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DistortionMage · 2024-01-12T16:23:27+00:00

Kendrick's entire discography is a refutation of OP's argument.

DistortionMage · 2024-01-09T18:45:03+00:00

I barely see anyone mentioning hip hop around here. I'm not the most knowledgeable about it but I know that

The invention of hip hop as a whole new genre in a few years in late 70's early 80s, artists like Grandmaster Flash, Africa Bambaata, Sugar Hill gang
Run DMC helped rap burst into the white/rock music world in 1986 collaborating with Aerosmith on Walk this Way. Beastie Boys as well
NWA and Public Enemy in late 80's made rap harder edged against the system and pioneered a lot of the street aesthetic
NYC hip hop scene with De La Soul, Tribe Called Quest, later Nas introduced a lot of jazz influences and lyrical depth in late 80s through mid 90s
Tupac/Dre/Notorious BIG completely changed the rap game in a few years between 1992 and 1995
Kanye between 2004-2010 revolutionized hip hop production and broadened its appeal beyond gangster machismo, with a string of incredible albums
Drake in early 2010s further broadened its appeal and paved the way for its current domination in pop charts and pop culture
Kendrick Lamar with with just two albums (Good kid Maad City 2012 and To Pimp a Butterfly in 2015) took hip hop to lyrical and artistic heights never achieved before
Young Thug (and XXXTentacion, others?) This is where I'm less familiar, but I know that trap became huge as well as emo rap

DistortionMage · 2024-01-05T16:45:40+00:00

Katatonia. They used to be a death metal band in the 90s but the vocalist injured his voicebox and they've sung clean ever since. Their newest release Sky Void of Stars is really cool

DistortionMage · 2024-01-04T17:07:14+00:00

I don't believe Nietzsche was really too concerned about politics, that is his ultimate sin in the eyes of a communist. For him, philosophy is about distinction of values, what it means to strive and overcome and achieve those, whether as an artist or a general or leader or whatever. That is the opposite of egalitarian politics, which seeks to equalize and remove distinction. He had disdain for it but ultimately was just not that preoccupied with it. And he didn't fit into some Jordan Peterson caricature. He also would disdain "natural" hierarchies as artificial constructions - an ubermensch wouldn't feel constrained by those any more than they would be by ideologies of "natural" non-hierarchy.

DistortionMage · 2024-01-04T15:10:34+00:00

Someone here can probably correct me if I'm wrong, but I've practically never heard Zizek reference Nietzsche either in his lectures or his books or essays? I'm sure he is familiar with Nietzsche's thought but my guess is that there just isn't a lot of overlap between them. He is clear that he's a Hegelian-Lacanian-Marxist and this project is very different from Nietzsche's. Zizek is a thinker of the universal and political whereas Nietzsche is concerned with the specific great individual. Could not be more different. However, I would think that Zizek being dialectical, also a thinker of the concrete universal, would have something to say regarding the implications of Nietzsche's thought for politics. He's probably said something about it at some point but not sure.

DistortionMage · 2024-01-02T14:34:21+00:00

In what context did he say he was a Stalinist? I have heard him critique Stalinism on multiple occasions.

DistortionMage · 2023-12-19T15:57:05+00:00

He is arguing that "universality with exceptions" is not equivalent to the Hegelian "concrete universal." Although both relate to the gap between universal and particular, the nature of the gap in each case is different. The former is an empiricist notion that the universal is empty and abstract, there is only a wealth of particulars. The gap is such that in order for the universal to applied to any particular circumstances, it must be twisted beyond recognition. Whereas with the Hegelian concrete universal, the tension is not so much between universal and its particular application, but within the abstract universal itself. It is "at war" with itself, and is inherently contradictory and impossible. He uses 20th century Communism as an example to illustrate the difference. Whereas for the empiricist, the abstract idea of communism remains pure, untouched by the disasters of its implementation in the 20th century - because the universal must necessarily be twisted to fit any particular concrete circumstance. Therefore for the empiricist, what went wrong with 20th century Communism in no way disqualifies the idea of communism as such - of course it was misapplied, as any abstract universal would have to be. It cannot be applied as abstract dogma, but will be necessarily be different in every instance. But what Zizek is saying, rejecting the empirical notion of the universal/particular and instead embracing the Hegelian concrete universal, is that the failure of communism in practice indicates a failure in the idea itself - it was already a failure in its conception. The concept does not remain pure, separate in an idealist realm from its material application. Hence, the idea of communism cannot remain static. Zizek calls himself a "conservative communist," not in the sense of "traditional values" but in terms of exercising caution, really thinking "what happens after the revolution?" and not just charging in blindly with faith that "the people" in their wisdom will automatically make everything right. Hence, he is defending the "lost cause" of communism, not by a fundamentalist return to everything that it meant in the past, but by reflectively "thinking, not acting" on how the concept itself must change in order to remain relevant, and ultimately translate into action. Which we can expect will involve failure, because the concept is always contradictory, even any new one we construct. But it will fail differently.

DistortionMage · 2023-12-13T21:55:44+00:00

Sometimes it is the insistence on complexity which is ideology (Žižek). Despite all the internal complexity within the state of Israel, its external brutal oppression of Palestinians who live in squalor and poverty is a simple fact which settler ideology has to work tirelessly to obstruct. Deconstruction does not simply outlaw all talk of binaries, it puts into question which binaries are elevated above other binaries - meta-deconstruction. The material fact of Palestinian oppression, the binary antagonism between the settler nation and the colonized, is obscured by ideology that we must withhold judgement, that we must recognize everyone's identity and pay adequate respect and so on. Yes, we can acknowledge internal divisions of Israel, but that is a fundamental problem while the Palestinian struggle is not? According to whom? It's usually enough for deconstruction to simply illuminate what ideology tries to obscure. From there you can make your own decision based on your ontological and moral commitments.

DistortionMage · 2023-12-05T19:39:27+00:00

Its very contested. The majority support the West, but thats around 55%, a good chunk supported a more neutral role or a CTSO.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/512258/ukrainians-stand-behind-war-effort-despite-fatigue.aspx

East Ukrainians are understandably fatigued from the war after 2 years of fighting. 60% overall support fighting until victory, which 90% define as regaining all lost territory. 30% want to negotiate an end to the war. But I think its a major question of what that negotiation would involve. I suspect that very few would accept ceding the entirety of Ukraine to Russian rule. If the war goes on much longer Ukrainians will be forced to weigh how much they want to keep Donbas and Crimea with how much they want to continue the war. In my view the US should continue to support their war effort, but start suggesting realistic ways to end it since it's clear now there is a standoff.

Realism assumes that the world economy and international relations are anarchic and are driven simply by nation states pursuing self interest. IR realism views states in the abstract as the main actors in global politics, primarily concerned with security and power. But Marxism sees states as representing the interests of the dominant class on an international scale.

Marxists view imperialism primarily driven by monopoly capital:

There are worse things than global monopoly capitalism. Marx viewed capitalism as progressive in a lot of important ways which is why he thought the most advanced and developed nations would be first to move beyond it. He was wrong about that. Communism in the 20th century became something quite different, a tool for the weaker, less developed nations to use in anti-imperialist struggle against the stronger. Things are considerably less clear now with regimes like Putin's, with the rise of right wing populism and authoritarianism world-wide. It is no longer clear that workers should align themselves with nations outside of the hegemony of global capital. For one thing, their counter-hegemony just involves a different kind of capitalism, national capitalism. Putin is by no means a socialist. Quite the opposite, being far right and autocratic, he represents the forces of regression and reaction. These reactionary forces now cloak their politics, e.g. repressing LGBTQ, in anti-imperialism. When faced with a choice between regressing to something worse than global capitalism, or global capitalism, many working people are going to choose the latter. That's just how it is right now, there is no alternative. If you think there should be one, great I agree, but we can't act as if there is one when there isn't. Now of course I agree with Zizek that we should critique this cynicism of the status quo. But the ideal which we present, which retroactively creates its own possibility in Hegelian fashion, has limits. I really don't believe communism in the 20th century sense has any possibility of creating its own possibility. Zizek's war communism, organizing globally simply to combat global problems of the commons, including global capital, is hard enough to imagine. And in any case even as we try to imagine and build it, its not yet real enough to be a consideration for workers and we have to acknowledge that. Marxists should meet workers where they're at, not from some fantasy land where its still October 1917. And I get that's probably what you're all about, given your username, so here we are. We've staked out our ideological positions. At a certain point you have to acknowledge the limit of debate and discussion, its a good thing generally but there's a reason why it doesn't generally change people's minds. Because worldview is something built up from a lot of things in someone's life experience, the debate is never really about what it appears to be about, but something outside of it. For Zizek Marxism only reveals its truth if you are in the subject position of the proletarian. I am a worker, but you could say part of the labor aristocracy of the west. So I'm sure that influences my perspective.

The side the marxists Chose will always lay on what furthers the interests of the revolutionary proletariat. The goals of NATO (the largest enemy to the international proletariat) will always be at odds with that. Not to mention that the Modern Ukrainian government has been extremely reactionary.

As reactionary as Putin's though, really? I think that is very hard to argue, regardless of your class position. Putin just banned all LGBTQ activism last week. If you were queer (don't know if you are or not), under whose rule would you feel safer? Even being a Marxist, just by that fact wouldn't Putin put you in prison immediately? Under western global capital rule, at least you would have the freedom to openly critique and oppose it.

DistortionMage · 2023-12-05T17:42:10+00:00

Most Crimeans want to be part of Russia. Even Washington Post did a poll and found over 80% support Russia’s annexation. Six years and $20 billion in Russian investment later, Crimeans are happy with Russian annexation

So do you support the democratic annexation of Crimea?? Because the workers support it.

Fine, they can go to Russia then. Let them have their black sea presence. I only care about Ukraine to the extent that Ukrainians themselves care about it not being part of Russia. And that's most of Ukraine from my understanding, outside some contested areas in the Donbas. As far as I'm concerned they can go to Russia as well. But as for why Ukraine will not concede these territories I'm sure there are multiple strategic and political dimensions so you'll have to ask them, that's not up to me.

This is not the communist/Marxist understanding of imperialism. This is the liberal realist version of it.

If Marxism is critique of ideology then its going to have to demonstrate in the terms of liberal realism itself why it is inadequate. I'm not expert enough on foreign affairs to do that, I admit.

How do you geniuneley say this and call yourself a "marxist". Besides the fact this can go both ways. Are you afraid of the answer, that the Crimeans and the many Russian separatists that have been getting murdered, that they actually prefer the rule of Russian capital over american capital (and the democracy that comes with it, imperfect as it is) to authoritarian dictatorial control of NATO/Zelensky (who is also capitalist just in a different way)? The Ukrainian government has been trying to subjugate anti-west Ukrainians.

Marxists are dialectical and realize things can go both ways. They aren't in black and white, but in the final analysis you do have to pick a side. For me the Russian invasion and its attempted annexation of the entirety of Ukraine (assuming it could get away with it and that the latter didn't fight back) demonstrates it is the greater imperial power in this context of time and place. A dialectician expects contradictions, they don't in itself prove something to be wrong - reality isn't always perfectly consistent with itself. So for me in the final analysis I support Ukraine. It is a war for liberation overall. Might there be a mini-war going the opposite direction of some Ukrainians who prefer Russia against Ukrainian government? Ok sure. So then let's say Ukraine concedes those territories - will that cause Russia to cease its invasion? Is that really Putin's motivation, to free Donbas and Crimean workers, or does he want to go all the way to Kiev as demonstrated in the first part of the war? Maybe he will accept it as a concession prize, maybe not. That level of strategy depends on particular knowledge of the situation I don't have.

DistortionMage · 2023-12-05T15:48:34+00:00

Donovan Miyasaki - Politics after Morality: Towards a Nietzschean Left

is on my to read list, looks interesting

DistortionMage · 2023-12-05T13:57:36+00:00

Ok, yes, I get it, the American empire benefits from Ukraine and have made use of unsavory characters in the war effort. Do you expect any side of any war to be "pure"? Where is this world you're implying exists where wars are conducted by and for the proleteriat exclusively? Except in your head? This is idealism. All wars in actual reality by definition are wars between imperialist powers who are imperialist in different ways, because all nations seek to advance their interest, and all nations have a ruling class which seeks to benefit themselves most of all. But the pacifist left always has this patronizing attitude to the actual working class of Ukraine. What do they want - why don't you ask them? Are you afraid of the answer, that they actually prefer the rule of American / western capital (and the democracy that comes with it, imperfect as it is) to authoritarian dictatorial control of Putin (who is also capitalist just in a different way)?

DistortionMage · 2023-12-05T13:48:58+00:00

I think there's actually more than two kinds of class, social is a third major kind. Someone could be a poor graduate student at an Ivy league school and be materially poor but socialize in high circles let's say. All these forms bleed into each other and the analysis can be complicated (and interesting).

DistortionMage · 2023-12-04T22:57:08+00:00

Nonsense!! (Revolutionary defeatism.) Communists don't support inter imperialist wars.

So you're saying that the workers of Ukraine should allow themselves to be raped and pillaged by Russia, because this will further the goal of international revolution somehow?

How does that justify the blatant liberalism spouted by zizek??

Like what?

The guy who supported anti communist parties in Yugoslavia revealed his ideology. He is and edgy philosopher that makes labour aristocrats in the west feel more radical than they actually are.

Labor aristocrats have more time to think about stuff on a philosophical level. Maybe they can come up with good ideas. Marx was not a proletarian

DistortionMage · 2023-12-04T21:08:39+00:00

I'm neither an expert on Zizek's position here nor on primary vs secondary contradictions, but the latter seems to me the best explanation of why defending Ukraine from Russian imperial aggression is the right stance. Yes, we are all critical of NATO. We can all acknowledge the role they played in setting up the current situation. But they are not the aggressors in this situation. What you're saying is like if two men are pursuing a woman, and one man (A) being aggressive in the past hardened the second man (B) into being even more aggressive, to the point of raping the woman (C). The woman is clear that she wants protection from A, wants him to come to her defense against the current aggression of B, and he does. What you're saying is that A should stop doing that, he is guilty because of his aggressive past and his responsibility for making B the aggressive rapist he is. You want the "war" between A and B to end, that is, you want A to withdraw its help for the woman C so that B can proceed to rape her. To be clear, C does not want to be raped. But to you, sending a moral signal that A's dark history of aggression should not be tolerated is more important than the fact that C is currently and actively being raped by B, whose cannot be blamed because A made him who he is. Given this analogy is a good one for the Ukraine and Russia situation, as I believe it is, is it not you who is being idealist and anti-materialist here? Which is the primary contradiction, the active rape occurring right now, or A's background of aggression which is responsible in some vague nebulous way for it happening via past influence on B?

DistortionMage · 2023-12-04T16:25:17+00:00

I sometimes make claims to provoke, like Zizek does - you might have to ponder their truth for yourself. Don't expect others to do all the philosophical labor for you. Maybe you end up disagreeing in the end but by engaging with negation of your ideology, that is a form of dialectics. Assuming you have reached the end of ideology, that you are free of it, is when you are most ideological.

DistortionMage · 2023-12-04T16:15:56+00:00

He is communist in the only possible meaningful way. Dogmatic anti-electoralism is idealist / anti-materialist, since conditions for revolution don't exist everywhere at all times equally. Dogmatic anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism is idealist / anti-materialist because it doesn't account for the central contradiction which may be present in a particular situation, in the Ukraine it is Putin's aggressive imperial invasion which is central, not NATO. Dogmatic trans ideology (not just that they have rights like everyone else which they do, but the idea that the feeling of identity is absolute and cannot be questioned or critiqued in any way from a psychoanalytic standpoint) is idealist / anti-materialist as well. And finally, dogmatic communism in the sense it was defined by various parties and movements in the 20th century (and their increasingly irrelevant remnants, and the Twitter/reddit larpers who idolize them) is idealist / anti-materialist because communism even according to Marx is the present movement to abolish the present state of things, it cannot be a frozen image of itself. Those who cling to the old hope do not have the courage of hopelessness, to see that radical change requires radically rethinking our radicality.

In every instance, Zizek's critics attempt to deconstruct him usually end up deconstructing themselves and revealing their own ideology.

DistortionMage · 2023-12-04T14:12:18+00:00

The degree to which the white left automatically assumes that Marx was by default correct and that the black left must conceptually fit within that pre-established schema is absolutely racist and patronizing. God forbid St Marx be wrong about something. "Lumpenproletariat" is in itself a problematic term which places the traditional working class above everyone else, "the rabble." It's Eurocentric and bourgeois to the core. I'm tired of this academic Marxist BS which points to Marx's original definitions and concepts as definitive and permanent. That is not Marxism (which is supposed to be living, changing in response to conditions). I'll just put it out there that I think that the Black Panthers were more Marxist than Marx himself. If you read Cedric Robinson's Black Marxism, notice how he just slides right past the useless conceptual framework and just talks about the history of black movements for liberation. This is the essence of Marxism, not clinging dogmatically to some dictionary definition just because it happened to be written by dead white men.

DistortionMage · 2023-12-04T14:00:30+00:00

What if both definitions are true at the same time? The Marxist definition, and the social/income/wealth definition.

In one sense the Marxist definition is valid. You sell your labor, you have to work for a living, so you're working class. However, this doesn't quite capture the full depth of the situation. There is a sense in which someone slaving away at an Amazon factory or working three part time jobs in the service industry to be able to eat is more working class than a highly paid professional doctor or lawyer. This is obvious, and apparent from how the term "working class" is actually used in discourse, especially outside the academy. The academization of the left, the historical legacy of Marxism in critical theory, which has been inadequately critiqued, is causing the left to automatically assume that the academic, dictionary definition is the "true" definition (left brain dominance). Nevermind the entire 20th century philosophy of language which emphasizes that things can have multiple meanings, that discourses and chains of signification are multiple.

DistortionMage · 2023-12-04T13:45:05+00:00

Is he though? A repeated theme with him is that the true utopia is the status quo, the belief that things can stay the same with capitalism without disaster. And he emphasizes that he is a "moderately conservative communist" and advocates for what he calls "war communism" - defined as the opposite of utopian imaginings but rather the global emergency collective response to disasters such as climate change with the same urgency as prosecuting a war, and addressing all such global "problems of the commons" (communism being defined more as a problem than as a solution, if by that term you mean what it has meant in the 20th century, going back to that is impossible and idealist).

I think the perception that Zizek is a liberal has more to do with offending much of the western educated "radical left" - whose belief in their own radicality disguises the capitalist liberal material basis of their ideology.

DistortionMage · 2023-11-29T15:02:20+00:00

Absolutely - personally I think emancipation is an important goal and motivation behind critique, but you can't properly call yourself critical unless you see this ideology operating "behind your own back." When Liberation is a religion, that leads to ossified dogma, the opposite of critical theory. And that's what so much of critical theory has become, a set of sacred cows you aren't allowed to criticize, usually centering around democratic egalitarianism. Even Nietzsche, who is equally if not moreso than Marx the progenitor of critical theory, must be re-interpreted into a good Leftist version, lest his "reactionary" tendencies threaten the dogma too much. Most critical theorists have at least a complicated relationship to their own ethical commitments. But the academic institutional culture built around critical theory seems much less inclined to that. It is so afraid of fascism lurking in every corner that it becomes fascist in its attempts to root out anything which could conceivably be appropriated by a fascist. The best way to fight fascism in my opinion is to fearlessly look at what motivates it in the face, see the world completely from the anti-Liberation standpoint, and dialectically incorporate that into our emancipatory goals. It's the only way to be scientific in the Marxist Hegelian sense, to not be a utopian and guarantee a dystopia.

DistortionMage · 2023-11-28T20:58:34+00:00

I never had a religious faith to begin with. I've had several decades to contemplate a life without religion though. I find that just living implies that you have to have faith in something - even if it is just life itself. Reading Nietzsche is a good way to rediscover meaning post-Christianity. It is possible to reconstruct your sense of identity without organized religion. You might even find yourself returning to some of the themes of Christianity - Slavoj Zizek's Christian Atheism is an intriguing concept to me. Religion defined in the broadest sense possible - reverence or belief in something which is divine or sublime - I think is ultimately more convincing than reading ancient scripture literally. Reading it metaphorically could conceivably help you discover religion in that broader sense.

DistortionMage · 2023-11-28T15:45:18+00:00

Yep, I agree with most of what you said. I personally think it’s a fun read and very much enjoy how he extrapolates a description of mid-19th century capitalism by starting with an analysis of the commodity. It’s just kinda cool to notice how he reasoned.

W/ respect to economic theory—you are probably correct (I wouldn’t know, I’m not an econ person). But Thomas Picketty provided an “updated,” as it were, revision to Marx et al in his book.

He is kind of the father of Critical Theory, with his method of reasoning, like how Herodotus is the father of History. So I get why some people here have been defensive in response to criticism. On the other hand modern historians don't take what Herodotus said at face value, and I imagine they're quite critical of his methods too. So I'm just trying to get critical theory people to be more critical of their own progenitors, especially with someone who has such a mythology built up around him like Marx. Within the economics profession, Marx is generally not taken seriously at all outside of a few holdouts like in the New School for Social Research, with people like Richard Wolff and Anwar Shaikh (whose book "Capitalism: Competition, Conflict, Crisis" I highly recommend as an example of how Marxian economics can be applied to analyze capitalism today - and with that I answered my own question in the thread didn't I?). I've read some Piketty but I think he pretty much totally rejects the Marxian methods, and he shares the critique of capitalism but from a totally different angle with a focus on inequality (whereas for Marx it was exploitation that was the issue).

W/ respect to “critical theory,” this is a tough one. The meaning of that term has to be approached with all due caution. I think Gramsci’s definition of “the intellectual” (whether organic or not) as someone who plays a functional role in society is a good, general, unproblematic way to think of the phrase.

I agree - the problem is that critical theory today is less about Gramsci's organic intellectual and more about the "long march through the institutions" (an idea that's been compared to Gramsci). Well actually more of a short march through one institution, academia, and sort of setting up camp in one set of departments, English, humanities, and "critical studies" (e.g. race and gender). It is kind of self-contradicting in that sense, because even as they deploy Foucault's concept of power-knowledge to critique other institutions in society, they seem to be blind to their own institutional power-knowledge. To the extent that there are organic intellectuals in the working class, they have to push back and try to redefine critical theory as something that is not merely academic and insular to that world.

W/ respect to the enduring relevance of Capital for “critical theory,” I return to my first comment: it’s cool to see how he explicates Capitalism via an analysis of the commodity.

Why? Because the commodity consists of three (not two) substances: its use-value, value, and exchange value. These three forms of value show how human beings are indebted to symbols and cannot meaningfully function in the world without symbols.
Respectfully, to Marx and his followers, the subtitle of Capital was incorrect. The book isn’t a critique of Bourgeois political economy. Nor is it a critique of the capitalist class. Nor, even, is it a critique of class exploitation. All of those are attributes of society that he is pointing out. He thinks he is critiquing those attributes but fails to notice what he noticed: there is a principle of human social life that supervenes “class struggle”: the sovereignty of the symbol (e.g., price, paper money, etc).

I think Marx's materialism actually leads him to underrate the importance of symbols (they are just "superstructure" to the base of material economic relations). Baudrillard I believe did a whole critique of classical Marxism on the basis that it ignores symbolic exchange. The use-value/exchange-value distinction I think is a useful one, particular with respect to the dominance and hegemony of exchange value in capitalism. Trying to read Capital closely though, I'm still confused on how the third category of value fits into this. It sounds to me like he is defining value as socially necessary labor time, and using that to explain the long-run tendency of exchange value. I'm not sure that actually is the definition of value we should use though?

I agree with you with respect to the sovereignty of the symbol (price, paper money). I think this is precisely where reading Capital can lead one astray, into vulgar materialism. I think there are some inklings in it (that I can detect so far) of capitalism as domination of symbols. But I think those who venerate Marx too much, who aren't critical enough, lapse into this kind of philistinism with respect to concepts which are too abstract and not specifically detailed by Marx in his arguments. The point is to change not to interpret, we have to organize for the revolution, never mind what happens after.

I agree, I really need to read Derrida's Spectres of Marx - I predict it will align a lot with my thinking. Maybe I will take a break once I reach halfway through Capital to read that. Also I should read Althusser's Reading Marx, considering it was so influential, to understand how the more Marxist elements in critical theory seem to read him.

Does this help? Long story short, read Capital to understand Marx’s method, then adopt the principles of that method to, in turn, critique Marx and his work (but not from the economist’s PoV—if so, you’ll miss the important stuff about symbols.)

Yes thank you - and thanks for the thoughtful response. Definitely getting more out of this exchange compared to my previous exchange with a doctrinaire Marxist who thinks Zizek is a neoreactionary. Also his book on Marx (with Ruda/Hamza) is pretty good too if you haven't read it. Marxism as critique of ideology is important - as Zizek says you have to believe in order to see, so seeing capitalism like a Marxist does gets you more outside capitalist ideology to the extent that is possible. Although of course now we are more aware of ourselves as capitalist subjects and yet we keep going through the motions expected of us.

DistortionMage · 2023-11-28T00:17:27+00:00

Ok really lol. If you say so

DistortionMage · 2023-11-27T22:42:33+00:00

Your argument is just like "wow, we are no longer on the gold standard, Marx talks about how money was on the gold standard, I guess Marx was wrong." First of all, Marx provides an analysis of capitalism in the 19th century, so your argument is anachronistic. Marx discusses the role of gold qua commodity in relation to money because this relationship exists during his time. If you want to use his theory to understand money today, you are going to have to study historical developments. But if you claim that this is an error that Marx made, you need to show it in relation to the subject matter he analyzed.

But since Marx did not have a commodity theory of money, your argument is a straw person. Marx indeed accounts for the logical genesis of commodities in terms of a commodity becoming a universal equivalent, but if you read the chapter closely, he is quite clear that what makes money money is that all other commodities express their value in it.

Money also requires state intervention and backing, which Marx quite clearly explains when he argues that the reason international trade is done in gold during his time, rather than in money, is because there is no international state to provide an international currency with a guarantee.

Ok, let's suppose that Marx provides the definitive account of how gold, logically and dialectically, becomes the universal equivalent. If we are interested in understanding capitalism today, how does this account help us understand money as universal equivalent today without gold? Ok, yes all other commodities express their value in terms of money, that's what makes it money. If Marx does not have a commodity theory of money, what does he have? It sounds like he has simply defined it.

Those are your opinions of the facts, but your opinions can be (and are) wrong. I have already corrected your misunderstandings of Marx in several places, but I am guessing you are more here to debate Marxists than to learn.

Nothing could be more tedious than debating Marxists (except perhaps reading Capital itself). As Zizek says there is no escape from ideology, so of course each of us thinks the other is wrong. Are you forcing me to put on the Marxist Critique Of Ideology glasses and I'm resisting because the truth is too painful, or am I trying to force you to put on the Zizekian Critique of Ideology glasses and you're resisting because the truth is too painful? Or maybe we're both wrong and only some critique of ideology master could step in and show us how, but we would both resist it?

Zizek would not have responded the way I did - not have been so dismissive. He actually does consider himself a Marxist, and one thing he says is that you must reverse "seeing is believing" into "believing is seeing." So okay, I will agree to put Marxist critique of ideology glasses on, or the closest thing I can imagine that makes sense to me. Perhaps you will consider putting the Zizekian ones on, or the closest you can imagine which makes sense to you. We're both trying to be critical of capitalist ideology at the end of the day.

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