The Marcuse Family Website has a haters page. I suppose that you can sift through the details and compile a reading list-- apparently Repressive Tolerance ranks high on the list of bugbears, as does Eros and Civilization,
So much of the right’s discourse is defined by its practice of quote mining-- but Marcuse’s style expects so much more of the reader.
Exactly why the people who bring up “Cultural Marxism” are such lovable rogues. They can waste their time and energy on something that doesn’t exist instead of opposing social progress. I almost want to encourage them, but for a concern of intellectual accuracy and how the conspiracy theory is so gratingly stupid
It’s hardly a “fact” when broadcast media are owned by the same people this would be critiquing. Yes, the few victors of capitalism think it’s really clever, but I am not convinced that anybody else cares. Which all begs the question, why does anybody still use or believe broadcast media in the information age?
Why would we “all” be communist? Or “all” be capitalist? Do most people really want to choose one totalitarian system over another? Sounds like a losing strategy to me. Any one-size-fits-all system spells tyranny.
Yes, and as a matter of fact they are winning. They have effectively defined the modes of discourse. Its inculcated into our culture.
One need only look to this very BBS to see it effects.
Exhibit A:
From another, notorious, subject:
Pay close attention to the use of the term “gun nut” ( one of my faves ). Also, take note of the false gaff about ‘prosthetic dicks’ toward then end.
The development of Critical Theory was steeped in psychoanalysis. Its not surprising that many of the early inquiries into the “authoritarian personality” or the resistance to collectivism in the West started with a basis in repression, particularly repression of sexuality, or to use a more general term, Eros.
So the method of criticizing those who aren’t with the social/commun -ist program is to suggest that they are mentally incompetent, or sexually oppressed/dysfunctional.
Observe the trend in the use of language. Take note that the term “gun control nut” practically does not exist:
You’ve misrepresented my position here. I’m not saying the whole discourse is split into two halves. I’m saying that the moderates who are willing to make compromises and be reasonable don’t have a voice because, by its very nature, the firearms regulation debate is charged with the threat of violence on the pro-deregulation and proliferation side. The people who want more and easier access to deadly weapons are the ones who already possess the most deadly weapons, and the loudest voices on that side of the aisle are the same people who also make threats of violence and harm. They’ve fortified their position, and have steered the debate because arguing with them too strongly about what’s good for the public in general carries the risk of being killed by people who disagree with even the moderate position.
My vocabulary, while it may be crass, doesn’t mean that what I have to say isn’t nuanced. And if you’d payed attention and read what else I’ve said here on the bbs about firearms control you would see I have a very pragmatic and nuanced view on this issue that doesn’t fall directly in line with what anyone here says.
No, no, I was not picking on you specifically, yours was just the most recent use of that particular term that I had come across. In the context of this particular thread I was more interested in the terms you chose to use, rather than the specifics of your opinion.
I would be happy to continue our discussion of this matter on the original thread.
Except it’s all discourses of power, internalization of our own social discipline, a system so pervasive that there is no outside, the panopticon, small acts of social resistance by denying the ability of the power structure to label us, and throwing some SERIOUS shade at the enlightenment in general… KEEP UP!!!
I don’t exactly disagree with what you are saying, but it is framed in completely reactionary terms. What is your power structure? If you were not resisting some outside force, what would you be doing? I think it is more difficult than many suppose to think of or implement any “system” which is so inclusive and dynamic that there appears to be nothing outside of it. You might possibly be giving others far too much credit here. It’s not as if oppression doesn’t happen, but I think we are mostly up against instincts, force of habit, and path of least resistance - as opposed to anything well thought out. People who might like to think they have power over you might be blinded by their own subjectivities. Exploitation is entirely subjective, since it is based upon the oppressors presumption that they matter more than their oppressed.
But yea… makes sense… I never considered Foucault to be a critical theorist. But It seems he should…perhaps its guilt-by-association on my part because of the postmodernism aspect.
He sort of does, in the sense that he, like Marx, is trying to describe what drives society and modernity. But he did say that he had no interest in Marx, and he doesn’t really take an economic tact. He’s really describing systems of power in a very interesting way, one that, while touching on the problems created by the economic system, has something kind of different to say about how we are controlled in what is apparently a free and democratic society. He talks about the shift from a social structure where power is created through direct violence (public executions or punishments for transgresive behaviors) to a society where power and discipline are internalized through various kinds of social categorization. So, we learn discipline to the industrial work schedule through our public education. We learn what is criminal behavior through the criminal justice system that locks people who commit crimes AWAY instead of punishing them in a public forum to show the power of the monarch - WE incarcerate people, not the monarch or the church. We learn proper sexual conduct through sex ed, which creates the binary of hereto and homosexuality. We learn what is proper mental health through individuals who are deemed “mentally ill” being locked away. We are categorized in any number of ways and by making these social norms, those who don’t fit in are systemically exiled to the margins, which he argues are the only spaces of rebellion… yet we have this place now where those spaces of rebellion are being incorporated into the system in a safe way, mainly through tropes of teen rebellion… But he’s not a straight up marxist because he see the reason for all this as something other than economic or materialist, I think.
I don’t know if Foucault is a “critical theorist”… he’s… Foucault. Kind of like Said is Said, and Butler is Butler. He’s kind of his own thing, I think. He’s mode of analysing systems of power and how they work in history has been incredibly interesting in opening up new ways of thinking about what he considered totalitarian systems that we all still live within. He like others is not perfect, by any means, but I think he opened up an interesting and fruitful line of questioning, generally speaking.
Or, as I once read Genesis P-Orridge say “We all live in our own concentration camps. It’s only a short trip of one to the other.” I think I’m paraphrasing, but it’s something like that.
Its been a while… you are talking structuralism, right?
So… you do understand my Trollism?
Also, this fits within my original thesis( from the post you replied to ) where those opposed to a hegemony find themselves criticized, not on the merits of their argument, but personally.
Applying this to a concrete context like BB BBS ( a forum of which we are all familiar )
those who espouse 2nd Amendment rights, or open carry, or who criticize Socialist political agendas are marginalized by the community via assumed social norms.
Might as well post this
Marcuse’s Soviet Marxism, a critical analysis. It predates One Dimensional Man, and probably explains why the latter book only includes criticism of the Soviet Union as a comparatively minor theme.