/lit/ - Literature

>>3154950

listen to people.

discard the mundane.

embellish that which is beautiful or thought provoking.

it is easier said than done.

but it is rather simple, if you have the talent.

Good quote.

Good quote.

- Fat white guy doesn't want to work

>>3154971

Isn't it just? Bucky was da fucking business.

>>3154974
excellent refutation

True quote. Why do we do this? Why are we so obsessed with material production and 'advancement' toward nothing in particular?

Have fun scrounging off others while waiting for you technological breakthrough.

>>3155029

>Implying I'm waiting for any technological breakthrough

Your quote is meaningless, btw.

>>3155031
>Your quote is meaningless
Then you are clearly a moron.

A sustainable post-scarcity society is a goal that capitalism can never fulfill, and it's one of the few worthy goals that can be achieved collectively.

>>3155052
>post-scarcity
"Duuuude, what if, like, everything was free man?"

>>3155059
If it were materially possible, then it should be.

>>3155059
Is that really the best counter-argument you can produce?

Post-scarcity is really what humanity should be pushing to achieve not, as it is now, the collection of material wealth. The only people I can imagine who would rather not work towards post-scarcity, are those for whom power is derived through the poverty of others.

>>3155062
But everything has such a drastically variable value. Why do you get to work a few hours a day watering the grapes and making the wine, when some men are having to spend 6 months on an oil rig, or putting themselves into burning houses to save people, or protecting your ideal society from foreign armies. You cant assign the same value to everybodys contribution, because some will have to work much harder than others.

>If it were materially possible
Yes. If you had every crude ore refined, every silk thread spun, every crop grown, every illness healed... Every thing you could ever want piled in a giant mound in front of you, then yes, it could "be achieved collectively."

>3155074

Are you really going to argue that capitalism is efficient at managing compensation for labor? Are you fucking stupid?

Interesting enough, but I can't help but feel rather suspect about the whole idea.

Even if human beings were not actually "working", they would still be "working" due to providing stable output. But when a population ceases to directly perform the means through which it earns livelihood, there is a natural vulnerability.

Am I wrong here? The Marxist-oriented opinion that people will automatically create rather than simply indulge seems rather rose-tinted to me. The only practical function knowledge has is application, I'm not quite convinced that a society that indulges will necessarily turn out geniuses in so linear a fashion.

Second argument: the moment a society drops the ball, someone else will pick it up and use it against them. The constant "irrational" movement towards continual work would seem to result from circumstances favoring competition.

>>3155079
It would be, unfortunately it isn't given a chance.

>>3155074
>protecting your ideal society from foreign armies

It would be a global system.


>Am I wrong here? The Marxist-oriented opinion that people will automatically create rather than simply indulge seems rather rose-tinted to me. The only practical function knowledge has is application, I'm not quite convinced that a society that indulges will necessarily turn out geniuses in so linear a fashion.

It's ironic since you're communicating the type of internalized discipline of work culture the bourgeoisie relies on. The very notion that work needs to be incentivized with material compensation is part of the system. In light of this, it's not a stretch to think people can understand the notion of contributing to a society that ensures their survival and the survival of everyone else, especially since the capitalist ethic for workers is already couched in similar rhetoric

>The constant "irrational" movement towards continual work would seem to result from circumstances favoring competition.

No, it favors the competition of the proletariat against itself. The ruling class has already won the game.

>>3155092
I think the idea is hippie commune on a national scale. No technological breakthroughs, no particle accelerators, no facebook or itunes, no airplanes or space flight. Just farmers sharing food and building houses for each other. Which could work on a mass scale, but I wouldn't want to be a part of it.

>>3155119
No, it's not actually.

>>3155118
>internalized discipline of work culture the bourgeoisie relies on.

>>3155122
I really hope you are trolling.

>>3155128
No, I'm not.

>>3155131
So how are you going to compensate people for their contributions, without directly substituting commodities for money.

>>3154950
Look, I will be honest here. This Fuller dude should read about Arendt. Most of his misconceptions would be cleared.

Earning a living is just secondary to the fact we have to work as it is an intrinsecal part of what Humans are.

>>3155123
Making a circumstantial case against central planning that ended the great depression and resulted in the victory of his beloved "capitalism" in world war 2 is richly ironic. Tell me more about praxeology sometime.

>>3155141
You're presuming people need to be directly compensated when society already provides them with compensation that materially necessitates them to participate. "Hey this system won't work if you don't contribute to it" is pretty easy to understand.

>>3155118
Give me a historical example of what you're saying that actually gives some credence to what you say. Simply writing it off as "internalized work discipline" is ignoring the question of why it should have developed in the first place. This would be the tendency towards rationalization in a competitive sense to yield surplus through exploitation

>No, it favors the competition of the proletariat against itself. The ruling class has already won the game.
you're ignoring what exploitation means in the abstract sense. I can't explain why, but historically reality has allowed an unbalanced structure based on continual exploitation to thrive. Even in cases of revolution this unbalanced character reasserts itself. The human brain itself could be considered an example of this kind of object

So to say that "the proletariat is just hurting itself by not joining together' is quaint but does not actually get around this question. I don't want your shitty critical analysis that assumes criticism-to is reason-for, I want a real reason why this is 1) going to happen, and 2) stable.

>>3155074
>You cant assign the same value to everybodys contribution, because some will have to work much harder than others.
But the people that work the riskiest, most dangerous jobs get paid the least, while people that do no work make trillions of dollars. Clearly, there is no value to work; that is, in a capitalist society.

>>3155152
>You're presuming people need to be directly compensated when society already provides them with compensation that materially necessitates them to participate.

If gay a is working harder than guy B he will want a greater reward, and he should get a greater reward.

>>3155160
This is just untrue.

>>3155176
It's time to get out of your basement.

>>3155157
>1) going to happen, and 2) stable.
Don't indulge him. If he thinks he can have a society like ours is now without any money or trade he is very delusional.

>>3155181
you can get out now

>>3155160
>while people that do no work make trillions of dollars.

The people who make trillions of dollars may not do as much manual work as the people in their factories, but they have worked hard to create an environment where the person working in the factory is free to chose to work there, or set up his own rival company.

>>3155181
>If he thinks he can have a society like ours is now without any money or trade he is very delusional.
This. Most of us will always want more than the guy next door. And even if OP bans money and trade, we will still start a black market trading in goods.

>>3155029
>freedom

Who the fuck is living in a free and prosper society? Delusional as fuck.

>>3155176
No, it's quite true.

>>3155175
The opposite already occurs under capitalism.

>>3155190
>The people who make trillions of dollars may not do as much manual work as the people in their factories, but they have worked hard to create an environment where the person working in the factory is free to chose to work there, or set up his own rival company.

No they haven't.

>>3155157
>I want a real reason why this is 1) going to happen, and 2) stable.

It won't, but that's due to how effective the mechanisms of ideological and physical control are becoming. As for 2, we'll never know.

Appealing to the material relations of society as a function of human nature is no less idiotic though. You do realize that hunter gatherer societies were egalitarian, and that their access to resources was directly proportional to the amount of individual autonomy they enjoyed?

>>3155198
>Who the fuck is living in a free and prosper society?
I am.

>>3155190
Horse. Shit. The only people that have ever given anything close to decent work environment, compensation, or anything else are workers themselves, when they've actually been able to muscle the federal government.

>>3155203
Delusional as fuck.

>>3155203
See the latter portion of the comment you replied to.

>>3155206
What are you blithering about? Do you work a McJob and are butthurt?

>>3155196
>we will still start a black market trading in goods.
Drugs and prostitution more like, OP will never get a monopoly on those.

>>3155216
Christ, how can you be THIS ignorant of the history of labor? Read a book, kid.

>>3155222
0/10 pathetic.

>>3155216
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_history_of_the_United_States
Start there bucko, it's probably at your speed.

>>3155227
I have never been to the united states, I don't care about it's history.

>>3155228
At least it's not just the Americans that are this ignorant. You still need to wake the fuck up.

I hope you are taking notes, OP.

>>3155199
>You do realize that hunter gatherer societies were egalitarian, and that their access to resources was directly proportional to the amount of individual autonomy they enjoyed?
Yes, I'm familiar. However, the very fact that it broke down and technology emerged from it would seem to indicate the imbalance I'm talking about here. If the system was truly stable, it would not be possible for human society to develop means of exploiting nature. Look, I find this very interesting and don't think I'm totally against you, but it is very hard for me to understand how equilibrium can be possible right now in society. It seems to me like the moment an organization stops eating, something in turn arises to eat it as well. The ouroboros, if you're familiar with it.

It seems undeniable that Marx thought of socialism as a kind of equilibrium state of classless power, but how equilibrium is accomplished truly is beyond me

>>3155247
Wake up too what? I have no idea what you are raging against, other than you extreme dislike of conventional economics. I understand how every economic system works, and I understand the ethical implications of them. I can see how, from your perspective, capitalism is bad. But you haven't outlined any sensible way for your system of no money and no trade to work. You honestly seem really delusional. And angry.

>>3155228
>I've never been to a certain country, therefore I feel perfectly justified in knowing fuck-all about its history

Typical American. Oh, wait...

>>3155228

Which is a fundamental problem with achieving world utopia. That is to say, people may not take an interest in the US, but the US certainly takes an interest in you. Make an effort to achieve world utopia as will, the US will be there to slap you down if you manage to get anywhere.

Which goes back to some earlier comments, it will never happen unless it hits a world wide scale, and it will never hit a world wide scale unless the principals allow it to happen. They won't.

Just my two cents.

Now, while I'm all for a study of rabid ideologues dialoguing it up, does anyone have any advise, examples, text books, exercises, etc., on writing good dialogue? Please?

>>3155029
You've never actually experienced living in a world without freedom because you're just another entitled white kid on /lit/, espousing pseudo-intellectual nonsense behind the veil of anonymity.

>>3155022

It's simple. There are jobs no one wants to do, that have to be done. How can you convince people to do those jobs without payment, differing valuation of labor based on skill, supply and demand, currency, etc?

Slavery is the only other option.

>>3155276
>>I've never been to a certain country, therefore I feel perfectly justified in knowing fuck-all about its history
Tell me what you know about the economic history of Burkina Faso then.

>>3155052

There can never be any such thing. Something will always be scarce. Many scarce things would not be desired were they plentiful.

>>3155283
>There are jobs no one wants to do, that have to be done. How can you convince people to do those jobs without payment

This applies to your utopian society free from trade. How are you going to convince someone to work in the sewers when he wants to create music?

>>3155286

I know a significant amount about the history of all the countries with a permanent seat on the UN Security Council - the US is one, Burkina Faso is not.

I also know varying amounts of the histories of all NATO members, all European Union members, all the BRICS, and the largest/most influential countries on each continent.

I do not consider this feat particularly impressive, more like the minimum for a moderately educated individual.

Refusing to learn the history of the most important country on earth because you hate it is the height of nationalistic chauvinism.

>>3155264
> I understand how every economic system works, and I understand the ethical implications of them.
Obviously not.

>But you haven't outlined any sensible way for your system of no money and no trade to work. I never said anything of the sort. You're clearly delusional if don't think there's vast income inequality between workers and capitalists in the world (yes it's a world-wide problem).

>Implying it's bad to be angry

>>3155294

My post was an argument against the trade-free utopia

I didn't read the thread carefully, but I think the quote in OP's aims for a much deeper ideological notion, one that is truly beyond capitalism (though capitalism is how it manifests itself more clearly). Socialist states also fall for the same thing, except with a different direction.

It is the idea that life needs to be earnt that is bothersome, is a constant judgement from us about ourselves ("inspectors inspecting inspectors") in which there is a good way to live and a bad way to live, as if you had to "justify" yourself on how you live.

You mix that up with a collective notion of history, that is, a linear perspective that puts phrases like "in the end..." into arguments and you have nothing short of a reliigous judgement day calling you out on how much you are worthy. The political and economic ideologies will clash on what makes one worthy or not, but they fall for this justificiation system nevertheless in which you need to "earn a living".

>>3155283
I think the point of the other anon is that there are no jobs no one wants to do. These jobs only exist because you want something from them (making your toilet work, for example).

If there were no sewers, no big cities, nothing of that kind, you could indeed just play music and just have a way to supply yourself with the most basic needs, hunting, gathering food, farming. No bad jobs.

I'm not particulary defending this, just saying there is this primitivist possibility other than slavery, if we are talking utopias anyway...

>>3155337
There are many self-sufficient communes already, but they lack the benefits of society that most people want.

>>3155344
Yeah, I agree. People are greedy.

>>3155337

If its an unskilled 'bad job' you could have a roster system, I certainly wouldn't mind doing say one day of picking up litter per year or whatever.

If its a skilled one then you could provide incentives. There's nothing in communism that says every person has to have the exact same level of wealth.

That the solution to everything is "capitalism!!!!" shows just how uncreative we are these days.

>>3155323
You're right about this, but I can't help but wonder what this would look like and how it would work. Simply as a passive stream of throughput that is immobile and does not think?

I feel the question of WHY human beings tend think of work as "earned' is a very fundamental one in understanding what is going on here. Even moreso, I can't help but feel this is something that has a LOT to do with the existence of "rationality" - structures that pursue an end and seek to displace objects to achieve this

I'd be interested to hear an opinion on why this behavior is so prevalent

>>3155426
>I feel the question of WHY human beings tend think of work as "earned' is a very fundamental one in understanding what is going on here.

Doesn't the modern idea of this stem from Protestant ethics that proliferated early America?

>>3155426
Because a huge amount of time is invested and time is limited, so valuable. If someone says can you help me build this huge building, it will take two years. The tendency is to want to be reimbursed for it, as that two years could have been spent surfing and eating pineapples instead of heaving bricks around for 12 hours a day. People want the path of least resistance, or compensation.

>>3154950
Imagine the type of people writing these posts on a saturday night or in the wee hours of a sunday. Why do you think they decided to respond to the image you posted and not your question? What makes them tick? How do they interact with the world? If can "guess" (by this I mean invent) the personalities, backgrounds, genders etc. then you're on the right track. If not, lurk IRL a bit longer.

>>3155441
naw, that is a cheap way out of the question. Sentient structures in general seem to operate along the concept of applying effort to yield reward. It seems very innate, but the reason evades me

>>3155445
But why is the time invested valuable? Because it is the only way of maintaining the structure? This kind of attraction and repulsion reasoning is what I was curious about

>>3155337
Why isn't our primary concern creating machines that will automatically do these jobs that no one wants to do. I'm not joking. The initial cost would be nothing in comparison to the money saved on not having to pay laborers.

>>3155374
I don't "we" are shouting "capitalism!!!" today...

Zizek's speech on wall-street covers that "uncreativity" you mention, somewhat, it should be an insteresting read to you:

http://www.versobooks.com/blogs/736-slavoj-zizek-at-occupy-wall-street-we-are-not-dreamers-we-are-th
e-awakening-from-a-dream-which-is-turning-into-a-nightmare

>>3155426
>how it would work
I'm not proposing the opposite thing. I'm taking note on this ideological tendency. But just because you are not living to earn your life does not make you passive. That shows how rooted the mindset is, that can make you think that the alternative is non-action. Can you see?

Anyway, this is all due to the enlightenment era, then pushed over by the industrial age even further. Functionalism, capitalism, pragmatism, positivism, objectivism... "you gotta earn your living".

>>3155525
>I don't think "we"
fix'd

>>3154950
Never mind that, I read thru the B. Fuller quote and asked myself, "why in the blue hell *should* someone who is capable of such a tecnological breakthrough support ten thousand other people?" Mr. Fuller seems to have been a good deal out of touch with the actual world.

>>3155029
>free
>prosperous
surely you jest

>>But just because you are not living to earn >>your life does not make you passive.

...but if you aren't "earning your life," someone else is earning it for you. Why should they?

>>3155513
>But why is the time invested valuable?
Because time isn't infinite for each person, you have less than 100 years. A man doesn't want to have to build his own TV, Microwave, Fridge, brew his own beers, and everything else he wants, so people want to be free to trade goods. Our man might sit and spend a week building a bicycle. He freely chooses to trade this with the man who built the TV, they both agree that the TV is worth more; the parts inside are more complicated and it was harder to make, so they need some way of IOUing the difference - money.

People just want to build things and trade them because they don't have time to learn everything and build everything themselves. If you want something you cant take it from some one, you have to earn it. You have to work to create something valuable that you can trade for the thing you want, OR build it yourself.

>>3155574

Anonymous 11/17/12(Sat)21:08 No.3155574

>>People just want to build things and trade >them because they don't have time to learn >everything and build everything themselves. If >you want something you cant take it from >some one, you have to earn it. You have to >work to create something valuable that you >can trade for the thing you want, OR build it >yourself.

And everyone is not equally good at everything, no matter how much they learn; individuals will always need services that they won't be able to learn for themselves, whether it's entertainment or medical care or physical labor or whatever.

>>3155570
I did not say you are not earning your life, I said you are not living to earn your life.

That is, you're not living with the goal, the value, the ideal of earning it as the impulse to live. You don't hold the dichotomy of earned or not-earned as a way to measure your life. You perhaps don't measure at all.

Someone else is not earning for you, that's not it...

>>3155256
Excellent observation. The notion of perfect equality falls apart once we admit that each human is not equal every other physically or mentally. Imagine a scenario if you will: the descendants of the original ancestral homosapiens all live together in one region in Africa. For a billion years, they play the mating game, as animals tend to do. One day, one of the early humans sees two others struggling with the task of killing prey. Being stronger and fearless, he kills the beast easily.

Immediately, the smaller and weaker humans begin relying on him to provide, but also rely on his instruction with patriarchal obedience. He has provided. Being more capable has earned him a position of leader ship and other families afraid of being unable to provide for their young are willing to obey his instruction if it means survival.

Across the pond, the same evolution is taking place, but this innovator did not have a realization based around his physique, but on observation and memory. He recognizes where to find edible plants, and when they appear based on the weather. He has his own ideas on how to best run the show, and his own followers.

Skip one hundred years. The original tribe of humans is in great turmoil. Born into the benefits of leadership, the descendants of these original innovators have matured, and are unwilling to give up their privileges. Suddenly, a tremendous storm floods the playa where the humans live. In the wake of this disaster, several factions, each led by a different leader, begin a long migration to find a promised new land in which they will prosper, as a result, the various people's of the earth find their homeland, each based upon an entirely different concept of what will bring happiness. We cannot expect to find one universal system, as some people feel their very existence calls for them to innovate.

>>3155590
>you are not living to earn your life.
People are just jealous of the person wish they were. A random guy has a mental image of being on his private boat drinking champagne with playboy bunnies, it's a mental image of having more that keeps him earning. He wants a bigger TV, a faster car, a private jet, but he doesn't have to. He could go and live on a commune and grow crops with the group, but if he really wants to work to try and win his objects, why stop him? He knows he doesn't have to have them, but he still wants them. If someone wants to sell them to him, and he wants to work to get them, then I say let him do it. I might not like what he's doing, but I wouldn't deprive him of being able to do it.

>>3155609
Because these values were sold to him by lies. The image is created around these objects, they are not the objects themselves. So they believe a bigger tv will make them happier, but they want to live the image they saw and thus, they make themselves an image, so showing off the big tv becomes more important than the tv itself. And that man will work his ass off and quite actually waste his precious time in the build up of something that is rather empty to begin with.

The point is not telling people what to do, because that would fall for the same problem I was talking about. The point is raising awareness to the fact that we are told what to do, that these desires are fruit of images that were cultivated by this very ideology that you should earn your life. Which is, in fact, quite differenf from the example you are giving.

Earning your life means
>if you don't work for yourself, you deserve living
>if you don't work for the collective, you don't deserve living
>if you don't live dangerously, you don't deserve living
>if you don't x, you don't deserve living
It just depens on what scenario you are talking about. In the case of capitalism, "if you don't have a Lamborghini or is at least wasting 10 hours working and dreaming about that Lamborghini, with a picture of it in your locker, then you don't deserve living".

>>3155672
>In the case of capitalism, "if you don't have a Lamborghini or is at least wasting 10 hours working and dreaming about that Lamborghini, with a picture of it in your locker, then you don't deserve living".

That's not capitalism, that's social conditioning. In capitalism you have a completely free choice of whether or not you want to try and work hard for the car.

>>3155052
You're implying that post-scarcity is possible in another systems, which in inevitably false. Scarcity is unavoidable, and capitalism is the best system to allocate, and ration what we do have, how we produce it, and to whom gets it.

>>3155705
tfw you realize war is a natural byproduct of our species and the competition for resources

>>3155693
Please, spare me from those ideas of "freedom of choice" within capitalism...

>>3155731
I'm not trying to convert you to capitalism. I'm pointing out that the guy lusting over a million dollar sportscar isn't being told to buy it because he is in a capitalism system, otherwise everyone would want one. He wants it as a result of social conditioning. He could be in any political system and still lust after something he thought would define or complete him, would get him laid or make him popular. Capitalism provides him the opportunity to potentially get it, despite shit odds, but isn't the cause of his desire for it.

>>3155729
>that feel you'll never live in a post-scarcity economy with no war

>>3155672
The tendency of marxist theorists to devalue commodities as somehow "false" or "illusionary" is one of the more irritating tendencies of the ideology. Even funnier since their claims rest on a materialist basis.

Much of consumerism is socially conditioned, granted. But simply writing off consumption as "a lie" undervalues the active participation of consumers in the process of buying. They would not be receptive if they did not think they were getting something out of it.

You can probably write some of this off as having to do with accumulative tendencies of the brain, but I don't' think that is accurate either. The truth is that people genuinely enjoy more stimulating commodities, and for this reason we are seeing the rise of progressively more intense forms of stimulation. It isn't fair to just say it is all a vast illusion and ignore the motivating drive being exploited

>>3155759
>Implying

>>3155770
It costs labour, capital, and land though, and there's a limited supply of land, and ergo capital, so it's not really free.

>>3155763
>Much of consumerism is socially conditioned, granted. But simply writing off consumption as "a lie" undervalues the active participation of consumers in the process of buying. They would not be receptive if they did not think they were getting something out of it.


You really ought to read those theorists before you spout about them. Marxism doesn't often deal in categories of 'truth' and 'falsehood' - Marx certainly does not. It is simply that he recognizes a given commodity is treated, for the purposes of its value in exchange, in a manner distinct from its use, whatever that may be.

Commodities have an 'illusory character' insofar as gold coins are treated as something of massive worth, when from a scientific, materialistic and autistically practical level, they are worth less than a loaf of bread.

>>3155758
I understand you are not preaching, but that is nevertheless a romantic vision of capitalism. He doesn't really have that freedom and that opportunity of getting it. I think you're underestimating how propaganda works, how far the regular guy is from the sportscar and how much importance people give this sportscar to begin with. You are right that it is social conditioning that makes that happen, but the problem is that social conditioning is support by capitalism all the way. Capitalism feeds on it, on the accumulation of wealth, on these differences, on the guy who need to a) want the sportscar and b) work his entire life and not get it. You know, the fishing rod and the carrot, the hamster in the wheel.

And the idea that the guy could achieve it, despite shitty odds, is exactly the one that greats visions of failure and victory. "Maybe I can have the car if I work hard enough" and 30 years later, the guy hasn't put his hands on it and consider himself a failure. A failure at life. As if he didn't deserve the car and the guy who has it, deserve it. "Earning life" mentality again and again

>>3155781
my understanding of commodity fetishism was that it dismissed the value of commodities in themselves as an attractor. For the record, I have read the particular passage in question.

nevertheless, regardless of my interpretation it seems apparent to me that most Marxists and critics of capitalism play down the value of consumerism as "misguided thinking conditioned by capitalists". Which seems outright false for the reasons I have mentioned.

>>3155780
It depends where it's done. Some countries you to own land and not pay council tax if you are not using any fiscal resources. After the initial purchase, the land could be cultivated and maintained by the residents without a monetary system. There are many fully self-sufficient communes around the world. In my country there are about 30, but there are hundreds throughout Europe.

>>3155787
you are both missing the point. It's not about the actual car. The car is simply symbolic of self identity and "making it" to a certain plateau of success. Not everyone wants the car, but everyone wants something to represent when you finally "get there." This is less based on the system we live in, and more on the natural competition we have as offspring. Likely, when we've "made it" is an imaginary point that puts us in competition with our parent, or some other successful role model. It's entirely natural. Denying the impulse to compete is as much a choice as obeying it.

Translated: I deserve the fruits of another man's labor.

Typical liberal mindset, really.

ITT:
>tfw no lamborghini and no qtgf

>>3155803
I'm glad we agree that neoliberalism and capitalism are both economically and morally unacceptable! :)

>>3155799
It would still cost the people their labour to cultivate, and maintain the land. Not to mention the supply of their cultivated, and maintained land would be p. inelastic, because of the maintenance, and time required for agriculture.

>>3155814
Freedom and a society where you are forced to work for the interests of others are incompatible. The unabomber hit the nail on the head when describing the mindset of liberals in his manifesto.

16. Words like "self-confidence," "self-reliance," "initiative",
"enterprise," "optimism," etc. play little role in the liberal and
leftist vocabulary. The leftist is anti-individualistic,
pro-collectivist. He wants society to solve everyone's needs for them,
take care of them. He is not the sort of person who has an inner sense
of confidence in his own ability to solve his own problems and satisfy
his own needs. The leftist is antagonistic to the concept of
competition because, deep inside, he feels like a loser.

10. By "feelings of inferiority" we mean not only inferiority feelings
in the strictest sense but a whole spectrum of related traits: low
self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, depressive tendencies,
defeatism, guilt, self-hatred, etc. We argue that modern leftists tend
to have such feelings (possibly more or less repressed) and that these
feelings are decisive in determining the direction of modern leftism.

11. When someone interprets as derogatory almost anything that is said
about him (or about groups with whom he identifies) we conclude that
he has inferiority feelings or low self-esteem. This tendency is
pronounced among minority rights advocates, whether or not they belong
to the minority groups whose rights they defend. They are
hypersensitive about the words used to designate minorities. The terms
"negro," "oriental," "handicapped" or "chick" for an African, an
Asian, a disabled person or a woman originally had no derogatory
connotation. "Broad" and "chick" were merely the feminine equivalents
of "guy," "dude" or "fellow." The negative connotations have been
attached to these terms by the activists themselves. Some animal
rights advocates have gone so far as to reject the word "pet" and
insist on its replacement by "animal companion." Leftist
anthropologists go to great lengths to avoid saying anything about
primitive peoples that could conceivably be interpreted as negative.
They want to replace the word "primitive" by "nonliterate." They seem
almost paranoid about anything that might suggest that any primitive
culture is inferior to our own. (We do not mean to imply that
primitive cultures ARE inferior to ours. We merely point out the
hypersensitivity of leftish anthropologists.)

12. Those who are most sensitive about "politically incorrect"
terminology are not the average black ghetto-dweller, Asian immigrant,
abused woman or disabled person, but a minority of activists, many of
whom do not even belong to any "oppressed" group but come from
privileged strata of society. Political correctness has its stronghold
among university professors, who have secure employment with
comfortable salaries, and the majority of whom are heterosexual, white
males from middle-class families.

13. Many leftists have an intense identification with the problems of
groups that have an image of being weak (women), defeated (American
Indians), repellent (homosexuals), or otherwise inferior. The leftists
themselves feel that these groups are inferior. They would never admit
it to themselves that they have such feelings, but it is precisely
because they do see these groups as inferior that they identify with
their problems. (We do not suggest that women, Indians, etc., ARE
inferior; we are only making a point about leftist psychology).

14. Feminists are desperately anxious to prove that women are as
strong as capable as men. Clearly they are nagged by a fear that women
may NOT be as strong and as capable as men.

>>3155800
even if it is about socially conditioned symbols of affluence the general tendency is to move towards the intrinsic value of the commodity itself.

This is the big thing about technology critics of capitalism don't seem to understand: it is alienating consumers from "social"" society because it is replacing the traditional exchanges with more appealing forms. The emergence and proliferation of recreational drug use, for instance, could easily be argued to be the next stage of commodity development- directly affecting consumers chemically rather than indirectly.

What I'm saying is that even if there is a social aspect the broad "rails" of development tend towards the elements of the commodity in itself.

15. Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong,
good and successful. They hate America, they hate Western
civilization, they hate white males, they hate rationality. The
reasons that leftists give for hating the West, etc. clearly do not
correspond with their real motives. They SAY they hate the West
because it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric and so
forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist countries or in
primitive cultures, the leftist finds excuses for them, or at best he
GRUDGINGLY admits that they exist; whereas he ENTHUSIASTICALLY points
out (and often greatly exaggerates) these faults where they appear in
Western civilization. Thus it is clear that these faults are not the
leftist's real motive for hating America and the West. He hates
America and the West because they are strong and successful.


17. Art forms that appeal to modern leftist intellectuals tend to
focus on sordidness, defeat and despair, or else they take an
orgiastic tone, throwing off rational control as if there were no hope
of accomplishing anything through rational calculation and all that
was left was to immerse oneself in the sensations of the moment.

18. Modern leftist philosophers tend to dismiss reason, science,
objective reality and to insist that everything is culturally
relative. It is true that one can ask serious questions about the
foundations of scientific knowledge and about how, if at all, the
concept of objective reality can be defined. But it is obvious that
modern leftist philosophers are not simply cool-headed logicians
systematically analyzing the foundations of knowledge. They are deeply
involved emotionally in their attack on truth and reality. They attack
these concepts because of their own psychological needs. For one
thing, their attack is an outlet for hostility, and, to the extent
that it is successful, it satisfies the drive for power. More
importantly, the leftist hates science and rationality because they
classify certain beliefs as true (i.e., successful, superior) and
other beliefs as false (i.e. failed, inferior). The leftist's feelings
of inferiority run so deep that he cannot tolerate any classification
of some things as successful or superior and other things as failed or
inferior. This also underlies the rejection by many leftists of the
concept of mental illness and of the utility of IQ tests. Leftists are
antagonistic to genetic explanations of human abilities or behavior
because such explanations tend to make some persons appear superior or
inferior to others. Leftists prefer to give society the credit or
blame for an individual's ability or lack of it. Thus if a person is
"inferior" it is not his fault, but society's, because he has not been
brought up properly.

>>3155825
>describing the mindset of liberals
Why don't Americans understand what liberal means?

"Liberalism (from the Latin liberalis)[1] is a political philosophy or worldview founded on the ideas of liberty and equality.[2] Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally they support ideas such as free and fair elections, civil rights, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, free trade, and a right to life, liberty, and property"

19. The leftist is not typically the kind of person whose feelings of
inferiority make him a braggart, an egotist, a bully, a self-promoter,
a ruthless competitor. This kind of person has not wholly lost faith
in himself. He has a deficit in his sense of power and self-worth, but
he can still conceive of himself as having the capacity to be strong,
and his efforts to make himself strong produce his unpleasant
behavior. [1] But the leftist is too far gone for that. His feelings
of inferiority are so ingrained that he cannot conceive of himself as
individually strong and valuable. Hence the collectivism of the
leftist. He can feel strong only as a member of a large organization
or a mass movement with which he identifies himself.

20. Notice the masochistic tendency of leftist tactics. Leftists
protest by lying down in front of vehicles, they intentionally provoke
police or racists to abuse them, etc. These tactics may often be
effective, but many leftists use them not as a means to an end but
because they PREFER masochistic tactics. Self-hatred is a leftist
trait.

>>3155842
I guess you don't have an argument so you'll play the "stupid MURRIKANS MISUSING WORDZ!!!" game.

21. Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated by compassion
or by moral principle, and moral principle does play a role for the
leftist of the oversocialized type. But compassion and moral principle
cannot be the main motives for leftist activism. Hostility is too
prominent a component of leftist behavior; so is the drive for power.
Moreover, much leftist behavior is not rationally calculated to be of
benefit to the people whom the leftists claim to be trying to help.
For example, if one believes that affirmative action is good for black
people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action in hostile or
dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be more productive to take a
diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make at least verbal
and symbolic concessions to white people who think that affirmative
action discriminates against them. But leftist activists do not take
such an approach because it would not satisfy their emotional needs.
Helping black people is not their real goal. Instead, race problems
serve as an excuse for them to express their own hostility and
frustrated need for power. In doing so they actually harm black
people, because the activists' hostile attitude toward the white
majority tends to intensify race hatred.

22. If our society had no social problems at all, the leftists would
have to INVENT problems in order to provide themselves with an excuse
for making a fuss.

23. We emphasize that the foregoing does not pretend to be an accurate
description of everyone who might be considered a leftist. It is only
a rough indication of a general tendency of leftism.

>>3155672 here

>>3155763
(missed your post, just saw it)

When I said lies I was actually referring to what is talked about these objects. The objects are sold through lies, that is, advertising, peripheral values, the text around these objects, the fetish.

If the car is being sold through the slogan "buy it and you'll be a sexy beast", the guy will desire the car not for the ride, but for the ladies. Intererestingly enough, the same slogan will be lying to the ladies who will also fall for it and they will begin desiring the man(the sexy beast) with that car. In the end, the guy will have what he wants. Is a lie that works both ways like that really a lie? The satisfaction is real for the product (don't be confused: I mean the girls) is delivered.

So it's something that is built with the help of everyone, the girls, the guys, the car companies, the State, even religion and other institutions like that. But still, there is a great imbalance between each one of those things and money is still at the very center of it. The guy will feel like an underachiever for not having the car, even if he has a nice lady to his side. The dream, the image, will move people around and that is a real action that shapes society, but a real action that is based on a primordial lie: that he needs it to score with the ladies.

>>3155848
What? I don't want an argument, I genuinely don't understand why Americans have some bizarre definition of liberal compared to the rest of the world.

>>3155854
Eh, there are so many inherent assumptions about the gullibility of consumers that I'm not sure are proven with that kind of approach. For one, it takes the effectiveness of advertising messages at face value without really looking at the motivations of consumers. While it is true that advertising is often surprisingly effective, I'm not exactly convinced that this is the base motivation for purchase

>>3155835
Drug use is already part of it ever since the beggining. You get alcohol prohibition and liberation as an example. Cannabis prohibition was also long before political and social concerns for its recreational use, as it was dangerous to the cotton production.

But you look at cigarettes as the best example, they went from just a thing, to something everyone should use, to something that no one should use, all in one single century and all because of money. The taste of the cigarette hasn't changed much, but at one point it was just something people did, at the other it made you a sexy beast, at the other you were a suicidal filthy scum. How weird is that?

>>3155825
>>3155832
>>3155833
>>3155836
>>3155839
>>3155844
>>3155849
gb2 /jp/

>>3155897
I'll shitpost wherever the FUCK I want to, dweeb.

>>3155887
How much can we blame advertising? How much can we blame the consumers themselves?

I don't think there is much to assume other than that it's a vicious cycle. If you are surrounded by a certain notion over a product and it convinces you, it becomes your desire. As soon as it becomes your desire you are already being a fragment to the surrounding environment of a second person, who will then desire the thing too.

It's not something that works 100%, I'm not saying that. There are ups and downs and a constant flow of information, a rollercoaster of values. But it's vicious and it is made to hide itself. That is, if you are used to these ads, you won't notice how ridiculous they are.

More people wanting it leads to more people wanting it. More money makes it easier for you to acquire more money. All this sort of cumulative tendency is what is bothersome, in my opinion.

>>3155854
>that he needs it to score with the ladies

It's true that he doesn't need that specific car to get the ladies, but like a peacock it's a way of showing status. There will always be things and possessions out there to flaunt your social value, advertising just shapes what these things are.

>>3155926
Sure.

>advertising just shapes what these things are.
But that's the danger of it.

Adversting shapes what those things are, media shapes adverstising, money shapes media and the things that flaunt your social value are suddenly very specific things that makes you give more money to very specific people.

>>3155559
The actual world as inflected by capitalism you mean. That frame of capitalist discourse is the only reason a question such as yours ever finds purchase in these conversations. One can imagine a different frame.