The 'content' of a text is its centre and the stance that it is committed to, so something which is merely 'represented' or 'formal' without reflecting content is hence actually something opposed by the text. Hence, it relates to content negatively. The illusion that this 'formalism' can take a central place, as such, is merely the illusion of a viewpoint which is at the same time inherently not a viewpoint - an ambiguity dear to apathetic liberalism. Hence, it is the 'hope' for a sort of 'moderateness' where all political ideas give up their partisan or fervent nature. This may be a 'hope,' but it is not of course a concrete political viewpoint or situation. All usual 'conservatism' moves in this direction as well, in its hope to abscond political ideas (in favour of positivism) while still seeming political. Hence, there seems like an influx of 'formalism,' however it is a tautology to assert that this is not an actual stance. It is rather merely a result of the interaction of for instance political content with apolitical 'tolerance,' which through it tries to appear political. 'Formalism' is merely a negative assertion that tries to avoid content and ultimately maintain the status quo if anything, yet to actually assert something apart from the 'content' of the text is to assert something that is opposed.
A text can seem 'deep' in a real sense, or in a received sense. In the real sense, it is an introspective complex of internal connections. It hence takes a 'systematic' approach where aspects of the text are linked together to form a unity. However, this merely implies that the single author of the text concretely holds to their individuality, which is advocated and realised. This is usually not the case, certainly not in a capitalistic economy which was inimical to it. It is nonetheless the logical development of telos in the context of a text. The 'received' sense of depth is merely when the text seems to have apparent 'implications' which are deep - that is, when the internal connections are merely posited as made by the reader, instead of a part of the text itself. Hence, the reader themselves brings the text into artificial connections, then this seems like 'depth.' This is akin to a riddle-maker, or one who wishes to chase their own tail. These are the main senses in which a text can have 'depth.'
A text can aim for 'depth,' however this must actually form a trait of the person themselves. Hence, through positing it as merely a 'textual' task, the person externalises their own traits and hence constructs obstacles to this 'depth.' They hence seem to encounter themselves as another.
There is the apparent existence of critique of a text merely for 'length.' This is a lie. It seems like formalism, however 'formalism' is fine with a text so long as it has the right 'formal traits' or overall aesthetic. Hence, it does not attack a text for merely existing at some point. This is not, in itself, to say anything of the text's traits. Hence, it is a sort of vulgarised, pretend 'formalism'. It seems to hence ignore not only content, also formalism's focus. It hence is to criticise a text 'blindly,' without reference to the text. Hence, it is akin to a 'rig,' an action which only seems to concern the text due to a pre-defined action applied to it. This is a nuisance, however not a valid stance in this context.
There are other forms of pseudo-formalism. If a text is aimed at reception, it hence tries 'formalism.' However, this is not a coherent formalism. Rather, it is open to all manner of conflicting demands and preferences. It is hence empty, while aiming at a deceptive 'appearance.' However, while formalism aims for 'form,' this is nonetheless an attempt at a coherent aim. In lieu of this, one may have only an aim without a coherent form. It never congealed into a concrete aim, hence it also seems to occur only via pre-defined or 'rigged' actions. Hence, the economy takes such a form in this way or other. Further, 'accessibility' is to evade criticising a text by citing someone else's (usually hypothetical) preference. It is automatically invalid: the author was seemingly capable of finishing it, so this is in no way an inherent trait of the text. People have different viewpoints which can't neatly tie into such a category. Other such forms often centre around arbitrary 'roles,' where things like 'good' and 'evil' are to be portrayed in a given balance regardless of what they might involve.
However, texts which are 'deep' will tend to eschew 'formalism' of a general sort. Nonetheless, they will seem highly discriminating around form. It is 'taken up' in the vortex of internal relations, which leads to each element having meaning. Hence, it all comes to relate to the central content.
Sunday, 28 January 2018
Wednesday, 27 December 2017
Poem from earlier, slightly edited
I'm sure everyone is trying to act sprightly right now, so we can't have Wyatt as our latest in artistic decoration. Instead, here's a re-worked form of an earlier poem.
/scar
0.
Near a night-club,
The way the stars were,
and the palm trees sketching outlines along their spectre,
was almost
a song over
the loud blare of a wordless noise
repeating itself.
**
As the long night went on
a word appeared in the clouds,
and it said,
the plait of flat lights in the sky
was an illumination,
a painting.
**
The people did not stir,
but kept hopefully to their dance
hoping wildly that it might be
something else entirely –
the plaintive, detached glimmer they ignored
and shunned.
**
They liked loudness, yet not the silence
in which you may observe the glimmer
of a hopeful stone.
The chaos of a wild
evening ploughed through the music they heard -
meaning removed for dance beats,
hollowed.
And this dance was their only heartfelt art.
**
A quaint evening’s chorus
was made of plain choirboys
with nothing to say, and too many
ways to say it. They were lying.
But so it was, for they praised God,
but only looked to the crowd.
One might think them deceptive.
The exultantly ordinary laity never would.
Some people would be bored when you first
decried Valentine’s Day.
**
Yet, the stars
rung on with a clear hope, if you looked,
while the clouds almost whispered:
"Silence, stillness,
coldness,
strife is the noise of others
making senseless noise:
it is not your demesne,"
slowly, quietly.
the stars sung something like, 'Holy, Holy, Holy,'
starlit trees held in their light near the street,
walking down a pavement staring apart, and hoping to get seen.
The stars had a music of their own,
quite different from that of others,
yet it was no classical music,
it was real.
The light of
Valentine’s Day moons is like a strange ode,
where the day's halo rings on indefinitely
after the clock strikes, for the night is
all its denizens care for. The moon as if to say,
“Is it a chore of constancy, or the rush
for love without a face? The palest shade of night
shall not shine tonight.”
And so it never did.
There was no such special night.
It was a forgery.
And there were no stars, either, not
even of the vulgar, media kind.
The only truth was in the music of stars and of the spheres
that stared at them as out of a window,
But in capital, ordinarily, people moved closer
to capital, and thus attained some success,
and anything else was alternative, detached and rude.
The way past the open gazes
led to a secluded lilt of leaves and sky,
almost transmuted
seen at night.
We may hold the world to account if they did not listen.
In a decentred system, no-one else could ever be law.
Yet perhaps the moonlight sings, far away.
2. Half-light
Quiet oaks
of a Swindonian garden might render
in opal when in focus, yet
the sky still reflects itself in a distant pond.
The sun is a shadowed eye.
It is silent. It is like abandoned factories,
which call out, ghost-like, in a dour town,
as if to display a way out of this.
3. Creep Song.
Wait! Is there a sweeter slumber in the grave below,
or in the light of thine eyes? Mistress, tell me,
I need to know. Somebody told me. If I were
more perjured I should cry, ‘Calumny!’ and
no doubt be met with sympathy. What, then,
should leave your creep so isolated and serious?
For Hoxha is oft hated, I have seen in most encounters,
I have had with those who were not creeps,
And if I were to hope with a hope
that formed bunkers, would I not
then be called rogue? Aye, this occupies me.
But what else occupies me? Well, the Bible and God.
I am alike all of my kind,
a kin to all of my cause.
When people
decried Tarquin's treatment of Lucrece, then truly
could I say, “I am the table.” In feminism, I am the aggressor.
Yet am I not the victim of a label? Fie, fie,
as even Shakespeare may have said, indicating by it their feminism,
it is victim blaming, to hold against this creep
the rape culture of an age, which admittedly
might just involve me. Yet if a creep likes something,
no doubt its ‘friends’ must separate it from the creep.
In this way creeps are like all subversives.
Their claims are false, for in light we are
and may play with light.
But shall I
give my view on light, or would this not
rather offend the respectable religions
that you have held to?
So I must get your reply,
if I am to go on in this light.
To seek radically is to go to the root of the matter,
and the root of the person,
the person without embellishment.
Let your vision free,
that it may improve your paintings,
and further your illustrative economic diagrams.
Let not your diagrams remain uncared for.
Though it is not a fashion. Some say it is
a fashion to sigh, but it is rather plain.
One must rather detach, and seek another thing,
and then not sigh for what is left behind. But
to enjoy it is another thing. Where is the love
to shelter creeps?
**
So, you see,
Brunei was a function of Tokyo,
Canada was a function of the USA,
Britain was also.
So far as you are concerned,
they must all blur to one thing,
to something empty, a flag pinned
to sanctify the profane.
A narrow path
would not have looked good on a priest’s
credit card.
If drugs are a function of peer pressure,
then people liked them in saying so.
Brooding,
half-realised shapes - hopes for escape - were strewn on the walls
of the no-doubt asylum where a creep grows up,
condemned there for punishment. But do not
most ‘jocks’ and Biebers resemble Creep’s detractors?
So we are circled around,
by wardens in many shapes and sizes,
teachers or boy bands,
all these are the same.
Selena Gomez
may claim to have lost their virginity. I don’t consider it worth it.
Yet trysts are made on a whim, and value. To be a creep is to be revolutionary.
4. Year Zero. (ZeroNowhere.)
What need have we for the sound
of contented words, lacking content?
Our words must hang like silence, in darkness:
mysterious and obscure, yet sublime.
The years pass as a hollow pantomime.
Five years of 'Ellie Goulding' planted
the seeds for 'Sia,' and by that point
people may well have clamoured for
more obscure screeds on reds and 1984,
instead they got a Taylor Swift record,
which might well not tell them anything.
That’s where we come in - if anywhere at all.
Like the stillness of long-empty hallways, and quiet speculation,
socialism is most certain in silent contemplation.
5. Savage (unedited.)
The promises of
yesterday are like a glassed-off
garden’s grey shadow.
If you wish, you may
never be seen again, but shush
before you’re tortured.
It is a brief note
that the day is wan or in spring,
but a quiet gaze.
/scar
0.
Near a night-club,
The way the stars were,
and the palm trees sketching outlines along their spectre,
was almost
a song over
the loud blare of a wordless noise
repeating itself.
**
As the long night went on
a word appeared in the clouds,
and it said,
the plait of flat lights in the sky
was an illumination,
a painting.
**
The people did not stir,
but kept hopefully to their dance
hoping wildly that it might be
something else entirely –
the plaintive, detached glimmer they ignored
and shunned.
**
They liked loudness, yet not the silence
in which you may observe the glimmer
of a hopeful stone.
The chaos of a wild
evening ploughed through the music they heard -
meaning removed for dance beats,
hollowed.
And this dance was their only heartfelt art.
**
A quaint evening’s chorus
was made of plain choirboys
with nothing to say, and too many
ways to say it. They were lying.
But so it was, for they praised God,
but only looked to the crowd.
One might think them deceptive.
The exultantly ordinary laity never would.
Some people would be bored when you first
decried Valentine’s Day.
**
Yet, the stars
rung on with a clear hope, if you looked,
while the clouds almost whispered:
"Silence, stillness,
coldness,
strife is the noise of others
making senseless noise:
it is not your demesne,"
slowly, quietly.
the stars sung something like, 'Holy, Holy, Holy,'
starlit trees held in their light near the street,
walking down a pavement staring apart, and hoping to get seen.
The stars had a music of their own,
quite different from that of others,
yet it was no classical music,
it was real.
The light of
Valentine’s Day moons is like a strange ode,
where the day's halo rings on indefinitely
after the clock strikes, for the night is
all its denizens care for. The moon as if to say,
“Is it a chore of constancy, or the rush
for love without a face? The palest shade of night
shall not shine tonight.”
And so it never did.
There was no such special night.
It was a forgery.
And there were no stars, either, not
even of the vulgar, media kind.
The only truth was in the music of stars and of the spheres
that stared at them as out of a window,
But in capital, ordinarily, people moved closer
to capital, and thus attained some success,
and anything else was alternative, detached and rude.
The way past the open gazes
led to a secluded lilt of leaves and sky,
almost transmuted
seen at night.
We may hold the world to account if they did not listen.
In a decentred system, no-one else could ever be law.
Yet perhaps the moonlight sings, far away.
2. Half-light
Quiet oaks
of a Swindonian garden might render
in opal when in focus, yet
the sky still reflects itself in a distant pond.
The sun is a shadowed eye.
It is silent. It is like abandoned factories,
which call out, ghost-like, in a dour town,
as if to display a way out of this.
3. Creep Song.
Wait! Is there a sweeter slumber in the grave below,
or in the light of thine eyes? Mistress, tell me,
I need to know. Somebody told me. If I were
more perjured I should cry, ‘Calumny!’ and
no doubt be met with sympathy. What, then,
should leave your creep so isolated and serious?
For Hoxha is oft hated, I have seen in most encounters,
I have had with those who were not creeps,
And if I were to hope with a hope
that formed bunkers, would I not
then be called rogue? Aye, this occupies me.
But what else occupies me? Well, the Bible and God.
I am alike all of my kind,
a kin to all of my cause.
When people
decried Tarquin's treatment of Lucrece, then truly
could I say, “I am the table.” In feminism, I am the aggressor.
Yet am I not the victim of a label? Fie, fie,
as even Shakespeare may have said, indicating by it their feminism,
it is victim blaming, to hold against this creep
the rape culture of an age, which admittedly
might just involve me. Yet if a creep likes something,
no doubt its ‘friends’ must separate it from the creep.
In this way creeps are like all subversives.
Their claims are false, for in light we are
and may play with light.
But shall I
give my view on light, or would this not
rather offend the respectable religions
that you have held to?
So I must get your reply,
if I am to go on in this light.
To seek radically is to go to the root of the matter,
and the root of the person,
the person without embellishment.
Let your vision free,
that it may improve your paintings,
and further your illustrative economic diagrams.
Let not your diagrams remain uncared for.
Though it is not a fashion. Some say it is
a fashion to sigh, but it is rather plain.
One must rather detach, and seek another thing,
and then not sigh for what is left behind. But
to enjoy it is another thing. Where is the love
to shelter creeps?
**
So, you see,
Brunei was a function of Tokyo,
Canada was a function of the USA,
Britain was also.
So far as you are concerned,
they must all blur to one thing,
to something empty, a flag pinned
to sanctify the profane.
A narrow path
would not have looked good on a priest’s
credit card.
If drugs are a function of peer pressure,
then people liked them in saying so.
Brooding,
half-realised shapes - hopes for escape - were strewn on the walls
of the no-doubt asylum where a creep grows up,
condemned there for punishment. But do not
most ‘jocks’ and Biebers resemble Creep’s detractors?
So we are circled around,
by wardens in many shapes and sizes,
teachers or boy bands,
all these are the same.
Selena Gomez
may claim to have lost their virginity. I don’t consider it worth it.
Yet trysts are made on a whim, and value. To be a creep is to be revolutionary.
4. Year Zero. (ZeroNowhere.)
What need have we for the sound
of contented words, lacking content?
Our words must hang like silence, in darkness:
mysterious and obscure, yet sublime.
The years pass as a hollow pantomime.
Five years of 'Ellie Goulding' planted
the seeds for 'Sia,' and by that point
people may well have clamoured for
more obscure screeds on reds and 1984,
instead they got a Taylor Swift record,
which might well not tell them anything.
That’s where we come in - if anywhere at all.
Like the stillness of long-empty hallways, and quiet speculation,
socialism is most certain in silent contemplation.
5. Savage (unedited.)
The promises of
yesterday are like a glassed-off
garden’s grey shadow.
If you wish, you may
never be seen again, but shush
before you’re tortured.
It is a brief note
that the day is wan or in spring,
but a quiet gaze.
Thursday, 30 November 2017
A revision of a Wyatt poem
Thomas Wyatt was a Tudor-era writer of crass poems. We have hence altered one of his poems, to more fully express the modern framework. His sonnets are typical and trite love poems, generally reducing the other to an object which could be closer or further away. Yet he is no good at this, while other poets of that 'era' exceeded him. Wyatt represents an ambiguous or transitional period in the social system, which he merely ran across in all its confusion. It is hence of passing interest to those who would confuse people now concerning the social system. It is still too complex for this. We hence have edited this appropriately:
They Flee From Metal
They Flee From Metal
They flee from metal that sometime did metal seek
With naked foot, in my hidden chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and metal,
That now are sell-outs and do not remember
That sometime they worshipped metal gods
To fight false metal; and now they range,
Busily seeking ideology like a Leninist.
Thanked be Marx it would be otherwise,
And thus twenty times better; but once in special,
In American array after a pleasant guise,
When white metal from her outskirts did fall,
And she me caught with her deep worshipfulness;
Therewithall sweetly did to me temporise
And softly said, “Dear heart, how like you me now?”
It was not true metal: I saw their heresy.
But all is turned through my metalness
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go of her piousness,
And she also, to use new pop music fads.
But since that I am so kindly treated,
I would fain slay her with the steel she hath deserved.
Monday, 13 November 2017
Land and Capital
The role of 'land' in capitalism is something that Marx placed a surprising emphasis on. They noted that revolution should go "seriously from the ground up," from "land ownership," and often commented on the importance of land to revolution. Hence, despite a focus elsewhere, Marx saw this aspect of capital as a central one. This might seem to resemble the capitalistic struggle with 'feudalism,' however a socialist revolutionary seizure would no doubt have to face it differently. Marx also stressed that the landowner in capitalism acts on a different basis to that in feudalism, a different social basis altering it. Hence, this would set a different task.
Hence, let us briefly set out the roles of land ownership and capital in capitalism, by way of comparison. In capitalism, objects are reduced to expressions of abstract and social value, and hence their own nature is abstracted from. Land ownership in capitalism hence seeks to 'naturalise' this formulation of the object, or take the object as somehow 'inherently' reduced to bare value. This is of course absurd. They hence simply seek to vulgarise the nature of things. Due to their inability to deal with these things fully, they hence merely take forms and try to 'colonise' and run them in averse ways. Hence, 'land owners' as a class often rented off land to others, their own tendencies driving them away from this that they claimed. However, due to the absurdity of their task it was often a self-undermining pursuit - it hence required people who were often quite devoid of content, and even they might be insecure. Capital, on the other hand, dealt with this abstraction in terms of the social relations it gave rise to. Hence, the abstraction there appeared as part of a process.
In dealing with communism, people often claim to come across a sense of 'apathy' and 'skepticism.' This is in many ways false - how many aspects of culture actually manifest this claimed 'cynicism'? Nonetheless, this is how people embroiled in ideological illusion represent their relation to 'communism.' This is further mediated by their capitalistic viewpoint hindering their understanding of 'communism.' Eventually, then, this seems to say little on their part about communism. Nonetheless, the general orientation is closer to the function of the land owning class, a generic attempt to naturalise the mode of social relations. It is foreign to capital, which seeks to carry out this process and hence is far from 'apathetic' about how the social relations are formulated. Capital would hence be more 'anti-communist,' although this is merely a knee-jerk reaction and hence depends on what others opt to label their 'communism.' Hence, the vulgarisation of land somehow seems to 'usurp' capitalism here. However, there is also something murkier there. When this aspect of land ownership conflates itself with capital, what you have is not an advocacy of capitalism but of a 'rig.' In lieu of the capitalist process, you have an actually 'naturalised' social process posited where the land owner is the characteristic class. Instead of the abstractions appearing as part of a process, they are merely to be 'recognised' - hence, the 'social process' is reduced to a rigged enactment of this, not allowed to occur freely and as a process. It is hence not only anti-socialist, it is also dubious in its allegiance to capitalism.
Generally, 'socialist' organisations with a modus operandi harmonised with the system are similar: the capitalistic process is merely 'naturalised,' and seen as something they should 'adapt' to. This also applies to most socialist 'outreach,' where capitalistic tendencies are allowed to be the criterion of socialist expression. This hence often tends merely to end up in explicit liberalism. Socialism cannot express itself if it sets up capitalism as an authority over this expression - it then has no content.
Hence, Marx's comment criticises the class which represents the 'naturalised' form of capitalism's categories. Hence, they deal with a vision of revolution which stands against the 'value' nexus, or comes from outside of this process. This vision is not their usual, so it appears as an incidental adjunct of revolution. It is nonetheless a potentially profound category. Hence, when their critique in 'Das Kapital' begins from general categories, people often find this departure inexplicable. However, it is connected to this critique of 'landownership,' and hence it seeks to deal with the categories of capitalism and criticise them directly in their effect on things. As a result, people expect Marx to restrict themselves to a criticism of the process, which criticism they are associated with. Marx hence further attacks the arbitrary expropriation of things based on capitalism, or the assumption that this capitalistic reduction of things gives one authority over them. They hence also locate the 'authority' thus formed in the capitalistic society or as a social form, noting that it only appears as 'personal' form of authority due to the contradictory form of this society. Further, this society is hence made 'intrinsic' to the person, as is its contradiction; as a result, they are eventually torn asunder by this posited 'personal struggle.' Further, this approach hence explains their decision, in the 'final' chapter of volume 3, to stress 'landownership' in their criticism. It is in some ways a natural result of the opening: that it will culminate with the system being attacked fundamentally or the concept of revolution, further that this is connected to the 'landlord' category. To have a problem with Marx's choice of a categorical criticism is also to take issue with any revolutionary tendencies in Marx.
Hence, the criticism of 'landowners' is tied to the fundamental criticism made elsewhere. This has hopefully helped to clarify the significance of such criticism, and that it is not simply done arbitrarily.
Hence, let us briefly set out the roles of land ownership and capital in capitalism, by way of comparison. In capitalism, objects are reduced to expressions of abstract and social value, and hence their own nature is abstracted from. Land ownership in capitalism hence seeks to 'naturalise' this formulation of the object, or take the object as somehow 'inherently' reduced to bare value. This is of course absurd. They hence simply seek to vulgarise the nature of things. Due to their inability to deal with these things fully, they hence merely take forms and try to 'colonise' and run them in averse ways. Hence, 'land owners' as a class often rented off land to others, their own tendencies driving them away from this that they claimed. However, due to the absurdity of their task it was often a self-undermining pursuit - it hence required people who were often quite devoid of content, and even they might be insecure. Capital, on the other hand, dealt with this abstraction in terms of the social relations it gave rise to. Hence, the abstraction there appeared as part of a process.
In dealing with communism, people often claim to come across a sense of 'apathy' and 'skepticism.' This is in many ways false - how many aspects of culture actually manifest this claimed 'cynicism'? Nonetheless, this is how people embroiled in ideological illusion represent their relation to 'communism.' This is further mediated by their capitalistic viewpoint hindering their understanding of 'communism.' Eventually, then, this seems to say little on their part about communism. Nonetheless, the general orientation is closer to the function of the land owning class, a generic attempt to naturalise the mode of social relations. It is foreign to capital, which seeks to carry out this process and hence is far from 'apathetic' about how the social relations are formulated. Capital would hence be more 'anti-communist,' although this is merely a knee-jerk reaction and hence depends on what others opt to label their 'communism.' Hence, the vulgarisation of land somehow seems to 'usurp' capitalism here. However, there is also something murkier there. When this aspect of land ownership conflates itself with capital, what you have is not an advocacy of capitalism but of a 'rig.' In lieu of the capitalist process, you have an actually 'naturalised' social process posited where the land owner is the characteristic class. Instead of the abstractions appearing as part of a process, they are merely to be 'recognised' - hence, the 'social process' is reduced to a rigged enactment of this, not allowed to occur freely and as a process. It is hence not only anti-socialist, it is also dubious in its allegiance to capitalism.
Generally, 'socialist' organisations with a modus operandi harmonised with the system are similar: the capitalistic process is merely 'naturalised,' and seen as something they should 'adapt' to. This also applies to most socialist 'outreach,' where capitalistic tendencies are allowed to be the criterion of socialist expression. This hence often tends merely to end up in explicit liberalism. Socialism cannot express itself if it sets up capitalism as an authority over this expression - it then has no content.
Hence, Marx's comment criticises the class which represents the 'naturalised' form of capitalism's categories. Hence, they deal with a vision of revolution which stands against the 'value' nexus, or comes from outside of this process. This vision is not their usual, so it appears as an incidental adjunct of revolution. It is nonetheless a potentially profound category. Hence, when their critique in 'Das Kapital' begins from general categories, people often find this departure inexplicable. However, it is connected to this critique of 'landownership,' and hence it seeks to deal with the categories of capitalism and criticise them directly in their effect on things. As a result, people expect Marx to restrict themselves to a criticism of the process, which criticism they are associated with. Marx hence further attacks the arbitrary expropriation of things based on capitalism, or the assumption that this capitalistic reduction of things gives one authority over them. They hence also locate the 'authority' thus formed in the capitalistic society or as a social form, noting that it only appears as 'personal' form of authority due to the contradictory form of this society. Further, this society is hence made 'intrinsic' to the person, as is its contradiction; as a result, they are eventually torn asunder by this posited 'personal struggle.' Further, this approach hence explains their decision, in the 'final' chapter of volume 3, to stress 'landownership' in their criticism. It is in some ways a natural result of the opening: that it will culminate with the system being attacked fundamentally or the concept of revolution, further that this is connected to the 'landlord' category. To have a problem with Marx's choice of a categorical criticism is also to take issue with any revolutionary tendencies in Marx.
Hence, the criticism of 'landowners' is tied to the fundamental criticism made elsewhere. This has hopefully helped to clarify the significance of such criticism, and that it is not simply done arbitrarily.
Tuesday, 31 October 2017
A Comment on Halloween
On Halloween, society seeks to assimilate or interact with that which affronts and scares it. This assimilation is, of course, duplicitous: it is acknowledged as foreign and frightening, so it is precisely what will not be assimilated. Often, even this process is paralysed; for instance, by other reactions to the feared like 'offence.' In addition, this is all done in the name of 'Halloween' or society's encounter with hostility, which people get involved in. Given the duplicity of the task, it will often devolve into merely people wearing 'safe' costumes and celebrating - abandoning any seeming point to this occasion. In any case, however, this kind of 'horror' is rarely substantial.
As such, 'horror' of any interest which is associated with it will be predominantly of two kinds. Firstly: things which are already fearsome, and remain so. In this case, it does not matter that it is Halloween. Halloween is assimilation, which these are not drawn in by. Secondly: insofar as society interacts with fearsome elements, these may also react within this framework. This leads to the common tropes of Halloween taking on a distorted form, due to foreign elements counter-acting them. Hence, some aspect of society is rendered in a self-negating form. However, this is ultimately also inconsistent from the perspective of the feared elements, which have to both remain fearsome and take up the opposite perspective to merely assimilate this. Hence, in the end substantial horror in this event reduces to merely the attempted equation of opposites. That phrase might seem familiar.
One might draw analogies between Halloween and another main organ of assimilation, Hollywood. Again, the whole purpose of that institution is people assimilating things that they are not. In the process, the 'actors' abandon their own identity to instead merely follow the dictates of capital in this area. They are hence reduced to empty vessels for capital, which then tries to use these to assimilate foreign trends - hence, the empty vessels are to try and assimilate other fields. Where these empty vessels are normalised, one can hardly expect that much of worth. It might occasionally gain from a positive interaction with external forms of film-making, however of itself it cannot do much of ultimate worth. Hence, 'glimmers' of validity will occasionally show, yet rarely something that can hold together without the hollowness of the enterprise trivialising it. Nonetheless, we may compare this 'industry' to 'Halloween,' albeit with less independence. In either case, society sets itself an absurd task.
People hence must engage in the festival of Halloween with a sense of duty. However, perhaps this duty is actually a result of 'aloof' or 'isolated' figures sought in a social context, and not things which are 'feared' and instead run from. More generally, people also seek figures who they see portrayed in an analogous social context to theirs, and they are encouraged to for multiple reasons. Perhaps these others have different forms of interaction or expression. In any case, these more coherent attempts at search are derailed into the apparent form of society 'assimilating the fearful,' perhaps in part due to the attempt to fit these aloof figures into our own everyday social forms. This was in part also due to a society which was unstable and transient - in a situation of foreboding. Hence, when searches go in directions that ultimately turn out hollow, it might be that the search had a different basis altogether.
As such, 'horror' of any interest which is associated with it will be predominantly of two kinds. Firstly: things which are already fearsome, and remain so. In this case, it does not matter that it is Halloween. Halloween is assimilation, which these are not drawn in by. Secondly: insofar as society interacts with fearsome elements, these may also react within this framework. This leads to the common tropes of Halloween taking on a distorted form, due to foreign elements counter-acting them. Hence, some aspect of society is rendered in a self-negating form. However, this is ultimately also inconsistent from the perspective of the feared elements, which have to both remain fearsome and take up the opposite perspective to merely assimilate this. Hence, in the end substantial horror in this event reduces to merely the attempted equation of opposites. That phrase might seem familiar.
One might draw analogies between Halloween and another main organ of assimilation, Hollywood. Again, the whole purpose of that institution is people assimilating things that they are not. In the process, the 'actors' abandon their own identity to instead merely follow the dictates of capital in this area. They are hence reduced to empty vessels for capital, which then tries to use these to assimilate foreign trends - hence, the empty vessels are to try and assimilate other fields. Where these empty vessels are normalised, one can hardly expect that much of worth. It might occasionally gain from a positive interaction with external forms of film-making, however of itself it cannot do much of ultimate worth. Hence, 'glimmers' of validity will occasionally show, yet rarely something that can hold together without the hollowness of the enterprise trivialising it. Nonetheless, we may compare this 'industry' to 'Halloween,' albeit with less independence. In either case, society sets itself an absurd task.
People hence must engage in the festival of Halloween with a sense of duty. However, perhaps this duty is actually a result of 'aloof' or 'isolated' figures sought in a social context, and not things which are 'feared' and instead run from. More generally, people also seek figures who they see portrayed in an analogous social context to theirs, and they are encouraged to for multiple reasons. Perhaps these others have different forms of interaction or expression. In any case, these more coherent attempts at search are derailed into the apparent form of society 'assimilating the fearful,' perhaps in part due to the attempt to fit these aloof figures into our own everyday social forms. This was in part also due to a society which was unstable and transient - in a situation of foreboding. Hence, when searches go in directions that ultimately turn out hollow, it might be that the search had a different basis altogether.
Thursday, 21 September 2017
The Accessible Theory (A Book)
Preface:
As a common complaint about books like Das Kapital is their length and ensuing inaccessibility, we have decided to publish a book which avoids these problems completely. We hence present the first volume of this highly abridged work. This shall hopefully encourage readers unwilling to explore more 'obscure' books too much. In this book, we seek to convey clearly what the reader is to get from each chapter. Further, this is expressed in clear terms.
Hopefully you shall enjoy this. It is an exciting pathway for literature, and it should not disappoint you.
As a common complaint about books like Das Kapital is their length and ensuing inaccessibility, we have decided to publish a book which avoids these problems completely. We hence present the first volume of this highly abridged work. This shall hopefully encourage readers unwilling to explore more 'obscure' books too much. In this book, we seek to convey clearly what the reader is to get from each chapter. Further, this is expressed in clear terms.
Hopefully you shall enjoy this. It is an exciting pathway for literature, and it should not disappoint you.
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