Ain't no stoppin' us now, we're on the move (Considering British-American Republicanism *a la* Gramsci)
Big Red Jeff Rubard
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A "slight return", from: Milton And The Body Biopolitic: The
Denominated World
(Which way soever men referr it)
*Samson Agonistes*
At present John Milton is not the subject of a discourse which
permits us use of his *person*: we have those epic poems and verses
which have been famed from their composition, but when the time has
arrived for considering Milton's work as a literary whole a corpus
allowing of certain uses, a signpost of historical motion, a
cautionary tale of statecraft and a revelation of disability is not
what is given in the texts known to us, sources of famous inversions
and a currently infamous righteousness as regards the "way of the
world". Is there a structural parameter which determines the reading
of Milton as an index of inevitability in social progress, a
*Thermidor
a la carte*? Perhaps there is, but what that reveals is entirely
agreeable: and this is an argument which requires some justification,
but there is indeed more to heaven and earth than the path swept out
by
its self-engendered motion.
In the writings of agent Milton, heir to an array of Latinate devices
unsuitable for the tasks of apologist or admirer, we see devised a
series of Biblical variations suited for the tasks of ordering a
world in essentials a firmament -- that is to say, once the
presentations of the lexicon are surmounted Milton's verse offers
surprisingly little pleasure for the reading and much pleasure for
the
looking. We are most definitely not given a historical event by
*Paradise Lost*, but perhaps what we are given is the essentials of
the
means by which that "instauration" of Lord Protector was worked:
Milton continually reworks a hierarchy by which the dramatic motion
of
the apocalyptic battle proceeds. In fact, that influence such as he
is
sometimes reckoned to work among the young and impressionable of can
be
considered to have reached the further shores of the mature European
agitation from which certain canons grow: the Italian socialism of
*Ordine Nuovo*, Antonio Gramsci, Angelo Tasca, Amadeo Bordiga and
Palmiro Togliatti amidst a sea of "intransigents".
When Will and Reason (Reason also is choice)
Useless and vain, of freedom both despoild,
Made passive both, had servd necessitie,
Not mee.
*Paradise Lost*, Book III
---------------------
What of "the moment" in the life of *the American Republic*; our works
and days at present; considered through the generally-reckoned-
accurate lenses of Gramsci's *materialist sociology*? A fine one, one
might dare to say "fine and fair": 'relations of man to man' become
easier, and *difficiles* disappear under carpets when 'permitted', as
is their wont. And the truth of "raging against the dying of the
light", one of the more-useless tics of the *Literat*, becomes
apparent: in truth, *fascist tendencies* in the "cosmic Republic",
which permits a *great number of heterogeneous elements to coexist
simultaneously*, are, always and forever, "economic formations" *in
nuce*, not 'unsurpassable realities' of *bad government*; if those who
"Kerry lots" cannot take interest in *republican* sympathies among the
Anglophone left, this is perhaps even *their loss and our gain* when
it comes time to have "Sane Planning, Sensible Tomorrow" be the
*mantra* of a certain managerial class *non elan*.
In other words, 'the point' (scare-quotes *intend* minus "loveliness")
is this: an end to the "cycle of poifection" which was the "heartbreak
of Leninism" visible, or not as the case *might have been*, on the
faces of masses-and-mainers -- and an avoidance of "New Speeds"
concealing moral dudgeon, ethical monstrosity, and a generally
uneconomic character to white-collar work among those sectors of the
economy supposed to be "growing the fastest" -- offers a "New Deal" of
the sort which is, *in truth*, the unsurpassable boundary of United
States political life after a period of *extreme ferment and
experimentation in modes of life*, before anybody knew Hugh Hefner's
name or how to operate a "bong". There is the modern economy, and
where you get in and fit in *precisely* in our "federative republic"
that cannot endlessly grow large with *centralist conceit*; the
"block" you 'rep' *seit* when-ever -- and rather than 'the Devil
taking the hindmost', other questions can be referred to the
*extensive* codes and statutes of *federal and state government*.
That's the way it is, that's the way it's got to be; and relaxing
within a room at the Ramada be no crime, provided *it's legal* and not
the case that the "Ramada" is none such.
Quite in keeping with the *valuable lessons* from that "progressive
republic" of *great difficulty* with issues of race and class, Italy,
and an understanding of why *safety* rather than *expansifs* might be
the order of the day "sometimes, almost always, and never 'at sea'".
Life in the public sphere is to be *lived* "richly", as is the
American's natural tendency; life in economic organizations does not
in fact involve a lot of "telling you what", but rather *having it
told unto you in so many, *voluntarily chosen*, ways for the reasons
of obvious economic exigency*; and our nation's legislature,
executive, and judiciary do not require contempt but *welcome it*,
provided one can *sometimes* understand "all is vanity", especially
with respect to issues of great import for the U.S. of A you
*definitionally* could-not-begin-to-understand (NB: These do not
include your Constitutional rights -- at present, my favorites are the
4th and *13th* Amendments, and I don't quite know whyyy, but I *have
some sense*). As I mentioned to someone on the *tren* ("train"),
"Life's great in these United States, provided you get to live it."
And, in fact, you do; so, "let's consider the sides" should be the
order of the day, unless your "paywall" qua *compensatory*-mound-of-
rebound has various "kindnesses and helps" to dispense to a wayward
youth *on the clock*. Nothing too sad that a double-dose of *realism
and reality* can't fix.
Jeffrey Daniel Rubard