When do we go From “Bodies” to People?: Marxism and the Individualized Space Race
Jeff Bezos has gone into space.
After returning: Bezos said that — when looking at our tiny blue marble floating in an inky sea of stars — he saw the possibilities that outer space held as a receptacle for trash: as an evil capitalist villain in a children’s film might say when gazing into the unspoiled beauty of the Grand Canyon.
Why this statement hasn’t drawn more ire: I don’t know. Maybe it’s because we hardly think of outer space as nature. But the truth is that that’s what it is. Jeff Bezos just said that he’d like to throw trash into the Amazon rainforest.
When do we go from “bodies” to people? Only in the active refusal of capitalist systems are we able to shed the chains of commodification towards a more humanitarian future. Henry Miller, in his works spanning the early 1930s, escapes the commodification of the body by recognizing the limits capitalism imposes upon the body — or its aims toward “self-liberation”. The late-capitalist machine in the production of misery and despair serves as the metaphorical lock on the door that connects the body with the soul. Artists are one step closer to this liberated state — as we all in some way eschew the limiting factors of commercial success in favor of ascetic bliss. This is not always true: some seek recognition of the market (most indie bands, for example, strive for representation, as do artists in search of galleries and writers of publishers) though this can be for a host of reasons. A good few do not seek this. When engaging in the art world — whatever art that it may be — what truly matters is the artist’s aims. Consider: do you seek representation in order to share your work with a larger segment of the population; or is it sought as a means of making money. Here, then, is where the philosophical problem of suicide lies: what truly is the meaning of life if — as this capitalist system has sold us — it is not the pursuit of money and the empty prestige it is packaged with? Many artists have sought to answer this question. The meaning of life is, of course, to do what one pleases with it. “But wait,” you’ll ask, “What if the individual’s aim is to amass capital?” And then I will tell you: this aim is out of alignment with the aims of the soul. The soul has existed for longer than capitalism has: the love of capital is rooted in the desire for survival as it has been corrupted by our society. Falling into this mental trap is not the fault of the individual living in the system — swimming like fish in the muddy soup of capitalist advertisement — though it is, ultimately, the soul’s desire to climb out. Participation in the system is unavoidable for most of us, and for this, we should not be ashamed: but we should recognize and rage against it. As explored by Che Guevara in The Revolution Begins, it becomes evident that what is needed is the acceptance of the necessity towards armed struggle. For, in this struggle against capitalist imperialism, we are in a war for the soul itself — the soul as it has been lost and distorted by the evil of capitalist design. A Marxist reality that eschews the need for capital is the natural state of humanity. This is what releases us from the limiting nature of the “body” to the elevated status as “people.” “People” are what happens when the “body” — the awful carapace that serves as a container for what makes us — meets with the soul from which is born a full and complete human being. Late capitalism — like blinders on a horse — limits our understanding of the world, with the soul being something that is acted upon by the natural and unnatural world. The battle for the soul is one that we must win: not only for ourselves but for those that will come after us: to whom we owe a monumental debt in the form of the state of the planet. The natural world is being steadily decimated by the evil of capitalism — every building blotting our vision is built as a monument to the creation of capital in some way or another. What will be there for our children if we allow this to go on? “Bodies” are individualized vessels, meanwhile people are pieces of a puzzle.
When the first astronauts went to space, it was a collective experience between themselves and humanity. Now billionaires go to space on solo trips — literally within a void, the ultimate private country club — not seeing outer space as nature as golf courses serve as an imposition by the unnatural world onto its natural counterpart. When we become “bodies” the group is lost: we seal ourselves within a container hurtling singularly towards infinity. Only by embracing collectivism can the soul become whole.
