From: local_group@usa.com (Hunter) Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.neo-tech,alt.society.generation-x Subject: The Revolutionary Pleasure of Thinking for Yourself Date: 2 Oct 2002 19:45:43 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 79 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.21.177.29 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1033613143 14535 127.0.0.1 (3 Oct 2002 02:45:43 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 3 Oct 2002 02:45:43 GMT Path: rsl2.rslnet.net!cyclone.bc.net!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail Xref: rsl2.rslnet.net alt.politics.libertarian:39998 The Revolutionary Pleasure of Thinking for Yourself By unknown authors Originally published in 1975 by The Spectacle Full text at http://users.aol.com/xeqtr1/think.html =================== Begin Excerpt =================== 1. Those who assume (often unconsciously) that it is impossible to achieve their life's desires - and, thus, that it is futile to fight for themselves - usually end up fighting for an ideal or cause instead. They may appear to engage in self-directed activity, but in reality they have accepted alienation from their desires as a way of life. All subjugations of personal desires to the dictates of a cause or ideology are reactionary no matter how "revolutionary" the actions arising from such subjugations may appear. 2. Any system of ideas with an abstraction at its center - an abstraction which assigns you a role or duties - is an ideology. An ideology provides those who accept it with a false consciousness, a necessary component of which is other-directedness. This leads those who accept the ideology to behave as "objects" rather than "subjects." to allow themselves to be used rather than to act to attain their own desires. The various ideologies are all structured around different abstractions, yet all serve the interests of a dominant (or aspiring dominant) class by giving individuals (though the term hardly seems appropriate-"members of the herd" is perhaps more accurate) a sense of purpose in sacrifice, suffering, and submission. 3. We rid ourselves of the blinders of ideology by constantly asking ourselves: How do I feel? How's my life? What do I want? An I getting what I want? If not, why not? This is being conscious of the commonplace, being aware of your everyday routine. That real life exists - life in which you are active, a subject acting to achieve your desires - is a public secret that becomes less secret every day, as the breakdown of daily life constructed around abstraction-based ideologies becomes more and more obvious. 4. The creation of self-theory is based on thinking for yourself on being fully conscious of your desires and of their validity. Authentic "consciousness raising" can only be the "raising" of people's thinking to the level of positive (non-guilty) self-consciousness, free of imposed morality in all its forms. This type of consciousness can be termed "radical subjectivity." 5. This project of collective self-realization, the changing of life itself through the transformation of social relations, can properly be termed "politics." Politics, however, also signifies a mystified, separate category of human activity, an isolated interest with its own specialists - politicians, political consultants, etc. It is possible to be interested (or not) in this type of politics just as it is possible to be interested (or not) in football, stamp collecting, music, or fashion. What people see as "politics" today is the social falsification of the project of collective self-realization; it has become a spectacle and a parody. And that suits those in power just fine. 6. To think actively, critically, is to make your life - as it is now, and as you want it to be - the center of your thinking. This positive self-centering is accomplished by a continuous assault on externals, on the false issues ("support our troops"), false conflicts (e.g., those arising from notions of facial "superiority"), false identities ("American," "patriot," "Catholic," white Christian"), and false dichotomies (economic survival" versus "a clean environment") which permeate social life. 7. Any journey toward self-demystification must avoid the twin quagmires of absolutism and cynicism. 8. The process of constructive thinking is a process of continually adding to and modifying one's current body of self-theory as well as resolving contradictions between one's new thoughts and perceptions and one's previous beliefs. The resulting synthesis is thus more than the sum of its parts. =================== End Excerpt =================== By unknown authors Full text at http://users.aol.com/xeqtr1/think.html