the class war element is wrong because these people are not nobles. they\u2019re workers and petty bourgeois. they are dressed in working men\u2019s clothes. people aren\u2019t stopping because there\u2019s a feudal relation of duty between them. they are stopping because it is a rule in society not to murder people even if they are asking for it<\/p>\n\n\n\n
so this class analysis is wrong, but what is right in it? Nothing, as expressed, but there is a certain trend in some revolutionary thought that proposes the dichotomy of \u201cRevolutionary Man\u201d v \u201cReactionary Nature\u201d \u2013 if man is capable of reforming the world by overcoming nature, then those elements of society which oppose this reformation are allied with Nature that fights back. And there is some truth to this \u2013 by some of its proponents the feudal system is not just a particular mode of society but the Natural Way of Things \u2013 a Lord lives in a manor in a similar way that the mountain in his domain does. And as the feudal system became less and less a brute fact of life, and the Romanticism of revolution took over more and more things, reactionary thinkers of this anti-Romantic line grew more and more keen on the notion of a Nature fighting back against everything the thinkers didn\u2019t like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the last century, various thinkers in this tradition developed a consciousness of themselves, quite different from earlier political consciousnesses, in the form of the Green Movement (as they call themselves) or Gaians (as I polemically call them).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What unites them is a worshipful attitude towards an abstract Nature and an anxiety about its manifestation in the world. There are Left Gaians and there are Right Gaians. There are rich Gaians and there are poor Gaians. But all of them share this attitude and anxiety. It is, at heart, misanthropy, megalomania and the will to power, all in the worst possible faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What Gaians find worshipful about Nature is that Nature does not Do Things. \u201cDoing Things is Evil\u201d as the rationalist saying goes and one relieves oneself of a great deal of anxiety, of \u03c4\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03be\u03b9\u03b1, by Not Doing Things. Nature simply *exists* but kills people, brings innumerable beings to life, destroys their wealth, is the source of everything that growe, casts down the proud, raises the humble, and all this it does without Doing Things. Nature is wonderful. Nature is powerful. Nature is free from sin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nature does not speak. You cannot reason with Nature. Nature does not know pity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is the power that Gaians try to manifest in their lives. Of course they are not Nature \u2013 they are people, so they live in a society of rules, reason, compassion and Doing Things. But it is possible sometimes to manifest Nature a little by, for instance, being unruly, unreasonable, heartless and affecting a pose of Not Doing Things \u2013 that is, sitting down on the road and thinking \u201cglacier\u201d or \u201credwood\u201d or \u201cearthquake\u201d or \u201cbears eating everyone i hate\u201d very hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What do they get from this? Narcissistic supply mostly, but just as a Roman priest processing through the town bearing the azymus in a golden monstrance is manifesting Christ as a sign for earthlings to look up from the shit and toil of the world to see a brief glimpse of Heaven (go to church lol), the Gaians are inviting you to look up from the Society of Doing Things to see Nature (join the green party lol)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
the class war element is wrong because these people are not nobles. they\u2019re workers and petty bourgeois. they are dressed in working men\u2019s clothes. people aren\u2019t stopping because there\u2019s a feudal relation of duty between them. they are stopping because … Continue reading