chat

I recall during a Cushvlog that Matt said his need to consume history, political theory, news, etc, was to have a sense of agency in a world where agency is limited to a person's economic consumer choices rather than that of a free political agent within politically engaged communities.

In other words, knowing theory and analyzing current events provide a sense of solace and cope for exploitation and oppression.

Going back to quotes from communists or radicals like Malcolm X, MLK, etc, they'll point out that moderates/liberals all object to radical action and would rather have political action be done by consensus building, civility, and civil engagement even as the stakes are life or death.

Perhaps there is a coping mechanism to it too. We were far removed from significant political, labor, and social action for decades until the advent of Occupy, BLM, and the Floyd protests, and despite those recent developments those traditions of direct action are relics of our grandparents/great grandparents era. Direct action is an alien concept they'd read from a history book. In fact, it is feared because it is alien, it is feared because there is no memory for leaders to draw upon to wield the power of the masses. So you get Jan 6th. You get police station burning. You get a lot of chaos and not a lot of articulation on how to build, sustain, and spread a movement.

What else is there but to lament the state of the world where there is no prophetic vision on how to escape, transcend, and revolutionize society? Wielding the power of the state through ritual; through voting, through scolding on the internet. Through civil lawsuits, through the legal and political system. Through anarchic organizing and protests, and perhaps localized and sporadic direct action. All chaotic and divided efforts that do not bring forth class consciousness and revolutionary kinesis. Only revolutionary potential, and locked in a state of inertia.

Leftists seek comfort in theory but no modern political philosophers and theorists ever expand or contribute a course of action in the way Marx said it needed to be: "Philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it."

We can only interpret and cope because there is a lack of articulation on how to proceed.

The king is bedridden and a council of regents rule. Let us believe that the populace, the workers, the peasants, the small burghers, career-stunted professional managers of the state and of private sector, the willing traitors to the ruling class within the ruling class, are dissatisfied with the status quo. The problem is no one knows or has plans of what week 1 of a post revolutionary society would operate. There's no imagination.