Nilsi

Share songs that are close to perfection; ideal; archetypal.

This is a masterpiece of contemporary art, embodying what I would call "post-rap." In contrast to rappers in the 90s who were unconsciously acting out their sociocultural reality, Westside Gunn in this song wears his historical awareness on his sleeve. He refines gangster rap to its core elements, amplifying them to the extreme, while also demonstrating keen avant-garde sensibilities.

My claim is that postmodernism began to become the dominant sociocultural reality in the West over 100 years ago, yes, and I've given you many examples that illustrate this.

So everything that you can't find on CNN is "nutty," or even better, just flat-out "wrong"? For someone who claims to be the "most open-minded person on the planet," your mind is quite dense. You still want to push this point? An Amish person wouldn't necessarily be able to describe themselves as conservative, but could still intuitively hold the epistemic positions inherent to that "philosophy." Also, I don't care what Trump thinks or how he views himself; his actions speak louder than a thousand words. Hasn't psychoanalysis taught us anything here? Your most fundamental philosophical positions are totally unconscious, and thus a true postmodernist wouldn't be able to describe themselves as such.

I claim there was no real con-artistry before postmodernism. Con artists rely on certain psychological dispositions in the general population to exploit. If people did not believe in concrete appearances and objective truth (as is at the core of modernity), these could not be exploited by the con artist. The con artist also requires this psychological development in himself, just as the child using formal logic relies on having internalized concrete logic, so there is no way this could have existed from the dawn of time. A figure like Donald Trump can only exist within the context of contemporary mass media, where everything is pure surface and spectacle, and a Machiavellian psychopath (also a key figure emerging from the postmodern condition) can exploit the general tendency of the masses to believe their eyes and ears. A stage red ruler (at the dawn of civilization) would be incapable of such intellectual weaseling because his mythologized sense of morality (e.g. divine right of kings, blessing of the gods, etc.) is literally what makes up his identity. Anything that threatens this moral construct is brutally exterminated. What logic is that? So a dog is not a dog because it is incapable of telling you what a dog is?

Which is precisely what makes him the quintessential postmodern president.

Again, you are asserting a false causality between stages of development and moral terms (which, if I were to be maximally polemic, I could describe as stage purple magical thinking). You would agree that a very intelligent psychopath can cause more havoc than a very unintelligent one, wouldn't you? In the same sense, capitalism, operating through relativism, pluralism, etc., is much more insidious than the plain old industrial-era capitalism, where the factory worker has a clear image of this capitalism (e.g. factories, bourgeois capitalists). Today's capitalism is so decentralized and nebulous that most people don't even realize they are enslaved by it and, at best, can concoct some conspiracy theories to imagine where the center of oppression lies (e.g. deep state/elites, silicon valley, etc.), which is nothing but a coping strategy for the radically fluid and faceless reality of capitalism and the market forces that dominate their lives today. I have made my point elsewhere. I'm not going to argue in circles with you. On a slightly unrelated note: did you know that many of your so-called "green liberals" and most of the 1960s counterculture went on to become the loudest and proudest supporters of libertarianism (e.g. Steve Jobs) in the 1970s and 1980s? Quite the ironic, but predictable twist. Libertarianism, in many ways, is the ultimate conclusion of green liberalism in a world that still hasn't addressed the underlying economic and psychological realities of capitalism. This is textbook stage orange hubris. First of all, let's not confuse capitalism with the economy (more on that later). Secondly, and most importantly, there is no guarantee of some utopian future; the future is radically open, and unless humanity takes full responsibility for it, I can guarantee you that the future we will create (or rather, let happen) will be dystopic, and much worse than what we have now. (See Joseph Tainter's "Collapse of Complex Societies," Oswald Spengler's "Decline of the West," or Manuel De Landa's "A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History" to dispel yourself of any such naive readings of historical progress.) Not a pedantic side point, but rather the central point of this discussion. You can define capitalism the way you did, but here I insist on a more metaphysical definition of the term: capitalism, at its core, is the systematization of human desire. René Girard has put his finger right on the spot with his Theory of Mimetic Desire, which claims that our desire is by default insatiable since we precisely desire to possess for ourselves whatever object is desired by the other, and thus there is inherent conflict embedded in this desire. This dynamic runs like a continuous thread through the entire evolution of economic (or symbolic) exchange from our tribal past to our postmodern present; and this dynamic is precisely what drives capitalism. This is also precisely the point of discussion in the famous conversations between J. Krishnamurti and David Bohm, in which they, I think correctly, conclude that there has to be a fundamental shift in perception (i.e. perceiving reality as a continuous whole, rather than individual parts, which necessarily must be in conflict with each other). So yes, in some sense, there cannot be capitalism at the holistic stage of development, but there certainly can be much worse forms of it just before it.

Notice that the example I provided are just symptoms of an underlying sociocultural reality; they are not in themselves what is meant by postmodernism.

Wow, what a load of crap. Postmodernism is not merely an „aesthetic and philosophical movement;“ it is the state of the world we’ve been living in, I claim, for over 100 years. This would be like saying „classicism is merely an aesthetic and philosophical movement starting with the Renaissance,“ when actually it is a reference, a gesture to classical antiquity, which did ACTUALLY happen. People try to pretend like postmodernism isn’t an actual thing, which is insane to me. Some of the core tenets of postmodernism are: Blurring of the distinction between what is real and what is imaginary; this already started with characters like Edward Bernays (early 20th century), the father of public relations. The death of the meta-narrative; this is Nietzsche's infamous proclamation about the death of God (in the late 19th century). Fragmentation and decentering of meaning; you can start seeing this happen in art with Pablo Picasso and cubism (early 20th century). Irony, parody, and pastiche; James Joyce’s 'Ulysses' (1922) creates an ironic conglomerate of various writing styles and historical periods that makes it obvious that we have arrived at the end of linear history already. Besides that, I have already characterized postmodern capitalism in a previous post. We could also analyze this psychologically through things like mental illnesses and such, but that’s not my forte, and I don’t think it’s necessary to drive the point home. Your move is the equivalent of quoting some random Christian YouTuber in a debate about God. If that’s your epistemic standard, I don’t see any point in continuing this conversation.

What logic is that? So, by extension, is the post-World War II era yet to come because "post" always implies the future? Lolz. Postmodernism is simply what came after modernity. The central myth of modernity, that of the Enlightenment (the progressive liberation of mankind through scientific discovery), has been disintegrating for a good while now. The first theorists to truly grasp this were Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno in their classic "Dialectic of Enlightenment" (a topic for another day), published in 1944 and obviously conceived only after modernity had already started to fall apart (i.e. after postmodernity had already begun to emerge).

Postmodernism isn't some futuristic possibility; it has been taking over Western society for over 100 years already.

Yes, my point is that capitalism can take over any spiral stage and becomes even more pernicious the higher up the spiral it moves.

The labor theory of value no longer holds its ground in our postmodern society. Today, the concept of sign value is more prevalent, wherein the worth of a good or service is influenced largely by its representational and symbolic meanings. The branding, marketing, and cultural significance of a product play a central role in determining its value, much more so than the material and labor costs involved in its production. Just look at the example of Coca-Cola versus a generic cola brand. The price difference between them is obviously not a reflection of the production costs; instead, it's largely influenced by Coca-Cola's extensive marketing, brand recognition, and cultural symbolism. The crucial point is that this doesn't imply that Coca-Cola is overvalued; rather, these factors contribute to its perceived value, making it more desirable to consumers and thus, in a perverse way, actually more valuable.

There is no "normal capitalism." Capitalism functions through unlimited growth and unquenchable desire; it is intrinsically excessive. There can be healthy markets and an economy, but no healthy capitalism.

A highly intelligent individual can perhaps outsmart capitalism and transcend some of its influence, but this will always be a race, and the vast majority will get caught and devoured by it. Therefore, to be truly emancipatory means to be absolutely opposed to capitalism.

Yes, capitalism is the issue, as it is what makes it increasingly difficult to discover higher aspects of life and, unless stopped, will start turning increasingly more sacred aspects of life into commodities and fuel for its fire.

I personally know people working bullshit jobs in media, and they were all hired purely based on their degree.

This might be true for startups and small companies with an entrepreneurial spirit, but it becomes increasingly untrue as the company grows larger. Big companies only care about degrees because they are the perfect standardized representation of competence (which, of course, they aren’t in reality, but that’s the premise). The hiring process in big companies is completely streamlined and based on standardized criteria. All the HR department cares about is hitting their targets and keeping their job, so there is no incentive for them to think outside the box and meaningfully engage with the actual, unrepresented competence of the applicant.

Capitalism is totally foreign to Spiral Dynamics. The force of capital is present at every stage and only becomes more sinister the further up the spiral it moves. This is the perfect example. Postmodern capitalism is being select for, because it is even more effective. The emphasis on flexibility and adaptability is ruthlessly exploited by capital interests, leading to increased precarity for workers, less job security, fewer benefits without corresponding increases in wages of quality of life. All aspects of life are increasingly commodified and mediated. The economy becomes dominated by signs and symbols (e.g. brands, images) rather than material goods. Identity and self-worth become increasingly tied to consumer choices. Most importantly, the idea that there is no alternative to this capitalist realism becomes internalized and limits the ability to work toward different social or economic ends. It’s not hard to see how this is a distinct break from the rational enlightenment ideal of free market economy and it's promise of universal affluence and happiness and how it precisely coincides with the emergence and rise of the relativistic mind in western society. Attributing capitalism to low development is the gravest of mistakes, and trivializes the pervasive force of capitalism to a dangerous degree.