Cyborg Lite

Celebrities separate themselves into a separate realm from others, because they are overly 'normal.' Thus is it always with capital. It wishes to separate itself out into a ruling class, but presses others into resentment against these and into attempting to displace them. Where it wishes to posit difference or separation, or even a 'bellum omnium contra omnes,' it instead posits dependence and service to those who should be apart. These struggles do not themselves diverge from the norm in capital, but eventually this self-harming 'love' will tear it apart.

The more people in the West aim for publicity, the more they open themselves to attacks by terrorists or others. These people will often kill themselves after attacking, or use suicide bombing. This leaves few clear ways of preventing it. The very best is to have the supposedly notable celeb or singer constantly dependent on a network of others whom they are only vaguely acquainted with. These are the real 'stars' of the show - the more Westerners stand out, the more they make themselves targets, and then they only go further to court danger. People want to stand out, but they only hide their reliance. People like Christina Grimmie go through many hoops of capital's self-interested struggle, but they run after opportunities to be shot notably. It's like Western society is just a clumsy euthanasia.

To stand out in such a way when you are a walking target, is to stand out only through promotion and fancy lights. There is reliance on a vast network that could either fail or themselves harm you. It is unlikely that people being thrust out as targets and then thrown to the lions would be stable, socially, so there is likely some forgery there. Nonetheless that is their aim and general dynamic, so realistically in a system where all fight each other and forming systems within it is courting their failure, it's a venture only of worth for adrenaline and if your life didn't seem worth conserving in the first place.

Nonetheless, this is ultimately an extension of capital's tendencies if left unchecked. It has to be conceded in any case that for a society of mutual animosity you have many areas which rely on the absence of this. Hence, you have the conventionally 'religious' - those who would stint capital's own tendencies just to help make it functional. This religion is ultimately the worship of the society and people's real ultimate end, capital; nonetheless, it gives this the illusory guise of a transcendent being standing over capital. Capitalism is hence degraded by this piousness, somehow. Yet people have made recourse to figures of capital as a society of 'love' and universal 'collaboration,' that capital itself has no time for.

Against capital you also have a tendency of piousness and unifying sentiment, that would plunge us below capital but is forever limited by its lack of any ability to systematically consider society - or re-configure society on a systematic level. We can see this for instance in events around the British monarchy. Though blunted, these things run rampant. They would turn the whole of society into a collaborating household.

Although piousness fears capitalism, this fear merely serves to promote it and its lasting nature. Piousness ultimately wishes to be done with considering social systems, and instead find a substitute society in the domestic realm - where it can rest and ignore the social system. Capitalism, however, can rarely be strict in preventing tendencies which detract from its organisation, and hence gives way to many things which might seem 'foreign' to it. It distorts these actions, but leaves them in place. At the same time, they will not harm it completely, only leave it in place in an 'alloyed' or peculiar form. This is the extent of 'revolution' allowed by such tendencies. Capitalism is very open to the input and influence of those who would have members of it all 'collaborate' and operate in 'harmony,' who would have 'love' and 'enthusiasm' dampen the conflicts of this society, even as it functions in a quite different way. Hence, it remains hemmed in by these sentimental tendencies, which means that even 'capitalism' demands the establishment of a social control which it cannot provide.

Ultimately, a 'separation' founded on others continually interacting is a counterfeit separation. In this sense, it is symptomatic of capitalism. Looked at from the perspective of difference or distinction, capitalism appears limited and contradictory from the 'abstraction' of commodities onwards. This is the only appropriate perspective from which to criticise capitalism. It is difficult to 'fight' a society which continually abstracts from difference, without a firm insistence on it. Without this, one will instead inevitably be assimilated into it. Still, if it is 'counterfeit' it is because it is stolen from genuine separation and pretends clearly to be the same.

However, it is hence always fending off difference and opposition, because it could easily collapse into this again. Hence, the frequency of 'fads' and 'gimmicks.'

In any case, we are hence going to indignantly follow this with longer, intentionally tangential posts about capitalism - what it is, in what manner it constitutes a social system, etc. Hopefully you enjoy this exciting new direction for ZNS.

De Leonism and What's Left

For Daniel De Leon, socialists were the most advanced part of the society considered as a stratum. They could come into conflict with other workers, as De Leon did both in academia (ideological labour is still labour), and in the various unions of the time. Conflicts between unions were common at the time, and many defected from major unions due to dissatisfaction with among other things their rejection of politics and political discussion. It stood to reason that these highly reactionary elements of unions would see opposition. Unlike has often been alleged, Daniel De Leon identified with the more radical trend in popular politics, they did not only attack the unions in the abstract. Unions, obviously, are official and at least pseudo-political organisations, as the Labour Party was, and hence were subject to rebuke. This was especially likely because they are organs of negotiation. No doubt some would support Tony Blair for being head of the 'Labour Party' and having British labour's support.

They tried to take unions seriously as organs of political action. Hence, so far as they are concerned, IOC unions were to be a united force for a united struggle, they would also have to unite. This seems straightforward, if unions are to be of worth in such a context. However, the problem is that the division of labour which applies generally and which  the workers adhere to,  is set by the capitalists and must still apply in practice to workers' organisations. Hence, the unity of these unions is merely abstract, while in practical terms the capitalists are allowed to determine the nature of the union. Hence, even these, as in the IWW, took a reactionary and harmful turn, and rejected De Leon then only to accept Noam Chomsky now. The IWW right now is less a union than a divorce. The SLP are still humbly proclaiming themselves a Party, and as the song says, 'Best-laid plans sometimes are just a one night stand.'

This issue, of course, applies just as much to other unions, but in an inverted manner. Their division and hence form is dictated by capitalists, in a more direct sense, and they are cursed to wander like Ahasuerus where the capitalist leads. They are hence in many ways at the mercy of this class. The merit of the industrial union is that its if abstract union at least posits a socialist element, or the socialist hope, while the others do not do so in their organisation. The problem with this is that they tend to assume some form of 'socialism,' in whatever sense, is already in application, because they want this element to be applied without hindrance. It can only do this if labour is already carried out on this principle on a social level. This is not yet the case. But nonetheless it is the most fervent attempt to give unions or organisations of struggle a form making it of use to the socialist movement.

Daniel De Leon did oppose many socialists, but mostly for their retreats from socialism, not for socialism itself. If they saw problems arising, it was not from socialism itself. Hence, a firm adherence to this was not to be attacked. Only after one adheres to something can one go on to the other details. It would be strange, of course, to reprove people for being socialists and hence as De Leon said seeing the struggle through to its end, hence realising the terms and direction. They were hardly in a position to treat 'socialists' as the problem. Few people are attacked this much for their advancement in a given field, apart from priests. Many leftists would prefer a zone freed from 'meddling' leftists, or in brief one encouraged to be reactionary. If they were honest, they too would take as their slogan, 'No politics in the union,' and for their flag Gompersism.

De Leon, of course, wrote many works, and few have read over them. That would require patience, as the central points are often diffuse. It is not a topic of study. Hence, it need be no surprise that most of what we are told about De Leon's history is merely fabricated or sentimental, as with Irving Stone's stories about the oppression of Eugene Debs by the cruel De Leon. If De Leon were a more contemporary figure, their biographies would accuse them of cyber-bullying Jill Stein, no doubt. They are hence a historical object of wanton vilification - if they have to be mentioned at all. This might seem harsh. They died at around the time of the World Wars, of course, and the German side after World War I was highly demonised as a particular nation for their actions, to the point of seeking reprisal. In that sense, they might have just chosen the right time for it. In any case, they arose before the subsumption of the international communist movement by Soviet Russia, and hence their stern independence might seem a fitting reaction to the times.

De Leonite politics has often led to conflict, and responds to conflicts between various facets of society. It attempts to unify in a partisan manner against the forces opposed to it. However, the field of unionism was, peculiarly, not found a fitting location for this. De Leonism hence holds to underlying modes of social, partisan unity, against other elements. It thus can seem abrasive and strict. Nonetheless, apart from the particular forms advocated, De Leonism has the fortitude to stay outside these, by drawing on its firm adherence to socialism as such. Hence, its views summarised in terms of general traits have a long-lasting validity.