I want to say a little bit more about the joy and again , I am in no way a political leader or anything like that , but something that I think is still relevant in Landauer is obviously much of like political organizing and working those institutions .
It's a lot of drudgery work , it's a lot of unglamorous stuff , but also there should be joy there , like it should be something you want to be a part of . And I think what's interesting is what we could take from what he is saying there , especially because he thinks joy is an expansion of our power and all of that .
Yes , there are battles to be fought and there is real number crunching to be done , hard work to be done , but also a part of a sustainable organization . There should be something joyous about it , not like it's always a pizza party I'm not saying anything as naive as that but to really feel I want to be a part of this .
That's what I'm saying . I feel like it should feel good . Solidarity should feel good .
Make it seem like it's tortures for people . Well , make it seem like it's a duty right , and maybe partly it is .
But yeah , but it's like you don't get it . We construct it so that the concept of allyship makes it seem like you don't get anything out of it . It's just like you do this and it's your moral duty . It's very deontological , and then if you fail at doing it the right way , by someone else's standards , it just feels really bad .
You're like I might be a bad person .
People don't like being called bad people , so when there's nothing in it for them not just in terms of their interests , which I usually talk about , but emotionally people need to feel like they're again connecting with others , that they're breaking boundaries , that the things that they thought were obstacles between them and other people , that they'll be accepted by
others if they're trying in good faith . And I think that there's just something about our political culture currently that just doesn't really see this as being necessary .
And I don't know why anybody Michael Brooks used to call it just as a totally unattractive culture , like why anyone who wasn't already involved , like anyone who isn't already invested in it , would get invested in it basically Like if you're a middle class person at a university , like you're already invested and people seeing you as moral in a particular way , so
you're going to be responsive to like the signals people are sending you . But people who are outside of that environment , or whatever environment is you're talking about they're looking at it and they're like , but like , why would I do this ?
Why would I set up for ?
this why ?
would I set up for ? this this is something that I think Len Dower did point . Like he pointed , he had the number in like 1895 in that little text anarchism and socialism . He's like you know what I'm more worried about than like you know you talk about like , okay , what if we established communism and that it was .
You know people work , you know , by their own volition . And he's like everyone is always like , well , what about the people who don't want to work ? And he's like actually , that's not a problem , they'll be taken care of . You know what's going to be a real fucking problem ?
Or the moralists who are like going to put the hard workers on a fucking pedestal and shame everyone else and establish a new culture of , like moralistic spectacle and guilt . He's like that's the real thing to worry about when it comes to God .
I almost felt like he was about to be like if there is a place for violence , it's like for them to be dealt with . You're my exception . Get the moralists out of here .
No , this canon should feel good and like the sort of moralistic I mean . This is where his like Nietzscheanism really shines through , right , where he's like like that's just like a sad , that's just a sad spectacle of just like slow , blinking dead inside Kantians accusing each other of not being sufficiently pure , or whatever .
Like , who wants a part of that ? Get me out of here . I'm just imagining a university space of a bunch of Kantians just all dead inside , just like , yeah , did you follow the categorical imperative ? I can show you didn't just like mine .
Well , if you didn't feel pain while you were doing it , it wasn't real .
Yeah , it was in clinician yeah .
I love , his emphasis on joy and of like the need for this to be like ground floor . But like it can't be something that you like promise yourself later . Like , oh , we'll do the hard work now so that we can have a good these like . No , this is supposed to be about like joyful , loving community from the start .
I think the only thing that keeps the left alive in that sense , then , is that like well , the alternatives are also incredibly joyless , right ? You know what I mean . Like we might be fucking up a lot and like really not making this a very attractive scene , but it's not over yet , right , because what's the fucking alternative ?
Like bar still sports and the country club and shit , like I don't know . You know what I mean . Like we got a chance still .
There's still an opening , we can still be fine , we can still do it .
I mean I take over the country club if , like , I could and like , just like , run a sweet one for regular people .
Yeah Well , you diffuse it with joy , you know , and I do .
I do love ending on this note of you know , you know what actually joy isn't something contingent , isn't like the icing on the cake , it actually is , you know , a really fundamental passion , and so much the worst for a culture that turns joy into a negative , into a social defect , into a character flaw , into a thing that one ought to do without .
I , I don't understand what type of world that's trying to build , but I also don't understand what networks that's trying to expand . If you're trying to bring more people in , you know we already live . Many of us , much more than even all four of us , live joyless lives . Who would ever want to say , guess what ? The worst is yet to come .
Oh my God , and you have to do more work and like with others and be miserable in more areas in your life . So like not only in your job and like in your like isolation in your home you also need to join an activist organization in which you're scolded and also feel .
Would you show up and just get eviscerated and silenced every time ?
Yo , you leave work your manager's on your ass .
Well , I'm glad I'm getting off of work .
So some college check it at the school road Robin .
D'Angelo at my face .
I mean , if we don't , if we don't show them the joy , then they're going to get sucked in by that sweet , like hedonistic pleasure , right ? Which is what ? Which is what the what capitalism runs on , which tries to convince you .
It's like a kind of ersatz joy tries to convince you that the joy is there , but of course you're going to end up just as sad as the rest of us . Yes , I don't mean to get so aesthetic and I'm usually pretty , you know .
Yeah , oh yeah , you know , we're all hedonists .
Yeah , but I know that asceticism is the way . Even though it's not , even though I can't do it , I know it's the way I got a hard disagree .
Yeah , I don't know about that . Yeah , oh , can I ?
read it . Can I read a quote from like the very end of the revolution piece that I think speaks to these , these , these ideas .
Do it .
He says the joy of revolution is not only a reaction against former oppression . It lies in the euphoria that comes with a rich , intense , eventful life . What is essential for this joy is that humans no longer feel lonely , that they experience unity , connectedness and collective strength .
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