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The OP to this thread seems almost like 101 privilege theory through the lens of someone who read the term 'class consciousness' and decided that it's relevant to the id and the superego. Then injected their own ego.
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Jul 13, 2015 14:54
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 10:51 |
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reignofevil posted:I think that this is a silly thread that doesn't yet contain and probably will never have "an institutional theory of the bourgeois" but every additional person who looks around dissatisfied and tries starting to order their worldview into something a little closer to reality is a win in my book. Keep searching glowing-fish the people here just get mad because they're frustrated. Hey look I had work to avoid when I posted that. I'm home now... glowing-fish posted:Over the years, I've had many opportunities to interact with "Bourgeois" people, and for many years I puzzled over their actions and worldview. During the past few years, I finally came to an understanding of the basic foundation of the bourgeois worldview. This is genuinely something that's useful considering the swath of defeats taken by anyone left of centre-right in elections around the world of late. glowing-fish posted:I should say before starting that I am in no way a "Marxist", and don't even find "Marxism" worthy of critique. "Marxism" is a psuedoscience where European thinkers almost 200 years ago tried to somehow derive universal, scientific principles from the idiosyncracies of their culture at the time. To debate "Marxism" is like trying to debate phlogiston theory. See this is where it started to go a little wrong. Given that Marx himself was adamant to ground his predicates on empirical scientific evidence, he was also specifically happy to be criticised on scientific grounds and welcomed it. To quote the English translation of his preface to the first edition of Das Kapital (Penguin 1976re1990 Edition Page 93): 'I welcome every opinion based on scientific criticism.' While his sociological essays are part of the foundations of modern sociology - a 'soft science' - he always believed firm scientific principles would make better grounding when making anti-positivist theory. glowing-fish posted:The main way that I define the bourgeois is that the bourgeois are people who are capable of dealing with the institutions of their culture. They not only know how to deal with them, they have an implicit faith in these institutions. In fact, for the bourgeois, it goes beyond having faith in these institutions, because that would suggest being able to separate these institutions out from the world. Operating within an institutional context is built into the bourgeois' understanding of the world. As others point out, this isn't bourgeois inherently, although there will be overlap. Particularly, 'people who are capable of dealing with the institutions of their culture [later, society]' is a larger net than you were trying to cast, as even the kid most poo poo-down on their luck can very well be able to deal with the institutions of their society. I think where you could tie this down with the idea of people who are granted security by the institutions of their society. This instantly strikes out, for instance, the parents of Michael Brown or Tamir Rice, and many of the others who face struggles in modern American society. To your definition of the bourgeoisie, they are not made to feel secure by these institutions, because to them that would be like being made to feel secure by there being air around you. Effectively, it is so transparent that only a sudden loss of such security would make them aware of what they have. This is what I meant when I said 'privilege theory' - the invisible benefits we have in life that are so normalised to us that only a sharp change in circumstance makes one aware. glowing-fish posted:Right now, in the United States, the institutions that define the bourgeois worldview are (in rough order of importance): the health care system, the media, corporations, academia, and the government. There have been other institutions that were part of this framework, including religion, fraternal groups, unions, law enforcement and the military, but those institutions are now outside of the main bourgeois worldview. For the bourgeois, interacting with these institutions is not just a matter of economic power or practical benefit (although it can be that, as well), it is a process of personal definition. The bourgeois get an education not just because of the economic benefits, but because they find their identity defined by interacting with academic institutions. The bourgeois don't go to the doctor because they are sick, they go because having their body (and mind) examined and judged by a professional in an institutional setting lets them know, frankly, that they exist. Of course, they never think about any of this, and if it is brought up, they will dismiss it as nonsense. But when talking to a bourgeois, all the experiences they have will be filtered through these institutions, and their aspirations are a desire to grow to greater conformity with these institutions. This sounds similar to Georg Lukács theory of class consciousness (sorry, it's Marxism again!) and the concept of false consciousness. I'd have more to offer but the book has been on my desk for a month and I've been too busy to get through it properly, but it might be worth looking into! glowing-fish posted:A note should be made about the institutions that are no longer part of bourgeois society. Religion, military and law enforcement are now the institutions that a group of people that I call the "sub-bourgeois" follow. The right wing politicians who want to have religion part of government are still bourgeois in the same way, because they still have that need for institutional definition. It is just that the institutions that they cling to are now not in power. This seems odd to me, since the between the military-industrial complex (ignoring conspiracy theories), the militarisation of the police and the examples of religious exemption (see: the Hobby Lobby ruling), I'd say such institutions are very much in place. I've heard discussions of how modern 'Christian America' was born of the desire to save capitalism from popular opinion, here's a piece a saw reviewing a book that delves into the history. I'd say to deny the power of those institutions is to buy into the bourgeois myth that they have been rendered powerless by the (insert bogeyman here). glowing-fish posted:That might be a lot of words, and I am not saying that this theory explains everything. I am just saying that, in my experience, the hallmark of the bourgeois is the comfort with which they interact with the ruling institutions of their society. Power is the ability to complain about how little power you have while people hang on your every word.
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Jul 13, 2015 18:50
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glowing-fish posted:There was a time when church membership and military service were part of Middle-Class integration. For example, Bob Jones, 1st. Lt. in the Air Force has just returned from duty doing radar work in Germany, and while hanging out at the local Elks club, he meets another Air Force man, who, get this--- also is a member of First Presbyterian! Drinking Scotch and smoking cigarettes, Bob Jones is offered a job as a sales manager at the local electronics store! And all of this would be happening in suburban Connecticut, not in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. That is the type of story that doesn't happen in Silicon Valley in 2015! Well, this kind of thing does happen a lot, it's just that generally it's been made easier because Bob Jones just went to the same College dorm as Chuck Johnson who then gives him a radio show talking about how gay people caused ISIS.
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Jul 13, 2015 21:09
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The jerkoffs control the means of induction.
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Jul 15, 2015 11:40
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Is that people like Zizek? Reading his works makes me feel like I'm drunk even when I'm sober. And not the good kind of drunk. The kind of drunk that ends up in fail compilation videos.
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Jul 15, 2015 12:17
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glowing-fish posted:Taking away the continental language, most of what I talked about is just based on my own experience of how people's backgrounds in early life affects how comfortable they are navigating through society. Again, though, this is just privilege theory. A study into the mental reasoning of these 'comfortable' feelings based on assumptions or evidence is something worth looking into, but you're going to struggle without accepting a dialectical approach.
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Jul 15, 2015 20:29
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 10:51 |
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Helsing posted:I would want other people to challenge me Sounds good: fist-fight by the local chic-fil-a alright?
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Jul 15, 2015 23:56
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