I mean this with all sympathy, after all, I used to share views similar to your own before I started taking Marxism seriously, and to dismiss you would be to dismiss myself, and thus the capacity for change. When you simplify Marxism to “workers should collectively own the Means of Production,” you remove the entirety of Marxism, as such a thought was common even pre-Marx. When you simplify AES to “authoritarian states with a monopoly on violence to enforce Communism,” you assume greater knowledge of the practice of building Socialism than the billions of people who have worked tirelessly to bring it into existance for the last century from the inside, not criticizing from afar.
With all due respect, and no “I’ve read more than you so my power level is higher” nonsense, have you read Marx?
With all due respect to theory, I’ve seen too much of it shit all over people who lack education, context, or ability to understand, and basically leaves those people out of the conversation and acts like their opinions don’t matter because they haven’t read the right books or have the right education.
The differences between academic unions and blue-collar unions were always stark to me, and when there was ever any connection between the two, the academics would roll their eyes and be dismissive of the blue-collar people, who may have not always been theory conscious but were good people, a la Samwise Gamgee (in terms of Tolkiens ideas of the kind of good, kind, but simple people he met in WWI). Constantly telling those people that they don’t know enough to be involved isn’t ever really a positive way forward, in my opinion, and anything where it’s forced from the top-down on those people instead of having their input is something I’m against, sorry. You can’t explain away taking away people’s right to input in their own governance with theory, to me.
I’ve read some Marx, but never got my hands on an unabridged copy of Capital, nor did I finish it because it was pretty tedious. I personally think Debord had way more profound things to say, and Society of the Spectacle is the most dog-eared book I own. Mixed with McLuhan’s Understanding Media, I’m actually partial to think communications might actually be neck-and-neck with commodities in terms of importance of understanding them. I mean, Debord thought that too, which is why he thought he would be remembered for his board game Kriegspiel, (a war game focusing on lines of communication) not for SotS.
ve seen too much of it shit all over people who lack education, context, or ability to understand,
It kinda irks me seeing comrades engage with people assuming they’re arguing in good faith and immediately it turns out it’s just unabashed western chauvinism. The fact that you refer to Debord is just the icing on the cake.
I’ve read Debord, guy had a good fifteen page essay hidden inside The Society of the Spectacle and then over a hundred pages of masturbatory inscrutability of the kind Zizek perfected and good old french chauvinism. I put more stock in the works credited by people who actually achieved revolution and then a better quality of life for their nations through them. A social science requires falsifiability.
On the other hand, there is Lenin boiling down in a hundred pages a very thorough understanding of Marxist thought and the critical steps the revolution must take to defend itself as well as the reasons for it. No fluff, no academicist posturing, just keeping in the Marxist tradition of making the subject only as complex as it needs to be. Then he went and fucking proved it with his practice.
Capital isn’t an entry level text, it is a thorough study of the mechanisms of capital, the value form, the objects of financial speculation and their interaction with the real material economy. Critique of the Gotha Programme, The Poverty of Philosophy, The German Ideology, even Socialism: Utopic and Scientific by Engels are thorough, clear, and concise. And they work.
Yea, I try to make it a rule to engage in good-faith almost regardless of what the other person is saying unless it’s clear that nothing can come from it, be it reaching the other person or reaching onlookers. In this case, it was more for the latter.
I am not trying to tell you that your opinions are “invalid” or “worthless.” You raise a good problem well known by actual, practicing Marxists about Western “Marxists” that seek to endlessly critique society without changing it. However, it would be a mistake to not learn from Socialists in the past and present who have a wealth of experience and lifetimes of analysis to draw from. Rather, my goal isn’t telling you that you don’t know enough to be involved, but that I think you are making a critical error in attacking Socialists based on what I believe are misconceptions and misunderstandings, and this hurts leftist movement.
I think if you made an effort to understand what these billions of Socialists believe in and are committed to, you would better understand if their ideas and systems are valid or not. I think without reading theory that you are only going to have an incomplete and partial view, and this, while not delegitimizing your opinions and views, certainly harms the integrity. Celebrating an “end to theory” was something the Socialist Revolutionaries adhered to pre-revolution in Russia, and this was proven a mistake, while the Bolsheviks’ strict adherence to theory and mass worker organization proved correct.
Kinda? If you want to have an opinion of Marxists, I would read Marx and historical accounts by Marxists to even understand better what they are trying to do better, rather than Anarchist critiques of Marxism. Your initial comment came out attacking Marxists, so I tried to contextualize that more.
I don’t know how to more emphatically tell you that Debord was such a Marxist his many of his theses from Society of the Spectacle literally were copying/detourning Marx lines. His “plagiarism is necessary” thing is something he lived up to when writing the book. Like three quarters of things in the book are other writers words twisted into what Debord wants to talk about. The Lettrists/Situationists were literally building on what came before.
The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images.
Clarify the difference, then, because whenever anyone seems to do so they end up just clarifying a tiny minority of western orthodox Marxists as “real Marxists” and the billions of practicing Marxists as “tankies.”
when there was ever any connection between the two, the academics would roll their eyes and be dismissive of the blue-collar people, who may have not always been theory conscious but were good people, a la Samwise Gamgee
Samwise Gamgee isn’t a good person, he’s a fictitious character in a fantasy novel.
You can’t explain away taking away people’s right to input in their own governance with theory, to me.
You need to have something before it can be taken away from you.
Society of the Spectacle is the most dog-eared book I own.
Then you know the illusion of choice isn’t the same thing as a people’s right to self-governance. And further, that a movement of people in opposition to a media established regime is not stealing their neighbors’ liberty by asserting some of its own.
Not even if all the TVs and radios and newspapers say so.
I mean this with all sympathy, after all, I used to share views similar to your own before I started taking Marxism seriously, and to dismiss you would be to dismiss myself, and thus the capacity for change. When you simplify Marxism to “workers should collectively own the Means of Production,” you remove the entirety of Marxism, as such a thought was common even pre-Marx. When you simplify AES to “authoritarian states with a monopoly on violence to enforce Communism,” you assume greater knowledge of the practice of building Socialism than the billions of people who have worked tirelessly to bring it into existance for the last century from the inside, not criticizing from afar.
With all due respect, and no “I’ve read more than you so my power level is higher” nonsense, have you read Marx?
With all due respect to theory, I’ve seen too much of it shit all over people who lack education, context, or ability to understand, and basically leaves those people out of the conversation and acts like their opinions don’t matter because they haven’t read the right books or have the right education.
The differences between academic unions and blue-collar unions were always stark to me, and when there was ever any connection between the two, the academics would roll their eyes and be dismissive of the blue-collar people, who may have not always been theory conscious but were good people, a la Samwise Gamgee (in terms of Tolkiens ideas of the kind of good, kind, but simple people he met in WWI). Constantly telling those people that they don’t know enough to be involved isn’t ever really a positive way forward, in my opinion, and anything where it’s forced from the top-down on those people instead of having their input is something I’m against, sorry. You can’t explain away taking away people’s right to input in their own governance with theory, to me.
I’ve read some Marx, but never got my hands on an unabridged copy of Capital, nor did I finish it because it was pretty tedious. I personally think Debord had way more profound things to say, and Society of the Spectacle is the most dog-eared book I own. Mixed with McLuhan’s Understanding Media, I’m actually partial to think communications might actually be neck-and-neck with commodities in terms of importance of understanding them. I mean, Debord thought that too, which is why he thought he would be remembered for his board game Kriegspiel, (a war game focusing on lines of communication) not for SotS.
It kinda irks me seeing comrades engage with people assuming they’re arguing in good faith and immediately it turns out it’s just unabashed western chauvinism. The fact that you refer to Debord is just the icing on the cake.
I’ve read Debord, guy had a good fifteen page essay hidden inside The Society of the Spectacle and then over a hundred pages of masturbatory inscrutability of the kind Zizek perfected and good old french chauvinism. I put more stock in the works credited by people who actually achieved revolution and then a better quality of life for their nations through them. A social science requires falsifiability.
On the other hand, there is Lenin boiling down in a hundred pages a very thorough understanding of Marxist thought and the critical steps the revolution must take to defend itself as well as the reasons for it. No fluff, no academicist posturing, just keeping in the Marxist tradition of making the subject only as complex as it needs to be. Then he went and fucking proved it with his practice.
Capital isn’t an entry level text, it is a thorough study of the mechanisms of capital, the value form, the objects of financial speculation and their interaction with the real material economy. Critique of the Gotha Programme, The Poverty of Philosophy, The German Ideology, even Socialism: Utopic and Scientific by Engels are thorough, clear, and concise. And they work.
Yea, I try to make it a rule to engage in good-faith almost regardless of what the other person is saying unless it’s clear that nothing can come from it, be it reaching the other person or reaching onlookers. In this case, it was more for the latter.
I am not trying to tell you that your opinions are “invalid” or “worthless.” You raise a good problem well known by actual, practicing Marxists about Western “Marxists” that seek to endlessly critique society without changing it. However, it would be a mistake to not learn from Socialists in the past and present who have a wealth of experience and lifetimes of analysis to draw from. Rather, my goal isn’t telling you that you don’t know enough to be involved, but that I think you are making a critical error in attacking Socialists based on what I believe are misconceptions and misunderstandings, and this hurts leftist movement.
I think if you made an effort to understand what these billions of Socialists believe in and are committed to, you would better understand if their ideas and systems are valid or not. I think without reading theory that you are only going to have an incomplete and partial view, and this, while not delegitimizing your opinions and views, certainly harms the integrity. Celebrating an “end to theory” was something the Socialist Revolutionaries adhered to pre-revolution in Russia, and this was proven a mistake, while the Bolsheviks’ strict adherence to theory and mass worker organization proved correct.
Bud, I’m reading theory, and you’re literally telling me I’m not reading the right theory.
Kinda? If you want to have an opinion of Marxists, I would read Marx and historical accounts by Marxists to even understand better what they are trying to do better, rather than Anarchist critiques of Marxism. Your initial comment came out attacking Marxists, so I tried to contextualize that more.
I don’t know how to more emphatically tell you that Debord was such a Marxist his many of his theses from Society of the Spectacle literally were copying/detourning Marx lines. His “plagiarism is necessary” thing is something he lived up to when writing the book. Like three quarters of things in the book are other writers words twisted into what Debord wants to talk about. The Lettrists/Situationists were literally building on what came before.
Sure, and I am telling you that based on your assertions thus far he evidently isn’t enough to actively take a hostile stance towards Marxists.
I have known Marxists, and they didn’t self-ascribe the term “tankie” to mean “Marxist.” In fact the ones I’ve known would bristle at the suggestion.
Clarify the difference, then, because whenever anyone seems to do so they end up just clarifying a tiny minority of western orthodox Marxists as “real Marxists” and the billions of practicing Marxists as “tankies.”
Samwise Gamgee isn’t a good person, he’s a fictitious character in a fantasy novel.
You need to have something before it can be taken away from you.
Then you know the illusion of choice isn’t the same thing as a people’s right to self-governance. And further, that a movement of people in opposition to a media established regime is not stealing their neighbors’ liberty by asserting some of its own.
Not even if all the TVs and radios and newspapers say so.