a perennialist ode to judaism

Reflecting back on my life, it is clear that my spiritual journey began as adolescent curiosity, a thirst for stories, rituals, and truth that would eventually lead me across time and space and several religious traditions to HaShem, the God of Israel, and back into those past religious traditions with new insights.

From an early interest in Greek, Norse, and Egyptian mythology, I developed an appreciate of storytelling as a means of expressing ideas that are hard to put into words directly, tales that capture our imagination and let us mentally glimpse underlying moral truths, opening the door for our hearts to intimate a reality beyond our five senses, something transcendent. Later, a study of paganism and the occult led me to look deeper into these stories and myself to seek that which was hidden from common knowledge because the transcendent seemed so mysterious and arcane. But abuse, pain, anger, and dissatisfaction with the shallowness of my spiritual life prodded me to explore meditation and the teachings of the Buddha. I spent many years on this path, visiting monasteries and meditation groups across the country, finding that taking refuge in wise teachers, ethical and contemplative practices, and an earnest spiritual community produced much benefit for my wounded yet hungry heart and mind. Remove the defilements of greed, hatred, and delusion from your heart, and there the door to the deathless stood. But still there was something missing from the equation, and I felt drawn towards learning even more. Reading things like Plato and works on Christian mysticism, I started to see what I thought were common themes and experiences that were expressed in different words and through the lens of diverse cultures yet sharing so much. And I slowly became convinced that, if truth is indeed universal, then perhaps what I was truly searching for was the foundation of that truth, a truth that attempted to shine forth in every religion but was difficult to grasp in its essence. More and more, I saw God as that foundation, and so I sought out God.

I cannot say that even today I know who or what God is. Ultimate reality is something that I am not sure one can ever truly know in full detail, but I do think it can be touched, experienced, in a way that gives one confidence, wisdom, and strong moral character. And I think all of the great teachers and saints of every tradition are examples of those who have had some glimpse of the divine, whether through faith, practice, or study, and exude love, compassion, and wisdom as a result. Some have more indirect experiences and generalized understanding of this reality (e.g., through study and debate or mediating upon the unconditioned, uncreated, and timeless aspect of God’s being), and they tend to see God as either a separate but unconditioned reality lying outside of our experience of the five senses or as the ground of being and even being-itself. It is a more impersonal experience of God that is closer to the God of the philosophers or the deathless element realized by Buddhist arahants. And some, on the other hand, have a more direct and intimate experience and knowledge of this reality, and I believe these are the ones who tend to see God as a personal being who, while being unconditioned, still has a presence that is felt in our conditional world, like the prophets of divine revelation and pious saints. But I think that both see God in some way, and I have gone from seeking God impersonally to personally; hence, it is here that I began to dip my toes into the study and practice of the Abrahamic faiths. I found exploring Christianity the easiest and most natural as it surrounds me, has theological roots in philosophers like Aristotle and Plato (although I lean towards the latter), and has a monastic tradition that has similar characteristics to the Thai Theravada Buddhist monasteries I was already familiar with. And I have certainly found much wisdom there, finding wonderful spiritual teachers, ethical and contemplative practices (such as centering prayer), and communities of kind and welcoming people. But as much as I admire Jesus and seek to follow his example of radical love and compassion, I found that I had trouble seeing him as God, or God as three distinct persons. I always saw these things as metaphors for God as ultimate reality and ground of being (Father); our potential to have an intimate connection to God, being all ‘children’ or creations of God, as exemplified by Jesus (Son); and the presence of God suffusing the world as it evolves along with our understanding of it (Holy Spirit). Jesus has been my teacher and guide and example of someone who loves God and others as himself because God is love (love being a creative and nurturing energy), attempting to connect us to God, another example of the trinity being about relationships rather than ontologies. Richard Rohr, one of my favourite Christian perennialists, has often made this connection. For example, he has described the trinity as a circular dance and the deepest flow of life, and that each ‘person’ of the trinity relates by “living in an eternal self-emptying (kenosis), which allows each of them to let go completely and give themselves to the other. They are simultaneously loving and totally loveable, one to another.” And that love is the very nature and shape of divine being: “This deep flow is then the pattern of the whole universe, and any idea of God’s ‘wrath’ or of God withholding what is an infinitely outflowing love is theologically impossible. Love is the very pattern with which we start and the goal toward which we move. It gives energy to the entire universe, from orbiting protons and neutrons to the social and sexual life of species, to the planets and stars. We were indeed created in communion, by communion, and for communion (Genesis 1:26 calls it being ‘created in the image and likeness of God’).”

Throughout all of this, I always had a fascination with Judaism, but primarily as an outsider, from afar. I would often read books about Jewish thought and philosophy or listen to podcasts and lectures and found much that intrigued me. I remember the very first book that sparked my conscious interest in Judaism was Rabbi David Copper’s book, God is a Verb, which I read when I was 17 or 18. Nevertheless, not being born into a Jewish family or having any close Jewish friends, I felt like it was not something I could personally be a part of. My understanding was that, even though I knew conversions did happen, it was more of a heritage and not something you could easily leap into as a gentile and I did not think I would be welcomed into the community in that way, especially since I had no knowledge of Hebrew, which is a very important part of the Jewish tradition. So for decades, I simply admired it from afar, watching TV shows like Srugim and Shtisel, and finding my closest connection within Christianity and reading the Bible, with Jesus continually pointing me back towards the Tanakh, which contained within it the story of a people who, on the one hand, are struggling with the world they live in, full of greed, oppression, and violence, yet dreaming of a world that is filled with equality, abundance, and peace–a story of historical progress towards something better and the successes and failures that a particular people found worth telling and remembering. And for a time, I suppose I was somewhat satisfied. But when I continued to dig into God, theology, and the various traditions and ideas contained within them, I discovered new Jewish sources such as Zevi Slavin’s Seekers of Unity series and Rabbi Dr. Samuel Lebens and realized that I was not truly satisfied–there was more for me to learn about this religion that I had orbited for years and was only now becoming cognizant of its gravitational pull upon my heart and mind.

Years before my immersion into Judaism, I made the Hebrew blessing that is said before eating any food not grown in the ground as my daily morning prayer: Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech Ha’Olam shehakol nihiyah bidvaro (“Blessed are you, Lord our God, Sovereign of the universe, through Whose word all things come into being”). I found it beautiful, simple, and containing within it all that I thought needed to be said and reflected upon at the start of the day–God, God’s word, and my place within God’s world. And studying the principles of Judaism, I realized I had already accepted the three primary principles of Judaism proposed by Rabbi Joseph Albo from my previous years of religious study and practice: (1) the belief in one God and source of being; (2) belief in revelation, including (but not limited to) the divine origin of the Torah; and (3) belief in reward and punishment, which can also be viewed as the cause and effect relationship between our actions and their consequences in this life and the next life (or lives). Spinoza takes credit for really convincing me of the first principle with his argument in Ethics, with assistance from Rabbi Dr. Lebens and his Hasidic idealism, with Spinoza’s substance = consciousness/God’s mind in my own amalgamation of these two philosophical points of view. But whatever the theological and philosophical nature of God and the universe may be, I am firmly rooted in the belief that God is the source of all things, God is one and wholly indivisible, God’s will/intention/word created the universe and everything in it, and God continually supports existence through said will/intention/word. And in this belief, I am a panenthiest in that I think God both transcends this world (God as Mind or Substance) and at the same time God’s presence suffuses and foundationally underlies it, albeit limiting that presence at the same to make the space necessary for conscious beings to act of their own volition (i.e., reality being thoughts in the mind of God if God is immaterial and idealism is correct, hence God is in God’s thoughts yet God is greater than those thoughts; or else God produces and supports a material world that is infused with God’s presence, because what can exist without God?). This space, created through what Jewish thought calls tsimtsum, is in essence the womb of God giving birth to the best of all possible worlds–a world sitting between that of perfect order (pre Big Bang) and that of perfect disorder (the entropy at the end of the universe), a world that is ordered by natural laws and also subject to the underlying chaos of quantum level uncertainty, which together allows for the limited order necessary for life to grow and evolve and be given the freedom and flexibility of choice within the awareness of God’s omniscience. This accords, I think, to the Kabbalistic saying, “God is the Place of the world, but the world is not God's place.” God is transcendent yet immanent. Without yet also within. Impersonal yet deeply involved in our lives. God is the ultimate and eternal paradox. And revelation – revealed laws/knowledge – is rife throughout creation, from the mysteries of nature to the inspiration of human intuition and imagination. God is speaking to us every moment, and there are some among us who are more attuned to the language of God, who are able to listen more deeply, and communicate what God is saying–what we would call prophets (and in other realms, philosophers and scientists). The laws of nature constitute both the physical laws that dictate what we experience as the material world (whether or not that ‘material’ world has some form of concrete existence outside of the mind of God) as well as the moral laws that dictate conscious experience within it, pleasure and pain, happiness and sorrow, satisfaction and regret, good and evil. And what is revealed of the latter type of law, both written in our hearts and spoken of by prophets such as Moses, is a complex web of interconnectedness and causality, a moral law in which our actions are like seeds that are planted and grow, the fruits of which we reap in this life and any life (or lives) to come. Much like the Eastern concept of kamma or moral cause and effect, seeds that are planted with intentions of greed, hatred, and delusion tend to grow into rotten fruit, the taste of which is sour and bitter and full of decay. With these fruits we reap punishment. Seeds that are planted with intentions of generosity, love, and wisdom, however, tend to grow into fruit that is sweet, delicious, and full of life. With these fruits we reap reward. And life is a mixture of these experiences. The more we plant of the former, the closer we get to Gehinnom (hell); the more we plant of the latter, the closer we get to Gan Eden (heaven).

The story of the people of Israel begins with liberation from slavery and servitude, announced by God and achieved through human hands, and has its hopeful end in a messianic age characterized by peace and freedom from want. And underlying that story and driving it towards this estimable goal is a revolutionary spirit, one that commands injustice be protested, whether committed at home or by the entire world. For example:

Anyone who is able to protest against the transgressions of one's household and does not, is punished for the actions of the members of the household; anyone who is able to protest against the transgressions of one's townspeople and does not, is punished for the transgressions of the townspeople; anyone who is able to protest against the transgressions of the entire world and does not is punished for the transgressions of the entire world. (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 54b:20-55a:1)

Suffice it to say that I have a deep admiration for Judaism because it has greatly influenced my understanding of God and reality, and I have always been drawn towards it even if I may feel forever outside of its inner circle of faithful. Nevertheless, I am also a perennialist in that I find its presence in some shape or form in every religious tradition and vice versa. I do not think that God or truth is limited to only one people, even if some may have a stronger connection to, or deeper knowledge of and history with, God. We are all children of God, and as such, we are all heirs to God’s creation and love. I am no less deserving of truth and love than anyone else. Moreover, I see aspects of this divine truth in so many different and wonderful places, from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to Buddhism, Hinduism and countless other spiritual traditions. The words and symbols and rituals may differ, but they are all ultimately fingers pointing towards the same proverbial moon. And I admire, appreciate, and accept all of these various traditions and what they have to offer in their own terms as well as what they offer humanity together–the means by which we are able to reach out and touch the transcendent.

fuck the prison industrial complex

I was bored and decided to watch 60 Days In. All I'll say is that, while it's exploitative of the prisoners, I think it also highlights how absolutely inadequate, inhumane, and exploitative our corrections system is; and it only reinforces my abolitionist tendencies. Prison does next to nothing to rehabilitate anybody, but does a lot to physically and psychologically torture them and teach them how to be more violent and selfish and live as an animal rather than a human being. It's disgusting how the system treats and tries to profit off of prisoners while doing little to improve them, better their lives, and keep them from harming others or themselves.

the trinity as an expression of queer love

On Trinity Sunday, which also happened to be the first Sunday in pride month, my pastor gave a homily on the diverse language about God in the bible and early church literature, making the case that the expression of the trinity in both representation and reality is genderly diverse and, in my opinion, queer.

Despite God, as the ground of being, not having a sex or gender as God is not a being but Being itself, modern western language about God throughout literature and liturgy focuses almost exclusively on the masculine and, in the process, makes the feminine subordinate, which has had the unfortunate effect of supporting patriarchal theology and social relations for generations. The default, of course, has been to gender God as male — while limiting God’s earthly representatives to men — but the language used to talk about God varies from the masculine to the feminine and even plural/gender neutral, thus our theology of God, Truth, Nature, Ultimate Reality, etc., should reflect that.

For example, beyond being spoken of using masculine pronouns and as a father, God is also described as a woman in labor (Isaiah 42:14), a nursing mother (Isaiah 49:15), a comforting mother (Isaiah 66:13), a mother bear (Hosea 13:8), a mother bird sheltering her children (Ruth 2:12), etc., and in the story of creation creates humanity male and female in their (plural) image (Gen 1:26-27). The Hebrew words for the wisdom (chokmah) and spirit (ruach) of God are feminine nouns, while the Greek word for spirit (pneuma) is neutral. Jesus compares himself to a mother hen (Mt 23:37), and many early church leaders spoke of God and Jesus in more than masculine terms. An early liturgical work, Odes of Solomon, portrays God as the mother of believers (and all of humanity), nurturing them with "holy milk" (8:17). Clement of Alexandria writes of Jesus, "The Word [Christ] is all to the child, both father and mother and tutor and nurse" (The Instructor). John Chrysostom's Christ says, "Be thou in need of nothing, I will be even a servant, for I came to minister, not to be ministered unto; I am friend, and member, and head, and brother, and sister, and mother; I am all; only cling thou closely to me" (Homilies on Matthew, 76). Anselm, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Julian of Norwich, among others, also compare Jesus to a mother. God is essentially nonbinary or genderfluid.

All of this serves to highlight that the imagery and understanding of God historically transcends the simplistic and patriarchal presentation we're often presented with, illustrating that God both transcends gender while simultaneously encompassing all modes of gender. And our understanding should, as well. The trinity represents the relational and diverse nature of reality; and to more clearly perceive that reality, we must love and accept it in all its multiplicity because love is our first principle.

Franciscan friar Richard Rohr, who takes a more mystical approach to the subject, has often described the trinity as a circular dance and the deepest flow of life, noting that each 'person' of the trinity relates by "living in an eternal self-emptying (kenosis), which allows each of them to let go completely and give themselves to the other. They are simultaneously loving and totally loveable, one to another." And that love is the very nature and shape of divine being: "This deep flow is then the pattern of the whole universe, and any idea of God’s 'wrath' or of God withholding what is an infinitely outflowing love is theologically impossible. Love is the very pattern with which we start and the goal toward which we move. It gives energy to the entire universe, from orbiting protons and neutrons to the social and sexual life of species, to the planets and stars. We were indeed created in communion, by communion, and for communion (Genesis 1:26 calls it being 'created in the image and likeness of God')."

Love, then, is wrapped into the very fabric of creation. And perhaps even more controversially, and while probably not their intention, Deacon Matthew Newsome make a great case/argument that God is profoundly queer and polyamorous when he writes:

Being made in the image of God means that we are made to be in relationship. The fact that God has within Himself relationship, while being a mystery above our reason, nevertheless is compatible with reason. God, after all, is love (1 Jn 4:8). And love requires both a lover and a beloved. Love requires relationship. You and I must look outside of ourselves for this; but God, perfect in every way, has this within His very being. This is why instead of saying "God is loving," we say "God is love." God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is both the Lover and Beloved and the Love between them. (The Trinity: Lover, Beloved, and the Love between them)

Just think about it for a moment. God is described as a trinity of three gender-fluid persons who, in their loving relationship and communion with each other, are one. Creation is nondual yet diverse. Creation is composed of relationships. Creation rests on love. And we mirror creation. As shocking as it may seem to some at first glance, God is clearly and profoundly queer and polyamorous—i.e., a template that holds within itself all other possible configurations of love, including that of our LGBTQIA+ siblings.

In the end, what I've come to believe — and what I think apparent in both scripture and tradition — is that the universe itself is alive with love, and any theology expressing its nature can't limit our understanding or our expression of love to fit inside of some restrictive and oppressive box without doing violence to nature itself.

a marxist god in the here and now

A fellow leftist Christian recently said, "I've long since made my bed alongside Dostoyevsky saying something to the effect, 'even if it were incontrovertibly proven to me that Jesus was not the Christ, still I would choose to believe in him.' Because for me faith in this arena is never based on the veracity of an historical theory but on a choice." But the same person also then asked, "What does it mean to believe in Christ while adhering to a materialist conception of history?" Indeed, how can one be both a Christian and a materialist at the same time? Do they just shrug and say, like Whitman, 'so I contradict myself! Contradiction is the bugaboo of mankind'? It's a question worth pondering, and it got me thinking about my own answer as both a Christian and someone who adheres to a materialist conception of history with leftist politics.

There's a line from Brian Sanderson's novel Oathbringer I rather like: "One can believe in a story without believing it happened." It's a powerful statement that holds a lot of truth. I can't count the number of stories I've read that have deeply affected me over the years despite being works of fiction or not historically accurate, many shaping the very person I am today because of how strongly I believed in them and their message. The story of Jesus is no different. While I believe much of the story of Jesus is true and/or represents truth, I'm also ok if it's not historical because of how it inspires me to think and act, along with the hope it instills and the support of his teachings designed to make us more loving to all of creation even if we're not always loved back by it in return. History or myth, fact or fiction, it has the same impact.

When I read the bible, what I see is the story of a people who, on the one hand, are struggling with the world they live in, full of greed, oppression, and violence, yet dreaming of a world that's filled with equality, abundance, and peace. It's a story of historical progress towards something better and the successes and failures that a particular people found worth remembering and sharing. And Jesus himself embodies the spirit of this dream. His name means "God liberates" or "God is liberation." His message was destined to be revolutionary, as Mary proclaims in Luke 1:52-53, "He pulls down the mighty from their thrones and raises up the humble. He fills the hungry with good things and he leaves the rich with nothing." His birth was announced to poor workers (shepherds), not the wealthy or kings. His life was spent trying to bring a new and more egalitarian world into being through acts like healing the sick, feeding the hungry, opposing economic exploitation, chastising the rich to distribute their wealth to those in need, and working to bring those on the margins back into the heart of the community. He opposed Roman imperialism, religious hypocrisy, persecution, and violence. He spoke of compassion, forgiveness, universal kinship, and loving our neighbours as ourselves, making concern for others the entry fee to the kingdom of heaven. And he did all of this because he was inspired by universal love and compassion for the human condition, choosing to be part of, and actively lead, a revolutionary Jewish movement of oppressed and economically-underprivileged classes against the layers of economic, political, and religious exploitation and domination imposed upon them by the ruling elites of the Roman empire.

It's a dream that I share, and just as this revolutionary spirit helped guide the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt, I believe it'll also help guide all of us out of the bondage of our current system that's idolized and globalized greed, oppression, and violence. And for me, Christ is a living symbol of that spirit—a spirit that's present throughout the course of human history.

That spirit is also present in many other places, like social and political movements and monasteries—the former reflecting the active aspects of revolution and the latter reflecting the contemplative aspects and desired outcomes of equality and community. I think Ernesto Cardenal touches upon these contradictions and their synthesis when he wrote In Cuba:

At breakfast some Marxists asked me about our community at Solentiname. I explained that we try to lead a life in common, with no "thine" or "mine," a life of voluntary poverty—free from the desire for money and from the demands of a society of consumption. We live in brotherly union, all working for the community. We are all equal. And then I stopped. I understood that what may seem very novel in the capitalistic world is a daily reality in Cuba. (I couldn't talk to them about prayer because it would be misinterpreted, and I wouldn't know how to explain mystic union to people who don't believe in God.) I was afraid that they were going to ask me what need there is for such communities in a socialist society. At that moment I would not have known what to say.

I kept thinking of the question that the young Marxists might have asked me. It seems to me that in a perfect socialist society it would not be necessary to "flee from the world" in order to live the Gospel. In any case, the material life of those communities would be the same as that of all the others. And I remembered what St. John Chrysostom said (in a letter to a rich man): "If cities were Christian, monasteries would be unnecessary."

To me, God is love. God liberates. God is the spirit of revolution. And Christ loves. Christ is a liberator. Christ is a revolutionary. And as Marcus Borg wrote, Christ "revealed what can be seen of God in a human life" through his words and actions. God is among us when our hearts are full of this revolutionary spirit born out of love for the world. I consider myself Christian because I follow Christ's example—not the Christianity of imperialism, wealth, white supremacy, etc., but the revolutionary Christianity of Jesus and the liberation of the poor and oppressed.

All that said, God is also the ground of being and the laws of nature underlying the causal relationships present throughout the universe—i.e., mental and physical actions and results, causes and effects, etc. And historical materialism is simply the study of the material causes and conditions that shape human society and the ways we're encouraged (and forcefully prodded) to think and live, as well as who benefits from and suffers under those social relations. Here, Jesus is clearly on the side of making those social relations egalitarian and challenging the authority of exploitative classes, while his story emphasizes the ways in which God works with us and through us if we truly know and embody love.

There are undoubtedly mystical and supranatural elements to his story that point towards something that lies beyond our material world — to what we call God, transcendence, ultimate reality, the divine, the unconditioned, etc. — and our ability to achieve union with the divine, from his contemplative and intimate connection with God and frequent times of solitary prayer to the miracles he performed such as walking on water, healing the sick, multiplying food for the hungry, and raising the dead, including his own resurrection after being executed by the state in a method reserved for those who opposed the authority of Rome in some shape or form. His own resurrection story may have been literal or simply expressing the resurrection of what he lived and died for in the lives of those who carried on his message, but many seem to miss his mission here on earth and the way he represents God manifest in human form, acting within history. As David Inczauskis, SJ writes, "Many Christians, jumping straight to spiritual reality, transcendence, and the afterlife, forget that God reveals in matter, in this world, in history. They look to the sky for a God who came to earth." Whichever way we may choose to view the resurrection narrative, whether as history or myth, the story of Jesus is ultimately the story of a human being embodying the presence of the divine on earth who bridges the gap between the transcendent and the concrete by centering their spiritual message on how we treat one another (particularly the poor and marginalized), and hence the rift between humanity and itself created by our tendency to, in the words of Feuerbach, "suppose the essence of nature outside nature, the essence of humanity outside humanity, the essence of thought outside the act of thinking."

Jesus' life and teachings stress unequivocally that our beliefs and convictions in a 'heavenly kin-dom' should be reflected in our actions; and our actions shouldn't cause harm, but act as seeds for happiness and liberation. That to me is what matters most. Because whatever happens after this life is over, if we live righteously right here and now, then not only will this world be left a little better than we found it after we're gone, but we've also served to store up treasure in heaven.

A brief summary of capitalism's logic, its consequences, and our need to build an alternative

Just for fun, I jotted down a brief summary of capitalism's logic, its consequences, and our need to build an alternative:

Socioeconomic inequality

1. Capitalism is an economic mode of production that, on the most basic level, functions as a circulatory process in which money is utilized to produce commodities (e.g., goods, services, etc.) that can be sold for a profit within markets of exchange: money -> commodity -> money + extra, repeat ad infinitum.

2. Living human labour expended in the production process adds/creates much of the additional value that forms the profit realized in the exchange process.

3. Due to private property rights, capitalists own and control the means of production (e.g., factories, equipment, land, etc.), as well as the products of the production process and any surplus value created. As such, labourers are forced to relinquish their rights to control over the production process, the product of their labour, and the added value incorporated into and created by the production process. Workers, in turn, generally receive the value of their labour power and little else in the form of wages, ultimately alienating them from their labour and its products, and limiting the choices available to them in the sphere of their socioeconomic environment, hindering them from fully realizing themselves or their potential.

4. Capitalism itself has its beginnings in violence, oppression, and theft as well as innovations and industriousness. Countries with emerging mercantile markets enclosed local common land; colonized other lands; stole land, wealth, and resources; and exploited slave labour in what Marx called the process of 'primitive accumulation.' Then after the industrial revolution, those in power further forced their own people off of communal land and into the cities to work in the factories under new social relations, one in which they were forced to sell their labour power to someone for a wage, not fully realizing that the person who now owns that labour power owns the products of that labour and all the extra value added by their labour, and pitting them against one another for the jobs needed for their survival and comfort.

5. We now live under a predominantly capitalist, worldwide socioeconomic system in which a small minority own and control the means of production and the majority must work for a wage to survive, pitting competing capitals and workers across the globe against one another forming tiers of exploitation, particularly among members of the working class and poor.

6. The logic of this process leads to capital accumulation (i.e., the accumulation of wealth) on the part of capital as opposed to labour due to the former's ownership of the means of production and finance and the value created in the production process, creating and sustaining inequality.

7. The logic of capitalism tends to favour owners in that it seeks to increase the amount of profit extracted by capital while at the same time keeping the amount of wages received by workers as low as possible, as well as by giving the owners control over the production process, conditions of labour, labour hours, etc. In addition, workers as producers and consumers give of themselves twice to capital—first as what's conventionally viewed as unpaid labour and second as wages for commodities (as well as things like rent, etc.).

8. Capitalism contains within itself multiple contradictions that lead to unequal social relations between capital and labour and causes cyclical economic crises. For example, the logic of capital accumulation tends to lead to cyclical crises of overaccumulation that effectively causes the economy to stall by stopping the circulation of capital and preventing it from ultimately realizing profit, i.e., capital's own self-interest (accumulation for accumulation's sake) destabilizes the economy and creates things like violent economic crises, social and political inequality, unemployment, etc.

9. The logic of capitalism also depends upon the drive to continuously grow and the consumerism needed to feed that growth — resulting in negative impacts to the environment and compelling capitals and capitalist states to compete for markets, resources, cheap pools of labour, etc., often at the expense of the environment and workers — while simultaneously creating artificial scarcity to maximize profits. This generates privation for the dispossessed and national conflicts over land, raw materials, markets, labour pools, etc.

Political inequality

10. Money, as a representation of value and medium of exchange, is a form of social power. As a form of social power, money is also a driving force in the political process and the shape of states, whose access to and control of markets is important for their geopolitical success.

11. The more money one possesses, the more influence one potentially has in this socioeconomic system. The capitalist class, then, logically has a disproportionate advantage within this system, especially when it comes to influencing and shaping society, than the working class and poor.

12. Those in positions of power make the rules (i.e., laws and loopholes) and tend to do so with a view to their own preservation and well-being. Their own preservation and well-being depends upon serving the interests of capital and finance, who fund them and control key areas of the economy. Democracy is also often limited to voting in occasional elections, with most working-class people priced out of running, and almost completely absent in the workplace.

13. Due to owning the means of production (material as well as mental), the capitalist class has the ability to shape the dominant ideas and ethics of society as well as its material shape and social relations. So not only do they have an enormous amount of control over the strings of political and economic power, they have an incredible amount of control over the ideas that we're exposed to and consume — which serves to influence our perceptions of the world we live in and even one another — ultimately helping to "manufacture our consent" for the status quo.

Implications/Addressing socioeconomic inequality

14. It follows, therefore, that substantive changes in the political-economic arena that benefits the working class and poor rather than capital and finance needs to come from the bottom up, not the top down because their interests are diametrically opposed.

15. This form of political-economic opposition requires the working class, poor, and marginalized to expand their class consciousness, unite in common cause, and use their superior numbers and indispensable place in the capitalist mode of production to offset the disproportionate and essentially undemocratic influence of monied interests.

16. The greater the solidarity amongst the working class and the dispossessed, the greater the potential opposition to the power of capital (this is the power of things like unions and strikes). And the greater the opposition, the greater the potential for substantive, systematic change that favours the majority of the citizenry rather than the wealthy, ruling elite.

17. Radical change, then, necessitates a coordinated, working-class mass movement, particularly one geared towards more fully democratizing our economic system and institutions. As such, anti-capitalists (e.g., socialists, communists, etc.) seek alternatives to this logic and fight for revolutionary changes that'll help lay the foundation for a more egalitarian society by critiquing capitalism, attempting to expand working people's understanding of capitalism, and organizing them to challenge the capitalist mode of production and its logical outcomes. There have been both successes and failures in this historical struggle, with plenty of painful lessons learned as a result. But many of these failures have at their root a concerted effort by capitalist states and those who benefit the most from capitalist social relations to prevent alternatives to capitalism from emerging, let alone succeeding, through military and economic violence. And we shouldn't let these missteps and setbacks prevent us from continuing to try and assert our political autonomy, democratize the economy, and create a world in which all that we produce belongs to everyone and we're capable of providing for the needs of all.

Conclusion

Capitalism has undoubtedly helped us reach a point of technological advancement and innovation sufficient to achieve material abundance. But to fully realize that abundance, we must transition to something new, something characterized by the maxim: "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need."

proletariat blues

Is it just me, or is our society grinding many of us into exhaustion, depression, and hopelessness while forcing us to find any sort of rest, pleasure, or distraction we can just to get us through the day and the next after that and the one after that, etc.? A society where workloads are too heavy because it's not profitable enough if we have enough people to do the job. A society with rents and mortgages many of us can't afford. A society where more of our taxes go to the military weapons of war to kill the workers and poor of other countries when we can't even house or feed those in need at home. A society where the rich are getting richer and shooting themselves into space while everyone else struggles more and more to make ends meet, making us fight each other for the scraps left over. A society where we wake up each day dreading the commute and having to spend the majority of our waking hours trying to earn a wage rather than spending them with our family and friends and enjoy the amazing world we're born into. Is it just me who wakes up every day tired, beaten, and wishing for something better for all of us but only has the time and energy to heat up dinner in the microwave and watch a couple of episodes of something mind-numbing before going to bed to do it all over again tomorrow? Am I the only one who truly believes it could be better than it is if we actually had a real voice and choice in how our society was shaped instead of it being shaped for us by those who benefit from it the most, sitting on their thrones of money, power, and privilege?

sex work is work, but is it revolutionary?

I've been thinking about sex worker lately from an anti-capitalist lens. I've known a number of sex workers in my life, and while I don't have anything inherently against sex work in the sense that I view sex work as real labour and believe those engaging in it should be able to do so freely and safely (as opposed to being pushed into the shadows, risking increased exposure to violence or criminal records), I do have reservations about the industry itself and the way capitalism has the tendency to commodify everything, including making human emotional and sexual relationships transactional, alienating labour, exploiting labourers, etc.

On the one hand, within the context of capitalism, we need sources of income to make a living and have access to necessities, not to mention luxuries and things generally needed for enjoying our free time, and sex workers perform emotional and sexual labour in order to acquire or supplement that income — labour which our society has made sordid and dangerous because of puritan taboos and patriarchal power dynamics — so I support the rights and safety of sex workers and the normalization of sex in general. The labour, autonomy, and humanity of sex workers all need to be respected, as with every other worker, and I feel like people (mainly men) in our society have been conditioned to not respect these things in women, sex workers, etc. So that obviously needs to change, and we should support sex workers as well as our own sexuality.

One the other hand, I find the expansion of capitalism and the omnipresent commodification and unequal social relations it engenders within all spheres of human life disturbing from a leftist point of view, and I wonder what the best way of balancing my support of sex workers with my desire to revolutionize capitalism and the ways it's shaped our world might be. The push to expand, protect, and normalize sex work in order for sex workers to make a living more safely is paradoxically a push to expand the commodification of our world and relationships and the general prostitution of labourers, thus making it that more difficult to create an alternative to the current state of capitalist wage labour and the exploitation inherent to it.

I find myself in the position, then, of supporting sex workers but not so much the industry they find themselves a part of, which transforms their bodies and emotions into the commodities being consumed. And not all sex workers choose to be sex workers, so they need to be taken into consideration too when discussing sex work in the aggregate. But obviously outlawing sex work isn't the answer since it'll still happen, just within an even more coercive and violent arena than that of the marketplace. So the question I'm pondering is, what's the middle way here? How can I best support sex workers while also seeking to dismantle the socio-economic system fuelling the commodification of people's bodies, attention, and labour-power?

I was curious if anyone else has had the same thoughts and has come up with a resolution to these antagonisms, so I mentioned this on a friend's FB page about sex work who's also involved in sex work hoping that someone in their large network might have some insights. And my friend's answer was essentially that sex workers are the foot soldiers of socialism:

You always approach everything from a "how do I destroy capitalism" standpoint: but you can't expect it to be destroyed from the bottom up. You can't expect the most marginalized classes to participate in the dismantling if they are simply trying to survive. The middle path here is to understand something important:

Sex workers are a major participant in the attack of capitalism from the grassroots; from the ground up. Support them as much as possible. Pump capital and fuel their work because they do something extremely important: They FUNNEL capital from the wealthiest and most privileged classes and, in general, fuel the economies of their own: they support each other, they support artists and revolutionaries and progressive politicians. They are an extremely efficient vehicle to funnel money from (generally wealthy, generally white) men into these marginalized areas. They are footsoldiers.

Definitely some provocative ideas that are worth considering. I'm certainly sympathetic to the idea of marginalized people making a living and not struggling. And I'm also sympathetic to the way that sex workers cooperate and help support themselves, other artists, etc. But I'm not convinced that the expansion of the sex industry under capitalism is necessarily good or revolutionary. For one, capitalist social relations are still in effect, even if not always directly, so the wealthy (often white men) are ultimately profiting off of it as much as (or even more) than the sex workers. Here, it can be anyone from the owners of content platforms like OnlyFans, ManyVids, etc. to sites like Twitter and Instagram where they advertise, owners of brothels and strip clubs, etc. So capital, landlords, etc. are taking their cut where they can even if many sex workers are independent performance artists with some level of personal control and freedom.

In addition, while web-based platforms have made it safer and easier for sex workers to work, that's just one subset of sex work. And creating larger markets for sex and sex work also helps to increase demand in the black market economy underlying capitalism that's also fuelled by the very same wealthy (generally white) men, which in turn finds support in other areas and side hustles, from the mild to the brutal/domineering (e..g., men working behind the scenes who are often not exposed; pimps and madams; sex traffickers; the concierge at the expensive hotel who knows where one may find a child prostitute, like the pedophile ring accidentally uncovered by Sasha Baron Cohen, etc.). Then there's the increased level of objectification and alienation of labour that sex work (and wage labour in general) entails, where the commodity being consumed is the person's body and emotions, and these are in some way divorced from the person, being sold to their consumer, not only normalizing and expanding sex work (which isn't inherently negative) but also transactional relationships and consumerism (which may not necessarily be good).

Essentially, I'm not entirely convinced sex work itself is a revolutionary form of labour that can instigate a transition away from capitalism and towards a more egalitarian and less exploitative alternative moreso than other forms of labour, nor am I convinced that the majority of sex workers are anti-capitalist and actively seeking to upend capitalism. In so far as expanding sex work can expand solidarity among different types of workers, I can see how it may contribute to this, as well as from the activity of radical sex workers. And I do think they have a current need and right to make a living. But on a broader, more theoretical level I still have issues with the appearance sex work takes under capitalism. I don't see how simply taking and redistributing money from the wealthy will do any more good than other means of wealth redistribution such as taxes, or how it's qualitatively different from other places the rich spend their cash. And my concern is still the same, that it's ultimately just making sex work more easily exploitable by capital while doing little to challenge current social relations and power dynamics.

Consequently, I support the decriminalization of sex work, as well as the bodily autonomy of sex workers, since it does no good to penalize people who are often already marginalized and struggling (although middle-class women are a growing demographic, as well) from making a living that doesn't harm anyone. And I support normalizing it in the sense of removing the stigma and shame of being a sex worker or enjoying sex, allowing them to be more open about it and utilize community resources, modern technology, and their social circles to advertise and work rather than seedier and more exploitative options. Hence, I'm cautiously optimistic about it improving from what it once was. But I'm not yet comfortable idealizing sex work as an inherently revolutionary occupation, nor one free from danger and exploitation. Just as the relative comfort and security of workers in more developed countries like the US is dependent upon more oppressive and exploitative conditions of labour in less developed countries, effectively subsidizing our higher wages and standard of living despite our own inequalities, the relative comfort and security of some sex workers likely comes at the cost of others who are less fortunate and more marginalized.