Alan Watts, beatnik-style enlightenment and liberation today

On FaceBook a video by Alan Watts ("What If Money Was No Object?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=siu6JYqOZ0g ) was recommended. This was the second time I'd seen this happen in a few weeks, so I wrote something caustic about it. This prompted a defence or two, and the following sensible question:

So what do the politicoes have to offer, Choppa? True, it is an illusion fostered by people who have found exactly what they want to do in life that 'you can do anything if you really want to' - an illusion which provides a very convenient explanation for any kind of social deprivation. But the central message of the importance of disregarding society's expectations if we are to get off this pathway to hell on earth - that still rings as true now as when I first heard Watts and others say it. I'm still very glad I got off the treadmill.

Since this illustrated the liberating effect of positions like Watts's back in the 60s, as far as rejecting the demands of established oppressive imperialist bourgeois values and imperatives is concerned, I made the following comment:

The freer you are, the better the choices you make. Feeling trapped is a good start - without it you won't want to be free or care about freedom. Back after ww2 a lot of us kids in the imperialist West felt very trapped and looked for ways out. This became the youth revolution. It started off quite some distance from the search for freedom the working class had been engaged in since the early nineteenth century. In the fifties and early sixties the individual aspects were paramount and the main thing was shaking off the leaden blanket of repression and hypocrisy in relation to social hierarchy and sex - a lot of it was cultural, music, books, poetry. The military religious oppression was combated with pacifism and non-Christian beliefs. Black priests were reviled, unquestioned authority was rejected. The easy solutions were the first big ones -  playful celebrations of individual self-expression. Peace and Love, flower power. Buddhism and the East.

In 1968 the two great lines - negative (reactive) youth revolt and positive (demanding a clear alternative) class revolt converged in the explosions of the Tet offensive in Vietnam and the May rebellions in Europe. Tet bloodied the nose of the US imperialist government, and May 68 severely shook European governments, both imperialist and stalinist.

The explosion was too formless to lead to much constructive change - imperialists and stalinists alike regrouped and a period of immense reactionary pressure began. The 1970s were full of conflicts during the regrouping and working out of the forces unleashed - the US was ejected from Vietnam, the Iranian revolution spat out the imperialist lickspittle Shah, Nicaragua arose against the US, but at the same time ABBA glam and disco sidelined rocknroll, the petty-bourgeois individualist rebels found their own little utopias or succumbed, and after a bumpy ride (winters of discontent, Nixon's impeachment) Thatcher and Reagan came to power and initiated the era of neo-liberal brutality whose fanfare was the Pinoshit coup against Allende's braindead utopian reformism in Chile in 1973.

Since then both the workers movement and the cultural rebellion have been burgeoning but formless - too powerful and too free to stuff back in the bottle, but too dispersed and disorganized (as well as too caged and reined in by false leadership) to create a strong explicit social alternative able to inspire the world.

We're still in a situation of stalemate in a lot of ways. In Lenin's words: "for a revolution to take place it is not enough for the exploited and oppressed masses to realise the impossibility of living in the old way, and demand changes; for a revolution to take place it is essential that the exploiters should not be able to live and rule in the old way. It is only when the "lower classes" do not want to live in the old way and the "upper classes" cannot carry on in the old way that the revolution can triumph." The unstable equilibrium between the unwillingness of the oppressed to continue being oppressed, and the capacity of the oppressors to continue oppressing them, is becoming more and more unstable. There is less and less equilibrium.

There is no symmetry between the efforts of the oppressors and the efforts of the oppressed, though. The "upper classes" are organized and very focused in their repression. Wikileaks reveals the truth about their activities and they deploy thousands of functionaries and millions of dollars to smash Wikileaks as an organization and break its operations, with total disregard for laws and rights enshrined in their own constitutions and legislation. For instance. The "lower classes" are disorganized, split into a thousand different tendencies and focused on a thousand different issues in a thousand different ways.

However, the incapacity of the oppressors is more and more obvious, and the focus of the oppressed is slowly improving, as we have recently seen in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. The rage at being trapped is overcoming the fear of the whip. Sufficient organization is present to create an alternative that can run things when the immediate target of the rebellion is brought down. The incoherence of the process makes it a bit like peeling an onion - one layer of oppression is removed to reveal a new, softer one beneath it.

Some constants can be seen between the rebellion of the postwar period and now - the longing for peace, freedom of expression and freedom from sexual and emotional slavery, but more and more politically and economically oriented, and less and less "timeless", ivory tower, and individually isolated. As long as the ruling classes are organized politically and economically the masses of young and working people longing for freedom will get nowhere without stronger organization based on their own economic and social interests. And people like Alan Watts offer nothing in this respect. And that benefits the ruling class, not us.

Teenagers and old literature: The Princess of Cleves

YL posted this on FaceBook:

«La Princesse de Clèves, premier roman moderne de la littérature française, est le personnage central du film. Manel, Aurore, Mona, Abou et les autres lui prêtent leurs voix, leurs visages. Ils sont élèves du Lycée Diderot de Marseille, un établissement difficile des quartiers nord de la ville, et leur professeur a décidé de leur faire étudier ce roman. Jeunes Français pour la plupart d'origine étrangère, ils sont souvent stigmatisés, caricaturés. Aujourd'hui, certains s'interrogent sur l'opportunité de leur faire découvrir les grands textes de la littérature française. Quelle en serait l'utilité sur le marché du travail qui les attend? Quel intérêt pour les jeunes que ces vieilles élucubrations du XVIIe siècle? Ensemble ils s'emparent du roman, de ses représentations, des questions qu'il pose. Objet transitionnel. C'est à leur univers que ce roman du grand siècle nous donne accès»

Translation:

The Princess of Cleves, the first modern novel in French literature, is the central character of the film. Manel, Dawn, Mona Abou and the others lend it their voices, their faces. They are students at the Lycée Diderot, a tough upper secondary school in the northern suburbs of Marseille, and their teacher decided to get them to study this novel. They are young French people, mostly of foreign origin, and are often stigmatized and caricatured. Today, some are questioning the use of being introduced to the great works of French literature. What would be the point in the job market facing them after school? What interest can young people have in these seventeenth century ramblings? Together the students took possession of the novel, the reflections it provides, and its questions. It's a transference object. The students' world is opened up to us by this novel from France's Great Century.

Nous, princesses de Clèves

www.cinemovies.fr

Réalisé par Régis Sauder Durée : 1 h 9 Date de sortie : 30 mars 2011 (FR) Distributeur : Shellac Genre : Documentaire Pays d'origine : France

I commented:

Good literature gives us access to other minds that see, act, think and feel in ways we can empathize with. Takes us behind the barbed-wire fences and locked doors of our social fronts. It puts a key in our hands, and says: "Open my door - welcome in!". This is something that happens less and less with people we don't know in our world today. To some extent, if we're lucky, it can happen on the net, and in that way the net is fusing into a general cultural phenomenon that includes literature.
So good for these kids, and good for Marie-Madeleine de La Fayette.

Women against rape who don't want Assange extradited

Interesting article in the Guardian entitled “We are Women Against Rape but we do not want Julian Assange extradited”:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/23/women-against-rape-julian-assange

I commented:

Proportionality is the key to a rational understanding of this affair. And the disproportionate and unusual aspects of the prosecution of this case are made very clear by Naomi Wolf in this article: http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2011/02/11/something-rotten-in-the-state-of-sweden-8-big-problems-with-the-case-against-assange-by-naomi-wolf/
A rational understanding of the affair is of course not the key to its resolution. That lies in a powerful political confrontation of the reactionary and inhuman forces hounding Assange by those fighting for justice and humanity. It is good to see that imperialist states (Sweden, Britain and the US) by no means have things all their own way in this conflict. Their material interests (extracting profit from us at all costs at the expense of our lives and dignity, and violently and deceitfully defending this robbery) confront ours head-on (the Marikana massacre is a recent blatant example of this - the Sharpeville of the Black Bourgeoisie). But although they have the upper hand as yet with their jealously guarded monopoly of violence and propaganda, they are constrained by self-interest to observe certain rights and freedoms allowing us to organize and agitate against them (it's called bourgeois democracy and it's necessary for capitalism to work optimally, and it enrages them as much as competition does, and is just as frequently disregarded by them if they can get away with it).
In this case the material interests ranged against the imperialists include those of exploited minor capitalist states (neo- and semi-colonies like Ecuador), and even the strategic interests of more powerful uppity competitor states (Brazil, Russia, India, China, for instance), so Assange is not solely dependent on public opinion or rags like the Guardian for his safety and defence.
The shocking thing here is really the imperialists' complete lack of concern for women subjected to rape and violence. There has been no massive, long-term campaign in any of the media attacking Assange (and going on about the sanctity of arrest warrants and legal procedure) to highlight and combat the scourge of oppressive everyday sexual practices. Date rape, marriage rape, repressive laws (Oil ally Saudi criminalizing women drivers, say, or the US witch-hunting of professionals providing abortion and sex advice), sneering and smearing attitudes demeaning and humiliating women at work, etc. If what Assange is accused of were taken seriously by the propagandists using it to attack freedom of speech and of information, then they would be permanently apoplectic at the behaviour of the thousands of men in our laddish, macho cultural world who refuse to wear condoms, force themselves on drunk or sleepy or unwilling partners, and never ever ask for explicit permission to get their leg over.

The place of Latin

A short piece in today's Guardian:
Latin: why we're better off with the ancient language
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/jun/14/latin-language-in-schools)


My comment:
As anyone can tell you who has seen any of my comments on any blog relating to this subject I'm a huge fan of Latin. 
Partly for cultural reasons and partly out of an unusual passion for languages - one that has overcome a lack of autistic proficiency to give me useful access to a number of different but related Indo-European languages (some alive and kicking, and some half-dead and flapping), and to a fundamentally different non-Indo-European language. The iconic Finnish mentioned here a couple of times.
Some languages I got at school as compulsory subjects, some I studied voluntarily at college level, and some I just picked up on a teach yourself, learning by doing, voluntary basis. 
Compulsory French at school worked, compulsory German just about despite hopeless conditions. All the rest has been voluntary - whether formal or normal. 
Formal helps, but opportunity and incentive helps more. 
That's why Grabyrdy's comment bangs the button: 
"I would add that it's not only Latin that helps brains develop. Teach every child in the country to play a musical instrument and participate in orchestras and choirs, and the IQ level of the whole country will rise within a generation." 
Education has to provide opportunity and incentive, and needs to be polytechnical - intellectual, physical (sports, drama, music), practical (craft trades), interactive (politics, psychology). 
So that's Britain oot the windae as far as Latin or any other language is concerned. 
I regret none of my languages, except maybe Swedish for the way it's invaded and occupied my life far too obtrusively and disproportionately. I'd rather have had my life invaded and occupied by Russian, Chinese (yes please!) or Bengali (or Sanskrit. - I'm half-dead and flapping myself...) 
So... anyone who gets a foot in the door, or even better makes it all the way into the rip-roaring party that's another language and its culture, feels more fully human for it and helps others feel better too. And the special thing about Latin here is that it offers a widely recognized currency standard for language, culture and civil fundamentals. (Special Drawing Rights if not Gold...) 
My own favourite (with me everywhere, and more worn by the day) is Lucretius On the Nature of Things. Oh, and Tacitus. Mohammed Alis of culture -- deeply human, aware of their own value, no one's tool and no one's fool, unrepentantly nonconformist, dazzling masters of technique and harder hitting than anyone else alive. 
And nothing prissy, bigoted, arse-licking, or demeaning about them.


I made a further comment:
MSGlendinning writes: 
"I currently teach EFL. There is absolutely no coincidence that the students and people that I know that are non-native speakers that have the highest level of fluency and understanding of the nuances and other pecularities of English are the ones that have spent time immersed in an English-speaking country." 
So if they're so good why do they need you to teach them? 
How do you "immerse" yourself in a country? Burrow head down into the soil (or concrete)? If you immerse yourself in intercourse with people in that country (heh) how many people do you need to intercourse with? And how much and how? And what language and culture do the people you intercourse with use? 
Maybe it's communication between people that's the important thing... So god help us given the dreadful communication skills of the average teacher, if teaching has got anything to do with it. 
To communicate you need something to communicate about, and communicate with. And if you live somewhere you are forced to communicate with people there. But if you are well prepared to communicate about things that are common to humanity, and are skilled/trained at learning, you'll pick up a language like lightning - as I've seen in my teaching. If you aren't, and you're surrounded by your own culture and language (let's say you're Armenian or Russian in LA), then you're screwed. As I've seen with Kurds and Somalis in my teaching. 
OK, so the thing about Latin is that a lot of it is one way communication - but a lot of it is communication about things common to humanity (sex, money, politics, war), done in ways common to humanity (writing, striking language, striking settings). And it communicates these things using a common cultural legacy, adding familiarity. 
So why shouldn't acquiring Latin be more useful and attractive than acquiring pidgin Double Dutch? Should we force people to learn New Guinea Creole because living people use it and it has a thriving local culture? 
If you read novels or follow the news, then you're into abstract, non-immediate, non-immersive communication. That is, you're in a good position to derive pleasure and stimulation from Latin. 
The conditions for learning it aren't too good - but neither are the conditions for learning other languages in Britain. And Latin has one huge advantage - almost everyone involved with teaching it or using it is full of enthusiasm for the language, for the culture and for sharing this with others. But first let's have a decent society and a decent educational system, so non-local culture and communication mean something more than an old school tie.