There isn’t much magical thinking anymore

Imo it has not decreased. It only seems that way because the explanations offered by the old religions have lost relevance in the modern world.

The function of religion is to explain our social existence. In the era of divine right, divinity itself must be explained, inevitably resorting to metaphysics. Now, under the right of private property, each person needs an explanation for their existence under capitalism: why some are wealthy and others are poor, why a medical emergency causes homelessness and starvation, why we send our children to war in distant countries that we never heard of, why we seem helpless to stop polluting and extracting and killing the planet.

This is why bourgeois forms of Christianity, like Protestantism and Mormonism, emerged. They claim to answer these new questions which Catholicism increasingly failed to, in a manner compatible with capitalism. They explain personal misfortune on the basis of individual failings and individual choices, mirroring the capitalist morality, which demands miserly behaviors, to keep converting money into capital, feeding the machine instead of feeding oneself.

Science and materialism resulted from the development of bourgeois productive forces and the seeking of relative surplus value. It is the great Enlightenment philosophers themselves who helped usher in these new forms of Christianity following the new social significance of the laws of physics. Scientists like Isaac Newton adopted deistic Christian attitudes, believing that God worked mechanically through the laws of nature, rather than violating those laws, but affirming a materialist conception of nature.

Bourgeois religion will exist as long as there is bourgeois society because bourgeois society is alienating and produces illusions. It is as magical as any religion, only dressed in false materialism.

I’m rustic. My jokes age like a fine, unoxidized iron ingot.

More like easy pass. Sorry, boss, I’m on my potato break

everyone sites Marx and Lenin without ever talking about their contexts

What context do you want added? Are you saying that Marx and Lenin didn’t anticipate overproduction and overextraction of nature? The ecological impact of capitalism was already clear in Marx’s time and earlier. For example, the horrific smog in London caused discontent among the working class. John Bellamy Foster makes a strong case in his book, Marx’s Ecology, that ecology is not only present in Marx, but of equal categorical weight to labor, because labor is the metabolism between man and nature.

Yet, despite abstractly affirming nature, communism today still has to face concrete reality of the conditions of present day society. It is imperative to build up the productive forces of socialist societies, not because nature has been forgotten, but because it is necessary in order to overcome capitalism; and overcoming capitalism is a prerequisite of constructing a genuine, radically ecological society. There can be no successful socialist state which lacks the productive forces to resist capitalism, to produce cutting-edge missiles, abundant food and other supplies, and so on. On this note, trade is essential to the modern economy, so socialist states must also build up their integration with other states, in order to participate in the global division of labor, buy the best computer chips, etc.

Ageism is right up there with ableism as one of the most invisible forms of prejudice in capitalist society. At least with ableism, there is some very basic understanding that you can’t use certain slurs and whatnot. But ageism seems almost universal.

The world seems nowhere close to understanding ageism. I don’t mean merely being rude to children or the elderly, but the way those groups are regarded as socially inferior on a biological basis reminiscent of race science.

From a Marxist perspective, if we take history and contingency seriously, then we must value every age group, and see every member of society as a source of insight regardless of their age. Superstructure (ideology, culture, commonsense etc) always lags in time behind the base. Children are the most prepared and acclimated to the new world, before their elders are aware that a new world has even emerged.

I agree. The important question is, who sets the terms for liberation of any oppressed group? I’m always skeptical of patronizing solutions concocted by their “betters” especially when said solution (which doesn’t solve the root problem) is then used as a cudgel against substantive change. Of course, that Reddit thread is really about the snide sentiment that we must accept “biological reality” that there are betters and lessers in society and that one need not mince words when referencing the latter.

lol that’s great

100%. It would immediately vaporize all domestic opposition to Trump. Because the thing that unites the majority of the US population, the common interest which USians share with Trump, is the perceived safety and isolation from world events and material conditions more broadly.

You see, news is something that happens in ontologically foreign lands. The US is not Foreign, therefore it is not possible for Foreign things to happen here. (And to the extent that they do, it’s because of immigrants, who according to the white supremacists, are like a pathogen that has made it inside and has to be excised.) In this way, virtually all Americans, including the entire Democratic Party, share a certain class consciousness with Trump.

The current situation is good in the narrow sense that people are slowly associating Trumpism with loser mentality, in the same way that kids gradually view their parents as losers. But even the most bitter child will discover an affinity for a parent who dies under malicious circumstances.

“We already gave you a new derogatory term that you are supposed to like better. Why are you so ungrateful?”

genuflecting

Starting to believe that this word is an AI indicator

This might be a loaded answer since I’m talking to an owl, but if you have a pair of binoculars, birding is great for these moods

That isn’t so bad. In the US education, Robespierre would be mentioned maybe in high school, but not dwelt on extensively unless you take a special course on French or European history. I can understand someone deleting Robespierre from their brain after the course is over. Of course in Europe there would be a deeper general education of the French Revolution because of its proximity.

I was thinking of Aristotle’s elemental system of air, earth, fire, and water (and aether). Centuries spent arguing what exact combination of these essences formed different kinds of matter, based on

Only with the Enlightenment is there a resurgence of atomism, the idea that all matter is made of identical substance which can be configured into various shapes to take on different observable qualities. Gender essentialism is the same logic as the first case.

Let

t_n = a_n * t

be the objective thought content contained in event n;

Then the total thought content T in N events is given by

T = Σ a_n * t

Suppose the following law is empirically observed: As N tends toward infinity, the sum T approaches proportionality to the number of events N; in other words,

T = aN

where a is a constant, an empirical average amount of thought content for a single event. (The larger the series of events, the more that larger and smaller events “cancel out”.)

The total thought content T can rise for two reasons, since it is a product: either of its factors a or N could increase. The same is true for a decrease in the respective quantities.

Suppose comrade Luisa applies 2T of thinking to a series of N events. How can one explain this?

Possibility A: The proportionality law applies. The actual content of the events is T, but Luisa thought twice as hard as necessary per event.

Possibility B: The proportionality law does not apply, because the number of events is not statistically large. Therefore she happened to observe an uncharacteristic set of events with large thought content

T_observed = Σ a_n * t >> T_average

Your post seems more like Possibility A because that is when the number of events is thought to be overestimated from the applied thought.

:overthinking:

Overhappening doesn’t mean more things that happen. It means the same number, or perhaps fewer, things which happen, but with a greater magnitude and vitality.

Consistency on principle is of paramount importance, even and especially for a burgeoning social democratic movement. It is the only way it stays alive in the medium to long term, even if it causes difficulty in the short term.

Mamdani should say what he thinks or say nothing at all. He shouldn’t say incorrect things or things counter to his principles.

A party that shows consistency in its principles demonstrates that it has a clear vision, that they are reliable, and that they are not opportunist. All important traits to possess in a future unstable, revolutionary situation.

Both Lenin (fight with the economist etc) and Marx/Engels (Gotha critique) had to figure this out too. Don’t compromise your actual principle and theory. Compromise on policy if needed, for practical reasons. But don’t concede the theoretical correctness while doing it!

Thirst

The main problem with electoralism-as-strategy is it individualizes a movement. Mamdani can do nothing by himself against capital, no matter how awesome he might be. The people are the power source. Every choice he makes and every speech he gives ought to raise the power of the people, and diminish his own, since his own historical role is fleeting.