rotenotes @rotenotes@social.cleverlibre.org

"Generic #Communism designates a #free #associative #egalitarian #society where the activity of #polymorph #workers is not governed by regulations and technical or social articulations but is managed by the #collective power of #needs. In such a society, the #State is dissolved as a separate instance from public coercion. #Politics – much as it voices the interests of social groups and covets at the conquest of power – is de facto dissolved.

Thus, the purpose of #Communist politics aims at its own disappearance in the modality of the end of the form separated from the State in general, even if it concerns a State that declares itself #democratic."

- Alain #Badiou - Highly Speculative Reasoning on the Concept of #Democracy (https://www.lacan.com/conceptsym.htm)

The second sequence of the #communist hypothesis runs from 1917 to 1976:
from the #Bolshevik #Revolution to the end of the Cultural Revolution and
the militant upsurge throughout the world during the years 1966-75. It
was dominated by the question: how to win? How to hold out—unlike the
Paris Commune—against the armed reaction of the possessing classes; how
to organize the new power so as to protect it against the onslaught of
its enemies? It was no longer a question of formulating and testing the
communist hypothesis, but of realizing it: what the 19th century had
dreamt, the 20th would accomplish. The obsession with victory, centred
around questions of organization, found its principal expression in the
‘iron discipline’ of the communist party—the characteristic construction
of the second sequence of the hypothesis. The #party effectively solved
the question inherited from the first sequence: the revolution
prevailed, either through insurrection or prolonged popular war, in
Russia, China, Czechoslovakia, Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, and succeeded in
establishing a new order.

But the second sequence in turn created a further problem, which it
could not solve using the methods it had developed in response to the
problems of the first. The party had been an appropriate tool for the
overthrow of weakened reactionary regimes, but it proved ill-adapted for
the construction of the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ in the sense
that Marx had intended—that is, a temporary state, organizing the
transition to the non-state: its dialectical ‘withering away’. Instead,
the party-state developed into a new form of #authoritarianism. Some of
these regimes made real strides in education, public health, the
valorization of labour, and so on; and they provided an international
constraint on the arrogance of the imperialist powers. However, the
#statist principle in itself proved corrupt and, in the long run,
ineffective. #Police #coercion could not save the ‘#socialist’ state from
internal #bureaucratic inertia; and within fifty years it was clear that
it would never prevail in the ferocious competition imposed by its
capitalist adversaries. The last great convulsions of the second
sequence—the Cultural Revolution and May 68, in its broadest sense—can
be understood as attempts to deal with the inadequacy of the party.

[Alain #Badiou-Bibliography/The Communist Hypothesis/Lacan Dot Com](https://www.lacan.com/badcomm.html)

What is the #communist hypothesis? In its generic sense, given in its
canonic Manifesto, ‘communist’ means, first, that the logic of #class—the
fundamental #subordination of #labour to a dominant class, the arrangement
that has persisted since Antiquity—is not inevitable; it can be
overcome. The communist hypothesis is that a different #collective
organization is practicable, one that will eliminate the #inequality of
#wealth and even the division of labour. The #private appropriation of
massive fortunes and their transmission by inheritance will disappear.
The existence of a #coercive #state, separate from #civil #society, will no
longer appear a necessity: a long process of reorganization based on a
#free #association of #producers will see it withering away.

‘#Communism’ as such denotes only this very general set of intellectual
representations. It is what Kant called an Idea, with a regulatory
function, rather than a programme. It is foolish to call such communist
principles #utopian; in the sense that I have defined them here they are
intellectual patterns, always actualized in a different fashion. As a
pure Idea of #equality, the communist hypothesis has no doubt existed
since the beginnings of the state. As soon as mass action opposes #state
#coercion in the name of #egalitarian #justice, rudiments or fragments of
the hypothesis start to appear. Popular #revolts—the #slaves led by
#Spartacus, the #peasants led by #Müntzer—might be identified as practical
examples of this ‘communist invariant’. With the French Revolution, the
communist hypothesis then inaugurates the epoch of political modernity.

[Alain #Badiou-Bibliography/The Communist Hypothesis/Lacan Dot Com](https://www.lacan.com/badcomm.html)

"#Anarchism, then, really stands for the #liberation of the human #mind from the dominion of #religion; the liberation of the human #body from the dominion of #property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of #government. Anarchism stands for a social #order based on the #free grouping of #individuals for the purpose of producing real social #wealth; an order that will guarantee to every human being free access to the earth and full enjoyment of the #necessities of life, according to #individual #desires, #tastes, and #inclinations."

- Emma #Goldman - Anarchism: what it really stands for (http://www.panarchy.org/goldman/anarchism.1910.html)

"Real #wealth consists in things of #utility and #beauty, in things that help to create strong, beautiful bodies and surroundings inspiring to live in. But if man is doomed to wind cotton around a spool, or dig coal, or build roads for thirty years of his life, there can be no talk of wealth. What he gives to the world is only gray and hideous things, reflecting a dull and hideous existence, - too weak to live, too cowardly to die. Strange to say, there are people who extol this deadening method of #centralized #production as the proudest achievement of our age. They fail utterly to realize that if we are to continue in #machine subserviency, our #slavery is more complete than was our #bondage to the #King. They do not want to know that #centralization is not only the death-knell of #liberty, but also of health and beauty, of art and science, all these being impossible in a clock-like, mechanical atmosphere.

#Anarchism cannot but repudiate such a method of production: its goal is the freest possible expression of all the latent powers of the #individual. Oscar Wilde defines a perfect #personality as “one who develops under perfect conditions, who is not wounded, maimed, or in danger.” A perfect personality, then, is only possible in a state of #society where man is #free to choose the mode of #work, the conditions of work, and the #freedom to work. One to whom the making of a table, the building of a house, or the tilling of the soil, is what the painting is to the artist and the discovery to the scientist, - the result of #inspiration, of intense longing, and deep interest in work as a creative force. That being the ideal of Anarchism, its economic arrangements must consist of #voluntary #productive and #distributive #associations, gradually developing into free #communism, as the best means of producing with the least waste of human energy. Anarchism, however, also recognizes the right of the individual, or numbers of individuals, to arrange at all times for other forms of work, in harmony with their tastes and desires."

- Emma #Goldman - Anarchism: what it really stands for (http://www.panarchy.org/goldman/anarchism.1910.html)

"#Anarchism is the only philosophy which brings to man the consciousness of himself; which maintains that #God, the #State, and #society are non-existent, that their promises are null and void, since they can be fulfilled only through man’s #subordination. Anarchism is therefore the teacher of the unity of life; not merely in nature, but in man. There is no conflict between the #individual and the social instincts, any more than there is between the heart and the lungs: the one the receptacle of a precious life essence, the other the repository of the element that keeps the essence pure and strong. The individual is the heart of society, conserving the essence of social life; society is the lungs which are distributing the element to keep the life essence - that is, the individual - pure and strong."

- Emma #Goldman - Anarchism: what it really stands for (http://www.panarchy.org/goldman/anarchism.1910.html)

"#ANARCHISM: - The philosophy of a new social order based on #liberty unrestricted by man-made #law; the theory that all forms of #government rest on #violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary."

- Emma #Goldman - Anarchism: what it really stands for (http://www.panarchy.org/goldman/anarchism.1910.html)

The key witness that our societies are clearly in-human is today the #undocumented #foreign #proletarian: he is the mark, immanent to our situation, that there is only one world. Treating the foreign proletarian as coming from another world, voila the specific task assigned to the “minister of national identity”, who disposes of his own police force (border police). To affirm, against such a statist operation, that any undocumented worker is from the same world as oneself, and to work through the practical, egalitarian, and militant consequences, voila, an example-type of provisional #morality, a local orientation homogeneous to the #communist hypothesis in the global disorientation in which solely its restoration can ward of.

The Courage of the Present, by Alain #Badiou

LE MONDE | 13.02.10

"Κάποιος ρώτησε τον κύριο Κόινερ αν υπάρχει #Θεός. Ο κ. Κόινερ του είπε: Σε συμβουλεύω να σκεφτεις αν η συμπεριφορά σου θ’ αλλάξει ανάλογα με την απάντηση που θα δώσεις στο ερώτημα. Αν δεν αλλάξει τότε η ερωτηση ειναι περιττή. Αν θ’ αλλάξει τότε μπορώ τουλάχιστον να σε βοηθήσω λέγοντας πως εσύ αποφάσισες κιόλας: χρειάζεσαι έναν Θεό"

- Bertolt #Brecht, Ιστορίες του κύριου #Κόινερ (Geschichten vom Hern Keuner), 1956

"In one of his last books, famed paleontologist (and atheist) Stepehn Jay #Gould attempted to negotiate a peace between #science and #religion by referring them as two “non-overlapping magisteria” (NOMA), with science concerning itself with understanding the #natural world while religion deals with issues of #morality.

Many reviewers pointed out that Gould was trying to redefine religion as #moral philosophy. In fact, religions do more than just preach on morality. They make claims about the real world-about space,time and matter- that are thereby open to scientific testing.

Furthermore… religion has not exactly shown any significant expertise with respect to morality. It has supported #slavery, the oppression of women, ethnic cleansing, serfdom, the divine right of kings, and extraction of testimony by torture. It has opposed anesthetics, lightning rods, sanitation, vaccination, eating meat on Friday, and birth control. It is very easy to give #nonsupernatural reasons for preferring honesty to lying, for outlawing murder and theft. And in fact, those moral principles were common in human society long before anyone had thought of the current major religions. So whatever useful moral prescriptions religion has provided are equally available without it."

- Victor J. #Stenger in his book The New #Atheism, (Page 70) on why science can study religion

"The consistent #anarchist, then, should be a #socialist, but a socialist of a particular sort. He will not only oppose alienated and specialized #labor and look forward to the appropriation of #capital by the whole body of #workers, but he will also insist that this appropriation be direct, not exercised by some #elite force acting in the name of the #proletariat."

- Noam #Chomsky - In Daniel Guérin, #Anarchism: From Theory to Practice, 1970

"The basic tool for the #manipulation of #reality is the manipulation of #words. If you can control the #meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words."

- Philip K. #Dick

#Pragmatism characterizes the #unconscious as embodied #habits and #skills we take for granted in focusing on #intentions or #conscious thought. Temporal performances create a background, context, or situation. In contrast, #Freudian thought renders the unconscious as a kind of space, like the basement, attic, or closets of a house. It suggests that #dreams and unconscious “thought” are a kind of broken or deformed version of conscious thought— junk stored in the basement or attic.

[John #Rothfork: Review of #Dreyfus's On the Internet](https://louisville.edu/journal/workplace/issue5p2/rothfork.html)

"In the weightiest matters we must go to school to the #animals, and learn spinning and weaving from the spider, building from the swallow, singing from the birds, — from the swan and the nightingale, imitating their art."

- #Democritus of Abdera - The Symmetry of Life

"Of practical #wisdom these are the three fruits: to #deliberate well, to #speak to the point, to do what is #right."

- #Democritus of Abdera - The Symmetry of Life

"The aspiration to be in no degree whatever a prisoner of #language, so dear to #Hobbes & #Locke, is unrealizable."

- Charles #Taylor - “The Importance of Herder” from Philosophical Arguments (http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jgr6/NMT/332taylor.htm) (1995), p. 96

… #Holism of #meaning. A #word has meaning only within a #lexicon & a context of #language practices, which are ultimately embedded in a form of life. * * * This insight flows from the recognition of the #linguistic dimension as #Herder formulated it. Once you articulate this bit of our background understanding, an #atomism of meaning becomes as untenable … . To posses a word of human language is to have some sense that it’s the right word … . [p. 93]

… A being who emitted a #sound when faced with a given object but was incapable of saying why … would have to be deemed to be merely responding to #signals [like a parrot, like a computer].

This is what the holism of meaning amounts to: individual #words can be words only within the context of an articulated language [a #grammar]. Language is not something can be built up one word at a time. [p. 94]

Charles #Taylor - “The Importance of Herder” from Philosophical Arguments (http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jgr6/NMT/332taylor.htm) (1995), pp. 93-94