Cael
11-23-2007, 04:17 PM
First posted on IRBB:
Hegel's famous Master-Slave dialectic was taken up by Marx and culminated in his saying to the workers of the world: "The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win." With this Marx puts the onus on the slaves themselves to end their slavery by simply refusing to accept the position of the slave AND the position of the Master. At any moment the wretched of the Earth could end the current world order by simply withdrawing their support from it, but what do they do? They wait.
Can it not then be said that the billions of wage slaves and worse are living in a prison of their own making, at least as much as the making of the world's masters? Of course, the great con job that the masters are in a position to pull off, through control of the media, universities, etc, is that if the slave throws off the master, he/she will actually be even worse off than now, so its better to allow things to carry on as they are, in the relatively safe hands of the current masters. In effect, despite all his protests, the slave remains quite content in the security of being a slave and waits.
Its highly unlikely that the slave would be content to remain a slave if he/she thought this condition was really permanent and there was nothing else to look forward to, i.e. nothing worth waiting for. In effect, the workers are left in the position of the forty year old virgin living with his mother and waiting patiently for her death, when he believes his life can begin. What he forgets is that by the time she is dead he will have one foot in the grave himself (mar a chur Peig Sayers síos air). And, perhaps this is whats at the core of the slaves acceptance of the current social system, i.e. he/she does not really believe in his own death but sincerely believes that the master will someday die and then he/she will be a slave no more and can begin to really live.
We can see this clearly in the present acceptence of the GFA by Nationalists in the occupied six counties. For Nationalists, the only selling point of the GFA is the expectation that the Unionist population will eventually die off relative to the Nationalist population. This may well happen - but not for a long time. In the mean time the Nationalists, aparently, have nothing to do but wait - inside the master's/England's system. When the Unionists die off, we can be free? This is just as sad and useless as the case of the forty year old virgin, I would say, because all that happens to the forty year old man is that he becomes a completely useless version of his aged mother. At least she took part in life and produced him. He produces nothing.
We see this clearly with Adamsite PSF. With every passing day, they just become, more and more, a useless version of those Crown agents who pay their wages. They have now taken on themselves the function of actually trying to stop Irish people leaving the British system and trying to get us to give our loyalty to British police, British courts and British law in general.
Even if the master suddenly died, if the Unionists suffered a catastrophic decline in population, and the English took their guns and money home with them, what could we expect from the Adamsites? Well, just more of the same I would think. Just as the forty year old virgin (now sixty), after the death of his mother, continues doing exactly the same as he did while she was alive. To expect a new society from the Adamsites, FF, FG, or any of the rest of them, when the Prods die off, is just as crazy as expecting something new from this sixty year old virgin.
Irish Republicans, on the other hand, fully accept our own mortality. Today is the day to live in the Law of the Republic, tomorrow we might be dead. We dont wait for the Unionists to die out, but ask them to join us as comrades in building Éire Nua, so that we can all partake in life and freedom today.
Hegel's famous Master-Slave dialectic was taken up by Marx and culminated in his saying to the workers of the world: "The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win." With this Marx puts the onus on the slaves themselves to end their slavery by simply refusing to accept the position of the slave AND the position of the Master. At any moment the wretched of the Earth could end the current world order by simply withdrawing their support from it, but what do they do? They wait.
Can it not then be said that the billions of wage slaves and worse are living in a prison of their own making, at least as much as the making of the world's masters? Of course, the great con job that the masters are in a position to pull off, through control of the media, universities, etc, is that if the slave throws off the master, he/she will actually be even worse off than now, so its better to allow things to carry on as they are, in the relatively safe hands of the current masters. In effect, despite all his protests, the slave remains quite content in the security of being a slave and waits.
Its highly unlikely that the slave would be content to remain a slave if he/she thought this condition was really permanent and there was nothing else to look forward to, i.e. nothing worth waiting for. In effect, the workers are left in the position of the forty year old virgin living with his mother and waiting patiently for her death, when he believes his life can begin. What he forgets is that by the time she is dead he will have one foot in the grave himself (mar a chur Peig Sayers síos air). And, perhaps this is whats at the core of the slaves acceptance of the current social system, i.e. he/she does not really believe in his own death but sincerely believes that the master will someday die and then he/she will be a slave no more and can begin to really live.
We can see this clearly in the present acceptence of the GFA by Nationalists in the occupied six counties. For Nationalists, the only selling point of the GFA is the expectation that the Unionist population will eventually die off relative to the Nationalist population. This may well happen - but not for a long time. In the mean time the Nationalists, aparently, have nothing to do but wait - inside the master's/England's system. When the Unionists die off, we can be free? This is just as sad and useless as the case of the forty year old virgin, I would say, because all that happens to the forty year old man is that he becomes a completely useless version of his aged mother. At least she took part in life and produced him. He produces nothing.
We see this clearly with Adamsite PSF. With every passing day, they just become, more and more, a useless version of those Crown agents who pay their wages. They have now taken on themselves the function of actually trying to stop Irish people leaving the British system and trying to get us to give our loyalty to British police, British courts and British law in general.
Even if the master suddenly died, if the Unionists suffered a catastrophic decline in population, and the English took their guns and money home with them, what could we expect from the Adamsites? Well, just more of the same I would think. Just as the forty year old virgin (now sixty), after the death of his mother, continues doing exactly the same as he did while she was alive. To expect a new society from the Adamsites, FF, FG, or any of the rest of them, when the Prods die off, is just as crazy as expecting something new from this sixty year old virgin.
Irish Republicans, on the other hand, fully accept our own mortality. Today is the day to live in the Law of the Republic, tomorrow we might be dead. We dont wait for the Unionists to die out, but ask them to join us as comrades in building Éire Nua, so that we can all partake in life and freedom today.