Carguacountii

Out of curiosity, would you agree that Islam generally is more progressive, or has more potential for such, than many of the other Abrahamic religions?

That's been my perspective, because of various things like the explicit anti-racism/supremacism (compared to some forms of Judaism for example, or Christianity of a particular period/form), the promise of eventual equality and elimination of poverty and a mandated redistributive method unlike Christianity's looser 'you should' thing (kind of pie in the sky, but still), the avoidance of the 'god king' of Papacy, and also just how popular it seems - in its early times and also currrently, in terms of gaining converts (or returnees as I suppose they'd say) to Islam.

Not to say that it always is, or that particular forms or teachings aren't regressive, but generally that seems the case to me. It seems to have a big draw for poor people in the west I think. And not to say that the others can't be progressive, but they're generally less so at least in their current forms.

But you understand the 'cynical' response, right? I agree its not necessarily constructive, but the crabs at the bottom of the bucket have experienced the betrayal of those near the top many times - the labor aristocrats who will talk about solidarity and crab buckets when they start being pushed down by the fisherperson, but when they are on their way up are suddenly quiet? I don't mean socialists or communists so much, but certainly that happens many times (to revolutionary movements too) and the only fix is for those better compensated workers to make the first move, in deed not just in words, to show they're willing to actually operate in everybody's interests. No 'crab' at the bottom trusts or believes those near the top when they start talking about solidarity or the concerns of the working class, because of the repeated betrayals - an appeal to the masses to help, followed by ditching the concerns of those masses once they've been used for the desired purpose.

The schadenfreude reaction is akin to a camel trainer throwing a shirt for the camels to tear apart - it stops them attacking the trainer. But its only one type of reaction, others are sympathetic or empathetic, and I'm sure there are more.

The point however is to appoint or select a representative for a particular social issue, from the media class (i.e will share and understand media class interests), through which socio-economic trends and events can be discussed in a controlled manner. This person wants to be a professional influencer (i.e manipulator, propagandist), and has demonstrated her credentials, so she's been given a shot.

To give a concrete example, there is currently a recession (a 'bust' after the 'boom' or from the perspective of capital, a harvest or cull period) in tech. Why is the media not talking to and featuring tech workers about this, but instead talking to bosses and propagandists? Because tech workers are infrastructure workers, and if they were organised and angry enough, they could like any infrastructure worker pose a real danger to the interests of the elites. This isn't the only trend occuring, there's also migration, outsourcing, expensive foriegn wars, plague, inflation, retail rentierism collapsing, another financial 'crisis' and so on. Regardless, the point is to have all these things discussed in the public sphere by carefully selected representatives.

This is because its much easier to control a few people than many - why representative democracy or republicanism is favoured, because its easier to coerce, control, bribe etc a few people rather than many. Its a class war, and the same strategies and tactics employed during any other kind of war are used here, including the 'informational' part of war. We'll know we're winning when we can choose (and vet, and dismiss) our own representatives, rather than having them chosen for us like in this case, or better still represent ourselves. Currently, we're not winning, and the ease with which this kind of informational or psyop part of the war is conducted by the ruling classes, eliciting the desired reactions (including naively taking their propagandists in good faith), is emblamatic of that.

Performing is not something we all do. Its something actors do, or other entertainers. Crying because you can't get a job is very different from pretending to cry and pretending that you can't get a job. Mimicry can be very skilled and elicit the same reactions as the real thing, but whats true and false does matter.

that is a psyop itself, one that reinforces class hierarchies.

its like shakespere, where all the aristos talk in an overblown 'dramatic' manner, and all the commoners are comedic relief bumbling about being stupid or savage. The concerns and experiences of those of the higher classes are treated with dignity, even if tragic or foolish, while those of the lower orders are not. You can find similar in ancient Greek or Roman drama too. I use examples of fiction, because this article, and the woman's story, are a fiction too.

media literacy is very important, and one aspect of that is to understand that its storytelling. Storytelling works by repetition - variations on a theme. In this case, it doesn't need to be an explicitly crafted psyop as such, just so long as any narrative about jobs and employment is one that doesn't cause people to examine the issue in a way that might threaten the current order - to think about the economy in any depth or breadth.

I'd expect (for example) a biscuit making factory & company that'd been around for a century to be very efficient & knowledgeable about making and selling biscuits. The media is the same, its very good at what it does - even if it looks incompetant, frivolous, or you can't immediately grasp the point of something its doing - this is because you're not, in the analogy, an experienced biscuit maker.

Many hours of labor, and huge sums of capital, and vast institutions, are dedicated to the production of everything that falls under the category of 'media'. Of course, storytelling is a natural human activity, but so is eating or 'spirituality' and the same applies to food production and religion. You can't be cynical enough - its certainly the case that the elites care a great deal about which storys are told. Of course, media organisations are saturated with intelligence agency operatives and assets, this is well documented.

So in conclusion, yes its a psyop of one kind or another. You can find the same in all entertainment - why is wrestling so popular? Because its a soap opera for people who like gladiators. But the stories told aren't 'organic' in the sense of coming from the masses, they're mandated from high, the same being true for other less physical soap operas, or any tv serial, any hollywood film. People who work in the media don't just pick up a pen and decide to write a story, they get told what to write about and how, and then the story goes through approval processes via editors. Its not some impulsive, 'organic' process, but a highly organised and ordered one.

edit; from your other comment on this thread, schadenfreude is one of the intended reactions to this story...

I'm not sure it is, anecdotes (testimony) can be useful if true, and statistics can be employed to tell lies about data just as well. Also, media has always done this, since mass media came about.

I mean, its just fabricated - not a highly personal example, but rather no example at all. Therefore, any narrative is also false.

But it does align with predetermined notions (themes) for various audiences (like any story) I agree.

Every account I've seen from anybody who has been featured in a news story has said that the truth was ignored, and the media misrepresented what happened, embellished, ommitted, lied etc. Of course in this case, the lies are already told by the 'social media personality', to further her own career - to sell her performances, to an prospective audience but also to prospective employers. So its more of a two-way relationship.

Where I've lived, mostly people who can afford to pay do so, and those that can't but still need to get somewhere, try not to pay.

Currently I don't pay, partly because its very expensive (1/2 an hours work), but also because I work for a private company who had significant public funds invested and assistance given in order to exist in that location. So everyone has already paid for my employer in that sense - I don't see why I shouldn't also be subsidised, with the same logic that business tax returns will eventually make up for the public investment. Also, my public transit runs promotions for various other recreational events where people who are going get free transport, so again I assume that there's no reason this shouldn't also apply to myself, to go to work.

Really, I have the position that I (and others) already pay enough in tax to competantly run public utilities, its the people at the top & private sector that are making it difficult to function by their theft and enclosures, so they can sort that out before I'd think about paying. It annoys me that companies don't pay for transport for workers - they used to when they were more desperate & conditions were different, like with worker's buses etc. Now everyone is expected to have a car & pay extortionate fees and taxes for that too, to get to work so the owners can make money from them.

If she has degrees in communication & acting, that is to say (no judgement implied ofc) that she is a trained liar, and you really shouldn't believe anything she says.

This is in fact her jobs pitch, because she wants to work in the media, she did not in fact hand out resumes to minimum wage jobs and has no intention of working one, probably everything in the article is false these kind of 'experience/perspective' pieces usually are.

edit: perhaps 'storyteller' is a more polite way of saying it. But aside from that ("I'm a story teller & have always wanted to be one, in fact I studied how to tell storys and give performences, now let me tell you a true story about my experience - I even cry") the fact its reported in Business Insider, Fortune dot com, Daily Mail, should really tell you its wholesale fabrication.

Newspapers don't generally run pieces featuring anyone below the kind of 'minor gentry' class in a sympathetic light like this. They do run pieces (often fabricated) from people of their own class who are supposed to create a relatable crafted narrative for the lower orders.

also cheap Ukranian agri imports too, right?

but also, France proper always does this when it loses part of its colonial empire, so I think its also about the Sahel in a way

I don't necessarily disagree with your first paragraph, but isn't it more that materialism denies unevidenced or particular interpretations of 'metaphysical' forces? Like the kind of acedemic theological ridiculousness of contemporary theories like the hidden hand deity, or the dualistic clock mechanism analogy of the physical world?

I mean by this, that its more anti-obscurantist, and pro-investigation. By which I mean, that those theologies/philosophies were presenting god-of-the-gaps type approaches. If you take deific (or demonic or whatever) influence/action to simply mean 'force' or 'causality', which I think is accurate, the issue isn't so much with label given to the force/action, but rather its explanatory power, and whether it is possible or not to know more, investigate further.

To explain what I mean, in the modern day we take the same approach, at least in terms of things we don't fully understand or want someone to learn as an axiom, like 'Brownian Motion' - what else is Brown in this except a minor 'wind deity' or 'wind spirit', just as to some of our anscestors Thor was a thunder and lightning deity (as in, a teaching label to help grasp a phenomena, its associated phenomena, and how to approach it)? And spooky action at a distance, or god of the gaps, hasn't gone anywhere either (at least until further investigation occurs), in for example the recent 'quantum physics' movement, and elsewhere. Our modern academies all subscribe, at least in public, to a 'let there be light' creation myth in the 'big bang' theory.

In this sense, materialist analysis isn't I don't think 'unreligious' (you can find a similar approach laid out in Sanskrit 'religious' texts for example), or even non-metaphysical, but rather contrary to obscurantist dogma. The problem isn't necessarily calling greed after a particular demonic entity, but rather how useful that label (and associated teachings) is in understanding what greed is as a phenomena. Spirits, qi, magic, and so on are just helpful (ideally but not always) labels for the often confusing, poorly understood phenomena that make up the world and particularly our place in it.

Like if a Christian were to say 'there is one God, and He has a plan according to which history occurs', is it especially different in meaning to saying 'there is a universe, and it operates deterministically, like a machine'? Of course maybe the former is not so good because it can lead to interpretations that are difficult to reconcile with observed reality, but it can also lead to an interpretation that is the same as the latter - the gaps and forces involved are either labeled 'God' or 'undiscovered/unknown processes'. Of course, one gives faith (something that is as important as knowledge) and humanises (makes relatable, more comprehensible by association) the processes, while the other doesn't, which I think can lead to nihilistic interpretations. So its sort of swings and roundabouts in that sense. The issue I think is whether either lead to 'don't investigate further, no progression required' or alternatively 'find out more about God's plan or the machine' so to speak.

I suppose I'm not sure that the description actually breaks down with the introduction of a particular label, as you say. It certainly can do, but it can also serve as a short-hand, and as a reminder of related concepts, and as a teaching method.

Personally, I consider communism, or 'public ownership doctrine' (and leftism more generally) to be as much a religion as any other, although one I certainly subsribe to. I think 'way' (path) as used to translate various East Asian practices is a better word, but the word religion itself seems to me to mean the same thing, rewalking (and re-interpreting/updating) an established path. I don't think it really matters what labels are used - God, Force, etc as long as they put you on the correct path as it were, so I don't really view 'dialectical materialism' as opposed to or different from religious thought (in general, not in particular), or separate a 'philosophy' from a 'religion' as such.

I don't know if the above makes sense - as before, I'm not disagreeing so much with what you wrote, just that I'm not sure it in presenting Marxist philosophy as an opposite to religion in general (rather than in particular, contemporaneously) is the case. I think the opposition that 'leftists' have toward other religions, is the same that any new religion has to older ones, in order to progress it must throw out the useless parts, and keep the useful parts, of the old religion, which means there will always be a conflict.

I took it to mean manichean type doctrine, but I might be wrong. For example, Augustine (possibly the preminent early theologian of Christianity) was originally a Manichean - it was very widespread and popular, influencing thought and understanding to this day, being a sythesis of 'western' and 'eastern' (and no doubt 'northern', i.e. turkic/siberian too) thought of various kinds.

I don't think that is what religions are, although certainly hierarchies and inequality can be justified on religious grounds - but then so can the opposite.

Religion, theist or not, is just a philosophical analysis of our world and how it works, with resulting prescriptions and advice about how to best interact with the world.

Its not really a matter of proof or disproof. Atheistic cults come and go, in accordance with the perspective of the adherants due to their circumstances, just as theistic ones do.

When a monotheist says there is one god, they are rejecting (or sythesising) other civilisational role models and teachings, and promoting unity of perspective, and claiming that the universe has a singular fundamental nature. When an atheist responds that there is no god, they are rejecting that perspective, probably because it doesn't suit their cicrumstances or interests, they are reacting against the proposed unity of perspective and the role model/teacher described.

Since religion is just a lens to comprehend, I don't think it really matters if somebody is a theist or not (we are all religious, since its how people conceptualise the world), unless particular aspects of that belief cause harm for themselves or others.

I haven't - although I think having read the intro that I've seen it quoted without attribution. I will read it!

Its reminiscent of a lecture I watched about the British Empire in India (I forget the name, but can probably find it again if you're interested), where the lecturer drew a parallel between the colonial concept of 'empty land' (like in Australia, ignoring the people who were living there, or indeed the US), and a similar concept used to justify conquest of obviously more populous and urbanised places like India, one example being with this kind of accusation about women - that the people there were 'savages and weren't treating their women properly' (betraying of course the accuser's view of women, as property without agency), and that a 'white coloniser' would have a better idea about how to 'treat women' (property, like land) than the native inhabitants. I suppose related to the liberal and religious concept of the civilising 'burden' of the coloniser. But we have seen this used very recently, with Afghanistan.

In any case, thanks for the link!

yes, and i think the state response is predictable - round up as many as you can on spurious identifiers (sumptuary laws like these rainbow jewelry), interrogate them and get them on record, and try to judge who is or isn't a threat to state security, or who can be useful or 'turned'.