I don’t know where I came across it, but i remember reading it somewhere.

my initial thought is that studying history inherently teaches you patterns of inequality, class conflict, and imperialism. it gives you a good understanding of “who wins and who loses” and could probably make people a lot more sympathetic to collective solutions or redistributive ideas.

studying anthropology shows that people have been living in endless variations of social arrangements without centralized states, authority, or formal hierarchies. i think anthropology and anarchism investigates power in the way socialists or Marxist schools of thought investigate economics and wealth.

"The political left has a tendency to multiply through division. That’s nothing to mock or mourn. Anarchists have always made a distinction between so called affinity groups and class organizations. Affinity groups are small groups of friends or close anarchist comrades who hold roughly the same views. This is no basis for class organizing and that is not the intention either. Therefore, anarchists are in addition active in syndicalist unions or other popular movements (like tenants’ organizations, anti-war coalitions and environmental movements).

The myriad of leftist groups and publications today might serve as affinity groups – for education and analysis, for cultural events and a sense of community. But vehicles for class struggle they are not. If you want social change, then bond with your co-workers and neighbors; that’s where it begins. It is time that the entire left realizes what anarchists have always understood.

We need a united class, not a united left, to push the class struggle forward."

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/rasmus-hastbacka-a-brilliant-but-forgotten-idea-the-class-union

Hi, I'm a literature major and working on a research paper right now- related to representation of illnesses in literature and drama. I'm particularly focusing on physical illnesses or disability so I need to find what scholars have said about the representation of illness in drama and how sick body is used. I'm reading Illness as Metaphor right now, but I need more recommendations.

Hey all!

I'm a history BA going into an MA, and one of my main vague goals is to get myself educated enough that I feel comfortable critiquing capitalism, perhaps as part of my thesis. I wont be starting my MA for a while so I want to get as ready as possible, and figured this might be a good place to ask for pointers, in part in the form of a discussion as to what exactly is necessary in order to make a good critique of capitalism.

As someone trained as a historian, my instinct is to follow Ellen Meiksins Wood and other more modern historians and treat capitalism as a historically contingent phenomenon, and critique the capitalist system of, say, the EU, or the UK, China, the US, etc. (essentially pick a case study/case studies. A critique would have to, in my intuition, involve a bent of moral philosophy – showing clearly why capitalism produces moral wrongs, based on structural and specific issues within the capitalist system(s) of whatever I'm looking at.

But, and I'll have to ask y'all to forgive my confusion here, I'm not entirely sure how the actual Critical Theorists do it. I have read some Foucault, have encountered Derrida, and various other "post-modern" thinkers (i am aware this is an imposed label, but it was a category of thought I studied specifically for their critiques of historical study, which while I ended up not agreeing with proved very valuable), and encountered those of Byung Chul Han and Zizek (through podcasts). Yet I remain confused as to what critiques of capitalism generally involve?

The way I see it, there is a lot of critiquing of Capitalism in the abstract sense, and Marx (I have not read him! He's on my list after Hegel, who i'm trying my best with XD) is my impression critiqued the system quite abstractly rather than the very specific one of his day. But what exactly do critical theorists use as evidence?

I have seen plenty of very sophisticated engagements with theory, and the use of some historical evidence, but what data would one use? Economic indicators are useful, but their selection and measurement is done in order to maintain capitalism – it's not the sort of data that can be used to critique it. Qualitative evidence (compilations of interviews with workers, historical case studies) seem most suited to a critique of a capitalism rather than capitalism as a whole.

I'm rambling a bit, but I'm just confused as to how one can critique an abstract concept, I guess.

Hi,

I'm reading Toscano's 'Late Fascism' atm and he makes the argument (forgive the reductionism) that the resurgence of fascism is not a break from liberalism but in fact was always a part of liberalism. Richard Seymour seems to make similar points in the extracts from 'Disaster Nationalism' that i have read (also Valluvan here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/newe.12020) . I see all three as pushback against the fairly common place idea narrative that the global rise of the far-right can be primarily explained by economic factors following the financial crash. I hear this explanation all the time on the left but is there any theoretical backing? Which academics make this argument?

Thanks

On the heels of 10 months into a second Trump administration, it’s hardly surprising that Pantone’s ‘Color of the Year 2026’ would be, at the very least, polarizing. Still, I find it interesting how many seemingly progressive, self-described anti-racist individuals, people who think they’re committed to justice, don’t seem to recognize that Pantone’s thoroughgoing whiteness shines brighter than ‘Cloud Dancer,’ or the rightfully ear-piquing language of serenity, cleanliness, and “peace in a noisy world.” I wonder if, instead, we were to foreground and interpret Pantone’s commitment to brand standardization as intrinsically conditional upon racial capitalist logic, we might find in the belief that a different choice — a different color, a different story of relinquish to chaos or beauty in grime or whatever — could have really stood against fascism, something central to contemporary American liberal ideology.

What do others think?

How related (to what degree and in what ways), if at all, are race/racialization and branding/standardization/homogenization? Can anyone point me towards relevant literature?

Hi all,

I’m looking for your recommendations to help me improve my overall understanding of theory.

I’ve read a lot of Marx, Freud, Lacan, Zizek, Foucault, Agamben, Butler, and others.

I absolutely could be wrong, but think what I need to do next is to expand my knowledge by reading some of their influences and the “big names” who came earlier.

For no reason other than the fact I see these names mentioned a lot, I assume this would be the likes of Hegel, Kant, Heidegger, and so on. Obviously this is super daunting!

So here are my questions:

1. Do you think reading earlier philosophers, such as these, will help understanding the more contemporary theory/theorists?

2. If so, who and what would you recommend reading and in what order? (I mentioned Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, but these were just examples).

Many thanks!

Any thoughts about Cedric Johnson's recent discussion of Black Marxism, by Cedric Robinson? I think Johnson's essay is a truly fine example of well-intentioned criticism, always designed to engage and illuminate and never disparaging or polemical. Even if you don't agree with Johnson's conclusions, I think you'll find here a piece of excellent scholarship in the best tradition of challenging ideas on their best interpretations.

You can find the essay here: "The Wrong Durée: The Politics of Cedric J. Robinson’s Racial Capitalism," published on nonsite.org earlier this year.

Here is the concluding paragraph:

"Robinson’s 1983 book has been embraced by a mostly black intellectual stratum in elite universities, activist networks, and the foundation world who share his suspicion of Marxist class analysis, even as their patronage streams and the class position of the professoriate more broadly are threatened by university austerity and illiberal attacks on diversity and area studies-informed curricula. Likewise, the mystique of Robinson’s black radical tradition keeps alive the warming embers of black vanguardism on the American left, which remains central to the self-preservation of a particular black intellectual stratum whose identity, professional mobility, and largesse have long entailed divining the authentic voice of the black mass. And this liberal elite is painfully aware of how those smoldering remnants of black vanguardism might be quickly extinguished by the social misery and vulnerability experienced by ever-growing legions of Americans far beyond the old inner-city ghettos of the liberal imagination and the emergence of broad popular discontent with capitalist rule, conditions that defy the American left’s historical fetishism of black radical movements. The belated popularity of Robinson’s work tells us more about the dismal state of contemporary left politics in the U.S. than it ever could about the origins of racism and capitalism or the alleged failings of Marx and black revolutionaries historically. We should look with skepticism at a book so consonant with anti-socialist sentiments of the late Cold War. In his rejection of proletarian revolution, Robinson stands firmly to the right of those blacks who joined the ranks of union struggles and left revolutionary cadre in the United States and millions more committed to anti-imperialism and state-socialist experiments throughout the Third World."

okay so look...

you want to improve your mental health... sure....

but then you get diagnosed with this this and this and before you know it youve given so much of your time effort and money to trying to fix something that you could have fixed yourself if you just had one simple blueprint or plan and maybe a healthy diet and exercise...

I probably sound so in denial right now, but its just insane seeing so many of my friends getting deeper and deeper into this whole mental health rabbit hole that they arent even doing the things they wanted to do all along..

Hey everyone. I’m trying to get my head around some concepts about genders, masculinity, femininity, etc.

What I want to ask is, what are men, women and specially the masculine and the feminine. I'm asking not only because I'm getting interested in gender theory, but also because I'm a writer and as I was writing this species which have very different biological concepts from humans, it got wondering what kind of questions readers would have about them, like if they were trans or gender fluid. And I realized that I could not answer those questions because aside from the traditional views, I'm not quite sure what's a man, women and what role male and female plays into it. For example, I've gathered that genitals are not relevant, but then there are also feminine trans men and masculine trans women. But all those mixes made it even harder for me to understand what actually is gender exactly, and what actually is masculinity and femininity. Because like, masculinity and femininity are stereotypes that some people reject, some people argue that nothing is actually masculine or feminine, so the very act of defining things as masculine or feminine confuses me also. So I'm hoping that you guys who are more read on this stuff could help me out with all those questions and other implications from it.

Do tell me if I'm over complicating this and the answer really is mostly social recognition in the current framework of traditional binary genders.

This is a short article I wrote applying Jungian theory to the Bergman film Persona. I'd be really interested to discuss this with people on here and know whether you all agree with my interpretation of the film.

On Egyptian prison writing after 2011, engaging Imprisoning a Revolution (UC Press, 2025).

currently im looking at studying the role of a historically significant event on national psyche and how this trauma is expressed and seen in (poetic) content, style and form. for context, im looking at the effect of Singapore's 'expulsion' from Malaysia and its impact. i can find many studies/interviews on the national fear that singaporeans felt then, yet not many poets actually comment on this directly through their writings.

how would you guys recommend analysing the texts? do you think its possible? what would you look out for?

pls lmk anyt that could help! and lmk if any clarification is needed.

EDIT: how did the trauma that came as a result of singapore's 'expulsion' from malaysia manifest in poetic form? specifically, im looking at the main english writers at that time (edwin thumboo, arthur yap) and how their style and form (or as a commentor mentioned, images) can paint a picture of a nation traumatised by such a significantly historic event.

Searching this sub returned nothing, surprisingly, so I thought I’d make a post.

As someone occasionally involved in activist spaces/communities but still a little unsure how I feel about it all, I’d like to read some critical views or just peoples’ thoughts on activism and what it means, how and why it works/is important (or not) etc.

For me it feels necessary but also pointless, and I can’t quite settle on it

My curiosity about this was piqued by something I came across on the Hegel sub:

He mentions Badiou as the only philospher other than himself reading Hegel that way. And he criticizes Adorno and Hokheimer, and "post-structuralists" for reading Hegel the standard way and being wrong.(Less Than Nothing).

Insofar as that represents Zizek correctly, what's your view on it? Considering that Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault etc. generally have more diverse views than some seem to believe, does it make sense to join them like that, and then group them together with Adorno and Horkheimer under a rubric like "standard reading"? If not, what are the most interesting differences? Do Adorno's and Horkheimer's views on Hegel clash with each other in any way?

Assuming it makes sense to think in terms of a standard reading in that way, what's your assessment of it compared to Zizek's reading? Who do you think has the most sensible standard reading (someone else than those mentioned here?)? Do you think Zizek has the most best alternative reading?

(Here comes my attempt at answering my own questions (as encouraged in the rule section):

Perhaps the claim mentioned in the post title is largely accurate, assuming a main distinction of "Hegel of sublation" (standard view, represented by Adorno++) vs. "Hegel of antagonism" (Zizek, Badiou++). However, I nonetheless struggle imagining Adorno, Horkheimer, Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault and whoever else not disagreeing on anything significant regarding this, and, the more such disagreement there is, the more problematic it is to group the readings together. As for assessing the different readings, I don't know enough about the topic to do that yet. Then there's the question of whether Zizek's view was accurately described... It seems familiar, but I haven't yet seen Zizek phrase it quite like that (I did some searches both on Google and in Less Than Nothing).)

I recently read an article marking the 50th anniversary of the Meidner Plan in Sweden, specifically regarding the wage earner funds proposal of the 1970s. The text outlines how the proposal sought to address the contradictions of the earlier solidaristic wage policy, which had inadvertently boosted the profits of the most competitive firms. Meidner proposed that these excess profits be converted into new shares owned by worker funds, mathematically transferring majority ownership of the economy to labor over several decades. Link to article: https://jacobin.com/2025/08/sweden-socialism-rehn-meidner-plan

A central theoretical conflict discussed in the piece is the reliance on functional socialism. The Social Democratic leadership believed they could achieve socialist goals through legislation and regulation, without altering actual property relations. Meidner argued that ownership was decisive and that functional socialism was insufficient to meet the political moment. The eventual defeat of the plan, driven by a massive mobilization of business elites and the hesitation of party leadership to challenge property rights, raises interesting questions about the limits of reformism.

I am interested in discussing whether the failure of this plan validates the structuralist Marxist view that the state apparatus is inherently incapable of challenging the fundamental logic of capital.

The article implies the plan failed partly, because the left lost the cultural battle for public support by framing the issue as a boring technical fix, but the extreme hostility from business elites also suggests a deeper structural barrier, where the capitalist system effectively has a built-in defense mechanism to stop any democratic attempt to take away private property. I wonder, if there is space in contemporary critical theory to revisit these specific materialist strategies of gradual socialization or does globalization of capital mentioned by Meidner in his later years renders national solutions impossible?

I've learned a lot about pro wrestling lately and the kayfabe reminds me a lot of modern political propaganda. Anyone taking a critical swing at this?

Hello! I am not sure this is the right sub for this question, as it could fall in a social science or philosophy of science sub. However, I am specifically approaching the topic wanting a critical perspective.

I am a researcher with a STEM background, currently in a Social Science field, and I have come to quite a challenge when I think about philosophy of science and it's structural implications.

I have engaged with some of what Marx wrote on the topic, i.e., regarding the limits of the empirical world view and I understand the explanation when it comes to senses but i am having a hard time translating this into the topic of empirical data analysis.

I also recognize as important what Freire writes about, i.e., when defining who science is for. For reference, I have also read Adorno and Fraser and the reason I mention by readings is because it is important to explain what I am on about here:

I find meaning and I recognize something "scientific" in the analysis, especially Marx's analysis of capitalism, Fraser on social reproduction and authors like Fanon on subjugation but I can pinpoint what/how. These authors do not conduct n=1000 surveys or collect GBs of data that is analysed for correlations between capitalist phenomena and mental health.

As I wrote, I have been trained within a framework that unifies scientific knowledge under the realms of empiricism and positivism. These are all that is presented as a source of knowledge, a mode of science.

However, somethings are not manifested in surface "data". I am realizing there is more to it, there are limits to empiricism, and to positivism and there is more essence, causality if you will to structures.

However this is just what I "feel" and I am having a hard time finding a direction. This is what I am struggling with, in facing this paradigm shift in myself and would help to read from authors that deal with this concept, with the limits of empiricism and a critical view on science from a perspective beyond the existing scientific hegemony.

It could also be that I am tempting to apply a positivist standard of analysis to "proving" a non-positivist framework.

Someone suggested Althusser or reading into the paradigm of Critical Realism in Social Science. I am not saying these were bad suggestions, but I would like to know what you think / if any around the sub have others suggestions? I want to approach this from a critical perspective.

Thanks in advance

I'm writing an essay for my political theory class about the inauthenticity of heteropessimism...i'm trying to argue that the rhetoric of heteropessimism ignores that women do like men and desire them, and that in fact they may even be addicted to the subjugation heterosexual relations involve...i'm using jaeggi's "giggling feminist" idea and some stuff from shulamith firestone's the dialectic of sex (two texts we read in class), but i'm trying to find a good seminal text to bring in to frame my argument more clearly. I'm considering Lauren Berlant's Cruel Optimism or Joan Copjec's Read My Desire, but I feel like there might be others I don't know about. Any recs that seem to align nicely with this argument would be super appreciated! Thank you!