cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/29804343

Those who enjoy the wages of imperialism are more likely to have disdain for, or disinterest in, the complex struggles for national liberation in the periphery, which is dismissed as “the savage barbarism of the East,” in the choice words of Max Horkheimer.

This chauvinistic attitude has become so foundational to Western Marxism that theorists in this tradition often behave as if there were no need to actually study the history of socialist states in any serious manner. In fact, the attempt to do so is often looked upon with suspicion, as a sign that one might be a boor siding with the slaves, rather than a professional intellectual with a keen sense of what is worthy of scholarly inquiry.

  • Gabriel Rockhill - From the introduction to Losurdo’s Western Marxism
  • 小莱卡@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    25·
    5 hours ago

    condescending attitude toward AES while never having accomplished anything tells us all we need to know about western marxists.

    • Dessalines@lemmy.mlOP
      13·
      4 hours ago

      Oh you’re building production facilities to feed and cloth your people??? That’s not very communist of you to not abolish the commodity form and wage labor.

      Also countries are cringe, real communists don’t need one. Stop building things!

      /s

      • 小莱卡@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
        11·
        3 hours ago

        You claim to be communist yet you haven’t abolished commodity production? That sounds like revisionism to me! /s

      • Dessalines@lemmy.mlOP
        12·
        4 hours ago

        The best definition of authoritarianism: “When you tell white people they can’t do imperialism”

        • Commiejones@lemmygrad.ml
          6·
          59 minutes ago

          Alternatively: “When you tell white imperialists to get the fuck out of your country”

          China doesn’t even stand up against imperialism in other nations and they still get called authoritarian.

  • rainpizza@lemmygrad.ml
    14·
    4 hours ago

    I often feel that western marxists dismissal of AES is also rooted in unchallenged western exceptionalism.

    After plenty of times being exposed to those people in Latin America, it seems that privilege also fuels that purist notion that is prevalent within westerners.

    • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
      5·
      21 minutes ago

      It really is.

      If a USian realizes that the US government is shit, they conclude that all governments, currently existing or even theoretically possible, must also be shit. Because obviously “America is #1” so if “even” our government is bad then imagine how bad governments in other countries must be. This chauvinism cuts across a lot of cultural/political lines, radlibs aren’t aware that they have that bias so they don’t question or correct for it.

    • Dessalines@lemmy.mlOP
      9·
      5 hours ago

      Ya, he does really good work on all the US capture of publishing houses and the “theory industry”

      • Makan@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
        9·
        5 hours ago

        He should also focus on how fantasy and sci-fi publishing reinforces the superstructure of U.S. sentiment and Western sentiment in general, though that may be changing.

        Edit: Fantasy novels, horror novels, sci-fi novels, etc. are especially bad on geopolitics.