The Philosophical Salon

— Every reader has for sure noticed that, in my description of the device, I rely quite heavily on a multitude on reviews, which I extensively quote. The reason is now clear: in spite of its occasional brilliance, the device is ultimately not worth trying, which is why I also wrote this review without trying it. [https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/a-muddle-instead-of-a-movie/]

Chomsky, like most involved in arguing for or against Post-modernism/post-structuralism/Neo Marxism, was likely doing it on purpose to neuter any meaningful left wing opposition to US policy and keep them in "fashionable nonsense" territory. Anyone engaging with them in anyway is suspect by definition. https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/the-cia-reads-french-theory-on-the-i… https://indecentbazaar.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/deleuze-and-the-idf/ There's so much more evidence than just this. I'm tired of always linking it all and getting me that much deeper into shit with people who I hopefully will never meet face-to-face.

"The CIA and the Frankfurt School's Anti-Communism": https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/the-cia-the-frankfurt-schools-anti-c…

In this article, Zizek brings the Munchhausen story to show how he differs from Nietzsche on deep philosophical grounds. https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/the-fall-that-makes-us-like-god-part… It's been my mind for a while now, and I'm still not sure with whom I stand here. Roughly, Zizek says : Any kind of mental breakdown that changes you will be related to your subsconscious. Nietzsche : Lol, when you reach my level of psychosis, you really have to pull yourself out all by yourself.

There's also the fact that he's impressively blind to abuses of power committed by his friends. Doesn't inspire confidence in his ability to see things clearly. https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/why-did-i-sign-the-letter-in-support… https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/a-brief-post-script-on-the-case-of-a…

As usual, capital is to blame: > Frankfurt School critical theory has been—along with French theory—one of the hottest commodities of the global theory industry. Together, they serve as the common source for so many of the trend-setting forms of theoretical critique that currently dominate the academic market in the capitalist world, from postcolonial and decolonial theory to queer theory, Afro-pessimism and beyond. The Frankfurt School’s political orientation has therefore had a foundational effect on the globalized Western intelligentsia. > The luminaries of the first generation of the Institute for Social Research—particularly Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, who will be the focus of this essay—are towering figures in what is referred to as Western or cultural Marxism. For those familiar with Jürgen Habermas’s reorientation away from historical materialism in the second and then third generations of the Frankfurt School, this early work often represents a veritable golden age of critical theory, when it was still—though perhaps passive or pessimistic—dedicated in some capacity to radical politics. If there is a grain of truth in this assumption, it is only insofar as the early Frankfurt School is compared to later generations that refashioned critical theory as radical liberal—or even just blatantly liberal—ideology.[1] However, this point of comparison is setting the bar much too low, as is the case whenever one reduces politics to academic politics. After all, the…