The mental state is too empty, and there is no correct class stance. Of course, news is not something that cannot be watched, but this kind of browsing also reflects a very empty life, with no goals or plans. This is actually a relationship between a symbol and the essence; the symbol is the mental state, and the essence is the class stance.
The last intense clash with bourgeois ideology was shortly before returning to the team, when proletarian ideology defeated bourgeois pornographic ideas. After registering a new account, I returned to the team, but until recently, I hadn’t engaged in regular and systematic ideological struggle. Even when I did, it was only at an emotional level, not yet reaching a rational stage. During this period, I didn’t watch a bit of pornography, games, or secondary dimension content, yet last weekend I suddenly watched over an hour of secondary dimension pornography and browsed several videos that used game content as entertainment. At this moment, if I casually throw in a few theoretical remarks like yesterday, and list a few issues, it seems like everything is “great success,” and the ideological struggle is “successfully” over. But in fact, when I write this article, I am still struggling with a certain pornographic scum from the weekend, and the ideological struggle is still a long way to go. That’s also why I am writing this article.
During this period, although I did some housework and learned to cook a few dishes, I am far from the level of cooking independently, and I only did some chores on weekends.
I have been waiting for the right time to buy books or for friends to buy MP4s before reading those e-books, so I haven’t read much political economy and philosophy, only reading “A Concise World History.” Even when I occasionally browse e-books, I just flip through a few pages casually. Moreover, I previously studied “Introduction” using the bourgeois learning method of “completing tasks,” which left many parts unclear. After discussing with comrades, I realized that it didn’t really solve the problem, so I just left it aside. I think philosophy is mediocre when I read it myself, but when I see comrades using philosophy to thoroughly criticize bourgeois ideas, I feel I am far behind and don’t know how to learn properly.
The better organized activities are: I participate in all the reading clubs I can join and basically take notes. But I don’t often discuss with comrades, and I am indifferent to them (especially when meeting newcomers, I ignore them, which is much better done by Beifeng and Screw). I was also puzzled why comrades didn’t mention me much during discussions and criticisms or self-criticisms. (I only thought about this at the time, without deep reflection.) Essentially, I participated too little in organizational activities, often just standing as a spectator in the swamp, watching comrades fight against bourgeois ideas. Even when I participated, I shamelessly beautified myself in many places, as if my ideological problems were “not that serious.”
Material life goes without saying; I live very comfortably. My spiritual life is neglected; the homeroom teacher doesn’t watch revolutionary literature and art on weekends, and I listen to revolutionary songs at night. But once the weekend or winter vacation comes, low-level pleasures peak, often watching a bunch of videos that become tasteless, and I realize that time has passed unconsciously. When heading to school, I slap my thigh in regret.
In summary, the situation of my ideological struggle over these months is not optimistic: calm and cautious. In terms of theoretical study, I am engaged in petty-bourgeois interest-ism, using bourgeois study methods, studying theories without much connection to reality, viewing theory as an isolated thing. I study theory diligently, but without putting in real effort; I hope comrades can give some study methods.
In organizational activities, I deal with bourgeois social relations or am too busy with reckless pleasures to have time for forums. This is a class stance issue: is revolution more important, or is personal pleasure more important? Are living people more important, or those illusory secondary dimension paper figures? The bourgeois social relations are rotten to the core; we need to use Marxist-Leninist-Maoist surgical tools to dissect others and ourselves more profoundly.
We must understand: helping a comrade must be thorough; do not shield him from mistakes. When he is unaware, if you shield him, he will thank you; but when he suffers great losses because of it or his awareness improves, he will blame you for not helping him at that time. When you help him uncover problems now, when he is unaware, he will blame you, thinking you are making things difficult for him; but when he improves, he will thank you. We must never vulgarize comradeship.
Material and spiritual life should have a clear plan; even if only an hour, it must be well planned. Do not underestimate even a small amount of time — combined, it becomes many, thousands, and millions.
The reason why pornographic ideas can revive is because in the struggle with Confucian parents (old relations), it inevitably touches on old ideas. Its successful revival relies on residual non-proletarian thoughts and my neglect of ideological struggle. The ultimate goal is to promote the revolutionary side to defeat the counter-revolutionary side. To do this, we must study Marxist theory more actively, participate more in organizational activities, and “break private interests and establish public interests” through criticism and self-criticism. Using Marxism to transform our lives is the essence of ideological struggle.
To carry out good ideological struggle, the above slogans must be put into practice. This requires a firm class stance, which is not something that comes easily but is forged through struggle against old things and old ideas. The current struggle is a struggle against Confucian parents and pornographic ideas.
The Struggle of Abortion
If a person fights solely for their own personal interests, they may have temporary courage and motivation, but when the situation of the struggle exceeds their expectations, the outcome may cause greater losses to their personal interests, and they will choose to compromise or surrender. If someone only fights for themselves, they might gain momentary courage and victory, but they can never achieve complete victory or become a truly great person.
This attempt to fight for Chun Gao failed. The Confucian parents fully exposed their hypocrisy of “democracy” and their nature of greed during the struggle. Verbally, they said “we do this all for your sake,” but in reality, they were just worried about their stock value decreasing.
Although I prepared an outline to respond to the Confucian parents’ rhetoric before the struggle, I didn’t focus much on the core goal of the struggle (why to pursue Chun Gao and its pros and cons, mainly the latter), so I quickly fell into passivity and could only be beaten passively. Occasionally, I retorted a few insults about laborers, promoted petty bourgeois lifestyle, and said I lacked experience. In the end, the Confucian parents forcibly promoted “continue to strive for the general high school” and did not allow me to say anything else, achieving a one-sided “reconciliation.” After the failure of the struggle, escapism took over me (“What should I tell my comrades about the failure?”), I played chess and watched videos, and didn’t even help Confucian mother with meals! Until nearly 10 o’clock, when the internet was cut off, I finally talked about the situation. I only said a few words before Confucian mother threatened to cut off the internet. Pornographic thoughts took the opportunity to counterattack—I thought about searching for porn videos, but later the internet was not cut off. Then I started thinking about the issue of pornographic thoughts and drafted an outline.
First, in this struggle, I was unprepared and had no way to counter Confucian father’s argument that “it is not beneficial for my future studies and petty bourgeois life.” Second, I realized that Chun Gao is just a relatively easy path of bourgeois academic pursuit, seeking minor improvements under the premise of continued speculation, ultimately serving personal interests (so I said that Chun Gao has a new environment, more focus, and good planning, which fundamentally refutes the idea that “people with poor learning are there, and it’s a mixed crowd, but you can also have a plan”). My conclusion is that the main goal of the next struggle should be to fight like Lyon and May Day for labor; the struggle for democracy (changing classes, not attending evening self-study, long-term leave, no weekend classes).
My mistakes after the failure of the struggle: I was worried about failure, ashamed that I didn’t achieve my goals, and worried about criticism, so I didn’t immediately admit it.
This is a manifestation of individualism: fearing so-called “personal face,” I didn’t dare to expose my shortcomings to comrades immediately but instead took a cowardly approach by watching meaningless videos (this is similar to how Marko Wang treats relationships among comrades as mutual punching bags). It also reflects that I regarded the Chun Gao struggle as a fight for personal interests; after failure, spiritual emptiness is inevitable.
Post-mortem approach: I looked at my past diaries and found that I have not corrected my mistakes in time, but only after the problem-solving time had almost passed did I regret “painfully reflect,” and then? Then I forget about this matter completely, continue to do my own thing, suffer setbacks without gaining wisdom, which causes my struggles to always be full of twists and turns and often end in defeat. For example, during winter vacation, I had no rigorous daily plan, wasting over two hours each day watching videos unrelated to politics, with no theoretical study at all. When winter vacation “suddenly” ended, I regretted my initial “free and lax, spiritually empty” attitude.
Some comrades might think that after my self-criticism, I “timely” recognized my problems and “corrected” myself. But from my subsequent life state, you can see whether I have truly learned my lesson and whether I have used the summarized experience to reform my study and life.
Writing a self-criticism is not the end of ideological struggle but the beginning. Bourgeois ideas only hide before I “proletarianize.” When given the chance, they still come out to bite. Thinking that once I finish writing, everything will be fine and my tail will wag in the sky—that’s just petty bourgeois fanaticism. To cleanse the thoughts of “post-mortem Zhuge Liang” and “tail wagging,” first, I need courage, as Chairman Gonsalves said:
Establish our ideology, release inner courage
To achieve this, one must “break private interests (non-proletarian worldview) and establish public interests (proletarian worldview).” This involves ideological struggle, actively participating in organizational activities, studying Marxist theory, and using Marxism to transform one’s material and spiritual life. Most importantly, always remember that Marxists do not live for themselves; they should think of others who are exploited and oppressed in the world.
“Never forget class struggle.”
@Lyon1121
Pornography is the vicious enemy of a vast number of women; it defends the fascist atrocities of the bourgeoisie who have always treated women as their private property, and it shamelessly beautifies all oppression of women as “entertainment.”
The ideological struggle and the real struggle against oppressors and exploiters are inseparable. On the weekend I fought with Confucian Mother, and on Sunday I did not go to the school of capital, so I spent a lot of time on extremely harmful spiritual opium (including二次元 pornography). The bourgeois ideology began to act on Friday; at that time I (privately) talked with Comrade Lyon, he asked me to take it to the forum to speak. I didn’t say anything due to my lust, and later I was afraid of being criticized by comrades for exposing my life on the forum, so I dragged it to today.
Sunday night Confucian Mother showed me the head teacher Lao Jiu’s questioning (why leave for illness and why the assignment score was deducted). I was furious and cursed Lao Jiu’s coercive bullying. After driving Confucian Mother away, I thought again: isn’t 二次元 pornography also oppressing women? Those who take pleasure in oppressing others can only oppose oppression from their own self-interest, which makes it impossible to truly oppose it, because I myself am enjoying the benefits of oppression.
And watching 二次元 is only the beginning of pornography; later I will watch more pornographic literature and art to satisfy my own desires, to the extent that I will later engage in reactionary practices. The bourgeois literary dogs produce so much reactionary pornographic literature to use these porn opiums to numb the masses, oppose women’s liberation and class struggle. Its core is to defend capitalist patriarchy, i.e., to defend the rule of the bourgeoisie.
How does this class treat women in reality, what image does this reflect in literature and art? In the bourgeois eyes, women are simply tools for his crazy lust, to satisfy sexual desire, to do unpaid housework as good servants. Therefore in literature and art women are described as shameless exhibitionists, aggressively highlighting sexual features, and subserviently degenerating. When I watched pornography that “suited my taste,” I never thought about the oppression of women in reality, only indulged my lust. The theoretical failure of pornographic thought makes me, in fighting it, resort to obstacles and petty arguments like “so what,” using rogue logic. At this time we should apply class analysis to expose its class essence, abandon the position of the proletariat, move to the bourgeois side, create an “post-class” environment (petty bourgeoisie-right and bourgeois living) and promote reactionary arguments that oppression is reasonable! What’s the difference between this and theft, left circles? Verbal hypocrisy claims to represent the interests of students (the proletariat) while wildly speculating on studies (speculative revolution), a pose resembling Bonapartist style; in reality every action of this logic serves bourgeois interests and harms the proletariat.
The proletariat does not need to say more about women; the proletariat regards the vast number of oppressed women as comrades in the struggle against the bourgeoisie, oppressed, enslaved, and exploited, with labor as the standard of aesthetics.
Without women’s liberation, there is no true social liberation; without women’s strength, there can be no complete social revolution. When women awaken from thousands of years of oppression, break the chains imposed by patriarchal power, and join the revolutionary struggle, the old world’s doom will not be far away. Women are not a mere appendage to the revolution, but the real force that decides the victory or defeat of the revolution. Since patriarchy is the first shackle imposed by class society on human civilization, the struggle to destroy patriarchy will inevitably become the first clarion call to destroy all oppression and exploitation. Standing with women is standing on the side of historical progress. Opposing women’s liberation is opposing the proletarian revolution itself. We must work with the broad masses of women to bury the old world completely and build a new society without exploitation and oppression.
Left circles and even the white-hot radicals often mouth revolutionary slogans, but once asked to implement the revolutionary spirit of the slogans in practice, they will from their own brains pull out various bourgeois fallacies to wear as amulets.
“Only by liberating all humanity can the proletariat be finally liberated itself.”
Isn’t liberating all humanity including half of humanity—the women—possible? Should we not stand on the side of women’s liberation to oppose capitalism’s oppression and exploitation of them, rather than succumbing to the spiritual opium created by the bourgeoisie that reflects the oppression of women as liberation for all humanity? No, this is shaking hands with the bourgeoisie, with the executioners who have blood on their hands, with oppressors of the whole world! Your failure in proletarian theory, your rogue-style slander, already proves you cannot produce anything to oppose new things, your era of oppressing women will end, and the spiritual opium you adore will follow in your footsteps and be thrown into the historical garbage heap! Do not let these despicable scum lure me away!
Critically analyze the toxic logic in pornographic thought: because I am a “revolutionary,” I must oppose pornography, rather than because I am oppressed and thus must oppose all exploitation and oppression.
This first places oneself in a position of superiority, thinking of oneself as a so-called “revolutionary,” feeling “superior” to the people and thus opposing pornography. This is opposition to pornography from a petty-bourgeois individualistic heroic stance, treating anti-pornography (bourgeois) as one’s own “patent,” and viewing the broad masses as “rabble” (needing one to “enlighten” them). Unbeknownst to them, revolution is not the patent of a few, but the people’s cause; opposing pornography is what the people do every day. This is what happens when intellectuals oppose pornography and soon become smug, which is not something to be proud of, only steering ideological struggle in the wrong direction, toward a small-bourgeois sense of superiority. In opposing pornographic thought, one must also be clear and uncompromising against this heroic nihilism and grandiose attitude.
[“I am a ‘revolutionary,’ I must oppose pornography, otherwise how can I participate in (speculative) revolution”
Are you really a revolutionary? What are you participating in revolution for? Is it so that workers are no longer enslaved, women are no longer oppressed, or to satisfy your lofty personal-heroic worldview? Do you think opposing pornography is a “world-shaking” achievement, and thus you are progressive? Revolutionary? Indeed, giving up private property is not something that can be accomplished in one night, but please put away that attitude, “Revolutionary Sir,” treat it as a struggle against exploitation and oppression, and sharpen it in revolutionary struggle—then it counts as being a revolutionary.]
To be continued: My attitude toward women’s fascist male-dominant thoughts.