I am finding these podcasts indispensable and I must say that both Max and Shaenah are hitting their stride now. Shaenah in particular is becoming more confident, relaxed and assured.
This episode confirms my suspicion that capitalism has only survived in the West through imperialist parasitism on the rest of the world. In other words, the “socialism” of the West is a con, a little treat dished out to derail revolution. And the brutal reality of capitalist exploitation was only veiled from the West by “offshoring” such reality onto the colonies.
The bottom line is that it is only a revolution that will deliver an answer to this chronic situation by which capitalism may be able to disguise its violence in certain favoured areas of the globe, i.e. the imperialist core, for limited periods but the violence will always return to the imperialist core. In the meantime this violence has continued unabated on the periphery.
Another matter that is becoming clearer is that, within this Western imperialist core, there is a shocking lack of perception which previously led to a cartoonish “spoiled brat” mentality regarding revolution. I have read (from Guido Preparata) that the “strange quiescence” of the working masses through the grim period of the Great Depression is some kind of irrefutable proof that a communist revolution would never come. This is the kind of outlook which naively assumes that the masses could easily overturn the system without any consideration of the obstacles that are being ceaselessly and ferociously set against them.
In short, this is an impatient stance which wants instant solutions and gives rise to such dismaying effects as opportunism that grasps at the slightest concession from above. And such desperate opportunism ironically only results in a greater impotence on the part of the masses.
And the resulting mass impotence then fires a sneering condescension from these impatient “firebrands” who dismiss the masses as malleable material in the hands of the rulers.
Thus we have a rejection of the working masses as any kind of active agent. Such a rejection is now the compulsive received wisdom of so many “Leftists” in the West now. But such blasé complacent cynicism can only operate with a certain level of affluence. Thus we have a “terraced” structure whereby the arrogant superciliousness of certain “aristocratic” academic thinkers percolates downward to those not so favoured materialistically i.e. hegemony in action.
To Shaenah’s wry comment on how America has the audacity to denounce other countries for not being democracies, I would add the equal absurdity of the US (and the UK) trumpeting about who is officially classed as a “terrorist”.
Bernstein's comment “The Final goal, no matter what it is, is nothing; the movement is everything" sums up the current mode of what passes for dissent in the West. This is encapsulated in what Gabriel Rockhill calls "the global theory industry", that happy pantheon of "big names", the stars of the academic publishing world.
On the one hand we have the flamboyant movements of the minds of Adorno, Jameson, Zizek etc. And there's no effective difference between Adorno and Zizek, despite the "respectable" aura of the former and the disdain shown to the latter. On the other hand we can study the minutiae of psychoanalysis and perhaps distract ourselves with the secular salvation bestowed by the church of Freud.
Jameson I have time for because he actually knew what he was talking about when he jumped from literature to architecture to film all in the same paragraph of circular sentences. He also didn’t neglect economics like the Frankfurt School and it was very much a part of his critical theory. Adorno and Zizek are more Freudian than Marxist. The latter has become a complete self-parody.
Yeah I figured I was being unkind to Jameson. Somebody recently said that PK Dick ratted him into the authorities. Can't imagine anyone doing that with the other two unless it was a desperate way to try and make them look glamorously threatening.
It's remarkable how candid Bernstein's comment is. Movement is all and the goal doesn't matter. Its a recipe for, indeed pretty much a description of, pointless activity.
I am finding these podcasts indispensable and I must say that both Max and Shaenah are hitting their stride now. Shaenah in particular is becoming more confident, relaxed and assured.
This episode confirms my suspicion that capitalism has only survived in the West through imperialist parasitism on the rest of the world. In other words, the “socialism” of the West is a con, a little treat dished out to derail revolution. And the brutal reality of capitalist exploitation was only veiled from the West by “offshoring” such reality onto the colonies.
The bottom line is that it is only a revolution that will deliver an answer to this chronic situation by which capitalism may be able to disguise its violence in certain favoured areas of the globe, i.e. the imperialist core, for limited periods but the violence will always return to the imperialist core. In the meantime this violence has continued unabated on the periphery.
Another matter that is becoming clearer is that, within this Western imperialist core, there is a shocking lack of perception which previously led to a cartoonish “spoiled brat” mentality regarding revolution. I have read (from Guido Preparata) that the “strange quiescence” of the working masses through the grim period of the Great Depression is some kind of irrefutable proof that a communist revolution would never come. This is the kind of outlook which naively assumes that the masses could easily overturn the system without any consideration of the obstacles that are being ceaselessly and ferociously set against them.
In short, this is an impatient stance which wants instant solutions and gives rise to such dismaying effects as opportunism that grasps at the slightest concession from above. And such desperate opportunism ironically only results in a greater impotence on the part of the masses.
And the resulting mass impotence then fires a sneering condescension from these impatient “firebrands” who dismiss the masses as malleable material in the hands of the rulers.
Thus we have a rejection of the working masses as any kind of active agent. Such a rejection is now the compulsive received wisdom of so many “Leftists” in the West now. But such blasé complacent cynicism can only operate with a certain level of affluence. Thus we have a “terraced” structure whereby the arrogant superciliousness of certain “aristocratic” academic thinkers percolates downward to those not so favoured materialistically i.e. hegemony in action.
To Shaenah’s wry comment on how America has the audacity to denounce other countries for not being democracies, I would add the equal absurdity of the US (and the UK) trumpeting about who is officially classed as a “terrorist”.
Bernstein's comment “The Final goal, no matter what it is, is nothing; the movement is everything" sums up the current mode of what passes for dissent in the West. This is encapsulated in what Gabriel Rockhill calls "the global theory industry", that happy pantheon of "big names", the stars of the academic publishing world.
On the one hand we have the flamboyant movements of the minds of Adorno, Jameson, Zizek etc. And there's no effective difference between Adorno and Zizek, despite the "respectable" aura of the former and the disdain shown to the latter. On the other hand we can study the minutiae of psychoanalysis and perhaps distract ourselves with the secular salvation bestowed by the church of Freud.
All of which recalls Neil Young:
"You're all just pissing in the wind
You don't know it but you are
And there is nothing like a friend
Who can tell you you're just pissing in the wind"
Jameson I have time for because he actually knew what he was talking about when he jumped from literature to architecture to film all in the same paragraph of circular sentences. He also didn’t neglect economics like the Frankfurt School and it was very much a part of his critical theory. Adorno and Zizek are more Freudian than Marxist. The latter has become a complete self-parody.
Yeah I figured I was being unkind to Jameson. Somebody recently said that PK Dick ratted him into the authorities. Can't imagine anyone doing that with the other two unless it was a desperate way to try and make them look glamorously threatening.
It's remarkable how candid Bernstein's comment is. Movement is all and the goal doesn't matter. Its a recipe for, indeed pretty much a description of, pointless activity.
And Jameson's book on postmodernism talks perceptively about "depthlessness" which is a logical culmination of this circular motion.