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Contemporary anthropology is...not very good. Latour's critiques are still quite strong and very difficult to overcome; perhaps anthropology as a field is funda
by DiscourseFan 3y ago
Contemporary anthropology is...not very good. Latour's critiques are still quite strong and very difficult to overcome; perhaps anthropology as a field is fundamentally flawed.
I haven't read Diamond, but I could understand, if you're a liberal academic and you see a text, almost like Nietzsche's Geneaology of Morals, that just says that the strong always conquer the weak because of totally contingent conditions, it will seem horrifying because, as a liberal, you genuinely believe in personal agency and social justice and all that fun stuff. But go back and actually read Marx, go and read all your favorite Frankfurt school thinkers: they will say, the conditions that we have been placed in are a real illusion of nature: even if the so-called nature of things is a construction, it is one where the reality of it is undeniable for us. Therefore, the goal of critique, even in that Marxian, Kantian sense, is to raise consciousness to shatter that real illusion precisely by illuminating this so-called "natural" process.
For Marx, revolution is a natural result of the development of Capitalism, but Capitalism also dissolved history, and temporality, so the naturality of revolution must be immanent in every moment of its development: its like Walter Benjamin said, we must bring about a real catastrophe, as opposed to the constant "accidents" of human suffering under the system that come about with almost mechanical regularity.
In any case, I don't remember Marx ever being either an academic, or particularly hard to read in most cases, even if a thorough familiarity with German Idealism is a great help to understanding him more deeply. Even Foucault was technically an academic, but only because he helped organize a nearly successful revolutionary movement that managed to extract the concession of an entire university (Paris VIII) out of the government which he then ran, and is still being run by his students and colleagues to this day.
- NeuNeurosis 3y agoIf someone wanted to read more into the theory(s) you highlighted do you have any recommendations on where to start? I ask because I have not heard either of those ideas put that way of the real illusion being undeniable and needing to shatter that real illusion by raising consciousness, or the idea of "Walter Benjamin said, we must bring about a real catastrophe" Any recommendations are welcome. Context no background in German Idealism just some cursory understanding of Marxism and Nietzche.
- DiscourseFan 3y agoMy favorite, and what I still think is the best Benjamin essay, is On the Concept of History[0], but that one is a bit tough as a first essay, perhaps a better starting place (and where most people start with him) is Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction[1]. There's a pretty big gap between those two essays, not intellectually but theoretically, as in it will take you a while, probably, before you understand how they're related. In general, if you want an actual "start" to studying any modern philosophy, you've got to go with Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (go with the NK Smith or Guyer-Woods translations, though I prefer the former). Then you can start reading forward, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, then, of course, Marx's Capital, vol 1. Then from there, I think you would do well to read Nietzsche's Geneaology of Morals and/or Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and after that really you should read Freud, at the very least the Interpretation of Dreams, and Heidegger, either the Origin of the Work of Art or The Question Concerning Technology. And from there, you can basically just read whatever you want and you'll understand it. My only further advice is to study all those texts first, before trying anything else, otherwise you'll end up like the people in this comments section. [0]https://www.sfu.ca/~andrewf/CONCEPT2.html https://www.sfu.ca/~andrewf/CONCEPT2.html [1]https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf
- NeuNeurosis 3y agoThanks for the recommendations I really appreciate it. I have read a lot of philosophy piecemeal but nothing that gave quite the comprehensive connections that you described in either of your comments.
- DiscourseFan 3y agoThe most important thing is the Critique of Pure Reason, everything else follows from that text. Other than that, everything else here is just an outline, but if you do read all those books, I think you'll be naturally inclined to continue studying on your own in a suitable direction.