• Janked [he/him]
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    edit-2
    4 years ago

    Just wanna say I found J. Moufawad-Paul to completely embody the stereotype of theory being inscrutable and obtuse. I tried getting into Continuity & Rupture and it was unreadable.

    I'm going to return to it and try again, but first impression was pretty bad.

    I also mostly feel the same way about Mark Fischer. Capitalist Realism had some amazing ideas, but you had to sift through a whole bunch of name-dropping of philosophers and random tangents to get to them.

    We need like a fucking pop science-style writer to do leftist theory, these grandiose philosophical tomes are off-putting to even the people that are invested and want to learn.

      • Janked [he/him]
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        4 years ago

        That's...fine, but definitely not really equivalent to what I'm looking for or talking about. Zizek isn't exactly the most relatable or digestible figure, and while I like the idea, it doesn't really tell you anything other than "ideology is all-encompassing and hard to escape" - I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with that or how that helps me understand leftist theory better.

        • JuneFall [none/use name]
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          edit-2
          4 years ago

          Zizek is actually bad for new people. You have to know your German philosophers and communist theoreticians of 150 years ago to actually follow his points (and a bit basic Lacan), who aren't that curious but a bit boring reading of Marx (and then he stretches the boring reading a bit to entertain, which is problematic and leads to situations that are actually not communist anymore - at least if read as Gen Z would).

          • Janked [he/him]
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            4 years ago

            See, I literally didn't get any of that from the video, so I don't think it was very successful at communicating those ideas, and I'm familiar with the concept of base/superstructure.

            Your post here is 10x better than the video, maybe you should write the theory I'm looking for :thonk: