David > Recent Status Updates

Marx really thought Stirner was a genuine ideological threat. I know Bauer would've been pissed he got like 30 pages and I'm still reading at 300 deep into Stirner.

You see the germs of the weaker parts of Poverty of Philosophy here, polemical satire over genuine philosophical analysis, but you also see the clear foundations of dialectical materialism and a deep critique of theory and thought for theory and thought's sake.

Thus far not sold on the "rethinking" of colonialism by the critique of James and Fanon. Scott does demonstrate that the James-Fanonian analysis of colonialism leads to a "vindicationist" view of colonialism that necessitates its overthrow through a "longing for total revolution," but I'm not sold on why we need to "rethink" that. Saying that it doesn't fit the postcolonial "problem-space" doesn't suffice.

Utterly ridiculous comparisons of Czechoslovakia to French Saint Domingue, citing Havel against Robespierre and comparing Eastern Bloc "totalitarianism" to enslavement. Absurd and ahistorical comparisons resultant from generalizing philosophical analysis rather than concrete historical reality. Genuinely flabbergasted at such an offensive and insulting passage. Only possible from a white Western leftist.

And so we reach the dreaded chapter on class consciousness...

Wasn't a huge fan in grad school. Still disagree vehemently with the philosophical methodology employed in the preface, along the lines of Levine's critique, but I think Thompson ironically doesn't utilize his idealist understanding of class consciousness like he sets out to, and his work is better for it.