Metal Reviews

That sounds interesting.

I feel like I can't do it justice explaining it. 50 pages into it and he has tons of historical examples of how not only violence has worked but how proponents of nonviolence distort things to make violence seem as an atrocity. He focuses on several movements; Indian decolonization, the CRM, Vietnam and Iraq war protests, the Holocaust. The CRM was heavily influenced by rioting and protests while MLK has been whitewashed (historians have grown to ignore his anti-statist and anti-capitalist thought late in his life). Vietnam didn't end because some white middle class people didn't want to get drafted; it ended because the Vietcong resisted and soldiers within our own army resisted following orders. Protests in Spain couldn't get them out of Iraq but one terrorist attack completely reversed an election and got the troops pulled out. It's a really an awesome polemic/historical work.

Because it is. This isn't the time and the place, but just because violence "achieves" things doesn't mean that it's the moral choice, and that's the whole point of nonviolence. Nonviolence doesn't mean lying down as the tanks roll over you, either.

Exactly. His argument seems like a strawman argument to me: I can't imagine someone claiming that aside from a few isolated events, violence hasn't and can't achieve more than non-violence. But that's missing the point of non-violence entirely, as Goat points out.

The book makes the argument that, you, as a white male can advocate nonviolence all you want but when you're under the oppressive, grip of domination, violence may be your only alternative. Advocating nonviolence advocates letting people continue to suffer and being exploitative.

The book is trying to dethrone nonviolence's moral superiority, and say that it has castigated violence, closing a strong method of protest. It has chapters about how its racist, sexist and statist. Challenging those in power who have all the resources can't be done by staging sit-ins or demonstrations. Seriously, how can one challenge those who oppress you, care so little about your well-being without challenging their own well-being?

Franz Kafka- The Castle

Good stuff so far.

White males didn't think it up. And as to your last point, violence will be met with stronger violence.

Henry David Thoreau? Either way some of the biggest theorists of pacifism have been white (David Dellinger, George Lakey, Gene Sharp, AJ Muste, Dorothy Day). MLK advocated nonviolence but he recognized that tactics had to change to meet what had to be done. It doesn't matter who thought it up. You and I are in no position to tell oppressed people how to overthrow their oppressors.

Your manipulating the argument to shove violence out the door. Nonviolence can work in situations but it will not alter the distribution of power. By advocating nonviolence for the Global South, you're enabling what the state does since you're speaking out against what the people must resort to. Christ, why even challenge the state at all; it has nuclear missiles and M-16s?

It's originally an eastern idea, or ideal if you like. Ahimsa? Besides, again you're missing the point; nonviolence is the moral argument, which you lose as soon as you resort to violence. Ahimsa doesn't mean taking a beating, as I mentioned; it means striking and civil disobedience as much as sitting on the floor and refusing to move. There's arguments for and against, but rejecting it out of hand is just silly.

I didn't reject it out of hand, Goatse. It should be applied amongst a range of strategies. However, nonviolence automatically disregards violence. Which that's cool if you want to base it on eastern religion but you're never going to get anywhere challenging those in power. Anyways, this book is arguing that the modern pacifist and nonviolence advocating movement is actually immoral insofar as it's sexist and racist. By pacifying those willing to fight for their emancipation, you're simply enabling their oppressors.

Well I haven't read it, so I'm not sure how it's sex/racist/immoral. Will have to find a copie.

Got Ellis's American Psycho (yeah, the one the movie is based on). Should be good.

If you have a weak stomach, I'd avoid it. It's the book times ten. Seriously.

Got some Christmas presents early, as I'm away from the family for the day itself:

Jordan/Sanderson - The Gathering Storm (looking forward to this now, thanks to Brahm)
Kolakowski - Main Currents of Marxism (basically a 1400 page demolition of Marxism)

Yeah, if the violence in the book was translated directly to screen it'd be one of the most violent movie's I'd ever seen.

I did a bunch of skimming in that book, not only because of the violence, but also because of how much time he spends describing exactly what he/other people are wearing. Which is to say he spends a lot of time on it.

I always he heard he was respectfully critical at least.

He is, generally- I was being a bit hyperbolic. I'm using it as a reference as the thing is way too long to read cover to cover to get his overall argument, but I read his section on Adorno last night and it's extremely negative. Basically saying the whole of Negative Dialectics is a "sterile" waste of time. I get the impression that he likes and sympathises with Marx, but thinks he was ultimately mistaken, and that all the people that have followed him are a bit douchey. He seems to really hate Althusser, but then most people do, so that doesn't bother me.

It's obviously not something I agree with a lot of the time, but it's very engagingly written and also provides an incredibly good and generally dispationate examination of a massive range of ideas within the broad church of Marxism. It's one of the few sources I have that goes into a proper analysis of things like the labour theory of value and the ways in which it does and doesn't function today.

He seems to side with analytical Marxist on those issues which makes me want to throw up. Insofar as respecting Marx, refuting everything that follows and cherrypicking as to what they want to keep out of Marx's actual theory. However, they wrote a little after this was published I think, guys like Roemer, Elster, or Cohen. Reading about the failings of the LTV kinda just make me discard most of the intricate details and focus on the one point that labor power is where profits arise from, whether it's profiting off of their work or putting them under the grindstone to squeeze out as much work as possible. Exploiting labor power in the service industry isn't necessary due to machinery and technology but it's highly prevalent and the service industry can only grow through the exploitation of the Global South's labor. Throw out the math and keep the facts, I guess.

Does Negative Dialectics differ from regular Hegelian dialectics?

I don't understand the Althusser hate. I don't agree with all of his ideas but I see some merit in them. If it's about stabbing his wife or his horrible writing style then that is just stupid.

Yeah, I agree with you on LTV. It's not that much use as a technical indicator of price etc., but it is important as an expression of the qualitative relationships involved in production.

My understanding of Negative Dialectics is that it rejects any idea of absolute truth and complete resolution, claiming that such an idea is inherently totalitarian. Any "negation" would seem to be only partial and doesn't contribute towards any ultimate goal. So I guess in that sense it's very different from Hegelian dialectics. However, Kolakowski seems also to be ridiculing Adorno for simply repeating Hegel... so, I'm still a little confused about all that.

As for Althusser, I kinda do understand the hate. As far as I understand his ideas (which is not very far given how difficult he is to read) he takes the structuralist idea and develops it to a ridiculous extent, completely eradicating the importance of human experience. His writing is a really interesting example of an idea (people's consciousness being determined by their political/economic superstructure) being taken to an extreme. But, I really can't deal with the way he tries to erase empirical experience from the picture. In my view, the most relevant elements of Marxism to us today are precisely the ones that Althusser tries to discard as not "proper" Marx- i.e. alienation and the humanistic elements of production.

I don't think people understand Hegel.

As for Althusser, I always thought it was the epistemological break and his emphasis on ideology so it never seemed to fit properly. His emphasis on structure seems to coincide with his epistemological break insofar as it discards the Manuscripts which is my favorite Marx, the humanistic Marx. I see it definitely being mirrored in what I've read of the Grundrisse and Capital, which I think Althusser wanted to deny. What you're saying about Althusser makes a lot of sense and I think I'd agree with you. For a more humanistic Marxism look into Erich Fromm.