This small essay by Janine Brodie called “Power and Politics” has several other issues, but their most frustrating one is their outright DISMISSAL of Marxist class analysis for the stupidest reasons. Economic determinism? I guess if you yearned to softly dismiss marx by misrepresenting him.
God I fucking hate poli sci majors.
The previous page:
The next one:
I’m not the brightest crayon in the box but is it just me or does Doctor Brodie somehow make politics and power some sort of vague, unsolvable mystery? Like fr I don’t want just an echochamber of nodding heads plz help am I in the wrong?
I need help putting words to my issues with it.
Yeah there’s a certain similarity there with creationists who argue “oh Darwin didn’t get this one bit right or didn’t account for some factor, ergo evolution is wrong.” Factoring social characteristics into class analysis doesn’t render the class elements irrelevant.
I can never remember the source of the quote but I once read something to the effect of: “It is a testament to the insidiousness of capitalism that it has convinced a majority of Americans that the American system of chattel slavery was historically a simple series of race relations that had absolutely nothing to do with the production of cotton and sugar.”
These things often are not mutually exclusive concepts in practice.