Generalized Human Experience

This is a term I’ve heard often, as one of the goals of art, without really understanding it. I think I’ve figured out at least some of it now. Stay with me.

I think I was 22 or so when my daughter, Carolyn, became seriously ill (and thank you Dr. Edlavitch!). My wife and I were terrified. I remember sitting in the waiting room, as frightened as I had ever been. I put my hand up the back of my wife’s shirt, and she glared at me, and told me this wasn’t the time to get sexual.

Of course, I wasn’t getting sexual; I was scared and needed human contact, especially hers.

But here’s the thing: I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t find the words to tell her that. Looking back now, it seems so silly, the words were easy. “It’s not about sex. I’m scared and I need touch.” She’d have understood that. But at the time, the words just weren’t anywhere to be found.

How did I come to find them later, so that I could look back, remember the incident, and express what I was then feeling? Because I read a lot. Because, over the years, I had come across these feelings that brilliant writers had been able to find the words for. I think the more we read, and especially the more we read good stuff, the more we are able to draw on those shared experiences that artists have found ways to express.

That is one thing that good art can do: it can give us insights to complex emotions and help us find ways to express them. I think that is one of the highest goals of art.

(Originally posted on my patreon)

A Brief Note on the Power and Limits of Propaganda

The 1872 presidential election (Ulysses Grant vs Horace Greeley) represented the last time progressive change was  brought about through a national election. Since then, progressive change has either been forced by mass action (Women’s suffrage, Welfare, Social Security, Unemployment insurance, Civil Rights, Gay rights, &c) or been a small part of a bill the bulk of which was to increase the burden on the working class (Affordable Care Act).   The job of our elected representatives since 1877 has been to either to rubberstamp what they can’t avoid (then, if possible, taking credit for it), or to pass a defeat off as a victory.

And yet, in spite of this, so many, especially among the petty bourgeois intellectual set, are still convinced that progressive change not only can, but MUST come through elections. This is a testimony to the power of propaganda.

And yet, however powerful propaganda is, it has its limits. Poker theorist Mike Caro said, “It is hard to convince a winner that he is losing.” It is also hard to convince a man who can’t feed his family that the economy is doing well and everything is fine.

On Fascism–Things Are Different Now

In the late 60s and early 70s there was an epidemic of “everything I hate is fascism.”  We seem to be back to that again.  But there are differences, and they are important.

We warned then, and it is worth repeating now, that we use a narrow and precise definition of fascism because it is a particular danger that must be recognized when it rears its head.  To the patient suffering from MS, the fact that the actual disease might be Lupus does not change how it feels; to the treating physician it matters a very great deal.

Well, one difference is that now fascism is rearing its head.

Another difference is that there are those cynically exploiting the term to point to certain States in order to further the propaganda (and, hence, war) efforts of imperialism.  Saying that Putin, for example, is a fascist, is nonsense; he’s a right-wing oligarch.

Trump is a fascist, and the Republican Party is rapidly turning into a mass fascist party; Biden is a right-wing servant of Wall Street who is (consciously or not) paving the way for the victory of fascism, but calling him or the Democratic Party fascist is nonsense.

But yet another difference, and one that has been striking me lately, is that, contradictory as it sounds, there is something healthy about this confusion among many layers of the population.  What is healthy is the growing fury at, well, everything capitalism is doing.

Thinking back on my early years on Twitter, I remember being politically isolated; It was almost impossible to find another person who identified as socialist.  Now capitalism, as it writhes and twists and bites itself like a sea-snake pulled from the ocean, is calling forth immense amounts of outrage from broader and broader layers.   My twitter feed is now full of those identifying as socialist, or communist, or anti-imperialist, and the numbers are growing exponentially.  I can’t take credit for any of that—the death agony of capitalism is having its effect on the thinking of growing masses of people.

When these people point to genocide, or the headlong rush toward WW III, or the attacks on democratic rights, and label them fascist, what they are saying is, “I hate this, this is evil and must be destroyed.”  And they’re right.  It is inevitable that there will be confusion among those newly radicalized; but no decent person can criticize their outrage; the task is to explain, and to show a way forward.

For those who are interested in what I mean by fascism, as opposed to a military dictatorship, or a junta, or a police state, permit me to point to this and this.

Subjectivity, Objectivity, and Political Action

If you strip away the rhetorical flourishes, here is what we are told every day:

1) If you aren’t Jewish, you may not disagree when I say something is antisemitic. 2) Any objection to the genocide being carried out against Palestinians is antisemitic. If you disagree, see 1). 3) Therefore, you must either admit to being antisemitic, or shut up and let the Israeli state, backed and supported by US imperialism, continue to commit crimes against humanity. *

Underneath this justification for mass murder is a method that has become more and more beloved by those layers that loudly proclaim radical sounding slogans while refusing to support any policies that may threaten capitalism—those layers that we collectively call the pseudo-left.  The method is called “standpoint theory,” and can be summed up as, “if you are not a member of this oppressed group, you may not disagree when I say something is an attack on this group.”

Standpoint theory itself, however, falls apart when examined.  The basic assertion makes racism, sexism, antisemitism, &c, utterly subjective. If they are completely personal, and up to each individual to decide, then, obviously those most immediately affected are able to make such statements.  If I am in pain, no one but me is entitled to an opinion about how much pain I am in. It is something I’m feeling, it is purely subjective, and my insights on my feelings are obviously enormously more significant than anyone else’s.

But is racism entirely subjective?  Is antisemitism? No, they are not. To take extreme examples, if someone were to claim “The Birth a Nation” was not racist, or “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is not antisemitic, we would not be dealing with a difference of subjective feelings, we’d be dealing with someone who was wrong.  To be sure, there are cases that are not as blatant; that is why they are worth discussing.

Because here’s the other thing: you cannot demand objective action—such as “stop protesting the genocide in Gaza”—based on purely subjective feelings.  Can you?  I am constantly hearing of such-and-such a man who stalked or harassed a woman because he believed his own feelings for her entitled him to demand she take an action.  We are appalled when we hear of such things, because we recognize that, while he is certainly permitted to feel whatever he happens to feel, it wrong to demand someone else act based on those feelings, and even more wrong to force someone to act based on those feelings.

It is a million times worse to demand the slaughter of entire population be permitted to continue because of your feelings. If you want to convince me that opposing the Zionist state is antisemitic, you’ll have to do better than, “Shut up if you aren’t Jewish.”

*If you happen to be Jewish and oppose the genocide, you are dismissed as a “self-hating Jew” and the problem neatly goes away.

A Totally Original Parable Not Derived From Anything Else Really

Once upon a time a man named Barry Goldwater appeared on the political scene. And the radical cried, “Danger! A fascist!” And the people came running, but they saw that, actually, he was just a right-wing authoritarian, and he was making no effort to build a mass movement based on violence and terror in order to overturn democratic institutions, so the people went away grumbling.

Then a man named Nixon appeared, and the radical cried, “Danger! A fascist!” And the people came running, but they saw that, while he was extremely right-wing, and was, indeed, chipping away at democratic institutions, he still had no mass movement based on the frustrated petty bourgeoisie, nor an agenda to lead such a movement to establish himself as dictator on behalf of finance capital, so the people went away annoyed.

Then Trump came along….