Random Sociology – Replacing key-words in classic texts

My most random ideas pop-up when I’am working on my thesis thus have to think scientifically, but don’t want to engage in work (because coding is boring or other reasons). This means that my science mindset is active but is not directed towards actual work but random stuff. Today I had the glorious idea to replace key-words in sociological classics. For example, Foucault speaks of discourse all the time, Marx extensively of capitalism. Would it not be fun to replace these words with random nouns? Let’s find out.Today, the „Manifesto of the communist party“ from 1848, written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. I have decided to replace the words ‘bourgeoisie ‘, ‘bourgeois‘  with … *drumroll* … ‘flying spaghetti monster‘. Here is the result:

I. Bourgeois and Proletarians*

…Our epoch, the epoch of the flying spaghetti-monster, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other – Flying spaghetti-monster and Proletariat.

We see, therefore, how the modern flying spaghetti-monster is itself the product of a long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange. Each step in the development of the flying spaghetti-monster was accompanied by a corresponding political advance of that class. An oppressed class under the sway of the feudal nobility, an armed and self-governing association in the medieval commune*: here independent urban republic (as in Italy and Germany); there taxable “third estate” of the monarchy (as in France); afterwards, in the period of manufacturing proper, serving either the semi-feudal or the absolute monarchy as a counterpoise against the nobility, and, in fact, cornerstone of the great monarchies in general, the flying spaghetti-monster has at last, since the establishment of Modern Industry and of the world market, conquered for itself, in the modern representative State, exclusive political sway. The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole flying spaghetti-monster.

The flying spaghetti-monster, historically, has played a most revolutionary part. The flying spaghetti-monster, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self- interest, than callous “cash payment”. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom – Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

The flying spaghetti-monster has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.

The flying spaghetti-monster has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.

The flying spaghetti-monster has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutal display of vigour in the Middle Ages, which reactionaries so much admire, found its fitting complement in the most slothful indolence. It has been the first to show what man’s activity can bring about. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former Exoduses of nations and crusades.

The flying spaghetti-monster cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones.…

The flying spaghetti-monster has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe.…

The flying spaghetti-monster, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.

… to be continued…

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