Os Cangaceiros
12th May 2012, 05:56
This may seem kind of rambling, but I'm just going to go ahead and post it anyway.
I'm becoming increasingly disillusioned regarding the state of modern society, and especially the tools that capital has in regards to social control and repression. I'm someone who hates the idea that someone has the potential to monitor my every movement and my every action, and sometimes it seems like no one else really gives a shit about this. In a way I can see how communists wouldn't really be so concerned (other than the obvious fact that those technologies could be turned against them at some point); the latest methods of state repression don't really have much to do with the fundamentals of the capital-labor antagonism.
But my opposition to some of these things goes beyond simple materialism, goes beyond me just not liking this or that vestige of capitalism. For example, the cops. I hate the police, and part of that does have to do with the role they play in our society. But there's a part of me that says, if this pig had a hammer and sickle patch instead of a badge, and he was a member of the "people's militia" or some shit, would I really like him any more? No, I don't think so. Often times I find myself in agreement with rightwing wingnut libertarians regarding the universal telling of any and all state power to go fuck itself, even though I know there's not really a rational basis for me believing that. I can't imagine myself ever respecting state bureaucrats or state agents, regardless of whether they're doing the "people's bidding" or not.
w/ regards to state control and social order, one of the more satisfying events related to the negation of this was the August 2011 riots in the UK. Man, that was immensely satisfying, and I don't even live in the UK. Countries like the UK and the USA don't practice the more brutal, explicit state control practiced in other countries, but seeing the "activist state" and all it's sickening tools of order and public harmony or whatever proven absolutely impotent before a burny-smashy mob was awesome. That's what a lot of people on the left don't get, I think, they see something like that incident of mass rioting and looting (or the late 60's riot-a-thon in the USA, which the institutional left decried in it's day) as pointless and nihilistic, but they just can't see the ecstasy someone must feel at just fucking destroying everything that's ever been held up before them but they've been told that they can't have. There's a part of me that just wants to abandon any and all materialism when I see such images and just watch shit burn in a massive inferno.
I can't take that sentiment all the way, though, I can't be some kind of anti-civ primmie. I realize intellectually that a world without things like aspirin or penicillen would suck in a big way. But that doesn't stop a certain tension between those frames of mind. I think a world in which capitalism has reached it's "zenith", in which everyone has a relatively long lifespan and there's not much violence at all (as per current trends), but everyone is tightly regimented into ordered lives would be pretty much a nightmare. Rebellion and violence can often be terrifying, if I was caught up in some kind of major violent upheaval I'd probably shit myself, but I think it's something the world needs, I think it's what keeps the world moving foward. Even in a perfect "end of history" commie utopia.
/rant
I'm becoming increasingly disillusioned regarding the state of modern society, and especially the tools that capital has in regards to social control and repression. I'm someone who hates the idea that someone has the potential to monitor my every movement and my every action, and sometimes it seems like no one else really gives a shit about this. In a way I can see how communists wouldn't really be so concerned (other than the obvious fact that those technologies could be turned against them at some point); the latest methods of state repression don't really have much to do with the fundamentals of the capital-labor antagonism.
But my opposition to some of these things goes beyond simple materialism, goes beyond me just not liking this or that vestige of capitalism. For example, the cops. I hate the police, and part of that does have to do with the role they play in our society. But there's a part of me that says, if this pig had a hammer and sickle patch instead of a badge, and he was a member of the "people's militia" or some shit, would I really like him any more? No, I don't think so. Often times I find myself in agreement with rightwing wingnut libertarians regarding the universal telling of any and all state power to go fuck itself, even though I know there's not really a rational basis for me believing that. I can't imagine myself ever respecting state bureaucrats or state agents, regardless of whether they're doing the "people's bidding" or not.
w/ regards to state control and social order, one of the more satisfying events related to the negation of this was the August 2011 riots in the UK. Man, that was immensely satisfying, and I don't even live in the UK. Countries like the UK and the USA don't practice the more brutal, explicit state control practiced in other countries, but seeing the "activist state" and all it's sickening tools of order and public harmony or whatever proven absolutely impotent before a burny-smashy mob was awesome. That's what a lot of people on the left don't get, I think, they see something like that incident of mass rioting and looting (or the late 60's riot-a-thon in the USA, which the institutional left decried in it's day) as pointless and nihilistic, but they just can't see the ecstasy someone must feel at just fucking destroying everything that's ever been held up before them but they've been told that they can't have. There's a part of me that just wants to abandon any and all materialism when I see such images and just watch shit burn in a massive inferno.
I can't take that sentiment all the way, though, I can't be some kind of anti-civ primmie. I realize intellectually that a world without things like aspirin or penicillen would suck in a big way. But that doesn't stop a certain tension between those frames of mind. I think a world in which capitalism has reached it's "zenith", in which everyone has a relatively long lifespan and there's not much violence at all (as per current trends), but everyone is tightly regimented into ordered lives would be pretty much a nightmare. Rebellion and violence can often be terrifying, if I was caught up in some kind of major violent upheaval I'd probably shit myself, but I think it's something the world needs, I think it's what keeps the world moving foward. Even in a perfect "end of history" commie utopia.
/rant