I don't know anything about the authors discussed in this piece, and I can't afford to frequent bookshops though I never saw Foucault prominently displayed when I did, That aside, nice one Goblins.
This piece should be read alongside any serious research into the bought-and-paid-for academic publishing racket which, to no one's surprise, was right in the vanguard of the flu d'etat of 2021.
These days it counts as Left, apparently, to pearl clutch endlessly at D J Trump while hunched over your burning dining table thinking "Everything's fine!"
All this time the Top were crushing the Bottom, and when mildly intelligible squawks of performative outrage cease to be a human intelligence asset - these have been thoroughly trained into the LLMs by now - the murky infighting will really get vicious.
You won’t find Losurdo or Rockhill in any bookshops except, I presume, the really big book shops. I only ever saw a Parenti book on an upper floor of a vast second-hand book shop. To be sure, Adorno and Foucault don’t appear in the provincial places I live near but I always saw tons of the former in Glasgow. Actually, I’ve seen the latter sometimes in the provincial places.
I don’t object to any writer since I feel there is always something to pick up on and Rockhill has noted that Adorno has a lot to say that’s worth reading. But what gets me is the remarkable aggression you get if you voice any reservation about “The Big Names”. You’d think e.g. Adorno is the ONLY way to go.
Rockhill traces intelligence and indeed Nazi connections with a lot of those writers. And here’s a funny thing. I recall there was one Nazi that Rockhill mentioned who had been the managing director for the Frankfurt School for quarter of a century! This personage worked with Adorno who knew all about this guy’s “colourful” past. Since I couldn’t recall the name of this person, I googled with
“frankfurt school nazi connection”
And I was told from the AI facility:
“The Frankfurt School had no ideological or sympathetic connections to the Nazi Party. As a Marxist and predominantly Jewish group of scholars, they were primary targets of the regime.”
I was directed to a page titled:
“The Frankfurt School against the Nazis.”
So, I had to consult Rockhill’s book again and found who I was looking for: one Ludwig von Friedeburg:
Friedeburg “was a German sociologist, Nazi officer and Social Democratic (SPD) politician”. The Wiki page only mentions this in passing.
Rockhill supplies the conveniently missing pieces:
“When Adorno later lambasted … the “idiocy” of those who shift the responsibility for the atrocities of Hitler … onto those who tolerated his seizure of power and not to the ones who cheered him on," had he forgotten about the past of his close friend and collaborator, who had enthusiastically supported the Führer? By the time Friedeburg was hired and then began moving into leadership positions at the Institute, he had spent more years of his life (eleven) being Nazi than a former Nazi (nine).
Adorno was actually fully aware of his friend's past, but he relied on a doggerel version of dialectics in a deplorable effort to convert a vice into a virtue. In a report penned by the critical theorist, he explained that Friedeburg "is certainly not one of the many people who, having grown up in the specific atmosphere of the Hitler dictatorship, have freed themselves from it out of genuine inner strength."
Instead, the world-renowned philosopher went on to write, it was the "qualities that developed in the officer milieu, such as loyalty, a sense of duty, and a collective sense of responsibility" that had evolved in Friedeburg to such an extent that they "allowed him full emancipation." Nazi discipline, it seems is what permitted him to free himself from Nazism.” (“Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism” pages 213-214)
And this from the guy who was to develop a sociological study of “The Authoritarian Personality”!
Off topic so apologies, but I want to alert UK residents to this.
Dear XXX,
I am following up because the House of Commons Private Members’ Bill ballot has now taken place, and your MP needs to hear from you again.
A number of the 20 MPs drawn in yesterday morning’s ballot voted for the assisted suicide Bill at Third Reading last year. They are now coming under considerable pressure from assisted suicide campaigners, led by Kim Leadbeater MP, to bring back her dangerous Bill.
Please take 30 seconds now to send your MP a new email with important new polling that every MP needs to see, whether or not they were drawn in the ballot.
TAKE ACTION
New polling from Whitestone Insight has been released following the ballot, and is the largest public poll conducted on assisted suicide since the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill was introduced.
The polling includes seat-by-seat results that show there is no local mandate in your constituency for MPs to revive Kim Leadbeater’s failed assisted suicide Bill and bypass the House of Lords to push it into law.
This needs to get in front of your MP as soon as possible, so they can see what people in your constituency think.
The Other Half, who commissioned the polling, has launched an easy tool that lets you email your MP with the poll results for your constituency and ask them to oppose the Bill being brought back.
Please take 30 seconds now to contact your MP, using the simple tool.
Wow! So much cynicism and not a single mention of the working class, anywhere, let alone in the belly of the beast. So what is it that you're advocating, that we go into some kind of deep sleep until 'der tag' comes and rescues us from our slumbers? Sadly, what you are describing are the locations that Losardo and Rockhill have written about; us, in the West. The rest of the planet doesn't get a look in, not a mention, not even a footnote. Yes, we have a suborned left and have had one for well over 100 years; the (temporary) triumph of Imperialism but all things must pass and I think the proof lies in the fact that although you mention Losurdo and Rockhill, you don't actually investigate what they have to say, they're just mentioned in passing. Tut-tut!
We are already in a deep sleep and have been dreaming for all our lives – the dream being supplied by the upper echelons of the power structure. This became clear – or should have done – with covid and the “Left” response. I hardly think it’s cynicism to point this out.
If I sound angry then yes, I am. I mention Losurdo and Rockhill because they offered the soundest background theory as to what happened in a general sense. And what Rockhill has to say is in his “Paid the Pipers” book is pretty much what I summarised above. Ditto Losurdo in his book on Western Marxism. I acknowledge that there are other books they have written which I have not yet gotten round to.
Although I haven’t heard Rockhill on covid or transgenderism and have my doubts about that since the organisation he is involved with, Monthly Review Press, has made remarks that aren’t hopeful.
I don’t write about the rest of the world because I don’t live in the rest of the world. And when you talk about working-class then I can only, once again, write about what I know and that isn’t hopeful either. It may be true that a real uprising will come from the global south.
My final remark about basic civility is very important because I have been quite crushed at the hostility which I have been subjected to and which there is no excuse for. Furthermore, this is a hostility that is encouraged by the rulers.
I don’t claim the above piece to be a masterpiece but it’s an honest reaction and one I felt that I had to write. If you can offer some pointers in a more positive direction then I’d be happy to hear them. But civility costs nothing.
Bravo. This piece improves with each reading, and it was great at the first one.
I don't know anything about the authors discussed in this piece, and I can't afford to frequent bookshops though I never saw Foucault prominently displayed when I did, That aside, nice one Goblins.
This piece should be read alongside any serious research into the bought-and-paid-for academic publishing racket which, to no one's surprise, was right in the vanguard of the flu d'etat of 2021.
These days it counts as Left, apparently, to pearl clutch endlessly at D J Trump while hunched over your burning dining table thinking "Everything's fine!"
All this time the Top were crushing the Bottom, and when mildly intelligible squawks of performative outrage cease to be a human intelligence asset - these have been thoroughly trained into the LLMs by now - the murky infighting will really get vicious.
Bring it on.
You won’t find Losurdo or Rockhill in any bookshops except, I presume, the really big book shops. I only ever saw a Parenti book on an upper floor of a vast second-hand book shop. To be sure, Adorno and Foucault don’t appear in the provincial places I live near but I always saw tons of the former in Glasgow. Actually, I’ve seen the latter sometimes in the provincial places.
I don’t object to any writer since I feel there is always something to pick up on and Rockhill has noted that Adorno has a lot to say that’s worth reading. But what gets me is the remarkable aggression you get if you voice any reservation about “The Big Names”. You’d think e.g. Adorno is the ONLY way to go.
Rockhill traces intelligence and indeed Nazi connections with a lot of those writers. And here’s a funny thing. I recall there was one Nazi that Rockhill mentioned who had been the managing director for the Frankfurt School for quarter of a century! This personage worked with Adorno who knew all about this guy’s “colourful” past. Since I couldn’t recall the name of this person, I googled with
“frankfurt school nazi connection”
And I was told from the AI facility:
“The Frankfurt School had no ideological or sympathetic connections to the Nazi Party. As a Marxist and predominantly Jewish group of scholars, they were primary targets of the regime.”
I was directed to a page titled:
“The Frankfurt School against the Nazis.”
So, I had to consult Rockhill’s book again and found who I was looking for: one Ludwig von Friedeburg:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_von_Friedeburg
Friedeburg “was a German sociologist, Nazi officer and Social Democratic (SPD) politician”. The Wiki page only mentions this in passing.
Rockhill supplies the conveniently missing pieces:
“When Adorno later lambasted … the “idiocy” of those who shift the responsibility for the atrocities of Hitler … onto those who tolerated his seizure of power and not to the ones who cheered him on," had he forgotten about the past of his close friend and collaborator, who had enthusiastically supported the Führer? By the time Friedeburg was hired and then began moving into leadership positions at the Institute, he had spent more years of his life (eleven) being Nazi than a former Nazi (nine).
Adorno was actually fully aware of his friend's past, but he relied on a doggerel version of dialectics in a deplorable effort to convert a vice into a virtue. In a report penned by the critical theorist, he explained that Friedeburg "is certainly not one of the many people who, having grown up in the specific atmosphere of the Hitler dictatorship, have freed themselves from it out of genuine inner strength."
Instead, the world-renowned philosopher went on to write, it was the "qualities that developed in the officer milieu, such as loyalty, a sense of duty, and a collective sense of responsibility" that had evolved in Friedeburg to such an extent that they "allowed him full emancipation." Nazi discipline, it seems is what permitted him to free himself from Nazism.” (“Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism” pages 213-214)
And this from the guy who was to develop a sociological study of “The Authoritarian Personality”!
Off topic so apologies, but I want to alert UK residents to this.
Dear XXX,
I am following up because the House of Commons Private Members’ Bill ballot has now taken place, and your MP needs to hear from you again.
A number of the 20 MPs drawn in yesterday morning’s ballot voted for the assisted suicide Bill at Third Reading last year. They are now coming under considerable pressure from assisted suicide campaigners, led by Kim Leadbeater MP, to bring back her dangerous Bill.
Please take 30 seconds now to send your MP a new email with important new polling that every MP needs to see, whether or not they were drawn in the ballot.
TAKE ACTION
New polling from Whitestone Insight has been released following the ballot, and is the largest public poll conducted on assisted suicide since the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill was introduced.
The polling includes seat-by-seat results that show there is no local mandate in your constituency for MPs to revive Kim Leadbeater’s failed assisted suicide Bill and bypass the House of Lords to push it into law.
This needs to get in front of your MP as soon as possible, so they can see what people in your constituency think.
The Other Half, who commissioned the polling, has launched an easy tool that lets you email your MP with the poll results for your constituency and ask them to oppose the Bill being brought back.
Please take 30 seconds now to contact your MP, using the simple tool.
https://mailchi.mp/righttolife/supporter_update-14995192?e=bb6a6e5b9a
Wow! So much cynicism and not a single mention of the working class, anywhere, let alone in the belly of the beast. So what is it that you're advocating, that we go into some kind of deep sleep until 'der tag' comes and rescues us from our slumbers? Sadly, what you are describing are the locations that Losardo and Rockhill have written about; us, in the West. The rest of the planet doesn't get a look in, not a mention, not even a footnote. Yes, we have a suborned left and have had one for well over 100 years; the (temporary) triumph of Imperialism but all things must pass and I think the proof lies in the fact that although you mention Losurdo and Rockhill, you don't actually investigate what they have to say, they're just mentioned in passing. Tut-tut!
We are already in a deep sleep and have been dreaming for all our lives – the dream being supplied by the upper echelons of the power structure. This became clear – or should have done – with covid and the “Left” response. I hardly think it’s cynicism to point this out.
If I sound angry then yes, I am. I mention Losurdo and Rockhill because they offered the soundest background theory as to what happened in a general sense. And what Rockhill has to say is in his “Paid the Pipers” book is pretty much what I summarised above. Ditto Losurdo in his book on Western Marxism. I acknowledge that there are other books they have written which I have not yet gotten round to.
Although I haven’t heard Rockhill on covid or transgenderism and have my doubts about that since the organisation he is involved with, Monthly Review Press, has made remarks that aren’t hopeful.
I don’t write about the rest of the world because I don’t live in the rest of the world. And when you talk about working-class then I can only, once again, write about what I know and that isn’t hopeful either. It may be true that a real uprising will come from the global south.
My final remark about basic civility is very important because I have been quite crushed at the hostility which I have been subjected to and which there is no excuse for. Furthermore, this is a hostility that is encouraged by the rulers.
I don’t claim the above piece to be a masterpiece but it’s an honest reaction and one I felt that I had to write. If you can offer some pointers in a more positive direction then I’d be happy to hear them. But civility costs nothing.