Chaos Marxism quotes Ivan Stang:
It’s like, yeah, well, for now we’ve learned all we can about the little grey men from outer space and so forth. For the time being UFOIogy does seem to be a dog chasing It’s own tall, and rife with buckets of self-delusion everywhere you look. Perhaps It might not be a bad Idea to maybe think about taking care of the spaceship that we’re on already, using something besides prayer. You know, It’s great for everybody to visualize world peace and pray and so forth, but when you talk about the hundredth monkey, you have to remember the hundredth Manson, or the hundredth Hitler. (laughter) All that other stuff.
And another bit here:
So it boils down to: try to squeeze out whatever tiny crumbs of psychic nourishment you can get from the system, hang out with others of like mind when you can possibly stand them, and send more money to the Church so that Stang doesn’t have to get a job and can keep amusing you. The SubGenius Must Have Slack” translates to “The Lumpen-Creative Must Break Free of Alienation”. The problem is of course that L?kacs was right, and the end of alienation only comes with the workers-council form of organisation – something that the typical “lone nut” SubGenius working on their art or their music or their writing in splendid if paranoid isolation just wouldn’t be able to grok.
I’m not sure that’s a fair assessment – and I have the feeling Stang might not be so unfamiliar with Marxism. Oh, and there’s actually an article on activism in the newest SubGenius book by my friend and fellow PDX Occulture conspirator, Crawford.
Oh well, fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke, right?
May 15, 2007 at 1:35 am
If Stang is familiar with Marxism, then it makes it significantly less cool that he’s reprising the theory of alienation under an assumed name. I prefer to think it’s a 100th Monkey, or perhaps a 100th Trotsky, phenomenon.
(If your friend is Rev Lemuel Atom, then tell them that that article was really kick-ass, if perhaps a little bit too *liberal* for my tastes 🙂
May 15, 2007 at 4:04 am
…and there?s actually an article on activism in the newest SubGenius book by my friend and fellow PDX Occulture conspirator, Crawford.
I finally got my hands on this sucker recently–got a page reference? I’m still picking my way through the book…
May 15, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Everything I’ve seen coming out of CM seems a little asinine. It’s like after Grant Morrison told them that the Situationists existed they went out and immersed themselves in the dreadful Freudo-Marxist antecedents. Their response to Stang seems a non-sequitor at best, but seems more like the typical Marxist tactic of shoe-horning everything into Marxism and picking nits as the Road to Revolution. I don’t know what they hope to accomplish by going after Stang but I love that (in typical Marxist fashion) the author hasn’t even bothered to finish the book before launching into his “dialectical materialist” response.
Marxism BTW is, in my vast experience both in the movement and outside, the most humorless secular religion this side of Objectivism. It is a dangerous, self-referrential SLAVE ideology based on one malcontent’s poor historical research. Adepts can sniff a Marxist out of a room in six seconds flat by their stiff, dogmatic memetic regurgitation of every half-baked middle-class theory to come down the academic pike since Schoepenhauer whinged intellectual.
May 15, 2007 at 6:06 pm
Actually Stang comments on this very article on alt.slack (if you dont like URL’s you can delete this, but I wanted you to see it)
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.slack/browse_thread/thread/cb4105b08a75f198/3e3c1128e563cc4b#3e3c1128e563cc4b
May 16, 2007 at 6:12 am
“I?m not sure that?s a fair assessment”
Well, if you’ve spent any time reading alt.slack, you’ve probably noticed the SubGenii don’t mind playing rough. I don’t think anybody’s delicate sensibilities have been offended here.
On the other hand, Doloras does personalize the whole thing a touch.
My favorite part of this exchange is that magicians and SubGs are lecturing a Marxist on being nebulously ideological as though there wasn’t enough froth to be had by all. Close second to Stang for playing the “she’s being self-serving” and the “nobody understands me” cards.
Anyway, an extensive reply at dehiscence.
May 17, 2007 at 12:17 am
Why do I get the feeling that just about everyone is missing the point about everything?
Now I’m feeling left out… who wants to take cheap-shots at me for being an atheist Democrat?
May 17, 2007 at 1:09 pm
“Why do I get the feeling that just about everyone is missing the point about everything?
“Now I?m feeling left out? who wants to take cheap-shots at me for being an atheist Democrat?”
I think your second question answers your first right there.
Ba-dump-bump!
May 17, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Hey, Klint- go ahead… turn on a horror flick, and some metal music, and maybe you’ll feel better.
Ba-dump-bump, twice!
May 17, 2007 at 2:39 pm