Has anyone here read it? I’m listening to the audiobook and it’s kind of interesting, and I’ve picked out a few things (at least I know a tiny bit about Hegel, Fanon, Sarte, and Bergson), but why is it so jargon-y and confusing? Is there anything else I should have read first? I feel like all I’m getting out of it is what I already know from ‘Oppose book worship’ by Mao, or the bit of ‘wretched of the earth’ by fanon that I remember. What are your thoughts on the book?
Gotta admit, this was one of the first supposedly socialists books that I read, that made me realize, that only a very tiny minority of people who call themselves socialists actually read things.
I also found the book jargony, idealist, leaned heavily on terminology, and didn’t have much of value to say once you look past the terms. A lot of modern day champaigne socialist scholarship like this, mark fisher’s capitalist realism, zizek, is just 2nd-hand gramsci that focuses on media, art analysis, education, and directs people’s focus away from the actually important topics: imperialism, materialist analysis, how most of the worlds proletarians eat, drink, and live.
This is why at the public level, the “acceptable socialists”, are these champaigne / idealist socialists that appeal to college audiences, and direct people’s attention to Hegel, Lacan, french theory, and away from surplus value, poverty, production, and imperialism.
The book’s certainly not worthless, but for someone advocating for the language of the people and duologue with the people he certainly uses a lot of language that wouldn’t be understandable to the vast majority of the masses. “Trust me bro, I totally have to use the word Conscientizacao”