Philosophical Dialogues XXXIV
EXISTENCE AND TRANSCENDENCE IV
By Franz J. T. Lee
Alienation,
Alienated Labour and Emancipation
Elvis Presley vis-a-vis Emancipation
(The
Dawn of a New Scientific-Philosophic Day. Coseino enters the class.
With eager expectations the class listens to his
usual introductory lecture.
Academic silence and tense concentration hang
in the air-conditioned
aula magna -- one could actually hear a pin dropping
on the carpet floor.
Then the long-awaited discussion period sets in.)
Coseino: If I remember correctly, Elvis, last time you asked a most interesting question, could you please repeat it?
Elvis: Professor, how could I, could we, physically transcend, excel?
Coseino: Well, Elvis, let's begin with you. You're an artist, a singer. Why are you singing, why did you choose this profession? To earn a lot of money? Because you have a lovely voice, and you want to put it to social use, to the improvement of yourself, and of living conditions in general?
Elvis: I guess those were the reasons.
Coseino:
Why are you singing about a "Heartbreak Hotel"? "Oh Lonesome Me",
"Love Me Tender"? Are you lonesome in the nights,
are you love-sick, what are
you doing in hotels so late in the nights? Did
you know that solidarity is the tenderness of oppressed peoples?
Elvis: Professor, those problems I don't have; I rather feel like a haunted Play-Boy.
Coseino: Well, then why do you sing about such gruesome stuff?
Frantz: Why don't you choose themes like the "Wretched Of The Earth", "The Class Struggle", "Long Live The Revolution", "Down With The Illuminati", "To Hell With Desert Storm", etc.?
Elvis: In my profession, I don't coin the themes. I suggest topics, but the final decision does not lay in my hands. In my contracts, I'm forbidden to decide. In the final analysis, my bosses decide for me. I act in accordance with their wishes; they think for me, they decide how I should act, what I should sing. I sell my voice, I prostitute my artistic faculties.
Coseino: Oh, Lonesome You! Now I understand why you sing with such a convincing melancholic tone, accompanied with such dramatic acts and actions on stage. You must be doing a lot of body exercises and aerobics, in order to get your flex appeal figure in ship-shape. You express the artificially created misery nurtured in the bodies, minds and "souls" of billions, including yourself.
Elvis: However, at present, I'm on pension. But, to tell you the truth, I never thought about it, in that way; thus, even I myself was living in a world of make-believe. On the stage, I acted for real; I convinced myself that it was for real, that I was making a concrete contribution to the natural well-being of society. However, I must admit, I also had an eye on the sky-rocketing sales of my records, eagerly awaiting my fat provisions.
Frantz: You did all that while the French, the CIA, the FBI and Interpol were trying to liquidate me. You sang to the American Military Forces in Europe, you supplied the GI's with fun and distraction. Is this what you meant by contribution to the "natural well-being of society"?
Elvis: That
was part of my contract, of my role in society. I had to work, to labour,
to satisfy my basic human needs. You chose another road, to achieve the very
same thing. The result was that the French nearly exploded your body into
zillion pieces,
robbing you of a precious praxical, natural body
to excel scientifically, to emancipate yourself.
You propagated violence, counter-violence, and this strategy, in the first place, was physical, corporeal. Of course, you were also a theoretical, psychological rebel, philosophically you paved the road towards transcendental emancipation. You told Senghor that his "Negritude", ideologically spoken, has a "White Face", screened by a "Black Mask". You sacrificed your physical life in the service of the "African Revolution". Now, please tell me, is this the "No Easy Road To Freedom" of which Nelson Mandela spoke? Did you know that those whom the gods "love" die very young?
Frantz: Of course, then, I was living in the mid-decades of the last century; in the 1960's, as you know, decolonization was on the order of the day.
Elvis: You mean "neocolonization".
Frantz: Call it what you like. Call Bloody Capital by any other name, it will be as Draconian and Draculian as ever. Anyhow, I mean Global "Democratization".
Elvis: So, counter-violence, liberation, was directed against capitalist violence, against pre-colonialism, colonialism, ultra-colonialism, imperialism, post-imperialism, etc.?
Frantz: Yes, of course. That is what I, what we want to transcend physically and mentally. Elvis, why did you sing: "In The Ghetto"? Were you not helping the "Black Panther" movement, not expressing the American version of "counter-violence", of Malcolm X? Or does Big Business even exploit the misery of the ghettos, the "sigh of the oppressed creature", the "heart of a heartless world", to make giga-profits? Did you know that the "gods" only help those who help themselves?
Coseino: So, Elvis, you tried to transcend physically with the democratic guitar in the hand, and you, Frantz, you tried it with the revolutionary gun. Elvis, you preferred the "ballot" for liberatory change within the system; and you, Frantz, you wanted to shoot the system -- not to pieces, but -- to itss senses, using the "bullet". Hence, the ballot and the bullet; what about the excellent idea, of using neither the ballot nor the bullet, in the process of physical excellence? What about using the pen? Info guerrilla warfare.
Karl: How on earth could that be accomplished? Would it not mean total capitulation? We could, however, consider the pen as neither bullet nor ballot. Always remember: The pen is mightier than the sword. - However, this is a topic for later discussions.
Coseino: Perhaps, who knows for sure what is the truth, the panacea for all evil? But Karl, tell me about any method or world system which you know, which could emancipate you, us? You have a wide choice, all of them use either the ballot or the bullet, or both: primitive communism, slavery, tyranny, kleptocracy, feudalism, nazism, liberalism, democracy, prayer, neo-liberalism, socialism, Valhalla, Nirvana, New Jerusalem, "Free Energy For All", Gandhism, terrorism, anarchy, conspiracy, post-industrial capitalism, globalization, nanotechnology, cloning, etc., etc.
Karl: I'm afraid none of those which you mentioned serves emancipatory purposes.
Bill: Professor, concretely, earthly, here and now, please give us an example of physical, corporeal, active, acting, emancipatory práxis, which uses, and which is the result of "neither the ballot nor the bullet".
Coseino: At the moment, I can't recall any such action. Can anybody help us, please, to give us a concrete example? Do you perhaps have an idea, Bill?
Bill: I think that the fathers of the American Revolution performed an emancipatory act within the system, as expressed till this day in the "Bill of Rights". Unfortunately, this was and is still being accomplished with the ballot and the bullet. And the majority of our Americans are still not free, thanks to the "Illuminati Conspiracy".
Coseino: Bill, could you get rid of the Illuminati, of the Bush clan, by means of the ballot or/and the bullet?
Bill: Professor,
with all my heart and soul, I would love to, but, like Karl, I'm afraid, it
would be well-nigh impossible.
Lev (a newcomer): Folks, I don't know why you beat so long around the bush, instead of going into excellent emancipatory action, taking the bull directly, concretely, by the horns.
Joe (another newcomer): You're right, Lev, what does not serve emancipatory purposes, should be exterminated, be thrown into concentration camps, into Gulags.
Olf (still another newcomer): Now, we're getting down to concrete business, to emancipation, to the "solution, once and for all".
Ruiz (yet still another newcomer): We need a "lider máximo" to guide us towards emancipatory action.
Serna (and yet still another newcomer): We need a new type of global guerrilla warfare, have to
create many Vietnams.
Victor (just entering the
class): Sorry, por ahora, no comment.
Coseino: Excellent, excellent! Bravo!! I'm fascinated by the newcomers,
however,
time is running out. Before we close for today,
would you please give us a paradigm
for emancipatory, excellent Praxis. Very piquant,
short and sweet.
Lev: Yes, Permanent World Emancipation.
Joe: Njet, Emancipation In One Bloc.
Ruiz: Por lo menos, Emancipation In One Island.
Olf: Verrückt, Nein: A Third Emancipatory Reich.
Serna: Let's
Create Two, Three or Eight Forms of Emancipation.
Victor:
Por ahora, Urgently globalize the Revolution.
Coseino: Well, Folks, The Emancipation
Continues!
We'll continue next time.
(Coseino
leaves the class, he thinks: "So much to do, so little done, if We could,
We
would emancipate
the galaxies, and the galaxies would emancipate us.")
