Does Marxism Even Matter?

Platypus Affiliated Society New York did an interesting discussion on the Communist Manifesto and does Marxism still matter? The short answer is that as Marxism qua Marxism, no, it doesn’t. You may be going, but “Skepoet you are in the Marxian tradition?” That’s true. Furthermore I think both dialectical and teleological methodologies are philosophically useful, but they don’t put food on the table so to speak.

My debate with Ben David Steele , most outside of the left don’t really understand it. The left has reconciled from massive historical failure by engaging in splinter politics or Utopia. But this has also been a net-lose for left liberals in a way they don’t seem to fully comprehend. The left didn’t need them as much as they needed the left as both as base and a bogeyman. The Democratic socialism-lite of the New Deal was possible only because material conditions on the ground empowered both the SPUSA, the IWW, and the CPUSA as real threats. If you read the literature of the time or watch the films, it is apparent that capitalism was seen as problem and endanger in its short life. The Old regimes of Europe had not completely gone away, and fascism was rearing its head. All of the popular political movements of the time were socialist or syndicalist inflicted in the industrialized world: the Social Democrats, the Communists, the National Socialists, the National Syndicalists, the Fascists, the progressives, and the populists. It was through co-option of left-ideas and the orientational vision that such co-option was possible. In others, the left as a product have tremendous influence on the liberal establishment and other establishments. Indeed it is clear when one considers who the primary liberal candidate was prior to FDR and the real leftist activism of the early parts of the great depression: Herbert Hoover.

Now one can argue that it was left liberals who stopped the excesses of the left, or at least enabled an expression of left-wing thought that was not a complete rupture with the past. Yet this is also the crux of the problem, the reformist agenda was incomplete and absent a true left bogeyman, all the liberal left has had to compromise with IS the right–conservative right or economic right. This is how the IMF was able to steam-roll most of Latin American left particularly in Columbia and Argentina. This was why the DLC and Clinton were able to gut the welfare network in such a way no Reaganite could dream over. While credit-based wealth mixed with the downward drift of the prices of technology have kept most of the lower middle classes relatively a-political, the liberal-left had no need to compromise with the left at all during the 1980s and 1990s. During the same period, the radicalism of the 1970s diminished and de-politicized? It emerges briefly in the left-liberal-libertarian in the anti-globalization movement and the anti-war movement as well as having brief overlaps. This seems to have dissolutioned both the left with any hope of working with the left-liberals, but also the left-liberals themselves who feel betrayed by their establishment.

So when liberals tell me that they are responsible for the positive social movement in recent history, I am confused. Furthermore when liberals tell me that the majority of the left doesn’t want to work them and should essentially shut up and join the problem, I know the real game. Now, admittedly, only Democrats do the later in force.

But Marxism for its own sake does not matter. Marxian thought does matter as it generates real questions for both the liberals and the left: it is the spectre of Marxism that haunts the first world in the center and left. Only the right has truly abandoned it, you know this from the hollowness of their recent red-baiting about Barack Obama. You see I know more people who read Marx in Business schools than in Humanities or in liberal activist groups.

No, a left-wing critique is a critique of everything: it is a look at structure. This did not begin with Marx, but Marx was his most thorough it. Left Marxists (Left communists, Luxemburgists) to Marxist-Leninists (Maoists, Stalinists) to Social Democrats and Labour parties were all have origins in Marxian thought and if you expand that to people in dialogue or co-opting parts of Marx: Social Anarchists, New Dealers, and in some ways even Keynesians, then you have broad spectrum. Marx didn’t invent this: he was not the first communist. He was not even a Marxist. This means, as the Platypus teach in implies, Marxian thinkers must be willing to critique other Marxists, liberals, or the left WHILE working to make the world a better place.

When I critique the left-liberals, it is not say that they do no good. It is hope that they will do more by not compromising the uncompromisable on tactical grounds. One must be reflective.

So Marx’s matters. Marxism while it is stuck in a thousand different parties and tendencies disconnected from the body politic: not so much. Liberals without articulated ideologies and definite limits to compromise and leftists without any willingness or sense of praxis or anything other than radical slogans. They also don’t matter. Ideas have consequences one southerner once said. So does the failure of ideas.

Legislation/Executive Orders as PR: Obama tells the FDA to do something not in their control to do.

This is a lesson on political power, or its lack, in the executive branch over domestic politics. You see Obama “ordered the FDA to do something to curve drug shortages. How you may ask since the FDA does not produce or make any drugs. This is what the order states they should do:

Broaden reporting of potential drug shortages, expedite regulatory reviews that can help prevent shortages, and examine whether potential shortages have led to illegal price gouging.

While all possibly good things, with the possible exception of expediting regulatory review, this hardly sounds like it would actually and definitely lead to the fewer drug shortages. Drug shortages are not created by government fiat unless the fiat is for the government to produce the drugs itself. I am not the only one who noticed this. Derek at In the Pipe Line noticed as well:

That’s because the drug shortage problem is not something that can be solved by fiat. There are a number of factors that got us all into this fix: two big ones are changes in Medicare billing for generic cancer drugs, and manufacturing problems with overseas suppliers. (A low-margin business gives you even more incentive to source the bargain-basement options). None of these things can be fixed overnight.

And when you look at the executive order itself, you find that there’s not much there. It directs FDA to expedite reviews of new suppliers and new manufacturing sites, but aren’t they doing that already? And it also tells the agency to send out letters to all the companies, reminding them to remind the FDA about potential shortages, which is clearly the kind of decisive step this crisis has been waiting for. Oh, and it also calls for determining whether any of the shortages have led to “price gouging”. Can’t have the price of something going up just because there’s a shortage – that’s just basic economics, right?

Aside from the point on price gouging which can create a shortage artificially and thus is not always a sign of shortage as Derek implies, he’s right, there is almost nothing substantive in the order.

Which brings me to a larger point, executive orders and legislation like this are often public relations stunts. Take an example of Britian’s Public Defense Law. Indeed, it seems that much of what passes for policy is about getting re-elected. Call it a structural flaw in representative democracies in the age of mass media.

Ron Paul: myth and cultus

This is a hot topic. Ron Paul popularity seems to come from the fact he does have some integrity. Sometimes I wonder how thin things have gotten with integrity is enough to make someone seem supremely reasonable. I consider it necessary, but not sufficient.  The cult of Ron Paul says more about what the US political climate than about Ron Paul.  The myth of Ron Paul seems to make him every thing to everyone: Lew Rockwell and company see him as a harbinger of anarcho-capitalism, many see him as a bringer of Third Party politics, and eventually even the French nationalist Le Penn is interested in him.   In a strange way, the integrity of Ron Paul is used as a way NOT to deal with the current situation as Ron Paul cannot win in the party he runs in since he could not possibly get enough financial support.

More on Occupy Worldwide (Amsterdam, Oakland, Denver, New York, Tehran?)

I hate to be parroting other sites, but I can’t be everywhere.  One of the interesting bits of cognitive dissonance on the left is how comfortable that an individual is with types of collective interest.  One can see this in post about Occupy Amsterdam 

I think people should take this Occupy Together movement quite seriously. It is very viral: just watch the Facebook page of anyone involved in the movement. And it is even growing against the odds. During two days of severe rain, the camp in Amsterdam actually managed to become larger: I can only explain this by pointing towards the devotion and intoxication of the people involved. It is something that does aim to truly affect the world. It wants to change the world and is serious about this. Some media have compared the occupations to the cosy atmosphere found at music festivals, and described the occupations as ‘just a bunch of young people having fun’, but in doing so, they bypass the devotion and seriousness of the people involved completely. It’s definitely not a joke, nor just another pastime of a generation of hipsters with an iPhone, and neither is it a normal protest action. Although this is what is emphasized to the outside, it does not even really seem to be about the world of banking and finances at all. It may be something akin to spontaneous anarchism in practice. But there may also be unclear or vague power structures that are not obviously present for the observer—exactly the type of thing the Occupy movement claims to avoid. I still do not truly know what the Occupy movement is. It is something very strange indeed.

If I should ever notice that this movement really starts to exclude, or somehow (even non-forcingly) brainwash people or rob them of their individuality, I’m out. I know where my allegiances are, and they are not with any movement. Instead, they are with radical honesty, with nonviolence (both of which I’m still a beginner at), with fairness, community, nature, a healthy sense of distrust towards authoritarianism, and, last but certainly not least, with individuality, individual expression and individual diversity. I was hoping to find outlets for these aspects of my life view in the Occupy movement. But, to be honest, I am not sure anymore if Occupy Amsterdam is something for me, or that it is able to offer these things at a cost that is not too high. But still… the last week was hectic, strange, and at times amazing, and I suspect that I gained some worthwhile insights and new friends during the period. And it is still intriguing to see whether this global movement somehow is able to effect changes in the world and the system we are now a part of. For one, I think that the global Occupy Together movement should not be underestimated. So far, the movement is still elusive and difficult to pinpoint, and often very much misunderstood in especially mainstream media.

There also seems to be a confusion between collective action and mob-mentality.  The two are related, but one does not subsume oneself to the will of the group, but advocates one’s will in aggregate because an atomized individual is essentially powerless–violent or not. This tension, however, seems to come out of the narrative of the post-structuralist leftist and some variants of de-politicized liberalism.  The idea of the post-political seems at play and in that fear is the really a masked fear of the mob. One that may be somewhat justified.

Speaking on collective action, let’s notice a letter from Ken Knabb which I will repost in entirety:

Dear Bay Area Friends,

As most of you probably know, the police raid and destruction of the Occupy Oakland encampments last Tuesday, followed by the notorious police violence against protesters later the same day, provoked such an immense expression of outrage from thousands of people in the Bay Area and around the world that the Oakland city government was thrown completely on the defensive. The next day police were scarcely to be seen. The fence surrounding Frank Ogawa Plaza was still in place, but the occupiers calmly took it down and began reoccupying the same spot. That evening, by a vote of 1484 to 46 (with 77 abstentions), the general assembly decided to call for a General Strike in Oakland on Wednesday, November 2. You can see their declaration, a press conference, and other information at www.occupyoakland.org.

The fact that they reoccupied the encampment less than 48 hours after it had been demolished is astonishing enough. But that they immediately shifted to the offensive with such a marvelously audacious venture leaves me almost speechless with admiration. I hope that their appeal meets with correspondingly large-minded and supportive responses by people in Oakland and elsewhere in the Bay Area. Occupiers in many other cities have already been venturing outside their encampments for various types of demonstrations (e.g. the marches to banks and CEO residences in New York City), but this general-strike appeal is upping the ante and moving toward a new level of active engagement with people in the whole community. Occupy Oakland people have been fanning out into the city, speaking with workers and small businesses, with teachers and students, with religious groups and all sorts of other community organizations, in order to enlist support for the strike. At this point I don’t think anyone really knows what the response will actually be, but there are a number of promising indications. In addition to support from nurses’ and teachers’ associations and a number of other unions (see www.occupyoakland.org/strike/), the Longshoremen’s Union is collaborating with Occupy Oakland to bring about a shutdown of the Port of Oakland in solidarity with striking workers elsewhere on the West Coast.

In any case, even if a relatively small number of people actually strike, the mere act of putting such a notion on the agenda is already awakening people to new possibilities. The general strike is not intended to be a mere work stoppage, but a day for positive, creative public dialogue. Leading up to it, there are open meetings every day at 5:00 p.m. at Occupy Oakland where people are discussing what they are doing, or what they propose to do, to prepare for the strike (publicity, outreach, coordination). You are welcome to observe any of those meetings, and to participate if you feel so inclined. During the day of the strike, there will be large gatherings at the same location (Frank Ogawa Plaza at 14th & Broadway) at 9:00 a.m., 12:00 noon, and 5:00 p.m. (the latter gathering segueing into a march to the Port of Oakland), as well as the daily general assembly at 7:00 p.m. But there will be countless other public discussions, large and small, planned and spontaneous, in workplaces and on street corners, some of them initiated by people such as yourself. You don’t have to wait for Occupy Oakland or anyone else to take your own initiatives.

A delightfully mischievous example of such an independent initiative is the fake Mayor’s Apology perpetrated by a good friend of mine. Using the situationist tactic of détournement, he has taken a currently potent image in the spectacle and turned its fetish-power against itself in order to break through what is seen as “possible” or “realistic” and encourage a more imaginative and uninhibited collective brainstorming. (He explains his motives here.)

If you decide to strike, note that Occupy Oakland has declared: “If an employer fires or disciplines a worker for taking the day off, we will picket that business.” However, the Occupy Oakland people realize that many people may not be able or willing strike, especially on such short notice and when many people are still under misimpressions they have derived from the mainstream media. They welcome every form of engagement, suggesting that, if nothing else, you take this opportunity to talk about these issues with your friends and neighbors and fellow workers, as well as to visit Occupy Oakland and get a little sense of what’s going on, whether at the scheduled gatherings at 9:00, 12:00 and 5:00, or at other times simply to roam around the encampment, meet people and get a little feel of the ambience.

For those of you who may be worried about “children missing school”: Children will learn more about community and society and democracy and history in this one day than they will in a month of ordinary schooling. Reports are that practically every Oakland teacher supports the aims of the strike, but that they are not sure whether to actually go on strike, or if so, in what manner. My suggestion is that teachers engage in an active, “teach-in” strike, not just staying home, but going to their classes and opening the entire day up to discussion of these issues: “What have you heard about the Occupy movement, children? Why do you think people are doing it? Do you know what a strike is? Did you know that many of the things we take for granted were achieved because people in your parents’ or you grandparents’ generation engaged in strikes? Did you know that the last general strike in America took place right here in Oakland in 1946?” Perhaps followed by a field trip to visit Occupy Oakland. Whether or not the teachers do this, I am sure that many conscientious parents will make a special point of taking their children to some of the gatherings and events, and that this will be one of the most rich and memorable days in their lives.

For those who may worry about the risk to themselves: Relax. The people taking the risks are the people who occupy public spaces and refuse to leave, knowing that they may be arrested, or who intentionally remain in the streets when told to disperse. As long as you don’t do either of those things, about the only risk you run in visiting an occupation or attending one of the mass gatherings is that you might find yourself questioning your previous priorities in life.

I also encourage you to stop being distracted by the never-ending string of silly objections, most of which are not true and most of which would not be any big deal even if they were true (an occupation failed to get a permit, or it is violating some city sanitary code, or some participant used hostile language against the police, etc.). This is an all-embracing movement and, among other challenges, it’s bringing together people of all walks of life, including homeless people and others who have suffered far more than you and I and who may bear some psychological scars from their sufferings. In such circumstances there will naturally be some problems to work out; and they are being worked out as the occupiers find that they need to deal with them. The people doing the on-the-ground occupying and who are being beaten and arrested by the thousands in cities all over the country are true heroes and they deserve the same kind of support as the civil rights workers did fifty years ago. (For just one example of the sick brutality the Occupy Oakland arrestees have been enduring, see this account by a 43-year-old disabled woman.) Yet they, and all of us who are with them in our hearts, are also filled with a joy that most people in this society are missing, because after a long period of social idiocy and despair we are finally waking up together, and we can see that the momentum of history is on our side. This is not just a protest, or even a series of protests, it’s an international social movement. It’s not about passing this or that new law, much less about electing this or that politician; it’s about people coming together all over the world to reassess the entire social order and to figure out how best to change it.

Whether we ultimately win or not, this movement is not going away any time soon. You’ll have plenty of other opportunities to take part during the coming months and coming years. Nevertheless, in the future, when your children or grandchildren ask you what you were doing when these historic events were just beginning, right in your own cities, don’t you think you’ll feel a little funny having to say that you didn’t even bother to go take a look?

As a final note, I would like to remind you that, while the current focus is on Occupy Oakland, there are also occupations in San Francisco and Berkeley and over a dozen other Bay Area cities, as well as in hundreds of other locations all over the country. Each of them is independent; some are large, some are small; they have various modes of organization and various styles, ranging from mild to militant. But they all deserve your support and input. Check out the ones near you. Even if you don’t wish to join the actual occupation, you are welcome to take part in their general assemblies, and there are many other ways to support them. Above all, if your local politicians and police are harassing them, tell them in no uncertain terms to stop doing so.

KEN KNABB

Speaking of police issues, we have massive crack down in Denver:

: Twenty people were arrested during what has been Occupy Denver’s most violent day in weeks. All evidence of the Thunderdome and the front desk has been removed, and officers offered protesters the chance to claim their belongings one at a time as the area was cleared. Several protesters have made trips to the hospital for injuries, and one man, Phillip Becerra, was shot in the face with pepper bullets.

It, also, it seems like there is a much going on in OWS when NYPD is adopting a more indirect strategy in dealing with the situation:

But while officers may be in a no-win situation, at the mercy of orders carried on shifting political winds and locked into conflict with a so-far almost entirely non-violent protest movement eager to frame the force as a symbol of the oppressive system they’re fighting, the NYPD seems to have crossed a line in recent days, as the park has taken on a darker tone with unsteady and unstable types suddenly seeming to emerge from the woodwork. Two different drunks I spoke with last week told me they’d been encouraged to “take it to Zuccotti” by officers who’d found them drinking in other parks, and members of the community affairs working group related several similar stories they’d heard while talking with intoxicated or aggressive new arrivals.

So I will end with a quote from Adorno and a quote from Badiou that are obliquely relevant:

The word “democracy” is today the main organizer of consensus. What the word is assumed to embrace is the downfall of Eastern Socialists States, the supposed well being of our countries as well as Western humanitarian crusades.

Actually the word “democracy” is inferred from what I term “authoritarian opinion.” It is somehow prohibited not to be a democrat. Accordingly, it furthers that the human kind longs for democracy, and all subjectivity suspected of not being democratic is deemed pathological. At its best it infers a forbearing reeducation, at its worst the right of meddling democratic marines and paratroopers.

Democracy thus inscribing itself in polls and consensus necessarily arouses the philosopher’s critical suspicions. For philosophy, since Plato, means breaking with opinion polls. Philosophy is supposed to scrutinize everything that is spontaneously considered as “normal.” If democracy designates a normal state of collective organization, or political will, then the philosopher will ask for the norm of this normality to be examined. He will not allow for the word to function within the frame of an authoritarian opinion. For the philosopher everything consensual becomes suspicious.

To confront the visibility of the democratic idea with the singularity of a particular politics, especially revolutionary politics, is an old practice. It was already employed against Bolsheviks well before the October Revolution. In fact, the critique addressed to Lenin – his political postulate viewed as nondemocratic – is original. However it’s still interesting today to peruse his riposte.

Lenin’s counter-argument is twofold. On the one hand he distinguishes, according to the logic of class analysis, between two types of democracy: proletarian democracy and bourgeois democracy. He then asserts the supremacy, in extension and intensity, of the former over the latter.

Yet his second structure of response seems to me more appropriate to the present state of affairs. Lenin insists in this that with “democracy,” verily, you should always read “a form of State.” Form means a particular configuration of the separate character of the State and the formal exercise of sovereignty. Positing democracy as a form of State, Lenin subscribes to the classical political thinking filiation, including Greek philosophy, which contends that “democracy” must ultimately be conceived as a sovereignty or power trope. Power of the “demos” or people, the capability of “demos” to exert coercion by itself.

If democracy is a form of State, what preordained philosophical use proper can this category have? With Lenin the aim – or idea – of politics is the withering of any form of State, democracy included. And this could be termed generic Communism as basically expressed by Marx in his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. 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. – Alain Badiou,  Highly Speculative Reasoning on the Concept of Democracy

The strongest point that you make is the idea that the situation could
be so terrible that one would have to attempt to break out of it, even if
one recognizes the objective impossibility. I take that argument
seriously. But I think that it is mistaken. We withstood in our time,
you no less than me, a much more dreadful situation—that of the
murder of the Jews, without proceeding to praxis; simply because it
was blocked for us. I think that clarity about the streak of coldness in
one’s self is a matter for self-contemplation. To put it bluntly: I think
that you are deluding yourself in being unable to go on without
participating in the student stunts, because of what is occurring in
Vietnam or Biafra. If that really is your reaction, then you should not
only protest against the horror of napalm bombs but also against the
unspeakable Chinese-style tortures that the Vietcong carry out
permanently. If you do not take that on board too, then the protest
against the Americans takes on an ideological character. Max lay great 128
weight, and with justification, on just that point. I of all people,
being, after all, the one who left the US in the end, should be entitled
to my opinion.
You object to Jürgen’s expression ‘left fascism’, calling it a contradictio in
adjecto. But you are a dialectician, aren’t you? As if such contradictions
did not exist—might not a movement, by the force of its immanent
antinomies, transform itself into its opposite? I do not doubt for a
moment that the student movement in its current form is heading
towards that technocratization of the university that it claims it wants to
prevent, indeed quite directly. And it also seems to me just as un-
questionable that modes of behaviour such as those that I had to witness,
and whose description I will spare both you and me, really display
something of that thoughtless violence that once belonged to fascism
 - Theodor Adorno, Letter to Herbert Murcuse on The SDS.

 

This is a picture from Tehran that sums up the possibility of this movement, a possibility that is MUCH larger than simple left-liberal or even left American interests:

Yours from Seoul,

Skepoet

On the Anti-War Liberalism and differing ideological definitions:

So while I have been busy doing various things personal and political in the last two weeks, I haven’t been keeping up with many blogs and comments as usual.  So let me get to the my somewhat uninformed criticism on liberals giving up on the Anti-War movement during the Obama administration.  Ben, rightly, points out that I over-stated my case. I’ll present the crux of Ben’s argument here:

As I was arguing, the movement included a diversity of supporters. Democrats were at most 1/2 of the participants and possibly only ever represented a 1/3 of the movement. The anti-war movement was never just about liberals, especially not just liberal Democrats (I’m a liberal who isn’t a Democrat; I participated in the anti-war protest movement and didn’t vote for Obama). What about all of the other groups involved? Why did the Ron Paul libertarians abandon the anti-war movement in order to campaign for Ron Paul and then later to join the Tea Party?

There are many explanations. But it should be pointed out this research was done years after the point when protest movement had some of its early strong support. The anti-war protests started in 2002 and gained their strongest momentum in 2003. Why would anyone reasonably expect the movement to sustain that same energy for the next 9 years following those first protests?

The anti-war protests began as an attempt to stop the invasion in Iraq from happening at all. It failed in that, but certainly the protesters can’t be blamed for what has followed since the invasion. Being against the invasion and being for pulling out are two separate issues. I was against the invasion and yet I believe we should fix what we break. The challenge, however, has been that if we don’t try to fix it the problem could get worse and if we try to fix it the problem might get worse. There are no clear answers at this point. The only clear answer that ever was a possibility was to never invade in the first place. Once the Iraq War was started, there was little hope that protesters could hold onto. Protest increasingly became symbolic rather than pragmatically effective toward some positive end. Worse just leads to worse.

The other purpose of the anti-war movement was to sway public opinion. It is a fact that public opinion has turned away from supporting the wars, and so on that account the anti-war movement has been an unqualified success. The public has become demoralized with the wars just as the anti-war protesters have become demoralized. Everyone has become demoralized by everything that is going on: endless and pointless wars, crony capitalism, a co-opted democracy, and on and on. Even as public support turns away from the wars, there is no sense of having won anything in the process. The public support has turned away from lots of things (the drug war, the culture war, etc) and yet it feels like nothing changes. The media and the government go on as if everything is the same.

What more is expected of the anti-war movement? Protesters can’t force the government to do anything and protesters can’t solve the problems caused by the very war they’ve been against. Many people have continued to protest against war, but people have had their lives and energies focused on the other issues (such as the economy) for reasons beyond their control. With many people hurting (growing poverty and shrinking middle class, unemployment or underemployment, house foreclosures, debt, lost life savings, struggling small businesses, etc), and so people have joined other causes and movements (fighting the Patriot Act, ending Gitmo, and freeing Bradley Manning; election reform, healthcare reform, tax reform, and regulatory reform; Tea Party, Coffee Party, and Occupy movement; etc) which has diffused the energy of the anti-war movement.

Anyway, I understand the criticisms. I’m critical of almost everything in the world these days. I just don’t see why the liberals should be blamed for everything and why all liberals (nearly half of whom, according to Pew’s Beyond Red vs Blue, are Independents) should be accused of being mindless Obama drones. Were there Obama supporters who withdrew from the anti-war movement? No shit, Sherlock. Was the anti-war movement nothing more than mindless Democratic loyalists? Don’t be silly.

The anti-war movement was NOT, nor did I actually ever say it was, an mindless shill for the Democrats to score points against Bush.  I, however, do think that Democratic apparatus did largely abandon the structures for the anti-war movement to manifest in and when the Democrats turned it became harder to generate media, which is part of the problem here.   It’s death is greatly over-stated even among liberals themselves.  However, the frustrations of a seeming de-politicized anti-war movement seem to be that it doesn’t address the key problems.  I’ll admit to be rhetorically unfair to left-liberals on this point.  Furthermore, I’ll admit that this is not just a factual error, but a tactical one.

However, since I was not able to respond to some of Ben’s more specific critiques, the fundamental difference between liberals and leftists, and the fundamental misapprehension between the two bubbled to the surface. In what I view as frustration from an otherwise reasonable person, Ben attacked me in his comments with this:

As long as left-wingers arrogantly judge liberals, left-wingers will continue to fail and liberals will continue to have to struggle to maintain these large movements. It’s not that all left-wingers are ideologues like Skepoet, but sadly I suspect many are. Too many left-wingers are disgruntled and cynical. They would rather criticize liberals willingness to compromise rather than actually work together with liberals in finding ways of compromising that benefits everyone.

To which I responded with:

That’s funny since as a global force the left has much more power and success in third world, China, etc. Furthermore, given that most of the Democratic or independent liberal pushes since the 1980s have only been victories on lifestyle issues and not economic ones is part of why the welfare state itself is in danger in Europe and North America. You agree with me that it is? In the early part of the 20th century: leftists, not liberals, took Russia and China out of the most conservative feudal system on the planet at the time. The New Deal, however, did have the distinction advantage of not having the body count that Russia and China do have. I’ll admit that the Old Left failed to really live up to its own promises, and the new left pretty much became liberalism. Leftists worked with liberals in the US to avoid a failed revolution and to fight degeneration of Soviet communism. We were burnt, however, over and over again on corporate tax reforms, regulatory lope holes, and placating a small right-wing voter base in the US. We were burned in Latin America and Europe by left-liberal governments passing economic reforms and IMF packages that sent Columbia, Argentina, Chile and many other central/South American states into free fall and poverty. We were burned in the UK by Tony Blair, and in the labor reforms in Germany with made jobs that pay only 400 Euros a month a mandate for services. These were liberals “compromising” for the good.

Now, I know that this is not representative of the average liberal on the street or you, or whoever, but this is the history. That’s not one based in ideology but hard material fact. Now, you can listen to our criticism as to what can be compromised on or you can dismiss us as ideologues. However, the view that liberalism is somehow uniquely victorious when it is accosted on all sides and its reforms being undone in both North America and Europe as some sort of unique victory is problematic. That’s not victory. That’s buying time.

But this is what I mean by ideological blinders, you have them too. Everyone has them. I do too. I am fair enough to admit when I am wrong, nor do I “hate” left-liberals. What I don’t think we agree on is what the terms of victory are, but we both agree that at the moment: neither the left nor left-liberals are winning. The question is can we trust each other.

You gave me hope that maybe we could because left liberals themselves are seeing the corrosive affects of the Liberal Establishment in the Democratic party. If that wasn’t the case, there would not be OWS. Furthermore, leftists are seeing the cracks in the fact that we have either hid in dreams of the 1930s or 1968 since the exposure of the internal contradictions in Soviet Communism and China going into a mercentilist mode. We both have problems as ideological sets.  What is not clear can left-liberalism divorce itself from the framework it built in the Democratic party?  Can the left revision itself as both a negation of the current and a positive, coherent political force?   Can both recognize the ideological split is substantive and tactical.

Marginalia and Religious Ethnography Botched: Interview with Keith418 on class, politics, and religion

Keith418 is one of the most controversial figures in modern Thelema.  His interviews on the defunct Thelema: Coast to Coast were often rigorous and demanding, yet highly contentious.  Keith418 has also documented thinkers on both the radical right and the far left often comparing those thinkers to the problematic thought in the Occult community.  The parallels are discomforting to all involved. This interview goes into territory of both my interview series so it will be considered part of both. 

Skepoet: You and I have been talking about the way class affects groups in ways that people want to remain silent on.   You often talk about this by comparing the left, particularly the old Maoists, to people in various occult communities.  What do you think the parallels are and why do you think people are so unwilling to realistically talk about class?

Keith418: Class is just a huge taboo in America. People usually act as though class either doesn’t exist or -if they acknowledge it at all – insist that it isn’t influential. Many seem to assume that everyone has some
kind of claim on being “middle class.” But the determining features of social class are as important as consciousness of them is repressed. This kind of “occult influence” should influence occultists more, but
since most of the people in the occult community are more invested in escaping from reality that examining it it’s not surprising that class and the ontology of personal taste isn’t a bigger topic.

The remaining revolutionary communists and Maoists have abandoned class consciousness and class discussions, I suspect, because these topics are rejected by their audience. Like the occultists, people just find these conversations too painful. It reminds people of a kind of grim objective reality – the way they appreciate or don’t appreciate things, the way they dress, act, read, work, enjoy the arts, etc. is less a matter of personal choice than anyone wants to believe. Those on the left, Maoists included, never want to contradict and dismiss the “American Dream” of endless social advancement. Telling people who are working class that their children and grandchildren will be working class too – that they won’t advance into the middle class and beyond – is just too painful a conversation to have.

I would have hoped that occultists outside of the United States, in Europe and elsewhere, might be more amendable to looking at the way class has an impact on occultism and paganism, but this hasn’t happened. Again, I think people see occult work as a kind of respite or refuge from these sorts of problems. It’s too bad, but I, along with some other people, have been trying to get people to look at these questions for years and no one I know has gotten very far.

Any discussion of social class carries with the threat of what Pierre Bourdieu calls “symbolic violence.” This violence reminds people who of is on the top and who is on the bottom. People seek to avoid this kind of violence and they avoid discussions that remind them of the real power relationships that are revealed through it. At the same time, uncovering power relations and examining them requires that we ”go there.” This kind of “uncovering” is essential to any occult work - which is always about making the secret or concealed known. I suspect that very little really important occult work is being done right now because people are unable to risk this kind of symbolic violence. “As above, so below.” If people can’t, or won’t. bring
themselves to look at how their class influences and determines their tastes and values then how can they ever be expected to do higher occult work?

Skepoet: How can they be expected to do much of any kind of honest work?  This brings me to another question, a lot of times organizations–let’s say an O.T.O Lodge or a chapter of the SPUSA–have leadership that systematically refuses to engage in conversations that would make them more sound.  Sometimes you see the leadership refusing to raise dues even when members are willing to pay it. Sometimes you see a refusal to engage honestly dealing with critiques and using them for improvement. Do you think this is related to class functions? Or is there something else at play?

Keith418: I think the contradiction exists between the basic materials – which are very critical of middle class values, investments, and beliefs - and the people running these organization who, in many cases, are in charge simply because they have attained to stable, middle class existences. How can they then struggle against their own values and their own ontology? Socialism and Thelema are both revolutionary ideologies that have become co-opted by reformists and people who believe – whether they will admit it or not – in a gradualist approach.

I often think that these groups become infused with reformist and revisionist tendencies when the status quo is seen as  acceptable to the people involved. Socialism isn’t a life or death matter now for people in the West – neither are most Thelemites really all that unhappy with their own status quo. The impetus for a radical change can only arrive when people are really profoundly unhappy with the way things are – and are ready to advance and support a deep criticism of the status quo. Until that point, the reformists and revisionists are likely to be in charge. Aleister Crowley was nauseated with his contemporaries and his society, but today’s Thelemites simply are not. Lenin and Mao were bound and determined to overthrow their societies - but today’s socialists? Not so much. The reformists and gradualists in both camps are naturally going to be afraid of the real thing – and the more they want to accommodate themselves to the status quo, the less interested they are going to be in challenging it with either Thelema or socialism.

Now, certain individuals may reject this migration away from a real challenge, but these same individuals are very likely to be in conflict with those seeking only reform and those adopting a revisionist line. Until those opposing the revisionist line hit a critical point in either their numbers (with the socialists) or the extent and degree of their influence (with the Thelemites), the chances of them changing anything are pretty low.

Skepoet: To focus on matters of spiritually for a minute.  Why do you so many Thelemites try to maintain links to other religions, or, in the particular case I thinking about, to Buddhism.   What is that about?

Keith418: They are threatened by the Thelemic materials and are seeking to dilute them with older, or other systems and ideologies that they think express values they are more comfortable with. Most of the people calling themselves Thelemites really have grave misgivings and conflicts about Thelema and what Crowley actually taught. Anyone looking at the discourse within the Thelemic community will immediately see evidence of this kind of conflict. Mixing in other religions and systems is a way to calm that sense of conflict and contradiction.

Many Westerners see Buddhism, or want to see Buddhism, as being a tolerant, liberal, non-judgmental “progressive” system – with an exotic and aesthetically appealing flavor that entices people who reject traditional Western religions. The people in the Thelemic community are just as susceptible to this kind of approach to Buddhism as anyone else is. Crowley himself rejected Buddhism, but the people you are talking about usually insist that he didn’t understand it as well as they do.

Skepoet: My experience with Buddhism is that most people–in America and in Asia-don’t really take the work it requires to meet the goals seriously, and in Euro-American also tend to see it as a pre-cursor to post-structural humanism.  I remember listening to a Dhamma speech by an Ajahn who said that “Most Americans get their Buddhism from William James. They don’t see that the interconnectedness was NOT a good thing.”  It strikes me as something similar to what you see as going on with Thelema.  Are most Thelemites looking at Crowley through Gerald Gardner or pop psychology books about the Dalai Lama?

Keith418: The irony here is acute when you consider that Crowley wrote Magick Without Tears in order to lay out his ideas in the clearest, simplest language he could. His searing disagreements with equality, democracy, as well as his support for selfishness, his rejection of herd thinking,  etc. are all to be found there  - expressed in utterly unambiguous language. Yet, modern Thelemites still need “beginner
books” to “understand Thelema.” My feeling is that they want to be reassured and provided with ways to avoid Crowley’s harsh and uncompromising criticisms of the values they regard as “common sense” – and which they accept as so natural that they aren’t even characterized as an ideology they can recognize as such. When you reach an impasse like that, a “lack of agreement” often is phrased as a “lack of understanding.”

Both Buddhism and Thelema are expected to conform to what people already believe – rather than the other way around. The project goes from changing the individual to changing the ideology – and anything can be enlisted in that task. This is revisionism.

Skepoet: Why are they Thelemites then? There are tons of religions based off of watered down versions of Crowley already?  Essentially Gardnerian Wicca is seems to have more than a little relationship as does Scientology.

Keith418: These are questions we often ask ourselves. I think one explanation is that the smaller wiccan groups are often poorly organized and don’t have the same kind of structure the Order does. I also suspect that people are attracted to Thelema  - sometimes from an aesthetic sense - and often get very involved with the group and its social dynamics before they realize the full implications in the basic materials. They
then have to leave the group or stay and seek to change it into something they can accept. This situation tends to make the community dysfunctional. You get people who have been involved for many years, and who are even in leadership positions, who evidence a profound distaste for Crowley and the basics of Thelema.They resent being in this situation and they can’t get out of it. They have often invested too much time and emotional energy to start over with anything else.

Skepoet: That sounds like cognitive dissonance pure and simple.  Wouldn’t it make more sense to erect barriers to entry?

Keith418: But how many people would that bar? Who would erect the barriers? If most of the people, and the leaders, are in denial about this process and these conflicts, then no one would see the need. Besides, the confused and conflicted need allies to help them reconcile the material to their own values and demands. Barriers to entry would deprive them of friends who would share their perspective.

The middle class people in the occult community always seek middle allies and defend them. Part of this is a comfort issue – they want to be around people like them. But it’s also very practical. They need people who can show up on time, pay dues, and be “responsible.” If they tell these potential allies to adopt Thelema or leave, then their potential allies and friends will all be gone.

Additionally, many of the working class and lumpen members are using Thelema as a kind of class ladder. In some cases, it mimics the ”academic” communities they are excluded from. In other cases, they nurse an inchoate hope that an involvement in occultism will somehow help them “move up.” Often “mentoring” in the occult community is really about the middle class people imparting their skills and values to the people under them. When the working class people reach a new point in their social aspirations they understand that occult activity isn’t helping them any longer – and could even be seen as a detriment - and they often quit.

Skepoet: Does this lead organizations to have sort of natural life cycles?

Keith418: I hesitate to say too much about this – as we don’t always know the twists and turns, as well as the chance for schisms and rebirths. Many of the Maoist groups collapsed and  - after suffering schisms – then coalesced into other formations and died. How long can a commitment to a revolutionary ideology and practice be maintained? Do people “age out” of this kind of thing naturally? What are the exceptions?

A Thelemic leader told me once that he was convinced that magick was ”a young man’s game.” This could explain the older leaders moving away from a more confrontational and critical POV. It could also explain
the move towards accommodation and revisionism that we see over and over again on the left.

Skepoet: Do you seem similar happenings on the right?

Keith418: On the radical right? Certainly. Both the radical left and the radical right are united in their rejection of the status quo and share at least an initial disinclination to accept reformist and gradualist measures. I have observed the same aging out process on the far right. As people get older they retreat from the fray and are more willing to make compromises. Some, however, do not.

How much are these struggles tempered and influenced by the historical moment they find themselves in? In an era of rising expectations, revolt and radical changes seem more imminent that they might in an periods of lowered expectations. These factors might change the way people decide to compromise, or even abandon, their efforts to create change.

Skepoet: I have been wondering about this as well. Is this push for “beginnner’s books” in Thelema coming from below or above or both?  In the OTO there has been much discussion about the difficulty of getting texts out, but there seems to be a new beginners book every few months. Is it a simple profit movement or is it encouraged by the leadership?

Keith418: I think we see the “beginner book” phenomena arising from a number of places. First, most of the pagan/occult community isn’t well educated.This means they have few tools to bring to advanced occult texts and Crowley’s erudition is almost impossible for them to penetrate. Second, the “beginner books” are quite biased in that they seek to tone down Crowley’s radical and transgressive positions and tacitly support a reading of Thelema that conforms more with liberal left viewpoints. The people who don’t need the bowdlerized beginner books, and who reject them and depend purely on Crowley are often at odds with those who are dependent on people “translating” Crowley for them.

The leaders of all the Thelemic communities are engaged in an ideological migration away from Crowley. This migration is more or less explicitly acknowledged by the various leaders, depending on the group, but it’s a profound change and there are no exceptions. The ”beginner books” are part of this, as is the general disinclination to engage with Crowley’s transgressive teachings deeply and directly.There’s also trend towards an emphasis on a kind of “empty formalism” that also serves to distract people from the challenging material that troubles them and threatens herd values. Instead of thinking about what the rituals mean, they focus on endless discussions of line readings, stage direction and an ever-increasing kind of Talmudic minutiae.

Skepoet: In a way that reminds of undergraduate texts on critical theory which clean up the problematic bits.  Funny how universal those tensions and tactics are.  Do you think a lot of Occultists confuse lore trivia with education?

Keith418: In the occult community, people tend to play little games with gematria and I often suspect that this has become a pseudo-intellectual distraction and a way to avoid looking at more transgressive problems – as well as a way to dodge addressing practical concerns. Explaining, for example, how “120″ is the “secret number” of one ritual or another is a lot easier than figuring out how to raise money from people who don’t feel like they should contribute, or looking at why the Crowley books have gone out of print, or why none of the major Thelemic groups owns any temple spaces. You can always find people willing to have a discussion about the former topic - it’s much harder to find anyone interested in pursuing the latter subjects.

I also compare this kind of distraction and avoidance to differing ideas of what “freedom” means. To too many, freedom means nothing more than a “freedom” to choose between available and recognized options. Very few want to criticize the range of options and this limited definition of freedom at all. When Crowley is employed to criticize the nature of the status quo and modern institutions and values – democracy, egalitarianism, etc. – he is rejected. I see this rejection on the left as people move towards revisionism, compromise, and accommodation.

Skepoet:Or in other words, moving towards middle class liberalism.   You like to get people to read Paul Fussell’s book on class which talks about how there is a drift towards the lower middle class over time in middle class culture.   Do you see that as being related to this?

Keith418: My effort to get people to read Fussell, which is a sort of “beginner book” version of Bourdieu’s work (irony!), was to attack the denial of social class and the way people tended to dismiss its steady and determining influence. I noticed that after reading the book, they didn’t argue with me about the existence and importance of class any longer. They didn’t want to discuss the topic, but at least they no longer denied it. Instead, people used Fussell as a kind of ”aspirational” guide. One reader told me that, after reading the book, he threw away all his short-sleeved shirts with collars. Rather than rejecting middle class values, I actually think most occultists aspire to them – or seek to preserve them in the face of threats or criticism.

Crowley was extremely critical of the middle class. His kind of class criticism is rejected by nearly all modern Thelemites. This migration away from what he taught isn’t accidental.

Skepoet: What do you think was particular to Crowley’s background that enabled him to be so transgressive?

Keith418:Some of the clues may be in his strict upbringing. If he was able to withstand that kind of effort at forced conformity, then there is very little that he wasn’t capable of questioning later on. Paradoxically, an overly permissive and undisciplined environment may produce people more inclined to unquestioning conformity and herd thinking. It’s not hard to see the link between a personal insistence on independence and a corresponding cultivation of self-discipline. Crowley himself wrote that 90% (“at a guess”) of Thelema was self-discipline. What happens when you have a generation or two with no strong sense of self-discipline? How do people then relate to Thelema and what can they really do with it? The only options they may have is to try to turn it into something else. The problem is that Crowley’s writings are both extant and voluminous and they explicitly refute these kinds of substitution strategies and revisionism.

The left has the same problems. Marx recognized that the revolution needed a trained, disciplined working class. If this revolutionary class doesn’t exist, and if people do not arise with the kinds of qualities, then the revolution can’t happen. The real revolutions needs a kind of subject. It can’t “make do” with anything or anyone.

Skepoet: Which makes the practice of yoga and some of the more extreme disciplinary practices in Crowley’s writings makes sense. I can’t remember the specific Liber, but the practice of limiting yourself and making your infractions with a razor seemed like sort of effective if extreme practice. I have noticed I haven’t seen a lot of Thelemites with the razor marks though.   Do you think commodity comforts have something to do with ignoring this?

Keith418: There are ways for performing that practice (Liber Liber III vel Jugorum) without the razor. Some use a rubber band or make lighter scratches. Real magical work takes a serious cultivation of self-discipline and this is harder and harder for people – as you suggest – raised in a consumer culture. I suspect that for many people  Thelemic and magical attainment is more of  an egalitarian, religious entitlement than something they have to struggle and really work for. Thelema is, in any case, either a spur for greater levels of self-discipline or, in more and more cases, a rationale for avoiding self-discipline and a spiritual ratification of the present personal status quo.

Skepoet: Do you think this is similar to how so many American Buddhists seem to reject even the idea of Enlightenment as a real possibility that would change things?  Many Buddhist teachers have complained about this to me.

Keith418: We live in an age in which it’s harder and harder for people to imagine alternatives. This kind of difficulty afflicts both political and religious thinking. The choices become narrower, the option diminish, and people are less and less willing to ponder, or support, radical alternatives. Leaders  - in any movement – have to recognize these circumstances and address them forthrightly. It’s not something that people generally want to be reminded of.It’s certainly depressing, and there are no easy answers or quick fixes.

Skepoet: Recently you have been talking the difference between sophistication and raw intelligence in some private conversations we have. You see a lot of lack of sophistication in the dialogue. Why do you think that is?

Keith418: It’s not difficult to see a difference between raw intelligence and sophisticated thinking. There are plenty of bright people who aren’t very sophisticated and any number of sophisticated people who aren’t
bright. A major factor here is how much cultural capital people possess and much of that is due to their social class. iI you meet a person who is really sophisticated and, at the same time, not exactly a genius, then it’s usually because they come from an upper class background. If occultists emerge out of the working class, the lumpen, and the lower middle class, then they usually aren’t very sophisticated and their occult interests may reflect an effort to find a  sort of substitute for the kind of cultural capital they have been denied. On the other hand, very bright occultists are usually painfully unsophisticated. If they are stuck in IT jobs, or other fields that require a certain amount of focused intelligence but do not demand any sort of advanced cultural capital, then they too will be deprived of many essential tools.

It’s easy to find people in the occult community rejecting deep, sophisticated approaches to occultism, but for an individual without a great deal of cultural capital, I am afraid that most of what someone like Crowley wrote will simply be impenetrable. Again, this may be why we see the endless popularity of one “beginner book” after another. These appallingly pedestrian texts are nothing other than attempts to recast advanced and challenging occultism for the unsophisticated and for those who struggle with Crowley’s erudition. His sophistication means that, for them, his work is opaque.

In addition, collecting books, and obsessing over them, is vastly different from studying them closely… and even close study is different from practice and application. We often see occultists fetishizing and aspiring to academic careers and I think, for many, this reveals their own transparent class aspirations. Unfortunately, modern academic work, in the humanities, is often nothing more than increasingly crude efforts at social engineering along liberal-left and humanistic lines. This kind of indoctrination leads people away from taking anyone as transgressive as Crowley was too seriously and it tends to make people believe that the “safe” and/or “respectable” way to investigate occultism is in some kind of purely academic approach. I kept waiting for people to return from advanced academic work to lead the occult community, but this hasn’t happen so far and I am disinclined to ever expect it now. the work they do in academic setting devalues the occult community they came out of. They don’t go back to it after being “trained.”

Skepoet: Are their thinkers, other than Crowley, do you think people avoid because of their humanistic bias?

Keith418: The contemporary occult climate is very influenced by PC thinking and it carefully avoids any challenge to contemporary taboos. Crowley, for example, had nothing but praise for Nietzsche. He’s a saint in Crowley’s Gnostic Mass and is also referred to by Crowley as a ”prophet.” But, at best, most people calling themselves Thelemites can barely handle lesser interpreters like Ayn Rand. The closest any thinker gets to explicitly challenging the value of democracy, equality, compassion and any of the other mainstays of liberal humanism, the more those in the occult community seem to instinctively steer clear. If you try to illustrate Crowley’s criticism of equality and democracy with reference to similar thinkers, you can count on receiving  immediate push-back or worse.

This part of a movement away from the kinds of transgressive explorations that were more common 20+ years ago. People in the ’80s explored all sorts of extreme ideas and radical thinkers. Amok Press and other publishers carried shocking and disturbing books and people were more open to these kinds of explorations. Now, folks are really reluctant to push the boundaries. I think this indicates the way they have been indoctrinated to unquestioningly accept a placid, stable, liberal-left world view and its corresponding ideologies. If Crowley is seen as deviating from those agendas, which any close reading of his texts will immediately prove that he does, then he has to be altered to be suit current fashionable beliefs and values… or tossed under the bus.

Skepoet: There seems to be a movement to make Nietzsche safe as well.  So many people trying to render him a humanist.  It’s frustrating. Why do you think Ayn Rand is so popular in those circles?  Elitism for the masses?

Keith418: I don’t want to suggest that Rand is all that popular in the occult community. I know only a small handful of people who are fans, but I suspect that she makes a kind of derivative Nietzschean system of
values more palatable for the middle classes and for those who haven’t really studied Western philosophy and political science that deeply. You need a background in Western philosophy to grasp Nietzsche and you don’t need that at all for Rand.

Nietzsche is too important for people in academia to ignore, and too explosive and too threatening to approach on his own terms. Therefore, some alteration and dilution must be attempted. It’s unfortunate, but in the current climate it is not surprising. This kind of reaction is the same when it comes to Crowley in the Thelemic community and also looks like the hegemonic push towards revisionism on the left. It’s universal.

Skepoet: What, if any, hope do you have for a change in the atmosphere of the occult community?

Keith418: I don’t have a lot of hope at the moment. I once thought that a kind of Internet-fueled occult cultural revolution might occur, with many people joining in an advancing kind of exploration and discussion that would be assisted by all the new access to information that was once difficult or even impossible to find. Instead, I think, occultists were presented with a whole series of problems that they had been steadily avoiding before – ideological conflicts and fractures, educational deficiencies, a history of organizational failures, etc. This had led to a kind of stalemate in which very little improves and conversations become curtailed or are nothing more than the rote repetitions of calming platitudes, dominated by the lowest common denominator.

I also didn’t count on the new kind of conformity orientation we see so much of – as well as the results of the poor educations most people receive now. When you combine ignorance and herd thinking, a reluctance to truly “question authority,” it’s hard to see too much progress on the immediate horizon.

But who can predict an event? A trigger might come along, or an influence might appear, that proves catastrophic to the current status quo. Until then we will continue to find more teachers under the ground than walking around on it. For the motivated, the possibilities that exist now could constitute a “golden age.” I am encouraging those who are ready to take full advantage of it.

Skepoet: Anything to say in closing?

Keith418: ”The spiritual decay of the earth is so advanced that people risk exhausting that reserve of spiritual force which enables them just to see and take stock of this decay [...]. This simple observation has nothing to do with cultural pessimism: for in every corner of the world the darkening of the world, the flight of the gods, the destruction of the earth, the massification of man, the contemptuous suspicion of everything which is creative and free, have reached such proportions that such childlike expressions as pessimism and optimism have long become laughable.”

- Heidegger

Religious Ethnography Series can be found here, here, here, here, here, here,  here, here, here, here, and here. 

Marginalia on Radical Thinking Series can be found here, here, and here.