New and Improved "Free Your Mind" -with notes, too!

The social changes accompanying capitalism seem to free up the mind. Hegel had a very neat plan with thesis and anti-thesis following one another in sequential order. Capitalism embodies this dualism or dialectic but not sequentially. Capitalism is the only known social development that includes its own antithesis not sequentially but concurrently along with the whole story of its development. It is as if capitalism as a historical and social movement dangles before its member-"nation" or membership group an illusory proposition of rebelling against it.
The mind, therefore, is freed up to rebel against capitalism. But that is just another part of capitalism's plan. It is the only cultural development that packs its own antithesis.
There is nothing sequential about it. Capitalism is its antithesis, in real time. The usual Marxist or Leftist theory believes in a capitalist stage. After this stage, comes another, and so on and on. In fact it is more like a "wrapping up" of all the historical contradictions of history itself --of Western history --or else it is a telescoping----what I seem to be saying is, in reverse----collapsing the telescope (the view) of history into one neat, self-contradictory unit. Within that world or that period, of capitalism's potential for self-criticalness, are the youth of my own generation. We really thought we could rebel.

This is because capitalism frees up one's mind; and only under capitalism does the individual have the freedom to think of rebelling. In my time, we did that. I remember the"revolutionaries" we had in high school. That was the very early seventies actually. This type of thing went on in the thirties, as well. "New York Intellectuals" can testify that there were more Stalinists than creative "critical theorists" at New York City College in the thirties. That is one example.
Revolution is sexy, you know. Capitalism gives you this stage of rebellion. All that is pretty much over now. And so is capitalism itself.



notes

"The social changes accompanying capitalism" - What is capitalism? It is a movement of things. It is movement coming into Western civilization. It is the wind of change coming into history in an organized way. The stipulation that it comes in an organized way is very important.
This change wave that I am calling capitalism had the power to usurp monarchy. The purpose of monarchy was to set up a power system that can administrate and control an area. That area is called the kingdom. Capitalism was not terrorism. It was not a disorganized movement. There was coherence and structure to it. It it had been a disorganized wind rather than an organized wind, it could not have had the power to displace the previous system, that of monarchy.

free up the mind - the question here, of course, is whether capitalism just seems to do that or really does. Does it seem to free up the mind or does capitalism really do it? Up to us, isn't it?

"the frustration everyday Americans feel" "those who fought for this country" -Palin's words reek of propaganda and opportunism. She is an enemy. This is a completely evil person. Palin is an enemy of America. There should be no doubt about it. It would be like Hitler or Stalin coming to power. There are such persons. There are these persons in every society, but modernity has, since the French Revolution, given these type of persons the opportunity to commandeer these modern social processes for their own purposes. This can be fit into the essay above.