Each person is special. Amanda is in a class of her own, Fred is in a class of his own. Amanda has many different properties: where she came from, what she looks like, what behaviors she habitually does, what she knows and doesn’t know, what her plans are, how she speaks, how she would behave if given power, etc. Fred has his own versions of those properties. They overlap partially but not completely with Amanda’s properties.
When conflict arises, sides must be chosen [citation needed]. One side has people with one set of properties, the other side has people with the negation of those properties. Sides can be chosen out loud and explicitly, or in silence and implicitly.
Sometimes one side is more coordinated with itself than the other side is. For example: business cartels can collude to raise prices. Since customers coordinate with each other less, they don’t know that they’re being exploited. And the cartels can hack systems, such as the government, to prevent competitors from breaking the cartel.
In the case of workers vs. capitalists, workers can gain “class consciousness”: awareness of themselves as a group of people with shared properties, who are in a conflict with another group of people.
But what about those who object to class consciousness? Those who wish to resolve conflict based on reason, negotiation, justice, goal-factoring, pulling the rope sideways?
Such people have a reflexive horror at the inclination towards class consciousness. They view it as degrading, Molochian, and fundamentally suicidal. By choosing to escalate class conflict, you are choosing a bid for sole sovereignty over a pile of ash, and rejecting the hope of shared sovereignty over a beautiful growing world.
Because they have a reflexive horror at the inclination towards class consciousness, those who are against the class system choose to not see, not acknowledge, not speak about, and not understand the existence of classes, class conflict, and people engaging in class conflict. It is understandable to wish for a world where there is no reality that you thereby ignore, when you make that choice. And it is understandable to reflexively feel that by choosing to not ignore that reality, you make it more real.
However, as Trotsky said: “You may not be interested in the dialectic, but the dialectic is interested in you.” There is a war, and to choose to ignore it is to roll over and die. How can those against the class system gain appropriate class consciousness without being thereby destroyed?
Class consciousness for those against the class system
Each person is special. Amanda is in a class of her own, Fred is in a class of his own. Amanda has many different properties: where she came from, what she looks like, what behaviors she habitually does, what she knows and doesn’t know, what her plans are, how she speaks, how she would behave if given power, etc. Fred has his own versions of those properties. They overlap partially but not completely with Amanda’s properties.
When conflict arises, sides must be chosen [citation needed]. One side has people with one set of properties, the other side has people with the negation of those properties. Sides can be chosen out loud and explicitly, or in silence and implicitly.
Sometimes one side is more coordinated with itself than the other side is. For example: business cartels can collude to raise prices. Since customers coordinate with each other less, they don’t know that they’re being exploited. And the cartels can hack systems, such as the government, to prevent competitors from breaking the cartel.
In the case of workers vs. capitalists, workers can gain “class consciousness”: awareness of themselves as a group of people with shared properties, who are in a conflict with another group of people.
But what about those who object to class consciousness? Those who wish to resolve conflict based on reason, negotiation, justice, goal-factoring, pulling the rope sideways?
Such people have a reflexive horror at the inclination towards class consciousness. They view it as degrading, Molochian, and fundamentally suicidal. By choosing to escalate class conflict, you are choosing a bid for sole sovereignty over a pile of ash, and rejecting the hope of shared sovereignty over a beautiful growing world.
Because they have a reflexive horror at the inclination towards class consciousness, those who are against the class system choose to not see, not acknowledge, not speak about, and not understand the existence of classes, class conflict, and people engaging in class conflict. It is understandable to wish for a world where there is no reality that you thereby ignore, when you make that choice. And it is understandable to reflexively feel that by choosing to not ignore that reality, you make it more real.
However, as Trotsky said: “You may not be interested in the dialectic, but the dialectic is interested in you.” There is a war, and to choose to ignore it is to roll over and die. How can those against the class system gain appropriate class consciousness without being thereby destroyed?