Consciousness

[Full Metal Bolshevik]

Being on the internet so much time has made me think humans are not as intelligent or specially as conscious as they think they are, I'm getting pretty sure most people actions are not made with a fully consciousness mind, but simple as impulses, lack of knowledge or instincts.
The amount of ignorance is staggering, sometimes even rage inducing, just read some youtube comments, certain subreddits, or some of these comments. It doesn't make sense to me that some people make actions that go against the benefit of most of the species or even themselves personally. How does it benefit most people the stigma against different people, not just the worst type of discrimination that gays, black, transsexuals etc have suffered and still suffer around the world, but also the simple hatred some groups face for whatever reasons such as hippies, hipsters, otaku's, or pretty much everything that deviates from the 'normal'. Fortunately in these cases it seems more confined to internet comments than real life implications, yet it's still stupid to me, it's not even discussions about different tastes or worldviews it's literally spilling hate.
There's arrogance in thinking you know more than them, but in the end everyone thinks they are right, however, just because everyone thinks they are right doesn't mean no one is, just as some people understand more about a particular subject because they studied most of their life other people can understand society better than others I think, not that there's some universal truth of course. But how can one know if he himself is conscious?

Sorry for the messy post, just confused and angry, maybe looking for justification for my super extreme hatred for people who hate and the things I'd like to do to get rid of them.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Being on the internet so much time has made me think humans are not as intelligent or specially as conscious as they think they are, I'm getting pretty sure most people actions are not made with a fully consciousness mind, but simple as impulses, lack of knowledge or instincts.
The amount of ignorance is staggering, sometimes even rage inducing, just read some youtube comments, certain subreddits, or some of these comments. It doesn't make sense to me that some people make actions that go against the benefit of most of the species or even themselves personally. How does it benefit most people the stigma against different people, not just the worst type of discrimination that gays, black, transsexuals etc have suffered and still suffer around the world, but also the simple hatred some groups face for whatever reasons such as hippies, hipsters, otaku's, or pretty much everything that deviates from the 'normal'. Fortunately in these cases it seems more confined to internet comments than real life implications, yet it's still stupid to me, it's not even discussions about different tastes or worldviews it's literally spilling hate.
There's arrogance in thinking you know more than them, but in the end everyone thinks they are right, however, just because everyone thinks they are right doesn't mean no one is, just as some people understand more about a particular subject because they studied most of their life other people can understand society better than others I think, not that there's some universal truth of course. But how can one know if he himself is conscious?

Sorry for the messy post, just confused and angry, maybe looking for justification for my super extreme hatred for people who hate and the things I'd like to do to get rid of them.

People are "conscious", and in a certain sense they are "intelligent", but the problem is that human rational faculties view the world through certain ideological frameworks. People are thinking, but they are doing so within the limitations of a deeply rooted worldview. Largely, what people are lacking in is criticism - the ability to question the assumptions they operate under. For instance, someone who hates immigrants is insufficiently critical of the categorical differences between "citizen" and "other". They take these for granted. In theory, good propaganda helps people to see beyond (or behind) these limitations.

[Rafiq]

Being on the internet so much time has made me think humans are not as intelligent or specially as conscious as they think they are, I'm getting pretty sure most people actions are not made with a fully consciousness mind, but simple as impulses, lack of knowledge or instincts.

This is precisely a dangerous attitude to have, and one which provides the subject recourse in the ability to insist upon the exclusivity of their thinking divorced from the thinking of actual social reality. You only express your inability to understand the active dimension behind what you perceive can only be the result of stupidity or some kind of inferiority. You fail to understand its ideological context, you fail to understand its active rationality, so how is it that they are the ones who lack 'consciousness' (and are instead passive subjects)?

Without confronting the perceived 'irrationality' of conventional thinking in its entirety as no longer irrational but following the rationality of the reproduction of the existing order of things, carefully placing it in its complex ideological and social context, you not only have no right to deride the ignorance of the common thinker, you make yourself dependent on their ignorance. In other words, what expressions of disappointment with conventional thinking ultimately signify is a dependence upon it which acts as a sort of subconscious for the intellectual. Bourgeois intellectuals can condemn outward instances of racism, and whatever you like, but what they can never admit is that this outward vulgarity is nothing more than the open expression of the same ideological prejudices they themselves attempt to repress and dissuade.

Let us take an example of this repression of dealing with antagonisms head on:

It doesn't make sense to me that some people make actions that go against the benefit of most of the species or even themselves personally

To ignore the survivalist phraseology, which is deeply reactionary, what is assumed is that what constitutes the overall 'well being' of humanity as a whole, are a given, and it is people's own stupidity that disallows them to see this. To assume that 'actions' are constituted by their relation to the 'overall benefit' of the 'species', or that they abide by some standard of benefit which is trans-historical and therefore trans-social, is to superstitiously assert that the standard of so-called 'benefit' as ordained by ruling ideology can smoothly find expression in the masses.

The problem, obviously is this one: There is no respect for the social antagonism anywhere in your reasoning. There is no respect for the fact that there exists mass discontent with the existing order of things, and the means by which this discontent is expressed can range from religious fundamentalism to the same assaults upon the sensibilities of bourgoies ideologues (i.e. political correctness) which provide the discontented subject a sense of gratification. What you fail to understand is that in our self-ironic postmodern society, the subject who is racist, or whatever you like, knows very well that they are garnering the exact response you provide us, they are fully aware of the fact that it hurts the sensibilities of those intellectuals who in their intellectualizing are not confronted by the social antagonism and can instead ignore it.

To confront - and let's cut to the chase - Fascism without addressing the social antagonism which is its context, is to actively reproduce the conditions that are Fascism's context.

The sentiment that is being conveyed here is completely conformist. There is nothing radical about it: You express disappointment over the fact that common thinkers are actively going out of their way to 'discriminate' or to 'target' groups for no reason, as though before there was nothing but harmony and peace, and now these individuals are introducing conflict where before there existed none. Only petty bourgeois intellectuals have the luxury of assuming that the order of things would otherwise be a harmonious and conflict-free one if not for the 'inherent stupidity' of the vulgar masses (who are overwhelmingly responsible for this), because being that they have already achieved the universal essence of man in bourgoies society (i.e. what it means to be a full and dignified human being in our society), if not in social practice than at least in their heads, they do not have to deal with the regular struggle, tension of trying to achieve this, or make the universal essence of man in bourgoies society compatible with their real conditions of life.

Thus, you speak about the overall well being of 'the species' and you say this from the standpoint of one who has the luxury of assuming that the 'species' in question is not one that is constituted by a social antagonism. The dangerousness of this mentality is that it ignores:

Only the Fascists can speak about the holistic interests of humanity as a whole, and dare I say the collective progress of humanity as a whole. Anyone who denies this, has no familiarity whatsoever with present day Fascist discourse, whether it is the 'soft' Fascism of Silicon valley or that of the vulgar, plebeian element. Don't you understand that it is the enlightenment, it is democracy, it is 'egalitarianism', that stand in the way of 'human progress' for them? Don't you understand that THIS is what underlies all Fascist discourse? Don't you understand that outward expressions of racism, and whatever you like, are in their intellectual context justified in this way: That enlightenment 'dogma', and liberal political correctness hold us back from achieving 'progress' today? And the kernel of truth in it is that yes: The unbridled forces of capital in its present form are no longer progressive as such, no longer sweep away old social bonds but instead require the dissolution of all that was previously progressive about capitalism for its further development as it mutates into a very different kind of social order. You do not even have to look at the Fascists for it - the values of the enlightenment are today ossified, and all that sustain them is a political correctness which exists for the sole reason of containing an impeding conflict.

And the self-ironic expressions of racism, filth, are like what the counter-culture used to be in a twisted way: During the counter-culture, the 'ridiculous' and self-ironic expressions of vulgarity, sexuality, 'freedom', and so on, were of course not presented in a so-called 'rational' way. They were completely hysterical. Yet they worked, because they were able to dissolve the very precariously sustained politeness of bourgoies society just by the sheer pressure imposed by this overwhelming hysteria. Today, we find the same analogy with liberal political correctness: What underlies it is this same racism, in the same way that what underlied polite bourgoies society was the same sexual desires, etc. that were openly expressed during the counter-culture. It signifies that the present orientation of the system, of capitalist processes, provides the context of this revived 'vulgarity', makes it completely rational and normal: In other words the tendencies of capital today are on the side of Fascism.

The only answer to it is discipline. Discipline above all things. We must embody the same 'totalitarianism' which the Fascists love to hark on about today. We must recognize that the subordinated values of the counter-culture are no longer revolutionary but are increasingly reactionary. Discipline and responsibility is our answer to the Fascists, in the face of their self-irony. We overcome the self-ironic culture, by being fully responsible for our subjectivity and making no pretense to forces outside of it to explain our actions and our practice. Discipline is our weapon. Discipline is all we have. Our enemy is no longer the non-existent polite bourgoies society, but the arbitrariness and spontaneity of it, this is our enemy, this is where the new Fascism finds its basis. Let us declare war on all arbitrariness and all spontaneity, and let us find strength in an all-encompassing and merciless discipline.

When you enter into this kind of ideological crisis, ask yourself whether you are being self-critical enough. Ask yourself if you are spiritually disciplining yourself. Ask yourself if you are going to allow your own shortfalls and your own weakness to stand in the way of the destruction of the existing order, ask yourself if you are going to betray the masses of excluded 'semi-humans', those who are 'less intelligent', those in this world who have nothing, just because you failed them in theory. Ask yourself if you are willing to submit to ruling ideology, consign the fate of the suffering of this world as inevitable, just because you are too arrogant, too immature or too weak to engage in a thorough and merciless self-criticism.

Even in the darkest days, Revleft, and I speak to Revleft as a whole, even where you temporarily cannot even theoretically justify being a Communist, you must be a Communist anyway, because to be a Communist is irreducible to (but at the same time necessitates) theory and ultimately must stem from a wound in your heart which forever disallows you to accept that the present order of things is inevitable, must inevitably stem from an irreducible insistence upon not only your freedom but the freedom of all souls to collectively and willfully determine their own conditions of life. If you spiritually comfortable, based on your relative comfortable life, enough to seek anything less than the complete destruction of the existing order of things, then leave Revleft, stop calling yourself a Communist, and enjoy your life, because we have nothing to say to you.

[Full Metal Bolshevik]

Sorry, but I honestly don't see much connection between what you wrote and what I think, but hey, probably most of the fault is on my end, I do not like to write and when I do I'm never satisfied with it, feeling like I never expressed myself correctly.


But, if the mass discontent with the existing order of things comes from religious extremists and fascists why should I respect them? They want to make things even worse than what they are already, that does not mean I'm satisfied with what we have.

[Rafiq]

But, if the mass discontent with the existing order of things comes from religious extremists and fascists why should I respect them? They want to make things even worse than what they are already, that does not mean I'm satisfied with what we have.

It does not mean you should respect them, in the sense of respecting Fascism or religious fundamentalism. It means that you should respect that it follows an actual (ideological) rationality, that it is a definite expression of a discontent with the existing state of things (albeit a one which disallows consciousness of this). It means that the working masses are overwhelmingly ignorant, racist, sexist, and whatever you want. However the task of Leftists is to change their minds and hearts, which means engaging in dialogue with them politically - Bernie Sanders has done this - despite their shortcomings, despite their evils, we must do this. Engage in a dialogue with them. Dialogue does not mean compromise. It means dialogue - it means talking to them, understanding how these evils function in their lives, and so on.

Leftists today are overwhelmingly incapable of this.

It is wrong and dangerous to think that an opposition to racism is self-evident. On the contrary, only through extreme discipline can one truly no longer be a racist, or a sexist, and so on. That is not how the liberals think. For them, by default we are not racists, and the Fascists somehow have to go out of their way to be racists. This is a falsity. Racism itself is the true passivity.

You commit an error that many liberals do, in expressing surprise and disappointment at this: As though not being a racist, and so on, should be self-evident and that you have to be extraordinarily stupid to be a racist because it is so 'self-evidently' a 'bad' thing.

This is meant in a comradely tone. One can see that you are struggling. And the key to self-struggle is self-criticism and self-discipline.

[Full Metal Bolshevik]

I see, but sorry it's hard for me to engage in dialogue with that scum, as I said they are stupid and ignorant if they think being a racist sexist bigot just because they are also discontent with the present state helps anything at all.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I see, but sorry it's hard for me to engage in dialogue with that scum, as I said they are stupid and ignorant if they think being a racist sexist bigot just because they are also discontent with the present state helps anything at all.

The issue here which I think you're not recognizing is that bigoted attitudes are not necessarily some moral failure on the part of a person, and more significantly it is not a failure to be human or in some way rational or intelligent. Plenty of brilliant people, even geniuses, were terrible bigots. Do you think a slave owner in the 1800s would have been able to balance his finances and investments without intelligence? Understood the law, literature, and other aspects of his society? Could an open bigot like NB Forrest have been such an effective military commander (or founded America's most long lasting and effective hate group) if he lacked intelligence? We can say their inability to recognize the humanity of their black slaves was wrong, and its falsity may be completely evident to us without the need of great cognitive effort. However, the fact remains it was not evident to them. The same goes with racists of all classes - the poor man isn't showing his stupidity by saying something racist. He might be showing his ignorance, but we differentiate ignorance from stupidity with good reason.

The point is that subjects are historical figures who have emerged in particular social settings. I don't think we should be surprised when people in a society characterized by systemic racism adopt racist attitudes. Would you agree that our society is built upon assumed racist and sexist norms? That these norms color the concepts through which people perceive and understand the world? Our goal should be to help people see that (as frustrating as that can be). Even people who are utterly opposed to bigotry and sexism find themselves having the odd racist or sexist thought - not because they consciously think that, but because the society they live in itself is structured materially and ideologically along racial and gendered lines. They know once they think it that it's not true and they never seriously entertain the thought, but it nonetheless appears in their mind.

We must reflect on the structural origins of bigotry, and realize that systemic racism, sexism, etc has an ideological component which effects how people perceive the world. It is easier to see the falsity of racist ideology when one is an oppressed race, but even then, many of the oppressed internalize the same bigotries the dominant group judges them by. Fanon explains both attitudes among oppressed people well in his works. The solution is to find critical and accessible methods to expose the problems or contradictions of our ideology and then to organize people around changing the structural origins (lest bigoted cultural attitudes merely replicate themselves)

When you condescendingly look at a bunch of common people as nothing more than bigots, and therefore moral and intellectual failures, you make the same intellectual mistake everyday establishment liberals make when they look down their noses at the hoi polloi and see crude and vulgar racists and sexists. Of course we should be unflinching in our moral opposition to such attitudes, but we should understand that they themselves are ideological products of a society built upon racial and sexual division. Moreover, the elitist response exposes its own bigotries which are just as harmful. For one thing I doubt the condescending attitude so many urban well to do liberals have has at all helped the anti-racist struggle.

[Rafiq]

I see, but sorry it's hard for me to engage in dialogue with that scum, as I said they are stupid and ignorant if they think being a racist sexist bigot just because they are also discontent with the present state helps anything at all.

But the precise point is that - it is not that they say "I am discontented with the present state of things, therefore I ought to be a racist". Their racism is exactly the expression of their discontent.

Again, we must make the transition from the is to the ought, with Communism. We are talking about what is the means by which their discontent is channeled, but only at the outset of engaging in a dialogue with the backward-minded masses, the so-called 'scum', do we arrive at the ought.

The real scum are not the discontented working people themselves, but the active petty bourgeois ideologues who embody their 'scumminess'. These are the real enemies ,the wolves, those who actively reproduce the ignorance of working people by drawing them to trail behind the also discontented and dying petty bourgeoisie. Working class discontent is spontaneously expressed as the discontent of the petite bourgeoisie, or even the national bourgeoisie. The significance of the proletariat is that unlike the latter two, they do not have a stake in the present order of things and therefore do not have to reproduce it as the latter two do.

With this class anything is possible. Think about the sheer diversity of the means by which this class copes with its reality. Drug abuse, backwoods cults, revived ancient religions, even new religions, and so on.

[Full Metal Bolshevik]

The issue here which I think you're not recognizing is that bigoted attitudes are not necessarily some moral failure on the part of a person, and more significantly it is not a failure to be human or in some way rational or intelligent. Plenty of brilliant people, even geniuses, were terrible bigots. Do you think a slave owner in the 1800s would have been able to balance his finances and investments without intelligence? Understood the law, literature, and other aspects of his society? Could an open bigot like NB Forrest have been such an effective military commander (or founded America's most long lasting and effective hate group) if he lacked intelligence? We can say their inability to recognize the humanity of their black slaves was wrong, and its falsity may be completely evident to us without the need of great cognitive effort. However, the fact remains it was not evident to them. The same goes with racists of all classes - the poor man isn't showing his stupidity by saying something racist. He might be showing his ignorance, but we differentiate ignorance from stupidity with good reason.

The point is that subjects are historical figures who have emerged in particular social settings. I don't think we should be surprised when people in a society characterized by systemic racism adopt racist attitudes. Would you agree that our society is built upon assumed racist and sexist norms? That these norms color the concepts through which people perceive and understand the world? Our goal should be to help people see that (as frustrating as that can be). Even people who are utterly opposed to bigotry and sexism find themselves having the odd racist or sexist thought - not because they consciously think that, but because the society they live in itself is structured materially and ideologically along racial and gendered lines. They know once they think it that it's not true and they never seriously entertain the thought, but it nonetheless appears in their mind.

We must reflect on the structural origins of bigotry, and realize that systemic racism, sexism, etc has an ideological component which effects how people perceive the world. It is easier to see the falsity of racist ideology when one is an oppressed race, but even then, many of the oppressed internalize the same bigotries the dominant group judges them by. Fanon explains both attitudes among oppressed people well in his works. The solution is to find critical and accessible methods to expose the problems or contradictions of our ideology and then to organize people around changing the structural origins (lest bigoted cultural attitudes merely replicate themselves)

When you condescendingly look at a bunch of common people as nothing more than bigots, and therefore moral and intellectual failures, you make the same intellectual mistake everyday establishment liberals make when they look down their noses at the hoi polloi and see crude and vulgar racists and sexists. Of course we should be unflinching in our moral opposition to such attitudes, but we should understand that they themselves are ideological products of a society built upon racial and sexual division. Moreover, the elitist response exposes its own bigotries which are just as harmful. For one thing I doubt the condescending attitude so many urban well to do liberals have has at all helped the anti-racist struggle.

So you're saying people are the result of the time/place/ideology whatever they are brought in, but that is saying humans are not capable of critical thought, they are not conscious, they act that way because their surroundings are that way. It is what I'm saying. True independent thought is rare or almost impossible, otherwise there wouldn't be bigotry just because we live in world like that.

Yes I'm being pessimistic, but that does mean I don't want things to change or even that they won't (I'm sure they will, just a matter of when).

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

So you're saying people are the result of the time/place/ideology whatever they are brought in, but that is saying humans are not capable of critical thought, they are not conscious, they act that way because their surroundings are that way. It is what I'm saying. True independent thought is rare or almost impossible, otherwise there wouldn't be bigotry just because we live in world like that.

Yes I'm being pessimistic, but that does mean I don't want things to change or even that they won't (I'm sure they will, just a matter of when).

I said people are raised and conditioned to think according to particular ideological and social contexts. I never said they are fated to only ever think within its limits. Clearly *we* aren't racists - how do we elevate *their *consciousness? How do we help them see who their real enemies are? Not by talking down to them like a bunch of idiots or just dismissing them the way the white liberal establishment does, I can tell you that. Revolutions would never happen if it was impossible for people to imagine a society beyond the one they live in.

[Alet]

So you're saying people are the result of the time/place/ideology whatever they are brought in, but that is saying humans are not capable of critical thought, they are not conscious, they act that way because their surroundings are that way. It is what I'm saying. True independent thought is rare or almost impossible, otherwise there wouldn't be bigotry just because we live in world like that.

Humans are not "passive products of their environment" and indeed do have the capacity to question the existing state of affairs, but they don't think critically in a vacuum. It's that people actively relate to the social conditions they are inevitably immersed in, and they have to ideologically "cope with" their relation. As the proletariat doesn't really have a class interest as other classes do, their ideological views can be more or less arbitrary - only to a certain extent, of course, but you get the point. This is why it is so important for us to disseminate our ideas among the proletarians. Communism is in no way self-evident or necessary, there is no guarantee - all communists could die and the world will go on spinning. The only guarantee is ourselves, actual humans who actively engage in politics.

"Independent thought", as the phrase is used today, i.e. in the context of individualist free-will-ideology, does not really exist. Again, not because ideological views are imposed on us but because we have no soul and our politics is not written in our genes. Critical thought is possible but not independently of a wider social context. Think of it this way: Why shouldn't people be bigoted? I know, that may sound provocative, but my point is that, if you are a communist, you cannot fall back upon something external from the social domain; it's men and women themselves, who constitute their morals, articulate their ideology, and justify their politics. Bigotry doesn't offend any purported natural laws, there is no god that will haunt us, the controversy is solely on the level of human consciousness, which is a domain on its own. Nothing can be taken for granted here.

[Rafiq]

People are not the products of their environment, or anything external to their active social being. Their social being is not external to them, it is their way of life itself. If there is any precise point of Marxism, it is that all peoples are active, fully constituted and fully responsible subjects. Let me put it this way: if there is a dichotomy between free will and determinism, and you must put a gun to our head and force us to take a side, then the former is where we are.

So you're saying people are the result of the time/place/ideology whatever they are brought in, but that is saying humans are not capable of critical thought, they are not conscious, they act that way because their surroundings are that way.

No, that's the point: The point is - they are fully responsible subjects fully responsible for their views. But at the outset of making them responsible for them, one makes the passage from the is to the ought - one becomes a Communist who disseminates scientific consciousness among them, or at least recognizes the ability to.

Let me make it clear: The only standpoint that which we can say: These are fully constituted subjects fully responsible for their views, is from the standpoint of a Communist who possesses the prerogative to disseminate scientific consciousness. Without this prerogative, and without this standpoint, one cannot say that they are fully responsible, one can easily say that their 'bigotry' is inevitable. If bigotry is inevitable, then it is owing to forces outside of the control - will, and so on, of the 'bigots' in question. That means they are not responsible at all.

So this is the paradox: If one does not believe their 'bigotry' is inevitable, if one does not believe their bigotry is a product of forces outside of their control, then one holds the subjects alone as fully responsible for their views. But at the outset of holding them responsible, this itself destroys racism - at the outset of these subjects being convinced of their agency, their fully constituted responsibility for their views, the basis of their 'bigotry' disappears because only a Communist can hold this.

For example, I will prove it to you. A racist does not say "i, an arbitrary person, am a bigot for an arbitrary reason". Think: When people justify their 'bigotry', why is that? They make pretense to forces outside of their control themselves. They say: Blacks are inherently stupid and lazy. They say: Gays violate some natural order. They say: A women's natural place is in the household. They say: I am naturally hostile to this or that, or god compels me to be.

And it goes. At the outset of fully holding them responsible for their position, what this responsibility means is the responsibility that is one's own freedom. To hold them responsible for their views is to at the same time possess hope that those views are not inevitable but a product of superstition. And by claiming that they are only 'partially conscious', you justify their ignorance as inevitable, and proclaim yourself a class enemy who comfortably finds recourse in being 'fully conscious'. That is what holding a dialogue with backward-minded working people means. It means holding them responsible for their own freedom, recognizing them as actively constituted subjects and confronting them with the abyss of their own freedom, i.e. that they can do it, they can change the world.

[wehbolno]

I have actually had a few conversations recently with people who hold this 'people are stupid' position. (Not that it's an uncommon-to find-position, rather that I have only recently rejected it myself, so it rubs up on me only now when I hear it, rather than as previously, simply agreeing or whatever.)
It's an ego-boosting cop-out. Everyone is stupid but you, brave liberal, obviously are not. And as Rafiq says, if people are stupid then they are not responsible for their positions, or that they don't think in a rational way. I am finding it so striking now how much of what people believe does follow rational meanings, about how much of it is displaced class-struggle. Practically everything seems to me now to be some case of displaced class-struggle, is this some kind of confirmation bias or something, I am struggling to theorise this correctly I think.

[ckaihatsu]

I am finding it so striking now how much of what people believe does follow rational meanings, about how much of it is displaced class-struggle. Practically everything seems to me now to be some case of displaced class-struggle, is this some kind of confirmation bias or something, I am struggling to theorise this correctly I think.

Considering that class struggle is the 'highest' (most encompassing) dynamic in society, it *shouldn't* be a surprise that it's so influential -- and ultimately deterministic -- over all subsumed, particular social phenomena.

Bourgeois thought is *dismissive* of this overarching reality, and attempts to wrap it up inside a webbing of 'unfalsifiability', ignoring that such a critique only pertains to closed-system, *clinical* contexts, as for experiments of hard science.

Here it is in a graphical framework format:


History, Macro-Micro -- politics-logistics-lifestyle




[1] History, Macro Micro -- Precision

[Tim Redd]

As the proletariat doesn't really have a class interest as other classes do, their ideological views can be more or less arbitrary - only to a certain extent, of course, but you get the point. This is why it is so important for us to disseminate our ideas among the proletarians. Communism is in no way self-evident or necessary, there is no guarantee - all communists could die and the world will go on spinning. The only guarantee is ourselves, actual humans who actively engage in politics.

I'm not sure at all how you as a communist you can claim that: "the proletariat doesn't really have a class interest as other classes do".

The whole basis for why we communists see the working class as the vanguard of the revolution is that they represent a political class interest that is diametrically opposed the political class interests of the rulers of the this oppressive, backward, the bourgeoisie. The primary political class interest of the proletariat is the revolutionary task of abolishing classes and as part of the process to eliminate all exploitation and oppression as Lenin says in What is To Be Done?

Ironically while the goal of the proletariat is to abolish classes that is a class goal because it is the goal of the proletariat to free it from class oppression within capitalism. Within capitalism the proletariat is exploited on a class basis within the capitalist means of production and the bourgeoisie wages class war on all fronts against the proletariat. So the proletariat has the goal of being free of this oppression and given where society has evolved to this point, the main way to achieve freedom from class oppression is to establish communism by abolishing classes and eliminating exploitation and oppression throughout society. Of course this also involves revolutionizing society by socializing key practices and institutions.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I'm not sure at all how you as a communist you can claim that: "the proletariat doesn't really have a class interest as other classes do".

I think Alet's point was more nuanced - he did not say they don't have a class interest at all, just not in the same way as other classes. I think the issue Alet is raising is that the class interest of other classes is somehow self-evident and built into the system. Even for the peasants it is clear - they want the ownership and control over the land on which they work - something possible within the current ruling economic order. Workers, on the other hand, are generally more fundamentally alienated from the ruling structure than peasants, the petty bourgeoisie, the bourgeoisie, aristocrats, and whatever other class one can think of. Thus, their interests only become self-evident in light of a politically conscious political movement which seeks to overturn the existing order.