Reading for an exam and the author just states:
the structuralist thinking of Marx and Durkheim, for example, operates within a largely positivistic framework.
Seriously, the more of these mainstream academia books I read the more I feel like none of these people have actually spent any real time reading Marx or trying to understand marxist theory.
On positivism and Marxism from my other self-appointed readings
No point to this post really, I just feel increasingly disillusioned about my ability to ever write a Marxist dissertation in Western academia, one that would actually pass. There aren’t even anyone to teach me or guide me in it in my field, the most Marxist guy I’ve found is firmly a Frankfurt school type.
My horticulture degree taught me how to do The Grapes of Wrath. It’s one of the most dialectical sciences out there, you can make a big socioecological impact, and it’s so radicalising that it made me a Double Communist. Not only was there absolutely no radical content, but they let a cattle industry contractor with a vineyard background teach the only agroecology class that might contain something radical. Not only was there nothing philosophical, but they used Malthusian bullshit to explain why industrial agriculture is actually cool+good. My job is doing eco-Marxism but there wasn’t even an environmentalist angle to the degree, let alone any mention that radical environmentalism exists.
I hate STEM as an academic culture. It produces redditors. It only teaches you how to be a redditor with some technical niche. If I had started my degree at 18 without some existing societal critique it would have lobotomised me.
I hate how correct you are because the rest of my working life will probably be spent surrounded by exactly this culture/mentality