on the farce of the left
george orwell once remarked that political thought, especially on the left, is a sort of masturbation fantasy in which the world of fact hardly matters. that's true, unfortunately, and it's part of the reason that our society lacks a genuine, responsible, serious left-wing movement
(chomsky) now i've worked with those little things and i can definitely agree here is there hope |
Re: on the farce of the left
the question of course is asking for a double bluff
if facts cannot change the way it operates then you should of course attempt to change the ideology it operates towards the facts, that is, participate in the masturbatory process. which relates to zizek's changing the chicken. |
Re: on the farce of the left
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A lot of "Leftist" thought is indeed pretentious, ego driven drivel. But no one's claiming Leftists have transcended all the toxic aspects of our chimp brains. They've just managed to be a meaningful amount better than right-wingers. Evryone would like to position themselves as the serious, sceptical, apostle of empiricism - that whatever the numbers say is their position. But the principle reason why the economics profession has the prescriptions that it does is not because of empiricism, it's because it is corrupted by money. The bankrolling of universities, foundations, think tanks, media outlets. This is the front-line of the class warfare that Buffet recently referenced as only one side fighting. And it's true. In a world like this, you are going to seriously struggle to stick to analysis of numbers and stats in order to get to the truth and put forward a good case for Left values. That is why you can't shy away from the subjective, the interpretive, even testimony, in the building of your case. History and psychology are the keys to a coherent, convincing case for the Left*. If you play solely with the numbers you are going to lose. The numbers available are rigged and the interpretation of them is bankrolled. That said, when you are able to find prodigious thinkers (Piketty, Steve Keen) who can take on such titanic resources through the sheer size of their brains, great. I have no doubt that they are the most potent weapons of the Left. But don't paint with one brush those who offer other avenues for convincing argument. I have to say I'm not familiar with Zizek's "changing the chicken" (cba to google), but off the top of my head he's probably in the top ten culprits of what you're complaining about. He's a big name and the last time I remember trying to listen to him speak, he was interpreting cinema with psychoanalysis. Now that's a dead end if ever I saw one :( *A great example being very cheap experiments in psychology completely smashing rational actor theory -an underlying pillar of free market economics- in the 70's. |
Re: on the farce of the left
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for example, we have a multiparty system in finland. the social democrats (left) are extremely conservative in an institutional sense. they'd prefer if not much in the way of say, public institutions or labour market institutions would change. (in this sense, the left is often conservative). the swedish folk party, economically right wing (that is, narrow state), are in many fashions extremely liberal (pro gay marriage, pro many kinds of changes). to argue that left has some inherent tendency to "liberal" or "challenging the status quo" is to simplify in a similar sense as to say that the left has an inherent tendency to fascism, since well, the political agenda of the national socialist german worker's party is at parts indistinguishable from the modern internet mainstream leftism (against capital, against capitalist, pro workers, so on so on). i think we at least partially agree here though. left wing values aren't so hegemonic either. Quote:
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steve keen for example here and here. keen only really seems to have high ratings amongst the people inside the very mentioned masturbatory circle jerk. for example varoufakis (who is a little bit of a demagogue but an extremely intelligent a man) has discussed piketty with some credit. there's a lot of methodological questions such as the real estate question raised by some college guy i won't go into, but additionally piketty just neglects the fact that returns on capital do not have to be local in the sense returns on labour do, when we establish that financial assets are capital. welcome to globalization. piketty i think is mostly credited as creating an interesting conversation rather than having any really strong evidence on various issues. these two items precisely describe the masturbatory process. Quote:
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there is a lot here that exactly have to do with the masturbatory process that caves into a bunch of people talking to each other about their prophets and completely ignoring any other conversation that has to do with their prophecies. it might do one good, to occasionally apply the revolutionary potential and challenging of the status quo, and the strong social theory, to critisize ones own mirror image too. but i'm glad to have someone here to prove the point again to myself if nothing else. |
Re: on the farce of the left
(to be precise, the reason why steve keen attracts followers in certain dogma is not because his work would have much in the sense of logical arguments, but because his conclusions appeal to the followers and he happens to hold some degree in some university somewhere. the idea is of course never to discuss or critisize how he exactly he argues his position, because this is not purposeful. it won't hold any closer inspection, but it's not supposed to, and the followers are just happy to agree on the conclusion and dogmatically repeat it. no one on "his side of the camp" will openly challenge him on say, fundamental logical problems, because that would be the equivalent to offending the high priest).
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Re: on the farce of the left
Sorry mate, was going to read those references last night but didn't. Next week ftw.
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Re: on the farce of the left
yeah, i wouldn't bother with keen if i were you. it's just sad.
i really encourage you to listen to some of varoufakis' things, there's plenty else of his on youtube too. whilst i may not agree with him on all aspects, i think he is currently the most intelligent (kind of) leftist there is. |
Re: on the farce of the left
OH MY GOD. Tomorrow I promise.
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