/edu/ - Education

I recall hearing once that there was a leftcom who wrote a deboonk of Lenin's Left Communism: an Infantile Disorder. I can't remember the author or name of the work though. Does anyone here know?

I have a very strong belief that the prevailing ideology in existing late-stage capitalism is the siege mentality. Literally every identity group feels as if they are under siege. Everyone believes they are being specifically targeted by some grand evil force that wants to destroy them.

We see it with Black folks in America who are still being systematically ghettoized and terrorized by the police. We see it with middle-class whites who are seeing their middle-class way of life slowly deteriorate. We see it with queer folks who are constantly combating anti-trans laws and other forms of discrimination, yet we also see it with queerphobes who truly believe there's a conspiracy to turn kids gay or trans. We see it strongly with the disabled who believe everyone wants to commit eugenics against them. We see it with nearly every single religious group (Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, even atheists/seculars). The left adheres to it and the right adheres to it. Even sex workers have an extreme siege mentality.

So my questions for discussion are:

1. What is the best materialist explanation for why the siege mentality has emerged so heavily in our modern age? Is it social media? Capitalism collapsing on itself? An overarching feeling of uncertainty about the future? The failure of the 60s New Left? Or something else?

2. Is the siege mentality revolutionary, or is it fundamentally reactionary? On one hand, you could see it as false consciousness, or something which creates highly tribalist feelings. On the other hand, the siege mentality enables someone to see through the bullshit of modern society and become highly ideologically driven.

PS – I am NOT a grad student writing a dissertation on this subject.

I've finally read the big ones (Deleuze, Guattari, Baudrilland, Foucault, Derrida) and I'm just not seeing it. The only argument I usually see when they bother explaining why is that these authors """reject""" class struggle.

after a few days of reading i got past the first part and I have some thoughts i wanted to share about the almost 750 page piece.

>the good parts
coming in i didnt have high expectations for what the book would turn out as as it continued but i found it to be quite interesting, simon presented alot of ideas on the sentiments of males in pre second wave feminist societies but the idea i found most interesting were her views on what actually made women "the other" in the eyes of males at that time. the answer was subjective to the person, much like in her section that detailed the varying roles and levels of freedom women have had throughout history in several parts of the planet what femininity was percieved as was also subjective and the idea that women must be subjegated to their husbands and treated as objects was a christian one that stemmed from the book of genesis, hold on this is going for too long.

Can someone please dumb this down for me?
>The concept of “objective” in metaphysical materialism appears to mean an objectivity which exists even outside of man, but to assert that reality would exist even if man did not exist is either to state a metaphor or to fall into a form of mysticism. We know reality only in its relations with man, and just as man is an historical process of becoming, so also knowledge and reality are a becoming, and objectivity is a becoming, etc.
>Engels’ expression that “the materiality of the world is demonstrated by the long and laborious development of philosophy and the natural sciences” needs to be analyzed and made precise. By science does he mean the theoretical or the practical-experimental activity of the scientists or the synthesis of the two activities? In this we could be said to have the typical unitary process of reality, in the experimental activity of the scientist which is the first model of the dialectical mediation between man and nature, the elementary historical cell by which man, putting himself into relation with nature through technology, knows it and controls it. Undoubtedly, the promulgation of the experimental method separates two worlds of history, two epochs, and begins the process of the dissolution of theology and metaphysics and the development of modern thought, whose crowning is Marxism. Scientific method is the first cell of the new method of production, of the new form of active union between man and nature. The scientist-experimenter is also a worker, not a pure thinker, and his thought is continually controlled by practice and vice versa, up to the point where a perfect unity of theory and practice is formed.
>The neo-scholastic Mario Casotti (Teacher and Scholar) writes: “The researches of the naturalists and the biologists presuppose an already existing life and real organism,” an expression which comes near to that of Engels in Anti-Dühring.
>The agreement between Catholicism and Aristotelianism on the question of the objectivity of reality.
>In order to understand exactly the possible significance of the problem of the reality of the external world, it may be useful to develop the example of the notions of “East” and “West” which do not stop being “objectively real” even if on analysis they prove to be nothing but conventionsPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

I have struggled with this question a lot, particularly because many of the things that get called fascist are quite clearly, in my eyes, not unique to fascism from both sides of the political aisle (e.g. free market advocacy, socialism etc.) So, leftypol, is fascism truly everything I don't like?

I have been reading the works of the architect and self proclaimed "anarcho capitalist" and "former revolutionary communist" Patrik Schumacher, who says that the works of German sociologist Niklas Luhmann (not translated much into English) are a better frame to analyze the world and also prove Anarcho-capitalism is correct.

>MK: In a recent lecture – aptly named ‘In Defense of Capitalism’ – you talk about your personal shift from a self-proclaimed ‘revolutionary communist’ to an advocate of libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism. Could you elaborate on this ideological turn? How has it affected your thinking on architecture and the city (or perhaps the other way around)?

<PS: How society works or should work is the most momentous question that I feel confronted by, but it’s also the most complex, non-trivial, perplexing question. Yet, I was not willing to resign myself to agnosticism on this matter. I started early on to invest a large chunk of my learning and life energy in the attempt to penetrate the matter and reach a position I can argue and commit to. This effort in political self-education evolved out of my overarching effort to gain a comprehensive intellectual orientation which drew me first into ‘pure’ philosophy. For my youthful prior self it was a matter of self-respect to break into the circle of those who address and claim to answer the deepest questions. What is the world? What is thinking? How is knowledge possible? These questions led via language and life forms (Wittgenstein) to society (Habermas) and political economy (Marx). Thus I arrived at Marxism first via theoretical philosophy rather than via any prior political bias. Wittgenstein, Habermas and Marx showed that pure philosophy was vain. Habermas and Marx showed that the theory of society must become the fulcrum of all philosophy. Marx showed that theory must fuse with practice. He delivered a system of political economy as crucial theoretical component of a radical, transformative political project. Marx’s philosophy is of totalising scope and able to theorize its own historico-sociological conditions of emergence and development. Marx’s system was the first ‘super-theory’ in Luhmann’s sense, i.e. a theory that is able to fully and consistently theorize itself. Nothing less should satisfy us.

>Marxism seemed most profound and ambitious to me. It seemed nothing else caPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

Are they the most revolutionary class, or are they reactionary? I think they are the most revolutionary because they are the most oppressed. In fact, I don't see how you can make a revolution without the lumpen.

Especially in America, where the regular proletariat (labor aristocracy) has been fully bourgeoisified and proudly supports the imperialist bourgeoisie in everything they do.

Fuck jannies btw

"I decided to write this letter after lengthy deliberation. I am a chemist, and I lecture at Leningrad's Lensovet Technology Institute. Like many others, I also look after a student group. Students nowadays, following the period of social apathy and intellectual dependence, are gradually becoming charged with the energy of revolutionary changes. Naturally, discussions develop about the ways of restructuring and its economic and ideological aspects. Glasnost, openness, the disappearance of zones where criticism is taboo, and the emotion heat of mass consciousness (especially among young people) often result in the raising of problems that are, to a greater or lesser extent, "prompted" either by Western radio voices or by those of our compatriots who are shaky in their conceptions of the essence of socialism. And what a variety of topics that are being discussed! A multiparty system, freedom of religious propaganda, emigration to live abroad, the right to broad discussion of sexual problems in the press, the need to decentralize the leadership of culture, abolition of compulsory military service. There are particularly numerous arguments among students about the country's past.

Of course, we lecturers must answer the most controversial questions, and this demands, in addition to honesty, knowledge, conviction, broad cultural horizons, serious reflection, and considered opinions. Moreover, these qualities are needed by all educators of young people and not only by members of social science department staffs.

Petergof Park is a favorite spot for the walks I take with my students. We stroll along the snow-covered paths, enjoy looking at the famous palaces and statues, and we argue. We do argue! The young souls are eager to investigate all complexities and to map out their path in to the future. I look at my ardent young interlocutors, and I think to myself how important it is to help them to discover the truth and shape a correct perception of the problems of the society in which they live and which they will have to restructure, and how to give them a correct perception of our history, both distant and recent.

What are the misgivings? Here is a simple example: You would think that plenty has been written and said about the Great Patriotic War against the Nazi invasion and the heroism of those who fought in it. Recently, however, a student hostel in our Technology Institute organized a meeting with Hero of the Soviet Union and ColonelPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

What is the role of the police under capitalism? They do protect property and the interests of the upper class, but I don't think it's as clear cut as they merely protect a capitalist's factory and resources alone. They do try to carry out whatever dicta of law is brought in through legislation within their own funding.
But how are laws made?
Laws themselves are created through the superstructure, which I imagine are first formulated through the interests of the upper social strata inside the organs of the capitalist state, such as universities, political parties, courts, police departments, and legislative councils, as well as by appeasing public sentiment.
The economic and political classes of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeois also seem to be entrenched in the roles of law: prosecutors, defence lawyers, and judges. These are created through the superstructure's education systems and law associations. The role of police as enforcers, or soldiers of the state, against the proletariat and peasantry upholds the sacred principles of capitalism: property, order, and class. Oddly enough, though, the police work against the black market which is merely capitalism intensified. What is the Marxist or Anarchist perspective on the role of police against the worst aspects of capitalism (human trafficking, drug trade, organised crime, gang violence)?