THE HOLLOW GOSPEL OF THE LIBERAL LEISURE CLASS: PART SIX

ABOUT THE LIBERAL LEISURE CLASS

a. there is a lexicon that stratifies everyone politically
b. there are people wholly versed in said lexicon
c. there are (presumably, likely) elaborate tracts and justifications for each strata
d. one should know precisely where one fits on this topological map
e. if you find the whole thing mysterious you are probably in over your head
f. those who "get it" should probably be deferred to since they get it and you don't
g. rhetorical skills are the method of conveying that you grok all of the above
h. anyone incapable of articulating -- at great length -- exactly where they stand in relation to all of the above points is probably a lightweight
i. ad infinitum

CONCLUSION: Let the smart people who drafted the above About Us page do the thinking and planning and talking..they are way more involved and adept than I could ever be.

Liberalism is tied closely to avoidance of political ideas and quickly distracts us towards personal idiosyncrasies ("Choices", "Lifestyles" etc.) in order to avoid substantive challenges to it's vapid discourse.

The trouble all started way, way back, we are to believe, and the solution is psychoanalysis, "being the change we wish to see" and "taking a different spiritual stance" and making "better personal choices." Those are the only solutions – personal, mystical, spiritual, within the unexamined context of consumerist corporate capitalism.

This thinking is highly Eurocentric and arrogant, although in the usual kindly paternalistic liberal fashion. As with so much of modern liberal thinking, collective action is not considered, and personal development is seen as the path to social change. Capitalism is not even mentioned, nor is class warfare. As with much liberal thinking, "we" are seen as quite different and special when compared to "them," although we are not feeling the appropriate guilt for what we have done to those poor inferiors of ours, though we are now wondering as we muse in our parlors if perhaps they did not know something that we have lost.

B'wana in the jungle. The great fucking white hope.

What to DO about the Hottentots?



I think that the biggest part of the challenge is the difficulty we have seeing the social context we are living in. You have to know where you are before you can discuss where to go. You need to accurately identify what is wrong before you start proposing solutions.

I remember watching a show about Indymedia on Free Speech TV. Hundreds of poor young uneducated people were talking passionately, intelligently, and seriously about culture and politics. What a contrast to what we have here. I realized that it is not so much a matter of the wrong discussions happening here in the states, or the wrong politics winning, it is that there are virtually no serious intelligent discussions going on here. It is not a matter of how to promote the Left, or how to configure the Left, rather that there is no Left - there is really no serious politics of any kind at all happening here. I noticed that in Sicko, too. Something is really fucked up here, and it isn't being talked about. The social context is really odd and different than elsewhere and else when. People are seriously traumatized here. Something is really fucked up with everyday modern society here. Almost everyone knows that, that is why they are apathetic about politics, because politics does not scratch that itch, does not get to what is really wrong. That means that cracking open that subject is a powerful lever to move people, to get some momentum, some energy, some thinking, some passion back into people's lives.

We are trapped in a social, cultural and political nightmare. (10...9...8...7...)

It permeates everything.

You can see it in the faces and hear it in the voices of people, and see the stark contrast between the way that everyday Americans act and speak and the way people in Europe and South America act and speak. So long as we speak and act without examining that context, everything is perverted and corrupted.

People are not turned off to the politics of the Left because those politics are too radical, rather because the politics are not radical enough and because the politicians and activists ignore the context and take modern American society as the given - the base line, standard normal.

It is no accident, it isn't arbitrary or insignificant or unimportant the way that the discussions are arranged at the various so-called Liberal outlets.

It reflects a point of view, not so much about politics, but about the existing conditions.

"Modern American society is pretty much OK (although fundamental human nature needs a serious overhaul, and we are working on that) but we enlightened folks do need to fix a few things; like eliminate guns, get people to stop smoking, get rid of bad chemicals, get rid of cars and ride bikes, promote 'green' options, give consumers better choices, recycle, get legislation to allow same sex marriage, find and support tech solutions to problems, get corporations to be socially responsible" and on and on and on and on.

The problem with the liberal activists groups is not so much that they model their organizations on capitalist free market sales and marketing models - it is that they try to disguise that as something else.

So I say that either we don't disguise the fact that we are running the place on capitalist market principles - or we run the place as a worker's cooperative.

If we run the place as a worker's cooperative, there is no need to re-invent the wheel and no need for anyone to be "analyzed, psychoanalyzed, Rolfed, est-ed, altered, gelded, neutered, spayed, fixed, acupunctured, Zenned, Yogied, New Aged, astrocharted, computerized, megatrended, androgynized, evangelized, converted, or even, last and least, to be reborn" in order to participate.

Liberal, thy name is hypocrisy. What's new?


CODA


We are trained against solidarity our whole lives.

Maybe not in our families or certain personal influences, but on a societal/cultural level we are never taught that one person's suffering belongs to everyone, and that we are all responsible for alleviating anyone's suffering in our society.

Even further, we are taught that other struggling people are our competition, our enemy.

So we have a tendency to compartmentalize our political picture, as if all of these 'issues' are separate - war, immigrants' rights, environment, corporate welfare, unemployment, globalism, outsourcing, healthcare... But in reality, these are all part of the same overarching problem. The biggest fear of the ruling class is that all the people will figure that out and turn against their true enemy.

For any movement to become successful we need to learn how to overcome those obstacles, we need to learn why/how we are alienating potential allies.

I think it is all or nothing right now, and 'nothing' is winning...How do we harness the 'all'?