How does one go about becoming a "successful" leftist academic?
I'm 24 years old with a dual-major BA in political science and philosophy. I've read more Marx than you and have also studied Hegel, Spinoza, Nietzsche, the scholastics, etc. somewhat as well. I really admire Zizek and Badiou and would like to pursue a PhD eventually. However, how does a comrade like me end up "making it" so that me and my ideas become as well-known as Badiou's and Zizek's? How do famous Marxist thinkers of the modern age become famous?
Make a youtube gaming channel where you conquor the world as the Soviet Union in HOI4.
Cooper Gonzalez
what do you think of Camatte and Bordiga
Aiden Johnson
You don't. I mean do you have some unique genius take on things? Cause anyone who wants to read the opinions of the philosophers and theorists you read will just go read them themselves. Marxism doesn't get the advantage that our followers can just walk into high paid prestigious positions like the greasy pole climbers on the right and their corporate handouts. Why is someone going to pay you or give you a platform to say the people who have all the money are wrong?
Leo Davis
Study how other successful Marxist academics made their careers. Most of the ones I know studied economics. For example Michael Hudson worked as a banker and then later for the US state department. Ironic, but the americans really liked his Marxist take on how imperialism works (inb4 trots are all neocons) and hired him to "improve" american imperialism. You can also look to Vivek Chibber for someone who is mildly successful but not an economists. The non economics path is probably more difficult.
Nathan Hall
Also this
Joseph Anderson
Masturbatory academics won't organize the working class and abolish capitalism.
Angel Davis
Zizek and others are only successful either for an extraordinary amount of talent or because they are entertaining enough to catch the attention of the masses.
Jackson Perez
They suck. Read Hegel.
Matthew Perry
Well if you've read more Marx than me, sounds like you should know what to do big guy
Adrian Baker
Take a shitload of acid, scribble a pile of nonsensical ravings in some essays, auto-defenestrate.
Robert Walker
Interview the greats. Cockshott, Žižek, and Parenti can all be reached rather easily, typically via email. Ask them intriguing questions. If they seem interested, coauthoring with them would help significantly. Build an internet presence. Write articles, start a high quality YouTube channel (See: ContraPoints, PhilosophyTube). Write books. Showing you can articulate your ideas and have a concrete set of principles makes building a group of supporters easier. Change your last name to something interesting. I know it sounds like an odd tip, but have you ever thought about why the most famous and memorable public figures have odd names? Why are there no famous Communists named John Smith? Why is Rosa Luxemburg relatively well known despite the fact that she was relatively small and unaccomplished, but Karl Liebknecht is completely unknown?
Isaiah Mitchell
I think the name thing has more to do with the fact that you hear the names so often, you assume they are important.
Cooper Anderson
I'm not a Deleuzian but thanks anyway.
Jackson Thompson
get addicted to cocain
Lucas Roberts
Step one: unbuckle the rabbis belt
Parker Wood
That's definitely a part of it, but odd names are also more memorable.
Hunter Williams
Be an opportunist/revisionist and subtly shill for the bourgeoisie while claiming you're a """leftist."""
Guess you're on the right track then. Just go hook up with Jodi Dean and the rest of the Zizek sycophants, and get to work revising "communism" down to social democracy in the EU.
And in spite of that, you either understood none of it, or didn't care because you are a petty booj careerist piece of shit.
FUCK ACADEMIA FUCK STUDENTS AND MOST OF ALL… FUCK CAPITALISM
Economics isn't really my thing, only because 90% of it is math. I'm in America so that means econ will be mechanical shit.
I study philosophy and political phil, I guess there isn't much opportunity there if I'm American. In France maybe, but I don't speak French nor do I have any desire to (I'm more of a German kind of guy). But Germany is notoriously difficult to migrate to since they don't really need dumb Americans flooding into their country.
Daniel Edwards
...
Bentley Turner
And bourgeois theory is bourgeois practice. Academics like OP are bourgeois, they are actively working AGAINST communism.
Laughable. Have you read Capital at all? What did you get out of it? If anything, Marxian econ is one of the few areas where you can really trick the bourgeoisie into funding your research. Look at Anwar Shaikh. He has to skirt around political issues, but his research has been a huge boon to scientific political economy. If you were serious about helping advance Marxism in the confines of bourgeois academia, you'd be deliberately going into some form of scientific research (or research that you can turn scientific using Marxism). Economics, anthropology, history, etc. If you stick to polisci or philosophy you will very likely remain a fuckup, citing postmodernists and similar trash. You will especially be a fuckup if your goal is to get a nice comfy career. There is no comfy career for real Marxists.
Luke Lopez
You're making yourself look like an idiot in this thread. If you have something important to say, then write. If what you write is interesting and proposes new ideas, people will read it. Being an influential thinker doesn't just happened. In short quit being a whiny bratty egotistical cunt and use your abilities to help.
Juan Diaz
I'm not baiting at all.
Jose Moore
You can't understand Marx's Capital without first understanding Hegel's Logic.
Levi Campbell
You're fucking kicked out of socialism. I hate you so fucking much.
Aaron Flores
Apparently reading Hegel's Logic didn't help you at all. You might have benefited more from taking a fucking physics course.
Landon Reyes
Wir brauchen nicht noch mehr "marxistische" Kulturkritik zu irgendwelchen blöden Zeichentrickfilmen. Wenn dein toller Zizek Ahnung hätte von Marx und ehrliches Interesse an Verbreitung von dessen Lehre, dann würde er nicht den Wirrkopf David Harvey empfehlen. Marxismus ohne ökonomisches Denken gibt es nicht und ökonomisches Denken ganz ohne Mathe ist auch nicht zu haben. Marxismus als akademische Karriere existiert nicht du Kasper. Zizek ist so viel Marxist wie Contrap♂ints eine Frau ist.
Charles Carter
Jodi Dean spends time organising and participating in PSL activities too. What is wrong with you?
Liam Morales
Revisionism.
Logan Campbell
Everyone here shitting on academia don't seem to realise that Marx, Engels, Adorno and so on were all academics but that doesn't make them irrelevant. Are you even a Marxist or just some dumb fag who didn't get into uni and is now super salty about it? Also, Lenin, Mao, Luxemburg etc all proved that you can both be an academic theoretician and an active organiser and revolutionary at the same time. In other words, if you hate academics, you hate theory, and if you hate theory, you're not a Marxist. Fuck off back to Zig Forums.
Marx and Engels did not have radical left academic careers (a contradiction in terms). Adorno didn't organize the working class.
Owen Richardson
Yeah, one more reason to hate her. Fuck Trots.
He's not asking how to manage to be a proper Marxist while existing in academia. He's asking how to succeed in academia while pretending to be Marxist.