We are all soldiers pre-manufactured, asleep in a psychedelic liquid, fractured. Awash in false memory. To one day wake full of righteous anger toward our enemy, built to hate the systems embedded within us. Assembled, with a destructive lust to live only in our dreams.

  • Soviet Entropy@lemmygrad.ml
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    18 days ago

    This is a metaphysical question and can’t adequately be answered.
    You can believe it if you want. There is nothing we can say to dissuade you.

    Materialists reject this view tho. We believe that the material world, made of particles, is all that exists.
    But if believing we’re all in a dream makes you win power for the oppressed peoples of the world, then who am I to judge.

    • JaredLevi@lemmygrad.mlOP
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      18 days ago

      Totally based in material reality—maybe I just didn’t write it well enough. Thanks for the critique. Edited: This poem is about waking up to the contradictions of capitalism.

  • -6-6-6-@lemmygrad.ml
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    18 days ago

    It has poem in the title, fellas.

    Good work. I would suggest formatting a seperation between each stanza/line; to make it more “poetic”.

  • I would question the morality of a movement that forces people to, even falsely, experience capitalism for the sake of creating a soldier whose hate is pure. Perhaps, such an evil is truly possible that this becomes justified. Perhaps capitalism and communism managed to both spread through the stars and that is the way to genuinely teach those who would fight against interstellar capitalism of the true depravity they exist in opposition too. A proper education system would probably do the trick though.

    If the person responsible for the cryo chamber is reading this, my hate was pure a long time ago and just wake me the fuck up already.

    • JaredLevi@lemmygrad.mlOP
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      18 days ago

      I love this comment! It seems like you interpreted the poem as suggesting we’re in a simulation of capitalism. While I love where your mind is going, that wasn’t what I had in mind when writing it. Honestly, though, that could make for a great book—about communists who don’t remember or never lived through capitalism, seeking proof of how terrible it was.

      • Yo, could you please expand on what you actually meant? If I was totally of base, and I believe you when you say I was (being the author and all) I really would like to learn what the authorial intent was. It’s a good post, just a misunderstood one that has prompted discussion

        Oh, and you are correct. I took the “lie” part as foundational and interpreted from there. I replied under the assumption you were being literal.

        • JaredLevi@lemmygrad.mlOP
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          18 days ago

          I’m not a fan of authorial intent… I like to make my own meaning from what people say. Anyway here is a line by line brake down.

          The title is a reflection of the ‘Are we the baddies?’ meme, symbolizing the realization that capitalism causes much of the world’s suffering. ‘We are all soldiers pre-manufactured’ speaks to the idea that capitalism sows the seeds of its own down fall; that once you recognize that capitalism is full of lies, you begin to fight against it. ‘Asleep in a psychedelic liquid’ and ‘awash in false memory’ represent how we are drowning in propaganda, while ‘fractured’ refers to the division within the proletariat. ‘To one day wake full of righteous anger toward our enemy’ is about the intense anger that comes with waking up to the reality of oppression. ‘Built to hate the systems embedded within us’ reflects how capitalism has ingrained itself within us, and how hard we’ll have to work to undo that. ‘Assembled’ could refer to the masses putting bodies in spaces or to individuals being shaped from birth. ‘With a destructive lust’ speaks to our revolutionary potential, and ‘to live only in our dreams’ touches on a utopian vision of the world, as well as my personal experience with people (mostly liberals) telling me that communism works in theory but not in practice.

          thank you for your interest in what I was saying.

    • JaredLevi@lemmygrad.mlOP
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      18 days ago

      Honestly, I was just chilling, watching the show Severance, when the urge to write hit me—specifically, to write about how capitalism forges its own destruction due to its inherent contradictions. I also totally meant to post this to the creative writing sub, not comradeship. Oops!