There have been critiques of utopian socialists in the past. From Marx and Engels in particular.
There have even been critiques of Marx that focus on how he ignores the fact that capitalism perversely instills a desire in its subjects for their own subjugation (Marcuse, Lyotard, etc.)
This is none of that. She is attacking utopian socialists by bringing up pretty much every other type of socialist over the last century or two. It's a weaselly attempt to imply that all of those varied factions possess similar problems as utopian socialists, in particular their millenarianism tendencies (which she associates with all of the left here) and their expectation of everyone's problems to just disappear in day to day life. I can guarantee you that AES leaders did not feel this way. Sankara did not expect to wave his hand and give people luxuries like air conditioning. No, instead he embraced solidarity by going without air conditioning himself so that any luxuries that were won later would be won as one group united.
The two things I dislike in this video:
First of all she is broadcasting one of the most pernicious cudgels against the left and against class solidarity. Which is the idea that leftists and workers who want radical change only want it because they envy the lives of richer people, and that this envy is distasteful. She uses the word "resentment" in here, and having not watched the whole video (90 min videos, for fuck's sake...) it sounds kinda like Nietzsche's idea of ressentiment ("a psychological state arising from suppressed feelings of envy and hatred that cannot be acted upon, frequently resulting in some form of self-abasement"). If so that's a really disgusting and liberal approach to material suffering.
Second of all, she should know better than to make this haphazard analysis. This is a poor treatment of the topic that seems less overtly malicious than it does narcissistic. I genuinely think she is caught up in her own life and legend and absolutely does not care or think about others whatsoever anymore. Whenever I hear small business tyrants and the like blame envy for the fact that the working classes hate them, I know that they utterly believe what they are saying. But I am really disappointed in the poor thinking and lazy research she puts into these things. It really does seem like she cares more about makeup and costumes than about any of the values she discusses, which circles back to the narcissism.
Yes. She occasionally drives at something interesting about Power and Love needing each other, but instead of breaking that down to the need for revolutionary change she uses it to argue for incrementalism as increasing power...and also that revolutionaries don't have love...it's not very clearly argued and could have been 30% as long.
There have been critiques of utopian socialists in the past. From Marx and Engels in particular.
There have even been critiques of Marx that focus on how he ignores the fact that capitalism perversely instills a desire in its subjects for their own subjugation (Marcuse, Lyotard, etc.)
This is none of that. She is attacking utopian socialists by bringing up pretty much every other type of socialist over the last century or two. It's a weaselly attempt to imply that all of those varied factions possess similar problems as utopian socialists, in particular their millenarianism tendencies (which she associates with all of the left here) and their expectation of everyone's problems to just disappear in day to day life. I can guarantee you that AES leaders did not feel this way. Sankara did not expect to wave his hand and give people luxuries like air conditioning. No, instead he embraced solidarity by going without air conditioning himself so that any luxuries that were won later would be won as one group united.
The two things I dislike in this video:
First of all she is broadcasting one of the most pernicious cudgels against the left and against class solidarity. Which is the idea that leftists and workers who want radical change only want it because they envy the lives of richer people, and that this envy is distasteful. She uses the word "resentment" in here, and having not watched the whole video (90 min videos, for fuck's sake...) it sounds kinda like Nietzsche's idea of ressentiment ("a psychological state arising from suppressed feelings of envy and hatred that cannot be acted upon, frequently resulting in some form of self-abasement"). If so that's a really disgusting and liberal approach to material suffering.
Second of all, she should know better than to make this haphazard analysis. This is a poor treatment of the topic that seems less overtly malicious than it does narcissistic. I genuinely think she is caught up in her own life and legend and absolutely does not care or think about others whatsoever anymore. Whenever I hear small business tyrants and the like blame envy for the fact that the working classes hate them, I know that they utterly believe what they are saying. But I am really disappointed in the poor thinking and lazy research she puts into these things. It really does seem like she cares more about makeup and costumes than about any of the values she discusses, which circles back to the narcissism.
She is using Nietzsche here. It's quite cringe.
I'm not going to watch the video, but from the description, she's using Nietzsche badly.
Yes. She occasionally drives at something interesting about Power and Love needing each other, but instead of breaking that down to the need for revolutionary change she uses it to argue for incrementalism as increasing power...and also that revolutionaries don't have love...it's not very clearly argued and could have been 30% as long.
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