Aesthetic Materialism

  The Lenin Maneuver Lenin was a brilliant strategist.  Anyone who wants to be a successful politician should study his example and the clever tactics he used.  For instance, I think Hillary Clinton is an example of a politician who might have been more successful had she learned a few things from his playbook.  (Steve Bannon, the Chief Executive of the Trump campaign in 2016, was unabashed about his being influenced by Lenin in political strategy.) One of these many tactics is a particular tactic that Lenin used so often and so effectively that I think it ought to be called "the Lenin maneuver," although I don't mean to imply that he was the only politician, nor even the first to use it.  Lenin used it so successfully that, in my opinion, it was his defining characteristic. The Lenin maneuver is useful when one is competing against rivals for leadership within a political movement.  The Lenin maneuver is a two-part move, a move in two, seemingly opposite d...

On this blog, I've argued that the aesthetic of materialism is boring. I've also stated that philosophy is whatever I find interesting. Therefore, to be a materialist philosopher means learning how to say something interesting about the boring. 

    It's true that Nietzsche wrote a book entitled "Beyond Good and Evil".  But don't be too quick to assume that, just because Nietzsche wrote a book with this title, that implies that Nietzsche believed that good and evil don't exist.  It's perfectly possible to believe fully that there is a real difference between good and evil, and, at the same time, to be able to speak of something that is "beyond" this distinction.  In an analogous way, "north" and "south" are real directions, but there are places where this distinction is no longer so clear or relevant - such as, floating in intergalactic space.  Likewise, "port" and "starboard" are meaningfully and usefully distinct, yet they have little applicability outside of a boat or some similar vessel, "stage left" and "stage right" only make sense in the context of a stage, and so on.

Start at the Beginning Previous Chapter: Day 1 Part 9   Procula’s Castle     You, Dismas, press yourself against one of the pillars of the Domus.  You are confident, in your element.  You see a guard striding into the house.   You follow him in, pull out a bag, slip it over the guard’s head while putting the guard into a sleeper hold, and then drag the guard’s unconscious body into a supply closet.  Moments later you emerge wearing the guard’s clothing.  You sneaks further into the house.     You hear people talking nearby, and quietly sneak up and peak into the room.  You see a middle-aged, rich-looking woman, reclining on a sofa.  Beside her, standing nervously and slightly bowing is her advisor.  As you watch, suddenly a gorgeously-dressed young woman enters the room.  She displays the arrangement of her fine clothes to the older woman, with a little sashay.  Sitting at the feet of the middle-aged woma...

  Start at the Beginning Previous Chapter: Day 1 Part 8 Dismas and Gestas emerge out onto the plain.  Dismas climbs up out of the valley that surrounds the stream first.  He is solemn of countenance, alert yet unwavering.  Gestas pops up behind him.  His eyes are darting this way and that.  A loud noise suddenly startles him.  "What was that!?!" "It was nothing.  Come on, let's go." "No, I definitely heard something, over there, by those bushes.  Say, Dismas, would you mind if I could have that knife back?" Dismas walks on, silently. "What are we doing, anyway?  Finding that woman's kids?  How is that any of our business?  That is so you, Dismas - always going off on adventures, without the least bit of- There it is again!" Now it's unmistakable: something is rustling in the bushes.  Something... big. Dismas circles around and confronts the beast.  It's a dugong.  It's huge: at least 10 feet long, and ferocious....

  As an anti-fascist, at the level of economics and politics, I believe in a workers' movement for economic democracy: worker ownership and control of the means of production.  Culturally, I am not just pluralist and "libertarian": in my opinion, deviation from conformity should not only be tolerated, it should be actively promoted.  At the level of ideas, lifestyles, etc., we should have as much difference and variation as possible.  I consider the multiplicity of worldviews and forms of life an intrinsic good and a goal in and of itself.  I also think it has positive consequences, because, as Frank Zappa said, "Without deviation from the norm, progress is impossible" - in science, in literature, in art, in popular culture, and at just about every level.  If promotion of such cultural pluralism implies conflict, then conflict should be encouraged. I do not consider postmodernism a reliable ally in either my economic/political aims, nor in my cultural aims....