Both yours and his analysis seem to be as devoid of any structure as Foucault's analysis. The issues surrounding labor, Taft Hartley, etc. and then our transition away from organized labor has more to do with the contractual basis of American Unions vs. corporatist structure that exists throughout large chunks of the rest of the world.
@@nmk5003 Of course, the major problem is corporate capitalism, and the transition away from organized labor. That;s what I meant about woke culture abandoning class struggle.
@prschuster The transition away from organized labor really didn't have much to do with so-called wokeness. The transition away from organized labor began prior to it.
I was in an American Studies PhD program for a few years. I’m still upset over how flippantly the professors dismissed marxism as “reductive, etc.” when they had never read a page of marx
Very interesting. In grad school we talked a lot about subjectivity. I think the real problem is when class (and class struggle) is divorced from the rest of identity, as you pointed out earlier on in the interview. Great work -- I'm very thankful for these insights.
As someone who is interested in both Anarchism and Marxism and tries to search for some synthesis between the two, I actually learned a lot from this video. A lot of C. Parenti's criticisms of post-structural/post-modern "radicalism" into Chomsky's criticisms, though in a bit more detail how Focault _et al_ manage to appeal to those who struggle. When I went to University, I did a Science degree but was still bombarded with postmodernist nonsense, which as a severely depressed student, it just gave me more depression. Actual nihilism would have been far more valuable, because nihilism doesn't have smugness about it. All I ended up figuring out was that if postmodernists call everything a "social construct" and must be considered with equal value, then according to postmodernism, postmodernism is also a social construct and therefore the view that "postmodernism is absolute garbage and must be discarded pronto" must also be considered with equal value to any other idea. It's really good to see C. Parenti continuing the legacy of his father (unlike other children of prominent Marxists like the children of Donald J Harris, Joseph Buttigieg, Tony Benn and Ralph Miliband). In this video he very much ties in how postmodernism has so severely infiltrated much of modern so-called anarchism, typical of Breadtube, seemingly including the same depravity/deviancy of Focault. I do note that Hedges's 2 month old video on his views of Marxism struck a fair bit of controversy. I would love to see more of Parenti on this channel and see more both Marxists and Anarchists trying to bridge the gap that's been around since 1872 beginning with Marx vs Bakunin.
Postmodernism said language is a social construct because it is self referential. And they were right about that. Not sure your claims are really born out in their writings. At least for the actual postmodernist discussed here. Your college classmates were not those though, even if they were the mask.
But why is being woke, wrong? Woke just acknowledges hierarchy. To confuse that with postmodern subjectivity is weird. Black people are pist modern for acknowledging white privilege???? Come on now.
Hedges undoubtedly demonstrates the skill and patience nedded to be a great journalist and interviewer in this provocative piece, as Parenti is deeply knowledgeable and erudite, but as many academics are wont to do, not always adept at dialogue with their interviewers. The result is a highly educational interview of a very insightful thinker, despite the fact Hedges definitely at times is giving clear cues to Parenti he would like to respond to, add to, or even challenge some of his conclusions. Great work, Chris Hedges! Sometimes the credit is inherent in the patience, fortitude, and presence of mind in focusing on the objective of the interview, even if that means dialogue may be lacking.
Gabriel Rockhill has busted Foucault and 60s 70s Left Inteligentsia very well... Chris Hedges could have a chat with him also ... Great presentation Christian Parenti ❤
Truly insightful philosophical analysis -- thank you so much. Every ideological opposition seems to be some version of Aristotle (Foucault) contra Plato (Marx).
Unsure what the thinking was with that thumbnail, but wrapping gender transition up with the culture war nonsense of "woke" (a word meaning a dozen different poorly-defined things depending on who says it) is a fine way to alienate trans folk away from your work. The term "woke" has been so abused by talking heads that much of the younger generation can only use it jokingly--including most gay and trans people. Taking the "anti-woke" position is picking a fight with a phantom. It's associating oneself with the same talking heads who speak on behalf of corporate power and against Palestinian life. To even be using the term "woke" is to just feed into this dying, manufactured culture war. It's to be a tool. The term is a shapeshifting and purposefully divisive delusion. In this country, the majority of people under 30 (and the majority of gay and trans people of that generation) have such misrepresented political views. Much of it can be ignorant and foolish, but it's certainly not what the media makes out as being "woke". There is a diversity of views within whatever demographic, and plenty of people who are open-minded when talking with someone respectful and who makes an effort of understanding rather than with someone who operates on a premise of contention and putting them in a box (as the flag in the thumbnail certainly seems to do). Try to learn about the actual politics of ordinary people of these demographics you are pointing to (trans people, in this case) by having sincere conversations with them, rather than just by extreme examples and what is spotlighted by the media.
Michael Parenti was a brilliant thinker and an even better communicator. I've read many of his books. Christian, unfortunately, did not inherit his father's skills.
Foucault was never a left thinker. That was manufactured. He was widely known as a philosopher who supported the emerging French technocratic system. It was only after he was exported by the US and got his CIA stamp of approval for being anti-Marxist that his association with the left was created and solidified. Gabriel Rockhill has done this work if you need corroborating evidence.
Furthermore, Michael Parenti’s work represents the true Marxist response to the “postmodern turn” as he assesses the new technologies that manufacturer reality, and never gives up on centering working people and working peoples movements.
Subjectivism (aka, thinking w one’s sentiments) as the main characteristic of the “target audience” is the very premise upon which the “engineering of consent” is actualized. Without it propaganda would not have an effect, advertising would not have an effect... (same with Public relations, psychological operations, social and behavioral engineering) Therefore, objectivity (coupled with generalists approach) is the biggest threat to the power structures that wish to maintain market dominance and continue to exploit their market base.
I can see why Foucault was drawn to Hayek briefly. Libertarian are perhaps the most relativist of all political persuasions. "You dare believe that you know how others are supposed to live?! You're suffering from a knowledge problem." It perfectly complements an individualist, different-strokes-for-different-folks attitude.
The problem with subjectivity is where you want to draw the line? If everything is a matter of opinion how do you determine what is true and right? Just because you have an opinion doesn't make it right. Furthermore is there really a difference of opinion? For example, if you claim that it's only Christians and other Abrahamic religions have certain attitudes about certain things, and then you lie and say that pagans think differently, this speaks volumes. It indicates that a small subset of people think a certain way, and they're trying to convince the rest of us that they're correct.
Did Foucault live by the way of death to pose the question can we universalize this or was he just a man to whom philosophy of power and amorality appealed? What ever you might believe he definitely showed his willingness to live by his death affirming philosophy. Shock and awe and pure wonder is what his figure signifies for me. If anyone ever ran into hell to ring the bell it was him. Angel to some demon to others. Insane we need a seriously good response to both Camus and Foucault.
An aspect of this issue that I find important but seems to be seldom discussed is the role of one’s relationship to hierarchical authority, especially as it defends the status quo. It’s pretty hard to make the case that anyone privileged enough to enjoy the protections of academia even as it exists isn’t a beneficiary of an inside club, and if one can leverage the power of that club to enforce personal choices in pronouns even more so. So much of the schism in society comes down to a belief of whether the social contract of the status quo works for you or not. It’s an illusion, of course, but those who have perceived value in authority will generally lean Harris, elsewise Trump. As the woke are generally the members of a privileged group it’s very hard to see them as progressive, they seem far more examples of ideological conservatism only with different preferences. No wonder there’s no interest in discussing class privilege among those who have a lot of it.
Yes Chris it's the scandal of philosophy that relativistic and subjectivist ethical perspectives have been strengthened while scepticism is held up to objectivism and universalist ethics. Abstract principles are the ambiguous and context sensitive blueprints that are objectively measurable in human behavior. That is the connection between to concrete word with its corresponding objects and the abstract word with its corresponding meaning to objectivity. They say love or politics can not be objects because they are only ideas but ideas have meaning that is objectified and observed in human behavior. All human laws rest on this fact and yet we are told that in order to think objectively we must defer to bias or preference. Its madness. I had to reconstruct the notion of objectivity in ethics when I realized the dilemma in philosophy. The dilemma that has David Humes claim that we cannot deduce an is from an ought at its nucleus. Students believe that objectivity has no logical basis in reality. Despite inferential logic that is defeasable but never the less can be used to give objective ethics a logical basis. I searched in vain to find a philosophers objective morality book that included logic epistemology and ontology perspectives so basically a sound philosophy system on the matter. I thought why is this? Maybe they think it not good for capital university businesses to develop it. I'm still outraged as it seems society has never had a mainstream grip on objectivist ethics. No wonder we deal in multiplication and still cant get food for the kids.
Can you please re-read and tidy up your comment a bit? (I.e. paragraphs and commas). It's just a little bit hard to follow. I don't mean to be mean. I am only asking because I am interested in what you are saying. Thanks.
@@Banana_Split_Cream_Buns yes sorry. I really have no patience for texting but I will try. Is there a particular sentence you find concerning or is there more. I will try now thx.
@@Banana_Split_Cream_Buns yes sorry I reread it and though I agree with you that my grammar is week. I do not think it is unreadable word salad or anything like that. Not that you put it that way. If you dont understand what I am saying please pose a question as I am to tired at the moment to polish up what I wrote. Thx.
@@phuzzywuzzyabearAs someone about the same age as Chris, and who spends too much time reading (as most who pay attention to this type of channel likely do), eye strain and burnout to the point of physical pain is a serious issue. White space and resets or pauses to eye muscles are needs to not further aggravate physiological harm and pain.
Subjectivism (aka, thinking w one’s sentiments) as the main characteristic of the “target audience” is the very premise upon which the “engineering of consent” is actualized. Without it propaganda would not have an effect, advertising would not have an effect... (same with Public relations, psychological operations, social and behavioral engineering) Therefore, objectivity (coupled with generalists approach) is the biggest threat to the power structures that wish to maintain market dominance and continue to exploit their market base.
Woke skin colour marginal hierarchy makes pageantry of suffering for rich people to sit and judge as those in poverty make emotion appeals for sympathy. Sick as the hunger games movie.
Is there any identity more pervasive than the global ideology of sovereignty? Who does no accept being addressed as the title of a monopoly bank? Title is a legal handle to ownership. Remember that a statement of sovereignty is not secular. Mister Sir
Not a new criticism - many on the left have made the same argument, that post-structuralism emerged as a safe replacement for class analysis that still allows one to posture as a radical. Off the top of my head I can think of the British left-liberal Brian Barry, the Marxists Terry Eagleton, Perry Anderson, and Alex Callinicos, and of course Noam Chomsky. My only question. Is this really the time for the left to be bashing "woke culture" when doing so is an obsession of the far right? It may represent a blunted radicalism made safe for capitalism that advocates only a mild politics of identity and recognition perfectly compatible with corporate power, but it is still an extension of liberalism and progressivism and in a country like the US given its history breaking down binaries based on race and gender is still pretty powerful stuff. Otherwise, why the virulent hatred of it on the right?
"The years of reaction (1907-10). Tsardom scored a victory. All the revolutionary and opposition parties have been defeated. Depression, demobilization, splits, discord, renagacy, pornography take the place of politics. There is an increasing drift toward philosophical idealism; mysticism becomes the shell of counter-revolutionary sentiments." - V I Lenin, "Left-Wing" Communism an Infantile Disorder
Depends what you mean by subjectivity. There are hard epistemological limits on human intellects and our individual and collective capacity for comprehension and knowledge following from quantum mechanics and being time-bound and cut-off from God's perspective as outside time but also throughout space-time. If you mean the reification of the particular over the universal, and the idea that the only truth is one's own experience and thus the particular experience of a given identity, then I agree. I'll also say that the therapeutic turn is also the turn away from politics as such, into false religion and the false piety of woke, where virtue signalling is openly treated as all sufficient from politicians, regardless of the policies and legislation they actually deliver, and the substance of so-called "political" activity, becomes the hunting of heretics and the condemnation in perpetuity of the "incorrect" in language or opinion. It's no surprise therefore that the therapeutic turn is historically rooted in cults, often funded and infiltrated by the secret police agencies.
So, calling out hateful, misogynistic/chauvinist rhetoric that spurs on acts of violence, and social and economic exclusion towards marginalized groups is bad?
If they were the victims, it would be an epic movement of liberation. Because it's women and people of color, it's just the chattel complaining. I really don't think there is a way to stand up for equity in the eyes of these men, who will never see us as comparable to them, or in fact, the same species, that they would recognize as valid.
This is some low rent content that consists of the same counterproductive straw manning consistent with anyone and everyone who decides to use the word "woke" seriously in a political context. This is so beneath you to dignify.
I think it is good to have this conversation even if I have issues with some of his framing... but I think there is a lot of important points Parenti brings up and that he and Hedges unfortunately and ironically are a bit captive as well to the need for clickbait virality in titles/topics and how they are presented.
"Woke", the thumbnail, the loaded questions. I have a lot of respect for some of Chris' work, but not this. This is culture war tunnel vision at best, clickbait at worst. To drag trans people in as being defined by the buzzword via the thumbnail is fallacious and contentious. Conversations should be had on explicit topics, and not on buzzwords.
@@SquaresToOvals Beautifully said. Sometimes it feels like he spends too much time trying to defensively distance himself from what he perceives as problematic sectors of the modern left rather than actually doing any real journalism or attempting to inform on important topics. Not to mention how out of touch it comes off sometimes. "Woke" is a meaningless word and the people who are left leaning who dignify this kind of shit are ultimately throwing their peers under the bus for a slight sense of superiority.
There are transgender people and there is the political transgender movement that i cannot imagine has much actual human support, but its divisive and serves the two party purpose well. When i think of woke I think of the political construct not actual transgender people, the political construct is very harmful to women's hard won rights, whereas I can imagine that any male who biologically feels like a woman, would not want to alienate other women not infringe on their natural rights to privacy etc. He would want to be accepted as a she. I've always found the woke trans gender politics to be so obviously a patriarchal invention aimed at disempowering women and even worse disturbing children, its so in your face and aggressive. You never hear about any problems going the other way: female to male because men would have zero problem telling a woman to eff off out of their locker room and it would never make it to the news. Pronouns are bullshit too imo, a way to waste a lot of time and energy on something that adds nothing to anyone's actual quality of life! Lets talk pronouns instead of universal human rights or class struggle. Again if one of my friends wanted me to call them a turtle i would oblige, but nobody needs there to be laws about it. If someone asks to be referred to a certain way in most cases people will oblige out of courtesy, isn't that good enough? So maybe that is how he is referring to woke? not the way an American republican might use the word.
Twin evils. Postmodernists one correct attribution is that all language is self referential. Hedges annoys the crap out of me sometimes and I know he'd be about as willing to debate me on issues I contest as an American politician would be to debate him.
“Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) originally meaning alertness to racial prejudice and discrimination. Beginning in the 2010s, it came to be used as slang for a broader awareness of social inequalities such as racial injustice, sexism, and denial of LGBT rights.”
_"...social inequalities such as racial injustice, sexism and denial of LGBT rights."_ That's definitely woke. No mention of _economic_ inequalities or class. You proved their point.
Words migrate, and whether or not you like what that word is now synonymous with, it has come to represent a much broader phenomenon. I don't like what the word liberal has come to represent in US politics, but I don't get to control how everyone talks. It is what it is.
@@Banana_Split_Cream_Buns you didn’t understand my point to begin with. What I’m saying is it came from a real need to address racial issues. And not exploring that is essentially disparaging it needlessly just like the right does. These are just angry white guys who don’t like something that they never bothered to understand to begin with.
@@jenwal420 and it’s funny how it’s Black words that deal with their literal survival that we have no problem misusing and disparaging because “words change” bullshit. There are WAY more words to describe the phenomenon that they are talking about. They even use them. But no, let’s pile on this weird animosity of AAVE phrases because that’s easier for old white dudes.
Christian Parenti is NOT James Lindsay. I can disagree with him in some ways without this sort of comment... btw if you listen to him carefully he says the other issues are important, he just thinks (rightly!) that the main problem is Capitalism... What do you disagree with his assertion that Academics detach class struggle from cultural struggles and are able to pursue a left politics without needing to address the root of the problems (material concerns connected to the Capitalist system)?
Interesting, sounds like this dude has pinpointed my main issue with politics in the last 10 years. Constant focus on the symptoms than the cause. Don't talk about the greed plebs, fight over this and be gone peasant. From this day on, you are not SJW but woke.
Not only does woke culture abandon class struggle; it's also wacky as hell. It consists of sanctimonious finger pointing.
"Woke" people make me - "feel unsafe". 😅
Both yours and his analysis seem to be as devoid of any structure as Foucault's analysis. The issues surrounding labor, Taft Hartley, etc. and then our transition away from organized labor has more to do with the contractual basis of American Unions vs. corporatist structure that exists throughout large chunks of the rest of the world.
@@nmk5003 Of course, the major problem is corporate capitalism, and the transition away from organized labor. That;s what I meant about woke culture abandoning class struggle.
@prschuster The transition away from organized labor really didn't have much to do with so-called wokeness. The transition away from organized labor began prior to it.
@@nmk5003 You're preaching to the choir. You're assuming I don't know that.
I was in an American Studies PhD program for a few years. I’m still upset over how flippantly the professors dismissed marxism as “reductive, etc.” when they had never read a page of marx
@@adelaidashelley5477 💯💯💯💯💯
Very interesting. In grad school we talked a lot about subjectivity. I think the real problem is when class (and class struggle) is divorced from the rest of identity, as you pointed out earlier on in the interview. Great work -- I'm very thankful for these insights.
As someone who is interested in both Anarchism and Marxism and tries to search for some synthesis between the two, I actually learned a lot from this video.
A lot of C. Parenti's criticisms of post-structural/post-modern "radicalism" into Chomsky's criticisms, though in a bit more detail how Focault _et al_ manage to appeal to those who struggle.
When I went to University, I did a Science degree but was still bombarded with postmodernist nonsense, which as a severely depressed student, it just gave me more depression. Actual nihilism would have been far more valuable, because nihilism doesn't have smugness about it.
All I ended up figuring out was that if postmodernists call everything a "social construct" and must be considered with equal value, then according to postmodernism, postmodernism is also a social construct and therefore the view that "postmodernism is absolute garbage and must be discarded pronto" must also be considered with equal value to any other idea.
It's really good to see C. Parenti continuing the legacy of his father (unlike other children of prominent Marxists like the children of Donald J Harris, Joseph Buttigieg, Tony Benn and Ralph Miliband).
In this video he very much ties in how postmodernism has so severely infiltrated much of modern so-called anarchism, typical of Breadtube, seemingly including the same depravity/deviancy of Focault.
I do note that Hedges's 2 month old video on his views of Marxism struck a fair bit of controversy. I would love to see more of Parenti on this channel and see more both Marxists and Anarchists trying to bridge the gap that's been around since 1872 beginning with Marx vs Bakunin.
Postmodernism said language is a social construct because it is self referential. And they were right about that.
Not sure your claims are really born out in their writings.
At least for the actual postmodernist discussed here. Your college classmates were not those though, even if they were the mask.
But why is being woke, wrong? Woke just acknowledges hierarchy. To confuse that with postmodern subjectivity is weird. Black people are pist modern for acknowledging white privilege???? Come on now.
Get Badu on.
Hedges undoubtedly demonstrates the skill and patience nedded to be a great journalist and interviewer in this provocative piece, as Parenti is deeply knowledgeable and erudite, but as many academics are wont to do, not always adept at dialogue with their interviewers. The result is a highly educational interview of a very insightful thinker, despite the fact Hedges definitely at times is giving clear cues to Parenti he would like to respond to, add to, or even challenge some of his conclusions. Great work, Chris Hedges! Sometimes the credit is inherent in the patience, fortitude, and presence of mind in focusing on the objective of the interview, even if that means dialogue may be lacking.
Gabriel Rockhill has busted Foucault and 60s 70s Left Inteligentsia very well... Chris Hedges could have a chat with him also ... Great presentation Christian Parenti ❤
Agreed! Rockhill also discussed the role of he CIA ins promoting French post-structuralism as a more manageable form of radicalism.
Truly insightful philosophical analysis -- thank you so much.
Every ideological opposition seems to be some version of Aristotle (Foucault) contra Plato (Marx).
James Peck had analyzed the rise of a language of 'Human Rights' in US Foreign Policy parlor, bending civil rights movements toward imperial design.
Unsure what the thinking was with that thumbnail, but wrapping gender transition up with the culture war nonsense of "woke" (a word meaning a dozen different poorly-defined things depending on who says it) is a fine way to alienate trans folk away from your work. The term "woke" has been so abused by talking heads that much of the younger generation can only use it jokingly--including most gay and trans people. Taking the "anti-woke" position is picking a fight with a phantom. It's associating oneself with the same talking heads who speak on behalf of corporate power and against Palestinian life. To even be using the term "woke" is to just feed into this dying, manufactured culture war. It's to be a tool. The term is a shapeshifting and purposefully divisive delusion.
In this country, the majority of people under 30 (and the majority of gay and trans people of that generation) have such misrepresented political views. Much of it can be ignorant and foolish, but it's certainly not what the media makes out as being "woke". There is a diversity of views within whatever demographic, and plenty of people who are open-minded when talking with someone respectful and who makes an effort of understanding rather than with someone who operates on a premise of contention and putting them in a box (as the flag in the thumbnail certainly seems to do).
Try to learn about the actual politics of ordinary people of these demographics you are pointing to (trans people, in this case) by having sincere conversations with them, rather than just by extreme examples and what is spotlighted by the media.
Michael Parenti was a brilliant thinker and an even better communicator. I've read many of his books. Christian, unfortunately, did not inherit his father's skills.
fascinating discussion.
Great episode. Thank you.
Excellent clip!
Foucault was never a left thinker. That was manufactured. He was widely known as a philosopher who supported the emerging French technocratic system. It was only after he was exported by the US and got his CIA stamp of approval for being anti-Marxist that his association with the left was created and solidified. Gabriel Rockhill has done this work if you need corroborating evidence.
Furthermore, Michael Parenti’s work represents the true Marxist response to the “postmodern turn” as he assesses the new technologies that manufacturer reality, and never gives up on centering working people and working peoples movements.
Thank you! Excellent!
Check out “We Have Never Been WOKE” by Musa al-Gharbi
Subjectivism (aka, thinking w one’s sentiments) as the main characteristic of the “target audience” is the very premise upon which the “engineering of consent” is actualized. Without it propaganda would not have an effect, advertising would not have an effect... (same with Public relations, psychological operations, social and behavioral engineering)
Therefore, objectivity (coupled with generalists approach) is the biggest threat to the power structures that wish to maintain market dominance and continue to exploit their market base.
this was way too short and deserves more !
There's a link above to the one hour version. "full episode"
"Subjectivity becomes a battleground for the left" -- as always, both Parentis zero in and sum up so well!
I could not follow what he was saying.😮💨
Good interview. 😎👍
I can see why Foucault was drawn to Hayek briefly. Libertarian are perhaps the most relativist of all political persuasions. "You dare believe that you know how others are supposed to live?! You're suffering from a knowledge problem."
It perfectly complements an individualist, different-strokes-for-different-folks attitude.
Interesting delivery of
The problem with subjectivity is where you want to draw the line? If everything is a matter of opinion how do you determine what is true and right? Just because you have an opinion doesn't make it right. Furthermore is there really a difference of opinion? For example, if you claim that it's only Christians and other Abrahamic religions have certain attitudes about certain things, and then you lie and say that pagans think differently, this speaks volumes. It indicates that a small subset of people think a certain way, and they're trying to convince the rest of us that they're correct.
Did Foucault live by the way of death to pose the question can we universalize this or was he just a man to whom philosophy of power and amorality appealed? What ever you might believe he definitely showed his willingness to live by his death affirming philosophy. Shock and awe and pure wonder is what his figure signifies for me. If anyone ever ran into hell to ring the bell it was him. Angel to some demon to others. Insane we need a seriously good response to both Camus and Foucault.
Muchas gracias.
How is Chris’s father doing ?
I dearly miss hearing Michael's take on things.
Wow! I wish Jordan B Peterson could hear this! ❤
An aspect of this issue that I find important but seems to be seldom discussed is the role of one’s relationship to hierarchical authority, especially as it defends the status quo. It’s pretty hard to make the case that anyone privileged enough to enjoy the protections of academia even as it exists isn’t a beneficiary of an inside club, and if one can leverage the power of that club to enforce personal choices in pronouns even more so. So much of the schism in society comes down to a belief of whether the social contract of the status quo works for you or not. It’s an illusion, of course, but those who have perceived value in authority will generally lean Harris, elsewise Trump. As the woke are generally the members of a privileged group it’s very hard to see them as progressive, they seem far more examples of ideological conservatism only with different preferences. No wonder there’s no interest in discussing class privilege among those who have a lot of it.
Yes Chris it's the scandal of philosophy that relativistic and subjectivist ethical perspectives have been strengthened while scepticism is held up to objectivism and universalist ethics. Abstract principles are the ambiguous and context sensitive blueprints that are objectively measurable in human behavior. That is the connection between to concrete word with its corresponding objects and the abstract word with its corresponding meaning to objectivity. They say love or politics can not be objects because they are only ideas but ideas have meaning that is objectified and observed in human behavior. All human laws rest on this fact and yet we are told that in order to think objectively we must defer to bias or preference. Its madness. I had to reconstruct the notion of objectivity in ethics when I realized the dilemma in philosophy. The dilemma that has David Humes claim that we cannot deduce an is from an ought at its nucleus. Students believe that objectivity has no logical basis in reality. Despite inferential logic that is defeasable but never the less can be used to give objective ethics a logical basis. I searched in vain to find a philosophers objective morality book that included logic epistemology and ontology perspectives so basically a sound philosophy system on the matter. I thought why is this? Maybe they think it not good for capital university businesses to develop it. I'm still outraged as it seems society has never had a mainstream grip on objectivist ethics. No wonder we deal in multiplication and still cant get food for the kids.
Can you please re-read and tidy up your comment a bit? (I.e. paragraphs and commas). It's just a little bit hard to follow.
I don't mean to be mean. I am only asking because I am interested in what you are saying. Thanks.
@@Banana_Split_Cream_Buns yes sorry. I really have no patience for texting but I will try. Is there a particular sentence you find concerning or is there more. I will try now thx.
@@Banana_Split_Cream_Buns yes sorry I reread it and though I agree with you that my grammar is week. I do not think it is unreadable word salad or anything like that. Not that you put it that way. If you dont understand what I am saying please pose a question as I am to tired at the moment to polish up what I wrote. Thx.
@@phuzzywuzzyabearAs someone about the same age as Chris, and who spends too much time reading (as most who pay attention to this type of channel likely do), eye strain and burnout to the point of physical pain is a serious issue.
White space and resets or pauses to eye muscles are needs to not further aggravate physiological harm and pain.
Subjectivism (aka, thinking w one’s sentiments) as the main characteristic of the “target audience” is the very premise upon which the “engineering of consent” is actualized. Without it propaganda would not have an effect, advertising would not have an effect... (same with Public relations, psychological operations, social and behavioral engineering)
Therefore, objectivity (coupled with generalists approach) is the biggest threat to the power structures that wish to maintain market dominance and continue to exploit their market base.
Woke skin colour marginal hierarchy makes pageantry of suffering for rich people to sit and judge as those in poverty make emotion appeals for sympathy. Sick as the hunger games movie.
Is there any identity more pervasive than the global ideology of sovereignty? Who does no accept being addressed as the title of a monopoly bank?
Title is a legal handle to ownership. Remember that a statement of sovereignty is not secular.
Mister Sir
He really does look like his father.
Not a new criticism - many on the left have made the same argument, that post-structuralism emerged as a safe replacement for class analysis that still allows one to posture as a radical. Off the top of my head I can think of the British left-liberal Brian Barry, the Marxists Terry Eagleton, Perry Anderson, and Alex Callinicos, and of course Noam Chomsky. My only question. Is this really the time for the left to be bashing "woke culture" when doing so is an obsession of the far right? It may represent a blunted radicalism made safe for capitalism that advocates only a mild politics of identity and recognition perfectly compatible with corporate power, but it is still an extension of liberalism and progressivism and in a country like the US given its history breaking down binaries based on race and gender is still pretty powerful stuff. Otherwise, why the virulent hatred of it on the right?
"The years of reaction (1907-10). Tsardom scored a victory. All the revolutionary and opposition parties have been defeated. Depression, demobilization, splits, discord, renagacy, pornography take the place of politics. There is an increasing drift toward philosophical idealism; mysticism becomes the shell of counter-revolutionary sentiments."
- V I Lenin, "Left-Wing" Communism an Infantile Disorder
The very heart of Marxism is worker owned workplaces. It's that that brings democracy into the hands of the masses. The USSR failed to deliver.
Soviet & US workers both had the same foreman busting their asses over being late off break.
Depends what you mean by subjectivity. There are hard epistemological limits on human intellects and our individual and collective capacity for comprehension and knowledge following from quantum mechanics and being time-bound and cut-off from God's perspective as outside time but also throughout space-time.
If you mean the reification of the particular over the universal, and the idea that the only truth is one's own experience and thus the particular experience of a given identity, then I agree.
I'll also say that the therapeutic turn is also the turn away from politics as such, into false religion and the false piety of woke, where virtue signalling is openly treated as all sufficient from politicians, regardless of the policies and legislation they actually deliver, and the substance of so-called "political" activity, becomes the hunting of heretics and the condemnation in perpetuity of the "incorrect" in language or opinion. It's no surprise therefore that the therapeutic turn is historically rooted in cults, often funded and infiltrated by the secret police agencies.
Is Christian anything to Michael. He'd be around the right age.
?
Michael is Christian's father.
Just what is 'woke' ??
So, calling out hateful, misogynistic/chauvinist rhetoric that spurs on acts of violence, and social and economic exclusion towards marginalized groups is bad?
If they were the victims, it would be an epic movement of liberation. Because it's women and people of color, it's just the chattel complaining. I really don't think there is a way to stand up for equity in the eyes of these men, who will never see us as comparable to them, or in fact, the same species, that they would recognize as valid.
This is some low rent content that consists of the same counterproductive straw manning consistent with anyone and everyone who decides to use the word "woke" seriously in a political context. This is so beneath you to dignify.
I think it is good to have this conversation even if I have issues with some of his framing... but I think there is a lot of important points Parenti brings up and that he and Hedges unfortunately and ironically are a bit captive as well to the need for clickbait virality in titles/topics and how they are presented.
"Woke", the thumbnail, the loaded questions. I have a lot of respect for some of Chris' work, but not this.
This is culture war tunnel vision at best, clickbait at worst. To drag trans people in as being defined by the buzzword via the thumbnail is fallacious and contentious.
Conversations should be had on explicit topics, and not on buzzwords.
@@SquaresToOvals Beautifully said. Sometimes it feels like he spends too much time trying to defensively distance himself from what he perceives as problematic sectors of the modern left rather than actually doing any real journalism or attempting to inform on important topics. Not to mention how out of touch it comes off sometimes. "Woke" is a meaningless word and the people who are left leaning who dignify this kind of shit are ultimately throwing their peers under the bus for a slight sense of superiority.
There are transgender people and there is the political transgender movement that i cannot imagine has much actual human support, but its divisive and serves the two party purpose well.
When i think of woke I think of the political construct not actual transgender people, the political construct is very harmful to women's hard won rights, whereas I can imagine that any male who biologically feels like a woman, would not want to alienate other women not infringe on their natural rights to privacy etc. He would want to be accepted as a she.
I've always found the woke trans gender politics to be so obviously a patriarchal invention aimed at disempowering women and even worse disturbing children, its so in your face and aggressive.
You never hear about any problems going the other way: female to male because men would have zero problem telling a woman to eff off out of their locker room and it would never make it to the news.
Pronouns are bullshit too imo, a way to waste a lot of time and energy on something that adds nothing to anyone's actual quality of life! Lets talk pronouns instead of universal human rights or class struggle.
Again if one of my friends wanted me to call them a turtle i would oblige, but nobody needs there to be laws about it. If someone asks to be referred to a certain way in most cases people will oblige out of courtesy, isn't that good enough?
So maybe that is how he is referring to woke? not the way an American republican might use the word.
Twin evils. Postmodernists one correct attribution is that all language is self referential.
Hedges annoys the crap out of me sometimes and I know he'd be about as willing to debate me on issues I contest as an American politician would be to debate him.
You wanna debate Hedges? I mean if you have the prestige you should challenge him in his Q and A’s
“Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) originally meaning alertness to racial prejudice and discrimination. Beginning in the 2010s, it came to be used as slang for a broader awareness of social inequalities such as racial injustice, sexism, and denial of LGBT rights.”
_"...social inequalities such as racial injustice, sexism and denial of LGBT rights."_
That's definitely woke. No mention of _economic_ inequalities or class. You proved their point.
Words migrate, and whether or not you like what that word is now synonymous with, it has come to represent a much broader phenomenon.
I don't like what the word liberal has come to represent in US politics, but I don't get to control how everyone talks. It is what it is.
@@Banana_Split_Cream_Buns you didn’t understand my point to begin with. What I’m saying is it came from a real need to address racial issues. And not exploring that is essentially disparaging it needlessly just like the right does.
These are just angry white guys who don’t like something that they never bothered to understand to begin with.
@@jenwal420 and it’s funny how it’s Black words that deal with their literal survival that we have no problem misusing and disparaging because “words change” bullshit. There are WAY more words to describe the phenomenon that they are talking about. They even use them.
But no, let’s pile on this weird animosity of AAVE phrases because that’s easier for old white dudes.
Christian Parenti is NOT James Lindsay.
I can disagree with him in some ways without this sort of comment... btw if you listen to him carefully he says the other issues are important, he just thinks (rightly!) that the main problem is Capitalism...
What do you disagree with his assertion that Academics detach class struggle from cultural struggles and are able to pursue a left politics without needing to address the root of the problems (material concerns connected to the Capitalist system)?
Interesting, sounds like this dude has pinpointed my main issue with politics in the last 10 years. Constant focus on the symptoms than the cause.
Don't talk about the greed plebs, fight over this and be gone peasant.
From this day on, you are not SJW but woke.