RR XING

Dear diary,

I don't know what I am; I don't know what I'm doing; I don't know where I'm going. That's the truest thing I can say about myself – I repeat it many times a day, when I pause to consider my place in this reality.

I am not a spokesperson for any group or movement. If I have any message, it's only a note-to-self: Get comfortable with death, cuz you're definitely gonna die someday.

And I hope I don't have to add: Get comfortable with pain. Cuz I only like pain when it's so manageable that it can be called a "difficult pleasure"; but I think this present world allows too much pain: it's vulgar. (Who created this vulgar dimension, anyway? I bet it was God.)

Being self-centered, egoistic, arrogant and conceited, I think about my position all the time: my earthly position; where I rank among the beings on this planet. Why am I an human rather than a lizard? Or perhaps I AM a lizard.

Nonetheless I claim that I'm human. At least, that's the box that I check when they ask for my "type", on the divinity census. Cuz I look vaguely human; and looks are everything, here in Hollywood. You can have the soul of a reptile, but as long as you feel anthropic, the camera will love you: you'll get the best roles.

So I hatch from my soft egg to find myself a man among men. And what is life all about? Problems, apparently. Everything's always wrong, everything's a struggle. We men form groups, because there's strength in numbers; and we nominate leaders to guide us into battle with rivals. Foreign groups; sibling nations... the country of Germany; the country of Russia...

What is my own country called again? O yes, now I remember: the United States – smack near the top of the Americas. OK, so what's the deal with this country? What are its traits; what are its dreams & goals?

Talking about the U.S. from within, as one who was born on U.S. soil, is like talking about Christ or God: these titles mean something different to every individual you meet; you almost can't use these terms without offending someone and having to fight a duel. So if you're like me—a coward—you mostly go thru life avoiding speech; for anything that you say can and will be used against you in the court of public opinion.

So just like in my earlier entry where I asked each passerby at the Mega Mall how they themselves would define the character of Jesus, I want to do a survey where I ask all United Statesians what they think are the defining traits of this nation.

I'll start with my mom, since she's the only person I know. Dear mom, speaking as a U.S. citizen, what does your country mean to you?

Mom answers: The United States is a Christian nation, created on Christian principles. It is a Capitalist nation, as opposed to Socialist or Communist. The U.S.A. is superior to all other nations, because the nations of the past made mistakes that caused them to descend into evil and eventually fail, whereas the U.S. has avoided the pitfalls of imperialism: it is a place where all hardworking people are fairly rewarded. Our army is good; other armies are bad.

I wish I could be like my mom. I wish I could believe all these nice things about our great nation.

The best I can do is change my mind, so that my negative views might become less negative, when I learn that there's a convincing alternative stance. Here, let's gawk at my dilemma:

I was raised to think of the U.S. as Christian & Capitalist, therefore I decided to become an Atheist Communist. Now I conclude that I was wrong about this; for, lo: just because mom's version of Christianity is grade-A baloney doesn't mean that Atheism is the answer (at least not necessarily); and just because mom's beloved Capitalism is a worldwide disaster does not mean we all must bow to Karl Marx. Human action need not be a pendulum: we need not swing ONLY this way, or ONLY that way, forever. We can break the arms off the clock and try something unprecedented.

I'm against the past, anyhow. But as soon as some ancient emperor from far, far away time-travels to my moment and tries to erase all our historical records, I want the past back. Even if the past is ugly, at least it gives us a point from which to advance. Of course, the problem is that suckers prefer to retreat. That's why I took my anti-past stance, in the beginning.

Buried lede
(the meat of the entry)

My design upon the reader, in writing all the above, was simply to get to the point where I can tell you about this new book I've been reading. It's called Against Bosses, Against Oligarchies. It's basically a collection of interviews with Richard Rorty. This is the first time I've sought out anything by or about Mr. Rorty, and I'm already impressed. A mere two days into reading his off-the-cuff remarks (in conversation with Derek Nystrom & Kent Puckett), I'm persuaded to stop identifying with Socialism or Communism. Here I'll quote the few passages that convinced me to change:

The argument I wanted to make in my book [Achieving Our Country] was that the Vietnam War, Watergate, and the loss of public confidence in the presidency and the government all conspired to move the student radicals into non-majoritarian politics. In other words, the Marxist claim that the system isn't reformable came together with the widespread post-Watergate feeling that the American government is hopelessly corrupt. This made it very difficult for leftists to think of themselves as American patriots, hoping to achieve their country. But unless the left wraps itself in the flag, it hasn't got a chance of practicing a majoritarian politics. Before the '60s wrapping yourself in the flag when you did leftist politics was as natural as breathing...

Thus, let us re-embrace flag-hugging. (That sounded sarcastic, but I am serious on behalf of the downtrodden.) – Now I'll skip ahead a little in the text. Also, since I want to quote a couple exchanges, now I'll add initials to distinguish the speakers (the co-editors label themselves as "Q"):

Q: Another of the fairly controversial arguments of the [aforementioned] book is your suggestion that the left drop Marxism and the vocabulary of Marxism. The first question I have is, what about "socialism"? Is that a term you want to get away from as well?

RR: Irving Howe asked, years ago, whether if we dropped that term it make any difference to the policies we advocated. Let's not worry too much, he said, about whether we call ourselves socialists. I agree with Howe that socialism was the name chosen by the most important leftist movements of the last 150 years. But now the term has become radically ambiguous [...] If you don't want to call it socialism, don't call it socialism. Don't get hung up on whether it's socialism or not.

Q: One of my concerns is that I don't know how we can drop Marxism without dropping a lot of writing that we would want to hold onto, especially certain kinds of dissident Marxisms that have been really useful in trying to think of how we might build something like a socialist or a social democratic movement. [...For instance:] There'd be a weird kind of repression involved if we just said, let's talk about Gramsci without ever mentioning the fact that he was a Marxist.

RR: Liberal protestants can still quote fanatics like Luther with a perfectly good conscience. I don't see why social democrats can't quote Gramsci, or for that matter Marx, with a perfectly good conscience. But...

Now here's a point that I'd like to triple-underline; Rorty concludes:

...it seems to me the kind of leftist who says we must never desert Marx cares more about his own authenticity than about what might be done. Loyalty to Marx has become a fetish.

That seems right to me. And I realize, when I review my memories of recent family events, like holidays and festivals that ended up in blowout arguments and knock-down bloody fistfights, that I am guilty of harping on communism (Marxian everything) and democratic socialism simply to peacock my daredevil intellect. (For "simply" read "stupidly".) So this dressing-down, by 1998 Rorty of 2019 Bryan, was well-needed and much-appreciated; for I care about WINNING not posing. Yet I define a win (this morn) as: transparent government; pure mob rule; all basic needs met.

• By "transparent" I mean the opposite of private & secret.
• By "pure", I mean our mob rule should be based on a lottery system.
• & it goes without saying that we should frequently update our official definition of "basic needs" so that it swells evermore luxuriouser.

I'll copy just one more exchange that meant a lot to me, and then I'll stop this entry and go eat breakfast (I smell roasted duck).

Q: What do you say to people who would argue that what Rorty is asking us to do is to repress a Marxist tradition.

RR: How about not repressing it, but taking it fairly lightly? You can argue that if it had not been for Marx, Engels and their friends, we wouldn't have gotten the welfare state. Bismarck wouldn't have been so scared, Lloyd George wouldn't have been so scared, and so on. You can argue analogously that had it not been for Luther and Calvin we would still be buying indulgences. Both claims are probably true, but do you really want to bother about whether you're maintaining a Lutheran or a Calvinist tradition?

Q: So you see it as a ladder we have climbed so that it may be discarded afterwards?

RR: It's a ladder that is covered with filth because of the marks of the governments that have called themselves Marxists. You have two reasons for forgetting it. First, it's become a distraction. Second, it's acquired a bad name.

Q: Yet on the other hand [...] I think of E.P. Thompson, who quit the Communist Party in 1956 when that made sense, but remained a Marxist—and that was a way for him to maintain his political dignity. I wonder what you'd say to people for whom Marxism is that language: the language of dignity and the politically humane. Is it worth maintaining it so as to be able to narrate your past, and thus to think effectively about the future?

RR: Perhaps it's important for Thompson's generation to hang on to Marx. I hope that the next generation doesn't have to. I don't see why this has to be passed along to our children.

Amen to that. And now I can't resist repeating this quip that Harold Bloom makes at the end of The Western Canon:

I am your true Marxist critic, following Groucho rather than Karl, and take as my motto Groucho’s grand admonition, “Whatever it is, I’m against it!”