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	<title>Comments for THE FORTUNES OF THE DIALECTIC</title>
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	<description>From station to station</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Sun, 11 Oct 2009 01:19:16 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>Comment on Jeffrey Goes to College? (The Descendents&#8217; &#8220;Mississippi Nights Bootleg&#8221;) by Ben Tubman</title>
		<link>http://jeffrubard.wordpress.com/2009/07/23/jeffrey-goes-to-college-the-descendents-mississippi-bootleg/#comment-1646</link>
		<dc:creator>Ben Tubman</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sun, 11 Oct 2009 01:19:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://jeffrubard.wordpress.com/?p=1492#comment-1646</guid>
		<description>Just one note... it is common belief that the &quot;homophobic&quot; lyrics in &quot;I&#039;m Not a Loser&quot; (your pants are too tight, you fucking homo... you suck, Mr. Buttfuck...) were an example of what the writer was called, not what he was calling other people.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Just one note&#8230; it is common belief that the &#8220;homophobic&#8221; lyrics in &#8220;I&#8217;m Not a Loser&#8221; (your pants are too tight, you fucking homo&#8230; you suck, Mr. Buttfuck&#8230;) were an example of what the writer was called, not what he was calling other people.</p>
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		<title>Comment on Upstairs, the New York Dolls are kickin&#8217; it out (Or, Bataille in Central Park) by Jeff Rubard</title>
		<link>http://jeffrubard.wordpress.com/2009/09/03/upstairs-the-new-york-dolls-are-kickin-it-out-or-bataille-in-central-park/#comment-1589</link>
		<dc:creator>Jeff Rubard</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:16:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://jeffrubard.wordpress.com/?p=1776#comment-1589</guid>
		<description>This is the deal: Bataille&#039;s work does not, *mirabile dictu*, reflect his genuine attitudes to life *in toto*: he was not in favor of fantastic immorality in all weather, but the various &quot;erotistic&quot; fantasias provided a diagonal approach to the materialistic reality of life in a republic, especially its &quot;central&quot; district. When one has a fine young woman on hand in a &quot;rarefied&quot; environment which is in reality none such, a certain experimentality of thought chock-a-block with upright mode of conduct is what is appropriate: you &quot;learn&quot; this in any case, whether you sip Cristal or drink Miller, whether you get &quot;stroppy&quot; or mistily promise conjugal bliss to a dottir that can &quot;get horizontal&quot; any time they, uh, want to, it&#039;s not about what you think, but what you do -- and what are you doing?</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>This is the deal: Bataille&#8217;s work does not, *mirabile dictu*, reflect his genuine attitudes to life *in toto*: he was not in favor of fantastic immorality in all weather, but the various &#8220;erotistic&#8221; fantasias provided a diagonal approach to the materialistic reality of life in a republic, especially its &#8220;central&#8221; district. When one has a fine young woman on hand in a &#8220;rarefied&#8221; environment which is in reality none such, a certain experimentality of thought chock-a-block with upright mode of conduct is what is appropriate: you &#8220;learn&#8221; this in any case, whether you sip Cristal or drink Miller, whether you get &#8220;stroppy&#8221; or mistily promise conjugal bliss to a dottir that can &#8220;get horizontal&#8221; any time they, uh, want to, it&#8217;s not about what you think, but what you do &#8212; and what are you doing?</p>
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		<title>Comment on Upstairs, the New York Dolls are kickin&#8217; it out (Or, Bataille in Central Park) by Matt Cale</title>
		<link>http://jeffrubard.wordpress.com/2009/09/03/upstairs-the-new-york-dolls-are-kickin-it-out-or-bataille-in-central-park/#comment-1588</link>
		<dc:creator>Matt Cale</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 21 Sep 2009 02:15:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://jeffrubard.wordpress.com/?p=1776#comment-1588</guid>
		<description>How is Bataille a subrepted Lucretius?</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>How is Bataille a subrepted Lucretius?</p>
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		<title>Comment on Upstairs, the New York Dolls are kickin&#8217; it out (Or, Bataille in Central Park) by arrytus</title>
		<link>http://jeffrubard.wordpress.com/2009/09/03/upstairs-the-new-york-dolls-are-kickin-it-out-or-bataille-in-central-park/#comment-1578</link>
		<dc:creator>arrytus</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 05 Sep 2009 04:40:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://jeffrubard.wordpress.com/?p=1776#comment-1578</guid>
		<description>I read Bataille in my room.  [Is this enthymemic?]

*          *               *


Isn&#039;t subreption a psychologism?  It educes from a perspective qua soi-disant apodictic.  Is subreption then an imperative gentitive?  &#039;&#039;Subreption&#039;&#039;, therefore, as concealing one&#039;s own ignorance, or the possibility of fallacy.  Possessing the void.  Is self-deception a necessary part of polity?  Isn&#039;t any valorization- so prescinded- but an elision of... possibility?  But which conviction [amphiboly: transgression] is primary?  Evidence made by being lost.  Isn&#039;t that the haecceity of antinomy?  The essence of recursion is this subsumed mis-understanding, the lack of justification, but utilizing from faith and fidelity in/to a self it cannot understand.  This Hegelian noble/beautiful soul, the romantic, who subverts himself.  Didn&#039;t Bataille integrate this successfully in his non-sense?  The failure of perspective, judgement and primacy/time?

*           *                     *

Soporific thoughts or the moribund are preferred?  Where would Blanchot reside?  Is there a field of asphodels in central park?  Does a lethean rill run somewhere off the hudson?  Would not the nouveau irony be to sleep in the middle of the street?  Is that not as prodigal?  Are the dreams not more surfeit?</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I read Bataille in my room.  [Is this enthymemic?]</p>
<p>*          *               *</p>
<p>Isn&#8217;t subreption a psychologism?  It educes from a perspective qua soi-disant apodictic.  Is subreption then an imperative gentitive?  &#8221;Subreption&#8221;, therefore, as concealing one&#8217;s own ignorance, or the possibility of fallacy.  Possessing the void.  Is self-deception a necessary part of polity?  Isn&#8217;t any valorization- so prescinded- but an elision of&#8230; possibility?  But which conviction [amphiboly: transgression] is primary?  Evidence made by being lost.  Isn&#8217;t that the haecceity of antinomy?  The essence of recursion is this subsumed mis-understanding, the lack of justification, but utilizing from faith and fidelity in/to a self it cannot understand.  This Hegelian noble/beautiful soul, the romantic, who subverts himself.  Didn&#8217;t Bataille integrate this successfully in his non-sense?  The failure of perspective, judgement and primacy/time?</p>
<p>*           *                     *</p>
<p>Soporific thoughts or the moribund are preferred?  Where would Blanchot reside?  Is there a field of asphodels in central park?  Does a lethean rill run somewhere off the hudson?  Would not the nouveau irony be to sleep in the middle of the street?  Is that not as prodigal?  Are the dreams not more surfeit?</p>
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		<title>Comment on So, you like books? by Jeff Rubard</title>
		<link>http://jeffrubard.wordpress.com/2007/06/23/so-you-like-books/#comment-1525</link>
		<dc:creator>Jeff Rubard</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:16:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://jeffrubard.wordpress.com/2007/06/23/so-you-like-books/#comment-1525</guid>
		<description>As a fine psychiatrist once dared to reveal, it&#039;s a normal part of mentation: oftentimes people I know who have regular auditory hallucinations function much better as human beings than me. On the other hand, my personal theory is that it&#039;s really so not good, and we&#039;re lucky to have other problems most of the time.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>As a fine psychiatrist once dared to reveal, it&#8217;s a normal part of mentation: oftentimes people I know who have regular auditory hallucinations function much better as human beings than me. On the other hand, my personal theory is that it&#8217;s really so not good, and we&#8217;re lucky to have other problems most of the time.</p>
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		<title>Comment on The Road to Wellville: Purges and &#8220;Smart Mobs&#8221; by emp</title>
		<link>http://jeffrubard.wordpress.com/2009/04/26/the-road-to-wellville-purges-and-smart-mobs/#comment-1492</link>
		<dc:creator>emp</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 20 May 2009 19:06:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://jeffrubard.wordpress.com/?p=1243#comment-1492</guid>
		<description>&quot;Although I personally find the Soviet state’s ability to eventually self-critique these immense errors not a little impressive compared to, say, the Turkish silence even today about the Armenians, I accordingly hold Stalin in no particular esteem.&quot; 

The &#039;self critique&#039; was because Khrushchev wanted to take some different directions from those of Stalin and felt crucifying Stalin would be very helpful to such aims. There was talk in the 80&#039;s of rehabilitating Stalin; that great harm had been done to the nation by such a &#039;self critique&#039;, but they decided against it.  

&quot;And yet it seems incredible that this man, who would probably have been hard pressed to count to fifty, could be blamed for the death of countless millions in a “mechanized” fashion morally equivalent to the Judeocide of the Nazis. Speaking as the “sociological realist” I am, I would hazard a guess about the true history of that time in the Soviet Union: really, Stalin exercised too little control over the bureaucracy of incarceration and not, except in the martyring of the “old Bolsheviks”, too much.

Perhaps what really happened was that, released from the control of Church and Capital, the masses and their minders went more or less berserk: in a country without rule of law, evolving “negotiated orders” could easily land all sorts of relatively unassuming people on the outs. We accept such a story about Mao’s “Cultural Revolution”; since the actual would be the possible, why not apply the same schema to the Soviet 30s-50s?&quot; 

Yes, a combination of bad upper management and the paranoid hysteria of the populace; people informing on others to make sure they weren&#039;t informed on instead and just general paranoia thanks to many previous attacks by capitalist nations and plenty of propaganda along such lines probably with the goal of keeping a common enemy in sight to hold them together.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8220;Although I personally find the Soviet state’s ability to eventually self-critique these immense errors not a little impressive compared to, say, the Turkish silence even today about the Armenians, I accordingly hold Stalin in no particular esteem.&#8221; </p>
<p>The &#8217;self critique&#8217; was because Khrushchev wanted to take some different directions from those of Stalin and felt crucifying Stalin would be very helpful to such aims. There was talk in the 80&#8217;s of rehabilitating Stalin; that great harm had been done to the nation by such a &#8217;self critique&#8217;, but they decided against it.  </p>
<p>&#8220;And yet it seems incredible that this man, who would probably have been hard pressed to count to fifty, could be blamed for the death of countless millions in a “mechanized” fashion morally equivalent to the Judeocide of the Nazis. Speaking as the “sociological realist” I am, I would hazard a guess about the true history of that time in the Soviet Union: really, Stalin exercised too little control over the bureaucracy of incarceration and not, except in the martyring of the “old Bolsheviks”, too much.</p>
<p>Perhaps what really happened was that, released from the control of Church and Capital, the masses and their minders went more or less berserk: in a country without rule of law, evolving “negotiated orders” could easily land all sorts of relatively unassuming people on the outs. We accept such a story about Mao’s “Cultural Revolution”; since the actual would be the possible, why not apply the same schema to the Soviet 30s-50s?&#8221; </p>
<p>Yes, a combination of bad upper management and the paranoid hysteria of the populace; people informing on others to make sure they weren&#8217;t informed on instead and just general paranoia thanks to many previous attacks by capitalist nations and plenty of propaganda along such lines probably with the goal of keeping a common enemy in sight to hold them together.</p>
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		<title>Comment on A Marxist Theory of Truth by Jeff Rubard</title>
		<link>http://jeffrubard.wordpress.com/2008/05/10/a-marxist-theory-of-truth/#comment-1433</link>
		<dc:creator>Jeff Rubard</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 30 Dec 2008 18:37:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://jeffrubard.wordpress.com/?p=202#comment-1433</guid>
		<description>Thanks for commenting, Sergey, and apologies for the lateness of the reply (if you read more recent posts, you&#039;ll see I&#039;ve been &quot;concentrating&quot; on other things). But of course we differ in our estimation of Marxism, and there are a few points I want to clarify. Firstly, this &quot;Marxist&quot; theory of truth owes not a little to the extent to which Habermas was successful in drawing out some Marxist conceptions animating the &quot;structural-functionalist&quot; school in midcentury American sociology: it is as much Parsons (Shils, et al.) as it is Marx, but from the vantage point of the present I think this reveals that the American mind of the &quot;Cold War&quot; was not as distant from Marxism as was supposed, and that in fact there has been a recent ideological recrudescence from the influence of &quot;rootless cosmopolitans&quot; which covers this up.

So, if you&#039;re willing to grant this is not quite Diamat but a &quot;pragmatic&quot; reading of Marx, the way in which &quot;truths of reason&quot; can be accomodated within this theory is no great trick to pull off. They are simply the best ideology, things which nobody ever has any reason to doubt, or ever has good reasons to promulgate their contrapositives. If the most bloodthirsty Bolshevik ever were to tell some shrinking White divine &quot;1+1=2&quot;, what harm could possibly come from it? None at all. Similarly, principles that speak to the real needs of large masses of people orient action in good ways; even a Nietzschean superman would have to leave a lot of quasi-Golden rules in place, since his or her intellectual, physical, artistic etc. superiority would not guide mass action in good ways. In a sentence, &quot;truths of fact&quot; are truths of reason -- and secrets other people can&#039;t know are often secrets to their holders.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Thanks for commenting, Sergey, and apologies for the lateness of the reply (if you read more recent posts, you&#8217;ll see I&#8217;ve been &#8220;concentrating&#8221; on other things). But of course we differ in our estimation of Marxism, and there are a few points I want to clarify. Firstly, this &#8220;Marxist&#8221; theory of truth owes not a little to the extent to which Habermas was successful in drawing out some Marxist conceptions animating the &#8220;structural-functionalist&#8221; school in midcentury American sociology: it is as much Parsons (Shils, et al.) as it is Marx, but from the vantage point of the present I think this reveals that the American mind of the &#8220;Cold War&#8221; was not as distant from Marxism as was supposed, and that in fact there has been a recent ideological recrudescence from the influence of &#8220;rootless cosmopolitans&#8221; which covers this up.</p>
<p>So, if you&#8217;re willing to grant this is not quite Diamat but a &#8220;pragmatic&#8221; reading of Marx, the way in which &#8220;truths of reason&#8221; can be accomodated within this theory is no great trick to pull off. They are simply the best ideology, things which nobody ever has any reason to doubt, or ever has good reasons to promulgate their contrapositives. If the most bloodthirsty Bolshevik ever were to tell some shrinking White divine &#8220;1+1=2&#8243;, what harm could possibly come from it? None at all. Similarly, principles that speak to the real needs of large masses of people orient action in good ways; even a Nietzschean superman would have to leave a lot of quasi-Golden rules in place, since his or her intellectual, physical, artistic etc. superiority would not guide mass action in good ways. In a sentence, &#8220;truths of fact&#8221; are truths of reason &#8212; and secrets other people can&#8217;t know are often secrets to their holders.</p>
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		<title>Comment on A Marxist Theory of Truth by Sergey</title>
		<link>http://jeffrubard.wordpress.com/2008/05/10/a-marxist-theory-of-truth/#comment-1430</link>
		<dc:creator>Sergey</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 27 Dec 2008 15:32:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://jeffrubard.wordpress.com/?p=202#comment-1430</guid>
		<description>Jeff, Thanks for the article. Reading it helped to clearly understand most essential reason of the failure of the Marxist enterprise. Here are my comments, if you are interested: 


In traditional philosophy and science truth is most fundamental and simple concept. Main feature of scientific truth, is that it is verifiable, that is we always have chance to check truthfulness of empirical statement using correspondence with reality. We can judge about truthfulness of theoretical generalizations by what they logically imply and if they lead to true empirical statement. 

Now Marx and his followers come and say us that it is too naive, that an utterance is a contribution to collective social action and so the political implications of it are essential and if political implications are wrong statement can’t be true. First, this remark may be relevant in those specific cases where statement has political implications, but many statements have no political implications. What statement “1+1=2” or “Snow is white” would imply? The existence of politically neutral statements is the first reason why as a general  theory of truth, Marxist theory of truth is lame and utterly ridiculous. The main reason why it is lame is transpired by the following points of yours, and I am thankful to you for summarizing it this way:

Jeff:  (1)In traditional Marxism and sociological theories following on from it, this coordination is the function of ideology, and what I am saying is that there is not another “alethic” dimension beyond communicative coordination — truth is good ideology, which coordinates people in constructive ways.  

(2) But it is at least coherent to look at things this way, and to think that there are no “politically incorrect” truths, or politically correct falsehoods.

Sergey: So you see, you need to evoke idea of &quot;good ideology&quot; and &quot;politically correct&quot; to explain the concept of truth. If in our western world truth serve as a simple fundamental mechanism to differentiate right from wrong and good from bad, in your Marxist world it is ideology which work as a fundamental scale. The thing is true if it is in correspondence with your “good” ideology and not true otherwise.
But here is a simple question: how would you than check the goodness and badness of your ideology? When you reduce the concept of truth to ideology you can not claim that your ideology is good because it is true, you have to take your ideology as an axiom, as a doctrine which one must accept on faith. This makes Marxism just another religion.

And why we should think that Marxist ideology is good ideology? For me personally Marxism is the worst ideology I have ever seen, because it makes class straggle and hence class hatred fundamental philosophical cornerstone. It is bad because during its short history it brought death to more people than any bloody religion. More than 40 millions of Russians were killed by Stalin and about 100 million of Chinese were killed by Mao who were Marxists.   Now imagine that someone would claim that a statement can be true if it demolishes Marxist ideology? Would not this be laughable? It is as laughable as the suggestion that statement can be true only if it is in correspondence with Marxist ideology. 

I think Marxist theory of truth is one of the main reason why in rationally thinking word Marxism become synonymous with evil and of dictatorial governance. Look, here is how it work for the sake of dictators: If one do not have to respond to the facts and logical consistency and only my “good ideology” defines what is right and what is wrong, then those who are the keepers of the ideology (Party and its chairmen)  hold the key to goodness and badness of every ideological statement and as a consequence to truth and falsehood of everything.  So much for science, so much for objective Kantian morality. Chairmen of party holds the keys to fundamental scientific ideas and views on morality. So it was in Russia and China.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Jeff, Thanks for the article. Reading it helped to clearly understand most essential reason of the failure of the Marxist enterprise. Here are my comments, if you are interested: </p>
<p>In traditional philosophy and science truth is most fundamental and simple concept. Main feature of scientific truth, is that it is verifiable, that is we always have chance to check truthfulness of empirical statement using correspondence with reality. We can judge about truthfulness of theoretical generalizations by what they logically imply and if they lead to true empirical statement. </p>
<p>Now Marx and his followers come and say us that it is too naive, that an utterance is a contribution to collective social action and so the political implications of it are essential and if political implications are wrong statement can’t be true. First, this remark may be relevant in those specific cases where statement has political implications, but many statements have no political implications. What statement “1+1=2” or “Snow is white” would imply? The existence of politically neutral statements is the first reason why as a general  theory of truth, Marxist theory of truth is lame and utterly ridiculous. The main reason why it is lame is transpired by the following points of yours, and I am thankful to you for summarizing it this way:</p>
<p>Jeff:  (1)In traditional Marxism and sociological theories following on from it, this coordination is the function of ideology, and what I am saying is that there is not another “alethic” dimension beyond communicative coordination — truth is good ideology, which coordinates people in constructive ways.  </p>
<p>(2) But it is at least coherent to look at things this way, and to think that there are no “politically incorrect” truths, or politically correct falsehoods.</p>
<p>Sergey: So you see, you need to evoke idea of &#8220;good ideology&#8221; and &#8220;politically correct&#8221; to explain the concept of truth. If in our western world truth serve as a simple fundamental mechanism to differentiate right from wrong and good from bad, in your Marxist world it is ideology which work as a fundamental scale. The thing is true if it is in correspondence with your “good” ideology and not true otherwise.<br />
But here is a simple question: how would you than check the goodness and badness of your ideology? When you reduce the concept of truth to ideology you can not claim that your ideology is good because it is true, you have to take your ideology as an axiom, as a doctrine which one must accept on faith. This makes Marxism just another religion.</p>
<p>And why we should think that Marxist ideology is good ideology? For me personally Marxism is the worst ideology I have ever seen, because it makes class straggle and hence class hatred fundamental philosophical cornerstone. It is bad because during its short history it brought death to more people than any bloody religion. More than 40 millions of Russians were killed by Stalin and about 100 million of Chinese were killed by Mao who were Marxists.   Now imagine that someone would claim that a statement can be true if it demolishes Marxist ideology? Would not this be laughable? It is as laughable as the suggestion that statement can be true only if it is in correspondence with Marxist ideology. </p>
<p>I think Marxist theory of truth is one of the main reason why in rationally thinking word Marxism become synonymous with evil and of dictatorial governance. Look, here is how it work for the sake of dictators: If one do not have to respond to the facts and logical consistency and only my “good ideology” defines what is right and what is wrong, then those who are the keepers of the ideology (Party and its chairmen)  hold the key to goodness and badness of every ideological statement and as a consequence to truth and falsehood of everything.  So much for science, so much for objective Kantian morality. Chairmen of party holds the keys to fundamental scientific ideas and views on morality. So it was in Russia and China.</p>
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		<title>Comment on Music Wednesday: Santa Claus, Where Have You Been by top rap songs</title>
		<link>http://jeffrubard.wordpress.com/2008/12/24/music-wednesday-santa-claus-where-have-you-been/#comment-1429</link>
		<dc:creator>top rap songs</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 26 Dec 2008 21:50:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://jeffrubard.wordpress.com/?p=1072#comment-1429</guid>
		<description>Real good xmas tune</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Real good xmas tune</p>
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		<title>Comment on Music Wednesday: Santogold by rap</title>
		<link>http://jeffrubard.wordpress.com/2008/12/10/music-wednesday-santogold/#comment-1425</link>
		<dc:creator>rap</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Dec 2008 15:50:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://jeffrubard.wordpress.com/?p=1028#comment-1425</guid>
		<description>i can dig the textures and backgrounds they using... nice vid</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>i can dig the textures and backgrounds they using&#8230; nice vid</p>
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