Base and Superstructure

Alienation, autonomy, and ideology

Category: Philosophy (Page 7 of 8)

These are posts on philosophy from the blog Base and Superstructure. My background is in academia, with a specific focus on feminism, philosophical issues in the social sciences, and social and political philosophy. I have also done work on historical figures such as J. L. Austin and Ludwig Wittgenstein. These posts incorporate some or all of these issues. The influences may be more or less explicit, depending on the topic. Philosophy can be intimidating, and so these posts present issues in a way that’s open to many people. There is also discussion of specific philosophical issues, and specific issues from a philosophical perspective, such as feminist accounts of pornography, Marxist and socialist accounts of the state and political economy, and the search for the best explanations for social and material phenomena.

Chomsky-Foucault Debate: Live from 1971

April 22, 2019 /
chomsky-foucault debate

Source: Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Foucalt.png)

Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault sat down for a debate in the early 1970s. You can watch the whole thing here. The transcript, along with some related essays from both Chomsky and Foucault, is available to buy as a book. It’s known as the Chomsky-Foucault debate.

I wasn’t new to either Chomsky or Foucault when I watched and read the Chomsky-Foucault debate. And the short debate format has its clear limits. But I did come away with a few impressions and lessons learned.

I’ll lay those out.

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5 Tips for Reading Marx’s Capital

April 11, 2019 /

Capital Marx

So you’ve bought Volume 1 of Marx’s Capital, or you’re thinking about buying it?

Good for you! It’s a fantastic book, and you should read it! Capital is worthwhile for its historical significance alone, both to politics in the last 150 years and to philosophical and intellectual developments. But it’s also a highly relevant book to our current times. Particularly in an era of neoliberal or financialized capitalism, where many of the conditions Marx wrote about resurface.

Personally, I would’ve liked a bit more guidance when I started reading. I fumbled around quite a bit, and it took me awhile to understand what Marx was doing in the text.

What I lacked, may you have!

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Leaving Academia: A Guide

February 4, 2019 /
leaving academia

Source: Dnalor 01 (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Dnalor_01)

Some of you probably know I have some experience with leaving academia. It’s a gradual process. I started having doubts about an academic career around 2010 or 2011. When I went on the job market in 2011 and 2012, I searched both academic and non-academic jobs.

I landed a non-academic job in early 2013. For a few years, I taught-part time as a Visiting Assistant Professor while working a non-academic job. My last paycheck from a university was in January 2016, and my most recent academic publication (which I’ve summarized) was in the summer of 2016.

So that’s my basic leaving academia narrative. I’ve also done a couple of interviews.

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Pragmatic Approaches to Voting

October 1, 2018 /
pragmatic Keep Calm and Vote

Source: James Mallos (https://www.flickr.com/photos/james_mallos/15467214887)

Leftists and liberals love arguing about how to vote, whether they admit it or not. Pragmatic issues are central to these debates. They enter through the front or rear door, but they’re there.

Even the most hardcore anti-electoralists talk about electoral issues. Anarchists like Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Peter Kropotkin, and the Catalonian anarchists drew lines. Sometimes they crossed those lines.

I’ve given the issue some thought over the years. I’ll lay out these thoughts in this post.

Here’s how I vote. How do you vote?

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capitalism and racism

Capitalism and Racism: Which is Prior?

September 24, 2018 /

Marxists, other leftists, and/or antiracists have argued for decades about the relative importance of capitalism and racism. They’ve framed the issue in different ways. Some people discuss which system exerts the greatest force on society. Others discuss which system offers the more fundamental social explanation. Some people talk about which one came first, historically. And still others ask which we should address first in our leftist movements.

Not only that, but approaches aren’t even mutually exclusive.

You might ask: what’s the difference between these frames? If so, that’s unfortunate, because they are different. It’s possible to argue, for example, that racism (or capitalism) came first historically, but that capitalism (or racism) explains more or should be addressed first.

And so, I’m going to sort out some of these issues in this post. I’ll use Ibram X. Kendi’s book Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America as a reference point.

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