tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post482951136944947884..comments2024-03-28T20:47:48.468-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: YET AGAIN A REPLY TO JERRY FRESIARobert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-79486573348129117532016-08-12T08:14:32.029-04:002016-08-12T08:14:32.029-04:00Austin Haiglker, you ask a very interesting questi...Austin Haiglker, you ask a very interesting question. Let me think about it for a bit. It might make a good blog post.Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-30652515893887276592016-08-12T06:47:33.140-04:002016-08-12T06:47:33.140-04:00...in mature capitalism, a pyramidal structure of ......in mature capitalism, a pyramidal structure of worker compensation would become entrenched, to a considerable degree keyed to the acquisition of formal educational credentials [but not to the acquisition of a genuine education! That is a separate matter, as I shall not try to explain here.]<br /><br />I would love to have that last point elaborated on, or directed to where it has previously been done. As a current grad student, one seeped in philosophy, political science, and interdisciplinary studies generally, I am always defending the merits of (what I hope is) the genuine education. In a non capitalist society, say, a fully fledged socialist society, how would, ideally, the approach between mere educational credential acquisition vs genuine education, be drawn up so that the latter is what is actually sought after?Austin Haiglerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12317941729536870636noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-88988222997473786332016-08-09T20:58:08.852-04:002016-08-09T20:58:08.852-04:00Professor Wolff
You make capitalism out to be som...Professor Wolff<br /><br />You make capitalism out to be some Leviathan, some impersonal beast, that imposes it's rule on people, for some puted good.<br />Is this just my overactive imagination?<br /><br />Thankshowienoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-69884364430949876742016-08-09T08:18:54.061-04:002016-08-09T08:18:54.061-04:00Pal Garrett,
There are a couple of differences be...Pal Garrett,<br /><br />There are a couple of differences between the 60's/70's and now.<br /><br />First of all, as Professor Wolff points out above, the ruling elite (capitalists) had no problem integrating blacks into American society: more consumers, more producers, etc. They are going to resist a lot more any movement which challenges their profits, for example, a 99% against 1% movement. Besides the obvious security state mechanisms of repression, the elite disposes of an impressive propaganda apparatus (Hollywood, TV, the media, etc.) which keeps people striving to be "normal".<br /><br />Second, in the 60's and the 70's we were in the cold war. Any U.S. racial atrocity or political prisoner immediately was broadcast worldwide by a rather effective Soviet propaganda apparatus: for example, Angela Davis became an international hero, better known worldwide than any imprisoned Soviet dissident. The effectiveness of the Soviet propaganda apparatus meant that the U.S. repressive apparatus had to watch its step or "we'd" look like the bad guys internationally.<br />s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-47099719108070495772016-08-08T22:32:34.195-04:002016-08-08T22:32:34.195-04:00The Atlantic article brought back a terrible flood...The Atlantic article brought back a terrible flood of memories. I grew up (ages 6-11) in West Virginia. About a block from where we lived along the C&O tracks in Huntington was a block known as Gatesville, populated by hillbillies from the "hollers" of the West Virginia mountains. It was a block we walked through cautiously as kids and only on the 8th Avenue side, never through the alley where most of the Gatesville people lived and where there were no drivers to observe whatever was happening. Moe Cremeans was the despot of the Gatesville kids. Moe was a sociopathic bully. He was bigger and a little older than we were, and he was very frightening. There were many Moe Cremeans stories, but the most horrific was about the time we all lived through when he locked his little brother, Jackie Cremeans, in a C&O railroad shack and set it on fire. Jackie survived somehow, but most of both ears were burned off. <br />In our class were the fraternal Beckner twins, John and Gary. John was called "Buck" Beckner by the boys in our class. It was short for "Bucktooth" Beckner, which made no sense, since he didn't have buck teeth. His real sin wasn't his teeth; it was that he was defensive and angry and gave some of our classmates the creeps. His brother Gary was a saint, charming, affable, and well-liked by his classmates. The Beckners lived in a room behind the little grocery store with their mother. When we would knock on the door to see if the boys could come out to play, their mother would answer, always in a ratty nightgown and looking dazed and dopey. Alcoholism? Some mental disorder? I don't know. How they got by, I have no idea. It was the late '40s in West Virginia, so there couldn't have been much in the way of public assistance. Some kindly neighbors one Christmas made the rounds of the neighborhood collecting toys, so the boys would have something for Christmas. Huntington was a segregated town---schools, movie theaters, buses. West Virginia is a border state, so occasionally one of our teachers would say that segregation was wrong. But that was an unusual sentiment, and I wonder now if Miss Lewis got some flack for saying it. As I read the Atlantic piece, I was overwhelmed by the complexity of the problem. Today, some social service agency would probably try to get Moe Cremeans into some sort of program. It would fail. Ditto Jackie Cremeans. John Beckner? I don't know. Maybe he would have ended up in the Army, and maybe it would have given him the social and occupational skills that would have helped him find a niche. But maybe not. Gary Beckner probably got out on his own on the strength of his personality. I am repulsed by the conservative impulse of people like Vance, who feel that there's nothing to be done. But I must admit, I totally understand it. I'm not at all confident that a progressive agenda will help much in the short term. Maybe if we can sustain it for a few generations, but what are the odds of that?Tom Cathcarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16136970056480275148noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-24382010713047359112016-08-08T22:19:23.039-04:002016-08-08T22:19:23.039-04:00That's kind of what I was going for. I think ...That's kind of what I was going for. I think that it's possible that the success of the 99%/1% framing may converge with the implosion of white working class conservatism and bring a new class consciousness to the latter. Nothing is set in stone, of course, but I certainly see it as possible and potentially pretty potent. Unless a Trump presidency is realized (*shudder*), I don't see how the white working class can continue to hang its shingle on conservative politics in America. <br /><br />Even if only in small part, that group's consciousness was raised by both the Vietnam war and Civil Rights Movement. I don't think it's all that far fetched to suppose it could happen again on a more substantial scale.Your Pal Garrettnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-22059051494106933352016-08-08T21:56:34.411-04:002016-08-08T21:56:34.411-04:00Aren't the 99/1% division and the business abo... Aren't the 99/1% division and the business about class, elaborated above by Prof. Wolff, just two sides of the same coin? <br /><br /> A. Cameronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09743343971047336609noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-8021522374040881362016-08-08T21:18:53.126-04:002016-08-08T21:18:53.126-04:00Pal Garrett,
Yes, I also post on Corey Robin...Pal Garrett,<br /><br />Yes, I also post on Corey Robin's blog. <br /><br />I guess that if I were feeling optimistic (why not?), I'd bet on the Occupy Wall St. model of the 1% vs. the 99% rather than the model of the white male working class becoming a conscious revolutionary class.<br /><br />That is, such a high percentage of the population (if not 99%, then 97%) is being screwed over by the system, are unable to pay medical bills or university tuition or to find affordable housing in big cities (New York, San Francisco, for example), etc. that it seem possible that they may become aware that what suits them is some kind of socialism (in the Sanders' sense).<br /><br />So if I were the left in the U.S. (and I don't even live in the U.S.), I'd emphasize the 99%-1% division rather the stuff about class (surplus value, theory of exploitation, etc.). That the Occupy movement seems to have been a transitory phenomenon is irrelevant here, since that's an organizational question, not a political-theoretical-strategic one. s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-61456703820395296702016-08-08T20:48:25.268-04:002016-08-08T20:48:25.268-04:00S. Wallerstein,
I think your point is excellent. ...S. Wallerstein,<br /><br />I think your point is excellent. In both your examples- civil rights and Vietnam protests- I feel like Corey Robin's ideas about conservatism might be of service. I'm almost positive I've seen you post on Prof. Robin's blog as well. Is that right?<br /><br />In any case, if Robin is correct that US white privilege is a conservative reactionary response to the emancipatory movement of abolition, then it wouldn't be all that surprising that white working class people would band together under a new banner of unearned privilege (whiteness), especially if our institutions reinforce it. After the civil war, privilege in the US shifted away from land-owning whites onto whites in general. I'm not really sure how it happened but it seems to have. Professor Wolff even addressed it in his Ideological Critique lectures when he made an example of how elite attitudes towards working class white people went from unfavorable to favorable after the civil war.<br /><br />What I'm driving at is this: we might be seeing the long slow decay of this unearned white privilege- at least as it pertains to the working class- and it could turn out that Donald Trump is the death knell of white-male privilege politics. Its increasing radicalism and ferocity seem to indicate their high level of desperation. Marcuse may be correct about their revolutionary potential but perhaps, after the failed promises of conservatism, they'll see they have more in common with the people they have derided for so long. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but certainly not implausible.Your Pal Garrettnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-73882748416784225792016-08-08T16:05:11.564-04:002016-08-08T16:05:11.564-04:00I'd just like to point out that even back in t...I'd just like to point out that even back in the good old days, the white working class focused their anger on blacks and latinos.<br /><br />In the early 1960's when I marched for civil rights in New Jersey and New York, with blacks and other white students, we were heckled, harassed, hectored and at times hit by white working class male adults.<br /><br />In the later 1960's students protesting against the genocidal war in Viet Nam were violently attacked by the so-called hard-hats, white male construction workers who defended this war against a revolutionary third world country.<br /><br />In One Dimensional Man, published in 1964, Herbert Marcuse more or less writes off the revolutionary potential of the U.S. white working class. Now Marcuse may have been wrong, but the point is that the rightwing sympathies of the U.S. white working class are not only the product of the current economic crisis and were present even back in the days (1950's and 1960's)when income inequalities were much less marked.<br /><br />s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-34101424099512133942016-08-08T14:26:46.329-04:002016-08-08T14:26:46.329-04:00indeedindeedRobert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.com