Aesthetic Materialism

It is often claimed that the self does not exist, that there is no such thing as a self, anywhere. But what can possibly be meant by such a claim? Suppose that I were to say, "There is no such thing as a sklorb." And someone asked me, "What is a sklorb?" And I replied, "That's just it: sklorbs don't exist!" And they said, "Yes, but what do you mean by 'sklorb?'"  And I responded, "The very concept of sklorb is meaningless." Them: "Then what are you talking about, when you claim that sklorb doesn't exist?" Me: "Nothing." Them: "Then why did you say it?" Me: "No reason." The word "self" must mean something, in order for the sentence "There is no self" to be meaningful at all, in just the same way that the word "egg" must be meaningful, for the grocer to meaningfully inform me that they're all out of eggs.  How about this dialogue? Bill: Joe Shmoe...

A horrifying leech-like creature, with inward curling teeth, suddenly lunges at you.   You are "the man in the black hat" - except you're not wearing a hat now.   You're chained to a rock by thick shackles.  But there's something brushing against your face - like a small flying insect - but it's glowing.  A firefly?  You toss your head, knocking it away.  Suddenly something glimmers: falling seemingly out of nowhere, something gold-metallic is there, sticking up out of the dirt.   The leech-like thing is coming closer.   With effort, you kick the metal thing up onto your own chest.  Now you can see what it is: a key!   The leech-thing jumps on your chest, right next to the key, and starts sucking your blood. You shudder at the vile creature that is draining you in disgust, but then manage to bring your face even closer to the small, horrifying monster.  You grab the key with your teeth and, wincing in pain, ...

    Previous chapter: Introduction Cut scene: THE BLOOD CRIES OUT FROM THE EARTH     Long establishing shot of an ancient desert road at night.  [Modeled on the Negev.]  Wind.  A distant dust cloud building as if in slow motion.  Soft, scattered Morricone-ish music gradually builds out of the near-silence, eerie, ominous, foreboding.     Enter, from the right side of the screen, a shadowed figure wearing a dark red cape, cowl shadowing his face, furtively running from an ancient desert city.  All business, he hurries off of the dusty road, checks to see that no one is following him, and climbs his way down a rocky embankment to the valley below.  In this area, the cracked earth has lost its golden color and is a dull ashen gray.  Hunching over, he produces a bladder from within the robe, pulls out the cloth stopper, takes a moment to waft the opening under his nose and savor the aroma, and then quick ...

Is it too late for socialism? I've already alluded to this , but the first industrial revolution (approx. from the 1760s to the 1840s) and second industrial revolution (from the 1870s to the 1920s) were characterized by imperialism, exploitation, enclosure, violent "primitive accumulation," child labor, etc., but they also introduced the factory system, which created conditions of economic interdependence that resulted in opportunities for cooperation and solidarity among workers, giving rise to a labor movement with real political power and the potential for the struggle for serious, impressive gains. But it could be argued that the third industrial revolution, which began, according to some, in the 1950s, and reached a decisive, transformative step in the 1970s, and the fourth industrial revolution, which many say is underway right now, have tended in the opposite direction.  Rather than tending towards larger and larger factory enterprises, with more and more people, w...

First let me say: even though I have identified as an anarchist in the past, I want to make it clear that I'm not the type of person who says, "Theory is stupid!  We don't need theory, we need action!"  No - what we need is theory.  Lots of theory.  That's what we need more than anything else.  We need more theory.  Not just "more" theory - better theory. The main question I want to ask every communist is a very simple question.  It can be asked in few words - in fact, it can be asked in one word: How? How would communism work?  How would a classless society function?  How do you abolish the value form?  How do you abolish the general formula for capital, M-C-M'?  How do you abolish commodities?  How? I want granular details.  I want logistics.  How does sewage work?  How does garbage disposal work?  How does the energy sector work?  How does AI fit into this?  Because I've observed that the best ...

Many of the most celebrated postmodern theorists - the liquefactionists, essentially - are influenced by Heidegger, in a way, but they missed the entire point of Heidegger's philosophy.  Heidegger insisted, again and again, that what he writing was not epistemology, or existentialism, or the study of consciousness, or religion, or ethics, or least of all, politics - but rather ontology - the study of being.  The question he concerned himself with was the question of being.  We can think of several related questions, like "What is being?" or "What is nothing?" or "Why is there something rather than nothing?"  For Heidegger, none of these were the question of being.  That was a question that he did not even know how to pose, let alone answer.   Is there any practical purpose or use to working on the question of being or any of these related questions?  I would say no.  You certainly cannot simply jump from one level to the other and assume that...