NEOLITHIC SOCIAL WORLDS Modes of Intercourse of societies based on equality

- Every Social Formation has all of them, but they are mixed in different ways

- There is a dominant mode/logic for each existing world (eg. c-b-a )

- Modes describe social logics of both families & nations, small prod. units & corporations b c d

DOMINANT MODE

BASIC FORM

LOGIC

MODERN FORM

PARADOX

Mini World a -c -b

- Federation of Tribes

- Reciprocity (Gift)

Nation

Sacrifice (only reciprocity)

Empire b -a -c

- City-states

- Plunder-Redistribution

State Sovereignty (only redistribution) routinization of charisma

LEGITIMATE AUTHORITY (WEBER)

Hitler (charismatic)

Queen Elizabeth (traditional)

World Economy c -b -a

- Capitalist-centers

- Commodity Exchange

Capital Unemployment (only commodity-exchange)

Droupadi Murmu (rational-legal) routinization of charisma

Ideal- maitri + free assoc.

Fidel Castro (charismatic)

- Not the violence of something from outside, but system immanent violence, “violence of consensus”: Depression, ADHD, Burnout.

- “The capitalist system is switching from allo-exploitation to auto-exploitation in order to accelerate.” (aatmanirbharta)

- With a growth-mindset, the drive is towards unlimited self-productivity

- Every entrepreneur is an ”auto-exploiting labourer in his or her own enterprise”. You Should is replaced by You Can: “Prohibitions, commandments, and the law are replaced by projects, initiatives, and motivation.”

- Look at books for entrepreneurs: Creative Confidence, The Squiggly Career. On the other hand, “depression is creative fatigue and exhausted ability ...” We have to be able to be “flexible, able to assume any form, play any role, or perform any function” We are running a rat-race against ourselves. Your resume will never feel good enough .

- Growth, self re-invention and expansion of pleasure “presumes an array of products tied to identity ”. Constant comparison leaves us anxious that we are just ordinary. No wonder we need courses in ‘empathy’today’s “hyperactive ego” needs to be taught how to give sincere attention to someone else.

- We switch hectically between overwork and distraction. We are bombarded by “an excess of stimuli, information, and impulses. It radically changes the structure and economy of attention.” Multitasking requires Hyperattention - a survival trait of wild animals - and leads to “ hyperpassivity ; now one obeys every impulse or stimulus [to consume] without resistance.” (Han 2010)

Normality vs. Humanity

- “[We] now live in bipolar times” ... Diagnoses have shot up in the 2000s. “Global diagnoses are up 4000%”

Diagnoses of Bipolar II, III, IV, V, VI are being mobilized to prescribe drugs for a wider spectrum of mood-swings.

- “The confidence, euphoria, and energy that characterize the early stages of mania seem to fit very well with the stimulus to achievement, [and] productivity ... required by today’s companies” and the resulting mood-swings.

- “[M]ania is like a rocket that roars into space, splendid, unstoppable ... The usual barriers that prevent a person from taking risks disappear.” Just as suddenly, “other people can become too present ... Manic euphoria takes on a tinge of anguish. Small obstacles are amplified, triggering rages and violent outbursts. Paranoid ideas increase.”Psychiatric intervention today aims at the right cocktail of drugs and therapy to stabilize one emotionally between the 2 poles.

When the migrant crisis unfolded after the announcement of the nationwide lockdown, the privileged ‘grades’ sincerely attempted to communicate(?) on social media their sudden surge of fellow feeling and sympathy for the migrants. However their attempt collapsed into obscenity — recall #MeTooMigrant . Exactly when people are “most vulnerable and the most threatened, they must be thought of along the most universal amplitude. This is the amplitude of what Marx once called “generic humanity” ... For instance, recently Uber corporation ... offered to ferry doctors in its taxis.” Could it open it’s taxis to “to all the people stranded on the open highways under the summer sun to make it possible for them to travel not only safely but in leisure”? (Soumyabrata Choudhury 2020)

- Amidst our “continually multiplying contacts and fleeting relationships”, what can found communities not based on kinship, self-interest, consumption? (Han 2010)