[Potemkin]

Your post seemed to suggest that you were 'beside yourself' with anger (I always thought that was a good way of putting it, because when it's happening it really does feel like you are almost not yourself).

If it happens to me (a rare occasion), then I ball my fists up by my sides and start seething about "These people are our sworn enemy, OUR SWORN ENEMY!"

This is what Eisenstein called 'ecstasy' (which literally means, 'being drawn out of oneself') - the concept became a keystone of his theories of film-making in the 1930s, but was already evident in practice in his classic Battleship Potemkin. He also related the concept to 'enthusiasm', which literally means 'being filled with the god'. Eisenstein believed that such a feeling is essential for any successful political movement, and attempted to induce such a feeling in the individual members of the audience of his films using montage techniques. However, he also recognised the need to link such 'ecstasy' with rational thought (ecstasy and rationalism are usually kept separate from each other), through the use of 'intellectual montage'. The capitalist system aims to sedate people by feeding them comforting Hollywood pap, whereas a truly revolutionary cinema should fill people with enthusiasm and ecstasy, directly linked to intellectual analysis of the objective situation.

[starman2003]

Where?

Stalin's USSR may not have been very hegemonistic but it represented a supreme state, single leader/single party rule, domination of masses, indoctrination and regimentation.

[Amanita]

The problem with the Soviet state is that it looked towards its own tools, the masses, for legitimacy and justification. No transcendental reference point whatsoever.

[Potemkin]

The problem with the Soviet state is that it looked towards its own tools, the masses, for legitimacy and justification. No transcendental reference point whatsoever.

I disagree. The transcendental reference point was, of course, Marxist-Leninist ideology, with Stalin as the infallible High Priest and interpreter of the Thoughts of Comrade Lenin, whose mummified body was displayed to the adoring masses in a Mausoleum on Red Square. Peasants kept icons of Lenin and Stalin in their homes and would light votive candles to them. The Soviet government was virtually building pyramids and conducting ceremonies glorifying Amun-Re. How much more fucking obvious did they have to get?

[Amanita]

Not nearly worthy enough. The Soviet state was ultimately dismantled because it didn't deliver to the masses, which speaks volumes about its motivation or lack thereof.

[Texpat]

Shoulda stayed in.
Retirement at 42 is schweet. With sugar on top.
Whining solves nothing. Blaze your own path.
Plenty of smart, rich, kids go to academies.
Plenty of poor kids enlist and graduate uni, grad school. Move on.
Don't sell yourself short, don't complain.

[Verv]

Yes, that was actually exactly why I didn't criticise it, since I think that anger and other strong emotions sometimes express themselves through us in that way.

Your post seemed to suggest that you were 'beside yourself' with anger (I always thought that was a good way of putting it, because when it's happening it really does feel like you are almost not yourself).

If it happens to me (a rare occasion), then I ball my fists up by my sides and start seething about "These people are our sworn enemy, OUR SWORN ENEMY!"

One of my co-workers is Italian-British, and when she loses it (also rare) she sounds a bit similar, she gets all like, "How can this be happening?! Someone needs to be SHOT!"

So I understood that you were having 'a moment' as well, we all have it.

Yes, that was the circumstance.

I had specifically been having a 2 hour conversation concerning the status of Korea's poor people. Of course, it was an intelligble discussion that became less intelligible and more ranting until we had all worked ourselves up into a revolutionary fervor. If a Hyundai CEO would have walked into that restaurant that night he may have been decapitated.

I am working on a manifesto that I have not posted -- I want to say that it is intelligent and well put together, and it is going well, and I may post portions of it sometime in the near future.

I feel like I will undertake serious work to change the system after I've gotten my life worked out to a point that I could concentrate on that as opposed to other things.

I hope by the time I am ready to do this I can find an actual organization that I would agree with and I feel will take some form of action.

[Rei Murasame]

This is what Eisenstein called 'ecstasy' (which literally means, 'being drawn out of oneself') - the concept became a keystone of his theories of film-making in the 1930s, but was already evident in practice in his classic Battleship Potemkin. He also related the concept to 'enthusiasm', which literally means 'being filled with the god'. Eisenstein believed that such a feeling is essential for any successful political movement, and attempted to induce such a feeling in the individual members of the audience of his films using montage techniques. However, he also recognised the need to link such 'ecstasy' with rational thought (ecstasy and rationalism are usually kept separate from each other), through the use of 'intellectual montage'. The capitalist system aims to sedate people by feeding them comforting Hollywood pap, whereas a truly revolutionary cinema should fill people with enthusiasm and ecstasy, directly linked to intellectual analysis of the objective situation.

Quoting you in full here to just register full agreement and note-taking has happened.

I had no idea that ecstasy meant "being filled with the god", in a way that makes total sense. Is that also where the phrase "as though possessed" in English came from?

I had specifically been having a 2 hour conversation concerning the status of Korea's poor people. Of course, it was an intelligble discussion that became less intelligible and more ranting until we had all worked ourselves up into a revolutionary fervor. If a Hyundai CEO would have walked into that restaurant that night he may have been decapitated.

This is something I meant to ask you about. Is Lee Myung-bak's administration behaving in an unKorean way? This isn't the first time I've heard people complain about the situation, but is it worse than I thought it was then? Has it started to become deep rotting, rather than just transient corruption? (I hope not...)

[Potemkin]

I had no idea that ecstasy meant "being filled with the god", in a way that makes total sense.

Actually, it's 'enthusiasm' which means 'being filled with the (or a) god'; 'ecstasy' means 'being drawn out of oneself'.

Is that also where the phrase "as though possessed" in English came from?

Yes. In fact, it is a cultural trace of the ancient Greek belief that each person has a 'daimon' inside them which can inspire them to extraordinary creativity or prophetic insight - this is what being enthusiastic about something actually means. The concept of 'ecstasy' is related to the English phrase 'being beside oneself' (eg, with a strong emotion such as grief or anger - "I was beside myself with anger").

[Verv]

This is something I meant to ask you about. Is Lee Myung-bak's administration behaving in an unKorean way? This isn't the first time I've heard people complain about the situation, but is it worse than I thought it was then? Has it started to become deep rotting, rather than just transient corruption? (I hope not...)

One of the first thing President Lee announced was that he would have a phone in his office so that whenever the major executives of Hyundai, Samsung, etc. needed him they could CALL him.

The government exists now to serve the interests of the business sector.

This is fundamentally unkorean as the Korean people do have a strong national and ethnic sense of unity and for caring for the elderly, etc. Yet these things are not a priority.

The income gap is increasing and the unequal educational opportunities for children is pretty gross.

There are also many issues with people not being able to find employment after graduation.

There are a lot of problems that you can see Lee is responsible for, but really the only thing you can fault him for is just being all about helping out the major businesses that he connects with the nation's prosperity; he is just very uncreativingly trying to keep the economy expanding.

[Figlio di Moros]

That rant... the fire, where is the warrior-poet Verv I yearn to hear? That no more of us farm-hands, coal-miners, factory sons, the youth of proletariat, should be require to serve to the call of our nation- that is our distinct honor, our unbegrudged call to service, the redemption of our soul from this heartless liberal casket. Where is is that Verv, the one which enticed our spirit to dance above battlefields yet soiled? We should not seek the reckless degeneracy of the rich, but demand the bourgeoisie eschew their avarice and yield to the honor and sacrifice which blesses us!