my gf writes poetry in rhyme, which i think is considered "out of vogue" in contemporary poetry. so! for Christmas i had the idea of researching well regarded contemporary poets who still write in rhyme/verse and bought her 4 separate collections of poetry, one by each writer i found so she can sample around if she doesn't connect with any given one.
i'm sure there are good comrades in Red Star but i just don't really see the vision of "build a party out of the disjointed non-party." i would get it if DSA were a genuine mass org, like idk a large labor union or network of labor unions or an established-but-not-exclusively-ML mass labor party, but it's not. it's basically one small niche organization among a few in a super nascent proto-left. bigger than the others, sure, but if you cut out the (majority) paper members not all that dramatically so.
and the problem that the american left has of having a predominantly downwardly-mobile-labor-aristocrat character (not casting moral judgment just analyzing the playing field) is if anything more acute in DSA than a lot of other orgs, which further undercuts its status as any kind of mass organ of working class power that a Party can grow out of.
signed a soft skeptic about capital K knowledge but sympathetic to certain flavors of metaphysical idealism while also being a hardcore historical materialist
okay this conversation has come up a couple times across a few different threads recently so i want to outline with a lil bit more rigor my thinking on how historical materialism and metaphysical materialism are very much Not The Same Thing - they're somewhat related but ultimately different conversations, built around very different lines of questioning that are trying to do very different things:
a metaphysical materialist who is also a historical materialist is saying: between two very different categories of material phenomena - category A) types of matter that are used as resources by human beings & the mass social structures built around that, vs. category B) internally felt beliefs in the emergent phenomenon known as consciousness (which is the result of a bajillion endlessly complex chemical reactions), particularly in individual humans who are deemed Great Men - A makes far more sense as the prime driver through which to analyze history (i.e. it has greater predictive power and coheres better with many common sense presumptions people use to navigate reality).
a metaphysical idealist who is also a historical materialist is saying: between two very different categories of Qualia (basically conscious experience, the Metaphysical Stuff of Thinking and Feeling) - category A) qualia/experiences that are perceived as external resources used by human beings & the mass social structures built around that, vs. category B) qualia that are experienced as the internally felt beliefs of individuals (particularly those deemed Great Men) - A makes far more sense as the prime driver through which to analyze history (i.e. has greater predictive power and coheres better with many common sense presumptions people use to navigate reality).
obviously no one talks like this in common speech because it's incredibly cumbersome so we shorthand, but both of these positions are coherent. it's also worth noting that Marxism doesn't reject the existence or relevance of category B, either (the ideas of human beings = the superstructure, material conditions = the base), just that the superstructure is produced by and less influential than the base (though it still shapes the base in a feedback loop).
i do think religious marxists run into a bit more genuine contradiction that is harder to parse - at least if they believe in the omnibenevolent model of god of the Abrahamic religions - but i'm very much not formally religious, don't believe in that conception of god for a number of reasons, and don't want to oversimplify these belief systems that i have so little knowledge of so i will stop here. (i also didn't touch on mind-body dualism because i'm not at all versed in modern arguments for it and personally find it less convincing than the other two frameworks, but i suspect you could make it work more or less coherently w/ historical materialism.)
s/o wmill galaxybrain leroyjenkins & a few others for keeping the commitment to journalposting alive the general mega has gotten kinda stale without it ngl ngl
procrastinating on cancelling my family christmas plans a couple states over out of guilt/shame but i am just too burnt out and have all of one day off for christmas and i need to not lose my mind (worth noting my relationship with my family is very much mixed and i’d also just prefer to spend the holiday with my gf locally)
i see your point, i do think the Abrahamic idea of an omnibenevolent god runs into some contradictions and tensions with historical materialism. broader metaphysical questions about the ultimate nature of things i do still see as beyond its purview (even if the theorists themselves didn't) but that's a larger conversation.
does historical materialism actually assert anything about the ultimate metaphysical nature of reality though? i’d argue no. it just asserts itself as the most useful/coherent model for analyzing history under a certain set of common sense presuppositions.
like i think there’s an ambient belief in metaphysical materialism in Marx and Lenin’s work, sure, but i don’t think it really depends on any metaphysical belief to operate. you can be a religious dualist or a metaphysical idealist or whatever, and not think history is most predominately driven by great men and internally manifested first principles. (there’s probably a more vigorous philosophical way of expressing this argument i’m too lazy to express rn in a shitpost)
yeah i’ve always felt that on the very small chance i change my mind, adoption has always held more appeal. especially with how potentially grim the next few centuries are looking id rather give an already existing kid a better shot at a decent life.
probly gonna get my balls snipped, have a consultation appointment near future. im a hair closer to 40 than 30 and never been interested in having kids - i like the lil guys well enough but i'm more of an "in small doses" type of person and the idea of Being A Parent has always made me feel deeply nightmarishly trapped in something i very much don't want and can't escape from (or if brevity is more ur thing it's an idea that's always given me "The Ick"). like any big permanent-ish decision it is making me kinda anxious/giving me What If's that i'd never previously given much weight. but due to aforementioned feeling of nightmarishness, i do think that's mostly just the permanence of the procedure combined with default social conditioning around parenthood talking.
current partner is a "could have been happy either way, but vastly value finding a partner i love more" type of person on the subject of parenthood, and she's slightly older than me. but ya we were talking BC options and given how long i've been pretty much certain on this, it seems the most fair and least messy choice. honestly i think it would be a huge relief when all is said and done, despite current anxiety/rumination around it.
i read State and Rev a number of years ago, should i read imperialism highest stage of capitalism first or what is to be done first in my effort to complete my essential Lenin reading? also what do we think of Losurdo's book on Stalin? finished PSL candidacy this week so am open to mixing some theory and other political nonfiction in with my fiction in my free time in teh new year.
alright that panpsychism thread in the philosophy comm devolved pretty badly. now i know that many/most hexbears don't really fw philosophy (but do fw science), which is fine and i guess just another limitation of this space. i think sometimes i assume w/o realizing it that if someone thinks like me and is knowledgeable in one area (socialist theory and history), that will extend to others but that is very much not the case.
is a good one!!also
and their cool variation