This is the thread where we talk about Slavoj Zizek...

xp i think some people have desires to acquire knowledge because they find it satisfying or enjoyable and sometimes this will lead them to adopt marxist positions. i don't think it's all about social capital.

xxp yes, which is why i think it's funny. they're using something that would strip them of status as a tool to claim status, yet they seem completely unaware of it. or if they are aware of it than they're just cunning.

it's not always about social capital, those are just the most obvious cases.

i agree that sometimes academics see themselves as existing outside the capitalist power structure in a way that is simply ridiculous when you take a look at the functions universities serve in our society

I could maybe agree with a little bit of the idea, but it just seems mostly funny to me cuz if you said "things that increase your social capital among the ruling class" I wouldn't really go "marxism!!"
xpost

xposts! sure, but I think in this particular case it's just re-inscribing aristocratic privilege through the readily available avenue of Marxist theory. It's Marxism folded into capitalism rather than vice versa.

like it doesn't really seem to be near the top of the list of things that are happening when people engage in leftist politics

I feel a little out of my league here though, not really too expert in this stuff

mostly because I shun such forms of social capital

that quote isn't talking about someone wearing a che t-shirt. its talking about like john reed. and it isn't talking about some "tool to claim status" challops you guys are the worst.

do you understand that aristocratic privilege isn't like "people think you're a clever lad" but like you own the world?

The quote IS talking about why those in the ruling party side with the revolutionary class. It's not really absurd to claim at this point that it has to do with something other than "comprehending the historical movement as a whole."

i'll throw down my cards here, i've spent plenty of time with upper class kids and they're all about marx, zizek, lacan, etc. and it just hit me that it's fucking absurd. yeah, i'm thinkin' bout things here.

lacan isn't necessarily a left wing thinker, i don't think

his ideas gained a lot of currency among western marxists though... sorry i am "splitting hairs" for no reason

those upper class kids are still prob generally atypical in that regard

no one owns the world, that's stupid

plus they'll get over it when they become in charge of managing property and wealth

estimate % upper class kids infatuated with von mises, hajek, strauss or kojeve vs % infatuated with marx & zizek vs % who just don't give a fuck

10%, 5%, 85&

respectively

The quote IS talking about why those in the ruling party side with the revolutionary class. It's not really absurd to claim at this point that it has to do with something other than "comprehending the historical movement as a whole."

― ryan, Friday, July 26, 2013 3:41 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

marx isn't talking about parties, he's talking about classes there is a difference, and he's describing particularly "in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour" so like russia in 1915 maybe. Or Jarosław Dąbrowski in the paris commune.

i recently got strauss' collected essays on maimonidies - good stuff xxp

no one owns the world, that's stupid

― Mordy , Friday, July 26, 2013 3:46 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

then how did this dude sell it huh?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSH--SJKVQQ

ya it's not people who find marxism compelling will leave their station to join their ideological peers and build the future so much as property owners who don't want to be killed in the revolution will preserve their heads by switching sides

can't blame them really

why because they raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole

I wonder how much that "most cited theorists" list reflects (or doesnt reflect) what undergrads are into these days.

when the revolution comes the capitalists will sell us the ropes that we use to hang other liberals w/

i think a peaceful revolution would be chill

10%, 5%, 85&

― fervently nice (Treeship), Friday, 26 July 2013 20:50 (6 minutes ago)

this is probably about right for university age, for >2 years after university i doubt it is as high as 15% who care about any type of political philosophy

I wonder how much that "most cited theorists" list reflects (or doesnt reflect) what undergrads are into these days.

― ryan, Friday, July 26, 2013 3:56 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

smirnoff ice iirc

hahaha. also, fair enough on your last response!

treeship otm in that marxist theory has typically been the product of bourgeois intellectuals, and is, in its present form, largely addressed to that group.

i.e., a fun way for those in power to fantasize about killing their parents.

a useful marxism, one defined by action as much as theory, arising from and directed to the working classes - such a movement would probably attract upper & middle class followers, but in practice have little in common with its academic cousin (e.g. bolivarianism in venzuela).

or uh the russian revolution or the cuban revolution or the chinese revolution or the paris commune or the vietnamese revolution or...

or the history of 20th century europe basically, or the structure of current day politics in the indian subcontinent or...

i mean i get that in america its sort of easy to pretend this is just stuff that matters to a few ppl in college but

russian revolution or the cuban revolution or the chinese revolution or the paris commune or the vietnamese revolution

none of which seem to have significantly elevated the socioeconomic dominance of the worker, or reduced that of the ruling class. thus not particularly useful, imo. china, ok, but only as they've begun to move toward capitalism (while retaining a massively empowered ruling class).

of course i agree that societies (and bodies) can be hideously mangled by whatever fashionable mind plague happens to be going around at the moment.

the history of 20th century europe basically, or the structure of current day politics in the indian subcontinent

this seems more reasonable, but has little to do with academic marxism

the provision of services by the state to the people (and the ownership by the state of service-providing organizations) preexists marxism, after all

i joined the YCL when I was in middle school and it was mostly filled with working class kids and minorities who had something to gain from a new order. nothing really in common with the upper middle class/upper class types I've met who are more the bourgeois academic left-wingers... who probably wouldn't enjoy having the same social status as the maid who cleaned their house growing up.

i suppose i'm the first brand ... grew up in poverty, had friends who were even poorer, and struggled to make it in this system. it's disheartening to see that the left's been co-opted by people like Zizek who probably have zero interest in actually seeing a different way of life come into being. of course personally I've dropped it all so I can survive, and have left the left to those who can munch on fancy cheeses in expensive lofts in Brooklyn.

um u do know Zizek's background?

anyway like in a world scale the ppl aware of Zizek vs. e.g. Prakash Karat or Arlette Laguiller or ffs Fidel Castro really doesn't work out in Slavoj's favor

looks like he had a highly privileged upbringing. and that's his audience. makes sense.

people like Zizek who probably have zero interest in actually seeing a different way of life come into being.

Yeah whatever

'People who profess left ideas but are - surprise surprise - actually members of the ruling class only doing this for status' is an interesting idea to open up.

For example, you might have an academic - someone working in, I don't know, literary theory and cultural studies - who promotes left-wing ideas and programs. And we could all point at this person and go 'Aha! Got you! You work in a university! So stfu - you're just another member of the ruling class!'

But compare and contrast this hypothetical academic with someone who runs a massive oil company, or someone who owns a huge chunk of the media. Compared to this, does our academic belong, even slightly, in 'the ruling class'? How much do academics actually get paid (it varies immensely country by country, region by region, field by field. How much actual influence do they have.

Calling our fictional academic 'a member of the ruling class' in this sarcastic, weary way: given that they are, odds are, probably not actually a member of the real ruling class, what do we actually achieve when we do this?

spectrum even supposing zizek is as you say, as others have said the left hasn't been like recently 'co-opted' by academics and bourgeoise; these people have always been a part of it, and because of their access to education and relative leisure they've been an important part. there is always indeed a danger of the 'proletariat' or more generally the poor being marginalized within their supposed own movement & you are right to identify this but it doesn't happen the moment someone who's been to college objects to reagan.

saying that the [insert revolution] did nothing to elevate the worker or lower the ruling class is also weird. the ruling class in russia, w the arguable exception of the 'bourgeois specialists' maintained for their technical expertise, was liquidated (excellent soviet euphemism) or sent into exile. there was a NEW ruling class, yes, that eventually came to resemble the old one, but it wasn't the same as the old one. many of them had been workers! this stuff isn't all bunk for the same reasons it made total sense for (some of) the occupy kidz to have iphones.

if the poor, uneducated + marginalized knew how to overthrow the hegemony, surely they would have done so. marx is not just saying that the intellegesia have a role to play in the revolution, but that they play the central role - only by understanding the history can one invent new forms

ok also you realize not all working class people are 'uneducated' and 'marginalized'?

not sure which is worse, people using left-wing politics to enhance their status in the ruling class or people using their class background to fortify their position in a messageboard debate

j/k, i know which one of those is worse because one of them is not a real thing and the other one is

hi wikipedia thanks: "Žižek was born in Ljubljana, People's Republic of Slovenia, Yugoslavia, to a middle-class family. His parents were both atheists.[7] His father Jože Žižek was an economist and civil servant from the region of Prekmurje in eastern Slovenia. His mother Vesna, native of the Brda region in the Slovenian Littoral, was an accountant in a state enterprise"

an economist and civil servant and an accountant, in eastern europe behind the iron curtain, in the immediate aftermath of WWII which took place across the scarred face of his country. holy shit how many butlers do you think he had

yeah. and if you have a problem w capitalism you most likely have a problem w the false equality w which it pacifies its underclass; perceiving this, for the average person, requires time to think. (as soon as you're born they make you feel small / by giving you no time instead of it all, to quote a rich fuck.) there is something elitist of course in percieving the poor as a body requiring education in its own interests by the rich(er) but it isn't an elitism created by marxists; it's the elitism of capitalism, which marxists expect to abolish.