Seeker of Class Consciousness

One miserable day, Patchouli Knowledge steps out her pure concrete cubicle in Beijing’s People’s Social Research Institute in hopes of accelerating her death with a cigarette, only to notice a young girl acosting strangers for help on reading Hegel. Exiled from her town in rural America to Beijing in order to learn how useless communism really is according to her family, Patchouli curiously takes her up as an Intern in hopes of making her a professional dialectician. However, Lysithea, along the way encounters many levels of false consciouness until the ultimate realization of revolutionary theory being something that must be actualized by all workers of the world, not by specialists of freedom or philosophy.
This is a detournement of soulnight114’s Seeker of Knowledge

Chapter 1

"Damn you, Remy," Patchouli cursed as she leaned on the side of the marvelous, all glass and steel People’s Social Research Insittue office in downtown Beijing. Remila being Patchouli’s boss.

“You've been cooped up in your concrete wage cage for too long. I know you love your dull, flat, and sharp concrete furniture but go take a smoke break so that the person below you could steal your useless position once you catch lung cancer. Don't worry, Koakuma can keep an eye on your spreadsheets of which pregant mother to kick out of their entry level position.”

That was how Patchouli found herself out of her office and forced to be out among the repulsive proletariat and commoners. If it wasn't for the ciggarette Remy practically threw at her, she would’ve tried sucking the life force of an innocent worker out of pure rage. Despite being a specialist of Marxist philosophy in a prestigious government research organization, she despised the worker as do all bureaucrats. A strange but all too common contradiction.

30 minutes. That was how long she had to last, and it had already been 25 minutes. Soon this ordeal would end, and she could go back to her lifeless cubical, ideally for another 3 decades. Cozy and content among her meaningless party loyalty awards, absurdly terse literature on the history of post modernist literature by southern Serbian migrants, and a high rise view over a smog filled city.

The sounds of a woman acosting others for assistance alerted Patchouli. Normally she would ignore these types or have Sakuya send them to prison with an excessive fine for disturbing the peace. She loved making commoners suffer in compensation for her pointless life as a vampiric bureaucrat. But she was feeling particularly good today over the thought of her cigarette lowering her life expectancy even by a miniscule amount. Just for today, she decided to take a look. If only to have something to entertain herself with for the rest of the time she had to spend outside with the poors.

She stepped past a crowd of fellow office drones discussing new craft beers, making sure to provide a hello in a show of solidarity with her social class, towards a nearby overflowing trash can. She was surprised to find a young girl full of long messy white hair acosting passerbyers with an orange book in her hands. How unstylish and poorly she was dressed! Rather than wearing the pinacle of intelligent fashion, the shoulder patched sweater, calf high boots, and a plaid skirt as Patchouli did, she wore… jeans and a hoodie. Her hands were rough, and her skin covered in tan lines. This was a lowly manual labor proletariat, the lowest of the low. How dare such a thing enter the lovely world of Beijing’s Central Buisness District! The market value of her beautiful office must’ve dropped by 0.8% at this sight! This made her want to do a Patrick Bateman, but she held back the urges.

She seemed to be a particularly young one considering she was only slightly taller than Remilia, that strange midget. Likely another farm kid that had been sent away from the country side to the city. This girl had probably ended up here because in the end, farming corporations decided to buy all the property in their village only to permanately pollute it and inflate property values, forcing young workers into cities. Honestly a good thing, how could anyone not love spending life in a 4x4 concrete box.. Either way, the village she came from would soon turn into a grotesque negation of itself, now without her, and eventually every villager that refused to adopt industrial agricultural techniques or become a specialist in some bizzare bullshit job like career specialist. Once there were farms, now only factory farms.

Many of these rural types became money for the specialists of imprisonment and homelessness. Raw wealth and sadistic pleasure to sustain their extravagent lifestyle and a warning for those that remembered the rapidly fading scent of freedom and integrity. The prison and homeless industrial complex are named so for a reason.

Sakuya would be pleased once she found her. A young girl like this would certainly be a
good amount of money for Remy for many minutes to come. She could fine her, arrest her, send her to foster care, then finally put her through the homeless industrial complex. A quadriple win off just one girl, bureaucrats never lose!

All Patchouli had to do was let Sakuya know where to look, Remy would be very happy to have a ninth high rise condo. Maybe this would even give her a promotion to Senior Researcher of Neo-Existentialism in 2000s Croatian Cinema. No one knew what that position actually meant of course.

Perhaps even happy enough that she wouldn't force Patchouli to talk a break for another decade or
two. She loved her job so much that she’d probably kill herself over it being her entire personality, so breaks were highly devastating. Such is the life of a high level bureaucrat in the wonderful world of capitali- oops, Freudian slip, she meant Maoist state communism of course.

But then Patchouli noticed something else about the girl. A copy of G.W.F. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit was in her hands? She seemed to be a prole with a love of high philosophy! Talk about incomprehensible to the brain of a specialist in Marxist philosophy. Only people like her should even know what a Hegel is, as if the outfit didn’t make it obvious.

Patchouli then heard some of what she was saying, “What is a world spirit! What does this dense non-sense have to do with Marx! What happened to all the real communists! Where is Rhodus and why should one saltus?”

Well, there was no way that Patchouli was just going to give her to Remilia now. At least not without an eerily dense lecture on her questions and hearing some of the girl's thoughts. She was reminded of a scene on her favorite Netflix series of a 180 IQ genius that worked as a janitor at MIT. She wanted the oppourtunity to say she found that genius only now in China begging for answers like a knock off Socrates on the street corner, she would be so famous as her lecturer. And maybe she’d even tell the producers about her idea of Jungian Psychoanalysis through Lacianian Pharmacopornographic Phallus Signification! A sure win for additional research grant money.

The girl suddenly began to look at her. Patchouli still felt disgust at being recognized by such a lowly person on the social ladder, but couldn’t help but to continue approaching her with a strong sense of interest.

"Momma said don’t talk to no fancy office drone" She rapidly began to grab her stuff in anticipation of running away. "You sadistic shits are as lowly as a cockroach! Stay away!"

Patchouli cursed. It seemed that the girl had been startled while she was mulling over her own
thoughts. Rightlfully so, she enjoyed the sadistic pleasure of making the proles tremble before her ill deserved luxury.

The girl, having began to panic frantically turned her head around the area. Eventually her eyes settled on Patchouli once more. "I’m about to book it, cuck. Any final words?"

"I’m Patchouli Knowledge. The Unmoving Sadistic Bureaucrat, Marxist philosophy professor with the People’s Social Research Institute." It was not at all rare for Patchouli to announce her full title on a first meeting, she loved the privledge of announcing how much of her soul she gave up to the state, but she would never do so to such a lowly prole without good reason. This was quite a special occasion. “I can help you learn what it is you ask.”

"People’s Social Research… Marxist philosophy..." The girl looked around in awe as if she finally grasped the contradictions inherent. "What kind of role is that? You sound stupid."

"You see, I am a specialist of philosophy and deeply familiar with Hegel, and I could give you the answers you seek right now. While I’m indeed institutionalized, I have the gift of academic freedom ensuring my integrity. Here’s some proof: You see that Ferrari right there? I learned from Foucault that the appeal stems from fascist imagery."

"?????? What? Wait, actually, could you tell me about the spectacle?"

"Who told you of the spectacle?" A question on the spectacle was something she wasn’t expecting. The spectacle was something only true revolutionaries, Italian factory workers (only Italian factory workers specifically), and the most bland, pretentious, specialists of social theory knew of. She was very intrigued now.

"Some hot blonde with told it to me when I first arrived here after being extradited from America to Bejing to learn a lesson on why communism stinks. She said that the spectacle was to blame then started talking about some serial bomber who hated technology and how he was right and that we’re all gonna become machines. She was so hot, god."

“Extradited from America?” Patchouli raised an eyebrow. She had just revealed a lot, and why did she even care about Hegel’s Phenomenology? She should teach her the good shit, after all Hegel was a bitch for the bourgeosie state. “Is that why you ask for information on Hegel? Do you wish to learn the truth that you couldn’t find in America?”

"I take insult to that, wage cuck. How could you have any truths but the regurgitations of revolutionaries? Vaneigem taught me that academia is power’s hall of mirrors.” The girl looked down at her book and at the sunburns that littered her arms, a signifier of being a proletariat who works primarily outdoors. She even had hay in her hair, this was truly a rural proletariat moment. "But yes, my local social democratic party back in bumfuck nowhere Wisconsin had me really disillusioned. Specialists of freedom would lecture us all with dense non sense like the sentences uttered in this metaphysical treatise on spirit’s phenomenology. No one understood him but we were all too scared of seeming stupid to the fancy professor who came over from the university. But we got to wheatpaste fun shit on lightpoles, poor Billy was caught and thrown in the pit for a few days though. Never was the same."

Messy, inefficient, a complete mockery to orthodox Marxism. Mao would have fumed at such actions. If Patchouli ever met these people she'd rend the skin from their flesh and then throw them into the sewers for the cat sized urban rats to do as they saw fit. Patchouli was very pretentious, so much so that these were her fantasies to those who didn’t appriciate Marx’s scientific contributions to the fullest. Also, the pit? What the fuck?

"Orthodox Marxism is scientific, and I’ll teach you Hegel and Marx from an objective standpoint, afterall I am a specialist in these ordeals. You can trust meI can teach you with precise, icy truth that’s difficult to find nowadays." Patchouli was honestly motivated solely by the idea of having found another janitor genius, but something about her also told her instincts that she was worth the trouble of teaching for free, even if it denegrates her social standing in the short term.

"Huh?"

"Do you have a place to stay? I am willing to help you is what I’m saying. I love talking after all, especially about my esoteric theories relating to psychoanalysis. Your curiosity would make you an interesting intern."

"So, I'm just another wage cuck for you? Fucking bitch you think you could integrate a free spirit like me into your bureaucratic hamster wheel. I’ll take your offer but only to leech you for all you have and turn your theories into flaming projectiles of class consciousness."

The girl and Patchouli sat there, considering their words for some time, only for the girl to shyly announce "Okay… but just making sure, will you make me read useless institutionalized philosophers like Chomsky and Rosseau?" Having been humiliated by the specialists in freedom, she feared having to read useless non sense again that seemed to exist solely to masturbate one’s knowledge. Deep down she felt there were only a few important works in revolutionary theory that she sought.

"No. You'll be free to read whatever you wish in our vast library and explore the office tower. I'll also make sure you're shielded from false consciousness."

The girl grabbed at her mental scars. "Will you… stab me with party rhetoric? And put things in my
mind like Mao’s horrible poetry?"

Patchouli scoffed. "No. A simple book recommendation and lecture once a day would do. No self-respecting theorist would ever resort to such methods. But alas, the party predictably ignores my advice in favor of more material acquisition! It’s almost like I don’t matter."

"They said they were masters of revolution. Legendary philosophers of universal history."

"They're delusional megalomaniacs. It's about time you see how a proper philosopher does her work. Which is by bullying poor people and acting mighier than thou by reading useless volumes on Medieval weapon forgery in Italy. But I can assure you only great competence in whatever you ask of me, and whatever I teach you."

The girl's brain pulsed, causing a headache. "Will the books be needlessly dense like this Hegelian being-qua-being bullshit?"

"I can assure you nothing but the most intelligible."

"Will you teach how to be like Zizek and those cool media intellectuals?"

"They’re all spectacle, as your blonde crush said."

"It's just that my mommy and daddy were so sad whenever one of them saw I wasn’t at least learning this stuff so I could wear a cool trench coat while writing mysterious works at cafes like those European philosophers. Maybe I’d even develop a tobacco addiction and severe alcoholism."

Patchouli sighed. "By doing so, one reconstructs their being as ‘self-as-commodity, becoming a brand in of themselves. The function of these celebrities is to act out various lifestyles in a free uninhibited manner."

The world stopped and everyone stared at Patchouli after the utterance of her perfect dialectical attack against the global spectacle commodity system, only for the surrounding audience clap and cheer in unison at hearing their subconscious beliefs uttered in perfect words at last. (jk lol)

"Ah, I see you've found a few hundred thousand RMD or whatever currency we use over here in glorious China for the CEO! Shall we force this prole into state sponsored non-profit racketeering? She was wondering what was taking you so long."

Patchy was used to the sudden appearance of the federal agent, but the girl was much less so and nearly jumped out of her own skin.

The girl took a deep breath and proceeded to yell “MAAAAAAAANNNNNN FUCK 12!!! I SWEAR TO GOD IF I EVER SEE YOU SHITS AGAIN IMMA BUST A CAP IN YOUR- MMhmmhmmMMm”

Patchouli took a step forward, and placed her palm over the girl’s mouth, only to be meet by a single hand from Sakuya. "I found this one first, Sakuya. I never gave you permission to harass her."

"The Mistress would greatly appreciate a new jet with the money-"

"Remy can go out in the ghettos she played a part in creating for all I care. And if she complains then I'm more than willing to settle this with a dialectical debate." Patchouli smiled. "There's a theory I've wanted to practice, one that's apparently quite effective against corporate leaders. Fuck, another Freudian slip wtf... I mean party officials!"

"… I'll make sure the Mistress is aware of a new hire," Sakuya replied before going to harass a stranger for jaywalking just as quickly as she appeared.

"What just… happened?" The girl asked, completely lost.

"You'll get used to it, she’s very good at spy shit it’s pretty cool" Patchouli replied. "Just make sure to look more bourgeosie or you’ll get profiled by her friends. We’ll figure things out for you soon. Now tell me your name."

"My name… is Lysithea.”