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I'm going to create a blog to use as a method to crystallize thoughts that I've been having. I really don't have any goal for it other than to write on a fairly consistent basis, and I have no idea what I'll be writing about. One day it might be about how much I love Kanye, and another it might be about what's been happening in school recently for me. Just whatever. I don't really know what I'm expecting in terms of feedback, honestly I really don't care if no one responds, but it might be interesting to see what people have to say about my thoughts. Anyway, here's a fairly large chunk of text that's basically just me streaming my consciousness into writing. It's not edited in any way so it may be a bit hard to follow and have awkward wordings and whatever, but it is what it is.
Wednesday April 11, 2012 (4/11/2012)
I’m taking a political theory class right now that has caused me to do a lot of thinking, both in class and on my own. The last two philosophers we’ve read have been Rousseau and Marx, and these are the two that have really hit me the hardest.
Rousseau argues that in society men are not truly free, whereas Locke would argue that they are. Locke would say that since each man can make his own decisions, and because no one pointing a gun to his head and forcing him to choose a certain option that he is free. Rousseau would agree that freedom is the ability to make your own decision, but he also argues that in order to be truly free you must be free of the influences that would cause you to choose one option or the other. He argues that no one today is truly free because their decisions are inevitably influenced by society. For example, think about the clothes that you wear. No one is forcing you to wear any specific clothes- by Locke’s definition you are as free as is possible. Consider however, that everyone wears almost exactly the same clothes. Think about the people you see everyday. Most of them are probably wearing jeans and a T-shirt, or something similar. This is not because humans are genetically predisposed to jeans, it’s because society has somewhere dictated that jeans are the best decision, and that therefore you should probably choose to wear them. In the past people wore top hats and chinos, and now they don’t. It is society that has changed the way people dress. We are all therefore slaves to the influence of society, because we do not choose to wear what we truly want to wear, we choose to wear based on society. It is important to note as well that no one person or group of people is dictating society’s influence, it is simply society as a whole. Everyone in society is a slave to it. Even in trying to escape it you are still under its influence- the Counterculture in the 60’s for example. They wore bellbottoms and tie-die because that’s exactly what the conservative society of the time was not doing. If their parents had been wearing tie-die, perhaps they would have worn chinos. The point is that even in trying to escape society, it still dictates and influences your decisions.
I’m not going to go too much into defending this argument or addressing too many counter-arguments, because I’m not writing an essay here. I’m just recording my thoughts, and these are fairly important to where this entry is headed.
Marx also makes assertions that shock the standard mindset of the average person. Marx says that history is primarily defined by materials. That is, there was a tribal time, and later a feudal time, and now a capitalistic time. In the feudal time, there were a few lords and nobles, and a huge sea of petty laborers or serfs or what-have-you. The lords owned and the serfs worked. In the capitalist time labor is set up completely differently, the means of production are all completely different than in the past. These things are facts. This is all based in reality on empirical observation. Whereas someone like Locke or even Rousseau bases their philosophy around ideas. They make assumptions. They put things off in the distance (a state of nature perhaps) and build their theories off of these vague assumptions that they take as fact. Marx doesn’t do this, he observes and then builds his theories around what he actually sees.
The true history of the world is in the day to day lives of its peoples. It is in the modes of production. All of the wars and princes and nations are really just window-dressings to the true driving forces of history. These things all come about as results of a material reality. Notice that when production began to make huge changes, history underwent a period of monumental change. The industrial revolution had a greater impact on history than something as trivial (to Marx) the Hundred Years War or the American Revolution or WWII.
Marx also bases his idea of what it is to be human off of things that he observes in reality. What separates us from animals? Animals do what they need to survive, and that’s pretty much it. Humans do what we need to survive, and then when we have done that we do something else. We make something, we produce something. Our labor separates us from animals. That is, to labor (in the absence of need) is to be truly human. Spiders all make pretty similar webs. Beavers all make pretty similar dams. But when you look at human shelters they vary wildly. There is a huge difference between the house you live in and the Taj Mahal. Humans express who they truly are through labor. When you make a cabinet and it comes out horribly, that cabinet is a result of your labor. You decided to make a cabinet, and then you made it.
Modern society takes this labor away from you. Today most people labor for subsistence. When you go to work and your boss tells you what to do, he is taking your labor and dictating what it should be used for. You don’t have a choice in what you labor in. Your labor, what makes you truly human, is now controlled by someone else. And yet, you have to do this for subsistence. If you don’t work, you’ll starve. You are forced to do this labor, you are a slave to it. Society today, the wage-labor system, forces people to be robbed of their humanity. Again, there is a lot more to this than what I’m saying, but if you want true detail you should read Marx’s Alienation of Labor, the German Ideology, and the Communist Manifesto.
When I first started reading Marx, I thought to myself, “boy does it suck to be a member of the proletariat. I don’t want that for myself. If I want anything in life, it’s to be a member of the bourgeoisie.” And then I realized that even to be a member of the bourgeoisie is to be enslaved. Does having a lexus, wearing J Crew, and going to vacations in Aruba make your life any better than anyone else’s? No, not really. (I’m sure you can look up studies that say someone who has won the lottery and someone who has lost their legs are about equally as happy one year after the fact). You still don’t really have your humanity. I realized then, that not all to life is being rich (not that I ever thought that, but I mean that even having money is fairly pointless). I’m not sure what I want out of life then. According to Marx I should want to be in control of my own labor and be able to do whatever I want with it.
Thinking about my life personally is what brings it back to Rousseau. I do not believe that I would be wrong if I said that almost everything I do in life is dictated by society. You know, maybe I play starcraft because people have come to identify me as a starcraft player. I have the T-shirts and the posters and everything, but if I’m being completely honest with myself I don’t love the game like I used to. I don’t love to play it anymore. I still love to watch it but now it’s more just when I have time. And yet I still keep the whole thing alive. This may be the first time I’ve admitted to myself that maybe it’s time I stop being quite so active, if active at all, in SCII. At this point it’s just limiting me I think, and yet I continue to do it. Looking around I see my guitar. Sure I like to play guitar, it’s really satisfying when I get a new song down and it sounds really nice. But what are my true reasons for learning it? Because I think that people will think more of me if I play guitar. This is me being honest with myself. I see other people playing guitar well and I think highly of them, and I want people to do the same with me. I play guitar because I want to play it around the fire with a group of people and impress them. I do track because I want people to think that I’m athletic. Sure I do it for myself so I don’t feel quite so lazy, but I also do it so that other people don’t see me as lazy. As I said, this is not something I’m making up, this is me being 100% honest with myself as to why I do the things I do. When I make notes on my iPod for myself (I put down things to remind myself of what I need/want to do, to keep track of things I want to buy, songs I want to learn, etc), I can tell that I’m not even writing what I would in the absence of others. I literally tell myself, ‘oh what if someone reads this, you’ll sound like such a fairy’ or whatever, and then I change it. When I buy clothes, I not only ask if they look good to me but whether they’ll look good to other people. I’m always acutely aware of what other people think of me. This goes for everything I say, everything I do, everything I wear. I think that Rousseau is so right, at least for me personally, in that I’m completely enslaved by those around me. By ‘society.’
What scares me the most about all of this is that I actually want these things. And by that I mean I actually want to look good and smell good and sound good (on guitar) etc etc. I have dark circles under my eyes from not sleeping enough and I feel like my hairline is starting to recede. I actually really want to fix these problems, and I kind of worry about it. Basically what I’m trying to say is that I care about how I look. Now this may seem normal, but consider what you would care about if there were no other people around, ever. As in you would never see another person. I know that I would not give a single shit about how I looked. I would probably wear whatever is most comfortable and I wouldn’t care how it looked. All my hair could fall out and I wouldn’t have a care in the world. This is odd, isn’t it? The things that I genuinely want change when I’m around people. So when I care about the way I look, that is really only society’s influence on me, and my individual desires do not at all care for how I look. This is exactly what Rousseau is talking about, and his ‘general will’ is mean to counteract this phenomenon to ensure that people are actually doing what they truly want to do, what they would do in the absence of all societal pressures. He is ‘forcing people to be free,' because to be free is to do what you truly want without any external influence.
This all manifests itself in my life in my shyness, which is pretty prevalent in my life. When I get something wrong in class my face turns red because I’m so aware of everyone looking at me and maybe thinking poorly of me. In reality I know that no one gives two shits if I get something wrong in class, but I’m still ruled by that fear. I never say anything that might bring embarrassment upon myself in anything I do.
I’m not sure what to do with any of these thoughts. In fact I have to go to track right now because I’m already late, but I’ll hopefully come back and read over this and try to make further connections. I think it’s a great thing that I’m writing all of this down, but I almost know for sure that I won’t do anything about it. I’ve written journals briefly in the past and although I often have thoughts like this I never do anything about it. Perhaps this time will be different.
Edit: TL apparently doesn't like indenting, so I just fixed some spacing to make it look less like a gigantic wall of text
 
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Russian Federation3631 Posts
I don't think the TL blog section is supposed to serve as your public notebook or diary.
the TL girl blogs posting division vehemently disagrees with your assessment
If you don’t work, you’ll starve.
I'm curious - do you view this as what is happening in reality or in some theoretically capitalist state?
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Since when were you creating the rules, Spekulatius? There is obviously a possible discussion opportunity and brings out a good point. Infact this seems like it would be possible for a general discussion topic (I have not finished reading this post and will do so after this post.)
The TL blogs is not about all Girl Blogs, if your obsessed with those; go to a website which discusses them mainly.
The fact that you say a discussion cannot come out of this blog is just ridiculous and shows that you have not read the OP clearly.
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I don't know whether you should look on society's influence so negatively, terming it as enslavement. I mean I don't think its that simple; to do what you *truly* want to do...what is that, really? The fact is we are social animals, to do what we truly want to do is to want to fit in. I think its a part of human nature to want to interact with others and enjoy a friendship; part of which requires some sort of approval and conformity with the norm. So to me it seems a bit of a theoretical world you're painting...to chase after a life free of influence - where you only do what you want within a void, with no other people influencing you. Realistically, I don't think people want to live that way - and those who do will naturally gravitate to that lifestyle so there shouldn't be any "forcing" required.
In the end I think we are free to make decisions (for all practical purposes, ignoring the determinism/free will debate). But we aren't free to determine what influences us; it is just our job to determine which influences to follow, by identifying the appropriate balance between personal self-interest and the interest of being part of a group.
Ideally they should coincide anyway - you do things you enjoy, and enjoy them with other like minded individuals. But I suppose for the few exceptions a balance needs to be struck.
*minor edit to expand a point, and grammar*
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235 Posts
Of course workers ARE free to work for themselves, and many people (I am one of them) do not have bosses. The reason why most people choose to 'rent' their labour is because of time preference. They would prefer their wages now instead of in the future when the product is finished and sent to market. Freedom is very important to me. The freedom to own property, to make my own decisions in life, to do as I please so long as I do not hurt others or their property. Unfortunately far too many people have little respect for the freedoms of others. Most people will have a partial defense of freedom. University professors, for example, my defend vociferously academic freedom, their right to publish as they please and express their ideas but at the same time they will not defend the businessman's freedom to spend the money he makes as he pleases or to operate his business without other people telling him what to do.
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On April 12 2012 08:45 Spekulatius wrote:
Girl blogs either provide laughter for the readers or seek advice and discussion.
This one does none.
I found it interesting. Someone taking time to thoughtfully reflect on their life and their place in the world is fine blog material.
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All philosophers have some real interesting ideas that you can write forever about, but just my personal opinion is..... extremely bluntly... fuck Marx. Let me know if you get a chance to look at anything of Ayn Rand's in your class, as I find that much more appealing to me, as well as much more interesting. Otherwise, I'm glad that people are looking into philosophy and political theory! They're incredibly complex yet interesting subjects that aren't really popularized in todays society the way other divisions of thought are.
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Canada5565 Posts
I just used Rousseau's Social Contract in a paper!
Very fascinating stuff. I would like to become more familiar with Locke.
Not sure about applying the general will and social contract theories outside the sociopolitical sphere, but they are definitely concepts fundamental to civilization, in my opinion. Falls in line with other paradigms like "no taxation without representation" and self-determination.
Marx is a joke though, his theories are just products of contemporary social construction.
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235 Posts
I for one did not sign the social contract.
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Rousseau was a tarentula and a pathetic human being. A liar, a thief and a terrible father.
There are many better people to read since he got utterly demolished by several superior thinkers ranging from Voltaire to Joseph de Maistre or Nietzsche. Oh and the contract theories of Hobbes or Locke make more sense too.
Hilarious how all the people here are saying that Marx is a joke and Rousseau is awesome lol. Can't believe you guys couldn't see that the social contract was the prefiguration of 20th century totalitarism.
On November 16 2011 10:54 Boblion wrote:Oh yea but Rousseau's core works are usually thought to be the main source ( pre socialist ) for left-wing totalitarism anyway. If you can read between the lines of the Du Contrat Social you see that his conception of the democracy is the dictatorship of the majority. He has ( at least in the book ) no problem with denying all kind of rights to the minority  Ex: "Si donc le pacte social s'y trouve des opposants, leur opposition n'invalide pas le contrat, elle empêche seulement qu'ils n'y soient compris; ce sont des étrangers parmi les citoyens"You can see why Arendt said that human rights have little value without citizenship rights lol.
Naive Americans are always seduced by his appeal for a direct democracy sigh... they also forget that in his later works he completly dismissed the idea.
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Nice post either way. Enjoyed the read. 5/5.
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One of the arguments I realized a long time after reading Rousseau was that his idea of freedom was focused only on human beings. He wanted to be free of the constraints of dealing with people, and he resented things like blue jeans as being his choice of clothes. What I think he, and in many ways Marx ignored was that those kinds of restraints don't begin with people. They are dictated or derived from the nature of reality. Blue jeans are generally made from cotton or other natural fibers, and someone didn't pick that fiber out of nothing. Cotton was chosen simply because it works. It's easy to work with, durable, and comfortable to wear.
Rousseau and Marx only go so far as to see the human influence as though there was a special class of people who pull blue jeans out of thin air and decide everyone will wear them. They take blue jeans as a given. Marx extends that idea to take the 'means of production' as a given and believes its a matter of fair distribution, and because Rousseau and Marx and the people who follow them don't realize that blue jeans and the 'means of production' have roots in reality as opposed to someone's decision and effort, Marxists and Rousseau's followers are surprised over and over again when the production they seize in the name of their version of freedom vanishes the moment they seize it.
To be fair, my position comes from the Locke/Adam Smith view of the world. I also say that the product of those philosopher's works tells the tale. The French Revolution was Rousseau's. The American was Locke's. Eastern Europe after World War 2 was Marx's. Western Europe was Adam Smith/F.A Hayek and the like. Even in the SC2 world, the difference between North and South Korea summarizes the difference between Marx/Rousseau and Locke/Smith.
Locke and Smith's worlds have problems, but they are 'first world' problems as opposed to deciding who starves and who doesn't problems which are the ones which face the places which use Marx's and Rousseau's ideas.
Above all of that though, there are always constraints. Many are placed their by people, including yourself. It's up to us to discover which ones are artificial and which ones are inherent in the nature of us as human beings and the universe itself. And while we may not like the constraints, we also have enormous freedoms to think and act as we will. Those freedoms are just as important as the constraints. Being able to realize and understand both the constraints and freedoms are what make us human and gives us a place in the world that animals don't have. We are self-aware and can be, within limits, self-creating.
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On April 12 2012 18:25 Boblion wrote:Rousseau was a tarentula and a pathetic human being. A liar, a thief and a terrible father. There are many better people to read since he got utterly demolished by several superior thinkers ranging from Voltaire to Joseph de Maistre or Nietzsche. Oh and the contract theories of Hobbes or Locke make more sense too. Hilarious how all the people here are saying that Marx is a joke and Rousseau is awesome lol. Can't believe you guys couldn't see that the social contract was the prefiguration of 20th century totalitarism. Show nested quote +On November 16 2011 10:54 Boblion wrote:Oh yea but Rousseau's core works are usually thought to be the main source ( pre socialist ) for left-wing totalitarism anyway. If you can read between the lines of the Du Contrat Social you see that his conception of the democracy is the dictatorship of the majority. He has ( at least in the book ) no problem with denying all kind of rights to the minority Ex: "Si donc le pacte social s'y trouve des opposants, leur opposition n'invalide pas le contrat, elle empêche seulement qu'ils n'y soient compris; ce sont des étrangers parmi les citoyens"You can see why Arendt said that human rights have little value without citizenship rights lol. Naive Americans are always seduced by his appeal for a direct democracy sigh... they also forget that in his later works he completly dismissed the idea.
Don't be so hasty, bro. Just because you feel everything is a certain way, doesn't make it so, there are plenty of philosophy professors here in the states that know that and more I'm sure. Also that doesn't make him a bad read, it just means that if you take him out of context and try to understand him on a deeper level without any guidance on him, you can be misled.
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To be fair, Boblion, all of the Enlightenment is the "prefiguration" of 20th century totalitarianism.
Rousseau and Marx and the people who follow them don't realize that blue jeans and the 'means of production' have roots in reality as opposed to someone's decision and effort
This is just... not true.
Most actually existing communisms have been based on a pretty poor understanding of Marx.
I for one did not sign the social contract.
Yes you did, sorry, kinda sucks doesn't it? they don't even ask you about it.
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Big Wall of text. I enjoyed every bit.
nice read thanks.
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On April 13 2012 01:13 sam!zdat wrote:
To be fair, Boblion, all of the Enlightenment is the "prefiguration" of 20th century totalitarianism.
If by "all of the Enlightenment" you mean Rousseau's "Du contrat social" yes.
I have an hard time to relate people like Montesquieu or Voltaire to totalitarism but w/e.
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235 Posts
Most actually existing communisms have been based on a pretty poor understanding of Marx.
This is called the 'no true scotsman' defense. Essentially the argument is that whenever socialism isn't tried, and it results in gulags, slave labour camps, secret police murdering dissidents and genocides that this isn't real 'socialism' and the next time it will be better, you just need the right technocrats in charge of everything. It's not a very compelling argument.
Personally I agree with George Reisman when he said philosophy is little but poison for the minds of men.
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On April 12 2012 08:33 thot wrote:Modern society takes this labor away from you. Today most people labor for subsistence. When you go to work and your boss tells you what to do, he is taking your labor and dictating what it should be used for. You don’t have a choice in what you labor in. Your labor, what makes you truly human, is now controlled by someone else. And yet, you have to do this for subsistence. If you don’t work, you’ll starve. You are forced to do this labor, you are a slave to it. Society today, the wage-labor system, forces people to be robbed of their humanity.
The starvation part is not true. Poor single people in the US can get at least $4-$5 per day from food stamps (source: someone I know with personal experience), not to mention food from soup kitchens and food banks. And there have been several blogs where people in the U.S. document successfully live off of just $1 per day for extended periods of time. (Multivitamins with 100% daily value of almost all nutrients cost like 20 cents extra).
You say you don't have a choice in what you labor in, but there are an extremely large number of different career fields people can choose between. Furthermore, in each field there are lots and lots of different different bosses and teams you could choose to work with. Finally, people can just be self-employed if they want.
On April 12 2012 08:33 thot wrote:Does having a lexus, wearing J Crew, and going to vacations in Aruba make your life any better than anyone else’s? No, not really. (I’m sure you can look up studies that say someone who has won the lottery and someone who has lost their legs are about equally as happy one year after the fact). You still don’t really have your humanity. I realized then, that not all to life is being rich (not that I ever thought that, but I mean that even having money is fairly pointless). I’m not sure what I want out of life then. According to Marx I should want to be in control of my own labor and be able to do whatever I want with it.
Someone can just save up a chunk of money (instead of buying Lexuses) to spend on cheap housing, food, and transportation, then quit their job and spend the rest of their life making sculptures out of aluminum cans if they would PREFER to do so.
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EPT
