[Marx] I put on my anti-coat and wizard hat

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Marx] I put on my anti-coat and wizard hat

(Thread IKs: dead gay comedy forums)

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

moving this post here as it's a bit much for the cyber thread (context and previous excerpts here)

here's another bit from The Uprising: On Poetry and Finance (2012) by Franco "Bifo" Berardi (pdf) that i think is rather relevant to our shared pastime:

quote:

IRONY AND CYNICISM

In his book The Courage of Truth, a transcription of lectures delivered at the College de France in 1984, Michel Foucault speaks of Diogenes and the other ancient philosophers known as cynics, and defines their thought as a practice of telling the truth (parrhesia).

Twenty-five years later, the word cynicism has acquired a totally different meaning, almost the opposite: the cynic is someone who routinely lies to everyone, especially to him or herself. An intimate lie, the contradiction between speech and belief, lies at the core of contemporary cynicism. Still, there remains a kind of consistency between the ancient notion of cynicism-rigorous truthfulness, individualism, ascetic behavior, and disdain for powerand our own, which consists largely of lip service, moral unreliability, and conformist subjugation to those in power. This consistency lies in an awareness of the ambiguous nature of language, and an ability to suspend the relation between language and reality, particularly in the ethical sphere. Cynicism, therefore, is closely related to irony. Both are rhetorical forms and ethical stances that require the suspension of the relation between reality and language. . . "Cool" is a keyword in contemporary cynicism. Andre Glucksmann, in his 1981 book Cynicism and Passion, suggests that the only alternative to cynicism is passion, but that's wrong. The real alternative to cynicism is not passion, but irony.

In Critique of Cynical Reason, Peter Sloterdijk argues that cynicism is the prevailing mindset throughout the post-68 era. To Sloterdijk, cynicism doesn't denote an exceptional social character: it is the typical state of mind. As he describes the ancient notion of cynicism, "It violates normal usage to describe cynicism as a universal and diffuse phenomenon; as it is commonly conceived, cynicism is not diffuse but striking, not universal but peripheral and highly individual." (Sloterdijk 1988, 4)

And this is the most important difference between kynismus and zunismus: while Diogenes and his fellow kynicists were ascetic individualists rejecting the acquiescence to the law of the powerful, the modern zynicists are the conformist majority, fully aware that the law of the powerful is bad, but bending to it because there's nothing else to do. Unlike the ancient cynism, modern zynismus is not disruptive. It is an internalization of the impotence of truth.
. . .
Contemporary mass cynicism can be linked to two different sources: the failure of twentieth-century utopian ideologies, and the perception that the exploitation of labor, competition, and war are inevitable and irreversible.

Mass cynicism results from the dissolution of social solidarity. Globalization and the systemic precariousness of the labor market resulting from neoliberal deregulation have imposed competition as the inescapable, generalized mode of relation among social actors. Workers, once linked by a sense of social solidarity and common political hope, are now forced to think in cynical terms: survival of the fittest.

Within the '68 movement, different cultures and political tendencies coexisted. Some dreamed of the historical Aufhebung: the institution of a proletarian dictatorship, who would seize power in their own hands. Like Hegelians, the doctrinaire Marxists dreamed of a triumph of reason in which the good guys were destined to win. To remain with the proletariat was to be on the winning side of history.

When the wind turned and the workers' movement was defeated, neoliberalism provided an ideology for a new wave of capitalist aggressivity. Those who wished to remain on the winning side of history decided to stay with the winners because all that is real is rational, in the end! In their dialectical scheme, whoever wins is right, and whoever is right is destined to win. The majority '68-era activists were not orthodox dialecticians and did not expect any Aufhebung. We never believed in the end of historical complexity and the final establishment of the perfect form of communism. This sounded false to students and young workers, who were seeking autonomy in the present, not communism in the future.

Today's neoliberal conformists are the perverted heirs of '68. Those who came to power after '89 in Russia, the US, and Europe are not as free from ideology as they pretend. Their ideology is a dogmatic faith in the unquestionability of the economy. The economy has taken the place of the all-encompassing Hegelian Dialectic of Reason. Bending to the dominant power, neoliberals accept (economic) necessity. The only difficulty is that no one knows which trends will achieve dominance in the complicated becoming of future events. Consequently, cynicism-despite its apparent inevitabilityis weak, as a position. No one knows what will happen next. Unpredictable events cannot be reduced to logical necessity.

Of course irony -- like sarcasm, its more aggressive form -- can be an expression of cynicism. But irony and cynicism should not be conflated. Irony can be a linguistic tool for rationalizing cynical behavior. Both irony and cynicism imply a dissociation of language and behavior from consciousness: what you say is not what you think. But this dissociation takes different turns in irony and cynicism.

Vladimir Jank�l�vitch defines cynicism in the following way in his book Irony: "Cynicism is often deceived moralism, and an extreme form of irony ... ." Cynicism, he implies, is a learned form of irony, used for the pleasure of shocking the philistines. Cynicism is the philosophy of exaggeration (surench�re): as Jank�l�vitch writes, "irony after Socrates tends to be exaggeration of moral radicalism . ." Cynicism is deceived moralism, a judgment of behavior that depends on a fixed system of (moral) values.

Dialectical materialism, the philosophy of the past century, implied a form of moralism: anything (progress, socialism, etc.) that moves in the direction of history is good, whatever opposes the movement of history is bad. Post-'68 cynicism results from a painful awakening. Since the truth has not been fulfilled, we'll align ourselves with the untruth.

And this is where irony and cynicism differ. Ironic discourse never presupposes the existence of a truth that will be fulfilled or realized. Irony implies the infinite process of interpretation, whereas cynicism results from a (lost) faith. The cynic has lost his or her faith; the ironist never had a faith to begin. In Jank�l�vitch's words: "(I]rony is never disenchanted for the good reason that irony has refused to be enchanted" (Jank�l�vitch 1936, 24) And yet, irony and cynicism both start with a suspension of disbelief in both the moral content of truth, and morality's true content.

Both cynics and ironists understand that the True and the Good do not exist in God's mind or in History, and that human behavior isn't based upon respect for any law.

In Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty, Deleuze says this of irony and the law: "Irony is still in the process or movement which bypasses the law as a merely secondary power and aims at transcending it toward a higher principle." (Deleuze 1989, 86)

Neither irony nor cynicism believe in the true foundation of law. But the cynical person bends to the law while mocking its false and pretentious values, while the ironic person escapes the law altogether, creating a linguistic space where law has no effectiveness. The cynic wants to be on the side of power, even though he doesn't believe in its righteousness. The ironist simply refuses the game, recreating the world on the basis of language that is incongruent with reality.

Whereas mass cynicism (zynismus) has to do with aggression, both suffered and inflicted, irony is based upon sympathy. While cynical behavior pivots upon a false relation with interlocutors, irony involves a shared suspension of reality. The use of irony implies a shared sense of assumptions and implications between oneself and one's listeners.

Irony cannot be conflated with lying. As Jank�l�vitch writes:

quote:
Lying is a state of war, and irony is a state of peace. The liar is not in agreement with the cheated. The gullible consciousness is late in relation with the lying consciousness, which is trying to maintain its advantage. Irony, instead, is crediting the interlocutor of sagacity and treats him/her as a true partner of true dialogue. Irony incites intellection, and is calling a fraternal echo of understanding.

The conflation between power and the incessant movement of historical events toward the good that defined Marxist thought was sundered. Here the fork between irony and cynicism opens. Irony suspends the semantic value of the signifier to freely choose among a thousand possible interpretations. Ironic interpretations of events presuppose a common understanding between speakers and listeners; a sympathy among those who, engaged in the ironic act, arrive at a common autonomy from the dictatorship of the signified.

id love to add my thoughts but it took me forever to ocr the book and cut down some interesting excerpts so I gotta sleep

quote:

Irony suspends the semantic value of the signifier and chooses freely among a thousand possible interpretations. The ironic interpretation implies and presupposes a common ground of understanding among the interlocutors, a sympathy among those who are involved in the ironic act, and a common autonomy from the dictatorship of the signified.

Cynicism starts from the same suspension, but is a slavish modulation of irony: irony at the service of power. While irony does not postulate the existence of any reality, cynicism postulates the inescapable reality of power, particularly the power of the economy.

Irony is an opening of a game of infinite possibilities; cynicism is a dissociation of ethics and possibility. The cynical mood starts from the idea that ethical action has no possibility of succeeding.

The ironist sleeps happily because nothing can awake her from her dreams. The cynicist sleeps a light sleep, he dreams nightmares, and he gets up as soon as power calls him.

😴

# ? Mar 15, 2023 13:50

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 6, 2024 19:25

indigi: Jul 20, 2004; ^{how can we not talk about family

when family's all that we got?}

is it difficult to explain the theoretical and practical departures between juche and standard Leninism/Maoism?

# ? Mar 15, 2023 23:48

Sunny Side Up: Jun 22, 2004; Mayoist Third Condimentist

Was Darwin a socialist/communist? Was he a eugenicist? I know his cousin took his theory and ran with it toward eugenics and social Darwinism, but I thought ol Chuck was a decent human being??? I am very ignorant of the man.

# ? Mar 16, 2023 05:06

Ferrinus: Jun 19, 2003; i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

indigi posted:

is it difficult to explain the theoretical and practical departures between juche and standard Leninism/Maoism?

the cliff's notes understanding of juche that i'm working off of, which is just that each individual nation or other social context needs to find its own way to socialism based on its unique conditions, sounds like pretty standard leninism to me so insofar as they are actually different (and juche doesn't just stand as shorthand for "the specific strategies we are using given that framework") i don't know how. i hope this helps

# ? Mar 16, 2023 05:21

my dad: Oct 17, 2012; this shall be humorous

Sunny Side Up posted:

Was Darwin a socialist/communist? Was he a eugenicist? I know his cousin took his theory and ran with it toward eugenics and social Darwinism, but I thought ol Chuck was a decent human being??? I am very ignorant of the man.

He was absolutely not a communist, he could kinda sorta maybe be seen as socialist from a certain point of view, since his correspondence with Marx shows sympathy for unions, and Marx gifted him a copy of Capital which Darwin appreciated (Marx was a huge fan of the scientific side of Darwin's work, and I wouldn't be surprised if he simply hoped that the guy he admired profesionally would also turn out to be someone he could like and respect in other ways), but outside of footnotes like this, he's consistently in favor of lasseiz fair economics and encouraging competition as much as possible, explicitly tying it into his theories. IIRC he outright states at one point that cooperatives stifling competion will be a great evil in the future but at least reckless workers will still end up reproducing less than the competent ones.

e: I don't think he ever went full Malthusian, though, but you'd best get that answer from someone who knows a hell of a lot more about him than I do

# ? Mar 16, 2023 05:35

Tankbuster: Oct 1, 2021

tbh if you were a member of the bourgeosie in the 19th century free trade etc was a pretty winning deal.

# ? Mar 16, 2023 05:41

Mechafunkzilla: Sep 11, 2006; If you want a vision of the future...

It would probably be fair to say Darwin had Hobbesian political sensibilities, which would have been pretty normative for his era and social position.

# ? Mar 16, 2023 05:46

Bald Stalin: Jul 11, 2004; Our posts

is the wikipedia article on juche bad? I read that today and it sounds pretty wild, revisionist and idealist. Not at all like ML simply adapted for North Korean conditions.

# ? Mar 16, 2023 06:08

indigi: Jul 20, 2004; ^{how can we not talk about family

when family's all that we got?}

I wouldn't trust Wikipedia to be accurate enough on that subject to even give it a glance tbh which is why I asked here. what I've read points in the direction Ferrinus alluded to but it seemed pretty superficial and idk how much I trust that either

# ? Mar 16, 2023 06:29

my dad: Oct 17, 2012; this shall be humorous

I will refrain from commenting on DPRK, but I will comment on Wikipedia:

As of the last time I bothered exploring who actually wrote up some stuff (if things were changed since, eh, this poo poo was accurate long enough):
The bulk of a number of English language articles about the history Albania were written by a Serbian libertarian who thinks communists ruined everything good about Albania (and Serbia).
A large number of articles about Yugoslav history were written by Croatian fascists. Literally, not using the word as a shorthand for right wingers, actual members of fascist organizations. It was a huge scandal at some point, but the poo poo they wrote is still there, just rephrased slightly.
A number of references in these articles were links to old porn websites, and some of them lasted over a decade like that.
The English language article about a Serbian bishop who was given a medal by Adolph Hitler has a carefully maintained initial section describing him as an opponent of fascism who was unjustly persecuted by communists, while burried deeper inside the article is the actual truth about the guy being a collaborator, with adequate references.

Also, wiki trivia, the fact that you have separate Serbian/Bosnian/Croatian/Serbo-Croatian wikipedias results in some hilarious slapfights which go under the radar because they're technically not on the same discussion page. The most surreal one was a slapfight between anarchists, trots, and antirevisionists about some random unimportant socialist from the first Yugoslavia.

e: Regarding the Serbian dude who wrote about Albania: very strong "they're noble savages corrupted by our own degenerates when we instead should have learned from their primitive vitality" vibes from his poo poo on his page and some discussions i've seen him in

my dad has issued a correction as of 06:42 on Mar 16, 2023

# ? Mar 16, 2023 06:33

Tempora Mutantur: Feb 22, 2005

mawarannahr posted:

moving this post here as it's a bit much for the cyber thread (context and previous excerpts here)

here's another bit from The Uprising: On Poetry and Finance (2012) by Franco "Bifo" Berardi (pdf) that i think is rather relevant to our shared pastime:

id love to add my thoughts but it took me forever to ocr the book and cut down some interesting excerpts so I gotta sleep

😴

quote:

Society has been broken up, rendered fragile and fragmented by thirty years of perpetual precarization, uncontrolled and rampant competition, and psychic poisoning produced and controlled by the likes of Rupert Murdoch, Silvio Berlusconi, and their criminal media empires.

only up to page 50/the purgatory chapter and it's so good. I have to keep putting it down cause I can't even articulate how it makes me feel, just lots of "ahh thanks for the words to describe that" while navigating that gutpunch feel of having so many lovely things described so well. real curious to see where he goes from here/how he reaches the closing of the book (I jumped to the end just to see if he elaborated explicitly on poetry/the sensuousness of language and its role in overcoming the irreversibility of where we're at and now i'm eager to finish reading it so I can re-read it and better absorb all this)

thanks for this!

e: tho lol 30 years of "perpetual precarization, uncontrolled and rampant competition, and psychic poisoning" is just 1992 to 2012, been going on to fuel capital for a helluva lot longer than that but I suppose he means how finance capital in particular has weaponized these things in new and exciting ways at scales never seen before to bring us to where we are today

Tempora Mutantur has issued a correction as of 07:09 on Mar 16, 2023

# ? Mar 16, 2023 07:03

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

my dad posted:

I will refrain from commenting on DPRK, but I will comment on Wikipedia:

As of the last time I bothered exploring who actually wrote up some stuff (if things were changed since, eh, this poo poo was accurate long enough):
The bulk of a number of English language articles about the history Albania were written by a Serbian libertarian who thinks communists ruined everything good about Albania (and Serbia).
A large number of articles about Yugoslav history were written by Croatian fascists. Literally, not using the word as a shorthand for right wingers, actual members of fascist organizations. It was a huge scandal at some point, but the poo poo they wrote is still there, just rephrased slightly.
A number of references in these articles were links to old porn websites, and some of them lasted over a decade like that.
The English language article about a Serbian bishop who was given a medal by Adolph Hitler has a carefully maintained initial section describing him as an opponent of fascism who was unjustly persecuted by communists, while burried deeper inside the article is the actual truth about the guy being a collaborator, with adequate references.

Also, wiki trivia, the fact that you have separate Serbian/Bosnian/Croatian/Serbo-Croatian wikipedias results in some hilarious slapfights which go under the radar because they're technically not on the same discussion page. The most surreal one was a slapfight between anarchists, trots, and antirevisionists about some random unimportant socialist from the first Yugoslavia.

e: Regarding the Serbian dude who wrote about Albania: very strong "they're noble savages corrupted by our own degenerates when we instead should have learned from their primitive vitality" vibes from his poo poo on his page and some discussions i've seen him in

Yeah, Wikipedia can be reliable for some thing like "what team did this athlete play for and how many titles did they win" but it is not a reliable source on anything remotely related to politics. Here's another example on top of the ones my dad provided: "Wikipedia�s Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust", from the Journal of Holocaust Research

quote:

ABSTRACT
This essay uncovers the systematic, intentional distortion of Holocaust history on the English-language Wikipedia, the world�s largest encyclopedia. In the last decade, a group of committed Wikipedia editors have been promoting a skewed version of history on Wikipedia, one touted by right-wing Polish nationalists, which whitewashes the role of Polish society in the Holocaust and bolsters stereotypes about Jews. Due to this group�s zealous handiwork, Wikipedia�s articles on the Holocaust in Poland minimize Polish antisemitism, exaggerate the Poles� role in saving Jews, insinuate that most Jews supported Communism and conspired with Communists to betray Poles (Żydokomuna or Judeo�Bolshevism), blame Jews for their own persecution, and inflate Jewish collaboration with the Nazis. To explain how distortionist editors have succeeded in imposing this narrative, despite the efforts of opposing editors to correct it, we employ an innovative methodology. We examine 25 public-facing Wikipedia articles and nearly 300 of Wikipedia�s back pages, including talk pages, noticeboards, and arbitration cases. We complement these with interviews of editors in the field and statistical data gleaned through Wikipedia�s tool suites. This essay contributes to the study of Holocaust memory, revealing the digital mechanisms by which ideological zeal, prejudice, and bias trump reason and historical accuracy. More broadly, we break new ground in the field of the digital humanities, modelling an in-depth examination of how Wikipedia editors negotiate and manufacture information for the rest of the world to consume.

# ? Mar 16, 2023 12:52

HiroProtagonist: May 7, 2007

indigi posted:

is it difficult to explain the theoretical and practical departures between juche and standard Leninism/Maoism?

juche isnt a departure from Marxism-Leninism, it uses M-L as a foundation and a basis. recommend reading anything Kim Il-sung wrote as an intro, he's real easy to read.

# ? Mar 16, 2023 13:50

Sunny Side Up: Jun 22, 2004; Mayoist Third Condimentist

my dad posted:

He was absolutely not a communist, he could kinda sorta maybe be seen as socialist from a certain point of view, since his correspondence with Marx shows sympathy for unions, and Marx gifted him a copy of Capital which Darwin appreciated (Marx was a huge fan of the scientific side of Darwin's work, and I wouldn't be surprised if he simply hoped that the guy he admired profesionally would also turn out to be someone he could like and respect in other ways), but outside of footnotes like this, he's consistently in favor of lasseiz fair economics and encouraging competition as much as possible, explicitly tying it into his theories. IIRC he outright states at one point that cooperatives stifling competion will be a great evil in the future but at least reckless workers will still end up reproducing less than the competent ones.

e: I don't think he ever went full Malthusian, though, but you'd best get that answer from someone who knows a hell of a lot more about him than I do

Tankbuster posted:

tbh if you were a member of the bourgeosie in the 19th century free trade etc was a pretty winning deal.

Mechafunkzilla posted:

It would probably be fair to say Darwin had Hobbesian political sensibilities, which would have been pretty normative for his era and social position.

Thank you, I just finished Capitalism & Disability and the author paints him as a pure villain. Great book otherwise, I think if the author had curated it herself it could have been on par with Women, Race, and Class. As it stands you really just need the first couple chapters and the last two chapters.

# ? Mar 16, 2023 16:49

John Charity Spring: Nov 4, 2009; SCREEEEE

I remember looking up secondary figures from the Cuban Revolution a few years ago and on Camilo Cienfuegos' wikipedia page it stated outright that he was murdered by Castro for being too popular, and the citation led to a Web 0.0 style blog by some Miami nutcase talking about the Communo-feminist conspiracy to do reverse racism on white people

John Charity Spring has issued a correction as of 17:10 on Mar 16, 2023

# ? Mar 16, 2023 16:54

MeatwadIsGod: Sep 30, 2004; Foretold by Gyromancy

lol it's far more plausible that we shot his plane down or had a bomb on it or something considering we almost certainly did poo poo like blow up the Coubre in the Havana harbor, not counting all the stuff that's been confirmed/declassified

# ? Mar 16, 2023 17:08

GalacticAcid: Apr 8, 2013; NEW YORK VALUES

Wikipedia is bad because conservatives make a conscious effort to edit and shape it while leftists who are on the computer all day anyway are too lazy to

# ? Mar 16, 2023 17:23

ikanreed: Sep 25, 2009; I honestly I have no idea who cannibal[SIC] is and I do not know why I should know.

syq dude, just syq!

Mechafunkzilla posted:

It would probably be fair to say Darwin had Hobbesian political sensibilities, which would have been pretty normative for his era and social position.

If you were surrounded with Brits all the time, you'd come to the conclusion that people are innately selfish violent psychopaths too.

# ? Mar 16, 2023 17:36

KomradeX: Oct 29, 2011

GalacticAcid posted:

Wikipedia is bad because conservatives make a conscious effort to edit and shape it while leftists who are on the computer all day anyway are too lazy to

Its hard to outpost an NSA server farm

# ? Mar 16, 2023 18:14

Mechafunkzilla: Sep 11, 2006; If you want a vision of the future...

ikanreed posted:

If you were surrounded with Brits all the time, you'd come to the conclusion that people are innately selfish violent psychopaths too.

Buddy,

# ? Mar 16, 2023 18:21

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Tempora Mutantur posted:

only up to page 50/the purgatory chapter and it's so good. I have to keep putting it down cause I can't even articulate how it makes me feel, just lots of "ahh thanks for the words to describe that" while navigating that gutpunch feel of having so many lovely things described so well. real curious to see where he goes from here/how he reaches the closing of the book (I jumped to the end just to see if he elaborated explicitly on poetry/the sensuousness of language and its role in overcoming the irreversibility of where we're at and now i'm eager to finish reading it so I can re-read it and better absorb all this)

thanks for this!

e: tho lol 30 years of "perpetual precarization, uncontrolled and rampant competition, and psychic poisoning" is just 1992 to 2012, been going on to fuel capital for a helluva lot longer than that but I suppose he means how finance capital in particular has weaponized these things in new and exciting ways at scales never seen before to bring us to where we are today

it's a brisk and thought provoking read. however it should be noted that bifo is an Italian autonomist and is very unorthodox from a Marxist perspective. I do find all his books extremely enjoyable, fast reading but rewarding on rereading, but i don't necessarily see more than a blurry trace of a path forward.

i don't know a lot about autonomism but it is hard to take seriously beyond my affection for big bifo, whose leanings may be explained by the conditions of 1970s Italian leftists:

quote:

"In contrast to the centralized decisions and hierarchical authority structures of modern institutions, autonomous social movements involve people directly in decisions affecting their everyday lives, seeking to expand democracy and help individuals break free of political structures and behavior patterns imposed from the outside".[5] This has involved a call for the independence of social movements from political parties[6] in a revolutionary perspective which seeks to create a practical political alternative to both authoritarian/state socialism and contemporary representative democracy.[7]

still he writes widely on a great deal of contemporary and futuristic topics he weaves together, and i get something from him i don't find elsewhere very much.

anyway here's a brutal topline review of another of his books on the publisher page :rip:

# ? Mar 16, 2023 18:46

my dad: Oct 17, 2012; this shall be humorous

I've heard good things about autonomist analysis of things, and have seen autonomists figure out some poo poo that was going to happen in Serbia years before anyone else did, for example that Germany was going to pressure our government regarding our postal services in a way that will as an unintended consequence eventually force postmen to start being more organized to resist it. The caveat is that autonomists are sufficiently leftcom adjacent that they're utterly incapable of organizing anything.

# ? Mar 17, 2023 00:02

strange feelings re Daisy: Aug 2, 2000

my dad posted:

The caveat is that autonomists are sufficiently leftcom adjacent that they're utterly incapable of organizing anything.

Autonomists assassinated the CEO of Renault but his successor continued with the same anti-labor policies.

# ? Mar 17, 2023 03:16

Samog: Dec 13, 2006; At least I'm not an 07.

vyelkin posted:

Yeah, Wikipedia can be reliable for some thing like "what team did this athlete play for and how many titles did they win" but it is not a reliable source on anything remotely related to politics. Here's another example on top of the ones my dad provided: "Wikipedia�s Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust", from the Journal of Holocaust Research

wikipedia has huge problems but this article is fishy as hell, they're relying heavily on the word of a guy who was banned at the foundation level for being a complete psycho

# ? Mar 17, 2023 06:48

Cuttlefush: Jan 15, 2014; gotta have my purp

Samog posted:

wikipedia has huge problems but this article is fishy as hell, they're relying heavily on the word of a guy who was banned at the foundation level for being a complete psycho

you could just go read the discussion page and edit history of any related wiki article. not exactly hard to see

# ? Mar 17, 2023 07:39

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

Samog posted:

wikipedia has huge problems but this article is fishy as hell, they're relying heavily on the word of a guy who was banned at the foundation level for being a complete psycho

Can you expand on this at all? I'd be very curious to hear more

# ? Mar 17, 2023 12:23

Exo-: Dec 8, 2021

I finished reading Blackshirts and Reds a few days ago and wanted to thank everyone who's recommended it here in the past. I really don't read much honestly, but I wanted to start and found it enlightening, and easy to understand.

Are there any other books by Parenti people might recommend? It was fun reading with his lecturing voice in my head lol

# ? Mar 21, 2023 20:19

In Training: Jun 28, 2008

Democracy for the Few is great, draws a very clear line from the British colonial bourgeois revolution to today, explaining how exactly american democracy has been restricted to almost always include only rich/petite bourgeois land-owning whites.

# ? Mar 21, 2023 20:20

AnimeIsTrash: Jun 30, 2018

I like Inventing Reality, and The Assassination of Julius Caesar, the latter is a fun introduction to class/material analysis when dealing with history.

# ? Mar 21, 2023 20:30

3: Aug 26, 2006; The Magic Number; College Slice

seconding the assassination of julius caesar, it�s a good historical demonstration of how readily the ruling classes will resort to political violence the moment their interests are threatened

# ? Mar 21, 2023 20:36

CRAZY KNUCKLES FAN: Aug 12, 2022; by Fluffdaddy

Highly recommend Inventing Reality, whether or not you've read Manufacturing Consent

# ? Mar 21, 2023 21:17

CRAZY KNUCKLES FAN: Aug 12, 2022; by Fluffdaddy

Also I'm reading Reconstructing Lenin right now, check it out if you have the time

# ? Mar 21, 2023 21:31

Fat-Lip-Sum-41.mp3: Nov 15, 2003

3 posted:

seconding the assassination of julius caesar, it�s a good historical demonstration of how readily the ruling classes will resort to political violence the moment their interests are threatened

i recently finished "...and Forgive Them for Their Debts" which is an overview of bronze age debt policy and the related tensions between the interests of the royal palace, who want a landed citizenry who can pay taxes and serve in the army, and the oligarchy, who want to expand their own holdings to grow rich and independent of the palace at the expense of the landed citizenry.

It traces proclamations of debt cancellation ("to proclaim liberty/freedom throughout the land" - the same phrase found on the Liberty Bell - liberty here meaning liberty FROM DEBT) through Sumer, Babylonia, Judah (from Jeremiah to Jesus Christ), Greece, Rome, and the Byzantine Empire. The measures taken by the oligarchs to undermine these policies are discussed in detail.

# ? Mar 21, 2023 21:53

Exo-: Dec 8, 2021

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I'm gonna put em on a little list and read it all up :cheers:

# ? Mar 21, 2023 22:53

In Training: Jun 28, 2008

AnimeIsTrash posted:

I like Inventing Reality, and The Assassination of Julius Caesar, the latter is a fun introduction to class/material analysis when dealing with history.

3 posted:

seconding the assassination of julius caesar, it’s a good historical demonstration of how readily the ruling classes will resort to political violence the moment their interests are threatened

I should read this ...

# ? Mar 21, 2023 22:58

John Charity Spring: Nov 4, 2009; SCREEEEE

the Assassination of Julius Caesar has some good bits in it (the polemic takedown of "gentleman historians" is Parenti at his best) but some of his own actual historical scholarship isn't great. for instance he refers to the "they make a desert and call it peace" line as something a real historical Briton actually said rather than a total invention by Tacitus that was intended as internal critique of the Roman imperial project by another Roman. or treating dubious smear sources about Caesar written a hundred years after his death as accurate depictions of the man. but if you read it with an eye out for these things it still has value, in particular his critique of classical historiography in the last few hundred years as mentioned. and as AIT said the stuff about ancient class struggle is mostly very good

# ? Mar 21, 2023 23:10

Honky Mao: Dec 26, 2012

Exo- posted:

I finished reading Blackshirts and Reds a few days ago and wanted to thank everyone who's recommended it here in the past. I really don't read much honestly, but I wanted to start and found it enlightening, and easy to understand.

Are there any other books by Parenti people might recommend? It was fun reading with his lecturing voice in my head lol

Yeah this one's a must-read, Parenti is great

# ? Mar 21, 2023 23:54

Sunny Side Up: Jun 22, 2004; Mayoist Third Condimentist

AnimeIsTrash posted:

I like Inventing Reality, and The Assassination of Julius Caesar, the latter is a fun introduction to class/material analysis when dealing with history.

Seconding Inventing Reality. It clearly lays out �How the Capitalism Brainworm reproduces.� Just imagine the same process as applied to every ideological apparatus dominating our lives.

# ? Mar 22, 2023 10:00

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

nth'ing Inventing Reality - the actual book about media literacy

and The Assassination of Julius Caesar will turn your understanding of history on its head as you realize that the image that's been crafted of him was essentially Classical MSNBC talking about Roman Bernie Sanders

# ? Mar 22, 2023 10:14

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 6, 2024 19:25

Fat-Lip-Sum-41.mp3: Nov 15, 2003

Who is the constituency of the Tyrant? Is it just one guy doing all that, and nobody likes it?

# ? Mar 22, 2023 13:16

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Marx] I put on my anti-coat and wizard hat

«‹›395 »