Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
reignonyourparade
Nov 15, 2012

glowing-fish posted:

So say I meet...a 45 year old lawyer, pretty liberal, works for a timber company, came from a middle-class family, went to a mid-tier private university...and who, while being pretty liberal, kind of uses that background as a metric of what he expects other people's experiences to be? What is the word to describe the expectations and background someone like that would have?

(Hint: it starts with a "B")

"Bourgeois, Petite"?

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

My Imaginary GF
Jul 17, 2005

by R. Guyovich

glowing-fish posted:

So say I meet...a 45 year old lawyer, pretty liberal, works for a timber company, came from a middle-class family, went to a mid-tier private university...and who, while being pretty liberal, kind of uses that background as a metric of what he expects other people's experiences to be? What is the word to describe the expectations and background someone like that would have?

(Hint: it starts with a "B")

Actually, it starts with an "A"

That background is "American".

and the claw won!
Jul 10, 2008

glowing-fish posted:

The bourgeois don't go to the doctor because they are sick, they go because having their body (and mind) examined and judged by a professional in an institutional setting lets them know, frankly, that they exist. Of course, they never think about any of this, and if it is brought up, they will dismiss it as nonsense.

You post a thread not because you have anything worth saying, but because the replies let you know you exist.

glowing-fish
Feb 18, 2013

Keep grinding,
I hope you level up! :)

Talibananas posted:

You post a thread not because you have anything worth saying, but because the replies let you know you exist.

I don't have the money to go to a doctor to be reminded I exist. I don't have the resources to have my emotions to be reified through institutional means, so I have to rely on text, the lowliest, most despised thing in the bourgeois world.

Helsing
Aug 23, 2003

DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU :love::love::love: JOE BIDEN

glowing-fish posted:

So say I meet...a 45 year old lawyer, pretty liberal, works for a timber company, came from a middle-class family, went to a mid-tier private university...and who, while being pretty liberal, kind of uses that background as a metric of what he expects other people's experiences to be? What is the word to describe the expectations and background someone like that would have?

(Hint: it starts with a "B")

What exactly is your objection to just calling this person "Middle class"?

Rush Limbo
Sep 5, 2005

its with a full house

glowing-fish posted:

I don't have the money to go to a doctor to be reminded I exist. I don't have the resources to have my emotions to be reified through institutional means, so I have to rely on text, the lowliest, most despised thing in the bourgeois world.

That shits on your academia as an institution of the bourgeois theory then.

glowing-fish
Feb 18, 2013

Keep grinding,
I hope you level up! :)

Helsing posted:

What exactly is your objection to just calling this person "Middle class"?

Would you be happier if I had called this thread "An Institutional theory of the Middle Class", because "Bourgeois" has already been used by some guy to describe the economic and social life of Germany in the 1840s?

Rodatose
Jul 8, 2008

corn, corn, corn

glowing-fish posted:

Would you be happier if I had called this thread "An Institutional theory of the Middle Class", because "Bourgeois" has already been used by some guy to describe the economic and social life of Germany in the 1840s?

marx didn't invent a bunch of words for Capital, it was based on existing terms and economic theories. also it looked mostly at england.

you should read it. it's good, while the communist manifesto is bad and not really intended for instructive use outside of that particular social situation - it was a polemic call to arms for the time, not a thorough dissection of the contradictions of theories of capitalism as the predominant mode of production and the real world results of applying those contradictory theories to global society.

e: What economic school of thought is your theory grounded in, anyway? (in case it has the same usage of class terms.)

Typo
Aug 19, 2009

Chernigov Military Aviation Lyceum
The Fighting Slowpokes

Job Truniht posted:

American culture is just some that is bought and sold, not something that's difficult to obtain or control. I mean sure you can go to New York City to see the vestiges of an older immigrant culture, but that was before Manhattan became Rich People Island.

So deep

Typo
Aug 19, 2009

Chernigov Military Aviation Lyceum
The Fighting Slowpokes

glowing-fish posted:


I said that IF the poor people of Harlem can go and get a passport, fill out a FAFSA, and get stopped for speeding without getting hassled, then they are bourgeois. I don't believe that is the case.
I do believe, perhaps with some controversy, that the ease of these social interactions means more than income does. But that isn't that controversial, that is why it is "Socioeconomic Status", and not just "Economic Status"


So what about other government assistant programs?

If poor people are constantly applying to food stamps or other form of transfer programs, wouldn't they be more experienced and 'at home" with it just as someone whose being in academia a lot probably is really good at applying for student loans?

glowing-fish
Feb 18, 2013

Keep grinding,
I hope you level up! :)

Rodatose posted:

marx didn't invent a bunch of words for Capital, it was based on existing terms and economic theories. also it looked mostly at england.

you should read it. it's good, while the communist manifesto is bad and not really intended for instructive use outside of that particular social situation - it was a polemic call to arms for the time, not a thorough dissection of the contradictions of theories of capitalism as the predominant mode of production and the real world results of applying those contradictory theories to global society.

I might read it then. There is a lot of reading for me to do!


Rodatose posted:

e: What economic school of thought is your theory grounded in, anyway? (in case it has the same usage of class terms.)

Its more of a social theory than an economic theory. As a social/philosophical theory, Heidegger and Lyotard, I would say.

One of the tenets of Marxism, as I understand it, is that economic production is the true structure of a society and ideologies come along to support that. The problem with that is it assumes that the things a society is producing are being produced "naturally". But the demand for them is created culturally and only makes sense in a certain cultural context, which is often obvious outside of that system but not inside that system. Marx, for example, didn't really know about Veblen goods.

Although both the author and the book have problems, Jared Diamond's book "Collapse" is very interesting in analyzing why societies continue to produce things that seem to have no objective value. For example, he writes about how Norse settlers in Greenland spent resources keeping cattle rather than sheep, even though it was counterproductive (they took way more resources than they produced). Cattle represented a source of prestige and a tie to their way of life in Scandinavia, but they probably didn't think of it that way, they probably just assumed that cattle had an "objective" value.

So I believe that many of the things that people think are goods with "objective" value only make sense in a context, and that context is often of how it allows that person to align themselves with the ruling institutions of their society.

In other words, when someone goes to a doctor to get a prescription for naproxen for minor aches and pains, they are doing what those ranchers in Greenland were doing: getting the prestige of institutional power, in a way that objectively doesn't really make sense.

Helsing
Aug 23, 2003

DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU :love::love::love: JOE BIDEN

glowing-fish posted:

Would you be happier if I had called this thread "An Institutional theory of the Middle Class", because "Bourgeois" has already been used by some guy to describe the economic and social life of Germany in the 1840s?

It would make your argument slightly more coherent.

Also, I'm not even a Marxist and I find your criticism of Marxism hilariously shallow and clueless. There are legitimate criticisms of Marxism to be made, but your'e not making them. In fact, your descriptions are really just emphasizing that you're the kind of person who shoots from the hip without really bothering to try and understand the concepts you're dismissing.

One of the biggest problems with your theory is that it's riddled with terms that you haven't adequately defined, so it's really impossible to know what you mean.

glowing-fish posted:

I might read it then. There is a lot of reading for me to do!


Its more of a social theory than an economic theory. As a social/philosophical theory, Heidegger and Lyotard, I would say.

One of the tenets of Marxism, as I understand it, is that economic production is the true structure of a society and ideologies come along to support that. The problem with that is it assumes that the things a society is producing are being produced "naturally".

What does "naturally" mean here? You put it in scare quotes, but so far as I know that's never a description Marx actually uses.

quote:

But the demand for them is created culturally and only makes sense in a certain cultural context, which is often obvious outside of that system but not inside that system. Marx, for example, didn't really know about Veblen goods.

What does "culturally" mean here and what's your evidence that Marx didn't understand it?

quote:

Although both the author and the book have problems, Jared Diamond's book "Collapse" is very interesting in analyzing why societies continue to produce things that seem to have no objective value.

What is "objective" and what is "value" in this context?

quote:

For example, he writes about how Norse settlers in Greenland spent resources keeping cattle rather than sheep, even though it was counterproductive (they took way more resources than they produced). Cattle represented a source of prestige and a tie to their way of life in Scandinavia, but they probably didn't think of it that way, they probably just assumed that cattle had an "objective" value.

So I believe that many of the things that people think are goods with "objective" value only make sense in a context, and that context is often of how it allows that person to align themselves with the ruling institutions of their society.

Marx's description of value is, explicitly a description of value under a capitalist system of production. He doesn't claim that his description of how value is produced is applicable to the situation you're describing.

Also Marx recognized that there's a difference between the "exchange value" of an item and its "use value". It is possible in Marx's analysis for an item with a low or none existent use value to have a high exchange value.

quote:

In other words, when someone goes to a doctor to get a prescription for naproxen for minor aches and pains, they are doing what those ranchers in Greenland were doing: getting the prestige of institutional power, in a way that objectively doesn't really make sense.

Where's your proof for this? This is the actual core of your theory but you haven't supplied any compelling evidence.

Cerebral Bore
Apr 21, 2010


Fun Shoe

glowing-fish posted:

Its more of a social theory than an economic theory. As a social/philosophical theory, Heidegger and Lyotard, I would say.

One of the tenets of Marxism, as I understand it, is that economic production is the true structure of a society and ideologies come along to support that. The problem with that is it assumes that the things a society is producing are being produced "naturally". But the demand for them is created culturally and only makes sense in a certain cultural context, which is often obvious outside of that system but not inside that system. Marx, for example, didn't really know about Veblen goods.

Although both the author and the book have problems, Jared Diamond's book "Collapse" is very interesting in analyzing why societies continue to produce things that seem to have no objective value. For example, he writes about how Norse settlers in Greenland spent resources keeping cattle rather than sheep, even though it was counterproductive (they took way more resources than they produced). Cattle represented a source of prestige and a tie to their way of life in Scandinavia, but they probably didn't think of it that way, they probably just assumed that cattle had an "objective" value.

So I believe that many of the things that people think are goods with "objective" value only make sense in a context, and that context is often of how it allows that person to align themselves with the ruling institutions of their society.

In other words, when someone goes to a doctor to get a prescription for naproxen for minor aches and pains, they are doing what those ranchers in Greenland were doing: getting the prestige of institutional power, in a way that objectively doesn't really make sense.

It's kinda baffling that you simultaneously manage to claim that Marx was totally clueless while falling back on the authority of Jared loving Diamond.

Jazerus
May 24, 2011


glowing-fish posted:

In other words, when someone goes to a doctor to get a prescription for naproxen for minor aches and pains, they are doing what those ranchers in Greenland were doing: getting the prestige of institutional power, in a way that objectively doesn't really make sense.

They're going because they wanted something stronger than OTC painkillers and they're happy with a naproxen prescription because they are not scientifically literate enough to know they were just prescribed Aleve, hth

Tesseraction
Apr 5, 2009

The OP to this thread seems almost like 101 privilege theory through the lens of someone who read the term 'class consciousness' and decided that it's relevant to the id and the superego.

Then injected their own ego.

glowing-fish
Feb 18, 2013

Keep grinding,
I hope you level up! :)

Jazerus posted:

They're going because they wanted something stronger than OTC painkillers and they're happy with a naproxen prescription because they are not scientifically literate enough to know they were just prescribed Aleve, hth

Pretty much, yes.

But the point is, that the institutional power has made the underlying substance "Naproxen" into something else. Its like for a Catholic, the Priest saying the words does transform the wafer. For someone with a bourgeois background, its the social power that is important: someone with institutional power has looked at their problems and discerned them as "Real". That is entire basis of the bourgeois: social reality comes first.

reignofevil
Nov 7, 2008

Tesseraction posted:

The OP to this thread seems almost like 101 privilege theory through the lens of someone who read the term 'class consciousness' and decided that it's relevant to the id and the superego.

Then injected their own ego.

I think that this is a silly thread that doesn't yet contain and probably will never have "an institutional theory of the bourgeois" but every additional person who looks around dissatisfied and tries starting to order their worldview into something a little closer to reality is a win in my book. Keep searching glowing-fish the people here just get mad because they're frustrated.

glowing-fish
Feb 18, 2013

Keep grinding,
I hope you level up! :)

reignofevil posted:

I think that this is a silly thread that doesn't yet contain and probably will never have "an institutional theory of the bourgeois" but every additional person who looks around dissatisfied and tries starting to order their worldview into something a little closer to reality is a win in my book. Keep searching glowing-fish the people here just get mad because they're frustrated.

I am a little surprised at how much rancor it seemed to have caused. I probably shouldn't have used the "B" word, which seems to be controversial in a way that saying "Middle Class" isn't. But all this really is, is an extension of the idea of cultural capital. I think the idea of cultural capital, that some people have cultural knowledge that they can use to accomplish things, is pretty non-controversial. My point is that this cultural capital isn't something that people use to obtain physical goods: its not like people master the complex systems of a culture so they can afford to buy nicer bathroom towels. Cultural capital is used to buy cultural goods. Sometimes physical goods are used as a marker for that, but its not the real point.

Obdicut
May 15, 2012

"What election?"

glowing-fish posted:

I am a little surprised at how much rancor it seemed to have caused. I probably shouldn't have used the "B" word, which seems to be controversial in a way that saying "Middle Class" isn't. But all this really is, is an extension of the idea of cultural capital. I think the idea of cultural capital, that some people have cultural knowledge that they can use to accomplish things, is pretty non-controversial. My point is that this cultural capital isn't something that people use to obtain physical goods: its not like people master the complex systems of a culture so they can afford to buy nicer bathroom towels. Cultural capital is used to buy cultural goods. Sometimes physical goods are used as a marker for that, but its not the real point.

Part of your problem is your ignorance of how this operates. Polling stations, for example, are mostly staffed by local residents, who are genuinely interested in helping their community to vote. Non-bourgeois people do not have a problem voting; they might have a problem voting in Palm Beach.

To put it another way, you said a lot of true things about cultural capital, but nothing really new, you messed up some of it, and it doesn't amount to anything new.

You also seem deeply confused about Marx.

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

glowing-fish posted:

I might read it then. There is a lot of reading for me to do!


Its more of a social theory than an economic theory. As a social/philosophical theory, Heidegger and Lyotard, I would say.




An analytic philosophy professor is sitting in their office smoking a blunt, leaning back in their chair as they watch cat videos. Their chair breaks and their weed goes flying out the window into a trash can two stories down, it is raining, the trash can is full of water. "Someone is talking about Heidegger...." they mutter under their breath.

Tesseraction
Apr 5, 2009

reignofevil posted:

I think that this is a silly thread that doesn't yet contain and probably will never have "an institutional theory of the bourgeois" but every additional person who looks around dissatisfied and tries starting to order their worldview into something a little closer to reality is a win in my book. Keep searching glowing-fish the people here just get mad because they're frustrated.

Hey look I had work to avoid when I posted that. I'm home now...

glowing-fish posted:

Over the years, I've had many opportunities to interact with "Bourgeois" people, and for many years I puzzled over their actions and worldview. During the past few years, I finally came to an understanding of the basic foundation of the bourgeois worldview.

This is genuinely something that's useful considering the swath of defeats taken by anyone left of centre-right in elections around the world of late.

glowing-fish posted:

I should say before starting that I am in no way a "Marxist", and don't even find "Marxism" worthy of critique. "Marxism" is a psuedoscience where European thinkers almost 200 years ago tried to somehow derive universal, scientific principles from the idiosyncracies of their culture at the time. To debate "Marxism" is like trying to debate phlogiston theory.

See this is where it started to go a little wrong. Given that Marx himself was adamant to ground his predicates on empirical scientific evidence, he was also specifically happy to be criticised on scientific grounds and welcomed it. To quote the English translation of his preface to the first edition of Das Kapital (Penguin 1976re1990 Edition Page 93): 'I welcome every opinion based on scientific criticism.' While his sociological essays are part of the foundations of modern sociology - a 'soft science' - he always believed firm scientific principles would make better grounding when making anti-positivist theory.

glowing-fish posted:

The main way that I define the bourgeois is that the bourgeois are people who are capable of dealing with the institutions of their culture. They not only know how to deal with them, they have an implicit faith in these institutions. In fact, for the bourgeois, it goes beyond having faith in these institutions, because that would suggest being able to separate these institutions out from the world. Operating within an institutional context is built into the bourgeois' understanding of the world.

As others point out, this isn't bourgeois inherently, although there will be overlap. Particularly, 'people who are capable of dealing with the institutions of their culture [later, society]' is a larger net than you were trying to cast, as even the kid most poo poo-down on their luck can very well be able to deal with the institutions of their society. I think where you could tie this down with the idea of people who are granted security by the institutions of their society. This instantly strikes out, for instance, the parents of Michael Brown or Tamir Rice, and many of the others who face struggles in modern American society. To your definition of the bourgeoisie, they are not made to feel secure by these institutions, because to them that would be like being made to feel secure by there being air around you. Effectively, it is so transparent that only a sudden loss of such security would make them aware of what they have. This is what I meant when I said 'privilege theory' - the invisible benefits we have in life that are so normalised to us that only a sharp change in circumstance makes one aware.

glowing-fish posted:

Right now, in the United States, the institutions that define the bourgeois worldview are (in rough order of importance): the health care system, the media, corporations, academia, and the government. There have been other institutions that were part of this framework, including religion, fraternal groups, unions, law enforcement and the military, but those institutions are now outside of the main bourgeois worldview. For the bourgeois, interacting with these institutions is not just a matter of economic power or practical benefit (although it can be that, as well), it is a process of personal definition. The bourgeois get an education not just because of the economic benefits, but because they find their identity defined by interacting with academic institutions. The bourgeois don't go to the doctor because they are sick, they go because having their body (and mind) examined and judged by a professional in an institutional setting lets them know, frankly, that they exist. Of course, they never think about any of this, and if it is brought up, they will dismiss it as nonsense. But when talking to a bourgeois, all the experiences they have will be filtered through these institutions, and their aspirations are a desire to grow to greater conformity with these institutions.

This sounds similar to Georg Lukács theory of class consciousness (sorry, it's Marxism again!) and the concept of false consciousness. I'd have more to offer but the book has been on my desk for a month and I've been too busy to get through it properly, but it might be worth looking into!

glowing-fish posted:

A note should be made about the institutions that are no longer part of bourgeois society. Religion, military and law enforcement are now the institutions that a group of people that I call the "sub-bourgeois" follow. The right wing politicians who want to have religion part of government are still bourgeois in the same way, because they still have that need for institutional definition. It is just that the institutions that they cling to are now not in power.

This seems odd to me, since the between the military-industrial complex (ignoring conspiracy theories), the militarisation of the police and the examples of religious exemption (see: the Hobby Lobby ruling), I'd say such institutions are very much in place. I've heard discussions of how modern 'Christian America' was born of the desire to save capitalism from popular opinion, here's a piece a saw reviewing a book that delves into the history. I'd say to deny the power of those institutions is to buy into the bourgeois myth that they have been rendered powerless by the (insert bogeyman here).

glowing-fish posted:

That might be a lot of words, and I am not saying that this theory explains everything. I am just saying that, in my experience, the hallmark of the bourgeois is the comfort with which they interact with the ruling institutions of their society.

Power is the ability to complain about how little power you have while people hang on your every word.

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

Shbobdb posted:

I love internet crackpots, but are people seriously still pretending to pay attention to a failed adjunct professor of education who wants to teach at the college level but doesn't have a Ph.D.?

I'm fine having fun with a mentally crazy person but since he is actually crazy and doesn't have anything to contribute maybe we should just let him be?


I mean I had part of a post typed up before I went and got a soda water then read this, but is that what's happening here? Cuz that OP is all sorts of bizarre

glowing-fish
Feb 18, 2013

Keep grinding,
I hope you level up! :)

Tesseraction posted:


This seems odd to me, since the between the military-industrial complex (ignoring conspiracy theories), the militarisation of the police and the examples of religious exemption (see: the Hobby Lobby ruling), I'd say such institutions are very much in place. I've heard discussions of how modern 'Christian America' was born of the desire to save capitalism from popular opinion, here's a piece a saw reviewing a book that delves into the history. I'd say to deny the power of those institutions is to buy into the bourgeois myth that they have been rendered powerless by the (insert bogeyman here).


Churches and the military certainly have a lot of sway in society, although the military that currently has the most sway (defense contractors and the upper echelons of the Pentagon) certainly come from a different background than the folksy version of the military (Marine Todd and Sniper Kyle).

These institutions especially have sway in certain areas (South and parts of the Mid-West), but its a pretty confrontational authority. The noise they make is of their power slipping away.

There was a time when church membership and military service were part of Middle-Class integration. For example, Bob Jones, 1st. Lt. in the Air Force has just returned from duty doing radar work in Germany, and while hanging out at the local Elks club, he meets another Air Force man, who, get this--- also is a member of First Presbyterian! Drinking Scotch and smoking cigarettes, Bob Jones is offered a job as a sales manager at the local electronics store! And all of this would be happening in suburban Connecticut, not in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. That is the type of story that doesn't happen in Silicon Valley in 2015!

glowing-fish fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Jul 13, 2015

Control Volume
Dec 31, 2008

I don't know OP but I voted democrat in the last election.

Tesseraction
Apr 5, 2009

glowing-fish posted:

There was a time when church membership and military service were part of Middle-Class integration. For example, Bob Jones, 1st. Lt. in the Air Force has just returned from duty doing radar work in Germany, and while hanging out at the local Elks club, he meets another Air Force man, who, get this--- also is a member of First Presbyterian! Drinking Scotch and smoking cigarettes, Bob Jones is offered a job as a sales manager at the local electronics store! And all of this would be happening in suburban Connecticut, not in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. That is the type of story that doesn't happen in Silicon Valley in 2015!

Well, this kind of thing does happen a lot, it's just that generally it's been made easier because Bob Jones just went to the same College dorm as Chuck Johnson who then gives him a radio show talking about how gay people caused ISIS.

eldemiror
Feb 11, 2013

glowing-fish posted:



One of the tenets of Marxism, as I understand it, is that economic production is the true structure of a society and ideologies come along to support that. The problem with that is it assumes that the things a society is producing are being produced "naturally". But the demand for them is created culturally and only makes sense in a certain cultural context, which is often obvious outside of that system but not inside that system. Marx, for example, didn't really know about Veblen goods.


That's a bastardization of Marxism of the worst kind, Diamat level of oversemplification.
Cultural Studies as are known today are an offspring of Western Marxism, from Gramsci and Lukacs to the Critical Theory as a whole; how can you say that the intellectual behind the concept of "cultural hegemony", for example, is clueless about the creation of a cultural institution (and everything that is tied to that, of course)?
I can see the reasoning behind dropping the strong dicothomy between proletariat and bourgeoisie because it may lead to a misleading view of society, but you are literally throwing in the bin some of the greatest philosophers (gramsci, adorno, lukacs and so on )from the death of marx to this day just because of your opinion.

Helsing
Aug 23, 2003

DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU :love::love::love: JOE BIDEN
Honestly the more I look at this thread the more it reads like a cruder version of what I see a lot of people with a background in Foucault and Deridda doing. It's a mixture of dismissing theorists you haven't read out of hand and making very bad criticisms of them while making sweeping claims about the nature of everything, but claims that are basically impossible to test and which you don't bother supporting very much. Sure some of the observations are potentially interesting but they're pursued in such a superficial way that you have trouble taking them seriously.

Perhaps that's unsurprising given that a lot of those folks take inspiration from Heidegger.

Rush Limbo
Sep 5, 2005

its with a full house
You should only be allowed to be a follower of Heidegger if you can outdrink him.

eldemiror
Feb 11, 2013
or if you can gently caress all the people around you with the same grace heh.

maybe this continous criticizing is on literally no basis is a postmodern thing, or maybe it's just the internet making things so easy to read; after all Popper wrote his political mumbo jumbo The Open Society without ever reading a single book of Hegel, or so i was told.

Helsing
Aug 23, 2003

DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU :love::love::love: JOE BIDEN
In my own experience post modern or post structuralist authors can be really interesting and insightful but they also provide their readers with the perfect toolkit for vapid shoot-from-the-hip theorizing. Continental philosophy in general has an attitude toward language and clarity that can be fun in small doses but which also encourages a lot of mediocre thinkers to hide the blandness of what they are saying behind obscurantist language and sweeping claims.

eldemiror
Feb 11, 2013
I think there are great continental authors and that they are in general more thought provoking than analytical philosophers, but I feel like they are really "decontexualized" in a way.
I mean, most of these authors started as Marxists, as followers of "strong" veritative philosophers (Hegelian authors like Kojeve or Lukacs and so on), and did in a way sublimate political delusions into their vision.
Not to be blunt but I consider agreeing with Lyotard's concept of "The end of Great Narratives" (for example) something shallow if done without understanding that he was basically talking about A Narrative only (Marxism) and that being a part of a very sectarian form of minor Marxism influenced a lot of his writing.
Philosophy for these authors it's the result of a struggle, and you just shouldn't agree with the conclusion without studying the process in itself: you could end up being nihilistic at best and vapid at worst

Helsing
Aug 23, 2003

DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU :love::love::love: JOE BIDEN
You're right that a lot of post structuralism comes out of a very Marxist/Marxian milieu and many Post Structuralist thinkers like Foucault had been members of the French communist party and participated in the 1968 student uprising, but the 'structuralism' that they first developed and then abandoned in favor of Post Structuralism was itself an attempt to develop an alternative theory to Marxism, based on developments in linguistic and anthropology. I'm not saying your wrong but trying to develop a genealogy of exactly where these ideas originated and how they developed is a long and complicated endeavor.

Tesseraction
Apr 5, 2009

The jerkoffs control the means of induction.

Pohl
Jan 28, 2005




In the future, please post shit with the sole purpose of antagonizing the person running this site. Thank you.

glowing-fish posted:

Over the years, I've had many opportunities to interact with "Bourgeois" people, and for many years I puzzled over their actions and worldview. During the past few years, I finally came to an understanding of the basic foundation of the bourgeois worldview.

I should say before starting that I am in no way a "Marxist", and don't even find "Marxism" worthy of critique. "Marxism" is a psuedoscience where European thinkers almost 200 years ago tried to somehow derive universal, scientific principles from the idiosyncracies of their culture at the time. To debate "Marxism" is like trying to debate phlogiston theory.

The main way that I define the bourgeois is that the bourgeois are people who are capable of dealing with the institutions of their culture. They not only know how to deal with them, they have an implicit faith in these institutions. In fact, for the bourgeois, it goes beyond having faith in these institutions, because that would suggest being able to separate these institutions out from the world. Operating within an institutional context is built into the bourgeois' understanding of the world.

Right now, in the United States, the institutions that define the bourgeois worldview are (in rough order of importance): the health care system, the media, corporations, academia, and the government. There have been other institutions that were part of this framework, including religion, fraternal groups, unions, law enforcement and the military, but those institutions are now outside of the main bourgeois worldview. For the bourgeois, interacting with these institutions is not just a matter of economic power or practical benefit (although it can be that, as well), it is a process of personal definition. The bourgeois get an education not just because of the economic benefits, but because they find their identity defined by interacting with academic institutions. The bourgeois don't go to the doctor because they are sick, they go because having their body (and mind) examined and judged by a professional in an institutional setting lets them know, frankly, that they exist. Of course, they never think about any of this, and if it is brought up, they will dismiss it as nonsense. But when talking to a bourgeois, all the experiences they have will be filtered through these institutions, and their aspirations are a desire to grow to greater conformity with these institutions.

A note should be made about the institutions that are no longer part of bourgeois society. Religion, military and law enforcement are now the institutions that a group of people that I call the "sub-bourgeois" follow. The right wing politicians who want to have religion part of government are still bourgeois in the same way, because they still have that need for institutional definition. It is just that the institutions that they cling to are now not in power.

That might be a lot of words, and I am not saying that this theory explains everything. I am just saying that, in my experience, the hallmark of the bourgeois is the comfort with which they interact with the ruling institutions of their society.

I kept reading because I expected an anecdote or two. Instead I got this rubbish.

Pohl fucked around with this message at 12:09 on Jul 15, 2015

Pohl
Jan 28, 2005




In the future, please post shit with the sole purpose of antagonizing the person running this site. Thank you.

Helsing posted:

In my own experience post modern or post structuralist authors can be really interesting and insightful but they also provide their readers with the perfect toolkit for vapid shoot-from-the-hip theorizing. Continental philosophy in general has an attitude toward language and clarity that can be fun in small doses but which also encourages a lot of mediocre thinkers to hide the blandness of what they are saying behind obscurantist language and sweeping claims.

From my experience post modernism is bullshit. Proof? I don't have any, except that post modernism is dumb as hell.
That is just my opinion. I completely agree with you.

Pohl fucked around with this message at 12:15 on Jul 15, 2015

Tesseraction
Apr 5, 2009

Is that people like Zizek? Reading his works makes me feel like I'm drunk even when I'm sober. And not the good kind of drunk. The kind of drunk that ends up in fail compilation videos.

Pohl
Jan 28, 2005




In the future, please post shit with the sole purpose of antagonizing the person running this site. Thank you.

Tesseraction posted:

Is that people like Zizek? Reading his works makes me feel like I'm drunk even when I'm sober. And not the good kind of drunk. The kind of drunk that ends up in fail compilation videos.

No, Zizek isn't postmodern at all. He is a classical Marxist.

Edit: it is hard to understand because of the language barrier, and because you aren't aren't used to hearing people talk about the economic theories he is talking about. Actually, the guy is really weird and you probably shouldn't even pay attention to him.

He is smart as hell, but he is also really loving weird.

Edit again: To make this more clear, Zizek is not my go to guy if I want to introduce someone to Marx. If I want to talk about or read Marx, I go to Marx.

Pohl fucked around with this message at 12:32 on Jul 15, 2015

glowing-fish
Feb 18, 2013

Keep grinding,
I hope you level up! :)

Helsing posted:

Honestly the more I look at this thread the more it reads like a cruder version of what I see a lot of people with a background in Foucault and Deridda doing. It's a mixture of dismissing theorists you haven't read out of hand and making very bad criticisms of them while making sweeping claims about the nature of everything, but claims that are basically impossible to test and which you don't bother supporting very much. Sure some of the observations are potentially interesting but they're pursued in such a superficial way that you have trouble taking them seriously.

Perhaps that's unsurprising given that a lot of those folks take inspiration from Heidegger.

I don't think I was "Making sweeping claims about the nature of everything".

Taking away the continental language, most of what I talked about is just based on my own experience of how people's backgrounds in early life affects how comfortable they are navigating through society. There are a number of number of concrete situations where this background is incredibly important. Say someone has a loud neighbor: do they know how to call the police and make a noise complaint? Or are they so afraid of involving the police that they will confront their neighbor directly? Say someone wants to go to Canada, do they feel confident going through that border crossing and answering the questions, even if they are temporarily unemployed? Someone is renting an apartment, and is unclear what type of responsibilities their landlord has for repairs. Would they feel comfortable going to a local library and asking the library staff for information on renter's rights?

There is so many examples of all this little stuff, and the problem is, for those who know how to do it and are comfortable with it, its so "obvious" that it seems invisible. For those who don't have it as a background, its constant and bewildering.

(If I want to put a philosophical name to this, this is Lyotard's concept of "The Differend", where the language of a group that has some type of hegemony is "the only" language, and other people have to deal with the hegemonic language on its own terms. Only here, it isn't just language, but habits and expectations).

Obdicut
May 15, 2012

"What election?"

glowing-fish posted:

I don't think I was "Making sweeping claims about the nature of everything".

Taking away the continental language, most of what I talked about is just based on my own experience of how people's backgrounds in early life affects how comfortable they are navigating through society. There are a number of number of concrete situations where this background is incredibly important. Say someone has a loud neighbor: do they know how to call the police and make a noise complaint? Or are they so afraid of involving the police that they will confront their neighbor directly? Say someone wants to go to Canada, do they feel confident going through that border crossing and answering the questions, even if they are temporarily unemployed? Someone is renting an apartment, and is unclear what type of responsibilities their landlord has for repairs. Would they feel comfortable going to a local library and asking the library staff for information on renter's rights?

There is so many examples of all this little stuff, and the problem is, for those who know how to do it and are comfortable with it, its so "obvious" that it seems invisible. For those who don't have it as a background, its constant and bewildering.

(If I want to put a philosophical name to this, this is Lyotard's concept of "The Differend", where the language of a group that has some type of hegemony is "the only" language, and other people have to deal with the hegemonic language on its own terms. Only here, it isn't just language, but habits and expectations).

Most members of the 'bourgeoisie' have zero knowledge of the above, too. Calling the police is also something that's done routinely and without qualms in non-bourgeoisie neighborhoods.

Please learn facts, it helps make better theory.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Tesseraction
Apr 5, 2009

glowing-fish posted:

Taking away the continental language, most of what I talked about is just based on my own experience of how people's backgrounds in early life affects how comfortable they are navigating through society.

Again, though, this is just privilege theory. A study into the mental reasoning of these 'comfortable' feelings based on assumptions or evidence is something worth looking into, but you're going to struggle without accepting a dialectical approach.

  • Locked thread