Rob Nixon published the text, “From Slow Violence and Environmentalism of the Poor,” which indicates unconscionable societal subtleties of language and culture acting as methodical weapons of mass destruction upon our environment and citizenry.  Disasters and conflicts such as oil spills, deforestation, climate change, and the byproducts of warfare take place gradually and are often undetectable. Nixon’s work concentrates on the lack of attention we’ve guarded towards an abundance of predicaments, in contrast with public activism that doesn’t attack the root causes of “Slow violence.” Unfortunately, it is wrongfully dealt with due to infused capitalism and its overwhelming makeup of business, inequality, etc.

He unapologetically divulges in (Nixon, 2362), “Consequently, one of the most pressing challenges of our age is how to adjust our rapidly eroding attention spans to slow erosions of environmental justice.” The top-mentioned statement not only reinforced personal beliefs but added linkage to systemic problems faced by our people. The United States of America is unparalleled in its influence and means of production. Over time, the Union has developed and propagated technology for the growth of population, communication, enhancement of livelihood, and creation of new employment. Although these variables have produced positivity in the short term, they have influenced the discourse of which clothes to buy, food to purchase, technology for education, and more that hurt the planet. Raw materials have been siphoned for the pleasure of society. For example, Starbucks Corporation utilizes plastic cups/straws for consumer consumption and brand enhancement. Their beverages are easily accessible and often not recycled properly. Instead of reusing a bottle for replenishment, a subject’s dopamine rush from walking into an establishment will overwhelm them with a talk of beverages to an eventual filling of trash cans. Unfortunately, this repetitive act negatively affects our environment and the normality of the human species through the capitalistic wealth of sugar.

There is a scientific consensus that climate change is real and an enormous threat to our civilization and environment. However, activists and policymakers have treated the issue of black-and-white congruence and not reformed their approach to solving it. They all talk but don’t realize pen-to-paper/protests don’t necessarily solve the problem. Driving a car, turning off and on the light, flying commercial aircraft, cutting down trees, and warfare is a domino effects on our current state of sophistication. We’re unwilling to part ways with these activities being infused into our daily lives and culture. It is human nature to portray narcissism toward ourselves and be careless about future generations. If we don’t possess pensive thought on this issue, “Slow violence” will be visible with no point of return.

Sigmund Freud, a world-renowned Austrian neurologist/psychologist touches upon The Oedipus Complex within his text, “From The Interpretation of Dreams.” The Freudian phenomenon emphasizes a son that unconsciously murders his father due to an attraction to the opposite sex and mother. Although both parents share in the child’s conception, formation, and nurturing, the father is absent and scientifically forbidden from its development in the mother’s womb. After fertilization, the mother establishes an umbilical cord that attaches herself to her child on an internal level. The cord not only aids in the inauguration of the child but galvanizes intimacy between them. Moreover, once birthing is complete, the child will rely on the mother’s breastfeeding for several months. In particular, this catalyzes a child’s emotional attachment to the activity. Sudden termination of intimacy, such as breastfeeding, can leave a child in a bewildered state of mind. As mentioned by (Freud, 790), “it is the fate of all of us, perhaps, to direct our first sexual impulse towards our mother and our first hatred and our first murderous experience wish against our father.”
For example, over time, a cis-gendered masculine child conceptualizes his father as denoting a higher threshold of intimacy with his mother that involves sexual intercourse. On an unconscious level, the child portrays frustration toward his parents due to his attraction to the opposite-sex parent. Freud explains that this phenomenon and other human complexities occur from privatized dreams. Dreams themselves indicate our positive or negative wishes, thoughts, hopes, and admirations. Daily, individuals interact with stimuli such as educational institutions, religious gatherings, sporting events, concerts, discourse with family/friends, etc. Whether the interaction provides a positive or negative spin on a spirit, dreams are formed to figure out the severity of a situation, and how a man or woman should act in front of the individual he/she seeks to date. Having said that, the person may not necessarily desire an observed experience but is processed by way of its association with one’s existence.
Parents are the first mode of influence a child grapples with in its development. From a subconscious and scientific perspective, human beings inherently desire reproduction to continue their existence as a species. Unconsciously, men and women form bondage to partners that portray acts of their opposite-sex parent. In my opinion, due in part to the area that permits such behavior and the survival of the fittest analogy. Freud notes that a child productively develops a mechanism that inhibits them from portraying their peculiar desire for intimacy with the opposite-sex parent by channeling that emotional significance elsewhere.

Louis Althusser, a 20^th Century French Philosopher, stretches and adds further backing to Gramsci and Marxist ideologies/beliefs through the reading “From Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” Through pensive thought and observation of capitalists and other communists, he ignites his argument of a state holding two components: A repressive state apparatus (RSA), which enforces behavior directly by way of law enforcement, the military, and our judicial system. In particular, the above-mentioned apparatuses have the authority to influence etiquette through physicality. On the other hand, an Ideological state apparatus (ISA) maintains complicity and identification through educational institutions, media outlets, sports, family, and churches. The driving force behind these two societal components is Hegemony, which is encompassed by power, dominance, and leadership by a country or different social branches. Althusser has a greater concern for ISAs, which in his opinion, are the engine of a hegemonic state.

He demonstrates (Althusser 1970, 1303), “The individual in question behaves in such a way, adopts such and such a potential attitude, and, what is more, participates in certain regular practices which are these of the ideological apparatus on which ‘depend’ the ideas which he has in all consciousness freely chosen as a subject.” Whether you disagree or agree with Althusser’s perceptions, the above-mentioned statement is quite powerful. Through the generational proliferation of Hegemony, a child, in an unexpressed fashion, is taught a uniform level of umbrellaed societal normalities that provide an influence of values, ideas, expectations, worldview, and overall behavior. For example, via a linear mechanism, the U.S. developed a model of the American Dream; owning property, starting a family, and having stable employment or running and operating a business. American ISA platforms teach and reinforce societal principles to not only grow capitalism but keep the peace as our founding fathers saw fit. Essentially, a child has no chance to forecast its hegemony in the course of a lifespan. In particular, if an individual has a strong epiphany that results in violence against the nationalistic beliefs of the union, the RSA units are then deployed to eliminate, imprison, or detain a person or group to ensure that the remaining citizenry can press onward and perform hegemony. The United States Government is sworn to protect, defend, and value freedom for Americans. However, through nationalistic hegemony, does freedom truly exist? It truly doesn’t due to the very nature of human beings holding the instinct desire to facilitate social mobility and be thought highly of by peers around them. Governments have absorbed human tendencies, enforced their ideologies over time, and made robots out of our people for linear achievement.

Althusser believes hegemony has dominated our civilization and only benefited the ones at the top of the hierarchy. Ideological reform is of the utmost necessity to benefit the totality of society.

Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx are prominently well-known 19^th Century European Philosophers who pieced together the Communist Manifesto. Through “The German Ideology,” Marx and Engels continue their collective view on the wrongful integration of capitalism that bears a revolution due to its lack of correspondence to the history of society. Unfortunately, human consciousness is formed based on encountered reality and an unjust societal structure has ensured the burial of the worker.  To reverse this wrongdoing, both articulate indirectly that communism proliferates the bottom-mentioned benefits as follows; creating a classless society, promotion of equality, efficient distribution of resources, each citizen can keep employment and zero competition.

As demonstrated by (Marx & Engels, 659), “The production of ideas, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life. The above-mentioned conveying of speech left my aura in pensive thought. From birth, a child unconsciously absorbs great stimuli that will influence language, disposition, social and cultural practices, and overall ideology. The information encountered, is organized into our society, potentially creating a harmful class system amongst the citizenry. In particular, if a similar stimulus and linguistics approach are orchestrated, similar behavior will follow suit and trickle down based on a conceptualized reality.

As the passage gains traction, they go on to add greater context to the essence of their argument. Contained (Marx & Engels, 660),” Morality, religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and their corresponding forms of consciousness, thus no longer retain the semblance of independence.” In essence, history is curtailed and conformed to the history of the stimulus of present-day individuals. (Marx & Engels, 660), “Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life.” Awareness and thought process has catalyzed our way of life and means of production. In addition, entailing mechanisms of religious and faith ideals that proliferate much weight, but don’t seize to represent the oppressed or less fortunate. From the viewpoint of Marx and Engels, society should take on a secular way of life and eliminate the capitalistic approach that involves the church. Thoughts born by religious ideologies bring true misery to the working class and have enunciated awareness of difficulties to meet the challenges for a societal aggregate.

Finally, in the latter half of their work, they add their Communist viewpoints from their Manifesto that offer connectivity and possible reform to the failings of current methods. (Marx & Engels, 661), “It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies.” Each communist should spread awareness of their ideologies and beliefs, and come to a consensus that appeals to the working class, so all the necessities, hopes, and dreams are guarded and protected. This revolution can curtail the consciousness on an upbeat track for present and future generations.