From The "Renegade Eye" Blog-Revolutionary Precursors: Radical Bourgeois Architects in the Age of Reason and Revolution

In honor of the Platypus Affiliated Society’s Radical Bourgeois Philosophy summer reading group, I thought I would devote a blog entry to the celebration of radical bourgeois architecture. I’ve been writing a lot of posts related to the subject of the revolutionary avant-garde architecture that followed October 1917 in Russia and in Europe, so I think that it might be fitting to take a step back and review some of the architectural fantasies that surrounded that other great revolutionary date, 1789, the year of the glorious French Revolution. The three utopian architects whose work I will be focusing on here also happen to be French — perhaps not coincidentally.

Étienne-Louis Boullée (1728—1799), Claude-Nicolas Ledoux (1736—1806), and François Marie Charles Fourier (1772—1837) were each architects and thinkers whose ideas reflected some of the most radical strains of liberal bourgeois philosophy, with its cult of reason and devotion to the triplicate ideals of liberté, égalité, and fraternité. The structures they imagined and city plans they proposed were undeniably some of the most ambitious and revolutionary of their time. At their most fantastic, the buildings they envisioned were absolutely unbuildable — either according to the technical standards of their day or arguably even of our own.

The first two utopian architects mentioned above, Boullée and Ledoux, were also renowned theorists and teachers of the neoclassical style that developed in eighteenth-century France. Indeed, between them they trained some of the most brilliant neoclassicists of their age. The French architects Jean Chalgrin, Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart, and Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand were trained by Boullée, while Ledoux helped teach the influential Lithuanian architect Laurynas Gucevičius. Most of their own work that was actually built worked within the more traditional parameters of neoclassicism, and attests to their total mastery over the style.

But beyond their admiration for the Greek, Roman, and Renaissance styles from which they drew their primary inspiration, both Boullée and Ledoux were drawn into utopian speculation. In flagrant defiance of all the Vitruvian and Albertian dicta on feasibility and practicality, each drew up plans for impossible structures. Immersed as they were in an age of scientific, intellectual, and political revolution, Boullée and Ledoux each bore the imprint of their times. The radical ideas they encountered and revolutionary events that they witnessed gave them both the impression that a new world was forming before their eyes, in which the space of limitless possibility could open up.

Disavowing many of the ornamental and columnar principles on which neoclassical architecture was based, both Boullée and Ledoux reverted to extremely simplified geometric shapes — spheres, tetrahedra, unadorned arches, etc. Boullée even included a rectangular oculus (if an object so shaped can still be called an “oculus”) in his sketch for a Metropolitan cathedral. These were stripped of any decorative features and displayed in their raw profundity. Stunning examples of both architects’ visions of spheroid structures can be seen in Boullée’s “Cenotaph to Newton” (1784) and Ledoux’s “Ideal House” (1770), pictured above.

Many of the buildings designed by Boullée in particular were dedicated to the great personalities or concepts that characterized the Enlightenment. Besides his proposed building in honor of Newton, Boullée also envisioned a ”Monument intended for tributes due to the Supreme Being” in 1794, just after Robespierre announced the foundation of Le culte de l’Être suprême. Boullée was extremely excited to give the concept concrete shape. “An edifice for the worship of the Supreme being!” he exclaimed. ”That is indeed a subject that calls for sublime ideas and to which architecture must give character.” Ledoux, who had amassed great wealth constructing buildings for the aristocracy under the Ancien Régime, was imprisoned for several years during the Revolution. He thus had an understandably bleaker view of such Jacobin innovations as Robespierre’s cult.

Some of the buildings and objects that Ledoux depicted were even more abstract in their meaning and unbuildable in their design than Boullée’s celebration of Newton or the Supreme Being. For example, in one his last sketches published in 1804 in a compilation of his engravings, Ledoux portrayed a cosmology of the clouds, as it were, floating above the cemetery of the city of Chaux, a city which he had originally helped to plan. A miniature representation of the Earth, seemingly propped up on a cloud, is surrounded by a number of smaller planetoids that circle it in orbit. Suspended in air without support, they would almost seem to resemble a collection of aerostatic spheres, not unlike the famous hot-air balloon unveiled by the Montgolfier brothers in 1783. With its geocentric model, Ledoux appears to grant the buried cemetery inhabitants a Ptolemaic afterlife.

Ledoux was not the only one thinking of the afterlife, however. In 1794, following the execution of Robespierre and Saint-Just in the Thermidorean Reaction, Boullée felt the Revolution had been betrayed. As his mood grew ever more morbid, he began to ruminate increasingly on the idea of death and entombment. He recorded in his diary a terrifying vision: “A mass of objects detached in black against a light of extreme pallor. Nature seemed to offer itself, in mourning, to my sight. Walls stripped of every ornament…[a] light-absorbing material should create a dark architecture of shadows, outlined by even darker shadows.” It was in this spirit that Boullée composed drafts for yet another one of his unrealizable masterpieces — “The Temple of Death” (1795). The sketch of the pyramidal tower of its exterior and his representation of the spherical tomb encased therein were shown earlier. Boullée’s most haunting depiction, shown above, is probably the blackest, however. Whereas the interior to his earlier “Cenotaph to Newton” was shown as flooded with an artificial internal light, the interior of his “Temple of Death” shows the darkness of a tomb dwarfed at the bottom of an immense chamber, wrapped in perpetual night.

~ by Ross Wolfe on June 25, 2011.

What the Occupy movement demands... of each of us

Markin comment:

I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Off hand, as I have mentioned before, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in these entries. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts.

Markin comment:

Jesus- This laundry list below is a tall order for a movement that can barely take notes of its meetings and is barely able to decide on what color shades to put in the living room without a six-session expanded GA (and then leave it up to each autonomous individual to decide on his or her color). I think keeping the old-time ten commandments would be easier, much easier to do.
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What the Occupy movement demands... of each of us

By J. Ramsey contact: jgramsey(£ gmail.com Read more at www.kasamaproject.org

That we work to defeat and to overthrow the rule of the 1% (and the 0.1%) over our lives, our society, and our world;

That we devote our lives to ending the oppression and exploitation of people both near and far; That we defend what remains of public space and the public sector against attempts to destroy it;

That we stand up for freedom of speech and assembly, of dissent and public protest as rights which no law-maker can revoke;

That we work for social equality: the radical redistribution of wealth, the transformation and/or abolition of oppressive institutions, the dismantling of unaccountable hierarchies, and the thorough democratization of society;

That we live out the practice of egalitarianism in our own movement and in our own lives, seeking to build others up as our equals, not to subordinate them as tools or inferiors;

That we seek to unite the many against the few, behind an inspiring vision of emancipation;

That we work to expose, to challenge, and to shut down wars abroad and militarism at home, and the imperial and fascistic apparatus that sustains them;

That we devote ourselves to exposing and to resisting the ravages of a toxic capitalism before it poisons the climate to the point that wide swaths of our planet become unlivable;

That we work to expose, oppose, and defeat racism, homophobia, sexism and other backward ideologies and practices wherever they rear their ugly heads;

That we seek to give voice to the voiceless and hope to the hopeless across our world;

That we work to defeat and to overthrow the rule of the 1% (and the 0.1%) over our lives, our society, and our world;

That we devote our lives to ending the oppression and exploitation of people both near and far; That we defend what remains of public space and the public sector against attempts to destroy it;

That we stand up for freedom of speech and assembly, of dissent and public protest as rights which no law-maker can revoke;

That we work for social equality: the radical redistribution of wealth, the transformation and/or abolition of oppressive institutions, the dismantling of unaccountable hierarchies, and the thorough democratization of society;

That we live out the practice of egalitarianism in our own movement and in our own lives, seeking to build others up as our equals, not to subordinate them as tools or inferiors;

That we seek to unite the many against the few, behind an inspiring vision of emancipation;

That we work to expose, to challenge, and to shut down wars abroad and militarism at home, and the imperial and fascistic apparatus that sustains them;

That we devote ourselves to exposing and to resisting the ravages of a toxic capitalism before it poisons the climate to the point that wide swaths of our planet become unlivable;

That we work to expose, oppose, and defeat racism, homophobia, sexism and other backward ideologies and practices wherever they rear their ugly heads;

That we seek to give voice to the voiceless and hope to the hopeless across our world;

That we help to inspire courage, trust, and solidarity amongst those who have been beaten down by the current system, to turn our collective weakness into strength;

That we work to expose the farcical nature of our 1%-dominated, so-called "democracy," even as we may use what is left of this state apparatus to tactically leverage the needs of our movement;

That we keep our commitments and promises to one another;

That we are honest and accountable in our interactions whenever we are representing the movement;

That we approach with suspicion and skepticism those representatives of existing 1% power structures who seek to co-opt our movement, even as we are constantly on the lookout for friends and allies in unexpected places;

That we put the greater good of the people and the movement ahead of our personal interests, even as we recognize that only through such a movement can our individual talents be fully realized, and vice versa;

That we work each day to help raise our own awareness as well as the consciousness of those around us concerning the world situation—this is a global struggle;

That we inform ourselves about the current dangers and crises facing our society and our planet, and that we seek to understand not only the news and the facts, but the underlying forces driving the situation forward, and the future trajectories these forces imply;

That we seek to cultivate a tactical flexibility and creativity that can adapt to the shifting situation;

That we develop a long-term strategic plan for actually building the movement that we want to create, for actually achieving the changes we want to see;

That we cultivate an honest and humble self-critical attitude in evaluating the successes and failures, the strengths and weaknesses of our movement, its theories and its practices; that we are willing to alter our theories and practices in light of evidence and reflections we gather from the world;

That we seek to become citizens of the world, not just of any single city or nation;

That we sink roots in our local communities, in our workplaces, neighborhoods, schools, families, and other institutions, becoming attentive students of others' lives, as well as supportive allies, and where appropriate, leaders of just struggles that emerge;

That we are kind and patient with one another in the movement, working to understand deeply even those with whom we disagree, knowing that those who may be wrong on nine issues may teach us something valuable on the tenth;

That we demonstrate courage as well as wisdom in the face of threats we face;

That we seek to cultivate the fullest, deepest humanity in ourselves and in others alike;

That we work creatively and tirelessly to bring into being a society that is worthy of human beings;

That we commit to the long haul, as the fight ahead is sure to be as extended as its outcome is uncertain.

That we sustain one another in this great collective endeavor, cherishing each thinking, fighting spirit in
these dark tunes. ****

J. Ramsey jgramsey(g),gmail.com

From #Ur-Occupied Boston (#Ur-Tomemonos Boston)-General Assembly-The Embryo Of An Alternate Government-Learn The Lessons Of History-Lessons From The Utopian Socialists- Charles Fourier and The Phalanx Movement-“Commerce”

Click on the headline to link to the archives of the Occupy Boston General Assembly minutes from the Occupy Boston website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. The General Assembly is the core political institution of the Occupy movement. Some of the minutes will reflect the growing pains of that movement and its concepts of political organization. Note that I used the word embryo in the headline and I believe that gives a fair estimate of its status, and its possibilities.
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An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend All The Occupation Sites And All The Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Protesters Everywhere!
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Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It, It’s Ours! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
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Below I am posting, occasionally, comments on the Occupy movement as I see or hear things of interest, or that cause alarm bells to ring in my head. The first comment directly below from October 1, which represented my first impressions of Occupy Boston, is the lead for all further postings.
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Markin comment October 1, 2011:

There is a lot of naiveté expressed about the nature of capitalism, capitalists, and the way to win in the class struggle by various participants in this occupation. Many also have attempted to make a virtue out of that naiveté, particularly around the issues of effective democratic organization (the General Assembly, its unrepresentative nature and its undemocratic consensus process) and relationships with the police (they are not our friends, no way, when the deal goes down). However, their spirit is refreshing, they are acting out of good subjective anti-capitalist motives and, most importantly, even those of us who call ourselves "reds" (communists), including this writer, started out from liberal premises as naive, if not more so, than those encountered at the occupation site. We can all learn something but in the meantime we must defend the "occupation" and the occupiers. More later as the occupation continues.
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In the recent past as part of my one of my commentaries I noted the following:

“… The idea of the General Assembly with each individual attendee acting as a “tribune of the people” is interesting and important. And, of course, it represents, for today anyway, the embryo of what the ‘new world’ we need to create might look like at the governmental level.”

A couple of the people that I have talked to lately were not quite sure what to make of that idea. The idea that what is going on in Occupy Boston at the governmental level could, should, would be a possible form of governing this society in the “new world a-borning” with the rise of the Occupy movement. Part of the problem is that there was some confusion on the part of the listeners that one of the possible aims of this movement is to create an alternative government, or at least provide a model for such a government. I will argue here now, and in the future, that it should be one of the goals. In short, we need to take power away from the Democrats and Republicans and their tired old congressional/executive/judicial doesn’t work- checks and balances-form of governing and place it at the grassroots level and work upward from there rather than, as now, have power devolve from the top. (And stop well short of the bottom.)

I will leave aside the question (the problem really) of what it would take to create such a possibility. Of course a revolutionary solution would, of necessity, have be on the table since there is no way that the current powerful interests, Democratic, Republican or those of the "one percent" having no named politics, is going to give up power without a fight. What I want to pose now is the use of the General Assembly as a deliberative executive, legislative, and judicial body all rolled into one.

Previous historical models readily come to mind; the short-lived but heroic Paris Commune of 1871 that Karl Marx tirelessly defended against the reactionaries of Europe as the prototype of a workers government; the early heroic days of the Russian October Revolution of 1917 when the workers councils (soviets in Russian parlance) acted as a true workers' government; and the period in the Spanish Revolution of 1936-39 where the Central Committee of the Anti-Fascist Militias acted, de facto, as a workers government. All the just mentioned examples had their problems and flaws, no question. However, merely mentioning the General Assembly concept in the same paragraph as these great historic examples should signal that thoughtful leftists and other militants need to investigate and study these examples.

In order to facilitate the investigation and study of those examples I will, occasionally, post works in this space that deal with these forbears from several leftist perspectives (rightist perspectives were clear- crush all the above examples ruthlessly, and with no mercy- so we need not look at them now). I started this Lessons Of History series with Karl Marx’s classic defense and critique of the Paris Commune, The Civil War In France and today’s presentation noted in the headline continues on in that same vein.
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A Five-Point Program As Talking Points

*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay to spread the available work around. Organize the unorganized- Organize the South- Organize Wal-Mart- Defend the right of public and private sector workers to unionize.

* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dues on organizing the unorganized and other labor-specific causes (example, the November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio).

*End the endless wars!- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan! Hands Off Iran! Hands Off The World!

*Fight for a social agenda for working people!. Quality Healthcare For All! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! Forgive student debt! Stop housing foreclosures!

*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed.

Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!

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cCharles Fourier (1772-1837)

“Commerce”

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Source: The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier. Selected Texts on Work, Love, and Passionate Attraction. Translated, Edited and with an Introduction by Jonathan Beecher and Richard Bienvenu. Published by Jonathan Cape, 1972;
First Published: Analyse du mecanisme d'agiotage, La Phalange, VII (1848).
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.


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To unveil the intrigues of the stock exchange and the brokers is to undertake a Herculean task. I doubt that the demi-god felt as much disgust in cleaning the Augean stables as I feel in probing the sink of moral filth which is called the bordel of exchange and brokerage. This is a subject that science has not even touched upon. To discuss it you need a practitioner grown grey in the service and raised in the mercantile pen, as I have been since the age of six. At that age I began to notice the contrast which exists between commerce and truth. I was taught at catechism and at school that one must never lie; then they took me to the store to accustom me to the noble trade of deceit or the art of selling. Shocked by the cheating and deception which I witnessed, I began to take the merchants aside and tell them what was being done to them. One of them, in his complaint, made the mistake of betraying me, and this earned me a hard spanking. My parents, who saw that I was addicted to the truth, exclaimed reproachfully: “This child will never do well in commerce.” In fact, I conceived a secret aversion for commerce; and at the age of seven I swore an oath like that which Hannibal swore against Rome at the age of nine: I swore myself to an eternal hatred of commerce.

They got me into commerce against my will. I was lured to Lyon by the prospect of a trip; but at the very door of Scherer’s banking house where they were taking me, I deserted, announcing that I would never be a merchant. It was like backing out of a marriage on the altar steps. They took me to Rouen where I quit a second time. In the end I bent to the yoke, and I lost the best years of my life in the workshops of deceit. Everywhere I went I heard echoes of the sinister prophecy: “What a fine, honest lad! He will never do well in commerce.” In fact, I have been duped and robbed in all my undertakings. But if I have no talent for the practice of commerce, I am quite able to unmask it.
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Charles Fourier (1772-1837)

“The Rise of Commerce and the Birth of Political Economy”

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Source: The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier. Selected Texts on Work, Love, and Passionate Attraction. Translated, Edited and with an Introduction by Jonathan Beecher and Richard Bienvenu. Published by Jonathan Cape, 1972;
First Published: Manuscrits de Charles Fourier. Années 1857-58.
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.
Proofread: by Andy Carloff 2010.


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Well! Why have nations taken so long to realise that the commercial order is a temporary monstrosity, an utterly senseless system that places the three productive classes — proprietors, farmers and manufacturers — at the mercy of a parasitical class which has no national loyalty and which can do whatever it wishes with the fruits of industry over which it exercises arbitrary control? So faulty a system is obviously the result of a failure in social science. Commerce could have seemed tolerable in the childhood of human societies, although even then it was scorned. But it is unworthy of the modern age which aspires to enlightenment and perfectibility, and which boasts of seeking the truth — of which commerce is the mortal enemy. Let us then investigate why the invention of a better system has been put off until our own time and why no effort has been made to discover some means of liberating society from the influence of commerce and deceit.[16]

I have already said that the wise men of antiquity never made commerce an object of study; they simply treated it with the scorn which it deserves. The masters of the world, the Alexanders and the Caesars, would have smiled with pity if someone had advised them to subordinate their policies, in today’s fashion, to the interests of dealers in oil and soap. The privileges that commerce had enjoyed at Carthage[17] were alone sufficient to debase it in the eyes of Rome., thus the Roman writers relegated it to a place among the filthy professions.

As for the small republics of Tyr, Carthage and Athens, which were devoted to traffic, they never influenced opinion in the great empires. They vaunted their trade for the same reason that brigandage was vaunted by the Tatars and piracy by the Algerians. They fleeced their neighbours as often as possible, and they were regarded as birds of prey whose voracity is abhorred but who are tolerated because they are not entirely useless...

The role of commerce in antiquity amounted to very little. Just what was the vaunted trade of Tyr, Carthage and Athens? I would say that the activity of these three ports was barely equal to that of three of our small ports, like Nice, Bayonne and Dieppe, in peacetime. At that time there was little to exchange among the states on the shores of the Mediterranean. Since the goods which they produced were just about the same, farming and industry provided few occasions for trade. The backwardness of navigation prevented them from finding markets for their goods in the torrid and cold zones... It is clear that the commerce of antiquity must have been quite insubstantial when we consider that its most important branch, the grain trade, was frequently controlled by rulers. We read that Hiero, the King of Syracuse, made shipments of wheat to the Roman Senate. Thus in the nations of antiquity commerce was only a shadow — no more than a tenth — of what it is today. For this reason it is not surprising that the statesmen of that time paid little attention to their merchants and scorned their wiles without trying to reform them, just as the gross customs of the lower classes are disdained but tolerated today. Antiquity neither could nor would devote itself to the search for another mode of exchange; it simply tolerated commerce as a vulgar vice.

Circumstances are very different today. Various unforeseen events have produced a colossal growth in commerce. Progress in the art of navigation, the discovery of the East and West Indies with all their resources, the extension of farming to northern latitudes, the establishment of communications between the three zones, the rapid development of manufacturing, and the competition for trade among a multitude of nations — all these factors have led to a prodigious increase in the volume of commerce. It can be said to have increased ten-fold since Antiquity. Trade has now become one of the principal branches of the social mechanism; it has finally drawn the attention of the philosophers; they have ceased to ridicule it. Among them one group of men, who are called the Economists, has devoted itself to the study of industrial policy...

When political economy emerged as a science, commerce was already powerful and revered. The Dutch had already accumulated their hoards of gold, they had discovered the means to bribe and corrupt kings and their courts long before anyone had heard of the Economists. At the outset, then, commerce was a giant and political economy was only a dwarf. When political economy entered the lists against commerce, the ports were already swarming with wealthy ship-fitters and the great cities were full of those dandified bankers who are intimate with ministers and give orders to diplomats. It was no longer possible, as in antiquity, to treat commerce as a laughing stock, for there is no greater title to respect in civilisation than a bulging safe. The first efforts of political economy were all the more modest in that its authors possessed neither wealth nor an established body of doctrine. Since the legacy of antiquity amounted to no more than a few jeers about commerce, they had to create everything for themselves. Deprived of the wisdom of antiquity and thrown back on their own resources, the poor Economists were obliged to adopt modest and timid dogmas. This was only becoming in a few unknown savants who had to enter the scientific world by doing combat with the Croesus of the age.

There could be no doubt about the outcome of such a combat. Political economy made only a faint gesture of resistance. Praise for that gesture is due to Quesnay, the leader of the French sect.[18] Trying to make the truth known, he propagated dogmas which tended to subordinate commerce to the interests of agriculture. But the English cabal, which had sold out to commerce, triumphed with the help of a few religious intrigues. Philosophy, which had opened hostilities against the priesthood, was in need of reinforcements; it prudently decided to ally itself with the money-bags and to flatter commerce, which was beginning to acquire a great influence. Thus the Economists hitched themselves to the wagon of commerce. They proclaimed it infallible like the ancient popes. They declared that a merchant’s dealings could never fail to promote the public interest and that the merchant ought therefore to enjoy an absolute liberty. All the dogmas were adapted to this paradox.

Soon merchants were being showered with adulation. Raynal, Voltaire, and all the most eminent philosophers could be seen kneeling before the golden calf. But they secretly scorned it; for when Voltaire dedicated his play Zaire to a London merchant, whom he overwhelmed with banal compliments, he was no more sincere than when he dedicated his Mahomet to Pope Benedict. Voltaire was himself a consummate practitioner of mercantile trickery; he excelled at duping book-sellers. Thus he knew the true worth of the fine art of trade; he knew that merchants detest learning, that they scorn the sciences and the arts, that they are bored even by the flattery of writers when it does not serve to fine their pockets. But the philosophical party was in need of new recruits, and so they praised the merchants to the skies. ...

It must be said in defence of the philosophers that during the eighteenth century commerce was not as perverse as it is today. There were relatively few merchants then and they made their profits easily. Thus they did not need to resort to the innumerable subtleties and audacious tricks that degrade their profession today. This is so true that elderly merchants are constantly voicing their stupefaction at today’s wiles. They are agreed in describing modern commerce as a snare, a Black Forest, by comparison with the friendly spirit in which trade was carried on before the Revolution. We should add that at that time the English monopoly was not yet dominant. France was still standing up to England and, along with its allies, it had a very substantial monopoly of its own. That is why the French philosophers were not alarmed by an abuse from which their own nation benefited. Everything conspired to make this mismatch seem attractive to philosophy. In associating itself with commerce philosophy behaved just like a young noblewoman who marries a commoner whom she supposes to be an honest man. And, in fact, it was impossible at that time to predict the immensity of vices and scourges that commerce was going to inflict upon the nineteenth century.

But now the mercantile spirit has shown its profound malevolence. The mask has fallen; monopoly and deceit are now revealed. Philosophy can no longer deceive itself about the infamies of the serpent with which it has been associated. It is time for philosophy to break with commerce and return to the path of Truth, which is wholly alien to the mercantile spirit. A discovery is about to banish commerce from the womb of civilisation. If it was pardonable to encourage commerce when there was some doubt about its perversity, it would be odious to do so today, now that Truth has unmasked it and cast it into disgrace.

DIVORCING THE WHOLE WORLD?

Markin comment:

I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Off hand, as I have mentioned before, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in these entries. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts.
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DIVORCING THE WHOLE WORLD?

We are witnessing a brand new and fascinating phenomenon - our society is becoming integral. It is no longer about banks and industries establishing partnerships all over the world, exchanging raw materials, merchandise, food supplies and so on. Today, even the world's cultures and education systems are merging into a single, universal composite. All of these elements are interconnected and interdependent in every way.

It is no accident that the modern media have made it possible for everyone to be informed of everything that's happening in the world. Such transparency enables people to connect on a whole new level - across racial, cultural, and national divides. It also puts us at a greater degree of mutual dependence than ever before.

When there is this kind of dependence in a tightly connected family, whose members care for each other, it benefits all. Everyone is responsible for everyone else, and no one is left behind. Otherwise, the family falls apart.

The problem is that precisely because we've been integrated on a global scale, we simply cannot divorce each other. Though hatred and contempt may run rampant, it doesn't change the facts of the matter one bit. Nature has imprisoned us on this planet, this tiny surface, and we have nowhere to run from each other.

With each passing day, our interdependence grows stronger. In the past, when individuals or nations clashed, the worst they could do was simply "remove" the rival. Today, the smallest conflict is fraught with colossal global ramifications. Opinions aside, it's becoming increasingly obvious that everybody in the world is dependent on (and responsible tor!)
everybody else.

This presents us with a serious problem, because as our arsenals grow in their destructive power, our hearts remain filled with envy, lust for control, cruelty, and spitefulness. This mutual hatred clouds our common sense, and if it continues to swell, we could easily wind up destroying ourselves.

It is clear that nature is pushing us toward greater mutuality and interconnectedness, which is unavoidable, like in a family that cannot be divorced. So what do we do about it? We must find a solution. And the solution is clear and unequivocal: restore peace "in the family," in the home that is our planet, between all nations and people. This cannot be achieved by aggressive action, but only by everyone's free choice, made with complete integrity.

By actualizing this single solution that underlies our very survival, we will surely learn how to tackle all the other issues affecting us. As a result, all nations will live as a unified society, a single family. We will know what every individual and nation needs and how we can work to complement each other. We will know how to educate the world - the "grown-up children" and the actual children, the next generation, so they will have a benevolent, warm, and gentle world to live in. Our power of mutuality will ensure humankind's safety against its egoistic attempts to seif-destruct.

PUBLIC OPINION AS A METHOD OF TRANSFORMING THE EGO

History teaches us that many of our predicaments and perhaps our primary foe in battling today's global crises is the ego. It seems as though doing away with it would improve everything. But the ego is not the enemy. Indeed, it is our very nature, and any attempt to suppress or ignore egoism carries disastrous consequences.

For hard proof we needn't look any farther than the communist regime of the former Soviet Union. Human nature will outlast any regime or experiment that contradicts it. In a war against the ego we are doomed to fail from the start, so in order to avoid the mistakes of the past, let's take a different approach and learn to use the ego to our benefit.

In the 1950s, the now iconic Asch series of experiments proved that public opinion is of primary importance to an individual. Applying this principle to society as a whole, it becomes clear that the "be-all end-all" target of all human endeavors is social status.

We slave away for a bigger house, a newer car, or a fatter bank account only because society dictates that these things are valuable. In essence, though, they are not the goal but mere means to it, while the goal is achieving higher social status. If we lived in a culture where big muscles or high intelligence were the pinnacle of prestige, we would be compelled by society to put the same amount of effort toward achieving excellence in those areas, paying little to no mind to material possessions.

Now imagine a switch got flicked, and we were no longer venerated for our ability to hoard virtual zeroes in the bank, throw the pigskin, or manipulate the stock market. There would be no pleasure in these achievements, and we wouldn't have any fuel to go after them. And if such things were actually scorned or ridiculed, we would gladly and readily relinquish them all.

It follows that by changing the values in society, even artificially, the entire game gets transformed. If our offspring, friends, and neighbors respected and admired us for our contributions to society, and despised pursuit of personal interests, the same indomitable ego which is threatening the world today would be channeled toward collective benefit and the common good.

The key to such a transformation is public opinion. If we build an environment with abundant examples of favorable behavior toward society, we will finally begin to utilize human nature correctly. Not only is it the only way to survive in the new integral world, but we will also begin to tap the truly limitless potential inherent to humankind.

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*Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits- Honor James Harrington And The Rota Club

Click on the title to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for the English philosopher and radical politician, James Harrington.

Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices.

Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.

*Humankind….Unplug Thyselves, Please!!

Click On Title To Link To Wikipedia's Entry For Luddites.

Social Commentary, Of Sorts

Let me set the following scenario that will help explain the title of this entry. Recently, in preparation for a vacation I had to do the following things. Make sure that my cell phone and charger plug-in were set, including my capacity to text message, etc. Make sure that my answering machine was set with an appropriate message. Make sure that I had my DVD player at the ready so that I could watch rented movies from NetFlix that I had ordered on my computer. Well, of course, the ubiquitous computer, complete with card (and separate charger unit to boot that baby up). Moreover, no one can leave home without an MP3 player (and another separate) charger, including in my case an additional CD player (old fogy stuff) in order to play CDs to find tracks I want on put on the MP3 player. I could go on but you get the drift. And all of this is even before I even got out of the house. Enough, right?

Now before I am accused of being something of a technological Luddite (click on title to see Wikipedia’s entry on this subject, for those who are unfamiliar with the term) I want one and all to know that I am more than happy, on most days, to use all that technology has to offer, including the capability necessary to post this little pearl of wisdom. I confess that in the old days I WAS something of a Luddite, at least in those days when I purposefully lived in a rooming house, hitchhiked (for the younger reader you may have to look up that old custom on Wikipedia, no link though-for that one you are on your own), lived off the land, lived out of a knapsack and didn’t seemingly have the burdens of leaving the house that one incurs today.

Moreover, in the bright socialist future that I keep spewing reams of propaganda about in this space technology and its innovations that will make humankind lazy (in the good sense of being able to pursue more important goals than struggling for the necessities for survival) we will have scores of scores of troops of technocrats working on every conceivable practical(and some impractical) ways to make the lot of the human race easier.

What worries me, and ultimately is the point of this screed, is that not all technologies are created equal. For every breakthrough in, say, complex surgical procedures and the like that allow people to recover the function of some lost body part that does all of society proud there is a seemingly parallel use of technology that has a socially isolating, anti-personal and, I believe, thwarting effect on the development of the human personality.

Am I the only one who shutters a bit to see the almost universal use of the cell phone (or among the young, text-messaging) rather than face-to-face or other more personal way to communicate. The strangest event may be the use of e-mail to communicate with someone in the next room at work or school. Let’s leave it at this- let technology create abundance for all, everywhere under socialism so we can all be lazy enough to sit down and talk together. Of course, for all that we need to get rid of the capitalists and their system for openers, and to do that we need a workers party. So we have plenty to talk about face-to-face before that bright day. I'm off.