It's not that he's wrong or cynical or the wrong kind of doomerpilled or whatever
It's just that he's pointing out problems without offering anything better. Criticizing people for being mad online but even admitting no real other solutions exist.
I really don't know what to do about that besides stay mad. :(
edit:
https://twitter.com/Solidarity_Star/status/1356820922485903361
Matt is Bashir and we're all Rom in desperate need of a Chief O'Brien to help up bridge that gap between good theory and good practice.
I am not sober right now.
I thought his solution was to log off and try to focus on more meaningfully interacting with your personal social circles and or local organizations in a way that materially builds towards class consciousness. Otherwise being too involved in national politics is superfluous at an individual level and can only help if done in coordination with a broader social cohort. I don't know if I've botched this but that's what I tend to make of it.
yes radical empathy is KEY. understanding most chuds aren’t inherently evil but a result of a plinko board of material conditions. we aren’t better because we are holy we are lucky to have the blinders removed by our lived experiences.
I thought his solution was to log off and try to focus on more meaningfully interacting with your personal social circles and or local organizations in a way that materially builds towards class consciousness.
It would be a good take if it wasn't for the fact the pandemic is still raging, and its also very urban-centric, if you live in a rural setting or a sprawling suburban desert there are no "local organizations" worth engaging with
Good point. Geography is a real political divide especially in the US. It's definitely not the idea political terrain but that's also a point in his critique. That we have to interact in our community. If we are serious in building a better socialist world as a political project we must interact with the world. Sometimes could be helping the community and base building other times could be challenging conservative sensibilities.
if you live in a rural setting or a sprawling suburban desert there is no “local organizations” worth engaging with
then you have to start them. if you don't who will?
But this ends up right back at the problem. Weak ineffective groups spread out.
I kinda feel like people just don't have any real new ideas so we just sort of circle around and pine for the good old days of unions to come back (they won't, not unless you fundamentally change something to make them immune from the attacks that already killed them).
We need someone who can form a real socialism with American characteristics (not racism. god damn't it's gonna be racism).
But really we need to completely turn away from reformism and the idea that we can just pressure the system into turning into what we want when we want it.
there was a nice handbook for rural anarchist that i think is still useful for communists to examine
https://enoughisenough14.org/2018/06/11/new-zine-anarchy-in-a-small-pond/
I have used a bit of it to guide some things in my town of less than 4,000 to some ok results, but I might be spoiled because we already had an indigenous south american anarchist and like 3 open MLs in town.
local organizing could be anything it doesn’t have to be DSA it’s seeing an issue in your community and uniting people with common solidarity to fix it. its not always unions and organized meetings.
That's what needs to be done, but it's not a solution.
If these organizations worked they would have worked.
Numbers aren't going to fix organizations that lack direction or are pointed in entirely the wrong direction.
We can get more members in DSA to pressure people who are totally unaccountable. That will work.
We can get more people in unions who aren't radical, don't claim to be, and even if they were have no answer to the attacks that already killed unions.
Yea but you can’t know that until you’ve gone out and tried it. Sitting online and plotting out your perfect politic is equal to zero. You’ve got to go outside and live your politics even if they’re ultimately wrong and unhelpful because the reality is that you’ll never ultimately know either way
Yea but you can’t know that until you’ve gone out and tried it.
We can't look at history and look at how things have actually played out and draw conclusions based on that?
Who’s we? You looking at history by yourself and dreaming up the perfect answer to the world’s problems isn’t useful by any measure. Studying history as a group to inform group decisions is an entirely different thing. Locking yourself into the prison of your head is an outcome of liberalism and is exactly counter to the collective action that defines leftist politics
Idk. I mean, it is what it is. I suppose his solution in that sense would be the social transition to communism. Don't think anyone could give a step by step list of what to do and his advice is a bit vague but tbh it reflects how bad the situation is for the 'left'. Main problem is there isn't a coherent, holistic, and conscious social base that is able (or even friendly to) socialist politics. That's where he interjects calling for left to lay roots by struggling with their own community, if you like. I think he's got about the right amount of disillusionment with our politics (US) as individuals, mostly as a entertainment and self branding social commodity (clout I guess); but is very worthwhile in social coordination (like Bernie's campaign). Once again this is simply how my brain translates his takes. So, just having some fun here.
His streams really just hammer over and over that getting mad on reddit/twitter is unproductive and addictive, his solution is to do something else and he believes that in the act of actual revolutionary praxis a lot of the minor squabbles that eat up our attention in the fake praxis world of internet forums (such as yelling at people for being in the wrong leftist tendency) will melt away.
It's nothing mind-blowing, but it's the kind of thing that might be productive to have yelled at you multiple times until it clicks. He's also said in his most recent stream that he's going to stop talking about this train of thought and start writing it down since saying basically the same thing over and over has become a form of procrastination from doing his own more productive work.
The problem is there is no actual outlet for any of this so pointing it out doesn't actually accomplish anything.
unless I'm misunderstanding, he's saying real-world interests are a better outlet
really? I've heard him mention it so many times, it's a common theme with grillpill
I remember a long discussion where talks about how he regrets the name "grillpill" and goes into it, it does feed a misconception from before had fully developed the idea
so this is what I've found so far but I gotta go get dinner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVaLzP7bFBQ&t=36m26s
that link is mid-stream and if you have time the whole thing is really good, this is one of his best cushvlogs imo
I'm digging through trnascripts but it's hard because I don't remember any exact phrases. will get back to you
didnt basically any of the vote ball saga have it? specifically the two most recent? they definitely briefly spoke about how its not doomerosm its liberating as you can not give a shit about online squabbling and its the beginning the inner journey to finding what you need to put energy towards to A: have an outlet like crafts etc and B : find a social cause to fill the void IN YOUR DIRECT MATERIAL COMMUNITY
totally paraphrased but thats whay ive absorbed as i binged them at work today and yesterday as i catch up
i remember phrasing it as the freedom to not have to care as thats whats liberating
Yeah makes sense, I see loads of big accounts burn themselves out getting mad every 2 days over whatever moronic crap and awful baby brain takes people come up with online. Just log off, you can still have fun with your pals and followers online but the squabbling is a never ending cycle wasting energy in a total unproductive way.
It's also not true, or at least it hasn't historically been so, I mean look at the incredible squabbling in the post 68 new left after the SDS disintegrated. It's certainly worse online though.
the internet is nothing but squabble at least those groups did something even if most of them were just radlibs
his recent claim to focus more on writing is the 'make or break moment' for him, imho. either he becomes coherent and expands his audience to non-online people or remains committed to getting mad at people online for getting mad at people online.
Edit: he will also have to engage with already-existing conversations and frameworks and it could either be very productive for him or he rejects it because it's academic and he seems to hate that
I'd love to see Matt sober up for 5 minutes and actually write something down I think it could be great
I’ve found Matt’s vids really cathartic. Yes, it’s a lot of yelling at folks, and as others have said, he’s mostly yelling at himself. His “speak to the manager” metaphor is pretty apt, and I really vibe with him finding necessity in a spiritual component for leftism.
Pure, uncut contempt for the American ruling class like his is something that not many others provide, especially while also being fairly smart, funny, and non reactionary.
He’s probably going to give himself a heart attack and ulcer in the long run, but in the meantime he’s providing a valuable service by helping to break our vestigial respect of liberal authority.
Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.
In other words be an intellectual doomer but practice optimism in your daily life. Humans are pretty good at it already, knowing we'll eventually die but still getting up to live our lives the best we can.
I think listening to CushVlog, really helped him become my favorite chapo since his "antho-political" analysis is almost always on point. As previously I may have seen him as the "Bernie Bro" who makes too many 'I'm out of spoons' jokes. Altho in the past year when Will lets him go on a statue yelling rant one has been able to see the deep analysis come through that I would suppose cause such anger. Him yelling at the to listeners to go and fucking do something like join your local DSA is actually the reason I joined my local rural DSA. (I wouldn't have otherwise because I'm an anarchist, and DSA is way too bureaucratic and not consensus based enough for me. But it turns out just to be full of MLs because when you are rural you have to be pragmatic)
my brain is incredibly broken so i won't try to make a coherent point but i think it was györgy lukács or something who once said that adorno (and maybe the rest of the frankfurth school) had taken refuge in the grand hotel abyss - basically, they spent all their time theorizing about capitalism, but did nothing/offered no solution on how to change it
edit: but i'm also probably a resident of the grand hotel abyss so idk
A considerable part of the leading German intelligentsia, including Adorno, have taken up residence in the ‘Grand Hotel Abyss’ which I described in connection with my critique of Schopenhauer as ‘a beautiful hotel, equipped with every comfort, on the edge of an abyss, of nothingness, of absurdity. And the daily contemplation of the abyss between excellent meals or artistic entertainments, can only heighten the enjoyment of the subtle comforts offered.’ (The fact that Ernst Bloch continued undeterred to cling to his synthesis of ‘left’ ethics and ‘right’ epistemology (e.g. cf. Frankfurt 1961) does honour to his strength of character but cannot modify the outdated nature of his theoretical position. To the extent that an authentic, fruitful and progressive opposition is really stirring in the Western world (including the Federal Republic), this opposition no longer has anything to do with the coupling of ‘left’ ethics with ‘right’ epistemology.)
If the Chapos explicitly advocated for revolution, their presence on all platforms (Spotify, FB, IG, Twitter, even Patreon) would be zapped overnight.
Definitely a bit. A bit I personally like too. I suppose if you do anything long enough, and especially in a professional capacity, it becomes a bit.
The thing is the videos arent supposed to be anything definitive. He's literally working out thoughts that aren't fully formed live. Also I think there's an implicit understanding that the viewer is a communist and understands how communism can fix things
The thing to realize is, he is talking to himself more than anyone else. I hope he figures it out. I hope I do too.
I think he's getting there. He recently said he's going to reduce his streams to once or twice a week and start writing something because he feels like his ideas have finally taken shape in his mind.
This is an excellent point to take into conversations with real people in your life, into organizing, etc.
You cannot just whine. You have to offer an alternative. An eternal defense for awful institutions is "sure it's awful, but it's better than anything else we've tried." You have to show that's bullshit, and you can't do that by simply reiterating what's already admitted: that the institution is awful.
People hear about problems all the time; they want solutions.
Matt does offer good advice for finding a solution, but it feels woefully inadequate at this point.
Yeah, no shade at Matt here. And convincing people who see problems with capitalism that capitalism is fundamentally unsalvageable does have significant value. But that needs to be paired with an achievable alternative as soon as possible.
I got it as feedback my first year of working and (at least offline) I try to stick to it.
I dunno if you listened to the last one but he made it pretty clear that he's basically talking to himself about his own problems - his own problem is that he uses Being Online as an excuse for not doing Other Things because of his hypochondria. And he's not really talking about how to Beat Capitalism, he's talking about how to overcome his own alienation under capitalism that he copes with by being online, and he can do that by logging off and doing the other things.
