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#15157889
Wellsy wrote:I can agree with this although would also mention that Zizek sees them as an inherent offshoot from liberalism rather than entirely distinct.
https://www.lacan.com/freedom.htm

Basically this overly sensitive type arises out of a breakdown of the social fabric of traditional society and the rise of the individualism born from markets.


That's only one part of the equation, though. Being a victim is simply taking the role of being pious from the feudal and early modern era - people were less sensitive partly because of the belief that there would be a better life after one's own, and hence they could lean on religion as consolation. Also, markets did exist before modernity.

But leaving that aside, I think the real pushback is not against liberalism indeed, but against rationalism.
#15157890
wat0n wrote:That's only one part of the equation, though. Being a victim is simply taking the role of being pious from the feudal and early modern era - people were less sensitive partly because of the belief that there would be a better life after one's own, and hence they could lean on religion as consolation. Also, markets did exist before modernity.

But leaving that aside, I think the real pushback is not against liberalism indeed, but against rationalism.

I can accept that it might not suffice as the whole explanation but I do think it is a significant part of it.
I see the basis of the postmodernist period being heavily based on the expansion of markets into the social fabric.
Per Marx's Communist Manifesto
[Capitalism] “has left no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous ‘cash payment’ [and] drowned out the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation [and] resolved personal worth into exchange value

What is left but simply what pays well enough. Where is room for truth or reason if things can be readily distorted because of competing interests of not simply individuals but companies with different stakes in different outcomes and ideas. It's not that such concepts have no basis anymore, but that the world has changed and made everyone incredibly cynical and skeptical in the ethical life. There is felt to be no alternative to liberal capitalism (end of history), although this is clearly false even the utopian dreaming of a change has become quite difficult, let alone a clear path to pursue. This is seen to be as good as it gets. And the overly sensitive person who perceives disagreement as repressive or inherently prejudiced, which occurs even for the reactionary who can be just as similarly precious about their ideas and beliefs, is a person who no longer experiences progress but sees only the negative. People are throwing the baby out with the bath water in their criticism of modernism, they are unable to see its limitations but push forward, they only pose skepticism towards it.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/malik/not-equal.htm
In this fatalism lies a common thread that binds contemporary Western radicalism and fundamentalist Islam. On the surface the two seem poles apart: fundamentalists loathe Western decadence, Western radicals fear Islamic presumptions of certainty. But what unites the two is that both are rooted in contemporary nihilistic multiculturalism; both express, at best, ambivalence about, at worst outright rejection of, the ideas of modernity, universality, and progress. And both see no real alternative to Western power.

Most importantly, both conflate the gains of modernism and the iniquities of capitalism. In this way the positive aspects of capitalist society — its invocation of reason, its technological advancements, its ideological commitment to equality and universalism — are denigrated, while its negative aspects — the inability to overcome social divisions, the contrast between technological advance and moral turpitude, the tendencies towards barbarism — are seen as inevitable or natural.

According to this worldview, all one can hope for, in the words of Edward Said, is ‘the possibility of a more generous and pluralistic vision of the world, in which imperialism courses on, as it were, belatedly, in different forms (the North-South polarity of our time is one), and the relationship of domination continues, but the opportunities for liberation are open.’ [7]

I am of the view that much of the modern skepticism that characterizes postmodernism offers no path for liberation, it makes some valid points but goes to far and is naive. I find appeal in Marxism in that I think it at least offers a continuation of the western ideas found in modernism and tries to build upon them critically, retaining what is considered positive and seeing that such ideals have yet to be fully realized rather than inherently bad.
Indeed Markets pre-exist capitalism but they were not the dominating fact of society but more peripheral. It was something which was inessential/accidental which become essential to understanding modern society.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/articles/universal.htm
The real case-history of economic (market) relations testifies, however, in favor of Marx who shows that the “form of value in general” has not at all times been the universal form of the organization of production. Historically, and for a rather long time, it remained a particular relation of people and things in production although occurring haphazardly. It was not until capitalism and the “free enterprise society” came into being that value (i.e., the market form of the product) became the general form of inter-relationships among the component parts of production.

Similar transitions, of the “individual and accidental” into the universal is not a rarity, but rather a rule in history. In history – yet not exclusively the history of humanity with its culture – it always so happens that a phenomenon which later becomes universal, is at first emergent precisely as a solitary exception “from the rule,” as an anomaly, as something particular and partial. Otherwise, hardly anything could ever be expected to turn up. History would have a rather mystical appearance, if all that is new in it emerged at once, as something “common” to all without exception, as an abruptly embodied “idea.”
#15157901
Wellsy wrote:I can accept that it might not suffice as the whole explanation but I do think it is a significant part of it.
I see the basis of the postmodernist period being heavily based on the expansion of markets into the social fabric.
Per Marx's Communist Manifesto

What is left but simply what pays well enough. Where is room for truth or reason if things can be readily distorted because of competing interests of not simply individuals but companies with different stakes in different outcomes and ideas. It's not that such concepts have no basis anymore, but that the world has changed and made everyone incredibly cynical and skeptical in the ethical life. There is felt to be no alternative to liberal capitalism (end of history), although this is clearly false even the utopian dreaming of a change has become quite difficult, let alone a clear path to pursue. This is seen to be as good as it gets. And the overly sensitive person who perceives disagreement as repressive or inherently prejudiced, which occurs even for the reactionary who can be just as similarly precious about their ideas and beliefs, is a person who no longer experiences progress but sees only the negative. People are throwing the baby out with the bath water in their criticism of modernism, they are unable to see its limitations but push forward, they only pose skepticism towards it.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/malik/not-equal.htm

I am of the view that much of the modern skepticism that characterizes postmodernism offers no path for liberation, it makes some valid points but goes to far and is naive. I find appeal in Marxism in that I think it at least offers a continuation of the western ideas found in modernism and tries to build upon them critically, retaining what is considered positive and seeing that such ideals have yet to be fully realized rather than inherently bad.
Indeed Markets pre-exist capitalism but they were not the dominating fact of society but more peripheral. It was something which was inessential/accidental which become essential to understanding modern society.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/articles/universal.htm


Well, postmodernism could also be seen as hostile to Marxism (at least orthodox versions) and indeed there is some postmodern work that attempts to deconstruct Marxism.

But I don't think Zizek is actually right, because this sort of irrationalism predates modernity. Also, I would not be so sure markets were as peripheral before modernity either, there are most definitely major pre-modern events where markets played a major role. I'm thinking, for example, about the social instability after the Black Death in the 14th century, which could be explained by the refusal of some feudal lords to deal with the change in the prevailing equilibrium wages in the medieval labor markets after a good chunk of the labor force had simply died.
#15157907
wat0n wrote:Well, postmodernism could also be seen as hostile to Marxism (at least orthodox versions) and indeed there is some postmodern work that attempts to deconstruct Marxism.

But I don't think Zizek is actually right, because this sort of irrationalism predates modernity. Also, I would not be so sure markets were as peripheral before modernity either, there are most definitely major pre-modern events where markets played a major role. I'm thinking, for example, about the social instability after the Black Death in the 14th century, which could be explained by the refusal of some feudal lords to deal with the change in the prevailing equilibrium wages in the medieval labor markets after a good chunk of the labor force had simply died.

Agreed and I would say that there is a lot of conflict among Marxist sympathizers and postmodernist thinker as they are from different traditions of thinking despite some conflations. I think postmodernism at its best is able to rightfully criticize some conceptions of modernists but they offer only skepticism, no avenues for overcoming such limitations.

Hmm i worry if might conflate irrationalism as thinking prior to the enlightenment with the reaction to the enlightenment that followed romanticism and the reaction to Hegel. Part of which is the correct emphasis on the limitstion of reason and logic as universalized in the great Kant but also I’d say a cutting off of science in regards to the human condition which arose up to Marx, the rejected western son for many.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/help/1841.htm
The theory of knowledge has already gone as far as it can go in the 1844 Manuscripts of Karl Marx. But the bourgeoisie has already declared for the expurgation of Hegel and young Marx's investigations have arrived at the founding of the Communist League and publication of the Communist Manifesto calling for the overthrow of all existing social conditions.
Meanwhile mechanics has attained a fairly high level of development, but science generally is however still at an embryonic level insofar as it relates to the human condition. The Origin of Species is not to be published until 1859, while the science of psychology is still embroiled in mysticism. Helmholtz formulates the law of conservation of energy in 1847 and his work on nerve signals and body heat during the 1850s cut the ground away from vitalism. The sciences of anthropology and sociology begin from this period.
In other words, speculation about the human condition had taken bourgeois society as far as it could
...
The essential reason for this rupture in bourgeois ideology is the birth of a self-conscious workers' movement. Foremost among those who gave voice to this new historic force is Karl Marx. Marx's theory developed on the basis of bourgeois society and the whole history of bourgeois thought; it was not an transcription of the thoughts of proletarians and nor did it base itself on a non-existent "proletarian culture". It is nevertheless the theoretical expression of the social interests and historical destiny of the new social force to which bourgeois society had given birth. It is the independent historic destiny of the working class which gives to Marxism its essential character. Try as it may, bourgeois ideology can no longer represent the "whole people".
The split within bourgeois ideology comes from the fact that it has recoiled from monism and returned to one or another form of scepticism.
However, the proletariat exists only as a part of bourgeois society. Any ideology which expresses its fate, must also share its fate. Revolutionary socialist ideology has its own essential path of development, different and distinct from that of bourgeois ideology. However, the two intersect and mutually affect one another. Without for a moment suggesting that Marxism develops in some pure and independent way, isolated from the development of bourgeois culture, it is still necessary to recognise two distinct organisms - bourgeois and revolutionary-socialist ideology.

This is of course controversial but I think there was great distortion of some sciences on the basis of rejecting the rising workers movement. Where it's not such that everything is wrong or science didn't develop but the enlightenment gave way to an apologetics for the new order, having crushed their enemies they did not wish to have the same things turn against them.

No doubt there are massive markets but they do not have the corresponding relations of capitalist production in which they become the dominant factor of society. Where the capitalist class hadn't achieve enough power to challenge feudalist lords. But in terms of being a primary relation governing society, the commodity and exchange undergo a protracted development into universal value of money of all other commodities. A serf lives a very different mode of production to the wage laborer. This doesn’t negate the existence of huge and influential markets but is to emphasize the distinction between markets under capitalism to those prior. Many things which exist take on a very different character under capitalist production and it is many kf these qualities that are often ignored as capitalism is seen merely as an expansion and continuation of earlier production rather than a essential new kind. Its the same sort of thinking that says we’re merely smarter apes but then can’t explain why there is such a distinction and discontinuity between your average human and ape. They exaggerate the continuity and ignore the distinction between.
It makes unintelligible why a new concept should even emerge if there is no significant qualitative distinction, as if reality were the mere summing up of quantities.
#15157924
Potemkin wrote:No; what it actually means is that you're fighting the wrong war.

Elaborate if you wish. I think it has more to do with trying to fight within other constraints--e.g., unwillingness to engage North Vietnamese troops in Laos or Cambodia, but only in Vietnam; unwillingness to engage Taliban in Pakistan/Waziristan, but only in Afghanistan. This makes wars unwinnable, but nevertheless profitable to some military suppliers.

Potemkin wrote:Yeah, funny how it's the Marxist-Leninists who can see these things, isn't it? Reading Marx and Lenin is a form of mental hygiene; it vaccinates you against the virus of liberalism. ;)

Yeah, I think they're good analysts; although, I think oversimplification of analysis led to oversimplification of remedy. I always found Eric Hobsbawm much more accessible, probably because his analysis gets into WWII and the Cold War and obviously Marx's lifespan prevented him from getting there. I've read The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789–1848, The Age of Capital: 1848–1875, The Age of Empire: 1875–1914, and The Age of Extremes. They were all very interesting and very detailed.

Istanbuller wrote:@blackjack21, there is a nice essay on roots of the left's assault on white people, published on National Review.

Yes, I've already read that one. It's an interesting piece. The New Culture Forum has a similar take in late 20th Century Britain.



noemon wrote:It's not a matter of who sees it, but who has the right to say it.

Indeed, and that's his contention against the neoliberals.

noemon wrote:The only reason Blackjack uses Zizek is because it is the only way for this message to go across without being accused of 'racism' on the way as it comes from a leftist minority and as such not someone that can be dismissed as 'racist'.

On the contrary, Zizek notes that he does get called racist, but not from minorities. Rather, it is white liberals who call him racist. I experience very much the same thing as I do not espouse slavery, segregation, separate legal systems for different races, etc. However, the very act of talking about positive differences is forbidden in white liberal circles, and it is white liberals who condemn talking about positive differences. Zizek even notes that a Nigerian friend of his laments the narrative that "we cannot even do evil things without it being a result of white colonialism." You can understand SpecialOlypian's humor in talking about the need for white genocide, but you cannot understand my humor triggering SpecialOlympian when police officers are in a desperately dangerous situation where they have to defend themselves with deadly force, and he freaks out beyond measure. Indeed, neither you nor he are the minorities--or Politics_Observer for that matter--but render unto yourselves some position of moral authority while condemning others of your same race as "racist". Zizek also points this out in the following video, where the white liberal (in this case a Jew) puts down the actual downtrodden person (also a Jew) for daring to claim such a status.



So this is not a one time explanation from him either. People are hip to the drill now.

Heisenberg wrote:To be clear, I said Limbaugh was more spiteful than bin Laden. I stand by that.

Well, killing a few thousand people in the World Trade Center, few to none of them who make US foreign policy in the Middle East, seems a lot more spiteful than anything Limbaugh ever did.

Heisenberg wrote:Bin Laden was, by all accounts, erudite, charismatic and charming, and at least had very clear reasons for his jihad against the USA.

Yes, but this could be said of Hitler, Stalin or Mao too--or many Western liberal political actors for that matter. It's one of the areas where I disagree with Zizek's critique of Trump, because like so many others, he judges Trump on style rather than substance--and style appears to be very important to him as well.

Heisenberg wrote:Limbaugh was literally none of those things; just an angry, stupid, hypertensive pill popper who hated women and minorities for its own sake. Basically a discount bin Laden, without any of the personal courage.

Limbaugh's producer was black, and he was married many times. Like Trump, Limbaugh wanted women in his life. His pain medication addiction started as a result of what has killed so many Americans--the excessive prescription of Oxycontin for back pain after they had marketed the drug as non-addictive. Disagree with him on substance, but these sort of gutter snipe attacks don't shed any light on today's culture.

In some of Zizek's other critiques of the West, he talks about feminism and the breakdown of the patriarchy and a lot of Western men being nothing more than bull shitters while lamenting Margaret Thatcher. What I think Zizek is missing from that analysis is that in a post-industrial society (or market segment seems more to be the case), is that returns to violence are declining while returns to intellectual disciplines are increasing. So women take much more of a leading role in a society where a living doesn't require brute physical strength or physical danger nor the need to protect our child-bearing, child-rearing citizenry from non-domestic work. This is why much of my critique of the West follows Charles Murrays work--that the post-industrial information society makes beggars out of those who do not possess the intellectual sophistication for computer programming, law, medicine, etc.

Heisenberg wrote:Of course he didn't personally do more damage than Al Qaeda, because he was too much of a chickenshit loser to get up of his fat arse and do the work. But I hardly see how being too ravaged by vicodin and hamburgers to be capable of actual physical work is a point in his favour.

So you think Limbaugh would have been Al Qaeda or worse if it hadn't been for some personal vices and being a bit too self-indulgent? This sounds more like white liberals reserving more contempt for other whites who don't join their political crusade than for people who actually cut people's heads off, actively and proudly oppress women, throw homosexuals off the tops of buildings, burn their jailed enemies to death and so forth.
#15157930
blackjack21 wrote:On the contrary, Zizek notes that he does get called racist, but not from minorities. Rather, it is white liberals who call him racist. I experience very much the same thing as I do not espouse slavery, segregation, separate legal systems for different races, etc. However, the very act of talking about positive differences is forbidden in white liberal circles, and it is white liberals who condemn talking about positive differences. Zizek even notes that a Nigerian friend of his laments the narrative that "we cannot even do evil things without it being a result of white colonialism." You can understand SpecialOlypian's humor in talking about the need for white genocide, but you cannot understand my humor triggering SpecialOlympian when police officers are in a desperately dangerous situation where they have to defend themselves with deadly force, and he freaks out beyond measure. Indeed, neither you nor he are the minorities--or Politics_Observer for that matter--but render unto yourselves some position of moral authority while condemning others of your same race as "racist". Zizek also points this out in the following video, where the white liberal (in this case a Jew) puts down the actual downtrodden person (also a Jew) for daring to claim such a status.


Dude, when I call you out for racism it's because you have said something very racist. Revisiting old topics is very much holding grudges and sour grapes. You have said a lot of racist things in here and when you do obviously these things will be called out for what they are.

Your whining is your attempt to posture as the "noble victim".
#15157971
Wellsy wrote:Agreed and I would say that there is a lot of conflict among Marxist sympathizers and postmodernist thinker as they are from different traditions of thinking despite some conflations. I think postmodernism at its best is able to rightfully criticize some conceptions of modernists but they offer only skepticism, no avenues for overcoming such limitations.


Indeed, it doesn't really offer anything - just as the old romanticism didn't, although it's more explicit now.

Wellsy wrote:Hmm i worry if might conflate irrationalism as thinking prior to the enlightenment with the reaction to the enlightenment that followed romanticism and the reaction to Hegel. Part of which is the correct emphasis on the limitstion of reason and logic as universalized in the great Kant but also I’d say a cutting off of science in regards to the human condition which arose up to Marx, the rejected western son for many.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/help/1841.htm

This is of course controversial but I think there was great distortion of some sciences on the basis of rejecting the rising workers movement. Where it's not such that everything is wrong or science didn't develop but the enlightenment gave way to an apologetics for the new order, having crushed their enemies they did not wish to have the same things turn against them.


I think a lot of water has passed under the bridge as far as social sciences go, and also as far as Marxian analysis is concerned.

Wellsy wrote:No doubt there are massive markets but they do not have the corresponding relations of capitalist production in which they become the dominant factor of society. Where the capitalist class hadn't achieve enough power to challenge feudalist lords. But in terms of being a primary relation governing society, the commodity and exchange undergo a protracted development into universal value of money of all other commodities. A serf lives a very different mode of production to the wage laborer. This doesn’t negate the existence of huge and influential markets but is to emphasize the distinction between markets under capitalism to those prior. Many things which exist take on a very different character under capitalist production and it is many kf these qualities that are often ignored as capitalism is seen merely as an expansion and continuation of earlier production rather than a essential new kind. Its the same sort of thinking that says we’re merely smarter apes but then can’t explain why there is such a distinction and discontinuity between your average human and ape. They exaggerate the continuity and ignore the distinction between.
It makes unintelligible why a new concept should even emerge if there is no significant qualitative distinction, as if reality were the mere summing up of quantities.


But that development has more to do with modernity and rationalism than the market mechanism itself, and actually even than capitalism itself. Socialism also made similar efficiency claims, and more generally real socialist countries would also try to plan their production as rationally as possible, centering relations around production just as capitalist countries did.

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