Topic of the Week: Naming the Horror
This week's topic is a question from our sister site Anarchy101.org. Check it out if you haven't already!
Do you tend to call what you're against the totality? civilization? power? capitalism? the state? kyriarchy? society?
I have gone through stages of using capitalism, civilization, and christianity as thing-i-was-railing-against. Is it more useful or harmful (and in what circumstances) to combine all-the-bad, or separate things out?
Comments
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 06/05/2017 - 06:43
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What you are against, and do
What you are against, and do nothing about, right? Too chickenshit/weseally/pusilanimous/wormy...name that instead.
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 06/05/2017 - 07:58
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Not everyone is an carbon
Not everyone is an carbon-copy projection of your filthy self, brah. Just sayin'.
Anonymous (not verified)
Tue, 06/06/2017 - 01:40
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Exactly what I was gonna say,
Exactly what I was gonna say, dude projecting a little bit here.
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 06/05/2017 - 07:01
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Sometimes it helps to
Sometimes it helps to separate. A definition of capitalism often has historical and materialist assumptions in why people are against it. Saying "anti-civilization" acknowledges a largely ahistoric basis for being against it (against civilization = against the entire history of civilization). Being against "society" implies a problem not just with power, but with how we construct ourselves socially. Being against the totality just needs the totality to be broken, then a devolution and decentering can occur. For the most part, these things all carry a larger variety of narratives than my short look gives, but there are differences in each one and it is possible to also be against "all the things!". I'm against all the things.
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 06/05/2017 - 08:03
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"All the things" is a spook...
A river is a thing... so you're against rivers too? And gasses in the atmosphere? And rocks!?
You could have a happy life working for Chevron, I guess.
Anonymous (not verified)
Tue, 06/06/2017 - 07:21
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I get at where you're at,
I get at where you're at, but hey, against little puppy dogs, c'mon?
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 06/05/2017 - 08:12
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Anarchistnews.org
Anarchistnews.org
SirEinzige
Mon, 06/05/2017 - 08:17
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Renunciation
Renunciation is something that integral anarchic agents(Stirnerians as opposed to Proudhonian/Bakuninian/Kropotkinians) should eschew. If you do not see life as good or bad as such and affirm and renounce based on relational contexts then being anti-insert thing-makes no sense. It's a legacy of comporting oneself to elective/proposed practices of constituted struggle.
Nihilist (not verified)
Wed, 06/07/2017 - 14:36
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Interesting
Why renunciate renunciation?
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 06/05/2017 - 08:22
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For me, the term that I use
For me, the term that I use all depends on who I am talking to and what exactly I/we are talking about.
But, generally speaking, if I want a nice pithy word for the big overarching thing that I am against, I either use "the System", "Authority" or "domination".
SirEinzige
Mon, 06/05/2017 - 08:27
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The belief and behavior of systems of authority and domination
I see that as more concise as it immediately makes people look inward then outward. The latter just provides for phantoms and excuses and the further proliferation of non corporeal acting 'things' to be against.
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 06/05/2017 - 08:54
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Define 'rail'?
Define 'rail'? Did Buddha rail, though he disapproved of the whole world's badness? Not that one should pick religious figures as examples compared to a homeless hobo, who actually don't rail very much maybe because they are complacent or jaded or too tired to give a fuck. Nihilists shouldn't rail, because railing is an ethical stance bordering on ideological preference. Jesus hated fucking merchants, but he was just rebelling against his father's religion and patriarchal relationship with him. I rail against myself if I am going to find fault, ultimately its a subjective call to rail or not to rail. So many things to get pissed off about, I can't spend 24/7 railing at life, its just not healthy!
Gunter (not verified)
Tue, 06/06/2017 - 20:31
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I have to disagree on your
I have to disagree on your opinion that hobos don't rail. They rail invisibly out of the public eye, internalizing their ressentiment. I've since dis-associated myself with the terminology and the milieu, I read Orwell's Down and Out in London and Paris and embarked upon a similar investigative experience, but I can't live like that, off charity, whilst still railing internally. Too many contradictory compromises. As for railing, I'm not an advocate for the process of counter-argument to what results in a recuperated outcome. And also, Jesus WAS a merchant of the worst kind,,,,a merchant of human souls.
emile
Mon, 06/05/2017 - 08:56
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'being against something' is a linear, dualist, binary concept
linear, dualist, binary self-other conceptualizing is abstraction of convenience that is not found in the relational dynamics of physically real experience.
in the physically real world, we are included in 'relational situations' involving inhabitant-habitat nonduality. for example, colonizers marginalize the colonized indigenous peoples through conditioning of the common living space [squeezing the indigenous peoples out of the sweet spots by penning them up in reserves etc.]. this is described by Mach's principle, and also by McLuhan's 'the medium is the message'.
relational influence, which is where the marginalizing comes from is 'non-local', 'non-visible' and 'non-material'; i.e. relational influence is the influence in 'fields'.
noun-and-verb language-and-grammar builds representations in terms of what is local, visible and material. thus, we can see that colonized indigenous peoples of the middle east are 'pushing back' against the colonizers (ISIS and many other extremist groups e.g. under the Al Nusra front). this looks like a simple binary opposition, but it is stirred up by the conditioning of the common living space engineered by the colonizing powers. in other words, 'epigenetic influence (marginalization via conditioning of relations in the common living space) is inductively actualizing genetic expression.
what is visible is the binary self-other conflict but there is a fundamental loss of information since the pushing back of colonized against colonizer will appear to be unprovoked because colonizer oppression (marginalizing of the colonized) is via the conditioning of the common relational living space, and relational influence is non-local, non-visible and non-material.
that's the general case, yet Western moral judgement based retributive justice accepts the simple, visual binary view of conflict. those marginalized through relational dynamics who rebel will always be judged as guilty of unprovoked violence by the linguistic game-playing of Western society.
emilemile (not verified)
Mon, 06/05/2017 - 09:04
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I'm right, yet again!
noun-and-verb language-and-grammar builds representations in terms of what is local, visible and material. thus, we can see that colonized indigenous peoples of the middle east are 'pushing back' against the colonizers (ISIS and many other extremist groups e.g. under the Al Nusra front). this looks like a simple binary opposition, but it is stirred up by the conditioning of the common living space engineered by the colonizing powers. in other words, 'epigenetic influence (marginalization via conditioning of relations in the common living space) is inductively actualizing genetic expression.
that's the general case, yet Western moral judgement based retributive justice accepts the simple, visual binary view of conflict. those marginalized through relational dynamics who rebel will always be judged as guilty of unprovoked violence by the linguistic game-playing of Western society.
linear, dualist, binary self-other conceptualizing is abstraction of convenience that is not found in the relational dynamics of physically real experience.
relational influence, which is where the marginalizing comes from is 'non-local', 'non-visible' and 'non-material'; i.e. relational influence is the influence in 'fields'.
what is visible is the binary self-other conflict but there is a fundamental loss of information since the pushing back of colonized against colonizer will appear to be unprovoked because colonizer oppression (marginalizing of the colonized) is via the conditioning of the common relational living space, and relational influence is non-local, non-visible and non-material.
in the physically real world, we are included in 'relational situations' involving inhabitant-habitat nonduality. for example, colonizers marginalize the colonized indigenous peoples through conditioning of the common living space [squeezing the indigenous peoples out of the sweet spots by penning them up in reserves etc.]. this is described by Mach's principle, and also by McLuhan's 'the medium is the message'.
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 06/05/2017 - 11:26
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I'm against
Weakness
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 06/05/2017 - 12:00
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The horror is when there's no
The horror is when there's no new anews podcast on time.
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 06/05/2017 - 23:04
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I'm against
..emile.
Le Way (not verified)
Wed, 06/07/2017 - 05:12
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Railing wouldn't exist
Railing wouldn't exist if not for the global exigency in curing the coming catastrophe,,,,,too late. Bleating, or the SOS,,,, the flare fired from a sinking ship,,,,,,
Gunter (not verified)
Wed, 06/07/2017 - 14:27
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The coming catastrophe,,,,,,The power and water switched off
The coming catastrophe,,,,,,The power and water switched off to the basement where you dwell cos moms gettin tired of all your demands?,,,,,,,
Anonymous (not verified)
Wed, 06/07/2017 - 14:09
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"The Situation".
"The Situation".
nilbert (not verified)
Wed, 06/07/2017 - 18:41
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I call it Trixie
Corporate-Military-State
up to its old tricks again.
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 06/08/2017 - 02:21
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This reeks of reductionism.
This reeks of reductionism. It's okay to be against multiple things, and to be against them differently.
anonymous
Thu, 06/08/2017 - 23:05
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Hierarchical Power Structures
e.g. capitalism, centralized government, organized religions, patriarchy, white supremacy, etc.
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 06/08/2017 - 23:12
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Upright paper-boxes.
Upright paper-boxes.
emile
Fri, 06/09/2017 - 01:13
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the only way to change something one is included in is
to transform oneself. in self-other nonduality, 'other' is transformed at the same time as 'self'.
being included in something together with stuff we don't like is the price we have to pay to be able to transform it without going to war against it. This 'shaking hands with the devil' is the way of the 'Peacemaker' [Dekanahwideh, the founder of the Iroquois five nation confederacy]
of course it is more common to hold on to the self-other dualist split and work on changing the world over to the way we want it to be.
Anonymous (not verified)
Fri, 06/09/2017 - 06:08
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Authority, power,
Authority, power, authoritarianism, domination, and hierarchy all get at the core of the anarchism that I'm into. Totality works too, seems to be the modern trendy term for a similar line of thought. Capitalism, civilization, christianity, etc. all could fit under any of those terms in my book (maybe a little more complication w civ though) but in any case, I was introduced to anarchy as an anti-authoritarian critique of culture. So centering capitalism (or anything else that is authoritarian but not criticized on that basis) always sat poorly with me, because the whole reason I was attracted to writings of anarchists was because I grew up with repeated exposure to violent bullies (cops, parents, bosses, etc) and it seemed like anarchists lumped them all into the same category as authoritarian pieces of shit.
emile
Fri, 06/09/2017 - 14:26
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categories do not exist in the physical reality of experience
categories are statistical manipulation used to synthetically reduce relational activities to notional 'things-in-themselves' that can be defined by 'their common properties. our Western cultural habit is to reduce relational activities that transpire within the common relational space that we are included in, to things-in-themselves definable by their local 'common properties'.
thanks to our language games we can imagine that 'we' and 'they' are separate things in themselves and thus imagine that we can go to war against them and beat the shit out of them without doing ourselves any harm because we see 'self' and 'other' as two separate things WHICH THEY ARE NOT (they are relational forms within a transforming relational continuum that includes both 'us' and 'them').
'the authorities' are not 'things-in-themselves' just as universities are not 'things-in-themselves'. these 'systems' persist though all the while people are flowing into them and out of them, to and from the relational suprasystem of community they are included in. these systems are like whorls in the suprasystem flow and certainly not locally animating things-in-themselves. likewise the dualist 'self-other' split between 'the authorities' and 'ourselves' is an artefact of the 'semantic realities' we construct that do not exist in the physical reality of our actual experience.
Anonymous (not verified)
Fri, 06/09/2017 - 06:49
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Politics is the horror show.
Especially those dehumanizing identity politics. But all politics are dehumanizing as far as they pretend being progressive, for some greater good, yadyyada. Perhaps if everyone accepts what they really are about (power, self-interest, flirting clubs) they'd not be dehumanizing, but the hypocrisy, the smoke and mirrors... and this fantasy LARPing is pretty fucked up neurosis.
Gunter (not verified)
Fri, 06/09/2017 - 14:42
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Suppression produces the fetish,
Suppression produces the fetish, the desire set free does not calcify into neurosis.
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