So, it was ergo, okay for women to have an unequal position in society? That may not be what you mean, but that is how it’s being understood. I think that what this event illustrated is the success up to that point of the women’s rights movement. The fact that they were able to link the sale of cigarettes to women’s emancipation in such a way really does underscore how much progress women had made at that point.
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Which is an insight that critical theorists would have made… They were pretty keen on pointing out these danger points in a capitalist consumer economy. They worried over the mass mediated society for precisely this reason.
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Yeah, but they did it in a treacherous, commie way, see? It’s all about context, you silly goose.
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Yeah, they were also refugees from the nazis, so clearly, they were totally commies, cause why else would the nazis have targeted them! 
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Foreign Treacherous commies. The worst kind.
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Here is what they all said…
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Didn’t I say that asking for a definition upfront was an attempt to be clever and not useful? You’ve proven my point here. You took my answer and basically concluded it meant the exact opposite of what it meant. The reason I don’t think definitions are useful is because I actually believe in objective reality.
Here’s another question: what is temperature? That’s an easy one, it’s the average kinetic energy of molecules. So two thousand years ago when someone drank a cup of tea and said, “Wow, this is hot,” what were they talking about? They didn’t know what molecules or kinetic energy were, so they couldn’t possibly have been taking about temperature right?
But of course they were talking about temperature, they were talking about the same thing we are talking about when we talk about it today. They were just grasping at a concept they didn’t really understand. And of course we still are. For all we know we are weeks or days away from a scientific paradigm shift that would change the correct definition of temperature. But we keep on talking about it anyway just like we did two thousand years ago.
So what is justice? Well, I can see three possibilities, it is a culturally defined thing that is basically completely relative (like fashion [probably]), it is actually a thing and we are trying to grasp it when we use the word (like temperature), or it is nothing at all - a nonsense word that we use because we think we mean something (like the luminiferous ether). I’ll admit there may be another possibility I haven’t thought of.
But the fact is, in objective reality, it is one of those things, and there is no way for me to know which right now, so trying to get me to throw out a “definition” is silly. If you want my honest best guess about what justice really is, I don’t even know how to express it except for saying, “Justice is a complex arrangement of objects.” That’s my objective answer (though I’m open to being quite wrong). I don’t know what more to say about it. I’m going with the “we’re grasping at an actual thing” option. The best way to recognize justice is to use cultural systems since if justice is an actual thing then those systems have evolved to detect and interact with it - hence the appearance of subjectivity. But take note, the reason I can’t give a definition of “justice” is because I think it might actually be a completely objective element of reality - as real as the kinetic energy of molecules. I think it might have a volume and a mass. I think there is a possibility that we may one day be able to objectively measure the thing we mean when we talk about justice with a device. Odds are you have never spoken to someone who thinks justice is as objective as I think it is.
I know that I don’t really know what justice is. That’s part of believing in an objective reality, knowing that you don’t know most of what there is out there to be known. And it means knowing that asking people for definitions in advance is a very poor substitute for trying to understand what they really mean - as you have just proven by completely failing to understand my response.
So you were clever, you laid your trap, and you missed the point entirely, even after I told you that was what you would do. I didn’t make my reference to philosophy 101 in vain, apparently.
I linked you to an article that you didn’t think was sufficient evidence of it. I think I got the idea from Germaine Greer (who I’m sure you don’t think is a credible source). Here’s the thing, maybe the information I have on that is wrong (there’s object reality again!). If it’s wrong, then I’m wrong, and I can concede that and say, “Hey, I was misinformed.” What I am damn sure of is that I will not devote the time and energy to finding evidence that would satisfy you, so I’m happy to concede the point for this discussion.
If your complaint is that I am corrupting people’s minds with false facts, then I think we’ll have to both agree to let people look the link I provided and your objection to it and do their own research to determine what they believe if they actually care to do that. (We have to agree to this because it really doesn’t matter if we agree to it or not, it’s what’s going to happen)
Well, I had a tough enough time finding evidence that would satisfying you of a specific case of a woman getting lobotomized for a specific reason (I found a case that specifically sited being “unable to run the household” as a reason for a lobotomy, but the women had also had a suicide attempt, so it’s obviously too murky to use) so I don’t think I’d have much more luck with men.
In a quick search I couldn’t find any cases where someone was lobotomized because they didn’t want to work or serve, but I did find detailed reports that the army did lobotomize about 2000 returning soldiers after WWII because of mental health problems they developed in the war (revealed by a Wall Street Journal investigation into unsealed army records). They also lobotomized some men because they were homosexual, which does play into my idea that lobotomies were used as a tool against socially undesirable traits.
At any rate, I think it would be foolish to think that no one was ever lobotomized for not wanting to work or to serve in the military. Lobotomies were a big thing for a while and they were used for all kinds of mental illness at a time when not wanting to conform to society’s expectations would be thought of by many as a mental illness. This is why I find the housewife stories believable, because of course someone would abuse that power to get themselves a compliant housewife. And of course someone would abuse that power over a man who wouldn’t conform. If there were only a few lobotomies and there were careful controls over this it’s possible this wouldn’t be the case, but when there were tens of thousands performed based on the whim of individual doctors, some of them were almost certainly done absurd or sadistic reasons.
The fact that you think I would find the idea of lobotomies being used against men who didn’t conform undesirable shows that you don’t want to engage with my point. My narrative is that people with power (whether they are “liberals” or “conservatives” or anything else) abuse power to stifle people who don’t want them to have so much power anymore - lobotomies against men who were behaving in a socially undesirable way furthers my point, rather than detracting from it.
If you take one example away, there are thousands or millions more that can flood in. The first step in “denying” me this narrative would be to state that you disagree with it. If you can’t even do that, then that’s that. And if you do agree with my narrative, then explain why any of what you discusses as soviet abuses (some of which was at least as false as my lobotomy claims) is any more than a specific instance of powerful people lording it over people they have power over - a thing that has been going on since way before some people talked about language in Frankfurt in the 20th century.
Here’s our conversation so far:
You asked why people mocked people who brought up Cultural Marxism, I told you it was because they sounded awfully mockable.
You asked me to define a word. I told you I don’t think definitions are super useful because, here’s my quote:
And you took this to mean that I didn’t like objective reality. Look at what I wrote - it’s an objective fact (if it is true, which I sure hope we can agree it is).
Then you tell me that something that props up the point I am trying to make would be an inconvenient fact for me.
I feel like you really need to stop and think about your own biases in reading responses to you. You are very sure you are smarter and have thought more deeply than the people you are arguing with. Either check that assumption or follow it’s logical conclusion and leave because there is nothing for you to learn from us dullards.
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Oh… HELL… no…
Im not about to get tangled up in that GG stuff.
I will sit that one out, thank you.
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Sure, we dont call it Propaganda any more ( the Nazis effed that up for us too ), its called Public Relations - and in many cases this is just a five dollar word for ‘advertizing’
Most advertizing schemes are based on the ( cant remember the guys name ) hierarchy of needs.
Now, this sounds like a tacit confession that you agree that the purpose of Frankfurt School was to promote collectivism.
Also, not having read much of the corpus, isn’t the focus of critique on Western cultures?
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Will you admit that movements can be co-opted by politicians?
Well, thats kind of… hostile.
Never said any such thing, never even suggested such a thing.
My entire point of broaching the “Torches of Freedom” topic was to demonstrate that Progressivism( or Critical Theory ) can disguise an ulterior motive.
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When have I denied that? Anything can be co-opted…
I felt as if you were dismissive of my view point, actually, which explains the hostility.
It’s capitalism that is disguising its intentions, not progressivism. This is not to say that progressives are or were always correct or right. After all, many in favor of jim crow in the south were progressives. Progressives were the middle classes who sought to both enrich and control the working classes. I don’t always agree with progressives now, in part due to the whole entanglement with top-down social control.
Also, you are conflating two distinct historical groups here - while progressives and critical theorists may have some ideas in common, they are not one and the same. One are middle class, liberal-leaning political activists, the other is a group of academics, looking to describe the world through a particular theoretical lens. There is overlap, to be sure, but they are not the same.
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I’m sorry I made you feel that way.
I thought it might be a mistake to bring up the “Torches of Freedom” thing because it would muddy the waters of a decent discussion of Critical Theory.
My only intent was to show that a cause, that on the surface appears to be progressive, only served to exploit its target audience. Similarly, why would we not subject any progressive cause to criticism?
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Right, because Bernays was not a critical theorist, he was the founder of public relations, a propagandist, and Freud’s nephew, looking to employ his uncles theories to turn a buck. While come theorists certainly use Freud, Bernays was in a no way a critical theorist. it was off-topic in regards to our current discussion.
I agree. But I don’t think that relates to the critical theorists. I think they were engaging in academic dialectical, not in trying to sell a mass produced product to a certain demographic. Apples and oranges. Do I think that makes them beyond reproach or criticism? No. But, to bring on back home, we have been discussing just who we mean by this phrase - critical theorists or the Frankfurt school, who have been used by some on the right as a kind of bogeyman, with no real understanding of who they were and what they were talking about. Now you are conflating them with the other side of the economic spectrum (capitalists). It’s important that when we discuss these things, we are on the same page at least as to who and what we are talking about, no?
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Agreed.
I take the term “Critical Theory” to denote the field of study that the Frankfurt School contributed to, if not created.
I also submit that the purpose of Critical Theory is to deconstruct Western Culture for the purpose of promoting collectivism.
Are we back on track?
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[quote=“TrollsOpinion, post:270, topic:43201”]
Sure, we dont call it Propaganda any more ( the Nazis effed that up for us too ), its called Public Relations - and in many cases this is just a five dollar word for ‘advertizing’[/quote]
What difference does it make which name we use? There a few slight differences, as I understand them. I think propaganda is intended to be indirect subversion of communication towards a specific goal. Advertising is part of an explicit campaign to generate interest in something. Public relations is somewhere in between, usually a paid service of “perception management”. But, in practice, there is often a lot of overlap.
Abraham Maslow? His “hierarchy of needs” was a psychological explanation of human motivations. Of course people’s motivations factor heavily into advertising. But advertisers concept of “needs” tends to be quite different from Maslows. I have many cassette tapes on “the art of selling” from the 1960s-1990s which nearly all explicitly subvert Maslow to some degree. As a selfish system, it is more important that you buy, than to get what you need. Satisfying needs creates sufficiency, while commerce depends upon unfulfilled desire. This is how capital functions as a replacement for ideology - if everything and everybody is essentially “worth money”, then anything which stimulates the exchange of money is automatically worthwhile, it’s a self-perpetuating system.
But these fields of persuasion don’t only subvert need, they subvert individuality. The whole system is predicated by drawing in the masses of people, with the assumption that people need to be told what they want. The worst manipulation, perhaps, is that their strategy is to lead consumers into thinking the patterns of consumption were their own idea all along. And since capital becomes tied into the daily operations and long-term strategies of society, commerce and politics bleed into each other in both implicit and explicit ways. Political and social values become tied into individuals buying decisions. Commercial interests get unaccountably buried into democratic machinery. The problem with this is that commerce and government ideally have different goals. Government is supposed to be there to assure that at least there are safe and healthy people with some basic infrastructure so that commerce is possible in the first place. Businesses need to be structured around fast money, so long term planning and quality of end results are impossible for them - it is literally not part of their program - apart from their own financial survival.
This is why I see the US as the worst of both worlds. It is a subversion of collectivism, and a subversion of individualism. Statist organizations are all dependent upon having a “captive audience” to exploit. So called free markets are manicured to assure that the right people are in positions to benefit from them. It is a system meticulously designed to create an illusion of individual choice, and if things don’t work out, you can blame “the market” - an unaccountable abstract, controlled by no-one. Like Lao Tzu said, you rule most completely by appearing not to rule. Like Leo Strauss said, you speak best by never telling anyone what you mean. It’s all about creating the illusion of participation. An illusion, which I would argue, has been shaken by the internet. Hence the struggle to control it.
How did you ever get that from my quote above? What I was doing was separating critical theory and putting it forth as a more general critical process - it is the critical part that matters. You keep bringing it back to the Frankfurt School for some reason. I cannot emphasize enough that critical theory is just a tool for thinking. It might have been popularized by the Frankfurt School but it has arguably been around before and after their time. From what I know of the Frankfurt School, their analysis tended towards humanism rather than collectivism as such. The idea that whatever political or economic system we end up with, we need to put people first. Human beings are a prerequisite to having a state, company, religion, marketplace, etc so anything which puts those structures first is not very robust.
I think so. The idea is to disregard the classical “history is written by the winners” model of historical myths and instead use modern analytical methods to learn the networks of power, influence, and ideas which got us to where we are today. So we can learn better from the past in hopes of devising workable strategies. This resulted in people applying critique to connections which had been largely ignored. Such as the inter-relations of ideology with linguistics, psychology with politics, religion with sexuality, etc. And also they seemed to put a focus on examining their own biases and assumptions, critique of their roots and work of their associates.
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But, that is how this thread got started. A man used a gamergate thread to say that feminism was bad, then called us all cultural marxists.
The term seems to still be pretty prominent among GG tweeters.
https://twitter.com/amuchmoreexotic/status/529363147174715394
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I’m going to go a little further than I went above. Where would I go if I wanted to see some people talk about a malleable reality in which actual facts don’t matter so much as how we express ourselves about the facts? I’d got to Fox News. Relativism is the tool of reactionary conservativism, taken from the hands of people who hoped it would help them overcome conservativism.
The reality is that progress has been winning in the long run for a long time. But progress means progressing from what is now. That means that every time progress wins, whatever we progressed to becomes the new normal that the conservatives want to defend. These days people who want to make society a better place are striving for more and more objectivity. More data that proves what harms are being done by the current system - economic, environmental, social. Reality favours progressiveness, we have all of history as evidence of this (despite every single generation in history being full of people saying that the next generation is going downhill).
Let’s take the progressive idea that we should listen to people’s narratives about their own lives. That sounds like it’s putting value on the subjective, but it’s really about objectivity. The point is that instead of listening to our own narratives in our own heads about what is what, we should get concrete information about how other people experience their lives.
Any success that the Frankfurt School did or did not have is done. They were not seeing 100 years ahead of their own time. Now if you want to look for their ideas you should look for them embedded in society and defended by people who want to keep things as they are. I’ve never studied Critical Theory, but from @popobawa4u’s description it sounds like it’s basically just not being an idiot. The idea that you should question your own assumptions, look for ideology and have allies critique your work is so basic that imagining a world where people didn’t do that is like thinking about how painters used to not understand perspective. It’s absurd that we used to get things done when we were so collectively stupid.
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They can fight their own battles.
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It’d be smart to stay out of Russia in the winter.
But somehow I don’t think that’s gonna happen.
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What do you mean?
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