I agree quite much with your points, just wanted to highlight that, yes, part of it is stupid street-cred-seeking, but alongside that, the motivation behind the dresscode is _cultural_. It’s not ‘just’ worn & designed to shock, it’s as much motivated by (cultural) aesthetics (that, as we know, are self-propagating). I suppose we agree on that this intertwinedness is slightly problematic for trying to sort things out and work things in the right direction, but i have no better idea than to take culture into consideration when dealing with people from different backgrounds. I think a huge problem in trying to effect anything on a larger societal level is the fragmentation of the collective reality, one has to be a bit considerate or one will end up stepping on someone’s cultural toes all the time. I know one can’t really compare, but it’s easy for your critique of his dresscode to come off the same way as demanding traditional people to ‘dress up properly in our civilized manner’ in order to be taken seriously.

On the other hand, i can’t help seeing the fragmentation of collective reality, or whatever it could better be named as, as an inevitable part of the ongoing process of collapse, why it would seem a bit awkward to try to work against it. Which is why i personally would want to advocate consideration and cultural tolerance on all sides so that peaceful interaction and cooperation would be a possibility nonetheless. Tucker & co do indeed not seem very good at this in the discussion above, the reasons of which i also touched upon above. Trying to build a different culture inside civilization’s hegemony is gonna be you up against the wall quite hard all the damn time, no wonder if some people are aggressively defensive (no pun/yes pun). What they indeed can be criticised for is the lack of perspective on their own culture in their political & ideological work, as it dims their analytical view quite a bit. But they are no way alone in this, cultures don’t tend to propagate the idea of their own subjectiveness, do they? The inherent problem in trying to affect things outside yourself: the motivation and legitimation stemming from your experience/knowledge of the situation and how it touches yourself, versus the potential hubris in assumming you have it all sorted out. Given the overall situation and how much it takes to try to sort it all out, i think one must aknowledge the courage of those that step up (risking hubris and the icaric plunge) to at all act on their conscience (or whatever). That also is setting yourself up against the wall quite some, which also can make ideological people defensive. Which of course is sad, when it hinders critical evaluation of yourself.

Blah blah. Be nice to the kids Jason. Good luck & times!

But Tucker’s appearance represents only one, off-hand example of this trend, and given all the good that Tucker’s writing has done, I maintain he’s done far more good than harm. I would just hope that we could recognize the importance of stopping civilization’s rampage, and that we might be able to have the courage to do whatever it takes to do that—even if that means endangering our “street cred” as radicals, or skipping “feel good” approaches like blowing things up that just make civilization stronger, in favor of more effective means that just don’t feel like they’re opposing anything.

And that’s why critiques (if we could call them that) such as Dr Tiresome & xlukex aren’t really worth bothering with. Critics who are only critics never have much impact.

I just know you’re the kind of people who would check their site counter every day and rub their hands together with glee at every dozen hits, thinking you’re “finally getting through to people”, so i feel obliged to tell you - the next hundred or so hits you get on this site will be everybody i know, after i tell them i finally found the internet’s nadir, the place where the most outrageously stupid and pointless garbage is spouted, and where those spouting it stick their fingers in their ears and shriek like pacifists at the sight of broken Starbucks windows anytime someone tries to wake them the fuck up…

oh and by the way, Jason - you DO look like a freak.

I would venture to guess that your anti-symbolic critic Zerzan is an extreme case of concrete thinking. In all probability he won’t change, any more than you or I will stop our uses of symbolism.

I don’t know how much it has to do with personal thinking styles—Zerzan’s critique of abstract thought is actually quite abstract (and my rejection of it, ironically enough, is deeply pragmatic).

There is another oldschool tribal metaphor that may be relevant here: the Dreamtime; the reality found in dreams and trance states that is said (in the Australian aboriginal myths) to be the source of creation, the place whence all of “this” reality originated.

Indeed, and I’ve made conscious and explicit comparisons of role-playing and shamanism. See “The Fifth World Manifesto.”

If you’re a coder and you can write games, do it.

I am, and I might, but the Fifth World is a table-top role-playing game, along the lines of Dungeons & Dragons. There’s a hilariously campy video my brother found on YouTube recently: DragonStrike. This video was released with the board game produced by TSR in 1993. Like its better-known predecessor HeroQuest, bridged the gap between a board game and the typical role-playing game, making them essential RPG “lite,” or a gateway product to bring new blood into the hobby. Table-top role-playing games usually lose the board and the miniatures, and generally involve much more serious and involved storylines, but the video still illustrates the general concept, while being simultaneously hilarious.

Pirates appear to be tribals, but they are at best tribals-of-convenience.

Quite right, but I would rather say they are tribal of necessity. Humans evolved in tribes, and tribes are what come most naturally to us. Any other social system is a luxury that we may not always be able to afford. Piracy was a life that could not afford it, and so they moved easily into a more tribal pattern.

Hollywood wants us to think pirates are cute cuddly rebels, but in reality they are the seagoing version of Zarqawi, taking hostages and murdering for the sake of money. If you were to let them get near you they would cut your throat. They have as much to do with primitivism as the Nazis do with the Norse mythos, which is to say, nothing. They are not your allies.

That’s going quite a bit too far. Yes, they were thieves, but they did not normally steal gold directly. Rather, they stole trade goods, and then sold them to people at much cheaper prices (having a much lower cost of production, after all—they just have to steal it). Thus, piracy both in the past and the present is a practice that flourishes when goods cost too much. That is when the disparity grows large enough to make piracy lucrative.

Re. the debate over symbolic thought:

Symbolic thinking is a form of abstraction. Capacity for abstraction varies, as with other measurable characteristics of humans, along a “normal curve” (bell-shaped curve). At one end are the extreme concrete thinkers: in religious terms these are the fundamentalists, those who conflate God with The Word (scripture). At the other end are the extreme abstract thinkers: in religious terms these are the mystics, those for whom direct experience of the Ground of Being is God. The vast majority of humans are in between.

I would venture to guess that your anti-symbolic critic Zerzan is an extreme case of concrete thinking. In all probability he won’t change, any more than you or I will stop our uses of symbolism.

Re. RPGs and your post-collapse game: I’ve never been a gamer myself, and I detest the violent brainwash the industry puts out (e.g. GTA), but I find this interesting. You relate it to the oldschool tribal customs of storytelling and play. There is another oldschool tribal metaphor that may be relevant here: the Dreamtime; the reality found in dreams and trance states that is said (in the Australian aboriginal myths) to be the source of creation, the place whence all of “this” reality originated.

It would seem to me that a game that has the effect of conveying its participants into that world, also partakes of that Dreamtime creation myth. In effect you’re using industrial civ’s technology to leverage people out of industrial civ. No one really knows whether that or some other approach will turn out to be the best use of time and effort, but to quote Aldous Huxley out of context, “Nothing less than everything is truly sufficient.” If you’re a coder and you can write games, do it. In these times everyone has to pitch in where they can and use their skills to the best effect.

I’m going to argue the case re. pirates. Pirates appear to be tribals, but they are at best tribals-of-convenience. Real tribals are producers, by which I mean, they produce their own subsistance. Pirates produce nothing; they are thugs who use force and fraud to steal from others. Hollywood wants us to think pirates are cute cuddly rebels, but in reality they are the seagoing version of Zarqawi, taking hostages and murdering for the sake of money. If you were to let them get near you they would cut your throat. They have as much to do with primitivism as the Nazis do with the Norse mythos, which is to say, nothing. They are not your allies.

OK, this is long enough for a first posting here; and I hope your infrastructure will recognize my paragraph breaks!:-)