Base and Superstructure

Alienation, autonomy, and ideology

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the end of forgetting

The End of Forgetting

January 16, 2020 /

I recently read Kate Eichhorn’s book The End of Forgetting: Growing Up with Social Media. In fact, I picked it up while I was at the 4S conference in New Orleans. It seemed to offer the best of science studies, namely careful analytical work around important issues in science and technology. Good stuff.

I’m curious about the effects of social media on childhood. I’ve seen plenty of evidence social media changes – and perhaps distorts – childhood. What kind of evidence? Young people carefully curating their social media profiles, grandstanding or engaging in other attention-seeking behavior online, using temporary and/or anonymous chat apps, and propagating oddly insular and distorted views about most Americans.

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democratic nomination leading candidates

Who Can Win the Democratic Nomination?

January 13, 2020 /

We’re at the final debate before the primaries begin. At this point, our question is no longer ‘who’s in the race, and what are they saying?’. Rather, it’s ‘who can still win the Democratic nomination?’. The time for candidates to make their case is mostly over, and the time to start voting is near.

The Democrats started with about 25 candidates, and now they’re down to 13. 13! It still seems like too many for January 2020. Even now, I say it’s too early to predict the winner. But it’s not too early to start making some cuts. And so, I’ll start not with the question of who will win the Democratic nomination, but rather the question of who can win it. Among the 13 remaining candidates, which ones have a notably nonzero chance of victory?

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coworking space tech working

Coworking and the Precariat

January 9, 2020 /

Beware Silicon Valley and its tech dreams. But you (hopefully) already knew that. What else? Or, perhaps, what (aside from the obvious) falls under the Valley’s scope? For one, the eerily dystopian utopia of its Ted Talks and its free beer and free dinner in recently gentrified utopian spaces. And for another, the young, disaffected men currently embracing Andrew Yang‘s UBI snake oil. Any discussion of coworking spaces starts here.

But it hardly ends here. What comes next?

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primitive accumulation money from africa to north america

Primitive Accumulation, Race, and Capitalism

January 6, 2020 /

Most conversations about race and capitalism quickly degenerate into a chicken-or-egg discussion. You know the one. Which came first, racism or our beloved ‘free enterprise system’? I say we’ve had enough of that. The debate is played out. It’s monotonous and tired. But there’s a Marxist term from the debate still relevant to us. I’m referring to ‘primitive accumulation‘.

Does ‘primitive accumulation’ solve these issues? If so, how far does it take us? More broadly, does primitive accumulation account for the role of race in the capitalist system? Or if you approach these issues like, say, Ta-Nehisi Coates approaches them, does it account for the role of capitalism in the racial hierarchy?

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Class Reductionism: What is it, and is it Bad?

January 2, 2020 /

class reductionism karl marx factory

Lots of people talk about class reductionism. Most people seem to agree it’s a bad thing, and that some other group of people does it. But few people talk about what ‘class reductionism’ means. It’s simply assumed or unstated. I, on the other hand, find the term extremely unclear. And unclear in both its parts. That is to say I think it’s unclear what ‘class’ means and what it means to reduce something to it.

What we have, then, is a useful project for an analytic philosopher. What does ‘class reductionism’ mean? Is it a political or explanatory project of some kind? What’s it all about? Some thoughts on that…

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