Coffee Conversations | Misdefining Power

[@Billynomates-1980]

Your consistently coherent and intelligent analysis has convinced me that the truth of the world can only be truly comprehended through the lens of faith. I am deeply grateful.

[@daveedchow2237]

As Deng Xiaoping once said, "It doesn't matter if it's a black cat or a white cat, if it catches mice, it's a good cat."

[@VickiNikolaidis]

Great discussion. Very satisfying! You two have your finger on the pulse of our contemporary world. All the labels make communication so tough! Everyone gives their own meaning to the labelssthey use. I want to give everyone a dictionary

[@carmenonea3800]

tokenizing!

[@tugilevy8139]

>"All the labels make communication so tough! Everyone gives their own meaning to the labels they use " Unfortunately, or fortunately, dictionaries make no difference. This is the curse: on one hand, we cannot understand each other without labels (names of things) and on the other, when we find communication too easy, the labels have worn out and become platitudes. Dumb messages are transparent and require no effort since everyone pretends to know what they mean to conform to their tribe. Those who write dictionaries act from positions of power. We should question the dictionaries. The ability to question every meaning and doubt the correct interpretation of every label is what makes the sense of communication. Communication has to be tough because only living people make meanings through the active process of understanding and learning. Why would we ever want to communicate if meanings are fixed once and for all by ultimate dictionaries? The perfect communication would be the dead of communication.

[@Altioale]

Thank you for everything Ustadh. May Allah preserve you and your family

[@ayoubanwar2576]

Jazakallah khairan ❤

[@TellingStewart]

🌱 JazakALLAH alkhair, 🙏 for Truthfully explaining the American Government Power Structure. 🍃

[@waheedahshaheed8814]

AlhamdulillahiRaabilalamin. This is a wonderful conversation between two intelligent people. InshaAllah, Ustadha and Ustadh are correct and the global order is definitely shifting back to the original civilizations taking the leadership over the world.

[@demos8222]

spot on. love these talks.

[@AXZJ104]

Thank you for this. There is a deeply felt yearning for maturity wisdom understanding to triumph and manifest from the ancients. God willing at the right time. ❤

[@Victoria-Enzula]

My friend from China does not believe Anerican democracy serves the people very well. I agree.

[@allencollins6031]

Peace 🕊 from NY

[@VernonNickersonSCHOOLCOACH]

@21:47: "...it's the view of authority of a child, you're operating like a child..." fits 2024 USA like a glove. So as much as at our country's beginning, we must continue to ask, "Who profits as long as this remains true?"🙃😒

[@ilhamfaqrudin1515]

Alhamdulillah for the knowledge👍🏻

[@thomasshnyder4621]

Mr. Bolsen thanks for the telling truth mindblowing

[@anwornation3399]

Well said so true, every one can't be in the same box, even if there in the same country

[@moniqueboyke5879]

Great video middle nation

[@kevin-y6f8o]

Great insights!

[@lisasykes624]

I love this guy 😂...🤔...😐

[@nailfelagund7508]

Great convo ma sha Allah, I appreciate you taking a step back and questioning the basic false premises, this is how we free our minds :)

[@Cavemanphilanthropist]

It is very strange as an American to feel hope because our empire is weakening, it will be absolute chaos here in the states but the world will be better off. That is if we can avoid world war, with our new president and his warmonger cabinet choices I have my doubts. It seems like it is the only card we can play now, I'm hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.

[@robertely686]

Just hope the demented one doesn't start another forever war before the slightly less demented one gets in

[@amywalton4201]

Yes, I feel the same. I absolutely agree, but it doesn’t feel weird to me now I call myself almost a sadist to most people in America, i’m lovingit’s fall.

[@numbersix8919]

About Marxism. Marx had little to say about how a socialist society is organized. But but he did investigate, describe and analyze the greatest disease of modernity, capitalism, that comes from no tradition and destroys all traditions. Whether or not the "withering away of the state" is really possible or even desirable may be only a matter of belief. But please don't throw Marxist analysis away. It's a critical tool in the struggle for human freedom.

[@TellingStewart]

🌱🌹🌿 ASALAM ALAIKM 🌿🌹🍃

[@carenkurdjinian5413]

Very True -In Some Very Sense ………🌞

[@arshado6559]

hearing this from Kerala, he is right communism just exist in name here .....

[@numbersix8919]

Well maybe you should travel to the North for a few weeks and see how people are faring, for comparison. Or are you just another anticommunist.

[@AlternativeFundingSolutions888]

The control of the planet is being given back to Who?

[@numbersix8919]

People. Human beings.

[@savithag7616]

Kerala is a state inside India surrounded by capitalism. One of the ministers said that only so much we can do. Though we do have transportation, education and utilities nationalized. And other parts too of India.

[@tugilevy8139]

In other words, People often believe they live in a democracy when, in reality, they live in an oligarchy. This misunderstanding arises because the dominant narrative is controlled by the prevailing power institutions. Ideology is embedded into knowledge - what Foucault refers to as "power-knowledge" - to maintain existing power dynamics. This is what you described as the “historical effect”: the representation of reality in narratives always lags behind reality. I believe you may be unintentionally conflating the issue of political platitudes, which lack meaningful content (by being “oversimplified”), with knowledge, which holds significance as a reference to truth. In corresponding political circumstances, Aristotle introduced the term "polity" to distinguish it from "democracy," which has been at the time used as a mere political platitude. The abuse of language turns terms into empty phrases, stripping them of their meaning (the reference and sense, or signified, in semiotic terms). These words become semantic orphans, frequently misused as political slogans. Therefore, your critique seems to target the ossified nature of political language (see, for example, the Russian Formalists) rather than an issue with "having a point." The notion that we could possess knowledge without categories, labels, or definitions - by particulars without universals - is a misleading illusion often held by the New Age nirvana followers. This perspective resembles extreme constructivist views, which argue that there is no reality beyond our words about reality. The problem with worldviews that blur the distinction between reality and language is that they confuse what is real with what is imaginary, blending the actual with the possible. These types of worldviews currently dominate Western political elites, who tend to believe they can create reality by controlling narratives. Words exist because we need them to signify something that would allow us to make things better. We name - label, define, and categorize - what threatens our existence so that we can organize our actions and make a tangible difference. While distinctions (metaphysical concepts) may be invented, it does not imply that what they refer to is non-existent. We must recognise the existence of the referenced to organise action and potentially alleviate suffering. The belief that we cannot know (label, define, or categorize differences-or "what exists") is itself a product of the same power-knowledge ideology that denies us the ability to effect change: "If nothing exists, there is no point...". The point to what? Resistance? The same authoritarian attitude that denies the ability to rule to the “bewildered herd” is behind the control over knowledge which turns truths into platitudes.

[@numbersix8919]

Don't forget that after knowledge comes understanding, and after that, wisdom. See, you've been corrupted just as everyone else has been in our machine society. But at the top of the state apparatus, the servants of the ruling class now worship mere data, the step below knowledge. I agree with most of what you said. Marxism is mainly about capitalism, an inhuman AI that has just enough connection to material reality to destroy us and then the world.

[@BillKort-xo8nj]

No country has ever claimed to be communist. Lenin described the USSR's developmental stage as State Capitalism. China: the People's Republic of China is described by several leaders as Socialism with Chinese characteristics. Communism is the final stage of a process which will take decades to accomplish.

[@Nicole-pj4yr]

In my bloodline is is Asian Native and Dutch

[@karimb972]

Great discussion but the background noise of the restaurant makes it hard to concentrate. JazakAllahou Khair to the both of you and to the whole Middle nation team

[@carenkurdjinian5413]

Lost- In Wild 😂Wild Words ……🌞

[@solaladipoel1873]

Asalam Alaikum, I partially agree and I partially disagree; I agree that misleading labels are used unilaterally by the political structures. But I disagree in that these power structures do actually have names , they just don’t use the right ones. For example the United States can generally be described as an Oligarchy, in practice, which in turn inadvertently implies Feudalism to a certain extent. I would go so far as to say that this hybrid Oligarchy/Feudalism model to a greater or lesser degree is the ubiquitous model of nearly every political system around the world in practical terms , as opposed to the theory, masquerading as , Democratic, Socialist or Communist. Plato one of the fathers of western thought, hypothesized that all democracies eventually devolve into oligarchy. The modern economist Yanis Varufakis, in his recent book Techno/Feudalism, provides a more specific term for the most recent manifestation of postmodern ‘capitalism’. Once again in my opinion, these obfuscations, as you described them, are deliberate and not incidental. That is to say they do not indicate an inability to define these political/economic systems, but rather an unwillingness to.Such that the major dialectic schism globally in terms of politics and economics can loosely be defined in terms of class. Whereby every other ism and/or division is merely a nuance of the fundamental class system, elite vs underclass. At one time the nuances of the class systems might have included Absolute Monarchy , at one time, however most Monarchies were also practically hybrid Oligarchies, whereby feudal lords, going by various titles, exerted limited power, within limited jurisdictions, and/or industries. However in those times political structures and/or systems were more overt , whilst we have metamorphosed from overt to more covert systems, which favour manipulation and deception over direct action. Which takes us full circle as to why they would deliberately obfuscate in the first place, because the political model IS obfuscation!

[@pitpalac]

he doesn't understand that "communist manifesto" was written as a pamphlet to obfuscate the people who think they are entitled to own the power structures of society. 'Dialectica materialista' is not the strong suit of this philosopher. Marx, Engels and Hegel were exceptions of the rule in philosophical realm of western europe.

[@solaladipoel1873]

@ Moreover from a philosophical standpoint, any system that describes interactions that follow specific patterns and rules, whether overt or covert, between a finite number of processes and actors, within bounded limitations must be definable. Only the infinite and unbounded defies definition, in other words, only Allah Subanahu wa ta’ala .

[@numbersix8919]

If you read what Marx has to say about feudalism, you would be ahead in your theories. Feudal existence is closer to socialism than is capitalism. But as the imam observed, every system of government contains within it the roots and even some leaves of the old system. Marx agreed with that idea. The important thing is grow out of capitalism, in which a very few individuals own or control for _themselves_ that which belongs to _all_ . Also, in agreement with the imam, wherever you see socialism adopted by the people, it invariably is in the way of their culture and traditions.

[@solaladipoel1873]

@ Are these few individuals of which you speak, not then the feudal lords? These same oligarchs, who in the era of Big Tech, Yanis Varufakis calls some the Technofeudal Lords. I’m not unfamiliar with the works and ideas of Marx , but I am neither a Marxist in ideology nor in practice. Though paradoxically I may very well be a capitalist in practice to some extent, though not ideologically . So also agree with the Imam that all of these terms are outdated and redundant in any practical sense. And new ideas for political-economic systems must emerge, which uses scientific terminology, such as the biophysics of the body politic. The nature of the evolution of time is that ideas and models of reality and/or workable systems of organization are time constrained , temporal and are subject to change as human culture and society equally evolves and metamorphoses . Therefore I also agree with the Imam that , history , culture, religion and politics are interconnected ideas. Therefore the differences I have with the imam are more semantical than anything else. That is to say I believe there is still a need for names and definitions, which are conterminous with the need for new systems of organization within the larger cultural context.

[@numbersix8919]

@@solaladipoel1873 We all are necessarily capitalists in practice when we live in a capitalist society. If you believe otherwise, you are perhaps influenced by bourgeois (idealistic) morality. Marx reports that in feudalism, the peasants and serfs - the commoners - lived off the land called the Commons, hunting, shepherding, farming and gathering, making their own clothes and building their own houses, working at their various trades. This was the vast majority of people. They and their nobility were all governed by the Church. If you asked someone what country they belonged to, they would probably just say that they were a Christian. They were not slaves, they had intrinsic value, they owned very little privately but the land was collectively theirs to live in and use as they needed. How far are we from that today. Not only do we own very little individually, we own nothing collectively, and we have the right to nothing. The concept of ownership no longer exists. You may, if you have the cash and credit, enter into a contract in which you are awarded certain privileges and responsibilities in the use of property, but the idea of having a _right_ to anything has been eliminated under capitalism and replaced with contract law. The new model of so-called techno-feudalism is just rentier capitalism applied to everything. "You will own nothing" but instead rent all property and subscribe to all services. In this system people are completely dispossessed by the renters and paying constantly to receive the goods and services needed to sustain life. I hope you can see how different this mockery of life is compared to a feudal order? Even the slaves of the slave societies that preceded feudalism had some rational expectation that the basic requirements to sustain life would be afforded by their owners. And they were sustained, reliably, from surplus production that otherwise would go to waste. A quick look around any of our major cities will show you how much worse things have become under capitalism, where surplus production, enough to feed the entire world, is simply destroyed. Artificial scarcity and a pool of impoverished, unemployed, wanting people, are used to keep prices high and wages low, as they must be. We now have homeless working families scratching out an existence in the richest society in human history. But another look around shows how much work there is to be done, to make up for the neglect and abuse of our (formerly common) physical environment. If you really have read and understood Marx, you will understand that these catastrophes are the result of GOOD management under capitalism. Capitalism requires ever increasing profit and ever increasing growth. Only mass destruction can reset the cycle, and only massive waste can sustain it. And massive inequality is an inevitable by-product of the capitalist mode of production, not an evil plan by evil capitalists. Don't read Marx first, read Engels. He has a wicked sense of humor, and life-long experience as an industrial capitalist in the heart of the Beast, Victorian England. He wrote a book called _The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State_ (1884). It starts in pre-history, when people lived in bands of hunter-gatherers who only had common property and cooperative labor.

[@lisasykes624]

Corporate Welfare...🤔

[@numbersix8919]

Privatize profit but socialize risk, the American Way.

[@robertely686]

Privatise profit and nationalise debt is the UK way too!

[@charlesbraziel5013]

What are the parallel differences between shari'a Law of Islam and the mosaic law of the Jews? Are they identical? Do they have affinity with the Christianity of the West?

[@theclockisticking9134]

There is no such thing as Christianity in the West. There is merely a costume that people wear called Christianity. However, what they truly follow has remained consistent throughout their history: power, racism, hedonism, and greed. This has never changed. Whether it's Christianity, white solidarity, or a rules-based order, they will bend it all if it means achieving their ultimate desires.

[@kiadav9529]

urrghh to hard to explain search for basic explanation on youtube (from muslim sources ofcourse )you`ll be suprised

[@shahriar4706_]

all claim to derive from the divine or divinely inspired sources. Islam stayed true to it, Judaism corrupted it over many generations, Christianity had it wrong from the start.

[@numbersix8919]

The "Mosaic Law"? Do you mean the 613 Commandments? "The Christianity of the West?" Excluding what other Christianities specifically? As for the Sharia, it is a body of consensus, based on the insights and teachings of the Messenger of God (PBUH) and sustained by scholarly debate spanning centuries. The Jews of the rabbinical era have maintained a similar system. And among the Christians, the Protestant faiths have no law as such, except for those Commandments passed on by Jesus the Christ (and the Apostles), and the various revelations of their founders. Whereas the Roman Catholic ("Universal") and Eastern Orthodox Churches do have canon law in addition to the Gospels. In short, all the Abrahamic faiths (People of the Book in Islam) have bodies of religious law, which aim to apply religious dogma to practical situations in the daily lives of their followers. Except for the Protestants. I'm kidding you a little bit. The various sects of Protestantism do have founding tracts and tenets from which they derive theological dogma. But these are mainly the concern of church leaders, lay scholars, and interfaith councils. They may indeed debate issues such as contraception, abortion, euthanasia, the death penalty, inequality and discrimination, etc., and also take action through charities and social ministries, and missions. But it doesn't have the significance of law to their congregants. And even farther from that, most of the Protestant congregations have left the churches for evangelicalism and their so-called Bible study groups. OK commenters, flame on! I don't know much, and have a lot to learn.

[@charlesbraziel5013]

@numbersix8919 Thank you

[@kamalasheiress4035]

so Trump is worse....

[@robertely686]

A continuation