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Rainbow Capitalism

A Short Analysis

[here's an essay explaining the reason that rainbow capitalism is bad and harmful to Pride, hope you enjoy]

One of Capital's greatest abilities is to metabolise and corrupt everything it touches, in order to perpetually grow and spread. This is epitomised by its appropriation of Pride and the LGBTQ+ community. It's easy to picture what I'm talking about. As soon as the 1st of June comes around, corporations don their rainbow flags and buzzword slogans, in order to show the world that they too support LGBTQ+ rights. These changes vary in scale — Skittles completely changed its packaging (to black and white, since "only one rainbow matters during pride") while Instagram colours the pride related hashtags as a rainbow. However, whether these changes are big or small, they represent corporate pandering and appropriation of a complex movement and community. The weight of capital effectively crushes any complex emotional or historical cause into something one-dimensional from which it can extract profit.

A few years ago, I went to a pride festival with friends. Looking back, I'm only just realising how corporatised it was. While there were stalls from charities, there were also some from local businesses and political parties. Although I did not fully realise it at the time, it is obvious now that behind the pro-LGBTQ+ gesturing there lurks the powerful force of the profit motive. Now, some may hold the corporate inclusion of LGBTQ+ symbols as a good thing that spreads awareness of the movement — to an extent, this is true. However, upon closer analysis, this falls apart.

The appearance of rainbow capitalism correlates precisely with the acceptance of LGBTQ+ people in wider society. That is to say: companies only started showing support once it became socially acceptable for them to do so. This began in the 1990s, when being queer was slowly becoming more accepted, but became common after gay marriage had been legalised in the early 2000s.

This is a two-fold phenomenon. First, it exemplifies the pandering of companies to the LGBTQ+ community. The show of support (a show, it is not legitimate support) is done in order to convince queer folk to buy their products. Since queer people could now hold higher paying jobs (employment protections, etc.), their purchasing power increased — the so called 'pink dollar'. And so, by capitalistic design, the corporations jumped at the opportunity to make money.

Second, it shows that companies have no real intention of supporting LGBTQ+ rights. As always, it is important to remember that profit is the motive. In the 70s or 80s, such a show of support would have been awful for business, since the majority of people did not support queer folk. However, in the modern day, companies can adopt Pride related messaging freely, since the profit lost from angry conservatives is outweighed by the influx of money from liberals and progressives. In fact, some companies even donated money to anti-LGBTQ+ politicians, a practice that goes unnoticed since they put up the facade of progressivism in order to placate any suspicion and resistance.

Corporations (and the rich people who run them) have the power to create huge change — if they wanted to. They have incredible amounts of money, which could be used to fund non-profits and other organisations that materially affect the lives of LGBTQ+ people and youth (Trevor Project, Mermaids UK, etc.), as well as protect the civil rights of the community (most notably the ACLU). If they wanted to, corporations could contribute vastly to these causes and create real good in the lives of countless people. However, they won't. Instead, they are content with espousing rhetoric without tangible support. This does nothing but maintain the status quo: the companies make money, and the LGBTQ+ community continues to face rampant discrimination, both individual and systemic. The pride flag logos and other rainbow capitalist tropes serve only to hide this.

Above all this, however, hangs the issue of cultural erasure. The dilution of Pride into an amorphous commodity without nuance harms the very culture of the queer community, and gradually dissolves its history into a set of tokens and images. We know this commodification perfectly well, it exists as I have laid out above and, conversely, as the adoption of commodities to represent pride (drinking iced coffee = being queer, etc).

As Pride increasingly becomes an event, it is easy to forget the real, dangerous, life-and-death struggle for equal rights under the law that brought us to this point. Struggle and protest and rioting against a discriminatory system is what Pride commemorates. Not consuming product. It should be about the revolutionary fight against oppression in our past, present, and future, and not an event co-opted by the capitalist system.

While the portrait I have painted above seems bleak and hopeless, we are not completely powerless. Although the final way of countering and removing this practice is the overthrow of our capitalist system in favour of socialism or communism, in the present we can still create change. This is best done through with-holding our money from large anti-LGBTQ+ corporations where possible, while educating ourselves on anti-capitalist thought and practice, and pressuring companies and politicians to create substantial change.

#leftist #communism #anti capitalism #rainbow capitalism #lgbtq #pride #jean baudrillard #mark fisher #quasi derivative

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@ all my Binder Wearing pals!

Please remember:

Take your binder off at a decent time!

Don't sleep in your binder!

WASH IT!!

Have a day off every now and again for your physical health!

Take a moment to stretch and breathe!

(People who don't wear binders can and should reblog)

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Why it's Pointless to Compare Disciplines: a Pantheist Take

The structure of this essay will be as follows. First, I will explain the conflicts and attitudes between the academic disciplines. Then, I will explain pantheism, specifically spinozist pantheism. And finally, I will attempt to show that it is pointless to compare disciplines

1. The Debate

There is often conflict and competition between what i identify as the 3 main disciplines: the arts, the humanities, and the sciences. The arts refers to music, visual art, theatre, etc. That is to say, they refer to expression of human emotion, and serve to present and convey themes and idea about the wider world. The humanities are philosophy, history, sociology, etc. These are the study of people, society and seek to explain and understand humanity. Finally, the sciences. These are simply physics and maths, biology and chemistry, which seek to find explanation for the processes that govern the Universe.

Conflict between these often hinge on a few questions; "which is more true?", or "which is better for people?" are just two of them. As an example, consider the climate crisis. There is debate as to how it should be tackled, whether a subject of the humanities should take lead, or if a physical, chemical alright should be taken. This is one of the areas where this conflict emerges. Another point of contention, that may be more familiar to Tumblr users, is the conflict between science such as physics and art on the internet. Although of smaller consequence than other clashes, there is often tension between artists (who create art with symbolic meaning), and physics students who tend to imagine that their descriptive, scientific process is much more valuable.

It should quickly be noted that conflict between western scientism and spirituality stem from a history of white supremacy, colonialism and exoticism.

I have laid the issues out quite simply here, in order to simply provide a summary of inter-disciplinary competition and act as a memory aid.

2. Spinozist Pantheism

Baruch Spinoza was a 17th Century Dutch-Jewish philosopher and rationalist. Excommunicated from his church and community for his unorthodox views, Spinoza created a whole new conception of God and ethics and the Universe - a metaphysic. His most notable work is The Ethics in which he explains and proves his metaphysical model using succint mathematical order and logic.

Here is a definition of some terms that will be helpful:

- Substance: the most fundamental 'thing' that exists. To someone who believes that atoms are the most fundamental things, all atoms are substances that make up other things.

- Attribute: the essence (nature) of substance when it is thought or conceived of in a certain way.

- Mode: things which are in and conceived through substance, such as a chair. if you imagine substance as a big ball of clay, modes are like this formed out of the surface of the ball.

- Theism: the belief in a God or Gods, who created and intervenes in the universe.

- Atheism: disbelief in existence of any god or gods

- Metaphysics: the branch of philosophy that deals with abstract things, such as being, time, knowing, and space.

These terms should hopefully help clarify terms that i use in the following section.

Spinoza's metaphysic is a substance monism. This means that the universe is made of exactly one substance, which spinoza calls God. His first argument in The Ethics is to prove that there is necessarily only one infinite substance, which he calls God This is pantheism, and can be best summed up in one quote - "Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived" (Ethics Part 1, Prop 15). Or, in other words, everything is part of God and created by God.

This is the definition of pantheism. Pantheism is the belief that God and the Universe are the same. Adamant in his belief, Spinoza labels traditional religion as "fiction" (not the same implication as 'fiction book', but you get the idea). He wrote that the Bible is just a book written by people, that prayer and appeals for divine intervention are pointless, etc.

His method for approaching God is intuitive and, to me, quite beautiful. Spinoza argues that asking for divine intervention is futile, since God is a huge immoveable thing, the universe itself. Instead, Spinoza says that this should be flipped. We should listen to God, bend our will to it, and follow nature, in order to live free of the pressures that come from spirituality and fear of eternal punishment.

This is the crux of argument, which i will clarify in part 3.

3. Argument

In the end of the last section, i said that Spinoza believes in listening to God. The way that he suggests this is through science and the humanities. By studying the laws of nature (which includes psychology and thought), we can get closer to understanding and appreciating God itself - not simply his Creation as Theism would posit. This aspect is why I, as a spinozist pantheist, believe that it is wholly absurd and pointless to compare different disciplines; they are all a form of understanding, explaining, and contemplation of God/nature.

The sciences describe the basic laws of nature, they seek to (with strict methods) approach a model that can explain how everything functions. The humanities are a study of human culture and society, and try to understand and appreciate these. The arts are expressive; a work of art is a form of expression, thought, and an act of creation and contemplation. All of these, inevitably, are a deep engagement with God. This makes competition absurd, since they all have the same purpose, and therefore holy. They are all of equal importance and value.

Thank you so much for reading this mess!!

#philosophy #spinoza #pantheism #everything is holy

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I have too many leftist/post-modernist theory catboy memes saved on my phone someone help-

#catboy deleuze #catboy theorygram #dear lord i am too gay and socialist for this world

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Wait wait wait- I think there’s something here... QAnon thought Trump would come back on the 4th... QAnon is a conspiracy... Lizard people is also a conspiracy theory... Rambo is a lizard, and Rambo was released on the 4th!! 

Trump is Rambo you guys!!

You can only rb this today

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Communism is the social equivalent of the whole-tone scale. That’s it. That’s the post.

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You know the feeling and taste of coffee grinds at the bottom of a cup? That’s my mind all the time constantly.

#ahhhhhhhhhhhh

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This week's reading. Existential ennui, here I come!!

#existentialism #jean paul sartre #what is the point #three oclock is always too late or too early

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A quote from Some More News that has no relevance at all definitely

Fascism goes through phases from ideology to full-fledged regime, and it is characterized by palingenetic ultranationalism, anti-globalism, a rejection of feminism and socialism and homosexuality, and marxism and cUlTuRaL mArXiSm, an obsession with conspiracy theories, a fear of the other, a creation of in groups and out groups to be rejected from the in group, an obsession with heroism and violence and machismo and weaponry, a collection of syncretistic intellectuals complaining about liberal academia and commies, a death file led by a charismatic male leader in the form of an ideologically inconsistent and unprincipled opportunist who plays in emotions and fears and popular trends to further a dictatorship against the left amidst popular enthusiasm due to a crisis of capitalism and ineffective liberal governance and political gridlock via uneasy alliance with conservative elites creating images and traditions and language unique to each country and leader and people

Or, in other words, orange man indeed bad.

Trumpism is a synonym for american fascism. Even though trump is out of office, fascist sentiment has in no way disappeared, and it is important to remember that without political reform and change, it will continue to grow.

#politics #leftist #anti anti antifa #life in the fash lane

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If it's called bird flu, is the antidote bird land?

#i don't even know anymore #ornithology? more like cringythology

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Class solidarity is important!!

If you own the means of production/labor and pay others for their labor, you're bourgeois/owner class. If you sell your time and labor for a wage, you're proletariat/working class, whether you make minimum wage or $150 a year.

Really concerned that anti capitalism Discourse has developed into “if you have any money at all, you’re evil and part of the problem”

Like someone who spends $200 on a practical purse is not the problem with capitalism

John Boyega having a net worth of $6 mil after multiple high profile years in the film industry is not the problem with capitalism

The enemy is the billionaires that hoard wealth and banks and companies that control entire swaths of the economy

Don’t let the guy with $200 billion convince you, who makes less than $30k a year, that the doctor making $150k a year is the enemy

The enemy is like a few dozen people and a few dozen huge banks and companies

#leftism #communism #politics #eat the rich? more like divide the rich amongst the population

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Neo-libs be like: Communism? More like commu-nope-ism

if i hear one more capitalist say that communism takes away your right to personal property i will lose my damn mind.

so heres the difference:

personal property: your own personal belongings. the government isn’t going to come and steal your toothbrush in your sleep.

private property: say one person owns a factory. they run the property, and a portion of the labor value made by the employees go to this person. for the person who owns the factory to make profit, the employees will not be payed the full value of their labor.

abolishing private property means the employees would all own the factory. no one would be exploited and they would be able to obtain the full value of their labor.

(when you hear the means of production, they are talking about private property)

abolishing private property does not mean the government is going to come and steal your belongings in your sleep

thank you for coming to my ted talk

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Woahhhh it’s a gas giant! I’m trying to learn how to make procedural materials, so all of these are purely smooth and solid spheres, and with no volumetrics. The clouds on the gas giant are a mix of wave textures, and the moons are just noise textures.

#blender3d #art #cgi #some space thing idek

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Leaf growing out of a hand, rendered with EEVEE.

#blender3d #b3d #art #cgi #animation

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I was sketching at school and experimenting with drawing on lined paper, and ways of incorporating the lines as part of the drawing. I came up with this concept of a strange, but curious creature coming out of a blank piece of paper. 

“Writer’s Block”, black pen and pencil on A4 printer paper.

#illustration #art