Reynolds on planet-mu

[Mr. Tea]

There's two whole pages of discussion here since I was last on so I apologise for skim-reading recent posts, but: the thing that sticks out like a sore thumb to me is talk of "systematic corruption", "nightmarish consensualism", the "whole mess" of modern Western post-Enlightenment consumer-capitalist democracy (or pseudo-democracy, as many would style it). And I know that you all know where I'm going with this, so I almost feel like I don't have to actually say it, but: when and/or where was/is any better - more democratic, less corrupt - system in place? "Oh, the whole mess we're in now started with the Enlightenment" - like the Middle Ages were some lost Golden Age of peace and liberty, before economic exploitation, military imperialism and ethno-religious antagonism were 'invented', huh?

OK, so these things are to be emphatically avoided; I think this much can be agreed upon. But how? Consider historical alternatives that have been tried: we've more or less got fascism, communism and theocracy to choose from. Historically, most forms of society (that were not organised along purely tribal lines) fall into one of these three categories or their predecessors - look at ancient Egypt, China, Greece, Rome, the Aztecs, Incas etc. etc. - so if you want to ask what kind of society can we imagine that is different from all these, but also different from modern secular capitalist democracy, the only thing that springs immediately to my mind is some sort of weird anarcho-tribalist-libertarianism, perhaps with a technocratic bent to retain the scientific advances made since the industrial revolution.

Now I've been accused before of blindly supporting the status quo, which isn't quite fair for the following reason. It's obvious to anyone with half a brain that there's a lot in the world in its current set-up that is monumentally fucked up, but there is also a lot that pretty much works OK, so any grand solution that purports so solve the fucked-up bits had better either preserve the bits that do work or replace them with something that works even better. The argument is not "don't change anything because some of it's good and we can't risk throwing that away": it's "don't change things unless you have a very good reason to think that what comes after will be better" (and not just 'better', but sufficiently better to justify the inevitable turmoil of the transition - I mean, who the fuck thinks "Global financial crash, yay!"? :slanted.

Sorry for the necessarily vague nature of much of this post.

 

[swears]

Ahhhh...come on....

We have to look to the future and ask ourselves "What is the sort of society we want to live in?" Not: "Oh well, s'not as bad as feudalism is it?"

Why not expect more of ourselves and our leaders? Why not question the excesses and waste that the current system encourages as "natural" or at least excuses as "business as usual"?

 

[Mr. Tea]

We have to look to the future and ask ourselves "What is the sort of society we want to live in?" Not: "Oh well, s'not as bad as feudalism is it?"

But this is just what I mean! The question "What's wrong with the current system?" is only useful insofar as it's a precursor to "And how can we make it better?". (Otherwise you simply end up moaning without ever actually doing anything - comforting for a while, perhaps, but ultimately unproductive.)

And it's not enough to simply demand a system that's different, because many different systems have been tried that are demonstrably worse than the one we have now. That's not a reason not to try and find a better system: it's simply a pointer to the fact that a system will not necessarily be any better merely by virtue of being different.

 

[noel emits]

The trouble with history is that it's someone else's interpretation of events at best. There's always going to be more left out than is in there. History ends up being a story of secrets and lies - if you can control public perception you can control history. If you control history you control public perception. Our knowledge of world history is based on numerous deceptions and it's a cumulative process. The truth about many things is far from it is said or assumed to be because the interpretations are based on the consequences of deception.

If it is the case that we have been lied to since civilisation began this doesn't mean we go back to the moment before it all went wrong. It means we wonder where we could be now instead, or where we could go as a species.

 

[noel emits]

But this is just what I mean! The question "What's wrong with the current system?" is only useful insofar as it's a precursor to "And how can we make it better?". (Otherwise you simply end up moaning without ever actually doing anything - comforting for a while, perhaps, but ultimately unproductive.)

Isn't that a bit like telling victims of abuse that they have no right to complain unless they can first somehow convince their abusers to stop because they are not going about it right?

Millennia of serious mismanagement!

 

[nomadologist]

The question of "What's wrong with our current system?" is completely valid without prior or later qualification based on sheer force of the strength of exploring the answer on a purely abstract plane--or several abstract planes (the political, the social, the philosophical, etc.) Of course, it becomes more interesting to answer this abstractly in combination with the several questions that seem to naturally follow regarding the immediate past, future, etc, but it is a perfectly valid and important question in its own right.

That's like saying "what's the point of making art if it doesn't represent something concrete? are warhol screenprints really art??"

 

[nomadologist]

There's two whole pages of discussion here since I was last on so I apologise for skim-reading recent posts, but: the thing that sticks out like a sore thumb to me is talk of "systematic corruption", "nightmarish consensualism", the "whole mess" of modern Western post-Enlightenment consumer-capitalist democracy (or pseudo-democracy, as many here would style it). And I know that you all know where I'm going with this, so I almost feel like I don't have to actually say it, but: when and/or where was/is any better - more democratic, less corrupt - system in place? "Oh, the whole mess we're in now started with the Enlightenment" - like the Middle Ages were some lost Golden Age of peace and liberty, before economic exploitation, military imperialism and ethno-religious antagonism were 'invented', huh?

OK, so these things are to be emphatically avoided; I think this much can be agreed upon. But how? Consider historical alternatives that have been tried: we've more or less got fascism, communism and theocracy to choose from. Historically, most forms of society (that were not organised along purely tribal lines) fall into one of these three categories or their predecessors - look at ancient Egypt, China, Greece, Rome, the Aztecs, Incas etc. etc. - so if you want to ask what kind of society can we imagine that is different from all these, but also different from modern secular capitalist democracy, the only thing that springs immediately to my mind is some sort of weird anarcho-tribalist-libertarianism, perhaps with a technocratic bent to retain the scientific advances made since the industrial revolution.
.

But all of this smacks of that whole argument about the analogy between slavery and domestic slave trade within African nations--let's not go there again!--where the whole point of ethics and moral responsibility is that a lack of viable or preferable historical alternatives have no real bearing on whether problems do in fact exist in a political system. Even if this WERE the most civilized, best, least violent, most wholesome, most morally righteous empire in all of history, the problems that exist here are still fully problematic and deserve to be confronted as problems with every effort made to solve them. In fact, the better we "have it", the more we know, the more control we have over our destiny, the more we owe the world! The more responsibility we have to make sure we eradicate any problems that slip through the crack to the fullest of our capabilities.

 

[gek-opel]

Also Mr Tea, you are pretty much accepting that "our" lives ARE better now. Perhaps we live longer and are more productive, but on several other yardsticks of well being we don't seem to be very mentally sound. The alienation involved in this social form results in incredible amounts of misery, even once you take into account the gains we have made in terms of wealth, health etc. There very much IS something fundamentally rotten at the core of the Capitalist society if this is the case.

 

[IdleRich]

"It differs from the bread and circuses of Ancient Rome in that the corruption at the heart of the political machine under capitalism is no longer a matter of a few officials who sell-out their own values or those of the Empire for immediate personal gain--under capitalism you have an entire economic system (and the class super-stratification that results) based on and in fact completely reliant upon corruption/the abandonment of principle in favor of individual gain on every level, in every sector, on every level, and even on the part of those who don't stand to immediately gain from selling out their own culture/values/eventual financial security."

Yes and no. Can you (we) really be so sure that individuals weren't just as selfish and willing to abandon principle then? I'm willing to be persuaded, it's just that I haven't seen any reason to think that. In fact, the generally lower value placed on human life and the like in those days almost leads me to think the opposite.

"Well, see, I happen to think that had we not stumbled on a huge largely untapped, unmined, and pre-deforested landmass abundant with natural resources at just about the same time the merchant class was rising and a bunch of religious fundamentalists needed a home where they could judge everyone else without fear of social retribution, "capitalism" as we know it may not have accelerated so fast nor spread so far as it happened to."

Yes, may very well be true.

"I think capitalism is a virus and we've become the symptom"

How do you mean, how can something that already exists become a symptom?

"I'm not sure that capitalism is the fundamental problem at all, that just sets people like Marx up as saviours or opposites in the dialectic and we've already had that storyline."

Yes, this hits the nail on the head I think. There is a certain comfort to be had in a retreat to "capitalism is evil and capitalism is everything" because then you are reduced to discussing how to defeat capitalism (and also refusing to discuss alternatives it seems) which appears to be fruitless. It reminds me of a perfectionist who never does anything because it can't be perfect.

"Also Mr Tea, you are pretty much accepting that "our" lives ARE better now. Perhaps we live longer and are more productive, but on several other yardsticks of well being we don't seem to be very mentally sound. The alienation involved in this social form results in incredible amounts of misery, even once you take into account the gains we have made in terms of wealth, health etc. There very much IS something fundamentally rotten at the core of the Capitalist society if this is the case."

I think that Mr Tea's acceptance of the idea that "our" lives are better now is far less blind and certainly more reasoned than your acceptance that they are not.

 

[gek-opel]

I think that Mr Tea's acceptance of the idea that "our" lives are better now is far less blind and certainly more reasoned than your acceptance that they are not.

Mr Tea's analysis, as he would probably admit, is marked by fear above all else. It is this fear which curtails any possible future risk inherent in resolving systemic problems. To my viewpoint it doesn't actually matter if it "gets worse" in many of the terms Mr Tea understands, as the very worst outcome of all is a society where political change is locked off entirely. This is a situation of animalistic nihilism. If Capitalist-consumerism is the proper name that we give to the current situation, then that is good enough for me at least to stand in for whatever we might conceive as "lying behind it"-- unless of course you want to resort to some kind of naturalistic conception of man or human "nature" as the root cause, which inevitably leads to the assumption that Capitalism is merely a natural emanation of some biological features of the human. Whilst it certainly relies on gross parodic simplifications of certain drives and forces within the human, it is simply not reducible to being conceived of as a natural emanation, with all the inevitability which that entails. It is possible, and it has been possible to conceive of other configurations of the individual, resources, and society than consumer-capital, and there will be again new forms outside of this model.

 

[Slothrop]

The question of "What's wrong with our current system?" is completely valid without prior or later qualification based on sheer force of the strength of exploring the answer on a purely abstract plane--or several abstract planes (the political, the social, the philosophical, etc.) Of course, it becomes more interesting to answer this abstractly in combination with the several questions that seem to naturally follow regarding the immediate past, future, etc, but it is a perfectly valid and important question in its own right.

That's like saying "what's the point of making art if it doesn't represent something concrete? are warhol screenprints really art??"

Or 'what's the point studying the force of gravity if people who fall of tall buildings are still going to die'? Or am I misunderstanding you?

But Tea's question isn't about studying the failings of capitalism - that could equally lead you to market-socialism or whatever and to various patches to the current system - it's about the idea that the only productive activity is activity leading us to (somehow) chuck out capitalism completely and replace it with something completely different, which we don't actually know what it is yet but we can be pretty sure that it isn't going to degenerate into neo-Stalinism, neo-Fascism, religious fundamentalism or Mad-Max stylee post apocalyptic gang warfare.

 

[gek-opel]

The entire point is that we can never know that that won't happen. That is the nature of risk, of the gamble involved... one which the people of the twentieth century took repeatedly, with often disastrous results. But this does not mean that we ought to give up on taking the risk.

 

[IdleRich]

"Mr Tea's analysis, as he would probably admit, is marked by fear above all else."

Are you sure that he would admit that?

"To my viewpoint it doesn't actually matter if it "gets worse" in many of the terms Mr Tea understands, as the very worst outcome of all is a society where political change is locked off entirely"

Well, yes, you have different aims but if Mr Tea favours, say women's rights, over the possibility of extreme political change then the onus is on you to say why the latter is preferable isn't it?

"The entire point is that we can never know that that won't happen. That is the nature of risk, of the gamble involved... one which the people of the twentieth century took repeatedly, with often disastrous results. But this does not mean that we ought to give up on taking the risk."

Well, that is the nature of risks but there are risks and risks right? I mean, when most people have to make decisions they attempt, however vaguely, to quantify the risk and the probability of success. The "argument" that you're putting forward totally disregards any thought of that and could be used to justify absolutely anything (and I mean anything) that you think of "it's a risk but who knows what could happen?".

 

[Slothrop]

The entire point is that we can never know that that won't happen. That is the nature of risk, of the gamble involved... one which the people of the twentieth century took repeatedly, with often disastrous results. But this does not mean that we ought to give up on taking the risk.

Most gamblers I know wouldn't exactly jump at a bet where the person offering it assures them that they could win big but won't tell them how, and all they can actually see is several plausible outcomes where they lose heavily...

 

[gek-opel]

Are you sure that he would admit that?


Well, yes, you have different aims but if Mr Tea favours, say women's rights, over the possibility of extreme political change then the onus is on you to say why the latter is preferable isn't it?


Well, that is the nature of risks but there are risks and risks right? I mean, when most people have to make decisions they attempt, however vaguely, to quantify the risk and the probability of success. The "argument" that you're putting forward totally disregards any thought of that and could be used to justify absolutely anything (and I mean anything) that you think of "it's a risk but who knows what could happen?".

Mr Tea's argument is that whilst we do not live in a perfect world by any means, he cannot see an alternative which is better and that therefore before we embark on any project of drastic political change we must first know that it will preserve all the good aspects of the present day situation.

However it is in the nature of the revolutionary moment that it is never assured, and therefore can never (especially within the situation of western capitalist nations and their material comforts and human rights) be phrased in terms of a done deal, a definite benefit. There is no way getting round this, and I admit as much as that. It can never be put within terms of the current situation as anything other than a fundamental rupture, wherein it is not possible to quantify the chances of success or failure, or even necessarily what the "winning" outcome might consist of. The current hegemonic line of thought runs that since various previous attempts throughout the twentieth century failed, that we ought to attempt no more. However, the current situation has within itself many problems which are not only unpleasant but potentially terminal to its ongoing success- climate change and resource crisis being the primary examples. So what we could say perhaps is that whilst there is no guarantee of success or even a particularly high chance, even staying put carries similar (ultimately unquantifiable but definite) risks of its own.

 

[Slothrop]

Yes, this hits the nail on the head I think. There is a certain comfort to be had in a retreat to "capitalism is evil and capitalism is everything" because then you are reduced to discussing how to defeat capitalism (and also refusing to discuss alternatives it seems) which appears to be fruitless. It reminds me of a perfectionist who never does anything because it can't be perfect.

Yes, or a puritan who believes that salvation will come after death because although it's impossible to pove, it's too horrible to contemplate that this world could be all there is, and furthermore that to become too involved in trying to improve this world is counterproductive to seeking salvation in the next.

 

[noel emits]

Yes, this hits the nail on the head I think. There is a certain comfort to be had in a retreat to "capitalism is evil and capitalism is everything" because then you are reduced to discussing how to defeat capitalism (and also refusing to discuss alternatives it seems) which appears to be fruitless. It reminds me of a perfectionist who never does anything because it can't be perfect.

That's not really what I was saying. I have no doubt that capitalism is 'evil', I just think that there is something behind it that is not 'capitalism', that's just a clever mechanism. And I'm certainly not talking about 'human nature' which has been horribly subverted. Fighting 'capitalism' on a political level misses the point unless we can understand the means by which people have been persuaded that it makes any sense at all, and the same goes for most of organised civilisation.

 

[IdleRich]

"Mr Tea's argument is that whilst we do not live in a perfect world by any means, he cannot see an alternative which is better and that therefore before we embark on any project of drastic political change we must first know that it will preserve all the good aspects of the present day situation."

He's asking for an overall improvement, I'm sure you would agree with that, it's just that you differ as to what counts as an improvement.

"However it is in the nature of the revolutionary moment that it is never assured, and therefore can never (especially within the situation of western capitalist nations and their material comforts and human rights) be phrased in terms of a done deal, a definite benefit. There is no way getting round this, and I admit as much as that. It can never be put within terms of the current situation as anything other than a fundamental rupture, wherein it is not possible to quantify the chances of success or failure, or even necessarily what the "winning" outcome might consist of. The current hegemonic line of thought runs that since various previous attempts throughout the twentieth century failed, that we ought to attempt no more. However, the current situation has within itself many problems which are not only unpleasant but potentially terminal to its ongoing success- climate change and resource crisis being the primary examples. So what we could say perhaps is that whilst there is no guarantee of success or even a particularly high chance, even staying put carries similar (ultimately unquantifiable but definite) risks of its own."

Yes, true it does contain risks of course. There are three basic options right? 1. Do nothing 2. Destroy the whole thing and hope it gets better 3. Try to change the path we are on now without the fundamental rupture. Obviously you think two is better than three but, as I said above, I think that that represents in some sense a comfort blanket and a refusal to engage.

"That's not really what I was saying. I have no doubt that capitalism is 'evil', I just think that there is something behind it that is not 'capitalism', that's just a clever mechanism. And I'm certainly not talking about 'human nature' which has been horribly subverted. Fighting 'capitalism' on a political level misses the point unless we can understand the means by which people have been persuaded that it makes any sense at all, and the same goes for most of organised civilisation."

Oh right, well I liked what I thought you said better I think. Though I'm not saying you said capitalism isn't evil, it's the all-pervasiveness that I thought you were sceptical about.

 

[noel emits]

Oh right, well I liked what I thought you said better I think. Though I'm not saying you said capitalism isn't evil, it's the all-pervasiveness that I thought you were sceptical about.

Well I agree that it is possible to create micro-contexts that are not totally inhabited by 'capitalist' ideology, absolutely. It is very pervasive in our part of the world (and point in time) though, and does indeed operate like a virus.

 

[gek-opel]

Yes, true it does contain risks of course. There are three basic options right? 1. Do nothing 2. Destroy the whole thing and hope it gets better 3. Try to change the path we are on now without the fundamental rupture. Obviously you think two is better than three but, as I said above, I think that that represents in some sense a comfort blanket and a refusal to engage.

But to actually make it happen is the very opposite of a comfort blanket. The real question therefore is whether you think option 3 is possible or productive. What is the point of purchase upon which we can alter the system by increments? If you believe, as I do, that it resists such efforts then refusing to engage with it is merely the first necessary step.... if the efforts to engage it can't deliver the results you desire, why legitimate it in such a way...?