“Trotsky said that revolutions only happen when there is no other choice. I take this to mean they are forced upon us. I’m still holding out for a “revolution of the mind” of course! There is the idea that despite the nasty corporate stuff, rising living standards have kept populations happy enough to put up with the status quo. It’s called compromise equilibrium.” –Chris
First of all, Chris, I apologize for posting what we already know: mainly your quote. But I started out to write a simple response to your point, and it all went crazy on me with all these spontaneous rhizomatic connections. I had to go from just posting a response to writing my rhizome for the day. I would also apologize to the board if I seem to be wondering too far off the topic of pragmatism. I had to post this here since this is where the discourse originated.
But yeah, the subtle forms of oppression that Capitalism utilizes seem to be its most powerful weapons. It is not uncommon to hear an argument that amounts to: sure things suck; but it could worse: we could live in a third world country. What this argument basically breaks down to is:
Since things could always be worse, why even ask how we could make them better?
Sound very rational to you? Yet, as you suggest, this is exactly what has kept us beholden to Capitalism. It’s a little like being with a beautiful woman who will give you just enough to keep you hanging around while never allowing you to feel secure about anything. The thing is it is this dynamic that defines abusive relationships. And this is the epiphany (the rhizomatic connection to an old riff (that which can only result from the roll of the dice or chancing to put it in Deleuze’s terms (that has forced me (against my will even (to turn this into a rhizome.
If we look at abusive relationships and the question of why individuals keep going back to them, we find that it is always a matter of a honeymoon in which the individual experiences pleasure beyond anything they have before, then a gradual degradation in to cycles of abuse and pleasure –that is with the cycles of pleasure growing smaller and smaller while the cycles of abuse grow longer and more intense. It is never a matter of constant abuse. That would only end the abuser’s reign too quick. Rather it is a matter of pushing the other to their breaking point then giving them just enough pleasure to keep them coming back. This cycle is well known in cases of domestic abuse.
But we can see the same dynamic at work in drug or alcohol abuse. The individual starts off with experiences that are like being on top of the world. But as those experiences become less frequent and the negative experiences become more pronounced, the good experiences in between begin to feel, in comparison, good enough to keep coming back. Of course, this is a physiological as well as mental phenomenon, therefore, more obvious. But we can take the dynamic deeper into what seems to be purely a mental one: the gambling addict. In this case, it is all about the run: that experience of being able to do no wrong, that of being a top player with all the attention and benefits that come from it. It’s why gamblers, when they are winning, will often buy the house a round or tip high. This is what drives gamblers to keep gambling even when their luck is shit. What you will notice about them is that is not so much a matter of coming out ahead in the long run. They rarely ever do. It is strictly about the run and that hope that they will hit the big one.
And in that sense, we can see the same dynamic at work with Capitalism. You have to remember that we did have a honeymoon period with it as it drove up the standard of living that culminated in the post WW2 economy that, ironically, was based on Keynesian economic theory. Unfortunately, the biggest addicts among us, the rich, co-opted the atrocities of the misguided uses of Marxism and communism and the cold war that resulted to establish a cultural environment in which they always got theirs first. And all they have left us with is the methadone of possibility. And this is what Capitalism sells best. I mean: who wants to be a millionaire? What exactly is reality TV selling but the possibility that your mundane life could be worth millions?
So you have every reason to hold out for a “revolution of the mind” –the very only thing that can save any addict. As any A.A. or twelve step member will tell you: until you do, nothing you do will do any good.
On the uptick though, we have to look at the significance of Bernie Sanders getting where he has. Although I have doubts about the practicality of his getting the nomination (that is though I am philosophically aligned with him as a social democrat and the belief that the only solution is an expansion of the public economy (I still take comfort from the fact that he has gotten this far while openly stating that he is a socialist. What this means to me is that the cold war tactic of saying the word “socialism” no longer necessarily follows with psycho-shrieks. America is finally growing up as for some time now, we have been the last western industrialized nation where that could happen. And this, I believe, is important to other western industrialized since it is America who has shoved our form of cut-throat Capitalism down everyone else’s throats. As I see it, until America (militarily the most powerful nation the world (gets its shit together: grows out of the adolescent phase it is in, we’re all fucked.