/lit/ - Literature

>>17322346
(((White Fragility)))

>>17322358
I mean ones that are sane, argued in good faith, and aren't written by idpol faggots

>>17322346

>>17322358
Good points, I haven't read it either.

>>17322346
The lefties always say noam chomsky so perhaps look into him or something

>>17322346
michel foucault is responsible for all that pozzed quasi-neo-nietzschean academic language

The left just like the right isn’t a monolith because Left broadly speaking is a constructed umbrella term. You’re better off asking for books on certain policies, opinions and positions.

>>17322404
The ideas behind collectivism then. I tend to read writers who put individualism as the foundation of their ethics, like Locke and Mill, so I'd like to read counterarguments to it.

>>17322385
Thanks

>>17322404
someone else started a thread asking for books on intersectionality and critical theory and got no useful responses.

>>17322346
WHY MUST I STRUGGLE OH GOD I'M GONNA COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM

>>17322346
name NOW

>>17322412
>>17322430

I’d recommend Horkheimer’s essay on critical theory,Adorno to some degree also, but Horkheimer if you can parse the language is literally arguing for a collectivism in which the average individual is rendered dumb and ignorant but the whole collective is rendered conscious through the control of enlightened academic based political and cultural movers. But collectivism as a whole is a big field with right and left wing aspects, Foucault isn’t a bad answer for a lot of the ideas on biopolitics but I think what you lads really ought to look into is progressivism and neoliberalism in general.

>>17322461
IT IS ME......!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>>17322412
Also they don’t see themselves in general as opposed to the same liberal individualist foundations which you are talking about but many leftists will see individualism and maximized freedom (through the works of Marx and so forth) as being what is attained. It really depends upon the specific breed of leftist, they’re one of the most combative amongst themselves groups because there’s so many divergent strands lumped into “left”

Left-right dichotomy is absolute bullshit, I'll take "left" to mean "marxism" though (which isn't necessarily true)

Derrida is important too for the underlying thought process

>>17322346
Define leftist. It’s a super can of wormy term. Same thing for right wing too btw.
Anyways so I’ll shoot a few at you that are commonly considered “on the left” and maybe a couple words to describe what I mean by that

Neoliberalism (egalitarian tempered capitalism via Rousseau)- John Rawls, A Theory of Justice and The Law of Peoples

State-Socialism- Karl Marx (obvi) Das Kapital, Lenin, and Mao

Anarchism and/or libertarianism (little l on purpose big L Libertarians are more specifically termed Anarcho-Capitalist and considered Right Wing. Basically on the Left it is defined as anti-centralized state but we can still have essentially interventionist economic systems.)- Bakunin, Proudhon read everything by them they are the founders of the movement, Noam Chomsky Manufacturing Consent, basically all the deconstructionists (look up that term it’s a rabbit hole on its own) basically this one is the most academically dense and least well understood strain of the “left” as it became vogue again in the 60s and has had a lot of new work done on it whereas state-communism/socialism is pretty much dead in the west intellectually speaking.

>>17322505
feet pic NOW

>>17322358
My fucking tech college sent an email to everyone when Mr. Floyd go stepped on recommending that I read this. Literally shit.

>>17322346

Try something like The Hidden History of Monopolies: How Big Business Destroyed the American Dream by Thom Hartmann for a recent publication that explains why people on the left think conservative economic policies are (mostly) cancer. Once you can admit that lefties are more right about the economy than conservatives, you'll be much farther along to really understanding them.

>>17322524
>I'll take "left" to mean "marxism" though (which isn't necessarily true)
I agree, but a lot of Marxists have a tendency for calling other people with non-Marxist left-wing views "far right", so let's just presume we're talking about Marxism.

>>17322530
But of all these, if you don't want to read through the whole chart (and who would?) I most recommend:

The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin (Scifi novel about Anarcho-syndicalism, and the best portrayal of what an Anarchist society might actually be like)

The Meaning of Marxism by D'Amato (Just a really solid introduction to Marx)

Roads to Freedom by Bertrand Russell (good discussion of both Marxism and Anarchism, and his compromise of guild socialism)

Half the people who recommend Capital have never read Capital. It's long and boring and mathematical. If you want to understand concepts or arguments, don't read it.

"Marx 200" is a good substitute, also check out this one >>17322524.

One of the most essential Marxist works is "Wage Labor and Capital." "Principles of Communism" by Engels is good too, but a lot more basic.

So, I'd say

1. Principles of Communism
2. Wage Labor and Capital
3. Stuff from here >>17322524
4. Marx 200

>>17322551
Sometimes they don't even consider themselves to be leftists, haven't wrapped my head around that one yet though.

>>17322568
It's all a big mess. Imagine trying to reduce the vast multiplicity of sociopolitical, cultural and economic standpoints to a single axis.

>>17322564
Sorry, meant to reply to >>17322536 here

>>17322538
Did they give it to you free? Ive seen it go on sale all the time now.

>>17322621
They may have offered links but I'm not sure if it was free. There's probably a diversity department or something to make sure I could read it though.

>>17322346
Conquest for coffee
Das coffee tall™
Manufacturing coffee scent
The coffee industry

>>17322531
Nah

>>17322346
Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher is a good place to start imho, it's short and would probably help you more to "understand the other side" than something heavily theoretical

>>17322346
i'm feeling thirsty

>>17322966
ok but, is coffee good for you?

>>17322574
It's super easy. On the left are all the gay nerds with their gay nerd beliefs. On the right are all the people who aren't gay nerds. I don't really care what you believe, if you're a gay nerd about it, you're a leftist who should be shoved into a locker.

>>17322346
nigger

>>17323198
fuck off you sad little sack of shit

>>17322346
>proudhon
>marinetti, sorel, de rivera
>schmitt, junger
>lasch
>dugin
read this instead, lasch is very good if you want an honest answer to your question
>>17322530
dostoyevsky and solzehnitsyn are laughing at you beyond the grave

>>17322346
Thomas Paine is a good start
But i am partial to the anarchists for their advanced purity for the freedom project that is “the Left”

>>17323935
based recommendations, I'd recommend
Gentile's more obscure stuff too, like his thoughts on education reform

>>17323935
>OP asks for foundations of leftist
>recs rightwingoids
>Do this instead
Go away

>>17323198
You too!

>>17322484
>literally arguing for a collectivism in which the average individual is rendered dumb and ignorant but the whole collective is rendered conscious through the control of enlightened academic based political and cultural movers
that's some NWO shit

>>17323135
seconding

Why would you devote your time to studying things that are wrong?
The opinions of globalists, marxists, cultural marxists and nihilists need not be considered.
It is far better to make your own argument rather than attacking the beliefs of leftists, because their philosophy and arguments are not self supporting, do not give in to the culture of critique- make your own positive arguments and assert virtue through truth-telling

>>17322346
start here. come back when you have read it for new suggestions.

>>17324002
I know for a fact Adorno and Foucault were anti that. Like they literally saw these things as just phenomena of capitalism and/or statism. It never was a prescription for what they thought ought to happen they were merely pointing out that it was already happening and it’s going to continue to happen and probably accelerate and multiply upon itself. This goes for all the pomo thinkers I’m aware of. It’s one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented schools of philosophy online

>>17322358
he asked for leftist books not neoliberal ones retard. If you really think that then its clear you a massive fuck retard that get all you understanding of politic from /pol/ memes.
>>17322346
OP read capitalist realism

>>17322385
anarchism is left liberal not leftist

>>17324074
How do you know Adorno was anti-that?

>>17324094
this, anarchism is just an extension of liberalism

>>17322346
what's wrong with her arm

>>17322358
He said “good”

>>17324128
Yes at is core it hold fully liberal values and not communal/social ones. This is why Antifa and BLM are doing more work to destroy themselves became they don't realize they are their own enemy. Only a true socialist party could hope to ever hope stop so called fascism or bring about full black liberation.

>>17324135
oh my god it does look weird wtf

>>17324099
Because he literally says that the consumer culture *is* the dumbing down of the individual and that capitalism prefers this pseudo-individualism and that capital prefers this because it’s cheaper and easier to sell things to a readymade consumer group you’ve conditioned to buy a narrow subset of things you’ve provided for them. He was also explicitly anti technocrat and published debates and articles on this.

>>17324094
>>17324128
False. Their goals are the commune now. The tankies goal is always (and seemingly forever) the commune later.
They split capitalism from liberalism and think everything is fine when their states behave as all the others.

The anarchists are realists about the boons of such a future, but the tankies dismiss them all as utopians, while at the same time creating a cultist stature for the state, if not some strongman cult of personality.
Lenin’s tomb being exhibit A. Ah, the mighty Pharaoh, humble child of bourgeois means, but liked to wear fisherman’s hat. To stay connected to the common man.

Left liberals are called progressives.

>>17324267
Good post. Tankies are retards.

>>17324074
I specify Horkheimer because he’s the most horrendous literally arguing for this point.

>>17324128
Not really.
I would typify it as the extension of perspectivist quarrels.
Leftards all live in their own individual worlds, and when forcing their view onto others fails they start breaking away from society and trying to create their own reality in isolation of others.
High probability of art, drugs, poorly written MSM articles
>>17324267
Tankies claim to be aiming for a communist utopia but it seems like lip service to enfranchise more idealistic types.
It's an odd relationship I never really understood, but I suspect a "mice and men" type resolution is inevitable

>>17324267
>anarchists are realists
>goals are the commune now
why are we still on this modernist bs?

>>17324378
What do you mean?

>>17324378
They tried it last time, it wasn't real communism
They tried it again, that wasn't real communism either
Today they are trying it, This is real communism
Tomorrow they will try again- it's not real communism today but it will be tomorrow
Modernists are all stuck in a loop, they know they went wrong somewhere, but unable to work out where they can neither more forwards or backwards

>>17324441
>They
Anarchists try it and it is. You’re in over your head, Donny

>>17322346
BOOBA

>>17322395
Can confirm I read 2 of his books last year for similar reasons as OP and it really made me u sweat and how leftists can think how they do. One that was very eye opening for me was “hegemony or survival”

I looked up a shit load of citations and it was all pretty accurate. Watch out for some hyperbole though.

Modern leftism and classical leftist literature are different beasts.

>>17323961
>Thomas Paine
Sorry but he was a Libertarian, believed in individualism, republican democracy, property rights, natural rights, etc.
Really he was a proto-Georgist or Geo-Libertarian, which pretty much every non-monarchist, freedom loving man was at the time.
Hardly leftist by any standard other than the old revolutionary French one.

>>17323198

>>17324707
No.

>>17322376
>argued in good faith
That's setting the bar way too high, anon.

>>17322346
Anon, if you really want to achieve a balanced worldview, a good start would be to recognize that the purposeless "-ist" suffix on leftist in your title might work well for signalling to angry nerds on the internet that they are on your side, but will mark you as a closed-off mind to anyone in the real world.

After that you will need to go to Enlightenment philosophical writers whose opinions you won't all disagree with, but who lay foundations that can lead to the left. Rousseau is the obvious one - you need to have read at least Hobbes in advance to understand the change in direction. At that point, assuming you have a historical grasp of industrialization in Europe something like Robert Owen would make sense for express theoretical socialism. After that, some Marx, or another writer on the subject of Marx to get the revolutionary left. Then you'll want someone as a representative of actual socialism, but at this point intellectuals of interest become thin on the ground and it might make more sense to read e.g. a history of the first Labor government in the UK. Meanwhile the intellectual left sphere became a sort of culture-themed dissidence - Adorno, Foucaalt, Zizek etc. A good foundation for understanding why those guys are a thing would be reading Gramsci.

>>17324770
Typical butterfly, you legit have never added anything of substance to any conversation on this board. All you do is parrot your retarded political theories while never bothering to justify any of your beliefs. It's incredible how retarded this tranny is.

>>17322346
It's always so cute when the mentally challenged try to improve themselves. Keep it up, little one.

>>17322346

>>17322346
Das Kapital

>>17324267
>Their goals are the commune now.
So then they are non dialectical and idealists. there for liberal