Speech given at the University of Sydney 22.03.16
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materialism, mysticism and art 
Thanks, Phil – powerful ‘media’ performance by Pilger.
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Hi Grimbeau,
It comes as no surprise to me that an Australian who speaks with the integrity and world-orientation John Pilger does is an ex-pat.
The problem is not ‘America’ nor ‘Americans,’ it is US capitalism and the system of international capitalism it dominates.
But the new is growing within the old.
The same necessity (that of the development of the productive forces) that saw capitalism rise out of feudalism will see socialism rise out of capitalism.
Socialism, despite all the evidence achieved of its immense potential, did not succeed in the Soviet Union because it was not international (of which the Bolsheviks were acutely aware), because the Soviet Union was surrounded by a hostile West which drove it to collapse in an arms race it couldn’t win and also because the Bolsheviks tried to deny the place of individual economic initiative and financial reward implicit in it.
Lenin’s half-hearted attempt to compensate for this failure with his NEP was unsuccessful.
The Chinese have learnt from this and from their own attempt to do the same, to impose theory – as can be seen in the process of reform initiated by Deng Xiaoping.
They have learnt that individual reward and the motive for profit must be incorporated into socialism. The rapid development of China since has been the result.
China is very much a work-in-progress, which the Chinese have so far successfully managed.
These developments within China, that are leading the world, will be models for the capitalist nations as they too turn, are forced to turn, to socialism – as Engels noted in a letter in 1894.
And a ‘necessity,’ I might add, that the consummate Neoplatonist Hegel theorised in his philosophy.
Phil
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Why on God’s good earth would one Country need enough nuclear bombs to destroy the earth a thousand times over? What possible logic exists to justify this?
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Hi Jason,
In my view, the ‘logic’ is that of a lust for power and control.
Oppenheimer’s indescribably disgusting and repulsive quoting ‘with feeling’ the Bhagavad Gita when speaking about the destructive power of the atomic bomb could be taken as the definition of this utterly primitive lust for power – made all the more ugly with his eyes and voice demurely downcast (as he wiped away a non-existent tear) to minimise being read.
Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb13ynu3Iac
I would not be surprised if he was one of those who cried at the Trinity test (while wearing overshoes to protect himself from radiation, standing smiling beside General Groves).
Phil
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Lust, that endless craving, a hunger never satiated, the fuel-energy to keep us treading that samsaric merry go round for countless of incarnations, ever falling into that soil of forgetfulness, turning all that once was beautiful into decay and rust, that Godforsaken lust.
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Just tying both my comments (from today) up into one thought:
“It is probably not worth enquiring into the reason for this self-caused turning towards the worse; for a deviation which is slight to begin with, as it goes on in this way continually makes the fault wider and graver; and the body is there too, and, necessarily, its lust. And the first beginning, the sudden impulse, if it is overlooked and not immediately corrected, even produces a settled choice of that into which one has fallen. Punishment certainly follows; and it is not unjust that someone who has come to be this sort of person should suffer the consequences of his condition; people must not demand to be well off who have not done what deserves well-being.”
– Plotinus, Enneads, On Providence
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Propaganda not only works. It’s become a science. We are no more than hunter gatherers, we are not affected by anything further than our Job and surroundings. NIMBY
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Hi Philomath,
It’s great to hear from you and I hope all’s well.
In my view, while the mechanisms of control are constantly being developed and refined, they are all still the products of consciousness and consciousness will always be secondary to objective reality which, in social terms, Marx correctly focused on in the level of development of the productive forces and the relations of production.
Best wishes, Phil
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