather ironic, as my thinking about their going about things in the way that they did was what set off this journey in the first place.

Having explicitly left the ultra-Left faction that I had formerly claimed to be a part of and the Anarchist movement, I am now fairly unsure of how to proceed, especially since I have picked up so many habits along the way. I guess that I'd just like to point out that this idea that people have that, for them to achieve this or that goal, they, as the world they project would benefit more than what relevant harm they could effect, can be somehow justified in just being kind of psychologically manipulative is actually what begins nearly every either personal or political plight.

To offer further, probably incoherent speculation:

If you think about The Incredible String Band for kind of an extensive period of time, you can figure just what sort of person the Situationist International developed a habit of pretending to be, as The Incredible String Band developed the same habit. Of this sort of person, I will say that they are let to cultivate a cult personality so that they can convince people to do things, usually without any monetary reward, that just simply aren't really all that much to their benefit. Though there are actual instances of this, people only believe for this sort of thing to have anything to do with espionage because of a certain other party consistently generating a certain cult pathology in that regard. What I have come to understand is as to why it is that both the Situationist International and The Incredible String Band went about things as such, as within both the far-Left and the music industry, people, for whatever reason, do seem to think that they should adopt the mein of the aforementioned sort of person, and what the best way to convince them not to seems to be is to just pretend to have taken things further than they ever could.

The problem that I really have is that, having carried on as such and finally no longer seeing a reason to, my having done so has had the effect of getting everyone to pay close attention to everything that I do, which is also ironic, as, originally, believing for myself to suffer from Schizophrenia, I had just kind of wanted to be an amicable artist who didn't always feel like they were in the center of attention.

Anyways, what I think that there is to take away from this is that the act that such people adopt often relies upon an odd kind of chauvinism and what I would suggest is that pretending to be a chauvinist fairly obviously won't ever convince you that you just don't need to anymore. There's something to be said for artistic and intellectual flair, though. I don't know. I'm kind of just rambling.

A final supposition and set of clarifications:

Peter Kroptokin wrote in his memoirs of the hazing that went on at the gymnasium that he attended at a young age. The Volker Schlöndorff film, Young Törless, based off of the Robert Musil novel, deals with the same subject matter. For me, his character, Reiting, sort of embodies the original sin which produced the postmodern condition. Such deportment, I suspect, was later transferred to and became a generalized code of conduct within Fascist intelligence. Though they adopted a different mein, I think that my previous formulation could also apply to the Soviet apparat.

To my interpretation, Guy Debord defined The Spectacle to describe a political foray where the various forms of psychological manipulation which beget authoritarianism became diffuse. I have this created this thread so as to put to question as to whether the active disengagement from it is possible.

I should like to think that it is, but have attempted to explain a certain paradox within my life so as to indicate as to why I would even be skeptical of that it could be.

Of myself, I will say, the best two digs taken at my general ethos and way of going about things, at least, to my imagination, are that I am a "justified true believer in lifestyle anarchism" and an "a-political extremist". As much as there is to say of irony, I do, in good faith, take things like that well and don't really think that there's too much of a reason for anyone to concern themselves with whatever it is about me.

Though I have, perhaps, used to the homonym of free association to a point of excess, I will say that different lens with which to view the world can offer a good bit of perspective and that it isn't too absurd for me to make a set of political statements and then proceed to carry on in this thread. While contradictions may not exist, their semblance often does. It's just how you look at it all.

I guess that there's a certain poverty to a lack of meaningful engagement with Politics in that what I often end up doing are things like cooking up good cryptic life advice for teenage girls, like "even though The Stone Roses were a great band, you shouldn't let the music community convince you a band whose hit single was "I Wanna Be Adored" should make another great act, like The Wedding Present, seem second-rate", and am somewhat hesitant to commit to it by that account.

I should probably just think more about Philosophy, to be honest.

Anyways, I'm going to stop rambling now. Feel free to comment on whatever or even not to.

I have realized that I had forgotten to point out as to just what the qualm that I have with certain parties within the ultra-Left actually is. You see, there's kind of an informal way of the word travelling among radicals and I am of the entirely sapient opinion that it ought to do so without any either explicit or implicit coercion whatsoever. As I think that this is entirely keeping with the idea of free association, I assume for my assessment of Yoko Ono's all-white chess set as being good art to be correct. While such a supposition, in the beaten way of an imagined metaphor, can result in any number of absurdities, of which we need only point to the music industry for examples, I do not feel like I am mistaken in my assumption that the peace ought to be kept with the messenger.

I have also held a longstanding and deep-seated suspicion that certain left-wing intellectuals, of your garden Raspberry Reich variety, had taken it upon themselves to exploit my good nature in an attempt to conscript me within a set of clandestine actions before proceeding to betray me by a certain set of clandestine parties, which ought to be indicative of a certain ground truth to the hows and whys of how and why it is that I came to leave the Anarchist movement, as an Anarcho-Pacifist, "in protest of its general proclivities towards crypto-Fascism and political violence". I can't prove any of this and am certifiably insane, and, so, certain things remain hip and I am just generally thought of as kind of a schizophrenic loser.

Addenendum:

I should further like to point out the situational context with which it is that I find for it to be impossible to disengage for the battle for hearts and minds, as, within the Left or whatever, there has become such a diffuse popular myth of an ostensive Pacifist divide and conquer which has had the effect of leaving me with a many-colored broom with which to sweep and, among the Liberal intelligensia, there has been left a lock for me to pick, when it is all too easy for someone to claim that I think that "property is theft", which I do, to an extent, so as to leave me with my broom, cleaning the dust out of a library that was abandoned centuries ago.

I was referring to the basic structure of an organized debate at the university level. I wasn't actually talking about the Democratic or Republican party. — thewonder

Ok, so it seems that, at the university level, people are taught that every issue is black and white. That is the problem. In a sense,, that is a form if group-think - that there are only two sides to every issue. It limits our possibilities for finding solutions. We need to think out-of-the-box.

For instance, with the issue of gay marriage people think that the government should ban it or allow it. The problem is that the govt. shouldn't be in the business of defining marriage in the first place. Like religion, it shouldn't be making laws that either prohibit or respect any idea of marriage. So there aren't only two sides to every issue despite what the propagandists at the universities would like everyone to believe.

Exactly. This is how I became an atheist, too. Only after really learning what religion/politics is (group-think), do you come to abhor them. — Harry Hindu

I became an atheist after considering that it was just completely insane that God told Abraham to kill his only son Isaac, he decided to go through with it, and what we are supposed to take away from this is a lesson about Abraham's devotion. — thewonder

My apologies for deviating from the political aspects of this interesting conversation but to look at religion in the above light misses the point. Similarly, the political simply provides a superstructure wherein the debate between conservation/progression can matriculate.

There is no reason to be a-religious any more than there is to be a-political. Religion is has been around as long as it has for good reason. The same goes for the political nature of social man.

The most important aspect of religion is that it can provide a moral beacon, as man, left to his own devices, will often choose the low road. And this is almost universally the case in groups. Real-time human intelligence needs needs buffering via a code that has been set-down. This way, when T (intellectual) SHTF, there is still a moral compass to be relied on.

And one must keep in mind that there is an entirely different aspect of religion, as many like to think of religion as simply the intellectualization of spirituality. The non-intellectual is the heart of the matter for the few willing to trod down this path.

Politics reveals the all the nastiness that social man can conger, with his lying, cheating, and stealing on full display. Despite these inconveniences, the purpose of modern politics (the debate itself) can not be under-estimated in its importance to facilitating prudent social policy, something better (in most cases) than allowing the lunatic fringe to have their way.

Right, that's what I'm saying. You don't consider the concept of marriage whatsoever or the state's role in defining it in that case, you are just given two sides to choose created from two separate political platforms and taught that one person within the debate will come out as the victor.

My apologies for deviating from the political aspects of this interesting conversation but to look at religion in the above light misses the point. — synthesis

I was merely giving an anecdote as to why it is that I became an atheist. To my experience, the way in which The Story of Isaac is taught within Catholicism is in such a manner that the only real lesson to learn from it is that Abraham had an inspiring devotion to God. Reflecting upon this, I felt like it was just sort of way to suggest that you should just listen to what this or that religious order tells you and not ask too many questions. I did say that I came to a more nuanced understanding of the story after reading Kierkegaard, though.

Politics reveals the all the nastiness that social man can conger, with his lying, cheating, and stealing on full display. Despite these inconveniences, the purpose of modern politics (the debate itself) can not be under-estimated in its importance to facilitating prudent social policy, something better (in most cases) than allowing the lunatic fringe to have their way. — synthesis

You are, perhaps, correct about this to some extent. I have presented both Politics and debate in a manner to suit my general inclination to avoid them. What I'm suggesting is that the aforementioned "prudent social policy" often is not facilitated in a manner that is sincere or to an extent that is genuine.

I, for instance, voted for Barrack Obama twice. I think that there did need to be established something like medicare and medicaid and, as I am on medicaid, I am not only glad, but also somewhat reliant upon that they have. Being said, the form of universal healthcare the exists in the United States today is neither comprehensive nor efficient, which, I think kind of a lot of people here, from any political perspective, will tell you. The Democratic Party, and, perhaps not even the Obama administration particularly, because of their respective electoral campaigns, only really managed to provide so effective of a form of universal healthcare because of that they understood that most Americans, within the full breadth of their reason, were likely to agree with their doing so, and had utilized it in such a manner to garnish them votes. The oft-levelled complaint about the website, which is fair, is somewhat evident of this.

While Obama was in office, there became a sweeping security program with our National Security Agency. While I am loathe to quote Vladimir Lenin, I don't really have a better summarization of the Obama administration's overall performance than "one step forwards, two steps back".

I like Barrack Obama. I think that he is charming, kind, intelligent, well-spoken, and relatable. I had a lot of hope for his presidency and became very disillusioned by his effective continuation of our foreign policy. If he couldn't make the difference in the oval office, I'm not sure as to who can. It'd seem that there are what you might call "structural" socio-political problems with the American government in general that can only be so well altered by what person we elect.

I suppose that, rather than give a rather recondite discursive analysis of the motivations behind The Anarchist Library's tacit support for Individualists Tending toward the Wild, making a rather pronounced jest by offering the pretense of engaging within a conversation about Herbert Marcuse's One Dimensional Man, pointing out that it seems rather doubtful that the author of the blog, The Charnel-House, has anything to do with my predicament, utilizing information by offering commentary on the phenomenon of "dual consciousness" in the former Soviet Union, or making any snide remarks in relation to Jean Baudrillard's interpretation of the Pop Culture phenomenon of the collective fixation upon what's "cool", I ought to just continue to explain my situation.

Though there was a certain Anarchist who may call to mind Tiqqun's Theory of Bloom whom I did both get into a dispute with and take said dispute too far, as we are on good terms now, I don't see why that should be a concern of anyone else's.

As an Anarcho-Pacifist, because Pacifism is wildly unpopular within the Anarchist movement, and peace the peace movement has a general aversion to collaborating with people who formerly almost attempted to create their own ideological sect, effectively an Anarchist equivalent of Communization, so as to remain politically engaged, I could only convince the Anarchist movement to be more welcoming. This, however, is just simply impossible, as, in order to do so, I would ultimately have to convince the Black Panther Party to revise the variant of the diversity of tactics that they adopted.

In the general course of my going about and doing things otherwise, I had also attempted to participate within the independent music industry and, though I do still play music, as I did formerly find myself within a dispute with kind of a clandestine party, which I have since put to rest, I do tend not to get on so well with kind of a lot of people in the scene, as the way things tend to go is that you're in when you're in and you're out when you're out, because of the many circumstances of my life, I am just kind of de facto "out".

What there, then, leaves for me to do is to study Philosophy. As certain Liberal academics can be so inclined to advance a kind of patrician Mentalism and others an effective deliberate indifference, and I am kind of an uncanny sort of person who lives within the place of schizophrenia of Capitalism and Schizophrenia, I often find that, by that they know all too well that I know all too well it is they who have cultivated an intellectual culture so as to marginalize and isolate people like me, though I do occasionally try to engage them in meaningful erudite conversation, they're often mostly interested and engaged in just kind of making a quite deliberate attempt to bar me from the university. Within the intersection of Philosophy and Law, there are some people who have been making an attempt to substantiate human rights, which I do think is a noble cause, but one that I would only disrupt, and some right-wing intellectuals who have kind of an unsettlingly favorable fascination with Carl Schmitt. Aside from all of them, there are left-wing intellectuals, who, in so far that they are only so taken by certain kinds of revelry on the part of the Anarchist community or a lot of rather high-flown philosophy on the part of the ultra-Left, I do get on with well, but those who are only so taken by it are all too few and far between. There is only one other party left, being Critical Theorists. What I'm trying to get across to a Critical Theorist is that, though I do have a habit of being fairly particular and elaborating at length, I don't really have too much of a reason to outside of my life at the university or my creative endeavors in so far that they wouldn't leave me as sort of an implicit focal point in the beaten way of political critique, especially since there is no reason to, as people only mistake that I am often to the point, perceptive, justified, and correct for some kind of sanctimony because of a general prejudice against Pacifists, and I would kind of prefer to engage within the realm of "pure theory" rather than make an attempt to commit myself to any form of political praxis. This idea that people have that I am of a rival school of thought which poses some sort of existential threat is not only completely unfounded, but also indicative of that their weltanschauung has failed not to succumb to some form of cult pathology or another.

Being said, social clubs can only ever be reflective of society and I'm ultimately just trying to generate a depiction of my person that is to my liking or, at the very least, to create a situation for myself where I just don't have to think about one at all.

Addenendum:

I'm just talking to myself as if I were talking to someone else now, but the only way that I can drop out is if the aforementioned Critical Theorists are willing to view me favorably enough so that I am let to do so, which I, in the general course of my life, am capable of bringing into effect, but that much of the internet seems to have an unwitting disfavorable depiction of my person does pose a certain predicament. I always leave places eventually and well when I can, but I'd often be able to leave them sooner if people would just accept that I very clearly understand what generally goes on and am often willing to take the many paths of least resistance. It's whatever, though.

I don't know. It's all good. I'm just kind of rambling.

Postscript:

I'm still just talking to myself as if there is an audience unto my own mind, but, I don't know how much you know about the service industry, but, being on the de facto outs is just the sort of thing that makes it kind of difficult to survive in it. Seeing that most other jobs are kind of temporary, it is kind of contingent upon the general course of my life to go to the university, and, so, though my going on like this is born in partial madness, there is a kind of reasoning behind it.

It's whatever, though. Now that I've explained this, I can kind of just carry on however. I feel pretty chill. All is well, y'know?

It's just this all of this has me, again, wondering, despite that I already have made what amends I either can or should, are all just somehow localized. Though, in good faith, I shouldn't like to make any digs or anything, what I've found of people operating under a certain degree of hubris is that it is often better just to get everyone else to figure out how to cope with whatever social predicament you see that can be circumnavigated than it is to even attempt to get anything through to them whatsoever. Seeing that we've gone kind of global, here, though, I feel like this is kind of absurd. Originally, I just kind of wanted to start a band, get only so into left-wing political philosophy, and land a job at a coffee shop. It's whatever, though, I guess. You've just gotta let the world become however it does.

Right, that's what I'm saying. You don't consider the concept of marriage whatsoever or the state's role in defining it in that case, you are just given two sides to choose created from two separate political platforms and taught that one person within the debate will come out as the victor. — thewonder

Agreed. But what i'm also saying is that this is an example of how the system of higher education is failing us and exacerbates the division and prevents compromise. Indoctrinatingg young adults to see the world as only black and white is part of the problem.

There is no reason to be a-religious any more than there is to be a-political. Religion is has been around as long as it has for good reason. The same goes for the political nature of social man.

The most important aspect of religion is that it can provide a moral beacon, as man, left to his own devices, will often choose the low road. — synthesis

That isn't true. I see plenty of religious people doing immoral things. The reason is because Big Brother as a god's punishment or consequences for actions are not immediate or exaclty knowable. The punishment and consequences from Big Brother as government is more substantive and knowable. Politics evolved from religion as a more efficient means of controlling the population for authoritarians ruling. So-called democracies that have popped up in more recent times are still controlled by an elite ruling class that divides it citizens against each other using a new type of religion - political parties.

That isn't true. I see plenty of religious people doing immoral things. The reason is because Big Brother as a god's punishment or consequences for actions are not immediate or exaclty knowable. The punishment and consequences from Big Brother as government is more substantive and knowable. Politics evolved from religion as a more efficient means of controlling the population for authoritarians ruling. So-called democracies that have popped up in more recent times are still controlled by an elite ruling class that divides it citizens against each other using a new type of religion - political parties. — Harry Hindu

i get all that, but look at what takes place (institutionally) in the absence of a higher moral structure. Communism (as predicted by many) ended-up being a massive catastrophe for many reasons, but perhaps the most important was the fact that the Communists believe that their own intellect was better suited to "figure it out" than would be a religious moral basis.

You don't have to be religious or political to understand the need to have such guidance in place, just as you do not have to have your own children to understand that the parents need to be in authority.

Religion and Politics simply give man a chance...what he does with the opportunity is another matter altogether. Without these foundations, we know the outcome is assuredly poor.

As an Anarcho-Pacifist, because Pacifism is wildly unpopular within the Anarchist movement, and peace the peace movement has a general aversion to collaborating with people who formerly almost attempted to create their own ideological sect, effectively an Anarchist equivalent of Communization, so as to remain politically engaged, I could only convince the Anarchist movement to be more welcoming. This, however, is just simply impossible, as, in order to do so, I would ultimately have to convince the Black Panther Party to revise the variant of the diversity of tactics that they adopted. — thewonder

I also consider myself an anarchist (philosophical) but realized early-in that perhaps the worst groups of all were groups of anarchists. Talk about a paradoxical shit-show!

The socio-political ecology of Anarchism is terrible, but I will say that they do have things like not being guilty of humanitarian catastrophe going for them. Because a lot of Anarchists are young, I don't really like to say this, but Anarchism is a political philosophy and it kind of ought to understood as such. That does entail the cultivation of ways of life, but the way that Anarchists are of either their aesthetic or various forms of revelry is just terminally frustrating. Smashing a window one time only ought to add so much credibility to any person's ideas concerning the organization of society and they often don't really act too much different from certain jet set music fans when it comes to who is let to be welcome within the community. I really wanted to like Anarchism and I really found for it to have kind of destroyed my life. I could have done without another coterie clique and another set of people who treat either the appreciation of art or a set of political ideas as if they were in a mafia. Anarchists tend to express a certain degree of animosity towards "hipsters", but have no idea as to why. What's wrong with them is just the same kind of obscure pretense and the same kind of hypercompetitive conduct when it comes to any person's almost invariably wholly illusory social capital.

Manifesting anarchism is sort of like playing out one's sexual fantasies, i.e., it's not going to end well. To me, it was always a philosophy of interacting, of truly understanding what you are up against. At 66, I still feel that way. As a matter of fact, it makes more sense to me now than it ever did. When you get down to heart of it, it's really about overthrowing your ego (as it creates all the boogeymen).

Anarchism can be incredibly destructive to individuals as is usually the last stop on the philosophy train (no more tracks). Faced with the realization that the only thing that makes sense can never work in practice is a bit much for many and forces folks to move on. For me, I became a Zen student and that filled-in all the blanks, dotted all the "i's," and crossed every "t."

I believe it would be quite helpful and give a great deal of perspective/context to anyone interested in politics to delve a bit into anarchism because it's almost impossible to refute its basic tenets...but it's much like religion and most -isms, looks good, smells good, but generally makes you nauseous when you finally eat some.

What I wanted to do as a political activist was to garnish a certain degree of legitimacy by presenting Anarchism as a political philosophy, which I do think that it is, so that we could work together with environmentalists, left-wing Liberals, peace activists, and human rights advocates so as to both make the world a better place and ameliorate the general political ecology. Granted, I was not successful in this venture and didn't necessarily go about it very well. What I did not think was requisite for this to happen was a sacrifice of ideals, the total abandonment of direct action, at least, in so far that it was not coercive, or too much of a change in anyone's lifestyle. My ideas about this have never gone over well, though.

Even though I do agree to the definition of Anarchism as being a political philosophy that attempts to reify the "abolition of every form of hierarchy", I am willing to clarify that my interpretation of it is effectively libertarian socialism. I just generally think that society ought to be, first, as libertarian as possible, and, second, as it follows, as egalitarian as possible. I also happen to be a Pacifist.

It doesn't seem to me that Anarchism should be the sort of political cult that people throw their lives away in vain pursuit of, but does often become as such. All that I think that it ought to be is a generally agreeable good idea. It could be, I think, but will have to become as such without me, at least, for a while, perhaps indefinitely.

I get lost in my own mind quite often and can often find myself incapable of disintering between what is perceptive and what is apophenic mania. I get better with it all of the time, though. I should, perhaps, read up on some Zen. I'm always saying that I'm going to.

You can elaborate upon Anarchism if you like. I'll probably be trailing off of this forum in general from here on out so as to engage in my creative pursuits. I may chat it up from time to time, though.

I would just like to point out for anyone who is unaware that I have not the words to express just how highly contentious and wildly unpopular the set of ideas I have just put forth are within the Anarchist movement. Almost everything that it does is designed for it never to let anyone come to the realization that said ideas are both completely reasonable and almost definitely within its best interest to, to some extent, agree with.

Anyways, I'll probably be taking off for a bit. I'll talk to anyone whenever.

i get all that, but look at what takes place (institutionally) in the absence of a higher moral structure. Communism (as predicted by many) ended-up being a massive catastrophe for many reasons, but perhaps the most important was the fact that the Communists believe that their own intellect was better suited to "figure it out" than would be a religious moral basis.

You don't have to be religious or political to understand the need to have such guidance in place, just as you do not have to have your own children to understand that the parents need to be in authority.

Religion and Politics simply give man a chance...what he does with the opportunity is another matter altogether. Without these foundations, we know the outcome is assuredly poor. — synthesis

Communism didn't fail because there was a lack of religion. It failed because of an over-abundance of government control that inhibited individuality and incentive and progress - where there are a select few that think their intellect is superior and better suited to figure it out for everyone.

Who is to say that one knows better than the other how to live the other's life?

I can see your point about parents and children, but newborns an children up to about 5 or 6 depend on and look to their parents for answers and are scared when they are without their parents. As they get older, then begin to assume that they know better than their parents. As a parent, I didn't use a heavy hand when they acted selfilshly, rather I simply acted like anyone else in society would act when they misbehaved. When they learn that their actions have consequences on others and others will defend their own rights, like my house, computer, internet service, etc. and take that away when they seem to abuse and take advantage of what others own, then they learn to better control their actions. When a neighbor borrows your lawnmower and never returns it or breaks it, you expect to be reimbursed, or never loan them anything again. It's about learning that you aren't the only individual in existence and you have to learn to navigate the social dynamic, and respect others as well as expect the same respect for yourself.

What Zen did for me is correctly ordered things, that is, thinking became subservient to doing. As I became more adept at my meditation practice, I found this balance significantly shifted to the side of doing and I began to see the value of cognition as only a practical matter and not something that could answer any of my concerns. Only doing provides that kind of feedback.

I do wish you the best of luck and would give you hope in suggesting that you now have a proper platform from which to dive into the great abyss, something each of us should do on a regular basis. What awaits you out there is will be well worth your efforts.

Enjoy your journey!

Communism didn't fail because there was a lack of religion. It failed because of an over-abundance of government control that inhibited individuality and incentive and progress - where there are a select few that think their intellect is superior and better suited to figure it out for everyone. — Harry Hindu

But why was there an over-abundance of government control? What made Communists believe that they could design a system that could overcome the dysfunctionality that always manifests in group behavior?

Religion usurps the political, the ultimate authority being God, not the government. The American Founding Fathers well-understood this necessity. God is used as an ideal giver of moral guidance because if you allow government (people) to assume the same role, then you are depending on the frailty of man-made morality (motivated by our unlimited desires). Gather more than two ambitious human beings in the same room and you will find only the creativity of their rationalizations outdoing the deviousness of the plots and plans to enslave the rest.

Man thinks way too highly of his limited intellect. Although his cognitive shortcomings are obvious in all spheres, nowhere is it more glaringly obvious then in the political where lying, cheating, and stealing are on full display.

People should be begging for a higher power to knock man off his poorly constructed pedestal and rightly take his place back on the ground along with the rest of the species who seems to fair considerably better as they appear to not over-think it in the least.

But why was there an over-abundance of government control? What made Communists believe that they could design a system that could overcome the dysfunctionality that always manifests in group behavior? — synthesis

The over-abundance of government control was necessary because you have to forcibly take property and rights from legitimate owners and individuals to disperse among the population and limit opposing ideas.

Religion usurps the political, the ultimate authority being God, not the government. The American Founding Fathers well-understood this necessity. God is used as an ideal giver of moral guidance because if you allow government (people) to assume the same role, then you are depending on the frailty of man-made morality (motivated by our unlimited desires). Gather more than two ambitious human beings in the same room and you will find only the creativity of their rationalizations outdoing the deviousness of the plots and plans to enslave the rest. — synthesis

Which god are we talking about - the one who's punishment for thinking differently is to be cast into fire for eternity? Doesn't sound like a moral god to me.

Man thinks way too highly of his limited intellect. Although his cognitive shortcomings are obvious in all spheres, nowhere is it more glaringly obvious then in the political where lying, cheating, and stealing are on full display. — synthesis

In no other sphere other than religion does man think so highly of his intellect as if he knows the true nature of god and what it intends, much less whether one even exists or not.

People should be begging for a higher power to knock man off his poorly constructed pedestal and rightly take his place back on the ground along with the rest of the species who seems to fair considerably better as they appear to not over-think it in the least. — synthesis

I don't know which men you are talking about other than the religious and political elite, which in those cases, yes, they need to be knocked off their poorly constructed pedestals.

Because @StreetlightX is just never going to convince those affiliates of those Communization theorists to let me put our dispute aside, even if he cared to, I have created a political movement so that I can become a-political.