Once again I find that I must make some major revisions in my plans for this synthesis of my various writings on Marx. I have just reread large portions of my second book, Moneybags Must Be So Lucky. It says much better than I had recalled my analysis of the first chapter of Capital. Consequently, I am going to revise my discussion of Chapter One of Capital, incorporating large portions Moneybags, which I originally published many years ago. Since I am doing this for myself and for the ages rather than for you, my readers, I am afraid I must simply ask you to bear with me. If you have already read my little book, you can amuse yourself with reports of the Texas Senate refusing to convict and remove the crooked Atty. Gen. of that great state.
It's polite to ask the ages first whether they want it (it's a formality with regard to your book: they do want it, and even need it.).--I found the previous Book Days 6 & 7 outstandingly thought-provoking, and also enjoyed reading and thinking about the testy comments. It seemed to me that they raise again the perennial question of whether it's possible, intelligible, and/or desirable to break with a (near-)total context of delusion. We Hegelians would say: In the end Essence Appears.--Sonny Sharrock asked the ages, and produced something for them that stands the test of time, and that you can listen to to pass the time before the next installment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg_geIiehEM&list=PLF7AC608063A69E71&index=1&ab_channel=Pharomba
ReplyDeleteThe recent comments prompts the following tragi-comic recollection.
ReplyDeleteIn 1992 I was back home in Washington, D.C., wondering what to do and how long I could delay the inevitable application to law school. I dropped in to visit my college pal Pat, who had in fact already given up and was going to Georgetown law. He was sharing a house on Capitol Hill with a couple of other college friends.One of these other guys (who was more of a mere acquaintance to me), let’s call him Robert, had found a job working in the right-wing disinformation industry.
Now let’s pause for a moment and consider that this industry had been created more or less ex nihilo 20 years earlier at the urging of Lewis F. Powell; and that 1992 was 30 years ago; and that the output of this industry over the last 50 years has been vast; and that there is more and more of it every year ... it lays on our culture like a blanket of smog. This is the world we live in!
Back to 1992: a year or so prior, I had—in the spirit of “can’t beat ‘em, may as well join ‘em”—myself applied to work at one of these hot air factories. I got as far as the final interview when I made the mistake of saying OUT LOUD something like, “Of course I understand that the American Petroleum Institute would want to take the editorial line that it is the powerless and hapless victim of the big-money tree-hugger industrial complex, but COME ON … this is the OIL INDUSTRY … I mean, we’re all ADULTS here, we know that this is nonsense, right?”
WRONG, management at the American Petroleum Institute REALLY BELIEVED that the oil industry is the real victim … after all, groups like the Sierra Club and the Center for Science in the Public Interest say mean things about it, etc.
So w/r/t to Robert, I said to Pat something like, “that’s impressively cynical, I wouldn’t have thought Robert had it in him”. I should say here I did NOT consider Robert to be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but as a nascent Black Conservative ™ he was ideally positioned to this kind of work, so why not? Good for him for getting a job with Newt Gingrich, I guess … . But Pat replied, “don’t be impressed, he ACTUALLY BELIEVES this stuff”.
So for 50 years we have been living in the mystified world that Lewis Powell conjured up from his desk at Hunton Williams in 1971. I find nearly all of it to be literally unbelievable, but the Roberts of this world feel otherwise.
John Pillette,
ReplyDeleteNever never never say that kind of thing to anyone, on the left or on the right.
Even if they don't really believe their own bullshit, they get offended because you point out that they don't really believe their own bullshit.
There are exceptions. My oldest good friend is D.H.
Around 1970 or so I was sitting at a table with other leftie drop-outs in a café in Berkeley and D.H. had taken on the whole table in his defense of a very orthodox Marxist-Leninism. I liked his vibes and didn't like those of the rest of the table and so I joined the argument on his side.
We won, the others left and I asked him: do you really believe all that bullshit'
No, he replied and we've been friends ever since. But that's the only time in my 77 years that that has worked out well.
s.w.
ReplyDeleteKeep in mind that John P. is recollecting a job interview from a long time ago and paraphrasing what he said. I infer that (1) he likely said a somewhat milder version of what he reports, and (2) the fact that he said it at all suggests that he may not have really wanted to work at the American Petroleum Institute, and indeed, as he himself suggests, he was at the very least highly ambivalent about it.
But yes, if there are any young(er) people reading this, don't go into a job interview w/ X and proceed to suggest that X perhaps does not believe its own "line" or its own propaganda. You won't get the job, unless perhaps your résumé is so stunning that no one cares what you actually say, and not v. many people have résumés that are at that level. (I certainly didn't.)
LFC,
ReplyDeleteIn my experience cynical people almost never like it to be pointed out that they are cynical and reject with hostility or defensively to their cynicism being pointed out.
In fact, a totally cynical person cannot be honest about their cynicism because then they would have the virtue of honesty and no longer would be totally cynical.
I am of course using the word "cynical" in the everyday sense of the word and not referring to the Greek cynics.
DH sounds like my kinda guy!
ReplyDeleteW/r/t job interviews, LFC is of course generally correct. BUT … recall that this very job (assistant editor) involved the manufacture and dissemination of “flak”. Flak is deployed for socio-political reasons that are obvious and well understood … or so I thought. I was genuinely surprised that they didn’t seem to understand any of this simply as a value-neutral model of communication. It struck me that this was like working in a shoe factory without realizing that you are manufacturing shoes (sorry, I should have said “footwear solutions”).
My mistake was assuming that all of us in the room all understood and were in agreement about these very basic facts. How can you not know what “flak” is? When it is “simple common sense” I suppose …
And BTW, it is incorrect to call this sort of thing “bullshit”. It is actually “horseshit”.