Which political thinkers Rock your Boat?
- Thread starter northernhord
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ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
The thread title says "politcal thinkers, shteynkopf.revol68 said:
as for political theorists, Michael Freeden.
taffboy gwyrdd
Embrace the confusion!
revol68 said:
Apart from not being the point of the thread, such derision makes me wonder what your last acclaimed philosophical tome might have been.
And have we had Schumacher yet?
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
I have read a lot of Zizek. Whilst I find him engaging, I am sure he is just having a laugh, just like Lacan.
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
yes yes, I know he is very funny. I don't need to watch clips of him to know that.
I watched the perverts guide to cinema the other day.
I mean it on a deeper level.
This is what Noam Chomsky has to say about Lacan:
I get a little bit of that feeling about Zizek as well. The joke is on everyone who thinks he is an academic rockstar.
I watched the perverts guide to cinema the other day.
I mean it on a deeper level.
This is what Noam Chomsky has to say about Lacan:
I get a little bit of that feeling about Zizek as well. The joke is on everyone who thinks he is an academic rockstar.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Has anyone mentioned Ayn Rand yet?
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Illyrian said:
Juan Peron?
revol68
what, fucking what?
Dillinger 4, Zizek does like to fuck about and drips in self awareness but he's also one of the most insightful theorists of contemporary times. I actually find him pretty straightforward and accessible compared to say the borefest that is Derrida, he's certainly not as obtuse as Lacan.
As for Klein being a political thinker, eh no she isn't, she's a journalist, it's not a matter of snobbery it's simply a statement of fact.
The last thing I was reading was Zizek's 'The Ticklish Subject', had read it before but was just going over it again having read Butler's boring as sin Gender Trouble.
As for Klein being a political thinker, eh no she isn't, she's a journalist, it's not a matter of snobbery it's simply a statement of fact.
The last thing I was reading was Zizek's 'The Ticklish Subject', had read it before but was just going over it again having read Butler's boring as sin Gender Trouble.
taffboy gwyrdd
Embrace the confusion!
revol68 said:
She's more populist than academic but No Logo especially was an excellent work of thought as well as analysis. And actually, what defines "thinker". Even Sun readers think. Sometimes. There, I can be a snob too
taffboy gwyrdd
Embrace the confusion!
revol68 said:
You are fucking kidding, yes?
No Logo is pure pap, a piece of superficial wank that apes the very branding and 'lifestyle' capitalism it's meant to critique.
That's unfair. The "aping" was super-imposed upon it by others.
The research and theorising in Shock Docrtine, though not always ground-breaking, is also very thorough.
taffboy gwyrdd
Embrace the confusion!
revol68 said:
As I recall there was quite a deal about production and consumerist indoctrination. Maybe it wasnt super academic and maybe I should have just wanked off about Proudhon and Debord et al. instead. But to deny there is "thought" involved in her work would be bizzare. So yes you are being a bit of a snob. But to be fair perhaps the books you've had published are better, I wouldnt know.
I like Naomi Wolfe too. Is that intellectually permissable or do I need to go to re-education camp?
danny la rouge
Ninja swords for all disabled people
Leaving Klein aside, there is a good point here: about academic obscurantism. I know I've been as guilty of it as others, but for that very reason I tend not to read political theory these days. Don't get me wrong - I've derived a lot from it, but I think there is a tendency to want to read more and more, stroke ones chin over more and more obscure writings, and become more and more divorced from real struggles. In the end, you have a vocabulary that you can share with others in your little academic circles, but which leave most people cold.
This might shock some, but I don't think it's actually necessary to have read Capital, never mind Cleaver, to know what the score is. And if we start to think it is, we exclude the vast majority of people.
These days I'm more interested in reading good reporting than good theorising.
This might shock some, but I don't think it's actually necessary to have read Capital, never mind Cleaver, to know what the score is. And if we start to think it is, we exclude the vast majority of people.
These days I'm more interested in reading good reporting than good theorising.
revol68
what, fucking what?
Production, no, sepctacular liberal outrage at 'sweatshops' yeah a bit.
Your bullshit about consumerist indoctrination sums up the book, an analysis that doesn't move beyond the world of signs, branding and advertising at the material reproduction of capitalism in private property and wage labour itself.
Actually Proudhon got one thing right 'property is theft', Marx was far better whilst Debord and the Frankfurt school lot he essentially stole his whole overegged 'spectacle' from were simply more sophisticated Klein types, stuck analysising capitalism as it dreamt itself in it's adverts and ideologies.
And i'm not saying no thought goes into her works, christ that would be a stupid thing to say, afterall there's thought goes into me making a cup of tea this morning, I was saying that she isn't a political thinker herself, rather she is a journalist in approach, articulating (and simplifying) others ideas with little in the way of critical insight.
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
mk12 said:
Policing the Crisis would be as good a place to start as any re. the other Stuart Hall's ouvre.
Have fun - Louis MacNeice
p.s. as an insightful piece of small p political writing, Raymond Williams' Border Country has a lot going for it...and it's a very very good read.
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
N_igma said:
I was just thinking that. Nobody ever mentions Lockes or Hobbes or Rousseau.
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
edit - oops!
taffboy gwyrdd
Embrace the confusion!
danny la rouge said:
Me too. Contemporary journalism is more important to me than theorising of people or are often dead and who lived in another world. This is a thread about political thinkers so obviously obscurantism is more appropriate here than most places, but I think the "left" indulges in it far too much to the effect, as you say, that it can divorce them from the reality of contemporary issues.
Revol68
Fine if you dont like NKs writings. I accept she is more akin to journalism than acedemic this and that, but she does indeed think and her writings are relevant to the contemporary scene. There is also a crossover between journalism and more academic writing, exhibted by Orwell perhaps who wasnt overly academic. The thread is a request to say who we like. I mentioned some big point scorers for the trainspotters and some more populist stuff. Your approach to the latter is essentially exclusivist, an attitude which remains a collosal problem for the "left"
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