and from the original, I love the phrase on page one: "the liar has lied to himself" very strong image to me

I like to compare it to descartes evil demon, and i think-> instead of thinking the demon is tricking you, what if you are the demon, tricking yourself?

I love this idea so much

Well, actually, I found an article Clouscard wrote on Baudrillard

French though

http://clouscard-alerte.org/index.php/2016/12/12/baudrillard-le-dernier-homme-qui-cligne-de-loeil-michel-clouscard-1988/

Je mappele gay

Wait no

@nagarjuna Even if that article is mostly yet another critique of Baudrillard

@DOLBATIC that looks awesome I'm just an insufferable JB sycophant because I haven't read more haha. His writing is super contradictory so the parts I like are contradicted by other parts haha. My aim isn't to rep him so much as bring him up because that's where my thoughts are, wanna move forward

I see JB kind of in the skeptical tradition, which I really enjoy. The problem of how to apply skepticism politically is the huge problem but one I want to confront

He's seeing Baudrillard as the quintessence of modern bourgeois thought, which he claims no longer ignores class struggle (as in the case of Valéry and Alain) but simply recuses it without refuting it

"hypocritical innocence"

Baudrillard, to him, is a good example of the transition of the Zeitgeist ever since the 1968 "Libération"

Which would be a gnoseological regression

His main point is that Sartre, who accepts class struggle but encloses it into intellectual bourgeois leftism, is at the source of this transition

Prioiritizing the transcendental ego over class struggle

Yes I think that's a common view. Baudrillard visited Japan one time and people there said "we don't need you anymore because your thought is just how things are now"

I would be interested to see if he defends his concept of class struggle

The second stepof that transition is then structuralism which goes around the dialectical process of history

Third step of the pretense of Marxism to actually combat dialectical materialism: the infamous Freudo-Marxists (e.g. Marcuse), the fusion of two dogmatic deviations, the repressive State and the father figure

Thus, the middle classes (those of capitalist State monopolization) can still only fight dialectical materialism *in the name of Marxism and knowledge*

Claiming to be repressed by the old bourgeoisie, these new classes give birth to "the market of desire"

It is now possible to liquidate Marxism and replace with bourgeois intellectual identitarian leftism, through the fourth step of this process: the appearance of the "new philosophers"

Now it is no longer its deviations but Marxism itself which is condemned

Liberalism has succeeded in equating Marxism and fascism

Now Baudrillard, the child of this intellectual evolution, comes into play

Baudrillard's scepticism is seen by Clouscard as a worldly practice without end

Behind the denunciation of seduction, there is simply profound assent

This philosophical renouncement expresses the victory of the new middle classes, in the new Zeitgeist of the cultural worldly "leftist"

A "bon chic bon genre" thought which leads to stagnation

I'm curious how this plays in the marxs idea that capitalism leads to communism. I mean negating capitalism is the same as completing the project of capitalism for Marx, no?

And then what is clouscard saying we should be doing, what does class struggle look like in these updated conditions? I'll read both those articles tho five sure

His ideas for action are explained at the end of the first link i sent you

The *praxis* must be adapted to the new modalities of capitalism (avoiding both Classical Marxist orthodoxy and the reformism adopted by the PCF in the late 20th c.)

Reformism being the transition into social democracy (and frankly, liberalism) the PCF engaged into, following the PS

Capitalism, ironically, by liberalizing, has become more totalitarian, it is therefore necessary for class consciousness to be augmented by consciousness of this neoliberal new form of capitalism

So I read the two articles, translated the one on Baudrillard. Found a way to translate PDFs also but not large ones, sad face. I guess I can split it into sections

I do agree with the section of the first piece where it is written that Clouscard thinks we need "collective destiny," I think this is a very good starting point

It's interesting how he thinks the national is now important to defend when it's being overcome by transnational capitalism. I can see that, I do agree that a good transnational movement will likely work its way through the various nations (although it working through other nations will be something that will be recognized within each national process)

Still, his positive program is not very clear, probably it is outlined in his book