Capitalism or Cultural Marxism?
Whats the real enemy of culture?
Other urls found in this thread:
Marxist materialism and Capitalist materialism are the same thing.
Both reduce everything to mere exchange value and work relations at the expense of everything else richer or mysterious or human or non-human.
Marxists are really just these vile, inverted Captalists.
They and Capitalists are two sides of the same quality/enchantment/culture-draining Enlightenment project mechanism.
It's really rich a little sickly Marxist rat creep like Adorno complaining about fake culture or whatever when Marxists celebrate Capitalist modernity and industry wiping away everything qualitative and enriching and strange in life.
Decadence
dosen't allot of cultural Marxism have roots in heidiggerian anti-enlightenment thought though?
I am. I'm the real enemy of culture.
what did he mean by that?
I disagree; Marxists place value on the expenditure of human power into labor. It is regarded in anthropology that similar expenditures of power are the foundation of human culture; for example, Levi-Strauss' argument on converting raw into cooked as one of the basest primal cultures. From a Marxist standpoint, application of labor/efficient use of said labor gives cultural rites inherent value within society, whereas culture and art in a capitalist sense has no fixed inherent value and is eroded as said labors are turned into commodities. I don't know too much on either ideology to say for certain though, but I will speculate that a Marxist society would necessarily preserve or encourage replication of cultural symbols, it would just look different than our modern cultural developments.
please don't bully me
>Cultural Marxism
>still falling for conspiracies made up by nazis in the 1930's
W E W
What alternative do you propose? In politics, there are capitalists, who want private control of industries, and so inherently, elitist control of power. There are socialists, who want public control of industries and property, and therefore a common (democratic) control of power. You can argue all day that materialism might not be an accurate philosophy but it doesn't take away from the straightforward fact of these 2 options and the superiority of socialism over capitalism as a system that has better outcomes and better divisions of power than capitalism.
individualism
>superiority of socialism over capitalism
oh i am laffin'
>the superiority of socialism over capitalism as a system that has better outcomes and better divisions of power than capitalism
Oy mate nice claim you've got there, why not back that up with some empirical evidence? All attempts at Socialism I can think of had worse outcomes and worse divisions of power than western capitalist systems.
This, first of all.
Secondly, the very definition of capitalism is that people must be allowed to do what they want and somehow things will work themselves out. But people don't know what they want (they essentially have to be told that by the advertising companies) and even if they have an idea, that still doesn't align itself with the nation's and culture's interests. Capitalists will do anything for money, even if that means robbing people of their health, identity and dignity.
Thirdly, capitalism robs universities of their students by pressuring us all to desire the same outcomes. A young person today who wants to major in a humanistic or artistic field will get told that they will work at a shitty job, that they'll lack social status and that they're lazy and unintelligent for not choosing a STEM field. The people left in the fields that have the most influence in culture are those SJWs who are frustrated by the aforesaid reasons but really don't have anything else to study and get their precious university experience. They misunderstand the left, particularly notions such as equality, feminism, free speech. What they end up doing is shaping themselves into a proper enemy for the rightists, who have to side up with the careless rich people in the hope of stopping this downfalling of society. But that, of course, only perpetuates it.
Individualism is not anathema to marxism, this dichotomy only exists in the two worst cesspits of political thought: american politics and leninism (and it's offshoots).
>They misunderstand the left, particularly notions such as equality, feminism, free speech
Aren't feminism, social justice and marxist thinking at home at universities? What else is there if the people at Universities are misunderstanding these notions?
Maybe not classical Marxism, but it certainly stands as antithetical to Frankfurt/New School style Marxism
That said, classical Marxism is a load of crap for other reasons. Primarily the bunk that is the labor theory of value, which it rests on as foundation.
What exactly is antithetical to individualism in the Frankfurt School (and please keep in mind the Frankfurt School is not Marcuse)
Sociology itself, which is the methodology of the Frankfurt/New School, comes from a framework of class and group mentality/interests.
Modern socialist theory is almost entirely based on positive obligation to society, which I shouldn't have to tell you stands n opposition to individualism.
>But people don't know what they want (they essentially have to be told that by the advertising companies
Nobody buys anything because an ad told them to. I feel like this fantasy is something intellectual concoct so they can feel superior for "not falling for it". People buy things because they want or need them based on the circumstances in their lives. The most common reason to buy luxuries is peer pressure, all it takes is one famous person owning something for it to become trendy then everybody will start imitating them and suddenly if you're not part of that trend you're uncool. Obviously marketers will try to start trends like this by having famous people use/wear/eat their product but trends are organic and can't really be manufactured with any real degree of success. After all if it were that simple to manufacture a hit product we wouldn't see advertisements everywhere in every conceivable medium. Which brings me to the second point about advertising that anti-capitalists don't seem to get: the main tactic is exposure via saturation. If people don't know your product exists they're less likely to buy it. So the main goal of advertising is to get your brand out there and fix it in people's minds, so that when the time comes for them to buy whatever product you sell, they'll remember your brand before any competitor's. People buy what is familiar to them, if you can make a product seem familiar to a person before they even buy it by saturating their environment with it then they are likely to become a customer. That simple.
>that still doesn't align itself with the nation's and culture's interests
How is "the nation" at all separate from the individuals who make up that nation? Who is the arbiter of that nation's interests and culture? If your answer is anything other than "the people" then you're a fascist.
Sociology is not a methodology, it's a social science. One which none of the people in the Frankfurt School particularly practiced, being mostly psychanalists and philosophers. Now, please point me to which "modern socialist authors" talk about opposition to individualism so I can recommend you a bunch of leftist individualist authors who you won't read or even bother to check on the wiki.
marxism would had never existed without capitalism in the first place, so capitalism
religion and capitalism are the two biggest cancers of humanity
>Cultural Marxism
he's been memed beyond saving
Explain to me how one can be both socialist and individualist, because that seems contradictory at the most basic level.
How can one simultaneously maintain self-ownership and positive obligation to others/society at large? It makes no sense.
Capitalism represents a state of nature, it couldn't be stopped.
Accumulation of capital and voluntary exchange are products of man being far-sighted, reasoning, and inherently social.
You can't blame capitalism for socialism, to do so would be to blame man at his base nature.
Again you haven't answered me. Socialism is about common ownership of the means of production, "positive obligation" seems more like the sort of nationalist pap institutional "leftist" parties try to sell as a way to "reform" capitalism (lel)
Read the minima moralia, please
>to do so would be to blame man at his base nature
Isn't that what Marxism is about?
Alright alright I confess I'm out of my league in this subject.
I'd like to take you up on that offer for an author/reading list, if you don't mind.
The whole first part barely goes beyond "physical work grounds a man", is not a Marxist standpoint but just claimed by them and says nothing about the consequences.
The truth is,
1) not capitalism commodifies things but just the human striving for profit (which exists under Marxism too)
2) even in a Marxist society, there will be art and culture without the described inherent value because we're simply not a society of farmers anymore and not everyone is shoveling shit or standing behind a machine all day anymore
>But people don't know what they want, they essentially have to be told
Every leftist ever
>Thirdly, capitalism robs universities of their students
Whereas Marxism is really big on a bourgeoise class of intellectuals who attend university just for the sake of learning
>hat they end up doing is shaping themselves into a proper enemy for the rightists, who have to side up with the careless rich people in the hope of stopping this downfalling of society
I agree with this though. Your Marxist ideas are still wrong though.
>From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs
>but guise we are totally not against sacrificing the individuum for the sake of the greater good ;^)
Likely a mix of both. Capitalism puts those in position to dictate culture who would have never been in that position ages ago who were duly educated from birth and it also feeds upon itself for its survival. The virtue and integrity of a people becomes reflected in its culture. Cultural Marxism replaces a tried and virtuous culture with a fake demeaning culture without a higher purpose and is a product of the lack of decency and noble intentions of its pushers. Capitalism is used by cultural marxists to spread lax in what's accepted as culture and with this laxity comes a lax in values and morals. How could a parson be lax in what they consume and not be lax on their positions and beliefs? Well if I'm wrong I welcome it Veeky Forums.
>Somehow fell for the 'cultural marxism' meme, but still doesn't know what cultural marxism (cultural bolshevism) means.
use google you buttboy. its a term the nazi's made up because they didn't like modernist artwork and associated it wth the constructivism of the Bolsheviks. Hitler actually made an exhibition of degenerate artwork which he labeled as cultural bolshevik art, but in reality was just anything that wasn't traditionalist art.
The museum of degenerate artwork got more visitors than Hitlers art show that was running on quite a parallel schedule. Hitler was just still buttmad that he didn't get into art school. He's the ultimate snowflake.
I don't think the term really matters or its origins when the argument is still cultural manipulation for another purpose.
Their anti-enlightenment views are rooted in Hegel, who hated Newton with a passion. Whereas Heidegger despised psychonalysis and marxism.
Of course the FS crowd did read Heidegger, Marcuse studied under him and even wrote a Heideggerian Marxism, but they are almost as Heideggerian as they are national socialists.
You're mixing a lot of correct points into one cocktail that as a whole is just wrong.
Yes, the term was coined by the Nazis but it's not used in that sense anymore. It refers to attempts to apply Marxist class warfare principles on non-economic matters and to explain why a revolution didn't happen - now blaming "culture" (such as traditional institutions) that need to be done away with before the revolution can happen.
>Capitalism is used by cultural marxists
I would say that both systems work independently but to the same effect. I agree with everything else though.
can't believe i had to scroll down this far for this
Stop associating cultural degradation/erosion with another ideology. It's fucking stupid and confuses the dialogue. Just say what you mean. Throwing "Marxism" on it only confuses the issue you're trying to discuss. Marxism has nothing to do with your beef is what I'm saying.
>Marxism/Bolshevism was seen as bad in Nazi Germany.
>The Hitler boys don't like a certain art movement
>Call it Cultural Marxism/Bolshevism
>Bingo bango problem solved
If you want your cultural depreciation argument to be taken seriously stop using a term that was coined by a one nut wonder bitch with anger issues because he wanted people to pay attention to his shitty watercolors.
Again: your use of "Marxism" where it has no relevance only confuses and undermines your argument.
Except that in the very quote in the OP you can already derive Adorno - the final boss of the Frankfurt School - is actually saying: not that we must erode culture for the revolution to happen, but that capitalism has eroded culture and only the revolution can save it.
Just look for post-leftist guys - Hakim Bey, Bob Black, Invisible College, etc. - and move your way from there.
This doesn't prove anything, considering not only I agree with it, I'm also a huge individualist. If we can do away with food and housing scarcity, no one should have to lose their whole lifes working some menial job instead of pursuing their own interests. Since we already can do away with housing and food scarcity, we should focus on producing our own and sharing it with those who need, not because we're not individualists, but because we're not cunts.
Ok fair enough. Cultural marxism is replaced by any word or mix of words in the dictionary. But about the argument?
Typical leftist tactics abound in this thread! Never defining Marxism, never identifying the views of the Frankfurt School, just
>Nope that's not Marxism
>Nope they never said that
>Nope try again
How about we hear some positive theories instead of polemics? Or does your critical theory only afford the scope of being pretentious pricks?
>Just look for post-leftist guys - Hakim Bey, Bob Black, Invisible College, etc. - and move your way from there.
You got any specific readings to start with? I could use all the guidance I can get.
>Adorno is actually saying: not that we must erode culture for the revolution to happen, but that capitalism has eroded culture and only the revolution can save it.
That's actually the complete opposite to what I read in that quote.
You've also changed his wording completely so I'm skeptical of yours.
I won't stop you from following that guy's advice and reading is always good, just know that he's very intellectually dishonest and made you believe you're wrong where you were actually right.
>cultural Marxism
>Coined in Trent Schroyer's The Critique of Domination: The Origins and Development of Critical Theory (1973).
I guess Wiktionary is operated by nazi revisionists.
If nothing else, he's demonstrated there's a substantial gap in my knowledge.
I'd still like to see what's what with Marxist theory.
Find then, but it'll end too personal and not necessarily "informative", but:
Intro:
On the Poverty of Student Life and the first edition of the Internationalle Situationniste newspaper
[optional] Revolution of Everyday Life, by Raoul Vaneigem
The Society of the Spectacle, by Guy Debord
The Principia Discordia
The Unique and His Own by you know who
Then:
Abolition of Work and Groucho Marxism, by Bob Black
Guy Debord is Really Dead by Luther Blissett
Autonomous Self-Organization and Anarchist Intervention by Landstreicher
TAZ and Chaos by Hakim Bey
More than that would be fluff, just read those books and you'll end up learning more about their influences and contemporaries.
>I'm a huge individualist!
>Except you don't own what you make, that belongs to everyone
>Also you can't make personally decide what to produce. You have to produce what everyone needs
>Sure it's forced, and it's definitely an obligation, but think of it as charity! Don't keep your own produce, or I'll kill you. Individualism!
Jesus Christ you're delusional. People pursuing those menial jobs IS their own interests. That's why they go into them!
We can do away with scarcity? Can you say utopian? Scarcity is inescapable, you fool!
The fact that you're so detached from reality, so unaware of the true machinations of an economy, tells me you're nothing but the most heinous case of bourgeois paternalism, the very strand you doubtless demonize.
Try stepping outside your bubble of comfort and pedantry.
Welcome to the tween Marxists of Veeky Forums. Where everything's there in abundance and you only need to distribute it fairly, which every single time means, to the most loyal party members.
epic XD! how will the commies ever recover!
Let's see
>Marxism: requires people act against their own will, stifling expression
>Capitalism: allows people to,act according to their own will, embracing expression at the expense of universal comfort
Hmmmmmmm
I can see why you have to send opponents to gulags if that's your level of debating.
The people from the past who developed those ideas. SJWs have no well developed works advocating their views, just some protesting and blabber on social media.
The marketing of a single product will try to show it off to the world and ideally create a trend around it so people will want to buy lest they feel left out. But when you have countless products trying to shove themselves up your throat, that's when you disturb the ideal flow of a supply-and-demand system.
People don't "need" the latest iPhone, what they want is to be superior in some sense to their peers. It really doesn't matter how they do it, that's why the product itself is less important than the marketing that went into it. In the past it used to be that the rich people could make themselves superior because they really did have a lot more comfort and pleasure in their lives compared to the poor, but their lives probably still weren't as comfortable as that of a middle class person today. The rich people today quickly attain the most comfortable life possible and then have to use something abstract in order to differentiate themselves from the poorer. And these abstract things are controlled by the marketers.
youtube.com
I am asking you now, is this really necessary? Is it right? We could all be living comfortably, healthily, have beautiful things around us and cherish the most skilled and smart people only, but instead we have the world as it is today.
So you only need to change human nature and millions of years of evolution that made us social animals living in hierachies to implement your political beliefs.
Wow, no idea how that will turn out! I will also be totally surprised at how you treat those who don't want to go against their nature.
Before socialism, Russia was a backwards, Cold Africa, with an absolute monarchy and no respect or real innovation that didn't come from western Europe. After socialism, the Soviet Union was the country that took down Nazism and fascism, decriminalized homosexuality, was the first country to send the first man, woman, and dog into space, and consistently pushed back against imperialism's domination of the world.
Before socialism, China was a cesspool of illiterate peasants addicted to opium, who couldn't even fight off the Japanese. They believed in dragons and broke women's feet.
The Chinese Revolution and the leadership of the Communist Party created an entirely new China, where now they are the leading competitors to the US.
Socialism didn't fail anywhere.
>Decriminalised homosexuality
What? Stalin called it degenerate, there were possibly thousands sent to the gulag for the primary reason they were poofters who undermined soviet society. That goes beyond what happened under the Czar
life
It's downright horrifying there are people like you out there.
>well yeah, millions of dead, but they put the money from starving people into propaganda efforts and shot people into space
>well yeah, millions of dead, but at least people stopped believing in dragons (officially, because if you said otherwise you got shot)
>China was internationally competetive under Mao when everyone starved, today's success is because of his socialism and totally not because they did a 180 and became hypercapitalist without changing the party name
Why aren't you on your way to Venezuela, huh?
I don't think either are particularly great for the arts, but capitalism seems minimize violence for first world nations
No one is antagonizing culture. It is just becoming a commodity under the creeping tentacles of the Capital. This is not a conscious effort nor an active one, it's just the logical endgame of Capitalism. The thing about commodities though, is that they are poor holders of identity: if culture becomes a product anyone can buy (or, more generally, acquire) rather than something inherited/learned, it belongs to no one now, and can't be used by you to answer the question "who am I" the same way it was used before being a commodity. Also:
>Le Cultural Marxism
That's a very heavy handed term and conveys very little. What is Cultural Marxism if not another attempt at global Pax Romana, by undermining all culture under a single banner (and ironically label it "diversity")? As I said though, no one is actively trying to undermine culture, or better yet, if you go along the Landian gnon stuff, only the Capital is doing it.
What people mean when talking about cultural marxism is a particular brand of neo-marxist cultural critique made famous by Antonio Gramsci
It's a legitimate thing and not some retarded strawman at all, but /pol/tard types are so self-defeating they can't realize referring to it as cultural marxism - a nazi term - throws any credibility their position might have out of the window
cultural marxism is a meme.
capitalism is a reality.
culture is deteriorating. Thus, we have to blame capitalism.