Cat Stevens = the ultimate incarnation of Unitarian Universalism

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o26nu7NN8w

See what I mean?

Laibach and why Nazi Nudity is possible

To get a sense of the genius of Laibach, first, watch the original:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGikhmjTSZI
And then this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbB1s7TZUQk

Isn't that hilarious? But seriously, watch out whenever you encounter any sort of attempted aestheticization of politics. A lot can be accomplished with the proper aesthetics if one is thinking on the emotional/organicist level, and not on the French Enlightenment/rational/mechani

stic/egoistic level. I ran across the second video before seeing the first and realizing that it was a parody, and even I was kind of gripped by it, even though I knew what it was trying to do. But once you get the parody aspect of it, it seems really silly and over the top. ("Life is life!" is a very simple, infantile, fascist type of cliche in the first place...what is that even supposed to mean? It's not supposed to mean anything. The aesthetics are supposed to do the thinking for you, not your logical mind). Heh, and all they needed to do was tweak the lyrics and the instruments (even the musical notes are the same--the Wagnerian trumpets are playing the same "Na na, nana na" from the original without the swung beats).

By the way, this parody also shows how Nazi nudity is possible. Ever wonder why figures in the nude are sometimes portrayed in Nazi art? It's because it's pure organicism. As long as the nudity is portrayed in a "healthy" way signifying strength and primitive "Blut und Boden" familial/national warmth, and not in a transgressive or rebellious way, then nudity is perfectly amenable to Nazism:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHABythIf20
These are all scenes from Leni Riefenstahl's "Olympia." Apparently Rammstein picked up on the odd fact of the nudity in this Nazi film. Also, is this a fascist song? Probably. It's pretty organicist. Is Rammstein a fascist band? I don't think so. Even more, I don't think that's the relevant question to ask. I think they are, as Slavoj Zizek has said about Laibach, a big question mark on stage, not posing as any sort of answer, but poking us with questions about fascism and revealing, if anything, how fascism works, the types of images that it uses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhBjlywzPHs

=================

For more evidence of why Laibach is genius, watch this documentary with Slavoj Zizek:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU0sPdhcxhg

=================

Here's another way to understand Nazi nudity and organicism: as a way of recognizing everyone's innate admiration for nude bodies, and then channeling that into a safe significance, just as Catholicism tries to channel everyone's innate desire to have sex into a safe form with a safe significance. For example:

Pure organicism:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3SvjSu4R-8
This is why organicism is dangerous. This is why there can be no compromise with organicism. My rational mind recognizes:
1. The manipulative Orwellian tactic of repeating a trivially true statement ("Life is life"), endowing that statement with huge significance, and then implying that the statement proves one's larger, but slightly unrelated point.
2. Notice the nude female archer. Notice the strength. This is how Nazi ideology could seem liberating to girls. Yes, behind the scenes the petulant establishmentism was re-iterating: "Kind, Kirche, Kuche," but on the surface it was saying, "You girls have a glorious place in our new society, a place of strength and honor and respect, just like the men have always had. We are elevating you to the status of equals, blah blah blah."

My rational mind realizes that these images, when taken at face value (which I'm not even sure is intended...the music video gets so over the top with the fascist nonsense that it is almost silly at times, such that I have to wonder if this is a very subtle satire of fascism, in fact), are manipulative.

But my emotional mind says..."LIFE IS LIFE."

Should I integrate this emotional mind into my political calculus? Or should I brutally interrogate and discipline this wayward emotional mind?

Communists and fascists can craft equally compelling mythologies and imagery when it comes to appealing to one's emotions. Fighting on this terrain is fighting with even odds at best.

Communists can craft rational self-interested justifications for itself (when concerning workers and not owners, of course) much better than fascism can. Fighting on this terrain gives communism much better odds than fascism. This is the terrain on which we must fight.

This is why I seriously doubt the argument that Saul Alinsky and others have put forward that we need to address people starting from where they are operating already. If their existing perspective is an organicist one, then we are fucked, and we will be fighting with even odds at best until we can change the methodology, the terrain. Besides, is it realistic to expect a build-up of revolutionary momentum without a transformation in fundamental perspectives? Haven't such shifts accompanied all world-historical revolutionary transformations? No, I'd focus on changing people's methodology first. Then we can get down to the bread-and-butter of figuring out what we want and what we need to do to get it.

==============

Other examples of Nazi nudity (obviously NSFW):
http://www.usmbooks.com/nazi_nude_photography.html
http://www.usmbooks.com/nazi_nudes_book.html
http://flickr.com/photos/29327835@N08/sets/72157607408769776/?page=3

80s Music = Materialist Romanticism

Note: some of the links to youtube videos may have expired, as videos get taken down and whatnot. If you search for the songs again, you can probably always find new copies.

==============================

I've always been grasping to define that quality that makes "80s" music distinctive. Now, the reason I put "80s" music in quotes is because by "80s" music we mean white, middle-class 80s music. There were many other types of prominent 80s music (for example, hip-hop, hard rock & metal...which corresponded, roughly, to working-class blacks and working-class whites, respectively), so it is interesting in and of itself that white middle-class 80s music was able to get itself defined as the flagship for "80s" music.

(BTW, this is kinda how my vulgar Marxist mind might approach music in America:
*Pre-1950s: Jazz: middle-class blacks and white adults. Other orchestral/big band dancing music and classical music: middle-class and bourgeois white adults.
*1950s: Rock & Roll: extension of music to middle-class white youth.
*1960s: Motown: extension of music to middle-class black youth. "60s" hippie music: more music for middle-class white youth, especially for disillusioned middle-class white youth.
*1970s: Funk: music for middle-class and working class black adults. Disco: music for middle-class white adults. Hard rock, southern rock, classic rock (Alice Cooper, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Boston, respectively): music for middle-class and working class whites, both youth and adults. Singers & songwriters music: music for middle-class and working-class adult whites who feel lost and disillusioned amid the turbulent, increasingly-materialistic

'70s.
*1980s: hip-hop: extension of music to working-class black youth. Hard rock & metal: working-class white youth. "80s" pop: middle-class white youth.

So only by the late 1980s do we have music for everyone in America. This is mirrored in TV programming. Until the early '70s, there wasn't any programming for blacks that featured blacks at all. Then there were some shows illustrating the lives of middle-class black families. Only maybe in the '90s were working-class black characters acceptable (as with working-class white characters...such as Roseanne, which was a landmark show).

At the point of the late 1980s, the music styles of the different ethnic groups and classes were the most dissimilar. Since then, the music styles and viewerships have come closer together. (Consider techno: a white middle-class musical taste, which is also heavily influenced by rap in its "house music" form. Or the likes of Eminem.)

Part 2:

Okay, now back to 80s music as materialist romanticism.

Basically, it's romanticism, that much is obvious. But it's distinctive from any previous romanticism in that it is not organicist, not supernatural, but entirely "instrumental" (in a philosophical sense) and materialist. It is the white middle-class hopes and optimism of the Reagan years distilled into sound. It appears to them that finally the tide in the class struggle is turning, as well as the tide in the inter-imperialist struggle with the Soviet Union. The civil rights struggle has stabilized. Blacks have been decimated by drugs (some pumped in by the CIA, of course) and gangs, gays are being punished with AIDS, and finally we can return to the 1950s...except not quite. We are less innocent now. Life is more stressful. Maintaining status is more difficult. But we can use music to affirm our white middle-class lives, our oh-so tortured and deep and complex social lives (stressful because they revolve around status and material success so much) and emotions that are so worthy of respect and contemplation, etc. That's what 80s music is all about. White, middle-class materialistic romanticism.

Now I give you about a dozen case studies....

Part 3:

I'll start with by far the best example:
Human League -- Don't You Want Me Baby?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arUqoKjU3D4

This is the materialist romanticism unmasked. The newfound affluence displayed, the pride in it, the anxiety over status, the naked social power politics, the effeminate male (tortured by his middle-class anxieties ("Oh, poor me, life is so difficult and complicated for me, who are other social classes to complain? etc.). And yet it's still romanticist, somehow, oddly enough. The shadowy assassins. The ghoulish male. The darkness and mystery. The blond, clean-shaven young guy in the car at 43 seconds is classic 80s: strong face, blazing, full of power and mystery and mission.

Uptown Girl -- Billy Joel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F-nt7aC_JQ

Again, pretty obvious. Status, material success, bagging a supermodel woman from the upper class, not because you really "love" her, obviously, but as a point of pride and as a ladder to success (although the word "love" is, of course, still used...and the corniness. Not realistic at all, still totally romanticist, in the style of an ole-time, seemingly innocent musical. That's why these 80s music videos are so insidious and dishonest. They can claim to not be talking about crass power and social status and other materialist things and whatnot thanks to the veneer of innocent whimsical or romantic style, but there's always cold, calculating, mechanistic, capitalist self-interest being expressed underneath).

By the way, this is the classic 80s girl: tall, blond, curiously Aryan and masculine in her chin and collar bone. I still haven't figured this one out, but this type of woman is ubiquitous whenever the ideal woman comes up in an 80s video.

Sweet Dreams -- Eurhythmics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQHrspjw4aA

This is the counter-attack against the naked, calculating, capitalist self-interest being expressed under the veneer of romanticism. The lyrics are pretty self-explanatory. The ghoulish, tortured romanticist imagery, while admittedly exposing the deceit of other 80s pop-culture, also happens to reinforce another theme of white middle-class 80s music: the "white middle-class life is so tortured and difficult, oh have sympathy for us, empathize with us, we are just hard-striving (not hard-working, hard-striving...in the sense of anxious ambition, not diligent work) people."

Oh, forgot to mention...about Uptown Girl...did you notice the stereotypical black driver? Hmmm, I wonder, WTF is that supposed to suggest?

To continue with the emo "Oh-poor-me" theme of 80s music, I give you:
I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight --- Cutting Crew
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmR65FHcJ6s

The name of the band says it all.

This is also a good example of the "personalization" of politics. This is the vague notion that there are no real political problems in society, and that our primary problems in life are personal problems, not socio-political problems. Or, rather, it is the intense anguish and attention towards personal problems that obscures consciousness of socio-political problems in oneself and others.

Also, that last video was totally romanticist. All of the mysterious imagery, the skinny and pale women looking sad and dejected, the cold atmosphere of the colors, etc.

Also, the problems of dealing with the material culture of the 80s: drugs and whatnot. Clearly materialist as well.

One more example of both the "Oh-poor-me" theme and the "personalization of politics" theme:

Living on a Prayer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE11Zrrp24I

Despite the religious diction, this song is entirely focused on maintaining the worldly material well-being of the characters. "We gotta hold on to what we got..." "We're halfway there!" As if to say, "Another 15 years, and we'll have our second mortgage paid off, honey, and then we'll have achieved SUCCESS!!!!"

Also note the dig at the unions. In this song, unions are outside forces that prey upon your making a living, rather than self-generated and self-directed tools of liberation.

Also, "She brings home her pay for love...for love." A capitalist exchange. Materialist, calculating, yet they managed to make it seem romanticist at the same time.

Also, personalization of politics, in that "It doesn't make a difference if we make it or not. We got each other, and that's a lot." Yes, suddenly love will triumph over all. Hmmm...will this love put food on the dinner table? Very romanticist. Also, "Take my hand, and we'll make it I swear." In other words, there are no social/political causes for your misery. It's your own fault, and the only way to overcome it is to work harder and rely on your personal life.

Now to a different theme of white middle-class 80s music:

We didn't start the fire -- Billy Joel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKu2QaytmrM

Civil rights discrimination? U.S. imperialism? Consumer abuse? NOT OUR FAULT!

Also, this is the antithesis of historical understanding. In this framework, everything changes, but nothing ever really changes. The superficial names and events and fashions change, but the fire just keeps on burning, and you can't put it out. These fundamental problems are just a part of our nature, no use in expecting to change them, just "do the best you can," or rather, don't do anything, or even reinforce the problems, but then retroactively say that you did the best you could. Revolution doesn't happen in this universe.

Also, showing the family life is only showing half of history. You could show a family kitchen of a loyal Nazi family in the Third Reich over the years, and it would still look just as playful and charming and harmless and full of good-natured family mirth and whatnot. Also, by portraying the 60s rebelliousness and whatnot as just a natural phase, it denudes it of political significance even more.

Also, notice the sleek austerity of the home in the 80s? It's a romanticist piece of imagery that conveys more of the "Oh-poor-me, life just isn't the same for the white middle-class people like us as it used to be" theme.

In a similar vein...

Toto -- Africa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPT_3PEjnsE

1. Religious words. Romanticism.
2. Ole-time European exoticism towards Africa:
"Hoping to find some long forgotten words or ancient melodies"
"The wild dogs cry out in the night"
"I seek to cure whats deep inside, frightened of this thing that Ive become"
---this last line is almost straight out of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
3. Romanticist desire to experience that wonder and excitement of discovering and mastering Africa for the first time once again
"Its gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
Theres nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do"
---Now, of course, he's partly talking about a girl. But the "hundred men" line just echoes too much of the old European romantic conceit of mastering a whole continent with 100 men or so. But, this time it's different because...
4. "I bless the rains down in africa"
"I know that I must do whats right
Sure as kilimanjaro rises like olympus above the serengeti"
---So this time we will approach Africa from a benevolent standpoint. We promise. We're good guys this time. We really have good intentions. Puh-leaze. Get off your while middle-class liberal high horse. (And thus the "Save-Darfur" liberal hypocrites who are the types to call for U.S. intervention were born. (Of course, not all "Save Darfur" people are interventionist.)

Also, in the video...obviously more exoticism. Searching for the page that's missing the mysterious page fragment. The mysterious black woman. The lion's head. And then the angry native comes with the spear and ruins it all. The fire symbolizes the passing away of the Africa that the Europeans knew and loved so well. Oh...those were the days, when benevolent colonialism ruled, and when Africa was our exotic playground...

By the way, did you notice in the "We didn't start the fire" video that there was a picture of a slave bound in ropes, and then the famous picture of the Vietcong being assassinated? Oh, but we're not responsible for that. Those were just regrettable things, handed down from the past, nothing we could do about them, the fire just kept on burning.....puh-leaze.

Additional thoughts on Toto's Africa:

*Notice the very serious, alarmed, deadpan face of the main singer when the native throws the spear.
*Also, we never actually see the face of the native. The native spear-thrower is a faceless force. No human identity associated there.
*The juxtaposition of the dreary modern world ("12:30 flight") with the exotic allure of Africa. "Hurry there, she's waiting there for you!" could refer to the girl or to Africa, or both.

Also, in case you are thinking that I am making a big deal out of nothing, I've actually heard conservatives apologize for America's past shortcomings (slavery, etc.) by saying, with an obvious nod to the song, "You know, we didn't start the fire." This idea is now firmly entrenched in our culture.


Modern knight-in-shining-armor...

.

A-Ha -- Take On Me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIzUD7FKcBk

This modern knight-in-shining-armor is a pretty boy, sensitive, but still courageous, and has bourgeois style in his hair and clothing to boot.

Heaven is a place on earth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQahvFdQVu8

Here's some romanticist princess imagery. All throughout, of course, there's still the implicit assumption that Mr. Right is a white, middle-class guy with prospects, even if it is not stated as clearly here as in "Don't You Want Me," for instance. I mean, can you imagine this song, with the girl dancing like a princess with a guy, and then a shot of the guy revealing that he is actually a black man wearing a New York Yankees t-shirt?

Anyways, the princess trope was also common in the Disney movies around this time. Whereas now, not so much....keep this in mind for when I get to talking about present-day materialist realism and Avril Lavigne.

Also, the lyrics to this song are telling..."We'll make heaven on a place on earth." So, we are striving for love and heaven, so it's romanticist. But we are doing it not in a religious sense, but in a plainly materialist, worldly sense.

Again, notice the slightly Aryan features of the girl in this video. She has that strong chin, strong eyebrows, that blond, bland look to her that, for example, most MSU girls have as well. You know what I'm talking about, right? That done-up, conformist, highlighted-hair, bronzed-tan look.

Finally, sentimental 1950s nostalgia:

Dance Hall Days -- Wang Chung
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKwO1aB1W3I

First notice the black-and-white intro, the mist, the mystery. The sense of manipulating time.

Then the gently patriarchal (although sometimes rather strange) lyrics. "Take your baby by the..."

Also notice the guy at 1:26. He looks like the guy in "Don't You Want Me." Same sort of features.

"When I, you, and everyone we knew...share in what was true." Ah, the pure innocence of the good ol' days. "You need her and she needs you." Very romantic. But there's still that materialist assumption beneath the surface. After all, why else does this song need to be so sentimental and...almost sad? It's because they realize that they cannot recreate the '50s. Society is too nakedly materialistic and calculating now. Not enough chivalry still present. So they can only reminisce...

The last gasps of materialist romanticism and the transition to materialist realism...

Run Away -- Real McCoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNIK5B9jNgE

What are they running away from? The nakedly self-interested materialist society. Notice the guy says:

"Money, sex, in full control, a generation without soul,
Perfect people in a perfect world, behind closed doors all in control,
Life, in a world of luxury, cold cash money mentality,
You gotta keep the faith, you gotta keep the faith,
You better keep the faith and run away."

Keep the faith---meaning, don't let go of the romanticism. Keep the illusion of a gentler, more forgiving, more inspiring dream.

All that she wants --- Ace of Base
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aom_Vvsmg7I

I'll Stand By You --- The Pretenders
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5pECaW-VMI

Here materialist romanticism makes it to the working class. Here's a working-class couple (with a strong woman, not a princess) who are dealing with real problems of society, real material problems of drugs, financial hardship, etc., but still taking a romantic view of it, and perhaps a somewhat "personalist" view of it as well (in other words, we can solve all political problems by being faithful lovers, etc.) Nevertheless, I love this song because
1. I think that woman is so achingly attractive. Yeah, I guess I like the pale and wiry meth-head type. Honestly, I always thought Alison Cruze was actually pretty attractive.
2. It extends the materialist romanticist idea to the working class. Curious, isn't it, that this whole perspective falls off the radar just as this happens...
3. Also, I used to hear this song all the time in the car when I was a kid. Reminds me of childhood.

Materialist realism --- the present day.

Avril Lavigne -- Girlfriend
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ25-glGRzI

"...delicious...addictive.

.." ---Here's a girl comparing herself to a food or a substance.

"Hell yeah, I'm the muthafuckin' princess!" ---Here's a girl sarcastically comparing herself to a princess, disparaging that ideal that, in the 80s, formed the romanticist core of a lot of songs. Also note how Disney films have gone away from that royal romanticist plot line (Snow White, The Lion King, Aladdin, The Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Anastasia, Pocahontas, that movie with the two dogs eating the same spaghetti noodle, etc.), towards more scientific, materialist-rooted movies (A Bug's Life, Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Ice Age, Wall-E, etc.) Although the industrial, turn-of-the-century London intro sequence survives, as you hilariously pointed out at the beginning of Wall-E.

"You know what I can do to make you feel alright." ---Naked emphasis on pure sensory pleasure. Pure self-interested hedonism, lacking any sort of romanticist mask.

"I'll have you wrapped around my finger...because I can do it better."

The self-interested power relations, the social competition, the status-seeking, the gossiping...all out in the open. Well, at least it is all more honest this way.

Also note how the naive, romantic love of the redhead girl (who I think is both hotter and nicer to be around) is disparaged in favor of the Machiavellian, coldly self-interestedly calculating approach.

The deranged late-capitalist military police state portrayed in gritty hyper-realism

You don't know -- 50 cent, Eminem, et al.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpPLd3q0nbQ

Status, wealth, power, all discussed perfectly frankly. The song is even taunting those who are too delicate to face the brutal truth. "You know, but you actin' like you don't know."

Another example:

White America -- Eminem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC8VA7GFbHA

In the 80s this sort of brutal realism would have made people shit their pants.

Some additional thoughts:

Another reason why I love "I'll Stand By You" is because it demonstrates the natural solidarity of the working class, the naturally-congruent self-interests. Yes, it is a materialistic song, but the materialism in a middle-class song leads to social manipulation and petty status-seeking because the middle-class is, ultimately, a class at war with itself. Each member is trying to climb to the top, partly by pushing down those around him/her. Whereas materialism in a working-class context leads to solidarity as the only practical survival response. They cannot afford to play intrigues against each other or manipulate each other.

Notice that the title of the song is "I'll Stand By You," not "I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, etc." What is being expressed here is not so much love, as comradeship, which I think is much more touching and powerful. It is much more reassuring to hear "'Cause I've seen the dark side too," or "I get angry too, because I'm a lot like you." Identifying a basis for natural, non-forced, non-manipulated solidarity, inherent in two people's congruent life situations. Whereas "love" implies that you owe something in return to the lover. It is more of a temporary, conditional solidarity. Love is a selfish feeling, it is exclusivist possession of the other person, and you will love someone as long as you feel like it, as long as you see some happiness to gain by it. Whereas you will have little choice but to be a comrade to a person as long as you both share the same desperate situation, whether you like them or not. The arbitrary whims of your feelings in no way threaten the relationship. I can definitely see why Zizek feels averse to love. It is a "gift" that demands even more of the receiver. Comradeship is much better.

A note on 50 cent: just think--his name itself refers to material wealth. Very blatant. But also very honest.

Regarding White America:

Notice the parodies of the 1950s families, TV shows, etc. And since the 1980s were somewhat of an attempted recapitulation of the 1950s, the 1980s are criticized as well.

The implicit message of "White America" is that its problems are its own doing. Parents who grew up listening to 80s pop music, and who now criticize the materialism of the rap music nowadays are being hypocritical. The materialism has always been there, as have the social manipulation, the social-power politics, the status-seeking, etc. It was just that in the 80s it was hidden under a veneer of romanticism, whereas now its naked, brutal truth hits you directly in the face. And in a world with so much obvious social manipulation, status-seeking, etc. at school, how could one not expect to see school shootings? Parents mistakenly criticize this music, which is only a witness to the social strife, anxiety, status-seeking, the subtle socialite warfare among middle-class youth, etc. If these parents really wanted to get rid of these school shootings, they'd have to get rid of the fundamental middle-class status-seeking, pressures, exclusivist-materialism-in

-fact, etc. (And that, I think, requires a social revolution). You can't expect to soften or hide this materialistic strife with romanticism for ever. Sooner or later the obvious illusions had to give way. Nowadays, of course, a lot of 80s music seems corny and naive. Well, of course it was, and purposefully so.

Anyways, today's White America is the result not of passive neglect on the part of parents (The "Parents aren't spending enough time with their children" complaint). It is precisely the opposite: today's White America is the result of the parents (who grew up in the first really materialistic decade, the 80s) interfering too much with their children, infecting their children with too much of their anxious bourgeois status-seeking, pressuring them too much to be pretty and popular and play sports and play a musical instrument and do ballet and do all that other trendy bourgeois stuff, all for the sake of "personal achievement" (the monetary currency of status-seeking bourgeois adolescents in late-capitalism) and "character" (the willingness to strive to whatever lengths in order to conform and meet the expectations of your parents, your other authority figures, and those around you. It is a very fascist mentality, in fact. A perfect breeding ground for little bourgeois Hitler Youth, all the marching band, football, cheerleading, school nationalism, etc.

The main point: today's White America is the logical outcome of the 80s, not a deviation away from the 80s that can be easily corrected with tougher anti-drug and anti-gang efforts, more metal detectors in the schools, more dress codes, etc. Drugs and gangs pay in material wealth. Your kids are just achieving monetary success and status---following your example. Your Eric Klebolds are just reacting to the vicious social manipulation that is demonstrated, for instance, quite nakedly in that Avril Lavigne video "Girlfriend."

But going back to the 80s naive innocence and romanticism is not an option. Putting on a superficial veneer of the happy white middle-class family will not work either---you've already tried that, but we know that however picturesque your little family photo looks (such as at the end of the video for "White America," we know full well that little Eric is in the basement loading his Uzi (to paraphrase James Howard Kunstler). One cannot reclaim innocence. We must overthrow this society of social manipulation entirely, and that means also overthrowing the economic basis of this social manipulation (capitalism and the middle-class). When everyone has a part in the control of the means of production, when everyone is a worker, when we have true comradeship, then we will have our antidote to today's troubled White America.

The French Revolution was far more totalitarian than Nazi Germany...and far more awesome!

Yes, let me repeat that: The French Revolution was far more totalitarian than Nazi Germany.

Nazi Germany: the grotesque, archaic zombie of Prussian Despotism and German Romanticism, electrified with economic despair and youthful disillusionment, dressed up in an industrialist's top-hat, and hellbent on ripping its Krupp artillery into the flesh of modernity. All this was less totalitarian than the French Revolution?

Absolutely.

For some background first:

Just as in Nazi Germany, in feudal France, people did not exist as individuals. They existed within incorporated entities (guilds of the "mechanical arts" (which existed for both artisans and merchants, and on roughly equal footing in terms of status!)), religious orders, the noble household, the biological family, the master/apprentice type of family, the feudal manor, etc.) If you didn't belong to one of these pateralistic corporativist groups, you were a non-entity (a vagabond, a casual laborer, a petty thief, etc.) You could only become incorporated into one of these social stations by swearing a solemn oath of loyalty to one's king to uphold the honesty and goodness of the Community (in the big, capital, "Gemeinschaft" sense of the term---not in the fake sense of the term that we use today). Incorporation into a corporativist community gave you certain "privilèges" (literally, private laws) that went beyond the common laws, which varied depending on your social station. If you didn't have a social station, you had no privileges, and you were totally at the mercy of common law. Why didn't absolutist France need police everywhere? Because everyone in a corporativist community policed everyone else according to moral norms wherever you were (at the church, at the tavern, in the home, in public, at work, there was no escape into anonymity, unless you wanted to experience social death in being cast out and losing all privileges and possibly all prospects of employment). As rigid and hierarchical as this seems, this was not totalitarian. For one, it was softened by genuine social mores of paternalism (which were long eroded in Germany by the time the Nazis tried to resurrect this feudal zombie), and most importantly, although these incorporated entities were ultimately beholden to the king's goodwill along the lines of a hierarchical pyramid, one had an independent basis of social power within these social stations. One was not subject to the "State" and to the State alone. There were plenty of intermediary institutions.

In Nazi Germany, supposedly nothing was supposed to come between the individual and the State. Hah! The family was FORCED back into an intermediary position (which had actually been eroded by capitalist development and State education). The Nazis had their own secular clergy to provide spiritual guidance to their "Volksgemeinschaft" ("people's community"). The Hitler Youth. The Sturmabteilung (Brownshirts) and Schutzstaffel (Blackshirts), the civil service, the German Labor Front party-controlled unions, the party-controlled marching bands, the (tamed) Catholic and Protestant churches, the freakin' Junker estates, etc. Yes, one served in these social stations at the pleasure of the Fuhrer, and one swore a sacred oath of loyalty to him---just as to a king. But at least you had your social station as XYZ, and Der Fuhrer had his social station as leader and protector of the German nation (which was determined by the archaic qualification of bloodline, not place of birth, civic loyalty (as in the bourgeois-revolutionary U.S. and bourgeois-revolutionary France), or even spoken language---so German-speaking Jews who were born in Germany and who were loyal to the laws and customs of Germany still did not count---because they were not a part of the all-important Community with a capital "C." They were non-entities, not entitled to the special privilèges that German members of the German community were entitled to. At least, as a proper member of the German racial community serving in the Hitler Youth, at least you had some station in life, some specific base of social power and respect.

This is the horrifying spectre of Nazism---a zombie-like resurrection of German romaticism, of solemn torchlight parades, of fervent reveries and panegyrics about organicist Communities (instead of the mechanistic calculations of self-interest and rights of the individual borne out of the Enlightenment, capitalist development, and the bourgeois revolutions)---Nazi Germany as an all-out assault on 1789 and the entirety of modernity (one Nazi ideologue, I forget which, once famously said, "Now we have erased 1789 from human history forever."

All of this is why we should find Nazi Germany horrifying---not because it was "totalitarian." It wasn't (relatively speaking, compared to revolutionary France). Comparatively, Nazi Germany looks like an archaic despotism armed with Stuka divebombers and cyanide chambers (that's being flippant and incredibly simplistic and irresponsible as a historian,but just run with it for a second). But consider the industrial slavery and industrial genocide of Nazi Germany alongside the international slavery and religious slaugther and torture of the early-modern period in Europe. Not exactly equivalent, but definitely a supporting piece of evidence for the argument for continuity, rather than for the common idea of Nazi anti-Semitism and revived organicist Volksgemeinschaft as coming out of nowhere.

What was truly totalitarian---and in a way, really remarkable and progressive for its day---was the French Revolution, a complete social revolution that demanded that nothing come between the individual and the National State, that all citizens be held to the same common laws (no privilèges or special considerations given to you because you belong to this community or that community, to this estate or that estate, etc.), that all citizens have the same equal rights, and that no citizen refuse the dignity of holding himself (eventually, herself) up in public society and in front of the state as an individual. A revolution that forbade you from proclaiming or uniting on any common interest or association that came between one's own interests and the entire nation's interests (this means, no uniting based on "special interests"---the interests of the nobility, of the clergy, of the master craftsmen, of the journeymen, of the bourgeoisie, of the sans-culottes, etc. No intermediary associations that come between you and the National State. No regional associations, no labor unions, no craft guilds, no religious orders, no households of nobility, etc. You must not recognize any interest other than your own self-interest (especially in the marketplace---free trade), and the interests of the National State as the protector of the political order in accordance with Natural Law in which those self-interests can flourish).

How incredibly totalitarian! And how awesome! (For its time...)

BTW, if you are curious where I'm getting this nonsense, it's from this book I'm reading for a class, "Paris: Capital of the 19th century." The book is entitled, "Work and Revolution in France: The Language of Labor from the Old Regime to 1848" by William Sewell.

Also, I'd like to end on a note about Marxism: when are we gonna get back to thinking about Marxism as a methodological capstone to the Enlightenment rather than as some Confucianist Mao's-little-red-book mumbo-jumbo apologia for anti-imperialist agrarian despotism in the Third World?????? Eh????

More specifically....

My current thinking can be entirely encapsulated in the contrast between the following images:
http://www.forsalebyowner.com/images/large/21100042-1.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Blv-haussmann-lafayette.jpg
I am for the latter and against the former. (If you've ever been to Paris, you know in your gut what I'm alluding to).

To elaborate....What does the first image represent?
*Pre-modernism
***Religion
***Family as the essential economic unit
***Private society (as opposed to mass society or public society)
***Narrow-mindedness
***Provincialism
***Exclusionism and hierarchy according to the following criteria:
*****Nation
*****Race
*****Gender
*****Class
***Nepotism
*****Non-transparency in life
*****Arbitrariness

What does the second image represent?
*Modernism
***Secularism in the public sphere (which will be expanded to include any relation between two people...genuinely-private

spirituality, residing only in one's thoughts and solitary actions, will be the only socially-acceptable form of irrationality. Convicing other people to do something or feel a certain way based on supernatural evidence will be laughed at outright).
***Family no longer as an economic unit (children and non-working family members not economically dependent on the family, but rather supported by the public). Family as a provisional instrument for raising citizens, with children and other family members (girls, women, mothers) who are traditionally told to keep to the private sphere being transformed into fundamentally public citizens, ultimately answerable not to any head of the household, but to the public citizenry in general from the basis of being an equal fellow citizen.
***Mass society or public society (as opposed to private society)
*****People addressing each other in the political/economic sphere not as friends, pals who are owed favors or privileges, etc, but as equal citizens.
*******Friendship and love freed from any instrumental, mechanistic political/economic duties, and liberated to function truly as bonds of affection between mutually-consenting peers, without the strategic calculations of former times
***********The strategic calculations are instead relegated to the formal, transparent public political/economic sphere. People argue for policies, renumerations (not favors), etc., as citizens meeting in ultra-democratic workplace, municipal, and national councils.
***************All citizens vote directly on all laws applying to their jurisdiction (workplace, town, or countryewide).
***************Drafting committees are elected to guage concerns and propose, but not pass, legislation. Others may draft legislation and petition it for the general ballot.
***************Ballots are not taken once every few years, but are accessible continuously. That is, there will be a permanent ballot office in each precinct. You will have a safety-deposit box with your ballots that you have filled out. Whenever you want to change your vote or vote on something new, you go there, get out your old ballots, change your vote, get the vote recorded, and put the ballot back in your safety-deposit box as a record of your vote. No need for "nay" votes. When a bill gets 55% of the registered voting citizenry to vote "yea" for it, the bill becomes law. If enough people who supported the bill ever change their votes such that the bill drops below 45% approval, the law is revoked.
***************Elected, instantly-recallable judges and jury duty as before.
***************Elected, instantly-recallable officials of the executive branch.
***************This is mob rule. If you fear the consequences, you need to go to work on your fellow citizens, whipping them up into shape to take on these adult responsibilities in a rational manner.
***************All adult citizens will also have militia training and militia duty for a few weeks out of every year.
****************The citizenry's vote will be required for a formal declaration of war, and a formal declaration will be required in all cases for an extended conflict. The (recallable) executive may exercise provisional powers for only a short period of time. The professional, standing army will be minimal--enough to resist a surprise attack for a short while. In the case of a real war, the military will use a ruthlessly undiscriminating "Levée en masse" (draft). Only the disabled, young, elderly, and resisters will be exempted. Resisters will lose their citizenship if they resist, but it would be illogical to force them to fight. Gays will be included.
*******************In the military, to be eligible to be an officer, one must have a certain qualification of training. From this pool, officers are to be elected by their inferiors by secret ballot. But while they are officers, they are to receive strict obedience. Officer votes (recalls) will occur only at certain intervals. Generals are to be elected by the citizenry and are to be instantly recallable.
******************As long as citizens perform their basic jury, militia, and (if need be) military duty, they will be provided with basic food, housing, and healthcare. What renumeration they receive beyond that will depend on the judgment of their workplace council.
***Broad, farsightedness.
***Internationalism. The entire world may even be conceived of as "one nation of humans."
***Inclusive of everyone who makes effort to ally with your cause. Integrating races, ethnicities, genders, and classes into one equal citizenry so as to strengthen society and free it from being riven by internal divisions.
***Impersonal workplace councils as the key to "success," not nepotist favors or informal favors from family or friends (which breed their own dependencies and power relations). Friends and family members can still give and receive gifts, but no citizen will be dependent on such charity because each citizen will have his/her essentials provided for, in addition to extra renumeration from their workplace.
*****There will be no bosses or owners in the economic sphere. In this sense, it will be post-capitalist.
*******There can be competition, though. People will compete at being citizens. The better the work they do, and the better they are impersonally rated by their co-workers, the more renumeration they will receive. But under all circumstances, all citizens will have equal *power* to contribute to these decisions.
********New companies will can be launched and given starting capital by municipal votes. Workplaces will compete against each other. There will be a market exchange mechanism. But nobody may buy another's labor-power. Those involved in an enterprise must always be treated as equal citizens with equal decision-making power.
*********Workplace delegates (instantly-recallable) may be elected.
**********This movement sees the daily struggles between workers and employers as irrelevant to our interests. We will take sides with neither one. We are not for any class above any other. We want workplace democracy for all citizens. We are not interested in the particularistic battles benefitting one trade union or another. We want equal power. Once we have equal power, we will each be in an equal position to judge whether particular situations warrant equal *conditions* or renumeration for those involved. Insofar as communist groups are striving for these same things, they are our allies. If they relegate themselves to narrow reformist battles, they are irrelevant.

The key word is modernism.

The key manifestation is mass society.

The key method is direct democracy. Mob rule.

Calling all hardcore "vrai(e)s républicain(e)s": let us fulfill the promise of 1793.

The catchphrase: "The French Revolution on steroids."

Okay, why is this fascist?
*The political/economic community is defined in terms of citizenship instead of class (although it is a citizenship that is willing to embrace any race, nation, gender, etc., and that only discriminates based on a person's views and willingness to fulfill the duties of a citizen of this society, and it is a citizenship that inherently dissolves class).
*It calls for strict self-discipline and coldly-nihilistic rationality in the public sphere (when political/economic issues aren't involved, when you are in what private sphere is left, when you are not using a social relation for instrumental advantages, you can be as irrational and emotional as you want). How else could this mass public citizenry not descend into emotivism, irrationality, and mob rule?
*It is motivated by a desire to modernize and strengthen one's society, to make it more dynamic, just as fascism was, in part, motivated.
*It calls for allegiance to the public before allegiance to the family or any other personal, private relations. When the two conflict (when you must disagree with your friend or lover on policies, or when you must judge them concerning a criminal wrongdoing), your duties as a citizen carry more weight than your duties as a friend or lover. (But as long as they remain good citizens as well, everything's peachy).

How does this differ from traditional fascism?
*It's more modern than fascism. It is not saddled with absurdly obsolete racist biology, primitive leader-worship, or pre-modern enshrinement of the family.
*Allegiance to the public and occasional sacrifice is ultimately justified on transparently, farsightedly-egoistic grounds rather than on supposedly-altruistic ones (which usually turn out to be egoistic anyways when you pull away the rhetorical disguises).
*This does not seek to protect capitalism, but to supersede it. It does not just call for "respect" between employers and workers, or even better conditions for workers. It calls for the abolition of employers and workers, and the institution of equal economic citizens at each workplace (and by the way, if you want to change workplaces, you have to get voted on at the next one, but you assume your position with equal powers at the new workplace just as everyone else. Perhaps not equal expertise right away, but equal powers. And if you want to kick a miscreant co-worker out of the workplace, you can vote on that and do that as well. That worker will just have to subsist on the citizen rations for a bit and join another workplace sometime later).

This new "state" is obviously not authoritarian as it is in fascism. Instead, it is directly-democratic. However, this new "state" in this new modern mass society is still just as totalitarian, perhaps even moreso, because it "intrudes" into the private sphere perhaps even more than in fascism (or, rather, it robs the private sphere of territory...when it comes to the family, when it comes to dispelling nepotism, when it comes to providing for economic survival, when it comes to confining religion or spirituality to an ultra-private domain, etc.). It is totalitarian in the same way that the French Revolution was totalitarian.

Finally, I must mention that the new Spartan state will be in favor of all forms of mutually-beneficial organic pleasure, so consensual homosexual love and sex will be celebrated just as much as heterosexual love and sex. Similarly with transgender love, etc.....people pursuing their organic desires with nihilistically-rational determination. That's what I'd like to celebrate.

Aha! A Parisian analogy....

I've got it! This will explain things....

Do you know that when I was visiting Paris with my class over spring break during my junior year in high school, when I stepped out of the subway into the thick of Paris, the feeling of the place hit me like a shockwave. It was like columns of stereo speakers were blaring this into my head:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk4Q1B5UQsE&fmt=18

I loved that feeling. If my home town could only rise to that level, I'd be deeply satisfied.

But what is my ultimate, wildest dream? It's to walk through a city with that sort of historical richness that tells you, instinctually, where you are in history and where you are going, and with that sort of monumental, public citizenry-feel to it, but...a thoroughly modern version of that. Paris was modern for the 19th century. Paris was basically the world capital of the 19th century. The only slight problem is, it's *still* the world capital of the 19th century. And here we are in the 21st.

So what I'd like is everything that I've just described, but instead of feeling Beethoven's 5th throbbing through your body as you walk down the street, you feel a mix of Immortal Technique (minus the homophobia and misogyny), Ill Bill, Sabaton, and Nightwish throbbing through you. Thoroughly modern music to fit thoroughly modern institutions, architecture, political/economic systems, and culture. Naturally, the military parades, in order to be truly modern, could only be fittingly accompanied by the Red Alert 3 Hell March:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cenim1nTWg
If your Nation is not marching to that tune, your Nation is not modern.

As far as architecture is concerned, existing skyscraper cities don't quite cut it for me because, although they are modern, they lack a public sphere. Each building harbors a private, exclusive establishment and nothing else. The tinted windows shut you out and consciously turn you away. They are more like fortresses or compounds than places of civic, public space. (Aside from the tinted windows, though, many of those buildings are fine as they are. We just need to make them functionally public by democratizing and throwing open to the public view and public interference what goes on inside.) Same with Wal-Mart. Same with gated communities and other types of housing in the U.S. I feel like it's all going down the wrong path in the vast majority of the U.S. And China looks like it wants to emulate much of our architecture and society in general...check out:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beijing-orange-county-china.jpg

"'Orange County, China' refers to a 60 million dollar, 143-unit housing development situated about one hour north of Beijing, China, comprised entirely of expensive American-style townhouses and tract homes, decorated and furnished with American products. The Chinese developer Zhang Bo built the community to anticipate the 2008 Olympics to be held in Beijing. All 143 units were sold within a month of going on sale, in a phenomenon the Beijing media called "The Orange Storm." Designed by architect Aram Bassenian, who authentically hails from Newport Beach, California in Orange County, California, the Orange County development is an example of wealthy Chinese literally adopting the suburban American lifestyle."

Oh god....

We've got to come up with a more attractive alternative, or this architectural/societal virus will continue to spread over the entire earth.

This...is...Sparta!!!!!

A storm has arisen
All people come listen
Come hear now the forging of our modern Nation
We come now to shatter the chains of the past
And forge a robust public Nation at last
A strong public Nation, we forge it at last!

No forced isolation
In family relations
Our children will grow strong in our public Nation
Like Spartans of old, we will train them to be
The citizen-soldiers of democracy
The citizen-soldiers of democracy!

All for our desires!
Until we expire!
With ruthless pursuance we kindle the fire
A strong new nihilistic egoistic day
The old superstitions shall pass away
The old superstitions shall pass away!

Old hierarchy, never!
The Demos forever
In work, school, and war, in our councils together
Our strength, from the self-discipline of our ranks
We blaze forth, determined, like Soviet tanks
Our disciplined ranks, like Soviet tanks!

(Sung to the tune of the Anthem of the Comintern)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KncK5cZ5Rmk