listen, i’m not saying people should be ideological machines and i think you may only have one life (i believe in reincarnation but what the hell) so you should do what you’ve gotta do. but i ALSO don’t think that anyone should be sitting on their fucking ass saying that it’s ALL GOOD IN THE HOOD when they do all this shit they do because it benefits them and their family and especially go so far as to say that by, say, making lots and lots of money when other people cannot, they are helping other oppressed people (????????), or, oh, i do charity now so it’s all okay. i don’t think charity really helps beyond putting a penny-sized dent in the suffering and oppression of people, though, so whatever. people say they don’t wanna feel guilty for their decisions. i don’t see what is so wrong in saying, yes, by doing this, i am feeding the system and probably making shit worse.

yes i have betrayed my principles. if you read my blogpost you will see that i say that i am only capable of certain types of rebellion that only stand so far as i hope that others will see them and it’ll make them think a bit. but for example i hate the bureaucracy but i have applied for disability. and i feel shitty for it, but until the libertarians start doing their massive amounts of charity to make up for governmental welfare lololol, it’s what i’m gonna have to do to EAT.

but i’m SORRY, people who become lawyers and doctors and CEOs or what have you do not NEED TO MAKE SO MUCH MONEY. i’m not saying that one should not become one of those things if it makes them happy and it’s what they’re good at, but for example, i have never seen a monetary breakdown of WHY (non-pro-bono/low-fee) lawyers need to charge so much for their services. how much of it goes towards transport and rent for your office and filing fees and keeping the air conditioning in your waiting room and paying your paralegal and whatever? does it REALLYREALLYREALLY require you making 90,000$/yr+? i don’t really care how ‘hard’ your work is. i’m getting carpal tunnel from my fucking work and i make the pay for 3 days as a lawyer in two weeks. doctors, too. what is all that money going towards, really, besides malpractice? because they’ve been making an asston of money even before this trend. i understand that machines are expensive, for example, but shit my father installs them and half on NYC and northern NJ doctors owe him money and he can’t get people who make 1.5 million dollars/yr to give him $5,000 so who the fuck knows.

but indeed, these people will probably make it just fine if they charged less. i understand that say doctors do not control their own pay necessarily, it may be the practice they belong to and whatever. but jesus christ i do data entry for insurance claims and i see well-child visits get charged 60$ (and that’s just how much insurance is paying, so with co-pay it’s about 80-100$ depending on your locale it seems) and it’s like, holy christ, $100 for you so i can take a day off of work so you can look in my child’s ears?! fuck’s sake!

i have no problem with people leading ‘comfortable lives’ so they can support their families without losing their heads. but i think the modern concept of ‘comfortable’ is already extravagant and i do certainly have problems with people making EXTRAVAGANT amounts of money. and i’m tired of people acting like all victimized because THEY CAN’T HELP THAT THE JOB THEY WANNA DO MAKES SO MUCH MONEY OMG. i bet you could, in any case.

i also don’t think that going to medical and law and general grad school should be so expensive.

what the fuck ever i’m not the right person to be arguing this sort of thing.

I should also note that the idea of individualism itself is culturally specific. It is traditionally (white, male) American to assume that we are all independent actors who have the free will to make decisions. Other cultures do not agree with this notion, understanding that every decision is made within a social fabric, and that we decide within the context of circumstance and relationship.

Many feminists choose to adopt a less individualistic paradigm than the dominant one, because women are one of the groups that gets traditionally shafted by it. Women frequently make decisions based on concern for those around them, and have less individualist values that lead them to consider and weigh heavily the implications of their actions on others (because they see the social sphere as interwoven rather than individual). Men frequently discount this interconnectedness and pursue precisely what they want, which leads to women making compromises and men making singular decisions. This reinforces an unequal power dynamic.

You may say that women seeking power in an individualist way solves this, but that is a heavy burden to place on women: to reject their cultural values in favor of a more callous (if more empowered in some ways) one. It also places the problem on the WOMEN, who are not being good effective individualists, rather than on the MEN, who are being inconsiderate.

Even if a touch of individualism would do most women some good in terms of confidence, guilt relief, etc., I think interdependence better preserves that balance than individualism does. Individualism requires that everyone be individual first and foremost. Interdependence allows people to be community first, and you can’t have community without individuals within it. Individuality should be respected and diversity appreciated within the communal group, but the only having a mutual goal of meeting everyone’s needs can really provide supportive and rewarding community for the “individual” to act within.

I’ve heard suggestions within TWF that any step women are able to take is purely based on privilege, rather than initiative, guts, creativity, or anything else individual. But by asking women to think in terms of a homogeneous collective, …

even aside from the argument itself, according to how this is put we can understand that individualism = initiative, guts, creativity etc., while collective spirit = the opposite of all that + homogeneity. why? and, in this value system, what is the likely “place” that collective action will occupy? and how come this value system coincides with the dominant one?

There is no such thing as “the Marxist canon”, except what was created by Lenin and Stalin (who were definitely not putting into practice Marx’s ideas – see, for example, the analysis in Marx at the Millennium by Cyril Smith). So, the ideas that Exholt saw implemented were not Marx’s ideas, but Lenin/Stalinist ideas. As I said over there, the societies in the Soviet Union and the Far East (e.g. Mainland China) were in essence “regulated capitalism” as I understand the term, and certainly NOT Marxism or communism.

Keep in mind that Karl Marx himself cited the Paris Commune of 1871 as a real life example of “dictatorship of the proletariat.” He was, however, quite critical of the fact they were not harsh enough in dealing with “reactionaries” and not centralizing decisionmaking making powers to ensure it would enter a more revolutionary direction.

Lenin was even more harsh on this point which was possibly one of the reasons he argued in favor of a “revolutionary vanguard” that would “represent” workers’ interests…..and Mao’s adaptation of this concept toward making the CCP the “vanguard” of the workers and peasant classes.

In short, by advocating an economic and political system which allows one class or a supposed “vanguard” group to seize absolute power without much in the way of accountability checks and also being unapologetically for majority rule above everyone else, Marx failed/didn’t care to account for the possibility that once this new ruling class has taken power……that instead of instituting measures to allow for the “withering of the state” so his vision of “Communism” may result….what ended up happening was that these new ruling groups found they enjoyed being the ruling elite and thus, did whatever they could to preserve their status at the expense of everyone else. Hence, the exchange of one group of tyrants for another.

Moreover, this lack of tolerance for dissent even in Marx’ envisioning of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” is really telling…..especially when it is not only shown from its manifestations in Marxist derived regimes, but my own experiences dealing with too many socio-economically privileged mostly White Marxist/Maoist classmates at my undergrad whose response to any disagreements…even outside of Marxist/Maoist ideology tended to devolve into extreme defensiveness and virulent ad hominem attacks such as “capitalist pig”, my family deserved the treatment it received during the 100 Flowers/Cultural Revolution, and a long string of yelled expletives.

Thankfully, I could take solace in a supportive faculty…even the avowed Marxist ones…..and the fact some of those socio-economically privileged Marxist/Maoist classmates ended up flunking the courses they were supposed “experts”….some to the point of being academically suspended or even expelled from the college.

the point was that separating out “individualism” as a value is already playing into a very clear scheme of action/direction of movement within the system. i explained most of this in my first comment, and if it wasn’t clear it might be because of the way i write but also because it’s not a very simple or obvious concept. i think if anything i was adding more complexity, not trying to oversimplify any argument. so if you think what i commented is irrelevant, octogalore, perhaps it’s not really because it “objectively” is. i dunno. i do think that your observation about your lack of love for my way of writing was not strictly necessary.