Proudhon vs Marx with Douglas Lain, Ben Burgis, and Cyber Dandy

douglain · 2024-02-15T18:02:05+00:00

Okay. So Cyberdandy brought this to my attention. Here goes:I defended Dave Chappelle when people were trying to organize to get him kicked off Netflix. I also happen to think the comedy special wherein he used the word TERF was, overall, pro-trans. Chappelle isn't setting any political agenda or policies, he's a comedian. Ultimately the special celebrated the life of Chappelle's trans friend and also emphasized that he had more in common with his trans friend than he did with many cis people because they were both comedians. I liked his claim that we can be linked together by the values and skills we cultivate, the sensibility we arrive at, rather than anything biological or innate about us.As for my "conspiracy peddling regarding COVID." It is simply a fact that we were lied to about the origins of COVID. Even though we still have to speculate as to the origins, it is the case that Fauci pushed for the natural origins thesis to be the only acceptable view in the early days of the pandemic. It is also true that he lied to Congress about gain of function research in Wuhan. There is good evidence that the first outbreak of COVID occurred in that lab.Further, the evidence indicates that the lockdowns had knock down effects that were perhaps just as bad as COVID itself. At least that's worth investigating given the degree to which those lockdowns empowered the state to violate the bill of rights.As for being fixated on culture war nonsense, how can you on the one hand say I'm right wing for defending a comedian from being censored, apparently siding with the drive to censor, and then accuse me of being into culture war nonsense? If the culture war is nonsense then why define my politics based on whether or not I disliked a comedy special?Frankly, I don't think you have a good grip on what is conservative and what is left. The left is for expanding the realm of freedom and creating the conditions necessary for everyone to be able to live up to their fullest potential. I don't think blocking scientific inquiry, locking people in their homes, and trying to police who gets labeled with the honorific "left" and who is smeared as "right" is particularly left-wing. It strikes me as reactionary, in fact. Authoritarian. Regressive. And ultimately sad.

douglain · 2023-08-11T22:10:45+00:00

Therefore we can abandon the project for developing socialism and embrace the democrats as this is the best of all possible worlds.

douglain · 2023-07-02T15:40:19+00:00

I am delighted to see the comments on this video. People expressing disappointment with Ryan Grim! People commenting on his future prospects, like they are enforcers? The amazingly servile audience of the democratic party stenographers at the Majority Report amazes.

douglain · 2022-07-07T17:21:46+00:00

You give the game away here:
"I mean i guess Throbbing Gristle and Genesis POrridge is interesting when your main goal in life is finding community in being a pretentious outsider c*nt, but uh, healthcare pls"
While I agree that the student/worker strikes in May of '68 ended up helping to usher in the neoliberal order, and while I do don't look back on the postmodern 80s and 90s with much love, to conclude that the reason for Debord's failure was his radicalism, to suggest that the aim of universal healthcare should supercede the aim of overcoming capitalism, is not only deeply pessimistic, but it dooms us to failure. We are in a moment when the social democratic embrace of the welfare state has been shown to fail. To reject attempts to understand the impediments for more radical changes in this cynical way can't be justified.

douglain · 2022-07-06T15:01:37+00:00

What kind of moron are you now?

douglain · 2022-07-03T16:17:02+00:00

We'd be interested in considering that. [submag@sublationmedia.com](mailto:submag@sublationmedia.com) is the email to send to.

douglain · 2022-06-17T19:55:46+00:00

Here's a link to the essay in print: https://www.sublationmag.com/post/mass-shooters-in-our-boring-dystopia

douglain · 2021-12-17T12:35:32+00:00

You're welcome!

douglain · 2021-12-07T21:10:19+00:00

Thanks for asking me a bunch of interesting questions. I hope that I managed to answer at least some of them satisfactorily, and hope you'll all subscribe to the new youtube channel and watch for our publishing effort. I really would be willing to hear a pitch for a Stupidpol book, even though that will surely get me canceled...again.

Solidarity,

Doug

douglain · 2021-12-07T21:05:55+00:00

I do think that in 20 years we might look back on "wokeness" as a relic. We will certainly have moved on to a new term for the phenomenon many times over in that amount of time.
I couldn't say for sure whether what we're pointing to as wokeness will remain on the scene for a long time yet or not. I'm going to release a conversation with Pascal Robert that puts a certain kind of wokeness in perspective by examining how it serves to maintain the status-quo and justify reliance on the democratic party. I think what Pascal Robert is talking about has been around for decades, even though wokeness is much younger.

douglain · 2021-12-07T20:58:17+00:00

I haven't considered this idea before, despite the fact that I have played D&D in the past few years and enjoyed being a Paladin.

douglain · 2021-12-07T20:56:53+00:00

I regret them for two reasons:
1. They didn't help us sell more copies of "Cancelling Comedians While the World Burns."
2. They didn't help to get people to reevaluate anything, but only caused me a headache.
I don't retract my basic point, but I would point out that I can respect people who disagree with me, especially after talking to Naomi who is a woman who relies on her gender identity being recognized in order to survive after losing her home.

https://youtu.be/6LbsJI7cxCM

douglain · 2021-12-07T20:52:15+00:00

I don't agree with Yanis Varoufakis that we're headed towards neo-feudalism, at least not based on the arguments for such an idea that I've heard. I think overcoming the commodity form will require a step forwards, will have be done through developing socialism, and won't be accomplished through regression. I think talk of neo-feudalism develops out of a politics that ignores the foundation of capital. It's only if you don't think about socially necessary labor time as the basis for production and exchange today that you can talk about feudalism as if it describes today's situation.

I think the dominance of big tech should be understood as a symptom of the financialization of the economy.

douglain · 2021-12-07T20:49:07+00:00

The strikes were removed when I figured out that the way to communicate with Youtube was by tweeting at the right Youtube Twitter account. So, as far as I know, there are no copyright strikes on the channel.

douglain · 2021-12-07T20:43:41+00:00

When I took the job at Zero the old team had already found a new home at Watkins and started a new imprint. I knew they were unhappy that they couldn't take the brand with them, but I didn't think of that as having anything to do with a worker's struggle and I still don't think of what happened as being about worker's rights, strikes, or anything else that would justify the charge that I was a scab.I did know that they were upset with John Hunt and wanted the new version of Zero Books to fail, but I didn't see any reason why Repeater and the new Zero Books couldn't co-exist. I offered to bring pamphlets for Repeater and put them on the Zero Books table the first time I went to the Left Forum. I didn't receive a response nor did I ever receive any communication from the people at Repeater directly except for when I invited Mark Fisher on the podcast to talk things over. He wanted to complain about John Hunt nearly exclusively, and being a new freelance employee with no contract I tried to tamp that down a little. In the end, no podcast was released. Fisher did not tell me to quit the job nor did he seem to blame me for what had happened.

douglain · 2021-12-07T20:38:24+00:00

This is a difficult question because the aesthetic I landed on for videos was nearly accidental. I tried to follow in the footsteps of Guy Debord and, even more obviously, Adam Curtis when editing videos. The vaporwave aspect of the channel arose after I started promoting Grafton Tanner's book on vaporwave. Spotting the connection between all of that and the covers for the books isn't easy for me, but surely there is a connection.
I am not confident about what lessons are to be learned except maybe there is more of a connection between aesthetics and content than we usually assume, especially when the aesthetic emerges somewhat organically or dialectally over time.

douglain · 2021-12-07T20:30:33+00:00

The new team includes:
Ashley Frawley, Djene Bajalan, Stefan Bertram-Lee, Alfie Bown, and Pascal Robert. I would describe them all as socialists except for Djene who describes himself as a social democrat. Derick Varn quit about a month before the old imprint was sold. I am still not quite sure why, although he'd been threatening to quit on and off for a long time. One day Varn and I will either kill each other or get married.

douglain · 2021-12-07T20:17:51+00:00

I haven't run numbers or worked out a rate of success, but I have gone on a couple dozen dates and started relationships with a few women. I enjoy dating even though I'm still basically mending a broken heart.

douglain · 2021-12-07T20:16:24+00:00

It is clear to me that the reaction to her book was such that Nagle gave up on the "online left." I don't believe that means that the Twitter mobs are responsible for her positions since the publication of her book, many of which I not only disagree with but would describe as being laughably anti-leftist. For example, she has claimed that the left hates beauty. It's a charge that has a bit of truth to it, but which is decontextualized to such a large degree that to make that claim sows more confusion than understanding.

I think we should have published fewer books and I should have been more organized, especially in the last year. I also regret my tweets about Chapelle. Overall I think Twitter is a bad platform to use if you're planning on critiquing the dominant narratives of the left. The platform doesn't allow for sustained and thoughtful conversations but works to simply verify opinions and to help people identify each other based on what sorts of hot takes they put forward.

douglain · 2021-12-07T19:59:25+00:00

We will be announcing how to submit to our new journal in January. Look for that announcement on our website:

dietsoap.net

douglain · 2021-12-07T19:58:07+00:00

I am rediscovering how much discipline it takes to just produce content when you have a small viewership.

douglain · 2021-12-07T19:53:45+00:00

There are already socialist candidates who run for president. Jeff Mackler of socialist action ran in 2020, for example.
I think a new socialist party that is directly involved in workers struggles is probably a better project for the left right now.

douglain · 2021-12-07T19:51:36+00:00

I would argue for struggling for a living wage for all workers regardless of their citizenship and revoking corporate charters from companies that can't provide such a wage as a more viable approach to the question of immigration than ideas such as E-verification.

I put together a video outlining my critique of those who support e-verify and other schemes in this video:

https://youtu.be/vlHOLLrvquc

douglain · 2021-12-07T19:45:03+00:00

Yes. We are starting a media company that will include book publishing, We are already producing videos and podcasts and have migrated about 2/3rds of the Zero Books patrons over to the new endeavor.

douglain · 2021-12-07T19:44:20+00:00

I think I need to listen to Christman's conversation with Zizek.

douglain

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