The Return

Words Have Meaning!

While a lot of derogatory labels get thrown out by all sides of the political spectrum, if one actually applies the conceptual meaning of those words to actual political process, one can determine whether those labels are true or false, that is whether they correspond to the ideology and policy.  "Communist" gets thrown at the American liberal left, although that "left" is far to the right of all other liberal parties around the world.  But, if we actually define Communism - the abolition of private property (the means of production), we can ask if it applies.  Nowhere has the American liberal/democratic movement called for such an abolition.  Business, or the basic structure of the American economy, is nowhere on the chopping block. A good example is California -"Commiefornia" as empty-headed ideologues call it. Not only is it the world's fifth largest economy, it's home to the richest - private- businesses on the planet, those corporations which drive the international capitalist market, as well as producing enough surplus to create a class of potential oligarchs. Additionally, if one drives through the state, one will see dotted across every location, private small businesses. Everyone is potentially involved in production on their own terms, and making a buck. It's simply incorrect, a lie, to question the state of the state in relation to capitalism.  It becomes a term simply for "things I don't like."  And given the massive population, land, and business relations, both domestic and foreign, there simply has to be government involvement to avoid complete chaos. But that, as is clear from most of FAANG's presence,the system does not imped massive profits from capitalism.

"Fascist"is another term that gets thrown around, although the right generally throws it out re-actively in a kind of "doth protests too much" defensiveness.  But, what would an accurate position of that name realistically involve?

The 14 Characteristics of Fascism
by Lawrence Britt Spring 2003 Free Inquiry magazine

The 14 identifying characteristics of fascism. :
1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military
Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism
The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.

6. Controlled Mass Media
Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security
Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined
Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies
or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected
The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually
beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed
Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed .

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment
Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections
Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

Furthermore, we have the points of “Ur-Fascism or Eternal Fascism” by Umberto Eco:

1. The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”
2. The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense, Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”
3. The cult of action for action’s sale. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”
4. Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture, the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
5. Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”
6. Appeal to social frustration. “[…] one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.
7. The obsession with a plot. “The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia.”
8. The enemy is both weak and strong. “[…] the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”
9. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”
10. Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”
11. Everybody is educated to become a hero. “in Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
12. Machismo and Weaponry. “This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons—doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.”
13. Selective Populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.
14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”

By looking at such criteria, an objective uses of terms can be determined. If one party aligns with such characteristics, Fascism can be used as accurate description (if not proper label). It then is elevated above a "things I don't like" term of uselessness. (Masks are fascist because I don't want to act responsible in public). It's clear that the current dominating party conforms to these characteristics.

 

 

High Rise

High Rise by J.G. Ballard (1975)

It has been suggested that J.G. Ballard was beyond psychological help. High Rise is an example of this reaction, a story of conditions that spiral out of control into some colossal external force which creates situations that no rational person would ever consider possible.

In terms of the film: The first thought I had while reading the book, was how interesting this story would be in terms of 21st century consumer technology, with our constant surroundings of multiple screens which present new challenges in interpersonal interaction. Given the emphasis on batteries to power the first generation of portable devices - tape recorders, cameras, etc- in the absence of functional municipal power, and the alluded transformation into cybernetic lifeforms (bio-robots), the current human state of always-wired-wirelessly only enhances Ballards original thought.  Therefore, I was quite disappointed that the film chose to keep the setting in the 1970s. Not only is the entire 1970s aesthetic something we don't ever need to revisit, the 70s view of excess and tuned-out reality, exemplified in orgiastic sex events, detracts from the core story in my view. Conversely  there is an opposition to the free-love counterculture with A Clockwork Orange feel and its 70s appreciation for violent anarchy and rejection of the system.  Additionally, although Ballard's writing contained a strong surrealist vision, this is cinematically presented in a psychedelic approach which makes the film overly strange and hard to follow. I'm not sure what someone who had not read the book would think of the film, although looking at Amazon reviews it seems pretty clear. The film simply doesn't present the story clearly. Unsurprisingly, it simplifies the story, but it also reduces the horrific elements to a tamer, more acceptable representation. As the novel reaches its most intense point, Laing cannot even descend the building because of the stench of a pool filled with rotting corpses, (reduced in the film to a far less graphic scene showing the few causalities being laid to rest in the pool.) In the novel, this scene is extremely unsettling and jarring as its shows a local holocaust which occurred without a rational explanation and, even worse, not at the hands of external tyrannical forces, but only by the participant residents themselves.

What I find significant about High Rise, is its relevance to the current state of the world. As a story of the fragile nature of the social construct which can completely unravel from small disruptions, there is something to learn for now. This social de-evolution, to a state that is completely unthinkable does actually occur. In recent memory it has happened in Syria and Sarajevo, and the modern first-world currently hangs on the edge of sliding down such a steep precipice. The most prominent question that arises asks: why don't the residents simply leave? But history shows again and again people gripping onto their section of the world even as it erupts into total chaos, as they grip tighter in spite of this, possessing what is "their" even as it turns to rubbish. There is a Luciferian notion that it is better to rule in Hell, than serve in Heaven - that outside civilization which is maintained by someone else. After being immersed in dysfunctionality, Wilder finds time away from the building "dreamlike in its unreality" and eventually Laing cannot even force himself to leave. Like a lobster being boiled, each event which worsens conditions is not recognized to be part of an on-going chain with extreme results. Perhaps people are ultimately too optimistic. How can the world be progressing along, and all of a sudden we are living inside a nightmare that no one chose to stop before it started (as happened so many times in the twentieth century).  This is an exploration of that phenomena.

The additional political messages inserted in the film seem to only over-emphasize the theme, which is already overly presented and all too clear in the novel- as the building, with is numerical hierarchy of residents, is an obvious metaphor of class systems. But, this seems overly idealized in the film with Wilder's low class (level) flat displaying a Che Guevara poster and the closing Margaret Thatcher quote. This quote: "There is only one economic system in the world, and that is capitalism." is interesting in itself in that it completely embodies ideology. If it is taken to mean that Capitalism is the only possible system, in an end of history view, than it is total ideology without any objective value or meaning, as it dismisses any alternative possibilities. Conversely, if it is taken to mean that all economics are capitalistic in nature, then it turns the two terms into synonyms and strips away any meaningful distinction of capitalism. I don't find the story a compelling challenge to capitalism, although it makes strong statements about consumerism.  Rather it concerns a more fundamental layer of human nature, the initial ideological conditions before they are systematized into economic structures.  What is most interesting is Royal's response to the complete breakdown of his utopia, as he embraces this breakdown rather than attempting to fix it, a position that Laing also embraces and continues.  So the resulting message becomes maybe everything needs to be destroyed before it can be rebuilt, but the dangers of nihilism are a serious threat without meaningful response that is left unconsidered in the work.

The film is disappointing not because it's bad, in fact it is unique enough to leave a strong impression,  but because it could have been so much better. There were so many things that could have been done different to explain the story, while at the same time not explicitly hitting the viewer over the head.  So many interesting scenes I was waiting for ultimately never occurred, instead being replaced by some 1970s acid induced psychedelic trip or watered down, destroying the effect.  However, in both version, the story leaves a chilling, disconcerting afterimage.

As Ballard's characters "surrender to a logic more powerful than reason," the underlying proximity of the Real becomes apparent.  Safe within the stable realms of our Symbolic world, we can function on a level far evolved from barbaric savagery.  But, really, this stability is an illusion, we are only existing on a fragile coating of a surface suspending us out of the Real.  A simple crack in this layer can easily disintegrate the chain of meaning that sustains society.  Reason can only manifested through Symbolic mechanisms, but the more fundamental conditions of the Real always persist within us.  And as the more fundamental level of existence, it contains its own logic, not as articulate-able propositions, but as forces.  Recent shifts of political thought have shown this fragility, as pressure exerted from the narrow, but vocal, political movements which have caused further forceful  ideological balkanization, pushing us all deeper into factions built on our own adopted Symbolic systems.  The field has been set for final disintegration, with each person ready to take up arms for their own banner.  While the full potentiality of this political disintegration is only now becoming clear, Ballard seemed well aware of the unsustainability of civilized modernity back in 1975, once again showing tremendous foresight.

Purchased Experiences: Identity and Consumer Culture in Generation X

    Douglas Coupland’s 1991 novel Generation X presents a view of life in the contemporary world which can be further understood by Marxist criticism, as it aesthetically embodies the theoretical views of such criticism.[1]  The novel revolves around three characters, Andy, Dag, and Claire, all near the age of thirty.  They have left their career-oriented lifestyles, and moved to the Mojave Desert to live in Palm Springs.  Here they work “Mcjobs” and entertain each other by telling stories.  Being hyper-conscious of the world of the late twentieth century, Generation X criticizes the prevailing class structure of consumer society.  This has led to accusations of the novel being pretentious and unrealistic. Why are the members of this generation more dissatisfied with life than previous generations were?  Does the world presented by Coupland correspond to external reality, or is it one writer’s personal dissatisfaction and disillusionment with the world?

     Marxist criticism seems useful in analyzing this work, perhaps even more now than when it was published in 1991 and Marxism was still a powerful political force that overshadowed its critical effectiveness.  Marxist criticism provides insight into the world of the late twentieth century, where economic class and status have become the most important factors in social life. The Marxist idea that economic class is fundamental to everything that happens in culture reveals more about the characters in the novel than is immediately apparent  While Paul Fussell has laid out the division between classes and the similarities of the members of each class, the ideas found in the postmodern theory of Frederic Jameson are highly illuminating for understanding this novel.  In Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, published at roughly the same date as Generation X, Jameson details the change in culture after World War II, manifesting in the emergence of a consumer society, claiming that the postmodern split happened in the 1960’s, at roughly the point that “generation x” came into being. As the importance of participation in the consumer world has increased beyond this split, authenticity of the individual has been replaced with an artificial and superficial public stream of economic interaction - participation in the latest trends as a source of meaning. What you buy defines who you are, so the individual works just to buy stuff; work becomes the field in which to experience life while the resulting economic exchanges define the individual.

    The well developed theories of Marxist criticism suggest that the postmodern world depicted in Generation X is an accurate one, and the novel presents us with illustrations of how we should approach living in such a confusing and challenging time period.  Coupland remarks that “There is no weather in Palm Springs - just like TV.  There is also no middle class, and in that sense the place is medieval . . . Nonetheless, the three of us chose to live here, for the town is undoubtedly a quiet sanctuary from the bulk of middle-class life” (10).  Escape is an important concept in the novel as each of the main characters recalls their exit from traditional society.  Furthermore, they compare their lifestyle to other characters who have decided to stay in the mainstream society. In “An Anatomy of Classes” Paul Fussell analyzed contemporary society by dividing it into nine classes, revealing the negative aspects of each class by presenting the conformity inherent to each one. He then proposed a “Category X” of people who attempt to escape from the rigid class structure.  This category of Fussell's analysis has been mentioned by Coupland as a possible influence on his generational concept.  The idea of a “medieval” lack of the middle class can be understood as the middle-class being a very modern development, and Jameson argues that there was a pre-communist state that existed before capitalism widened the split between classes.  The novel's comparison of Palm Springs to TV shows a postmodernist awareness of real places feeling fake and fake illusions presenting themselves as real.

     While attempting to escape from the construct of the consumer society that has been created, the characters in this book find themselves in a fragmented existence, alienated from the world and each other, and internally from their own cohesive past.. They exist in isolation, trying to relate to each other.  The characters view their lives as discreet, separate experiences which seem story-like.  As they attempt to get through life and relate to each other, they tell stories, which take on a significance of their own, revealing much about the characters and the world they see themselves in.  The historical events of their lives are reduced, while the fictional stories of their imaginations are elevated, thus blurring the division between reality and non-reality.  The idea of postmodern fragmentation is readily apparent here, both the fragmentation of individuals into different groups within society, and as time fragmenting into a series of "perpetual presents,” as understood by Jameson.

    Coupland's Generation X asks "Why work? Simply to buy more stuff?  That's just not enough" (23).  This line alone communicates much of what Marxist thought would condemn about our consumer society. We go to work to make money to buy things, and then the cycle repeats itself.  The death of the subject presented by Jameson is also an important idea here.  The characters feel that if they exist in that consumer world, they lose some level of consciousness and become an automatic part of that system.  They feel restricted by their jobs, career choices and life choices. In order to become creative and have the ability to develop their own individual being, as well as experience a sense of aesthetic possibility, they must drop out of the structured world of class.  They leave behind the career track and live moment to moment.

    Andy, in one of his untold stories, imagines a future city where "its boulevards were patternless, helter skelter, and cuckoo.  Everywhere there were booby traps of moustetraps, Triffids, and black holes . . and directions were impossible" (51).  The dangers and confusions of contemporary existence found in this work correspond to the postmodern world envisioned by Jameson as “a mutation in built space itself,” a hyperspace, like the confusing maze of the Bonaventure Hotel which has become a physical manifestation of the fragmented, rhizomic structure of late capitalism. Andy warns of a future with no clear paths, exits, or methods of clear navigation.

     As Andy reflects on his home-life, he states that "I get this feeling--.  It is a feeling that our emotions, while wonderful, are transpiring in a vacuum, and I think it all boils down to the fact that we're middle class.  You see, when you're middle class, you have to live with the fact that history will ignore you.  You have to live with the fact that history can never champion your causes and that history will never feel sorry for you, It is the price that is paid for day-to-day comfort and silence.  And because of this price, all happiness is sterile; all sadnesses go unpitied." (147)  Here we see the idea of the middle class forming a bland, uncreative existence, like what had been presented by Fussell.  It may be comfortable, but it is not adventurous.  While recalling his youth during the Vietnam War, Andy notes ". . . they were ugly times.  But they were also the only times I'll ever get - genuine capital H history times, before history was turned into a press release, a marketing strategy, and a cynical campaign tool.  And, hey, it's not as if I got to see much real history, either - I arrived to see a concert in history's arena just as the final set was finishing.  But I saw enough, and today, in the bizarre absence of all time cues, I need a connection to a past of some importance, however wan the connection." (151). In the post-modern world where time becomes a fleeting series of discreet points the connection to a linear progression of history and self is lost, identity becomes unanchored from events resulting in an artificial presence, an existential alienation from the larger world. After the radical break in history, Jameson argues that "there is a disappearance of the sense of history, the way in which our entire contemporary social system has little by little begun to lose its capacity to retain its own past, has begun to live in  perpetual present and in perpetual change that obliterates traditions of the kind which all earlier social information have had in one way or another to preserve" (214).  This description could apply to Coupland's novels as well as the world at large.  Throughout the book Coupland's characters speak in phrases like “my hair doesn't look 1940's enough," as well as making extensive references to “dead TV shows,” Elvis, and Marilyn Monroe.  Through these references we can see Jameson's understanding of nostalgia, the idea that “we seem condemned to seek the historical past through our own pop images and stereotypes about the past, which itself remains forever out of reach.”  (Jameson, 208) If there is no way to map the future, no clear sense of direction, then sensible meaning can only come from the past. Furthermore, we can also see other aspects of postmodernism at work, such as the implosion between disciplines, where history becomes entangled with advertising, politics with entertainment, etc.

     Other theories, such a a psychological approach, could focus on the few disillusioned characters, and claim that this book is really just about three misfits who have a strong sense of nonconformity.  What is really important is their understanding and reaction to the world, and these understandings may not accurately represent the world at large.  In this sense the world would be a production of their attitudes, rather than the characters being the production of the social construct.  But, this interpretation becomes much too solipsistic, leaving every individual with an isolated reality.  Rather, the Marxist critique presents each individual relating to the same world, and is therefore more useful, as it deals with what is “out there,” rather than inside one’s own mind.  The base that society functions on determines the psychological consistency of its individuals.  Generation X can be seen as a story that explains the experience of existing culture, the one which has produced the characters,  as well as the readers.  This culture is indeed the one of consumerism and late capitalism described in detail by Jameson.  As it is based almost exclusively on economics, this society is therefore understood best in the terms of Marxist criticism.  It is not just a story of a few characters that have a particular psychological aversion to society.  As the novel is aware of the economic and social pressures that exist, it attempts to analyze those conditions rather than passively ignoring them, undermining the idea that modern mainstream consumerism is a natural state of existence. As Jameson notes, postmodernism explains the logic of consumer capitalism, however, "The more significant question is whether there is also a way in which it resits that logic" (214).  Coupland's work is a response to that. In the form of stories, through the aesthetic, meaning can emerge from the subjective individual experience.  Generation X is an exploration of the first generation to experience Jameson's radical break of history.

Sources:
Coupland, Douglas, Generation X. New York: St Martin’s Press. 1991

Jameson, Frederic.  “Postmodernism and Consumer Society.”  Everyday Theory.  Ed. Becky McLaughlin and Bob Cole, Pearson Longman. 2005. 201 -215.

Original version written as an outline (2010)

[1] Note here that I am using the academic mode of Marxism as it was originally conceived in philosophy as a critique of capitalism, and not a particular political ideology. Remember Marx was an actual philosopher and his critique was inseparable from the actual emerging conditions of capitalism (they are intertwined views).  Non-theoretical later uses by political parties are inauthentic distortions, which may or may not represent Jameson's views.

Power

I: Beyond Capitalism I:

In Bit Rot (2016), Douglas Coupland, the preeminent bard of the superficial consumerist culture during the millennial transition, questions the disparity between economic systems in light of the new monolithic state of Global Capitalism:

"[In] the end, the ownership of . . . industry globalizes to the point where there are only a few players, aren't we right back to default Soviet system, where the supply of bread or what have you is centralized and crypto-communist? And in this new system, both power and profit go to the One Percent - the new politburo. It's shield? Globalization is so boring that people fall asleep before they can articulate the issue. Boringness is the superpower of communism. Globalization kills you, but first it puts you to sleep."

Slavoj Zizek has noted how twenty years ago:

possibilities were perceived as open [at] the level of social organization itself. Will capitalism prevail? Will Fascism? Will there be socialism? So social imagination was active at the level of different possibilities of social organization. The idea was maybe we would have fascism, totalitarianism, maybe some Orwellian closed society, maybe the Huxleyan 'Brave New World', maybe liberal capitalism, State capitalism, whatever. Here it was possible to imagine change. Somehow production would go on, it would continue to exploit nature - this was conceived as a a constant.
     Whereas today . . it is . . . exactly the opposite. It's very easy to imagine . . . that somehow all of nature will disintegrate, there will be ecological catastrophe, or whatever: the human race will not go on. What is no longer possible to imagine is that there will be no liberal capitalism; there is no change at that level. So the dream is that maybe there will be no nature, maybe there will be total catastrophe, but liberal capitalism will somehow exist even if the Earth no longer exists. So precisely scenes like this, where you can see how what is visible, what is invisible, what can be imagined, what cannot be imagined, change. This is . . . empirical proof that ideology is at work. . . . the notion of ideology is also always a two-level notion . .. the way to recognize ideology at work is always through denunciation of another ideology. There is never pure, naive ideology. . . .how did we experience the moment of disintegration of communism when we finally got rid of this totalitarian indoctrination and returned to the natural state of things? What is the natural state of things? The free market, multi-party elections, etc.? Precisely, this most spontaneous self-experience of how you are getting rid of some imposed artificial order and returning to some kind of . . . non-ideloigcal natural state of things . . .is the basic . . . gesture of ideology. [1]

Besides the general recognition that ideology is most at work when it appears as the "outside", the escape from all those "other" ideologies, which are obviously artificial constructs over the natural order of things, this analysis reveals the inherent danger within the global system.  When one resides within a system that has no live alternatives, no potential challenges or modifications, positive evolution becomes impossible.  Once the prevailing belief assumes the naturalization of current conditions, any modifications are seen as "false" perversions.  The final defeat of ideology then creates a field that is extremely ideological, and far more dangerous because the presence of this is even more masked.  [2]   Without available criticism, the status quo can be corrupted,  or co-opted to actually pervert it into something beyond its intention. The danger to be avoided is not the particular economic systems, which can be used in alternative ways, but the very structure itself which allows for oppression by totalizing powers. Since nothing outside of Capitalism can even be conceived of, it is seen as naturalized and the most advantageous and evolved system. Anything else would be "false" or morally inferior. But, if the goal is a complete rejection of anything authoritarian, totalitarian or otherwise un-democratic, the focus should not be policies or regulations, but on the threat of power inherent in the system.  This is the point that libertarians refuses to recognize: It is not the ultimate solution to government interference existing at the polar opposite of a continuum, it is merely a mirror image with its own possible extreme radicalizations.  Reduction (or destruction) of government constructs ultimately opens a vacuum for alternative non-governmental actors to seize (without recourse to higher equalizing authority).  The real threat against free democracy, what is to be avoided, is oligarchy, which is just as harmful, and often much more dangerous, than strong government.  The effective outcome for the oppressed is indistinguishable whether the oligarchy is governmental or corporatist elements of the free-market. As Coupland illustrates, what difference does it make if the economic structure is controlled through distributive government or monopolistic powers if the outcome is the same? Holding an idea, a name, in superior regard at all costs does no good if the practical results do not live up to the idea.

II: 1984 (Part I)

This leads to the first of my many points regarding George Orwell's 1984.  It's now become impossible to go a full week without hearing the words "it's 1984" or "it's Orwellian." While considering 1984 as an example of the symbolic structure of ideology which, as a literary work, contained aesthetic form which necessarily negates a conclusive explication of ideology (Chapter 4) [3], I argued that the commonly voiced notion that it is a warning against left-wing politics and centralized government is a misunderstanding, and that such a definitive reading was an example of over-interpretation.  I think now, given recent political events and paradigm shifts, along with the resulting references to Orwell, this is even more significant.  Examining more extra-literary evidence regarding Orwell, all of the meta/contextual relations which fall outside of the aesthetic work, suggests his intentions were aligned with Socialism, thereby requiring that the extent of this error be revealed and analytically addressed.

Though commonly regarded as a prime example of left-wing totalitarian governments of the twentieth-century, the government of Oceania is so far beyond communism that comparisons become incomprehensible, and the relevance to capitalism become just as apparent [3]. As a manifestation of Oligarchical Collectivism, the world of Oceania becomes Orwell's warning about the concentration and abuse of power, not against economic distribution systems. Control has become so ubiquitous (and power inversely so removed from the individuals in  the culture) that the means which sustain the system are no longer important or directly relevant.  With this warning in mind attention must be directed towards obstructing the formation of oligarchy even when that means challenging the superior system  in order to prevent its corruption.  The dispersion of power should be something that both libertarians and Democratic Socialists can agree on (along with anyone valuing human and democratic principles).


Looking at any day's news from 2018 reveals the relevance of 1984 to current events: Just a quick look from today:
"[The Trump administration] is becoming more and more like a Soviet-type of economy here.” - Republican senator Ron Johnson

"Don't believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news . . . Just remember: what you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening." - Donald Trump, 2018
 
 compare to:

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." -1984


[1] Interrogating the Real. p76-7
[2] For more on this read: any Zizek, or:
McCooley, Brian J., "Ideological Interpretation and the Aesthetic Nature of Literature" (2017). Culminating Projects in English 87. 
[3] Again, see above.  When I started writing that in 2015, I had no idea that it would become so relevant to the emerging political world of post-truth and "fake news" (and one of the top 2017 sellers).

Driving the Last Spike

Since the Republican side of the election has devolved into its own phenomena, its time to look at the Democratic side, which has unfortunately started to fragment as well. Like the case with Trump, it is disconcerting to see the energy of many who support Sanders, which can be not only negative, but lead down an unproductive road.  While Clinton is disappointingly not a core liberal, but is effectively right-of-center, Sanders occupies an untenable space on the left.  Sanders' problem is that he is too liberal and not liberal enough at the same time. He wants democratic socialist programs, but would have the costs passed on to those who can't afford them. While his positions are laudable, they are suspended in an idealistic worldview.  Single-payer healthcare and publicly funded higher education are absolutely the goals we should be aiming for, but its unrealistic at this point to put that burden on the entire populace that has already suffered under austerity.  We can't simply shift to a system that exists at point Z, while we are sitting at point A (and we're probably no longer even at A after the 2001-09 economic catastrophe).  A 2% tax increase across the board to cover public healthcare would be a welcome exchange, but Sander's plan raises at least 8.5% on the middle class, who are already drowning from a lack of relief that only exists for the top and bottom classes.  The average taxpayer would see an increase of $4500 in taxes per year (offset somewhat by the elimination of health insurance), which is simply not acceptable or economic advantageous. Sanders would be better off advocating a Universal Basic Income,to stabilize lower incomes and provide across the board sustainability first, followed by funding through elimination of regressive tax policies, the foremost being the home interest deduction [1]. For instance, publicly funded college education is in itself a complex problem. While Europe can sustain a system which  provides a completely tuition-free education, and can additionally pay a living stipend, their entire cultural attitude seems aimed at social reinvestment.  Without question education costs have soared past income increases and have shifted an extreme burden on to those looking to advance, but the current generation in America wants an education that will maximize their earnings without any kind of debt payment, while they expect to be ably to buy a new car straight out of high school without significant work advancement (and yet claim they can't afford to pay $1 to buy a song [2]).  At best, I would suggest a federal loan program which is dismissed upon completion of a degree in other to maximize collective public value, but again it is complex, and an argument for another day.

The only reasonable course I can see is that of Hillary Clinton.  She is the establishment candidate, but I'm not sure why that is a bad thing, as the far right-shift of the Republican party, and its Tea party coup, has shown that the status quo looks pretty good.  Clinton is not a particularly likable person, as many, many people have asserted without hesitation.  I'm quite sure she is a narcissistic pain-in the-ass, but I'm not sure that's a liability given the current relations between President and, well, everybody else given the current adversarial climate (although it is an unfortunate legacy in the Democratic lineage, given the last three Democratic presidents.)  For those who say she is dishonest, I don't really doubt that either.  She is a politician, and if anyone thinks there is a true honest candidate anywhere in the system (even the outsiders) and that everything isn't spin, they are truly deluded.  This is politics, persuading others to follow your point-of-view  It is necessarily ideological and non-objective.  However, I think that Clinton is the one candidate who presents a what-you-see-is-what-you-get choice.  She will have no surprises, and if her policies are anything like her husbands there can be no real complaints.  While his third-way economics was a conservative approach to left-wing democracy, the country did fare well under his leadership and provided a preferable ground in contrast to today's challenges.  Clinton would be a continuation of Obama and similarly would embody some conservative aspects that reach back to Eisenhower, but it would be a far superior position to the radical right-wing approach that has accelerated since the Reagan-era. 

For those that say this isn't enough, that we need real progressivism now, that it's all or nothing, I can only think this is more of the impatient, "right now," immediate reward, generation.  But real politics takes time and takes compromise.  The enthusiastic Sanders' supporters need to realize this (and by the way being a member of Congress for 25 years not only screams "establishment," it provokes the question of why hadn't he attempted to advance these positions through congressional procedure.)  I don't want to be a moderate, but given the limited alternatives, and facing the possibility that a strong push to the left will only empower a more radicalized counter-strike from the right to overcompensate.  Rather we must extend beyond the first step that is the Affordable Healthcare Act and advance toward an affordable single-payer system, while providing economic relief for the lower 80% that has been squeezed over the last 40 years, through extended child-care credits, family leave time, etc. Only once we stabilize the economic conditions can we then move further towards a more European-structured model of education and additional social welfare (and do it better than Europe does.)

[1] This is how other first-world countries do it- you can't have everything, but they prioritize (as any rational person would) healthcare over giving someone a tax break on their weekend or vacation home. 
[2] "Back in my day" CDs were $18, so it took 4.5 hours of work to purchase one, now one can buy a full digital album for $8.99, roughly one hour of work at most places, but puzzlingly, they consider that an unreasonable financial burden. Now, get off my lawn.

Martin Gardner, 1914

Martin Gardner, 1914 – 2010

It's sad when the world loses one of the good guys.  Martin Gardner exemplified rationality and the ability to explore competing alternatives to choose the best option and answer.  Unfortunately this is exactly the kind of thinking that is quickly disappearing.  Between the ridiculous amount of ghost-hunting shows, UFO watchers (You do know that there are alien fish-people living off the coast of California right?) and religious nonsense (I just learned from the radio the other night that the universe is only a few thousand years old), the world of the 21st century is quickly devolving into a state of superstitious, gullible Neanderthals.

Known for his mathematical ability, Gardner also excelled when he  pursued knowledge beyond his strict intellectual studies.  His avid interest in magic allowed him to debunk the work of many psychics and magicians.  Religiously, he transcended Christianity, and rejected (at least technically) atheism and pantheism.  His position of philosophical theism may contain the only compelling arguments for that direction of thinking.  Socially, he had a good grasp on politics and economics and defended Democratic Socialism over anything else, including Liberalism, believing this was simply the best for everyone.  I have much to say about Gardner's ideas that I just haven't had time to comment on.  I hope to in the future, and hope the world will continue to be exposed to his ideas to help them stay out of the dark world of anti-rationality.

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Reverse Reaganomics

The latest poll about the Tea Party shows no surprises. For instance, most Tea Party members have above average income.  This is not at all surprising given their obsession over materialism.  Despite Fox News's attempt to make the poll look revealing and the "mainstream media" look insulting, the poll remains obvious.  The real problem with the Tea Party is that it's built on a foundation of ignorance.  They claim that the Tea Party is highly educated, but only 1/3rd have graduated from college. This doesn't seem "highly" educated to me.  The Tea Party attempts to make themselves look smarter than they really are as they spread disinformation.  They throw around terms like communist and socialist, without a real academic understanding of them.  But these are great words as a scare tactic.

President Obama is far from a socialist.  He has been denounced by the Socialist Party, and has been called Bush's third term.  The main point here is that he is continuing the 20th century tradition of corporatism.  He is continually supporting corporate America.  There has been no attempt to overtake corporations, nationalize them and make them public for redistribution.  The capitalist profit is not in danger.  But, the mythical small-business loving captialism that conservatives love to dream about is simply not real, it was surpassed early in the twentieth century, being replaced by corporatism and supercapitalism.  As these idealogies swung to the right of capitalism, we became even less socialist than in pre-World War I history when that party was much larger and more influential.

The only differences, economically, between Obama and his conservative predecessor are healthcare reform and tax cuts for the lower classes.  Public healthcare is no more socialist than Social Securty or the Post Office. In fact, the current reform still relies on the private insurance industry, funneling money into that system, making it a purely capitalist system.  Furthermore, public healthcare is actually less socialist than the current employer-based system. [1]  The fact that Obama gets called vile names and compared to Hitler for attempting to expand a publlic service, one that is difficult for many to afford, is mind-boggling.

The Tea Party claims to be for smaller government and lower taxes.  As for government, where was the party when the Republicans were handing out massive bailouts to the private sector?  Nowhere.  And now the polls show that Tea Partiers don't want cuts in Medicare or Social Security.  They don't want "their" benefits cut.  Clearly they really are not for smaller government.  If they were, the best strategy would be to denounce corporatism, end corporate welfare, and realize that government exists to serve the people - through public services like healthcare.

Concerning taxes, they protest even though 95% of Americans received a tax cut under Obama.  I suspect most Tea Party members fall into that category.  For the Tea Party to protest increased taxes while their own have decreased only shows their distorted view of reailty.  If the top 5% want to complain, that's fine.  But they have brain-washed the lower classes into fighting their battle.  The rich have never enjoyed as much prosperity as they have in the last thirty years.  To stand as a prosperous country, we need a strong social system.  And we have to pay for it.  Being the richest country in history this should not be a problem.  But, the wealthy have to pay their share.  Even Adam Smith understood the need for progressive taxation.  What Obama has done is reverse a little Reaganomics.  When Reagan made the largest tax cuts on the rich in the 1980s, economic inequality began to widen immensely, and has continued to expand since.  At best, Obama will be able to undo some of the damage.

I don't hear anyone calling Canada communist. Or Japan. Or England, or the rest of Europe. But even though those systems are more socialist, any attempt at advancement here prompts hysteria.  When the Tea Party gets useless airheads like Victoria Jackson to call Obama a communist it is not only ignorant, but blatantly deceptive.  And then, when the media propagates these terms in defense of the Tea Party, the result is beyond bad journailsm, it is plain lying.

It seems that countries are like people, with older ones exhibiting more maturity.  In Europe this maturity manifests as attempts to improve their public service and soften economic inequality.  Meanwhile, America acts young, loud and arrogant, without trying to improve.  As history continues, the human race matures and we find that we have better means to provide a society that is morally and practically necessary. We should not be afraid of trying new and better ways to improve society.   Conservatives should embrace American ingenuity and have faith that we can do things better than others.  We could make a public health system that is uniquely American and better than any socialist one.  But we can't achieve that level of thinking while manevolent manipulators are dividing the country by deceiving the American public.



[1] See Supercapitalism, Robert Reich, for an explanation of non-taxed employer benefits as publicly funded redistribution.  This is something I will return to in the future.

"This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy."
- Douglas Adams

"We will bury you" - Nikita Khrushchev

As the twentieth century ended, it seemed we had permanently done away with Marxism as a viable option. Certainly Krushchev was wrong - capitalism triumphed over communism. As I've stated earlier I think the battle was really more between democracy and totalitarianism, and democracy rightfully won. In the twentieth century capitalism supported democracy, but now in the twenty-first century we have moved into the realm of supercapitalism (more on this later). Capitalism and democracy are no longer mutually supportive. So perhaps, we can go back and learn a little from Marx and from democratic socialism. Here's more on this point.

OMFG! The rich might be facing new tax hikes! Some states are now considering raising taxes on the highest incomes by .5%. Obviously, we have now become a Socialist country! Of course, its never a problem when local governments raise sales tax by .5%, which affect poor citizens more than rich ones. But, Fox News is concerned about what will happen to those people making more than 1.2 million per year. Alarmist propaganda made by rich corporate owners, trying to throw their problems onto the lower classes. Never mind history. From 1932- 1986, the marginal rate for the highest tax bracket was well over 50% for federal taxes alone, peaking at 94%. The 1950s saw rates of 92%, a time when America did quite well and tax rates never seemed to hinder the rich. The current rate of 35% seems like nothing in comparison, and isn't much more than paid by those of us who don't even make enough to qualify as middle class. Many people, including Ben Stein, have realized that the only way out of this mess is for the rich to pay more, they're simply the only ones who can. Fox News isn't that smart. This is the channel that spent a day discussing the story of Biden not being able to remember a URL address for about 20 seconds. Not News. Fox News has become to news what MTV has become to music. A Joke. Useless. Meaningless.

Not Now John

"The problem with capitalism is that "man exploits man." The beauty of communism is that it is the other way around."

Here is one article detailing the latest spike in oil prices. As it notes, the oil companies have been getting tax breaks from the Bush administration, and yet we are getting gouged at the pump more than ever. It is not a case of drivers continuing to use more gas, thereby driving the prices up. The demand for gas dropped slightly over the last year. People in the oil industry are saying there is simply no explanation for the prices, all of the technical indicators are gone and there is just no control on the market Our inventory is the highest its been in many years. So, it seems to be a case of a really bad economy and a desire to continue record profits. This article also notes that most of the usual corrections don't seem to be there. A very weak dollar is part of the problem, but the speculators seem to be playing a big part. "Maybe its just greed." That seems to be a good explanation, with no good investment opportunities left, traders are trying to get rich off of oil, and that is going to have major ramifications.

Energy costs show were capitalism is a failure. Energy is one area that shouldn't be left to a free market, where some get rich and many get left out in the cold, literally. Besides destabilizing personal economics, this enormous jump in costs threatens the national and global economies, and since it doesn't seem to be easily replaceable, it threatens are national security and global security. I don't want to sound too MadMax here, but we have had a strong military presence in the Middle East for many decades, and I don't think that is a coincidence. We've known for 30 years that oil will become a problem and quickly destabilizes our domestic and foreign interests. But instead of following a plan of conservation and developed alternatives, we have successfully ignored the problem.

The word Nationalization is a very scary concept for the free market conservatives. Yet, every time the corporate sector crashes because of immense greed and fraud, the government has to foot the bill - which means we, the taxpayers, end up funding this robbery. The S&L bailout alone cost us $400 Billion It seems that Europe has realized the need for Nationalization, and this is a concept we should further investigate. Not only would we quit being robbed of public (taxpayer) money , but the nation as a whole could benefit from the profit. We should start by Nationalizing the energy industry - yes that means taking oil off the free market. Besides stabilizing the economy, we would increase national security and global security, and profit could be funneled into R & D for alternative energy sources, thereby increasing future stability and security. At the very least, there should be a legal end to speculation.

Just how bad does the economy have to get for Ben Stein (who recently said we should be thanking the oil companies) to publicly admit that the only solution is going to be taxing the rich? That realization must have been a painful experience for him. At least he realizes that a significant part of the problem is the weakening dollar. This is an idea that has escaped intellectually-challenged people like Sean Hannity, who seems to still think the economy is great and that the value of U.S. currency is irrelevant to a recession. Of course he only says that because Bush bears the responsibility, and if a democrat was in office, his viewpoint would be quite reversed.