the conservative view of history

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
What is its appeal? We live under such complex systems with all sorts of emergent and unpredictable interactions. Even in some respect one could say that the 19th-20th century revolutionary histories have failed, and their post-structural critiques have just become impotent and wibbly. So what is the actual appeal of an approach that for instance sees certain states as having a brotherly approach towards others where the statesman is privileged? Do people really believe that the mystification of our social relations are just a propaganda? if that is really the case then radicals have been wasting their time and all they need to do is create their own propaganda campaign.

We were discussing assad's belligerence and someone was like the turkish state should have adopted the role of an elder sibling. this would have averted catastrophe. All I managed was a hollow chuckle, eventually.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Part of the simplicity is the enduring appeal of The Great Man.

Who will save us all.

Or, for ego maniacs, you might become.
 

Leo

Well-known member
fear. fear of "the other", fear of change. the old world -- which was always better -- slipping away to the benefit of someone else. being left behind, abandoned by liberal leaders who are always chipping away at the foundation of life as they knew it.

some conservative voters feel they work hard, only to be heavily taxed by the liberal nanny state to support layabouts on social services. on a national security and foreign policy level, conservative has evolved to mean strength through military might, which many people take comfort in.

I'm not conservative, but can understand why some people are. maybe the notion doesn't make sense in the abstract, when considered on an academic level, but it does for many people on a real-world level.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
it's a weird one though isn't it. the conservative can acknowledge labour, can acknowledge that we live in a commodified society. But they struggle to understand the form of the commodity or the necessity of labour reaching a high level of abstraction.

Of course they could argue that we all are a brain in a vat but many don't.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
they cannot understand that one cannot comprehend the form of money otherwise it would lose all of its utility and negate itself.

Sure, one could understand it after exchange, but not as a process in itself in the process of exchange. it is a reality with a transcendental unknowingness.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
personal as opposed to impersonal domination. the naturalisation of personal domination as transhistorical. I am trying to make an opening in theory to encapsulate the conservative tendancies of the left as well.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Thomas Carlyle

Thucydides as opposed to Herotodus

Austrian School as opposed to Frankfurt School

The Practice of History as opposed to What Is History
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
they cannot understand that one cannot comprehend the form of money otherwise it would lose all of its utility and negate itself

(I think) I understand the Marxist analysis of exchange value etc but I've never understood their prescriptive replacement

like what would de-abstract (concretize? factualize? probably there's a theory term I don't know) labor, commodities, exchange? realistically, I mean

maybe it's ignorance or a failure of imagination but it surely seems like there's no going back to a time before abstraction and the automated future looks grim
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
the withering away of the state seems a lot more likely to produce a dystopia than the obverse, at least to me. tech bro philosopher-kings, panopticon societies, etc.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
well the classical marxist idea was that there was a global uneven chain of capitalism, and colonial, semi-colonial and semi-capitalist countries would have anti-feudal revolutions by the fact of them being the weakist link of the chain but the bourgeoisie would have to realise working class demands like democracy because of their timidity of the w/c. the problem is the permanent revolution failed and the working class wasn't able to pressurise the bourgeoisie, mainly because fascist methods were exported from europe to the periphery. none of the afroasian revolutions progressed onto the proletarian revolution.

So, idk. I'm just as hopeless as you.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
like the problem is not the working class took power and it was bad. that idn't even happen apart from some very short spells russia 1917, spain 36, a little bit in China 67.

very short spells that you can't really say raised the [proletariat to the status of ruling class.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
im a revolutionary in faith but intellectually i don't have the answers. i don't try say mine is the right perspective i just nudge a load of post-dubstep bores in the direction of critical theory.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
the anarchists see this failing in the leninist party structure, but then they say because russia and the colonial countries were semi-feudal. but if we have to wait for communism to be achieved when capitalism has reached its absolute limit then let's be real that is more likely to confirm marx's second contention, the ruin of the contending classes.

Like the anti-party criticism sees the party as autonomous from social forces rather than being subject to it. otherwise you know, it's correct to criticise leninism.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
on the faith thing i can't imagine being oh it's all fucked cos the logical endpoint of that is just nihilism and that's like idk, i feel like only people with the social circles can really indulge in that. it's a bit racketeering isn't it.
 
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