/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11926958]

>study philosophy in uni
>practice meditation, yoga, lucid dreaming, astral projection, entheogenic shamanism, tantric sex, etc.
>experience "enlightenment" (in the Eastern and Western sense)
>can no longer enjoy fiction as it is all predictable except rare experimental and post-modern works
>exclusively read theory and can feel it transforming my brain like magic spells from a grimoire
>have to write senior thesis next semester
>feel torn between spreading universal enlightenment (is everyone even interested?) or promoting marxist progressivism to ease the the aches and toils of the bodies of man so that they might become more interested in spiritual enlightenment

Are there any works that examine the intersection of Marxism and Mysticism/Magic? I quite like Benjamin's Theses on the Philosophy of History if there are any similar works to recommend...

[Anonymous No.11926969]

what a fucking pseud

[Anonymous No.11926972]

>>11926958
How about sticking your head out of your ass ?

[Anonymous No.11926997]

>>11926972
>>11926969
>6969
Nice...

Guess y'all don't read enough to have any good reccs?

[Anonymous No.11927012]

>philosphy in uni
useless meme degree
>meditation
somewhat useful for stress management and improved attention span, and that's about it
>astral projection
literally fantasy
>shamanism
literally fantasy
>enlightenment
literally fantasy

Kys

[Anonymous No.11927015]

>promoting marxist progressivism
>spiritual enlightenment

[Anonymous No.11927027]

I'd take threads like these over shitty frogposts and i cunt read dootoo ADHD threads any day of the week.

[Anonymous No.11927029]

>>11926958
>promoting marxist progressivism
>they might become more interested in spiritual enlightenment
pick one

[Anonymous No.11927045]

>>11926958
based

[Anonymous No.11927092]

There's a sect of Communism from Argentina iirc with quasi-religious elements regarding space aliens. Not a commie but I thought they were pretty interesting.

[Anonymous No.11927216]

>>11927045
unironically this

[Anonymous No.11927263]

>>11926958
The short answer is Sri Aurobindo described himself as a Marxist and so you could check out his spiritual writings. The longer answer is that the teachings you speak of are fundamentally anti-modern, anti-progressive, anti-materialist (and by implication anti-Marxist) and so on. Even if they don't appear to be so on the surface, once you get into the practical applications of teaching it and basing a society around it than it ends up that way inevitably so long as you are not straying from the doctrine. Read Guenon for an illustration of this.

[Anonymous No.11927264]

>experience enlightenment
Considering how neurotic you sound, I doubt it. At most you had some short-lived samadhi.

[Anonymous No.11927278]

>>11926958
not so much marxism and magic, but technology and magic, maybe...

>>11926845

[Anonymous No.11927333]

>>11926958
ITT: jelly anons full of ressentiment and NPCjuice

Tell us more about your fun times, OP

[Anonymous No.11927360]

Tfw enligthened but no desires to help since I'm everybody.

[Anonymous No.11927404]

>>11927012
What a good little boy you are! Always the first to repeat what the grown-ups said is good or bad. How readily and deeply your mind accepted all the limitations society forced upon it. Good, good little boy.

[Anonymous No.11927407]

>>11927404
mad

[Anonymous No.11927421]

>>11927407
Open your eyes, the shit really be mad out there.

[Anonymous No.11927437]

>>11927421
is this some weird like leftypol hey we're cool too thing or something

[Anonymous No.11927455]

faggot

[Anonymous No.11927459]

>>11927437
It is what it is. Have fun in your brain cage

[Anonymous No.11927469]

>>11926958
if you're willing to re-think your meme pop-identity and read hegel with an open mind you might be saved yet

[Anonymous No.11927475]

>>11927012
t. NPC

[Anonymous No.11927483]

>>11926958
spreading Marxism is definitely the more practical route.
as you can see from this thread there is quite a bit of resistance and ignorance surrounding enlightenment.
I've been consumed for years at this point by task of creating a memetic virus capable of propagating some basic truths about the human condition to help loosen up the opposition to the coming of communism.

Nowadays I oscillate between two extremes:

1. There is no way this can be done. people's biases are imprinted deeply in childhood, there's no amount of logic or data that can make a difference. All we can do is to be very kind and compassionate to show that community is possible.
2. A thoroughly hyperlinked digital book, where the reader can follow any argumentative path they feel like, and from any angle we can lead them back to communism by the Socratic method.

I don't know, what do you think?

[Anonymous No.11927502]

>>11926958
>undergrad
>tantric sex
>claims to be enlightened
Not gonna make it, fleshbag.

[Anonymous No.11927510]

>>11926958
You must write the senior thesis on transcendental empiricism

[Anonymous No.11927514]

>>11927360
this

[Anonymous No.11927515]

why did I choose to study something I hate lads fuck me

[Anonymous No.11927525]

>>11927502

[Anonymous No.11927527]

>>11927515
it was a necessary step, now you are able to take a new one

[Anonymous No.11927530]

>>11927527
dropping out?

[Anonymous No.11927542]

>>11926958
If this was sci or lit, and you wouldnt get banned for this shit, id be questioning humanity.

[Anonymous No.11927545]

>>11927483
>gommie in charge of not equating his positivist belief system with god
all roads may lead to the divine, but to each person in their own way. there is no such thing as a universal proof that could make readers submit to your particular ideology, because that isn't how truth works.

the name that can be named is not the eternal name, etc.

[Anonymous No.11927546]

>>11926958
>marxist progressivism
nice bait, almost had me.

[Anonymous No.11927556]

>>11927530
it doesn't matter really

[Anonymous No.11927572]

>>11926958
>can no longer enjoy fiction as it is all predictable except rare experimental and post-modern works
>plotfag
>enlightened
lol

[Anonymous No.11927581]

>>11927556
tfw can't imagine sysiphus happy

[Anonymous No.11927616]

>>11927525
Your the one who made it appeal as some sort of credential "muh I'm studying philosophy, look how smart I am xD"
I just exposed the fact that at your level, it means nothing. It means more to say that you learned it on your own at undergrad.
Tantric sex has nothing to do with spiritually, and is actually opposed to it, and the only people peddling it off as such are new age hippies who are bullshit.
If you were enlightened, you would drop out immediately and seek absolutely nothing. You would join a monastery and remain in inner bliss and contentment the rest of your days.
You wouldn't be so puffed up that you're still on this site being a braggart about meaningless trivialities. You'll never be ready, ever.

[Anonymous No.11927618]

>>11927092
based posadists

[Anonymous No.11927628]

>>11927581
that's besides the point. the sense manifestation of a student trapped in the suffocating toil of a poorly chosen major can serve as the basis of consciousness liberation just as much as anything else

[Anonymous No.11927635]

>>11927545
>to each person in their own way
it's interesting that you tell me this in opposition to my mission to spread communism, when capitalism is the ideology which, when some tiny little island nation of brown people decides to nationalize some industries or something, has a huge fucking panic attack and prematurely ejaculates high-grade explosives all over them to re-democratify the region

"each in their own way" so long as their way is fulfills some demand in the global capitalist market, amirite

but yes,
>there is no such thing as a universal proof that could make readers submit to your particular ideology
this is what I'm struggling with, as I think showed in my post.

[Anonymous No.11927650]

>>11927616
who is exactly this "you" that is being attacked so bitterly here? this post exudes with trembling insecurity

[Anonymous No.11927698]

>>11927616
(that was me, not OP)

>at your level
what would you say is OP's level? how to you determines someone's "level" from one short post?
are you sure you're not taking some wild leaps there?

>and the only people peddling it off as such are new age hippies who are bullshit.
this is just simply not true
>Tantric sex has nothing to do with spiritually, and is actually opposed to it,
and you're demonstrating that your notion of spirituality is absolutely bound up in christian anti-sex moralism.
Tantric sex with no emission is a huge deal in the kabbalah, for example.
Everything about the body is holy. Every part of the body is a part of the enlightenment process.

but to really wrap up this topic: Yes, sex can lead you away from sexuality, and, yes, all the great gurus recognized this. But so can any other kind of earthly pleasure. Anything that feels good, food, games, entertainment, anything that leads to craving. Even the most wholesome things can be distorted and made into unholy addiction. There is nothing inherently more sinful about sex, that's chronic psycho-social disorder of the west.

>If you were enlightened, you would drop out immediately and...
how would you know what an enlightened person would do? Universal love can also be expressed through direct action.

[Anonymous No.11927704]

>>11926958
Actually based
Promote enlightenment first, western swines can't understand Marxism yet

[Anonymous No.11927706]

>>11927635
reciprocity my friend. I'm fine with fulfilling the demands of a global market to a certain extent, so long as it's in my power to make demands of it and actively shape it if I so wish. (the great thing about our current system is that it doesn't define your entire life. you can fall back on the market for most ultilties, but you can also read books from 200 years ago completely for free and write a sonic fanfic solely for your own autistic pleasure)
as for a tiny little island of brown people getting fucked over by the system, I'm not sure whether your framing is entirely accurate, but even if it is, I'm not buying the causal connection between the measures taken and some kind of capitalist ideology, and the whole argument for communism boils down to 'this would not happen in our future society! it's the barbarity of a people whose minds are clouded by old-fashioned notions and bound in systemic chains, the new man won't do any of that!'.

[Anonymous No.11927756]

>>11926958
You can call yourself "enlightened" without being far-right. Sorry, faggot. All great spiritual traditions were far-right, as far as possible.

[Anonymous No.11927762]

>>11927756
and then there's this faggot

[Anonymous No.11927766]

>>11927756
the right-left spectrum is for brainlets
I'm an anti-abortion communist

[Anonymous No.11927767]

>>11927756
*can't call, typo. :(

[Anonymous No.11927775]

>>11927756
What a perfect misspelling in the first sentence

[Anonymous No.11927788]

>>11927775
You know what I mean, faggot. ;) Peep the epigg photo.

[Anonymous No.11927802]

>>11927788
define far-right

[Anonymous No.11927817]

Is it even possible to have tantric sex if I'm circumcised?

[Anonymous No.11927818]

>>11927802
Aristocratic/feudal government, caste-system, preferably headed by a monarch/emperor. Anything else will be lacking something.

[Anonymous No.11927820]

>>11927525
This is legitimately hilarious

[Anonymous No.11927822]

>>11927015
This

[Anonymous No.11927836]

>>11927818
seems more far-trad than far-right to me. you sure you meant to post a swastika and not a templar cross?

[Anonymous No.11927855]

>>11927836
you mean like one worn by a buff grand master? fascism took some elements from traditional society but yeah, monarchy is more my speed.

[Anonymous No.11927890]

>>11927421
Really it sounds like your only yelling at a person in a cage from another cage. You think your cage is larger so you feel entitled to degrade the cages of others which you perceive as smaller.

[Anonymous No.11927909]

>>11927890
this is true, thank you for shedding light, brother

[Anonymous No.11927929]

>>11927706
>so long as it's in my power to make demands of it and actively shape it if I so wish.
>[one is free to] write a sonic fanfic solely for your own autistic pleasure)
ok, we got two similar but separate things here to untangle. Agency and Choice within our economic system.

we are, each of us, a tiny cog in a big machine. It doesn't make sense that our will should be imposed onto others. This is true in any system.
In capitalism, the decisions of production and distributions are explicitly outside public control, but we are told we can "vote with our wallets", because, at some point, our decisions will register with the machine and it might be enough to drive some actual change.
A communist system could, conceivably involve the public in these decisions in a much more direct way, it's simply a matter of how the institutions are structured, because there are no incentives in the system for one group to exclude any other from the decision-making. Indeed, voluntary participation of this kind could be hugely beneficial to society.

Another thing is the options we have as consumers. As you said "the great thing about our current system is that it doesn't define your entire life" (I will admit, I blew air out of my nose pretty hard at this.) When we go to the super-market, there are 122 different kinds of yogurt, 48 soaps with different smells, dildos of all shapes and sizes and so on.
We must ask, to what degree is this plurality necessary? In capitalism, a new product, or a variation on an already-existing product is introduced by an entrepreneur blindly. He may have done tonnes of research, but It's basically a gamble as whether or not it will take. With the same uncertainty, old, obsolete products slowly decline in sales until the business goes broke, and this completely benign cultural development translates to a massive tragedy in the lives of a arbitrary group of people.
In reality there are only some many tastes and preferences. This limited plurality can be determined simply and precisely will polls. After that the economic machine can focus on producing these things better and more efficiently without having to worry everyday, trying to guess what they should be producing and how. This poll data can be updated regularly to account for changing and evolving tastes, and new products can be tested at no risk to anyone!

The difference here is the comforting illusion of infinite choice. In capitalism we are dazzled by by all those multicolored boxes and wrappers. But the ability of the society to produce a large variety of things is not increased by capitalism alone (how could it be?).

[Anonymous No.11927962]

>>11927929
>>11927706

> I'm not buying the causal connection between the measures taken and some kind of capitalist ideology
the causal connection is that capitalism needs new markets to expand into. Communism means less customers and less cheap labor.

>the new man won't do any of that!
As the great Tracy L. Marrow put it, "Don't have the player, hate the game." In other words, the rules of the game determine the players' behaviors. The rules of our game, private property, "from each according to their gullibility" (no rules or standards regarding profit, legalized gambling in the financial system, etc.. explain much, if not all of the behavior we observe in the world around us.
So yes, under new rules we would also see an new man.

[Anonymous No.11928703]

Yeah but what are you going to do for a job with your meme degree

[Anonymous No.11928759]

>>11927404
>typing this
>being enlightened

Pick one. Oh wait, you already did.

[Anonymous No.11928770]

>>11926958
Marxism is materialism.
It's incompatible with "spiritual enlightenment".

This is a pretty funny bait though.

[Anonymous No.11928773]

>>11928770
just out of curiosity, what is capitalism?
Marxism is to materialism as capitalism is to ____.

[Anonymous No.11928779]

>>11928770
absolutely based post

you don't lube people up for spiritual transcendence with economic utopia, what are you thinking

[Anonymous No.11928780]

>>11928773
Capitalism is materialism too.

[Anonymous No.11928790]

>>11928779
>economic utopia
Asceticism is much more conducive to spiritual experience. Look around you. We live in an age of abundant luxury and it's all spiritually dead.

[Anonymous No.11928797]

so many retarded fucking uninteresting replies

[Anonymous No.11928801]

>>11928780
right! any economic system's going to be materialist. By definition even, no?

so if they're both materialistic, when it comes to fomenting spirituality, the one where the toil is split evenly, reducing work hours across the board (as opposed to overworking some and excluding others from the system entirely) is surely the superior choice.

[Anonymous No.11928813]

>>11928797

[Anonymous No.11928817]

>>11928801
Economic "systems" are inherently anti spiritual. They reduce the value of experience to a sum of capital. And that's evil.

[Anonymous No.11928820]

>>11928797
sup theosophyposter

[Anonymous No.11928821]

>>11926958
do you know absolutely and irrefutably if you are right though? what if you cause damage to your soul through arrogance

[Anonymous No.11928856]

>>11928801
>the toil is split evenly, reducing work hours
This is the wrong way of looking at things. Hours spent doing the things we were made for, is no loss at all. Hunting, herding, gathering, cooking etc. But to separate cause from action, for economic "gains" is to disrespect the design of the universe and disrespect ourselves.

Survival isn't work. But sitting at a computer for 50 hours a week is, repetitive assembly in a factory is, staying underground all day to mine coal for someone else is.

[Anonymous No.11928882]

>>11928817
people need things. people make the things that they need.
inevitably they'll fall into a pattern or habit in how the go about making their things.
With no system, we'll do what comes naturally. but we can do much better than that.
If we're smart about it, we can take charge of this pattern in order to minimize our struggles in these activities.
that's all I want.
>>11928856
I absolutely agree with every single thing that you said. That's why I want to see capitalism abolished. There is no need for anyone to sit at a computer for 50 hours, to use your example, the need for this is contrived by capitalism.

[Anonymous No.11928903]

>>11928882
>With no system, we'll do what comes naturally.
Good.

>but we can do much better than that.
Why? This obsession with efficiency is the reason we are in this mess. It's not worth the risk of creating dehumanising labour just to save a bit of effort. The cost is too high. We are made to perform a variety of meaningful tasks. The division of labour and the commodification of human endeavours is evil. Let effort have its purpose as intended, when and where necessary.

[Anonymous No.11928957]

>>11926958
Literally Hegel you tard.

[Anonymous No.11928998]

>>11928903
heheh, yes. Listen, I can't pretend I haven't had this same exact conversation a thousand times before.

you cannot see my points because your contention with communism isn't, fundamentally, out of principle, but purely aesthetic.
They've already won, you see? They've painted a picture so vivid, that we can't extricate ourselves from it.
When I say communism you see in your mind a gray city. uniformed minions march single file into a factory. You see 1984.

>This obsession with efficiency is the reason we are in this mess. It's not worth the risk of creating dehumanising labour just to save a bit of effort.
yes!
It is the capitalist who is obsessed with efficiency. We don't want efficiency for it's own sake, or to increase profits. We want efficiency BECAUSE we value our time and our humanity. So if any measure intended to increase efficiency violates my humanity, dehumanizes me, alienates me, than it is not worth it! And if we could control the means of production, that is a measure we would never take!

>The division of labour and the commodification of human endeavours is evil.
yes!
and if I wish to do a bit of this and bit of that kind of work, I won't be able to! Because the capitalist tells me "you must work here for 8 hours a day or not at all!". He controls the means, and therefore the terms. He organizes my labor. I cannot choose how I might contribute to my society even though I would work gladly for the benefit of us all!

[Anonymous No.11929187]

>>11926958
>>exclusively read theory and can feel it transforming my brain like magic spells from a grimoire
Just finished reading On Strategy by Gaddis, honestly feels less like a history or theory book and more like a spell to make it impossible to think in a derivative, linear manner.

[Anonymous No.11929231]

posadists

[Anonymous No.11929353]

>>11928998
So... under Mao and Stalin they got to dabble in different trades all day? I forget. How did those laborers fare again?

[Anonymous No.11929363]

>>11927404
t. believes in astral fucking projection

[Anonymous No.11929408]

>>11926969

[Anonymous No.11929446]

um paradoxical much? >>11927510

[Anonymous No.11929507]

>>11926958
You are exactly the type of person Kalki is going to zap with a lightning bolt, bitch nigger

[Anonymous No.11929511]

>That faggot who mixes philosophy with supernatural bullshit.

[Anonymous No.11929576]

>>11929353
That wasn't communism though

[Anonymous No.11929672]

>>11929576
Never heard that one.

[Anonymous No.11929683]

>>11929511
>That faggot who mixes materialism with everything.

[Anonymous No.11929862]

>>11927756
While the organisation of a society should be the concern of anyone interested in the spiritual discipline, ultimately focusing on it too strongly at the expense of cultivating your own inner awareness / growth / selflessness / health / insight isn't going to solve anyone's problems in the long run. There are ancient Buddhist texts that even tell people in ages of dharma decline not to worry too much about affairs of the world and to focus wholeheartedly on spiritual cultivation.

When I read posts such as this, I can understand the underlying logic, but unfortunately I see the logic as being flawed, at least from a spiritual point of view. Yes, a monarchy based on spiritual ideals would arguably bring a lot of benefit to society, but the problem is that the conditions for it to exist just aren't there. And that's ultimately what any true spirituality teaches you - how to recognise and break down the conditions of things so as to allow them not to affect you. By getting upset at leftists, capitalism, the Jews, SJWs, Nazis, fascists, liberals, Republicans, Democrats, women, Muslims, blacks, gay people, NPCs, secularists, atheists, materialists, p-zombies, etc. for the ills of the world, you're still ultimately bonding yourself to it and thus still have a long way to go in cultivating true gnosis and freedom.

[Anonymous No.11930033]

>>11929672
Doesn't make it less true

[Anonymous No.11930067]

>>11929353
Widely variant forms of nationalist, authoritarian socialism

[Anonymous No.11930112]

>>11926972
This.

How exactly do I sage?

[Anonymous No.11930120]

>>11926997
>y'all

[Anonymous No.11930123]

>>11930067

So you say Stalin and Mao were national socialists. National socialism, I wonder if we can figure out some shorthand for this so I don't have to type out the whole thing every time.

[Anonymous No.11930209]

>>11927962
>the rules of the game determine the players' behaviors.
And when people don't change all that much, when you're confronted with human nature, as past revolutions were, you will resort to putting political dissenters and undesirables into camps, indoctrinate children from the earliest point you can get to them, make people spy on each other for their own as well as the common good, and even though all of this follows from your retarded materialist 'new man' doctrine, when your regime of terror crumbles you will insist that the reason for its failure was that it was subverted, that a few corrupt individuals took the power from the people, and that it wasn't real communism.
That, by the way, is what I mean when I say that capitalism does not define your entire life. Sure, the economic reality has an influence on almost anything, but it's contained. You complain about there being 122 different kinds of yogurt, but why should I care? It doesn't define me, I don't need to pretend to care about it, I don't even have to feign interest in it.

The reason businesses fail all the time is that reality is too complex for them to maintain a grip on the market for very long, that knowledge and technology are improving, the problems one has to solve in ones time changing constantly and consistently. That's the whole reason you need an organic structure. If you could map out mans desires and interests that would mean that you'd have mapped out man himself. You say polls do a pretty good job of that as it is, so go ahead and predict the way the internet is going to develop economically as well as culturally over the next five years. If you actually do it I'll see it as proof that your god is the one true god, but that doesn't mean I'll convert to your religion. Why would anyone want to live in that way, even if it were proven to them that it is possible?

[Anonymous No.11930234]

>>11927756
>t.aryan fag
calling ancient beliefs and spiritualism "far-right" is like calling ww1 germany "nazis". Both are anachronistic and neither make any sense other than "it sounds cool"
that being said, good bait, you got me

[Anonymous No.11930857]

>>11928998
Why even adopt the Communist baggage?
Just be a primitivist.

[Anonymous No.11931312]

>>11927027
>not liking londonfrog and his postmodern existentialist commentary

Kys pseud

[Anonymous No.11931317]

>>11927360
THIS

if you dont arrive to this conclusion, then you aren't truly enlightened

[Anonymous No.11931326]

>>11927404
>i will study a meme degree, fucking up my young adult life with low income to no job, and a ton of debt because I AM MY OWN PERSON DAD AND IM FREE!!!!!

[Anonymous No.11932022]

>>11927012
This guy is an actual NPC

[Anonymous No.11932093]

>>11926958
congratulations you fried your brain

[Anonymous No.11932105]

>>11930209
good post

[Anonymous No.11932118]

>>11929353
can I ask you honestly, do you really think that is a valid argument? like, it really is an open and shut case in your mind, the USSR and China and Cuba, and whatever else is definitive proof that capitalism is the only way?

to put it another way, is that how your epistemology works in general? Is that the way you examine every other topic?
can you think of no attenuating circumstances in those cases? Variables that might have skewed the outcome?

[Anonymous No.11932170]

>>11931326
Engineering and compsci are meme degrees because NPCs keep telling people that English and Phil mean you won't get jobs. Funny thing is I got a job right of school with a Lit and Creative Writing degree, and I'm making about as much money as my turbo normie friends who did degrees they hated just for the money. Did I have a less direct path as them? Sure. Did I enjoy my degree more? Yes. Did I have to bust my ass to land this job? Sure, but as long as you can work hard and actually show you have value beyond just having a piece of paper then you can do well for yourself. The NPC degrees are for people who have no value beyond that piece of paper.

[Anonymous No.11932177]

>>11932170
what are you doing

[Anonymous No.11932200]

>>11932177
I recruit pharmaceutical sales reps for small biopharmaceutical companies. I started off doing pretty basic work (conducting phone screens and typing them up) for not much money, but in just a couple months I showed them I could adapt quickly and learn the necessary skills to move into a more valuable role in a couple months.

[Anonymous No.11932203]

>>11932200
Sorry for the redundancy, fixed it here
I started off doing pretty basic work (conducting phone screens and typing them up) for not much money, but in just a couple months I showed them I could adapt quickly and learn the necessary skills to move into a more valuable role.

[Anonymous No.11932216]

>>11932200
it's good that you're making money off a lit degree but sounds like another soulless beauracratic cuck job

[Anonymous No.11932227]

>>11932200
You weren't supposed to join them

[Anonymous No.11932822]

>>11926958
>>study philosophy in uni
im trying to get into uni through tafe (essentially community college) because i fucked up my year 12 exams - was on meds, depressed and flunked my exams

[Anonymous No.11933783]

>>11932200
did you even need a degree for this?

[Anonymous No.11933802]

>>11926958
Ayurveda seems nice

[Anonymous No.11933891]

>All these brainlet commies advocating for command economies
This is actually painful to read. Having everyone person vote on what is to be produced is long term going to screw you. Countries have by and large switched to mixed economies for very good reasons, command economies are a sure fire way to fuck your economy long term and free market econ is a great way to kill off any control you had over strategic and necessary industries. Only tankies are still obsessed with command economies, which makes me question the intelligence of this board. I thought /lit/ was smarter than this.

[Anonymous No.11933943]

As the literal second coming of Christ, this thread is embarrassing.

Enlightenment is plain and immediately perceived by the soul. You can't just chok down a list of "spiritual initiations" and, after doing all the shit, claim, "hey, I've done tantric sex, yoga, orgasmic meditation, and I've read the kabbalah, Guenon, and all the Nag Hammadi texts, so I guess I'm enlightened." No, you need to move the mountain and enter God's kingdom. Anything less is Ben Belial or an illusion of Azazel. But once you move the mountain, it's unmistakable.

[Anonymous No.11935018]

>>11927756
Anon is a cringe nationalist memester.

>>11927818
>>11927855
Anon is a redeemed monarchist patrician.

[Anonymous No.11935073]

>>11926958
>tantric sex
lmaoing @ this cuck

[Anonymous No.11935384]

>>11927616
>never heard of a bodhisvatta

[Anonymous No.11935470]

>>11926958
>experience "enlightenment"
>marxist progressivism
Ah yes, nothing more enlightening than being blinded by a murderous ideology. I'm no spiritual expert but I'm pretty sure the road to enlightenment isn't through mass censorship and leaving millions of people starving to death.

>study philosophy in uni
>astral projection, entheogenic shamanism, tantric sex, etc.
You never have contributed anything to society have you?

>similar works to recommend...
I recommend you stop wasting your money on that philosophy degree, read the gulag archipelago and get a job. Or just fucking rope.

[Anonymous No.11935695]

>>11935470
Shamanism and exploration of the collective unconscious are crucial to a healthy society. Without people to navigate the dark labyrinths of the human mind, healthy social dynamics give way to petty scapegoatism and victim complexes. It's how societies have managed to survive for tens of thousands of years without instantly collapsing.

[Anonymous No.11935715]

>>11926958
phil major here

I fully endorse this bait. phillistines btfo

[Anonymous No.11935752]

>>11935695
Shamanism and exploration of the unconscious are most active today than in any other past society.

You think the plethora of hip cults, music gatherings, drug usage and new-age groups are anything else? Sure, you may argue they are less synchronized with some larger-than-life patterns such as Nature, or some are just an excuse for hedonism, but humanity has never before been this opened and actant of "mysticoid" practices.

The main problem is that in rural society this has ceased all-together, and they suffer accordingly due to poor conditions and loss of tradition/ritual.

But contemporary society is micro-ritualized to the marrow

[Anonymous No.11935771]

>>11935695
There is definitely utility in the practice of shamanism, particularly as a reflective tool and a means to strengthen an individual and ones character.

>healthy social dynamics give way to petty scapegoatism and victim complexes.
Don't forget that OP is a Communist.

[Anonymous No.11935776]

Your head is too far up your ass. Smoke some DMT and sit the fuck back down.

[Anonymous No.11935790]

>>11933943
We are all the second coming of Christ, anon. Dont try be tricky.

[Anonymous No.11936191]

>>11926958
Remind yourselves that sage goes on all fields

[Anonymous No.11936539]

>>11930209
>...when you're confronted with human nature...
I don't do this one anymore, my doctor told me I had to stop, sorry.

>122 different kinds of yogurt, but why should I care?
I'm not saying you should care, I'm saying that when people glorify their economic freedom under capitalism, that is what this freedom boils down to, meaningless choices.

>The reason businesses fail all the time is that reality is too complex...
yes, yes. The infinite complexity of man an his oh-so-important whims and desires.
> If you could map out mans desires and interests that would mean that you'd have mapped out man himself.
jeez, this one is new. The flavor of yogurt a person wants that day amounts to their very essence, their soul, if you will. hot damn.

let me sum up this discussion for us:

>I WON'T convert to your god no matter what you say.
>I DON'T WANT to live the way you propose we ought to live.

this was never a debate or a discussion. I knew it wasn't. Like I said, people have a fundamental aversion to communism on an aesthetic basis. They reject it because it is ugly. In order to defend this position they resort to all manner of absurd arguments, like claiming they have some tight grip on ""HUMAN NATURE"" that proves that communism is impossible, and a paragraph later they'll talk about how man is utterly unknowable and that we need capitalism to approximate his ever-shifting needs and wants.

season's greetings, friend.

[Anonymous No.11936559]

there is one simple phrase to take down pseuds

"post work"

[Anonymous No.11936657]

>>11936539
> they resort to all manner of absurd arguments, like claiming they have some tight grip on ""HUMAN NATURE"" that proves that communism is impossible, and a paragraph later they'll talk about how man is utterly unknowable and that we need capitalism to approximate his ever-shifting needs and wants.
this is your last line of defense? are you serious? the nature of man is his unknowability, that's what a philosophical subject is. man is that being which continually has to question its own nature, any when he believes that he has understood himself he always finds that he is still in some fundamental way blind. that's the myth of Sisyphus, of Oedipus and the Sphinx, it's what Hegel means when he says that the owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk. does any of that ring any bells for you?

[Anonymous No.11936723]

>>11936657
it surely doesn't ring anything for you if you think you can appropriate and distort all that philosophy to defend that most unconscionable economic system.

>Is man fundamentally unknowable?
sure.

>Does that mean we cannot know anything about what he wants or needs?
No. We can.

>But can we know EXACTLY what flavor of yogurt he's going to be craving next quarter?
That's irrelevant. Our economic system shouldn't be built around indulging childish whims. On a thread about the link between spirituality and ideology this should go without saying.

>And what of the revolution? If man is so unknowable, why do so many, the same ones in fact, predict with so much certainty the corruption and decay of the revolutionary ideals?
right! I don't know.

>something something cuba USSR french revolution?
If the handful of historical examples we have of so-called communist revolutions (all of which suffered massive external pressure from the capitalist powers, or outright violent interference) suffice to condemn the ideology once and for all, then what of capitalism? How does history inform us about that? The systems which shits it's own pants every generation for no apparent reason!

-There was a crash!
-But why? did you run out of resources?
-no...
-was there a plague?
-no...
-massive natural catastrophe?
-no, it's just that, ummm, the derivatives, you see, uh, they were sub-prime, and uhhh

[Anonymous No.11936877]

>>11936723
how about you actually try responding to me instead of quoting some deranged projection of who you think you're talking to you walking meme?

here's some functions I think a government can fulfill without turning overstepping its bounds:
- establish and maintain a baseline for public health standards
- organize certain forms of public transportation
- provide people who are out of work not because they are parasites (inb4 'they're just the product of their environment maaan'), but because they are unfit for work, have been laid of because of changes in the economy, etc. with a comfy basic income while incentivizing them to find a new job
- provide the financial basis for general public education while otherwise keeping its dirty nose out of the content of what is being taught for the most part
- create and enforce regulations for the market where necessary
- maintain a judicature as well as a police force which enforces the law without having too much control over how these aspects of the state function

my problem lies with statements like
>In capitalism, the decisions of production and distributions are explicitly outside public control
>there are no incentives in the [communist] system for one group to exclude any other from the decision-making

I don't *want* the sum of all average people deciding what does and does not constitute a 'useful' asset to society and granting or denying me resources to create the art I want to create based on commune sense. I want to be allowed to let some part of my society support what I'm doing, regardless of what the majority thinks. The moment you grant that, you grant the necessity of competition, of a struggle for resources between individuals and groups of individuals with different visions for what their society should look like in the future, and the notion that there are no incentives for one group to exclude any other from the decision-making process flies out the window.

[Anonymous No.11936983]

>tantric sex
Literally find me one text pre-20th century that mentions tantric sex. (Pro tip: you can't).

[Anonymous No.11936999]

>>11926958
>feel torn
>is enlightened
>is still neurotic

[Anonymous No.11937071]

>>11936999
very nice

[Anonymous No.11937216]

>>11936877
I'm sorry, those weren't supposed to be strawman versions of you, I just like framing my line of reasoning as a series of quick questions and answers sometimes.

> provide people who are out of work
why should people ever be out of work in the first place?

>create and enforce regulations for the market where necessary
why is it ever necessary? Regulations amount to a muzzle for a rabid dog. The socialist asks "why do you keep a rabid dog in the first place!?"
Let's imagine the converse: In what circumstance would communism need to be regulated? Is there such as thing as "too much" sharing of the resources according to each one's needs? "too much" sharing of the burdens according to each one's abilities?

>I don't *want* the sum of all average people deciding what does and does not constitute a 'useful' asset to society and granting or denying me resources to create the art I want to create based on commune sense.

great, I want to talk about this.
There are two artists and two societies.
One wants to maintain a painting habit. His art supply needs are reasonable by anyone's standards. Perhaps sometimes he exceeds himself, but not habitually.
The other wants to create 50-foot statue of his favorite My Little Pony character that looms over the city from a neighboring hill.
The two societies are, of course, a capitalist and a socialist one.
I made a table to cover all the possibilities here.

As you can see capitalism gets it right 3/8 times, communism 3/4.

[Anonymous No.11937249]

>>11937216
that's amazing OC my dude, a true work of art, 10/10 would argue with again

[Anonymous No.11937364]

>>11937216
Let the /mlp/ crowd build all the fucking horse statues they want, they can finance it via kickstarter or something, it'll be hillarious.

Judging from the way you framed that diagram, I think you are at least on some level aware of the problems that exist with the way you are attempting to answer my question. First, the mediums you chose were painting and sculpture, which are by their very nature not suited to real subtlety or thematically complexity, then you did not specify what topics the 'reasonable' artist likes to use as motives for his paintings, and you very literally picked a counterexample that would be considered 'degenerate art' on this site.
I'm not being facetious here, I genuinely find the way you tried to frame your position to appear non-controversial and 'obvious' by creating that graphic deeply fascinating.

I think to make any progress in this conversation we would need to find a sphere of creative production that we are both familiar with and discuss which of the artists would get funding from our hypothetical high council of average joes and whether they would generally 'get it more right' than the market does.

[Anonymous No.11937415]

>>11937364
You missed the point. I picked the 'obvious' and 'non-controversial' examples, as you put it, because the examples don't matter: I'm not suggesting there is some objective way to decide what art should or should not be made.
I am saying that if you want to consume a significant amount of resources to produce something the majority of people abhor, than it would be a good thing for that majority to have the power to prevent you project from going forward.
>Let the /mlp/ crowd build all the fucking horse statues they want, they can finance it via kickstarter or something, it'll be hilarious.
in this case, "the community" is a bunch of mlp people, so yeah, they would have the power to promote and facilitate the project AND THAT'S ALSO A GOOD THING.

On the other hand, if your demands are reasonable, than no one has any reason to begrudge you the resources, while in capitalism you might be denied access because you lack the funds.

[Anonymous No.11937610]

>>11937415
But I thought the good thing about your system was that in 3/4 of cases it lead to people making the "correct" choice of not wasting resources on producing trash. Now it looks like the probability that people will erect a pony statue is just as high as the probability that they'll support the guy who's painting naturalistic depictions of the life of the working class as it should be. Could it be that in your populist system, the political decisions are entirely at the whims of the majority, regardless of whether what it wants to do is reasonable or not? (I'd put that last sentence in cursive if it were possible)

[Anonymous No.11937686]

>>11937610
> the political decisions are entirely at the whims of the majority
Yes. This is called democracy. It's a good thing.
if someone, from and outside perspective, comes in and judges that entire community, concluding they are all stupid, that doesn't matter.

>not wasting resources on producing trash.
the definition of trash is ALWAYS arbitrary and constantly changing. What matters is that some lone nut shouldn't have the power to do anything with critical resources against the will of the majority. Because why should they?? Honestly how could that ever be justifiable?

If you disagree with this, I only see one possible reason: You are the lone nut. You are afraid your goals and principles fall too far outside the scope of normalcy in your society. If you can get your hands on the money, however, no one can tell you what to do!
That's what money is. It removes dialog from the economic decision-making. You either have it or you don't, and that's all there is to be said on the matter.

I think dialog is a crucially important part of the decision-making process in all spheres.
It's hard. The fear of the big bureaucratic machine, getting bogged down in endless assemblies, etc. is not unjustified.
But we can get better at it. it is better than the alternative.

[Anonymous No.11937695]

Fucking neohippy-type npc

[Anonymous No.11937696]

>>11937686
Plato was right all along

[Anonymous No.11937745]

>>11937216
submitted without comment

[Anonymous No.11937755]

>>11937216

[Anonymous No.11937757]

>>11937686
>Yes. This is called democracy. It's a good thing.

[Anonymous No.11937769]

>>11937745
>>11937755

I don't know you botched the confection of that table, or if that confusion reflects your inner thought processes, but alright..
also I see some jokes about gulags and comrades, and not explanation as to WHY any of those things would happen.

That mistakes and fucked up things happen is true in any socioeconomic system.
When we discuss these systems we must talk about those things which happen because they are structurally incentivized.
For example, in capitalism, pollution happens not because "some people are just evil". Even if that is true, there is an explanation which precedes that one: The system incentivizes that behavior. If the businessman can externalize his costs, he makes more money, and that's why we persistently observe ecological crimes perpetrated under capitalism.

What's the structural incentive, for example, for the commune to shift resources to an art project when there are people starving, as you suggest?

[Anonymous No.11937886]

>>11926958
>promoting marxist progressivism
>enlightened

pick one nigger

[Anonymous No.11937933]

>>11935776
Too often people only have their egos inflated rather than humbled by psychedelic trips (pretty much every pretentious hippy who thinks they've been enlightened (i.e. OP)).

[Anonymous No.11937945]

>>11937769
Eh, it was my first time using the program and I didn't want to spend the time to clean up all the mistakes I made when I laid out the table.
The "joke", if you can call it that, is that this is what did happen to political dissenters, especially if they were artistically or philosophically inclined, and that state-sanctioned art did devolve into pure propaganda under self-pronounced communist regimes historically. My thesis is that that's what populism is. It's a good thing, right?

>When we discuss these systems we must talk about those things which happen because they are structurally incentivized. What's the structural incentive, for example, for the commune to shift resources to an art project when there are people starving, as you suggest?
Because in the inherently populist political discourse of a communist society, where the line between private and public, state and economy is broken down, the idea of a new humanity and the image of that new humanity becomes more important than the lives of empirical people, it's more important to uphold the idea of communism than to address the issues that exist, because to admit that they exist would be to admit that the system doesn't work. Populist systems incentivize mob rule incentivizes the formation of an ideological cult where independent thought becomes difficult and makes one unpopular. That's not a real structural analysis, I know, but for that we'd have to argue human nature again.
To be perfectly frank with you, the fact that you think that when it comes to art the definition of trash, and by extension the definition of non-trash is abitrary, not just subjectively mediated but actually arbitrary, more than anything else, makes me think that you're, to say it kindly, looking at the world from a perspective far too different from mine for my words to have any effect on you, or yours on me. I dunno man, maybe you should read some Novalis. I particularly like his hymns to the night and blüthenstaub.

[Anonymous No.11937986]

>>11927360

Tfw enlightened but have strong desire to help since I'm everybody.

[Anonymous No.11938001]

>>11929862
Very true comments.Thank you for this reminder, pal.
>>11930234
Monarchy is far-right.
>>11935018
Thank you, pal.

[Anonymous No.11938384]

>>11937945
alright, I wanna take a step back at this point and recap our conversation so far.

You started by implying that communism restricts freedom
> but to each person in their own way.
We went back and forth a bit, and then I decided to post a lengthier explanation of choice and agency in the competing systems here >>11927929.

You declined to answer to this.
you instead picked up on another comment I made, "the rules of the game determine the players' behaviors."
I assumed you had conceded my points and was happy to move to a new topic.

in your response, you invoked human nature, and this time I declined to answer, for purely medical reasons.
you were in fact, still defending the ideas that capitalism promotes freedom (or at least doesn't infringe upon it: "It doesn't define me, I don't need to pretend to care about it") and that it is the only system capable of fulfilling mankind's demands, due to its 'organic structure', as you put it.

The trouble here is that you ignored my arguments while continuing down the same avenue.
Or actually you didn't, you said
>You say polls do a pretty good job of that as it is, so go ahead and predict the way the internet is going to develop economically as well as culturally over the next five years.
I was so puzzled by this, I had no idea how to respond.
When the people are polled on their needs and wants they don't need to "predict" anything. They are making the future by their response, the poll is in effect an ellection for the economic focuses and prioroties of the community.

You also implicitly acceded that you have a fundamental aesthetic aversion to communism, but that's ok, I believe you can get over it, that's why I'm still here.

So I had to, once again, contest the validity and relevance of all that 'unknwoability of wants' stuff, which you ignored once again, to pivot, ONCE AGAIN, to human nature.

this time I faced the argument, especially because you put it in a more restricted manner. I even wrote my response as a little dialog to help myself get through it.

you replied with
>how about you actually try responding to me instead of...
while you yourself ignored all my points:
>Our economic system shouldn't be built around indulging childish whims.
> If man is so unknowable, why do so many, the same ones in fact, predict with so much certainty the corruption and decay of the revolutionary ideals?
>(capitalism) The system which shits it's own pants every generation for no apparent reason!
and instead wrote me a list with things the government can do.

The list wasn't very good. I critiqued a couple of you items, but, yet again, you did no reply.
That's ok though, because you returned to freedom within the economic machine in a really interesting way, so I did that chart (>>11937216) to which you did another chart with USSR jokes. You say the jokes count as an argument because those things actually happened, even though at no point did I say say anything in defense of the USSR.

[Anonymous No.11938406]

>>11937945
>>11938384
so with AAAALL that shit being said.
I can present to you a detailed description of how I actually want society to be run, so that we can get away from this USSR business, but first I need to know if you:
1. agree that capitalism does not afford the individual any more choice or agency than communism, in fact, in some cases it affords less.
2. providing meaningless choice (yogurts) is not the same thing as providing actual freedom.
3. Life under communism would decidedly be very different. We would have to make decisions together, which is tough, and then live with our decisions (no nebulous "market" to blame when shit hits the fan). But ultimately, people can learn to that kind of responsibility and life could be better, or if not, at least there's no reason to believe it would be worse.

[Anonymous No.11938497]

>>11937686

I am coming in late to this discussion, and if I had to drop some perfunctory criticism to justify my not engaging with the rest of the thread, I would say something like: you are not being sufficiently analytical. The grid you made is analytic in style but casuistic in substance. Here's one of the dozen issues that are immediately obvious:
You find the 3/4 result superior to the 3/8 one. This requires us to assume each cell has the same value. The reality may be very different, and you may have to factor across cells with numbers different from '1'. This may not be obvious when written out just so, but let me give an example. We'll isolate it to the 'Resonable (sic) artist man' row.

In this row, capitalism gets one green and three reds. Communism gets one green and one red. On the surface: communism gets a better score since it does the right thing under a greater proportion of scenarios(1/2 vs Capitalism's 1/4). This is basically the point you are making across the entire table.

The reason this isn't sound reasoning is this: one could well imagine that even if a greater proportion of possible scenarios are favorable under communism, there may yet be a larger number of cases falling under the lone unfavorable cell. E.g., perhaps the scenario where resources exist and the reasonable artist man can afford the supplies under Capitalism is the most likely one, or occurs the most often.

E.g., perhaps under capitalism a reasonable artist who can afford supplies occurs much more often than the other three (red) scenarios. And perhaps under communism 'resources don't exist' much more often than they do.

Insofar as optimization for favorable results is what we are looking for here, it is perfectly conceivable that this table is correct but that capitalism remains the superior option. Using said table as evidence that communism is the superior form or political organization is only possible if we accept some unstated premises about scenario frequency that seem to me up for debate.
----

All this being said, I wanted to mention that your love of democracy
>if someone, from and outside perspective, comes in and judges that entire community, concluding they are all stupid, that doesn't matter.


Is precisely where a lot of people would get off the train.

[Anonymous No.11938675]

>>11926958
Obvious troll thread.

[Anonymous No.11938706]

>>11927483
>I've been consumed for years at this point by task of creating a memetic virus capable of propagating some basic truths about the human condition

You will want to watch these videos: https://vimeo.com/specalblend

[Anonymous No.11938991]

>>11938497
welcome.
>casuistic.
cool word. thanks.
>This requires us to assume each cell has the same value. The reality may be very different
you really didn't have to write so much to explain this argument. It's simple enough.

The answer, of course, is that regardless of the values in each cell, there is nothing that capitalism gets right, that communism doesn't also. However there are situations where capitalism fails and communism succeeds. Therefore, all things being equal, the overall performance of communism can only be greater than or equal to that of capitalism, never inferior.

>your love of democracy is precisely where a lot of people would get off the train.
I don't mind! I won't omit any part of the argument to trick people into getting on the train. Communism is patient. Even if we have to repeat the fascism experiments of the 20th century for this generation to make sure the previous one didn't make any mistakes, it's still worth it, and the logic of equality, fraternity and liberty remains undisturbed.

[Anonymous No.11938992]

>>11937686
>Yes. This is called democracy. It's a good thing.

OH NO NO NO NO HAHAHAHAHA

[Anonymous No.11939000]

>>11938706
sup special blend bro.
We've spoken before. Not here I don't think. don't remember where. I made literally everyone I know watch the Divine David after our talk.