Jean-Paul Jenkins is an old friend and whenever we hang out we talk about whatever – anything – either competently or not, it is always an engaging thing. The concept of agreeing to disagree tends to work with matters that don’t involve real action at hand, and I believe because we ultimately live about the same kind of way, we thus get along fine.
We’re low-income artists. We like communities, although we don’t tend to embed ourselves deeply into political parties or other kinds of groups outside of our music scene. It’s fascinating to me how my broad outlook and behavior in life hasn’t changed while I’ve become far more conservative in a pragmatic sense but anarchist in my baseline ideal social philosophy, thus maligning me from my politically obsessed socialist/progressive friends.
This interview became a socialist versus libertarian argument, although I’m not either in true form, I am a little from both columns and I’m willing to be friendly with anyone who is friendly with me and those around me.
That combined with my newfound great distrust for centralized power, I am trying to mend my old progressive views while decentralizing power.
I really see a decentralized world more in line with the values that the new left espouses, but it’s difficult, because for some reason, power is deeply tied to the marxist way of viewing life, and capital is the primary source of power. Ironically, most socialists distrust authority while seeking it.
JP makes a lot of compelling arguments and shares his story of living in a communitarian kind of way. As long as I have known him, he always offered a place to crash and food to eat to those around him. I always offered to lend a hand. That voluntarist kind of way is where we actually met common ground in life.
Our band Death Worth Living was a voluntary band. The shows weren’t profitable. We toured a little bit but it was a kind of music that involved total cooperation. He did not start the band with me, but his involvement helped establish the group as a purely improvisational act.
It’s good to see him playing with his band, who I was a big fan of, CEXFUCX, again, and I keep threatening to visit Portland again.