Thoughts on production, alienation, and ideology
As is my tradition here at Base and Superstructure, I’m going to take a short holiday break from posting.
It’s been a wild year, and I’ll have an end of year post coming out in a couple of weeks. Until then, I hope all of you enjoy some time with family and friends.
I’ll be back in January. Hope you will, too!
Feels like far too little time, but we’ve arrived at the final reading list of 2024! Here’s what I’ve been reading as the year winds down.
As always, let me know what you’re reading. And, don’t worry too much about the end of 2024. I’ll be back with another list in January.
So, I watch a lot of movies, but it’s rarely a topic here on the blog. In fact, I work movies into my regular schedule. One night each week, my partner and I go out separately and do our own thing. It helps us maintain independence and keep our own projects and sanity. It also gives us a chance to connect with our own hobbies and interests.
Readers probably aren’t shocked to learn that in the summer, I usually use that night to go watch a baseball game. I also, again no shocker, often use the time to work on my writing. But most weeks, I go see a movie at the local non-profit movie theater. It’s a wonderful place to see films, and they maintain a selection that’s a couple of steps better than the corporate chains.
And so, why not make this a blog topic? I’ll say a word about the top 5 2024 movies I’ve seen.
In a recent issue of Catalyst, Jacopo Custodi argued that the left should adopt a ‘rooted cosmopolitanism.’
This sounds like an oxymoron (see note at bottom), a feeling Custodi tries to turn into something productive. He argues that not only can the phrase make sense, but also that wrestling with its implications will allow the left to reconcile popular working-class sentiments with the construction of an international socialist movement.
It’s not hard to imagine the appeal of ‘rooted cosmopolitanism.’ Custodi wants the sense of ‘national belonging’ that most of us feel. But he wants it without all the negatives of nationalist politics. He wants real cosmopolitanism while allowing for the fact that most people – especially working-class people – remain attached to their country of origin.
Can Custodi have his cake and eat it, too?
While I see the appeal of the notion of rooted cosmopolitanism, I don’t think he can.
At times, I think back to 2018 and try to recall why I started a blog. Much of the reason amounts to having a productive creative outlet for the thoughts constantly moving through my head. But the answer of ‘political education’ also lurks.
With my background in academic philosophy and leftist political organizing, I could offer readers a few insights by way of political education. Or so I hoped.
But when I started writing a post about political education, I thought about calling it ‘the uses and misuses of political education.’ That title gets at how the topic strikes me. Every leftist tendency – from the wildest sect to the mildest flavor of ‘democratic socialism’ – loves to talk about political education. Lots of DSA chapters make moves in that direction.
But something bothers me about all this so-called ‘political education.’
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