Standardized experiences....

[Peter Kropotkin]

think about the world and how its built....
vacations for example, we have standardized experiences for
vacations.... Disneyland for example, (the first time I went to
Disneyland I was 40, although I have lived in California since I
was 15) I have been to Yosemite several times, mostly in
my twenties, that too is a standardized experience, with
everyone doing the exact same thing......and this idea of
standardized experiences includes, in no particular order,
schooling, work, sporting events, politics/voting, even going
to the local fair, my own favorite is the Minnesota state fair,
but they are still standardized experiences.... one size
fits all in these standardized experiences....

so, how does one escape this, standardized experiences for human beings?
I am not sure you can.....let us look at being outside the standardized
experiences, crime for one, to commit a crime is to exists outside
of the standardized experiences... it could be considered to be
an act of rebellion against our standardized experiences....
and yet, the only result of crime is to hurt someone in some fashion.....
the modern idea of rebellion is to hurt someone.... to destroy an
airplane, killing hundreds, to bomb a facility, possibly costing
someone a life, certainly costing someone some money....
to stand outside of the standardized experiences is to stand
outside of the state/society... and as human beings, that is
problematic at best.... we are social beings, we cannot exist without
other human beings, that is a fact of evolution... the natural
habitat of human beings is in a group or a social setting,
or in tribes of some sort..... that is the human condition...
but to stand outside of standardized experiences is to harm in some
fashion, the tribe or the group..... our very lifeblood....

think about the MAGA party basic philosophy... that everything
is fake... the media is fake, politics is fake, the state is an
oppressor against the common man, the institutions that allow
our state/society to function must be disassembled, the FBI,
the IRS, the Department of Education, and to what end?
the continued dissolution of the American state...
to removed standardized experiences of the state requires the
dissolution of the American state.... and that path is the path
to failure.... or do you want America to look like other failed states
like Somalia?

to reject our standardized experiences is to reject living in
a state/or society..... to return to Hobbes ''State of Nature''
where without the government ''life would be solitary, poor,
nasty, brutish and short''....

One must wonder, is there some middle ground? is the MAGA goal
of turning America into Hobbes ''State of Nature'' really a goal
we want? I for one, don't want that.... and I am pretty sure
most of you don't want that..... perhaps, this living in our
world standardized experiences, might be our only choice
for the moment... Perhaps......

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

so, in our world of Standardized experiences, what does
a ''radical'' idea look like? How does one resist in a
Standardized world?

Calling everything fake is one way, but that leaves us the
problem of, if everything is fake, is there anything real?
Calling everything fake means even something that drives
our very lives is fake, love for example. Is love fake?
To discover what is real or not real, is an entirely different
problem than trying to understand standardized experiences.....

So, how do we resist or what does resistance even look like
in our modern world?

Kropotkin

[Iwannaplato]

think about the MAGA party basic philosophy... that everything
is fake..

Everything??? or is it different things are considered fake from what the Left considers fake. Further, remember that in the 60s and early 70s, much of the Left thought that government, the media, are politics were fake, and that the state is an
oppressor against the common man, the institutions that allow our state/society to function must be disassembled, the FBI,
the IRS, the Department of Education, etc.
And not just the Left but those in Civil Rights movements, later feminists, various class and worker struggles, in fact going back also to the thirties when there was a kind of proto-60s, very similar judgments of institutions were held by members of the Left and minorities.

Was this also, by definition, toxic or idiotic?

Most importantly

"To be able to understand a position that is not your own, and to articulate it accurately, is the mark of a truly wise person." — Anonymous

It's facile to binarily and incorrectly present your opponents this way. It ain't going to lead to anything. But showing you actually understand their position in some nuanced way, that could make a difference.
And, sure, there aren't many on the other side who do this. Of course, saying 'but they do this' is a bit like what kids do caught throwing things at each other. Next we can move on to 'He started it'.

"In a debate, the best way to demonstrate the strength of your position is to accurately and fairly present the arguments of those who disagree with you." — Anonymous

´

"You can never understand one language until you understand at least two."
— Geoffrey Willans

Take that one, as intended, metaphorically.

[Peter Kropotkin]

"Peter Kropotkin:
think about the MAGA party basic philosophy... that everything
is fake..

Iwanna: Everything??? or is it different things are considered fake from what the Left considers fake. Further, remember that in the 60s and early 70s, much of the Left thought that government, the media, are politics were fake, and that the state is an
oppressor against the common man,

K: I have broken this out in two parts....this part is simply not true... the
media and the state/government were quite real, believing something is fake,
is a quite recent event... which leads us to the correct second part:

Iwanna: the institutions that allow our state/society to function must be disassembled, the FBI,
the IRS, the Department of Education, etc.
And not just the Left but those in Civil Rights movements, later feminists, various class and worker struggles, in fact going back also to the thirties when there was a kind of proto-60s, very similar judgments of institutions were held by members of the Left and minorities.

K: and this part is true.... although clearly not to the extent of the nonsense of
today... the call in those days was not to dissemble government but to reform it...
the call was to end the Vietnam war, not to end the government... and that
is a distinction that is lost today...and the concurrent calls for civil rights,
feminist and working class struggle you referenced did, and still do exists....
but think about say, gay rights, who is calling for an end to the government in
our modern day calls for gay rights or trans rights? No one that I know of....
and the same is true back then... if anything, the call for civil rights was
a call for the federal government to reform itself.... not to end itself...

I: Was this also, by definition, toxic or idiotic?

K: having been alive in those days, I would say it was a product of the
times...

Kropotkin

[Iwannaplato]

K: I have broken this out in two parts....this part is simply not true... the
media and the state/government were quite real, believing something is fake,
is a quite recent event... which leads us to the correct second part:

The right you are critical understand that these things exist, what they mean by fake is that they are not what they claim to be. You really think the Left thought the US was a real democracy in the late 60s? They didn't. Do you think they thought the justice system was what it purported to be? They didn't. Do you know what MLK thought of the government, the justice system, the media in the year before his death? He did not think they were remotely living up to the ideals they purported to be living up to. The word fake wasn't generally used, but the idea that elections between two parties beholden to Wall St. and banks and corporations meant that they did not consider these elections real in the sense that candidates that represented the people could get anywhere. You know the whole police beating protestors and how the Left felt about that entire thing: that eventually centered on the Democratic Convention, not the Republican convention. The Left considered the Democrats to be part of a system not designed to help or represent people and it was not a shock to them that the police riot occurred in around the Dems. Of course it would have around the Republicans, buy despite your age you seem to have no idea how disenchanted the left was about most government institutions.

The FBI??? They were busy trying to break MLK. Countilpro, the smashing of a Native American Rights movements.

The term fake wasn't used, but did the Left distrust these institutions the right now distrusts? Did they think they needed to be completely overhauled? Yes.

Did Chomsky come to see the media as systematically biased and not objective? Yes.

Did Malcolm X, Abbie Hoffman, MLK, consider that the media were not presenting the real state of affairs around the war, the military industrial comples, racism, classism and more? Yes.

Iwanna: the institutions that allow our state/society to function must be disassembled, the FBI,
the IRS, the Department of Education, etc.
And not just the Left but those in Civil Rights movements, later feminists, various class and worker struggles, in fact going back also to the thirties when there was a kind of proto-60s, very similar judgments of institutions were held by members of the Left and minorities.

K: and this part is true.... although clearly not to the extent of the nonsense of
today... the call in those days was not to dissemble government but to reform it...

Some people wanted to reform it, but those tended to be liberals. The Left, even hippies, certainly minority rights organizations and feminists were calling for a complete overhaul.

Do you really not remember or know how many radicals and Leftists and minority rights leaders were calling for REVOLUTION?

the call was to end the Vietnam war, not to end the government...

False dilemma, it was for a large portion of the Left, both.

Tom Hayden
"The issue is not the issue. The issue is always revolution."
— From the Port Huron Statement, reflecting the SDS's desire for a revolutionary change in American governance.

Mario Savio
"There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious... that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part."
— From his famous "bodies upon the gears" speech, calling for radical action against systemic injustice.
and that

Ralph Abernathy
"We’re not on our knees in the face of a political system that has failed us."
— Highlighting the need for a radical response to systemic failure.

Fred Hampton
"You can kill a revolutionary, but you can’t kill the revolution."
— Demonstrating the resilience of the movement for systemic change.

Huey P. Newton
"We have two evils to fight, capitalism and racism. We must destroy both."
— Calling for a revolutionary overthrow of capitalist and racist systems.

And by the way, you are always complaining, often correctly, about the problems with capitalism and as systematic.
What you want is a radical change in the system. You do understand how much power the banks and Wall st. have over what candidates can even run for major offices, yes? You do understand that since the 60s there has been talk of campaign finance reform and has it happened? no, some cosmetic changes.

I love this one:

Yippies (Youth International Party)
"Rise up and abandon the creeping meatball!"
— A call to reject the status quo and engage in cultural and political revolution.

You'd have to actually know something about them to understand they were not advocating reform.

Do you not know how much reformists were often looked at with disdain by a large portion of the Left?

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
"Let the liberal establishment tremble at the revolution. We are ready to fight."
— Demonstrating the SDS's willingness to challenge and radically change the establishment.

Do you think the incredibly number of feminists calling for the end of patriarchy in the early 70s were talking about reform?
Do you understand that the radicals and much of the Left considered itself radical, understood the term to relate to roots. In other words, that they want to change things from the bottom to the top.

Even a cursory googling of calls for systemtic change in the 60s will get you all sorts of texts and quotes and protests.

You're just making stuff up.

And let's remember that the Left was also trying to storm government agencies and the weathermen were blowing up government buildings.
They were planning to get inside the Pentagon. There were other protests of large numbers that tried to get into the White House, but failed.
There were attempts to breach Congress by large protest also. These failed.

IOW Jan 6 succeeded in breaching. But portions of the Left tried to do this and failed.
Gotta wonder about security on the 6th, but that's another story.

And hell a lot of them looked like Hippies on the Left, but I hear little mulling on the Left or the Right about the similarities between the radical Left distrust of government in the 60s - where the Right generally thought the left was nuts for wanting to overhaul so much and tear down government - and the current radical Right distrust of government.

Mirror images neither side wants to look at.

Get that: both the right and the left don't want to look at the outrage they feel when the other team is like a mirror image of themselves.

And you fit neatly in that, on your side of the fence, given your identification with what you see as the two teams.

is a distinction that is lost today...and the concurrent calls for civil rights,
feminist and working class struggle you referenced did, and still do exists....

Never said it didn't exist.

but think about say, gay rights, who is calling for an end to the government in
our modern day calls for gay rights or trans rights?

Right now gay and especially trans rights are being prioritized by the government. So, why would they?

No one that I know of....
and the same is true back then... if anything, the call for civil rights was
a call for the federal government to reform itself.... not to end itself...

Demanding systematic change is not the same as ending government, though parts of the anarchist and hippie left certainly wanted to do that, and certain factions in the Right on the libertarian end of it may also. But most people on the right want their president in office (the one they think is on their side). They want a government, though generally much more pared down.

I: Was this also, by definition, toxic or idiotic?

K: having been alive in those days, I would say it was a product of the
times...

Not really an answer.

Parts of the Left called for
the abolishment of prisons and the disarmament of the police
the end of consumerism
the implementation of socialism
the end of pollution - mix that with capitalism (or communism for that matter)
the decentralization of government and direct democracy
the giving of control over education to students
the direct redistribution of money - iow a transition directly to a classless society
the dismantling of the military, or vast reduction in it plus democratization - the soldiers are part of the decision making
the abolistion of the two party system
community control of courts - which is extremely radical, that's not reform
the breaking up of large media and the democratization of media - let's remember that when these people from the 60s up to Chomsky's work in the 80s were saying that the media needed to overhauled (not reformed) they were complaining about large corporations that were vastly smaller and vastly more diverse then we have now. There has been s consolidation of media companies into larger and few corporations. And yet the Left thought there were fundamental problems with media and that it needed systematic not reform based change.

This idea that the Left wanted reforms and was focused on the Vietnam War in the main is confused. The VW did get many groups in action, but once they were moving, they aim their systematic change goals at all facets of government and society. They had a fundamental distrust of government and government agencies, law enforcement, the media, the political parties, the education system. And this parallels the level of distrust the Right has now.

It's embarrassing to both sides, so they don't like to look at it. The Right saw all this call for and attempted radical change by the Left as unpatriotic, anti-authority and chaotic. This has all been forgotten. The Left has forgotten that they once had such fundamental criticisms and goals, while nevertheless idealizing the 60s activists without noticing the parallels.

Oh, and by the way, before this is suddenly, on not good grounds, taken as meaning that the values of the two groups )that the two groups think are the only two groups) are really the same and have the same values...no, I don't believe that. But I am arguing against this notion that fake media, faek government and the radical distrust of institutions from corporations to banks to government agencies to the government itself is not what the Left was about from its own angle. They used other terms, but there is no question they wanted a radical overhaul of all those things and would have happily used 'fake' as a term in their arsenal if it had become a thing then. It certainly fit their analyses.

"We must recognize that we can't solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power... this means a revolution of values and other things. We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism are all tied together." (Speech to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1967)

MLK on reform vs. revolution

"I think it is necessary for us to realize that we have moved from the era of civil rights to an era of human rights. When we see that there must be a radical redistribution of economic and political power, then we see that for the last twelve years we have been in a reform movement that after Selma and the voting rights bill we moved into a new era, which must be an era of revolution." (Speech at a staff retreat for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, May 1967)

King called for a "revolution of values," arguing that American society needed to undergo a fundamental transformation in its priorities and values. He urged a shift away from a "thing-oriented" society driven by materialism, profit, and property, towards a "person-oriented" society focused on human dignity, social justice, and equality.
Quote: "When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered." ("Beyond Vietnam" speech, 1967)

And that's just MLK. But note he was often seen by many parts of black power movements as a reformer and criticized for that. And in his frustration over the resistance to change around racial issues he got angrier about other issues as well. He hadn't wanted to spread his focus and also potentially stain for some the civil rights movement if he was open and active about the radical changes in general in society he thought were necessary. But then, not long before his death, he started to get pissed.

And of course his leftist revolutionary side was part of why the FBI was trying to drive him to suicide and following him and getting dirt on him.