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 Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 3:57 am
Sorry guys, I haven't been posting anything on value recently because the topsy-turvy forums ticked me off. (Great excuse, huh?) Anyway, I come bearing a LINK. It's somewhat dense, but don't let that put you off having a read. And then comment. Or don't. But preferably do. ^^
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Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 10:38 am
Comrade, that was a very stale read. *rubs eyes* erm.
From what I can see, it was kind of rambling to the effect of ideologies like capitalism being held within logic and reason, the natural conclusion of the human mind, the eventual occurrence in civilized society that is an indisputable truth which cannot be criticized by it's failures as a productive society seeing how it is centered in human nature, logic, and ideology.
That's, what I got out of it anyways.
"But there’s a problem here: egoic self-interest is arguably also a normed expression of human being – neo-liberalism explicitly affirms it as a norm, as a precondition for higher forms of social organisation (e.g. those based on competitive markets)"
I agree with this to a degree. Humans seem to do everything they do for self-gratification and self preservation, whether in their ideals, relationships, of very livelihood. It almost always revolves around innate self interest. However, I think the interest in the welfare of others is something learned and can all but replace the selfish desire of the oneself that may appear innately formed in humanity.
Just because it is for yourself does not mean it does not benefit others. We with interest in the community act in such ways to benefit our comrades which just so happens to make us feel good, not we do it to feel good and it just so happens to benefit our comrades. I don't think the latter is the case, anyways, but capitalism sort of holds the mentality of do for yourself, and if it benefits others, cool/whatever.
"What Rowan Williams calls the “false anthropology” of neo-liberalism does not merely declare, in social Darwinist fashion, that human beings are intrinsically self-seeking creatures: it also goes to considerable lengths to modify the “soul” of society (its basic normative commitments and symbolic co-ordinates) so that individuals will perceive this to be their true nature and act accordingly."
This particular situation is probably the vast majority of our understanding of our human nature, that which the society we are a part of has indoctrinated us with, the ideals, the hopes, the dreams, the pride, all of these things are pressed into our malleable minds since a young age. How could we really fight such mental oppression? How do we know if we are innately savage beasts with nothing but self interest, everything else being learned civility, and not actually a humble impressionable mind seeking knowledge and, due to the cruelty of society, is taught the wrong things to pass on? To pass on selfishness and lust, and capitalist ideals, rather possibly our innate giving character?
It does bring up some interesting self reflection on oneself and society as a whole, but I myself cannot come up with a clear opinion on the matter. I feel whatever opinion I have may be warped by the society I happen to coincide within.
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Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 12:00 pm
This... *shakes head*
This is why we need Gulags. So we can get unitards to do productive work.
A whole paragraph is spent saying "neo-liberal capitalist ideology sees people in the abstract, divorced from class and social influences. These abstract people are understood to exist in a legal environment which atomises them, treats them all as equals, and as participants in a system that has no inherent bias, and which treats all people equally."
Now, let's look at the paragraph that I just translated into human-speak:
"What is missing in this conception of neo-liberal ideology is the legal and normative framework that underlies this way of relating to the world and others. On the one hand, in order for neo-liberal capitalist ideology to get off the ground it requires what what might be called a “pure subject” or a “subject-without-qualities”, not unlike Descartes’ cogito or Kant’s transcendental unity of apperception. At the heart of neo-liberal capitalist ideology (NLCI) is not so much a subject pursuing self-interest, as a legal subject functioning as the substrate of property, commercial obligations and debts, and divorced from social context and conditions of production. If this subject must necessarily be a pure subject or subject without content or particularity of any form, then this is because NLCI must establish the equivalence or identity of all subjects populating the social field. In other words, for this social system to present itself as just– and I am not suggesting that this social system is just, far from it –it must be able to hold 1) that the lowest subject is equivalent to the most privileged and successful subject in both the eyes of the law and how the system functions (i.e., that the lowliness of the low is the result of her failure and is her responsibility), and 2) that distributions of wealth are not systematic effects of social structure and how it is organized, but rather is an effect of the individual industry of agents within the social field. These claims are dependent on the positing of a pure subject or subject-without-qualities as the essence of what social subjects are, ignoring any discourse about fields or milieus of individuation (in Deleuze and Simondon’s sense) out of which subjects emerge or are ******** academics. THIS is what Marx was complaining about when he said 'the philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.'
This is a stupid and needlessly complicated way of interpreting the world, used by people who have no intention to do anything but show off their awesome vocabulary. It doesn't serve to orient the working class, or its vanguard, and is meant for no one but academics who, by their very nature, do not enter the ********!
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Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 12:56 pm
Gracchvs Robespierre This... *shakes head*
This is why we need Gulags. So we can get unitards to do productive work.
A whole paragraph is spent saying "neo-liberal capitalist ideology sees people in the abstract, divorced from class and social influences. These abstract people are understood to exist in a legal environment which atomises them, treats them all as equals, and as participants in a system that has no inherent bias, and which treats all people equally."
Now, let's look at the paragraph that I just translated into human-speak:
"What is missing in this conception of neo-liberal ideology is the legal and normative framework that underlies this way of relating to the world and others. On the one hand, in order for neo-liberal capitalist ideology to get off the ground it requires what what might be called a “pure subject” or a “subject-without-qualities”, not unlike Descartes’ cogito or Kant’s transcendental unity of apperception. At the heart of neo-liberal capitalist ideology (NLCI) is not so much a subject pursuing self-interest, as a legal subject functioning as the substrate of property, commercial obligations and debts, and divorced from social context and conditions of production. If this subject must necessarily be a pure subject or subject without content or particularity of any form, then this is because NLCI must establish the equivalence or identity of all subjects populating the social field. In other words, for this social system to present itself as just– and I am not suggesting that this social system is just, far from it –it must be able to hold 1) that the lowest subject is equivalent to the most privileged and successful subject in both the eyes of the law and how the system functions (i.e., that the lowliness of the low is the result of her failure and is her responsibility), and 2) that distributions of wealth are not systematic effects of social structure and how it is organized, but rather is an effect of the individual industry of agents within the social field. These claims are dependent on the positing of a pure subject or subject-without-qualities as the essence of what social subjects are, ignoring any discourse about fields or milieus of individuation (in Deleuze and Simondon’s sense) out of which subjects emerge or are ******** academics. THIS is what Marx was complaining about when he said 'the philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.'
This is a stupid and needlessly complicated way of interpreting the world, used by people who have no intention to do anything but show off their awesome vocabulary. It doesn't serve to orient the working class, or its vanguard, and is meant for no one but academics who, by their very nature, do not enter the ******** class="clear"> You make me feel less stupid(not meant insultingly) *scoops his brains back in after the article read which said little with many, many, many words*
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Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 7:03 pm
Yeah Kot, your articles make my brain cry. But aside from that, class struggle doesn't come from the world of Ideas. Karl Marx The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch. For instance, in an age and in a country where royal power, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie are contending for mastery and where, therefore, mastery is shared, the doctrine of the separation of powers proves to be the dominant idea and is expressed as an “eternal law.” Now this person could have just as easily copy pasta'd this bit and would have sufficed. As communists we need to rebel against the ideas of the ruling insofar as they aid in the bringing together of workers under communist ideology. But the real victory over bourgeois-right will only come through the abolition of private property. Now our author touches upon this toward the end when he mentions the bit about the "ideological questions" of struggle and how he is frustrated at the fact that ideology is more focused on then the material conditions that give rise to that ideology. Overall I think it was a half decent article. But again, I agree with Roy, less baww more action.
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Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 9:37 am
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Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 9:55 am
Comrade Rob Yeah Kot, your articles make my brain cry. But aside from that, class struggle doesn't come from the world of Ideas. Karl Marx The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch. For instance, in an age and in a country where royal power, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie are contending for mastery and where, therefore, mastery is shared, the doctrine of the separation of powers proves to be the dominant idea and is expressed as an “eternal law.” Now this person could have just as easily copy pasta'd this bit and would have sufficed. As communists we need to rebel against the ideas of the ruling insofar as they aid in the bringing together of workers under communist ideology. But the real victory over bourgeois-right will only come through the abolition of private property. Now our author touches upon this toward the end when he mentions the bit about the "ideological questions" of struggle and how he is frustrated at the fact that ideology is more focused on then the material conditions that give rise to that ideology. Overall I think it was a half decent article. But again, I agree with Roy, less baww more action. I just ate an enitre block of extra sharp cheddar cheese. As long as the ruling masses give me a block of extra sharp cheddar cheese each day, ooh, maybe with some milk (root beer will suffice) than I'll happily work. X3 (still feels happy I wasn't the only one, I was reading like "Am I getting old, or am I just stupid... bawww my brain)
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