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Theses on Queer Materialism

1     Identity is not determined by vague philosophical speculation, but rather, it is determined by the practice of everyday life. 2     Queer materialism understands that identity is not something arbitrary, but rather, it is a historically conditioned state of alienation from the difference of the self. The self yearns to be free, to overflow out of the bounds of identity.  3 Identity is the realization of reification of the level of the self. In a society where commodity relations are the dominant relations, our relation to ourselves and others can only be regulated by static identities. 4     The end goal of queer materialism is the abolition of all static identity, of all social class. In other words, the end goal of queer materialism is communism. 5     The basis of queer materialism is queer negativity, that is, the negation of all former social structures and modes of being. It is upon this negation that new ways of life will be built. 6     There is no such thing as universal
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On Cultural Revolution

       Lenin writes very little about the cultural revolution. He says, in On Cooperation, that “ Strictly speaking, there is “only” one thing we have left to do and that is to make our people so “enlightened” that they understand all the advantages of everybody participating in the work of the cooperatives, and organize participation. “only” the fact. There are now no other devices needed to advance to socialism. But to achieve this “only", there must be a veritable revolution—the entire people must go through a period of cultural development. ” For Lenin, the cultural revolution is an event which succeeds the social and political revolution, an event that raises the consciousness of the people, that “enlightens” them. It is, for him, a necessary step in the growth and development of socialism. He says that “ it will take a whole historical epoch to get the entire population into the work of the cooperatives through NEP. At best we can achieve this in one or two decades. Nevert
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Commentary on The Sect Of The Idiot

Thomas Ligotti’s The Sect of the Idiot begins with a man who arrives in a strange town, with “infinite stillness on foggy mornings, miracles of silence on indolent afternoons, and the strangely flickering tableau of never ending nights.” (201) However, his peaceful solitude is interrupted by the visit of a strange man knocking on the door, who seemingly disappeared as fast as he appeared. Later that same night, he is haunted by a strange dream, in which he, in a disembodied state, observes a strange ritual of communication in which strange hooded figures stand around an altar, and speak in cryptic clicking noises. Throughout the course of the dream, there appeared from the robes “delicate appendages that appeared to be withered, wilted claws bearing numerous talons that tapered off into drooping tentacles… all of these stingy digits seemed to be working together with lively and unceasing agitation.” (204). Even after waking up, the narrator recalls that “it seemed that I had carried b
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Freedom and Labor in the Era of Imperialism

American Values and the Communist Movement The American War for Independence was a war that shook the world to its very core. All over the world, from Haiti to France, oppressed peoples took up the banner of liberte, egalite, fraternite! They fought and died for this motto, and their blood stains the foundations of the very society we live in today. But, looking around, it becomes obvious that their cries for freedom and equality went unmet. Racial and gender based oppression run rampant. Alienation under capitalism has intensified. The promises of religion have revealed themselves to be fraudulent, and the American government has all but abandoned its people. Salvation is not to be found in floating abstractions such as liberte, egalite, fraternite, but rather, in the material, concrete struggle for existence. It is to be found in the labor movement. Solace must not be found in the hope that one day the world may be better. It must be found in the active struggle to transform it. In o
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Notes on Male/Heterosexual Power

                                                                                                    1      In the present day, heterosexual power hides itself as power. Rather than presenting itself as the dominant power, it presents itself as the natural and biological norm by which all humans are defined by default. It is assumed that gender is equivalent to sex. It is assumed heterosexuality is the norm. It is assumed, whether it is said or not, that men take the active role and women take the passive role, that men are dominant and women are dominated. However, it wasn’t always this way. For a very long time, a harsh struggle had to be waged against all forms of deviant sexuality - whether it be homosexuality, women’s sexuality, or genderqueer sexuality. Speaking of the Victorian era, Foucualt writes in The History of Sexuality that “sexuality was carefully confined ; it moved into the home. The conjugal family took custody of it and absorbed it into the serious function of reprod
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Theses on Queerness and the Baedlings

Part One 1 All queer philosophy has hitherto sought to maintain queerness as it currently exists. What we must do is destroy it. 2 Queerness plays a historical role in the transition out of this gendered, binary society. As we conceive of it queerness is definitely a modern invention. Homosexuality and trans sexuality have existed for a long time, but queerness as we conceive of it is a modern idea. It emerges at a stage in capitalism when capitalism begins to break down the very idea of what the self means via commodification and reification. As relations between people are covered up by relations between things, the concept of the individual begins to break down, and new, non commodified ways of viewing the self emerge.  3 First, what do the Baedlings get right? They are correct that we are “not interested in a social project of of queerness, in queer contributions to society, in carving out our own ghettos within capitalist life.” They are correct, in general, when they say that soc
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Reflections On Marx’s Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right

Marx outlines in his introduction to The critique of Hegel’s philosophy of right a basic conception of historical materialism. One of the ideas he posits is that in order to keep progressing further, we must constantly beat back the tide of reaction that seeks to reinstate the old world, and that no matter how far we go there will always be remnants of the old world in the new. What we currently see is the remnants of patriarchy fighting desperately to remain relevant. Like, political and economic patriarchy has been effectively abolished. Women are able to participate in the economic and political sphere. All that remains is social patriarchy. And it’s fighting desperately to stay alive. However, despite economic and political patriarchy having been pretty much done away with, the oppression of women remains. Here we can see a contradiction that can be analyzed dialectically; the contradiction between what is (the reality of the oppression of women in everyday life) and what appears t
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The Eternal Return of Capital

  1 The Eternal Return is localized, materialized, brought to life in the everyday workings of the capitalist death machine. Nietzsche’s demon brought to life as a Landian hyperstition that appears out of the shadow of the future; it looks down on you, smiling, for it has done this all before. Its voice booms; “This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigh and every thing unutterable small or great in your life will have to return to you -”  It stops. It Laughs. It knows. It knows that you know. And it knows that you will do nothing to stop it (The Gay Science, 125). 2 Unlike the eternal return of Nietzche, which is more of an ethical thought experiment than anything else, a thought experiment meant to help guide the individual towards the path in life that best suits them. However, the eternal return of capitalism is quite d
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