Self-referencing...

I really should con...vince the folks over at Socialism in an Age of Waiting to take a look at this debitage post (which draws off of my post about the Commissar's post), so that I can find out if this really is a proper Marxist analysis of blogging. And if it is, I'm also curious about how to resolve third-party links and such...

Comments

[Bruno Hat]

Well, we've taken a look. What's the problem, exactly?
The debitage post isn't a proper Marxist analysis at all, but it doesn't claim to be. The author is using Marxist terminology metaphorically, isn't he?
A proper Marxist analysis of blogging would (we guess) start off from the observation that - to quote our comrades at the British Marxist blog 4 Glengate - "the real world is elsewhere". The views expressed on blogs reflect their writers' social positions in the real world, regardless of their positions in the blogosphere, and blogs, like other media, are part of the ideological superstructure, not of the productive base. Thus a blogger can be called "bourgeois" or "proletarian" only in relation to his/her role in the real world.
But that's kind of stating the obvious, isn't it?

[Bruno Hat]

Well, we've taken a look. What's the problem, exactly?
The debitage post isn't a proper Marxist analysis at all, but it doesn't claim to be. The author, who is clearly not a Marxist himself, is using Marxist terminology metaphorically. Fair enough, and fun as far as it goes, but not quite up there with Karl, Fred or Vladimir - or even Groucho.

A proper Marxist analysis of blogging would (we guess) start off from something like the following observation, from the British Marxist blog 4 Glengate (http://4glengate.net/archives/000107.html):

"... please don’t assume that this blog is the only, or even the most important, aspect of my political activity. It’s not, it’s among the least important - it’s a place to let off steam and discuss things that don’t have a forum in practical day-to-day politics. And it means I get to debate with people on the other side of the world, which is cool, and a privilege that previous generations of socialists couldn’t have dreamed of. But it’s still only a blog. The real world is somewhere else."

The views expressed on blogs reflect their writers' social positions in the real world, regardless of their positions in the blogosphere, and blogs, like other media, are part of the ideological superstructure, not of the productive base. Thus a blogger can be called "bourgeois" or "proletarian" only in relation to his/her role in the real world.

But isn't that all kind of stating the obvious?

[Bruno Hat]

Apologies for the double posting: the first draft should have been deleted, and should now be disregarded.

[Stentor]

The debitage post isn't a proper Marxist analysis at all, but it doesn't claim to be. The author, who is clearly not a Marxist himself, is using Marxist terminology metaphorically.

Exactly.