I think Herbert Selby Jr touched on some of these this in 1978 with "Requiem of a Dream". All of the things that we put into our lives to fill the void ends up owning us and leaving us just as lonely as we were before.
Thank you for yet another excellently writen article!
Beautifully written and absolutely spot on as always Scarlet! I've been thinking about loneliness in conjunction with capitalist realism a lot lately; that isolating, alienating feeling that often feels inescapable when living beneath a system that prioritizes us feeling demoralized in order for it's project to succeed. The capitalist mandate has never once concerned itself with our well-being, as we're nothing but expendable cogs that simply power the machine capitalists exploit (along with us workers) for their own personal gain. We don't have to live this way, nor do we have to accept a societal system that forces this type of behavior upon us as the primary means of survival. As you once wrote, "we owe each other everything" and we can't fulfill that promise to each other by remaining trapped in our own individual capitalist prisons. As difficult as it can be (given how much capitalism places in front of us as active barriers), we must still find it within ourselves to break free from the catastrophic cycle of capitalist alienation and isolation so we can find our way back to each other; jump-starting the process of building that better world by breaking more people out of capitalist realism. "There is no app we can download to cure us." I couldn't agree more. Thank you again for another fantastic piece Scarlet and for all the work you do as the revolutionary human being that you are!
I think Herbert Selby Jr touched on some of these this in 1978 with "Requiem of a Dream". All of the things that we put into our lives to fill the void ends up owning us and leaving us just as lonely as we were before.
Thank you for yet another excellently writen article!
Beautifully written and absolutely spot on as always Scarlet! I've been thinking about loneliness in conjunction with capitalist realism a lot lately; that isolating, alienating feeling that often feels inescapable when living beneath a system that prioritizes us feeling demoralized in order for it's project to succeed. The capitalist mandate has never once concerned itself with our well-being, as we're nothing but expendable cogs that simply power the machine capitalists exploit (along with us workers) for their own personal gain. We don't have to live this way, nor do we have to accept a societal system that forces this type of behavior upon us as the primary means of survival. As you once wrote, "we owe each other everything" and we can't fulfill that promise to each other by remaining trapped in our own individual capitalist prisons. As difficult as it can be (given how much capitalism places in front of us as active barriers), we must still find it within ourselves to break free from the catastrophic cycle of capitalist alienation and isolation so we can find our way back to each other; jump-starting the process of building that better world by breaking more people out of capitalist realism. "There is no app we can download to cure us." I couldn't agree more. Thank you again for another fantastic piece Scarlet and for all the work you do as the revolutionary human being that you are!
I love this. RR has nailed it. I still hold out hope that one day soon people will put their phones away and look their neighbors in the eye.
I thoroughly enjoyed this trenchant and thoughtful essay.
Oh yes I wrote about loneliness and capital a few years back referring it back to principles of quantum mechanics! https://overland.org.au/previous-issues/issue-235/feature-schrodingers-worker/
You need a conservatorship