Cutrone on Rockhill

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]I wish to make a complaint.

[00:00:02]>> Sorry, we're closing for lunch.

[00:00:03]>> Never mind that, man. Then I wish to complain about this pallet what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.

[00:00:09]>> Oh, yes. The Norwegian blue. What's wrong with it?

[00:00:11]>> I'll tell you what's wrong with it. It's dead. That's what's wrong with it.

[00:00:17]>> All right. Well, welcome to the Parrot Room. Uh, I'm glad to be talking to you again, Chris, about your recent piece in the Platypus Review. Um, and it's called it's a defense of the Frankfurt School from Rock Hill. What's what's the the title? You >> the Frankfurt School wanted socialism Contra Rockill, >> right? Um, yeah. So, I read that last night and actually you can listen to it on YouTube. I I read it and then listened to it on the YouTube channel that Chris has his own YouTube channel.

[00:00:47]Um, and yeah, I wanted to start by asking you about the uh thought I had it pulled up here about the Horheimer quote >> at the at the beginning. Um, I'm going to pull it up.

[00:01:01]>> Oh, yeah. No, the epigraph. Yep.

[00:01:04]>> Yeah, that's a Let me read it.

[00:01:08]>> Okay. It says um here we go. Where political influence is possible without betraying the truth, it should be practiced to the best of our abilities.

[00:01:18]Given the circumstance that there is no truth, this influence will remain almost purely theoretical. This means, in other words, that in the present historical situation, salvation lies in thinking and politics lies in thinking. that we are therefore consciously thrown back into a stoic standpoint.

[00:01:38]Not because we would tell the existentialists that they are stoics.

[00:01:43]Uh not because we would tell the existentialists they are stoics, but because we would cry out we are the stoics because there is no party.

[00:01:53]So that's u I mean given that I talk to um Benjamin Studebaker every week and also uh yeah and because of the the philosophical character of some of my conversations.

[00:02:10]There's a lot to unpack in that quote.

[00:02:13]Um >> there is >> you have to um your political influence shouldn't betray the truth but there is no >> truth >> truth right >> it's a very >> yes and then uh our salvation lies in thinking which means that we are consciously thrown back into a stoic standpoint Um so what does that mean? Let's start with there. What is this stoic position that Horheimer is saying that we are consciously forced into thrown back into? I mean, so you spoke with Ben Studaker and he's accused the left today generally, but also Marxism more specifically and me in particular of adopting a stoical standpoint or or flip side of that is that we can only understand Pltonism as stoicism.

[00:03:22]So I actually wrote one of my debate essays with Study Baker last year was is capitalism epicurian and socialism >> stoical >> um and he accused socialists of trying to put an end to politics >> and therefore being stoical in that way.

[00:03:43]And he it's he wrote a piece called um Hegel's Bastards.

[00:03:48]>> Mhm.

[00:03:49]>> And um or is it Buddha's Bastards?

[00:03:54]>> It's I think it's Buddha's bastards. I forget. But it has to do with the the way Pltonism was taken up by the Indians >> and the way Indian culture influenced the Greeks in the Alexandrian era.

[00:04:08]So it's about neoplatanism and stoicism is of course something more associated with um a different moment like the end of the Roman Empire >> the end of the classical Mediterranean world um and so Marcus Aurelius >> you know um so a kind of resignation and there's a there's a there's a famous book called the consolation of philosophy >> right >> theist Um and uh so it's about you know when the world is coming to an end what can you do? Well you can think you know and that's that's what Horheimer and Adorno were talking about >> there. And this is a you know recently translated this guy James Crane has a substack where he's been putting up a lot of these unpublished uh notes by Adorno and Horheimer.

[00:05:06]They're not entirely unpublished.

[00:05:07]They're in the collected works of Horheimer, but they haven't been translated into English. They haven't been published in English. And uh yeah, there's some nice gems in there, you know. Uh and so this one in particular, you know, stood out for me because it's one of those, you know, instances where they say the reason that we are as we are, the reason that we're doing what we're doing is that there's no party.

[00:05:36]right? which I think uh will be discordant or or maybe not uh taken seriously either by many people today because the the party question has been well through the new left I think it was um soiled the notion of a party you know >> Stalinism Stalinism >> Stalinism yeah >> yeah Stalinism ruined the notion of the party and the new left was the product of that attempt to avoid void the party question, >> right?

[00:06:11]>> You know, and and we have to admit it would have been very difficult to start a new socialist party in most countries of the world because the way Stalinism occupied that space.

[00:06:21]>> Yeah. Including the United States, do you think?

[00:06:23]>> Including the United States, less so in the United States, less so. But including here, um, in England, it's more of a tossup, like is that space occupied by the Stalinists or by the Labor Party?

[00:06:35]But it's kind of six of one, half dozen of the other, >> you know, kind of doesn't matter because functionally it's the same.

[00:06:42]>> Um, and the Stalinists and the Troskyists both were basically just fringe elements of the Labor Party. Mhm.

[00:06:51]>> And in the United States, however, uh you know, the Troskyists, the different varieties of Troskyists actually were much more independent of capitalist politics than we tend to think about it now, >> right? And also even though the Stalinists had been very FTR popular front 1930s 1940s you know fight against war and fascism um in fact they were also more independent of the capitalist parties than they are now.

[00:07:26]>> Uh so when you know I obviously I center my critique of Rock Hill on towards a new manifesto there. uh it's it's in the collected works of Horheimer as discussion on theory and practice uh but published in English by Verso under the title towards a new manifesto and in many ways um you know that was published when I was in the midst of writing my dissertation.

[00:07:55]you know, that became the sort of um final evidence of what I was saying about them being Leninists and, you know, >> and still being committed to, you know, the Marxist project.

[00:08:12]Mhm.

[00:08:13]>> Um and Rock Hill just butchers it like you know so he also centers that in his discussion of the Frankfurt school because he has to >> fend off what I've said you know without mentioning me but >> I'm the one who's out there saying this that look they're Leninists >> and so he has to deal with it and the way he deals with it is to misquote it.

[00:08:39]>> Right. Well let's talk a little bit about that. I mean, um, you know, he there's a couple of times where you quote him and then demonstrate the error or the deliberate distortion in his um, >> unless he just can't read, which is also possible. It's possible he just can't read.

[00:08:59]>> Yeah. There's sometimes where motivated reading is so strong that it's as if they can't hear.

[00:09:04]>> Yeah. I mean, Martin Jay has a review of Towards a New Manifesto >> where he basically says that I think he calls it the theater of the absurd >> like he just thinks that it's a a series of absurd statements by Horheimer and Adorno. He can't like follow the thread, >> right?

[00:09:24]>> And you know, but then then again, there is a question of how well Martin Jay can read how any of the how well any of these people can read the Frankfurt School, especially if they read them undiically, which is really the point.

[00:09:35]Right. Right. Um, so can you let's see I'm I'm looking through here for uh >> Okay, there's here's Rockill. I think this is the first quote that you you use to illustrate your point. Uh Rockill says Adorno's overall position like Herbert Marcus was summarized by uh Marie Josie Lavel in the following terms. So this isn't even a quote. This is someone else's summary.

[00:10:00]>> Someone else. Yeah.

[00:10:01]>> Yeah. The Bolevik Party, which Linen made the vanguard of the October Revolution, was a centralizing and repressive institution which would shape the Soviet state in its image and turn the dictatorship of the proletariat into its own dictatorship.

[00:10:15]Um, so do you think that that summary of uh adorn >> their attitude? Yeah.

[00:10:25]>> Is you think that's an inaccurate >> Yes.

[00:10:29]>> summary? Yeah.

[00:10:30]>> Yeah. I mean, in other words, it's turned into a kind of um cold war liberal, you know, a kind of vibarian or maybe Robert Mikkels >> who wrote the uh political party's book about the especi >> and talked about it as an oligarchy, >> you know, before the Russian Revolution.

[00:10:54]Mhm.

[00:10:54]>> Um and then James Bham, you know, the idea that the Bolevik revolution just represented a managerial revolution.

[00:11:02]>> Mhm.

[00:11:03]>> And Chsky of course has this perspective, you know, that the Bolevixs just used the working class to put themselves in power, >> right?

[00:11:11]>> You know, that it wasn't really the dictatorship of the proletariat, it was dictatorship over the proletariat. It was dictatorship of the party and the party is the PMC, >> right? you know, and it's all very plausible because certainly that's what the Soviet Union became, >> you know, with Stalinism, but I disagree with the Stalinists that they are a continuation of Lenin's project.

[00:11:37]>> Right. And so would Adorno.

[00:11:39]>> Absolutely.

[00:11:40]>> Right. So the problem in this summary is that um the claim that uh linen's uh party vanguard party of the October revolution um >> just aimed at this >> just aimed at this. Right. And that is not what Adorno believed at all.

[00:12:00]>> Not at all.

[00:12:00]>> Right. But I think Rock Hill actually is more in agreement with that.

[00:12:07]>> Of course.

[00:12:08]>> Of course.

[00:12:09]>> Right. He just doesn't think it's a bad thing >> or he doesn't think there's a contradiction between the party dictatorship and the class dictatorship.

[00:12:18]>> Right.

[00:12:19]Right. And and so if you really don't conceive of that distinction then it may be very difficult to read competently.

[00:12:29]Uh I think because >> it's socialist construction. It's the whole idea of actually existing socialism.

[00:12:35]So, you know, I was looking at the book again, his book.

[00:12:40]>> It's a pretty short book, and it's going to be one of three volumes. So, there's a projected trilogy. And the second book is going to be about the French fries.

[00:12:49]And then the third book is going to be more of a summary of what the Frankfurt School and the French Fries have in common and going to be a restatement of his own position. And so he starts this book with an autobiographical piece and then with a kind of a preliminary layout of his preferred approach which he calls dialectical and historical materialism >> DHM.

[00:13:14]Mhm.

[00:13:15]>> Um and then he's going to proceed to show how neither the Frankfurt school in claiming to be an improvement of Marxism nor the French fries in their claim to have transcended Marxism uh are adequate to this task of dialectical and historical materialism.

[00:13:34]Now he himself was a French theory guy >> and he studied directly under uh like Badu and I think Dereda as well and so he's and he studied in France you know like he is very much in French theory and but he claims to have also been very familiar with Fritz school theory but that's the center of his and certainly his publication as an academic was all about French theory and the way that I put it in a in a comment on my reading of my essay on YouTube was I think his real target is French theory and the Frankfurt school is just catching strays, >> right?

[00:14:18]>> You know, his job is on the French.

[00:14:21]>> He's trying to maybe smear the the French fries with the Frankfurt school >> or or the other way. It could be the other way, right? because uh you know it's um I think he's trying to take aim at both the claim to transcend Marxism and the claim to improve Marxism. So the the the French theory didn't claim to improve Marxism but to transcend it whereas the Frankfurt school claimed to improve Marxism. He says now that's one basic point and I don't make it in my essay because I I think it's sort of beside the point. I don't think the Frankfurt school ever claimed to be better Marxists to have improved Marxism. They really don't. They never make that claim. And I think that's frustrating for people >> because I think that would if they made that kind of a positive claim like this is how we're improving Marxism.

[00:15:14]>> Then it would be easier to argue with and against, >> right?

[00:15:18]>> You know, but they never make that claim. They just say we're Marxists who can't be Marxists anymore, >> right? because of the political situation.

[00:15:28]And that's a harder one to deal with because of course if that was true back then in the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s, how much more true is that now?

[00:15:39]>> Right?

[00:15:39]>> So that's what has to be disputed. It's like, no, we can still be Marxists and yes, we're in the western left and you know, whatever, but there are these people out there in Latin America and Asia struggling and there are still these socialist states. I mean, he ends the book saying that he wants his he wants to make a contribution to the creation of socialism in those states that are pursuing it. And I'm like, Chinese Communist Party is never going to listen to you. They're going to have zero use for you.

[00:16:12]>> Right. Um the other to get a a bit more into it um with Rockill Rockill says he quotes Horheimer uh with a bunch of ellipses in the quote. So in the east dot dot dot they have chosen slavery dot dot dot we have to reject dot dot dot Marxism.

[00:16:36]>> Isn't it absurd? I call it self-parodying string of ellipses. Yeah.

[00:16:39]>> Right. Yeah. So um So he was saying that the e Eastern Marxism has embraced slavery. I guess that's what that's what Horheimer is supposedly saying.

[00:16:55]>> Yeah. Of course Horheimer does not say that, >> right? Uh what where where is the actual quote here? Um >> it's strung together over very long passages. That's the other thing is that the the ellipses are like, >> you know, missing multiple sentences, even paragraphs >> and it's like, okay, what are you talking about?

[00:17:18]>> Let's take a look at the rejecting Marxism part, right?

[00:17:21]>> Yes.

[00:17:22]>> He says, um, here it is. He Adorno is saying, if people want to persuade us that the conditional nature of man sets limits to utopia, that is simply untrue.

[00:17:34]The possibility of a completely unshackled reality remains valid in a world in which senseless suffering has ceased to exist. Schopenhau is wrong.

[00:17:43]Orheimer says in the long runs things cannot change. In the long run things cannot change. The possibility of regression is always there. That means we have to reject both Marxism and ontology. Neither the good nor the bad remains but the bad is more likely to survive. The critical mind must free itself from a Marxism which says that all will be well if only you become a socialist. We can expect nothing more from mankind than a more or less worn out version of the American system. The difference between us is that Teddy still retains a certain pinchant for theology. My own thoughts tend to move in the direction of saying that good people are dying out. In the circumstances, planning would offer the best prospect.

[00:18:25]>> Right. No, it's a it's a very tricky because of course this is a transcribed conversation, >> right?

[00:18:32]>> Um this is not something that they were writing and so we might lose some of the tone. And I think that he's saying that to be a Marxist today, we have to pretend that everything is going to work out well and in face of what's happened, we can't do that.

[00:18:52]>> Right.

[00:18:52]>> Right. So when he's saying we have to, you know, reject both Marxism and ontology, what he's saying is that we have to reject both of those as potential resolutions to the problem that we're facing.

[00:19:05]>> And the ontology would be saying, oh, there's some sort of fixed human nature, which sets a limit on how cooperative or utopian human society can be.

[00:19:15]>> And it's Haider, too, obviously, >> right? Yeah. you know, so basically they're saying, you know, we can't do like this fascist philosophy Haidiger, nor can we be these sort of cheery Stalinists who pretend that everything's going to work out just fine, >> right? Yeah. So, and then he and then the quote claimed about the best we can hope for is some sort of degraded Americanstyle system, which which he would point to maybe because of the level of freedom in America that seemed to exist then, you know. Uh that's a a very cynical and uh you know pessimistic statement that he's making in response to Adorno's optimism.

[00:19:58]>> Yeah. He's saying that what what socialism is going to be is going to be some kind of Americanism but just planned more.

[00:20:07]>> Right. Right. which seems fairly like a fairly defeist claim, especially if you are a contemporary leftist who views America as the greatest evil, right? Um but but Adorno's response to that is to say, if the result of planning was that beggars would cease to exist, then planning itself would shed its rigidity and decisive change would be the result.

[00:20:36]>> That's right. In other words, if we could actually plan for the overcoming of the contradictions within a class society, then the result >> Americanism could transcend its own limits.

[00:20:48]>> Right.

[00:20:49]>> Right. In other words, like don't confuse the version of Americanism under capitalism with what it might mean under socialism.

[00:20:57]>> And Horheimer's reply is perhaps, but our relapse into barbarism is no less conceivable.

[00:21:02]>> Right? So basically, you know, with Horheimer, he you know, and they are playing devil's advocate with each other. That's the other thing. It's very much like the towards a new manifesto overall structure, which is that they're kind of going back and forth. And roughly, you could say Adorno is taking a more proactive, more political position, and Oraheimer's kind of trying to put the brakes on it. Mhm.

[00:21:30]>> But the premise of the whole conversation is that they're going to write a new communist manifesto. So Horheimer is not opposed to that idea.

[00:21:38]He's just saying, "Wait a minute."

[00:21:40]>> You know, and I think that Horheimer says one of the main problems, you know, I talk about this in other writings of mine. So that's why I don't get into the whole the whole arc of it, but he says the problem is that there's no audience.

[00:21:52]So we could write a new commun manifesto but there's no audience for it because it won't be allowed to be circulated in Russia >> and in Germany and England it will just be immediately shunted into the espeed or the Labor party.

[00:22:08]>> The United States people won't understand what we're saying and and then he says maybe the French and the Italians maybe because they have these communist parties >> maybe they could they could hear what we're saying a little bit. Mhm.

[00:22:22]>> Um and then they basically shelve it.

[00:22:24]And when you think about why they shelved it, it's because they really don't think there's an audience for it, >> right?

[00:22:31]>> And the reason that there's not an audience for it is that there's not a political space for that audience to exist, >> right? Which means there's no party, >> right?

[00:22:40]>> Yeah. Um so that's far and away from you know that saying we have to reject Marxism >> and also it's it's not like the I mean Rockill just is very clear he's like they are anti-communists like Warheimimer and Adorno are just anti-communists like he just puts it just that way >> you know by that by the standard he's applying you could say Marx was an anti-communist I saw a quote you put up on uh Facebook I think uh from from Markx about how you have to be ruthlessly critical of all existing things including what what conceives itself to be communism >> that's in the essay too that's in this essay too right it's from the letter to Ruga >> right that's right it wasn't >> from the letter to Ruga from 1843 and basically you know my argument is that he never abandoned that position >> you know that right know ruthless criticism of everything existing. First and foremost, the socialist and communists, >> right?

[00:23:46]>> You know, because they are the they're the ideology that really has to be critiqued. Meaning the ideology of the dominant status quo is kind of nothing.

[00:23:56]But the ideology of the people who are purporting to want to change things, that's the ideology that has to be critiqued, >> right? Yeah. Yeah. And and what was his critique of the of contemporary communism? Marx's critique from that.

[00:24:12]>> Oh, that abolition of private property is just a one-sided opposition to uh to the prevailing private property principle and as such infected by its opposite.

[00:24:25]>> Right?

[00:24:25]>> So, and then he says basically there are collectivist socialists and then there are individualist socialists. And so he says, you know, there are the the people who emphasize abolishing private property and then there are people like Prudon who don't foreground that >> because they're more individualistic.

[00:24:46]And he's saying that it's natural that you'd have these two different kinds of socialism and communism since socialism and communism is internally contradictory anyway >> in terms of okay, abolish private property, what would that mean? And you know, he says in the in the manuscripts a year later that it would just mean the state becoming the capitalist.

[00:25:10]>> Yeah. It it just means the ultimate form of monopoly capitalism, you know, uh you don't like it, >> right?

[00:25:18]>> Ultimate form of alienation. And Rockell has no patience for that, you know, like these Stalinists don't have any patience for that. uh you know because then >> then then we really have to face how bleak things really are >> you know uh I mean you know the idea that people are less alienated in China than in the United States is fanciful.

[00:25:43]>> Yeah.

[00:25:43]>> No one no one in China would accept that. I mean the party would say no.

[00:25:49]They would say you know people in the United States are alienated and people in China are not. would point like the Chinese Communist Party would point to all the social pathology in the United States, >> right?

[00:26:00]>> And and in China, of course, it's just repressed. All that same pathology exists. It's just repressed.

[00:26:07]>> So, they don't have drug addicts on the street because they put them in prison or mental institutions or slave labor camps, >> you know. Um, which surely could happen here too under capitalism, under private capitalism, you Sure.

[00:26:24]>> I'm sure that a lot of the MAGA people would love to put drug addicts into forced labor camps and you know, guess what? They do that already in China.

[00:26:34]>> So, you know, but but you'd be less alienated, I guess, Doug.

[00:26:38]>> Well, you know, you'd be a productive member of society, >> right?

[00:26:44]Right.

[00:26:45]>> Yeah. Uh yeah. So uh so this is this is the I mean this is an unfortunate essay I think uh that it has to be written.

[00:26:55]>> Yes.

[00:26:56]>> Um that but but what's you said it before we started recording the reason I'm releasing this to the public is because you thought that your essay would be >> controversial. Get some attention.

[00:27:10]>> Yeah. Get some attention and be be stir the pot.

[00:27:13]>> Yes. And I want to know what claim do you think you're making would that would people would grasp onto to try to use against you so that they that it can get attention and not reach any you know point where it inspires thinking that that because I do think that people tend to pay attention to you in a particular way. Mhm.

[00:27:36]>> Um so in a way that wherever you said something that is easily distorted, people will >> latch on to that.

[00:27:45]>> Pay attention and latch on. Um and and I think you actually sometimes write in a way so that that is a possibility because you recognize that otherwise you'll be ignored without being that's the provocative side.

[00:27:57]>> Yeah.

[00:27:58]>> Is what when that there is a that whatever >> I lean into it.

[00:28:03]>> Yeah. I lean into the potential to be misunderstood >> hoping to break through it. But you know, one thing that I thought about in terms of writing this was >> the fact that people deny that Stalinism exists. They think it's just a malicious term of >> Troskyists.

[00:28:21]>> That there is no Stalinism. There's just dialectical and historical materialism.

[00:28:25]There's just the project of socialist construction. There's actually existing socialism.

[00:28:32]and there's Marxism Leninism, >> you know, and so Stalinism is, you know, doesn't exist. So I decide to get that out of the way because I know that people object to even using the term Stalinism uh by having the first sentence be what is Stalinism, >> you know, where it's like, okay, yes, that's true. I'm a Troskyist, whatever, >> you know.

[00:28:59]>> Um, and then I define it as succinctly as I possibly could, you know, that it's a it's a liquidation of Marxism >> and it's a liquidation of socialism, the meaning of socialism, but more specifically, it's a liquidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat since these purported socialist construction states, actually existing socialist states, don't claim to be socialist.

[00:29:23]They claim to be the dictatorship of the proletariat which is quite different >> right >> and this came up in the our recent conversation with a uh the millennial from from sublation Substack whose name I I think may have repressed but um but uh where where you there was a >> Tor was saying that um that The ultimate aim of uh socialism was to create uh well I forget the exact terms he used but it was basically this >> monolithic planned economy or monolithic state economy monolith >> monolithic state economy right which is to me very close to just being um uh an accurate description of state capitalism >> um because uh the even a planned econ economy leaves the economic character of society in place. I mean one of the aims of Marxism is to overcome uh the necessity for the economy as we understand it now >> for economizing >> right um that's the you know the slogan from each according to his ability to each according to its needs is a a way to rupture the economic uh you know and people um to what I think would think of as his right people to the right of him social democrats We'll talk about fully automated luxury communism, right? Or the post scarcity economy.

[00:31:06]>> That's what Horheimer was saying.

[00:31:07]>> Yeah.

[00:31:08]>> Right. We'll just have Americanism on a planetary scale, right? And it will be dystopian. And Adorno is saying, well, it looks like it could be dystopian, but in fact, the achievement of that would itself qualitatively break through the limitations of that, >> right?

[00:31:28]Okay. So, uh, one way to think about that would be, um, think about the movie Wall-E, >> you know, >> um, that's this, um, post scarcity world where everyone gets what they want immediately delivered to their lazy boy chair that moves around a intergenerational spaceship. And >> Earth has been turned into the trash sheep.

[00:31:53]>> Yeah. Earth is a trash sheep. Yeah. Um uh so that's the the dystopian nightmare vision that Horheimer was having >> and the only humanity that's left is the robots who collect the trash.

[00:32:06]>> Right. Right. Yeah. Um but Adorno is saying no. For even that to be achieved, for everyone's animal needs to be met, >> would would require an overcoming of uh the political forces that keep us alienated and and subdued. We would we'd have to be there would have to be an actual dictatorship of the proletariat.

[00:32:35]um because we would have our work and our own activity would shape our future at that point.

[00:32:43]>> I mean there's necessity and there's necessity. I think that um again there's so much nape before we started recording today we were talking about how we're trying to have a conversation at a certain level and then we confront the very dispiriting reality that people are a lot crudder in their understanding. So let's be clear about this. Obviously there are material needs, >> right? obviously um and so it's not a question of ignoring material needs or something.

[00:33:11]It's not just a quantitative issue, >> right, >> of overcoming scarcity.

[00:33:17]>> But it is a question of what kind of scarcity, what kind of economic necessity, what kind of material necessity is capitalism because it's not just you have to eat a certain amount and drink a certain amount of water and breathe a certain amount of air.

[00:33:34]and you know and you know be housed, clothed and fed. You know, it's not it's not merely that like that's not the material necessity of capitalism. The whole point of capitalism is that it's a false necessity >> that it's not driven by the material needs of humans, but by the needs of capital to veterize itself and accumulate. And that problem is because as capital accumulates, it also undermines itself.

[00:34:03]Meaning if that wasn't the case, if capital didn't destroy itself, then it would be fine, >> right? No, actually you're right. I mean, the it and this is one of the problems for socialists uh is that the uh the promise of capitalist society is itself utopian. Um, and >> even the economizing we were just talking about was nothing inherently wrong about that except we're doing it not for human need but for capital accumulation, >> right? But but yeah and but the problem I go into my value theory mode here. The problem is that because we uh the value that commodities embody in society uh is derived from amount a certain amount of labor time >> labor.

[00:34:54]>> Um that means that we we are con that's where the contradiction lies.

[00:35:00]>> That's the hamster wheel. The hamster wheel >> is that as labor becomes more and more smaller input into the production process.

[00:35:13]>> Mhm.

[00:35:15]>> The result of that is to cheapen labor and to make the working class more desperate to work.

[00:35:23]>> Right?

[00:35:24]>> As loses its value, it becomes more socially compulsive rather than less.

[00:35:31]Right. But yes, but the at a certain point if you could really create have a society which produced immense physical wealth and had where value didn't obtain at all.

[00:35:46]>> Right. Then you could unlink those things.

[00:35:49]>> Right. Right.

[00:35:50]>> That's right. And work would go from life's prime need to life's prime want to use marks again.

[00:35:56]>> Right.

[00:35:57]>> And it does sound very utopian. And that's why Adorno says utopia is realizable, >> right? And it's, you know, at that point it seems so simple that it has to be wrong. like all we'd have to do is produce the world of abundance cooperatively, you know, >> or people think it's just distribution, you know, why do we build aircraft carriers instead of like uh luxury apartment blocks, >> you know, for everyone to live in >> and that kind of thing, right? It becomes uh you know, we are putting our productive energy into the wrong things, you know, which undoubtedly we are.

[00:36:36]However, not just accidentally, not just because of uh you know, bad moral values or something. Uh I mean, look, China has a consumer economy.

[00:36:49]>> Yeah, not a big one, but it does have a consumer.

[00:36:51]>> Yes, significant consumer economy. Um it's got probably a more broadly based consumer economy than India does.

[00:36:59]>> Oh, yeah.

[00:37:00]>> Right. Um and so, you know, they have to market products you know, um, they have to keep the working class in line by providing goods that they have to work hard to be able to earn, to buy, be able to buy, you know, um, you know, labor discipline exists in China through consumerism the same way it does in the United States, >> right?

[00:37:28]>> In fact, you know, >> Yeah. So I mean the >> and that's a planned economy, >> right? Well, this is why the state is such a tempting instrument for socialism is because in this society, the one institution that seems to rise above market forces and and the logic of capital is >> right.

[00:37:55]>> I mean, this is what Horheimer is saying, by the way. So, you know, we're in 2026 and we're quoting Horheimer from 1956. So, it's 70 years ago, >> right?

[00:38:05]>> And I'm sure he would be unsurprised by the fact that life in China comes to approximate life in America increasingly.

[00:38:12]>> That China can only position itself as a better version of America, >> right?

[00:38:20]>> And that that's what socialism means.

[00:38:22]Socialism means that China does America better than America does America. And the and the problem for us is we don't even quite fully understand what Horheimer is saying because the idea of something not being like America is becoming such an obscure idea, right?

[00:38:38]Like >> well, you know, I think that the left would choke on the idea that everyone in the world wants to live like we do in America.

[00:38:47]At least understood a certain way.

[00:38:49]Obviously, they don't want the problem.

[00:38:52]>> Understood as everyone would want to watch the same TV shows that Americans do and wear the same clothes and eat the same food and be >> well, they'd want to earn a lot of money and be able to buy a lot of things.

[00:39:05]>> Well, yeah. I think that isn't really arguable. I mean, >> in the Islamic Republic of Iran, I'm sure they put martyrdom above that, don't you know? M >> Yeah.

[00:39:19]Right.

[00:39:21]>> And in in the Gaza Strip, right?

[00:39:25]>> No, they don't want they don't want Walmart in the Gaza Strip. That's what Hamas represents. It's resistance to Walmart because Israel represents Walmart. And Israel is just the gentrifying suburbanites who are trying to like destroy the homeless encampment in Gaza and steal the land.

[00:39:44]I mean, that's how people understand it.

[00:39:46]They do they do look at the police coming and clearing a homeless encampment and they say that's what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians.

[00:39:55]>> Yeah.

[00:39:56]>> I mean, it's very, like I said, we're dealing with a super crude super crude.

[00:40:01]Now, you know, is Rockill that crude?

[00:40:04]Maybe. Uh well, I just want to point out that being able to buy a lot of things and be comfortable um isn't actually even the end result end goal of financial freedom. True f the true end goal of financial freedom is to be able to do the things that you want without having to worry about, you know, being being paid enough or having to be dictated to by someone else to have freedom to shape society. And then the the problem with that vision is that we view it as um uh the vision of the elite of the of the few capitalists who actually own things and that that individualism is really just an excuse for inequality in the class society. So, so that you know, so the the the actual aim of socialism to actually emancipate humanity is dropped because we can't hold on to it because it turns into its opposite so quickly. Um, >> I also think people are impatient with the level of abstraction that the Frankfurt School is addressing things in >> and that we might also be talking about things now at a level of abstraction that that is going to just offend people.

[00:41:26]>> I feel like I'm trying to be pretty concrete. You know, I feel actually the level I'm talking now is the most concrete level I can speak at. we get abstract when we talk about uh when you know what what kind of life do people in Iran want or you know like do they want to be do they want something other than Walmart that seems real abstract to me actually you know because what because we're not really that's not a real you know first of all they could completely be living under the Islamic Republic and have Walmart that's not an opposition at all right you know, and uh so I I feel like the way people talk today is really abstract and that I'm trying to ground it uh when I get to this level of what's been called abstraction. But >> I mean, but what we're talking about is um there being no socialism. And I think that's that's the that's the bottom line. That's what people It's too depressing.

[00:42:33]in 2026 to acknowledge that all the sacrifices made in the struggle for socialism in the 20th century have amounted to nothing as far as socialism is concerned.

[00:42:46]>> So Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea, China, very different cases actually. Mhm.

[00:42:55]>> But to acknowledge that in none of those cases are we getting to socialism or even approaching it and that in fact in all those cases we might be moving further away from socialism in the original Marxist sense of socialism.

[00:43:10]Now I know that Rockill's objection to this would be that Marx and Lenin couldn't know what socialism is. Now that it's been tried, we do know what it is. And therefore, the point is to perfect it.

[00:43:32]So if you stick with Marx and Lenin, you're going to reject the results of the attempt to build socialism.

[00:43:41]But that would be ahistorical and undiolctical.

[00:43:46]>> Okay?

[00:43:47]>> Right? to to hold on to the original historical Marxist vision of socialism as against the positive results of actually existing socialism that that itself would be neither historical nor dialectical nor materialist.

[00:44:04]>> Right? So Tibbor is saying something similar to us, right? that we're by rejecting the the the Chinese state, we are rejecting the actual concrete results of the struggles of socialists in the past. And we have to take up the the what was made out of socialist struggle and perfect it rather than I >> mean to Tor's credit I think that he is more of like a Troskyist or something.

[00:44:35]Oh, >> and in the sense that he thinks that uh it's obligatory for proletarian socialists in the United States to defend the collectivized property in China. But when I said, "Don't you think that the Chinese Communist Party is exploiting and oppressing the Chinese working class?" He said, "Of course, yes, that's true."

[00:44:56]>> Right?

[00:44:58]And you know, I think that we've lived long enough.

[00:45:05]>> We saw the collapse of the Soviet Union.

[00:45:09]We know that in the end, the Communist Party rule works to undermine the ability and the desire of the working class to defend those state property forms when the political crisis hits.

[00:45:23]meaning there was no workingclass attempt to resist privatized capitalism in the east block or the Soviet Union. Mhm.

[00:45:34]>> Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

[00:45:37]And so that that original Troskyist idea which I think I pointed out like Michael Harrington also still had this idea >> as late as the 1980s. He was saying it would be easier to achieve socialism in the Soviet Union than in the United States. Because in the Soviet Union, you just have to have the working class overthrow the bureaucracy. Whereas in the United States, the working class has to overthrow both the private capitalists and the bureaucracy.

[00:46:04]>> Right. Right.

[00:46:06]>> You know, and it's like, well, but what we know about the bureaucracy both here and there is that the bureaucracy has also worked to undermine the ability of the working class to struggle at all.

[00:46:20]>> Right.

[00:46:21]>> Let alone socialism >> and it can't really be that separate from separated from capital anyway, right? whether private or otherwise, >> right?

[00:46:30]>> I mean, and certainly in United States, the idea that there's a lot of private capital is sort of misguided.

[00:46:37]>> It's a little bit of an as- if. And people will like conveniently switch.

[00:46:40]They'll be like, "Oh, the problem is the private sector." But then they'll say, "Oh, but the private sector is all based on like government sweetheart deals and tax breaks, >> right?" And it's like, well, actually, which is it? You know, I mean, I just think in 2026, >> we can go back to where Markx was in 1843 and 1844 and say the problem of capitalism is not the state versus the market, >> right?

[00:47:12]>> Like Markx knew that, right? And yet we got this vulgar Marxism still going that the problem with capitalism is the market, >> right?

[00:47:21]>> And it's like it isn't. And you know I think that I've talked about this like Janice Farrafakus I think that he was talking at Davos or to some private capital confab and he said capitalism cannot be defined by either the market nor profit seeeking because profit seeking and the market are timeless. They go all the way back.

[00:47:45]Mhm.

[00:47:45]>> You know, they're just there throughout the history of civilization, maybe the history of humanity itself, that people have always tried to get more out than they put in profit seeking and that there's always been exchange relations, the market.

[00:48:01]Um, and so that can't be how we define capitalism, >> right? Um, and I think that people are very unclear about that. And again, we're back to what we were talking about in the first half about neoliberalism, >> you know, is that I think people have a very hard time disagregating neoliberalism and capitalism.

[00:48:26]>> And they do think that well, first of all, they think that communist China represents something other than neoliberalism.

[00:48:34]And it's like but it built itself up under neoliberalism and it is suffering a crisis along with the rest of the world in the crisis of neoliberalism.

[00:48:44]Like China has to go through and it's being repressed. That's what Gi represents. Gi represents a kind of repression of the political crisis in China, >> right? And you know, the question is, can they can they weather the storm better than the United States? Because the United States still has a, you know, two-party system and can still have successful insurgencies within the capitalist political parties. That's not possible in China.

[00:49:16]>> Right.

[00:49:17]>> Right. It's not possible.

[00:49:19]>> That possibility is what gives the capitalist system this ability to overcome its own contradictions at least temporarily.

[00:49:26]>> Temporarily. Right. It can it can change. It's it can be flexible, >> right?

[00:49:31]>> You know, I mean, the real question is whether China is really going to say the whole Dang Xioping era has been a mistake. They can't say that because it's socialist construction. And Gabriel Rockill wouldn't want them to say that.

[00:49:44]It's socialist construction. And it's like, yeah, but wait, you can't you can't go back to the MOA era, >> right?

[00:49:52]>> That's not going to work. So it just leaves open the question and I I think that again what people shrink back from >> is where we are historically now >> and this was already true for the Frankfurt school in the 40s and 50s >> right >> we have to go back to the fundamental question of what do we even mean by socialism >> right >> because if we just take it off the superficial level of the capitalism we have right now.

[00:50:25]>> Mhm.

[00:50:26]>> We're going to be misled. And Markx was on that case early on. He's like, if you just negate capitalism as you see it right now, that's not socialism or that's only socialism as an ideology.

[00:50:38]That's not like the actual historical task and aim of freedom, >> right? So, what do you think to to go back to Rockill? What is it that turned him? Do you know what turned him against the French fries? And uh because I feel like maybe there's a sentiment to Rockill that I don't want to entirely reject.

[00:51:04]>> Right. Right. The motivation is there. I mean, meaning the beginning of the book, he starts off with a little autobiographical piece.

[00:51:11]>> Mhm.

[00:51:12]>> And he talks about being fully down with the program, you know, with Judith Butler and Cornell West and Xjac and Badu and Ronier.

[00:51:21]>> What a mly crew, by the way. Those people don't have that much in common, you know, even in common.

[00:51:27]>> Right. Right.

[00:51:29]>> No, they don't. They they they have their own debates. But he was saying that what they had in common was that they had all abandoned socialism. They were all kind of cynical about it >> and they all were more concerned with their personal reactions to whatever they had seen online that day than they were in the long-term struggle for socialism. And I'm like, that's true.

[00:51:49]Like, you know, so I can I I totally feel it. You know, I feel him on this one. I'm just like, yeah, you know, it's disgusting. Like the academic left will turn you off.

[00:51:59]>> Yeah. But Cornell West, was Cornell West even ever a socialist? Really?

[00:52:04]>> Yeah, he >> Yeah, >> he was.

[00:52:06]>> He is. I mean, I've met him. I've talked to him.

[00:52:08]>> Okay.

[00:52:09]>> He always struck me as some sort of Christian moralist. And >> you know what happened with Cornell West is that there are different phases, right, of his career.

[00:52:17]>> And so early on, he was more of a Marxist. And then he became a kind of Christian black uplift guy in like the 90s and zeros, >> especially in the 90s. But I think in the Bernie era he's re he's dusted off his old Marxism, >> right? Okay. I just always saw that as sort of opport sort of opportunity.

[00:52:38]>> Well, it is it is opportunistic, but I think that he thinks, you know, like everyone else, like all of us, the millennial left rekindled his original interest in Marxism, you know, and so sure, out of all those, Po West maybe is the least worst or something maybe. I don't know.

[00:52:55]>> Yeah, I don't know. I like Jek for different reasons, you know.

[00:52:58]>> Yeah. They're they're different, you know, they have different charm to them.

[00:53:01]>> Yeah.

[00:53:02]>> Um but the you know his real animus is about the the French the elusar students. So Badu, Rancier, Alibar, you know who are different cases but nonetheless have this in common. He brings brings up Giorgio Ambin you know he complains about Derida Doo and Fuko and their effect. So certainly um Butler, Judith Butler was a >> Fukoldian and a Gambin is very much influenced as well.

[00:53:30]>> Um so I think that like I get it right like so he he woke up one fine day after earning tenure >> in French theory >> and he's like [ __ ] what am I doing?

[00:53:44]>> Right.

[00:53:46]>> Right. And so he had his midlife crisis and he decided to negate his former self in disgust.

[00:53:55]>> And I'm like, okay, I'm with you up to that point, >> right?

[00:54:00]>> But then it's like, you know what? All of it, the Frankfurt School of all of it, right? Like all this academic western Marxism, Western leftism, it's all bad. Um, and it's bad for slightly different reasons in the French and German case, but he's like, French theory is bad. German theory is bad.

[00:54:16]It's all Western Marxism. It's all bad.

[00:54:21]>> Uh and you know, I'm just like, okay, then become a right-winger, >> right? But no, he can't do that. No, what he's holding on, he's actually holding on to >> it seems to me, uh kind of racialism or something that in his because he's so concerned about >> western Marxism, >> western part, right? you know, like um so that is how he's holding on to I think Judith Butler or you know maybe not Xjek but but this this idea of the kind of the rad lib postmarxist uh so-called left progressive politics of of >> he's our generation, >> right? And so I can totally identify with his encounter with the older generation and being like, "Okay, they're frauds, >> right?

[00:55:19]>> Because they are." And you know, and even the best of them like Mo and Adolf, >> you know, at a certain point I had to just sort of say, "Yeah, you know, they've given up."

[00:55:33]>> Yeah. Don't you think there's a difference between giving up and being a fraud, though? um you know it just it's it's it's how much you're going to be pressured, right? So the fraudulence it comes in degrees, right?

[00:55:50]>> And you know, maybe they're they're all not frauds because they're all sincere, >> right? Right.

[00:55:55]>> You know, um and so it just depends on what we mean by fraudulent. Um and you know, so I mean I do accuse Rock Hill of lying because I do think Miss That's that's outright fraud. I don't think like even Butler doesn't do that, right?

[00:56:12]>> She does not. No, I mean that's the other thing is that I feel like there's honest anti-Marxism.

[00:56:20]>> Yeah.

[00:56:21]>> You know, and I think that that's where he's like very bitter about, well, I was sold either transcending Marxism or new and improved Marxism. And it turns out actually they they're they're not Marxists. And I'm like, well, they surely could have told you. So, there's one one little anecdote that occurred to me when I was reading the pro I was this morning rereading the the opening bit of the book and and I thought about this uh you know uh debate between Baliar and uh Moyes.

[00:57:00]>> Mhm.

[00:57:01]And then more recently, Bali Bar having a conversation with Bernard Harkcourt for the Columbia University series on this endless series on critical theory that Hardcourt's been doing for a number of years now where he interviews all the luminaries on the left. And with Moyes, Moch was talking about like history and philosophy and critical theory and self-reflexivity and like Marxism being the ultimate like consciousness of historical process and ultimate form of theoretical self-reflexivity and Bali bar is like holding his head and like he's like visibly in pain listening to Moyes and then he just says look as a Lanian I know that self-reflexivity is impossible.

[00:57:46]And I'm not a Hegelian. I'm not a Marxist like that. I don't believe that there's any meaning in history.

[00:57:52]I think people just do whatever just happened. And with with Bernard Hardwart, Bernard Harkcourt, you know, is kind of launching on this ambitious series about reconstructing Marx's political vision >> and it's like the first in the series and Bali Bar is there and it's in the Paris Center of Columbia University and Bali Bar says, "Look, you guys have paid me to be here so I'll play along." He actually says this, but I have to tell you that after, you know, studying Marx and Marxism for many decades, I've come to the conclusion that there's no there's nothing consistent. Markx just responded to whatever situation he was in front of. And you know, like it's a fool's errand to try to say that there's this overarching Marxist political vision. There isn't. God, >> right? And so in the face of that, I mean, I love the fact that Voli Bar has been kind enough to be honest and I feel like this came to someone like Rock Hill as a shock.

[00:58:56]>> Came to him as a shock. Whereas, you know, whatever, but a combination of Sparticism and Adolf Reed, you know, contankerous like criticism and also my own like [ __ ] detector. I feel like since I've been 22, 23 years old, >> I've known. And so at no point was the left gonna shock me.

[00:59:19]>> Like it's obviously shocked Rockill.

[00:59:22]>> And then he's literally gone search in search of the receipts, >> you know, and he's like, "How did this happen?" You know, so he's so shocked that he has to find out how it happened.

[00:59:32]And he's like, "Oh my god, the CIA like bought Horheimer dinner once.

[00:59:38]you can call it the CIA >> and that's why this other guy gave up on Marxism, huh?

[00:59:42]>> Yeah. And I'm just like, uh, that's not really a reason, you know. But then he has this kind of structural critique of like academia and, you know, like compatible Marxism. So being an academic means that you can't really fight against the system. There are structural constraints to it. And I'm like, I guess so. But look, that applies to every political struggle.

[01:00:07]>> He says that about himself. Yeah. It applies to every political struggle.

[01:00:11]Like, you know, it occurred to me like, you know, like Daniel Tut had interviewed Gerald Horn. And in that interview, Gerald Horn says, if you just look at the paid workforce, you're missing the point because if you're receiving a wage, you've already been like co-opted by the system.

[01:00:28]And I'm like, uh, then what are we talking about, >> right? So it's only unpaid labor represents the antithesis to the system >> and but no it doesn't certainly does not. That's right. And it's like >> because the unpaid labor is a necessary aspect of the system of capitalist reproduction. you you know and that's why they you know they pay welfare checks and and things like that is because there's a necessity to maintain a you know come on this is 101 the the the reserve >> army 101 and yet it isn't and we are thrown back to that I mean there were anarchists in the 19th century and I say that they probably still are >> who think that to work a wage labor job is to participate in the system And they were also for that reason against labor unions because they thought if the workers organize and then agree to like a collective bargaining contract with the capitalists that's like a compromise.

[01:01:33]>> Those anarchists didn't weren't talking about the unemployed the way this Gerald Horn is because it's not the same people. It's not the same moment like the you're talking about hold on work your own land >> as an alternative to being a wage laborer right and and >> no so today it's the lumpins and it's women like it's unpaid labor and it's the informal economy and it's >> not even women work like crazy >> exactly right and it's the hustle and also women were the industrial the original industrial workforce because it was not masculine to work in a factory so who did women and children.

[01:02:08]>> Yeah, >> it's just very elemental. But, you know, but anyway, yeah, but we're in that kind of world where I think that's a paranoid world where you're always looking for a reason why people are, you know, politically compromised.

[01:02:26]>> And you know, some kind of also imperialism being the the primary contradiction and labor aristocracy.

[01:02:33]It's all that stuff, right? It's all that stuff. Such an optimistic worldview this paranoid view like but for no really >> but for some corrupting outsider the CIA some you know somebody that there would be a living socialist struggle.

[01:02:52]>> I think that's the other thing about Rock Hill is that I think he's deeply disappointed about academic leftism.

[01:02:58]meaning I think that he thought that being a member of the academy and doing his academic work that he was contributing to the left and the struggle for socialism and then he realized oh no I'm not and I'm like man I could have told you that being an academic has nothing to do with the struggle for socialism I could have told you that I >> mean the funny thing is is not on the academic side because I think most people >> have some clue You know, on the outside, Doug, it's more obvious. On the inside, academia is all about claiming that what you're doing is like social justice. And it's like, no, you're an academic.

[01:03:40]>> That's right. The social justice.

[01:03:42]>> You're [ __ ] reproducing the class society.

[01:03:45]>> Oh, well, obviously there's that, right?

[01:03:48]So, like, you're obviously just helping people get a better job. You're you're just participating in like labor force stratification, >> right?

[01:03:57]>> You know, I mean, like that's what you're doing.

[01:03:59]>> I mean I mean and you know, let's be I prefer >> And that's when your students are working class.

[01:04:05]>> Yeah. No, no. Right. No, no, no. Even when they're not though, because when they're not, you're reinforcing that division as it's already arrived. Right.

[01:04:13]Right. You know, you're taking the last level, you know, the the elite, keeping the elites going from one generation to another. Um, no. Uh, yeah. But for me, the disappointing thing long long ago was to when I was in my late 20s, early 30s was recognizing how even going out into the streets and participating in uh you know grassroots politics of protest was not >> I think that for Rock Hill it's a self flagagillation of the intellectuals and self flagagillation of the academics meaning that it's some kind of because of my privilege being an academic IC I'm obligated to support the Communist Party of China >> and it's like um that doesn't really follow at all. Uh you know and and so it's you know politically it's super naive. I mean obviously the political analysis is super naive.

[01:05:11]>> Uh and it's very much a kind of theoretical passive contemplative stance.

[01:05:17]>> So even his whole dialectical historical materialism is just like a theoretical view.

[01:05:23]And so it's about like the western left like respecting the struggle in the third world and in the actually existing socialist states. Like there is no program about what to do here. There is not. It's just you're supposed to have the right attitude and the right thoughts about what those other people over there are doing.

[01:05:41]>> Right. Yeah. And and look, I think it's really unfortunate that he is an academic.

[01:05:48]Um because when you are a tenure professor to have the humility to say I [ __ ] up and have to start over. I have to learn a bunch that I don't I haven't learned yet.

[01:06:04]That must >> that's not going to happen, right?

[01:06:06]>> Yeah.

[01:06:07]>> That's not going to happen. So, I mean, I just feel like rather than, okay, throw out the Frankfurt School, throw out French theory, and just subordinate yourself to actually existing socialism and hope that you're contributing to that socialist project of state building.

[01:06:30]That's the way he puts it, just like that, like the building of socialist states. And I'm like, okay, well, how are you gonna do that? I guess you're going to do some protest advocacy when the US saber rattles against China or Cuba or whatever.

[01:06:44]>> You know, in other words, it's very weak. It and it really has no like actual practical agenda for here for like >> workingass struggle for socialism here.

[01:06:57]>> That's not even contemplated.

[01:06:58]>> Well, you can't because it's western.

[01:07:00]The people here are western. I mean, they would it look I would I think that he would say it would be something like it would become racialized like you were saying, which is that it would become something like, well, who am I as a white man to tell what black and Latino and whatever people should be doing? And I'm like, no, absolutely. I'm going to tell them what they should be doing.

[01:07:22]>> Yeah. And also, what about the 60% of the workforce is white?

[01:07:28]>> Yeah. Well, no, they they're they're hopeless. I mean, like I said, it's like a kind of it's just a tweak of the general orientation of the academic left anyway, >> right? So, it's just this kind of the way I describe it as theoretical suicide, >> meaning everything that he's learned about theory, which uh you know, he knows French theory better than he understands the Frankfurt school for sure. Although he puts a lot of second generation people in there like Hobberas and I'm like that's not the Frankfurt school. That's not German theory. I mean, I guess it's German theory like Axelhanith and Hovermas. I guess so. But it's just not the Frankfurt school.

[01:08:08]And so, you know, he's but he must reject all of it now because of, you know, I mean, look, to be honest, of course, and I always say this in my academic classes, by the way. So, I teach Frankfurt School Critical Theory >> and you know my Adorno class that I just finished from the spring at a certain moment the students all had their epiphany. They were like, "Oh, wait.

[01:08:33]Even Adorno is now a cultural commodity." And I'm like, "Bingo, >> right?" Um, you know, because Adorno starts talking about that, >> right? You know, and and then they're like, "Oh, wait. So, in this class, we're not actually fighting capitalism by reading Adorno." And I'm like, absolutely not. You know, like that is not, you know. Um, and so I think that again, the things that shock Rockill that were his midlife crisis epiphany, you know, falling off his horse on the road to Damascus moment.

[01:09:11]>> I had to work through that before I even graduated college.

[01:09:16]>> Right. Right.

[01:09:17]>> I had to face that reality. And so it's like, you know, and then I had to decide, okay, I seem to be good at teaching. I want to be a teacher.

[01:09:27]I know that that's not going to advance the cause of socialism, >> right?

[01:09:33]>> That's a job, >> you know, and it's like if I if I can have my choice of job, I want to be a teacher. That's my job. But it's not the same thing as politics and political struggle. I would just want people who are academic leftists or or on the periphery of that, people like Daniel Tut, I'll just name him directly, to use a pretty basic standard when judging works. And it one of that that standard would be if the academic or the or the writer is distorting the source material so egregiously. Not just getting something a little wrong or misinterpreting, but like just >> misrepresenting claiming that something was said that wasn't through cherrypicking or >> or or mis, you know, or paraphrasing.

[01:10:27]Mhm.

[01:10:27]>> Um they are not to be taken seriously until they at least admit it, you know, like so I I did something bad and I shouldn't do it again and I won't do it anymore. That that's what you would need to hear from them before you would trust anything they've written.

[01:10:42]>> Yeah.

[01:10:43]>> I think they and that's why I said look it's always the big lie campaign.

[01:10:48]>> Yeah. And you know and ultimately I mean at the end of the day what matters I think that the lying about the Frankfurt school not in terms of did they get CIA money or not but no their ideas what did they actually think what did they actually write and how did they understand their own work in in light of the political tasks >> like that's epifenomenal meaning does it you know does it matter that Gabriel Rock Hill lies about the Frankfurt School not that much, but I feel like his audience, what he's really lying to his audience about is that China is a socialist state, >> right?

[01:11:34]>> That's the bigger bigger sin than lying about the Frankfurt school.

[01:11:39]>> And by the way, that doesn't mean like, oh well, he should condemn China or something. No, >> no, >> it's not like about condemning China.

[01:11:47]It's just whatever China is doing, it's it's fine. I don't want the US to have a war with China. I don't want some kind of catastrophe to visit China. I don't want some failed state collapse of the Communist Party. I think it will happen.

[01:12:01]I'm not going to be happy about it. I wasn't happy about the fall of the Soviet Union.

[01:12:05]>> But let's just be honest, it's not socialism, that's all.

[01:12:10]>> Yeah. Listen, I' I've got to run, but thank you. Uh and we'll put this one out with the other one. And um everyone who's watching, go to the Patreon because you can get content like this every couple of weeks and I think it's the best part of what we do um over at Sublation. Thanks Doug.