Hi! First time reader. I can relate to the feelings and ideas here and this was well written.
I am wondering if you have read Gramsci’s work on “the intellectuals.” It seems to me to be aligned with your sense that Intelligentsia are not a distinct social body but continue to function as elements of class society.
On a totally different note I am also interested in your identification of Adorno as an anti-communist. Is that a reference to his position towards the USSR at certain point? I had the impression that he was aligned with Communism but not with the USSR. Curious how you see all that.
Indeed aware of Antonio Gramsci’s work on anti-fascism and critique of then European Intelligentsia.
“impression that he was aligned with Communism but not with the USSR” Is true. It also concurs with the fact that Mikhail Bakunin, Giuseppe Fanelli, and Errico Malatesta, distanced themselves from USSR and top-down hierarchy, instead working towards anarcho-syndicalism.
A follow up to Gramsci’s legacy, is Antonio Negri, who went on to collaborate with Michael Hardt on a few books (most prominent ‘Empire’). Further, mid-1990s, one can read the anti-imperialist books of Michael Parenti, Italian American academic. + Check Franco Bifo Berardi, Paulo Virno and Gorgio Agamben (Marxist philosophy, labor rights, impact of technology, totalitarian nature of medical science)
The West Intelligentsia, or say a large part of it, shapes popular opinion, however never stepping beyond the limits set by the systems, or say power and wealth which fosters them in the first place. Is why folks like Noam Chomsky, Slavoj Zizek, Judith Butler, Chimamanda Ngozi, Fr. Desmond Tutu etc etc never dare question one big issue. That is, Technology and it’s complicit relationship with Tyranny across the world. Instead they present us with all sorts of solid essentialism or magic workarounds. The Intelligentsia does not liberate people, instead it divides them, demonizing one group while providing the other side a temporary status, to feel empowered or a bit less disenfranchised.
Very thought provoking! And your list of oppressed intelligentsia adds further to my reading list that I fear is out of control. That becoming mainstream (the purpose of most educational institutions across the globe?) is actually a radicalization is developed well. As you say in your final paragraph, "bourgeois capitalist democracy and fascist dictatorships are two sides of the same coin, two instruments, of one and the same class," can you speculate how this plays out as the Ecological Overshoot Unraveling challenges existing power structures? Will we recognize when both sides of the coins are used simultaneously in some new form of domination? I'm thinking this is exactly what "managing the Unraveling" looks like, an AI avalanche to mold and control reactions to a crumbling world "to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority" as phrased by founding father James Madison ( https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0044 ).
Hi Peace... Thanks and I am afraid I cannot answer the question you posed. Both sides, regardless of their ideology (faith) and power (who is winning), will be dependent on technology and stable sources of energy (whatever type)... Otherwise mass centralized power, say an American or Chinese or European or X, cannot rule (justify itself) on it's own. The concept of nations itself leads to all sorts of fascist ideologies, or liberal multiculturalism to keep people divided and fighting. So either it is determinism (promised autonomy) or heteronomy (destined slavery). I cannot see anything beyond that horizon. Let me read the Madison text!
By the way, it was Noam Chomsky in an early interview that brought Madison's writing on this to the viewer's attention. It seems that he believed that the Senate needed to exist to protect the opulent (class).
Hi! First time reader. I can relate to the feelings and ideas here and this was well written.
I am wondering if you have read Gramsci’s work on “the intellectuals.” It seems to me to be aligned with your sense that Intelligentsia are not a distinct social body but continue to function as elements of class society.
On a totally different note I am also interested in your identification of Adorno as an anti-communist. Is that a reference to his position towards the USSR at certain point? I had the impression that he was aligned with Communism but not with the USSR. Curious how you see all that.
Hi Alex… and thanks for your response.
Indeed aware of Antonio Gramsci’s work on anti-fascism and critique of then European Intelligentsia.
“impression that he was aligned with Communism but not with the USSR” Is true. It also concurs with the fact that Mikhail Bakunin, Giuseppe Fanelli, and Errico Malatesta, distanced themselves from USSR and top-down hierarchy, instead working towards anarcho-syndicalism.
A follow up to Gramsci’s legacy, is Antonio Negri, who went on to collaborate with Michael Hardt on a few books (most prominent ‘Empire’). Further, mid-1990s, one can read the anti-imperialist books of Michael Parenti, Italian American academic. + Check Franco Bifo Berardi, Paulo Virno and Gorgio Agamben (Marxist philosophy, labor rights, impact of technology, totalitarian nature of medical science)
The West Intelligentsia, or say a large part of it, shapes popular opinion, however never stepping beyond the limits set by the systems, or say power and wealth which fosters them in the first place. Is why folks like Noam Chomsky, Slavoj Zizek, Judith Butler, Chimamanda Ngozi, Fr. Desmond Tutu etc etc never dare question one big issue. That is, Technology and it’s complicit relationship with Tyranny across the world. Instead they present us with all sorts of solid essentialism or magic workarounds. The Intelligentsia does not liberate people, instead it divides them, demonizing one group while providing the other side a temporary status, to feel empowered or a bit less disenfranchised.
Very thought provoking! And your list of oppressed intelligentsia adds further to my reading list that I fear is out of control. That becoming mainstream (the purpose of most educational institutions across the globe?) is actually a radicalization is developed well. As you say in your final paragraph, "bourgeois capitalist democracy and fascist dictatorships are two sides of the same coin, two instruments, of one and the same class," can you speculate how this plays out as the Ecological Overshoot Unraveling challenges existing power structures? Will we recognize when both sides of the coins are used simultaneously in some new form of domination? I'm thinking this is exactly what "managing the Unraveling" looks like, an AI avalanche to mold and control reactions to a crumbling world "to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority" as phrased by founding father James Madison ( https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0044 ).
Hi Peace... Thanks and I am afraid I cannot answer the question you posed. Both sides, regardless of their ideology (faith) and power (who is winning), will be dependent on technology and stable sources of energy (whatever type)... Otherwise mass centralized power, say an American or Chinese or European or X, cannot rule (justify itself) on it's own. The concept of nations itself leads to all sorts of fascist ideologies, or liberal multiculturalism to keep people divided and fighting. So either it is determinism (promised autonomy) or heteronomy (destined slavery). I cannot see anything beyond that horizon. Let me read the Madison text!
By the way, it was Noam Chomsky in an early interview that brought Madison's writing on this to the viewer's attention. It seems that he believed that the Senate needed to exist to protect the opulent (class).
Hence why I'm an anarchist. I never consented to being "governed", read ruled over. Hierarchies take away our autonomy.