consuming negativity
11th May 2015, 14:44
we think dialectically because it is easier for us to accept or reject individual propositions. investigation is essentially the proving or disproving of mental hypotheses about the way that reality actually exists. the formation of a positive statement about the world can only be directly disproved by entertaining its opposite - this lets you stay in the same paradigm and make the same assumptions about reality in your transverse. picking apart each individual statement, we accumulate correct and potentially correct conclusions over time by experimentation and also through checking their congruence with beliefs we already hold to be true. when we accumulate too many incongruencies - contradictions with our world view - we are forced to start over and reconsider reality in a new paradigm. because our thoughts create the world, we end up creating societies that model what we think, which then reinforce our world views. this over-rides our ability to explain away discrepancies with our own ignorance of the world.
the dialectical thought process can be observed in feminist thought:
the original proposition was that "all persons are created equal" - i contend that these thoughts were completely genuine.
the thing is, not everybody was equal - but our society believed that all people were equal.
everybody is equal --> denial of the problem of inequality
everybody is equal --> but women are not equal in practice -->
let's change things --> everybody is equal
OR
women are equal, but different --> everybody is equal
OR
women must not actually be equal --> everybody is not equal
these are some of the different ways of thinking about the problem and the way they resolve in terms of our greater world view.
but let's look at another group of people in society - racial minorities
everybody is equal --> denial of the problem of inequality
everybody is equal --> but minorities are not equal in practice -->
let's change things --> everybody is equal
OR
minorities are equal, but different --> everybody is equal
OR
minorities must not actually be equal --> everybody is not equal
it's essentially the same types of assumptions that we're making - it's really a matter of faith in our belief in equality that is being tested here. people who continually have faith in the ability of humanity continually want to change things, even if they may fundamentally disagree on how things can be changed (ie. reform or revolution).
but now let's look at their actions within the world:
if you deny the problem of inequality, but still hold the belief that everybody is equal, you will attempt to treat people equally, even though what you think is equal actually isn't. your intentions are good, but you are perceived negatively, creating incongruencies, and forcing a positively-inclined person to see the problem, or a negatively-inclined person to attribute the discrepancies to the minority group rather than the larger society
if you recognize inequality, you work to change it if you can. if you don't think you can, you won't work to change it, even if you actually can. if you recognize the problem of inequality, you are a step above the people who don't even recognize that it exists. but, increased negativity - cognitive distortions - can actually cause a person to consider and accept the transverse statement as true - that minority groups are actually better than everybody else. these are your MRA types who are fundamentally speaking from a position of abject misery.
the problem is that increasing the amount of incongruencies we have in our thought process makes us feel awful. we don't like to feel dissonant with our society, and this can cause us to be negative. relapses into reaction and defense of the absolute negative opinion can take place within our paradigm and so are easy flip-flops that we might not even realize are taking place in our logical processes. but more importantly, they are how capitalism reinforces itself ideologically - it creates the negativity and contradictions between its own ideology of equality and the reality of itself.
so, we must be vigilant against reaction, but we must do so with positivity and understanding. not because reactionaries deserve understanding, but because reaction within the revolutionary movement is inevitable, and reaction from within the movement is infinitely more dangerous to it than reaction from the outside. i'm not talking about converting idiots, i'm talking about making sure that we don't pull a USSR. we don't need state power - we don't need global revolution in order to work together and lead by example. in the information age, you can't fake something like russia no longer having currency and everything working out completely fine. if people actually went and saw communism working in practice, i genuinely believe they would go "holy fucking shit we need people to see this immediately" rather than working on behalf of reaction. fuck, they might actually try to stay and help out.
military force will probably be necessary in the immediate term when we are directly threatened, but i don't think there will be this massive world war where the giant proletarian red army of eastasia attacks the western capitalist pigdogs. once one group of people organize themselves on a large-enough scale to overcome our cognitive distortions, i don't think there will be any fighting left at all. in my eyes, all stalin really needed to do was make the soviets vulnerable and show positivity and faith in the people who loved him to make the right decisions and to have good motivations. the more bloody things get and the more we lock down and incite a culture of fear, the more people will not see what the difference between their own fear-filled lives are right now. we're just giving them more and more shit to use against us when we start thinking like them. it's not that we need to be better than them because we're better than them - that's stupid and is a rejection of equality. it is actually tactically better to be better than them because otherwise they'll use our shit to smear us and make shit that much more difficult. if we actually just be good people, people will recognize that shit and will take us and our ideas seriously.
we have to remember that while the capitalists control the workers, it is workers who control the media, and they experience the same reality we do, even if they don't recognize it. we can change their world view through forcing them to re-examine themselves and gain allies who believe what they see. we are not opposed to capitalism, we are not defined by our reaction to society - we are in favor of reality and we are defined by our dedication to ourselves. and by more perfectly aligning our means with who we are, we create the ends we want; because society is a direct reflection of what we think, if we allow ourselves to think that we need to be like the capitalists, we will act like the capitalists despite having motivations completely different from them, which will make us indistinguishable in the minds of the rest of the working class, and in fact will make us indistinguishable IN PRACTICE, depending on how far we fall. the violence necessary for the revolution to occur is directly proportional to our power - the stronger we are, the less likely it is that people will be willing to side against us. i'm not saying we reform things or we make revolution or we do anything. my overarching point here is that we can't be attached to the ends of one thing or another. if we see an opportunity to do X, we have to do X, even if we don't think it's going to work. we have to be patient but also be ready at a moment's notice to let loose and take our freedom. we do whatever it is that everybody else wants to do and by doing so we align ourselves with the will of everyone and so prevent schisms, such as that between the people breaking shit during OWS and the idiots who called the cops on them. our means is not revolution, our means is understanding, and that is how we create a society based on that.
the dialectical thought process can be observed in feminist thought:
the original proposition was that "all persons are created equal" - i contend that these thoughts were completely genuine.
the thing is, not everybody was equal - but our society believed that all people were equal.
everybody is equal --> denial of the problem of inequality
everybody is equal --> but women are not equal in practice -->
let's change things --> everybody is equal
OR
women are equal, but different --> everybody is equal
OR
women must not actually be equal --> everybody is not equal
these are some of the different ways of thinking about the problem and the way they resolve in terms of our greater world view.
but let's look at another group of people in society - racial minorities
everybody is equal --> denial of the problem of inequality
everybody is equal --> but minorities are not equal in practice -->
let's change things --> everybody is equal
OR
minorities are equal, but different --> everybody is equal
OR
minorities must not actually be equal --> everybody is not equal
it's essentially the same types of assumptions that we're making - it's really a matter of faith in our belief in equality that is being tested here. people who continually have faith in the ability of humanity continually want to change things, even if they may fundamentally disagree on how things can be changed (ie. reform or revolution).
but now let's look at their actions within the world:
if you deny the problem of inequality, but still hold the belief that everybody is equal, you will attempt to treat people equally, even though what you think is equal actually isn't. your intentions are good, but you are perceived negatively, creating incongruencies, and forcing a positively-inclined person to see the problem, or a negatively-inclined person to attribute the discrepancies to the minority group rather than the larger society
if you recognize inequality, you work to change it if you can. if you don't think you can, you won't work to change it, even if you actually can. if you recognize the problem of inequality, you are a step above the people who don't even recognize that it exists. but, increased negativity - cognitive distortions - can actually cause a person to consider and accept the transverse statement as true - that minority groups are actually better than everybody else. these are your MRA types who are fundamentally speaking from a position of abject misery.
the problem is that increasing the amount of incongruencies we have in our thought process makes us feel awful. we don't like to feel dissonant with our society, and this can cause us to be negative. relapses into reaction and defense of the absolute negative opinion can take place within our paradigm and so are easy flip-flops that we might not even realize are taking place in our logical processes. but more importantly, they are how capitalism reinforces itself ideologically - it creates the negativity and contradictions between its own ideology of equality and the reality of itself.
so, we must be vigilant against reaction, but we must do so with positivity and understanding. not because reactionaries deserve understanding, but because reaction within the revolutionary movement is inevitable, and reaction from within the movement is infinitely more dangerous to it than reaction from the outside. i'm not talking about converting idiots, i'm talking about making sure that we don't pull a USSR. we don't need state power - we don't need global revolution in order to work together and lead by example. in the information age, you can't fake something like russia no longer having currency and everything working out completely fine. if people actually went and saw communism working in practice, i genuinely believe they would go "holy fucking shit we need people to see this immediately" rather than working on behalf of reaction. fuck, they might actually try to stay and help out.
military force will probably be necessary in the immediate term when we are directly threatened, but i don't think there will be this massive world war where the giant proletarian red army of eastasia attacks the western capitalist pigdogs. once one group of people organize themselves on a large-enough scale to overcome our cognitive distortions, i don't think there will be any fighting left at all. in my eyes, all stalin really needed to do was make the soviets vulnerable and show positivity and faith in the people who loved him to make the right decisions and to have good motivations. the more bloody things get and the more we lock down and incite a culture of fear, the more people will not see what the difference between their own fear-filled lives are right now. we're just giving them more and more shit to use against us when we start thinking like them. it's not that we need to be better than them because we're better than them - that's stupid and is a rejection of equality. it is actually tactically better to be better than them because otherwise they'll use our shit to smear us and make shit that much more difficult. if we actually just be good people, people will recognize that shit and will take us and our ideas seriously.
we have to remember that while the capitalists control the workers, it is workers who control the media, and they experience the same reality we do, even if they don't recognize it. we can change their world view through forcing them to re-examine themselves and gain allies who believe what they see. we are not opposed to capitalism, we are not defined by our reaction to society - we are in favor of reality and we are defined by our dedication to ourselves. and by more perfectly aligning our means with who we are, we create the ends we want; because society is a direct reflection of what we think, if we allow ourselves to think that we need to be like the capitalists, we will act like the capitalists despite having motivations completely different from them, which will make us indistinguishable in the minds of the rest of the working class, and in fact will make us indistinguishable IN PRACTICE, depending on how far we fall. the violence necessary for the revolution to occur is directly proportional to our power - the stronger we are, the less likely it is that people will be willing to side against us. i'm not saying we reform things or we make revolution or we do anything. my overarching point here is that we can't be attached to the ends of one thing or another. if we see an opportunity to do X, we have to do X, even if we don't think it's going to work. we have to be patient but also be ready at a moment's notice to let loose and take our freedom. we do whatever it is that everybody else wants to do and by doing so we align ourselves with the will of everyone and so prevent schisms, such as that between the people breaking shit during OWS and the idiots who called the cops on them. our means is not revolution, our means is understanding, and that is how we create a society based on that.