R: 184 / I: 406 (sticky)
PDF/EPUB post outage thread
drop them PDFs, we will rebuild edition
R: 320 / I: 51 (sticky)
Previous thread >>>/leftypol_archive/580500
Archive of previous thread
https://archive.is/saN3S
Excuse me coming through
A quick note on the video @ >>>/leftypol/1538283
Also [vid related] for archival purposes
Around the 29 minute mark Peterson criticizes Marx and Engel's for assuming that workers would magically become more productive once they took over.
This actually happened historically, most of the actually effective productivity tricks work places use now were developed by Stakhanovites.
https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1936-2/year-of-the-stakhanovite/year-of-the-stakhanovite-texts/stalin-at-the-conference-of-stakhanovites/
Reality has a Marxist bias
/edu/ checkpoint
Everytime you visit /edu/, post in this thread. Tell us about what you're thinking about, what you're reading, an interesting thing you have learned today, anything! Just be sure to pop in and say hi.Previous thread >>>/leftypol_archive/580500
Archive of previous thread
https://archive.is/saN3S
Excuse me coming through
A quick note on the video @ >>>/leftypol/1538283
Also [vid related] for archival purposes
Around the 29 minute mark Peterson criticizes Marx and Engel's for assuming that workers would magically become more productive once they took over.
This actually happened historically, most of the actually effective productivity tricks work places use now were developed by Stakhanovites.
https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1936-2/year-of-the-stakhanovite/year-of-the-stakhanovite-texts/stalin-at-the-conference-of-stakhanovites/
Reality has a Marxist bias
R: 55 / I: 3
http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/browse-Plato.html
http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/browse-Aristotle.html
Plato and Aristotle
What is the value of either of their works of thought under capitalism? What is their intellectual value to studious communists today?http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/browse-Plato.html
http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/browse-Aristotle.html
R: 3 / I: 0
Without a Marx noticing everything and spreading his ideas, we wouldn't be here. And without great men like Lenin or Mao things would also be drastically different. What put everything in motion was the material conditions so it's always the most important thing, but the material conditions create ideas and great men.
It's the reason the bourgeoisie is constantly creating anti proletarian myths like "self made man" or whatever. The ruling class uses ideas as a weapon, and while ultimately material conditions will make even the most stubborn idiots realize the truth, ideas can delay it from happening, and so can important leading figures like Donald Trump who has been a retard-whisperer for some time now.
Materialism rules all, but...
The marketplace of ideas and great men also move history, it's just that in a way that is less important than materialism.Without a Marx noticing everything and spreading his ideas, we wouldn't be here. And without great men like Lenin or Mao things would also be drastically different. What put everything in motion was the material conditions so it's always the most important thing, but the material conditions create ideas and great men.
It's the reason the bourgeoisie is constantly creating anti proletarian myths like "self made man" or whatever. The ruling class uses ideas as a weapon, and while ultimately material conditions will make even the most stubborn idiots realize the truth, ideas can delay it from happening, and so can important leading figures like Donald Trump who has been a retard-whisperer for some time now.
R: 45 / I: 2
Thread inteded as a containment place for a discussion of all things religious since I had noticed there was an infestation of a low-quality religious discussion threads recently.
Let's start with the building of a reading list about religion and spirituality from a marxist/general socialist perspective, shall we?
/psrg/ Philosophy, spirituality, and religion general
Okay, let's try this. I would try making this sort of a general threads for a few weeks, then we'd see if they became popular and maybe mods would make /psrg/ a permanent thread.Thread inteded as a containment place for a discussion of all things religious since I had noticed there was an infestation of a low-quality religious discussion threads recently.
Let's start with the building of a reading list about religion and spirituality from a marxist/general socialist perspective, shall we?
R: 1 / I: 0
>If we are honestly to assess the lessons of the Russian Revolution, then it is essential that we unpick the real Lenin from this shared Stalinist and liberal myth of Leninism’. It would be difficult to praise too highly Lars Lih’s contribution to such an honest reassessment of Lenin’s thought. At its heart, Lih’s book aims to overthrow, and succeeds in overthrowing, what he calls the textbook interpretation’ of Lenin’s What is to be done? Lih thus adds to and deepens the arguments of those who have sought to recover the real Lenin from the Cold War mythology.”
Paul Blackledge, author, Historical Materialism and Social Evolution
Lenin Rediscovered: What Is to Be Done? In Context
Is this book worth reading? Finishing up on What is to Be Done? and feel as if it is pretty straight forward. The book is also like 600 pages long>If we are honestly to assess the lessons of the Russian Revolution, then it is essential that we unpick the real Lenin from this shared Stalinist and liberal myth of Leninism’. It would be difficult to praise too highly Lars Lih’s contribution to such an honest reassessment of Lenin’s thought. At its heart, Lih’s book aims to overthrow, and succeeds in overthrowing, what he calls the textbook interpretation’ of Lenin’s What is to be done? Lih thus adds to and deepens the arguments of those who have sought to recover the real Lenin from the Cold War mythology.”
Paul Blackledge, author, Historical Materialism and Social Evolution
R: 81 / I: 22
The site is filled up with amazing PDF's that I really want to read, but because I've spent most of my life coasting on general knowledge and cramming, I have no study habits to speak of. I really want to be able to write theory, but to do so I'm going to need a lot more books under my belt.
Additionally I spent a lot of my life playing lots and lots of video games and browsing lots of social media so as a result my attention span is completely fucked. I want to get back to the attention span I had when I was a kid. When I felt like I could stop playing video games whenever I wanted when I felt like reading books were just ss interesting as everything else i wanted to do.
Largely kicked my addiction to video games but I've just supplanted it with social media. The problem seems to be that I need to use my computer and my phone but the distraction and seduction of fast food media is often too great.
Largely kicked my addiction to video games but I've just supplanted it with social media. The problem seems to be that I need to use my computer and my phone but the distraction and seduction of fast food media is often too great.
This thread is for:
-it's about how to build study habits.
-how to effectively organize your time
-Posting your progress and gaining back their attention span.
-how your brain learns and how to maximise that
I'm hoping you can drop PDF's and advice and a thread so that we can all benefit from that. because I think we'd all agree that we could all with being a bit more well read.ak-47 AK-47
Study Habits and digital hygiene
Hey, I've seen this thread before a bunch of times, but upon searching it in the catalog I couldn't find anything.The site is filled up with amazing PDF's that I really want to read, but because I've spent most of my life coasting on general knowledge and cramming, I have no study habits to speak of. I really want to be able to write theory, but to do so I'm going to need a lot more books under my belt.
Additionally I spent a lot of my life playing lots and lots of video games and browsing lots of social media so as a result my attention span is completely fucked. I want to get back to the attention span I had when I was a kid. When I felt like I could stop playing video games whenever I wanted when I felt like reading books were just ss interesting as everything else i wanted to do.
Largely kicked my addiction to video games but I've just supplanted it with social media. The problem seems to be that I need to use my computer and my phone but the distraction and seduction of fast food media is often too great.
Largely kicked my addiction to video games but I've just supplanted it with social media. The problem seems to be that I need to use my computer and my phone but the distraction and seduction of fast food media is often too great.
This thread is for:
-it's about how to build study habits.
-how to effectively organize your time
-Posting your progress and gaining back their attention span.
-how your brain learns and how to maximise that
I'm hoping you can drop PDF's and advice and a thread so that we can all benefit from that. because I think we'd all agree that we could all with being a bit more well read.
R: 2 / I: 0
there is a weird thing that i discovered about quran
in reverse of one of the surahs i found out it has meanings
–
from the mp3 i sent here
from 0:14 seconds it says:
یا ایها النفس النفارس سمعنی
o my cavalry persons, here me out
ارسلکی اذو علیکی
we sent this to you for you
والکلام
the massage (is that)
حقنا حقا
our truth is the (real) truth
—
many of the smaller surahs have some meanings behind it
the ones that are shorter and have better rhymes
–
if there are any of you whom are more educated about arabic language please do reverse some surahs to helo to understand it better
–
i think God has not done talking to us
Quran in reversed
Hi everyonethere is a weird thing that i discovered about quran
in reverse of one of the surahs i found out it has meanings
–
from the mp3 i sent here
from 0:14 seconds it says:
یا ایها النفس النفارس سمعنی
o my cavalry persons, here me out
ارسلکی اذو علیکی
we sent this to you for you
والکلام
the massage (is that)
حقنا حقا
our truth is the (real) truth
—
many of the smaller surahs have some meanings behind it
the ones that are shorter and have better rhymes
–
if there are any of you whom are more educated about arabic language please do reverse some surahs to helo to understand it better
–
i think God has not done talking to us
R: 130 / I: 39
The book is Karl Kautsky's history of the French Revolution, originally published as Die Klassengegensätze im Zeitalter der Französischen Revolution in 1889. Coming from the "Pope of Marxism", as Kautsky was then known, this text likely had an immense influence on Lenin and other revolutionaries of his day. It was approved by Engels himself, and may have been foundational in establishing the Marxist theory of bourgeois revolution, yet it has never been translated into English. The original German is available here: https://www.marxists.org/deutsch/archiv/kautsky/1908/frev/index.html and an old French translation is available here: https://www.marxists.org/francais/kautsky/works/1889/00/antagonismes-table.htm
What makes this work especially good for us to translate is that it's relatively short - just around 60 pages in total, divided into 10 chapters. With each chapter being 5-7 pages each, it is conceivable to translate a chapter in one day's volunteer work. Comrade Akko has already translated the preface, and is working on chapter 1. That leaves 9 chapters to complete:
Preface: Complete!
Chapter 1: Second draft complete (French)
Chapter 2: Draft complete (French) - Proofreading complete (English)
Chapter 3: Draft complete (French) - Proofreading in progress (English) - Proofreader needed
Chapter 4: Draft complete (French) - Proofreading complete (English)
Chapter 5: Draft complete (French) - Proofreading complete (English)
Chapter 6: Draft complete (French) - Proofreading in progress (English) - Proofreader needed
Chapter 7: Draft complete (French) - Proofreading in progress (English) - Proofreader needed
Chapter 8: Complete! (Copyrighted work, permission secured)
Chapter 9: Draft complete (French) - Proofreading in progress (English) - Proofreader needed
Chapter 10: Translator needed
If you don't speak French or German, you can still contribute! We need proofreaders for completed chapters, and historical experts to confirm / resolve contextual clues in the text.
If we are able to complete this project, it will be uploaded to marxists.org under /leftypol/'s name, and maybe win us some name recognition from the broader left in the process. We can do this!
Translators Wanted! Traducteurs recherchés! Übersetzer gesucht!
If you know French or German, please contribute a chapter to /leftypol/'s first crowdsourced translation project! This project started on >>691.The book is Karl Kautsky's history of the French Revolution, originally published as Die Klassengegensätze im Zeitalter der Französischen Revolution in 1889. Coming from the "Pope of Marxism", as Kautsky was then known, this text likely had an immense influence on Lenin and other revolutionaries of his day. It was approved by Engels himself, and may have been foundational in establishing the Marxist theory of bourgeois revolution, yet it has never been translated into English. The original German is available here: https://www.marxists.org/deutsch/archiv/kautsky/1908/frev/index.html and an old French translation is available here: https://www.marxists.org/francais/kautsky/works/1889/00/antagonismes-table.htm
What makes this work especially good for us to translate is that it's relatively short - just around 60 pages in total, divided into 10 chapters. With each chapter being 5-7 pages each, it is conceivable to translate a chapter in one day's volunteer work. Comrade Akko has already translated the preface, and is working on chapter 1. That leaves 9 chapters to complete:
Preface: Complete!
Chapter 1: Second draft complete (French)
Chapter 2: Draft complete (French) - Proofreading complete (English)
Chapter 3: Draft complete (French) - Proofreading in progress (English) - Proofreader needed
Chapter 4: Draft complete (French) - Proofreading complete (English)
Chapter 5: Draft complete (French) - Proofreading complete (English)
Chapter 6: Draft complete (French) - Proofreading in progress (English) - Proofreader needed
Chapter 7: Draft complete (French) - Proofreading in progress (English) - Proofreader needed
Chapter 8: Complete! (Copyrighted work, permission secured)
Chapter 9: Draft complete (French) - Proofreading in progress (English) - Proofreader needed
Chapter 10: Translator needed
If you don't speak French or German, you can still contribute! We need proofreaders for completed chapters, and historical experts to confirm / resolve contextual clues in the text.
If we are able to complete this project, it will be uploaded to marxists.org under /leftypol/'s name, and maybe win us some name recognition from the broader left in the process. We can do this!
R: 15 / I: 8
Why is that? How can we overcome this problem? I want to study that. If anyone got good books/videos/documentaries on the history of the Shining Path, the FARC, IRA, the Red Faction, and whatever you think will help, please share them.
Urban countries and revolutionary struggle
From what i understand, successful rural guerrillas like the Shining Path and FARC weren't able to overthrown their governments because of low popular support on cities.Why is that? How can we overcome this problem? I want to study that. If anyone got good books/videos/documentaries on the history of the Shining Path, the FARC, IRA, the Red Faction, and whatever you think will help, please share them.
R: 1 / I: 0
Is there a PDF or book that explains the planned economic history and governmental structure of the Soviet Union in EXTREME and gritty technical & analytical detail while preferably including the Bolshevik group's ideals and wartime strategies leading to the October Revolution? Things like how precisely was the government set up, how was the economy and it's commerce were planned and what was the distinct bureaucratic structure. I'll be eternally greatful
Is there a PDF or book that explains the planned economic history and governmental structure of the Soviet Union in EXTREME and gritty technical & analytical detail while preferably including the Bolshevik group's ideals and wartime strategies leading to the October Revolution? Things like how precisely was the government set up, how was the economy and it's commerce were planned and what was the distinct bureaucratic structure. I'll be eternally greatful
R: 46 / I: 8
I found this book Black Marxism by Cedric Robinson and his thesis runs as following. Marxism and European socialism, instead of being an ideology of the proletariat, was a petty bourgeois ideology born out of a ressentiment for the bourgeoisie and the belief that the proletariat could be better managed. Leftists falsely understood capitalism as a rationalizing force which would create a homogenous proletariat, while in truth capitalism exacerbates racial differences to manage pops more efficiently. Leftists mistake nationalism and racism as essentially reactionary, while in truth it has always played a huge and sometimes preponderant part in history.
Second Kolakowski's book Main Currents of Marxism makes two important claims. Terms like "materialism" and "dialectics" are not well defined leading to ambiguity and confusion. This is why Lenin and the Russian Marxists misinterpreted Marx's materialism as an ontology of matter. Second leftist materialism is determinstic and offers a telological history in which outcomes are predetermined. This undermines human creativity and autonomy and is why the Soviets and "actually existing socialism" became totalitarian in practice. The party led by masters of Marxist theory and technocrats can guide society through more and more bureaucratization cancelling out the need for democratic participation and subordinating individual agency to the needs of the bureaucracy itself. I believe the Maoists saw this and tried to break from it but China ended up producing the same results because even the red guards embraced the same interpretation of historical/dialectical materialism.
I want bring out Carl Schmitt here for all the leftcoms and anarchists. If you have a radically open society you can easily get invaded by an influx of new people. /pol/ stormfaggot colonization of online spaces proves that anarchic environments are highly vulnerable to this type of invasion or the emergence of extremism within. Anarchist societies would not have the means to resist these invaders. Probably why the Zapatistas are scrapping their communal autonomy model because of cartels moving into Chiapas and causing trouble. The anarchist army could resist an external military force. Its been done before. But an anarchist society is prone to collapse and reversal through inability to resist demographic pressure. Lets say your anarchist liberated zone has a large population of MLs who decide to do the coup or just convert people to MLism and change the structure to a bunkerman dictatorship. You can't really stop them without effective policing instruments, surveillence, intelligence agencies but if you build those you end up recreating the state.
pic unrelated
Legit critiques of leftism
So /edu/ this site is full of threads debunking standard chicken headed talking points but what are some legit criticisms of leftist thought?I found this book Black Marxism by Cedric Robinson and his thesis runs as following. Marxism and European socialism, instead of being an ideology of the proletariat, was a petty bourgeois ideology born out of a ressentiment for the bourgeoisie and the belief that the proletariat could be better managed. Leftists falsely understood capitalism as a rationalizing force which would create a homogenous proletariat, while in truth capitalism exacerbates racial differences to manage pops more efficiently. Leftists mistake nationalism and racism as essentially reactionary, while in truth it has always played a huge and sometimes preponderant part in history.
Second Kolakowski's book Main Currents of Marxism makes two important claims. Terms like "materialism" and "dialectics" are not well defined leading to ambiguity and confusion. This is why Lenin and the Russian Marxists misinterpreted Marx's materialism as an ontology of matter. Second leftist materialism is determinstic and offers a telological history in which outcomes are predetermined. This undermines human creativity and autonomy and is why the Soviets and "actually existing socialism" became totalitarian in practice. The party led by masters of Marxist theory and technocrats can guide society through more and more bureaucratization cancelling out the need for democratic participation and subordinating individual agency to the needs of the bureaucracy itself. I believe the Maoists saw this and tried to break from it but China ended up producing the same results because even the red guards embraced the same interpretation of historical/dialectical materialism.
I want bring out Carl Schmitt here for all the leftcoms and anarchists. If you have a radically open society you can easily get invaded by an influx of new people. /pol/ stormfaggot colonization of online spaces proves that anarchic environments are highly vulnerable to this type of invasion or the emergence of extremism within. Anarchist societies would not have the means to resist these invaders. Probably why the Zapatistas are scrapping their communal autonomy model because of cartels moving into Chiapas and causing trouble. The anarchist army could resist an external military force. Its been done before. But an anarchist society is prone to collapse and reversal through inability to resist demographic pressure. Lets say your anarchist liberated zone has a large population of MLs who decide to do the coup or just convert people to MLism and change the structure to a bunkerman dictatorship. You can't really stop them without effective policing instruments, surveillence, intelligence agencies but if you build those you end up recreating the state.
pic unrelated
R: 17 / I: 2
Theory simplified
Are there any rewritten versions of important theory works dumbed down for retards like me? I
R: 7 / I: 5
I want to know what English dictionaries could be used ideally for a person learning Marxist critiques? Is there any good dictionary at all?
The Dictionary Question
>Literally every dictionaries you can find on google are bourgeois with "indoctrinate" and "propagate" being treated unequally and "consumerist" being listed as "derogatory" and stuffI want to know what English dictionaries could be used ideally for a person learning Marxist critiques? Is there any good dictionary at all?
R: 5 / I: 2
Any good books on the Iranian Revolution?
I'm looking for any books that will actually educate me on the Iranian revolution and why it resulted on the state that still exists to this day. I've heard many different stories that the Revolution was hijacked by Islamists and turned Iran into a theocratic dystopia but I really don't know if I can believe that fully. So I would love some good books that would give me a good explanation on everything that happened during the overthrow of the Pahlavi regime.
R: 1 / I: 1
Where can I get a periphery perspective on the imperial core?
I would be interested in an outside analysis. I feel like everyone here is absolutely fucked in the head.
Are there like Chinese ethnographies of America? I wonder what revolutionaries fighting in India have to say about the imperial core. Shit like that.
Where can I get a periphery perspective on the imperial core?
I would be interested in an outside analysis. I feel like everyone here is absolutely fucked in the head.
Are there like Chinese ethnographies of America? I wonder what revolutionaries fighting in India have to say about the imperial core. Shit like that.
R: 34 / I: 7
Marxism and Freud
I've noticed that a lot of orthodox Marxists are also obsessed with Freud and are convinced that Freudian psychoanalysis is essential for combating fascism, and I don't understand why. Can someone explain the connection?
R: 1 / I: 1
Combat Liberalism by Mao Zedong
We stand for active ideological struggle because it is the weapon for ensuring unity within the Party and the revolutionary organizations in the interest of our fight. Every Communist and revolutionary should take up this weapon. But liberalism rejects ideological struggle and stands for unprincipled peace, thus giving rise to a decadent, Philistine attitude and bringing about political degeneration in certain units and individuals in the Party and the revolutionary organizations. Liberalism manifests itself in various ways:
> To let things slide for the sake of peace and friendship when a person has clearly gone wrong, and refrain from principled argument because he is an old acquaintance, a fellow townsman, a schoolmate, a close friend, a loved one, an old colleague or old subordinate. Or to touch on the matter lightly instead of going into it thoroughly, so as to keep on good terms. The result is that both the organization and the individual are harmed. This is one type of liberalism.
> To indulge in irresponsible criticism in private instead of actively putting forward one's suggestions to the organization. To say nothing to people to their faces but to gossip behind their backs, or to say nothing at a meeting but to gossip afterwards. To show no regard at all for the principles of collective life but to follow one's own inclination. This is a second type.
> To let things drift if they do not affect one personally; to say as little as possible while knowing perfectly well what is wrong, to be worldly wise and play safe and seek only to avoid blame. This is a third type.
> Not to obey orders but to give pride of place to one's own opinions. To demand special consideration from the organization but to reject its discipline. This is a fourth type.
> To indulge in personal attacks, pick quarrels, vent personal spite or seek revenge instead of entering into an argument and struggling against incorrect views for the sake of unity or progress or getting the work done properly. This is a fifth type.
> To hear incorrect views without rebutting them and even to hear counter-revolutionary remarks without reporting them, but instead to take them calmly as if nothing had happened. This is a sixth type.
> To be among the masses and fail to conduct propaganda and agitation or speak at meetings or conduct investigations and inquiries among them, and instead to be indifferent to them and show no concern for their well-being, forgetting that one is a Communist and behaving as if one were an ordinary non-Communist. This is a seventh type.
> To see someone harming the interests of the masses and yet not feel indignant, or dissuade or stop him or reason with him, but to allow him to continue. This is an eighth type.
> To work half-heartedly without a definite plan or direction; to work perfunctorily and muddle along–"So long as one remains a monk, one goes on tolling the bell." This is a ninth type.
> To regard oneself as having rendered great service to the revolution, to pride oneself on being a veteran, to disdain minor assignments while being quite unequal to major tasks, to be slipshod in work and slack in study. This is a tenth type.
> To be aware of one's own mistakes and yet make no attempt to correct them, taking a liberal attitude towards oneself. This is an eleventh type.
We could name more. But these eleven are the principal types. They are all manifestations of liberalism. Liberalism is extremely harmful in a revolutionary collective. It is a corrosive which eats away unity, undermines cohesion, causes apathy and creates dissension. It robs the revolutionary ranks of compact organization and strict discipline, prevents policies from being carried through and alienates the Party organizations from the masses which the Party leads. It is an extremely bad tendency. Liberalism stems from petty-bourgeois selfishness, it places personal interests first and the interests of the revolution second, and this gives rise to ideological, political and organizational liberalism. People who are liberals look upon the principles of Marxism as abstract dogma. They approve of Marxism, but are not prepared to practice it or to practice it in full; they are not prepared to replace their liberalism by Marxism. These people have their Marxism, but they have their liberalism as well–they talk Marxism but practice liberalism; they apply Marxism to others but liberalism to themselves. They keep both kinds of goods in stock and find a use for each. This is how the minds of certain people work.
Liberalism is a manifestation of opportunism and conflicts fundamentally with Marxism. It is negative and objectively has the effect of helping the enemy; that is why the enemy welcomes its preservation in our midst. Such being its nature, there should be no place for it in the ranks of the revolution. We must use Marxism, which is positive in spirit, to overcome liberalism, which is negative. A Communist should have largeness of mind and he should be staunch and active, looking upon the interests of the revolution as his very life and subordinating his personal interests to those of the revolution; always and everywhere he should adhere to principle and wage a tireless struggle against all incorrect ideas and actions, so as to consolidate the collective life of the Party and strengthen the ties between the Party and the masses; he should be more concerned about the Party and the masses than about any private person, and more concerned about others than about himself. Only thus can he be considered a Communist. All loyal, honest, active and upright Communists must unite to oppose the liberal tendencies shown by certain people among us, and set them on the right path. This is one of the tasks on our ideological front.
COMBAT LIBERALISM - MAO Zedong - 19370907
This resource also acts as a copypasta that is to be posted on threads created by liberals that espouse said ideology's talking points.Combat Liberalism by Mao Zedong
We stand for active ideological struggle because it is the weapon for ensuring unity within the Party and the revolutionary organizations in the interest of our fight. Every Communist and revolutionary should take up this weapon. But liberalism rejects ideological struggle and stands for unprincipled peace, thus giving rise to a decadent, Philistine attitude and bringing about political degeneration in certain units and individuals in the Party and the revolutionary organizations. Liberalism manifests itself in various ways:
> To let things slide for the sake of peace and friendship when a person has clearly gone wrong, and refrain from principled argument because he is an old acquaintance, a fellow townsman, a schoolmate, a close friend, a loved one, an old colleague or old subordinate. Or to touch on the matter lightly instead of going into it thoroughly, so as to keep on good terms. The result is that both the organization and the individual are harmed. This is one type of liberalism.
> To indulge in irresponsible criticism in private instead of actively putting forward one's suggestions to the organization. To say nothing to people to their faces but to gossip behind their backs, or to say nothing at a meeting but to gossip afterwards. To show no regard at all for the principles of collective life but to follow one's own inclination. This is a second type.
> To let things drift if they do not affect one personally; to say as little as possible while knowing perfectly well what is wrong, to be worldly wise and play safe and seek only to avoid blame. This is a third type.
> Not to obey orders but to give pride of place to one's own opinions. To demand special consideration from the organization but to reject its discipline. This is a fourth type.
> To indulge in personal attacks, pick quarrels, vent personal spite or seek revenge instead of entering into an argument and struggling against incorrect views for the sake of unity or progress or getting the work done properly. This is a fifth type.
> To hear incorrect views without rebutting them and even to hear counter-revolutionary remarks without reporting them, but instead to take them calmly as if nothing had happened. This is a sixth type.
> To be among the masses and fail to conduct propaganda and agitation or speak at meetings or conduct investigations and inquiries among them, and instead to be indifferent to them and show no concern for their well-being, forgetting that one is a Communist and behaving as if one were an ordinary non-Communist. This is a seventh type.
> To see someone harming the interests of the masses and yet not feel indignant, or dissuade or stop him or reason with him, but to allow him to continue. This is an eighth type.
> To work half-heartedly without a definite plan or direction; to work perfunctorily and muddle along–"So long as one remains a monk, one goes on tolling the bell." This is a ninth type.
> To regard oneself as having rendered great service to the revolution, to pride oneself on being a veteran, to disdain minor assignments while being quite unequal to major tasks, to be slipshod in work and slack in study. This is a tenth type.
> To be aware of one's own mistakes and yet make no attempt to correct them, taking a liberal attitude towards oneself. This is an eleventh type.
We could name more. But these eleven are the principal types. They are all manifestations of liberalism. Liberalism is extremely harmful in a revolutionary collective. It is a corrosive which eats away unity, undermines cohesion, causes apathy and creates dissension. It robs the revolutionary ranks of compact organization and strict discipline, prevents policies from being carried through and alienates the Party organizations from the masses which the Party leads. It is an extremely bad tendency. Liberalism stems from petty-bourgeois selfishness, it places personal interests first and the interests of the revolution second, and this gives rise to ideological, political and organizational liberalism. People who are liberals look upon the principles of Marxism as abstract dogma. They approve of Marxism, but are not prepared to practice it or to practice it in full; they are not prepared to replace their liberalism by Marxism. These people have their Marxism, but they have their liberalism as well–they talk Marxism but practice liberalism; they apply Marxism to others but liberalism to themselves. They keep both kinds of goods in stock and find a use for each. This is how the minds of certain people work.
Liberalism is a manifestation of opportunism and conflicts fundamentally with Marxism. It is negative and objectively has the effect of helping the enemy; that is why the enemy welcomes its preservation in our midst. Such being its nature, there should be no place for it in the ranks of the revolution. We must use Marxism, which is positive in spirit, to overcome liberalism, which is negative. A Communist should have largeness of mind and he should be staunch and active, looking upon the interests of the revolution as his very life and subordinating his personal interests to those of the revolution; always and everywhere he should adhere to principle and wage a tireless struggle against all incorrect ideas and actions, so as to consolidate the collective life of the Party and strengthen the ties between the Party and the masses; he should be more concerned about the Party and the masses than about any private person, and more concerned about others than about himself. Only thus can he be considered a Communist. All loyal, honest, active and upright Communists must unite to oppose the liberal tendencies shown by certain people among us, and set them on the right path. This is one of the tasks on our ideological front.
R: 25 / I: 7
Is mathematics discovered or invented? I my opinion I suspect that math is discovered, if so, that imply that there's a "true" reality that is independent of human invention and opinions, so, what's the LeftyPol opinions about the nature of mathematics?
Is mathematics discovered or invented? I my opinion I suspect that math is discovered, if so, that imply that there's a "true" reality that is independent of human invention and opinions, so, what's the LeftyPol opinions about the nature of mathematics?
R: 9 / I: 0
Radicalizing the New Oppressed Masses
How do we educate and radicalize the downwardly trending PMC, the educated, the Wine-Moms, the Rural Lumpen-Proles, the population of the country. We are clearly heading towards revolutionary conditions. We can't miss the chance like the French did in May 68, or fail like the counter-culture did. How does it happen? Is there hope?
R: 1 / I: 0
>Karl Marx, Draft of an Article on Friedrich List’s book: Das Nationale System der Politischen Oekonomie, 1845
I’ve been thinking for a while about starting a study group on how the idea of labor has been reconstructed throughout the history of philosophy—once I’m done with my thesis. I’ve never actually organized one, and only joined one briefly before, but reading Bataille (my favorite degenerate and the focus of my thesis) got me thinking about trying a genealogical critique of labor. Plus, it gives me the perfect excuse to get back into some anarchist and communist texts I’ve been meaning to revisit for a while.
If you’ve got any tips on running study groups or know of any good readings on the topic, I’d really appreciate the suggestions.
Idea for a study group on the philosophy/ontology of work
>Labour, by its very nature is unfree, unhuman, unsocial activity, determined by private property and creating private property. Hence the abolition of private property will become a reality only when it is conceived as the abolition of labour.>Karl Marx, Draft of an Article on Friedrich List’s book: Das Nationale System der Politischen Oekonomie, 1845
I’ve been thinking for a while about starting a study group on how the idea of labor has been reconstructed throughout the history of philosophy—once I’m done with my thesis. I’ve never actually organized one, and only joined one briefly before, but reading Bataille (my favorite degenerate and the focus of my thesis) got me thinking about trying a genealogical critique of labor. Plus, it gives me the perfect excuse to get back into some anarchist and communist texts I’ve been meaning to revisit for a while.
If you’ve got any tips on running study groups or know of any good readings on the topic, I’d really appreciate the suggestions.
R: 15 / I: 0
On the anti-communist side, I see the standard criticism of forced labor, which doesn’t really answer my question. On the pro-communist side I just hear anecdotes that amount to “we won’t need that because personally I will never break safety rules!” which also doesn’t answer my question, but I love that for you.
So where can I find examples of these policies written out? Has no one thought about workplace misbehavior at all? It’s really difficult to find anything that discusses this.
Labor discipline in the communist system
Something I have never seen seriously discussed is reprimand when a laborer breaks some rule. Let’s take the example of absenteeism or repeated failure to follow safety rules (either those that protect the worker or those protect the consumer).On the anti-communist side, I see the standard criticism of forced labor, which doesn’t really answer my question. On the pro-communist side I just hear anecdotes that amount to “we won’t need that because personally I will never break safety rules!” which also doesn’t answer my question, but I love that for you.
So where can I find examples of these policies written out? Has no one thought about workplace misbehavior at all? It’s really difficult to find anything that discusses this.
R: 9 / I: 2
<You can't build a revolution with no education. Jomo Kenyatta did this in Africa, and because the people were not educated, he became as much an oppressor as the people he overthrew.
<Fred Hampton
Black History, Black Radicalism, and Pan-Africanism
It's February. Post and discuss works related to Afrika, Afrikan peoples, and the global diaspora.<You can't build a revolution with no education. Jomo Kenyatta did this in Africa, and because the people were not educated, he became as much an oppressor as the people he overthrew.
<Fred Hampton
R: 129 / I: 161
Pre-Columbian general
ITT post information about the history and anthropology of the New World. A lot of new anthropological work has been done in this field in recent decades that has not yet entered public consciousness. R: 40 / I: 3
In serving Christ, there's ups and downs to it. Sometimes you'll fail, because we humans are sinful in our nature. I know I have done that a lot, I regret it, and I will try to repent. But, if you trust in the Lord, and demonstrate your faith, you can have salvation. Just remember that its all about Jesus, and that everything in life should be secondary to that.
Being a Christian is a calming experience in some way. It is knowing that no matter what, there's always a god watching over you. He is many things, including love, but above all else, He is holy. Its reassuring to know whatever direction the world is going in, whatever geopolitical issues or issues in your personal life are happening, that Jesus will always be with you. That when your life comes to an end, if you have faith, you will be able to spend eternity with Him. But do not focus on yourself, focus on Jesus, because he and his heavenly kingdom is in who we trust.
Christianity is compatible with a leftwing worldview, it just needs to be tempered to remember what is most important as a Christian, Jesus, and serving him. In Latin America, I think that there's this thing called Liberation Theology which is a combination of a worldview of Christianity and Leftism. That's what I wanted to mention.
Evangelism; Radical Christianity/Liberation Theology
I think whether you're religious or not Christianity has plenty of universal values that could be applied to your life. God had plenty of reasonable things to say about how to be a good person. Be kind, be honest, don't kill, don't steal, be friendly, that kind of stuff. I think whether you choose to be a Christian or not, you should try to at least embody the more universal virtues that Christians hold as true. There's not quite agreement on the more controversial aspects of it, which I know are why some people leave the church. I personally am not a fundamentalist or biblical literalist. Though I know that most Christians have good intentions in mind, regardless of how strictly they adhere to the text. I see the Bible as more of a guide rather than an absolute truth, and I think you should too if you don't.In serving Christ, there's ups and downs to it. Sometimes you'll fail, because we humans are sinful in our nature. I know I have done that a lot, I regret it, and I will try to repent. But, if you trust in the Lord, and demonstrate your faith, you can have salvation. Just remember that its all about Jesus, and that everything in life should be secondary to that.
Being a Christian is a calming experience in some way. It is knowing that no matter what, there's always a god watching over you. He is many things, including love, but above all else, He is holy. Its reassuring to know whatever direction the world is going in, whatever geopolitical issues or issues in your personal life are happening, that Jesus will always be with you. That when your life comes to an end, if you have faith, you will be able to spend eternity with Him. But do not focus on yourself, focus on Jesus, because he and his heavenly kingdom is in who we trust.
Christianity is compatible with a leftwing worldview, it just needs to be tempered to remember what is most important as a Christian, Jesus, and serving him. In Latin America, I think that there's this thing called Liberation Theology which is a combination of a worldview of Christianity and Leftism. That's what I wanted to mention.
R: 46 / I: 9
>Historical events, states and peoples with cool names
'The expedition of the thousand', 'Triarchy of Negroponte', 'The Battle of the Crater' and 'The Boxer rebellion'
>Historical events, states and peoples with cool names
'The expedition of the thousand', 'Triarchy of Negroponte', 'The Battle of the Crater' and 'The Boxer rebellion'
R: 14 / I: 0
Serious question:
Why do adults always say that newer generations are less literate when kids nowadays read and type more text than any other era?
Also, most adults are incapable of remembering let alone appreciating any academic material and they're not held in contempt for it. Yet kids are morally burdened with the task of academic fulfillment.
We are living in an age where young people spend more time in school than every before. Compulsory laws and extensive additions to curriculum make every youngster a student.
Yet schoolteachers are unappreciative of this.
Meanwhile, we are seeing less industrial and social skills present in the prime age population.
Serious question:
Why do adults always say that newer generations are less literate when kids nowadays read and type more text than any other era?
Also, most adults are incapable of remembering let alone appreciating any academic material and they're not held in contempt for it. Yet kids are morally burdened with the task of academic fulfillment.
We are living in an age where young people spend more time in school than every before. Compulsory laws and extensive additions to curriculum make every youngster a student.
Yet schoolteachers are unappreciative of this.
Meanwhile, we are seeing less industrial and social skills present in the prime age population.
R: 0 / I: 0
Okay but seriously are there any actual writings by communists in the periphery critiquing communism in the imperial core? Full stop, just a periphery explanation of what is to be done in the imperial core
Okay but seriously are there any actual writings by communists in the periphery critiquing communism in the imperial core? Full stop, just a periphery explanation of what is to be done in the imperial core
R: 80 / I: 12
The original thread slid off /leftypol/ after I and I assume everybody else missed that week
Currently we are reading Engel's on The Origin of the Family
Anybody remember what chapter we were up to?
Friday Reading group
Every fridayThe original thread slid off /leftypol/ after I and I assume everybody else missed that week
Currently we are reading Engel's on The Origin of the Family
Anybody remember what chapter we were up to?
R: 3 / I: 2
Has anybody read my Poli Sci prof's book?
Found out my Poli Sci professor has a lot of books on Marx and his relation to gender and such. Has anybody read "Marx on Gender and the Family" by Heather Brown? I couldn't get a PDF rip online and I want to know if she's a lefty or not.
R: 0 / I: 0
>>24081
So, how do we go about defining science, and what good is "science"? The key break for modernity for me was the German idealists putting a stopper in genuine science and inquiry and insisting that science was something entirely alien to what it had been.
The chief purpose of the scientific endeavor is not to attain "absolute knowledge" but to eliminate enough of the known wrong paths to arrive at the least-wrong, which for our purposes is as close to the truth as the scientific approach is capable of. Science has no particular necessary philosophy or existential claims to be "science", but metaphysical and philosophical claims are necessary to establish the models that communicate any scientific inquiry, and two scientists can talk past each other by entering into an intractable metaphysical argument. The point of science is that there is a claim between the participants that there is a world outside of us or any conceit about it, and this is the only way there can be such things as facts. It is possible for the scientist to render the metaphysical and philosophical positions of any claim in language that is compatible with some other metaphysical framework, and so there is no singular metaphysics that has to be accepted for something to be "science". The only requirement is that everyone agrees that they are referring to the same world that is the only meaningful subject of inquiry.
It's stupefying to me how this is missed, and "science" has been commandeered by the most imperious statements and decrees, recited as dogma and a presumptive monopooly. I really wish people would stop doing this or encouraging this, without saying "science is the problem". No shit, science can be conducted badly. Humanity's scientific endeavor, all taken together, is not replicated by any other area of human activity. If someone produces obviously wrong results, the entire purpose of the scientific discourse is to eliminate those who are obviously malicious actors like the German idealists.
What is science?
Following from>>24081
So, how do we go about defining science, and what good is "science"? The key break for modernity for me was the German idealists putting a stopper in genuine science and inquiry and insisting that science was something entirely alien to what it had been.
The chief purpose of the scientific endeavor is not to attain "absolute knowledge" but to eliminate enough of the known wrong paths to arrive at the least-wrong, which for our purposes is as close to the truth as the scientific approach is capable of. Science has no particular necessary philosophy or existential claims to be "science", but metaphysical and philosophical claims are necessary to establish the models that communicate any scientific inquiry, and two scientists can talk past each other by entering into an intractable metaphysical argument. The point of science is that there is a claim between the participants that there is a world outside of us or any conceit about it, and this is the only way there can be such things as facts. It is possible for the scientist to render the metaphysical and philosophical positions of any claim in language that is compatible with some other metaphysical framework, and so there is no singular metaphysics that has to be accepted for something to be "science". The only requirement is that everyone agrees that they are referring to the same world that is the only meaningful subject of inquiry.
It's stupefying to me how this is missed, and "science" has been commandeered by the most imperious statements and decrees, recited as dogma and a presumptive monopooly. I really wish people would stop doing this or encouraging this, without saying "science is the problem". No shit, science can be conducted badly. Humanity's scientific endeavor, all taken together, is not replicated by any other area of human activity. If someone produces obviously wrong results, the entire purpose of the scientific discourse is to eliminate those who are obviously malicious actors like the German idealists.
R: 90 / I: 20
Resources
https://www.sciencemadness.org/ The go-to site for amateur chemists
Wiki: http://www.sciencemadness.org/smwiki/index.php/Main_Page
Forums, require email registration: https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/
Archive.org has plenty of old chemistry textbooks. The most useful ones for me are those meant to teach youngsters from the early 1900's.
YouTube
NurdRage, the OG channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/NurdRage
NileRed, the internet's premier piss chemist: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRedNile
NileBlue, secondary channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1D3yD4wlPMico0dss264XA
Explosions&Fire, energetic materials: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVovvq34gd0ps5cVYNZrc7A
Extractions&Ire, secondary channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvFApMFo_AafXbHRyEJefjA
Cody'sLab, chemistry and physics: https://www.youtube.com/user/theCodyReeder
ChemistNATE, educational: https://www.youtube.com/user/chemistNATE
/chem/ - Chemistry
Let's have a thread about chemistry. I can't be the only amateur chemist on here. To please the mods, everything in here is purely academic. Check local laws before you embark on your projects. And before you do anything, make sure you have appropriate safety equipment. Think about the worst thing that could happen to your reaction, because chances are it will. Don't be stupid.Resources
https://www.sciencemadness.org/ The go-to site for amateur chemists
Wiki: http://www.sciencemadness.org/smwiki/index.php/Main_Page
Forums, require email registration: https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/
Archive.org has plenty of old chemistry textbooks. The most useful ones for me are those meant to teach youngsters from the early 1900's.
YouTube
NurdRage, the OG channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/NurdRage
NileRed, the internet's premier piss chemist: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRedNile
NileBlue, secondary channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1D3yD4wlPMico0dss264XA
Explosions&Fire, energetic materials: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVovvq34gd0ps5cVYNZrc7A
Extractions&Ire, secondary channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvFApMFo_AafXbHRyEJefjA
Cody'sLab, chemistry and physics: https://www.youtube.com/user/theCodyReeder
ChemistNATE, educational: https://www.youtube.com/user/chemistNATE
R: 7 / I: 0
Would anyone be interested in going through Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit together?
The way that we would do it is choose a date every week and then get into a voice chat together and have one member read through a portion of PoS followed by something like Kalkavage's Logic of Desire (or Hegel's ladder) and then talk about it together. We'd have a reading session every week until we finish the book. Everything would be contained within the session.
R: 0 / I: 0
Can anyone offer any further laudations and/or criticisms? It's far too monumental of a task to verify it all alone, though from what I've seen it's mostly accurate.
Opinions on Ronald Grigor Suny's Soviet histories?
Title. Have been reading into Soviet history for a while now and have recently came across his works. Halfway through both his overaching Soviet works and have thought them brilliant thus far in their fairness toward all parties involved in the experiment.Can anyone offer any further laudations and/or criticisms? It's far too monumental of a task to verify it all alone, though from what I've seen it's mostly accurate.
R: 63 / I: 25
70% of law enforcement in USA, and UK are masons. Be ready to hide.
Please share this information with everyone you can. Be careful My family is involved in this stuff. So I know what Im talking about. Im currently in big danger. So this is a real war and not a game. Our futures and freedom are at stake.
The Freemasons
I come from a long line of Freemasons. I did not suspect anything until my relative went to the 33 degree then I got the following info70% of law enforcement in USA, and UK are masons. Be ready to hide.
Please share this information with everyone you can. Be careful My family is involved in this stuff. So I know what Im talking about. Im currently in big danger. So this is a real war and not a game. Our futures and freedom are at stake.
R: 1 / I: 0
im searching for a good book about the weimar republic, specifically the nazi's rise. a million books have been written on the topic but i dont want to accidentally read the liberals' opinion
im searching for a good book about the weimar republic, specifically the nazi's rise. a million books have been written on the topic but i dont want to accidentally read the liberals' opinion
R: 61 / I: 7
well anons do you think Viruses are living organisms or just complex biochemicals? Which viral origin hypothesis do you like the best?
Points against
>Viruses are not capable of independent replication and have to use the cell machinery of there host to do so, even bacteria that have never been grown outside of a cell culture still retain cell machinery of their own.
>Viruses are dormant until they come into contact with a host and do not have a full range of metabolic processes
>If viruses are alive then wouldn't DNA, Plasmids, Prions and even some minerals be alive as well?
Points for
>if recent research indicating that viruses and hosts evolved from a common ancestor than how exactly would viruses evolve back into non-life?
>giant viruses have large genomes and cell machinery
>the metabolism first argument that excludes viruses from life would make plastids a form of life
<the sauce: https://microbiologysociety.org/publication/past-issues/what-is-life/article/are-viruses-alive-what-is-life.html
tbh I find the viral origin debate more interesting but lean towards viruses being alive, that being said I would look at the origin theories before making a decision on if they are alive or not. The Theories(copy and pasted from here: https://microbiologysociety.org/publication/past-issues/what-is-life/article/are-viruses-alive-what-is-life.html )
>The Progressive Hypothesis
"According to this hypothesis, viruses originated through a progressive process. Mobile genetic elements, pieces of genetic material capable of moving within a genome, gained the ability to exit one cell and enter another"
"We can speculate that the acquisition of a few structural proteins could allow the element to exit a cell and enter a new cell, thereby becoming an infectious agent. Indeed, the genetic structures of retroviruses and viral-like retrotransposons show remarkable similarities. "
>The Regressive Hypothesis
"In contrast to the progressive process just described, viruses may have originated via a regressive, or reductive, process. Microbiologists generally agree that certain bacteria that are obligate intracellular parasites, like Chlamydia and Rickettsia species, evolved from free-living ancestors. Indeed, genomic studies indicate that the mitochondria of eukaryotic cells and Rickettsia prowazekii may share a common, free-living ancestor (Andersson et al. 1998). It follows, then, that existing viruses may have evolved from more complex, possibly free-living organisms that lost genetic information over time, as they adopted a parasitic approach to replication."
>The Virus First Hypothesis
"The progressive and regressive hypotheses both assume that cells existed before viruses. What if viruses existed first? Recently, several investigators proposed that viruses may have been the first replicating entities. Koonin and Martin (2005) postulated that viruses existed in a precellular world as self-replicating units. Over time these units, they argue, became more organized and more complex. Eventually, enzymes for the synthesis of membranes and cell walls evolved, resulting in the formation of cells. Viruses, then, may have existed before bacteria, archaea, or eukaryotes (Figure 4; Prangishvili et al. 2006)."
I think two other things were noting are that we also have subviral agents like viroids and obelisks to consider as well as the domain level classification in Viruses being Realm and the fact that unlike the Domain which share a common ancestor each Viral Realm is thought to be an independent evolution unrelated to the others so you basically have to answer the question 8 times. Also link to the Virus Explorer just for fun: https://media.hhmi.org/biointeractive/click/virus-explorer/
well anons do you think Viruses are living organisms or just complex biochemicals? Which viral origin hypothesis do you like the best?
Points against
>Viruses are not capable of independent replication and have to use the cell machinery of there host to do so, even bacteria that have never been grown outside of a cell culture still retain cell machinery of their own.
>Viruses are dormant until they come into contact with a host and do not have a full range of metabolic processes
>If viruses are alive then wouldn't DNA, Plasmids, Prions and even some minerals be alive as well?
Points for
>if recent research indicating that viruses and hosts evolved from a common ancestor than how exactly would viruses evolve back into non-life?
>giant viruses have large genomes and cell machinery
>the metabolism first argument that excludes viruses from life would make plastids a form of life
<the sauce: https://microbiologysociety.org/publication/past-issues/what-is-life/article/are-viruses-alive-what-is-life.html
tbh I find the viral origin debate more interesting but lean towards viruses being alive, that being said I would look at the origin theories before making a decision on if they are alive or not. The Theories(copy and pasted from here: https://microbiologysociety.org/publication/past-issues/what-is-life/article/are-viruses-alive-what-is-life.html )
>The Progressive Hypothesis
"According to this hypothesis, viruses originated through a progressive process. Mobile genetic elements, pieces of genetic material capable of moving within a genome, gained the ability to exit one cell and enter another"
"We can speculate that the acquisition of a few structural proteins could allow the element to exit a cell and enter a new cell, thereby becoming an infectious agent. Indeed, the genetic structures of retroviruses and viral-like retrotransposons show remarkable similarities. "
>The Regressive Hypothesis
"In contrast to the progressive process just described, viruses may have originated via a regressive, or reductive, process. Microbiologists generally agree that certain bacteria that are obligate intracellular parasites, like Chlamydia and Rickettsia species, evolved from free-living ancestors. Indeed, genomic studies indicate that the mitochondria of eukaryotic cells and Rickettsia prowazekii may share a common, free-living ancestor (Andersson et al. 1998). It follows, then, that existing viruses may have evolved from more complex, possibly free-living organisms that lost genetic information over time, as they adopted a parasitic approach to replication."
>The Virus First Hypothesis
"The progressive and regressive hypotheses both assume that cells existed before viruses. What if viruses existed first? Recently, several investigators proposed that viruses may have been the first replicating entities. Koonin and Martin (2005) postulated that viruses existed in a precellular world as self-replicating units. Over time these units, they argue, became more organized and more complex. Eventually, enzymes for the synthesis of membranes and cell walls evolved, resulting in the formation of cells. Viruses, then, may have existed before bacteria, archaea, or eukaryotes (Figure 4; Prangishvili et al. 2006)."
I think two other things were noting are that we also have subviral agents like viroids and obelisks to consider as well as the domain level classification in Viruses being Realm and the fact that unlike the Domain which share a common ancestor each Viral Realm is thought to be an independent evolution unrelated to the others so you basically have to answer the question 8 times. Also link to the Virus Explorer just for fun: https://media.hhmi.org/biointeractive/click/virus-explorer/
R: 1 / I: 0
I would say obviously someone like and hairdresser or a bank employee is exploited even tho none of them are litteraly tied to a mean of production, but what about say…. a lawyer ? Or a social worker ?
Social workers works for the state so i suppose it can still counts as exploitation, but what about lawyers or any other job in which you dont so much have a boss, i know theres some more services that work with people only having "collaborators" with whom they would technically work on an equal standing with.
Services and exploitation
Still somewhat new to this but… How does labor value exploitation works with the service industry ?I would say obviously someone like and hairdresser or a bank employee is exploited even tho none of them are litteraly tied to a mean of production, but what about say…. a lawyer ? Or a social worker ?
Social workers works for the state so i suppose it can still counts as exploitation, but what about lawyers or any other job in which you dont so much have a boss, i know theres some more services that work with people only having "collaborators" with whom they would technically work on an equal standing with.
R: 2 / I: 1
This could be about political economy, architecture, art, women‘s issues, the revolution, personalities, et cetera.
Soviet Union General
This thread is about sharing and recommending literature pertaining to the Soviet Union.This could be about political economy, architecture, art, women‘s issues, the revolution, personalities, et cetera.
R: 67 / I: 17
Dialectics
What the fuck are they? Every time a Marxist attempts to explain them it's like a Haskell programmer attempting to explain Monads.
R: 21 / I: 0
What went wrong? Did you benefit from higher education? What did you study if it did? What did you study if it didn't? What would you pursue if you had the chance to go to college again? I wanna hear your experience.
Did academics work out for you?
A financebro friend from my old school called this morning to catch up after some time and I've come to notice uni education is absolutely shit. He asked for investment funds from his family back then and now has a tech startup. We used to scold him for not pursuing higher education and now all of my acquanitances who went to uni are either struggling to find jobs or wasting away in a low pay 9-5.What went wrong? Did you benefit from higher education? What did you study if it did? What did you study if it didn't? What would you pursue if you had the chance to go to college again? I wanna hear your experience.
R: 15 / I: 1
I also oppose the family: I don't mean a half-assed petite bourgeoisie position of "i oppose the trad. west family, but i support SSUs\ polyamory\ single parent " NO!! I oppose ANY AND ALL family-unit, and exalt the individual among all. I, also, wish to work towards these changes.
Which career path is best for me??
anarcokiddism legitimate life goal
I want to become either a lawyer, a social worker, or a psychiatrist SPECIFICALLY to divorce Parental Authority from Legal Power over children. I don't like that two humans have legal "ownership" of a third human, merely because they choose to have sex. I believe that the State should, or, MUST, provide children, teenagers, etc, with work permits, housing opportunities, etc so they can leave the Parental house as soon as they wish.I also oppose the family: I don't mean a half-assed petite bourgeoisie position of "i oppose the trad. west family, but i support SSUs\ polyamory\ single parent " NO!! I oppose ANY AND ALL family-unit, and exalt the individual among all. I, also, wish to work towards these changes.
Which career path is best for me??
R: 1 / I: 0
>Posing as a 49-year-old teacher and “Z poet” named Gennady Rakitin and using an AI-generated profile picture, a group of activists began posting Russian translations of poems by Nazi writers on the VK social network as an experiment in summer 2023, Zakharov said.
>Replacing the original poems’ references to Germany and Nazi soldiers with mention of Russia and Wagner Group fighters, those behind the Rakitin character aimed to highlight the absurdity of Russian government notions of patriotism in what Zakharov called a “work of conceptual anti-war art”.
>By the time of Zakharov’s post revealing the true nature of the poems, over 2,200 people had become “friends” with Rakitin on VK, including former Roscosmos space agency head Dmitry Rogozin, senator Andrey Klishas and presidential culture advisor Yelena Yampolskaya.
https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/06/29/over-100-russian-officials-fall-for-nazi-poetry-prank-pulled-by-anti-war-activists-en-news
I have used VK, and through my account left on VK, I quickly found his account:
https://vk.com/rakitin75
Actually, on VK, as long as you're willing to send friend requests, getting thousands of friends isn't hard. I think they must have specifically sent friend requests to Russian officials.
I can tell that some people here who claim to be from non-English speaking countries are fake because even in the higher trafficked /pol/, you rarely see people from those regions. As for me, I have visited many websites, and appearing here is just a part of my many online journeys. However, I have not spoken much on many other websites because my energy does not allow it. Of course, I also cannot say 'Hello, I am Chinese' on some anti-China forums.
I still believe we should remain cautious towards individuals claiming certain identities or origins unless they can provide clear evidence. If they can't, we shouldn't trust them easily. I think that after surfing the internet for so long, you should be able to use some internet slang to determine where someone is actually from, especially if they are a young person who likes to talk a lot and should be familiar with internet culture. For example, a sentence filled with puns and the latest popular memes can often expose many who claim to be foreigners from the US, particularly in subcultures and political communities where memes and disguises are prevalent. These are things that AI and search engines can't teach. You should also use things that only locals would understand but rarely appear online, such as experiences with education and exams, local IDs, etc. However, I'm not very sure how to judge someone claiming to be from a certain industry since I'm not from that industry myself. I can usually understand political satire in my native language. If an account is intentionally trying to deceive people, it either has a small amount of traffic or, if the traffic increases, it will have its suspicious points noticed by people from various parts of the internet.The Russian news account previously had not much traffic, but the last post, which revealed its true nature, gained a lot of traffic.
>2023 年夏天，一群活动分子开始在 VK 社交网络上发布纳粹作家诗歌的俄语翻译，作为一项实验。他们假扮为 49 岁的教师和“Z 诗人”根纳迪·拉基京 (Gennady Rakitin)，并使用人工智能生成的个人资料图片。
>创作者用拉基京这一角色取代了原诗中对德国和纳粹士兵的提及，转而提及俄罗斯和瓦格纳集团的战士，旨在强调俄罗斯政府爱国主义观念的荒谬性，扎哈罗夫称其为“概念性反战艺术作品”。
>截至扎哈罗夫发帖揭露这些诗歌的真面目时，VK 上已有超过 2,200 人与拉基京成为“好友”，其中包括前俄罗斯航天局局长德米特里·罗戈津、参议员安德烈·克利沙斯和总统文化顾问叶列娜·亚姆波尔斯卡娅。
原文来自https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/06/29/over-100-russian-officials-fall-for-nazi-poetry-prank-pulled-by-anti-war-activists-en-news
我使用过vk，通过我留在vk上的账号我很快找到了他的账号
https://vk.com/rakitin75
其实vk上只要你肯发好友请求那么几千的好友不是难事，我想他们是应该特意去向俄罗斯官员发送好友请求的。
我记得一开始来这里的时候很多人都对我的身份提出了质疑，认为我不是一个真正的中国人，一开始我有些恼火后来我觉得保持警惕是正常的。在当今混乱无序的互联网里，伪装身份的人大有人在。
我能判断出这里一些仿照我声称来自非英语国家的人是伪装的，因为即使在流量较大的/pol/里都不曾见到这些地区的人。至于我是一个访问过很多网站的人，出现在这里是我许多网络旅程的一个插曲，不过我没在很多其它网站发过言，我的精力不允许这样，当然我也不能在一些反华的论坛说“你好我是一个中国人”。
我依然认为我们要对一些声称是什么什么身份来自哪里哪里的人保持一种谨慎态度，如果来者拿不出什么明确的证据就不要轻易相信（我认为在网络冲浪了那么久你们应该会使用一些网络用语判断他到底来不来自哪里，特别是他是一个喜欢侃侃而谈的理应懂得网络流行文化的年轻人，我想一个夹带大量谐音和最新流行梗的句子就能识破许多声称自己来自美国的外国人，特别是在梗和喜欢伪装的人盛行的亚文化与政治社区，这些东西是ai和搜索教不会的，当然也应该使用一些自己作为本地人都懂但是网络上很少出现的东西，比如教育生涯必须经历的学业和考试、本地护照等。不过我不怎么清楚怎么判断声称自己来自某某行业的人，毕竟我也不是该行业的人；属于母语的来自政治上的反讽我一般都看得懂。如果一个存心想骗人的账号它要么流量小，要么流量大起来露出马脚，新闻的俄罗斯账号之前的流量其实不大，只是最后一条亮出实质的发言收获了很多流量）
How to recognize irony and disguise?
I remember when I first came here, many people questioned my identity, thinking that I was not a real Chinese. At first, I was a bit annoyed, but later I felt that being cautious is normal. In today's chaotic and disordered internet, there are many people who disguise their identities.>Posing as a 49-year-old teacher and “Z poet” named Gennady Rakitin and using an AI-generated profile picture, a group of activists began posting Russian translations of poems by Nazi writers on the VK social network as an experiment in summer 2023, Zakharov said.
>Replacing the original poems’ references to Germany and Nazi soldiers with mention of Russia and Wagner Group fighters, those behind the Rakitin character aimed to highlight the absurdity of Russian government notions of patriotism in what Zakharov called a “work of conceptual anti-war art”.
>By the time of Zakharov’s post revealing the true nature of the poems, over 2,200 people had become “friends” with Rakitin on VK, including former Roscosmos space agency head Dmitry Rogozin, senator Andrey Klishas and presidential culture advisor Yelena Yampolskaya.
https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/06/29/over-100-russian-officials-fall-for-nazi-poetry-prank-pulled-by-anti-war-activists-en-news
I have used VK, and through my account left on VK, I quickly found his account:
https://vk.com/rakitin75
Actually, on VK, as long as you're willing to send friend requests, getting thousands of friends isn't hard. I think they must have specifically sent friend requests to Russian officials.
I can tell that some people here who claim to be from non-English speaking countries are fake because even in the higher trafficked /pol/, you rarely see people from those regions. As for me, I have visited many websites, and appearing here is just a part of my many online journeys. However, I have not spoken much on many other websites because my energy does not allow it. Of course, I also cannot say 'Hello, I am Chinese' on some anti-China forums.
I still believe we should remain cautious towards individuals claiming certain identities or origins unless they can provide clear evidence. If they can't, we shouldn't trust them easily. I think that after surfing the internet for so long, you should be able to use some internet slang to determine where someone is actually from, especially if they are a young person who likes to talk a lot and should be familiar with internet culture. For example, a sentence filled with puns and the latest popular memes can often expose many who claim to be foreigners from the US, particularly in subcultures and political communities where memes and disguises are prevalent. These are things that AI and search engines can't teach. You should also use things that only locals would understand but rarely appear online, such as experiences with education and exams, local IDs, etc. However, I'm not very sure how to judge someone claiming to be from a certain industry since I'm not from that industry myself. I can usually understand political satire in my native language. If an account is intentionally trying to deceive people, it either has a small amount of traffic or, if the traffic increases, it will have its suspicious points noticed by people from various parts of the internet.The Russian news account previously had not much traffic, but the last post, which revealed its true nature, gained a lot of traffic.
>2023 年夏天，一群活动分子开始在 VK 社交网络上发布纳粹作家诗歌的俄语翻译，作为一项实验。他们假扮为 49 岁的教师和“Z 诗人”根纳迪·拉基京 (Gennady Rakitin)，并使用人工智能生成的个人资料图片。
>创作者用拉基京这一角色取代了原诗中对德国和纳粹士兵的提及，转而提及俄罗斯和瓦格纳集团的战士，旨在强调俄罗斯政府爱国主义观念的荒谬性，扎哈罗夫称其为“概念性反战艺术作品”。
>截至扎哈罗夫发帖揭露这些诗歌的真面目时，VK 上已有超过 2,200 人与拉基京成为“好友”，其中包括前俄罗斯航天局局长德米特里·罗戈津、参议员安德烈·克利沙斯和总统文化顾问叶列娜·亚姆波尔斯卡娅。
原文来自https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/06/29/over-100-russian-officials-fall-for-nazi-poetry-prank-pulled-by-anti-war-activists-en-news
我使用过vk，通过我留在vk上的账号我很快找到了他的账号
https://vk.com/rakitin75
其实vk上只要你肯发好友请求那么几千的好友不是难事，我想他们是应该特意去向俄罗斯官员发送好友请求的。
我记得一开始来这里的时候很多人都对我的身份提出了质疑，认为我不是一个真正的中国人，一开始我有些恼火后来我觉得保持警惕是正常的。在当今混乱无序的互联网里，伪装身份的人大有人在。
我能判断出这里一些仿照我声称来自非英语国家的人是伪装的，因为即使在流量较大的/pol/里都不曾见到这些地区的人。至于我是一个访问过很多网站的人，出现在这里是我许多网络旅程的一个插曲，不过我没在很多其它网站发过言，我的精力不允许这样，当然我也不能在一些反华的论坛说“你好我是一个中国人”。
我依然认为我们要对一些声称是什么什么身份来自哪里哪里的人保持一种谨慎态度，如果来者拿不出什么明确的证据就不要轻易相信（我认为在网络冲浪了那么久你们应该会使用一些网络用语判断他到底来不来自哪里，特别是他是一个喜欢侃侃而谈的理应懂得网络流行文化的年轻人，我想一个夹带大量谐音和最新流行梗的句子就能识破许多声称自己来自美国的外国人，特别是在梗和喜欢伪装的人盛行的亚文化与政治社区，这些东西是ai和搜索教不会的，当然也应该使用一些自己作为本地人都懂但是网络上很少出现的东西，比如教育生涯必须经历的学业和考试、本地护照等。不过我不怎么清楚怎么判断声称自己来自某某行业的人，毕竟我也不是该行业的人；属于母语的来自政治上的反讽我一般都看得懂。如果一个存心想骗人的账号它要么流量小，要么流量大起来露出马脚，新闻的俄罗斯账号之前的流量其实不大，只是最后一条亮出实质的发言收获了很多流量）
R: 2 / I: 0
Gramsci
What should i read before tackling Gramsci? Gramsci seems to me a monumental figure whom i must read if I were to understand the world a little better. For these reasons I don't want to rush it. What are the works I need to read before him, and what book of his should i start with?
R: 24 / I: 10
/CHARTS/ THREAD
Post charts.
R: 6 / I: 0
OTOH if Atheism is true ,and I eventually find out in the future, I would-have wasted decades of my life, so better to take on the strongest atheist arguments now, see if I can tank them -or not- and go from there.
tl;dr: Give the best books about Atheism, from scientific POV such as Darwinism, Cosmology, geological time; or philosophy and social sciences (history of Ideas, archeology, sociology and studies on mental health, or, even brain scan\ neurology\ biological clinical science about belief)
crossroads of life: recommend books
Im at crossroads between joining - or applying for- a catholic seminary, OR, becoming a (non-militant, but firmly (non?) believing Atheist) . It may sound extreme or stupid but consider this: IF God exists, he exists absolutely and all his attributes are true (remember im working within a catholic framework), this means hell is absolutely true, as is heaven; as I genuinely dislike sex, I won't get married ever–why not go full the mile and be a priest? or at least Brother, Canon,etc? seems rational.OTOH if Atheism is true ,and I eventually find out in the future, I would-have wasted decades of my life, so better to take on the strongest atheist arguments now, see if I can tank them -or not- and go from there.
tl;dr: Give the best books about Atheism, from scientific POV such as Darwinism, Cosmology, geological time; or philosophy and social sciences (history of Ideas, archeology, sociology and studies on mental health, or, even brain scan\ neurology\ biological clinical science about belief)
R: 0 / I: 0
- Capitalist
- Comprador (tokens, social justice inactivists, plastic shamans, …)
- Labor Aristocracy (WASPs)
- Declassed (survivors of cultural genocide and white women, incarcerated, disabled, queer, certain immigrants, etc…)
- Working Class (the inherited working class, Indigenous, Black, etc…)
In my opinion, much of Communism consists of the labor aristocracy arguing with the declassed and comprador classes.
Is there any theory which discusses the declassed groups in more detail?
In my opinion, the declassed are an extremely confusing mix of reactionary and revolutionary sentiment. They are born into indoctrination with capitalist sentiment but do not benefit from this. Essentially, they are just really confused. It's not about oppression Olympics, just whether you were likely to hear that the Black Panthers were based growing up.
The Black Panthers discussed the white declassed a little but failed to go into detail. What is important is that the leading fringe of the white declassed will always be the disabled, transsexuals, queers, women and so on.
What role can these semi-revolutionary groups play? Historically, the declassed have often fallen into the control of full reaction, into the sway of comprador inactivists or the labor aristocracy.
Theory on the declassed of the imperial core?
My analysis of the imperial core.- Capitalist
- Comprador (tokens, social justice inactivists, plastic shamans, …)
- Labor Aristocracy (WASPs)
- Declassed (survivors of cultural genocide and white women, incarcerated, disabled, queer, certain immigrants, etc…)
- Working Class (the inherited working class, Indigenous, Black, etc…)
In my opinion, much of Communism consists of the labor aristocracy arguing with the declassed and comprador classes.
Is there any theory which discusses the declassed groups in more detail?
In my opinion, the declassed are an extremely confusing mix of reactionary and revolutionary sentiment. They are born into indoctrination with capitalist sentiment but do not benefit from this. Essentially, they are just really confused. It's not about oppression Olympics, just whether you were likely to hear that the Black Panthers were based growing up.
The Black Panthers discussed the white declassed a little but failed to go into detail. What is important is that the leading fringe of the white declassed will always be the disabled, transsexuals, queers, women and so on.
What role can these semi-revolutionary groups play? Historically, the declassed have often fallen into the control of full reaction, into the sway of comprador inactivists or the labor aristocracy.
R: 4 / I: 1
SERIOUS ECONOMICS BOOKS THREAD
So, before the site went down there was a thread about serious, rigorous, economic books about socialism, and economics in general, so, not "pop economics", anyway, any good recommendation of serious economics books? R: 2 / I: 0
Histories on why certain instances of decolonisation were more violent than others?
Title. Answers to this question are also cool- have read Fanon in preparation for multiple essays on the topic and want to back it up with historical context. Obviously preferably dialectically materialist histories recently published. Africa preferred.
R: 51 / I: 17
>Cool Paper: Comparison of the Assemblages of Sap-Feeding Insects (Homoptera-Hemiptera) Inhabiting Two Structurally Different Salt Marsh Grasses in the Genus Spartina
Abstract: The vegetation of New Jersey tidal salt marshes is composed primarily of 2 grasses; Spartina patens , which occupies a narrow elevational zone of high marsh and Spartina alterniflora , an intertidal species. S. patens forms a dense, persistent, thatch, while S. alterniflora produces only a loose lattice of litter which rapidly decomposes.
A comparison between the guilds of sap-feeding insects (for the most part, Delphacidae, Cicadellidae, Issidae, and Miridae) inhabiting these grasses reveals S. patens housing a much more diverse assemblage of herbivores than S. alterniflora. S. alterniflora -inhabiting species are exclusively bi- or trivoltine, while on S. patens , sap-feeders possess a greater variety of life history types and show a specialized trend toward univoltinism.
Removal of only the dead thatch portion of S. patens results in reduced species diversity and evenness of sap-feeders on the living grass system. Trivoltine species, which normally inhabit the upper strata of S. patens , increase their populations on dethatched grass compared to the unaltered grass system.
Both empirical and experimental evidence suggests that the complex microstructure and thatch of S. patens provide a more heterogeneous and protective resource which supports a more diverse and specialized fauna of sap-feeders than S. alterniflora
>tldr: Salt marshes have low elevated sections that recieve more flooding dominated by S. alterniflora and high elevated sections dominated by S. patens. An important group of herbivores within the whole salt marsh are Sap feeding planthoppers and it turns out the areas of High marsh with dense stands of S. patens that form thatch having the greatest species richness of plant hoppers. Not only were there more species but many univoltine(only one generation at a specific time of year) specialists were restricted to this microhabitat. Another thing I enjoy about this paper is that even though delphacid planthoppers ended up being the focus many other members of the sap-sucker insect herbivore feeding guild that are present in the Salt Marsh are still briefly mentioned.
<The Question: What is the local ecology around you like Anon? I for one am in a temperate(Humid Subtropical to be exact) coastal plain area with a fuckton of fresh and salt water wetlands but also many areas of ruderal ecosystems due to urban sprawl and the ensuing neglect of said sprawl.
/Eco/ology General
General thread for all things related to the field of Ecology, a subfield of Biology that focuses on studying ecosystems. Not sure what else to stay to start the new thread other than may you have biodiverse and healthy ecosystem wherever you may stay at and here is this cool paper I read and a question:>Cool Paper: Comparison of the Assemblages of Sap-Feeding Insects (Homoptera-Hemiptera) Inhabiting Two Structurally Different Salt Marsh Grasses in the Genus Spartina
Abstract: The vegetation of New Jersey tidal salt marshes is composed primarily of 2 grasses; Spartina patens , which occupies a narrow elevational zone of high marsh and Spartina alterniflora , an intertidal species. S. patens forms a dense, persistent, thatch, while S. alterniflora produces only a loose lattice of litter which rapidly decomposes.
A comparison between the guilds of sap-feeding insects (for the most part, Delphacidae, Cicadellidae, Issidae, and Miridae) inhabiting these grasses reveals S. patens housing a much more diverse assemblage of herbivores than S. alterniflora. S. alterniflora -inhabiting species are exclusively bi- or trivoltine, while on S. patens , sap-feeders possess a greater variety of life history types and show a specialized trend toward univoltinism.
Removal of only the dead thatch portion of S. patens results in reduced species diversity and evenness of sap-feeders on the living grass system. Trivoltine species, which normally inhabit the upper strata of S. patens , increase their populations on dethatched grass compared to the unaltered grass system.
Both empirical and experimental evidence suggests that the complex microstructure and thatch of S. patens provide a more heterogeneous and protective resource which supports a more diverse and specialized fauna of sap-feeders than S. alterniflora
>tldr: Salt marshes have low elevated sections that recieve more flooding dominated by S. alterniflora and high elevated sections dominated by S. patens. An important group of herbivores within the whole salt marsh are Sap feeding planthoppers and it turns out the areas of High marsh with dense stands of S. patens that form thatch having the greatest species richness of plant hoppers. Not only were there more species but many univoltine(only one generation at a specific time of year) specialists were restricted to this microhabitat. Another thing I enjoy about this paper is that even though delphacid planthoppers ended up being the focus many other members of the sap-sucker insect herbivore feeding guild that are present in the Salt Marsh are still briefly mentioned.
<The Question: What is the local ecology around you like Anon? I for one am in a temperate(Humid Subtropical to be exact) coastal plain area with a fuckton of fresh and salt water wetlands but also many areas of ruderal ecosystems due to urban sprawl and the ensuing neglect of said sprawl.
R: 0 / I: 0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRvcGP1ALvI
https://mronline.org/2017/08/26/a-critique-of-david-harveys-analysis-of-imperialism/
https://roape.net/2018/01/10/david-harvey-denies-imperialism/
https://roape.net/2018/02/05/realities-ground-david-harvey-replies-john-smith/
https://roape.net/2018/03/19/imperialist-realities-vs-the-myths-of-david-harvey/
I also linked these for my reading group as additional data:
https://monthlyreview.org/2019/03/01/global-commodity-chains-and-the-new-imperialism/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-49687-y
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937802200005X?via%3Dihub
Secondly, and more broadly, is the view of stock market bubbles forming due to speculation and the discontinuity between stock price and actual value an accurate assessment? Because of massive price gauging and speculation for textiles, garments, tech, housing, coffee, etc it seems to me like a large portion of many western economies or at least the US economy is sitting on a large bubble across almost all industries, and i've heard talks of an oncoming economic disaster from people of all flavors. Could mass tariffs and import restrictions on the global commodity chain bring about the popping of these bubbles?
Imperialism in the 21st Century, Harvey vs Smith, commodity chain, etc...
My reading group at uni is reading Imperialism in the 21st Century by John Smith. Is my diagram that i quickly drew up a good supplement for it? Is constant capital attributed to GDP? I would assume when analyzing a commodity's exchange value it doesn't but when we look at the actual commodities, raw materials, etc that make up constant capital it would already have been factored into GDP. Therefor there would be no need to factor in constant capital again… Also I know how much shit flinging occurs on here about value created through labor in the west being "more productive," so more value is created than "unproductive third world labor" vs the inverse of that position; the length of the values in the diagram is arbitrary and constrained for space reasons, not because i think one way or another; but feel free to argue ig. I mean, has anyone read the polemics of Harvey and Smith? They are sassy as fuck and hilarious. Disappointing though to see Harvey to take such a vague and stance on modern imperialism, as well as the dissavowment of China by Smith because of alleged "Stalinism" (lol). I'll link the first video and four polemics they directed at eachother:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRvcGP1ALvI
https://mronline.org/2017/08/26/a-critique-of-david-harveys-analysis-of-imperialism/
https://roape.net/2018/01/10/david-harvey-denies-imperialism/
https://roape.net/2018/02/05/realities-ground-david-harvey-replies-john-smith/
https://roape.net/2018/03/19/imperialist-realities-vs-the-myths-of-david-harvey/
I also linked these for my reading group as additional data:
https://monthlyreview.org/2019/03/01/global-commodity-chains-and-the-new-imperialism/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-49687-y
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937802200005X?via%3Dihub
Secondly, and more broadly, is the view of stock market bubbles forming due to speculation and the discontinuity between stock price and actual value an accurate assessment? Because of massive price gauging and speculation for textiles, garments, tech, housing, coffee, etc it seems to me like a large portion of many western economies or at least the US economy is sitting on a large bubble across almost all industries, and i've heard talks of an oncoming economic disaster from people of all flavors. Could mass tariffs and import restrictions on the global commodity chain bring about the popping of these bubbles?
R: 7 / I: 0
I do not care about the /leftypol/ mob, I love reading Thomas Piketty.
>waaaah but his solutions are too soft
Blah blah blah. The thick of his work, 99% of it, is just compiling and analyzing heaps of data, which he does exceptionally well.
I do not care about the /leftypol/ mob, I love reading Thomas Piketty.
>waaaah but his solutions are too soft
Blah blah blah. The thick of his work, 99% of it, is just compiling and analyzing heaps of data, which he does exceptionally well.
R: 16 / I: 3
For starters, the book is objectively terrible from a literary standpoint (like most Utopian novels honestly, it's a shit genre). Every chapter is dedicated to some aspect of the Walden Two "Utopia" and consists of Frazier, P.F Skinner's self insert character in the novel, explaining why Walden Two is so epic and based and wonderful in X aspect to bland and unoriginal to a small cast of forgettable characters visiting Walden Two for no reason other than to be ranted at by Frazier apparently.
Walden Two's "Utopia" is ran by a professional caste of Planners (unelected, naturally, not even held in check by a Party of any kind) set apart from the usual workers who run and plan everything and use Radical Behaviorism (essentially mind control through selected use of pleasure and pain) to alter the needs, wants, and desires of its citizens to conform better to society's needs. It's funny how the book is structured to make this seem like a good thing. Many chapters go to great lengths to explain why Walden Two is a haven for art, culture, shorter working hours, better working conditions, etc, in order to justify this behavioral altering. The chapter on education shows hungry children made to sit in front of food for hours at a time without eating it in order to build "patience". One can only imagine the child abuse going on behind the scenes to make this sort of lunacy possible. Walden Two is the sort of book that is in favor of beating your children.
Towards the end of the book it's revealed that Frazier is a complete egomaniac who personally runs and plans much of Walden Two (But um, actualleh that's totally OK b/c Walden Two has a 4 hour work week!!!!). He compares himself to Jesus Christ and his fellow Planners as his disciples.
Walden Two takes the liberal argument "hurr durr, muh human nature means ppl too greedy for socialist utopia" and responds with "You're correct, people are greedy and evil! Let's MIND CONTROL people into being selfless!" instead of refuting the initial argument as liberal bullshit.
All attempts at implementing Walden Two IRL are either hippie communes that have long since abandoned Skinner's philosophy (as they should) or dystopian torture nightmares that take Frazier's egomania in the original novel to the extreme. The most notable modern-day Walden Two inspired project is the Judge Rotenburg Center founded by Matthew Israel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Israel) which tortures autistic children with their patented Graduated Electronic Decelerator whenever they act out (or scream in pain when being shocked, or fail to reply when greeted, or break some other minor rule). This Matthew Israel guy studied Behaviorism under P.F Skinner, read & loved Walden Two as his favorite novel, and literally has a Disney Villain backstory where he realized he can control people through pain and founds a school to continue doing just that.
The reason that Walden Two utopianism never had a significant conservative backlash during the Cold War is that it specifically appealed to middle-upper class professionals with its Technocratic elements, selling them the idea of being Planners in a new society where they are given the power to torture and alter the minds of Proletarians underneath them to serve their agenda.
Worst book ever 0/10 do not recommend. Read it if you are a Technocrat Fascist who wants to torture proletarians and want a professional caste to be intentionally put above said proletarians.
Walden Two is the worst book I've ever had the displeasure of reading
This utopian garbage by P.F Skinner (Yes, THAT Skinner, for whom the Skinner Box is named after) has no right to be called a socialist novel and anyone who says it is is delusional.For starters, the book is objectively terrible from a literary standpoint (like most Utopian novels honestly, it's a shit genre). Every chapter is dedicated to some aspect of the Walden Two "Utopia" and consists of Frazier, P.F Skinner's self insert character in the novel, explaining why Walden Two is so epic and based and wonderful in X aspect to bland and unoriginal to a small cast of forgettable characters visiting Walden Two for no reason other than to be ranted at by Frazier apparently.
Walden Two's "Utopia" is ran by a professional caste of Planners (unelected, naturally, not even held in check by a Party of any kind) set apart from the usual workers who run and plan everything and use Radical Behaviorism (essentially mind control through selected use of pleasure and pain) to alter the needs, wants, and desires of its citizens to conform better to society's needs. It's funny how the book is structured to make this seem like a good thing. Many chapters go to great lengths to explain why Walden Two is a haven for art, culture, shorter working hours, better working conditions, etc, in order to justify this behavioral altering. The chapter on education shows hungry children made to sit in front of food for hours at a time without eating it in order to build "patience". One can only imagine the child abuse going on behind the scenes to make this sort of lunacy possible. Walden Two is the sort of book that is in favor of beating your children.
Towards the end of the book it's revealed that Frazier is a complete egomaniac who personally runs and plans much of Walden Two (But um, actualleh that's totally OK b/c Walden Two has a 4 hour work week!!!!). He compares himself to Jesus Christ and his fellow Planners as his disciples.
Walden Two takes the liberal argument "hurr durr, muh human nature means ppl too greedy for socialist utopia" and responds with "You're correct, people are greedy and evil! Let's MIND CONTROL people into being selfless!" instead of refuting the initial argument as liberal bullshit.
All attempts at implementing Walden Two IRL are either hippie communes that have long since abandoned Skinner's philosophy (as they should) or dystopian torture nightmares that take Frazier's egomania in the original novel to the extreme. The most notable modern-day Walden Two inspired project is the Judge Rotenburg Center founded by Matthew Israel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Israel) which tortures autistic children with their patented Graduated Electronic Decelerator whenever they act out (or scream in pain when being shocked, or fail to reply when greeted, or break some other minor rule). This Matthew Israel guy studied Behaviorism under P.F Skinner, read & loved Walden Two as his favorite novel, and literally has a Disney Villain backstory where he realized he can control people through pain and founds a school to continue doing just that.
The reason that Walden Two utopianism never had a significant conservative backlash during the Cold War is that it specifically appealed to middle-upper class professionals with its Technocratic elements, selling them the idea of being Planners in a new society where they are given the power to torture and alter the minds of Proletarians underneath them to serve their agenda.
Worst book ever 0/10 do not recommend. Read it if you are a Technocrat Fascist who wants to torture proletarians and want a professional caste to be intentionally put above said proletarians.
R: 34 / I: 5
Which ones are the best combination of being essential, uncomplicated and short?
The ultimate starter pack
If you guys had to pick 4 short books as the ultimate starter pack on /leftypol/itics, which ones would you pick?Which ones are the best combination of being essential, uncomplicated and short?
R: 1 / I: 0
This obviously flies in the face of historical materialism, which is a pretty key part of Marxist theory. So I'm interested to hear what you guys have to say about it. Is he right? Or is there something he missed?
The Poverty of Historicism
I read The Poverty of Historicism by Karl Popper recently, and it was an interesting book. The overally thesis is that unified theories of history and don't make sense, and that it's impossible for us to reliably guess the direction society will take in the future.This obviously flies in the face of historical materialism, which is a pretty key part of Marxist theory. So I'm interested to hear what you guys have to say about it. Is he right? Or is there something he missed?
R: 2 / I: 0
Why Alisa Rosenbaum (((Ayn Rand))) in any their created novels fuck with different people for free?
She are commie?
The body was too short or empty.The body was too short or empty.The body was too short or empty.The body was too short or empty.The body was too short or empty.The body was too short or empty.The body was too short or empty.
Why Alisa Rosenbaum (((Ayn Rand))) in any their created novels fuck with different people for free?
She are commie?
The body was too short or empty.The body was too short or empty.The body was too short or empty.The body was too short or empty.The body was too short or empty.The body was too short or empty.The body was too short or empty.
R: 0 / I: 0
What are the best books on domestic imperialism? I suppose I'd be most interested in the struggle of the Black nation and the Indigenous nations in Anglo-America.
I've read the basics of Lenin's "Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism" and I'm in the process of reading Kwame Nkrumah's "Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism". I've read a few writings of the Black Panthers.
I think I probably want to read "Golden Gulag" next.
What are the best books on domestic imperialism? I suppose I'd be most interested in the struggle of the Black nation and the Indigenous nations in Anglo-America.
I've read the basics of Lenin's "Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism" and I'm in the process of reading Kwame Nkrumah's "Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism". I've read a few writings of the Black Panthers.
I think I probably want to read "Golden Gulag" next.
R: 164 / I: 147
"The X-Files got nothing on this shit"
This Thread is dedicated for the discussion, analysis and reveal of obscure information on the shadowy hands of capitalism and fascism - the federal agents - and their efforts as part of the porky hydra. Propaganda and conspiracies of these Alphabet agencies and their impacts today and past are to be discussed.
Information and discussion on the OSS and NSA or equivalent government agencies of other countries - such as MI6 of Britain or the Nazi Gestapo - are also encouraged to be posted. KGB and FSB can be discussed too.
Technology for spying and espionage are also welcome. NATO and US military abuses or the affairs of corporate military-industrial complexes that are covered or hushed up also apply. Whistleblowers like Assange and Snowden are permitted sources of information as well.
Please contribute to leftypedia >>3780
Debunking anti-leftist myths >>4210 including debunking of "Le Holohoax"
https://leftypedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency
https://leftypedia.org/wiki/List_of_atrocities_committed_by_the_United_States
Rules: No idpol drama, no anti-communist rhetoric, no sectarianism, no soyjak spam or emotional gaslighting; Glowies Keep Out!
Major Topics:
>Anti-Communist Action:
- Operation Gladio https://leftypedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio
- COINTELPRO
- Radio Free Europe
- Use of Nazis for Propaganda
- Operation Dropshot & Operation Unthinkable
- Bay of Pigs Invasion
- CIA coups (Color Revolutions)
- Assassinations and Murders of Leftist Leaders
>Inhumane and humanitarian abuses:
- Guantanamo and illegal detainment camps + torture https://archive.ph/nXR6x
- MK ULTRA
- Plutonium Experiments
- Tuskegee Syphilis 'vaccinations'
- Depleted Uranium (DU), Agent Orange, Napalm and White Phosphorus in US Military use
- Macnamara's Project 100,000
>Miscellaneous
- Operation North Woods
- KKK Police and FBI informants
- Corporate and Political Support of Nazi Germany's rise
- Operation Mockingbird
- The Bohemian Grove and Bildeburg Meetings
- NGOs and funding of Color Revolutions https://leftypedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_Democracy
- Israeli attack on the USS Liberty
- Tonkin Gulf Attack
- 9/11 attacks https://leftypedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks
- Flouride in water
- Shooters and Right-wing riots
- Cultural Marxism and co-opting infiltration of liberal "rights" movements
- Operation Earnest Voice
- Operation Paperclip
- Industrial Espionage
Recommended literature:
>Fraud, Famine, and Fascism: the Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard by Douglas Tottle
Argues that charges of a deliberate Soviet policy of genocide by famine directed against the Ukrainian nation in the early 1930s are based on inflated figures and fabricated evidence created by the Nazis and propagated by their US backers and ideological yes-men.
>War Is A Racket By Smedley Butler https://archive.ph/YI1pK https://archive.ph/fisL8
A speech and a 1935 pamphlet by Smedley Darlington Butler, a retired United States Marine Corps Major General and two-time Medal of Honor recipient. Based on his career military experience, Butler discusses how business interests commercially benefit, such as war profiteering from warfare. At the time of his mysterious death, Smedley D. Butler also known as "The Fighting Quaker", was the most decorated Marine in US history and had fought in nearly every major American Conflict in his lifetime.
>Confessions of an Economic Hit Man & The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins
A semi-autobiographical book detailing his efforts as an EHM in cheating money out of people.
>Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion by journalist Gary Webb
The title speaks for itself; it is a collection of the Dark Alliance series of journalistic articles published by the author detailing the methods of the CIA in funneling drugs into Ghettos, prior to his shotgun-to-the-back-of-his-head suicide
>Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II by William Blum
A detailed analysis of the post WW2 imperialism of the USA and an update on the previous book The CIA - A Forgotten History (1986)
>THE GUNS OF AUGUST: Nazis, NATO and the Color Revolutions https://archive.ph/O9Lnh
Color Revolutions in Eastern Europe
>Death Over Sakhalin by Bill Purkayastha
A detailed analysis of the KA-007 flight that had been intercepted and shot down by a Soviet Su-15 fighter and the lies made up about it.
list of others https://archive.ph/8xI83
CIA / FBI / Fed / Glowie / Conspiracy
CIA / FBI / Fed / Conspiracy General"The X-Files got nothing on this shit"
This Thread is dedicated for the discussion, analysis and reveal of obscure information on the shadowy hands of capitalism and fascism - the federal agents - and their efforts as part of the porky hydra. Propaganda and conspiracies of these Alphabet agencies and their impacts today and past are to be discussed.
Information and discussion on the OSS and NSA or equivalent government agencies of other countries - such as MI6 of Britain or the Nazi Gestapo - are also encouraged to be posted. KGB and FSB can be discussed too.
Technology for spying and espionage are also welcome. NATO and US military abuses or the affairs of corporate military-industrial complexes that are covered or hushed up also apply. Whistleblowers like Assange and Snowden are permitted sources of information as well.
Please contribute to leftypedia >>3780
Debunking anti-leftist myths >>4210 including debunking of "Le Holohoax"
https://leftypedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency
https://leftypedia.org/wiki/List_of_atrocities_committed_by_the_United_States
Rules: No idpol drama, no anti-communist rhetoric, no sectarianism, no soyjak spam or emotional gaslighting; Glowies Keep Out!
Major Topics:
>Anti-Communist Action:
- Operation Gladio https://leftypedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio
- COINTELPRO
- Radio Free Europe
- Use of Nazis for Propaganda
- Operation Dropshot & Operation Unthinkable
- Bay of Pigs Invasion
- CIA coups (Color Revolutions)
- Assassinations and Murders of Leftist Leaders
>Inhumane and humanitarian abuses:
- Guantanamo and illegal detainment camps + torture https://archive.ph/nXR6x
- MK ULTRA
- Plutonium Experiments
- Tuskegee Syphilis 'vaccinations'
- Depleted Uranium (DU), Agent Orange, Napalm and White Phosphorus in US Military use
- Macnamara's Project 100,000
>Miscellaneous
- Operation North Woods
- KKK Police and FBI informants
- Corporate and Political Support of Nazi Germany's rise
- Operation Mockingbird
- The Bohemian Grove and Bildeburg Meetings
- NGOs and funding of Color Revolutions https://leftypedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_Democracy
- Israeli attack on the USS Liberty
- Tonkin Gulf Attack
- 9/11 attacks https://leftypedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks
- Flouride in water
- Shooters and Right-wing riots
- Cultural Marxism and co-opting infiltration of liberal "rights" movements
- Operation Earnest Voice
- Operation Paperclip
- Industrial Espionage
Recommended literature:
>Fraud, Famine, and Fascism: the Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard by Douglas Tottle
Argues that charges of a deliberate Soviet policy of genocide by famine directed against the Ukrainian nation in the early 1930s are based on inflated figures and fabricated evidence created by the Nazis and propagated by their US backers and ideological yes-men.
>War Is A Racket By Smedley Butler https://archive.ph/YI1pK https://archive.ph/fisL8
A speech and a 1935 pamphlet by Smedley Darlington Butler, a retired United States Marine Corps Major General and two-time Medal of Honor recipient. Based on his career military experience, Butler discusses how business interests commercially benefit, such as war profiteering from warfare. At the time of his mysterious death, Smedley D. Butler also known as "The Fighting Quaker", was the most decorated Marine in US history and had fought in nearly every major American Conflict in his lifetime.
>Confessions of an Economic Hit Man & The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins
A semi-autobiographical book detailing his efforts as an EHM in cheating money out of people.
>Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion by journalist Gary Webb
The title speaks for itself; it is a collection of the Dark Alliance series of journalistic articles published by the author detailing the methods of the CIA in funneling drugs into Ghettos, prior to his shotgun-to-the-back-of-his-head suicide
>Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II by William Blum
A detailed analysis of the post WW2 imperialism of the USA and an update on the previous book The CIA - A Forgotten History (1986)
>THE GUNS OF AUGUST: Nazis, NATO and the Color Revolutions https://archive.ph/O9Lnh
Color Revolutions in Eastern Europe
>Death Over Sakhalin by Bill Purkayastha
A detailed analysis of the KA-007 flight that had been intercepted and shot down by a Soviet Su-15 fighter and the lies made up about it.
list of others https://archive.ph/8xI83
R: 10 / I: 2
So I have to ask, what gives? The Arabs were a smart people and castles and fortresses are a fairly useful resource for defeating cavalry forces. Even outside large scale war sand politics, in small petty tribal warfare, they would have been incredibly useful, that's why they appeared so much in Europe and why did the Ottomans adopt them more thoroughly then the Arabs.
Why didn't the Arabs ever build castles?
I recently came across a heritage post about a castle in Lebanon built by the Crusaders, It got me curios and I did some digging and I was surprised to learn that pretty much all castles in the MENA countries were either built by the Crusaders or the later Ottomans.So I have to ask, what gives? The Arabs were a smart people and castles and fortresses are a fairly useful resource for defeating cavalry forces. Even outside large scale war sand politics, in small petty tribal warfare, they would have been incredibly useful, that's why they appeared so much in Europe and why did the Ottomans adopt them more thoroughly then the Arabs.
R: 5 / I: 5
The most deadly human parasites besides top-ranking corporate executives are protozoa, which are single-celled organisms. Some of these tiny creatures (there are over 80,000) have brought humans more misery and death than anything else in history(again, besides CEOs), including wars and famine. The most well known deadly parasitic protozoa is plasmodium, which causes malaria.
Parasites are separated into four main groups: 1) protozoa, which are tiny, one-celled organisms; 2) helminths, or worm parasites, such as tapeworms and pinworms; 3) arthropods, which aren’t parasites themselves, but these insects and spiders are common hosts of parasitic diseases; and 4) top-ranking corporate executives.
Most parasitic infections happen in warm climates or capitalistic societies, such as tropic or subtropic regions or the US healthcare system.
Parasites are the most common form of life on Earth. Scientists believe that over 80% of all living
Modern parasitologists recognize that they have not found all human parasites. They estimate that hundreds if not thousands of human parasites will be found in the coming years.The most deadly human parasites besides top-ranking corporate executives are protozoa, which are single-celled organisms. Some of these tiny creatures (there are over 80,000) have brought humans more misery and death than anything else in history(again, besides CEOs), including wars and famine. The most well known deadly parasitic protozoa is plasmodium, which causes malaria.
Parasites are separated into four main groups: 1) protozoa, which are tiny, one-celled organisms; 2) helminths, or worm parasites, such as tapeworms and pinworms; 3) arthropods, which aren’t parasites themselves, but these insects and spiders are common hosts of parasitic diseases; and 4) top-ranking corporate executives.
Most parasitic infections happen in warm climates or capitalistic societies, such as tropic or subtropic regions or the US healthcare system.
R: 14 / I: 0
Post audiobooks links ITT.
I'll start.
Eric Hobsbawm - On Nationalism
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:538b2a1b18449a0aed1d0d4cad62a98ebdcb88fe
Audiobook Thread
Audiobook thread.Post audiobooks links ITT.
I'll start.
Eric Hobsbawm - On Nationalism
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:538b2a1b18449a0aed1d0d4cad62a98ebdcb88fe
R: 14 / I: 2
Name of a Pre-WW2 German Author
what was the name of that pre-WW2 German author that wrote how stereotypically non "aryan" germans were typically the most fanatical Nazis because they knew that they were on the fringe of being considered racially acceptable. Note how the entire high command of the nazi apparatus were a men who were mostly dark-haired, brown-eyed and somewhat short by german standards and who personally proved the lunacy of the aryan "race" as a concept by their mere existence
R: 19 / I: 7
rice instead of wheat
"About 69 percent of married Asian women are married to Asian men, while 25 percent of married Asian women have white husbands. "But as common as marriages are between Asian women and white men, cohabitations are even more prevalent," says Ono. "In fact, Asian women are more likely to be living with white men than with Asian men. Nearly 45 percent of cohabiting Asian women have white partners, while less than 43 percent have Asian partners." R: 42 / I: 4
It is a well known fact that young males are having less romantic and sexual relationships than ever. Many on the right blame this on feminism which is half true but not the whole truth. The fact is that inceldom is a natural result of late capitalism.
In previous generations these men would have likely graduated (or even dropped out) of high school and gone into a unionized factory or other blue collar job, and made a high enough paycheck to pay for a house and support and spouse that likely didn't work. I tend to think of this documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AAUcmyXbg4 called two american families, which follows two blue collar families one black and one white in the midwest as they live through the deindustrialization of the late 20th/early 21st century and how it kindof destroys them. Not just singleness, but divorce, the breakup of families increased dramatically in this period, and while rightoids are half right to blame "feminism" what they don't realize is that capitalism and increased social liberalization are inherently linked.
In many cultures, especially in the past, marriage wasn't about love so much as duty and obligation to family, ethnic group, god(s), country, etc. Now it is about "enriching the already rich lives" of the people involved. If a market based economy goes on long enough people stop thinking of themselves as members of historically rooted and grounded ethno-religious communities and instead begin to think of themselves as CEOs of a corporation of one.
Capital is a totalizing force which commodifies everything it possibly can, and conservatives who think they can somehow draw a line in the sand at human sexuality and sexual relationships are mistaken. It's too late for that. The demonic entity known as capital has already been summoned, and it can't be controlled. Capitalism will eventually turn all social relations into market relations, making most human relations transactional, and this is the predictable result. In the past a guy would take a girl on a date, and pay for her dinner. Now the girl posts a nude photo on onlyfans which the guy pays for and masturbates over, and the girl uses the money to buy her own dinner on uber eats. What was previously an authentic human relationship has now been intermediated by the market and commodified.
This is on top of the fact that high housing prices (also a a result of late capitalist society) prevents young people from engaging in sexual intercourse for the very simple fact that it's difficult to bring a date over when you live with your parents. And those high housing prices are also the result of commodifying housing and making it a speculative asset inflating the price.
The only way to end inceldom is to establish a form of political economy more conducive to human flourishing. In other words, the only way to decommodify human sexuality is to decommodify everything in general i.e. end capitalism.
materialist analysis of inceldom
A materialist analysis of inceldomIt is a well known fact that young males are having less romantic and sexual relationships than ever. Many on the right blame this on feminism which is half true but not the whole truth. The fact is that inceldom is a natural result of late capitalism.
In previous generations these men would have likely graduated (or even dropped out) of high school and gone into a unionized factory or other blue collar job, and made a high enough paycheck to pay for a house and support and spouse that likely didn't work. I tend to think of this documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AAUcmyXbg4 called two american families, which follows two blue collar families one black and one white in the midwest as they live through the deindustrialization of the late 20th/early 21st century and how it kindof destroys them. Not just singleness, but divorce, the breakup of families increased dramatically in this period, and while rightoids are half right to blame "feminism" what they don't realize is that capitalism and increased social liberalization are inherently linked.
In many cultures, especially in the past, marriage wasn't about love so much as duty and obligation to family, ethnic group, god(s), country, etc. Now it is about "enriching the already rich lives" of the people involved. If a market based economy goes on long enough people stop thinking of themselves as members of historically rooted and grounded ethno-religious communities and instead begin to think of themselves as CEOs of a corporation of one.
Capital is a totalizing force which commodifies everything it possibly can, and conservatives who think they can somehow draw a line in the sand at human sexuality and sexual relationships are mistaken. It's too late for that. The demonic entity known as capital has already been summoned, and it can't be controlled. Capitalism will eventually turn all social relations into market relations, making most human relations transactional, and this is the predictable result. In the past a guy would take a girl on a date, and pay for her dinner. Now the girl posts a nude photo on onlyfans which the guy pays for and masturbates over, and the girl uses the money to buy her own dinner on uber eats. What was previously an authentic human relationship has now been intermediated by the market and commodified.
This is on top of the fact that high housing prices (also a a result of late capitalist society) prevents young people from engaging in sexual intercourse for the very simple fact that it's difficult to bring a date over when you live with your parents. And those high housing prices are also the result of commodifying housing and making it a speculative asset inflating the price.
The only way to end inceldom is to establish a form of political economy more conducive to human flourishing. In other words, the only way to decommodify human sexuality is to decommodify everything in general i.e. end capitalism.
R: 39 / I: 4
If it's only on an epigenetic level, I'm kind of fine with it. As I am with the proven microchimerism through pregnancy. But the thought of microchimerisms potentially occurring as consequence of unprotected vaginal sex alone makes me depressed. Though if I had to guess I'd say only the former two cases are likely to be real.
there's a slim chance that there's some unknown mechanism for the process but the only evidence for that would be circumstantial
>lots of hunter-gatherers believe in it and they know a thing or two about fucking
>scientific institutions are vaguely aligned with societal pressures that went as few pressures on women as possible
>biological knowledge is incomplete
I wouldn't worry about it but I wouldn't be surprised if it were something. If it exists it's probably very minor
If true how do we use it to our advantage?
Telegony
Do you believe in telegony?If it's only on an epigenetic level, I'm kind of fine with it. As I am with the proven microchimerism through pregnancy. But the thought of microchimerisms potentially occurring as consequence of unprotected vaginal sex alone makes me depressed. Though if I had to guess I'd say only the former two cases are likely to be real.
there's a slim chance that there's some unknown mechanism for the process but the only evidence for that would be circumstantial
>lots of hunter-gatherers believe in it and they know a thing or two about fucking
>scientific institutions are vaguely aligned with societal pressures that went as few pressures on women as possible
>biological knowledge is incomplete
I wouldn't worry about it but I wouldn't be surprised if it were something. If it exists it's probably very minor
If true how do we use it to our advantage?
R: 18 / I: 10
Books about other communist revolutions and state establishments are also welcome.
I want to know everything that happened before and after those events occurred
I want to know how the conditions and reasons for revolution happened in the first place
I want to know what happened during the civil wars
I want to know what happened after they won or lost
I want to know what were the mistakes they made
Don't care how many books to get a full understanding but as long as they're credible and good it's fine by me. I prefer PDFs.
Revolution and State
What are the best books on Russian, Chinese and the failed German Revolution and East Germany.Books about other communist revolutions and state establishments are also welcome.
I want to know everything that happened before and after those events occurred
I want to know how the conditions and reasons for revolution happened in the first place
I want to know what happened during the civil wars
I want to know what happened after they won or lost
I want to know what were the mistakes they made
Don't care how many books to get a full understanding but as long as they're credible and good it's fine by me. I prefer PDFs.
R: 9 / I: 0
Any tips?
So what if its hard? Nothing worth having comes easy.
I feel like it'd be a bit hard to structure my studies without guidance though.
How do I learn a subject in-depth without attending college?
I've seen that online courses are a thing but I don't think I could handle that with my autism, plus they seem to cost a fair amount of money most of the timeAny tips?
So what if its hard? Nothing worth having comes easy.
I feel like it'd be a bit hard to structure my studies without guidance though.
R: 2 / I: 1
Other links to his work most welcome.
https://monthlyreview.org/2018/10/01/the-communist-manifesto-170-years-later/
>There is no other text written in the mid-nineteenth century that has held up as well as the Communist Manifesto of 1848 by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Even today, entire paragraphs of the text correspond to contemporary reality better than they did to that of 1848. Starting from premises that were hardly visible in their era, Marx and Engels drew the conclusions that the developments of 170 years of history fully verified.
Last article he wrote, there seems to be a pattern of old theorists turning to the Manifesto. Comrade Xi also emphasises its depth.
Reading Samir Amin
https://monthlyreview.org/author/samiramin/Other links to his work most welcome.
https://monthlyreview.org/2018/10/01/the-communist-manifesto-170-years-later/
>There is no other text written in the mid-nineteenth century that has held up as well as the Communist Manifesto of 1848 by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Even today, entire paragraphs of the text correspond to contemporary reality better than they did to that of 1848. Starting from premises that were hardly visible in their era, Marx and Engels drew the conclusions that the developments of 170 years of history fully verified.
Last article he wrote, there seems to be a pattern of old theorists turning to the Manifesto. Comrade Xi also emphasises its depth.
R: 1 / I: 0
>The body was too short or empty.
>The body was too short or empty.
Dictatorship of the proletariat
What is a dictatorship of the proletariat? I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be a kind of representative democracy, but I'm kind of fuzzy on everything else.>The body was too short or empty.
>The body was too short or empty.
R: 3 / I: 1
I'll start with the classic: How the Steel was Tempered by Nikolai Ostrovsky.
Socialism Realism Novels
Post great socialism realism novels which are worth reading.I'll start with the classic: How the Steel was Tempered by Nikolai Ostrovsky.
R: 9 / I: 3
>They are effectively interchangeable terms since the vast majority of the time you see Perennialism in use it is by a Guenonian Perennialist. The basic idea that all the world's religions are manifestations of the same truth is at least as old as the Renaissance and crops up in the modern day in contexts that have nothing to do with occult fascists though obviously. Huxley would be an example of that.
>But for Guenonian Perennialists, and Nasr is one, it is as far as I know literally all of them besides Wilson. Not all of them very focused on politics, in fact that tends to be the exception rather than the norm. Evola and Dugin are the two big examples of it and Dugin's Guenonianism has always been a bit reserved and mixed with other influences. He was into stuff like Thelema and chaos magic before he got into Guenon and has written critiques of Guenon. When these people do mention politics in passing though it is always in an incredibly reactionary way where they are condemning liberal modernity as an inversion of some pristine traditional (in this perennial occult sense) order. And obviously that carries a condemnation of any possible socialist modernity. Reaction is just inescapable in that view of history, if you see history as a continual degeneration from a lost golden age then you cannot also believe in successively progressive economic stages that are leading to Communism. Every step forward has to be a step downwards.
Gosh what a malicious post in the saged thread. This is surely worthy of a thread.
>They are effectively interchangeable terms since the vast majority of the time you see Perennialism in use it is by a Guenonian Perennialist. The basic idea that all the world's religions are manifestations of the same truth is at least as old as the Renaissance and crops up in the modern day in contexts that have nothing to do with occult fascists though obviously. Huxley would be an example of that.
>But for Guenonian Perennialists, and Nasr is one, it is as far as I know literally all of them besides Wilson. Not all of them very focused on politics, in fact that tends to be the exception rather than the norm. Evola and Dugin are the two big examples of it and Dugin's Guenonianism has always been a bit reserved and mixed with other influences. He was into stuff like Thelema and chaos magic before he got into Guenon and has written critiques of Guenon. When these people do mention politics in passing though it is always in an incredibly reactionary way where they are condemning liberal modernity as an inversion of some pristine traditional (in this perennial occult sense) order. And obviously that carries a condemnation of any possible socialist modernity. Reaction is just inescapable in that view of history, if you see history as a continual degeneration from a lost golden age then you cannot also believe in successively progressive economic stages that are leading to Communism. Every step forward has to be a step downwards.
Gosh what a malicious post in the saged thread. This is surely worthy of a thread.
R: 370 / I: 62
https://leftypedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
Anyway, if you have a look at the leftypedia site you might be able to tell that they have a much more formal and 'encyclopedic' tone than what we're planning, just like wikipedia, but the admin is going to create a separate 'category' for our new content that will be called something like 'rhetoric: topic' rather than just 'topic', this will also feature on the frontpage much like the encyclopedic content. As a tenplate, I'd like you to feast your eyes on these pages which someone on leftypedia already made (albeit only on their personal userspace for now).
https://leftypedia.org/wiki/User:Anarcho-Bolshevik/compendium
I'd like to ask if anyone can come up with a slightly more catchy name for our new section than 'rhetoric', cause that sounds a bit cumbersome to me even though I came up with it, so yeah, open to suggestions.
So, since that isn't implemented yet, I'd like you all to try familiarise yourselves with the site for now, maybe take a look at the articles that are already there and improve some of them if you feel able. Unfortunately the site currently has only edit by approval so you will have to wait for any changes you make to be approved, this is because of a persistent spambot problem and I hope that we will be able to work out something to change this to normal editing as on wikipedia and the like, please just bear with it for now.
If you have an answer to a 'common question', or you have an effortpost you'd like to archive and save, then please post it in this topic for now so that we can work on it together until we can figure out how to categorise our new section of the site.
Thanks for your attention!
EDIT: I've now got admin permissions on leftypedia, so I can create pages and approve edits directly. If you want to use the site I recommend you create a user account, which I can then approve once you make a productive edit (to distinguish from spambots), then you won't have to wait for approval anymore and can create articles yourself. Or, just ask me and I can create an article for you if you're desperate to make one as your first edit. Thanks guys, I hope we can make this project cool together!
t. Caballo
The beginnings of our new leftypol project
Hello everyone, we have received the results of our project proposal topic, and I'm delighted to announce that we are teaming up with 'leftypedia' to deliver our planned 'argument/talking point resource' idea. In case you don't know, leftypedia is the current version of the old abandoned 'marxistpedia' which was a project started by leftypol users back in the day, so I think this is sort of like a homecoming in a way.https://leftypedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
Anyway, if you have a look at the leftypedia site you might be able to tell that they have a much more formal and 'encyclopedic' tone than what we're planning, just like wikipedia, but the admin is going to create a separate 'category' for our new content that will be called something like 'rhetoric: topic' rather than just 'topic', this will also feature on the frontpage much like the encyclopedic content. As a tenplate, I'd like you to feast your eyes on these pages which someone on leftypedia already made (albeit only on their personal userspace for now).
https://leftypedia.org/wiki/User:Anarcho-Bolshevik/compendium
I'd like to ask if anyone can come up with a slightly more catchy name for our new section than 'rhetoric', cause that sounds a bit cumbersome to me even though I came up with it, so yeah, open to suggestions.
So, since that isn't implemented yet, I'd like you all to try familiarise yourselves with the site for now, maybe take a look at the articles that are already there and improve some of them if you feel able. Unfortunately the site currently has only edit by approval so you will have to wait for any changes you make to be approved, this is because of a persistent spambot problem and I hope that we will be able to work out something to change this to normal editing as on wikipedia and the like, please just bear with it for now.
If you have an answer to a 'common question', or you have an effortpost you'd like to archive and save, then please post it in this topic for now so that we can work on it together until we can figure out how to categorise our new section of the site.
Thanks for your attention!
EDIT: I've now got admin permissions on leftypedia, so I can create pages and approve edits directly. If you want to use the site I recommend you create a user account, which I can then approve once you make a productive edit (to distinguish from spambots), then you won't have to wait for approval anymore and can create articles yourself. Or, just ask me and I can create an article for you if you're desperate to make one as your first edit. Thanks guys, I hope we can make this project cool together!
t. Caballo
R: 17 / I: 5
Your acceptance of your beliefs means that you are being retarded, and there’s no way around it. Fuck you, you fucking retards. I’m sick of pretending your idiotic “arguments” are even remotely sensible. You’re a fucking retard, eating retarded shit and calling it ice cream.
The Christian generally believes that there is life after death. This, in light of what we currently know of neuroscience and how the brain works, and doesn’t work when it is damaged, is, no mincing words here, plainly retarded. If you believe in life after death, sorry, — er, no, not sorry — you’re fucking retarded.
The Christian generally believes that faith is a good idea, that believing things for no reason — just because — is a good idea. The Christian generally believes that being more certain of their beliefs than the evidence warrants, is somehow a virtue. The Christian generally is trained to believe that everyone uses faith, and that to point out that others use faith somehow justifies their own use of faith — the words “tu quoque” have no meaning to the average Christian.
The Christian generally believes, in my experience, that an appeal to consequences is a valid way of making an argument. The Christian typically believes that if it can be shown (or, more commonly, if it can be made to appear that it is shown) that belief in Christianity leads to some benefit, or that lack of belief leads to some undesirable consequence, that this justifies belief. This is retarded. If you can’t figure out why, it’s because you’re retarded. Hint: google “appeal to consequences,” you big retard.
Christians generally believe that Jesus was God, after he magically impregnated a virgin, and then emerged from her vagina nine months later, disappeared for 30 years, then turned up as the messiah. The evidence for this? A book which says so. What? Nothing more? No, that’s it, just a book. Are you fucking kidding me? Only a book? Nope, not kidding. They’re that fucking retarded.
Christians often accept the “lord, liar or lunatic” argument as convincing. Gee, David Koresh was either Lord, Liar, or Lunatic. Umm, I’m going to say, Lunatic. Jesus was either Lord, Liar, or Lunatic. Umm, I’m going to say, Lunatic. People who don’t think Jesus was a lunatic don’t know much about lunatics. There’s a word for such people: Retards.
The story of Christianity is just plain stupid. If you believe it, you’re a retard. Period. You have no arguments for your position which are not retarded. If there were non-retarded arguments for Christianity, they would have emerged in the last 2000 years. Every argument I’ve seen for Christianity does not only fail to be a good argument, they all fail to be remotely non-retarded. From this, I conclude that there do not exist any non-retarded arguments for Christianity, as, if there were such arguments, Christians would be all over them like white on rice. Yet, Christians persist in putting forth the most idiotic arguments for their religion in the history of arguments, and cannot come up with even a single non-retarded argument for their religion. I conclude that no non-retarded arguments for Christianity exist, and that every Christian has either retardedly accepted a retarded argument, or has been brainwashed into accepting Christianity as a child (and children are basically retarded.)
So…, Fuck you, retards. Your religion is retarded, and you’ve had 2000 years to come up with non-retarded arguments and have utterly failed.
You’re retarded.
Sincerely
Christians, you are retarded. every last one, without exception.
You don’t like it? Too fucking bad.Your acceptance of your beliefs means that you are being retarded, and there’s no way around it. Fuck you, you fucking retards. I’m sick of pretending your idiotic “arguments” are even remotely sensible. You’re a fucking retard, eating retarded shit and calling it ice cream.
The Christian generally believes that there is life after death. This, in light of what we currently know of neuroscience and how the brain works, and doesn’t work when it is damaged, is, no mincing words here, plainly retarded. If you believe in life after death, sorry, — er, no, not sorry — you’re fucking retarded.
The Christian generally believes that faith is a good idea, that believing things for no reason — just because — is a good idea. The Christian generally believes that being more certain of their beliefs than the evidence warrants, is somehow a virtue. The Christian generally is trained to believe that everyone uses faith, and that to point out that others use faith somehow justifies their own use of faith — the words “tu quoque” have no meaning to the average Christian.
The Christian generally believes, in my experience, that an appeal to consequences is a valid way of making an argument. The Christian typically believes that if it can be shown (or, more commonly, if it can be made to appear that it is shown) that belief in Christianity leads to some benefit, or that lack of belief leads to some undesirable consequence, that this justifies belief. This is retarded. If you can’t figure out why, it’s because you’re retarded. Hint: google “appeal to consequences,” you big retard.
Christians generally believe that Jesus was God, after he magically impregnated a virgin, and then emerged from her vagina nine months later, disappeared for 30 years, then turned up as the messiah. The evidence for this? A book which says so. What? Nothing more? No, that’s it, just a book. Are you fucking kidding me? Only a book? Nope, not kidding. They’re that fucking retarded.
Christians often accept the “lord, liar or lunatic” argument as convincing. Gee, David Koresh was either Lord, Liar, or Lunatic. Umm, I’m going to say, Lunatic. Jesus was either Lord, Liar, or Lunatic. Umm, I’m going to say, Lunatic. People who don’t think Jesus was a lunatic don’t know much about lunatics. There’s a word for such people: Retards.
The story of Christianity is just plain stupid. If you believe it, you’re a retard. Period. You have no arguments for your position which are not retarded. If there were non-retarded arguments for Christianity, they would have emerged in the last 2000 years. Every argument I’ve seen for Christianity does not only fail to be a good argument, they all fail to be remotely non-retarded. From this, I conclude that there do not exist any non-retarded arguments for Christianity, as, if there were such arguments, Christians would be all over them like white on rice. Yet, Christians persist in putting forth the most idiotic arguments for their religion in the history of arguments, and cannot come up with even a single non-retarded argument for their religion. I conclude that no non-retarded arguments for Christianity exist, and that every Christian has either retardedly accepted a retarded argument, or has been brainwashed into accepting Christianity as a child (and children are basically retarded.)
So…, Fuck you, retards. Your religion is retarded, and you’ve had 2000 years to come up with non-retarded arguments and have utterly failed.
You’re retarded.
Sincerely
R: 11 / I: 0
The deal is that getting a BA is kind of exactly like high school. You take the same range of classes and don't focus on much. So, it's like a movie that starts an hour in.
Back in the 30s etc you could become a doctor in like four years, now it takes 12 and doctors don't know that much. I mean a general practitioner.
If a four year degree was specialized, you would not need a masters.
In psychology, they try to wear you out with all you must do. So, it's a money hustle and to keep people out.
The degrees deal
Grad degrees are legit if you have a field with A LOT of information. The higher you go the more specific stuff you learn.The deal is that getting a BA is kind of exactly like high school. You take the same range of classes and don't focus on much. So, it's like a movie that starts an hour in.
Back in the 30s etc you could become a doctor in like four years, now it takes 12 and doctors don't know that much. I mean a general practitioner.
If a four year degree was specialized, you would not need a masters.
In psychology, they try to wear you out with all you must do. So, it's a money hustle and to keep people out.
R: 3 / I: 0
>if you need a school, you've lost already
>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already>if you need a school, you've lost already
R: 72 / I: 68
Please share any studies, cost savings approaches, sites, child psychology, useful media, and history for rearing future revolutionaries
Pregnancy studies, histories, sites, media and care are welcome
https://supermemo.guru/wiki/SuperMemo_Guru
A few pointers
>Children hear what you say not what you mean
>Corporal punishment breaks trust and creates antisocial tendencies
>Filter cartoons and most media for children, especially Disney
>Filter out sugar, corn syrup, and other similar substances
>Marketing is especially targeted at developing minds; limited to no exposure is ideal
>Neglect is a form of abuse
>No social media, no bigger brother
>Pet plants > pet animals. Otherwise the animal your responsibility
>Screen time has to be extremely limited or nonexistent; this creates poor eye sight and attention deficit disorders
>The vast majority of sexually abused children were by someone they knew
feel free to criticize and add your own
/CDR/ - Child Development & Rearing
<Proletariat from Latin proletarius 'producing offspring'Please share any studies, cost savings approaches, sites, child psychology, useful media, and history for rearing future revolutionaries
Pregnancy studies, histories, sites, media and care are welcome
https://supermemo.guru/wiki/SuperMemo_Guru
A few pointers
>Children hear what you say not what you mean
>Corporal punishment breaks trust and creates antisocial tendencies
>Filter cartoons and most media for children, especially Disney
>Filter out sugar, corn syrup, and other similar substances
>Marketing is especially targeted at developing minds; limited to no exposure is ideal
>Neglect is a form of abuse
>No social media, no bigger brother
>Pet plants > pet animals. Otherwise the animal your responsibility
>Screen time has to be extremely limited or nonexistent; this creates poor eye sight and attention deficit disorders
>The vast majority of sexually abused children were by someone they knew
feel free to criticize and add your own
R: 0 / I: 0
I am also interested in weapons production throughout history, so for example how weapons were produced during mediaeval times and how military industry and production has evolved.
The texts don’t have to directly relate to subjects or encompass exactly everything I mentioned. So please share texts relating to the subjects if you know any!
book/text rec
I am looking texts about military fashion/uniforms and their evolution throughout history, I am mostly interested in non modern uniforms, so preferably the texts should be about stuff before ww2.I am also interested in weapons production throughout history, so for example how weapons were produced during mediaeval times and how military industry and production has evolved.
The texts don’t have to directly relate to subjects or encompass exactly everything I mentioned. So please share texts relating to the subjects if you know any!
R: 2 / I: 0
You won't find a job. There's nothing to find. No salvation, no answers.
Accept it. Move on. Let yourself rest. Hope hurts you.
University is a pyramid scheme.
Now that they're running out of people to gyp the trickle down has completely stopped, and they're strangling the newcomers while giving nothing in return.You won't find a job. There's nothing to find. No salvation, no answers.
Accept it. Move on. Let yourself rest. Hope hurts you.
R: 142 / I: 63
Leftist Argument copypasta general /LACG/
Post Copy pastas, videos and books which debunk common Fascist, Liberal talking points which are repeated often.
R: 123 / I: 42
Debunk Thread
Since /leftypol/ is downright autistic at times I decided to make a Debunk thread where anticommunist arguments are presented with their debunks by users.
R: 5 / I: 3
Now some needless filler: As leftists we should also be educated on organizing in a militant fashion. Primarily to mobilize the working class so they are able to defend themselves against oppressive forces.
Military History & Strategy
Post any PDF here that you have pertaining to military history and strategy.Now some needless filler: As leftists we should also be educated on organizing in a militant fashion. Primarily to mobilize the working class so they are able to defend themselves against oppressive forces.
R: 98 / I: 11
I am a recovering white nationalist. how can i fix myself?
Hello, i used to be a white nationalist. i don't want to be one anymore after my life went to shit when everyone found out. i was radicalized by the alt-right by my friends when they became nazis in early this year. i viewed their white nationalist rhetoric as correct. they stopped being my friend when they found out i was trans and gay, and i still held onto the white nationalist beliefs when we stopped being friends. i want to fully get rid of my white nationalism and become a leftist. i go by they/them pronouns btw.
R: 4 / I: 0
I want to know the academia on this really hard to search engine search subject so next time I catch him being like this I can present him with credible sources about this.
I used to be a debate addict too and the only thing that pulled me out was just burning out on it. I don't wanna have to watch others go through that.
Research on debate addiction
My Dad is spending a concerning amount of his time getting into internet arguements, and recently I warned him about getting addicted to debate, and he doesn't believe me that's a thing.I want to know the academia on this really hard to search engine search subject so next time I catch him being like this I can present him with credible sources about this.
I used to be a debate addict too and the only thing that pulled me out was just burning out on it. I don't wanna have to watch others go through that.
R: 0 / I: 0
parenting
I have bastards i haven't met yet in my head and i want to talk to them. and tell them how to be or something. be cool with them. they are 16, 2 of them and 9, 3 of them and they are on this website. this picture is like 10 years old and facebook edited me uglier
R: 7 / I: 0
I've been fighting gut problems for ~2 years now, which have been the worst years in my life.
I want to start a thread on this topic. Partly to vent, but also to share and exchange information on this topic.
I've tried trusting doctors but it's lead to long, arduous, and expensive treatment that lead to no positive results and only worse symptoms as they pumped me full of antibiotics and PPIs leading to further infection from opportunistic bacteria and fungi.
Of the protocols I've followed (that aren't from a doctor), I've tried:
>Super Gut (Dr. William Davis)
Which uses natural anti-biotics/fungals alongside cultured "yogurt" which is used to multiply the dose of probiotic colonizing bacteria
>Grow a New Body by Alberto Villoldo
He's a bullshit Shamanic healer but he cites studies on certain parts of the program.
The jist is a combination of lengthy fasts (20-22hrs), low carb diet for ketosis alongside culturing Saccharomyces Boulardii in Cider to make Hard Apple Cider with a significantly larger number of probiotic yeasts in order to combat Candida infestation.
Gut Microbiome
AKA the second brain.I've been fighting gut problems for ~2 years now, which have been the worst years in my life.
I want to start a thread on this topic. Partly to vent, but also to share and exchange information on this topic.
I've tried trusting doctors but it's lead to long, arduous, and expensive treatment that lead to no positive results and only worse symptoms as they pumped me full of antibiotics and PPIs leading to further infection from opportunistic bacteria and fungi.
Of the protocols I've followed (that aren't from a doctor), I've tried:
>Super Gut (Dr. William Davis)
Which uses natural anti-biotics/fungals alongside cultured "yogurt" which is used to multiply the dose of probiotic colonizing bacteria
>Grow a New Body by Alberto Villoldo
He's a bullshit Shamanic healer but he cites studies on certain parts of the program.
The jist is a combination of lengthy fasts (20-22hrs), low carb diet for ketosis alongside culturing Saccharomyces Boulardii in Cider to make Hard Apple Cider with a significantly larger number of probiotic yeasts in order to combat Candida infestation.
R: 9 / I: 4
critiques of society of the school system,
Most critiques of society mention the school system, and describe it as an authoritarian nightmare. I have to assume that people with this viewpoint are from older generations because I (born early 2000s) did not find school oppressive at all. The "education" I received was questionable but that's another matter.
R: 4 / I: 0
UCLA professor being put on immediate leave because he is homeless
>Dr. Daniel McKeown is an astrophysicist who has been made homeless by the low pay working conditions of Academia. Currently, minimum wage ignoble in California would theoretically earn more than him in welfare gratuity.
R: 0 / I: 0
Did you cheat in college?
How? Did you get caught?
R: 5 / I: 1
CONTINENTAL SLOPPA
How does one get into continental stuff? Where's should one begin with? Any essential readings?
R: 3 / I: 0
The revolution has failed, what now?
it's been over since a long time, in fact it's been even more over since then, and in fact have brought us back to the beginning but even worse, what are we supposed to do? R: 49 / I: 7
Less about subscribing to an individual podcast, more about listening to individual episodes and why that episode resonated.
Not videos. This is a chance for you to educate yourself while working, doing chores or exercising.
I'll go first. This episode of politics theory other was memorable because it made me reconsider the intersection of sex and politics, particularly as someone who sees themselves as becoming more skeptical about everything surrounding idpol as it's being co-opted and weaponized.
https://play.acast.com/s/politicstheoryother/tag%3Asoundcloud%2C2010%3Atracks%2F1136311165
A thread for educational podcast episodes..
Less about the parasocial more about the signal.Less about subscribing to an individual podcast, more about listening to individual episodes and why that episode resonated.
Not videos. This is a chance for you to educate yourself while working, doing chores or exercising.
I'll go first. This episode of politics theory other was memorable because it made me reconsider the intersection of sex and politics, particularly as someone who sees themselves as becoming more skeptical about everything surrounding idpol as it's being co-opted and weaponized.
https://play.acast.com/s/politicstheoryother/tag%3Asoundcloud%2C2010%3Atracks%2F1136311165
R: 6 / I: 1
For purely educational, not illegal reasons: What are some good tips/methods to counterfeiting USD? Have you ever done it before?
For purely educational, not illegal reasons: What are some good tips/methods to counterfeiting USD? Have you ever done it before?
R: 172 / I: 30
I say these things, usually not all at once. I let people chew on each one:
> 1 If you’re a boss, and you own a business, you have to pay the worker less than their work is worth.
> 2 If you pay them exactly what their work is worth, you don’t make any money, your business won’t grow, and you’ll get bought out by some asshole who pays workers less.
> 3 If you pay a worker more than their work is worth, you’re losing money, your business will shrink, and you’ll go out of business.
> 4 the problem is the system, because the way the system is set up, workers have to beg for a job from people who own the places we work at, and the bosses only give the job to the lowest bidder, the people willing to do the most in exchange for the least in return.
> 5 everybody who can't get a job has to keep looking for a job until they get so desperate they start selling themselves for less and less
> 6 even with how little they pay us they think it's too much. so they constantly look for ways to make more money and pay less money.
> 7 they send our jobs overseas to where the labor is cheaper, and they want us to blame the people overseas even though they're the ones sending the jobs off and calling themselves job creators while they do it
> 8 they hire a bunch of overeducated nerds to make machines and programs to do our jobs for us, so they can fire us, and then they take credit for what those nerds make
> 9 they give the jobs to people who just got here and are usually running away from some fucked up shit like war and are therefore more desperate than even the average schmuck here is
> 10 despite all this shit they do to get rid of us or make us work for less money, they still need to sell the stuff they make, and if everyone's too poor to buy that shit, then they gotta lower the price
> 11 the faster they make stuff, the cheaper that stuff is because less work goes into makin it, and money is just a piece of paper that says some work got done
"oh but this is stuff marx says!"
yeah but he says it real fancy and takes a long time. keep it simple stupid.
pull your head out of your ass and keep it simple
the way i explain the labor to people is very simple. I cut straight to the chase.I say these things, usually not all at once. I let people chew on each one:
> 1 If you’re a boss, and you own a business, you have to pay the worker less than their work is worth.
> 2 If you pay them exactly what their work is worth, you don’t make any money, your business won’t grow, and you’ll get bought out by some asshole who pays workers less.
> 3 If you pay a worker more than their work is worth, you’re losing money, your business will shrink, and you’ll go out of business.
> 4 the problem is the system, because the way the system is set up, workers have to beg for a job from people who own the places we work at, and the bosses only give the job to the lowest bidder, the people willing to do the most in exchange for the least in return.
> 5 everybody who can't get a job has to keep looking for a job until they get so desperate they start selling themselves for less and less
> 6 even with how little they pay us they think it's too much. so they constantly look for ways to make more money and pay less money.
> 7 they send our jobs overseas to where the labor is cheaper, and they want us to blame the people overseas even though they're the ones sending the jobs off and calling themselves job creators while they do it
> 8 they hire a bunch of overeducated nerds to make machines and programs to do our jobs for us, so they can fire us, and then they take credit for what those nerds make
> 9 they give the jobs to people who just got here and are usually running away from some fucked up shit like war and are therefore more desperate than even the average schmuck here is
> 10 despite all this shit they do to get rid of us or make us work for less money, they still need to sell the stuff they make, and if everyone's too poor to buy that shit, then they gotta lower the price
> 11 the faster they make stuff, the cheaper that stuff is because less work goes into makin it, and money is just a piece of paper that says some work got done
"oh but this is stuff marx says!"
yeah but he says it real fancy and takes a long time. keep it simple stupid.
R: 149 / I: 65
The raw traduction is completed, the work is in the process of being proofread to enhance the general english level. So far two benevolent English speakers manifested their interest in this endeavour, one of them already corrected the Foreword and Introduction.
Gitea of the Black Book of Communism: https://git.leftypol.org/latexanon/bboc
If you download the whole deposit and run it trough a Tex editor, a whole book appears! Credits to LaTex Anon for this magic
This thread will be used as a hub to update the progressively the book with the proofreader's input, but also to sketch the specification of an enhanced edition of the BBOC, as well as gathering material in this regard, because after a few more decades of neoliberalism, some updates would be welcome. Furthermore as some people remarked, the book is far from exhaustive.
The Black Book of capitalism Beta edition
After three months of labor, I present you the current state of the translation project of the french Black Book of Capitalism from 1998.The raw traduction is completed, the work is in the process of being proofread to enhance the general english level. So far two benevolent English speakers manifested their interest in this endeavour, one of them already corrected the Foreword and Introduction.
Gitea of the Black Book of Communism: https://git.leftypol.org/latexanon/bboc
If you download the whole deposit and run it trough a Tex editor, a whole book appears! Credits to LaTex Anon for this magic
This thread will be used as a hub to update the progressively the book with the proofreader's input, but also to sketch the specification of an enhanced edition of the BBOC, as well as gathering material in this regard, because after a few more decades of neoliberalism, some updates would be welcome. Furthermore as some people remarked, the book is far from exhaustive.
R: 0 / I: 0
>whether it's possible for "developing" and "underdeveloped" countries to actually become "developed", and in what circumstances (I recognize the vagueness of these concepts)
>the extent to which the common problems of these countries (such as crime, disease, famine, lack of support and freedom) is tied to their place in the current world order, and the extent to which they can escape or limit these problems without some sort of major global rearrangement
>what the likely path for these countries is in the foreseeable future
And I'm interested in book recommendations that can help me think through these questions. The books don't need to directly tackle these questions, just be illuminating in their regard. I'd prefer stuff with a strong basis in history and data over JUST pure theory, though both are fine.
Of course any input that you want to give about these questions based on your own views and knowledge is also welcome, though needless to say even the best imageboard posts can only accomplish so much compared to a book.
Books on "development", "third worldness" and related concepts
I wrote a long rambling intro to this post which I don't think anyone wanted to read so I'll cut it short. As a third worlder (not a third worldist) who has recently become more acquainted with Marxism and economic history, I've become interested in questions that seem relevant to my immediate political reality such as>whether it's possible for "developing" and "underdeveloped" countries to actually become "developed", and in what circumstances (I recognize the vagueness of these concepts)
>the extent to which the common problems of these countries (such as crime, disease, famine, lack of support and freedom) is tied to their place in the current world order, and the extent to which they can escape or limit these problems without some sort of major global rearrangement
>what the likely path for these countries is in the foreseeable future
And I'm interested in book recommendations that can help me think through these questions. The books don't need to directly tackle these questions, just be illuminating in their regard. I'd prefer stuff with a strong basis in history and data over JUST pure theory, though both are fine.
Of course any input that you want to give about these questions based on your own views and knowledge is also welcome, though needless to say even the best imageboard posts can only accomplish so much compared to a book.
R: 31 / I: 11
Thank you
The Red Manifesto - Self Help Book Draft 2
Reformatted it so that it was easier to read and it looks more clean. Expanded on a few sections. Added some new sections, though some pages of them are yellow, to indicate its on the chopping block whether they will continue to be left. Created new cover. While cool looking, its kinda hard to see where the name is, so thats probably changing, but I thought a temp cover wouldn't hurt. I will say that those who are complaining it isn't funny, I didn't really focus on that, so it might again be eh. Give your insights on what you read. Give suggestions for any other topics that could be addressed.Thank you
R: 165 / I: 38
ITT we discuss the great thinker, Karl Marx's teacher, and he on who's shadow we walk:
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
>What are good things to read/view to get an understanding of Hegel from a philosophical neophyte?
<What service can Hegel's philosophy provide us today?
>What an be done to make Hegel more accessible to the masses? Why is it so unpenetrable?
/hegel/
There are people who spend their entire lives reading Hegel and still manage to come out empty handed.ITT we discuss the great thinker, Karl Marx's teacher, and he on who's shadow we walk:
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
>What are good things to read/view to get an understanding of Hegel from a philosophical neophyte?
<What service can Hegel's philosophy provide us today?
>What an be done to make Hegel more accessible to the masses? Why is it so unpenetrable?
R: 3 / I: 0
2. ANY MEMONMONIC-TYPE WAYS OF MAKING A PERSON FOREVER REMEMBER THE WHAT THE LATIN LETTERS IN MORSE CODE ARE?
3. THANKS
QUESTION
1. DOES ANYONE HAVE PDFS OR GENERAL KNOWLEDGE ABOUT PLATFORMIST-ANARCHISM OR OTHER KINDS THAT HAVE AN EMPHASIS ON BEING DISCIPLINED AND FOCUSED?2. ANY MEMONMONIC-TYPE WAYS OF MAKING A PERSON FOREVER REMEMBER THE WHAT THE LATIN LETTERS IN MORSE CODE ARE?
3. THANKS
R: 31 / I: 11
Books about pornography in modern society
Can you recommend me some books that exposes the pornography addiction in modern society? I want a book that explains this phenomena by a marxist perspective, without any conservative "but tha westarn moral is dyingg!!11". R: 380 / I: 489
PDF / EPUB Dump Thread
Drop those PDF's or else R: 66 / I: 10
The thread is to serve as a mutual intellectual support system and meta-discussion for communist students to
· share resources for picking and learning your object of study
· discuss strategies for studies
· weekly rhythms and scheduling outside of the classroom
· organizing the student-body and/or spreading artistic agitation
· all while ultimately staying safe and completing your studies
✊🚩🏴
University communists general
This is a thread for communists who are (or are planning to) study at [b]unnamed[/b] universities the world over.The thread is to serve as a mutual intellectual support system and meta-discussion for communist students to
· share resources for picking and learning your object of study
· discuss strategies for studies
· weekly rhythms and scheduling outside of the classroom
· organizing the student-body and/or spreading artistic agitation
· all while ultimately staying safe and completing your studies
✊🚩🏴
R: 5 / I: 0
>DPRK
>Communist Romania
>Albania under Hoxha
>Democratic Kampuchea
I'm particularly interested in the notion of autarky and how all of these countries were able to govern themselves while defying the rest of the world.
Books on autarky
I need books on the following countries:>DPRK
>Communist Romania
>Albania under Hoxha
>Democratic Kampuchea
I'm particularly interested in the notion of autarky and how all of these countries were able to govern themselves while defying the rest of the world.
R: 30 / I: 5
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
What is the consensus on the lumpenproletariat?
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
R: 205 / I: 38
What book influenced you the most?
What do you like about books?
what are you planning to read?
What are you reading now?
Saw this in /hobby/ but thought it fit more here
/lit/
What is your favorite book?What book influenced you the most?
What do you like about books?
what are you planning to read?
What are you reading now?
Saw this in /hobby/ but thought it fit more here
R: 21 / I: 0
>A vegan diet is based on plants (such as vegetables, grains, nuts and fruits) and foods made from plants. Vegans do not eat foods that come from animals, including dairy products and eggs.
There is veganism for health reasons, for environmental reasons (meat production causes more carbon emissions than plants), and for ethical reasons (animal cruelty). IMO from a marxist perspective the environmental reasons are the most compelling since decarbonization will need to be planned and this probably will include a reduction in the production of animal products.
However veganism is also widely mocked and associated with liberal hipsters.
what is the proper materialist take on VEGANISM??
veganism and materialism
Is VEGANISM a good thing?>A vegan diet is based on plants (such as vegetables, grains, nuts and fruits) and foods made from plants. Vegans do not eat foods that come from animals, including dairy products and eggs.
There is veganism for health reasons, for environmental reasons (meat production causes more carbon emissions than plants), and for ethical reasons (animal cruelty). IMO from a marxist perspective the environmental reasons are the most compelling since decarbonization will need to be planned and this probably will include a reduction in the production of animal products.
However veganism is also widely mocked and associated with liberal hipsters.
what is the proper materialist take on VEGANISM??
R: 1 / I: 0
Wassup. I really want to learn about the politics and geography about most of the countries of the world, but idk how to study them. I'm from SA. What I mean is, I want to be able to say when a country have a corrupt government, when it's on any crisis and I also want to understand maps and knowing the nature of the politicians in that country. For example, I couldn't explain to someone why the Afeghanistan is bad for living except because of the Taliban. Do you guys have some tips for me?
Wassup. I really want to learn about the politics and geography about most of the countries of the world, but idk how to study them. I'm from SA. What I mean is, I want to be able to say when a country have a corrupt government, when it's on any crisis and I also want to understand maps and knowing the nature of the politicians in that country. For example, I couldn't explain to someone why the Afeghanistan is bad for living except because of the Taliban. Do you guys have some tips for me?
R: 1 / I: 0
Wassup. I really want to learn about the politics and geography about most of the countries of the world, but idk how to study them. I'm from SA. What I mean is, I want to be able to say when a country have a corrupt government, when it's on any crisis and I also want to understand maps and knowing the nature of the politicians in that country. For example, I couldn't explain to someone why the Afeghanistan is bad for living except because of the Taliban. Do you guys have some tips for me?
Wassup. I really want to learn about the politics and geography about most of the countries of the world, but idk how to study them. I'm from SA. What I mean is, I want to be able to say when a country have a corrupt government, when it's on any crisis and I also want to understand maps and knowing the nature of the politicians in that country. For example, I couldn't explain to someone why the Afeghanistan is bad for living except because of the Taliban. Do you guys have some tips for me?
R: 10 / I: 3
Post-Colonial African History
Where can I learn about "post-colonial" history of African countries? Preferably something in depth about the economy and also preferably by someone who isn't a neoliberal mouthpiece. Perhaps a Marxist even. Do you have any literature/author recommendations? R: 18 / I: 1
Can we get a mega-debunk thread for “race realism”
I’ve been exposed to way too much of this shit again lately on 4chan and I want to start a thread where we can start debunking common “race realist” talking points on things like intelligence, crime, athletic performance, or whatever. R: 150 / I: 194
Ukraine
Thread dedicated to debunking western propaganda and information relating to the NATO encirclement of Russia, Ukrainian government's mistreatment of ethnic Russian minorities and support of fascist militias to do its bidding. Criticism of Russia and its occupation is welcomed aswell.
R: 12 / I: 1
HOW DO I GET INTO CONTINENTAL SLOPPA?
I'm new to continental philosophy, to me continental sound just aphorisms and sophistry, and nothing with actual substance to say, but I'm open minded and curious to know if I'm wrong or continental philosophy actually has value, so what some good introduction books to continental SLOPPA?
R: 3 / I: 1
Anti-essesntialist reading materials pls
I want some books for learning about anti-essentialist thought, as well as spotting and refuting essentialist talking points and lines of reasoning. Even books about essentialism in general would be helpful.
R: 8 / I: 1
are there any books that explain why the non-western world (mainly africa) is in a less developed state? there is alot of talk about the great replacement theory. most western/white countries are turning more right wing primarly due to immigration. which obviously is a big issue. how can this be fixed?
Is there credence in less developed nations just being dumber? I just don't get it. Makes me feel bad tbh.
i'm bad at explaining my thoughts and am not an intellectual so question might be stupid.
are there any books that explain why the non-western world (mainly africa) is in a less developed state? there is alot of talk about the great replacement theory. most western/white countries are turning more right wing primarly due to immigration. which obviously is a big issue. how can this be fixed?
Is there credence in less developed nations just being dumber? I just don't get it. Makes me feel bad tbh.
i'm bad at explaining my thoughts and am not an intellectual so question might be stupid.
R: 37 / I: 23
To unite various Indian topics that cropped up: Post historical and modern geopolitical discussion, memes, photos and pdfs on the topic. Keep it civil and no bad faith dogma, spam or bait, keep that to /siberia/
Contribute to Leftypedia: https://leftypedia.org/wiki/India >>3780 thread
Articles on Britain, Pakistan and more needed.
Important Topics
>Pre-Colonial Indian History
Indian history that isn't just British colonialism. Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs warring over each other sounds way more exciting but you rarely hear anything about the era and the place. Recommend any books to easily get into the settings of the culture(s).
>Colonial India
History of British colonialism and it's exploitation and impact on the country(s). British humanitarian crimes such as the Black Hole of Calcutta are welcome to be posted.
>Modern India
Modern political, social and economic issues of India ranging from international conflict to internal turmoil. Environmental issues also welcome.
An Indian Dentist that does political writing on the state of the country and has soviet sympathies: http://bill-purkayastha.blogspot.com/
>Socialism in India
Leftist movements and areas of India and it's efforts to bring about socialism in the country and the 90s privatization and neo-liberalist arrival.
- A book from 1985 about the Indian Big Bourgeoisie: https://archive.org/details/IndianBigBourgeoisie/page/n5/mode/2up
- Kerala: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism_in_Kerala
- Indian Maoist party links: https://bannedthought.net/India/CPI-Maoist-Docs/index.htm
https://foreignlanguages.press/colorful-classics/historic-eight-documents-charu-mazumdar/
https://foreignlanguages.press/colorful-classics/maoists-in-india-writings-interviews-azad/
https://www.redspark.nu/en/
MLM thread >>310
History and Socialism of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal
Thread on the Indian Peninsula and Surrounding Areas Closely Tied to the CountryTo unite various Indian topics that cropped up: Post historical and modern geopolitical discussion, memes, photos and pdfs on the topic. Keep it civil and no bad faith dogma, spam or bait, keep that to /siberia/
Contribute to Leftypedia: https://leftypedia.org/wiki/India >>3780 thread
Articles on Britain, Pakistan and more needed.
Important Topics
>Pre-Colonial Indian History
Indian history that isn't just British colonialism. Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs warring over each other sounds way more exciting but you rarely hear anything about the era and the place. Recommend any books to easily get into the settings of the culture(s).
>Colonial India
History of British colonialism and it's exploitation and impact on the country(s). British humanitarian crimes such as the Black Hole of Calcutta are welcome to be posted.
>Modern India
Modern political, social and economic issues of India ranging from international conflict to internal turmoil. Environmental issues also welcome.
An Indian Dentist that does political writing on the state of the country and has soviet sympathies: http://bill-purkayastha.blogspot.com/
>Socialism in India
Leftist movements and areas of India and it's efforts to bring about socialism in the country and the 90s privatization and neo-liberalist arrival.
- A book from 1985 about the Indian Big Bourgeoisie: https://archive.org/details/IndianBigBourgeoisie/page/n5/mode/2up
- Kerala: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism_in_Kerala
- Indian Maoist party links: https://bannedthought.net/India/CPI-Maoist-Docs/index.htm
https://foreignlanguages.press/colorful-classics/historic-eight-documents-charu-mazumdar/
https://foreignlanguages.press/colorful-classics/maoists-in-india-writings-interviews-azad/
https://www.redspark.nu/en/
MLM thread >>310
R: 17 / I: 2
Racial Fears
How does capitalism, and its most retrograde right wing layers, even keep the idea about race in the public discourse to begin with? I don't think "race" is even really an apolitical and scientific concept to begin with, but if we take science as mediated through the superstructure, then something like race may be naturalised and justified through "genetics" and ancestry/genealogy databases.
R: 28 / I: 3
This in turn caused me to get interested in eastern philosophy itself, i started reading Yoga Sutras, translation by Swami Satchenada (most popular translation from sanskrit i think, this guy was pretty famous with american hippies back in 60s).
Many of Satchenada commentaries are pretty interesting, they are modern and straight-forward, for example there are explamples including driving cars or going to the mall, there are also fragments that made me ask, is this guy reactionary? Can i reconcile at all my marxist tendencies with my interest in eastern philosophy, or are those things contradictory? All i know there is some one movement that says "actually buddhism and marxism has lot in common", are there more?
Here is the quote i am talking about:
"Suppose some people drive up in a big car, park in front of a huge palatial home and get out. Some other people are standing on the pavement in the hot sun getting tired. How many of those people will be happy? Not many. They will be saying, “See that big car? Those people are sucking the blood of the laborers.” We come across people like that; they are always jealous. When a person gets name, fame or high position, they try to criticize that person. “Oh, don’t you know, that person’s brother is so-and-so. Some strings must have been pulled.” They will never admit that the person might have gone up by his or her own merit. By that jealousy, you will not disturb the other person, but you disturb your own serenity. Those people simply got out of the car and walked into the house, but you are burning up inside. Instead, think, “Oh, such fortunate people. If everyone was like that how happy the world would be. May God bless everybody to have such comfort. I will also get that one day.” Make those people your friends. That response is missed in many cases, not only between individuals but even among nations. When some nation is prospering, the neighboring country is jealous of it and wants to ruin its economy. So we should always have the key of friendliness when we see happy people."
Is yoga/buddhism reactionary?
I started being interested in eastern spirituality in general since i started training physical yoga last year. It changed my life i would say, i stopped feeling any physical discomfort caused by sedentary lifestyle and many times at the end practice, laying down on floor in "corpse pose" i felt something approaching a bliss, my mood also seems significantly lifted, i no longer give a fuck, even tho my material situation has not changed much.This in turn caused me to get interested in eastern philosophy itself, i started reading Yoga Sutras, translation by Swami Satchenada (most popular translation from sanskrit i think, this guy was pretty famous with american hippies back in 60s).
Many of Satchenada commentaries are pretty interesting, they are modern and straight-forward, for example there are explamples including driving cars or going to the mall, there are also fragments that made me ask, is this guy reactionary? Can i reconcile at all my marxist tendencies with my interest in eastern philosophy, or are those things contradictory? All i know there is some one movement that says "actually buddhism and marxism has lot in common", are there more?
Here is the quote i am talking about:
"Suppose some people drive up in a big car, park in front of a huge palatial home and get out. Some other people are standing on the pavement in the hot sun getting tired. How many of those people will be happy? Not many. They will be saying, “See that big car? Those people are sucking the blood of the laborers.” We come across people like that; they are always jealous. When a person gets name, fame or high position, they try to criticize that person. “Oh, don’t you know, that person’s brother is so-and-so. Some strings must have been pulled.” They will never admit that the person might have gone up by his or her own merit. By that jealousy, you will not disturb the other person, but you disturb your own serenity. Those people simply got out of the car and walked into the house, but you are burning up inside. Instead, think, “Oh, such fortunate people. If everyone was like that how happy the world would be. May God bless everybody to have such comfort. I will also get that one day.” Make those people your friends. That response is missed in many cases, not only between individuals but even among nations. When some nation is prospering, the neighboring country is jealous of it and wants to ruin its economy. So we should always have the key of friendliness when we see happy people."
R: 7 / I: 0
Best analysis of channers that I've seen
Postmodern geekdom as simulated ethnicity
https://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/jc54.2012/SolesKunyoGeedom/Best analysis of channers that I've seen
R: 22 / I: 5
Need help on a problem?
Developing a new mathematical theory of marxism?
Post here and ill try to help.
Love & Solidarity
Physics and mathematics help
Are you a comrade working on something for school or uni that utilizes math or physics?Need help on a problem?
Developing a new mathematical theory of marxism?
Post here and ill try to help.
Love & Solidarity
R: 2 / I: 1
Theweleit's Male Fantasies
Read most of the first volume of this a few years ago, I thought it was interesting although Theweleit very weirdly fails to mention the origin in the rabidly romanticist, nationalist intelligentsia of the German WWI shock troops and the later Freikorps companies that formed out of them, Ernst Junger being the most famous example, which could make many of their own writings very deliberate rather than passive confessions
R: 18 / I: 6
This is a significant topic for preventing the disruption of communities and of information sharing, even more in loosely-moderated places.
Bonus points for anything pertaining to an actual collective counter-trolling tactics rather than just individuals or enforced authority (e.g. moderation deleting/banning).
Studying Online Trolling
I'd like to see some discussion, resources, whatever about how an individual or a community should handle trolls, or the methods used by organized agitators to troll forums.This is a significant topic for preventing the disruption of communities and of information sharing, even more in loosely-moderated places.
Bonus points for anything pertaining to an actual collective counter-trolling tactics rather than just individuals or enforced authority (e.g. moderation deleting/banning).
R: 12 / I: 1
Class character of organized crime
I've been wondering recently: the people who own nothing and produce nothing are the lumpenproletariat, and that includes hobos and criminals. However, organized criminals have bosses who take part of their gains, same as a capitalist takes a wage laborer's surplus value. Can thus mafia bosses and drug kingpins be called a "lumpenbourgeoisie", a specific type of bourgeois that takes the surplus value of illegal or extractive activities? I've seen the term applied to compradors. Also, Mike Hudson comes to mind - he claims the primary contradiction of modern capitalism is not between labor and capital, but the FIRE sector and everyone else, arguing that this industry produces no real physical value and just seeks rents off moving numbers around - could this also fall under the same umbrella?
R: 6 / I: 4
The left has been virtually dead for decades and all what the current "leftist" parties care about is electoralism.
Me and my comrades are looking to fill this vacuum and start a revolutionary movement that cares less about electoralism and more about winning the direct support of the people while pursuing revolutionary change. Having an armed wing is essential as we will no doubt be under attack by reactionary militias but we also want to be close to the people and win their support before beginning a full on armed struggle.
I personally have no experience with organising or the military. So I'm looking for resources that can aid me with this. Especially the financial aspect.
Please share as much as you can everything from movement building to cyber security, including the classics.
Thanks comrades
[Serious] Looking for in-depth resources on movement building and guerilla warfare
I live in the third world, there is relative lawlessness in the country as the central authority is weak and there exist many bourgeois militias.The left has been virtually dead for decades and all what the current "leftist" parties care about is electoralism.
Me and my comrades are looking to fill this vacuum and start a revolutionary movement that cares less about electoralism and more about winning the direct support of the people while pursuing revolutionary change. Having an armed wing is essential as we will no doubt be under attack by reactionary militias but we also want to be close to the people and win their support before beginning a full on armed struggle.
I personally have no experience with organising or the military. So I'm looking for resources that can aid me with this. Especially the financial aspect.
Please share as much as you can everything from movement building to cyber security, including the classics.
Thanks comrades
R: 36 / I: 7
I regularly hear from people on here that stories of revolutionary atrocities are outlandish lies or exaggerations fabricated by reactionaries to make themselves seem better in comparison. Why wouldn't that be true of the French Revolution? Was Robespierre really a megalomaniac, or did the Thermidorians make all that shit up after they won, and that's what got passed down to us through counter-revolutionary academia?
did the Thermidorian reactionaries lie about based madlad Robespierre?
So did the Thermidorian reactionaries make up all the crazy shit about Robespierre, or is it mostly true? I find stuff like the festival of the supreme being where he descended from a mountain to give a speech particularly batshit and theatrical and farfetched.I regularly hear from people on here that stories of revolutionary atrocities are outlandish lies or exaggerations fabricated by reactionaries to make themselves seem better in comparison. Why wouldn't that be true of the French Revolution? Was Robespierre really a megalomaniac, or did the Thermidorians make all that shit up after they won, and that's what got passed down to us through counter-revolutionary academia?
R: 124 / I: 18
Feel free to post your own resources and tips too.
I'm going to post a lot of my own that I have gathered over the years.
I ask that random chit-chat in this thread is kept to a minimum except regarding technical questions & answers on the topic matter.
This is so that resources are kept as compact as possible, and so, readable.
First I'll dump resources and tips for researching various topics.
Note: I don't even have access to or use some of these myself (e.g. LexisNexis which seems to be pay-to-use), but I figure they could be helpful in some narrow cases. I use most of these myself. If the initial things I post don't interest you, keep reading anyway. I'm going to be dumping a lot of content.
PressReader
https://www.pressreader.com/
Find key terms in newspapers and magazines.
I would say this is more helpful for finding sources that do exist rather than for reading them, per se. You can try to read the articles elsewhere than PressReader if you know their titles or part of their body text. The site appears to brand itself as pay-to-use, however you can use the search tool anyway and even read some resulting articles.
e.g. https://www.pressreader.com/search?query=Facebook
Nexis newspaper database
https://www.lexisnexis.com/en-us/professional/nexis/nexis.page
https://www.lexisnexis.com/en-us/professional/nexis/nexis-features.page
I can't speak much about it because I have not used it. I learned it existed because of a mention in a FAIR.org article. It's apparently a searchable database of newspapers similar to the above-mentioned PressReader. So I can't vouch for it (plus it's pay-to-use). But it's worth a mention. It seemed like at least one university system uses it.
Chronicling America
Library of Congress project that lets you search some historical American newspapers. By no means is it an archive of *all* historical newspaper content.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
The Wikipedia Library
This is a list of various resources compiled or provided by the Wikipedia Library, which is a system aiming to help the site's editors gain better access to sources. Some of this requires you to be an active editor on the site to access, some of it doesn't.
A. https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/partners/
Their main program, which provides access to partnered pay-walled content for active Wikipedia editors.
B. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Find_sources
'Find sources', for finding sources in the first place. Useful for non-editors, too.
C. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Find_your_source
'Find your source', for finding a source you already know about but can't access. Just a general advice page, much of it you don't need to be an editor to exploit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Find_your_source
One editor's misplaced advice supplementing C.
D. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:RD
Wikipedia's reference desk. You don't need to be an active editor to ask questions here. You might also try /marx/ (see later planned entry about /marx/ for best info).
E. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Find_your_library
Some advice from WPL about finding a library with a source you are seeking (like a book).
F. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:The_Wikipedia_Library/Free_resources
Free resources list. Compilation of resources on a plethora of topics usable by non-editors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Unreferenced_articles/Resources
Supplement.
G. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Free_English_newspaper_sources
Project Gutenberg
https://www.gutenberg.org/
Free e-book library.
The Internet Archive
https://archive.org/
Also a free e-book library. Has video and audio too. Make an account and you can freely check out e-books as though it were a physical library.
Google stuff
A. Google's "Talk to Books"
https://books.google.com/talktobooks/
Enter natural queries, get related books.
Related projects: https://research.google.com/semanticexperiences/
Broadly, but rarely helpful.
B. Google Scholar
https://scholar.google.com/
I recommend unchecking "include citations" on the side, will save you a lot of asshurt.
C. Google Newspapers
https://news.google.com/newspapers
I have no idea why this isn't visible from the main Google search area.
D. Google Books
https://www.google.com/search?q="INSERT+TEXT+HERE"&tbm=bks
E. Programmable Google search engine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Syced/Wikipedia_Reference_Search
This was programmed to find Wikipedia references but it should be broadly useful.
F. Tips to improve your Google search effectiveness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPw4PSsi55A
https://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/20-tips-use-google-search-efficiently.html
cont.
/leftypol/—/edu/ Resources Handbook
ITT: resources and tips about navigating the Internet and researching topicsFeel free to post your own resources and tips too.
I'm going to post a lot of my own that I have gathered over the years.
I ask that random chit-chat in this thread is kept to a minimum except regarding technical questions & answers on the topic matter.
This is so that resources are kept as compact as possible, and so, readable.
First I'll dump resources and tips for researching various topics.
Note: I don't even have access to or use some of these myself (e.g. LexisNexis which seems to be pay-to-use), but I figure they could be helpful in some narrow cases. I use most of these myself. If the initial things I post don't interest you, keep reading anyway. I'm going to be dumping a lot of content.
PressReader
https://www.pressreader.com/
Find key terms in newspapers and magazines.
I would say this is more helpful for finding sources that do exist rather than for reading them, per se. You can try to read the articles elsewhere than PressReader if you know their titles or part of their body text. The site appears to brand itself as pay-to-use, however you can use the search tool anyway and even read some resulting articles.
e.g. https://www.pressreader.com/search?query=Facebook
Nexis newspaper database
https://www.lexisnexis.com/en-us/professional/nexis/nexis.page
https://www.lexisnexis.com/en-us/professional/nexis/nexis-features.page
I can't speak much about it because I have not used it. I learned it existed because of a mention in a FAIR.org article. It's apparently a searchable database of newspapers similar to the above-mentioned PressReader. So I can't vouch for it (plus it's pay-to-use). But it's worth a mention. It seemed like at least one university system uses it.
Chronicling America
Library of Congress project that lets you search some historical American newspapers. By no means is it an archive of *all* historical newspaper content.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
The Wikipedia Library
This is a list of various resources compiled or provided by the Wikipedia Library, which is a system aiming to help the site's editors gain better access to sources. Some of this requires you to be an active editor on the site to access, some of it doesn't.
A. https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/partners/
Their main program, which provides access to partnered pay-walled content for active Wikipedia editors.
B. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Find_sources
'Find sources', for finding sources in the first place. Useful for non-editors, too.
C. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Find_your_source
'Find your source', for finding a source you already know about but can't access. Just a general advice page, much of it you don't need to be an editor to exploit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Find_your_source
One editor's misplaced advice supplementing C.
D. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:RD
Wikipedia's reference desk. You don't need to be an active editor to ask questions here. You might also try /marx/ (see later planned entry about /marx/ for best info).
E. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Find_your_library
Some advice from WPL about finding a library with a source you are seeking (like a book).
F. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:The_Wikipedia_Library/Free_resources
Free resources list. Compilation of resources on a plethora of topics usable by non-editors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Unreferenced_articles/Resources
Supplement.
G. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Free_English_newspaper_sources
Project Gutenberg
https://www.gutenberg.org/
Free e-book library.
The Internet Archive
https://archive.org/
Also a free e-book library. Has video and audio too. Make an account and you can freely check out e-books as though it were a physical library.
Google stuff
A. Google's "Talk to Books"
https://books.google.com/talktobooks/
Enter natural queries, get related books.
Related projects: https://research.google.com/semanticexperiences/
Broadly, but rarely helpful.
B. Google Scholar
https://scholar.google.com/
I recommend unchecking "include citations" on the side, will save you a lot of asshurt.
C. Google Newspapers
https://news.google.com/newspapers
I have no idea why this isn't visible from the main Google search area.
D. Google Books
https://www.google.com/search?q="INSERT+TEXT+HERE"&tbm=bks
E. Programmable Google search engine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Syced/Wikipedia_Reference_Search
This was programmed to find Wikipedia references but it should be broadly useful.
F. Tips to improve your Google search effectiveness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPw4PSsi55A
https://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/20-tips-use-google-search-efficiently.html
cont.
R: 3 / I: 0
It's a shame that such fascinating historical movements that brought Arab and Iranian leftists together against their reactionary regimes, are virtually unknown.
The Dhofar Rebellion
What decent books are there about the Dhofar War, and southern Arabian (Yemeni & Omani) socialist experiments? All I can find are articles.It's a shame that such fascinating historical movements that brought Arab and Iranian leftists together against their reactionary regimes, are virtually unknown.
R: 195 / I: 54
I just found this photograph btw. Samurai didn't look nearly as impressive as I thought they would, and that hairdo is "objectively ugly."
There were a lot of peasant revolutions/movements that tried to go against the samurai but they all ultimately failed so no one except historians talk about them. Unfortunately too, the people who study Japanese history appear to be mostly weebs who romanticize the samurai so much that you never get to hear about the peasents' movements.
Samurai thread
Was the Meiji restoration and "restoring power to the emperor" a good or bad thing in 18th century Japan for the peasants? It marked the upper class revolution that caused the samurai feudal system to transition into a capitalist system. (Which ultimately turned into a racist imperialist empire that tried to invade and oppress all of its neighbors in Asia in a sort of fascist system, and as Japan lost the war the people starved and suffered greatly.)I just found this photograph btw. Samurai didn't look nearly as impressive as I thought they would, and that hairdo is "objectively ugly."
There were a lot of peasant revolutions/movements that tried to go against the samurai but they all ultimately failed so no one except historians talk about them. Unfortunately too, the people who study Japanese history appear to be mostly weebs who romanticize the samurai so much that you never get to hear about the peasents' movements.
R: 36 / I: 25
/space/
The history of space travel. I want all material, factoids, trivia, books on space. From Sputnik to the recent Crew Dragon and further beyond
R: 10 / I: 0
The first problem is that many of these texts on dialectics look like pure gibberish to me, and it makes me mad when I can't understand them. Second, the words and definitions seem to change constantly depending on what I'm reading. Some people talk about the "dialectical method", others about "laws of dialectics", the "dialectic of history", "materialist dialectics", "dialectical biology", "dialectical consciousness", x person's dialectics, x philosophy's dialectics, others even bring up math and physics, etc. It all becomes increasingly convoluted and confusing, and in the end I fail to understand anything. It just leads me back to my initial question, what the fuck is dialectics? Maybe I'm just really not smart enough for Marxism, or philosophy is not my thing.
Still, I've been thinking about giving dialectics another try, maybe starting from scratch again, so if anyone knowledgeable can point me in the right direction, I'd really appreciate it. Maybe there's some key treatise I've missed or some obscure lecture that will make it all easier. Thanks for reading my rant.
Need help with Dialectics
I have to confess something to you, comrades. I've been a leftist for many years now (here since the 8chan days), and I still CANNOT fully understand what the fuck dialectics is. Yes, I've read plenty, I've read a lot of Marx and Engels, later Marxist authors, philosophy books, dictionary definitions, I've watched philosophy lectures, youtube videos. I've even read some Hegel, with a lot of difficulty. All this and my brain still cannot grasp wtf dialectics is actually supposed to be.The first problem is that many of these texts on dialectics look like pure gibberish to me, and it makes me mad when I can't understand them. Second, the words and definitions seem to change constantly depending on what I'm reading. Some people talk about the "dialectical method", others about "laws of dialectics", the "dialectic of history", "materialist dialectics", "dialectical biology", "dialectical consciousness", x person's dialectics, x philosophy's dialectics, others even bring up math and physics, etc. It all becomes increasingly convoluted and confusing, and in the end I fail to understand anything. It just leads me back to my initial question, what the fuck is dialectics? Maybe I'm just really not smart enough for Marxism, or philosophy is not my thing.
Still, I've been thinking about giving dialectics another try, maybe starting from scratch again, so if anyone knowledgeable can point me in the right direction, I'd really appreciate it. Maybe there's some key treatise I've missed or some obscure lecture that will make it all easier. Thanks for reading my rant.
R: 77 / I: 14
>What is Wydna?
Wydna is a research collective dedicated to reading history through a unique lens. Taking inspiration from Marxism and Accelerationism, Kantbot and other members of the collective dedicate themselves to uncovering the conspiracies, traditions and ideologies that circle the elites of the British and American Empires. Through their podcast, they discuss secret societies, scandals, and factions of the deep state in a fashion considered unconventional to our current interpretation of history.
>That sounds great, where can I learn more?
Their episodes are paywalled, so that's why I'm making this thread. I will be uploading some of their more noteworthy episodes on request here for those who aren't interested in paying the 5$ a month on patreon.
You can listen to their most popular episodes for free on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/45p4IYDT96zuulXl1oH5wW?si=4uuH0B85RjWbbqdEmnwQkw
And I will be filling this thread with links to episodes I consider noteworthy.
I'll start by uploading their episode on the history of political economy, which is 7 hours, so I'll be breaking the audio up into several parts. This post, OP, contains the first 3.
/wydna/ - Kantbot, Pseudodoxology, Tankerpills, and Wydna
Seems like there are a few people on leftypol interested in this subject so I thought I'd create a thread dedicated to discussing the Wydna collective and Pseudodoxology podcast>What is Wydna?
Wydna is a research collective dedicated to reading history through a unique lens. Taking inspiration from Marxism and Accelerationism, Kantbot and other members of the collective dedicate themselves to uncovering the conspiracies, traditions and ideologies that circle the elites of the British and American Empires. Through their podcast, they discuss secret societies, scandals, and factions of the deep state in a fashion considered unconventional to our current interpretation of history.
>That sounds great, where can I learn more?
Their episodes are paywalled, so that's why I'm making this thread. I will be uploading some of their more noteworthy episodes on request here for those who aren't interested in paying the 5$ a month on patreon.
You can listen to their most popular episodes for free on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/45p4IYDT96zuulXl1oH5wW?si=4uuH0B85RjWbbqdEmnwQkw
And I will be filling this thread with links to episodes I consider noteworthy.
I'll start by uploading their episode on the history of political economy, which is 7 hours, so I'll be breaking the audio up into several parts. This post, OP, contains the first 3.
R: 8 / I: 0
Special Bodies of Armed Men
I've read plenty of theory but any good books from the last 10 years about police? I'm particularly interested in the culture of fear police have when it comes to interacting with people.
R: 470 / I: 80
The right completely rejects any anti-natal ethic (see pic related). most antinatalists are overwhelmingly pessimists (or cynics) and when politically active they tend to be leftist socialists (Think Thomas Ligotti, David Benatar, Philipp Mainländer… etc). antinatalism is very underground, even more so than veganism and is mostly perceived in a negative light even by the left. it's seen as reactionary and extreme and therefore dismissed.
however, I think that anti-natal ethics have a huge potential to reduce a lot of suffering as antinatalist philosophy often asks deeper questions about life, meanwhile most of the leftist discourse is focused on social identity and capitalism. it's not that antinatalists don't think of those things as big problems that need to be overcome, on the contrary, antinatalists tend to be hardcore socialist leftists but they also recognize deeper issues that (I would argue) are even more pressing than the overcoming of capitalism.
now before you slam antinatalists as genocidal defeatist nihilists, you should understand that antinatalists are not a monolith, some are apolitical and some aren't, some have unconditional anti-life attitudes and some are transhumanists and so on…
the point im trying to make here is that I think it's a mistake to outright reject antinatalism or antinatalists from leftist discourse, and as allies, as antinatalists care deeply about suffering, something that the left is synonymous with.
Antinatalism position in the left.
Serious discussion.The right completely rejects any anti-natal ethic (see pic related). most antinatalists are overwhelmingly pessimists (or cynics) and when politically active they tend to be leftist socialists (Think Thomas Ligotti, David Benatar, Philipp Mainländer… etc). antinatalism is very underground, even more so than veganism and is mostly perceived in a negative light even by the left. it's seen as reactionary and extreme and therefore dismissed.
however, I think that anti-natal ethics have a huge potential to reduce a lot of suffering as antinatalist philosophy often asks deeper questions about life, meanwhile most of the leftist discourse is focused on social identity and capitalism. it's not that antinatalists don't think of those things as big problems that need to be overcome, on the contrary, antinatalists tend to be hardcore socialist leftists but they also recognize deeper issues that (I would argue) are even more pressing than the overcoming of capitalism.
now before you slam antinatalists as genocidal defeatist nihilists, you should understand that antinatalists are not a monolith, some are apolitical and some aren't, some have unconditional anti-life attitudes and some are transhumanists and so on…
the point im trying to make here is that I think it's a mistake to outright reject antinatalism or antinatalists from leftist discourse, and as allies, as antinatalists care deeply about suffering, something that the left is synonymous with.
R: 4 / I: 1
Half of your DNA is from viruses. You are as much virus as human. How does this make you feel?
>Eight percent of our DNA consists of remnants of ancient viruses, and another 40 percent is made up of repetitive strings of genetic letters that is also thought to have a viral origin. Those extensive viral regions are much more than evolutionary relics: They may be deeply involved with a wide range of diseases including multiple sclerosis, hemophilia, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), along with certain types of dementia and cancer.
https://www.cshl.edu/the-non-human-living-inside-of-you/
Half of your DNA is from viruses. You are as much virus as human. How does this make you feel?
>Eight percent of our DNA consists of remnants of ancient viruses, and another 40 percent is made up of repetitive strings of genetic letters that is also thought to have a viral origin. Those extensive viral regions are much more than evolutionary relics: They may be deeply involved with a wide range of diseases including multiple sclerosis, hemophilia, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), along with certain types of dementia and cancer.
https://www.cshl.edu/the-non-human-living-inside-of-you/
R: 12 / I: 3
>The goal of this forum is to create a community for producing and reproducing scientific knowledge in political economy that exists totally outside of the realm of academia, the world of bourgeois non-profits and thinktanks, and the state apparatus. Today, political economy, which has been transformed into the “scientific” discipline of economics, has been both gutted of its most insightful content and held back by obscurantist and outdated mathematical models. It was once the case, in the days of Smith, Ricardo and Marx, that political economy was a form of thinking, researching and discussion which was undertaken by a broad public: working men, skilled craftsmen, professionals, clergy and professors. In this time, people didn’t write textbooks of economics, books to be taught by rote learning, they wrote books which were meant to be read by people interested in political economy and further their own research and understanding.
>This forum is built on the optimism for human curiosity and ingenuity, on the hope that there’s a possibility for creating a social science that isn’t trapped in the confines of a state ideology. A place for discussing political economy and related issues outside of the universities, economic bureaucracies and institutes funded by and for the ruling class; to the extent individuals from that world use this forum it should be to escape that world. On the other side of things, while it would be excellent for the work of this forum and its users to go on and inspire political movements, the forum itself is not sectarian, and is intended as a place for a general scientific community where all stripes of researchers can present their findings and debate.
>The features of this site are intended to nurture such a community. Users can write posts on their own personal blogs in long form to describe their research, as well as follow the works of other users. The actual forum allows users to create topics to discuss anything political economy related, as well as developments in real world economies, keeping dialogue open and inclusive to the public. The debates in the forum can teach people about political economy, as well as inspire further investigation. If you see a user post some interesting ideas, you can click on their profile and see what blogs they’ve written about their own research. More personal connections and collaborations can be formed by users utilizing chat features. The front page hosts the best research of the CASPER Forum as well as articles and papers related to political economy from important authors and institutions. The point is to centralize and socialize the free labor of producing science
https://casperforum.org/blog/a-new-scientific-community-for-political-economy-research/
https://casperforum.org/community/
New Website for Political Economy Research
Anon from the cybercom thread suggested I post this here as well. A forum for political economy research started by Marxists. Classical Econophysics is listed on the resource page.>The goal of this forum is to create a community for producing and reproducing scientific knowledge in political economy that exists totally outside of the realm of academia, the world of bourgeois non-profits and thinktanks, and the state apparatus. Today, political economy, which has been transformed into the “scientific” discipline of economics, has been both gutted of its most insightful content and held back by obscurantist and outdated mathematical models. It was once the case, in the days of Smith, Ricardo and Marx, that political economy was a form of thinking, researching and discussion which was undertaken by a broad public: working men, skilled craftsmen, professionals, clergy and professors. In this time, people didn’t write textbooks of economics, books to be taught by rote learning, they wrote books which were meant to be read by people interested in political economy and further their own research and understanding.
>This forum is built on the optimism for human curiosity and ingenuity, on the hope that there’s a possibility for creating a social science that isn’t trapped in the confines of a state ideology. A place for discussing political economy and related issues outside of the universities, economic bureaucracies and institutes funded by and for the ruling class; to the extent individuals from that world use this forum it should be to escape that world. On the other side of things, while it would be excellent for the work of this forum and its users to go on and inspire political movements, the forum itself is not sectarian, and is intended as a place for a general scientific community where all stripes of researchers can present their findings and debate.
>The features of this site are intended to nurture such a community. Users can write posts on their own personal blogs in long form to describe their research, as well as follow the works of other users. The actual forum allows users to create topics to discuss anything political economy related, as well as developments in real world economies, keeping dialogue open and inclusive to the public. The debates in the forum can teach people about political economy, as well as inspire further investigation. If you see a user post some interesting ideas, you can click on their profile and see what blogs they’ve written about their own research. More personal connections and collaborations can be formed by users utilizing chat features. The front page hosts the best research of the CASPER Forum as well as articles and papers related to political economy from important authors and institutions. The point is to centralize and socialize the free labor of producing science
https://casperforum.org/blog/a-new-scientific-community-for-political-economy-research/
https://casperforum.org/community/
R: 43 / I: 7
How do we know myths, stories, magic, etc. are not real? Assuming what we know scientifically is true, how does this negate myth, legend, etc? Why are dinosaurs not simultaneously animals and also monsters when they fit what we would have called monsters? Why are overriding social systems not tantamount to a spirit or God when they control our actions and shape our life histories even if they don't act consciously? Are they not what we'd call an egregor, i.e., a presence brought into existence by the actions and beliefs of a large number of people? Is our Sun not a God when it is responsible for all life on Earth? Is the biosphere not some sort of Earth spirit when it encompasses all living things yet influences each individually and can be destroyed through harming the Natural (non-human) World. Are spirits not the electrical currents moving through your brain? Do we not tell history as a story?
In the beginning there was nothing but the One, then the One expanded into the Everything, as the Everything continued to expand soon the beating hearts of the Everything, the Stars began to form from the energy of the Beginning, the stars coalesced into huge interstellar communities, galaxies; in the nuclear core of the stars more building elements were created, and from the stars came the planets; in the deep seas of one planet around one star life formed out of the energy of the planet's iron core, over the course of billions of years life arose in complexity in a way matching the Everything until finally from Life emerged the Someone, a complex arrangement of the Everything capable of consciously perceiving itself.
Why isn't our understanding of the Universe, even being scientifically true, a myth? Myths were once truths, after all.
Is it possible that magic and myth are true?
Inspired by my reading of the book, Ishmael, by Daniel QuinnHow do we know myths, stories, magic, etc. are not real? Assuming what we know scientifically is true, how does this negate myth, legend, etc? Why are dinosaurs not simultaneously animals and also monsters when they fit what we would have called monsters? Why are overriding social systems not tantamount to a spirit or God when they control our actions and shape our life histories even if they don't act consciously? Are they not what we'd call an egregor, i.e., a presence brought into existence by the actions and beliefs of a large number of people? Is our Sun not a God when it is responsible for all life on Earth? Is the biosphere not some sort of Earth spirit when it encompasses all living things yet influences each individually and can be destroyed through harming the Natural (non-human) World. Are spirits not the electrical currents moving through your brain? Do we not tell history as a story?
In the beginning there was nothing but the One, then the One expanded into the Everything, as the Everything continued to expand soon the beating hearts of the Everything, the Stars began to form from the energy of the Beginning, the stars coalesced into huge interstellar communities, galaxies; in the nuclear core of the stars more building elements were created, and from the stars came the planets; in the deep seas of one planet around one star life formed out of the energy of the planet's iron core, over the course of billions of years life arose in complexity in a way matching the Everything until finally from Life emerged the Someone, a complex arrangement of the Everything capable of consciously perceiving itself.
Why isn't our understanding of the Universe, even being scientifically true, a myth? Myths were once truths, after all.
R: 24 / I: 6
>>5912 /read/
>>6162 Continental Floppa
edit: linking the old Reading Thread sticky, for easy reference: >>>/leftypol_archive/5825951
Reading Group List
A list of reading groups and their schedules that have chosen to advertise themselves here. Take a minute to check them out. If you would like to promote your reading group, feel free to leave a comment telling people where they can go.>>5912 /read/
>>6162 Continental Floppa
edit: linking the old Reading Thread sticky, for easy reference: >>>/leftypol_archive/582595
R: 33 / I: 12
Discuss History, Mythology, Archeology, Socio-Economics, Politics and Culture of Ancient China. This includes Tibet, Korea and Mongolia.
Leftypedia >>3780 requires an article on Ancient China, all that is covered is the current People's Republic
Important Topics
>Mythology and Legends and their Modern Cultural Impacts
A society that arose at the beginning of human civilization, China's culture is enormous and diverse. Legends and mythology of China such as Fa Mulan and Journey to the West are just prominent examples of legends that influenced others across the globe. Recommend and discuss literature or myths on this.
>Eastern Philosophy, Culture and Religion
The East, especially China developed several unique religions and philosophies utterly separate from the primarily Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian philosophies of Western and Central Europe as well as the Middle East. The 3 primary Chinese philosophies are Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. Discuss the merits of these.
>Military Conflicts and Everyday Life in Ancient China
Society in China developed on its own and so it had much different ways of life. China is also known for having massive conflicts, some of the first to have millions of men fight at a time. China is known for it's generals such as author of "The Art of War"* Sun Tzu, Han Xing and CaoCao.
*https://sites.ualberta.ca/~enoch/Readings/The_Art_Of_War.pdf
>Colonial China
In the 19th Century, China, having stagnated under the Manchu or Quing invaders, lagged behind and lost the Opium Wars, being forced to open up to British, German, Russian and Japanese colonialism of such cities and territories like Beijing, Manchuria and Hong Kong.
- Бутаков Александр Михайлович; барон Тизенгаузен Александр Евгеньевич, Опиумные войны. Обзор войн европейцев против Китая в 1840—1842, 1856—1858, 1859 и 1860 годах http://militera.lib.ru/h/butakov_tizengauz/index.html
Recommended book for basic overview - Harold M. Tanner, China: A History Volume 1 (2009)
Ancient China General
Thread for History of Ancient China up until the end of the Chinese EmpireDiscuss History, Mythology, Archeology, Socio-Economics, Politics and Culture of Ancient China. This includes Tibet, Korea and Mongolia.
Leftypedia >>3780 requires an article on Ancient China, all that is covered is the current People's Republic
Important Topics
>Mythology and Legends and their Modern Cultural Impacts
A society that arose at the beginning of human civilization, China's culture is enormous and diverse. Legends and mythology of China such as Fa Mulan and Journey to the West are just prominent examples of legends that influenced others across the globe. Recommend and discuss literature or myths on this.
>Eastern Philosophy, Culture and Religion
The East, especially China developed several unique religions and philosophies utterly separate from the primarily Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian philosophies of Western and Central Europe as well as the Middle East. The 3 primary Chinese philosophies are Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. Discuss the merits of these.
>Military Conflicts and Everyday Life in Ancient China
Society in China developed on its own and so it had much different ways of life. China is also known for having massive conflicts, some of the first to have millions of men fight at a time. China is known for it's generals such as author of "The Art of War"* Sun Tzu, Han Xing and CaoCao.
*https://sites.ualberta.ca/~enoch/Readings/The_Art_Of_War.pdf
>Colonial China
In the 19th Century, China, having stagnated under the Manchu or Quing invaders, lagged behind and lost the Opium Wars, being forced to open up to British, German, Russian and Japanese colonialism of such cities and territories like Beijing, Manchuria and Hong Kong.
- Бутаков Александр Михайлович; барон Тизенгаузен Александр Евгеньевич, Опиумные войны. Обзор войн европейцев против Китая в 1840—1842, 1856—1858, 1859 и 1860 годах http://militera.lib.ru/h/butakov_tizengauz/index.html
Recommended book for basic overview - Harold M. Tanner, China: A History Volume 1 (2009)
R: 81 / I: 11
http://www.operationbarbarossa.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Essay-alt-view-TIK-presentation.pdf
I checked out his website and alsthough he does seem to be knowledgeable, he makes certain ridiculous claims that the "Vicors write history" in WW2, and the allies covered up how technologically and tactically inferior they were to the germans.
Can you help me debunk this wehraboo historian
This guy Is called nigel askey, and is apparently a legitimate historian. He published a paper debunking TIK's claim that the K/D ratio of the soviets during WW was 1/1.6, instead claiming that the soviets lost over 4 more times as many combatants as the Germansduring WW2. Here is his paper. I'm not a qualified historian and I dont have access to acrhives or time to research, so I can't debunk him.http://www.operationbarbarossa.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Essay-alt-view-TIK-presentation.pdf
I checked out his website and alsthough he does seem to be knowledgeable, he makes certain ridiculous claims that the "Vicors write history" in WW2, and the allies covered up how technologically and tactically inferior they were to the germans.
R: 285 / I: 99
Long-hidden ruins of vast network of Maya cities could recast history
<In Guatemala, scientists map well-organized network of 417 cities dating to circa 1000 B.C.
>Beneath 1,350 square miles of dense jungle in northern Guatemala, scientists have discovered 417 cities that date back to circa 1000 B.C. and that are connected by nearly 110 miles of “superhighways” — a network of what researchers called “the first freeway system in the world.”
>Scientist say this extensive road-and-city network, along with sophisticated ceremonial complexes, hydraulic systems and agricultural infrastructure, suggests that the ancient Maya civilization, which stretched through what is now Central America, was far more advanced than previously thought.
>Mapping the area since 2015 using lidar technology — an advanced type of radar that reveals things hidden by dense vegetation and the tree canopy — researchers have found what they say is evidence of a well-organized economic, political and social system operating some two millennia ago.
>The discovery is sparking a rethinking of the accepted idea that the people of the mid- to late-Preclassic Maya civilization (1000 B.C. to A.D. 250) would have been only hunter-gatherers, “roving bands of nomads, planting corn,” says Richard Hansen, the lead author of a study about the finding that was published in January and an affiliate research professor of archaeology at the University of Idaho.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2023/05/20/mayan-civilization-pyramid-discoveries-guatemala/
Graham Hancock - absolved
His detractors - BTFO
You may begin your posts by admitting you were wrong to trust liberal scientists and the ideology-laden "science" that aims to maintain the status quo, rather than advance humanity. I'm not angry, or here to gloat, I am just happy that now we can finally move on and start discussing the implications of "civilisation" being much older than we think. How does this affect Historical Materialism? (my position, as explained extensively and in-depth in the last thread, is that it actually makes HistMat a more robust theory) Graham Hancock is a self-proclaimed socialist
The last effortpost thread, full of academic sources, logic, reasoning, good arguments, was moved to /siberia/ as to kill it. It seems I didn't save it on this computer, but I know for sure I saved it. I will find it, I promise you that.
Long-hidden ruins of vast network of Maya cities could recast history
<In Guatemala, scientists map well-organized network of 417 cities dating to circa 1000 B.C.
>Beneath 1,350 square miles of dense jungle in northern Guatemala, scientists have discovered 417 cities that date back to circa 1000 B.C. and that are connected by nearly 110 miles of “superhighways” — a network of what researchers called “the first freeway system in the world.”
>Scientist say this extensive road-and-city network, along with sophisticated ceremonial complexes, hydraulic systems and agricultural infrastructure, suggests that the ancient Maya civilization, which stretched through what is now Central America, was far more advanced than previously thought.
>Mapping the area since 2015 using lidar technology — an advanced type of radar that reveals things hidden by dense vegetation and the tree canopy — researchers have found what they say is evidence of a well-organized economic, political and social system operating some two millennia ago.
>The discovery is sparking a rethinking of the accepted idea that the people of the mid- to late-Preclassic Maya civilization (1000 B.C. to A.D. 250) would have been only hunter-gatherers, “roving bands of nomads, planting corn,” says Richard Hansen, the lead author of a study about the finding that was published in January and an affiliate research professor of archaeology at the University of Idaho.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2023/05/20/mayan-civilization-pyramid-discoveries-guatemala/
Graham Hancock - absolved
His detractors - BTFO
You may begin your posts by admitting you were wrong to trust liberal scientists and the ideology-laden "science" that aims to maintain the status quo, rather than advance humanity. I'm not angry, or here to gloat, I am just happy that now we can finally move on and start discussing the implications of "civilisation" being much older than we think. How does this affect Historical Materialism? (my position, as explained extensively and in-depth in the last thread, is that it actually makes HistMat a more robust theory) Graham Hancock is a self-proclaimed socialist
The last effortpost thread, full of academic sources, logic, reasoning, good arguments, was moved to /siberia/ as to kill it. It seems I didn't save it on this computer, but I know for sure I saved it. I will find it, I promise you that.
R: 8 / I: 1
Capitalism and extreme poverty: A global analysis of real wages, human height, and mortality since the long 16th century
< The common notion that extreme poverty is the “natural” condition of humanity and only declined with the rise of capitalism rests on income data that do not adequately capture access to essential goods.
<Data on real wages suggests that, historically, extreme poverty was uncommon and arose primarily during periods of severe social and economic dislocation, particularly under colonialism.
<The rise of capitalism from the long 16th century onward is associated with a decline in wages to below subsistence, a deterioration in human stature, and an upturn in premature mortality.
<In parts of South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, wages and/or height have still not recovered.
<Where progress has occurred, significant improvements in human welfare began only around the 20th century. These gains coincide with the rise of anti-colonial and socialist political movements.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X22002169
Anti-Capitalist Studies Dump
Post all the studies in here that undermine capitalism. Post the title, a summary of the content and share either a link to or a PDF of the study in question.Capitalism and extreme poverty: A global analysis of real wages, human height, and mortality since the long 16th century
< The common notion that extreme poverty is the “natural” condition of humanity and only declined with the rise of capitalism rests on income data that do not adequately capture access to essential goods.
<Data on real wages suggests that, historically, extreme poverty was uncommon and arose primarily during periods of severe social and economic dislocation, particularly under colonialism.
<The rise of capitalism from the long 16th century onward is associated with a decline in wages to below subsistence, a deterioration in human stature, and an upturn in premature mortality.
<In parts of South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, wages and/or height have still not recovered.
<Where progress has occurred, significant improvements in human welfare began only around the 20th century. These gains coincide with the rise of anti-colonial and socialist political movements.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X22002169
R: 227 / I: 42
lysenko & agriculture
i'm curious to learn about him, how catastrophic was he for soviet agriculture or was he actually not all that bad? i'd appreciate some reading material about this matter too thanks
R: 60 / I: 11
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
On 26 July 1945, United States President Harry S. Truman, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President of China Chiang Kai-shek issued the Potsdam Declaration, which outlined the terms of surrender for the Empire of Japan as agreed upon at the Potsdam Conference. This ultimatum stated if Japan did not surrender, it would face "prompt and utter destruction".[1] Some debaters focus on the presidential decision-making process, and others on whether or not the bombings were the proximate cause of Japanese surrender.
Over the course of time, different arguments have gained and lost support as new evidence has become available and as new studies have been completed. A primary and continuing focus has been on whether the bombing should be categorized as a war crime or as a crime against humanity. There is also the debate on the role of the bombings in Japan's surrender and the U.S.'s justification for them based upon the premise that the bombings precipitated the surrender. This remains the subject of both scholarly and popular debate, with revisionist historians advancing a variety of arguments. In 2005, in an overview of historiography about the matter, J. Samuel Walker wrote, "the controversy over the use of the bomb seems certain to continue".[2] Walker stated, "The fundamental issue that has divided scholars over a period of nearly four decades is whether the use of the bomb was necessary to achieve victory in the war in the Pacific on terms satisfactory to the United States."[2]
Supporters of the bombings generally assert that they caused the Japanese surrender, preventing massive casualties on both sides in the planned invasion of Japan: Kyūshū was to be invaded in November 1945 and Honshū four months later. It was thought Japan would not surrender unless there was an overwhelming demonstration of destructive capability. Those who oppose the bombings argue it was militarily unnecessary,[3] inherently immoral, a war crime, or a form of state terrorism.[4] Critics believe a naval blockade and conventional bombings would have forced Japan to surrender unconditionally.[5] Some critics believe Japan was more motivated to surrender by the Soviet Union's invasion of Manchuria and other Japanese-held areas.[6][7]
Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Was it the right decision? Was it justified?
What is your position on this?https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
On 26 July 1945, United States President Harry S. Truman, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President of China Chiang Kai-shek issued the Potsdam Declaration, which outlined the terms of surrender for the Empire of Japan as agreed upon at the Potsdam Conference. This ultimatum stated if Japan did not surrender, it would face "prompt and utter destruction".[1] Some debaters focus on the presidential decision-making process, and others on whether or not the bombings were the proximate cause of Japanese surrender.
Over the course of time, different arguments have gained and lost support as new evidence has become available and as new studies have been completed. A primary and continuing focus has been on whether the bombing should be categorized as a war crime or as a crime against humanity. There is also the debate on the role of the bombings in Japan's surrender and the U.S.'s justification for them based upon the premise that the bombings precipitated the surrender. This remains the subject of both scholarly and popular debate, with revisionist historians advancing a variety of arguments. In 2005, in an overview of historiography about the matter, J. Samuel Walker wrote, "the controversy over the use of the bomb seems certain to continue".[2] Walker stated, "The fundamental issue that has divided scholars over a period of nearly four decades is whether the use of the bomb was necessary to achieve victory in the war in the Pacific on terms satisfactory to the United States."[2]
Supporters of the bombings generally assert that they caused the Japanese surrender, preventing massive casualties on both sides in the planned invasion of Japan: Kyūshū was to be invaded in November 1945 and Honshū four months later. It was thought Japan would not surrender unless there was an overwhelming demonstration of destructive capability. Those who oppose the bombings argue it was militarily unnecessary,[3] inherently immoral, a war crime, or a form of state terrorism.[4] Critics believe a naval blockade and conventional bombings would have forced Japan to surrender unconditionally.[5] Some critics believe Japan was more motivated to surrender by the Soviet Union's invasion of Manchuria and other Japanese-held areas.[6][7]
R: 7 / I: 2
"Determined" by Robert Sapolsky challenges fundamental notions of human agency and free will, delving into the intricate web of causality that shapes human behavior. In this thought-provoking exploration, Sapolsky navigates the complex terrain of neuroscience, genetics, and psychology to argue that our actions are deeply rooted in biological and environmental influences, leaving little room for the traditional concept of free will.
Sapolsky's examination of determinism holds particular relevance to leftist thought, which often emphasizes systemic analysis and critiques of established power structures. By dismantling the notion of individual agency as traditionally understood, Sapolsky's work aligns with leftist critiques of neoliberalism and meritocracy, which often attribute social and economic inequalities to structural factors rather than personal responsibility.
Moreover, Sapolsky's emphasis on the role of luck and circumstance in shaping human outcomes resonates with leftist critiques of capitalism's inherent injustices and unequal distribution of opportunities. From a leftist perspective, Sapolsky's argument underscores the need for collective responsibility and societal interventions to address systemic inequalities and create a more equitable world.
Furthermore, Sapolsky's humane approach to grappling with the implications of determinism aligns with leftist values of compassion and solidarity. His advocacy for forgiveness and understanding in the face of moral dilemmas reflects a commitment to empathy and social justice, principles that are central to many leftist movements.
In conclusion, "Determined" offers a compelling exploration of free will that intersects with key themes and concerns of leftist thought, making it a relevant and thought-provoking read for those interested in understanding the complexities of human behavior within broader socio-political contexts.
"Determined" by Robert Sapolsky challenges fundamental notions of human agency and free will, delving into the intricate web of causality that shapes human behavior. In this thought-provoking exploration, Sapolsky navigates the complex terrain of neuroscience, genetics, and psychology to argue that our actions are deeply rooted in biological and environmental influences, leaving little room for the traditional concept of free will.
Sapolsky's examination of determinism holds particular relevance to leftist thought, which often emphasizes systemic analysis and critiques of established power structures. By dismantling the notion of individual agency as traditionally understood, Sapolsky's work aligns with leftist critiques of neoliberalism and meritocracy, which often attribute social and economic inequalities to structural factors rather than personal responsibility.
Moreover, Sapolsky's emphasis on the role of luck and circumstance in shaping human outcomes resonates with leftist critiques of capitalism's inherent injustices and unequal distribution of opportunities. From a leftist perspective, Sapolsky's argument underscores the need for collective responsibility and societal interventions to address systemic inequalities and create a more equitable world.
Furthermore, Sapolsky's humane approach to grappling with the implications of determinism aligns with leftist values of compassion and solidarity. His advocacy for forgiveness and understanding in the face of moral dilemmas reflects a commitment to empathy and social justice, principles that are central to many leftist movements.
In conclusion, "Determined" offers a compelling exploration of free will that intersects with key themes and concerns of leftist thought, making it a relevant and thought-provoking read for those interested in understanding the complexities of human behavior within broader socio-political contexts.
R: 18 / I: 0
Did only china go through this stage? Or korea too?
I know Japan's feudalism mirrored Europe's, but have no idea about pre-industrial Korea.
Pic is unrelated I just think it's cool
Asiatic mode of Production?
What are the primary differences between the Asiatic mode of production and feudalism?Did only china go through this stage? Or korea too?
I know Japan's feudalism mirrored Europe's, but have no idea about pre-industrial Korea.
Pic is unrelated I just think it's cool
R: 25 / I: 11
General thread for discussing, studying, engineering and understanding Nuclear/Atomic/Thermonuclear and other related or comparative energy releases or sources. Both nuclear weapons and nuclear powerplants apply. Post photos, illustrations, text, documents, blueprints, articles and studies related to the topic. Limited memes also permissible.
Posadists… make sure to take meds before posting.
Chernobyl thread >>>/hobby/9068
List of US Nuclear Manuals and regulatory instructions: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1536/
Nuclear Energy in Space https://archive.ph/ei3Jg
List of Soviet scientists and officers responsible for the USSR's nuclear technology in alphabetical order:
https://www.vniief.ru/about/history/goodpeople/ag
Nuclear Fusion vs Fission: https://archive.is/Qlgoy
What is an Atomic Reactor: https://archive.ph/1W1jO
What is a Nuclear Bomb: https://archive.is/H29Hl
https://wiki.leftypol.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons
https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon
Thermonuclear: https://archive.ph/D0Zsc
Feel free to add more to the leftypol wiki on the subject (leftypedia) >>>/edu/3780
Also, see the Hiroshima thread: >>>/edu/15841
Educatory research: https://cyberleninka.ru/search?q=Nuclear&page=1
Nuclear Thread - Power of the Atom
Nuclear Atomic Science ThreadGeneral thread for discussing, studying, engineering and understanding Nuclear/Atomic/Thermonuclear and other related or comparative energy releases or sources. Both nuclear weapons and nuclear powerplants apply. Post photos, illustrations, text, documents, blueprints, articles and studies related to the topic. Limited memes also permissible.
Posadists… make sure to take meds before posting.
Chernobyl thread >>>/hobby/9068
List of US Nuclear Manuals and regulatory instructions: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1536/
Nuclear Energy in Space https://archive.ph/ei3Jg
List of Soviet scientists and officers responsible for the USSR's nuclear technology in alphabetical order:
https://www.vniief.ru/about/history/goodpeople/ag
Nuclear Fusion vs Fission: https://archive.is/Qlgoy
What is an Atomic Reactor: https://archive.ph/1W1jO
What is a Nuclear Bomb: https://archive.is/H29Hl
https://wiki.leftypol.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons
https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon
Thermonuclear: https://archive.ph/D0Zsc
Feel free to add more to the leftypol wiki on the subject (leftypedia) >>>/edu/3780
Also, see the Hiroshima thread: >>>/edu/15841
Educatory research: https://cyberleninka.ru/search?q=Nuclear&page=1
R: 33 / I: 2
Why is it always theory, never read proof?
Read theory, read theory, read theory. Read theory, read theory, read theory. Read theory, read theory, read theory.
Proving Marxism
Where is the scientific rigor to Scientific Socialism?Why is it always theory, never read proof?
Read theory, read theory, read theory. Read theory, read theory, read theory. Read theory, read theory, read theory.
R: 0 / I: 0
Is the origin of monarchy just a hereditary military dictatorship? like did most begin with just some barbarian tribe conquering a settled city, becoming the new ruling class and then devolving into inbred god-kings?
Is the origin of monarchy just a hereditary military dictatorship? like did most begin with just some barbarian tribe conquering a settled city, becoming the new ruling class and then devolving into inbred god-kings?
R: 29 / I: 5
What should I read if I want to be a Maoist intellectual?
The only authors I've been suggested are Althusser and Badiou. Who else?
What should I read if I want to be a Maoist intellectual?
The only authors I've been suggested are Althusser and Badiou. Who else?
R: 21 / I: 3
David Harvey can't explain what value is. In his original lectures/book he totally fucks up the description. This leads him to start talking nonsense about "oxidizable money". Guy is a con artist, who gets his marks by flashing his academic credentials. Even though he's a geographer.
David Harvey can't explain what value is. In his original lectures/book he totally fucks up the description. This leads him to start talking nonsense about "oxidizable money". Guy is a con artist, who gets his marks by flashing his academic credentials. Even though he's a geographer.
R: 3 / I: 3
>Europeans (Dutch and Spanish)
>Japanese
>Waishengren (Koxinga, KMT)
Why did Taiwan aboriginals dislike the Taiwanese?
And by contrast, unironically get along with, and would give their allegiance to, almost anyone as long as they aren't Taiwanese>Europeans (Dutch and Spanish)
>Japanese
>Waishengren (Koxinga, KMT)
R: 31 / I: 7
My party is going through line sturggle on the lgbtq question. i had read red fightbacks marxism and trangender liberation. i need this and more marxist bibliography on the question to help form a revolutionary line.
My party is going through line sturggle on the lgbtq question. i had read red fightbacks marxism and trangender liberation. i need this and more marxist bibliography on the question to help form a revolutionary line.
R: 152 / I: 16
>Leader of the KPD in Germany
>Get over 10% of the vote in 1928 (4th place)
>1930
>Get 13% (3rd place) but Hitler just came out of no where and got 18% (2nd place)
>It's obvious that Hitler is going to keep growing in power
>Hitler brags in speeches that he'll suppress every other party in the Reichstag once he wins
>He even wrote a book where he talks about bolshevism being the blood enemy of fascism
>Be Ernst Thälmann: massively popular, growing at a similar rate to Hitler, but don't know what to do
>Consult pre-1935 Comintern, guidelines only retards would follow (even Stalin admitted this later)
>"Whatever you do, don't make a coalition with the Social Democrats!" says Comintern
>Social Democrats are the only party bigger than the Nazis
>They are interested in forming a coalition with the KPD to beat Hitler
>"Nah, that sounds like social fascism to me"
>Thälmann decides to attack SD rather than Hitler
>To most of the public, it looks like the left is fighting itself and they turn to Hitler.
>1932
>Hitler is by far the largest party in Germany with 37% of the vote
>The KPD grew, but only by a point
>Hitler is just months away from the Chancellery
>If the left can form a coalition, a literal right-wing monarchist will choose them over Hitler
>"Let's not let some Nazi trees overshadow the SD forest"
>Doesn't form a government because he believes he can still win
>1933
>Hitler is appointed Chancellor
>Ernst Thälmann rallies his party with a speech
>"Hitler first, then our turn!"
>Is arrested two months after Hitler's election
>Sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp along with most of his party and supporters
>Some of his comrades flee to the Soviet Union only to die in the Great Purge a few years later
>Ernst Thälmann is executed on Hitler's orders in 1944 after 11 years in solitary confinement
How could this guy have the largest Communist party in Europe at the time and then squander it like that? He didn't even have to work with the Social Democrats after winning. Hitler banned everyone else that he promised to work with and killed anyone else that disagreed in the Night of the Long Knives. Was Ernst Thälmann actually retarded?
Was Ernst Thälmann a retard?
>Be Ernst Thälmann in the late 20s>Leader of the KPD in Germany
>Get over 10% of the vote in 1928 (4th place)
>1930
>Get 13% (3rd place) but Hitler just came out of no where and got 18% (2nd place)
>It's obvious that Hitler is going to keep growing in power
>Hitler brags in speeches that he'll suppress every other party in the Reichstag once he wins
>He even wrote a book where he talks about bolshevism being the blood enemy of fascism
>Be Ernst Thälmann: massively popular, growing at a similar rate to Hitler, but don't know what to do
>Consult pre-1935 Comintern, guidelines only retards would follow (even Stalin admitted this later)
>"Whatever you do, don't make a coalition with the Social Democrats!" says Comintern
>Social Democrats are the only party bigger than the Nazis
>They are interested in forming a coalition with the KPD to beat Hitler
>"Nah, that sounds like social fascism to me"
>Thälmann decides to attack SD rather than Hitler
>To most of the public, it looks like the left is fighting itself and they turn to Hitler.
>1932
>Hitler is by far the largest party in Germany with 37% of the vote
>The KPD grew, but only by a point
>Hitler is just months away from the Chancellery
>If the left can form a coalition, a literal right-wing monarchist will choose them over Hitler
>"Let's not let some Nazi trees overshadow the SD forest"
>Doesn't form a government because he believes he can still win
>1933
>Hitler is appointed Chancellor
>Ernst Thälmann rallies his party with a speech
>"Hitler first, then our turn!"
>Is arrested two months after Hitler's election
>Sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp along with most of his party and supporters
>Some of his comrades flee to the Soviet Union only to die in the Great Purge a few years later
>Ernst Thälmann is executed on Hitler's orders in 1944 after 11 years in solitary confinement
How could this guy have the largest Communist party in Europe at the time and then squander it like that? He didn't even have to work with the Social Democrats after winning. Hitler banned everyone else that he promised to work with and killed anyone else that disagreed in the Night of the Long Knives. Was Ernst Thälmann actually retarded?
R: 2 / I: 0
I want the best materialist theory/practice texts that have had more than ten people compose them. I may be mistaken, but all the big figurehead texts seem to be monographs or just 2 or 3 guys worked on them; please clear me up if Mao's and Lenin's big works weren't just by them. I don't care if these monographers backed their stuff up with loads of data and citations, I want commitees involved. I dont want anthologies either, i want it so that every block of text went through multiple changes by multiple people, if possible
this is what i want (crosspost)
Reposting to /edu/I want the best materialist theory/practice texts that have had more than ten people compose them. I may be mistaken, but all the big figurehead texts seem to be monographs or just 2 or 3 guys worked on them; please clear me up if Mao's and Lenin's big works weren't just by them. I don't care if these monographers backed their stuff up with loads of data and citations, I want commitees involved. I dont want anthologies either, i want it so that every block of text went through multiple changes by multiple people, if possible
R: 3 / I: 1
Also, did Lenin advocate for self-determination of nations? And in what context did he do so?
What is Nationalism? And is it good?
Can there be a proletarian nationalist revolution according to Lenin? I've seen people argue that nationalism is reactionary and that it advocates for class-collaboration instead of workers revolution, since a nation is an abstract that includes all classes.Also, did Lenin advocate for self-determination of nations? And in what context did he do so?
R: 27 / I: 7
The Book
The version we are using as our standard is the Penguin Classics edition (attached .epub) but others including other languages are fine. We are only planning to read Volume 1 currently.
There has also been an audiobook suggested which matches this version of the text and may be useful to helping read it.
Audiobook: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUjbFtkcDBlSHVigHHx_wjaeWmDN2W-h8
The Format
This thread is intended for
<announcements and updates
<supplementary material.
<Q&A
<long-form posts, effortposts, OC
<slower discussion in general
The matrix chat is intended for
<weekly discussion meetings.
<organizing the group
<faster paced talk
<also will get announcement and update posts
Voice chat sessions are to be weekly, with 3 "official" time slots to make it easier for people to attend one of them (they will all be discussing the same part of the reading, give or take). The matrix call room can also be opened for chats at other times if people find other times to talk. I have attached a picture of a table showing in the times in a few common time zones. Chats will go on as long as people want them to, but I will shoot for 1 hour and try to constrain the main discussion within that as much as possible.
Weekly discussions will cover as much of the reading as people have done, slowing or speeding up accordingly. This is a large group as far as /leftypol/ reading groups go and my intent is to make the process accessible so we will tend toward the slowest readers setting the pace. Discussing pace or or other organizing matters should be done in the Matrix chat to avoid cluttering this thread. Announcements will still go here, including announcing the current stage of reading when we move on to the next chapter.
I'm disinclined to set goals at this point but may update later with a projection for how long until we finish Volume 1. I would estimate it will take at least half of 2023.
Matrix room
https://matrix.to/#/#LeftyCapital2023:matrix.org
I will get notifications for any post in the room automatically but you can make them more attention grabbing if you tag me with my handle @bossignostic
/kapital/ 2023
Reading group for Volume 1 of Capital. The reading pace will adjust to suit the group, but we will aim for an average of 1 chapter per week, starting slower and speeding up as we move from abstract to concrete toward the end.The Book
The version we are using as our standard is the Penguin Classics edition (attached .epub) but others including other languages are fine. We are only planning to read Volume 1 currently.
There has also been an audiobook suggested which matches this version of the text and may be useful to helping read it.
Audiobook: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUjbFtkcDBlSHVigHHx_wjaeWmDN2W-h8
The Format
This thread is intended for
<announcements and updates
<supplementary material.
<Q&A
<long-form posts, effortposts, OC
<slower discussion in general
The matrix chat is intended for
<weekly discussion meetings.
<organizing the group
<faster paced talk
<also will get announcement and update posts
Voice chat sessions are to be weekly, with 3 "official" time slots to make it easier for people to attend one of them (they will all be discussing the same part of the reading, give or take). The matrix call room can also be opened for chats at other times if people find other times to talk. I have attached a picture of a table showing in the times in a few common time zones. Chats will go on as long as people want them to, but I will shoot for 1 hour and try to constrain the main discussion within that as much as possible.
Weekly discussions will cover as much of the reading as people have done, slowing or speeding up accordingly. This is a large group as far as /leftypol/ reading groups go and my intent is to make the process accessible so we will tend toward the slowest readers setting the pace. Discussing pace or or other organizing matters should be done in the Matrix chat to avoid cluttering this thread. Announcements will still go here, including announcing the current stage of reading when we move on to the next chapter.
I'm disinclined to set goals at this point but may update later with a projection for how long until we finish Volume 1. I would estimate it will take at least half of 2023.
Matrix room
https://matrix.to/#/#LeftyCapital2023:matrix.org
I will get notifications for any post in the room automatically but you can make them more attention grabbing if you tag me with my handle @bossignostic
R: 6 / I: 0
What is consciousness?
Consciousness
This is the third time I am making this thread. I made the first one on Bunkerchan back in the day and again on here, and both times it generated interesting discussions. So I ask againWhat is consciousness?
R: 2 / I: 0
Can anyone make a tldr of this book like >>14131 I'm trying to explain to my friend in simple terms what imperialism is, but I'm shit at explanations.
Can anyone make a tldr of this book like >>14131 I'm trying to explain to my friend in simple terms what imperialism is, but I'm shit at explanations.
R: 7 / I: 0
French revolution.
Decemberist revolt.
US civil war.
I would like to know more about the material reality that caused them, effects of these events, sides which participated in them, the skirmishes and battles etc. I would prefer if the recommendation is a book, but other things are fine too. I’m fine with materials that are in english and or russian languages.
French revolution, American civil war and decemberist revolution.
I would like to ask for some recommendations for educational materials about:French revolution.
Decemberist revolt.
US civil war.
I would like to know more about the material reality that caused them, effects of these events, sides which participated in them, the skirmishes and battles etc. I would prefer if the recommendation is a book, but other things are fine too. I’m fine with materials that are in english and or russian languages.
R: 1 / I: 0
American Labor History
Been on a roll with Hofheinz, Bonnell, and Brody recently, and realized that I wanted to go deeper than what Buhle offered, so what if we started a reading group on the history of American Labor Organization and the material forces behind it that lead to business unionism as the only option? We can start with Buhle(and the sort of rebuttal that Minchin wrote via Labor Under Fire) but I'd like to hear other voices on the issue since I know I'm being retarded and narrow right now.
R: 8 / I: 0
Are there any scholarly sources analyzing former communist snitch memoirs like Whittaker Chambers' Witness, Louis Budenz's This Is My Story, or Bella Dodd's School of Darkness?
I'm curious about the mentality of former communists who dipped and turned state, the "true" reasons they left communism to begin with, what inspired them to snitch, how their "redemption" stories were anything but, etc.
Are there any scholarly sources analyzing former communist snitch memoirs like Whittaker Chambers' Witness, Louis Budenz's This Is My Story, or Bella Dodd's School of Darkness?
I'm curious about the mentality of former communists who dipped and turned state, the "true" reasons they left communism to begin with, what inspired them to snitch, how their "redemption" stories were anything but, etc.
R: 12 / I: 1
What do you think? It seems to make sense, but without the internal factors being deterministic, there would be no change, no?
Sorry if this read like shit, english is not my first language
Internal vs External Factor
Me and my friend are discussing the book "On contradiction" by Mao. He insists that the external factors are the fundamental cause of development, because when you start analyzing, let's say, capitalism, it's internal contradictions are nothing more but external factors from past events, hence the internal contradiction being the secondary force.What do you think? It seems to make sense, but without the internal factors being deterministic, there would be no change, no?
Sorry if this read like shit, english is not my first language
R: 42 / I: 7
Join our matrix chat to get involved.
https://matrix.to/#/!mjlMGagFTDhvgxMWhY:matrix.org/
Our tentative plans are to discuss readings on Saturdays, but this will depend on what anybody joining the group has to say. We are still determining which texts to include in our readings and the order.
The "Patriotic Socialism" Question
New reading project for the Continental Floppa reading group is beginning. We will be reading various writings related to the subject of "Patriotic Socialism" and national identity. This thread is for slower discussion of the topic and readings and for posting links or uploads for relevant texts.Join our matrix chat to get involved.
https://matrix.to/#/!mjlMGagFTDhvgxMWhY:matrix.org/
Our tentative plans are to discuss readings on Saturdays, but this will depend on what anybody joining the group has to say. We are still determining which texts to include in our readings and the order.
R: 2 / I: 1
There are a whole bunch of differing interpretations that are neatly summarized in this Cosmonaut article: https://cosmonautmag.com/2019/09/historiography-wars-the-french-revolution/
Contemporary: The names that get dropped here are Edmund Burke's right wing critique of the French Revolution and Thomas Payne's reply. Seems like something I'm obliged to read eventually but is it a good place to start?
Bourgeois revolutionary: These are the historians that Marx and Engels themselves read: Guizot, Thiers, and Michelet (the latter Wilhelm Liebknecht really liked and who seems to be the most leftwing). The translations are usually pretty old so they might be a difficult read. Do you recommend any of these authors?
Second International Socialist: You have histories by Jean Jaures, E. Belfort Bax, a short one by Kautsky, and some others. Once again physical copies are mostly print on demand dreck, but I'm wondering if anyone recommends these.
Official Communist Academic: The big names here are Georges Lefebvre and Albert Soboul. These authors combine more rigorous research with an explicit Marxist mode of analysis - albeit presumably with some probrematic baggage about a "democratic bourgeoisie" that must personally lead the "bourgeois democratic revolution" and so on. Anyone read these?
Revisionist Renegades: The latter school actually had some clout in mainstream history departments so there was a big cold war push to discredit them - casting doubt on how independent the bourgeoisie was from the aristocracy etc. However, it's pretty much solely a negative critique, with the unspoken thesis being that the whole revolution was a senseless act of violence and that the ancien regime would have evolved into a parliamentary capitalist regime by itself.
So not ideal, but this school has the benefit of the most up-to-date research and prose. I actually already own one book in this tradition: Citizens by Simon Schama that I found at Goodwill (haven't read any of it yet).
Bonus: My dad owns a fancy Folio Society edition of The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle, published in 1837. Despite the title, it assumes you already know the history and is basically an epic poem written in 900+ pages of flamboyantly florid prose. It was considered a literary masterpiece in its day but is now thoroughly forgotten; it has to be the only book I've ever seen that has more luxury leatherbound editions on the used market than paperbacks. I won't start with this one but it's a bizarre book that's worth mentioning.
What's your favorite history of the Great French Revolution?
The Great French Revolution
Where the hell do I start with this shit? Unlike with the Russian Revolution I never see any leftists giving any clear recommendations for the French Revolution, so let's make a thread to address that now.There are a whole bunch of differing interpretations that are neatly summarized in this Cosmonaut article: https://cosmonautmag.com/2019/09/historiography-wars-the-french-revolution/
Contemporary: The names that get dropped here are Edmund Burke's right wing critique of the French Revolution and Thomas Payne's reply. Seems like something I'm obliged to read eventually but is it a good place to start?
Bourgeois revolutionary: These are the historians that Marx and Engels themselves read: Guizot, Thiers, and Michelet (the latter Wilhelm Liebknecht really liked and who seems to be the most leftwing). The translations are usually pretty old so they might be a difficult read. Do you recommend any of these authors?
Second International Socialist: You have histories by Jean Jaures, E. Belfort Bax, a short one by Kautsky, and some others. Once again physical copies are mostly print on demand dreck, but I'm wondering if anyone recommends these.
Official Communist Academic: The big names here are Georges Lefebvre and Albert Soboul. These authors combine more rigorous research with an explicit Marxist mode of analysis - albeit presumably with some probrematic baggage about a "democratic bourgeoisie" that must personally lead the "bourgeois democratic revolution" and so on. Anyone read these?
Revisionist Renegades: The latter school actually had some clout in mainstream history departments so there was a big cold war push to discredit them - casting doubt on how independent the bourgeoisie was from the aristocracy etc. However, it's pretty much solely a negative critique, with the unspoken thesis being that the whole revolution was a senseless act of violence and that the ancien regime would have evolved into a parliamentary capitalist regime by itself.
So not ideal, but this school has the benefit of the most up-to-date research and prose. I actually already own one book in this tradition: Citizens by Simon Schama that I found at Goodwill (haven't read any of it yet).
Bonus: My dad owns a fancy Folio Society edition of The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle, published in 1837. Despite the title, it assumes you already know the history and is basically an epic poem written in 900+ pages of flamboyantly florid prose. It was considered a literary masterpiece in its day but is now thoroughly forgotten; it has to be the only book I've ever seen that has more luxury leatherbound editions on the used market than paperbacks. I won't start with this one but it's a bizarre book that's worth mentioning.
What's your favorite history of the Great French Revolution?
R: 0 / I: 0
Bolshevik Organization Tactics
Decided to start a thread on this topic after skimming through Bonnell's work and starting The Organizational Weapon(as much as the neocon pours through the page). The last chapter of Bonnell states but does not explain why the Russian capitalist was far less conciliatory than his American counterpart(though that's probably just because I skipped to the end and need to tread back) though that's certainly of interest. The book also tends to stress more cultural victories, such as Bolshevik journals being more practical and "proletarian" than their intellectual Menshevik counterparts. A younger, dumber version of myself would have turned this into some Maupin-type point but I don't know what to make of it now.
R: 37 / I: 0
Looking for modern material i.e. "Social Media" and "Youtube" should be part of that.
How to organize?
I'm searching for good(!) resources on how to outreach, recruit, organize people.Looking for modern material i.e. "Social Media" and "Youtube" should be part of that.
R: 4 / I: 0
>Muhammad and his followers in 622, facing hostility, flee from Mecca (a major regional trading center) to surrounding areas, specifically the city of Medina .
>After establishing themselves, they begin a protracted counter-war, chipping away at the Qurashi trading routes, and finally conquering the city. At 630,
>Muhammad dies in 632, the early Muslim expansion begins at 634
at what point does the rest of the Arabian peninsula get conquered/absorbed into the caliphate and why was it so easy to bring them into the fold then the Quraysh?
chronology of the Muslim conquests of Arabia
I've always found it weird that this event is never mentioned all too often, like from what I understand>Muhammad and his followers in 622, facing hostility, flee from Mecca (a major regional trading center) to surrounding areas, specifically the city of Medina .
>After establishing themselves, they begin a protracted counter-war, chipping away at the Qurashi trading routes, and finally conquering the city. At 630,
>Muhammad dies in 632, the early Muslim expansion begins at 634
at what point does the rest of the Arabian peninsula get conquered/absorbed into the caliphate and why was it so easy to bring them into the fold then the Quraysh?
R: 0 / I: 0
Is this talking point real or just propaganda?
Debunking the "Soviet Planned Economy Falsification" talking point
Some people recommended me a book called "The Turning Point: revitalizing the Soviet economy" during a debate.Is this talking point real or just propaganda?
R: 23 / I: 2
It's a collection of essays by Evald Ilyenkov, a Soviet philosopher, who acted as a figure to make Hegel's role in Marxism understandable and accessible to the general public.
Intelligent Materialism: Essays on Hegel and Dialectics
Recently got this book, because it sounded interesting and reading the first pages I found it to be promising. So I'm dropping it in here. Perhaps we can talk about it.It's a collection of essays by Evald Ilyenkov, a Soviet philosopher, who acted as a figure to make Hegel's role in Marxism understandable and accessible to the general public.
R: 9 / I: 2
Soviet military prowess during WW2
Do you guys have any books that highlight the cleverness of Soviet warfare in WW2 that dispute the Zerg rush narrative of the West? As far as I know the allies had all of their information of what was going on on the eastern front from Germans who overembelished their military prowess and downplayed those of the Soviets. R: 222 / I: 43
What are you studying right now? What is your favorite field of mathematics and why?
Personally, I really like the book "Linear Algebra Done Right" by Sheldon Axler. It is on Libgen if you are interested and I attached a pdf.
/math/ general
All good communists study math.What are you studying right now? What is your favorite field of mathematics and why?
Personally, I really like the book "Linear Algebra Done Right" by Sheldon Axler. It is on Libgen if you are interested and I attached a pdf.
R: 40 / I: 8
What are you genuine thoughts on Limonov, if you've encountered his writings? Do you think his philosophy is an understandable reaction to modern hyper individualist capitalism?
What are you genuine thoughts on Limonov, if you've encountered his writings? Do you think his philosophy is an understandable reaction to modern hyper individualist capitalism?
R: 8 / I: 1
When I got to Kant, I couldn't understand a thing, not a single thing: "transcendental idealism," "numena," "phenomena," "antinomies," "categories"-they all danced in my head like mysterious monsters. I grasped some of what Kant said about "man as an end in himself" and the "categorical imperative." But this categorical imperative looked to me like a cold piece of intestine, which you could fill with whatever you wanted, there was nothing living or vital here, nothing that would give a living answer to living questions.
Or maybe, it's just that I don't understand. Maybe my own intestine is too frail, maybe I'm not up to it. The pages of the book seemed to me an elaborate code I would never be able to decipher.
When I got to Kant, I couldn't understand a thing, not a single thing: "transcendental idealism," "numena," "phenomena," "antinomies," "categories"-they all danced in my head like mysterious monsters. I grasped some of what Kant said about "man as an end in himself" and the "categorical imperative." But this categorical imperative looked to me like a cold piece of intestine, which you could fill with whatever you wanted, there was nothing living or vital here, nothing that would give a living answer to living questions.
Or maybe, it's just that I don't understand. Maybe my own intestine is too frail, maybe I'm not up to it. The pages of the book seemed to me an elaborate code I would never be able to decipher.
R: 8 / I: 2
The material basis of life is the Protein
Protein Compounds, especially in the gorm of enzyme systems, play a decisive part in metabolism, it is the basis of vital activity for every organism.
R: 12 / I: 1
Was paganism in Europe the north of the Roman Empire even a thing?
Northern Paganism have given Catholics a perfect excuse to invade and oppress people of these territories, like how it happened in Prussia and other places, and it just so happens that everything we know about it was written by Catholics. None of these Northern Pagans thought that their religion, which they were supposedly practicing for centuries, was important enough to document it.
Was paganism in Europe the north of the Roman Empire even a thing?
Northern Paganism have given Catholics a perfect excuse to invade and oppress people of these territories, like how it happened in Prussia and other places, and it just so happens that everything we know about it was written by Catholics. None of these Northern Pagans thought that their religion, which they were supposedly practicing for centuries, was important enough to document it.
R: 6 / I: 0
Thoughts on Nick Land
So I read this guy's essay called Kant, Capital and the Prohibition of Incest. I thought it was pretty good and I was surprised because I heard this guy was extreme alt right crank and here he is discussing racism, patriarchy and capitalism in South Africa. I checked and yeah this guy is now a legit fascist or "neoreactionary" or whatever and he regularly appears on far right shows. What the fuck happened? Is the rest of his stuff worth reading?
R: 5 / I: 0
We need, to start with, a few terms which will be defined precisely later. In a given state of technique, resources and costs, the employment of a given volume of labour by an entrepreneur involves him in two kinds of expense: first of all, the amounts which he pays out to the factors of production (exclusive of other entrepreneurs) for their current services, which we shall call the factor cost of the employment in question; and secondly, the amounts which he pays out to other entrepreneurs for what he has to purchase from them together with the sacrifice which he incurs by employing the equipment instead of leaving it idle, which we shall call the user cost of the employment in question. The excess of the value of the resulting output over the sum of its factor cost and its user cost is the profit or, as we shall call it, the income of the entrepreneur. The factor cost is, of course, the same thing, looked at from the point of view of the entrepreneur, as what the factors of production regard as their income. Thus the factor cost and the entrepreneur's profit make up, between them, what we shall define as the total income resulting from the employment given by the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur's profit thus defined is, as it should be, the quantity which he endeavours to maximise when he is deciding what amount of employment to offer. It is sometimes convenient, when we are looking at it from the entrepreneur's standpoint, to call the aggregate income (i.e. factor cost plus profit) resulting from a given amount of employment the proceeds of that employment. On the other hand, the aggregate supply price of the output of a given amount of employment is the expectation of proceeds which will just make it worth the while of the entrepreneurs to give that employment.
It follows that in a given situation of technique, resources and factor cost per unit of employment, the amount of employment, both in each individual firm and industry and in the aggregate, depends on the amount of the proceeds which the entrepreneurs expect to receive from the corresponding output. For entrepreneurs will endeavour to fix the amount of employment at the level which they expect to maximise the excess of the proceeds over the factor cost.
Keynes
Currently reading this book and I need some help understanding some of this since it’s not clicking. First of all I need help in layman’s terms what all this means specifically:We need, to start with, a few terms which will be defined precisely later. In a given state of technique, resources and costs, the employment of a given volume of labour by an entrepreneur involves him in two kinds of expense: first of all, the amounts which he pays out to the factors of production (exclusive of other entrepreneurs) for their current services, which we shall call the factor cost of the employment in question; and secondly, the amounts which he pays out to other entrepreneurs for what he has to purchase from them together with the sacrifice which he incurs by employing the equipment instead of leaving it idle, which we shall call the user cost of the employment in question. The excess of the value of the resulting output over the sum of its factor cost and its user cost is the profit or, as we shall call it, the income of the entrepreneur. The factor cost is, of course, the same thing, looked at from the point of view of the entrepreneur, as what the factors of production regard as their income. Thus the factor cost and the entrepreneur's profit make up, between them, what we shall define as the total income resulting from the employment given by the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur's profit thus defined is, as it should be, the quantity which he endeavours to maximise when he is deciding what amount of employment to offer. It is sometimes convenient, when we are looking at it from the entrepreneur's standpoint, to call the aggregate income (i.e. factor cost plus profit) resulting from a given amount of employment the proceeds of that employment. On the other hand, the aggregate supply price of the output of a given amount of employment is the expectation of proceeds which will just make it worth the while of the entrepreneurs to give that employment.
It follows that in a given situation of technique, resources and factor cost per unit of employment, the amount of employment, both in each individual firm and industry and in the aggregate, depends on the amount of the proceeds which the entrepreneurs expect to receive from the corresponding output. For entrepreneurs will endeavour to fix the amount of employment at the level which they expect to maximise the excess of the proceeds over the factor cost.
R: 6 / I: 1
Taiping Heavenly Kingdom
Was it proto-Christcom? R: 2 / I: 1
Has anyone read this already? In that case, what's your opinion on it?
Dialectical Phenomenology
Someone quoted this book on the main board and I started reading it. Maybe others are interested to read it as well and discuss its content.Has anyone read this already? In that case, what's your opinion on it?
R: 35 / I: 3
I always wondered why does Geography get looked down on by engineers and programmers
Like it's only let's say half a social science
But the other half concerning landscapes, resources, weather, etc. including maps (believe it or not measuring physical stuff is not the domain of social sciences) is 100% a natural science
To be honest even outside STEMbros I've noticed regular PMC and petty-bourgeoisie types being disdainful towards anyone with even a passing interest in Geography, god forbid studying it
Why is this the case?
Why do STEMbros hate Geography?
Hey /siberia/I always wondered why does Geography get looked down on by engineers and programmers
Like it's only let's say half a social science
But the other half concerning landscapes, resources, weather, etc. including maps (believe it or not measuring physical stuff is not the domain of social sciences) is 100% a natural science
To be honest even outside STEMbros I've noticed regular PMC and petty-bourgeoisie types being disdainful towards anyone with even a passing interest in Geography, god forbid studying it
Why is this the case?
R: 3 / I: 0
What are the best books that provide an introduction to economics and economic theories/concepts?
These books don’t necessarily have to be socialist/communist.
What are the best books that provide an introduction to economics and economic theories/concepts?
These books don’t necessarily have to be socialist/communist.
R: 6 / I: 2
I hate G.E. Moore so much. His entire career was built off of declaring unfounded assumptions as true because, just, like, come on man. Trust me.
Look at his argument against hedonism. Henry Sidgwick says that "good" only exists as an objective property in one context: within conscious experience. He argues that beautiful objects cannot have any value in the external world, and that only the images of beautiful things within a mind are beautiful. In other words, he argues that things are only beautiful when they are perceived. G.E. Moore says this isn't true, because he imagines a world that he thinks looks nice, and then another world that he thinks doesn't, and says it's just intuitively obvious that the first is objectively better than the second! But you're still just comparing things in your mind, not things in the real world! The only thing you've demonstrated is that it's better for you to think about the first world than the second, not that the first world contains any objective quality that makes it better than the second! Someone else with opposite aesthetic tastes to your own could think about both worlds, and come to the opposite "intuitive" conclusion! You haven't provided any evidence for your assertions at all! It's madness! And they let this guy into Cambridge?
G. E. Moore's dogmatic adherence to intuition will forever live in infamy in one of the worst arguments in philosophical history, dwarfing his already quite stupid argument in favor of objective beauty. He claims to prove that we can be certain about the existence of the external world and that all skeptical hypotheses are false, because… the external world exists and all skeptical hypotheses are false. He just declares it, and so therefore it must be true. No epistemology needed. Damn. Why didn't Descartes think of that? Just think really hard that something is true, and then it must be true.
Ray Monk called him "the most revered philosopher of his era." Kill yourself Ray Monk. Fuck G. E. Moore and fuck intuitionism.
I hate G.E. Moore so much. His entire career was built off of declaring unfounded assumptions as true because, just, like, come on man. Trust me.
Look at his argument against hedonism. Henry Sidgwick says that "good" only exists as an objective property in one context: within conscious experience. He argues that beautiful objects cannot have any value in the external world, and that only the images of beautiful things within a mind are beautiful. In other words, he argues that things are only beautiful when they are perceived. G.E. Moore says this isn't true, because he imagines a world that he thinks looks nice, and then another world that he thinks doesn't, and says it's just intuitively obvious that the first is objectively better than the second! But you're still just comparing things in your mind, not things in the real world! The only thing you've demonstrated is that it's better for you to think about the first world than the second, not that the first world contains any objective quality that makes it better than the second! Someone else with opposite aesthetic tastes to your own could think about both worlds, and come to the opposite "intuitive" conclusion! You haven't provided any evidence for your assertions at all! It's madness! And they let this guy into Cambridge?
G. E. Moore's dogmatic adherence to intuition will forever live in infamy in one of the worst arguments in philosophical history, dwarfing his already quite stupid argument in favor of objective beauty. He claims to prove that we can be certain about the existence of the external world and that all skeptical hypotheses are false, because… the external world exists and all skeptical hypotheses are false. He just declares it, and so therefore it must be true. No epistemology needed. Damn. Why didn't Descartes think of that? Just think really hard that something is true, and then it must be true.
Ray Monk called him "the most revered philosopher of his era." Kill yourself Ray Monk. Fuck G. E. Moore and fuck intuitionism.
R: 81 / I: 32
Is this true? I don't trust western propaganda one bit but this is the tiananmen square massacre!? I don't want to jump to conclusions right away. What are your thoughts on this?
I also tried to check the sources and I got a 403/404.
website:
https://www.liberationschool.org/tiananmen-the-massacre-that-wasnt/
pdf:
http://76i2c3hn55fcj5nut3tqlboqqbbh23zvphv7lefk3vftpx6wketlanyd.onion/leftypol/src/1682222954384-0.pdf
Was the tiananmen square massacre really a massacre or a spook?
I read this article and it claimed that leaders of the anti-gov protesters were acting entirely in self interest and that majority of casualties were soldiers of the PLA who were murdered by the protesters when they tried to solve things peacefully.Is this true? I don't trust western propaganda one bit but this is the tiananmen square massacre!? I don't want to jump to conclusions right away. What are your thoughts on this?
I also tried to check the sources and I got a 403/404.
website:
https://www.liberationschool.org/tiananmen-the-massacre-that-wasnt/
pdf:
http://76i2c3hn55fcj5nut3tqlboqqbbh23zvphv7lefk3vftpx6wketlanyd.onion/leftypol/src/1682222954384-0.pdf
R: 2 / I: 0
What are the best historical examples of ousting concillatory/bourgeois leaders from the trade unions? A few specific events and detailed context would be incredibly helpful as compared to the profound but broad insight that Lenin's works have. I don't expect people to write essays here, just topic to look into since just searching up "change" or "resign" along with unions comes up dry on material to study.
What are the best historical examples of ousting concillatory/bourgeois leaders from the trade unions? A few specific events and detailed context would be incredibly helpful as compared to the profound but broad insight that Lenin's works have. I don't expect people to write essays here, just topic to look into since just searching up "change" or "resign" along with unions comes up dry on material to study.
R: 81 / I: 115
The revolution of 1905 came as a surprise to everyone, although Russia had been going to it for a long time. For example, the American historian Richard Pipes considers it a prologue to the student unrest of 1899. The Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexander Izvolsky believed that the tsarist regime began to collapse even under Alexander III, and the publicist Mark Vishnyak counted the end of the autocracy from the mid-1870s, when Alexander II stopped the Great Reforms and decided to" freeze " the country. Russia and the ruling dynasty could only be saved from revolution by the introduction of a constitutional monarchy. But the last Romanovs, in an effort to preserve the unshakable autocratic foundations of their power, eventually lost everything and led the country to the catastrophe of 1917.
Interactive map of the 1905 revolution
https://libcom.org/history/interactive-map-1905-revolution
Revolution 1905-1907(1917) and Civil War
It was a dress rehearsal, without which the final victory of the proletariat in October 1917 would have been impossible. (Lenin)The revolution of 1905 came as a surprise to everyone, although Russia had been going to it for a long time. For example, the American historian Richard Pipes considers it a prologue to the student unrest of 1899. The Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexander Izvolsky believed that the tsarist regime began to collapse even under Alexander III, and the publicist Mark Vishnyak counted the end of the autocracy from the mid-1870s, when Alexander II stopped the Great Reforms and decided to" freeze " the country. Russia and the ruling dynasty could only be saved from revolution by the introduction of a constitutional monarchy. But the last Romanovs, in an effort to preserve the unshakable autocratic foundations of their power, eventually lost everything and led the country to the catastrophe of 1917.
Interactive map of the 1905 revolution
https://libcom.org/history/interactive-map-1905-revolution
R: 1 / I: 0
If I got any of the above wrong feel free to correct me, and I'm also wondering if there are any good sources for learning something about this.
Imperial Japan
So as it turns out, I actually know very little about imperial Japan, aside from very surface level things such as attempting to become a new colonial power. The only thing I know is that it didn't have a concrete racial science like Germany had developed under the nazis, although I could be completely wrong about that since I learned about that from a reddit post. I'm actually still unsure if it had a concrete ideology or rather a mishmash of idealogies but I have no idea if that's correct either.If I got any of the above wrong feel free to correct me, and I'm also wondering if there are any good sources for learning something about this.
R: 5 / I: 3
You‘ve probably heard claims before such as
<„Consciousness collapses the wave function“
<„The collapse of the wave function produces a parallel universe for each possible outcome“
<„A particle could be anywhere until it is observed“
Much of this is straight up bullshit and some claims are an aberration of technically correct statements turned fantastical and far fetched.
First of all, „observe“ is misleadingly phrased. This gives credence to a consciousness-centered explanation of the wave function‘s collapse as people think of a person looking at something when they hear the word „observe“. By „observe“ physicists actually mean that a device physically interacts with something to measure a physical property. We aren‘t simply looking at something when we „observe“, instead we are physically interacting with it.
Additionally, the wave function isn‘t real. The way this term is used it makes it sound like it‘s a physically existing entity in the world. It isn‘t. The wave function is a mathematical abstraction that describes that we approximately know where, for example, an electron is probably going to be, whilst lacking precise knowledge where exactly it is UNTIL we have „observed“ it, i.e. physically interacted with it through a device that pinpoints this incredibly small object that we could otherwise not locate. The „collapse“ of the wave function is having moved from probabilistic knowledge to discrete knowledge. „Collapse“ yet again makes it sound like as if we are dealing with a materially real thing when in fact the term is just a mere abstractions describing the amount of knowledge we have about something on the quantum scale.
The wave function is not collapsed by consciousness. Your consciousness is the emergent product of neurochemical processes inside of your brain that are stimulated by your senses translating physical stimuli onto your body into electrical impulses carried by your nerves, such as light stimulating your retina or pressurized air physically pushing your eardrums. There is no physical interaction between the activity inside of your skull and an electron „that “chooses” to go through one or both slits in the double slit experiment“. Your consciousness didn‘t influence anything. What did was a device that physically interacts with the electron which bore an influence on its trajectory and behavior.
Likewise, the wave function is „collapsed“ in macro scale objects not because of consciousness but because these numerous particles on a quantum scale are interacting with each other in a confined space which limits their movement. You end up with a larger material object whose behavior is described by classical physics.
The claim that the collapse of the wave function „leads“ to the creation of parallel universes for each possible scenario is utterly baseless. The word „leads“ implies there is a physical and causal relationship between „the collapse of this wave function“ and the creation of a whole fucking universe (lol). Remember that the wave function is just a mathematical abstraction that describes how much we know about the properties of a quantum object. This should go without saying, but there is no physical and causal relationship between the amount of knowledge changing that we have about a physical system and that leading to the creation of a parallel universe. It‘s a baseless claim.
Fun fact, when Schrödinger created his thought experiment, now known as Schrödinger‘s Cat, he wasn‘t describing that it were real that a cat was „both dead and alive at the same time“ when trapped in a box with a toxic substance that would be released if some quantum mechanism was observed. He was ridiculing such a scenario that is founded on the Kopenhagener Interpretation of quantum physics. Actual physicists (should) know this, but popsci content will still frame it as a serious thought experiment, or as not a thought experiment at all but as something that actually happens.
Finally, once you understand all the nonsense regarding this field you have to ask yourself, why would such archaic interpretations spanning back roughly a hundred years ago still be so prevalent? It‘s because the vast majority of people will either not have the intelligence or time to study all of the details themselves. They are therefore reliant on actual scientists giving them illustrative and watered down explanations to acquire an at least vague understanding of the real thing. Two things have led to the persistence of these obviously moronic theories.
1) There is a sect of physicists that have a personal affinity to religion/spirituality/metaphysics which makes them favor such an interpretation of quantum physical processes. The Many Worlds Hypothesis is not debunked per se, but it‘s unscientific and can‘t be proven. It‘s as if I said: Whenever I fart on Taco Tuesday there will be a new parallel universe created. How? I don‘t know. Can you prove there isn‘t a new parallel universe whenever I fart? Haha, gotcha! Guess you have to seriously consider my bullshit now. It‘s the same line of reasoning by religious people. „You can‘t prove that God doesn‘t exist!“
2) There is a money to be made with popsci. As said, the general public is reliant on scientists making difficult subjects understandable to them with no deeper knowledge of those subjects. By making science as magical and fantastical as you can get away with while retaining the trustworthiness and prestige of science you can build a larger audience. I mean, wouldn‘t it be cool if portals to infinite parallel universes were real and you could use warp drives to fly to other galaxies? Magic can lead out of the boredom of a predictable and boring reality. Cluelessness about science can be abused to turn science into magic to give people the same thing they are seeking in magic, spirituality and religion. Some charlatans even try to prove magic, spirituality and religion with quantum physics.
So, I hope this has helped you to not fall for the bullshit. Maybe this all sounds obvious in hindsights but almost all popsci content online describes quantum physics in misleading terms and contrived interpretations. The truth about quantum physics is much more sober than that, but still it‘s rare to encounter a no bullshit explanation for quantum physics.
Idealism in Quantum Physics
This has annoyed me for a while and I would like to have addressed this for people who are also interested in this subject. I am not studied in physics and specifically quantum physics. I just take a general interest in this subject on the periphery of all the other things I am occupied with. When learning about physics through popsci videos and occasionally reading articles on the matter it has always bothered how nonsensical ideas and contrived theories are spread on this subject, and that shit needs to die.You‘ve probably heard claims before such as
<„Consciousness collapses the wave function“
<„The collapse of the wave function produces a parallel universe for each possible outcome“
<„A particle could be anywhere until it is observed“
Much of this is straight up bullshit and some claims are an aberration of technically correct statements turned fantastical and far fetched.
First of all, „observe“ is misleadingly phrased. This gives credence to a consciousness-centered explanation of the wave function‘s collapse as people think of a person looking at something when they hear the word „observe“. By „observe“ physicists actually mean that a device physically interacts with something to measure a physical property. We aren‘t simply looking at something when we „observe“, instead we are physically interacting with it.
Additionally, the wave function isn‘t real. The way this term is used it makes it sound like it‘s a physically existing entity in the world. It isn‘t. The wave function is a mathematical abstraction that describes that we approximately know where, for example, an electron is probably going to be, whilst lacking precise knowledge where exactly it is UNTIL we have „observed“ it, i.e. physically interacted with it through a device that pinpoints this incredibly small object that we could otherwise not locate. The „collapse“ of the wave function is having moved from probabilistic knowledge to discrete knowledge. „Collapse“ yet again makes it sound like as if we are dealing with a materially real thing when in fact the term is just a mere abstractions describing the amount of knowledge we have about something on the quantum scale.
The wave function is not collapsed by consciousness. Your consciousness is the emergent product of neurochemical processes inside of your brain that are stimulated by your senses translating physical stimuli onto your body into electrical impulses carried by your nerves, such as light stimulating your retina or pressurized air physically pushing your eardrums. There is no physical interaction between the activity inside of your skull and an electron „that “chooses” to go through one or both slits in the double slit experiment“. Your consciousness didn‘t influence anything. What did was a device that physically interacts with the electron which bore an influence on its trajectory and behavior.
Likewise, the wave function is „collapsed“ in macro scale objects not because of consciousness but because these numerous particles on a quantum scale are interacting with each other in a confined space which limits their movement. You end up with a larger material object whose behavior is described by classical physics.
The claim that the collapse of the wave function „leads“ to the creation of parallel universes for each possible scenario is utterly baseless. The word „leads“ implies there is a physical and causal relationship between „the collapse of this wave function“ and the creation of a whole fucking universe (lol). Remember that the wave function is just a mathematical abstraction that describes how much we know about the properties of a quantum object. This should go without saying, but there is no physical and causal relationship between the amount of knowledge changing that we have about a physical system and that leading to the creation of a parallel universe. It‘s a baseless claim.
Fun fact, when Schrödinger created his thought experiment, now known as Schrödinger‘s Cat, he wasn‘t describing that it were real that a cat was „both dead and alive at the same time“ when trapped in a box with a toxic substance that would be released if some quantum mechanism was observed. He was ridiculing such a scenario that is founded on the Kopenhagener Interpretation of quantum physics. Actual physicists (should) know this, but popsci content will still frame it as a serious thought experiment, or as not a thought experiment at all but as something that actually happens.
Finally, once you understand all the nonsense regarding this field you have to ask yourself, why would such archaic interpretations spanning back roughly a hundred years ago still be so prevalent? It‘s because the vast majority of people will either not have the intelligence or time to study all of the details themselves. They are therefore reliant on actual scientists giving them illustrative and watered down explanations to acquire an at least vague understanding of the real thing. Two things have led to the persistence of these obviously moronic theories.
1) There is a sect of physicists that have a personal affinity to religion/spirituality/metaphysics which makes them favor such an interpretation of quantum physical processes. The Many Worlds Hypothesis is not debunked per se, but it‘s unscientific and can‘t be proven. It‘s as if I said: Whenever I fart on Taco Tuesday there will be a new parallel universe created. How? I don‘t know. Can you prove there isn‘t a new parallel universe whenever I fart? Haha, gotcha! Guess you have to seriously consider my bullshit now. It‘s the same line of reasoning by religious people. „You can‘t prove that God doesn‘t exist!“
2) There is a money to be made with popsci. As said, the general public is reliant on scientists making difficult subjects understandable to them with no deeper knowledge of those subjects. By making science as magical and fantastical as you can get away with while retaining the trustworthiness and prestige of science you can build a larger audience. I mean, wouldn‘t it be cool if portals to infinite parallel universes were real and you could use warp drives to fly to other galaxies? Magic can lead out of the boredom of a predictable and boring reality. Cluelessness about science can be abused to turn science into magic to give people the same thing they are seeking in magic, spirituality and religion. Some charlatans even try to prove magic, spirituality and religion with quantum physics.
So, I hope this has helped you to not fall for the bullshit. Maybe this all sounds obvious in hindsights but almost all popsci content online describes quantum physics in misleading terms and contrived interpretations. The truth about quantum physics is much more sober than that, but still it‘s rare to encounter a no bullshit explanation for quantum physics.
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/CHARTS/
New chart thread where you can dump your charts about books, drop everything you have off charts, old chart new charts, let's try to concentrate all things here, for future use.
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Today, the qualitative virtuality of culture leads in productive capacity, which gives false pretence to the necessity of industrial labour. The truth is that a youtuber and their data are more useful today than any warehouse slave. This is the postmodern turn, where all things real have become unreal, so that the very term has been overcome. We can no longer speak of Reality with authority - like Zizek says, ideology is imagining we have escaped the matrix, when the truth is that every red pill is actually a double-dosage of blue pills, since it gives the illusion of escape. There is no escape from The Wired of the Deleuzean "new earth", which has ensnared the earth within the capacities of its magnetic mantle, giving life to the artificial and artificializing life.
This is sustained by Keynesian mediation, which maintains crises of overproduction and overemployment, such as FDR said after the new deal, "I have saved capitalism", but of course, capital is the agent, which has saved itself by wrapping itself into the state structure, amplifying its reach over the world. As Keynes says in his prophetic tone: "in the long run, we are all dead".
So its good to accept the attitude of postmodernity, which embraces play over purpose, as nihilism broadens by the extraction from the well of abstraction that it builds itself upon. Today we have the multiverse of multimedia involutions, reflected in quantum mechanics and cinematic representation. Reality is expanding like the dark energy ripping the universe apart faster than the speed of light.
You imagine communism, but what does it look like in contradiction to today's progress? the worst among you idolise poverty as a sign of "authenticity", but isn't this already wrapped in the cloak of self-deception, like the PMC who still paternalize the proletariat in theoretical bondage or the universalists who mangle together grotesque visages of an enlightened Humanity.
There is no Humanity and there is no Proletariat anymore, that is the end of your discrepancy. Embrace the end of history or else.
Postmodernity
Postmodernity is not an "ideology" but an advancement of material conditions for the age of digital technologies, which increasingly simulate Reality and thus cause an ontological shift which reverses the order of production, which now begins in the superstructure (mass culture, mass media, the "spectacle" of late capitalism and so on) and then flows into the affective instruments of (post)industrial nodes of distribution. This is a direct reversal of the Marxist dialectic, where now the unrepresentable base of production is the web of public interest, democratised along lines of free markets, which then flow into machines of production to give abstraction to the "real movement".Today, the qualitative virtuality of culture leads in productive capacity, which gives false pretence to the necessity of industrial labour. The truth is that a youtuber and their data are more useful today than any warehouse slave. This is the postmodern turn, where all things real have become unreal, so that the very term has been overcome. We can no longer speak of Reality with authority - like Zizek says, ideology is imagining we have escaped the matrix, when the truth is that every red pill is actually a double-dosage of blue pills, since it gives the illusion of escape. There is no escape from The Wired of the Deleuzean "new earth", which has ensnared the earth within the capacities of its magnetic mantle, giving life to the artificial and artificializing life.
This is sustained by Keynesian mediation, which maintains crises of overproduction and overemployment, such as FDR said after the new deal, "I have saved capitalism", but of course, capital is the agent, which has saved itself by wrapping itself into the state structure, amplifying its reach over the world. As Keynes says in his prophetic tone: "in the long run, we are all dead".
So its good to accept the attitude of postmodernity, which embraces play over purpose, as nihilism broadens by the extraction from the well of abstraction that it builds itself upon. Today we have the multiverse of multimedia involutions, reflected in quantum mechanics and cinematic representation. Reality is expanding like the dark energy ripping the universe apart faster than the speed of light.
You imagine communism, but what does it look like in contradiction to today's progress? the worst among you idolise poverty as a sign of "authenticity", but isn't this already wrapped in the cloak of self-deception, like the PMC who still paternalize the proletariat in theoretical bondage or the universalists who mangle together grotesque visages of an enlightened Humanity.
There is no Humanity and there is no Proletariat anymore, that is the end of your discrepancy. Embrace the end of history or else.
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Martin Heidegger
Can you recommend any material so I can better understand his work? I have a hard time wrapping my head around Sein und Zeit. Do you know good lectures, introductions or guides that you can recommend for that? R: 0 / I: 0
newly released pannekoek book (not available anywhere else)
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wrkclasshistory/the-workers-way-to-freedom
newly released pannekoek book (not available anywhere else)
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wrkclasshistory/the-workers-way-to-freedom
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/theology/
Wanted to make a theology general to discuss whatever questions or topics about religion people here may have. I thought about posting this in /siberia/ but I rather have a higher quality discussion tbh, and since /edu/ has much less traffic I think a thread about theology and religion in general would work better than a specific topic about particular denominations and such. So to start, something I had been wondering for a while, in buddhist theology when you die you reincarnate and depending on your karma you'll either be reborn into a human or an animal. So if you are reborn into an animal, after this life what would determine what you reincarnate into? Does buddhism have a way to judge animals? Do you reincarnate into a human by default after living as an animal and just keep the cycle going until you achieve enlightenment? If anyone knows I'd really appreciate it.
R: 1 / I: 0
Recommend me history books about 20th century and on
Recommend me general book about what lead to russia/ukraine war and palestine/israel war, some totally objective description from the beginning to now, so i understand whats going on now. I bought Paul Johnson book "Modern Times" (i know he is rabid anticommunist, didnt knew that when i bought it), its funny how hateful he is, but reading his chapter on Palestine/Israel even he mentioned that jewish terrorist groups were actually responsible for the first acts. I dont want specifcally "communist historian" books either. Objectively state of the facts, without unneccessary commentary would be fine for me - but i would like book like "20th century modern history" like Johnson wrote - so from bird view eye, entire 20th century, doing some broad analysis idk, just more objective.Pic unrelated i dont know what to post rn
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Does anyone know the name of such paper or has a link?
Help me track down Hakim's production efficency paper
I remember that Hakim at a certain point, in a video of his, cited a paper about production efficency, according to which socialist states had about the same efficency (if not slightly more) as capitalist ones in transforming raw materials into finished products.Does anyone know the name of such paper or has a link?
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<6. A method of dialectical analysis
<In order to apply the dialectical method properly, one must know many things. If you do not know your subject, it must be studied carefully, otherwise, your judgment will amount to only a caricature of the truth. In order to make an analysis of a literary work, a book or story, we are going to indicate a method which may be applied to other subjects as well.
<a) You must first pay attention to the content of the book or story you wish to analyze. Examine it independently of any social question, for not everything is derived from class struggle or economic conditions. There are literary influences which we must take into consideration. Try to see to which “literary school” the work belongs. Take into account the internal development of ideologies. Practically speaking, it would be good
to make a summary of the subject under analysis and to note down anything you found remarkable.
<b) Next observe the social types the heroes of the intrigue belong to. Look for the class to which they belong. Examine the action of the characters and see if what takes place in the novel can be linked in some way to a
social viewpoint. If this is not possible, if it cannot reasonably be done, it is better to abandon the analysis rather than invent. You must never invent an explanation.
<c) After you have discovered what class or classes are involved, you must determine the economic foundation, i.e., the means of production and the way of producing at the moment when the action of the novel takes
place. If, for example, the action is contemporary, the economic system is capitalism. At present we see numerous stories and novels which criticize and fight capitalism. But there are two ways to fight capitalism:
<1. As a revolutionary seeking to go forward.
<2. As a reactionary, who wants to return to the past. It is often this form which we encounter in modern novels, in which one longs for the "good old days.”
<d) Once we have obtained all this, we can then look for the ideology, i.e., see what the ideas and feelings, the way of thinking, of the author is. While searching for the ideology, we shall keep in mind the role it plays, its influence on the minds of those who read the book.
<e) We can then conclude our analysis, by saying why such a story or novel was written at such a moment. And criticize or praise, according to the case, the author’s intentions (often unconscious).
Dialectical Analysis Exercise
Here is an idea I had when reading Georges Politzer's "The Elementary Principles of Philosophy". He describes his approach to dialectical analysis. If anyone here wants an exercise in dialectical analysis give it a shot by selecting whatever piece of media you find to be relevant and analyze it based on his approach.<6. A method of dialectical analysis
<In order to apply the dialectical method properly, one must know many things. If you do not know your subject, it must be studied carefully, otherwise, your judgment will amount to only a caricature of the truth. In order to make an analysis of a literary work, a book or story, we are going to indicate a method which may be applied to other subjects as well.
<a) You must first pay attention to the content of the book or story you wish to analyze. Examine it independently of any social question, for not everything is derived from class struggle or economic conditions. There are literary influences which we must take into consideration. Try to see to which “literary school” the work belongs. Take into account the internal development of ideologies. Practically speaking, it would be good
to make a summary of the subject under analysis and to note down anything you found remarkable.
<b) Next observe the social types the heroes of the intrigue belong to. Look for the class to which they belong. Examine the action of the characters and see if what takes place in the novel can be linked in some way to a
social viewpoint. If this is not possible, if it cannot reasonably be done, it is better to abandon the analysis rather than invent. You must never invent an explanation.
<c) After you have discovered what class or classes are involved, you must determine the economic foundation, i.e., the means of production and the way of producing at the moment when the action of the novel takes
place. If, for example, the action is contemporary, the economic system is capitalism. At present we see numerous stories and novels which criticize and fight capitalism. But there are two ways to fight capitalism:
<1. As a revolutionary seeking to go forward.
<2. As a reactionary, who wants to return to the past. It is often this form which we encounter in modern novels, in which one longs for the "good old days.”
<d) Once we have obtained all this, we can then look for the ideology, i.e., see what the ideas and feelings, the way of thinking, of the author is. While searching for the ideology, we shall keep in mind the role it plays, its influence on the minds of those who read the book.
<e) We can then conclude our analysis, by saying why such a story or novel was written at such a moment. And criticize or praise, according to the case, the author’s intentions (often unconscious).
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What's the best way to get contemporary economics statistics without having to pay for websites like Statista or OEC.world? Are there annually released books I should be looking for on Libgen?
What's the best way to get contemporary economics statistics without having to pay for websites like Statista or OEC.world? Are there annually released books I should be looking for on Libgen?
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Is math invented or discovered?
Is mathematics invented, discovered or both?
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I've had arguments in the past with people who claim that modern science doesn't prove materialism or that materialism cannot explain things like the origin of the universe or quantum mechanics. Well, where do I begin with this? Is materialism the truth? The most basic part of marxist philosophy is the assertion that matter is objectively real, right? How do I prove this then? Maybe one of you STEMlords around here can help me out with this. Any resources on this is appreciated.
The scientific value of materialism
Hello comrades. I have doubts about materialism since the philosophical part of Marxism isn't my strength, but I want to be able to understand it better since materialism is the foundation of marxist theory and the communist movement.I've had arguments in the past with people who claim that modern science doesn't prove materialism or that materialism cannot explain things like the origin of the universe or quantum mechanics. Well, where do I begin with this? Is materialism the truth? The most basic part of marxist philosophy is the assertion that matter is objectively real, right? How do I prove this then? Maybe one of you STEMlords around here can help me out with this. Any resources on this is appreciated.
R: 2 / I: 3
In this thread, I'd like to collect videos, research papers, books, etc. that cover the history of various STEM subjects.
STEM history
I am of the opinion that students will become a lot more interested in a subject if, instead of being forced to memorize formulas and rules for a test, they are instead treated to a historical overview of how the subject matter developed to its contemporary stage. To provide a human grounding of "Who/When/Where/Why" instead of just a dreary "What/How" will allow students to get a sense of the relevance of the subject matter. Unfortunately, there is too much mutual contempt between STEM and the humanities, and too much capitalist contempt for "stopping and smelling the roses" to get any kind of pedagogical reform movement off the ground.In this thread, I'd like to collect videos, research papers, books, etc. that cover the history of various STEM subjects.
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Language learning communities
Where to find language learning communities, where I ask something about the language I am studying and get responded? I am not using hellotalk because it glows, nor fbi.gov for obvious reasons. I am a brazilian learning greek and mandarin and intending to learn korean and spanish, in case I need to be specific.
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What was the ideological motivations behind the deportations from Poland and the Baltic territories? The standard liberal take is that their nationalities were viewed as a proxy for reactionary ideology, which certainly is a major fuck-up, though in a world with "Stalin killed EVERY UKRAINIAN" tier-takes we can be glad for that nuance. I've heard of Chang's book Burnt By The Sun, but has any one else studied this topic specifically?
What was the ideological motivations behind the deportations from Poland and the Baltic territories? The standard liberal take is that their nationalities were viewed as a proxy for reactionary ideology, which certainly is a major fuck-up, though in a world with "Stalin killed EVERY UKRAINIAN" tier-takes we can be glad for that nuance. I've heard of Chang's book Burnt By The Sun, but has any one else studied this topic specifically?
R: 2 / I: 0
Any good resources to learn arabic?
I'm interested in learning arabic, any recommendation is welcomed :-) i'll start the LanguageTransfer course today, but i also need something to learn grammar and the actual alphabet.
R: 60 / I: 7
Articles, books, infographs everythings is welcomed.
BUT MUH HOLOHOAX
Let's debunk muh holocaust revishunism with FACTS & LOGIC.Articles, books, infographs everythings is welcomed.
R: 28 / I: 9
Why were the polish officers killed? What was the motive for the massacre? Were they preparing a revolt?
Are the documents fake? Whose investigations are trustworthy?
Discuss
KATYN
Who did it? Soviets? Nazis?Why were the polish officers killed? What was the motive for the massacre? Were they preparing a revolt?
Are the documents fake? Whose investigations are trustworthy?
Discuss
R: 10 / I: 32
Desired: Books, Videos, Movies, Articles, Essays, Documentaries, Thoughtful Discussion, Relevant Personal Anecdotes, etc.
Not Desired: JQ Bullshit, Nazi apologetics, IDF-apologetics, Israel apologetics, Zionist apologetics, anti-Palestinian racism
Anti-Apartheid In Israel Resources
Thread dedicated to attacking Israel's De Facto Apartheid State. Antisemitism and other /pol/ brained bullshit not welcome.Desired: Books, Videos, Movies, Articles, Essays, Documentaries, Thoughtful Discussion, Relevant Personal Anecdotes, etc.
Not Desired: JQ Bullshit, Nazi apologetics, IDF-apologetics, Israel apologetics, Zionist apologetics, anti-Palestinian racism
R: 25 / I: 19
To begin, what is Marxism?
>Marxism is not a theory of equality. It is not a diagnosis of injustice, nor is it a specific prescription of how to remedy society’s ills. Marxism is a method for acquiring knowledge about the laws governing the historical development of societies. Marxism thus regards itself as a type of science. Most people think of science as something purely descriptive.
<But the reason Marx’s contemporaries called him Prometheus is because he bequeathed a science that did not just describe reality, but participated in its development. This makes Marxism totally contrary to modern science.
>Modern science places knowledge above its object. To know, means to strip something naked to consciousness and turn it into a utility for the knowing subject. He who knows an object, can control, master, and alter an object. But the ‘object’ known by Marxism is none other than human society itself. And the paradox lies in the obvious fact that society is not just an object, but also a subject. Marxists (subjects) are themselves part of the very object they make knowable.
<To complicate matters further, Marx does not claim knowledge of society alone can transform society. Instead, he proves that society is already coming to know and transform itself materially in the form of the then growing proletarian class. Most people think Marx is ‘Promethean’ because he wanted his ideas popularized. But the REAL reason was because he had the courage of declaring the return of knowledge back to being itself, and human beings in particular. He created a science that ceased to be above its object.
>For Marx, the knowledge of historical laws arrived at by consciousness, was being reflected in history itself. Knowledge of humanity does not dominate humanity, but reveals that it was there, and part of it all along. “Communism is the riddle of history solved.”
Why the need for class consciousness?
<This is where people misunderstand Leninism as an attempt to turn politics and state power into a tool for realizing some goal of the mind. In reality, the role of Marxists lies in spreading the ‘good news’ to the despairing proletariat. Class consciousness, the so-called ‘vanguard party,’ and the Communist state is the realization of the proletariat’s faith in itself. Communism is not realized ‘automatically’ without the participation of a Communist party because society is not just an object.
>Neither just a subject either. Communist parties do not create new societies, only guide the existing development of society. This guidance is necessary because politics, Communist or otherwise is itself part of material reality. Without the guidance of proletarian consciousness, the movement propelling society still continues. But it leads to an economic, political, spiritual, moral and overall social crisis. Society eats away at itself as it cannot make sense of the contradictions driving it. The crisis of Western Marxism lies in its inability to overcome the subject/object distinction when it comes to society.
How can society both be a real (material) object, while also given the quality of subjective responsibility?
<Two responses emerge. The first cope of Western Marxism is a type of fatalism, which Lenin calls economism. According to this view, politics is not involved in the revolutionary transformation of society at all, which happens only because of economics, or a spontaneous uprising of the proletariat.
>The second (more relevant) is the opposite extreme. In this view, society must act as a pure subject in the form of institutions (party or otherwise), exterminating every trace of its pre-conscious, and objective material being, recreating all society from scratch.
<But both two sides of Western Marxism are incompatible with Marx’s Promethean gesture of suspending knowledge back to being. In the first, being is upheld entirely independent of knowledge. In the second, knowledge is asserted over and at the expense of being. If society will become communist independently of the engaged subjective partisanship of communists, then all you have is the conceit of some subject-in-the-know passively watching their object fulfill the expectations of subjective knowledge. If communism is just some enlightened consciousness, then what you have are psychotic subjects devoid of any trust that their knowledge is actually based in (non-conscious) reality itself, denouncing the latter as ‘reactionary.’ Knowledge only as ‘subjective self-consciousness.’
>The ‘praxis’ uniting thought and practice then is only in the fractal movement of subjective self-consciousness - voluntary ‘action’ becomes the ‘object’ of the subject, who then acts on its basis: ‘object’ takes on the processual quality of yet-to-be fulfilled subjectivity. This is exactly why some people place Marxism in the Gnostic tradition: This Western interpretation of Marxism is founded upon a metaphysical distrust for reality. Because of that distrust, good, virtue, etc. lies only in knowledge as pure subjective self-consciousness.
Origins of Western Marxism
<This Western Marxism has its origins in the neo-Kantian György Lukács, whose seminal work “History and Class Consciousness” was written to resolve the problem the subject/object distinction posed for the Marxist concept of society, class & history. In order to begin, Lukács engaged in an egregious form of revisionism; blaming for Marxism’s commitment to natural realism Fredrich Engels and his "dialectics of nature."
>To Lukács, when Marx referred to objective material reality, he was merely opposing society as a supra-individual horizon of meaning to individual subjectivity. It did not include objective natural reality, which Lukács brackets as irrelevant to Marxism. Society was ‘objective,’ and consciousness was ‘subjective.’ Their dialectical interaction, for Lukács, was the basis of history itself. But the material reality outside of social mediation (nature) was irrelevant to, and outside this dialectic, outside history.
<The reason I mention Lukács is because Western Marxism was founded on the false view that he resolved the problem of ‘subject/object’ distinction for Marxism. But he did nothing of that sort, he just changed the definition of objectivity to exclude objective reality itself. Here, objectivity is just the reified totality of social relations, denied of active subjective responsibility.
>This obviously contradicts Marx’s materialism, for which objectivity does include nature, not just society as some purely transcendental horizon. Without including nature in the definition of material reality, then class-consciousness consists in dissolving all society, in all its objectivity, into a pure subjective self-consciousness. For Lukács, the proletarian class is the first ‘subject-object’ which does exactly this.
<This is a gross perversion of Marxism, and it is easy to see the lineage of the Lukácsian view in the Frankfurt School, the New Left, ‘postmodern academia’ as a whole.
But is Lukácsian Western Marxism really to blame?
>In fact, when Lukács decided to reject Engels, he was just compromising with institutional modern realism. Engels ‘dialectics of nature’ was too ‘metaphysical’ because it saw something ‘human’ in reality. In other words, the opposite of a metaphysical distrust in reality! In actual fact, the distrust in reality is the very basis of bourgeois modernity. It can be thought as the entire premise of the Age of Enlightenment itself!
<In the realm of science: Metaphysical distrust in reality takes the form of distrust in our conventions, intuitions, religious beliefs, and sensibilities about the nature of reality. Reality is a pure OUTSIDE only accessed by cold, indifferent, impersonal inquiry.
>In the realm of politics: Metaphysical distrust in reality takes the form of distrust in traditional sovereign authority, regarding it as unjust, arbitrary, and tyrannical. Sovereigns must be legitimated by some explicitly abstract constitutional or democratic procedure.
<In bourgeois modernity, only what is in the sphere of explicit responsibility of conscious subjects can be ‘trusted.’ Any recognition of humanity in reality itself is no different than a superstition: Reality is arbitrary, meaningless, and malign. Only institutions are Good. The madness of bourgeois capitalism, which alienates mankind from its material being, is the true culprit behind this phenomena, NOT Marxism. All Lukács did was make Marxism compatible with bourgeois institutions. The original problem is the bourgeoisie itself. The Gnostic, occultist, and alchemical origins of the bourgeois enlightenment are abundantly clear. People accuse of Marxism, what is in fact THE FOUNDATION OF LIBERALISM! Marxism is the exact OPPOSITE of this bourgeois conceit of knowledge (gnosis) and formalism.
>In Marxism, the highest aim of knowledge is to give way to reality. This entails a great trust in material being - anything of importance arrived at by knowledge, is already reconciled within material reality itself. The paradox is that this ‘giving way’ is a necessary act of consciousness. Lukács’ response to this paradox revised Marxism itself. But even if Lukács were to be rejected, the problem remains. Furthermore, what is really the problem with Lukács’s revision, anyway? Exploring that reveals the way to a better solution.
<As we have shown, the idea of communism as a pure subjective self-consciousness, is based on the notion that objectivity is just reified social relations. This naturally begs the question of what the content of these social relations consists in, as so far they are only pure form.
>Marxism is historical materialism, and Communism is just the practical application of historical materialism, via the class-conscious (historical-materialism conscious) proletariat, to society itself. But what does that say about the nature of society in the first place? It means society is an indescribable ‘totality’ of individual mental states, opinions, and beliefs, - the objectivity of social relationships, is merely a result of the subjective mind ‘reifying’ segments of the totality and treating them as external realities in themselves. Thus here, society has no real determinate content - it is a pure ‘Kantian Thing-in-Itself,’ a mere totality of individual relations that only asserts its existence negatively, via the reification (‘objectivization’) of its constituent parts. This means that material relations of production are rooted in reified mental states, not material reality. Consciousness of them (plus action) would dissolve them. Material society is then defined by ‘that which subjective consciousness has not yet assumed responsibility for!’
<Having rejected any specific form of being as *necessarily* material, including nature, it is only upon failing to render the Totality fully transparent that consciousness may renunciate its aspiration to dissolve everything in itself. Totality is the Lukácsian sublime. The Totality of individual relations in the form of History, or Society, constitutes a type of absolute objectivity which is not merely a reification - but the free, continuous and holistic content of every possible experience, mental state, and subjectivity. A totality cannot assume self-consciousness, since it cannot be confined to any one self. So that is simply the end of Scientific Socialism: The only thing that can really be known about society, is that nothing at all can be known. This is no more knowledge than Kant’s Thing. Subject-Object distinction reemerges, only now between a subjective self-consciousness (in the form of Party, institutions, etc) rendering transparent and assuming responsibility for all determinations of society and the Totality of relations as the supremely impenetrable object.
>So we are back to square one, and none wiser in answering the following:
Marxism has no reality at all in the West
<Nearly all self-proclaimed Marxists are frauds who haven’t even read Marx, let alone understand him. They use the label Marxism, despite knowing nothing about it, as a pseudo-intellectual obfuscation for their liberal ideology.To begin, what is Marxism?
>Marxism is not a theory of equality. It is not a diagnosis of injustice, nor is it a specific prescription of how to remedy society’s ills. Marxism is a method for acquiring knowledge about the laws governing the historical development of societies. Marxism thus regards itself as a type of science. Most people think of science as something purely descriptive.
<But the reason Marx’s contemporaries called him Prometheus is because he bequeathed a science that did not just describe reality, but participated in its development. This makes Marxism totally contrary to modern science.
>Modern science places knowledge above its object. To know, means to strip something naked to consciousness and turn it into a utility for the knowing subject. He who knows an object, can control, master, and alter an object. But the ‘object’ known by Marxism is none other than human society itself. And the paradox lies in the obvious fact that society is not just an object, but also a subject. Marxists (subjects) are themselves part of the very object they make knowable.
<To complicate matters further, Marx does not claim knowledge of society alone can transform society. Instead, he proves that society is already coming to know and transform itself materially in the form of the then growing proletarian class. Most people think Marx is ‘Promethean’ because he wanted his ideas popularized. But the REAL reason was because he had the courage of declaring the return of knowledge back to being itself, and human beings in particular. He created a science that ceased to be above its object.
>For Marx, the knowledge of historical laws arrived at by consciousness, was being reflected in history itself. Knowledge of humanity does not dominate humanity, but reveals that it was there, and part of it all along. “Communism is the riddle of history solved.”
Why the need for class consciousness?
<This is where people misunderstand Leninism as an attempt to turn politics and state power into a tool for realizing some goal of the mind. In reality, the role of Marxists lies in spreading the ‘good news’ to the despairing proletariat. Class consciousness, the so-called ‘vanguard party,’ and the Communist state is the realization of the proletariat’s faith in itself. Communism is not realized ‘automatically’ without the participation of a Communist party because society is not just an object.
>Neither just a subject either. Communist parties do not create new societies, only guide the existing development of society. This guidance is necessary because politics, Communist or otherwise is itself part of material reality. Without the guidance of proletarian consciousness, the movement propelling society still continues. But it leads to an economic, political, spiritual, moral and overall social crisis. Society eats away at itself as it cannot make sense of the contradictions driving it. The crisis of Western Marxism lies in its inability to overcome the subject/object distinction when it comes to society.
How can society both be a real (material) object, while also given the quality of subjective responsibility?
<Two responses emerge. The first cope of Western Marxism is a type of fatalism, which Lenin calls economism. According to this view, politics is not involved in the revolutionary transformation of society at all, which happens only because of economics, or a spontaneous uprising of the proletariat.
>The second (more relevant) is the opposite extreme. In this view, society must act as a pure subject in the form of institutions (party or otherwise), exterminating every trace of its pre-conscious, and objective material being, recreating all society from scratch.
<But both two sides of Western Marxism are incompatible with Marx’s Promethean gesture of suspending knowledge back to being. In the first, being is upheld entirely independent of knowledge. In the second, knowledge is asserted over and at the expense of being. If society will become communist independently of the engaged subjective partisanship of communists, then all you have is the conceit of some subject-in-the-know passively watching their object fulfill the expectations of subjective knowledge. If communism is just some enlightened consciousness, then what you have are psychotic subjects devoid of any trust that their knowledge is actually based in (non-conscious) reality itself, denouncing the latter as ‘reactionary.’ Knowledge only as ‘subjective self-consciousness.’
>The ‘praxis’ uniting thought and practice then is only in the fractal movement of subjective self-consciousness - voluntary ‘action’ becomes the ‘object’ of the subject, who then acts on its basis: ‘object’ takes on the processual quality of yet-to-be fulfilled subjectivity. This is exactly why some people place Marxism in the Gnostic tradition: This Western interpretation of Marxism is founded upon a metaphysical distrust for reality. Because of that distrust, good, virtue, etc. lies only in knowledge as pure subjective self-consciousness.
Origins of Western Marxism
<This Western Marxism has its origins in the neo-Kantian György Lukács, whose seminal work “History and Class Consciousness” was written to resolve the problem the subject/object distinction posed for the Marxist concept of society, class & history. In order to begin, Lukács engaged in an egregious form of revisionism; blaming for Marxism’s commitment to natural realism Fredrich Engels and his "dialectics of nature."
>To Lukács, when Marx referred to objective material reality, he was merely opposing society as a supra-individual horizon of meaning to individual subjectivity. It did not include objective natural reality, which Lukács brackets as irrelevant to Marxism. Society was ‘objective,’ and consciousness was ‘subjective.’ Their dialectical interaction, for Lukács, was the basis of history itself. But the material reality outside of social mediation (nature) was irrelevant to, and outside this dialectic, outside history.
<The reason I mention Lukács is because Western Marxism was founded on the false view that he resolved the problem of ‘subject/object’ distinction for Marxism. But he did nothing of that sort, he just changed the definition of objectivity to exclude objective reality itself. Here, objectivity is just the reified totality of social relations, denied of active subjective responsibility.
>This obviously contradicts Marx’s materialism, for which objectivity does include nature, not just society as some purely transcendental horizon. Without including nature in the definition of material reality, then class-consciousness consists in dissolving all society, in all its objectivity, into a pure subjective self-consciousness. For Lukács, the proletarian class is the first ‘subject-object’ which does exactly this.
<This is a gross perversion of Marxism, and it is easy to see the lineage of the Lukácsian view in the Frankfurt School, the New Left, ‘postmodern academia’ as a whole.
But is Lukácsian Western Marxism really to blame?
>In fact, when Lukács decided to reject Engels, he was just compromising with institutional modern realism. Engels ‘dialectics of nature’ was too ‘metaphysical’ because it saw something ‘human’ in reality. In other words, the opposite of a metaphysical distrust in reality! In actual fact, the distrust in reality is the very basis of bourgeois modernity. It can be thought as the entire premise of the Age of Enlightenment itself!
<In the realm of science: Metaphysical distrust in reality takes the form of distrust in our conventions, intuitions, religious beliefs, and sensibilities about the nature of reality. Reality is a pure OUTSIDE only accessed by cold, indifferent, impersonal inquiry.
>In the realm of politics: Metaphysical distrust in reality takes the form of distrust in traditional sovereign authority, regarding it as unjust, arbitrary, and tyrannical. Sovereigns must be legitimated by some explicitly abstract constitutional or democratic procedure.
<In bourgeois modernity, only what is in the sphere of explicit responsibility of conscious subjects can be ‘trusted.’ Any recognition of humanity in reality itself is no different than a superstition: Reality is arbitrary, meaningless, and malign. Only institutions are Good. The madness of bourgeois capitalism, which alienates mankind from its material being, is the true culprit behind this phenomena, NOT Marxism. All Lukács did was make Marxism compatible with bourgeois institutions. The original problem is the bourgeoisie itself. The Gnostic, occultist, and alchemical origins of the bourgeois enlightenment are abundantly clear. People accuse of Marxism, what is in fact THE FOUNDATION OF LIBERALISM! Marxism is the exact OPPOSITE of this bourgeois conceit of knowledge (gnosis) and formalism.
>In Marxism, the highest aim of knowledge is to give way to reality. This entails a great trust in material being - anything of importance arrived at by knowledge, is already reconciled within material reality itself. The paradox is that this ‘giving way’ is a necessary act of consciousness. Lukács’ response to this paradox revised Marxism itself. But even if Lukács were to be rejected, the problem remains. Furthermore, what is really the problem with Lukács’s revision, anyway? Exploring that reveals the way to a better solution.
<As we have shown, the idea of communism as a pure subjective self-consciousness, is based on the notion that objectivity is just reified social relations. This naturally begs the question of what the content of these social relations consists in, as so far they are only pure form.
>Marxism is historical materialism, and Communism is just the practical application of historical materialism, via the class-conscious (historical-materialism conscious) proletariat, to society itself. But what does that say about the nature of society in the first place? It means society is an indescribable ‘totality’ of individual mental states, opinions, and beliefs, - the objectivity of social relationships, is merely a result of the subjective mind ‘reifying’ segments of the totality and treating them as external realities in themselves. Thus here, society has no real determinate content - it is a pure ‘Kantian Thing-in-Itself,’ a mere totality of individual relations that only asserts its existence negatively, via the reification (‘objectivization’) of its constituent parts. This means that material relations of production are rooted in reified mental states, not material reality. Consciousness of them (plus action) would dissolve them. Material society is then defined by ‘that which subjective consciousness has not yet assumed responsibility for!’
<Having rejected any specific form of being as *necessarily* material, including nature, it is only upon failing to render the Totality fully transparent that consciousness may renunciate its aspiration to dissolve everything in itself. Totality is the Lukácsian sublime. The Totality of individual relations in the form of History, or Society, constitutes a type of absolute objectivity which is not merely a reification - but the free, continuous and holistic content of every possible experience, mental state, and subjectivity. A totality cannot assume self-consciousness, since it cannot be confined to any one self. So that is simply the end of Scientific Socialism: The only thing that can really be known about society, is that nothing at all can be known. This is no more knowledge than Kant’s Thing. Subject-Object distinction reemerges, only now between a subjective self-consciousness (in the form of Party, institutions, etc) rendering transparent and assuming responsibility for all determinations of society and the Totality of relations as the supremely impenetrable object.
>So we are back to square one, and none wiser in answering the following:
R: 117 / I: 67
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the third and highest stage of communist theory, was synthesized in 1982 by the Peruvian Communist Party (known in bourgeois sources by the epithet "Sendero Luminoso"). Here is the document they published concerning this: http://library.redspark.nu/1982_-_Maoism._On_Marxism-Leninism-Maoism
Parties and organizations that uphold MLM theory in the modern day include:
>Communist Party of Ecuador – Red Sun
>Peru People’s Movement (Reorganisation Committee)
>Communist Party of Brazil (Red Faction)
>Red Faction of the Communist Party of Chile
>Maoist Organization for the Reconstitution of the Communist Party of Columbia
>Revolutionary Nucleus for the Reconstitution of the Communist Party of Mexico
>Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist
>Committee Red Flag, FRG
>Maoist Communist Party, French State
Red Flag Collective, Finland
>Committees for the Foundation of the (Maoist) Communist Party of Austria
>Tjen Folket - Communist League, Norway
>Committee to Reconstitute the Communist Party of the USA
>Communist Nucleus Nepal
Two other well-known parties are affiliated in part with MLM, although their political orientation overlaps significantly with what we'd call "Mao Zedong Thought" which is not the same thing:
>Communist Party of India (Maoist)
>Communist Party of Philippines
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism Q&A
This is not a debate thread. I encourage debate on this topic to happen in /leftypol/, as it would have anyway. This is an /edu/cational thread only.Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the third and highest stage of communist theory, was synthesized in 1982 by the Peruvian Communist Party (known in bourgeois sources by the epithet "Sendero Luminoso"). Here is the document they published concerning this: http://library.redspark.nu/1982_-_Maoism._On_Marxism-Leninism-Maoism
Parties and organizations that uphold MLM theory in the modern day include:
>Communist Party of Ecuador – Red Sun
>Peru People’s Movement (Reorganisation Committee)
>Communist Party of Brazil (Red Faction)
>Red Faction of the Communist Party of Chile
>Maoist Organization for the Reconstitution of the Communist Party of Columbia
>Revolutionary Nucleus for the Reconstitution of the Communist Party of Mexico
>Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist
>Committee Red Flag, FRG
>Maoist Communist Party, French State
Red Flag Collective, Finland
>Committees for the Foundation of the (Maoist) Communist Party of Austria
>Tjen Folket - Communist League, Norway
>Committee to Reconstitute the Communist Party of the USA
>Communist Nucleus Nepal
Two other well-known parties are affiliated in part with MLM, although their political orientation overlaps significantly with what we'd call "Mao Zedong Thought" which is not the same thing:
>Communist Party of India (Maoist)
>Communist Party of Philippines
R: 1 / I: 1
so i was reading engels book on the peasants war in germany and apparently his primary source for it was taken from a book titled "The History of the Great Peasant War" by this zimmerman guy.
now the problem is, i cant find that book anywhere online, so if any of you have a pdf i would really appreciate it if you could post it here
so i was reading engels book on the peasants war in germany and apparently his primary source for it was taken from a book titled "The History of the Great Peasant War" by this zimmerman guy.
now the problem is, i cant find that book anywhere online, so if any of you have a pdf i would really appreciate it if you could post it here
R: 14 / I: 12
History of the Soviet Union
What historians do you recommend to learn about the Soviet Union? For that matter, what books specifically would you recommend if there are specific ones you like.
R: 15 / I: 2
Can I start my theory by just cracking this open, or is there something else I should read first?
Can I start my theory by just cracking this open, or is there something else I should read first?
R: 1 / I: 2
War on Terror literature recommendations?
I'm aware of a book called My Life with the Taliban that is a memoir of a Taliban fighter who fought the insurgency against the US in the early 2000s, that one seems interesting, I'm imagining there must be some memoirs of American soldiers too right? If you know of any of either Iraq or Afghanistan feel free to give me some suggestions. Something that's like Storm of Steel or similar to that type of war memoir.
R: 5 / I: 0
Said just comes as a across as a whiny self hating cunt and applies that whiny cunt nature towards everyone outside Europe, the man knew aboustetly nothing about the middle east, south asia or the muslim world, he was a white radlib(culturally) who had the luck of having ethnic heritage to justify his basis
I don't get it - ("Orientalism" by Edward W. Said)
I wanna state that I'm from Pakistan and grew up in a community that was very proud of its self, we see ourselves as our ethnic group and everybody else is an outsiderSaid just comes as a across as a whiny self hating cunt and applies that whiny cunt nature towards everyone outside Europe, the man knew aboustetly nothing about the middle east, south asia or the muslim world, he was a white radlib(culturally) who had the luck of having ethnic heritage to justify his basis
R: 71 / I: 16
>Bolsheviks were the party of workers, proletarians
>Bolsheviks didn't give a fuck about the peasants
>in fact, peasants were counter-revolutionary and petit-bourgeois
Meanwhile, the Bolshevik logo has a SICKLE on it. Why do internet MLs refuse to consider the fact that we need people to grow food, and like it or not, we don't have replicators or vertical, indoor industrial-scale farming (yet), so it stands to reason that we must ally ourselves with those who grow food or want to grow food. It seems there is this attitude that we (communists) can just do whatever, not make allies, because there is this assumption that we'll just fight and defeat anyone who disagrees. But for a fledgling movement, like communism, peasants and the army are two important parts of "the people". Without them, the urban proletariat would starve or be quickly defeated by an actual army.
Well, /leftypol/? How do we get a large part of the army and "peasantry" on our side?
>Bolsheviks were the party of workers, proletarians
>Bolsheviks didn't give a fuck about the peasants
>in fact, peasants were counter-revolutionary and petit-bourgeois
Meanwhile, the Bolshevik logo has a SICKLE on it. Why do internet MLs refuse to consider the fact that we need people to grow food, and like it or not, we don't have replicators or vertical, indoor industrial-scale farming (yet), so it stands to reason that we must ally ourselves with those who grow food or want to grow food. It seems there is this attitude that we (communists) can just do whatever, not make allies, because there is this assumption that we'll just fight and defeat anyone who disagrees. But for a fledgling movement, like communism, peasants and the army are two important parts of "the people". Without them, the urban proletariat would starve or be quickly defeated by an actual army.
Well, /leftypol/? How do we get a large part of the army and "peasantry" on our side?
R: 112 / I: 10
This thread could serve to discuss this work if anyone ever dedicates the time to read it, or we could debate the place of ecology in modern day Marxism. To provoke discussion: does nature have any value outside how it immediately serves human interests?
Rafiq/Ecology Discussion
So some of you may have read the quite popular pdf where Rafiq dunks on eco fetishism, in that thread he references a previous thread where he had spent a lot of time focusing in on eco-fetishism, however this thread has been lost from Revleft. It's available on internet archives but to preserve it I've made this in the style of the previous popular pdf. Hope you guys enjoy!This thread could serve to discuss this work if anyone ever dedicates the time to read it, or we could debate the place of ecology in modern day Marxism. To provoke discussion: does nature have any value outside how it immediately serves human interests?
R: 7 / I: 1
Since I can't get mental healthcare and I don't really have a support network, I'm looking for books—fiction or non-fiction, any genre—that fit any of the follow criteria:
>emotionally and/or intellectually edifying
>something that can give me some hope, comfort, inspiration, or show me a way up
>nothing too positive or wholesome because it'll bounce off of me
>no gimmicky, panacea bullshit either
>something I can relate to for the catharsis that comes from reveling in your shitty feelings in a controlled outlet, or maybe not, I could see this becoming a bad idea; use your judgement
>something I can feel a little better about myself for having read
So what should I read? I'm putting my faith in you.
Book Recommendations for the Depressed
I've wasted my life. I don't like who I am. I struggle to connect with the overwhelming majority of other people, and do not desire their companionship but the lifestyle is starting to fuck me over. I have a crippling internet addiction. I'm in a deep, deep hole in more ways than you can imagine and I don't know if I have the strength to get myself out. I can't even tell you how bad it really is. I know, I'm a very special boi. On the plus side, I don't harbor any bigotries and I'm not a porn addict.Since I can't get mental healthcare and I don't really have a support network, I'm looking for books—fiction or non-fiction, any genre—that fit any of the follow criteria:
>emotionally and/or intellectually edifying
>something that can give me some hope, comfort, inspiration, or show me a way up
>nothing too positive or wholesome because it'll bounce off of me
>no gimmicky, panacea bullshit either
>something I can relate to for the catharsis that comes from reveling in your shitty feelings in a controlled outlet, or maybe not, I could see this becoming a bad idea; use your judgement
>something I can feel a little better about myself for having read
So what should I read? I'm putting my faith in you.
R: 11 / I: 7 (sage)
>Before 1933, Hitler's true position was kept secret. >He emphasized the need for secrecy in his economic plans for the pragmatic purpose of maximizing the possibility of gaining political power. >Thus, he presented himself as a supporter of private ownership in some speeches, while attacking capitalism in others, depending on his audience.
>His main aim was to reconcile the principles of competition and selection with a state-controlled economy.
>Hitler believed that the common good should determine individual benefit, rather than the other way around.
>Once he came to power, he diligently studied Stalin's government.
>His view of the Soviet economic system shifted from skepticism to admiration.
>He defended the Soviet system and even praised Stalin's economic planning.
>Hitler's admiration for the Soviet system is confirmed by Wilhelm Scheidt's notes, where Hitler recognized the inner relationship between his own system and Bolshevism, considering it more developed and straightforward.
>By 1939, Hitler's intention was to expand state control of the economy, not reduce it, even after the war.
>Hitler believed that capitalism had run its course and predicted the survival of Fascism, National Socialism, and possibly Bolshevism in the East.
>In his last radio address, he stated that unrestricted economic liberalism had become obsolete.
Thoughts?
The Overlap Between Hitler's Socialism and Stalin's Socialism
>In Rainer Zitelmann’s book, "Hitler’s National Socialism", Zitelmann explains that Hitler's economic concepts regarding the relationship between markets and planned economies are controversial.>Before 1933, Hitler's true position was kept secret. >He emphasized the need for secrecy in his economic plans for the pragmatic purpose of maximizing the possibility of gaining political power. >Thus, he presented himself as a supporter of private ownership in some speeches, while attacking capitalism in others, depending on his audience.
>His main aim was to reconcile the principles of competition and selection with a state-controlled economy.
>Hitler believed that the common good should determine individual benefit, rather than the other way around.
>Once he came to power, he diligently studied Stalin's government.
>His view of the Soviet economic system shifted from skepticism to admiration.
>He defended the Soviet system and even praised Stalin's economic planning.
>Hitler's admiration for the Soviet system is confirmed by Wilhelm Scheidt's notes, where Hitler recognized the inner relationship between his own system and Bolshevism, considering it more developed and straightforward.
>By 1939, Hitler's intention was to expand state control of the economy, not reduce it, even after the war.
>Hitler believed that capitalism had run its course and predicted the survival of Fascism, National Socialism, and possibly Bolshevism in the East.
>In his last radio address, he stated that unrestricted economic liberalism had become obsolete.
Thoughts?
R: 153 / I: 17
What is the self-interest in helping the needy?
How is it in anyone's self-interest to try to overthrow the system and create an egalitarian society vs spending their efforts trying to rise in the unjust hierarchical system we live under today?
Marxism and Moralism
How can Marxism be considered anything other than a moralist aka altruistic philosophy?What is the self-interest in helping the needy?
How is it in anyone's self-interest to try to overthrow the system and create an egalitarian society vs spending their efforts trying to rise in the unjust hierarchical system we live under today?
R: 1 / I: 0
An excellent documentary on the murder of a hero from comrade Roo
Hopefully he does a documentary on Gaddhafi next
Documentary to watch
https://youtu.be/dZRGBTmZAFEAn excellent documentary on the murder of a hero from comrade Roo
Hopefully he does a documentary on Gaddhafi next
R: 2 / I: 0
Discussion of Tutnese
A cryptic new language Tutnese has been the talk of the town among the FBA community. Unfortunately there aren't many books about Tutnese that are not long out of print, and borderline grifter Nasheed has promoted Tutnese strongly but refuses to release the goods. Dump PDFs of relevant information here so that more folks can have the opportunity to pick up Tutnese freely.
R: 202 / I: 36
Why must've the Universe had a beginning? Why couldn't it have just been? Matter in motion since forever, always changing - as Heraclitus, Descartes, Engels, Lenin and other materialist philosophers postulated. Makes more sense than anything else.
>doesn't fall into the trap of an immovable mover
>doesn't fall into the trap of making matter out to be immutable since it is always changing
>removes the "I" from the equation, where consciousness just becomes another form matter in motion (electricity in our brains)
Why do the professional philosophers insist on arguing about idealistic nonsense when the two simple axioms
>matter always existed
>matter was always in motion
Solve all philosophical problems and leave only their practical solutions - i.e. the natural and social sciences, something tangible with results, to be studied? Is it because if the theory starts requiring practice, they lose their cushy jobs and pseudo-intellectuals on this board who jack off on structuralism, post-Marxism &c. would have to start doing manual labor to prove their points?
Why must've the Universe had a beginning? Why couldn't it have just been? Matter in motion since forever, always changing - as Heraclitus, Descartes, Engels, Lenin and other materialist philosophers postulated. Makes more sense than anything else.
>doesn't fall into the trap of an immovable mover
>doesn't fall into the trap of making matter out to be immutable since it is always changing
>removes the "I" from the equation, where consciousness just becomes another form matter in motion (electricity in our brains)
Why do the professional philosophers insist on arguing about idealistic nonsense when the two simple axioms
>matter always existed
>matter was always in motion
Solve all philosophical problems and leave only their practical solutions - i.e. the natural and social sciences, something tangible with results, to be studied? Is it because if the theory starts requiring practice, they lose their cushy jobs and pseudo-intellectuals on this board who jack off on structuralism, post-Marxism &c. would have to start doing manual labor to prove their points?
R: 37 / I: 11
Some specific topics:
—English political economy from Adam Smith to the repeal of the Corn Laws
—Early communist party (Cabet, Blanqui, League of the Just, Communist Correspondence Committee, etc.)
—1848 Revolutions and aftermath
—Napoleon III's coup
—Paris Commune
—First International activities and drama
—General 19th century European history
I found this on the Paris Commune a while ago, pretty decent: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/mitchell-abidor-voices-of-the-paris-commune
Navigating Historical Context for Marx
I feel like one of the biggest obstacles to understanding Marx's most crucial works is that he writes for an audience that he assumes already knows a ton of context, which makes sense considering his own context as a journalist for revolutionary workers on the streets themselves. It still makes those writings confusing to anyone that isn't an academic that has the privilege of having absorbed context. So, what are some good history books that can fill in that gap?Some specific topics:
—English political economy from Adam Smith to the repeal of the Corn Laws
—Early communist party (Cabet, Blanqui, League of the Just, Communist Correspondence Committee, etc.)
—1848 Revolutions and aftermath
—Napoleon III's coup
—Paris Commune
—First International activities and drama
—General 19th century European history
I found this on the Paris Commune a while ago, pretty decent: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/mitchell-abidor-voices-of-the-paris-commune
R: 0 / I: 0
Enough background. Let me get to the point. I was wondering, are there any books that outline the differences in vocabulary used by bourgeois economists before and after Marx? They did a lot of linguistic obfuscation after Marx, and it might be helpful to get a breakdown of that, because it's hard to even tell what bourgeois economists are talking about sometimes if your vocabulary is already marxist, or vice-versa, if you learned "mainstream" economics first and then pick up Marx 2nd. Sometimes it can feel like you're speaking two different languages, because the technical glossaries of each approach to viewing the world differ so much.
bourgeois vs. marxist vocabulary
Bourgeois economists embraced labor theory of value (which originated from Adam Smith of all people) until Marx. Marx got bourgeois economists to abandon the labor theory of value because he took it to its logical conclusion of the proletarian revolution against the bourgeois class dictatorship. As a result of bourgeois economists abandoning the labor theory of value in order to distance mainstream economics from Marx's conclusions, they began to embrace quackery like marginal utility theory and the subjective theory of value.Enough background. Let me get to the point. I was wondering, are there any books that outline the differences in vocabulary used by bourgeois economists before and after Marx? They did a lot of linguistic obfuscation after Marx, and it might be helpful to get a breakdown of that, because it's hard to even tell what bourgeois economists are talking about sometimes if your vocabulary is already marxist, or vice-versa, if you learned "mainstream" economics first and then pick up Marx 2nd. Sometimes it can feel like you're speaking two different languages, because the technical glossaries of each approach to viewing the world differ so much.
R: 11 / I: 3
>The three forewords, Intro (What Herr Duhring promises) and then chapters III-VIII
>From VIII to XIV
>Second part Political Economy I-V
>Then V-X
>Third ch. Socialism in its entirety
Links:
https://ia800304.us.archive.org/0/items/antidhringherr00enge/antidhringherr00enge.pdf
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/index.htm
If anyone thinks a study guide would be better so we follow some main points, be free to post it or suggest it. I'm not a fan of structured studies because then I read the text with a certain goal in mind instead of understanding it.
Anti-Duhring Thread?
I plan to study this book over the next week starting tonight or tomorrow. Anyone wanna join the read? I'd wager ~50-70pgs (relative to my edition) per day is doable for most. So my plan then roughly is>The three forewords, Intro (What Herr Duhring promises) and then chapters III-VIII
>From VIII to XIV
>Second part Political Economy I-V
>Then V-X
>Third ch. Socialism in its entirety
Links:
https://ia800304.us.archive.org/0/items/antidhringherr00enge/antidhringherr00enge.pdf
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/index.htm
If anyone thinks a study guide would be better so we follow some main points, be free to post it or suggest it. I'm not a fan of structured studies because then I read the text with a certain goal in mind instead of understanding it.
R: 13 / I: 3
Some of you may already be aware of our work. We began our project since September 2020, we are almost 3 years old, and we've been expanding our work since then. As a celebration of ProleWiki, we are beginning a recruitment campaign to attract Marxists-Leninists interested in improving our work.
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The current articles available is a reflection of our current set of editors' knowledge. It is bound to improve over time while we internally debate about many subjects and increase in number of editors. We currently have editors from all over the world, United States, Brazil, Mexico, Spain, Denmark, Germany, and many other countries.
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R: 1 / I: 0
"The blame for this falls solely upon the wretched conditions in Germany, in consequence of which cobweb-spinning eclectic flea-crackers had taken possession of the chairs of philosophy-"
What the fuck is a flea-cracker?
"The blame for this falls solely upon the wretched conditions in Germany, in consequence of which cobweb-spinning eclectic flea-crackers had taken possession of the chairs of philosophy-"
What the fuck is a flea-cracker?
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Thoughts on this open-source US history textbook?
https://www.americanyawp.com/text/16-capital-and-labor/
>The socialist movement drew from a diverse constituency. Party membership was open to all regardless of race, gender, class, ethnicity, or religion. Many prominent Americans, such as Helen Keller, Upton Sinclair, and Jack London, became socialists. They were joined by masses of American laborers from across the United States: factory workers, miners, railroad builders, tenant farmers, and small farmers all united under the red flag of socialism. Many united with labor leader William D. “Big Bill” Haywood and other radicals in 1905 to form the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), the “Wobblies,” a radical and confrontational union that welcomed all workers, regardless of race or gender.32 Others turned to politics.
>The Socialist Party of America (SPA), founded in 1901, carried on the American third-party political tradition. Socialist mayors were elected in thirty-three cities and towns, from Berkeley, California, to Schenectady, New York, and two socialists—Victor Berger from Wisconsin and Meyer London from New York—won congressional seats. All told, over one thousand socialist candidates won various American political offices. Julius A. Wayland, editor of the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason, proclaimed that “socialism is coming. It’s coming like a prairie fire and nothing can stop it . . . you can feel it in the air.”33 By 1913 there were 150,000 members of the Socialist Party and, in 1912, Eugene V. Debs, the Indiana-born Socialist Party candidate for president, received almost one million votes, or 6 percent of the total.34
>Over the following years, however, the embrace of many socialist policies by progressive reformers, internal ideological and tactical disagreements, a failure to dissuade most Americans of the perceived incompatibility between socialism and American values, and, especially, government oppression and censorship, particularly during and after World War I, ultimately sank the party. Like the Populists, however, socialists had tapped into a deep well of discontent, and their energy and organizing filtered out into American culture and American politics.
Thoughts on this open-source US history textbook?
https://www.americanyawp.com/text/16-capital-and-labor/
>The socialist movement drew from a diverse constituency. Party membership was open to all regardless of race, gender, class, ethnicity, or religion. Many prominent Americans, such as Helen Keller, Upton Sinclair, and Jack London, became socialists. They were joined by masses of American laborers from across the United States: factory workers, miners, railroad builders, tenant farmers, and small farmers all united under the red flag of socialism. Many united with labor leader William D. “Big Bill” Haywood and other radicals in 1905 to form the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), the “Wobblies,” a radical and confrontational union that welcomed all workers, regardless of race or gender.32 Others turned to politics.
>The Socialist Party of America (SPA), founded in 1901, carried on the American third-party political tradition. Socialist mayors were elected in thirty-three cities and towns, from Berkeley, California, to Schenectady, New York, and two socialists—Victor Berger from Wisconsin and Meyer London from New York—won congressional seats. All told, over one thousand socialist candidates won various American political offices. Julius A. Wayland, editor of the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason, proclaimed that “socialism is coming. It’s coming like a prairie fire and nothing can stop it . . . you can feel it in the air.”33 By 1913 there were 150,000 members of the Socialist Party and, in 1912, Eugene V. Debs, the Indiana-born Socialist Party candidate for president, received almost one million votes, or 6 percent of the total.34
>Over the following years, however, the embrace of many socialist policies by progressive reformers, internal ideological and tactical disagreements, a failure to dissuade most Americans of the perceived incompatibility between socialism and American values, and, especially, government oppression and censorship, particularly during and after World War I, ultimately sank the party. Like the Populists, however, socialists had tapped into a deep well of discontent, and their energy and organizing filtered out into American culture and American politics.
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The popular Mao biography is the one by Jung Chang, but that sounds like a pure polemic. 'Mao: A Reinterpretation' by Feigon is the only pro-Mao one I can find.
Biographies of Stalin & Mao?
I plan on checking out Kotkin's work on Stalin, which I'm told is informative and you can pick out the brainworms. And Trotsky himself wrote a biography on Stalin.The popular Mao biography is the one by Jung Chang, but that sounds like a pure polemic. 'Mao: A Reinterpretation' by Feigon is the only pro-Mao one I can find.
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>inb4 schitzos like peterson or other rightwingers
this is /leftypol/ faggot
>inb4 Richard D. Wolff
all his lectures i have seen so far are just very basic stuff if you find some more advanced stuff post it
I want to focus this thread on philosophy, history and political economy on an academic level.
Lectures general /LG/
Post video recordings of lectures and announcements for online lectures.>inb4 schitzos like peterson or other rightwingers
this is /leftypol/ faggot
>inb4 Richard D. Wolff
all his lectures i have seen so far are just very basic stuff if you find some more advanced stuff post it
I want to focus this thread on philosophy, history and political economy on an academic level.
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Bros. Theories of Surplus Value is SO FUCKING GOOD.
Marx LAYS DOWN THE FUCKING LAW and elaborates on the physiocrats, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Malthus, and all the other classical political economists that reactoids like to pretend Marx never read.
It was supposed to be volume 4 of capital but Neither Marx nor Engels finished it. Karl Kautsky was the first to publish it from Marx's notes, but his edition is out of print and incredibly rare. David Riazanov (Ryazanov) of the Marx–Engels Institute in Moscow bought Marx's notes from the German government before they went full fash and published Theories of Surplus Value, but he was purged by Stalin.
It's definitely worth a read. Because its content is mostly historical, it's almost as fun as Capital volume 1, and less dry than volumes 2 and 3.
Bros. Theories of Surplus Value is SO FUCKING GOOD.
Marx LAYS DOWN THE FUCKING LAW and elaborates on the physiocrats, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Malthus, and all the other classical political economists that reactoids like to pretend Marx never read.
It was supposed to be volume 4 of capital but Neither Marx nor Engels finished it. Karl Kautsky was the first to publish it from Marx's notes, but his edition is out of print and incredibly rare. David Riazanov (Ryazanov) of the Marx–Engels Institute in Moscow bought Marx's notes from the German government before they went full fash and published Theories of Surplus Value, but he was purged by Stalin.
It's definitely worth a read. Because its content is mostly historical, it's almost as fun as Capital volume 1, and less dry than volumes 2 and 3.
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Why the fuck isn't it considered standard for news articles to list sources? Every other type of publication it's expected. Newspapers get to just say: "trust us bro."
Why?
Why the fuck isn't it considered standard for news articles to list sources? Every other type of publication it's expected. Newspapers get to just say: "trust us bro."
Why?
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/chart/
I made these charts recently, if you have any ideas of new charts or charts of your own drop them here.
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If not that's ok, and thank you in advance
Book collection Torrent
Good day, I wished to ask if anyone has the whole archive-collection of Marxist.org (would be best if it is only in english) in a torrent and if they could send to me so i can save it in a portable HHD in any case there would be need for it later in the world and also for my personal use to read onIf not that's ok, and thank you in advance
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1) So the first several chapters is spent discussing the circulation: M-(C+LP)-Pr…Pr1-C1-M1.
M: original money capital
C: Commodity
LP: Labour power (basically you hire someone).
Pr: The production process
Pr1: After you have produced stuff
C1: New commodity (to be sold)
M1: A larger amount of money (after you have sold stuff).
The discussion is rather long-winded, but I think here Marx tries to hammer the fundamental points again and again so that's fine i guess.
Here there is also some mention about 1) Gold 2) Services, such as transportation which is slightly different but will need to be referred to later on
2) Then there are the chapters about circulation time, labour time, production time (for example when you let wine in a barrel for like 10 years, that's when production time > labour time), so on and so on and so on. I think those chapters are quite okay, although there is a chapter in which the authors investigate the effects of advanced capital and turnover period, in which the maths is quite complicated, but I just do not think that there is much to it although it's true that the results show that this requires credit but i mean that's obvious. There are also some parts about fixed and circulating capital which is important, and Marx hammers down on Adam Smith and Ricardo which is rather complicated yeah I know I want to know how capitalism is bound to have crisis not watch some economist dissing on other economists.
After that there are also some chapters discussing effects of circulating surplus value, variable capitals, … Here there is discussion of how the hell can the system get the money for the surplus value. So for pre-credit time it's from gold-producing industries, and for credit-era the capitalists keep sending in money so that later on they will get back that money and even more money. Think Keynesian spending or other such stuff. Also effect of wage increase is discussed.
I think that some parts about fixed and circulating capital is rather complicated and do not show the main points.
3) Now we venture to the big picture: The reproduction scheme. Here the authors shows the way the two big departments (the one producing tractors, metalwork, … or Dep I, and the one producing biscuits, tobacco, … or DepII). The authors first discuss simple production, which takes more time than expanded reproduction which is understandable since the important thing is that I(v+m)=IIc (the variable+surplus part of DepI must be traded for the constant capital part of DepII). I like how the authors give an example of machinery deprecating value over time to say that this necessitates overproduction, even in simple production. Then is the expanded production. Basically replaces "=" with ">" in the previous equation. There are some complicated examples involved but hey at least it's not full of math symbols and equations like the Western economists would have it right ? :wink:. Also Adam Smith is criticized for thinking that all annual products resolve into wage+profit. The truth is that the constant capital of Dep I does not.
I am so proud of myself, but now I want to read something less intensive before tackling volume 3.
Guys I just finished Capital Volume 2 I'm so proud of myself.
Guys I just finished Capital Volume 2 I'm so proud of myself. That book was really long and contained a lot of calculations but at long last I have finished. Of course I don't binge read it all the way, sometimes I try to read one chapter then switch to less intensive stuff, like reading Stalin or Hoxha (or anything that I like) for instance. So here is what I think:1) So the first several chapters is spent discussing the circulation: M-(C+LP)-Pr…Pr1-C1-M1.
M: original money capital
C: Commodity
LP: Labour power (basically you hire someone).
Pr: The production process
Pr1: After you have produced stuff
C1: New commodity (to be sold)
M1: A larger amount of money (after you have sold stuff).
The discussion is rather long-winded, but I think here Marx tries to hammer the fundamental points again and again so that's fine i guess.
Here there is also some mention about 1) Gold 2) Services, such as transportation which is slightly different but will need to be referred to later on
2) Then there are the chapters about circulation time, labour time, production time (for example when you let wine in a barrel for like 10 years, that's when production time > labour time), so on and so on and so on. I think those chapters are quite okay, although there is a chapter in which the authors investigate the effects of advanced capital and turnover period, in which the maths is quite complicated, but I just do not think that there is much to it although it's true that the results show that this requires credit but i mean that's obvious. There are also some parts about fixed and circulating capital which is important, and Marx hammers down on Adam Smith and Ricardo which is rather complicated yeah I know I want to know how capitalism is bound to have crisis not watch some economist dissing on other economists.
After that there are also some chapters discussing effects of circulating surplus value, variable capitals, … Here there is discussion of how the hell can the system get the money for the surplus value. So for pre-credit time it's from gold-producing industries, and for credit-era the capitalists keep sending in money so that later on they will get back that money and even more money. Think Keynesian spending or other such stuff. Also effect of wage increase is discussed.
I think that some parts about fixed and circulating capital is rather complicated and do not show the main points.
3) Now we venture to the big picture: The reproduction scheme. Here the authors shows the way the two big departments (the one producing tractors, metalwork, … or Dep I, and the one producing biscuits, tobacco, … or DepII). The authors first discuss simple production, which takes more time than expanded reproduction which is understandable since the important thing is that I(v+m)=IIc (the variable+surplus part of DepI must be traded for the constant capital part of DepII). I like how the authors give an example of machinery deprecating value over time to say that this necessitates overproduction, even in simple production. Then is the expanded production. Basically replaces "=" with ">" in the previous equation. There are some complicated examples involved but hey at least it's not full of math symbols and equations like the Western economists would have it right ? :wink:. Also Adam Smith is criticized for thinking that all annual products resolve into wage+profit. The truth is that the constant capital of Dep I does not.
I am so proud of myself, but now I want to read something less intensive before tackling volume 3.
R: 9 / I: 2
https://youtu.be/7ZVrtwJGams
The Worst History Channel on Youtube
This is a video looking at the right-wing history channel WhatifAltHist, and the broader trends in historical studies that it represents.https://youtu.be/7ZVrtwJGams
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idk much about sociology or poster modernism but it feels like an attack on leftism? even though alan sokal himself says he was a leftist and was trying to dissuade it from going somewhere weird
but all the "destroys postermodernism" youtube thumbnails i see when i search this, eerily remind me of the other rightwing shit of "destroys sjws" type
i saw a few lines and it just reads like incomprehensible jargon? i couldn't tell if it was parody honestly if i didn't know, scientific mumbo jumbo
Sokal Affair
what do you think about the sokal affair?idk much about sociology or poster modernism but it feels like an attack on leftism? even though alan sokal himself says he was a leftist and was trying to dissuade it from going somewhere weird
but all the "destroys postermodernism" youtube thumbnails i see when i search this, eerily remind me of the other rightwing shit of "destroys sjws" type
i saw a few lines and it just reads like incomprehensible jargon? i couldn't tell if it was parody honestly if i didn't know, scientific mumbo jumbo
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Pseudoscience & Junk Science Debunk Thread
Post dumb pseudoscientific nonsense, poorly-written pop-sci and other junk science topics to make fun of and critique
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Bonus style points for speeches performed over a century ago.
Triple points for attaching recorded audio.
Speech!
Choose a real pro-socialist speech given historically (translations allowed) that you could give on a soapbox in a park or square today.Bonus style points for speeches performed over a century ago.
Triple points for attaching recorded audio.
R: 12 / I: 4
Foucault? Zizek? D&G? Sorel (pre-fash)? Even someone like Plato, Plotinus, or Spinoza?
Edgy theorists
Who is the left wing equivalent of Nietzsche? Who is the edgiest leftist philosopher or philosopher who can be read and/or interpreted as left wing?Foucault? Zizek? D&G? Sorel (pre-fash)? Even someone like Plato, Plotinus, or Spinoza?
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Is there any Marxist historians you recommend?
>inb4 Grover Furr
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How much did the german historical school of economics influence the russian revolutionaries? Did they reject it or embrace some of it? I do know lenin "admired" the german empires economics system, and I do know bukharin wrote a critique or etc on it but besides that how much influence was there?
How much did the german historical school of economics influence the russian revolutionaries? Did they reject it or embrace some of it? I do know lenin "admired" the german empires economics system, and I do know bukharin wrote a critique or etc on it but besides that how much influence was there?
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<Blanquism is distinguished from other socialist currents in various ways: on the one hand, Blanqui did not believe in the predominant role of the proletariat, nor did he believe in popular movements—instead he believed that revolution should be carried out by a small group of professional, dedicated revolutionaries, who would establish a temporary dictatorship by force. This dictatorship would permit the implementation of the basis of a new order, after which power would then be handed to the people.
>In another respect, Blanqui was more concerned with the revolution itself rather than the future society that would result from it—if his thought was based on precise socialist principles. Blanquist thought rarely goes so far as to imagine a purely socialist society. For Blanquists, the overturning of the bourgeois social order and the revolution are ends sufficient in themselves, at least for their immediate purposes.
If the proletariat is not a viable revolutionary subject, maybe the revolutionary subject is the self selected revolutionary himself or a vanguard of likeminded people?
Why was Blanquism never persued in any significant way? Maybe Blanqui is the real thinker for our times if the Hegelian-Marxist notion of a revolutionary subject is dead?
Blanquism
>Blanquism refers to a conception of revolution generally attributed to Louis Auguste Blanqui (1805–1881) that holds that socialist revolution should be carried out by a relatively small group of highly organised and secretive conspirators.<Blanquism is distinguished from other socialist currents in various ways: on the one hand, Blanqui did not believe in the predominant role of the proletariat, nor did he believe in popular movements—instead he believed that revolution should be carried out by a small group of professional, dedicated revolutionaries, who would establish a temporary dictatorship by force. This dictatorship would permit the implementation of the basis of a new order, after which power would then be handed to the people.
>In another respect, Blanqui was more concerned with the revolution itself rather than the future society that would result from it—if his thought was based on precise socialist principles. Blanquist thought rarely goes so far as to imagine a purely socialist society. For Blanquists, the overturning of the bourgeois social order and the revolution are ends sufficient in themselves, at least for their immediate purposes.
If the proletariat is not a viable revolutionary subject, maybe the revolutionary subject is the self selected revolutionary himself or a vanguard of likeminded people?
Why was Blanquism never persued in any significant way? Maybe Blanqui is the real thinker for our times if the Hegelian-Marxist notion of a revolutionary subject is dead?
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Inverse tan property shenanigans
Any explanation for why the function on the right is correct would be great
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I forgot the links
Can some anon
Can some anon send the source-links about the books that has been sent here before which were about economics of Nazi Germany & Fascist ItalyI forgot the links
R: 42 / I: 19
Leftist Military books
Post Military, Insurgency, General warfare and Military history and Insurgency history books and miscellaneous guides, preferably in pdf format, ZIP Files or torrents of these would also be apricated
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but i really like it too.
help
studying classics as a yt male
is classics full of nazis? i really like rome/greece, cause history is cool and ever-present, but it seems like people who really like it are a bunch of nazis.but i really like it too.
help
R: 23 / I: 10
Apart from the classic reading lists of /leftypol/, what are some other accessible texts(history especially, because some of the AP history and english teachers here are quite anti-communist even by lib standards and their curriculums reflect that) that I could give them and expect them to get through?
Accessible Texts for Highschoolers
Don't ask how, but now I'm responsible for a club of high-schoolers that are self-described "baby leftists" and want to learn more. As far as I'm aware, they don't seem to be as lib-brained as I expected(though they certainly still are to some extent), so I really don't want to mess this up.Apart from the classic reading lists of /leftypol/, what are some other accessible texts(history especially, because some of the AP history and english teachers here are quite anti-communist even by lib standards and their curriculums reflect that) that I could give them and expect them to get through?
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https://m.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/the-werwolf-adolf-hitlers-group-of-terrorist-children-585868
http://thecasualobserver.co.za/a-footnote-to-history-boys-as-german-soldiers-during-ww2/
So in other words, while Hitler killed himself in his bunker, he deputized CHILDREN (no younger than 10 and on average, 14 was the most common age) to do his dirty work for him because he was losing? That's pretty fucking low. The first article states that in 1944, the Werwolf group had 5,000 members who were mostly Waffen SS/Gestapo, but in March 1945 they were almost gone as the SS was almost annihilated completely so that number shrunk significantly so they replenished their ranks with Hitler Youth. These boys will later go on to wage a guerilla war with America/Britain/France/the Soviet Union until their last territories were taken (the Black Forest and the Harz Mountains, which they lost jn 1947 and 1950). Among the people they killed in assassinations were Franz Oppenheim (anti-Nazi politician), Major John Poston (liaison officer of Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery), General Nikolai Berzarin (Soviet commander in Berlin who they killed during brutal street fighting in the city) and General Maurice Rose (the oldest Jewish officer in the US Army). And of course they used borrowed tactics from the Soviets in Ukraine.
What do you make out of all this? Was Hitler a coward? I gotta admit these kids were brave using those Panzerfausts and homemade rustic bombs. Not to mention garroting army sentinels with ropes. I think one of their main achievements was blowing up a school that was turned into a military base by tossing grenades through the windows. Many of them deserted Berlin while the ones that stayed got massacre'd.
Nazis are such cowards that they flee the country and made their kids fight
You can't make this up.https://m.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/the-werwolf-adolf-hitlers-group-of-terrorist-children-585868
http://thecasualobserver.co.za/a-footnote-to-history-boys-as-german-soldiers-during-ww2/
So in other words, while Hitler killed himself in his bunker, he deputized CHILDREN (no younger than 10 and on average, 14 was the most common age) to do his dirty work for him because he was losing? That's pretty fucking low. The first article states that in 1944, the Werwolf group had 5,000 members who were mostly Waffen SS/Gestapo, but in March 1945 they were almost gone as the SS was almost annihilated completely so that number shrunk significantly so they replenished their ranks with Hitler Youth. These boys will later go on to wage a guerilla war with America/Britain/France/the Soviet Union until their last territories were taken (the Black Forest and the Harz Mountains, which they lost jn 1947 and 1950). Among the people they killed in assassinations were Franz Oppenheim (anti-Nazi politician), Major John Poston (liaison officer of Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery), General Nikolai Berzarin (Soviet commander in Berlin who they killed during brutal street fighting in the city) and General Maurice Rose (the oldest Jewish officer in the US Army). And of course they used borrowed tactics from the Soviets in Ukraine.
What do you make out of all this? Was Hitler a coward? I gotta admit these kids were brave using those Panzerfausts and homemade rustic bombs. Not to mention garroting army sentinels with ropes. I think one of their main achievements was blowing up a school that was turned into a military base by tossing grenades through the windows. Many of them deserted Berlin while the ones that stayed got massacre'd.
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Friedrich Engels
These excerpts are from letters written by Engels in the immediate aftermath of the February 1886 "West End Riots". The letter to Laura Lafargue is taken from Engels-Lafargue, Correspondence, Vol.1, 1959. The letters to Bebel are from Marx-Engels, Correspondence, 1846-1895, 1934, although the last two paragraphs from the 15 February letter have been translated from the German original in August Bebels Briefwechsel mit Friedrich Engels, 1965.
To Laura Lafargue, 9 February 1886
Our clever folks of the S[ocial] D[emocratic] Federation scorn to rest on their laurels. Yesterday they must needs interfere in a meeting of the unemployed – who count now by hundreds of thousands – in order to preach La Révolution, revolution in general, and ask the mass to hold up their hands, those who were ready to follow M. Champion wherever he would lead them to – well, to what he does not know himself. Hyndman, who can only overcome his personal cowardice by deafening himself with his own shouts, went on in the same strain.
Of course you know what a meeting at 3pm in Trafalgar Square consists of: masses of the poor devils of the East End who vegetate in the borderland between working class and Lumpenproletariat, and a sufficient admixture of roughs and 'Arrys to leaven the whole into a mass ready for any "lark" up to a wild riot à propos de rien [about nothing].Well, just at the time when this element was getting the upper hand (Kautsky who was there says das eigentliche Meeting war vorbei, die Keilerei ging los und so ging ich weg [the meeting proper was over, the brawling broke out and so I made off]), the wiseacres above named took these roughs in procession through Pall Mall and Piccadilly to Hyde Park for another and a truly revolutionary meeting. But on the road the roughs took matters into their own hands, smashed club windows and shop fronts, plundered first wine stores and bakers' shops, and then some jewellers' shops also, so that in Hyde Park our revolutionary swells had to preach "le calme et la modération"! While they were soft-sawdering, the wrecking and plundering went on outside in Audley St and even as far as Oxford St where at last the police intervened.
The absence of the police shows that the row was wanted, but that Hyndman and Co donnaient dans le piège [fell into the trap] is impardonable and brands them finally as not only helpless fools but also as scamps. They wanted to wash off the disgrace of their electoral manoeuvre, and now they have done an irreparable damage to the movement here.
To make a revolution – and that à propos de rien, when and where they liked – they thought nothing else was required but the paltry tricks sufficient to "boss" an agitation for any vile fad, packed meetings, lying in the press, and then, with five and twenty men secured to back them up, appealing to the masses to "rise" somehow, as best they might, against nobody in particular and everything in general, and trust to luck for the result.
Well, I don't know whether they will get over it so easily this time. I should not wonder if they were arrested before the week is out. English law is very definite in this respect: you may spout as long as you like, so long as nothing follows; but as soon as any "overt acts" of rioting ensue, you are held responsible for them, and many a poor devil of a Chartist, Harney and Jones and others, got two years for less. Besides, n'est pas Louise Michel qui veut [not everyone who wishes can be a Louise Michel].
To August Bebel, 15 February 1886
The Social Democratic Federation which, despite all self-advertising reports, is an extremely weak organisation – containing good elements but led by literary and political adventurers – was brought to the verge of dissolution at the November elections by a stroke of genius on the part of these same leaders. Hyndman (pronounced Heindman) the head of the society, had taken money from the Tories (Conservatives) at the time, and with it put up two Social Democratic candidates in two districts of London. As they had not even got any members in these two constituencies the way they would discredit themselves was to be foreseen (one got 27, the other 32 votes out of 4000-5000 respectively!)….
In the meantime unemployment was increasing more and more. The collapse of England's monopoly on the world market has caused the crisis to continue unbroken since 1878 and to get worse rather than better. The distress, especially in the East End of the city, is appalling. The exceptionally hard winter, since January, added to the boundless indifference of the possessing classes, produced a considerable movement among the unemployed masses.
As usual, political wire-pullers tried to exploit this movement for their own ends. The Conservatives, who had just been superseded in the government, put the responsibility for unemployment on to foreign competition (rightly) and foreign tariffs (for the most part wrongly) and preached "fair trade", i.e. retaliatory tariffs. A workers' organisation also exists which believes mainly in retaliatory tariffs. This organisation summoned the meeting in Trafalgar Square on 8 February. In the meantime the SDF had not been idle either, had already held some small demonstrations and now wanted to utilise this meeting.
Two meetings accordingly took place: the "fair traders" were round the Nelson Column while the SDF people spoke at the north end of the square, from the street opposite the National Gallery, which is about 25 feet above the square. Kautsky, who was there and went away before the row began, told me that the mass of the real workers had been around "fair traders", whilst Hyndman and Co had a mixed audience of people looking for a lark, some of them already merry. If Kautsky, who has hardly been here a year, noticed this, the gentlemen of the Federation must have seen it still more clearly. Nevertheless, when everybody already seemed to be scattering they proceeded to carry out a favourite old idea of Hyndman's, namely a procession of the "unemployed" through Pall Mall, the street of the big political, aristocratic and high-capitalist clubs, the centres of English political intrigue.
The unemployed who followed them in order to hold a fresh meeting in Hyde Park were mostly the types who do not want to work anyhow, hawkers, loafers, police spies, pickpockets. When the aristocrats at the club windows sneered at them they broke the said windows, ditto the shop windows; they looted the wine dealers' shops and immediately set up a consumers' association for the contents in the street, so that in Hyde Park Hyndman and Co had hastily to pocket their bloodthirsty phrases and go in for pacification.
But the thing had now got going. During the procession, during this second little meeting and afterwards, the masses of the Lumpenproletariat, whom Hyndman had taken for the unemployed, streamed through some fashionable streets near by, looted jewellers' and other shops, used the loaves and legs of mutton which they had looted solely to break windows with, and dispersed without meeting any resistance. Only a remnant of them were broken up in Oxford Street by four, say four, policemen….
In addition a prosecution has been brought against Hyndman and Co which is so weak that the intention is that it should come to nothing…. The gentlemen certainly told a lot of tall stories about the social revolution, which, in front of that audience and in the absence of any organised support among the masses, was completely stupid; but I can hardly believe that the government is so foolish as to want to make martyrs of them.
These socialist gentlemen want to conjure up a movement by force and over night, something that here as elsewhere necessarily takes years of work; though it is also the case that, once it is under way and imposed on the masses through historic events, it may develop far more quickly here than on the Continent. But people like these cannot wait, and this leads to childish actions such as we are usually accustomed to seeing only from the anarchists.
To August Bebel, 18 March 1886
As to Hyndman, the way he came out in Trafalgar Square and Hyde Park on 8 February has done infinitely more harm than good. Shouting about revolution, which in France passes off harmlessly as stale stuff, is utter nonsense here among the totally unprepared masses and has the effect of scaring away the proletariat, only exciting the demoralised elements. It absolutely cannot be understood here as anything but a summons to looting, which accordingly followed and has brought discredit which will last a long time here, among the workers too.
As to the point that is has drawn public attention to socialism, you people over in Germany do not know how utterly blunted the public are with regard to such methods after a hundred years of freedom of the press and of assembly and the advertising bound up with them. The first alarm of the bourgeois was certainly very funny and brought in about £40,000 in contributions for the unemployed – in all about £70,000 – but that has already been disposed of and nobody will pay more and the distress remains the same.
What has been achieved – among the bourgeois public – is the identification of socialism with looting, and even though that does not make the matter much worse, still it is certainly no gain to us.
http://www.whatnextjournal.org.uk/Pages/Back/Wnext19/Engels.html
When Friedrich Engels condemned rioting and looting
Comments on an "Anti-Capitalist" RiotFriedrich Engels
These excerpts are from letters written by Engels in the immediate aftermath of the February 1886 "West End Riots". The letter to Laura Lafargue is taken from Engels-Lafargue, Correspondence, Vol.1, 1959. The letters to Bebel are from Marx-Engels, Correspondence, 1846-1895, 1934, although the last two paragraphs from the 15 February letter have been translated from the German original in August Bebels Briefwechsel mit Friedrich Engels, 1965.
To Laura Lafargue, 9 February 1886
Our clever folks of the S[ocial] D[emocratic] Federation scorn to rest on their laurels. Yesterday they must needs interfere in a meeting of the unemployed – who count now by hundreds of thousands – in order to preach La Révolution, revolution in general, and ask the mass to hold up their hands, those who were ready to follow M. Champion wherever he would lead them to – well, to what he does not know himself. Hyndman, who can only overcome his personal cowardice by deafening himself with his own shouts, went on in the same strain.
Of course you know what a meeting at 3pm in Trafalgar Square consists of: masses of the poor devils of the East End who vegetate in the borderland between working class and Lumpenproletariat, and a sufficient admixture of roughs and 'Arrys to leaven the whole into a mass ready for any "lark" up to a wild riot à propos de rien [about nothing].Well, just at the time when this element was getting the upper hand (Kautsky who was there says das eigentliche Meeting war vorbei, die Keilerei ging los und so ging ich weg [the meeting proper was over, the brawling broke out and so I made off]), the wiseacres above named took these roughs in procession through Pall Mall and Piccadilly to Hyde Park for another and a truly revolutionary meeting. But on the road the roughs took matters into their own hands, smashed club windows and shop fronts, plundered first wine stores and bakers' shops, and then some jewellers' shops also, so that in Hyde Park our revolutionary swells had to preach "le calme et la modération"! While they were soft-sawdering, the wrecking and plundering went on outside in Audley St and even as far as Oxford St where at last the police intervened.
The absence of the police shows that the row was wanted, but that Hyndman and Co donnaient dans le piège [fell into the trap] is impardonable and brands them finally as not only helpless fools but also as scamps. They wanted to wash off the disgrace of their electoral manoeuvre, and now they have done an irreparable damage to the movement here.
To make a revolution – and that à propos de rien, when and where they liked – they thought nothing else was required but the paltry tricks sufficient to "boss" an agitation for any vile fad, packed meetings, lying in the press, and then, with five and twenty men secured to back them up, appealing to the masses to "rise" somehow, as best they might, against nobody in particular and everything in general, and trust to luck for the result.
Well, I don't know whether they will get over it so easily this time. I should not wonder if they were arrested before the week is out. English law is very definite in this respect: you may spout as long as you like, so long as nothing follows; but as soon as any "overt acts" of rioting ensue, you are held responsible for them, and many a poor devil of a Chartist, Harney and Jones and others, got two years for less. Besides, n'est pas Louise Michel qui veut [not everyone who wishes can be a Louise Michel].
To August Bebel, 15 February 1886
The Social Democratic Federation which, despite all self-advertising reports, is an extremely weak organisation – containing good elements but led by literary and political adventurers – was brought to the verge of dissolution at the November elections by a stroke of genius on the part of these same leaders. Hyndman (pronounced Heindman) the head of the society, had taken money from the Tories (Conservatives) at the time, and with it put up two Social Democratic candidates in two districts of London. As they had not even got any members in these two constituencies the way they would discredit themselves was to be foreseen (one got 27, the other 32 votes out of 4000-5000 respectively!)….
In the meantime unemployment was increasing more and more. The collapse of England's monopoly on the world market has caused the crisis to continue unbroken since 1878 and to get worse rather than better. The distress, especially in the East End of the city, is appalling. The exceptionally hard winter, since January, added to the boundless indifference of the possessing classes, produced a considerable movement among the unemployed masses.
As usual, political wire-pullers tried to exploit this movement for their own ends. The Conservatives, who had just been superseded in the government, put the responsibility for unemployment on to foreign competition (rightly) and foreign tariffs (for the most part wrongly) and preached "fair trade", i.e. retaliatory tariffs. A workers' organisation also exists which believes mainly in retaliatory tariffs. This organisation summoned the meeting in Trafalgar Square on 8 February. In the meantime the SDF had not been idle either, had already held some small demonstrations and now wanted to utilise this meeting.
Two meetings accordingly took place: the "fair traders" were round the Nelson Column while the SDF people spoke at the north end of the square, from the street opposite the National Gallery, which is about 25 feet above the square. Kautsky, who was there and went away before the row began, told me that the mass of the real workers had been around "fair traders", whilst Hyndman and Co had a mixed audience of people looking for a lark, some of them already merry. If Kautsky, who has hardly been here a year, noticed this, the gentlemen of the Federation must have seen it still more clearly. Nevertheless, when everybody already seemed to be scattering they proceeded to carry out a favourite old idea of Hyndman's, namely a procession of the "unemployed" through Pall Mall, the street of the big political, aristocratic and high-capitalist clubs, the centres of English political intrigue.
The unemployed who followed them in order to hold a fresh meeting in Hyde Park were mostly the types who do not want to work anyhow, hawkers, loafers, police spies, pickpockets. When the aristocrats at the club windows sneered at them they broke the said windows, ditto the shop windows; they looted the wine dealers' shops and immediately set up a consumers' association for the contents in the street, so that in Hyde Park Hyndman and Co had hastily to pocket their bloodthirsty phrases and go in for pacification.
But the thing had now got going. During the procession, during this second little meeting and afterwards, the masses of the Lumpenproletariat, whom Hyndman had taken for the unemployed, streamed through some fashionable streets near by, looted jewellers' and other shops, used the loaves and legs of mutton which they had looted solely to break windows with, and dispersed without meeting any resistance. Only a remnant of them were broken up in Oxford Street by four, say four, policemen….
In addition a prosecution has been brought against Hyndman and Co which is so weak that the intention is that it should come to nothing…. The gentlemen certainly told a lot of tall stories about the social revolution, which, in front of that audience and in the absence of any organised support among the masses, was completely stupid; but I can hardly believe that the government is so foolish as to want to make martyrs of them.
These socialist gentlemen want to conjure up a movement by force and over night, something that here as elsewhere necessarily takes years of work; though it is also the case that, once it is under way and imposed on the masses through historic events, it may develop far more quickly here than on the Continent. But people like these cannot wait, and this leads to childish actions such as we are usually accustomed to seeing only from the anarchists.
To August Bebel, 18 March 1886
As to Hyndman, the way he came out in Trafalgar Square and Hyde Park on 8 February has done infinitely more harm than good. Shouting about revolution, which in France passes off harmlessly as stale stuff, is utter nonsense here among the totally unprepared masses and has the effect of scaring away the proletariat, only exciting the demoralised elements. It absolutely cannot be understood here as anything but a summons to looting, which accordingly followed and has brought discredit which will last a long time here, among the workers too.
As to the point that is has drawn public attention to socialism, you people over in Germany do not know how utterly blunted the public are with regard to such methods after a hundred years of freedom of the press and of assembly and the advertising bound up with them. The first alarm of the bourgeois was certainly very funny and brought in about £40,000 in contributions for the unemployed – in all about £70,000 – but that has already been disposed of and nobody will pay more and the distress remains the same.
What has been achieved – among the bourgeois public – is the identification of socialism with looting, and even though that does not make the matter much worse, still it is certainly no gain to us.
http://www.whatnextjournal.org.uk/Pages/Back/Wnext19/Engels.html
R: 6 / I: 2
Also one thing that stuck out to me were the implications of patriarchal nuclear families and social alienation along with parental abuse. How many marriages and broken down families today are byproducts of this outdatwd model and what can be expected in the future. Guess I'll have to wait and see
I finally finished it, what a journey of a book
I have a lot of views on this book, but I couldn't reasonably explain everything i want to say about it just know it's not perfect and has a ton of issues with overgeneralization and misinformation but it has a lot of things to sayAlso one thing that stuck out to me were the implications of patriarchal nuclear families and social alienation along with parental abuse. How many marriages and broken down families today are byproducts of this outdatwd model and what can be expected in the future. Guess I'll have to wait and see
R: 16 / I: 13
Pre-Marx thinkers
Can we have a thread to discuss pre-marx socialists thinkers? The idea of communal ownership and abolishment of money existed long before Marx, lets discuss the philosophers that helped usher in the line of communist thought.
R: 45 / I: 11
China also underwent it's own socialist revolution. Interestingly enough, Stalin pretty clearly helped in this one, backing Mao and giving them access and control of liberated Manchuria, no doubt a respectable deed. After the takeover of China, Mao didn't, despite even harsher circumstances in many cases, participate in a large level of social regression. The Cultural Revolution was a revolution within a revolution, the first of it's kind, and has lasting effects on China to this day. People in China don't revere the emperor's of old and Han Chauvinism, while existent, has generally been under control.
The reason i'm making this thread is because of a recent poll i've seen. People who support Stalin generally point out on how most polls in the former USSR regard him as a hero or one of it's greatest leaders. This doesn't really line up considering how the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas, is usually rated not too far behind, often beating out Lenin (https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna25691312). It's even more concerning on how the White Army leader Kolchak is also rather popular in these polls (https://tsarnicholas.org/2019/12/08/nicholas-ii-stalin-and-lenin-top-popularity-rating-of-russian-historical-figures/).
So..is it really possible to be rather more critical of Stalin but be more pro-Mao? Mao's contributions to Marxist theory, including Mass Line, still hold alot more relevance then ever in this day and age. I can't say the same for Stalin.
Anti-Stalin but Pro-Mao
The USSR during the Stalin Period was arguably marked by a general retreat of revolutionary forces in many regards. While some things; including the most progressive constitution in the world at the time; clearly illicit praise and support, it's generally hard to extend this level of support to many other projects. The mass deportation of Volga Germans, the mass deportations and dispossession of the peasantry (as the USSR underwent socialist primitive accumulation), and the eventual illegalization of homosexuality are clear signs that many social forces faced active regression. Obviously, not all of this was Stalin's fault, and the contingent of radical liberals who attempt to pin all of this on him personally are not worth really a minute of our time. However, with that in mind, it seems quite obvious that Stalin, despite his successes, obviously had major underpinnings and failures. And many of them become increasingly hard to support in the face of new archives, leaks, and the such.China also underwent it's own socialist revolution. Interestingly enough, Stalin pretty clearly helped in this one, backing Mao and giving them access and control of liberated Manchuria, no doubt a respectable deed. After the takeover of China, Mao didn't, despite even harsher circumstances in many cases, participate in a large level of social regression. The Cultural Revolution was a revolution within a revolution, the first of it's kind, and has lasting effects on China to this day. People in China don't revere the emperor's of old and Han Chauvinism, while existent, has generally been under control.
The reason i'm making this thread is because of a recent poll i've seen. People who support Stalin generally point out on how most polls in the former USSR regard him as a hero or one of it's greatest leaders. This doesn't really line up considering how the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas, is usually rated not too far behind, often beating out Lenin (https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna25691312). It's even more concerning on how the White Army leader Kolchak is also rather popular in these polls (https://tsarnicholas.org/2019/12/08/nicholas-ii-stalin-and-lenin-top-popularity-rating-of-russian-historical-figures/).
So..is it really possible to be rather more critical of Stalin but be more pro-Mao? Mao's contributions to Marxist theory, including Mass Line, still hold alot more relevance then ever in this day and age. I can't say the same for Stalin.
R: 5 / I: 0
In interested in the realation between stalin and technical workers
I came accross, Stalin and the Scientists, but can't seem to find a copy. Anyone have a copy?
R: 18 / I: 2
the main contemporary example would be the attitude that many self-proclaimed 'maoists' and 'anti-revisionist' MLs (they're virtually the same, one just primarily praises mao while the other stalin) have towards cuba and the dprk: they hate khrushchev, usually consider the ussr and co. post-1953/56 revisionist, but support historically pro-soviet cuba and the fence-sitting dprk. however during the cold war when socialist countries were plentiful and things were happening in real time; alliances more clearly defined and happenings more clearly understood by various followers in the west; maoists were highly critical of cuba, to put it lightly. to many, it was nothing more than a soviet sugar plantation helmed by a fascist puppet. the dprk was also disliked, but how intensely depended on how much of a red guard you were.
of course there are still those niche gonzaloites with more awareness of the maoist tradition, who continue this negative attitude towards castro and the kims, but for the majority of 'anti-revisionist' communists they're recieved very well.
this vulgar hardline position becomes even more confusing when we further examine actual relationships between the key 'BASED' hardline countries (china, albania, dprk, east germany) and their 'CRINGE' opposites (ussr post-stalin, yugoslavia, the broad cmea.) getting the obvious out of the way, east germany was naturally 100% ride and die soviet until gorbachev and considered fellow revisionists by maoists/hoxhaists of the time, but nontheless you do see plenty of corn critial characters who think the ossies went hard.
now on to the rest…
the dprk in the 60s was both pro-soviet and pro-chinese, depending on the present situation. here's a pro-soviet example from 1960: https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/journal-soviet-ambassador-dprk-am-puzanov-16-june-1960
and here's a pro-chinese example from 1966: https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/information-korean-workers-party
though a lot of what the wpk said wasn't overt, the stance against 'modern revisionism' they and others took at the time was a way to throw shade at the cpsu while not distancing themselves outright.
come the 70s however they were predominately pro-soviet since the chinese hated them – maoists considered kim a revisionist fatcat – and also rekindled a new positive relationship with yugoslavia. here are some excerpts taken from todor zhivkov following his talks with kim il-sung in 1973:
>We – [Kim] said – do not agree with China’s policy. It is incomprehensible to us. It is incomprehensible to us why they speak about Soviet socialist imperialism, that there is socialist imperialism in the Soviet Union. In the Soviet Union there is no socialist imperialism and there is no socialist imperialism at all. We do not share China’s idea about the two super states. We do not agree with their theories, which they spread in the past as well, about the blooming of all flowers, the contradictions in socialist society, the peasant communities, the Cultural Revolution, etc.
>During the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese set up along our border, which is 1,300 km long, loud speakers and they broadcast propaganda against our country day and night. The population along the border could not sleep. My son visited a village along the border at the time. When he came back he said, “Dad, I could not sleep a single night.”
>When the Chinese launched a military provocation along the Soviet border along the Amur and Ussuri Rivers, they launched a military provocation in our country too (he mentioned the name of the river and the village, but I could not remember them). The story that Kim Il Sung told was the following: In this village we had soldiers and armed villagers (along the border our people bear arms), about 50 people; and the Chinese penetrated into our country with 100 armed soldiers and officers. I was out in the country at the time (on Saturdays and Sundays I usually go out in the country and I read,) and they told me about this infiltration by the Chinese soldiers. I gave instructions to our people to let them in and not to shoot at them straight away. But, if they tried to advance further into our territory and carry out actions – our people were to block their way and capture at least five of them alive. The Chinese solders, however, penetrated into our territory and after that withdrew, without undertaking any action. There were similar, less significant, incidents in other places along the border, too.
despite this antagonism the dprk and china both supported the khmer rouge as most know, but guess who else had amicable relations with the them? yugoslavia!! omagad…
i don't think this has even bought up before on /leftypol/ despite the milking potential but i digress. the yugos clearly related to the treatment of cambodian freedum fighters by the soviet camp. here's what the khmer rouge had to say:
>“Like our Democratic Cambodia, Yugoslavia is a non-aligned country which has adhered to the position of preserving independence. Friendship between our two countries is therefore based on the same principle. We have always esteemed and respected Comrade President Tito and the friendly Yugoslav people. Comrade President Tito and the Yugoslav people have always supported and helped us. We have sympathy for them and wish to express our thanks to Comrade President Tito and the friendly Yugoslav people.”
now hoxha on the other hand hated pol pot, he considered a barbarous fascist, and albania was a firm supporter of pro-soviet vietnam. of course beyond the seemingly strange support for a soviet ally (similarly china supported romania for geopolitical reasons despite romanian socialism being materially the same as in the ussr) this seems pretty innocuous, but i feel it's worth mentioning albanian-cambodian relations because there seems to be a decent amount of pro-hoxha types who also support pol pot (see: leninisloveleninislife aka nomorelibs) and naturally despise tito.
anyway that concludes my post. this isn't intended to start any sectarian shitflinging, i mostly just wanted to get this stuff out there because it's COOL and INTERESTING fax. you can still support the dprk in current year and hate khrushchev i don't care, but hopefully this deters some of the ideology shopping people partake in where instead of ideologies it's states to support based on how wikipedia and pop history arbitrarily likens them.
pic unrelated btw.
the hardliner camp phenomenon and the actual history of socialist relations in the past
there has long been a tendency online that can only be described as 'vulgar hardline' – an attraction to superficially similar, hardline/'anti-revisionist' states that appear to be cut from the same cloth, but in reality were often opposed to one another.the main contemporary example would be the attitude that many self-proclaimed 'maoists' and 'anti-revisionist' MLs (they're virtually the same, one just primarily praises mao while the other stalin) have towards cuba and the dprk: they hate khrushchev, usually consider the ussr and co. post-1953/56 revisionist, but support historically pro-soviet cuba and the fence-sitting dprk. however during the cold war when socialist countries were plentiful and things were happening in real time; alliances more clearly defined and happenings more clearly understood by various followers in the west; maoists were highly critical of cuba, to put it lightly. to many, it was nothing more than a soviet sugar plantation helmed by a fascist puppet. the dprk was also disliked, but how intensely depended on how much of a red guard you were.
of course there are still those niche gonzaloites with more awareness of the maoist tradition, who continue this negative attitude towards castro and the kims, but for the majority of 'anti-revisionist' communists they're recieved very well.
this vulgar hardline position becomes even more confusing when we further examine actual relationships between the key 'BASED' hardline countries (china, albania, dprk, east germany) and their 'CRINGE' opposites (ussr post-stalin, yugoslavia, the broad cmea.) getting the obvious out of the way, east germany was naturally 100% ride and die soviet until gorbachev and considered fellow revisionists by maoists/hoxhaists of the time, but nontheless you do see plenty of corn critial characters who think the ossies went hard.
now on to the rest…
the dprk in the 60s was both pro-soviet and pro-chinese, depending on the present situation. here's a pro-soviet example from 1960: https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/journal-soviet-ambassador-dprk-am-puzanov-16-june-1960
and here's a pro-chinese example from 1966: https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/information-korean-workers-party
though a lot of what the wpk said wasn't overt, the stance against 'modern revisionism' they and others took at the time was a way to throw shade at the cpsu while not distancing themselves outright.
come the 70s however they were predominately pro-soviet since the chinese hated them – maoists considered kim a revisionist fatcat – and also rekindled a new positive relationship with yugoslavia. here are some excerpts taken from todor zhivkov following his talks with kim il-sung in 1973:
>We – [Kim] said – do not agree with China’s policy. It is incomprehensible to us. It is incomprehensible to us why they speak about Soviet socialist imperialism, that there is socialist imperialism in the Soviet Union. In the Soviet Union there is no socialist imperialism and there is no socialist imperialism at all. We do not share China’s idea about the two super states. We do not agree with their theories, which they spread in the past as well, about the blooming of all flowers, the contradictions in socialist society, the peasant communities, the Cultural Revolution, etc.
>During the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese set up along our border, which is 1,300 km long, loud speakers and they broadcast propaganda against our country day and night. The population along the border could not sleep. My son visited a village along the border at the time. When he came back he said, “Dad, I could not sleep a single night.”
>When the Chinese launched a military provocation along the Soviet border along the Amur and Ussuri Rivers, they launched a military provocation in our country too (he mentioned the name of the river and the village, but I could not remember them). The story that Kim Il Sung told was the following: In this village we had soldiers and armed villagers (along the border our people bear arms), about 50 people; and the Chinese penetrated into our country with 100 armed soldiers and officers. I was out in the country at the time (on Saturdays and Sundays I usually go out in the country and I read,) and they told me about this infiltration by the Chinese soldiers. I gave instructions to our people to let them in and not to shoot at them straight away. But, if they tried to advance further into our territory and carry out actions – our people were to block their way and capture at least five of them alive. The Chinese solders, however, penetrated into our territory and after that withdrew, without undertaking any action. There were similar, less significant, incidents in other places along the border, too.
despite this antagonism the dprk and china both supported the khmer rouge as most know, but guess who else had amicable relations with the them? yugoslavia!! omagad…
i don't think this has even bought up before on /leftypol/ despite the milking potential but i digress. the yugos clearly related to the treatment of cambodian freedum fighters by the soviet camp. here's what the khmer rouge had to say:
>“Like our Democratic Cambodia, Yugoslavia is a non-aligned country which has adhered to the position of preserving independence. Friendship between our two countries is therefore based on the same principle. We have always esteemed and respected Comrade President Tito and the friendly Yugoslav people. Comrade President Tito and the Yugoslav people have always supported and helped us. We have sympathy for them and wish to express our thanks to Comrade President Tito and the friendly Yugoslav people.”
now hoxha on the other hand hated pol pot, he considered a barbarous fascist, and albania was a firm supporter of pro-soviet vietnam. of course beyond the seemingly strange support for a soviet ally (similarly china supported romania for geopolitical reasons despite romanian socialism being materially the same as in the ussr) this seems pretty innocuous, but i feel it's worth mentioning albanian-cambodian relations because there seems to be a decent amount of pro-hoxha types who also support pol pot (see: leninisloveleninislife aka nomorelibs) and naturally despise tito.
anyway that concludes my post. this isn't intended to start any sectarian shitflinging, i mostly just wanted to get this stuff out there because it's COOL and INTERESTING fax. you can still support the dprk in current year and hate khrushchev i don't care, but hopefully this deters some of the ideology shopping people partake in where instead of ideologies it's states to support based on how wikipedia and pop history arbitrarily likens them.
pic unrelated btw.
R: 18 / I: 4
But the “Mass Line” Is Wrong
The Chinese revolution, and in particular the revolutionary upsurge of the Cultural Revolution in China (a revolution within socialist society itself!) and the role of Mao Zedong as the leader of that Cultural Revolution, in the 1960s and into the early 1970s, had a major positive impact on masses of people around the world. This included large numbers of oppressed people and educated youth in the U.S. The Red Book of quotations from Mao was in the hands of literally millions of people in countries all over the world, including in the U.S., as well as providing basic revolutionary orientation for the masses of people in China itself.
(I am speaking of the actual role of Mao and the essential emancipating character of the Cultural Revolution in China, not the crude distortions of this by people speaking out of gross ignorance and those anti-communist political functionaries engaging in deliberate and systematic distortion. A serious, scientific analysis of the necessity, the objectives, and the course of the Cultural Revolution in China—including the contradictions it was seeking to address and the contradictions characterizing the process of this Cultural Revolution—can be found in works of mine, and others, at revcom.us.)
Mao’s further development of communist theory was expressed in a number of dimensions, most of all in the understanding of the danger and basis for revolution to be reversed and capitalism restored in a socialist country—and the means for combating this, which was given concrete expression in the Cultural Revolution.
One significant aspect of Mao’s thought (and a chapter in the Red Book) was what Mao referred to as the “mass line.” This was taken up as a significant tool by those of us who, in those times, became not just revolutionary-minded in some general sense but revolutionary communists inspired and influenced above all by the Cultural Revolution in China. Yet, as has become clear in the decades since then, this concept of “mass line” is not correct and actually runs counter to Mao’s overall adherence to, and further development of, communist theory.
As I have learned in a continually deepening way, communist theory must be taken up and applied as a scientific method and approach to understanding and transforming reality. It must continually develop as the larger world continues to develop and change—and this must involve the ongoing interrogation of communist theory itself, in light of the accumulation of experience and knowledge, not just in the realm of revolutionary practice but in the broader dimensions of human endeavor, including the natural as well as the social sciences, the realm of art and culture, and so on. As part of this process—beginning after the defeat of the Cultural Revolution and the ending of the revolution overall in China, and the restoration of capitalism there after the death of Mao in 1976—I have been engaged in and leading a process of subjecting communist theory to critical scientific interrogation, including my own previous understanding of this theory in its development beginning with Marx (and Engels) and carried forward by Lenin and then Mao. The result has been the development of a new synthesis of communism—popularly referred to as the new communism—which is a continuation of, but also represents a qualitative leap beyond, and in some important ways a break with, communist theory as it had been previously developed. This has involved criticism and ultimately rejection of the “mass line” as a basic method and a means for carrying forward the communist revolution.
What Is Wrong with the “Mass Line”
In examining here how the “mass line” does not represent a correct, scientific method and approach to revolutionary strategy and policy, I am going to focus on the concentrated representation of Mao’s thinking about “mass line” in the Red Book of quotations from Mao.
In the chapter on the “mass line” in the Red Book, there are points of orientation that are definitely correct and important—for example, arguments against standing aloof from and having contempt for the masses of people, and criticism of attempting to carry out lines and policies without involving the masses. But the basic method of the “mass line” is contained in the following from Mao:
In all the practical work of our Party, all correct leadership is necessarily "from the masses, to the masses." This means: take the ideas of the masses (scattered and unsystematic ideas) and concentrate them (through study turn them into concentrated and systematic ideas), then go to the masses and propagate and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them as their own, hold fast to them and translate them into action, and test the correctness of these ideas in such action. Then once again concentrate ideas from the masses and once again go to the masses so that the ideas are persevered in and carried through. And so on, over and over again in an endless spiral, with the ideas becoming more correct, more vital and richer each time. Such is the Marxist theory of knowledge.
But, in fact, this is not the Marxist theory of knowledge. This theory of knowledge—as it was developed in the first place by Marx (working together with Engels), and has been further developed since—has drawn from a much wider range of experience and knowledge than “the ideas of the masses.” (And, in different works of Mao, addressing questions other than the “mass line,” he puts forward a more correct presentation of the actual communist theory of knowledge.) And, as I wrote in Breakthroughs: The Historic Breakthrough by Marx, and the Further Breakthrough with the New Communism, A Basic Summary (which is also available at revcom.us and as an e-book): The application of the “mass line” was not actually how Mao proceeded in a basic sense in developing lines, policies, and strategies in carrying forward the revolutionary struggle. That was mainly done by Mao on a scientific basis, and not by drawing from and then concentrating the ideas of the masses and returning that to them. It was done by Mao by analyzing the contradictions that had to be confronted and transformed—to quote Breakthroughs, it was done by “determining which contradictions were essential to concentrate on at a given time.”
(In a Note below, I have listed some of the major decisions by Mao regarding strategy and policy, during the course of the Chinese revolution—before and after the seizure of nationwide power in 1949—that were arrived at not through the application of the “mass line,” but on the basis of the method and approach that I have summarized in Breakthroughs, as cited here. And I have spoken not only to correct lines and policies that Mao led in adopting and applying, but also some secondary but significant erroneous lines and policies.)
To emphasize once more this important point, the “mass line”—“take the ideas of the masses (scattered and unsystematic ideas) and concentrate them (through study turn them into concentrated and systematic ideas), then go to the masses and propagate and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them as their own, hold fast to them and translate them into action, and test the correctness of these ideas in such action”—is not the means for arriving at a correct line (strategy, policy, etc.). This, again, is because taking the ideas of the masses as the starting point of lines and policies—and even a process of “concentrating” the ideas of the masses (“through study turn them into concentrated and systematic ideas”)—is too narrow a source of knowledge and too limited a process for arriving at a correct understanding of what needs to be done to advance the revolution and overcome the obstacles to that advance.
Here, I have to say that for some time I myself tried to render “more profound” what Mao says about the “mass line” by reinterpreting this to mean something like applying the scientific method of communism in a broad sense to concentrate what is correct in the ideas of the masses… there was just no help for it. No matter how you twist and turn it, the fact remains that the ideas of the masses—and even the most “advanced” ideas of the masses—are just too narrow a source, and “concentrating the ideas of the masses” too limited a process, for arriving at correct line and policy.
Tailing, Instead of Struggling Against, Backward Ideas Among the Masses
The following statement by Mao concentrates the essential problem with the “mass line:”
Twenty-four years of experience tell us that the right task, policy and style of work invariably conform with the demands of the masses at a given time and place and invariably strengthen our ties with the masses, and the wrong task, policy and style of work invariably disagree with the demands of the masses at a given time and place and invariably alienate us from the masses.
This statement—and this does get to the heart of the matter—is wrong, in terms of the theory of knowledge it puts forward and specifically in its basic assertion that “the demands of the masses at a given time and place” are the standard and criterion for whether lines and policies are correct (or not). It is one thing, it is important, to be aware and mindful of the sentiments of the masses (including the fact that those sentiments will not be “uniform” and static: different people among “the masses” will have different sentiments, and the sentiments of masses may significantly change with changing conditions). It is another thing—it is not a correct approach—to make the sentiments (or “demands”) of the masses the basis for communist policy at any given time.
The reality is that, under this capitalist-imperialist system (or any system of exploitation and oppression), the sentiments and demands of masses are to a very large extent shaped by the operation of this system—its economic system of exploitation, its social relations of oppression, and the political institutions and dominant culture that constantly and massively rationalize and reinforce this exploitation and oppression. (Even in socialist society, it will be the case that among the masses there will be ideas which still reflect, to varying degrees, the influence of exploitative and oppressive relations, which it is not possible to entirely eliminate within socialist society, and which will continue to characterize much of the world during what will be a protracted process of advancing to communism throughout the world.)
It is not hard to see how “taking the ideas of the masses” as the starting point for communist strategy, policy, etc.—and operating according to the standard that “the right task, policy and style of work invariably conform with the demands of the masses at a given time and place”—can easily lead to tailing very wrong ideas and “demands” that masses of people may have at any given time. More than a few communists have fallen precisely into this kind of tailing by applying the “mass line.” In opposition to that, one reason why it is important to be aware and mindful of the sentiments of the masses is that this is necessary in order to effectively struggle against sentiments and demands of (at least many of) the masses, in different situations—rather than simply seeking to “concentrate” the ideas of the masses at any given point. And here it is important to emphasize that it is possible to determine, and act in accordance with, what are the real objective interests of the masses of people—in particular situations and overall in fundamental terms—not by tailing the masses, but by making a scientific analysis, and applying that scientific analysis.
Resolving a Critical Contradiction—Between the Erroneous Concept of “Mass Line” and the Actual Basis for Advancing Communist Revolution
It is fortunate that applying the “mass line” is not how Mao actually developed the decisive lines—strategy, policy, etc.—in leading the Chinese revolution to victory in 1949 and then carrying forward the revolution, in the conditions of the new socialist society, reaching its highest peak in the Cultural Revolution, before this was reversed after Mao’s death in 1976. As emphasized above, in citing Breakthroughs, this was done by Mao by analyzing the contradictions that had to be confronted and transformed—by “determining which contradictions were essential to concentrate on at a given time.”
Yet, there is a critical contradiction here, between the actual method and approach Mao applied in developing line and policy, and what he puts forward in the “mass line” as the basis for doing this. This contradiction needs to be resolved—and can only be positively resolved—by adopting and systematically applying a scientific method and approach to understanding and transforming reality, in the development and application of a communist line (including strategy and policy at any given time), in opposition to the incorrect method and approach of “mass line.”
And this transformation of reality will include, as a very significant aspect, waging ideological struggle to transform wrong ways of thinking among masses of people, winning them to a revolutionary outlook and objectives, based on the scientific approach to reality which, in the main, has characterized communism from its beginning, and which has been further developed, in a more consistently scientific way, with the new communism.
Why mass line isn't the answer
Mao’s Contributions to Communist Theory and Human Emancipation Are Truly Profound—But the “Mass Line” Is Wrong
The Chinese revolution, and in particular the revolutionary upsurge of the Cultural Revolution in China (a revolution within socialist society itself!) and the role of Mao Zedong as the leader of that Cultural Revolution, in the 1960s and into the early 1970s, had a major positive impact on masses of people around the world. This included large numbers of oppressed people and educated youth in the U.S. The Red Book of quotations from Mao was in the hands of literally millions of people in countries all over the world, including in the U.S., as well as providing basic revolutionary orientation for the masses of people in China itself.
(I am speaking of the actual role of Mao and the essential emancipating character of the Cultural Revolution in China, not the crude distortions of this by people speaking out of gross ignorance and those anti-communist political functionaries engaging in deliberate and systematic distortion. A serious, scientific analysis of the necessity, the objectives, and the course of the Cultural Revolution in China—including the contradictions it was seeking to address and the contradictions characterizing the process of this Cultural Revolution—can be found in works of mine, and others, at revcom.us.)
Mao’s further development of communist theory was expressed in a number of dimensions, most of all in the understanding of the danger and basis for revolution to be reversed and capitalism restored in a socialist country—and the means for combating this, which was given concrete expression in the Cultural Revolution.
One significant aspect of Mao’s thought (and a chapter in the Red Book) was what Mao referred to as the “mass line.” This was taken up as a significant tool by those of us who, in those times, became not just revolutionary-minded in some general sense but revolutionary communists inspired and influenced above all by the Cultural Revolution in China. Yet, as has become clear in the decades since then, this concept of “mass line” is not correct and actually runs counter to Mao’s overall adherence to, and further development of, communist theory.
As I have learned in a continually deepening way, communist theory must be taken up and applied as a scientific method and approach to understanding and transforming reality. It must continually develop as the larger world continues to develop and change—and this must involve the ongoing interrogation of communist theory itself, in light of the accumulation of experience and knowledge, not just in the realm of revolutionary practice but in the broader dimensions of human endeavor, including the natural as well as the social sciences, the realm of art and culture, and so on. As part of this process—beginning after the defeat of the Cultural Revolution and the ending of the revolution overall in China, and the restoration of capitalism there after the death of Mao in 1976—I have been engaged in and leading a process of subjecting communist theory to critical scientific interrogation, including my own previous understanding of this theory in its development beginning with Marx (and Engels) and carried forward by Lenin and then Mao. The result has been the development of a new synthesis of communism—popularly referred to as the new communism—which is a continuation of, but also represents a qualitative leap beyond, and in some important ways a break with, communist theory as it had been previously developed. This has involved criticism and ultimately rejection of the “mass line” as a basic method and a means for carrying forward the communist revolution.
What Is Wrong with the “Mass Line”
In examining here how the “mass line” does not represent a correct, scientific method and approach to revolutionary strategy and policy, I am going to focus on the concentrated representation of Mao’s thinking about “mass line” in the Red Book of quotations from Mao.
In the chapter on the “mass line” in the Red Book, there are points of orientation that are definitely correct and important—for example, arguments against standing aloof from and having contempt for the masses of people, and criticism of attempting to carry out lines and policies without involving the masses. But the basic method of the “mass line” is contained in the following from Mao:
In all the practical work of our Party, all correct leadership is necessarily "from the masses, to the masses." This means: take the ideas of the masses (scattered and unsystematic ideas) and concentrate them (through study turn them into concentrated and systematic ideas), then go to the masses and propagate and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them as their own, hold fast to them and translate them into action, and test the correctness of these ideas in such action. Then once again concentrate ideas from the masses and once again go to the masses so that the ideas are persevered in and carried through. And so on, over and over again in an endless spiral, with the ideas becoming more correct, more vital and richer each time. Such is the Marxist theory of knowledge.
But, in fact, this is not the Marxist theory of knowledge. This theory of knowledge—as it was developed in the first place by Marx (working together with Engels), and has been further developed since—has drawn from a much wider range of experience and knowledge than “the ideas of the masses.” (And, in different works of Mao, addressing questions other than the “mass line,” he puts forward a more correct presentation of the actual communist theory of knowledge.) And, as I wrote in Breakthroughs: The Historic Breakthrough by Marx, and the Further Breakthrough with the New Communism, A Basic Summary (which is also available at revcom.us and as an e-book): The application of the “mass line” was not actually how Mao proceeded in a basic sense in developing lines, policies, and strategies in carrying forward the revolutionary struggle. That was mainly done by Mao on a scientific basis, and not by drawing from and then concentrating the ideas of the masses and returning that to them. It was done by Mao by analyzing the contradictions that had to be confronted and transformed—to quote Breakthroughs, it was done by “determining which contradictions were essential to concentrate on at a given time.”
(In a Note below, I have listed some of the major decisions by Mao regarding strategy and policy, during the course of the Chinese revolution—before and after the seizure of nationwide power in 1949—that were arrived at not through the application of the “mass line,” but on the basis of the method and approach that I have summarized in Breakthroughs, as cited here. And I have spoken not only to correct lines and policies that Mao led in adopting and applying, but also some secondary but significant erroneous lines and policies.)
To emphasize once more this important point, the “mass line”—“take the ideas of the masses (scattered and unsystematic ideas) and concentrate them (through study turn them into concentrated and systematic ideas), then go to the masses and propagate and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them as their own, hold fast to them and translate them into action, and test the correctness of these ideas in such action”—is not the means for arriving at a correct line (strategy, policy, etc.). This, again, is because taking the ideas of the masses as the starting point of lines and policies—and even a process of “concentrating” the ideas of the masses (“through study turn them into concentrated and systematic ideas”)—is too narrow a source of knowledge and too limited a process for arriving at a correct understanding of what needs to be done to advance the revolution and overcome the obstacles to that advance.
Here, I have to say that for some time I myself tried to render “more profound” what Mao says about the “mass line” by reinterpreting this to mean something like applying the scientific method of communism in a broad sense to concentrate what is correct in the ideas of the masses… there was just no help for it. No matter how you twist and turn it, the fact remains that the ideas of the masses—and even the most “advanced” ideas of the masses—are just too narrow a source, and “concentrating the ideas of the masses” too limited a process, for arriving at correct line and policy.
Tailing, Instead of Struggling Against, Backward Ideas Among the Masses
The following statement by Mao concentrates the essential problem with the “mass line:”
Twenty-four years of experience tell us that the right task, policy and style of work invariably conform with the demands of the masses at a given time and place and invariably strengthen our ties with the masses, and the wrong task, policy and style of work invariably disagree with the demands of the masses at a given time and place and invariably alienate us from the masses.
This statement—and this does get to the heart of the matter—is wrong, in terms of the theory of knowledge it puts forward and specifically in its basic assertion that “the demands of the masses at a given time and place” are the standard and criterion for whether lines and policies are correct (or not). It is one thing, it is important, to be aware and mindful of the sentiments of the masses (including the fact that those sentiments will not be “uniform” and static: different people among “the masses” will have different sentiments, and the sentiments of masses may significantly change with changing conditions). It is another thing—it is not a correct approach—to make the sentiments (or “demands”) of the masses the basis for communist policy at any given time.
The reality is that, under this capitalist-imperialist system (or any system of exploitation and oppression), the sentiments and demands of masses are to a very large extent shaped by the operation of this system—its economic system of exploitation, its social relations of oppression, and the political institutions and dominant culture that constantly and massively rationalize and reinforce this exploitation and oppression. (Even in socialist society, it will be the case that among the masses there will be ideas which still reflect, to varying degrees, the influence of exploitative and oppressive relations, which it is not possible to entirely eliminate within socialist society, and which will continue to characterize much of the world during what will be a protracted process of advancing to communism throughout the world.)
It is not hard to see how “taking the ideas of the masses” as the starting point for communist strategy, policy, etc.—and operating according to the standard that “the right task, policy and style of work invariably conform with the demands of the masses at a given time and place”—can easily lead to tailing very wrong ideas and “demands” that masses of people may have at any given time. More than a few communists have fallen precisely into this kind of tailing by applying the “mass line.” In opposition to that, one reason why it is important to be aware and mindful of the sentiments of the masses is that this is necessary in order to effectively struggle against sentiments and demands of (at least many of) the masses, in different situations—rather than simply seeking to “concentrate” the ideas of the masses at any given point. And here it is important to emphasize that it is possible to determine, and act in accordance with, what are the real objective interests of the masses of people—in particular situations and overall in fundamental terms—not by tailing the masses, but by making a scientific analysis, and applying that scientific analysis.
Resolving a Critical Contradiction—Between the Erroneous Concept of “Mass Line” and the Actual Basis for Advancing Communist Revolution
It is fortunate that applying the “mass line” is not how Mao actually developed the decisive lines—strategy, policy, etc.—in leading the Chinese revolution to victory in 1949 and then carrying forward the revolution, in the conditions of the new socialist society, reaching its highest peak in the Cultural Revolution, before this was reversed after Mao’s death in 1976. As emphasized above, in citing Breakthroughs, this was done by Mao by analyzing the contradictions that had to be confronted and transformed—by “determining which contradictions were essential to concentrate on at a given time.”
Yet, there is a critical contradiction here, between the actual method and approach Mao applied in developing line and policy, and what he puts forward in the “mass line” as the basis for doing this. This contradiction needs to be resolved—and can only be positively resolved—by adopting and systematically applying a scientific method and approach to understanding and transforming reality, in the development and application of a communist line (including strategy and policy at any given time), in opposition to the incorrect method and approach of “mass line.”
And this transformation of reality will include, as a very significant aspect, waging ideological struggle to transform wrong ways of thinking among masses of people, winning them to a revolutionary outlook and objectives, based on the scientific approach to reality which, in the main, has characterized communism from its beginning, and which has been further developed, in a more consistently scientific way, with the new communism.
R: 25 / I: 3
Why would the vast majority of capitalists benefit from colonialism? They obviously benefit more from decentralized, competitive, non-monopolized supply chains, and keeping costs down isn't their only economic interest. Maybe I can get how the aristocracy and some settlers benefitted from it, but for the bourgeoisie as a whole, it just doesn't make sense. I don't like the vulgar "Marxist" attempt to connect European colonialism to the rise of capitalism, instead of seeing it as a more pre-capitalist historical attempt at accumulating mercantile wealth which was eventually overtaken by industrialization which itself catalyzed the century-long process of decolonization.
Why would the vast majority of capitalists benefit from colonialism? They obviously benefit more from decentralized, competitive, non-monopolized supply chains, and keeping costs down isn't their only economic interest. Maybe I can get how the aristocracy and some settlers benefitted from it, but for the bourgeoisie as a whole, it just doesn't make sense. I don't like the vulgar "Marxist" attempt to connect European colonialism to the rise of capitalism, instead of seeing it as a more pre-capitalist historical attempt at accumulating mercantile wealth which was eventually overtaken by industrialization which itself catalyzed the century-long process of decolonization.
R: 7 / I: 3
Their is, unsurprisingly, a large contingent of the worlds population, still hinging on old Red Scare propaganda, that are convinced of many lies about the relationship between socialism and artistic freedom. Too them, socialists are violent fearmongers who will, at the first chance given, desecrate art, destroy art, and attempt to lead a truly bleak life. One confined purely to the factory or work, where 'labor' is everything, where the individuality of life is wiped out in an instant. Of course, we all understand here that capitalism is the force that sucks up our individuality in favor of making productive workers. Art is not something that can be usually seriously pursued: gone are the days when feudal lords used to commission artists for year long paintings, sculptures, and portraits. We live in an atomized society.
That's not the point. What is the point is that to decide that socialism and art are inherently polar and incompatible is a brainwashed way of thinking. This is most often applied, arguably, to our conceptions of the Cultural Revolution in China. We all have heard about the four olds: Old Ideas, Old Culture, Old Customs, and Old Habits. And people who have even a surface level understanding hear alot about the destruction of cultural heritage during the 10 year period. Modern China even refers to the Cultural Revolution as "Shi nian haoji". "Shi nian" means 10 years, referring to the period of which the Cultural Revolution is generally regarded as lasting. "Haoji" is ambiguous, but generally can refer to the term "holocaust" in modern settings: destruction by fire. Images of a human horde (orientalist hogwash) destroying valuable historical pieces of art come to mind and are used today in the US to scare conservatives over the spectre of vague 'modern art'.
The accusation of destruction of culture and tradition during those 10 years, which i'll be examining, is incredibly overblown in face of the massive artistic achievements and leaps in cultural creativity during the event. An excerpt from "The Battle For Chinas Past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution", page 28.
>Take the example of the fine arts. During the Cultural Revolution years of 1972 to 1975 China held four national fine arts exhibitions, with more than 2,000 pieces of art selected from 12,800 works recommended from all over China. The exhibits in Beijing attracted an audience of 7.8 million, a scale never reached before the Cultural Revolution (Lu Hong 2002). According to Lu, the four exhibitions showed three characteristics: new ideological content, new subject matters, and a rise of amateur artists (65 per cent of exhibited works were created by amateur's). These artworks included oil paintings, Chinese traditional paintings, print paintings, sculpture, Spring Festival paintings (nian hua), picture storybook paintings (lianhuan hua), charcoal drawings, watercolours and paper cuts.
This even extends to literature. From that same page:
>Another myth created and accepted, at least by non-academic community, in the west is that during the Cultural Revolution people were forbidden to read anything except Mao's little Red Book. This portrayal of China as a cultural wasteland is absolutely false. By 1976 there were 542 official magazines and journals and 182 newspapers in circulation throughout China; the number of cinemas and film units had increased from 20,363 to 86,088 in 1976; public libraries, from 577 to 768; and museums, from 214 to 263 (Qiu Deshend et al. 1993).
An excerpt from Mao's conversations with his niece:
>Hai-jung: But there is the son of a cadre who doesn’t do well. In class he doesn’t listen attentively to the teacher’s lecture and after class, he doesn’t do homework. He likes to read fiction. Sometimes he dozes off in the dormitory and sometimes he doesn’t attend the Saturday afternoon meeting. On Sunday he doesn’t return to school on time. Sometimes on Sunday when our class and section hold a meeting, he doesn’t show up. All of us have a bad impression of him.
>Chairman: Do your teachers allow the students to take a nap or read fiction in class?
>We should let the students read fiction and take a nap in class, and we should look after their health. Teachers should lecture less and make the students read more. I believe the student you referred to will be very capable in the future since he had the courage to be absent from the Saturday meeting and not to return to school on time on Sunday. When you return to school, you may tell him that it is too early to return to school even at eight or nine in the evening, he may delay it until eleven or twelve. Whose fault is it that you should hold a meeting Sunday night?
Cultural Revolution and Art
Another newfag thread. Interact with accordingly.Their is, unsurprisingly, a large contingent of the worlds population, still hinging on old Red Scare propaganda, that are convinced of many lies about the relationship between socialism and artistic freedom. Too them, socialists are violent fearmongers who will, at the first chance given, desecrate art, destroy art, and attempt to lead a truly bleak life. One confined purely to the factory or work, where 'labor' is everything, where the individuality of life is wiped out in an instant. Of course, we all understand here that capitalism is the force that sucks up our individuality in favor of making productive workers. Art is not something that can be usually seriously pursued: gone are the days when feudal lords used to commission artists for year long paintings, sculptures, and portraits. We live in an atomized society.
That's not the point. What is the point is that to decide that socialism and art are inherently polar and incompatible is a brainwashed way of thinking. This is most often applied, arguably, to our conceptions of the Cultural Revolution in China. We all have heard about the four olds: Old Ideas, Old Culture, Old Customs, and Old Habits. And people who have even a surface level understanding hear alot about the destruction of cultural heritage during the 10 year period. Modern China even refers to the Cultural Revolution as "Shi nian haoji". "Shi nian" means 10 years, referring to the period of which the Cultural Revolution is generally regarded as lasting. "Haoji" is ambiguous, but generally can refer to the term "holocaust" in modern settings: destruction by fire. Images of a human horde (orientalist hogwash) destroying valuable historical pieces of art come to mind and are used today in the US to scare conservatives over the spectre of vague 'modern art'.
The accusation of destruction of culture and tradition during those 10 years, which i'll be examining, is incredibly overblown in face of the massive artistic achievements and leaps in cultural creativity during the event. An excerpt from "The Battle For Chinas Past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution", page 28.
>Take the example of the fine arts. During the Cultural Revolution years of 1972 to 1975 China held four national fine arts exhibitions, with more than 2,000 pieces of art selected from 12,800 works recommended from all over China. The exhibits in Beijing attracted an audience of 7.8 million, a scale never reached before the Cultural Revolution (Lu Hong 2002). According to Lu, the four exhibitions showed three characteristics: new ideological content, new subject matters, and a rise of amateur artists (65 per cent of exhibited works were created by amateur's). These artworks included oil paintings, Chinese traditional paintings, print paintings, sculpture, Spring Festival paintings (nian hua), picture storybook paintings (lianhuan hua), charcoal drawings, watercolours and paper cuts.
This even extends to literature. From that same page:
>Another myth created and accepted, at least by non-academic community, in the west is that during the Cultural Revolution people were forbidden to read anything except Mao's little Red Book. This portrayal of China as a cultural wasteland is absolutely false. By 1976 there were 542 official magazines and journals and 182 newspapers in circulation throughout China; the number of cinemas and film units had increased from 20,363 to 86,088 in 1976; public libraries, from 577 to 768; and museums, from 214 to 263 (Qiu Deshend et al. 1993).
An excerpt from Mao's conversations with his niece:
>Hai-jung: But there is the son of a cadre who doesn’t do well. In class he doesn’t listen attentively to the teacher’s lecture and after class, he doesn’t do homework. He likes to read fiction. Sometimes he dozes off in the dormitory and sometimes he doesn’t attend the Saturday afternoon meeting. On Sunday he doesn’t return to school on time. Sometimes on Sunday when our class and section hold a meeting, he doesn’t show up. All of us have a bad impression of him.
>Chairman: Do your teachers allow the students to take a nap or read fiction in class?
>We should let the students read fiction and take a nap in class, and we should look after their health. Teachers should lecture less and make the students read more. I believe the student you referred to will be very capable in the future since he had the courage to be absent from the Saturday meeting and not to return to school on time on Sunday. When you return to school, you may tell him that it is too early to return to school even at eight or nine in the evening, he may delay it until eleven or twelve. Whose fault is it that you should hold a meeting Sunday night?
R: 25 / I: 9
Off the top of my head:
Good to Great
7 Habits of Highly Effective People
48 Laws of Power
Man's Search for Meaning
Unorthodox/normie book recommendations
Are there any books that are for normies which are nonetheless good to read from a leftist perspectiveOff the top of my head:
Good to Great
7 Habits of Highly Effective People
48 Laws of Power
Man's Search for Meaning
R: 9 / I: 0
Hey /leftypol/. Why does proletarian organization even matter (except of ethical considerations), if revolutionary development of society is determined by the fact of productive forces expanding and destroying the previously established property relations? I mean, yes, exploitation is horrible, but it's not solidarity of serfs that ended the Middle Ages? By this logic, shouldn't communists focus on pushing technological development to pump the productive forces to drive the bourgeoise property relations to the revolutionary breaking point? Sorry if this is a common question that arises during studies of Marx, just wanted to hear your opinions - or you can just refer me to a secondary source, would be thankful otherwise! Cheers.
Hey /leftypol/. Why does proletarian organization even matter (except of ethical considerations), if revolutionary development of society is determined by the fact of productive forces expanding and destroying the previously established property relations? I mean, yes, exploitation is horrible, but it's not solidarity of serfs that ended the Middle Ages? By this logic, shouldn't communists focus on pushing technological development to pump the productive forces to drive the bourgeoise property relations to the revolutionary breaking point? Sorry if this is a common question that arises during studies of Marx, just wanted to hear your opinions - or you can just refer me to a secondary source, would be thankful otherwise! Cheers.
R: 51 / I: 6
The USSR engaged in huge amounts of primitive accumulation that was no different then what bourgeois governments; especially those of England and France; engaged in. If anything, the parallels are comically striking, especially after the fall of the NEP (New Economic Programme) and the failure to develop a solid alternative. The USSR under Stalin lead arguably one of the largest and most efficient attempts at primitive accumulation in history. And while they arguably helped create the economy that ended up beating the Nazi menace, the path there was mired in nothing but bloodshed.
First, some background: the NEP had offered the USSR a significant rebound from the civil war conditions of War Communism. While richer peasants continued to hoard and manage a significant amount of grain, the ability to sell it on a market let prices generally lower and allowed for some form of access to food, cooling the woes. However, in 1928, the situation fell apart. From PDF:
>In fall 1928, the economic situation grew worse. Harvest collections fell again, and the price of food and grain on the free market shot up. Workers’ riots intensified, and peasants, spooked by earlier confiscations, reduced their sown area. In early 1929, V.M. Molotov and Stalin visited the Urals and Siberia to oversee grain collections, impose delivery quotas on kulak households, and arrest hoarders. These “extraordinary measures”, extended throughout the country, allowed the state to meet its procurement and export targets.
The collectivization campaigned that followed, however, was not just hurt by the clear backwardness of the peasantry (especially the clerics), but by a rushed decision.
> That summer, an emboldened Party mobilized 25,000
workers to go into the villages to organize collective farms. The hasty decision, made under pressure of urban strikes and rural disturbances, produced a cascade of unanticipated consequences. Neither Party leaders nor worker activists were prepared for the intensity of resistance. Rumors swept the countryside. Angry, frightened peasants slaughtered rather than collectivize their livestock, and village priests warned that the Apocalypse was at hand.
This isn't totally Stalin's fault; this was well aided by the internal peasant woes by all means; but the fact of the matter is that the hasty plan to collectivize lead to a major panic. A year later, the plan to liquidate the Kulak Class went underway, with over 1.7 million people exiled, including non kulaks, to outposts, new towns, and special settlements, often in increasingly useless locations (the forest, tundra, wasteland, etc). This entire process is literally just primitive accumulation here, mass dispossession of the peasant class in trying to make way for a new foundation of social relations. Thousands of peasants who left these settlements were left much like the English counterparts of the 1700's; forced to wander the countryside, masking there identity, in search of new housing and work.
That was also cut short. Between 1929 and 1932, nearly 11 million people entered the workforce, a huge sum. That jump was over double the original number of people in the workforce. Stalin then proceeded to issue internal passports, meant to stem the flow of migrant workers. In 1724, Peter the Great had done the same, in preventing peasants from entering his vast new work projects. They had been abolished by the Bolshevik's in 1918; their reintroduction in 1932 was "a reversal of all previous revolutionary programs".
>The Soviet state apparatus quickly found the passport system a useful means of control and discipline. It slowed the influx of peasants to the cities, reduced labor turnover, and helped purge the towns of dispossessed kulaks, private traders, people deprived of voting rights, criminals, and vagabonds. Factory directors were encouraged to comb their personnel records to ensure that outcast groups were not “masquerading” as workers.
Primitive Accumulation in the USSR
newfag thread; engage with accordingly, and point out any level of moronocyThe USSR engaged in huge amounts of primitive accumulation that was no different then what bourgeois governments; especially those of England and France; engaged in. If anything, the parallels are comically striking, especially after the fall of the NEP (New Economic Programme) and the failure to develop a solid alternative. The USSR under Stalin lead arguably one of the largest and most efficient attempts at primitive accumulation in history. And while they arguably helped create the economy that ended up beating the Nazi menace, the path there was mired in nothing but bloodshed.
First, some background: the NEP had offered the USSR a significant rebound from the civil war conditions of War Communism. While richer peasants continued to hoard and manage a significant amount of grain, the ability to sell it on a market let prices generally lower and allowed for some form of access to food, cooling the woes. However, in 1928, the situation fell apart. From PDF:
>In fall 1928, the economic situation grew worse. Harvest collections fell again, and the price of food and grain on the free market shot up. Workers’ riots intensified, and peasants, spooked by earlier confiscations, reduced their sown area. In early 1929, V.M. Molotov and Stalin visited the Urals and Siberia to oversee grain collections, impose delivery quotas on kulak households, and arrest hoarders. These “extraordinary measures”, extended throughout the country, allowed the state to meet its procurement and export targets.
The collectivization campaigned that followed, however, was not just hurt by the clear backwardness of the peasantry (especially the clerics), but by a rushed decision.
> That summer, an emboldened Party mobilized 25,000
workers to go into the villages to organize collective farms. The hasty decision, made under pressure of urban strikes and rural disturbances, produced a cascade of unanticipated consequences. Neither Party leaders nor worker activists were prepared for the intensity of resistance. Rumors swept the countryside. Angry, frightened peasants slaughtered rather than collectivize their livestock, and village priests warned that the Apocalypse was at hand.
This isn't totally Stalin's fault; this was well aided by the internal peasant woes by all means; but the fact of the matter is that the hasty plan to collectivize lead to a major panic. A year later, the plan to liquidate the Kulak Class went underway, with over 1.7 million people exiled, including non kulaks, to outposts, new towns, and special settlements, often in increasingly useless locations (the forest, tundra, wasteland, etc). This entire process is literally just primitive accumulation here, mass dispossession of the peasant class in trying to make way for a new foundation of social relations. Thousands of peasants who left these settlements were left much like the English counterparts of the 1700's; forced to wander the countryside, masking there identity, in search of new housing and work.
That was also cut short. Between 1929 and 1932, nearly 11 million people entered the workforce, a huge sum. That jump was over double the original number of people in the workforce. Stalin then proceeded to issue internal passports, meant to stem the flow of migrant workers. In 1724, Peter the Great had done the same, in preventing peasants from entering his vast new work projects. They had been abolished by the Bolshevik's in 1918; their reintroduction in 1932 was "a reversal of all previous revolutionary programs".
>The Soviet state apparatus quickly found the passport system a useful means of control and discipline. It slowed the influx of peasants to the cities, reduced labor turnover, and helped purge the towns of dispossessed kulaks, private traders, people deprived of voting rights, criminals, and vagabonds. Factory directors were encouraged to comb their personnel records to ensure that outcast groups were not “masquerading” as workers.
R: 51 / I: 6
are there any fringe socialist facts you know
For example, did you know that the Gulag myth (the one of forced labor) originated in the 1920s in Finland and Sweden. Soviet lumber industry outperformed the Scandinavians and out-competed it on the European market. They then slandered the Soviet republic.
R: 27 / I: 6
In a capitalist mode of production, scientists are downstream from economics. They are merely workers hired to produce a commodity called research. In capitalism the seller of a commodity (whether that commodity is a good, a service, or labor power) doesn't have the power to tell the buyer (whether end consumer or capitalist) what to do with it. Since it is the capitalist (or their bourgeois representatives in government) who are buying the research (labor commodity) from the scientists (workers), they can use the knowledge in the research however they like. They can withhold it from the public. They can use it to make weapons. Under capitalism, no matter how strictly a scientist obeys the scientific method, or how consistent their personal set of ethics are, they are at the end of the day, merely workers hired in a capitalist mode of production. This is why liberal appeals to "science, logic, and reason." fall flat under capitalism. It is the bourgeoisie who decide what to do with the knowledge (commodity) produced by scientific research (labor).
In a capitalist mode of production, scientists are downstream from economics. They are merely workers hired to produce a commodity called research. In capitalism the seller of a commodity (whether that commodity is a good, a service, or labor power) doesn't have the power to tell the buyer (whether end consumer or capitalist) what to do with it. Since it is the capitalist (or their bourgeois representatives in government) who are buying the research (labor commodity) from the scientists (workers), they can use the knowledge in the research however they like. They can withhold it from the public. They can use it to make weapons. Under capitalism, no matter how strictly a scientist obeys the scientific method, or how consistent their personal set of ethics are, they are at the end of the day, merely workers hired in a capitalist mode of production. This is why liberal appeals to "science, logic, and reason." fall flat under capitalism. It is the bourgeoisie who decide what to do with the knowledge (commodity) produced by scientific research (labor).
R: 7 / I: 2
Pascal’s Wager is the best argument for Christianity and is only said to be the worst by those who have not read Pascal. Pascal in his Pensées shows why other religions are false and shows why Christianity is the true religion so the common objection against his wager is wrong.
There are too many unanswered questions in the universe to take a chance on eternal hell.
The cosmological argument. Why is there something rather than nothing? The only explanations from atheists are supernatural explanations. Silly reddit sci-fi explanations like multiverses and eternal universes both of which are not shown in nature at all and are just as likely as a creator of the universe existing.
DNA is which is more complicated and structured than you can possibly imagine created out of stardust for the first microbes in the universe. Consciousness. Where does it come from? Quarks? All this created randomly from nothing? It’s a bigger leap to say the Big Bang, DNA for microbes, consciousness, and everything else in the universe came out of nothingness and random chaos. All of it seemingly so perfected crafted where even a centimeter of difference would mean nothing would exist in the universe. Really. How does something so perfectly crafted and complicated as DNA come out of nothingness and stardust for microbes and every living thing on the universe?
None of this means you have to be absolutely 100% sure a God exists. It’s just enough of a doubt that it’s worth trying to find faith in God.
Think of it like percentages. 20% from the cosmological argument. 20% from the teleological argument. 20% from the argument of beauty. All of these arguments combine into a reason to justify having faith without evidence.
_
If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is….
…"God is, or He is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is infinite chaos that separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.
Do not, then, reprove for error those who have made a choice; for you know nothing about it. "No, but I blame them for having made, not this choice, but a choice; for again both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault, they are both in the wrong. The true course is not to wager at all."
Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other since you must of necessity choose. This is one point settled. But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.
Pascal’s Wager is the best argument for Christianity and is only said to be the worst by those who have not read Pascal. Pascal in his Pensées shows why other religions are false and shows why Christianity is the true religion so the common objection against his wager is wrong.
There are too many unanswered questions in the universe to take a chance on eternal hell.
The cosmological argument. Why is there something rather than nothing? The only explanations from atheists are supernatural explanations. Silly reddit sci-fi explanations like multiverses and eternal universes both of which are not shown in nature at all and are just as likely as a creator of the universe existing.
DNA is which is more complicated and structured than you can possibly imagine created out of stardust for the first microbes in the universe. Consciousness. Where does it come from? Quarks? All this created randomly from nothing? It’s a bigger leap to say the Big Bang, DNA for microbes, consciousness, and everything else in the universe came out of nothingness and random chaos. All of it seemingly so perfected crafted where even a centimeter of difference would mean nothing would exist in the universe. Really. How does something so perfectly crafted and complicated as DNA come out of nothingness and stardust for microbes and every living thing on the universe?
None of this means you have to be absolutely 100% sure a God exists. It’s just enough of a doubt that it’s worth trying to find faith in God.
Think of it like percentages. 20% from the cosmological argument. 20% from the teleological argument. 20% from the argument of beauty. All of these arguments combine into a reason to justify having faith without evidence.
_
If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is….
…"God is, or He is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is infinite chaos that separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.
Do not, then, reprove for error those who have made a choice; for you know nothing about it. "No, but I blame them for having made, not this choice, but a choice; for again both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault, they are both in the wrong. The true course is not to wager at all."
Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other since you must of necessity choose. This is one point settled. But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.
R: 17 / I: 1
I have suggested before writing a shorter Edition of Capital aimed at the working class. I was mocked for this idea. People said that Capital is "perfect" and that it cannot be made shorter. People said that I "think workers are too stupid to read" (I do not think that). People said that I "think I am smarter than everyone" (I do not think that, in fact I was requesting help in writing such a work). People seemed obsessed with the idea that if a plainspoken version were available, it would ruin the original, even though the original is widely available.
Despite all this, I have found that in an 1868 letter Engels suggested the very same thing to Marx.
Is it not evident, then, that such an idea is not only not stupid, but of the utmost necessity for spreading and popularizing Marx's very important ideas?
I have suggested before writing a shorter Edition of Capital aimed at the working class. I was mocked for this idea. People said that Capital is "perfect" and that it cannot be made shorter. People said that I "think workers are too stupid to read" (I do not think that). People said that I "think I am smarter than everyone" (I do not think that, in fact I was requesting help in writing such a work). People seemed obsessed with the idea that if a plainspoken version were available, it would ruin the original, even though the original is widely available.
Despite all this, I have found that in an 1868 letter Engels suggested the very same thing to Marx.
Is it not evident, then, that such an idea is not only not stupid, but of the utmost necessity for spreading and popularizing Marx's very important ideas?
R: 3 / I: 1
The premise of The Denial of Death is that human civilization is ultimately an elaborate, symbolic defense mechanism against the knowledge of our mortality, which in turn acts as the emotional and intellectual response to our basic survival mechanism. Becker argues that a basic duality in human life exists between the physical world of objects and biology, and a symbolic world of human meaning. Thus, since humanity has a dualistic nature consisting of a physical self and a symbolic self, we are able to transcend the dilemma of mortality by focusing our attention mainly on our symbolic selves, i.e. our culturally based self esteem, which Becker calls “heroism”: a “defiant creation of meaning” expressing “the myth of the significance of human life” as compared to other animals. This counters the personal insignificance and finitude that death represents in the human mind.
Such symbolic self-focus takes the form of an individual's "causa sui project," (sometimes called an “immortality project,” or a “heroism project”). A person’s "causa sui project” acts as their immortality vessel, whereby they suscribe to a particular set of culturally-created meanings and through them gain personal significance beyond that afforded to other mortal animals. This enables the individual to imagine at least some vestige of those meanings continuing beyond their own life-span; thus avoiding the complete “self-negation” we perceive when other biological creatures die in nature. [4] By being part of symbolic constructs with more significance and longevity than one’s body—cultural activities and beliefs—one can gain a sense of legacy or (in the case of religion) an afterlife. In other words, by living up to (or especially exceeding) cultural standards, people feel they can become part of something eternal: something that will never die as compared to their physical body. This feeling that their lives have meaning, a purpose, and significance in the grand scheme of things i.e. that they are “heroic contributors to world life” and thus that their contributions last beyond their biological lifespan is what’s referred to as an “immortality project.”
The Denial of Death
The Denial of Death - Ernest BeckerThe premise of The Denial of Death is that human civilization is ultimately an elaborate, symbolic defense mechanism against the knowledge of our mortality, which in turn acts as the emotional and intellectual response to our basic survival mechanism. Becker argues that a basic duality in human life exists between the physical world of objects and biology, and a symbolic world of human meaning. Thus, since humanity has a dualistic nature consisting of a physical self and a symbolic self, we are able to transcend the dilemma of mortality by focusing our attention mainly on our symbolic selves, i.e. our culturally based self esteem, which Becker calls “heroism”: a “defiant creation of meaning” expressing “the myth of the significance of human life” as compared to other animals. This counters the personal insignificance and finitude that death represents in the human mind.
Such symbolic self-focus takes the form of an individual's "causa sui project," (sometimes called an “immortality project,” or a “heroism project”). A person’s "causa sui project” acts as their immortality vessel, whereby they suscribe to a particular set of culturally-created meanings and through them gain personal significance beyond that afforded to other mortal animals. This enables the individual to imagine at least some vestige of those meanings continuing beyond their own life-span; thus avoiding the complete “self-negation” we perceive when other biological creatures die in nature. [4] By being part of symbolic constructs with more significance and longevity than one’s body—cultural activities and beliefs—one can gain a sense of legacy or (in the case of religion) an afterlife. In other words, by living up to (or especially exceeding) cultural standards, people feel they can become part of something eternal: something that will never die as compared to their physical body. This feeling that their lives have meaning, a purpose, and significance in the grand scheme of things i.e. that they are “heroic contributors to world life” and thus that their contributions last beyond their biological lifespan is what’s referred to as an “immortality project.”
R: 43 / I: 6
From my understanding most people here are Marxist-Leninsts, and even those who aren't certainly don't seem to look favourably at Trotsky.
So in your view what was wrong with Trotsky's ideas, and with the modern Trotskyists?
Trotskyism
How exactly would you define Trotskyism? How exactly would you summerise it's key differences from other Left wing political positions?From my understanding most people here are Marxist-Leninsts, and even those who aren't certainly don't seem to look favourably at Trotsky.
So in your view what was wrong with Trotsky's ideas, and with the modern Trotskyists?
R: 145 / I: 41
Also, can we get some flags to differentiate between the only 3 left-com internationals? The current left-com flag is that of the PCInt and Bordigism.
I suggest for Damenites use the ICT logo and for the whatever ideology the ICC is use the guy with the hammer.
I know the council coms have a pancake flag but I think the logo on the council-communist reader goes hard. Just a thought.
/Ultra/ - Left-com General
I couldn't find any left-com threads in the catalogue so I decided to make my own.Also, can we get some flags to differentiate between the only 3 left-com internationals? The current left-com flag is that of the PCInt and Bordigism.
I suggest for Damenites use the ICT logo and for the whatever ideology the ICC is use the guy with the hammer.
I know the council coms have a pancake flag but I think the logo on the council-communist reader goes hard. Just a thought.
R: 89 / I: 16
Today in 1957 the anti party group were arrested
The anti party group were Marxists who has survived Nikita Khrushchev's purges. They attempted to democratically replace Khrushchev and return the USSR to Marxism and were arrested. R: 8 / I: 1
On the topic of death
Leftypol, what do you think it means to be a man worthy of death? I don’t mean in a way that they deserved to die, I suppose I applaud them for having died on noble conditions . Its a topic im still thinking about it, what about you? What does death mean to you?
R: 26 / I: 4
I know this sounds like a bizarre request, but does anyone have all 3 volumes of das kapital as a single unformatted .txt file? I want to be able to ctrl+f all 3 volumes.
I know this sounds like a bizarre request, but does anyone have all 3 volumes of das kapital as a single unformatted .txt file? I want to be able to ctrl+f all 3 volumes.
R: 12 / I: 0
>Czech intel sending evidence to the USSR that Tuchachevsky was pro-German and made pro-German remarks in Prague.
>Tuchachevsky was framed by German intelligence under Reinhard Heydrich and Walter Schellenberg.
>Tuchachevsky was plotting a military coup against the Soviet leadership.
My questions are:
1. What was Tuchachevsky's relationship with the Trotskyites and their secret organizations that were exposed?
2. What was Tuchachevsky's relationship with Nazi Germany and Japan?
3. Is the modern Russian Federation sitting on critical files and documents which explain the Trials and subsequent purges of the Red Army and Soviet gov? If so why?
Tuchachevsky Affair & Moscow Trials
What's the memo regarding this? I haven't looked deeply into the case of Tuchachevsky specifically but I've heard several things.>Czech intel sending evidence to the USSR that Tuchachevsky was pro-German and made pro-German remarks in Prague.
>Tuchachevsky was framed by German intelligence under Reinhard Heydrich and Walter Schellenberg.
>Tuchachevsky was plotting a military coup against the Soviet leadership.
My questions are:
1. What was Tuchachevsky's relationship with the Trotskyites and their secret organizations that were exposed?
2. What was Tuchachevsky's relationship with Nazi Germany and Japan?
3. Is the modern Russian Federation sitting on critical files and documents which explain the Trials and subsequent purges of the Red Army and Soviet gov? If so why?
R: 17 / I: 0
It's important to examine the the thought of reactionary thinkers. So here I present Eric Voegelin, buddy of Hayek, and conservative thinker.
Essentially his whole thesis is that Marx, Nietschze, and Scientific Positivists are "gnostics". and that Marx was a "speculative gnostic".
>Voegelin understood "gnosis" as a purported direct, immediate apprehension or vision of truth without the need for critical reflection; the special gift of a spiritual and cognitive elite and 'Gnosticism' as a type of thinking that claims absolute cognitive mastery of reality. Relying as it does on a claim to gnosis, gnosticism considers its knowledge not subject to criticism. Gnosticism may take transcendentalizing (as in the case of the Gnostic movement of late antiquity) or immanentizing forms (as in the case of Marxism).
And basically that modern thinkers, by rejecting metaphysics and the origins of things (God) were unconsciously self deceptive but what sets apart Nietschze and Marx is that they were self aware of the self deception and therefore consciously "demonic" or "demono-maniacal".
>Voegelin's work does not lay out a program of reform or offer a doctrine of recovery from what he termed the "demono-maniacal" in modern politics. However, interspersed in his writings is the idea of a spiritual recovery of the primary experiences of divine order. He was not interested so much in what religious dogmas might result in personal salvation but rather a recovery of the human in the classical sense of the daimonios aner (Plato's term for "the spiritual man"). He did not speculate on the institutional forms in which a spiritual recovery might take place but expressed confidence that the current 500-year cycle of secularism would come to an end because he stated that "you cannot deny the human forever."
vidrel is a catholic workers/left wing catholic's take on Voegelin.
According to his critics:
>Eugene Webb criticized Voegelin's conception of gnosis and his analysis of Gnosticism in general. In the article "Voegelin's Gnosticism Reconsidered," Webb explained that Voegelin's concept of Gnosticism was conceived "not primarily to describe ancient phenomena but to help us understand some modern ones for which the evidence is a great deal clearer." Webb continues, "the category (of Gnosticism) is of limited usefulness for the purpose to which he put it… and the fact that the idea of Gnosticism as such has become so problematic and complex in recent years must at the very least undercut Voegelin's effort to trace a historical line of descent from ancient sources to the modern phenomena he tried to use them to illuminate."
<Because Voegelin applied the concept of gnosis to a wide array of ideologies and movements such as Marxism, communism, National Socialism, progressivism, liberalism, and humanism, critics have proposed that Voegelin's concept of Gnosis lacks theoretical precision. Therefore, Voegelin's gnosis can, according to the criticis, hardly serve as a scientific basis for an analysis of political movements. Rather, the term "Gnosticism" as used by Voegelin is more of an invective just as "when on the lowest level of propaganda those who do not conform with one's own opinion are smeared as communists."
what does leftypol think of this line of thought? Why do reactionaries always go to "marxism is satanic and communist are trying to replace God by making a heaven on Earth"?
Reactionary Thinkers: Eric Voegelin
you're just a GNOSTIC!!!1! - Eric VoegelinIt's important to examine the the thought of reactionary thinkers. So here I present Eric Voegelin, buddy of Hayek, and conservative thinker.
Essentially his whole thesis is that Marx, Nietschze, and Scientific Positivists are "gnostics". and that Marx was a "speculative gnostic".
>Voegelin understood "gnosis" as a purported direct, immediate apprehension or vision of truth without the need for critical reflection; the special gift of a spiritual and cognitive elite and 'Gnosticism' as a type of thinking that claims absolute cognitive mastery of reality. Relying as it does on a claim to gnosis, gnosticism considers its knowledge not subject to criticism. Gnosticism may take transcendentalizing (as in the case of the Gnostic movement of late antiquity) or immanentizing forms (as in the case of Marxism).
And basically that modern thinkers, by rejecting metaphysics and the origins of things (God) were unconsciously self deceptive but what sets apart Nietschze and Marx is that they were self aware of the self deception and therefore consciously "demonic" or "demono-maniacal".
>Voegelin's work does not lay out a program of reform or offer a doctrine of recovery from what he termed the "demono-maniacal" in modern politics. However, interspersed in his writings is the idea of a spiritual recovery of the primary experiences of divine order. He was not interested so much in what religious dogmas might result in personal salvation but rather a recovery of the human in the classical sense of the daimonios aner (Plato's term for "the spiritual man"). He did not speculate on the institutional forms in which a spiritual recovery might take place but expressed confidence that the current 500-year cycle of secularism would come to an end because he stated that "you cannot deny the human forever."
vidrel is a catholic workers/left wing catholic's take on Voegelin.
According to his critics:
>Eugene Webb criticized Voegelin's conception of gnosis and his analysis of Gnosticism in general. In the article "Voegelin's Gnosticism Reconsidered," Webb explained that Voegelin's concept of Gnosticism was conceived "not primarily to describe ancient phenomena but to help us understand some modern ones for which the evidence is a great deal clearer." Webb continues, "the category (of Gnosticism) is of limited usefulness for the purpose to which he put it… and the fact that the idea of Gnosticism as such has become so problematic and complex in recent years must at the very least undercut Voegelin's effort to trace a historical line of descent from ancient sources to the modern phenomena he tried to use them to illuminate."
<Because Voegelin applied the concept of gnosis to a wide array of ideologies and movements such as Marxism, communism, National Socialism, progressivism, liberalism, and humanism, critics have proposed that Voegelin's concept of Gnosis lacks theoretical precision. Therefore, Voegelin's gnosis can, according to the criticis, hardly serve as a scientific basis for an analysis of political movements. Rather, the term "Gnosticism" as used by Voegelin is more of an invective just as "when on the lowest level of propaganda those who do not conform with one's own opinion are smeared as communists."
what does leftypol think of this line of thought? Why do reactionaries always go to "marxism is satanic and communist are trying to replace God by making a heaven on Earth"?
R: 4 / I: 0
So is it true? Are workers unions easily incorporated by capitalism and reduced to mild reformism which just keeps capitalism alive? Why then is there such a large support from radlibs here for unions when they do not have any real revolutionary potential by themselves? What's a better alternative, or actual revolutionary unions?
The Workers Movement And Socialist Movement Are No Way Identical By Nature
Was reading Camatte and came across this quote by Kautsky. The point being that workers unionizing is no real threat to capitalism as it can always reduce any negating power of the movement by incorporating it and reducing it to reformist cuckoldry.So is it true? Are workers unions easily incorporated by capitalism and reduced to mild reformism which just keeps capitalism alive? Why then is there such a large support from radlibs here for unions when they do not have any real revolutionary potential by themselves? What's a better alternative, or actual revolutionary unions?
R: 15 / I: 3
>"The bourgeoisie…appears in the Soviet Republic as a special human species, whose characteristics are ineradicable. Just as a uyghur remains a uyghur, a Mongolian a Mongolian, whatever his appearance and however he may dress; so a bourgeois remains a bourgeois, even if he becomes a beggar, or lives by his work….
Just WHAT the fuck did he mean with this?
What did Kautsky mean with this?
I was reading a double print of Communism & Terrorism (by Kautsky and Trotsky) and got to this part>"The bourgeoisie…appears in the Soviet Republic as a special human species, whose characteristics are ineradicable. Just as a uyghur remains a uyghur, a Mongolian a Mongolian, whatever his appearance and however he may dress; so a bourgeois remains a bourgeois, even if he becomes a beggar, or lives by his work….
Just WHAT the fuck did he mean with this?
R: 0 / I: 0
Information/knowledge onions
I am searching the dw for onions that have information/knowledge you wouldn't find on clearnet. For example sites with tutorials about practical hacking, carding or database onions. Anything that could be classified as "information" or "knowledge"
R: 2 / I: 0
Caste follows these criteria;
>it is assigned at birth, and oftentimes impossible to change unless certain circumstances like biracialism or inter-caste marriage occur
>marriages and relationships are often not seen as valid unless certain criteria are met, such as the marriage being between people of the same caste, or the lower caste is the marriage-property of a higher-caste person, such as being a member of a harem or being a woman in a patriarchical caste system where only heterosexual marriages are recognized as valid
>upper caste people usually get their legitimacy from the social perception that their rule is ordained by god and that they are destined to rule over the lower castes because they are naturally superior beings
>lower castes are said to be spiritually unclean, and this unclean nature is difficult to describe besides that they are subhumans who live in filth. this reflects in their social roles, which usually involves working in industries and professions considered too disgusting or spiritually destructive for the higher caste to perform, or in the case of gender, these roles manifest as strict gender roles (e.g. "barefoot and pregnant")
>caste is socially constructed whereas class is economically constructed and usually more fluid
There is a lot to be said about castes, but the main thing is that the left often conflates race and gender minorities as being "lower class". We increasingly are seeing that this is not always true, yet the stigmas surrounding race and gender remain. Why? Liberalism insists that racism and gender discrimination are determined only by individual attitudes, and that attitude adjustments and language policing are the highest priority in eliminating racial or gender discrimination. However what we have seen is that the bourgeoisie has a tendency that counteracts these efforts by utilizing caste discrimination to keep people divided, even when the upper echelons of businesses now put a lot of effort into DEI, ESG and HR to counterbalance previous forms of discrimination, usually by just reversing the roles of the caste system rather than abolishing them.
My belief is that trans people and immigrants represent the untouchable caste, which even caste countries usually deny is a caste that exists.
Distinguish Caste From Class
This feels like a thread that needs to be made because the left in general has a lot of difficulty wrapping their heads around what a caste is and why it isn't the same as class. Caste oftentimes looks like it's the same as class but it is not.Caste follows these criteria;
>it is assigned at birth, and oftentimes impossible to change unless certain circumstances like biracialism or inter-caste marriage occur
>marriages and relationships are often not seen as valid unless certain criteria are met, such as the marriage being between people of the same caste, or the lower caste is the marriage-property of a higher-caste person, such as being a member of a harem or being a woman in a patriarchical caste system where only heterosexual marriages are recognized as valid
>upper caste people usually get their legitimacy from the social perception that their rule is ordained by god and that they are destined to rule over the lower castes because they are naturally superior beings
>lower castes are said to be spiritually unclean, and this unclean nature is difficult to describe besides that they are subhumans who live in filth. this reflects in their social roles, which usually involves working in industries and professions considered too disgusting or spiritually destructive for the higher caste to perform, or in the case of gender, these roles manifest as strict gender roles (e.g. "barefoot and pregnant")
>caste is socially constructed whereas class is economically constructed and usually more fluid
There is a lot to be said about castes, but the main thing is that the left often conflates race and gender minorities as being "lower class". We increasingly are seeing that this is not always true, yet the stigmas surrounding race and gender remain. Why? Liberalism insists that racism and gender discrimination are determined only by individual attitudes, and that attitude adjustments and language policing are the highest priority in eliminating racial or gender discrimination. However what we have seen is that the bourgeoisie has a tendency that counteracts these efforts by utilizing caste discrimination to keep people divided, even when the upper echelons of businesses now put a lot of effort into DEI, ESG and HR to counterbalance previous forms of discrimination, usually by just reversing the roles of the caste system rather than abolishing them.
My belief is that trans people and immigrants represent the untouchable caste, which even caste countries usually deny is a caste that exists.
R: 1 / I: 0
Is the confusion and delay brought about by competing languages, competing definitions, and the overuse of metaphor an insurmountable obstacle? Or will there in time be a universal way of speaking? Gramsci didn't seem to think so:
From Antonio Gramsci - The Modern Prince and Other Writings
>In the Study it is noted that the terms “immanence” and “immanent” are certainly used in Marxism, but that “evidently” this use is only “metaphorical.” Very good. But has he in any way explained what immanence and immanent mean “metaphorically?” Why have these terms continued to be used and not replaced? Purely out of a horror of creating new words? Usually when one new conception of the world succeeds another, the earlier language continues to be used but is used metaphorically. All language is a continuous process of metaphors, and the history of semantics is an aspect of the history of culture: language is at the same time a living thing and a museum of the fossils of life and civilization. When I use the word disaster no one can accuse me of astrological beliefs, and when I say “By Jove,” no one can believe that I am a worshiper of the pagan divinity; nevertheless, these expressions are a proof that modern civilization is a development of both paganism and astrology. The term “immanence” in Marxism has its precise meaning which is hidden in the metaphor and this must be defined exactly; in reality this definition would truly have been “theory.” Marxism continues the philosophy of immanence, but rids it of all its metaphysical trimmings and leads it on to the concrete basis of history. The use is metaphorical only in the sense that the former immanence is superseded, has been superseded, although it is still presupposed as a link in the process of thought from which the new link has been born. On the other hand, is the new concept of immanence completely new? It appears that in Giordano Bruno, for example, there are many examples of such a new conception; Marx and Engels knew about Bruno. They knew about him and there remain traces of Bruno’s works in their notes. Conversely, Bruno was not without influence on classical German philosophy, etc. Here are many problems in the history of philosophy which could be usefully examined.
>The question of the relationship between language and metaphor is not simple, far from it. Language, however, is always metaphorical. If it is perhaps not correct to say that every statement is metaphorical in respect of the thing or the material and tangible object indicated (or the abstract concept), since that would broaden too much the concept of metaphor, it can still be said that present-day language is metaphorical in respect of the meanings and ideological content which the words have had in earlier periods of civilization. A book on semantics—that of Michel Bréal, for example—provides an historically and critically reconstituted catalog of the semantic changes of certain groups of words. Many errors both in the field of learning and of practice derive from not taking account of this fact, in other words from not having a critical and historical view of the phenomenon of language: (1) An error of an aesthetic character, which today is being to some extent corrected but which was in the past a ruling doctrine, is that of regarding as “beautiful” in themselves certain expressions as distinct from others in so far as they are crystallized metaphors; the rhetoricians and grammarians swoon at certain words, in which they discover who knows how much virtue and abstract artistic essence. The very bookish philologist’s word “joy,” which suffers agonies as a result of certain etymological or semantic analyses, is actually confused with artistic delight: recently we had the pathological case of Language and Poetry by Giulio Bertoni. (2) A practical error which has many followers is the utopian idea of a fixed universal language. (3) An arbitrary tendency towards absurd word innovations, which arises from the problem posed by Pareto and the pragmatists regarding “language as the cause of error.” Pareto, like the pragmatists in so far as they believe that they have created a new conception of the world, or at least that they have originated a certain science (and that they have therefore given words a new significance or at least a new shade of meaning, or that they have created new concepts), finds himself faced with the fact that traditional words, especially those in common use, but also those used by the cultured classes and even those used by specialist groups dealing with the same science, continue to keep their old meaning despite the innovation of content, and this has reactions. Pareto creates his own “dictionary,” demonstrating his aim of creating his own “pure” or “mathematical” language. The pragmatists theorize abstractly about language as the cause of error (see G. Prezzolini’s little book). But is it possible to rid language of its broad metaphorical meanings? It is impossible. Language is transformed together with the transformation of the whole of civilization, through the flowering into culture of new classes, through the hegemony exercised by one national language on others, etc., and in point of fact continues to use metaphorically the words of preceding cultures and civilizations. No one today thinks that the word “dis-aster” is bound up with astrology, and those who use it in this way are considered to be wrong. In the same way an atheist can speak of “disgrace” without being thought a follower of predestination, etc. The new “metaphorical” significance broadens with the broadening of the new culture, which, on the other hand, also coins new words and borrows words from other languages and uses them with a precise significance, i.e. without the broad aura they had in the original language. So it is probable that the term “immanence” is known, understood and used by many people for the first time only in the new “metaphorical” significance given to it by Marxism.
Is the confusion and delay brought about by competing languages, competing definitions, and the overuse of metaphor an insurmountable obstacle? Or will there in time be a universal way of speaking? Gramsci didn't seem to think so:
From Antonio Gramsci - The Modern Prince and Other Writings
>In the Study it is noted that the terms “immanence” and “immanent” are certainly used in Marxism, but that “evidently” this use is only “metaphorical.” Very good. But has he in any way explained what immanence and immanent mean “metaphorically?” Why have these terms continued to be used and not replaced? Purely out of a horror of creating new words? Usually when one new conception of the world succeeds another, the earlier language continues to be used but is used metaphorically. All language is a continuous process of metaphors, and the history of semantics is an aspect of the history of culture: language is at the same time a living thing and a museum of the fossils of life and civilization. When I use the word disaster no one can accuse me of astrological beliefs, and when I say “By Jove,” no one can believe that I am a worshiper of the pagan divinity; nevertheless, these expressions are a proof that modern civilization is a development of both paganism and astrology. The term “immanence” in Marxism has its precise meaning which is hidden in the metaphor and this must be defined exactly; in reality this definition would truly have been “theory.” Marxism continues the philosophy of immanence, but rids it of all its metaphysical trimmings and leads it on to the concrete basis of history. The use is metaphorical only in the sense that the former immanence is superseded, has been superseded, although it is still presupposed as a link in the process of thought from which the new link has been born. On the other hand, is the new concept of immanence completely new? It appears that in Giordano Bruno, for example, there are many examples of such a new conception; Marx and Engels knew about Bruno. They knew about him and there remain traces of Bruno’s works in their notes. Conversely, Bruno was not without influence on classical German philosophy, etc. Here are many problems in the history of philosophy which could be usefully examined.
>The question of the relationship between language and metaphor is not simple, far from it. Language, however, is always metaphorical. If it is perhaps not correct to say that every statement is metaphorical in respect of the thing or the material and tangible object indicated (or the abstract concept), since that would broaden too much the concept of metaphor, it can still be said that present-day language is metaphorical in respect of the meanings and ideological content which the words have had in earlier periods of civilization. A book on semantics—that of Michel Bréal, for example—provides an historically and critically reconstituted catalog of the semantic changes of certain groups of words. Many errors both in the field of learning and of practice derive from not taking account of this fact, in other words from not having a critical and historical view of the phenomenon of language: (1) An error of an aesthetic character, which today is being to some extent corrected but which was in the past a ruling doctrine, is that of regarding as “beautiful” in themselves certain expressions as distinct from others in so far as they are crystallized metaphors; the rhetoricians and grammarians swoon at certain words, in which they discover who knows how much virtue and abstract artistic essence. The very bookish philologist’s word “joy,” which suffers agonies as a result of certain etymological or semantic analyses, is actually confused with artistic delight: recently we had the pathological case of Language and Poetry by Giulio Bertoni. (2) A practical error which has many followers is the utopian idea of a fixed universal language. (3) An arbitrary tendency towards absurd word innovations, which arises from the problem posed by Pareto and the pragmatists regarding “language as the cause of error.” Pareto, like the pragmatists in so far as they believe that they have created a new conception of the world, or at least that they have originated a certain science (and that they have therefore given words a new significance or at least a new shade of meaning, or that they have created new concepts), finds himself faced with the fact that traditional words, especially those in common use, but also those used by the cultured classes and even those used by specialist groups dealing with the same science, continue to keep their old meaning despite the innovation of content, and this has reactions. Pareto creates his own “dictionary,” demonstrating his aim of creating his own “pure” or “mathematical” language. The pragmatists theorize abstractly about language as the cause of error (see G. Prezzolini’s little book). But is it possible to rid language of its broad metaphorical meanings? It is impossible. Language is transformed together with the transformation of the whole of civilization, through the flowering into culture of new classes, through the hegemony exercised by one national language on others, etc., and in point of fact continues to use metaphorically the words of preceding cultures and civilizations. No one today thinks that the word “dis-aster” is bound up with astrology, and those who use it in this way are considered to be wrong. In the same way an atheist can speak of “disgrace” without being thought a follower of predestination, etc. The new “metaphorical” significance broadens with the broadening of the new culture, which, on the other hand, also coins new words and borrows words from other languages and uses them with a precise significance, i.e. without the broad aura they had in the original language. So it is probable that the term “immanence” is known, understood and used by many people for the first time only in the new “metaphorical” significance given to it by Marxism.
R: 0 / I: 0
2) What is the opportunity cost of NOT using money for exchange?
3) What does it look like when the opportunity cost of NOT using money for exchange exceeds the opportunity cost of using money for exchange, and vice versa?
4) What are instances in world economic history when using or NOT using money for exchange would've been more useful than the alternative.
Microeconomics of money
1) What is the opportunity cost of using money for exchange?2) What is the opportunity cost of NOT using money for exchange?
3) What does it look like when the opportunity cost of NOT using money for exchange exceeds the opportunity cost of using money for exchange, and vice versa?
4) What are instances in world economic history when using or NOT using money for exchange would've been more useful than the alternative.
R: 36 / I: 10
why does Marxism keep having separate definitions for words from how they're commonly used? isn't this confusing?
>In Marxism "science" doesn't mean the empirical method and the accompanying peer review process of testable explanations and predictions. No. It just means anti-utopian.
>In Marxism "revising" doesn't mean coming back to an earlier work and updating it based on new information. It means betraying the "immortal" anti-utopian "science" by doing a deviation.
>In Marxism "productive" labor doesn't refer to whether labor is useful, but whether it makes a profit.
Is this just a result of poor translation from German to English or did Marx decide to come up with his own vocabulary that overwrote existing words with new contexts? Shouldn't he have coined neologisms instead, to avoid overwriting existing words with new confusing definitions?
why does Marxism keep having separate definitions for words from how they're commonly used? isn't this confusing?
>In Marxism "science" doesn't mean the empirical method and the accompanying peer review process of testable explanations and predictions. No. It just means anti-utopian.
>In Marxism "revising" doesn't mean coming back to an earlier work and updating it based on new information. It means betraying the "immortal" anti-utopian "science" by doing a deviation.
>In Marxism "productive" labor doesn't refer to whether labor is useful, but whether it makes a profit.
Is this just a result of poor translation from German to English or did Marx decide to come up with his own vocabulary that overwrote existing words with new contexts? Shouldn't he have coined neologisms instead, to avoid overwriting existing words with new confusing definitions?
R: 2 / I: 0
>Be some random Montenegrin communist.
>Get thrown in Mitrovica prison by the royal government.
>Share your seething hatred of the Yugoslav peasantry with other communists in that prison.
>Sperg out at Andrija Hebrang for opposing your peasant-melting goals.
>Legit just be the worst, but somehow you become the leader of a large faction.
>MFW it includes Milovan Đilas and Aleksandr Ranković.
>Tito sends you off to Moscow to get shot, but integrates your closest followers into the KPJ Politburo and gets influenced by them.
>You may have been killed, but your ideas will outlive you for generations.
>It's ww2 now.
>Your former followers continue your legacy, already in 1941 they are not only supporting confescation of upper, middle and lower peasantry's land and grain, but are actively burning down whole villages, turning them from neutrality to anti-communism.
>MFW it's literally a repetition of war communism idiocy but applied in Yugoslavia.
>Eventually the policy backfires so hard they are forced to dial it back a little bit and are punished by Tito.
>MFW the punishment is just a stern talking down and your former followers (Ranković, Đilas, Kidrič, Milutinović) remain on their posts.
>The party "compensates" for it's anti-peasant BS by bringing in "former" liberals into leadership positions in the partisan movement (Drago Marušič, Vladimir Nazor).
>Eventually ww2 is over and the majority of the country gives it's full trust to Tito.
>Immediately most of the party tries to expropriate from the peasantry again, right after a devestating world war.
>Your former followers' actions get so extreme even ComInform look like Bukharinists by comparison.
>Party members who oppose the hasty collectivzation are killed or jailed and labelled as "Ustaša/Četnik" "Stalinists".
>MFW half of those purged weren't even stalinists, just old party veterans who werent completely devoted to Tito (Labud Kusovac, Dragotin Gustinčič, Ivo Marić, etc.).
>The split with other EE communist parties turns Yugoslav diplomacy towards the west.
>This includes partially privatizing the economy back, which is post-hoc justified as "workplace democracy".
>Somehow your former followers convince the world that they were the "real communist moderates".
Seriously how the fuck did this happen?
Market Socialism's origins
*1930s Yugoslav communist factional disputes*>Be some random Montenegrin communist.
>Get thrown in Mitrovica prison by the royal government.
>Share your seething hatred of the Yugoslav peasantry with other communists in that prison.
>Sperg out at Andrija Hebrang for opposing your peasant-melting goals.
>Legit just be the worst, but somehow you become the leader of a large faction.
>MFW it includes Milovan Đilas and Aleksandr Ranković.
>Tito sends you off to Moscow to get shot, but integrates your closest followers into the KPJ Politburo and gets influenced by them.
>You may have been killed, but your ideas will outlive you for generations.
>It's ww2 now.
>Your former followers continue your legacy, already in 1941 they are not only supporting confescation of upper, middle and lower peasantry's land and grain, but are actively burning down whole villages, turning them from neutrality to anti-communism.
>MFW it's literally a repetition of war communism idiocy but applied in Yugoslavia.
>Eventually the policy backfires so hard they are forced to dial it back a little bit and are punished by Tito.
>MFW the punishment is just a stern talking down and your former followers (Ranković, Đilas, Kidrič, Milutinović) remain on their posts.
>The party "compensates" for it's anti-peasant BS by bringing in "former" liberals into leadership positions in the partisan movement (Drago Marušič, Vladimir Nazor).
>Eventually ww2 is over and the majority of the country gives it's full trust to Tito.
>Immediately most of the party tries to expropriate from the peasantry again, right after a devestating world war.
>Your former followers' actions get so extreme even ComInform look like Bukharinists by comparison.
>Party members who oppose the hasty collectivzation are killed or jailed and labelled as "Ustaša/Četnik" "Stalinists".
>MFW half of those purged weren't even stalinists, just old party veterans who werent completely devoted to Tito (Labud Kusovac, Dragotin Gustinčič, Ivo Marić, etc.).
>The split with other EE communist parties turns Yugoslav diplomacy towards the west.
>This includes partially privatizing the economy back, which is post-hoc justified as "workplace democracy".
>Somehow your former followers convince the world that they were the "real communist moderates".
Seriously how the fuck did this happen?
R: 13 / I: 0
What do you guys think of "The Hero With A Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell?
I haven't read many non-fiction books before because I am a midwit with severe ADHD, but I'm going to try to finish this one even if it kills me lol.
R: 8 / I: 1
Who was the leftcom who responded to Lenin?
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?
R: 303 / I: 18
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.
Is the siege mentality revolutionary or reactionary?
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.
R: 50 / I: 4
Why do some say postmodernism is incompatible with marxism?
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.
R: 7 / I: 0
>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.
Some thoughts on volume 1 of the second sex
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.
R: 12 / I: 1
>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 conventions, i.e. “historico-cultural constructions” (often the terms “artificial” and “conventional” indicate “historical” facts, produced by the development of civilization and not just rationally arbitrary or individually artificial constructions). The example given by Bertrand Russell in his little book should be recalled. Russell says roughly the following: “Without the existence of man on earth, we cannot think of the existence of London and Edinburgh, but we think of the existence of two points in space where London and Edinburgh are today, one to the North and the other to the South.” It could be objected that without thinking of the existence of man one cannot think of “thinking,” one cannot think in general of any fact or relationship which exists only in so far as man exists. What would North-South or East-West mean without man? These are real relationships but nevertheless they would not exist without man and without the development of civilization. It is evident that East and West are arbitrary, conventional, i.e. historical, constructions, because outside real history any point on the earth is East and West at the same time. We can see this more clearly from the fact that these terms have been crystallized not from the point of view of man in general but from the point of view of the cultured European classes who, through their world hegemony, have made the terms evolved by themselves accepted everywhere. Japan is the Far East not only for Europe but perhaps also for an American from California and for the Japanese themselves, who through English political culture will call Egypt the Near East. Thus through the historical content which has been compounded with the geographical term, the expressions East and West have ended by meaning certain relationships between complexes of different civilizations. So Italians often speak of Morocco as an “oriental” country, in order to refer to its Muslim and Arab civilization. However, these references are real, they correspond to real facts, they will allow one to travel over land and sea and reach a known destination, to “foresee” the future, to objectivize reality, to understand the objectivity of the external world. The rational and the real are identified.
>It seems that without understanding this relationship one cannot understand Marxism, its position vis-à-vis idealism and mechanical materialism, and the importance and significance of the doctrine of the superstructure. It is not correct to say that in Marxism the Hegelian “Idea” is replaced by the “concept” of
structure, as Croce asserts. The Hegelian “Idea” is resolved into the structure as much as into the superstructures and the whole method of conceiving
philosophy has been “historicized”; in other words, the emergence of a new kind of philosophy, more concrete and historical than its predecessor, has begun.
He's saying that to say that something is "south" of something is an objective fact, but relies on human understanding of reality. But the two points still existed in different areas, that would be objective fact even if no humans existed, no? Would it not be objective fact that the dinosaurs existed in various places until humans found their fossils? Wouldn't that be idealist to say otherwise? How would that fall into "mysticism"?
I don't get it - (Materialism, Objectivity and Metaphysics)
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 conventions, i.e. “historico-cultural constructions” (often the terms “artificial” and “conventional” indicate “historical” facts, produced by the development of civilization and not just rationally arbitrary or individually artificial constructions). The example given by Bertrand Russell in his little book should be recalled. Russell says roughly the following: “Without the existence of man on earth, we cannot think of the existence of London and Edinburgh, but we think of the existence of two points in space where London and Edinburgh are today, one to the North and the other to the South.” It could be objected that without thinking of the existence of man one cannot think of “thinking,” one cannot think in general of any fact or relationship which exists only in so far as man exists. What would North-South or East-West mean without man? These are real relationships but nevertheless they would not exist without man and without the development of civilization. It is evident that East and West are arbitrary, conventional, i.e. historical, constructions, because outside real history any point on the earth is East and West at the same time. We can see this more clearly from the fact that these terms have been crystallized not from the point of view of man in general but from the point of view of the cultured European classes who, through their world hegemony, have made the terms evolved by themselves accepted everywhere. Japan is the Far East not only for Europe but perhaps also for an American from California and for the Japanese themselves, who through English political culture will call Egypt the Near East. Thus through the historical content which has been compounded with the geographical term, the expressions East and West have ended by meaning certain relationships between complexes of different civilizations. So Italians often speak of Morocco as an “oriental” country, in order to refer to its Muslim and Arab civilization. However, these references are real, they correspond to real facts, they will allow one to travel over land and sea and reach a known destination, to “foresee” the future, to objectivize reality, to understand the objectivity of the external world. The rational and the real are identified.
>It seems that without understanding this relationship one cannot understand Marxism, its position vis-à-vis idealism and mechanical materialism, and the importance and significance of the doctrine of the superstructure. It is not correct to say that in Marxism the Hegelian “Idea” is replaced by the “concept” of
structure, as Croce asserts. The Hegelian “Idea” is resolved into the structure as much as into the superstructures and the whole method of conceiving
philosophy has been “historicized”; in other words, the emergence of a new kind of philosophy, more concrete and historical than its predecessor, has begun.
He's saying that to say that something is "south" of something is an objective fact, but relies on human understanding of reality. But the two points still existed in different areas, that would be objective fact even if no humans existed, no? Would it not be objective fact that the dinosaurs existed in various places until humans found their fossils? Wouldn't that be idealist to say otherwise? How would that fall into "mysticism"?
R: 215 / I: 44
What is fascism?
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?
R: 11 / I: 1
>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 came even close. Marx’s analysis of capitalism’s anarchy implying that the aggregate result of atomized human action confronts everybody as alien force and that communism offers the prospect of an emancipated mankind finally gaining self-conscious control over its own destiny seemed as compelling as it was inspirational, underpinning my activism.
<My architectural position during my Marxist years was initially independent of my understanding of political economy. In the mid-eighties at Stuttgart University’s architecture school I had discovered a new fascinating degree of freedom and compositional complexity in the work of Zaha Hadid, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Gehry, and others. I was especially impressed by the radical new compositional possibilities that were manifest in Tschumi’s Parc de la Vilette competition entry. In 1987 I moved to London to continue my studies. Here I discovered Deleuze & Guattari’s ‘Thousand Plateaux’and the ‘rhizome’ as well as Marxism Today’s Post-fordism discourse. During the next few years I invested my time in these three discoveries – the new architecture which was branded ‘deconstructivism’ in 1988 (the year I joined the studio of Zaha Hadid), the philosophy of Deleuze & Guattari, and the broadly Marxism-based discourse on post-fordism.
>In the early 1990s these three strands fused in a synergetic combustion when I realized that Deleuze & Guattari’s philosophical abstractions and the new abstract spatial moves of Deconstructivism (and then Folding) are congenial to the new socio-economic patterns of post-fordism. The key words that made this synergetic link up possible were notions like complexity, self-organisation, network. The connection between architecture and Deleuzian philosophy was also made by Kipnis and Lynn at the time. I added the socio-economic dimension in terms of post-fordism (which was also suggested by David Harvey at the time). Lynn brought complexity science and new biology into the mix, and I was inspired by the post-fordism debate to explore the proliferating literature on new management and organisation theory. Here I found even more concretely applicable congeniality between the latest conceptions in corporate organisation (network organisation, self-organisation, fluid and blurred boundaries between domains of competency etc.) on the one hand and the latest repertoires of complex, layered, fluid and gradient spatial organisation of our (and our friends’) architecture. I made this congeniality the basis of our first 3 year AADRL research programme ‘corporate fields’ which was – at least in my version – inspired by what I considered post-fordism’s progressive, emancipatory economic and political potential. At that time I saw the capitalist and neo-liberal framing of these processes as a contradiction that could for now be bracketed and would eventually be overcome by a new left progressive politics (‘radical democracy’) that was left vague in the Marxist outlook I was still committed to. The demise of eastern block ‘communism’ did not shake my commitment in the least.
<However, my commitment to Marxism was slowly undermined by new theoretical influences. My interest in sociology in general, and in business organization theory in particular, had let me to the work of Niklas Luhmann. I had come across his work when teaching in Berlin (1994-96) running an extra-curricular theory seminar. Since then I was digging into his huge, compelling oeuvre, reading nearly nothing else for years, and it slowly but surely weaned me away from Marxism. His work re-founds sociology on the basis of complexity and communication theory. His comprehensive system was the first theoretical social theory edifice that seemed to be able to compete with Marxism in terms of scope and theoretical ambition. As a mammoth single author’s work (which at the time was still ongoing), it was both more unified and more updated than what Marxism had to offer. Luhmann’s system too was a true ‘super-theory’, with the additional advantage that he reflected this fact explicitly. I found its sophistication intriguing from the beginning and over the years its capacity for systematic insights more and more compelling. Luhmann did not espouse any explicit politics. His implicit politics was ambiguous, perhaps nihilist in its dry, sceptical tone, but certainly not socialist. My Marxist dream of mankind’s potential for democratic ‘self-consciousness’ faded in the face of Luhmann’s theory of functionally differentiated society where incommensurable self-referentially enclosed (‘autopoietic’) subsystems (economy, law, politics, science etc.) co-evolve without any overarching control centre or integral rationality and where productivity gains are due to the adaptive information processing power of this (thus irredeemably) de-centred system.
>The political system was just one of many parallel systems that in no way could deliver decisive control over total social evolution. Any such attempt would break at the complexity barrier that the complexity of contemporary world society represents to any such attempt. Successful attempts at control could only result in a regressive (totalitarian) blunting of society’s complexity. Under Luhmann’s influence my political ambitions faded altogether and my political economy outlook became by default rather mainstream, with increasing sympathies for market solutions over political solutions. Since the late 1990s I built my theory of architecture on top of Luhmann’s theory of society and treated architecture as one of society’s autopoietic function systems.
<MK: What is an autopoietic function system?
>PS: Luhmann’s theory of co-evolving autopoietic societal subsystems (function systems) suggests that it should be possible to find - in each epoch of society’s overall evolution - complementarities between the architectural subsystem on the one hand and the economic and political subsystems on the other hand, in short it should be possible to align the styles of architecture with the stages of capitalism, and thus to ground and explicate the familiar stages of architectural history with reference to the stages of society’s historical evolution. As society’s political economy evolved through the various stages of capitalism – early capitalism, absolutist mercantilism, laissez faire capitalism, fordist state capitalism – the discipline of architecture coevolved via a sequence of epochal styles that roughly align with the above stages of capitalism: Renaissance, Baroque, Historicism, Modernism. The onset of the current stage of neo-liberal post-fordism spelled the demise of modernism and spawned a flurry of diverging architectural responses: postmodernism, neo-historicism, deconstructivism, minimalism, parametricism. It is my contention that parametricism is architecture’s most congenial answer to post-fordism.
<So what provided the impulse to fully engage with anarcho-capitalism?
>PS: I had this theory all worked out in elaborate detail when in 2008 I was jolted out of my mainstream political economy slumber by the financial crisis. What had I missed? What could explain this unexpected devastation. I looked around for explanations. I was already sufficiently sceptical about Marxist and left leaning accounts that saw nothing but capitalism’s inherently contradictory and self-destructive tendency at work, unleashed by the neo-liberal deregulation of recent decades. I looked around for alternative accounts and came across Austrian economics, initially via figures like Thomas Woods (Meltdown) and Peter Schiff (The Real Crash). I dug deeper rapidly and got hooked on the work of Ludwig von Mises, and then his students Friedrich von Hayek and Murray Rothbard. I had come across Mises before, in 1987 in Marxist circles debating the prospects of ‘market socialism’; I was fascinated by his polemic radicalism, but failed to see his significance. This time round I got hooked and invested a lot of time and energy to explore his monumental work. I got more and more radicalized and was soon ready for Rothbard’s anarcho-capitalism. In parallel I explored Hayek’s super sophisticated and insightful works.
<The political ideology and programme of Anarcho-capitalism envisages the radicalisation of the neo-liberal roll back of the state. As a special form of anarchism based on private property as society’s most basic institution, its call for the extension of entrepreneurial freedom and competitive market rationality pushes to the point where the scope for private enterprise is all-encompassing and leaves no space for state action whatsoever, positing the privatization of everything, including cities with all their infrastructures, public spaces, streets and urban management systems. Even the provision of the legal system can be imagined fully privatized, via markets with competing jurisdictions, multiple competing sets of statutes, competing private courts etc. These are intellectually incredibly stimulating propositions and the rapidly growing literature around such libertarian themes is rather sophisticated.
>Private entrepreneurial production and voluntary market exchange are contrasted with political imposition and appropriation by the force of the state. While I agree that this distinction is important, I do not subscribe to Rothbard’s natural rights approach to political theory and prefer an evolutionary grounding that remains open to institutional experimentation and utilitarian pragmatic appraisal. I am starting to dig into the inexhaustible and super-sophisticated literature of the so called ‘new institutional economics’. So, my old presumption that all intellectual sophistication resides left of centre is more and more revealed to be an abject fallacy. In any case the left-right distinction cannot at all capture (and orient us in) the contemporary political landscape and should be scrapped and replaced by a more appropriate compass.
<Like the anarcho-capitalists I have lost faith in “real existing” representative-democracy and its centralized decision making – which fails in its promises and is bound to fail more and more in the face of global interconnectedness. The scope for majoritarian dictates must shrink. Democracy can no longer cope with contemporary complexities – even if elected officials had the most selfless and noble of intentions. Contemporary society is probably better off betting on decentralized decision-making and an unleashed entrepreneurial creativity – a system where new products, services or institutions can be tried out and weeded out right away without first having to convince the majority. There should be no imposition of one-fits-all constrains on free contracting. One-fits-all schemas are an anachronism in contradiction with post-fordism.
>The disadvantages of state regulated capitalism and the potential advantages of a radicalized anarcho-capitalism are much more pronounced now – in the era of a computationally empowered post-fordist network society – than they were during the era of Fordism, i.e. the era of mechanical mass production. Socialism – a centrally planned economy with a strong commitment to income equality – was to some extent compatible with the utilization of the opportunities of mechanical mass production. But it is incompatible with the full utilization of contemporary post-fordist opportunities which require much more dynamic and intricate forms of social cooperation. This assessment is coherent with the gist of both Luhmann’s and Hayek’s understanding of society and its modern history.
<The philosophical and methodological underpinnings of Austrian political economy – bottom up action theory and a non-reductive methodological individualism – are compatible with Luhmann's approach and theory. Especially Hayek and Luhmann are congenial with respect to the shared intellectual paradigm of complexity theory. They concur in their general emphasis on self-organisation, emergence, evolution and information processing. In particular they concur in the assertion that modern societies have evolved to a point that an insurmountable complexity barrier stands in the way of any attempt to rationally direct societal development via central political control, and that any such attempt implies a regressive blunting of society's highly evolved complexity and information processing capacity, with detrimental consequences for prosperity. Thus freedom (mutation) and competition (selection) are the evolutionary mechanisms that need to be given space to operate.
>MK: Speaking of giving space, this is a good moment to mention your involvement with Liberland, a libertarian micro-state established in 2014 on a contested piece of land between Croatia and Serbia, and are now leading the jury of an ongoing international design competition for finding an urban framework for the nation-to-be – a “society that aspires to a maximum freedom”. Could you expand on this venture? What is the potential of Liberland – especially viewed in the context of the multiple crises currently wreaking havoc across Europe and the world at large?
<PS: I think Liberland is a fantastic effort on many levels. Vít Jedli?ka is a formidable force to be reckoned with. His project is as sophisticated as it is heroic. The chance that it might become real is only one of its merits. It is also a news-worthy radical political message and a tangible vehicle of political economy speculation which poses as many theoretical questions and conceptual challenges to us as it poses practical challenges. The project poses most decisively the central challenge that urbanism faces in the current era of market-based urbanization processes, namely to devise a methodology with many degrees of freedom and abstract general heuristics afford (and allow us to simulate) piecemeal urban agglomeration processes that not only maximize programmatic synergies but make these synergies legible within an evolving navigable order.
>The presence or near presence of a practical project has also always disciplined and guided the development of Marxist theory, although the blanket refusal of Marxists to ‘indulge’ in blue-prints and detailed speculation about the prospects and probable (political and economic) problems of democratic socialism had been (and remains) its Achilles heel.
>Avant-garde architectural speculation might attempt to extrapolate from current political realities via reference to advancing political trends and tendencies without collapsing into fruitless utopian speculation. This is what I am trying to do in my recent speculations about the pospects of an unleashed parametric urbanism under the auspices of a radical anarcho-capitalist societal order. It is of course a subjective judgment call to what extent this kind of speculation is fruitful. In my judgment such speculations are pertinent not only if the realization of anarcho-capitalism is a realistic prospect, but due to the fact that it extrapolates current tendencies and is thus informative even for current conditions or more modest movements in the hypothesized direction.
<In contrast to leftist inspired architectural speculations that imagine the reversal of the process of market liberalization of recent decades, harking back to 1970s, an anarcho-capitalist inspired architectural speculation radicalizes manifest tendencies. I would argue that this is not only more realistic but also potentially a more fertile engine of architectural invention because it allows us to project into uncharted territory. The architectural competition for Liberland offers a stimulating opportunity in this respect.
>However, while such speculative design research is (both politically and architecturally) stimulating, the primary task I have set for myself for the time being is to push parametricism into the mainstream, within the current political context, a task that is as eminently feasible as it is increasingly urgent for the thriving of our urban civilization.
<MK: I assume by “speculations imagining the reversal of market liberalization” you refer largely to the work and influence of Pier Vittorio Aureli, both in academia and through his office Dogma (with Martino Tattara)? As far as you reside from each other on both a political and architectural spectrum you share a commitment to architecture-in-itself, unlike the work that is touted as architecture’s current vanguard. E.g. in 2015 Assemble was given the Turner Prize and Alejandro Aravena the Pritzker, architecture’s most prestigious award, in addition to being appointed as the head curator of the upcoming Venice Biennale for Architecture. Aravena’s ‘urban do tank’ ELEMENTAL is known for its participatory design practices; the theme and title of the biennale is Reporting from the Front. In the wake of these announcements you announced the “PC takeover of architecture is complete”, continuing a line of critique that you also raised in connection to the recent Chicago Architecture Biennial that highlighted an number of ’socially engaged’ architectural projects and practices. Could you elaborate on this? Instead of radicalizing, extrapolating or resisting current conditions are architecture’s – or rather that of its supposed front line’s – ambitions confined within those of Big Society?
>PS: With your questions you poke into a most treacherous hornets’ nest, but we have to poke and stir it!
Pier Vittorio Aureli is only one of so many in architecture who argue from anti-capitalist premises as if from an unquestionable intellectual or moral high ground. Unfortunately this anti-capitalist bias is dominant especially in the intellectually ambitious segments of our discipline. However, I respect Pier Vittorio, not because I share a commitment to ‘architecture-in-itself’ – I do not – but because I respect that he is a designing architect that teaches design on the basis of a theoretical position that encompasses both an account of society and a conception architecture’s role within it. While his conceptions are fallacious, his practice has at least the right kind of ingredients required for an ambitious architectural practice. So I appreciate his ambition, although I consider the specific ingredients he is wedded to and the results he cooks up to be widely off the mark. I also respect that his teaching is still committed to building design when so many of our teaching colleagues defect to observation, “political” debate, leading at best to “artistic” or “conceptual” provocations.
<All the things you allude to in your question point to a problematic politization of architecture. This would not per se be detrimental if it did not threaten to swamp and usurp most of architecture’s discursive arenas. Another problem is the PC tilt of this politization where everything leads to the safe consensus around well-rehearsed humanitarian concerns. This not only flattens and trivializes our discourse but does so with a moralizing force that makes it hard to escape this normalization.
>Again, politization is not per negative. It could be energizing. The historical background for the increasing politicization of our discipline is twofold: First we have been witnessing a long term secular politicization of all aspects of society, in the context of an ever increasing capacity for society-wide communication. Secondly, we are witnessing a marked acceleration of society’s politicization since the 2008 financial crisis, the ensuing great recession and the European sovereign debt crisis, events which re-politicized myself as much as everybody else. These events had various political repercussions like the occupy movement, the ‘Arab spring’, and the upheavals in Europe’s political landscape in reaction to controversial austerity programs. In this historical context the politicization of our discipline must be seen as a perhaps inevitable moment in the politicization of all aspect and domains of societal life, implying that any further attempt to deny, resist or repudiate this is futile. However, what we must not accept as inevitable is the pretentious dilettante quality of this debate, its PC tilt and its consequently regressive nature. We must repudiate the all too often automatic anti-capitalist and anti-business bias that informs most contributions to the politicized architectural discourse. Even if the politicization of our discipline has progressed to a point where political engagement becomes inevitable, there must remain a space for an architectural discourse that discusses and evaluates the best architectural solutions to societal requirements as they are posed today under current political and societal conditions, however questionable they might seem from certain political perspectives, i.e. the show must go on and our discourse must not be totally swamped and dominated by political contentions.
<In particular, we must not allow the most effective contribution and the proper purposes of our discipline to be diverted by “urgent” or “humanitarian” issues that seem to trump all other issues due to moral urgency. This is self-destructive populism and as irrational as it would be to send brain surgeons or medical researchers at the frontier of medical science to Africa to distribute urgently needed standard medication.
<The Pritzker jury’s explanation for Aravena’s win included the following:
>“What really sets Aravena apart is his commitment to social housing. Alejandro Aravena epitomizes the revival of a more socially engaged architect, especially in his long-term commitment to tackling the global housing crisis and fighting for a better urban environment for all. The role of the architect is now being challenged to serve greater social and humanitarian needs, and Alejandro Aravena has clearly, generously and fully responded to this challenge.”
My response was much more about the jury’s motivation and reasoning than about Aravena’ debatable merits. This is what I wrote about Aravena’s Pritzker win:
<“The PC takeover of architecture is complete: Pritzker Prize mutates into a prize for humanitarian work. The role of the architect is now “to serve greater social and humanitarian needs” and the new Laureate is hailed for “tackling the global housing crisis” and for his concern for the underprivileged. Architecture loses its specific societal task and responsibility, architectural innovation is replaced by the demonstration of noble intentions and the discipline’s criteria of success and excellence dissolve in the vague do-good-feel-good pursuit of ‘social justice’. I respect was Alejandro Aravena is doing and his "half a good house" developments are an intelligent response. However, this is not the frontier where architecture and urban design participate in advancing the next stage of our global high density urban civilization. I would not object to this year’s choice half as much if this safe and comforting validation of humanitarian concern was not part of a wider trend in contemporary architecture that in my view signals an unfortunate confusion, bad conscience, lack of confidence, vitality and courage about the discipline’s own unique contribution to the world.”
What can we expect of Aravena’s Biennale? I am afraid it will continue the unfortunate trend of last Biennales – inclusive of the recent 1st Chicago Architecture Biennale – namely to thematize weighty political and moral issues (like poverty or “the global housing crisis”) and to validate (via its prizes) polemical gestures or documentary engagements with such issues as more important and interesting than the most sophisticated contemporary architectural design achievements at the technological and programmatic frontier of innovation.
<My facebook comment about the recent Chicago Biennale read like this:
>"The Chicago Architecture Biennale Exhibition must leave lay-visitors bewildered by one overwhelming subliminal message: contemporary architecture ceased to exist, the discipline’s guilt and bad conscience has sapped its vitality, driven it to self-annihilation and architects have now en masse dedicated themselves to doing good via basic social work.”
<My key point should not be misunderstood: I am not saying architectural excellence is in-itself a value and that societal concerns do not matter for good architecture. Quite to the contrary: I am insisting that architectural theory and thus practice must start with the clarification of architecture’s societal function, i.e. with a clear understanding of the build environment’s significance for social processes and of architecture’s specific role with respect to the progressive development of the built environment. In my recently released publication Parametricism 2.0 (AD/02/Vol.86/2016) I am indeed arguing that parametricism has to shift its discursive emphasis from technical to social functionality and explicitly demonstrate how its methodology and repertoire are geared up to address the requirements of contemporary social dynamics and institutions. However, to address architecture’s societal function – in my theory: the innovative spatio-morphological ordering of social interactions in increasingly dense and complex scenarios - the discipline and its most ambitious protagonists have to be cognizant of where the frontier of innovative design research is located, i.e. where the investment of discursive and design research efforts would be most important and productive. In my view this can only be with respect to the new challenges posed in the most advanced and further advancing central, high value arenas of our world civilization where unprecedented conditions - the new level of density, diversity, mixity, complexity, interconnectedness and dynamism in our most productive social institutions - call for original innovations that must draw on the most sophisticated methodologies and computationally advanced design processes. In contrast the alleviation of issues like the poverty-induced lack of provision of well-established housing standards does not call on the most advanced capacities of the discipline and profession, nor indeed does such an issue even lie within the reach of architectural professionals’ powers. A sophisticated spatial organization and communicative articulation of the complex social life process at e.g. a new google campus (for thousands of largely self-directed collaborators with different specialisms and capacities) is both an incredibly challenging (and intellectually stimulating) design task and a project where the productivity gains a more transparently ordered and communicative built environment might deliver would benefit the world (including its poorest citizens) a billion-fold. We need to be strategic with respect to where and how we can best employ and leverage our specific disciplinary intelligence. Again, importantly, this position stands independently from my political hopes and recommendations and in my perspective parametricism remains architecture’s best bet under current political conditions, just as it would remain architecture’s best bet under a more libertarian political economy. I believe parametricism is indeed congenial with radical anarcho-capitalism which in turn I consider to be our best political bet. But I do not want to politically taint or tie up parametricism by giving the impression that it has a necessary radical political bias. The function systems of world society co-evolve and influence each other without necessary connections or inevitabilities. I am a player within architecture and as such a keen observer of politics, but no player. My ambition is to innovate my discipline and lead my discipline’s adaptive efforts with respect to the conditions and opportunities of post-fordist network society. This adaptation must be based on current social, economic and political conditions and can only risk to speculate moderately forward along salient tendencies. Therefore occasions like the Liberland competition - however stimulating - will (for now) remain exceptional rather than defining episodes in my career.
What does everyone think? Is he just another ex-commie boomer that took the neoliberalism meme too hard? Why does reading Deleuze and Guattari turn people reactionary? Or did he rationalize his new class status as a owner of a architecture firm with new ideas? Or does he have a point?
Luhmann refutes Marxism?
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 came even close. Marx’s analysis of capitalism’s anarchy implying that the aggregate result of atomized human action confronts everybody as alien force and that communism offers the prospect of an emancipated mankind finally gaining self-conscious control over its own destiny seemed as compelling as it was inspirational, underpinning my activism.
<My architectural position during my Marxist years was initially independent of my understanding of political economy. In the mid-eighties at Stuttgart University’s architecture school I had discovered a new fascinating degree of freedom and compositional complexity in the work of Zaha Hadid, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Gehry, and others. I was especially impressed by the radical new compositional possibilities that were manifest in Tschumi’s Parc de la Vilette competition entry. In 1987 I moved to London to continue my studies. Here I discovered Deleuze & Guattari’s ‘Thousand Plateaux’and the ‘rhizome’ as well as Marxism Today’s Post-fordism discourse. During the next few years I invested my time in these three discoveries – the new architecture which was branded ‘deconstructivism’ in 1988 (the year I joined the studio of Zaha Hadid), the philosophy of Deleuze & Guattari, and the broadly Marxism-based discourse on post-fordism.
>In the early 1990s these three strands fused in a synergetic combustion when I realized that Deleuze & Guattari’s philosophical abstractions and the new abstract spatial moves of Deconstructivism (and then Folding) are congenial to the new socio-economic patterns of post-fordism. The key words that made this synergetic link up possible were notions like complexity, self-organisation, network. The connection between architecture and Deleuzian philosophy was also made by Kipnis and Lynn at the time. I added the socio-economic dimension in terms of post-fordism (which was also suggested by David Harvey at the time). Lynn brought complexity science and new biology into the mix, and I was inspired by the post-fordism debate to explore the proliferating literature on new management and organisation theory. Here I found even more concretely applicable congeniality between the latest conceptions in corporate organisation (network organisation, self-organisation, fluid and blurred boundaries between domains of competency etc.) on the one hand and the latest repertoires of complex, layered, fluid and gradient spatial organisation of our (and our friends’) architecture. I made this congeniality the basis of our first 3 year AADRL research programme ‘corporate fields’ which was – at least in my version – inspired by what I considered post-fordism’s progressive, emancipatory economic and political potential. At that time I saw the capitalist and neo-liberal framing of these processes as a contradiction that could for now be bracketed and would eventually be overcome by a new left progressive politics (‘radical democracy’) that was left vague in the Marxist outlook I was still committed to. The demise of eastern block ‘communism’ did not shake my commitment in the least.
<However, my commitment to Marxism was slowly undermined by new theoretical influences. My interest in sociology in general, and in business organization theory in particular, had let me to the work of Niklas Luhmann. I had come across his work when teaching in Berlin (1994-96) running an extra-curricular theory seminar. Since then I was digging into his huge, compelling oeuvre, reading nearly nothing else for years, and it slowly but surely weaned me away from Marxism. His work re-founds sociology on the basis of complexity and communication theory. His comprehensive system was the first theoretical social theory edifice that seemed to be able to compete with Marxism in terms of scope and theoretical ambition. As a mammoth single author’s work (which at the time was still ongoing), it was both more unified and more updated than what Marxism had to offer. Luhmann’s system too was a true ‘super-theory’, with the additional advantage that he reflected this fact explicitly. I found its sophistication intriguing from the beginning and over the years its capacity for systematic insights more and more compelling. Luhmann did not espouse any explicit politics. His implicit politics was ambiguous, perhaps nihilist in its dry, sceptical tone, but certainly not socialist. My Marxist dream of mankind’s potential for democratic ‘self-consciousness’ faded in the face of Luhmann’s theory of functionally differentiated society where incommensurable self-referentially enclosed (‘autopoietic’) subsystems (economy, law, politics, science etc.) co-evolve without any overarching control centre or integral rationality and where productivity gains are due to the adaptive information processing power of this (thus irredeemably) de-centred system.
>The political system was just one of many parallel systems that in no way could deliver decisive control over total social evolution. Any such attempt would break at the complexity barrier that the complexity of contemporary world society represents to any such attempt. Successful attempts at control could only result in a regressive (totalitarian) blunting of society’s complexity. Under Luhmann’s influence my political ambitions faded altogether and my political economy outlook became by default rather mainstream, with increasing sympathies for market solutions over political solutions. Since the late 1990s I built my theory of architecture on top of Luhmann’s theory of society and treated architecture as one of society’s autopoietic function systems.
<MK: What is an autopoietic function system?
>PS: Luhmann’s theory of co-evolving autopoietic societal subsystems (function systems) suggests that it should be possible to find - in each epoch of society’s overall evolution - complementarities between the architectural subsystem on the one hand and the economic and political subsystems on the other hand, in short it should be possible to align the styles of architecture with the stages of capitalism, and thus to ground and explicate the familiar stages of architectural history with reference to the stages of society’s historical evolution. As society’s political economy evolved through the various stages of capitalism – early capitalism, absolutist mercantilism, laissez faire capitalism, fordist state capitalism – the discipline of architecture coevolved via a sequence of epochal styles that roughly align with the above stages of capitalism: Renaissance, Baroque, Historicism, Modernism. The onset of the current stage of neo-liberal post-fordism spelled the demise of modernism and spawned a flurry of diverging architectural responses: postmodernism, neo-historicism, deconstructivism, minimalism, parametricism. It is my contention that parametricism is architecture’s most congenial answer to post-fordism.
<So what provided the impulse to fully engage with anarcho-capitalism?
>PS: I had this theory all worked out in elaborate detail when in 2008 I was jolted out of my mainstream political economy slumber by the financial crisis. What had I missed? What could explain this unexpected devastation. I looked around for explanations. I was already sufficiently sceptical about Marxist and left leaning accounts that saw nothing but capitalism’s inherently contradictory and self-destructive tendency at work, unleashed by the neo-liberal deregulation of recent decades. I looked around for alternative accounts and came across Austrian economics, initially via figures like Thomas Woods (Meltdown) and Peter Schiff (The Real Crash). I dug deeper rapidly and got hooked on the work of Ludwig von Mises, and then his students Friedrich von Hayek and Murray Rothbard. I had come across Mises before, in 1987 in Marxist circles debating the prospects of ‘market socialism’; I was fascinated by his polemic radicalism, but failed to see his significance. This time round I got hooked and invested a lot of time and energy to explore his monumental work. I got more and more radicalized and was soon ready for Rothbard’s anarcho-capitalism. In parallel I explored Hayek’s super sophisticated and insightful works.
<The political ideology and programme of Anarcho-capitalism envisages the radicalisation of the neo-liberal roll back of the state. As a special form of anarchism based on private property as society’s most basic institution, its call for the extension of entrepreneurial freedom and competitive market rationality pushes to the point where the scope for private enterprise is all-encompassing and leaves no space for state action whatsoever, positing the privatization of everything, including cities with all their infrastructures, public spaces, streets and urban management systems. Even the provision of the legal system can be imagined fully privatized, via markets with competing jurisdictions, multiple competing sets of statutes, competing private courts etc. These are intellectually incredibly stimulating propositions and the rapidly growing literature around such libertarian themes is rather sophisticated.
>Private entrepreneurial production and voluntary market exchange are contrasted with political imposition and appropriation by the force of the state. While I agree that this distinction is important, I do not subscribe to Rothbard’s natural rights approach to political theory and prefer an evolutionary grounding that remains open to institutional experimentation and utilitarian pragmatic appraisal. I am starting to dig into the inexhaustible and super-sophisticated literature of the so called ‘new institutional economics’. So, my old presumption that all intellectual sophistication resides left of centre is more and more revealed to be an abject fallacy. In any case the left-right distinction cannot at all capture (and orient us in) the contemporary political landscape and should be scrapped and replaced by a more appropriate compass.
<Like the anarcho-capitalists I have lost faith in “real existing” representative-democracy and its centralized decision making – which fails in its promises and is bound to fail more and more in the face of global interconnectedness. The scope for majoritarian dictates must shrink. Democracy can no longer cope with contemporary complexities – even if elected officials had the most selfless and noble of intentions. Contemporary society is probably better off betting on decentralized decision-making and an unleashed entrepreneurial creativity – a system where new products, services or institutions can be tried out and weeded out right away without first having to convince the majority. There should be no imposition of one-fits-all constrains on free contracting. One-fits-all schemas are an anachronism in contradiction with post-fordism.
>The disadvantages of state regulated capitalism and the potential advantages of a radicalized anarcho-capitalism are much more pronounced now – in the era of a computationally empowered post-fordist network society – than they were during the era of Fordism, i.e. the era of mechanical mass production. Socialism – a centrally planned economy with a strong commitment to income equality – was to some extent compatible with the utilization of the opportunities of mechanical mass production. But it is incompatible with the full utilization of contemporary post-fordist opportunities which require much more dynamic and intricate forms of social cooperation. This assessment is coherent with the gist of both Luhmann’s and Hayek’s understanding of society and its modern history.
<The philosophical and methodological underpinnings of Austrian political economy – bottom up action theory and a non-reductive methodological individualism – are compatible with Luhmann's approach and theory. Especially Hayek and Luhmann are congenial with respect to the shared intellectual paradigm of complexity theory. They concur in their general emphasis on self-organisation, emergence, evolution and information processing. In particular they concur in the assertion that modern societies have evolved to a point that an insurmountable complexity barrier stands in the way of any attempt to rationally direct societal development via central political control, and that any such attempt implies a regressive blunting of society's highly evolved complexity and information processing capacity, with detrimental consequences for prosperity. Thus freedom (mutation) and competition (selection) are the evolutionary mechanisms that need to be given space to operate.
>MK: Speaking of giving space, this is a good moment to mention your involvement with Liberland, a libertarian micro-state established in 2014 on a contested piece of land between Croatia and Serbia, and are now leading the jury of an ongoing international design competition for finding an urban framework for the nation-to-be – a “society that aspires to a maximum freedom”. Could you expand on this venture? What is the potential of Liberland – especially viewed in the context of the multiple crises currently wreaking havoc across Europe and the world at large?
<PS: I think Liberland is a fantastic effort on many levels. Vít Jedli?ka is a formidable force to be reckoned with. His project is as sophisticated as it is heroic. The chance that it might become real is only one of its merits. It is also a news-worthy radical political message and a tangible vehicle of political economy speculation which poses as many theoretical questions and conceptual challenges to us as it poses practical challenges. The project poses most decisively the central challenge that urbanism faces in the current era of market-based urbanization processes, namely to devise a methodology with many degrees of freedom and abstract general heuristics afford (and allow us to simulate) piecemeal urban agglomeration processes that not only maximize programmatic synergies but make these synergies legible within an evolving navigable order.
>The presence or near presence of a practical project has also always disciplined and guided the development of Marxist theory, although the blanket refusal of Marxists to ‘indulge’ in blue-prints and detailed speculation about the prospects and probable (political and economic) problems of democratic socialism had been (and remains) its Achilles heel.
>Avant-garde architectural speculation might attempt to extrapolate from current political realities via reference to advancing political trends and tendencies without collapsing into fruitless utopian speculation. This is what I am trying to do in my recent speculations about the pospects of an unleashed parametric urbanism under the auspices of a radical anarcho-capitalist societal order. It is of course a subjective judgment call to what extent this kind of speculation is fruitful. In my judgment such speculations are pertinent not only if the realization of anarcho-capitalism is a realistic prospect, but due to the fact that it extrapolates current tendencies and is thus informative even for current conditions or more modest movements in the hypothesized direction.
<In contrast to leftist inspired architectural speculations that imagine the reversal of the process of market liberalization of recent decades, harking back to 1970s, an anarcho-capitalist inspired architectural speculation radicalizes manifest tendencies. I would argue that this is not only more realistic but also potentially a more fertile engine of architectural invention because it allows us to project into uncharted territory. The architectural competition for Liberland offers a stimulating opportunity in this respect.
>However, while such speculative design research is (both politically and architecturally) stimulating, the primary task I have set for myself for the time being is to push parametricism into the mainstream, within the current political context, a task that is as eminently feasible as it is increasingly urgent for the thriving of our urban civilization.
<MK: I assume by “speculations imagining the reversal of market liberalization” you refer largely to the work and influence of Pier Vittorio Aureli, both in academia and through his office Dogma (with Martino Tattara)? As far as you reside from each other on both a political and architectural spectrum you share a commitment to architecture-in-itself, unlike the work that is touted as architecture’s current vanguard. E.g. in 2015 Assemble was given the Turner Prize and Alejandro Aravena the Pritzker, architecture’s most prestigious award, in addition to being appointed as the head curator of the upcoming Venice Biennale for Architecture. Aravena’s ‘urban do tank’ ELEMENTAL is known for its participatory design practices; the theme and title of the biennale is Reporting from the Front. In the wake of these announcements you announced the “PC takeover of architecture is complete”, continuing a line of critique that you also raised in connection to the recent Chicago Architecture Biennial that highlighted an number of ’socially engaged’ architectural projects and practices. Could you elaborate on this? Instead of radicalizing, extrapolating or resisting current conditions are architecture’s – or rather that of its supposed front line’s – ambitions confined within those of Big Society?
>PS: With your questions you poke into a most treacherous hornets’ nest, but we have to poke and stir it!
Pier Vittorio Aureli is only one of so many in architecture who argue from anti-capitalist premises as if from an unquestionable intellectual or moral high ground. Unfortunately this anti-capitalist bias is dominant especially in the intellectually ambitious segments of our discipline. However, I respect Pier Vittorio, not because I share a commitment to ‘architecture-in-itself’ – I do not – but because I respect that he is a designing architect that teaches design on the basis of a theoretical position that encompasses both an account of society and a conception architecture’s role within it. While his conceptions are fallacious, his practice has at least the right kind of ingredients required for an ambitious architectural practice. So I appreciate his ambition, although I consider the specific ingredients he is wedded to and the results he cooks up to be widely off the mark. I also respect that his teaching is still committed to building design when so many of our teaching colleagues defect to observation, “political” debate, leading at best to “artistic” or “conceptual” provocations.
<All the things you allude to in your question point to a problematic politization of architecture. This would not per se be detrimental if it did not threaten to swamp and usurp most of architecture’s discursive arenas. Another problem is the PC tilt of this politization where everything leads to the safe consensus around well-rehearsed humanitarian concerns. This not only flattens and trivializes our discourse but does so with a moralizing force that makes it hard to escape this normalization.
>Again, politization is not per negative. It could be energizing. The historical background for the increasing politicization of our discipline is twofold: First we have been witnessing a long term secular politicization of all aspects of society, in the context of an ever increasing capacity for society-wide communication. Secondly, we are witnessing a marked acceleration of society’s politicization since the 2008 financial crisis, the ensuing great recession and the European sovereign debt crisis, events which re-politicized myself as much as everybody else. These events had various political repercussions like the occupy movement, the ‘Arab spring’, and the upheavals in Europe’s political landscape in reaction to controversial austerity programs. In this historical context the politicization of our discipline must be seen as a perhaps inevitable moment in the politicization of all aspect and domains of societal life, implying that any further attempt to deny, resist or repudiate this is futile. However, what we must not accept as inevitable is the pretentious dilettante quality of this debate, its PC tilt and its consequently regressive nature. We must repudiate the all too often automatic anti-capitalist and anti-business bias that informs most contributions to the politicized architectural discourse. Even if the politicization of our discipline has progressed to a point where political engagement becomes inevitable, there must remain a space for an architectural discourse that discusses and evaluates the best architectural solutions to societal requirements as they are posed today under current political and societal conditions, however questionable they might seem from certain political perspectives, i.e. the show must go on and our discourse must not be totally swamped and dominated by political contentions.
<In particular, we must not allow the most effective contribution and the proper purposes of our discipline to be diverted by “urgent” or “humanitarian” issues that seem to trump all other issues due to moral urgency. This is self-destructive populism and as irrational as it would be to send brain surgeons or medical researchers at the frontier of medical science to Africa to distribute urgently needed standard medication.
<The Pritzker jury’s explanation for Aravena’s win included the following:
>“What really sets Aravena apart is his commitment to social housing. Alejandro Aravena epitomizes the revival of a more socially engaged architect, especially in his long-term commitment to tackling the global housing crisis and fighting for a better urban environment for all. The role of the architect is now being challenged to serve greater social and humanitarian needs, and Alejandro Aravena has clearly, generously and fully responded to this challenge.”
My response was much more about the jury’s motivation and reasoning than about Aravena’ debatable merits. This is what I wrote about Aravena’s Pritzker win:
<“The PC takeover of architecture is complete: Pritzker Prize mutates into a prize for humanitarian work. The role of the architect is now “to serve greater social and humanitarian needs” and the new Laureate is hailed for “tackling the global housing crisis” and for his concern for the underprivileged. Architecture loses its specific societal task and responsibility, architectural innovation is replaced by the demonstration of noble intentions and the discipline’s criteria of success and excellence dissolve in the vague do-good-feel-good pursuit of ‘social justice’. I respect was Alejandro Aravena is doing and his "half a good house" developments are an intelligent response. However, this is not the frontier where architecture and urban design participate in advancing the next stage of our global high density urban civilization. I would not object to this year’s choice half as much if this safe and comforting validation of humanitarian concern was not part of a wider trend in contemporary architecture that in my view signals an unfortunate confusion, bad conscience, lack of confidence, vitality and courage about the discipline’s own unique contribution to the world.”
What can we expect of Aravena’s Biennale? I am afraid it will continue the unfortunate trend of last Biennales – inclusive of the recent 1st Chicago Architecture Biennale – namely to thematize weighty political and moral issues (like poverty or “the global housing crisis”) and to validate (via its prizes) polemical gestures or documentary engagements with such issues as more important and interesting than the most sophisticated contemporary architectural design achievements at the technological and programmatic frontier of innovation.
<My facebook comment about the recent Chicago Biennale read like this:
>"The Chicago Architecture Biennale Exhibition must leave lay-visitors bewildered by one overwhelming subliminal message: contemporary architecture ceased to exist, the discipline’s guilt and bad conscience has sapped its vitality, driven it to self-annihilation and architects have now en masse dedicated themselves to doing good via basic social work.”
<My key point should not be misunderstood: I am not saying architectural excellence is in-itself a value and that societal concerns do not matter for good architecture. Quite to the contrary: I am insisting that architectural theory and thus practice must start with the clarification of architecture’s societal function, i.e. with a clear understanding of the build environment’s significance for social processes and of architecture’s specific role with respect to the progressive development of the built environment. In my recently released publication Parametricism 2.0 (AD/02/Vol.86/2016) I am indeed arguing that parametricism has to shift its discursive emphasis from technical to social functionality and explicitly demonstrate how its methodology and repertoire are geared up to address the requirements of contemporary social dynamics and institutions. However, to address architecture’s societal function – in my theory: the innovative spatio-morphological ordering of social interactions in increasingly dense and complex scenarios - the discipline and its most ambitious protagonists have to be cognizant of where the frontier of innovative design research is located, i.e. where the investment of discursive and design research efforts would be most important and productive. In my view this can only be with respect to the new challenges posed in the most advanced and further advancing central, high value arenas of our world civilization where unprecedented conditions - the new level of density, diversity, mixity, complexity, interconnectedness and dynamism in our most productive social institutions - call for original innovations that must draw on the most sophisticated methodologies and computationally advanced design processes. In contrast the alleviation of issues like the poverty-induced lack of provision of well-established housing standards does not call on the most advanced capacities of the discipline and profession, nor indeed does such an issue even lie within the reach of architectural professionals’ powers. A sophisticated spatial organization and communicative articulation of the complex social life process at e.g. a new google campus (for thousands of largely self-directed collaborators with different specialisms and capacities) is both an incredibly challenging (and intellectually stimulating) design task and a project where the productivity gains a more transparently ordered and communicative built environment might deliver would benefit the world (including its poorest citizens) a billion-fold. We need to be strategic with respect to where and how we can best employ and leverage our specific disciplinary intelligence. Again, importantly, this position stands independently from my political hopes and recommendations and in my perspective parametricism remains architecture’s best bet under current political conditions, just as it would remain architecture’s best bet under a more libertarian political economy. I believe parametricism is indeed congenial with radical anarcho-capitalism which in turn I consider to be our best political bet. But I do not want to politically taint or tie up parametricism by giving the impression that it has a necessary radical political bias. The function systems of world society co-evolve and influence each other without necessary connections or inevitabilities. I am a player within architecture and as such a keen observer of politics, but no player. My ambition is to innovate my discipline and lead my discipline’s adaptive efforts with respect to the conditions and opportunities of post-fordist network society. This adaptation must be based on current social, economic and political conditions and can only risk to speculate moderately forward along salient tendencies. Therefore occasions like the Liberland competition - however stimulating - will (for now) remain exceptional rather than defining episodes in my career.
What does everyone think? Is he just another ex-commie boomer that took the neoliberalism meme too hard? Why does reading Deleuze and Guattari turn people reactionary? Or did he rationalize his new class status as a owner of a architecture firm with new ideas? Or does he have a point?
R: 3 / I: 2
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 Colonel of the Reserve V. Molozeyev. Among other things, he was asked a question about political repressions in the army. The veteran replied that he had never come across any repressions and that many of those who fought in the war with him form its beginning to its end became high-ranking military leaders. Some were disappointed by this reply. Now that it has become topical, the subject of repressions has been blown out of all proportion in some young people's imaginations and overshadows any objective interpretation of the past. Examples like this are by no means isolated.
It is, of course, extremely gratifying that even "technicians" are keenly interested in theoretical problems of the social sciences. But I can neither accept nor agree with all too much of what has now appeared. Verbiage about "terrorism," "the people's political servility," "uninspired social vegetation," "our spiritual slavery," "universal fear," "dominance by boors in power"—these are often the only yarns used to weave the history of our country during the period of transition to socialism. It is, therefore, not surprising that nihilistic sentiments are intensifying among some students and that there are instances of ideological confusion, loss of political bearings, and even ideological omnivorousness. At times you even hear claims that the time has come to take Communist to task for having allegedly "dehumanized" the country's life since 1917.
The Central Committee February plenum emphasized again the insistent need to ensure that "young people are taught a class-based vision of the world and an understanding of the links between universal and class interests, including an understanding of the class essence of the changes occurring in our country." Such a vision of history and of the present is incompatible with the political anecdotes, base gossip, and controversial fantasies that one often encounters today.
I have been reading and rereading sensational articles. For example, what can you people gain (apart from disorientation) from revelations about "the counterrevolution in the USSR in the late 1920s and early 1930s" or about Stalin's "guilt" for the rise to power of fascism and Hitler in Germany? Or the public "reckoning" of the number of "Stalinists" in various generations and social groups?
We are Leningraders, and therefore we were particularly interested in watching recently the good documentary movie about Sergei Kirov. But at times the text that accompanied the film not only diverged from the movie's documentary evidence but even made it appear somewhat ambiguous. For example, the movie would show the outburst of keenness, joie de vivre, and spiritual enthusiasm of people building socialism, while the announcer's text would be about repression, about lack of information.
I am probably not the only one to have noticed that the calls by party leaders asking the "exposers" to pay attention also to the factual and real achievements at different stages of socialist construction seem, as if by command, to bring forth more and more outbursts of "exposures." Mikhail Shatrov's plays are a notable phenomenon in this—alas!—infertile field. On the day the 26th Party Congress opened, I went to see the play "Blue Horses on Red Grass." I recall the young people's excitement at the scene in which Lenin's secretary tries to empty a teapot over his head, confusing him with an unfinished clay sculpture. As a matter of fact, some young people had arrived with prepared banners whose essence was to sling mud at our past and present. In "The Brest Peace" the playwright and director make Lenin kneel before Leon Trotsky. So much for the symbolic embodiment of the author's concept. This is further developed in the play "Onward! Onward! Onward!" A play is, of course, not a historical document. But even in a work of art, truth is guaranteed by nothing but the author's stance. Especially in the case of political theater.
Playwright Shatrov's stance has been analyzed in detail in a well-reasoned way in reviews by historians published in Pravda and Sovetskaya Rossiya. I would like to express my own opinion. In particular, it is impossible not to agree that Shatrov deviates substantially from the accepted principles of socialist realism. In covering a most crucial period in our country's history, he absolutizes the subjective factor in social development and clearly ignores the objective laws of history as displayed in the activity of the classes and the masses. The role played by the proletarian masses and the Bolshevik party is reduced to the "background" against which the actions of irresponsible politicians unfold.
The reviewers, on the basis of the Marxist-Leninist methodology of analyzing specific historical processes, have convincingly shown that Shatrov distorts the history of socialism in our country. He objects to the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, without whose historical contribution we would have nothing to restructure today. The author goes on to accuse Stalin of the assassinations of Trotsky and Kirov and of "isolating" Lenin while he was ill. But how can anyone possibly make biased accusations against historical figures without bothering to adduce any proof?
Unfortunately, the reviewers have failed to show that, despite all his pretensions as an author, the playwright is far from original. I got the impression that, in the logic of his assessments and arguments, he rather closely follows the line of Boris Suvarine's book published in Paris in 1935. In his play, Shatrov makes his characters say things that were said by the adversaries of Leninism about the course of the revolution, about Lenin's role in it, about the relationships between Central Committee members at different stages of inner party struggle. This is the essence of Shatrov's "fresh reading" of Lenin. Let me add that Anatoly Rybakov, author of Children of the Arbat, has frankly admitted that he borrowed some incidents from migr publications.
Without having read the play "Onward! Onward! Onward!" (it had not been published yet), I read rapturous reviews of it in some publications. What could have been the meaning of such haste? I learned later that the play was being hastily staged.
Soon after the February plenum, Pravda published a letter entitled "Coming Full Circle?" signed by eight of our leading theatrical figures. They warned against what they saw as possible delays in staging Shatrov's play. This conclusion was drawn on the basis of some critical reviews of the play in the press. For some unknown reason, the authors of the letter excluded the writers of the critical reviews from the category of those "who treasure the fatherland." How can this be reconciled with their desire for a "stormy and impassioned" discussion of our history, both distant and recent? It appears that they alone are entitled to their opinion.
In the numerous discussions now taking place on literally all questions of the social sciences, as a college lecturer I am primarily interested in the questions that have a direct effect on young people's ideological and political education, their moral health, and their social optimism. Conversing with students and deliberating with them on controversial problems, I cannot help concluding that our country has accumulated quite a few anomalies and one-sided interpretations that clearly need to be corrected. I would like to dwell on some of them in particular.
Take, for example, the question of Joseph Stalin's place in our country's history. The whole obsession with critical attacks is linked with his name, and in my opinion this obsession centers not so much on the historical individual himself as on the entire highly complex epoch of transition, an epoch linked with unprecedented feats by a whole generation of Soviet people who are today gradually withdrawing from active participation in political and social work. The industrialization, collectivization, and cultural revolution which brought our country to the ranks of the great world powers are being forcibly squeezed into the "personality cult" formula. All of this is being questioned. Matters have gone so far that persistent demands for "repentance" are being made of "Stalinists" (and this category can be taken to include anyone you like). There is rapturous praise for novels and movies that lynch the epoch of "storms and onslaught," which is presented as a "tragedy of the peoples." It is true that such attempts to place historical nihilism on a pedestal do not always work. For example, a movie showered with praise by critics can be extremely coolly received by the majority of viewers despite the unprecedented publicity hype.
Let me say right away that neither I nor any members of my family were in any way involved with Stalin, his retinue, his associates, or his extollers. My father was a worker at Leningrad's port, my mother was a fitter at the Kirov plant. My elder brother also worked there. My brother, my father, and my sister died in battles against Hitler's forces. One of my relatives was repressed and then rehabilitated after the 20th Party Congress. I share all of the Soviet people's anger and indignation about the mass repressions that occurred in the 1930s and 1940s and with the party-state leadership of the time, which is to blame. But commonsense resolutely protests aginst the monochrome depiction of contradictory events that now dominates in some press organs.
I support the party's call to uphold the honor and dignity of the trailblazers of socialism. I think that these are the party-class positions from which we must assess the historical role of all leaders of the party and the country, including Stalin. In this case, matters cannot be reduced to their "court" aspect or to abstract moralizing by persons far removed both from those stormy times and from the people who had to live and work in those times, and to work in such a fashion as to still be an inspiring example for us today.
For me, as for many people, a decisive role in my assessment of Stalin is played by the candid testimony of contemporaries who clashed directly with him on our side of the barricades as well as on the other side. It is the latter who are quite interesting. For instance, take British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who, back in 1919, was proud of his personal contribution to organizing the military intervention by fourteen foreign states against the young Soviet republic and who, exactly forty years later, used the following words to describe Stalin, one of his most formidable political opponents:
"He was an outstanding personality who left his mark on our cruel time during his lifetime. Stalin was a man of exceptional energy, erudition, and unbending willpower, harsh, tough, and ruthless in both action and conversation, and even I, brought up in the English Parliament, could not oppose him in any way. . . . A gigantic force resounded in his words. This force was so great in Stalin that he seemed unique among the leaders of all times and all peoples. His effect on people was irresistible. Whenever he entered the Yalta conference hall, we all rose as if by command. And strangely, we all stood to attention. Stalin possessed a profound, totally unflappable, logical, and sensible wisdom. He was a past master at finding a way out of the most hopeless situation at a difficult time. . . . He was a man who used his enemies to destroy his enemy, forcing us—whom he openly called imperialists—to fight the imperialists. . . . He took over a Russia still using the wooden plow, and left it equipped with atomic weapons."
This assessment and admission by the loyal custodian of the British Empire cannot be attributed to either pretense or political timeserving. Long and frank conversations with young interlocutors lead us to the conclusion that the attacks on the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat and our country's leaders at this time have not only political, ideological, and moral causes, but also a social substratum. There are quite a few people interested in expanding the bridgehead for these attacks, and they are to be found not just on the other side of our borders. Along with professional anti-Communists in the West who picked the supposedly democratic slogan "anti-Stalinism" a long time ago, the offspring of the classes overthrown by the October Revolution (by no means all of whom have managed to forget the material and social losses incurred by their forebears) are still alive and prospering. One must add to them the spiritual heirs of Dan and Martov and other adherents of Russian social democracy, the spiritual followers of Trotsky or Yagoda, and the offspring of NEP-men, basmachy, and kulaks with grudges against socialism.
I think that, no matter how controversial and complex a figure in Soviet history Stalin may be, his genuine role in the building and defense of socialism will sooner or later be given an objective and unambiguous assessment. Of course, unambiguous does not mean an assessment that is one-sided, that whitewashes, or that eclectically sums up contradictory phenomena making it possible subjectively (albeit with slight reservations) "to forgive or not forgive," "to reject or retain." Unambiguous means primarily a specific historical assessment detached from short-term considerations which would demonstrate—according to historical results!—the dialectics of the correlation between the individual's actions and the basic laws governing society's development. In our country these laws were also linked with the answer to the question "Who will defeat whom?" in its domestic as well as international aspects. If we are to adhere to the Marxist-Leninsit methodology of historical analysis then, in Mikhail Gorbachev's words, we must primarily and vividly show how the millions of people lived, how they worked, and what they believed in, as well as the coupling of victories and failures, discoveries and errors, the bright and the tragic, the revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses and the violation of socialist legality and even crimes at times.
I was puzzled recently by the revelation of one of my students that the class struggle is supposedly an obsolete term, just like the leading role of the proletariat. It would be alright if she were the only one to claim this. A furious argument was generated, for example, by a respected academician's recent assertion that present-day relations between states from the two different socioeconomic systems apparently lack any class content. I assume that the academician did not deem it necessary to explain why it was that, for several decades, he wrote exactly the opposite, namely, that peaceful coexistence is nothing but a form of class struggle in the international arena. It seems that the philosopher has now rejected this view. Never mind, people can change their minds. It does seem to me, however, that duty would nevertheless command a leading philosopher to explain—at least to those who have studied and are studying his books—what is happening today; does the international working class no longer oppose world capital as embodied in its state and political organs?
It seems to me that many of the present debates center on the same question: Which class or stratum of society is the leading and mobilizing force of perestroika? This in particular was discussed in an interview with writer Alexander Prokhanov published by our city newspaper Leningradskii Rabochii. Prokhanov proceeds from the premise that the specific nature of the present state of social consciousness is typified by the presence of two ideological currents or, as he puts it, "alternative towers" which are trying, from different directions, to overcome the "socialism that has been built in battles'' in our country. Although he exaggerates the significance and acuteness of the duel between these two "towers," the writer is nevertheless correct in emphasizing that "they agree only on the slaughter of socialist values." But both of them, so their ideologists claim, are "for perestroika."
It is the champions of "left-wing liberal socialism" who shape the tendency toward falsifying the history of socialism. They try to make us believe that the country's past was nothing but mistakes and crimes, keeping silent about the greatest achievements of the past and the present. Claiming full possession of historical truth, they replace the sociopolitical criterion of society's development with scholastic ethical categories. I would very much like to know who needed to ensure, and why, that every prominent leader of the party Central Committee and the Soviet government—once they were out of office—was compromised and discredited because of actual and alleged mistakes and errors committed when solving the most complex of problems in the course of historical trailblazing? Where are the origins of this passion of ours to undermine the prestige and dignity of the leaders of the world's first socialist country?
Another peculiarity of the views held by the "left-wing liberals" is an overt or covert cosmopolitan tendency, some kind of non-national "internationalism." I read somewhere about an incident after the revolution when a delegation of merchants and factory owners called on Trotsky "as a Jew" at the Petrograd soviet to complain about the oppression by the Red Guards, and he declared that he was "not a Jew but an internationalist," which really puzzled the petitioners. In Trotsky's view, the idea of "nation" connoted a certain inferiority and limitation compared with the "international." This is why he, emphasizing October's "national tradition," wrote about "the national element in Lenin," claimed that the Russian people "had inherited no cultural heritage at all," and so on. We are somehow embarrassed to say that it was indeed the Russian proletariat, whom the Trotskyites treated as "backward and uncultured," who accomplished—in Lenin's words—"three Russian revolutions" and that the Slavic peoples stood in the vanguard of mankind's battle against fascism.
This, of course, is not to denigrate the historical contribution of other nations and ethnic groups. This, as it is said nowadays, is only to ensure that the full historical truth is told. When students ask me why thousands of small villages in the nonblack-soil lands and Siberia are deserted, I reply that this is part of the high price we had to pay for victory and for the postwar restoration of the national economy, just like the irretrievable loss of large numbers of monuments of Russian national culture. I am also convinced that any denigration of the importance of consciousness produces a pacifist erosion of defense and patriotic consciousness as well as a desire to categorize the slightest expressions of Great Russian national pride as manifestations of the chauvinism of a great power. Here is something else that worries me: the practice of "refusenikism" of socialism is nowadays linked with militant cosmopolitanism. Unfortunately, we remember this suddenly only when its adherents plague us with their outrages in front of the Smolny or at the Kremlin walls. Moreover, we are gradually being trained to perceive the aforementioned phenomenon as some sort of almost innocent change of "place of residence" rather than as class or national betrayal by persons who (most of them) graduated from colleges and completed their postgraduate studies thanks to our own country's funds. Generally speaking, some people are inclined to look upon "refusenikism" as some sort of manifestation of "democracy" and the "rights of man," whose talents were prevented from flourishing by "stagnant socialism." And if it so happens that people over there, in the "free world," fail to appreciate bubbling entrepreneurship and "genius" and the special services are not interested in the trading of conscience, one can always return.
While "neoliberals" look toward the West, the proponents of the other "alternative tower," to use Prokhanov's expression, the "protectionists and traditionalists," are striving "to overcome socialism by regression," in other words, by reverting to the social forms of presocialist Russia. The spokesmen for this variety of "peasant socialism" are fascinated by this image. In their opinion, the moral values accumulated by peasant communes in the misty fog of the centuries were lost a hundred years ago. The "traditionalists" certainly deserve credit for what they have done for the exposure of corruption, the fair solution of ecological problems, the struggle against alcoholism, the protection of historical monuments, and the opposition to dominance by mass-culture, which they correctly evaluate as consumerist media.
At the same time, the views of the ideologists of "peasant socialism" show a lack of understanding of October's historical importance for the fate of the fatherland, a one-sided assessment of collectivization as a "terrible atrocity against the peasantry," an uncritical perception of mystical religious Russian philosophy and the old czarist concepts in our historical science, and an unwillingness to perceive the postrevolutionary stratification of the peasantry and the revolutionary role of the working class. When it comes to the class struggle in the countryside, for example, excessive emphasis is often placed on the "rural" commissars who "shot middle income peasants in the back." There were, of course, all sorts of commissars at the height of the revolutionary conflagration in our vast country. But in the mainstream of our life are commissars who were shot at, commissars who had stars carved on their backs or who were burned alive. The price the "attacking class" had to pay consisted not only of the lives of commissars, chekists, rural Bolsheviks, members of the committees of poor peasantry, or the "Twenty Thousand" but also those of the first tractor drivers, rural correspondents, girl teachers, rural Komsomol members and the lives of tens of thousands of other unknown fighters for socialism.
The education of young people is made even more complex by the fact that informal organizations and associations are being formed around the ideas of "neoliberals" and "neo-Slavophiles." Sometimes the upper hand in their leadership is gained by extremist elements capable of provocations. A politicization of these informal organizations on the basis of a by-no-means socialist pluralism has recently emerged. Leaders of these organizations often speak of "power sharing" on the basis of a "parliamentary system," "free trade unions," "autonomous publishing houses," and so on. In my view, all this leads to the conclusion that the main and cardinal issue of the debates now taking place in the country is this: whether or not to recognize the leading role of the party and the working class in socialist building and therefore in perestroika with all the ensuing theoretical and practical conclusions for politics, economics, and ideology.
It seems to me that the question of the role and position of socialist ideology is extremely acute today. The authors of timeserving articles circulating under the guise of moral and spiritual "cleansing" erode the dividing lines and criteria of scientific ideology, manipulate glasnost, and foster nonsocialist pluralism, which applies the brakes on perestroika in the public conscience. This has a particularly painful effect on young people which, I repeat, is clearly sensed by us, the college lecturers, schoolteachers, and all who have to deal with young people's problems. As Mikhail Gorbachev said at the CPSU Central Committee February plenum, "our actions in the spiritual sphere—and maybe primarily and precisely there—must be guided by our Marxist-Leninist principles. Principles, comrades, must not be compromised on any pretext whatever."
This is what we stand for now, and this is what we will continue to stand for. Principles were not given to us as a gift, we have fought for them at crucial turning points in the fatherland's history".
I Cannot Forsake My Principles by Nina Andreyeva
"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 Colonel of the Reserve V. Molozeyev. Among other things, he was asked a question about political repressions in the army. The veteran replied that he had never come across any repressions and that many of those who fought in the war with him form its beginning to its end became high-ranking military leaders. Some were disappointed by this reply. Now that it has become topical, the subject of repressions has been blown out of all proportion in some young people's imaginations and overshadows any objective interpretation of the past. Examples like this are by no means isolated.
It is, of course, extremely gratifying that even "technicians" are keenly interested in theoretical problems of the social sciences. But I can neither accept nor agree with all too much of what has now appeared. Verbiage about "terrorism," "the people's political servility," "uninspired social vegetation," "our spiritual slavery," "universal fear," "dominance by boors in power"—these are often the only yarns used to weave the history of our country during the period of transition to socialism. It is, therefore, not surprising that nihilistic sentiments are intensifying among some students and that there are instances of ideological confusion, loss of political bearings, and even ideological omnivorousness. At times you even hear claims that the time has come to take Communist to task for having allegedly "dehumanized" the country's life since 1917.
The Central Committee February plenum emphasized again the insistent need to ensure that "young people are taught a class-based vision of the world and an understanding of the links between universal and class interests, including an understanding of the class essence of the changes occurring in our country." Such a vision of history and of the present is incompatible with the political anecdotes, base gossip, and controversial fantasies that one often encounters today.
I have been reading and rereading sensational articles. For example, what can you people gain (apart from disorientation) from revelations about "the counterrevolution in the USSR in the late 1920s and early 1930s" or about Stalin's "guilt" for the rise to power of fascism and Hitler in Germany? Or the public "reckoning" of the number of "Stalinists" in various generations and social groups?
We are Leningraders, and therefore we were particularly interested in watching recently the good documentary movie about Sergei Kirov. But at times the text that accompanied the film not only diverged from the movie's documentary evidence but even made it appear somewhat ambiguous. For example, the movie would show the outburst of keenness, joie de vivre, and spiritual enthusiasm of people building socialism, while the announcer's text would be about repression, about lack of information.
I am probably not the only one to have noticed that the calls by party leaders asking the "exposers" to pay attention also to the factual and real achievements at different stages of socialist construction seem, as if by command, to bring forth more and more outbursts of "exposures." Mikhail Shatrov's plays are a notable phenomenon in this—alas!—infertile field. On the day the 26th Party Congress opened, I went to see the play "Blue Horses on Red Grass." I recall the young people's excitement at the scene in which Lenin's secretary tries to empty a teapot over his head, confusing him with an unfinished clay sculpture. As a matter of fact, some young people had arrived with prepared banners whose essence was to sling mud at our past and present. In "The Brest Peace" the playwright and director make Lenin kneel before Leon Trotsky. So much for the symbolic embodiment of the author's concept. This is further developed in the play "Onward! Onward! Onward!" A play is, of course, not a historical document. But even in a work of art, truth is guaranteed by nothing but the author's stance. Especially in the case of political theater.
Playwright Shatrov's stance has been analyzed in detail in a well-reasoned way in reviews by historians published in Pravda and Sovetskaya Rossiya. I would like to express my own opinion. In particular, it is impossible not to agree that Shatrov deviates substantially from the accepted principles of socialist realism. In covering a most crucial period in our country's history, he absolutizes the subjective factor in social development and clearly ignores the objective laws of history as displayed in the activity of the classes and the masses. The role played by the proletarian masses and the Bolshevik party is reduced to the "background" against which the actions of irresponsible politicians unfold.
The reviewers, on the basis of the Marxist-Leninist methodology of analyzing specific historical processes, have convincingly shown that Shatrov distorts the history of socialism in our country. He objects to the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, without whose historical contribution we would have nothing to restructure today. The author goes on to accuse Stalin of the assassinations of Trotsky and Kirov and of "isolating" Lenin while he was ill. But how can anyone possibly make biased accusations against historical figures without bothering to adduce any proof?
Unfortunately, the reviewers have failed to show that, despite all his pretensions as an author, the playwright is far from original. I got the impression that, in the logic of his assessments and arguments, he rather closely follows the line of Boris Suvarine's book published in Paris in 1935. In his play, Shatrov makes his characters say things that were said by the adversaries of Leninism about the course of the revolution, about Lenin's role in it, about the relationships between Central Committee members at different stages of inner party struggle. This is the essence of Shatrov's "fresh reading" of Lenin. Let me add that Anatoly Rybakov, author of Children of the Arbat, has frankly admitted that he borrowed some incidents from migr publications.
Without having read the play "Onward! Onward! Onward!" (it had not been published yet), I read rapturous reviews of it in some publications. What could have been the meaning of such haste? I learned later that the play was being hastily staged.
Soon after the February plenum, Pravda published a letter entitled "Coming Full Circle?" signed by eight of our leading theatrical figures. They warned against what they saw as possible delays in staging Shatrov's play. This conclusion was drawn on the basis of some critical reviews of the play in the press. For some unknown reason, the authors of the letter excluded the writers of the critical reviews from the category of those "who treasure the fatherland." How can this be reconciled with their desire for a "stormy and impassioned" discussion of our history, both distant and recent? It appears that they alone are entitled to their opinion.
In the numerous discussions now taking place on literally all questions of the social sciences, as a college lecturer I am primarily interested in the questions that have a direct effect on young people's ideological and political education, their moral health, and their social optimism. Conversing with students and deliberating with them on controversial problems, I cannot help concluding that our country has accumulated quite a few anomalies and one-sided interpretations that clearly need to be corrected. I would like to dwell on some of them in particular.
Take, for example, the question of Joseph Stalin's place in our country's history. The whole obsession with critical attacks is linked with his name, and in my opinion this obsession centers not so much on the historical individual himself as on the entire highly complex epoch of transition, an epoch linked with unprecedented feats by a whole generation of Soviet people who are today gradually withdrawing from active participation in political and social work. The industrialization, collectivization, and cultural revolution which brought our country to the ranks of the great world powers are being forcibly squeezed into the "personality cult" formula. All of this is being questioned. Matters have gone so far that persistent demands for "repentance" are being made of "Stalinists" (and this category can be taken to include anyone you like). There is rapturous praise for novels and movies that lynch the epoch of "storms and onslaught," which is presented as a "tragedy of the peoples." It is true that such attempts to place historical nihilism on a pedestal do not always work. For example, a movie showered with praise by critics can be extremely coolly received by the majority of viewers despite the unprecedented publicity hype.
Let me say right away that neither I nor any members of my family were in any way involved with Stalin, his retinue, his associates, or his extollers. My father was a worker at Leningrad's port, my mother was a fitter at the Kirov plant. My elder brother also worked there. My brother, my father, and my sister died in battles against Hitler's forces. One of my relatives was repressed and then rehabilitated after the 20th Party Congress. I share all of the Soviet people's anger and indignation about the mass repressions that occurred in the 1930s and 1940s and with the party-state leadership of the time, which is to blame. But commonsense resolutely protests aginst the monochrome depiction of contradictory events that now dominates in some press organs.
I support the party's call to uphold the honor and dignity of the trailblazers of socialism. I think that these are the party-class positions from which we must assess the historical role of all leaders of the party and the country, including Stalin. In this case, matters cannot be reduced to their "court" aspect or to abstract moralizing by persons far removed both from those stormy times and from the people who had to live and work in those times, and to work in such a fashion as to still be an inspiring example for us today.
For me, as for many people, a decisive role in my assessment of Stalin is played by the candid testimony of contemporaries who clashed directly with him on our side of the barricades as well as on the other side. It is the latter who are quite interesting. For instance, take British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who, back in 1919, was proud of his personal contribution to organizing the military intervention by fourteen foreign states against the young Soviet republic and who, exactly forty years later, used the following words to describe Stalin, one of his most formidable political opponents:
"He was an outstanding personality who left his mark on our cruel time during his lifetime. Stalin was a man of exceptional energy, erudition, and unbending willpower, harsh, tough, and ruthless in both action and conversation, and even I, brought up in the English Parliament, could not oppose him in any way. . . . A gigantic force resounded in his words. This force was so great in Stalin that he seemed unique among the leaders of all times and all peoples. His effect on people was irresistible. Whenever he entered the Yalta conference hall, we all rose as if by command. And strangely, we all stood to attention. Stalin possessed a profound, totally unflappable, logical, and sensible wisdom. He was a past master at finding a way out of the most hopeless situation at a difficult time. . . . He was a man who used his enemies to destroy his enemy, forcing us—whom he openly called imperialists—to fight the imperialists. . . . He took over a Russia still using the wooden plow, and left it equipped with atomic weapons."
This assessment and admission by the loyal custodian of the British Empire cannot be attributed to either pretense or political timeserving. Long and frank conversations with young interlocutors lead us to the conclusion that the attacks on the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat and our country's leaders at this time have not only political, ideological, and moral causes, but also a social substratum. There are quite a few people interested in expanding the bridgehead for these attacks, and they are to be found not just on the other side of our borders. Along with professional anti-Communists in the West who picked the supposedly democratic slogan "anti-Stalinism" a long time ago, the offspring of the classes overthrown by the October Revolution (by no means all of whom have managed to forget the material and social losses incurred by their forebears) are still alive and prospering. One must add to them the spiritual heirs of Dan and Martov and other adherents of Russian social democracy, the spiritual followers of Trotsky or Yagoda, and the offspring of NEP-men, basmachy, and kulaks with grudges against socialism.
I think that, no matter how controversial and complex a figure in Soviet history Stalin may be, his genuine role in the building and defense of socialism will sooner or later be given an objective and unambiguous assessment. Of course, unambiguous does not mean an assessment that is one-sided, that whitewashes, or that eclectically sums up contradictory phenomena making it possible subjectively (albeit with slight reservations) "to forgive or not forgive," "to reject or retain." Unambiguous means primarily a specific historical assessment detached from short-term considerations which would demonstrate—according to historical results!—the dialectics of the correlation between the individual's actions and the basic laws governing society's development. In our country these laws were also linked with the answer to the question "Who will defeat whom?" in its domestic as well as international aspects. If we are to adhere to the Marxist-Leninsit methodology of historical analysis then, in Mikhail Gorbachev's words, we must primarily and vividly show how the millions of people lived, how they worked, and what they believed in, as well as the coupling of victories and failures, discoveries and errors, the bright and the tragic, the revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses and the violation of socialist legality and even crimes at times.
I was puzzled recently by the revelation of one of my students that the class struggle is supposedly an obsolete term, just like the leading role of the proletariat. It would be alright if she were the only one to claim this. A furious argument was generated, for example, by a respected academician's recent assertion that present-day relations between states from the two different socioeconomic systems apparently lack any class content. I assume that the academician did not deem it necessary to explain why it was that, for several decades, he wrote exactly the opposite, namely, that peaceful coexistence is nothing but a form of class struggle in the international arena. It seems that the philosopher has now rejected this view. Never mind, people can change their minds. It does seem to me, however, that duty would nevertheless command a leading philosopher to explain—at least to those who have studied and are studying his books—what is happening today; does the international working class no longer oppose world capital as embodied in its state and political organs?
It seems to me that many of the present debates center on the same question: Which class or stratum of society is the leading and mobilizing force of perestroika? This in particular was discussed in an interview with writer Alexander Prokhanov published by our city newspaper Leningradskii Rabochii. Prokhanov proceeds from the premise that the specific nature of the present state of social consciousness is typified by the presence of two ideological currents or, as he puts it, "alternative towers" which are trying, from different directions, to overcome the "socialism that has been built in battles'' in our country. Although he exaggerates the significance and acuteness of the duel between these two "towers," the writer is nevertheless correct in emphasizing that "they agree only on the slaughter of socialist values." But both of them, so their ideologists claim, are "for perestroika."
It is the champions of "left-wing liberal socialism" who shape the tendency toward falsifying the history of socialism. They try to make us believe that the country's past was nothing but mistakes and crimes, keeping silent about the greatest achievements of the past and the present. Claiming full possession of historical truth, they replace the sociopolitical criterion of society's development with scholastic ethical categories. I would very much like to know who needed to ensure, and why, that every prominent leader of the party Central Committee and the Soviet government—once they were out of office—was compromised and discredited because of actual and alleged mistakes and errors committed when solving the most complex of problems in the course of historical trailblazing? Where are the origins of this passion of ours to undermine the prestige and dignity of the leaders of the world's first socialist country?
Another peculiarity of the views held by the "left-wing liberals" is an overt or covert cosmopolitan tendency, some kind of non-national "internationalism." I read somewhere about an incident after the revolution when a delegation of merchants and factory owners called on Trotsky "as a Jew" at the Petrograd soviet to complain about the oppression by the Red Guards, and he declared that he was "not a Jew but an internationalist," which really puzzled the petitioners. In Trotsky's view, the idea of "nation" connoted a certain inferiority and limitation compared with the "international." This is why he, emphasizing October's "national tradition," wrote about "the national element in Lenin," claimed that the Russian people "had inherited no cultural heritage at all," and so on. We are somehow embarrassed to say that it was indeed the Russian proletariat, whom the Trotskyites treated as "backward and uncultured," who accomplished—in Lenin's words—"three Russian revolutions" and that the Slavic peoples stood in the vanguard of mankind's battle against fascism.
This, of course, is not to denigrate the historical contribution of other nations and ethnic groups. This, as it is said nowadays, is only to ensure that the full historical truth is told. When students ask me why thousands of small villages in the nonblack-soil lands and Siberia are deserted, I reply that this is part of the high price we had to pay for victory and for the postwar restoration of the national economy, just like the irretrievable loss of large numbers of monuments of Russian national culture. I am also convinced that any denigration of the importance of consciousness produces a pacifist erosion of defense and patriotic consciousness as well as a desire to categorize the slightest expressions of Great Russian national pride as manifestations of the chauvinism of a great power. Here is something else that worries me: the practice of "refusenikism" of socialism is nowadays linked with militant cosmopolitanism. Unfortunately, we remember this suddenly only when its adherents plague us with their outrages in front of the Smolny or at the Kremlin walls. Moreover, we are gradually being trained to perceive the aforementioned phenomenon as some sort of almost innocent change of "place of residence" rather than as class or national betrayal by persons who (most of them) graduated from colleges and completed their postgraduate studies thanks to our own country's funds. Generally speaking, some people are inclined to look upon "refusenikism" as some sort of manifestation of "democracy" and the "rights of man," whose talents were prevented from flourishing by "stagnant socialism." And if it so happens that people over there, in the "free world," fail to appreciate bubbling entrepreneurship and "genius" and the special services are not interested in the trading of conscience, one can always return.
While "neoliberals" look toward the West, the proponents of the other "alternative tower," to use Prokhanov's expression, the "protectionists and traditionalists," are striving "to overcome socialism by regression," in other words, by reverting to the social forms of presocialist Russia. The spokesmen for this variety of "peasant socialism" are fascinated by this image. In their opinion, the moral values accumulated by peasant communes in the misty fog of the centuries were lost a hundred years ago. The "traditionalists" certainly deserve credit for what they have done for the exposure of corruption, the fair solution of ecological problems, the struggle against alcoholism, the protection of historical monuments, and the opposition to dominance by mass-culture, which they correctly evaluate as consumerist media.
At the same time, the views of the ideologists of "peasant socialism" show a lack of understanding of October's historical importance for the fate of the fatherland, a one-sided assessment of collectivization as a "terrible atrocity against the peasantry," an uncritical perception of mystical religious Russian philosophy and the old czarist concepts in our historical science, and an unwillingness to perceive the postrevolutionary stratification of the peasantry and the revolutionary role of the working class. When it comes to the class struggle in the countryside, for example, excessive emphasis is often placed on the "rural" commissars who "shot middle income peasants in the back." There were, of course, all sorts of commissars at the height of the revolutionary conflagration in our vast country. But in the mainstream of our life are commissars who were shot at, commissars who had stars carved on their backs or who were burned alive. The price the "attacking class" had to pay consisted not only of the lives of commissars, chekists, rural Bolsheviks, members of the committees of poor peasantry, or the "Twenty Thousand" but also those of the first tractor drivers, rural correspondents, girl teachers, rural Komsomol members and the lives of tens of thousands of other unknown fighters for socialism.
The education of young people is made even more complex by the fact that informal organizations and associations are being formed around the ideas of "neoliberals" and "neo-Slavophiles." Sometimes the upper hand in their leadership is gained by extremist elements capable of provocations. A politicization of these informal organizations on the basis of a by-no-means socialist pluralism has recently emerged. Leaders of these organizations often speak of "power sharing" on the basis of a "parliamentary system," "free trade unions," "autonomous publishing houses," and so on. In my view, all this leads to the conclusion that the main and cardinal issue of the debates now taking place in the country is this: whether or not to recognize the leading role of the party and the working class in socialist building and therefore in perestroika with all the ensuing theoretical and practical conclusions for politics, economics, and ideology.
It seems to me that the question of the role and position of socialist ideology is extremely acute today. The authors of timeserving articles circulating under the guise of moral and spiritual "cleansing" erode the dividing lines and criteria of scientific ideology, manipulate glasnost, and foster nonsocialist pluralism, which applies the brakes on perestroika in the public conscience. This has a particularly painful effect on young people which, I repeat, is clearly sensed by us, the college lecturers, schoolteachers, and all who have to deal with young people's problems. As Mikhail Gorbachev said at the CPSU Central Committee February plenum, "our actions in the spiritual sphere—and maybe primarily and precisely there—must be guided by our Marxist-Leninist principles. Principles, comrades, must not be compromised on any pretext whatever."
This is what we stand for now, and this is what we will continue to stand for. Principles were not given to us as a gift, we have fought for them at crucial turning points in the fatherland's history".
R: 25 / I: 1
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)?
Police and Their Role in Capitalism
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)?
R: 12 / I: 2
Stop larping Brutalism, the real redpill of the Future is just to let Zaha Hadid style architects design everything. Functionalism is the doctrine that the design of an object should be determined solely by its function, rather than by aesthetic considerations, and that anything practically designed will be inherently beautiful. Parametricism IMO is just functionalism updated to use computer technology.
I believe that parametricism is the best synthesis of functionalism, with islamic architecture influences but based on algorithmic fractal art, sacralizing cyber-pragmatic. Thanks to computer technology we are no longer limited to platonic forms like cubes that may not be the best use of space, material, or even the most aesthetically appealing.
EMBRACE MARXISM-HADIDISM
>Parametricism is an architectural style based on computer technology and algorithms. The concept emerged from the digital animation techniques of the mid-1990s, but has risen in prominence in the early-21st century with the development of advanced parametric design.Stop larping Brutalism, the real redpill of the Future is just to let Zaha Hadid style architects design everything. Functionalism is the doctrine that the design of an object should be determined solely by its function, rather than by aesthetic considerations, and that anything practically designed will be inherently beautiful. Parametricism IMO is just functionalism updated to use computer technology.
I believe that parametricism is the best synthesis of functionalism, with islamic architecture influences but based on algorithmic fractal art, sacralizing cyber-pragmatic. Thanks to computer technology we are no longer limited to platonic forms like cubes that may not be the best use of space, material, or even the most aesthetically appealing.
R: 26 / I: 7
Prison Abolitionism
How is prison abolitionism supposed to work? Am I supposed to sit here and earnestly believe there isn’t a certain amount of people who simply need to be segregated from society due to extremely anti social tendencies?
R: 8 / I: 1
https://incels.wiki/w/Charles_Fourier
>Charles Fourier was the founder of utopian socialism, a feminist who coined the word feminism, "satirical" rape apologist, and someone who sincerely wanted to organize society into mass communal buildings ("Phalansteries", or "Phalanx"s) which would provide a "sexual minimum" for everyone, including incels
>He wanted his utopias to have various organizations devoted to sexually helping the rejected without being paid
>Fourier was never known to have a love affair with a woman, which is thought to have created frustration which drove his sexual fantasies, and likely contributed to his utopian vision of eliminating sexual frustration
>Fourier was fairly unique among socialists as he articulated sexual inequality as a large causative factor of various social ills, instead of solely focusing his critiques on alienation and economic exploitation, thus preceding Marcy, Clouscard, Houellebecq, Reich, Nagle and Undersky in his analysis of sexual deprivation from a leftist perspective. Like Undersky, and unlike the much less libertarian Michel Houellebecq, Fourier portrays sexual liberalism as inherently good for incels. Although, only without markets in general and under certain other circumstances. His sex specific writings were not widely known during his lifetime, and were rediscovered in the 1960s
Is Sex a Human Right?
According to Charles Fourier, sex is a human right. Was he right?https://incels.wiki/w/Charles_Fourier
>Charles Fourier was the founder of utopian socialism, a feminist who coined the word feminism, "satirical" rape apologist, and someone who sincerely wanted to organize society into mass communal buildings ("Phalansteries", or "Phalanx"s) which would provide a "sexual minimum" for everyone, including incels
>He wanted his utopias to have various organizations devoted to sexually helping the rejected without being paid
>Fourier was never known to have a love affair with a woman, which is thought to have created frustration which drove his sexual fantasies, and likely contributed to his utopian vision of eliminating sexual frustration
>Fourier was fairly unique among socialists as he articulated sexual inequality as a large causative factor of various social ills, instead of solely focusing his critiques on alienation and economic exploitation, thus preceding Marcy, Clouscard, Houellebecq, Reich, Nagle and Undersky in his analysis of sexual deprivation from a leftist perspective. Like Undersky, and unlike the much less libertarian Michel Houellebecq, Fourier portrays sexual liberalism as inherently good for incels. Although, only without markets in general and under certain other circumstances. His sex specific writings were not widely known during his lifetime, and were rediscovered in the 1960s
R: 43 / I: 10
Why are they like this, anons? Why are all of these rightoids who say they used to be a Marxist never actually demonstrating that they even took in the basic concepts? Every. Fucking. Time.
On "Hitlers Socialism" by TIK
I was told that this video on 'Hitlers Socialism' by TIK was an absolute gotcha to Marxists and I know his channel and he does some good vids so I thought I'd give it a watch at least and immediately he says he was once a Marxist Socialist and he was taught that stuff at university and then his definition of capitalism is muh free market and that the state manipulating prices and planning stuff therefore means it isn't real capitalism as opposed to, you know, MCM (he correctly points out that yes markets don't equal capitalism automatically), using 2021 right libertarian definitions that would mean that almost any actually existing capitalist economy isn't really capitalist (even neoliberal ones).Why are they like this, anons? Why are all of these rightoids who say they used to be a Marxist never actually demonstrating that they even took in the basic concepts? Every. Fucking. Time.
R: 24 / I: 6
the psychology of mass shootings
I've been scratching my head about this for a while. I can't quite wrap my head around the cause of mass shootings. I'm inclined to chalk it up to burger brainrot, but there's not much unique about modern America that explains why this is a problem now but not historically. Is it alienation? Is it a symptom of an empire in decline, and if so, why isn't it more prevalent in other decaying countries that also have lots of guns like Russia or the dessicated husk of Yugoslavia? What gives, Leftypol?
R: 13 / I: 1
Some of cliodynamic's findings are as follows: Societies tend to function in circular centennial patterns of uptrends and downtrends, “an alternation of integrative and disintegrative phases lasting for roughly a century” as he puts it . The three most robust predictive metrics for societal collapse are a wealth disparity and declining wages, "elite overproduction" (too many highly educated people with not enough positions of power for them to fill), and an increase in public debt. Another is what he calls the "wealth pump" , where wealth is funneled up to the rich away from the poor, which usually marks the end of the integrative phase and the beginning of the disintegrative phase.
He claims to identify four major power sectors, the militaristic, financial, bureaucratic and ideological, which in good times, remain aligned, but begin to fall out of joint with one another and begin to squabble.
In my opinion, I like data based models. However, a model is not an explanatory theory. It is inert. And in that sense, Turchin does not go far enough. He has snapshots, but does not tie them together, probably because he wouldn't like where it would lead him: to Marx.
Turchin's Cliodynamics
Any thoughts on this? For a quick primer, cliodynamics is basically quantitative historical analysis. Using what amounts to big data analytics, it builds computer models of macrohistorical trends to identify patterns and predict developments. By this method Turchin himself has claimed to have discovered certain formulas for civil unrest, though Marxist theorists could have told you most of that without the models. He claims that many years ago he predicted that civilization would enter an age of instability starting in the 2020s.Some of cliodynamic's findings are as follows: Societies tend to function in circular centennial patterns of uptrends and downtrends, “an alternation of integrative and disintegrative phases lasting for roughly a century” as he puts it . The three most robust predictive metrics for societal collapse are a wealth disparity and declining wages, "elite overproduction" (too many highly educated people with not enough positions of power for them to fill), and an increase in public debt. Another is what he calls the "wealth pump" , where wealth is funneled up to the rich away from the poor, which usually marks the end of the integrative phase and the beginning of the disintegrative phase.
He claims to identify four major power sectors, the militaristic, financial, bureaucratic and ideological, which in good times, remain aligned, but begin to fall out of joint with one another and begin to squabble.
In my opinion, I like data based models. However, a model is not an explanatory theory. It is inert. And in that sense, Turchin does not go far enough. He has snapshots, but does not tie them together, probably because he wouldn't like where it would lead him: to Marx.
R: 1 / I: 1
But what I find really interesting about his book is that it's basically like some 1940s Yeonmi Park type shit.
This guy rose through the ranks of soviet society for his academic achievement, and lived better than most people, and was already staying in Canada for his job, and had a lot of material comforts. He ultimately defected because he wanted to make money being a professional defector.
The thing about his book I find funniest is its cover. The publisher at the time wanted to put a picture of Stalin on the cover, but for some reason they ended up with a picture of Maxim Gorky, who had already been dead for over a decade. Why? Not sure. Maybe they found Stalin too handsome. Maybe they confused a photo of Gorky for a photo of Stalin. Maybe they just thought the cover would go harder with a picture of Gorky.
This high profile soviet defector went on TV wearing what looks like a klan hood, brandishing a book whose cover is Gorky for some reason.
The Fall of a Titan by Igor Gouzenko
some soviet defector to Canada named Igor Gouzenko wrote a self-sucking autobiography called The Fall of a Titan after defecting to the West and exposing a soviet spy ring immediately after WW2. Some people point to this as the start of the cold war in public consciousness since he did this 3 days after WW2 ended, basically creating an "our soviet allies betrayed us!!!" narrative in the public opinion of countries like the USA.But what I find really interesting about his book is that it's basically like some 1940s Yeonmi Park type shit.
This guy rose through the ranks of soviet society for his academic achievement, and lived better than most people, and was already staying in Canada for his job, and had a lot of material comforts. He ultimately defected because he wanted to make money being a professional defector.
The thing about his book I find funniest is its cover. The publisher at the time wanted to put a picture of Stalin on the cover, but for some reason they ended up with a picture of Maxim Gorky, who had already been dead for over a decade. Why? Not sure. Maybe they found Stalin too handsome. Maybe they confused a photo of Gorky for a photo of Stalin. Maybe they just thought the cover would go harder with a picture of Gorky.
This high profile soviet defector went on TV wearing what looks like a klan hood, brandishing a book whose cover is Gorky for some reason.
R: 23 / I: 8
Michael Parenti argues that the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia was not motivated by humanitarian concerns, but rather was driven by economic interests and a desire to establish military control over the region. He critiques Western media coverage of the conflict and argues that the West was complicit in the violence. Ultimately, he concludes that the NATO bombing campaign only exacerbated ethnic divisions within Yugoslavia and set back any potential progress towards peace in the Balkan region.
• Parenti claims that NATO's intervention in Yugoslavia was motivated primarily by geopolitical considerations and a desire to establish military bases throughout Eastern Europe. He sees little evidence of genuine concern for protecting civilians or promoting democracy in the region.
• He accuses Western media outlets of providing biased coverage that painted Bosnian Muslims as innocent victims and demonized Serbs as brutish aggressors. This framing, according to Parenti, helped pave the way for NATO military action.
• While acknowledging the crimes committed by Serb forces against civilian populations, Parenti argues that similar war crimes occurred at the hands of Croat and Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) armed groups. Yet these actions garnered far less attention and condemnation from Western leaders and media outlets.
• Parenti contends that NATO's bombardment of Serbia resulted in numerous civilian casualties and failed to achieve its stated goals of promoting stability or deterring future aggression. Instead, he suggests, the attacks only further destabilized the region and contributed to long-term suffering among ordinary citizens caught in the crossfire.
• Parenti believes that NATO's intervention marked a dangerous precedent for unilateral use of force without clear legal authority or universal support from the global community. This trend, in his
• He emphasizes the deep historical roots of conflicts in the Balkans and the ways in which European powers played significant roles in shaping regional boundaries and identities over centuries. Understanding these dynamics helps explain why contemporary events unfolded as they did.
• Parenti criticizes liberal intellectuals who endorse imperial policies under the guise of supporting human rights or anti-fascism. He urges readers to challenge such facile justifications and instead advocate for more meaningful solutions that address underlying social problems, promote grassroots empowerment, and resist corporate domination.
• Throughout the text, Parenti stresses the value of self-critique and recognizing one's own blind spots and biases. Such reflexivity encourages more nuanced perspectives and greater sensitivity to diverse experiences beyond our immediate contexts.
Slobodan Milošević
• Parenti presents Milošević as an opportunistic politician who capitalized on ethnic polarization and nationalist sentiments to consolidate power in Serbia, while undermining pluralistic reforms implemented earlier by other Communist officials. However, Parenti also notes how political corruption and neoliberal economic reform measures pushed by the International Monetary Fund fueled popular discontent that Milošević could exploit.
• Parenti highlights instances when Milošević appeared willing to compromise with other Balkan leaders or broker agreements mitigating hostilities between various ethno-religious groups. For instance, he signed the Dayton Accords in November 1995 to bring an end to fighting in Bosnia and Herzegovina. These moves suggest Milošević recognized limits to how much Serb dominance in the region could be achieved through brute force alone.
• Parenti disputes allegations that Milošević planned and executed genocidal policies targeting Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim), Kosovar Albanian, or other populations. Instead, he suggests that local paramilitary organizations known as "Serb Volunteer Guard" (SDG) and "Army of Republic Srpska" (VRS) acted autonomously or under rival commanders to commit massacres like the infamous Srebrenica event in July 1995. Though Milošević had influence over the VRS, Parenti implies Milošević did not directly order such crimes.
• Parenti denounces Milošević for permitting or tolerating discriminatory laws passed by the Serbian parliament aimed at restricting minority rights and freedoms, including speech, religion, assembly, and cultural expression. Although he granted autonomy to regions populated mainly by Albanians.
"To Kill A Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia" by Michael Parenti
Hmm… Sounds familiar….Michael Parenti argues that the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia was not motivated by humanitarian concerns, but rather was driven by economic interests and a desire to establish military control over the region. He critiques Western media coverage of the conflict and argues that the West was complicit in the violence. Ultimately, he concludes that the NATO bombing campaign only exacerbated ethnic divisions within Yugoslavia and set back any potential progress towards peace in the Balkan region.
• Parenti claims that NATO's intervention in Yugoslavia was motivated primarily by geopolitical considerations and a desire to establish military bases throughout Eastern Europe. He sees little evidence of genuine concern for protecting civilians or promoting democracy in the region.
• He accuses Western media outlets of providing biased coverage that painted Bosnian Muslims as innocent victims and demonized Serbs as brutish aggressors. This framing, according to Parenti, helped pave the way for NATO military action.
• While acknowledging the crimes committed by Serb forces against civilian populations, Parenti argues that similar war crimes occurred at the hands of Croat and Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) armed groups. Yet these actions garnered far less attention and condemnation from Western leaders and media outlets.
• Parenti contends that NATO's bombardment of Serbia resulted in numerous civilian casualties and failed to achieve its stated goals of promoting stability or deterring future aggression. Instead, he suggests, the attacks only further destabilized the region and contributed to long-term suffering among ordinary citizens caught in the crossfire.
• Parenti believes that NATO's intervention marked a dangerous precedent for unilateral use of force without clear legal authority or universal support from the global community. This trend, in his
• He emphasizes the deep historical roots of conflicts in the Balkans and the ways in which European powers played significant roles in shaping regional boundaries and identities over centuries. Understanding these dynamics helps explain why contemporary events unfolded as they did.
• Parenti criticizes liberal intellectuals who endorse imperial policies under the guise of supporting human rights or anti-fascism. He urges readers to challenge such facile justifications and instead advocate for more meaningful solutions that address underlying social problems, promote grassroots empowerment, and resist corporate domination.
• Throughout the text, Parenti stresses the value of self-critique and recognizing one's own blind spots and biases. Such reflexivity encourages more nuanced perspectives and greater sensitivity to diverse experiences beyond our immediate contexts.
Slobodan Milošević
• Parenti presents Milošević as an opportunistic politician who capitalized on ethnic polarization and nationalist sentiments to consolidate power in Serbia, while undermining pluralistic reforms implemented earlier by other Communist officials. However, Parenti also notes how political corruption and neoliberal economic reform measures pushed by the International Monetary Fund fueled popular discontent that Milošević could exploit.
• Parenti highlights instances when Milošević appeared willing to compromise with other Balkan leaders or broker agreements mitigating hostilities between various ethno-religious groups. For instance, he signed the Dayton Accords in November 1995 to bring an end to fighting in Bosnia and Herzegovina. These moves suggest Milošević recognized limits to how much Serb dominance in the region could be achieved through brute force alone.
• Parenti disputes allegations that Milošević planned and executed genocidal policies targeting Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim), Kosovar Albanian, or other populations. Instead, he suggests that local paramilitary organizations known as "Serb Volunteer Guard" (SDG) and "Army of Republic Srpska" (VRS) acted autonomously or under rival commanders to commit massacres like the infamous Srebrenica event in July 1995. Though Milošević had influence over the VRS, Parenti implies Milošević did not directly order such crimes.
• Parenti denounces Milošević for permitting or tolerating discriminatory laws passed by the Serbian parliament aimed at restricting minority rights and freedoms, including speech, religion, assembly, and cultural expression. Although he granted autonomy to regions populated mainly by Albanians.
R: 203 / I: 31
>dunks on pomo leftists
>dunks on thirdworldists
>dunks on defeatist Christoid Western Marxists and their deathism and glorification of suffering
>the reason India and Africa are so poorly developed isn't because they're overexploited but because the peasantry has not had their land taken from them, that is, because they haven't been exploited enough
<Rescuing the Left From Its Obsession With Culture — Vivek Chibber
https://vid.puffyan.us/watch?v=EQ5gLuk06TU
<Slavoj Zizek vs Vivek Chibber: What Is Ideology?
https://vid.puffyan.us/watch?v=rLNSzxzEbKU
this man is the personification of this board and I refuse to believe otherwise
Vivek Chibber
how has the board missed the work of Vivek Chibber?>dunks on pomo leftists
>dunks on thirdworldists
>dunks on defeatist Christoid Western Marxists and their deathism and glorification of suffering
>the reason India and Africa are so poorly developed isn't because they're overexploited but because the peasantry has not had their land taken from them, that is, because they haven't been exploited enough
<Rescuing the Left From Its Obsession With Culture — Vivek Chibber
https://vid.puffyan.us/watch?v=EQ5gLuk06TU
<Slavoj Zizek vs Vivek Chibber: What Is Ideology?
https://vid.puffyan.us/watch?v=rLNSzxzEbKU
this man is the personification of this board and I refuse to believe otherwise
R: 30 / I: 2
Do we have examples of what a communist, money-less world would be like?
I get that the world is supposed to be moneyless, and that ultimately any world where we exchange commodities would be capitalistic, but I just can't grasp how that is even possible.
How is the world supposed to work without money?
Wouldn't it be a mess if we couldn't exchange things?Do we have examples of what a communist, money-less world would be like?
I get that the world is supposed to be moneyless, and that ultimately any world where we exchange commodities would be capitalistic, but I just can't grasp how that is even possible.
R: 23 / I: 7
Is this work racist and reactionary or does it tells the reality about the African scramble, what is your perspective. And if you have not read it, I strongly recommend you guys to read it as soon as possible.
Thoughts on Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"
I just finished reading it and I think it is a great book. But what do you anons think about it?Is this work racist and reactionary or does it tells the reality about the African scramble, what is your perspective. And if you have not read it, I strongly recommend you guys to read it as soon as possible.
R: 15 / I: 3
>>I have encountered Spanish Flangeits and National Syndicalists who dislike Franco and support Marxism-Leninism.
- Some of these individuals have read Marx and Lenin and believe that ideologically loyal members of the JONS joined the Republicans to protest Franco's takeover of the Union.
>>the only case I have found of this being true was Ramiro Ledesma Ramos who was later shot by the CNT apart from that can't find any other sources so I am here to ask you anons if you can find any other sources of this happening.
<<also, I had to read their Retraded theory ew.
Spanish Civil and National Syndicalism
Did Falangists and National Syndicalists switch allegiance to the Republicans following Franco's control of the JONS labor union?>>I have encountered Spanish Flangeits and National Syndicalists who dislike Franco and support Marxism-Leninism.
- Some of these individuals have read Marx and Lenin and believe that ideologically loyal members of the JONS joined the Republicans to protest Franco's takeover of the Union.
>>the only case I have found of this being true was Ramiro Ledesma Ramos who was later shot by the CNT apart from that can't find any other sources so I am here to ask you anons if you can find any other sources of this happening.
<<also, I had to read their Retraded theory ew.
R: 52 / I: 7
Michael Parenti
Is Michael Parenti a leftist worth reading or is there someone who does what he does better? I've heard people saying there are better Marxist historians but they don't seem to ever cite any. If I should bother whit him which works are best?
R: 41 / I: 14
At present we cannot permit ourselves the luxury of wasting time and energy.
We live on the borderline of two social systems: the old, capitalist system is dying, and the new, communist system is rising. In these days we cannot live as did our fathers and grandfathers. Every day brings something new, and we should be able to see it with our own eyes, to judge and decide on it. But to do that correctly, we must know a lot.
That applies to the working class in general and to every worker in particular. There is no time to work leisurely, with one’s sleeves down. We must work as economically, i.e., as cheap as possible.
History had fated China—a comparatively backward country—to be the second to raise the banner of social revolution and to hold it aloft for 40 years now; she must fortify her material foundation if she is to continue the stronghold of the world revolution. To do that she must work feverishly, without letup, with the maximum economy of time and energy.
(Excerpt from a talk with leading members of the State Planning Commission, the State Economic Commission and departments in charge of agriculture.)
April 20th 1983
Deng Xiaoping -- Economize Time and Energy
Americans are a practical people and they always say: “Time is money.” They have a whole branch of literature—unfortunately, we Chinese know very little of it—dealing with the organization of business in industries and finance, showing young Americans how to save energy and take a shortcut to success. The latter are taught all that very well, and we should learn it too.At present we cannot permit ourselves the luxury of wasting time and energy.
We live on the borderline of two social systems: the old, capitalist system is dying, and the new, communist system is rising. In these days we cannot live as did our fathers and grandfathers. Every day brings something new, and we should be able to see it with our own eyes, to judge and decide on it. But to do that correctly, we must know a lot.
That applies to the working class in general and to every worker in particular. There is no time to work leisurely, with one’s sleeves down. We must work as economically, i.e., as cheap as possible.
History had fated China—a comparatively backward country—to be the second to raise the banner of social revolution and to hold it aloft for 40 years now; she must fortify her material foundation if she is to continue the stronghold of the world revolution. To do that she must work feverishly, without letup, with the maximum economy of time and energy.
(Excerpt from a talk with leading members of the State Planning Commission, the State Economic Commission and departments in charge of agriculture.)
April 20th 1983
R: 13 / I: 4
One thing I constantly encounter amongst young millennial and zoomer Socialists especially of the more woke/idpol variety is that they have absolutely no understanding of the concepts of relative risk and self interest, raised or lowered expectations, plausibility, assessment of leverage power etc - stuff that is very obvious to working class people and especially trade unionists. So many young earnest revolutionaries think that the people don't revolt because basically of brainworms and that they just need to read more books and get why capitalism is bad or whatever. No, there's instrumental rationality and logic there which needs to be understood. People look at the forces around them and leverage power they have - filtered through media and bullshit of course - and decide what they think is realistic accordingly.
It is a lack of this understanding that led, for Chibber, in part, to the ultimate post '68 cultural turn in the Left - to explain why western workers wouldn't revolt, leftoid students and grads decided it must be muh hegemony brainworms and racism (rather than that shock horror social democratic keynesianism in a booming economy was doing well for them relatively speaking) so they went in search of fetishised new inherently revolutionary classes and subjects - far off foreign struggles, women, sexual minorities, racial minorities etc etc etc. This process is still going on today. And I think it also serves as a sort of form of avoidance for a Left which is increasingly rooted in universities - anything to avoid engaging with people where they actually are and your own working class instead of fetishising sub groups of it.
There really needs to be a risk and Socialism 101 lecture derived from this book to kick the idpol out of people, the idealism, the frustrated seething that at its worst turns people towards LARPing and revolutionary adventurism. That and getting people to do boring long term community activism and trade union work.
TLDR 1968 was over half a century ago, the '68 new left was sort of a dead end
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674245136
I would recommend 'confronting capitalism' also by chibber for a bit of a more normie broad intro
https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2705-confronting-capitalism
"The Class Matrix" by Vivek Chibber
In my opinion this is one of the most important and useful pieces of Marxist theory in the past few decades.One thing I constantly encounter amongst young millennial and zoomer Socialists especially of the more woke/idpol variety is that they have absolutely no understanding of the concepts of relative risk and self interest, raised or lowered expectations, plausibility, assessment of leverage power etc - stuff that is very obvious to working class people and especially trade unionists. So many young earnest revolutionaries think that the people don't revolt because basically of brainworms and that they just need to read more books and get why capitalism is bad or whatever. No, there's instrumental rationality and logic there which needs to be understood. People look at the forces around them and leverage power they have - filtered through media and bullshit of course - and decide what they think is realistic accordingly.
It is a lack of this understanding that led, for Chibber, in part, to the ultimate post '68 cultural turn in the Left - to explain why western workers wouldn't revolt, leftoid students and grads decided it must be muh hegemony brainworms and racism (rather than that shock horror social democratic keynesianism in a booming economy was doing well for them relatively speaking) so they went in search of fetishised new inherently revolutionary classes and subjects - far off foreign struggles, women, sexual minorities, racial minorities etc etc etc. This process is still going on today. And I think it also serves as a sort of form of avoidance for a Left which is increasingly rooted in universities - anything to avoid engaging with people where they actually are and your own working class instead of fetishising sub groups of it.
There really needs to be a risk and Socialism 101 lecture derived from this book to kick the idpol out of people, the idealism, the frustrated seething that at its worst turns people towards LARPing and revolutionary adventurism. That and getting people to do boring long term community activism and trade union work.
TLDR 1968 was over half a century ago, the '68 new left was sort of a dead end
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674245136
I would recommend 'confronting capitalism' also by chibber for a bit of a more normie broad intro
https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2705-confronting-capitalism
R: 48 / I: 10
Who wanted what?
What were the longterm effects?
I'm legit lost on what headspace these leaders were so caught up in.
I think it's funny that Mao lured Khrushchev to a pool for a meeting and tried to make him swim, or that they made each other stay in bad hotels when they were visiting each others' countries, but why do these petty dramas appear to eclipse some larger struggle? Please explain this shit to me anons. What were these guys fighting about?
Can Someone Explain the Sino-Soviet Split to Me?
What was actually being fought over in terms of policy?Who wanted what?
What were the longterm effects?
I'm legit lost on what headspace these leaders were so caught up in.
I think it's funny that Mao lured Khrushchev to a pool for a meeting and tried to make him swim, or that they made each other stay in bad hotels when they were visiting each others' countries, but why do these petty dramas appear to eclipse some larger struggle? Please explain this shit to me anons. What were these guys fighting about?
R: 190 / I: 36
On that note, I would also like to direct you to the two threads on consciousness I made since that is related and people were also talking about artificial intelligence in there
Current thread: >>>/edu/9849
Last thread: https://archive.ph/LSgow
Artificial Intelligence
Looking at the recent advancements in the field of AI that perpetually make it into the news I thought it was appropriate to make a thread about artificial intelligence. Even if you believe the recent news on AI are merely sensationalism and that we will head into another “AI Winter” soon, I think it would be interesting to discuss the existence of artificial intelligence and “its labor” from a Marxist perspective and talk about where human beings and their labor fits into a society where AI manages to do a lot of the things that for a long time where believed only a human could do. That aside, I just find it reasonable to remain aware and therefore discuss the impact of current state of the art machine learning models that produce photos with ever increasing striking realism.On that note, I would also like to direct you to the two threads on consciousness I made since that is related and people were also talking about artificial intelligence in there
Current thread: >>>/edu/9849
Last thread: https://archive.ph/LSgow
R: 12 / I: 2
>Lenin getting smuggled back into Russia by the Germans because they thought he would destabilize Russia
>The French King helping the American Revolution to own the British
>The Russian Empress showing the Francisco De Miranda (Venezuelan revolutionary and independence leader) favor in her court and protecting him from the Spanish crown by giving him permission to hide in Russian embassies all over Europe
>The British blockading Haitian ports to own the French, which prevented the French from coming back in and reimposing slavery when they were most able to.
>The Americans supporting New World Independence movements in general against old world monarchies, both for ideological reasons (bourgeois republican ideals) and opportunistic reasons (trade).
>The Americans trading with Haitian slave rebels against the wishes of the French, because it was profitable, even though they themselves were slave owners.
Most of these are from bourgeois republican revolutions against monarchies, or from slave uprisings (in the case of Haiti). Only Lenin fits a communist version of this happening, but I'm sure there are other examples.
what are some times reactionary infighting resulted in revolutionary gains?
I can think of a few, but not an exhaustive catalog:>Lenin getting smuggled back into Russia by the Germans because they thought he would destabilize Russia
>The French King helping the American Revolution to own the British
>The Russian Empress showing the Francisco De Miranda (Venezuelan revolutionary and independence leader) favor in her court and protecting him from the Spanish crown by giving him permission to hide in Russian embassies all over Europe
>The British blockading Haitian ports to own the French, which prevented the French from coming back in and reimposing slavery when they were most able to.
>The Americans supporting New World Independence movements in general against old world monarchies, both for ideological reasons (bourgeois republican ideals) and opportunistic reasons (trade).
>The Americans trading with Haitian slave rebels against the wishes of the French, because it was profitable, even though they themselves were slave owners.
Most of these are from bourgeois republican revolutions against monarchies, or from slave uprisings (in the case of Haiti). Only Lenin fits a communist version of this happening, but I'm sure there are other examples.
R: 9 / I: 2
Something I feel he got right:
- Whereas Marx claims that tech reduces surplus, by claiming that fixed costs would increase over time, and should lead to a reduction in variable costs like labour, Castoriadis criticises this heavily and says that tech provides opportunities to reduce fixed costs, and subsequently can actually increases the number of jobs
Neutral on this one (looking to hear what other people think)
- Castoriadis is highly critical of dialectics as a whole and suggests that Marx is claiming that simply because two things have tension with each other that they are opposites. Especially in the modern world where the lines between workers and capitalists have blurred such that we are all a sort of 'executant' now (think for example, a worker who owns company stock in the company they work out, takes on administrative tasks, or acts as a sort of middleman like a middle manager) and therefore suggests that bureaucracy is the largest enemy we have today that actually unites us on a human level, rather than individual classes of people. Institutions are socially constructed but have taken on a life of their own due to our alienation.
I think he's definitely wrong on this one:
- Tendency of rate of profit to fall. He analyzed this after the war when it was going back up, but it has continued to fall even lower after that point. However he definitely was right to suggest that capitalism was far more resilient than Marx made out
https://files.libcom.org/files/cc_psw_v2.pdf
I'm taking most of these points from 'Modern Capitalism and Revolution'. Castoriadis essentially argues that Marx is outdated and that the system has already transformed from a simple capitalist struggle of 'the one who does not own but works' and 'the one who owns and does not work' into something a lot messier, which Keynes was (according to him) better equipped to analyse.
Cornelius Castoriadis' critiques of Marx
Has anyone here read any of post-marxist Cornelius Castoriadis' critiques of Marx? I feel that in some places he gets the criticisms right, and in other places very wrong. Note that Castoriadis still remained a kind of anarchist.Something I feel he got right:
- Whereas Marx claims that tech reduces surplus, by claiming that fixed costs would increase over time, and should lead to a reduction in variable costs like labour, Castoriadis criticises this heavily and says that tech provides opportunities to reduce fixed costs, and subsequently can actually increases the number of jobs
Neutral on this one (looking to hear what other people think)
- Castoriadis is highly critical of dialectics as a whole and suggests that Marx is claiming that simply because two things have tension with each other that they are opposites. Especially in the modern world where the lines between workers and capitalists have blurred such that we are all a sort of 'executant' now (think for example, a worker who owns company stock in the company they work out, takes on administrative tasks, or acts as a sort of middleman like a middle manager) and therefore suggests that bureaucracy is the largest enemy we have today that actually unites us on a human level, rather than individual classes of people. Institutions are socially constructed but have taken on a life of their own due to our alienation.
I think he's definitely wrong on this one:
- Tendency of rate of profit to fall. He analyzed this after the war when it was going back up, but it has continued to fall even lower after that point. However he definitely was right to suggest that capitalism was far more resilient than Marx made out
https://files.libcom.org/files/cc_psw_v2.pdf
I'm taking most of these points from 'Modern Capitalism and Revolution'. Castoriadis essentially argues that Marx is outdated and that the system has already transformed from a simple capitalist struggle of 'the one who does not own but works' and 'the one who owns and does not work' into something a lot messier, which Keynes was (according to him) better equipped to analyse.
R: 8 / I: 1
Perhaps they are correct.
See, the real truth behind the molotov ribbentrop pact or the winter war doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that the USSR was trying to buy time, cut off potential corridors of german invasion, etc. etc. What matters is that the liberals have a simple, and easily disseminated narrative that can be repeated much faster than the counter-arguments. In short, they have a "Big Lie."
The "big lie" is a propaganda technique that involves telling a bold, often outrageous untruth as if it were fact. The idea behind this method is that by making such outlandish claims, they will stick in people's minds more than smaller lies because of their shock value, even if there is no evidence for them. Over time, these lies can become widely accepted as truth simply due to repetition. This concept was famously used during World War II by Nazi Germany's leader Adolf Hitler who said: “The bigger the lie, the more easily it will be believed.” The term has since been adopted by other groups and individuals in order to manipulate public opinion on various issues.
The MR Pact is a "big lie." How is it told? It is told in a very simple form: Hitler and a Stalin admired each other, came together and rape poland, and only ever fought in WW2 because they disagreed on how best to divide poland.
With this big lie, you have a narrative where the last world war was entirely caused by "National Socialists" and "Regular Socialists" coming together to rape "Innocent Poland." and then the brave liberal democracies with their freedom-loving capitalist economies intervening to save everyone from the holocaust. In this narrative stalin is an opportunist who joined the winning side.
This is how most people in the EU/US/UK/Australia/Canada/New Zealand have come to see WW2. Why? Because it is convenient for their broader anti-proletarian agenda of keeping their economies in private hands.
Molotov Ribbentrop Agreement
every time a liberal discovers that the molotov ribbentrop agreement happened, they think they've discovered some hidden gem, and the key to deboonking communism and making it a pariah in the arena of public opinion.Perhaps they are correct.
See, the real truth behind the molotov ribbentrop pact or the winter war doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that the USSR was trying to buy time, cut off potential corridors of german invasion, etc. etc. What matters is that the liberals have a simple, and easily disseminated narrative that can be repeated much faster than the counter-arguments. In short, they have a "Big Lie."
The "big lie" is a propaganda technique that involves telling a bold, often outrageous untruth as if it were fact. The idea behind this method is that by making such outlandish claims, they will stick in people's minds more than smaller lies because of their shock value, even if there is no evidence for them. Over time, these lies can become widely accepted as truth simply due to repetition. This concept was famously used during World War II by Nazi Germany's leader Adolf Hitler who said: “The bigger the lie, the more easily it will be believed.” The term has since been adopted by other groups and individuals in order to manipulate public opinion on various issues.
The MR Pact is a "big lie." How is it told? It is told in a very simple form: Hitler and a Stalin admired each other, came together and rape poland, and only ever fought in WW2 because they disagreed on how best to divide poland.
With this big lie, you have a narrative where the last world war was entirely caused by "National Socialists" and "Regular Socialists" coming together to rape "Innocent Poland." and then the brave liberal democracies with their freedom-loving capitalist economies intervening to save everyone from the holocaust. In this narrative stalin is an opportunist who joined the winning side.
This is how most people in the EU/US/UK/Australia/Canada/New Zealand have come to see WW2. Why? Because it is convenient for their broader anti-proletarian agenda of keeping their economies in private hands.
R: 1 / I: 0
Vladislav Zubok: Collapse
Has anyone read picrel yet? Is it any good, or just more Applebaum tier trash? Obviously I'm not expecting a Leftist take, but anything critical of the usual "the people rose up to overthrow le evil tyranny" narrative would be good, even from the right. I think I heard the WarNerd guys rexerence it, so thought maybe it's not complete shit.
R: 16 / I: 3
Mencius Moldbug begins with a great diagnosis of the modern state of affairs which calls back to the work of Debord and Castoriadis: nobody seems to 'own' (by which he means, to be responsible for) the state. He wishes to re-unite property with its owner, such that control and ownership once again become 'the same'.
>So this is the formalist manifesto: that the US is just a corporation. It is not a mystic trust consigned to us by the generations. It is not the repository of our hopes and fears, the voice of conscience and the avenging sword of justice. It is just an big old company that holds a huge pile of assets, has no clear idea of what it’s trying to do with them, and is thrashing around like a ten-gallon shark in a five-gallon bucket, red ink spouting from each of its bazillion gills.
>To a formalist, the way to fix the US is to dispense with the ancient mystical horseradish, the corporate prayers and war chants, figure out who owns this monstrosity, and let them decide what in the heck they are going to do with it. I don’t think it’s too crazy to say that all options—including restructuring and liquidation—should be on the table.
>Whether we’re talking about the US, Baltimore, or your wallet, a formalist is only happy when ownership and control are one and the same. To reformalize, therefore, we need to figure out who has actual power in the US, and assign shares in such a way as to reproduce this distribution as closely as possible.
However in this argument he reveals his remaining faith in Hoppean natural law, which even Mises scoffs at in his book on socialism, quite blatantly admitting, like Kropotkin, that property *is* theft. The leviathan cannot be owned (in his sense of being equal to 'control'), as it's too large and bureaucratic. This is a phantom ideal. People will own/control what they can, and fail to own/control what they can't. The 'cathedral' he talks about is nothing other than the state of affairs in which the leviathan *cannot* be controlled. It cannot even be 'liquidated', because it is a huge Nothing, as all property is.
>A formalist is only happy when ownership and control are one and the same.
reveals the implicit ideal that
>everything must remain under control!
but it can't happen. Some things must always fall by the wayside. Ownership secretes anarchy. One must give certain attention to some things over others – one must make a 'choice' so to speak. The leviathan arises out of the inability to take care of one's business, not because we 'got the owners muddled up'.
Ironically this is the exact kind of vita activa Byung-Chul Han, Castoriadis and Heidegger are talking about in modern bureaucratic (and various strands of marxism) which must be overcome. It echoes back to the infamous phrase 'you will own nothing and you will be happy'. Dialectically speaking, the closer we get to the completion of the domination of nature by the will-to-power, the more relieved Dasein is being made *of their care*. The struggle for life is being killed. I think we need to just stop all of this in its tracks. A regaining of responsibility over one's property cannot involve a unified taking-away care via a mass bureaucratic movement (including democracy) but by a direct re-instatement of autonomy in pockets through a direct re-appropriation of property. Desert is prescient here. What this would probably look like is something akin to Stirner's union of egoists.
I like this quote from Castoriadis
>Revolution occurs on the factory floor.
Proust wishes for us to engage in a search for lost time. In the same way, in response to the diagnoses of Moldbug's formalism, I believe we need a 'search for lost property'. It is the property that is lost, not the owner. The property has already ceased to exist as property, due to lack of care, lack of ownership. The present age seems like a lifeless desert, but it’s only here in these arid wastes where truly noble souls can burst forth. when even Being becomes Nothing, when we enter abject meaningless and there’s no truth, no revealing, all is concealed — which is the condition of possibility for the most radical shining forth ever to occur.
So in summary, Moldbug starts with an interesting analysis of the problems of society through the lens of a discussion of bureaucracy, the christian ascetics implicit in the 'progressive left', the growing disparity between control and ownership– but quickly projects his own nonsensical Hoppean moralism and Aristotlean idealism into the solution. also he has a weak chin
1. https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/04/formalist-manifesto-originally-posted/ (Formalist Manifesto by Mencius Moldbug)
2. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-mutual-aid-a-factor-of-evolution (Mutual Aid by Petr Kropotkin)
3. [[The Imaginary Institution of Society]] (Cornelius Castoriadis)
4. [[The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking]] (Martin Heidegger)
5. [[The Scent of Time]] (Byung-Chul Han)
6. [[In Search of Lost Time]] (Marcel Proust)
7. https://www.econlib.org/library/Mises/msS.html (Socialism by Mises)
8. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/max-stirner-the-unique-and-its-property (Unique and its Property by Stirner)
9. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anonymous-desert (Anonymous)
Naive Neo-Reactionary Nonsense
Mencius Moldbug begins with a great diagnosis of the modern state of affairs which calls back to the work of Debord and Castoriadis: nobody seems to 'own' (by which he means, to be responsible for) the state. He wishes to re-unite property with its owner, such that control and ownership once again become 'the same'.
>So this is the formalist manifesto: that the US is just a corporation. It is not a mystic trust consigned to us by the generations. It is not the repository of our hopes and fears, the voice of conscience and the avenging sword of justice. It is just an big old company that holds a huge pile of assets, has no clear idea of what it’s trying to do with them, and is thrashing around like a ten-gallon shark in a five-gallon bucket, red ink spouting from each of its bazillion gills.
>To a formalist, the way to fix the US is to dispense with the ancient mystical horseradish, the corporate prayers and war chants, figure out who owns this monstrosity, and let them decide what in the heck they are going to do with it. I don’t think it’s too crazy to say that all options—including restructuring and liquidation—should be on the table.
>Whether we’re talking about the US, Baltimore, or your wallet, a formalist is only happy when ownership and control are one and the same. To reformalize, therefore, we need to figure out who has actual power in the US, and assign shares in such a way as to reproduce this distribution as closely as possible.
However in this argument he reveals his remaining faith in Hoppean natural law, which even Mises scoffs at in his book on socialism, quite blatantly admitting, like Kropotkin, that property *is* theft. The leviathan cannot be owned (in his sense of being equal to 'control'), as it's too large and bureaucratic. This is a phantom ideal. People will own/control what they can, and fail to own/control what they can't. The 'cathedral' he talks about is nothing other than the state of affairs in which the leviathan *cannot* be controlled. It cannot even be 'liquidated', because it is a huge Nothing, as all property is.
>A formalist is only happy when ownership and control are one and the same.
reveals the implicit ideal that
>everything must remain under control!
but it can't happen. Some things must always fall by the wayside. Ownership secretes anarchy. One must give certain attention to some things over others – one must make a 'choice' so to speak. The leviathan arises out of the inability to take care of one's business, not because we 'got the owners muddled up'.
Ironically this is the exact kind of vita activa Byung-Chul Han, Castoriadis and Heidegger are talking about in modern bureaucratic (and various strands of marxism) which must be overcome. It echoes back to the infamous phrase 'you will own nothing and you will be happy'. Dialectically speaking, the closer we get to the completion of the domination of nature by the will-to-power, the more relieved Dasein is being made *of their care*. The struggle for life is being killed. I think we need to just stop all of this in its tracks. A regaining of responsibility over one's property cannot involve a unified taking-away care via a mass bureaucratic movement (including democracy) but by a direct re-instatement of autonomy in pockets through a direct re-appropriation of property. Desert is prescient here. What this would probably look like is something akin to Stirner's union of egoists.
I like this quote from Castoriadis
>Revolution occurs on the factory floor.
Proust wishes for us to engage in a search for lost time. In the same way, in response to the diagnoses of Moldbug's formalism, I believe we need a 'search for lost property'. It is the property that is lost, not the owner. The property has already ceased to exist as property, due to lack of care, lack of ownership. The present age seems like a lifeless desert, but it’s only here in these arid wastes where truly noble souls can burst forth. when even Being becomes Nothing, when we enter abject meaningless and there’s no truth, no revealing, all is concealed — which is the condition of possibility for the most radical shining forth ever to occur.
So in summary, Moldbug starts with an interesting analysis of the problems of society through the lens of a discussion of bureaucracy, the christian ascetics implicit in the 'progressive left', the growing disparity between control and ownership– but quickly projects his own nonsensical Hoppean moralism and Aristotlean idealism into the solution. also he has a weak chin
1. https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/04/formalist-manifesto-originally-posted/ (Formalist Manifesto by Mencius Moldbug)
2. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-mutual-aid-a-factor-of-evolution (Mutual Aid by Petr Kropotkin)
3. [[The Imaginary Institution of Society]] (Cornelius Castoriadis)
4. [[The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking]] (Martin Heidegger)
5. [[The Scent of Time]] (Byung-Chul Han)
6. [[In Search of Lost Time]] (Marcel Proust)
7. https://www.econlib.org/library/Mises/msS.html (Socialism by Mises)
8. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/max-stirner-the-unique-and-its-property (Unique and its Property by Stirner)
9. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anonymous-desert (Anonymous)
R: 168 / I: 14
Let us ask the question another way. What is the will-to-power? The will-to-power is the actualising force of the ego onto the surroundings. In modern life, the world accelerates faster and faster as humans seek more and more to actualize their will onto the world. The lie we tell ourselves is that the faster we go, the more we can experience and enjoy. The active element of human life becomes frantic, restless, directionless, a mere reflection of the passionless bourgeois consumerism of the times. Though we experience 'leisure' it is nothing more than the brief respite from work, in fact many are compelled to work through this leisure time (productivity culture). We see that the vita activa without the contemplative element leads to a dead, unreflective life, and those who live under it become mere sheep. The man-as-labour metaphysics is not merely descriptive but prescriptive. You WILL work. You WILL be your labour.
As Byung-Chul Han writes
>"History – which, according to Hegel, is a history of freedom – will not be completed as long as we remain the slaves of work. The domination of work makes us unfree. The opposition between master and slave cannot be sublated by everyone becoming a slave of work. It will only be removed if the slave actually transforms himself into a free man. The vita activa remains a term of compulsion as long as it does not incorporate the vita contemplativa within itself. "
Why do we call it an 'acceleration'? Is time truly accelerating? What is really being accelerated? Acceleration is caused by the inability to find conclusions. Time runs off because it finds no conclusion. Right and good time disappears. 'Whoever cannot die at the right time must perish in non-time'. Growing discontinuity, the atomization of time, destroys the experience of continuity. The world becomes *non-timely.* Dasein's cyclical time fades into directionless meaningless moments- atomized. Proust's 'In Search of Lost Time' is a reaction against the progressive de-temporalization of existence. The self disintegrates into a ‘succession of moments’ (succession de moments). Thus, it loses all stability, all permanence. The ‘man that I was’, Proust writes, ‘no longer exists, I am another person’ (je suis un autre). Proust’s novel about time, In Search of Lost Time, is an attempt to stabilize the identity of the self, which threatens to disintegrate. The temporal crisis is experienced as an identity crisis.' Proust’s narrative temporal technique opposes temporal dissociation by framing events, uniting them into a coherent whole, or structuring them into certain periods. They are reassociated. A net of relations between events lets life appear liberated from sheer contingency and bestows significance on it.
In the acceleration of Dasein's time, collective memory becomes fragmented. Surges in poltical traditionalism are a reaction to ongoing foreclosures in our social imagination of our fragmented understanding of history. abstracted traditions disappear from the public conscious to make room for new ones. acceleration of capital gives collective dementia. Proustian recollections of traditions are perceived as spiritual enlightenments. This gives rise to reformulated traditions but under capitalist dementia society is forced to hold onto the memory, chasing after the enjoyment of recollection inorganically through a paranoid repression of difference- fascism arises. In this way not only the accelerationists but also the neo-reactionaries too are idiotic. The future cannot be the mere re-appropriation of past tradition but the transvaluation of values is where the work is done. The re-imagination and re-institution of the magmatic ontologies of society.
So what we see is that what is really being accelerated– is the disintegration of the self by the unchecked will-to-power, and all semiotic difference. Indeed, dialectics itself, the chosen poison of philosophy, is predicated upon the obliteration of the significance of motion, time. How ironic it is that they call themselves accelerationists- given that they do not believe in motion at all!!!! Thought cannot be accelerated, thought must be slow, deliberate. Only through the ending of this age of philosophy and the opening up of a new of age of thinking (which yes, also requires the end of capitalism) can we be free.
Vita Contemplativa!
acceleration is the loss of the gravitational significance of time
The history of philosophy is the history of the will-to-power coming to know itself and affirm its own validity against the lies of sophistry; a therapeutic endeavour of spirit against idealistic bullshit which produce narratives that serve the powers that be. In this regard, the task of philosophy has been fulfilled, completed by Nietzsche & Marx, and the domination of nature by man has found its final vessel in cybernetics. As Wittgenstein writes, "Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language." Philosophy itself has been embroiled in an endless struggle against itself over the same questions for centuries, but never coming any closer to real answers to those questions, with each generation it recedes into more meta-argumentation than before.Given that philosophy has been completed, what remains of the initial questions which plagued the pre-socratics? What is it to be? Why is there something rather than nothing? These are questions philosophy has actually left outstanding, problems that it just isn't equipped to deal with, as the pursuit of 'wisdom' (which reveals itself to merely be a facet of the will-to-power).Let us ask the question another way. What is the will-to-power? The will-to-power is the actualising force of the ego onto the surroundings. In modern life, the world accelerates faster and faster as humans seek more and more to actualize their will onto the world. The lie we tell ourselves is that the faster we go, the more we can experience and enjoy. The active element of human life becomes frantic, restless, directionless, a mere reflection of the passionless bourgeois consumerism of the times. Though we experience 'leisure' it is nothing more than the brief respite from work, in fact many are compelled to work through this leisure time (productivity culture). We see that the vita activa without the contemplative element leads to a dead, unreflective life, and those who live under it become mere sheep. The man-as-labour metaphysics is not merely descriptive but prescriptive. You WILL work. You WILL be your labour.
As Byung-Chul Han writes
>"History – which, according to Hegel, is a history of freedom – will not be completed as long as we remain the slaves of work. The domination of work makes us unfree. The opposition between master and slave cannot be sublated by everyone becoming a slave of work. It will only be removed if the slave actually transforms himself into a free man. The vita activa remains a term of compulsion as long as it does not incorporate the vita contemplativa within itself. "
Why do we call it an 'acceleration'? Is time truly accelerating? What is really being accelerated? Acceleration is caused by the inability to find conclusions. Time runs off because it finds no conclusion. Right and good time disappears. 'Whoever cannot die at the right time must perish in non-time'. Growing discontinuity, the atomization of time, destroys the experience of continuity. The world becomes *non-timely.* Dasein's cyclical time fades into directionless meaningless moments- atomized. Proust's 'In Search of Lost Time' is a reaction against the progressive de-temporalization of existence. The self disintegrates into a ‘succession of moments’ (succession de moments). Thus, it loses all stability, all permanence. The ‘man that I was’, Proust writes, ‘no longer exists, I am another person’ (je suis un autre). Proust’s novel about time, In Search of Lost Time, is an attempt to stabilize the identity of the self, which threatens to disintegrate. The temporal crisis is experienced as an identity crisis.' Proust’s narrative temporal technique opposes temporal dissociation by framing events, uniting them into a coherent whole, or structuring them into certain periods. They are reassociated. A net of relations between events lets life appear liberated from sheer contingency and bestows significance on it.
In the acceleration of Dasein's time, collective memory becomes fragmented. Surges in poltical traditionalism are a reaction to ongoing foreclosures in our social imagination of our fragmented understanding of history. abstracted traditions disappear from the public conscious to make room for new ones. acceleration of capital gives collective dementia. Proustian recollections of traditions are perceived as spiritual enlightenments. This gives rise to reformulated traditions but under capitalist dementia society is forced to hold onto the memory, chasing after the enjoyment of recollection inorganically through a paranoid repression of difference- fascism arises. In this way not only the accelerationists but also the neo-reactionaries too are idiotic. The future cannot be the mere re-appropriation of past tradition but the transvaluation of values is where the work is done. The re-imagination and re-institution of the magmatic ontologies of society.
So what we see is that what is really being accelerated– is the disintegration of the self by the unchecked will-to-power, and all semiotic difference. Indeed, dialectics itself, the chosen poison of philosophy, is predicated upon the obliteration of the significance of motion, time. How ironic it is that they call themselves accelerationists- given that they do not believe in motion at all!!!! Thought cannot be accelerated, thought must be slow, deliberate. Only through the ending of this age of philosophy and the opening up of a new of age of thinking (which yes, also requires the end of capitalism) can we be free.
Vita Contemplativa!
R: 2 / I: 0
I teach Marx's "Wage Labour and Capital" and "Value Price and Profit" in our native language, as part of a trade union movement, where we apprise the laborers with legal rights and theoretical foundations (as compared to "bread and butter unions").
Two questions are usually asked by the workers:
First, doesn't the "risk" taken by the capitalist (in not selling product or selling them below "profit margins") entitle them to a profit?
I'm aware that Marx has a manuscript on this, titled: "Bourgeois Conception of Profit as Reward for Risk" where he paints a dialogue between the worker and farmer. But I'm not so good at the English used here, and so I'd like to ask if my understanding is correct:
Am I correct in saying that because the worker also bears a risk when he sells his labor power to the capitalist (when Marx says: "The workman will he thrown out onto the street if the product is unsalable; and if it falls for long below the market-price, his wages will be brought down below the average and short time will be worked. It is he, therefore, that runs the greatest risk"), this also means that the laborer (seller of his labor power) should ask the capitalist to pay him more, just as the capitalist (as a seller of the finished good) asks the buyer in a market to pay him more?
I do give them an answer, but it's more along the lines of "risk alone is insufficient because there's also the risk of selling more, and in a huge company, profits are basically assured"). But of course, in a smaller enterprise (like a small restaurant chain), the capitalist still has a chance of losing everything and having to pay his creditors.
The workers usually follow this question up with: "what about our family's store?" Since any of their savings go to maintaining a small store (selling at profit). They usually employ someone from the community (or their children) to be paid way below minimum wage. They ask, if they want to pay their "employees." So in a way, they're also exploiting and thus (albeit in a micro and informal economy scale) not very different from their own employers?
Another thing they ask about is luxury goods. They all know it doesn't cost as much to make, in money and in labor power, but it can sell for quite a bit, which runs counter to the theory that the labor power gives a thing its value, and that commodities are sold at, not above or below, their price.
This is all. Thank you very much for indulging the questions above, if you do. I'm very grateful.
Bourgeois Conception of Profit as Reward for Risk
Apologies for any lapses in my grammar as English is not my first language.I teach Marx's "Wage Labour and Capital" and "Value Price and Profit" in our native language, as part of a trade union movement, where we apprise the laborers with legal rights and theoretical foundations (as compared to "bread and butter unions").
Two questions are usually asked by the workers:
First, doesn't the "risk" taken by the capitalist (in not selling product or selling them below "profit margins") entitle them to a profit?
I'm aware that Marx has a manuscript on this, titled: "Bourgeois Conception of Profit as Reward for Risk" where he paints a dialogue between the worker and farmer. But I'm not so good at the English used here, and so I'd like to ask if my understanding is correct:
Am I correct in saying that because the worker also bears a risk when he sells his labor power to the capitalist (when Marx says: "The workman will he thrown out onto the street if the product is unsalable; and if it falls for long below the market-price, his wages will be brought down below the average and short time will be worked. It is he, therefore, that runs the greatest risk"), this also means that the laborer (seller of his labor power) should ask the capitalist to pay him more, just as the capitalist (as a seller of the finished good) asks the buyer in a market to pay him more?
I do give them an answer, but it's more along the lines of "risk alone is insufficient because there's also the risk of selling more, and in a huge company, profits are basically assured"). But of course, in a smaller enterprise (like a small restaurant chain), the capitalist still has a chance of losing everything and having to pay his creditors.
The workers usually follow this question up with: "what about our family's store?" Since any of their savings go to maintaining a small store (selling at profit). They usually employ someone from the community (or their children) to be paid way below minimum wage. They ask, if they want to pay their "employees." So in a way, they're also exploiting and thus (albeit in a micro and informal economy scale) not very different from their own employers?
Another thing they ask about is luxury goods. They all know it doesn't cost as much to make, in money and in labor power, but it can sell for quite a bit, which runs counter to the theory that the labor power gives a thing its value, and that commodities are sold at, not above or below, their price.
This is all. Thank you very much for indulging the questions above, if you do. I'm very grateful.
R: 6 / I: 0
This is just my preliminary thoughts but Im just wondering if this is already being explored in leftists circles. As someone who read theory before but stopped, looking back on it too much was just pure speculation, "source: trust me bro" and "its common sense" type of stuff. If we really want to claim that we are scientific, shouldnt we apply empirical rigor to our body of work, shouldnt we abide by the hierarchy of evidence (be praised) as much as possible instead of being content with Freud-level of theory?
Evidence based politics
I understand the value of pure theory since that's the only tool we have for shaping ideas which where not put into practice or not properly investigated. However, when the body of scientific literature is ever expanding and more and more data is being available, where is the political theory that is backed with evidence?This is just my preliminary thoughts but Im just wondering if this is already being explored in leftists circles. As someone who read theory before but stopped, looking back on it too much was just pure speculation, "source: trust me bro" and "its common sense" type of stuff. If we really want to claim that we are scientific, shouldnt we apply empirical rigor to our body of work, shouldnt we abide by the hierarchy of evidence (be praised) as much as possible instead of being content with Freud-level of theory?
R: 89 / I: 15
And I know people blame muh liberal idpol but this is lazy IMO. This is really a schizo tier conspiracy, the alex-jones-ism of the left. Liberals aren't capable of socially engineering class conflict out of capitalism's existence through mass media or anything else. Its the path of least resistance to just make coalitions out of existing groups of people. Liberal idpol is a consequence and coping political strategy over the lack of class politics, not the cause of it.
Doesn't the fact that the proletariat hasn't emerged as a united political constituency disprove the basic thesis of Marxism? There's no clear evidence that the proletariat is the revolutionary subject, or that a revolutionary subject even exists under capitalism?
Why isn't politics divided along class lines?
If class conflict is a reality, why aren't politics divided along class lines already, even if immature in consciousness, what Lenin called "trade union consciousness". Instead politics is divided between different coalitions involving different sectors and industries of capitalists and workers, divided by education, race, religious, ethnicity, geography, and seemingly everything BUT actual class.And I know people blame muh liberal idpol but this is lazy IMO. This is really a schizo tier conspiracy, the alex-jones-ism of the left. Liberals aren't capable of socially engineering class conflict out of capitalism's existence through mass media or anything else. Its the path of least resistance to just make coalitions out of existing groups of people. Liberal idpol is a consequence and coping political strategy over the lack of class politics, not the cause of it.
Doesn't the fact that the proletariat hasn't emerged as a united political constituency disprove the basic thesis of Marxism? There's no clear evidence that the proletariat is the revolutionary subject, or that a revolutionary subject even exists under capitalism?
R: 118 / I: 15
What is consciousness?
A long time ago we had a very interesting thread on the question of what consciousness is. Perhaps we can have another interesting conversation like that. Share your thoughts and ideas of what consciousness is and how it arises.
R: 44 / I: 10
Debunking the Myth of Male Biological Privilege
Women are not biologically disadvantaged compared to men and men are not disadvantaged compared to women. Although most of the issues women face from their reproductive system are true men also have to bear the burdens of dealing with only one source of an x and y chromosome which can lead to many genetic abnormalities, illnesses and other problems, some that prey directly on that Y chromosome. Coincidentally men are actually more emotional due to centuries of neglect since the Holocene was initiated and have far more issues with impulsivity that can lead to self destructive decision making. The author was wrong to believe male privilege extends to a biological level
R: 60 / I: 16
Wahoo it's another discussion about the USSR
Dunayevskaya’s state capitalist critique of the USSR, she read state stats and analyzed the data with the categories in Marx’s Capital, it’s really fascinating! Touches on labour laws, revolt, crises, preponderance of machinery, commodity fetishism, world market, LoV and more. I love when actual quantitative data is used in these types of questions. The book was published in 1958 but supposedly she began developing this theory as early as 1942, maybe even as early as 1939/40.
R: 8 / I: 0
Some /leftypol/ history
Should be enough to get /leftypol/ a glowpedia article even
Archive of article
https://archive.is/G7JQr
Talking of the burning of the Library of Alexandria and the sacking of Babylon is archive.org down for everybody else or is it just me?
/leftypol/ history from 2017
https://umsu.unimelb.edu.au/news/article/7797/2017-05-11-inside-the-leftypol-community/Some /leftypol/ history
Should be enough to get /leftypol/ a glowpedia article even
Archive of article
https://archive.is/G7JQr
Talking of the burning of the Library of Alexandria and the sacking of Babylon is archive.org down for everybody else or is it just me?
R: 13 / I: 2
Recently discovered there is a debate within Marxist economics that Marx had it incorrect, rather than rate of profit falling, due to capitalist technological innovation, cost-cutting and wage stagnation the Rate of Profit will rise, theorized by marxist economist Nobu Okishio.
Your thoughts?
The Rate of Profit: Rising or Falling
The Rate of Profit: Rising or Falling?Recently discovered there is a debate within Marxist economics that Marx had it incorrect, rather than rate of profit falling, due to capitalist technological innovation, cost-cutting and wage stagnation the Rate of Profit will rise, theorized by marxist economist Nobu Okishio.
Your thoughts?
R: 19 / I: 6
>3,250–15,000 Haitian deaths
>Hundreds to 5,500 forced labor deaths
>National bank of Haiti and its gold seized by US authorities
<"Military camps have been built throughout the island. The property of natives has been taken for military use. Haitians carrying a gun were for a time shot on sight. Machine guns have been turned on crowds of unarmed natives, and United States Marines have, by accounts which several of them gave me in casual conversation, not troubled to investigate how many were killed or wounded."
<NAACP executive secretary Herbert J. Seligman wrote in the July 10, 1920, The Nation
The United States introduced Jim Crow laws to Haiti with racist attitudes towards the Haitian people by the American occupation forces that were blatant and widespread. Many of the Marines chosen to occupy Haiti were from the Southern United States, specifically Alabama and Louisiana, often the grandchildren of confederate veterans, resulting in increased racial tensions. Racism has been recognized as a factor leading to increased violence by American troops against Haitians. One general described Haitians as "n***ers who pretend to speak French".
The torture of Haitian rebels or those suspected of rebelling against the United States was common among occupying Marines. Some methods of torture included forcing prisoners to drink large quantities of water in a short period of time, leading to gastric distension, water intoxication, and possibly death, hanging prisoners by their genitals, and "ceps," which involved pushing both sides of the tibia with the butts of two guns.
The Americans used the now-familiar "counter-insurgency" "tactics" of treating everyone in the country as guilty by association with armed rebels, failing to treat the inhabitants of the country as human beings, killing and burning down towns and villages indiscriminately, deforesting and destroying agriculture, poisoning water.
When Charglemagne Peralte, the rebel leader was killed, the marines stripped his body naked, desecrated it, took photos of it, and dropped printed photos from their airplanes all over Haiti to discourage further insurgency. However, it had the opposite effect, with the image's resemblance to a crucifixion making it an icon of the resistance and establishing Péralte as a martyr.
Woodrow Wilson forced the re-writing of the Haitian constitution so that foreigners were allowed to own private property. This opened the floodgates for the American capitalist plunder of Haiti.
Comprador leader Louis Borno took out more loans from the US to cover Haiti's debt, which was already equal to many years of government budget, debt which Haiti was already in for over a century by that point because France forced indemnity on them through gunboat diplomacy for the crime of… slave rebellion and declaring independence…
The US-backed Borno regime oversaw the use of forced labor to expand the economy and to complete infrastructure projects, which were used to reintroduce large sugar plantations to the island, for the purposes of turning Haiti into a cheap export economy for US consumers.
Many Haitians fled Haiti for the Dominican republic and Cuba only to find US marines were also occupying those places at the time. They had no way to escape.
In 1929 the US marines massacred Haitian protesters during a general strike.
>burger general
please, no, this is about burger imperialism in Haiti.
When Uncle Sam Played Landlord: Amerikkka's 19-Year Haitian Stay (with gunboats)
Nobody ever talks about this, but the United States was in Haiti for longer than it was in Vietnam. July 28, 1915 – August 1, 1934 (19 years and 4 days). During the US occupation of Haiti, two major rebellions against the occupation occurred, resulting in several thousand Haitians killed, and numerous human rights violations – including torture and summary executions – by Marines and the Gendarmerie of Haiti. A corvée system of forced labor was used by the United States for infrastructure projects, that resulted in hundreds to thousands of deaths. Under the occupation, most Haitians continued to live in poverty, while American personnel were well-compensated. Death estimates have a high range, and I think the uncertainty of the statistics betrays how little Haitian lives were valued by the (mostly white) US marines, who frequently wrote letters home describing the Haitians as subhuman.>3,250–15,000 Haitian deaths
>Hundreds to 5,500 forced labor deaths
>National bank of Haiti and its gold seized by US authorities
<"Military camps have been built throughout the island. The property of natives has been taken for military use. Haitians carrying a gun were for a time shot on sight. Machine guns have been turned on crowds of unarmed natives, and United States Marines have, by accounts which several of them gave me in casual conversation, not troubled to investigate how many were killed or wounded."
<NAACP executive secretary Herbert J. Seligman wrote in the July 10, 1920, The Nation
The United States introduced Jim Crow laws to Haiti with racist attitudes towards the Haitian people by the American occupation forces that were blatant and widespread. Many of the Marines chosen to occupy Haiti were from the Southern United States, specifically Alabama and Louisiana, often the grandchildren of confederate veterans, resulting in increased racial tensions. Racism has been recognized as a factor leading to increased violence by American troops against Haitians. One general described Haitians as "n***ers who pretend to speak French".
The torture of Haitian rebels or those suspected of rebelling against the United States was common among occupying Marines. Some methods of torture included forcing prisoners to drink large quantities of water in a short period of time, leading to gastric distension, water intoxication, and possibly death, hanging prisoners by their genitals, and "ceps," which involved pushing both sides of the tibia with the butts of two guns.
The Americans used the now-familiar "counter-insurgency" "tactics" of treating everyone in the country as guilty by association with armed rebels, failing to treat the inhabitants of the country as human beings, killing and burning down towns and villages indiscriminately, deforesting and destroying agriculture, poisoning water.
When Charglemagne Peralte, the rebel leader was killed, the marines stripped his body naked, desecrated it, took photos of it, and dropped printed photos from their airplanes all over Haiti to discourage further insurgency. However, it had the opposite effect, with the image's resemblance to a crucifixion making it an icon of the resistance and establishing Péralte as a martyr.
Woodrow Wilson forced the re-writing of the Haitian constitution so that foreigners were allowed to own private property. This opened the floodgates for the American capitalist plunder of Haiti.
Comprador leader Louis Borno took out more loans from the US to cover Haiti's debt, which was already equal to many years of government budget, debt which Haiti was already in for over a century by that point because France forced indemnity on them through gunboat diplomacy for the crime of… slave rebellion and declaring independence…
The US-backed Borno regime oversaw the use of forced labor to expand the economy and to complete infrastructure projects, which were used to reintroduce large sugar plantations to the island, for the purposes of turning Haiti into a cheap export economy for US consumers.
Many Haitians fled Haiti for the Dominican republic and Cuba only to find US marines were also occupying those places at the time. They had no way to escape.
In 1929 the US marines massacred Haitian protesters during a general strike.
>burger general
please, no, this is about burger imperialism in Haiti.
R: 15 / I: 1
>Indian society has no history at all, at least no known history. What we call its history, is but the history of the successive intruders who founded their empires on the passive basis of that unresisting and unchanging society. The question, therefore, is not whether the English had a right to conquer India, but whether we are to prefer India conquered by the Turk, by the Persian, by the Russian, to India conquered by the Briton.
<England has to fulfill a double mission in India: one destructive, the other regenerating the annihilation of old Asiatic society, and the laying the material foundations of Western society in Asia.
What did Marx bro mean by this?
>Indian society has no history at all, at least no known history. What we call its history, is but the history of the successive intruders who founded their empires on the passive basis of that unresisting and unchanging society. The question, therefore, is not whether the English had a right to conquer India, but whether we are to prefer India conquered by the Turk, by the Persian, by the Russian, to India conquered by the Briton.
<England has to fulfill a double mission in India: one destructive, the other regenerating the annihilation of old Asiatic society, and the laying the material foundations of Western society in Asia.
What did Marx bro mean by this?
R: 92 / I: 18
zapatistas are a good model for functioning socialism in the current era, but its mostly agricultural so it will not be a good comparison point compared to something like the ussr which was much larger scale and had industry
and we can see socialism was working in many socialist states historically, i just think that the zapatistas have a more ideal model of socialist adjacent ideology than what the soviets did because of the emphasis it has on democracy, and it seems to mostly ideologically align with socialism, also seeming to have an emphasis on worker's coops
What is leftypol's view on this?
On Market Socialism
market socialism needs to be tested more in my view, but I think it can work if it's combined with a form of central planning alongside itzapatistas are a good model for functioning socialism in the current era, but its mostly agricultural so it will not be a good comparison point compared to something like the ussr which was much larger scale and had industry
and we can see socialism was working in many socialist states historically, i just think that the zapatistas have a more ideal model of socialist adjacent ideology than what the soviets did because of the emphasis it has on democracy, and it seems to mostly ideologically align with socialism, also seeming to have an emphasis on worker's coops
What is leftypol's view on this?
R: 15 / I: 4
<States
<Legal systems
<Economic systems
<Political systems
There are people behind this system of social control. No matter what "side" it is, they all use the same systems I just mentioned, whether China or Russia or the USA. Their public servants like Soros and Gates and Musk And Trump and Putin and Xi, these are all just different factions that are opposed on the surface level. Rich dynastic families with old histories, secret orders, and monarchies have come together over time to rule the world in this way of statism, legalism, politics, and economics. They aren't necessarily on the same side, but they work together to maintain that exact order of the 4 points I mentioned earlier. Why?
You can claim that everyone developed these systems, and every society developed this in the history of civilization! Well, NO. Not all tribes developed the exact same system of control. The ideology of legal systems and justice is a very specific thing. The Native Americans didn't have police, they didn't have their own economic system like the Euro invaders. They lived based on a gift economy, the same way today you go to the Amazon jungle tribes and they have no conception of any of that shit. In the same way, the Aboriginals in Australia don't, there are even videos of them explaining the fucking shit to them because they don't understand how modern society could have gone so wrong.
The important thing is I don't reject everything in this modern situation of ours. I suppose government systems and other current systems would have to be used for a time as we transition and figure things out. The US state out of all the states spends the most on war. All other states are spending resources and money on war too. If we divert all of the money being poured into war, we can solve all hunger, end all homelessness, build a peaceful society.
Man-made economics didn't always exist either, in fact, it's recent and coincides with the start of civilization. That's what kicked it off, a convergence of technologies - barter, agriculture, and writing led to the first cities and the start of civilization which have only been around about 10,000 years at most.
But for hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions, we lived as hunter-gatherers under nature's gift economy. We've been talking about this for many years, but Marxists always fail to understand why it's superior. You're forgetting natural law and nature's economics. In nature, it works based on a gift economy and that is always in effect, unlike man-made economics that is based on, and layered on top of the natural world in which things are freely shared, so you're not paying for the air breathed or sunlight. You're not paying anything for these imageboard posts or for other interactions you gain from others. But in man-made economics, you pay for a therapeutic chat, you pay for all the food and water and living spaces, and that's only getting worse despite all the commie efforts. I'm not interested in bullshit scraps on a planet of wealth where there's more than enough for even double the population.
Making a point against such enslavement isn't idealism or an argument against history. We didn't have "the same order" for thousands of years, but for about 1500 years that has been slowly developing over time, growing to encompass the whole world in one specific system. It would take generations for people to learn to exist peacefully like I want, with a philosophy and ideology for peace, but it's all forgotten.
But whenever I mention this to Marxist people, you call me out on "perfection or idealism or utopianism" or some bullshit because you have no argument. I don't know how to help you understand, you just misunderstand and ignore things, like no, systems of social control didn't always exist. Governments didn't even always exist, cavemen didn't even live in tribes - they lived in family units. So why do Marxists say that I'm negating the history of civilization, and my ideas are not built on anything but idealism? The ending point Marxists make is that slavery isn't a problem for them, if they are okay with being lied to, robbed, and enslaved then go suck statist dick like a commie cuckold "I have accepted that nothing can change so I shall keep bending over"
There is literally a chance for our species to become better in our own lifetimes, there is factually an option in existence that we can discover to bring it about in the physical world, but Marxists just say keep bending over and there's nothing that can lead us out of our current state of affairs, when in fact there IS a way to bring about peace. The trap that had been set up for intellectuals, all these different political philosophies like Marxism vs AnCap vs AnCom groups, they just talk without achieving, an endless intellectual debate endlessly talking without actually doing something that leads to genuine progress, nothing substantial, not a scrap of bread for a starving man who hasn't ate for a week but Marxists seem to be content with that
Rejecting the Global Status Quo: A Case for Rediscovering Nature's Gift Economy
I've noticed that all of the ruling classes use the same systems of statism, legality, politics, and economics (a mix of capitalism with social welfare systems). They use legal systems, laws, and courts. They all have governments that control, politics, with parties and political systems. It's all the exact same thing all around the entire world. We have been under this shit for 100s of years meaning a specific order has been maintained with increasing expansion:<States
<Legal systems
<Economic systems
<Political systems
There are people behind this system of social control. No matter what "side" it is, they all use the same systems I just mentioned, whether China or Russia or the USA. Their public servants like Soros and Gates and Musk And Trump and Putin and Xi, these are all just different factions that are opposed on the surface level. Rich dynastic families with old histories, secret orders, and monarchies have come together over time to rule the world in this way of statism, legalism, politics, and economics. They aren't necessarily on the same side, but they work together to maintain that exact order of the 4 points I mentioned earlier. Why?
You can claim that everyone developed these systems, and every society developed this in the history of civilization! Well, NO. Not all tribes developed the exact same system of control. The ideology of legal systems and justice is a very specific thing. The Native Americans didn't have police, they didn't have their own economic system like the Euro invaders. They lived based on a gift economy, the same way today you go to the Amazon jungle tribes and they have no conception of any of that shit. In the same way, the Aboriginals in Australia don't, there are even videos of them explaining the fucking shit to them because they don't understand how modern society could have gone so wrong.
The important thing is I don't reject everything in this modern situation of ours. I suppose government systems and other current systems would have to be used for a time as we transition and figure things out. The US state out of all the states spends the most on war. All other states are spending resources and money on war too. If we divert all of the money being poured into war, we can solve all hunger, end all homelessness, build a peaceful society.
Man-made economics didn't always exist either, in fact, it's recent and coincides with the start of civilization. That's what kicked it off, a convergence of technologies - barter, agriculture, and writing led to the first cities and the start of civilization which have only been around about 10,000 years at most.
But for hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions, we lived as hunter-gatherers under nature's gift economy. We've been talking about this for many years, but Marxists always fail to understand why it's superior. You're forgetting natural law and nature's economics. In nature, it works based on a gift economy and that is always in effect, unlike man-made economics that is based on, and layered on top of the natural world in which things are freely shared, so you're not paying for the air breathed or sunlight. You're not paying anything for these imageboard posts or for other interactions you gain from others. But in man-made economics, you pay for a therapeutic chat, you pay for all the food and water and living spaces, and that's only getting worse despite all the commie efforts. I'm not interested in bullshit scraps on a planet of wealth where there's more than enough for even double the population.
Making a point against such enslavement isn't idealism or an argument against history. We didn't have "the same order" for thousands of years, but for about 1500 years that has been slowly developing over time, growing to encompass the whole world in one specific system. It would take generations for people to learn to exist peacefully like I want, with a philosophy and ideology for peace, but it's all forgotten.
But whenever I mention this to Marxist people, you call me out on "perfection or idealism or utopianism" or some bullshit because you have no argument. I don't know how to help you understand, you just misunderstand and ignore things, like no, systems of social control didn't always exist. Governments didn't even always exist, cavemen didn't even live in tribes - they lived in family units. So why do Marxists say that I'm negating the history of civilization, and my ideas are not built on anything but idealism? The ending point Marxists make is that slavery isn't a problem for them, if they are okay with being lied to, robbed, and enslaved then go suck statist dick like a commie cuckold "I have accepted that nothing can change so I shall keep bending over"
There is literally a chance for our species to become better in our own lifetimes, there is factually an option in existence that we can discover to bring it about in the physical world, but Marxists just say keep bending over and there's nothing that can lead us out of our current state of affairs, when in fact there IS a way to bring about peace. The trap that had been set up for intellectuals, all these different political philosophies like Marxism vs AnCap vs AnCom groups, they just talk without achieving, an endless intellectual debate endlessly talking without actually doing something that leads to genuine progress, nothing substantial, not a scrap of bread for a starving man who hasn't ate for a week but Marxists seem to be content with that
R: 25 / I: 5
I am starting a Tiddlywiki and plan on doing the zettelkasten method. The way I understand it, I just take notes and link them to each other with tags or something? Seems straightforward yet quite useful.egoism Egoism
Personal Knowledge Management
What does /edu/ do for knowledge management? Does it work? How important is it? Experiences?I am starting a Tiddlywiki and plan on doing the zettelkasten method. The way I understand it, I just take notes and link them to each other with tags or something? Seems straightforward yet quite useful.
R: 65 / I: 23
ITT We talk about all the weird historical parallels between events, movements, regimes, etc.
I'll start off.
>Charlotte Corday, "first as tragedy …"
<Sympathized with the Girondins, a moderate faction of the French revolution
<was taken aback when by the September massacres of 1792
<held Jean-Paul Marat responsible
<thought him too extreme, and a traitor of the revolution
<told him he had a list of enemies
<showed up at his house
<stabbed him in his bath tub
<she went on trial
<confessed, claimed to be acting alone, was executed
>Fanny Kaplan, "… then as farce"
<member of Socialist Revolutionaries, a moderate faction of the Russian revolution
<was taken aback when the Bolsheviks banned her party
<held Vladimir Lenin responsible
<thought him too extreme, and a traitor of the revolution
<called out to Lenin after a speech he gave at an arms factory in Moscow
<when Lenin turned towards her, she fired three shots at him
<he survived
<she went on trial
<confessed, claimed to be acting alone, was executed
"First As Tragedy, Then As Farce"
"History doesn't repeat, but it often rhymes."ITT We talk about all the weird historical parallels between events, movements, regimes, etc.
I'll start off.
>Charlotte Corday, "first as tragedy …"
<Sympathized with the Girondins, a moderate faction of the French revolution
<was taken aback when by the September massacres of 1792
<held Jean-Paul Marat responsible
<thought him too extreme, and a traitor of the revolution
<told him he had a list of enemies
<showed up at his house
<stabbed him in his bath tub
<she went on trial
<confessed, claimed to be acting alone, was executed
>Fanny Kaplan, "… then as farce"
<member of Socialist Revolutionaries, a moderate faction of the Russian revolution
<was taken aback when the Bolsheviks banned her party
<held Vladimir Lenin responsible
<thought him too extreme, and a traitor of the revolution
<called out to Lenin after a speech he gave at an arms factory in Moscow
<when Lenin turned towards her, she fired three shots at him
<he survived
<she went on trial
<confessed, claimed to be acting alone, was executed
R: 170 / I: 39
I shall sum up the argument for you, since I know many of you dislike reading. In primitive society, reproductive labour relations for the longest time worked such that matriarchy was the dominant mode of relations for reproductive labour, with differing cultural units for reproductive relations (clan, family, etc). At some point there is a 'flip' under which patriarchal relations begin as the dominant mode, which can be tied to the dawn of 'proper' technological civilisation as we know it (takes place after Engels' notion of barbarism with the rise of aristocracy), occurring as the west begins to exert its power over nature and systematises these relations. Firestone's conclusion is that biologically speaking, woman cannot truly be free until liberated from her biology.
I think in many ways it's a beautiful analysis, but also very flawed in the same way of de Beauvoir- namely, Firestone, rather than critiquing the focus of capitalism on productivity and power over nature, instead believes that women should be changing to conform to be 'more like men'. Moreover, I think it must really be supplemented with more modern treatments of gender (like via Judith Butler) given there's I think significant evidence that gender takes on a life of its own (and in many ways always has) which rather than being recourse to mere reproductive labour, also has its foundations in various other intersections of political life (capitalism, etc). Freud I think gives some good insights as to why sex and sexual relations and gender relations by extension have more to do with the human drive for power rather than reproductive relations.
Nonetheless, wondering if anyone else has read the text. I think it's a great piece of radfem literature.
Shulamith Firestone
So I read this book first a few years ago but it came up again in conversation recently. I wanted to make a thread about it so we can have a proper discussion about its positives and negatives, because I think it has both. First of all, I believe it was maybe the first book (that I know of) to give a properly dialectical treatment to the historical development of reproductive labour relations, building largely off of Engels' work. De Beauvoir had her own stuff but a lot of the marxism in her work is under the surface and indirect, whereas Firestone makes constant reference to Engels.I shall sum up the argument for you, since I know many of you dislike reading. In primitive society, reproductive labour relations for the longest time worked such that matriarchy was the dominant mode of relations for reproductive labour, with differing cultural units for reproductive relations (clan, family, etc). At some point there is a 'flip' under which patriarchal relations begin as the dominant mode, which can be tied to the dawn of 'proper' technological civilisation as we know it (takes place after Engels' notion of barbarism with the rise of aristocracy), occurring as the west begins to exert its power over nature and systematises these relations. Firestone's conclusion is that biologically speaking, woman cannot truly be free until liberated from her biology.
I think in many ways it's a beautiful analysis, but also very flawed in the same way of de Beauvoir- namely, Firestone, rather than critiquing the focus of capitalism on productivity and power over nature, instead believes that women should be changing to conform to be 'more like men'. Moreover, I think it must really be supplemented with more modern treatments of gender (like via Judith Butler) given there's I think significant evidence that gender takes on a life of its own (and in many ways always has) which rather than being recourse to mere reproductive labour, also has its foundations in various other intersections of political life (capitalism, etc). Freud I think gives some good insights as to why sex and sexual relations and gender relations by extension have more to do with the human drive for power rather than reproductive relations.
Nonetheless, wondering if anyone else has read the text. I think it's a great piece of radfem literature.
R: 2 / I: 0
>A unique social and economic organisation
<Tristan da Cunha offers the world a special social and economic organisation evolved over the years, but based on the principles set out by William Glass in 1817 when he established a settlement based on equality. All Tristan families are farmers, owning their own stock and tending Potato Patches and settlement gardens around houses built by themselves or by their ancestors. All land is communally owned, and stock numbers are strictly controlled to both conserve pasture and to prevent better off families accumulating wealth. No 'outsiders' are allowed to buy land or settle on Tristan - despite many applications to join a society referred to as 'Utopia'.
>Flexible Working
<Tristan da Cunha has a model of flexible working which is the envy of many people stuck in a career routine. All people (including children and pensioners) are involved in farming whilst adults additionally have salaried jobs working either for the fishing company and / or the Government or a small number in domestic service. It would not be unusual for a man to have a salaried job working for a Government Department, and also be paid to fish part-time in good weather during the season. He would expect to take days off to build or repair his own house, or to volunteer to help with a neighbour's repair. Family groups would take a few days off in the summer for a Nightingale hunting and gathering trip or a trip to The Caves for a 'holiday', Stony Beach for cattle or Sandy Point for apples. Women are employed in a wide range of Government jobs, also working part-time processing crawfish in the factory on fishing days or in domestic service. Whilst many jobs which appear by tradition to be exclusively male or female, several Heads of Department are women, and the island has a tradition of women in leading roles, including at various times the Chief Islander and the Head of St Mary's School.
>A unique social and economic organisation
<Tristan da Cunha offers the world a special social and economic organisation evolved over the years, but based on the principles set out by William Glass in 1817 when he established a settlement based on equality. All Tristan families are farmers, owning their own stock and tending Potato Patches and settlement gardens around houses built by themselves or by their ancestors. All land is communally owned, and stock numbers are strictly controlled to both conserve pasture and to prevent better off families accumulating wealth. No 'outsiders' are allowed to buy land or settle on Tristan - despite many applications to join a society referred to as 'Utopia'.
>Flexible Working
<Tristan da Cunha has a model of flexible working which is the envy of many people stuck in a career routine. All people (including children and pensioners) are involved in farming whilst adults additionally have salaried jobs working either for the fishing company and / or the Government or a small number in domestic service. It would not be unusual for a man to have a salaried job working for a Government Department, and also be paid to fish part-time in good weather during the season. He would expect to take days off to build or repair his own house, or to volunteer to help with a neighbour's repair. Family groups would take a few days off in the summer for a Nightingale hunting and gathering trip or a trip to The Caves for a 'holiday', Stony Beach for cattle or Sandy Point for apples. Women are employed in a wide range of Government jobs, also working part-time processing crawfish in the factory on fishing days or in domestic service. Whilst many jobs which appear by tradition to be exclusively male or female, several Heads of Department are women, and the island has a tradition of women in leading roles, including at various times the Chief Islander and the Head of St Mary's School.
R: 43 / I: 2
To me it's quite clear high end communism can ONLY occur after we have won internationally. The correct position is in one nation, till all nations, till nations aren't a thing! The correct position is classlessness before statelessness! YOU CAN'T ELIMINATE THE STATE WITHOUT ELIMINATING CLASS! Class isn't a domestic relation it's a international one. You can remove the national Bourgeoisie, only to have a intensified battle with the international Bourgeoisie. AES literally couldn't remove the state, because as we all know the state is a tool of a class to dominate the other. Victory over class is the victory over the state's existence.
So this gets me to a problem in our messaging. We are selling to people the world of the higher stage. We are telling them why capitalism must be removed. Revolution then what? Well nothing but surviving HAS to be the answer till international victory is won. Marxist need to get anarchist set straight. People need to know how hollow the anarchist vision is. To promise statelessness before classlessness is as infantile as it can get! To close to promise statelessness, without explaining classlessness has to come first undermines us!
TLDR? Classlessness is a must to statelessness! Opposing opinions are infantile!
Classlessness before statelessness!
What is high stage communism? Statelessness, moneylessness, classlessness with the removal of wage laboring to a surplus taking class. It's supposed to be without commodity production… The world is only seen the lower end, the phase on the attempt there. The question is why did we expect high stage results, in low stage material conditions? Anons we know why it's "left" anti-communismTo me it's quite clear high end communism can ONLY occur after we have won internationally. The correct position is in one nation, till all nations, till nations aren't a thing! The correct position is classlessness before statelessness! YOU CAN'T ELIMINATE THE STATE WITHOUT ELIMINATING CLASS! Class isn't a domestic relation it's a international one. You can remove the national Bourgeoisie, only to have a intensified battle with the international Bourgeoisie. AES literally couldn't remove the state, because as we all know the state is a tool of a class to dominate the other. Victory over class is the victory over the state's existence.
So this gets me to a problem in our messaging. We are selling to people the world of the higher stage. We are telling them why capitalism must be removed. Revolution then what? Well nothing but surviving HAS to be the answer till international victory is won. Marxist need to get anarchist set straight. People need to know how hollow the anarchist vision is. To promise statelessness before classlessness is as infantile as it can get! To close to promise statelessness, without explaining classlessness has to come first undermines us!
TLDR? Classlessness is a must to statelessness! Opposing opinions are infantile!
R: 249 / I: 33
Things in their pure objective presence only become noticeable for a person stuck in average-everydayness when they break or become unhandy, when there is a 'disruption in the chain of references', bringing us back into the real world and provides real possibility for a re-evaluation of the surrounding world (umwelt). For me this implies that as people who wish to change the world and destroy Capital, we should as our first point of praxis in resistance seek to destroy chains of signification and reference. This calls for not simply protesting calls for people to re-evaluate their relation to labour– but outright sabotage. anti-work. pure destruction of that which pulls people in most into average-everydayness in terms of productive work. large corporations' attempts to ever improve 'accessibility' for the disabled, ease-of-use, ergonomics, etc requires the strongest opposition. the more anti-work and anti-capitalism you are the better, putting up positive ideals for systems has to come after we already have disrupted capitalist signification and brought people back into a sober relation to the objective presence of things so that we can start re-evaluating our relation to the world which has to itself begin with a relation to our own Being. This is not to say protesting capitalism doesn't work since protestations can also yank people out of their average-everydayness but generally it has to be an emotional affair first rather than a rational one.
sooo let's break things ig :)
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-pouget-sabotage
accessibility, marx, heidegger
Things (pragmata) have not mere objective presence (vorhandenheit), but also a handiness (zuhandenheit), and in average-everydayness we fall into infinite chains of 'in-order-to' via references (verweisungen) between useful things and the 'what-for' (wozu); the mode of being that Heidegger calls circumspection, in which we only perceive things in their handiness. Capital makes heavy use of accessibility, signage, to make things easy to use in production– think about the dull soullessness of modern operating systems and computers; Capital has its own entire branch of study for this - 'ergonomics'. The effect of this is to pull us further into circumspection and out of a recognition of the pure being of things, so that we keep following orders, consuming, obeying, etc.Things in their pure objective presence only become noticeable for a person stuck in average-everydayness when they break or become unhandy, when there is a 'disruption in the chain of references', bringing us back into the real world and provides real possibility for a re-evaluation of the surrounding world (umwelt). For me this implies that as people who wish to change the world and destroy Capital, we should as our first point of praxis in resistance seek to destroy chains of signification and reference. This calls for not simply protesting calls for people to re-evaluate their relation to labour– but outright sabotage. anti-work. pure destruction of that which pulls people in most into average-everydayness in terms of productive work. large corporations' attempts to ever improve 'accessibility' for the disabled, ease-of-use, ergonomics, etc requires the strongest opposition. the more anti-work and anti-capitalism you are the better, putting up positive ideals for systems has to come after we already have disrupted capitalist signification and brought people back into a sober relation to the objective presence of things so that we can start re-evaluating our relation to the world which has to itself begin with a relation to our own Being. This is not to say protesting capitalism doesn't work since protestations can also yank people out of their average-everydayness but generally it has to be an emotional affair first rather than a rational one.
sooo let's break things ig :)
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-pouget-sabotage
R: 48 / I: 9
i'm not saying we should all become anti-Leninist Maoists or anything, but we need to recognize that dialectics doesn't account for the fluctuations of reality. it's too rigid and dogmatic for our ever-changing world. instead, we should embrace eclectics, which allows for a more fluid and adaptable approach to revolutionary praxis. we can take inspiration from various theories and practices without getting bogged down in sectarianism.
now, i know some of y'all might be thinking "but what about post-structuralists?? they're all about that anti-dialectical life!" and while i agree that their critiques are important, we also need to be cautious about how we approach their theories. we don't want to fall into the trap of the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia, who use postmodernism as an excuse to avoid taking any real action.
what we need is a safe space, a place where we can embrace the complexity and messiness of reality without getting trapped in dialectical thinking. this means recognizing that our ideas and strategies will always be provisional and subject to change, and that's okay. as long as we keep moving forward and adapting to new circumstances, we can create a truly revolutionary praxis that is inclusive, adaptable, and effective.
peace and love
dialectics are oppressive embrace eclectics instead
look, i know it's trendy for some to be all about that dialectical life, but let's be real for a sec. the way that social-fascist pseudo-Marxists and pro-China neo-revisionists try to wield dialectics is not only tired but downright oppressive. they act like their version of Leftism is the only way to resist capitalism and imperialism, but they forget that even Marx himself recognized the limitations of dialectics in his later years.i'm not saying we should all become anti-Leninist Maoists or anything, but we need to recognize that dialectics doesn't account for the fluctuations of reality. it's too rigid and dogmatic for our ever-changing world. instead, we should embrace eclectics, which allows for a more fluid and adaptable approach to revolutionary praxis. we can take inspiration from various theories and practices without getting bogged down in sectarianism.
now, i know some of y'all might be thinking "but what about post-structuralists?? they're all about that anti-dialectical life!" and while i agree that their critiques are important, we also need to be cautious about how we approach their theories. we don't want to fall into the trap of the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia, who use postmodernism as an excuse to avoid taking any real action.
what we need is a safe space, a place where we can embrace the complexity and messiness of reality without getting trapped in dialectical thinking. this means recognizing that our ideas and strategies will always be provisional and subject to change, and that's okay. as long as we keep moving forward and adapting to new circumstances, we can create a truly revolutionary praxis that is inclusive, adaptable, and effective.
peace and love
R: 44 / I: 4
Kautsky was ahead of his time
hot take: Kautsky's theory of "ultra imperialism" was ultimately correct, but 100 years ahead of its time. Lenin was correct in the contemporary debate, but Kautsky is correct today. Today we have an ultra-imperialist coalition called NATO that will coup, sanction, embargo, invade, wage proxy wars, and otherwise destabilize any government, even bourgeois governments, that do not align with its economic hegemonic interests. This ultra-imperialism, rather than exporting capital and creating its own future competitors in a developmentalist fashion, has learned from the mistakes of past empires, and now limits the amount of capital it exports. It no longer develops the periphery like the traditional bourgeoisie of the 18th and 19th century did. It instead arrests the development of peripheral countries, so that they can remain neo-colonies for as long as possible. This is done through relatively innocuous methods like coup regimes taking out high interest IMF loans with structural adjustment programs rather than obvious methods like invasion and enslavement. Because of the innocuousness and efficiency of the methods of neocolonialism, the neocolonial relationship is obfuscated and made confusing to the general public, who do not see it operating. It also make geopolitical conflicts more confusing, and can make a power defending against a proxy war look like an aggressor. Furthermore, China is bourgeois, but they are bourgeois in the traditional sense that they actually export capital and help develop the global south, which is why global south nations are choosing to ally with them over the imperial core. Having a traditional imperialist relationship turns out to be less parasitic than having an ultra-imperialist relationship in the same way that being an indentured servant is better than being a slave. Traditional imperialism makes the nations of the periphery indentured servants to the imperial core. Ultra-imperialism constantly resets the clock and arrests development, effectively making them slaves to the imperial core, because their level of development can't catch up enough to throw off the shackles of the imperial relationship and its fundamental wage disparity, even though their development nominally continues. this is the source of all the confused argument over multipolarity/unipolarity, whether such and such nation is bourgeois or not. The difference between comprador and national bourgeoisie now matters more than ever. Also, the climate is being destroyed so now the clock is ticking on top of everything else. Unresolved debates are stacking up exactly when they shouldn't be.
R: 37 / I: 9
I see a handful of religious leftists on here who believe in souls, ghosts, and even silly things like an immutable "National Character" inherent to geographic regions. They usually use these things as an excuse for reactionary idealism or outright sadism.
The "self" is a function of biology, rather than an eternal and immutable immaterial thing.
>Phineas P. Gage (1823–1860) was an American railroad construction foreman remembered for his improbable survival of an accident in which a large iron rod was driven completely through his head, destroying much of his brain's left frontal lobe, and for that injury's reported effects on his personality and behavior over the remaining 12 years of his life—effects sufficiently profound that friends saw him (for a time at least) as "no longer Gage".
>Phineas Gage influenced 19th-century discussion about the mind and brain, particularly debate on cerebral localization, and was perhaps the first case to suggest the brain's role in determining personality, and that damage to specific parts of the brain might induce specific mental changes.
Absolutely spooked reactionaries to this day continue to believe we have little ghosty ghosts created by God that determine our personality, our disposition, the kinds of choices we make in our life, and that in turn determines which fictional realm our ghosty ghosts get sent to after we die. When, in reality, something out of your control like an illness or traumatic brain injury can fundamentally change who you are and how you act and the kinds of decisions you make.
Spooked reactionaries are sadists who want to continue to punish people for how the machinery of their brains work, rather than closely study people to determine a path to changing behavior without torture, imprisonment, capital punishment and other reactionary spookery. They say "actions have consequences" not realizing that the "consequences" of actions are socially constructed or that crime and other taboo behaviors are rarely deterred by the severity of punishments.
the case of Phineas Gage disproved souls in 1848
Why do people continue believing in ghosts or souls after Phineas Gage?I see a handful of religious leftists on here who believe in souls, ghosts, and even silly things like an immutable "National Character" inherent to geographic regions. They usually use these things as an excuse for reactionary idealism or outright sadism.
The "self" is a function of biology, rather than an eternal and immutable immaterial thing.
>Phineas P. Gage (1823–1860) was an American railroad construction foreman remembered for his improbable survival of an accident in which a large iron rod was driven completely through his head, destroying much of his brain's left frontal lobe, and for that injury's reported effects on his personality and behavior over the remaining 12 years of his life—effects sufficiently profound that friends saw him (for a time at least) as "no longer Gage".
>Phineas Gage influenced 19th-century discussion about the mind and brain, particularly debate on cerebral localization, and was perhaps the first case to suggest the brain's role in determining personality, and that damage to specific parts of the brain might induce specific mental changes.
Absolutely spooked reactionaries to this day continue to believe we have little ghosty ghosts created by God that determine our personality, our disposition, the kinds of choices we make in our life, and that in turn determines which fictional realm our ghosty ghosts get sent to after we die. When, in reality, something out of your control like an illness or traumatic brain injury can fundamentally change who you are and how you act and the kinds of decisions you make.
Spooked reactionaries are sadists who want to continue to punish people for how the machinery of their brains work, rather than closely study people to determine a path to changing behavior without torture, imprisonment, capital punishment and other reactionary spookery. They say "actions have consequences" not realizing that the "consequences" of actions are socially constructed or that crime and other taboo behaviors are rarely deterred by the severity of punishments.
R: 124 / I: 14
Similarly, working class movements, things like trade unions and communist parties, were vastly more successful in the imperial core in the early stage of capitalist development. Stuff like the Paris Commune or the 1877 St. Louis General Strike would be nearly impossible today with the state of working class organization. Post-war modernization became incredibly efficient at decimating union membership and demonizing and coopting social movements. Besides, if you get a guy organizing like Lenin in a modern state they'll just kill you or imprison you for 30 years instead of sending you to a comfy cabin in Siberia for a couple summers and hoping you learn your lesson.
Essentially every highly developed capitalist nation has become incredibly efficient at atomizing workers, manufacturing alienation, and crushing the capacity of its people to organize any resistance. Look at miserable places like America, or South Korea. If the social technology available to the ruling class to manufacture consent and divide & conquer their working class only gets more sophisticated over time, why should we assume that socialism is necessarily bound to emerge from developmental progress, even if it's obviously better and technological advances might even make stuff like cybernetic central planning feasible? What's stopping them from simply making human beings so alienated from each other that fighting back is impossible? Stuff promising "socialism by 2050" because development will necessarily lead to communism seems about as likely as liberal states promising net zero carbon emissions by 2050 or whatever. Is there anything to meaningfully contradict this? The resurgence of nationalist social democracy in LatAm and stuff is encouraging but it feels like a step back in ambition.
Does capitalist development necessarily lead to socialism?
Nearly every successful socialist revolution has happened in an underdeveloped nation in the global periphery, usually very early in that place's capitalist development. While these revolutionary projects have proved incredibly successful at raising living standards and quality of life and modernizing their nations, most successful socialist projects have a habit of reverting through revisionism into some level of capitalist development. Those who remain committed to more Marxist-Leninist economic practices often become incredibly isolationist due to imperialist pressure.Similarly, working class movements, things like trade unions and communist parties, were vastly more successful in the imperial core in the early stage of capitalist development. Stuff like the Paris Commune or the 1877 St. Louis General Strike would be nearly impossible today with the state of working class organization. Post-war modernization became incredibly efficient at decimating union membership and demonizing and coopting social movements. Besides, if you get a guy organizing like Lenin in a modern state they'll just kill you or imprison you for 30 years instead of sending you to a comfy cabin in Siberia for a couple summers and hoping you learn your lesson.
Essentially every highly developed capitalist nation has become incredibly efficient at atomizing workers, manufacturing alienation, and crushing the capacity of its people to organize any resistance. Look at miserable places like America, or South Korea. If the social technology available to the ruling class to manufacture consent and divide & conquer their working class only gets more sophisticated over time, why should we assume that socialism is necessarily bound to emerge from developmental progress, even if it's obviously better and technological advances might even make stuff like cybernetic central planning feasible? What's stopping them from simply making human beings so alienated from each other that fighting back is impossible? Stuff promising "socialism by 2050" because development will necessarily lead to communism seems about as likely as liberal states promising net zero carbon emissions by 2050 or whatever. Is there anything to meaningfully contradict this? The resurgence of nationalist social democracy in LatAm and stuff is encouraging but it feels like a step back in ambition.
R: 40 / I: 18
Oliver Cromwell is akin to Robspierre, a revolutionary far ahead of his time, which helped develope a revolutionary tradition within britain and inspire europe itself to light itself aflame in the fires of revolt. His reforms introduced democracy not only to the state but to all of society itself. His New Model army was itself based of a democratic foundation which pushed for discussion and debate within its ranks in order to make the army iteslf a ideological extension of Parlimentary Political thought, something which was also seen within the Red Army.
Since then, a pile of dirt was thrown across Cromwells grave and he was deemed a imperialist, a genocider, and other such statements which were fabricated by the Royalist restorationists with no basis for such claims other than trying to de-legitimize a authentic Revolutionary which was Cromwell. While not as radical as the Levellers or Diggers, Cromwell still stands as a progressive and revolutionary hero in British history, and rehabilitating his image amongst Marxists and Britons as a whole would lay the foundations for a revolutionary revival in Britain.
In short' I'd like to end with a quote from Trotsky: "British workers can learn incomparably more from Cromwell than from MacDonald, Snowden, Webb and other such compromising brethren. Cromwell was a great revolutionary of his time, who knew how to uphold the interests of the new, bourgeois social system against the old aristocratic one without holding back at anything. This must be learnt from him, and the dead lion of the seventeenth century"
https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/britain/ch06.htm
https://www.marxists.org/archive/hill-christopher/english-revolution/
Cromwell - A revolutionary pROGRESSIVE
Oliver Cromwell was the greatest British Revolutionary.Oliver Cromwell is akin to Robspierre, a revolutionary far ahead of his time, which helped develope a revolutionary tradition within britain and inspire europe itself to light itself aflame in the fires of revolt. His reforms introduced democracy not only to the state but to all of society itself. His New Model army was itself based of a democratic foundation which pushed for discussion and debate within its ranks in order to make the army iteslf a ideological extension of Parlimentary Political thought, something which was also seen within the Red Army.
Since then, a pile of dirt was thrown across Cromwells grave and he was deemed a imperialist, a genocider, and other such statements which were fabricated by the Royalist restorationists with no basis for such claims other than trying to de-legitimize a authentic Revolutionary which was Cromwell. While not as radical as the Levellers or Diggers, Cromwell still stands as a progressive and revolutionary hero in British history, and rehabilitating his image amongst Marxists and Britons as a whole would lay the foundations for a revolutionary revival in Britain.
In short' I'd like to end with a quote from Trotsky: "British workers can learn incomparably more from Cromwell than from MacDonald, Snowden, Webb and other such compromising brethren. Cromwell was a great revolutionary of his time, who knew how to uphold the interests of the new, bourgeois social system against the old aristocratic one without holding back at anything. This must be learnt from him, and the dead lion of the seventeenth century"
https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/britain/ch06.htm
https://www.marxists.org/archive/hill-christopher/english-revolution/
R: 37 / I: 5
Rate of Profit
With all the corporate consolidations and acquisitions and mergers at an all time high and with banks collapsing left and right. Is the ROP just tanking? And I mean so low that there's no way to draw any more profit except through more and more consolidation. To me it seems that the ROP has gone into the negatives and shareholders primacy is the only policy, abandoning long term plans for short term quarterly results.
R: 20 / I: 3
Update: This was originally apparently written by H. Michael Sweeney.
1. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Regardless of what you know, don’t discuss it — especially if you are a public figure, news anchor, etc. If it’s not reported, it didn’t happen, and you never have to deal with the issues.
2. Become incredulous and indignant. Avoid discussing key issues and instead focus on side issues which can be used show the topic as being critical of some otherwise sacrosanct group or theme. This is also known as the “How dare you!” gambit.
3. Create rumor mongers. Avoid discussing issues by describing all charges, regardless of venue or evidence, as mere rumors and wild accusations. Other derogatory terms mutually exclusive of truth may work as well. This method works especially well with a silent press, because the only way the public can learn of the facts are through such “arguable rumors”. If you can associate the material with the Internet, use this fact to certify it a “wild rumor” which can have no basis in fact.
4. Use a straw man. Find or create a seeming element of your opponent’s argument which you can easily knock down to make yourself look good and the opponent to look bad. Either make up an issue you may safely imply exists based on your interpretation of the opponent/opponent arguments/situation, or select the weakest aspect of the weakest charges. Amplify their significance and destroy them in a way which appears to debunk all the charges, real and fabricated alike, while actually avoiding discussion of the real issues.
5. Sidetrack opponents with name calling and ridicule. This is also known as the primary attack the messenger ploy, though other methods qualify as variants of that approach. Associate opponents with unpopular titles such as “kooks”, “right-wing”, “liberal”, “left-wing”, “terrorists”, “conspiracy buffs”, “radicals”, “militia”, “racists”, “religious fanatics”, “sexual deviates”, and so forth. This makes others shrink from support out of fear of gaining the same label, and you avoid dealing with issues.
6. Hit and Run. In any public forum, make a brief attack of your opponent or the opponent position and then scamper off before an answer can be fielded, or simply ignore any answer. This works extremely well in Internet and letters-to-the-editor environments where a steady stream of new identities can be called upon without having to explain criticism reasoning — simply make an accusation or other attack, never discussing issues, and never answering any subsequent response, for that would dignify the opponent’s viewpoint.
7. Question motives. Twist or amplify any fact which could so taken to imply that the opponent operates out of a hidden personal agenda or other bias. This avoids discussing issues and forces the accuser on the defensive.
8. Invoke authority. Claim for yourself or associate yourself with authority and present your argument with enough “jargon” and “minutiae” to illustrate you are “one who knows”, and simply say it isn’t so without discussing issues or demonstrating concretely why or citing sources.
9. Play Dumb. No matter what evidence or logical argument is offered, avoid discussing issues with denial they have any credibility, make any sense, provide any proof, contain or make a point, have logic, or support a conclusion. Mix well for maximum effect.
10. Associate opponent charges with old news. A derivative of the straw man usually, in any large-scale matter of high visibility, someone will make charges early on which can be or were already easily dealt with. Where it can be foreseen, have your own side raise a straw man issue and have it dealt with early on as part of the initial contingency plans. Subsequent charges, regardless of validity or new ground uncovered, can usually them be associated with the original charge and dismissed as simply being a rehash without need to address current issues — so much the better where the opponent is or was involved with the original source.
11. Establish and rely upon fall-back positions. Using a minor matter or element of the facts, take the “high road” and “confess” with candor that some innocent mistake, in hindsight, was made — but that opponents have seized on the opportunity to blow it all out of proportion and imply greater criminalities which, “just isn’t so.” Others can reinforce this on your behalf, later. Done properly, this can garner sympathy and respect for “coming clean” and “owning up” to your mistakes without addressing more serious issues.
12. Enigmas have no solution. Drawing upon the overall umbrella of events surrounding the crime and the multitude of players and events, paint the entire affair as too complex to solve. This causes those otherwise following the matter to begin to loose interest more quickly without having to address the actual issues.
13. Alice in Wonderland Logic. Avoid discussion of the issues by reasoning backwards with an apparent deductive logic in a way that forbears any actual material fact.
14. Demand complete solutions. Avoid the issues by requiring opponents to solve the crime at hand completely, a ploy which works best for items qualifying for rule 10.
15. Fit the facts to alternate conclusions. This requires creative thinking unless the crime was planned with contingency conclusions in place.
16. Vanishing evidence and witnesses. If it does not exist, it is not fact, and you won’t have to address the issue.
17. Change the subject. Usually in connection with one of the other ploys listed here, find a way to side-track the discussion with abrasive or controversial comments in hopes of turning attention to a new, more manageable topic. This works especially well with companions who can “argue” with you over the new topic and polarize the discussion arena in order to avoid discussing more key issues.
18. Emotionalize, Antagonize, and Goad Opponents. If you can’t do anything else, chide and taunt your opponents and draw them into emotional responses which will tend to make them look foolish and overly motivated, and generally render their material somewhat less coherent. Not only will you avoid discussing the issues in the first instance, but even if their emotional response addresses the issue, you can further avoid the issues by then focusing on how “sensitive they are to criticism”.
19. Ignore proof presented, demand impossible proofs. This is perhaps a variant of the “play dumb” rule. Regardless of what material may be presented by an opponent in public forums, claim the material irrelevant and demand proof that is impossible for the opponent to come by (it may exist, but not be at his disposal, or it may be something which is known to be safely destroyed or withheld, such as a murder weapon). In order to completely avoid discussing issues may require you to categorically deny and be critical of media or books as valid sources, deny that witnesses are acceptable, or even deny that statements made by government or other authorities have any meaning or relevance.
20. False evidence. Whenever possible, introduce new facts or clues designed and manufactured to conflict with opponent presentations as useful tools to neutralize sensitive issues or impede resolution. This works best when the crime was designed with contingencies for the purpose, and the facts cannot be easily separated from the fabrications.
21. Call a Grand Jury, Special Prosecutor, or other empowered investigative body. Subvert the (process) to your benefit and effectively neutralize all sensitive issues without open discussion. Once convened, the evidence and testimony are required to be secret when properly handled. For instance, if you own the prosecuting attorney, it can insure a Grand Jury hears no useful evidence and that the evidence is sealed an unavailable to subsequent investigators. Once a favorable verdict (usually, this technique is applied to find the guilty innocent, but it can also be used to obtain charges when seeking to frame a victim) is achieved, the matter can be considered officially closed.
22. Manufacture a new truth. Create your own expert(s), group(s), author(s), leader(s) or influence existing ones willing to forge new ground via scientific, investigative, or social research or testimony which concludes favorably. In this way, if you must actually address issues, you can do so authoritatively.
23. Create bigger distractions. If the above does not seem to be working to distract from sensitive issues, or to prevent unwanted media coverage of unstoppable events such as trials, create bigger news stories (or treat them as such) to distract the multitudes.
24. Silence critics. If the above methods do not prevail, consider removing opponents from circulation by some definitive solution so that the need to address issues is removed entirely. This can be by their death, arrest and detention, blackmail or destruction of their character by release of blackmail information, or merely by proper intimidation with blackmail or other threats.
25. Vanish. If you are a key holder of secrets or otherwise overly illuminated and you think the heat is getting too hot, to avoid the issues, vacate the kitchen.
https://web.archive.org/web/20191015193936/http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/05/twenty-five-rules-of-disinformation.html
Twenty-Five Rules of Disinformation
Preface: This handy set of rules covers most of the games which disinformation artists play on the Internet (and offline). When you know the tricks, you’ll be able to spot the games. Even if you’ve read this list before, you might be surprised at how useful it is to brush up on these tricks.Update: This was originally apparently written by H. Michael Sweeney.
1. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Regardless of what you know, don’t discuss it — especially if you are a public figure, news anchor, etc. If it’s not reported, it didn’t happen, and you never have to deal with the issues.
2. Become incredulous and indignant. Avoid discussing key issues and instead focus on side issues which can be used show the topic as being critical of some otherwise sacrosanct group or theme. This is also known as the “How dare you!” gambit.
3. Create rumor mongers. Avoid discussing issues by describing all charges, regardless of venue or evidence, as mere rumors and wild accusations. Other derogatory terms mutually exclusive of truth may work as well. This method works especially well with a silent press, because the only way the public can learn of the facts are through such “arguable rumors”. If you can associate the material with the Internet, use this fact to certify it a “wild rumor” which can have no basis in fact.
4. Use a straw man. Find or create a seeming element of your opponent’s argument which you can easily knock down to make yourself look good and the opponent to look bad. Either make up an issue you may safely imply exists based on your interpretation of the opponent/opponent arguments/situation, or select the weakest aspect of the weakest charges. Amplify their significance and destroy them in a way which appears to debunk all the charges, real and fabricated alike, while actually avoiding discussion of the real issues.
5. Sidetrack opponents with name calling and ridicule. This is also known as the primary attack the messenger ploy, though other methods qualify as variants of that approach. Associate opponents with unpopular titles such as “kooks”, “right-wing”, “liberal”, “left-wing”, “terrorists”, “conspiracy buffs”, “radicals”, “militia”, “racists”, “religious fanatics”, “sexual deviates”, and so forth. This makes others shrink from support out of fear of gaining the same label, and you avoid dealing with issues.
6. Hit and Run. In any public forum, make a brief attack of your opponent or the opponent position and then scamper off before an answer can be fielded, or simply ignore any answer. This works extremely well in Internet and letters-to-the-editor environments where a steady stream of new identities can be called upon without having to explain criticism reasoning — simply make an accusation or other attack, never discussing issues, and never answering any subsequent response, for that would dignify the opponent’s viewpoint.
7. Question motives. Twist or amplify any fact which could so taken to imply that the opponent operates out of a hidden personal agenda or other bias. This avoids discussing issues and forces the accuser on the defensive.
8. Invoke authority. Claim for yourself or associate yourself with authority and present your argument with enough “jargon” and “minutiae” to illustrate you are “one who knows”, and simply say it isn’t so without discussing issues or demonstrating concretely why or citing sources.
9. Play Dumb. No matter what evidence or logical argument is offered, avoid discussing issues with denial they have any credibility, make any sense, provide any proof, contain or make a point, have logic, or support a conclusion. Mix well for maximum effect.
10. Associate opponent charges with old news. A derivative of the straw man usually, in any large-scale matter of high visibility, someone will make charges early on which can be or were already easily dealt with. Where it can be foreseen, have your own side raise a straw man issue and have it dealt with early on as part of the initial contingency plans. Subsequent charges, regardless of validity or new ground uncovered, can usually them be associated with the original charge and dismissed as simply being a rehash without need to address current issues — so much the better where the opponent is or was involved with the original source.
11. Establish and rely upon fall-back positions. Using a minor matter or element of the facts, take the “high road” and “confess” with candor that some innocent mistake, in hindsight, was made — but that opponents have seized on the opportunity to blow it all out of proportion and imply greater criminalities which, “just isn’t so.” Others can reinforce this on your behalf, later. Done properly, this can garner sympathy and respect for “coming clean” and “owning up” to your mistakes without addressing more serious issues.
12. Enigmas have no solution. Drawing upon the overall umbrella of events surrounding the crime and the multitude of players and events, paint the entire affair as too complex to solve. This causes those otherwise following the matter to begin to loose interest more quickly without having to address the actual issues.
13. Alice in Wonderland Logic. Avoid discussion of the issues by reasoning backwards with an apparent deductive logic in a way that forbears any actual material fact.
14. Demand complete solutions. Avoid the issues by requiring opponents to solve the crime at hand completely, a ploy which works best for items qualifying for rule 10.
15. Fit the facts to alternate conclusions. This requires creative thinking unless the crime was planned with contingency conclusions in place.
16. Vanishing evidence and witnesses. If it does not exist, it is not fact, and you won’t have to address the issue.
17. Change the subject. Usually in connection with one of the other ploys listed here, find a way to side-track the discussion with abrasive or controversial comments in hopes of turning attention to a new, more manageable topic. This works especially well with companions who can “argue” with you over the new topic and polarize the discussion arena in order to avoid discussing more key issues.
18. Emotionalize, Antagonize, and Goad Opponents. If you can’t do anything else, chide and taunt your opponents and draw them into emotional responses which will tend to make them look foolish and overly motivated, and generally render their material somewhat less coherent. Not only will you avoid discussing the issues in the first instance, but even if their emotional response addresses the issue, you can further avoid the issues by then focusing on how “sensitive they are to criticism”.
19. Ignore proof presented, demand impossible proofs. This is perhaps a variant of the “play dumb” rule. Regardless of what material may be presented by an opponent in public forums, claim the material irrelevant and demand proof that is impossible for the opponent to come by (it may exist, but not be at his disposal, or it may be something which is known to be safely destroyed or withheld, such as a murder weapon). In order to completely avoid discussing issues may require you to categorically deny and be critical of media or books as valid sources, deny that witnesses are acceptable, or even deny that statements made by government or other authorities have any meaning or relevance.
20. False evidence. Whenever possible, introduce new facts or clues designed and manufactured to conflict with opponent presentations as useful tools to neutralize sensitive issues or impede resolution. This works best when the crime was designed with contingencies for the purpose, and the facts cannot be easily separated from the fabrications.
21. Call a Grand Jury, Special Prosecutor, or other empowered investigative body. Subvert the (process) to your benefit and effectively neutralize all sensitive issues without open discussion. Once convened, the evidence and testimony are required to be secret when properly handled. For instance, if you own the prosecuting attorney, it can insure a Grand Jury hears no useful evidence and that the evidence is sealed an unavailable to subsequent investigators. Once a favorable verdict (usually, this technique is applied to find the guilty innocent, but it can also be used to obtain charges when seeking to frame a victim) is achieved, the matter can be considered officially closed.
22. Manufacture a new truth. Create your own expert(s), group(s), author(s), leader(s) or influence existing ones willing to forge new ground via scientific, investigative, or social research or testimony which concludes favorably. In this way, if you must actually address issues, you can do so authoritatively.
23. Create bigger distractions. If the above does not seem to be working to distract from sensitive issues, or to prevent unwanted media coverage of unstoppable events such as trials, create bigger news stories (or treat them as such) to distract the multitudes.
24. Silence critics. If the above methods do not prevail, consider removing opponents from circulation by some definitive solution so that the need to address issues is removed entirely. This can be by their death, arrest and detention, blackmail or destruction of their character by release of blackmail information, or merely by proper intimidation with blackmail or other threats.
25. Vanish. If you are a key holder of secrets or otherwise overly illuminated and you think the heat is getting too hot, to avoid the issues, vacate the kitchen.
https://web.archive.org/web/20191015193936/http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/05/twenty-five-rules-of-disinformation.html
R: 134 / I: 28
I don't see much substance from Marx by way of arguing for materialism either. Deleuze follows kind of a more enlightened transcendental empiricism which I find far more respectable but that required torturous meditation beginning from a throwing away of beings in favour of the search for a proper ontology. But *you* personally, the person who is reading this, how do you understand ontology, if all you've spent all your life on is the pursuit of small-B beings, never evaluating the existential nature of 'world', which rather than being something we are merely placed in, is constitutive of our being?
Marxism and Ontology
A lot of you seem to be under the belief that you can have marxist theory without ontological grounding. But to me it seems the positive sciences that say things about the 'world' rely on a totally certain idea of what 'world' means. So why don't we all have a calm discussion about ontology and attempt to come to an understanding of why there are so many of you (usually tankies) for whomst philosophy and ontology appears 'meaningless'? For me it seems to be the most important thing that we properly understand the dependency and aims of sciences (which simply explicate categories about our "external" reality) on a proper approach towards the world. In a sense, I think Marxists also unconsciously on some level agree with this, because you recognise that the bourgeois sciences mainly operate in service of capital, and this is unwanted. But on the other hand you seem to shoot yourselves on the foot by explicitly denying the validity of ontology in favour of vapid essentialism. From where does this 'materialism' come? Even in naive realist ontologies we see that the brain mediates reality, but there is no account for this in the materialist ontology.I don't see much substance from Marx by way of arguing for materialism either. Deleuze follows kind of a more enlightened transcendental empiricism which I find far more respectable but that required torturous meditation beginning from a throwing away of beings in favour of the search for a proper ontology. But *you* personally, the person who is reading this, how do you understand ontology, if all you've spent all your life on is the pursuit of small-B beings, never evaluating the existential nature of 'world', which rather than being something we are merely placed in, is constitutive of our being?
R: 84 / I: 20
Like, help a comrade out here. I fell in a post-Marxist reading hellscape due to bourgeois propaganda and need a hefty dose of sanity to get back on track.
i don't get it (Materialism and Empirio-Criticism by Vladimir Lenin)
What was this book about again? It was my least favorite Lenin book. I know it's like the Organon to Engels' Dialectics of Nature, but every single one of Lenin's arguments was so unremarkable that they're forgettable. He's very terse and verbose. Does Lenin argue badly or is materialism a very dull philosophy and we like making shit up (see the post-1968. French Left).Like, help a comrade out here. I fell in a post-Marxist reading hellscape due to bourgeois propaganda and need a hefty dose of sanity to get back on track.
R: 35 / I: 1
around the 2000s, they invented the term "popular class" in contrast to the "oligarch class". im not exactly sure of its implications, maybe its a rebranding of the universal "middle class" term, or they (more likely) synthetized an alliance between workers and lumpenproles. what are the implications and consequences of this manufactured discourse?
On the Semantics of "Class"
in my country, there is a laborist political movement akin to spanish national syndicalism that appropiated the pro-workers discoursearound the 2000s, they invented the term "popular class" in contrast to the "oligarch class". im not exactly sure of its implications, maybe its a rebranding of the universal "middle class" term, or they (more likely) synthetized an alliance between workers and lumpenproles. what are the implications and consequences of this manufactured discourse?
R: 132 / I: 22
The main narrative presented throughout this essay is that recreational exercise. physical fitness, and bodybuilding were invented by the Nazis, based on antique statues and these were then bought to the US by gay soldiers, where it shaped first the gay sub culture and later became the mainstream image among the heteros. There are a few obvious problems with these statements.
So modern fitness training in the US started about a hundred years before the Nazi party, In addition, the bronze era of bodybuilding, began with Sandow before the turn of the century: predating WW1, So Americans, gay or straight, didn't inspiration from the SS in regard to body image and exercise.
He also makes a claim that the BMI formula was specifically invited by white supremacist and used by Nazis to find an ideal solider bodytype, so again the BMI also predates the Nazis and while the tables were developed after WW2, and they were based on mortality studies, so the normal weight category was the one with the lowestmortality rate, not the one closest to a SS-Supersoldier
The absolute most ridiculous claim he makes is that he states Ernst Röhm was killed because he was fat and hence didn't fit the image of the ideal man, while the party politics surrounding the so called Röhm coup are not even mentioned. Somerton leaves out the fact that one of Röhms greatest rivals, one who talked Hitler into killing him, was Hermann Göring – a man just as fat as Röhm. Seriously, of course this was about power and politics, not body image.
So at the end of the video Somerton, based on these misleading historical narratives, try's to shame people for being into fit people because that's what "Hitler thought was perfect." like the bodies in the clips he uses are not that uncommon in many young men, that's the bodytype of most fit healthy young men and that can be found in any race of men, I mean the whole bodypositivity, HEAS and fat acceptance movement was always ripe with body-shaming and open scorne of thinner people, that is nothing new. But the politicization of a certain body type, its identification with a political ideology, is. concerning to say the least
like guess who also heavily idealized the muscular body in their propaganda,: The Soviets and pretty much every other communist movement in the world
This is perhaps breadtube video I have yet seen, to call it disinformation would be an understatemen
This video is titled The Gay Body Image Crisis by James Somerton, seemingly its a video essay about gay people's body image issues, but in actuality its just bizarre venting against fit people through ahistorical revisionism.The main narrative presented throughout this essay is that recreational exercise. physical fitness, and bodybuilding were invented by the Nazis, based on antique statues and these were then bought to the US by gay soldiers, where it shaped first the gay sub culture and later became the mainstream image among the heteros. There are a few obvious problems with these statements.
So modern fitness training in the US started about a hundred years before the Nazi party, In addition, the bronze era of bodybuilding, began with Sandow before the turn of the century: predating WW1, So Americans, gay or straight, didn't inspiration from the SS in regard to body image and exercise.
He also makes a claim that the BMI formula was specifically invited by white supremacist and used by Nazis to find an ideal solider bodytype, so again the BMI also predates the Nazis and while the tables were developed after WW2, and they were based on mortality studies, so the normal weight category was the one with the lowestmortality rate, not the one closest to a SS-Supersoldier
The absolute most ridiculous claim he makes is that he states Ernst Röhm was killed because he was fat and hence didn't fit the image of the ideal man, while the party politics surrounding the so called Röhm coup are not even mentioned. Somerton leaves out the fact that one of Röhms greatest rivals, one who talked Hitler into killing him, was Hermann Göring – a man just as fat as Röhm. Seriously, of course this was about power and politics, not body image.
So at the end of the video Somerton, based on these misleading historical narratives, try's to shame people for being into fit people because that's what "Hitler thought was perfect." like the bodies in the clips he uses are not that uncommon in many young men, that's the bodytype of most fit healthy young men and that can be found in any race of men, I mean the whole bodypositivity, HEAS and fat acceptance movement was always ripe with body-shaming and open scorne of thinner people, that is nothing new. But the politicization of a certain body type, its identification with a political ideology, is. concerning to say the least
like guess who also heavily idealized the muscular body in their propaganda,: The Soviets and pretty much every other communist movement in the world
R: 78 / I: 68
Anything related to socialism, anarchy, communism and so on.
>Absolute beginner material
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/index.htm
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/index.htm
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/index.htm
>More Marx and Engels
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/sw/index.htm
>Lenin
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/
>Other Selected Marxists
https://www.marxists.org/archive/selected-marxists.htm
>Classical Works Recommended To High-Ranking Cadres
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-8/mswv8_56.htm
>Many important books can be found on libgen
http://gen.lib.rus.ec/
>Libcom has some good books/documents
https://libcom.org/library
>Other links
https://archive.is/L8uFD
>Various assortment of historical and biographical works.
https://archive.org/search.php?query=uploader%3A%22kocotosi%40gmail.com%22&sort=-publicdate
/t/ - torrents and downloads
Things to share: Movies, documentaries and mainly books.Anything related to socialism, anarchy, communism and so on.
>Absolute beginner material
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/index.htm
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/index.htm
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/index.htm
>More Marx and Engels
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/sw/index.htm
>Lenin
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/
>Other Selected Marxists
https://www.marxists.org/archive/selected-marxists.htm
>Classical Works Recommended To High-Ranking Cadres
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-8/mswv8_56.htm
>Many important books can be found on libgen
http://gen.lib.rus.ec/
>Libcom has some good books/documents
https://libcom.org/library
>Other links
https://archive.is/L8uFD
>Various assortment of historical and biographical works.
https://archive.org/search.php?query=uploader%3A%22kocotosi%40gmail.com%22&sort=-publicdate
R: 13 / I: 0
In general, what questions should I be asking? How to approach a new topic that might seem intimidating or complex for a poopbrain like me?
Struggling to absorb information
Hello I'm kind of a baby socialist. I understand the core concepts of how capitalists exploit workers, surplus value, labor theory of value and the general idea of capitalist exploitation in third world countries. However, if I try digging into anything beyond that my brain goes blank. Even if say, I'll read Mao's little red book and come out with a basic idea of what he was talking about, I'll immediately lose it the next day. It's really frustrating and difficult to get myself to read more knowing I'll just forget everything overnight at worst or in a couple of days at best.In general, what questions should I be asking? How to approach a new topic that might seem intimidating or complex for a poopbrain like me?
R: 7 / I: 4
Washington - Is supposed to represent the true founding of the US. This aristocratic figure, who through war, created this nation. A Napoleonic figure, in the sense that he led the war personally, and was the one who led the nation personally. His era represents a time where the states were in majority control. When the constitution was most respected. And of course, in some circles, what the US represented and should represent. A WASP nation. A Christian nation.
Lincoln - A man who represents the savior of this nation. This unlikely figure who rose from out of nowhere, and had the wherewithal to be able to keep it together. He represents the beginning of the centralization of the US. What's interesting about him was that he technically represents the beginning what the real nation of the US. Whereas before, they were the United States of America, now its the United States of America, with the US identity finally developing. A strangely Napoleonic move, if I do say so. And lastly, of course, the man who was able to overcome the US's original sin. Slavery.
Now for their detractors, its easy. Some will look at Washington (and Lincoln for that matter) as good for nothing racists. Washington so more because of his slaves. While others (reactoids) will look at Lincoln and curse him for causing the end of the US by allowing the Negro the same rights as Whites.
Now lots of these views are all great man theory. And they don't truly show who they were. They were complex humans, with strange morals. Washington hated slavery, but he kept his slaves. Lincoln detested slavery, but said he wanted ship black people back to Africa. This was pre civil war, but nonetheless, shows that these people aren't as simple as "good American guy" or "evil yakubian devil". But its interesting to see how different political tendencies viewed these two men and what they represented over the years. I would say the image in OP is the best example of what I mean. You have these two opposing forces, choosing two pivotal figures in US history, each representing different values. There is a clear reason for that and why still to this day, you will have reactionary forces calling on the memory of Washington over Lincoln. The left side less so, but still supporting similar ideas. John Brown, Reconstruction, etc. Clearly, these two men represent different ideologies and narratives at play, which I find quite interesting.
Washington V. Lincoln
Lets examine these two men, or more specifically, the way they were viewed and the eras they represent.Washington - Is supposed to represent the true founding of the US. This aristocratic figure, who through war, created this nation. A Napoleonic figure, in the sense that he led the war personally, and was the one who led the nation personally. His era represents a time where the states were in majority control. When the constitution was most respected. And of course, in some circles, what the US represented and should represent. A WASP nation. A Christian nation.
Lincoln - A man who represents the savior of this nation. This unlikely figure who rose from out of nowhere, and had the wherewithal to be able to keep it together. He represents the beginning of the centralization of the US. What's interesting about him was that he technically represents the beginning what the real nation of the US. Whereas before, they were the United States of America, now its the United States of America, with the US identity finally developing. A strangely Napoleonic move, if I do say so. And lastly, of course, the man who was able to overcome the US's original sin. Slavery.
Now for their detractors, its easy. Some will look at Washington (and Lincoln for that matter) as good for nothing racists. Washington so more because of his slaves. While others (reactoids) will look at Lincoln and curse him for causing the end of the US by allowing the Negro the same rights as Whites.
Now lots of these views are all great man theory. And they don't truly show who they were. They were complex humans, with strange morals. Washington hated slavery, but he kept his slaves. Lincoln detested slavery, but said he wanted ship black people back to Africa. This was pre civil war, but nonetheless, shows that these people aren't as simple as "good American guy" or "evil yakubian devil". But its interesting to see how different political tendencies viewed these two men and what they represented over the years. I would say the image in OP is the best example of what I mean. You have these two opposing forces, choosing two pivotal figures in US history, each representing different values. There is a clear reason for that and why still to this day, you will have reactionary forces calling on the memory of Washington over Lincoln. The left side less so, but still supporting similar ideas. John Brown, Reconstruction, etc. Clearly, these two men represent different ideologies and narratives at play, which I find quite interesting.
R: 11 / I: 2
Debunking Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theories General
Since this is a subject that has been making the rounds in the public discourse again, let‘s make a general that debunks anti-semitic conspiracy theories. Post literature, videos, infographs, memes, whatever. Unfortunately, I don‘t have anything on my own, but I will make this thread to get this going.
R: 7 / I: 0
GA Cohen
What does leftypol think of GA Cohen? And can someone explain what his criticism of John Rawls was? I read some of his works and it seems like he was a cool dude.
R: 2 / I: 0
Well-read, educational news & blogs
I'm completely fed up using MSM retarded media outlets to stay up to date on either breaking news or general trends and events going on. I use guardian every day to get current events but its obnoxious to read that slop after a while. Id rather use blogs and alternative sources of news from people who have a bit less bias, slant, private interests, or total ideological retardation.
R: 5 / I: 0
How would each of them feel about the typical Wikipedia summary?
>Socialism is a political philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic and social systems, which are characterised by social ownership of the means of production,as opposed to private ownership.
Let's try and make everyone happy:
Is there any difference to how a (well-studied) Marxist, a democratic socialist and an anarcho-communist will each define "socialism"? Is there any contradiction in their definitions?How would each of them feel about the typical Wikipedia summary?
>Socialism is a political philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic and social systems, which are characterised by social ownership of the means of production,as opposed to private ownership.
R: 3 / I: 0
From what I've gathered, Prior to 1895, Japan as a whole pretty much had an inferiority complex towards China. China had won every single war with Japan up until that point (if you exclude that time the Mongols tried to invade with collaborating Chinese troops.) the fact that Chinese philosophies, culture, architecture etc heavily influenced Japan in question was well known. Many of Japan's late 20th century generals and even the more nationalistic ones in the 20th had great admiration for things such as Chinese poetry and literature. They couldn't get around the fact that China was essentially Japan's big brother in cultural and military terms for the vast majority of the two's existence.
However, after the first sino-jap war, in which the jap navy completely crushed the Qing navy, the illusion of Qing China being the superior older brother to Japan was completely dissolved in the eyes of the world. Japanese officers witnessed firsthand the miserably poor and awful starvation-tier conditions Chinese civilians lived under in the late stages of the Qing Dynasty. All their respect and apprehension of what they perceived to be a mysteriously powerful China.
so the fact that Japan had emerged as the dominant Eastern power after 2,000 years of Chinese dominance went straight to their fucking heads.(to say the least)
so the biggest reason is that the Japanese soldier was intentionally brainwashed and hammered into a fearless bloodthirsty wild animal by his superiors. Japanese officers in general were largely raised in sheltered, isolated military academies and believed in total racial holy war in which the entire population should die before surrender and had a strange form of contempt for their own civilian population because they weren't soldiers. (better to die as a shattered jewel; one hundred million shattered jewels.) The enlisted ranks were starved, humiliated and beaten to a pulp, sometimes even to death by their officers for even the smallest mistakes and infractions. they were bombarded with totalitarian propaganda from their first day out of their mothers' womb that they were the chosen heavenly master race, all their enemies were demonic insects with no exceptions, and that their only purpose in life was to slaughter and then die themselves as an expendable meat shield for their God-emperor. If that's how Japanese troops saw themselves, how much decency do you think they'd show to even their own civilians, much less foreign ones? (huge amounts of rape and murder were inflicted by Japanese soldiers to the native Okinawan population during that battle.)
is this an accurate estimation ?
The Average Imperial Japanese Soldier's mindset
So I read The Rape of Nanking a couple weeks ago and something that kinda bothered me, that it wasn't only slightly alluded to in the book, was the mindset of the preparatorsFrom what I've gathered, Prior to 1895, Japan as a whole pretty much had an inferiority complex towards China. China had won every single war with Japan up until that point (if you exclude that time the Mongols tried to invade with collaborating Chinese troops.) the fact that Chinese philosophies, culture, architecture etc heavily influenced Japan in question was well known. Many of Japan's late 20th century generals and even the more nationalistic ones in the 20th had great admiration for things such as Chinese poetry and literature. They couldn't get around the fact that China was essentially Japan's big brother in cultural and military terms for the vast majority of the two's existence.
However, after the first sino-jap war, in which the jap navy completely crushed the Qing navy, the illusion of Qing China being the superior older brother to Japan was completely dissolved in the eyes of the world. Japanese officers witnessed firsthand the miserably poor and awful starvation-tier conditions Chinese civilians lived under in the late stages of the Qing Dynasty. All their respect and apprehension of what they perceived to be a mysteriously powerful China.
so the fact that Japan had emerged as the dominant Eastern power after 2,000 years of Chinese dominance went straight to their fucking heads.(to say the least)
so the biggest reason is that the Japanese soldier was intentionally brainwashed and hammered into a fearless bloodthirsty wild animal by his superiors. Japanese officers in general were largely raised in sheltered, isolated military academies and believed in total racial holy war in which the entire population should die before surrender and had a strange form of contempt for their own civilian population because they weren't soldiers. (better to die as a shattered jewel; one hundred million shattered jewels.) The enlisted ranks were starved, humiliated and beaten to a pulp, sometimes even to death by their officers for even the smallest mistakes and infractions. they were bombarded with totalitarian propaganda from their first day out of their mothers' womb that they were the chosen heavenly master race, all their enemies were demonic insects with no exceptions, and that their only purpose in life was to slaughter and then die themselves as an expendable meat shield for their God-emperor. If that's how Japanese troops saw themselves, how much decency do you think they'd show to even their own civilians, much less foreign ones? (huge amounts of rape and murder were inflicted by Japanese soldiers to the native Okinawan population during that battle.)
is this an accurate estimation ?
R: 97 / I: 7
My boyfriend claims he is interested in Marxism, yet has an incredibly negative outlook. He believes there will never be a revolution, all narratives of a grand redemption are a lie. He's also swallowed the western Buddhist bullshit (mixed with absurdism) full force; basically, he believes human existence is inevitably empty and absurd and that any attempts at building something bigger and better than ourselves is a mistake. He has a history of depression so that definitely informs his views as well.
He's also a huge fan of Zizek, whom I despise.
The two of us read books together, mostly on religion (Buddhism obviously) and psychology. I'm looking for Marxist texts that we could read together that would shake him out of (or at least question) his bullshit. Namely, I'm looking for books that have both 1. a generally positive outlook on communist revolution or building the communist project, 2. present a strong case for Marxism against rival/bourgeois ideologies, and 3. is philosophical.
Any suggestions would be great.
Book to read with my boyfriend
I'm in a pretty big dilemma.My boyfriend claims he is interested in Marxism, yet has an incredibly negative outlook. He believes there will never be a revolution, all narratives of a grand redemption are a lie. He's also swallowed the western Buddhist bullshit (mixed with absurdism) full force; basically, he believes human existence is inevitably empty and absurd and that any attempts at building something bigger and better than ourselves is a mistake. He has a history of depression so that definitely informs his views as well.
He's also a huge fan of Zizek, whom I despise.
The two of us read books together, mostly on religion (Buddhism obviously) and psychology. I'm looking for Marxist texts that we could read together that would shake him out of (or at least question) his bullshit. Namely, I'm looking for books that have both 1. a generally positive outlook on communist revolution or building the communist project, 2. present a strong case for Marxism against rival/bourgeois ideologies, and 3. is philosophical.
Any suggestions would be great.
R: 132 / I: 15
CURRENT BOOK: engels' origin of the family (prehistoric society)
- Baruch Spinoza's 'Ethics'
- Vladimir Lenin's 'Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism'
- Murray Bookchin's 'Post-Scarcity Anarchism'
- Felix Guattari's 'Three Ecologies'
- Alfred North Whitehead's 'Process and Reality'
- Guy Debord's 'Society of the Spectacle'
- Theodor Adorno's 'Negative Dialectics'
- Fredy Perlman's 'Against His-Story, Against Leviathan'
- Friedrich Engel's 'The Origin of the Family'
We humbly invite you all! Feel free to organise and maintain your own group here!
/reading/ groups
I'm starting this after asking in reading general because there was some interest shown. A thread for the encouragement, maintenance, and organisation of different reading groups- a regular thread will be maintained in order for reading groups to rhizomatically organise. No specific topic of reading is mandated. I would like to start by organising a group, I have a few texts I would be interested in reading but would like to get any kind of feedback because I don't want to propose we read a book and then have a buncha people be like 'nooo i dont like that book' so here are some initial suggestions for what we could read to begin with:CURRENT BOOK: engels' origin of the family (prehistoric society)
- Baruch Spinoza's 'Ethics'
- Vladimir Lenin's 'Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism'
- Murray Bookchin's 'Post-Scarcity Anarchism'
- Felix Guattari's 'Three Ecologies'
- Alfred North Whitehead's 'Process and Reality'
- Guy Debord's 'Society of the Spectacle'
- Theodor Adorno's 'Negative Dialectics'
- Fredy Perlman's 'Against His-Story, Against Leviathan'
- Friedrich Engel's 'The Origin of the Family'
We humbly invite you all! Feel free to organise and maintain your own group here!
R: 40 / I: 9
Ill be translating from Spanish to English myself, but perhaps other anons will use this thread for other languages.
/leftytranslation/
Hey y´all. I´m on a translating journey and I thought that others might benfit from a general thread for others that might be interested in the effort or to give their input.Ill be translating from Spanish to English myself, but perhaps other anons will use this thread for other languages.
R: 9 / I: 1
I'm well aware that Japan and USSR are the two Third World "success stories"(with the latter being used by shitlibs to justify imperialism in my experience) but I have no concrete knowledge on how they became this way. I would like to fix that weakness.
Japan: From Third World to Imperialist Economy
Any recommendations on works detailing how Japan became an imperialist economy from its third-world origins?I'm well aware that Japan and USSR are the two Third World "success stories"(with the latter being used by shitlibs to justify imperialism in my experience) but I have no concrete knowledge on how they became this way. I would like to fix that weakness.
R: 34 / I: 7
Is China an actual communist state?
I mean like are they actually working toward socialism considering they're pretty much a nationalist state heavily relying on state capitalism for funding right now? At this point, they're more likely to turn into the next globalist world power if they do manage to outlast the US.
R: 0 / I: 0
What are some good narrative non-fiction books?
I'm talking about non-fiction books telling a more focused, vividly detailed story akin to fiction. Like pic related or Pity the Nation by Robert Fisk
R: 28 / I: 28
Essay writing / academic skills
Hey /e/Im a brainlet prole that recently got a scholarships to university, and Im wondering if there are any resources that you could recommend to improve general academic skills with an emphasis on essay writing. I've done a general scan for books and courses on libgen and TPB. But I wanted to get some advise with a left perspective. When I say brainlet I mean dyslexic and when I say prole I mean any unskilled job I can land (bar work, kitchen work, construction, etc.) My degree is in healthcare and administration.
R: 18 / I: 1
If possible, id love to read books made in the USSR.
In philosophy, Metaphysics, Ethics and political philosophy
and in political science, books written by Lenin, stalin, translations of kurginyan?
Political science and Philosophy books!
I am very glad, that I have 1 whole year off for myself and id like to extreme educate myself. Besides math, biology etc. I want to study Philosophy in that time and political science so please, help me gather some quality Books, Its ok if its just the name i have my places to get them.If possible, id love to read books made in the USSR.
In philosophy, Metaphysics, Ethics and political philosophy
and in political science, books written by Lenin, stalin, translations of kurginyan?
R: 47 / I: 19
I've skimmed through some introductory materials of his writings and they catch my curiosity yet I am too brainlet to actually read them. What exactly is schizoanalysis and how does capitalism relate to schizophrenia?
Deleuze
Give me the TL;DR on him.I've skimmed through some introductory materials of his writings and they catch my curiosity yet I am too brainlet to actually read them. What exactly is schizoanalysis and how does capitalism relate to schizophrenia?
R: 12 / I: 2
African Diversity
Am I correct in thinking that the amount of ethnic and lingual diversity in Africa implies that these many African ethnic groups barely mix? It seems to me that this must be the product if seclusion or separation. The level of diversity that Africa has just seems unusual to me. What has caused Africa to maintain such level of diversity while other regions of the planet aren‘t that fractured in ethnic and lingual variety?
R: 0 / I: 0
https://endnotes.org.uk/posts/theodor-adorno-on-the-problem-of-the-family-1955
1.
>The family is both: natural relation and social relation. It is based on social relations and biological descent, often without consciousness of duration, but it becomes something permanent, objective, independent - an 'institution'. Modern French sociology of the Durkheim school, especially Marcel Mauss and Claude Lévi-Strauss, in contrast to older views, did not derive the prohibition of incest, which is fundamental for the family, from so-called natural or psychological conditions, but determined it as a "total social phenomenon", essentially from the needs of an exchange society according to fixed property structures. If, however, such results are true, then the family in the form with which we are familiar is itself socially mediated and not a mere natural category. It is therefore subject to social dynamics and must not be hypostatized by science. The social dynamics of the family are twofold. On the one hand, the increasing socialization, 'rationalization', and 'integration' of all human relations in late, fully developed exchange society tends to push back as much as possible the—socially considered—irrational-natural, partial element of the family order. On the other hand, however, with such progressive socialization, the more strongly controlled drives rebel more strongly against their institutional control and break through at the point of least resistance. But this is what, under the conditions of contemporary society, the family has become. Today it finds itself equally attacked by the progress of civilization and by sexuality, which the sacral claim of marriage can no longer tame.
2.
>The crisis of the family cannot be dismissed as a mere symptom of decay and decadence. The family is presented with the bill not only for the crude oppression so often inflicted by the head of the family on the weaker woman and especially on the children up to the threshold of the modern age, but also for economic injustice, the exploitation of domestic labor in a society that otherwise obeys the laws of the market, and for all those suppressions of desire, which family discipline imposes on its members, without this discipline always being justified in the minds of the family members, and without their having much faith in the prospect of being compensated for such renunciations, for example, by secure and tradable property, as seemed to be the case at the height of the liberal age. The loosening of family authority, especially as one of the sexual taboos, is due to the fact that the family no longer reliably guarantees subsistence, and that it no longer adequately protects the individual against the increasingly overpowering encroaching environment. The equivalence of what the family demands and what it provides is threatened. Every appeal to the positive powers of the family as such therefore has something ideological about it, because the family no longer accomplishes, and can no longer accomplish for economic reasons, what it is praised for.
3.
>As a social category, the family has always been the agency of society, especially since the beginning of the bourgeois era. It alone has been able to produce in individuals that work ethic, that identification with authority, which had hardly been needed in feudal times and which was replaced by direct rule over bondsmen. By translating the demands of society into the interior of those entrusted to it and making it their own, the family 'internalized' human beings. The concept of the individual in the sense with which we are familiar can hardly be separated from that of the family. But the crisis of the individual today, the replacement of his autonomy by the adaptation to collectives, does not leave the family untouched. There is a contradiction between the type of human that is spreading today and the form of the family. The American mother cult, called "momism" by Philip Wylie, signifies not so much the breakthrough of primordial family forces as a questionable reaction formation to the experience of decaying family relations, which only just recently erected its puny monument on mother-day. Conventional exaggeration and emotional coldness correspond to each other. Like all forms of mediation between the biological individual, the atomic individual, and the integral society, the family is also deprived of its substance by the latter, similar to the economic sphere of circulation, or the category of education, which is deeply connected to the family. As a category of mediation, which in truth, even if without being aware of it, often only brought about the business of the entire totality, the family, apart from its eminent function, always had something illusory about it. And bourgeois society as a whole remained skeptical against the family as an ideology, especially insofar as it made social demands on the individual that seemed arbitrary and unreasonable from the individual's point of view. This skepticism first found its social expression, however dull, in the youth movement. Today, the negation of the family gains the real upper hand. In fact, there is no longer the conflict between the powerful family and the no less powerful ego, but rather the gap between the two is equally small. Family is experienced less as a power of oppression then a residuum, a superfluous ingredient. It is no more feared than it is loved: not fought against, but forgotten and just tolerated by those who have neither reason nor strength to resist.
4.
>The family, according to its concept, cannot divest itself of its natural element, the biological connection of its members. But from the point of view of society, this element appears as heteronomous, as a nuisance, so to speak, because it is not completely absorbed in the exchange relation, although sexuality also resembles the exchange relation, the reason of give and take. On the other hand, the natural element can less than ever be asserted independently of the social-institutional one. That is why, in late bourgeois society, the family is not so different from the corpse that reminds us of the relation to nature in the midst of civilization, and which is either burned hygienically or prepared cosmetically, as shown in Evelyn Waugh's "Loved One". The cult of the family, especially of the "chaste housewife and mother of children," has always lent the halo of voluntary sacrifice and goodness to those who are oppressed and forced to sacrifice in reality. But as every actual ideology is more than just a lie, so is this one. Not only did it bestow honor upon the subjugated, confer upon them a dignity which finally urged their own emancipation as human dignity, but it also concretized the idea of real equality amongst human beings, which leads to the concept of real humanism. The crisis of the family in its present form is therefore at the same time a crisis of humanity. While the possibility of the full realization of human rights, of an emancipation of women by virtue of the emancipation of society instead of a mere imitation of the patriarchal principle, is becoming foreseeable, no less foreseeable is the relapse into barbarism, into that mere state of nature which seems to remain at the end of the family alone, into chaos.
5.
>The decline of the family is an expression of a major social tendency, not an ephemeral contemporary phenomenon. The indescribable sensation caused by Ibsen’s Nora 70 years ago can only be explained by the shock caused by the image of a woman leaving her husband and children in order to no longer be a mere object of patriarchal disposal, but to be in control of herself. At that time, the unleashing of economic productive forces, which forms the background of Ibsen's drama of emancipation, already threatened the family to the utmost. That the family nevertheless kept itself alive was due first of all to the perennial irrationality of the principle of rational society itself, which needed the help of irrational institutions like the family to achieve the appearance of its natural justification. But the dynamics of society have not allowed the family, which is as immanent and cohesive to society as it is incompatible with it, to survive unchallenged. In Germany, at least since the first inflation and the accelerated expansion of women's professional work, the family has reached its crisis. It is therefore wrong, as in a widely read American book, to blame the patriarchal German family structure for National Socialism. Not to mention the fundamental inadequacy of such psychological explanations, Hitler was by no means able to build on a firmly established tradition of family authority. In Germany in particular, taboos such as that of virginity, the legalization of cohabitation, and monogamy were probably much more thoroughly shaken after 1918 than in the Catholic-Romanesque countries and the Anglo-Saxon countries steeped in Puritanism and Irish Jansenism, perhaps because the memory of archaic promiscuity survived more stubbornly in Germany than in the thoroughly bourgeois Western world. In terms of a social psychology of the family, the Third Reich signifies an exaggerated substitute for a family authority that no longer exists, rather than one adhering to it. If the theory of Freud’s "Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego" is correct, according to which the father imago can be transferred to secondary groups and their leaders, then the Hitlerian Reich offers the model of such transference, and the violence of authority as well as the need for it were virtually summoned by its absence in the Germany of the Weimar Republic. Hitler and modern dictatorships are indeed, to use the term of the psychoanalyst Paul Federn, the product of a "fatherless society." How far, however, the transference of paternal authority to the collective changes the inner composition of authority; to what extent it still represents the father and not already what Orwell called the Big Brother, is open to question. In any case, it would be nonsensical to equate the crisis of the family with the dissolution of authority as such. Authority is becoming more and more abstract; but also more and more inhuman and inexorable. The gigantic, collectivized ego ideal is the satanic antithesis of a liberated ego.
6.
>Insofar as the family still has real functions today, it maintains its resilience. In larger families, for instance, where father, mother and older children earn something, it is cheaper to run a joint household than if each were to merely look after himself; they therefore remain under the same roof, preserving an inner cohesion. But this rationality of the family is limited; in the city it extends almost exclusively to the sphere of consumption. In the countryside, where family labor is cheaper than free wage labor, according to the results of numerous studies, the offspring begin to revolt against their 'underpayment' for work in the family estate and migrate to other occupations. In any case, the family, even the one still relatively intact, is undergoing deep structural changes. One sociologist has aptly formulated that its form has changed from that of the nest to that of the gas station. This can perhaps be seen most drastically in the function of education. This is obviously no longer adequately fulfilled by the family, because it lacks the inner persuasive power that enabled children to truly identify with the images of their parents. If today one hears again and again, even about children from the upper classes, that they 'got nothing' from home, and if one has to observe as a university teacher how little substantial, really experienced education can be assumed, then this is not due to the alleged leveling of the democratic mass society and certainly not to a lack of information, but to the fact that the family has lost the protective, nurturing moment that was only able to develop a child’s talent in silence. The tendency now, however, is for the child to withdraw from such education as an unhealthy introversion and to prefer adapting to the demands of so-called real life, long before these are even brought to him. The specific moment of frustration [Versagung] that mutilates individuals today and prevents them from individuation is no longer the family prohibition, but the coldness that increases as the family becomes more riddled with holes.
7.
>In extreme conditions and their prolonged consequences, for example in the case of refugees, the family has proved to be strong in spite of everything, in many cases it has proved to be the powerhouse of survival. Thrown back to the most primitive natural conditions of self-preservation, the family showed itself as an adequate form of its realization. But just as being thrown back contradicts the state of social productivity to the utmost or is rather one of the cruel figures of the price which humanity has to pay for its progress, so it is probably also about a renaissance of the family which owes itself to such regression. It is itself a phenomenon of regression, comparable to the touching, impotent gesture with which the dying man gropes for his mother. To rely on such regression as a regenerative force would be like hoping for a religious renewal from the invocation of God by soldiers in extreme danger. On the contrary: the justification of the largely irrational natural relations of the family by a rationality that demonstrates that it is actually easier to survive this way attacks as rational precisely the irrational substance that it itself glorifies. Such a line of reasoning would have to give way if social forms other than the family were to become more favorable to survival than the family, surrendering its eternity. To doubt the sacramental character of the family, but to advocate it because its sanctity is good for people, is not very convincing. Moreover, studies such as the Darmstadt Community Study lead to the assumption that the generally shaken institution of the family was only strengthened for a short time by the solidarity of the state of emergency. The number of divorces as well as the number of so-called 'incomplete' families is far above the pre-war level. The tendency to limit oneself to a 'nuclear family' - a precondition of childless marriage, which is generally regarded as a symptom of the decline of the family - no longer applies only to the upper classes, but can be observed throughout the population. In the countryside, the archaic multiple-generation family, as opposed to the single one, seems to be noticeably receding. Everywhere the traditional elements of the family relation are gradually being displaced by 'rational' ones. The more the family is transformed into a mere association of convenience, the more it loses those features of the 'primary' group which until recent developments were attributed to it as invariant. Some phenomena of the war and post-war years have undoubtedly had a delaying effect on all this; on the whole, however, it is also true for the family that extreme situations tend to reinforce overall social tendencies; that in them, as it were, what has slowly been formed from within is often enforced from the outside at one stroke.
8.
>Speculations about the future of the family are exposed to almost prohibitive difficulties. If, in fact, the family is so interwoven with the process of society as a whole, its fate will depend on this process and not on its own existence as a self-sufficient social form. Moreover, not even the concept of an immanent developmental tendency, which has been applied to the family, may be hypostatized. Just as, for example, economic developments are able to take a different direction than that of their own lawfulness, as soon as the unconscious play of forces of the economy is controlled in a planned way for better or for worse, it is conceivable that, for example, by totalitarian dictatorships breaking in again, the "trend" of the family changes, be it restoratively, be it also by accelerated dissolution in favor of radical etatist control, which no longer tolerates an intermediate authority between itself and the social atoms. A total state would not even have to shy away from combining the two incompatible possibilities. This much seems certain, that the preservation of everything that has proven itself in the family as humane, as a condition of autonomy, freedom and experience, cannot be conserved simply by giving up the outdated features. It is probably an illusion to think that a family of 'equal status' can be realized in the midst of a society in which humanity itself is not mature, in which human rights are not established in a far more fundamental and universal sense. One cannot preserve the protective function of the family and eliminate its disciplinary features as long as it has to protect its members from a world imbued with mediated or direct social pressures, communicated to all its institutions. The family suffers from the same as everything particular that pushes for its liberation: there is no emancipation of the family without the emancipation of the whole. In a free world, however, a family of freedom is conceivable, a social sublimation of the mere natural relation in what Wilhelm Meister called the "firm thought of duration"; a form of close and happy coexistence of individuals that protects against barbarism without doing violence to the nature that is suspended in it. But such a family can be imagined as little as any other social utopia.
Theodor Adorno - On the Problem of the Family (1955)
Recently translated into Englishhttps://endnotes.org.uk/posts/theodor-adorno-on-the-problem-of-the-family-1955
1.
>The family is both: natural relation and social relation. It is based on social relations and biological descent, often without consciousness of duration, but it becomes something permanent, objective, independent - an 'institution'. Modern French sociology of the Durkheim school, especially Marcel Mauss and Claude Lévi-Strauss, in contrast to older views, did not derive the prohibition of incest, which is fundamental for the family, from so-called natural or psychological conditions, but determined it as a "total social phenomenon", essentially from the needs of an exchange society according to fixed property structures. If, however, such results are true, then the family in the form with which we are familiar is itself socially mediated and not a mere natural category. It is therefore subject to social dynamics and must not be hypostatized by science. The social dynamics of the family are twofold. On the one hand, the increasing socialization, 'rationalization', and 'integration' of all human relations in late, fully developed exchange society tends to push back as much as possible the—socially considered—irrational-natural, partial element of the family order. On the other hand, however, with such progressive socialization, the more strongly controlled drives rebel more strongly against their institutional control and break through at the point of least resistance. But this is what, under the conditions of contemporary society, the family has become. Today it finds itself equally attacked by the progress of civilization and by sexuality, which the sacral claim of marriage can no longer tame.
2.
>The crisis of the family cannot be dismissed as a mere symptom of decay and decadence. The family is presented with the bill not only for the crude oppression so often inflicted by the head of the family on the weaker woman and especially on the children up to the threshold of the modern age, but also for economic injustice, the exploitation of domestic labor in a society that otherwise obeys the laws of the market, and for all those suppressions of desire, which family discipline imposes on its members, without this discipline always being justified in the minds of the family members, and without their having much faith in the prospect of being compensated for such renunciations, for example, by secure and tradable property, as seemed to be the case at the height of the liberal age. The loosening of family authority, especially as one of the sexual taboos, is due to the fact that the family no longer reliably guarantees subsistence, and that it no longer adequately protects the individual against the increasingly overpowering encroaching environment. The equivalence of what the family demands and what it provides is threatened. Every appeal to the positive powers of the family as such therefore has something ideological about it, because the family no longer accomplishes, and can no longer accomplish for economic reasons, what it is praised for.
3.
>As a social category, the family has always been the agency of society, especially since the beginning of the bourgeois era. It alone has been able to produce in individuals that work ethic, that identification with authority, which had hardly been needed in feudal times and which was replaced by direct rule over bondsmen. By translating the demands of society into the interior of those entrusted to it and making it their own, the family 'internalized' human beings. The concept of the individual in the sense with which we are familiar can hardly be separated from that of the family. But the crisis of the individual today, the replacement of his autonomy by the adaptation to collectives, does not leave the family untouched. There is a contradiction between the type of human that is spreading today and the form of the family. The American mother cult, called "momism" by Philip Wylie, signifies not so much the breakthrough of primordial family forces as a questionable reaction formation to the experience of decaying family relations, which only just recently erected its puny monument on mother-day. Conventional exaggeration and emotional coldness correspond to each other. Like all forms of mediation between the biological individual, the atomic individual, and the integral society, the family is also deprived of its substance by the latter, similar to the economic sphere of circulation, or the category of education, which is deeply connected to the family. As a category of mediation, which in truth, even if without being aware of it, often only brought about the business of the entire totality, the family, apart from its eminent function, always had something illusory about it. And bourgeois society as a whole remained skeptical against the family as an ideology, especially insofar as it made social demands on the individual that seemed arbitrary and unreasonable from the individual's point of view. This skepticism first found its social expression, however dull, in the youth movement. Today, the negation of the family gains the real upper hand. In fact, there is no longer the conflict between the powerful family and the no less powerful ego, but rather the gap between the two is equally small. Family is experienced less as a power of oppression then a residuum, a superfluous ingredient. It is no more feared than it is loved: not fought against, but forgotten and just tolerated by those who have neither reason nor strength to resist.
4.
>The family, according to its concept, cannot divest itself of its natural element, the biological connection of its members. But from the point of view of society, this element appears as heteronomous, as a nuisance, so to speak, because it is not completely absorbed in the exchange relation, although sexuality also resembles the exchange relation, the reason of give and take. On the other hand, the natural element can less than ever be asserted independently of the social-institutional one. That is why, in late bourgeois society, the family is not so different from the corpse that reminds us of the relation to nature in the midst of civilization, and which is either burned hygienically or prepared cosmetically, as shown in Evelyn Waugh's "Loved One". The cult of the family, especially of the "chaste housewife and mother of children," has always lent the halo of voluntary sacrifice and goodness to those who are oppressed and forced to sacrifice in reality. But as every actual ideology is more than just a lie, so is this one. Not only did it bestow honor upon the subjugated, confer upon them a dignity which finally urged their own emancipation as human dignity, but it also concretized the idea of real equality amongst human beings, which leads to the concept of real humanism. The crisis of the family in its present form is therefore at the same time a crisis of humanity. While the possibility of the full realization of human rights, of an emancipation of women by virtue of the emancipation of society instead of a mere imitation of the patriarchal principle, is becoming foreseeable, no less foreseeable is the relapse into barbarism, into that mere state of nature which seems to remain at the end of the family alone, into chaos.
5.
>The decline of the family is an expression of a major social tendency, not an ephemeral contemporary phenomenon. The indescribable sensation caused by Ibsen’s Nora 70 years ago can only be explained by the shock caused by the image of a woman leaving her husband and children in order to no longer be a mere object of patriarchal disposal, but to be in control of herself. At that time, the unleashing of economic productive forces, which forms the background of Ibsen's drama of emancipation, already threatened the family to the utmost. That the family nevertheless kept itself alive was due first of all to the perennial irrationality of the principle of rational society itself, which needed the help of irrational institutions like the family to achieve the appearance of its natural justification. But the dynamics of society have not allowed the family, which is as immanent and cohesive to society as it is incompatible with it, to survive unchallenged. In Germany, at least since the first inflation and the accelerated expansion of women's professional work, the family has reached its crisis. It is therefore wrong, as in a widely read American book, to blame the patriarchal German family structure for National Socialism. Not to mention the fundamental inadequacy of such psychological explanations, Hitler was by no means able to build on a firmly established tradition of family authority. In Germany in particular, taboos such as that of virginity, the legalization of cohabitation, and monogamy were probably much more thoroughly shaken after 1918 than in the Catholic-Romanesque countries and the Anglo-Saxon countries steeped in Puritanism and Irish Jansenism, perhaps because the memory of archaic promiscuity survived more stubbornly in Germany than in the thoroughly bourgeois Western world. In terms of a social psychology of the family, the Third Reich signifies an exaggerated substitute for a family authority that no longer exists, rather than one adhering to it. If the theory of Freud’s "Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego" is correct, according to which the father imago can be transferred to secondary groups and their leaders, then the Hitlerian Reich offers the model of such transference, and the violence of authority as well as the need for it were virtually summoned by its absence in the Germany of the Weimar Republic. Hitler and modern dictatorships are indeed, to use the term of the psychoanalyst Paul Federn, the product of a "fatherless society." How far, however, the transference of paternal authority to the collective changes the inner composition of authority; to what extent it still represents the father and not already what Orwell called the Big Brother, is open to question. In any case, it would be nonsensical to equate the crisis of the family with the dissolution of authority as such. Authority is becoming more and more abstract; but also more and more inhuman and inexorable. The gigantic, collectivized ego ideal is the satanic antithesis of a liberated ego.
6.
>Insofar as the family still has real functions today, it maintains its resilience. In larger families, for instance, where father, mother and older children earn something, it is cheaper to run a joint household than if each were to merely look after himself; they therefore remain under the same roof, preserving an inner cohesion. But this rationality of the family is limited; in the city it extends almost exclusively to the sphere of consumption. In the countryside, where family labor is cheaper than free wage labor, according to the results of numerous studies, the offspring begin to revolt against their 'underpayment' for work in the family estate and migrate to other occupations. In any case, the family, even the one still relatively intact, is undergoing deep structural changes. One sociologist has aptly formulated that its form has changed from that of the nest to that of the gas station. This can perhaps be seen most drastically in the function of education. This is obviously no longer adequately fulfilled by the family, because it lacks the inner persuasive power that enabled children to truly identify with the images of their parents. If today one hears again and again, even about children from the upper classes, that they 'got nothing' from home, and if one has to observe as a university teacher how little substantial, really experienced education can be assumed, then this is not due to the alleged leveling of the democratic mass society and certainly not to a lack of information, but to the fact that the family has lost the protective, nurturing moment that was only able to develop a child’s talent in silence. The tendency now, however, is for the child to withdraw from such education as an unhealthy introversion and to prefer adapting to the demands of so-called real life, long before these are even brought to him. The specific moment of frustration [Versagung] that mutilates individuals today and prevents them from individuation is no longer the family prohibition, but the coldness that increases as the family becomes more riddled with holes.
7.
>In extreme conditions and their prolonged consequences, for example in the case of refugees, the family has proved to be strong in spite of everything, in many cases it has proved to be the powerhouse of survival. Thrown back to the most primitive natural conditions of self-preservation, the family showed itself as an adequate form of its realization. But just as being thrown back contradicts the state of social productivity to the utmost or is rather one of the cruel figures of the price which humanity has to pay for its progress, so it is probably also about a renaissance of the family which owes itself to such regression. It is itself a phenomenon of regression, comparable to the touching, impotent gesture with which the dying man gropes for his mother. To rely on such regression as a regenerative force would be like hoping for a religious renewal from the invocation of God by soldiers in extreme danger. On the contrary: the justification of the largely irrational natural relations of the family by a rationality that demonstrates that it is actually easier to survive this way attacks as rational precisely the irrational substance that it itself glorifies. Such a line of reasoning would have to give way if social forms other than the family were to become more favorable to survival than the family, surrendering its eternity. To doubt the sacramental character of the family, but to advocate it because its sanctity is good for people, is not very convincing. Moreover, studies such as the Darmstadt Community Study lead to the assumption that the generally shaken institution of the family was only strengthened for a short time by the solidarity of the state of emergency. The number of divorces as well as the number of so-called 'incomplete' families is far above the pre-war level. The tendency to limit oneself to a 'nuclear family' - a precondition of childless marriage, which is generally regarded as a symptom of the decline of the family - no longer applies only to the upper classes, but can be observed throughout the population. In the countryside, the archaic multiple-generation family, as opposed to the single one, seems to be noticeably receding. Everywhere the traditional elements of the family relation are gradually being displaced by 'rational' ones. The more the family is transformed into a mere association of convenience, the more it loses those features of the 'primary' group which until recent developments were attributed to it as invariant. Some phenomena of the war and post-war years have undoubtedly had a delaying effect on all this; on the whole, however, it is also true for the family that extreme situations tend to reinforce overall social tendencies; that in them, as it were, what has slowly been formed from within is often enforced from the outside at one stroke.
8.
>Speculations about the future of the family are exposed to almost prohibitive difficulties. If, in fact, the family is so interwoven with the process of society as a whole, its fate will depend on this process and not on its own existence as a self-sufficient social form. Moreover, not even the concept of an immanent developmental tendency, which has been applied to the family, may be hypostatized. Just as, for example, economic developments are able to take a different direction than that of their own lawfulness, as soon as the unconscious play of forces of the economy is controlled in a planned way for better or for worse, it is conceivable that, for example, by totalitarian dictatorships breaking in again, the "trend" of the family changes, be it restoratively, be it also by accelerated dissolution in favor of radical etatist control, which no longer tolerates an intermediate authority between itself and the social atoms. A total state would not even have to shy away from combining the two incompatible possibilities. This much seems certain, that the preservation of everything that has proven itself in the family as humane, as a condition of autonomy, freedom and experience, cannot be conserved simply by giving up the outdated features. It is probably an illusion to think that a family of 'equal status' can be realized in the midst of a society in which humanity itself is not mature, in which human rights are not established in a far more fundamental and universal sense. One cannot preserve the protective function of the family and eliminate its disciplinary features as long as it has to protect its members from a world imbued with mediated or direct social pressures, communicated to all its institutions. The family suffers from the same as everything particular that pushes for its liberation: there is no emancipation of the family without the emancipation of the whole. In a free world, however, a family of freedom is conceivable, a social sublimation of the mere natural relation in what Wilhelm Meister called the "firm thought of duration"; a form of close and happy coexistence of individuals that protects against barbarism without doing violence to the nature that is suspended in it. But such a family can be imagined as little as any other social utopia.