Complicity, Individualism & Nihilism Has Destroyed The Western Left & The Masses As A Whole
Rampant complicity & individualism has slowed all progress for the Left in Western states and has made us the worse role models for the movement.
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The Issue of Nation-Wide Complicity
To further expand off my recent article with its attention grabbing title “Leftists Are A Cult” I want to address something that drastically undermines the Left in the West and fundamentally makes us useless; and this is the rampant complicity and individualism that many of us show in various degrees.
When I say complicity, what I mean is the complicity of two forms.
The verbal opposition of the system and then occasional support of DNC candidates within electoral politics, which is more common among more liberal type of Leftists (aka, radical liberals or radlibs for short).
The opposition of the system and then refusal to organize out of desire to pursue hobbies or interests that don’t contribute to the movement at all. This being the most common even among our own Communist aligned members and often takes form in many ways from video binge watching, doomscrolling, gaming, obsessive content creation for social media, etc. It’s not that they can’t enjoy these things, but many love to speak their ideological beliefs and not contribute in any form of organizing; which is not moving us forward or helping our cause in any meaningful way. While content creation specifically may serve a function of spreading positions and educating class consciousness, it being done in an obsessive and unhealthy level, especially on the individual level and not with a centralized collective, is not benefiting the movement as a whole.
I personally can’t find the root of this issue; why we act in this way. The only logical conclusion I could come to about where this stems from is 3 potential reasons.
The danger of culturally influenced individualist philosophy is significantly more powerful than I originally considered. It has poisoned even those who are aware of it but not vigilant of it. Thus creating these people who, on one hand speak against the system and its byproducts, and on the other succumb to one of its primary mental & behavioral effects.
The desire for comfort at the cost of time wasted is greater than originally acknowledged, and simultaneously ignoring the inevitable breaking down of society which is historically guaranteed; especially when the material contradictions sharpen as they have for the US over the last two decades. Again this stems from both a level of complicity and individualism; the beliefs that there is plenty of time, or worse the idea that it can’t happen because the state is still too strong and will mitigate its fall. Or, more ridiculously, even if it happens, we are sure to win because we have the better positions; which historically never plays out as humanity functions off order and survival and not correct beliefs of a specific group.
The Leftists in America, even among many Communists, have lost increasingly high levels of hope even if they say otherwise as a means to maintain optimism. This is the topic of political nihilism which, while taking many forms, is one of the most common signs of defeatism in majority of political movements in the West.
It could be one or all of these; and potentially others I may not have acknowledged.
Societal Nihilism:
I believe, as Carlos & Eddie with Midwestern Marx believes, that there is a level of societal nihilism within Western society. Not because Western society is uniquely worse than anywhere else, but because it is organized in a way that has sucked the life and soul from majority of the masses; especially as of today, since Western society has become more bleak, purposeless, overwhelming, and alienating. The way Capitalism in the West is structured, both anarchistic in its ruthless and unregulated cannibalism economically, and mechanically organized to protect the inner moving parts that allow corporate domination at the cost of free mobility and life worthy of living for the general public, has finally reached a level of robbing the public of any sense of self unlike never seen before. Capitalists and there ruthless greed have progressed to such a all-encompassing level of power that, as the US empire begins its decline and gives unrestrained access to corporations over every relation of life, corporations have found new creative ways to rob the masses of every penny. With loitering laws, planned obsolescence, car dependency, America’s overwhelming Ad dominance, profit-driven healthcare, and much more. The capitalists would charge us for breathing if they could get away with it, and I say that because they have already hacked the normal human’s mind to further their profit incentive by manipulating emotions to purchase certain products in order to stay in good relations with certain communities they value; this is especially a byproduct of the overwhelming ad’s and corporate dominated media, because this kind of promotional marketing has been merged with psychological warfare tactics. It’s like Cyberpunk 2077 was a mirror to the world Western capitalism is heading towards. Living under modern capitalism in the West makes it impossible to stay sane and healthy because this way of life, rather you are working or not, rather you are active in your community or not, creates a depressing and empty feeling towards life as a whole because it feels like everything is organized to no prioritize you, the worker, from having a prosperous life; and that is exactly the point.
It is no surprise why societal nihilism exists, it would be abnormal if it didn’t. Western life is so well organized that is forces the masses to grow up conforming to societal norms, go through education, work, maintain basic needs, pay taxes and consume, possibly retire, then die. This is no life, this is slavery, specifically wage slavery. The nihilism that forms from this has even affected the Left in the West; it, among other elements, has killed much of the hope and energy of the Left and has made them complicit to the system as they give into comfort during their relaxation times. While this is understandable as humans do need relaxation from the overwhelming relation of capitalism, much of the Left gives into it too much and become functionally ineffective in their more important work. I almost never argue in favor of being a Socialist workaholic, as that mentality only few can handle the weight of, but many of the Bolsheviks who, after their jobs, spent almost every minute of down time organizing. Even Lenin, who sadly passed because of his workaholic nature, spent almost every minute of life organizing where and when necessary. We need the tenacity and effort of everyone who calls themselves Left if we wish to see an end to this way of life that eats our lives away and continues to exist from the sacrifice of human lives into the machine. I’m not saying give every bit of your life to the cause, always maintain balance where you can; but as a Socialist, there is no more normal life once you seen the gears moving and the path this form of capitalism leads to. It is either give everything you strategically & realistically can, or you will be lost to the machine like many before you who didn’t contribute to moving the movement forward.
Capitalism is oiled with the blood of the masses; the longer we stay complicit to its existence and not organize towards the vision of its downfall, the more our limited labor, time and life on this Earth will be sacrificially offered to the machine that is capitalism as fuel to preserve it’s existence.
“Nihilism benefits from the mass's inability to imagine a life outside of capitalism. The masses experience the exploitation of Capital on daily basis and truly understand that this system is not just, they also understand that their labour is being, in a way, wasted on acquiring profits for the capitalists, they realise that their whole being is being consumed by capital itself and they are being reduced to zombies but still they cannot imagine a life outside of capitalism. This exploitation, this meaninglessness or lack of purpose seems natural to them. So the masses, unable to imagine a life beyond capitalism, beyond working day in and day out without a set purpose, accept this slow death of the human within them as the one true way of living their life and end up rejecting life itself. The only 'life' they've ever known and the only purpose they've ever had is getting a job and working, the only life they have is providing their labour to capitalists and that is not a life worth living. Hence it's obvious that they've rejected life itself. But if for a second, the lens of Capitalist Realism were to be removed, Nihilism were to be removed, what would we see? Capitalism for the all consuming hellspawn it is.”
We can not let nihilism consume our thought process, we can’t give into individualism and act on our own limited contributions to the movement. We need to organize together and find the vision that sees the end of this system, and understand that it will require a lot of work and effort to obtain it.
We Change Now or We Cease to Exist
“For better or for worse, we now live on a planet with eight billion humans who are no longer separated by distance in the way we used to be. This species which spent so much of its development relating to itself in units of small tribes is now an intimately networked global community whose behavior is literally altering the face of this planet, and we need to start acting like it. We need to start doing what Einstein called “widening our circle of compassion” beyond our small tribal units of people we personally know and like, or we simply won’t be able to survive and thrive on this planet.”
-
, “Why Should I Care About Gaza?”
The issue of Palestine has, for some, shown a reality that needs to be acknowledged. The old eras of tribalism where people of different lands did not affect each other as much as they do today, is no longer applicable to this day and age. The acts of certain communities have global affects now, from the much of the Western world arming the Zionist state, to Palestine inspiring oppressed and revolutionary movements fighting oppression in different lands. Individualism, which is clear by the way of “life” in the West, seeks to sacrifice one’s community and international solidarity for their own self-interest. In the long run of this mental & physical behavior/belief becoming more common place, what will come of it is communities eating each other for gain and expanding out to feast on other communities for gain. It is at its core a belief that creates chaos and division.
Logically, we in the West will still have remnants of individualism even if we spend large sums of our time working collectively, this is fine. The problem isn’t that we have elements of individualism, as individualism is easy because working collectively is hard, especially if your society never prioritized it for the general masses; the problem is that individualism is the complete way of doing everything for the majority of society. The only places it isn’t is in the ruling class & state apparatus, where they have to work together otherwise their businesses, networks, board of directors, governments, etc. would never exist or function. The real balance is as the Soviets seen it, that an individual is valuable for himself and his collective, and the collective is made up of multiple individuals; that a single person has a duty to his survival and the general collective we exists in as part of his survival. That all must build together if they aim to benefit as a whole, but must of course work for themselves when and if needed while staying connected to the collective as part of survival.
We either fight to make a difference now, by giving up the very things holding us back, or we simply will not see change on our end of the world. We will fight each other until none survive as our society finally breaks down into full blown civil war and mass slaughter; all because we arrogantly allowed ourselves to become so corroded against one another that we never saw survival connected to us as a whole, but as a prize to be fought over.
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