Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I thought this was interesting, sent it some people and they really didn't like it. They took issue with his claims there were no progressive dimensions to the Iranian revolution and that the USSR wasn't a post-capitalist society.
TBF it's well known that your social circle includes Gorbachev's finance minister and at least one ayatollah.
 

version

Well-known member
TBF it's well known that your social circle includes Gorbachev's finance minister and at least one ayatollah.
I was watching a clip of Peter Ustinov on Aspel the other day and Aspel decides to ask the only woman on the show whether she finds Gorbachev attractive...



I'm glad at least one commenter pointed it out,

teddy1066 2 years ago
He asks Cook and Ustinov about politics and every question for Fiona involves sex. Now I understand the #metoo movement.
 

version

Well-known member
Yes.

9184972_orig.jpg
 

craner

Beast of Burden
I dunno that they think that of Iran now. I got the impression they felt there were progressive elements, but they were stamped out. I'll ask them.

That's true, there were. They were stamped out by Khomeini and the Islamists. And it was the latter that Foucault decided were the good guys. It was quite an important example of the accommodations that would be made in this direction.
 

version

Well-known member
That's true, there were. They were stamped out by Khomeini and the Islamists. And it was the latter that Foucault decided were the good guys. It was quite an important example of the accommodations that would be made in this direction.
What was his justification?

I asked one of the people I was talking to about the progressive elements of the revolution and they sent me this,
 

craner

Beast of Burden
What was his justification?

I asked one of the people I was talking to about the progressive elements of the revolution and they sent me this,

I can't remember, but it's all in this book I used to stock in Foyles:



Now you've brought it up, I might buy a copy and remind myself. I remember it being typically opaque and more than usually disingenuous.
 

version

Well-known member
The other thing that was said about that interview was they didn't like Postone because he was "leftcom".
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism by Janet Afary and Kevin Anderson. It includes translations of all his articles on the revolution.
 

version

Well-known member
That only makes sense if you speak a particular dialect of Leftist.
The first I heard of the term was when third described himself as one in the "Do we really want out?" thread.
 

version

Well-known member
Saves having to think about what they are reading if they have a neat label to dismiss the writer with.
They said that after discussing the interview a bit tbf. It was less "I'm not reading it because of the author" and more "I disagree with this, but then I've never liked the author anyway". They started talking about "value form" and stuff after that and it all went over my head.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
The other thing that was said about that interview was they didn't like Postone because he was "leftcom".
Yeah were they Trots or something? Left-communism is a decent label for principled internationalists who refuse to take sides in “anti-imperialist” beef.

Lenin described this sort of thing as “an infantile disorder” on the grounds of pragmatism iirc.

Leftcoms and anarchists are very much the consciences of the 20th century revolutionary waves and their failures -they ask all the awkward questions that need to be asked.

The USSR was not post-capitalist, but it does seem reasonable to say that there were some progressive elements in the Iranian revolution, because these things are messy.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Solidarity with the people who are killing our comrades.
I'm sure some of Foucault's ideas are worthwhile, but the idea that an openly gay atheist could find anything good to say about a theocracy where sodomy is literally a capital offence doesn't recommend him to me as a particularly clear thinker.
 

version

Well-known member
Yeah were they Trots or something? Left-communism is a decent label for principled internationalists who refuse to take sides in “anti-imperialist” beef.
I'm not sure. One of them said they'd rather "give principled support for national liberation (and maybe be a puppet of Moscow) than be a 3rd-campist and stumble into anticommunism and cheerleading imperialism".

They also described leftcom as "worthless navel gazing" that "sneers at anything that actually improves people's lives (especially in the global south lol), for the sake of some abstract crap about MUH VALUE FORM".
 
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