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symbioidljSo, I wrote this... 5 pages worth, peruse at your own time/risk... It's sorta in a Hakim Bey style thoughtform. It needs massive editing. There are inherent contradictions and some of the text is merely sketched out, not really in depth, and some facts need to be researched before final statements of finality/judgement are passed upon them(by myself, I mean...) Therefore, feel free to contradict and disagree with it(I mean, always feel free, but this time, I may just agree with you and not necessarily try to defend the work in it's entirety) :)
=========================
This is the dawning of the age of Mammon. The ascendency of capital over YHVH has been happening for a long time. Hakim Bey writes about the apotheosis of money and religion's historical opposition to it. Did not Jesus enter into the temple to throw out the lenders? Hakim makes the argument that religion in general, and Christianity more specifically, should realize that Capital is further enslaving the church, and they should rise up against it.
Truly, the harlot of babylon is the modern church, whoring herself out to the modern bankers. The televangelists are the pimps who keep her enslaved. Begging for money, using the promise of spiritual salvation, spiritual ecstasy and fulfillment to reap profit. Using Maslows basic needs, realizing the psychology behind religion, they manipulate and con people to enrich themselves.
Money is virtual today. Interest is a purely mathematical concept, held only in the realm of ideas. Yet, though it is invisible, it is everywhere, like god. Though it cannot be seen, it can truly be felt. The magii who control the interest rates are the moneylenders. The church must set itself up in opposition, yet it merely becomes one more member of this criminal syndicate.
And what is it that has caused virtuality in money. Truly, a pure economy would be based upon the concept of material goods, and distribution and balance would occur when the aggregate resources of earth are tied into the economy. Currently, the economy grows as more resources are used up, both material and energetic. The faster these are utilized, the faster capital grows. This is not seen as a bad thing.
There are sects of Christians who may disagree with modern environmentalism(especially radical environmentalism and deep ecology), and see it as a new religion(which, in some cases, it is) because Man is no longer at the center. Many of these Christians believe man was given dominion over the earth, and much as their patriarchal thinking goes for the family, they believe the man as head of household is master and has final say. However, many Christians believe that man, through his “dominion” over earth, must be stewards, and not mere masters..
I don't necessarily condone the concept of dominion and/or stewardship, as this leads to anthropocentric thinking, of which I tend to disagree with. However, the Christians who believe in stewardship of the earth, should ally themselves with us against the dominators. For dominion and stewardship are two different things, ultimately.
Money is virtual, firstly, because of interest. Because money begets money. Because those who own money, can get more money, without expenditure of energy. We see then that not only does the axiom Energy is Matter hold true, but now Energy is Money also holds true, and thus analogously, Matter is Money. Property and work (being and doing), are thus equivocated as money.
The difference between the two, however are substantial. Literally substantial. Property/matter is the potential of energy. It is matter which may at any given time be destroyed to release energy. Rather, REAL property is such. Intellectual property is an entirely different species which should be tackled another time. It shall be touched upon later in this essay briefly during discussion of the second type of virtuality. For now, let us realize then that the worker, the laborer, the one who expends energy has a finite amount of energy which is not merely potential, but actual. The expenditure of this energy begets the worker money. Which then goes towards subsistence and a little extra consumerist purchases with money left over(and perhaps some investment on the side, such that they, too, become enslaved to the beast of mammon).
The property holder, on the other hand, merely has the potential. The potential is nothing without the work utilized to extract the resources. However, whereas the laborer only receives “profit”(if it can be called that) for his expenditure of energy which is a one time thing, the property holder realizes(REALizes) financial gain utilizing the mere virtuality and potentiality of his gain. This, of course, leads to the concept of capital investment and risk-gain reward.
He is able to rent out space(which then becomes part of the great economy. Space is a resource which becomes ever limited as mankind reaches out and further expands his territory amongsts all domains, including the ideal/ideational/mental.), and actualize profits from this property. However, no longer is this property a mere one time expenditure of energy, it sustains itself as concrete existence, with very real materiality, and hence can continually beget income/profit whereas the expenditure of energy is only a one time thing, reducing the worker to continual servitude to ever beget the financial gain required to survive in this modern world where survival is attained no longer by the raw essence of being and obtaining, but by the mediation of money. By the complex ecology of economy.
I am not disrespecting the concept of economy. I am, however disrespecting the apotheosis of capital, of interest and ascendency of virtual money as mediator over the entire domain of being and “experience”. Of course, the experience is part of the spectacle that they try to purvey. We live in the world of illusion, imagination has become one of the largest industries. Movies, books, games, media of all type are now being sold and bought.
The great bards of old are long gone. The experience now must be purchased. The escape, the ecstasy of the modern media landscape, is what we are buying. It tries to fill the void that god once did. The hollow shell of existence around which we build upon.(Which, eventually, when the mass of shit/detritus of modern civilatsion becomes too immense, shall collapse that void into nothingness. Only then, shall the “void” be filled, and it shall disappear into itself, like a mighty black hole... This is the singularity so popular amongst transhumanist thinkers. The condensation of ideational thought into materiality.)
Economy, secondly, becomes virtual by it's application to the domain of virtuality. By application to the domain of presence and ideas. I lied. The storytellers are not long gone. They exist. But they present themselves as comedians, as rock concerts, as tribal gatherings. But even then, these things are to be bought. They are still mediated through the primacy of economic power. And like leeches, the owners of capital must continually suck off the profits of these modern day bards. The virtuality of money comes into existence, because there is, in this case, no thing which can be sold. In this sense, energy once again, is expended, like the worker who utilizes the masters property. The touring rock-star pays rent to the owner of the performance space.
The disintermediation of experience from money should be our ultimate goal. This is what the TAZ is.
The machine, the hydra that is Capital subsumes and sucks up all that is authentic into itself, drawing more and more originality into itself, but then, having drawn all nutrient from it(or rather, artificial nutrient, in the same way that Twinkies give no real nutritional substance.) Having drawn the “nutrients”(to Capital, nutrient is money.), it excretes back a shell of the authentic experience, and gives you the “experience”, mediated and stripped(like a mine, like the body of the Great Mother) of all value, and the illusion remains. Every subculture has this happen to them. The authentic rebellion that lies at the heart of these subcultures(ie: drugs, spiritual thinking, anti-authoritarian analysis) is extracted, declared “immoral” and shat out. The product that remains in the belly of the beast is then flashed as the spectacle, new trendy punk-rockers with their mall-bought clothes, paid for with absurd amounts of money. This money becomes the profit. Ever feeding the beast.
What, then, does Capital desire? What does it feed itself with? I said it feeds on culture and ideas, but it desires money. Culture and ideas are what it uses to produce as a sort of trap. This trap draws the suckers into the “experience” of consumerism. Which is really, what all this is about. Consume something that has been created. Food, Toys, Experience.
And in order to create a need for the experience, just like religion, Capital creates a void. Capital drains all life energy away, the ultimate vampire, sucking at the veins of society, drawing all creativity towards itself. The void then remains to be filled by the religion of Capital.
A spirituality which opposes Capital, which raises itself in opposition to the void of Capital, is the spirituality we should seek. But because this is exactly the spirituality which works to defeat Capital, this spirituality is the very same spirituality that is either bought out by sham practicioners(why is New Age so popular? Because it's a shell of real spirituality. It's a great way to consume little fetishes, nuggets of so called spirituality, all the while, never realizing you're merely becoming one more consumer) or, this spirituality is crushed underfoot. If the spirituality is authentic, but doesn't seek to overthrow the existing order, and is contained, then it shall continue without problem. If the spirituality does become strong enough to challenge the order, then it shall be crushed.
Why was there such struggle against the hippies? Why such struggle against the ravers? What sort of revolution was becoming that had to be crushed? Surely, there was mild repression at disco's in the 70's but because the culture attributed mere hedonism to itself, never once expanding beyond much else except coke, sex, and excess, there was never much repression. Disco was allowed to die out. Raves on the other hand, were a synthesis of the music and hedonism of the 70's and the political/spiritual motives of the 60's. And it is this combination, this release of the strictures of morality and the pure work ethic that threatened the institutions.
A return to the tribal is being fought against. An authentic return to the tribal. We are sold nose rings as a cool fetish, once again being assimilated by the capitalist machine. The tribal becomes once more product, stripped of any authentic values, and given as one more fashion statement. This does not mean that those who utilize tribal fashion are all suckers to the machine.
=========================
This is the dawning of the age of Mammon. The ascendency of capital over YHVH has been happening for a long time. Hakim Bey writes about the apotheosis of money and religion's historical opposition to it. Did not Jesus enter into the temple to throw out the lenders? Hakim makes the argument that religion in general, and Christianity more specifically, should realize that Capital is further enslaving the church, and they should rise up against it.
Truly, the harlot of babylon is the modern church, whoring herself out to the modern bankers. The televangelists are the pimps who keep her enslaved. Begging for money, using the promise of spiritual salvation, spiritual ecstasy and fulfillment to reap profit. Using Maslows basic needs, realizing the psychology behind religion, they manipulate and con people to enrich themselves.
Money is virtual today. Interest is a purely mathematical concept, held only in the realm of ideas. Yet, though it is invisible, it is everywhere, like god. Though it cannot be seen, it can truly be felt. The magii who control the interest rates are the moneylenders. The church must set itself up in opposition, yet it merely becomes one more member of this criminal syndicate.
And what is it that has caused virtuality in money. Truly, a pure economy would be based upon the concept of material goods, and distribution and balance would occur when the aggregate resources of earth are tied into the economy. Currently, the economy grows as more resources are used up, both material and energetic. The faster these are utilized, the faster capital grows. This is not seen as a bad thing.
There are sects of Christians who may disagree with modern environmentalism(especially radical environmentalism and deep ecology), and see it as a new religion(which, in some cases, it is) because Man is no longer at the center. Many of these Christians believe man was given dominion over the earth, and much as their patriarchal thinking goes for the family, they believe the man as head of household is master and has final say. However, many Christians believe that man, through his “dominion” over earth, must be stewards, and not mere masters..
I don't necessarily condone the concept of dominion and/or stewardship, as this leads to anthropocentric thinking, of which I tend to disagree with. However, the Christians who believe in stewardship of the earth, should ally themselves with us against the dominators. For dominion and stewardship are two different things, ultimately.
Money is virtual, firstly, because of interest. Because money begets money. Because those who own money, can get more money, without expenditure of energy. We see then that not only does the axiom Energy is Matter hold true, but now Energy is Money also holds true, and thus analogously, Matter is Money. Property and work (being and doing), are thus equivocated as money.
The difference between the two, however are substantial. Literally substantial. Property/matter is the potential of energy. It is matter which may at any given time be destroyed to release energy. Rather, REAL property is such. Intellectual property is an entirely different species which should be tackled another time. It shall be touched upon later in this essay briefly during discussion of the second type of virtuality. For now, let us realize then that the worker, the laborer, the one who expends energy has a finite amount of energy which is not merely potential, but actual. The expenditure of this energy begets the worker money. Which then goes towards subsistence and a little extra consumerist purchases with money left over(and perhaps some investment on the side, such that they, too, become enslaved to the beast of mammon).
The property holder, on the other hand, merely has the potential. The potential is nothing without the work utilized to extract the resources. However, whereas the laborer only receives “profit”(if it can be called that) for his expenditure of energy which is a one time thing, the property holder realizes(REALizes) financial gain utilizing the mere virtuality and potentiality of his gain. This, of course, leads to the concept of capital investment and risk-gain reward.
He is able to rent out space(which then becomes part of the great economy. Space is a resource which becomes ever limited as mankind reaches out and further expands his territory amongsts all domains, including the ideal/ideational/mental.), and actualize profits from this property. However, no longer is this property a mere one time expenditure of energy, it sustains itself as concrete existence, with very real materiality, and hence can continually beget income/profit whereas the expenditure of energy is only a one time thing, reducing the worker to continual servitude to ever beget the financial gain required to survive in this modern world where survival is attained no longer by the raw essence of being and obtaining, but by the mediation of money. By the complex ecology of economy.
I am not disrespecting the concept of economy. I am, however disrespecting the apotheosis of capital, of interest and ascendency of virtual money as mediator over the entire domain of being and “experience”. Of course, the experience is part of the spectacle that they try to purvey. We live in the world of illusion, imagination has become one of the largest industries. Movies, books, games, media of all type are now being sold and bought.
The great bards of old are long gone. The experience now must be purchased. The escape, the ecstasy of the modern media landscape, is what we are buying. It tries to fill the void that god once did. The hollow shell of existence around which we build upon.(Which, eventually, when the mass of shit/detritus of modern civilatsion becomes too immense, shall collapse that void into nothingness. Only then, shall the “void” be filled, and it shall disappear into itself, like a mighty black hole... This is the singularity so popular amongst transhumanist thinkers. The condensation of ideational thought into materiality.)
Economy, secondly, becomes virtual by it's application to the domain of virtuality. By application to the domain of presence and ideas. I lied. The storytellers are not long gone. They exist. But they present themselves as comedians, as rock concerts, as tribal gatherings. But even then, these things are to be bought. They are still mediated through the primacy of economic power. And like leeches, the owners of capital must continually suck off the profits of these modern day bards. The virtuality of money comes into existence, because there is, in this case, no thing which can be sold. In this sense, energy once again, is expended, like the worker who utilizes the masters property. The touring rock-star pays rent to the owner of the performance space.
The disintermediation of experience from money should be our ultimate goal. This is what the TAZ is.
The machine, the hydra that is Capital subsumes and sucks up all that is authentic into itself, drawing more and more originality into itself, but then, having drawn all nutrient from it(or rather, artificial nutrient, in the same way that Twinkies give no real nutritional substance.) Having drawn the “nutrients”(to Capital, nutrient is money.), it excretes back a shell of the authentic experience, and gives you the “experience”, mediated and stripped(like a mine, like the body of the Great Mother) of all value, and the illusion remains. Every subculture has this happen to them. The authentic rebellion that lies at the heart of these subcultures(ie: drugs, spiritual thinking, anti-authoritarian analysis) is extracted, declared “immoral” and shat out. The product that remains in the belly of the beast is then flashed as the spectacle, new trendy punk-rockers with their mall-bought clothes, paid for with absurd amounts of money. This money becomes the profit. Ever feeding the beast.
What, then, does Capital desire? What does it feed itself with? I said it feeds on culture and ideas, but it desires money. Culture and ideas are what it uses to produce as a sort of trap. This trap draws the suckers into the “experience” of consumerism. Which is really, what all this is about. Consume something that has been created. Food, Toys, Experience.
And in order to create a need for the experience, just like religion, Capital creates a void. Capital drains all life energy away, the ultimate vampire, sucking at the veins of society, drawing all creativity towards itself. The void then remains to be filled by the religion of Capital.
A spirituality which opposes Capital, which raises itself in opposition to the void of Capital, is the spirituality we should seek. But because this is exactly the spirituality which works to defeat Capital, this spirituality is the very same spirituality that is either bought out by sham practicioners(why is New Age so popular? Because it's a shell of real spirituality. It's a great way to consume little fetishes, nuggets of so called spirituality, all the while, never realizing you're merely becoming one more consumer) or, this spirituality is crushed underfoot. If the spirituality is authentic, but doesn't seek to overthrow the existing order, and is contained, then it shall continue without problem. If the spirituality does become strong enough to challenge the order, then it shall be crushed.
Why was there such struggle against the hippies? Why such struggle against the ravers? What sort of revolution was becoming that had to be crushed? Surely, there was mild repression at disco's in the 70's but because the culture attributed mere hedonism to itself, never once expanding beyond much else except coke, sex, and excess, there was never much repression. Disco was allowed to die out. Raves on the other hand, were a synthesis of the music and hedonism of the 70's and the political/spiritual motives of the 60's. And it is this combination, this release of the strictures of morality and the pure work ethic that threatened the institutions.
A return to the tribal is being fought against. An authentic return to the tribal. We are sold nose rings as a cool fetish, once again being assimilated by the capitalist machine. The tribal becomes once more product, stripped of any authentic values, and given as one more fashion statement. This does not mean that those who utilize tribal fashion are all suckers to the machine.
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no subject
Date: 2003-07-13 05:52 pm (UTC)the idea of money and the energy behind it is so within
everything...they have it so that you almost cannot exist
without it...for how does one begin without ....$?
Let us say I wanted to live off the land and exist in
a one room hut. I would need money for land, for seeds,
for tools, for wood...I mean, anyway you look, move and
touch there it is...$$$...and what most people consider
tribal, true tribes and shamans, people look in disgust
and consider it uncivilized, animalistic...barbaric etc.
etc. etc. there never seems to be a happy medium with
anything. it is either overindulgence or extreme poverty
powerlessness and struggle.
:(
Re:
Date: 2003-07-13 06:07 pm (UTC)Basically, the concepts you're speaking of, yes... tribal values, communal property, of course, that's communism. And one thing, if you note, I mention Capital creating a void to fill, but then realize, I too am creating a void, the void that capital creates. It's all the same void. Just a different reason is ascribed to it.
I dunno, I guess my point is that Money(or rather, Mammon, money as lord) is here, it is the god of this age. It sickens me. But I will always remain in some ways opposed to it.
I thought of a great idea for some Magick, but it's scary. Create sigils and draw them on bills. These sigils will represent some sort of leech type creature which feeds on the overarching lord/daemon of Mammon, drawing some value from the dollar, the interest that accrues... And then send that energy into a spiritual "bank" of sorts, a store of energy that we revolutionaries can use. Sort of like a spirit of theft. This would cause a slow crumbling, or at least, restore balance to the ascending order. But what's to prevent greed to follow these sigils/spells and cause them to usurp the power of Mammon and turn on their creators.
That is, of course, if you believe in all that Magick bullshit... :P