Reaction and Revolution.

Reaction and revolution comes out of the same well: the realization that things are out of your own control, that you are alienated from the world around you. Reaction takes the superficial changes as essential ones, typically, it believes that the changes caused by capitalism that rips people apart from their usual way of life and throws them into entirely new situations facing new, and ever-changing times that become increasingly difficult to cope with. The beginning of our revolutionary or reactionary consciousness might be found in a quote from Marx describing what happens to society in capitalism:

"All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned."

Marx went on to make the claim that:

"...and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his, real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind"

And this is not quite true. Some of us do realize what is going on. The processes of the market continously forces out a new way of life. Considering the cellular phone as the paradigmatic example. It didn't exist at all in the same way fifteen, or even ten years ago. But then, suddenly, the market spewed it out and people purchased it. Unimaginably quickly we've developed our technology. And now, it is part of our lives. When giving phone numbers we give the cell, usually. We carry it with us everywhere. People work it into their daily routine. Many older citizens complain about this, they cannot themselves grasp the technology very well and they realize that the cell phone has invaded our lives and are now almost considered indispensable. They are even status in many circles.

The reactionary turn is to calcify, a state of mind that Lukacs seems to call 'reificated'. They blame the young in one way or another, taking the apparent over the hidden. Perhaps it is not odd that man has not been "compelled to face with sober senses his, real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind." Part of this has to do with liberal obfuscation of economical basis. Part of it has to do with a relatively easy contradiction between the working class and the ruling class. It has not broken into open crisis in the center: and -then- man will face his real conditions of life with a somber realization. As for now, however, it is still quite possible to survive by blaming the Social Democrats, immigrants, kids or whoever. This is what reactionaries do. Essentialism is a very important part of their ideology. The idea that there are 'essential traits' to a group: such as arabs being violent just because they're arabs.

The revolutionary way leads to a contemplation and understanding of the forces that drive forward these changes. Not a wish to reverse them, either, but to harness them and bring them back under human control rather than the absurd god of money and finance that we all serve.

Reaction and revolution comes from the same wellspring. One of the most important things to do for the left is to reveal, mercilessly, the actual basis of life that supports the world that we live in and cause our alienation from one another, the fetishism of commodities where who we are and how good we are as people is measured by what we have, or do not have, in ways of the material.

Reaction and Revolution.

Reaction and revolution comes out of the same well: the realization that things are out of your own control, that you are alienated from the world around you. Reaction takes the superficial changes as essential ones, typically, it believes that the changes caused by capitalism that rips people apart from their usual way of life and throws them into entirely new situations facing new, and ever-changing times that become increasingly difficult to cope with. The beginning of our revolutionary or reactionary consciousness might be found in a quote from Marx describing what happens to society in capitalism:

"All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned."

Marx went on to make the claim that:

"...and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his, real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind"

And this is not quite true. Some of us do realize what is going on. The processes of the market continously forces out a new way of life. Considering the cellular phone as the paradigmatic example. It didn't exist at all in the same way fifteen, or even ten years ago. But then, suddenly, the market spewed it out and people purchased it. Unimaginably quickly we've developed our technology. And now, it is part of our lives. When giving phone numbers we give the cell, usually. We carry it with us everywhere. People work it into their daily routine. Many older citizens complain about this, they cannot themselves grasp the technology very well and they realize that the cell phone has invaded our lives and are now almost considered indispensable. They are even status in many circles.

The reactionary turn is to calcify, a state of mind that Lukacs seems to call 'reificated'. They blame the young in one way or another, taking the apparent over the hidden. Perhaps it is not odd that man has not been "compelled to face with sober senses his, real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind." Part of this has to do with liberal obfuscation of economical basis. Part of it has to do with a relatively easy contradiction between the working class and the ruling class. It has not broken into open crisis in the center: and -then- man will face his real conditions of life with a somber realization. As for now, however, it is still quite possible to survive by blaming the Social Democrats, immigrants, kids or whoever. This is what reactionaries do. Essentialism is a very important part of their ideology. The idea that there are 'essential traits' to a group: such as arabs being violent just because they're arabs.

The revolutionary way leads to a contemplation and understanding of the forces that drive forward these changes. Not a wish to reverse them, either, but to harness them and bring them back under human control rather than the absurd god of money and finance that we all serve.

Reaction and revolution comes from the same wellspring. One of the most important things to do for the left is to reveal, mercilessly, the actual basis of life that supports the world that we live in and cause our alienation from one another, the fetishism of commodities where who we are and how good we are as people is measured by what we have, or do not have, in ways of the material.

Truth?

I'm writing this due to some considerations upon the nature of truth that I have stumbled upon in my friends. It's perhaps an attempt to clarify some things. Or maybe it's just me insidiously trying to make them change their minds.

What is truth?

Philosophers don't agree on it (surprise, surprise) but there tends to be a postmoderly influenced popular idea in Sweden that truth is relative. What would relative truth mean? Let's consider.

* Human beings make their own truth. This can mean any number of things, but many people aim for what in philosophy is called "idealism", the belief that the world is composed of the mental/spiritual rather than something physical which human beings are part. It's an alright thought at first, but I believe it has it's basis in a sort of egomania rather than anything else. It's quite nice to believe we are the center of the universe, and that if we didn't think it it would not exist. But really, when you think about it, you're going to find how absurd it sounds. Does anyone really believe that the sun was circulating the earth 600 years ago and then changed because of Copernicus? And what are you, then? Why are you, specifically, or human beings, endowned with this particular power to "make". You might come up with an idea of a God, etc, but I think you're soon going to find that you're just speculating wildly.

*Truth is relative. What does that mean? Does it even make sense to say? It's such a popular thing to say, but when you investigate it doesn't seem to make sense (sense is, by the way, the perfect word for this - think of how you derive "senseless" from it). Basically, we're going on the charge from idealism above that when you think about it in a longer process it does not make sense. Just because I believe X of Y and you believe Z of Y doesn't mean that one of us is right. Perhaps try to think of it negatively: not that one of must be right but that it doesn't mean either of us is right, or that both of us are or whatever just because we believe something. We've all believed things that we stopped believing in.
What's certainly important is to differentiate what realms we're talking about relative truth. In morality it is far easier to understand. Basically, what you would then mean is just that each culture/person builds their own morality in one way or the other and that one cannot say that one is "true". That's fine.

But in the physical world of atoms, facts, etc, what do you have to lean on? Some people do retreat to saying that it "all depends". For example, a table is not the same in our daily sense perception, Newtonian mechanics and Einsteinian physics. That's fine! But then you're not really saying it depends on our perceptionl, as many seem to try to get at. Don't bite off more than you can philosophically swallow. Few people, even absolutist dogmatics would think that your idea of truth would be, well, acceptable at least.

Myself, I am swinging towards a radical empiricist way of thinking: truth must be incarnated somehow. Perhaps by correspondence between the mental idea, or proposition, and the reality. There are enormous difficulty imbued in that, but I just cannot see how Truth would be a Universal (ie, a Platonic Form).

There's a perception these days that believing in a truth creates totalitarian ideas. I think I can accept that: but it is not so by necessity. Maybe human beings are just so constructed that truth remains -vital- to us. It would make sense. Even David Hume, the sceptic, said that when he went to play billiard with his friends he didn't doubt the law of causality. It's impossible to be a practicing sceptic all the time. Just think about the ordinary things in your home. When you step into the shower, can you ever think about the water that falls on you as relative? Or that you've constructed the toilet seat in your mind and then it materialized in front of you? Does your computer disappear when you fall asleep on it?

Anyway. Certainly, we must remember that millions have died for the Truth (tm), and still do. But millions have also died because of fire, yet, I can hardly believe we should get rid of fire for that.

Moral Investigations - 4.0 Saying what I want t say.

I seem to have a fantastic knack for writing everything but what I want to say. Hopefully this will clear things up.

Let's consider a few other moral fields, or possible moral fields. First of all, ourselves. Do we have moral obligations to ourselves? Nietzsche seemed to think so (!) and I must say, I agree with him. We really can talk about better or worse actions "to" ourselves. However bizarre it is to divide ourselves into Subject-Object like this, I think it might be profitable. We all know that some actions will disappoint us in ourselves, that they will make us feel bad or that they will improve us.

Now, what else are we going to say is included in our moral field? Right now it's rather wide. It involves, seemingly, every human being that we can with reason believe would be affected by our actions, including ourselves. It includes animals, but only nature in a second hand relation. It includes the unborn, and the dead in a second hand relation. But I believe we shall be even more radical.

The ethico-political:

Consider all your relations with people as a vast web, spinning outwards from you. Some you will never meet, some you will only know periphereally but affect quite a lot (such as the parents of your girlfriend, perhaps). Now, whenever you come into contact with a human being you're going to find a nexus of acceptable "moves" (as in a game) that are based on common etiquette. These are things like suitable greeting phrases, topics of conversation, etc. But the question is, really, do you have some sort of obligation to yourself or others when involved in these social nets? It really does seem as if you do, considering how we judge peoples moral character and actions.

I'm not going to say what it is you should do: but I merely want to point to it. You're always going to be involved in these moral, or ethico-political situations. I say ethico-political because there is a strain between what is both perhaps socially acceptable, what you should do and the fact that you're not involved in Kantian reasoning or utilitarian mathematicism when you're involved in this: rather, you're always playing ethics off the cuff. It is far more important to think about our virtues in social life, like the Greeks did, than who to save when a ship you're on sinks. Most of our moral actions are immediate. Some you may have time to think about, but I believe they might be able to be reduced down to virtues. Ie, an action can be valued on a basis of the virtues it promotes or hinders.

So we have a social sphere that closely resembles the virtue ethics of the ancient Greeks, a political (do NOT think of organized political parties/ideologies, but rather any human interaction where we mix the ethical, resources and etiquette and whatever else in one)/ethical network that we consider. These are the center of our moral universe. As social animals, virtues are obviously important to us. Perhaps we may find a better grounding in the world rather than be "thrown into it" as the phenemonologists believed human beings to be.

No idea if this actually helped in clearing up things, but I have a post to make about Truth. I am sure 5.0 will come soon with even more attempts to clear things up.