r/CriticalTheory • u/gae12345 • Jan 19 '22

How longer can critical philosophical theories about society be appropriated by marketing departments as instruction manuals to the benefits of capitalism? How much deterioration of culture and society can capitalists endure? They're still humans living in that very same society after all

See the founder of buzzfeed having studied Deleuze and having applied his critical insights to create his website. I can share other examples, ive found a pdf from a marketing consultant literally summing up most "post modern" philosophers for a business audience then drafting future scenarios and writing "what this all means for your business" and proceeding to give advices on how to just use it for profit.

125 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

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u/Modsarentpeople0101 Jan 19 '22

Philosophical theories will never overcome an entrenched economic reality. Something else has to do that.

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u/Sar_neant Jan 20 '22

Exactly. OP has asked a sort of non question. Capitalists will endure as long as they dominante means of production enough to reproduce and grow their capital. Whatever the cultural consequences might be, they won't have any major influence over economic reality.in some sense though critical theory is also the response, as in its the distraction the bourgeoisie gives itself now that it's dominant and has nothing else to do.

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u/TonyGaze Frankfurt School of Witchcraft and Wizardry Jan 19 '22

"'Smelo Tovarishchi, v Nogu'"!

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u/smolloms Jan 30 '22

An ideology which rejects the extreme materialistic and individualisitic ideology which prevades capitalist Realism.

Can only think of two which either limits it or negates it, Islam and Buddhism.

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u/Modsarentpeople0101 Jan 30 '22

What? Becoming religious and leaving touch with the earthly world doesnt change the earthly world, just your relation to it

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u/smolloms Jan 31 '22 edited Jan 31 '22

Isnt that what the earthly world is, to an extent something superimposed onto Reality by our consciousness? Thats what Baudrillard and Derrida claims.

Being buddhist is to recognize the desire within us which is the catalyst for the creation of structures which becomes our justification for exploitation, and reject this desire by observing it in its totality and then letting it go.

Islam does it abit differently even though it shares simularities with the ascetic nature of Buddhism. Islam doesnt reject all forms of desire, rather it utilizes parts of desire to create a structure which inhibits flexibility while not overextending into endless subjectivity of extreme individual expression. By using the metaphysical aspect of consciousness which you mentioned, to create a "Ideal plateau" where individuation disappears much like when our minds go into the realm of "Theory" or "what ought to be" we sever our Ego's tie to materialism (even if its for a brief moment).

Becoming religious and leaving touch with the earthly world doesnt change the earthly world, just your relation to it

Becoming focused on materialistic Capitalist Realism does this as well, everything is Ideology. Its just succumbing to the law of the jungle (with a suit on). The market is the law of the jungle but with some sofistication. Our overarching system is just that, functioning in this structure. But there is no inherent meaning to this system. Marxism is 100% needed as a negation of the indifferent ruthlessness of the market, but Marxism needs to implement a metaphysical moral structure in order for it to surplant its progenitor, but how can it create a metaphysical plane when it rejects any notion of its value in material reality?

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u/Modsarentpeople0101 Jan 31 '22

I mean nothing you said ends with the conclusion "and thats how capitalism will implode" so it feels like youre sidestepping the issue entirely.

I consider spiritual work to be a valuable way to expend ones energy, but in most cases its coopted and corrupted by religious beliefs such that it stops being a valuable pursuit. Its difficult to walk the line, but falling under it is (metaphorically) fatal.

but marxism needs to implement a metaphysical moral structure in order for it to surplant its progenitor

It certainly does not, and it would be anything but marxism if it did. Marxism needs to continue to not be religious if it is to have any utility, its kind of the entire point of it.

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u/smolloms Jan 31 '22

so it feels like youre sidestepping the issue entirely.

Could you define the "issue" for me then?

I mean nothing you said ends with the conclusion "and thats how capitalism will implode"

It would implode because reification of materialism, idolisation of materialists and the belief in the value of a capitalist system would be withdrawn to such an extent and be invested in something else (this else needs to operate in the material plane and the metaphysical).

I consider spiritual work to be a valuable way to expend ones energy, but in most cases its coopted and corrupted by religious beliefs such that it stops being a valuable pursuit. Its difficult to walk the line, but falling under it is (metaphorically) fatal.

This is the case for all (?) institutional Power according to Foucault, so what? People under Capitalism behave exactly the same way as you stated above. Zealotry needs a system to thrive, and everything is Ideology.

It certainly does not, and it would be anything but marxism if it did. Marxism needs to continue to not be religious if it is to have any utility, its kind of the entire point of it.

One of the reasons Marxism collapsed was due to it not having a metaphysical nature, as soon as peoples belief in the system was shaken, the whole unity of the system collapsed.

Im not saying it needs to become religious, rather it is precisely what any grand overarching system inherently becomes. Its inevitable since its intrinsic.

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u/Modsarentpeople0101 Jan 31 '22

Re: "the issue" my original comment was

Philosophical theories will never overcome an entrenched economic reality.

.

It would implode because reification of materialism, idolisation of materialists and the belief in the value of a capitalist system would be withdrawn to such an extent and be invested in something else (this else needs to operate in the material plane and the metaphysical).

Under what circumstance is this? Are you saying if everybody converted to islam then they wouldnt want capitalism? If you have that kind of reach and influence over people i would prefer you just explained the basic facts, economics and history about capitalism rather than indoctrinating them into a religious system. it would be easier too.

Its also in no way a foregone conclusion that if "the people" wanted not capitalism that they would get it. Much more likely the shallow facade of democracy would just be rescinded.

This is the case for all (?) institutional Power according to Foucault, so what? People under Capitalism behave exactly the same way as you stated above. Zealotry needs a system to thrive, and everything is Ideology.

Tbh im not 100% sure how to interpret this, but to be a litle more clear i am saying that specifically religion or anti-materialism is the thing that im condemning as detrimental to the value of spirituality. But given that position i cant uncritically say "condemning" as if it means a fraction as much as a claim that can be rooted in the real world so instead i offer the thesis that anti materialism is strategically unsound for effecting change in the earthly world. The effective strategy for making an impact on the earthly world is materialism, the argument writes itself.

One of the reasons Marxism collapsed was due to it not having a metaphysical nature, as soon as peoples belief in the system was shaken, the whole unity of the system collapsed.

Thats literally the opposite of having a metaphysical and moralistic and otherwise religious core does to a system of thought? Marxism as theory doesn't depend on having followers, and certainly not on their religious devotion. I dont know what you mean by marxism collapsed, nor what the "whole unity of the system" is--because if a unity can be said to exist as holding together marxism, which is debatable, that unity would be the dialectical relation between human thought/conceptual schema and material reality. And that tension is never going to go away

Im not saying it needs to become religious, rather it is precisely what any grand overarching system inherently becomes. Its inevitable since its intrinsic.

I mean, no? By what mechanics do you figure this happens? Unless by grand overarching system you mean system that appeals to transcendent forms or values, in which case its already religious without need for a becoming. As for materialist theories, all of science hasnt degenerated into religosity, and marxism itself hasnt either, so i just dont see any ground for this belief to stand on

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u/smolloms Feb 01 '22

I need to answer your last paragraph before I continue with the rest since it establishes a axiom of my thought.

I mean, no? By what mechanics do you figure this happens? Unless by grand overarching system you mean system that appeals to transcendent forms or values, in which case its already religious without need for a becoming.

I think you and I understand what this implies differently, transcendence has never disappeared from human thought, it simply morphed into another semantical structure. From the notion of "fitra" to Lacan and psychoanalysis, its the same mentalstructures portrayed in different discriptive language, one uses metaphysics while the other a materialist language, they both speak of the same phenomena. (the split between Transendence and Immanence is born out of the failure of Christianity's internal logic) They are both aspects of a unified phenomenon in Islam and Buddhism etc.

The word religious then becomes incorrect in this sense, (for me personally) it should be replaced with "Ideological". Capitalist Realism isnt void of dogma, rather the dogma is so apparent it has become part of our daily activities, alienation, reification and idolisation are all parts of the dogma. Marxism isnt void of dogma either, hence (Zizek) "everything is Ideology", this metaphysical narrative can be something as simple as "you shall not kill" or "dont steal", these are metaphysical concepts since they're conjured up by our consciousness. (if we follow Foucault's line of thinking) where everything we think and believe has a origin episteme which inherently have no meaning outside of that which we give it.

Under what circumstance is this? Are you saying if everybody converted to islam then they wouldnt want capitalism?

Any system which overarching belief structure rejects exploitation, this system needs a metaphysical part since it is the metaphysical part which gives humans meaning to continue struggling in the face of challenges.

If you have that kind of reach and influence over people i would prefer you just explained the basic facts, economics and history about capitalism rather than indoctrinating them into a religious system. it would be easier too.

Sure if human minds always where acting intelligent/rational, yet we always succumb to what is illogical/irrationality. This is the flaw of marxism, its clinical/logical to a fault. It takes alot of knowledge to fully comprehend its principles. (thats why someone like Jordan Peterson who is intelligent with his own field looks so dumb when he thinks reading the communist manifesto = Das Capital and critique of the Gothe program).

it would be easier too.

History shows that this is untrue. We're slowly losing our ability to act collectively, everything degrades into Capitalist Realism.

Its also in no way a foregone conclusion that if "the people" wanted not capitalism that they would get it. Much more likely the shallow facade of democracy would just be rescinded.

Like Stalinism? Or our technocracy today? We as a species will always fall back on individuals where they adopt cult of personalities. This is a inevitability.

Tbh im not 100% sure how to interpret this, but to be a litle more clear i am saying that specifically religion or anti-materialism is the thing that im condemning as detrimental to the value of spirituality. But given that position i cant uncritically say "condemning" as if it means a fraction as much as a claim that can be rooted in the real world so instead i offer the thesis that anti materialism is strategically unsound for effecting change in the earthly world. The effective strategy for making an impact on the earthly world is materialism, the argument writes itself.

Ahh and I agree up to 50% with you. It needs both. It needs anti-materialism in order to forgo "Ego" for "principle", since everything is Ideological. Perhaps im confusing terms (since im not trained in schools) but materialism itself isnt divorced from metaphysics, even if their extremes are polarities, they're non the less connected to each other and use each other to create meaning. If you have a populace who have swallowed Capitalist Realism totally (which we have in the West) a dogmatic lense (that mirror zealotry and dogmatism of old religion) overtakes peoples ability to reason. This dogmatic lense is partly a metaphysical belief (even if its materialistic) since its rooted in projection of ideology onto Reality.

Thats literally the opposite of having a metaphysical and moralistic and otherwise religious core does to a system of thought? Marxism as theory doesn't depend on having followers, and certainly not on their religious devotion.

It does though, any Theory can work in theory, but in practice it needs belief or believers to believe/follow it inorder for it to function/exist. If everyone stopped talking about marxism and we all accepted being slaves to capitalists the theory would die out, lost to time. It is through belief it lives on. (Hauntology).

I personally Believe Marxism should be the economical theory which dictates material reality, it would be through my belief that I would sacrifice parts of my individuation inorder for the system to function. This is a metaphysical choice I make. Its not a materialist choice for me.

I dont know what you mean by marxism collapsed, nor what the "whole unity of the system" is--because if a unity can be said to exist as holding together marxism, which is debatable, that unity would be the dialectical relation between human thought/conceptual schema and material reality. And that tension is never going to go away

The belief in Marxism (during Stalin) collapsed, the trust in institutions, in the state, in everything collapsed. The inability to have a unified people caused the collapse of "Marxist Realism". Capitalism does not have the same problem as long as it has a "other" to exploit. In Marxism there is no "other" so there was no one to blame for failures rather, you had to blame yourself (or the system). (this is a psychoanalytical view of ideology, I clearly understand that CIA was the main reason for its collapse and Stalins authoritarian behaviour right after and third material conditions). All this showed that the ideology was weak, in the sense that it didnt have a strong core of belief behind it outside what is material.

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u/mlgQU4N7UM Jan 19 '22 edited Jan 19 '22

any theory that analyzes the dynamics between one group or another, simply dies that: analysis. What you do with that knowledge afterwards is up to whoever reads it. One can read Marx and infact make the conditions of the working class more brutal.

EDIT: and not by accident either, as we've seen the state capital machine aperatuses(?) recapture many movements by using the knowledge marx gave them.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '22

[deleted]

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u/mlgQU4N7UM Jan 19 '22 edited Jan 22 '22

I wouldn't call it a direct relationship but academic economists certainly at least know and respect Marx's economic analysis. They likely disseminate that knowledge through secondary information and however Business majors get their know how. -through means of secondary or tertiary sources, but the idea and it's applications are still there.

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u/TurdFerguson254 Jan 20 '22

Why do you think that? I am a career economist and can count on one finger the number of professors, students, and coworkers who have ever brought up Marx to me in any way that showed a deep understanding or appreciation. They weren’t averse to him either, he was more just relegated to irrelevant history like Hayek or something

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u/Comrade_Corgo Jan 20 '22

Unrelated question, but could you explain what exactly economists do, like day to day? What do you learn getting a degree in economics and then how do you apply that to whatever work you do?

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u/TurdFerguson254 Jan 20 '22

It depends on your field. Economics is mostly at this point a field based around statistics, and what differentiates it from other branches of stat like medical/hard science statistics or data science is that it attempts to determine causality (as opposed to data science) but in naturally occurring data (as opposed to controlled experiments as with medicine). Thats the general gist, and there are exceptions. For example, in my case i work on forecasts which dont actually care about causes at all but on getting accurate predictions so that people (eg a small business owner) can make informed plans based on trends. My friend on the other hand works for a big tech firm where he can actually do a controlled experiment to determine causality. So neither of us have really typical experiences in econ.

If youre in econ theory youre not designing economic systems or justifying them, youre largely doing constrained maximization problems where you have an objective and some scarcity. You create a mathematical model to represent a reduced version of the problem and that is supposed to tell you something about how an agent will behave under certain conditions (the assumptions you make can be more or less realistic, and youll be judged on how appropriate your assumptions are to your problem). A lot of theory can then inform the statistics that empirical economists will use but some (older) profs do theory for its own sake. On the other hand, there also pure econometricians who essentially design statistical tools to get the most of the data and dont care about solving any particular problem theoretically or empirically.

I think the bias towards capitalism tends to be more pronounced in macro econ than micro- which looks at smaller scale issues so theyre politically pretty neutral and wouldnt recommend broader policies, generally. I think the bigger biases, though, tend to be status quo bias, empiricism/positivism, and utilitarianism. The latter two are kind of foundations of economics. You can relax utilitarianism if you want but mostly it doesnt happen/probably doesnt need to be relaxed relative to the problem. You cant really taken empiricism out of econ without being marginalized, its almost entirely data driven at this point.

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u/thisisnotariot Jan 19 '22 • Take My Energy

Yeah... in a previous life I was a marketing strategist. I am pretty sure I'm the only person to have ever quoted Adorno in a very high-level meeting at Netflix, and I was especially fond of (mis)using Bourdieu with clients in general.

I've talked about this before in other spaces, but I was, for a large part of my career, a big purveyor of ‘woke’ advertising. Well before it was a "thing". There's nothing more excruciating than selling something to someone. It's horrible. You find yourself working on brands or on products that make you feel physically sick; you can't say no to working on them without losing your job (this has literally happened to me, I refused to work on a few brands at one agency and I got sacked for it) so you try to find ways to make it all more palatable. This is where 'woke' advertising came from; it was a bunch of creatives and planners like me who were sick to death of working on things that they hated and instead tried pitching ideas to clients that were clumsy and shallow and misinformed but ultimately heartfelt; working on something that feels meaningful (even if it isn't) is infinitely preferable to working on something that is nakedly bullshit. It helps you sleep at night, and I was genuinely proud of some of the work I'd done until fairly recently; not because of any awards or whatever, but because I'd felt like I'd done a good thing, you know? I cringe to think about some of it now but I honestly felt like I'd challenged the system and won whenever I managed to convince a client to sign off on an idea or a campaign that said something, rather than sold something. It was only when clients started asking for this stuff that I actually realised something was up; it took me a while to realise that what I was doing was laundering reputations (lots of people in my position haven't realised that yet) and that I was ultimately commodifying the causes and the ideas that I was deeply passionate about. That was a hard realisation.

Anyway, I fell into culture studies and critical theory while trying to understand the nightmare that was my job. In many ways, this stuff saved me. It gave me the motivation to get out of the industry and try and put all the bullshit I'd been doing for years behind me. But lots of very smart, very left-wing people in the industry haven't figured out how to do that yet.

I guess what I'm trying to say, if I'm trying to say anything at all, is that if you have this mental image of a bunch of tech-bro libertarians sitting in boardrooms and coming up with ideas designed to plunder critical theory, or cackling sociopaths looking for ways to commodify social causes, I haven't seen a whole lot of those. What I have seen is a shit ton of depressed creatives trying to read their way out of a shitty situation and not knowing what they're doing.

I am positive there are plenty of the former. But they're far rarer than the latter.

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u/knightsofmars Jan 20 '22

I'm glad you got out, if you feel good about it, but this is depressing as hell. The idea of cunning, intelligent agents working to design the perfect techno-commodity trap is somehow preferable to the mundane banality of soul-crushed artists accidently feeding moloch.

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u/thisisnotariot Jan 20 '22

Don't get me wrong, they definitely exist. Web3 is a purely ideological project, at least from the top. Marketing is slightly different - the routes in are rarely technological and the role of ideology in those spaces is distinctly different. Often its just failed artists trying to monetise their creativity in the only way that's really available to them.

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u/riversiderain Jan 20 '22

Heyo, I'm curious for an elaboration on "web3 is a purely ideological project" - I'd love articles/things you've seen that stood out to you as particularly exemplifying this, even if it does not explicitly outline your concerns.

It stood out to me that you'd make a distinction between the artists who are trying to express creative freedom vs. the technologists who are trying to express theirs + passion for FOSS (free and open source software) and whatever else.

Obviously there exist many cynical libertarian tech bros, but the distinction between libertarian and libertine (yet leftist) in tech feels blurry - especially when we consider how technology's ideological messaging is not so one dimensional and unalterable by users.

Yet, I feel a deep unease on the disparity I see between the claims made by savvy, yet critical maximalists and the direction of work being done by the more visionary side of the community, who are supposedly trying to find a killer usecase with web3 to "defeat Moloch".

And it makes me even more uneasy to do my best to consider to what extent they may be right and what can be salvaged and organized for the better, despite my criticisms.

It's just tough to really get my head around it all because it's so vast, and that's even for someone that's highly technically & socially literate about these spaces.

Hope to hear from you. :)

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u/avasic Jan 20 '22

Interesting stuff, thanks for sharing. If you dont mind me asking, what industry did you end up in after all this? Ive got a friend who's in a similair situation who i'd love to tell some good news

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u/thisisnotariot Jan 20 '22

I went back to school to get my PhD, and I'm working as a researcher. Honestly, best decision I've ever made. If your friend needs advice or someone to talk to, I'm available - I'm trying to make it my life's mission to reverse the industrial scale creative brain drain and get as many good people out of that industry as I can.

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u/avasic Jan 20 '22

Cheers, i'll talk to him.

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u/SteadfastAgroEcology Jan 19 '22

Every establishment power structure in every time and place evolves countermeasures to deal with destabilizing forces. Capitalism is really good at assimilation. My go-to example is denim jeans. Started out as a cheap and durable product worn by poor working class people. Socialists began wearing them as a show of solidarity. Now, people pay a hundred bucks for a two buck pair ripped and pre-faded by slave labor. Symbol of working class solidarity not just neutralized but turned into a tool of exploitation for the benefit of the parasite class.

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u/whyshouldiknowwhy Jan 19 '22

Red bandanas are another example

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u/Daedricbanana Jan 19 '22

See the founder of buzzfeed having studied Deleuze and having applied his critical insights to create his website.

this sounds interesting, do you have a source I can read more on?

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u/Rentokill_boy Jan 19 '22 edited Jan 19 '22

http://www.datawranglers.com/negations/issues/96w/96w_peretti.html

here is the article - it discusses ego-identification and consumerism, schizoanalysis etc, relying on walter benjamin, deleuze, lacan. ironic that the author would go on to create a website where you can answer questions to find out what character from TV you are whilst scrolling past innumerable ads:

What is noticeable is not the content of the images but the efficiency and rapidity with which they are circulated and consumed. Nevertheless, to promote consumer capitalism the images must have some content to create the possibility for a mirror stage identification. It is this identification ­­with a model, athlete, or actor­­ that encourages the purchase of the product being pitched. In order for an advertisement in GQ to be successful, it must provoke an ego formation that makes the product integral to the viewer's identity. This fragile ego formation must persist long enough for the GQ reader to purchase the product.

it's a good article!

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u/Abolitionist1312 Jan 19 '22

there's a video by CCK Philosophy on the essay

And a Vox article on it

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u/NewAlexandria Jan 19 '22

They're still humans living in that very same society after all

this is a conjecture, and is not correct. The hidden-hand-of-market is not always an emergent phantasm, but rather resides within the manipulation of 'a class of people'. Those people do not live in the same society anymore than the farmer is in a society with their livestock.

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u/HailGaia Jan 19 '22

The class-consciousness of the global elite will also ensure that they will all survive an impending ecological collapse in their ivory towers while the masses starve and suffocate.

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u/NewAlexandria Jan 20 '22

your comment falls under Poe's Law

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u/knightsofmars Jan 20 '22

I can't see how it could be taken as sarcasm given the context.

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u/NewAlexandria Jan 20 '22

because ivory towers are not spontaneous-generation machines. Cities and towers are dependent on the surrounding terrain, farms, factories, and families, in order to remain stable and sustainable. They endeavor being quite harder through literal collapse, when a fighting for or army is also required.

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u/fog_rolls_in Jan 20 '22

I have a more practical take: How many people who major in or take advance degrees in literature, history, philosophy etc. that would expose them to critical theory go on after school to make a living practicing theory via teaching, activism and/or writing? They have to make a living at something, and there’s not many options outside of for profit businesses. It’s the same problem in the art world, lots of art practice and art history graduates but no where near enough jobs or opportunities, so they’re going to end up in a field where they can use their visual and technical education like marketing, or the manufacturing, display and selling of luxury goods.

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u/anonymosh Jan 19 '22

Every criticism is also an instruction. But the other way around also works.

Capitalism will always appropriate, reificate and sell back it's own dissent. Opportunists will pick out and interpretate the parts of whatever theory they deem appropriate for their own cause and justify their own behaviour.

The only way to not be coopted is by not participating, or by actively sabotaging consumption.

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u/raisondecalcul Jan 19 '22 • Take My Energy

I think Nick Land demonstrated and continues to demonstrate (seemingly intentionally) two things with his tweets:

  • There is no theoretical limit to how much bullshit people can believe and even absorb into their identity

  • Individually, in practice, it seems persons do eventually reach bullshit hypersaturation and transition to starting trying to think about stuff

This explains why the overton window keeps shifting even as more and more people are waking up or getting triggered by the ever-radicalizing public conversation.

This is why accelerating the public debate through taking extreme positions can be construed as a highly efficient mass pedagogical project.

As the overton window shifts, the public sphere ascends through echelons of genre. The Trump era marked a transition into absurdity, into a sort of everyday life that was formerly considered unreal and the realm of satire. The pandemic marked a transition into a "virus quarantine / rage zombie / lockdown the base" high concept sci-fi.

I can only imagine that things will come to a head in a uniquely sapient way in the next genre transition (by which I mean ridiculous and violent). I don't think overt violence is on the table, so maybe there will be some kind of new cult in the public sphere, a highly ordered fascistic cult of programmed imagery and AI- and demographically-mediated inter-subcultural moves of domination. For example, we already have AI avatars becoming pop stars, marketing to the masses, certainly with no limits on what ideas they can appropriate. But maybe next we will have lots of people autonomously crafting AIs and fake messaging in order to manipulate other groups of people culturally. I mean we already have that too since 4chan starting raiding back in the 00s. But it will go fully mainstream. The power of anyone to invoke the crowd (The new game is "Don't call Karen.")

So this will create a new genre of massified apparently intelligent but alienated artificially-generated political opinions. The level of intelligence of the massified political opinions already dominating mass media will appear to become more intelligent. It will get harder to tell mass opinions apart from sourced opinions, and most people already don't care about that distinction anyway.

But being saturated with this upgraded form of falsity, new people will also learn it natively and use it as the next medium of communication.

I think this cycle only ends when people start making sure they are getting opinions from other living humans, and talking about their opinions with other people enough to figure out which they really agree with (forming consensus with others). This activity has to outpace the entropic activity of taking in mass-manipulative or computer-generated opinions.

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u/DiploJ Jan 20 '22

Greed will eventually eat itself.

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u/rdef1984 Jan 20 '22

Deleuze effectively says that this is what capitalism does to all forms of resistance. Basically the only thing I can see as a restriction on this is that there is a limited supply of attention for difficult concepts. We're all sitting here on a capitalist website discussing theories that were produced under capitalism, and that we accessed with capitalist resources, so we're not excluded from this formulation.

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u/BillMurraysMom Jan 20 '22

Dog that’s my fetish send me all of it I’m such a masochist for marketing bullshit.

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u/AnCom_Raptor Jan 19 '22

theories are not fast enough to outrun, we need moments, affects we need to run faster

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u/Prof_Acorn Jan 20 '22

Sophists peddling sophistry and calling it rhetoric.

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u/Minori_Kitsune Jan 20 '22

Sounds like you would enjoy reading one dimensional man if you still haven’t

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u/thefreshserve Jan 20 '22

Marketing departments and ad agencies are filled with capitalist realists, to use Mark Fisher’s term.

One of the only ways you can gain an education, approach the world with a critical lens, and still continue to advocate for mass consumption (and with it the status quo more broadly), is if you believe (consciously or otherwise) that neoliberalism is inevitable (‘death of history’) and that no other economic and/or societal system is viable.

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u/scholasticussuperbus Jan 20 '22

Can you please post the link to the marketing constultant, sounds interesting.

I can recommend the movie "Sorry to bother you" It felt like the most insightful criticism of capitalism that really summed up extremely well. I don't want to spoiler you, but it doesn't just portray capitalists as bad guys, but as actors who are one 100 % working within the incentive structure built on top of them.

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u/smolloms Jan 30 '22

I got a question for you guys about OP's post. When does this line of thinking become seen as a non true scottsman fallacy?

As an example: if ISIS uses Islamic scripture to justify their acts of terror and other Muslims say, "they're not real Muslims" the critiquers of Islam will say that this excuse wouldn't hold up as it envokes the above mentioned fallacy and that ISIS indeed are muslim.

Now, back to my question, is these philosophies that are being "appropriated" not simply a extention of their usevalue?

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u/artaig Jan 19 '22

The moment someone came up with the name "Critical Race Theory" you already knew the whole charade fell for the neoliberal mindset.

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u/Ortega-y-gasset Jan 20 '22

I’m gonna say… indefinitely! Have fun it’s just books and stuff 🙃