Haha. To get voted for you have to appeal to the middle classes because they're the ones with enough of a (perceived) stake to actually bother voting. That sums up why I am opposed to deomcracy and hints at why I would not get voted for.

 

I don't believe it's right that 'the majority' (whatever way you cut it) makes decisions for the rest. They will never act in the interests of the rest unless they coincide with their own.

 

And when you pull it apart, even the above isn't happening. I do not believe that our democracy causes the preferences of the majority to be realised effectively (not, as I say, that I would see that as a good thing anyway).

 

So we have the illusion of an illusion of a system that would work.

All that being said (and I don't disagree with what you say), what other existing system of representation would you prefer?

The key that is missing from the picture at present, however, is pragmatism, as Manwhore hints at.

I am known in the artfag business as the Artwhore par excellence so worry not.

I can't think of a broadside I have found properly offensive: certainly not when they are witty and in the spirit of badinage.

I understood all of that except



which looks almost French, as if I'm supposed to get it. But I don't. Hmm.

Anyway, goodo. :Y

Ah, ok. Yes.

I'm not really sure.

 

Well, essentially I suppose I'm a communist. I believe it's possible to get to a position where the state becomes redundant and that that is desirable. It's how to get there that's the problem. I say I'm a communist rather than an anarchist because I don't believe we can get there 'naturally'. We need an intermediary stage where we're all deconditioned and everything is very heavily controlled.

 

But yeah, I'm absolutely unsure as to how we get there and whether it's even possible in the face of the weight of ideology/naturalisation/historicisation/conditioning we exist under, while the system that needs that stuff is still ongoing.

 

So, I suppose I'm saying we need some sort of fucking big shakeup followed by some heavily directed rebuilding, but yeah, I do not know what that form the shakeup would take.

 

Aye though, I really don't like democracy. I dislike the ... bullshit of it. I mean... take those celebrations of the anniversary of the abolution of slavery - everyone quite universally sees that as a good thing. But the only difference between then and now is that our slaves are invisible to us, on another continent. That's just an example. I hate how democracy hides things and pretends things and relies on all these illusions (opne of those illusions being that 'the market' can repair the above situation, for example). I feel dirty living in a world like that.

 

So I'd honestly rather have monarchy or theocracy than democracy. At least they're transparent.

In that same abstracted sense, I'm an anarchist. But anarchism depends on a philosophical adherence to anarchist principles in all who exist within the anarchist state. As soon as anybody acts duplicitously, it's fucked. Same goes (at least for the state hierarchy) within communism.

As I kinda said last post, I can't really accept any pragmatism that accepts the way we live and the way we cause other people to live to live like we do.

I don't buy that that can be repaired by markets and that these middle class fucks buying free trade chocolate and feeling good about themselves because they believe they're <takes a deep breath, continues>

To me, that sort of pragmatism is indistinguishable from evil.

(I realise I'm 'no better'/not doing anything about this.Except thinking about it :(( )

Aye. Though I do believe that people, in their natural state (i.e. without conditioning) will act in an anarchist/communist way. That's what the period of heavily controlled de/reconditioning would be about.

Hmm. And who would we trust to run the reconditioning programme?

That's the problem innit. Not so much the who to get to do it but who is the 'we' who get to do the trusting.

 

So I'm sort of in favour of destroying what we have and hoping something better arises. And if not, starting again. Apocalyptic-communism. I do realise this is not very pragmatic.

 

Aside from that... I think Marx was right in that we're headed towards that state anyway. It's just so painfully slow. So... being a bit more pragmatic, it's down to producers of culture to, at least, question current conditioning and expose illusions and that, I suppose.

Having said that, I think it should be realised that the current system isn't sustainable. Looking ahead many years, as the standard of living in the second and third worlds catches up to our own then who are we <i>all</i> going to look to to do our manual labour?

 

I think it's a safe assertio that capitalism can only really function where there is imbalance. We're going to have to find another way.

Mind you, your assumption that social levelling is an inevitability can be questioned, I'm afraid.

I should coco. We in The Cabal didn't invent AIDS for nothing, you know. Got to keep those black men from crawling up the channel tunnel and dirtying the gene pool.

And the French.

Aye. Depends how you look at it really. The middle class is expanding such that there won't be anyone else soon. But the poverty gap is (I believe, in real terms) widening. If applying to less people.

 

I do think peoples' attitudes are, in general, slowly moving in the right-ish direction. Ish. Nearly. Kinda.

Crap. So much I want to say to this thread, but not sure where to start.

Let's try with this:



Exactly so. Everything you wish to achieve is (largely) irrelevant without at least a tentative path to the goal. It doesn't matter how well-intentioned your propositions, if you cannot say "and to attempt to achieve this goal Z, we must start by doing X, which should lead to Y and, finally, Z" then, it's just like saying 1. steal underpants, 2., 3. profit!

Pragmatism: One accepts the world is the way it is right now, one can recognise it is imperfect and that billions of people could benefit from major changes in the way things work, but that if one wishes to make any real difference, one must find a point of leverage - a fulcrum - get behind it and push. But also be careful what the other end of the lever is pushing, that the effects of one's efforts will not be counter-productive and that one is also pushing against the right object; one which stands a chance of moving with the potential wielded, that one is not swimming against the tide. One might be completely right and in possession of the "full facts" but it will do no good in certain situations. One recognises that until any possible future stage when pan-human education levels have reached a significantly higher average than the present (a second enlightenment perhaps, but vaguely utopian and distant) then thing will tend to get done only as a result of violence or populism - carrot or stick.

This is by no means a definition of pragmatism, but it roughly but I would say one who fulfils those qualities (or at least a good number of them) would be pragmatic and, frustrating as it is (since I'm a born idealist), pragmatism is absolutely and utterly essential in making change happen.

I disagree. We just phrase things differently.

I'm not so big on rationality. There's only so far it can go.

Nontheless, my aim is the removal of conditioning and my tentative path is to do so via culture. Culture does the conditioning so culture can do the unconditioning. We just need a shitlot of the right sort of culture making, that's all.

Case in point: you see the Enlightenment as a good thing. I see it as.. progressive in some ways but hugely retrograde in other, quite damaging ways.



It's my view that that will never happen under the present system, no matter how much lever pushing any number of people do. The current system is set up so as not to allow that to happen so if it's going to happen it will be via routes outside of any system of levers and pullies currently in existence.

Regardless, I think the start of anything has to be understanding, not facts and ideas - they just lead to purposeful uselessness (such as party politics). I'll use the Paris Commune of 1871 as the sort of thing I mean. There was no plan/direction to it, to begin with, it just arose because (there was an opportunity and) people understood their situations. It ended in a strategic mistake but from everything I've read it seems it would've been sustainable.