Marxism and Monsters

[Jimmie Higgins]

I wasn't sure if this was the right part of the site to post this. I'm also a little early... I was going to save this until Halloween was closer, but Halloween starts Sept 15th at my appartment and I just can't wait!

China Miéville: Marxism and Halloween
http://wearemany.org/a/2013/06/marxism-and-halloween

I went to this presntation and I didn't really know what to expect... certainly wasn't expecting "Gothic Marxism". I wanted to comment in the discussion but if you didn't raise your hand in the first 30 seconds, then you probably too late to get onto the list (lots of people at this one and lots of raised hands).

I wanted to comment on Halloween and neoliberalism... I think I had a different take on it than China did because he argued that Halloween has been appropriated by the right wing but I had the opposite impression. First the religious right has always disliked the "supernatural" aspects of it - glorification of "evil". But also, part of what I love about Halloween is that it's one of the few holidays that's explicitly about going out and meeting strangers in your surrounding area and this is also an aspect that I feel like has been under a cultural attack ("the WAR on Halloween!") by conservatives. Every year the media pumps out "horror" stories about teenagers mutilating cats or throwing rocks at houses, and repeat myths about LSD or razor-blade spiked candy (which is nice for their advertisers who want people to buy bags of induvidually wraped candies rather than bake cookies themselves or whatnot). Some cats might get mutilated... but that probably happens irregardless. Anyway, I think the media wants to encourage people to stay in and stay afraid of their neighbors. In rich neighborhoods parents take their kids to specific neighborhoods that have a kind of festival/street-party version of trick-or-treating, whereas in poor urban areas, no one goes door to door much at all.

We need to take back the social side of Halloween.

[Art Vandelay]

Halloween is the best night of the year for direct action, loads of people already running around wearing masks and disguises.

[Comrade Jacob]

Gothic-Marxism? Nice.
I guess the idea of redistribution is good (obviously) but the vast majority of it is corporate goods and because of it it becomes self-defeating. Still fun though...

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Man, when am I finally going to get an LSD-laced candy?
Usually, I have little hope, and just end up doing blotter.

(Stoked to listen to this presentation)

[Remus Bleys]

Irregardless is not a word.
I should warn you, I'm a grammar bolshevik.

[#FF0000]

I should warn you, I'm a grammar bolshevik.

spell-cheka

[blake 3:17]

Gothic-Marxism? Nice.
I guess the idea of redistribution is good (obviously) but the vast majority of it is corporate goods and because of it it becomes self-defeating. Still fun though...


Marjorie Cohen -- Profane Illuminations -- marriage of Benjamin and Althusser

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Halloween is such a waste of money.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Halloween is pretty cool if you're young. If you're a kid it's a good excuse to accost strangers for their candy. If you're a young adult it's a good excuse to go out to a party and get wasted. If you're older and too mature for that sort of thing, it's probably still a good excuse to watch a good gore-saturated horror film.

Halloween is a good holiday.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Man, when am I finally going to get an LSD-laced candy?i know, I lost teeth from all the sugar while trying to find that house.

Hell, I'd settle for some Ritalin in a pez dispenser.


Halloween is such a waste of money.are you kidding, it's the only thing standing between us and Christmas adverts pummeling us in September.

Maybe if I had a lot of kids who wanted to go trick or treating and to have the "cool" costume (we always made our own when I was a kid) of the year, then my attitude would change about the holiday. But right now I'm in a good spot for it: I can go to a party if I want, I can stay in and watch horror movies if not. No one trick or treats in my neighborhood, but when I lived in a different area, we'd get some kids and their parents and I loved it.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

vagely related note - I've actually never read any China Miéville - where should I start. I've not often heard good stuff about him from my bookish chums IRL, but that lecture was pretty interesting.

[Jimmie Higgins]

vagely related note - I've actually never read any China Miéville - where should I start. I've not often heard good stuff about him from my bookish chums IRL, but that lecture was pretty interesting.


First, pick a genre. I think he's trying to write a novel in every known popular genre.

I read Perdido Street Station first and I don't know if I like it the most because it was the first thing I read by him. I read it thinking of him as "that socialist fantasy writer" kinda like when you go to see a band and it's "my roomate's friends band" -- I wasn't expecting much, but I wanted to support a radical by checking out their stuff (I also never read much fantasy so it wouldn't have been a book I was aware of). But anyway, it took me a couple of attempts to get through the first 50 pages or so (where is this damn book going), but by 100 pages, I was hooked (I don't know where this book is going, but I don't care!).

The book has some fantastic monsters too. I read it around the time of Katrina I think and the way the city in that book goes into a crisis made worse by the social and class divisions of the city was errie in that context. I read "Iron Council" (think fantasy version of the Paris Commune... it's set in the same world as Perdido Street Station) during Occupy and again had a very strange similar experience.

But if you liked the lecture, here's another one by him about "guilty pleasures" in pop culture:
http://wearemany.org/a/2012/06/guilty-pleasures-art-and-politics

[MarxSchmarx]

Actually.

Holloween is probably one of the few true working-class/poor people's holidays around.

The custom "trick or treat" began apparently in Europe as a way of starving peasants extorting money from their rich neighbors. As the rich neighbors were superstitious, it was felt that on all souls night unless they paid off the poor (i.e., unless the proto-proletariat won concessions) the rich landowners and kulaks would suffer supernatural intervention unless the poor put in a good word for them with the dead.