i have no one to send this to.. ok i’m gonna post it

http://www.0100101110101101.org/home/mygeneration/index.html

humour me

The building blocks of materialism, it turns out, are immaterial:

“There is a physical relation between physical things. But it is different with commodities. There, the existence of the things qua commodities, and the value relations between the products of labour which stamps them as commodities, have absolutely no connection with their physical properties and with the material relations arising therefrom. There is a definite social relation between men, that assumes, in their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between things.” -this was written a hundred and fifty years ago.

“The capitalist epoch is therefore characterised by this, that labour-power takes in the eyes of the labourer himself the form of commodity which is his property; his labour consequently becomes wage labour. On the other hand, it is only from this moment that the produce of labour universally becomes a commodity.”

“The bookbinding trade in the city of London employs very many young girls from 14 to 15 years old, and that under indentures which prescribe certain very definite hours of labour. Nevertheless, they work in the last week of each month until 10, 11, 12, or 1 o’clock at night, along with the older labourers, in a very mixed company. ‘The masters temps them by extra pay and supper,’ which they eat in neighbouring public-houses. The great debauchery thus produced among these ‘young immortals’ (()) is compensated by the fact that among the rest many Bibles and religious books are bound by them.”

EXTRA EXTRA

SELF-GOVERNMENT NOT THE GOVERNMENT OF EACH BY HIMSELF BUT OF EACH BY ALL THE REST

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The many points made good by the writing of John Stewart Mill on Liberty

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Self-interest defined: Causes which influence men’s wishes in regard to the conduct of others ((…)) sometimes their reason; at other times their prejudice or superstitions; often their social affections, not seldom their anti-social ones, their envy or jealousy, their arrogance or contemptuousness; but most commonly their desires or fears for themselves.

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((Mid-19th c. Britain)) Our merely social intolerance kills no one, roots out no opinions, but induces men to disguise them or to abstain from any active effort for their diffusion. With us, heretical opinions do not perceptibly gain, or even lose, ground in each decade or generation; they never blaze out far and wide, but continue to smoulder in the narrow circles of thinking and studious persons among whom they originate, without ever lighting up the general affairs of mankind with either a true or a deceptive light. And thus is kept up a state  if things very satisfactory to some minds, because, without the unpleasant process of fining or imprisoning anybody, it maintains all prevailing opinions outwardly undisturbed, while it does not absolutely interdict the exercise of reason by dissentients afflicted with the malady of thought.

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((Linear-cyclical philosophy of history – “forgetting”– but what about “absorption” and practicing method — pedagogy)) We often hear the teachers of all creeds lamenting the difficulty of keeping up in the minds of believers a lively apprehension of the truth which they nominally recognize, so that it may penetrate the feelings and acquire a real mastery over the conduct. No such difficulty is complained of while the creed is still fighting for its existence; even the weaker combatants then know and feel what they are fighting for, and the difference between  it and other doctrines; and in that period of every creed’s existence not a few persons may be found who have realised its fundamental principles in all the forms of thought, have weighed and considered them in all their important bearings, and have experienced the full effect on the character which belief in that creed ought to produce in a mind thoroughly imbued with it. But when it has come to be an hereditary ((nearly spacial transfer when time is compressed)) creed, and to be received passively, not actively – when the mind is no longer compelled, in the same degree as at first, to exercise its vital powers on the questions which its belief presents to it, there is a progressive tendency to forget all of the belief except the formularies, or to give it a dull and torpid assent, as if accepting it on trust ((idol)) dispensed with the necessity of realizing it in consciousness, or testing it by personal experience, until it almost ceases to connect itself at all with the inner life of the human being.

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before it is named

falsity:

nationalism » liberalism

actuality:

nationalism »

liberalism (religion) »

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Rationalism in Europe re. Magic and Witchcraft

“We frequently find, in the writings of the inquisitors, language which implies that a certain amount of scepticism was, even in their time, smouldering in some minds. It was not indeed sufficient to make any deep impression on public opinion. It is identified with no great name, and produced no great book; but it was yet sufficiently evident to elicit the anxiety of some theologians. ‘Those men, ‘ wrote Gerson, ‘should be treated with scorn, and indeed sternly corrected, who ridicule theologians whenever they speak of demons, or attribute to demons any effects, as if these things were entirely fabulous. This error has arisen among some through want of faith, and partly through weakness and imperfection of intellect… for, as Plato says, to refer everything to the senses, and to be incapable of turning away from them, is the greatest impediment to truth.’ Sprenger also, in a long chapter, instructed theologians how to meet a spirit of vague scepticism which had arisen among certain layment; ‘who had, indeed, no fixed method of reasoning, but were blindly groping in the dark, touching now on one point, and now on another.’ ((…)) in the north of Italy, a positive rebellion had broken out, accompanied by a tone of incredulity which ((Spina)) piteously laments. ‘Most imprudent, most undevout, and most unfaithful men will not believe the things they ought to believe; and what is still more lamentable, they exert all the influence to obstruct those who are destroying the enemies of Christ.’ Such a conduct was full of danger for those who were guilty of it, as they might themselves be justly punished for conniving at the crime: and it was a distinct reflection upon the Church which was represented by the inquisitors and upon the Pope by whom the inquisitors were commissioned. We find too, the clergy claiming, in a very peremptory tone, the supreme jurisdiction of these cases, and occasionally alleging the misconduct of lay judges who had suffered witches to depart unharmed.” – WEH Lecky

Danger Travail

12 years old

i should have listened to my heart

“History is starting again, which means that nothing is fixed and there are no guarantees” – http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/011707.html

hmm.. it really was the end of history.

more on value

In that old microeconomics textbook, the Wealth of Nations, it is written:

“the principle circumstances which [] make up for a small pecuniary gain in some employments, and counterbalance a great one in others: first, the agreeableness or disagreeableness of the employments themselves; secondly, the easiness and cheapness, or the difficulty and expense of learning them; thirdly, the constancy, or inconstancy of employment in them; fourthly, the small or great trust which must be reposed in those who exercise them; and fifthly, the probability or improbability of success in them.”

So, value is given to that which solves or displaces the problems of = 1) shit (taboo acts marked by prejudice), 2) effort (including existential) in learning (uncertainty/mystery/lack of knowledge/unexplained), 3)  irregularity/insecurity (fear), 4) trust issues (risk), 5) likelihood of success/authenticity (reputation)

Or, to be half-assed about it: value = scarcity. Scarcity is subjective, constructed, cultural, and political. It is neither objective nor neutral.

If you were to ask me to do something for you, i would happily oblige if i were intrigued, respected you, loved you, or simply had nothing better to do. I may have many reasons to do this, not the least of which being that you asked me to help. I cannot of course, help you unconditionally. In both the sense that i cannot devote myself to you, since i do have my own life to live, and would often rather share my time with others. Paying me would in my case liberate some of my time, since what i give up for a living elsewhere is, in its manifestation, as disconnected or connected to the foundations of my life as i conceive it, as what i would be doing for you. If however you were asking me to do what i would otherwise be doing for free, then i would do it for free (cet. par.).

So, the more I ask for, or the more you pay me, the more it is likely that i don’t want to be doing what it is you’re asking of me, or, the more i have been committed to doing things in my life that put me in this position (e.g. schooling) rather than another one that might have been more of my choosing or more “me”. So those who garner more pay are those who least do what they want or are meant to, to the point that perhaps, since they claim it is what they want, and since they are so rewarded, that they confuse who they are with who they might be, were the circumstances different, were the choices less absurd. These doppelgangers of the disenfranchised have been confused for strangers. It is at them that development must be directed! Just kidding. As it is well known in better-to-do circles, development is the cutting-edge of colonialism. Rather, to be fair, we ought to be their allies. And insofar as we are of the upper classes, so are we entitled to allies in our struggle to free ourselves of that which chains us to privilege. It is a struggle akin to that of our oppressed siblings. Just as they are oppressed, we are repressed. Well, they’re a bit repressed too. Top and bottom is a complicated affair in an orgy. Just as men are also losers in the patriarchal gender structure, so are the rich in the capitalist class complex. Seeing the capital-free as such, how could we not encourage them in their struggle, and how could we begrudge their outreached hands, stuffed in puppets.

Some will say that they prefer their better-paying jobs over the crappy jobs they’ve had over the years. And I myself prefer world peace. It’s quite remarkable how much it is taken for granted that one must be employed at all cost, however little. On my income, the little you give up seems like a hell of a lot. After giving up so much, i have a hard time giving more, no matter how little. It’s a matter of principle. I never really understood that. But here I am saying it.

At the end of the day, the only way to make money disproportionately, if you do not have a disproportionate amount to begin with, is to take it. Taking differs from stealing or competing in that it results in redistributing resources, value, commitment. It is akin to selling nothing, poverty, literally, at a premium.

Let’s remember that my commitment is not worth as much as another’s because those that can give either of us credit don’t believe that my doing what i do contributes to their garnering as much commitment as possible beyond what they themselves can commit (cet. par.) – what those things are, i haven’t the faintest clue.

For the time being, make a living while valuing the invaluable.

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An obvious contradiction: in practice, JS Mill observes, the crappier jobs are the least well paid. Or, to be more accurate, those least best paid are considered the crappiest. In any case, wouldn’t this imply that the value of the labour(er) does not determine the value of the job (what it pays), as much as that of the job calls on relevantly valued labour. So the value attributed to a person’s time is determined before marketization. The value of labour reflects, and not only constructs, social division in terms of extent or whatever. …

War is a curiosity. War is, but needn’t be. War is a curiosity for me because I take it as bad, and thus not inevitable in a world that can be good. Another might see it as inevitable, perhaps because for them it is not all that bad. For them, war contains all of the world, good and bad: it is micro-cosmic. But would this not assume war to be a state among comparable others? Yet was is not a state. It is a concept mean to describe or name a situation of which it is a part, and which it is said to represent in comparison to another imagined state. For all practical purposes, war is something that is between us in a variety of circumstances. It is an inherently bad part of anything that is relational.

réel et irréel

La manière de former les idées est ce qui donne caractère à l’esprit humain. L’esprit qui ne forme ses idées que sur des rapports réels est un esprit solide; celui qui se contente de rapports apparents est un esprit superficiel; celui qui voit les rapports tels qu’ils sont est un esprit juste; celui qui les apprécie mal est un esprit faux; celui qui controuve des rapports imaginaires qui n’ont ni réalité ni apparence est un fou; celui qui ne compare point est un imbécile. – LIV. Sensations et Idées: l’Erreur

 

I have this tendency as well to categorise, but some people are just on another level:

“Qui de vous n’a pas regretté quelquefois cet age où le rire est toujours sur les lèvres, et où l’âme est toujours en paix?”

Laughter is actually often on my lips (or just under them, since I’m not so absurd a character). This lesson isn’t so much about how we ought to consider children, but rather how thus we ought to consider ourselves, for there is no need to regret the perpetually (though not constantly) avoidable.