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So as you may have noticed I've been talking about race a lot recently, plus a bit about gender and sexuality and other stuff like that.
One thing I tend not to talk about, at least not in top level comments, is class. It's not that I don't care, but I don't really have the language to talk about it: thanks to the vagaries of my upbringing I have fairly extreme left wing views which mean I get annoyed by mainstream (or right wing) analysis, but since pretty much everything I know I got by osmosis I'm not up with all the technical terminology etc that other people with similar views might have, and also 99% of the stuff I've read sets off my "Annoying socialist propaganda" alarms and pisses me off too much for me to keep reading.
So does anyone have advice for resources that might help me get a more deep and educated understanding (as well as figuring out quite where I stand) that's unlikely to either assume I've got an arts degree (or want one) or be thinly veiled propaganda for the authors views on how things should be rather than an attempt at an objective understanding of how things are? Bonus points for intersectionality.
Where I'm coming from and what annoys me: My maternal grandparents are ex-communist socialists, and my parents staunch Labour voters. In recent years my dad has become more of a radical lefty and started spouting conspiracy theories about the Capitalist Oligarchy. At his worst he starts sounding like this guy. So I grew up surrounded by a left wing view of the world, with my mum's more moderate views in mild conflict with my grandparents and now fathers. Since every time I talk to my father about race/gender etc he ALWAYS tries to turn it into proof of how Capitalism Ruins Everything and It's All Really About Class I have very little patience for that sort of one-eyed thinking, as well as the general tendency for socialists to reject facts and interpretations which don't fit the One True Vision, or to answer any question about "How do we fix this particular social ill?" with "ABOLISH CAPITALISM". (I'm not sure capitalism needs to be abolished anyway, but even if it does that's not going to happen any time soon, we need to engage with the world as it is not wait until we reach utopia before we start worrying about injustices happening now) See also Why I am not a socialist.
I've been pondering reading some Marx to at least get a feel for the classics, especially since people keep quoting him, but it's hardly up to date.
I kind of feel like someone from a fundamentalist background trying to go on a spiritual journey :)
One thing I tend not to talk about, at least not in top level comments, is class. It's not that I don't care, but I don't really have the language to talk about it: thanks to the vagaries of my upbringing I have fairly extreme left wing views which mean I get annoyed by mainstream (or right wing) analysis, but since pretty much everything I know I got by osmosis I'm not up with all the technical terminology etc that other people with similar views might have, and also 99% of the stuff I've read sets off my "Annoying socialist propaganda" alarms and pisses me off too much for me to keep reading.
So does anyone have advice for resources that might help me get a more deep and educated understanding (as well as figuring out quite where I stand) that's unlikely to either assume I've got an arts degree (or want one) or be thinly veiled propaganda for the authors views on how things should be rather than an attempt at an objective understanding of how things are? Bonus points for intersectionality.
Where I'm coming from and what annoys me: My maternal grandparents are ex-communist socialists, and my parents staunch Labour voters. In recent years my dad has become more of a radical lefty and started spouting conspiracy theories about the Capitalist Oligarchy. At his worst he starts sounding like this guy. So I grew up surrounded by a left wing view of the world, with my mum's more moderate views in mild conflict with my grandparents and now fathers. Since every time I talk to my father about race/gender etc he ALWAYS tries to turn it into proof of how Capitalism Ruins Everything and It's All Really About Class I have very little patience for that sort of one-eyed thinking, as well as the general tendency for socialists to reject facts and interpretations which don't fit the One True Vision, or to answer any question about "How do we fix this particular social ill?" with "ABOLISH CAPITALISM". (I'm not sure capitalism needs to be abolished anyway, but even if it does that's not going to happen any time soon, we need to engage with the world as it is not wait until we reach utopia before we start worrying about injustices happening now) See also Why I am not a socialist.
I've been pondering reading some Marx to at least get a feel for the classics, especially since people keep quoting him, but it's hardly up to date.
I kind of feel like someone from a fundamentalist background trying to go on a spiritual journey :)
no subject
Speaking as someone who used to be fundie enough to participate in a book buring... and is not any more - it can be done!
no subject
no subject
Zizek can probably be put into the same kind of category (and he's generally fun to read, because of the things he analyses (primarily Hollywood blockbusters and sci-fi)), and he's pretty easy to get hold of (if nothing else, I highly recommend listening to the analysis of class, nationalism, environmentalism, etc. on one of the special features on the Children of Men DVD). But he has a lot more psychoanalysis in, so you may also need to get a handle on Freud and Lacan. (And because I've not got that much time for Lacan, I think that it's also worth reading up on why Lacan is wrong. Which there's a bit on) (Also, there's the ongoing argument about the place of psychoanalysis in feminism).
If you let in Zizek, you can let in Judith Butler, who's fairly important for feminist theory, and who does have a book out there that's co-authored with Zizek and someone else about the relative merits and positions of different versions feminism, Marxism and psychoanalysis. She's not really an easy author to read, but I really like her ideas about gender performativity.
In terms of classical class analyses, I think Engels is really good, because he wrote some really interesting, really nicely-written pamphlets on a variety of topics (most of which, again, are on the internet), and it was before class analyses turned into the Marxism that's kind of the dominant form now, so you don't really need to agree with Marx (or, to be more precise, you don't need to agree with Marxists) to still appreciate his points.
Lenin, I think, is also supposed to be surprisingly good in this kind of area, but I've not really read any, so I may be wrong.
On the other side, I think Hayek's Consitution of Liberty is pretty much essential reading. Partially because I think that it's been appropriated massively by the New Right. And partially because reading it makes him seem less crazy, because he'll have chapters where he starts off saying things like "well, if you're a fan of this sort of view on taxation, don't bother reading this chapter. I myself think this chapter is a bit crazy. But I think it's important to put this stuff out there, if only so we can have a new kind of discussion." And "Why I Am Not A Conservative" has generated its own section of discussion.
Bertrand Russell's political polemics are also really interesting, as someone who identified as a bit of a Marxist, but became very disillusioned with the state of Russian communism. That, and he's just a pleasure to read. Popper's another interesting one, because I think his political stuff, while not strictly a class analysis, is very important to read because it is that sort of liberalism that can turn into Hayek and Nozick, which people may be very unwilling to accept, but which has very clear links with his philosophy of science (and I think that, if people are going to be very pro-Popper in science, they should be aware that the same/similar ideas have application elsewhere that they may not agree with that much).
In terms of big-scale intersectionality, I think Sen and Nussbaum, between them, are doing amazing things in terms of global economic differences and human development. In Nussbaum's case there's a very distinct feminist edge.
And I think that Paul Gilroy is really fundamental for the intersection between race and class. There Ain't No Black In The Union Jack has a chapter specifically called "Race, Class And Agency." (Of course, he's also almost impossible to get hold of without ordering the books).
Also also
Derrida, Barthes, Foucault, & co. are fairly important background reading IMO because, as crazy as they may be, and as difficult as they are to read (and they are definitely crazy and hard to read), they're really, really important for establishing the context of a lot of debate, because a huge bunch of their ideas have now become reasonably mainstream thought for a lot of people, and this is something that isn't paid as much attention to as I think it should be. Well, on the internet, anyway. Because there are a lot of ideas whose obviousness is only obvious because they've become common intellectual currency, not because they are actually remotely intuitive or obvious without the right background assumptions. In fact, some of them can be so un-obvious as to be fundamentally weird if you go back and check up on them.)
no subject
Bertrand Russel is awesome all round, I read some essays of his a few years ago (mostly about religion as I recall) and found them very engaging.
And yeah, I keep seeing Foucault around so much I probably do have to read some at some point just to know what all the fuss is about. Maybe there's a "Foucault for dummies" book out there somewhere :)
no subject
But he's just so COOL.
Foucault I really don't like that much. He's hard to read (although that could, admittedly, be his translators), and apparently some of the things he talks about may actually just have been invented and have no basis in anything that actually happened. Which is...well, it's really dodgy scholarship at the best. And that gives me an uneasy feeling around his ideas, because there are some things where I think "ah yes, of course this is the case" but I genuinely don't know enough to be sure that whatever idea is being used is based in something. I know from my own research stuff that there are areas where Foucault is regarded as foundational (a lot of critiques of the medical profession tend to be predicated on him), where it's not clear at all that firstly, Foucault is right in his discussion of the history his ideas are based on; and secondly, that Foucault's ideas, if correct for a particular period, can still be applied to now.
But stuff about me aside, the general recommendations I've always had are to try and get hold of things like the Cambridge or Oxford guides to particular people or ideas if the people themselves are difficult, because the guides really go out of their way to give a charitable interpretation of things, while still trying to uphold an academic level of analysis. But it's more useful than trying to work out if the dummies' guides are more than caricatures.
no subject
Ouch. Indeed.
the Cambridge or Oxford guides to particular people or ideas if the people themselves are difficult
Yes, ok, that might be a but more intellectually rigorous than "Dummies guides" and wikipedia :)
no subject
I've been offline more lately, working through this aspect of political networking [among other things]. Online politics seems to have the potential to increase both the positive & negative impacts of cross-class organizing re: social and intellectual capital transfer, synthesis or appropriation. But some of that is because, as you say, there isn't so much language for these relations beyond whether someone's totally blue collar or not.
I liked this site, class matters (http://www.classmatters.org/). It's simplistic and some older USA examples mightn't translate...but it does acknowledge that there's more class identity positions than Socialists or The Man. Mostly it's 101 exercises and thoughts about the skills to talk with each other across class when we're doing politics in mixed communities these days.
no subject
no subject
I'm reasonably comfortable with self-identifying as a socialist, but I remember having some violent political disagreements with people from extreme Marxist/Leninist backgrounds when it came to them asserting that (to cite the most irritating example) that 'all oppression of women arises from class oppression'.
Sorry boys, but I'm not prepared to run my feminism as some kind of ladies' off-shoot of your class war.
no subject
Oh god yes, don't get me started. My dad, with his "Sexism started in the industrial revolution when women were pressured into working by capitalist factory owners". ACTUALLY THERE WAS SEXISM BEFORE THEN MAYBE A LITTLE BIT.
*cough*
no subject
ACTUALLY THERE WAS SEXISM BEFORE THEN MAYBE A LITTLE BIT.
Oy...*facepalms*
Catching up on old posts
He's a product of the New Left crop (assembled around the New Left Review) and they're worth looking into. EP Thompson is another, whose Making of the English Working Class is fantastic if you don't mind the length - but you're subjecting yourself to Marx so that shouldn't be an issue ;)
Rosa Luxemburg's Reform or Revolution is also worthwhile, probably the best Marxist criticism of left-reformism I've read. And actually any Marxist bio on her (such as Paul Frolich's) comes recommended, it's an interesting bit of history to look at.
To go for the obvious, Lenin is also worth reading, especially Imperialism if you're interested in intersection. He doesn't deal with the more personal aspects of imperialism, but it's still a great little exposition.
Re: Catching up on old posts
Exception being The Condition of Post-Modernity, which is basically him lashing out against academic & activist trends away from Marxism. You should probably avoid that one...
Re: Catching up on old posts
Re: Catching up on old posts
no subject
Speaking as someone who used to be fundie enough to participate in a book buring... and is not any more - it can be done!
no subject
no subject
Zizek can probably be put into the same kind of category (and he's generally fun to read, because of the things he analyses (primarily Hollywood blockbusters and sci-fi)), and he's pretty easy to get hold of (if nothing else, I highly recommend listening to the analysis of class, nationalism, environmentalism, etc. on one of the special features on the Children of Men DVD). But he has a lot more psychoanalysis in, so you may also need to get a handle on Freud and Lacan. (And because I've not got that much time for Lacan, I think that it's also worth reading up on why Lacan is wrong. Which there's a bit on) (Also, there's the ongoing argument about the place of psychoanalysis in feminism).
If you let in Zizek, you can let in Judith Butler, who's fairly important for feminist theory, and who does have a book out there that's co-authored with Zizek and someone else about the relative merits and positions of different versions feminism, Marxism and psychoanalysis. She's not really an easy author to read, but I really like her ideas about gender performativity.
In terms of classical class analyses, I think Engels is really good, because he wrote some really interesting, really nicely-written pamphlets on a variety of topics (most of which, again, are on the internet), and it was before class analyses turned into the Marxism that's kind of the dominant form now, so you don't really need to agree with Marx (or, to be more precise, you don't need to agree with Marxists) to still appreciate his points.
Lenin, I think, is also supposed to be surprisingly good in this kind of area, but I've not really read any, so I may be wrong.
On the other side, I think Hayek's Consitution of Liberty is pretty much essential reading. Partially because I think that it's been appropriated massively by the New Right. And partially because reading it makes him seem less crazy, because he'll have chapters where he starts off saying things like "well, if you're a fan of this sort of view on taxation, don't bother reading this chapter. I myself think this chapter is a bit crazy. But I think it's important to put this stuff out there, if only so we can have a new kind of discussion." And "Why I Am Not A Conservative" has generated its own section of discussion.
Bertrand Russell's political polemics are also really interesting, as someone who identified as a bit of a Marxist, but became very disillusioned with the state of Russian communism. That, and he's just a pleasure to read. Popper's another interesting one, because I think his political stuff, while not strictly a class analysis, is very important to read because it is that sort of liberalism that can turn into Hayek and Nozick, which people may be very unwilling to accept, but which has very clear links with his philosophy of science (and I think that, if people are going to be very pro-Popper in science, they should be aware that the same/similar ideas have application elsewhere that they may not agree with that much).
In terms of big-scale intersectionality, I think Sen and Nussbaum, between them, are doing amazing things in terms of global economic differences and human development. In Nussbaum's case there's a very distinct feminist edge.
And I think that Paul Gilroy is really fundamental for the intersection between race and class. There Ain't No Black In The Union Jack has a chapter specifically called "Race, Class And Agency." (Of course, he's also almost impossible to get hold of without ordering the books).
Also also
Derrida, Barthes, Foucault, & co. are fairly important background reading IMO because, as crazy as they may be, and as difficult as they are to read (and they are definitely crazy and hard to read), they're really, really important for establishing the context of a lot of debate, because a huge bunch of their ideas have now become reasonably mainstream thought for a lot of people, and this is something that isn't paid as much attention to as I think it should be. Well, on the internet, anyway. Because there are a lot of ideas whose obviousness is only obvious because they've become common intellectual currency, not because they are actually remotely intuitive or obvious without the right background assumptions. In fact, some of them can be so un-obvious as to be fundamentally weird if you go back and check up on them.)
no subject
Bertrand Russel is awesome all round, I read some essays of his a few years ago (mostly about religion as I recall) and found them very engaging.
And yeah, I keep seeing Foucault around so much I probably do have to read some at some point just to know what all the fuss is about. Maybe there's a "Foucault for dummies" book out there somewhere :)
no subject
But he's just so COOL.
Foucault I really don't like that much. He's hard to read (although that could, admittedly, be his translators), and apparently some of the things he talks about may actually just have been invented and have no basis in anything that actually happened. Which is...well, it's really dodgy scholarship at the best. And that gives me an uneasy feeling around his ideas, because there are some things where I think "ah yes, of course this is the case" but I genuinely don't know enough to be sure that whatever idea is being used is based in something. I know from my own research stuff that there are areas where Foucault is regarded as foundational (a lot of critiques of the medical profession tend to be predicated on him), where it's not clear at all that firstly, Foucault is right in his discussion of the history his ideas are based on; and secondly, that Foucault's ideas, if correct for a particular period, can still be applied to now.
But stuff about me aside, the general recommendations I've always had are to try and get hold of things like the Cambridge or Oxford guides to particular people or ideas if the people themselves are difficult, because the guides really go out of their way to give a charitable interpretation of things, while still trying to uphold an academic level of analysis. But it's more useful than trying to work out if the dummies' guides are more than caricatures.
no subject
Ouch. Indeed.
the Cambridge or Oxford guides to particular people or ideas if the people themselves are difficult
Yes, ok, that might be a but more intellectually rigorous than "Dummies guides" and wikipedia :)
no subject
I've been offline more lately, working through this aspect of political networking [among other things]. Online politics seems to have the potential to increase both the positive & negative impacts of cross-class organizing re: social and intellectual capital transfer, synthesis or appropriation. But some of that is because, as you say, there isn't so much language for these relations beyond whether someone's totally blue collar or not.
I liked this site, class matters (http://www.classmatters.org/). It's simplistic and some older USA examples mightn't translate...but it does acknowledge that there's more class identity positions than Socialists or The Man. Mostly it's 101 exercises and thoughts about the skills to talk with each other across class when we're doing politics in mixed communities these days.
no subject
no subject
I'm reasonably comfortable with self-identifying as a socialist, but I remember having some violent political disagreements with people from extreme Marxist/Leninist backgrounds when it came to them asserting that (to cite the most irritating example) that 'all oppression of women arises from class oppression'.
Sorry boys, but I'm not prepared to run my feminism as some kind of ladies' off-shoot of your class war.
no subject
Oh god yes, don't get me started. My dad, with his "Sexism started in the industrial revolution when women were pressured into working by capitalist factory owners". ACTUALLY THERE WAS SEXISM BEFORE THEN MAYBE A LITTLE BIT.
*cough*
no subject
ACTUALLY THERE WAS SEXISM BEFORE THEN MAYBE A LITTLE BIT.
Oy...*facepalms*
Catching up on old posts
He's a product of the New Left crop (assembled around the New Left Review) and they're worth looking into. EP Thompson is another, whose Making of the English Working Class is fantastic if you don't mind the length - but you're subjecting yourself to Marx so that shouldn't be an issue ;)
Rosa Luxemburg's Reform or Revolution is also worthwhile, probably the best Marxist criticism of left-reformism I've read. And actually any Marxist bio on her (such as Paul Frolich's) comes recommended, it's an interesting bit of history to look at.
To go for the obvious, Lenin is also worth reading, especially Imperialism if you're interested in intersection. He doesn't deal with the more personal aspects of imperialism, but it's still a great little exposition.
Re: Catching up on old posts
Exception being The Condition of Post-Modernity, which is basically him lashing out against academic & activist trends away from Marxism. You should probably avoid that one...
Re: Catching up on old posts
Re: Catching up on old posts