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Resistance In Consumerist Society
« on: June 25, 2014, 10:38:25 am »
An Introduction to the Thread

This topic was inspired by a flash of insight I experienced when Crazy Squirrel immediately understood my indifferent attitude concerning propaganda about some arbitrary Jersey Shore town "shaping up."   This validation of my gut level feelings triggered a moment of clarity for me.  I'll try to do some thinking about it while I am coherent.

First, back up a little.

Like this message board itself, this subject/topic is a tangent off of Number Six's "Boycott Amazon" post.  I know the people shudder at the thought of boycotting Amazon.com since, well, they can get a printer cartridge for a fraction of what they would pay in the stores or directly from the retailer.  Principles, principles, principles ... ethics, ethic, ethics ... solidarity ... what's solidarity?

OK.  The subject is RESISTANCE.


Under the video about working conditions at Amazon (and other such warehouses behind the scenes) there is one comment that hits the nail on the head: “Middle-class people who defend such labor practices are the Uncle Toms of the 21 century.”

That’s why, with Ignatius Reilly, I say, “Down with the middle class! The middle class must go!”

It’s just such a relief to cop such an attitude since the middle class is supposed to be the salt of the earth. Or … building up the reputation of a town by building high-priced luxury apartments for young urban professionals (yuppies) … Then people talking about how the town is really “shaping up.”

Crazy Squirrels two cents:  "Ugh…when people speak of a neighborhood ‘shaping up’, I sigh heavily and roll my eyes. ‘Shaping up’ = **** boring, after all. Blech!"

It is amazing to me that you totally understood what I was getting at. Yes, “shaping up” = “boring” – I think that must be it.

“Shaping up” implies “you have to spend money in yuppie establishments in order to be ‘having fun’” – even though it is all make-believe fun!

“Shaping up” means “those freaks who have conversations by the trees in the park next to the library will be harassed by the hired guns of the corporate state”.

“Shaping up” = those of you who are unemployed will eventually be arrested on some trumped up “disorderly conduct” charge then coerced into an “outpatient treatment program” where brains will be bombarded with “positive thinking therapy groups” which will make you want to drink yourself to death. Heeheehee. Shaping up …

Clean up your act …. shave the beard off, get the rotten teeth pulled, and wear dentures … Maybe blend in … UGH!

Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

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Re: Resistance In Consumerist Society
« Reply #1 on: June 25, 2014, 10:52:24 am »
Resistance In Consumerist Society

We turn to  “The Culture Industry: The Enlightenment as Mass Deception” by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer.

They examine fascism as an outgrowth of liberalism.  Consumerist Society is homogenized by music, movies, art, television and other media.

Quote
That homogenization is controlled by economic powers that developed under liberalism; these powers define pleasure, then offer to sell it to the masses under the aegis of capitalism.

The problem is that if complete pleasure is ever attained by consumers, they would have no reason to continue to patronize economic powers because satisfaction would be realized. To obviate this plight, the economic powers define pleasure as consumerism.

The individual, then, attempts to satisfy her/himself by buying more and more goods and, in so doing, becomes an eternal consumer: The principle dictates that he [the consumer] should be shown all his needs as capable of fulfillment, but that those needs should be so pre-determined that he feels himself to be the eternal consumer. . . . It makes him believe that the deception it practices is satisfaction.     

The individual assumes that she is acting on her free will when consuming: there is a sense of individual satisfaction in, say, attending a concert of one’s favorite musical group. Because the eternal consumer is established en masse, though, the individual will is actually undermined. Megalithic corporations establish the consumer imperative in many, many people through invasive advertising techniques.

Those who consume become part of an “in group.” Anyone not satisfying themselves by accumulating material goods and pleasures, anyone not enjoying the mass-produced culture, becomes an outsider. The consuming imperative, then, creates conformity: everyone, for instance, must buy CD players and VCRs or risk being ridiculed.

I am quoting Joshua Blu Buhs who is referencing “The Culture Industry: The Enlightenment as Mass Deception” because this gets right to the heart of the matter.

This so-called "shaping up" is so clearly an attempt to enforce this kind of environment, recreating the immature mindset one endures in high school socialization:  everyone must purchase the gadgets and clothes ... everyone must pay the cost of the admission fee or risk being ridiculed.

Those who consume become part of an in group.  Anyone not enjoying the mass-produced culture becomes an outsider.

This is very related to why I chose anti-hero as my identifier.  My heroes are like Kafka's K and Dostoevsky's Underground Man.  My heroes are the outsiders, the so-called "losers" who are a living protest against  fascism as an outgrowth of liberalism.  By creating an 'in group' as a standard, the culture industry encourages consumers not to think for themselves but to fall in line with the crowd ... or risk being ostracized.  The culture industry produces products which encourage non-thinking obedience. 

One resists the culture industry by thinking for oneself, but by standing apart from the crowd, one is made into a pariah. The culture industry acts as a fascist leader, denigrating individuals and promoting ignorance.  George Carlin called this Smiley Faced Fascism Sporting Nike Sneakers.

Quote
The ideal of the avoidance of thought is reinforced by advertising that defines pleasure as the absence of intellectual work: “Pleasure always means not to think about anything, to forget suffering even where it is shown. Basically it is helplessness. . . . The liberation which amusement promises is freedom from thought” (Adorno and Horkheimer).

All that is sought after is consumerism as dictated by the culture industry: The most intimate reactions of human beings have been so reified that the idea of anything specific to themselves now persists only as an utterly abstract notion: personality scarcely signifies anything more than shining white teeth and freedom from body odor and emotions.

... freedom from body odor ... freedom from emotions ... freedom from thought ... freedom from reality ...

At least we know the enemy.
« Last Edit: October 12, 2014, 06:58:25 pm by { } »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Holden

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Re: Resistance In Consumerist Society
« Reply #2 on: June 27, 2014, 12:28:25 am »
I hate consumerism too,there is no end to it.
I feel someone like Trotsky,for all his faults,was a thousand times better than Reagan & Maggie Thatcher The Milk Snatcher. 
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

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Re: Resistance In Consumerist Society
« Reply #3 on: June 30, 2014, 09:44:12 pm »
God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables – slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy **** we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

The things you own end up owning you.

It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.

You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank.

You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet.

Reject the basic assumptions of civilization, especially the importance of material possessions.

(Fight Club)
« Last Edit: June 30, 2014, 09:50:44 pm by H »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Holden

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Re: Resistance In Consumerist Society
« Reply #4 on: July 01, 2014, 05:12:05 am »
People like you & I,without a wife & kids to support,are the only ones who can give reply in kind to the corporations.The other day,one of the boss-man was saying openly" I really want all the employees to be married & have at least a couple of kids, that way there's no way out for them,nilly-willy they've got to stick around"

That's why I am such an eyesore to the slave-owner,I need to feed no one but myself,I don't need their garbage filled malls,so I make them feel insecure.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

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Re: Resistance In Consumerist Society
« Reply #5 on: July 01, 2014, 06:36:41 pm »
Garbage filled malls!  Haha.

 8)  It's amazing too ... It is becoming quite a trend.  A few months ago I was helping a woman from India move out of her apartment, and out of nowhere her 17 year old son was telling me how he is never going to get married since it just doesn't make any sense.

And in Japan the government is trying to bribe couple to wed and reproduce: free giant tv [read: GARBAGE].

And in the United States, the more children [fodder for war machine economy and future labor force] mothers produce, the more the State will pay ... basically, we are on a funny farm plantation ... and renegade thinkers like you and I and the young man from India (or the Hikikomoris of Japan) present quite a challenge to the Zoo Keepers.

As Hermann Hesse said, intellectuals are worthless to the captains of industry.

Anyone who does not need much from the malls, whether they have replicated their DNA or not, must be made to appear inadequate.  What, you're not buying television sets or paying for a cable connection, are you some kind of terrorist?   :D
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Holden

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Re: Resistance In Consumerist Society
« Reply #6 on: July 02, 2014, 05:42:43 am »
Hikikomoris..yes ,at least the Japanese have come up with a word for my condition.I don't think there is a succinct word in English for people like me.Social Withdrawal.Consumerism is a disease,why do I need to eat caviar when I can satiate my hunger with lentil( Diogene's favourite).
Why do I need to wear new clothes every day? There are people I know who have literally tons of clothes & I don't think they'd've worn a particular piece of clothing more than once.Why this utter wastage? This conspicuous consumption.?
Marx called it Commodity Fetish.
 To avoid the status anxiety of not being of or belonging to "the right social class", the consumer establishes a personal identity (social, economic, cultural) that is defined and expressed by the commodities (goods and services) that he or she buys, owns, and uses; the domination of things that communicate the "correct signals" of social prestige, of belonging. The Society of the Spectacle is the ultimate form of social alienation that occurs when a person views his or her being (self) as a commodity that can be bought and sold, because he or she regards every human relation as a (potential) business transaction.


What do we  do?

And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting:
 And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables,
And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Crazy Squirrel

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Re: Resistance In Consumerist Society
« Reply #7 on: July 02, 2014, 09:55:09 pm »
Quote: "This so-called "shaping up" is so clearly an attempt to enforce this kind of environment, recreating the immature mindset one endures in high school socialization: everyone must purchase the gadgets and clothes... everyone must pay the cost of the admission fee or risk being ridiculed. Those who consume become part of an in group. Anyone not enjoying the mass-produced culture becomes an outsider."

Quote: "...personality scarcely signifies anything more than shining white teeth and freedom from body odor and emotions."

I want to add here that the 'admission fee' is even higher for women. Not only are women expected to purchase the gadgets and the clothes (LOTS of clothes, plus tons of accessories...a woman MUST be 'fashionable'! :P ), but it's also demanded of us to be slaves to what is commonly referred to as 'beauty', the rules of which are arbitrary, increasingly ridiculous, and in the end, always unattainable. As with virtually every young girl, I got sucked into the belief that if I could just buy the 'right' cosmetics/skin care/whatever, I'd become more popular, and be more desirable to boys. It sounds completely insane when written out like that, but believe me, it's a real thing, and it's extremely insidious; most women spend most of their lives and a huge chunk of their income on that so-called 'self-improvement'. I began to resist that programming in my late teens, and make-up was the first thing to go. I had no idea that the seemingly insignificant act of appearing in public without 'clown paint' would cause me to be viewed as a loser and a freak. Over the years, I've actually had several men tell me outright that they didn't want to date me because I didn't wear make-up. One guy added that he wanted a woman who 'takes care of herself', which I took to mean that because I refuse to go through the expense and trouble of putting on the 'spackle' every morning, I'm clearly a lazy slob, and my overall personal hygiene is questionable, as well (and probably my worth as a person, too). So yes, even the slightest deviation will have consequences. People never grow up from that high school mentality, really.

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Re: Resistance In Consumerist Society
« Reply #8 on: July 03, 2014, 08:32:55 am »
In workplace parlance, an “engaged” employee is an individual who not only completes tasks on time, but is actually enthusiastic about the work they are doing. Engaged employees do not see their place of work as an obligation, but rather as an opportunity. They combine a strong, intelligent work ethic with the desire to not only improve their circumstances, but the circumstances of those around them. They are the embodiment of a creative force; where others see routine or drudgery, they see a challenge or problem that needs to be solved.

Disengaged employees, on the other hand, must be motivated to perform on an hourly basis. They drag themselves through their day, contributing the bare minimum and often detracting from the work of their peers with negative comments or an overwhelming pessimism that is energy draining. This pessimism is so toxic that it affects not only co-workers, but customers as well, driving away potential business and harming previously solid customer relationships. Research has shown that employee disengagement in the United States adds up to approximately $350 billion dollars per year of lost productivity.

Make me wanna puke.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

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Re: Resistance In Consumerist Society
« Reply #9 on: July 04, 2014, 11:33:38 am »
Even when people rebel against this pressure to conform, the zoo keepers try to make money off the rebellion with music concerts, beer sales, and T-shirts.  The most radical thing to do is to be a minimalist.  I like the idea of a woman not wearing make-up.  It is kind of like my refusal to "lift weights".   I just don't feed into the propaganda which infects people with the compulsion to look like "Hollywood actors" ...

With Arundhati Roy I have to ask, "How can so many be controlled by so few?"

And along with Daniel Quinn I have to say that it is not so much the 1% living like gods, kings, princesses that disgusts me, but that the 99% aspire to emulate their ostentatious consumption.  We reach a point where we just don't care anymore.  Everything is set up to manipulate people into spending money so as to have the credentials of "success" --- Isn't it rather sweet revenge to witness that the gorts think they are winning in the game of life when the real treasures are not even for sale?  Those of us who do not chase after the status symbols will be branded as losers or even mentally deranged ... I say be strong and continue to resist. 

There are far more outsiders than insiders.  If we only realized our numbers, we could shut the **** down by tomorrow morning.  And with George Orwell we must say ... And yet!

We just have to wait and see.  Perhaps the tide is turning.


Engaged employees detract from the work of their peers with negative comments or an overwhelming pessimism that is energy draining.


Note From 2011.09.22


Quote
I had an opportunity to research sabotage. Think about this word, ‘sabotage’. Notice how the word, sabotage, doesn’t have the connotations of the word, ‘terrorism’.

sabotage 
1. destruction of property or obstruction of normal operations, as by civilians or enemy agents in times of war.
2. Treacherous action to defeat or hinder a cause or an endeavor; deliberate subversion.

We need to become saboteurs in some way – to stifle the effectiveness of the mass control system without being held responsible and punished. We need not be martyrs, nor need our efforts be violent, but simple non-compliance will never be enough. That is handing the other side victory. They want dissenters to settle on simple non-compliance. How this resistance should take form, we still haven’t figured out. Maybe we never will.
(“Blaze”)

Maybe there are hints in Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces.

Quote
Jones spread the newspaper. “Whoa!” he said to Mr. Watson. “You sure give me a good idea with all this sabotage crap. Now I sabotage myself right back to bein’ a vagran. Hey!”

“It look like this sabotage go off like a nuclear bum.”

“That fat freak guarentee one hunner percen nuclear bum. ****. Drop him on somebody, everybody gettin caught in the fallout, gettin their ass blowed up. Ooo-wee …”

There’s a big clue on page two oh two.

Sabotage: a cook adding too much pepper in the soup, a kid in the supermarket dropping too many eggs, a parking lot attendant slipping on oil crashing into a fence …

I think my inner resistance exceeds the rejection of this consumerist society ... it goes far deeper.
« Last Edit: July 04, 2014, 12:31:13 pm by H »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

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Re: Resistance In Consumerist Society
« Reply #10 on: July 08, 2014, 10:52:39 pm »
Lin Yutang

Quote
We who put on dog collars and neckties and go with the regimented herd to an office every day cannot help envying the man who wears an old broad-brimmed hat and open shirt, who dares to walk in the sun in the good hours of the morning doing nothing. He is the man who does not yield to social pressures. He does not have his holidays rationed. He TAKES them. He is jealous of his personal liberty and a little disdainful of the multifarious activities of society and politics. He stands a little aloof and is not intimidated.


Lin Yutang refers to this lucky person as a "scamp." He chooses the scamp as the ideal: The scamp is a literary symbol of a man who refuses to submit to the external pressures of society. I looked up scamp. It means rascal or scoundrel even. A mischeivious character. Someone like the character Henry Fool or even Ignatius Reilly or Martin Dean or even myself, for that matter.

It's not a very great way of life, but the alternative has become unimaginable to me. I've become unfit for employment since I have become so accustomed to just being myself. Very problematic when it comes to "earning a living" in this society.

Lin Yutang alsp wrote:


Something of man has been lost. We are all properly subdued. Do not talk to me of initiative, pluck, and spirit of adventure when a college graduate applying for a job asks, "What are the terms for retirement pensions?" The dissenter, the man (or woman, of course) who refuses to conform, is still the man (or woman) for me.



« Last Edit: July 08, 2014, 10:56:30 pm by H »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

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Re: Resistance In Consumerist Society
« Reply #11 on: July 10, 2014, 02:13:39 pm »
Quote from: Q
Incidentally, I did the Occupy thing in Tampa, even slept out on the streets once. But I ultimately became disillusioned with it. I wrote a powerful document for them (no false modesty, ala Mike) and they ignored it because I wasn't part of the "in-clique." Yes, even "outsider" groups have "in-cliques." Always.

Plus, Occupy really isn't accomplishing much. So they got banks to cancel a $5 debit card fee or something. Whoopty-doo! Way to go in abolishing capitalism. What we really need is something like a 30 day worldwide general strike, just for starters. Wealthy college kids and hippies holding signs won't cut it.

What Occupy offered, briefly, was hope. And even though we all know where that leads, I think we were all spellbound, at least for a little while.

I, for one, appreciate not being charged $5 per month for the debit card fee, but, Q is right, this isn't exactly equivalent to abolishing capitalism.   :-\

How to Overthrow the System:

Brew your own beer; kick in your Tee Vee; kill your own beef; build your own cabin and **** off the front porch whenever you bloody well feel like it.

Quote from: Q
Yep, you're right. "The 99%" are 99% motivated not by any real desire to tank the system and start fresh with something better, but rather by a resentment that not everyone can afford big Tee Vees and the glorious "middle class" lifestyle. And really, by publicly affirming the value and legitimacy of such a lifestyle, they are doing as much harm as good. Most of the 99% are upset because they aren't being given the chance to exploit with the big boys.

The media, as usual, is a barrel of laughs, trying to paint the protesters as "anarchists" and the like. Yeah, right. Most are as jawb-trained as anyone else and just want everyone to have a well-paying "yaab" and the ability to consume crapola more prodigiously, like good "middle class" people ought to.

While everyone in America is obsessed with "creating jobs" and "saving the middle class," I'd rather do away with both. I doubt anyone will turn out with signs in support of that. And it's also why I stopped turning out in support of the "Occupy" movement.

Quote from: Daniel Quinn
It's probably not going to be the billionaire pop stars, sports heroes, and deal makers who are going to lead us out of the prison we share with them. It's the rest of us who must find the way out, who must discover something better to hope for than inhabiting a sable-lined cell next to Barbara Streisand, Michael Jordan, or Donald Trump.




Quote from: Alian Badiou
It is not for nothing that governments, when an emblem of their void wanders about – generally, an inconsistent or rioting crowd – prohibit “gatherings of more than three people,” which is to say they explicitly declare their non-tolerance of the one of such ‘parts,’ thus proclaiming that the function of the State is to number inclusions such that consistent belongings be preserved.

The void is reduced to the non-representation of the proletariate, thus, unpresentability is reduced to a modality of nonrepresentation; the separate count of parts is reduced to the non-universality of bourgeois interests, to the presentative split between normality and singularity. Politics can be defined as an assault against the state. The State is precisely non-political
.


« Last Edit: July 10, 2014, 06:00:26 pm by H-503 »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

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Re: Resistance In Consumerist Society
« Reply #12 on: July 10, 2014, 02:27:20 pm »
Quote from: me
*** Elections for corporatized politicians are such a theatrical farce!

Resistance =
{
Ethnic minorities brutalized and terrorized by urban police thugs and herded into the prison-industrial-complex as chattel fed into the system to maintain employment for well-fed well-disciplined militarized Slave Patrol Force;

Rebellious middle-class youth (Flower Children) drawn to resistance activity as a result of idealism, restlessness, and the expanding attacks on youth by the multinational corporate State;

Rural and small town militia-men;

Persons of all walks of life fed up with business-as-usual in a world which leaves most feeling empty, even and especially those who have attained all the credentials of so-called success (fame and fortune)
}

There are four basic groups.

1. Youth: both working class youth as well as privileged class youth attracted to radical politics

2. Traditional working-class people from the sparsely populated areas of the United States

3. The urban poor

4. outlaw elements (The Lumpenproletariat):
{
gang members
ex-convicts
prison inmates
various drug cultures
the homeless
those shuffled into group homes
various diverse "street" elements
}

All four groups share common enemies: socio-economic elites, militarized police forces, corporate elites who don't know or care a thing about literature or mental excellence, but live a lifestyle of vulgar ostentatious consumption, including private 50 million dollar jets and privately owned "security forces," i.e, McDonaldized Mafias.

The primary differences which divide us are cultural, but as you and I have both experienced, it is easy to be an outcast among outcasts if you are endowed with a powerful intellect.

Also, the lumpen elements from the lowest rungs of the socio-economic ladder are viewed with suspicion and mistrust even by other disenfranchized sectors of the Resistance (busted, disgusted, and not to be trusted).

Each of us (parts of The Void) must ultimately fight (resist) on its own turf. We have to seize opportunities in our everyday lives to question and refuse humiliating or debilitating authority.

Quote from: Q
Yep. I have long since realized I am "an Army of One," to borrow a phrase. Either no movement will have me or I won't have them. The only question is whether they will tire of me before I tire of them. Usually my involvement doesn't even last long enough for the question to arise. I am definitely an "outcast among outcasts." If I have "supporters," it's only because they haven't spoken to me long enough. Given time, it's certain that I will alienate them or they will alienate me.

I tell "my" truth even if it proves me to be an ****. I'm not afraid of being an **** when the alternative is being a gort. In the intellectual realm, I end every adventure with guns blazing and shots grazing my back, chased by a hysterical mob with torches and pitchforks. Que serra serra.

It only bothers you the first dozen times. Then it becomes more comical and playful, and you find a new freedom in the certainty of rejection. I've gotten to the point where I find it preferable for those who are going to reject me to do so as fast as possible. It saves a lot of wasted time and energy, and it lets me know who thinks I'm an ****, which is valuable information, since it usually turns out that I find those people to be assholes as well. I'm all for a well-defined mutual disdain.

It lets a guy know where he stands - and sooner or later, guys like us usually discover we are standing alone. Don't put your faith in anybody but close family members and maybe a couple of close friends you've known for years (online or off). Everybody else will eventually turn on you with fangs bared at some point. Unconditional respect and support are incredibly rare things and we cannot expect to discover them more than a few times in the course of our lives.

I've had "best friends" drop me overnight, never to speak to me again - and in more than one case, I never even knew why. Guys like us can offend just by being ourselves, without even intending any harm or being conscious of having done anything. You never know what's going to be "the thing" that turns somebody against you - all you know is that more likely than not, it's coming. One day you're Mr. Fantastic, the next day you're a **** sandwich. But life goes on, always on and on.

Friends will drop us, family will drop us, society will drop us, and the world will drop us. Who will not drop us? Only "the one" who is our true nature, and who keeps guys like you and I on the same page in spite of different circumstances. The "Great Mystery," the indivisible Inner Being which calls us to unity.


How to defend yourself against psychic attack

Some of us, more than others, accrue more enemies. And not everyone is going to be overjoyed over our decision making process, either. Just by standing your ground and staying in your own, personal balance, can make people angry at you. You can be attacked just because you're breathing.

Cop an attitude that you know not everyone is going to agree with you. If you can shift yourself into detaching (Zen-like) emotionally from those who don't like you (and never will), then you are stopping the giving or frittering away your energy to them.

It is impossible to acquire capital and maintain full personal integrity. A revolutionary class pits middle-class capitalists against a proletarian, antithetical class. And yet, the great proletarian thinkers are usually those who drop OUT of the middle class.

Are we forced to choose between integrity and social convention? Choose between passionate being and economic "security" ?

The revolution did not happen in the United States, Great britain, or Germany, where Marx and Engels anticipated it happening, but in 1917 Russia. Was it because the "proletarian" had been enlightened by Dostoevsky?


« Last Edit: July 10, 2014, 02:39:14 pm by H »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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Re: Resistance In Consumerist Society
« Reply #13 on: July 10, 2014, 02:56:37 pm »
I found a passage I had been looking for when I started this thread.  It never made it to xhentric.wordpress.com where I was looking for it, but was on a flashdrive where I had saved some of the threads from a previous message board.

Quote from: Adorno & Horkheimer
... this society ... reproduces to a certain degree only the lives of its faithful members.

The standard of life enjoyed corresponds very closely to the degree to which classes and individuals are essentially bound up with the system. The manager can be relied upon, as can the lesser employee Dagwood - as he is in the comic pages or in real life.  Anyone who goes cold and hungry, even if his prospects were once good, is branded. He is an outsider; and, apart from certain capital crimes, the most mortal of sins is to be an outsider.

In films he sometimes, and as an exception, becomes an original, the object of maliciously indulgent humor; but usually he is the villain, and is identified as such at first appearance, long before the action really gets going: hence avoiding any suspicion that society would turn on those of good will. Higher up the scale, in fact, a kind of welfare state is coming into being today. In order to keep their own positions, men in top posts maintain the economy in which a highly-developed technology has in principle made the masses redundant as producers. The workers, the real bread-winners, are fed (if we are to believe the ideology) by the managers of the economy, the fed. Hence the individual's position becomes precarious.

Under liberalism the poor were thought to be lazy; now they are automatically objects of suspicion. Anybody who is not provided for outside should be in a concentration camp, or at any rate in the hell of the most degrading work and the slums.
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

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Re: Resistance In Consumerist Society
« Reply #14 on: July 11, 2014, 05:22:30 am »
It only bothers you the first dozen times. Then it becomes more comical and playful, and you find a new freedom in the certainty of rejection. I've gotten to the point where I find it preferable for those who are going to reject me to do so as fast as possible. You can be attacked just because you're breathing.The revolution did not happen in the United States, Great britain, or Germany, where Marx and Engels anticipated it happening, but in 1917 Russia. Was it because the "proletarian" had been enlightened by Dostoevsky?
 

Thanks Mr H,this freeboard is my mother lode.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.