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A Chaos Marxism Primer

Started by Cramulus, February 15, 2011, 04:17:00 PM

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East Coast Hustle

But the flowery jargon is not only offensive, it's unnecessary and counterproductive. How many people are likely to dismiss the ideas being presented because they DON'T make mention of things like "magick"? I'm guessing the answer is "damn near zero".

And I also don't understand why there is a need to tie something as universal and important as "learning to see the world for what it is and to react accordingly" with something as culturally niche-specific as an anti-corporatist or anti-consumerist stance.
Rabid Colostomy Hole Jammer of the Coming Apocalypse™

The Devil is in the details; God is in the nuance.


Some yahoo yelled at me, saying 'GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH', and I thought, "I'm feeling generous today.  Why not BOTH?"

Placid Dingo

I really like the piece, am still finishing it off at present.

It seems to collaborate a lot of ideas that are fairly useful. I'm having trouble understanding exactly what the goal is though; as far as I can tell it sort of seems to imply that if enough people begin to form systems and cultures built around a rejection of Capitalism, that some other system will win out. However, that's pretty contrary to the advice to ignore 'wait and see' answers.

The idea that the Ego is a badly trained dog is interesting.

I like the use of the magic stuff, but it does go over the top here and there. I noticed with AoM, one of the points was that it was selling the thinking as much as the thoughts; that the thought processes themselves were what were being sold. I suppose this is a similar situation though.
Haven't paid rent since 2014 with ONE WEIRD TRICK.

Triple Zero

ECH you keep saying we already have a word for that sort of thing so why call it magic, but you never really mention what word. What's the magic word, ECH?

Personally, I think it's a perfectly fine term for people with a certain belief system. It's still about belief, though. And just like Christianity, there's a lot of different ways people use it or follow it. There's Christians that don't believe in evolution or that Jesus actually rose from the dead, and there's Christians that use the NT teachings as a sort of moral compass and are actually quite respectable (I get the impression you don't get those in the US, but they exist, some of them are my friends, too).

IMO it's useless to compare belief systems based on their worst examples. Because then, everybody is crazy.

One difference though, is dogma. Even the most sane Christian, still has some dogmas. While the most sane people working with magic, they often don't even believe in it themselves, let alone have dogma. I can respect that somewhat more.

And I think it's really a shame we can't discuss these topics, obviously written by the saner ones, without some asshole having to pretend he's one of the crazies and make shitty remarks like this:

Quote from: Rip City Hustle on February 15, 2011, 09:00:25 PMWe all just need to transmute ourselves magically and release ourselves back into the egosphere.

I think that's a pretentious way of saying "go rub one out", but I'm not sure.

Because I don't think we need to bring out the "Earth is 6000 years old" theory every time someone mentions Christian theology or quotes somebody that uses Christian metaphors in their writings (believing them or not), either.
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

Cramulus

Yeah zilch -- frequently on this board, people just scan until they find something they disagree with, then focus on that. *shrug* I think we've lost a lot of collective momentum because we get too hung up on sorting things into "good" and "bad".. We're quick to throw out the baby with the bath water. Whether or not you like the people Dolores is writing for, we have a lot in common with them -- many of us want to participate in something that makes the world more free, and improves ourselves in the process. I think it's useful to examine their ideas even if we use different vocabulary.



I've picked out some more aphorisms that I think might resonate here...


118.   We adopt a reality-view that maximises our effectiveness in causing change-in-accordance-with-will in the real, physical, material world.

5.   Material and social reality determines consciousness. The only real way to improve one's psychic health is to clean out the psychic toxic waste dump which passes for the mass media and popular culture under capitalism.

6.   You don't have to believe in Marxism to be a Chaos Marxist. In fact, it's better that you don't.

7.   Properly understood, Marxism (as in the reality-tunnel elaborated by Karl Marx, not his dodgy "acolytes" and "followers") is a cure for all forms of dogmatism and regimentation.

8.   Human society and culture can be studied scientifically.

9.   Knowledge is power - to be able to control what's real you need a damn firm grasp of what is real and what is the "common sense" of your personal and social reality-tunnel. That's the basis of the scientific method.

10.   On all issues of the macrostructures of nature and the cosmos, Chaos Marxism is totally agnostic. All issues of contention should be appeals to scientific experiment - that is, if you do this, do predictable consequences ensue? That is our only yardstick for the usefulness or otherwise of particular reality models.


22.   The aim is twofold: (a) to build unity between the workers in language and information, and the workers in physical production and services; (b) to learn the skills of the media priesthood to create our own "worker's symbolic universe" or "proletarian noosphere", independent from bourgeois culture (but not rejecting it - instead, building something better on its foundation).

24.   Chaos Marxism calls for a firm commitment to what both Marx and Crowley would have recognized as science - dismissal of all myths, firm concentration on what forms of belief and systems of knowledge enable you to measurably and predictably cause changes in material and objective reality. Everything has to begin and end in the $2.99 material world (what the Maatians call "Level 10"), and if you're not doing that, you're not doing real magick, you're just astrally wanking.
25.   The task for organic intellectuals / cultural-political magi / revolutionary witches / whateverthehell can't just be coming up with the ideology needed for our side to win. We need to come up with an entire culture, and by extension, an entire identity - or at least a framework in which new and better identities of opposition can grow. If we don't do that, people have no choice but to continue to believe that they are who the TV, the teacher, the boss and the priest tell them they are. We don't just need our own academy - we need our own entertainment, we need our own mythology, until the day we break through and can just be human.


44.   Both New Age claptrap and mechanical materialism - both ideologies common among the corporate culture and the various subcultures which have sprung up as an "opiate" to it - are designed to render you powerless.
45.   Most Marxist and anarchist sects use ritualised and useless forms of "political activism" as attempts to shore up their self-image and give them acceptable social and leisure opportunities, rather than actually trying to change the world, i.e. change mass consciousness.)

48.   The pretend-Marxist cults, although holding to materialism as a dogma, by that very act betray Marxism - any dogmas, any ideas which are untouchable and unamendable, and the associated belief that those who hold the "correct" ideas are the elite, are against anything that Marx or indeed Lenin would have recognized.

50.   Certain vulgar "illuminates" will tell that that that's as may be for the common herd (i.e. the people who empty their garbage, not the people who write the books they like to read), but the true homo superior are those who have evolved past such conditioned responses. If you believe that, just say the word "Marxism" to 99% of the Cosmik Consciousness Warriors based in the USA and listen to the drearily predictable responses you'll get.

61.   A protest movement is NOT a community - when it becomes a "community", with its own "permanent" power structures and ethos, you're in the realms of small-group psychosis and you by Goddess should be looking to bust out.

84.   Whether you like it or not, the unwashed, reality-TV watching, football-loving masses do the work which make it possible for you to eat. Unless you want a life of monastic poverty on a self-sufficient allotment, your only choices are to live off the proceeds of a system which requires that the vast majority of humanity be psychically and socially oppressed - or join with them on a mission of mutual enlightenment.

93.   The idea is that human individuality will become possible for the first time after capitalism.

101.   Consciousness and personality are performative rather than essential.

106.   People who hang around on the internet are not the primary interest of Chaos Marxism, but they are a pretty good "petri dish", since they embody facets of the concrete global society "speeded up".

123.   Lose your ego - your image of "yourself" and where "you" fit into your social setting, and your obsession with defending it - and you can become one with a current or force which can actually shape material reality.

143.   Virtually any "radical cultural product" in this day and age is generally spot on about the problem, but falls down on the solutions.

153.   The media priesthood have perfected memetics to the point where they can actually bypass the rational brain altogether and provoke, literally and directly, "gut reactions" (or groin reactions, for that matter). HOLY SHIT if we do not learn to do this ourselves and socialise the means of production and distribution of media signals (exchange will not mean anything in a post-itellectual property era), they may well perfect the means to control us with pleasure rather than pain and the species will be doomed.

156.   RAW suggested that primate social reality was mainly based on simian territorial/dominance games. Chaos Marxism thinks that's a bit simplistic. For the last 200 years, the laws of market forces have taken more and more of a primary role, and we think that the cash nexus works on a different logic than primate dominance rules - which is why capitalism is much more progressive than any previous socio-economic system, and also much more destructive.


167.   ye Illuminated Ones, make ye a choice right now - are you going to hypnotise yourself into being happy living on a quickly collapsing toxic waste dump, or are you going to hypnotise yourself into waking everyone up so we can clean the dump up together? Are you going to visualise yourself levitating over the bars of the prison, or are you going to lead a prison riot, take the place over and then figure out how to get everyone out?

170.   A revolution will mean the people who don't have to lie to make their living taking over

171.   To lead you have to learn as well as teach.

172.   I'm not sure whether I'm thrilled or terrified by the idea that the central secret of consciousness is "I did it for the lulz".



Cramulus

Quote from: Dr. James Semaj on February 15, 2011, 08:55:26 PM
I do like some of what this guy says, I can't really accept the idea of forsaking individuality or destroying the ego. I think a lot of problems come from people not actually thinking for themselves, not actually being individuals.

I think that Dolores' position is that the ego we have now is made of capitalism. We wear it like a suit of armor, obsessed with identifying ourselves through products and tribe. We need a better one! Dolores thinks that the real individual will only be possible if we can develop our egos and individuality outside of the constraints and concerns of capitalism.




QuoteAs for the ego, letting oneself become consumed by it is bad, but destroying seems to be bad as well. Instead of hitting one extreme or the other, how about we find a nice middle ground?

Well you can't fully destroy the ego, we built it for survival. I see it as kind of like being on a diet - your GOAL is to cut the sugar out of your diet, but you know that you'll still sneak a cookie now and then.

I have to work against my ego, constantly. It's a distraction. I strive to act selflessly, but one can never really do that, so we have to settle for what we can.



Dolores writes about the Nafs, an idea in Sufism...

Quote from: http://chaosmarxism.blogspot.com/2010/04/was-it-all-just-hoax.htmlThe Sufis teach that the nafs (aka ego, aka "false self") is the trickiest little bugger, and will continually disguise itself as something else (God, the Greater Good, ascended Space Brothers, the Muse) in order to continue your slavery and addiction to it. Actually - connect the two paragraphs above. The individual ego is very, very much like money, in that (a) neither of them have any objective reality; (b) the capitalist system is defined by its elevation of both to the fundamental principle of life.




Quote from: http://chaosmarxism.blogspot.com/2010/12/youre-afraid-of-us-youre-afraid-of.htmlIt is said that the nafs (the self-perpetuating ego which has evolved as a defence mechanism to keep you alive and safe in this world but will try to ensure you don't change or grow) will tell you any lie in order to keep you trapped, and "YOU HAVE BEEN ENLIGHTENED, THEREFORE YOU HAVE MORE RIGHTS THAN THE BLINKERED SHEEPLE, INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO UNLEASH VIOLENCE ON THOSE WHO GET IN YOUR WAY" is a pretty effective trap.




good entry about ego here too http://chaosmarxism.blogspot.com/2010/06/oh-this-is-excellent.html

QuoteThe ego tries to remake the world according to its own self-perceptions. The ego will expect others to be friends with the same people we perceive as good and stay away from folks we see as bad. The ego will try to convince others of religious, political or other viewpoints. The arrogant ego will try to force others to be complimentary. The negative ego will see every bump in life's road as proof of their unworthiness.

Perhaps killing the ego is more along the lines of killing the desire to create 'proof' of personal perceptions. Perhaps it is closer to killing the need to force the world to fit within our parameters.

Captain Utopia

Quote from: Cramulus on February 16, 2011, 04:06:21 PM
I have to work against my ego, constantly. It's a distraction.

Do you mean to weaken it, or redirect it?

Cramulus

Me personally? Sometimes I get elbow deep in a project, and I wonder what the real effect of that project will be. If I realize I'm only doing it to communicate something about myself, I have to take a big step back.

Likewise, my ego has this set of tastes ... if I listen to it, I end up approaching things I like and avoiding things I don't like. Over time this becomes a rut. The only way to snap out of the rut is to approach something I'm not comfortable with. The real trap of the Black Iron Prison is that you think the bars are protecting you.

As a really base example, this year I discovered that I like green peppers. I didn't like them as a kid, and eventually "I don't eat peppers" became part of my ego, something I use to explain myself and justify my actions. I had to slay this part of me, I had to overcome my petty little aversions, in order to grow.

Luna

Quote from: Cramulus on February 16, 2011, 04:23:32 PM
Me personally? Sometimes I get elbow deep in a project, and I wonder what the real effect of that project will be. If I realize I'm only doing it to communicate something about myself, I have to take a big step back.

Likewise, my ego has this set of tastes ... if I listen to it, I end up approaching things I like and avoiding things I don't like. Over time this becomes a rut. The only way to snap out of the rut is to approach something I'm not comfortable with. The real trap of the Black Iron Prison is that you think the bars are protecting you.

As a really base example, this year I discovered that I like green peppers. I didn't like them as a kid, and eventually "I don't eat peppers" became part of my ego, something I use to explain myself and justify my actions. I had to slay this part of me, I had to overcome my petty little aversions, in order to grow.

Shit, I keep hanging around here, I'm going to have to start keeping a notebook and writing this shit down to remind me when I've got my head up my arse.
Death-dealing hormone freak of deliciousness
Pagan-Stomping Valkyrie of the Interbutts™
Rampaging Slayer of Shit-Fountain Habitues

"My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know, everybody you see, everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake, and they live in a state of constant, total amazement."

Quote from: The Payne on November 16, 2011, 07:08:55 PM
If Luna was a furry, she'd sex humans and scream "BEASTIALITY!" at the top of her lungs at inopportune times.

Quote from: Nigel on March 24, 2011, 01:54:48 AM
I like the Luna one. She is a good one.

Quote
"Stop talking to yourself.  You don't like you any better than anyone else who knows you."


Luna

#24
Thank you.

ETA:  Spectacularly useful, at the moment, given that I've got a lot of changes going on (the divorce is just a start).  Gives a little more form what I've been doing lately, which is, more or less, "hey, who the hell AM I, anyway?"
Death-dealing hormone freak of deliciousness
Pagan-Stomping Valkyrie of the Interbutts™
Rampaging Slayer of Shit-Fountain Habitues

"My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know, everybody you see, everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake, and they live in a state of constant, total amazement."

Quote from: The Payne on November 16, 2011, 07:08:55 PM
If Luna was a furry, she'd sex humans and scream "BEASTIALITY!" at the top of her lungs at inopportune times.

Quote from: Nigel on March 24, 2011, 01:54:48 AM
I like the Luna one. She is a good one.

Quote
"Stop talking to yourself.  You don't like you any better than anyone else who knows you."

Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

The language doesn't bother me so much, I mean its just words on a screen and probably won't taste good even with ketchup. I can get the general idea of what's being promoted. On the one hand, there are some interesting ideas and maxims here... on the other hand, I'm not particularly in agreement with this "Changing the World by going against The Man" kinda vibe i get from reading her stuff. This is the second time I've bumped into Delores work on Chaos Marxism... and I still find myself thinking that there's a disconnect between preaching that we must 'destroy our Ego' (or train it like a good dog) and 'Changing the World through <insert ideology here>'. There seems to be lots of Is and Is Not and Must and Should for someone that is talking about perception not being reality, belief being a bad idea and Ego being a general nuisance. There's also some self-deprecating "I'm just struggling to" kinda statements, but they seem to get overrun by the 'Truthiness' of the aphorisms, the Isness of the commentary on Capitalism and 'your responsibility to fix problem X'.

For Discordians/Chaoists/ChaoMarxists etc etc who WANT to be social activists from a left leaning perspective, this is probably good stuff. However, to me, it seems to have ego and belief all throughout it, while dismissing such things as bad at the same time.

Just my initial thought after looking at the topic a second time.



- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson

Captain Utopia

Quote from: Cramulus on February 16, 2011, 04:23:32 PM
Me personally? Sometimes I get elbow deep in a project, and I wonder what the real effect of that project will be. If I realize I'm only doing it to communicate something about myself, I have to take a big step back.

Likewise, my ego has this set of tastes ... if I listen to it, I end up approaching things I like and avoiding things I don't like. Over time this becomes a rut. The only way to snap out of the rut is to approach something I'm not comfortable with. The real trap of the Black Iron Prison is that you think the bars are protecting you.

As a really base example, this year I discovered that I like green peppers. I didn't like them as a kid, and eventually "I don't eat peppers" became part of my ego, something I use to explain myself and justify my actions. I had to slay this part of me, I had to overcome my petty little aversions, in order to grow.

What I'm asking is.. if the urge to grow, the urge towards enlightenment, is not just another trick of the nafs?  Does it set up a bundle of things (e.g. ruts, preferences against green peppers) just to shoot you a dopamine rush when you nuke those?  And for what?

I mean, to me it seems like the quest for enlightenment makes people less effective at directing tangible change in the world.  It's stripping away aspects of individuality, and for what?  Why is it so repugnant to want to express aspects of your individuality?  Isn't it just branding?  It may not be pure, it may leave an unpleasant taste in your mouth, but we know it's an effective way to enact change.

None of this is aimed at you, it's just I feel angry when I think I might have wasted years on self-doubt/purging/enlightenment quests, and for what?

"Nasruddin went galloping through Baghdad one day on his donkey.  He went up every street and into every alley and across every plaza. Every place he goes, an unending race, a hunt and search. Everybody got curious, everybody came out of their houses, and they were all yelling, "Nasruddin, Nasruddin, what are you looking for?" He said, "I lost my donkey, and I'm looking for it."

Cramulus

Quote from: Captain Utopia on February 16, 2011, 04:49:50 PM
I mean, to me it seems like the quest for enlightenment makes people less effective at directing tangible change in the world.  It's stripping away aspects of individuality, and for what?  Why is it so repugnant to want to express aspects of your individuality?  Isn't it just branding?  It may not be pure, it may leave an unpleasant taste in your mouth, but we know it's an effective way to enact change.

Our reality has archons, prison guards if you will, who create the world we're living in. These are people whose beliefs and attitudes and goals affect us on a day to day basis. Most of these people work in politics or commerce. Sometimes we get lucky and a guy like Ghandi or Julian Assange or Timothy Leary rises to the top and something new gets injected into the system. What makes those the "good guys" IMO is that they base their actions on the betterment of our world, not just their own bank accounts. Timothy Leary didn't try to wake up the public so that he could get laid. He wanted to wake up the public, teach people how to operate their brains, and he cared about this so much that he was willing to go to jail for it.

Dolores thinks that individuals are incapable of changing the world - only groups can change the world. And any kind of group work involves a degree of surrendering the self to the group mind. As long as you're tied to the toys that we use to play dress up with the self, you are a bad channel for the new world to come through.



Quote from: Chao Te ChingChapter 61
A successful cabal is like a dust cloud,
arriving from nowhere,
ungraspable,
and fading into nothingness.
The tallest blade of grass gets cut,
while the crab grass creeps unharmed.
Keep your head down.
Keep your fucking mouth shut.

Thus by concentrating on goals
without playing ego games,
much can be accomplished.
If all you want to do
is brag about how cool you are,
you might want learn to play the guitar, instead.



LMNO

It seems like an extreme use of the word "ego", however.  Keeping in mind that we're primates, the natural pack heirarchy needs to be taken into account, as well as individualistic problem solving.  By imposing hivemind, the group structure becomes more fragile, and robs the group of the individual's specific quirks that may help overcome a specific obstacle.

Which is why Chapter 61 says "Thus by concentrating on goals/without playing ego games", instead of "Thus by concentrating on goals/and abandining ego".

Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

Quote from: Cramulus on February 16, 2011, 05:18:14 PM

Dolores thinks that individuals are incapable of changing the world - only groups can change the world. And any kind of group work involves a degree of surrendering the self to the group mind. As long as you're tied to the toys that we use to play dress up with the self, you are a bad channel for the new world to come through.


And again, how can someone hold that kind of stance if they themselves do not have a strong Ego?

I keep trying but I haven't been able to recall a group of ego-less individuals that 'changed the world'. Yet, I can think of plenty of egocentric individuals, and groups which have.

Parts of this philosophy seem kinda confused to me.
- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson