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Originally Posted by Glice
I broadly agree with your other points but I entirely agree with this. I struggle to articulate it without defaulting to socialist, Marxist or Christian terms, but there's a very definite threat that society per se is continually negated by the chimera of the individual. Removing the individual from dialogue is near impossible now, which is a very modern (capitalist) invention. To me the individual is the person who doesn't accept responsibility, who'll say it's not him contributing to global warming or that one packet of rice isn't killing small brown people or will be sat on the internet wanking while Rome burns. But I can't really define my point except in negative terms (which is precisely the position of the individual - the unitary event dislocated or subtracted from the social fabric).
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I think the individual was the creation capitalist creative industries made up, and the reasons for this were largely due to a mixture of capitalist industrial interest and good old racial politics. because the modern individual is ALL ABOUT being their own hitler and not having to say sieg heil. the racial politics is just white western people trying to cast their russian or german enemies as culturally alien and hostile. remember the equation of the borg, sorry, communism with the erasure of individuality under some monochrome modernist socialist hell? in order to escape the nightmare that communism was failing and we were stuck with capitalism, its industries turned to the aggressive assertion of inner life and miniscule differences in individual preferences as some sort of holy freedom. its biopolitics but it's also about the personalization of what is effectively just inanimate matter in order for capital to expand into new areas.
these are all tactics capital has been using since the 60's to win. and it did see off those 2 threats. that there was some reason for this inherent to its character and its "way of life" is of course the kind of bs cultures are going to use to perpetuate themselves.
the modern individual is basically hitler, but he gets to choose how to be his own hitler and noone else can tell him what to do BECAUSE HE ENJOYS HIMSELF AND DOES WHAT HE WANTS FUCK YOU DAD. he says "I AM WHAT I AM!" instead of sieg heil. and his freedom consists in being able to design whatever unique swastika he wants! oh joy! have you not seen his facebook page?
people will slowly wake up to this because capitalism has been in a state since probably the late 90's wherein novelty is just not possible. it is pricing the majority of us into slums and out of existence. will there be a revolt? possibly, but what it can achieve i do not know. do i think it will be something much better than some soft left new blair? i highly doubt it but if it were possible i would be willing to fight for it.
Now I have a MASSIVE problem with what you say about the rice and global warming. THIS is the ideological trap. this is zizek 101 stuff. The idea that capitalism COULD work but it CAN'T because of our human nature. if only we were more nice. we must look for this moral progress from within! this is the lie. from this it follows "oh we're all just so greedy, it's all OUR fault as consumers, but you can't change human nature, how depressing..." not only does this let the corporations off the hook, it basically casts the system as benevolent BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY HUMAN NATURE AS INHERENT AND SEPARATE FROM THE SYSTEM AND NOT MANUFACTURED BY IT. boom. can i have my zero books deal now.