/lit/ - Literature

I am bipolar and wrote this in a mania a few weeks ago and spammed it everywhere thinking it mattered. This is going to be several posts so sorry:

"Solve et coagula' is a Latin phrase associated with alchemy. It can be translated as "to dissolve and coagulate" or "to separate and join". This is a principle which has relatives throughout the modern fields of science and philosophy, such as Hegel's idealism, the Scientific Method and even, to some degree, Marxism's conception of dialectical materialism. Two Marx's most famous statements exemplify the debt to the alchemical principle some dimensions of his thought owe themselves: "Thephilosophers have only interpreted the worldin various ways; the point, however, is to change it" from his 'Theses on Fuerbach' and "All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind. The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe" from 'The Communist Manifesto'.

The principles of Gestalt psychology which today still make up the bedrock of cognitive psychology, propose that beyond a certain point humans can't break down sensations without them becoming incomprehensible. We naturally seek put patterns in the sensory information available to us. Thus, if we deconstruct things to better understand them, we must also reconstruct them in order to move forward.

Postmodernity, as it has been managed by the ruling class and culturally embedded throughout the era of neoliberal globalization, generally incentivizes solve and discourages coagula. To be sure, those who were originally labeled "postmodernist" and their precursors probably didn't intend for this to be the outcome of their activities. Nontheless, the present incarnation of postmodernity as a cultural force insists that only in the ruins of deconstruction can anything resembling liberation be achieved, that all disassembled social constructions must remain fluid lest they reinforce oppressive social structures.

This attitude essentially posits that the base has progressed about as far as it will go and that all which is left to do is argue about the nuances of the superstructure. It ignores any challenge to the end of history model or cynically folds such challenges into their arguments for its continued relevance. Rather than view 9/11 as a refutation of their utopia, Western elites argued that it merely showed the west hadn't done enough exporting of its values across the globe. Rather than resurrect the old welfare states of the mid 20th Century to temper the anger of the masses during the 2008 crash, the ruling class doubled down and imposed austerity. Solve's dominance persisted and continued to demoralize any organization which aimed to move beyond it and preemptively eradicate even the potential for a much needed mass coagula."