Category: Politics

Communist Manifesto, part 2 (but really Part 1): Bourgeois and Proletarians

Capitalists wringing money from workers

This is part 2 of my series on The Communist Manifesto. Part 1 is here. Now we get into the meat of the book. While this is my part 2, this entry covers part 1 of the Communist Manifesto: “Bourgeois and Proletarians” (aka capitalists and workers). This is also one of the major socialist works mentioned here.

The Meat: Capitalists and Workers

Marx and Engels claim that society consists of class struggle/antagonism (instead of homogenized/unified/lockstepped nations or realms). The current struggle is between two classes: capitalists (this is how most socialists refer to the bourgeoisie) and workers (this, or “working class,” is a more straightforward translation of “proletariat”).

Marx and Engels reveal that there are more than two classes at play. However, capitalists and workers are the two principal players. The authors mention past antagonisms like lords/serfs and patricians/plebeians.

How and why the classes exist as they do occupy this section of the Communist Manifesto. Their argument unfolds in what is at times history, philosophy, and activism.

How Did the Capitalists Come About?

Capitalists emerged due to a confluence of advances: land discovery, colonization, communication, navigation, technological efficiency, division of labor, and commerce. In a phrase, capitalists owe their existence to new “modes of production.”  They transitioned from a group oppressed by the nobles. Then to one used by the monarchy against the nobles. Then  capitalists came to dominance as the monarchy and nobles fought to their mutual ruin.

Their pursuit of commercial interest above all else led capitalists to embrace “free trade” (by “free trade,” Marx and Engels mean trade free from the encumbrance of nation or faith). As technology became more efficient at yielding product, capitalists had to exploit new markets to keep profits up. These newly integrated markets gave the world a cosmopolitan character,  replacing old social relations (such as patriarchy and fealty) with urbanization.

When I first read this section, I thought Marx and Engels had overplayed their hand. For example, they state, “The bourgeoisie, whenever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations” (11). Let’s grant that feudal relations had largely evaporated by their time. Surely patriarchal relations had not. However, as young people flocked to cities and factories took the place of small-time workers, family ties began to break down. Their new life free from the oversight of the village created a new sense of social relations. In fact, Marx and Engels later assert that as city population increases along side urban production, power shifts from from the village to consolidation in the hands of a few in the cities.

Back to their argument.

How Did the Working Class Come About?

While technological advances helped capitalists become dominant, they also were an Achilles’ Heel. Overproduction became a problem. Oversupply means lower prices. To keep advancing profits, capitalists needed new markets.

Technological innovations created the working class. As each worker became less necessary for profit, the worker’s existence became more precarious. If the owner of a factory needed less workers, working existence becomes more perilous as the workers who are left compete with each other in order to survive. They lived in cities and didn’t own land in the country, so the workers’ entire existence depended on the ability to secure jobs, if they resided in the cities.

Again, technology makes labor less necessary to capitalists. For example, machines make the John Henrys of the world obsolete. Or in Marx’s words, they make age and sex meaningless. A change in modes of production yields change in modes of social relations.

The wages the capitalists spend to maintain the workers’ subsistence soon siphons to smaller capitalists. One should note, too, that this group sinks into the proletariat because of competition with larger capitalists. This is where Marx and Engels begin to describe other classes. There are “petty bourgeoisie,” like shopkeepers (aka small business owners), land owners, etc. These are the smaller version of large capitalists like factory owners or industry leaders.

Development of the Working Class

Now the authors portray a trajectory of the development of the working class. Early in the workers’ development, they are precarious as individuals. If they move along toward union, they first unify in a factory as each worker begins to recognize their factory owners as possessing interests different from theirs. Then, perhaps, all factory workers who machine tools begin to develop a mutual group-interest (or class consciousness). Then they can develop a unified struggle (aka union) against the bourgeoisie in one locale. Initially Marx and Engels describe a reactionary impulse among workers to destroy the machines that replace them. If the machines are absent, they can have their jobs back. The authors soon argue against this folly.

Worker unity becomes possible from the conditions that conjured capitalists into being. Recall improved navigation and communication. Today, the internet is a boon to groups trying to extend their influence. One should note, though, that the internet also allows greater surveillance. When workers unify, they can exploit breaches in capitalist unity, e.g., in the achievement of the 10-hour bill that Marx and Engels mention.

At the time of their writing, 1848, workers were subject to working hours much longer than 10-hour workdays. Imagine working upwards of 16 hours, 6-7 days a week.

As class struggle intensifies, the capitalists and aristocracy, in an attempt to undermine the other, equip workers with education. The petit bourgeois/small capitalists sometimes side with the workers against the capitalists. They do this not to advance worker struggle, but in an effort to retain their former privileges. Another class, the “social scum” (German: lumpenproletariat), the authors portray as dangerous because any group can potentially by them off with enough provisions.

What Happens When the Workers Unify?

The workers of every country share a lack of capital (that is, means of production; see upcoming entry) and oppression beneath the exploitative capitalists. Therefore, if the workers revolt, they have no former privilege to defend. It would be the first revolution of the majority for the majority. Marx and Engels contrast this with revolutions fought by the many poor for the few rich (like the American Revolution fought so owners could self-govern away from monarchic oversight).

Capitalists exploit workers through wage-labor (I will cover this more when I write a series on Marx’s “Wage-Labor and Capital”; in the meantime, here is a definition), creating competition between workers rather than between the workers and capitalists. Therefore, workers must begin uniting against the capitalists in their own countries.

Upcoming Posts

The next section describes the relation of the workers to the communists. I hope this summary of part of the Communist Manifesto helps you understand a little more about it. If so, please follow the blog, and share it on Facebook or Twitter. If you have questions, comments, concerns, or lampoons, please comment, email me at ilostmyprayerhanky2 at mailgay otday omcay (look up Pig Latin if this makes no sense to you), or tweet @PessimistsHope.

Top 10 (or 17) Most Mentioned Socialist Texts

I was raised in southwest Missouri. Let’s say it wasn’t exactly a hotbed of socialism. However, Bernie Sanders made it possible for the word to be more than a way to shut someone down when you didn’t like what they were saying.

I had read the Communist Manifesto (CM) in summer 2014, but it didn’t start to hit home until the next summer. I had just learned I probably wouldn’t make it as an academic, and so I while I was looking for a job, I read the CM again with new eyes. What could I attain if I didn’t have capital? Why should a third of my life (my labor) be owned by a very small group of people to do with it whatever they whim?

Since there weren’t any socialist groups around, I did a lot of stumbling around in the dark in making a self-directed reading list. But I found some promising leads.

First, I Found Some Resource Lists

  1. Movimiento Anti-Imperialista– Admittedly, I saw this list on r/communism first, but it is from an Italian communist movement. Since I don’t read Italian, I’m happy a friendly redditor translated it into English (aside: it appears that “proletariat” [“proletarios” meaning workers in Italian] is a faster way of saying “worker class”).
  2. Marxists Internet Archive– This is a treasure house of Marxist literature. Marx, Engels, Kautsky, Luxemburg, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao- they’re all here with many others.
  3. Freedom Socialist Party– Founded in 1966, this American Trotskyist party emphasizes revolutionary feminism as its lens of socialism. They have tons on their reading list as well as more tons of study guides.
  4. Socialist Appeal– Socialist Appeal is now apparently Socialist Revolution as of August 2, 2017. I haven’t read anything about it, other than it looks like rebranding. Anyway, these comrades have resources for days, too. They are another American Trotskyist party, part of the International Marxist Tendency.
  5. From Marx to Mao– According to the webmaster’s statement of purpose, the title of his site is a misnomer, since his intention was to remedy a dearth of Lenin and Stalin texts at the Marxists Internet Archive. If this used to be the case (it doesn’t look like the person has updated much since around 2003), the MIA remedied it since. The major thing I value, anyway, is the person’s reading list, which includes basic readings as well as further reading on various topics.

So if you want to move from

this                                                             to this     

then you have to read at least these ten works most mentioned on the commie webz:

Finally, the Top 10 (or 17) List

So I really tried for the 10 most mentioned, but with several mentions tying for spots, it ended up at 17.

  1. Manifesto of the Communist Party Marx and Engels 5
    Wages, Price, and Profit (AKA “Value, Price, and Profit”) Marx 5
    Socialism: Utopian and Scientific Engels 5
  2. The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism Lenin 4
    State and Revolution Lenin 4
  3. Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder Lenin 3
    Capital, vol. 1 Marx 3
    Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism Lenin 3
  4. German Ideology Marx and Engels 2
    The Transitional Program Trotsky 2
    What Is to Be Done? Lenin 2
    Theses on Feuerbach Marx 2
    “The Paris Commune” (From The Civil War in France) Marx 2
    Anti-Duhring Engels 2
    Wage-Labor and Capital Marx 2
    The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State Engels 2
    Critique of the Gotha Program Marx 2

So you see, you might be able to make your own top ten from this, such as read the top 8, and then pick two from the bottom 9. There are also important works missing from the list, such as Rosa Luxemburg’s “Reform or Revolution?” or Trotsky’s “Permanent Revolution.” But this is a start.

I welcome any critiques, additions, subtractions, how-could-you-not-include-this’s, praises, offerings, sacrifices, or clarifications you might have, particularly since I’ve only read two of these. Admittedly, I am a noob. But we are in this together, since the propaganda machine against socialism/Marxism/communism/etc.ism has been so effective, that most people don’t know that a rich literary tradition exists behind the cloak of conservative polemics. I might end up reading most or all of these texts and not find some of them helpful. If that’s the case, I’ll write a scathing review.

If you find this helpful, retweet it, share it on Facebook, or put it on your Trapper Keeper.

Dream big and stay safe, comrades.

Trouble with Labels

Thought experiment. Let’s say you’ve had a best friend since kindergarten. For some reason, you never discussed politics with each other. Then one day, your friend labels himself/herself with the label of your political other (so pretend you’re a socialist and your friend admits to being alt-right, or vice-versa).

What do you do with this information? Do you give more importance to the label than to your friend, and attribute all the negativity you’ve accumulated with that label to your friend? Do you give more importance to your friend, and ask what s/he means by it since you’ve been friends for so long, and maybe you might learn something from a true believer of that label? In other words, if you had shared interests in video games, sports, hiking, music, books, bands, cooking, martial arts, fashion—and interests cultivated TOGETHER over decades—would your friend’s revelation overturn all of that?

What if you two understand the label in completely different ways? Do labels mean something in themselves; do they allow for variance within the label; does meaning shift according to group non/affiliation; do they mean something vastly different depending on history or region; do labels mean something different to leaders and followers?

Why We Are So Frustrated in Political Conversations

After reading some of Terry Eagleton’s Ideology: An Introduction, I’m beginning to look at political discourse differently. Eagleton not only shows the breadth of peoples’ understanding of the term “ideology,” but also strategies used by their ideology.

Two strategies of ideology (let’s for the sake of discussion assume that ideology means something like 1) certain propositions are true, 2) certain narratives are taken as good explanations, and 3) these two assertions both fulfill certain desires or resolve emotions) I want to hone in on are universalization and naturalization. Universalization means something like understanding one’s own position not as one among many, or as sectarian, but simply that from which one can generalize. Universalization is thus closely associated with naturalization, for that which one takes as universal can easily move into the category “natural,” casting any aberration from this frame as “unnatural,” “innovative,” or in moral casting “wrong,” “evil,” or maybe seemingly neutral like “irrational.” Universalization requires the move of naturalization to establish itself, so that competing narratives are considered fantasies beyond the imaginable

So let’s take this topic of ideological strategies and see how it could cast light on interchanges among friends from very different political persuasions. For the record, when ideology gets thrown around, one usually hears it lobbed at one’s opponents as something “they have”; we are the rational ones. If we take a cue from the strategy of naturalization, this makes sense for marking social boundaries. Our ways are so familiar to us, that how could anyone look at the evidence we’re looking at and not come to our same conclusions? This is one of the unfortunate legacies of the Enlightenment, that information speaks for itself, obscuring that information is never neutral. It is always and ever collected, maintained, explained, and brought to bear for certain reasons. Another word for “reasons” that will make its ideological nature more apparent is to replace “reasons” with “interests.”

The very sources we take as authoritative and the interpretations of these sources we take as authoritative are not native to the sources/data themselves, but constitutive themselves of our social groups. Who are we but the sources we cherish and the values we tell ourselves we value, the conclusions of which we have derived from sources we have already picked? To put this more plainly, let’s assume two people are talking about Donald Trump. What is obviously/naturally great to one person is puzzling or even evil to another. I definitely see Trump one way, and it wouldn’t be hard to track down how I feel about him, but that attitude is the result of what sources I already buy into, the friends I cherish, the communities I am in solidarity with, and ways of assessing I take as legitimate. If these fundamental elements aren’t discussed overtly, is it any wonder how our “obvious” talking points go over the heads of our interlocutors or infuriate us because they don’t play by our rules, just as we don’t play by theirs?

What prompted this post was a discussion some of my close family and friends have had over Trump, a recent post on algorithms, and another post on the use of language. Burge, in his article on algorithms, found that there was a strong correlation between being evangelical and being Republican. I asked my friend who posted this that if these identities were as “fused” as they appeared, would a Republican (who also happened to be an evangelical) take a critique of her political views as an attack on his faith. If so, “dialogue” would probably be nigh impossible, nigh if we always keep our prior commitments obscured in discussion. However, I only came to Burge’s article after reading a post by Nongbri concerning the use of language and the communities which constitute the language. Rather than try to look at ways in which “others” distort meaning, he pays attention to the rhetoric employed by groups to establish a stable meaning in the first place. In other words, he doesn’t see meaning as stable at all as much as the social boundaries/indentifiers of particular groups.

So what of all this? Without understanding how groups work, how they include and exclude, how they construct their own boundaries and deconstruct that of others, “dialogue” will be next to impossible, if it ever is. If we don’t understand the ways in which others groups establish themselves, we are quite literally speaking different languages, living different lives, smelling different air, and seeing different people.

Belief Matters as Much as Action

Do beliefs matter that much?

I have had some trouble in the past few years seeing beliefs affecting action. For example, does belief in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity affect daily life that much?

Building off of this, I entertained that beliefs don’t matter so much as one’s actions. This is a very America idea. Maybe even Marxist.

But then I read something interesting this week for class on the American Revolution and on ideas concerning women at the time.

According to Amanda Porterfield, it was common to see women as naturally the intellectual inferiors of men.

Aaron Burr (vice president to Thomas Jefferson) took a different approach. He gave his daughter Theodosia the opportunity to learn. Broadly. By age 10, she read French and Latin. At 12 she took up Greek. By 18, she had obtained Italian in addition to competence in the piano, dance, geography, and history.

Theodosia proved what Burr already assumed: women aren’t dumb.¹

Source: University of Chicago Press
Source: University of Chicago Press

This got me to thinking what beliefs can accomplish in the world. In this case, a belief had inhibited the vast potential of women. If people saw women as naturally the intellectual inferiors of men, why attempt to change that? It was natural, right?

The beliefs that matter most—in the sense that they have the most impact due to their presumption—are those we attribute to some natural, unchangeable, “real,” stable essence. What goes unquestioned? What is off limits to probe?

Beliefs matter. When left unquestioned and unprovoked, they foster a stupor that can be potentially dangerous.

Consider the relatively recent movement #blacklivesmatter. There has been a conservative backlash to it called #alllivesmatter. What gets lost on #alllivesmatter is that it superficially focuses on the phrase #blacklivesmatter without taking time to attend to the movement’s interests.

#blacklivesmatter already assumes that all lives matter: their point is black lives haven’t mattered historically (while technically it could be #blacklivesmattertoo, that gets too long to be catchy). In this case, black bodies have taken the brunt of the War on Drugs, mass incarceration, and increased surveillance.

What’s the point of connecting #blacklivesmatter to women’s education in the late 1700s? Both are responses to naturalized beliefs that inhibit groups.

Women’s education was a response to women’s inferiority. #blacklivesmatter is a response to latent (and sometimes extremely overt) white supremacy that just wants black people to shut up, throw away their identity, stop complaining, and be like white people.

#alllivesmatter promotes inaction to change the killing of black lives by ignoring the actions already happening against black lives.

Beliefs matter. Probe them.

¹Amanda Porterfield, Conceived in Doubt: Religion and Politics in the New American Nation (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2012), 42-44.

“The” Ethics of Abortion: Why This Debate Will Never End

As I admitted in my last post, I haven’t given abortion much thought because I lack a uterus. The sting video on Planned Parenthood gave me pause. What do I think about abortion? Was this video damning or not? Why?

 

My friend Samantha posted what I think is a good post from a pro-choice stance, defending Planned Parenthood from a legal perspective. Ostensibly, they were being paid for the transfer costs of aborted fetal tissue, which is legal. Samantha summed up that pro-life and pro-choice advocates are both trying to save lives, but are focusing on different means. They are “ships passing in the night.”

I’ll plainly state that I have been pro-life my entire adult life, though I have more questions now than before such as:

  • what is the fate of the child and mother if the mother is an addict?
  • what if the child is headed for a life of poverty and all that poverty entails?
  • if a mother wants to put her child up for adoption, what is the ratio of babies born to parents wanting to adopt? is the cost of adoption prohibitive?
  • what are the supports for mothers once their children are born? If she was already poor, will communities and welfare be available to her?

Regardless of how nuanced I get, I am still uncomfortable with abortion. That discomfort proceeds from an affirmation of life. I don’t know where life begins, but I don’t see enough difference between a fetus and a newborn to say, “Yes, it’s ok to terminate the life on this side of the line, but not on that side.”

When’s a Fetus no Longer a Fetus?

What’s the difference between a fetus from a newborn? A minute? less? I’m not talking about labor; I’m talking about those last few moments of pregnancy where one moment object A is inside the uterus (fetus) and the next moment it isn’t (newborn). It is a very quick transition from being something we can legally terminate to being someone we can’t legally terminate. Why do we define that change of state so absolutely? In other words, why is life defined in very specific chunks rather than along a continuum?

Concerning that transition, consider sexual intercourse: I wonder if the beginning of life and the beginnings of one’s sexual life are similar.

What is the moment that a virgin is no longer a virgin? Think of two virgins about to cease being virgins. Do they cross that threshold at the first sexually charged look? The first caress? The first disrobing? The first fondling? The first suckle? The first genital stimulation? The first penetration? The first orgasm? Is sex one discrete thing or a continuum of behavior?

If penetration is the key definer of sex, and the key that evaporates virginity, does that include penetration of things besides a vagina? If a homosexual man only has sex with men his entire life and then dies, has he died a virgin according to that definition? Or did he cross that threshold the first time he had sex with a man?

I ask again, how different is a fetus from a newborn?

The Social Freight (Politics) of Binaries

What am I saying in these comparisons? I’m saying that we as a society take a slight difference between two things and then treat the distinguished things in radically different ways. I am wondering if this makes sense. The binary in this case is “not life/life.” Inside a uterus, a child is legally not life since it can be terminated without repercussion.

American society has deemed abortion legal institutionally by defining a clean break between those two states. The only reason a fetus isn’t just called a baby is because the distinction has to make sense for the law to make sense. The difference in state of the baby is purely by fiat.

Granted, I have not waded into this very complex issue. When I started researching for this post I googled “abortion debate” and came to a debate site. It listed roughly thirty facets to the issue. I come at it from one angle and realize it is an angle, not “the” ethic for this debate. Were there something we could all appeal to in equal measure, there wouldn’t be a debate.

The debate will never end because people ally themselves with the continuum model or the discrete model. Someone could highlight a grey area for me, and I would concede if convinced, but I see little space for calling something both a continuum (pro-life) and a discrete shift in essence (pro-choice). As Roger Olson highlighted, nuance is drowned out by the seemingly unavoidable extremes in this debate.

I also think the debate will never end, because it is now entrenched as an identity marker. I don’t know how many pro-life or pro-choice advocates sit down and say, “Wow, the other side makes some great points. I should really reconsider my position in light of what they have just said.” Instead, people usually hear a label, assume the worst of their adversary, have their checklists of orthodoxy and heresy, hurl talking points at their adversaries, utterly ignore the talking points of their adversaries, and go their separate ways thoroughly entrenched.

I wish this were a happier post or one more provocative for discussion, but I’m under no illusions that this will be a popular post. Abortion isn’t exactly a boring topic or one for polite company. It isn’t an issue that calls tolerance forth from its interlocutors. However, I will admit I am weird: I invite feedback positive and negative. If I have left anything out, maligned someone, misrepresented people—whatever your opinion—comment, or, if you don’t feel like having a comment war but only a discussion, my email is ilostmyprayerhanky At gmail dot com. As my friend Samantha got at in her post, I want discussion to occur that treats conversation partners as people, not battlefields to lob bombs at.

Privilege, or My Undeserved, Arbitrary Advantages

I don’t have to think twice about walking into a gas station with a hoodie and walking out with skittles.
I don’t have to travel two states over to get married because my state doesn’t recognize me.
I don’t have to look for special ways to get into a building without ramps because I can’t walk.
I don’t have to ask people to repeat themselves and eventually give up communicating because I can’t hear.
I don’t get my character questioned because of what I wear to a club.
I don’t have to pull out my green card when I’m pulled over.
I don’t have to ask someone to describe things to me because I can’t see.
I don’t have to have my loyalties questioned because I don’t practice the majority religion.
I don’t have to endure stares when I walk into a bathroom because my clothes don’t seem to match my born gender.
I don’t have to have my decisions questioned because I’m retired.
I don’t have to suffer insults at an intersection because I’m hungry and all I have is a sign.
I don’t have to work three jobs to make ends meet.
I don’t notice suspicious stares when I ask a stranger for help.
I don’t have to defend myself when I kiss my significant other in public.
I don’t have to worry about a clerk watching me when I’m perusing through electronics.
I don’t have to think about employers “losing” my application because of my last name.
I don’t have to keep being passed over for jobs because I did time over 20 years ago.
I don’t have to live in fear or instability because my country is colonized.
I don’t have to defend my body because it doesn’t fit a certain body image.

The fact that I can walk through life relatively easily and that others have to jump through arbitrary hoops isn’t fair. I enjoy most of these advantages by accident of birth and rearing. I didn’t set up these social advantages nor did I work to achieve them. I don’t mind the easy road, but I do mind that others don’t have the same privileges and that access to them is made harder by some. I do mind that some groups of which I’m a part keep other groups from their full potential. Is there a way for me to enjoy these freedoms while not appearing (or being) an utter douche? I think the only way I can is by helping to remove barriers. A friend of mine put it this way: acknowledging privilege, showing empathy to the marginalized (his words were discussing people of color), advocating and participating to remove barriers by many means, and then reading perspectives of the marginalized to hear their voices unfiltered through media outlets and paraphrases by the dominant. Who are the marginalized? LGBT, people of color, those who are poor, those of the working class, those of disability, those of non-majority religions, those who are older, those of radical politics, those who are colonized, those who are prisoners or have been, those of “different” body images, and probably others. What groups have I left out because my privilege affords me ignorance of them?

Want to hear voices different from yours? Here are some. They are not representative of every person in the group because there is ridiculous diversity within each group. Include others I don’t know about.

Social Justice, Liberation, and “Negative Utilitarianism”

I’m listening to an interviewee, Toby Ord, on a podcast called “Conversations from the Pale Blue Dot” on choosing between ethical theories. He was talking about consequentialism when I thought of something: how does social justice fit into these theories? This has all been culminating from Micki Pulleyking’s ethics unit (which involved selections from Michael Sandel’s Justice), Phil Snider’s ethics course (Sandel again), and Kathy Pulley’s assignment of James Cone’s A Black Theology of Liberation and Miguel de la Torre’s Latina/o Social Ethics. It would probably fit under consequentialism/utilitarianism, or “in/action that would cause the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people” (what usually goes with this is “regardless of means”). I thought whether there is an inverse to that, action that reduces the sum misery of all (but which also goes, as far as possible, through painless means; but then, how much positive change is truly without its pains?). I might term this “negative consequentialism” or just come up with a cool name for it if it doesn’t already exist. I have communitarian concerns in mind when I think about this. As I’ve been wondering about various types of liberation–
here are some I can think of:

  • Gender- transcending binary stereotypes, and allowing for transgender, women having the freedom to maximize potential
  • Race- oppressed peoples (regardless of skin color) whose voices have been silenced by the powerful
  • Class- when the rich few control the social, economic, and political realities and opportunities of the mass, and don’t fairly distribute resources
  • Animal- they are given as natural of lives as possible; when endangered, helped; domestic animals allowed more freedom in life, freedom from too many unnatural strictures, even those bred to eat
  • Sexual- where sexual needs and desires are met as far as possible, with dignity for partners involved, protection from disease, protection from relational abuse or mistreatment, non-exploitative, unrestricted, not duty-bound but flows with desire
  • Psychological- freedom from the pains of mental illness, freedom from the stigma of “crazy,” opportunities for health, education, and career
  • Queer- ability to flourish without oppression due to one’s sexual orientation, to love whom one loves, to marry the person(s) of your choice (liberation from monogamous hegemony maybe?)
  • Dogmatic- where religion is used to stifle creativity or maintain a status quo based on uncritical acceptance of (a) charismatic leader’s(‘) influence and thought, where “other” is demonized or cast as “sinful” “heretical” or worthy of any type of this-worldly punishment at the hands of said community
  • Familial- where family members abuse others based on some form of power (parental, older sibling, size, economic, etc.)
  • Political- where one is constrained just a bit too much by the government
  • Etc.- each of these has more to say about it, are not mutually exclusive, and is not exhaustive in what one can be liberated from. Pretty much all of this looks like escape from the definitions, abuses, and clutches of the powerful.

I’ve wondered at what the ideal society would look like. To me it would be where voices aren’t shut out because of marginality. Voices would be heard irrespective of their origins. People would have dignity with no fear of attack on their persons. People wouldn’t be stifled based on constructed otherness. Basic needs would be met and psychological needs would be apt to be met. Communities would think things out critically and for extended periods. The arts and humanities would flourish. With this idea of negative utilitarianism, I would need to think through what I believe misery is, its causes, and then think of ways out. What do you think? Does liberation strike chords with you positively or negatively? Can you think of types of liberation I’ve omitted?

If You Love America, What Is It That You Love?

I’ve heard it said that when someone loves America, they love what the idea of it stands for. They love the people in it. They love what the founders were after. But when it comes down to what the government does, these same will criticize it to the point of a nagging spouse who resents everything the offending spouse stands for. In fact, they’re ready for divorce. What gives? Why this discrepancy between ideal and actuality?

It is interesting that people do not hold this ideal/actuality distinction when referring to other countries. When these people say they wouldn’t want to live in Canada, France, Britain, Djibouti, South Africa, Japan, Laos, Australia, or Brazil, I don’t think they’re talking about what idea these countries stand for, the general populace in these countries, or what their founders were after. They say they wouldn’t want to live there because of the current laws there, the regimes in place, the underlying socio/economic/political climate is. So whence the inconsistency when talking about America? Maybe it is because this is their home. Maybe if they were from one of the aforementioned countries, they would make the distinction ideal/actuality distinction there as they do here.

If it comes down to what we have in place, I both love and despise this country. I love that there is at least the constitutional possibility of free speech, press, religion, assembly, petition, bearing of arms, against quartering troops, all that supposed legal protection (provided you’re loaded enough to defend yourself), etc. I despise the fact that there are so many laws, one is near being a criminal for existing. I despise that many constitutional guarantees are “legally” (not constitutionally of course, unless we also get to get bent over by the corruption within some judges who interpret the constitution/laws against their pretty plain meaning) run over by 3 letter agencies, because they have standing armies to justify their actions and we don’t. I love that my political enemies are generally content not to literally eviscerate my family or me. I hate that we are polarized so deeply because the people can’t realize there might be more than 2 options on the table at any time. But if we come down to it, where we judge our love for something by a government’s actions, then I can’t stand America. I can’t stand the silent slavery of the majority to the secret few. The government knows too well not to be too overt in its coercion or oppression, or people might actually wake up from their yawning stupor, their contentment with bread and circuses, and revolt. Or at least change something drastically. I’m ready for change. Not empty promises. Change. Change toward freedom.