1/Suppose for a moment Karl Marx had not been born.
It is very likely that the 20th century would not have played out as it did. I don't mean to pick on Marx specifically; but individuals induce ideologies, which induce social ties that produce history.
There is nothing particular about Marx's articulation of his ideas that were inevitable; they reflected his observations in the context of his time.
Suppose instead there had been a Dutch writer named Van Halen who published a theory...
2/of capital and social organization that had taken hold. There would then be a bunch of "Van Halenists" in battle with some other group.
Maybe the Austrian Artist got into art school. Or Ayn Rand had stayed Alisa Rosenbaum and never made it out of Russia. The 20th century as we knew it would have played out very differently.
Some might argue the same forces would have come to blows, but it still would have played out differently.
All this is to suggest that ideas and timing matter immensely.
3/So as we are dealing with our current battles, it is important to recognize just how provisional and tentative they really are: they are frameworks that are totally accidental and of our moment.
We reify them in our minds until they take on the strength of steel beams. But they are nothing more than gossamer threads that stitch reality together in a framework we can relate to. They are a set of stories we can reference together, and within them battle for advantage.
4/But less explored is the value of new stories, new ideas, and new accidents — all of which are available to us at any moment.
We can invoke them anytime we like, and there is an infinite supply. Why must we do battle within the stories that have come before, instead of inventing and telling new stories?
Steve Bannon famously said "flood the zone with shit." Why should we not "flood the zone with heroes?"
There is no shortage of new North Stars.
5/So as we struggle mightily, as we will, to prevail within the gridiron of the accidents of the past, perhaps it would be worthwhile to stop and think "What If?"
What new stories might we tell that render the old ones ragged and obsolete? That corral the minds of the aggrieved, the oppressed, the seeking, to forge new social constructs that lead us forward?
We are huffing the fumes of old stories and old, tired ideas. There is nothing but possibility before us.
6/The bellwethers of the past are but sad tethers on our future selves. Why must we submit ourselves to such constraints?
Whence does 1850 or 1876 or 1933 or 1952 shape our future — and this electrified moment that no one could have foreseen?
We suffer no obligation to these dead gods. Break free! Think anew and be refreshed with the cool water of original thought and inspired leadership!
Crush the surly bonds of MAGA and Marx, Putin and Dugin, with ideas anew with the dew of spring.
7/Our battle-drive is in full bloom; the drive to draw blood no matter the cost, to seek revenge on the enemy of old does not easily subside. But were we to forget it? To simply... walk away from the battles of old to cast a new puzzle that leaves only questions in its wake?
We can do this, if we think to do so. If culture is upstream of politics, then certainly metaphysics and epistemology are upstream of culture.
We must ask better questions, and burnish the ones thick with rime and moss.
8/The battles we fight today are purely an accident of history. We must make fresh accidents. Force the battles of the future through new channels.
Nothing of the past was set in stone, and nothing we are dealing with now is so firm it can't be reconfigured. It's all, in the end, pure energy — mind stuff. If that sounds abstract, sure, it is, but it is this toolkit the owners of the future will employ.
This is a pragmatic philosophy, neither rooted in dogma nor ephemera. Merely insist on...
9/new games, new frames, new heroes, new rules.
Imagination and collective action are perennially in short supply. But bring them together for a few moments, and you can change the next 200 years.
It's happened before... again and again and again.
When will we start?
@davetroy That was different. You wrote an invocation.
I write software and frequently need to decide on implementations. A single comment from a team member can be the difference between three months and three days, or an unusable feature and a highly valuable one.
There is much random chance in a half hour meeting, who happens to be there and the mood they are in, their background and knowledge, that can determine events far into the future.
Did someone say Spring?
@davetroy
Choice. We have choice to bring together new factors that change things;
America won the revolutionary war by hiding behind the trees. Apparently that was a new inventive way of fighting
People still want to come to America for it’s creativity emphasis; to offset the institutional rote learning. But honestly, my confusion comes in waves; i remember when Michelle Malkin was just a “different” voice on the car radio.
Conditions ripened for this wtf moment. We can change those
@shoq @davetroy It also has a positive feedback loop to it - by focusing on our positives we can *build* something that is appealing and that will draw more people into the work rather than chase them away.
Every artist knows this process from the first half of gentrification - creative types with no resources build something cool and new because they can't access the old, and that draws everyone in (and then rich people ruin it but hopefully we can skip that half lol)
@davetroy Yes!
I believe that too much emphasis is placed on economic thinking and that Marx was our downfall even though he is much less wrong than his obvious opponents. Rather he brought us to the edge of ruin because his simple model created a path for its selfish antithesis to thrive.
It’s high time we found a synthesis, wherein generosity of spirit, not mere ownership, is our central issue.
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