Salaam A'laykuum

[MarcusJuniusBrutus]

Hello.
I spend many years posting on Democratic underground and decided it was time for a change. Most of those folks mean well, but it is still very nationalistic and still tends to see capitalism in a positive light, alarmed only by its excesses. Frankly, I see colonialism, imperialism, exploitation of labor, and capitalism--if not synonymous--then very closely related. I deplore how anemic the labor movement has become at home in the USA and around the world. The neo-liberal, free trade, anti-labor movement strikes me as imposition of fascism by degree.

For my own naturalized biases--deconstruction of prejudice is an on-going process for me--you may want to know that I am mid-40s, male, hetero, former Christian, and mostly of Anglo descent, though I have considerable French and some native background too. I am married and have no children.

I used to be a lawyer, but while prosecuting I slowly realized that I was making the world worse, not better. I was fired for largely political reasons and went to grad school instead of finding another establishment job. It is at once the most difficult and liberating experience of my life. Favorite modernist authors include Foucault, Judith Butler, Joan Scott, Said, Ussama Makdisi, Abou-El-Haj, Eve M. Troutt-Powell, and Gramsci. Favorite medievalist authors include Carolyn Bynum, Cheyette, Rosenwein, Geary, and Bouchard. Studying the Middle Ages and the modern Muslim world illustrate examples of societies that existed either before capitalism or despite it as alternatives to the present, naturalized commercial norms. I also study the Arabic language and have previously resided in Arab countries as part of my language education.

While I am generally a religious skeptic, I feel an empathy for the Muslim people because of all that they have endured at the hands of imperialists and those who have reacted against that imperialism by resorting to Islamism. I am appalled by the treatment of the Palestinian people at the hands of the Israeli state. I also worry about my friends in Jordan and Lebanon who already have inadequate resources as the proxy war in Syria continues to create suffering and refugees. In this country, I despise how the right-wing culture is allowing the parasitic upper class to to impoverish the rest of us, while its media allies fan the flames of hate for Muslims, secularists, foreigners, non-whites and Spanish-speakers, and for socialism generally.

While overseas recently I met some brilliant leftist young people that caused me to want to find some more, basically.

[Q]

Welcome :)

If you have political questions, you can ask them in the Learning forum. That's why it's there after all!

If you have questions about your account, don't hesitate to send me a PM or ask here.

[MarcusJuniusBrutus]

Shuukran. (Thanks).

[MarcusJuniusBrutus]

So, am I even in the right place? I definitely consider myself to be socialist, anti-capitalist, anti-fascist, anti-nationalist, anti-imperialist, anti-orientalist, and skeptical of religion. The thing is, I'm also skeptical about everything else too. I generally don't use the term "communist" because of its associations with the USSR and China. That skepticism includes any kind of dogma, including Marxism. I really don't care about the intellectual debates always raging in the left except that I prefer Gramsci and post-modernism to 19th c. Marxism. I am far more interested in the realities on the ground, and at any rate if there is a revolution, it will not follow any committee's recommendations anyway. Absolute equality may be a good goal for planning purposes, but like it or not, there are differences among individuals. While biologically insignificant, to other humans those differences seem great. And no, I am talking about natural differences, not class differences or those of other artificial constructs like race, religion, ethnicity, or gender. Every human is unique, the result of different sets of extreme improbabilities, and every human has value.

Marx established some important theoretical precepts in the 19th c., but history and theory have moved on since then. We know know for a fact that some of Marx's assumptions about history--the nature of feudalism, for instance--were wrong. His theory remains an important tool of deconstruction, but there are others too including Foucauldianism and the various varieties of feminism. I believe person should have personal freedom to the degree feasible, although in western capitalism the hegemonic culture has ended that as a practical matter.

I do not believe in historical determinism. Nothing in history is inevitable. Everything is contingent on many things. Economics are a very important factor in shaping historical events, but so are interpersonal relations, religious belief, clan loyalty, and other things too. The number of possible histories is exponentially greater than the number of actual histories.

The current system is hopeless and will only drag us by degree to fascism, the worst of humanity. That is why I can no longer support liberalism. We will all die from crop failures from global warming before the liberals make any real difference. I'm against a violent solution for practical reasons. One is that the capitalists will always out-man and out-gun us. If we resorted to violence, most of the population would turn against us. Second, those with the guns would effectively become dictators if they somehow prevailed. There are peaceful ways, not merely to gain concessions, but to replace the existing power structure with human consensus. Some might call that communism, others anarchy, but the intent would be to eliminate power structures in favor of a universal human community.

While I believe that capitalism is destroying the environment and that is bad for all of us, I note the distinction between environmentalism, which includes species protections, and animal rights. Human emotions evolved because they promote human survival. They do not apply to domestic animals which we keep, eat, and experiment on for our purposes. Whatever might be wrong with Big Pharma as a corporate model, biological science does work and it works because of animal testing. It's not that mammals have no emotions--they do. It's not that they cannot suffer--they can. I oppose animal rights because I just do not care about them. Yup, you read it right. The depths of suffering that humans endure regularly in the world, much of it from disease, means that I just cannot care about lab rats or even food animals. Frankly, animal rights have always been a bourgeois interest--including the middle class--before it gained wide acceptance anyway. It is a way to let people who are part of the problem feel like they are doing something ethical while in fact failing to challenge the power structure.

So, am I in the wrong place?

[RedWorker]

No, you are not in the wrong place. This is the right place for anyone who is against the current system that is imposed everywhere. I care about non-human animal rights, but I care about human rights too. I do not see the contradiction. You are free to care or not care about what you want to.


Frankly, animal rights have always been a bourgeois interest--including the middle class--before it gained wide acceptance anyway. It is a way to let people who are part of the problem feel like they are doing something ethical while in fact failing to challenge the power structure.

Comrade, do not fall into such thinking. It was not so long ago that certain so-called "communist" parties refused to condemn discrimination against homosexuals, regarding it "bourgeois decadence". We should not refuse to support good initiatives merely because others use it to whitewash. Additionally, exploiting animals is in bourgeois interests.


I do not believe in historical determinism. Nothing in history is inevitable. Everything is contingent on many things. Economics are a very important factor in shaping historical events, but so are interpersonal relations, religious belief, clan loyalty, and other things too. The number of possible histories is exponentially greater than the number of actual histories.

Look, I sympathize with what Marx said about materialism, but when some guy comes here and says "All human actions are determined simply by economic interests", which is what actually has been happening in some threads recently, I'm gonna disregard that as a silly dogmatic opinion which goes against thinking.

So I'd say you're in the right place. Or sort of. I dislike RevLeft for many reasons, but it's not like I know of much better places. There's a bunch of bad apples everywhere.

[slum]

Are you a revolutionary leftist? Then you're fine. There's plenty of people here who aren't Marxists, and everyone gets flak from everyone. It's a part of the culture that might take some getting used to.

I'm someone who had similar politics to yours (string of 'anti's' included) until pretty recently. I still read Said and Foucault. I still think aspects of post-modernism and post-colonialism are relevant. I sure as hell think feminism is relevant (though what really drew to me to historical materialism and value theory is how much they have to offer feminism, not vice versa). I have not become a Marxist drone, and I doubt you will either, since you clearly have a healthy skepticism. You might be interested in a usergroup here called 'Wrongism'.

You will get criticized here for liking postmodernism and Gramsci and (possibly) Foucault or having moral values based on individualism or residual liberalism (or not being a hardened amoralist, or being an animal liberationist, or NOT being an animal liberationist, or quoting Huey Newton, or dissing Huey Newton, or being a student, or belonging to the wrong trot group, or not "doing anything in real reality!!!", or not reading Marx this particular way, or having read too much Marx and talking in "academese" you see where I am going with this? god forbid you bring up NATO). Don't take it personally. You can see it as an opportunity to hone your arguments about why Gramsci is relevant, or to investigate other avenues. People aren't trying to get you to leave. There's also plenty of people here who like Gramsci and point out orientalist attitudes and you can look forward to thanking each-others posts in defense of one another when the "anti identity politics" brigade catches you using one of those dreaded terms like "hegemony" or "subaltern".

Being the dogmatic, rigid determinist Marxist that revleft has seamlessly moulded me into (that was a joke), I am contractually obligated to tell you (or else I will face brutal party discipline) that it's always a good idea to go back and reread some Marx (or any theorist who you've been "taught about") to make sure that you're on the same page and not dismissing his arguments just because we're all used to hearing truisms like "Marxism is obsolete" and "the LTV has been disproven". Being a skeptical guy, I imagine you hate truisms as much as I do. ;) And the good news is, theorists from all over the world have been working on new Marxist theory since, so there's gotta be somebody out there you can engage with intellectually if the industrial revolution seems too far away.

I don't believe in historical determinism either. I also don't think that Marx was a determinist. That's a common charge and it's been debated on this forum many times. I think it's because it's easy to clump him and Engels (who wrote Origin of the Family) in with Lewis Henry Morgan in intro Anthro classes and suddenly they all get equated with one another.

What I think is so helpful about Marxists is that the dissection of how capitalism works (what commodities are, what value is, what exactly are we doing when we work?) and the idea of an ideological superstructure that is both created by and helps to shape and reinforce the economic "base" actually ALLOWS for all those things you mentioned (interpersonal relationships, family ties, religions, identities etc). And in allowing for all of these issues, and seeing how they fit into the greater scheme, a revolutionary politics that starts looking at our world from the "base" actually provides suggestions (I hesitate to say solutions) for all of these struggles that are PROGRESSIVE in a real sense instead of, well, what we get now.

I'm gonna use feminism as an example since that's what I know most about. Feminism that focuses purely on patriarchy or even an exceptionally well-thought out anti-racist anti-imperialist intersectional identity politics is never going to be able to accomplish women's liberation, it can't even really explain what sexism IS. Unless feminists look at value theory, their assessment of women's unpaid labor in the home is gonna be all messed up. Unless feminists look at the origin of the family unit and private inheritable property, they're not going to come up with a better root cause for misogyny than "men are just biologically shitty". (Note that men being biologically shitty doesn't provide us with any solutions. Women's liberation that's tied into class struggle and the destruction of the family unit does.)


That was a really long winded way of saying you are not in the wrong place, and I'm also really nervous about dogmatism and I still think Marx can be pretty rad.

[MarcusJuniusBrutus]

I do think Marx is a very good tool for deconstructing capitalist and imperialist norms. Also, I think feminism has moved beyond just deconstructing patriarchy and male privilege and toward gender identity generally. There are different varieties of feminism and some have a real socialist perspective. Others tend to be influenced by psychoanalysm or Foucault.

[consuming negativity]

Location: NE Ohio

On a scale of "you have no idea" to "oh my god, get me out of here", how much do you dislike living in Ohio?

[tachosomoza]

Walaykum salaam.

[MarcusJuniusBrutus]

There's a few things I like about it, mostly the cost of living, the fact that I met my wife here, and the history dept. at the local, overpriced public university. Also, my wife's family company is here so that makes the decision to stay here pretty easy. And the house is paid off. So that required some thought.

Except for a few bright spots like the said history dept., this place is a fucking intellectual and cultural desert. The suburbs are awful. They have the worst aspects of both urban and rural life. On the one hand, they have all the restrictions, light pollution, land and firearm restrictions of city living, but with none of its variety, culture, diversity, or vibrancy. On the other hand it has all the redneck, fundy, bigoted, sexist ignorance with none of the hiking, swimming, or generally fun things to do. To get to a reasonably dark astronomy site I still have to drive nearly an hour. The nearest public shooting range is 90 min. by station wagon. (The private ones require NRA membership--no way!) Plus we have this fascist governor and legislature. Even the Democrats are nationalist, racist, homophobic, and have their heads up their asses. My pro-labor Congresswoman lost her seat after the fascists gerrymandered her out. Now we have some slimeball neo-con pig. And the town is so white it looks like a fucking Glenn Beck rally.

And random chance help you if you say you don't give a shit about pro or college-sports or think that putting high school football on TV is idiotic. Instant social pariah status. It didn't help when my then boss, the DA, was talking about high school football, I described it as a "fascinating subculture." Oh, and I hope you like cheezy Christian inspirational posters!

I really hope to find a tenure-track position somewhere else, even though my wife is not looking forward to moving.

[MarcusJuniusBrutus]

Hal inte tetaklum alora al3rabia?

[Kaysone]

Walaikum salam (just replying 'cause it's wajib)