Љубодраг Дуци Симоновић био је гост у емисији “Питања и одговори” код Оливере Милетовић, 23.02.2013.
Питања и одговори – гост Љубодраг Дуци Симоновић – 23.02.2013.
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Питања и одговори: Љубодраг Симоновић – Последња револуција
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Гост најновије емисије “Питања и одговори” коју на ТВ Палма Плус води и уређује Оливера Милетовић био је Љубодраг Дуци Симоновић. Тематски емисија је била посвећена Дуцијевој најновијој књизи: “Последња револуција“.
Питања и одговори: Љубодраг Симоновић – Последња револуција – 13.02.2013.
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Љубодраг Симоновић: Последња револуција
У емисији је било речи о грађанској класи, малограђанштини, о младима, о медијима, НВО организацијама, о Европској Унији, фашизму, Америци и о свеопштој човековој перспективи у смислу куда иде овај свет и живот у њему под једносмерним шинама капитализма. А суштина је у томе да капитализам људима угрожава елементарну људску егзистенцију као такву, сам живот на Планети земљи и стога се последња револуција састоји у томе да се човек и човечанство у борби против свеуништавајућег капитализма, изборе за свој живот, животе својих породица и очувања нераскидивог животног простора у коме човек живи, природе као такве. Човек треба да се избори за нови хумани свет где ће људско биће остати и бити људско биће, хумано, друштвено, морално и саосећајно.
Више се нема куд, или ће човек на свакој тачки Планете уништити капитализам као поредак, или ће капитализам уништити и њега и себе.
Дуцијеву књигу можете наручивати директно од Дуција преко следећих његових контаката:
Телефон: 011/289 36 69
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Ljubodrag Simonović: Contemporary critique of capitalism
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Simonović Ljubodrag
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CONTEMPORARY CRITIQUE OF CAPITALISM
The critique of capitalism should be based on two methodological postulates. First: the nature of a certain social (historical) phenomenon is determined by the tendencies of its development – of what it is developing into. Second: the nature of a social (historical) phenomenon conditions the nature of its critique. The nature of capitalism, that is, the tendency of its development as a destructive system, conditions both the nature of the critique of capitalism and the political strategy for the fight against capitalism. This is not to suggest the creation of a uniform way of thinking, but a way of thinking that endeavors to ask questions of an existential and essential nature. Such a way of thinking represents a contraposition to the ruling ideology, manifested in the “Coca Cola culture” that tends to marginalize the essential in order to assign a spectacular dimension to the marginal.
A concrete critique of capitalism cannot be based solely upon essential humanism; it must also be based upon existential humanism. The ideals of the French Revolution – Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité – present a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for the future. The struggle to preserve life on the planet and increase the certainty of man’s survival as a cultural (social) and biological (natural) being represents a conditio sine qua non of the struggle for the future. Instead of the Marx’s notion of “alienation” (Entfremdung), the key notion in the critique of capitalism should be destruction. Marx’s revolutionary humanism opposes capitalism as a system of non-freedom, injustice, and non-reason, and advocates freedom, social justice, and a reasonable world, which means that it appears in the essential sphere. Existential humanism emerges in relation to capitalism as a destructive order that annihilates nature and man as a biological and human being – and places the struggle for the survival of the living world in the foreground, which means that it appears in the existential sphere. The affirmation of man as a creative and libertarian being is a response to the world where man is alienated from himself as a creative and libertarian being. The assertion that man is a life-creating being is a response to the world based upon the destruction of life: the struggle for freedom becomes the struggle for survival. The struggle for a reasonable world does not only represent an essential, but also an existential challenge. At the same time, Hegel’s (Marx’s) dialectic can be accepted only conditionally as the starting point for the development of a critique of capitalism, for its (historical) pyramid of freedom is founded upon existential certainty.
The “traditional” Marxist critique of capitalism, from the point of view of what-is-yet-to-be (Bloch’s noch-nicht-Sein), is of an abstract nature. The concrete nature of the capitalist positive also conditions the nature of the negative, which is a critical consciousness and a political practice based on it. Contemporary man cannot attain an appropriate historical self-consciousness starting from an absolutized and idealized anthropological model of man as a universal creative being of freedom, but only by starting from the existential challenges that capitalism, as a destructive system, poses to man. Man’s becoming a human being (what he, in his essence, is – a totalizing libertarian, creative and life-creating being) and the world’s becoming a human world is conditioned by capitalism’s becoming capitalism (that is, its turning into what it essentially is – a totalitarian destructive order). A concrete future cannot be grounded in what man desires to do based on his own authentic human needs, but only in what man must do if humankind is to survive. The essential level of the future is directly conditioned by existential challenges. The development of capitalism has further diminished the chances for the future to be the product of man’s free (visionary) creative practice (Bloch’s “openness“), which is in turn conditioned by consequences generated by capitalism as a destructive order. Objective possibilities for the creation of a new world and the possibility of man’s realization as a universal free creative being are conditioned by the developmental capacities of capitalism as a destructive order. This is the basis for a concrete dialectic of the future. A destroyed nature, a mutilated man, the accumulated destructive powers of capitalism that could momentarily destroy humankind – this also represents an objective situation that inevitably conditions the probability of the future and its planning. It is not man who assigns to himself tasks that, as Marx asserts, he can complete, it is capitalism that imposes a crucial task on man: to preserve life on the planet and to save humankind from destruction. To meet the challenge of the historical task imposed on man by capitalism means to face up to capitalism as an order that destroys life.
The capitalist destruction of nature and man as a biological and human being has not had a significant influence on the development of the left-wing critique of capitalism, the formation of the proletariat’s class-consciousness and socialist revolutions. An analysis of capitalism as a destructive order cannot be found in Marxist theorists of the 19th and 20th centuries. Engels’ view that capitalism creates the possibility for “the leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom” suggests a radical break with capitalism, but it overlooks the fact that humanity’s future is directly conditioned by the destructive consequences of capitalism. Bloch’s theory clearly shows the limitations of the Marxist critique of capitalism. It repeatedly associates utopia with “happiness”, “dignity”… Utopia appears essentially opposed to capitalism. When Bloch writes about capitalistically produced “objective possibilities” for the creation of a new world, he has in mind the development of productive forces, but he does not consider the consequences of these productive forces on the environment and man or the potential threats to the survival of man and the living world posed by capitalist technique. His theory is also based on existential apriorism: capitalism is the order of non-freedom, not the order of destruction. Even in Lukacs (History and Class Consciousness), workers’ class-consciousness does not include the consciousness of capitalism as a destructive order, so, consequently, workers’ self-consciousness does not involve the consciousness of the need to fight for the survival of nature and humanity. Adorno’s Negative Dialectics takes up the existing (capitalist) world as a world of non-freedom and injustice and not as a world of destruction. This conditions the nature of the “negative”, meaning a critical and changing relation to the existing world, as well as the idea of the future. Even in his later works (published in the West in 1970, and in Serbia in 1978, under the title The Criteria of Time), Marcuse does not write about the destructive nature of capitalism; about the consciousness of the destructive nature of capitalism as an integral part of contemporary revolutionary consciousness; about a possible integration of humanity based on the efforts to stop the destruction of global life… Instead of the destruction of nature, what is emphasized is its “impoverishment” and the need for its cultivation through a cultivation of senses. The main motives for fighting against capitalism are liberation from oppression, women’s emancipation, the establishment of creative work… A strategic target in the fight against capitalism is discerned primarily in its oppressive and not its ecocidal character. The revolutionary and post-revolutionary thought in the USSR is dominated by the principle of absolutized productivity (“Stakhanovism”), whereas possible global destruction is never discussed. The Yugoslav Praxis philosophy is also not concerned with the development of capitalism as a destructive order, and its relation to capitalism is primarily founded on Marx’s critique and the concept of “alienation”. Its vision of the future, based on the idea that man is a universal creative being of freedom, has an abstract character since it does not consider capitalism as a totalitarian destructive order. Praxis philosophy is dominated by Hegel’s dialectics, which involves existential certainty and an open future. The capitalist destruction of nature is not of primary importance, with emphasis being put on the finite amount of natural resources. The questions asked are essential and not existential. Kangrga’s “speculation”, which amounts to searching for the meaning of life regardless of the trends in the development of capitalism as a totalitarian order of destruction and the lethal consequences of capitalism is a typical example of the abstract relationship of Praxis philosophy to the future. It is no accident that its adherents are not concerned with a critique of sport, which embodies the underlying principles of capitalism and, as such, is an industry of death. At the political level, the Praxis critique is primarily aimed not at capitalism, but at Stalinism and the USSR. This is the main reason why the West held its doors wide open to the Praxis philosophers. Considering that the development of capitalism as a totalitarian destructive order remained outside the reach of their critique, it can be said that Praxis philosophy remained historically marginalized.
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Ljubodrag Simonović:The integration of people into capitalism
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Ljubodrag Simonović
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THE INTEGRATION OF PEOPLE INTO CAPITALISM
Capitalism, as a totalitarian order of destruction, created appropriate means and methods to destroy critical and visionary consciousness and such other forms of mediation between man and world as prevent man from abolishing capitalism and creating a new world. In the past, people’s consciousness was controlled by the clergy. Today, it is controlled by TV presenters and other capitalist manipulators, united in show-business, who use the results of modern science and technology, and the myths based on them, in conjunction with an instrumentalized mysticism that produces a quasi-religious consciousness. Instead of being directed towards disclosing the destructive processes that call man’s survival on the planet into question or towards creating a vision of the new world, the mind is directed towards the production of spectacular phantasms that destroy man’s critical mind and visionary consciousness. Hence the popularity of various “Coca-Cola” mystifiers and intellectual con artists with their stories about mysterious “world rulers”, “extra-terrestrials”, “mystical forces”, “parallel worlds”… The art of mystification replaces historical analyses, while mysticism replaces visionary imagination. Modern, technocratically based “fairy-tales” are one of the ways by which capitalism degenerates the mind and creates a mass idiocy. With the existing world being less and less human and with man being more and more lonely and, thus, less capable of changing his life, the need to retreat into an illusory world is increasing. Illusions are the most demanded commodity on the “consumer society” market, resulting in a hyper-production of illusory worlds. The production of illusions has become one of the most important ways by which capitalists deal with humanistic visionary consciousness and the efforts of the oppressed to organize and fight against capitalism. Manipulation no longer resides in the ideological, but in the psychological sphere. The story about a “bright future” and the “American dream” is gone. To flee from that ever darker reality has become the obsession of the average (petty) bourgeois in the “democratic world”.
The destruction of the mind and the historical self-consciousness of the oppressed is a link between the contemporary entertainment industry and Nazi propaganda machinery. Here are Adolf Hitler’s instructions to the Nazi leaders (1942) intended to “help” them establish efficient domination over the “conquered peoples”: “Hence we should not allow the appearance of teachers who might suddenly ask for compulsory education for the conquered nations. The knowledge of the Russians, Ukrainians, the Kyrgyz people and others, of reading and writing would only do us harm. It would enable those with bright intelligence to acquire certain knowledge about history and thus develop political ideas, which could somehow be directed against us. – It is much better to set up a radio in each village, in order to inform people and offer them some entertainment, than to enable them to acquire their own political, scientific and other forms of erudition. Also, rather than telling the conquered peoples their history on the radio shows, we should play music, the more the better. Because popular music improves work efficiency. And, if people insist on dancing, according to our information and systematic approach, this we could welcome.” (Cursive Lj.S.) Hitler’s instructions on how to manipulate the consciousness of “lower races” are, actually, the basis of the contemporary capitalist strategy for establishing domination over the working class in the most developed capitalist countries and over the peoples on the “margins of capitalism”, who are doomed to be exterminated by the West.
Giving a spectacular dimension to the marginal – on which both the advertising industry and the entire ideological sphere of capitalism are based – is one of the most important ways for destroying the quality criteria. As a result, people cannot realize the true nature of the ruling order and, at the same time, see the actual possibilities for the creation of a new world. Without the possibility of recognizing quality, it is not possible to acquire a true visionary consciousness. When everything becomes “fantastic”, “ingenious”, “incredible” – then the true values sink into the mud of the trivial. The public “dispute” over sports events is a typical example of marginalizing the important, of people’s depoliticization, of the creation of false sociability and mass idiocy. The ruling media are broadcasting increasingly aggressive and primitive entertainment programs in order to destroy people’s interest in truth and separate their mind from the real world created by capitalism: the destruction of nature, mass deaths from lack of food, water, and from diseases, the criminalization of society, the creation of a police state, increased chances of using nuclear weapons, monstrous technical projects for causing earthquakes and fatal climate changes, mass killings of children to “obtain” their organs, the disposal of nuclear waste in the oceans, nuclear plant accidents, white plague, increased illiteracy, destruction of national cultures and historical self-consciousness … In the “curved mirrors” of capitalist ideology and in the lights of spectacular advertisements of “consumer society”, the important things become distorted and marginalized, while the marginal acquires a fatal and spectacular dimension. Advertising slogans, such as the “Coca-Cola“ slogan: “Can’t beat the Real Thing!”, which are constantly broadcast by TV and radio stations, impair man’s ability to discern and comprehend what is really important. Contemporary spectacles do not involve the creation of classical illusions through mental manipulation, which means the “seduction” of man by way of his prejudices, fears and desires, but on the creation of spectacular illusions, devoid of all content, which comes down to aggressive stimulation of senses by technical means. Instead of a melody, what we hear is a deafening noise; instead of a visual effect, we have a dazzling light… There is no emotion, no imagination, no reason… In addition to being marked by escapism, the creation of illusions serves to impair the senses and destroy the need and possibility for meditating about a humane world. The illusion is not only a spectacular manifestation of a destructive capitalist nothingness. It is also a technical means for destroying humanity.
Life, itself, degenerated by capitalism, has become the means for drawing people into the values and existential orbit of capitalism. The “consumer society” is directly reflected in the political sphere. For Marx, workers’ disposable time is the result of their struggle against capitalist exploitation, which gave them a chance to develop class-consciousness and start an organized political struggle. In the “consumer society”, non-work time has become consumer-time, which pulls workers into the spiritual and existential orbit of capitalism. Through the “consumer society”, capitalists created a new market, enabled further development of capitalism, and (temporarily) purchased “social peace”. At the same time, they drove people into debt-slavery and thus integrate them into the ruling order. Capitalism has degenerated the workers’ class consciousness by creating a consumer mentality. The need for freedom has turned into the need to purchase and destroy. Workers have become “consumers”, who contribute, through their working and consuming, to the development of capitalism. Not only do they make “their own chains” (Marx), they also destroy life and cause their own perishing as biological and human beings. At the same time, the increasingly deep existential crisis turned proletarian youth in the most developed capitalist countries into mercenary soldiers, the tool of the most powerful capitalist concerns with which to deal with “rebellious” peoples and establish the (American) “new world order”.
As far as the “social state” is concerned, the official ideology claims that it is the result of a “compromise” between the bourgeoisie and the working class. Indeed, the “social state” is one of the established forms of bourgeois class domination over the workers. Rather than being founded on humanism, it is the political answer from the bourgeoisie to the ever deepening crisis of capitalism and the changing (revolutionary) potential of the workers movement in the most developed capitalist countries of the West. Its purpose is to establish a “bearable exploitation” of workers by capitalists, which means to reduce their existential threat and thus prevent the workers’ class struggle and enable a stable development of capitalism. Essentially, the “social state” is a legal form of plundering the workers, who, through the taxation system imposed by the capitalist state, finance their own “social contributions”, which should enable them to survive the capitalistically created existential crisis without any complaints. At the same time, the “social state” serves to destroy workers’ class consciousness and pull them, by instilling a consumer mentality, toward the value horizon of the “middle class”, as one of the pillars of capitalism. Ultimately, the “social state” enables the survival of capitalism and consequently contributes to the destruction of life on the planet.
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