Neo Marxism

[Luther Blissett]

Dunno.

I did more Marxism and "neo-marxism" in my Art degree than I have in my anthro masters.

I'm sure I read that Shevek has a 2:1 degee in social anthropology from Manchester and they would have studied the theories used within social anthropology and this would include evolutionary theory, Marxism, critical theory, functionalism, structuralism, structural-Marxism, post-structuralism, gender, feminist & queer theories, post-modernism, to name but a few.

 

[Spion]

Yes, that's the usual reaction I get. I take it you find it absurd to introduce metaphysical concepts like "Satan" into a critique of capital? Can you explain why you find it so? For surely Marx's whole point regarding exchange-value was that it is metaphysical in nature.

Here we have Phil's wrong turn. Both Satan and exchange value are metaphysical, it's true - but one is nothing more than a creation of the human mind while the other is a demonstrably occurring phenomenon.

Looking at the error from another viewpoint, Phil has created a false identity between the material and the narrowly physical, not recognising that materialism - as made very clear from Marx onwards - recognises metaphysical phenomena as material forces.

There is no necessary opposition between the metaphysical and the the material. The real question is whether a specific metaphysical phenomenon can be demonstrated to exist/occur, whether human conceptualisation of that thing is an approximation to a real thing/event or not.

 

[Spion]

I'm coming to this late I know, but is there really a Marxist academic called Boring van Loon? Or are we being wagged?

He's actually started participating in this thread today

 

[Spion]

This was the point established in the European "witch-craze" of the C16th and C17th, when to attempt to use symbols, rituals etc to acieve objective effects was said to constitute a pact with Satan.

Capital is an efficacious sign. It works in precisely the same way that Satanic magic was held to work. Thus we see that belief in witchcraft and Satan dies out when capital becomes a normal part of social life. Thus we also see that in societies that are currently being integrated into the global capitalist economy there is a massive rise in witch-hunts, and witchcraft is once again widely practiced throughout Africa, Asia and South America.

It's weird that in Europe, if we are to believe you, the belief in witchcraft died out as capitalism arose and in the parts of the world latterly drawn into capitalism there is a 'massive rise' in it.

That's if we believe you, of course, which I don't. The idea that all of a sudden the existence of capitalism replaced witchcraft is absurd. Belief in witchcraft declined massively after the English revolution, not because the type of people who were involved in it all of a sudden started watching the symbols of capital flying around, but because the whole ideological structure of society had changed from one where the church ruled in a static trubutary economy with an iron grip on peoples' lives as tight as any 20th century totalitarian regime to one where belief was freed up and rationality and science were liberated by a dynamic economy based on cold, hard commercial relations.

No, of course not. Satanic magic is the attempt to achieve objective effects through the manipulation of symbols. As when a witch thinks that sticking pins in a kewpie doll will hurt the person the doll represents. Or as when a banker believes that transferring completely metaphysical signs from one bank account to another has objectively effected the relative wealth of the parties involved.

Will you PM me your credit card number, exp date and security code? I'd like to demonstrate that my manipulation of these signs can objectively affect our relative wealth. Meanwhile you stick pins in a Spion doll and we'll see who comes out on top

 

[Spion]

It's just silly to dismiss concepts about whch you know nothing--especially when, as you must admit, most of the best minds in human history have been rather preoccupied with God and His doings.

We've had about 2-3 million years of human history so far and as far as we can tell any preoccupation with 'God' is a pretty new and short lived one. I say short-lived especially because to determine the durability of the idea we'll have to make that judgement far into the future, and I suspect what I say will be borne out looking back from, say, 5008, or perhaps even 2508.

 

[DotCommunist]

Right, you're aware I suppose that none of this makes any sense. If "God is dead" then He must once have been alive, a proposition I take it you'd scorn. "No-one wants him" is obviously, visibly untrue--the only people who don't want him are dogmatic Leftist materialists, who have some sort of vague impression that "he stands as a symbol for patriarchal dominance."

What on earth do you mean by "God" anyway? The reason I ask is that whenever I have these conversations with materialist Leftists (and I have them a lot) the first thing I discover is that they know *nothing*--and I mean literally nothing, zero, zilch, zip about any kind of theology. Don't you think that's a rather large gap in anyone's knowledge?

I suppose what I don't understand is how obviously intelligent and well-read people such as yourself can blithely state "God is dead" without having the faintest idea of what theologians at any stage of history have meant by "God." It's just silly to dismiss concepts about whch you know nothing--especially when, as you must admit, most of the best minds in human history have been rather preoccupied with God and His doings. Was everyone just stupid before the Englishtenment or what?

Phillip I grew up attending sunday schools that started with rigid cofe and progressed to happy clappy billy graham church. I know my bible and I know my theology. God by the orthodox christian interpretation is simply the tri-part creator of the universe who manifests in son spirit and father. Another interpretation has him as simply the force of good in this universe and nothing more. Still others posit that he is a creative force for good underlying reality. Ad fucking Nauseum.

I don't buy it.

 

[Brainaddict]

FFS don't respond to phildwyer. This could be an interesting thread.

Good to read a few Bookchin rants - haven't read them for a while He's right too.

 

[Spion]

FFS don't respond to phildwyer. This could be an interesting thread.

Phil's colossal errors are pretty interesting, even if it makes me feel like I'm watching a car carsh, but I take your point.

 

[phildwyer]

FFS don't respond to phildwyer. This could be an interesting thread.

It will be as long as you stay off it, you thick and ignorant bastard. Now fuck off.

 

[phildwyer]

We've had about 2-3 million years of human history so far and as far as we can tell any preoccupation with 'God' is a pretty new and short lived one. I say short-lived especially because to determine the durability of the idea we'll have to make that judgement far into the future, and I suspect what I say will be borne out looking back from, say, 5008, or perhaps even 2508.

The human race won't survive that long. Want to know why? Because we will be destroyed by apocalyptic warfare which will begin in or around the city of Jerusalem. Hahahahaha what scenario could be less likely than that eh?

 

[phildwyer]

It's weird that in Europe, if we are to believe you, the belief in witchcraft died out as capitalism arose and in the parts of the world latterly drawn into capitalism there is a 'massive rise' in it.

It's not weird at all. When people first become aware of an evil metaphysical power in their midst, a power which works through human minds but seems to control rather than be controlled by them, a power which manifests itself in effiacious signification, they are horrified and terrified by it and they call it "Satan" and try to destroy those they think are held in its grip.

But once that power has conquered a soceity, dominating it and the way its citizens think and behave, it ceases to seem evil. People even forget that it exists. The postcolonial world, or much of it, is at the first stage of this process, just as Europe was in the C16th-C17th. The West is at the second stage. So you see there is not really any difficulty for my argument at all in the point you make here. Onto the next...

 

[phildwyer]

That's if we believe you, of course, which I don't. The idea that all of a sudden the existence of capitalism replaced witchcraft is absurd. Belief in witchcraft declined massively after the English revolution, not because the type of people who were involved in it all of a sudden started watching the symbols of capital flying around, but because the whole ideological structure of society had changed from one where the church ruled in a static trubutary economy with an iron grip on peoples' lives as tight as any 20th century totalitarian regime to one where belief was freed up and rationality and science were liberated by a dynamic economy based on cold, hard commercial relations.

And yet you claim to see no relation between what you call "rationality and science" and the "cold hard commercial relations" which, as even you are forced to concede "liberated" said "rationality and science?" I do believe you have just admitted that Enlightenment is the ideology of early capitalism. A point hardly original with you, of course, but made with great regularity throughout the past fifty or so years, perhaps most notably by Adorno and Horkheimer's "Dialectic of Enlightenment."

So the question really becomes: what do you think of capitalism? If you approve of it, naturally you should also approve of the Enlightenment. Those of us who regard capitalism as an evil system, however, will naturally be suspicious of its ideological reflection.

 

[phildwyer]

Location: 1920s Paris

What a complete and utter wanker you truly are. I bet you even drink absinthe. I bet you're drinking it now.

 

[phildwyer]

Will you PM me your credit card number, exp date and security code? I'd like to demonstrate that my manipulation of these signs can objectively affect our relative wealth. Meanwhile you stick pins in a Spion doll and we'll see who comes out on top

Who would have come out on top in 1600? See? That's my point.

 

[phildwyer]

Here we have Phil's wrong turn. Both Satan and exchange value are metaphysical, it's true - but one is nothing more than a creation of the human mind while the other is a demonstrably occurring phenomenon.

Oh yeah? Which is which? Are you willing to concede that the answer will depend on social and historical circumstances? Or will you argue that capital was somehow always there, even when no-one was aware of it? Or will you argue that Satan was somehow never there, even when everyone was aware of him?

Basically, the problem with your thought is that you are unwilling to historicize. You think the question of the existence of metaphysical concepts can be determined once and for all, absolutely, with no reference to the historical forces that have brought them into being, or into obsolescence. You have a teleological, Enlightenment-based view of history which prevents you from taking seriously the concepts of other eras and other cultures.

You think that Western people of the twenty-first century know more, or think more clearly, than any other people anywhere ever. Which is not only silly but bigotted to boot.

 

[phildwyer]

higher higher higher

What a total tosser. Those three words alone tell everyone everything they need to know about you. That and your pathetically self-aggrandizing user-name. Now fuck off and don't come back until you've changed both of them. And your "location." "1920's Paris" indeed? Fuck off!

 

[Random]

In my own work I try to point out the similarities between Debord's critique of the Spectacle and C16th and C17th revolutionary Protestantism's attacks on "idolatry." I believe that this provides a powerful theoretical tool for attacking postmodern capital. But as for having any practical effect, I don't think that's really possible.

I'd call 50k a year a pretty practical effect.

 

[phildwyer]

I'd call 50k a year a pretty practical effect.

Yes. And yet it does not have any physical existence. And thus we see that things without physical being can be real.

 

[Random]

Yes. And yet it does not have any physical existence. And thus we see that things without physical being can be real.

You should give it all away and follow jesus

 

[phildwyer]

You should give it all away and follow jesus

Why's that then?

 

[Luther Blissett]

Who would have come out on top in 1600? See? That's my point.

You, Sir, are making vague generalisations about 'witchcraft' and not even attempting to use neo-Marxian analysis as a lens to view the situation.

Classes and class consciousness in the Abron kingdom of Gyaman.
Belief in, and practice of witchcraft constitutes an ideology in the marxist sense of the word (Terray, 1984:112). An accusation of witchcraft can be interpreted as class conflict (Terray, 84:96) or a manifestation of kinship conflict between near relatives, mainly between men over inheritance (Terray 1984:109 after Alland, 1965).

The form in which these conflicts are expressed, as supernatural phenomena resulting in accusations of witchcraft, prevents open recognition of what they are - kinship conflict over inheritance and struggle against domination of elder kinfolk (Terray 1984:111).

The judicial process of deciding who is a witch is deeply flawed, since the judge is the only person who holds the poison to test for witchcraft, and if found guilty, immediate execution and fined by the confiscation of accused's land plus the taking into capitivity of at least one of the accused's children.

In this way, the Abron aristocracy use witchcraft conflicts, which tear peasant communities apart in the struggle to make sense of their lineage and their inheritance system's contradictions (Terray 1984:116), and the ideology of magic becomes a political tool. (Graeber, 2007)


That was fairly easy. I'm not a marxist - but I think the marxian lens gives us a useful perspective through which to look at the world around us. I threw in a smidgeon of Graeber, (an anarchist who appears here to be using a neo-marxian derived analysis) just for good measure.

 

[Luther Blissett]

Who would have come out on top in 1600? See? That's my point.

Is this you trying to say that you or perhaps one of your relatives want Spion's property, and so are accusing him of witchcraft in order to dispossess him of it by using the dominant ideology (Christianity) of the late 15th/early 16th centuries, backed up by legal support from the aristocracy who have decreed that the death penalty shall be punishment for practice of witchcraft?

 

[phildwyer]

You, Sir, are making vague generalisations about 'witchcraft' and not even attempting to use neo-Marxian analysis as a lens to view the situation.

Of course you're right about the generalizations--this is a message board not a monograph. But I don't see how you could deny that my methodology is "neo-Marxian." You don't seem daft enough to think that Marxists have to be materialists. What do you mean?

 

[phildwyer]

Is this you trying to say that you want Spion's property, and so are accusing him of witchcraft in order to dispossess him of it?

No, as a matter of fact I disapprove of property on principle, and therefore own none of it. Nor would I accept it if it was offered to me. Money I'll accept but only to spend immediately on non-tangibles. Such is my economic morality.

 

[Luther Blissett]

Of course you're right about the generalizations--this is a message board not a monograph.

I am right, and this is a thread asking for discussion on the relevance of neo-Marxian analysis, not a message board.

But I don't see how you could deny that my methodology is "neo-Marxian."

I don't see anything remotely neo-marxian in your analysis.
You fail to identify clearly the ideology of the historical time period that you're analysing (classical). Your symbolic terms aren't defined well enough (structural-Marxian e.g Althusser 1960s/70s) and yours is definitely not an agency-centered approach since you fail to identify human action/agency involved in reducing calamitous-phenomena to evidence of Man+Satan-as-agents, plus you don't present the consequences clearly. Neither have you shown a clear relationship of symbols to power and prestige (structuralist-Marxian, 1960s onwards, Agency,1990s). There's a vague attempt to present a structuralist dualism, but it's so confused I'm struggling to know what you're trying to say. Neither have you identified the bias inherent in your analysis (Critical Theory, 1920s/1980s) which becomes apparent later in your posts when you lay blame on 'the Left'. All in all, your analysis is confused and confusing.

You don't seem daft enough to think that Marxists have to be materialists. What do you mean?

Is this your cue to discuss Adorno or perhaps Marcuse's Phenomenology of Historical Materialism?
Or is this you passing the buck to me, in which case, why should I work to explain your confused presentation from a neo-Marxian perspective?

 

[danny la rouge]

And yet again a perfectly promising discussion is given over to one man's bizarre supernatural personification metaphor.

 

[Brainaddict]

And yet again a perfectly promising discussion is given over to one man's bizarre supernatural personification metaphor.

Innit. Guys, if you want to see phildwyer's line of bullshit on this just do a search for the other threads where he's come out with it - posts by phildwyer containing 'satan' should find them. You will see that it's not worth arguing with him.

Then we could have a thread here about neo marxism.

 

[phildwyer]

I don't see anything remotely neo-marxian in your analysis. You fail to identify clearly the ideology of the historical time period that you're analysing (classical). Your symbolic terms aren't defined well enough (structural-Marxian e.g Althusser 1960s/70s) and yours is definitely not an agency-centered approach since you fail to identify human action/agency involved in reducing calamitous-phenomena to evidence of Man+Satan-as-agents, plus you don't present the consequences clearly. Neither have you shown a clear relationship of symbols to power and prestige (structuralist-Marxian, 1960s onwards, Agency,1990s). There's a vague attempt to present a structuralist dualism, but it's so confused I'm struggling to know what you're trying to say. Neither have you identified the bias inherent in your analysis (Critical Theory, 1920s/1980s) which becomes apparent later in your posts when you lay blame on 'the Left'. All in all, your analysis is confused and confusing.

Well I do all that in my published work. You're unlikely to get anything but sound-bites--from anyone--on here. You seem to want me to attach a label to myself, which I'm reluctant to do, but if I must, the Young Hegelians are probably the greatest single influence on my work. And I'd say what makes my stuff original (in English, the Germans have always been doing this) is my tracing of Hegelianism back to its roots in Lutheranism, and then taking the influence of Luther on Hegel--and therefore on Marx--*seriously,* rather than simply ignoring it as an embarrassment as materialist Marxists do.

Perhaps an example will help? Consider then the concept of "indulgences," which as you know were the immediate cause of the Lutheran Reformation. What is an indulgence but a fetishized symbol of alienated human activity? Luther's initial protest was against this fetishization of alienated human activity, Hegel took it up from Luther (in practically the same terminology) and of course Marx took it from Hegel (unfortunately using the materialist vocabulary to which he had become committed through his efforts to distance himself from the Young Hegelians).

So that's a label, if that's what you wanted. As for the consequences of my ideas, I hope to free socialism of the materialist taint that has attached to it since the late nineteenth-century, for it is surely obvious that materialist Marxism has little or no bearing on the *consumer* societies of the Western world, in which money has become abstract etc. And surely no-one will deny the irrelvance of materialist Marxism--just look at the state of their organizations. I think I'm doing something new. Or rather, I *know* I'm doing something new, I *think* it is useful. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating innit.

 

[phildwyer]

And by the way Brainaddict, last time I argued with you on here you got so upset that you asked my to delete my posts about you. Which being an unusually kind-hearted chap, I did. It was a pretty pathetic thing to ask though, and what is more pathetic is your total lack of gratitude. Don't bother asking again, you sordid little wanker. "Location: 1920's Paris" TWAT.

 

[danny la rouge]

Don't bother asking again, you sordid little wanker. "Location: 1920's Paris" TWAT.

From the New Dante to the New Voltaire in one fell swoop. You are a master of wit and repartee.