#in marxist context

[phoenixkaptain]

I really want to explore Tim “rich kid” Drake spending time with his friends and them just slowly realizing that Robin is even weirder than they thought.

Like, Arrowette complains about some press event or something that her mom wants her to go to and Robin just starts listing off advice and unspoken rules and tells her to absolutely avoid the shrimp cocktails unless she wants an early out, in which case the correct amount to eat is one and a half shrimp with only a bit of cocktail sauce, which will be enough to change her complexion and convince people she doesn’t feel well and allow her to escape to the restroom, then she just needs to slip out one of the windows-

Or Wonder Girl commenting on, like, a science fair project or something and he just goes “Science fairs are the worst. Everyone wants to buy your services to make them something, not understanding that you’re richer than they are and that an insult to you could lead to you buying their parents’ companies if they don’t shut up. They’re lucky I have an even temper…” WG: “…wat.”

Superboy is like “man, Superman’s trying to convince me to clean my room. What should I do?” and Tim just stares blankly at him because nobody has ever told him to clean his room before and he’s never cleaned his room before and he had no idea Clark was so cruel and-

Impulse: “Hey, Rob, pass me a can opener.”

Robin, staring into the drawer, fifteen can openers right in front of his eyes: “We don’t have one.”

I just want Tim to inexplicably not know some things because he’s never had to know them. I want him to explicably know things because he had to know them. I want the things he does know and the things he doesn’t to be totally backwards to everyone, who are all wondering why Robin knows how to hotwire a car but does not know how to work a vacuum cleaner.

[greatwyrmgold]

It's always interesting to read what people in the past thought the future would look like and try to figure out why they were wrong.

For instance: In The Principles of Communism, Frederick Engels speculates that division of labor will disappear as industrial technology continues to develop. And it makes sense that he thought that; the history he knew saw highly specialized craftsmen replaced by less-specialized factory workers.

But it sounds absurd to us, because we've seen that advancement in industrial technology went in a different direction. The unspecialized factory work proved to be precisely the work which was easiest to automate, and struggled to significantly reduce the specialized education required to be (for instance) a doctor or handyman.

Who knows what the future will bring? Perhaps automation will continue on that path, eliminating all jobs which require less than four years of higher education. Or perhaps someone will make actual AI, capable of providing the specialized knowledge that anyone with two hands can use to perform specialist labor. Or perhaps some new development will render this analytical lens obsolete.

The only thing we know for certain about the future, is that most people who try to predict it will look pretty foolish in hindsight.

...this probably isn't what Engels wanted people reading his stuff to take away from it.

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

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[dykeredhood]

every time someone insists that NB only stands for non-Black… I dissolve

[mostly-mundane-atla]

Kanonensong as a Fire Nation marching song is canon to me but they wouldn't understand the irony behind the lyrics

[spiritbreak]

finished the memory police for the second time and i can confirm, this is my favorite book of all time. this and fruiting bodies by kathryn harlan. i read the memory police for the first time back in march of 2021, and a LOT has changed in my life since my first read. on my second read i picked up a lot more details which proves that this book is a fucking masterpiece. the attention to detail, the environmental storytelling, the characterization…….. GOD this book is good.

strongly recommend this to anyone looking for a beautiful, devastating, and evocative novel about the trauma of loss and unkillable hope in the face of oppression.

[pleasantgirl2000]

shawty got that protestant work ethic and catholic shame combo call that a christ complex

[redditantisemitism]

All by the same person, on a subreddit about exposing antisemitism on reddit. Note also the additional queerphobia of “sexual Bolshevism”.

[a-drought-of-thoughts]

actually intersectional feminism is when tom wambsgans

[communistkenobi]

like even just speaking in my own context as a social science PhD student in a canadian university, graduate students are required to apply for federal grants for their funding. this includes a detailed proposal about what you plan to research. the federal government lists what research projects they are interested in funding each year, and it’s understood that you need to pitch your research in such a way that you are appealing to those research aims, including what kinds of questions you want to ask and what you’re hoping to contribute to your field. the language you use must speak to furthering Canadian interests. this is not a neutral process! How critical do you think academic scholarship can be when their funding depends on flattering the policy and research aims of a settler colonial capitalist state? and many, many academics are fine with this, there is no secret hoard of marxists in universities chained to the whims of Big Government or whatever, but like even using this one singular example you can see how maybe the shit they teach you in universities is concerned with speaking to funding agencies before there is any consideration for discovering, like, capital T Truth about the world. nothing you read is produced out of nowhere, and if you’re reading academic scholarship that means that there is a titanic amount of financial and administrative infrastructure that that knowledge is produced in. If you believe you go to university to learn the truth about the world, that university is a progressive institution because they teach marx to undergrads, then I’m sorry but you’ve bought into both the liberal myth that universities are primarily concerned with teaching the truth and the conservative myth that universities are SJW hellholes

[kashilascorner]

I'm at a point with my thesis that i either concluded something so blatantly obvious it's stupid or brilliantly put down something very logical (and unoriginal)

[heritageposts]

how do i start to read marxist leninist/leftist stuff ? i searched on the internet but it’s super confusing lol

the most important value for me as an ML is anti-imperialism, so i guess i'll always recommend that people start with works centred on that

some suggestions below (all books should be available either on marxist.org or as pdf/epub files on libgen)

American Holocaust by David E. Stannard

about the colonization of america. not explicitly marxist, but it's probably done more to radicalize me than any other piece of writing. this is the pile of corpses capitalism is built on:

Within no more than a handful of generations following their first en counters with Europeans, the vast majority of the Western Hemisphere's native peoples had been exterminated. The pace and magnitude of their obliteration varied from place to place and from time to time, but for years now historical demographers have been uncovering, in region upon region, post-Columbian depopulation rates of between 90 and 98 percent with such regularity that an overall decline of 95 percent has become a working rule of thumb. What this means is that, on average, for every twenty natives alive at the moment of European contact-when the lands of the Americas teemed with numerous tens of millions of people-only one stood in their place when the bloodbath was over. To put this in a contemporary context, the ratio of native survivorship in the Americas following European contact was less than half of what the human survivorship ratio would be in the United States today if every single white person and every single black person died. The destruction of the Indians of the Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world. That is why, as one historian aptly has said, far from the heroic and romantic heraldry that customarily is used to symbolize the European settlement of the Americas, the emblem most congruent with reality would be a pyramid of skulls. - David E. Stannard

2. Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism by Vladimir Lenin

Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed. - Vladimir Lenin

3. The Wretched of The Earth by Franz Fanon

Let us look at ourselves, if we can bear to, and see what is becoming of us. First, we must face that unexpected revelation, the strip-tease of our humanism. There you can see it, quite naked, and it’s not a pretty sight. It was nothing but an ideology of lies, a perfect justification for pillage; its honeyed words, its affectation of sensibility were only alibis for our aggressions. A fine sight they are too, the believers in non-violence, saying that they are neither executioners nor victims. Very well then; if you’re not victims when the government which you’ve voted for, when the army in which your younger brothers are serving without hesitation or remorse have undertaken race murder, you are, without a shadow of doubt, executioners. And if you chose to be victims and to risk being put in prison for a day or two, you are simply choosing to pull your irons out of the fire. But you will not be able to pull them out; they’ll have to stay there till the end. Try to understand this at any rate: if violence began this very evening and if exploitation and oppression had never existed on the earth, perhaps the slogans of non-violence might end the quarrel. But if the whole regime, even your non-violent ideas, are conditioned by a thousand-year-old oppression, your passivity serves only to place you in the ranks of the oppressors. - prefrace by Jean-Paul Sartre

4. Discourse on Colonialism by Aimé Césaire

Yes, it would be worthwhile to study clinically, in detail, the steps taken by Hitler and Hitlerism and to reveal to the very distinguished, very humanistic, very Christian bourgeois of the twentieth century that without his being aware of it, he has a Hitler inside him, that Hitler inhabits him, that Hitler is his demon, that if he rails against him, he is being inconsistent and that, at bottom, what he cannot forgive Hitler for is not crime in itself, the crime against man, it is not the humiliation of man as such, it is the crime against the white man, the humiliation of the white man, and the fact that he applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the blacks of Africa I have talked a good deal about Hitler. Because he deserves it: he makes it possible to see things on a large scale and to grasp the fact that capitalist society, at its present stage, is incapable of establishing a concept of the rights of all men, just as it has proved incapable of establishing a system of individual ethics. Whether one likes it or not, at the end of the blind alley that is Europe, I mean the Europe of Adenauer, Schuman, Bidault, and a few others, there is Hitler. At the end of capitalism, which is eager to outlive its day, there is Hitler. At the end of formal humanism and philosophicrenunciation, there is Hitler - Aimé Césaire

5. Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism by Michael Parenti

probably the most accessible introduction to communism that doesn't demonize countries that have undergone—or attempted to undergo—a transitation into socalism (like the ussr, cuba, etc.)

The very concept of "revolutionary violence" is somewhat falsely cast, since most of the violence comes from those who attempt to prevent reform, not from those struggling for reform. By focusing on the violent rebellions of the downtrodden, we overlook the much greater repressive force and violence utilized by the ruling oligarchs to maintain the status quo, including armed attacks against peaceful demonstrations, mass arrests, torture, destruction of opposition organizations, suppression of dissident publications, death squad assassinations, the extermination of whole villages, and the like. - Michael Parenti

[determinate-negation]

what's ur opinion on people using AI to make art and stuff ?

as a marxist i dont believe that technology itself can be inherently bad or any of these basically luddite takes that people have about AI. developments in technology often disenfranchise certain class strata which depend on an earlier form of production, and are either proletarianized or forced to find other ways to adapt to shifting markets and the decline of their industry. this is nothing new, its a frequent process of capitalism, similar to craftsmen and artisans work being devalued with the development of industry. attempting to reject the technology itself is misguided and also just doesnt work, so im against these views and also against the idea that AI is 'stealing jobs from artists.' this is a simplistic view that lends itself well to the forces of reaction. essentially, i have no issue with AI as a potential art medium.

the other issue, that is more complex, that some people in these AI debates seem to be grasping at but usually formulate this in a very simplistic and often crass way, is about what constitutes a great work of art, how to asses a work of art, in what way does art represent something that the artist created in it, art as human striving towards something etc. people have used a lot of different types of technology to create something interesting, but still this depends on the vision of the artist. its also necessary to look at art today the context of the development of cultural production as an industry in itself, and cultural products as truly products in the capitalist sense, commodities on the market. there also are plenty of interesting debates and analyses on how technology develops under capitalism, which i can post some titles and links of if you want. theres also a lot of cool stuff people have written about technology and art specificallly, id recommend this essay by walter benjamin

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

[spaghettioverdose]

I remember when "I don't need theory to care about people" in the context of being asked to read marxist (if not at least anarchist) theory was like a phrase people proudly said on here. That sentiment definitely didn't go away but my fucking god was it wild to see "leftists" being so proud of not reading political theory. The anti-intellectualism. The fucking self-righteousness of phrasing it like you're using theory as a substitute for compassion or something. Like you're the one in the wrong for telling someone who calls themselves a leftist to actually get informed on political theory. Absolutely rancid.

[txttletale]

Hi! I have a question to ask you, someone who seems well versed in Marxism and its philosophy, over something that personally confuses me: is there a meaningful difference between materialism and objectivity? The way I've seen the former explained usually just makes me go "Oh, so it's really just about being objective", so I don't really understand why we need another term for it.

i actually think that there is -- at least in the marxist sense of materialism -- a huge gap between being 'materialist' and being 'objective'. a big part of the historical materialist rejection of idealism is the rejection of the idea of timeless, objective truth independent of its observer and context: as engels puts it in socialism: utopian & scientific:

As each one’s special kind of absolute truth, reason, and justice is again conditioned by his subjective understanding, his conditions of existence, the measure of his knowledge and his intellectual training, there is no other ending possible in this conflict of absolute truths than that they shall be mutually exclusive of one another.

the marxist perspective is inherently suspicious of objectivity, because the marxist analysis of society is cognizant of class struggle. because the goals of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat (or the king and the peasant, or the slaveholder and the slave) are diametrically opposed, there is very little that can be said to be 'universal', because the system of values that benefits one class is to the detriment of the other. marx summarizes this thusly in the german ideology:

For each new class which puts itself in the place of one ruling before it, is compelled, merely in order to carry through its aim, to represent its interest as the common interest of all the members of society, that is, expressed in ideal form: it has to give its ideas the form of universality, and represent them as the only rational, universally valid ones.

so the basic premise of historical materialism is that ideas (i.e. 'truths') arise from the material conditions in which they are developed. there is no such thing as an objective perspective because every perspective is situated historically in a particular time and place and set of social relations. claims to 'objectivity', then, are at best suspect, staking a claim to universality that erases class divisions and historical context.

marxism is not an 'objective' framework--it is proletarian, built from the standpoint of the working class and imperialised peoples around the world, and built upon and adapted for dozens of different historical circumstances by different leaders and thinkers. materialism is in opposition to the notion of objectivity, then, because materialism recognizes that all ideas (even one's own conception of materialism!) are ideas that stem out of dialectical interplay between not only previous ideas but the material and social conditions of the people who have those ideas. ideas and thoughts cannot be 'objective', under the materialist view, because to separate them from the context in which they arose is to distort and falsify them in the pursuit of universality.

[transmutationisms]

i think you do a really impressive job balancing comprehensive/concise while referencing a lot of complex frameworks(contexts? schools of thought? lol idk what to call that. big brain ideas) but if you have any readings specifically on the institution of psychiatry topic that you would recommend/think are relevant, I'd be interested. it's absolutely not a conversation that's being had enough and I want to be able to articulate myself around it

yes i have readings >:)

first of all, the anti-psychiatry bibliography and resource guide is a great place to start getting oriented in this literature. it's split by sub-topic, and there are paragraphs interspersed throughout that give summaries of major thinkers' positions and short intros to key texts.

it's from 1979, though, so here are some recs from the last 4 decades:

overview critiques

mind fixers: psychiatry's troubled search for the biology of mental illness, by anne harrington

psychiatric hegemony: a marxist theory of mental illness, by bruce m z cohen

desperate remedies: psychiatry's turbulent quest to cure mental illness, by andrew scull

psychiatry and its discontents, by andrew scull

madness is civilization: when the diagnosis was social, 1948–1980, by michael e staub

contesting psychiatry: social movements in mental health, by nick crossley

the dsm & pharmacy

dsm: a history of psychiatry's bible, by allan v horwitz

the dsm-5 in perspective: philosophical reflections on the psychiatric babel, by steeves demazeux & patrick singy

pharmageddon, by david healy

pillaged: psychiatric medications and suicide risk, by ronald w maris

the making of dsm-iii: a diagnostic manual's conquest of american psychiatry, by hannah s decker

the myth of the chemical cure: a critique of psychiatric drug treatment, by joanna moncrieff

the book of woe: the dsm and the unmaking of psychiatry, by gary greenberg

prozac on the couch: prescribing gender in the era of wonder drugs, by jonathan metzl

the creation of psychopharmacology, by david healy

the bitterest pills: the troubling story of antipsychotic drugs, by joanna moncrieff

psychiatry & race

the protest psychosis: how schizophrenia became a black disease, by jonathan metzl

administrations of lunacy: racism and the haunting of american psychiatry at the milledgeville asylum, by mab segrest

the peculiar institution and the making of modern psychiatry, 1840–1880, by wendy gonaver

what's wrong with the poor? psychiatry, race, and the war on poverty, by mical raz

national and cross-national contexts

mad by the millions: mental disorders and the early years of the world health organization, by harry yi-jui wu

psychiatry and empire, by sloan mahone & megan vaughan

ʿaṣfūriyyeh: a history of madness, modernity, and war in the middle east, by joelle m abi-rached

surfacing up: psychiatry and social order in colonial zimbabwe, 1908–1968, by lynette jackson

the british anti-psychiatrists: from institutional psychiatry to the counter-culture, 1960–1971, by oisín wall

crime, madness, and politics in modern france: the medical concept of national decline, by robert a nye

reasoning against madness: psychiatry and the state in rio de janeiro, 1830–1944, by manuella meyer

colonial madness: psychiatry in french north africa, by richard keller

madhouse: psychiatry and politics in cuban history, by jennifer lynn lambe

depression in japan: psychiatric cures for a society in distress, by junko kitanaka

inheriting madness: professionalization and psychiatric knowledge in 19th century france, by ian r dowbiggin

mad in america: bad science, bad medicine, and the enduring mistreatment of the mentally ill, by robert whitaker