Base and Superstructure

Thoughts on production, alienation, and ideology

Category: Culture (Page 12 of 21)

These are posts on culture from the blog Base and Superstructure. Mostly the focus is on American culture. But there might be a few posts on broader, international issues.

sci-fi book series dispossessed

5 of My Favorite Sci-Fi Book Series

March 1, 2021 /

So, I read lots of science fiction books, and therefore lots of sci-fi book series. After all, the sci-fi book series forms of the core of the genre. An author writes a good book, leaves enough on the table to allow for more, the book gets popular, and then: Bam! It’s a series. It’s happened hundreds of times.

But I don’t often write about science fiction in this blog. I did write about the curious implications of one book in the era of COVID-19, and another in the era of automation. But I’ll go a little bigger in this post. Here are some of my favorite sci-fi book series.

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eye of a needle class politics

Eye of a Needle: Class Politics and the Wealthy

January 25, 2021 /

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19: 23-24)*

Contrary to ‘prosperity theology‘ trends we find among some right-wing Christians, most Christians long upheld the virtues of the marginalized (not to mention a skeptical attitude toward work). We find the injunction to do so most clearly in Bible passages like the one above. And we find a similar tradition in leftist politics – positing the working class as the main agent for social and political change.

Are these the same ideas? Can the wealthy play a positive role in society?

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senior executives talk about work elon musk

Do Executives Work Or Talk About Work?

January 4, 2021 /

Senior executives claim they work a lot. How much? On average, they report working 62 hours per week. If we expand to studies including middle management, we come up with average work weeks up to a whopping 72 hours. Talk about work!

Well, yes. As we’ll see, that’s the idea. Are senior executives and other managers some new proletariat, as they want us to believe? Do they toil away at work all day like real life hero-leaders from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged? Would the world fall apart if they quit doing what they do – if the people working under them took over their roles?

Not exactly.

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COVID Christmas

A Very COVID Christmas

December 24, 2020 /

My partner and I live about 500 miles from our families. This leaves us in a position where we feel like two holiday trips in a month are too many, so we usually stay in Iowa on Thanksgiving and travel for Christmas. A death in the family – as well as, of course, COVID-19 – disrupted all that this year. So, we stayed home for Thanksgiving and we’re staying home for Christmas.

It’s kind of a bummer. Christmas hasn’t held any religious significance for me for years. Though I grew up Catholic, I’ve been non-religious for 20+ years. But Christmas held a different place in my life – checking in with family and with my hometown in Indiana. More generally, checking in with my history.

One of my favorite things to do over the Christmas holiday is just hopping in the car and driving around rural Indiana. This year, a part of me will even miss the inevitable December 23 airport snafus. On the plus side, staying at home is peaceful.

How are you handling COVID-19 related travel plans/delays/etc.?

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the mask miracle

The Mask Miracle

December 21, 2020 /

The effectiveness of masks? What a difference 7 months make! Back in the early days of COVID-19, evidence suggested homemade cloth masks probably don’t work. The CDC recommended against them. Now it seems like masks do everything. It’s a mask miracle.

Let’s take a look at this mask miracle.

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