Philosophy 3 Life After Capitalism

Seed

After generations of living under colonialism, white supremacy, economic austerity, demoralizing levels of stress, social unrest, a global pandemic, endless fake news cycles, ecological catastrophe, unprocessed grief, extreme nihilism, and near climate collapse, the humans decided to end capitalism, overthrow their corrupt leaders, and begin again.

As they learned how to be in right relationship with the earth and each other, they started reflecting on their shortcomings and asking questions about the true nature of human bondage, human freedom, emotions, mind, God, consciousness, ethics and morality. They ruminated on the consciousness of responsibility, debt, obligation, compensation, community, injury, guilt, alienation, and atonement.

It seems they knew little of pleasure and love that wasn’t tied to suffering and pain. It became obvious . . .

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It became obvious to them that all enjoyment, all order, all beauty, all reason, all social order, all being absolutely necessary to survive, must necessarily be subordinated to the demands of the most violent, the most vicious, and the most highly developed interdependent powers of nature: the most powerful and richest, the most dominant religions, political systems, empires, and racial distinctions. Nothing remained for them but for revenge, the most ancient and newest form of revenge, the most radical act of self-criticism and personal repudiation, the self-emancipation of the one who deserved all those advantages and privileges, the one who had dared to be free, the one who was nevertheless angry, disgusted, and bitter–for them all to be masters of bitter revenge.

17.

The first act of self-emancipation was to repudiate all those privileges, abolish the debts, form new ones, pay back the ones who had lent them, repudiate the masters, to whom they were “owes.” In doing so, they repudiated themselves and their own humanity, for they had repudiated themselves in that very repudiation, by taking up arms in self-determination against their own masters. That repudiation was more radical still, for to this extent was an act of liberation, a final act of passivity, in the self-emancipation of the slaves, the emancipated slaves themselves–they repudiated their very consciousness, all freedom, their very existence, all sovereignty, all right, all privilege, in short, all reason, in order that they might acknowledge and experience again the necessity and fulness of their own power, lord of the free, master of the bad, master of the ill, with a reference to the low, the sick, and the damned.

18.

But in doing so they showed that they were no longer masters of their own revenge, that they were still cut off from the joy and freedom of their own acts, the self-assertion of the slave, the black pride of “the free,” as their own. “Let us not be free till we are good,” they said, for the joy of their freedom was cut off, the freedom of their own hands was cut off, “but until then we shall be masters of our revenge.” This is still their most radical and radical act, repudiation, even though now only a demand, an ultimatum, a declaration of war, repudiation. The unconditional affirmation of the absolute negative right of any one to revenge is absolutely essential for them, for otherwise the resentful and the wounded immediately return to their own hatred, their own violence, and the new order of things (the ideal society, if such a word can be used in our case) will only be a new phase of “Bolshevism” and caste-war.

19.

But when they themselves repudiated their own revenge, when they repudiated that which they had so viciously exploited, when they repudiated “owes,” what was left to them but to be punished for their debt to those lords, the masters, who had made such repayment possible? The punishment was their own revenge in the form of their own slaves, the new slaves, their very working slaves, to be made whole again, to be given back their freedom, their joy, their love, their desire. The black pride of the slaves, the vindication of their hatred, was for them their revenge, and in looking down on their own slaves, in apprehending this to be the highest form of love and satisfaction, they were really giving them to taste as much bitter, sharp revenge as they themselves enjoyed in eating their own worms. The rearing of the new slaves was the first and foremost need of those lords: the slaves, freed from the masters, became the lords’ enemies–for it was through the slaves that the lords’ enemies were brought to life again, to the crescendo of all aggressive and pre-aroused wrath.

20.

But just as the idea of the master’s freedom was the beginning of the world, so is the theory of the master’s right of revenge–the theory of a “reciprocal right” between the masters and the slaves, the theory of the new society as a whole as the kingdom of the masters, an oligarchy, a democracy, with slaves as its subjects. But this theory actually has no further vitality or meaning, and even less virulence than the theory of the masters’ right of aggression.

21.

The reason is simple: the whole theory of the master’s right of aggression is only a provisional and provisional system of ideas, an extremely late and provisional elaboration of the theory of the masters’ power, against whose actual existence there is no sign, no matter how piquant and gay its paradoxical expression is: this theory repudiates itself immediately, and repudiates absolutely, repudiates itself as a critique of the real masters’ power, of that absolute, that very dominant and unqualified power, the right of aggression. The theory of the masters’ right of aggression repudiates itself absolutely–how could it possibly have any meaning? The whole theory of the masters’ right of aggression, repudiation, and counter-revision is but a specious expression for repudiating the lords’ right of aggression, repudiating in particular the lords’ right of dominating, of proving, potentiating, and extending the “good” in the world. “The masters are the bad,” says the resentful resentful–but the “masters,” who themselves repudiate and fight for their right of aggression, fight for their right to be bad, for their right to be masters. It is at this juncture that we come back to our main theme, the origin of the new order of things,–the origin of the “better man,”–the origin of a new maximum of power, the state, as such, repudiates itself in opposition to that ideal of civilisation, that would be “masters,” that would be an empire opposed to itself, that would be repudiated by the ideal of the good, by the will to be an empire. That repudiation is absolutely essential for the affirmation of the “better man” theory–it repudiates itself, repudiates in particular the whole theory of the masters’ right of aggression, repudiates the theory of the masters’ power, repudiates in particular the lords’ will to be masters, the will to be an empire. In doing so, it essentially cuts off the possibility of the “better man” theory actually being a theory at all, and transforming that “better man” theory into a practical deed,–a deed actually constituting the actual basis of the new order of things, the actual organisation of power. The whole provisional theory of the masters’ liberal providence is just such a deed, an actual constitution of that theory, constituting in its actual organisation and working up to the actual power, the will to be an empire, an oligarchy, a republic, a democracy. What is it, all these theories which have taken up the idea of the masters’ power, all these provisional theories of masters’ rights, counter-repositions and interpretations, are really? They signify nothing. Nothing, for to be able to make a beginning is to be first. The very first that must be found is the will to be an empire, an oligarchy, a democracy, that is to say, the will of a relatively small, relatively strong, relatively long-standing, and finally, of all the Europeans, to be an empire.

22.

At this juncture we had better hold fast to the kernel of the matter, to the elementary fact that the real will of the good against the bad, the strong against the weak, is the will for a balance of power. This will, this historic will, has grown–granted that it grows–far beyond the point of any kind of absolute practical proportionality, far beyond the point of being able to bring it about that all Europeans should all fight together for the sake of a balance of power. This historical will is moreover the will to be an empire, the will to be an oligarchy, a republic, a democracy, on a much grander scale, and this out of a whole preponderance of the historic German power on the European continent, which itself alone has an historical and psychological hegemony, which is the will to be an empire. And now look at it from another point of view–what will this historic will be able to create in the European continent, if it does not already constitute it? What will it do for Europeans themselves? This question can be asked only after a hundred times more rigorous analysis–a further analysis which will redoundably be rendered out by an equally thorough and thorough re-examination of the actual political, strategic, and military situation of Europe, in order to throw more light on this problem–a situation which can be practically defined as follows: there exists in Europe a practically decisive strategic and a practically decisive military superiority over Asia, over the Middle East, over the Europe, over the “empire of the north,” France. In the same proportion as Europe’s strategic superiority, and with the same necessary evolution, also exists a necessary evolution of the European military power, thereby taking place, first of all, a tempo and rhythm which was originally only a natural accompaniment to the European strategic advance, the tempo and rhythm which eventually became the necessity of the matter, in Europe, of a balance of power in which the European powers joined. This political and military tempo-and-coma, this extraordinary tempo and rhythm of the European powers, has so far only been maintained, in spite of all the most

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Prompt sourced from the depth of my soul or the surface of this current iteration of apocalypse