Anytime there's an interview with Chris Cutrone, I watch it almost immediately. He's certainly controversial and says some things that are difficult to reckon with, but he's got a valuable and unique perspective that I greatly appreciate - both as a Marxist and as a fellow gay man. Fantastic discussion!
Always an instant watch whenever Chris is on. if Doug and Chris ever form some kind of party or pre-party i'm there man, with my petty bourgeois optimism and work ethic and everything. The political discussions that come out of these talks are frank and blunt yet inspiring. I hope something practical and constitutive comes out of them, god knows we need it
I am having a crisis of communist identity. Not of my positions, I consider myself a marxist without adjectives, mostly because I've just focused on marx. The crisis is about my imagined place in the movement. The bulk of the politics and spaces of political argument belongs wholly fixated in the abstract realm of the definitions of terms, abstract conceptions of parties, etc. or it belongs to a totally compromised position to capital, those who fixate on 'results' on policy proposals. The poverty of american working class politics has just made me want to retreat from politics because other than finding enjoyment in theory and talking to others who enjoy it, there isn't a more meaningful context I feel like I can apply myself in the struggle for communism. The moment we live in is simply not fertile for mass working class activity, and the only thing I can think of is to just find ways to enjoy my time detached from politics until conditions become so abject that the workers are willing to fight capital itself.
I wish I could recall the video off the top of my head, but there is another Cutrone video where he talks about the fact "the left" is pre-political. It might have been in regards to the US, but If you're state side I think a more meaningful thing might be to do something grass roots or to even just agetate and propgate these ideas.
@@piratesocialist9350 "misery won't bring about revolution, just further destroy its potentiality." That's not what was said though - what was said was that objective conditions need to get worse before there is a chance of the working class assuming class consciousness and organising for its interests as a class. And that is clearly an accurate observation - those conditions are created by material circumstances in historical context.
@@SvalbardSleeperDistrict I guess I just don't believe a worse condition means a heightened stage at all, the quality of the condition is just totally irrelevant in my view.
Right now the Federal Reserve is working hard to extinguish the fire that is rising wages among US workers, particularly black men. And it's not just the Fed, it's the whole economist class that is hellbent towards crushing any forms of political bargaining power coming from below. Because they have not been trained to negotiate, but to apply their "instruments" from above. Nothing about economics is about the economy, but about keeping organized labor dormant.
In some sense, you must work with the working class that is/ exists, not the working class you want to exist/ existed at some time in the past. So you will have to make do with knucklehead wastrel millennials and cat-ear wearing zoomers. I *do* think the kind of working class Mr. Cutrone wants to see participate, would like to participate, but the project must have material relevance for them. By which, I mean attacking the site of production rather than bourgeoise politics which is incapable of generating relevant outcomes in the US context.
53:48 While I don't take opioids I'm pretty much in line with that whole description. Selling my plasma to keep me afloat and living on government programs.
57:50 It’s like that line from Office Space. Every President is worse than the last. That means whoever is currently in office is the worst President ever.
Douglas, I just love watching you dude … am not on opioids lol born in the 1970s & got it all straight like almost 8 or 9 years ago that the system is wrecked, reading Marx & Engels to me is like reading the Bible at least for their prophecies & thorough analysis
I give American social Democrats like chapo a pass on their modest goals. American culture is so libertarian reactionary, that just getting a new socialist project like Medicare for all done is precondition to having the average American able to think about socialism as a good option in general.
I agree. The deep ideological discussions can sometimes miss the point that these modest goals could literally save people from a life of unpayable debt or even death. I only have a short time to live so gotta work with the conditions we’ve got now.
Students are not petit bourgeois. Professors are not petit bourgeois. Union staffers are not petit bourgeois. Petit bourgeois does not mean the same thing as PMC. PMC are a segment of the workers. The petite bourgeoisie are smallholding capitalists- shopkeepers, contractors, independent plumbers, etc.. People who own a small part of the means of production. Students and professors don't. Get it straight.
@J Hofer that's a reaaaach, So by that logic people with chronic illnesses and anyone who goes to a hospital is a petit bourgeois. Lets say the student is "buying the labor" where is he extracting exchange value profit from the professor?
@@nataliebolles for sure, but it is a counter revolution through it disciplinary function - people act like social housing was a benevolent good in places like Australia and England, but if you were a political agitator in Australia, that could actually get you kicked off waiting lists
Chris curtone is too high off of worker nonsense, This is not the 1930s, industrial jobs are have declined, "workers" nowadays are mostly in the service sector, Many students end up in a managerial strata of service industries, but that doesnt even make them the PMC most students are NOT petite bourgeois PMC is not a class
@J Hofer my point is curtones glorification and appeal to some worker purity is nonsensical, specially today Workers are atomized as fuck, most workers are in service industry, a lot of them are def paycheck to paycheck. No incentive to collective bargaining. Instead of complaining about stupid PMC shit, let's look at those cleavages amongst workers and gig workers. And also not to lumpen the students into the mythical PMC
@J Hofer "It seems you left your thought half finished" "Person X saying working class does not watch RUclips is wrong because working class may have changed its form but it is still working class" sounds like a perfectly completed thought.
The whole PMC dialogue online has quite obviously become fudged, fuzzy nonsense in many ways, where people can't even define what the PMC is while taking cheap potshots at millenial college students and middle class workers who happen to have liberal inclinations. When people aren't careful with it, their usage of PMC is pretty much the old conservative canards about mildly educated middle class liberals.
As usual I find cutrone interesting but at times hopelessly contradictory. A mish mash of valid critiques with a lot of circular logic. It is not obvious to me that Platypus is not the exact thing it claims to be critiquing. If that’s “the point” it seems like a waste of time. Doug please complete your thoughts instead of chris talking over you.
My point is that the struggle for socialism will be contradictory. Regarding Platypus, it’s necessarily by conditions and circumstance pre-political and propagandistic and hence sectarian like any other “Left” tendency but we try to be more aware of the limitations and reasons for this. In any case, I’m not representing Platypus here but only myself. There are hundreds of members of Platypus and many might disagree with things I say here.
@@ccutrone I appreciate the response. As I said I always find your videos interesting but what is never clear is what course of action is going to lead to anything different. Is the answer is that left needs to be “more self-aware“ and “ more critical”? let’s put it this way I am also a Gen X-er in my 50s, ex-trotskyist, the long shadow of the new Left-I get it. But left constantly shredding itself in a bizarre egotistical way is part of the problem- at least that’s my experience. it’s why at least some of us (myself included) ended up focusing on activism and org building (not party building) even if it wasn’t explicitly socialist.
@20:00 human society is not a mathematical theorem Chris. You can speak of necessary and sufficient conditions, but as you say, make the necessary a reality if you can. What is actually going to be sufficient is not something you, I, Marx or anyone can say or know. You have no idea, admit it. Time evolution is not a deterministic process, history is not a science, and the future is not materially determined. Surprises happen. And both Muhammad and Jesus (just to name two) were far greater revolutionaries than Marx. Marx sat around writing some ok books and thinking incorrect ideas about monetary systems.
"Cutrone Summarized: 'People suck and everything is fucked.' ... Cool, so why even engage?" Presenting a point of view that shows that - on the backdrop of people arguing that may not be the case - is a perfectly valid way of illustrating the state of affairs - a necessary basis for any subsequent discussion.
You guys are, as usual, wrong and naive when it comes to the Ukraine war though. Trying to blame the US/NATO for Putin's calculated aggression is a pretty embarrassing trick to fall for.
@@sublationmedia Because the US/NATO are not a warring party? Only the Ukraine can negotiate a peace with Russia - after its defeat. Otherwise, Russia would just recollect its strength and attack again some years down the road. Do you see the flaw in your thinking?
@@Pinstripe0451 Without US/NATO support, there would be no Ukraine. Certainly, the US/NATO has the power to push Ukraine and Russia both to the negotiating table. As for Russia regaining their strength, you're assuming a ceasefire? I didn't specify that. I just said there should be a negotiated peaceful resolution and the US/NATO should spearhead the effort.
@@sublationmedia Indeed, Ukraine would have been wiped off the map by Russia. That's genocide. And then Russia would feel emboldened and continue with Georgia, Moldova, the Baltic States etc. Because he can! Is that your idea of pacifism? Passivism?
The US is pushing Russia to the negotiating table. Without military support, there would be no negotiation. The more land the Russian army loses to the Ukrainian army, the more the Russian state has to negotiate for things it thought it could just assert.
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Imagine Cutrone on JRE lmaoo
Let's get him on Rogan!
Joe would just start talking about trans people in bathrooms
I have but Cutrone is too powerful for Rogan
How about him on Tim Dillion’s Show. Two Long Islanders
Anytime there's an interview with Chris Cutrone, I watch it almost immediately. He's certainly controversial and says some things that are difficult to reckon with, but he's got a valuable and unique perspective that I greatly appreciate - both as a Marxist and as a fellow gay man. Fantastic discussion!
Always an instant watch whenever Chris is on. if Doug and Chris ever form some kind of party or pre-party i'm there man, with my petty bourgeois optimism and work ethic and everything. The political discussions that come out of these talks are frank and blunt yet inspiring. I hope something practical and constitutive comes out of them, god knows we need it
it's the low-rent Doug & Varn.
Great interview, thanks a lot! Cutrone is a legend and painful right
I am having a crisis of communist identity. Not of my positions, I consider myself a marxist without adjectives, mostly because I've just focused on marx. The crisis is about my imagined place in the movement. The bulk of the politics and spaces of political argument belongs wholly fixated in the abstract realm of the definitions of terms, abstract conceptions of parties, etc. or it belongs to a totally compromised position to capital, those who fixate on 'results' on policy proposals. The poverty of american working class politics has just made me want to retreat from politics because other than finding enjoyment in theory and talking to others who enjoy it, there isn't a more meaningful context I feel like I can apply myself in the struggle for communism. The moment we live in is simply not fertile for mass working class activity, and the only thing I can think of is to just find ways to enjoy my time detached from politics until conditions become so abject that the workers are willing to fight capital itself.
I don't have much positive to add, just regarding the last sentence, misery won't bring about revolution, just further destroy its potentiality.
I wish I could recall the video off the top of my head, but there is another Cutrone video where he talks about the fact "the left" is pre-political. It might have been in regards to the US, but If you're state side I think a more meaningful thing might be to do something grass roots or to even just agetate and propgate these ideas.
@J Hofer I am also a carpenter and take a similar approach at my work.
@@piratesocialist9350 "misery won't bring about revolution, just further destroy its potentiality."
That's not what was said though - what was said was that objective conditions need to get worse before there is a chance of the working class assuming class consciousness and organising for its interests as a class. And that is clearly an accurate observation - those conditions are created by material circumstances in historical context.
@@SvalbardSleeperDistrict I guess I just don't believe a worse condition means a heightened stage at all, the quality of the condition is just totally irrelevant in my view.
That got intense between you guys. 😮
Right now the Federal Reserve is working hard to extinguish the fire that is rising wages among US workers, particularly black men. And it's not just the Fed, it's the whole economist class that is hellbent towards crushing any forms of political bargaining power coming from below. Because they have not been trained to negotiate, but to apply their "instruments" from above. Nothing about economics is about the economy, but about keeping organized labor dormant.
In some sense, you must work with the working class that is/ exists, not the working class you want to exist/ existed at some time in the past. So you will have to make do with knucklehead wastrel millennials and cat-ear wearing zoomers. I *do* think the kind of working class Mr. Cutrone wants to see participate, would like to participate, but the project must have material relevance for them. By which, I mean attacking the site of production rather than bourgeoise politics which is incapable of generating relevant outcomes in the US context.
53:48 While I don't take opioids I'm pretty much in line with that whole description. Selling my plasma to keep me afloat and living on government programs.
Has Chris ever been on one of these with Ashley? It seems like a lot of his arguments here are more with her than Doug.
57:50 It’s like that line from Office Space. Every President is worse than the last. That means whoever is currently in office is the worst President ever.
Douglas, I just love watching you dude … am not on opioids lol born in the 1970s & got it all straight like almost 8 or 9 years ago that the system is wrecked, reading Marx & Engels to me is like reading the Bible at least for their prophecies & thorough analysis
I'm glad to hear you got straight and very glad that you enjoy listening.
Doug does have dreamy locks of hair
I give American social Democrats like chapo a pass on their modest goals. American culture is so libertarian reactionary, that just getting a new socialist project like Medicare for all done is precondition to having the average American able to think about socialism as a good option in general.
I agree. The deep ideological discussions can sometimes miss the point that these modest goals could literally save people from a life of unpayable debt or even death. I only have a short time to live so gotta work with the conditions we’ve got now.
Socialists were always for lower taxes, this wedge that gets driven between libertarians and socialists is because of FDR and Stalinism
i like chris cutrone. i hope the guys from the chain gang he looks like he just escaped from dont hunt him down.
Students are not petit bourgeois. Professors are not petit bourgeois. Union staffers are not petit bourgeois. Petit bourgeois does not mean the same thing as PMC. PMC are a segment of the workers. The petite bourgeoisie are smallholding capitalists- shopkeepers, contractors, independent plumbers, etc.. People who own a small part of the means of production. Students and professors don't. Get it straight.
@J Hofer that's a reaaaach,
So by that logic people with chronic illnesses and anyone who goes to a hospital is a petit bourgeois.
Lets say the student is "buying the labor" where is he extracting exchange value profit from the professor?
Chris is making some great points in this. That's hard for me to say, as an anarchist.
The welfare state existed to discipline labour
It exists as a compromise - as the preemptive counterrevolution
@@nataliebolles for sure, but it is a counter revolution through it disciplinary function - people act like social housing was a benevolent good in places like Australia and England, but if you were a political agitator in Australia, that could actually get you kicked off waiting lists
Chris curtone is too high off of worker nonsense,
This is not the 1930s, industrial jobs are have declined, "workers" nowadays are mostly in the service sector,
Many students end up in a managerial strata of service industries, but that doesnt even make them the PMC
most students are NOT petite bourgeois
PMC is not a class
@J Hofer my point is curtones glorification and appeal to some worker purity is nonsensical, specially today
Workers are atomized as fuck, most workers are in service industry, a lot of them are def paycheck to paycheck. No incentive to collective bargaining. Instead of complaining about stupid PMC shit, let's look at those cleavages amongst workers and gig workers. And also not to lumpen the students into the mythical PMC
PMC are breadwinners like workers, but unlike workers, they are trained to attain an elitist mentality. They are the meatshield for the 1%.
@J Hofer "It seems you left your thought half finished"
"Person X saying working class does not watch RUclips is wrong because working class may have changed its form but it is still working class" sounds like a perfectly completed thought.
The whole PMC dialogue online has quite obviously become fudged, fuzzy nonsense in many ways, where people can't even define what the PMC is while taking cheap potshots at millenial college students and middle class workers who happen to have liberal inclinations. When people aren't careful with it, their usage of PMC is pretty much the old conservative canards about mildly educated middle class liberals.
As usual I find cutrone interesting but at times hopelessly contradictory. A mish mash of valid critiques with a lot of circular logic. It is not obvious to me that Platypus is not the exact thing it claims to be critiquing. If that’s “the point” it seems like a waste of time. Doug please complete your thoughts instead of chris talking over you.
My point is that the struggle for socialism will be contradictory.
Regarding Platypus, it’s necessarily by conditions and circumstance pre-political and propagandistic and hence sectarian like any other “Left” tendency but we try to be more aware of the limitations and reasons for this.
In any case, I’m not representing Platypus here but only myself. There are hundreds of members of Platypus and many might disagree with things I say here.
@@ccutrone I appreciate the response. As I said I always find your videos interesting but what is never clear is what course of action is going to lead to anything different. Is the answer is that left needs to be “more self-aware“ and “ more critical”? let’s put it this way I am also a Gen X-er in my 50s, ex-trotskyist, the long shadow of the new Left-I get it. But left constantly shredding itself in a bizarre egotistical way is part of the problem- at least that’s my experience. it’s why at least some of us (myself included) ended up focusing on activism and org building (not party building) even if it wasn’t explicitly socialist.
@20:00 human society is not a mathematical theorem Chris. You can speak of necessary and sufficient conditions, but as you say, make the necessary a reality if you can. What is actually going to be sufficient is not something you, I, Marx or anyone can say or know. You have no idea, admit it. Time evolution is not a deterministic process, history is not a science, and the future is not materially determined. Surprises happen. And both Muhammad and Jesus (just to name two) were far greater revolutionaries than Marx. Marx sat around writing some ok books and thinking incorrect ideas about monetary systems.
Cutrone Summarized: "People suck and everything is fucked." ... Cool, so why even engage? What a prat.
Yes, clearly. Join the peanut gallery,@J Hofer. Any more conjecture?
"Cutrone Summarized: 'People suck and everything is fucked.' ... Cool, so why even engage?"
Presenting a point of view that shows that - on the backdrop of people arguing that may not be the case - is a perfectly valid way of illustrating the state of affairs - a necessary basis for any subsequent discussion.
You guys are, as usual, wrong and naive when it comes to the Ukraine war though. Trying to blame the US/NATO for Putin's calculated aggression is a pretty embarrassing trick to fall for.
The US and NATO are abdicating their responsibility to find a negotiated peace.
@@sublationmedia Because the US/NATO are not a warring party? Only the Ukraine can negotiate a peace with Russia - after its defeat. Otherwise, Russia would just recollect its strength and attack again some years down the road. Do you see the flaw in your thinking?
@@Pinstripe0451 Without US/NATO support, there would be no Ukraine.
Certainly, the US/NATO has the power to push Ukraine and Russia both to the negotiating table.
As for Russia regaining their strength, you're assuming a ceasefire? I didn't specify that. I just said there should be a negotiated peaceful resolution and the US/NATO should spearhead the effort.
@@sublationmedia Indeed, Ukraine would have been wiped off the map by Russia. That's genocide. And then Russia would feel emboldened and continue with Georgia, Moldova, the Baltic States etc. Because he can! Is that your idea of pacifism? Passivism?
The US is pushing Russia to the negotiating table. Without military support, there would be no negotiation. The more land the Russian army loses to the Ukrainian army, the more the Russian state has to negotiate for things it thought it could just assert.