aenesidemus
Jul 3, 2025 4:58 AM
Seeking recs for 21st century economic/social/philosophical works that try to answer a new problem, or an old one in a new way. On my list: Capitalist Realism, Baudrillard (older but relevant), The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, N.S. Lyons' stuff. Not looking for: popular/introductory works, uncritically one-sided political views, Zizek, anything associated with "irony", Timesslop/Atlanticslop, one of those analyzing-how-the-woke-left-appeared-and-disappeared histories, or anything that flatters the reader. Doomsaying is ok if it's researched.
no_class
1 day ago
20th centruy but still relevant: Lasch, Debord. 21st centruy: Varoufakis
aenesidemus
1 day ago
Debord's been on the list, I plan reading it when I tackle Marcuse and McLuhan. What from Lasch and Varoufakis?
no_class
11 hours ago
From Lasch - The culture of narcissism. It's about how late stage, bureaucratic capitalism socialises people differently to the point of changing the dominant personality structure of individuals, therapy culture, cult of experts, etc. It holds up i credibily well for how old it is. From Varoufakis - Technofeudalism. Deals with contemporary techno-lizards
specialberry
2 days ago
No Future by Lee Edelman talks about a death drive within the LGBT movement. Normal politics is invested in the future and the child, and as gay people are obviously outside of this consideration, Edelman says queer politics shouldn't try to twist itself into this mould and rather stay on the outside and refuse and protest and disrupt. He presents LGBT stuff as a societal death drive in this way. He's weirdly proud of it too. I disagree with the book but it's interesting anyway. Also Persuasion and Rhetoric by Carlo Michelstaedter. I haven't read this one so I can't confidently tell you what it's about. I have just heard it is good and it's on my personal tbr. Also just realised you asked for 21st century so ignore this one lol.
aenesidemus
2 days ago
That style of academia is hard for me even to imagine being interesting... it's like oohhh you're writing "queer theory"... but you also know Lacan.....and you found out [normal healthy societal belief]... is actually bad?!?!?! and you can support this interpretation of a complex social phenomenon with evidence from.... 4-6 works of fiction? It's also weirdly homogenizing, now every gay in society has to be a manifestation of "the queer" and every child a manifestation of "the child"... and they're like "ontologically opposed".... Like tbh I sort of care about the future even though I'm not making children. There's no point in disrupting for the sake of disruption. Also he's ugly and ugly gays are always the stupidest writers. Why do I care if some ugly gay somewhere hates children and is trying to make everyone else hate them as well.... if you say it's interesting maybe so but I don't have much patience for psychoanalysis-by-numbers. Persuasion and Rhetoric looks fun. Might be a while before I get around to it.