Marxism

10 KILLDOZER, UNCOMPROMISING WAR ON ART UNDER THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT A brilliant, hilarious "concept" album with footnoted liner notes that needle academic Marxism while cunningly introducing Simone Weil, Ramsey Clark, and Eugene V.

The end of the cold war also witnessed the virtual disappearance of academic Marxism -- or, in parlance more of the moment, the decline of the Marxist narrative.

Cut off from its life-giving root, the political movement of the industrial proletariat, academic Marxism has grown like topsy in response to the economic and political crisis of liberalism, particular events and trends in the outside world, and debates within the international community of Marxist and radical intellectuals.

I believe that it was this initial abandonment of the possibility of common political struggle with working class people, far more than the eventual ascendance of postmodern theory, that resulted in an academic Marxism that, for the most part, has been reluctant to engage in the messy work of class politics at the ground level, and instead remained content with the culture wars, leaving the class wars to other people.

There's no more Santa, holidays aren't holy, and for anyone who has suffered through some brand of academic Marxism, you can't even enjoy the yuletide extravaganza of consumerism without feeling like you're perpetuating class oppression.