|
Finished "Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community". Yep. We shot the reincarnation of Jesus. Humanity is doomed. Should be mandatory reading for junior high schoolers. What an optimistic visionary.
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2020 02:00
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 29, 2024 00:49 |
|
|
gfarrell80 posted:Finished "Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community". Yep. We shot the reincarnation of Jesus. Humanity is doomed. Added to my reading list. Looking at the collected Marx/Engel works from International and sent them an email about getting it all (US): “There is a 15% discount for purchase of the entire set. The price of the set would be $1,171.73 plus shipping which would be about $70” I’ve been reading some Baudrillard (System of Objects) recently and secretly wish I could be an insufferable critic of interior design. Tried Derrida’s Politics of Friendship and feel like I’m the academic equivalent of a chimp in a tuxedo trying to get into the high society gala. My philosophy friend sent me a quote from Foucault saying how frustrating Derrida is as a writer/speaker/person, so I feel a little better.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2021 04:00
|
|
|
Not exactly leftist books in a straight forward way, but I highly recommend reading Legacy of Ashes and Enemies by Tim Weiner. Great books if you want to learn about how capitalist hegemony failed us all during the 20th century. Legacy of Ashes is all about the history of the CIA, and Enemies is all about America's weird experiment with having a secret police force (the FBI) that never really worked out.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2021 05:41
|
|
|
The North Tower posted:Added to my reading list. MLK is a lot more accessible than Derrida, I hope you enjoy King. A cliff notes style podcast for philosophy I'd recommend is "Philosophize This!". He has an episode or two on Derrida that is probably a lot more accessible than wading through his book. Blastedhellscape posted:if you want to learn about how capitalist hegemony failed us all during the 20th century. Legacy of Ashes is all about the history of the CIA, and Enemies is all about America's weird experiment with having a secret police force (the FBI) that never really worked out. Sounds pretty leftist to me! Never really worked out? The FBI worked out and continues to work out pretty great for enforcing state power.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2021 23:48
|
|
|
gfarrell80 posted:We shot the reincarnation of Jesus. Faulkner's A Fable is about what would happen if Christ returned during World War 1. Its answer to that question is we'd execute him all over again.
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2021 20:01
|
|
|
What are some good non-fiction books about China? Particularly hoping to learn more about the revolution and Mao, but also leading up to modern day.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2021 19:01
|
|
|
I know this is the leftist lit thread, but drat it, Kissinger’s On China is really, really good. Just don’t buy it new.
|
|
#
?
Feb 27, 2021 04:51
|
|
|
Finished Carl Sagan's The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. While not a leftist socialist or communist, Sagan has written a quite good liberal commentary on science and its role in society. Came out in 1996 and boy howdy does he get vindicated by events up to now in 2020. Onward to Frantz Fanon The Wretched of the Earth.
|
|
#
?
Mar 1, 2021 23:30
|
|
|
I will strongly second Sagan's book. I think it had a bigger influence on me than any other book I read as a teenager.
|
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2021 00:03
|
|
|
TrixRabbi posted:What are some good non-fiction books about China? Particularly hoping to learn more about the revolution and Mao, but also leading up to modern day. Two books come to mind, Mao's China and After: A History of the People's Republic by Maurice Meisner, its a very informative work from the 1911 revolution period up to the early 1990s. Does a very good job of explaining the ideological goal post shifting and political factionalism of the CPC and combines it with an analysis of the economy and political situation of the PRC as it actually existed and the gulf of this with the official versions. China's New Red Guards: The Return of Radicalism and the Rebirth of Mao Zedong by Jude Blanchette. This one is an investigation into current PRC and its political climate, focussing on relationship between the CPC and its officially tolerated (mostly) sometimes opposition sometimes auxiliary movements on the nationalist and "maoist" currents and what's been going on since the early 2000s to Xi's premiership. Ends just as the Jasic unionisation campaign was just starting.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2021 02:58
|
|
|
I’m reading Thomas Frank’s Listen Liberal and it’s mostly stuff that any knowledgeable lefty will already know, but it’s very well-written for the waning Liberal in your life who needs that one extra push to go over the hump. My only concern is that the title may sound condescending to someone who isn’t quite ready to take the plunge. King Leopold’s Ghost isn’t lefty per se, but since it’s about imperialism I thought this would be a good place to recommend it as a history of Belgium in the Congo. “...reads like a novel” is the quote on the cover of my edition which is really accurate. Anyone have any suggestions for anarchist works or decent history? I’m reading Conquest of Bread at present and would like to read a few more books on it to at least have a better understanding of its history and core works. I know that it’s a wide topic, so a framework would be really helpful.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2021 07:30
|
|
|
Baka-nin posted:Two books come to mind, Any recs on the Gang of Four or Lin Bao?
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2021 09:48
|
|
|
The North Tower posted:Any recs on the Gang of Four or Lin Bao? Yeah, Mao's China and after covers both pretty solidly, as do most books that focus on the Cultural revolution. There are books out there that focus exclusively on one or the other but honestly I don't think you'd get much from the focus and would lose a lot of context that are given by the more general books. Neither Lin Bao nor Mao's wife and her cronies had much to do that separated them from Mao's orbit until he turned on them at the very end, so to understand what they were doing you really need to know what he and the rest of CPC power structure was up to at the same time. I suppose some histories of the PLA might have more to say on Lin. The North Tower posted:
Daniel Guerin's No Gods No Masters anthology is a very good cross section introduction, Clifford Harper's Anarchy a graphic guide is also a solid and accessible intro that has beautiful woodcut illustrations. For Anarcho-syndicalism I recommend Fighting for Ourselves by the Solidarity Federation is a compact explanation and development of the history of revolutionary unionism and the current anarcho-syndicalist movement.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2021 06:30
|
|
|
The North Tower posted:King Leopold’s Ghost isn’t lefty per se, but since it’s about imperialism On that note, I just finished Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth. Strong recommend. The psychological profiles giving specific details on how colonial war destroys people - both the colonized and the colonial - are heartbreaking. US escapades in the Middle East over the last 30 years have undoubtedly provided multiple additional similar chapters on either side, especially when dealing with torture and our veteran suicide rate. A new updated Wretched of the Earth is yet to be written. gfarrell80 fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Apr 26, 2021 |
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2021 02:25
|
|
|
For anyone interested in the role slavery played in the development of modern management practices, I recommend Accounting for Slavery: Masters and Management by Caitlin Rosenthal. Did you know that Gantt charts have their origin in task schedules on slave plantations? I didn’t!
|
|
#
?
May 28, 2021 11:33
|
|
|
Beefeater1980 posted:For anyone interested in the role slavery played in the development of modern management practices, I recommend Accounting for Slavery: Masters and Management by Caitlin Rosenthal. Did you know that Gantt charts have their origin in task schedules on slave plantations? I didn’t! I have a soft spot for evil accounting/finance info, so this is going on the list. “Challenging the traditional depiction of slavery as a barrier to innovation...” But maybe we should keep this book away from certain entrepreneurs. As a chaser, check out People’s Republic of Walmart to see how modern mega corps are able to run planned economies, challenging the idea that a central state couldn’t work with modern analytic tools. The North Tower fucked around with this message at 18:09 on May 28, 2021 |
|
#
?
May 28, 2021 18:02
|
|
|
Beefeater1980 posted:Accounting for Slavery: Masters and Management I haven't read it yet, but in my orbit I got a recommendation for what sounds like possibly a similar work that could be used as a companion read: The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America, by Gerald Horne.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2021 15:55
|
|
|
Finishing up Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. Pretty relevant critique even one hundred years later, given the power of our financial sector today.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 03:23
|
|
|
Does anyone have good recs on specifically leftist stories? As in, fiction that's written by authors who know their theory and are using it as a foundation for the story being told? Most of the books in this thread are theory which is great and I'm hoovering up those books, but like, I want leftist entertainment. I'm okay if it comes off preachy, though I'd prefer it not be. If the author's pandering, I'd rather pandering to anarchists than to MLs but I'll take what I can get. My personal fondness is for nerdshit fantasy, but I'm open to any genre or non-genre works. I will mention because this is the one author I can think of who falls into what I'm asking for: Please do not recommend China Mievelle to me. He is an alleged rapist who I do not want to materially support and whose work I do not want to read even via piracy or used books. I like themes of imperialism and colonialism, if that helps narrow the subject for people. I've read and loved everything local hero General Battuta has ever published, so, you know, that one's appreciated but unnecessary. neongrey fucked around with this message at 09:37 on Jul 27, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2021 09:31
|
|
|
sounds like you want to read Maxim Gorkij
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2021 10:13
|
|
|
Okay yeah this sounds like something that'll keep me going for a while. Thanks!
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2021 10:26
|
|
|
neongrey posted:I like themes of imperialism and colonialism, if that helps narrow the subject for people. Have you read the Baru Cormorant books by- neongrey posted:I've read and loved everything local hero General Battuta has ever published drat. Maybe Ursula K. LeGuin? The Dispossesed heavily features a functional anarchist society, and Left Hand of Darkness isn't quite as based on political systems but does some interesting stuff with gender and First Contact concepts and I think it's just a neat read. I'd also throw out a soft recommendation for The Unbroken by C.L. Clark. It's fantasy with not-France colonizing not-North Africa and gets compared to Baru a lot. While it's not quite as... complex? It does definitely deal with colonialism and the difficulties of trying to fight it from the inside (also, lesbians). It's might be a little too romance-y, adventure-y for what you're looking for though (if those are not plusses for you)?
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2021 22:48
|
|
|
Okay no the CL Clark sounds fun even though i'm not a fan of genre romance, that looks good. And duh ironically I completely forgot Le Guin, which I do way too often because my biggest memory of her by name is just bouncing super hard off Earthsea in elementary school. Thank you for the reminder cause I think she's a good fit for me politically cause I know she's fairly closely aligned with my anarchism, and while I've read nothing else by her, Omelas is a foundational text for me for coming to an understanding of how our society irl is constructed. Omelas is a fantasy story because in real life, no one gets to walk away from Omelas, and that child will always be there until the revolution happens and we can ensure there is now and never again the child in the basement. So yeah. I badly need to read Le Guin. vvvv beautiful, sounds amazing, i'm jazzed as hell to read that vvvvv neongrey fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Jul 27, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2021 23:31
|
|
|
neongrey posted:Does anyone have good recs on specifically leftist stories? As in, fiction that's written by authors who know their theory and are using it as a foundation for the story being told? Most of the books in this thread are theory which is great and I'm hoovering up those books, but like, I want leftist entertainment. I'm okay if it comes off preachy, though I'd prefer it not be. If the author's pandering, I'd rather pandering to anarchists than to MLs but I'll take what I can get. The Final Circle of Paradise and The Doomed City aren't well known in the English-speaking world, but they have two very contrasting takes on the same issue, from a leftist perspective.
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2021 23:34
|
|
|
neongrey posted:Does anyone have good recs on specifically leftist stories? The Gadfly The Jungle
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2021 03:40
|
|
|
neongrey posted:Does anyone have good recs on specifically leftist stories? If you're hardcore on theory check out the Return to Neveryon series which is just the socio-cultural/economic theories Samuel R. Delany was reading at the time wrapped up in a sword and sorcery fantasy epic Both of these are important for historical reasons Ragged Trousered Philanthropists Germinal by Zola (The politics might not be exactly what you want but its influence on leftist politics was enormous. Wikipedia says the Disco Elysium writers were heavily influenced by it if that's a recomendation) Unfortunately, there's much less good Leftist fiction than liberal or conservative because if you're politicly alert enough to have the right politics, why write fiction? There's far more practical things to be doing.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2021 09:50
|
|
|
fez_machine posted:If you're hardcore on theory check out the Return to Neveryon series which is just the socio-cultural/economic theories Samuel R. Delany was reading at the time wrapped up in a sword and sorcery fantasy epic  that's literally exactly what i wanted perfect, i love when authors are obviously working poo poo out for themselves that way. quote:Both of these are important for historical reasons gently caress yes, that's a hard recommend because of that. I don't mind disagreeing with a book's politics where those politics are like, within the realm of what i consider, say, disagreements about how to make the best possible world for us to live in, and not fuckshits who want to burn the world. Which, like, for me starts in the realm of "theoretically well-intentioned liberal who is just outright wrong" and travels leftwards from there. But I'm so fuckin tired of art from theoretically well-intentioned liberals, and my cynicism has led me to believe in full on utopian anarchism because gently caress it, if better things aren't gonna be possible, might as well be the best things that aren't possible. quote:Unfortunately, there's much less good Leftist fiction than liberal or conservative because if you're politicly alert enough to have the right politics, why write fiction? There's far more practical things to be doing. yeah that's legit. But art is important in terms of societal construction too. and i'm so tired right now i just want to read some books by people where i don't have to worry about their politics, that are stories about their politics.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2021 14:04
|
|
|
fez_machine posted:Unfortunately, there's much less good Leftist fiction than liberal or conservative because if you're politicly alert enough to have the right politics, why write fiction? There's far more practical things to be doing. I don't think this is particularly true, and it seems vaguely stupid, as if there aren't left wing writers who see the inherent value in fiction as a thing in itself.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2021 13:52
|
|
|
Yeah, I can think of about a dozen leftist fiction authors off the top of my head (they're also all trans and/or non-binary) but a lot of them don't write stuff that's super political/theory based necessarily (unless you count having queer characters as your protagonists as being political?).
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2021 16:00
|
|
|
you don’t even need to restrict yourself to contemporary authors, there’s a myriad of authors that were leftist, including many of the nobel literature laureates
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2021 19:57
|
|
|
A human heart posted:I don't think this is particularly true, and it seems vaguely stupid, as if there aren't left wing writers who see the inherent value in fiction as a thing in itself. i'll say that it seems easier to find fiction by fuckin liberals, but i think that's just because they're really everywhere because it's an easy political trap to fall into in this day and age. neongrey fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Jul 31, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2021 12:21
|
|
|
neongrey posted:but i think that's just cause like all vermin infestations, I don't think this is a particularly necessary language
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2021 12:42
|
|
|
That's fair. I was being hyperbolic and speaking out of emotion rather than human decency because I like to do that sometimes but on review that's gross. I will re-edit but you can leave the quote in place as recognition that I hosed that up. And I'm self-reporting cause I think I deserve at least a sixer for that one. Thanks for the bonk. neongrey fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Jul 31, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2021 23:33
|
|
|
DurianGray posted:Yeah, I can think of about a dozen leftist fiction authors off the top of my head (they're also all trans and/or non-binary) but a lot of them don't write stuff that's super political/theory based necessarily (unless you count having queer characters as your protagonists as being political?). Moby Dick baby is one of the best subversive works of the 19th century, doing work in group psychology, critiquing capitalism, and predicting our ultimate demise because we willingly submit to authoritarian figures: https://www.truthdig.com/articles/we-are-all-aboard-the-pequod/ Also, my favorite bit, 'The Monkey Rope': Herman Melville posted:It was mentioned that upon first breaking ground in the whale’s back, the blubber-hook was inserted into the original hole there cut by the spades of the mates. But how did so clumsy and weighty a mass as that same hook get fixed in that hole? It was inserted there by my particular friend Queequeg, whose duty it was, as harpooneer, to descend upon the monster’s back ... in very many cases, circumstances require that the harpooneer shall remain on the whale till the whole tensing or stripping operation is concluded. The whale, be it observed, lies almost entirely submerged, excepting the immediate parts operated upon. So down there, some ten feet below the level of the deck, the poor harpooneer flounders about, half on the whale and half in the water, as the vast mass revolves like a tread-mill beneath him... And Dostoyevsky, while not a traditional 'leftist', certainly has his moments: F Dusty Brothers Karamazov posted:Until you really make yourself the brother to all, brotherhood will not arrive. Never, prompted by science or self-interest alone, will human beings be able to share their property and their privileges in harmless fashion. None will consider that he has enough, and all will grumble, envying and destroying one another. You ask when what I describe will come true. It will come true, but first there must be a period of human solitariness.’ What kind of solitariness do you mean? I asked him. ‘The kind that reigns everywhere now, particularly in our own time, though it has not yet established itself universally, and its hour has not yet come. For each now strives to isolate his person as much as possible from the others, wishing to experience within himself life’s completeness, yet from all his efforts there results not life’s completeness but a complete suicide, for instead of discovering the true nature of their being they lapse into total solitariness. For in our era all are isolated into individuals, each retires solitary within his burrow, each withdraws from the other, conceals himself and that which he possesses, and ends by being rejected of men and by rejecting them. He amasses wealth in solitariness, thinking: how strong I am now and how secure, yet he does not know, the witless one, that the more he amasses, the further he will sink into suicidal impotence. For he has become accustomed to relying upon himself alone and has isolated himself from the whole as an individual, has trained his soul not to trust in help from others, in human beings and mankind, and is fearful only of losing his money and the privileges he has acquired. In every place today the human mind is mockingly starting to lose its awareness of the fact that a person’s true security consists not in his own personal, solitary effort, but in the common integrity of human kind.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2021 05:02
|
|
|
that passage is probably the best inducement to reading the brothers karamasov i could have seen right now. christ. 1880 and so many people understood this stuff clearly then. yet here we are.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2021 05:46
|
|
|
god yes thats so good i get chills reading that. the style isnt what i read for fun so i have to process like every word as it comes and it's just washing over me like a wave and sweeping me along with the sheer clarity of it
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2021 06:59
|
|
|
gfarrell80 posted:And Dostoyevsky, while not a traditional 'leftist', certainly has his moments: Orson Scott Card's "we're all the same tribe, we all have the same rules, by which I mean human rules" speech in Xenocide, if you will.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2021 07:58
|
|
|
that seems like cynicism arising from the competitive obsession being described in the excerpt. you're making an assumption that anyone who criticises selfishness or material desire is only doing it to feed their ego or wealth, which i don't agree with. i feel silly getting into a debate about two paragraphs, i just think this: Xander77 posted:"come on, stop prioritizing your selfish worldly desires over what I want you to do for my benefit. i don't think there's anything spiritual in that excerpt, either. seems like you're superimposing things from elsewhere. roomtone fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Aug 2, 2021 |
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2021 08:43
|
|
|
Xander77 posted:That strikes me as very generic off-label christian tosh. Badger the writer (or the character) into drawing any actionable conclusions, and once they're done jerking themselves off over how humble and spiritually fulfilled they are, it will end up with "come on, stop prioritizing your selfish worldly desires over what I want you to do for my benefit. This degree of cynicism is depressing
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2021 09:46
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 29, 2024 00:49 |
|
|
roomtone posted:that seems like cynicism arising from the competitive obsession being described in the excerpt. you're making an assumption that anyone who criticises selfishness or material desire is only doing it to feed their ego or wealth, which i don't agree with. Edit - Let me clarify further. To anyone reading this in the 19th century, "oh, anti-revolutionary rhetoric, sure" would be crystal clear. Xander77 fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Aug 2, 2021 |
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2021 11:28
|
|