the outcome matters yet you can’t estimate likelihood of shit, so what do you do?
If you’re in a personal situation where you can’t navigate your political environement at all, you find a different form of change to create on which you have agency and leverage.
but i mean, discounting enthropy thesis for a second here, multitude of tactics is fairly understood if not applied principle, obviously you can simultaneously feed homeless with anarchists, read a book with ml club and collect batteries in neighborhood, and shitpost about political candidate on social media, you are not pigeonholed into one avatar by anything outside of free time
The practices you just described are very pigeonholed: they are within what’s common, socially acceptable and expected from a leftist, which is a very narrow and specific frame, much more narrow than what’s necessary and more narrow than what’s possible.
Here the expansion of the frame of action goes beyond the boundaries prescribed by your political identity and ideology. It’s about doing all of those things, but also infiltrating companies, foundations, and the academia to work on both sides if it’s useful to generate leverage. It’s about building infrastructure, protocols, and systems that scale and can outcooperate the capitalist system. It’s about building structures that can surpass in power the existing ones in order to replace their oppressive “power over” with a liberating “power with”. It’s about sabotaging the old and scaling up the new. What has been tried so far by “leftists”, whatever it is, has failed and therefore it was not sufficient nor we have reasons to believe it will be sufficient in the future.
Again, there are plenty of leftists in the boards of companies, foundations, and decision bodies of academia, but they often lack a bigger frame to coordinate their action beyond their direct social structure, especially because they have to operate under cover.
A metaphysical shift, and with it a narrative shift, can enable these actors to recognize each other in a common language, distinct from that of the manichean left but also distinct from who is operating within the old world and with old practices. This is something the current frame doesn’t offer, and forces, through a fake duality, that there’s an “inside the system” within which change is not possible, and an “outside the system” where change is possible. In reality, there’s a single system of power, and no inside or outside: we are complicit. we are all participating in evolving the system. The only difference is if we are contributing to evolve the system in a liberating direction or not.
a) piracy is that btw (including pharmaceuticals/diy movement), megaprofits come from ip licenses
b) you can’t infiltrate institutions, because that implies lowkeyness until critical mass, never happened, unlikely ever will after the red scare.
c) the leftists (as in majority ascribed as left) in the imperial core fight the wrong fight (as i perceive it) to overthrow capitalism, they fight for treats instead of against profits (which didn’t not work since collapse of military keynesianism/vietnam war spending/start of neoliberalism) and liberation. If you parse your enemy as profits of capitalist class which gives them power, suddenly you have myriads of options which doesn’t associate with higher wages: anti-trust/low ip protection/lesser working time
outside the system doesn’t exist i agree, but returning to nunes/bogdanov whatever, the increase in friction/resistance of the system serves a goal it’s an orientation to make the system grind and stop, so might as well call it leftwing, instead of inserting fifty epicycles to make it run better or poine for a time it was better.
So just a dumber way to talk about the concept of ‘dual power’, or is this some fantasy where we somehow overcome the very real material reality we live in?
Edit: I still need to read it, but this isn’t a promising start.
The article literally suggests that the problem of the organizational left is one of ideological framing, specifically as Machiean v.s. Augustian.
I would think the next step in an Augustian methodology would be to attempt to materially construct an alternative social system, a dual power. Either that or just changing our frame of reference will provide us with better tools of liberation, it is unclear.
I will find time to read the nunes paper, but the summary is just some hand waving that could have been done in three paragraphs.
manichean vs augustinian is not an ideological frame but a metaphysical frame. It’s one order of abstraction above. It’s the shape of the stage in which ideologies (including dual power, potentially) will play out.
The article also is about the use of geometric language in politics. The reference to Nunes is just to contextualize the topic.
Then it is even more worthless. The metaphysical nature of the world is enigmatic at best, incomprehensible at worst. Not sure why it bears to needless speculation outside of justifying a philosophy degree.
Dual power isn’t itself an ideology, it is a potential method of praxis that derives from revolutionary leftist ideology.
Respectfully, I do understand it, I am just not familiar with that particular model of metaphysical thinking, as I am only particularly familiar with Hume, Kant and Hegel’s versions of metaphysics, not with whatever flavor of dichotomy modern Western thinkers have cooked up.
I never said people who care about it are stupid. I just hold the opinion that metaphysics and metaphysical discourse is a dead letter. Proving the particular from the particular is difficult enough, proving a universal based on a series of particulars is practically speaking impossible. In terms of leftist thinking trying to approach it from a metaphysical angle is not particularly Marxist, and I have serious doubts around it’s efficacy as theory.
Like, sure, I can agree that an Augustinian framework places itself as more of a structural concern related to order, and that framing a leftist movement as bringing about order could potentially be useful, but I don’t think it really means anything that different outside of purely a rhetorical shift. There are plenty of actual particular historical events and accounts that point to the need for construction among the ruthless criticism of all that exists. No need to bring in a larger metaphysical framework.
is not particularly Marxist
Marx wrote extensively about metaphysics. The whole discussion of dialectical materialism vs historical materialism is a metaphysical debate. Also you’re treating Marxism as metaphysical dogma: we can evolve from a 150-year-old idea of world and history, you know? Especially since it’s failing to deliver big times in the West.
No need to bring in a larger metaphysical framework.
Same argument as before: whatever we used so far paralyzed us and made us weaker and the results are clear. Most of the metaphysical framework employed by the traditional left is paralyzing, disempowering, and on top of that stuck into an idea of “modernity” that has been dying for a while. The far-right took note modernity is over and this enabled them to operate in ways that the Left fails even to process, let alone to imitate. The indigenous people of a good part of the world always rejected modernist metaphysics and are now free to produce more interesting theory, practices and struggles than most of the Global North. China is its own thing.
The 20th century is over and the world has changed. Any ecosystem achieving meaningful political results employs an anti-modern metaphysical framework. Maybe it’s worth considering that there might be a problem with the modernist, teleological, reductionist 19th-century framework you operate in.
If you’re in a personal situation where you can’t navigate your political environement at all, you find a different form of change to create on which you have agency and leverage.
but i mean, discounting enthropy thesis for a second here, multitude of tactics is fairly understood if not applied principle, obviously you can simultaneously feed homeless with anarchists, read a book with ml club and collect batteries in neighborhood, and shitpost about political candidate on social media, you are not pigeonholed into one avatar by anything outside of free time
The practices you just described are very pigeonholed: they are within what’s common, socially acceptable and expected from a leftist, which is a very narrow and specific frame, much more narrow than what’s necessary and more narrow than what’s possible.
Here the expansion of the frame of action goes beyond the boundaries prescribed by your political identity and ideology. It’s about doing all of those things, but also infiltrating companies, foundations, and the academia to work on both sides if it’s useful to generate leverage. It’s about building infrastructure, protocols, and systems that scale and can outcooperate the capitalist system. It’s about building structures that can surpass in power the existing ones in order to replace their oppressive “power over” with a liberating “power with”. It’s about sabotaging the old and scaling up the new. What has been tried so far by “leftists”, whatever it is, has failed and therefore it was not sufficient nor we have reasons to believe it will be sufficient in the future.
Again, there are plenty of leftists in the boards of companies, foundations, and decision bodies of academia, but they often lack a bigger frame to coordinate their action beyond their direct social structure, especially because they have to operate under cover.
A metaphysical shift, and with it a narrative shift, can enable these actors to recognize each other in a common language, distinct from that of the manichean left but also distinct from who is operating within the old world and with old practices. This is something the current frame doesn’t offer, and forces, through a fake duality, that there’s an “inside the system” within which change is not possible, and an “outside the system” where change is possible. In reality, there’s a single system of power, and no inside or outside: we are complicit. we are all participating in evolving the system. The only difference is if we are contributing to evolve the system in a liberating direction or not.
a) piracy is that btw (including pharmaceuticals/diy movement), megaprofits come from ip licenses
b) you can’t infiltrate institutions, because that implies lowkeyness until critical mass, never happened, unlikely ever will after the red scare.
c) the leftists (as in majority ascribed as left) in the imperial core fight the wrong fight (as i perceive it) to overthrow capitalism, they fight for treats instead of against profits (which didn’t not work since collapse of military keynesianism/vietnam war spending/start of neoliberalism) and liberation. If you parse your enemy as profits of capitalist class which gives them power, suddenly you have myriads of options which doesn’t associate with higher wages: anti-trust/low ip protection/lesser working time
outside the system doesn’t exist i agree, but returning to nunes/bogdanov whatever, the increase in friction/resistance of the system serves a goal it’s an orientation to make the system grind and stop, so might as well call it leftwing, instead of inserting fifty epicycles to make it run better or poine for a time it was better.
So just a dumber way to talk about the concept of ‘dual power’, or is this some fantasy where we somehow overcome the very real material reality we live in?
Edit: I still need to read it, but this isn’t a promising start.
Your question doesn’t make sense and it has no relationship to the article
It does.
The article literally suggests that the problem of the organizational left is one of ideological framing, specifically as Machiean v.s. Augustian.
I would think the next step in an Augustian methodology would be to attempt to materially construct an alternative social system, a dual power. Either that or just changing our frame of reference will provide us with better tools of liberation, it is unclear.
I will find time to read the nunes paper, but the summary is just some hand waving that could have been done in three paragraphs.
manichean vs augustinian is not an ideological frame but a metaphysical frame. It’s one order of abstraction above. It’s the shape of the stage in which ideologies (including dual power, potentially) will play out.
The article also is about the use of geometric language in politics. The reference to Nunes is just to contextualize the topic.
Then it is even more worthless. The metaphysical nature of the world is enigmatic at best, incomprehensible at worst. Not sure why it bears to needless speculation outside of justifying a philosophy degree.
Dual power isn’t itself an ideology, it is a potential method of praxis that derives from revolutionary leftist ideology.
“stuff I don’t understand is worthless and people who care about it are stupid”. Sure, bro.
Respectfully, I do understand it, I am just not familiar with that particular model of metaphysical thinking, as I am only particularly familiar with Hume, Kant and Hegel’s versions of metaphysics, not with whatever flavor of dichotomy modern Western thinkers have cooked up.
I never said people who care about it are stupid. I just hold the opinion that metaphysics and metaphysical discourse is a dead letter. Proving the particular from the particular is difficult enough, proving a universal based on a series of particulars is practically speaking impossible. In terms of leftist thinking trying to approach it from a metaphysical angle is not particularly Marxist, and I have serious doubts around it’s efficacy as theory.
Like, sure, I can agree that an Augustinian framework places itself as more of a structural concern related to order, and that framing a leftist movement as bringing about order could potentially be useful, but I don’t think it really means anything that different outside of purely a rhetorical shift. There are plenty of actual particular historical events and accounts that point to the need for construction among the ruthless criticism of all that exists. No need to bring in a larger metaphysical framework.
Same argument as before: whatever we used so far paralyzed us and made us weaker and the results are clear. Most of the metaphysical framework employed by the traditional left is paralyzing, disempowering, and on top of that stuck into an idea of “modernity” that has been dying for a while. The far-right took note modernity is over and this enabled them to operate in ways that the Left fails even to process, let alone to imitate. The indigenous people of a good part of the world always rejected modernist metaphysics and are now free to produce more interesting theory, practices and struggles than most of the Global North. China is its own thing.
The 20th century is over and the world has changed. Any ecosystem achieving meaningful political results employs an anti-modern metaphysical framework. Maybe it’s worth considering that there might be a problem with the modernist, teleological, reductionist 19th-century framework you operate in.