toyotathon posted:

reading about erik olin wright, wtf is analytical marxism. and if you die as an academic do colleagues write your eulogy about themselves? counted 50+ first-person pronouns, liberalometer absolutely blaring

analytical marxism was an attempt to engage with mainstream liberal political philosophy by restating the basic insights of marxism in a series of clearly stated premises. this would allow the people involved to argue back and forth with rawlsians and such about things like distribution of goods or whatever. it was partially a reaction to the dominance of marxist theories that focused on culture, and partially a reaction to trying to rebuild marxism after the perceived collapse of the credibility of 'actually existing socialism'. it did not really work out but it's basically still one of the only forms of self-described socialism you'll find in mainstream/liberal philosophy departments.

erik olin wright himself was very focused on envisioning socialist-inspired institutions that could operate within the framework of liberal-democracy and a market economy. like he wanted to be "realistic" and offer policy changes that he could actually see happening in his lifetime i guess. that made him seem very relevant when everyone decided socialism was over, and this sort of "realistic utopia" stuff is deeply influential on things like labour uk's plans i think, but obviously it is not that relevant to our actual eco-apocalypse earth.

drwhat posted:

are there any modern american liberal foundational texts that actually could be read as an intelligent person articulating a coherent global political philosophy --- the kind of thing that someone who might consider themselves an "intelligent person" and an american democrat would use to e.g. rationalize "austerity", IMF, coups, etc to themselves?

reading that kind of thing sounds like getting a dunk tank treatment in a vat of sewage but i'm curious if it exists for liberals at all -- these attempts at internal consistency seem to exist on the self-described right, but i haven't really encountered whatever the msnbc crowd would use for the same thing. or maybe it's just thomas friedman.

The first thing I thought of was comedy Michael Ignatieff option. Stuff like 'Empire Lite' where he says things like empire is bad but there are some problems with only imperial solutions. A lot of the 'Washington Consensus' sorts of texts were like this as well. The main thing I guess is that liberals tend to see things like "austerity" as a painful *reaction* to bad government and not like a decision in itself. Like the real problem was that leftists ran up debts, liberals are the ones actually willing to fix the problem like adults. Like bombing a country is a tragic solution to a humanitarian crisis caused by someone else. So most of the books they write about it are like... this African tribe is getting wiped out, would you want to help? That's why we need the capability to project force... not because of bad Republican reasons....

c_man posted:

im reading "there is a tree more ancient than eden" by leon forrest and its pretty great so far. its closer to stream of consciousness than anything ive read in a while so its a really fun mental exercise even though im not that far into it yet. stream of consciousness is probably the wrong term but i dont have a lit degree so someone else can correct me

iirc there is some stuff there that is kind of stream of conciousness, but the most obvious influence is faulker's high modernist stuff, like compare some of the sentences from absalom absalom for example. i dont have a lit degree either, for the record.

lo posted:

iirc there is some stuff there that is kind of stream of conciousness, but the most obvious influence is faulker's high modernist stuff, like compare some of the sentences from absalom absalom for example. i dont have a lit degree either, for the record.

ive never read anything by faulker, so i dont really have anything to compare to

What was at stake could well be systemic contagion: Russian values might infect and then weaken the moral defense systems of American politics and business.

JohnBeige posted:

I'm reading Oryx & Crake in preparation for the world to come. Not very far in but p good.

when you're done, if you want to read a better version check out Windup Girl, or pretty much anything by Bacigalupi

tears posted:

maybe that comes across as smug considering the guy was literally murdered my the nazis for what he wrote... sorry politzer, forgive me my criticism

he would welcome it more than anyone, but yeah, as long as you keep in mind that this was an outline of his course work and not a final draft or anything i don't mind putting up a reasoned critique