The Gangster Mindset

[Jason]

It seems a lot of people in the USA and other nations like gangster movies and a gangster way of thinking. But it seems that thinking is totally opposite to the concept of the "revolutionary".

Could it be this appeal of "fast money" that is retarding the growth of many groups in the US? How can they develop a revolutionary conscience when they idolize "Scarface" ?

Could Hollywood be promoting anti-revolutionary ideas under the guise of entertainment?

Look at it this way, for every one successful drug dealer there are 1000 wannabes. No wonder many people are failing at life! So perhaps marxists underestimate the role of personal responsibility in causing poverty. But then again, many are imprisoned in this negative environment, and therefore could not really choose to escape.

Ultimately, the "American Way" is being a gangster. So when kids want to be all punk and stuff, well they're just being American. But mark my words, it produces a very unequal and inferior civilization.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Personal responsibility necessitates free will, which is an absurd position. I'd recommend you read Author Schopenhauer's essay on the subject. Even though I don't agree with the last two sections of it the rest is spot on.

And many of these people who idolize gangsters are urban youth. We have to realize that as Marxists, we have a certain level of privilege since most of us are from the middle class. So it's not that the urban proletariat want the "easy way out", they just want a decent life like the rest of us. Sure, the means is wrong, but what is wrong about the essential desire?

[Ocean Seal]

Could Hollywood be promoting anti-revolutionary ideas under the guise of entertainment?

Not to sound like a dick, but this is something that most people even non-revolutionaries acknowledge. Hollywood is right-leaning, but in addition to the "agenda" (and I use that word lightly) of Hollywood we have to remember that the hegemony of capitalism is so absolute that many time revolutionary ideas are not even thought of. So I don't think that the ideas are explicitly anti-communist, more likely they are anti-progressive, and really just chauvinistic and individualistic.

[Jason]

Not to sound like a dick, but this is something that most people even non-revolutionaries acknowledge. Hollywood is right-leaning, but in addition to the "agenda" (and I use that word lightly) of Hollywood we have to remember that the hegemony of capitalism is so absolute that many time revolutionary ideas are not even thought of. So I don't think that the ideas are explicitly anti-communist, more likely they are anti-progressive, and really just chauvinistic and individualistic.

It's fun entertainment, but it traps people into "chasing dreams" as the rapper Coolio said.

Actually I sounded like a dick condemning thier civilization, but it is true that the ghetto is a terrible place, because it's a gangster environment.

Personal responsibility necessitates free will, which is an absurd position. I'd recommend you read Author Schopenhauer's essay on the subject. Even though I don't agree with the last two sections of it the rest is spot on.

And many of these people who idolize gangsters are urban youth. We have to realize that as Marxists, we have a certain level of privilege since most of us are from the middle class. So it's not that the urban proletariat want the "easy way out", they just want a decent life like the rest of us. Sure, the means is wrong, but what is wrong about the essential desire?

Free will is emphasized by capitalists to say that the poor caused thier own misfortune. I don't agree with that, obviously.

Sure wanting to be rich is a human emotion, but the "gangster way" is the wrong way to acheive it. But youth trapped in the ghetto, know of no other path to a "better life".

[A Revolutionary Tool]

It's not just about "fast money". It's about respect and power, it's about fitting in to a group that will have your back. I would bet most people don't join real street/prison gangs thinking they're going to get rich.

[Manic Impressive]

I made a thread about this before perhaps some of the answers here may help you

http://www.revleft.com/vb/romanticiz....html?t=172068

[Let's Get Free]

The Panthers called them "illegitimate capitalists."

[Jason]

The Panthers called them "illegitimate capitalists."

The Panthers have good reason to hate them, because they are the polar opposite of them. For every positive thing the Panthers preach, the gangster preaches something negative.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

The "gangster mentality" hardly seems significantly different from the capitalist mentality, except that it's racialized. So, what's it add up to? We get "good" white entrepreneurs (or the flipside of that coin - cops) and "bad" racialized "gangsters" (who, without the protection of the police, have to do their own dirty work).

Consequently, I wonder about the intent of this thread, or what valuable analysis, if any, can come from its less-than-promising starting point.

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

The "gangster mentality" hardly seems significantly different from the capitalist mentality, except that it's racialized. So, what's it add up to? We get "good" white entrepreneurs (or the flipside of that coin - cops) and "bad" racialized "gangsters" (who, without the protection of the police, have to do their own dirty work).

Consequently, I wonder about the intent of this thread, or what valuable analysis, if any, can come from its less-than-promising starting point.

You don't know what you're talking about. The gangsta mentality ( or more commonly known as a g-thang) is more than being a ghetto entrepreneur. Killing each other over the wrong shirt color does not make financial sense.

[freehobo]

Well it could be because people are violent by nature and secretly admire those those with the balls to be outlaws.

Or it could be some brainwashing by the capitalists conditions we live in, and we wont like violence anymore after the state withers away.

Like a good little communist, you better chose #2.

[kashkin]

I would agree with Yet Another Boring Marxis. Urban youth who generally have very little to no chance of social mobility look to such figures as they tend to be rich and powerful (or they wouldn't be idolised or presented in media at all). Most want a better life, and dealing drugs/getting involved in gangs/etc is a way of doing it, and is a method many probably grew up with. Also, considering how much shit they get from the police, the anti-police aspect would be appealing.

[graffic]

Some gangster movies are worse than others for glamourising crime. Goodfella's and Scarface are some of the most seedy, unpleasant films ever made.

There is a forbidden glory about gangsters that people find interesting. Gangsters are just scumbags though.

[Jimmie Higgins]

It seems a lot of people in the USA and other nations like gangster movies and a gangster way of thinking. But it seems that thinking is totally opposite to the concept of the "revolutionary".

Could it be this appeal of "fast money" that is retarding the growth of many groups in the US? How can they develop a revolutionary conscience when they idolize "Scarface" ?

Could Hollywood be promoting anti-revolutionary ideas under the guise of entertainment?

Look at it this way, for every one successful drug dealer there are 1000 wannabes. No wonder many people are failing at life! So perhaps marxists underestimate the role of personal responsibility in causing poverty. But then again, many are imprisoned in this negative environment, and therefore could not really choose to escape.

Ultimately, the "American Way" is being a gangster. So when kids want to be all punk and stuff, well they're just being American. But mark my words, it produces a very unequal and inferior civilization.

Money has a little to do with it, but most people in Hollywood movies seems to be financially worry-free, so why not just idolize any number of other well-off pop archetypes?

IMO it has to do with the specific class nature of gangster stories and the diesire is more about power and freedom than money itself - though the two are obviously intertwined.

The other thing about the fiction is that the class-transgressing immigrant or black gangster tends to be moralisitically punished in the end. This began even before the Hollywood Code was set in place (though the romanticization was a little less clearly condemned in some of the pre-Code movies) But the Code meant that all gangsters had to be punished explicitly - usually a glamourous or exciting death. Post-code movies deviate but often fall back on these motifs from the code-era. Gangsta rap also heavily references this traddition, but even when there is no consious reference to gangster literature and film, the glam is always offset by the grit, sometimes in really interesting ways, often just in a different sort of moralism.

I also don't think that Hollywood makes these because they want to indocrinate people with anti-revolutionary ideas. They produce music and film like that because they are popular genres and tales. I don't think people are attracted to these stories because they literally want to live like that - not for the most part anyway. Gangster movies and music or not, there would be gangsters in the US with the same economic and social conditions - films and music are a type of reflection of that.

But what people do like about the fiction IMO, is that the classic stories are always a sort of nightmare-version of the American Dream. It's the wish fufillment of the rags-to-riches stories, but the twist (and the realism) is that it's not by doing everything according to bourgeois morals that rewards people, it's killing, destroying, strong-arming, and extoriting your way to the top. People don't know how money is made off derivitives, but they do know people get fucked because of the financial market, for example - so a story about a pimp's rise and fall just puts the exploitation necissary to become rich right out there. "Goodfellas" is the same sort of thing: it's told as if it's a story of the american dream... except you gotta stab the guy in the trunk a few times to make it in America.

So I think that's part of the appeal - to make it as an immigran in america means forgetting the neighborhood and dear ol' Irish ma so you can drive fancy cars, wear smart tuxedoes, etc. In the old movies I've seen there seems to be a motif of people "forgetting where they came from" once they make it to the top and the sort of working class solidarity (of a kind) that led them to defend their fellow neighborhood boys (from other gangsters or sometimes exploitative petty-bourgeois figures and cops) in the first place. The "rise" part of the story usually involves humiliating the (anglo) assimilated old crime boss, and then having a sort of induvidual working class revenge on snoody resturants and upper-class society that would otherwise reject him if he wasn't a gangster with all that money and power. The "fall" part is usually when he becomes paranoid/begins to act like the old anglo-crime-boss/can not control the hungry-greed and ruthlessness that allowed him to rise to the top in America. So rather than glorifying wealth on the one hand or demonizing "bad morals" on the other, I think the appeal of these stories is in-between and in the nuances. To become rich in America means turning yourself into a monster, but then you gain wealth while loosing yourself - in short there is something corrupting and violent about life and wealth in America.

As for real life, like I said, conditions in modern urban society are what create gangs and a black market. So on that level, people aren't selling drugs because of movies - maybe on a subjective level this can be a factor, but ultimately it's not and pleanty of people who do sell drugs or engage in criminal activity bear no resmbleance to people in movies.

And in regards to general emulation: I think this is just a result of needed in act tough in capitalist society - especially for young males. So people always tend to emulate some kind of tough persona to some extent - and if you are in social situations where toughness is more necissary than most - like some stressful job situations, the military, etc then "macho" personas are pretty common.

The antidote ultimately is just a path and vehicle for real solidarity and "making it" together on our terms as a class, rather than just induvidually trying to change our position, only to find in doing so we've just recreated the same shit we tried to get out of.

[Ravachol]

You don't know what you're talking about. The gangsta mentality ( or more commonly known as a g-thang) is more than being a ghetto entrepreneur. Killing each other over the wrong shirt color does not make financial sense.

It does, actually. Physically limiting the operational capability of the competing gang to distribute drugs and control territory is a perfectly sensible cut-throat business strategy. Besides, there's a whole series ideological frameworks that operates in the same way with even less 'financial sense': they're called nationalism and racism.

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

It does, actually. Physically limiting the operational capability of the competing gang to distribute drugs and control territory is a perfectly sensible cut-throat business strategy. Besides, there's a whole series ideological frameworks that operates in the same way with even less 'financial sense': they're called nationalism and racism.

Than you should beat not kill them. Murder draws the attention of cops and is therefore bad business sense. Being gangsta is more than making money. It is an entirely idiotic but unique lifestyle that promotes stupidity and excess (lumpen proles meets petitribalism)

[Ravachol]

Than you should beat not kill them. Murder draws the attention of cops and is therefore bad business sense. Being gangsta is more than making money. It is an entirely idiotic but unique lifestyle that promotes stupidity and excess (lumpen proles meets petitribalism)

You've obviously never seen the petty squabbles and self-aggrandizing rivalries that go on in corporate culture within the legal sector of Capital that jeopardize 'pure' financial logic...

Gangs proclaim to offer what society fails to deliver: community and mutual support. Most gangs start out as structures of mutual support and friendship born out of the necessities of a life on the margins, before degenerating into a particular business model whose main recruitment policy lies in the protection and status it offers as well as its cultural aspect (ie. what you seem to describe as 'gangsta culture'). Gangs in and of themselves are not much different than any of the thousands of other terrible pseudo-communities this society throws up in the absence of structural affective ties. It is also worth remembering that the origins of the labor movement lie within a mixture of working class gangs involved in workplace theft, sabotage and petty criminality.

In a fragmented society where all human community is gone, there's bound to be a myriad of community-substitute identities that define themselves on the basis of exclusion and competition (race, nation, gang, enterprise, 'white color', 'blue color', etc.). No more than logical.

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

You've obviously never seen the petty squabbles and self-aggrandizing rivalries that go on in corporate culture within the legal sector of Capital that jeopardize 'pure' financial logic...

Gangs proclaim to offer what society fails to deliver: community and mutual support. Most gangs start out as structures of mutual support and friendship born out of the necessities of a life on the margins, before degenerating into a particular business model whose main recruitment policy lies in the protection and status it offers as well as its cultural aspect (ie. what you seem to describe as 'gangsta culture'). Gangs in and of themselves are not much different than any of the thousands of other terrible pseudo-communities this society throws up in the absence of structural affective ties. It is also worth remembering that the origins of the labor movement lie within a mixture of working class gangs involved in workplace theft, sabotage and petty criminality.

In a fragmented society where all human community is gone, there's bound to be a myriad of community-substitute identities that define themselves on the basis of exclusion and competition (race, nation, gang, enterprise, 'white color', 'blue color', etc.). No more than logical.

Still, ride till i die, reping da block, money and the cars, the cars and the hoes, that is believed in by rank in file gang members seems closer to feudalism than to capitalism.

[Ravachol]

Still, ride till i die, reping da block, money and the cars, the cars and the hoes, that is believed in by rank in file gang members seems closer to feudalism than to capitalism.

You think so? Commodity fetishism seems like a perfectly normal symptom of Capital's logic to me. Besides, you refer to tropes from mainstream 'gangsta rap', which is quite different from the culture in the actual banlieus, projects and estates, something that can be seen in the lyrics of music emerging from there (as opposed to from the MTV mansions of musical entrepreneurs) alone. But I don't really see much difference between the whole American Dream bullshit, the Gordon Gekko cut-throat corporate climber stereotype and the 'get rich, get hoes' thing. It's a different permutation of the same cultural matrix.

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

You think so? Commodity fetishism seems like a perfectly normal symptom of Capital's logic to me. Besides, you refer to tropes from mainstream 'gangsta rap', which is quite different from the culture in the actual banlieus, projects and estates, something that can be seen in the lyrics of music emerging from there (as opposed to from the MTV mansions of musical entrepreneurs) alone. But I don't really see much difference between the whole American Dream bullshit, the Gordon Gekko cut-throat corporate climber stereotype and the 'get rich, get hoes' thing. It's a different permutation of the same cultural matrix.

Have you been to a projest recently? Fuck dem n---s get that money, and defend da block is an actual belief system. There are many who are more loyal to the gang than to getting paid.