EPTWhat Are You Reading 2013 - Page 154
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
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IgnE
United States7681 Posts
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Shiragaku
Hong Kong4308 Posts
Read both of them here if you are interested. As much as I respect Bakunin, I liked Nestor Makhno and Peter Kropotkin much more. And has anyone here ever read Seyla Benhabib and if you have, what works from her do you recommend? | ||
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ZapRoffo
United States5544 Posts
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Deleuze
United Kingdom2102 Posts
On November 12 2013 07:03 IgnE wrote: Does anyone have suggestions for beginning a study of Bakunin? Where to start? What to read? Bakunin, Mikhail Aleksandrovich & Lehning, Arthur (ed) (1973) Selected writings London : Cape Fantastic collection, you get to see how Bakunin's ideas develop from early letters to his sister to polemic sent to comrades in France. Lehning's introduction is really good as well. The parts where Bakunin talks about how stupid the social contract is and describes the true meaning of liberty are mind blowing, that it comes from society and is not traded away for security... brilliant. Bakunin is quite difficult as the majority of his writing that has survived is polemic rather than theory, which is a major loss. For this reason having an introduction to his work really helps. Can anyone recommend where I should get started with Thomas Paine? A friend tells me he is the 'greatest white American.' | ||
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farvacola
United States18843 Posts
In essence, Paine's spiel revolves around a societal recognition of the natural rights of man and the process by which their "discovery" must shape government's influence and control. In this sense, he defends the storming of the Bastille as an act of anti-despotism or an effective refutation of the idea that political power need be hereditary. There are some very interesting connections that can be made here between the political ideas of revolution and the illustrious images painted in the emerging Romantic literature/poetry of the time, and the same can be said for the likes of Burke's writings and the beginnings of literary Realism. That all being said, once ya read Paine once, you probably won't need to read him again, and though his importance is indubitable, what he has to say is more remarkable in a historic sense than in a markedly profound one. In other words, there are way better white Americans yo. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
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Carnivorous Sheep
Baa?21244 Posts
On November 13 2013 01:44 sam!zdat wrote: thomas paine can't be the greatest white american because that's me I will think of Eminem's White America as your theme song from now on. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
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Carnivorous Sheep
Baa?21244 Posts
yea pretty much :D | ||
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Deleuze
United Kingdom2102 Posts
On November 13 2013 01:44 sam!zdat wrote: thomas paine can't be the greatest white american because that's me ...you're WHITE!? | ||
dravernor
Netherlands6191 Posts
Regardless, I found the book very well written, but not an easy read in the sense that the beginning didn't flow for me. It took a while to get used to the writing style (at least 14 pages), but after that it was a good read. Been reading Life of Pi now. Okay gotta go, will finish post later. DOA TIME! | ||
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corumjhaelen
France6884 Posts
 The Balzac is excellent btw, my favorite so far. Also just after the Capital, it's pretty clear why Marx admired him. I even wonder if there might be a uncounsious inspiration he could have drawn from its descriptions to find the commodity fetish argument... | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
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corumjhaelen
France6884 Posts
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123Gurke
France154 Posts
![[image loading]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51eKvpBkl8L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_SX385_SY500_CR,0,0,385,500_SH20_OU03_.jpg){kind=icon} Three stories around 200 pages each in the same universe as his other books. This is basically a scaled down version of A Song of Ice and Fire where you only have a single storyline which is brought to an end relatively quickly. And I must say that I enjoyed this quite a lot. ![[image loading]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51eOjlOiugL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA278_PIkin4,BottomRight,-72,22_AA300_SH20_OU03_.jpg){kind=icon} This was quite painful to read after the shorter stories by GRRM. Too many acting characters, too many storylines, too many boring plots that I did not care about at all. This first half is somewhat OK, mainly because there is a rather limited number of characters. But then this number explodes and there is no progress at all, but at least + Show Spoiler + Jon Snow is stabbed in the end which makes it one boring character less. And I feel that he and Sansa are really that most boring characters in the series. Well, at least I was spared Sansa characters in this book. I find it highly irritating that most supposedly dead characters are not really dead. By now, if there is no very explicit description of a public execution, I always assume that this character will be back at some point. Really ridiculous. After having read five books now, I am pretty sure that GRRM will not bring the series to an end (at least not a satisfying one). His progress is far to slow and there are now far too many storylines. I have the feeling that he has completely lost control over what he is writing. So probably it will end like + Show Spoiler + Dune which also is cut off when Herbert died. Reading: ![[image loading]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/419gSl6BtPL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg){kind=icon} I had the impression that this is required reading in this thread I am about one third in and so far I really like it. Surprisingly readable and definitely worth reading. Mainly, he formulates beliefs that I have implicitly had before, but there are some new aspects that I had never thought about. Some random remarks:1. It is rather interesting to see that he wrote this before the crisis that started 2008 and still he describes many aspects of it exactly. I would like to know what he thinks of the crisis in the EU and how it is handled. 2. The second chapter was relatively weak. I still do not understand how consent was constructed exactly. Basically he only describes two cases but does not explain the general process (if there is such a thing). For example, in Germany the process must have been very different. We have no strong class society, freedom is not valued as highly as in the US, the media are not monopolized and we do not have religious fanatics. Still we have had out share of neo-liberal reforms in the past and also neo-libeeral propaganda as mainstream/common sense opinions. I do not know how that happened. France for example seems to have much less of this crap (but I guess they have it coming, too). I would really like to understand how this exactly worked in Germany. 3. One aspect that the elites are using against the rest of society that I have not found in the book so far: They are obviously playing off the losers of neoliberalism against the losers in other countries. E.g. during the Euro-crisis: For the Germans all Greek are lazy bastards who want to live off of German money. For the Greek the Germans are Nazis who want to destroy the Greek society. The French enjoy their savoir vivre so much that the Germans have to pay for their livestyle. The Germans are soulless robots who only care about efficiency. And so on... It is really frustrating to see that all these people directing their justified anger against each other and not against their true common enemy. 4. I do not really believe that neo-liberalism is a conspiracy of elites against society as Harvey seems to believe. I do believe that they facilitated the process and that the outcome is very convenient for them so far. But I do not believe that all of this was planned. It simply depends on too many factors that no one (not even the elites) can really control. And generally I am always sceptical about conspiracy theories. Definitely an interesting read. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
but if you don't think that international bourgeoisie consciously pursues its strategic objectives that is very foolish. Everybody is so concerned about not wanting to seem like a conspiracy theorist that they blind themselves to the fact that 'conspiracies' actually do exist | ||
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123Gurke
France154 Posts
The conspiracy comment was of course a crude simplification (partly due to English not being my native language obviously), but this part was so far the only one where I did not agree with nearly everything he said. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
basically the only way you can justify your skepticism about this is to believe that they are all stupid. | ||
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123Gurke
France154 Posts
On November 13 2013 07:36 sam!zdat wrote: why wouldn't they be? They all attend the same colleges and sit on the same boards. No, I think this is not true internationally. This may well be true in the anglo-saxon world, but many countries in Europe for example recruit their elites from their own education system, e.g. the Grandes Ecoles in France. You think they don't know what's up? As warren buffet says 'there is a class war and we are winning.' you don't have to have secret handshakes and initiation rites to cooperate in a project to consolidate class power No, but you do not need coordination either. Something we learn from game theory is that you may have mechanism where non-coordinated agents produce the same output as coordinated ones. You do not even need communication. Everything you need is that everyone acts selfishly and tries to achieve its goals. I suspect something like this may be the case here. Of course there is some limited coordination but I do not believe that it happens on the scale you would need to explain what is happening. basically the only way you can justify your skepticism about this is to believe that they are all stupid. No, I do not believe that they are stupid. But I believe that they are highly egoistic to an extent that makes cooperation hard for them. You do not reach their positions by teamwork but by backstabbing. Either way, I have to sleep now. I will continue reading tomorrow. Good night! | ||
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