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A review by _tourist
A Spectre, Haunting by China Miéville
on the manifesto of the communist party;
the communist manifesto is particular to its time, but general in its ambitions. yet i am dubious that the best response we have to class antagonism is to fall into battle lines and finally subordinate ourselves to a party we are assured ‘represent[s] the interests of the movement as a whole.’ (2.5).
can i countenance a text that practically froths at the overwhelming ‘productive forces’ used by the bourgeoisie to ‘subjugate nature’ being laid in the laps of the ‘communist party’, lowercase or not?
on mieville’s analysis;
‘…these utopians pursue rarefied social experiments - alternative modes of living, for example - of kinds that can never exist more than fleetingly and interstitially in capitalism.’ well let me not be slow about it. i can never exist more than fleetingly and interstitially in any system, capitalist or not. ‘the slow accretion of tiny victories and defeats’ begins with our interpersonal relations; in other words, our lifestyles, our ‘modes of living’.
to my mind, mieville’s analysis and gloss of the manifesto is not enough to bring it into the 21st century. he relies overly on phrases such as ‘but this does not invalidate the manifesto’s position on /x/‘. after the seventh incantation of such a phrase, it really begs the question ‘why not?’. surely we can do better.
the ratio of hate-evangelism to climate analysis was also interesting.
the communist manifesto is particular to its time, but general in its ambitions. yet i am dubious that the best response we have to class antagonism is to fall into battle lines and finally subordinate ourselves to a party we are assured ‘represent[s] the interests of the movement as a whole.’ (2.5).
can i countenance a text that practically froths at the overwhelming ‘productive forces’ used by the bourgeoisie to ‘subjugate nature’ being laid in the laps of the ‘communist party’, lowercase or not?
on mieville’s analysis;
‘…these utopians pursue rarefied social experiments - alternative modes of living, for example - of kinds that can never exist more than fleetingly and interstitially in capitalism.’ well let me not be slow about it. i can never exist more than fleetingly and interstitially in any system, capitalist or not. ‘the slow accretion of tiny victories and defeats’ begins with our interpersonal relations; in other words, our lifestyles, our ‘modes of living’.
to my mind, mieville’s analysis and gloss of the manifesto is not enough to bring it into the 21st century. he relies overly on phrases such as ‘but this does not invalidate the manifesto’s position on /x/‘. after the seventh incantation of such a phrase, it really begs the question ‘why not?’. surely we can do better.
the ratio of hate-evangelism to climate analysis was also interesting.