Is rebellion possible?

(i truly respect your intelligence, mordy, but that is some bullshit. transcendence, etc.--whatever that is, which is to say, it is nothing--can be nearly as easily commodified as anything else.)

communal/familial relationships can circumvent or subvert the absolute totality of hegemony too - obviously never entirely, only briefly + in limited amount

i don't disagree that capitalism does infringe upon these practices, but that they also contain an element of potency that predates capitalism and that we can still access to some limited degree. some auratic functionality that remains as a trace.

transcendence, etc.--whatever that is, which is to say, it is nothing--can be nearly as easily commodified as anything else

False transcendence! You may as well just say what is the point of being in a relationship if you can go to Vegas and get a hooker.

Mordy channeling Hakim Bey here

which is a-okay with me

i'm not escaping anything. i live in the world like everyone else. its true i don't want to have anything to do with the federal government or any other powerful institution, but i'm here. i'm not hiding. and i said i TRIED to make my life smaller and more human-sized. just the essentials. but i fail a lot. we have state health insurance. i'm not a poster boy for anarchy. but i don't support the govt in any meaningful way. my taxes aren't gonna buy a lot of drones. i don't fly flags. i would never fight for this country. i don't belong to a political party. i want something else. maybe it is romantic. if the county i lived in seceded i think i might finally have a cause to fight for. i dunno. i'm not better than anyone. not trying to be. but i don't have a long love affair with what this country as a country has done with its power and wealth. pretty standard stuff really. i come from a long line of abolitionists and unitarians.

i don't charge my customers sales tax. i pay that for them.

xpost

well, the thought that the collapse of civilization's institutions would lead to rebellion is just one possibility - such a scenario could lead just as easily to authoritarian outcomes. i wasn't trying to say causes X and Y result in outcome Z. but i do think that things like resource depletion and severe droughts would make "rebellion" or revolution on a wide scale more likely to occur. certainly more likely than today, for some of the reasons that n/a discussed in his revive.

as far as the decline of previous civilizations, you're right to call me out that "inevitable" is a meaningless word when used to describe events of the past. but my basic point is that nearly every civilization has eventually collapsed or severely declined, and that our current "civilization", unlike those of the past, is globally integrated and interdependent. either our current civilization is also unlike all civilizations in that it will endure for eternity, or one or more of the numerous looming systemic threats is eventually going to create a global crisis.

i agree w/ ZS that system collapse is inevitable, tho i think the next collapse will be final + ahistorical. (my millenarianism showing.)

The only way the next collapse will be final is if we nuke the entire planet as part of the collapse and even then that's not a guarantee that a human-driven society won't survive and rebuild itself.

I do hold several idle daydreams about the US breaking up into 10-12 smaller countries at some point

i have some other theories about how the next collapse will be final. nukes def on my list tho.

i can't really imagine any circumstances under which the u.s. would actually splinter off into a thousand little countries, tho if it did happen i'd rather stick with my county or even my city than my state.

A non-violent collapse is possible, but it would require sweeping changes across the entirety of mankind. Biological and/or philosophical changes that affect every one on the planet.

bestcase: in 1000 years there will be much talk about how our present level of specieswide harmonious enlightenment was "forged" in a "crucible" (or equivalent 3013 cliche)

in 1000 years all of the first and second world countries will have figured out how to download their citizens' consciousness into Minecraft

love is not "transcendence." family is not "transcendence." it is a product of evolutionary adaptation, and in its present sense is as much a unit of a socioeconomic system as anything else.

what is it you are transcending?

i never understood that word except as it applies to theology or art--the only places i can imagine one outlining something called "transcendence"

i'm a materialist.

xposts

positing "transcendence" as a way of opting out of the existing social order makes about as much real sense to me as positing "jesus love" or whatever. it's all the same.

jesus hates you btw

there are plenty of things possible within a family, or a romantic relationship with someone, that aren't reducible to the results of 'evolutionary adaptation.'

ya you don't have to look very hard on the Internet to realize that

i don't know how to express this exactly, but there are a thousand small things that can happen between people -- on a single date, within a marriage, even within a friendship -- that i can't imagine happen between, say, two otters or whatever. 'transcendence' is probably a stupid way to describe this, but it seems unique to humans and it's hard to imagine a precise evolutionary reason why this happens.

love is not "transcendence." family is not "transcendence." it is a product of evolutionary adaptation, and in its present sense is as much a unit of a socioeconomic system as anything else.

I don't see any reason why love or family being products of evolutionary adaptation preclude them from being possibly transcendent experiences.

what is it you are transcending?

The temporal. Love and family are good examples because they both hold the possibility of long-lasting experiences. As for love, an emotional state stretched out in the best possible case for a lifetime, as is outlined in the very material contract of marriage. In the case of family, a literal extension of your own DNA through space and time.

how is that transcendent? your "emotional state" is something taking place in your brain.

i'ma leave this thread b/c i'm just derailing it sorry

Mordy didn't say relationships or aesthetic or religious experience allowed one to opt out of the capitalist system. He said they allow us to glimpse something like the possibility of a society governed by alternative values to the ones that rule us now. Similarly, living in the woods Thoreau style or running a collectively owned vegan bakery or w/e are experiments in alternative living that ate necessary if the dream of a different world is to be kept alive. Just the gesture of rejecting capitalist values--even if it fails--can be valuable.

a hardcore materialist won't be able to resonate w/ this idea but if you're a hardcore materialist your answer to this thread premise is pretty short, no? but yes, 'jesus love' could be a momentary escape from the capitalist hegemony. i think there's power still left in ancient human ritual + spiritual practice.

quite honestly i really wish i could just sit on my front porch all day and look at the trees and listen to the birds. all i need really. but then people get involved and things get complicated. trees and birds have taught me the most about life probably. and how to live.

i consider myself a hardcore materialist and i'm comfortable with notions of transcendence. i don't think there's complete incompatibility there. materialism needn't be reductive, and transcendence needn't be immaterial.

i feel u scott, but when i think about this urge i feel guilty/selfish/narcissistic.

xp

quite honestly i really wish i could just sit on my front porch all day and look at the trees and listen to the birds. all i need really. but then people get involved and things get complicated. trees and birds have taught me the most about life probably. and how to live.

like you wouldn't wanna listen to a Madonna 12" now and then

well no doubt. art in general is what i live for. there are moments when humans approach trees and birds in the grace and beauty department.

also though now i can REALLY SEE trees. like when i was a kid. i couldn't for years because of my medical condition. changed my life. in lots of ways. but that was a big revelation when i fixed my physical ailment.

i can see faces in things again. in clouds and trees and grass. i almost cried when that came back to me. its the little things, you guys. for real.

it was said that Virginia Woolf could hear the birds in Lexington Gardens singing "Lucky Star."

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m89hnobHdW1r1awi5o1_500.gif

heheh

the reason i brought up anonymous is because it directly addresses the reviver's concerns about a "mode of rebellion left that won't have been co-opted or made to seem ridiculous, which was already starting to be an issue when i was a teen"

before anonymous that process--hippies a joke and counterculture "momma's charge account at sears"--had pretty much continued.

then at the very hellish bottom of the internet a bunch of jackoffs got an amazing rush from fucking with a mafia-like organization, & were joined by "moralfags" in their 100s of thousands launching all sorts of activist operations & striking all the while various poses of coolness, nihilisim, earnestness, cynicism etc.

the reason i brought up anonymous is because it directly addresses the reviver's concerns about a "mode of rebellion left that won't have been co-opted or made to seem ridiculous, which was already starting to be an issue when i was a teen"

Christian Slater said as much in Pump Up the Volume.

if the cruelest thing one can do to kerouac is reread him at 35, i wonder @ what age can u kindly rescreen Pump Up the Volume

how is that transcendent? your "emotional state" is something taking place in your brain.

It's not an either/or thing.

Anonymous's "accomplishments" are pretty laughable

debatable, but still a mode of political rebellion, which is the point

the political rebellion of ineffectual DNS attacks

there are different layers or rather nested spheres of anonymous and some of them are more serious than others and some of them are more useful than others. the outermost sphere is the kids who press the button on the ddos widget.

quite honestly i really wish i could just sit on my front porch all day and look at the trees and listen to the birds. all i need really. but then people get involved and things get complicated. trees and birds have taught me the most about life probably. and how to live.

― scott seward, Tuesday, June 11, 2013 6:36 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i feel u scott, but when i think about this urge i feel guilty/selfish/narcissistic.

― precious bonsai children of new york (Jordan)

one of the great tragedies is that there are people like Jordan who feel guilty and selfish for feeling the urge to chill out in nature and get transcendental, and then there are lots of people who get even richer and fuck people over with stuff like subprime loans and credit default swaps don't feel selfish or guilty at ALL.

and i'm not criticizing you, Jordan - i often feel the same way when i get some time to relax

and if the frisson of purchasing never mind the bollocks or whatever is what's being mourned here, even those outermost kids definitely qualify for keeping the dream alive. (xxp 2 myself)

the political rebellion of ineffectual DNS attacks

― Bathory Tub Blues (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 11 June 2013

i thought u were just being highly demanding but in fact u don't know shit about it & are just being a loudmouth for whatever reason

neway. again rebellion reoccurs despite scorn, simulation & spectacle

modern rebellion depends on buying and wearing a halloween mask from a hollywood movie, also posting a lot on 4chan

*pats u on head*