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You'd need a damn broad definition of Marxism for that to make much sense. Economy and class are so central the Marx's philosophy that saying "Just s/<insert a

You'd need a damn broad definition of Marxism for that to make much sense. Economy and class are so central the Marx's philosophy that saying "Just s/<insert anything here>/class" doesn't make any sense. You can't just go into Capital and s/<insert anything here>/class and end up with anything that makes any sense. The entire analysis needs restructuring. At some point, if Marxism is defined that way, you might as well just call any materialist philosophy "basically Marxist". Which is silly. Tangentially, I've seen a lot of "so basically (cultural) Marxism" type comments lately about anything and everything left-leaning in the US. Something memetic is going on there.

stcredzero 9y ago
You'd need a damn broad definition of Marxism for that to make much sense. You have groups vying for power, with one group systemically oppressing another, and the morality of the situation adjudicated at that granulatiry. How does that not work? Can you reply with a specific? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjNJX64cBOE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjNJX64cBOE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGRVhsNX5Ao https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGRVhsNX5Ao Tangentially, I've seen a lot of "so basically (cultural) Marxism" type comments lately about anything and everything left-leaning in the US. Something memetic is going on there. The memes (in the academic Richard Dawkins sense) which stick around are often the ones which have the strength of truth behind them.
- throwawayjava 9y ago
  > You have groups vying for power, with one group systemically oppressing another, and the morality of the situation adjudicated at that granulatiry You've just described thousands of years of history prior to Marx and hundreds of years of history after Marx across every single axis of the political spectrum. This is more a description of "effective political messaging" than a description of "Marxism". Has there ever been a great politician -- good or evil -- who didn't believe they had the weight of morality on their side? Who didn't tap into feelings of oppression, real or perceived? Even Hitler cast his politics in terms of an oppressed people with a moral right to rise up. And if Mein Kampf is Marxist then you've got one hell of a definition of Marxism. > The memes (in the academic Richard Dawkins sense) which stick around are often the ones which have the strength of truth behind them. Well, anything popular taps into some truth, usually about the audience with whom the popular thing resonates. But tapping into some truth and actually being true are two very different things. Interpreted any other way, your claim is silly. Mutually exclusive ideas achieve this sort of memetic status (with different subpopulations) all the time.
  - stcredzero 9y ago
    You've just described thousands of years of history prior to Marx and hundreds of years of history after Marx across every single axis of the political spectrum. Which is precisely what Marx claims to do, with essentially the model which Marx claims does so. Well, anything popular taps into some truth It's pretty obvious that Postmodernism is homomorphic to Marxism. It's also well documented that Postmodernism has intellectual roots in Marxism. Marxism is also outwardly and openly claimed by many in the current day political left in the US, in particular, the part which originates and most vigorously promotes Intersectionality.
    - throwawayjava 9y ago
      > Which is precisely what Marx claims to do, with essentially the model which Marx claims does so. Again, no. Marx's characterization is much more concrete than that, and really cannot be separated from notions of class and capital and commodity-form without rendering the term "Marxist" nearly meaningless. Or at least synonymous with much less politically-charged ideas like "materialism" or even just "politics". Separating Marx from those things is like separating Jesus from Christianity. The next two criticism are more tangential and obvious, but hopefully more illustrative of the problem with the way you're trying to re-define Marxism 1. A capitalist operating as Marx would predict is not himself a Marxist, so your statement is especially confusing for more than one reason. 2. Plenty of non-Marxist -- even conservative economists -- tap into various Marxist ideas. And even more tap into the same ideas that Marx was himself building on (e.g., the effectiveness of providing moral justifications on the basis of oppression... not a Marxist innovation!). So drawing any tangential connection to Marx and labeling anything connected by that tangent as "Marxist" implicates 100% of economists. Which, again, makes the label "Marxist" kind of silly and pointless. If you strip Marxism of Marx's actual core ideas, then "Marxism" ceases to mean anything. And class is a central component of those ideas. At some point referring to something as "Just Marxism s/.../class" begins to occupy the "you are an idiot" box in on the PG argument hierarchy. > It's pretty obvious that Postmodernism is homomorphic to Marxism This seems mostly off-topic... you'll have to draw out the connection for me. (edit: Obviously, plenty of postmodernists critique closeparen's post and plenty of non-postmodernists would agree with closeparent's post. Are you sure you mean postmodernism?)
- cmrdporcupine 9y ago
  Because frankly Marx was not broadly concerned with discussions of morality and oppression of 'groups' in a general sense as you seem to be implying. He was quite strictly concerned with an economic analysis of capitalist exploitation, and not necessarily exploitation in our contemporary moral sense (as in child explotation) but more in the sense that we talk about exploiting nature, or a tool. Marx's analysis was almost purely an economic one, where he pointed out that the economic model of capitalism and our modern notion of private property created a class division based around the extraction of profits ('surplus value') from labour through the ownership and control of the tools of production. All 3 volumes of Capital are about this, and he spends little time discussing power or domination in a general way and basically almost none on racism, sexism, or colonialism except as they tie into capitalist exploitation. The phrase 'cultural Marxism' only betrays how little right wing pundits who use this phrase actually understand of Marxian theory and postmodern cultural studies generally, since frankly the vaguely left wing strains of academic cultural theory spent the last 50 years _critiquing_ Marxism from the vantage point that it did not pay enough attention or have a meaningful theory to talk about these issues. Postmodernism and Marxism generally have been somewhat 'at war' within academia, though generally you'll find that the 'founding fathers' of cultural studies and postmodernism (say, Adorno, or Derrida, Foucault) themselves express admiration or sympathy for Marx himself though they rarely considered themselves Marxists per se. "Cultural Marxism" is kind of a misnomer -- they'd be better off saying "left wing postmodernists" or "liberal cultural relativists" or something, but those don't sound as boogeyman, do they?
  - stcredzero 9y ago
    Because frankly Marx was not broadly concerned with discussions of morality and oppression of 'groups' in a general sense as you seem to be implying...Marx's analysis was almost purely an economic one Your point ascribes to me a sense of morality to me as a sneaky way of putting words in my mouth. "as you seem to be implying." In reality, I need no more than the Marx's subsumed sense of morality/justice in Marx's analysis for my point to stand. "Cultural Marxism" is kind of a misnomer -- they'd be better off saying "left wing postmodernists" or "liberal cultural relativists" or something Not a misnomer at all. Many who fall under the banner openly proclaim themselves Marxist, or subscribe to those ideas in their writings. For those who don't, there's still the matter of the homomorphisms between Marxism and Social Construction.

stcredzero 9y ago

You'd need a damn broad definition of Marxism for that to make much sense. You have groups vying for power, with one group systemically oppressing another, and the morality of the situation adjudicated at that granulatiry. How does that not work? Can you reply with a specific? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjNJX64cBOE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjNJX64cBOE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGRVhsNX5Ao https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGRVhsNX5Ao Tangentially, I've seen a lot of "so basically (cultural) Marxism" type comments lately about anything and everything left-leaning in the US. Something memetic is going on there. The memes (in the academic Richard Dawkins sense) which stick around are often the ones which have the strength of truth behind them.

throwawayjava 9y ago
> You have groups vying for power, with one group systemically oppressing another, and the morality of the situation adjudicated at that granulatiry You've just described thousands of years of history prior to Marx and hundreds of years of history after Marx across every single axis of the political spectrum. This is more a description of "effective political messaging" than a description of "Marxism". Has there ever been a great politician -- good or evil -- who didn't believe they had the weight of morality on their side? Who didn't tap into feelings of oppression, real or perceived? Even Hitler cast his politics in terms of an oppressed people with a moral right to rise up. And if Mein Kampf is Marxist then you've got one hell of a definition of Marxism. > The memes (in the academic Richard Dawkins sense) which stick around are often the ones which have the strength of truth behind them. Well, anything popular taps into some truth, usually about the audience with whom the popular thing resonates. But tapping into some truth and actually being true are two very different things. Interpreted any other way, your claim is silly. Mutually exclusive ideas achieve this sort of memetic status (with different subpopulations) all the time.
- stcredzero 9y ago
  You've just described thousands of years of history prior to Marx and hundreds of years of history after Marx across every single axis of the political spectrum. Which is precisely what Marx claims to do, with essentially the model which Marx claims does so. Well, anything popular taps into some truth It's pretty obvious that Postmodernism is homomorphic to Marxism. It's also well documented that Postmodernism has intellectual roots in Marxism. Marxism is also outwardly and openly claimed by many in the current day political left in the US, in particular, the part which originates and most vigorously promotes Intersectionality.
  - throwawayjava 9y ago
    > Which is precisely what Marx claims to do, with essentially the model which Marx claims does so. Again, no. Marx's characterization is much more concrete than that, and really cannot be separated from notions of class and capital and commodity-form without rendering the term "Marxist" nearly meaningless. Or at least synonymous with much less politically-charged ideas like "materialism" or even just "politics". Separating Marx from those things is like separating Jesus from Christianity. The next two criticism are more tangential and obvious, but hopefully more illustrative of the problem with the way you're trying to re-define Marxism 1. A capitalist operating as Marx would predict is not himself a Marxist, so your statement is especially confusing for more than one reason. 2. Plenty of non-Marxist -- even conservative economists -- tap into various Marxist ideas. And even more tap into the same ideas that Marx was himself building on (e.g., the effectiveness of providing moral justifications on the basis of oppression... not a Marxist innovation!). So drawing any tangential connection to Marx and labeling anything connected by that tangent as "Marxist" implicates 100% of economists. Which, again, makes the label "Marxist" kind of silly and pointless. If you strip Marxism of Marx's actual core ideas, then "Marxism" ceases to mean anything. And class is a central component of those ideas. At some point referring to something as "Just Marxism s/.../class" begins to occupy the "you are an idiot" box in on the PG argument hierarchy. > It's pretty obvious that Postmodernism is homomorphic to Marxism This seems mostly off-topic... you'll have to draw out the connection for me. (edit: Obviously, plenty of postmodernists critique closeparen's post and plenty of non-postmodernists would agree with closeparent's post. Are you sure you mean postmodernism?)
cmrdporcupine 9y ago
Because frankly Marx was not broadly concerned with discussions of morality and oppression of 'groups' in a general sense as you seem to be implying. He was quite strictly concerned with an economic analysis of capitalist exploitation, and not necessarily exploitation in our contemporary moral sense (as in child explotation) but more in the sense that we talk about exploiting nature, or a tool. Marx's analysis was almost purely an economic one, where he pointed out that the economic model of capitalism and our modern notion of private property created a class division based around the extraction of profits ('surplus value') from labour through the ownership and control of the tools of production. All 3 volumes of Capital are about this, and he spends little time discussing power or domination in a general way and basically almost none on racism, sexism, or colonialism except as they tie into capitalist exploitation. The phrase 'cultural Marxism' only betrays how little right wing pundits who use this phrase actually understand of Marxian theory and postmodern cultural studies generally, since frankly the vaguely left wing strains of academic cultural theory spent the last 50 years _critiquing_ Marxism from the vantage point that it did not pay enough attention or have a meaningful theory to talk about these issues. Postmodernism and Marxism generally have been somewhat 'at war' within academia, though generally you'll find that the 'founding fathers' of cultural studies and postmodernism (say, Adorno, or Derrida, Foucault) themselves express admiration or sympathy for Marx himself though they rarely considered themselves Marxists per se. "Cultural Marxism" is kind of a misnomer -- they'd be better off saying "left wing postmodernists" or "liberal cultural relativists" or something, but those don't sound as boogeyman, do they?
- stcredzero 9y ago
  Because frankly Marx was not broadly concerned with discussions of morality and oppression of 'groups' in a general sense as you seem to be implying...Marx's analysis was almost purely an economic one Your point ascribes to me a sense of morality to me as a sneaky way of putting words in my mouth. "as you seem to be implying." In reality, I need no more than the Marx's subsumed sense of morality/justice in Marx's analysis for my point to stand. "Cultural Marxism" is kind of a misnomer -- they'd be better off saying "left wing postmodernists" or "liberal cultural relativists" or something Not a misnomer at all. Many who fall under the banner openly proclaim themselves Marxist, or subscribe to those ideas in their writings. For those who don't, there's still the matter of the homomorphisms between Marxism and Social Construction.