Life, in A Nutshell #1

"An unexamined life is not worth living"

-Socrates

I can't stop thinking about how a single sentence, delivered by a man 2 millennia ago, could affect my life that significantly, jeez. Regardless of numerous critiques, i have to say that i agree with him in this matter. I'm not trying to claim that i've already examined my life, but at the very least i keep trying to.

Why do we have to examine our lives? What's so important about analyzing whatever it is? Life is simple, isn't it? As George Carlin said "Life is not that complicated. You get up, you go to work, eat three meals, you take one good shit and you go back to bed. What's the fucking mystery?" In the context of stand-up satire criticizing American consumer culture, yes that somehow may represent the partial truth (and yes that is a great punchline, for me that matters). But i'm pretty sure you would all agree that life is not always that easy, no?

This post is going to be personal. Very deeply personal. Bear with me.

Lord.

Okay, so, before we can answer why we have to examine our lives, we have to understand what Socrates was trying to say. What are the implications to that statement? What did he mean by unexamined life? Why is it not worth living? Simply put, as you're all aware, Socrates is one of the greatest philosophers of all time. His thoughts are still discussed and used by another hardcore philosophers 2000 years after his death. Let's just all agree that Socrates is a great thinker, thus intellectual. Considering his ability to conceive great ideas with his intellectual capacity, the quote "unexamined life is not worth living" implies his bitterness and irritation toward the mass. With that in mind, i conclude that the phrase "unexamined life" refers to the lives' of the illiterates, of unenlightened mass, it refers to the unfulfilled lives of the people whose existence is defined by someone/something else, for instance religion or state. Well i don't think i have to get into the political contexts of Socrates's era because the quote is still relevant however the condition of one's era is.

Compellingly, every critique and argument against that statement always emphasizes the "not worth living" part. As far as i'm concerned, none of the critique is directed toward the phrase "unexamined life" which is kind of funny. Whereas for me, the biggest question about that statement is, how elitist it actually is. That simple sentence discerns that some people have unexamined lives, and no one denies it. Instead they only argue that even unexamined lives are worth living, because everyone has their own means of examination. Bearing that in mind, it is obvious that every thinker agrees that Socrates's mechanism of life examination, namely philosophy in its traditional structured definition, is not a praxis for everyone.

Well, who the hell am i to disagree with that. But fuck it, i naively disagree.

Before we get to the bottom of why i disagree with the stand that philosophy is not for everybody, let's first resolve why examining life is an important fulfilling activity.

Why? Why do we have to examine our lives? Why did Socrates think so? The answer is not that mysterious. Socrates ─ and all other philosophers actually ─ was basically dealing in the business of finding truth in every single respect which the word 'truth' encompasses. In the context of that quote, Socrates was trying to figure out the significance of human lives by pinning down existential meaning. According to that short sentence, life is meant to be examined, otherwise it's meaningless. Got it? I don't have to further elaborate, do i?

The answer to the ultimate philosophical question "why are we here?" is, according to Socrates's implied expression, to find out why. We do that by examining life, by finding out meaning. The meaning of life is to find meaning, to say the least that's my interpretation.

I really don't know how to put it in non-derogatory manner, so pardon me okay, it's just we have different perceptions. Some people may have found the meaning of life, say for instance religiously (i'm not gonna be disrespectful here, we're just different okay). Some figured that their meaning of life is to contribute according to their own convictions and expertise, like scientists, philistines or nationalists (i'm reluctant to mention this one, but okay, activists as well). Some just live and don't give a damn why they live (right on!). But some, like Socrates ─ and Plato and countless other post-platonic philosophers ─ just can't cope with the simple non-essential solution and they want to able to explain why (fucking-A!). They just can't agree with inexplicable rationalization, because by then our existential meaning is basically meaningless, rendering our existence useless. And to deal with that problem, Socrates figured that the exercise of philosophy is the most targeted, holistic and precise tool to uncover truth in order to find the meaning of life. Life is insignificant without thorough philosophizing.

That is more or less my interpretation of Socrates's remark, now let's put it to trial. In this post, i will attempt to break down several interesting philosophies with which we can examine a lot, including life. Can't find a blending segue, so let's straightly get on it. It started with meaning, because our lives are constituted by meaning; we examine our lives through understanding meaning. It is easy to define meaning at face value, it's anything which you find to have any significance, thus it became meaningful. But the truth speaks otherwise in this matter. Meaning is not that simple at all to be recognized, let alone defined. This is where philosophy comes in very handy. Philosophy provides wide range of tools to sort and figure relevant aspects and components to meaning. 

Before we break this shit down, i want you to know that i limit this discussion into the three most sophisticated ─ according to myself ─ frameworks, namely structuralist (deterministic Marxism only, i don't want to discuss linguistic arguments since it's too technical and i've always been bad at linguistic), discursive (structuralist Foucault), and postmodernist. Well you might notice that since we're talking about existential meaning, why don't i investigate existentialist philosophy? First of all, i can't understand a single absurd shit they were saying, and second, postmodernism is a better, deeper comprehension of existentialism, okay? Can we agree on that? Let's just say we are.

Before we get into each elaboration, it will be helpful to understand the identical epistemes which those three philosophies hold. As i'm aware of, they all hold two similar positions, which are; 1) certain points of ontology and epistemology relating to meaning, and; 2) they posit themselves to be completely aware of capitalism. Ontologically, all of those three frameworks hold the same account as opposed to enlightenment philosophies. Enlightenment philosophers (Hegel, Kant, Rousseau, etc.) assume that there is an inherent nature of being, determined by something undefinable, something metaphysical, which means that meaning is given, it is immanent per se. On the other hand, post-enlightenment philosophies ─ which include all the 3 frameworks we're gonna delve into ─ don't think the same ontologically. The 3 frameworks see that the nature of being is affected by history and materialism (we're gonna deal with the detailed differences in each subsection), and meaning is therefore not given. Meaning is not intrinsic within itself, meaning is signified by external existence(s) and meaning is supposed to be dealt with epistemologically. In simplistic terms, things don't contain meanings within themselves, we are the one who gives them meanings. And now, as i said, the second similarity between the three frameworks is how they realize capitalism. All three frameworks are aware of capitalism's practice and system, and they agree that it plays a role in everyone's life. The most distinguished notion here is how individuality and subjectivity are constituted, which in certain degree correlates with consciousness. The only difference regarding how each perceives capitalism lies in how big it impacts individual life, and we'll get into this in each elaboration.

Did i mention that this post will be personal? It will be soon, buckle up.

Deterministic Marxism

In this part we will focus on the ontological and epistemological stand of revisionist Marxism. More specifically, i will discuss cultural hegemony and a bunch of Frankfurt School's accounts. But, in order to reach that point, we have to scratch the surface of orthodox Marxism, yet not very comprehensively; only the parts that are relevant to the topic we're discussing about. Now, first, what does it mean? What does deterministic Marxism mean? To answer that, we first have to understand a bit of Marxism and its determinism.

As you may well know, Hegelian dialectic is one of the most groundbreaking logical method in its era. The simple formula of thesis-antithesis-synthesis forever changed how philosophy is done. Hegel, in his era, became the peak of rationality, but Marx invented an even better formula, namely dialectical materialism. It is important to ask how did Marx get there, to fully understand the genesis of Marxism.

As critiqued by Feuerbach, the problem with Hegelianism is its metaphysical assumption of Weltgeist (world spirit) as an underlying foundation of history. From that moment on, Marx concluded that regardless of rationality, Hegel was still trapped within religious mindset, that is why he was stuck with idealistic approach. Apart from that, Marx was also wondering why Prussia is becoming more reactive, hence irrational, irrespective of Hegel's rationalization about state. From there, he saw that instead of just giving interpretation to the world, Marx thought that philosophy should have the power to shift reality, it has to be revolutionary.

Actually i'm not sure if that's chronologically accurate but fuck it, more or less that's what happened.

From the revelation of Feuerbach's essay regarding Hegelianism and his perception of reality and how philosophy should be, Marx conceived dialectical materialism. What's the difference between Hegelian dialectic and dialectical materialism? Hegelianism, as i've stated somewhere above, sees that truth is immanent; everything doesn't need any external existence to be the synthesis of its final self, due to his idealistic approach. Marx, on the other hand, with his dialectical materialism, shifted the immanence and ideal property of Hegelian dialectic into materialism. He argued that synthesis is a resultant of contradictions, material contradictions. If Hegel, with his dialectic, privileged human perception on how a synthesis is reached naturally, then Marx's dialectic operates the other way around. Marx's dialectical materialism argues that whatever is in human mind is a reflection of the real world, the material world, along with its contradictions, which occur outside human minds and perceptions.

Got it? Let's just say you do.

From that simple dialectical materialism (intertwined with history), Marx opened a new door to philosophy. Now i know this is disturbing but this following doxa is very common to be found even among scholars, and jesus knows how much i hate those illiterate dumbfuck leftist activists playing noblesse oblige. Contrary to the popular fallacy, Marxism does not revolve around moralism, please point this one out, Marxism has nothing to say about moral values. Marx never intended to posit his works as a new moral compass, regardless of its moralistic nuances. In fact, he got so upset once Max Stirner 'insulted' his works as dogmatic and moralist. "How come someone got so upset about being called moralist?" You may ask. In this context, you have to know what's considered 'rational' in that period. Rationality, as Hegel put it, is defined by reality; if an idea is constituted on mere moral ground then it's considered irrational, plebeian. That argument also put Marx's ideas into mere ethic ground, meanwhile what he was trying to achieve is to forge an objective theory. Yes, as crazy as it may sound, Marxism was an attempt to make human science as objective as, say, physics.

For the sake of argument, let's talk about physics for a tiny while. Let me ask you, what's the most ambitious goal in physics? For physics, ─ and for most sciences actually ─ the most ambitious ultimate goal is to make a grand unified theory, through which everything could be explained and predicted. How could a scientist achieve that? The simplest way to achieve that is to pin down an absolute frame of reference (which is not simple at all), and to comprehend that, let's shift our mind a bit to physics in Newtonian era. Newton's law of universal gravitation was for a long time believed to have a static condition which can always be referred to from whichever point of physics you're engaging nature. For example: when you're trying to figure out motion, remember gravitational force and time reference; when you're trying to trying to figure out position, remember gravitational force and time reference; and when you're trying to figure out energy, well, you guessed right, remember gravitational force and time reference. Everything was beautiful and all, until Einstein came over and fucked Newtonian physics fast and hard. With general relativity, Einstein nullified the previously established concept of gravity and time as the universal frame of reference, which in turn, anchored relativity as a new concept to always be remembered and considered when doing physics. Something non-static (everything is relative) has become a new god, a new paradigm in physics, which basically bewildered everything and reveal much more simultaneously. The upheaval of Einsteinian physics is analogical to the uprising of postmodernism to the previously established structuralism, we'll deal with this in postmodernist section.

Now, the paradigmatic, static universal frame of reference, in human science is commonly known as determinant, and the approach determinism. As much as Newton, Marx was trying to establish a grand theory which would explain and predict everything, only he did it in human science. In doing so, he argued that there is one determinant playing a thorough role in human life. Can you guess what the determinant is? Congratulations to those who guessed correctly, it's economy. With that determinism in mind, Marx was convinced that he could explain any occurrence and predict any outcome, using his complete theory. Several most prestigious results are; with dialectical materialism, he was able to break down numerous capitalistic practices which were not visible at the moment, for instance how exploitation took place within capitalistic society, how our existential meaning is alienated and how liberation is retarded by capitalist power. Yes, all of them basically revolve around domination and no, i refuse to get into his future communism blueprint, because it's nothing but a happy dream, hence rubbish.

In Marx's sense, domination is the most important basis to be recognized regarding capitalist expansion; profit is an important economical motive to be understood in order to be able to recognize capitalistic domination. With his law of value (which is pure garbage, by the way), Marx argued that capitalist cocksuckers could only get profit by exploiting the members of the proletariat. Dialectically, domination is a synthesis of class warfare between the interest of the capitalist class and the necessity of the proletariat. What the capitalistic wants is in extreme opposite to what the proletariat needs, hence the domination is called exploitation. The clash between the two happens blatantly and the proletariat doesn't have much say in the matter. Now, bear in mind that Marx saw capitalistic domination as crude and violent, and this is where Gramsci comes in.

As opposed to Marx, Gramsci regarded that capitalistic domination doesn't just take place in a blatantly crude way through economic and political force and coercion. Instead of merely trying to exploit the working class, Gramsci argued that the capitalist class dominates the proletariat also by tricking their consents. He called this kind of domination as 'cultural hegemony'. In an oversimplified manner, cultural hegemony is fundamentally subtle domination. I'm still trying to figure out how to convey the idea of hegemony in a simple, understandable, on point way, yet is still precise. Okay now let me try, and as usual, if i can't nail it down, i will just assume that you already got the idea. Before we get into Gramscian cultural hegemony, it is necessary for us to understand false consciousness; what is it?

False consciousness, in Marx and Engels terms, means certain things, ideas or concepts that are ideologically misleading the proletariat. Easily put, false consciousness is everything arranged by the ruling class that distracts the focus of the proletariat, in order to conceal exploitation, rendering proletarian class consciousness irrelevant. In Marx and Engels sense, false consciousness is generated in ideological realm, which aims at willful embodiment of capitalist ideology by the members of the proletariat. False consciousness, in a nutshell, is a mass consciousness that is actually false (duh?). Cultural hegemony, on the other hand, focuses specifically to the subtle process of inculcation of false consciousness through culture.

Still moving in domination motive, cultural hegemony is a deeper and broader concept of the mechanism of institutionalized false consciousness. It is not unheard of that a society is normally culturally diverse, but according to Gramsci, the ruling class is able to manipulate and narrow down society's culture through norms, values, beliefs, practice, etc., in order to prefer one mode of culture where capitalistic Weltanschauung becomes the acceptable cultural norms, almost to the point where it seems natural and inevitable. Louis Althusser's structuralist account in approaching cultural hegemony is sufficient to sum it up. According to Althusser ─ expanding Marx's ideas about base and superstructure (which is too complex and irrelevant to be elaborated here) ─ the key to maintaining control is the cultivation of cultural hegemony. How do capitalist class do that? They establish power through Ideological State Apparatuses (ISASs). Now you may ask, what in the hell is that? ISAs are basically the material manifestation of superstructure within social spectrum. The main objective of ISAs is to sustain capitalist ideology without violence (non-violent because it takes shape as a manipulation of proletarian consents), although ISAs' relation with the base is a bit more complicated than Marx's model. Concrete examples of ISAs are educational institutions such as schools, university, family and so on and so forth. ISAs are basically capitalistic tools aiming to dominate individual subject through consciousness manipulation. Now this is where Frankfurt School's epistemology comes in.

In terms of how consciousness is formed as observed through marxist perspective, we have to stand in awe to the work of Adorno and Horkheimer. No contest man, no other Marxist has provided more sophisticated postulations than these two dudes. Okay now before we get on it, you have to note that the philosophy of Frankfurt School is very far apart from orthodox Marxism, especially in its proto-relativistic ontology. Okay now let's go.

In understanding Adorno & Horkheimer, it is of crucial matter to understand epistemological difference between traditional and critical theory, since it is the fundamental tenet of their thoughts. So, traditional theory or positivism, depends heavily on empirical data which are considered as facts. In positivistic structure, the process of obtaining knowledge starts with identifying informations which can be seized by sensory experience (empirical), then the next step is data gathering which followed by interpreting the data with the means of reason and logic. Get it? Now we get into Adorno's negative philosophy.

The first problem with empiricism is, it has reductionist tendency. When dealing with philosophy, you have to understand that fact is just a part of reality, it's just one small part of the whole truth. Let me give you an example. You can look up at 2009 empirical study about punk community by William Ryan Force, i don't know where you can get it, but i have it, but i can't share it for legal reason, so yeah nevermind. In that research, Force compiles a pretty detailed representations of punk subculture in one specific community. He concludes that punk identity includes: Converse shoes since it is one of the most picked shoes; Mohawk since it is the most popular haircut, and; skinny jeans since it is the most common. Now, that conclusion is valid in terms of representing the community stereotypically, they are based on empirical facts, okay? But reality is not that simple at all. Reality isn't just built on facts, for instance; we cannot just arbitrarily ignore the cause of Converse shoes worn by the member of that community, the man/woman wearing it may have some motives that are completely independent from punk identity, say for example; who knows if his/her Doc Marten boots is dirty after yesterday's One Direction concert on a field in Liverpool? That may be why he/she chooses to wear Converse. One Direction concert in Liverpool is a part of reality of that man/woman which causes his/her boots to get muddy thus he/she chooses to wear Converse. And that's only the shoes part, we haven't even gone deeper into the origin of one's Mohawk and skinny jeans, and fuck's sake we haven't even asked why did a punk go to One Direction concert. And god, please remember that it's a community, there's a bunch of people in it with practically infinite number of reality. Reality is much more fucked up complicated than the surface of empirical facts, okay? Reality is a complex whole and representing it with mere facts is an act of reduction. Even deeper, negative philosophy sees that the act of identifying anything is actually an act of reduction, because we don't have any sufficient methodology that is able to completely comprehend the whole reality of anything.

Beside empiricism, the second problem with positivism is its preconceived position of value-free scientific principle. Now, does value-free guarantees objectivism? No. Can a science be full of value and yet maintain objectivity? Yes. The biggest problem with value-free positivistic science is its hypocrisy. In modern era, the so called value-free science is not free of value at all, why is that? First and foremost, as Horkheimer argued, because reality is constructed by human, got it? Since it is constructed, it means that it is completely up to us to change the reality. We can construct a totally different truth. Therefore the so called objectivism is suddenly not objective at all because truth is not always given, especially in the context of social reality. Even though there are certainly naturally given truth, it is limited and it's impossible to divorce it from social value. From that stand, science has the tendency to reproduce its old self, stunting the potential scientific development which may come from the alternatives of given truth.

Now, mix those viewpoints of empiricism and value-free science. Since positivistic sciences are limited by empiricism, thus, it can only process facts, which, ironically, are not objective at all since it may be constructed. With that in mind, Horkheimer concludes that positivistic sciences ─ which claimed to be objective methodologically ─ are just playing the role of making justification for the established power, because they are limited to the facts within the constructed social reality (who constructed them? Yes, established power, and in this context, dominating class). So, from those viewpoints, positivistic sciences are complete hypocritical bullshit, it turned objectivism into a new mythology.

Critical theory, on the other hand, is not limited by empiricism because it perceives reality as something not given. Critical theory goes beyond the boundary of interpreting and understanding reality; its ultimate objective is to grasp and to change reality itself, by criticizing society (just like Marx did). Critical theory is not ashamed of being value-full. Now we can't stop talking about Enlightenment here to understand critical theory.

Enlightenment is the most interesting age to be talked about, to say the least for Horkheimer and Adorno. The whole basis of Frankfurt School is basically critiques on Enlightenment, and one of the most important and interesting part of it is Horkheimer's critique on rationality. Rationality is the zeitgeist of Enlightenment, from which natural science ascended as a new paradigm. The scientific ambition of the age of Enlightenment is to take control of nature, we do that by advancing technology and that is the definition of rationality in Enlightenment age; the sake of technical advancement is always logic, it's always rational. Why do humans have to reach technical advancement? Why do we have to take control of nature? We have to do that for the betterment of humanity, or at least that's what Enlightenment thinkers thought. To be fair yes, we have more or less better living condition, thanks to technology, but Horkheimer didn't see this matter that simply.

If betterment of humanity truly is the variable of rationality, how come we have two world wars in the 20th century alone? Lenin, Stalin, Mao and millions of people dying for their sake, how come they justify it?  How come fascism arise? Hitler, Mussolini? How come we have tens of millions of people dying from expansionist ambitions of small groups of people, how come? How come every single modern state that is modeled after Hegel's thoughts becoming more and more reactive? Is that rational? What's missing here? We have technical advancement along with relative betterment, but why is humanity turning this way? For Horkheimer, the 20th century is not rational, instead it is the dark product of Enlightenment's rationality, how did he conclude so?

The mistake lies in the natural science paradigm, namely technical advancement. Our ambition in taking control of nature requires technical advancement, and technical advancement requires numerous lines of production, and lines of production require humans who run it. It evolved into a bigger system, and human is in it. Human becomes just a part of bigger something. In the name of  betterment for humanity, individual existence is reduced into just one tiny insignificant part of technical advancement. With that mindset, our existences basically deteriorate into just being cogs in a bigger machine, we become replaceable parts. That's why the systems justify the death of humanity. The ends justify the means, they say.

Horkheimer argued that the process of dehumanization in technical advancement is a betrayal of the ends of rationality itself. If Enlightenment's rationality is trying to achieve betterment for humanity, then it certainly failed to do so. What it did produce though, is a new mass subjectivity, or false consciousness, or cultural hegemony if you may, which plays a dominant role in the forming of individuality and subjectivity. Really? Are we really living with false consciousness? To answer how Marxists see it that way, we have to understand the principle of structuralism.

Structuralism is a human science methodology which sees that culture should be understood by its relationship with the bigger overarching structure or system. In short, structuralist approach deems that the macro level system or structure plays a major role in how the micro level perceives everything. That is to say, structuralism believes that the bigger something affects the smaller other thing, it's top-bottom relationship. Through structuralist perspective, we can only understand the micro by uncovering the macro, because the macro is playing the dominant role. If you still don't get it, here is my best shot okay, don't ask more; Marxism is structuralist because it is deterministic; it sees economical motive as the overarching structure which determines how everything would take place. Okay i guess that's it and no i wouldn't get into linguistic structuralism here.

With its determinism, Marxism broke down the overarching system of capitalism and i don't think we have to go into detail here, let me just give you one example; ISAs are one part of capitalistic structure. Since most of Marxist structuralist accounts which covered culture are obsolete (due to post-structuralism, which i will talk about in postmodernist section), let me just explain the one which is not that obsolete, Adorno and Horkheimer's notion of culture industry. Culture industry is basically commodification of cultural product, but it has vast implications on individuality and subjectivity. Simply put, culture industry focuses on how culture and cultural products got their values shifted, due to commodification. From axiological standpoint, commodification of cultural product in capitalistic society is an act of stripping culture from its values. In pre-modern age, culture used to have its own significance, say for instance as religious rituals; culture has its own complex values and meanings, but then capitalism came along with commodification, turning cultural products into mere economic goods, stripped of its initial meanings and values. In capitalistic motives, the previously culturally valued products are turned into sole recreation, every cultural product is turned into entertainment, turned into something to sell. Indonesia has a lot of examples for this case, say traditional dances for instance; nowadays they're for tourists who pay to see the show, the previously full of values rituals are turned into commodity. According to capitalistic mindset, there is nothing wrong with that, but what about the preserved values of the culture itself? It's not even dilemmatic, it's wrong from that viewpoint.

Bear in mind that culture industry is actually very elitist, because Adorno and Horkheimer qualitatively categorized culture into two big groups; high culture and popular culture. We don't have to stress on the elitist tendency of their stratification of culture, but let's just focus on their structuralist approach on pop culture. What's interesting from culture industry is its perspective about industrially produced culture and how they affect individual subject. Now, in terms of product, of course there has to be the producer(s) who produce it, right? The next step after production is of course distribution. Adorno and Horkheimer argued that the circulation of pop culture is one capitalistic implementation of cultural hegemony. They see pop culture as a means to manipulate the mass into passivity, to trick our consents in order to conceal exploitation. The pop culture here is vast it includes films, radio, tv shows and so on and so forth. What we have to point out in this matter is; the dominating class has the control over the means of production and distribution, okay? We, as the micro receiver, don't have much say in terms of what to be produced and circulated, thus we can only consume what they offer. The coming of internet changes a few things significantly in this system, and we'll talk about it in details in postmodernist framework section. I guess that is all the explanation i have to write regarding deterministic Marxism.

Let me recap what we've discussed. Due to deterministic dialectical materialism, Marxists regards everyone as subject to extrinsic contradictions. We can only perceive reality by being involved within material dialectics. We are subject to external influences, and the dominant influence is capitalism through the motive of domination. Critical theory offers a revelation to get out of capitalistic shroud and see it from the outside, and by seeing from the outside, we can tell how evil the process of dehumanization is. In terms of culture, we are subject to whatever is circulated, we are subject to false consciousness, we are subject to cultural hegemony. With that in mind, culturally, Marxists conclude that we are limited to what we are exposed to, and we are exposed to capitalistic norms, but we have the means and the choice to refuse it.

I assume it's pretty clear how we could implement Marxist views in our individual life, but maybe some of you are questioning "i thought we're talking about meaning," well here is how we deal with meaning through deterministic Marxism. Let's first pick one, if not the most obvious example: Money and how meaningful it is today.

Money is the answer to everything, right? RIGHT? No, call me naive, but no, money is shit. I mean it's okay if you want to live for money, but suppose leftist revolution happen, or suppose your country suffer from hyperinflation, what do you do? What is all your money for? Everything you've worked hard for all your life, everything you've suffered for, vaporizes instantaneously. Money is not that essential, it's only meaningful if it comes along with the system. It's fine if your purpose of living, your meaning of life is to get money, but, come on, be better. I'll admit that i'm a bit utilitarian in living my life, i just want to be happy and i want to avoid pain, and it sort of comes hand in hand with how Marx perceived the activity of working. Marx considered that productive work is one of human's Gattungswesen (species-essence), human should be able to grow by working, and working should be a fulfilling activity. No matter how hard a work is, we should be happy doing it. Yet, under the influence of capitalism, work becomes something we have to do, more often than not, reluctantly. You know those kind of people, they are the ones who go to work just because they have to, they hate doing it, yet they do it nonetheless because they have to. Well okay let's not blame the underprivileged group who doesn't have much choice, but let's insult those who just work their asses off for the sake of money, despite the fact that they hate their job and they are just doing it because they are too afraid to go find the real fulfilling job for whatever bullshit reason they have in their heads, and then at the end of the day, they choose to get stuck living the life they hate (strong cases for accountants and lawyers, lol. jk. nvm.). Well sometimes, it's the system which forces us to do that, but sometimes it's you who don't realize that you don't have to do the shits you do. Yolo man, yolo.

This next example is our pattern of consumption. To those who favor postmodernist viewpoint, please bear in mind that we're still moving within structuralist notions, okay? Calm your tits, be patient, i'm just trying to explain Marxist view here, we'll get into relativism later. In order to understand this part more comprehensively, i suggest you to watch the 2002 4-episodes BBC documentary series entitled The Century of the Self. From the documentary, we can see how capitalism evolves to rely very heavily on advertising and public relations throughout the 20th century. The fucked up revelation of that documentary is how capitalism betrayed its own competitive consumer theory of "consumers always make rational decisions" by turning the whole market to rely on consumerism. The documentary depicts how consumerism became the backbone of capitalism itself.

Okay, so, in Marxist view, we are expected to be critical on consumption. We have to be able to distinguish between wants and needs. For instance, do we really need the newest Iphone? Do we need one more Air Jordan? Or the stupidly unbelievable expensive Gucci pouch? In Marxist view, we have to be able to distinctify if we actually need something or was it just desire. Well it's okay if you just want something, but do you really want it? Like.... really? Is it meaningful consumption? Have you examined it? You have to be able to distinguish if your consumption is a real critical consumption or just shallow consumerism. If we are all critical in consumption, there will be no such thing as celebrity endorsement, psychoanalitic advertising or brand value, because those things revolve within false perception. Products will not have any meanings beside functional ones if we critically see them as they are, since most of emotional and social meanings of goods are the intended byproduct of consumerism. Everything you materially consume may just be fabricated needs or wants which reflect your false consciousness, your manipulated consent. Also, speaking of consent, it will be very helpful to check out Chomsky's 1992 Manufacturing Consent to see how public opinion is shaped by the media. It's not really Marxist, but it moves with the same Gramscian spirit and it is structuralist indeed ─ even though it is analytical philosophy. Other than material consumption, we can also implement Marxist view in cultural consumption, applicating Frankfurt's view of culture industry.

In terms of cultural consumption, to point out how individuality and subjectivity is heavily affected by the available circulation, i will pick several easy examples from popular music. We have to see it through the perspective of how record labels dominate the market. Not so long ago, music industry is very dependent on record labels, they always have the final say regarding which music to be produced since they are the sole owner of the chain of networks to distribute the products, they have the capital. Record label is an authoritarian capitalist institution who decides which music is good and which is not. We, as consumers, in such a condition, can only have a range of taste within the market, because our knowledge of music itself is limited by the exposure. We couldn't tell if we like R&B because we do, or because it is the only available music; we couldn't tell if we like classical music because we are not exposed to it. The market of music is limited within what is circulated by the record labels. The most easily recognizable example is of course Korean pop culture. Korean pop industry is massive, and we can easily spot who play crucial roles in its ascend. On one hand, there are of course the major record labels who not only provide the means of distribution, but also get deep into the creative process of songwriting itself (they will only produce tested formula), deal with the entire package including persona, appearance and its weird contractual agreement (i.e. artists are not allowed to get into romantic relationship). On the other, there is the Korean government with its consistent huge funding. Capital is still the key, mass production is still the effective means and power is still vital. It takes long time and rigorous work for the K-pop industry to get this big, but then the internet comes, which is nice for the expansion of K-pop.

With the presence of internet, it becomes rather hard to pin down structural roles because the means of distribution is more inclusively accessible now, but it doesn't mean the same pattern doesn't exist. The hegemony of taste is still very visible even with the existence of internet. Of course now we have much wider options of music to listen to, the monopoly of record label is not as powerful as, say, 20 years ago. But with a closer look, the pattern is still there. Some music is more privileged than others and you only have to pay attention to how the new popular music or artist soars, and let's take American music industry for instance. First, the rise of fresh american popular music is always related to the dominant culture, the official 'public taste', and i would say right now it is hip hop that takes the stage. Every new popular music is so related to hip hop, from the ensemble to the appearance of the artist, there always is at least one hip hop characteristic. It needs further research to find out how hip hop became so dominant in the circulation today. Apart from that, we also have to see how the so-called 'independent artists' break through. In some instances, there may be some cases where the artist's work gets big because of internet phenomenon, it gets viral, say for instance Post Malone or Billie Eilish. With that possibility, everyone has virtually the same opportunity to be popular, but how could some make it, and some don't? Is it because of taste? If taste truly is subjective and individual, how could it be so aligned? How come there were no doom metal band who got as mainstream as Justin Bieber? Well, you answer that yourself if you believe that music taste is your subjectivity. And, qualitatively, let's recap what sort of materials are brought by hip hop artists through their works; more or less money, fancy dinner and fancy ass. From the perspective of Adorno and Horkheimer, hip hop and its capitalistic nature is one of the most bland example of culture industry.

Taste is not individual and subjective in this context. Some structures play vital roles in your incorporation of taste. Next.

Epistemologically, i don't have to explain how Marx perceives religion, do i? Well okay just a little, just very little. Marx wrote "Religion [...] is the opium of the people." As a consequence of his dialectical materialism, Marx saw that man creates religion, not the opposite. Religion is just mythology, it works as a distraction and escape for the people with dreadful living conditions under capitalist rule. That's all the explanation i'm gonna give you about religion cause i'm fed up talking about it. Moving on.

Lastly, with Marxism, we can certainly observe this one universal experience we're sharing right now, Coronavirus pandemic. When we talk about the pandemic, we cannot naively ignore the role of power. Government is currently the most direct powerful body to many lives. I'm sure you see that some governments look like they are in a dilemma between saving lives or the economy. The dilemma should not even take place, i repeat the dilemma should not even take place. That only happen because we think that saving the economy should be considered, that is fucking vile. How do they even consider prioritizing economy over lives? Because capitalism, of course.

Apparently we are still living in the excess of Enlightenment's rationality, or maybe we still are living in it. See it this way, question it; how the fuck could the body of power even consider saving the economy over the people around this time? According to Horkheimer's remark on rationality, because they see the economy is worth dying for. I mean holy jesus, allah akbar, humanity truly is just replaceable parts in this system. And please, do not blame the government in this one, they are expected to do so, they have to act exactly that way, because the system mandated them to. It's simple economic calculation of national fund allocation to consumptive spending, it certainly is bad for long-term financing. But shit, what's the economy for if there is no one left alive? Economy is for us, not us for the economy. I mean hell man, in this society, in this culturally hegemonized world, we can't even distinguish what's essential anymore, everything is blurred by the system.

Well yes of course i know that the mortality rate to Coronavirus is relatively low, and they tend to be lethal to older people. But... fucking hell man it's human lives nonetheless... If this is how the system values lives, there certainly is something fucked up with it. Let me put a stress on how one GOP politician sees the pandemic. Texas Lt. Gov Dan Patrick says that (note: i rephrase his remark) "the grandfathers should be willing to die for their grandchildren" implying that the economy is worth more to be saved than the lives of the elderly in this pandemic. Holy mother of mary, i don't even have to respond to that.

I'm not advocating authoritarian socialism here, but let's just see how China deals with the virus. They were the initial epicenter of the outbreak, and now, as of April 11th 2020, they're only placed 8th in terms of death toll. I mean christ, China is the densest country in the world, but they managed to curb the spread that effectively. Moreover, they also managed to very efficiently shift their domestic industry into basic needs (protective outfits, masks and medical equipments) in response to the pandemic. Meanwhile, United States is still discussing whether or not it is wise to lockdown, completely forgetting the fact that they are placed first on active cases and second on death toll. I mean efficiency and effectiveness has always been the ultimate ammunition of laissez-faire capitalism, but apparently, they are incompetent in handling force majeure; the magic formula of supply and demand doesn't work against it.

I'm not even gonna delve into economic calculation on how socialist commonwealth's prosperity tend to outgrow their capacity. Fucking hell capitalist bigots, just look at the Great Recession and now this Corona crisis, you can't do shit in that department and they are two of the worst crises in modern history. China was better in 2008 and is also better in handling Corona. Stop selling us bullshit. May god strike anarcho libertarians dead.

Please note that i'm an atheist, so the previous expression doesn't mean anything.

Well, i guess that's all from Marxism. We will deal with Corona again in discursive framework, i have some interesting perspectives. I also have to point out that all the corpus i chose to analyze above were just examples on how to examine certain conditions of life with Marxism, you can apply it to virtually everything. I honestly didn't expect that this post is gonna be this long, and i believe it's better to split this writing into two parts (or maybe three). As promised, in the next part i will break down discursive and postmodernist frameworks, how they see us, as subject, construct meaning. I know it's very possible that i've made numerous mistakes, misunderstood certain concepts or simply addressed misnomer on some accounts, therefore i will certainly be very welcoming if you are willing to correct me. I am also aware that my writing is utterly insufficient in explaining Marxism, any suggestion for addition is highly welcome as well. I thank you all who manage to reach this point of my writing, i really appreciate it.

One last thing: i know the world is looking so grim right now, the future has never been so uncertain, there are all sorts of horrifying possibilities such as global crisis, maybe famine and perhaps war. But in the more positive light, we may be headed toward a fundamental transition now, although no one knows what the big changes are gonna be. I just wanna say hold on tight everyone, it's always darkest before the dawn, and let's believe that we will get out of this depressing situation together, no matter how.

See you in indefinite time.




P.S.Well... To be fair... If the virus didn't do it, some of us may die of starvation or get murdered by each other, most likely the marginalized, less privileged will take the most damage ─ which in this case, with this rate of recession, rendered me and my family to be included into the fragile part of the society. But hey, we've been through that for centuries thanks to capitalism. We'll get over it. Maybe everything will be better after this is over. Oh and sorry that this post turned out to be not so personal, that was a narcissistic clickbait, maybe in the next post it will, let's just see.