Gabriel Rockhill, "Western Marxism"
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- Опубліковано 18 вер 2024
- This event, which took place on September 8, 2024, was co-sponsored by the Critical Theory Workshop and Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library. It was moderated by Allan Miller.
For more information:
criticaltheory...
icssmarx.org/
Thanks to Gabriel for articulating in such clear terms the difference between western/imperial/bourgeois Marxism and eastern/anti-imperial/proletarian Marxism and what’s at stake for the world.
Almost like a safe and sound, dogmatic worldview, right?
@@PoetOfNoise Safe and sound for whom? Dogmatic about what?
@@buck13horn Safe and sound for those who'd like to know who the good and who the bad guys are and how to save the world apparently.
@@PoetOfNoise Better to not understand and oppose western imperialism and to not try to make the world a more livable place?
Awesome to have Gabriel lucidly discussing an important subject with inspiration.
Absolutely essential analysis, explains so many contradictions and distortions, great
Gabriel is always truly appreciated! 💥🔥👍
Thankyou so much for your explanation prof Gabriel, thankyou so much,⭐
FYI, if anyone's interested -- the image in the thumbnail, from the cover of Losurdo's book, is entitled 'Gods of the Modern World,' a panel from the mural 'Epic of American Civilization,' painted by Jose´ Clemente Orozco, 1932-34, in the campus library at Dartmouth College.
Thank you! I really wanted to know.
Great discussion. I'm in PSL here in the US, and mostly just think it's important to be active somehow. The party has excellent orientations and of course, nobody's perfect but I'm happy to at least be fighting the fight in some way and gaining organizational experience 🙂 thanks for all the work you do, I plan to get the book soon!
Completely agree with this attitude. Most western socialist orgs suck (including the PSL, DSA, IMT, etc) but we need organizational experience. The next generation of socialist orgs will hopefully be better than the garbage we’re presented with today, but we’ll definitely need organizers to make it happen
incredible as always
Excellent analysis
Gabriel is awesome, the lagged captions not so much. They inhibit watching the video but minimizing the window and its a fantastic event.
This is a timely analysis.
How do you evaluate what Caleb Maupin is doing, or Alexander Mckay in the UK. I am a senior journalist from India. I follow you avidly. I am thankful to you for introducing Lusourdo and Parenti. I have started reading them.
I don't know McKay, but many of us see figures like Maupin as a part of the trend associated with Lyndon Larouche -- ie white nationalism, eurocentrism, chauvinism and conspiracy theories that eclectically co-opt marxist language.
Politically, both re good.
But also, both have real flaws.
Caleb is an abuser and has done shitty things with org funds.
And Alexander is a TERF, as are most people in CPGB-ML, because none of them ever looked into gender and such, and thus have no analysis beyond 'man in a dress.'
Their material analysis is lacking.
Can't speak on McKay as I do not know his work. Regarding Maupin, it's pretty well documented he is an opportunist of the likes Rockhill alludes to. He's more aligned, even to a monetary extent, to a Duganist/4th position politics which is also the underlining "maga communist" ideology. So really nothing to do with Marxism in a practical sense.
Alexander McKay is brilliant.
@@kyledrumsthere is no “maga communist ideology”. It was a meme designed to kick start conversations about what a truly sovereign America might look like, liberated from Wall Street. What you describe as “Duganism/4th position” is already a conflation as far as Maupin (who has his personal faults to be sure) and the ACP are concerned. Both are trying to situate 21st century communism in the context of a multipolar world. I really can’t be done with sectarian gatekeepers. If you can name a single issue of substance you disagree with them on-specifically with regards to their positions on imperialism-then name it. Otherwise save it.
WE ARE THE PEOPLE OF EARTH
🌏🌎🌍✊
And why would anyone want that.
Speaking of Verso-their translations of Losurdo are unreadable. I ended up being thankful that they refused to translate Losurdo’s Stalin book because the amateur version on the internet I found was very lucid. I honestly wouldn’t put it past Sebastian Budgen et al of intentionally sabotaging Losurdo
❤️
Curious, has Professor Rockhill put out any responses to the criticisms leveled against him -- and on Zizek's behalf -- by Zero Books (Douglas Lain) and the Platypus Affiliated Society?
Douglas Lain and Chris Cutrone are the fish swimming in the water of Western Marxism. Their criticism reveals a failure to grasp the type of analysis presented here.
What have they said, other than continuing to illustrate the obvious fact that they are petty-bourgeois reactionaries working dutifully for the liberal propaganda industry. "Stalin bad" etc? I can't find anything from them other than the same old eurocommunist nonsense. Did you have a specific article or interview in mind?
I would like to see a response as well...I have followed the zero book/Zizekian readings for years and have always felt dissatisfied, almost felt dumb for not understanding the seemingly convoluted lines of thought and analyses ...thanks to Prof. Rockhill can now see through it all ..their analyses are deliberately convoluted ... Feels like a weight off my shoulders ...I am a professor of pure mathematics at a western University ... So I don't shy away from complex ideas...
I used to listen to Lain's UA-cam podcast since I knew little of the Frankfurt School. The more I listened, the more I realized it all seemed mental masturbation that in essence not only eschewed Marxism, it seemed completely an attempt to demobolilize any movement for organizing change. Lain and his guru Chris Cutrone, who unabashedly grins as Lain describes him as a genius and the Last Marxist, talk and talk and talk in gibberish thst is far from the field of clear thinking that Rockhill produces. I truly think they believe Marxism Is a failure and has no possibility of occurring in the world of "Capitalist Realism." I scratch my head wondering why each calls himself a Marxist. The last time I peaked in they spoke about the upcoming presidential election and had not one coherent piece of worthwhile analysis. I really don't know what their game us, unless it is meant to fracture the Left by misleading people who are seeking info on Marxism. It seems their obsession with Adorno and the Frankfurt School is doing what that school intended. To defang Marxism. I think they did a show talking about Gabriel, so their critique might be evidence of their disdain for truth that Rockhill speaks in this video.
Oh wow, I haven't seen those. I'll have to check them out!
I believe Western Marxism to be a misnomer as 'western' or 'cultural' marxism is inherently irrational and therefore cannot be Marxism which always follows rational precepts.
A classic example occurred in Western Australia during WW2. The WA State Government cl;aimed to be socialist, yet when the indigenous Australian population of WA's cattle stations took industrial action in order to sort out their employment conditions which were akin to slavery with payment in miserable doles of flour & sugar for compulsory work. The stations had been established on the traditional lands of Indigenous Australians who had to work lest they be evicted from the property. Whitefella station employees were paid wages but indigenous employees were not.
The so-called socialist Labour Government provided troops to support the station owners clearing their stations of employees. These Indigenous Australians were shifted to an near desert, the Pilbara where they remained until the late 1940's after which Laing Hancock prospected massive amounts of iron ore in the Pilbara. The former traditional landopwners were uplifted and moved once more destroying clan structures that had been established for thousands of years.
The so-called socialist of the government maintained that socialism was only for whitefellas.
What better example of the irrationality & hypocrisy of western marxism could there be?
How about Freedom Road?
Wilson Mark Garcia Patricia Taylor Mark
Robinson Lisa Martin Jennifer Young William
Martin Nancy Gonzalez Michael Jones Mark
Thompson Timothy Rodriguez Ronald Thompson Scott
Clark Scott Robinson George Anderson Linda
@kyledrums Does Adolph Reed say that, "Racism is not a useful measure of anything in American society", in his written work? (Even, as now Trump racistly disparages mostly _legal_ Hatian immigrants in Ohio.) Does Adolph poohoo & disparage the term "intersectionality" in his written work? Does Adolph use his terribly sxist phrase, "the wet panty people", in his written work, as he does in some of his YT-posted interviews? If so I won't bother.
I already had a long email debate with Adolph years ago that I still retain a copy of his stupid convoluted _typewritten_ arguments. If Gabriel has someplace for me to post that online l will.
I think that Adolph is popular among many whyte "Marxists", or the _extremely few_ fairytale POC "Marxists" who are hoodwinked into denial, because he tells them what they want to hear!...: 'Yeah you can forget about race...; it doesn't matter...; it's only fiction...; anyone, especially, Black talking about race is only engaged in "parochially divisive identity politics"...; & like whyte right-wingers say, "if we just stop talking about race, it will go away"...; it's really only about class!' I.e.: _Class_ essentialists.
The fact that Oppression always creates, or cultivates, or allows a certain intermediary, managerial, or *comprador* class of POC (like yet another colonial example like the Euro-Western institutions' generally well-paid, elite & repressive Palestinian Authority as Israel's security subcontractors) to control, or mollify (allow a certain statistically "successful examples" of), the oppressed, does not deny that it can be class _and_ certainly race.
Indeed race has historically & typically been used -- by the _capitalists_ -- to *divide* class. But many whyte leftists, especially many whyte "Marxists", can't hold more than 1 idea/concept in their head at the same time.
Young Patricia Martin Elizabeth Rodriguez Kimberly
This guy sounds good until someone speaks about anything he might consider "woke" then all of the sudden he's obviously got a chip on his shoulder. Pan-Africanism is about organizing African leaders nations and organizations to work together towards common interests without being defined or limited by the borders of drawn by colonialists. It's about forming a more unified cohesive and developed Africa that can resist being exploited by by imperialist nations (the US and Europe in particular)
It isn't about African Chauvinism, most Pan-Africanists stand in Solidarity with South American liberation struggles and are favorable towards mutual development and belt and road projects with China. Most panafricanist leaders are openly socialists and speak about the importance of socialism and solidarity whenever they give speeches.
Dr. Rockhill identified two strains of Pan-Africanism one he critiqued and one he supported. You may have missed his full answer at 1:54:46
@@阳明子 He started out with a reactionary response then settled into a more rational one afterwards.
@@AnotherChampagneSocialist You have an incredibly uncharitable reading of his response. Within the first 5 seconds of talking he identifies there are two currents in pan-Africanism and that one is reactionary and one is genuinely proletarian.
@@阳明子 I think the first current he describes is extremely rare to the point that it is mostly a caricature that exists in the imaginations of reactionary Americans and Europeans, and that the tangent is more indicative of his hang ups about social justice than it is about panafricanism.
@@AnotherChampagneSocialist It's a historical tendency popular in academic circles and mutated into forms like afropessimism.
Par for the course for PSL member Gabriel Rockhill and member of its Liberation School Editorial Collective. That is the Party for Socialism and Liberation, one of the two custodial groups that preserve the Sam Marcy variant of Trotskyite splinters.
. A typical multipolarista, G.R. praises BRICS as if it were anti-imperialist. He can only see U.S. and Western monopoly capitalism, not the monopoly capitalist expansionism - imperialist, if you will - of China.
. For fundamental political-economic analysis OF THE U.S., see The Hollow Colossus.
Gee, Gabriel, I wish that Adolph Reed ever _did_ give answers as sophisticated as yours, but Adolph Reed only gives _boring_ , _rambling_ , _convoluted_ , _pseudo-intellectual_ , & often _infantile_ theories &, especially, "answers". Gabriel you are farrr more intellectually sophisticated than Adolph Reed, so please stop associating yourself with him & claiming that he said what you said. He _didn't_ -- & _hasn't_ .
My one particular disagreement with your otherwise excellent answer, Gabriel, is that you &, of _course_ , Adolph Reed use the *_right-wing hijacked_* & *_weaponized_* so-called 'definition' of "identity politics", but not the _original_ , 1977 Combahee River Collective Statement definition of the term. Adolph also, of _course_ , infantilely poohoos the CRC creation of the term "intersectionality".
To defend Reed a bit, personally I find Reed's best medium is his written work and it's rather clear and coherent. But I can understand the perspective you shared when he's speaking publicly. Not everyone is the best at public speaking off the top of their head.
@@kyledrumsDoes Adolph Reed say that, "Racism is not a useful measure of anything in American society", in his written work? (Even, as now Trump racistly disparages mostly _legal_ Hatian immigrants in Ohio.) Does Adolph poohoo & disparage the term "intersectionality" in his written work? Does Adolph use his terribly sxist phrase, "the wet panty people", in his written work, as he does in some of his YT-posted interviews? If so I won't bother.
I already had a long email debate with Adolph years ago that I still retain a copy of his stupid convoluted _typewritten_ arguments. If Gabriel has someplace for me to post that online l will.
I think that Adolph is popular among many whyte "Marxists", or the _extremely few_ fairytale POC "Marxists" who are hoodwinked into denial, because he tells them what they want to hear!...: 'Yeah you can forget about race...; it doesn't matter...; it's only fiction...; anyone, especially, Black talking about race is only engaged in "parochially divisive identity politics"...; & like whyte right-wingers say, "if we just stop talking about race, it will go away"...; it's really only about class!' I.e.: _Class_ essentialists.
The fact that Oppression always creates, or cultivates, or allows a certain intermediary, managerial, or *comprador* class of POC (like yet another colonial example like the Euro-Western institutions' generally well-paid, elite & repressive Palestinian Authority as Israel's security subcontractors) to control, or mollify (allow a certain statistically "successful examples" of), the oppressed, does not deny that it can be class _and_ certainly race.
Indeed race has historically & typically been used -- by the _capitalists_ -- to *divide* class. But many whyte leftists, especially many whyte "Marxists", can't hold more than 1 idea/concept in their head at the same time.
@@kyledrumsPlease see my reply now apparently YT 'hidden' under "newest" comments.
Guy sounds like John McWhorter 😂