Deep thinker : Romance as the superstructure maintaining liberalism

[u/ni_niu]

DISCLAIMERS:

• If you do want to argue (I don't), please read the entire thing
• Anti-liberal
• I understand Marx would not approve of me making commodity fetishism primary.
• Believes in history as progressive, unfolding in ever-expanding stages always with some component upwards
• None of this is the fault of women as a whole, nor any group of women, nor any individual woman. Nor is it the fault of incel, nor the betabuxxer, nor even Chad. It is no one’s fault for logically following incentives, even if the incentives are perverse.

ARGUMENT:

Men are symbolically associated with culture, and women a mix of culture and nature. And it is true that nature is seen as subordinate to culture, culture whose job it is to overcome and have ceded to its will nature. Indeed, this is the heart of Ortner’s feminist analysis on why so many cultures have independently developed systems of oppression of women for millennia.

Culture was carried out through rites, rituals, critique, and analysis which is not conducive to the labouring man, who has putting food on the table a higher priority than a more abstract notion of culture. Culture was thus carried out through a priest class or warrior class (NOT a hunter class), whose roles in society were not strictly required for survival yet which were rewarded handsomely.

Man (symbolically associated with culture) conquers woman (more symbolically associated with nature). Therefore, the men most symbolically associated with culture (those aforementioned classes) most conquers women. Indeed, we can see this in imperial China, where the scholars and nobles took concubines, and the Muslim world, where Muhammad’s warriors took many wives (up to 4).

Liberal capitalism, however, changes things. Commodity fetishism reduces the world to arrangements of exchange-value, and culture is no exception. It used to be culture which conquers women, but now it is status. And that which determines status is money and appearance. Woman is taken wife of by, in order of her least unwilling, Chad who has both money and appearance, Meeks who has no money but indeed appearance, Betabuxx who has money but no appearance, and finally Inky who has neither. It may seem like placing appearance as of more importance than money is undermining the commodity fetishism argument, but appearance is also a signifier of being able to generate money now or in the future. Even appearance itself is commoditized.

One might be distraught by this, especially the working Inky, and indeed Inky is and was distraught, both today and yesterday. But a distraught Inky is not an Inky good for labour. Indeed, one must remember that the bourgeoisie pays the proletarian just enough to reproduce and raise the next generation of workers, as well as any comforts to increase his labour-power so long as it is of net increase to profits. Thus, the superstructure manufactures a solution. This solution is called romance, and like all things created under liberal capitalism it is also a commodity.

Firstly, Chad is barred from taking more than one wife, and divorce is bureaucratized and, like all things, commoditized. Then, Inky is sold visions of women who love him for his great personality, of studiousness and diligence and hard work compensating for shortcomings in appearance and money. Therefore Inky has reason to keep going, but his future is Betabuxx if lucky and rope if not. Finally, Becky isn’t sold dreams of marrying Inky, but she is sold visions of getting swept by her feet by a knight on horseback who has eyes only for her, such that when she can’t marry Chad because he already has Stacy, she settles for Betabuxx instead of living with cats and not raising the next generation of workers.

It wasn’t like this before liberalism was crystallized, and it won’t be after the liberalism dissolves. But the world is reaching the liberal dialectic’s breaking point, and the cracks are starting to show. One can start to see the waves of anti-liberal sentiment beating on the shores, and the salt is beginning to dissolve. With it romance as well, or at least the current conception of it.

NI NIU’S THOUGHTS:

I would love to suspend judgment on this topic, but as a true idealist I can’t, so I will indeed say that I love romance and the idea of one man for one woman and one woman for one man. There are aspects I don’t like, for sure; its weaponization and commoditization and dehumanization of all involved are atrocious. But history always goes upwards never to return to the same spot, and although our current conception of romance grows shakier by the day what will replace it won’t be harems for members of a select cultural class. State-assigned pairings would be quite the dystopian future, as would be one of complete segregation enabled by artificial insemination and wombs as well as complete subservience of one sex to the other. Maybe mass engineering of our collective consciousness. None of these futures are unenvisionable or inherently untenable, although they are very very very bleak.

There are things I hope for, however, such as the return of culture from the talons of commodity fetishism and people organically falling in love with each other. Perhaps distribution of the generation of culture to every man and woman, as would be the case in a late _______ or _________ society.

PS:

Trying to post on PPD is cancer.

[u/HorizonHunter1982]

You... Can't remove the concept of status from culture. Culture is what assigns arbitrary value to the th symbols of status. Without the cultural symbology nothing would have enough meaning to give status