This is that stack of books in the back. I’ve only read the Baudrillard book complety, but found the small portins I’ve read of the others interesting. Here’s the thing about Marxism: super interesting in itself and it’s growth, but much modern critiques based on it in-orthodoxy seem departed from reality, atavistic. Great little reads though! No need to read all of them, just enough to get a gist. Also, Semiotexte has a beautiful print style and wuality. I pick them up whenever I find them in a used book shop.
I was reading this book and felt so happy about the object I had to post here out of excitement
Gabriel Reyes
Justin Peterson
I'm interested in your critique of modern Marxism, could you expand a little? Not to derail the thread or anything
Thomas Hughes
Sure. I don't have a tremendous amount of new to share, and I'm still mildly intoxicated and at work now at 7am so consider this more a bump than a genuine reflection full of thoughtful care. Forgive any inconsistencies, as I'm forced to stand at my job and endure constant interruptions. However...
My critiques are often standard, similar to Baudrillard's, who drew much of his initial inspirations from the marxists but ended up anti-ideological and almost studying change rather than society-itself. He's rooted in a near-mystical postmodernism that should destroy any attempt at settling into a comfortable understanding of reality.
I don't like the insistence on the import of use-value over symbolic value, especially in a world where perception is vastly more important than use in determining market value and in many ways social value.
I feel that the reduction of most things into class conflict and ownership issues is reductive of the human psyche and of civilization in general, though many of the marxists I'm tangentially familiar with take a fairly narrow frame in their analyses. I appreciate immensely the study of the character of capital, something I need to read much more on, and the study of this almost noumenal force is one of the strengths.
This has turned more into musing than critique as I've a hard time thinking critically when I'm unable to sit and constantly interrupted, but I've just had an interesting little thought. The irresolution and constant struggle one finds in marxist theory, that push toward a utopic liberation in an anarcho-communist society is both what turns me off about marxist thought (I term this type of thought as eschatological) and what fascinates me about it and makes it practical as a form of destabilization and reformation. In many ways, socialism is necessary for any coherent group, but the marxist theory of struggle is practical as a liquidating force: the constant critiquing isn’t useful for cohering a strong culture so much as it is valuable for melting things and pushing them in a new direction.
Consider this a fat-ass bump for my eventual return to my bookcases and tequila.