Stalin's Moustache

Capitalism can’t turn a trick

stalinsmoustache — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 02:46:15 +0000

The annual love-in for the global capitalist elite in Davos in underway as I write. Actually, ‘elite’ simply means that you cough up the membership fee, at about $44,000 each. Thing is, there are still vacancies, so if you want to join what has been called an ‘ego-stroking gabfest’ and have a spare $44,000, get thee to Davos. The problem is that the Chinese, with the single most important economy on the globe, won’t be there. Why? Is it because communist countries aren’t invited? Hardly, since they’ve been casting a bemused eye over proceedings for three decades. No, the idiots who organise Davos decided to meet during the Chinese New Year festival. But I suspect another reason may well be the sense that Davos has now become another version of Lukács’s Grand Hotel Abyss (worth quoting again):

A beautiful hotel, equipped with every comfort, on the edge of an abyss, of nothingness, of absurdity. And the daily contemplation of the abyss between excellent meals or artistic entertainments, can only heighten the enjoyment of the subtle comforts offered.

Meanwhile the Chinese are waiting for the slow plane crash that is the European economy to come to a end so they can pick up some bargains at the industrial garage sale.

A Message for Terry Eagleton

stalinsmoustache — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 02:31:41 +0000

A belated comment on an earlier post concerning the best way to contact Tezza from New Zealeand (or anywhere else for that matter), given that he doesn’t use the internet:

Hello Prof. T. Eagleton,
I am a participant in the Jordanian philosophical Association and the socialist forum. I will give a lecture about your book “The Illusion of Postmodernism”.
I have a weak and unclear Arabic translation for your book. Is it possible that you send me a broadened idea regarding it in English?
Your language seems a bit obscure to me and I will be thankful if you you can use a more common language.
Thanks very much in advance
Ahmad Otoum
Amman – Jordan

Update: sharks on my beach?

stalinsmoustache — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:47:56 +0000

Much speculation on whether this was a large shark leaping out of the water at Newcastle beach on the weekend:

I was actually in the water that day, about 100 metres away while all these super-fit people were competing for Ironman/woman. The waves were stunning, so I stayed in for quite a while. Too big for a dolphin, some suggest it was a pilot whale, others a shark. Mind you, it appeared a few days after the surfer was chomped down at Redhead beach, just south of here.

Typology of scholars: The Intellectual Hit-man

stalinsmoustache — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:27:20 +0000

I must admit I am quite fond of the intellectual hit-man. Some great scholars have undertaken such tasks: Henri Lefebvre at the behest of the Parti communiste français, or Georg Lukács with The Destruction of Reason (1952). Basically a broadside against Western thought since Hegel, it attempts to trace the growth of irrationalism, and thereby fascism and imperialism. Breathtaking in its ambition, skewering, among many others, Kierkegaard (‘prophet of bourgeois decadence’), Nietzsche (‘hysterical brutality is always an intrinsic sign of decadence’), Weber, Mannheim, Schmitt and even a spate of Western Marxists. But perhaps its real beauty is in images such as the Grand Hotel Abyss: ‘A beautiful hotel, equipped with every comfort, on the edge of an abyss, of nothingness, of absurdity. And the daily contemplation of the abyss between excellent meals or artistic entertainments, can only heighten the enjoyment of the subtle comforts offered’ (p. 22).

Here we must include Lenin’s Materialism and Empirio-Criticism from 1908. Taking a ‘common sense’ realist approach, in which science gradually approaches the objective reality ‘out there’, Lenin attacks the philosophy of Avenarius and Mach, fashionable among some young Bolsheviks to his left, as a species of phenomenalism that may be traced back to Bishop Berkeley. His position is quite unremarkable and widespread even today: we may come to know, by ‘reflection’, the way things exist independently of our minds, but our ability to perceive that external world is held back by our own limitations so that our knowledge ‘reflects’ external reality only approximately. But Materialism and Empirio-Criticism was also aimed at Bogdanov’s greater influence among the Bolshevik intellectuals (Lenin always had the support of the larger number of workers). As the product of a highly skilled hit-man, the book was a brilliant success, since Bogdanov was spectacularly ‘taken out’. Soon enough Lenin would return to Hegel (in the library in Berne in 1914) and rediscover a more dialectical approach.

Usually, the work of a hit-man is understood to be less-than-honourable, a compromise of intellectual integrity, in which one uses whatever influence one has to neutralise a specified target. But as a specific type of scholarship, it requires fine skill and marksmanship to do the job properly.

Stalin looks at you

stalinsmoustache — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:57:57 +0000

Stalin looks at you and thinks you are a pile of shit … Maybe he’s right!

‘Gotta watch out for them progressives’ …: Light from the beacon of democracy

stalinsmoustache — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 04:41:54 +0000

Occasionally news filters over here concerning the Republican primaries in that strange country between Canada and Mexico. As someone pointed out recently, watching those primaries is a bit like watching a funnel-web spider walking across the floor of your living room. You know you should either get some poison-proof specialist to put it back in its natural environment, or squash it before it leaps in the air, sinks it fangs into you and puts you out of your misery. But you watch all the same.

Anyway, recently one of my sons, who is becoming quite politically aware, spent a few weeks in the USA. Early in his visit, he found himself talking to a local about local politics.

‘Have you heard of them progressives?’ The man asked.

‘Progressives?’ Said Tom.

‘Yeah, like Obama or Bush …’

‘Bush?’ Said Tom. ‘You’re kidding’.

‘Bush was too nice to them Muslims. Deep down, he was really just a rich liberal. And Obama, you see, he’s deliberately destroying this country. His father was a Muslim terrorist and he’s here as an agent of Al Qaida. Everything he’s doing is designed to bring America to its knees’.

After this enlightening political lesson, Tom said to me after he came home, ‘That place is really f&#cked’.

Tsar Nicholas II: A Man of the People

stalinsmoustache — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 14:26:16 +0000

I have just finished Walling’s great book, Russia’s Message from 1908, and stumbled across these marginal notes, written in the hand of Nicholas II, the last tsar. He is responding to a report on the state of the armed forces. Walling had obtained it through some revolutionary socialists.

One item of the report reads:

In the 4th Corps the winter shoes are in frightful condition; the soles are made from chips of wood covered with strips of leather.

Nick’s insightful marginal comment:

This is disgraceful; how many legs have been frozen as a result?

Walling, Russia’s Message (1908), p. 464

Typology of Scholars: Bitter and Twisted

stalinsmoustache — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:13:28 +0000

I suspect we have all met the bitter and twisted scholar, one who takes solace in the bottle, vituperation or whatever else to black out the disillusionment. The basic problem with B&T is that he once believed in the glories of the intellectual life, in the institution (be it university, college or school) as a beacon of light in a barbarous world. After all, is this not what a ‘vocation’ is, a higher calling to ideals beyond the ordinary man and woman? Are not students the great hope for a better world, whom the scholar may prepare and shape? In short, B&T once loved the place and what it stands for. The problem is that at some point or other, our B&T realises with a crunch that the love was never returned, for the institution couldn’t give a rat’s arse about your wellbeing, indeed, it wouldn’t piss on you even if on fire. Now the students become conniving little shits about to lead the world to ruin, colleagues become small-minded back-stabbers, and the discipline has just puked all over itself. The smile becomes a lop-sided grimace, in which the foot of a consumed student occasionally gets caught.

Sometimes, in a moment of clarity, the B&T gets the hell out of the place and recovers some sanity. More often, the B&T takes it out on others. Anonymous reviews and refereeing are among the favourite sites for B&Ts, apart from the routine belittlement of students and undermining of colleagues. It may be a journal article, a book proposal or perhaps even a grant application. B&T now deploys every means to tear the author into little pieces that can never be reassembled: personal attacks, disdain, questions concerning intelligence or the ability to put a sentence together, mutterings about unscrupulous deeds – nothing is off limits, for all the accumulated bitterness may now be unleashed on another. Conveniently, the anonymous review relieves B&T of that annoying thing known as libel or defamation. And when retirement looms, B&T does his or her level best to screw the despised institution for as much loot as possible and enjoy an unhappy retirement. Of course, B&T should never have believed in the place at all.

Quote of the day: on Shane Warne

stalinsmoustache — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 07:19:55 +0000

Some may have been following the brouhaha after Shane Warne – erstwhile cricketing great, frenetic twitterer and lately seducer of Liz Hurley – tried to run down a cyclist. Writes Bridie O’Donnell, a cycling champ:

Of course, if more than half a million people follow you on Twitter, it’s because they like you, admire you or are enthralled to hear what whimsical and acerbic sound-bytes emanate from your intriguing mind … It’s important to remember that while Warne made a career out of being a spin bowler, he was just as famous for his sledging, his hair, his recidivist womanising and poor nutritional choices. He can be proud of his contribution to cricket’s image as a sport of overweight, overpaid blokes who drink a lot.