Shulamith Firestone Anonymous 08-05-23 19:15:15 No. 13435 [Last 50 Posts]
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.
Anonymous 08-05-23 19:39:54 No. 13449
>>13447 i dont think shes really wrong at the core. she wants to abolish sex, I think it makes sense. Society is probably is heading for that in some way (if climate change doesn't kill us first)
>>13448 explain why it's a misreading
Anonymous 08-05-23 20:08:36 No. 13460
>>13458 Are you as illiterate as the author of that schizo book? First of all, why are you reiterating that Engels used them when i already said that in my post? Second, the point is that the terms were coined by Morgan and anyone with basic reading comprehension who read Engels would know that.
It is a criticism because you can see author not engaging properly with the supposed (because i doubt the author actually read Engels) source material. It's looks like someone made a patchwork of different systems of analysis without understanding what they are about. Hence there is "middle class" and other crap like that.
Anonymous 08-05-23 20:11:35 No. 13462
>>13461 Well, if i see something that looks like shit and smells like shit i am not getting on all fours and start eating that in hope my sight and smell were mistaken and it's actually a cake down sitting down there.
And stop shittting the board with your pseud threads, it's clear that your engagement into those topics is on the "skimmed the wiki page" level.
Anonymous 08-05-23 20:21:14 No. 13477
>>13474 That is entirely correct comrade.
>>13473 Nice turn of the phrase – it is no longer dialectical materialism, but "materialist dialectics". Yes, your method is dealing with dialectics (an idea, lol) using materialist methods, but we engage with matter
using dialectical methods. That's what makes us revolutionary and not just Neo-Kantians with more categories.
Anonymous 08-05-23 20:26:39 No. 13484
>>13478 I have a strong opinion because I don't deal with ideas. I was actively engaged with anarcho-fem places in my city and their work is dogshit. That's Marxism: looking at reality of these ideas and seeing that they lead nowhere but endless critique which leaves nothing. There is a reason the CIA never was actually afraid of post-Marxists theory, let alone praxis. Do more, because reading too many books
is harmful.
Anonymous 08-05-23 20:29:31 No. 13488
>>13483 Nurturing a child is labor. That's not the issue lol
>>13481 Sure, then shut up and read your books on your own. This post makes it clear that this is mere entertainment to you
presented without further comment 08-05-23 20:49:26 No. 13494
>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.
Anonymous 08-05-23 21:15:54 No. 13499
>>13497 Most people have terrible praxis
ok
Anonymous 08-05-23 21:28:57 No. 13513
>>13511 (all me)
>>13490 >>13484 >>13477 >>13470 Lol. Even possibly Lmao.
Anonymous 08-05-23 21:30:05 No. 13514
>>13508 Yea, the wrecker is deffinetly OP and not the guy who comes in to the thread to say nothing of relation to the OP and just tries to start arguments.
100 percent makes sense. i am convinced by this logic.
You stupid fucking retard faggot you are the reason this site is the way it is. Kill yourself. Anonymous 08-05-23 21:33:51 No. 13516
>>13513 ok sure buddy, i addressed a bunch of these but I'll compile everything I said into one place for you.
>>13490 this isn't a criticism. this is you posting some optics you don't like. this is tantamount to propaganda.
>>13484 Marxism *is* the ruthless critique of all that exists. Praxis requires an understanding of the world and ought be fragmented and provisional. Going around a merri-go-round and saying 'look! at least we are doing something' is not real praxis. we have plenty of praxis, mainly we engage in direct action. im sorry you didnt agree with their praxis, but this is just a strawman frankly.
>>13477 this is a linguistic dispute and not one of content. firestone is explicitly doing diamat critique. you haven't actually made any criticism of the method used, you simply criticised my use of language.
>>13470 the top line of posts last time i checked included a shitpost about mucus and people being sad about chomsky. how does this constitute an argument? it doesnt.
Anonymous 08-05-23 21:34:03 No. 13517
>>13514 <Nothing of relation to the OP >>13514 (me)
Now you're gaslighting! That's great. I'm girl you girlbosses don't gatekeep this post-Marxist shit to the masses. Wouldn't want ideological confusion among the proletariat, or anything. The more incoherent, more proletariat it is. Or something. Idk.
Anonymous 08-05-23 21:35:54 No. 13518
>>13517 He's probably talking about the incel
just guessing
Anonymous 08-05-23 21:45:56 No. 13520
>>13510 okay so from memory what i got from the deleted comments were a mix of
>men's labor is way worse than women's labor i got mad brain fog so nothing isn't really making sense, i'm probably gonna get some work done for a few hours and then come back if the thread is still up
Anonymous 08-05-23 21:46:27 No. 13521
>>13516 >this isn't a criticism. It is criticism of the
content it presents and not in the
form it is presented. If you cannot see beyond your (projected) critique of my 'misunderstanding' that the only thing that zine is, is a handful of empty phrases, which get handled out at their protests to – propagandize? I guess. I don't see people talking, not even thinking in these 'radical' terms you want me to learn of. People are not responsive to these ideas because squats are a dying form of organization due to gentrification and due to the lack of coherent ideological behind any kind of anarchist theory (which the zine and the diagrams I saw are examples of).
This is situtationalist drivel warped in a new clothing. 50 years since the SI published their Manifesto, and yet
no socialist revolutions anywhere. Lenin and Mao, together with their parties, managed to do revolution in that time. It is clear that one of these tactics is the one we should take as our basis for continued work on developing theory, and not engage historical nihilism by denying socialist history, like the SI, and all of their derivatives today, practice.
It is a point of interest either way, since language is a product of class relations, and being conscious enough to see the need of dialectics but refusing to give matter is primacy in the descriptor of communist methods (i.e. dialectical materialism instead of materialist dialectics) is something you should self-criticize, because language shapes our ideas as Marx showed in the German Ideology.
Debate. Not argue. Endless squabble. That's what you are doing.
>>13519 It's critiquing your petite-bourgeois individualism which I've already hinted upon in many of my posts. If you can't stand the ruthless criticism of everything, including (You), I dunno what to tell you. Go back to reddit, maybe? Idk.
Anonymous 08-05-23 21:50:01 No. 13523
>>13521 it's a criticism of some content someone put out, not of the content of marxist feminist critique, and in this regard, you're merely critical of form.
i have nothing more to say on this issue. if you cant see that it's your problem.
Anonymous 08-05-23 21:55:52 No. 13527
>>13523 Buddy if you can't see that I'm showing you explicitly what the last 60 years of this post-Marixst/situationalist/anarcho-w/e theory amounted to, then that's a (You) problem.
The reality of your theories are showing them to be not revolutionary. That is the reason why there's no point even engaging them. That is the point I argue for. That is the point your narcissistic, individualistic first-world fuckface argues about.
Anonymous 08-05-23 22:05:00 No. 13532
so since a lot of people on leftypol don't grasp diamat despite claiming to be diamaticians, here's an intuitive explanation.
Anonymous 08-05-23 22:11:18 No. 13536
>>13533 i only explained the gist but not the actual mechanics. if you want that you should definitely read the book it's really interesting.
fun fact she wrote it at 25 years old. (a year older than me). goddamn.
No of course we care. Important to note this stuff about Freud is my own analysis and additions because I don't think a sex-class analysis is sufficient on its own to understand gender. The idea is that in pre-civ we didn't really have concepts of family units, it was more like clans and tribes. the 'family' has only really come about as a way to harness and organise control over reproductive labour. in order to truly solve the issue, firestone thinks we need to abolish biological sex through technology as much as possible. however it's important to note she's kind of following engels into the 'make women productive that will save them' idea, believing that the sex revolution must occur at the same time joined with the proletarian one. when im talking about freud and the drive for power im talking about how sex is more than just the drive to reproduce– think about shit like BDSM that isnt even related to reproduction. sex is about power.
Anonymous 08-05-23 22:37:43 No. 13546
ctrl+f "postmodern" 21 results, wow! Always funny to see reactionaries attempt to use that term as an insult. Imagine pretending to be a historical materialist while shrieking about people acknowledging the 20th century's material effects on human consciousness. You aren't a Marxist, you're just a dead, ossified piece of bone rather than a green, living tree root working through the contradictions which currently afflict the living.
>>13451 >So nice that le patriarchy has been abolished so that women too can be squeezed to nothing by porky Hillary Clinton: "will abolishing patriarchy end capitalism? No!" (audience cheers)
>How can you claim oppression over something that if you choose to you will never experience in your entire life "oppression" a guy denying the EXPLOITATION of female working class is using the radlib term oppression, sounds like you're the real post-modernist here haha. These incel Reaganite neoliberals use the framework of "rational choices by individuals in the free market" precisely because they want to obscure any material conditions that cause workers to be alienated and then victim blame them for being responsible, not the managed austerity of the state. Your redditor post denying grooming and rape culture is typical of incels who celebrate women being coerced to live with their (animal) husbandry property owners.
>>13474 >These postmodernist threads are even more dangerous and derailing than nazi bait threads. (scared Jordan Peterson) "nazis are preferable compared to communists who are actually the real fascists for polluting the volk with their evil ideas, which are ruining our Historical Progress (tm)"
>>13474 >you can debunk them because they have an essence. With postmodernist dogshit, there is nothing Leftypol: "I haven't read any books written in the last 100 years, but workers need to listen to me! I am a scholar!!!"
>>13491 >society is great for women because they're all petty porkies by virtue of having female bodies and being able to make money on onlyfans <trans are lumpenproles not working class <blacks are lumpenproles not working class <women are lumpenproles not working class <people who lost their job are lumpenproles not working class <immigrants are lumpenproles not working class "Huh??? Why is everyone saying that 'socialism is idealist utopian fascist ideology for middle class redditors sitting on comfy gamerchairs instead of actually talking to the workers they pretend to champion'??? They must have read (((postmodern textbooks))) that have ruined the volk's clear minds! We would have communism by now if those books were never published, I'm a historical materialist btw, please ignore my complete and willful silence about any economic obstacles towards liberation"
>>13496 >Anime meme. No further comment needed. yeah leftypol is not an anime nazi forum like 4chan! it's just a nazi forum LOL
Anonymous 08-05-23 23:22:01 No. 13549
>>13435 > 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'm not really sure if this person believes this, but is the point that the sex division happened before or at the same time as the technological shift? Is this an argument like "prostitution is the oldest profession"? Some people frame the division of the sexes as the primary contradiction in society because they think it happened first. I don't think this is accurate, the division of the sexes happened because of the technology of sedentary agriculture which allowed for surplus population and the division of labor. So the subjugation of women isn't rooted in biology, its comes from property, which comes from agriculture, which means that womens freedom is tied to the method of production.
Even if its the case that it did happen first I think that the correct solution is similar to the solution to the race question, that the particular demands of sexual and gender minorities have to be incorporated into universal demands of a communist party platform, not tackled individually because the material basis of that oppression comes from class derived in the method of production of a given society, not from biological differences. This is almost akin to saying that the biologogical root of oppression in society is physically weak manlets letting strong tall people boss them around or that black and brown people are innately easier to trick into voting against their interests so we need to change them to be physically equal because it is not possible to prevent domination by larger stronger people when technology has already made people physically equal in the realm of dominating others.
The goal of flattening biological differences through technology is a good one, but its kind of a first world problem, and not really a primary concern to internationalists when many people of the world still don't have regular access to clean water, plumbing, housing, food, electricity and infrastructure. It reminds me of the preoccupation of some people with transhumanism and cyborgs under capitalism, in which technology advancements will not be widely distributed to the masses for free or at cost but instead restricted a select few very rich individuals and locked behind patents and copyright. I think in a communist society it would be good to allocate state funds for this kind of theoretical research and development but that would start small while other more pressing issues are fixed first.
I don't think advocating for gender abolition immediately works very well even though it is the logical conclusion of Engels Origin of the Family. People resist now because they see the commodification of their identities as a threat while capitalism dissolves all that is solid into air. Its not really something we have to 'do", it will have to be something that happens two or three generations after the material conditions of society are changed to facilitate that transition and peoples spooks start to fade.
Anonymous 08-05-23 23:25:35 No. 13550
>>13509 >'The Second Sex' by De Beauvoir is the closest thign that exists to a magnum opus for radfem but it's not explicitly marxist. Anonymous 08-05-23 23:46:49 No. 13560
>>13557 Woah there anon! You're on the verge of commiting
transpho class reductionism! That's very
problema reactionary!
Anonymous 08-05-23 23:53:09 No. 13561
>>13557 please see
>>13472 that chart is actually from a tertiary source and isnt trustworthy.
Anonymous 08-05-23 23:56:39 No. 13569
>>13561 >that chart is actually from a tertiary source and isnt trustworthy then why did you post it in the OP? i just opened the thread, was i supposed to just know that the image YOU CHOSE to post wasn't trustworthy?
also that other chart is shit too
Anonymous 09-05-23 00:11:04 No. 13574
Can you answer actually answer this question?:
>>13569 >>13561 >that chart is actually from a tertiary source and isnt trustworthy then why did you post it in the OP? i j
No troll. It's a straight forward question.
Anonymous 09-05-23 00:12:44 No. 13576
>>13575 So the second one is the good chart?
>>13472 It's not any better, but thanks for your clarification.
Anonymous 09-05-23 00:18:31 No. 13578
>>13577 Before some genius says 'you forgot X'
From Engels' Origins of the family:
Anonymous 09-05-23 09:00:38 No. 13584
Anarchofem threads (or theory, in general) are not just a waste of time but are actively
harmful when it comes to revolution. Had the very smart anarchofem poster actually read the authors they proclaim are their ideological predecessors, they would've seen their mistakes. Anarchofem in principle does the following:
[
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/misc/x02.htm ]
The fixation on the single dimension of class society, namely the remnants of sexism rooted in primitive class divisions (according to ability, age and gender) without further, deeper, proper class analysis is fideism. It leads to subjectivity and to ideological confusion. This is most clearly demonstrated in the OP, where empty phrases decorate the shell of dialectical materialism.
<gender takes on a life of its own. Take note and avoid such ultra-radical deviations from Marxism into idealism.
Anonymous 09-05-23 09:23:06 No. 13588
>>13585 (📽️)
>>13587 (📽️)
Take note* Marxists. You may not like it, but this is what peak theory looks like.
Anonymous 09-05-23 11:09:03 No. 13597
>>13592 Postmodernists love to claim they're profound
With their ideas so complex and unbound
But in truth, they always come to common sense conclusions
And wrap them up in thousands of pages of confusing and idealistic llusions.
They call me a bone and portray themselves as tree roots so green,
This is but a poetic dream.
Their words are but falling leaves, detached from any real root,
Falling to the ground, failing to bear any useful fruit.
Their ideas are shallow, their analysis thin
And all their complexity is but a wokeshow for their libkin.
Anonymous 09-05-23 11:11:12 No. 13598
>>13597 At least you tried to say something instead of whining crying and throwing a tantrum
My issue is not with you
Anonymous 09-05-23 11:12:40 No. 13600
>>13597 Desire for a day
Broken futures, fragmented
History's hopeless
Anonymous 09-05-23 11:25:20 No. 13602
"Theories come and go," the anfem yells,
Anonymous 09-05-23 11:32:08 No. 13603
>>13602 >You are actually the cancer which >prevents spontanoeus outbursts of popular opinion with over-moderation and ivory tower theory >gatekeeping, accusing those who do not want to engage in philistine, fideistic behavior, >to just 'not get it'. noble taste defeated;
rabble rises to the top–
with your dialectics!
lovely poem though, im actually quite flattered
Anonymous 09-05-23 15:15:04 No. 13609
>>13522 No, it wouldn't have. It would've been attacked, just for largely different reasons.
Why was this thread put on auto-sage anyway? The OP is only antagonizing the "books are harmful" faction of this board, which we hardly need anyway. They weren't engaging with anything she said and apparently considered it a personal virtue not to be able to understand, rather than the effect of their own self-induced stupidity.
Even though I disagree in some way with most of these threads, every time I start to write something critical I see the moron brigade out in full force and have to stop myself. If you want to moderate these threads, make examples of them and get rid of their posts rather than the discussion.
Using "communism" as an excuse for this behavior is disgusting and the anti-intellectualism is reminiscent of fascism. It's also ironically one of the most American things about this board.
Anonymous 09-05-23 15:21:14 No. 13610
>>13609 >"books are harmful" faction of this board Yeah, about that
That's the whole board with few exceptions
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