Late Marx, Leftist Praxis, and Tumblr

I've seen some fair criticism around here lately of the left's problem with capitalism, along the lines of: capitalism empties x meme of its meaning (the family unit, and so forth); x's meme-meaning is derived from capitalist ideology and so was never valuable in the first place. (That criticism there doesn't tell the whole story, but, it's more astute that most of whatever else shits up this board all the same.)

I don't suppose this is anything new, since Althusser was writing about it in the 60's; it's the contradiction of popular leftism, and a blind reading of Marx, rather than of late- and neo-Marxist thought.The left mourns and blames capitalism for this devaluation, when the value was all along derived from (/the ideological superstructure of) capitalism and necessary to its survival at that time that it existed unscathed in the popular imaginary. It's probably the pathetic appeal to all of you liberal-minded barely-pseudo-intellectuals that is responsible for the ways in which capitalism evolves successfully while leftist ideology continues to depend, perhaps more and more innocuously, on some humanist ethos of early Marx that gets embarrassingly reiterated in post-industrial capitalist contexts, and on this board all the time.

If the ideological superstructure doesn't evolve with the populace, however, we can expect, Marx writes, proletarian unrest and revolution. If capitalism can be undermined on a purely ideological level, then, we might ask, what is the value of cultural Marxism, things like feminism, and Tumblr, to the destruction of the ideological status quo, and so capitalism.

What might first appear as some kind of new, radical, internet-grounds of revolution turns out to be not at all, but it's hard to figure out why. If a meme-machine like Tumblr can critique every monolith of ideology, as far as identity politics are concerned, why doesn't it help? People tend to blame Brexit and Trump's victory on social justice being /too/ far left, but it's probably not left enough. From what I see here, where it's not just identity politics being criticized, but class –the invisible identity, as Zizek puts it, the one not talked about in most intellectual circles– leftism suffers from a serious problem that seems to come from its humanism, and what might be, to most of you, its appeal.

If we want to look at Hillary's nomination over Bernie as a kind of metaphor for the popular left's preoccupations shifting from class-consciousness to consciousness of identity, we can do that, and blame Tumblr. But what's more is that it's not Tumblr which by and large fails to critique what it's rallying against; it's the economic left, by ignoring what Tumblr pays attention to, what late Marx paid attention to, and everyone serious subsequently. Well, anyways, you all should do more reading before you speak on this shit, you're the problem.

tl;dr, capitalism lives and you're all useless

All these words to say absolutely nothing.

I'll not ask you to clarify, but that doesn't make any sense. Ought my politics be absolute?

Of course it does, that doesn't mean it's not also ideology. If we ask ourselves about the ethos of Tumblr, about what motivates its ethics, what can we come up with besides muh humanism, which of course it deconstructs pretty effectively when it talks about things like x is a social construct? I'm not saying that humanism isn't part of it, and in certain ways, we can be critical of Tumblr for saying things like trans people are /born/ trans, thereby implying that gender, in defense of trans people's rights, is inherent and referential. But where Tumblr succeeds is in its deconstruction of a system that they /see/ (although, again, there is no position outside ideology, Zizek said that too) and reject being determined by said system which aims to exploit them and everyone else. There's some nuance there for you, all you need to do is ask.

Sure do, fam. I suppose if you didn't consider praxis, like pretty much all neo-Marxist theorists of the commons and of collectivities, Hardt and Negri even sometimes; you wouldn't be anyone serious. Actually, you'd be defending what most people against the left are averse to; its liability to become empty intellectualism, and clumsy intellectualism at that.

Nice word salad soup.

its time to stop

Please, stop this. There is a position outside of ideology btw. You just have to lurk more to find it.

I think I made a fair case for how intellectualism can be constructive, insofar as capitalism, as stated, depends on ideology to sustain itself, to keep the means of production where capitalism would have them. If you want to criticize progressivism, you can't do it on the basis of its bourgeois origin; and if you could, you'd be contradicting your own politics, since intellectualism is itself bourgeois. Hegel, Marx, and the post-structuralists are all bourgeois, all the same. The identity-political left values deconstructionism, it bears repeating, on the basis of the system's inherently exploitative construction; because it would oppress them, everyone else, left to its own devices.

There's a position outside ideology, if you want to say that, you can go ahead and make an argument rather than simply posting spooky pics.

I'm not going to spell it out for you but I'm a leading critic of all forms of bourgeois leftism around here. You burst in with a shitty, hackneyed, and basically nonsensical argument resting on all kinds of unmotivated assumptions, so you get an equally shitty response. Them's the breaks kiddo

Again, saying that something is bourgeois is not a critique of the thing in itself; what's bourgeois has a negative connotation and often denotation because of what I already said, because we see how ideology, and especially bourgeois ideology, works to serve the status quo. If we need to account for why certain bourgeois ideology does /not/ serve the status quo, such as Marxism or post-structuralism; call them exceptions that prove the rule. Maybe it's something to do with being ideology about ideology, I'm speculating.

Unmotivated assumptions, I don't see how anything I may have assumed is unmotivated. Cool that you can fell okay not responding though.

By that I mean, I can't free you from ideology with one post. If I could all these gibbering bonobos would have stfu already. It's a process. Stick around and you may just unlearn something.

You haven't said anything, though. You're making connections but operating within a formal framework deprived of originary sense, meaning that is.

Did you, like, miss the thread we had about this?


Wew. "It's not the Nazis who failed to not murder the Jews en masse, it's the opposition, by ignoring what the Nazis paid attention to."

Do you seriously believe we intend "this is ever so superficially associated with the bourgeoisie, for instance written by one member of the class" as substantive critique? What we actually discuss is class forces. "Intellectualism" is not "bourgeois" because it develops in spite of, and not in direct service to, the contradictions of class rule. There have been intellectuals for millennia before capitalism, all over the world. Marx wrote in poverty, largely, in defiance of his material imperatives. SJWism and associated "academic" justifications are indeed "bourgeois," and in their essential character (in themselves,) because they by their very nature serve to stabilize and prolong the capitalist system against dissent and overthrow, to reassert the age-old equilibria of class rule.
That is, it's not a style of ad hominem, because if it were, it would be fallacious and nothing whatsoever could reasonably be said to be "bourgeois."


A-are you Zizek? Have you finally come home to us, Father?

No, no, I got it. You're smarter than Althusser and Zizek because they haven't been deprogrammed, haven't done enough DMT or something, bourgeois fucks.

Intellectualism /is/ bourgeois, because everyone who participates in and creates bourgeois culture has, you know, leisure time, and education, and doesn't have to work at Wal-Mart and two other jobs for a living wage. Do I suppose that you all intend the dismissal of the bourgeois as substantive critique; maybe, I don't really care how you intend it, though my opinion of the board there isn't all that high. So, there have been intellectuals precedent to capitalism, belonging by and large to the ruling class, when we think of ancient Greeks, Romans, and the clerical class in the Middle Ages, sure. That doesn't contradict that it's bourgeois, obviously, if we're talking about ideology and the ruling class, ideology and the status quo, what's "bourgeois" isn't confined to capitalism. Marx is messianic, though, sure, for being poor, or something.

There may be certain criticisms we can make of deconstructionism if and insofar as it prolongs the capitalist system, but you all are not going to make any of those criticisms by dismissing it out of hand purely on the basis of its bourgeois origin, or whyever else, I think I spoke to already.

The whole point of the post is that the people who call themselves "the left" have shifted from class issues to cultural (gender, race etc.) issues. OP says "it's not far left enough" not literally (since indeed, the sliding scale view of politics is horseshit) but alluding to this, and the fact people tend to oversimplify things since they use this same scale when talking politics.

While tumblr may be a huge steaming pile of irrelevant shit to us, it certainly is relevant to the rest of the world that doesn't shitpost on a lefty board.

What's the problem of posting serious stuff on Holla Forums? I for one welcome this kind of post on here.

I actually wish this place was more serious.
Makes me think it's full of kids who are still going through their shitposting phase.

By your insightful definition, then, fully two thirds of the proletariat is actually bourgeois! How, then, are we to have a revolutionary proletariat, the inviolable cornerstone of Marxist thinking?

Jesus christ, learn some reading comprehension.
This is precisely what I just said we are NOT doing. You have misunderstood, both the thing and my clarification of the thing.

see here

You're petit-bourgeois though, by your own pirivilege you'll NEVER get it. Class dismissed.

If you think this drivel was "serious" then you are you on the wrong forum, friendo

I mean, this bit made me lol

Hahaha. Bourgeois "education" folks.

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say? If you mean you think the left should focus more on a cultural critique then I think I agree with you. It sounds like you have something to say, but you should try and make it a little more concise.

I'm not sure if I agree that *all* intellectualism is bourgeois. Proudhon was certainly not a bourgeois, but I do agree that the "it's bourgeois" thrown around here is a pale argument. Marx said the petit-bourgeois would be instrumental in a revolution.

Yeah, pretty much. There wasn't a middle class when Marx was writing, I can hardly believe I have to say this.

No, no, it's just that it's meaningless to dismiss something cultural because of its origin without seeing how and to what purpose it's generated.


/petit/-bourgeois, how dare you.

You keep mindlessly repeating this like the Buddhists' sutras.
For the third time now, we do not dismiss bourgeois ideology for its origin but for its specific historical role in preserving class rule.

Yeah it's called ideology. If you think there is a pure rational factual worldview you are an idiot.

And I concur, I'm just saying, that if you can't say how something like deconstructionism does preserve class rule, being an ideology conscious of its condition as ideology, then you ought not to be saying it.


Not tryina repeat myself fam.

How's the debt repayments? You feel your parents got their money's worth yet?


People are so dependent on the system they will fight to protect it.

What do you mean?

It's like Zen. I can't explain, I have to show. You have to start moving past categorical thought and its formal mirror in classical logic. I suggest you start reading mathematics. Non-Euclidean geometry and abstract algebra gives you enough visio-spatial dexterity to start sidestepping the prison of language.

It's diversionary. It comes at the expense of critiquing the material basis of society by elevating the cultural fallout of capitalism to something studied as in independent and autonomous phenomenon which may be, ambitiously, not only explained but "undone" by pure recourse to idealism. It's just another glaring face of the era's progressive ethos - that conscientious modification of sociocultural norms will deliver us to the Promised Land. That all in the world that oppresses is "social construct," some perverse idealistic consensus to be dismantled by renewed and reevaluated consensus, or "analyzed" and therefore robbed of its power.

Postmodernism in general and its "incredulity towards meta-narratives" is a transparent attack on historical materialism itself. The reactionary social justice movement is a natural outgrowth of this set of ideas about what society fundamentally is and how it functions.

How does that purely logical and impersonal outlook justify your political positions or even motivate your trivial acts?

This. Progression to what? "Right side of history" presupposes a retrospective vantage from the hypothetical future historian who thereby normatively judges the "movement". It's filled with religious, millinnerial ideas totally divorced from any material reality, it's in fact the chauvinism of the "cerebral", hostile and alien to the worker who subsists and participates in life, in many cases overtly and aggressively. It is a totalitarian, panoptic, cybernetic hive "self" disassembled and reassembled with no aim other than reified equity, which they never "deconstruct", nor any other basic precepts of their cult. It's totally inward looking, astructural, dealing only with simulacra and pop cultural errata, and the ad hoc allegiance groups it forms is more about externalized narcissism than solidarity, and can only be incoherent. Its logic is the logic of capital under neoliberal technocracy, an atomizing, anti-leftist consumerist transhumanism that serves global capital alone. It resembles the organicism and class collaboration of fascism, which of course was similarly "progressive", because that's essentially what it is. If it's not apparent why there can be no "middle ground" as such, you're fucked in the head. Might as well burn that useless degree now eh?

No, it's not about pure logic and an impersonal position, the supporting mathematics behind modern physics is largely about reintroducing the observer rather than the "God's eye view" as Nagel might put it. It's about giving you enough ability to start seeing the pure social. Zizek actually came pretty close, though he's caught up on being a meme and clouds it with Hegelo-Lacanian and etc. theory bullshit when it's deceptively simpler than that, it's just hard for humans to do. It's got nothing to do with being an emotionless, ahistorical, autistic computer man. It's just a layer outside what we're used to being able to see.

from meta-narratives, yeah. From historical materialism also, but so is late Marx, however he may spell it out. Criticizing a progressive ethos, however, misunderstands even Hegel's idea of dialectic, which is in and of itself, /progressive/; and not utopic, but asymptotic, if we're thinking of how we, as a society, might approach ideals such as justice, or economic justice, or social justice. Which is also to say that it isn't recourse to pure idealism. Anyways, your writing is really bad, it's hard to respond to. Suffice it to say that the transparency of post-structuralist thought's attack on historical materialism is exactly the idea; and further, abides by the very same rules set out by the philosophical dialectic that materialism is based on, only sees the bigger picture, being the false, ideological dichotomy that determines it.

Anyways, wasn't me, just to be clear. OP's going to sleep.

Is this the leftist version of ?

You tell me, college kid. I'm just a humble prole who can see through "le discourse" because it's easy if you're not an aloof barista.

I perfectly understood what you said, is just that the way you wrote it (and others write in this thread) reminded me of that clip. At least you make sense, the same I can't say for Francis.

Okay


Careful user, I have extensive clinical experience with 🍀🍀🍀diagnoseable🍀🍀🍀 narcissists and may take issue with your theory if it forays into undefensible territory. But I appreciate the vote of confidence and the seriousness with which you construct your response. Are you an academic? It seems as though OP may be as well. In any case, I welcome scholarly interest in this board.

I'm fairly drunk right now so I may not be able to argue at 100%. Be forwarned, or whatever they say.

Okay, but my point is that your outlook is also ideology because it is ultimately your subjective will and feelings and your trust in them that dictate what you want to do, therefore it's just another brand of ideology.

Ideology, as it relates to the political specifically, is more than this, though. But in any case. I'm trying to teach this as a sort of Socratic method, through the medium of shitposting. We'll see what the outcome is.


Not an academic no. Just a highly dedicated troll who accidentally memed myself into enlightenment. I realise it's not NPD, but I have issues with the DSM as well.


Cool thanks for being receptive and far more polite than me. It gets a bit tiring having to deeducate people all the time.

wew, rest of that drivel isn't worth spitting on

idealist nonsense


my fucking sides

Yikes. My condolences.

i'm not sad to be bad company for irony kids

Take more DMT and watch more Zizek videos until you get it like I do you bumbling oaf. How am I meant to drag the slow-witted proletariat to victory if you refuse to elevate yourself to my luminary perspective?

i prefer the detailed programmatic specificity of my non-ironic perspective, thanks

I agree emphatically with this. Language is a matrix which warps the "pure" meaning communicated through it. One should certainly learn to overcome this, insofar as possible. But what I've learned from my own exposure to and studies of pure math (I'm really more a functional analysis kinda guy, not an algebraist) is that knowledge of math, however "pure" it may be in fact, merely generates an entirely new language game for most. The simple fact that most people are not used to explicit definition, i.e. that it is the well-defined concepts themselves which may then be referred back to with a convenient word, rather than invoked individually, itself frustrates meaning (see Bacon, in pic related.)


And who doesn't? Even putting aside the obvious (the change in the status of transgender people from the DSM 4 to 5, which communicates either a "religious" enforcement beforehand until now, or an artificial and unscientific "pandering" in the current state of things, both of which speak corruption of "science" to personal ends, we find a mass of heuristics which describe actual human behavior to imperfect degrees. Without a real and coherent pathophysiology/etiology, these diagnoses, especially the personality disorders, are entirely meaningless. And much unlike the diagnoses of physical medicine.
I've had some """experience""" with narcissists and may be myself colored by that. But y'know.
This is all I can really hope for. Even though NPD itself is somewhat ill-defined, and its agents and useful idiots struggle ceaselessly against some sort of mystic "ideal."

Now who's the rambling pseudointellectual? You can't escape ideas, user. Only through irony (by which I actually mean practiced empathy and self-criticism) can you develop enough mirror neural cortical mass to truly start to see things the way others do. Do you think the left would be a pile of sectarian horseshit if people could do this more? Denying the material substrate of our thoughts is the purest idealism.

t. Hegelo-Cognitivist

layered like an onion weeeeew

Or you could just do acid, way easier