Gabriel Rockhill, "The Imperial Theory Industry & the Compatible Left Intelligentsia"

[@amans228]

Gabriel is doing such important work! Great stuff! Thank you!

[@anopinionatedlaymanappears9052]

He is truly a modern Gramsci

[@lucir1000]

I've listened to this presentation several times, and each time, I learn more. Thank You.

[@lucir1000]

I knew that the propaganda machine headed by the CIA was very sophisticated, but I didn't suspect that it was also involved in the theory industry to influence academia. I was never in academia, but during the 60's and 70's, there was a flourishing of Marxist circles, and most went off the rails. Many were pushing that the Soviet Union had become "Revisionist," and later, even China had fallen into revisionism.

[@tau3ahamakhoa]

@ChucklesMcGurkseriously? There’s so many insights in this presentation you have to keep on relistening to it. Are you implying that you absorbed everything in it in one listen?

[@edwardlarkin4279]

I agree. Have patience and think!

[@edwardlarkin4279]

​@ChucklesMcGurk just have patience and learn how to think. Simone Weil.

[@reversefulfillment9189]

Workers of the world unite 🌎 🕉

[@apchsiri1156]

They already are united in global capitalism and its global monoculture.

[@reversefulfillment9189]

@apchsiri1156 It should be easy than. Just a shift in consciousness

[@presterjohn1697]

@@apchsiri1156 Nah, not quite. 70,000 construction workers from China and India are headed to Yiz-rye-el to rebuild now that Palestinian workers are dead.

[@ericreed8113]

Not a word about real-world class actions, such as the burgeoning union movement. Does Rockhill have connections with any activist organizations?

[@dialecticalveganegoist1721]

I've been so conditioned by my previous disappointment of cultural analysis done by Western Marxists that whenever I see a title of your videos my first thought is: " ah probably more Verso books theory garbage", and consider skipping the video, but then I see your name and immediately press the video. And as always I learn a lot from your indepth but still understandable critique of the the theory industry. You are doing amazing work in a Marxist field that is completely dominated by as you say it "the imperial theory industry", I expect that it is not easy and that you're probably quite isolated in western Academia for your genuine anti-imperialist Marxist analysis. I was already considering buying the upcoming work of Western Marxism by Losurdo for your introduction, and I will 1000% buy your own book when published.

[@anopinionatedlaymanappears9052]

Verso publish a lot of great material. Just because you don't agree with it, it doesn’t mean it isn't Marxist. Saying everything you don't like as "Western Marxism" as if non-western Marxism is so pure, is the most dogmatic shit ever. That's also not the position Rockhill is taking. He's rightfully criticising a tendency in the Marxist academia coming out of liberal democracies. He's not making an essentialist claim like you are.

[@Tofu_va_Bien]

Haven't seen you in a while comrade. Always appreciate your comments, keep fighting the good fight!

[@lana-jg4ho]

@@anopinionatedlaymanappears9052chillax

[@anopinionatedlaymanappears9052]

@@lana-jg4hoSure dude

[@edwardlarkin4279]

No one went to work today. The system must come down if we are to live. Thankyou Gabriel for having Prof. Bannerji. Paul Street from CounterPunch writes very well regarding Marxism from U. of Iowa. Good to hear about U. of Iowa

[@Casserole_Girl]

Great lecture. I grew up in far right religious family ans i remember "missionaries" smuggling bibles and literature behind "the iron curtain" when i was in elementary school.

[@Davod2139]

A fantastic, illuminating and healing talk.

[@wedas67]

Thank You Gabriel … Your take on those pseudo-Marxists is amazing

[@brigittacalloni8277]

Can't wait to read this book!

[@PetaloudesTouYialou]

Hugely grateful for this. New to your channel. Solidarity from the UK.

[@pilleater]

Fantastic!

[@rhorizon]

Starts at 7:50

[@OrwellsHousecat]

Razor-sharp Rockhill

[@eightiefiv3]

Excellent talk and excellent Q&A session after!! 🎉

[@dinnerwithfranklin2451]

Excellent lecture. Thank you

[@happygucci5094]

I would love to see Dr Gerald Horne and Gabrielle in conversation…

[@jakerivets2249]

Liberals like Horne have nothing to add to the conversation

[@jeffhicks8428]

hell yeah

[@gorgeoushammer]

wow. i was blown away by this - the stuff about Derrida and Foucault especially.

[@sorbenjamin7695]

Excellent, and just what I needed to share with a friend whom I had this exact debate with recently. Well done!

[@AKAndoh]

Thank You!

[@sarasijmajumder5767]

Excellent talk. I agree with most of it. However, it would be good to see how we can write this intellectual history of the "compatible left" by looking at the contradictions in their theorizing. This talk is more like an exposé. For example, Lacan was critical of 1968, and Zizek refers to the critique multiple times. Also, Zizek was critical of the Occupy movement for reasons that were not very different from what Prof. Rockhill says about the postmodern left. Also, I understand that Prof. Rockhil is suggesting a critical reading of a variegated tradition rather than an absolute dismissal. I like that, but it sounds a bit like Derrida's deconstructive reading. Anyway, waiting eagerly for the book, and I am sure Prof. Rockhill's contribution will raise new questions and enlighten us all. Thank you so much

[@Casserole_Girl]

This question around 1:00 about cultural war was really good.

[@OrwellsHousecat]

✔️

[@Drforbin941]

very valuable.

[@tangabiang5282]

Thanks!

[@presterjohn1697]

Since Gabriel Rockhill upholds China as a global model, I'm curious to know his position on China & BRICS maintaining seamless neutrality during the present Gaza Genocide. China has tens of billions of dollars invested in Israel and plans to increase these relations according to the Jerusalem Post. China to date has imposed "no" economic sanctions on Israel nor have they frozen investments.

[@anopinionatedlaymanappears9052]

I don't believe Rockhill has ever promoted China as a global model to follow...

[@waynetables6414]

Can you name a single time when china ever initiated a sanctions campaign against people thousands of miles away from them without being directly provoked, rightly or wrongly? China has voted for U.S. sanctions on smaller countries and they have sanctioned the U.S. after being directly provoked to do so, but China doesn't go around initiating sanctions on other countries if China isn't directly involved. This is not to say China is "right" in this respect. But if China is building an anti-West coalition in BRICS and doing so by rallying around shared opposition to U.S. weaponizing of sanctions against other countries for political reasons, then their case would be undercut if they too started sanctioning people for political reasons.. rightly or wrongly. I wish China played an active role in opposing western imperialism.. If the Soviet Union were still here, what's unfolding in Gaza would never be permitted to happen... but I perceive that China sees the collapse of U.S. hegemony inevitable.. and therefore, they decided long ago that China will simply "play the game" until they no longer have to.. and then they can take the lead in building something new.. let the inevitable take place and let Western hegemony collapse into it's own depraved contradictions.. Let the drunk drug addict at the bar picking fights with everyone drink himself to death. As human beings, it's impossible to support anyone doing business with Israel, but ultimately the fate of the region will be decided by the people of the region, not by China. The conditions in the region are ripe for revolution because the surrounding states don't represent the people they govern.

[@anopinionatedlaymanappears9052]

@@waynetables6414 So basically, you're saying it's morally okay for China to let people be starved, tortured, displaced, killed, genocided? If that's true, then the structural violence of capitalism is morally okay. Try again China simp. Socialism is internationalist, not just building up your own economy as China are doing. They literally would lose money if they intervened, so they aren't going to do shit because that's all they care about. Pathetic.

[@presterjohn1697]

@@waynetables6414 Sorry but that doesn't stand up. China provides high-resolution facial recognition cameras to the IDF who in turn use them throughout Palestinian areas. As Gaza gets bulldozed, China has billions of dollars in "active" construction contracts with Israel. India is currently sending thousands of laborers to Israel to make up for the tens of thousands of dead Palestinian workers. China told the Houthis of Yemen to stop interfering with traffic in the Red Sea. The Chinese are losing millions of dollars they invested in Egyptian shipping lanes. China collects fees from ships passing though the Suez into Europe.

[@presterjohn1697]

@@waynetables6414 As for China lending a hand to anti-imperialist struggles across the globe, all of that came to an abrupt stop shortly after Kissinger visited China and set it on the path of neoliberal cooperation with western corporations. Today China provides "no" support for socialist/leftist or even human rights movements at all. The WEF which we all know is openly fascist/corporatist group proudly proclaims China as the model for the world. China and BRICS countries to date have implemented more WEF policies than western nations themselves. This speaks for itself. BRICS is pro-capitalist sub-imperialism (not) anti-imperialism.

[@odinallfarther6038]

👏🏼

[@PC42190]

What's the name of Gabriel's coming book?

[@vishnubachani9548]

The Intellectual World War: The CIA’s Failed Attempt to Kill the Idea of Communism

[@Harry-zc8rg]

The Intellectual World War I think

[@PC42190]

@@Harry-zc8rg thanks

[@rballen420]

Wow ❤

[@StevePM42]

Great talk what is the Title of Prof. Rockhill's book and when is it coming out?

[@ninarao4063]

Sent you a reference from terry eagleton in LBR 25 april 2024.

[@sankarbareddy3515]

Now I understand why some of the authors works are not even readable and their talks are not comprehensible

[@ericreed8113]

Well, the tiltle of the lecture was "The Imperial Theory Industry . . " so I ought not to have been surprised by the emphasis on academic writing and Marxist/anti-Marxist theory. Disappointing was the paucity of any names of Good Guys or Good Guy organizations, whether academic or not. While, as commenters have already pointed out, Ibram X. Kendi's thought amounts to very little, it was still surprising to hear Rockhill say that he knew nothing about him. And are we really to see China as one of the Good Guys? A questioner mentioned Ngugi WaTh"iongo and his associates as some of the vicitims of forced austerity programs (she used a term of art instead of austerity.) There's a raft of independent radical anti-colonialist writers and activists who aren't self-declared Marxists. What's to be made of them? Good Guys or Bad Guys? Anti-communist dupes?

[@addammadd]

24:25 I’d love to see a definition of “the objective social world.”

[@michaelcangey2406]

Perhaps irrefutable stuff that is ignored ... he started the talk with what I thought were many examples of evidence that needs considered, hence his research and book.....

[@addammadd]

@@michaelcangey2406 many people ideologically (and without any reflection or circumspect evaluation) believe that "objective" is synonymous with "irrefutable." In fact, Rockhill is one such example. This is the crux of his doctrinaire, pedantic and frankly childish thesis and precisely why I pointed it out. You may be a fan of Rockhill’s and if that’s the case you’re not likely to take well to my argument. I only ask you to consider how ill-conceived the notion of an "objective social world" really is. Once that’s done, maybe look into the rest of his theses. You don’t have to be a fan of Zizek’s (I, for one, am not) or any of the French theorists he indicts (same, not a fan) to see that this is just a man who has carved out his role in academia and has more professional impetus to stick to it than intellectual integrity to interrogate it.

[@michaelcangey2406]

@@addammadd lol. I know what you were asking. I suggested he was using the term loosely and ordinarily. If you disagree that's cool. As for being a fan, or whatever, of people, that's not me lol. The topic of capitalist elite Intel driven culture and academia...... is important imo.... and immense.

[@addammadd]

@@michaelcangey2406 forgive me if I insulted you (unintentionally; fcking comment sections ugggh). I do disagree but I am willing to be wrong; I continue to read Rockhill’s works as they come out and will see if my inclination ends up false and will reevaluate in that case. Your last statement (capitalist intel driven culture & academia) is one that really resonates with me. I feel similarly to you although we probably disagree on some details. I just find Rockhill’s arguments to be the stuff of professionalized goose chasing.

[@FreelanceBioexorcist]

Okay I don’t disagree but the elephant in the room is that he maintains a protected position at Villanova so how much more “dangerous” is this style of thinking?

[@philnewton3096]

Anyone heard of Cornelius Cardew ?.Composer of" The Great Learning ." Died ,London, 1981 .

[@philnewton3096]

Any use in reading " penguin bks,; aritotle horace longinus classical litery criticalism .translated ;T Dorsch 1965. "

[@joostvanloon4518]

I thorougly enjoyed this lecture and the subsequent discussion. I do not necessarily agree with everything Gabriel Rockhill has said, but having been "educated" in exactly the same period (albeit by the lesser gods), I completely agree with his analysis that during that time, critical "thinkers", as we know them today, have been turned into a sheep in wolves clothing, and this is merely a farcical repetition of those criticized in the German Ideology.

[@DS-tz4lk]

“bourgeois cultural apparatus” (which includes an intellectual apparatus) - a [social] consciousness formatter for compliant doxa within the bourgeois [settler] state. - henchman of the éminence grise 🤯 When it is put the words, it just jumps right out at you!

[@presterjohn1697]

Any word on Chinese private equity groups buying up plants and factories in America's rust belt?

[@muchibesharati8067]

Please once go deeper in first generation of Frankfurt School of Social Science thinkers. I mean Adorno, Horkheimer, Pollock. Thank you

[@VeryAsh]

"ABS" (Anything But Socialism) theory reminds me of Parenti's "ABC leftists" (Anything But Class).

[@bigusj]

Do you see the cultural apparatus as the site of the reproduction of the relations of production? Do you see the purpose of cultural revolution as usurping or constructing a new Cultural Apparatus?

[@DS-tz4lk]

Rockhill’s epiphany is some powerful stuff - Rockhii pulled a real Colombo on the compromised bourgeoisccultural apparatus - he really did and it’s enlightening af - only few people have these kind of breakthroughs every decade, he’s one of them!

[@presterjohn1697]

Any word on 40 African nations sending their police departments to China for training and the Chinese police stations in Africa right now?

[@tau3ahamakhoa]

Source please?

[@xappuxok]

Who are the good socialists?

[@tinkletink1403]

the ones that don't lick up

[@gh0stoflectricity]

red pilled rockhill strikes again

[@stavroskarageorgis4804]

The fact that Gabriel is unaware of anti-racism and transgenderism indicates he's living in a "bubble".

[@jakerivets2249]

It indicates that he's not a liberal captured by identity politics

[@OrwellsHousecat]

🎯

[@anopinionatedlaymanappears9052]

Kendi's Anti-rasim is a fucking joke anyway. He has no actual solution, just wishful thinking and with millions of dollars being thrown at him by capitalists. He's not living in a bubble because he is unfamiliar with useless garbage theory. Rockhill's response to that question was spot on, btw, but I guess you blocked your ears for that part.

[@OrwellsHousecat]

@@anopinionatedlaymanappears9052 I see what you are saying, but I think it's clear that Kendi does indeed have a solution: racial hierarchical Caste System (as part of the Intersectional Feminist Caste System).

[@pilleater]

"Anti-Racism" and "Transgenderism" is a joke by the state.

[@stavroskarageorgis4804]

Gabriel ends up arguing by invective and repetition of phrases.

[@rajaswamy1956]

Not quite. He cites and often quotes directly from primary sources. Do you have a specific point?

[@BenjaBoss]

Where is God in this,?

[@2CheKapone]

In the Church