NoFreeWill posted:

reminder that killing urself is cool

no, its wrong

RedMaistre posted:

This has always been the case, though, and, because of the always unsatisfied nature of human desire, it will always be this way. If the lack of the communities we "want" is a justification for suicide, than suicide is not only acceptable but the most rational decision anyone at anytime can make. And I don't think that's the argument you are trying to make.

"communities we want" here is referring to the unqualified assertion of "community" as a characterless and ill defined quantity as used by petrol and discipline - you misunderstand me here, "communities we want" is "communities with emancipatory potential" in this sense. petrol himself recognises that there are specific communities that strengthen oppression and that his defence of community is strictly referring to those of emancipatory potential, yet we keep using "community" without content as if the former do not exist. you might assert that this is all human communities, but petrol conceded that this isn't the case

this is just a rhetorical game - if petrol accepts that there are communities that do not fit this model, what relevance does this argument have to those situated outside of it? you can always continue to redefine your terms to only fit the contexts where they work best but you end up not saying anything at all

RedMaistre posted:

The former exists everywhere wherever there are human beings who actually want to improve their lot instead of killing themselves out of despair.

the problem is that improving their lot is not necessarily emancipatory. people benefit from the maintenance and systematisation of repression and exploitation. men as a class undeniably benefit from the subservience of women that is enforced through violence and abuse, dominant ethnic groupings undeniably benefit from those that are vulnerable

the processes of systematic abuse, exploitation and marginalisation actively rely on community, community is the base unit through which these processes are enforced (as community is the base unit of any human phenomena). and part of this systematisation is the shattering of solidarity between the subjects of oppression - community becomes simultaneously the sole safety net and haven for members of the oppressed while simultaneously enforcing their violence and degradation. members of the oppressed who have only recourse to the community for survival do side with the oppressors because of this

you can accuse those who take recourse to self-murder in the face of this of shattering the solidarity of the community but that is something that for many people on this earth has already happened. victims of abuse exist in communities where the only people in their life are overwhelmingly complicit in the perpetuation of these conditions

i have never approved or "justified" suicide - i just see it, as newton did, as death by reactionary forces. and, as the panthers asserted, this is a question of survival pending revolution. if the people are not here, the revolution can't be made. suicide is of course an obstacle to this fact but in the same sense that starving to death or being murdered by a cop is - and newton explicitly did not distinguish between these phenomena

there is always an alternative, yes, revolutionary suicide, death in service of the revolution - but to criticise those who take the path of reactionary suicide is, in newton's terms, the same as criticising someone for starving to death. and asserting constantly that there are unknown possibilities, that you foreclose on any possibility of finding an alternative - is exactly as vacuous as simply telling someone that is starving to eat

RedMaistre posted:

What turned them into revolutionary moments was not the present happiness of the situations, but the choice by some to prefer resistance to servitude or self-annihilation.

of course, again, revolutionary movements are built through the commitment to revolutionary suicide and the commitment to survival. but the obverse of this point is that reactionary suicide encompasses all those innocents that are murdered before their time by reactionary forces - whether it is a cop or their own hand that pulled the trigger. if we want to reintroduce individual weakness into the question, this is going against both marx and mao, who saw suicide as entirely a property of society and circumstance

what right do any of us have to condemn these victims for "bourgeois selfishness" when the great helmsman, the leader of the highest stage of proletarian revolution thus far, considered the suicide of a woman, who would rather die than be forced into marriage, the death of a martyr?

Edited by blinkandwheeze (Feb. 13, 2015 00:40:09)

blinkandwheeze posted:

RedMaistre posted:

This has always been the case, though, and, because of the always unsatisfied nature of human desire, it will always be this way. If the lack of the communities we "want" is a justification for suicide, than suicide is not only acceptable but the most rational decision anyone at anytime can make. And I don't think that's the argument you are trying to make.

"communities we want" here is referring to the unqualified assertion of "community" as a characterless and ill defined quantity as used by petrol and discipline - you misunderstand me here, "communities we want" is "communities with emancipatory potential" in this sense. petrol himself recognises that there are specific communities that strengthen oppression and that his defence of community is strictly referring to those of emancipatory potential, yet we keep using "community" without content as if the former do not exist

this is just a rhetorical game - if petrol accepts that there are communities that do not fit this model, what relevance does this argument have to those situated outside of it? you can always continue to redefine your terms to only fit the contexts where they work best but you end up not saying anything at all

RedMaistre posted:

The former exists everywhere wherever there are human beings who actually want to improve their lot instead of killing themselves out of despair.

the problem is that improving their lot is not necessarily emancipatory. people benefit from the maintenance and systematisation of repression and exploitation. men as a class undeniably benefit from the subservience of women that is enforced through violence and abuse, dominant ethnic groupings undeniably benefit from those that are vulnerable

the processes of systematic abuse, exploitation and marginalisation actively rely on community, community is the base unit through which these processes are enforced (as community is the base unit of any human phenomena). and part of this systematisation is the shattering of solidarity between the subjects of oppression - community becomes simultaneously the sole safety net and haven for members of the oppressed while simultaneously enforcing their violence and degradation. members of the oppressed who have only recourse to the community for survival do side with the oppressors because of this

you can accuse those who take recourse to self-murder in the face of this of shattering the solidarity of the community but that is something that for many people on this earth has already happened. victims of abuse exist in communities where the only people in their life are overwhelmingly complicit in the perpetuation of these conditions

i have never approved or "justified" suicide - i just see it, as newton did, as death by reactionary forces. and, as the panthers asserted, this is a question of survival pending revolution. if the people are not here, the revolution can't be made. suicide is of course an obstacle to this fact but in the same sense that starving to death or being murdered by a cop is - and newton explicitly did not distinguish between these phenomena

there is always an alternative, yes, revolutionary suicide, death in service of the revolution - but to criticise those who take the path of reactionary suicide is, in newton's terms, the same as criticising someone for starving to death. and asserting constantly that there are unknown possibilities, that you foreclose on any possibility of finding an alternative - is exactly as vacuous as simply telling someone that is starving to eat

RedMaistre posted:

What turned them into revolutionary moments was not the present happiness of the situations, but the choice by some to prefer resistance to servitude or self-annihilation.

of course, again, revolutionary movements are built through the commitment to revolutionary suicide and the commitment to survival. but the obverse of this point is that reactionary suicide encompasses all those innocents that are murdered before their time by reactionary forces - whether it is a cop or their own hand that pulled the trigger. if we want to reintroduce individual weakness into the question, this is going against both marx and mao, who saw suicide as entirely a property of society and circumstance

what right do any of us have to condemn these victims for "bourgeois selfishness" when the great helmsman, the leader of the highest stage of proletarian revolution thus far, considered the suicide of a woman, who would rather die than be forced into marriage, the death of a martyr?

I reply that


1. You are creating an untenable dichotomy between poisonous and bad communities on the one hand and communities with emancipatory potential on the other, both of which are apparently presumed to exist independent of the choices of anyone in particular.

But in reality, a community is not lovable because it from the beginning merited such affection; rather, it becomes worth loving because people care enough about it to make it so. Going in with any other attitude is not just a recipe for failure, disappointment, and retreat into the anti-social garden of this or that marginal clique; it in addition encourages, with friendly fire, those reactionary suicides that neither of us would like to see, if possible.

You will never get these potentially empancipority communities you want if no one wants to survive, and encourages others to do the same.

2. "the problem is that improving their lot is not necessarily emancipatory. people benefit from the maintenance and systematisation of repression and exploitation. men as a class undeniably benefit from the subservience of women that is enforced through violence and abuse, dominant ethnic groupings undeniably benefit from those that are vulnerable."

A live dog is better than a dead lion--or whatever would be the ideal animal image of this sort of victimhood. The former can still be an aid to some good-if only to raise the level of the productive forces or serve as the neccessary antagonistic foil. The latter can do nothing for anyone now.


3. You are positing an 18th century Enlightenment mechanical view of the world--with those human beings near the bottom of the hierarchy of being, i.e. the masses, approaching the condition the passive matter that docilely receives the mentally concentrated power of the scientifically illuminated and disciplined upper classes. This is suppressing of the dialectical character in the class struggle in favor a Manichean confrontation between the helpless, victimized oppressed and the omnipotent, alien power of the oppressor. The end result of which, if this melodramatic juxtaposition is taken seriously anywhere outside an agitprop poster, is making the laboring and the pauperized out to be by nature incapable of resistance, while turning the appearance of resistance anywhere into a sort of miracle.

You say you wish to do away with talk of individual agency in favor of the forces of society as a whole (as if collectives would be anything without their parts, anymore than the parts would be anything outside the structures they move ). But you can only do so in a manner which is in anyway concrete by multiplying the agency of the cop, the landowner, and the capitalist, who, apparently, really are capable of literally moving people about like puppets, to the point of irresistibly driving them to blow out their brains. .

This is not overcoming bourgeois notions of agency, but rather the confirmation of them, making the bourgeois class out to be the monopoly owners of human freedom.

4. You are distorting what Huey Newton said about reactionary suicide, turning what was meant to be term shaming his readers and listeners into action into an exculpation of defeat.But in fact,he gave the exact opposite of an exculpation in a speech at Boston College:

"Each person has an obligation to preserve
himself. If he does not preserve himself then I accuse him of
suicide: reactionary suicide because reactionary conditions will have
caused his death. If we do nothing we are accepting the situation and
allowing ourselves to die. We will not accept that. If the alternatives
are very narrow we still will not sit around, we will not die the death
of the Jews in Germany. We would rather die the death of the Jews
in Warsaw!"

You say he never explicitly distinguishes between starvation and reactionary suicide, but that is different from him actually saying they are the same thing. And in fact, in this passage from Revolutionary Suicide he does appear to make such a distinction:

" Marmeladov, a very poor man, argues that poverty is not a vice. In poverty, he says, a man can attain the innate nobility of soul that is not possible in beggary; for while society may drive the poor man out with a stick the beggar will be driven out by a broom, Why because the beggar is totally demeaned, his dignity lost. Finally, bereft of self-respect, immobilized by fear and despair, he sinks into self murder. This is reactionary suicide."

Here, Newton distinguishes between "mere" poverty, where "nobility of soul" is nevertheless possible with that of reactionary suicide. This implies that poverty in and of itself is not the cause of reactionary suicide, and that it can be avoided. Which makes sense since Newton is trying to persuade others to, well, mobilize, to work out their own salvation from the cultural shadow that reactionary suicide casts on the black community.

This may or may not signify an acceptance of a "bourgeois" belief in individual agency, but it certainly does not line up with the picture you are trying to draw of his position.

5. I would be more impressed by the fact that the victory of 1949 was not carried out by an army of suicides than by any single bit of the Marxist Sunday School style pedagogic discourse the Chairman trotted out depending on the needs of the occasion.

As for Marx-he said many things-including many things that were better honored in the breach than in the observance, as Lenin, Mao, and Newton, among others, have shown in their respective political careers.

6. "the processes of systematic abuse, exploitation and marginalisation actively rely on community, community is the base unit through which these processes are enforced (as community is the base unit of any human phenomena).....
community becomes simultaneously the sole safety net and haven for members of the oppressed while simultaneously enforcing their violence and degradation."

This Janus faced character of human societies that you describe is a banal reality in communities everywhere, including societies emerging out of capitalism. Which you admit yourself when you say the "community is the basic unit of any human phenomena" Telling people otherwise is deeply dishonest after two centuries of revolutions in modern conditions. Doing so is, again, not analysis but an encouragement to despair and reactionary suicide by friendly fire.

The real question is what is to be done: Knowing that essentially tragic character of human historical social existence, do you want to survive and fight to make things more livable for those around or don't you? Do you wish to make others around you love life and learn self-respect, or do you want to encourage the destructive habits that society already spreads among us?

Edited by RedMaistre (Feb. 13, 2015 02:56:35)

Barbarossa posted:

if the world is so bad that you want to remove yourself from it then perhaps you should try to improve it rather than just shrugging your shoulders, erasing yourself and leaving the next person to experience the same thing. I mean, if you aren't selfish

fuck off!!!!!

tpaine posted:

crow

i went away for several months and this idiot shit happens? Tpainey WTF dude. Clarey. Clarey dude wtf have you done right heah

conec posted:

yoo...

RedMaistre posted:

But in reality, a community is not lovable because it from the beginning merited such affection; rather, it become worth loving because people cared enough about it to make it so. Going in with any other attitude is not just a recipe for failure, disappointment, and retreat into the anti-social garden of this or that marginal clique; it in addition encourages, with friendly fire, those reactionary suicides that neither of us would like to see, if possible.

thank you for your thoughtful response!

yes, i agree with this completely - like newton says, the one who commits reactionary suicide is wise, but the one who commits revolutionary suicide is a fool - "a fool for the revolution in the way that paul meant meant when he spoke of a fool for christ" - the difference between the one who submits to reactionary suicide and the one who commits to revolutionary suicide is not that the latter lacks despair, but that they couple it with love - clearly you would be a fool to love in such a desert of animals, but it is a foolishness that is necessary

i think you misinterpret my presentation of huey's position - probably not of no fault of my own, i have not given much attention to the other sides of his argument here - but i believe it is absolutely true that we have an obligation to survive, and as i quite explicitly stated before, suicide is "weakness and capitulation." my problem is that my interlocutors here have been presenting it as a uniquely offensive instance of such, one that is in fact characterised by the bottom of the barrel selfishness of the bourgeois - on what legs does this stand?

yes, we can condemn these instances as that of the selfish, but if you are not prepared to do so towards anyone else who lets themselves die at the hands of the oppressors without dedicating their lives towards resistance of such this is inconsistent with newton's position. as per his explicit framing, suicide is no different to the jews who walked to the chambers - i do not believe those condemning suicide for the individual sin of reaction here are prepared to make this equivocation, and singling out suicide as uniquely selfish disrupts their ability to do so

RedMaistre posted:

You say you wish to do away with talk of individual agency in favor of the forces of society as a whole (as if collectives would be anything without their parts, anymore than the parts would be anything outside the structures they move ). But you can only do so in a manner which is in anyway concrete by multiplying the agency of the cop, the landowner, and the capitalist, who, apparently, really are capable of literally moving people about like puppets, to the point of irresistibly driving them to blow out their brains. .

this i do not agree with - i do not believe anyone makes history as they please, not the bourgeoisie nor the cops. i believe the mode of production and the reproduction of ideology within the social apparatuses that mobilise to consolidate the mode are responsible for these faculties. that is, like marx said, the bourgeoisie are the sorcerers unable to control the nether world they conjured. these conditions, however, of course do not instil the self-perpetuation of the bourgeoisie or the landlord alone, the nether world does not follow the whims of the sorcerer - the conditions are such that they give rise to the mobilisation of the masses, the practical realisation of the class for themselves

as such, i celebrate any instance of those who commit their lives to revolution - and doing so is not miraculous, but a practical response to material conditions - but i do not believe it right to condemn those who take their own lives as being guilty of a selfishness that is not shared by those that let themselves be overwhelmed by barbarity - if those who commit suicide are selfish, fine, but so were those who were led into auschwitz

RedMaistre posted:

Knowing that essentially tragic character of human historical social existence, do you want to survive and fight to make things more livable for those around or don't you? Do you wish to make others around you love life and learn self-respect, or do you want to encourage the destructive habits that society already spreads among us

yes, i do. but as mao tse-tung was clear in his recognition of a martyrs death, we should recognise it as the same. to place the blame of a problem that mao recognised as entirely a problem of society at the feet of the individual is, i believe, completely unproductive unless you are willing to extend this blame to anyone who does not commit unerringly to survival, to those who marched to chambers at gunpoint or starved to death - you can disagree, of course, with what mao says here, but where is the argument against him? does mao's understanding of a woman pushed to death by social conditions as a martyr really encourage the abandonment of the obligation to survive?

Edited by blinkandwheeze (Feb. 13, 2015 03:33:29)