Sandwich Theory

We at Worker’s Spatula pride ourselves in being both the most theoretically advanced of shitposters, and also the shittiest of theoreticians. It comes as a great disappointment to us that in our years of weird theoretical interventions on Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, and now Instagram, we have barely succeeded in explaining even the most basic fact about Hegel’s dialectical method which Marx upheld and appropriated, namely that it is not about THESIS – ANTITHESIS – SYNTHESIS.

We encourage readers who really are coming at this stuff from the beginning to start with the famous Twitter thread. However, we recognise that some of our examples were either too political or too philosophical for many of our target audience, who are used to discussing everything in terms of what is and what is not a sandwich.

Therefore, we present to you, our dear readers, comrades and strugglers, toilers and oppressed, from Melbourne to Moscow, the dialectical answer to the question “is it a sandwich?”

Is a hot dog a sandwich?

Well, obviously it must first be said that a hot dog is technically a kind of sausage, which is ordinarily served in a manner that provokes sandwich controversy:

the thing in the package is a hot dog,
the thing on the label may be a sandwich

However, the standard presentation of the hamburger patty in contemporary culinary norms being called a “hamburger”, we accept that most readers likewise will excuse further reference to a hot dog on a hot dog bun as a “hot dog”. Are these bread-meat combinations sandwiches?

Without a doubt. By removing the sausage or the patty and replacing them with, e.g. tuna fish, everyone would agree that what you have before you is none other than a sandwich. Consider this indisputable sandwich from the chain “SUBWAY”:

Clearly there is nothing more sandwich-like about this than a hot dog

So then is our answer so simple? Is a sandwich merely anything inside of bread? Let us turn to other possibilities:

Is an Onigiri a sandwich?

We have no doubt that some readers will doubt that the tasty snack displayed below constitutes a sandwich exactly and precisely because it is not made out of bread. But we have equally no doubt that each and every person who seeks to exclude onigiri from the category of “sandwich” is a frothing racist:

You’ve been called out, onigiri-haters.

The “filling” of the onigiri is clearly sandwiched between rice, and it is meant to be eaten much in the manner of a sandwich, and accordingly fills, in Japanese society in particular, the universal social role of a sandwich.

So it is clear that no true internationalist revolutionary can disagree that onigiri too are sandwiches. The matter here is that we have only initial affirmations of sandwichhood, with no negation, and thus NO DIALECTICAL PROCESS THROUGH WHICH TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF SANDWICH-HOOD CAN CONCRETELY EMERGE.

Let us reveal the essence of the sandwich phenomenon through its negation, the un-sandwich:

Is a pie a sandwich?

As with the hot dog example above, certain terms are imprecise for theoretical/philosophical sandwiches. The word “pie” is used for a great many things, but let us consider this extremely haram English pork pie, purely for theoretical reasons because no Spatula writer-militant would dare allow pork to touch their lips, and could only be made to eat pork under the duress of torture by fascists:

Don’t look at it for too long, Allah will grow displeased.

While it cannot be denied that bread contains this repugnant dish on every side, it cannot be eaten in the manner of a sandwich. Beyond the act of parallel containment by sandwiching, the preparation of a true sandwich must be mindful of the end result of the process by which a sandwich is eaten as food, in a sandwich-like fashion:

A sandwich is made to be held in the hands by its sandwiching parts and eaten likewise for the convenience and enjoyment of the proletarian worker (who has ideally produced it for themselves in an unalienated fashion, but perhaps has purchased it as a commodity because we live under capitalism).

In other words, despite having all the formalist appearance of a sandwich, and indeed being constructed through sandwiching, unless you can unhinge your jaw like a fucking python, the food this man is showing us is in social practice no sandwich:

It is, however, arguably very erotic.

We hope that the theoretical essence of sandwichhood has thus been revealed, and through this, any serious Marxist can now determine for themselves if almost any foodstuff is a sandwich.

Is a pizza a sandwich? A taco? A burrito? A falafel wrap?

As we have already charged deniers of the sandwichhood of the onigiri and upholders of the sandwichhood of that girthy monster above with formalism, it should be clear that it is highly undialectical to deny that any foodstuff, from an ice cream sandwich to a Hot Pocket, which is produced in such a manner that it may be purposefully consumed in the manner of a sandwich through sandwiching is a sandwich.

A Pop-Tart is a sandwich.

Most controversially, this means that we deny the sandwichhood of the so-called “open-face sandwich” as REVISIONIST.

However, any “open-face sandwich”, including any slice of most varieties of pizza (putting aside the culinarily superior Chicago-style “deep dish” pizza), that can be accordingly manipulated may be rendered a sandwich through the simple act of folding:

A cheese and tomato sandwich.

Disagree with any single word of this on social media and you will be blocked and reported to Stalin.

Sandwich workers and oppressed
sandwiches of the world, unite!

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Trotskyites, Hoxhaites Declare Christmas Ceasefire for Tetsurō Watsuji’s Death

PARIS – In the spirit of the season, two of the most fanatical (and, according to outsiders to both factions, “dogmatic”) traditions in Leninism are coming together in an unexpected way: the ortho-Trotskyite IMT and the ortho-Hoxhaite ICMLPO (Unity & Struggle) are temporarily declaring a cessation of hostilities to gather in France, the least fun of all imperialist centres, to celebrate the death of Japanese philosopher Tetsurō Watsuji which took place on the 26th of December, 1960:

“The 59th Death Anniversary of the scoundrel Tetsurō Watsuji is a sort of dress rehearsal for all the dialectical materialists of the world to come together in 2020 and celebrate 60 glorious years without his obfuscationist reactionary nonsense,” declared the announcement of the planned festivities in France’s premiere Hoxhaite newspaper, La Forge.

Echoing the sentiment and posting the exact same schedule of events around Paris, Révolution, the publication representing local IMT affiliates, confirmed that both “Stalinists” and “genuine Bolshevik-Leninists” would be present at all levels of the celebrations of the passing of the long-dead Japanese philosopher: from speakers to musicians to stage-workers to the expected audience.

The PCOF sent a statement directly to the Spatula e-mail (mastursublator [at] gmail [dot] com) outlining the importance of a “principled, popular front struggle against the ghost of Tetsurō Watsuji”, with “any forces committed to pissing on his grave”:

As Worker’s Spatula know better than anyone, Tetsurō Watsuji introduced post-modernism to the Japanese people through Søren Kierkegaard, which itself is arguably a kind of crime. But from there, he went on to attack ‘individualism’ for reasons of Japanese nationalism which aided the ideological hegemony of the fascist Japanese state during WWII.

So he starts off as as an individualist, then instead of embracing the universal which creates the particular and the particular which creates the singular individual which then subjectively reshape their objective contexts in the grand dialectical totality which we all know to be true, he enshrines the particular, that of Japanese nationalism, as its own universality, and uses like, fucking Buddhism or some shit to cover up his disgusting narcissism just as he did with Kierkegaard before that.

In a way, you could view him as an individual manifestation of the sort of awful post-modernist graduate students who gush about Carl Schmitt while condemning Karl Marx, only in addition to getting to play Schmitt’s role for a real-world fascist regime, the hegemonic Japanese nationalist ideology is such that he got to seamlessly transition from being Schmitt right back to being a ‘harmless’ Schmitt-reading intellectual after the war.

Absolutely fuck that guy. Fuck him to hell.

As the PCOF statement already made clear, Worker’s Spatula cadre are fully familiar with who Testurō Watsuji is and why his death should be celebrated for days on end with song and dance and speeches and documentaries and everything else the French have planned for their foreign comrades. Our local correspondents had an entirely separate question: was it really possible that French people could be civil towards anyone, and further, that the fragmented French left could come together over anything, and most shocking of all, that the most extreme partisans of Trotsky and Stalin respectively could come together over something as arcane as Japanese philosophy?

Fortunately, one of our correspondents has an IMT co-worker, and was immediately asked to purchase a newspaper upon arriving at work. As usual, we will be leaving our readers in suspense as to whether or not the IMT newspaper sale was successful, but the ensuing conversation was none the less fruitful:

“Yes, we met with the PCOF, and we are co-hosting the event. It’s going to be a week-long conference, starting on the 25th of December, or ‘Tetsurō Watsuji’s Death Eve’, as all real defenders of our common Left Hegelian heritage refer to it, and continuing until the very last second of the year, when we plan to finish the conference by leaving accusing the other side of ‘betraying’ and ‘wrecking’, respectively.”

“Wonderful,” exclaimed our correspondent. “I’m so pleased to hear, how can I say this in a way that won’t offend either side… I’m so pleased to hear that our common struggle in the realm of philosophy is being pursued without the expected divisions over 20th century events that actually relate quite closely to the subject matter.”

“Are you referring to whose fault it is that socialism never became a powerful trend in Japan? Yes, well, that’s the thing isn’t it? By blaming Testurō Watsuji for everything, we focus on the ideological and material reality of Japanese fascism during the WWII period and the ensuing post-war suppression of all republican, progressive, and socialist forces in that country by fascists who were ideologically poisoned, let’s face it, by Tetsurō fucking Watsuji. It’s all very Gramscian.”

“But wasn’t Gramsci a…”

“Don’t even say it! Or I’ll tell everyone your side ruined the unity!” warned the local Trot.

“I was going to say, wasn’t Gramsci a bit over-focused on the ideological role in suppressing proletarian unity in struggle? I mean, obviously Gramsci was a great Marxist-Le…err… Gramsci was a great Marxist. But we can’t discount the material role of fragmenting the proletariat as subjective political class even while growing their objective size as an economic class, as productive forces, and wasn’t Japanese imperialism among the most successful at this, ideological justifications for fascism in the country notwithstanding?”

“Was that a serious question? I mean, I can give you an answer about how the limitations of an extreme reading of Gramsci have been applied in the academy which has veered on idealism, but an extreme opposition to Gramsci often results in vulgar materialism, and… isn’t Worker’s Spatula a joke page?”

“Sorry, what I mean to say is, isn’t the conference sort of celebrating Watsuji’s magnum opus?”

“How’s that?”

“I mean, his mangum opus of dying, and staying dead. That was the crowning achievement of a career dedicated to the annihilation of self.”

FUCK TETSURŌ WATSUJI.

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Max Zirngast Free, Disappointed in You

ANKARA – International hero of of the toiling masses and already designated Time Magazine’s Person of the Year 2019 Max Zirngast has broken his silence after his release from Turkish Prison via the website triple-double-u period Twitter dot com. As noted Right Hegelian trendsetter Donald Trump has made Twitter the official source of all information, Left Hegelians like Comrade Max Zirngast have taken to the site to shout the truth to the heavens.

In his first tweet, Zirngast stated that he is “very glad to finally be recognised as the hero of the masses that I have always been. The masses are great, I just love them”. Following this initial affirmation of populism, the expected and extremely dialectical negation in the form of criticism followed, with Zirngast characterising the support he received from the masses in Turkey as “disappointing and insufficient”:

The fact that only I and some TÖP people were freed shows how much the masses in Turkey have frankly been slacking off. Freeing me was the easy part. Not only are tens of thousands still trapped in Turkish prisons, but this prison regime continues to stand. What about revolution, eh masses? When are you going to make one of those? Frankly, the least I could ask for, that my release be celebrated by the storming of a couple of government buildings, was not realised. SAD.

Subsequent tweets from the newly freed Austrian took credit for the “Yellow Jackets or WASPs or whatever, the French ones,” who were “clearly inspired to take to the streets by my own personal courage and leadership.”

Asked by a local Worker’s Spatula correspondent about who else he was disappointed in, Zirngast responded:

Who am I not disappointed in? EMEP, the ESP, Alınteri… all the Hoxhaites, and even more than them, the Maoists. Oh, the IWW, ICOR, and especially the readers of Worker’s Spatula. None of you have shouldered the weight of my revolutionary responsibilities while I was in prison, and none of you did enough to free me. None of you are as brave as me, either, or you would have been in prison with me. Frankly, the DSA and the Austrian state are bolder than most of the internet left reading this.

Regarding the motives for the Austrian state in helping to secure his release, Zirngast responded: “Obviously, every state has its own class interests. For my own rubbish homeland, the state’s hand was absolutely forced by the spectre of socialist revolution in Austria itself. Word got to us in Sincan that barricades were already being prepared in Viennese social housing projects in preparation and the call to arms was to take place on January 12th, my birthday. Only freeing me could take the pressure off.” Asked about his sources for this information he referenced “various Twitter personalities, the comments section of left-wing news sites, you know, all the most credible sources.” Concluding his remarks on the possibility of a Viennese insurrection, Zirngast was quoted as saying:

I don’t know all the details of this call to arms, since this information was being delivered to me in censored missives in a Turkish prison. But I think that I would not be going too far if I were to say that my prison letters served as the coded orders followed by guerrilla cells from Vienna to Innsbruck.

Regarding the question of what he has been up to since his release, Zirngast said:

Mostly what anyone would do in a similar situation, you know? Whenever you are released from prison, or start graduate school, or finish graduate school, or drop out of graduate school, or get elected President of the United States, your mentality is basically the same: you are overwhelmed at first and you have trouble adjusting yourself to the new circumstances. So you read Adorno, wander around at home in an open bathrobe, and randomly harass people on Twitter. It’s a solid, time-tested strategy, and it’s been serving me well.

Asked what he missed most about prison, his answer–given without hesitation–was “not having to read or be in any way reminded of the existence of Worker’s Spatula.”

[Note: shortly following the publication of our article, it was announced that Max Zirngast had been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Revolutionary Leftism, with a Nobel Committee representative stating that “he’s a shoe-in, everyone agreed that he is second only to Spartacus himself on the list of historical heroes resisting oppressive rule”.]

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Trump and Žižek: “Necessity isn’t Necessary”

WASHINGTON D.C. – Following his monumental victory over the forces of Clintonite fascism, Donald Trump agreed to take part in a live discussion segment on Fox News earlier today with fellow philosopher, accelerationist, and known Slovene Slavoj Žižek. The topic, chosen by Trump, was “What does Hegel mean for politics today?”

Žižek began the discussion thus: “I think one of the most important moments in Hegel is where he identifies the importance of the French Revolution not in its mere overturning of the old order, but how its participants actually took active part in radical attacks on the very institutions they themselves erected in the pursuit of the ideals those institutions represented.”

“Philosophy of Right, a personal favourite,” interjected a nodding and dignified-looking Trump. “The best.”

“How do you think this conception of revolutionary change will apply to your presidency?” Žižek asked the president-elect, previously best known for his halal steak business, Trump Steaks.

“Slavoj, let me tell you, it’s gonna be huge. We’re going to negate all the negations. We’re going to sublate so much you’re going to get tired of all the sublation. We’re going to American manufacture multiple levels of contradiction and sell them to the Chinese.”

At this point in the discussion, Hannibal Buress appeared behind Trump and began clapping alone for several seconds.

“Make America dialectical again. We’re going to put America back to work more and more until the quantity transforms into quality and then right the fuck back into quantity. Big time.”

“Do you suppose that your victory signifies a success in appropriating fascism, but for the left?” asked Žižek, apparently in earnest.

“Slavoj, my good friend, and, hold on, I gotta say this, I really love this guy. But to answer your question, if I were to say what my campaign was about, it wasn’t about freedom. That’s not the thing in itself. Because freedom isn’t free, but neither is necessity. Additionally, neither are, strictly speaking, necessary. And that’s the sort of America I want to live in.”

“That was an Engels joke, you see what we did there, right?” asked Žižek, breaking the fourth wall for the benefit of any CPGB-ML readers who may have stumbled across our liberal, bourgeois, Scottish nationalist page.

The last four minutes of the interview were dominated by both participants sniffing continuously and tugging at their own clothes, just looking very uncomfortable.