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A review by jiujensu
A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto by China Miéville
slow-paced
5.0
This book includes the Communist Manifesto in the appendix and has a section by section explanation to start us off. Not just praise, but criticism - and unlike many who get popular talking about this, no red scare Mccarthyite propaganda. The tendency in the mainstream is to associate anything Marxist, communist, socialist, etc, including the Manifesto with Stalin. Mieville will debunk this and other falsehoods throughout. The discussion of hate at the end was invigorating - it's not at the individual but the systems.
And there's a great discussion near the end referencing Tad Delay about people having desire, not desire for knowledge - you can't fact check racist relatives into the light. We should have a little give in our belief (a band rather than a line) but still maintain values.
---loved this---
"Not that we should make a counter-fetish of uncertainty. To have fidelity at all to the project of this Manifesto, no matter how critically, is to be convinced of certain claims of which capitalism and its ideologues demand we remain unsure: that inequality and oppression aren't states of nature; that our social reality is controlled by the few; that it's so controlled in opposition to the needs and rights of the many; that we have the capability, at the very least, to make it worth attempting to change the world. That if we succeed, it will be better for the vast majority. There are minimum grounds for agreement without which comradely activity and radical analysis are functionally impossible. Some certainties and what we might call humilophobia can be liabilities for radical change, but not all."
---
I wouldn't call this the most accessible book. It was kind of a hard read. Though maybe my focus has been off. And my study was science, not humanities, so I often have to do more work to catch up there. But it's an important book for the thoroughness and thoughtfulness and overall sticking to facts over some weird anticommunist agenda so common today.
And there's a great discussion near the end referencing Tad Delay about people having desire, not desire for knowledge - you can't fact check racist relatives into the light. We should have a little give in our belief (a band rather than a line) but still maintain values.
---loved this---
"Not that we should make a counter-fetish of uncertainty. To have fidelity at all to the project of this Manifesto, no matter how critically, is to be convinced of certain claims of which capitalism and its ideologues demand we remain unsure: that inequality and oppression aren't states of nature; that our social reality is controlled by the few; that it's so controlled in opposition to the needs and rights of the many; that we have the capability, at the very least, to make it worth attempting to change the world. That if we succeed, it will be better for the vast majority. There are minimum grounds for agreement without which comradely activity and radical analysis are functionally impossible. Some certainties and what we might call humilophobia can be liabilities for radical change, but not all."
---
I wouldn't call this the most accessible book. It was kind of a hard read. Though maybe my focus has been off. And my study was science, not humanities, so I often have to do more work to catch up there. But it's an important book for the thoroughness and thoughtfulness and overall sticking to facts over some weird anticommunist agenda so common today.