I’m so tired of it all that I am having trouble even caring anymore, and I’m simply disheartened by every corner of the globe and with every type of people. If the few states like China who have the capacity to challenge it are so self-centered and worried about their own lineage that they allow vast populations of people to become either subjugated or eradicated without even attempting to step in, then I have no hope that our species will survive when analyzing the rest of it. It’s clear that nobody with means is really willing to do anything serious about it and at this point I feel like we’re all just watching the final consumption of the world by capitalism and people really don’t care.
Frankly I don’t think any of us will make it. Only the people the furthest under the boot really have the will, yet since they have zero means, nothing can change. People don’t really care about defeating capitalism or white supremacy, and most refuse to overlook cultural differences to collectivize strongly enough to make an impact. Further, the environment will wipe us out long before capitalism is dismantled anyway, so for all intents and purposes, it seems like it’s already over. The curse of short human lifespans means that most don’t care since they feel the inevitability of it all given the time they have, and by the time the average person even becomes conscious enough of their condition to feel the hunger for change, their biological limitations make it feel pointless. Since most see this life as the only chance they have, why throw it away on making ripples into an ocean? May as well let someone else do that and enjoy what tiny corner you’ve carved while you can, and let it burn.
This is the most difficult realization / feeling I’ve ever had, far more than any structural or systemic elucidation in my political and ideological growth. Maybe it’s just that I’m a pessimist and feel miserable today and about what’s happening to Venezuela and Cuba and Palestine and Congo and Sudan and etc. etc. But I can’t shake the feeling that this is all pointless and going nowhere. Trying to stay positive seems sisyphean. The human condition and psychological barriers seem too strong and too embedded, and I fear that no awakening is enough to really push us over the edge of real change or challenge. And the environmental catastrophe is inevitable, since capitalism spurs it.
I just can’t see a way forward and I don’t know what that makes me anymore. Maybe nothing.
Thanks for your response and closing remark.
-What do you mean by “the human condition”? Because in this context, it’s sounding to me like a belief about humanity that is steeped in western nihilism and a static, cynical view about human behavior.
What I mean by the human condition is, the innate psychological weaknesses that humans suffer under systems and beneath myriad layers of structures (political, familial, social, existential), such that it is a rarity when one becomes free or strong-willed enough to sacrifice what meager conveniences they’ve been awarded (by unintended circumstance in most cases) by the dominant system in order to risk them for something that is so uncertain (e.g., political shift or trusting in strangers to uphold their end of the bargain), of which has largely been demonstrated as untrue by the world around them. In other words, for people to uphold what is most difficult while living in contradiction. This may rest in western nihilism, though western nihilism has made a tangible influence upon broad society, whether anyone wishes it or not. I don’t know. All I know is what I feel and observe.
-This is individualism taken to its conclusion.
Yes, it is. I don’t disagree. The point of me summarizing it as such is that because it is the floor, I find, unfortunately, that most people in modern society reside here. It’s simply a disheartening reality that I have trouble with.
-The USSR, China, Cuba, Vietnam, the DPRK, just to name some of the more successful and better known efforts.
In a way, I suppose. They’re still subjected to the influence and impact of capitalism, and it is inescapable for each one. They’ve reduced it, perhaps changed the internal application of it, but it is impossible for them to operate without it. The deficiencies and difficulties Cuba experiences is explicitly because of it, despite their ideological split from it.
-That may play a part, but I don’t think it’s just that. I think it’s that coupled with lingering beliefs from the western imperialist system, which will follow you if you don’t challenge and dismantle them, even if your allegiance changes on paper.
Perhaps, though I don’t really feel or think I have lingering beliefs from western imperialism. It seems to me that my positions are so anti- that it’s almost become an obstacle; that by my virtual extrication from such beliefs that I’ve gone full circle in some bizarre sense. As if I have lost all of my convictions because I’ve held the wheel to the left for too long, and I’m constantly curbed by a sense of dialectical realism. Maybe I’m just full of shit, I don’t know.
In any case, thanks for your analysis.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Right, but “innate psychological weakness” and a focus on will to break free sounds more like idealism than dialectics. Dialectical materialism tells us that, as chinawatcherwatcher put it better than I can reword, “relations of exploitation contain within themselves the seeds of their own destruction, or change.” So it is not will that makes the difference, even though that does have an impact (else we’d be saying that people are mere passengers) but that it is a factor along with external factors and that both of these are always interacting with each other and developing in one direction or another.
One of the reasons that “breaking free” from it is rarer in the imperial core than, say, in the global south, is because the material conditions put people in the imperial core in a position of exploiter (whether they consent to it or not) via the exploitative relationships of empire. This allows them to, on average, experience somewhat better conditions than the most destitute in the world and as long as those conditions don’t go under a low enough bar for quality of life, many can linger there without a strong motive for change. Though I think with the empire in decline, this is already changing and could more rapidly change with how things are shifting under the mask off management of the Trump administration.
Another of the reasons is the narrative atop it (I believe what some term “superstructure”). This narrative feeds individualism, imperialism, and capitalism day in and day out. Working alongside the conditions to try to steer people toward support for empire and away from liberation.
And then there is of course the direct and indirect state violence (“political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”). This is and has been used to assassinate, imprison, and otherwise try to silence those who do resist. And there are often more who have resisted than people realize when they investigate beyond imperialist media.
The weight of all of this can be overwhelming if taken all at once as a thing to get past. But so can anything in life if we look at it as a challenge all at once. Quantitative leads to qualitative (another thing dialectical materialism teaches us).
AES states are subject to capitalist influence, yes, but they have also made great strides in spite of it. There’s a lesson from struggle that someone brought up recently. It goes something like: The USSR in its infancy has this moment where Germany of the time is demanding certain things of them and Lenin chooses to make a deal, rather than risk a confrontation when the USSR is not yet ready. Instead of this leading to a devastating loss, it is a temporary problem which leads to the USSR growing strong enough to overcome it.
The point of me bringing it up here is, don’t take every seeming capitulation on the part of an AES state, or liberation movement, as an inability to develop the world beyond capitalism. Socialist China has done an (I think astounding) job of engaging with the capitalist world economy in a way similar to that story about the USSR and in doing so, is now positioned where it and its anti-imperialist allies are rising and empire is declining. It is perhaps not yet in a position where it is believed that empire can be defeated with troops without devastating loss, but that doesn’t mean the day can never come that the capability is there.
There is even a term someone coined, that you may have heard before, that I think is relevant here: capitalist realism. “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” But this does not mean the belief is true. It’s an observation about the psychological grip that the status quo has on some people.