This small essay by Janine Brodie called "Power and Politics" has several other issues, but their most frustrating one is their outright DISMISSAL of Marxist class analysis for the stupidest reasons. Economic determinism? I guess if you yearned to softly dismiss marx by misrepresenting him.
God I fucking hate poli sci majors.
The previous page:
Show
The next one:
Show
I'm not the brightest crayon in the box but is it just me or does Doctor Brodie somehow make politics and power some sort of vague, unsolvable mystery? Like fr I don't want just an echochamber of nodding heads plz help am I in the wrong?
I need help putting words to my issues with it.
As a poli sci major, there are two broad camps of people in the field, when it comes to Marxism.
First are the people who do shit you're complaining about, where they "refute" Marxism without understanding a Damn thing about it.
And then there are the people actually doing Marxist analysis. The people actually doing Marxist analysis are mostly comparativists in the subfield of political-economy (Yes, it still exists, just as a sub-field of a sub-field of poli sci).
And the way these groups interact is the first group nods their heads in agreement with the Marxists. But only so long as it's called "political economy" and not Marxism. The minute you call it Marxism, they start trying to tear it down, even when they were just agreeing with it, five minutes ago.
Sounds just like when liberals will agree with communism as long as you don't call it communism.