Message from @DOLBATIC

Discord ID: 489474175694667787


2018-09-12 16:12:17 UTC  

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

2018-09-12 16:14:00 UTC  

@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

2018-09-12 16:14:40 UTC  

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

2018-09-12 16:14:48 UTC  

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

2018-09-12 16:15:16 UTC  

"hypocritical innocence"

2018-09-12 16:15:55 UTC  

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

2018-09-12 16:16:23 UTC  

Which would be a gnoseological regression

2018-09-12 16:18:47 UTC  

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

2018-09-12 16:19:41 UTC  

Prioiritizing the transcendental ego over class struggle

2018-09-12 16:20:04 UTC  

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"

2018-09-12 16:20:42 UTC  

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

2018-09-12 16:25:30 UTC  

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

2018-09-12 16:27:01 UTC  

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

2018-09-12 16:28:31 UTC  

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

2018-09-12 16:30:17 UTC  

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

2018-09-12 16:32:13 UTC  

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"

2018-09-12 16:33:01 UTC  

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

2018-09-12 16:33:51 UTC  

Liberalism has succeeded in equating Marxism and fascism

2018-09-12 16:34:09 UTC  

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

2018-09-12 16:35:11 UTC  

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

2018-09-12 16:35:37 UTC  

Behind the denunciation of seduction, there is simply profound assent

2018-09-12 16:36:52 UTC  

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

2018-09-12 16:37:44 UTC  

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

2018-09-12 16:37:57 UTC  

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?

2018-09-12 16:38:49 UTC  

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

2018-09-12 16:39:52 UTC  

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

2018-09-12 16:40:58 UTC  

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.)

2018-09-12 16:45:44 UTC  

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

2018-09-12 16:50:35 UTC  

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

2018-09-12 17:09:43 UTC  

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

2018-09-12 17:10:12 UTC  

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

2018-09-12 17:11:23 UTC  

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)

2018-09-12 17:13:27 UTC  

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

2018-09-12 17:14:12 UTC  

i.e. his idea of class struggle is not clarified, it's clear he wants to update Marx in some ways and remain faithful in others, but it's not specific about which parts to leave and which to take

2018-09-12 17:14:45 UTC  

How did you translate?

2018-09-12 17:21:28 UTC  

Google translate

2018-09-12 17:21:44 UTC  

the book pdf is too big though, but I got the article about Baudrillard

2018-09-12 17:22:29 UTC  

I can also read the french wikipedia page on clouscard, it's longer than the one in english

2018-09-12 17:22:50 UTC  

Yikes

2018-09-12 17:23:58 UTC  

haha

2018-09-12 17:25:23 UTC  

One idea I do have is whether Clouscard would think it important to point out how intelligence agencies have dominated society. Baudrillard doesn't talk about stuff like that but I think it's very important. Although there's also the question of how exactly the civilian gov't, military (and intel), and corporations interact, that could be the kind of thing Clouscard means by understanding the front of class struggle today