Lumpen Prole Life: Youth Rejection of The Left...

[BIXX]

Hey guys, this is a (very) new blog I am a contributing to. My comrade and I are giving our opinions regarding anarchism and organization (or a lack thereof) among other things. This is just a blog to allow us and other youth to express ourselves, and hopefully, when we no longer qualify as youth, others will take over the project.

http://lumpenprolelife.blogspot.com

Check it out, tell us what you think.

[Red_Banner]

Rubbish.


They don't understand leftism at all.

Anarchism is far-left.

[Jimmie Higgins]

What's wrong with control? Don't you want to control your own life? Well for most people, the only viable way to do that is to organize cooperatively. If someone has a trust fund or alternately drops out of mainstream society, that existence of their personal autonomy still depends on most people being wage slaves.

[BIXX]

What's wrong with control?

There is a lot wrong with it, self-control isn't a problem.

Organizational control limits the individual. Control as a whole also implies a hierarchy, the controlled under the controller.


Don't you want to control your own life?

Yes. Self control.


Well for most people, the only viable way to do that is to organize cooperatively.

We aren't saying people can't be cooperative, rather, they shouldn't have to bow to mass movements or organizations through reasons of tactics or ideology. I don't wanna go syndicalist because I feel it will harm my personal autonomy.


If someone has a trust fund or alternately drops out of mainstream society, that existence of their personal autonomy still depends on most people being wage slaves.

We aren't saying drop out, rather, make your existence as free as possible, develop your own self-theory, and not wait for others to be free to try and free yourself. It means we are tired of waiting for some revolution that seems less and less likely to arrive.

[Jimmie Higgins]

We aren't saying drop out, rather, make your existence as free as possible, develop your own self-theory, and not wait for others to be free to try and free yourself. It means we are tired of waiting for some revolution that seems less and less likely to arrive.But wouldn't that also include making your existance more free by maybe becoming rich yourself? Isn't this what most people try and do in capitalism? What's the political difference between a stockbroker or yuppie vs. someone reclaiming copper wire or selling drugs? Both need some kind of living and do so with more autonomy than most workers.

What does living life as free as possible mean for someone like me who has debts, no savings, no retirement money or healthcare and a wife with a chronic illness and also no healthcare? I live as free as I can as it is, but it's pretty limited without other means of surviving and it's basically accomodating myself to the system to want to just keep it at that.

[BIXX]

But wouldn't that also include making your existance more free by maybe becoming rich yourself? Isn't this what most people try and do in capitalism? What's the political difference between a stockbroker or yuppie vs. someone reclaiming copper wire or selling drugs? Both need some kind of living and do so with more autonomy than most workers.

Well, the problem here is that all individualism (and this egoism) must be anarchistic in nature because capitalism and hierarchies limit the individual. Someone who reclaims copper wire isn't imposing their will on anyone else, so they aren't forming a hierarchy.

Our idea isn't about getting rich as well in that it is about the struggle for anarchism, just I'm a different way. You aren't gonna achieve anarchism with more hierarchies.


What does living life as free as possible mean for someone like me who has debts, no savings, no retirement money or healthcare and a wife with a chronic illness and also no healthcare? I live as free as I can as it is, but it's pretty limited without other means of surviving and it's basically accomodating myself to the system to want to just keep it at that.

Then in many ways (though not entirely) you are part of the excluded (those who cannot struggle). Sometimes living as you have been is the best you can do. It doesn't mean you can't play, however, even if it isn't in such a way as to burn down a symbol of oppression or whatever, but it could be a simple as messing with wet cement, or moving a road sign, but you know, just having fun. That's the most important part-have fun during as much of your life as possible.

[#FF0000]

Rubbish.


They don't understand leftism at all.

Anarchism is far-left.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-left_anarchy

EDIT: post-left anarchy is dumb though lol owned u echo

[Jimmie Higgins]

Well, the problem here is that all individualism (and this egoism) must be anarchistic in nature because capitalism and hierarchies limit the individual. Someone who reclaims copper wire isn't imposing their will on anyone else, so they aren't forming a hierarchy.But what does it matter? Why must someone's induvidualism be controlled by a moral demand against hierarchy?

[/quote]Our idea isn't about getting rich as well in that it is about the struggle for anarchism, just I'm a different way. You aren't gonna achieve anarchism with more hierarchies.[/quote]But how does someone achieve it?


Then in many ways (though not entirely) you are part of the excluded (those who cannot struggle). Sometimes living as you have been is the best you can do. It doesn't mean you can't play, however, even if it isn't in such a way as to burn down a symbol of oppression or whatever, but it could be a simple as messing with wet cement, or moving a road sign, but you know, just having fun. That's the most important part-have fun during as much of your life as possible.I can have fun, but then I have to go back to work. Since my wife needs expensive daily medicine, not working is not an option for her. I can't see how this view isn't just an accomodation to capitalism - "yeah it sucks, but try and get yours if you can"... isn't that what capitalism tells us to do anyway?

[BIXX]

But what does it matter? Why must someone's induvidualism be controlled by a moral demand against hierarchy?

There is a difference between individualism and someone acting only in their own self interest. Individualism means that you believe all individuals must be free, which necessarily leads to the abolition of hierarchies.


But how does someone achieve it?

Destroying hierarchies and the means of oppression. There isn't really a specific guidebook for this.


I can have fun, but then I have to go back to work. Since my wife needs expensive daily medicine, not working is not an option for her.

We aren't saying don't work- hell, I need to get a job, the person I write with works. The point though, is to be able to also do whatever you can to free yourself, and achieve some form of joy, and to keep doing so until everyone is free, until all hierarchies have been destroyed, and capital has been abolished. Just because the revolution hasn't come doesn't mean I shouldn't physically confront the problems I face.


I can't see how this view isn't just an accomodation to capitalism - "yeah it sucks, but try and get yours if you can"... isn't that what capitalism tells us to do anyway?

No, the view is a different way to achieve anarchy. Rather than seeing mass organization as the way to do it, we believe that mass organization will lead to a pseudo-anarchy, and then there will be more oppression to fight. In fact, we believe the revolution is never over.

We don't see why we shouldn't struggle for our own freedom if you aren't willing to struggle with us. Just cause you won't, doesn't mean we shouldn't. But we also don't want you to struggle with us because you don't have to- we would only want you do if you were having fun while doing so. The insurrection should be play, essentially.

[BIXX]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-left_anarchy

EDIT: post-left anarchy is dumb though lol owned u echo

I don't know why this made me laugh so hard.

[nizan]

Not a bad collection thus far, I would say. Sans temps mort camarades.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

A'ight. So, I know this is a little pissed off sounding, but mean it all in a constructive and comradely way.

1. Fuck the narrow idea that there is an ethical dimension to the lower rungs of the quasi-/il/legal economy. Stealing old copper pipe is a strategy for survival within capitalism, and part of the totality of capital as much as the activity of the left that you aim to critique.
Without the dynamic of "survival pending revolution" as a collective project aiming at the latter, it's just a projection of petit bourgeois values into the economic realities of the contemporary situation: ie Collecting cans for the refund is a more realistic project than starting a cobbler shop.

2. Egoism/individualism is rooted in a liberal and protestant notions of the individual that fail to grapple with the conditioning dynamics of material reproduction, meaning it's inherently sexist, erasing the particulars of women's labour in the false universal of the "ego", and racist, erasing colonized subjects (who have a very particular collective experience vis-a-vis colonial Eurocapitalism). Theoretically substituting the totality of relations (ie "What makes me me") for God doesn't fundamentally undermine the real historical character of individualization - the material processes that underwrite "the ego".

3. Don't play on the sexing-up/glorification of the lumpen proletariat if it's not your real experience. I'm not saying that it's not - I don't know you - but, if you didn't grow up in the projects, if your parents aren't slinging dope, if you don't have to go to the food bank, if you're white, etc., you're not a lumpen proletarian, and it's shitty to take someone else's struggle and use it for social capital. If this isn't the case, by all means continue. If it is the case, stop fronting. Immediately.

3. Look, your blog is at its best when it transcends the ideological cliches of individualist/insurrectionary anarchism. Cheating on homework can be an excellent collective project. I think there are lots of awesome ways to subvert and attack the education system: and you'll get more traction with them if you don't wrap them up in a whole bunch of bombastic specialist language. The critique of agism, similarly, is great - but the defense of post-leftism in the same post, well, sounds like a teenager trying to be edgy. "Run fast! and leave a trail of flames and ashes in your path." It's like, sorry, if you're actually setting fires, you don't spout bad poetry about it.

4. Heads up: "Insurrecto" is generally a dis, used by those of us who have been through the tougher-than-thou "I'm taking Systema" insurrecto meatgrinder.

[BIXX]

A'ight. So, I know this is a little pissed off sounding, but mean it all in a constructive and comradely way.

No worries, I'm down to listen.


1. Fuck the narrow idea that there is an ethical dimension to the lower rungs of the quasi-/il/legal economy. Stealing old copper pipe is a strategy for survival within capitalism, and part of the totality of capital as much as the activity of the left that you aim to critique.
Without the dynamic of "survival pending revolution" as a collective project aiming at the latter, it's just a projection of petit bourgeois values into the economic realities of the contemporary situation: ie Collecting cans for the refund is a more realistic project than starting a cobbler shop.

I would say the difference between stealing copper piping to sell and getting super rich off of exploitation of others is the fact that you aren't exploiting others by stealing the pipe. It is ethically better in my opinion.


2. Egoism/individualism is rooted in a liberal and protestant notions of the individual that fail to grapple with the conditioning dynamics of material reproduction, meaning it's inherently sexist, erasing the particulars of women's labour in the false universal of the "ego", and racist, erasing colonized subjects (who have a very particular collective experience vis-a-vis colonial Eurocapitalism). Theoretically substituting the totality of relations (ie "What makes me me") for God doesn't fundamentally undermine the real historical character of individualization - the material processes that underwrite "the ego".

I think I'm failing to make the mental lead required to understand this point, if you could rephrase it/clarify that'd be very helpful.


3. Don't play on the sexing-up/glorification of the lumpen proletariat if it's not your real experience. I'm not saying that it's not - I don't know you - but, if you didn't grow up in the projects, if your parents aren't slinging dope, if you don't have to go to the food bank, if you're white, etc., you're not a lumpen proletarian, and it's shitty to take someone else's struggle and use it for social capital. If this isn't the case, by all means continue. If it is the case, stop fronting. Immediately.

The blog name was chosen by my comrade, who fit all your criteria to be lumpen proletariat, other than being white.

I, on the other hand, have a very privileged life. However, with the exception of my girlfriend and one childhood friend, I exclusively am friends with people who love the kind of life you are describing. So I have at least some exposure to that kind of life. I can't make the claim to know it intimately, but still, I am not removed from it.

The argument against what you say here is fault obvious. We can't even agree on who constitutes a vanguard, what socialism is, etc... So what makes you the authority on the lumpen proles?

Operating under the definition given by my comrade- "a prole that cannot be organized"- I am lumpen proletariat.


3. Look, your blog is at its best when it transcends the ideological cliches of individualist/insurrectionary anarchism. Cheating on homework can be an excellent collective project. I think there are lots of awesome ways to subvert and attack the education system: and you'll get more traction with them if you don't wrap them up in a whole bunch of bombastic specialist language. The critique of agism, similarly, is great - but the defense of post-leftism in the same post, well, sounds like a teenager trying to be edgy. "Run fast! and leave a trail of flames and ashes in your path." It's like, sorry, if you're actually setting fires, you don't spout bad poetry about it.

Three things: I do not believe either of us have used any specialist language. This could be because I so commonly use this language in every day life that I don't realize it's specialist, but I haven't noticed anything.

Cheating on homework can be a good collective project, however, it is ultimately to help yourself. It aids in maintaining relationships, creating new ones, helping your grades, etc... Which are all ultimately to help yourself.

Also, your last bit, yeah, we are post leftists, as are many people on this board (the overwhelming amount of people here who say "I'm not left" would qualify as post leftists). So it was a defense of post leftism. However, what you were critiquing is writing style, rather than the ideas presented. I see no reason to change the writing style.


4. Heads up: "Insurrecto" is generally a dis, used by those of us who have been through the tougher-than-thou "I'm taking Systema" insurrecto meatgrinder.

Though I was unaware that it was generally used as a dis, I don't really care. Several insurrectionary anarchists I talk to used the term specifically referring to themselves. I doubt it'll present a problem.

Also, what are you referring to with with the tougher than thou "I'm taking Systema" stuff? I'm mainly wondering about the Systema stuff, as I've seen evidence of certain insurrectionaries pulling the "tougher than thou" shit.

[Jimmie Higgins]

There is a difference between individualism and someone acting only in their own self interest. Individualism means that you believe all individuals must be free, which necessarily leads to the abolition of hierarchies.

Destroying hierarchies and the means of oppression. There isn't really a specific guidebook for this.but aren't most people playing as much as they can already? So my misunderstanding is how what is being advocated is any different than just accepting capitalism for the vast majority of people. If someone enjoys movies or sports, is that bringing down hierarchies? It certainly makes life more enjoyable and people should do more of what they like, but it's also no threat to the system... Even when sports or movie fans riot.


We aren't saying don't work- hell, I need to get a job, the person I write with works. The point though, is to be able to also do whatever you can to free yourself, and achieve some form of joy, and to keep doing so until everyone is free, until all hierarchies have been destroyed, and capital has been abolished. Just because the revolution hasn't come doesn't mean I shouldn't physically confront the problems I face.but playing video games, reading comics, smoking weed, and having sex no matter how much I try hasn't impacted capitalism in the least... I'd do keep trying tho.:lol:


No, the view is a different way to achieve anarchy. Rather than seeing mass organization as the way to do it, we believe that mass organization will lead to a pseudo-anarchy, and then there will be more oppression to fight. In fact, we believe the revolution is never over.

We don't see why we shouldn't struggle for our own freedom if you aren't willing to struggle with us. Just cause you won't, doesn't mean we shouldn't. But we also don't want you to struggle with us because you don't have to- we would only want you do if you were having fun while doing so. The insurrection should be play, essentially.i think I understand the criticism - though don't agree - but what I don't really understand is the alternative being put forward and how it is better, or really any resistance at all. In the us when people are deliberately being pushed to the margins, where there are more prisoners just being warehoused than there were slaves, where neoliberalism tells us that our increased impoverishment is just an opportunity to do d.i.y. Hustles, where neoliberal restructuring is scattering us and making us more atomized, I don't see how painting out atomization and marginalization as ethical is a challenge rather than a kind of adaptation and surrender. And I'm not trying to attack or say you aren't committed personally or anything, just debating the ideas and trying to get a better sense of this viewpoint.

[Comrade Sun Wukong]

Reminds me of some words of Bakunin:



To me the flower of the proletariat is not, as it is to the Marxists, the upper layer, the aristocracy of labor, those who are the most cultured, who earn more and live more comfortably than all the other workers. Precisely this semi-bourgeois layer of workers would, if the Marxists had their way, constitute their fourth governing class. This could indeed happen if the great mass of the proletariat does not guard against it. By virtue of its relative. well-being and semi-bourgeois position, this upper layer of workers is unfortunately only too deeply saturated with all the political and social prejudices and all the narrow aspirations and pretensions of the bourgeoisie. Of all the proletariat, this upper layer is the least social and the most individualist.


By the flower of the proletariat, I mean above all that great mass, those millions of the uncultivated, the disinherited, the miserable, the illiterates, whom Messrs. Engels and Marx would subject to their paternal rule by a strong government – naturally for the people’s own salvation! All governments are supposedly established only to look after the welfare of the masses! By flower of the proletariat, I mean precisely that eternal “meat” (on which governments thrive), that great rabble of the people (underdogs, “dregs of society”) ordinarily designated by Marx and Engels in the picturesque and contemptuous phrase Lumpenproletariat. I have in mind the “riffraff,” that “rabble” almost unpolluted by bourgeois civilization, which carries in its inner being and in its aspirations, in all the necessities and miseries of its collective life, all the seeds of the socialism of the future, and which alone is powerful enough today to inaugurate and bring to triumph the Social Revolution.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I would say the difference between stealing copper piping to sell and getting super rich off of exploitation of others is the fact that you aren't exploiting others by stealing the pipe. It is ethically better in my opinion.

OK, stealing pipes, or growing pot, or whatever might be "more ethical" than, like, being a capitalist, but what I'm trying to get at isn't a question concerning ethics-within-capitalism. It's about destroying capitalism. Informal employment isn't a particularly valuable part of an anticapitalist strategy - so I don't particularly see why one would glorify it. It's not a "bad" thing - but it's not that different than some parts of "the left" glorifying "the worker"-as-worker.


I think I'm failing to make the mental lead required to understand this point, if you could rephrase it/clarify that'd be very helpful.

OK, so I was kinda getting at two things. First, I want to problematize the philosophical assumptions of "Egoism"/"Individualism". Secondly, I want to challenge the political implications of the ahistorical "individual". Of these two things, the second is far more important, in my opinion, so feel free to skip the first block of text.

Anyway, as regards individualism, what is the individual? What "makes" the individual? Between me and you, what are the conditions that make "us" "not we"? Is it a question of bodies? Of minds? Of experience? Of history? My point is that none of these things (nor all these things together!) can really be understood meaningfully in isolation - the re-/production of bodies, minds, experiences, and their consequences (history!) is collective. Consider a hurricane: you can name a hurricane, and say, "X hurricane does Y," but, really, it's illusory. The hurricane is impossible to understand outside of the totality of the climate, of the relationships of winds and currents. The hurricane emerges out of "weather" and returns to it with the only real distinction being that we draw by the act of naming. Throughout the hurricane's "life", its edges are indistinct, its borders are porous, its material is fluid. We are the same way.

More importantly, what are the political implications of the individual constructed as ego? For one, their material reproduction ceases to to exist as constitutive of their subjectivity. So, for example, domestic labour, the mother, etc. - the "woman" subject produced by patriarchy - ceases to exist, consequently erasing the specificity of women's struggle against patriarchy. The implications of this go further: queerness ceases to be a relationship to patriarchy, but becomes an "inclination" that is "free" of contextualizing gendered/sexual implications. Racialization and colonization cease to exist as relationships to their collective embodiment, but become lonely struggles against subjective discrimination. Struggles that, by their very nature, can not be individualized are subsumed within this false universal of "the individual". Almost inevitably, the consequence is piss-poor understandings of patriarchy, white supremacy, etc. (and consequently of class).

I know that's pretty dense, and I'm sorry. Look at it this way: you say you're against patriarchy, against racism, etc. That's all well and good - but within the framework of egoism, try to explain how those things work. If you can do it coherently, I'll step aside and say, "OK, you have a different but valid framework." However, having subjected myself to Wolfi Landstreicher, to Alfredo Banano, to the "leading lights" of individualist/insurrectionary anarchist thought, I'm going to say that you probably won't be able to.


The blog name was chosen by my comrade, who fit all your criteria to be lumpen proletariat, other than being white.

OK, totally legit. I didn't mean the list as an "all these conditions must be met" sort of thing, so much as sociological reference points.


The argument against what you say here is fault obvious. We can't even agree on who constitutes a vanguard, what socialism is, etc... So what makes you the authority on the lumpen proles?

Operating under the definition given by my comrade- "a prole that cannot be organized"- I am lumpen proletariat.


I'm sure we would agree on the first two points more than you might assume (unless you have Leninist tendencies I'm not picking up on). As for "who the lumpen proles" are, sure, you could use your comrade's definition, and I could say, "the bourgeoisie is anybody with a nicer bike than me." The thing is, it would be pretty useless for communication, since basically nobody else would share that definition. I can understand a hesitance to go back to Marx for a definition, due to his hostility, but for a more sympathetic (and recent) take you could go to Huey Newton and the BPP. The "unemployable". The "criminal element". The "marginalized".

I don't think there should be any shame in either being or not being "lumpen" - I hardly think it's a pressing political question on an individual level. What I will say is that "slumming it" is in poor taste. I'm not saying you're not "down", or that you are "slumming it". If you're really tight with a lot of poor and marginalized folk, that's great, and even better if you're part of a collective project like this blog. But, uh . . . calling yourself "lumpen" is kinda wack.


Three things: I do not believe either of us have used any specialist language. This could be because I so commonly use this language in every day life that I don't realize it's specialist, but I haven't noticed anything.

Keep in mind, it's not necessarily about the individual words, but the context in which you use them. For example, civilization isn't a particularly obscure word, but its use in an "anti-civ" context is particular. There's a pretty liberal use (pun unintended) of similarly context-specific ideas that, to someone outside of the milieu - even a typical leftist youth - makes the blog sound overall like a call for bellum omnium contra omnes.


Cheating on homework can be a good collective project, however, it is ultimately to help yourself. It aids in maintaining relationships, creating new ones, helping your grades, etc... Which are all ultimately to help yourself.

Yeah, yeah, and if I define self-interest broadly enough, taking a bullet for my girlfriend would be self-interested because of the satisfaction I derive from having "done the right thing". Mind you, this is basically the argument that gets put forward in defense of capitalism all the time - that people pursuing their self-interest will ultimately benefit everyone. Having taken PHIL201 nine years ago, I'm pretty over it.


Also, your last bit, yeah, we are post leftists, as are many people on this board (the overwhelming amount of people here who say "I'm not left" would qualify as post leftists). So it was a defense of post leftism. However, what you were critiquing is writing style, rather than the ideas presented. I see no reason to change the writing style.

The reason to change the writing style is because it's transparently dishonest, and makes you sound like a macho tool. If you're not leaving any prisons, punching any organizers, or setting anything on fire, don't play like you are. It's not "cool".


Though I was unaware that it was generally used as a dis, I don't really care. Several insurrectionary anarchists I talk to used the term specifically referring to themselves. I doubt it'll present a problem.

Also, what are you referring to with with the tougher than thou "I'm taking Systema" stuff? I'm mainly wondering about the Systema stuff, as I've seen evidence of certain insurrectionaries pulling the "tougher than thou" shit.

Systema is a martial art - and it was a pretty "in" thing to learn systema to demonstrate how down and ready to fight you were a few years ago. Which isn't to say it's a bad idea to learn a martial art (in fact, I think it's a great idea), but it's a stupid thing to brag about in order to show how much more ready you are for the insurrection.

I dig - I've been very close to insurrectionary anarchists, and have close friends who still identify strongly with that tradition. I'm not a paper-selling platformist or something (though I have one or two friends in that milieu too), and I'm not trying to win you over to Marxism-Leninism.

Seriously though, don't get caught up in a cycle of talking big, then needing to walk big to prove it, and repeating until you end up confronting the state head-on armed only with bats.

For a cautionary tale read the story of the "insurrecto"-organized Fire.Works.For.Prisons (http://fireworksforprisons.wordpress.com/2010/03/) demo. I've linked the earliest post, b/c it's best read in chronological order. Sincerely, there are parts of this that you'll love, and that are actually pretty cool. Unfortunately, the end of the story is, in hindsight, predictable.

[bcbm]

i stopped reading at the picture of the crustlord 'king of the hill' characters, sorry.

[Red_Banner]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-left_anarchy

EDIT: post-left anarchy is dumb though lol owned u echo


Do what?

[BIXX]

i stopped reading at the picture of the crustlord 'king of the hill' characters, sorry.

Wrong thread or did I totally miss something?

[BIXX]

OK, stealing pipes, or growing pot, or whatever might be "more ethical" than, like, being a capitalist, but what I'm trying to get at isn't a question concerning ethics-within-capitalism. It's about destroying capitalism. Informal employment isn't a particularly valuable part of an anticapitalist strategy - so I don't particularly see why one would glorify it. It's not a "bad" thing - but it's not that different than some parts of "the left" glorifying "the worker"-as-worker.

We don't glorify the informal employment, we just see much of it as more ethical than becoming a capitalist.


OK, so I was kinda getting at two things. First, I want to problematize the philosophical assumptions of "Egoism"/"Individualism". Secondly, I want to challenge the political implications of the ahistorical "individual". Of these two things, the second is far more important, in my opinion, so feel free to skip the first block of text.

Alright. I think I'm beginning to understand what you're getting at now.


Anyway, as regards individualism, what is the individual? What "makes" the individual? Between me and you, what are the conditions that make "us" "not we"? Is it a question of bodies? Of minds? Of experience? Of history? My point is that none of these things (or even all of these things!) can really be understood meaningfully in isolation - the re-/production of bodies, minds, experiences, and their consequences (history!) is collective. Consider a hurricane: you can name a hurricane, and say, "X hurricane does Y," but, really, it's illusory. The hurricane is impossible to understand outside of the totality of the climate, of the relationships of winds and currents. The hurricane emerges out of "weather" and returns to it with the only real distinction being that we draw by the act of naming. Throughout the hurricane's "life", its edges are indistinct, its borders are porous, its material is fluid. We are the same way.

If I am understanding your criticism, you're saying that the individual is too hard to define?

My answer to that is that you seem to be missing the point of individualism- it is to free yourself, but also to abolish hierarchies as they similarly limit other individuals.


More importantly, what are the political implications of the individual constructed as ego? For one, their material reproduction ceases to to exist as constitutive of their subjectivity - which is to say, the role of women's labour is erased: domestic labour, the mother, etc. - the "woman" subject produced by patriarchy - ceases to exist, consequently erasing the specificity of women's struggle against patriarchy.

Part of individualism is to acknowledge the individual struggle, as well as acknowledging that which is oppressing the individual, the power structures and hierarchies which limit them. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your point again though- if I am, I just beg that you are patient with me.


The implications of this go further: queerness ceases to be a relationship to patriarchy, but becomes an "inclination" that is "free" of contextualizing gendered/sexual implications. Racialization and colonization cease to exist as relationships to their collective embodiment, but become lonely struggles against subjective discrimination. Struggles that, by their very nature, can not be individualized are subsumed within this false universal of "the individual". Almost inevitably, the consequence is piss-poor understandings of patriarchy, white supremacy, etc. (and consequently of class).

How does queerness cease to relate to patriarchy? Racialization and colonization are also what has shaped individual struggles along with collective struggles, so we cannot ignore them. Part of individualism is to acknowledge... All of that.

This doesn't equal lonely struggles, but rather trying to free the individual, which isn't just freeing one person, but freeing the individual can be a certain group that has been homogenized, gentrified, oppressed, etc... Rising against that oppression, and this freeing themselves from whatever oppression they face, not out of altruism, but to aid themselves and those who they care about.


OK, totally legit. I didn't mean the list as an "all these conditions must be met" sort of thing, so much as sociological reference points.

Ok, I got you.


I'm sure we would agree on the first two points more than you might assume (unless you have Leninist tendencies I'm not picking up on).

I was referring to the left/post-left as a whole,not specifically us.


As for "who the lumpen proles" are, sure, you could use your comrade's definition, and I could say, "the bourgeoisie is anybody with a nicer bike than me." The thing is, it would be pretty useless for communication, since basically nobody else would share that definition. I can understand a hesitance to go back to Marx for a definition, due to his hostility, but for a more sympathetic (and recent) take you could go to Huey Newton and the BPP. The "unemployable". The "criminal element". The "marginalized".

But what does that all mean to the left? Would it not boil down to those who cannot be organized?


I don't think there should be any shame in either being or not being "lumpen" - I hardly think it's a pressing political question on an individual level. What I will say, is that "slumming it" is in poor taste. I'm not saying you're not "down", or that you are "slumming it". If you're really tight with a lot of poor and marginalized folk, that's great, and even better if you're part of a collective project like this blog. But, uh . . . calling yourself "lumpen" is kinda wack.

Haha, this made me laugh. Not cause I necessarily disagree with you, it just sounded funny.

I would like to clarify that my position is just more privileged than my comrades, I still come from a working class family who often was on the brink of needing food stamps, living in the projects, etc...

However, I care not whether I am lumpen or not. I felt that my comrade has more of a position to determine what I am referred to, but I don't really think it's something to get to stuck on.


Keep in mind, it's not necessarily about the individual words, but the context in which you use them. For example, civilization isn't a particularly obscure word, but its use in an "anti-civ" context is particular. There's a pretty liberal use (pun unintended) of similarly context-specific ideas that, to someone outside of the milieu - even a typical leftist youth - makes the blog sound overall like a call for bellum omnium contra omnes.

So you feel that a greater explanation of the ideas we present in simple terms would be a good idea?


Yeah, yeah, and if I define self-interest broadly enough, taking a bullet for my girlfriend would be self-interested because of the satisfaction I derive from having "done the right thing". Mind you, this is basically the argument that gets put forward in defense of capitalism all the time - that people pursuing their self-interest will ultimately benefit everyone. Having taken PHIL201 nine years ago, I'm pretty over it.

It's not just pursuing self interest- it's pursuing self interest while abolishing hierarchies that limit the individual. If hierarchies are abolished, I don't see a way that it could turn into an oppressive system when there are no hierarchies.


The reason to change the writing style is because it's transparently dishonest, and makes you sound like a macho tool. If you're not leaving any prisons, punching any organizers, or setting anything on fire, don't play like you are. It's not "cool".

I get you. I will discuss that with my comrade.


Systema is a martial art - and it was a pretty "in" thing to learn systema to demonstrate how down and ready to fight you were a few years ago. Which isn't to say it's a bad idea to learn a martial art (in fact, I think it's a great idea), but it's a stupid thing to brag about in order to show how much more ready you are for the insurrection.

Oh Christ. That's actually a little embarrassing to know. I wish I didn't.


I dig - I've been very close to insurrectionary anarchists, and have close friends who still identify strongly with that tradition. I'm not a paper-selling platformist or something (though I have one or two friends in that milieu too), and I'm not trying to win you over to Marxism-Leninism.

Seriously though, don't get caught up in a cycle of talking big, then needing to walk big to prove it, and repeating until you end up confronting the state head-on armed only with bats.

For a cautionary tale read the story of the "insurrecto"-organized Fire.Works.For.Prisons (http://fireworksforprisons.wordpress.com/2010/03/) demo. I've linked the earliest post, b/c it's best read in chronological order. Sincerely, there are parts of this that you'll love, and that are actually pretty cool. Unfortunately, the end of the story is, in hindsight, predictable.

Thank you for your insight and criticisms. It kinda has lead me to see things in a different light, and to an extent, I think it forced me to see the ideas of individualism vs communalism and egoism vs altruism as false dichotomies. They seem to be more entwined than I was willing to previously believe.

(Also jimmy I accidentally deleted my reply to you, and I'm tired so I may reply to you tomorrow instead of tonight).

[bcbm]

Wrong thread or did I totally miss something?

you have a picture of the 'king of the hill' characters in crust punk clothes at the top of your blog.

[synthesis]

What's wrong with control? Don't you want to control your own life? Well for most people, the only viable way to do that is to organize cooperatively. If someone has a trust fund or alternately drops out of mainstream society, that existence of their personal autonomy still depends on most people being wage slaves.

I don't have an opinion on the blog itself, but I think the role of the lumpenproletariat in the broader context of capitalism, particularly post-industrial capitalism, is being ignored here. I don't see any way to analyze the lumpenproletariat without recognizing that its primary function as a class is to supply the manpower for the "bottom rungs" of the proletariat - the really shitty minimum wage jobs that nobody would work if they had a choice.

I mean, no matter how large you live when you're living outside of mainstream society, chances are you're going to get arrested, lose all your assets and wind up working some terrible job because you have a felony record and therefore no "decent" employer will hire you, but you don't want to go back to prison because you can't think of anywhere in the world you'd rather not be. That's how those "positions" get filled.

(The lumpenproletarians who are killed or get sentenced to life in prison are the byproducts of this system, the cautionary tales that force the rest of the lumpenproletarians to fall in line and join the bottom rungs of the proletariat. There's also the exploitation of prison labor, of course.)

There are quite a few parallels here to the role in capitalism of immigrants, legal or otherwise, who are both vilified and considered essential to Western economies - often by the same politicians.

[BIXX]

you have a picture of the 'king of the hill' characters in crust punk clothes at the top of your blog.

Holy shit I've only ever seen the blog on my phone, and it doesn't show up on there. I for the first time today saw it on a computer.