BB-29-r-1
Regarding Father’s comments about music, sports and competitive attitudes: I am in complete agreement with him on how such things as music and sports are counter-revolutionary and I understand and concur with the absolute necessity of divorcing ourselves from them. I view competition as the antithesis of socialism, which is based on cooperation, or the opposite of competition. In order for people to adopt a cooperative spirit, they must seek cooperation successfully at work, producing for the people. It’s harder in our particular case because competition surrounds us, and to enforce the things necessary to bring about cooperation necessarily means strong discipline and rules against things that foster and maintain competition, such as music and sports. When this is done, unfortunately, it often causes those who have to obey the rules (young people in particular) to feel deprived. So the question is how far to [do] you go in regards to rulemaking. If you go too far you get resentment and hostility, resulting in anarchistic behaviour, which defeats the purpose of the rules. If you don’t go far enough, advantage will be taken of rules that are too lenient, and counter-revolutionary hedonism results.
I am one for imposing the most stringent rules possible. If I thought it were practical, I will rule completely against the listening of any rock music and the participation (both active and passive, in all competitive sports. This is no doubt unworkable, unless we could somehow find an effective form of punishment for large numbers of young people. There would be a long initial period when this will be necessary because they wouldn’t suddenly give up overnight the things that they normally do, i.e., listen to rock, compete in various games. So the best that can be done, I suppose, is to educate them to the evils of these things and show how they are opiates and oppressive diversions, until people become so ashamed that their conscience no longer permits them to be involved with these things which are based on capitalism and exploitation. Music and sports both lead back to the same thing – self, narcissism, worship of the body, the desire to be worshiped, and so on. This sets people apart from one another, divides them, and forces each one to compete against the other for status and prestige. This, in order to gain enough respect to reap the benefits of the society that confirms its rewards on those who be in position by stepping on others who are weaker, but who do not necessarily have less character.
—–
BB-29-r-2
Thus music and sports are prime contributors to consciousness of “every man for hisself”, as in a jungle. When people compete in this way, there always has to be a loser who is left deprived of even the basic things necessary to sustain their lives.
Whereas, cooperation teaches us to think of others first, and when each person is concerned about everyone else’s needs, then they don’t need to worry about their own needs because all basic needs become satisfied by the collective concern.