- Pohl
- Jan 28, 2005
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In the future, please post shit with the sole purpose of antagonizing the person running this site. Thank you.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I kept reading because I expected an anecdote or two. Instead I got this rubbish.
Pohl fucked around with this message at 12:09 on Jul 15, 2015
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Jul 15, 2015 12:03
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May 15, 2024 10:43
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- Pohl
- Jan 28, 2005
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In the future, please post shit with the sole purpose of antagonizing the person running this site. Thank you.
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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.
No, Zizek isn't postmodern at all. He is a classical Marxist.
Edit: it is hard to understand because of the language barrier, and because you aren't aren't used to hearing people talk about the economic theories he is talking about. Actually, the guy is really weird and you probably shouldn't even pay attention to him.
He is smart as hell, but he is also really loving weird.
Edit again: To make this more clear, Zizek is not my go to guy if I want to introduce someone to Marx. If I want to talk about or read Marx, I go to Marx.
Pohl fucked around with this message at 12:32 on Jul 15, 2015
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Jul 15, 2015 12:21
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Jul 15, 2015 12:03
