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For some of them, I think it's better to first read works from knowledgeable dissidents. Then when reading those books, it's easier to spot the ideologies conta

For some of them, I think it's better to first read works from knowledgeable dissidents. Then when reading those books, it's easier to spot the ideologies contained in them which you otherwise might have missed. (Since we have been trained since childhood to accept these ideologies without even noticing them.) Take Wealth Of Nations' insidious creation myth of markets, downplaying government policy in favor of barter myths. To someone like Neal Degrasse Tyson, raised in that mythology, it seems plausible that such a human social arrangement is in fact a force of nature. But if you read Graeber's Debt: the First 5000 Years, or maybe even Chomsky's Understanding Power, the myths get deflated. (http://www.zcommunications.org/debt-slavery-and-our-idea-of-freedom-part-1-by-david-graeber http://www.zcommunications.org/debt-slavery-and-our-idea-of-...) (Though I suppose with capitalism's negative externalities which threaten to turn the Earth into another Venus, maybe there is no significant distinction between it and a force of nature...)

jacques_chester 14y ago
Here's what amuses me about the idea of false consciousness. On the one hand, there's a view that history and the world we live in is a monstrous construct, the brilliant triumph of an elaborate, ruthless and flawlessly clandestine scheme orchestrated by generation upon generation of secret master minds. The alternative is that history is just one damn thing after the other. A complex system for which "it was caused by Secret Masters!" is a pisspoor explanation. Whether you blame it on the capitalist class, Ascended Masters or Jews, it's all the same. It's weak. I take Chomsky about as seriously as I take any other species of conspiratard (Illuminutties, birthers, truthers, Adam Curtis ... all the same to me). Good luck fighting the good fight, comrade. Workers of all countries, unite to read this tedious sophomoric drivel and march in pointless rent-a-crowd parades against vague notions!

jacques_chester 14y ago

Here's what amuses me about the idea of false consciousness. On the one hand, there's a view that history and the world we live in is a monstrous construct, the brilliant triumph of an elaborate, ruthless and flawlessly clandestine scheme orchestrated by generation upon generation of secret master minds. The alternative is that history is just one damn thing after the other. A complex system for which "it was caused by Secret Masters!" is a pisspoor explanation. Whether you blame it on the capitalist class, Ascended Masters or Jews, it's all the same. It's weak. I take Chomsky about as seriously as I take any other species of conspiratard (Illuminutties, birthers, truthers, Adam Curtis ... all the same to me). Good luck fighting the good fight, comrade. Workers of all countries, unite to read this tedious sophomoric drivel and march in pointless rent-a-crowd parades against vague notions!