«...if the ethical awareness of people is well developed, society will be a place where human beings can live a life worthy of a human being, no matter which state system is used. »
A people with an ethical awareness would not have a typical system of state no matter, it would be the reflection of its population, suppose for reasoning, a coup d'état, she would not live a life worthy of a human being, but act as a consequence of her ethical conscience.
« Indeed, I have never been enthusiastic about communism. But I am willing to admit that under certain conditions, communist leaders created social conditions that were better than the conditions we live in now. »
« This is a good question as well: are the social conditions in the ex-Yugoslavian countries now better than under Tito? I doubt it. For instance: throughout the last two decades, the price of an average apartment in Ljubliana increased from about 50.000 euro to more than 400.000 euro. And a little bit earlier, in Tito’s time (Tito died in 1980), everyone could buy a house. »
« I think it’s fair to say that Tito’s mild communism, in many respects, was better than contemporary ‘democratic’ systems and that Tito’s authoritarianism was replaced by a Western ‘velvet glove’ totalitarianism which cared less about the interests of the people. »
To achieve totalitarianism, it took time, a gradual progress, with certain favourable conditions, which played their role.
"Milosevic rose to power in the second part of the eighties. He was a radical fascist at that time. To change the financial system of Yugoslavia, he realized, Yugoslavia’s social coherence had to be broken. He and the people who supported him realized that the only way to destroy Yugoslavia was to destroy it from within. This was the most obvious strategy to do so: to stir up hatred between the Muslims, Orthodox and Christians who coexisted under Tito."
« I would be careful in pinning too much blame on a given leader while ignoring western meddling in dismantling the country. »
Comment from Milan radan 21 april, maby he give some articles...
It is remarkable that you do not mention the name of your Slovenian colleague Slavoj Zizek. However, it would be logical for you to mention him now that you are there in Slovenia, and not least because he also wrote a book on totalitarianism, ... while you do come to similar conclusions to Zizek now (and these actually partially contradict your thesis in the book, the problem is not the Enlightenment as you stated, but rather its (ab)users, and especially neo-liberal capitalism I wrote about this earlier: https://woutermareels.substack.com/p/13-beschouwingen-bij-de-psychologie).
That omission is reminiscent of the fact that you don't mention Sergei Chakotin's book "The Rape of the Masses (1940) The Psychology of Totalitarian Political Propaganda" in your book despite the fact that it should have been an obvious title in your bibliography anyway and your book has many similarities to it in form and content.
By the way, what do you think of "How the World Made the West" by Josephine Quinn. Fascinating book... Definitely recommended in relation to 'propaganda'.
Žižek is an example of how politics and affective positioning are prior to serious reflection. First he positions himself politically and economically, then he tailors an "objective", philosophical rationalisation according to this. Psychoanalysis is something quite different. Mattias is faithful to the psychoanalytic discourse, so he does not divide the world into binary oppositions, but seeks the truth of their positions in all the sides that are presented. While Žižek has already abandoned this project, so we can only read his symptoms rather than the theory. Otherwise, you have misunderstood Desmet; in your reflection you should go back to phenomenology, for example to Husserl. The point is important: science becomes problematic when it assumes a certain place in discourses and when it becomes an (imaginary) "world view". But all reading (especially in the field of epistemology and philosophy of science) is ultimately meaningless if one is psychologically incapable of recognising propaganda and cult mechanisms. Read Fromm, Lacan or Merleau-Ponty and you will see that resonance is above all a different attitude towards the world - and not "new age". Attitude that does not deny one's own situatedness in it. A person who does not have it does not recognise how the situation is changing, how neoliberalism is a thing of the past. The old conceptual spectacles have made you stop being creative (resonating) in conceptualising what is actually happening.
Marx's critique of capitalism is not only that capitalism necessarily leads to crises (economic, ecological, social), but above all that there is something unethical, unjust, at the heart of the system. It is the exploitation of human beings (and nature, animals). But he also knew that nothing would change because there was an ideology or a "problem of consciousness". So Marx himself also knew that a change of consciousness, a change of heart, was necessary in order to start processes that would also eliminate economic injustice. Of course, the question is how to raise people's consciousness. Here, however, we quickly end up in propaganda. This part is the most difficult. I think that the obstacle to Marx is that he is a materialist, albeit a dialectical materialist. He still wanted to solve the problem with thinking, but it is thinking that is the problem. We need to go beyond thought in such a way that it does not become another thought system. Essentially it is simply finding, and abiding in/as thought free Awareness.
“the focus on the economic level, suggesting that the root cause of the problem is to be situated there, will draw the attention away of the ethical level and let evil flourish even more than before.”
Dear Mattias, thank you for your continued sharing and speaking out, I truly respect your effort and honesty, your words resonate with me deeply. I have found you also lead a workshop on communication of truth in Belgium but since it is only in Dutch, I was wondering if you plan to organise a workshop in english anytime in the future? I would really love to attend and don't mind traveling there. May all good you do return to you multiplied, xoxo
Good review of the "ethical" history of the Yugoslavia changeover. I suggest a hyperlink to some documentation of your assertion that European tourists were buying hunting permits to kill civilians during the Yugoslav war following 1991. We have not heard of such in the U.S.
My book is translated in like 25 languages now, but not in French. Knowing that French is one of the languages of Belgium, that's a bit strange. Thank you for translating my substacks!
Did you get any clue about why? Can we do something about it?
For my personal use I did a translation from english to french, with the help of deepl.com, but obviously, it deserves a better quality work. For instance, what will be the best translation for "mass formation"? "conditionnement de masse"?
Nashville? Next week? This is the first I've heard of it. Can you provide me some additional details? This is the first (and perhaps only) opportunity I've seen to hear you in person. (I live in Raleigh, North Carolina.)
Good reminder of how it's not just the 1% or .0001% causing all the problems. Also i think important to remember that the so-called economy is not distinct from the human heart in the sense that all the resources of the economy come from the source, Mother Earth. So by not loving the source, humankind turned "economy" into a hungry ghost greed competition. And "economy" from the Greek "oikonomos" is "managing the house, village", so the word itself got hijacked by globalization. And now we're all paying the price of the absurd price increases due to the tyranny noted in the post.
To add one interesting fact.... After 1980, when Tito died it was obvious the time of exsistance of Yugoslavia is a matter of years. Before 1980 in Belgrade as capitol of Yugoslavia there were no hard drugs like heroin. CIA massive brought it to the capitol to spread among students, who always were force of a progress. They actaully succeed to make students pretty much passive
I would be very careful. There is something absolutely terrifying about the rhetoric of Marxism and Marxist adjacent ideologies. This is not to say that Marx did not get anything right, he did, he got some things very profoundly correct. That is why Marxism has been popular. However, the rhetoric, the manner of arguing and its interaction with crowd dynamics is the perfect storm and kryptonite for intellectuals. The way it progresses is similar to the progression of a destructive malware, slowly corrupting the very fabric of discourse in a society. Marxist style rhetoric, not only erodes truth but also seals the door for it tight shut. If someone wants to get a taste for it now, I would ask them to try to engage critically with the "intersectional feminism", which essentially, in my opinion, is a rebranding of Marxism.
I am not an expert at it, but as far as I understand, intersectional feminism is about recognizing historical privileges and inequalities which exist between groups. For example, an intersectional feminist white woman will be supposed to recognize the privilege she enjoys over her black counterparts and make amends for it.
In my opinion, it overloads the concept of feminism, and as stated above, appears to be simply be a brand of cultural Marxism where people are not treated according to who they are, but which social identity groups they belong to.
I understand, when you think about the privileges that people have receve in the education system, allowing us to develop some capacity for reflection, that we can do this, Maybe there’s a selfish component to it, allowing you to get in.
Indeed, according to the few memories of my reading of Marx and Engels,
There was not much in this theory that was deeply common, it certainly served as a tool, like many others, because to achieve advanced totalitarianism, it takes time.
Hi, I'm sad to see I missed an opportunity to meet someone I follow on Substack. Especially when they find our small country here on the east side (southeast) of the Alps. I live 8min from the airport on top floor and I have those mountains in view all the time. And I see you saw the beauty with your own eyes. But fo rme, living here, when I went to live in Manchester UK for 6 years, it's more than just a view. I can't live without it. Especially when I walk up those mountains now a lot (just been to 1715m peak 2x this weekend). The nature, the calm, the cliffs that make my stomach twist when looking down from the edge...
The politics? In a nutshell, after breaking away from Yugoslavia, the politicians who were all members of communist party just mainly rebranded themselves as "Social Democrats". And got us away from the reign of Belgrade and into the reign of Brussels. The people are split between left and right and it's not getting any better, so the sensible people that really want change for the better (regardless of left or right) don't even have a decent alternative that would be able to break this. Politicians just steal taxpayer money like it's their constitutional right, and left and right just spit at each other, but no one is ever responsible.
«...if the ethical awareness of people is well developed, society will be a place where human beings can live a life worthy of a human being, no matter which state system is used. »
A people with an ethical awareness would not have a typical system of state no matter, it would be the reflection of its population, suppose for reasoning, a coup d'état, she would not live a life worthy of a human being, but act as a consequence of her ethical conscience.
« Indeed, I have never been enthusiastic about communism. But I am willing to admit that under certain conditions, communist leaders created social conditions that were better than the conditions we live in now. »
« This is a good question as well: are the social conditions in the ex-Yugoslavian countries now better than under Tito? I doubt it. For instance: throughout the last two decades, the price of an average apartment in Ljubliana increased from about 50.000 euro to more than 400.000 euro. And a little bit earlier, in Tito’s time (Tito died in 1980), everyone could buy a house. »
« I think it’s fair to say that Tito’s mild communism, in many respects, was better than contemporary ‘democratic’ systems and that Tito’s authoritarianism was replaced by a Western ‘velvet glove’ totalitarianism which cared less about the interests of the people. »
To achieve totalitarianism, it took time, a gradual progress, with certain favourable conditions, which played their role.
"Milosevic rose to power in the second part of the eighties. He was a radical fascist at that time. To change the financial system of Yugoslavia, he realized, Yugoslavia’s social coherence had to be broken. He and the people who supported him realized that the only way to destroy Yugoslavia was to destroy it from within. This was the most obvious strategy to do so: to stir up hatred between the Muslims, Orthodox and Christians who coexisted under Tito."
« I would be careful in pinning too much blame on a given leader while ignoring western meddling in dismantling the country. »
Comment from Milan radan 21 april, maby he give some articles...
It is remarkable that you do not mention the name of your Slovenian colleague Slavoj Zizek. However, it would be logical for you to mention him now that you are there in Slovenia, and not least because he also wrote a book on totalitarianism, ... while you do come to similar conclusions to Zizek now (and these actually partially contradict your thesis in the book, the problem is not the Enlightenment as you stated, but rather its (ab)users, and especially neo-liberal capitalism I wrote about this earlier: https://woutermareels.substack.com/p/13-beschouwingen-bij-de-psychologie).
That omission is reminiscent of the fact that you don't mention Sergei Chakotin's book "The Rape of the Masses (1940) The Psychology of Totalitarian Political Propaganda" in your book despite the fact that it should have been an obvious title in your bibliography anyway and your book has many similarities to it in form and content.
By the way, what do you think of "How the World Made the West" by Josephine Quinn. Fascinating book... Definitely recommended in relation to 'propaganda'.
Žižek is an example of how politics and affective positioning are prior to serious reflection. First he positions himself politically and economically, then he tailors an "objective", philosophical rationalisation according to this. Psychoanalysis is something quite different. Mattias is faithful to the psychoanalytic discourse, so he does not divide the world into binary oppositions, but seeks the truth of their positions in all the sides that are presented. While Žižek has already abandoned this project, so we can only read his symptoms rather than the theory. Otherwise, you have misunderstood Desmet; in your reflection you should go back to phenomenology, for example to Husserl. The point is important: science becomes problematic when it assumes a certain place in discourses and when it becomes an (imaginary) "world view". But all reading (especially in the field of epistemology and philosophy of science) is ultimately meaningless if one is psychologically incapable of recognising propaganda and cult mechanisms. Read Fromm, Lacan or Merleau-Ponty and you will see that resonance is above all a different attitude towards the world - and not "new age". Attitude that does not deny one's own situatedness in it. A person who does not have it does not recognise how the situation is changing, how neoliberalism is a thing of the past. The old conceptual spectacles have made you stop being creative (resonating) in conceptualising what is actually happening.
Insightful and deeply thought-provoking.
Marx's critique of capitalism is not only that capitalism necessarily leads to crises (economic, ecological, social), but above all that there is something unethical, unjust, at the heart of the system. It is the exploitation of human beings (and nature, animals). But he also knew that nothing would change because there was an ideology or a "problem of consciousness". So Marx himself also knew that a change of consciousness, a change of heart, was necessary in order to start processes that would also eliminate economic injustice. Of course, the question is how to raise people's consciousness. Here, however, we quickly end up in propaganda. This part is the most difficult. I think that the obstacle to Marx is that he is a materialist, albeit a dialectical materialist. He still wanted to solve the problem with thinking, but it is thinking that is the problem. We need to go beyond thought in such a way that it does not become another thought system. Essentially it is simply finding, and abiding in/as thought free Awareness.
“the focus on the economic level, suggesting that the root cause of the problem is to be situated there, will draw the attention away of the ethical level and let evil flourish even more than before.”
I agree! Thank you for this informative post.
Dear Mattias, thank you for your continued sharing and speaking out, I truly respect your effort and honesty, your words resonate with me deeply. I have found you also lead a workshop on communication of truth in Belgium but since it is only in Dutch, I was wondering if you plan to organise a workshop in english anytime in the future? I would really love to attend and don't mind traveling there. May all good you do return to you multiplied, xoxo
Good review of the "ethical" history of the Yugoslavia changeover. I suggest a hyperlink to some documentation of your assertion that European tourists were buying hunting permits to kill civilians during the Yugoslav war following 1991. We have not heard of such in the U.S.
Man’s inhumanity to man is boundless.
Thank you Mattias for your ongoing thought sharing : )
As often I put online a french translation : https://dieudo.fr/wiki/Mattias_Desmet/2024.04.21
About this language, what about the french version of your books ?
My book is translated in like 25 languages now, but not in French. Knowing that French is one of the languages of Belgium, that's a bit strange. Thank you for translating my substacks!
Did you get any clue about why? Can we do something about it?
For my personal use I did a translation from english to french, with the help of deepl.com, but obviously, it deserves a better quality work. For instance, what will be the best translation for "mass formation"? "conditionnement de masse"?
Nashville? Next week? This is the first I've heard of it. Can you provide me some additional details? This is the first (and perhaps only) opportunity I've seen to hear you in person. (I live in Raleigh, North Carolina.)
I speak at the culture summit. But I will return …
I would like some advance notice on when/ if you plan to be in the area of North Carolina in the future... :-)
Yes. I'll do my best.
Good reminder of how it's not just the 1% or .0001% causing all the problems. Also i think important to remember that the so-called economy is not distinct from the human heart in the sense that all the resources of the economy come from the source, Mother Earth. So by not loving the source, humankind turned "economy" into a hungry ghost greed competition. And "economy" from the Greek "oikonomos" is "managing the house, village", so the word itself got hijacked by globalization. And now we're all paying the price of the absurd price increases due to the tyranny noted in the post.
Mattias, thank you for everything! It was really great having you here :)
To add one interesting fact.... After 1980, when Tito died it was obvious the time of exsistance of Yugoslavia is a matter of years. Before 1980 in Belgrade as capitol of Yugoslavia there were no hard drugs like heroin. CIA massive brought it to the capitol to spread among students, who always were force of a progress. They actaully succeed to make students pretty much passive
I would be very careful. There is something absolutely terrifying about the rhetoric of Marxism and Marxist adjacent ideologies. This is not to say that Marx did not get anything right, he did, he got some things very profoundly correct. That is why Marxism has been popular. However, the rhetoric, the manner of arguing and its interaction with crowd dynamics is the perfect storm and kryptonite for intellectuals. The way it progresses is similar to the progression of a destructive malware, slowly corrupting the very fabric of discourse in a society. Marxist style rhetoric, not only erodes truth but also seals the door for it tight shut. If someone wants to get a taste for it now, I would ask them to try to engage critically with the "intersectional feminism", which essentially, in my opinion, is a rebranding of Marxism.
I had never heard before of intersectional feminism.
I am not an expert at it, but as far as I understand, intersectional feminism is about recognizing historical privileges and inequalities which exist between groups. For example, an intersectional feminist white woman will be supposed to recognize the privilege she enjoys over her black counterparts and make amends for it.
In my opinion, it overloads the concept of feminism, and as stated above, appears to be simply be a brand of cultural Marxism where people are not treated according to who they are, but which social identity groups they belong to.
I understand, when you think about the privileges that people have receve in the education system, allowing us to develop some capacity for reflection, that we can do this, Maybe there’s a selfish component to it, allowing you to get in.
Indeed, according to the few memories of my reading of Marx and Engels,
There was not much in this theory that was deeply common, it certainly served as a tool, like many others, because to achieve advanced totalitarianism, it takes time.
Hi, I'm sad to see I missed an opportunity to meet someone I follow on Substack. Especially when they find our small country here on the east side (southeast) of the Alps. I live 8min from the airport on top floor and I have those mountains in view all the time. And I see you saw the beauty with your own eyes. But fo rme, living here, when I went to live in Manchester UK for 6 years, it's more than just a view. I can't live without it. Especially when I walk up those mountains now a lot (just been to 1715m peak 2x this weekend). The nature, the calm, the cliffs that make my stomach twist when looking down from the edge...
The politics? In a nutshell, after breaking away from Yugoslavia, the politicians who were all members of communist party just mainly rebranded themselves as "Social Democrats". And got us away from the reign of Belgrade and into the reign of Brussels. The people are split between left and right and it's not getting any better, so the sensible people that really want change for the better (regardless of left or right) don't even have a decent alternative that would be able to break this. Politicians just steal taxpayer money like it's their constitutional right, and left and right just spit at each other, but no one is ever responsible.
I learned a lot here. Thank you.