Generation Bubble

Dialectics at a Standstill: The Pioneer Cult of the Left

In consumer society, the superstructure has become so minutely articulated that it offers endless possibilities for trivial revolutions in taste. And we are in no position to tell if the change for we which we wish to agitate falls under that rubric or if it constitutes something “real,” something related to shifts in the base of productive forces and relations. Further muddying the issue is the consumerist idea that consumption constitutes a peculiarly modern form of production — so that it may in fact be a epoch-shaking intervention when we laugh at an episode of Two and a Half Men instead of with it, or script movies to be acted out within the universe of Halo 3, or perform home remixes on pirated copies of hit songs. While this accelerates the transformation of the superstructure and even grants individuals agency in guiding its transformation, the base remains untouched. Instead, the acceleration merely intensifies consumerism’s entrenchment, its elaboration, while exhausting our desire for social change (now known as novelty) in the process. This is the consequence of our being unable to directly access the “real.” (Perhaps we can ask for nothing more from a society than to provide for the extinguishing of our surplus energy.)