tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post6794616679649541335..comments2024-03-29T09:14:53.583+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: Culture as ConspiracyPhilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-44074017333829847872007-03-30T00:56:00.000+01:002007-03-30T00:56:00.000+01:00Hi PhilI attempted to reply before but my irration...Hi Phil<BR/>I attempted to reply before but my irrational fear of cookies probably fucked it up - so: I was actually referring to Webern i.e. Anton the composer, whose writings on music are as compact as his actual music but whose "Path To The New Music" is possibly more worthwhile than most degree courses. As regards L Wittgenstein - my advice is read him like you would (as you do!) (say) Finnegans Wake i.e. this is actually what it feels and works like sometimes when you think about it - after all isn't the world Marx presents in Capital a bizarre place? This is it though!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-74895123452517139372007-03-29T10:05:00.000+01:002007-03-29T10:05:00.000+01:00I'm not up on Wittgenstein unfortunately. Years ag...I'm not up on Wittgenstein unfortunately. Years ago a mate of mine let me the Tractatus over Christmas and I haven't yet recovered from the experience! <BR/><BR/>I do agree with you on Weber though. I recently read Bryan S Turner's For Weber, which attempts to do for Weber what Althusser tried to do with Marx. In the end Turner manages to extract what can broadly be identified as an historically materialist problematic, that cuts against and subverts Weber's on pronouncements on his brand of methodological individualism. It really is a fantastic book - I'll never approach Weber in the same way again.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-89556297885081986602007-03-24T23:59:00.000+00:002007-03-24T23:59:00.000+00:00HiWhat I found interesting about Adorno was that a...Hi<BR/>What I found interesting about Adorno was that as someone who was a practising musician and who theorised about music he somehow completely failed to understand either why people wrote it or how they played it. Maybe that's why he never made it as a pianist!<BR/>What do academics like the Frankfurt School mean by "culture" though? Don't they implicitly separate "whatever" it is they theorise about from perhaps more "lowly" forms of human activity? Are arguments about different qualities of soap powder really that different from arguments like say Eastenders vs Pinter. Isn't "culture", as Trotsky and Marx seemed to recognise, simply the human race impinging its will on "nature"?<BR/>I always found the most interesting of the "Frankfurt" writers (although of course he dies too early to be included) to be Walter Benjamin - however Benjamin is, understandably, ultimately futile. It seems to me that that tragedy, coupled with a lack of understanding of what would now be called Trotskyism but what I would really call Marxism, the latter nurtured by the relative comforts of post-war academe, made the bankruptcy of the Frankfurt School well nigh inevitable.<BR/>Here's two suggestions for non-"Marxist" approaches to "culture" or the "high arts" that actually chime in more with a dialectical and materialist approach (perhaps even more revolutionary) - Wittgenstein and Webern.<BR/>ps enjoy the blog and apologies for the shy anonymity - cwi member outside england.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-52739718252826773012007-03-24T18:32:00.000+00:002007-03-24T18:32:00.000+00:00I thought I posted a response here. If I did, and ...I thought I posted a response here. If I did, and it's not on because it's pending approval, ignore this one.<BR/><BR/>I very much heart your comments on Adorno. I think that his pessimism is a symptom shared by many critical academics. Being completely confined to academia and the realm of ideas, they fail to see how practical action constantly creates new possibilities and blazes new trails in the fight against capitalism.<BR/><BR/>Anyhoo, I like your blog, and I'll keep watching it, even if I've been a bit at odds with your party since the summer.Korakioushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07593180610210015493noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-18813733947647682322007-03-24T12:51:00.000+00:002007-03-24T12:51:00.000+00:00I'm glad you like the blog, comrade. I just wish I...I'm glad you like the blog, comrade. I just wish I could write more stuff for it. I look back now on the "golden age" of AVPS's first two months and wonder how I managed to find the time ...<BR/><BR/>I hope you decide to join us in the SP. Contrary to popular belief a labotomy is not a requirement of membership, plus it would be great to have another cultural studies bod around. AND Socialism Today could always do with more correspondents able to comment on more theoretical matters/trends in academia. Fingers crossed a Baudrillard article should be appearing in there fairly soon ...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-41358224042797993602007-03-22T20:36:00.000+00:002007-03-22T20:36:00.000+00:00Good post. I have to say I'm a big fan of your bl...Good post. I have to say I'm a big fan of your blog, one of my new favourite political blogs, which I check very frequently. <BR/><BR/>This is probably because a) I'm on the brink of joining the Socialist Party myself, the first party I've ever joined, so it's interesting to read the views of an SPer whose opinions don't necessarily toe the "party line"; and b) I'm a postgrad student myself in Media and Cultural Studies, a field which sprung out of Sociology, so I share an interest in a lot of the theoretical issues you post.<BR/><BR/>As regards the above, the big wigs of cultural theory have been trying to reconcile issues of power, ideology and popular working class resistance for decades with the shadow of the Frankfurt School hanging over them. Personally I think David Morley has best summed up the relationship between Us (consumers) and Them (the cultural industries):<BR/><BR/>“The meaning of the text will be constructed differently according to the discourses (knowledge, prejudices, resistances) brought to bear on the text by the reader: the crucial factor in the encounter of the audience/subject will be the range of discourses at the disposal of the audience … Whether or not [a text] succeeds in transmitting the preferred or dominant reading will depend on whether it encounters readers who inhabit codes and ideologies derived from other institutional areas which correspond to and work in parallel with those of [the text], or whether it encounters readers who inhabit codes drawn from other areas or institutions which conflict to a greater or lesser extent with those of the programme.”<BR/><BR/>Not sure what Peter Taaffe's position on all of this is, mind...D.B.https://www.blogger.com/profile/17068816125711875576noreply@blogger.com