padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
I'm eager to learn more about Weber. People have been hyping him up as the dethroner of Marx in terms of influence on how to theorize our current stage of capitalism
Weber >> Marx is definitely a cool position to take

(next level up is to claim that other, more obscure early 20th C. German sociologist >> Weber)

really they - to my limited understanding - have different projects

brass tacks, Weber is primarily describing social relations, Marx describing economic relations

Marx is great at describing how a system functions but not how individuals act (see also: the resounding failure of Marxism in practice)

in a time of the mass disruption of traditional economic relations and they're ever-increasing blur with the social, Weber perhaps seems more directly applicable

I'm a big fan myself. I've read The Protestant Ethic and "Politics as Vocation", and some excerpts about authority/leadership.

The Protestant Ethic often gets tied up in challenges about its specific historical claims (i.e. the Protestant ethic) where the useful parts are actually about the rationalization of time and effort (the spirit of capitalism)

Weber would definitely recognize the current drive to optimize everything
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
We could have a penis thread. I saw an article on The Guardian the other day about how phallic/mysoginistic a skyline full of skyscrapers is.
Oh god, are people still harping on that old chestnut?

I'd love to see a practical design for a building for thousands of people to work in that resembles a gigantic minge instead.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
I wouldn't really call Marx or Weber "philosophers"

sure, all such labels are arbitrary, and the further back you go in time the more polymath people tend to be

but my fundamental definition of a philosopher would be someone who's primary concern is "why?", and sometimes "what?"

whereas Marx and Weber's primary concern is "how"

Machiavelli is closer to philosophy because even tho he was writing in a practical context he's still concerned with an ideal ruler

even if his ideal ruler is close to the opposite of Plato's
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
Do
Weber would definitely recognize the current drive to optimize everything

Helpful points, thanks. Especially the social/economic distinction, which makes sense from what little I know of Weber. Would you happen to know if any of the post-structuralist crowd get into Weber? Or accelerationist for that matter? A lotta stuff between those two, so I don't mean to put you on the spot.
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
I could very firmly argue that Marx is a philosopher. His thesis was on the natural philosophies of Epicurus and Democritus.

But to your point, it seems like Marx drew from philosophy/philosophic discourse to critique political economy, rather than concerning himself primarily with philosophy. That said, dialectical materialism does seem like more of a philosophy than a science to me - but I'm definitely still early in learning about it.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Would you happen to know if any of the post-structuralist crowd get into Weber? Or accelerationist for that matter?
no idea

I assume many post-structuralists were/are familiar with him as a towering figure in sociology, idk how much they actually read him or not

and I have basically zero interest in accelerationism - 100% no thanks - so I couldn't tell you
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
its trajectory is disturbingly reminiscent of the way large swathes of modernism + futurism segued easily into fascism
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
plato and aristotle
undoubtedly they're both geniuses and they gotta be read

but like, I fundamentally disagree with their take on people,and the ethics which follow - some people just have it, and some people just don't

like whoever gets to decide which children in the Republic are worthy to be guardians and which aren't, and assign their destinies accordingly

and their takes on education are super fucking weird from a 20th-21st C. POV
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
its trajectory is disturbingly reminiscent of the way large swathes of modernism + futurism segued easily into fascism
Do you see much of a chance that the relatively new "reactionary left", or some strain thereof, could actually become something like a fascism?

edit: I assume its new, but maybe I'm just catching wind. Much of it stems from accelerationism.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
and Socrates comes across as the most insufferable man to ever live in the dialogues, the absolute fucking worst

one endless humblebrag, the ur-humblebrag, "at least I know I don't now anything. you don't even know that. what a bunch of asshole."

and whoever he's talking to - besides sophists, who are de facto bad cos sophists - comes across as sycophantic yes-men

in The Republic it's Plato's own brothers and they spend the whole book going "of course Socrates, yes, just as you say"
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
The reactionary left as in the "cancel culture" stuff or the "dirtbag left"?
Seemingly, the left that opposes cancel culture, but still sees itself as being progressive. AKA the "anti-woke" left.

I see a lot of validity here, but not enough to do without the distancing of quotation marks.

Justin Murphy, Red Scare, probably a bunch more. This area seems to bleed into Joe Rogan territory. Interesting stuff.

Not familiar with dirtbag left - but if that means leftists who say "gay" and "retarded" casually, then perhaps.

A lot of it seems to tread on thin ice.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
The reactionary left as in the "cancel culture" stuff or the "dirtbag left"?
the former, I think

not fascism, no. authoritarian, yes.

fascism is a pretty specific thing with qualities and parameters well defined by people like Roger Griffin, Robert Paxton, Eco, etc

cancel culture etc certainly has authoritarian tendencies but it has nothing to do with things like palingenesis or nationalism in general

it's often opposed to many fascist hallmarks
 

version

Well-known member
Red Scare had Bannon on a while back.
 
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