Exploring (mostly Cultural) Marxism in today's Left

Yeah, but your whole post is amazingly ignorant, too. Not even one citation. One could reasonably come to the conclusion that you know nothing about black and African-American history in the United States.

You call the Black Power movement cancerous. So, yeah, obviously you're pretty ignorant of black history and the black struggle for civil rights by any means necessary.Blargh. Will respond to your post(s) in more depth later.Edited by Genomicus, : No reason given.

You have it all backwards and twisted up and mangled to the point where it doesn't stand up to any sort of scholarly rigor.So-called "race riots" weren't fueled by nationalists movements. They were fueled by the violence of a staunchly, brutal anti-black racial politics -- which manifested itself in physical violence from state power (and others), educational and economical disparities, legal injustices, and housing inequities structured by a racist judicial system.All of this was the fuel to the fire of the black voice that spoke loudly and forcefully through riots, demonstrations, marches, and Black Power self-defense groups. Nationalist movements weren't the cause of riots; injustice, propagated by a white supremacist national consciousness, was the cause of riots and sparked the rise of militant Black Power groups which resisted this anti-black racism and oppression.That you don't understand this speaks volumes about your non-understanding of black and African-American history.Addendum: NoNukes is right. You're just another conspiracy theorist who doesn't know the difference between a crumby micro-news-site trying to make a few dollars off of ads and actual scholarly work.Edited by Genomicus, : No reason given.

I've heard more anti-Semitic sentiments from whites than from blacks. So that's a pretty effective counterpoint to your whole non-rigorous argument. Umm, it's 2017. There are like airplanes and shit. We've all been a lot of places. Doesn't mean much.

Maybe you'd start to make headway here if you could offer anything substantive, like a refutation of critical theory.

I don't frequent EvC everyday. If you're going to engage with me, then engage with me. Not with a past thread. Get to work.

And Malcolm X had a better understanding of the Black Power movement. Why aren't you interested in what he thought? Did he mention the part where there wouldn't have had to be any riots if white people were more willing to give up their unearned advantages and systems of racism? Some were. And good for them. Finally there were black movements that had the courage to stick it to a system of white supremacist oppression. Of course it's an issue of civil rights. If blacks had complete and total civil rights in 1863, along with a complete and utter destruction of institutionalized racism, there would be no need for the Black Panthers.Of course it's an issue of civil rights. You're just too deep into your conspiracies to see it.

That has little to do with what I said. You know perfectly well that Malcolm X had a profound influence in shaping the spirit of black militancy and thus the Black Power movement. So why are you more interested in what MLK Jr. thought about the Black Power movement's militancy than in Malcolm X's perspective? But Dr. Ben Carson didn't mention that there wouldn't have had to be any so-called race riots if institutionalized racism didn't exist, did he? You have a very confused, tortuously nonsensical understanding of black + African-American history.Edited by Genomicus, : No reason given.

What, to you, is racism?

I think there's some confusion here over economic Marxism vs. Marxist analysis. Threads of Marxist analysis and neo-Marxist explanatory frameworks contribute to much of the sociological, anthropological, etc. discourse encountered in many universities (though you also get some pretty right-wing stuff, like in many undergrad U.S. history courses + poli sci courses). E.g., Wallerstein's world-system theory draws from multiple historical approaches, both Marxist and distinctly non-Marxist (like strains of thought inspired from the Annales School).Addendum: I think some liberals believe they have an aversion to anything "Marxist," even though broadly Marxist + neo-Marxist analysis has been used to successfully deconstruct objectively oppressive social and political institutions. There's a reason why Stephen J. Gould approached e.g. the subject of race and IQ from a partially Marxist framework.Edited by Genomicus, : No reason given.Edited by Genomicus, : No reason given.

I mean, isn't that intellectually problematic? Not only do you have an almost immune system reaction to "all things Marxist," but you're not willing to wade through nuanced -- and yes, perhaps a little complex -- writings and works. I think I prefer Horkheimer's 1982 understanding of critical theory's purpose, contrasted to prior social theories -- namely, "to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them." That is important. And the problem with your objection is that all theories -- whether from Adam Smith or John Locke or Malthus -- seek to define a component of the human experience (whether social or economic, etc.). And, by imposing an ideological framework on that part of the human experience, they thereby effect change.So, one way or the other, your objection literally applies to all theories -- so it's not a substantive, robust objection to critical theory itself. Because critical theory's purpose is to deconstruct those theories that work to enslave others. E.g., history has long been taught -- in the West -- from a deeply Euro-centric perspective. And with that Euro-centric perspective comes a profound twisting of historical reality, because viewing human experience from a Euro-centric lens (e.g., negating the significance of colonial, anti-indigenous genocide) simply cannot explain why society has come to be socially, economically, and ideologically configured in the specific way that it is.And that's why you have a critical theory like postcolonial theory -- because it's a theory that's critical of the Euro-centric historiography that completely hides systems of imperialistic/colonial oppression that still exist.

But that's concern for your neighbor unless they're undocumented, brown Latinxs, right? That's the problem with your perspective. It's not actually workable. It's not practical. If you thought that Marxist analysis was floating a mile above the ground, then your perspective -- as it pertains to providing a workable framework for enacting social change -- is flying in outer space.Out here in the real world, in the real cities, in the real streets -- where there's a police department that has no problem using unjustified lethal force against those who exist on the margins of society, where there are ICE agents who kick down the door, or raid marketplaces just because there happen to be a lot of brown people there -- out here, Marxist analysis + critical theory and deconstruction provide the explanatory, practical, and normative tools for actual liberation from oppression. Out here, it's rooted firmly in the ground.

"No sane society ignores illegality" is just a euphemism for "I was just following orders." Didn't turn out well at Nuremberg, so can't guarantee it'll turn out well for Trump-loving fascists, either.

You're not understanding nuance here, are you? The comparison is not between U.S. immigration law and the Spanish Inquisition or Nuremberg Trials. The comparison is between your absolute allegiance to that which is legal and legally ordained, and the same unquestioning devotion to the law and commands that Spanish soldiers and Nazi officers adhered to. The laws behind the Spanish Inquisition were vastly different than U.S. immigration law, and existed under extraordinarily different circumstances and for extraordinarily different reasons.But the problem here -- the intellectual or ideological problem -- is that you seem to think that "Just following orders/just following the law" does, in fact, justify any action, no matter what the cost to human dignity, ethics, and actual justice.But hey, at least your prose is getting more readable.Also: you can't simultaneously call me "the real fascist" and then turn around and accuse me of treason. First Amendment, yo.Edited by Genomicus, : No reason given.

If you don't have that kind of slavish obedience to law, then why are you so much more willing to spring to the defense of laws created by a cluster of right-wing oligarchs than to the defense of a family fleeing from gang violence or murderous poverty?