Understanding The State

[arunbol]

It seems to me like philosophical writing is the art of repeating the obvious. As part of a Media course at Uni I had to study Marx, Engels, Althusser, Lacann... all bored me to fucking tears. They just take a simple notion like "signs signify things" or "workers should control the means of production" and then spend an entire book rephrasing it again and again. I've tried reading beginner's books on philosophy and had the same response: one interesting idea, followed by an entire chapter of repetition. I dunno about Deanne's over-all arguement (cause I honestly don't get it), but "windbaggery" seems like the best possible phrase to describe the phenomenon.

Stick to Dan Brown mate, Marx is wasted on you

[Hostile]

Hey, good call. I'll go enjoy some good ol' fashioned capitalist entertainment, and you can go waste your time with Marx, fantasising about proletarian revolution and all that good fun that'll never happen.

[Guest Deanne65]

It seems to me like philosophical writing is the art of repeating the obvious. As part of a Media course at Uni I had to study Marx, Engels, Althusser, Lacann... all bored me to fucking tears. They just take a simple notion like "signs signify things" or "workers should control the means of production" and then spend an entire book rephrasing it again and again. I've tried reading beginner's books on philosophy and had the same response: one interesting idea, followed by an entire chapter of repetition. I dunno about Deanne's over-all arguement (cause I honestly don't get it), but "windbaggery" seems like the best possible phrase to describe the phenomenon.

That would be "Lacan", not "Lacann". It seems that I am not the only one who has come to see the mainstay of Post-Modern, Marxist "intellectuals" as purposefully abstruse (obscurantitst). This whole "deconstructionist" project that infects Leftist, Continental intellectuals, has made for great cocktail party conversation by equally leftist, pompous, prigs. The only exception is Foucault, although he, too, was generally iconoclastic of everything and anything! I guess his being gay and Marxist had its ill effects. However, I can see the appeal that Marxist --centric thought can have for many a socially and economically dislocated, young pothead: it is much easier to blame society's ills on one's failure to flourish. It is even easier to surrender to the collective, with its "promises" of security, at the cost of greater liberty. There is a reason why Marxism doesn't work.

Edited April 5, 2010 by Deanne65

[arunbol]

Ah Deano, isn't it ironic that you write in the same pseudo-intellectual style of the chattering classes that you are so critical of. The basic idea of Marxism/communism is that it offers a superior economic model. It is true that this has yet to be fully proven in reality, so you can argue that Marxism doesn't work. However, this is only like those who said man could not fly before the wright bros proved that manned flight does work. Just because it has never been achieved doesn't mean its unachievable.

[audioaddict]

See, in these here parts, on my side of the pond, we don't have much regard for Marx. .

I came to the thread to say thanks for the pointers, but had to respond to this... I don't mean any offense, but it makes me laugh when I see arrogant statements like that... just because Americans have no regard for Marx doesn't invalidate the mans work.

Do you expect the rest of the world to disregard Marx because the worlds leading capitalists say so?

Thats like disregarding Pepsi because Coca-cola says so!

Anyway, I've decided to read Marx et al which is much overdue... I come from a family of pretty staunch socialists, but I've never really taken to it myself... mainly out of opposition to the idea of centralised power and state controlled everything, I would probably call myself an anarchist/libertarian if I had to have a label, but also out of ignorance as it has only started occuring to me recently that I probably don't have much of a clue about what socialism and marxism really are other than the basic rhetoric... so thanks for the pointers, I am a little hesitant to ask family members now, I might open a can of worms doing that!

[Guest Logik]

Start with Socialism then go on to leninism, marxism ect.. (which is the sequence in most books)

pick up 'Political Ideology Today' from a library or the web, theres 10000's of different writers but they all give decent knowledge for starters, and they will contain most idelogies throughout history.

Edited April 9, 2010 by Logik

[Guest Deanne65]

Ah Deano, isn't it ironic that you write in the same pseudo-intellectual style of the chattering classes that you are so critical of. The basic idea of Marxism/communism is that it offers a superior economic model. It is true that this has yet to be fully proven in reality, so you can argue that Marxism doesn't work. However, this is only like those who said man could not fly before the wright bros proved that manned flight does work. Just because it has never been achieved doesn't mean its unachievable.

The reasons for Marxism's demise is that such theory was based on the appeal to a "pure" science of explicating human economic and social activity, and likewise, such theorizing assumed that Captitalism was not self-correcting, and would eventually wither on the vine; but not before going through its death throes. History shows the former to be wrong.

[MickyJay4MaryJane]

I have it on good authority that Marx borrowed most of the ten planks of communism from the Jesuit reductions of Paraguay, then was under the brotherhood's direct or in-direct tutelage/influence whilst in the Reading Room of the British Museum prior to publishing Das Kapital the detailed analysis of capitalism. ( you should see how many world revolutionary figures were schooled in the reading rooms...)

The book dealt with important concepts such as surplus value (the notion that a worker receives only the exchange-value, not the use-value, of his labour); division of labour (where workers become a "mere appendage of the machine") and the industrial reserve army (the theory that capitalism creates unemployment as a means of keeping the workers in check).

In the final part of Das Kapital Marx deals with the issue of revolution. Marx argued that the laws of capitalism will bring about its destruction. Capitalist competition will lead to a diminishing number of monopoly capitalists, while at the same time, the misery and oppression of the proletariat would increase. Marx claimed that as a class, the proletariat will gradually become "disciplined, united and organised by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production" and eventually will overthrow the system that is the cause of their suffering.

I was just reading the Unabomber manifesto the other day, he says some very funny things about Leftists

Edited April 16, 2010 by MickyJay4MaryJane

[Guest Deanne65]

See, in these here parts, on my side of the pond, we don't have much regard for Marx. .

I came to the thread to say thanks for the pointers, but had to respond to this... I don't mean any offense, but it makes me laugh when I see arrogant statements like that... just because Americans have no regard for Marx doesn't invalidate the mans work.

Do you expect the rest of the world to disregard Marx because the worlds leading capitalists say so?

Thats like disregarding Pepsi because Coca-cola says so!

Anyway, I've decided to read Marx et al which is much overdue... I come from a family of pretty staunch socialists, but I've never really taken to it myself... mainly out of opposition to the idea of centralised power and state controlled everything, I would probably call myself an anarchist/libertarian if I had to have a label, but also out of ignorance as it has only started occuring to me recently that I probably don't have much of a clue about what socialism and marxism really are other than the basic rhetoric... so thanks for the pointers, I am a little hesitant to ask family members now, I might open a can of worms doing that!

I don't make a wholesale repudiation of Marx's thoughts, however, one must understand that Marx was way off base, as far as contemporaneous democracy is concerned. His Hegelianism was fine in the abstract, but today's meaning of "class" is not what it was in the time he wrote his most ground-breaking works. Nor is "class struggle".

Edited April 18, 2010 by Deanne65

[Guest Deanne65]

I have it on good authority that Marx borrowed most of the ten planks of communism from the Jesuit reductions of Paraguay, then was under the brotherhood's direct or in-direct tutelage/influence whilst in the Reading Room of the British Museum prior to publishing Das Kapital the detailed analysis of capitalism. ( you should see how many world revolutionary figures were schooled in the reading rooms...)

The book dealt with important concepts such as surplus value (the notion that a worker receives only the exchange-value, not the use-value, of his labour); division of labour (where workers become a "mere appendage of the machine") and the industrial reserve army (the theory that capitalism creates unemployment as a means of keeping the workers in check).

In the final part of Das Kapital Marx deals with the issue of revolution. Marx argued that the laws of capitalism will bring about its destruction. Capitalist competition will lead to a diminishing number of monopoly capitalists, while at the same time, the misery and oppression of the proletariat would increase. Marx claimed that as a class, the proletariat will gradually become "disciplined, united and organised by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production" and eventually will overthrow the system that is the cause of their suffering.

I was just reading the Unabomber manifesto the other day, he says some very funny things about Leftists

"Capitalist competition will lead to a diminishing number of monopoly capitalists, while at the same time, the misery and oppression of the proletariat would increase.":

This was supposed to be an immutable truth of the Leftist struggle. However, history has proven Capitalism to be a lot more resilient in the workings of the real world! And what does Ted Kazinsky have to do with any classical liberal critique of the closed society as envisioned by Communist doctrine? I will take the open society of a democracy over the totalitarianism of a closed state, any day!

Edited April 18, 2010 by Deanne65