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[noel emits]

This sounds like pure Super-Ego injunction to me. Believing in self is the problem, not the solution. It is at the level of self that capitalism effectively depoliticizes the political realm using exactly this strategy you cite here.

Nah. When you say 'self' here you are referring to the false 'ego'. You have a core of being, a bit of pneuma, that can be the basis for a genuine self. That's what you need to believe in. You have a purpose and a duty that has been subverted, perverted, misdirected and co-opted and it needs to be reclaimed.

 

[nomadologist]

But what you're doing here is positing a subject that is pre-political in the worst possible sense.

 

[noel emits]

You know, it's like Forbidden Planet isn't it?

This whole 'system' that we see is nothing more than the sum of our misdirected desires. It's us. That's why it can only be changed by changing yourself.

 

[nomadologist]

Or by radically dismantling your "self".

 

[nomadologist]

Like this guy. ha

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[noel emits]

Or by radically dismantling your "self".

Well this is necessary for us because we are all so fucked up as we have become enmeshed in our own doodoo. What this really means is getting rid of the viral self so the real you has a chance to live.

 

[nomadologist]

What is a "real" you?

 

[noel emits]

What is a "real" you?

It's what the 'system' has a vested interest in not letting you find out.

As hmlt was hinting the 'real' real you is something undefinable but this is the thing that must be the basis for self-definition. It has been obscured by our foolishness in believing in the reality of our own creation - this 'spectacle' has effectively acquired a life apart but still feeds from us. It self-perpetuates so it does what it can to hide this from us.

 

[nomadologist]

There are so many problems with this idea I don't know where to start...I'm sure I'll be back for more tomorrow.

 

[noel emits]

There are so many problems with this idea I don't know where to start...I'm sure I'll be back for more tomorrow.

All the 'problems' you have with this idea are things that have been sold to you. It's the 'system' operating inside you and defending itself.

Just like here:

But what you're doing here is positing a subject that is pre-political in the worst possible sense.

I mean, who is saying this? Why would it be a bad idea to posit something more fundamental than 'politics'? What would have an interest in maintaining that it was not true?

 

[zhao]

Capitalism is the frame: it doesn't, it never, gives us what we desire, it commands us - via its incessant super-egoic injunction to 'enjoy', even when 'enjoying' is out of the question - in how to desire.

capitalism feeds the false self, reinforeces the most greedy, selfish and vain parts of that false self.

It isn't as simple as saying no, as engaging in 'conscious' denial. Emotions can only be overcome by yet stronger emotions.

Emotions can be overcome by meditation and various excercises.

yes it can be as simple as saying no -- refusing to engage in the hamster wheel of capitalism is a very simple act. so is turning off one's television.

there are many such simple things people can do to incrementally get rid of conditioning, overcome mind-control a little bit at a time, and gradually see through the lies that we are told.

but the underlying thing is that theorists by definition are not interested in simple, straight forward workable solutions. because these simple, workable solutions 1. don't sound smart enough and 2. requires dillegence, dedication, discipline -- too much work.

such an approach is what perpetuates, strengthens capitalism - it leads to just yet another ego-boosting 'lifestyle', yet another market niche, creating the rather sad illusion that you've 'beaten the system' when in fact you're even more colonized and enmeshed in it, a committed agent of its further expansion. Capitalism creates/created what we now term 'the individual', the construct it desperately feeds on.

according to this, any attempt at "de-coding" will only lead to an even more pernicious re-coding by capitalism. this view is entirely based on the nihilistic and defeatist assumption that there is nothing outside of capitalism.

this is the truly sad view of the world.

how sad to deny the existence of a spirtual life outside of work-consume-die.

how sad to negate that it is possible to, through spiritual work, reduce capitalism's control over us and our "flows".

how sad to refuse to acknowledge our inherent (albeit weakened) ability to, completely and totally, resist.

this is a view which disempowers, promotes hopelessness, provides no valuable answers, no workable solutions, and leads to nothing but further obfuscation, confusion, and befuddlement in a maze of self referential dead end theories. the end result of which is stasis and the inability to act - an ultimate surrender to capitalism.

 

[zhao]

Buddhists of whatever ilk are libidinally invested in their own supposedly anti-identitarian Buddhist identities.

this is what happens when people try to explain something that exists entirely outside of their frame of reference, with the language and terms of what they know. this is what happens when the mind rationalizes that which it does not understand with constructs it is familiar with. and the feeble attempt to deny the possibility of dimensions of existence which lies outside of their limits and provincialism.

it is the idiocy of someone who knows, much less understands, nothing of that which s/he is trying to explain away.

(NOTE: it would be an acceptable description of "western buddhism" but it says "Buddhists of what ever ilk")

by working for one's own Enlightenment one is simply reasserting the centrality of the Ego above everything else in the very striving for its overcoming.

this is nothing more than a stupid play on words. again, from someone who does not know the subject of which they speak and attempt to dismiss.

a feel-good spiritualism without any specific obligations. ... anything goes because there is nothing beyond one's own "precious" inner kernal of being.

the "opium of the people," as the imaginary supplement of the terrestrial misery: the "Western Buddhist" meditative stance is arguably the most efficient way, for us, to fully participate in the capitalist dynamics, while retaining the appearance of mental sanity. ... "Western Buddhism" is such a fetish: it enables you to fully participate in the frantic pace of the capitalist game, while sustaining the perception that you are not really in it, that you are well aware how worthless this spectacle is - what really matters to you is the peace of the inner Self to which you know you can always withdraw ... if the external reality is ultimately just an ephemeral appearance, even the most horrifying crimes eventually DO NOT MATTER."(Zizek).

the japanese state used Zen Buddhism to facilitate the rise of nationalism, milliatarism, and fascism pre and during the WW's (what Zizek is talking about). "englightened" monks waxed poetic, with the language of buddhism, on the virtues of genocide and mass murder.

and yes indeed, star-bucks guzzling yuppies in the west have also co-opted Buddhism toward their selfish, capitalist ends.

but none of this, none of this, means that the teachings of Buddhism, and its profound value, is something to be dismissed.

all these perversions and bastardization of Buddhism attests only to its immense power as a tool. the evils perpetrated with the tool should not be confused with the tool itself.

capitalism is rampant in the east right now for many socio-economic-political reasons. but that in no way means the vast storehouses of wisdom and understanding within the spiritual traditions of the east is to be dismissed.

 

[zhao]

what i am facing here, in this "cosmic conflict between paradigms" (as someone rightly put it), is the dead-end wall of western thinking.

(i have railed against the dualist divison between east and west before, as an illusion perpetrated by those who seek to benefit from such divisions -- all things have the same origin. BUT. in some respects the divide is very, very real -- as a result of the fragmentation that has taken place in the world in the past few thousand years. development of thinking has polarized to an alarming extent -- namely, the west has become more and more estranged from its origins)

what i am facing here is a complete refusal to acknowledge the possibilty of higher states of consiousness, and people's ability to get there.

what i am facing here is total estrangement from, and a final denial of spiritual traditions deeper and more vast than all the oceans of the world.

what I am facing here is a fundamental inability to conceive of anything that lies outside of its own limted take on rationalism and materialism.

how did you (i speak to Zizek and all the thinkers and theorists out there more than anyone else) Europeans and Americans lose your souls? how did you get to this sad sad state of self righteous confusion? how did you become so out of touch with yourselves, with the world around you?

how did you lose the love that should be in all of us?

 

[gek-opel]

Gek are you an angry drunk?

Never angry... either depressed or mischievious is more likely actually...

And yeah Larval Subjects is an excellent blog. I really need to read some fricking Lacan ASAP though...

 

[nomadologist]

It is not the cult of the knot that orients Lacan's later teaching, but rather the question of knowing what would be left of psychoanalysis once we stopped believing in it, believing in it enough to devote oneself to it. What would be left of psychoanalysis, of what it has made us perceive, of what it has given us access to, once it was only a superstition?

http://www.lacan.com/frameXXI2.htm

 

[swears]

"The... the other important joke, for me, is one that's usually attributed to Groucho Marx; but, I think it appears originally in Freud's "Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious", and it goes like this — I'm paraphrasing - um, "I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member." That's the key joke of my adult life, in terms of my relationships with women."

- Woody Allen


I can definitely sympathise with this. I'm "seeing" a girl at the moment and the more affection she shows me, the less I like her. I have to sit through a meal with her tomorrow night, so I hope she's really moody. Actually, I think the best situation for me is when I can't figure out if someone likes me or not, maybe they can't either.

If someone finds you attractive, do they become less attractive to you?

 

[gek-opel]

If someone finds you attractive, do they become less attractive to you?

Depends how arrogant/self loathing you are. There is a sense in which the unrequited love-object is fiendishly attractive, but then again reciprocity (the desire to not only consume but to be consumed by the other) is quite powerful too.

 

[nomadologist]

That was Nietzsche who said that, I'm pretty sure.

Anyway, some mystery is good, like I can't STAND people who need to discuss every little detail of the relationship and iron it out--like "where do we stand this week? are we officially 'dating'?"

That is just oppressively dull.

 

[nomadologist]

Depends how arrogant/self loathing you are. There is a sense in which the unrequited love-object is fiendishly attractive, but then again reciprocity (the desire to not only consume but to be consumed by the other) is quite powerful too.

This is true, and not caring is supremely easy in a lot of ways-- or telling yourself that YOU are rejecting this person, rather than admitting "I'm scared of being vulnerable", is also pretty seductive.

 

[swears]

...reciprocity (the desire to not only consume but to be consumed by the other) is quite powerful too.

Yeah, there needs to be some reciprocation, the fact that we even bothered to meet up shows that. I just don't like it in a really cheery, obvious way.