Chris Cutrone on Chris Cutrone

[@lambafa]

I am very used to having my own assumptions confirmed by the left. Chris is one of a very small number of people who I can say has actually educated me.

[@placeholder3853]

Douglas Lain I smoked a blunt with you in 2008

[@m00py1]

Doug Lain been real quiet since this dropped.

[@sublationmedia]

I don't doubt it. Where? In Portland?

[@jonnyblack8101]

This was great. Please release the Heartfeild interview, interested to hear it.

[@shan-chaofu5079]

This is very good clarification. BTW, after quickly skimming through the chapter on Althusser(which I'm familiar), my personal take is that Losurdo and the like are not consciously lying, but unconsciously. This is a much trickier situation which suggests genuine opportunity for a critique rather than confrontation. But anyway I agree with the "diagnosis" Chris made of the current conjuncture.

[@kwesijohnson1411]

More dialectics! How about Chris Cutrone on "Chris Cutrone on Chris Cutrone"?

[@JDMPhill87]

Good Parrot Room conversation

[@CrocodileTheLyle]

It's like Noam Pikelny covers Kenny Baker covers Bill Monroe

[@shannonm.townsend1232]

It's like Tulus covering Khold covering Sarke.

[@jsteegz]

I realized what irks me about Chris despite me being a pessimist about the Marxist project myself, he represent a cold stream Marxism that brooks no sentimentality, one recognizes the historical tragedy of the failure of the 20th century socialism that began as early the 1920s but no melancholy is allowed.

[@jsteegz]

I briefly attended platypus reading groups. Some of the best education in Marxism offered by any sect. The problem is it is so good, it will you lead you to conclude Marxism is a dead religion, you are practicing the equivalent of Zoroastrianism

[@addleywalker]

​@@jsteegz Allowed?

[@JDMPhill87]

Jokes aside, a very powerful point was made here regarding Gerald Horne, White Marxism vs. Black Marxism. Honestly, these are artificial distinctions made by a desire for intellectual respectability. Very powerful point. I would add that often than not people who feign Marxism but then take it up to articulate an exogeneous belief structure are being disingenuous. If we are good Hegelians we have an answer for why classic Marxism is a settler colonial ideology despite the fact that the state is a progressive formulation in human social/political evolution. Are they hiding a anti-modern postmodernism in their "racial marxism" or are they just unique idiots?

[@nopasaran191]

I always have to say I love Cultrone but when I comment on this because I’m never coming at him as an angry disagreement and I actually appreciate the shit he says, and while I’m not like pissed or think that he’s necessarily causing harm (although this one comes close a few times because I feel like he’s causing nihilism in a few places for sure) but I think this was pretty incoherent. Like for example when he says that the Marxists like Adorno and the Frankfurt school couldn’t foresee the downturn that came in the 70s that makes me take them less seriously as Marxists because I feel like even the first Marxist ever (if you can call Marx that) wrote about that so I think that makes me take Rockhill more seriously as someone to actually listen to when it comes to Marxism. I know both of them are very well read theorists and I do have a lot of disagreements with Rockhill but yeah I don’t know

[@ccutrone]

Almost no one - Marxist or otherwise - foresaw the 1970s downturn, which was more dramatic than a mere business cycle boom-bust change. Ernest Mandel came closest in the Marxist world to predicting a long downturn following the post-WWII long upswing of the global capitalist economy.

[@Ricky-Spanish]

I knew as soon as I finished listening to the interview with Tutt that Cutrone would be back on here ASAP to debrief. Must be nice getting the last word. Kinda reminds me of Michael Jordon in 'The Last Dance' documentary, although I make that comparison at the extreme risk of equating Cutrone with MJ.

[@sublationmedia]

Tutt and Cutrone will hopefully talk directly to each other and Tutt will get an opportunity to prosecute his case to the full.

[@ishizu92]

@@sublationmedia kinda weird that ccutrone has used you as a proxy when the two could have just faced off. feels like bad faith. is it tutt or cutrone whos holding back from this debate?

[@MultiJevens]

@@ishizu92 can’t imagine CC turning down a debate with anyone.

[@ramboz494]

@@ishizu92 It is Tutt who has avoided the direct discussion. Chris has debated people on this channel and other channels.

[@ccutrone]

I have wanted to debate Daniel Tutt on these accusations against me for quite some time, but he's not allowed to do so by the Verso/Historical Materialism mafia!

[@bt8593]

Socrates came to mind immediately before he mentioned it.

[@riddlerdon]

I read Losurdos book on liberalism. To me the main problem is Marx didn’t think Locke, smith or Ricardo were “responsible” for capitalism in the same way losurdo does. There’s a direct conflict with Marx there. Which brings me to tutt, I think if it came down to it he’d go with Marx over losurdo in that fight. So I don’t understand why he’s going to bat for losurdo, being forced to make bad arguments in the process. And that style of pointing the finger, similar to the rockhill vs Horkheimer, is how we end up in this ridiculous situation where Chris can be blamed for the failures of the left. How did we get to this way of arguing or grappling with capitalism. It’s not Marxist, that’s for sure.

[@SymposiaBeaute]

tutt is an idiot tbh. The guy isn't the most refined thinker; just another grifter

[@petealonso8227]

Chris spends a lot of time trying to show people that they are not actually Marxist but very rarely does he discuss why anyone SHOULD be Marxist. I would appreciate more of the latter unless he thinks we should blindly accept his view of the world.

[@ccutrone]

My books published by Sublation lay out my arguments for Marxism’s ir/relevance.

[@TemujinMSM]

He's just a troll.

[@dialectic76]

A little after 1:16:00, Douglas Lain says a name (the name of a "maverick"): Dave Sorbo? Something like that? I can't quite hear him. Does anyone know what he said?

[@sublationmedia]

I mispronounced David Sirota's name there.

[@curiousfella4076]

~1:00:00 I'm not sure I get in how far the "is lying" vs "is wrong" distinction holds. People get paid to sincerely say wrong things all the time. Now how do you tell someone's intent is to tell untrue things? And just because somebody is sincere they can still be on a payroll because their delusions support somebody else's very dangerous scheme and also they can be barred from speaking their delusions at cocktail parties. Or not. It depends. Meanwhile health insurers are quite aware of trends that stand to turn people to more cost effective solutions to their upcoming extreme health situations and it's not like there aren't such solutions. And this may be a pattern across a whole range of topics team blue want to claim, to claim good causes and to attach to these costs of somebody else's choosing to the related lifestyles/troubles as opposed to producing cheaper workers or more materially endowed people. At least that's the tendency isn't it? Now making statements based on eclectic predictions does not make one a liar. Not necessarily any less dangerous but again that is a both sides issue.

[@sublationmedia]

Cherry picking quotes so that the meaning is distorted or totally obscured is a mark of fraud not error.

[@curiousfella4076]

​@@sublationmedia Given that that's something people intuitively do all the time I'd say that's the mark of an unpracticed thinker or a scholar who relies too much on their flawed priors. Which is actually quite hard to avoid. You must be thinking of more incriminating things to claim fraud surely? Not trying to diminish that.

[@ishizu92]

@@sublationmedia dude

[@qaq89]

I really enjoyed the Culture series especially the speculative sci-fi elements. The world building is amazing and the characters are complex and have depth. All of it set against a backdrop of a millennia spanning galactic war between two fundamentally opposed camps. However I could never shake the feeling that the series is really about Banks’ (a self-identified socialist) anxiety with the ‘end of history’ meaning neoliberalism. This really comes out when he’s talking about the Culture’s foreign policy. In that sense, the series really is a product of its time.

[@qaq89]

It’s worth noting that both Musk and Bezos are apparently big fans. The planned Amazon series was pulled due to problems with the estate. However, there is a BBC radio adaptation of one of the short stories ‘The State of the Art’ on KZbin, though it is one of my least favourite in the series.

[@TemujinMSM]

I think the Campbell claim is he's only a disingenuous critic, his lack of a positive political project makes it easy to just troll everyone who tries to do something. I don't agree with the "cancel culture" mentality but I think that's a valid critique of Cutrone.

[@Barklord]

Marxists need to study Plato if they haven't already. Start with the Euthyphro, and go right into the Republic (Waterford OWC translation). There's a reason why people still read him. He's funny, and he wants you to argue with him.

[@ceolandomhain298]

I like Plato as much as the next guy, but what do you think Marxists specifically have to learn from him?

[@Barklord]

​@ceolandomhain298 I think Plato's view of the Good, Justice, or Morality, is that their validity is prior to socially inherited religious and social conventions. The Euthyphro points to that, imo. Also, Thrasymachus' view that might makes right is insufficient. Playo also makes reference to serenity and health as evidence of Justice in a psyche. He also describes an unhealthy (feverish) city emerging from excessive desires driven by a market society leading to a militarised state. Those are just a few things. I disagree with people that dismiss Plato as merely idealist without engaging with him. Plato also has a relevant critique of market exchange value and craft virtues. His tripartite psyche allows for a framework that shows the negative consequences of acquisitiveness leading to social status-seeking and political power.

[@zeusjukem9484]

​@@Barklordis the tripartite psyche = the chariot or something else

[@Barklord]

@@zeusjukem9484 Usually, the three parts are described as: 1) rational/inquisitive, 2) appetite/acquisitive, and 3) status-seeking/competitive. In other dialogues, or in later platonic philosophers, there are more 'parts' like memory, imagination, etc, that are sometimes mythologised as aspects of a collective world soul. But Plato does give instructions in the Republic for personal meditation prior to sleep to achieve 'justice' in the soul. For example, Stephanus 571d5 in the Republic describes what Plato recommends are the conditions for each aspect of the Psyche for a person who is concerned about their own health.

[@curiousfella4076]

1:04:48 "what they wrote stands" In economics a lot stands by people granting themselves the mind of god to eliminate time, make markets clear and to take the role of money issuance out of the business cycle. "Money is just a veil for real items and services" as if. Let's not overrate that "things stand". Can you pull unworkable premises out of the jenga tower and it still stands? If you don't have the mind of a hacker and apply it you'll have a hard time defending much of any scholar and their insights. Thing is people trick themselves with really dumb premises at times and become eminent scholars on a fantasy world that just so happens to be appreciated one way or another.

[@curiousfella4076]

Now that is not to say that it is for the experts to know that they're delusional. I fashion myself a generalist and I do like me plenty experts. How one would go about a division of labor so to speak in this context now that is an interesting question to me.

[@qaq89]

I really enjoyed the Culture series especially the speculative sci-fi elements. The world building is amazing and the characters are complex and have depth. All of it set against a backdrop of a millennia spanning galactic war between two fundamentally opposed camps. However I could never shake the feeling that the series is really about the author’s’ (who thought of himself as a socialist) anxiety with the ‘end of history’ meaning neoliberalism. This really comes out when he’s talking about the Culture’s foreign policy. In that sense, the series really is a product of its time. It’s worth noting that both Musk and Bezos are apparently big fans. The Amazon series was pulled due to problems with the deceased’s estate. There is a BBC radio adaptation of one of the short stories ‘The State of the Art” on KZbin, though it is one of my least favourite in the series.

[@dmh00]

Great show. Blood is in the water friends. We cant even sit at the same table yet tho.

[@michael8ru]

Was this topic planned before your Tutt interview?

[@sublationmedia]

It wasn't even planned before I got him on the stream.

[@michael8ru]

@ Ha ok. In the Tutt interview, I was glad you steered it away from a Cutrone referendum. So I chuckled when you introduce Cutrone: On Cutrone

[@RobinDBanks-re9nz]

​@@sublationmediaBased

[@SymposiaBeaute]

@@sublationmedia Don't be shocked if it turns out Tutt is taking money from some people.

[@curiousfella4076]

~1:02:00 How do you know it's not a function of (edit) partially emergent partially planned curation of a particular kind of delusion and as such a trick? Why would your standard be "they're not lying so it's not a trick"? To argue that sincerity is sufficient not just necessary is intellectually bankrupt is it not? edit: Sorry for the harsh way to put it. But sincere people can be exceptionally dangerous of course. Maybe what you were trying to say here is a little more nuanced but please do say so then. edit: That's directed at Prof. Cutrone if it wasn't clear. edit: And of course study of various thinkers is good although do mind the premises people grant themselves. Can build all kind of nonsense if the premises take out parts of reality e.g. removing macro level emergent properties by over-emphasizing individuals.

[@jonathankammer9078]

I wish you and Chris clarified things. Maybe being confused is good, but there’s also a good to precision and clarity. I find it confusing to hear from Chris that it’s good that he is heard as being anarchist and that anarchists don’t go far enough when he also disparages rad lib emotionalism. I find it confusing to hear that this or that so-called Marxist isn’t really a Marxist and should be honest about being a rad liberal when the next idea out is that the task of real Marxists now is to put aside Marxism for the time being. I find it confusing that Chris and you seem to suggest that the working class is still the revolutionary subject when the next thing you say is that we don’t live in an era of revolutionary possibility. How can there be a revolutionary subject in an era during which revolutionary progress is foreclosed!? There are so many contradictions I hear in all the various interviews that I don’t hear clearly synthesized into a precise reading of the situation. So I don’t ever walk away from hearing Chris speak on various platforms with a sense of what is real and what is not real.

[@ccutrone]

There’s no proletarian socialist revolutionary movement or organization let alone politics/party, so Marxism’s original object is missing - hence all the pseudo-/post-Marxist positing of “new contradictions/subjects.” I am advocating rebuilding a proletarian socialist movement and keeping original historical Marxism in mind while acknowledging its inapplicability in the present: “Marxist analysis” is premature and bogus, since class struggle would need to be reconstituted and not assumed as some “objective” phenomenon. I will also say that my books published by Sublation collect my writings which clarify myriad issues around historical Marxism and contemporary capitalist politics.

[@michaelslowmin]

How is it that the ACP guys are tailing republicans?

[@ccutrone]

Via their “class analysis” of Trumpism.

[@dada.int.unlmtd]

Maybe we can resolve the communication issues regarding Palestine by explaining how this is not a national movement for liberation only, but a more ambitioned one aiming at international liberation. The yet to be formed political arm of Immanent critique reaching for the stars, if you will.

[@Pinstripe0451]

Why not just rename Sublation Media to The Chris Cutrone Show?

[@actualGolem]

Do I need to watch the tutt interview for any of this to make sense?

[@ccutrone]

Hopefully not!

[@ishizu92]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/gZSnqaWljMqqd5I sounds pretty dark enlightenment to me. also if you say that Losurdo was lying why don't you debate Tutt?

[@ccutrone]

I have wanted to debate Daniel Tutt on these accusations against me for quite some time, but he's not allowed to do so by the Verso/Historical Materialism mafia!

[@Jack-gm7nb]

The seminar that ultimately concludes Cutrone's contribution to the world of political philosophy

[@ishizu92]

1:34:00 we arent marxist, we arent lay people, WE ARE PROUD LUMPEN, we will offend you, prepare

[@koda10ng]

Chris Cutrone reminds me of Nick Land, not sure why, same vibe? maybe they should debate each other

[@James-ic7vx]

This guy is too negative

[@sugarhigh4242]

I enjoy Cutrone on this show, but it's not a secret that he + platypus were pretty unhelpful when it really mattered circa 2015. There's a panel from that time with him and Leo Panitch where Cutrone comes off as a totally useless pseudo intellectual putz, openly saying he's not trying to be a political actor. Continuing to say the sparticist league represents the highest expression of organized Marxism when their main public practice is disrupting lefty speaking events. Even the motto "the left is dead" is pretty grating at the only time in 40 years the US left started to move at all.

[@michael8ru]

2015 meaning the presidential campaign? What was Platypus up to at the time? Or not up to

[@sublationmedia]

The panel i found with Panitch and Cutrone is entitled 1917-2017. Didn't find one from 2015. So, the "left that was on the move in 2017" was fully captured by the Democrats. The left was defined by the Resistance at that moment. Of course, your claim that Cutrone came off as a pseudo-intellectual putz can't be addressed as it is a claim that falls below the level of even pseudo-intellectual engagment, but hinges upon an unearned self-regard. That is, when you are engaging in public debate you must demonstrate the basis for your assertions and judgements in some way, and not merely hurl insults and bald proclamations. Why wasn't the Spartacus League the highest expression of organized Marxism? Was Cutrone praising the League or condemning the state of Marxist organizing? People can judge this panel for themselves: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qXS4lXSveptjgNEsi=sTk-l7APQoNCw_wl

[@sugarhigh4242]

Compare Leo Panitch at this time with Cutrone. Panitch is breaking with Marxism on several principled points which I oppose, yet his determination to make an impact on actual politics is really missing today. m.kzbin.info/www/bejne/r5aai2x9jMirpbM&pp=2AG9J5ACAQ%3D%3D

[@sugarhigh4242]

@@michael8ru in large part, but also still the lasting impact of gfc/occupy, the 2014 BLM uprising that started with trayvon martin. The fight for 15. It was a period of dynamism that goes into decline after ~2020. When roe is overturned the level of protest is very depressed in comparison.

[@sugarhigh4242]

@@sublationmedia you know I agree with you that more concrete points are needed, but it's a KZbin comment, so the thumbs will decide. I linked to the panel I was referencing.

[@RoesingApe]

Tutt's a hack and says such dumb shit I muted him on X and couldn't watch past 10 minutes of his appearance on here. He is the worst kind of Marxist. He makes Burgis look good (Burgis remains unmuted). They both are the type that prefers to endlessly analyze horseshit and never arrive at any useful answer - as a grift, but at least Burgis is logically consistent. Tutt just jams big words into run-on sentences while name-dropping dead people in a fashion not unlike a cheap A.I. - it is brainrot. I would say Old fashioned Marxist/Labor Republican sits right at the edge of brainrot and useful analysis, Burgis a few steps up, but Tutt is buried 5 meters below that line. You guys need to deal with the fact that there is NO built-in immunity to the commodification of Marxism as a foil for any political action. Going to college to study Marxism, philosophy, and history is probably the WORST thing any socialist can do. It's not an army of proletariat professors that we need. That's avoiding the noose by becoming a rope salesman.

[@sublationmedia]

Well, I think the Tutt interview is fairly good and revealing.

[@RoesingApe]

@@sublationmedia That's not mutually exclusive with my take.

[@sublationmedia]

@@RoesingApe True.

[@ishizu92]

cutrone is the last of the marxists 2.0 in an age when we are on marxism 3.0